Hope in stories

[Mari]

Do you think a story needs to end in hope?

For example, The Mist is a (mediocore) film with a very tragic ending, it’s a film usually listed in crappy top 10 YouTube videos for MOST SADZ. However, even if the ending is tragic for the character, the end is still hopeful for the future (as the mist clearly fades and other people will be saved)

Do you think a tragic/sad ending needs a degree of hope? What is the appropriate amount of it in your opinion, can there be too much of it? Etc etc

[Jenny-Toons]

Hmmm...That is a good question, and it's kinda a tough one for me to put my finger on.

I guess, personally, a story's amount of hope depends on the genre.

Like, if you're in a genre like "Family" or "Comedy", even with a tragic ending, you have that shining ray of hope to bring it all back around. However, if you're in a genre that's like "Thriller" or "Horror", that ray of hope can be smaller, and you can be left with an uncertain future.

Now, as for tastes, I prefer endings that end with uncertainty (leaning more towards tragic). Not necessarily tragic, but you know it's not going to be really hopeful. I really enjoy those in horror, and it kinda leaves readers to give their final interpretation!

[SleepingPoppy]

I think it entirely depends on the story you're telling, and the message you want to communicate. Though I imagine at least some modicum of hope will usually go over better with an audience than something completely bleak and/or nihilistic. It's very much a case of the author's intended message, though.

So I'd so a story doesn't require any hope to be a good story, but I probably wouldn't read it no matter how good it supposedly was.

Perhaps a story can only have too little or too much hope if it seems discorded with the tone of the rest of the story.

[Hodge]

Well, like most things in storytelling, it depends on the story. However, I do think that we are too quick to expect hopeful endings as just another good ending. Hopeful endings, imo, are done best when they are ambiguous. When the audience is hopeful but are also aware that it could very well be even more tragic, those really tug at the heart.

[Mari]

Good responses all! I feel like most of us are probably on the same page in this one (who doesn’t love a good tragedy that fucks you up )

Adding another example of IMHO a good hopeful ending ; A korean novel called ”Our happy hours”. It’s a story of a deathrow convict and a suicidal woman who through volunteer work ends up spending an hour with him every thursday. The setting is very hopeless, and this isn’t a spoiler really, since you know right away the dude’s going to die. I cried for like six hours while reading the story , but I was still left with a feeling of hope in the end. It’s also a good exploration of good intentions, and about the death penalty.

[joannekwan]

Yeah it depends on the story. But overall if it's an apocalyptic, super-downer of a story I'd like there to be a shred of hope for humanity overall, because this world's already on a path to shit in reality. Give me something to cling to, piece of fiction. (on a similar vein to this I HATED the ending to The Last of Us)

The only time I can think hope can be too much is if the "answer" is a cure-all for everything and could basically reset the entire world to a time before the shit was even laid before it could hit the fan.

[amortelito]

I agree with the responses! I personally think that just tragic ending with no hope, etc. is a great shocker, it makes stories memorable...but at certain point this tragic ending becomes just that: an outrage and nothing more. At times is the only thing people remember "oh that story in which the kid dies anyway". I feel like a story that doesn't have a ray of hope (even if it is subtle) is a bit incomplete because humans unconsciously seek for a purpose in bad things happening to them.
Or if it ends in tragedy at least it can be very well explained that there is purpose in the whole story, so that the audience don't feel like they were emotionally invested in the story "for nothing"...at least for me!

[Mari]

I thought the endingof The Last of Us was.... Interesting? The only thing I outright didn’t like about it was that the reveal of what they needed to do to Ellie was just right in the end. I think this should’ve been explained in the beginning! That way I think the relationship could’ve had more drama, and it would’ve actually been a better reason for Joel’s extreme hostility and ”I MUST NOT LOVE AGAIN LONE RANGEERR” - tude towards Ellie in the start. I mean the game had some hints (monster designs, the fungus it’s based on etc), but the extent of it was never hinted at, since there was nothing wrong with her.

