What I'm objecting to is the description of event in gratuitous detail, not the occurance of events themselves. I turned away from Martin and Bakker not because I was personally disgusted and affected by the content (I wasn't), but because I felt they were going into details unnecessary to the story being told (or more properly, to the story I was trying to read). "Gritty" content is rarely more than unnecessary page bloat for authors trying to "be cool" by exploring the darker depths of the human experience.
Again, I say:
What war isn't staggeringly brutal and violent? Just because America's wars in the last 20 years have been extraordinarily clean by historical standards is no cause for us to dismiss what set that same standard in the first place.
And quite right, I won't be reading them.
Again, I say:
historical background is no excuse for making a spectacle of the worst parts in the name of "authenticity".
What war isn't staggeringly brutal and violent? Just because America's wars in the last 20 years have been extraordinarily clean by historical standards is no cause for us to dismiss what set that same standard in the first place.
And quite right, I won't be reading them.
Violence, rape, and agency in the "gritty fantasies"
- 17/12/2011 01:36:54 PM
1830 Views
Martin, Goodkind...
- 18/12/2011 01:58:33 PM
1127 Views
On more of a "meta" level, what makes a fantasy story "gritty" in the first place?
- 19/12/2011 02:58:57 PM
1004 Views
There has to be something more, though.
- 19/12/2011 03:47:56 PM
1163 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though.
- 19/12/2011 05:29:30 PM
1032 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though.
- 19/12/2011 09:06:14 PM
1015 Views
My problem with aSoIaF...
- 20/12/2011 05:16:42 AM
1135 Views
The Rhoynish influence pretty much ends in Dorne.
- 20/12/2011 06:15:54 AM
1041 Views
And that makes sense?
- 20/12/2011 08:54:16 AM
1191 Views
Yes and no.
- 20/12/2011 03:10:54 PM
1160 Views
Re: Yes and no.
- 26/12/2011 03:12:01 AM
1021 Views
The power and influence of women in the Middle Ages was limited, but not non-existent.
- 26/12/2011 01:37:40 PM
983 Views
Re: The power and influence of women in the Middle Ages was limited, but not non-existent.
- 29/12/2011 02:47:06 AM
1106 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though.
- 20/12/2011 12:21:39 PM
966 Views
That's a question for each reader to answer then.
- 20/12/2011 03:20:39 PM
873 Views
You appear to have not understood my point.
- 20/12/2011 05:59:07 PM
921 Views
Re: On more of a "meta" level, what makes a fantasy story "gritty" in the first place?
- 26/12/2011 01:15:35 AM
1078 Views