Happy Ending Overrides in Literature.
- Happens twice in Adrian Mole:
- The Wilderness Years ends with Adrian finding love with Jo Jo, and hints that he may find success with his writing. But in the following book, The Cappuccino Years, Adrian and Jo Jo have been through a bitter divorce and he has failed to get published, instead working a menial job in a restaurant.
- Adrian gets a happy ending in Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, where he is happily married to Daisy, has had another child, and is living peacefully in the countryside. He stops writing his diary because he believes happy people don't do it. By the following book, The Prostrate Years, this is overturned as Adrian's marriage breaks up and he is diagnosed with prostate cancer.
- Scorpia Rising, which was intended to be the final Alex Rider book at the time it was written, ends with Alex finally escaping MI6 and starting a new life in America with the Pleasure family. A few years down the line, however, author Anthony Horowitz decided to revive the series, and Never Say Die opens with Alex miserable and unable to accustomise to his new life, still traumatised by the events of the previous book.
- Carry On: Ends on a bittersweet but hopeful note, with Simon having saved the world, being in a happy relationship with Baz, and seeing a therapist. Wayward Son, however, starts one year later, Simon is stuck to the couch in a deep bout of depression, blowing off school and therapy, and gearing himself up to break up with Baz so he won't drag his boyfriend down with him.
- Enna Burning, the second of the Books of Bayern, does this to the happy ending of The Goose Girl. Just two years later the kingdom is plunged into war, the king is killed in battle, and Isi (the princess) has trouble controlling her wind-communication powers, resulting in the wind's nonstop "voice" nearly driving her insane. And this is just backdrop for the trauma that protagonist Enna goes through over the course of the book. Fortunately, they all eventually reach a new, hard-earned happy ending.
- The Camp Half-Blood Series:
- The first sequel series, The Heroes of Olympus scales Percy and Annabeth's happy ending back as Percy is magically teleported by Hera to the San Francisco Bay Area sometime after the Second Titanomachy. Since they don't know where he goes to, Annabeth and Sally are left to grieve in the cold, while Percy spends more than six months cut off from his friends and family.
- The second sequel series, The Trials of Apollo completely destroys Jason and Piper's happy ending from the previous series because of several factors. First, Jason and Piper broke up, albeit amicably. Second, Piper is moving to Oklahoma because of her father's financial troubles, making reconciliation with Jason difficult since she isn't going to meet him as often. Third, Jason dies, leaving any kind of reconciliation impossible.
- In The Chronicles of Narnia, the heroes leave Narnia restored and happy in the first book, and come back in the second to a later Narnia where everything's even worse than it was before; the winter may be gone, but many Talking Animals have ceased to talk and much of the magic has begun to go away under the reign of the Telmarines. That's because time in Narnia flows as quickly relative to time on Earth as it needs to, and Aslan calls the children from England only at a point when Narnia needs them, and when it would be most beneficial to their personal development.
- Happens in the second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series, though at least it is made fairly clear in the first one the Big Bad cannot be technically killed. Even so it was a kick in the gut, though not a surprise given the nature of the series.
- A Court of Thorns and Roses: The first book technically has a Bittersweet Ending as Feyre is traumatised by what happened and the King of Hybern is still a threat, but it otherwise ends on a positive note with Amarantha dead and Prythian freed from her tyranny, and Feyre and Tamlin happily reunited. The second book immediately undoes this; three months later neither Feyre or Tamlin have made much progress in dealing with their trauma and seem to have forgotten how to communicate, which causes their relationship to rapidly deteriorate. Feyre in particular is severely depressed until Rhysand steps in by technically forcing her to come to the Night Court against her will.
- Discworld:
- At the end of The Light Fantastic, Rincewind is back at Unseen University and facing the promise of a life of blissful boredom. Sourcery drags him into another quest to save the world, leading to a chain of events which prevents him properly returning to UU for another three books. And even then, his reluctant adventures mean he's now seen as the University's expert on that kind of thing, and will be dragged into further ones.
- Mort ends with the title character becoming a Duke and getting married. Soul Music opens some years later with his and Ysabell's deaths.
- Lampshaded in Witches Abroad and Thief of Time, which say that having a happy ending just means knowing when to stop telling the story.
- In the Doctor Who New Adventures novel literally called Happy Endings, the Doctor's companion Benny gets married to Jason Kane. Eight books later, the publishers learn their Doctor Who licence is not going to be renewed, and quickly split Benny and Jason up so that Benny can star in solo stories.
- Everland ends on a positive note, with the survivors escaping the devastated Everland to seek refuge at Northumberland with a cure for the Horologia virus. The opening of Umberland negates this, showing that the conditions at Alnwick Castle are worse than before, with the cure having mutated and become more contagious than the original virus.
