Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Having a
gloomy ,dystopian atmosphere .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word grimdark.
Examples
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It's big and a bit overambitious, but it's a large and fascinating world without being super grimdark.
Cover Art for Raymond E. Feist, Janny Wurts and China Mieville Adam Whitehead 2010
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Claiming that it represents the whole Japanese market's fanservice-obsessed desires is like taking angry fans 'grimdark edits of Diablo III and claiming that represents the wish of all Diablo I+II players.
Gotta Have Faith SVGL 2008
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So in that light, Cameron's grimdark approach would've suited my personal tastes a bit better.
What Happened to James Cameron’s Spider-Man Movie | /Film 2009
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As much as I love the idea of having both Riddler and Catwoman in the same movie, I just don't see how it could be done and follow up on the grimdark of the last movie.
Comic Book Movie 2009
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"Campy characters from the sixties and seventies turn grimdark and brutally murder obscure characters from the 80s and 90s."?
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As much as I love the idea of having both Riddler and Catwoman in the same movie, I just don't see how it could be done and follow up on the grimdark of the last movie.
Comic Book Movie 2009
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His parents are DEEEEEAAAAAAAD, but at least he's not grimdark about it.
Anime Nano! 2009
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It’s more of a niche series for the real robot faction of mecha who can tolerate a bit of grimdark instead of the now more typical teenage pilot fare.
Anime Nano! 2009
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Rowland was responding to the idea of “grimdark” — a literary descriptor for genre texts and media which evoke a pervasively gritty, bleak, pessimistic, or nihilistic view of the world.
In the era of Trump and apocalyptic change, Hopepunk is weaponizing optimism Aja Romano 2018
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When asked to clarify, I wrote: “The essence of grimdark is that everyone’s inherently sort of a bad person and does bad things, and that’s awful and disheartening and cynical.
One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives – Alexandra Rowland 2020
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Summers explains that while another subgenre of fantasy, “grimdark”, was popular in the early 2010s with “gritty, dark” tales such as Game of Thrones, we are now seeing “the rise of cosy fantasy and romantasy and fairytale fantasy – books that have a bit more of an uplifting feel to them.”
A genre of swords and soulmates: the rise and rise of ‘romantasy’ novels Ella Creamer 2024
erinmckean commented on the word grimdark
"Grimdark is a subgenre or a way to describe the tone, style, or setting of speculative fiction (especially fantasy) that is, depending on the definition used, markedly dystopian or amoral, or particularly graphic in its depiction of violence. In most grimdark literature the supernatural is a passive force, controlled by humans—unlike supernatural horror where the preternatural forces are most often an active entity with agency." Is it Grimdark or is it Horror?
November 5, 2015