I was listening to a talk by RL Stine of Goosebumps fame. He says that stories are like a rollercoaster. You go through the scary stuff because you know that ev

I was listening to a talk by RL Stine of Goosebumps fame. He says that stories are like a rollercoaster. You go through the scary stuff because you know that everything turns out fine in the end. When he made a slightly unhappy ending, readers were pissed and would write letters to him, telling him to write a sequel to that story to give it a proper ending. Bad endings cheat the young reader out of the experience they wanted. I'd think most of the sanitized stories are just that -- they're seen as incomplete/wrong endings rather than inappropriate. And children are just so unhappy with them, rather than being traumatized. Adults are more willing to accept incomplete endings.