In the Grimdark fantasy of Grimdark we're all individuals (except for Bakker)

[Callan S.]

but I'm quite certain that those people have complex emotional lives, even if your impression that they don't dwell on them much is accurate.

I think I'd measure complexity in self conflictedness. Ie, wanting one thing, but it conflicts against another thing desired. Particularly when these are values that are desired, rather than direct material objects.

There seem to be plenty of people who want things without the least hint that it even potentially conflicts with any other values.

Of course, ironically, this advocates for books to contain poorly written characters. One note and hollow. Well, advocates as much as you want to draw upon reality in writing.

[Callan S.]

Why should i care

No reason, really. This makes it even more complex.

Hey, perhaps it's just me but I think some books challenge the reader on where they have invested their own care. If you don't care, that's part of a book experience - that self realisation of lack of personal care. It's not just a book that didn't do anything in those sections.

Some books don't challenge thus, probably, the author just trying to press reader buttons like they are vending machines. But hey, hows that author to know better and who's to say that sort of challenge matters somehow, anyway. Though I think vending machine writing is hopefully just a dead end.

[Serious Callers Only]

This is entertainment not a post-modernist exercise for my own edification as a wanker.

The realization that i "don't care" is not valuable, is not challenge, except as a signal to avoid those authors in the future.

(though i'm actually more of the sort that hates it, so i guess i find it readable to see how miserable the atrocity committing heroic dunce will get and just what kind of justifications/cognitive dissonance will fly around)*.

*Bakker is a special case.

[Kalbear]

There seem to be plenty of people who want things without the least hint that it even potentially conflicts with any other values.

Sure. That doesn't make them shallow; that makes them human. Everyone does it, and everyone makes up some wacky story about how what they're doing is special or different than anyone else and makes sense. that's what humans do.

In that specific case the important thing between making shallow uninteresting characters and more interesting ones is to understand what THEIR rationalization was. You can have characters that are clearly unreliable narrators and make bad decisions or inconsistent ones, but to them it makes sense. If you don't do this - if you just have the people in your world doing things because that's what makes the plot roll - then it feels contrived, shallow and badly plotted. As brought up before, this is one of the biggest strengths of Martin - that he writes characters who do have their rationalizations and choices pretty well mapped out, and then he shows the somewhat organic results of those rationalizations. He can do this too far, and it can write him into a corner where he needs something to happen for the plot to move but the character reasonably wouldn't do that - but it ends up feeling a lot more natural and the characters stay true to themselves.

[Sci-2]

As I've said elsewhere, to me the idea that grimdark is "realistic" because of frequency of rape is really a cheap excuse for attempts to elicit emotion via an act we can, for the sane, universally agree is horrible.

I mean, in the interest of realism, how many female slave owner's were there that would accompany their transports like Poppy Snarl? How many lesbian princesses happen to be super hot and incapable of the barest intrigue necessary to maintain some political protection?

Including rape does not suddenly make the newest Bluest Eye, and bloodbaths without repercussions do not get check marks for realism. It is hard for me to see how these narrow windows where rape as an act is depicted with little written about coping/recovery/breakdown are doing anything more than creating Hostel sequels in word form...regardless of the merits or demerits of the rest of the book.

The dichotomy between grimdark and vanilla fantasy is a false one, and does a disservice to the argument made by several people on this board. It obfuscates those who criticize grimdark as juvenile horror titillation utilizing cheap narrative tricks to elicit emotion without genuine exploration of sexual assault.

Forget moral, aesthetically I find it rather pathetic...too strong a word. Let's go with problematic cliched and hackneyed.

ETA: Actual English. Sigh.

[Shryke]

Frankly, I can't even figure out which books those who like to throw the term "grimdark" around are even referring to anymore.

Making any sort of statement about the nature of "grimdark" fantasy is completely and utterly useless if you don't first define what fantasy you think is "grimdark" in the first place.

Basically, what books are you people fucking talking about cause your statements are flapping in the wind without context right now.

[Arthmail]

I don't think it's unrealistic at all in most cases. I know bad shit happens in real life too. Modulo the super(hero|villain)(s|es|ism) that fantasy narrative seems to love, there is nothing unrealistic about most "grimdark" (except exaggeration for effect, like KJ Parker). But i don't have to like it, and i will be vocal about it.

