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A recent trend I notice when discussing fiction seems to be a thought that there is a value inherent in stories that are rather bleak, or end in a depressing way, or are designed to make the reader feel a sense of despair and melancholy afterwards. That these stories are inherently better then other stories in which a person may derive joy after reading, a sense of inspiration or uplift, or some positive elation upon viewing.

One is equated with maturity and a quality of story that can be seen as neigh unquestionable. The other is immature, and seen as a step backwards in terms of fiction, a mistake on the part of the author for not adhering to the formers goals. Messages from the former are valued much higher then the laters, as the laters messages are seen as too simple to be truly of worth learning.

My question to fellow fiction enjoys, in both books and in various media in general, is does a story need to have a sad or bad ending, in order to be fully mature and worth a persons time reading? Or is there something being lost in translation in attempting to make a medium seem more mature to other readers, that makes them afraid to positively reward readers for reading their stories?

Nope, thats just what's in nowadays due to the "deepness" and "reality" (the Oscar bait is strong with this decade).

People equate "depressing" with "real" in regards to books and movies because, honestly, life sucks sometimes.

For this reason, Upbeat stories have become refreshing alternatives be they straight up happy tiles like Kirby or an odd fucked up but ultimately sweet and hopeful love story like Silver Linings Playbook.

But I'd say the best story comes from a combination of sorrow and joy. Take one of my all time favorite game series Fallot. A friggin NUCLEAR HOLOCHAUST happened, can't get much more depressing than that!

But despite it all the death, decay and ruin you can still manage to find happiness and joy throughout the wasteland in things like giving a sheltered scribe the dress she always wanted, bringing joy to a young scholar but sitting and listening to his history or starting a caravan of two with a previously aimless caravaneer and helping her to find closure.

All happiness can be unrealistic and fake but all depressing is just a hopeless endeavor you'd care little to see finished. A combo of the two, with more complex emotional themes peppered in, is by far the best way to create a captivating story.

Simple answer: No, and the "darker is better" trend you mentioned that's happening across all media nowadays needs to stop. There's a time and place when a story should be darker, and a time and place where being more lighthearted is the way to go. It all depends on the sort of messages you're trying to convey, and the target audience. Not everything needs to have the edgy/gritty treatment like a lot of people seem to think; hell, just look at the front page of the Steam store and you'll know what I'm talking about with all the generic "omg this gaem is supre dark and srs" games that make to the top of the trending lists somehow. The problem isn't necessarily that darker themes are bad, they've just become very overused and cliched to the point where everyone tries to make them, whether they succeed or not, even though much of the most famous media in the world have lighter tones, or good endings. (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Mario, most superhero-related things besides Batman)

tl;dr: Dark themes are fine, but you have to be very careful in using them to avoid cliches, which most media does not do (There are exceptions, as with anything). A lot of people are getting sick of the same old "edgy" themes, so no, they are not necessary.

I really shouldn't post at night.

Good generally Dark-Themed stories I could think of: Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Death Note, Breaking Bad. I'm not much of a fan of these anymore but pop culture still praises Game of Thrones and Walking Dead.

Good generally Happy-Themed stuff I could think of: MLP, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls. Avengers and Frozen are pretty popular too.

Needless to say you have to mix it up to make a good story. Most of the stuff I mentioned above aren't dark and broody 100%, nor are they happy and giddy all the time. That would make them one-dimensional and dull (New Fantastic Four movie…)

Adding all sorts of different emotions into the story like fear, wonder, anger, humor, feels, etc. make the story more three-dimensional, real, and enjoyable. Kind of like how you add salt to caramel to make it sweeter.

Using that analogy, I've always thought of bad-endings to be like 'a huge chunk of salt' that makes the whole story more memorable and endearing by being an absolute closure.

Mature basically means that kids will not like it. Kids haven't been exposed to a lot of fiction yet, so they'd find the turn of events upsetting.

Something I've seen too much of recently is what some people call "shitdark" – stories in which none of the characters are likable, nothing good ever happens, and there is no chance of a remotely happy ending. The authors and fans of shitdark like to think it's "realistic," but the reality of shitdark is that it's equally realistic to mindlessly saccharine works like Barney, because a world in which nothing good ever happens is just as unrealistic as a world in which nothing bad ever happens. Examples of shitdark include Spec Ops: The Line, Watchmen, Dead Space, Prototype, God of War, WH40K (depending on the writer), and what is perhaps the king of them all, Hatred.

