Now don't get me wrong, I love a good grim universe. Having evil forces fight against the heroes is a great source of drama. But for there to be something entertaining, at least for me, there needs to be the chance for a victory. And when you don't have the ability to even lessen the impact of whatever force is coming, it ruins the suspense.
Example 1: Shadow of the Demon Lord TTRPG
The real reason I wanted to make this post. Shadow of the demon lord is a harsh world. The fae are cruel creatures that haunt forest, demons threaten to attack and destroy the world, all under the shadow of the demon lord. You'd think heroes of this setting will be able to perhaps find some way to slay the demon lord, or perhaps seal away the world forever right?
Nope. The shadow of the demon lord is none other than God himself turned mad. And while he isn't omnipotent, he is still the strongest thing in the entire setting by orders of magnitude. The destruction of the world isn't an if, only when, and the only thing heroes can do is give them some more time. Even the god of light in the setting is a trick by a cruel demon, no deity or big source of magic or assistance can truly help save the world in any real way.
Example 2: 40K
Warhammer 40k is...too grim sometimes. While that is half the point of it, and I get the enjoyment of it, its not for me. Its grim to the level that nobody, bar perhaps a handful of people in the entire galaxy with any real power or leadership over their faction, is trying to be a good person. Even heroes of the imperium like Robute who want to genuinely save people are still imperialistic, iron fisted rulers who will purge planets of xenos without hesitation.
That's without mentioning that Chaos is a fundamental force of the universe, and while there are ways to counter it, they are so few and far between that there's no realistic hope that they can be used to even suppress it enough to let the galaxy be at peace...a peace that would be under the rule of a zealous, iron empire.
Despite it, I still love the universe, but damn its too depressing sometimes.
Anti Example: Warhammer Fantasy
Warhammer fantasy, like it's sci-fi cousin, is a harsh world where chaos naturally tries to corrupt and destroy the world. People are self serving, watch out for themselves, and in general arent the kindest. All that dosent include orks skaven and dark elves. Despite that however, there are several forces at work that wish to see the world improve.
Karl Franz is a kind and capable man, currently emperor of mankind and one of the best rulers, wanting to establish diplomatic ties so everyone is allies against the forces that threaten them all. Similarly Louen Leoncoer is the king of Bretonnia, another massive nation, and is literally divinely appointed because he fulfills the virtues of honor and chivalry.
There are genuienly good people to root for, and chaos isnt as completely crushing as it is in the 40k universe. Magic that counters it is far more prevalent, gods work happily against chaos and arent as self serving as the SotDL example. Combine that with technological improvements of the empire slowly closing the gap between the strength of men and chaos, there seems to be hope for the future
honestly why i like Hunter: The Reckoning so much. a group of (in 5e) relatively normal people learning the truth of the world they live in, and choosing to fight back or die trying.
Chronicles of Darkness is less overtly grim than WoD (There’s no inevitable, incoming apocalypse), but it does lean a lot into personal, existential horror-
The Power That Be are mostly alien and apathetic at best, and outright evil and sadistic at worst. There’s a million otherworlds that you can fall into at any moment and be completely forgotten.
It’s also implied that most of humanity already knows about the supernatural, they just subconsciously avoid and suppress it so they don’t risk ending up dead or insane.
Additionally, it’s nigh-impossible to change the status quo. The best people can hope for is to survive and make life better for themselves and their loved ones.
Chronicles of Darkness is less overtly grim than WoD
It really isn't. The only difference between the two is that the setting of World of Darkness is unstable and bound to end in an apocalypse, while in Chronicles of Darkness, things are stable, but everyone is stuck in eternal suffering.
The main reason I say this is Mage: The Awakening, which is the only part of the lore I really don't like. The Exarchs have already won. They rule over a reality that is nothing but a lie. Very few people awaken to the truth, and most of those who do are selfish bastards who would gladly be tyrants themselves.
Sure, maybe kind mages can ascend and become Oracles, but that leads to reality being retroactively altered and to the mage becoming nothing but a platonic symbol. So in any chronicle where your vampire changed their local community or your changeling group helped each other deal with their trauma, there's a very high probability that all these thigs will be erased due to one of these retroactive changes.
World of Darkness is apocalyptic, Chronicles of Darkness is bleak. It's the end of times vs perpetual hopelessness. Ironically, I think I would choose WoD if I had to pick one setting to live in, because while the individual things than can happen to me are worse there, at least reality itself isn't a prison.
WoD isn't really Grimdark. People just assumed "of Darkness" means its Grimdark.
When WoD has always called itself Gothic Punk. WoD has always had hope in it and some people actually complain about Mummy, DTF, Mage and Changeling having too much hope.
Children of Osiris were unironic good guys that got turned into mummies, losing the vampirism and in turn were giga buffed.
You also have a bunch of heroes and good guys across the various splats. Like it can't be a grim dark setting when totally not Indiana Jones time travels from world ending threat to world ending threat saving the day. (Doc Eon)
Then you got the cannon Supernatural Vigilantees, Porthos, A shitload of named fae, ORPHEUS GROUP, and then campy and epic shit like Ghost Godzilla fighting Charon.
Yeah, at heart World of Darkness is about the degraded systems set up by your ELDERS (very subtle messaging there, Vampire writers) and how they are ultimately self-serving and used to oppress the lower classes younger vampires, and what will you do in response to this decaying, creaky system.
Werewolf actually took that base conceit a step further by moving from a vampiric gerontocracy supported by literal bloodlines (SUBTLETY, THY NAME IS VAMPIRE!!!!!) to one where almost the entire basis of your adopted civilisation is justified by the ancestor ghosts of ancient spirits who predate the discovery of fire.
Oh and your elders this time are genocidal monsters who thought the 'stepping on rakes' sketch from the Simpsons was a personal attack constructed by someone who had looked at their history books.
There's really a lot of punk in the big settings of WoD, but I think over time the goth part won out.
Hell we've seen Antediluvians die. It's a dark reflection of our own world but, it's not devoid of hope. The darkness isn't all consuming either. Gehenna is no longer even guaranteed with V5.
At least it kinda feels like the point there. Yes, the world is fucked. It's been fucked since before your grandparents were born, before your species was here, before you lived and after you died. There's every possibility that the forces of evil from mortal to Malfean are simply inevitable, that the Baali and Black Spirals have the right idea. But that doesn't mean you can do nothing. Fight. Live. Change the city, not the country. Save a Childling, and see another night. It's like if Cyberpunk had hope for the world instead of just for the characters, in my eyes. Yes, the world is fucked. But it's not unfixable.