Hell, just recently a boy was tortured and killed in Syria by the regime, the photos leaked out and the parents forced to do a photo op with the dictator. More "grimdark" than that is difficult.

Why should i care about the first person narrative of a otherwise normal "hero" or not placed on a situation where he commits atrocities because of the "circumstances". I'm sure the Syrian guy never thought he would be covering up for kids torture either when he wanted to be a dentist. Or Kissinger was fantasying about bombing Cambodia with agent orange when he was a teenager. Or Obama about citizen assassinations.

Sometimes, reflecting on circumstances is ethically null effort, and any book character that tries to do that to me gets beyond my moral horizon, and thus indifference (or hostility, that kinda works, depending on the reader).

Alright, so you don't think it is unrealistic, but you basically think that the world is a shitty enough place without seeing it in your literature. You have a moral horizon, as you call it, and have no desire to cross it. I can actually respect that more than the people that keep droning on about titilation and hot lesbians. That being said, why engage in these threads at all? I mean, you basically want nothing to do with it, and instead of offering solutions about how this particular section of fantasy can be made better, you just don't want to read it and are hostile to it. Are you looking to see that authors do not even write it anymore? I don't engage in the Harry Potter threads because i don't like the books. Not that i'm saying you should not post in these threads, i'm just curious about your motiviation.

Many people aren't particularly ambitious or devoted to abstract principles, and have tastes that are coded as lower class, sure - but that's orthogonal to shallowness in the sense that was being discussed here. I've never seen the Jersey Shore or met your cousins, but I'm quite certain that those people have complex emotional lives, even if your impression that they don't dwell on them much is accurate.

Why bring in lower class? That is not what i said. Emotions are not complex, they are basic. They are reactions. It is the interpretation of them, the understanding of them, that is more complex. Some people just feel, but they do not think. That, to me, is shallow. As i mentioned before, its a fairly subjective standard. But i find myself stunned by anyone that says they have never met a shallow person.

Sure. That doesn't make them shallow; that makes them human. Everyone does it, and everyone makes up some wacky story about how what they're doing is special or different than anyone else and makes sense. that's what humans do.

But someone rationalizing their thoughts does not give them depth, it simply means that they are good at lying to themselves, a notion which would appeal to Bakker. Martin is great at characterization, but i can't say that characters like Sallador Saan are particularily good, or even non-stereotypical. Sure he, has motivation. Wealth, power. That does not make him particularily deep. Nor does it make him special. You are conflating self-rationalization and motivation with depth. Sallador is just a character there to keep things rolling, he is a piece of colour on the wall, and is not particularily well drawn out or engaging.

As I've said elsewhere, to me the idea that grimdark is "realistic" because of frequency of rape is really a cheap excuse for attempts to elicit emotion via an act we can, for the sane, universally agree is horrible.

I mean, in the interest of realism, how many female slave owner's were there that would accompany their transports like Poppy Snarl? How many lesbian princesses happen to be super hot and incapable of the barest intrigue necessary to maintain some political protection?

Including rape does not suddenly make the newest Bluest Eye, and bloodbaths without repercussions do not get check marks for realism. It is hard for me to see how these narrow windows where rape as an act is depicted with little written about coping/recovery/breakdown are doing anything more than creating Hostel sequels in word form...regardless of the merits or demerits of the rest of the book.

The dichotomy between grimdark and vanilla fantasy is a false one, and does a disservice to the argument made by several people on this board. It obfuscates those who criticize grimdark as juvenile horror titillation utilizing cheap narrative tricks to elicit emotion without genuine exploration of sexual assault.

Forget moral, aesthetically I find it rather pathetic...too strong a word. Let's go with problematic cliched and hackneyed.

ETA: Actual English. Sigh.

As I've said elsewhere, to me the idea that grimdark is "realistic" because of frequency of rape is really a cheap excuse for attempts to elicit emotion via an act we can, for the sane, universally agree is horrible.

It's not the frequency of the rape. You missed what has been said for how many pages here, and elsewhere, because you want to dislike it. How much of literature, how much of what we see in the movies and on tv, is an attempt to elicit emotion? I mean, fuck, the Road is an endless attempt at building slow horror. Of course, if i just consider that you mean it is a cheap excuse, then you would prefer what - traditional fantasy, in all of its white-washed glory? And cheap is pretty subjective in any case.

