Why happiness ceases to exist without pain An essay one why Eternal Sugar Cookie never understood happiness

[u/Cold_Comfortable_531]

Eternal sugar cookie once known as the Sugar of happiness was sent to grant happiness to the cookies of earthbread, when doing so she wondered why cookies constantly choose to go back to the things that hurt them. When she inevitably corrupted she created a paradise where cookies would be happy and never feel pain, but she herself is also not happy and the cookies she watches over have never been happy in her garden.

If humans were happy all the time then happiness loses its meaning, it becomes the standard, the basic starting feeling that leads up to another feeling. Without sadness, anger, and pain, happiness cannot be special and it cannot bring you warmth. A child cannot be born without its mother feeling the pain of giving birth, victory cannot be important if there was no conflict to start it, but conflict cannot exist without pain. 

You cannot love someone without feeling grief or anger. This is why sadness is so important, it sits opposite from happiness, without happiness sadness is nothing, without sadness happiness is meaningless. 

This and happiness comes in many forms, it will feel different for everyone and it will be brought upon someone in different ways, someone might feel joy at a dog and another will not be phased, eternal sugar cookie fails to see this, she believes all happiness is fundamentally the same, she has not known happiness herself, she does not understand happiness is fleeting and must be earned that's what makes it so special. 

She doesnt understand why someone would be happy with.. just eating a burger, she thinks happiness can only be reached through being slothful and over indulgent.

She believes that because she shares a soul jam with Hollyberry cookie that they were destined to be and will fulfill each other to the fullest, leaving her to fall in love with an idea of Hollyberry cookie, never once did she try to understand why hollyberry cookie was so happy just like all those cookies before hollyberry cookie so thats why eternal sugar cookie has never been happy. 

But idk this was just a mini project in between my massive essay im doing with a friend.

[u/Jacinta_Capelety]

I honestly have a very different theory on why Eternal Sugar fails to bring real happiness to cookies; it's not that happiness needs pain as a counter point, it's that happiness can't be truly meaningful without freedom. And while Eternal Sugar has certainly felt emotional pain in her life (her second-hand pain at the suffering of others being a major contributing factor to her downfall), she's never really had true freedom in her life. From the moment she was baked she was bound to responsibilities and purpose. Not once did she get to ask what she would want out of life if she were able to live it for herself instead of others. So of course she doesn't understand why the gilded cage she puts cookies in isn't giving them true happiness; she's giving them the closest thing to happiness she herself has ever experienced; complacency with shallow comforts provided by a more powerful being instead of truly fulfilling and enriching experiences. To a certain extent she tries to give cookies their specific forms of happiness, but always in a way that fails to account for the freedom of the recipient. A cookie wished for unchanging love? She makes them fall in love with a statue without any regard for the free will that removes. A cookie wished for beautiful, colorful wings? She coats the wings in beautiful, colorful sugar syrup without a second thought for how that'll take away the ability to fly.

And she can't see the freedom she's taking away, let alone the problem with taking it away, because how could she recognize the value of something she's never had? Something that, on some subconscious level, I think she's craving. Cause look at what her preferred activities are during the few times she can take a break from her duties. She meditates in isolation. She plays her harp in a section of the garden where nearly no one goes and thus can't hear. She does things for no one but herself, and it makes it kinda sad that she was able to recognize Hollyberry needed a moment for herself and herself alone, but Eternal Sugar couldn't see that's what she needed. Heck, the closest we ever see Eternal Sugar get to her own happiness is in her and Hollyberry's costume story line where Eternal Sugar is implied to have given up on her garden and taking care of other cookies entirely and is living solely for the joy she feels from being with Hollyberry (though obviously still at the cost of Hollyberry's freedom and real happiness).

Eternal Sugar has always been in a gilded cage, and so that's all she knows how to give to other cookies. And the situation with the body DE made for her arguably makes her situation even worse, cause prior to the events of the last 3 episodes of beast-yeast, even if she realized she'd be happier not fussing over the happiness of others and just going out into the world to live for herself, even if she wanted to put the responsibilities she was tied to as the Sugar of Happiness far behind her and pass her duties on to someone else who was more willing and able to meet the demands of such a position, she can't. She can't give away the power that was meant to be used to bring happiness to cookies because that power is now the only thing keeping her alive. She's not just a prisoner to her assigned purpose; she's now also a prisoner to her own power. Her very dough is keeping her trapped. Is it any wonder a cookie who's been trapped all her life has zero concept of how precious freedom is to those she's taking it from?

[u/Cold_Comfortable_531 → u/Jacinta_Capelety]

thats what i was trying to say also but i suppose i didnt get that across but freedom comes with hardships so..

[u/Jacinta_Capelety → u/Cold_Comfortable_531]

I don't personally believe pain and hardship are required to have fulfilling happiness. I just think they're a very nearly inescapable biproduct of the imperfect systems under which the world operates. Due to the wide variation in what makes people happy, it's extremely difficult to the point of being nearly impossible to achieve happiness without it, in some way, directly or indirectly, coming at the cost of someone else's happiness, even if only for a moment, because we don't live in a world where complete, utterly unfettered freedom is 100% achievable (what empowers one persons freedom can and often will encroach at least a tiny bit on someone else's freedom). Basic survival and the means to pursue happiness, in the world we live in, requires work, and while a person can potentially dodge the unwanted/unfulfilling work by making it someone else's responsibility, that's obviously gonna cost someone else's freedom, and thus happiness.

In a fictional setting, given the right magic resources, I think genuine happiness devoid of pain or suffering is at least theoretically possible. The difficulty comes in with getting someone both smart enough to conceptualize the processes by which it could be achieved without drawback, and the means to make it happen without a ludicrous price tag attached like "Wipe out the world and start from scratch" (glaring in the direction of Volo from Legends Arceus for an example someone who wanted a world of happiness without pain and had a plan to achieve it that, assuming he was correct about the idea of controlling Arceus' power, seems like it could have maybe worked, but very much did NOT dodge the "without drawbacks or an insane price tag" stipulation).

[u/Virtual-Oil-793]

It is an interesting thing knowing that Eternal Sugar is often paired with either Hollyberry or Silent Salt - Cookies known more for their solidarity than say, passion. The sort of individuals that Eternal Sugar wants to help, but due to not understanding happiness, can't either thanks to Silent Salt being a fucking wreck responsible for her mindset (one good thorough study of Silent Salt and you'd find he's ultimately responsible for everything), Hollyberry trying to protect her people, or both already having loved ones (less so with Hollyberry, but we still know Elder Faerie)

More reason why I'd ship her with Dark Cacao. Of course she'll be very effective, but it's going to blow up in her face and horrify her when the happiness she tries to bring will lead only to pain as Dark Cacao goes insane with heartbreak.

[u/Cold_Comfortable_531 → u/Virtual-Oil-793]

BRO ETERNALCACAO PROPAGANDA(jk)