At what point does grimdark turn into pointless edge?

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

This has been bothering me for a while. I can read and write dark stories and know when they're dark. I can read and write edgy stories and know when they're edgy. But I can't exactly put them in words.

 

[Haikaka]

My take is:
A story comes from the imagination of it's author. Reading a story, especially dark and edgy ones, you are able to see part of the thought process of its writer. The reflexions and ideals the story develops unknowingly, can paint either a grim, terrible, incomprehensible reality, or a fiction right out of the daydreams of it's immature author.
So I'd say edgy is when we see immature/cliché thinking, grimdark is when these aspects are absents.

 

[Valkynaz]

Honestly to me, "edge" is when it feels pointless, hashed on, or for obvious shock value, grimdark feels like it serves a purpose and is serious in its intent and doesn't rely on blatant edge-service to achieve it

 

[Sleeper]

My take on it is pretty similar to what @Valkynaz said: "edge" is when the darkness of the content doesn't serve the narrative in any way. On a superficial level, "grimdark" and "edgy" are virtually indistinguishable, but from my point of view, the difference appears when the respective elements are subject to scrutiny. As an example, let's say that a character who has been portrayed as harmless, innocent, or ultimately not involved with the greater conflict in the story dies a brutal, explicitly detailed death. It could be seen as grimdark if other elements of the story are affected by this event--the protagonist(s) suddenly realize how high the stakes are, or come to fear the individual that carried out the killing, resulting in plot developments that involve the affected parties having to work through the aftermath of the event. Or, it could show the villain having a complex about (or affinity for) their own brutality. As long as it results in some sort of greater plot development, it's grimdark.

If it's something that gets a token mention, and is subsequently forgotten about, or is used purely as a starting point for a plot that didn't actually require that specific event to begin, then it's edgy. Yes, some could argue that its "purpose" is to increase audience investment by giving them something to hate the antagonist for, or to buy into the mentality of the protagonist(s), but that kind of investment shouldn't have to come at the end of a scene inserted purely for shock value--that's manufactured investment, which quickly fades, and leads to more shock value moments in order to keep artificially building that investment, with diminishing returns. It's like the difference between playing a horror game that genuinely unnerves you, versus one that just constantly bombards you with jump scares: you think you're scared either way, but in reality, the former is what scares you, while the latter gradually grows to become irritating, and is a little less scary each time it happens.

Of course, this is all from my own point of view, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[dabson]

It's quite simple; edge is bad is when it is used ahead of or in place of or more than the elements of a story that actually matter.

 

[Tamerlane]

The 1d4chan article on this is pretty decent in distinguishing between "grimdark" and "grimderp." If it's grimderp, then it's edginess impedes what would logically make sense given the universe, characters, or setting and would make what certain characters are doing more inefficient or lessen their ability to achieve their goals.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Grimdark

To cite an example from what is considered the primogenitor of all Grimdark storytelling, Warhammer 40k, the fact that apparently all the water on Terra (Earth) somehow evaporated away in the older lore from constant nuclear war is often cited as the dumbest idea because somehow several millions of tonnes of water left the planet and just straight-up vanished, despite the fact evaporation does not make water leave the planet, itself.

 

[Jergens]

@Tamerlane Lets just say the oceans were consumed by the warp.