Apparently few people on this board know what 'Grimdark' actually means.

Ethereal311·10/30/2015, 1:02:09 AM·3 votes·1,144 views
Darker and Edgier - TV Tropes

"A tone shift that seeks to make a work of fiction more serious, cynical or gritty. In theory, archetypes which we are usually accustomed to acting in a more noble setting will have to act in one where they must think and act grimly in order to make progress, thus forcing re-examination of the tropes involved or the ability to use new tropes and expand the setting making for different sorts of characters and stories. In practice however, writers can be too lazy to make use of what most of those words mean and ending up randomly "spicing up" a work with gratuitous gore, cursing, and sex to make the work "more adult" - often overdoing it in the process. "

This is exactly what Fortune and Shadows as well as Burning Tides are, and it's in the wrong kind of grimdark. I don't see an expansion of any trope critique and the gore and cursing are nothing more than spice that can be considered poorly done at times. It actually pisses me off too much for me to read it in a single sitting. I'm of the firm belief that it is one hell of pathetic attempt at lore writing, but that's just me. If you're not convinced, read further into the link and tell me how the hell it's not.

6 Comments

Dreamspitter10/30/2015, 1:47:33 AM2 votes

{quoted}

"A tone shift that seeks to make a work of fiction more serious, cynical or gritty. In theory, archetypes which we are usually accustomed to acting in a more noble setting will have to act in one where they must think and act grimly in order to make progress, thus forcing re-examination of the tropes involved or the ability to use new tropes and expand the setting making for different sorts of characters and stories. In practice however, writers can be too lazy to make use of what most of those words mean and ending up randomly "spicing up" a work with gratuitous gore, cursing, and sex to make the work "more adult" - often overdoing it in the process. "

This is exactly what Fortune and Shadows as well as Burning Tides are, and it's in the wrong kind of grimdark. I don't see an expansion of any trope critique and the gore and cursing are nothing more than spice that can be considered poorly done at times. It actually pisses me off too much for me to read it in a single sitting. I'm of the firm belief that it is one hell of pathetic attempt at lore writing, but that's just me. If you're not convinced, read further into the link and tell me how the hell it's not.

#IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FUTURE...

http://i.imgur.com/rLiAw1d.jpg

#THERE IS ONLY GRAHAM MCNEILL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_McNeill

LordHippoman10/30/2015, 2:14:16 AM2 votes

I don't think Shadow and Fortune is too grimdark. A better word for that kind of thing is usually "gratuitous" anyway.

Shadow and Fortune is depicting a dark incident that has a lot of death and loss occurring. So I don't mind them mentioning that MF's crew has been mostly cut down, or that the docks are filled with bodies. That's natural description.

Like, "A corpse was hanging from the dock" isn't necessarily gratuitous if it serves a purpose. If it's something stupidly cringey like "A dead corpse of an orphan hung from the docks, it had like six stab holes in it and blood was still pouring from it", that's gratuitous, that's someone telling the author "You can do M rated stuff" and them then doing it just for the sake of trying to be more "adult", like you mentioned. I think so far S&F has avoided that.

There were a few spots in Burning Tides that sort of did that. I still think the part with Gangplank scrimshawing the sailor went on longer than necessary. We got that Gangplank was a cruel and vicious leader within like 2 sentences of that. We didn't need THAT much description, and it sorta dragged on and felt pointless. So I see your point, but I'd disagree with the application of it in S&F. Olaf's portions are pretty much entirely comic relief, for example.

GenoXx10/30/2015, 3:09:52 AM2 votes

Like i said before Grow up

Ralanr10/30/2015, 1:04:58 AM1 votes

Yeah, it's not grimdark. People are mislabeling it. It has dark moments and that's fine.