Are You Afraid of The Dark? (novel) - Type of Endings

Type of Endings

Many of the horror stories on Are You Afraid of the Dark? ended with a "happy ending"; for example, in the episode "The Tale of the Lonely Ghost," a dead child and her elderly mother are reunited. Nearly every story focused on ending with a resolution and the main character's safe escape from whatever trouble had come upon them.

However, the occasional episode would deviate from this formula, usually ending with the demise of the character. In one notable case, "The Tale of the Dark Music", the unseen monster offers the lead character anything he wants in exchange for humans as food (which could still be interpreted as a happy ending for the lead character). Another, more extreme example, is seen in "The Tale of Vampire Town", where the lead character, a goth character who is obsessed with vampires, abandons the dark clothing and such by the end of the episode, only to be killed by a vampire himself.

At the end of most episodes, one character (usually Gary in the first run and Tucker in the second run of the show) would throw a red bucket of water onto the fire, stating "I declare this meeting of the Midnight Society closed," and the group would leave the campsite, thus ending the storytelling. Sometimes, the story would be related to an event (e.g. in "The Tale of Laughing in the Dark," Kristen, who was afraid of clowns, ran off when Eric put on a clown mask. Then, everyone chased after her). This would cause either Gary or Tucker to hurriedly dump the water on the fire and the Midnight Society would run off to wherever they go after meetings.