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How grimdark is Brandon Sanderson?


Oltux72

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The man bathes in blood. Death rates in excess of 90% are common. And there is quite some cruelty.

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First, you must get a spren to approach.

The type of gemstone is relevant; some spren are naturally more intrigued by certain gemstones. In addition, it is essential to calm the spren with something it knows and loves. A good fire for a flamespren, for example, is a must

Sounds innocent? Only until you ask yourself how thay make painrials. And that is typical. The horror can be deduced, but is never mentioned. So I would propose that we create a new label for Brandon Sanderson: grimlight

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Grimdark is about a tone that pervades a work, usually reinforced by (or created by) the setting. Brandon's works are almost uniformly hopeful in tone (Threnody excepted for now) so they're nowhere near grimdark. A lot of characters dying in backstory events doesn't make the setting grimdark.

Okay, Stormlight Archive is an edge case right now since it does have a background of near-constant warfare and eldritch abominations making people bloodthirsty, hedonistic, say strange things when they die... but the very fact that it's got Honor as one of its resident Shards and characters are still trying to be honorable even when so many other people aren't (and they don't inevitably come to horrible ends) pretty much pushes it out of serious grimdark-ness. Brandon has called Stormlight (along with most of his works) high fantasy, which is on the opposite end of the tonal spectrum from grimdark, even if he writes considerably more shades of grey than, say, Tolkien or Jordan.

Edited by Weltall
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The original Mistborn trilogy could get pretty dark, and the Way of Kings was difficult to get through, but I think grimdark requires an element of bleakness and hopelessness. Both the works' underlying themes runs contrary to that. It's dark, but it's not grim.

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1 hour ago, Honorless said:

The original Mistborn trilogy could get pretty dark, and the Way of Kings was difficult to get through, but I think grimdark requires an element of bleakness and hopelessness. Both the works' underlying themes runs contrary to that. It's dark, but it's not grim.

Brandon does a lot of resurrection or fakeout deaths in Stormlight and I think "does he do this too much?" then I think back to the original Mistborn. Really bad things happen to almost everyone in that original crew by the end. The world is easily the grimmest in environment with the ash mounts constantly spewing and the society is horribly oppressive, par for the course with a lot in the Cosmere (and real life). 

On the original question I wouldn't categorize Brandon's work as grimdark. Grimlight would work as @Bridge-Four suggested.

2 hours ago, Weltall said:

Grimdark is about a tone that pervades a work, usually reinforced by (or created by) the setting. Brandon's works are almost uniformly hopeful in tone (Threnody excepted for now) so they're nowhere near grimdark. A lot of characters dying in backstory events doesn't make the setting grimdark.

Okay, Stormlight Archive is an edge case right now since it does have a background of near-constant warfare and eldritch abominations making people bloodthirsty, hedonistic, say strange things when they die... but the very fact that it's got Honor as one of its resident Shards and characters are still trying to be honorable even when so many other people aren't (and they don't inevitably come to horrible ends) pretty much pushes it out of serious grimdark-ness. Brandon has called Stormlight (along with most of his works) high fantasy, which is on the opposite end of the tonal spectrum from grimdark, even if he writes considerably more shades of grey than, say, Tolkien or Jordan.

2 hours ago, Honorless said:

The original Mistborn trilogy could get pretty dark, and the Way of Kings was difficult to get through, but I think grimdark requires an element of bleakness and hopelessness. Both the works' underlying themes runs contrary to that. It's dark, but it's not grim.

Pretty much all of this. Most all of Brandon's protagonists are fundamentally good people, some of whom committed war crimes they forgot about, but still decent people being trying to be good to others. Mistborn Era 1 being the one big exception where Kelsier and Vin (in the first book or so) are maybe not the best people. Selfish, misanthropic, narcissistic (less so with Vin). 

In "Lord Grimdark" Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy:

Spoiler

the most sympathetic protagonist is a guy who tortures people for the government and makes them sign false confessions and name names of innocent people he can then arrest and do the same thing to. He does this in all three books. The second most sympathetic person (imo) is a former slave who is OK with people being enslaved as long as they don't enslave "real people" (people of her ethnicity). 

And those two are the most justified in their terribleness of our "heroes". The story is less "the good guys win" and more "our protagonists win which is the best of the three outcomes presented, but it doesn't feel like they did a good thing either." 

 

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How grimdark is Brandon Sanderson? Not very. 

Gritty tone does not grimdark make. As mentioned before, grimdark takes place within a particular tone, a very nihilistic one at that. Essentially, it does not matter what characters do in their individual stories, it's all meaningless over all. (I.e. You managed to defeat a horde of Chaos demons. It doesn't matter, because the entropic nature of the universe means they will continue to pour into this dimension until it is consumed. You did not prevent defeat, merely postponed it)

All of Sanderson is pervaded with hopefulness and abundant opportunities at redemption. In grimdark, damnation is the default state and redemption is out of reach or only obtained through horrific and atrocious acts...which, of course increases your damned state driving you to further and more extreme violence against the universe and your soul. Until maybe one day the character dies and is torn apart by demons for eternity...a fate that awaits the vast majority of people in the grimdark universe from the innocent to the guilty. 

