After grimdark?

[Locksmith]

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, I was referred to an interesting back and forth debate about the future of grimdark.

The hypothesis of the original blog post is that grimdark has had its day in the sun and will disappear back to the gloomy shadows whence it came, claiming that even some of the grittiest current writers are starting to lighten up:
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2015/02/blogtable-ii-after-grimdark.html

Following a bit of to and fro on Twitter and reddit, a number of authors have penned their response to the original blog post here:
http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/after-grimdark-grim-gathering-responds_5.html

An array of impressive authors giving their view on whether we have passed "peak grit". Given the authors associated with grimdark, my hope is that grimdark keeps on keeping on; being an old cynic, I'm not sure I'm ready to return to the days of good wholesome 1980s fantasy.

But, enough of these award-winning bloggers' and successful authors' opinions, what do Chronners think? Grimmed-out, or grim-on.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A more moderate grimdark would appeal to me. I like an edge to my stories not all out misery.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Not sure why you felt the need to frame the question in such a pointed way. What makes you think that some members here aren't those selfsame award-winning bloggers and successful authors? Or other award-winning bloggers and successful authors?

There's a difference between what's popular and what people are writing; there's a difference between what people are writing and what people are publishing. If the subgenre were really dug into I'm sure there would be examples going back much farther than most people would assume. It's only that recently, thanks to the success of GRRM and Game of Thrones that so many other grimdark writers have become so popular. Their individual fiction is still considered good for that subgenre, but without such a massive uptick in interest due to GRRM, I doubt the others in the genre would have risen so high. And that applies to the future of the subgenre as well. Some writers will continue writing in that style irrelevant of its popularity, other writers will drift away to other styles or other genres entirely.

Look at cyberpunk. It was a specific style and type that was hugely popular at a specific time and once wider popularity tapered off most writers fled the subgenre. But you can still find new cyberpunk stories and novels being written and published. It's simply no longer the flavor of the month so it has less coverage. So it will go with grimdark. Just as cyberpunk has left a legacy of darker, seedier science fiction, grimdark will likely leave a legacy of darker, seedier fantasy. A few drops of black ink in a glass of clean water. One has already largely fallen by the wayside, so too will the other.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, I was referred to an interesting back and forth debate about the future of grimdark.

The hypothesis of the original blog post is that grimdark has had its day in the sun and will disappear back to the gloomy shadows whence it came, claiming that even some of the grittiest current writers are starting to lighten up:
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2015/02/blogtable-ii-after-grimdark.html

Following a bit of to and fro on Twitter and reddit, a number of authors have penned their response to the original blog post here:
http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/after-grimdark-grim-gathering-responds_5.html

An array of impressive authors giving their view on whether we have passed "peak grit". Given the authors associated with grimdark, my hope is that grimdark keeps on keeping on; being an old cynic, I'm not sure I'm ready to return to the days of good wholesome 1980s fantasy.

But, enough of these award-winning bloggers' and successful authors' opinions, what do Chronners think? Grimmed-out, or grim-on.

Thanks for posting, though I'd like to add a couple more links here so the conversation is actually complete.

After the initial roundtable was posted, I wrote an addendum with my own personal thoughts (as well as some discussion of how the roundtable came to be):
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2015/02/quick-addendum-to-blogtable-2.html

And today we had a second roundtable, in which three of our own bloggers (the respondents in the first roundtable were guest bloggers), responded to this very interesting piece from pornokitsch:
http://www.pornokitsch.com/2015/01/new-releases-the-goblin-emperor-by-katherine-addison.html

Our bloggers' discussion of that (note that I'm not one of them, though I do appear in the comments):
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2015/02/perspectives-ii-pornokitsch-theory-of.html

 

[Locksmith]

Thanks nerds_feather. I did see your definition clarification on the blog, but forgot about it in my rush to post. It's a hard genre to pinpoint I think.

I felt it a bit of a shame the original blog didn't have a counterpoint, which might have avoided putting some noses out of joint.

I look forward to reading the other two links.

 

[Hex]

Hi guys, just a little reminder that we don't want to attack people, or, ideally, post things that could be seen as attacking them. The Judge has a clever Latin phrase with an 'ad' in, but I'm not as clever as she is so I can't remember it.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The phrase you are looking for is ad hominem, Hex. (And who says you aren't clever?)

 

[Hex]

I think you've just demonstrated who the clever one is. Italics and everything!

And re Grimdark -- I find it a bit er grim (and dark) so I wouldn't object to things lightening up a bit. Bring back the jolly days of descriptions where entrails and distended tongues are mentioned no more than a couple of times a page.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm not sure what "Grimdark" actually is, beyond a vague idea. I find many of the condemnations vague and a lot of the defences for Grimdark, whatever it is, self-serving and annoyingly ironic (not from any of you good people, of course...).

To my mind, people are talking about a few different things here:

1) War porn. More specifically, an emphasis on violence and squalor. In SF, less often fantasy, coupled with a fascistic obsession with super-soldiers. Essentially, the need and wish to turn any military activity into a poorly-researched cartoon of Stalingrad.