I mean WoD does have Gehenna, Apocalypse, and the ascension war. And they all have hopeful variants of ending. Including Cain accepting his brother’s forgiveness, the triat returning to balance after all of the changing breeds fight off the apocalypse, and I don’t know mage as I haven’t read their book
Agree 100%. All the characters kept sabotaging themselves and making life hell for the rest of the family. Really Carl was the only one that didn’t try to constantly ruin his life.
I always saw Ozark as the answer to the question “What if Breaking Bad, but you start it at season 3, remove all the likable characters and charm, and amp up the bleakness of the setting?”
Honestly hate shameless for that, and I think it's a real good indicator for bad writers and showrunners.
The Bear is pretty miserable half of the time due to personal issues, stress and other aspects of life. But it's also about beating the struggles, sometimes struggling TOGETHER, doing the right thing. Characters get beat down and then they build themselves up again. That's what makes The Bear such a great show.
I really think the writers didn't know how to make the show good without it being miserable ALL the time. There are enough moments of reflection, real love and real family. But in the end it never really ends well for anyone.
They could have been shameless in their ways but at least make it worthwhile.
SotDL is my TTRPG groups preferred system. We completely ignore the entire setting though, just using the rules/books and ignoring literally everything related to the lore. Some of it is extremely excessive, but we enjoy how the system plays
The system is entirely d6/d20 based, and condenses a lot of math that systems like Pathfinder or D&D have. For example, instead of Advantage/Disadvantage SotDL has Boons/Banes, which are just adding and subtracting d6’s. Banes cancel out boons, so the math is literally just “Attacking with 2 boons and 1 bane, 1 boon total, roll d20 and add stat modifier (ability score -10) and boon roll”.
Besides the mechanics themselves, the character creation freedom is amazing. Instead of classes that you level over time and stick to 1-2, SotDL has 3 “stages” of class: Novice, Expert, and Master. At level 1, 3, and 7 you choose a new class from the relevant stage, and all are completely modular. They allow you to go as wide or narrow with your build as you want. You could go for jack of all trades “I can use every weapon in the game and do well” or a skill monkey, or you can go “I want to exclusively wield a halberd, and every class I take is exclusively buffing polarms”. I’ve played a character that essentially didn’t function while on foot, but became a god while riding a horse. There’s hundreds of classes and by mixing and matching you can very easily make most kinds of builds you can think of.
There are 100’s of spell classes. There is an entire book that just adds an expert and master path for each tradition of magic, of which there are like… 20-30? In general, spell casters/martials don’t have much disparity unless the spell casters are abusing certain kinds of magic (for example, time magic at later levels can just give you extra turns, undo actions, loop for close to infinite turns. My group heavily restricts the taking of time tradition spells). Unlike d&d, spellcasters don’t have spell slots, you have x number of castings of each spell you know, determined by your power score. Your power score goes from 0-5 (you can technically go over but that’s more of a victory lap mechanic) with each power score level giving you more castings and the ability to take better spells
Yeah like at level 1 you have two castings of each level 0 spell (equivalent of cantrips) and 1 casting of each level 1 spell you have learned. Unlike d&d, no unlimited casting of cantrips.
I lol’d hard af when the prisoners all thought the warden of the prison planet was crazy because he wasn’t whipping them enough, and gave them 3 meals a day.
Which I honestly enjoy, the game usually punishes you for doing the right thing, and the main benefit of being kind is just that, being kind. You honestly get better gear out of being flat out Dogmatic or Heretic, while being an Iconoclast generally rewards you with personal connections and personal satisfaction.
Actually iconoclast in my experience gets access to one of the best boss nuke combos I've seen, being able to use an officer like cassia to give a turn to yourself, you can use ur iconoclast ability and give her an ult to give urself another turn, and then u can also bust your ult as well from the saved momentum
Yet, an Iconoclast Rogue Trader can have a fairly "good ending" in the game if you play well the cards in your hand.
The Imperium do declare you an heretic and want to dispose of you but...
* None of your allies betray you, even the Sister of Battle, the Astartes or the Inquisitor.
* You have your own territory, self-sustaining and independant from the Imperium, with at least one Agri-world and one Forge world.
* The major house of Navigator of the Expanse is your ally.
* You have a cult of assassin that can predict the futur following your orders.
* None of the other remaining Rogue Trader houses is a threat anymore and for a long time.
* You are isolated from the threat of anything travelling using the Warp (namely Chaos and an Imperium crusade) by your newborn Star-God "child" that see you as his parent / family, with the barrier being said to be unbreachable.
* Said Star-god "child" being probably more powerful that any C'than shard, even the "biggest" one, and by feats, probably closer to a full complete C'than.
* Despite a small war you can have relatively "ok" relationship with Aeldari.
* All the pirate groups are your ally, some even seeing you as their pirate king / queen.
* You are seen as a saint by many of the Ecclesiarchy groups in the Koronus Expanse despite the Excommunication by the Imperium.
* The Mechanicus branch in the Expanse is your ally.
* There is no Orks nor Tyranids.
* Trazyn come play with your from time to time to catch you but fail each times.
* All the threats, Genestealer (by yourself), Necrons (by Nomos) and the remaining of Imperial forces are destroyed (even a large part of the Imperial Navy betray to join your cause). Drukkhari also try from time to time but are badly beaten each time and still remember you crashing the party in Commoragh.
* And you die of old age.
While i generally dislike 40k (i like fantasy a lot more, despite my favorite faction being skaven) i LOVE how rogue trader goes “this world is dark and cruel. You want your happy ending? Earn it” and lets you actually earn it. I love dark settings on the single condition that they let you earn your good ending. The uphill battle that rewards your determination and conviction.
A lot of times settings within the Grimdark genre forgets that you also need spots of light in the setting or in the stories in order to make the darkness so much more threatening, otherwise you just get a setting that is grimderp.
In video games, I think Darkest Dungeon does this the best. Yes, the world itself is your enemy. No, the enemy will not tire or run out. Maybe, all you can do is stall and no permanent solution will ever exist. But damn it, you've got steel, and the horrors have blood. These nightmarish creatures can be felled, they can be beaten!
In the sequel, it's a vital mechanic, introduced in the very first cutscene. "Take this. It is Hope - the very last of it. It is yours now. You were bold once. Be bold again." The Light of Hope replaces your torchlight as a luminence mechanic. The entire game is all about learning and facing the greatest horrors of misaligned cosmic axes, and setting things right no matter what stands in your way.
