Fantasy vs. Dark Fantasy vs. Horror

[Blackhawk748]

So what makes each of these what they are? In other words, how Dark do you have to be to be Dark Fantasy? When does that become Horror? Can you be Dark Fantasy Horror? Yes, these are the questions that plague me.

[Mr. Mask]

In some ways, it isn't how dark you are, but how depressing your tone is. Lord of the Rings has evil taking over and death and such, but people don't really think of it as dark fantasy. Conan the Barbarian probably counts, with it being filled with prostitutes and corrupt leaders and everything (and I mean everything) being pretty dark throughout, with few things you can consider good.

Horror, in some ways, takes an even darker perspective. The Lord of the Rings could be horror, in that evil powers are taking over the land, raiding, pillaging, and enslaving and torturing various peoples, but the emphasis is on the heroes' journey to stop this dark power, and not too much time is spent discussing their wounds and pains and fears.


That being said, subject matter does make a difference. As mentioned, Conan is filled with prostitutes and other seedy characters, to give the story a darker tone. It's not about saving the world for the good of all, but just adventuring for profit. Horror tends to be filled with more developed monsters, torments and challenges, with psychotics and torturers and things with many mouths, etc.. Horror settings also tend to not develop their characters as heroic and powerful like the other two types do, as they want the characters to seem weak and vulnerable compared to the monsters and challenges.

As for a dark fantasy horror, that's basically just combining the elements. Have less powerful, less super-moral characters in a dark, dirty world, who encounter horrific situations and monsters.


Those are the basics. If you're wondering about something more specific, I might be able to answer.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Mr. Mask does a brilliant job of explaining there. To supplement that, I'd say that the difference in tone is often reached through having a difference in viewpoint. Horror often focuses on the people being attacked by (for example) the vampires, while dark fantasy is more likely to take the viewpoint of the vampires. They're struggling with the thirst within, but if they're too weak and the thirst takes over they end up feeling guilty, not getting torn apart. The difference between horror on one side and (dark) fantasy on the other is probably a bit like the difference between a slasher and a cop movie. The cops aren't nearly as powerless towards the attacker as the victims, there are more moments in their story where they're safe and will probably not be attacked and about half the time they get the drop on the masked murderer, instead of the other way around.

[Segev]

That's actually a good way to distinguish it: the protagonists.

Fantasy is about Heroic Adventurers facing down monsters (horrific or merely fantastic) and powerful men.

Dark Fantasy is about Monstrous beings facing down their own nature as well as other monsters (again horrific or merely fantastic) and powerful men.

Horror is about normal people facing and usually trying to escape monsters (both men and horrific).

[Red Fel]

That's actually a good way to distinguish it: the protagonists.

Fantasy is about Heroic Adventurers facing down monsters (horrific or merely fantastic) and powerful men.

Dark Fantasy is about Monstrous beings facing down their own nature as well as other monsters (again horrific or merely fantastic) and powerful men.

Horror is about normal people facing and usually trying to escape monsters (both men and horrific).

Or, to put it even more simply:

• Fantasy: We are heroes fighting monsters!
• Dark fantasy: We are monsters trying to be heroes.
• Horror: We are all monsters, deep down.

[Segev]

I have to quibble about the Horror definition, there. Horror doesn't always have to have monstrous protagonists, or even protagonists who combat "darker impulses." It just depends on the protagonists being in a "avoid the overwhelmingly dangerous threat" mode more than a "combat with the expectation of possible victory" mode.

[Morty]

I don't see how those labels are in any way mutually exclusive, really.

[Red Fel]

I have to quibble about the Horror definition, there. Horror doesn't always have to have monstrous protagonists, or even protagonists who combat "darker impulses." It just depends on the protagonists being in a "avoid the overwhelmingly dangerous threat" mode more than a "combat with the expectation of possible victory" mode.

Well, there are really two definitions of horror. There's the horror of the external monster, and the horror of the internal monster.

The horror of the external monster tends only to work when the external monster is so beyond what you can face. Either because of atmospheric elements, which can't be fought, or in terms of raw power that dwarfs that of the protagonists. The line between that and fantasy is a fine one, the key distinction being a certain sense of futility or powerlessness.

