Unlike most other media, literature is harder to rank the violence of, with the usual lack of visuals. Purely by the word, violence here is ranked by the brutality of the violent act in general and the worded detail of the act.
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Level 0
- The Cat in the Hat note Light slapstick, but no injuries.
- Green Eggs and Ham note No violence, except for, if you want to get really technical, the necessary death of a green pig.
- Miss Bindergarten
- My Teacher Sleeps in School
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar note The only bad thing that happens is the protagonist gets a tummy ache.
Level 1
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid note Occasional slapstick and injuries like a broken hand, etc. but hardly any blood.
- Dirty Bertie note In "Ouch", Bertie hammers his finger and keeps talking about how it might be broken or infected, but it isn't.
- Matilda note Kids are thrown through the air and made to stand in a box with nails sticking out, but there are no actual injuries.
- Mog note One book has a non-fatal house fire, one book has Mog get a splinter.
Level 2
- The BFG note Talk of giants eating kids, the BFG mentions that their bones crack, one giant is named the Bloodbottler.
- The Cold Equations note A young girl dies from vacuum exposure, but it isn't described in detail.
- The Great Divorce
- I Want My Hat Back note For the ending in which the Bear is mentioned to have eaten the sentient Rabbit, played in a deadpan fashion however
- James and the Giant Peach note Boy has abusive family, cloudmen attack protagonists, parents get eaten in the past, two (villainous) women get non-graphically crushed to death.
- The Little Matchgirl note It is mentioned that the protagonist will be beaten if she doesn't bring home any money, leading to her staying out in the cold and freezing to death.
- The Midnight Gang note Amber has all four limbs broken, Tom has amnesia-causing head injury initially, it's unclear whether Sally will live.
- Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose note The freeloaders get fatally shot offscreen, then they are seen stuffed.
- The Witches note A boy gets his tail lopped off when he's in mouse form, a witch uses something similar to laser vision to vaporise another witch, and witches talk of killing kids.
Level 3
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians note The entire original series fits at a 3, though some individual moments inch into a four (Medusa is beheaded, and bones and skulls are mentioned for "set-dressing"). For the most part, the violence is purely fantastical, not depicted in great detail, and often dealt with lightheartedly.
- Ratburger note Hamster gets poisoned and dies, rats and cockroaches get ground up but all the protagonists survive. At the end the villains also get ground up, and then eaten by rats.
- The Tale of Despereaux note Off-page, a human child is abused over a long period of time by having her ears clapped, eventually deforming them. A mouse has his tail cut off; the description isn't graphic, but there's a brief mention of a "bloody stub" where his tail used to be.
- The Ugly Barnacle note For when everyone (non-graphically) dies at the end. The ambiguous nature of the deaths make it difficult to rank, as they could have possibly died in a fashion befitting a level 10.
Level 4
- All Dressed in Whitenote A hard 4. There are a few murders committed but they occur off-page and there's little detail given, with the only on-page violence occuring in the climax. It's mentioned that a young woman's strangled body was pulled from a lake. The remains of a murdered woman are discovered off-page; her cause of death isn't mentioned. A man drugs a woman and gleefully tells her in detail how he plans to weigh her down and drop her into the sea to drown. The woman strikes the man twice over the head with a mallet in self-defence, causing minor injuries; the man attempts to shoot the woman, narrowly missing her.
- The Diamond Girlsnote A soft 4 due to scenes of child abuse (much of it happens off-page although a girl witnesses a little girl's nose being pinched and sandwich crusts forced down her throat) and violence inflicted on underage teens (including a 14-year-old girl coming home with a bloody nose after being punched). A girl imagines a scenario in which her mother dies in childbirth, including bloodied hospital sheets, though it's not too graphic. Two sisters get into a fight; one gets some bloody scratches on her forehead from the other's long nails. Bruce badly injures his back; it's depicted as highly painful and he ends up bedridden. A girl is knocked unconscious and breaks her legs badly, but we don't get much detail due it to being described in first-person and it skips to her waking up in hospital.
- Every Breath You Takenote In the backstory a woman was thrown to her death from a roof; there's no detailed description of the body or death scene. There's a brief fight between two men; they exchange punches before one man pins the other down, with no serious injuries. The villain describes their plan to force a woman to overdose on pills at gunpoint, but doesn't go through with it. The villain takes two people hostage at gunpoint, intending to kill them. The villain is shot multiple times and dies; there's no graphic detail.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Night World:
- Secret Vampire note A hard 4 due to frequent mentions of blood. A girl suffers severe abdominal pain from pancreatic cancer. A vampire boy and a human girl drink each other's blood numerous times; the boy lightly cuts his wrist and neck, and bites her - it's consensual and only mildly violent. Two teen boys get into a fist fight and one boy is thrown into a dresser, but isn't seriously hurt. A vampire relays a non-graphic yet disturbing childhood story about being manipulated into biting and draining a woman, then trying to give her his blood to save her, which simply turned her into a zombie-like creature that began to rot; he says he hoped his father staked her before burying her corpse. A girl dies as part of a transformation; it's painless but still a bit disturbing. A newly-turned vampire tackles and bites a man; she's pulled off before she seriously hurts him and it's only described as a bit bloody. Vampire thirst is depicted as being akin to suffocation, graphically described from a new vampire's POV (hence why she attacked the aforementioned man).
- Dark Angel (1996) note A soft 4. Gillian falls in a creek and nearly drowns, then slowly dies of hypothermia; she gets better and it's not an especially violent death, but she describes the experience in detail, with emphasis on how both freezing and warming-up is painful. A girl gets a bloody cut on her hand from touching a broken mirror. Students nearly get hit by broken glass when a window shatters. Gillian discovers a curse she put on a girl gave her flesh-eating bacteria; her arm is said to be swollen and needs to be drained of fluid, and she may lose a finger. A supernatural force causes a moving car to crash; the crash isn't described in detail and a boy only gets minor injuries like cuts and bruises. It's revealed a little girl was accidentally burnt to death by magical fire; her death was instantaneous. It's revealed a boy died after "wrapping his car around a tree" driving drunk. Two people uncover a human body that has been buried for around a year, but there's no detailed description.
- An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge note A man is strangled by a rope, with a painful but non-graphic description, and his neck is non-graphically described as broken later.
