Does Dark = Good?

[AngleWyrm]

...this is why "rape" so rarely works in storytelling. Shock value in itself does not make a point. Context is needed, yet the context provided, if any, is usually secondary to the act itself in fiction.

The original black and white Straw Dogs [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/straw-dogs-2011/comments.php?reviewid=2046774] (1971, not the new one) did a great job of portraying something resembling sexual assault, rape and infidelity with an ex-boyfriend all entangled into one. Well worth a look. But the main point of that slow and boring movie -- that a 98 pound weakling fights back -- was extremely lame.

The recent version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_girl_with_the_dragon_tattoo/] also created a credible scene of sexual abuse by a hideous bully. Very creepy. But again, it was used as the principle McGuffin for a vengeance flick.

 

[Gatx]

You can see this in a lot of recent media - the last of the Star Wars prequels, the later Harry Potter films, and of course the ending of Mass Effect 3. You can often converse with someone and ask about how good something is, and they'll be like "Well it was the darkest of the films." Is Dark equated with good though?

Let's not forget about Empire Strikes Back, often considered the BEST out of the original trilogy (and by extension out of all 6 Star Wars films) is also the darkest of the three, but that might also have something to do with the fact that George Lucas didn't direct it. My personal favorite has always been Return of the Jedi though (where weirdly enough Luke becomes grim dark but then in come the Ewoks).

 

[Atmos Duality]

Dark is fucking good, because it's fucking mature. There's too much fucking shit that's fucking light out there, and it fucking needs to stop with that shit. I mean, fuck.

A bit of serious fucking language really ups the fucking quality of the shit, in my bastard opinion. If it offends the fucking ears of childish little shits, it must be fucking mature, shit?

*chuckles*

Why am I suddenly thinking of the Boondock Saints?

The original black and white Straw Dogs [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/straw-dogs-2011/comments.php?reviewid=2046774] (1971, not the new one) did a great job of portraying something resembling sexual assault, rape and infidelity with an ex-boyfriend all entangled into one. Well worth a look. But the main point of that slow and boring movie -- that a 98 pound weakling fights back -- was extremely lame.

The recent version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_girl_with_the_dragon_tattoo/] also created a credible scene of sexual abuse by a hideous bully. Very creepy. But again, it was used as the principle McGuffin for a vengeance flick.

I've had Straw Dogs recommended to me before. Then again, the one doing the recommendation has a penchant for movies on the "sadistic" side; and not the kind of "sadistic" that lands films on Mystery Science Theater.

 

[Dastardly]

Recently I've been noticing a trend of things to becoming dark.

It's a trend in all art.

Art is about expression, usually regarding emotion. People don't generally need to "work through" positive emotions... and audiences often don't want art from happy people, because it's just a reminder of how happy everyone else is. Adults are by-and-large jaded, so if something is happy, it's viewed as naive or shallow. Or geared toward children, which is essentially the same thing.That's why more songs are about break-ups than weddings.

Since a lot of the most stirring art has been about dealing with "hard" feelings, rather than "easy" ones, a lot of folks carry this to its seemingly logical conclusion -- that all art must deal with hard feelings to be artistically valid. It's not so much "Dark = Good," as much as it is "Dark = Deep."

On a deeper level, however, there is a bit of validity to the idea. Emotions are stirred by conflict. Happiness is usually a result of some need being fulfilled, meaning it had to be unfulfilled first. It's that conflict between what we need and what we have that moves our emotions, and gives the happiness its impact.

That's why a lot of deeper artistic themes are a bit dark, because they create conflict in our minds... but I can agree that too many folks think that dark is automatically deep, and that dark is the only way to be deep.

 

[Abedeus]

Grimdark McAngsty is popular now.

 

[VeryOddGamer]

Dark does not instantly equal good. Dark can equal good, though. Also, dark stories are not more mature automatically either. I prefer somewhere in between, not all happy, not all grim. Why? Well, a good story can't be too light, because then it loses a lot of the drama. But it can't be too dark either, because then it's just depressing. I mean, life is pretty depressing. Do we have to make our fiction depressing as well?