I mean, in the interest of realism, how many female slave owner's were there that would accompany their transports like Poppy Snarl? How many lesbian princesses happen to be super hot and incapable of the barest intrigue necessary to maintain some political protection?

Ah, so...because you have never heard of it in some history book, then the chances that it could happen are nil? Give me a break. Also, grow up and get over that Terez is super hot. To be honest, i can't even remember it being mentioned that she is, but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Who cares if she is, and not everyone has agency. Marie Antoinette did not share the confidence of her husband, for various reasons. It is not impossible that someone in her position would hold little in the way of power. Besides, without Glokta and Bayaz pushing her around, she would have gotten away with her aloofness. Jezal would not have said boo.

And not to get into this again, but Zombiewife did bring up the arguments that you and others were postulating about this issue of Terez with some lesbians that she knew. They, unlike you, did not seem to confuse the character. They saw a princess that is a lesbian, where as you saw a lesbian princess. That is a key difference. I seriously wonder if all of this backlash would have arisen if Terez had simply been a princess with no idea of how to put herself forward to her own best benefit. I think not, considering the parade of alternatives that were listed. So again, it comes down to the fact that she is a lesbian princess, not a princess that is a lesbian.

The dichotomy between grimdark and vanilla fantasy is a false one, and does a disservice to the argument made by several people on this board. It obfuscates those who criticize grimdark as juvenile horror titillation utilizing cheap narrative tricks to elicit emotion without genuine exploration of sexual assault.

Forget moral, aesthetically I find it rather pathetic...too strong a word. Let's go with problematic cliched and hackneyed.

I'll put this more plainly. Who the fuck cares? Really. Your standard of what is genuine exploration of sexual assault is your own, and it has little to no bearing on anyone save those that carry the flag you've been waving so frantically for however many threads. The comparison of more realistic fantasy with white-washed fantasy works well in an argument, because until realistic fantasy reaches whatever golden threshhold you hold to be important, you are basically postulating that its better not to address the matter at all. Which is borderline ridiculous. As with any literature, there is a period of growth and expansion, and by simply stating that this form of fantasy does not fit your narrow and pre-conceived notions of how it should work, and should therefore either work to your satisfaction or not doing anything about it at all, is pointless.

But then again, you've mostly ignored a central point that has been raised repeatidly. Authors address those issues that they feel are important to them, and sometimes they only look at other issues marginally. To say that they should not include something in a book because it does not give it the breadth of focus that you think it deserves is meaningless.

In that specific case the important thing between making shallow uninteresting characters and more interesting ones is to understand what THEIR rationalization was. You can have characters that are clearly unreliable narrators and make bad decisions or inconsistent ones, but to them it makes sense. If you don't do this - if you just have the people in your world doing things because that's what makes the plot roll - then it feels contrived, shallow and badly plotted. As brought up before, this is one of the biggest strengths of Martin - that he writes characters who do have their rationalizations and choices pretty well mapped out, and then he shows the somewhat organic results of those rationalizations. He can do this too far, and it can write him into a corner where he needs something to happen for the plot to move but the character reasonably wouldn't do that - but it ends up feeling a lot more natural and the characters stay true to themselves.

[Arthmail]

Frankly, I can't even figure out which books those who like to throw the term "grimdark" around are even referring to anymore.

Making any sort of statement about the nature of "grimdark" fantasy is completely and utterly useless if you don't first define what fantasy you think is "grimdark" in the first place.

Basically, what books are you people fucking talking about cause your statements are flapping in the wind without context right now.

Basically anything with violence and rape. There is a concerted effort to either have it examined in further depth, or remove the rape and just have uncritical violence. The targets that i have seen a little more than most so far have been Abercrombie and Morgan, both of whom are certainly not uncritical of violence in their books. Abercrombie had once instance of rape in his first trilogy that i can remember, and because of various criteria that were not met, it was apparantly poorly done. In their defence, Abercrombie did actually say that Terez was a badly drawn character - but he said nothing of her being a lesbian, which means that the outcome would have been the same. Glokta still would have forced her into the bed in order to produce a viable heir, and she would not have had any power against the head of the Inquisition and a man that can explode people with his mind.

