A
Tone Shift that seeks to make a work of fiction "more adult". Usually, this is interpreted as "add more
sex,
profanity,
violence, and controversial content".
A show will attempt to shift towards
seriousness,
cynicism and
grit. In theory, archetypes which we are usually accustomed to acting in a more noble setting will have to act in one where they must think and act grimly in order to make progress,
thus forcing re-examination of the tropes involved and making a different sort of character. In practice, writers often are too lazy to make use of what most of those words mean, and ending up randomly "spicing up" a work with gratuitous gore, cursing, and sex.
When a show uses this trope as a tagline, expect
anything that can go wrong will go wrong: the setting to be a
World Half Empty,
everyone to be bastards,
lots of unpleasant things happen to the characters or
backstories giving the characters a particular issue they can spend time angsting about.
As we can expect, this is fairly easy to screw up and poor use of these tropes can just result in
Darkness Induced Audience Apathy and
Narm instead.
This trope became popular in
Comic Books as a rebellion against the
Silver Age led to more than a decade of clumsy attempts to show that comics are Darker And Edgier, and thus "
not kid stuff anymore." See
Bronze Age,
Dark Age, and
Nineties Anti-Hero for more details about how this worked.
Also mocked as "Grimdark" (one word), derived from the tagline of
Warhammer 40000. ("In the grim darkness of the far future, there is
only war.")
note "Grimdark" has also been been used for when the Darker and Edgier goes from merely unnecessary to outright stupid and unaware of its own potential absurdity — although some prefer to differentiate this kind by a different term, like "Grimderp" or "Shitdark". Sometimes justified with the phrase "
Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!"
note Ironically, many are starting to see both tropes as something only kids, namely 14 year olds, like and think. . Usually shows up in
Dark Fic.
Darker And Edgier is rapidly joining
Hilarity Ensues as one of the most
beaten-to-death marketing slogans. If a pre-existing show undergoes a
Retool under the guise of making things Darker And Edgier, expect
Jumping the Shark, especially if there was
Executive Meddling involved. This tends to go better if the change was planned in storyboarding stages to keep the tone from shifting too abruptly.
Note that this is not the same as a
Deconstruction. A Deconstruction plays out the genre's conventions to their logical conclusions in order to criticize the initial genre conventions. This does not have to be dark (see for instance
Deconstructive Parody) and it doesn't prevent things from turning out well. Darker And Edgier just adds "dark" elements to try and get the same effect. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but often a Deconstruction can cause a work to
seem darker because it's calling attention to dark aspects already implied but previously glossed over; see also
Ascended Fridge Horror.
Opposite of
Lighter and Softer. Parallel to
Bloodier and Gorier,
Hotter and Sexier,
Younger and Hipper, and
Denser and Wackier. Often a by-product of the franchise growing
bigger and more epic.
Compare
Grimmification,
American Kirby Is Hardcore,
Obligatory Swearing,
Real Is Brown,
Fractured Fairy Tale,
Sugar Apocalypse, and
Cerebus Syndrome.
Note that
Tropes Are Not Bad, even one misused as often as this one. Please refrain from
Complaining About Tone Shifts You Don't Like.
Examples
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
