My love and obsession for Tragedy as a Genre

Every writer wanted their crafts to become well-known and good-to-read, and most importantly, to be remembered as one of the must-read, worthy for the recommendation for others. I am no exception

In my mind, to have your story remembered by others, it needed to leave a lasting impact or provided a profound message. And what is the best way to leave a lasting impression? It is a bad thing/event, and here begin my fondness for this god-forsaken and hatred-filled as well as underrated and unappreciated genre, Tragedy. Sure, this tag had deterred away many the potential readers, but I loved it, so I will write about it.

Then comes the problem. I could not write things that left in a happy, fluffy and easy-going note that did not have any undertone grief. I felt like the story had no proper ending, left with no closure, empty and forgettable. Sure, I can write a fluffy scene, but I felt that, if I did not make anything gone wrong, the scene became quite bland and stale for me. It became lacking in emotional quality because there is no emotional outlet.

So, how do you, as a writer, feel about this unhealthy obsession of mine?

 

Do you mean tragedy, as in tragedy befalling on everyone other than the MC? (Which is every novel ever).

And if some tragedy, by some chance, does befall on our beloved MC, it shall only be temporarily.

 

I'm pretty fond of the MC inflicting tragedy on others.

 

For me, if the tragedies did not befall the MC, life would be too easy for them, and they would cease to be the MC.

Tragedy should happen to everyone, not just the side-characters or the villains or the MC.

 

You really like Ai No Kusabi, isn't it? I had fallen in love with it as soon as I saw an AMV. It nurtured my obsession with dark, tragic stories.....

 

Thanks...they'll help to sooth my morbid heart~

 

Its because your heart is pure darkness. I tried some years ago to write a story and the only thing that I was able to do was about hate, rage, cruelity and violence. Its normal, thats all.

 

me, i dont like tragedy in itself. But i love drama and the two often go hand in hand. That said, it depends on what you mean by tragic under tones. Do you mean ends like Clannad? Or like Kuroinu? Because the two arent the same even if they're both tragic. I can joke and say, "well one is a fucked up shit show and the other is a damn great hentai" But i wont.

More seriously, i get what you mean. But i dont like nor need it in my endings. Tragic endings arent why i read novels and find most others dont read it for that either. They, and i, like satisfaction. To get that feel-good feeling when likeable characters get happy ends after long, sometimes weary journey.

Drama and tragedy are simply a spice to enhances that end. Tragedy is only ever good in moderation too. When you have tragedy after tragedy you become numb to it, or makes you feel like its just a fucking crap fest happening to a decent character for no good reason and you start to hate everything .

I also find there's different sorts of tragedy. One makes you sad, the other makes you pissed off. I prefer the latter, personally. Love good revenge stories.

 

I am not a big fan of tragedy but I love novel where the MC is always being constantly tested by the world.. Robin hobb’s tawny man series or George R R Martin’s windhaven comes to mind as to how harsh I imagined it to be.. or for anime fan.. re:zero. I like it when no matter how strong the MC grows to be there is an instant rebalancing of power and all his properly designed stratagem goes awry or he succeed by a hairline.. or something like psycho pass where even if one succeed it might not end up to where you wish it to be.

Personally it irritates me when the tragedy becomes a tragedy just because that’s the genre.. My Fiance is in Love with My Little Sister is the first example that comes to mind that to me, belongs to this area.. I think it was brilliantly written but as a reader I want to line up all the character and bash all of them with metal bat and then german suplex each and all of them straight into a burial chamber. Well I just pray that the pay off at the end of the novel could be big enough to equalise all the nonstop SM play the author put the readers through.

If you are thinking how to write fluffy moments, I think you can study up on Key studios’s works..The whole reason why Key is so successful with all of their series such as clannad etc, spawning even a whole genre, is due to their formula for tragedy. Starting with fluffy romcom to grow your attachment to the characters.. and later in a heartbeat throw all of the characters into the most disastrous scenarios they could think of breaking players hearts.

I really agree with that sentiment. I think just like RL only through hardship can one personality and perspective be polished to shine.. in story that will be called as character growth. Sometime that growth can echo negatively tho mostly it would be positive.

