Café de Nuit

So in another thread, some people were discussing Dragon Age, and Scipion mentioned that dark fantasy seems to be on the rise lately.

Scipion_Emilien wrote:

In fact, I see a resurgence of Dark Fantasy in the lasts years, and can't help but ask: why? Was there a change in pop culture that made a shift from High to dark fantasy?

I've noticed the same thing. Like you suggest, it might just be a pop culture trend. Look at A Song of Ice and Fire or The Dark Tower, for instance. You've got two very influential dark fantasy series that are beloved by people who normally wouldn't even crack a fantasy book. So it could be that the success of a few dark fantasy series has helped make audiences more receptive to the genre.

Personally, though, I think the rise in dark fantasy has more to do with current events. Everybody's worried about war, terrorism, money, the environment, the list goes on and on. And I think those concerns are reflected in our viewing habits. Sort of like how there were all those post-apocalyptic movies made during the cold war.

Finally, I'd like to know what other people consider "dark" fantasy. Is dark fantasy mutually exclusive with high fantasy? Is Twilight dark fantasy just because it has vampires or werewolves?

I think Dark Fantasy, in my view, is not just Gothic or having vampires and werewolves in it. I think what sets it most appart from High fantasy is the tone --- this is not necessarily mandatory always, but I think we have these differing axes many times:

- world view:
in High fantasy, even if some huge impending threat is coming, it seems like the general view of nature is optimistic and beautiful. Even in things Like Eragon or Lords of Midnight (for whoever can catch this reference), there is the promise of a beautiful world somewhere or if the heroes win. And by this I mean a resourceful ecologically functioning world and mostly green, I guess.
in Dark fantasy, it seems we're past that point long ago, as if we had much graver and more sombre problems that the landscape around us. Shots tend to be shown in dark and more closed sequences and it's not clear that after everything is done the world will be any better a place.

- values:
in High fantasy, there seems to always be some high ideal that the heroes want to defend or stand up to. The heroes are unquestionably heroes who must get to the success through self-learning, effort and perhaps sacrifice. They have some nobility of character.
in Dark fantasy, this seems to have been the norm once, but in today's matter, it seems the hero is many times ambiguous and severely flawed, and if he is a hero because he believes in something, most often that is not entirely a lofty ideal nor as all-encompassing as a sense of the ideals of a whole civilization, or a deep spiritual conviction. It's more like remains of a honour code lost in the distant past, something like 'this is the right thing to do, I know, even if for everybody else it feels strange'. I think in Dark Fantasy the whole society seems to have turned to some kind of nihilism, while in High fantasy it's more one society and its values fighting for survival, eventually.

- view respective to the future:
High fantasy tends to be optimistic, while dark fantasy is mostly pessimistic. This transcends the story, and is usually present in the main message that is to be conveyed. Even if the heroes succeed and all ends well, the final result of dark fantasy still leaves us in a state of 'I guess I wouldn't like to live there'. I don't get this feeling from high fantasy at all: for example, I'd love to live in Middle Earth after Sauron was defeated, but not really in Blade Runner's earth (even though this is sci-fi and not strictly fantasy, but I don't think there's much of a difference there).

- moral character:
This has probably been touched before in values, but is more centered on the heroes than that topic. I just wanted to reinforce that Dark fantasy seems to be an outlet for the morally corrupt hero, to make it easier for the reader/viewer to identify with the hero because the latter is more accessible, e.g., more flawed and thus easier to emulate. This is important as a reflection of a society that has lost its values. I get this from my RPG group: people do not want to be goodies, they want to do evil and selfish things. When the viewer is thus aligned, a morally staunch character is not attractive, it becomes boring at the best, so the story has to change to conserve an appeal.


Why this change?

In my view, it is simply a reflection of our culture changes, yes. Probably propelled by the diminishing resistance to frustration, stemming perhaps from aggressive marketing towards immediate satisfaction and uniformization with the rest of the group around you. Also, it feels like the society around us is very corrupt, with money openly dominating all aspects of our life and, essentially, a destruction of were the humanistic values of reasoning, education and transcending oneself. People perceive there's a free for all race for money and power and that anything is legitimate to get there. Moreso if justice doesn't work almost at all, as is the case in my country, so it becomes natural that art reflects this kind of disbelief. It's not fashionable anymore to be upright, you don't do stories for that kind of reader; and then there's the commentary of those that still believe in such things and so cast the future as very dark indeed if we go along this path.

