History Main / DarknessInducedAudienceApathy

* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.AnimeAndManga Anime and Manga]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.ComicBooks Comic Books]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.FanFics Fan Fics]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.{{Films}} Films]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.{{Literature}} Literature]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.LiveActionTV Live Action TV]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.ProfessionalWrestling Professional Wrestling]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.VideoGames Video Games]]
* [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy.WesternAnimation Western Animation]]

** Music/LinkinPark’s discography is retroactively a 7-album long suicide note, especially ''One More Light'', which became a literal CreatorKiller. Actually, let’s just call this a risk with any artist whose mental issues show up too much in their sound.

->''The Season 5 finale of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', a body-count extravaganza even by the HBO series’ carnivorous standards, has boosted an unusual form of protest: sympathy for the ice zombies. Angry fans have taken to Twitter to declare that they are now rooting for [=#TeamWhiteWalkers=], the undead army threatening to overrun the land and destroy humanity. The show’s world, Westeros, they say, is so horrible that it doesn’t deserve to survive, and besides, the White Walkers couldn’t be any worse than its current masters.''
-->--'''''[[http://time.com/3924156/game-of-thrones-white-walkers/ Time Magazine]]'''''

-->--'''[[http://time.com/3924156/game-of-thrones-white-walkers/ Time Magazine]]''

->''"Ruined World + cast of Jerk = I don't care what happens to these guys"''
-->-- [[http://i48.servimg.com/u/f48/14/68/72/11/0487.jpg Demotivational Poster]] with the EightDeadlyWords

It is often said that "conflict is the soul of drama". Without some form of {{conflict}} to fuel things there's no engine to drive the story and thus little reason to engage with it. However, we here at Wiki/TVTropes would like to propose an amendment to this phrase which includes something important but sadly all-too-often forgotten, as [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools tropes are, after all, tools]]:

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy occurs when a conflict exists that simply lacks any reason for the audience to care about how it is resolved. This crops up where the setting is extremely but meaninglessly DarkerAndEdgier, or all sides are EvilVersusEvil or, at least, far enough gone that [[DistinctionWithoutADifference the difference is negligible]]. Even if the heroes are not only heroic because [[DesignatedHero the authors say they are]], sometimes shows with sympathetic heroes have this trope happen because the heroes lack any agency -- if anything good happens, [[DiabolusExMachina it'll be jerked away]].

This trope frequently gets misused for a work that is dark, angsty, or depressing. That is wrong. It only applies when '''there is no meaningful conflict''' because everyone is awful and the world sucks, and therefore '''there are no stakes for the audience'''. If people enjoy the work despite its darkness, this trope does not apply.

This trope frequently gets misused for a work that is dark, angsty, or depressing. That is wrong. It only applies when '''there is no meaningful conflict''' because everyone is awful and the world sucks, and therefore '''there are no stakes for the audience'''.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy occurs when a conflict exists that simply lacks any reason for the audience to care about how it is resolved. This crops up where the setting is extremely but meaninglessly DarkerAndEdgier, or all sides are EvilVersusEvil or, at least, far enough gone that [[DistinctionWithoutADifference the difference is negligible]]. Even if the heroes are not only heroic because [[DesignatedHero the authors say they are]], sometimes shows with sympathetic heroes have this trope happen because the heroes lack any agency -- anything good happens? [[DiabolusExMachina It'll be jerked away]].

This is not just an audience reaction to stories they see or are told. In an interactive medium (Video games, Roleplay, Tabletop game), this can happen depending on how sadistic the players are being in constantly punishing their characters. Why bother getting emotionally involved in a character who may end up dead in a moment? Why bother going on a quest when you have virtually no agency in making anything ''better''?

Author and L.A. Writer's Lab founder Alan Watt has described this trope as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqG-xP156bg knowing the difference between conflict and a dilemma]]. As he describes, a conflict is just the negative result of a character rubbing up against something they may not want to, but a ''dilemma'' is a potential sacrifice that the character needs to make in order to achieve their goal.

