a consummation devoutly to be wished

I’ve always found it curious that two of the highest grossing films of all time (in fact THE highest grossing if you really pay attention to inflation) are a. ‘chick flicks’ and b. stories that end where the girl does not get the guy. I wonder why that is. Do we really not care for the contrived or all too tidy happily ever after? Or is it like my sister always hoped when she went back to watch the much lesser known In Love and War – that this time it was going to end differently? And that’s why she kept going back to it.

There is certainly something compelling about a story that gets its hooks into us. That toys with our hope and gives us a taste of a happier possibility only to provide a near miss. Kind of like an ill-fated crush for the guy who will never like us back, but just gives one enough to keep hoping for another smile or wink. The pursuit is the intoxication… or something like that.

Something like that might make a reader not hate me for ending a story with a consummation devoutly to be wished but assuredly missed? Isn’t that the sort of thing that would leave a reader salivating for the next installment of the story? Frustrated yearning? Yup. And yes, there’s a double meaning in that.

But I am curious, dear readers, how important is a happy ending? Is it less important if there is another segment of the epoch coming along shortly-ish? Does a happy ending make you sad because it means an end? And isn’t conflict… well, infinitely more interesting?