Talk:Grimdark

Damien Walter

″Writing for The Guardian in 2016, Damien Walter summarized what he considered grimdark's "domination" of the fantasy genre as "bigger swords, more fighting, bloodier blood, more fighting, axes, more fighting", and, he surmised, a "commercial imperative to win adolescent male readers". He saw this trend as being in opposition to "a truly epic and more emotionally nuanced kind of fantasy" that delivered storytelling instead of only fights.[5]″

This seems unnecessarily condescending, not to mention the article linked isn't about the subject, but rather it's mirror opposite. His definition could be fairly described as intellectual dishonesty in service to his 'progressive' view of what SF/Fantasy should be. It's fair to take a poke at the idea of Grimdark as even the origin of the word was satirical, it's not quite what that definition achieves though, as it's reductive and, frankly, incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.7.184.101 (talk) 00:41, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you mean to criticize Walter's view or the way it is described in this article?  Sandstein  10:48, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

History of the term

I would love to see some information on when the term was first coined. Was it in the last year? The last 10 years? The last 100 years? Mgatland (talk) 09:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Warhammer 40,000 was created in 1987, so that puts an upper bound on the age of the term. I would not be surprised to learn there were multiple, parallel coinings of the phrase. -- 65.118.155.74 (talk) 16:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Style vs Genre?

@Sandstein: I'm having trouble understanding this edit summary. The terms genre and style can be used interchangeably, the clarification that grimdark can be a style and not a genre is not in the wording of either version of the article's lede, and the phrasing that grimdark is a "way to describe" something makes no sense, which is why I edited the article in the first place. Help me out. What are you going for here? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: My understanding is that the adjective "grimdark" can not only be used to describe a subgenre ("grimdark fantasy"), but also more broadly as as a descriptor of tone or style, as in this first Google News hit for the word: "It's not Kryptonite that will end Henry Cavill's run as Warner Bros.' grimdark Superman". In this and similar examples, the writer does not mean to describe the Superman film as belonging to the genre of grimdark films; rather; they seek to convey a certain tone and style with the adjective (scowling antiheroes at night, lots of the old ultraviolence, etc.). Your edit omits this distinction by limiting the term to describe a "genre". Sandstein 19:06, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I see what you mean. There are two problems with that, though. The first problem is that the wording does not reflect the meaning you would like it to have. Nowhere in the article does it say that grimdark can be used as an adjective for non-SF works, even in the part of the lede that I edited.

More importantly, it seems as though you are gearing towards this being an article about the term "grimdark" rather than a specific topic. Not only is this a wishy-washy approach to generating articles, but the article itself does not cover the topic of the term itself or its usage. That people use grimdark in an adjectival sense (and we would need secondary sources to confirm your primary source's usage) is tangential to an article about the genre, which this clearly is. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:03, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I take your point, but I'm not sure that the article's sources only talk about grimdark as a genre, although the article as such generally does. NOTDIC also tells us not to limit articles to dictionary definitions, but such material (e.g., etymologies) can be part of articles.

Nonetheless, I agree that the adjectival meaning would need to be discussed more by secondary sources before we can highlight it in the lead. How about initially eliding the issue of what we describe? E.g., "Grimdark speculative fiction is particularly dystopian, amoral or violent in tone, style or setting. The genre has been ..." and then summarize more of what the article says about grimdark as a genre. Sandstein 20:37, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

The publicly available ones all characterize it as a genre. Editing to accommodate the OR notion of grimdark as something other than a genre is poorly motivated. It's a genre and we shouldn't shy away from saying as much when we define it in the first sentence. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:23, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Hopepunk

How is this noteworthy in any way? There is no need to coin a term for the opposite of grimdark because grimdark itself was coined in order to distinguish it from other, previous books. LOTR came first. It's not hopepunk. It's just a book. As the article says, GoT was attempting to be the anti-LOTR. You don't need to coin a term that means anti-anti. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.100.6 (talk • contribs)

Agreed, though not because of personal opinions on the term, but notability grounds. It seems to be a term coined by a blogger, with the references mentioning it being exclusively blogs and clickbait articles. I will be removing that section. 73.161.253.178 (talk) 22:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I've restored that section (which is the target of redirect Hopepunk); it's sourced by Vox and Wired now. Schazjmd (talk) 20:48, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Neologism

I added to the article that this term is a neologism, with a source. This added two words to the article prose, and it was supported with a source. I was reverted with the edit comment "Unexplained change; that the word is a neologism (most words are) is not the most important aspect of the topic" What explanation would any policy require me to make? This term is a neologism, so noting it is pretty uncontroversial imo. Clearly, most words are not neologisms, and, while it's not the most important aspect of the topic, adding it is hardly undue.

