History DarkerAndEdgier / Literature

* ''Literature/AlexRider'': The series was always reasonably dark when it needed to be, but it started to become far more emotionally brutal by the fifth book, ''Scorpia'' where it's [[spoiler: revealed (and then subverted) that Alex's father was an assassin working for a criminal organisation (Scorpia), and was killed by Mrs Jones, a character who was reasonably close and caring to Alex. Even further, this almost sways Alex into becoming a killer himself, to the point where -- after he agrees to join Scorpia -- he actually visits Mrs Jones' flat with a gun to assassinate her!]]
** As the series progresses, it becomes less quippier and starts to focus more on how [=MI6=] forcing Alex into missions is affecting him personally. As each book passes, it has a further emotional impact on Alex's life, slowly affecting his school life and his interaction with friends. The book ''Crocodile Tears'' even ends with [[spoiler: Alex and Jack contemplating about his future in hospital (after Alex is badly burned following his final encounter with Desmond Mc-Cain).]]

*** From the start of the novel to the finish, Alex is [[spoiler: being led into a trap by his enemies who are constantly watching him and manipulating him. Everything that Alex and [=MI6=] think they're doing right is unknowingly all part of Scorpia's master plan, so the villains have Alex in their clutches before the mission even begins!]]

*** Two of the book's multiple villains consist of; [[spoiler: Julius Grief, an old enemy from the second book with a particularly personal hatred towards Alex; and Abdul-Aziz al-Razim, a sadistic, emotionless scientist who ''tortures innocent people for the sake of creating a measurement system for pain''. When Alex is forced into their clutches, Razim performs a nightmarish torture experiment on him, using Alex's best friend and caregiver, Jack Starbright as bait. Alex is forced to watch as Julius and Razim purposefully lure Jack into a vehicle full of explosives, which Julius detonates, apparently killing Jack and emotionally crippling Alex for the remainder of the book.]] This is without a doubt, the darkest and most painful moment to read in the entire series.
*** Still not enough? When Alex finally confronts [[spoiler: Julius near the end of the book, he is instinctively forced to fatally shoot him in self defense -- the only time Alex has ever purposefully used a gun to kill someone in the series. It doesn't help that Julius Grief was surgically altered to be a literal carbon copy of Alex's appearance, making it appear to Alex as though he shot himself (and is supposed to be a metaphor for Alex killing a darker part of himself "that should never have been born", in the words of Mrs Jones).]]
*** Almost as if to add insult to multiple injuries, it's revealed at the very end of the book that [[spoiler: Alan Blunt, the head of [=MI6=], actually staged the attack on Alex near the start of the book to simply get him out of school and go on the ill-fated mission to Cairo. Poor Alex can't trust anyone -- even those who claim to be on "his side"! It's also important to note that the attack on Alex ''was at his own school'', nearly killing Alex and injuring his friend, Tom.]]
*** Understandably, by the end of ''Scorpia Rising'', [[spoiler: Alex is broken, traumatized and changed, a mere shadow of who he was at the start of the series in ''Stormbreaker''. The book ends with him heading off to the USA for a better life, away from the memories of his past.]] Keep in mind that for readers of the series from 2011 to 2017, this was initially supposed to be the [[DownerEnding final book in the series]]! However the newer books, ''Never Say Die'' in 2017 and the still-unreleased ''Nightshade'', are appearing to veer back to the original spirit and tone of the first four books.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', while never sparkles, rainbows, and kittens, is getting darker. [[spoiler: Genocide]] being the most recent inclusion...

** Sometimes, oddly enough, ''justified in universe''. Harry's behavior for a few books was due to [[spoiler: him being possessed by a Fallen Angel]]. Molly's demeanor in Ghost Stories is actually in some part an act that she's using [[spoiler: to try and be as scary to bad guys as Harry was]].

* While not exactly grimdark, the ''Literature/HowToTrainYourDragon'' series gets darker as it progresses, starting with a silly, lighthearted adventure and ending with some incredibly grim and hopeless situations including [[spoiler: war, grievous injury, and the depiction of a child being tortured.]]

