how do you feel about "dark" entertainment?

[lazarus]

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine recently. Haele and I are currently watching Game of Thrones, and are also watching, for the first time, The Wire.

My friend said he quit reading the Thrones books because they were so unremittingly dark. Even when it looked like the good guys won something, the cost was too high. He didn't like The Wire because it was too dark.

He compared The Wire to Simon's other series set in Baltimore, Homicide. Homicide had moments of triumph where the forces of good won, so he liked that series better.

(I just thought of another one. I really liked Oz.)

After the discussion, I started thinking about it, and realized that I actually like dark works of fiction, if done well. The occasional moments of good are all the better due to the darkness.

I also think that created worlds where everything is shades of grey, instead of Manichean black and white, are more honest. That was always my biggest complaint about Tolkien's world in Lord of the Rings; evil was clearly evil, and good was clearly good. Only Saruman was able to sort of play both sides, and that didn't last long, and he was suspected the whole time.

One of my favourite current writers is Stephen R Donaldson. His stuff is very, very dark. In his first series, the protagonist rapes a young girl early in the book (many people simply quit reading at that point). Thing is, he pays and pays and pays for it over the course of the series (and the following series even more). Then there's redemption, which couldn't have happened had he been a classic hero from the beginning.

In a different series he did, in another universe and genre, rape is a very common theme. Not just sexual rape, but profound spiritual and genetic rape. It's based on Wagner's Ring cycle (loosely). The three protagonists start has victim, victimizer, and rescuer. They then proceed to switch roles in reference to each other and others repeatedly over the course of five books. Many people didn't make it to the end, but the last half of the last book is glorious, and can only be so because of how deep into hell everyone sank over the course of the previous four books.

I find myself not liking classic heroes anymore, simply because they're too vanilla. I never liked Superman, for example. The latest incarnation of Batman in the movies is more to my tastes, although he has a fairly strong moral code he sticks to (no killing).

So, does anyone else prefer dark, or at least, worlds with more shades of grey? What are some examples? Or why not?

[stevenleser]

1. One of mine and many other peoples favorite book and movie series is dark. The girl with the dragon

tattoo.

Perhaps not quite as dark as some of the other ones you mention, but not that far either.

[madrchsod]

2. the girl with the dragon tatto is a great film series.

i have no idea why they think they can make another movie...

[stevenleser]

3. First one done by Swedes, series is being redone by hollywood, and I have to say that the Swedes

messed up the third movie, BADLY. There is room for improvement there.

[saras]

4. Got tired of it decades ago, and eventually got therapy to clean its effects out further

Your mileage may vary. Hell, your engine may explode.

On the other hand, people tell me that my humor can jump in an instant from "cute and childish" to "Darth Vader with a toothache".

It's also the case that I consume very little entertainment except music, and in music I will listen to anything on the planet EXCEPT music that is deliberately trying to be "dark".

In my own life experience, redemption is rare enough to classify as a miracle. The repetition compulsion is by far a more common pattern, but both it and conquering it are terribly unromantic to write about. It's also my experience that most people are far more good than evil, or far more evil that good. I just don't run into fifty-percenters very often, so I find literature that pretends everybody is a fifty-percenter to be tedious and unrealistic.

I can't imagine ever, for any reason, wanting to fill my head with more rape fantasies than this culture already projects at me. It's far too much work for too little result to use it as a metaphor for anything else, and in its raw form is just ugly and stupid, with no redeeming features. A bemused tolerance is the best I could ever hope for, and that only in a world without any real rape.

The last character I ever took seriously as a "hero" was Richard Feynman. Is that a flawed and grey enough hero for you?

[lazarus]

5. I agree it's not fifty/fifty

but it's not all or nothing, either. Shades of gray.

I love Feynman, btw. But I learned a long time ago that my heroes can be flawed individuals. Too many people still haven't learned that lesson. Witness the outrage du jour over Weiner.

[Ohio Joe]

6. Oz and The Wire are both great

You should check out The Shield as well, I bet you will enjoy it. You should also look into reading some Joe Haldeman, The Forever War, All my Sins Remembered, Mindbridge, There is no Darkness, all good stuff.

Edit - I read the Thomas Covenant books (excellent books), what is the other series you mentioned, it does not ring any bells, I must have missed it.

[lazarus]

7. The Gap series

five books. Starts with The Real Story, which is really more of a novella that sets the whole thing up. The following four books are proper length.

It's science fiction, which is unusual for Donaldson. Some of the science is a bit wonky, but very little SF is what I would term "hard SF", meaning it follows the physical laws as we know them, barring some mechanism for FTL. I just ignored the science and enjoyed the plotting and characters. It's by far his darkest work. Angus Thermopylae makes Thomas Covenant look like the Dalai Lama. :D But I guarantee the characters will stick with you.

Have you been reading the Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant? There are three books out so far, and it's easily his best writing. Leaps and bounds ahead of the writing in the first chronicles. My favourite is still the Mordant's Need books, but these are exceptional writing. I say that as someone with a degree in liberal arts who had to write way too many literary analysis papers. Heh.

