Trope Talk: Grimdark

this video was sponsored by world anvil a bright spark of hope in an otherwise cold and uncaring world the dark age of comics officially began in 1986 the year that saw both frank miller's the dark knight returns and alan moore's watchmen superhero comics had touched on dark themes before chris claremont's god loves man kills an x-men comic that handled themes of religious zealotry and full-on genocide came out in 1982 and alan moore's take on swamp thing which is deeply grotesque and unsettling also came out in the early 80s but this is when comics started getting dark overall the greatiness became the rule rather than the exception there was a bit of an arms race honestly by the 90s it almost felt like comic writers were trying to one-up each other in how dark gory and morally ambiguous they could make their heroes this is the era that saw such developments as the characters of cable lobo spawn and john constantine and dc's crisis on infinite earths and attempted rebooting the entire space of dc comics that killed off hundreds of characters most notably supergirl in the flash and some say is still [ __ ] up canon to this very day as the 90s rolled on the comic book dark age kept on trucking the stories got darker the characters got meaner and there was this oddly pervasive feeling of embarrassment with the previous eras of comic books all those colorful spandex superhumans with wildly unrealistic power sets saving the day for truth and justice how childish how implausible now we had dark spandex superhumans killing people with their wildly unrealistic power sets for personal reasons see that's much more believable who needs to grow up now mom this was the broad beginning of grimdark a space of stories that true to the name are grim and dark and nothing else grimdark is hard to solidly define but before we try we need to dive into the other major contributing factor to the genre warhammer 40k a tabletop minis game first published in 1987. this game is the source of the term grimdark the game's tagline is in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war and it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin it's the far future everything sucks and everybody's fighting all the time there are no heroes there's no happy ending there is only war so here's the quick rundown in warhammer 40k you pick an army you spend way too much money buying and painting the minis and then you use them for tabletop war games with other people and their armies of minis most people play as the imperium of man specifically the space marines but if you'd expect them to be the good guys you are sorely mistaken in the lore of the game the imperium of man is an authoritarian nightmare that worships the mummified husk of a god emperor who they keep running with daily blood sacrifices it's got the propagandistic no free thought allowed vibe of 1984 with exactly none of the subtlety and the other options aren't any better there are really bad bad guys like the forces of chaos demons from a parallel universe known as the warp where the psychic nominations of sentient beings from our universe produce twisted monomaniacal demons that rip through the fragile skin of reality to ravage our world fun stuff they're in good company with the tyranids a massive psychic hive mind from another galaxy that is systematically using their massive xenomorph style biomass of murder critters to chew through entire planets and appear to have the galaxy completely surrounded i mean between those two forces everyone's pretty much boned already the tyranids are chewing through space and the forces of chaos are punching big holes in it every time a psychic gets a headache but it doesn't stop there you can play as the necrons the last remnant of an ancient empire that tried to escape death and instead turned into terminator space zombies or the orcs green-skinned space football hooligans who have literally no priorities besides war or you could do what i did and play the eldar gorgeous elegant psychic space elves whose massive space empire was pretty awesome until they partied so hard it created a chaos god that shattered their empire and turned half of them into bondagey murder space pirates leaving the rest wasting away on massive spaceships recycling their souls into giant robots because there aren't enough of them to fight otherwise or maybe you want to play as the tau fresh-faced alien newcomers who are looking to build a pan-galactic space empire by subjugating all other races using mind control that beans it's always something there really is no winning warhammer 40k is kind of the platonic ideal of grimdark there are literally no good options and thanks to the infinite forces of chaos there's really no winning there's no heroes no unified bad guy to target no death star to destroy there's just war and plenty of it and most likely thanks to the one-two punch of the comic book dark age and warhammer 40k exploding onto the scene their shared aesthetic of grimdark got mad popular starting in the 90s this is also not coincidentally around when white wolf started publishing their notoriously grim world of darkness games now since grimdark is more of a vibe than a genre it's a little tricky to strictly define but there's a few key factors that help narrow it down see lots of stories are gritty and dark without going full grim dark which is a totally different ball game but it can be very easy to get them confused for one thing grimdark has no heroes it can certainly have protagonists but those protagonists aren't heroes their motivations are usually entirely self-centered and morally dubious their methods are deeply unpleasant they're typically quite self-destructive and overall they're not what you'd think of as a good person they can be very sympathetic and relatable but they're not someone you'd look up to exactly heroes often represent ideals grimdark protagonists don't there are plenty of gritty dark protagonists who are full-on heroes with paragon ideals or a strong sense of justice and those guys aren't grimdark and when they get rewritten as grimdark it feels weird if you take a grimdark setting and put a hero in it they don't fit either the world bends around them through the sheer force of their protagonist-ness and ungrim darks the setting or the grimdark