History DarknessInducedAudienceApathy / Literature

* People who are only familiar with ''Literature/{{Dune}}''[='=]s film or video game adaptations are very likely to suffer this when they start to read the novels, as, unlike the films and the video games, the novels have very few, if any, genuinely likeable characters, with the Atreides becoming more ruthless as the series goes on.

* ''Literature/TheElricSaga'': It's maybe hard to go through all the books with Elric's constant misery and casual cruelty, not to mention that [[spoiler: all of his friends and loved ones are either killed by Stormbringer or by the villains in the sixth book]]. Certainly evoked by Moorcock, who wanted to deconstruct the popular epic fantasy stories of the time such as Lord of the Rings and Conan by dialing the brooding UpToEleven and giving an air of hopelessness and nihlism in Elric's ultimately vain quest to fight his fate.

** Another particular novel that falls towards this trope is ''You Can't Scare Me'', which features protagonist Eddie and his friends trying to scare Courtney. Problem is Courtney isn't really particularly nasty and hasn't really done anything cruel to deserve such retribution, which makes Eddie and his pals come off as [[DesignatedHero Designated Heroes]]. One the other hand, Courtney is also seemingly too perfect, which gives an equally good reason to not root for her either. The whole book has readers questioning whose side are we exactly supposed to take here.

** Another particular novel that falls towards this trope is ''You Can't Scare Me'', which features protagonist Eddie and his friends trying to scare Courtney. Problem is Courtney isn't really particularly nasty and hasn't really done anything cruel to deserve such retribution, which makes Eddie and his pals come off as [[DesignatedHero Designated Heroes]]. One the other hand, Courtney is also [[MarySue seemingly too perfect]], which gives an equally good reason to not root for her either. The whole book has readers questioning whose side are we exactly supposed to take here.

* ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'' is this, [[ValuesDissonance at least to non-Objectivists]], for the same reasons as ''Film/TheBirthOfANation1915''. You don’t want either side to win because the conflict is between corrupt government shills hoping to set up a communist dictatorship, and equally {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s who lionize selfishness and set up ''the collapse of civilization''... on purpose!

* ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'' is this, [[ValuesDissonance at least to non-Objectivists]], for the same reasons as ''Film/BirthOfANation1915''. You don’t want either side to win because the conflict is between corrupt government shills hoping to set up a communist dictatorship, and equally {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s who lionize selfishness and set up ''the collapse of civilization''... on purpose!

* ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'' is this, [[ValuesDissonance at least to non-Objectivists]], for the same reasons as ''Film/BirthOfANation''. You don’t want either side to win because the conflict is between corrupt government shills hoping to set up a communist dictatorship, and equally {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s who lionize selfishness and set up ''the collapse of civilization''... on purpose!

** The ''Monster Blood'' series, in particular, hardly has any likable characters. Evan Ross, the main character of all four books, is an unlikably whiny kid and makes a bunch of dumb decisions that causes him to waste away any sympathetic points any reader will ever give him. There's also the other characters of the series that aren't much better, such as [[ParentNeglect Evan's parents]], [[JerkJock Conan Barber]], [[SadistTeacher Mr. Murphy]], and [[InsufferableGenius Evan's cousin Kermit]].

* Creator/GregEgan has a couple of stories that play with this trope in an unusual way. In “The Planck Dive” and in “Oceanic”, the world is not a CrapsackWorld or {{Dystopia}}, however, society exists in the aftermath of the discovery of the AwfulTruth that [[spoiler:the heat death of the universe cannot be evaded by any means even in theory, and so society is doomed to collapse, killing everybody (without any hope of an afterlife or of reincarnation) and making the entire pursuit of knowledge completely pointless]]. This is ultimately so soul-crushingly depressing and nihilistic that it threatened to undermine the entire {{Aesop}} he sought to promulgate, and so he eventually dialed back from this in later stories which casually mention [[spoiler:travel to other universes with different physics]], theoretically letting his characters escape this fate.

