History BittersweetEnding / Literature

* ''Literature/TheDivide Trilogy'' by Elizabeth Kay ends with the eponymous Divide closing - ''forever'', and Felix and Beytony both being split into two copies of themselves (one pair of them in each world) as a result of being across the Divide when it shut. Although each pair manages to find out what's happened, Magic-world Felix will never see his parents again, but learns that his heart condition is permanently healed. On the other hand, Human-world Betony will never see her [[TakenForGranite recently un-petrified]] parents, and (apart from her eyes) looks like a regular human, whereas Human-world Felix will probably never learn if his heart condition is permanently healed.

* In Creator/JamesSwallow's ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' novel ''[[Literature/BloodAngels Deus Sanguinius]]'', the forces of Chaos have been foiled, and Rafen has even persuaded the Blood Angels to purify rather than [[ReformedButRejected execute]] the repentent ones who had been tricked into following Chaos. But Rafen [[CainAndAbel has killed his brother Arkio]] with his own hand]] -- though there is a hint that Arkio has [[DiedHappilyEverAfter received afterlife mercy]] -- and he has won the undying [[{{Revenge}} emnity]] of a daemon.

* ''Literature/TheLovelyBones'' ends with everyone finally moving on from Susie's death and Harvey dead. However, he's never caught and brought to justice for the numerous murders he commited nor were Susie's remains recovered for a proper burial.But the book makes it the point such things aren't what's important, the lovely bones grow without any of that needed. A point many of today's society won't "get" in a modern example of ValuesDissonance.

* ''[[Literature/WinnieThePooh The House at Pooh Corner]]'' ends with a fairly sad note, as Christopher Robin is going to leave Hundred Acre Woods. The final chapter is about his farewell. While the ending remains true to the fairly lighthearted tone of the series, what Christopher is saying remains very poignant - he's growing up and can't be a child anymore.

* The conclusion of Creator/GarthNix's ''[[Literature/OldKingdom Abhorsen]]'': Hedge is dead, Orannis is bound anew, and most of the main characters, plus the innocents they were trying to protect, survive. However, Lirael loses her hand, Nick will have to struggle against the Free Magic still in his blood for the rest of his life, and the Disreputable Dog is dead. Or is it? This ''is'' one of the Seven we're talking about here...
* Creator/PGWodehouse's Regger Pepper story ''Absent Treatment''. Reggie manages to get his best friend and his wife back together, but the wife grossly misinterprets his actions and they become much more distant from Reggie. He closes by stating that he wants the following to be engraved on his tombstone: "Here was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute."

* ''Literature/AfterTheRevolution'' ends with [[TheTheocracy the Heavenly Kingdom's]] offense blunted by a temporary alliance, saving Austin, San Antonio and Houston from fundamentalist rule. While it's lost its trump card and the strategic initiative, the Kingdom still holds most of north and east Texas, including Plano and Manny's former home of Dallas, and bigger foreign players like Canada and the United Christian States are getting involved. Manny and Sasha are deeply traumatised by the events of the book, with Manny leaving to live on [[MobileCity Rolling Fuck]] while Sasha takes a job with [[BombThrowingAnarchists Jim]]. Roland, meanwhile, has lost his memory again due to a BungledSuicide and abandons what few human connections he'd made, going back to living as a hermit in Arizona. As stated by Manny in the epilogue, Texas isn't going to stop bleeding any time soon.
* While it can be considered a DownerEnding by some readers/viewers, ''Literature/AiNoKusabi'' ends with both protagonists finally getting together only to die in each others' arms moments later.

** At the end of “The Tidiest Tent!”, Angela, Laura, and Maisie are made to wash the dishes as punishment for stealing their scout mistress Brown Owl’s clothes (they meant to steal Tiffany’s), and not only did Angela not win her coveted prize, Tiffany did… However, Angela does manage to get her revenge on Tiffany by dumping water on her.

** “Talent!” ends with Angela losing the talent contest, but still enjoying herself, and Tiffany (her nemesis) also losing.

* ''Literature/TheOneAndOnlyIvan'' ends with Ivan successfully [[SavingTheWorldWithArt reaching out with his art]] and getting the baby elephant Ruby, and himself, enough attention that they're taken from the CrappyCarnival where he's lived for over twenty years to the zoo he had seen in a commercial. The zookeepers separate Ivan and Ruby. Ivan meets other gorillas for the first time since [[AngstySurvivingTwin his twin died]] and learns, with difficulty, how to interact with and become close to them. He gets to talk briefly with Bob on a clandestine visit and can see but not talk to Ruby, and knows that he and Ruby are still in cages, just larger and better ones. They'll never be free, but they can be happier here than in a circus in a mall.
** This ending was actually somewhat controversial and enough people protested it that Applegate wrote a DearNegativeReader response just as she had with ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'', saying that the book ending with sadness was deliberate and a good thing - children know about sadness in the world and have to learn how to cope with it.