- After much ado is made about capturing and punishing Archimago in The Faerie Queene's first book, the second book immediately establishes that he got away and continued to torture the good knights of the realm for the foreseeable future. Presumably, it wasn't mentioned in the last book precisely to keep that happy ending intact for at least a moment.
- At the end of The Great Brain, Tom appears to have reformed from his ways swindling all the kids in the neighborhood, although his brother, John secretly complained about things being too dull. The sequel, More Adventures of the Great Brain, however, it's revealed that he was only behaving to try and get a bicycle for Christmas, and once the holidays are over, he reverts back to his old ways.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ends with Harry feeling well after defeating evil, and being hopeful his powers will lead to fear and less bullying at home. The next book opens by showing his guardians are still as unpleasant to him as ever, if not more. Harry Potter is actually one of the most justifiable examples of this. Not only is the Dark Lord not destroyed and therefore the war not over, but also new problems arise, which are often impossible to foresee. Take the above mentioned example about the Dursleys: they learn that he is not allowed to perform magic outside of school thanks to Dobby and by the next book he has to rely on his godfather's reputation to keep them in check.
- The final book shows, after a Time Skip, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco sending their kids to Hogwarts on a hopeful note. The follow-up play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reveals that Albus Potter's time at Hogwarts is hardly pleasant. He's an Inept Mage, who can't fly on a broom and has only one friend, Scorpius Malfoy. Even that friendship is threatened by Harry, who distrusts Scorpius.
- Inverted Trope in The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy, with And Another Thing... giving a Tragic Ending Override to Mostly Harmless's decision to kill everyone (which Adams later regretted).
- The book Holes ends with the juvenile detention facility Camp Green Lake being closed, and turned into a Girl Scout camp. In the companion book Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake, the detention has been reopened, because several state officials read Holes and thought "What a great idea!" Even the original staff gets put back in charge, despite being under investigation, and one even arrested.
- The Hunger Games: The first book ends with Katniss and Peeta winning the Hunger Games and returning to District 12 as heroes. Both are traumatized from their experiences, but at least they can rebuild themselves. The second book, Catching Fire, reveals that Katniss is reeling from her past experiences as the life of a Victor turns out to be no better than a Tribute. Then she and Peeta get reaped again, just as they are beginning to move on. By the end of the book, Katniss is rescued by rebels who secretly sabotage the Games, but finds out that Peeta has been captured by the Capitol, who responds to the sabotage by bombing District 12 to shreds, killing off more than 90% of the population, including many of Katniss' friends and all of Peeta's family.
- At the end of Labyrinth of Reflections, the protagonist develops Neo-like powers both inside the Deep and in the real world (able to tap into the Deep without a modem) and meets his Love Interest at the train station, who turns out to look exactly like her in-Deep avatar. The second novel reveals that most of that was a result of Deep psychosis, although other characters confirm that his powers in the Deep weren't a figment of his imagination. His wife's appearance also matches her avatar, but he never actually met her at the train station, and their marriage is now on the rocks. Furthermore, he lost his powers sometime between the novels and doesn't know how.
- The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs ends with the astronauts repairing their ship and returning triumphantly to Earth, taking with them the moon princess their leader, Julian, has fallen in love with and leaving behind the saboteur who stranded them on the Moon to begin with. In the sequel, the saboteur returns to Earth at the head of a lunarian invasion fleet, takes over the world and kills Julian — all in the first chapter, after which the story skips ahead a century to show life under the invader's yoke. (Burroughs had actually written the atypically grim tale of Earth under alien overlords first, but couldn't find a buyer for it, so wrote The Moon Maid as a more usual Burroughs adventure tale to create demand for the sequel.) If you take into account all the Canon Welding Burroughs did in later years, the lunarian invasion also counts as a happy ending override for the characters of the Tarzan and Pellucidar series, along with several other lesser-known works, or at least for their descendants.
- Though the first book of the Never Again series has only a Bittersweet Ending, it still qualifies for this trope, because it ends with the heroes succeeding in democratizing the world, albeit at the cost of their lives. The Distant Finale clearly implies that they succeeded. However, all of that is ignored in the second book, in which it is revealed that somehow one dictatorship still survived John and Joy's changes to history, and was able to start a nuclear war, Take Over the World, and cause more deaths than all the wars, democides, and dictatorships of the Real-Life twentieth century combined. And all this just to set up a Continuity Reboot.
