Assignment 22 Lena Ilagan

In all honesty, only a fraction of fictional characters are truly happy.  Though many of the ones we see on screen and in books seem happy, they are only so in that small timeframe.  Just because something has happy ending or any happy part does not guarantee the characters within that universe will remain happy.  Even Harry Potter, who technically had a happy ending at the end of the seventh book, could have had a tragic and dismal demise.  He could've gotten addicted to heroin and overdosed, or become embroiled in tax fraud.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? More like Harry Potter and the Opioid Addiction.  

I just recently got into a rather emotionally abusive show, Black Mirror, and it has got me thinking. Not a single minute of the ten hours preceding last night's episode of that dystopian show were happy; all characters ended up stuck in some sort of emotionally compromising situation.  It was not until 11:00 last night that I witnessed the first happy ending of the show's history.  The episode was called "San Junipero," and honestly, it was the sweetest thing. The plot, setting, and characters change each episode, and this one, like the others, was unique.  Spoiler alert, but it's about two lesbian old ladies who meet in a virtual reality community and fall in love.  The entire time, I was expecting some sort of twist.  Maybe one old lady died before she could be uploaded to the virtual reality "cloud," or maybe the two would be separated and be doomed to a life without each other.  But there was nothing.  They were just, happy.  Happy in love, forever, in a beautiful resort town.  But honestly, it was boring.  Maybe that's why there are no happy characters in today's media; happiness is boring.

The character choices I have in my pool are rather limited, but, I will say that if I were to become a character in any world, I would be one of those two lesbians. Despite their boring eternity, they are the only characters who are guaranteed some degree of happiness. Happiness would be something I will forever cherish, and living with someone i love in a beautiful beach town, though boring, would be a happy eternity.