[Galactus]

It's kind of fascinating to see people fight out their respective ideas in this thread, everyone imposing their own preconceptions on what others are saying (Bakker would approve, I am certain :P)

My point was a lot more simple, actually, in that "dark fantasy" or "realistic fantasy" or whatever still seem to hold to the same kind of... Individual-centric? Narrative as classic heroic fantasy. There's not much more attention to context (which is what I tend to mean by "world-building").

Basically, when I read GRRM what fascinated me was never the fact that it was violent (Conan is violent! So that's hardly new) to some degree that it was *unexpcted* (which by it's very nature has a short shelf-life, the unexpected very quickly becomes expected, and the fact that we can talk about these trends mans they've already become a trend, and thus are no longer unexpected) but more that he created a context that was believable. Not neccessarily cultural/scial/economic, but at least a personal/relational context that made the actions of his characters make sense.

Yes, Tywin is a psychopath, but he's not *just* that, and looking at his backstory you can kind of tell why he is the way he is.

[Nukelavee]

Galactus - but...that's what people DO! They filter everything thru their own value system. That's one of the challenges artists face - punching thru or transcending the reader's preconceptions. Or not.

So, Grimdark is rape and violence? That's not new or edgy. It's been a staple of the genres for....ever.

For me, it comes down to "is it gratuitous, or integral to the story?". If I get the impression somebody is just writing out their personal fantasy, it's a failure.

[red snow]

At the risk of repeating others I'd say there's quite a few examples of "good" villains around. The one from the last two "Long price" books is actually a decent guy but knows he's in a situation where he has to do some pretty bad things for the good of his own nation. I'm currently reading "heirs of the blade" from Adrian Tchaikovsky's "shadows of the apt" series and I think he does a very good job of showing that many soldiers are decent folk but are just caught up in the machine particularly with the wasp races that are the series bad guys but when you see wasps that have left the empire they are pretty decent folk. Adrian repeats this motif quite a bit eg the ants are pretty vicious bastards too but within their cities they are incredibly loyal and upstanding citizens.

Most of abercrombies characters are all arseholes but in terms of "the heroes" it's impossible to say which side we're supposed to root for because they are all people (despite being arseholes).

I'd say Bakker tends to make his human villains so egotistical it's hard to know whether they are good or bad because they are so assured they themselves are right. What I like about Bakker is that his "monsters" are so alien it's impossible to even make judgements regarding whether they are evil, if you regard evil acts as a choice rather than a state of being.

[Sci-2]

So again, it comes down to the fact that she is a lesbian princess, not a princess that is a lesbian.

Well, not to derail, but that she is a lesbian matters because this seems to require a staff capable of keeping her secrets.

Your standard of what is genuine exploration of sexual assault is your own

And I expressed my opinion. Unless you are trying to....gasp! Censor me? :-)

The comparison of more realistic fantasy with white-washed fantasy works well in an argument, because until realistic fantasy reaches whatever golden threshhold you hold to be important, you are basically postulating that its better not to address the matter at all. Which is borderline ridiculous. As with any literature, there is a period of growth and expansion, and by simply stating that this form of fantasy does not fit your narrow and pre-conceived notions of how it should work, and should therefore either work to your satisfaction or not doing anything about it at all, is pointless.

Of course I'm to argue for my threshold to be met, that's every reader.

I think this is where we differ. I don't see the inclusions as poor explanations, I see them as eliciting emotion via the act rather than with good narrative. That the frame of depiction is so predictable, and seen over and over, suggests to me this is a crutch rather than an exploration. It is like the magical little girl, the wise old man, etc.

Martin does this as well, though in his case I've heard it argued by one victim of sexual assault that the ever present danger of sexual assault is more realistic.

Frankly, I can't even figure out which books those who like to throw the term "grimdark" around are even referring to anymore.

Good point - I think the important thing to tackle is scenes that are good or bad, more so than to dismiss an entire book. Or at least we should be clear that the term is not pejorative in and of itself. Bakker could be writing grimdark, in fact it is hard not to think of him as such, but his work is of high quality.

I suppose Heroes could be grimdark, but it is a much better book than TFL and overall better than BSC.

Most of abercrombies characters are all arseholes but in terms of "the heroes" it's impossible to say which side we're supposed to root for because they are all people (despite being arseholes).

This is why I think Heroes is such an improvement. The narrative has lost the predictability of TFL and the authorial fiat If I felt in BSC.