When applying to individuals, this is one of the reasons why the "{{Wangst}}" trope happens. This results in readers saying the EightDeadlyWords, or concluding that the plot boils down to a wangst-fest.

Contrast TastesLikeDiabetes, this trope's polar opposite, and also RootingForTheEmpire, but ''only'' when all sides involved are evil and yet the audience still likes them. Compare and contrast {{Glurge}}, which is what happens when [[JustForFun/XMeetsY you combine the sickeningly sweet and the depressingly dark]].

See also TooHappyToLive and TrueLoveIsBoring.

Not to be confused with AngstAversion, which is for when people avoid a work regardless of its conflict because they hear that is too dark or depressing, though it is possible for both tropes to apply to a single work if the same darkness that drives people off makes the conflict meaningless. If people take issue with darkness in a work for being dark rather than how the conflict plays out, you're looking at AngstAversion rather than this trope.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy occurs when a conflict exists that simply lacks any reason for the audience to care about how it is resolved. This crops up where the setting is extremely but meaninglessly DarkerAndEdgier, or all sides are EvilVersusEvil or, at least, far enough gone that any difference is a DistinctionWithoutADifference. Even if the heroes are not only heroic because [[DesignatedHero the authors say we are]], sometimes shows with sympathetic heroes have this trope happen because the heroes lack any agency -- anything good happens? [[DiabolusExMachina It'll be jerked away]].

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has gotten progressively darker and grimmer since the end of Volume 3, with beloved characters being murdered or otherwise maimed or traumatized, and the political situation of Remnant becoming more and more reminiscent of ''Series/GameOfThrones''. The most recent Volume ends on a cliffhanger [[spoiler: with BigGood Ozpin knocked completely off his pedestal, the ArtifactOfDoom in the bad guys' hands, WellIntentionedExtremist James Ironwood about to abandon the rest of the human race to save his own kingdom, and BigBad Salem literally at his doorstep with an army of monsters.]] Some have praised the DarkerAndEdgier direction, while others miss when it was a light-hearted action series about cute girls punching monsters - and they often point to the untimely death of its creator Creator/MontyOum as the point where things began to go downhill.

* Many people deem the story of Janacek's ''Theatre/{{Jenufa}}'' too grim (and most of its characters too unsympathetic) for it to be seen more than once (if at all). For context, Steva is a womanizing, sociopathic drunkard who deserts Jenufa as so as he has gotten into her pants, Jenufa is an extremely naive young woman who falls for Steva's tricks (although she gets better), Kostelnicka [[spoiler: murders her stepdaughter's illegitamite child]], and Laca is a BaseBreakingCharacter for [[NeverLiveItDown slashing Jenufa's face in Act I]].

->''"Ruined World + cast of Jerk = [[EightDeadlyWords I don't care what happens to these guys"]]''

* ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine may have started to show this in the late tens, but the COVID pandemic is where Pastis threw humor into the backseat. Rat’s cynicism is proved right, and he spends most of the time cussing out the year 2020, while Pig struggles to cheer up the hurting world. Even the strips signature [[{{Feghoot long-winded puns}}]] all but dried up, making in possibly the darkest comedy in the funny pages, even in that rough time.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy occurs when a conflict exists that simply lacks any reason for the audience to care about how it is resolved. This crops up where the setting is extremely but meaninglessly DarkerAndEdgier, or all sides are EvilVersusEvil, or at least, far enough gone that any difference is a DistinctionWithoutADifference. Even if the heroes are not only heroic because [[DesignatedHero the authors say we are]], sometimes shows with sympathetic heroes have this trope happen because the heroes lack any agency - anything good happens? [[DiabolusExMachina It'll be jerked away]].

