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/lit/ - Literature

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612248

Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:35:01 2010 No.612248 [Reply] [Original]

Fantasy novels, /lit/, is there an unspoken level of darkness they can reach before they just aren't appealing? Mostly, I frequent /tg/, but I'm curious what you guys think. I've been writing a fantasy book for a while now, and one of the characters is pretty fucked in the head, and he doesn't know how to deal with emotions. He's pissed off at a certain race for fucking with him, so he goes on a quest to commit mass genocide against them. He loves a girl from this species, so he rapes her. Eventually, he feels remorse for everything he's done, but since he doesn't know how to deal with that, he kills himself.

I'm not looking for a critique of the character, I'm dead set on using him, however, I am curious, since there are very few fantasy novels that ever mention the subject of rape or suicide. (At least, out of the many I've read, though there are obviously countless fantasy novels)

Such themes are obviously taboo, but are they forbidden in fantasy?

Pic unrelated.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:37:01 2010 No.612250 File: 29 KB, 247x248, ohgod2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>612248 >That picture

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Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:38:01 2010 No.612259

I don't even read fantasy and know that there are plenty of books with rape, murder, suicide, whatever. GRR Martin and Robert Jordan are thrown around on /lit/ as authors who incorporate those themes into their work. There are probably many, many others.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:40:01 2010 No.612266 >>612259 >>612259 >GRR Martin Well shit. I was going to pick him up this summer, too. I honestly didn't know that he dealt with darker themes in his stories. >Robert Jordan Pic related. God fucking damn, how did I forget Robert Jordan?

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:43:01 2010 No.612274 File: 47 KB, 815x622, derp.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>612266 Pic is now double-related, since I forgot to include it the first time.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:43:01 2010 No.612278 >>612274 lol I was wondering what happened to the pic

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:46:01 2010 No.612292 Hugh Cook R Scott Bakker

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Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:53:01 2010 No.612333

>Such themes are obviously taboo, but are they forbidden in fantasy?
Good luck getting published. (Actually I'm in a similar situation, this is 4chan, after all).
Usually books dealing with those topics are deliberately vague on the actual details of the act, since (obviously) they don't appeal to as wide a demographic as, say, books about self-inserts falling in love with handsome gentlemen that sparkle in the sunlight.

>>

Anonymous Thu Apr 29 21:55:01 2010 No.612342
File: 29 KB, 240x320, 1262128759927_0_ib4f.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>612333
>Usually books dealing with those topics are deliberately vague on the actual details of the act, since (obviously) they don't appeal to as wide a demographic as, say, books about self-inserts falling in love with handsome gentlemen that sparkle in the sunlight.
Fucking shit. You know, this whole time I never put the Twilight thing into perspective? Fuck you.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:01:01 2010 No.612363 Stephen Donaldson did it. No-one likes that book though.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:07:01 2010 No.612385 How in depth do you mean OP for dark stuff? Because if you want to go balls-to-the-wall deep I can only recommend guro.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:15:01 2010 No.612408 File: 242 KB, 1200x1145, 1270433647153.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>612385 :(

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:19:01 2010 No.612423 File: 48 KB, 500x700, c.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>612408 Suicide. Yes.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:23:14 2010 No.612431 File: 249 KB, 910x1200, 1268012911875.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>612408 Why doesn't anyone ever post the follow up?

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:25:01 2010 No.612443 >>612431 Because this is /lit/ not /faggots-who-read-cartoons/

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:27:01 2010 No.612450 Look up hardcore horror. Authors get away with everything nowadays.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:32:01 2010 No.612464 >>612443 Pretentious much?

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:34:01 2010 No.612478 >>612363 Yeah, and I quit reading him after I read part of that book, which name escapes me. For some reason the Song of Fire and Ice series didn't yick me out as much as Donaldson.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:34:01 2010 No.612480 >>612431 bro. get the fuck out, we don't take kindly to guro 'round here >reported

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:35:01 2010 No.612482 >>612464 Calling people "pretentious" on a /lit/ image-board is like calling people "faggots" in a gay pride parade.

>>	Arcueid Brunestud !ARCIkc4cG6 Thu Apr 29 22:45:01 2010 No.612514 Hey you guys, I think the OP is a faggot with a boner for GRIM N DARKness.

>>	Anonymous Thu Apr 29 22:46:01 2010 No.612522 >>612514 I think you're a faggot and drag down the quality of /lit/ every time you start posting.

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Anonymous Fri Apr 30 01:41:01 2010 No.613113

There's always been a bit of grimdark in fantasy but now that Martin became so incredibly popular grimdark is now in vogue. There's probably more grimdark writers now than there ever was (and I base this on absolutely nothing). So I don't think it's an immediate no to your book.

>>612478
Thomas Covenant is from our world so you can't really distance yourself from the act by convincing yourself that the world is a shitty place populated by grim characters. That and how 'the Land' seems like a miracle land of sunshine and flowers makes raping an innocent girl harder to stomach.

At least that's one possibility.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 30 01:44:01 2010 No.613121 I dunno. One of my favorite series is 'The Black Jewels' by Anne Bishop. She covers sadism, rape, pedophilia, castration and incest among other things. Much of it is pretty graphic.