* Creator/RickRiordan's other series, ''Literature/MagnusChaseAndTheGodsOfAsgard'' is much, much darker than his standard fantasy fare, including the below-mentioned PJO and [=HoO=] series. While those series and ''Literature/TheKaneChronicles'', even with their darker stories, mostly keep low on profanities, MCGA isn't shy from having curses and (mild) profanities from being thrown, including "damn", "hell", "gosh", etc. Then there's the fact that, [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascension]] aside, the main protagonist is disposed in a heavily horrific manner ([[spoiler: being ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice, with a gaping hole in his abdomen]]) And it's still a certifiably ''children's'' series.

* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' and its sequel, ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' take a darker turn with every book released. The first indication of a dark turn is during the third book, ''The Titan's Curse'', which sees [[spoiler: a 12-year-old suffering a CruelAndUnusualDeath.]] And it's ''almost'' swept aside, with only minor repercussions that got resolved in the next book. The sequel series, though, takes the cake, what with featuring DysfunctionJunction plaguing the ''entire'' main cast, with the exception of Percy himself, who's really a lucky bastard among the demigods by having GoodParents who take care of him, and even he has to endure being separated from his friends for half a year.

** ''Outcast of Redwall'' has a more mature and tragic tone than what came before it. The BigBad, Swartt Sixclaw, is a disturbingly realistic sociopath whose only motive is to kill the book's hero for {{revenge}}, because the latter wounded him escaping enslavement. Much of the focus is on how Sunflash and Veil both had their lives ruined by Swartt's actions. Sunflash's need for revenge makes it impossible for him to have a normal life, and in the end [[spoiler: he loses his best friend Skarlath]]. Veil's storyline shows how his life was ruined by Swartt abandoning him, and Bryony's mission to bring him back ends with Veil [[spoiler: dying in her arms after taking a hit for her]].

* Literature/{{Stuck}} starts off fair enough, though in its final episode the themes get darker and there's a bit more violence and black humor. Not surprising, considering that [[spoiler: the main characters become fugitives.]]

* ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'' is a fluffy, heartwarming story of a few friends in a magical country (albeit with a lot of FamilyUnfriendlyViolence). ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', the novel, doesn't go more than a few pages without some swear word or mention of sex, or just sex. Creator/GregoryMaguire had a pretty dirty mind... there is a lot of weird romance in it, like Elphaba's father and mother were both in love with the same man, Elphaba's roommate was in love with her (but married a older rich guy, who all Gelphie shippers insist is an abusive ass), Elphaba's guy friend and his friend may have had a hint of romance... it never ends. And yet this isn't the [[FracturedFairyTale actual thrust of the plot]]. [[spoiler: The Wizard is a tyrant, using a secret police and assassination to suppress dissension and many ethnic groups. Conscious, sapient Animals are sent to farms and stripped of their rights, resulting in many Animals going into hiding. Elphaba herself is willing to commit murder to help her cause, and works for what can only be called a terrorist group at one point. Her mentor, Doctor Dillamond, is brutally murdered for coming close to proving the minor point that Animals (the sapient kind) and animals (the normal kind) and humans are made from the same stuff. Religious tensions between Tick-tokism (straw-man science), Lurline (straw man paganism), and the Unionists worshiping the Unnamed God tears apart society. The Wizard's projects come at severe cost in life, such as the destruction of the Quadlings' country for ruby mines. Racism between humans -- especially towards Winkies and Quadlings, is common (though Munchkinlanders of means always "marry into height)." The land is caught in a terrible drought. The Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City are both wasteful boondoggles. Witch sex is hardly the 'darker and edgier' in Wicked.]]

* The ''Literature/AlexRider'' series was always reasonably dark when it needed to be, but it started to become far more emotionally brutal by the fifth book, ''Scorpia'' where it's [[spoiler: revealed (and then subverted) that Alex's father was an assassin working for a criminal organisation (Scorpia), and was killed by Mrs Jones, a character who was reasonably close and caring to Alex. Even further, this almost sways Alex into becoming a killer himself, to the point where -- after he agrees to join Scorpia -- he actually visits Mrs Jones' flat with a gun to assassinate her!]]

