Let's all pretend to be educated people for a moment.
What's the real definition of Dark Fantasy, /tg/? I know there's not a single definition for genres, but there can certainly be some that are more correct than others. Else they wouldn't be differentiated.
Is it really about the blood and sex, George Martin style? Does it have to be about "the terrors of the soul", quoth Edgar Allan Poe? Is it about love and self-destruction in a fantastic setting, like Byron and Dunsany? Is it enough for it to just be dirty and include vampires?
Every so once in a while you see a roleplaying game purporting to be "Dark Fantasy", but most of the time I feel like all they're doing is smearing blood on the illustrations and sprinkling demons everywhere. Can this really be it?
>>46005305
>smearing blood on the illustrations and sprinkling demons everywhere
I agree, and I see a lot of this as well (basically Dragon Age). When it comes to genre as a marketing tool, a product/world only needs to be aesthetically dark in order to be in the dark fantasy genre.
But if we are talking about genre as a more honest categorization, something can be either thematically or aesthetically dark to be in it, but preferably both. My dark fantasy goto is Berserk as it checks both those boxes. I'd also classify the Warhammer world and lore as dark fantasy, but more in a Boschian sense than like, an Edgar Allan Poe sense.
>>46005305
>What's the real definition of Dark Fantasy, /tg/?
"All the gods want to kill everything, except that sentinent tree which is probably somewhat on our side because it feasts on evil god's bodies."
>>46005305
>What's the real definition of Dark Fantasy, /tg/?
Supernatural beings hate humans and want to make their life miserable. Gods either don't exist or hate humans too because fuck them. Sprinkle sex, violence and pseudopoliticking over matters of honor and vanity to appear more mature.
I'd simply posit it as any world where there's more bad than good in it.
Lord of the Rings ain't dark because for every evil overlord there's a gleaming jewel of civilization.
Dragon Age is dark because its gleaming jewel of civilization is being run by a crazed dictator more interested in murdering his neighbor than stopping the oncoming Evil Overlord.
That sort of thing.
Not to say that any world with conflict of any kind is dark fantasy. I'd particularly describe it as a setting where you're meant to understand that there's more bad than good in the world as a whole. That bad is on the winning side for the most part, at least before the main character steps in.
>>46005305
>Let's all pretend to be educated people for a moment
Good news for you, anon, that's /tg/'s default state.
Unfortunately it seems that one man's Dark Fantasy is another man's Grimdark, which is likely when the former goes a bit over the top with it. But for me I see Dark Fantasy in a setting where dread and hopelessness seem to pervade life, like a fantasy setting's equivalent of the Cold War is happening. Most people just don't see a better future coming.
Now, in order to be -dark- fantasy that has to be combined with a focus on how people tend to be shitbags instead of focusing on all the heroic stuff and using it as a backdrop for that heroes. Sure, heroics can still happen but it takes time to show that is very much not the way of things, that the setting in general has a negative view of human nature.
So maybe something like Martin but the blood and sex aren't really needed. While you can still have those things, just focusing on those seems to go in grimderp directions.
(I also thought Dragon Age when you said smeared blood and sprinkled demons for some reason)
>>46006155
>(I also thought Dragon Age when you said smeared blood and sprinkled demons for some reason)
Dragon Age, Warhammer, the Witcher. This kind of fantasy seems to be gaining in popularity as of late. Probably Game of Thrones' fault.
>>46005305
Depending on who you ask dark fantasy is either any fantasy setting with a greater than usual focus on human suffering, or any fantasy setting where the higher powers are fundamentally biased against the worlds inhabitants.
So a setting where the author is constantly talking about people being raped and tortured would fit the first definition, a setting where the gods demand rape and torture take place would fit the second.
There is a third definition, which is basically that dark fantasy is a cynical marketing term which doesn't actually indicate anything about the setting aside from shallow aesthetic choices. but your mileage may vary on how fair that is.
