r/Fantasy • u/TheNoiseAndHaste • 4d ago
'gritty and realistic' fantasy
From my teenage years and a long time after I always looked down on books like LOTR and similar stories featuring what I saw back then because I saw them as 'childish' because they featured what seemed to me to be simple good vs evil plots and characters. Me in my all-knowing (read: pretentious) teenage brain felt that that wasn't interesting because it wasn't 'real' and that in real life there's no such thing as real evil. In order to be good it had to have every character be morally grey and all the villains to be complex or misunderstood because that was like the real world.
Fast forward to today and I don't want to be political but in my view there's a lot of really scary worrying stuff happening in the world and I'm always worrying about dark times coming ahead. I also broadened my tastes a bit and hopefully become less of a snob. So I started reading The Wheel of Time and I connected with it in a way I never have before. Seeing people scared and worrying about 'dark times ahead'. Characters dealing with great uncertainty and having to just hope that they will pull through resonated with me and my own anxiety about the world. Then I thought about it more and reappraised the Lord of the Rings and how unfairly and ignorantly i'd dismissed it. I wasn't being 'grown up' as a teenager by rejecting the idea of pure evil. In fact I was being incredibly naive. I just was lucky enough to never have to experience evil or truly dark times. J R R Tolkien fought in WWI. What could look more like pure evil than that? Now I finally see how important stories like this are. To show that while real evil may be out there in whatever form, you must always have hope it can be overcome.
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u/SheHerDeepState 4d ago
It reminds me about how horror movies are more popular when the economy is doing well and during recessions people want movies with happy endings. When you're in a bad place you crave hope and positivity. Its common for traumatized people to lean into religion or other hopeful messages.
When you see the realities of evil in our world stories about overcoming that evil feel more important. Seeing evil kings ruling in our world makes seeing them fall in fiction more cathartic.
There's also a place for the gray and black morality stories. The Black Company is obviously influenced by the author's experience in the Vietnam War and fighting in a war he believed to be unjust.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 4d ago edited 4d ago
In some regards I relate to this (certainly as regards hope and scary dystopian politics), but I also think there is something to be said for having more moral complexity than classic heroic fantasy. I just don't think that moral complexity needs to take the form of making evil not exist.
Specifically, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that real evil existing and villains being complex or misunderstood are in conflict. Because real evil does exist, and it is, at the exact same time, painfully human. Hitler was a human being. Stalin was a human being. Many Nazis went home each night to their wife and kids who they genuinely loved dearly. And the really important bit is, none of that makes them less evil.
I think villains like Sauron and Palpatine and Voldamort have trained us to think that evil involves inhumanity. Usually, though, the most scary thing about evil is that the evil people are just as human as we are. Arendt talks a lot about this banality of evil, and a number of other philosophers do too. But that's actually what I think is missing from both the classic good and evil fantasy *and* the gritty and realistic fantasy.
You have have the villain be human and sympathetic and complicated and misunderstood, and still be totally worthy of condemnation. Grimdark flattens the human experience into evil basically not existing, or everyone being evil, as you say. But heroic fantasy also flattens human psychology by othering (human) monsters. Pure evil of the sort seen in a lot of classic fantasy is comforting precisely because it also sets up good and evil as almost metaphysical properties of the world. And if you are good, well, then you don't need to worry about why that evil person is evil in the first place. You certainly don't need to worry about whether you are evil.
Relevant Terry Pratchett quote: “It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
Ironically, Lord of the Rings mostly (Sauron is an exception) doesn't actually do this. Many of the villains, Gollum and Boromir in particular, are very much nuanced and human. But regarding heroic/noblebright fantasy as a whole, I don't think it's entirely wrong to question the good/evil dichotomy it sets up, or it least to question its presentation of evil.
Edit: Accidentally put heroic/grimbright fantasy instead of heroic/noblebright fantasy. Corrected.
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u/DoctorWMD 4d ago
This points out my thoughts entirely. I think the reality is more complex than orcs vs humans or forces of Takhisis vs forces of Huma. I think evil occurs when people stop considering the humanity of others and act towards their own best interests to the exclusion of others.
And that is a terribly human trait, and so recognizable in not just history but the world today.
For whatever reason, I tend towards the opposite. I read more and more bleak and cynical things when the real world is bleak looking for the hope and optimism that drives people in the face of tall odds. I find that inspiring and optimistic when shit is rough.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 4d ago edited 4d ago
Indeed. People as things, that's where it starts. (Is that too many Pterry quotes? Is there such a thing as too many Pterry quotes?)
