this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
17 points (100.0% liked)
Fantasy books, stories, &c
2648 readers
10 users here now
Anything related to the fantasy genre
Related communities
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected] (also more niche communities)
FAQ
- What does "&c" mean? It's an old-fashioned abbreviation for et cetera.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's a combination of mood and setting. The mood should be serious and the world should be harsh. Grimdark fantasy is kind of a subcategory where the world is completely hopeless as opposed to just being a bit harsh.
The most famous dark fantasy (or depending on who you ask grimdark) series that I can think of is The Witcher. You probably know a bit about about it but there really are no proper good guys. Just Geralt who at least cares enough to try sometimes
Another pretty well known (but kinda controversial) one is Goblin Slayer. This one has some... interesting ideas about goblins. It does do a decent job of making them a credible threat though and you can understand why the goblin slayer wants to make them extinct. An interesting thing about this one is that the characters don't have actual names. This makes them feel disposable to some extent and adds to the general feel of it
The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie is also a great grimdark series. Cannot recommend it enough if you haven’t read them. Also, obligatory shout out to the audio books which are some of the best audio books in existence.
Yeah, a great example.
I agree with this. A combination of mood and settings, and to add @[email protected] 's answer to it, not all good decisions lead to good outcomes. Bad things happen to good people who are trying to do good things.
A combination of this all.