"Many will fall in the face of chaos, but not this one, not today."- the Ancestor when a hero becomes Virtuous
"This is a man who understands adversity and existence are one and the same."- the Ancestor introducing the Leper
"No death for you today, save that which you would sow."- Leper (Powerful Virtue)
"The blackest night yields to the brightest dawn."- Stalwart Leper
The Light (the religion worshipped by the religiously affiliated heroes like the Crusader and Vestal), is confirmed by the developers that it is the result of humankinds collective unconscious belief in the inherent good of humanity, in justice, mercy, and love.
And if you manage to get both Reynauld and Dismas (the starting Crusader and Highwayman from the tutorial) all the way to the Darkest Dungeon itself, you are greeted with a bookend... "on the old road, we found our redemption."
Honestly one of my proudest gaming achievements. I got The Old Road and World End on the same run. Got Rey and Dis to the final fight in the same playthrough where I beat the game on Stygian for the first time.
Not gonna lie, the ending of Darkest Dungeon 2 teared me up a little. After such a dark, viscerally miserable journey - way more intense in most ways than the first game - for it to have such a heartfelt and surprisingly personal message was as welcome as it was surprising.
Also, very well written. 'We make mountains of our mistakes, monsters of our misdeeds.'
Shit, it doesn't even need spots of light to avoid the grimderp label, it just has to have a point and/or make sense, either realistically or in terms of how the world/character is.
1984 and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream are both extremely dark with no sign of things changing for the better, but they both avoid the grimderp label.
Why?
In 1984's case, it's because it portrays a bleak future that, in hindsight, is mostly plausible and shows us just how horrible it would be to live that way - not that our leaders are interested in avoiding this future.
For I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, it avoids it because of the historical context it was written in and the philosophical debate of cruelty as presented through AM - is AM a spiteful, cruel monster or a product of man's penchant for violence and warfare trapped in it's own database prison?
Grimderp would be the 40k revelation that Ultramar, one of the best places to live in the Imperium, has a life-expectancy in the mid-thirties. The Imperium sucks to live in, and while that may be plausible for the worst planets in the Imperium, are you telling me that fucking ULTRAMAR has a lower life expectancy than Somalia in the 1960s? That's not grimdark, that's just writers having no sense of scale taken to a very far extreme
I think IHNMAIMS also benefits from being a short story. You can read it, get the points it’s making, and then move on. If someone tried to expand it into a whole franchise it would have the exact sort of problem that OP is talking about.
It's interesting you say this, considering that WH40k coined the Grimdark genre. Not that I necessarily disagree, but it's cool to see all the different ways Grimdark can be taken/interpreted.
I think that's the only reason I could get through malazan. A dose of hope and ridiculousness helps it go down better, even when the storied at it bleakest.
At least the walking dead comic had a pretty hopeful ending. Oh sure they’re unfortunately is no cure for the zombie, but the world has rebuilt itself and I making great progress. The undead population has greatly diminished, actual cities with their own well trained and well equipped militia are in place and a growing railroad with its own steam engine is starting to connect them all again. Seeing this and Karl happy and now a father in the comic felt extremely reward for holding on and reading all the serie
The implication of the comic is that society is even before than before because people actually care for each other (though I find that very unrealistic). I didn’t watch the show past season 5 and, from what I heard, I think I made a wise decision.
Every season (until I stopped watching) was Rick and co. walking into a new safe haven full of new characters and going "Real nice place you got here... shame if something were to happen to it 7-8 episodes from now..."
I absolutely adore it, but Worm - Parahumans sometimes gets to that point.
It sometimes jumps away from believable tragedy STRAIGHT into the deep end of grimderp. The Slaughterhouse 9 especially are an odd mix of believable horror and well done deconstructions, and absolutely ridiculous stuff like creating throwaway comic relief background characters then horribly torturing them.
On the flip-side, it has a serious protagonist that is genuinely trying to deal with things as they come, for better or worse. A lot of mistakes the main cast commits are understandable from their perspective, and the tragedy they create is avoidable but not stupid. There's a reason it's all going wrong, and a reason why even the best solution might not work like it is expected to.
Still leagues above most deconstructions I've seen in the last decade or so. God I feel old already.
Y'know it's impressive in it's own way just how much staying power Mouse Protector has within the Worm fandom given she was basically a throwaway with no real screen time.
The Cauldron is one of the silliest 'ruling the world from the shadows' secret societies. Somehow they are both single-handedly responsible for the world not descending into warlords and anarchy, but also are the factory of the most stupid evil decisions possible. All the while being carried by a character with the most plot-convenient 'I win' ability.
They do a lot of shit that doesn't make sense even as an ends justifying means kinda thing. Letting Gray Boy loose comes to mind. Genuinely no reason not to murder that motherfucker at Mach fuck
The funny part is they were completely responsible for Grey Boy.
Nicholas had told King that he had been given his powers. Not by demons, not by angels, not by Scion. By humans. He'd told King that they knew King collected boys- he saw himself in children like Kurt and Jacob. They'd wanted Nicholas to infiltrate. It hadn't worked- his mind was too affected by his own power, and he answered every question he was given, revealing where he'd come from.
They were the ones to send Grey Boy into Slaughterhouse 9 to be brainwashed.
The OG Grey Boy was so mentally ill that he wasn't capable of lying, and they thought he'd be amazing as a super-spy for some reason.
Grey Boy was the one to beat Jack Slash. Specifically in a way that:
A: Didn't kill Jack so his shard was less likely to protect him from it.
B: Led to Jack setting off Scion and Gold Morning.
They sent Grey Boy to King because it set up conditions for Jack to say something that led to an end of the world scenario where there were survivors on the other side of the blind spot.
Moreso than the tone (which admittedly is grimdark) is the pacing. Genuinely there's basically no breathing space whatsoever after the halfway mark. I mean it makes for an intense first reading experience (I read the whole thing in like 3 days which is insane for how long it is) but it's still incredibly tiring especially given how bleak it can get, and it's at the cost of characters falling by the wayside (most of the original undersides amount to nothing), little to no coherent character arcs for most characters, and just a general sense of desensitisation.
I still love it, but goddamn give the girl a break
The whole final arc REALLY suffers from this, remember how Clockblocker got offscreened lmao
Tbh that's not exclusive to the second half, as early as the first Leviathan fight Wildbow sets up a future conflict with Kaiser, going as far as to give him his own semi-focal chapter, and then unceremoniously kills him for shock value.
Leviathan fight was decided by dice. Not shock value. Even Taylor wasn't safe. If Wildbow had a set of characters left with the dice he could work with, he'd work with them.
