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In art, sentimentality is considered one of the cardinal sins. This may be because we sense that the artist is betraying his art to allow himself to leak into the art. The bad artist tries to create his own private utopia instead of staying true to the artistic vision, which requires truth, if truth looked at from a different angle.
An equally unforgivable sin, likewise, is the sin of a depressing ending. Now don't go thinking that I merely dislike sadness or tragedy in a story. Some of the most beautiful pieces of art depend on great loss. What I'm talking about is ugly, base, senseless, gratuitous unhappiness.
Now, I confess that my temperament may predispose me to a sensitivity to this sort of storytelling. I allow myself to be moved by art and even (sometimes especially) shitty art can wreak havoc on me. I'm sponsoring a team in a reading competition and, to help them prepare, I read a YA novel called Half-Brother. It was pretty crappily written, but I soldiered on. At a certain point, it became obvious,though, that the hero of the story (at the ripe age of 14) was going to have heart ripped out in a flimsily written romance arc. Did we then explore his inner feelings and how he overcame this? Nah, we're not about that. (I'm really starting to hate these minimalistic, first person novels that seem so en vogue nowadays.) But now, like some shitty taffy that won't get out of my teeth, I'm stuck with this tableau of heartache and humiliation, along with the reminder of how awfully written the book was.
I think the main reason, I hate this sort of story telling is that, like the sentimental story, it tells a lie through art. Life mocks the nihilist; even if one person's tale ends tragically, with no redemption, new life will spring from their bones. Life doesn't care.Life just keeps on trucking. A story presented in a fixed medium, however, does not. It stays the same, repeating the same narrative for eternity. For the protagonist of that shitty book I read, there is no healing, no getting over it, no realization of the better love the book hints at. He's just crushed until the memory of the tale blows away in the sand.
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Maybe this feeling was what he was trying to convey?
This frustration that you have right now was the inner turmoil the writer was having 
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Just rewrite it. If it is a cardinal sin, and the author is burning in hell for it, in your perception, then help him.
Save him, rewrite it and strike one unit of measure of damnation off his sentence; the one he got for making you impersonate the art pope.
..cardinal sin in art .. pff
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A Simple Plan (Thornton, Fonda) ended with ugly, base, senseless, gratuitous unhappiness. it was still a great movie.
Bridgette Fonda is really under rated.
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United States15275 Posts
On November 03 2016 13:49 Jerubaal wrote:In art, sentimentality is considered one of the cardinal sins. This may be because we sense that the artist is betraying his art to allow himself to leak into the art. The bad artist tries to create his own private utopia instead of staying true to the artistic vision, which requires truth, if truth looked at from a different angle.
I don't know about sentimentality. There's a thin line between being sentimental and saccharine/willfully naive, so it's more a matter of tone than anything else. I wouldn't deny the craft of Jurassic Park just because Spielberg likes mushy moments.
On November 03 2016 13:49 Jerubaal wrote:
For the protagonist of that shitty book I read, there is no healing, no getting over it, no realization of the better love the book hints at.
I haven't read this book but are you sure the book is promoting this view, or the protagonist's POV? For a 14 year old, the flimsiness of a "romance" (real or imagined) is irrelevant next to the importance he/she attaches to it. That person can't conceive of getting over what feels like the most important, necessary thing in their life. And it's odd to expect that introspection will drive the person to get over it. Time, and other possible romances, are usually the key factors.
Alternatively, the writer is pandering to that common feeling in his readership.
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I admit that the author's skill and tone play a great role in this determination. A grand epic or a moving character piece can accommodate these heartbreaks much better than a vapid YA novel. I'm not arguing against tragedy. Tragedy requires skill though. I absolutely LOATHED "A Good Man is Hard to Find" for about a week. How could a person write something so horrible? I kept rereading it, though, until it made sense.
I recommend the movie Lake Placid for the wonderful juxtaposition of Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt and Brendan Gleeson.
As readers, we can make these outside observations about the shortsightedness of youth. Unless the author somehow intimates that to us, however, we can't really let that enter the analysis of the book..only our meta analysis (hehe).
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I was about to say that I like tragic endings far more than happy ones. The final sacrifice more often than not has a large impact on me, far larger than most happy endings.
@other sad endings:
Loss and death are part of life and as such should be part of stories. And they are great tools for a good storywriter.
While life may mock the nihilist a human story can't mock it. Because the end is actually the end of the story, at least as far as we can tell it. So even if it's not an epos I still think that a negative ending holds value, for both realism as well as feeling.
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just get out there and do something. buy a 100,000 sq. foot frank lloyd wright mansion, a fleet of cars, twenty different varieties of lsd and hash, a big garden, an indoor swimming pool, ivanka trump, a statue of jesus christ, a meditation sphere, a tropical isle on tatooine, it can't be that hard
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The main character getting crushed, while having no hope left is a good end in my opinion. It reflects life more often than not (though, the historic context does matter). Seeing good endings all the time is terribly unrealistic and those seem more like attempts to heal people currently experiencing the issues described.
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well that's for fucking sure. the last great ending was the frozen throne valhalla where all the characters became super powerful by traveling to the dark realm and fighting things in the dark realm. SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE IN REAL LIFE THE STUFF IN THE DARK REALM HAS CONQUERED MORTAL MAN'S WILL TO FIGHT BACK. or no?
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EPT
