Bad Endings

   I have a rule when it comes to plays, movies and TV shows. I will not watch anything where someone dies in the end. There are a few exceptions to this rule. If I watch something about  Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy, I know there will be a death at the end. That's all right. It's history. I don't have a problem with the bad guy getting killed off in the end, although I feel a twinge of guilt because people who do bad things are not always bad people.
  It would probably be more accurate to say that I don't like it when I watch a TV show or a movie, get to really like a character and then that character is ruthlessly killed off. That's not fair.
  I first encountered this dislike many years ago when I watched to movie 'Beaches'. At the end of the movie one of the main characters dies at a fairly young age from a heart condition. I was all right when I left the theatre. A few hours later I was sitting with my head down on my desk sobbing uncontrollably for about 15 minutes. It was not pretty.
  A few years later someone loaned me a book called 'Charly'. It's a teen romance book with an LDS twist. Boy meets girl, girl learns about the LDS church and joins. Boy and girl get married and have a challenging but wonderful life together. Girl gets pregnant, has a baby and then dies of cancer. I was so upset. Why go through the bother of making the Charly character into someone likeable if she's just going to be killed off in the end.
  You are probably wondering by now what set me off on this rant. I'll tell you. A few days ago I got to watch the episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine that I was waiting for. There were a lot of cliffhangers and I was looking forward to how they were going to be resolved. Please note, if you are watching DS9 and have not seen the end you may want to stop here. I'm going to write about how it ends.
  Everyone is gearing up for the final battle in the war against the Dominion. I wasn't worried about how the war was going to end. I've watched enough Star Trek to know that the Federation wins in the end although sometimes it tends to be a costly victory.
  The battle was looking pretty grim for the Federation. Their ships had sustained a lot of damage. Fortunately Colonel Kira had made it inside the Dominion command center. She was there with some Cardassian freedom fighters who wanted to liberate their homeland from the Dominion. While some of the fighters she was with did get killed in gun battles she makes it to the place where the commanders were working. The Changeling that was commanding the Dominion in the war had ordered the destruction of Cardassian cities to force the freedom fighters to surrender. The Cardassians that were fighting for the Dominion began to fire on Dominion ships in retaliation for the destruction of the cities. With the battle at a standstill, Odo came to the Dominion command center to try and convince the Changeling to surrender. He heals her of the virus she has and she surrenders.
   With the war over all the main characters now prepare to go to other places. One character accepts a transfer to Earth. Worf accepts a diplomatic position. Odo decides that he needs to go back to his people to heal them and help them to trust non Changelings.
   It was sad to see everyone break up. The worst was yet to come..
    In another sub plot, Kai Adami an evil cleric was preparing to release the evil Pa Wraiths in an attempt to gain power. Sisko, who is the Emissary to the Prophets, would have to stop her. Would he be able to? How would he do it? That was what I wanted to know.
  Adami and her accomplist go to the Fire Cave where she releases the Pa Wraiths. She poisons her accomplist as a sacrifice to them and then prepares herself assuming that she will get power from them. To her surprise the Pa Wraiths reanimate her accomplist and give him their powers. Sisko shows up and fights the accomplist. Adami realizes she has made a big mistake and tries to destroy the book she'd used to summon the Pa Wraiths. She is killed in the process. After that Sisko manages to get the book. He and the accomplist grapple and fall into a fire pit.
  That was upsetting to me. Why did they have to kill off Sisko? He just got remarried, his new wife is pregnant and they killed him off. To be fair, he's not really dead. He's living in the Celestial Temple having finished his task as Emissary. At the end of the episode he comes back to his wife and tells her that he will return to her.....someday. I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. If he isn't back on the space station with everyone else, he's gone.
   You can mock me for being Pollyanna all you want. Things aren't fair and bad things happen. I get it. Still, I'm not a fan of sad endings. I have sadness all around me. If you really want to see tragedy it isn't hard to find. I don't find tragedy entertaining. I would like to see things work out in the end. I like happy endings. There aren't many in real life. Sometimes you need a break from all the bad that is going on. Something to help you remember that good things can and do happen once in awhile.