Darkness Induced Audience Apathy

As You Know, Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is generally considered a sign of Bad Writing.

Why do I say "generally"? Well, there are a number of works that get DIAA slapped onto them, but people still read/watch/play them. Some of these works even have fans!

This begs the question: what attracts people to fictional works that have this trope? Is it a twisted pleasure at watching Jerkasses get killed off? Is it simply that some people find a way to root for a character, no matter how unsympathetic?

It's simply that different people have different levels of tolerance for darkness. What is depressing to one person may not bother someone else at all. It's not inherent in the trope. It's an audience reaction. That's why it's a YMMV page.

Some people will get very sad and others probably won't care.

Well, see! I wonder if that's the reasoning behind Warhammer 40000. I mean, you're talking about a franchise that is a Crapsack World and a cast made entirely(?) of Jerkasses. Technically, that should result in Eight Deadly Words. However, it clearly hasn't, because the franchise remains profitable and has fans.

Go figure!

Warhammer 40000 is actually so over the top that I find it actually cool, in a rather deranged and silly way. If I took that setting seriously, yeah, it'd be way too bleak for my tastes; but as a self-aware, humorous attempt to bring the concept of Black-and-Black Morality to its extreme consequences, it is quite amusing.

edited 30th Oct '12 12:46:41 PM by Carciofus

Also the fluff helps make even the serious bits bearable.

Yeah, 40k is a good example of something that's so dark that it came out lighthearted.

40K really isn't a good example for DIAA, for two reasons.

1. The good guys may do terrible things regularly, but they also have good points.
2. The bad guys tend to be so operatically over the top that it's impossible to hate them.

A better example for DIAA is badly written Exalted material, of which there is no shortage, especially before Glories of the Most High. Anyone with more influence than the head of the PTA was a huge asshole, neglectful scumbag and/or genocidal monster because ETHICS OF POWER.

I also imagine 40K, being primarily a tabletop game, has a number of fans that enjoy it purely for gameplay.

I am going to commit blasphemy here and say that Warhammer 40K even makes Shinji Ikari worth reading about.

The alternative way to go is Tastes Like Diabetes which is definitely worse.

DIAA stuff can make you feel like a better person and cleaner than you really are because you aren't them.

It's easier to go so over the top it becomes hilarious,with the opposite trope you can't really do that.

This is without counting the fact that it is very YMMV

edited 31st Oct '12 11:53:13 AM by terlwyth

WH 40 K has ended up as dark slapstick similar to Paranoia, albeit unintentionally. In most cases, you don't even need the Orks to have a laugh.

Choose your answer!

1. So, there’s no middle ground with you? It’s either straining grain alcohol through toast in back alleys or a happy little world of rodents in feety pajamas?
2. Don't feel bad, middle. I still want to include you.
3. what

Nah, not since 2nd Edition.

I dunno, I saw a guy convert from the Lord of the Rings battle game after his first 40K game.

I avoid DIAA like the plague. The belief that True Art Is Angsty bothers me to no end. Video Games seem to be going through a phase of it right now, and I've had to skip out on a few titles released recently simply because I don't feel like I'd be making much of a difference in their worlds. I won't name any names, but the predominance of criminals and killers as the Player Character really needs to stop.

Like has been said though, it doesn't bother me in 40k simply because it's basically become a parody of itself.

That was not my intention,for that I am sorry.

There is a middle ground sure,and most grounded writers catering towards most people will recognize this.

When writing to teenagers though, or just bad writers in general, there is a great fear of being too corny and tasting like Care Bears,so they avoid any thing that looks like it. This also goes for most animated sitcoms as well sans The Simpsons

And for good writers,it's easier too mock just because more people won't be disgusted going there.

How about a better example, namely Final Destination?

What you have is a movie series where a group of people are playing a game against Death, who is an Eldritch Abomination instead of a biological process here. It goes without saying that this is a game that they have no hope of winning. Indeed, I find it comparable to The Deathly Hallows story, except that nobody has an Invisibility Cloak to hide from Death for a very long time.

Indeed, every movie in the series ends with everybody dying. Of course, it raises the question of what would happen if one of them actually won against Death. Then there's the implication that Death is actually God, who initiated the game in the first place due to boredom!

As it was pointed out in the Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy page, you have no reason to get attached to the characters, because you know they'll experience a Downer Ending no matter what they do. So...what's the draw here? Do people go to see it, because they hope that this time it'll be different? Do they see it because they know what'll happen and they just want to laugh at the many ways the characters die?

Yes.

Gory deaths are hilarious. Apparently.

Okay, I admit that I occassionally have a chuckle when I hear that some imbecile has been using a live 125mm shell as an anvil or something (happened in Serbia a few years back, as I recall) and I like a nice gunfight as much as anyone but I'm not a fan of films that make a spectacle of people minding their own business then being horribly killed in some horrifically grotesque manner.

I just can't watch stuff like that. Not because the blood bothers me, but the pointless death and the implied aftermath. That's not entertainment for me. That's...never mind.

The second one. Final Destination is pretty much a slasher flick with gravity taking the place of the psycho with the knife.

edited 8th Nov '12 5:59:21 AM by maxwellelvis

@Jones: Same here. It gives me problems.

It's kind of awkward trying to explain to friends why I can't watch stuff like that, but I have absolutely no problem at all with, say, IRL autopsy photos.

edited 8th Nov '12 9:21:18 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

I think it's the way these films revel in pointless, painful and tragic death. Exactly the sort of thing I've devoted my whole life to trying to prevent and I'm afraid I seem to have suffered a catastrophic sense of humour failure about the subject.

Same here. It's pretty much the whole reason why I wanted to get into forensics when I was younger.

The assumption that writers MUST make any of their characters sympathetic in order to be good makes no sense. Having a cast of assholes or a cast take on a hopeless goal is by no means a bad thing. DIAA (especially when its intentional) isn't not essentially a sign of Bad Writing, nor is its opposite.

edited 18th Dec '12 6:21:51 PM by kn83

It's not bad writing. But there's no reason for me to consume it either.