Discussion Main / SnicketWarningLabel

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Misleading title:, started by Enlong on Oct 26th 2010 at 7:20:18 PM

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs a rewrite to be in-universe only, started by CrypticMirror on Feb 22nd 2011 at 5:14:35 PM

This page is full of examples that are completely made-up and never happened. I just cut all these entries that never mentioned anything about a warning at all. People, the trope is about the story warning you not to continue. If it doesn't happen, it's not an example. You don't get to give your own warnings and say the trope now magically appears in the work. That's like shouting your name out when the credits are rolling and saying it means you were in the film. No. Just... No.

If any of these are real examples, add them onto the page and actually mention how the trope is used this time.

Here's my cuts up to Literature. Note that the Film section has now disappeared completely.

Anime & Manga

• Episode 26 of Wolfs Rain is a perfectly good end to the show and even comes with epilogue scenes behind the end credits. If you keep watching, things go downhill quickly.
• Episode 15 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann functions as a perfectly serviceable happy ending for the series, with only one notable loose end namely, Lordgenome's ominous prophecy that the moon would become "hell's messenger" once the human population reached 1,000,000. Episode 27 is the series' real ending, and is a great deal more bittersweet, but it comes after quite possibly the most epic throwdown in animation history. Which in turn comes after a long, depressing sequence involving a borderline Face–Heel Turn and circumstances conspiring in a (useless) attempt to crush the spirit out of the protagonist. The question you must ask yourself is this: is watching two giant robots the size of galaxies duking it out for the fate of the universe worth watching the protagonist's adorable fiancee turned into a brainwashed messenger of Scary Dogmatic Aliens and the protagonist himself thrown in prison by his former friend for the collateral damage he caused to the city? If so, you're only cheating yourself by not watching the whole series.
  • And even then, several people will just stop watching a couple of minutes before the ending of the last episode.
• Death Note has similar closure at its halfway point. Whether or not the second half is as good as the first is up for debate.
  • Of course, whether the middle is a happy ending or not is up for grabs too, seeing as every criminal and suspected criminal, including people who were framed or only suspected, is about to be executed by Kira, followed by him planning to be set up as a god for the rest of his life.
• Petite Princess Yucie inverts this. The 25th episode ends with Yucie's memory of the other four girls erased so that she can make the wish in order to save Prince Arc and prevent the power of the tiara from destroying the Human World, despite the fact that this will kill the other four, and "end of the series" non-standard credits playing over Yucie, unconscious, departing the remains of the sixth world and the four girls making a small carving on a wall of the five of them before sacrificing themselves. The last episode is instead her attempts to remember precisely what it is she's forgotten, culminating in the miraculous restoration of the other four girls. Why yes, it is made by Gainax.
• The Ringing Bell Of Chirin. Oh, boy is this Anime movie/special full of this trope. You want a Bittersweet Ending? Stop watching the movie after Chirin (a sheep) decides to stay with the Wolf King (A wolf who KILLED Chirin's own mother) whom Chirin considers as a father figure (Ironic, considering that Chirin only wanted the wolf to train him how to fight just so he could kill the Wolf King himself).
  • If you want the Downer Ending, well be prepared for Chirin and the Wolf King go back to the VERY field where Chirin once lived and where his mother had been murdered. Chirin cannot bring himself to kill a sheep, and realizes that it was to protect his fellow sheep was why he went to find the Wolf King in the first place. Both Chirin and the Wolf King fight one another, and Chirin kills the Wolf King by impaling him. The Wolf King tells Chirin that he's proud of him for becoming so strong and that he always knew that he'd die fighting someone stronger. Unfortunately for Chirin, the other sheep think he's a monster. Realizing that he has become a monster and that the Wolf King (the only one who accepted him for who he is) has died, Chirin heads to the mountains where it's HEAVILY implied that he died alone in a blizzard. Wasn't that a fun movie about a cute little lamb, kids?
• Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni at the end of the first season (Tsumihoroboshi-hen, the Atonement Chapter) has one of the most heartwarming moments imaginable in a world where the main Nakama keep going insane and killing each other. Everybody Lives! Oh my god! ...Come on, you didn't actually buy that, did you? Remember what series you're talking about. In case The Stinger to that episode didn't drive the point home, the arc concludes in the second season premiere, where it's wrapped up with what basically sums up to "And then everyone died the next day when poison gas enveloped the entire village. Rena, the sole survivor, predicted this would happen, but her friends convinced her it was nonsense. She never recovers from the psychological trauma." !