- The Quantum Thief note Posthuman characters blown apart by high powered weaponry, but without much graphic detail. Brief mentions of bleeding wounds.
- The Sleeping Beauty Killernote A woman recalls being covered in her dead fiance's blood after he was shot; the shooting isn't described in detail. A woman is smashed over the head with a weight and briefly knocked out, leaving her bruised and disoriented. The villain tries to push a woman down an elevator shaft, threatening her with a gun and knife. There's an intense, violent but not especially brutal struggle between the villain and two people.
- You Don't Own Me note A softer 4. A man is shot three times off-page; his corpse isn't graphically described beyond there being a lot of blood and him obviously being dead. A man mentions his older mother was in a lot of pain due to a fender bender and that he found her dead from a painkiller overdose. A man threatens to kill a woman's children. It's speculated and later confirmed a doctor was overdosing his patients and his wife (whom he abused) on painkillers. Laurie is mugged and nearly shoved in front of a car; it stops just in time and she grazes her hands and knees. Two people violently struggle for a gun inside a car, with the car crashing; neither are seriously hurt. A man holds an innocent woman at gunpoint with the intention of killing her; another man fights him for the gun, with the woman joining in.
Level 5
- The Chrysalids note A boy is brutally beaten by his father to the point where his sister has to dress his wounds and help him into bed, where he spends the next two days. A teenaged girl is tortured with hot irons as her friend is forced to watch; this takes place offpage, but is described to the main characters via telepathy. Another girl gets shot in the neck with an arrow; there's no blood, but there is a description of her body "sliding in the dust".
- The Cinderella Murdernote There are some brutal murders and attacks, but a lot of it occurs off-page and isn't described in graphic detail. Non-graphic sexual abuse towards children is mentioned but not depicted. A teenage girl was strangled to death in the backstory; there's a disturbing flashback to the murder, though the actual strangling isn't described. An elderly woman is beaten to death off-page; no details given. A man is found badly beaten and is hospitalised; he's described as bruised and covered in blood. A man is smothered with a life jacket and thrown overboard to drown; occurs off-page.
- Fifty Shades of Grey note A tricky example to pin down: the series is about BDSM (spanking, whipping, restraints etc) which is depicted graphically, though it's all ostensibly consensual and done for mutual sexual pleasure. That said, the main female protagonist isn't always comfortable with it (especially when she's hit repeatedly with a belt), so it's sometimes genuinely harmful and could be considered as high as 8 for sexual violence, though YMMV. It ranks at least a 5 for attempted rape in the second book, off-page rape (including statutory rape of a 15-year-old boy in the backstory), and some harsh but not graphically-described violence; this includes a woman with a bloody bandage on one arm from cutting her wrist, a flashback depicting a child overhearing his mother being beaten, a man punching another man in the face for non-consensually groping his wife, a pregnant woman (in her first trimester) being punched and kicked repeatedly and passing out, and a man being non-fatally and non-graphically shot in self-defence. It's mentioned a woman was beaten badly by her husband, though her injuries aren't detailed, and a man reveals he got his scars from being intentionally burnt with cigarettes as a child.
- God Jr. note By far Dennis Cooper's tamest novel, here due to the described aftermath of a fatal car accident and some videogame violence.
- Goosebumpsnote While most books stay at a 4, a few veer into disgusting Body Horror and violence, often inflicted on children(Chicken Chicken,I Live In Your Basement stand out). Several disturbing offscreen deaths are described, including decapitation, hands being severed, being eaten or even embalmed alive. Human-like monsters die in gruesome ways, such as the undead town in Welcome To Dead House being incinerated by sunlight and the plant clone in Stay Out Of The Basement being bisected with an ax. Animal deaths get fairly graphic detail.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- I Heard That Song Before note Several murders are committed, though they all occur off-page. The descriptions aren't very graphic but the violence is still brutal, especially concerning an 18-year-old girl's murder: she was punched in the mouth and strangled. Another victim's skeleton is found with its skull bashed in, while another victim was repeatedly stabbed and the body found dumped in the river. A pregnant woman drowned in the backstory. An elderly woman trips and knocks her head before fainting; she makes a full recovery though it's distressing for her granddaughter. A sleepwalking man punches and badly injures another man. A man angrily throws a sandwich at his wife's face; she's not seriously hurt but it's presented as disturbing. Two people are held at gunpoint by the villain, who intends to kill them before he's tackled by the cops.
- I've Got You Under My Skin note A hard 5 for brutal yet bloodless violence, and mentions of sexual violence. A man is shot in the head in front of his child; the description isn't graphic. In the backstory a woman was fatally smothered with a pillow. A woman recalls finding her father's body after he hanged himself; she describes his eyes bulging and his tongue hanging down over his lip. A woman recalls being molested by her stepfather; she doesn't go into detail beyond her abuser entering her room. Someone viciously smothers a woman with a pillow (she is revived via CPR). A person who can't swim is deliberately shoved into a pool and left to drown; it skips ahead to the body's discovery. A man tries to shoot a woman and her child, only to be shot in the arm and chest, with the latter killing him; the description isn't graphic save for the man feeling "an explosion" in his chest. A stray rifle bullet hits a man in the head; it's implied the shot obliterated part of his skull (he's described putting his hand to "what remained of his forehead") and he dies in moments.
- Let Me Call You Sweetheart note In the backstory a woman was strangled to death; a few characters semi-graphically describe her corpse, such as distorted facial features and bulging eyes. Kerry's young daughter Robin was involved in a car accident a few weeks ago and her face was cut by glass; she's only described as having a few healing scars. Two people are repeatedly shot in a drive-by mob hit; it's described as bloody without going into more graphic territory. A man is non-graphically shot in the head. A man recalls how he accidentally knocked an elderly woman down a staircase, causing her to break her neck. In the climax the villain holds Robin and Kerry at gunpoint and intends to kill them; Kerry tries to get the gun off him and is struck in the head. The villain is fatally shot to protect Kerry and her daughter; he's merely described slumping to the ground.
