[j. d. worthington]

I think this is another case of something that is going to be near-impossible to define, in part because "dark fantasy" grew out of "horror" and "fantasy" in the modern sense, and both of those originated as part of "fantasy" overall....

Part of the problem is confusing horror with bloodletting. A good tale of the sort doesn't have to have any bloodletting (which is not to say one that does have such isn't a good horror tale... simply that it's not a particularly useful criterion); the horror -- as with HPL -- is the worldview expressed, one where the implications leave no ground for comfort. Thomas Ligotti is an excellent example of this; all his work tends to be a slice of genuine nightmare, but there's seldom much in the way of gore. Rather, he levers your world out of joint and gives you a glimpse into the abyss... then makes you realize the abyss is all there really is; the rest is illusion.

I think the closest one can come at this point to defining dark fantasy with any sort of rigor is that it is something with a horrific intent, but which relies on recognizable fantasy tropes from such things as the epic, heroic, or sword-and-sorcery fantasy... something like Karl Edward Wagner's Kane, Moorcock's Elric or Blood, quite a bit by Tanith Lee, etc. Horror, on the other hand, need not contain such elements. Essentially, I'd say dark fantasy is sort of a special branch of horror itself in intent; whereas in incident it is more closely allied to the heroic or epic fantasy....