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author=Sailerius
The notion that there's an invisible, magical force of Justice that rewards all good deeds and punishes all evil deeds is so deeply-engrained in our cultural consciousness that it's difficult to invent stories that don't reassert its existence, and that alone should make the fact that we need to fight it self-evident.

Again, the fact that you think people equate fiction with reality and assume that people will believe that they deserve a happy ending just because a narrative device said so sounds deeply flawed to me. Again, I never had that misunderstanding as a child, and found happy endings a bright spot when my actual life was shitty, without believing there was some "magical force of Justice" that was going to give me good things.

My joy gained from happy endings was not "YAY SOON I, LIKE THE PROTAGONIST, WILL GET THE GOOD REWARDS FROM THE MAGICAL FORCE THAT MAKES EVERYTHING RIGHT." No, it was "This piece of fiction allowed me to escape my present sorrows, enjoy a good story, and enjoy the characters in a way that made me feel better." There's a big difference.

author=emmych
My apologies, I oversimplified your argument for the sake of sounding snappy. People far more eloquent and intelligent than me have responded to the point you actually tried to make, too. It's all several pages back, if you're still interested in having that discussion.

Indeed, PentagonBuddy gave what I think was the best response to this article here. Here's just a small snippet.

author=PentagonBuddy
You write this basic formula:

Narratives follow the same basic argumentative form: if you do X and Y, then Z will happen, where Z is the ending. If Z is an undesirable outcome, then the narrative warns you against the dangers of X and Y. But if Z is desirable, then the narrative not only condones doing X and Y in order to achieve Z, but suggests that it’s the “proper” way of achieving Z.

and then immediately follow it up with this:

The problem with happy endings is that they’re inherently prescriptive. A narrative with a happy ending is a guidebook, teaching readers the correct way to live their lives. When you write a narrative with a happy ending, you have a very tall order ahead of you: you need to be aware that you’re condoning the protagonist’s methods and everything they learn.

You know the bit in your own writing? Where you talk about what happens if Z is an undesirable outcome? Yeah that means that other types of endings can be just as prescriptive as happy ones, and can also serve as guidebooks. You also make the link that a happy ending will inherently condone the protagonist's actions. This is a simplistic way to think of a happy ending that reduces them to little more than moral vehicles. That’s a terrible way to think of happy endings.

Yes, I agree that an unchallenged narrative can condone things that maybe the author does not want to condone, but to treat this as a basic feature of happy endings (and not a problem with authors who refuse to think critically about their own work) is....wait for it...

simplistic and reductive