I keep meaning to start on Haldeman, I just have the biggest to-read stack of my entire life right now. I'm way behind on my Gibson, and I'm plowing through the complete works of HP Lovecraft (speaking of dark).

[mackerel]

8. I like dark stuff sometimes.

I love Salander she's my hero but if I read too much of it I get seriously depressed.

[Ohio Joe]

9. No, not yet

I've not gotten around to finding a decent used book store here in Denver, I'll put them on my list though.

[Forkboy]

10. I like dark everything. Books, movies and especially music.

One of my big pet peeves is happy endings stuck onto movies just so it can have a happy ending. I didn't read The Road so I don't know if the book ends the same as the movie, but the movie's ending came across as totally contrived to me, and a much darker, yet more believable ending, was being set up through the whole movie. They even added a fucking family dog to the equation. All that was missing was the picket fence in the background. It didn't ruin the movie for me at all, but it was still a letdown, and really lessened the impact the rest of the movie had built up. if they had gone with the ending I had in mind the movie would have gone from pretty good to "holy shit" fantastic.

Some people criticized the ending of The Mist, but I thought it was awesome. Same with Pan's Labyrinth. Totally poetic ending to me.

And being too dark just for the sake of it is just as contrived to me. Case in point: Requiem For A Dream, a movie many people love. I loved the Ellen Burstyn side story, but the main characters all had the very worst possible outcome that their character could have suffered happen, and it felt totally contrived to me, like Aronofsky was trying to beat me over the head with the Clue Stick. Very disappointing, especially after his hyper cool movie Pi.

[Goblinmonger]

12. Have you seen what they wanted to do to the end of Brazil?

What an abomination.

[Forkboy]

15. I heard some of the sordid details.

Must suck trying to get a dark movie made in Hollywood.

[Shrugger]

11. I guess not

I've seen and read everything mentioned so far, so I will stick it out if it's a good story.
However, I avoid the movie where the dog obviously won't make it and I don't rewatch or reread things like Requiem for a Dream or The Lovely Bones. My preference is definitely for the uplifting story.

[Goblinmonger]

13. I love the dark shit.

I always thought it was because I am a high school Lit teacher and, really, most all of the "good" literature is very, very dark. Kids bitch about it all the time.

Some of my favorites that come to mind that haven't been mentioned: Virgin Suicides, Donny Darko (specifically the director's cut), Butterfly Effect (only the directors cut because the theatrical release sucked balls). I'll think of more later.

[lazarus]

14. my favourite comment I heard about The Butterfly Effect

is:

Apparently, it's so bizarre for Ashton Kutcher to read, it tears up the space/time continuum.

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. Don't like it any more.

There's plenty of dark on the news.

I remember John Cleese once saying that the Pythons were laughing and mocking that idiots control the world. Then they got older and realized that idiots control the world....

[Forkboy]

17. I think the world is why my humor is so dark.

It's either laugh or cry at the madness. Gallows humor gets me through it. I think a lot of people into dark subject matter often take it with a sense of humor, even if one wasn't intended.

Your point is interesting though, because as a kid horror movies scared the bejeezus out of me. Even into my teens a good scare was a regular thing. Then at age 16 I learned about the Holocaust. No movie, no matter how dark or disturbing it is (and I can think of some that are seriously both) scares me anymore. I realized that there's nothing more frightful than what we're capable of doing to each other in real life. This is why I can laugh at the over the top scenes in movies like A Serbian Film. It's the most controversial and notorious movie in decades, but it pales in comparison to the nightly news. It becomes so over the top that it verges on comedy, and that's where I come in. :)

[Fire Walk With Me]

18. I agree about over-the-top being a remedy.

"Kill Bill pt. 1" being a great case in point...it keeps going higher, and higher, and higher, and can't get any more ridiculous but then it does, with tongue in cheek...

[mackerel]

19. LOL at goblinmonger's thumbnail pic.

Milton!

[Forkboy]

20. Exactly!

He was so influenced by anime (the gushing blood decapitation scene is just one hint) that's it's hard to take it seriously (and was never meant to be). This kind of darkness is fun to me, though I easily understand why it's not for everyone.

I like music with the same sensibility. The bands Nomeansno and Melvins both take their music very seriously, but not themselves. There's always a tongue in cheek element to it that smooths it all out. It's a fine line in both music and movies, but those artists that walk that line always appeal to me.

[Fire Walk With Me]

21. Going a bit OT, but I've been meaning to ask you if you listen to music

that is as unusual as some of the other media you've professed to enjoy.

I really like an English duo called Autechre; their stuff is extremely intelligent and is science-fiction for the ears. Recommended CDs: Quaristice and Oversteps, then TriRepetae++.

And for the eyes, can choose HD quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKJnQqVsqw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyJfHU4GoOQ

Their work can have lovely melody at times; these two are among their most challenging/interesting.