- Little Darlingsnote Due to a brief scene where Destiny and her mother Kate are nearly sexually assaulted by a truck driver; Destiny states he made creepy comments and grabbed her, only for Kate to punch him in the groin, enabling them to escape. The rest of the violence ranks either a hard 3 or soft 4. Destiny mentions that her mother's ex-boyfriend would hit them both, but doesn't go into detail. Destiny also mentions that a gang caught a rival gang member and cut him with a knife. Kate and Destiny are roughly dragged off a property by a security guard, including being shoved to the ground. Sunset's mother slaps her hard across the face. Sunset overhears someone being slapped while her parents are arguing. Sunset is scared her mother may have gotten into a car accident and imagines her slumped over in a bloodstained dress. At one point Kate collapses; it turns out to be a thyroid problem that's easily treated, though it's scary for Destiny.
- Lola Rose note A light 5, mostly due to semi-graphic depictions of domestic abuse, notably a scene where a young girl is hit in the face by her father hard enough to knock her to the ground, and her mother is punched and kicked after scratching at his face; the mother gets a bloody nose which drips onto her shirt. A girl describes seeing her mother bloodied and covered in bruises from an earlier beating. She also describes a fictional scenario in which her dad "tear[s] off [a man's] head" and beats his wife "until the carpets turn red". A teenage boy forces a kiss on a younger girl and may have intended to do worse until someone intervenes. A woman kicks a man in the groin to protect someone else and karate chops his arm when he comes at her with a broken mug.
- The Lord of the Rings
- Night World: note generally, the level of violence across the series averages at 5, though the content of some individual installments result in them moving down to 4 or up to 6
- Spellbinder (1996) note A hard 5, mostly for the attack at the Homecoming Dance and the description of a strangled corpse. A disturbed teen boy crashes the Dance with cuts on his face so it looks as though he's weeping blood, and slashes another boy on the face with a razor, sending blood spurting and dripping through his fingers. The face of a strangled boy is semi-graphically described as swollen and grotesque. Other violence is either more minor or is merely recounted rather than depicted on-page. A boy is bitten on the leg by a rattlesnake; the wound isn't graphic besides a little blood. Thea tells a young girl a story, which includes a witch killing and drinking the blood of four babies; Thea tries to avoid grisly details and it's slightly comedic due to the girl pressing her for detail. It's also mentioned the witch's sister died of her wounds following a battle, with no detail given. Thea reads a historical account about a family of young witches, including children, who were tortured then burnt alive; there aren't too many graphic details but it's disturbing.
- The Chosen (1997) note For harsh but generally bloodless violence, especially in fight scenes. Young Rashel sees a child being bitten by a vampire, describing "tearing and sucking" and the boy having bloody puncture wounds. The vampire strikes Rashel's mother on the side of the neck, breaking it and causing her to instantly drop dead. Rashel's aunt dies in a deliberately-set fire, though details aren't mentioned. Rashel stabs a vampire through the chest with a wooden katana; she's described wiping the blade clean and we get a detailed description of the mummified body. In a flashback, a man grabs a vampire girl by the hair and stakes her through the heart; non-graphic but disturbing given she wasn't a threat. Daphne mentions teenagers she hung around with would cut themselves. It's revealed the villains intend to fatally exsanguinate a group of young girls. Rashel fights a werewolf; her arms get bloody from blocking his blows. A werewolf is fatally stabbed with a silver knife, though the actual stabbing isn't described, just the wolf freezing and slumping forward with the knife sticking out of his skull. A girl throws a molotov cocktail at a vampire's feet, starting a fire; injuries are implied but not shown.
- Soulmate note Two werewolves fight; it's serious yet largely bloodless. Hannah slams a silver picture frame into a werewolf's ear in self-defence, making it yelp in pain. Hannah is repeatedly bitten and has her blood drained against her will by a vampire. Hannah stabs a vampire through the hand with a pencil, leaving a small bloody hole. Thierry recalls having his throat torn out by Maya and being forced to drink her blood; not hugely graphic in description but still brutal and unsettling. Thierry recalls his tribe finding the blood-drained bodies of four infants, killed by Maya as part of a ritual. Thierry is repeatedly stabbed with spears; his wounds heal almost instantly, but his attackers keep doing it, turning sadistic. Thierry inadvertently massacred almost an entire tribe, draining their blood; we only see the aftermath with bodies lying everywhere and Thierry holding a dying girl, smearing blood over her cheek. Hannah non-graphically stakes Maya, whose body instantly mummifies.
- The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas note Severe but bloodless abuse of an innocent child.
- Piece of My Heart note A hard 5 for the fatal stabbing of an innocent, likable man trying to break up a brawl; the description is brief yet quite brutal. Other violence is a lighter 5. In the backstory, a woman died after her car crashed into a ravine, while another woman died of a drug overdose, with it being revealed they were both murdered; in the latter case a woman briefly describes finding the dead woman holding a needle with a band tied around her arm. The villain recalls drugging a woman and holding a gun to her head to torture information out of her, then forcibly injecting her with heroin killing her; not too graphic in description but disturbing. A woman is pistol-whipped across the head, leaving her with a profusely bleeding wound; she is chased through the woods by the gunman, narrowly avoiding bullets and getting scratched by thorns and branches. A man steps in a bear trap; there's no blood but it's painful and incapacitating, with his leg being bruised and swollen. There's an intense standoff between the protagonists and the villain, with an innocent woman and child held at gunpoint; the villain is fatally shot off-page in a Suicide by Cop.
- Redwall note The books generally are at this level of violence, although there are individual instances of gore that may be more appropriate at a level 6.
- The Underland Chronicles note Named characters have been stabbed, disemboweled, dropped from a fatal height, killed by giant ants, eaten by a Man-Eating Plant, and stripped to the bone by a swarm of ravenous mites in a matter of seconds. The fourth and fifth books include genocide via poisonous gas, and the third involves a Synthetic Plague. By the last book, the 12-year-old protagonist reflects that he can never go to a doctor, since they'd want to know the story behind him being Covered in Scars. The violence is mitigated by the fact that it befalls non-human creatures - a hard 5.
- Warrior Cats note Usually Level 4, but the violence and Family Unfriendly Deaths can get brutal, such as cats bleeding to death (one cat instantly loses all nine of his lives in the process), being impaled and being disembowelled.
- Watership Down note Especially for the gassing of Sandleford Warren, a very brutal act of Bloodless Carnage towards defenseless rabbits, in which some are kittens. Otherwise, a level 3.
