12 Monkeys and the Hero's Failure
Tips on writing stories where the Protagonist loses at the end.
As much as I talk about storytelling lessons I learned from my favorite books, video games, TV shows and movies, I can also take time to mention lessons I've learned from one of my least favorite. There were a few reasons why I disliked the Sci-Fi thriller Twelve Monkeys, but the most notable of which was the ending, where (spoiler alert) not only does Bruce Willis's time-traveler Cole fail to stop the deadly virus he had been tracking from spreading, but he is also killed in front of his younger self. The film was a box office success and was critically acclaimed, but it personally left a bad taste in my mouth because I was a pretty young filmgoer at the time and I wasn't used to seeing the hero fail so miserably. Last American Virgin delivered a similar soul-crushing ending when the lovestruck Gary goes out of his way to care for and support the object of his affection through her toughest times, only for her to choose the man who mistreated her over him. And I'm currently rethinking the ending to the sci-fi war story I'm seeking publication for (it was once called War/Game, but I've since changed the title to Blink due to a beta reader's suggestion) because a trusted beta reader strongly disliked my ending (where as you can probably guess, the hero fails miserably). Writing stories where the hero ultimately fails and/or the bad guys win can be tricky, because you risk alienating the readers that followed your protagonist on their journey in hopes that the protag would solve the problem that the story premise presented by the end of the story. But it can be done -heck, in horror it's almost expected -and here are some tips on how to do it.
Let your theme dictate your outcome
Your story may have an overarching theme or message that you want to send. I've written a few articles about finding your themes and messages. But a good way to drive home your point is to show a hero trying to combat the the thing you are critiquing and fail. Both the Stanley Parable and the Beginners Guide are entertaining, thought provoking video games that have no happy endings, but the games use the hero's failure to make thought-provoking points about control and player agency. Likewise, the acclaimed game Spec Ops: The Line uses it's myriad of downer endings to make a statement on mental health and the trauma and horror of war. To accomplish this, lean into the negative aspects of the thing you want to make your statement on, and think of all of the ways the thing you think is so important can go (and probably has gone) wrong. Think of the stakes of your theme and what the price of failing to solve the problem would be. You want to make those consequences and stakes very clear in your story, and also illustrate how one can be ineffective at addressing them, so your hero's failure doesn't come out the blue.
Fatal Flaws in the hero
The fatal character flaw is a classic trope in storytelling, and is usually a driving force behind why a hero fails at the end. It dates all the way back to Greek tragedies, when Oedipus' hubris and temper prove to be his undoing in Oedipus Rex. Tragic flaws are prevalent in Shakespearean plays and are driving forces in modern stories. If you want the hero's failure to be their own doing, take a look at your protagonist and ask yourself what is in their makeup that would cause them to make the wrong decision at a crucial time? Review the crucial bad choices the protagonist makes throughout the story that lead them to their ultimate failure and find out if there are any common threads in why they made those decisions. Perhaps they are too loyal to somebody and it blinds them to potential treachery? Perhaps they are over confident in their abilities and under estimate what they are up against. maybe there is a deep-rooted psychosis that interferes with their mental health and causes them to make the wrong decision. Once you find the common threads, lean into it by emphasizing these character flaws throughout the story, and be sure to show your protagonist having the option to overcome their flaws and go the right way, but they continually fall to their weaknesses and eventually seal their fate.
Pyrrhic victories
A pyrrhic victory is when the hero wins in the end, but that win was at such a great cost that one must wonder if the win was really worth all the trouble they went through to get it, or if in winning they possibly did more harm than good. The critically acclaimed sci-fi novel Perdido Street Station is an example of this, where the reward for the heroes' ultimate victory is one hero getting lobotomized, one flying hero permanently losing their wings, two heroes' friendship getting irrevocably damaged, a lot of deaths and all of the heroes exiled forever from their homes. You get lots of such examples in video games, like the game Inside where the hero's two possible victories don't feel like wins at all, and the iconic game Shadow of the Colossus, where the hero's victory unleashes an even worse evil on the world and destroys the hero in the process. To quote one of my ex-bosses' favorite phrases, "the juice wasn't worth the squeeze." To achieve this you need to ramp up the stakes of your story and add more real sacrifices the hero is required to make along with some real, lasting consequences for their victory and the lines they had to cross to achieve it.
Make your villain the hero
In a previous article I wrote on planning your story from the villain's perspective. This can be an effective method of logically setting up a story where the villain wins in a way that won't turn off your reader. And you don't have to make your opposing force the protagonist to do this. In your internal notes, break down the motivations, reasoning and themes behind your villain and see where they can be justified, then give them a path to victory. You can even do this for villains that aren't people. For instance, In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Randle isn't struggling against just the cruel Nurse Rached, but against the entire mental institution and its policies. Why must Randle fail, and why does it matter to the institution whether he defeats them or not? And how far would that institution go to make sure he loses? Once you can answer these questions, then you can see a feasible path for the opposing force to come out victorious, and set your story up to accommodate that.
Leaving room for hope
Another way you can get away with having your hero fail is by leaving a silver lining in the dark cloud of your story's ending. I wrote about this in an earlier post, where it's best for your story to give the reader some kind of payoff for the time and brain space they invested into following your protagonists around for a whole story. Even if they fail their ultimate mission, let them accomplish something to make the journey worthwhile. And there are a number of ways to do this while still having the hero lose. You can have them complete a secondary arc to their satisfaction. You can have them get a major win only to snatch their victory away or make their win meaningless (like in the movie The Ring/Ringu where the heroine solves the mystery behind the cursed videotape only to realize that did nothing to stop the curse; or in The Collector where the protagonist success in rescuing the girl only to get kidnapped himself). You can give the victory your hero would have had to a secondary character, like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where it's someone other than Randle that escapes the institution. You can give them a glimmer of hope for redemption after the fact (something done usually to set up a sequel). The book the white hotel saw its heroine lose her life in a failed attempt to protect her children, but an epilogue shows her at peace in the afterlife. Showing that it wasn't a total loss can make the hero's failure more digestible to readers.
Shock for its own sake - the big no-no
What you don't want to do is not have a logical explanation for the hero's failure or the villain's victory. That is an easy way to lose readers and turn people off of your story. Readers invest a lot into your characters by following them around, and there is a trust that the character they are following will somehow, someway find a way to solve the problem the story is presenting them with. If you would risk violating that trust by having your character fail to satisfyingly solve the problem, there had better be a damned good reason for that. A lack of that will leave a very bad taste in your readers' mouths, and that could lead to you losing a reader for future stories.
Conclusion
If used correctly, the failure of the hero can make a powerful statement and leave a lasting impression on your readers. But you must avoid making it cheap shock value and treat that moment with respect. Give your ending logic and gravitas, and your readers will appreciate it.
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