• Scryed has a perfectly happy ending by episode 25. Episode 26 has everyone fighting again.
• The anime adaptation of Tokko has everything resolved by 20 minutes into the last episode. Unfortunately, the episode is 22 minutes long.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, makes much more sense if you stop watching it at the end of episode 24. Sure it is far from a happy ending, but at least it's comprehensible.
  • What's more, watching the Gainax Ending of the last two episodes of the series is, even if less than comprehensible, infinitely more optimistic (and that's saying something) and less depressing than the End of Evangelion.
    • I emphatically disagree. The movie has Shinji being told that as long as there's life, there's a possibility to find love and happiness. It also gives all the characters (aside from poor Kaji of course) a chance to come back more well-adjusted than they had been beforehand. In other words, HUMANITY LEARNS WHAT ITS MISTAKES WERE AND IS GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE. You'd have to have fallen off the cynical end to think that's a bad ending. Bittersweet? Sure. Bad? Nope.
• School Rumble chapter 84 ended with the phrase "The End (A Lie)"
• Gao Gai Gar has one of these. One would think it's the final episode, where Guy's love interest becomes a new super-Zonder, scraps Gao Gai Gar, and threatens to destroy the world, but that's resolved on an unmistakably happy note. No, the REAL instance is the entire OVA — while skipping it means you miss something that takes the series and turns it up to eleven, it ends on a heartbreakingly bittersweet note, with the entire robot cast hammered into scrap and may be dead, and all of the Gutsy Galaxy Guard trapped in an alternate universe which is about to close and cease to exist. After a Hot-Blooded series which took great pains to avoid this kind of thing, the Tear Jerker Bittersweet Ending is harsh.
• In the actual Berserk anime, this might apply for episode 18, right up to the point where Guts leaves the Band of the Hawk, or else, while still a Bittersweet Ending (as Griffith is crippled and disfigured from torture), episode 22 until all hell starts breaking loose for the three final episodes.
• Absolute Boyfriend could easily have ended after chapter 32, the second to last chapter. Though Night getting magically repaired by having sex is really a Deus ex Machina, the final chapter is just a Diabolus ex Machina.
• The Boys' Love manga Boys Love (now there's an inventive title) ends with the protagonist and the Troubled, but Cute Love Interest finally hooking up after much angst and heatbreak, and it seems like a Happy Ending is about to ensue, but in the last 20 pages The Rival becomes consumed with jealousy and stabs the love interest, who dies in the protagonist's arms, converting the book into an excruciating Tearjerker.
• The storyline of episode 09 of Figure17 appears to end on an extremely positive note, with Tsubasa becoming friends (and possibly more) with Shou during their "date", relieving much of the anxiety she was feeling at that point in the series. However, the episode keeps going for long enough to depict Tsubasa arriving at school the next day and learning that Shou died suddenly from his chronic illness during the night.
• Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure part 6: Stone Ocean...Only 1 member of the entire cast lives...for a pleasant, alternate ending, tell yourself, when you get to the Stairway To Heaven/Made In Heaven chapter, Pucci's glowing because he will harmlessly explode and everyone lives Happily Ever After.
• Episode 22 of Romeo X Juliet ends on a perfectly plausible but bittersweet high note. Big Bad Lord Montague is dead, the civil war tearing Neo Verona apart is over, Juliet has taken her rightful place on the throne, the ruling Capulet dynasty has been restored, and most important of all she's now free to live Happily Ever After with Romeo. Then GONZO remembered at the last minute it was adapting Romeo and freakin' Juliet, so episodes 23 and 24 are dedicated to tearing down and pissing on Romeo and Juliet's well-earned happy ending.
• Some fans like to consider that the movie of Cowboy Bebop (Placed between episodes 22 and 23) was the real ending of the series.
• The last OVA for Hunter X Hunter ends in Gon and Killua teleporting in front of a tree, with a shadow fishing out in the lake. The shadow starts to turn as the episode ends, and Gon's stunned reaction makes it look like he just might have found his father. Those who read the manga however will know that said shadow is Kite, Ging's protege
• Inverted in Kannazuki No Miko. Chikane's Xanatos Gambit paid off, the world is saved and her girlfriend Himeko gets to live in a peaceful world... at the cost of her Ret-Gone'd. Even Himeko is unable to remember her, despite having promised so. The end, the credits roll over. AND THEN, we see Himeko reunited with Chikane in a bustling city. Of course, since they endlessly reincarnates, we're not sure whether the reunion happens in this timeline or not.

