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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/1635
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Moral ambiguity = the fuel of good literature.

To answer your question in more concrete, and perhaps useful, terms: As all us really old people know, there's really no such thing as a happy ending. Things break down, everyone dies, entropy rules, and so on, blah, blah, blah.

Whether an ending is "happy" or not I've found to be negligible as far as the reading audience is concerned. Whether the ending to a story is SATISFYING or not--there's the rub.

There are two types of satisfying endings, as far as human storytelling goes:

1. The satisfying ending in which the reader's belief that "good conquers all/right always wins" is reinforced in a way that is interesting enough that the reader can't see it coming, and finds that his beliefs are, after all, reinforced by the author at the conclusion of the tale. (After a lot of scary ups and downs during which belief is tested.) 

2. The satisfying ending in which the reader feels that, though the "good guys" didn't "win" there was some sort of equation adjusted, refined, or corrected; in other words, balance was achieved. 

(Note: If we are talking about an epic, saga, or serialization of some type, none of the above applies. Or a manual. That's also a different deal.)

A good story is not really "true to life" and CAN'T really be. The only thing the reader's gonna be reacting to in your story's ending really has nothing to do with "good guys" or "bad guys"--it has everything to do with satisfaction (the reader's). Satisfaction usually is involved not with "good versus evil" but with BALANCE.

To get some idea of what I mean here: Look at one of your favorite paintings. Does it matter which color/shape is "winning"...? or is balance more the thing that makes it satisfying...?

I hope this was helpful.

!w21q2@#e%^2\*(qiphjq yours in Chaos, **_Scarlett_**

Original score: 18