[mackerel]

22. Tarantino was heavily influence by the OZploitation films

of the '70's. If you've seen any of those films it's like they're all trying to top each other, very jocular if you can see it for tongue and cheek.

[Forkboy]

24. The music I get into tends to be rather unusual, yes.

I find challenging music to be very rewarding when it finally clicks. Sometimes that takes awhile. I listened to the band Deathspell Omega for a couple of years before one song finally pushed them over the top for me and made me "get" them. It was almost 20 minutes long and was just amazing. And the lyrics...holy shit! But they were, and still are, a very challenging listen, and this from someone who was already very into the black metal genre. They're the first BM band that I can say truly transcends their genre.

Music and movies and books don't have to make me feel good. I'm just as pleased when something makes me squirm, or even forces me to ask myself, "Why the fuck am I into this?". I like being made to feel uncomfortable. It shakes me out of any comfort zone and makes me reassess things about myself or the world.

This stuff here that you've posted is awesome. My friend is heavily into the noise scene (artists like Merzbow, Sightings, John Weise, etc), and I've always been into techno/industrial stuff, and Autechre seems to straddle those two genres nicely. Reminds me a bit of a band I just discovered earlier this year called Blackfilm, only a touch less ambient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y544VF0I1-U

Here's a taste of the "noise" type stuff I dig. This is harsher ambient than Blackfilm and much less beat driven than Autechre (there is no beat period lol), but I'm massively hooked on the CD. This is the band Sewer Goddess, and I listen a lot of stuff like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfdfzslZ1GY

Saving the hardest for last. Here's the Deathspell Omega song that hooked me. It does something different every two minutes, and has more to chew on the the entire catalogs of other BM bands. Don't feel bad if you don't like this. This is harsh, extreme music. But if you like a good musical challenge, you'll be hard pressed to find a tougher one than this, musically and lyrically. Thanks again for the links to Autechre. I will search out more of them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olN6UpUC6v4&feature=related

“What matter the victims, provided the gesture is beautiful?
What matters the death of vague human beings,
If thereby the individual affirms himself?” – Laurent Tailhade


The black Idol emerges as a silver lining in a dust cloud of death,
Eerie parallel tongues and the piping of heaven
The culture of transgression is mine and my descent
Makes me ascend in a repugnant swirl…


Sic volo,
Sic jubeo,
Stat pro ratione voluntas


The black Idol fills the veil of flesh with noxious smoke,
Depicting primal human experiences indifferently,
Contemptuous of moral concerns, dehumanized
The howling of wolves and the destructive sword are portions of Eternity,
Too great for the eyes of merely a man…


Transcendence of thresholds occurs with violence
And will for Vice is like the mind's dark radiance
Which blinds and of which I'm dying
Corruption is the spiritual cancer reigning in the depths of things
And it fills until the last cell of my vivid being
Dissolution and putrefaction, prevailing Aesthetic experience,
The splendor of the obscene and inhuman;
For what matters the death of a vague human beings
If thereby the individual affirms himself?


Violence exists in the moment when the eye turns upwards into the head,
When inversion is complete and total
The darkness of the upturned eye is not the absence of light
But the process of seeing being taken to its limit
That thorough derangement of the senses,
Way beyond the deceptive conflict between darkness and light
Opens perceptions to the tyranny of the Chekhinah…


Si non credideritis,
Non inteligetis


The dimension of ethereal totalitarianism discloses itself
And takes possession of the quintessential human soul
Like a nail hammered through most tender flesh
Aeons separate the one whose eyes have seen through the night of the spirit
The king, the Lord of hosts, draped in terrifying magnificence
From the gleaming clot of trembling vermin
If a faith and a belief aren't nurtured by the moist of blood
They do not grow, nor do they live
It is at the magnitude of daily murders, massacres and mass graves
That we do measure the propagation of our faith
Hearken and recognize, that hideous carrion
Legs in the air, like a whore – displayed, indifferent to the last
A belly slick with lethal sweat and swollen with foul gas…


This is you, nourishing
The grand Mass Grave Aesthetics!

[lazarus]

25. if you really want a book series that will make you wonder why you like it

I highly recommend the above mentioned Gap series by Stephen R Donaldson. Even the book titles are amazing:

The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story
The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge
The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises
The Gap Into Madness: Chaos and Order
The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die

Apparently, the reprint puts the first two books together, so I'm not sure what they're called now.

It's very challenging, as there aren't really any heroes in the work (maybe one), just victims and victimizers who swap roles as the series progresses. It's very loosely based on the Ring cycle by Wagner.

[Forkboy]

26. He did a series of detective stories under a pseudonym called "The Man Who..." series.

I really liked them but didn't find out it was Donaldson until later on. I had read a collection of his short stories back in the 80's, but had no idea it was the same guy.

I'll see if my library, conveniently right across the street, has the Gap series. :)

[lazarus]

27. I've got two or three of those

very good detective stories. Very noir.

[roguevalley]

23. ask me after the next Transformers. Five iconic Autobots and three

Decepticons die. Bay can bite me.

[ZombieHorde]

28. Love it. nt