The horror of the internal monster, though, is the one that has been a cornerstone of horror as a genre. The horror of the mind. Madness. Rage. Fear. The fact that what the cosmos can do to us is nothing compared to what we can do to ourselves. Even atmospheric horror contains traces of this, inasmuch as we are essentially terrifying ourselves by coming up with horrific explanations for what could otherwise be simply unnerving coincidence. This kind of horror is fairly distinct from fantasy, which tends to deal with larger-than-life heroes overcoming larger-than-life obstacles, or dark fantasy, featuring grey-morality heroes overcoming their darker tendencies while analogously overcoming their darker-than-grey enemies. In this genre, the focus isn't really external at all, but internal.

Perhaps a better definition of horror, then, is "Nobody can stop the monsters."

[illyahr]

Play the PS2 game Drakengard. Starts Fantasy, moves into Dark Fantasy, finishes Horror. One of the darkest games I have ever played. I absolutely loved it.

[CharonsHelper]

I don't see how those labels are in any way mutually exclusive, really.

I don't think they are.

While there are some that are obviously one or another of them, many stories are somewhere on the spectrum between them. Plus - I don't think that the differences can be defined too objectively. It's like the difference between blues & jazz. Some songs are obviously one or the other, but there are quite a few which are somewhere in between.

[goto124]

Any examples of external horror vs internal horror?

[Florian]

Any examples of external horror vs internal horror?

External: The Ring, The Fog, The Birds, Nightmare on Elm Street.
Internal: Darkness Falls, most Lovecraft things, Vertigo, Rosemarys Baby.

[Mastikator]

As mentioned the tone, but also the win condition. In fantasy the goal is to go on an adventure, experience a world full of wonder and defeat the evil entity. In dark fantasy the goal is to survive in a world full of wonder and perils, the antagonists you face aren't always much worse than you.

In horror on the other hand the win condition is surviving at all, and you're more likely to die horribly. Defeating the enemy is not really on the menu.

[HammeredWharf]

The dark fantasy genre isn't well-defined. In its current form it's mostly a phrase people started using after ASoIaF became popular, but previously it was used to describe a whole lot of things, including horror. Horror is easy to define. It's intended to scare or repulse the audience.

Generally speaking, the genre of a story is often hard to pin down, because people react to stories in different ways. For example:

What genre does The Witcher belong to?

It has dragons and elves and other typical fantasy stuff, and is often light-hearted, so it's fantasy.
It deals with dark themes like racism, torture and the consequences of war, so it's dark fantasy.
It has scary monsters, and repulsive descriptions of limbs getting chewed off and the MC turning into spongy monstrosity, so it's horror.

The bottom line is that it doesn't matter. Genre is just a tag people use to help describe what a story is like.

[Florian]

Dark Fantasy is actually pretty easy. It´s the difference between the "solution" and the "core of the problem". In a sense, that is akin to Cyberpunk, as that works of what could happen and what the costs are.

Let´s put it this way:
"High Fantasy" (aka D&D) is pretty technocratic as you look for magic to solutions.
"Dark Fantasy" looks for stuff like Magic to be the source of Power, as well as being the source of the actual problems.

[GloatingSwine]

The dark fantasy genre isn't well-defined.

It's defined enough to get a shelf called that in the local bookstore.

It looks a lot like True Blood and Twilight, as far as I can tell.

(Though originally it was just used to mean fantasy with horror elements and themes).


By the original definitions, The Witcher is High Fantasy. High Fantasy is typified by magical occurrances being an accepted part of the norm. Everyone in The Witcher knows about magic and monsters, they're just part of the world, the commonest peasant knows that monsters are a thing and that Witchers are who you hire to get rid of them. Wizards or Sorceresses set up shop in towns and people all know who they are and that they can do magic.

The contrast with High Fantasy is Low Fantasy, which is a secondary world fantasy story where things like magic are uncommon intrusions into the life of the world. A Song of Ice and Fire is Low Fantasy, things like the White Walkers and Dragons and magic are rare elements that most people don't know about or believe in.


Whether a fantasy is Dark Fantasy or not (absent the fang-****er subgenre) really depends on what you use the classical horror elements for. If a Vampire is just something you have to stab up a certain way, it's not Dark Fantasy. If a Vampire is Strahd von Zarovich, monster that you can't really stop even if you can temporarily abate it, but who is bound to his own doom anyway, then it is.


As to when Dark Fantasy becomes horror, well horror is basically fantasy anyway, but classical horror is Primary World fantasy, whereas Dark Fantasy applies the horror elements to Secondary World fantasy instead. So it kind of always is horror and also kind of never is. At the same time.


