# Don't You Hate it When The Good Guys Win?



## andy.peloquin (Mar 13, 2014)

In recent years, I find myself hating it when the good guys win in the end, and the bad guy gets his due.
While there is a certain amount of satisfaction you get from knowing that a bastard/villain is taken care of, it gets a bit too cliche after a while. It's almost more satisfying to know that the hero doesn't get revenge, or that good doesn't triumph in the end.
For example, in my new novel, the main villain of the piece doesn't actually get killed by the hero. He simply turns and walks off, the hero's companions surrounded by his overwhelming force that is going to kill them. He doesn't get his due, and the hero doesn't get justice.
It's almost too unrealistic when that happens. As much as reality can suck sometimes, it's almost more realistic when the bad guy isn't punished for his crimes. That's the kind of books that I really find myself drawn to these days - none of this epic fantasy where good always triumphs.


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## Steerpike (Mar 13, 2014)

The function of literature isn't always to simply reflect reality or to be realistic in the sense you mean. Historically, it may not even be that important an aspect of literature. So no, it doesn't bother me. I like stories where they don't win as well, but not to like the ones where they do simply because the real world doesn't work that way misunderstands the various other functions of literature.


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## Ireth (Mar 13, 2014)

I'm less likely to enjoy a story if the bad guy wins in the end. It happens all too often in real life. People don't always get what they deserve, whether for the better or the worse. I read and write literature as a form of escapism, and I love when characters earn their happy endings. But if they go through hell and there's no light at the end of the tunnel (or the light ends up being an oncoming train), that's a huge disappointment to me.


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## The Blue Lotus (Mar 13, 2014)

I hate when the bad guys win, there is enough of that IRL and to be honest it is F&$^ing depressing. 
I read to get away and go to a place where there is some measure of balance. The stories where the bad guys win or don't at least get punished somehow do not make it to my reading list. If I want that I'll just watch the news.


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## Noma Galway (Mar 13, 2014)

In my creative writing class, someone wrote a story about child abuse. The major plot was that the girl was scared to tell her mother because she wanted her mother to be happy with her husband. So in the end, she tells her mother, and we see the husband get arrested. That was one of the most satisfying endings I've ever read. Then our teacher says that of course we like seeing that happen, but was that the ending the story needed? I say yes...because it was satisfying. If the husband had gotten away with it, I would have been very upset with the story. 

What I'm trying to say is that whatever ending the story needs is the ending it should get. Good guys, bad guys, in the end they're all people (unless they aren't), and one of them will win. The satisfying ending could go either way.


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## Penpilot (Mar 13, 2014)

No, it doesn't bother me at all. But it doesn't bother me if it goes the other way either. What bothers me is if I feel cheated or tricked at the end.

If the story promises me a happy ending, I want one, not some trick ending that wasn't earned. On the flip side, if it's set up properly and the end is dire and there's really no real possibility of victory, but the good guys prevail because, you know, they're the good guys. They didn't learn any new skills. They just did the impossible because the author wanted them too. Well, then I'll roll my eyes and call BS.


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## andy.peloquin (Mar 14, 2014)

Wow, interesting opinions!


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## Rinzei (Mar 14, 2014)

When things are as simple as good guy vs bad guy, I don't tend to like the bad guy to win, really. All that build-up and investment in my good guys' lives and for what? Nothing, really.

Now, on a similar variation to that, I think it's interesting when the hero doesn't get what they wanted, but what they really needed. I'm having a hard time thinking of a good example to give, but it's that moment where they realise that maybe their ambitions weren't well placed, or they had certain aspirations until they found what they were truly meant to be doing, but never expected it. As someone who thought I'd go one way and went another, I find it easy to relate to those kind of things. You root for the hero to go one way, but they end up somewhere else - and that's still satisfying, if that's what's best for them.


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## McBeardstache the Hairy (Mar 15, 2014)

It's not clichÃ© to see the good guys win, its just the resolution of the story's conflict. If your conflict is that the big bad is overtaking the kingdom and in the end he does that, then that leaves an emptiness for the reader. They want to know what happened after the baddie won, and they probably do want justice. The bad guys winning does not provide a resolution to the conflict of a story, it just creates a whole new one.

Ending the story there denies your reader a sense of closure, and it would make a great cliffhanger if you were planning a sequel, but that just isn't a way to end a story. That's just my opinion.


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## Feo Takahari (Mar 15, 2014)

I want to see a point to your choice of main character. If the story is about a hero, and the hero wins due to his virtues, that's  a reasonable ending to me. Same if he fails due to his flaws. But if nothing changes because of the hero, and neither his virtues nor his flaws have any impact on the narrative, it would probably be more interesting to focus in on someone else instead. (The villain, maybe?)

Of course, that assumes the purpose of your story is to show change. I love _All Quiet on the Western Front_, and the main character of that book doesn't accomplish a whole lot. Still, it's not a story about whether or not things are accomplished--it's simply a portrait of how things happened in a particular time and place, with the nature of that time and place beyond the control of any individual actor.


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