the anti–"happily ever after."
This isn't just "sad endings." It's unfair endings, where the characters try, love, change, hope, and yet life — random, cruel, unbalanced life — crushes them. The harsh reality we should accept is: Sometimes people try hard and don't get what they deserve.
It's not poetic tragedy, not cinematic doom, but that suffocating unfairness that happens in real life, without narrative reason.