Good ol' Trope Decay: Darker And Edgier

According to the description, Darker and Edgier is when a work is billed as "Grim Dark 2.0"...and fails, because all they did was throw in gratuitous sex, violence and profanity.

Unfortunately this seems to have decayed quite a bit, as we have such wonderful examples as:

* While Naruto never exactly has been Lighter And Softer, Naruto Shippuden/Part II has been increasingly darker than the original series. The main character, Naruto loses the closest thing he has to a father, Jiraiya, his entire village is literally nuked, his mother figure Tsunade is knocked into a coma, he is actually put into a Hannibal Lecture by Pain which he couldn't retort to...even though he managed to get Pain to bring everyone back to life that he killed that day, the Village is still a crater, Tsunade is still in a coma, and Danzo became Hokage. THEN we get his largest player punches in regards to Sasuke, his former rival and best friend who had joined Akatsuki and attacked Killer Bee, and then attacked the Kage Summit. Learning how far his best friend had fallen caused him to actually have a Heroic BSOD and fall into an Angst Coma. And not to mention that Shippuden/II has more death, destruction, Nightmare Fuel, High Octane Nightmare Fuel, and Orochimaru-and later Madara creepiness to show it's much darker and edgier than Part I.

* Tekkaman Blade is a Darker and Edgier version of an earlier series called Tekkaman the Space Knight.

* The Harry Potter books tended to get Darker And Edgier as they went along. Which was no accident. Rowling set out to write a series that would grow up with its audience, and it was published over a decade — so the same 10-year-olds expected to read Sorcerer's Philosopher's Stone were expected to be about 20 when they read Deathly Hallows, and ready for more mature fare. Naturally, this was entirely lost on most Concerned Parents, leading to oodles of Fan Dumb and What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids.

* Patapon 3 is a rather mild example. The art style is much darker in this one and music has lots of heavy guitar riffs in it.

For those interested, inbound count for this article:

Darker and Edgier found in: 3269 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 27,558 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

I agree that there seems to be a great deal of confusion with Cerebus Syndrome. Perhaps each page needs a line telling tropers not to confuse it with the other.

edited 9th Feb '11 8:38:07 PM by nrjxll

Yes, a line in a trope writeup will stop abuse in its tracks!

You're new here, aren't you? ;)

(Sorry. Jokes aside, there is ample proof in this wiki's history that many contributors use tropes based on an interpretation of their titles, and often do not read the writeup at all. Heck, many times they even contribute to the trope page itself not realizing what they're adding has nothing to do with the write up right above it. So I'm unconvinced just adding text to the writeups will work.)

It definitely needs that line, though. Currently, even if you check the page, it's not clear what the distinction is.

Cerebus Syndrome is about a work becoming more serious.

Darker and Edgier, at least as it's used in practice, is about a work becoming darker and/or edgier.

They really aren't the same thing; they often correspond, but not inherently; something can be dark without necessarily being serious, (see Crosses the Line Twice) and something can be serious without necessarily being dark.

As for the idea of it being about "when a series tries to be dark but fails at it;" in practice Darker and Edgier is used for what it sounds like it's about. Fighting the uphill battle against this just doesn't seem like a very practical option.

If the idea is "supposed to be" about a FAILED attempt at making a series darker, then we would be better off creating a new trope, perhaps a subtrope called something like Failed Edginess, which would specifically be about "failed attempts at Darker and Edgier."

edited 9th Feb '11 9:07:02 PM by neoYTPism

It's also worth noting that the mutual counterpart, Lighter and Softer, is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Well, if that is the case, I'd say that Darker and Edgier really ought to be redefined and the trope that it's "supposed" to be spun off.

I started a YKTTW of it.

It's nothing much yet, of course, but it should develop over time with different users working on it, right?

It's worth noting that Cerebus Syndrome can only apply to a comedic series. Harry Potter wasn't a comedy or even particularly comedic, so it can't undergo Cerebus Syndrome.

We could tweak it so that being comedic isn't a requirement, though.

edited 10th Feb '11 1:26:31 PM by ccoa

Yep. There are also things that become Darker and Edgier, but at the same time so much less serious. I'm looking at you Warhammer 40 K.

I've got nothing against the requirement that the work was originally comedic, in fact, I would support that, as that requirement makes it seem to narrow to me.

I don't support removing that requirement because I think it loses some of it's tropeness by doing so, and also gains a whole lot of subjectivity. It's clear when a comedy becomes a serious drama. It's not so clear where a serious drama becomes a more serious drama. It's also redefining a pre-existing term which makes me leery.

That said, I'm pretty sure Darker and Edgier has always been a counterpart to Lighter and Softer, and the description backs it up. Yes, there are a couple mentions of what happens if that fails, but they aren't the focus of the trope, and never have been. Getting rid of the done badly bits on the trope definition is all that's needed.

edited 10th Feb '11 1:58:33 PM by shimaspawn

Yeah, a Google search shows that initially being a comedy/parody and light and/or episodic story is essential to the pre-existing term, so redefining is out. Forget I mentioned it.

edited 10th Feb '11 2:05:41 PM by ccoa

Huh, I didn't know it was a preexisting term.

I am unable to find the OP's definition of the trope in the current trope definition. Some help anyone? The closest I can get is the first paragraph that says that the trope isn't always executed well.

All I found was "In practice, though, writers often aren't entirely sure what most of those words mean, and ending up "spicing up" a work with gratuitous gore, cursing, and sex."

This doesn't qualify as the definition since it's speculation.

Yep, that's all I found as well. From what I can tell, the trope is exactly what we've been using it for. I think the OP just misunderstood it.

Looks like we're done here.

Yep. Things are being used correctly by everyone but the OP. No issue save with hir. I think we're done.

One more thing... my YKTTW of the idea got a response describing it as "Complaining about tone shifts you don't like."

Should we create the separate trope anyway, if only to distinguish Darker and Edgier from what the OP interpreted it as being about?

edited 10th Feb '11 4:24:22 PM by neoYTPism

No, I don't think so. It really does just strike me as either complaining or Narm.

One more thing... my YKTTW of the idea got a response describing it as "Complaining about tone shifts you don't like."

Eh, a trope like that would be used as yet another complaining trope, since its very definition is subjective.

Tone Shift would be the neutral version I believe.

Do we have a general Tone Shift supertrope?

Nope. Not yet, anyway.