Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

Tom: in 1960s, 1970s seems like more tolerance, or joy, for really bad ending. why that and why feel like it's changed?

John: easy answer, resistance to being told certain kinds of truths from stories when want something else, can get bad endings anywhere in 2025 (I'm not sure I followed this)

Emmett: sees polarization rather than general preference

Shariann: society changed, then was more economically egalitarian, so idea of everything falling apart was titillating rather than terrifying, or just momentarily terrifying. now, can be satisfying but as reflective of way have to deal with lives. sometimes want something that takes away from what have to face, looks at world from different direction (even if still bad)

Delia: depends on what kind of book, written for so many different reasons. trained by Disney to think fairy tales/folklore ought to have happy ending; expect romance and children's books to have happy endings as well. [me: that's definitional for one of those examples] have seen SFF that's very dark all the way through, reaction: satisfaction, it's an arc and finishes the way supposed to. been like that in 1960s too, always been sad endings. that said, tragedy is narrower, person you can see making consistently bad decisions and bringing upon self

Shariann: Greek tragedy very different definition, choice between two right things that can't be reconciled. find that fascinating challenge, way to delve into character.

John: got distracted, but talking about different kinds of Shakespeare tragedies, inward-facing like Othello, or world-facing where world kills us like in Lear (I think). SFF proclaims itself to be interested in stories where world changes

Tom: asks Emmett about horror.

Emmett: by proclaiming itself as genre about tragedy, self-selecting audience. emotional catharsis comes from sole survivor's redemption, or that there will be a kernel of something that remains. but also all stripes of endings in genre.

Tom: unremittingly grim stories. any favorites among? how explain where no optimism at all? haunted by end of 1984.

Emmett: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of most grim and nihilistic movies, love it, something about acknowledgment of anxiety and worst-case scenario, seeing that played out, was emotional catharsis.

Tom: Hadestown explicitly asks, why the sad stories?

Delia: tremendously human. should think about choices, shouldn't make promises can't deliver on. repeating story, keeps idea of hope and frustration of hope alive. gives empathy which deepens understanding of means to be human.

Tom: marketing aspect: Shariann was told could sell more if had happier endings. also thinks of Peter Watts.

Shariann: I'm not in control. if built world right and characters are truly the characters, can't push them into doing something else.

Emmett: matter of making juice worth the squeeze, journey feel worthwhile.

John: writers hoping to attract and please audience are necessarily becoming skilled in art of counterfactual. people don't want unrealistic, but don't want depressing, but world is so complicated don't know where we are let alone in a story. (I think that's what he was saying.) very difficult to know how to read any story we encounter, have to give great praise to any writer who tries

Tom: protagonists are commoners now unlike classical tragedies, good examples?

John: character in Cities in Space (I think I must have mis-typed this for the Cities in Flight series by James Blish), what happens to him?

Delia: maybe strange example, but Lord of the Rings ending is not exactly what might call a jokefest. one of things about, is persistence in face of despair. experience never leaves Frodo, but world has possibility of healing.

John: what makes us feel that world is going to be better?

Delia: the Shire, we're shown it. also appendices.

(I was not sure what this exchange was about, as it hardly seems possible that John Clute does not know the ending of LotR)

audience: black comedy, The Day of the Locust for example, satire. can something be truly tragic if find it funny?

Tom: "A Boy and His Dog," Harlan Ellison.

audience: Gilliam's Brazil.

John: when get into satire, very likely to be transgressing genre expectations; Handful of Dust (I presume this is the Evelyn Waugh novel?)

audience: "Hell Is the Absence of God," Ted Chiang

audience: fascinated by bad endings that anticipate and come true: Shute, On the Beach. then, Night of Living Dead, where bad ending is surprise, doesn't seem deserved, yet fantastic movie because of that ending.

John: generic (genre-ic) thing. Beach: pleasure of having expectations fulfilled very well.

Emmett: sudden abrupt ending serves to jolt audience out of complacency. Night of Living Dead, signposts social commentary that had been throughout story.

Tom: historical fiction, tension of foreknowledge

audience: as readers, what are elements in tragic endings that keep thinking about or make you come back—your reader patterns

Tom: Beneath the Planet of Apes when blow up planet, can't stop fighting each other even though causes it

John: King Lear, doing everything possible to make the world that the play faces absolutely real, terrible, completed rather than gestured at

Emmett: endings in which brought to care so deeply in main character. Alien.

Shariann: Antigone. might have been in part because it was a girl. but still held own power and held true to herself.