wins and they die usually very nastily grimdark and heroes can't co-exist this is a case where warhammer 40k has kind of an advantage for the most part as a war game individual characters don't matter there are a few special units with names and backstories and the lore has plenty of characters in it but no matter how cool their alleged narrative accomplishments might be when the game gets going they usually die pretty quick anyway however there are some tie-in novels that put focus more on individual protagonists and those novels tend to have a much less overwhelmingly gritty tone than the actual game lore does the world is still a hot mess but the characters do heroic things and care about each other on a very deep level and forge genuine lasting friendships and other such hopeful things that don't normally feature in grimdark narratives while the game is grimdark it's hard to write a compelling story in that setting so the books end up being not quite grimdark now another key factor is that grimdark has no real hope for a happy ending some stories come with clean solutions blow up the death star destroy the artifact defeat the evil emperor put the one true king on the throne return with the elixir a simple goal that our heroes have to accomplish to win grimdark doesn't have that simple fix if the world is unpleasant and broken our protagonists have no simple way of improving it maybe the government is corrupt all the way up or the deities themselves are evil or the world is just boned in a thousand different ways and fixing one won't do anything for the other 999. saving the world isn't on the table in absence of a clean solution grimdark narratives can still have smaller scale victories on the table maybe our protagonists will never overthrow their authoritarian regime but they can successfully dissuade small-scale agents of that regime from messing with their little corner of the planet or your cosmic horror setting doesn't really give you the option of defeating the elder gods but you can still outrun their cultists still despite the small-scale victories grimdark makes sure our characters will have to deal with this pervasive unpleasantness basically forever and the last staple of grimdark is grey and grey morality some stories have black and white morality where the heroes are good and therefore everything they do is good and the villains are bad and thus do only bad things most modern media avoids full-on black and white morality and will allow their heroes to do questionable things and their villains to be a bit more nuanced and sympathetic but it rarely dips into full-on gray and grey morality where all the characters are working in a very murky area in gray and grey morality the righteousness of an action becomes irrelevant some other paradigm is in play maybe all that matters is survival or revenge or some other fundamentally self-centered goal the morality of what the characters do in pursuit of that goal isn't a factor or at least not one that matters to them pointing it out to them is pointless gee mr punisher did you know that murder is wrong oh golly i hadn't considered that guess i'll leave my dead family at avenged see that's not the paradigm they're working under even if there is a grand scale good versus evil conflict going on these guys aren't invested in it now one of the more interesting and frustrating things when discussing grimdark is this pervasive idea that grimdark is inherently more realistic than other genres i talked about this way back when i did a trope talk on realism so i'll try not to get too far off track but the short of it is grimdark was a bit of a direct reaction to the more lighthearted optimistic stories of the pre-dark age those stories had heroes and happy endings and grimdark said that's dumb and also for babies check this out and then started telling stories without those things this ties into the general idea that optimism is naive something you're supposed to grow out of and pessimism is real the state you grow into and that's a load of hui yeah i said it what are you gonna do be sad at me about it optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same concept one anticipates a good state of being the other a bad one half full versus half empty ultimately it's the state that matters not what you expect it to be so for the most part optimism and pessimism are just personal attitudes and don't matter that much but optimism and pessimism when expanded into universalized concepts produce two very different world views the optimistic worldview believes that things can go well that the world can be better the pessimistic worldview believes that they can't and won't and in this case the optimists have it the world can improve and has several times heroes have existed and the world has been on occasion saved by them or at least greatly improved this is the concept highlighted by classic fantasy authors like tolkien grimdark is part of the counter-argument put forward in response to that by more jaded authors like george rr martin now this counter-argument isn't all grimdark at its most sophisticated it's more of an attempt to humanize these otherwise mythologized heroes to point out that the people who changed the world even for the better were still people and thus probably at least kind of an [ __ ] now tolkien and martin are actually really good examples here because for one thing they both did a really good job presenting their world view and for another they're really not as opposed as people seem to think and here's the kicker they both delved into realism yeah really while game of thrones is much more low fantasy and low magic than lord of the rings neither author shied away from the realistic human element of their respective adventures george rr martin doesn't shy away from showing a character pooping themselves but tolkien also delved into some pretty intense psychological misery when he wrote sam and frodo struggling immensely to make their way through mordor tired and miserable and forgetting the taste of food the scenario was fantastical but the characters reacted in very realistic ways and someone who fought in world war ii would be pretty qualified to describe the malingering effects of dragging yourself through a war zone and forgetting what it felt like to be anywhere else plus if you've