hawkwing_lb have been chatting about this further eleswheres and I think one of the most relevant bits from our chat with regards to grimdark has to do with the tone of the backlash against the backlash against grimdark :p
Part of what grimdark (or, at least, it's fans) seems to do is pretend it's the only way of critiquing all this. So people responding to, for example, Tiger Beatdown's criticism of Game of Thrones keep trying to tell her that she just doesn't understand what Martin is doing, that she just doesn't understand criticism or deconstruction. When really, what she is arguing is that she doesn't think he is doing it well.
While one can certainly disagree with Tiger Beatdown (just as one can disagree with Martin's defenders), this attitude that people who think Martin's work is sexist think so because they are ignorant is just...bah!. Aside from being insulting, one of the things it does is cut grimdark off from other conversations about the flaws of epic fantasy. Which again, leads to more repetition rather than more interesting things being said.
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Part of what grimdark (or, at least, it's fans) seems to do is pretend it's the only way of critiquing all this. So people responding to, for example, Tiger Beatdown's criticism of Game of Thrones keep trying to tell her that she just doesn't understand what Martin is doing, that she just doesn't understand criticism or deconstruction. When really, what she is arguing is that she doesn't think he is doing it well.
While one can certainly disagree with Tiger Beatdown (just as one can disagree with Martin's defenders), this attitude that people who think Martin's work is sexist think so because they are ignorant is just...bah!. Aside from being insulting, one of the things it does is cut grimdark off from other conversations about the flaws of epic fantasy. Which again, leads to more repetition rather than more interesting things being said.