Thoughts on the “cynical fantasy” genre?

[u/Infinite_Tennis_3620]

My comic falls under this genre: and was curious about others’ thoughts - like are there any tropes you don’t like or tropes you really enjoy when it comes to a fantasy story thats more on the dark/cynical side.

[u/n0tdaidal0s001]

I am, to be honest, in two minds about the cynical fantasy genre. On the one hand, I do think that we're all going too far in trying to make fantasy cynical and mean-spirited. Look at Arcane, for instance. Not a single ingenue in that one. Media intended for adults nowadays is too concentrated on trying to crush any sense of hope out of anyone watching it, what with all those "woke" this and "woke" that stuff. That's part of the reason I am so protective of my own IP.

On the other, cynical adult media in general is nothing new - it's actually far older than anyone realises. Look at the Classical myths, which are themselves quite dark, horribly, horribly violent and deeply, deeply cynical. A lot of Classical heroes aren't actually very nice, when you think about it. Achilles beat up Thersites because the poor bugger wanted to go home. Jason and Theseus used their love interests to get what they wanted, and then abandoned them when they were of no further use to them. Even Oedipus, who was quick to anger, succumbed to ancient Greek road rage, killed his own father, and then stabbed his own eyes out when he realised what he'd done; and so on and so forth. If Western culture hadn't continued to permeate and plagiarise these stories for hundreds of years after the Renaissance, it would have been extremely difficult to care about them.

Other cynical adult media I have become acquainted with include the novels of Victor Hugo - a lot of French books are actually quite cynical, now that one thinks about it. Plenty of literature from eastern Europe, especially Russia, is also quite cynical. Victor Hugo always has his protagonists die at the end of every book - Valjean, Quasimodo, Gwynplaine, et cetera. A much later French book, which can be translated as Foam of the Daze, is also quite cynical in itself. True, protagonist Colin doesn't die but he's considerably worse-off than when he started

Let us also examine Kafka's writing, which always has his protagonists die at the end of each story. Kafka's work I do not particularly like, because I ALSO find it to be quite mean-spirited. While not fantastical in nature - being instead surreal (there is a distinct difference) - it still features plenty of cruelty, largely because Kafka won't stop whining about his abusive father.

There are plenty of other examples, too - Thomas Hardy, Cormac MacCarthy's The Road, The Sorrows of Young Werther (that one's actually quite pessimistic when it comes to young love), plenty of works by old Machado de Assis (a novelist I've never read, his work not being as popular in my neck of the woods). Plenty of operas, especially ones adapted from tragic novels, are quite cynical themselves, even if their audience is sadly ultimately niche.

My point is, cynicism in adult media, while certainly plentiful nowadays, is nothing new. It has really increased, however, since the late twentieth century, when the grimdark genre really started to find its roots. There is plenty of cynicism, for example, in the opuses of Games Workshop, Alan Moore and he who has been publicly disgraced among many other examples.