That got me thinking: the way I've always seen dark fantasy, for the most part, it shouldn't be afraid to be explicit or tackle subjects too dark for regular PG fantasy stories like your run of the mill Eddings stuff. To be fair, I can envision a DF story where the setting and story are such that nothing violent or sexual takes place because, at least to me, DF is more a mood/tone than anything, but my point is, if you're writing a story where you'd normally possibly have to tone down the subject matter, violence, or sex, in DF, you can go all out. That means you could go all out with the horror as well, it's just that fantasy should still be the main element in the story (otherwise it'd be a horror story, duh). Come to think of it, I kinda see dark fantasy as identical to regular fantasy except the general mood/tone is notably dark, and you have no limits with what you can do or how far you can take it.
Dark Fantasy like Game of Thrones, right? Anyway I have kind of a dark urban fantasy in the works but its actually a Cosmic Horror in a sense
Game of thrones is more gritty rather than dark. It doesn't play with creepy enough. Dark fantasy has actual horror elements. Think the Dark Tower series.
AgoT is a bit hard to describe. The main story leans heavily on politics and characters, and while it is set in a fantasy world, it doesn't feature many fantastical elements in the main narrative. On the whole however, it has every element of a High-Fantasy. Magic, dragons, mystical races, an alternate universe,an epic scale, sorcery, shapeshifting, you name it. While these elements aren't as in your face as in other HF's, and the main story could mostly be seen as LF, the big picture is definately one of a HF.
Thought I would drop in, as I do recognise my work to be, if not part of, then close to Dark Fantasy area. I have hard time seeing how I would define it, but my worldbuilding started of as regular High Fantasy - different races, pretty decent scale for the world and its conflicts. But I did leave magic out of my plans, and if it somehow pops up, it's definately seen god-like feature in the eyes of the commoner in this world. While working on the world's current state and the future plans, it definately played out like HF. But once I got into writing the history and important events that took place, there I got different tone going on. Now the world I had crafted suddenly didn't feel as bright as before - one race killed to an extinct, a new sickness spread out and forced one race out of its homeland to take refuge under another race... On top of this, nature while so beautiful, is also stronger than earth's nature. Guess you could simply define it "more extreme nature". Dark Fantasy vibes continue with my another MC, who clearly finds himself handling pretty rough and sorrowful events and obstacles. So DF is clearly there. Especially in the characters, "no heroes roam here". On the other hand, I have not worked on any horror elements and for sure, I don't plan any for future either. In my opinion DF doesn't always play with horror elements, but that is just me.
I'm thinking a bit more about dark fantasy and Lovecraft. One of Lovecraft's big ideas is that the universe doesn't care. There are things in the farther reaches of existence that are much more powerful than humans, and they're not concerned one way or another if fulfilling their goals causes harm to humans as a side effect. On the flipside, the universe doesn't care about them either, and they can just as easily be wiped out if they screw up or get in the way of a bigger fish. It all comes down to chance, preparation, and knowing not to draw the attention of things you can't control. In a lot of fantasy, the universe cares about the hero, and it gives him power with which to shape the world as he sees fit. It doesn't really care about the people who don't have powers, and they don't have the ability to stand against the hero or the villain. In a sense, a hero is a bigger threat to an average person than Cthulhu is, because Cthulhu doesn't have "destiny" ensuring he always wins. Personally, my universe doesn't care, but I don't write exceptionally powerful beings either. Even a dragon or a demon is just bigger and older, and either can die in a matter of seconds if they screw up while fighting an ordinary person. Of course, the ordinary person can die in a matter of seconds, too. I guess the biggest difference between me and Lovecraft is that I allow for more room to strive. One person can't change the world, but they can inspire others who might be able to change it together. It's up to the masses to determine whether it changes for the better or for the worse.
Lovecraft isn't really dark fantasy. He's his own genre. Weird horror, and the sub-genre of that, cosmic horror.
Thank you for this definition! I really struggled with all these distinctions, but for me the above is the defining factor of how I relate my own work to dark fantasy. I am not sure it is a definition which would be generally adopted, but hey, people have to be allowed their favourites
I really like your ideas of nature toppling the denizens of the world when it comes to sheer power, as well as everything not turning out so fancy as one expects from a HF. In our own world, things in history didn't always work out the way they were intended (For example, I am sure that the Spanish did not sail to the New World intent on killing of 50% of the native population by smallpox and flue) Bad consequences. In a lot of HF, events go bad but mostly turn out on the bright side as intended. In DF, this is not always the case. I think it is also a matter of action - reaction, cause and consequence, and grey characters responding to circumstances in a more realistic, and not always "good way". Events will shape a personality, and there isn't always a definable "true evil" (To bring up a very cliche examples, in LotR there are the orcs, which are purely evil, in Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, there is the Storm King, purely evil) In my own work, characters are in a certain situation that they have to get out, and there isn't a definable salvation at hand, like finding a magic sword that will end all the war, or throwing a trinket down a crater to dissolve evil forever. It's more like real world problems, in which the solution is not always clear and people have to act in the way that they think is best, which might be considered "good" or "evil". This way, some of my characters who start out as obvious good guys may, in response to and evolving by events, turn into feared people that do things that might be considered dubious at best. On the other hand, characters of whom one might expect certain bad things may just find the charitable side in themselves.
I think any character can be realistic if the author is skillful. After all, a MC is also human, and in the real world there are certainly people of every kind about. Some more mindful of the ten comandments then others. For me the distinction is not to write more 'realistic' characters, but to select for writing the ones who don't i.e. automatically face a firing squad voluntarily to hide a complete stranger. Or at least not at first Living is changing, and then changing some more if one doesn't like the consequences of ones own actions.
Thanks! This idea of stronger nature really just spawned from my own worldviews and how I feel about our nature. Yeah no way Spanish fellows could have known about sicknesses and bacteria back then, just a really sad outcome from a small thing out of their control. I really dropped out the "clear evil" thing, it is bit overused but I still believe it can make a pretty entertaining storylines. Writers just need to remember that no one was born with pure evil character, it's an outcome and telling that in the story is, well in my opinion, the game changer from bad work to better. It's cool that nowadays stories tend to be about more common and day-to-day problems. It's bit tiresome, when everything is so magnificent and huge. All good with that, but of course, it is up to one small hero(-ine) to save us all! I try to concentrate on telling the story of this world, so it in the end is about the setting. Human society was forced out of its own land, and now one of the human cultures seeks ways to inhabit their homeland again. So one of my MCs works as eyes, when they try to make it happen. It's really entertaining to imagine and write how you might feel about going back to old lands of your ancestors, where nature has started its long work of decay. And simultaneously, the nature goes through a small change and other MC will be one of the few humans to travel towards the unknown. So I have two directions how the world expands for humans. Old land that is now new, and "possibly" land they have never heard of.
I absolutely agree with you on scale. When things get big, the protags need to be powerful or well-supported or both. Circumstance can only do so much when it comes to saving the world.
I think that is one thing Tolkien did 95% right. Sauron was a complete evil that had to be destroyed. While Frodo and his friends are small figures, on the background all the powerful leaders united and fought the huge battles. So while for modern writers Frodo going in with the trinket is the extreme cliche, the world around him was pretty well made and believable. Take that away, and most likely we would have never heard about Middle-Earth.
I really, really like this story idea. I hope to see you post it someday so I can read it - I'm a sucker for Dark/Horror fantasy...and people getting kidnapped and experimented on to open the pits of Hell sounds fantastic. Ha!
@GuardianWynn - there is this TV show called "Believe" which tackles similiar kind of situation. I think it could give you some thoughts and ideas regarding your own story.
