Top Ten List of Problems within Dark Fantasy

Intro

Everyone with a working brain understands that the world isn’t sunshine and rainbows. However, there is also such a thing as excess, such as in the GrimDark subgenre of Dark Fantasy. I want to put some of the issues I have with this specific subgenre in the best form it can be a list.

1:The protagonist and the villain are instantiable

If you like the antagonist and the protagonist against a wall and read off a list of their war crimes without telling the audience whose role in the story is, they don’t know the difference. You have a problem on your hands; I understand that protagonists like Guts from Berserk could be considered part of this problem; however, asides from the fact that Guts has humanity in his actions. He fights to save people from characters far worse than him and often has moments of humanity, namely his fatherly relationship with kids. This is what separates Berserk from Grimdark, like Godblind, where everyone is indistinguishably terrible.

2:The good people have to die

On the off chance that there is indeed a good person, and by good, I mean they don’t eat babies for breakfast. Do not think about getting attached to them cause they will not last long in the story. The author will go out of their way to deliberately cause these characters to suffer or die-ideally in the worst way possible. Godblind is an excellent example of this, as Rilirin is mistreated and tortured throughout before dying terribly, same for the excellent price, who suffers testicular trauma, told in excruciating detail. Not my ideal read as a man.

3:Everyone has to be a bad person

Once the few, if any, good people have been wiped out, all you have are terrible people killing each other for flimsy reasons. They tend to be the worst of the worst for reasons and are fundamentally unlikeable. Why should the reader want to continue reading if they are reading a bunch of terrible people winning effortlessly with no hope of defeat? Often they are not good villain characters like Humbert Humbert from Lolita but just bad people raping and pillaging because the author wants to show suffering instead of exploring it.

4:Violence doesn’t equal quality storytelling

If the author is more interested in violence and sex than telling a good story that includes those elements, it will not be a fascinating read, will it? When you focus on the spectacle of shock and disgust, the characters and the story will suffer because these essential elements are sidelined. An example is the video game Agony, which ignores the juicy premise of exploring the Christian hell to shock and disgust the player. We have no idea who the protagonist Nimrod is or why he is in hell in the first place, and he never reacts to the horrific imagery around him.

5:Endless violence doesn’t mean good pacing

Who here likes to be assaulted by nearly nonstop violence and gore? I would guess most people don’t because this is a problem I remember vividly in the video game Agony. The player/reader isn’t invested in the story when all you have is twelve. The first demon orgy you stumble across, you will feel grossed out and creeped out. But by the time you get to the third demon orgy, it’s Tuesday at the office.

6:The tone is monotonous

Any good story relies on the change in the tone; this can be either through escalation of a singular tone or mix up of different tones depending on the current situation. Not all horror has to be horror all the time; for example, the third act breaks up in the romance to provide a lull in the high of romance. Grimdark is perpetually miserable, everything is always dark, always sad, and there is no hope of anything getting better. Godblind is a good example of, there the first chapter has the protagonist Rilirin be a slave, nearly raped before killing said rapist, and almost getting raped again before fleeing the blood sacrifices. How does one escalate from that?! Well, the simple answer is that you don’t.

7: There is no humanity

When you have a cast of universally horrible characters, there is nothing for the reader to get invested in. Do I want to care about this serial murderer and rapist or this other killer of children? There is any mundanity in their evil, such as the Nazis or the Soviets, that can remind the reader of their capacity for evil. Also, why should we care about the few out-of-place good characters when they just die or suffer something worse? What can human elements of their suffering or defiance one latch onto? The answer to Grimdark is that there aren’t any causes under Grimdark, humanity is not explored through suffering, but rather suffering is the point.

8:The universe shouldn’t work

A universe that is always deliberately out to kill everything and everyone is unrealistic; even in Australia, there is wildlife that doesn’t instantly want you dead. There is no excuse for having a pantheon of gods worshiped by humans despite said gods wishing to make the humans into mincemeat. It wasn’t very realistic in Lovecraft’s writing, and it certainly isn’t now. Does the world's magic have to be powered by human blood orgies? Do the orgies have to use the blood of children for no reason? If you can’t come up with a human reason why, please consider rewrites.

9:The society doesn’t work

A society based on the pure exploitation and cruelty of everyone against everyone else cannot work. Human societies are built on communities and cooperation. A community always looking to kill the next straggler will not survive past the first year. Countries that are based around tyranny will sooner or later crumble as the citizens become fed up with the oppression. Grimdark fails to consider the human need for friendship and community, the social aspect of humanity, in favor of endless suffering. Which simply makes for dull, unbelievable societies.

10:It’s not realistic

Grimdark tells you everyone is out for themselves, and nobody cooperates in good faith. The world is an entirely cruel and unjust place where throat-slitting is the handshake. This, in reality, is far from the truth. Humans are social creatures; we depend on one another to survive and function. This drive pushes us towards helping and protecting each other. The black death is a prime example of people trying to help one another during what might as well have been the apocalypse. There will always be terrible people, but only some are terrible. And that is what Grimdark fails to understand.

Conclusion

The real world is filled with darkness; I have studied some of the worst periods of history regarding the cruelty of humans. However, as writers, we mustn’t go overboard with the grim as there is more to suffering, more to struggle than just more suffering or struggle.