Misused: Esoteric Happy Ending

(This is the first time I'm doing this so please correct me if I'm doing anything wrong.)

There appears to be heavy misuse of Esoteric Happy Ending. The trope is described as "an ending that is portrayed as, and intended to be, a happy ending, but is viewed as a downer ending by the audience", but many of the examples on the page itself appears to be using the trope as "an ending that can be viewed as either happy or sad depending on your perspective" or "an ending with Fridge Horror" without any regards to whether the ending is portrayed as a Bittersweet Ending, or even a Downer Ending, (Now And Then Here And There, Death Note, "Broken Dolls", Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, AI Artificial Intelligence, Hans Christian Andersen, The Witches, Dollhouse, Links Awakening, etc), if it is intended to be ambiguous (MOTHER 3, Brazil, etc) or if the Fridge Horror is intentional (Let The Right One In, HP Lovecraft, Ocarina Of Time via Cerebus Retcon, Skyward Sword, etc).

As I see it we can deal with this problem in three ways:

• 1) Just remove the offending examples and rename the trope for clarity. (Suggestion: Unintentional Downer Ending) Alternatively; we can tweak the trope to encompass any endings that is viewed as sadder than intended, then do the same.
• 2) Expand the trope to "an ending that can be viewed as either happy or sad depending on viewer perspective and/or Fridge Horror" and possibly rename it. (Suggestions: Subjective Ending or Ending Happiness Dissonance).
• 3) Split the trope into two tropes. One corresponding with solution #2 and a subtrope corresponding with solution #1.

edited 13th Mar '13 7:52:29 PM by painocus

Well, welcome to Trope Repair Shop then.

Hmm...audience reactions of the "but the audience..." sort are almost always used as "but some members of the audience" since an audience is not a monolithic bloc. I would support #2 and oppose #3 because they would be impossible to tell apart. The examples that are not about Happy Endings need to go away regardless.

About the not starting the thread right thing: You have your bases covered there (esp. since you are citing examples of misuse - some TRS folk can get cranky if you claim misuse without providing evidence).

There's also a fair bit of natter.

I'm not sure whether the difference isn't pronounced enough, or it's a case of Missing Super Trope Syndrome that causes the misuse. Making it wider would definitely help, but I'm not sure if letting it remain as a subtrope would be good or bad at this point.

edited 14th Mar '13 7:57:30 AM by AnotherDuck

I noticed this myself some time ago. In fact the page suffers from the problem as the old "Warped Aesop" one; it is an audience reaction which some authors deliberately use to leave things open to interpretation.

My personal choice would be to broaden the trope to cover endings that can be interpreted, at a basic level, either way. We wouldn't even have to change the title.

Thanks for the feedback Septimus Heap.

There appears to be a consensus in favor of #2. Should we create a Single Proposition Crowner for it now or start working out a suggestion for a new trope description first?

I personally recommend to start with a description.

I'll also note that other people have suggested other solutions so we'll need a Page Action crowner.

Where exactly? All I can see, that is relevant, is support for #2 (your "I would support #2", Another Duck's "Making it wider would definitely help" and RJ Savoy's "My personal choice would be to broaden the trope to cover endings that can be interpreted, at a basic level, either way"), some opposition to #3 (your "and [I would] oppose #3 because they would be impossible to tell apart" and Another Duck's "I'm not sure if letting it remain as a subtrope would be good or bad at this point") and RJ Savoy suggesting that a name change would be unnecessary ("We wouldn't even have to change the title").

I think Another Duck was implicitly supporting #3.

I've not made a concrete decision on that. It would require more discussion, or me reading through the entire trope page to see what we have, and how it would potentially look. I don't have the time for that.

I vouch to remove. This is point-blank Complaining About Endings You Don't Like.

The page examples don't really look like complaining.

Ah, OK. If we do go with #2 there is always the possibility of creating a new sup-trope later, however. So the outcome would not be set in stone.

We can also go a middle way between #2 and #3; and only have a single trope, but divide it into two types: one for examples where the ending is meant to invoke one feeling (I think this would be easier to work with than "A director/author/etc. writes what he thinks is a Happy Ending" for pretty much the same reasons RJ Savoy mentioned), but Fridge Logic / Fridge Horror / Unfortunate Implications / Inferred Holocaust /Values Dissonance / whatever pulls it another way, and one for examples where the happiness/sadness of the ending is left open to interpretation. If this beares fruits we could then consider splitting the types into tropes or if it doesn't we could just remove this distinction. On the downside this would mean that we must separate every example on the article into either of these types which can get hard (if not downright impossible) for works unfamiliar to us. (Although we would have to do this anyways if we where to go with #3.)

