History Main / EsotericHappyEnding

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': While ''much'' happier than most examples, as the family as a whole is much better off at the end than they were at the beginning, some fans think that [[spoiler: the Madrigals regaining their magic gifts]] isn't as good as it's presented in the movie. Mainly for characters like Pepa and Dolores, [[spoiler: whose [[BlessedWithSuck issues with their powers]] came largely from the gifts themselves rather than how the people around them treated them.]]

* ''Fanfic/AftermathOfTheGames'' was in part a FixFic to season 5 finale of ''Westernanimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', giving [[AdaptationalKarma Starlight Glimmer karma]] by having Twilight Sparkle adopt the child Starlight, causing the original to be RetGone. But the finale had shown that such alterations to the timeline could have dire consequence. This necessitated [[AuthorsSavingThrow its own fix]] in the sequel ''Integration''; showing Starlight refusing her canon redemption [[ShootTheDog left no other choice]], and that Twilight's [[AscendedFridgeHorror all too aware of the implications]] and is doing what she can to fix them.

* The short Anime/PokemonTheSeries fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5732503/1/Gotta-Catch-them-All Gotta Catch Them All]]'' is a DeadlyDistantFinale where an elderly Ash Ketchum, at the age of 90, having finally caught the last Pokemon in the world, dies from old age after achieving his goal. The fanfic treats it as the '''happiest possible ending''' for Ash, but it comes off as a DownerEnding instead, given that Pikachu is ''dead and taxidermied like a hunted animal'', a lot of wonder is gone from the world as Ash spent his entire life catching literally every last Pokemon IN THE WORLD, and what is the most depressing part of all, the fact that Ash was so obsessed with catching all the world's Pokemon that he didn't care about anything else, even when he outlived everyone he ever knew and cared about, and never married ANYONE and never had any children, all because he wanted to "catch them all".

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': The Tarkir Storyline gets accused of this, due in part to the BlueAndOrangeMorality of its protagonist, Sarkhan Vol. Vol has always revered dragons, but lives in a world where dragons were hunted. to extinction millennia ago, and the humanoid cultures now fight each other in a global ForeverWar. Vol believes that their world lost something irreplaceable when the dragons disappeared, and travels back in time to prevent their extinction, which he succeeds at. The result is a new timeline where dragons have become the dominant species, with the mortal races serving them. And they're still locked in a ForeverWar. Sarkhan considers this a huge success, although many of the people who live in servitude to the Dragon Lords disagree (not that they know anything has changed). Indeed, many of the characters who were important and powerful in the previous timeline are leading much worse lives in the new (although some of them deserve it).

* The True End of ''VisualNovel/KaraNoShoujo'' seems to have been shooting for the bittersweet feeling that most True Ends have, but fridge logic kind of shoots it down. First of all, about half the cast is dead. Second, Reiji's sort-of girlfriend Toko is among them. Third, he's still alone. All he has that he didn't have before is closure over his dead fiancee.

* ''ComicBook/LastGod'': The Dark Fantasy series published by Creator/DCComics ''Creator/DCBlackLabel'' imprint) ends with the heroes killing [[GodOfEvil Mol Uhltep]] followed by a montage of the surviving heroes living happily. However during the course of the story, the rulers of Tyrgolad (the human kingdom) and the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Aelva]] died. King Tyr's only heir is his [[HeroicBastard bastard son]], but it's unclear he became king of the humans (since we just see him relaxing in nature). Meanwhile, there is no clear heir for the Aelva since the Ferryman King and her son both died. Presumably, this would be to a SuccessionCrisis. Worse is that the story establishes if even one [[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fey]] is still alive that means [[CantLiveWithoutYou Mol Uhltep will survive as well]], and the ending shows a living Fey.

* ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' has some in the Uderzo era.

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' issue 200 was intended to be the last-ever ComicBook/MsMarvel story, and features [[Characters/MarvelComicsCarolDanvers Carol Danvers]] walking off to live HappilyEverAfter... [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization with her rapist]]. It didn't take, and the next time Carol is seen she [[WhatTheHellHero lets the rest of the team have it]] for letting her leave with that creep. There's a reason both professionals and fans often consider this issue the single worst done-in-one story ever published by Marvel.
* Happens very often with [[ComicBook/ChickTracts Jack Chick]] tracts. There are too many examples to list specific ones, but they tend to fall into a few distinct categories.