The opinion of other editors would be welcome. (Hohum ^@) 01:40, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

@Hohum, most terms used in speculative fiction fandom are a neologism in the sense that people in the scene came up with them: hopepunk, hard fantasy, queerbaiting... This means that there is little point pointing this out in each and every article, and especially not in the lead sentence:

Per MOS:FIRST, "the first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English."

What the grimdark "is", for the purpose of introducing the subject to the reader, is a genre or style in speculative fiction, not "a neologism". While that may be true, it is not what readers are looking for in the first sentence of an article. If we want to point out that "grimdark" is a neologism, we'd need to do that further down in the article, and then we'd need to say who came up with the word and when. That would be useful information to readers, but I don't have it, and the source you cited doesn't tell us. Sandstein 06:13, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The article already has a sourced entry on the first use. The whole point of an encyclopaedia is to tell the reader information about a subject. Articles need to be written as if the reader doesn't know about the subject, assuming all readers realise that neologisms are neologisms seems like an odd stance. For a descriptive term, being a neologism *is* is a key piece of information for usage.

Are you' of the belief that neologism is a pejorative statement? (Hohum ^@) 08:05, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

No, it's not pejorative, it's just not particularly important, especially not in the lead sentence. See WP:REFERS: we are an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. We are discussing "grimdark" as a literary concept, not the term "grimdark". Besides, the lead is a summary, not the place to introduce new material not found in the body; see MOS:INTRO: "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article".

I'm adding the "neologism" material to the article body, but remain of the view that it is not important enough for the lead sentence or paragraph. Sandstein 11:18, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thank you for your collaboration. (Hohum ^@) 13:41, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Relevant content, see the "Definitions" section in the article.

@Sandstein: The wikilinks that I added to the "See also" section are all relevant to the topic of this article, see the "Definitions" section regarding nihilism in grimdark fiction. GenoV84 (talk) 11:21, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

As I said, MOS:ALSO says that " Links in this section should be relevant and limited to a reasonable number." 11 is certainly too much. Have you tried integrating these links into the body text where appropriate? Why are each of the 11 links you want to add relevant? Sandstein 11:47, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I think that some of these wikilinks are relevant and related to the topic of this article (mainly Absurdism, Cosmicism, and Existential nihilism); if 11 are too much we can reduce them to a reasonable number. The other ones redirect to other genres of fantasy fiction, those are probably not necessary. GenoV84 (talk) 16:47, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

How exactly do links to absurdism, cosmicism, and existential nihilism help people understand the literary concept of grimdark? I don't see the relationship beyond vague analogies that could apply to any number of concepts. Sandstein 17:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding that matter, the article speaks for itself: "Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, and violent. [...] Adam Roberts described it as fiction "where nobody is honourable and Might is Right", and as "the standard way of referring to fantasies that turn their backs on the more uplifting, Pre-Raphaelite visions of idealized medievaliana, and instead stress how nasty, brutish, short and, er, dark life back then 'really' was". But he noted that grimdark has little to do with re-imagining an actual historic reality and more with conveying the sense that our own world is a "cynical, disillusioned, ultraviolent place"." GenoV84 (talk) 17:38, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

... These quotes don't explain why a "see also" link to the three concepts mentioned above would aid readers. I'll ask for a WP:3O. Sandstein 10:58, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

It seems self-evident to me that these topics are related to the perspective of this article. Anyway, I agree with your request for a third opinion. GenoV84 (talk) 11:03, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Agreed that linking related concepts in the body is enough. Dark fantasy is a fine link as it overlaps very heavily with grimdark, but the others should be left off. WPscatter t/c 19:31, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Redirect from Gritty fantasy

Following discussion on Talk:Gritty fantasy, I have blank and redirected Gritty fantasy to point here. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 05:39, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

@CohenTheBohemian, it's best to have some mention of the redirect term in the target article or readers will be lost. I've added a mention of "gritty fantasy" with the Young ref. Schazjmd (talk) 14:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, I'll do that next time. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2023 (UTC)