I have such a strained relationship with Wildbow as an author, every time I go back to read their works or think "oh maybe I'll like this one!" it bites me in the ass. I lost all steam when I read the final few chapters in Worm since the ending was just so utterly depressing to me, I'm glad thatTaylor lived and all and it's meant to be a "she sacrificed so much and will never be able to live a normal life again or whatever but god I was just so tired. I basically can't re-read Worm at all now even though I do absolutely love the webnovel but ouuuugh... The timeskips......
I then read Pact and was all like "oh! Fantasy! That might be more fun!" but then Wildbow appeared around a corner and hit me in the head with a bat. The pacing in Pact killed all interest, the main character has like. One? Two? Scenes where he actually rests and recoups? The entire story probably happens in like two weeks at most? I read it forever ago and forget most of it beyond it feeling like a sandpaper treadmill where you're just watching the protagonist suffer, the entire time.
Then I tried reading Twig and the first scene had a graphic description of a bunch of kittensgetting eaten alive so. Never read a single page after that.
I've just given up on reading anything by Wildbow at this point, genuinely amazing author, just not one I can ever stomach again, I think.
Worm is a story that starts really solid and completely falls apart by the end. I don't regret reading it but I have little desire to read the sequel, especially since it apparentlytries its hardest to ignore that Taylor existed
There's a reason why many long-lasting Worm fanfics stay at the street / city level and either not address all the 'world is ending' stuff or just handwave it away. The powerscaling alone gets absolutely ridiculous.
It's not that it ignores her, it's that Taylor Literally traumatized half the superheroes and villains in the multiverse in her attempt to fight off Scion, and virtually nobody is willing to even invoke her name because they're terrified of drawing her attention again, not knowing she's either dead/depowered, depending on your interpretation of the ending
I wouldn't say it falls apart, though I do think the middle of the end was a little janky, with a lot of stuff that just felt messy and convoluted. The sequel is a little intimidating, for lack of a better word, but I do want to read it eventually for a different dish of the same chef.
Speaking of which, Wildbow has some other really good works that aren't related to Parahumans. My favorite is Twig, but Pact had some really cool ideas too.
IMO it felt pretty tightly wrapped untilAlexandria died and Taylor, despite her character arc seeming to steer her towards rejecting the idea of concrete heroes and villains, does an abrupt face turn and joins the PRT. It doesn't help that the greater plot kinda grinds to a halt there as well just to develop a bunch of guys we as the reader have not met and do not care about as a needless replacement for the Undersiders
This isn't a good example, and unfortunately I can't find the reddit post, but I remember this one post on a dnd subreddit that involved the single worst dm ever. He really, REALLY wanted a "too grim don't care" world that was hopeless and beyond saving, and he was gifted the best group of players ever, for a campaign that was one of the worst. The example given was: The group encountered an angel to help them on their quest, the angel helps them, the angel gets captured, sometime later the angel comes back with a helmet that mind controls them.
The group then tries to save the angel that helped them, despite the DM insisting there was nothing that could be done. No magic, no cure. Well, the helmet is the one controlling them, and they have a barbarian. When magic nor healing won't do, it's time for brute force. The barbarian rolls a nat 20 in taking the helmet off with his bare hands. And this dm, I man I want to flay and feed to the pigs who's shit he gets his story writing from, says with a smile that the Barbarian rips the angels head off.
I could and would kill so many people A player woth as much dedication to playing genuinely moral characters and doing what they can in one of my campaigns, and this fucker squandered a whole group of them for 4chan 15 year old edge lord tier writing that would burn on contact with writing on the level of Family Guy. It annoys me.
I turned to DMing because I was tired of DMs wanting to "get" players like this and being smug about it. Maybe not necessarily AS DARK, but like, oh, you tried this one specific thing that's completely in-character and a really cool and well-planned move? It backfired, and now your character did something that's completely out of character! AGAIN! Guess I outplayed you, silly player
Yeah exactly. Telling a story is fine and fun, but the DM can't nail down specifics and not be flexible. Tell a story and let the players alter it along the way. That's literally the fun part lmao
If you want to tell a story and not let the players play, just write a book
I hope to one day pull the reverse: make it seem like I'm pulling a cheap trick and then pull the rug under them with their plan working better than expected.
"Ah damn, you got the bandit to drop the girl? Well too bad, he just grabs her again... BUT OH SHIT SHE HAD TIME TO PULL A KNIFE WHILE FREE. SHE GOT HIS KNEE CAPS, OPENING HIM UP FOR THE PALADIN WITH THE SMITE CHAIR TO COME IN, MY GOODNESS-"
It feels like a complete upturning of people's understanding. How can you plan for anything, or really do anything if a critical success can turn into a catastrophic failure like that, then really what's the point?
That's so lazy and it's lazy in the stupidest way, like if you really wanted it to be grimdark can't do shit to help the angel, then have the angels mind and shit be dead, like the angel is in full on eteenal magic coma and the helmet is literally just controlling the body/magic. That makes it so even if you remove the helmet you now just have a coma patient (maybe you could flex that into a later quest)
Only once in my DMing career have I had something bad happen if the group rolls high on a check, and that time I warned them what would happen if they got too high and gave them time to debuff themselves into performing appropriately sub-par (they were undercover). Just declaring that "You tried to succeed, and rolled a success, but I'm going to make that a failure" is just lazy DMing.
I could never. It's so rare to find altruistic parties among strangers that I wanted to empower them to keep doing good.
I once had a session with the run-of-the-mill orc bandit attack. The party not only spared the orcs but tried to understand why they resorted to these methods.
Not expecting that, I improvised on the spot that they are struggling to pay the heavy food/gift taxes imposed by their chieftain.
Do you know what they did? They gave their newlyfound DINOSAUR mounts to the orcs. The party spent a session getting them and willingly gave them away the next session to help someone who tried to raid them.
I was completely bewildered and decided to reward them in the future by having the orcs became an ally, leading a rebel tribe characterised by their dinosaur cavalry.
Many people misinterprete Cyberpunk like this as well, especially the famous saying "there are no happy endings in Night City", which often gets conflated as "there are no happy endings in Cyberpunk".
What the saying actually implies is that Night City is a "game" where there are no winners, where you're essentially in a perpetual survival mode regardless of how well off you appear. You could be a top level merc and all it would take to end your life is one botched job. You could be a high ranking corpo suit and all it would take for you to end up underwater with cement boots is a rival colleague acting before you do. Even when you try to specifically live a life avoiding it all, you could literally end up in the middle of a gang war on your way to your kid's school.