- Where Are the Children? note A hard 5, mostly because it deals with child molestation and child murder. There are no graphic scenes of child sex abuse, but the villain's intentions are made clear nevertheless; there's a particularly disturbing scene where the villain starts undressing an unconscious child with the intention of molesting her, only to be interrupted before it goes further. Other strong violence includes a brief mention of a woman identifying her children's bodies (described as bloated from water immersion and mutilated by shark bites; it would probably be higher if there was more graphic detail), a young boy being viciously backhanded by the villain, the villain briefly recalling how he fatally suffocated two children with plastic bags, and a brutal fight between a woman and the villain (including the woman biting the villain in self-defence, her being strangled to near-unconsciousness and being kicked in the head, with a small amount of blood present
Level 6
- And Then There Were None
- Animorphs note Morphing is almost always described in Body Horror terms, and the main characters have at one point or another: beaten an enemy with their own severed (bear) arm, torn out enemies' eyeballs with hawk talons, held in their own guts from falling out while they escape to morph away, been sliced in half as a starfish, been subjected to a Torture Technician, torn out throats with their morph's teeth, boiled enemy aliens alive, etc...
- Animal Farm note Here for a scene involving Old Major's beheaded carcass, as well as Boxer's collapse and eventual offscreen death in a slaughterhouse. Level 4 otherwise.
- Cookienote It only ranks this high due to a rabbit being found with its head torn off; the description isn't graphic though the body is mentioned as being bloody. The rest of the violence ranks much lower, a hard 3 at most. A girl yanks another girl into a swimming pool, knowing she's not a strong swimmer. Children overhear a woman being slapped by her husband; one side of her face is red. The same woman's husband grabs and twists her arm painfully. A man punches another man in the nose, causing it to bleed.
- A Cry in the Nightnote Most violence occurs off-page and/or isn't graphically described, though it's brutal, disturbing and often committed against innocent and/or helpless people and animals. A man explains how he saw his mother fatally electrocuted as a child; it gets even more disturbing when it's revealed he deliberately caused her death. A man ruthlessly shoots a puppy in a non-graphic but highly distressing scene; the puppy yelps in pain and the body is described as bloody afterwards. A man's head is fatally bashed in off-page; the body isn't described in detail. A young man has his chest trampled by a mad horse and nearly dies from internal injuries; the horse has to be shot and is described slumping over, and it's revealed the horse was deliberately poisoned. A woman finds her baby dead, with a small bruise on his face; it's revealed the baby was intentionally smothered. A woman finds horrific paintings depicting sadistic yet bloodless violence, including a baby being smothered and two children strangled with belts. A woman's arm is grazed by a bullet; she describes a burning pain and blood running down her arm. A man is fatally shot in the chest in defence of someone else; the wound isn't graphically described, though blood pours from his nose and mouth, and his death isn't quick or painless.
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Hoot note Here purely for a road accident the protagonist remembers, featuring a blood-soaked, contorted corpse. Other violence would be at level 3.
- The Hunger Games
- Catching Fire
- Journey to the West note Every single human atrocity possible is up for grabs, including rape, murder and To Serve Man. In the original version, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing are also man-eating monsters before being redeemed.
- Night World:
- Daughters of Darkness (1996) note Two young men try to rape three teen girls; they don't get further than grabbing them before the girls (who are vampires) overpower them, but their intentions are made clear. A vampire woman's body is found staked; her body is described as mummified so it's not gory. A dead goat is deliberately dumped on a porch, with its throat cut and its body impaled with dozens of stakes; it's not too bloody but the imagery is disturbing. A werewolf attacks an unconscious person, tearing at the throat with his teeth; the werewolf's mouth is covered with blood and there's a lot of blood on the victim's neck, though the wound isn't described in detail. A boy is smashed over the head with a club, knocking him out and leaving a bloody wound. A girl stabs a werewolf in the chest with a knife; she graphically describes the knife going through the ribs. A werewolf's corpse is described as charred, though it's not graphic.
- Black Dawn note A hard 6 for Sylvia's death; she's impaled with a lance, with blood spurting from the wound and splattering on clothes, and she takes a few minutes to die, clearly in pain. The rest sits more at a 5. A teen girl reveals knife and burn scars on her back where slavers played Tic-Tac-Toe. A bear shapeshifter is struck with magical fire that burns him from the inside; he convulses and smoke rises off him, with Maggie smelling burnt flesh, before he falls down a ravine to his off-page death. A flashback features a young boy being forced to use the fire to incinerate his teacher; the fire engulfs him and leaves behind a 'shadow' against the wall. Implied rape in a backstory; an enslaved woman states a noble took a 'liking' to her daughter, then killed her after tiring of her. Magical fire is used against a group of villains; the blast is strong enough that they're instantly incinerated.
- The Twilight Saganote For a vampire series, the books are surprisingly bloodless and mostly sit at a hard 4 or 5, with a few moments pushing it to a hard 6.
- Twilight (2005) note A girl is thrown across a room, hitting her leg, has her leg stomped on and broken, and her wrist bitten by a sadistic vampire; she's too distracted by the pain to describe it in any detail (the scene is from her POV). In an earlier scene, the girl is surrounded by men who intend to rape her, but is rescued before they lay hands on her
- New Moon note A girl is thrown into a glass table and cuts open her arm, which is then stitched up. Two werewolves bloodlessly fight, biting and clawing each other. A group of innocent people are massacred by vampires off-page.
- Eclipse (2007) note A girl breaks her hand punching someone's face, which is mostly Played for Laughs. A woman insinuates she was gang-raped and left for dead, with a vampire finding her after smelling "all the blood", but doesn't go into detail. A vampire is decapitated by having her neck bitten into by another vampire, though the on-page description is much less gruesome than it sounds and there's no blood.
- Breaking Dawn note This entry kicks the violence up a notch; a pregnant woman suffers a broken spine and torn placenta, vomiting up blood. An attempted C-section is performed without anaesthesia, initially with a scalpel before a vampire has to finish the job by biting through her abdomen; he then bites the woman repeatedly to turn her into a vampire. A boy also gets a scalpel stabbed into his hand. The whole birth scene is extremely bloody. A vampire is also torn apart and set on fire; the scene is quick, bloodless and non-graphically described.
