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I played Link's Awakening with my wife and daughter. My wife was taken back at the ending (surprised, not disliking). I think she basically just assumed the whole time that it wouldn't end with everyone on Koholint basically dying, or vanishing from existence.
This got me thinking about how I played this, or watched my brother play it, when I was the same age as my daughter. None of the media she consumes challenges her with difficult endings. Everything HAS to return to the status quo at the end, because we can't risk anyone being unhappy. In Frozen, Anna is unfrozen. In Moana, even Maui gets his fucking hook back after it breaks. Fake out deaths and fake out status quo changes happen left and right, but it is really rare to see something that actually sticks.
I love downer endings, and I think it made me who I am. It makes me sad and disappointed and a little disgusted to see basically all of the media of my kids' day be bland and not challenging them to really feel something other than a vague blandly happy dance party ending. Dance party endings aren't new, but have been made ubiquitous in the past 20 years. Same with fake out deaths, and I blame Marvel for that. I guess I personally chalk this all up to the general trend towards never making anyone uncomfortable, which is tied in with the corporatization of media and corporate-memphization of media.
I, along with probably the vast majority of readers, dislike / outright hate downer endings. I hate writers killing off characters I care about just "because the emotional conclusion needs main character to suffer loss" and other such bullshit (see eg. Harry Potter). That's just lazy and sloppy and feels like the writer pulling out the rug from under the reader in an intentional "hah, hah, fooled you, idiot!"-middle finger gesture instead of proper plotting and writing.
What I have no problem with and even like is the A Song of Ice and Fire type thing where it's made clear that this is the type of book where People Die (or even Anyone Can Die). The book sets proper expectations and then the "will they survive or not?" question becomes a part of the enjoyment when reading.
For a while (this is years ago) I got so fed-up with forced happy endings that I wanted the "this would be the logical outcome of what went before" bad endings.
But then again, after a while, where every ending is a bad ending and it's all morally grey and grubby and we're all cynics together in the rain and the muck, I wanted some happy endings again.
Forcing a happy ending where it shouldn't go is poor work, but so is "and everyone dies in the end, ha ha, I'm the Joker" type endings. I think this is why A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms got so much positive reaction: what, a guy who has a heart of gold? and is doing his best to live up to the noble qualities he thinks a true knight should have? and he isn't slapped down as a fool for it?
Same with Project Hail Mary - what, a guy who gets to have a happy ending instead of dying miserably and hopelessly in space? who gets to rescue his alien best buddy? Grace Rocky do indeed save stars?
Where a downer ending fits, it should be included. But grimdark for the sake of it burned itself out.
I’m inclined to forgive Project Hail Mary for that given the that it’s a giant Jesus allegory.
I don't think it is a Jesus allegory. There's certainly the Hail Mary pun, but plot-wise it's just a straightforward 'hero overcoming the odds' story written by an atheist.
-Dr. “Grace” (heh) is the only man who can save humanity
-After some initial reluctance in a pastoral garden area he is nabbed by soldiers and crucified along with two other scientists.
-In the underworld, he meets Rocky. Literally made out of dirt of like Adam. Also rocks are used as a spiritually significant metaphor throughout the bible: raising up new children of Abraham from these rocks, on this rock I will build my church, I will replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh, etc etc.
Rocky is screwed. Rocky’s entire people are screwed. He’s trying to find the truth but there’s things about the universe that he just can’t understand without Grace showing him.
-the whole middle act is Rocky learning to live a life like Grace, even though as a sentient rock he will never really be able to competently follow his example.
-This culminates with Rocky’s death, both a metaphor for the death of the old man and being born again, and the literal physical martyrdom of the saints.
-Rocky awakes out of the underworld a new heaven and a new earth. Even though he lost his life for Dr Grace’s sake he saved it. And now he gets to stay with Grace forever.
It’s about as subtle as a rock.
So is Steven King, but he still wrote the Stand
I think you're really grasping at straws. Here's a quote from Weir himself:
He's talking more about politics, but when the author describes himself as an agnostic and says he deliberately avoids putting a political or social commentary in his books, I really don't think you can conclude that the book is a religious allegory.
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In Protestant America, "Hail Mary" is more likely to be a gridiron-driven reference to an unlikely last-minute turnaround than it is to be a reference to the common Catholic prayer.
I'm not sure how it's possible to reference the former without referencing the latter, since the former exists as a reference to the latter.
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The pun in Hail Mary is a reference to the prayer ("Hail Mary, full of Grace")
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