And besides, Brandon barely qualifies as "having gritty elements"

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1 hour ago, Orlionra said:

Gritty tone does not grimdark make. As mentioned before, grimdark takes place within a particular tone, a very nihilistic one at that. Essentially, it does not matter what characters do in their individual stories, it's all meaningless over all. (I.e. You managed to defeat a horde of Chaos demons. It doesn't matter, because the entropic nature of the universe means they will continue to pour into this dimension until it is consumed. You did not prevent defeat, merely postponed it)

You killed a monstrous dictator to set your people free by sacrificing yourself and thereby kill almost everybody on your world.

1 hour ago, Orlionra said:

All of Sanderson is pervaded with hopefulness and abundant opportunities at redemption. In grimdark, damnation is the default state and redemption is out of reach or only obtained through horrific and atrocious acts...which, of course increases your damned state driving you to further and more extreme violence against the universe and your soul. Until maybe one day the character dies and is torn apart by demons for eternity...a fate that awaits the vast majority of people in the grimdark universe from the innocent to the guilty. 

And besides, Brandon barely qualifies as "having gritty elements"

Flooding a market square with blood of people just snatched from the streets? Infants butchered to make magic items? Adolescent girls taken from villages for the sexual pleasure of their lease holders only to be executed?

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9 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

You killed a monstrous dictator to set your people free by sacrificing yourself and thereby kill almost everybody on your world.

And somehow Ruin was defeated and the world was saved.

And everyone saw it coming.

9 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Flooding a market square with blood of people just snatched from the streets? Infants butchered to make magic items?

That's enough for grimdark for you?

Low bar to set but ok. 

Edited by Frustration
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I think grimdark is more a category of tone than content. You can’t really call a book grimdark just because a lot of people die. Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy for example. Earth literally gets completely destroyed, but that book is absolutely not grimdark. It’s a comedy.

I’d also argue that you could theoretically write a grimdark book without having a single person die. Can’t think of a good example for this, but I’d wager it’s definitely possible. 

So yeah, I’d say Sanderson is definitely not grimdark.

Edited by Dannex
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Once again, for something to be grimdark, you have to have a "grim" outlook. "Things suck, but you can still make the world a better place and find happiness even if you have done terrible things" is not a grim outlook. 

That's also why I wouldn't use grimlight to describe Sanderson's work, any grim outlook is a challenge to overcome because of hoope and warm & Fuzzies and PG luv. Whatever happens, there will be a happy ending. 

Grimdark also tends to be more descriptive about dark acts. Merely mentioning "adolescent girls leased for sexual pleasure only to be executed" is not the grimdark way. That's skimming over it, grimdark revels in the dark acts it chooses to depict. 

And @Dannex is correct. Rick and Morty have a lot of the characteristics I've mentioned, but nobody would call it grimdark.

Edited by Orlionra
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How grimdark is Sanderson?  I'd say maybe 10-20%.  He's said himself that early on in his career when GRRM was at his peak of actually releasing books and grimdark was all the rage he tried to write more in the style of GRRM (who I'd probably call grimdark light) or Joe Abercrombie and it just didn't work.  So at least in his own mind, I'd say Sanderson is not grimdark.

I think most fantasy is based on the premise of fighting horrible odds and an overwhelming evil force.  Look at LotR for example - tons of good people die, people are horribly tortured and transformed into evil creatures, and it looks like there is no chance the forces of good will win.  No one would call LotR grimdark, though things look grim for the heroes throughout most of the story.  The reason why is because the story is about maintaining hope and the heroes are generally good people, though some have flaws and make mistakes.  Ultimately the forces of good win, even though they have to pay a steep price.

I think to be grimdark you have to meet a few criteria:

1) Good people either don't exist or are too weak/naive to make any difference in the main conflict of the book.  No one in a position of power is doing anything that is intended to help people or minimize suffering in the world.

2) The protagonist is an anti-hero who does evil things to advance their own personal goals.  Usually, horrible abuse and trauma have occurred to make them feel this way which is explored in depth in the book.  They may get a redemption arc, but only at the very end of the book.  And usually, at most it will be something like "I'm an evil person and I know it, but I've done all the bad and evil things so that the good people don't have to.  I'm permanently stained with my evil deeds and can never be redeemed.  The best I can do is to get out of the picture and hand the reins over to someone who will try to make the world a better place."  They will typically not actually become a good person themselves.

3) The overall world is grim and its implied that pretty much everyone in it are living in pain and/or constant threat of annihilation.  The protagonist either knowingly adds to these threats, or has the power to solve the problems but chooses not to for selfish reasons.

4) The conflict in the world is not good vs. evil or even greater vs. lesser evil.  It's typically evil vs. evil or neutral vs. neutral.

5) The moral message of grimdark is always very cynical - something like "Everyone's just in it for themselves and their own personal gain and no one cares about the greater good"

6) Horrific acts are described in detail - torture, murder, rape, etc.  These acts are central to the plot.

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