Talk:Dark fantasy

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2019 and 15 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): 1evi1ong.

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A Perfect Example Of Dark Fantasy

DAMASTOR by Dimitri Iatrou- Depressing accounts of death in England during The Black Plague. Seriously deep Heaven and Hell themes, as well as gang violence and medieval warfare. Extremely well written! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.137.245.209 (talk) 16:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

An Epic Dark Fantasy Adventure, Kings on the Mountain, just came out in Kindle Edition this Easter. It has all the elements tha a dark fantasy book needs: blood, sex, irony, horror, and more sex! RecluseRaconteur (talk) 1:57, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

CV

I don't see any evidence that this is a copyvio, the article cited does not look like the article here.—Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Lovecraft

How can Lovecraft be dark fantasy writer? Where is the source of that? He wrote horror stories, not fantasy stories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.31.139.122 (talk) 06:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it might differ per story. Most of them were horror, but some stories like the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath were pretty much fantasy (and the scope of the mythos had a rather fantastical feel as well). Anyway, since the genres of horror, fantasy and sci-fi often overlap it's sometimes hard to distinguish them. Cyanid (talk) 21:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

A List

May I suggest a list of Dark Fantasy works? It may be a helpful thing to any new reader of fantasy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.215.29.206 (talk) 06:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Definition of dark fantasy

This article defines dark fantasy as "a fantasy subgenre that combines elements of fantasy with those of horror".

I find it hard to think of any fantasy that doesn't have elements of horror. Even the Discworld series has serial killers.

I wonder whether people who say "it's fantasy, but dark" might not have an untrue picture of fantasy.

Or perhaps 'dark fantasy' exists, but that definition isn't a good one?

Apeloverage (talk) 08:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Is this article complete nonsense?

I agree with Apeloverage that the definition (as stated) isn't good. While I am hardly an expert on the subject and have never seen a clear definition, I have read fantasy for about 15 years and never encountered this extremely lax use of "dark fantasy". In the following, I wish to present my reasons for suggesting a complete rewrite of this article.

The article gives two definitions of dark fantasy

1. a fantasy subgenre that combines elements of fantasy with those of horror
2. a type of horror story in which humanity is threatened by forces beyond human understanding

The first definition is from Philip Martin's "The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature", and while I don't entirely agree with the definition, it is a relatively well known and respected book. Do note that it clearly defines dark fantasy as a subgenre of fantasy. Thus, if a work can not reasonably be considered as fantasy, it can not possibly be dark fantasy either.

The second definition is apparently from some book about early female _science fiction_ writers by an author I've never heard about. Apart from the risk of misinterpreting the book, I wish to point out that it can not be considered an authority on fantasy genres. The actual definition seem to make "dark fantasy" into a very large subgenre of horror stories which is unfortunate since "supernatural horror" describes this idea much more accurately.

My personal view is that dark fantasy is an extremely small subgenre of fantasy characterized by the unusually dark mood. In most fantasy the mood is (mostly) positive and the protagonists (mostly) win the encounters with their opponents. Sure, the hero/heroine may be temporarily captured, a minor supportive character may die, and people will certainly be afraid or sad from time to time, but on a large scale people are content and it is clear that the "good guys" will prevail in the end. The dark fantasy contrasts by being _predominantly_ dark in mood; many important characters may die or get severe physical or mental disabilities, encounters with the enemy are not bound to have favorable outcomes and the characters are more often afraid, perhaps incapacitated by grief or disgusted by their own actions. The dark atmosphere may be caused by horror elements but could also be achieved in other ways. Off the top of my head, I can only come up with one really good example of dark fantasy in this sense (though others are bound to exist) and that is The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. The most characteristic theme in this series is that of sacrifice; to gain something the protagonists (or someone else) have to loose something else.