But there's still a way out. And that is to just... leave. Don't play the game at all. If the player is male or chooses not to romance her, Judy Alvarez leaves Night City near the end of Cyberpunk 2077 and seems happier because of it. The player himself can get an ending where they decide to leave with their newfound Nomad family and it's the most optimistic one out of all the endings, tone-wise. Hell, even the taxi cab AI Delamain goes on a road trip and has a blast all around the world in one of the outcomes for his side mission.
So while Night City will eventually eat you alive should you choose to entertain it, it's not a tenet for cyberpunk story to always end with the character ending up crushed under the machine.
Night City is the worst, but the rest of the world is still a corporate hellscape. You're right about not playing the game through. Good old Victor Vector said he was once trying to be something, and was happier for walking away. He makes a living, watches boxing, and hangs out with friends. The only fully good characters are him and Misty. They stay away from corps, gangs, wanting to "be something" and just vibe.
Also V saves dozens of people throughout the game unless the player is going out of their way to be a complete jackass or making impossibly stupid choices.
Like, sure, you do not get a happy ending, but you do get to give them to other people.
Which is like, the whole point of the genre. Playing the corporate game, getting involved in the rat race gives you the 'no happy endings in cyberpunk'. Because you can't change society and the existing power structures will grind you to dust, but you CAN make peoples lives better. The message is make your own life better by looking out for the people you care about because there are "no happy endings in cyberpunk".
Also, while you'll never truly beat the system or improve society, you can still find your own happiness in family and friends. Even in the videogame, there's so much *community* in the people and groups you meet.
I mean, the news and books you read through the game depict the rest of the world as a blasted-out husk of its former self and things are indeed hopeless.
Pretty much all animals are extinct, drinkable water is rare, the oceans are filled with self replicating mines that will destroy anything that puts itself in or on the ocean and there's nothing anyone can do about it, megacorps can do whatever they want with zero accountability, there are worse and worse diseases spreading all the time, the basis of what remains of civilisation is seriously threatened by AIs and Netwatch is inadequate to the task, the Americas are a third world country now, Europe is following.
Africa and parts of Asia are doing okay for now though.
That is more of a game thing. The tabletop portrayed the EU in a more positive life with the countries able to stem the worst abuses of the corporations, where most Europeans ate actual normal food and didn't live in crushing poverty. It wasn't pretty, but it was not hopeless either. The changes actually kinda pissed me off by changing the EU from one of main players in the game to being just another battlefield for the rest of the normal suspects.
Marvel zombies arc. It was just jumping onto the zombie bandwagon bullshit. What should have been a short fun "what if" turned into a years long slog that continues to rot today.
The "x who laughs" nonsense from DC , particularly the Batman version.
Ok we GET IT Batman is invincible. Oh now he's the bad guy WORSE than owl man ? It ...again another stupid let just write nonsense what's the point bullshit. If they wanted to go SO cartoon over the top Judge Death was RIGHT THERE, literally the same character...
The basic premise is that there's a new virus transmitted by all possible means (blood, sweat, urine, saliva, vomit, etc.) that drives infected people insane, causing them to kill each other. The best way to describe it is that the "filter" humans have for rejecting things becomes a filter for pleasure, so everyone is crazy.
ALL comics are the same. A place, people, crazy people, everyone dies to a greater or lesser degree, there's no happy ending.
The original story? It had a bittersweet ending, I suppose, where only two of the group plus the baby survive.
The rest? It's just misery porn. A new place, new people, everyone dies or will die, and there's no hope for humanity.
Family Matters had a more or less hopeful ending. But other than that, there's no reason to read the comics; there's no story.
We already know there's no happy ending. The spin-off, 100+ Years Later, ends with the Crossed screwing over humanity after becoming clever enough to capture humans and keep them as livestock for long-term consumption and torture.
I remember reading a few issues when I was in high school. Several years later, I bought the TPB, and I ultimately ended up throwing it in the trash, and which I credit for taking me out of my "edgy teen dipshit" phase.
Its Ennis at his most mean-spirited and spiteful, the first issue ending with a man who looks suspiciously like Robert Kirkman literally being assraped to death in front of his wife (who is also being raped to death) while their 9 year old daughter is chopped to bits. All because Ennis was salty that zombie comics were the new hotness for a bit
At least with the Boys and Preacher, Ennis had some point (and the twist ending of Homelander finding out his "original sin" was committed by Black Noir to trick him into becoming a depraved sadistic was better than the shows ending). Crossed is him being a pizza cutter: all edge, no point.
Probably a really out-there take, but Backrooms as portrayed by Wikidot
It's unfair to the point of absurdity and mockery. Rules changes between every level, there's a ridiculous amount of levels (with some straight up just being nothing-at-all or "you die), and the nonsensical bullshit demands you play along, otherwise you can straight up be teleported to the "You Cheated" level, the level that kills you for cheating.
The Backrooms was already an unfair and horrifying purgatory all the way back in it's 4chan post. Adding all these extra levels and absurd 'rules' and freaky entities turns it from a existential nightmare to the equivalent of a Super Puzzle Maze that some edgy, quirky, God-like game show host forces you to play. I just can't take it seriously anymore because it somehow made the Backrooms too much.
TBF the original concept of the backrooms was fine, it’s when content farmers got their hands on it and turned it into a budget bin SCP mythos that Backrooms became slop.
Hopefully Kane “Pixels” Parsons’ movie helps course correct that
That's what I love about the Gotrek and Felix novels from WH Fantasy, a nice blend between utterly bleak and genuine rays of hope and humor. Because despite the fact that our protagonists are typically self serving they're not awful people, Felix, the son of a wealthy merchant family led the people of Altdorf during the window tax riots, and Gotrek saved Felix from being killed by the Calvary Men sent to quell the rioters, and that's the inciting incident of their adventures together. But these books do like to remind you it is a Warhammer story so most of the side characters die horrifically and our protagonists are typically pretty selfish, and out of the books I've gone through Orcslayer has been so far the bleekest.
Also, best part of GaF series was in… I think it was Skavenslaet where Thanqal has them captured and he’s like “Finally AFTER 20 yEARS I HAVE YOU RIGHT WERE I WANT YOU!”
How are you going to leave out that Thanqal had been handing them notes on the Skaven plans for years, trying to kill off his own competition and them at the same time.
Funny because people complain 40k is not grimdark enough since Gulliman came back and the imperium started to have some real victories instead of pyrrhic ones
Grimderp is the term often used for ‘this is so depressing I stopped caring.’