Comic Books

• an issue of "Zot!" had an inversion of this. The issue dealt with Terry, a minor character, struggling with her homosexuality, unable to admit it to anyone, least of all the girl that she likes. The issue ends with her sadly walking past said girl, ignoring her as she says hi. The next page is the letters page...the next page after THAT is Terry turning around and mustering up enough courage to go and talk to her crush. Unfortunately many fans didn't realize this happened, and thought the story had a Downer Ending

Film

• In Brazil, Sam's escape from Information Retrieval is revealed to be All Just a Dream. He is actually still in the torture chamber in a state of catatonia. In an infamous bit of Executive Meddling, Universal subverted this trope by releasing a cut (referred to in the Criterion edition as the "Love Conquers All" version) that leaves out The Reveal so as to make the ending an unambiguously happy one.
  • The interesting thing is, Gilliam the director considers it very much an open question as to whether the true ending is a Bad Ending or a Happy Ending. Given what the movie has been like, you can make a case that it's still a Happy Ending, and who is to say you're not right?
• The ending of Bridge To Terabithia (the book and its film adaptation) is unexpected. It likely shocked many parents who didn't read the novel and were expecting to take their kids to a joyful film.
  • A good place to stop it though is after the climatic battle the kids had. Assuming you are still thinking the movie was a fantasy the whole time.
• Dawn Of The Dead (2004) originally ended on a ambiguous bittersweet note. Test audiences complained and so an extra segment was filmed and tacked onto the credits, showing what happens when the cast's escape-boat reaches its island destination.
• The film Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla ends on a bittersweet note: Godzilla is defeated, but still alive. The hero Kiryu is damaged, but still functional. Japan is safe for now. But, if you wish to at least keep the Bitter Sweet Ending, I suggest you don't watch the sequel, Tokyo SOS.
• A variation of this can be seen if you watch either the original Japanese dub or the American-English dub of Gojira aka Godzilla: King of the Monsters.''. Whereas the American-English dub of the film has a Bitter Sweet Ending consisting of Godzilla dying at the end and Japan being saved from his wrath. (Albeit, with the tragic sacrifice of Dr. Serizawa.), the original Japanese dub has a Downer Ending in which not only do Godzilla and Serizawa die at the end, but it's HEAVILY implied that Godzilla wasn't the only member of his species. In other words, Serizawa's sacrifice was all in vain.
  • Then Godzilla became a superhero, saved the world a dozen times and made friends with a robot, several dinosaurs and a bug, and everyone lived happily ever after.
• A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is an inversion; to many viewers, the Bittersweet Ending feels tacked on after the apparent Downer Ending.
  • Depends. The second ending is waaaay more depressing, and stopping at the first (David talking to the Blue Fairy statue) seems enough.
• The movie The Golden Compass leaves out the final chapters of the book, and moves the rest of the events at Svalbard to earlier in the movie, so the movie ends on a more upbeat tone. And since the movie didn't do too well, a sequel looks unlikely...
• One could probably stop viewing Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid after Butch and Sundance leave for Bolivia in the first place, and thus not have to deal with the Bolivian Army Ending.
• If you've seen the made-for-TV movie Star Wars spinoff The Ewok Adventure, and want to believe the protagonists and their parents (who they rescued from the monster) live happily ever after, then DO NOT see the sequel The Battle for Endor, in which one of the first movie's protagonists and both of the parents get killed off within the first ten minutes, leaving the youngest all alone until she meets Wilford Brimley's character. The first movie, on the other hand, ends with the family still stranded on Endor, but alive and well.
• Inversion: Requiem For A Dream faced heavy criticism from Moral Guardians who thought the movie's message was "Drugs are good!" They clearly, CLEARLY didn't watch past the end of the first act.
• When the lead girl is happy in a house in the nature, STOP WATCHING Dario Argento's Opera. Trust me.
• If you stop watching Back To The Future Part II after Marty burns Gray's Sports Almanac, it's a self-contained film, albeit with the hanging thread of old Marty being fired in 2015. Keep watching and you'll be left with a Cliffhanger setting up Part III. (The same could be said of the original, except its ending wasn't intended to set up a sequel.)
• The ending of the original The Italian Job. (not to be confused with the later version). To be fair, it was designed to set up a sequel, but the sequel never came.
• On Her Majestys Secret Service. We have all the time in the world...
• If you want to believe that Newt, Hicks, Bishop, and Ripley all safely make it home to Earth and live happily ever after, just watch Aliens, and don't watch Alien 3. In fact, don't watch it anyway.
• Finishing The Lost World: Jurassic Park when Malcolm & Co. are leaving in a helicopter solves most of the plot. Continuing to watch, the dinos are sent to mainland, and silliness ensues (T-Rex in a Godzilla-like rampage!).
  • How is that a bad thing?
• The Dark Knight has two endings. One is where The Joker almost kills Batman on a highway and Officer Gordon comes in to rescue him, thereby capturing The Joker and all would be well in Gotham. Then comes the whole Harvey Dent thing.