 

[Vausch]

Not really. A good story well told is a good story, be it light-hearted or dark in tone. Batman is dark but often well written and has great character moments and arcs that make it enjoyable (Silver age and some very stupid comics not withstanding).

By contrast, Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes pre-reboot) was light-hearted and colourful while still retaining and elements mature enough to create characters relatable to anybody and had some situations that would be consider silly but were well written and were just fun. Paco fought off aliens with nothing but a big stick and Jaime fought off a sentient tornado, that was fun and wonderful.

It's all in the writing and the mood desired by the audience. You don't play Silent Hill when you want to feel happy and you probably aren't going to view a game like Rayman: Origins as a way to deal with a dark feeling (unless it's a mood lifter).

 

[orangeban]

I do tend to get a little frustrated with "dark" stories, or at least how they are usually done.

I've no problem with a story that is grim, a little hopeless, and a "bad" ending can be entertaining in it's own way.

However, when people write dark stories, they have this tendency to make the characters angsty douchebags. And people, angsty douchebags are unlikeable!

Textbook examples: Harry Potter in the later books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the later seasons.

I can't stand books with a dislikeable protagnist, and that is probably the most common reason I'll abandon a book. The main character drives the plot, so we've got to have a reason to be invested in them!

It seems writers writing "dark" stories think that the character must be constantly miserable, broody, depressing and stuff like that.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

The point, in my opinion, was nailed early on. Dark doesn't mean wannabe emo and it's not necessarily about making things just bleaker. I prefer mature stories, I hate the "and they lived happily ever after" stories because life isn't like that. When a man falls from a building he dies, love isn't always reciprocated, hate can burn a hole through you and life is god damned hard.

So I prefer the stories with the hope in them, with that little aspect of light but with a more realistic (within its context) and more mature story to tell.

I'd rather have a happy butterflies, lollipops and rainbows tale than one trying to be angsty for no good reason though, those are the worst. "OMG my boyfriend of two weeks left me." *Slit wrists and die*. Yeah no.
But generally speaking yeah, more mature stories are better. They make connections easier for me personally and in general raise the stakes.

For Harry Potter in the books she treated the characters more tenderly than in the film iirc? Regardless it helps hammer home the point which is this is a war and people die. If everyone walked out all happy and smiley I'd be pissed the hell off, wouldn't you? It's not a happy fantasy yay story, it's one about friendship and love sure but it's set in a world in turmoil and spiralling down.

 

[Stalydan]

Recently I've been noticing a trend of things to becoming dark.

You can see this in a lot of recent media - the last of the Star Wars prequels, the later Harry Potter films, and of course the ending of Mass Effect 3. You can often converse with someone and ask about how good something is, and they'll be like "Well it was the darkest of the films." Is Dark equated with good though?

The later Harry Potter films were darker, but I definitely preferred the older ones with their childlike charm. Give me A New Hope over Revenge of the Sith anyday!

You can see this in videogames too - Dragon Age: Origins was a fairly standard save-the-world fantasy game which was great (and not particularly dark, had difficult decisions though), and then Dragon Age 2 went all dark with torture and slavery and necrophilia and stuff, but it was definitely not the better game. Same with Mass Effect, the first two games were standard space opera, but then the third shoves out an out-of-place "dark" ending down our throats.

Lord of the Rings wasn't dark but its a timeless classic and the films are great - I doubt it would have improved by an ending where Sauron wins and murders everyone, and the last film consisted of rape of Elven women by Orcs and a brooding suicidal Legolas.

Not saying "dark" isn't bad, The Witcher 2 was a great game but it was handled in a mature fashion, as opposed to just shoving in blood and darkness and sex and stuff - it was mature which meant it could handle the "dark" subject matter easily. This runs parallel to 40k which is so grimdark that it's pretty much a self parody of itself, the lack of seriousness in 40k makes the grimdark better.

So yeah, do you think there's a tendency in media to equate dark with good, and therefore make everything dark? Do you even think dark is good?Do you enjoy dark stories or less dark ones?