- One of the earliest example: The Odyssey ends with Odysseus happily reunited with his wife Penelope and their son Telemachus after a long and perilous journey. In The Telegony, the lost sequel and last installment of the The Trojan Cycle, Odysseus is forced to leave for the killing of Penelope's suitors, forgets about Penelope and marries the Queen of Thesprotia Callidice. After the later dies during a battle, Odysseus returns to Ithaca only to be killed by Telegonus the son he had with Circe (absent in the Odyssey) contradicting Tiresias' prophecy that he would die a gentle death in sleek old age.
- In Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Star-Child", the titular Wonder Child finally passed his Secret Test of Character, regains his beauty and discovers his roots as an heir to the kingdom. All would have been well if the story ended with him reigning as a good and merciful king. Instead, the very last line of the text mentions that the new king would die young, and would be replaced by a despot.
- The Paw Thing by Paul Jennings ends with Singenpoo the cat chasing over a hundred mice out of her owner's chicken shop. The owner is so grateful he vows to stop treating her so badly. In the sequel Singenpoo Strikes Again, we find out that this change stuck for about a week or two and the owner is just as cruel as he was before, to the point of denying that Singenpoo had anything to do with saving his business.
- The novel version of The Princess Bride overrides its own happy ending. As the heroes ride off on the white horses, Inigo's wound re-opens, they can hear the prince's hounds getting closer, and the resurrection pill begins to wear off. That part was left out of the "just the good parts" abridgement, and by Peter Falk in the movie.
- The Kid was arguably this for Push; the original book has Precious managing to escape her abusive home and start to make a better life for herself and her son, Abdul. The Kid starts with Precious' funeral and immediately after her death, Abdul's life quickly goes downhill. It's even more sad when you realize that Precious actually managed to give Abdul a good life but that all her efforts were ruined the moment she died.
- Ramona Quimby: Ramona and Her Father, the book in the series that deals with Jobless Parent Drama, ends with the Quimby family ecstatic because Mr. Quimby finally has a new job as a supermarket cashier. But then, in Ramona and Her Mother, it turns out that he hates the job, and after less than a year he quits it to go back to college and try to fulfill his dream of becoming an art teacher, taking a menial part-time job at the supermarket on the side. This leads to another year of financial stress for the Quimbys, albeit less than when Mr. Quimby was unemployed. And ultimately, in Ramona Forever, the only teaching job offer Mr. Quimby gets is at a one-room schoolhouse in a rural town where no one wants to move. So he gives up his dream of teaching art and resigns himself to working as a supermarket manager, which at least he likes better than working as a cashier, and which solves the family's money troubles once and for all.
- Ready Player One ends with Wade becoming filthy rich, achieving worldwide fame, absolute power in the OASIS, and the girl of his dreams. Then comes Ready Player Two, and the girl dumps him in a matter of weeks, growing to hate him over the years due to philosophical differences (although Wade speculated that she was already looking for an excuse to end the relationship due to the reality of real-world relationships once the initial passion wore off). Wade's realization about the real world being important takes a backslide and he goes back to being an OASIS addict. His immaturity turns his fame into infamy. And he goes back to obsessing over another puzzle.
- Record of Lodoss War creator Ryo Mizuno had an idea for a Distant Sequel around 2010, but dithered over whether to actually write it out of concern for overriding the original series' happy ending. He ultimately decided that further exploring the relationship between Parn and Deedlit was worth it, and published the standalone novel Record of Lodoss War: The Crown of the Covenant for the thirtieth anniversary in 2019. In this book, the peace of Lodoss forged by the heroes is shattered by the imperial ambitions of the new king of Flaim, and in response, Prince Lyle of Marmo goes in search of the now-widowed Deedlit in the hope of forming an alliance against King Diaz.
- The Sherlock Holmes spin-off novel The Beast of the Stapletons is written as a sequel to The Hound of the Baskervilles, starting five years after the original case. As the novel begins, Sir Henry's wife Audrey has been killed by the new beast of the moors- apparently a giant blood-sucking moth- leaving Sir Henry half-mad with grief and rage as he tries to protect his three-year-old son Harry from any perceived threat. As the novel concludes, Holmes and Watson learn that the villains were former allies Beryl Stapleton and Doctor James Mortimer. Beryl was driven mad with grief after she returned to South America and witnessed her family's business collapse while she experienced a traumatic miscarriage, fixating on Sir Henry and his family as the cause of her own misfortune. Doctor Mortimer, on the other hand, is revealed to be the stepbrother of Professor Moriarty, seeking to avenge his step-sibling's death at Holmes's hands.
- The original version of Stephen King's The Stand, published in 1978, had a Bittersweet Ending. Flagg's plans to destroy the Boulder Free Zone have been thwarted, Flagg himself has seemingly been eliminated in the annihilation of Las Vegas, and the remaining residents of the Free Zone are left to reconstruct the world and society as best they can....all at a great cost. Then in 1990 came the "Complete and Uncut Edition," which added a brief coda: Flagg's body may have been destroyed, but his essence survived, and he reappears to a tribe of natives to "teach them to be civilized." And Here We Go Again!.