ever read the silmarillion tolkien's not exactly an idealist and he certainly doesn't shy away from the gross stuff there's plenty of incest and murder i mean he did base it on norse mythology the only real difference between these two is the framing of the world tolkien's fantasy world can be saved heroism and moral righteousness pay off and the good guys save the day martin not so much delving into court intrigue and political power plays mean a lot more assassinations and a lot less actual good getting done can this world be saved i mean probably but not by any of these guys who are so caught up in their personal squabbles they literally can't agree if fighting the endless zombie death army is a good idea or not in any other year i'd have called that unrealistic while martin fits the grimdark aesthetic more he's really not as steeped in it as some people think and the idealist high fantasy he's pitted against has a lot more in common with his work than some people would like to admit now there's one very interesting thing about grimdark since the no real happy endings rule is pretty definite that kind of rules out most plot-driven storytelling it's hard to get an audience invested in the outcome if it's guaranteed to be unpleasant in light of that most grimdark narratives end up being either character-driven or theme driven we can get invested in characters no matter how morally dubious they might be and a lot of grimdark stories sell us completely on the character dynamics and convince us to root for an ending that has no good impact on the world overall but provides some kind of closure for the characters the ending doesn't even really need to be that satisfying if it leaves us feeling the right kind of unpleasant for instance the last of us got the audience to root for joel and ellie to get along from the beginning we sympathize with joel but he still acts like a jerk and we like ellie cause let's face it she was handcrafted to be sassy and lovable this causes us to root for joel's character development to make him less of a jerk because we want to see ellie happy and she's invested in him being nicer to her and when joel starts opening up that lets us get invested in their dynamic and root for it to improve some grimdark goes even darker for the resolution various issues of sin city successfully guide the audience to root for the protagonist to die yeah it mostly works because the characters come across as very lost and purposeless except for their gritty determination to either murder somebody or protect somebody at all costs they convince you over and over again that for these characters dying after successfully doing their one thing is the only satisfying conclusion how grim and dark and then there is theme driven grimdark where the characters are basically exemplary victims of the horribleness of the scenario they're stuck in grimdark themes often explore cosmic horror hopelessness in the face of overwhelming force the terrors of authoritarianism and basically anything that boils down to this sucks and i can't do anything about it these stories are ways to explore deeply unpleasant scenarios books like 1984 do so specifically as a political warning and many post-apocalypses are similarly theme driven to get across that hey kids destroying the world is probably bad but you also get a certain amount of overlap where a character-driven narrative still explores a central theme like humanity or the loss of humanity which is quite popular or even something really specific like how mad max fury road is about the pointlessness of searching for a perfect promised land instead of putting in the hard work to build the best life you can from what you have but for all that it can kind of be hard to see the appeal of grimdark like for me personally i have pretty simple tastes i like heroes and i like happy endings and i don't really have that much patience for edgier than thou nihilism i can understand the appeal of more nuanced stories with bittersweet endings or unconventional protagonists but grimdark as a genre kinda strips away everything that i personally like about stories and storytelling it's hard for me to get invested i want characters i can root for playing out arcs that i want to see resolved for the longest time i didn't get the appeal at all and then i watched chicago now i'm going to be clear chicago does not fit the grimdark aesthetic it's a dang movie musical it's all glitz and glamour and all that jazz but there are no heroes every single protagonist is a terrible human being there's no interest in morality the protagonists are all murderers trying to avoid legal consequences for their actions and the lawyer helping them do it and the outcome that you're theoretically rooting for is a total miscarriage of justice and there's really no hope for a happy ending because it's clear from minute one that the protagonist roxy kind of sucks and really can't make it in showbiz like she wants and that what she's mistaken for her fame is just her 10 minutes in the spotlight because of the murder she did there's no one to root for and there's no happy ending i should have been clicking back over to dragon ball z 10 minutes in but i didn't and it took me a little while to figure out why it's because the characters were well written and inherently compelling and while none of them were headed for a happy ending some of them were heading for karmically satisfying ones watching these terrible people from a third person omniscient perspective lets you really appreciate how terrible they are and then you get to watch their dreams die as they crash and burn it's oddly satisfying like a story without heroes that still lets you watch a villain get their third act comeuppance now that's one reason grimdar can be appealing but it's not the only reason i asked twitter for some thoughts on the appeals and pitfalls of grimdark and found a few recurring themes in the answers one of those themes is catharsis by proxy when a character we relate to on any level goes through something emotionally intense we the audience feel it from a distance catharsis the process of releasing very strong or repressed emotions can feel very freeing or satisfying even if the emotions involved are miserable or exhausting so a character in a grim dark narrative going through the absolute