Tolkien's The Children of Hurin definitely deserves a mention.
Nienor finds her husband (Turin) seemingly dead, learns from Glaurung that her husband is actually her brother, and that she's pregnant with her brother's child, whereupon she kills herself. Shortly afterwards, Turin regains consciousness, learns that she was his sister and that she's dead, and kills himself as well. After these events, Hurin (their father), having finally been released after 20 years of imprisonment, is finally reunited with Morwen (his wife and Turin and Nienor's mother) at the tomb of their children. She then dies at sunset.
Oh, I forgot about movies. For that, I have to say Pan's Labyrinth.
Ophelia, the young protagonist, escapes forever into the fantasy which had enabled her to endure the brutality and inhumanity of the Spanish Civil War, as a result of a fatal gunshot wound.
A while ago I read bridge to terribithia
<spoiler= DONT CLICK ME UNLESS YOU LIKE TO BE SPOILED> after reading it I just kinda sat there. Thinking to myself "How something like that happen to a girl as lively as her." The way it happened was even worse. Using their escape from the real world, she ultimately escaped it forever. Damn they should never make a movie of this.
Surely that's one of the titles, particularly after the movie which came out a couple years ago now, that everyone already knows the twist to, though? Even I do and I've never even seen a physical copy of either flavour, much less read/watched it.
Same as 1984. It's not going to be a shock to anyone.
Besides, as far as I understand, the event of which you speak actually happens about half to 2/3rds the way through, and the rest of the book is
Cormac McCarthy's The Road ended on a pretty bitter note.
If I recall correctly, it ended with the child laying with his father's corpse, crying. Then being taken away by a strange family whose motives are left ambiguous.
Where the Red Fern Grows was possibly one of the best worst ways to introduce the world of American fiction to a grade 3 class.
Not only do the protagonist's family have to give up their hard-earned family land because they are up to their eyeballs in debt durring the onset of what I am assuming is the great depression or something of similar magnitude because they can't support themselves and create a livelyhood in the long-dead American West, but the boy's dog is ripped appart by a cougar, and dies with his entrails seeping out of his body. Then his OTHER dog dies... OF A BROKEN HEART! WTF!
Actually, especially Brave New World. That was a sad, disturbing, but amazing book.
Nothing is accomplished by the sad, pathetic main character. He gets what he wants, which is recognition (albeit slight). The "savage" who he goes out to rescue cannot cope with the modern society, and also is unable to cope with his love for one of the other main characters. He kills himself, brutally, at the end when he realises that one night when he was on a frenzy he beat the girl he loved half to death.
EDIT: 1984 didn't really make me as sad as these two. I don't know why, I guess it's because the main character at the end is (sort of) at peace.
The Hounds of Avalon part of The Dark Age series one big ass battle set in fantsy would then right when it all looks like its going to get shit for the hero's and the big bad guy is about to arive and will distory realty and u just know some one is going to kick his ass wenh he gets there because thats what alsways happens in fantsy but no turns out he was the like a year ealyer and had got the govement that the heros were defending to betray them an the big bad guy had been in the celler the whole time and was just well toying wit them then he just walks out gose i win and changes realty back to normal (with out magic and dragons n stuff) and put all the heros in there own lightle hell also no one rembers the magic and stuff (e.g. the 2 that love each other work in the sam building but can not talk to each other) it kinda sad puc it tock 6 over 300 page books to get to this point so the righter turns realty back to normal
there are 3 more books now that still make it a sad ending but not as sad as they continy the story
Pretty much everyone dies, except the sons of (murdered) King Macduff, after having a shitty time of it all, being driven mad by various visions and hallucinations. It is largely a tale of people getting their just deserts, but it's still bleak.
Yeah, to be honest I didn't really feel sorry for Lady or Lord Macbeth. She was power hungry and he was an idiot. The scene that really set off my sense of apathy for those two was when Macbeth had just barley came back from the war and his wife just only says "Hi honey welcome back. You gotta get ready for tonight because I want you to kill the king.", and his only response was "Uh..." (paraphrasing for the internet =P)
Oh, I forgot about movies. For that, I have to say Pan's Labyrinth.
Ophelia, the young protagonist, escapes forever into the fantasy which had enabled her to endure the brutality and inhumanity of the Spanish Civil War, as a result of a fatal gunshot wound.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road ended on a pretty bitter note.
If I recall correctly, it ended with the child laying with his father's corpse, crying. Then being taken away by a strange family whose motives are left ambiguous.
Let's start from early on... "Citizen Kane". "Casablanca". "Quadrophenia". "The Poseidon Adventure". "Magnolia". "The Usual Suspects". (Yeah, think about it. What happens to Gabriel Byrne's character in that movie?) And talking of depressing off-screen deaths... "No Country for Old Men". Then you have the horror staples: "The Exorcist", "The Omen", et al. And the great granddaddy of them all, "Night of the Living Dead". Oh yeah, and more recently you got films like all three "Bourne" movies, "Quantum of Solace" (sorry detractors, but that final scene was the best thing of any of the last six Bond movies, no matter what you think of the rest of the movie), and I'm sure there's others.
But here's a completely off-the-wall suggestion: "Super-size me". The movie that finally taught me that I couldn't live on junk food for the rest of my life. And what could be more depressing than that?
I'm gonna go with Brisingr. Oromis got slaughtered and Glaedr followed soon only to have his mind/soul retreat into the crystal thing and realize what happened. I was pretty sad.
Oh, I forgot about movies. For that, I have to say Pan's Labyrinth.
Ophelia, the young protagonist, escapes forever into the fantasy which had enabled her to endure the brutality and inhumanity of the Spanish Civil War, as a result of a fatal gunshot wound.
I completely agree with you there. The ending never fails to make me cry. It's beautiful but so tragic, and it catches me every time.
I once watched The Mist. While the film itself was a little "ehh", the ending made me wallow in sadness for a while.
A group of people, including a man and his son, escape from a supermarket after being trapped there by the mist, which hides horrible monsters. The car they're in runs out of petrol, so to spare themselves, they decide to shoot each other. There're four bullets to five people, the man shoots his son, then gets out of the car and begs the monsters to come for him, only to discover the military are there, clearing the mist. I was depressed for hours, it was horrible.
And book-wise, The Two Princesses of Bamarre made me cry when I was younger...
A princess goes on a huge quest to save her sister, but doesn't manage to save her in time. Her sister turns into a fairy and lives a wonderful life, but it's the questing sister's reaction when she discovers she won't be able to spend time with her sister again that upsets me.
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