Happily Ever After: Destiny or Delusion?

Every child who’s grown up on fairytales or Disney has heard the refrain, ‘and they lived happily ever after.’ It’s a theme of every fairytale — not counting the Grimms’, naturally.

Why? Why were stories finished with this line or something like it? Because it was convenient?

Perhaps.

But why are stories that don’t end that way less satisfying? Why doesn’t a well-done negative arc or warning tale impact us as much as the hero riding off into the sunset for more adventures?

I would like to pose a theory as to why the ‘happily ever after’ resonates.

Eternity.

There’s nothing wrong with stories where the hero dies at the end or becomes a villain or goes on with his life firmly chastised. They have their place and they fit into the various experiences of life. Consider that the Bible is full of tales that end less-than-happily, and yet, the overall message is, when understood in its entirety, one of great hope and joy. Indeed, there would be no such thing as a happily ever after without Christ — and there still isn’t if you don’t know Him.

But, we are eternal creatures. Our story does not end at death. Thus, when the story ends at the last page of a book and does not continue on in our imaginations, it feels… well, a little unreal. A bit disappointing, maybe. Stories that end with bleak despair or nihilism just aren’t satisfying.

Over the last several months, I’ve been reading through all the Sherlock Holmes stories, and I tell you, I did not want them to end. I’m rather fond of the characters and the clever situations, and every time some allusion was made to Holmes retiring and settling down with his bees, I’d wrinkle my nose. I didn’t want Doyle to tell me that Holmes got old and died like every other human. I wanted the good stories and the friendship to last forever. And I’m sure we’ve all felt that, if we’ve ever read a really good book — we want more adventures, not an end.

If I ended my story with, “and then Bob grew up, got married, had two kids, worked an office job, became an empty-nester, retired, and died,” that would be both terrible in terms of art and narrative. For one, telling your reader absolutely everything about everything is bad policy. The reader wants to discover — thus why we have foreshadowing, plot twists, mysteries, and so forth. And every reader pictures things differently, and that’s part of what makes reading so special because in that way, it’s personal. Now, do you want to fail to leave out crucial details and make your story murky? No. But nonetheless, there is something to be said for a story that leaves some parts of the ending up to the imagination. We like to ask ourselves what sort of adventures the Pevensies had in the New Narnia, or what sort of things the Fellowship got up to after Middle Earth was saved.

And as I alluded to earlier, when you finish the story without leaving any room for hope, without ever moving beyond the character and just the character, well, you’re almost telling a lie. Things continue even after a person dies — their legacy, their children, and even their soul. The story, if it is to be a reflection of the Ultimate Story, cannot be limited by a definite end. When you ignore the things that happened afterwards — things like the adventures Bob’s children had or how his life affected them — you’re ignoring the reality that people don’t live in isolated bubbles. Everything they do has an effect. Stories aren’t just about the individual. You don’t have to go on in detail and create a neverending series, of course, but you also can’t pretend that reality doesn’t exist.

But if you’ve been around my blog, you might be jumping up and down shouting, ‘wait, but you’ve written one of those. Your character likely died a horrible death!’

To that I have two replies: Firstly, I did not describe it in any sort of final detail, both because I would never write something like that and because it just felt stylistically right that way to have the ending focus on the theme and not the character’s destruction. In that way, it was not the sort of ending I have been referring to. The second reply stems off of that — the theme is what is supposed to be taken away from the story. That is what is supposed to continue on; that is the snippet of eternity. Sometimes, characters and situations are just there to frame a message. Think of Aesop, or parables — though you’ll notice in both cases that the message is not crammed down the reader’s throat and that in fact more than one can often be derived with a little thinking. The reader will often remember a message more if he comes to it of his own. In that sense, the story should exist for something outside of the message. It should at least serve as a story in its own right.

Consciously or not, writers generally seem to understand this human satisfaction with unending adventures, and typically choose to follow it. The Prestige, perhaps, is as close as I can get to an example of choosing not to, or perhaps Hamlet. The Prestige follows the self-destructive, vengeful cycle of two rival stage magicians trying to destroy each other, and ultimately, they succeed, both meeting unpleasant ends. (I’m not recommending the film, it needs ClearPlay.) At the end of it, I came away having been entertained, having learned a few things about history, and ultimately, feeling somewhat sick at heart at mankind’s fallen state.

Compare that to any number of the books I have sitting on my shelf now, and there’s a notable difference. The story of The Prestige ended with its characters’ deaths — but our story does not. Our story carries on into eternity, to an infinite land of further up and further in. And even such stories as The Prestige or Hamlet leave the soul with something far more long-lasting than the lives of their unhappy characters — a theme.

Our stories should illustrate that. We, after all, having the Bible and God’s divine revelation, know how reality truly is, and should fit our stories to it, rather than adopting the modern philosophical practice of fitting reality to our own limited perception.

Being creatures limited by time, you would think there would be more stories with a final ending, but it would appear that some part of us knows we’re meant for eternity, or at the very least, wishes for it. We Christians know that our souls will never end, and they are is either bound for eternal joy or eternal torment.

Perhaps this is part of the reason I personally find the horror genre so unappealing, as if often ends in the gruesome death of the main character and exists solely for the sake of leading to said death. Poe was, unfortunately, a required read during high school. Do his works have a (maybe) moral message that one walks away with? Sure. Don’t kill people and bury their hearts in the floor. But I think I was pretty solid on that already, and having to read about a dude driven insane by guilt was not an enjoyable or edifying experience in the least. Though Poe does appear to be rather polarizing — and to those that enjoy him, I mean you no insult.

I can also recall to you The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, a macabre narrative that flies in the face of eternity by featuring a character that ages backward until he becomes a baby and then just sorta blips out of existence. Are stories like that unique and sensational? Yes. But have they got any eternal value? Do they leave the reader pushed a little closer to the good? Do they reflect the true state of reality? I would say no.

Now, is it logically possible that every ‘happily ever after’ is just a case of writer laziness, omission due to unimportance in comparison to the rest of the tale, intent to satisfy readers, or all three? Sure. But when one notices the coincidence, one might as well point it out and wonder if there’s more to it than meets the eye.

As with all storytelling, how exactly one chooses to end their story depends highly on style and preference, of course. For the writers of The Prestige, their ending was how they intended it and it probably had the intended impact as well. There’s some who love the way Andrew Peterson chose to end the Wingfeather Saga and some who hate it. An ending has to be realistic and satisfying — which doesn’t always mean a guaranteed happy ending.

But what about those who don’t want to use happily ever afters at all? Who refuse to put them in their stories because it’s ‘mere sentimentality’ or ‘unrealistic?’ Who want to be unconventional and avant-garde?

In that case, I would like to again remind you that eternity is the reality. Now, where we spend it depends. Nonetheless, insofar as you can, Christian writer, your mission is to shine and to preserve. A warning may be necessary now and then, and an unhappy ending part of a greater journey. But if you’re feeling jaded or bitter at the ways of the world, don’t let it overcome you. Write some light into it, and remind the world that there’s hope beyond the hardship, endless joys and more adventures than we could imagine after our short stint on Earth. Even though it doesn’t always look like it, the good guys will win in the end, and they will never fade or retire or go the way of all flesh like they do in the stories.

Keep shining, friends. Have a great week.

Ciao!

Cover image by freepik