** WordOfGod has it that Middle-earth is prehistoric Europe, with the fall of Sauron happening about six thousand years ago; in other words, before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans in real life. So, at some point an unknown number of years after the story ends, barbarians out of the east come and wipe out all traces of everything, except for a few crumbling structures (mistakenly called "cyclopean" by Greeks) [[DirectLineToTheAuthor and a few ancient books that Professor Tolkien found and translated]].

* Creator/JRRTolkien loves this trope; any endings that aren't bittersweet are almost always {{downer|Ending}}s.
** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': The good guys win. Aragorn takes his rightful place as king and marries Arwen. Sauron is defeated permanently, and the Ring destroyed... but this also destroys the power of the Three Rings that has sustained Lothlórien and Rivendell, and the Elves leave. Frodo, unable to bear the weight of all he lost to save the world, leaves with them, as does Gandalf, and magic begins to go out of the world. The bittersweetness is distilled through Sam's perspective--he becomes a husband and father, yet loses his much beloved master just as his homeland is beginning to be made right. "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."
** Even the happy ending for Arwen and Aragorn is somewhat tainted, since now Arwen is mortal but still can't quite understand what death is and that it's not always horrible. Imagine living thousands of years and suddenly being faced by a single century. So when Aragorn is dying and tells her that they'll meet again she's freaking out, and spends the rest of her life moping in an abandoned Elf forest.
** ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'': Morgoth is defeated and permanently banished from the world until the end of time. The two Silmarils remaining in his crown are stolen and then lost forever. The continent of Beleriand, where the heroes of old had their kingdoms and fought so long and hard against Morgoth, is shattered, most of it sinks into the sea, and many of the Elves sail to the West. From the individual stories and subplots the romance between the mortal Man Beren and Elven beauty Lúthien stands out. The good news is that Lúthien becomes mortal, allowing her to follow Beren when he dies (Men and Elves have ''very'' different fates after death). The bad news is that Lúthien becomes mortal, and thereby passes out of the world and is lost to her people.
** In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', Bilbo returns home rich, but ostracized as a weirdo by his fellow hobbits. Nevertheless, "he remained very happy to the end of his days, and those were extraordinarily long." And let's not forget that, while stronger than they were at the beginning, the Dwarves' nation has still be irreparably and terminally damaged and Thorin, along with his nephews Fili and Kili, has died. Still, relatively cheerful.

* ''Literature/TheHappyPrince'': Ultimately, the Swallow never rejoins its flock, and the Prince's gifts go unnoticed by the rest of the village. Both are disposed of once they see the Prince's now-shabby state, but God sends His angels to retrieve their remains and welcome them into the kingdom of Heaven.

* ''Film/Exodus1960'': Barak has just passed away from cancer, Karen is murdered, and Jordana is heartbroken after the death of David Ben-Ami. But Dov has a bright future as an engineer - he's been offered a scholarship to MIT. General Sutherland embraces the Jewish faith. Ari and Kitty will probably end up staying together. All of them, with Ari's mother, have joined together in a FamilyOfChoice. The book ends with a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic Passover seder]], led by General Sutherland - specifically, with Dov, the youngest present, asking the Four Questions.

* ''Literature/FortHope''. Sure, all of the main characters survived, but Greg was forced to kill his love interest's father; she watched him do so, and that's generally a pretty tough thing for new relationships to survive. His cousin, Jess, who was savagely beaten at one point by the man Greg killed, has just broken up with her first love.

* In the gamebook series ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'', there are more bad endings than good. In some instances, [[EarnYourHappyEnding there's only one ''good'' ending]].

* ''Literature/TheGreatEscape''. One or two guys escape successfully. Most of them die in the attempt, [[JustifiedTrope as it happened in real life]].

* ''Literature/TheHeartsWeSold'' ends with James and Cal dead. However, the world is saved, Dee is released from her contract with the Daemon, and she asks him to release Riley, too. (It's unclear if he will, but he has no reason not to.) In addition, Riley, who used to be homeless, is now in a happy, committed relationship with Gremma and now has a safe place to live, and Dee never has to return to her abusive home ever again, having enough money to put her through college. While the threat that could've ended the world will likely come back someday, the Daemon now knows what to do about it. He doubts that humans would willingly put their lives on the line to help him, but Dee disagrees, proving that in spite of everything, she believes in heroes and selflessness again.
* ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' ends with The Authority destroyed and his Regent, Metatron, eliminated... but in the process, Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are trapped in the space between worlds for eternity, and Will and Lyra are separated into their own worlds because moving between worlds results in the end of Dust. They would've been able to stay together, but people who stay in a non-native world lead shorter lives than they would in their native world, typically dying only a few short years due to disease. Truly unfair, but at least they have the consolation that they will [[TogetherInDeath meet again one day and then never part again]]. That's what they promised themselves, and that makes it easier for them to endure being unable to be together.

