March 27, 2008
HEA vs. BE
I want to talk about HEAs, otherwise known as the Happily Ever After endings. I’d like to know how you define one. I mean, 
there are variants on the theme. One in particular straddles the line. I’d call it the BE, or Bittersweet Ending. I’ll toss a few out for your consideration.
SPOILER ALERT …. 
In Somewhere In Time, Richard and Elise are separated in one of the blackest romantic moments on film. He is 
propelled (against his will) back into his own time (present day), leaving Elise back in hers (1912). He dies of a broken heart and is reunited with Elise in Heaven. In The Notebook, the hero and heroine die together after one of them is tragically stricken with Alzheimer’s. In Titanic, Rose and Jack are separated in life, but reunited in death.
Then there’s the COMPLETELY DEPRESSING don’t-even-get-to-die-together endings like: A Walk To Remember, Untamed Heart, Love Story and Message In A Bottle.
Do the books you read HAVE to have an HEA, or is a BE acceptable?
I’m too old for anymore BE’s, so I’ll take the HEA category please. :)
I hate BEs. I usually scream at the television and/or book, “You have to be F&*(^ng kidding me.” The main problem for me is that those types of movies promised me something at the beginning. They got me all worked up and ready for a HEA. Or I was so invested in the characters that I wanted them to have a HEA. Giving me a BEs as a reader and/or viewer is like flipping me the birdie.
The only thing that bugs me more are HEAs I don’t believe.
I don’t want BE …
nope… life has it’s own ups and downs that whenI read I don’t want to be sad, even if it’s a good sad…
Hmmmmmm If I see it coming, I”m good with it. I read The Appeal recently–and it was definitely a BE (even though not a romance). YOU KNEW it was coming though and as bad as I WANTED a Happy Ending, I wasn’t at all surprised with what I got.
In romances always, always, always HEA/HFN. In other genre, I can deal with a BE *if i see it coming* (but I rarely do, or by the time I do, I get kinda pissy about it. lol. because these endings seem to be more bitter than sweet and/or it feels like I’ve been deliberately manipulated (as opposed to accidentally manipulated. heh) by the author to believe there was going to be an HEA/HFN. One of my favourite books from last year was The Shoe Queen. There is no HEA/HFN or even BE, although there were a couple of romantic interest. But I felt that the heroine was stronger and in a better place and that she would somewhere down the line have her HEA/HFN. That was her happy ending, and I was fine with that.
I am SO not the person to answer this, since I delved into the BE waters in a couple of mss lately…and let me tell you, they get a very chilly reception!
I prefer HEA. They’re nice, they’re feel-good. But in all honesty, I like a little Long Island Ice Tea with my sugar sometimes.
I can stand variety. I can take a BE, if I have a sense of the H/h being together in some way, shape, form, or time in the future.
I know it’s a matter of A Romance vs. A Love Story, and I can appreciate both.
I am a huge fan of Bollywood movies, so I enjoy more than my fair share of BEs. I like both and it depends on the story for me. I don’t want a forced HEA, something that feels like it’s not meant to be.