Earn Your Happy Ending: Is this really a trope?

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What I get from it is that it's basically "characters experience hardships". But that's pretty much practically in everything, right? Aside from works that have no conflict of course like Barney or whatever. Hell the video games section starts off by saying every video game has this.

Either I'm missing something or this is an unnecessary page

edited 22nd Mar '12 6:59:24 AM by KaiserMazoku

It's not People Sit On Chairs, be careful how you throw that phrase around, but I can see your point.

edited 22nd Mar '12 5:46:18 AM by captainpat

Out of note, Conflict is an Omnipresent Trope.

"It's not People Sit on Chairs, be careful how you throw that phrase around, but I can see your point."

Yeah I know that's probably not the right phrase to use. What I mean is that this trope seems to boil down to "conflict and hardship happen". And that doesn't seem worth making a page over, since that happens in every story ever.

It seems to be based on just exactly how dark things get before the end, but I can see the point that you could stretch the concept to apply to just about every dramatic work ever that isn't targeted at preschoolers.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The main purpose of this wiki is to list tropes. If a trope "happens in every story ever", it is omnipresent and not needs examples- but it needs a page.

Looking at the trope more closely, it's not "every story ever", not even close. What it describes is a particular type of setting where a story mixes and matches along the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism. In a nutshell, it flirts with a Downer Ending / Kill Em All / The Bad Guy Wins before letting the heroes pull out a last minute victory, and frequently at heavy cost.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

• nod* This trope is 'sure, half your friends died, your dog ran away and you lost your arm, but at least the world is saved'

This seems to be the core of it. About a half a year ago, after watching The Shawshank Redemption and then seeing EYHE on the trope list and coming across that paragraph, I saw exactly where they were coming from. Shawshank in particular relies on a lot of subtleties such that first time through, how screwed Andy is seems awfully convincing, but when he makes it, the explanation why makes enough sense; it makes even more sense viewing it a second time.

I think this is a matter of continuous variation of extent. It is a matter of how convincingly dire things are getting, and how well they manage to pull through, both of which are continuous.

For tropes where the extent varies continuously, I recommend omitting mild examples to avoid diminishing the trope.

No, that's Bittersweet Ending you're thinking of. One can have a Bittersweet Ending without having an Earn Your Happy Ending approach to it, and one can have an Earn Your Happy Ending approach without the ending necessarily being bittersweet.

edited 22nd Mar '12 8:26:01 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Earn Your Happy Ending can overlap with Bittersweet Ending?

Yes. If it's more sweet than bitter.

The purpose of Earn Your Happy Ending is that the ending is happy, yes, but the characters had to go through hell to do it. The "bitter" part of the story happened during the conflict itself, but it became sweeter during the falling action. For example, Earth was destroyed in Act Two, but in Act Three, humanity stepped up, created world peace and formed a new type of government which eventually led to the most progressive society in human history.

Or, in a more personal touch, the middle of the story involves the hero's wife being captured and tortured by the bad guy, and the hero deliberately subverts Always Save the Girl in order to save the world. In the end though, she understands, although she's mentally shaken by the ordeal and may never be the same again. However, their undying love means that they can start all over again.

edited 22nd Mar '12 8:39:32 AM by KingZeal

Or you could have a story in which The Kingdom is wrecked, lots of people die — including many of the heroes, and it's clear that rebuilding will be a long and arduous process. However, the Big Bad was defeated, decisively, and in the end, the hero got his Standard Hero Reward.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't see how that is not a Bittersweet Ending.

I somewhat agree, though I see where Fighteer is coming from.

In my opinion, the most "objective" definition of Earn Your Happy Ending is when you have an awful set of consequences which happens during the rising action and shatters the status quo in a way that is utterly unfixable. Then, the falling action either sees the crew using great effort or cleverness which negates or diminishes the awfulness with a new status quo which is either equal to or better than the previous one.

edited 22nd Mar '12 12:31:10 PM by KingZeal

Earn Your Happy Ending is very often bittersweet for at least some of the characters involved.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I was always of the belief that Earn Your Happy Ending was for cases where it's clear that there will be a happy ending eventually, but there's going to be hard work involved for the heroes to get to that point. Not necessarily difficult work, but exhaustive and plentiful.

The example would be when the kingdom is in tatters, but the hero rescues the kidnapped royalty and restores them to the throne. Yes, the kingdom has been run into the ground by poor governance, and they really need to replace a couple of castles that the hero had to level to save the day. There's a lot that still needs work... but it turns out they have the resources to do it. The story just draws to a close as they get started on reducing the taxes, rebuilding the castles, get farmers back to producing good crops, and all of the minutae that go into producing a stable country.

The story ends on an up note, even though things aren't completely fixed at the end. But they will be - as soon as that happy ending has been earned.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

ah, or like Fruits Basket (spoilers follow) The curse is broken, everyone's paired up, but the lingering pain remains.

Like I said, shit hits the fan in an irreversible fashion during the rising action and begins the upswing during the climax. During the falling action, it becomes clear that not only will life continue, but it will remain roughly the same or better than it was originally due to the efforts of the good guys.

(I avoided using the words "the sacrifice of the good guys" because EYHE implies that the ending will be unambiguously happy. In this type of ending, the sacrifice can't ever outweigh the benefit on a personal nor overarching scale. If the hero saves the world but has to sacrifice his one true love in order to permanently drive off the threat, then it's a Bittersweet Ending, not this.)

edited 23rd Mar '12 1:25:08 PM by KingZeal

^^^bump^^^

It seems like this excellent discussion isn't actually reflected in the main entry.

Proposed edit:

"The basic idea of this trope is that a cast of characters in a story go through hardship, anguish and grief for the majority of the time to the point where it seems like they would suffer from their effects long past the end of the narrative. In the end, however, you see them get their happily-ever-after. Character issues/conflicts usually involve Cynicism Tropes and suggest a Downer Ending/Despair Event Horizon. However, the ending might place the work's attitude as a whole as A World Half Full."

edited 12th Apr '14 5:35:50 PM by bibwrecks

Seriously, dude, necrobumping a two year old thread is just nuts. At least search for other, more recent threads on the topic.

Edit: Which, in fairness, there don't seem to be. Still, in two years a lot can change. If you want to start a new repair topic, come up with a fresh thesis.

edited 12th Apr '14 9:56:31 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"