I have to agree with Septimus Heap. Very few of the listed examples contain anything close to complaining and those that do can easily be turned into legit, neutral examples with just some minor change in tone.

edited 22nd Mar '13 8:17:44 AM by painocus

Hmm - having a trope split into two (or more) types is usually a source of trouble. I would disrecommend that route.

The article's description clearly lays out its complaining nature. It states this trope comes into play when the author writes a happy ending but the audience dose not agree. Based on that description, this means we are dealing with a subjective, audience reaction trope as to whether on not the ending works.

And how is that any different from Complaining About Endings You Don't Like?

edited 22nd Mar '13 6:01:26 PM by EditorPallMall

If the examples aren't complaining, but the description is, the description needs to be changed, but it obviously works as a non-complaining trope.

No, it is not "obvious" otherwise there would not be disagreement as to whether or not this article is just complaining. Again, the trope, as it were, seems to be when the author writes a "happy" ending but the audience dose not view it as a "happy" ending. Since it is not clearly defined what a "happy" ending is for either party, nor can it always be clear what the exact intent of the author is, this is clearly just complaining.

edited 22nd Mar '13 11:13:53 PM by EditorPallMall

That's some strange kind of False Dichotomy. "If the exact boundary of 'happy' isn't defined, it's complaining." It assumes not having a happy ending is a bad thing, and that any YMMV trope (presumably that isn't about gushing) would also be complaining.

It's also a Perfect Solution Fallacy, in that your argument assumes that if there's any disagreement the trope doesn't work as non-complaining. The thing is, if the amount of complaining in the trope isn't a significant portion, the trope works. There also has been no statistical evidence presented that the examples are complaining. You're the only one who has argued complaining anyway.

You argument of pointing out fallacies somehow proves you correct is argument by fallacy. Except for "You're the only one who has argued complaining anyway." which is an appeal to the the majority. I also do not need to point out specifics because if I started doing that we would have ten or twenty different arguments at once. The concept of this article is the problem.

How do we know what the author intended unless he actually comes forth and says it? If he says something about his feelings toward the ending, is this just not a different perspective on it? What is and is not a satisfying conclusion?

Also we already have a few better defined tropes on this subject. Inferred Holocaust and No Endor Holocaust anyone?

I wasn't saying I was right with those. I was saying your arguments don't make sense, and that they're unfounded. It's not like I was saying you're wrong and I'm right because you spell "does" as "dose".

You say it's complaining, and that's as far as your argument goes. As I said before, if the examples aren't of a complaining nature, but are still legitimate examples of the trope, complaining is not inherent in the trope.

No, it's not Appeal To Majority, since it's not a logical true/false argument as such. It's an argument of majority. To change or cut a page on TV Tropes is decided by a majority (generally a 2:1 majority).

This is a Subjective Trope, so an absolute definition of what fits or not isn't needed, as long as the example explains why it fits on the page.

Now, Inferred Holocaust or No Endor Holocaust having too much overlap with this for them to be considered different tropes is a valid argument. It is, however, a different argument from "complaining" or the concept being wrong. It's still not an argument that holds up, though. Both of those tropes are much more specific than this one. They both specifically refer to End of the World scenarios and other catastrophic events. Esoteric Happy Ending is about any ending that may not be as happy as first thought.

edited 23rd Mar '13 1:17:00 AM by AnotherDuck

An Audience Reaction and the tropes it's sometimes a reaction to are different pages. The existence of the latter doesn't delegitimize the existence of the former.

Anyhow, most of the page's examples are pretty clinical. When we cut complaining pages, they usually have far more bile than this.

What is with the attitude among so many people on TRS that if it's remotely subjective it shouldn't exist?

Because Complaining About Shows You Dont Like is disallowed by wiki policy.

But as I've said before, this page isn't negative enough to warrant a cut.

^ I wasn't talking just about this trope specifically, just a general attitude among a lot of tropers, even for completely neutral tropes.

A lot of people hold the view that YMMV items, by definition, aren't tropes, and are only suffered on the wiki at all under the Grandfather Clause.

If used intentionally a subjective ending is just as much of a trope as Happy Ending, Downer Ending or Bittersweet Ending. The problem arises in that in many cases it is difficult for us, the audience, to determine if it is intentional or not and that's why it is beneficial to keep it a YMMV.

edited 3rd Apr '13 11:57:53 AM by painocus