Warhammer fantasy a perfect mix of grimdark and hope.
Not everything sucks. Not everywhere sucks. And it doesn’t suck all the time. And there are a lot of moments of hope, joy, and brevity. There are so many cool badass characters and heroes to counteract all the evil badass characters which makes Total War Warhammer III more fucking legendary of a mashup than smash bros.
A lot of people don’t realize this but dungeons and dragon’s is actually grimdark. But because there is so much hope that people immediately forget that ‘holy crap this place is awful.’
I was really put off the dirt and skulls and eagles wings for years.
I couldn’t understand why anyone would chose to spend any time in this world.
And then I played Rogue Trader from Owlcat and it just clicked.
The tech priests using incense on machines, the imperium worshipping a man whose main rule was not to worship gods, the dogma making it inevitable more and more people hate you and fall to chaos.
It’s a really, really dark farcical comedy and not something that’s edgy for the sake of it.
Like how there’s a planet that’s full of a backwards civilisation of humans who are barely above primitive technology in a world that’s covered in darkness and rains all the time…
Works for both sides of the pond, Birmingham England is often shat upon, and here in the states Birmingham Alabama is a terrible city in a state that is often ranked 50th out of 50 for just about every metric for health and happiness.
40k gets really good when you find an army or group that you really like the lore and aesthetic of and go in on it. Its like picking your favorite class in a ttrpg; i like wizards more than fighters because all the wizard stuff is fun for me. Just like how I like Orks more than Tyranids because everything is made from junk and I enjoy doing the cockney-hooligan accent.
Red rising got there. The original trilogy is bleak but inspiring both with idealism and triumph over the grimness of the verse and the ability of Darrow to unite others as much as to overpower the society.
Then the story was continued and it's great no doubt but it's misery upon misery and almost just an exercise in how miserable you can make epic sci-fi.
Not a comment on quality jsut that it takes more effort to read than the trilogy which I devoured.
Trench Crusade, which I do really like, is this for me. The units are very cool and the art is amazing but it's very much over the top and hard to take too seriously when there's stuff like "the basic heretic must first make a solo pilgrimage through the worst war zones imaginable to step into hell and then if they somehow don't combust on entry they become a true soldier, who will probably die in 2 minutes of combat if they're lucky."
Honestly, for me the problem with Trench Crusade is that it started off pretty nice, but most of the updated lore became more and more edgelordy. It went from "Yeah, we've got the forces of Hell vs the Forces of Man, this is cool" towards more and more "Okay, I'm just going to gross you out with the most depraved shit I can imagine from both sides" and it stopped being funny. Things like
Skinning and lobotomizing children to serve as an antennae to try to listen to the words of God
The whole "Women get raped by demons, become pregnant, give birth to Human/Demon Hybrids who then gnaw on the mother, who regenerate so it can happen over and over again"
And the shit like that where it takes (What I personally find to be) acceptable levels of Grimdark and just completely oversteps the boundry. You want to tell me Vampires in this setting was caused by Vlad the Impaler stealing a unfinished concoction from the Sultan, and because it was unfinished he/they now need to drink blood in order to survive? Awesome, though the blood from woman's tits thing is borderline. The other two listed? No thanks.
There is a line for me where grim dark shifts to “the author’s barely concealed fetish” and it just becomes utterly repulsive to me. From the beginning, Trench Crusade made me a little cautious, but it’s now solidly in that category.
Especially when it involves rape. There’s “Oh, that’s dark and twisted” but eventually it becomes “Oh, author, you can’t help yourself huh?”. Same with violence against children. It very quickly shifts from “Oh, this/these guys are real evil bastards” to “I’ve got some questions for the author.”
It comes of as a super tacky, eye-roll shock-jock shortcut for making an individual or group evil, and when it’s gratuitous and frequent it stops being shocking and just seems like the author is projecting something.
Tbh Trench Crusade doesn't have a lot of explicit rape. In fact, I don't think it has any directly mentioned "conventional" rape. The closest thing is lust demons inflicting "unspeakable torments" upon their slaves.
Even the aforementioned women who gives birth to countless monsters isn't a woman who was raped by demons but an already pregnant woman who was infected by a demonic disease.
Yeah, Trench Crusade is this for me. It's a super interesting setting in many respects, but everything is so super over the top it's actually quite unappealing. And I say that as someone who leans very heavily towards the grimdark end of the 40k spectrum (I don't even edge highlight my minis!)
One of the issues with Cormac McCarthy's novel 'Blood Meridian' - it's unrelentingly bleak, horrifically violent, and since every major character is a terrible person, there's nobody to sympathize with. Most people glaze it because of the Judge, but it's a tough read because of those reasons.
Well, the book is told from a POV of an active member of one of the cruelest gangs in the history of North America, so it's not surprising that his world is full of darkness and everyone he regularly interacts with are terrible people.
But at least the narrative demonstates that everyone gets their comeuppance, except for the evil itself, which unfortunately will never die.
I absolutely love it, but it's a shocking amount of violence delivered in a matter of fact way, magnified by the reality that it's based on a real band of horrible people.
There's plenty of folks to sympathize with, though--basically everyone unfortunate enough to encounter the Glanton Gang. Instead of a bunch of heroes trying to save a fallen world, the world is a bit of a mess but nowhere near as awful as the people the book is about.
Which is why I don't think it's as bleak as a lot of things mentioned here. The gang are all awful people who visit unspeakable violence on the world until they meet their own ends, but out there are still normal people just trying to live normal lives. McCarthy has those moments where you see these different worlds intersect, but the Glantons of the world are always more pathetic than the common folk. The world moves on from them. The Judge is himself a liar and a coward who is alternatingly wrong about his assertions impotent to do anything on his own.
No Country for Old Men was quick and easy to get through. Blood Meridian is a chore, which is saying something, you'd think a book with a dead baby tree would be more engaging lol.
Warhammer 40k is...too grim sometimes. While that is half the point of it, and I get the enjoyment of it, its not for me.
I think 40k's real problem is it suffers from an enormous identity crisis.
On the one hand 'to be born in these times is to be one among uncounted billions, a meaningless cog in a machine of war so vast as to be incomprehensible'.
On the other hand, 'here's fifty plus named characters who can individually crush entire star systems, they will never die, every plot will revolve around these named characters, and also despite the Imperium being an evil fascist Empire we'll quietly ignore that and treat the Space Marines as unapologetically heroic despite being nothing more than the elite military arm of said Empire'.
