Markup View

Author: TheHandle

Dec 15th 2012 at 4:16:33 AM

@Clever Pun, I never said grimdark is ''nihilistic''; the presence or the absence of hope is entirely optional, and you can totally have ThePolyanna, TheAntiNihilist or TheDeterminator in a grimdark setting. It's kind of a tradeoff; no hope makes the setting darker, but hope gives the characters motivation to struggle (and suffer) and gives viewers motivation to watch.

@Jakes:your definition seems to leave out HorrorFilms, which are grimdark by necessity. And where do ExploitationFilms lie? Also, 40K did ''both?'' I thought it was "100% straight in-universe, 100% tongue in cheek out of it".

DarknessInducedAudienceApathy can be a consequence of Grimdark, but it's more related to not having anyone to root for because of BlackAndBlackMorality, rather than because it's the setting that's too hard on the characters. PuellaMagiMadokaMagica seems, at some points, to be entirely hopeless, but that doesn't make the audience apathetic, it just makes them cry. By the way, the show only goes grimdark once; in that one infamously shocking scene.