* ''The Mayor Of Casterbridge''. Everyone is, without exception, demonically evil or flat. This is a common complaint about Creator/ThomasHardy. A contemporary reviewer of his work stated that, "[His work] is depressing because he himself is somewhat depressed" and boy does it ever show. ''Literature/JudeTheObscure'' and ''Literature/TessOfTheDUrbervilles'' are both unrelentingly depressing ShootTheShaggyDog stories. Hardy was to some extent trying to skewer the Victorian values of the day and make the point that it was impossible for good people to survive in such a system, but as the audience it's difficult to not just stop caring about these characters once it's obvious that any HopeSpot will only lead to another horrible disappointment.

* ''The Kid'', the sequel to ''Literature/{{Push}}'', got hit with this ''hard''. The first book was very dark too, but it at least had some moments of hope and a (somewhat) happy ending. ''The Kid'' [[HappyEndingOverride starts with Precious dying of AIDS]] and goes on to focus on her son Abdul, [[CrapsackWorld who himself is abused, beaten, and raped]] to the point that he becomes an abuser himself, murders his girlfriend's parents, and winds up in a mental institution. Suffice to say that many readers who enjoyed ''Push'' and rooted for Precious found it very hard to slog through ''The Kid''.

* ''Literature/TheTerror'' by Creator/DanSimmons falls into this. Already you know a vast majority of the characters are doomed, due to the book being based on a real-life failed Arctic expedition and [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the graves of main characters being marked on the book's map.]] Add to that the sheer number of unlikable characters (and good characters making stupid decisions and/or [[DroppedABridgeOnHim getting bridges dropped on them right and left]]), the AnyoneCanDie attitude, the countless [[HopeSpot hope spots]] that always turn out to be for naught, and the fact that the majority of the book follows a crew of starving, freezing, scurvy-afflicted sailors and Marines being stalked by a murderous EldritchAbomination, and by the book's halfway point you're wondering why the [[EightDeadlyWords the titular Terror doesn't just put everybody out of their misery already]].

* ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' doesn't always do this, but it ''did'' creep up during ''Literature/MidnightTides''. That novel depicts a war between the Tiste Edur (a nation that keeps humans as slaves and is ruled [[TheCaligula by an insane emperor]] who works for an EldritchAbomination) and Letharas (a [[TheEmpire brutal, expansionist empire]] that [[StrawCharacter takes the flaws of capitalism as far as it can]] without being PlayedForLaughs). You can't even blame one side for being the ones to initiate the war, since they're both pretty eager for it even before the first blow is struck. Sure, individual characters on both sides of the conflict can be quite sympathetic, but the outcome of the war isn't that suspenseful, 'cause you know you're gonna wind up with a regime of violent, oppressive conquerors either way.\\

* ''Literature/TheWitcher'': The world is so filled with monsters, FantasticRacism, [[HumansAreBastards truly '''awful''' people]], and a total lack of any sign of change that it makes it hard to get invested in what happens. The black death-esque plague, inevitable wizard genocide, and ice age destined to destroy everything can make one wonder what the point is of even having a story.

* A number of ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' series are falling into this trope. Starting with Literature/NewJediOrder, the books have become progressively {{darker|AndEdgier}} and everything just seems to be getting worse. Came to a head in Literature/LegacyOfTheForce, which ended [[spoiler: with Jacen dying after being hacked to pieces and left in an incinerator, the galaxy under control of [[OmnicidalManiac Daala]], and the galaxy wrecked by yet another pointless war.]]

* In JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', the seven sons of Fëanor, Túrin, Petty-Dwarves and later the Númenoreans suffer from this.

* A number of Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse series are falling into this trope. Starting with Literature/NewJediOrder, the books have become progressively {{darker|AndEdgier}} and everything just seems to be getting worse. Came to a head in Literature/LegacyOfTheForce, which ended [[spoiler: with Jacen dying after being hacked to pieces and left in an incinerator, the galaxy under control of [[OmnicidalManiac Daala]], and the galaxy wrecked by yet another pointless war.]]

%%* ''HellsChildren'' by Andrew Boland, is this for most people.

* In IRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', the seven sons of Fëanor, Túrin and later the Númenoreans suffer from this.