* ''[[Literature/TheCornersvilleTraceMythos I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It]]'' ends with Alley's zombie boyfriend Doug [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dying her arms]], but not before they say "I love you" and Will is defeated. It's also shown at the end that Alley has changed for the better.

* By all accounts, Creator/HansChristianAndersen [[CreatorBreakdown was a very depressed man]]. Out of all his fairy tales, there are only a few with unambiguously happy endings.
** ''Literature/TheLittleMatchGirl'': The titular little girl [[DyingAlone freezes to death all alone in an alley]], but from her perspective, it's a happy ending; [[TogetherInDeath she's guided to Heaven by the spirit of her grandmother]], the only person who ever treated her with any love and kindness, and is finally free of her miserable life with her abusive father. [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth The people who find her the next morning realize how pointlessly tragic her death was]], [[GoOutWithASmile but note that she passed away with a smile on her face]]. As such, some remakes from our more cynical times either rewrite it to give her a more materialistic HappyEnding ([[DeusExMachina somehow]]) or portray it as a truly tear-jerking DownerEnding with no belief in a good afterlife. [[Literature/{{Hogfather}} Even Death can't stand it.]]
** ''Literature/TheLittleMermaid'': The prince falls for the woman he ''thought'' rescued him. The poor transformed, mute mermaid sadly carries her train at the wedding. When offered a chance to become a mermaid again instead of dying by killing the man she loved, she decides not to take it. She does die physically, but God transforms her into an air spirit, a "daughter of air" with the prospect of eventually entering Heaven, very probably a result of revision by Andersen. This is because mermaids don't have immortal souls, and in fact the mermaid hoped to gain one by marrying the prince. As an air spirit, she will have the chance to shape a soul for herself, though it is clearly stated it will take centuries. Not surprisingly, many prefer the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon take on this story. Initially this was the selected ending, even put in the working title, but there was a reworked version in which the mermaid apparently just dissolved into foam in the end. Even the happier version has the FridgeHorror of knowing that the [[DeaderThanDead dissolving into foam]] fate is eventually going to befall the Little Mermaid's sisters and family if they don't act as she did.

** ''Literature/{{Stardust}}'' has a VERY bittersweet ending. Not what TheFilmOfTheBook tells you. The ending is as follows: Tristran and Yvaine can't have children, but [[HappilyMarried live together happily]], until he eventually dies of old age. Yvaine [[MayflyDecemberRomance lives on more or less perpetually]] without him, trapped on Earth away from her family. Bittersweet was the ''point'' of Neil's ending. It's what made the book meaningful. Avoiding it did make the movie more enjoyable though.

* ''Literature/TheCay'': Philip (with Stew Cat) is rescued from the Devil's Mouth, eventually, but it's after Timothy succumbed to his injuries from the hurricane and he's left to survive without him. Later, he has surgeries and gets his sight back.

* ''Literature/EpithetErasedPrisonOfPlastic'': Molly learns to rely on her friends more and to stop blaming herself for other people's actions, and the story ends with her crying TearsOfJoy after being "kidnapped" by Giovanni and taken to Crusher's home where she can finally be taken proper care of. Rick is also offered a place to stay and even a job by Naven, putting a nice bow on his storyline as well. The only sour note of the ending comes from Lorelai, as she ends the book scared and alone, unable to reconcile with Molly and still struggling with the possibility that she caused her mother's death. However, even she gets the suggestion of a possible happy ending, thanks to Giovanni leaving her a message stating that he believes she can become a better person and that she can call him when she's ready to Do WrongRight.

* ''Literature/SeedsOfYesterday'' is chronologically this for the ''Dollanganger'' saga. Chris was killed in a car crash, just like his father and leaving Cathy as the last Dollanganger, but Bart has finally accepted him as his father. Jory and Toni are married and expecting a child, and Jory finding happiness after losing so much. Bart becomes a televangelist, and reconciles with Cindy after years of abuse, though he will probably never have a good relationship because he wants a [[OedipusComplex woman like his mother]]. Cathy has finally been able to see her family get along, but she can't live without Chris, and goes up to the attic of the rebuilt Foxworth Hall and decorates it just as she and her deceased siblings did as children.

* In Nick Kyme's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novel ''[[Literature/{{Salamanders}} Salamander]]'', many of them live, and two have made peace with [[HurtingHero their troubles]], but N'keln has risen to the occasion and is a fine captain -- and is murdered without his Marines even noticing. The Marines Malevolent will be a problem. Dak'ir will be either the doom or the salvation of their chapter and has manifested psychic abilities that put him under a cloud. Iagon [[KarmaHoudini has survived his plots without even being suspected for the murders he committed]], and although he is angry he did not succeed, he is now bent on vengeance.