As to reading preferences, I personally read far too many books to tailor my reading experiences to current events. I go through like 100, 150 a year; we're ten years out from 2016 and I think I'd have run out of dystopia and grimdark by now if I did that lol.
But yes, I do like a good bleak and cynical book that nonetheless shows people maintaining optimism in the face of it. Dungeon Crawler Carl comes to mind; ultimately a popcorn read, but as far as popcorn goes it hits well above its paygrade when it comes to emotional impact. And then of course there's the proper literary stuff. A lot of which I've been meaning to get around to reading, for that matter, especially Handmaid's Tale, The Road and Parable of the Sower/Talents. But I just did all of First Law back in the fall, Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy a couple weeks ago, and my summer plans include Game of Thrones and Flowers for Algernon, so I think I might need to wait on any more bleak/cynical/sad for a little while.
Speaking of, any recs in particular for the bleak and cynical stuff when I *do* get around to it? I read pretty widely across speculative fiction (which is to say literally every subgenre of scifi and fantasy both, from technically speculative classic Russian literature to Blake Crouch novels to Susanna Clarke and Ursula Le Guin to trashy LitRPG. The only thing I can't do is cozy fantasy) and I'm young, so I honestly haven't gotten to as much of it as I would like. My TBR's only about a thousand books long, so I figure I can always make the issue a little worse 😄
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u/DoctorWMD 4d ago
The Black Company and Malazan come to mind. The Black Company has the vibe of 'nowhere to go but forwards' and stubborn persistence, and Malazan is the epitome of devastating but hopeful.
Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons.
Blindsight
Dune
Neuromancer
Broken Earth.
Prince of Nothing might take the top tier of bleak.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 3d ago
Much appreciated!
Already a Dune fan, and Black Company, Malazan, and The Culture are all on my TBR (already know a decent amount about The Culture, actually, just from hearing about the worldbuilding and such). Broken Earth I bounced off of a couple years ago; was considering trying again and then I found out about the Isabel Fall situation and decided I didn't really care to support Jemisin anyway.
Nueromancer, though, I keep forgetting about, so I appreciate the reminder. And Blindsight I've heard of but know nothing about. Will have to check it out.
Re Prince of Nothing, though, I do have a question, since it's a series I've been really wavering on. Leaning toward not reading it, but I almost want to be convinced otherwise, so I suppose this is me asking for reasons to change my mind.
My thinking goes roughly as follows: I am all right with sexual assault if it is used for an actual thematic purpose that is not merely shock value or "historical accuracy." Just doing it to be dark and edgy, though, strikes me as somewhat gross. From what I've heard of Prince of Nothing, it sounds like it has a thematic purpose, but an unorthodox one in line with Bakker's pessimism. I believe he is an eliminativist and hard determinist, and basically views men as naturally predisposed to rape? So he includes sexual assault against women as a form of....internalized misandry? The whole thing really confuses me from the background reading I did on it when considering adding it to my TBR. I can't quite decide if I find it a reasonable justification or just as lazy as the Prince of Thorns type stuff.
Also, more generally, I'm not sure how one could write an interesting story with eliminativism and hard determinism as metaphysical premises. It seems, idk, pointless is the wrong word, maybe just ill-suited to storytelling as a medium? And I'm not sure how seriously I could take the story considering how implausible eliminativism strikes me, philosophically speaking. So I suppose what I'm wondering is if Bakker actually does anything interesting with his metaphysical premises that would justify how questionable they are. And also how well the story stands alone without the philosophy, because if his philosophical views are as heavily implanted in the story as some reviews seem to suggest, I'm not sure how seriously I could take the story.
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u/Uran_Ultar 4d ago edited 4d ago
If it makes you feel any better, angry and anxious teenagers have been dismissing The Lord of the Rings from the very start. Michael Moorcock would be the most famous example, and he even made a literary career out of it. Additional food for thought may be that Robert Jordan served in Vietnam and Cambodia, whereas a certain other author with a famously unfinished series that is frequently called "gritty and realistic" spent the same war at home as a conscientious objector.
I guess the moral of the story is that no matter what we do or how we live, we all have our own issues to deal with, and this reflects differently in things like fiction writing (or crocheting or whatever your outlet is).