Returning to the contents of the article, there are some "examples" that I find particularly out of place. To begin with, the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer which is tagged as "fantasy, romance and young-adult fiction" by Wikipedia. In addition it won "Childrens Book of the Year" and "Kids Choice Award". This does not sound like dark fantasy to me, not under any reasonable definition of the term. Then we have the "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" TV series. I'll admit up front that the number of episodes I've seen can be counted on the fingers of my left hand, so I may be wrong, but my impression of the story is that Buffy kicks the asses of various supernatural creatures for 30 minutes each episode. Again, this is not what I would expect from something called dark fantasy. At this point it seems like any contemporary story containing vampires would be classified as dark fantasy. Oh, and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is an example of the genre, so any supernatural horror should be included too. (This would probably include over 50% of all horror movies.)

If we return to examples that actually contains reasonable amounts of fantasy, we find that "The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien and the Harry Potter books by J.K Rowling have elements of dark fantasy in them". This notion of "having elements of dark fantasy" seem singularly useless. I mean, you could just as well say that your favorite fantasy book has elements of philosophical fiction, since most fantasy books do attempt to answer philosophical questions like "why do we live?", "what happens after death?", "what is good?" etc. What really distinguishes fantasy from philosophical fiction is that the latter predominantly deals with philosophical questions while the formers primary purpose is to entertain. Similarly with dark fantasy, the importance and prevalence of dark/horror elements is what ought to separate dark fantasy from mainstream fantasy. Also note that LOTR is normally considered the archetype of epic high fantasy, and while the Harry Potter series gets progressively darker in the last books, the first ones are decidedly childish.

The "Memory, Sorrow, Thorn" series by Tad Williams is cited as an example of combining high and dark fantasy. I can not fathom what the dark parts would be, and consider it an example of perfectly mainstream epic fantasy. The only thing I can think anyone could perceive as dark is the fact that whenever Simon (the main character) meets anyone from the League of the Scroll (a group of wise and awesome people with varying abilities) they have a tendency to suicide for no good reason after they have helped him. (I don't find this dark, just annoying. I realize that the author probably had to prevent the sages from aiding Simon too much, but I wish he had made their deaths more convincing. Anyway the intention was not to bash the series; the descriptions of the scenery are among the best I've read.)

To summarize my concerns:

1. I don't think there is any clear and well-established definition of dark fantasy. (I am willing to be corrected.)
2. If we are going to promote a definition of dark fantasy, it should be a useful definition that can be used to classify similarities and differences between different works. While the exact boundaries will necessarily be fuzzy, at least it should be clear that such boundaries exist, and that the concept does not include all fantasy.
3. I think it should be made clear that the mere existence of supernatural creatures does not necessarily make "fantasy" the best classification of the work. Take for example "The X-Files" which is more commonly classified as science fiction (+horror/thriller), despite containing traditional urban fantasy creatures like werewolves and vampires. Thus, supernatural horror is a much better term for horror stories with supernatural enemies, and I believe that it is at least as established as the term "dark fantasy".

80.216.44.101 (talk) 02:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem with a universal definition of dark fantasy

In my opinion, this entire page should be re-written from the ground up. The problem with trying to come up with a universal definition of "dark fantasy" is that there are different sub-genres using the term. Who originally coined "dark fantasy" is inconsequential at this point, as each of the sub-genres calling themselves that have distinct fanbases — all of whom have a legitimate claim to the term.

Derek 21:49, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Changed section title

Since the section titled "Other media" only actually dealt with dark fantasy themes in video games, I changed the title to "Video Games." SpiritedMichelle (talk) 18:54, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ENC1102 Argumentation Research Popular Culture Honors College

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2024 and 29 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Xillis (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Xillis (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Another well-known dark fantasy anime addition

Another anime that I believe is worth inserting into this category would be "Jujutsu Kaisen". It has its own Wikipedia page that blatantly labels it as a dark fantasy, which links to this exact page. I'll will be adding this, followed by a short description and source link. Xillis (talk) 20:17, 8 March 2024 (UTC)