Tumblr crosspost (9 October 2020)

[anghraine]

I saw D:OS2 described as “grimdark” by a few people, and I was genuinely taken aback even though, thinking about it, it is a pretty grim setting full of terrible people, and you can be one of them if you so choose.

But … it just doesn’t feel that way to me? Maybe because you have the option to play the origin characters as much nicer than ‘standard,’ and maybe because I generally stick to the nicer ones like Lohse and Ifan in the first place. (The Red Prince can die in a fire.) And, while there are a lot of terrible people, there are a lot of semi- and actually decent ones, too.

But also, I suspect it’s kind of like revenge tragedy—I don’t generally care for tragedy, but I love revenge tragedies, because I enjoy the sheer excess and loud personalities and can’t take the misery too seriously. It’s not exactly silly; I do get caught up in what’s happening and attached to many of the characters. But by and large, revenge tragedies are having too much fun to really feel grim.

And Divinity is kind of like that for me. There’s a lot that’s tragic and terrible going on, but it’s just … fun.

Tagged: #like #as soon as i thought about it i saw how it /could/ feel that way to other people #but at the same time it was really surprising #even considering that everything darker than the sweet valley twins is grimdark these days