"Dark, man, dark!" - On "Dark and Gritty" Fantasy

I have a love/hate relationship with the fantasy genre. On the one hand, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is one my most cherished works of literature. But on the other hand, I often despair at the state of the rest of the genre which, if I may be so bold, is filled with complete rubbish. Too often it fell into the trap of trying to imitate Tolkien, and since an imitation is always inferior to the original, where does that leave the fantasy genre, then?


The cliche of fantasy literature is that the typical fantasy novel is about some unassuming yob from some backwoods village who finds a magic sword and defeats the Dark Lord and wins the hand of the beautiful princess. Or at least that was the cliche, because the past few years have seen fantasy literature take a sudden turn towards being "darker and edgier," where heroism and idealism have been replaced with cynicism, grittiness, violence, explicit sexuality, and general nastiness. George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Glen Cook, Richard Morgan are just a few of the authors who have made their home in this particular brand of fantasy.

Now, I'm not saying that "dark and edgy" fantasy has no right to exist; on his blog Joe Abercrombie quite correctly points out that if one dislikes these kinds of works, there are still authors who specialise in more traditional fantasy fare. What I do object to, however, is the idea that this kind of fantasy is "more grown-up" or "more evolved" than the "childish and immature" fantasy of writers such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Even fantasy-themed video games have jumped on the bandwagon, with works such as The Witcher and Dragon Age falling over each other in an attempt to present a world as nasty, brutish, and miserable as possible.

But this "new breed" of fantasy strikes me as being "mature" only in the sense that they include things that adults do not want children to see. If traditional fantasy is the nerd who plays Dungeons & Dragons during lunch break, then "dark and gritty" fantasy is the kid who wears too much black and who just won't shut up about how much life sucks, people suck, and society sucks, and how being cynical makes him so much more in tune with what a miserable shithole the world is than all those other wide-eyed morons out there. This whole sub-genre seems to have little to say beyond "people = shit."

Worse, the apparent attitude of modern fantasy is that the fantastic is something to be ashamed of, and that magic, adventure, and heroism are silly and frivolous things that ought to be thrown out in favour of "gritty realism." As a result, much of modern fantasy treats the fantastic as mere window dressing for an entirely different kind of story altogether, such as one involving political intrigue and machinations. And boy, does "dark and gritty" fantasy love political intrigue, and what does it have to say about politics? You guessed it: it's all complete shit, man! Just listen to Richard Morgan explain his point of view:

"...society is, always has been and always will be a structure for the exploitation and oppression of the majority through systems of political force dictated by an elite, enforced by thugs, uniformed or not, and upheld by a willful ignorance and stupidity on the part of the very majority whom the system oppresses."

And top it all off, people continually insist that this breed of fantasy is somehow original and groundbreaking, and that it "boldly dispenses with the cliches of traditional fantasy." That might have been true at one point, but just like how the sitcom bumbling dad was once a subversion of Father Knows Best and is now a cliche itself, "dark and gritty" fantasy has become every bit as hackneyed and predictable as the genre it sought to subvert. It's clear that fantasy is following in the exact same footsteps as comic books during The Dark Age, which occasionally produced bold and original works, but more often resulted in cartoonish, grimdark excess that wasn't any more "mature" than Silver Age works, merely nastier.

The impetus among a great many fantasy writers, it seems, is no longer to present a fantastic world, but rather to present a world that is "realistic" in the sense that all the nastiest elements of human existence are brought to the forefront: murder, rape, torture, oppression, racism, and so on. But if the root of fantasy is escapism, as I've heard so many people claim, then why the hell would anyone want to take a jaunt through such a hellhole? If I want to read about how violent and brutal the "real" Middle Ages were, I'll read something by Bernard Cornwell, not a fantasy novel.

To quote C.S. Lewis:“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” 

And that, I believe, is where I stand regarding "dark" fantasy. It feels like a child trying to be "grown up," paralyzed with the fear of being seen as childish and silly. And it is my firm belief that works such as The First Law trilogy and The Steel Remains are not inherently more mature than Lord of the Rings. Rather, they are the foul-mouthed teenagers of the fantasy world.