- In the Starchild trilogy by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson the humanity controlled by a totalitarian Plan of Man which is ruled by a supercomputer called the Machine. It's implied however that this is the only way to survive for an enormous population whose expansion is restricted by limitations of ion engines. At the end of the first book the protagonist invents "reactionless drives" and the Machine declares that harsh control is no longer required. However in the second book this decision of the Machine is completely forgotten...May be justified because the events of the first book showed that high-ranking officials of the Plan can influence on the decisions of the Machine and may not be interested in the change.
- Star Wars Legends:
- Following the defeat of the Emperor, over the course of several decades we get repeated Imperial counterattacks, Palpatine returning and briefly converting Luke to the Dark Side, a race of freaky humanoids invading and ravaging the Galaxy (and killing Chewbacca), and most of Han and Leia's children dying or going to the Dark Side. This all comes to a head with the Legacy comics, which have (a somewhat more Federation-like) Empire back on top 130 years after the films. Even the Sith are still a lurking threat.
- On a smaller scale, the Del Rey novels can be considered this for the previous books published by Bantam. The Bantam novels ended with peace actually being made between the Republic and Empire, and the sane Admiral Pellaeon taking control of the latter after a long succession of evil kooks. When Del Rey got the rights, however, they promptly revealed the Yuuzhan Vong, an Outside-Context Problem arguably even worse than the Empire, and had a number of Bantam-era characters (and some movie characters) reduced to cannon fodder or turned evil. Timothy Zahn, the best-regarded Bantam writer, has criticized Del Rey for doing this.
- Tolkien's Legendarium:
- While it was more of a Bittersweet Ending due to many characters, including some of Bilbo's allies, dying in the Battle of Five Armies, The Hobbit ends with Bilbo having taken a level in badass, with a newfound love of adventure and a magic ring as a keepsake of his long and eventful journey with Gandalf and the Dwarves. Then it's revealed early on in The Lord of the Rings that Bilbo's magic ring is really an Artifact of Doom forged by Sauron himself, and that it's corrupting Bilbo in a manner not unlike its corruption of its previous owner: Gollum. This, and the revelation that Bilbo is only the latest in a string of victims seduced by its power, and that it's unnaturally stretched out his lifespan since The Hobbit, casts the events of the previous book in a new and darker light.
- Defied with Tolkien's brief attempt to write a sequel to The Lord of the Rings with the Working Title of The New Shadow
, which had a central plot hook of a Sauron-worshipping cult rising in Gordon due to the implications of Good Is Boring. Tolkien intended it to be a subversion, with the new evil turning out to be a pale imitation of previous ones (continuing the themes of Villain Decay in Rings), but quickly came to feel that the whole thing was simply sinister and depressing and overall uninteresting a story to tell, and this would've just felt like a straightforward Happy Ending Override. So he abandoned it about 13 pages in.
- Troubling A Star by Madeleine L'Engle brings back the fictional country of Vespugia from A Swiftly Tilting Planet and reveals that the events of the latter book only delayed the country's dictatorial government from coming to power by about 10 or 15 years, rather than averting it entirely.
- The first Sword of Truth book has the Seeker fight to defeat the evil tyrant Darken Rahl. When he finally succeeds, a new crisis even worse than Rahl's tyranny takes place in the second book. Eventually, Richard discovers that The Empire he fought against in the first book is nothing compared to the Imperial Order, a massive empire that has somehow remained unknown to everyone within the New World, despite it being right next door.
- In Warrior Cats, the first arc ends on a pure happy ending. The sequel has humans tear down the forest which the story is set in and reveals that the villain is still hanging around from beyond the grave.
- The Witcher: The Last Wish's section "A Question of Price" ends on a high note, with Queen Calanthe of Cintra marrying Eist Tuiseach, king of Skellige, and her daughter Princess Pavetta marrying her true love Duny, while already pregnant with Duny's child. In the several-year interval between The Last Wish and Blood of Elves, Pavetta and Duny are lost at sea, and Cintra is brutally conquered by the invading Nilfgaardians and Calanthe and Eist Tuiseach are killed. However, Pavetta and Duny's daughter Cirella survives and escapes, and is eventually picked up by Geralt.
- In Walter Moers's Zamonia books, there is an In-Universe series of Prince Coldblood adventure novels. It’s mentioned that in every novel, the prince rescues a beautiful princess from a monster, but the same monster kidnaps her all over again at the start of the next instalment, leading to Prince Coldblood setting off to save her again – ad nauseam.