* Another Gregory Maguire novel, ''Literature/MirrorMirror'', about Literature/SnowWhite has lots of kink. (Menstruation ''does not work that way!'')

** Its direct sequel ''The Ship Avenged'', entirely written by Stirling, continues this. The [[TheFederation Central Worlds Federation]] that's basically good in the rest of the series isn't, here, and the setting is altogether darker and more dismal, not helped by Belazhir returning to torture people and have a lot more POV. Though, his son ''is'' a TokenHeroicOrc who is so struck by a DefiantPrisoner that he DefectsForLove.

* ''Literature/RedDwarf'': The books in general run with several of the more sci-fi plots the show dropped, and has more of its own. The show is a SitCom InSpace, and will ''always'' snatch itself back down to those roots whenever it starts to stray and become too dramatic. While they remain funny, the books are a sci-fi series with some high stakes (and funny.)

* Many of the original [[Creator/TheBrothersGrimm Brothers Grimm]] fairytales were this before {{Disneyfication}}.
** They were even Darker before the Grimm brothers got a hold of them, too.

* ''The California Diaries'' series, compared to ''Literature/TheBabySittersClub''. However, the use of this trope surprisingly didn't come off as cheesy or overdone. It allowed for more character development and exploration of realistic adolescent themes, like depression, drifting away from childhood friends, and (arguably) closeted homosexuality.

* The ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books are horror stories starring preteen children who get into many types of macabre predicaments. However, special mention goes to ''Welcome To Dead House'', ''Stay Out of the Basement'', ''Welcome to Camp Nightmare'', ''A Night in Terror Tower'', ''The Headless Ghost'', ''The Curse of Camp Cold Lake'', and ''I Live in Your Basement'', all of which are far darker and gorier than many of the other novels of the series. The 2000s series takes this to a much more gruesome level as well.

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': The whole series is pretty dark to begin with, but the series finale, ''Mockingjay'', is much [[BlackAndGrayMorality more hopeless]] than even the first two.

* With its relentlessly dark tone, heavily implied sex, constant violence, and creatures, [[Literature/{{Reckless}} The Mirrorworld Series]] is not your average children's novel.

* Creator/NeilGaiman gave Snow White a similar treatment in his short story "Snow, Glass, Apples."

* The Cinderella adaptation ''Sunny Ella'' casts Cinderella as a deluded murderer and Rapunzel as a soulless half-vampire.

* ''Literature/TheWickedYears'' and ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz''. ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a fluffy, heartwarming story of a few friends in a magical country (albeit with a lot of FamilyUnfriendlyViolence). ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', the novel, doesn't go more than a few pages without some swear word or mention of sex, or just sex. Creator/GregoryMaguire had a pretty dirty mind... there is a lot of weird romance in it, like Elphaba's father and mother were both in love with the same man, Elphaba's roommate was in love with her (but married a older rich guy, who all Gelphie shippers insist is an abusive ass), Elphaba's guy friend and his friend may have had a hint of romance... it never ends. And yet this isn't the [[FracturedFairyTale actual thrust of the plot]]. [[spoiler: The Wizard is a tyrant, using a secret police and assassination to suppress dissension and many ethnic groups. Conscious, sapient Animals are sent to farms and stripped of their rights, resulting in many Animals going into hiding. Elphaba herself is willing to commit murder to help her cause, and works for what can only be called a terrorist group at one point. Her mentor, Doctor Dillamond, is brutally murdered for coming close to proving the minor point that Animals (the sapient kind) and animals (the normal kind) and humans are made from the same stuff. Religious tensions between Tick-tokism (straw-man science), Lurline (straw man paganism), and the Unionists worshiping the Unnamed God tears apart society. The Wizard's projects come at severe cost in life, such as the destruction of the Quadlings' country for ruby mines. Racism between humans -- especially towards Winkies and Quadlings, is common (though Munchkinlanders of means always "marry into height)." The land is caught in a terrible drought. The Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City are both wasteful boondoggles. Witch sex is hardly the 'darker and edgier' in Wicked.]]