(If you haven't heard the terms before, Primary World fantasy is a story which purports to be set in the same "real" world that the reader inhabits, whereas Secondary World fantasy is set in a seperate imagined world. Obviously the crossover is Portal Fantasy.)

[goto124]

(If you haven't heard the terms before, Primary World fantasy is a story which purports to be set in the same "real" world that the reader inhabits, whereas Secondary World fantasy is set in a seperate imagined world. Obviously the crossover is Portal Fantasy.)

Primary World fantasy would be the Harry Potter world where wizards use all manner of spells to hide from Muggles, while Secondary World fantasy would be most DnD settings?

[GloatingSwine]

Primary World fantasy would be the Harry Potter world, while Secondary World fantasy would be most DnD settings?

Yes.

Portal Fantasy is stuff like The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, where a primary world individual enters a secondary world setting.

[Beleriphon]

What genre does The Witcher belong to?

It has dragons and elves and other typical fantasy stuff, and is often light-hearted, so it's fantasy.
It deals with dark themes like racism, torture and the consequences of war, so it's dark fantasy.
It has scary monsters, and repulsive descriptions of limbs getting chewed off and the MC turning into spongy monstrosity, so it's horror.

The bottom line is that it doesn't matter. Genre is just a tag people use to help describe what a story is like.

The Witcher is almost assuredly dark fantasy. It has a very distinct dark tone, Geralt is usually in it for himself. Even if he does end up saving people its for profit, or his own ends. There's a reason Geralt is known as the Butcher of Blaviken.

[GloatingSwine]

The Witcher is almost assuredly dark fantasy. It has a very distinct dark tone, Geralt is usually in it for himself. Even if he does end up saving people its for profit, or his own ends. There's a reason Geralt is known as the Butcher of Blaviken.

Geralt likes to give the impression that he's in it for himself, and that he doesn't care about politics, but it's, well, bull****.

Geralt actually cares quite a lot, and barely makes enough "profit" to scrape by precisely because of that.

Spoiler

Show

The reason he's known as the Butcher of Blaviken is that he kills a bunch of bandits threatening innocent villagers, but the witnesses didn't know that's what was going on so it just looked like he slaughtered a bunch of dudes.

[HammeredWharf]

The Witcher is almost assuredly dark fantasy. It has a very distinct dark tone, Geralt is usually in it for himself. Even if he does end up saving people its for profit, or his own ends. There's a reason Geralt is known as the Butcher of Blaviken.

Geralt is a huge softie. He's constantly driven to help others even when he knows it's not worth it. The Butcher of Blaviken nickname is just a misunderstanding. In the end, he

Spoiler: Major book spoilers, but you know this if you played the games.

Show

dies trying to protect nonhumans from oppression.

That's why The Witcher never felt like real dark fantasy to me. It's full of sympathetic characters and humor, and usually aims to be bittersweet rather than depressing. However, since the definition of dark fantasy is loose, one could call TW that and it would be pretty hard to refute.

[GloatingSwine]

That's why The Witcher never felt like real dark fantasy to me. It's full of sympathetic characters and humor, and usually aims to be bittersweet rather than depressing. However, since the definition of dark fantasy is loose, one could call TW that and it would be pretty hard to refute.

Trouble is, the definition of dark fantasy isn't all that loose. It was always intended to refer to horror elements and themes in fantasy stories (and got taken up by the fang-****ers when that genre got popular).

It's not Dark Fantasy if the fantasy is covered in mud and blood and nasty things happen to people, it's still just fantasy (high or low depending on the commonality of magical elements) unless the theme of the narrative tends towards horror.

[CharonsHelper]

That's why The Witcher never felt like real dark fantasy to me. It's full of sympathetic characters and humor, and usually aims to be bittersweet rather than depressing. However, since the definition of dark fantasy is loose, one could call TW that and it would be pretty hard to refute.

Really - The Witcher is a hardboiled detective story with a fantasy backdrop.

[CharonsHelper]

Let´s put it this way:
"High Fantasy" (aka D&D) is pretty technocratic as you look for magic to solutions.
"Dark Fantasy" looks for stuff like Magic to be the source of Power, as well as being the source of the actual problems.

I've very dubious of those definitions. By that definition - Harry Potter is solidly Dark Fantasy.

