What if neither the protagonist nor antagonist wins?
This may seem like an awkward scenario for a story's ending. My plot revolves around a constant struggle of the protagonist against the antagonist's forces, and eventually the antagonist himself. I've had some trouble finding an appropriate ending - I've already theorized about having the antagonist succeed over the protagonist, subverting a common trope of the "hero always wins" dilemma. However, recently another proposition had also crossed my mind.
What if neither the protagonist nor the antagonist is successful? Is this realistic, as a general idea? Would it be possible for neither side's goals to be accomplished, and in their attempt to fulfill their ambition, they sacrifice themselves and fail as a result? It is indeed partly to give a sense of "unfinished scrutiny" as victory is given to nobody, and failure is awarded to both sides. While the antagonist is no longer a threat, the protagonist is no longer a hero.
I understand that this is only plausible if the two opposing side's motives are not solely to eliminate each other as individuals, in which case both would be the winners. Rather, their influence is what has been left damaged - the protagonist's positive influence has been destroyed, while the antagonist's negative influence has been destroyed as well. Overall, I see this as creating a sort of "neutral" effect - neither good nor bad has come out of the final climactic ending, because of the two ideological opposites that collide with each other and eventually collapse.
Is this kind of scenario technically impossible, because the concept of defeat for either the protagonist or antagonist is dependent on the other's victory?
This kind of concluding effect may seem quite vague and hard to grasp, as I'm not sure as to whether the ending to any story is meant to be based on a black and white perspective of success vs. failure on either side.
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1 answer
Whether you can do this depends on the nature of the villain's goals and the MC's goals. If the villain seeks power, then even if it costs the MC her life, if she prevents the villain from getting power then she has unequivocally won.
For example, in Armageddon; Bruce Willis has to blow up the asteroid. (This is a man-against-nature movie; but it works as an example). His goal, from the beginning, is to fly his team to the asteroid, plant the nuke, and get safely away before detonating it.
But complications happen; the remote detonator gets lost or won't work or something, so somebody has to detonate the nuke by hand. Bruce takes the hit to save his team; there's an emotional end where he says goodbye to his daughter by video, etc. He blows up himself and the asteroid in the nick of time.
So you might say Bruce didn't accomplish his goal, but he accomplished his true implied goal, to save humanity (made personal by saving his daughter's life). It cost more than he planned, but the villain (Nature) was defeated in its plan to wipe out all life on Earth.
This is a general rule for protagonists, no matter what the cost to them, even death, they are considered to have won if they prevented the villain from getting what they want. So in order to defeat the protagonist, you have to let the villain win.
There may be some way around this by playing with the goals; but they would almost have to be disconnected from each other, and then I wonder why the protagonist wants to stop the villain, if the villain's plans won't affect her negatively in any way. Why would she risk her life or time or injury to stop the villain?
An out that you can use here is "partial success." In Star Wars, Vader succeeds in destroying a planet full of people, but the rebels succeed in destroying the death star -- But not Vader, he gets away. Eventually Obi Wan dies too, but his spirit lives on. Star Wars is full of mixed results where nobody wins completely, every win comes with losses.
And individual stories can do the same. It doesn't have to be a "lives happily ever after" ending, the MC can prevail but lose the true love of her life; or stop the plans of the villain but not kill the villain; like Vader he escapes. Or the villain partially succeeds. In fighting competition (IRL) it is very seldom the "victor" escapes unscathed. Instead they are bloody, injured, exhausted and in pain. Victors, but the cost is high. Fiction can emulate life in that respect, at least metaphorically.
So invert "nobody wins", make it so nobody escapes without suffering terrible loss.
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