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Khoshekh6 Since: May, 2022
#1: Dec 31st 2024 at 6:12:46 PM

I just noticed that Earn Your Bad Ending and Earn Your Happy Ending are bad snowclones

They sound like they should be inverses of one another, but Earn Your Bad Ending is a video game specific trope about games where the player has to put significant effort into getting the bad ending, while Earn Your Happy Ending is a general trope about stories where the characters have to go through significant hardships before getting their happy ending

N1KF Alleged Number1KirbyFan (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
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#2: Jan 1st 2025 at 11:20:14 PM

Earn Your Bad Ending makes more sense for video games, because players are more likely to try to earn bad endings than fictional characters. The characters will probably want to avoid a bad ending, even if just for themselves.

Blegh Since: Jan, 2021 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#3: Jan 2nd 2025 at 3:16:41 AM

Earn Your Bad Ending applied to more general media would likely attract complaining. My interpretation of the current definition would be something along the lines of "character made a lot of strange decisions to the point where they seem to want things to end badly".

The problem is that the name implies a closer relation to Earn Your Happy Ending than there actually is, but without evidence of something like misuse or a duplicate trope it's not enough of a reason to rename anything.

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#4: Jan 2nd 2025 at 4:05:04 AM

I would agree with the definitions in OP (a significant effort to reach either good or bad ending) but don't see a problem with one of the tropes being game-specific while the other being media-independent.

rasterax Since: Sep, 2023
#5: Jan 2nd 2025 at 4:14:24 AM

Me neither, seeing that "bad ending" is an established video game-specific term.

Khoshekh6 Since: May, 2022
#6: Jan 2nd 2025 at 5:21:45 AM

Seems like theres been a slight misunderstanding here, because I don't have any issue with the tropes having different definitions

My concern here is the names, since the names make it sound like they are very similar tropes when they aren't

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#7: Jan 2nd 2025 at 6:13:35 AM

Can you expand on the difference beyond the tropes being the inverse of each other? For me, "significant effort" and "go through significant hardships" would describe the same thing in this context.

Edited by eroock on Jan 2nd 2025 at 3:16:45 PM

Khoshekh6 Since: May, 2022
#8: Jan 2nd 2025 at 6:47:43 AM

I think you're focusing on the wrong part of the definitions

One is a video game trope about actions the player has to take, the other is a general narrative trope

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#9: Jan 2nd 2025 at 10:16:39 AM

This comes down to a more general discussion of whether the agency a player has as a protagonist in a game with multiple fixed outcomes is categorically different from that of a protagonist in a narrative with one fixed outcome.

Edited by eroock on Jan 2nd 2025 at 7:35:40 PM

Aquillion Since: Jan, 2001
#10: Jan 2nd 2025 at 8:35:31 PM

Is there any reason to think the names are causing misuse, though?

I guess the main thing, if you want to do a wick check - are people using Earn Your Bad Ending for non-videogame stuff, and if so, how? And if they are, is that usage something that ought to be misuse?

The page itself, at a glance, has some gamebook examples, but I'd classify gamebooks as "videogame-adjacent" to the extent that videogame tropes can apply to them. And the few other examples that aren't strictly videogames seem like mostly LitRPG works or ones with videogame mechanics (like Homestuck), where videogame tropes can likewise apply. "Story with videogame tropes" is part of the definition of LitRPG, after all.

(The one other thing that might have legit examples that don't seem to be listed is tabletop games - there's definitely some tabletop games with obscure or difficult to trigger bad-ending conditions.)

Edited by Aquillion on Jan 2nd 2025 at 8:36:58 AM

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