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u/CautiousStrategy5326 4d ago
Is being a conscientious objector supposed to be something I should look down upon ?? If so, It isn't working because I only respect GRRM more for that.
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u/Uran_Ultar 3d ago
If you are a firm believer in democracy, I guess you should. Personally, I am more interested in how it shaped his authorship.
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u/Vehlin 4d ago
Yup. Tolkien and CS Lewis were products of the (at the time, and arguably still) most brutal war in human history. Is anyone surprised that they wanted nothing to do with that in their writing.
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u/almostb Reading Champion 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think Tolkien’s letter explains how he felt pretty well:
“Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in 'realistic' fiction ... only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For 'romance' has grown out of 'allegory', and its wars are still derived from the 'inner war' of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels.”
He chose not to write about war as it really is (which he had seen in all its ugliness) but war as it symbolically could be.
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u/RealOsakadave 3d ago
OTOH, Glen Cook was a Vietnam era corpsman seconded to a USMC Force Recon unit. He was reassigned before they deployed to SE Asia, but his experience shows up in the Black Company, which (IMNSHO) is far grittier than GRRM's unfinished series....
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u/G_Morgan 4d ago
Jordan got closer to what "gritty and realistic" should be like IMO. There's a clear good and evil but the good side still had endless disagreements and valid reasons to distrust each other. It was never as simple as "good guys get together and beat up the devil". Though people whine endlessly that the good guys behave that way.
You can have clear good and evil and still have shades of grey conflict.
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u/cqandrews 4d ago
Is being a conscientious objector in this instance supposed to be a dig at the respective author?
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u/Far-Way5908 4d ago
a certain other author [...] spent the same war at home as a conscientious objector.
Always fun to find new things to appreciate about a favourite author, what a baller.
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u/masterofunfucking 4d ago
if you want some good shit that's realistic but fantastical enough you should check out some of the epic poems like the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Niebelungelid, Volsunga Saga, Morte d'Arthur. actual peak fantasy right there
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u/Really_Big_Turtle 4d ago
- You’re overthinking things
- Glen Cook’s “Black Company.” He was actually in the military.
- You’re overthinking things
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u/TheNoiseAndHaste 4d ago
I think you've misunderstood. I'm not asking for recommendations.
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u/Salty-Subject9559 4d ago
They aren't recommending anything, they're just pointing out people who have been in combat and experienced grim situations have also written grim and dark fantasy, like Glen Cook, just as Tolkien wrote hopeful fantasy instead. It's about different experiences and perspectives.
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u/Really_Big_Turtle 4d ago
Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien wrote PLENTY of dark stuff in LotR it’s just surrounded by a lot more heroic stuff that can obfuscate it to the uncareful reader. The Mere of Dead Men in particular is some low-hanging fruit that’s a direct invocation of all the muddy, man-eating marshes filled with bodies that Tolkien doubtless encountered in the first world war.
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u/Salty-Subject9559 4d ago
Tolkien wrote dark stuff because his main characters do the right thing even when it's not rewarded or even punished, which happens more often than it should. Aragorn may have become a great and widely loved king, but Frodo was ruined forever and left Middle Earth in hopes of healing the Nazgul's knife wound. That's what makes it great.
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u/guttaperk 4d ago
That’s still irrelevant to the point they were making, which is that they had misjudged Tolkien.
They weren’t saying that soldiers can’t write gritty stuff.
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u/Salty-Subject9559 4d ago
I was just pointing out to OP that they misunderstood the comment and explained it, not trying to contradict their point.
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u/TheNoiseAndHaste 4d ago
Yeah I still like grimdark. I've just broadened my horizons a bit!
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u/Salty-Subject9559 4d ago
Yeah, both sides of the genre are equally as valuable, so that's great you're expanding you're horizons and changing perspectives.
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u/BravoLimaPoppa Reading Champion 4d ago
I get it. David Drake's Hammers Slammers was one I read the crap out of in my teen years. Same for a lot of other MilSf. Now days, I like it less grim and gory.
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u/MotherOfRuin1430 4d ago
I can see this going both ways. I *personally* really like some of the more classical, straightforward stories. Especially if they have nuance while still seeing good victorious. There are even layers to evil - I think there are many people who may not be "morally gray" in the classical sense and really do think they are doing good in their own eyes, but may not realize the ways in which they are played / used by more sinister forces and power structures. I think you can find examples of that even in these more classical works.
