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Post by apeloverage on Sept 14, 2010 2:12:48 GMT -6
Wikipedia 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 do this. 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?
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 14, 2010 20:27:04 GMT -6
Well most fantasy has some element of darkness to it. I mean the good guys need to off demons, vampires, etc... otherwise the stories wouldn't go very far. Moorecock's Eternal Champions are dark fantasy full of antiheroes. I guess I'd define dark fantasy as fantasy with heroes that may be even worse than the villains....
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Post by tavis on Sept 15, 2010 7:43:39 GMT -6
This is kind of a "know it when I see it" thing, since we don't have definitions for horror any more than fantasy, but I think a good definition of dark fantasy is that written by authors who also write horror.
Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books, for example, have a dark feeling similar to Howard's Conan; both of them also wrote pure horror stories.
Michael Shea's A Quest for Simbilis has, to me, a darker feel than Vance's Dying Earth; he goes further with the existing themes of man's inhumanity, demons as the accumulated residue of eons of human sins, etc. I think it's telling that Shea also writes pure horror (his "The Autopsy" was one of my dad's favorite stories), while that's one of the few genres Vance didn't work in.
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Post by makofan on Sept 15, 2010 8:16:40 GMT -6
David Eddings would be "light fantasy". Highly enjoyable but not really sinister
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Post by aldarron on Sept 15, 2010 10:22:25 GMT -6
Good point, but I'm sure there are some fantasy stories where there is no real horror element. Cinderella perhaps.
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Post by apeloverage on Sept 15, 2010 11:43:36 GMT -6
It depends how they depict the relationship of Cinderella with her sisters - are they 'mean to her', or abusive? Also, I think in some versions the ugly sisters cut off their toes or heels to try and fit the slippers.
Actually I hear phrases like "twisted fairy tales" or "dark fairy tales" fairly often, and I have a similar reaction. The person saying it is assuming that fairy tales are light by default, whereas I'm not sure that's true.
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Post by apeloverage on Sept 15, 2010 11:46:43 GMT -6
David Eddings would be "light fantasy". Highly enjoyable but not really sinister True. I suspect some people might be thinking of David Eddings and the Forgotten Realms as being the normal tone of fantasy when they say "dark fantasy."
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 15, 2010 17:55:56 GMT -6
Lord Dunsany's stories seem to be in a darker twilight world of fantasy to me. nancy Berbericks stories set in an alternate Saxon England are fairly dark as well, but then it is the Dark Ages! The Jirel of Joirey stories seem to have a darker cast to them as well. And Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique just oozes darkness, bleakness, and despair.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2010 14:43:30 GMT -6
Note that the wiki states "elements of fantasy with those ["elements" (left unwritten, but a sub-text)] of horror: or, (rewritten): "elements of fantasy and horror." The greatest element of horror is FEAR. The greatest fear generator in STORY--as adduced over the years of literature being written and studied--is the supernatural/unknown. Thus a fantasy (dark) has more overt, in your face, themes of the supernatural attached to them.
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