Penultimate comments on Realism and 'grimdark' in Fantasy (I hope)

In writing my brother, I realized I had some further thoughts on this several-year-old conflict--whether grim realism (some say an overwrought version thereof) is truly a necessary development in 'realising' the fantasy genre, or simply an exercise in increasing titillation of readers. I thought I'd put some version down here:

In a break from the fantasy and acting worlds, I read an article today about the AWP conference (which was in Boston last weekend. I went in 2011, in DC; and ended up with a lot of notes for 'literary' writers and agents I've never used, but may some day, I guess.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112633/awp-conference-2013-writing-boom-time-declining-readers

I also read a lot of blogs about the whole 'realism/grimdark' controversy that apparently is consuming the modern fantasy world. Having examined the matter pretty fully, I'm sort of pleased to find myself...not all that concerned about it. Yes, it was good Martin and others exploded certain restrictions, and made a gritty and bloody version of the medievalized genre that involved 'Knights Who say Fuck' and more sexuality--not that, say, Robert E. Howard hadn't done a lot of that circa 1930, or that it's not good to have Tolkien doing his distinct thing wherein he celebrates an (occasionally somewhat boring and underdeveloped) English/Germanic version of chin-up, morally uncomplicated, energetic heroism--though I don't generally find Tolkien's excursions into mediocre poetry in LoTR very compelling (he simply was a poorer poet than his model, William Morris, whose poetry actually makes sense and adds to scenes in context), nor do I care for Tolkien's digressions where briefly pretends he's writing a Germanic epic of some sort, bringing clashes in idiom, values and verse into the prose. But then, I would think that, seeing as I'm a lover of the craft of the novel, and all that highly developed narrative realism and its variations since the late nineteenth century can bring us.

In any case, what surprises me about the whole controversy is how little impressed I am by the whole thing, and how little it seems relevant to me as a writer, now--which isn't to say that bloggers on both sides haven't made good points (especially, surprisingly, those writing against the bloodiest grimdark--but then, the bloodiest stuff does seem to have gotten rather carried away and absorbed with itself, so they may just be right on that score)....

In any case, I guess what I'm saying is that I've read enough of Bakker to know that Herbert + Tolkien + generic cynicism about religious movements and a bit of pretentiously inserted 'chaos theory' adds up to nothing of interest, if all we have of content is 200 pages of worldbuilding and sixty pages of (rather depressing) plotting, diluted within 1000 chock-filled pages of grit, incestuous detail among ruling dynasties, and demon-rape--most of which I think I can get more easily switching back and forth between Robert E. Howard, Kane of Old Mars, and Hentai (though I admit I've never tried, and I'd miss the overblown sense of self-importance that powers Bakker through his very long books). However, this Joe Abercrombie fellow may have something to say, particularly later in his career, when it seems he's learned to develop his characters better. In any case, no concerns of the controversy seem to directly affect how I write. I'll insert exactly as much violence and sex as seems appropriate and useful for a given story, without regard to any abstract concerns about whether any new ground needs to broken (or avoided) regarding a genre previously censored of the realism of the dark side of human society. Cause others have clearly taken care of that for me, with all their 'realist' subjects, and just nasty ones: you know, rape, death, chevauchee-warfare.

 If anything, I will say that it seems that too much has been done to make the genre 'adult' over the past few years (though I will say that Tolkien's apologists in this debate do occasionally come off as a bit dim about the way Tolkien pulled punches regarding violence or the brutality of decisions in wartime, missing the point of how pragmatic and brutal the reality can be, and how Tolkien sometimes elided such details in his narratives--nevertheless, Tolkien's dualistic view of the world is not completely complicated on his part, and it's part of what makes his books interesting and memorable. The fact that he did it rather better in 'The Hobbit's 'The Battle of Five Armies' and its aftermath than in LoTR is also  perhaps worth noting.... However, overall, I'm willing to give Tolkien a pass on his portrayal of war and its ethics. My understanding is that he was present at one or two of the great battles of The Great War, and that's enough education for any intelligent man to inform about how he's going to address warfare on the page, education that, say, Richard Morgan, does not appear to share (and which let's face it: which of those two has the taste for violence on the page realism?). Morgan also claimed memorably to have rewritten an equivalent of Denethor with 'a battle-axe in his hand,' if I remember correctly, which is a substantively foolish claim, considering that the original Denethor makes a big deal not only of subsisting on war rations himself, but appears to wear weapons at all times, send his own son to near-certain death in battle, and also makes the stupid claim that he sleeps in his mail armor!  Which...I may be biased, as a life-long insomniac, but I suspect is nearly impossible thing to do, and certainly a very silly one for any sort of medievalist (TOLKIEN) to suggest. Anyone who's worn the stuff for five minutes knows this. Ring mail is HARD and HEAVY and STIFF, even if you're wearing the appropriate padding beneath. Considering the relative pointlessness of wearing the stuff in bed, instead of, you know, posting guards--unless your goal is to be too sleepy to manage the war during the day, I suspect all you'll succeed in doing is smelling a little foul and rusty(which, in fairness, medieval people probably did quite a lot).

In summary, Denethor is already an absurdly militaristic warlord, who orders a foolishly aggressive military action and who just happens to be very old and rules as a general, not a captain in the field.