Idk, I thought Joels decision wasn’t really bad, but I would’ve liked if he had done it over the course of the story, instead of the last 5 mins 🤷🏼‍♀️

[dawgofdawgness]

Stories usually have an ending that leaves the viewer with a message about human nature. It can be superficial like “ooh sharing is kind!” Or somethjng darker/deeper like you’d find in a satirical story like 1984.
Like a good amount of movies display examples of “what NOT to do” or “THIS will happen if...” and end the story with tragedy. Kind of like in Black Mirror? It’s to scare the people watching them in an attempt to educate them about something. But that’s usually not the case for lighthearted stories¯_(ツ)_/¯

[violin]

Yes, hope absolutely doesn't have to be just another "good" ending. Grapes of Wrath has a shred of hope in its ending, and it's possibly one of the most depressing things I have ever read...

[LordSeriphus]

Go watch Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart. It's one of my favorite children's movies. It's on Netflix. If you look into that, I think you'll have your answer.

[A-weird-girler]

That's true! Because one of the themes of my story is to have hope, one of the tragedies ends in a hopeful outcome. However, if another writer was writing about a tragedy in horror, they might slim down the hope or completely erase it for shock value and horror of the people

[tulemag93]

I agree, it depends on the story you are trying to tell and the genre you set it up in. I personally love stories that are relate-able but also have a fictional element to it so that i don't have a constant reminder of my life's problems, you know like a semi escape or something, for instance if you've read the comic Love deficiency on Tapas you are drawn in by the creators i admit brilliant creativity and imagination. A virus contracted by the inability to love ( or at least what i understood it to be so) the creator's perception of love communicated through her work was attempts to ask questions we rarely ask ourselves in life and it was mind blowing to me, it gave me hope about love and its importance in life sans the romantic part and stuff, but you know to each their own.

[LordVincent]

I listen to creepypasta readings all the time, they pretty much always end with all hope extinguished

Personally, short horror stories aside, I absolutely cannot stand stories that are told in a pessimistic attitude. Due to personal experiences with people of the type that I won't even get into because that would end up being a story in and of itself that nobody asked for. I just find myself endlessly sighing at it when it occurs, no matter the point that it's trying to convey. Hell, I get even angrier if it's trying to convey a point I agree with.

The endings themselves aren't as important in my mind as the journey there, though. I can accept a sad ending as long as the whole story isn't told in a lens of "everything sucks because that's REALISM I TELL YOU THE WORLD HATES YOU OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!"

[Jenny-Toons]

the whole story isn't told in a lens of "everything sucks because that's REALISM I TELL YOU THE WORLD HATES YOU OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!"

Oh my gosh, I dislike those even with horror stories, especially cosmic horror stories. Like, I love existential crisis horror because space is so big and yeah there could be something out there bigger than us. But then some creators go like "we're all meaningless ants", and that turns me away.

At least have a wee bit of hope in the sense of "yeah, we don't know when the world will end. So I'm gonna live each day like it's my last."

[LordVincent]

Existential crisis horror?? That's a thing?? shudders

I used to talk to a person who was basically existential crisis horror TO TALK TO, and he kept going at it even knowing it sent me into panic attacks because his stuck up ass was convinced that confrontation was the only cure. After 4 years of talking to him about it, it had still only gotten worse because of it >_>

why have I encountered so many assholes in my life...

But yeah people write and read whatever they want, however I feel if a story is 100% pessimism throughout then the writer of that work most likely needs help, not a platform on which to spread their agenda. Sadly a lot of the people who write and say those things are convinced they're the ultimate rational human and need no help or therapy... so there's no gettin' to 'em.

[Jenny-Toons]

Existential crisis horror?? That's a thing?? shudders

See, I like to be hopeful and assume most people use it when thinking about other life in space or even the unexplored depths of ocean and land on Earth.
But we both know that's not true. XD
And that's when you have to get off that wild train to nowhere.
100% pessimism in stories aren't just that much fun (at least they aren't to me).

[lunaartemisasama]

Mmm for me the saddest movie I watched was "Life is Beautiful" from Roberto Benigni, but the ending is kind of happy .The main character is killed but his kid is rescued. Anyway I like some hope I suppose.

For me just sadness with no hope is kind of dumb I would feel like WTF? I mean you make me cry and that's it? >_>. Sounds like a bad romance lol.

[mrtoontastic]

Boy, Jenny. We all surely can tell the kinds of stories you enjoy now, can't we? XD

[monotone_ink]

Stories don't necessarily need hope in the end - it depends on the message it's trying to convey.
Romeo and Juliet was hopeless; comedically hopeless, in fact - even then, it's still a very valuable text.