The Myth of "Happily Ever After"

Multicolored artificial castle by Jeffry Surianto (Pexels)I grew up in the 90's. That means that I was growing up during the peak Disney princess era. From Aladdin, to Beauty and the Beast, to the Little Mermaid. The bad guys are Bad Guys and their evil schemes are Evil. Justice is always served and the good guys come out on top. That's the way the world works. Boy Wizard pulls the sword from the stone and the big bad fascists are defeated! Hooray! Then comes the bitter reality that the world is a whole lot more like 1984 than it ever was like Cinderella (...well, the Disney version at least.) I am not even sure that writing a blog that simply declares "happy endings don't exist!" is worthwhile. Because it's bleak, and because it's possible that most people emerged from their brainwashing faster than I did. It also made me wonder if the sense of justice that comes from watching so many shows and reading so many books where things wrap up so cleanly with Good Always Prevailing, where…