Tragedy vs Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy

Crafting a good tragedy that attracts and keeps an audience is difficult, perhaps even more difficult than crafting a story with a happy ending. After all, most everyone is a sucker for a happy ending! The other problem with writing tragedy is that different people have different tolerances for the dark and depressing. Some people can't stand anything that doesn't have a happy ending, while others devour media in which everybody dies at the end. That being said, what do you guys think makes a good tragedy? What separates the tragedies from plots that are just plain depressing and not worth getting invested in?

This might just be an individual quirk but I find it helps to know what I'm getting into. Even if I don't know exactly how the movie/book/game/whatever ends, if I know it doesn't have a happy ending ahead of time (or if it's strongly hinted at) then I find tragic endings easier to swallow. One might suggest putting in the occasional humorous or cheerful moment to break up the depressing plotline, but I would argue that too many Hope Spots can make a depressing ending intolerable. After all, you get your hopes up only to get them dashed at the end when all your favorite characters die. That's not fun. It's somewhat like eating a spoonful of sugar before drinking bitter coffee. The sugar doesn't make the coffee more tolerable, it just makes it taste even more bitter! Although, if you add the sugar to the coffee instead of eating it straight beforehand, that might actually make it taste better. Hmm, perhaps not the best analogy... Lol, well anyway, like I said, what do you guys think makes for a good tragedy? Any examples? How about examples of tragedies or unhappy endings executed poorly? I look forward to reading your responses and discussing this topic with all of you!

This reads like something that should be in the Writers Block forum.

I apologize if this is not the proper format but I couldn't find any sort of "reply" button. You said you think this belongs in the Writer's Block forum? How come? I'm not looking for any writing advice, I just wanted to discuss what makes a good tragedy. Not trying to be rude, btw, I'm just trying to explain why this topic belongs in the Trope Talk forum. Though I suppose if a mod disagrees then they are welcome to move it to the appropriate forum and I'd be much obliged.

^ Well, this is more to discuss actual tropes and their meaning and stuff; wiki-related things more than open-ended discussions about genres.

Writers Block just seems more appropriate because it's a conversation about a genre.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is one of the most misunderstood tropes on the wiki. It is not "story is dark", or "bad things happen to characters", or "characters are unsympathetic", or "I'm mad because the story didn't go how I wanted".

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, but it works because you care deeply about the characters even though you know they are doomed. To really qualify for DIAA, a story must:

• Be in a setting where nothing the characters do can meaningfully change things for the better. In other words, shit's fucked, shit will always be fucked, and thus there are no stakes. (In R&J, the deaths of the protagonists cause the two families to reconcile.)
• Have no relatable or sympathetic characters, or at the very least kill off any such characters or make their struggles pointless. (The audience becomes deeply invested in the love story in R&J even knowing its outcome.)

If it doesn't have at least those two elements, it cannot be the trope no matter what anyone thinks.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 4th 2020 at 12:13:47 PM