Meaning of grimdark | Babel Free

Definitions

Of a film, television programme, video game, written work, etc.: having a gloomy, dystopian atmosphere.

slang

Examples

“If your character is a more-or-less ordinary little girl fighting for her life as a usual thing, that's a fairly GRIMDARK setting; it implies that there isn't any Good authority with both the power and the will to protect them.”

“Most original. Brilliantly so! What's not to like? "Jarringly non-grimdark," carpers will sneer. Oh, yeah? What's not Grimdark about – / * Droids? / * Vagina heads? / * Gundam suits (desu)?”

“The thought once occur[r]ed to me, that for a while they had the silver age Legion as the actual past of a grimdark iron age Legion. Which meant that in theory the grimdark adult legion could have traveled back to silver age Smallville, or the silver age Legion could have travelled back to the iron age DC "present" of the 90s.”

“[T]here is a more violent ‘barbarian’ tradition of fantasy – sometimes called ‘sword and sorcery’, to distinguish it from Tolkienian ‘heroic fantasy’ – […] This in turn leads through to modern ‘Grimdark’ writing, where nobody is honourable and Might is Right. George R. R. Martin’s ongoing fantasy sequence A Song of Fire and Ice^([sic – meaning A Song of Ice and Fire]) is surely the most successful and popular Grimdark fantasy.”

CEFR level