[Arthmail]

Well, not to derail, but that she is a lesbian matters because this seems to require a staff capable of keeping her secrets.

And I expressed my opinion. Unless you are trying to....gasp! Censor me? :-)

Of course I'm to argue for my threshold to be met, that's every reader.

I think this is where we differ. I don't see the inclusions as poor explanations, I see them as eliciting emotion via the act rather than with good narrative. That the frame of depiction is so predictable, and seen over and over, suggests to me this is a crutch rather than an exploration. It is like the magical little girl, the wise old man, etc.

Martin does this as well, though in his case I've heard it argued by one victim of sexual assault that the ever present danger of sexual assault is more realistic.

Good point - I think the important thing to tackle is scenes that are good or bad, more so than to dismiss an entire book. Or at least we should be clear that the term is not pejorative in and of itself. Bakker could be writing grimdark, in fact it is hard not to think of him as such, but his work is of high quality.

I suppose Heroes could be grimdark, but it is a much better book than TFL and overall better than BSC.

This is why I think Heroes is such an improvement. The narrative has lost the predictability of TFL and the authorial fiat If I felt in BSC.

Well, not to derail, but that she is a lesbian matters because this seems to require a staff capable of keeping her secrets.

This is why this matters suddenly? Not that its a cheap exposition, a titilating few pages were the lesbian just gets the deep dicking that she craves? Now it comes down to keep secrets from her staff? It is not inconceivable (i cannot even write that word without thinking about the Princess Bride) that keeping the fact that she is a lesbian with her lady in waiting a secret would be so hard to do. Even if rumours started, they'd be impossible to prove. Besides, this really has nothing to do with anything.

And I expressed my opinion. Unless you are trying to....gasp! Censor me? :-)

Hahaha. This is a joke right? Fun times.

Of course I'm to argue for my threshold to be met, that's every reader

But, its not. What i have been arguing is that everyone that has a hang up about any given part of a book can take it and pound sand. It is not for the author to appeal to you. Ultimately, the only say you have is whether or not it works for you. If it does not, you move on. I mean, i'm fairly bored by Bakker's endless musings and trips through filth land, but there is something about his books that i like, so i persist. I still think the Judging Eye was the best of his books, and the White Luck Warrior was a return to poorer form. I wish he would fuck off with some of the philosophy, but i don't expect him to, which is the key difference between what you and some others believe, and what I and others, including Shryke, have been arguing.

I, personally, think that this notion of authors meeting reader expectations comes down to a simple saying. GRRM is not your bitch. Nor is any other author. Sure, you are completely entitled to your opinion, but part of this argument came around because another review was blazingly angry at Abercrombie for a lesbian princess. Then it became a matter of tropes, with the princess clearly needing a deep dicking to save her from a life of rampant homosexuality. Then there were assertions of priveledge, yadda-yadda-yadda. But ultimately, you have set some metric for your ideals, and punish authors for not reaching them. I don't hold to that idea.

I think this is where we differ. I don't see the inclusions as poor explanations, I see them as eliciting emotion via the act rather than with good narrative. That the frame of depiction is so predictable, and seen over and over, suggests to me this is a crutch rather than an exploration. It is like the magical little girl, the wise old man, etc.

Martin does this as well, though in his case I've heard it argued by one victim of sexual assault that the ever present danger of sexual assault is more realistic.

Alright, we disagree on what constitutes effective writing in this regard. But you want it changed to suit the candle that you carry, whereas if i encounter a book that does not meet some sort of expectation, i do not expect the author to change style or intent for my sake. I expect them to tell the story as they see fit. I've also said that the crutch is perfectly fine in literature. It is easy to sit on the outside and go: write me a book set in a world that is not our own with things not our own, populate it, give it history and a breath of life, and for most authors (especially new ones), try to do it in a few hundred pages....oh, also, never rely on any crutches to make your job easier. If you fail i'll judge you harshly, but if you are only writing white-washed fantasy i'll give you a pass because i have no problem with what you are trying to do, which is writing a book that avoid problems by addressing nothing.

Really? Your expectations are unduly high. Some will say, yes, yes, cater to me. I would say, then write a fucking book and get it published yourself. See how hard it is, and then exepct your peers to do better. It is not to say that authors cannot be critisized for what they have written, they can and should, look at Goodkind. It is that expecting them to change for you, as opposed to critisizing something that does not work for you, are two very different things.

