Yeah, I'm a little bothered by the insistence that ~*dark*~ = realistic, like somehow universes that highlight more positive things in the human character are wishful thinking and everything would be closer to Real History if absolutely everything was terrible and everyone was at risk of rape, incredibly gruesome death, or both. But then there are dragons and giant magic wolves, and that's okay, but not having the constant sexism and OTT violence would be some betrayal of history.
I guess I'm also just really over "so many people die!!" being used as a measure of legitimacy? I think the idea is that the stakes are meant to feel real, versus stories where the "good guys" come out okay, but I feel like good writing can make you worry for characters even if you somehow know everything's going to turn out all right. So the memetic "GRRM kills all your faves" type stuff sort of falls flat for me. It's like everyone's suddenly over their HP/LotR phases and feels embarrassed about it and needs this Very Adult Fantasy to somehow cover their tracks and be Real Grown Ups again, or something.
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Date: 2014-06-05 01:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'm a little bothered by the insistence that ~*dark*~ = realistic, like somehow universes that highlight more positive things in the human character are wishful thinking and everything would be closer to Real History if absolutely everything was terrible and everyone was at risk of rape, incredibly gruesome death, or both. But then there are dragons and giant magic wolves, and that's okay, but not having the constant sexism and OTT violence would be some betrayal of history.
I guess I'm also just really over "so many people die!!" being used as a measure of legitimacy? I think the idea is that the stakes are meant to feel real, versus stories where the "good guys" come out okay, but I feel like good writing can make you worry for characters even if you somehow know everything's going to turn out all right. So the memetic "GRRM kills all your faves" type stuff sort of falls flat for me. It's like everyone's suddenly over their HP/LotR phases and feels embarrassed about it and needs this Very Adult Fantasy to somehow cover their tracks and be Real Grown Ups again, or something.