For 88 years now, Disney has been releasing animated films with fantastical stories meant to delight children of all ages, creating a legacy of family-friendly entertainment that serves as its own stylistic canon. Sometimes Disney – or their competitors – will release a film that riffs on that style, but generally the decades have done little to whittle away at the formula first introduced with 1937’s Snow White or 1942’s Bambi: whatever struggles the protagonist goes through, they end with a “happily ever after” moment. Interestingly, Disney’s Onward reexamined that trope.

https://screenrant.com/onward-pixar-dead-parent-trope-grief-one-step-further-op-ed/