As for Martin, and your victim of sexual assault, i would argue that in pre-modern socities it was always more than a threat. Again, you are conflating modern sensibitlities and learning with pre-modern socities. It is not that you should not do this, we all do it to some degree. I mean, our learning is conditioned that way. And there is yet more that we gloss over in fantasy, which is that living in those times was really difficult, and half of our heroes should have been dead by their thirties, probably from something less than heroic. But there is this continued need to really push our ideals on older societies. Ridley Scotts Robin Hood is a good example of this, or any story where the princess rages against the machine. Sure, some did. Others did not, or they did give in, but only under certain conditions. I just read about one princess that was to marry into the Portguese royal house, and she did not care much for the man that she was marrying, so she put down a number of conditions to which he...mostly accepted. She wanted all of the Jews thrown out of the country, and the king realized that he was basically facing a brain drain as well as a hit to his already limited coffers, and followed her conditions to the letter, if not the intent (he pretend forced a bunch of Jews to become christians and then made a law that no one could check if they were being good christians). So lets compare, for a second.

Storybook princess: Hates that she is a political tool, and fights against it. Eventually, she either meets the man that she does love, or she is not forced to marry the dastardly prince and become a brood mare.

Real life: Is disgusted by the man that she has to marry (who is, incidentally, the uncle of the man that she did love, but the prince died tragically), and sets conditions. These conditions happen to be blatantly racist.

I've derailed a bit here, but i think you get the thrust of my argument.

[Nukelavee]

Arthmail - actually, it sorta IS the responsibility of the writer to meet the expectations of the reader. Why else should we pay them for their writing? If they aren't considering their public, they are just creating something that isn't much different from fanfic, other than they aren't using somebody else's basic premise.

Now, Martin isn't my bitch, true, and if by expectation I meant "he better only write about teh characters and events I care about (and do it the way I want it to go!), then, well, yes, you are totally right. But, by expectation, I mean, he had best deliver a story with the quality I know he can, and he best not decide to spout, oh, pages of zen instruction instead of getting shit the fuck outa Meeren. I'm not paying money if he's going to decide to not tell the story he started to. (not saying that is happening,b ut simply illustrating that no writer should expect to get away with the idea that just because it's theirs, I give a shit enough to read it).

And...a writer without readers is a sad, sad, thing.

[Sci-2]

This is why this matters suddenly? Not that its a cheap exposition, a titilating few pages were the lesbian just gets the deep dicking that she craves? Now it comes down to keep secrets from her staff?

Heh, I'm not Kalbear. I wish I was that sexy, but facts are facts.

But ultimately, you have set some metric for your ideals, and punish authors for not reaching them.

How am I punishing authors?

oh, also, never rely on any crutches to make your job easier. If you fail i'll judge you harshly, but if you are only writing white-washed fantasy i'll give you a pass because i have no problem with what you are trying to do, which is writing a book that avoid problems by addressing nothing.

I don't read vanilla fantasy for the most part. Really, only Sanderson. And I do judge him on dialogue and plotting.\

It is that expecting them to change for you, as opposed to critisizing something that does not work for you, are two very different things.

I feel bad derailing -> This is more a topic for the censorship thread, I think we hashed this out already. Almost all criticism is a suggestion, beyond that which might not fit a particular taste but still be finely crafted. I think Piano Teacher is excellently crafted, but it is a horrible book I may never finish.

[Larry.]

I've taken a couple of days off from commenting here because I wanted to think over some of the responses regarding the "realism" bit. I think there's an honest difference of opinion in regards to what one prefers, so yes (referring back to Joe's comment to me), it is a bit of a personal preference issue. However, what I prefer I don't necessarily want to force on others, except just to note the problems I find in creating a setting in which the violent aspects are the attraction and not the disruption of the societal norms. That focus on the violent aspects in the case of the novels associated with "gritty" fantasies or "grimdark" fantasies (I understand that there is a difference of degree based on origins of certain narratives, but that it is more a matter of degree than kind) seems to distort the "source material" (since apparently a lot of these epic fantasies are based on real-world historical events, at least in part) more toward focusing on its worst, irregular aspects (irregular at least to me, but then again, my degree is in cultural history and wars, famines, murders, rapes, etc. were disruptions of continuity rather than a quotidian feature); others see this differently.

