What's the darkest YA scene you've read?

J.S.Fairey

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I think gore is different than darkness, though. Darkness deals with the theme of the story - gore is just blood and deaths. It's what you do with the blood and deaths that makes it dark. The meaning of the deaths make it dark. Otherwise, it's just a gimmick to get your attention.

And I think this is a really important distinction to make. The darkness of THG - and BATTLE ROYALE as well though I've never read it - comes from the themes, not the execution (no pun intended, I swear). And - bit of a derail here, I'm sorry, but it's sticking to the same theme - that's why the Joker in The Dark Knight will always be scarier than the slasher dude from Scream. It's not about blood, and guts, and gore, it's about what all that stands for that makes it so terrifying. And that's important in literature. There's been a lot of mention of rape in YA novels on this thread, or that kind of thing. And while that's horrible and disgusting to imagine, it's not dark. What's dark is the idea behind it, and the harm it leaves behind, psychologically.

Thoughts and intents, will always be scarier than actions, in my opinion. Being killed, pa, everyone dies in the end. But knowing I'm about to be killed, and knowing that there's nothing I can do about it? Terrifying.
 

hellbee

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It's not necessarily terrifying, but it's really unsettling and leaves you feeling gross and creeped out in Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald when [SPOILERS] one of the characters walks in on her father and her little sister sitting together on the rocking chair, and then it occurs to her that they never owned a rocking chair. He was molesting the younger sister. I had to shut the book for a little while after that. It was the smallest passage but it was so unsettling and point-blank and not necessarily a shock but not what you expected to hear, either.

Also, I was always really gutted by the gas station scene in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It's just so emotionally trying to read.
 

Pikko

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SPOILERS

For me the darkest bits of Hunger Games comes with Peeta in Mockingjay. Collins makes subtle references through him and Johanna about what happened to them in the Capitol and it's pretty tough stuff to think about, almost more so since she doesn't go into too much detail and it's basically left to your imagination.

For instance, I think Peeta refers to the sound Darius (former Peacekeeper, now Avox) makes as they torture him in front of Peeta simply because he knew him from District 12. Darius has no tongue, so Peeta says he makes a strange noise that haunts him.

Then of course there's that short reference from either Peeta or Johanna, I forget who exactly, where they say something like, "We had adjoining cells in the Capitol, we're very familiar with each other's screams."