While I'd say the rise of shitdark is a problem, I don't think it's that major. There are still plenty of works that manage to do dark without going into shitdark (such as The Last of Us), and people into shitdark generally grow out of it.

(Also, before someone flames me about this, I'd like to mention that games having shitdark plots doesn't necessarily make them bad, since games generally put gameplay over plot. Plenty of people enjoy Dead Space and Prototype even though they are undeniably shitdark plotwise.)

I absolutely resent the idea that stories need to be depressing and have a downer ending to be good. Every time I see someone comment on something saying "Good endings are so boring and unrealistic" I just wanna punch them in the mouth. It's led to a pretty awful trend of media making their stories darker and more depressing just for the sake of making it feel "deep"

We all have different reasons for watching and enjoying the media that we do. When I watch something I want it to cheer me up and make me feel better about the world. I want it to be artistic, inspiring, and hopeful. When the characters go through struggles, I want them to be meaningful, and I want them to work hard for their goals. There's a reason I don't watch popular shows like Game of Thrones or Walking Dead. When I'm watching something I don't want to feel like shit and cry in my bed for the rest of the day. I want to watch something that motivates me to achieve my own goals

We should not be making media darker just for the sake of making it "better"

Dark stories aren't any better than happy stories.
This is just a phase we go through every now and then.
Really, the best stories have a balance.
If something is dark or sad the whole time, I just kind of accept the gloomy atmosphere. That way I can't tell when something is supposed to be important.
If there's a good amount of humor or happy moments, the down moments have more of an impact, because they have something to contrast against. It makes a down ending much better.
Hopefully this phase will be over soon.

Absofuckinglutely not.
Just because a story is dark and depressing doesn't automatically make it good. Sure, there are dark and depressing stories that are actually good, but they're not regarded as good purely because of those aspects (at least most of the time). There's more to them than just that. For example, 1984 is highly regarded and considered a classic not purely because of how dark it is, but because it warns of the dangers of authoritarianism/totalitarianism. If you make a story dark for the sake of being dark, then people aren't really going to like them.

Also, what Snickerway said about shitdark. I share similar feelings. Speaking of which, that reminds me of a trope from TV Tropes called Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, which essentially says (taking this from the Laconic page): "If the world is too dark, the audience won't care what happens."

There are idealistic, positive stories that are better regarded than depressing ones. An interesting case would be the two Fullmetal Alchemist animes. While I haven't watched the 2003 anime, I know it was said to be darker than the manga, what with it diverging from it. Brotherhood, which is faithful to the manga, is more idealistic and positive than the 2003 adaptation, yet is held in higher regard than the original adaptation (part of this may be because it was manga-faithful, but it's still worth considering).

People who say that dark, depressing stories are automatically better than happier stories are idiots who only look on the surface. I may be repeating myself, but there's more to stories that makes them worthwhile than whether they are dark or not.

"Does a story need to be depressing to be good?"?

R u fuccin kiddn' me m8?

In all seriousness though. No. It doesn't.

However, you don't want to confuse tragedy and conflict with being a massive edgelord.

Because when people say things like "A story needs to be depressing to be good"; they're usually the kind of people who have gotten cynical enough to believe that they're above it all. Only they know the real world, and the real world is dark, brooding, and hopeless. Only un educated fools would think otherwise.

However, conflict and tragedy are important elements of any story. Take my example Gurren Lagann; for how crazy awesome, over the top, inspiring and hopeful it is, it had it's tragic moments that the story wouldn't be the same without. Not nearly. Like the death of Kamina, the ends of of Team Dai-Gurren and Kittan in space, or hell even the bittersweet ending. Gurren Lagann wouldn't be nearly the story it was and is without those.

So next time someone tells you that a story needs to be depressing in order to be good, tell 'em right back "Just who the hell do you think I am?!". Because life is all about dealing with the darkness; and the real stories come from the people who take it and kick it to the curb!

All that being said. Stories can be as dark as they want, not always having to be inspiring. Just as long as they don't fall into "edgelord" territory.

In think the best stories are the ones who find a balance of when to be happy and when to be sad/dark. Like many said, the Fallout games found this. In movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to mind having comedy trips like Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man even then they have space a place to put more drama to these films (something at this point Fox will never understand.)