Well all I can say is that I am looking forward to your writing! Would love to see how you would create a world that can voice out that thought process.

 

I'm fine with tragedy as I like drama, but it's become kind of lackluster as most situations feel like they're written as tragedy for the sake of being tragedy. That said, I'm not exactly sure I can specify what that and what tragedy written for something else might feel like. While painting apocalypse in any other tone other than grimdark definitely isn't easy, anything's possible. I don't care if it's not perfect, I want to see someone try the unchallenged.

 

What a load of hogwash!!
Tragedy is not underappreciated.
It is the most popular genre, look at Game of Thrones.
Your love for the genre is commendable
but calling it underappreciated is madness at its finest!
Look at the highest grossing movies for the past 30 years
Titanic- Tragedy
The Dark Knight Trilogy- Tragedy,it even has Dark in the name.
So no, tragedy is not underappreciated, it is too pervasive.
It is essentially suffocating us.
Stephen King for one, he is one of the most successful authors in the world and all he writes is tragedy.
I personally want a break from tragedy.
Real life is tragic enough.
Ban Tragedy!
Personally, giving all the suicides of artists from Kurt Corbain to the main vocalist of Linkin Park, maybe we should ban tragedy from music too
or at least look closely at those who cant seem to produce nothing but tragedy.
It might be a cry for help.
Is this thread a cry for help?

P.S. If you want to compete in ridiculousness I am guaranteed to win.

 

I'm speaking this in the field of Asain Web Novel, as a lot of people would avoid this tag like plague. Also, listing out masterpieces did not contradict my claim in any way. They are an exception and out of the norm, and we should not treat them as if they are normal.

And what? banning Tragedy? Eh?

 

I did say I intended to be ridiculous.
Kuro no Maou, Nidome no Yuusha.
Tragedies are more popular than you think
Peace!

 

I don't think that there's anything unusual to have an interest in tragedies. This is classically one of the main genres of literature, and it tends to generate the most memorable stories. The most obvious positive is that tragedies generate a ton of passion, and passion is one of the best ways to engage the reader. I find that this is especially the case in Chinese folklore where just about everything famous has some sort of tragic ending.

The only thing that's a problem is that tragedies aren't more popular nowadays because (younger) readers don't want to be challenged and would prefer self-insert wish fulfillment fantasies. This shift in taste is one of the reasons why genres like isekai and xianxia have grown so much in popularity. The contrast is stark between these and the old school isekai and wuxia stories that they're descended from. Hell, just look at how liberally the "tragedy" tag gets thrown about nowadays - someone in the protagonist's family dies: tragedy, the protagonist's pet dies: tragedy, the protagonist suffers a minor setback: tragedy.

Also, anyone interested in tragedies should read Tong Hua novels like "Bu Bu Jing Xin". She loves writing these kinds of stories and she does a good job with them. She even wrote an open letter to her characters saying that she was sorry she couldn't give them better outcomes!

I'm pretty sure that tragic undertones would be the sense that a story can only have (relatively) bad outcomes for the characters involved. So this would be more like classical tragedies like Hamlet or Oedipus Rex where the stories have a certain gravity to them.

 

Most of the people I know who read LN and WN have a tendency to avoid this genre like a plague, especially if you also count another tag like a romance genre. People love fluff and all the goods fo a romance and they always ask like 'Is it gonna have a happy ending?'. Makes me think that most readers don't really want to read tragic works because they see the medium as entertainment (a valid point) but development suffers and people just want the happily ever after ending (which is so cliche and shallow). and

 

I’ve got a few disagreements with a lot of what is said above but a couple points should be made:
- a bad ending for a character no one cares about isn’t a tragedy
- if the character has no highs then almost no one will care when they hit lows
- so you need those fluffy scenes you find hard to write or at least some type of point where the character gets close to ‘winning’

Readers have to be invested in their struggle and feel when they fail.

Tl;dr Writing a purely miserable story about miserable hate filled characters who die miserable deaths isn’t tragedy, it’s more likely to be poetic well deserved deaths that people cheer and feel the universe is clicking along well