I think dark doesn't mean good but neither does it mean bad. Dark can be used to show the flipside of a situation as much as comedy can be used to make light of it. Though sometimes, mature is mistaken for dark which makes a lot people start throwing around the term.

I do like dark things though; they're usually very good with the way they present drama on a subject. It can make certain emotions more present than others which may help or hinder the film depending on how it's handled.

 

[endtherapture]

You can see this in a lot of recent media - the last of the Star Wars prequels, the later Harry Potter films, and of course the ending of Mass Effect 3. You can often converse with someone and ask about how good something is, and they'll be like "Well it was the darkest of the films." Is Dark equated with good though?

Let's not forget about Empire Strikes Back, often considered the BEST out of the original trilogy (and by extension out of all 6 Star Wars films) is also the darkest of the three, but that might also have something to do with the fact that George Lucas didn't direct it. My personal favorite has always been Return of the Jedi though (where weirdly enough Luke becomes grim dark but then in come the Ewoks).

Empire was great because it was dark enough to be considered dark and have conflict but it wasn't grimdark. Cloud City was not destroyed, Lando didn't rape Leia and Han Solo didn't die or get his eyes stabbed out with lightsabers or anything.

 

[roushutsu]

I don't mind if a story is dark or has some darker elements thrown in here and there as long as it's handled well. To your point, it is kinda getting a tad annoying that "dark" is becoming the norm to the point where I'm becoming desensitized to some of those dark elements that I would otherwise enjoy in a story.

 

[dragonswarrior]

Dark and light mean nothing if the story is done well.

And if the story is truly done well it should have both "dark" and "light" elements. Since stories (the best ones that is) are things that could actually happen, and since life itself is entirely comprised of nothing but good stuff and bad stuff, the best stories have good stuff and bad stuff.

Whether the ending is dark or light again means nothing as long as it is done well.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Example of poor light ending? Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series. A BRILLIANT book series that I cannot praise enough... But in the end, despite an incredibly catastrophic war, all the main characters live, all of them are happy, and one even gets her barren womb randomly cured by a magical mcguffin mushroom. It just... felt incredibly unrealistic to me. And that ruined somewhat the ending itself, which had been awesome.

Example of a good almost completely light ending? Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. Because it felt realistic. People died, but they ended up happy in wherever their death place was. So despite the deaths it was pretty light. The whole world got fixed, but the people who died in the ending cataclysm don't come back to life, and they have to completely rebuild civilization and everything. But everything was fixed!! Happiness and hope for all!! And it was still awesome.

 

[RJ 17]

Really it's just one of the current trends in media these days. "Dark" is seen as being "Edgy". Take the reboot of the Batman series with Christian Psychopath Bale, they were/are hailed as "A dark take on the Batman story." >.> personally I always thought Batman's story was dark to begin with...kinda thought that was the entire frickin' point.

The point is that "darkness" is being seen as "gritty" and "real" these days because, looking at the world around us, it's becoming pretty dark and depressing.

Media reflects the times that its in, and at the moment it seems - at least to various forms of media - that we're in some dark times.

 

[Substitute Troll]

For me, every proper story ends with the death of the main cast/character. It's a definitive ending. That's why I enjoyed the finale of Lost so much.

And I'd rather watch something "darker" than having a happy ending ala Legend of the Seeker's season two finale.

"Oh wait, there was never a problem to begin with! HAPPY ENDING*!"

*not taht kind

 

[Darkmantle]

dark is usually done poorly. Like warhammer 40k, it's gotten so GRIMDARK GRIMDARK it's dissolved into self parody.

dark done RIGHT on the other hand can have a powerful effect. Example, "watchmen"

 

[ThreeWords]

Dark is fucking good, because it's fucking mature. There's too much fucking shit that's fucking light out there, and it fucking needs to stop with that shit. I mean, fuck.

A bit of serious fucking language really ups the fucking quality of the shit, in my bastard opinion. If it offends the fucking ears of childish little shits, it must be fucking mature, shit?

*chuckles*

Why am I suddenly thinking of the Boondock Saints?

Shaddup, you mother- Jesus -fucking Christ!