[Perry] Bleakness In Fiction

Note: The following post contains spoilers for The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

You know the thing that happens when you incorporate a new friend into a group of friends you commonly hang out with?

It’s like the process of osmosis, or homogenization. Some of their speech and mannerisms get absorbed and tossed around within the group while some of the groups little slangs and methods of speech rub off on the new guy.

Hopefully, you guys know what I’m talking about or the rest of this may not make as much sense as I hope.

I’ve found that over the past year or two, Tami’s taste in books has been rubbing off on me.

Well, that’s not exactly right.

It’s not quite her taste in books…but more like…the things that bug her in novels has started to bug me too? Which struck me as odd as I’d never even noticed it before.

For one example? Take jargon.

Tami has a strong dislike of books that over-introduce many new words and phrases to describe things. Too much jargon waters down the story…and I agreed with her until she brought up Sanderson’s Mistborn series as an example.

Whoa, hold up a second there. Don’t you be hating.

But I went back through the Mistborn trilogy, and Sanderson’s other works as a reread and I’ll be damned if all the made up words and phrases didn’t start to stick in my craw as well.

In a similar fashion, I think that association with me has eased her dislike of the first person perspective a little. Not to the point where she’d seek it out, but I don’t think she minds it quite as much as she used to.

And now? I think another one of her reading tastes have rubbed off onto my own:

Bleakness.

When we first started talking, bleakness in a story was something that bothered her that didn’t bother me at all.

In fact, not half a year ago, I put up a post on this very site, talking about how it bleakness could be beneficial at times.

I just finished reading The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. As I finished off the third book, I realized that it left a horrendous taste in my mouth and I thought about the reasons why.

The Books

I enjoyed the first book, felt a little let down by the second, and wanted to chuck the third one across the room.

The main character, Fitz, his situation just constantly goes from bad to worse. There’s never a reprieve, there’s never a happy moment. He literally mopes and is depressed and is acted on for the twenty or thirty years of his life that the trilogy covers.

Oh, and the few times he DOES reach for agency and tries to do something? He gets it pounded into him that everything he did made every situation infinitely worse…and it’s all his fault.

It is goddamned depressing to read about this character just getting shit on for three books and all the years of his life. And to be honest? This isn’t even taking into consideration the deus ex DRAGONS! ending of the series, or the ridiculous characters that appear in the third book BECAUSE REASONS.

I can get into my gripes with those in the comments if anyone’s interested, but the point I’m trying to make here is that the bleakness has started to get to me.

The Difference

You know what I think it is?

I think the difference is in the character’s intent.

When it comes to certain times of grimdark, always bleak books…there are some that I don’t mind (and actually fully endorse), and now these that I’m starting to find intensely annoying and difficult to read.

In some examples I’ve listed in the past, namely, the things by Jeff Somers, his characters are ground in the goddamned dirt.

But there’s a difference.

Fitz gets ground into the dirt and he just…fucking whines like a little bitch. He mopes and moans his way across the years of his life and across the country. And when he finally gets to the end? And finds out that his friends have sold out his daughter “for the good of the kingdom”, he doesn’t even fucking FIGHT. He just…..gets all depressed, and sighs, and takes it.

He JUST TAKES IT, after whining and bitching about how it’s not fair throughout the entire book, he just sits there and takes it.

Reading the third book of the trilogy was like watching a dog getting kicked around by a bully with steel-toed boots. It was like walking down the street and just watching, as a bunch of jackasses taunted and picked on a homeless man on the street.

Not pleasant at all…but already halfway through the third book, I felt like I’d come too far to stop at that point.

Bleakness Done Well

Here’s the thing. With Avery Cates? With the main character from Trickster? Hell, even with Harry goddamned Dresden. All of these characters just…get totally shit on by the universe. It gets dark at times, there are many points where the character wants to give up…

But they don’t.

I think that’s the key.

Looking back on the books I’ve read, anytime I’ve felt that bleakness and that grimdark style was done well? It’s because of the…like….it’s because of the indomitable WILL of the character in question.

Dresden doesn’t take shit lying down. Sure, people heap shit on him from all sides, but he just grits his teeth and refuses to take it lying down. He screams his defiance into the void and rages against the demons and critters that are trying to ruin his life.

Avery Cates? He’s not as flashy, not as much of a bonfire as Dresden is, but in his own way, he fought. Sure, his situation just went from bad to horrifically worse as the books went on. But he never gave up. In his own quiet way, he slogged along, doing what he could to not let the horrendous situation get to him.

These characters, these defiant madmen don’t stand for this shit.

When life hands Fitz lemons, he rolls over and shows his belly. He begs life to tell him what to do so that he won’t get anymore lemons, and of course, that doesn’t do shit. Life is a cold and implacable taskmaster and doesn’t care about his whimpering and whining.

When life hands Avery or Dresden lemons? They don’t whine and beg. They don’t make lemonade. They cut the lemons in half and go for life’s throat, grinding the lemons into life’s fucking eyes to teach her not to fuck with them.

That’s the difference.

That’s a type of grimdark, bleak on bleak situation I can get behind because the character doesn’t give up. And when the character refuses, absolutely refuses, to give in, we readers don’t give up either. We fight with them, and we suffer with them because we KNOW that they’re suffering but we also KNOW that they’re doing what they can to pull through to the light.

A character like Fitz? Makes me feel like I’m trapped in the quicksand with him and he’s just…”Oh well, we might as well kill ourselves cause we’re not getting out of this anyway.”

It’s depressing and fucking stupid.

Conclusion

I very much NOT recommend The Farseer Trilogy. 

That’s the conclusion.

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Audiobooks – The Dresden Files
[Perry] Deus Ex Machina
[Perry] Perry’s Review of The Unremembered