- While My Pretty One Sleepsnote A hard 6. In both the backstory and the present day, a woman is murdered by having her throat slashed; the murders themselves occur off-page, though the neck wounds on the bodies are described in some detail, as well as the blood soaking their clothes, and the killer briefly recalls the way one woman's blood spurted from her neck. An undercover cop is shot several times and dumped in a garbage disposal offpage; he ends up in hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness, and his wounds are listed as a shattered shoulder, punctured lung and broken ribcage. A man is shot in the head, causing blood to spray on the shooter's clothes and a pool of blood to form around the body.
Level 7
- Carrie
- Evernight note Much of the series is a 6, though some moments, especially in Book 5, bring it up to 7. Vampire bites sometimes result in puncture wounds and other times throats being ripped out (usually described as bloody without going into more graphic detail). Fights result in bruises and bloody wounds. An old skull with a few scraps of rotting flesh is found. A girl mentions having nightmares about a ghost raping her, though she doesn't go into detail. Vampires get staked, though the descriptions are surprisingly bloodless and it only knocks them out rather than killing them. A few vampires get decapitated, although their bodies tend to instantly mummify so it's bloodless and not too gory. A woman snaps people's necks with her bare hands. A boy punches a tree repeatedly until his finger bones can be seen. A vampire attempts to decapitate another vampire with a switchblade, stabbing his neck and "sawing", with the other vampire coughing up blood (he has it coming). A girl's psychic powers enable her to feel people's deaths and the descriptions can get graphic (including a suicide by hanging and being shot). There are allusions to abusive and dubiously consensual relationships (including an older man with an underage girl).
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Firenote Involves strong ambient violence and some injury detail, with mention of blood, cuts, burns, broken bones, and mottled skin. The strongest moment of violence comes with a ritual that involves binding and gagging, a forearm slit with a dagger, a hand amputated, with mention and description of blood accompanying the bloody stump. Genre violence includes attacks by magical creature, as well as murder and torture via magic. Torture is often described somewhat viscerally, if non-graphically. The next two books have violence of the same quality - that is to say, they contain a couple notable moments of stronger, more gruesome/bloody/gory violence, accompanied by some increased injury detail, as well as more threatening ambient violence and dark themes than is found in the first two installments.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows note Characters, including teenagers, are often held in contorted positions or tortured - some sustain bloody injury to their bodies, most notably in the case of Ron, whose bare muscle and flesh is described after being ‘splinched’. Another has a bloody hole blasted into his head by a spell. A moment of intense Body Horror in the image of a large snake being hid in the hollowed out corpse of an old woman. A character is repeatedly bit in the neck by a snake, and he bleeds out in a character’s arms - blood and other liquids are said to be gushing out of his orifices. Others burn to death, fall from heights, or die in explosions. A man is forced to strangle himself to death with his own prosthetic hand - this is described disturbingly, with some mention of bruising and eyes going bloodshot. A humanoid character is stabbed and killed, with mention of blood, and there are other miscellaneous descriptions of beating, injury (puncture wounds, severe burns) and blood-letting, including characters being punched until bloody and injured by a falling chandelier. Mentions of murder by throat slitting and suicide by hanging in a wizarding folk tale, and Helena Ravenclaw recounts being stabbed by The Bloody Baron - who later turns the knife on himself in remorse. Miscellaneous mention of dead bodies, including children. A man repeatedly describes his obscene love for eating children while menacing a teenage girl. A lot of the violence is enhanced by heavy themes, elements of fantasy horror, darker implications (the non-graphic murder of a family with young children), emotional meltdowns, etc, so the book teeters between 7 and 8.
- Mockingjay note For the brief mention of a man's flesh "melting off his face", as well as severed limbs and blood after a bombing of innocent people, including children. Most of the violence is level 5, with a few more intense moments.
- I Wished note Suicide by gunshot described impactfully, brief sexual abuse, discussion of a murder by strangulation committed by John Wayne Gacy Jr.
- Lord of the Flies note Level 6 violence inflicted on children by other children.
- Neuromancer
- The Other Boleyn Girl note Two executions by beheading are described; we don't get much graphic detail beyond the heads coming off with lots of blood. There are mentions of executions by burning, hanging and boiling alive, though it all occurs off-page. Mary experiences a lot of pain and vaginal bleeding after giving birth; when she bathes the water becomes bloody and her sister shoves material up her vagina to stop the bleeding, which hurts her. Anne suffers several miscarriages, often bleeding heavily. She has a late-term miscarriage and gives birth to a malformed, stillborn fetus, which is described as flayed-looking and grotesque; it's a disturbing scene that leaves the characters horrified. Mary's husband orders her to have sex with him, but before it goes too far he stops when he sees her discomfort.
- Paradise Lost
- Period note Some pretty disturbing acts of violence, some sexual, are hinted at, but the acts of violence typically take place through dialogue through which the reader discerns what is happening, and the experimental format and book-within-a-book structure means it is hard to ascertain what is real or not. Fairly high-end 7.
- The Shining note The Woman in the bathtub's zombified ghost form and Lloyd rotting (for lack of a better word) are described in some detail. A woman is beaten to near death with a roque mallet, and has her ribs shattered, and her husband who did so is forced to bash his brains in with the roque mallet, causing blood and chunks of skull to spew out.
- The Tales of Beedle the Bard note Here because one of the stories, "The Warlock's Hairy Heart", involves the protagonist killing the young woman he is courting by cutting out her heart. The rest of the stories are Level 3.
Level 8
- Acid Row note For sexual violence and the non-graphic yet exceptionally brutal murder of an innocent and helpless old man, along with other disturbing violence against innocents. The old man is killed with a machete, has his genitals cut off and his body hung from a window; his death isn't described in detail, though there are slightly graphic descriptions of his bloody body dangling from a rope. Discussions of child sex abuse, but no such abuse is depicted; at most, it's mentioned a boy would masturbate his violent father. An article briefly discusses the real life Anna Climbie case, describing how a child was fatally abused by her caregivers. A teen boy accidentally sets himself on fire; there's a brief description of his burnt flesh and it's later revealed he died. A pregnant teen is punched in the stomach; she falls and is trampled by a mob, but both she and the baby survive. It's mentioned a man beat and raped prostitutes, and likely murdered his wife, though how he killed her isn't mentioned. There's an attempted rape, with the would-be rapist repeatedly punching the woman in the face when she resists; the description of the scene and aftermath is gruesome and bloody. A 14 year old boy is fatally trampled trying to shield his sister; no injuries are described but it's upsetting given the circumstances and the boy's age.