  • Of course if it had ended there the Joker's role in the story would have been reduced to that of just a colorful thug and the characterization would have lost something.
  • Or the movie could have ended with the Joker being captured (for real this time) after the whole ferry boat thing and left Two-Face as a Sequel Hook. Then you get to miss the death of Harvey Dent and an extraneous Title Drop.
• For those that prefer a happy ending in their thriller/horror films, stop watching The Ring right after the resolution scenes of the little girl's remains being appropriately removed from her imprisoning well/deathtrap (before Rachel returns home to find Aiden waking from nightmares). There is a decently long black-screen moment between scenes (during which many theater audiences started to leave before realizing that the movie had not ended) in which to make a perfect escape from the movie still believing it to be nothing more than an incredibly creepy mystery story that has been well resolved (as opposed to an even more creepy horror thriller that proclaims that sometimes evil cannot be redeemed and in fact, in its own subtle way, sometimes wins).
• The movie The Green Card needs to be ended about five minutes before the end credits start to roll in order to avert the Downer Ending. American Bronte and her French husband, George, finally realize they might have a real marriage when, after spending days living together in order to fool Immigration officials that their Citizenship Marriage was actually genuine, they find they really do love each other. Bronte waits for George in the Afrika Café. They spot each other through the window and fall into each other's arms. Happy Ending achieved. Until Bronte spots the Immigration agents waiting to take George to the airport for immediate deportation back to France because they've realized the original marriage wasn't legitimate.
• In the film Road to Perdition, be sure to quickly turn off the TV when the Sullivans move to the new house and all is well - leaving the film on will thus lead to Sullivan Sr. being killed by a re-appearing Maguire, and Sullivan Jr. moving to the farm where they stayed prior, resulting in a Semi-Downer Ending.
• Train Man does this. After Train Man successfully woos Hermes, we cut to Train Man, pre-makeover, waking up on the subway - it was all a dream. But, if you stick around after the credits, you see a more uplifting end.
• There will come a point in Atonement, both film and book, where the narrative suddenly switches to the present. Just walk away. You don't want to know what happens, just walk away.
• Stop watching Drag Me To Hell after Christine buries her envelope in Ganush's grave, gets a promotion, and is about to be proposed to.
• If you're watching a campy low-budget Italian horror flick and "Screenplay by (or 'Directed by') Claudio Fragasso" comes up in the opening credits, be prepared for an abrupt and ill-fitting Downer Ending.
• Pay It Forward - stop watching it when the mom and the teacher start to kiss, after the interview. You had a pretty good movie, with lots of corn. What happens after that is not just stupid, but unnecessary.
• As a short story, The Mist ended on a Bolivian Army Ending. The movie goes through that ending, has a couple minutes more of resolution, then turns into a Shoot the Shaggy Dog (which incidentally would have been a happy ending if the main characters had decided to keep fighting rather than end their struggle.)
• Remember Me - stop the movie as soon as Tyler looks outside the office window. unless you figured out what date the scene takes place on.
• You can stop watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) when Makoto is walking up the hill from the railroad crossing after getting Kousuke and Kaho together. Keep watching when she gets a call from Chiaki, and you'll get to a slightly confusing Bittersweet Ending.
• Moulin Rouge - In something that should come as a surprise to no one who paid attention to the very first spoken line of the movie, Satine, the love of the narrator Christian's life dies of tuberculosis just after their grand ending song is finished, "Come What May". If you stop the movie just as the curtains close, you'll be left feeling elated and a renewed belief in the Power of Love. Keep it going a second later, and all of it comes crashing down into a Downer Ending.
• Books by Nicholas Sparks tend to be this way, and their movie adaptations follow accordingly. If you're watching The Notebook and reach the part where Allie goes back to Noah after breaking up with her fiancé, you have your happy ending. You can already guess who the old man and the old woman are, so there's no need for you to continue watching. Just walk out of the theatre. Really.
• If you're watching [[Superman]] II: The Richard Donner Cut, skip to the end credits after Superman leaves Lois on the roof and you get an infinitely more coherent ending. Still something of a downer, though.
• Inverted in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. If you want a Downer Ending that feels dramatically satisfying and in keeping with what's been set up over the previous two hours (i.e. Gordon Gekko is a Magnificent Bastard who you CANNOT trust), stop the film about five minutes before the end credits. If you'd rather a shiny-happy ending where all the characters' issues get suddenly resolved for no adequately explained reason  ^*
  ^{Read: "Was changed for the theatrical release"}
  , then by all means, watch through to the end.