* ''Flashpoint'' (a 1999 ''Creator/{{Elseworlds}}'' storyline) ends with [[Characters/TheFlashBarryAllen Barry Allen]], consumed by the energy created by the Martian ArtifactOfDoom in a HeroicSacrifice, appearing in front of the ComicBook/{{Justice League|OfAmerica}}. It's unknown what this is supposed to mean, as the comic's world seems to be one without superheroes aside from the Flash and Martian Manhunter. It might be a DyingDream, or some sort of Valhalla, or he might have ended up crossing over into another universe. Given that Barry had been having frequent visions of another, "righter" world where he fought alongside other colorful heroes, perhaps it's simply to indicate that Barry's life had been thrown askew, its direction altered by his paralysis at the hands of [[BigBadFriend Vandal Savage]], and in [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths sacrificing himself to save the world]] destiny has finally corrected itself.
* ''Comicbook/{{Flashpoint|DCComics}}'' ends with Barry Allen [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong Setting Right What Once Went Wrong]] by undoing the altered timeline and reuniting the DC Universe with the fractured Creator/{{Vertigo|Comics}} and Creator/{{Wildstorm}} timelines. What isn't addressed is that by rebooting the DCU into the Comicbook/{{New 52}} continuity, Barry also [[RetGone erased a number of characters from history]] (mostly {{Legacy Character}}s or offspring of superheroes), such as Comicbook/GreenArrow's son Connor Hawke, Roy Harper's daughter Lian and Barry's own surrogate son Wally West and the latter's twins Jai and Iris. This was egregious enough that years later, ''Comicbook/DoomsdayClock'' would retcon the ending of ''Flashpoint'' by revealing that Barry had been manipulated into creating the New 52 timeline by [[ComicBook/{{Watchmen}} Dr. Manhattan]].
* At the end of ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' story arc ''ComicBook/TheGreatPhantomPeril'', villain Faora Hu-Ul is sent back into the PhantomZone. Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson Porter, a widower whom Faora had telepathically deceived into believing she was his wife's ghost in order to manipulate him, still believes Faora is his late spouse. To the point that he requests to be sent into the Zone together with her. And instead of discouraging him and getting him help, Superman, Characters/{{Batman|TheCharacter}} and Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} grant his petition. The latter even says maybe it is the best for him, since Mr. Porter is so lonely.
* ''ComicBook/HeroesInCrisis'': After a massacre at the superhero therapy facility known as Sanctuary, the murderer, [[Characters/TheFlashWallyWest Wally West]], tries to commit suicide after releasing the patients/murder victims' confessionals in order to raise awareness about mental health. He's talked out of suicide and is instead imprisoned, but the final message is that there's still hope for him, and that he's taken his first step towards bettering himself, while Sanctuary reopens so it can help more people. Most readers did not see this as the happy ending it's meant to be. The release of confessionals was portrayed ''in-universe'' as bad when it first happened and readers see it as a massive breach of privacy that Wally had no right to leak to Lois Lane, and ''she'' had no right to publish. All the dead characters are still dead, despite the heroes using a time machine to place a cloned Wally body at the time of the incident [[note]]Wally's body was found at the scene of the crime and, through time-travel shenanigans, he was going to kill his future self to put the body at the scene of the crime to maintain the timeline[[/note]] which could have been applied to everyone. Wally is locked up with supervillains and the thing that mattered most to him -- getting his RetGone'd family back -- is apparently completely out of reach (because the writer ignored his own plot device with the time machine). Sanctuary's "therapy" was so terrible that it was seemingly actively goading the patients on -- such as repeatedly asking Wally ''why'' he wants his family back and allowing ''repeated self-harm and reliving of death'' in Lagoon Boy -- that ''no reader'' saw it as a healthy mental health facility, so the implication that it has reopened with zero change to how it's run...the series can't even qualify for a bittersweet, it's just misery.
* ''ComicBook/JLAActOfGod'' attempts to tell us that a new generation of heroes is about, the problems with this are that there were likely millions of innocents killed due to people losing their powers, few superheroes getting over their problems, and Kyle Rayner, ultimately, ends up killed due to psychotic obsession. This isn't getting into the fact that many tech-based supervillains keep their powers and abilities, and one new, superpowered being doesn't make the world better. As tough as the tech-based heroes are, they simply do not and indeed cannot compare to the combined force of Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}}, ComicBook/GreenLantern, Characters/{{Wonder Woman|TheCharacter}}, ComicBook/TheFlash and the ComicBook/MartianManhunter. The next time [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] (or indeed, any ''one'' of a multitude of cosmic and/or PhysicalGod-level heavy hitters) invades, he is going to steamroll the Earth with trivial ease.
* ''Last God'' (a Dark Fantasy series published DC Comics' Black Label imprint) ends with the heroes killing [[GodOfEvil Mol Uhltep]] followed by a montage of the surviving heroes living happily. However during the course of the story, the rulers of Tyrgolad (the human kingdom) and the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Aelva]] died. King Tyr's only heir is his [[HeroicBastard bastard son]], but it's unclear he became king of the humans (since we just see him relaxing in nature). Meanwhile, there is no clear heir for the Aelva since the Ferryman King and her son both died. Presumably, this would be to a SuccessionCrisis. Worse is that the story establishes if even one [[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fey]] is still alive that means [[CantLiveWithoutYou Mol Uhltep will survive as well]], and the ending shows a living Fey.
* The ending of ''Night of the Living ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'' is a likely intentional example. Every character in the story dies except Deadpool, and humanity is likely wiped out, but Deadpool gets a happy ending through a bizarre twist ending. Deadpool takes a massive dose of the regeneration serum that caused the zombie outbreak and is eaten by the zombies, causing his consciousness to evolve into a sapient zombie virus that [[MesACrowd spreads to all of the zombies and brings them all under his control as a massive Deadpool hive mind.]] Deadpool's last words in the comic are "Omnipotence won't be all that bad."

