I'll open this, but my concern is more around the fact that it's presented as an audience reaction. It's almost entirely subjective whether a given happy ending will be "surprising".
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"^ Subjectivity aside, I think part of the issue is that even if a work is light, it may have a Darkest Hour somewhere in the third act, which is where I think some of the issues that OP is having stem from.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them."Lilo & Stitch" sounds like it might not qualify. But all the other Disney examples look okay to me.
The surprise is for the characters, not the audience. Like, if The Hero Bob thinks his friend Alice was killed in the fight against the Big Bad, but we know that she survived. Bob's mourning the loss of Alice up until the very end, when she reveals that she's okay and they live Happily Ever After. Surprise! Happy Ending. The audience is not shocked.
The name isn't helpful, since it does sound like an audience reaction trope. So, this trope description should be modified so that it explicitly specifies that the surprise is In-Universe.
This sounds really familiar to Earn Your Happy Ending.
A lot of the examples look like they are subversions of such tropes as Downer Ending and Bittersweet Ending.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanYeah, one wonders if this was conceived as a subverted Downer Ending that someone thought had enough examples to merit its own trope.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Clock is set.
Clock's up; locking for inactivity.
A lot of examples on the page are not getting the SURPRISE part right. Disney movies and most kids' shows are lighthearted and are known for usually having happy endings, and the trope seems to be about a very dark work that has a happy ending in the last percentage of it. For a Disney example for that, Pinocchio or the Black Cauldron could work, but not Lilo and Stitch or Tangled. The Western Animation section is just as bad, and the Video Game section has Super Mario Sunshine on the list.
edited 28th Apr '14 2:58:04 PM by lalalei2001
The Protomen enhanced my life.