Where do you draw the line?

Where do you draw the line between Grimdark and Edgy. and is Edgy inherently bad?

This is in relation to Fantasy/scifi settings.

Edgy has a meaning similar to avant-garde. To be edgy is to be on the transgressive cutting edge, testing mores, encouraging thought, and challenging ideas, shit like that. It's typically a good thing. Where "edgy" comes in as an insult, would be it used sarcastically, and basically amounts to "trying too hard."

Ok, let me rephrase. At what point do you think Grimdark, or dark settings/characters in general, go too far?

When it feels like a parody of itself, but it takes itself super seriously.
That goblin slayer mango is a good example of too much grimdark.

goblin slayer, dungeon seeker, akame ga kill, a lot of those go too far

Well, my point was that edgy is not inherently bad. I think it would be going too far when it feels like being grim is just something the setting is trying to do rather than something it is. It should feel believable, as though this shit-show is something that has a reason to be.

Depends on whether or not something has a good reason to be violent. Something like a good war film is macabre because it is trying to say something about the horrors of war. A scene depicting junkies living in filth and psychological torment is saying something about substance abuse, etc.

Edgy is an applicable insult if something is needlessly violent and based solely on cheap shock value.

All Quiet on the Western Front is Grimdark. Gifs of guys punting small animals is edgy.

also in the depiction of things. you don't need to show more than necessary. when it keeps rubbing your face in it it feels masturbatory and excessive.
sure, you have murderous raping goblins in the setting. ok, but we don't need you showing it in graphic detail every single time, especially when you focus on the torturing of the women

When it becomes contrived: the violence, gore, and themes are there for their own sake and aren't given a good reason for existing whether that be how these things came to exist in the first place or what they add to the story (if anything).

When the dark parts stop serving a larger purpose and become the purpose.

Edgy is grimdark done to a nonsensical/parodical degree

I just realized my original image is TMNT....

Grimdark is metal, edgy is emo.

Warhammer.

>At what point do you think Grimdark, or dark settings/characters in general, go too far?
when it becomes a mere aesthetic. when it's not a house but the billboard of a house.

It all depends on individual views. For example, in my group, we revel in the utter grimdark sillynes of pre-Guilliman reborn 40k, the massacres of billions because of archive errors, the soul raping deamons, all that. But I would get that someone might consider an incendiary bombardment that uses the rotten bodies of your comrades as fuel, and spans Daemons of Plague in effect (Istvaan III) as going too far and therefore being edgy.

Grimdark and edgy are both played with a straight face, however one doesn't take itself seriously while the other does.

A grimdark setting isn't necessarily gloomy and miserable like in Dark Souls. It's gloomy and miserable, yes, but it's often a ridiculous caricature of a setting such as Warhammer 40,000.

Judge Dredd could be considered a grimdark character. Megacity One is a shithole bursting with an unrealistic level of crime and corruption and despite being total shit, it's the best place to live. Dredd himself is meant to be our "good cop" who deals out not only justice to the bad guys but also ridiculously disproportionate sentences for every single minor transgression regardless of context. He's an impossible character who holds a robotic adherence to the law.

The action and the violence is awesome and the way Dredd guns down a mob of bank robbers and then gives one of the hostages 6 months imprisonment for littering is shocking and indicative of a miserable world, but it comes off as funny. It's presented as serious but it's such a caricature of a real grim, dark place it cannot be taken seriously. WH40k is a silly caricature of the destruction and misery created by war and the sadism and hatred of those that perpetuate it. It's dressed up as serious but nobody takes it seriously because its just so fucking dumb and we love it.

The Punisher is grim and its dark but it's not very silly barring things that trigger /k/. It's full of violence and ruthless executions by the protagonist but the narrative shows that the people getting shot deserve it and Frank is really a decent man who lost everything and wants to deliver justice where there is none. Despite being set in a shithole it's not grimdark because it can be taken seriously. It's not very edgy because the nasty stuff has a purpose - it's what The Punisher is all about.

(cont.)

Grimdark is self aware and intentional

Edgy is not self aware. Rather, the edgy person thinks he is being cool

If you want edgy, you can look at just about any amateur "mature" webcomic. Edgy is when something is played for shock value. Shock value isn't bad by itself but shock value that is out of place, overemphasised, and very clearly only meant to shock us, often failing to do so.

There's a webcomic page that gets posted a lot, in some western setting. I don't remember the name or have the page at hand, but a female character we're supposed to be rooting for is riding on some cart, gets angry, and randomly shoots some civilians before sighing, proclaiming that it's just not been a good day. Her friend pats her on the shoulder in a reassuring manner. It seemingly had very little bearing on the actual plot. It might have been a surprise but it was neither very horrifying or even gratifying in the way a grimdark wargame setting manages.

A character we were supposed to sympathise with was shown to be a complete shithead in a way that isn't easy to relate to or even be in any way fun. Old Donald Duck comics portray him doing ridiculously cruel things as far as cartoons go and it shocks us, but it's funny and we can't help but root for him sometimes. The Punisher shows cruelty and can shock us, but it makes us feel something and it merges with everything else that's going on. By being shocked, we feel more for Frank and what he's doing, and what he does should be shocking but it's somehow gratifying to the reader.

I consider edgy to be something that looks like a vent piece. It's meant to be shocking without any actual substance surrounding it, and it takes itself very very seriously. You can just feel that it's trying to shake us and in doing so it comes off as the work of an emo teen. Grimdark on its surface should be edgy but it embraces its cartoonish, unrealistic nature instead becoming fun.

This