Just my opinion, I don't claim it is the truth AT ALL.

Great points, Ail, thanks!

Another thing I've noticed that seems to be different between dark fantasy and high fantasy is the role of fate. You mentioned that the heroes in high fantasy get their skills through hard work and sacrifice. And even though this is often the case, often times the hero wins just because some prophecy has said the hero will win. Like Harry Potter, he really doesn't seem that talented, but he wins just because he's destined to win. By contrast, in dark fantasy the hero/protagonist either has no destiny or is actively struggling against destiny, like Elric, Guts from Berserk or Ravenloft's Darklords.

Ail wrote: - moral character:
This has probably been touched before in values, but is more centered on the heroes than that topic. I just wanted to reinforce that Dark fantasy seems to be an outlet for the morally corrupt hero, to make it easier for the reader/viewer to identify with the hero because the latter is more accessible, e.g., more flawed and thus easier to emulate. This is important as a reflection of a society that has lost its values. I get this from my RPG group: people do not want to be goodies, they want to do evil and selfish things. When the viewer is thus aligned, a morally staunch character is not attractive, it becomes boring at the best, so the story has to change to conserve an appeal.

This is a great point. Today there doesn't seem to be much popularity to a standard hero that always does the "morally right" thing (whatever that means?), but rather so much greater leeway is given to the anti-hero who is so appealing and gains our affection because he/she isn't perfect. You mentioned Twilight, and I think this is a great example of this trend: the main character of Bella is completely in love/infatuated with a narcissistic, brooding, emotionally abusive boyfriend who belittles her intelligence and wants to dominate her life, and this is considered "romantic". In contrast, she scorns the sweet, friendly boy-next-door who's crazy about her.

On a side note, I think its particularly worrisome that young adults are potentially reading these books/seeing the films and could be coming to the conclusion that this type of relationship is desirable

LadySoth wrote: This is a great point. Today there doesn't seem to be much popularity to a standard hero that always does the "morally right" thing (whatever that means?), but rather so much greater leeway is given to the anti-hero who is so appealing and gains our affection because he/she isn't perfect.

I think that the backlash isn't so much against moral characters as it is moral characters who are rewarded for being moral. In high fantasy, the protagonist does the right thing, suffers some hardships along the way, but ultimately succeed and either live happily ever after or else go off to live in some magical otherland/afterlife. But not so in dark fantasy:


{{{SPOILERS for A Song of Ice and Fire (highlight to read)}}}


Take some of the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, for instance. Ned Stark is a pretty great guy. He's the voice of reason, loves his family and his country, and has a tremendous amount of empathy even for his enemies. But he ends up losing his head because of it. There are plenty of other unambiguously good characters, like Brienne or Jon, and boy do they suffer for it, to little tangible reward so far. So it could be that good actions tend to have more realistic consequences in dark fantasy.


{{{END SPOILERS}}}


Now, that's not to say that good people don't die in high fantasy, but the dead tend to go on to pretty awesome afterlives in high fantasy. Dark fantasy seems to take a much more ambiguous view of the afterlife though, such that it is usually unpleasant or even nonexistent.

Brock, I edited your post a bit, just to color the spoilers black (for lack of a proper spoiler button, yes, yes, I'll put it on the to-do list.) and to indicate up front exactly what book the spoilers were for. No harm done, but I'm reading that series right now, and if I'd read your spoiler a couple books ago I would've been somewhat miffed.

Thanks, Ron!

I will point out that although vampires do tend towards camp, there is a vampire-like character in Fallout 3 named Vance who is exceedingly well-voiced and very charismatic.

I routinely play the game with the intention of killing everybody I meet in a blood-crazed orgy of violence and slaughter. But when I meet Vance, something tells me I can't kill him in all good conscience.

If I didn't know better I'd say I had a mild man-crush on Vance.

It's probably cyclic. People read one type, grow-up, and write similar fiction to what they enjoyed and it sells because it's different. Then it becomes the norm and the other rises.
Dark is probably also seen as more realistic and relatable and mature.