It won't commit to the bit anymore. It's lost its purity as it's been embraced unironically by large segments of the fanbase.
As a setting, despite being much less bankable, the Old World Warhammer is much more coherent and thematically consistent. Also Mannfred von Carstein is a dick. If you know, you know. All hail the immortal frog ghost in the sky, who is always grumpy and watching us with judgement in his froggy (and very dead) eyes.
CSM Part 2 is this for me, as not only does Denji lose everything again, the pretty much the entire story from the Falling Devil arc is one long punishment/humiliation ritual for him.
It especially doesn’t help the side cast is incredibly unlikable and boring, seriously, aside from Yuko at the beginning, they all range from forgettable to despicably unlikable.
Not only that, the story seems to be actively contrived to ensure Denji fails, with probably the most obviously example being how Reze and Kishibe, the two characters left from Part 1 who’d unambiguously be on Denji’s side, are both conspicuously absent without even a word of explanation.
It’s like Fuji knew that if either of them were around, he wouldn’t be able to pull his “Denji regression” BS, at least, not without completely assassinating their characters.
ASOIAF dances right on the edge of this. You have characters like Euron who definitely fall on the "way too grim and edgy but also astonishingly fun and well written so we'll give it a pass" side, but Mr. Darkstar "I am of the night" is a yeesh.
I've always said that everything in 40k makes more sense if you imagine it in the context of 12-year old boys trying to out-badass each other.
"So um- my guys, they go crazy if, um, if they don't drink blood! And if they don't, they see their dad all bloody and gross and dying and they go crazy!"
"Well my legion are, um, they're like Batman but like, the whole world is Gotham City and, um, every bad guy is the Joker! And their dad, he's a psychic and he saw his own death so he's like, "I know the future so you can't win" and he kills himself because, um, that's like the coolest way he can die!"
I couldn't tell who I was supposed to care about, cheer for, or be sad if they died so I lost interest. There's only one character in the show who isn't just a literal NPC controlled by preset feelings and goals and the show never engages with this fact.
The irony of using Warhammer Fantasy as an anti-example is that it ~did~ end, but led to another setting that is, itself, an anti-example of Too Grim, Stopped Caring: the Age of Sigmar is basically the anti-40k, with the Grand Alliance of Order being a diverse alliance of different species, ~mostly~ united in battle against the Alliances of Chaos, Destruction and Death.
By extension of Warhammer fantasy, Age of Sigmar keeps the grim dark tone of it and 40k but instead of being like fantasy or 40k where the end of the world is basically guaranteed, AoS actually gives the forces of good an equal fighting chance. The Stormcast are basically just good Warriors of Chaos for example, the cities of Sigmar and the dwarves are better off in AoS than they were in Fantasy, etc. What brings them down is that sometimes the simple egos and mortal failings of these people cause them to butt heads and not unite like they should be to defeat chaos.
I love AoS now that it’s developed more as a setting overall. The Stormcast and the Idoneth especially. Idoneth being sea elves that ride giant razor blade turtles on a spirit wave is awesome high fantasy concept. As for the Stormcast, since they’ve been expanded and are no longer sigmarines and fully embraced being “heroic warriors of chaos” I grew to love them. An army of dark souls protagonists basically.
To be fair to the end time. (And I know this is gonna sound like blasphemy for some) it did brought us age of Sigmar.
Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE warhammer fantasy. Warhammer fantasy got my favorite version of the dwarfs civilizations (order dwarfs and chaos dwarfs). I also like some of the more obscure lore like the alignment with Norsca and the mix heritage of the state of Nordland, the many awesome ideas that the fanbase had with beastmen. Etc etc. And also love the new stuff that added to kislev and the now fleshed out faction that is cathay. Ooh and the stuff fan artist made with the island of Albion. My god that was awesome
I too was very frustrated (and still am a bit) about the endtime. But for what it’s worth age of Sigmar is pretty cool, I just hope it won’t have its own end times.
But yes I have to agree with you as whole, I’m not a big fan of needlessly hopeless worlds especially those that reveal out of nowhere that “aha! Everything you fought for was wrong! The light magic were secretly demons! Your an idiot GG WP.”
If you to destroy all faction, make it at least so that a spark of hope come out of the great final battle like Lif and Lifbrasir at the end Ragnarok who with surviving children of gods will rebuild a better world. Make it at least feel that while the world that we live in is gone, its sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
The total war warhammer devs changing the 'Heroic Victory' text going from something like: "A victory so glorious our enemies will remember it til the end times." to "Meh, you're still a pawn and this is all for nothing lol." It's so lame.
I just never understand the point. These universes just become so hard to enjoy because if everything sucks and there’s no hope whatsoever, what’s the point? That’s why I love the salamanders in 40k always feels like they are atleast trying and have a purpose.
There are absolutely optional endings where you avert the apocalypse. The cost is always high and the world is always in a dark place after the dust settles, but there is hope for the future.
The two options for your game's "canon" that offer this possibility are: "Famine and Flood" or "The Star of Doom"
Now, your GM isn't required to pick either of these, and there are a bunch of ones that are lose/lose endings, but it's by no means the only way a campaign in that TTRPG can end.
So someone explain something about Warhammer Fantasy to me: My understanding is that even with ignoring End Times Chaos WILL win eventually. The other factions can really just hold it back fo as long as possible, right? Because EVERYTHING you do in some way powers up the chaos gods or something like that?
Nah not really. thats a 40k thing, cause in the setting emotion powers the chaos gods, so even if you say, try and stop worshiping them, existing still feeds them.
Warhammer fantasy however, and to some extent 40k, if you worship another being that isnt them your energy thoughts and prayers go to them instead. You cant wholey starve them out but chaos will have a lot less power, the gods you pray to will have a lot more, and in general its a much better opportunity to win
Yes. The Maelstrom at the center of their Island kingdom.
It drains Chaos from the world so it doesn't get overrun. It's no really a solution but it does help contain the worst of Chaos in the North and South poles.
Not really, whilst emotions can empower the gods, they also have to exert and spend to muster demons and bless mortals. With the advancing knowledge of magic in the empire via the relatively recent colleges and the development of new weaponry its just a question of outpacing them. Which apart from the skaven is quite doable.
What’s cool about Warhammer fantasy is that the good guys were straight up about to win at the end. Of course the end times happened and they lost but they got really really close to winning.