Interactive Fiction

• Infidel is somewhat infamous as being one of only two works of Interactive Fiction by Infocom to have a Downer Ending. However, as some have pointed out, one can get all 400 points by unlocking the sarcophagus. They don't have to open the sarcophagus (thus triggering the Diabolus ex Machina that traps them in the Burial Chamber to die) to finish with the maximum points. Instead, they can just collect the minor treasures at this point, leave the pyramid, and type QUIT.
  • Of course, as has been pointed out, Fridge Logic makes it pretty obvious that trapped in the middle of the desert with no crew and no supplies with which to make it back to civilization (and with your old crew actively hating you and wanting you to die and therefore unlikely to get anyone to send a rescue party anytime soon) you're pretty much done for anyway. Part of the point here is that your character is too obsessed/blind/stupid to understand this and that the fact that he's still looking for the treasure rather than a means to escape the dig site is symptomatic of the screwed-up attitude that got him in this mess in the first place.
  • Hey, the message from the crew clearly states "We have left you what you need to get back, though we hope you do not." They leave you a heap of jerky, the entire river Nile of water and a navigation box. Only your greed stands in your way.

Literature

• In Charles Saunders's short story Shiminege's Mask, it's possible to stop reading after the heroine rescues the sacrificial maiden by way of a Batman Gambit and moves on. However, in the last few paragraphs, the maiden - not realizing that everyone else in her tribe is a lemming (she herself is a lamb) - decides to tell them what really happened. And attempt civil disobedience. And destroy a sacred relic...which gets her immediately branded a dangerous heretic and executed.
• You can pretty much stop reading Star Wars Expanded Universe novels chronology-wise after Vision of the Future and feel satisfied. It ends with Luke and Mara falling in love and planning to get married, Han and Leia thwarting one of The Empire's final dastardly schemes, and Admiral Pellaeon negotiating a truce between the Republic and The Empire. the next book, Vector Prime ends with Scary Dogmatic Aliens dropping a moon on Chewie. And then It Got Worse...
• Life Of Pi is an interesting example. The framing device of the story is that a boy who survived a shipwreck is telling the story of what happened. The story can begin and end completely separately of the framing device, but if you read the second half of the framing device, you get a different and far more disturbing possible version of events. Readers are openly invited to choose which one they prefer.
  • Since it's double framed, though, it's really a guy telling a story about someone he met who told him two stories.
• Inverted in the penultimate James Bond novel, You Only Live Twice. Near the end, it would be very easy to stop with a Bittersweet Ending: Blofeld dead, the last vestiges of his empire destroyed, Tracy avenged, and Bond plummeting to an uncertain doom, followed by his MI6 "Killed In Action" report. Reading on reveals Bond's survival followed by a cliffhanger ending, leading into a final book (rather less impressive, for a variety of reasons) with a happier conclusion.
• All Quiet on the Western Front's two-paragraph last chapter lets many people create their own accidental Snicket Warning Label. Depending on your edition of the book, this last page can be easy to miss, on its own page after the story seems to have ended. If you think you have read the whole book, do you remember how the protagonist dies at the end?
• The Dark Elf Trilogy has its first book (Homeland) end with Drizzt escaping the clutches of his Big, Screwed-Up Family and heading toward the surface world. Sounds pretty pleasant until you learn in the second book (Exile) that he is still in the underground world of the Underdark, forced to rely on instinct to survive and slowly losing his humanity (well, the dark elf version of humanity); and did I forget to mention that his family is chasing after him so that they can sacrifice him to the evil goddess?
• Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell To Arms" is tense but generally cheerful up to the last three chapters, then...everything goes to hell.
• His Dark Materials: The Protagonists save the world, the tyrant of Heaven is defeated, and everyone's happy. All's left now is for the two just-realised-they're-in-love heroes to work out how they can live in all the wonderful universes they've found... then an angel comes around and announces that they have to return to their respective universes, or else, and can never see each other again.
• Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance: About 50-100 pages before the end of this (very long) book, when everything is looking up for the four protagonists, just stop. You can pretend it keeps on going well for them if you don't read the rest.
• Koji Sazuki's Ring: Stop when you reach part four, which starts after Asakawa pulls Sadako's remains out of the well and passes his deadline - granted, you'll miss out on the sequels, but everything seems wrapped up and you can pretend everything returns to normal in exchange for an open, downer ending.
• The Bible. Skip the Book of Revelations if you don't want to see the Trope Namer of Storyboarding the Apocalypse.