Jester of the FoS wrote:It's probably cyclic. People read one type, grow-up, and write similar fiction to what they enjoyed and it sells because it's different. Then it becomes the norm and the other rises.
Dark is probably also seen as more realistic and relatable and mature.

I've got that same theory regarding music, fashion, computer games, etc. I call it the nostalgia value. That's why the 80s are now in fashion: to appeal to all those 30-odd year olds who were children then and now are the age-class most willing to spend money. The markets profit on that. So, I posit that in today's world fashions have two lives, sort of: when they happen for the first time and 20 or 30 years later.

When I was a child or youngster in the 80s and early 90s, the 60s were pretty much in vogue too :-p.

But aside from that reason, I maintain what I said up, since I don't remember a dark-fantasy theme around the 80s. If anything, that was an extremely heroic and high fantasy age, with products like Conan, Fighting Fantasy, D&D golden age, and fantasy movies like Willow, Ladyhawke, etc and fantasy artists like Boris Vallejo, Larry Elmore and Clyde Caldwell.

Perhaps there was the other side too, I just was not too exposed to it. Or perhaps I should account for the 90s already, which have something of a distinct feel.

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Brock, I edited your post a bit, just to color the spoilers black (for lack of a proper spoiler button, yes, yes, I'll put it on the to-do list.) and to indicate up front exactly what book the spoilers were for. No harm done, but I'm reading that series right now, and if I'd read your spoiler a couple books ago I would've been somewhat miffed.

This might be a good moment to point out that I use the 'chronicles' look and feel, and so I get a parchment-coloured background. I totally missed your changes, Ron, as I got the text completely readable.

I'm curious to what colour schemes people use here in the forums, as the people I'm playing with at the Café de Nuit often use colours for their text that have almost 0 contrast with my background. I'm guessing black is a popular choice

Moral: since the board configuration does entitle the users to choose between several different look-and-feels, with varying and quite contrasting colour schemes, a definitive solution for this problem should not be based on colour coding.

Ail, yes, I knew that would be an issue, but last time I checked the database, most people used myth2 or the default ClanzDarkness2. Both have dark backgrounds, so black works decently well. (in myth2, it's readable if you try, but the low contrast makes it harder to stumble upon.)

But yes, it's a stopgap measure. Adding a spoiler hack would actually hide the text until someone clicked on the "reveal spoiler" button, and not rely on color coding. As I said, it's on the todo list, but low priority.

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Ail, yes, I knew that would be an issue, but last time I checked the database, most people used myth2 or the default ClanzDarkness2. Both have dark backgrounds, so black works decently well. (in myth2, it's readable if you try, but the low contrast makes it harder to stumble upon.)

But yes, it's a stopgap measure. Adding a spoiler hack would actually hide the text until someone clicked on the "reveal spoiler" button, and not rely on color coding. As I said, it's on the todo list, but low priority.

No problem for me, it's not something I'm dying for. Not even remotely.

In my opinion, what qualifie as a dark fantasy world is a world that is not a good place to live. The governement usually corrupt, the nature often in decay. But still, you must save it because it's the only one you got and the thing that want to destroy it will make it worst.

This can actually lead to some moral dilemna, after all, do you help the crass governement, or let the thing destroy it as part of your plan? And then what, how do you deal with the thing that can destroy or make it worse for all? (It's important to note that scale of this could be the whole world or only the village)


As for the explanation, I like the idea that this is a reflection of our preocupation in this world, like the environnement and the war to terrorism.

Personnally, I'm still young, (in the 20s) and I never saw the cold war. (Well in theory I saw the end of it, but wasn't old enough to be aware at the time that there was a cold war.) I guess for me and my generation dark fantasy might seem more realistic since the threat that we faced today are much more hard to define and deal with.

Then, for someone who saw the cold war, high fantasy might make sense by putting two monolithic good and evil block one against the other. Like we were living at the time, the "good" occident (well this was us so I guess we saw ourselves as the good guys) against the "evil" communist threat.

So by this theory, the rise in dark fantasy would be the one of a generation to the age where they can buy things.

Scipion_Emilien wrote: So by this theory, the rise in dark fantasy would be the one of a generation to the age where they can buy things.

This is exactly what I tried to say earlier, so I agree with you. All the rest you said makes sense too.