Writer's Workshop: Less than a Tragedy · 10:55pm Apr 17th, 2015
We modern-day peeps love happy endings. Tell me, what was the last movie you saw that didn't end on an uncompromised happy note? That's not really how life works, though. Life isn't always that easy. Sometimes victory comes at a very high price. So let's talk about stories that buck the trend of happy endings and go for something a little more somber.
For starters, we need to separate the idea of the characters meeting their goal and the characters being happy afterwards. That sounds completely wrong, but remember, we're stepping outside the happy ending. If the goal isn't a good thing, or it requires something very dire from the Main Character, you can see how success may be the last thing on everyone's mind. Think about this way: when the characters first decided to embark upon the goal, they don't fully recognize the costs they will have to incur. At the end of the story, they'll have to make a choice to either accept the costs or give up on their endeavours. Whichever way they fall, they'll have to live with their decision.
Let me just say this really quick before I move on to these half-and-half stories. In most stories, the characters achieve their Goal, and they're happy about it. Let's call it a Good Success. Sometimes, we dare to go to a story where the characters don't achieve the Goal, and they feel broken because of this. For symmetry's sake, I'll call it a Bad Failure, but the term Tragedy might also ring a bell to all of you.
With that naming system, we can talk about the other two types of stories: Bad Successes and Good Failures. Let's check out Bad Successes first. A Bad Success is, at its simplest, when the characters get exactly what they were searching for, but at a great cost they would rather avoid. The best example that comes to mind for me would be something like "Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog." [SPOILERS if you haven't seen it.] At the end of the movie, Dr. Horrible gets everything he's ever wanted: he performs a murder, rises in the ranks of supervillains, and takes his place in the Evil League of Evil. So why is the music so sad? Why does the movie end with him staring dead-eyed into his webcam? Isn't this the way things were supposed to go? Well, no. Penny died because of what he did. The one thing that made him more than just a villain, the thing that grounded his human side, destroyed in a freak accident. How can we be happy for Dr. Horrible's success when the only thing that got him there was something so terrible? [/SPOILERS]
This is the centerpoint behind a Bad Success. The Main Character may have achieved the Goal they were striving for, but their personal arc hasn't improved at all. Finding a good example of this in FiM is pretty difficult, since most episodes end on a high note. I think the closest I can find to a Bad Success would be "Hearts and Hooves Day." The CMC achieve their goal of bringing Cheerilee and Big Mac together on the eponymous day, but at the end of it all, they're certainly not cheering for their accomplishment. Maybe "MMMMystery on the Friendship Express," if you ignore the epilogue? Even though Pinkie susses out the culprits behind the consumption of the cake, there's still the lingering result that, because Pinkie couldn't play her role properly, the baked goods ended up ruined and innocent beings were falsely accused for it.
Good Failures, on the other hand, are a little more common than Bad Successes. A Good Failure is just the opposite of a Bad Success: the characters end up falling short of their Goal, but they're actually better off because of it. I'd say this is usually because the characters have re-aligned themselves to understand that their previous desires were actually incorrect, and they no longer need the Goal to be happy. I can easily give you a half-dozen pony episodes that meet this sort of description: "Ticket Master," "Applebuck Season," "Swarm of the Century," "Call of the Cutie," "Feeling Pinkie Keen," "Best Night Ever." And those are just in Season 1! Let's look a little more in-depth into a Good Failure episode; say, "May the Best Pet Win!" At the very end of the episode, Rainbow doesn't get what she wants. Right? The best pet doesn't win. But notice how that's not important to Rainbow Dash anymore. She's learned a valuable lesson about what really matters in a pet: not their speed or their ability to fly, but the love and loyalty that they can provide. So while Rainbow doesn't get "something that's fast--like a bullet!--to keep up with me," she gets something much better. Or, similarly, look at "Bats!" Applejack has to give up her prize-winning apple and a part of her orchard, but it's worth it once she realizes that Fluttershy's sanity is more important to her than a couple apples. That's exactly what a Good Failure means.
So why is this important? Well, I guess to a certain extent, it isn't, really. If you want to write unmitigated happy endings, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you're willing to dip into these bittersweet or outright tragic endings, then maybe you can see how stories can be more complex than they first appear. Or maybe you'll realize as you're writing your story that the way you've planned for the solution to be found is something that will cut really deep for the Main Character. It's tempting, then, to give your characters the easy way out, a deus ex machina to make everything tie up in a nice bow without any hurt feelings, but maybe those hurt feelings are exactly what's supposed to happen! I promise, your readers are strong enough to handle it.
So, here's my challenge for you all. I didn't give any examples of Bad Failures earlier, and there are still plenty more examples of Bad Successes and Good Failures in MLP, fanfics, and other works of fiction. Any in particular stand out to you? How about your own stories? Is there space in your narrative for a hard choice between success and happiness?
Wow, words...