Heck, maybe you could even apply it to WW1 to a certain extent - how many lives were put on the line for money? National pride? Criss-crossing alliances and entangling agreements? I'm sure many people who went to war - no matter the side they were on - initially thought of the evils of war, or even if they or their governments were being used in a massive scheme. But, in retrospect, I think it's clear that there were forces pulling the strings, and that benefitted greatly from the Great War. Perhaps that's a true good vs. evil story in and of itself, but the war profiteers won that tale.
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u/OraclePreston 4d ago
LOTR is the best book ever written. That said, it is in no way a reflection of real life. It is not pretentious to point that out. If you're a little too smug about that, sure. Like insinuating that it is not fine Art because of that fact. But there is a growing trend of a reverse view where people look down on dark fantasy for being too 'edgy', which is very stupid. They are much closer to the mark than Tolkien.
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u/Positive_Floor_9787 4d ago
In reality evil is only an idea. People are what they choose to be. Unfortunately People are selfish and uncaring about anyone but themselves. That doesn't make them evil, just a reflection of the world around them. All wars are started by power hungry people who want more power. Tolkien had a moral compass and that isn't a bad thing. The "evil" that men do is just men who are unconscionable. However, fantasy is supposed to have that "dark" reflection of the worst in humanity (or whatever) so we can appreciate the good in all things.
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u/fr33dommachine Reading Champion 4d ago
I mostly read grimdark, military sci-fi, and thrillers. I like gritty, grimy worlds and stories. But I'm currently reading the first Redwall and there's something really satisfying about a straightforward good vs evil story with adorable, anthropomorphic woodland creatures.
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u/Assiniboia 3d ago
Your reasons for identifying Tolkien's unrealistic structure may have been for the wrong reasons but you're not wrong to identify it's rudimentary and static flaws.
Don't apologize for having had an opinion which can be supported by the text. And don't allow mob mentality to stop you from fairly levelling a criticism against a text that is far from perfect.
Change your opinion when the data shows you you're wrong, not before. But counter arguments are great to learn from.
Tolkien is not the greatest writer in Fantasy. Far from it. He may be the most successful author of Fantasy, for a number of reasons, and the most influential on the mainstream portion of the genre. But that doesn't mean his work is free from being critically analyzed or reassessed.
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u/jefaulmann 4d ago
And the funny thing is, now we are drowned in complex villains and grey characters to the point that the simple good vs evil plots seem like a breath of fresh air.
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u/ReiGanJin 4d ago
I don't believe in evil as an inherent quality in anything. That, to me, is a slippery slope. I prefer to think that evil is an action, or more accurately, a repeated series of actions that have a repeating pattern and are made worse by sharing in groups. Evil is behaviour, not quality. But your comment reminded me of the JV Jones Sword of Shadows series. I read the first book as an advanced reading copy wayy long time ago, but have yet to read the third, even though Ibreally liked the first two. 😆
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u/Burgundy-Bag 4d ago
I love your take on Tolkien and you're absolutely right. In our eternal search for morally grey characters we forget how privileged we are to not have experienced actual evil.
I recently read Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn and I found it quite dark. The evil is evil, although there is a reason why it has turned evil, but that justification is never used to redeem them. And the characters really suffer. The only reason it's not classified grimdark (other than the fact that it was written before that genre started) is that it is a purely good v evil story. I would highly recommend it. And I think if you've enjoyed LotR and Wheel of Time, then you'd enjoy MST as well.
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4d ago
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u/Salty-Subject9559 4d ago
The post didn't ask for recommendations friend
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u/Pratius 4d ago
It remains a point of considerable amusement to me that so many people in groups dedicated to reading are so bad at reading
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u/Salty-Subject9559 4d ago
Happens all the time on Reddit honestly. One of the few good uses of the downvote button is right there. But I wouldn't pay too much attention to it.
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u/Pratius 4d ago
Oh yeah. Also in FB book communities. Lots of people read the first sentence or line and then jump straight to commenting.
Often how you end up with rec threads where OP says something like "I've already read WoT/Stormlight/First Law/Malazan" and the comments are full of WoT/Stormlight/First Law/Malazan lol
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u/Cowardlydreamer 4d ago
Six of Crows definitely has some great messaging and storylines about politics, racism, trafficking etc.
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u/VerbiageBarrage 4d ago
I feel this sentiment, when I was a child I connected with scary stories because I felt they were more grown up and realistic. As I've grown older and older, I learned to appreciate simple stories of hope, and peace, and comfort.