>>46006628
It was popular ten years ago and before that
>>46006628
Of those three, Witcher seems the least guilty. Yeah, it's got sex and nudity but that seems on the side as opposed to DA and Warhammer tying it directly to evil and demons and shit. Most Witcher 'evil' seems to be folklore shit that doesn't derive it's pornomancer power from flopping boobies around, unlike the other two. The focus on gore never seemed that bad in it either.
Also, the first SoIaF book came out in 96, Sapowski wrote the first Witcher story in 86. If we're talking modern adaptations, I feel like the first Witcher games were gaining popularity before the whole Game of Thrones craze started. Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.
>>46006628
Game of Thrones is for real like 20 years old and has always been hugely popular among people who read fantasy, the tv show didn't really turn a lot of people into raving book nerds all of a sudden, it mainly just made tv companies more excited about pumping lots of money into shows with costumes and adventure.
Dark fantasy being popular is mainly a result of the average genre fan being older today, because the people who used to read it as kids still read it as adults.
I know the cool thing to do on /tg/ is to pretend that everyone who likes dark themes is an edgelord and that all sex is perversion, but honestly, the cheery young adult fantasy was always dumb as shit, and the stuff that was good was a lot darker than you remember.
>>46006758
>>46005305
Go read some glen cook.
Magic and the Gods are not interested in improving things for humans, and humans are mainly out to fuck each other over just like in history.
It's dark fantasy without going out of its way to be edgy. It's cynical, but it doesn't go out of it's way to be edgy like something in the vein of Crossed or whatever.
>>46005305
Not to poop on literature parade, but I don't think most fantasy roleplaying has much to do with Poe, Byron or Dunsany. You're kind of aiming over the roof with these ones.
Try Lovecraft and Moorcock.
>>46006974
Yes. Just like OP this thread needs more cock
>>46005305
>most of the time all they're doing is smearing blood on [everything] and sprinkling demons everywhere.
You've just described Dragon Age.
Here's a quick grid I whipped up with my preferred interpretation.
Along the X axis is the setting description. Dark is a setting where the world is actively out to get the heroes, while bright is one where the setting is generally passive or beneficial.
The Y axis denotes the heroic tendencies of the protagonists. Noble is, obviously, geared towards having selfless and courageous protagonists while grim has characters that are mostly in it for themselves.
Fantasy in the modern era lens quite heavily towards the Dark side of the spectrum. You can also argue that the difference between Dark and Bright is what takes the place of the antagonist. If the setting itself is shit, has been shit and will always be shit, then it's very much a Dark setting. Whereas if the setting has been good but is coming under threat from something else, it leans towards Bright.
>>46005305
Ravenloft is a good example of DF. Men becomes monsters and monsters often look like men.
>>46007659
Actually, looking that over again, Dragon Age should be on the opposite side of the Y axis. The setting is generally beneficial to the heroes, but is under threat from the Blight.
>>46007659
Dresden Files is low fantasy though.
>>46007729
Say what now? Have you even read the books? They've always had the trappings of high fantasy. The protagonists are larger than life heroes who win the day through determination and the strength of their character. It's the setting that lends it the grittiness as the protagonists are given a bunch of shitty options and forced to choose between them.
>>46007778
High Fantasy = World other than Earth.
Low Fantasy = Earth with magic.
Those definitions are simplistic, but a more appropriate one is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy
>>46007844
Not really, or at least I don't see it that way. It may have been the case in the beginning, but low fantasy as a genre has changed over time. Nowadays I'd say it is differentiated from high fantasy by the protagonists, rather than the setting. A low fantasy story features characters that are much more human than their high fantasy counterparts. They're selfish more often than not, their heroics (if there are any at all) a largely a consequence of other agendas.
Take the Lies of Locke Lamora, for example. It's not high fantasy by any means. The protagonists are thieves, assholes and generally only in it for themselves. The magic of the setting is low key, largely being the purview of antagonists set up against Locke and Jean. It is completely unlike high fantasy in any way, shape or form, so what would it be defined as?