- The Aeneid
- American Gods
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes note Teeters on the edge of 7 and 8. The most violent part comes when a boy is bludgeoned with a board - this involves brief mention of gore, including blood splatter, facial fracturing, and bruising. Another girl is bitten by a kind of synthetic snake, with only minor injury detail. Peacekeepers shoot at people - one girl is killed. A tribute dies of a rabies-like condition, another is tortured off-page and left hanging in the arena as a warning - he is later said to have been mercy killed by two other tributes. The games, viewed from the outside, involve somewhat less confrontational violence this time around, though there is brief mention of attacks by tridents and blunt objects, to somewhat gruesome effect (a bloodied skull is once mentioned). A girl's throat is slit (not overly bloody, but upsetting). "Avoxes" are found in a lab (humans with different animal parts grafted to them). A gothic tale is told about cannibalism as a result of starvation during wartime.
- Blindsight note Mostly for Sarasti's bloody mutilation of Keeton's hand and the description of the Golem virus
- The Bloody Chambernote The level of violence varies across the stories; some have little violence at all, others get pretty gruesome, with the strongest violence ranking at 8. In "The Bloody Chamber", the narrator finds the remains of her husband's murdered wives in a torture chamber: one wife's embalmed body has neck bruises from strangulation, while another wife's corpse is found shut up in an iron maiden; the narrator describes her face as frozen in pain and bloody holes where the spikes went in, as well as a pool of blood on the floor. In "The Snow Child" a man rapes the body of an ethereal girl; brief but disturbing. In "The Werewolf", a girl slices off a wolf's paw with a knife; the wolf runs off in pain, trailing blood. The girl later discovers her grandmother's hand has been cut off, with a brief description of the bloody, festering stump. The grandmother is beaten and stoned to death by the villagers; the description isn't graphic but it's still disturbing (especially if you believe the grandmother wasn't a real werewolf but was framed by her granddaughter). In a story-within-a-story in "The Company of Wolves", a werewolf is said to have torn off a child's leg before being hacked apart with an axe; in another story, a man slit a wolf's throat and cut off its paws and head as trophies, only for the wolf to transform into a now-mutilated human corpse. A helpless old woman is killed and eaten, though it occurs off-page. In "Wolf-Alice", a werewolf digs up corpses to eat, though it's not too graphic.
- Closer note Here for a grisly freak accident, a scene in which a character recalls watching a snuff film in which disembowelment is briefly described, and a boy's buttocks being sliced with a knife.
- The Drawing of the Three
- Guardians of Ga'Hoole note Moderate 8. Deaths by dismemberment, decapitation, impalement, burnings, slashed throats... It would have been an 6 or 7, however, Nyra ripping out Phillip's heart, and forcing her son to watch is what makes it an 8. If the violence was more graphic, it would have been a 9. Please bear in mind that this is a series for children. Its film adaptation is a 4.
- The Gunslinger
- The Handmaid's Tale note Due to the multiple occasions where the main protagonist describes "the Ceremony", during which she is ritually raped (she says it's not rape because she technically agreed to it, but the only alternative is death). Otherwise a 5 for largely bloodless but harsh executions (Handmaids are forced to pull a rope to hang hooded prisoners - the protagonist describes the way their legs kick - and a man is executed by being beaten to death; all we see is a woman punching and kicking his head repeatedly until he falls unconscious - out of mercy - before the crowd swarms around him) and the bodies of executed prisoners lining a wall; their heads are covered by hoods although one is soaked with blood. It's mentioned two people hanged themselves, either from despair or to avoid being captured.
- The Howling (1977) note An 8 for Max Quist's graphic, sadistic rape of Karyn early in the novel and Karyn graphically shooting a werewolf through the eye, causing it to "burst like a grape". Other violence is a 7; the violent acts are brutal but the descriptions are kept brief. It's mentioned in the prologue that every man, woman and child in a village were tortured to death, though with no detail provided. Karyn finds her dog's decapitated head, though there are no gory details. Werewolves bloodily tear out people's throats and several werewolves are shot with silver bullets. A werewolf's ear is shot off, with the ear being found on the ground later. A man is bitten by a werewolf on the shoulder and feels its teeth against his muscle and bone.
- I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream note Lots of really nasty body horror.
- The Lovely Bones note The plot concerns the aftermath of the rape and murder of a fourteen year old girl. The murder itself (it's indicated she was stabbed) and the dismemberment of her body are mostly described after the fact rather than depicted in detail; however the rape is graphically depicted, resulting in it ranking here.
- Magical Girl Raising Project note Amid the violent acts include one character being run over by a car, another having their chest run through, the murder of a pregnant woman, and one character having their eye and arm removed. Also, one villain suffers a very gory set of injuries, including being torn in half and having half of their face blown off.
- Misery note An innocent rat is crushed to death in a woman's hands, A man has his limbs cut off while he's left motionless and then has the wounds cauterized with a blowtorch, and a police officer is stabbed multiple times with a cross and than has his head pulverized by a lawnmower while he's still alive.
- 'Salem's Lot note While not especially gory, it gets up here due to many of the victims of the vampires being children, Mark is tied up by Straker in a fashion that seems reminiscent of rape, Straker has a book made of human skin and has a picture of him with a murdered child, and a dog is brutally disemboweled and left outside, though without much detail.
- The Sparrow note For the rather extensive mutilation of Sandoz's hand, repeated violent rape and mass consumption of babies by the Jana'ata.
- Speak note Due to a brutal rape scene flashback near the end of the book; the worded description isn't that graphic but it's made very clear what's happening
- A Thousand Splendid Suns note Brief but disturbing scenes of marital rape, with the victims being underage teens. Many graphic and brutal scenes of domestic violence, including Rasheed forcing Mariam to chew stones, breaking a molar, and Rasheed beating Mariam and Laila bloody with a belt and locking Laila and her baby in an overheated room for days with no water, with them nearly dying of dehydration. War scenes and the Taliban's violent oppression of people are often described but rarely depicted on-page, though it's still disturbing; this includes people getting their limbs cut off, beatings, stonings, shootings, beheadings, rape and bombings. Laila recalls that her mother's friend had to pick up pieces of her child's body after she was blown up, with the girl's decaying foot being found much later. Laila's parents are killed in a bombing and she briefly describes seeing her father's bloody torso. Laila has a c-section without anaesthesia, but nothing graphic is described. Mariam fatally bludgeons Rasheed with a shovel to save Laila; there's no graphic description. Mariam is publicly executed via gunshot, though the scene ends just before her death.