2) Corruption, moral greyness and double-dealing. This ranges from a realisation that people aren't all perfect to a refusal to make any sort of judgment because everyone is totally corrupted and self-serving, and incapable of any higher purpose that isn't fanaticism.

3) Misogyny and rape. Pretty obvious, really: an obsession with the mistreatment of women without any acknowledgement of the other horrors of war/history, for a variety of unwholesome purposes.

The thing is, reading about people getting murdered/raped/tortured gets pretty boring and squalid after a while, and I can spot a cheap effort to manipulate the reader or "build up" a villain from quite a way off. Also, "Everyone dies" is no truer than "Nobody dies" - one is adolescent, the other childish.

And, as a further point, is there much point in talking about realism in fantasy at all? The average medieval person probably had more in common with the Taliban than a modern European. Their basic mentality was extremely different to ours, based around the will of a vast, brutal and inescapable God, and to depict them realistically would probably result in characters who weren't just deeply unlikeable, but hard to comprehend.

Further, I think that the idea that greater depiction of nastiness = greater realism is false and slightly insulting. Insulting, because everyone over the age of 6 knows that war isn't one big jolly adventure. The latrines still smell if you're fighting for a good cause. False, because old films like The Cruel Sea or Went the Day Well, with their many bloodless deaths, are probably truer than the schmaltz of Saving Private Ryan and anything like that, where even the meaningless deaths are there for the heroes to look moody about.

 

[Nechtan]

Thanks for the links. That was really interesting reading.

So, if I can summarise (and do correct me if I'm wrong); Grimdark started off as a reply to 1980s fantasy, pointing out that the events depicted were actually quite horrific events and that people were more complex than just good or evil. The best grimdark stories do contain hope and optimism and characters choosing to do the right thing as much as the stories that went before therefore grimdark, as a genre doesn't actually exist and that there have always been grimdark elements in fantasy and literature. That things are cyclical and there will be a backlash against grimdark and fantasy will continue to evolve and progress. The defining element of being grimdark is whether the author states that they are or the readers decide if an author is grimdark. Grimdark is an insult.

Grimdark authors mentioned in the articles; Martin, Hobb, Abercromie, Morgan, Jemisin, Sanderson, Bakker, Erikson, Lawrence, Frohock, Miller, Hurley, Cook, Lynch, Rothfuss but only before you've read them.
Authors who aren't actually grimdark; see above but only after you've read them.

Glad that's all sorted then.

Ok, being serious. I agree with a lot of what was said in the above articles. I think Kameron Hurley got it dead right. "I’m reminded of the endless Shannara knock-offs that grimdark was in conversation with when it started bleeding out onto the scene in the late 90’s". I remember that. Things were getting very tired and very predictable.

And this from Richard Morgan. "Beating seven shades of sh*t out of a horde of opponents on the battlefield (with all the actual blood and screams and pleading tastefully edited out) and then putting on a crown? Is that noble? Blowing up an entire planet-sized space station of people who happen to have chosen - or more likely have just ended up stuck on - the opposing side to you in a galactic war? Butchering a huge intelligent reptile who was, until you disturbed it, dozing rather peacefully in a hole in the ground and not bothering anyone? What kind of hope is it, exactly, that we’re selling here? The hope that we can slaughter them before they can slaughter us? The hope that our brand of faith or politics can kick the living sh*t out of anybody else’s? The hope that I’m a bigger, tougher motherfucker with a blade or a spell than anyone else in this neck of the woods?"

I also agree with this from Richard Morgan. "It’s important to realise that very large numbers of the people who read fantasy are reading it specifically to escape from the darker and more uncomfortable human truths you see encroaching elsewhere in fiction. (Which is perfectly fine - it is entertainment after all; you pays your money, you takes your choice.)" Very true. No point reading something you're not enjoying. It doesn't make it wrong, though.

This from Foz Meadows. "Overwhelmingly, the realism that grimdark chooses to reinforce is obsessed with the idea of misogyny as a human default: that we can only discuss ugly politics, hard choices, war, rape and every other facet of human evil through the lens of male power and violence, with women either repressed within or absent from the narrative." I think she has a point but I also think that it applies to fantasy in general, specifically male power and women either repressed or absent from the narrative.

I wouldn't like a return to the 80s style fantasy. That shallowness and superficiality really sticks in my throat and whenever I hear the word "wholesome" I get a chill down my spine. I find wholesome quite, well, unwholesome. Not that I need to wade through rivers of blood to get my kicks. I thought Pornokitsh's review of Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor was quite interesting. For all that it's being touted as an anti-grimdark book, "there's no question we're dealing with "real" people - ones that have motives that go above and beyond "THE EVIL ONE COMMANDS ME". There are shades of good and evil - in fact, there's arguably neither of the above: just a lot of people that all think that they are in the right". Another added to the TBR pile.

Edit. It took me so long to type this I hadn't seen Toby's post.