Influenced by the large number of dark sci-fi stories, many people believe that the future of mankind will be horrible, so there is no reason to fight for a better world. Instead, let's abandon any attempt to build a better future for us and our children and let's sit down and cry like there is no tomorrow. It's true that we have the tools to destroy our world and ourselves, but we have also the tools to build a global Garden of Eden (a better one this time). And that's the reason why we need more optimistic stories that motivates you to make something awesome, face your fears, and help others, instead of depresses you and makes you hate yourself, the world, and even life itself.

Saying "dark stories are the best stories" is as irrational as saying "happy stories are the best stories" No, good stories are the best stories!

It's not the fact that the story is depressing that merits whether or not it's any good.
What's much more important is if there's a good reason to make it depressing in the first place, you need good awnsers to the question of why you should emphasize something that in most cases is unwelcome and uncomfortable to your audience.

It's simple to say that if you don't have a reason of why your story should be dark as suppose to making it bittersweet or optimistic beyond sentences that are along the lines of "Because that's what demographics want now and days" or "Everyone else is doing it because it's more realistic", You probably don't have any bussiness writing the story in that manner anyway.

The choice of emphasizing the more depressing things about being a human in a story is likewise to the choice of using a lens. It's a tool that filters out visuals that you would otherwise see then if you didn't use it. But for this particular lens, one of it's uses would be when it's necessary to use it to bring attention to something that can potentially be dangerous that would without the lens, otherwise be ignored. Atleast that's my understanding of it.

The example I'll give is Spec Ops:The Line, and while the story is criticized of faults I won't deny like giving the player no choice of avoiding tragedy other then not finishing the game. The reason people started paying attention to this game is because it's a deconstruction of the clique and most often poory handle game genure of MMS (Modern Military Shooters, Codified by Call of Duty 4) where your typical story involves a small team killing a large number of enemy soliders under the unquestionable justification of the enemy threatening to kill a larger number of innocent people.

The purpose of Spec Ops:The Line's narrative was to show how someone with the same combat skills and justifications as a CoD protagonist can cause a huge tragedy in a world that is not as morally black and white as we would want it to be, pretty much showing what would happend if it took place in the real world. It's not faultless as a game or a story, but it atleast had that justification to be grimdark.

Hatred on the other hand has no justification to exist as anything except a history lesson that as of this generation: You can sale a morally fucked up game that brings nothing of worth in gameplay without even using an exuse of a some pretentious narrative allegory that no one will buy, All you need is enough shock value to cause a big enough controversy and you get all the fortune of becoming steam best seller. I honestly cannot see any other good out of making this shitty murder sim.

I'll say it again, If you want to make a dark story, just make sure you have an actual reason to do it.

"Shitdark" is an excellent term for this, I am now determined to make this more of a thing. I recently tried out a manga called Magical Girl Apocalypse, which fails for precisely the reasons you mentioned. It basically attempts to cash in on two popular things from recent times: zombie stories, and magical girls gone gritty. The big problem is that it immediately kills off a whole room of people, which shocks you then leaves you apathetic. You are then introduced to a random bunch of survivors who've given you no particular reason to give a shit about them over the deadies. Their personalities are not made particularly clear early enough and you don't really care who they are.

A Song of Ice and Fire leans somewhat towards this but redeems itself on a specific one of the factors you mentioned: Likable characters. People with a sense of humour, or rarely enough, people who are genuinely nice. And characters who are understandable even if not likable.

Personally I don't think so. Stories can be depressing, edgy, crazy, simple, direct, artsy, complex, zany, insightful, short, long, whatever, and still be good, in my opinion. Like, here's how I see it. Some days you're in the mood for pumpkin pie and some days you are in the mood for lemon meringue pie. Sure, they have different tastes, smells, colors, calorie counts, etc. but one isn't necessarily better than the other. I'd rather have a good pie rather than a bad pie no matter what I'm craving on a given day. The same goes for stories, except you have tones, themes, and genres rather than tastes, textures, and smells.

Look at Fallout series in general. USA nearly obliterated by nukes but the sheer will of people lives on and create villages from nothing but remains of pre-war america, sure plenty of it is depressing but the way i see it, most of the characters ingame are helpful all around decent people

No. There are many good dark stories and there are many more lighthearted stories, Pay no heed to the pretentious edgelords and emos thinking that True Art is Angsty in a bid to sound better than the "sheeple" for the tone can be a detriment to the quality of the work resulting in the shitdark phenomenon.

The best stories are one that evoke many emotions. You can make a tragedy without grimderp and you can make a lighthearted story with a little bit of conflict, but the closer you get to either end, the more skill and quality you need to avoid the usual pitfalls.