- Try note No murder in it unlike other Dennis Cooper books, but here nonetheless for its unflinching portrayal of child sexual abuse and domestic violence.
- The Waste Lands
- Wings of Fire note Mostly a mid 5, but moments like Arctic’s Death by disembowelment, Queen Scarlet bloodily biting off a scavenger's head, Tortoise’s death by having all his teeth pulled out then being stabbed, and the many decapitated heads around Burn’s fortress push this up to a 8. Might be a 9 if the characters weren’t dragons, and Icewings having blue blood. Like Warrior Cats, it's also aimed at preteens. Notably the graphic novel would be more of a 5 or 6 due to censorship.
- Wizard and Glass
Level 9
- The majority of The Adversary Cycle
- The Keep
- The Tomb/Rakoshi
- The Touch
- Reborn
- The Affinity Bridge note The violence is definitely at odds with the stuffy, formal tone of the middle- and upper-class Brits running around a steampunk Victorian London, but is no less bloody or gory for the fact that it's perpetrated on and by said Brits. The book includes detailed descriptions of revenant attacks; detailed description of airship crash and a passenger cabin full of still-smoldering corpses; multiple, detailed descriptions of revenants feasting on the entrails of their victims; descriptions of the extensive injuries sustained fighting the revenants, which necessitate performing surgery on the fully-conscious protagonist; descriptions of stab wounds sustained fighting off killer robots; multiple instances of Eye Scream; a character vomiting blood during a particularly vicious brawl; descriptions of injuries sustained by murder victims; and a mad scientist dissecting murder victims to put their brains inside robots.
- CHERUB Series
- Earth's Children note Here for a rape scene involving a barely pubescent girl, which is very violent and graphic; the girl is left bruised and bleeding afterwards, with the sheer brutality and the fact the victim is a helpless child putting it at 9. She is raped several more times, though she isn't beaten again and it isn't described as graphically. It's a hard 8 for some other graphically violent and disturbing content, including a scene in which the brain of a man killed by a cave bear is ritually cannibalised, a young girl being beaten to unconsciousness, a graphic description of the girl who was raped having a traumatic birth (including vaginal tearing), and a woman's throat being torn out by a wolf (to protect his owner). Gore and injuries are often described in detail (sometimes including exposed muscle and entrails) but usually in the context of medical treatment, animal-on-animal violence and meat preparation rather than sadistic acts. There are some fight scenes involving fists or weapons such as slings that can get brutal and bloody.
- The Enemy
- Gates of Fire
- Goblin Slayer note Always Chaotic Evil Goblins routinely rape, torture and kill unsuspecting adventurers in the most brutal way possible, and the titular protagonist slays Goblins in equally brutal ways. The fantastic setting prevents it from being a 10, but still a very hard 9.
- House of Leaves note The book has very little violence, and most of what happens to humans is only a 6-7, but it's here to the infamous scene with the Pekingnese dog being brutally murdered. Borderline 10 due to how brutal and unexpected it is, as well as how innocent the victim is.
- Iron Widow note Mainly for the graphic descriptions of atrocities towards innocent people (including children) described in disturbing detail, including foot binding and waterboarding. Several torture scenes also reach this level, notably one in which a regime official is waterboarded with alcohol. Otherwise, level 8 for frequent gory violence, description of someone’s face being brutally smashed in, psychological and physical warfare with teenagers piloting mecha, allusions to sexual assault (although no graphic descriptions), etc. A rare example of a YA novel at this level.
- Jurassic Park note A hard 9 for some gruesome, graphically-described dinosaur attacks, including a dying young man having being slashed to the bone by claws and vomiting blood, people getting their entrails torn out and being eaten alive, severed limbs and so on. A baby is eaten by compys; while no graphic details are mentioned here, it's still pretty horrifying. It's significantly more brutal and graphic than the films, though the descriptions of violent acts are generally kept brief.
- The Marbled Swarm note A prolonged and cruel murder of a child along with extensive allusions to rape and cannibalism. The intentionally obfuscating prose style stops it from being a 10.
- Metro
- Necroscope
- NES Godzilla Creepypasta note The pictures provided for the organic level section of "Zenith" in the possessed game push it to this level. Otherwise a 6.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four note Innocent civilians and children are blown apart into pieces during a description of a newsreel. Main character brutally tortured with a rat biting at his face, shocks, and various other horrors.
- The Outsider (2018) note Children are brutally raped and murdered.
- Overlord (2012) note Ainz and his cohorts, and sometimes other random characters murder and torture people in an exceptionally gruesome manner, most notably with Ainz's brutal murders of Clementine and the Re-Estize army, Demiurge's "happy farms", and the "Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth" brutally slaughtering the Holy Kingdom using the Holy Queen's body as a weapon. Rape scenes and Attempted Rape are present, but uncommon. The original books differ from the anime adaptation that they are filled with pages-long descriptions of the atrocities, unlike said anime which holds it back with Gory Discretion Shots and poorly-rendered CGI graphics.
- Parasite Code note Graphic cannibalism, Ava reducing villains to graphically-described chunky salsa with her Megaton Punch, Luke tearing his own rib out to use as a weapon
- The Silmarillion
- A Song of Ice and Fire note As a general overview, the series tends to rank between 8 and 9 (individual books may vary). Violence is graphically described; this includes sadistic and disturbing violence committed against helpless civilians or people who otherwise cannot defend themselves (including children), alongside brutally realistic melee combat and gruesome injuries. In general there are lots of decapitations, limb severings, disembowelments, dismemberments, flayings, people being burnt alive etc. Attempted and off-page rape occurs on several occasions, though rape actually occurring on-page is rarer. Rotting and disfigured corpses are described in detail.
- Sword Art Online
Level 10
- 2666 note The first three parts likely reside at around a 6, due to momentary instances like the brutal beating of a taxi driver and an artist character who is described to have cut his own hand off for the sake of his work. Part 4, aptly named "The Part About the Crimes", singlehandedly brings this novel well into level 10, due to relentless descriptions of the discoveries of the corpses of murdered women, many with signs of mutilation and rape. Along with this, this section also contains brutal prison violence, such as a man being rectally stabbed with a shiv, and four men being explicitly castrated then implicitly raped.