What interests me more about this matter than the potential for interminable arguments on "realism" (conceding, again, that interpretations will vary) is the "staying power" of the current type of epic fantasy. It seems to me that much of the dialogue and scenes are influenced more by current cinema and video game trends than they are by previous epic fantasies and I wonder if in ten or twenty years the authors being discussed hotly now will be as relevant for readers who may be influenced by possible newer trends in cinema, gaming, and/or literature. It would be ironic if I live to turn 50 and visit a board like this (if such would still be popular or if they would be relegated to Usenet status) and see this subgenre dismisssed as blithely as 80s and early 90s epic fantasies often are (which I suspect is an underlying part of the OP's first post). Only time will tell, I suppose.

[Datepalm]

I think theres a difference between inclusion and treatment. The Gritty Stuff is always there somewhere, but I do think that the current treatment of it (in some books) is very much a product of the current moment. Much in the same ways a secret prince farmboy adolescent hero who blushes at the sight of ankles can easily be pegged to a particular and dateable sub-sub-genre, I think the mercenary assassin thief with a thing for raping hookers is going to seem similarly nichey, eventually. (Which isn't necessarily to say that theres not fine books featuring both, but trends do come and go.)

[Shryke]

I've taken a couple of days off from commenting here because I wanted to think over some of the responses regarding the "realism" bit. I think there's an honest difference of opinion in regards to what one prefers, so yes (referring back to Joe's comment to me), it is a bit of a personal preference issue. However, what I prefer I don't necessarily want to force on others, except just to note the problems I find in creating a setting in which the violent aspects are the attraction and not the disruption of the societal norms. That focus on the violent aspects in the case of the novels associated with "gritty" fantasies or "grimdark" fantasies (I understand that there is a difference of degree based on origins of certain narratives, but that it is more a matter of degree than kind) seems to distort the "source material" (since apparently a lot of these epic fantasies are based on real-world historical events, at least in part) more toward focusing on its worst, irregular aspects (irregular at least to me, but then again, my degree is in cultural history and wars, famines, murders, rapes, etc. were disruptions of continuity rather than a quotidian feature); others see this differently.

That's a very ... odd way of looking at it. I mean, how can something that influential and frequent be considered "irregular". It sounds like you are only considering the long-term cultural impact of an event, rather then the impact on the people at that time. And considering fiction, or at least the kind in question, is very much about stuff happening to specific people, it seems a really really strange way to consider the impact of events on the story.

What interests me more about this matter than the potential for interminable arguments on "realism" (conceding, again, that interpretations will vary) is the "staying power" of the current type of epic fantasy. It seems to me that much of the dialogue and scenes are influenced more by current cinema and video game trends than they are by previous epic fantasies and I wonder if in ten or twenty years the authors being discussed hotly now will be as relevant for readers who may be influenced by possible newer trends in cinema, gaming, and/or literature. It would be ironic if I live to turn 50 and visit a board like this (if such would still be popular or if they would be relegated to Usenet status) and see this subgenre dismisssed as blithely as 80s and early 90s epic fantasies often are (which I suspect is an underlying part of the OP's first post). Only time will tell, I suppose.

How? Like, in what way are the current trends influenced by "cinema and video games" and not as a reaction to previous epic fantasy?

This is really starting to sound more like your version of the "get those damn kids with their vidja games and rock music off my lawn" thing.

[Grack21]

I think arthmail brought up an interesting point in that no one who is actually a lesbian seems to have been offended by the scene. I mean, we can sit here and talk shit at each other about whether it's offensive to lesbians or not, but at the end of the day, if it ISN'T actually offensive to them....what the fuck are we all screaming about?

[Grack21]

That's a very ... odd way of looking at it. I mean, how can something that influential and frequent be considered "irregular". It sounds like you are only considering the long-term cultural impact of an event, rather then the impact on the people at that time. And considering fiction, or at least the kind in question, is very much about stuff happening to specific people, it seems a really really strange way to consider the impact of events on the story.

How? Like, in what way are the current trends influenced by "cinema and video games" and not as a reaction to previous epic fantasy?

This is really starting to sound more like your version of the "get those damn kids with their vidja games and rock music off my lawn" thing.

And there violent comic books! They'll be the end of society! Oh dear! *faints*