The conversation in the genre blogosphere lately has been leaning heavily to grittiness, grimdark, and whether they serve a purpose—and whether there’s any difference between the two. A lot of bloggers and commenters seem to be settling on the idea that “grimdark” is the pejorative, so perhaps that is how I will use it here.

Now, I love a good tragedy as much as the next guy. If the next guy is William Shakespeare.

I believe in fiction where actions have consequences, and sometimes terrible prices are paid, and sometimes good people meet fates you wouldn’t wish on Count Rugen. I would argue that darkness and uncertainty are a needful thing; that without them, there are no stakes, no emotional engagement.

If Boromir never falls to the Ring’s lure and betrays the Fellowship, the narrative is shallow and hollow.

If Boromir never falls to the Ring’s lure and betrays the Fellowship, the narrative is shallow and hollow.

But I also believe—with John Gardner, who knew a thing or two about writing fiction—that it’s possible to swing too far in that direction. That one of the things that makes fiction interesting and valuable—one of the things that makes it art, and usefully reflective of life—is the tension between positive and negative, good and bad.

If Boromir never regrets his betrayal, recollects his honor, and dies to redeem himself… the narrative is shallow, and hollow.

I’m not saying, of course, that it has to play out exactly that way. What I’m saying is that if I find myself reading about antiheroes who will always make the worst, most destructive possible decision in any circumstance, I’m not likely to be surprised once I figure out what the trick is. There might be a certain train-wreck fascination, but the direness gets exhausting. And predictable.

If every woman’s going to be raped, if every hero is going to turn out to be a pedophile or a coward, if every halfway honorable man is going to be impaled, if every picturesque little town is going to be burned to the ashes… Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies is just as lazy a narrative as the one where all challenges are resolved by a handy Deus ex machina. And possibly a little more juvenile.

I mean, we’ve all been fifteen and in love with death. Yours truly was a Goth before that was a thing; we were still adjectives back in my day, not even having graduated yet to nouns. That nihilistic view of the world is essentially a juvenile, sociopathic, self-justifying fetish, and most of us eventually grow out of it. We grow into a little responsibility, at least—the understanding that the only thing likely to make the world a more endurable place for the bulk of humanity is collective action. Even when we’re spending a significant amount of time selfishly looking out for number one.1

The world is not a black and white place. The options are not martyrdom or monsterhood. There are balances in between.

The world is not a black and white place. The options are not martyrdom or monsterhood. There are balances in between.

The least self-reflective of the grimdark seems to me to be a little too busy wallowing in splatter and gratuitousness—violence, betrayal, rapine, raping, pillaging, cannibalism, torture… pick three… or four… as if those things were an end to themselves. Admittedly, for some readers, they are. They satisfy the itch those readers want scratched. They conform to a worldview that presents itself as sophisticated, but in reality is just as one-sided and uncomfortable with challenges as the sort of novel where, as Roger Zelazny wrote in one of my favorite gritty fantasy series of all time, “Good triumphs over evil and hero beds heroine.2”

For me, there’s a level at which I feel like I’m playing in a D&D game with a bunch of other fourteen year olds with our fingernails painted black. Again. And I’m forty-one now. But if that’s your comfort read, go for it. When I’m looking for something less challenging, I myself prefer novels about cats solving curiously bloodless murder mysteries.

But what some critics ignore is that the best of the current wave of gritty fantasy does not buy into this fallacy—what Gardner called the disPollyanna syndrome. Instead, it embraces a balance closer to reality: that the world is arbitrary and unfair, and that sometimes even well-meaning people do awful things: desperate, vicious things. But also, that complete jerks, sociopathic monsters, can and do accomplish good—sometimes purposefully, sometimes not.

People are not good or bad, but people. Some are better than others. Sometimes that goodness depends on perspective. One man’s culture hero (Vlad Dracula, Genghis Khan, Saladin, Richard Lionheart, Crazy Horse, Custer, Alexander) is another man’s monster. The best gritty fantasy (Sarah Monette, N. K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor3, George R. R. Martin, Scott Lynch, Richard K. Morgan, Joe Abercrombie4—to name just a few out of many authors I adore5) reflects this, considers it, attempts not to spin a morality play but describe a complicated and ambiguous arc of people doing what they feel they have to do.

They have a working compass, in other words. Rather than just a needle pointing in some direction that we have then decreed south, or north.

Notes

1I feel the need to point out that the heroes of some of the non-grimdark fantasy can be objectively just as monstrous as the grimdark antihero. It’s just that the narrative is much more likely to gloss over and justify their actions. Heroes can kill with impunity, because heroes. And because the author said so.

2Grit, incidentally, is not a new invention. It’s fashionable of late, however. And has been before and will be again.

3Women often get left off the lists of authors writing gritty fantasy, which is nonsense and contributes to farcical circular conversations wherein people argue around this enormous blind spot and people who should know better talk about how it’s realistic for women to have no agency and no role in fantasy beyond being victimized because the person making the argument has apparently not read enough actual military and social history to know better. Even leaving aside for the moment the entire “Fantasy is a made up world from inside your head” argument…

And anyway, nobody mutilates a protagonist like Sarah does. Except for maybe Nnedi. Or me.

Well, if I’m being honest, I should mention that Anne Bishop’s first novel has somebody castrated by rats on page one. Ratstration! Richard K. Morgan Eat Your Hea… okay, bad choice of taunt. Nevermind.

Maybe some people only read male authors? Or find sexual violence a suitable topic for entertainment when it’s only leveled against women?

…nah. Foolishness.

4Joe’s recent blog post on the utility of grit in fantasy is a good read, and I refer you.

5Two of whom I not only consider brilliant writers, but who also happen to be respectively my cowriter and my boyfriend, but damned if I’m leaving either one of them off the list. So there, disclaimer served.

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