- The final two novels of The Adversary Cycle
- Reprisal
- Nightworld
- American Psycho note While the film falls firmly on an 8 due to relatively quick but savage murders, dark comedy, and the removal of Patrick Bateman's worst moments, the book is fully showing of all his unspeakable atrocities. This includes chapter-long, extreme, graphic descriptions of horrifically gory violence, explicit brutal torture, gratuitously gruesome depravity, pure sexual sadism and absolutely sickening carnage of all sorts, all of which make up for their irregularity with sheer awfulness, disgustingly raw realism and uncomfortably thorough detail, and it's all Played for Horror. Especially the "rat scene".
- Apeshit note Despite the characters being unable to die in the mountains, they suffer insanely horrific mutilations and injuries such as genital impalement, head destruction, sodomy with a knife, and more.
- A bunch of Clive Barker's novels.
- Cabal note The film based upon this story, while somewhat lower on the scale overall, still reaches this level.
- The Damnation Game
- Imajica
- The Midnight Meat Train
- Rawhead Rex
- The Scarlet Gospels
- Battle Royale note A complete gorefest with child participants. The manga adaptation resides here as well since, despite being nowhere as brutal as the original book, is still unrelenting when it comes to the sheer brutality of the violence depicted.
- The Bible note Every horrific act imaginable, from genital mutilation, to genocide, infanticide, suicides, extreme torture of sympathetic characters (the most extreme being Jesus' crucifixion in The New Testament) and more. Although modern translations use more obscuring terms with little detail that would keep it at a very hard 9, some parts are still brutal enough to reach this level. The original Hebrew and Greek texts take it even further meanwhile, as they pull no punches with the aforementioned details.
- Blood Meridian note The horrific massacre scenes in this novel send it straight to this level, with the full spectrum of human evil on full display. Heads are chopped off, heads are smashed open and brains are poured out, people are scalped and raped, and general horrific and graphic violence with buckets of gore abounds. All of this is played horrifically straight, leading to an all-around sense of horrible misery. This is not a happy book.
- The Culture note Many of the individual books are lower, but the series reaches this level due to the descriptions of the E-dust terror weapon attack in Look to Windward, in which one target is graphically eaten from the inside by a swarm of robot insects and another is completely flayed alive and disemboweled, as well as the torments of Pavulean Hell in Surface Detail.
- The Demonata note Probably the most violent piece of media intended for children ever produced. The deaths themselves are mostly a level 8-9. but it gets pushed to this level because of the part where Lord Loss and his minions slaughter innocent people on an airplane, including ripping a young girl's jaw off and forcing her to watch her father getting flayed alive and decapitated in front of her.
- The Divine Comedy note It ranks here for Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, which has numerous people subjected to all disturbingly graphic sorts of explicitly gruesome and horrific punishments, including getting violently mutilated, Eaten Alive, disemboweled, dismembered, gorily transformed into absolutely inhuman monstrosities, and overall getting hideously brutalized in awful ways for all eternity.
- Fevre Dream note It lands on this very because of a very sickening and gruesome scene where a vampire brutally mutilates and murders a baby.
- Frisk note Extremely graphic descriptions of sexualised murders supposedly committed by the narrator.
- Haunted (2005) note Notorious for "Guts", a story so disgusting it allegedly caused readers to faint.
- Horus Heresy note The death, destruction, terror and grimdark of Warhammer 40k in all its bloody glory.
- The House of Hunger note Strange and cerebral depictions of fights between protesters and police, as well as a school fight that ends with the only part in the book where the narrator is actually horrified by what he's seeing.
- High Life note Regular depictions of mutilated corpses of both dead humans and dogs. Repeated violent/depraved sexual abuse. Multiple instances of rape. Multiple gory deaths by head trauma and disembowelment.
- In the Realms of the Unreal note Especially the author's post-Army works.
- Johnny Got His Gun note While it mainly focuses on the aftermath of an artillery shell attack that leaves a soldier completely limbless, senseless and faceless while perfectly aware of his horrifying condition, the descriptions of the unspeakably horrible deformities the character has as a result of said attack are graphic enough for this level.
- The Kite Runner note For the infamous, brutal gang rape sequence. The racial elements of the assault, the prolonged nature of it, the juxtaposition of the gang rape with animal sacrifice, and the fact that it is happening to a twelve year old bring it all the way here. Otherwise a level 8 for a lot of brutal violence, including against innocents, although the details are usually described after the fact.
- Naked Lunch note Extremely bizarre gore, perversion, and general depravity. Despite the incredibly obfuscating prose, the details are still queasy enough to get here.
- Off Season note A cannibal gets his uncircumcised penis bitten off by a woman after forcing her to suck it. The sheriff later shoots off the rest of what was left between his legs.
- The Poppy War note It reaches this level because of the infamous chapter 21.
- The Running Man note Mostly for the ending of the book, where the main character literally steps on his own guts due to an expanding and ripping bullet wound.
- The Sluts note Escalating detail of violent acts committed against escorts for sexual gratification, culminating in clinically graphic descriptions of castration and systemic breaking of limbs.
- The Turner Diaries note For the infamous "Day Of The Rope", where thousands of minorities, homosexuals and "race traitors" are hanged and slaughtered en masse. Although these acts in context alone makes it a 9 despite the level-8 details, the mere fact that it was all written by a Neo-Nazi who genuinely believes that this should happen in real life brings it all the way up this level.
- Ultramarines note Plenty of gore all around, but this series is notorious even by Warhammer 40,000 standards for the description of the Daemonculaba process, which involves turning women into horribly bloated living wombs into which living children are sown to grow them into Chaos Marines - which are born without skin, requiring harvesting of flesh via flaying from slaves, themselves painfully engorged to stretch skins to the needed areas. It speaks a lot when the guy behind the Daemonculaba is one of the very few villains who surpassed the franchise's extreme heinous standard to become a Complete Monster (although he actually passed it when he crossed the Moral Event Horizon to destroy entire galactic sectors just to spite and kill Uriel).
- The Unknown Soldier note The 2017 film adaptation is an 8.