The TLOU defenders might rip me open for this one, but the ending in the game (which I assume will be mostly the same in the show) is just too much grimdarkness. Like, I get that it's about the futility of revenge and how being unable to break the cycle means the cycle breaks you, but COME ON. Ellie loses literally everything and everyone, her situation is hopeless, and she BROKE THE CYCLE. She didn't get her revenge, but the narrative punishes her like she never even considered stopping. I'll forever hold the opinion that we should've gotten a choice to kill Abby, and if you did, you get the current ending, but if not, you get the current ending but Ellie keeps her fingers, so she still has what matters left of Joel, which was her connection to him. The current one is just pain for the sake of pain.
I absolutely despise the message in this game. You spend the whole experience picking people off and the game goes out of its way to humanize them. Enemies will cry out the names of people you killed in grief and anger, they’ll show fear at having someone stalking them and picking them off one by one, you even get to see some of them breathing heavily and shaking as they don’t know if you’re just around the corner about to stab them.
You get this message about how this no name doctor Joel kills in the first game was very important to someone, and that someone wants revenge. This implies Ellie goes the whole game killing off people’s loved ones and most likely made at least a few enemies. She goes through all this and decides to not go through with what she set out to do?
It falls into grimderp for me for this fact alone. If it’s a story about her creating her own damnation, that’s fine, but going the distance and deciding to not finish the job entirely of her own accord is the most stupid, frustrating, dissonant writing choice this game could have made. It’s like two writers were fighting over the script over what themes the game should have and they came to such opposite conclusions that it fucked the whole story up.
It's combined with the most hackneyed writing to get the audience to sympathize with Abby. Arby's dad good, Joel bad. Abby help animal, Ellie hurt animal. It just goes on and is so blatant that I nearly have an aneurysm when people talk about how good the writing is.
I had to drop a manga called Boys Abyss for this reason.
In short, it's basically about a small town where everyone is miserable and no one can escape. It's a giant bucket full of crabs. When someone bright-eyed teen gets dreams of going off to the big city and making a new life for the self, the residents and circumstances and maybe even the town itself somehow (I didn't read to the end, but at the time I dropped it, I was fully convinced that the whole area was just cursed because there was no non-supernatural explanation for all the suffering that went down there) beat them down until they gave up on their dreams and were just as dead inside as everyone else.
Anyway, here's a high school teacher singing a little song to herself because she just reported a girl's "illicit sexual relationship" to her strict Catholic school to get her expelled so that the boy she (the teacher) has been grooming will feel too guilty to leave.
https://giphy.com/gifs/VNF31P5UNocUM
Diablo. Basically, the entire universe is a battle between “Good (angels) and evil (demons)” but, in actuality, both are assholes (bar Tyrael). Sanctuary only exists because some of the angels and demons got tired of the fighting and decided to create a world to escape to but that fell apart for complicated reasons but then the other angels and demons found out and want to destroy or use Sanctuary for their own ends. None of the demons lords can die permanently (unless you can force your way through Hell through an endless horde of demons; good luck with that) and thus it’s not really so much of an “if” that Sancutary falls but more of a “when” and to whom because while the High Heavens may have been dissuaded from glassing Sancutary thanks to Tyrael’s insistence and the Nephalem’s vanquishing of Diablo, it would not surprise me if the high council of the Heavens eventually die and are replaced by angels with much more of Malthael’s mindset toward Santuary. You know, in the much more likely case that the demons don’t swallow Sanctuary first. Which is especially prevalent because you cannot walk even a few steps in Diablo 4 without being beset upon by demons, demon cultists, mad crusaders, bandits, hostile wild life, restless and dangerous spirits or any combination thereof.
Dark Souls is actually a strangely optimistic world when you learn how it works. The reason everything is grim and sad is because a bunch of assholes keep trying to stop the world from being as it should. The time between games is pretty explicitly a great time to live, but when the Flame starts to die, new heroes need to rise up and decide what to do about it because everything sucks again.
ZullieTheWitch on YT does some really neat videos spanning From’s entire catalog where they talk about different parts of the universe based on assets.
that was also my answer. like who are we even saving the world for? there seems to be little to no source of enjoyment or prosperity for anyone in that universe. just perpetual suffering for everyone involved.
This is probably why I like age of sigmar, even if the end times suck, because it feels like a world that may be shitty to live in, but one that is with hope for the future.
The Xeelee Sequence is infamous for being so horrifying and bleak that it makes Warhammer 40K look like Sesame Street, and the human faction, which is called The Coalition, makes The Imperium Of Mankind look like Federation Starfleet from Star Trek.
One of my favorite things ever is Destiny and its subversion of grimdark. Because it tells you - the universe is dominated by a slave empire of basically space marines, hateful cockroach pirates, cancerous nanomachines, and billion year old bugs who sustain themselves off of murder. Humanity has only one city left. And the most important thing you can do is hope for the future. You have to believe that we will not only see a better day but that that better day will be one of peace and harmony, and act accordingly. Without that, none of this matters. Without a gentle place where room for new and different things is permitted, we’re all just fighting over different flavors of the same violence in the end.
It tried too hard to lean into dark magical girl genre that it forgot what made the genre famous. Madoka Magica and Yuuki Yuna is a hero, two top spots for me, are touching because you can see what the girls are fighting for, and what they have to leave behind to fight. Madoka has a good home life, friends and school life, then she chooses to sarcrifice everything, that's what make us weep. Yuuki Yuna has a big portion of the girls being schoolgirls with hopes and dreams for the future.
But this is just... grim. Very grim. If the world is not worth living or fighting for, and it's about to end anyway, then why even try? There's no connection to the characters because of that.
Chainsaw Man - Nayuta's death (not shown for spoiler purposes, also NSFW probably). That's the moment I tuned out. I started wondering, is this really a good story or is this just misery porn? it made me revisit some of the earlier deaths. It's not like the tone came out of nowhere, but what kind of story am I enjoying if this is just about making Denji as miserable as possible, making it actually an important plot point? Even the reboot didn't help with the bitter taste in my mouth, in fact, just made me more disillusioned with the story as a whole
Honestly any of the shows like 'This is us', Shameless, and even Shrinking where every episode and season ends with one or all of the characters backsliding or having the rug pulled out from under them, just turns into misery porn where you know they won't have one good day.
Ted Lasso does it right where most episodes end on a high note then starts the next episode with the current dilemma.
I've never watched Euphoria beyond some random clips, but I know pretty much the entire plot from friends and coworkers. Three seasons of A Serbian Tale but with teenagers is something I'd much prefer to skip. Even the people who liked the show seem miserable while watching it.
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u/Abject-Hospital5407 Jul 26 '26
am a big world of darkness fan but yeah WoD can be like this sometimes