I'd say low fantasy, verging on grimdark later in the series.
>>46008138
Wait that book had a sequel?
>>46008588
It has two so far. Red Seas Under Red Skies, which features Locke and Jean trying to be pirates and failing, and the Republic of Thieves, where we finally get to meet Sabetha and learn more about the bondsmagi.
>>46007627
I love how everyone immediately thought Dragon Age from that description. Man, that IP went straight in the shitter.
>>46008138
High and Low fantasy are not descriptions that have anything to do with theme and content other than how the protagonists relate to the setting.
Is the setting something the protagonist enters that is separate from the "real" world, or is it the THE real world of the setting?
If the answer is that the setting is the main reality, and it's not earth, then it's high fantasy. If you arrive there by hopping on a train, walking through a wardrobe or living there in your dreams, or if it's some prehistoric earth (this one is arguable) then it's low fantasy.
Either genre has plenty of examples that are completely different from each other theme and mood wise, Conan's Hyborian Age (really stretches the definition since it's ostensibly set in pre-historic earth but doesn't relate to earth in any meaningful way that impacts the content or the characters worldview) Harry Potter and most of what we call urban or modern fantasy these days are all low fantasy because the fantasy elements exist alongside the real world of earth.
Game of thrones, warhammer, Forgotten Realms, Eragon or the Belgariad are all high fantasy no matter how different they are in mood, theme or level of grittiness.
Calling everything that's bleak and not about superpowered D&D characters or happy endings low fantasy is incredibly lazy and not a useful label, nor is calling everything upbeat and full of magic high fantasy.
Game of thrones is gritty High fantasy, Harry Potter (starts out as) lighthearted Low Fantasy.
>>46008138
>>46010671
Both of these interpretations are used and accepted by different circles.
Since there is no grand high council that classify neckbeard genres neither of you can be definitively correct.
So lets cut this off here becomes an autistic semantics argument.
>>46010976
Except that there is an actual definition if you bother to look it up.
The fact that a lot of people don't doesn't mean that their ignorance is as valuable as other people's knowledge.
The fact that a significant amount of people never bothered to look up what metaphor means and keep using it wrong doesn't constitute a legitimate alternative use of the word either.
>>46005305
Berserk is really the modern definition of proper Dark Fantasy. It is the only good one anyway.
>>46013137
>the modern definition of proper Dark Fantasy
>27 years old manga about a scarred muscular guy with spiky hair and a giant sword that features lots of intestines and tits, sometimes tits made out of intestines.
Come on man, pick up a book now and then.
>>46013265
fucking cthulu shit is dead. I said modern didn't i? never did I imply modern was better than old. I just said it was the best of the modern. Go pick up a book on logic.
>>46013265
I can't hear you over all the massive recognition of critics
>>46013301
Who the fuck mentioned Cthulhu shit?
I'm just saying that a COMICBOOK that's older than 90% of people in this thread is a really shitty poster child for modern fantasy literature.
>>46013357
I love the fuck out of berserk but saying that it's the definitive modern dark fantasy example is like saying that beatles is the face of modern pop. It's older than Game of Thrones. It's older than Wheel of Time. It's 5 years younger than the fucking Belgariad.
>>46013368
A comic book with its own series, three movies, and massive world wide recognition. Do you have something against comic books being heralded as dark fantasy? This is not donald fucking duck.
>>46013453
The modern area began in the 16th century you idiot.
>>46013477
>Area
>Idiot
Okay then.
>>46013495
>devolving to spelling errors
desu senpai
>>46013535
I don't know why you would expect a higher level of discourse on 4chan. You know you aren't talking to bright people. The best they can do is whip up a 2-dimensional chart.
>>46008138
In literature, High or Low fantasy depends entirely on the setting.
In roleplaying games, high and low fantasy are often determined by how "gritty" the setting is. As much as I love RPGs, their definition is shit, and I'm going to stick with the literary one.
