Fantasy has always known the dark.

Long before grimdark became a publishing label, children wandered into forests where wolves waited. Witches ate the lost. Curses travelled through generations. Kingdoms fell, monsters demanded sacrifices and even victory often came carrying grief.

So perhaps asking why fantasy has become darker is the wrong question.

Perhaps the more interesting question is: what if the darkness was never in fantasy, but in us?

Recent fantasy certainly seems increasingly comfortable in the shadows. Gothic horror and dark academia continue to occupy publishers’ lists, folklore is returning in stranger and more unsettling forms, and the morally immaculate hero has acquired some serious competition from protagonists who lie, betray, fail and occasionally become the very thing they once feared.

Yet darkness itself is hardly new. What may have changed is where we place it.

Once, it was easier to send darkness into the forest. Give it claws, scales or a cursed castle. Put it behind the mountain and send a hero towards it with a sword. Evil had geography. Better still, it often had a face.

Contemporary fantasy frequently removes that comfortable distance.

The monster may now be the narrator. The hero can make an unforgivable choice. The villain can love someone. Institutions built to protect people may instead destroy them. Saving the kingdom does not necessarily repair it.

You can kill the dragon and the kingdom is........

© Eurovizyon