emotional ringer can provide the audience with a feeling of catharsis without having to go through the actual bad stuff of course this isn't unique to grimdark any story can do it even one as quote unquote idealistic as lord of the rings or as child friendly and simplistic as any shown in anime but it is an appeal and it shouldn't be discounted now the other common theme i found was perspective a character in a grimdark narrative goes through a lot if the audience compares the characters experience to their own life instead of relating to that character and feeling for that character they might end up feeling a sense of relief like hey things are lousy but at least i didn't just get stabbed by my own dudes or bitten by zombies it's like the relief of waking up from a nightmare the nightmare sucked and you don't want to do it again but realizing it's not real can be very soothing a whole lot of things you were worrying about suddenly don't matter anymore now while this can work it only really works if the audience doesn't care about the character audiences can get very invested and it doesn't necessarily matter if their own life is really comfortable if their favorite fictional character is having a really bad time they might go better than than me or they might send the author death threats it is interesting to note by the way that both perspective and catharsis by proxy only work if they're a form of negative escapism people who actually deal with very upsetting stuff on a daily basis like grief counselors people struggling with personal trauma etc often actively avoid all things grimdark and favor much more lighthearted optimistic media if grimdark is like a cold shower a quick bout of misery to energize you for the rest of the day then you can see why it wouldn't seem too appealing for someone who spends the rest of their day in the emotional equivalent of an ice bath there was also an interesting answer i noticed where some people suggested that seeing characters struggle even in the face of utter hopelessness was encouraging and i'm gonna be honest that one doesn't make any sense to me because grimdark prides itself on screwing over those exact characters if you want to see persistence in the face of hopelessness be rewarded you can look to any other genre of fiction grimdark is pretty much the only one that'll swat you in the face with a wet towel and call you a dork for believing the universe would ever reward a heroic effort and if it doesn't do that it's not grimdark i guess the bottom line is grimdark has appeal i mean obviously enough people like it that it has to be doing something even though it's precision crafted to be generally unpleasant and miserable it really does work for some people and sometimes you're in the mood for a little catharsis by proxy but it works best in moderation and it's definitely not the be-all end-all pinnacle of fiction it has its place but so does the stuff it's a reaction against grimdark can be aggressively nihilistic but the purpose of fiction is in many cases to inspire and nihilism generally doesn't do that in his 1993 essay let there be dragons acclaimed discworld author and all-around excellent dude sir terry pratchett said something that i personally think is unimaginably beautiful and incidentally also describes 100 of my thoughts on grimdark the quote goes like this why does the third of the three brothers who shares his food with the old woman in the wood go on to become the king of the country why does bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than as it were a few seconds afterwards because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place let there be goblin hordes let there be terrible environmental threats let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must but let there also be hope it may be a grim thin hope an arthurian sword at sunset but let us know that we do not live in vain hope is the ultimate motivator on some level it's the only motivator if it seems like i have personal beef with grimdark as a genre it's only the same beef i have with everything that treats hope like a dumb childish concept rather than the fundamental core of human experience hope makes us believe things can be better once we stop believing that we stop trying to make things better and guess what then things don't get better pessimistic nihilism is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy and maybe it's the 2020 talking but man i have straight up run out of patience with people who give up on a better world and then have the audacity to tell other people if they're naive or stupid for still trying the grimdark worldview preaches that everything sucks and nothing will make it better if the ideal of the grimdark genre is really struggling the face of hopelessness then act like it dare to believe the world can be better and fight for it and if that's really the ideal of grimdark then why does every other genre do a better job of inspiring it grimdark can totally be fun but man don't let it define your worldview so yeah and thanks to world anvil for sponsoring this video by now you're probably aware that world anvil is a browser-based world-building and novel writing software designed to help writers organize their writing and world building all in one place it's got the essentials like plot and story timelines custom wikis for more info on the events in those plot and story timelines interactive world maps of all stripes family trees to keep track of your characters and more recently fully customizable calendars with tools for holidays lunar cycles and basically everything you'd want to fill a year with there's also a fun little feature that helps you keep track of diplomatic relationships and diagram how well certain organizations get along with each other i just think it's neat they also recently gave their word processor a design overhaul to make it more streamlined and easier to use world anvil is also constantly being upgraded with cool new features so by the time you get it there could be all kinds of cool new stuff truly a shining beacon of hope in these dark and uncertain times if that sounds neat the cool part is the base features are all free if you want the bonus frills you can get 20 off all six and twelve month memberships with the promo code overly sarcastic you