[Thrudd]

In my opinion, these three things are not a single spectrum of "darkness" in fantasy. Fantasy is pretty much anything that takes place in a world with magic.

"Dark Fantasy" seems to be fantasy that includes/focuses on creatures that were traditionally horror movie monsters: vampires/undead, werewolves, ghosts, Frankenstein type experiments, etc. It might also include Demons and possessions as well. I would consider the setting of those classic monster movies, in fact, to be "dark fantasy". The sole element which makes the setting a fantasy may, in fact, be the presence of one or more of those supernatural beings.

Horror describes how the audience is meant to react to a story. It is a subgenre of suspense, where the suspense comes mostly from unknown, unstoppable, or unconventional threats that are usually deadly. It needs to include scenes that shock and surprise the audience.

You can tell a horror story in almost any setting. We have them in totally mundane settings with slashers and serial killer stories. We have them in science fiction settings with alien creatures, artificial intelligence and strange science. You can have them in Dark Fantasy, of course, with people being stalked by those classic horror monsters. You can have them in any fantasy setting, with threats coming from either mundane or magical sources. The story of Theseus, the Labyrinth and Minotaur could be easily be turned into a horror story set in the fantasy world of Greek myth.

You can easily tell other stories besides horror in a dark fantasy setting, as well. Twilight is a teen romance in a dark fantasy setting. Ravenloft is often used for heroic adventure in a dark fantasy world. With the World of Darkness, you can tell almost any type of story.

[Morty]

I don't think they are.

While there are some that are obviously one or another of them, many stories are somewhere on the spectrum between them. Plus - I don't think that the differences can be defined too objectively. It's like the difference between blues & jazz. Some songs are obviously one or the other, but there are quite a few which are somewhere in between.

Pretty much. I really don't think trying to nail down the exact difference, or a point where one becomes the other, is very useful.

[Florian]

I've very dubious of those definitions. By that definition - Harry Potter is solidly Dark Fantasy.

HP is straight Dark Fantasy. Remove magic and you remove the problem as it is. Enhance magic and you enhance the problem. *shrugs* It all comes down to "Might makes Right".

[Beleriphon]

Geralt is a huge softie. He's constantly driven to help others even when he knows it's not worth it. The Butcher of Blaviken nickname is just a misunderstanding. In the end, he

Spoiler: Major book spoilers, but you know this if you played the games.

Show

dies trying to protect nonhumans from oppression.

That's why The Witcher never felt like real dark fantasy to me. It's full of sympathetic characters and humor, and usually aims to be bittersweet rather than depressing. However, since the definition of dark fantasy is loose, one could call TW that and it would be pretty hard to refute.

I think the big difference is that no matter what Geralt does he never really makes anything better. He fixes a few problems for local people, and is for sure a sympathetic character but there is no way to make the world better without massive upheaval. One of the core tenets of The Witcher seems to revolve that people are worse and more horrible than "monsters" are. Because at the core of it all of Geralt's stories the most horrible stuff is because people are terrible.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the big difference is that no matter what Geralt does he never really makes anything better.

psst: That's because Ciri is really the main character of the novel saga.

[Frozen_Feet]

Fantasy is a roof genre, and a very broad one at that. It basically only says that the setting includes supernatural stuff. Horror is a specific subgenre, telling which kind of stories (=scary ones) are being told.

Dark fantasy exists in the intersection of these two. As evidenced in this thread, people variably use it to denote one of two different things: cynical fantasy, and fantastic horror. As noted, these two are not mutually exclusive, so overall you could say: dark fantasy is fantasy with notable cynical or horror elements.

I do agree with assessment of Harry Potter as dark fantasy. The first two books might count as children's adventure, but Prisoner of Azkaban introduces strong horror elements (dementors) and brings very bleak themes to the fore, like an innocent person being accused and imprisoned.

I'll note that trying to retroactively apply genre labels to old works is somewhat futile. For example, Lord of the Rings is very bittersweet, and has some parts which are pure horror (Shelob's lair), but it obviously wasn't written as an example of "dark fantasy" because the concept didn't really exist back then. Ditto for Conan; when it was written, it was considered pulp fiction, and gave rise to the term Sword & Sorcery. If it's an example of a genre, well, it's that genre. Even if some Conan stories bear similarities to modern works which are considered "dark fantasy" or whatever.