Readers who were weaned on fantasy fiction in the 2000's could be excused for thinking that grittiness has always been a prerequisite for the genre. After all, morally ambiguous protagonists, dingy backdrops, and stories where there are consequences to violence—both physical and emotional—are commonplace motifs in fantasy now. That wasn't always the case.
Traditionally, fantasy authors glamorized the heroic deeds of their characters. Much like the mythology and fables the authors drew upon for inspiration, fantasy stories were peopled with larger-than-life heroes who were brave enough to pit themselves against true evil—and always came out on top. This is true in the traditions of both sword & sorcery and epic fantasy.
Robert E. Howard's Conan might be a barbarian, but he is driven by an unwavering moral compass and his physical prowess is unmatched. If you're an evil warlord or a necromancer, you're in for trouble. Likewise, Tolkien's Aragorn and even the unlikely heroes Bilbo and Frodo are unwaveringly good, and while they might doubt themselves at times (or be really lazy at others), that doesn't stop them from fighting and defeating Smaug and Sauron, the embodiments of evil.
With gritty fantasy, we entirely lose that dichotomy between good and evil. Our protagonists might have good intentions or aim to be heroic, but real life gets in the way, and in real life, things are complex.
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It's this underlying premise—the harshness of reality—that defines gritty fantasy.
While there is some overlap between gritty fantasy and grimdark, the two subgenres are not necessarily the same. Both subvert the romantic tropes of fantasy, but gritty fantasy does so by wallowing in the minutia of real life, whether it be the horrors of the battlefield, the horrors of disease and pestilence in a medieval city without modern sanitation, or the horrors of having to watch your child starve to death. Grimdark can do this too, but it subverts traditional fantasy by taking things a step further and purposely creating an aesthetic that is amoral, violent, and dystopian.