* [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP-Verse]]: TheVerse implies there are more than 5000 anomalous objects out there, a good portion of which are lethal, some of them targeting babies. Hidden in some of the entries are implications that Earth is suffering an eternal CosmicHorrorStory, doomed to die, no matter what is done. There is an entire page dedicated to showcasing just how evil the villains of the SCP-verse can get and how powerful they are. The reader can't even feel that the world is at least fine for now, because there are many articles that amount to "this object already caused the apocalypse, wanna know how?" The existence of NegativeContinuity and UnreliableCanon on the wiki hopes to alleviate most of this, allowing the reader to disregard any portion of the canon they don't particularly like. The amount of humorous entries also tends alleviate much of the bleakness, too. The SCP-Verse will still be [[NightmareFuel attempting to scare your pants off]].

''Meaningful'' conflict is the soul of drama since.

->''"Ruined World + cast of Jerk = I don't care what happens to these guys"''

It is often said that "conflict is the soul of drama". Without some form of {{conflict}} to fuel things there's no engine to drive the story and thus little reason to engage with it. However, we here at Wiki/TVTropes would like to propose an amendment to this phrase which includes something important but sadly all-too-often forgotten:

''Meaningful'' conflict is the soul of drama since Administrivia/TropesAreTools.

''Meaningful'' conflict is the soul of drama. Because Administrivia/TropesAreTools.

* The story-presented-as-a-actual-television show ''Comeuppance'', by [[https://tellygunge.wordpress.com/archives/story-archive/by-tellygunge/ Tellygunge]] (Scroll down to the bottom of the link due to no separate category for the story themselves) is ''supposed'' to be like a vote-in show to make women in hated occupations go into a disgusting [[CoveredInGunge gunge tank]], and tries to convince you by making the contestants as unlikeable as possible. However, [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic Sian Welby]] [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment (the one in this story)]] comes off as a SmugSnake towards those that do go in the gunge tank, [[spoiler:for example, Princess Priscilla after the latter created a scathing review of the former]], mocks every occupation on the show (especially if [[StrawmanHasAPoint they have a valid point, like the bouncer or the airline clerk]]), and the contestants either come off as UnintentionallySympathetic in their plight, or those who are supposed to come off as a KarmaHoudini end up [[LaserGuidedKarma punishing Sian]] in the ways that they can towards her.

* This is an ''intended feature'' of the works of Bertolt Brecht, which he called the ''Verfremdungseffekt'' ("alienating effect"). By discouraging the audience from relating to any of the characters (which was dismissed as a form of escapism), the goal was to draw attention away from them and towards the socioeconomic system that shaped them, and by extension, that same system which exists in real life.

* ''Webcomic/NineteenNinetySomething'': A lot of the stories are really bleak and cynical and most of the characters range from jerks to just straight-up horrible people. It got so bad that the author himself started [[http://jbwarner86.deviantart.com/journal/Nineteen-Ninety-Something-vs-Off-the-Deep-End-546988596 noticing]] [[http://jbwarner86.deviantart.com/journal/Fixing-Joel-563129772 this]] and set out to try and make the stories more uplifting and the characters more likable (Keyword being "try" as this has had varying degrees of success).

* The big plot twists of Act 2 of ''Theatre/{{Ebenezer}}'' are so dark and cynical it can be hard to care about anything that happens before or afterward, even ''A Christmas Carol'' itself. Jacob Marley was in love with Scrooge's mother, swore vengeance on the family when she died in childbirth, impregnated and killed Scrooge's sister Fran, concocted a plot to make Scrooge think Emily was cheating on him, and upon purported proof, foreclosed her orphanage, killing everyone there. It's then revealed Scrooge knew about it all from the start and didn't care, even though he himself attacked Emily viciously and ordered Marley to foreclose her orphanage beforehand. Scrooge's speech detailing this revelation hammers it home.

'''Dickens:''' Then why stay here?\\

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy occurs when a conflict exists that simply lacks any reason for the audience to care about how it is resolved. This crops up where the setting is extremely but meaninglessly DarkerAndEdgier, or all sides are EvilVersusEvil, or at least, far enough gone that any difference is a DistinctionWithoutADifference. Even if the heroes are not only heroic because [[DesignatedHero the authors say we are]], sometimes shows with sympathetic heroes have this trope happen because the heroes lack any agency - anything good happens? [[DiabolusExMachina it'll be jerked away]].