* Creator/JoeQuesada has stated that when looking back at ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'', he sees Aunt May saved through the Parkers' HeroicSacrifice of their marriage. Most fans see the OfficialCouple being forced apart and [[TheBadGuyWins the villain getting what he wants]]. Many fans also have a problem that the solution to the arc was the HERO making a DealWithTheDevil without ever being held accountable, thus making deals with the devil without consequences a valid mean to happy endings. It's even worse than that. At one point, an apparition of a little girl confronts Peter with a withering TheReasonYouSuckSpeech explaining why his desperation to save May at all costs is actually selfish. This apparition later turns out to be Peter and MJ's future daughter, who will never exist thanks to their deal with [[Characters/MarvelComicsDemons Mephisto]]. So not only did Peter make a deal with the devil, but he also allowed the devil to trick him into aborting and then forgetting about his own child, after it had been clearly explained to him why it was the wrong thing to do. A lot of fans were quite puzzled about how that could be called a happy ending in any sense.
* The Boom! Studios ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' ComicBookAdaptation ends its run with an arc where Rocko discovers that Conglom-O is using its newest smartphone to fleece the inhabitants of O-Town out of money until they're penniless. After the hapless wallaby [[EngineeredPublicConfession tricks the CEO of Conglom-O into openly calling his company's customers easily manipulated morons]], the denizens of O-Town are incited to riot and retaliate to Conglom-O's underhanded business strategies by tearing the corporation down. Rocko basks in the fact that he can now be seen as an equal...completely disregarding that his actions have resulted in the town descending into anarchy and that the destruction of the town's most prominent company has most likely left countless people out of work.
* PlayedForLaughs in a ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' comic sidestory starring Mr Sparkle. Mr Sparkle saves the family from the invading dirt monsters, but the family father discovers that while doing so, Mr Sparkle had unwitting destroyed his cartoonist equipment, ruining him and driving him to [[{{Seppuku}} kill himself]] out of shame for no longer being able to provide for his family. The entire sequence is played for comedy, with Mr Sparkle himself cheerfully advising the father to try and avoid getting blood on the carpet as he leaves.
* ''ComicBook/SquadronSupreme2015'': Dr. Spectrum freely accepts Black Bolt as her king, the man that destroyed her world.

* ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen'': The story "End of Grays" ends with [[Characters/XMen80sMembers Rachel Summers]] sitting down to have a nice coffee with her friends, talking about how she's honoring her mother's legacy...after a bunch of aliens violently massacred what's left of her family, children included, for insane reasons, with her grandmother dying cursing Rachel's name, then tried ''repeatedly'' to murder Rachel herself, before getting away entirely scot-free, without even a slap on the wrist.

** "Night of the Vesuviuses": Besides the In-Universe EsotericHappyEnding (The Vesuvius twins have learned to stop being cruel to the animals but that [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality doesn't stop them from being cruel with people]]), the fact that the Penguins are still sworn enemies with the rest of the Zoo for protecting the Vesuvius twins, including their close ones like Marlene and the Lemurs is never acknowledged. [[AccidentalDownerEnding Not helped by this being the last aired episode.]] Hopefully NegativeContinuity takes care of that.