Channel: Overly Sarcastic Productions

Views: 428,981

Rating: 4.9539547 out of 5

Keywords: Funny, Summary, OSP, Overly Sarcastic Productions, Analysis, Literary Analysis, Myths, Legends, Classics, Literature, Stories, Storytelling, History, trope talk, tvtropes, grimdark, dark age, frank miller, watchmen, the dark knight returns, sin city, the last of us, hopepunk, warhammer 40000, warhammer 40k

Id: PQAWBeFnkg8

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Sperium3000]

I get what she means when talking about WH40K but the impression I get from fans (Namely TotalBiscuit, but I've seen others) is that despite the setting being a horrible mire of bad people and bad things happening it's also entirely heavy metal in the most stupidest way and that's super fun. I mean you got giant space marines firing red hot bolts out of guns bigger than your torso and then there's orcs flying ships that are red because red is faster and somehow it actually is.

[u/legendaryemerald]

Was already posted and removed by a mod. https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/izlnqx/osps_latest_video_on_grimdark/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[u/randomfox]

"Or do what I did and play the Eldar"

Knowing Red that isn't surprising

but I still mock anyone who plays Eldar

fucking space elves

[u/Kingkempfer]

I think my biggest gripe with this video was the claim that optimism is the belief that things *can* be ok while pessimism believes it *will* be bad.

That distinguishing word choice kinda felt like it came out of thin air in a pretensive attempt to prove something.