I understand readers who shun fantasy fiction because they think it’s full of cliches, unwholesome thoughts and attitudes, and really awful writing–because a lot of it fits that description.
And just to be even more sophomoric, a movement sprang up in fantasy, a few years ago, to make everything “gritty.”
I mean, really–the Bad Guys already have this world for their playground: why hand them our fantasy worlds, too?
We started watching a New Zealand TV series once, but stopped very quickly because it was all filmed in a city that looked just like the seamier parts of urban New Jersey. We weren’t going to look at that. As for the characters–well, we already have villains galore in real life, and precious few heroes.
Reading “grimdark” fantasy is like tunneling into a prison camp.