The musical Assassins ends with the various Presidential assassins and would-be assassins winning the battle for Lee Harvey Oswald's soul, resulting (in the strange universe of the play) in the death of John F. (There is good reason why Shakespeare's version was almost never performed for roughly 150 years.) Lear, in particular, is content to spend the rest of his life in prison so long as he is with Cordelia, only to have her murdered. Both are reunited with their loving child only to die afterwards. Both Lear and the Earl of Gloucester misjudge their children, driving away the faithful children and putting themselves in the hands of the faithless ones. Othello murders his wife because he is led to believe that she is unfaithful, only to find out that she was not, leaving him no real option other than suicide. In Hamlet the hero manages to kill his father's murderer, but by that time the deaths of everybody else in the play have already happened. Although a lot of productions have started to undercut this by finding some way of reminding the audience at the very last second that Fleance exists and there was that pesky little prophecy of him and his family taking the throne. Macbeth, despite being named as a tragedy, is really more of a Bittersweet Ending because, when you think about it, it's pretty darn happy that the Evil Overlord is overthrown and a new, fairer king is installed. Subverted in a novel adaptation of the story called "Romeo's Ex." The book is mainly told from the point of view of Rosaline, who, with Benvolio (and after the technical "canon" ending of the play), manages to make Romeo throw up the poison in time, saving his life. Their last words are Seigneur, Seigneur, pardonnez-nous! (Lord, Lord, forgive us!). He tells her he's poisoned so she stabs herself so they can die together. That's also how the opera by Charles Gounod ends. As if the original ending wasn't enough of a downer. So he dies knowing that his death was completely pointless. Juliet wakes up while Romeo is still alive, but he has already drunk the poison. Broken heart bordello riddle movie#
One of the movie adaptations makes it even worse. A very notable example because, besides the obvious, it actually starts as a comedy. They kill themselves at the end when if Romeo had waited just one more single minute he would have seen Juliet was not dead and they could have gone off into the sunset together. Romeo and Juliet and all their adaptations by extension. (Many of them, like Macbeth were tragic because the story involved a Fallen Hero who was corrupted by evil, and while the endings were rarely all-too happy, they still ended with a better ending than most examples here.) To William Shakespeare, a "tragedy" meant "play with a tragic ending for the protagonist", so most of his tragedies count, but not all, seeing as plays with a Villain Protagonist counted too. The only play he wrote that had a somewhat pleasant ending was Ah Wildreness, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. 
Well known works on that subject included Mourning Becomes Electra, Desire Under The Elms, and Strange Interlude.
One playwright who seemed to specialize in this Trope was Eugene O'Neil angst and evil deeds, leading to Heel Realizations and self-inflicted penance for the guilty part seemed to be the theme of most of his plays. Friedrich Dürrenmatt gave us this quote: "A story is not finished, until it has taken the worst turn". WARNING: As an Ending Trope, all examples are natural spoilers so they will be unmarked! Read at your own risk!
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