Too big a downer ending?

Alright, I've got an idea for an ending to something. It follows a soldier in a fantasy setting, and ends with him being challenged by his rival. If he doesn't show, his love interest will die. So he shows up to the dual, only to find her dead. So he fights the dual, only he loses. It ends with his rival leaving, mocking him, and the soldier cradling his dead loves corpse as he bleeds to death.

Is this too big a Downer Ending?

To put it bluntly, if it fits with the theme of whatever you're writing, then no.

This. You don't want a feel good story to be swamped by something quite that heavy. For example of how it comes across, go watch Click. Urgh.

Okay, Thanks. It's a pretty depressing story, so it should be alright.

It'd be some Gainax level trolling if the work prior to that point had been relatively light and fluffy.

Depends on the mood before that. It's a huge downer ending if the story was relatively happy until then.

Look up Bennett The Sage's review of Mad Bull 34 for an example of how it went all wrong, I'll give the gist. The anime began as an uber violent, uber sexual piece of fluff that was very much 'switch your brain off and laugh at how...wrong, maybe, it is' then the fourth and final episode became dark, heavy, very much a Downer Ending. Compare and contrast Neon Genesis Evangelion that tried to mix the mind bending story with lighter content, in this instance at the time we may have not been prepared for the final two episodes or End of Evangelion but in hindsight we could see it building up to it.

Dinosaurs is another top example of having too big a Downer Ending. Now Dead Island on the other hand, the endings for the two games are fairly yuck but the tone of the games is very gritty, very hardcore, so in the context of the trailers and what happens throughout a Downer Ending does work. Look up Sudden Downer Ending for some insight of how the ending you have in mind would reflect on your work.

edited 7th Sep '13 6:43:41 PM by tsstevens

Thanks.

The whole piece/Story/thing has a very depressing War Is Hell vibe to it, so it should be consistent.