It's a relic of when fantasy was still written by nerds and not theatre kids, similar to what happened to sci-fi. Most popular fantasy now is either D&D wholesome chungus shit, or else hyperfocused on feeling 'authentic' which usually means dark and miserable. I can't just play a knight with a magic sword, I need to be an authentically inbred knight with authentic plague boils, all the authentic lore has to feel like it's from the toothless mouth of an authentic illiterate anglo-saxon dirt farmer praying to gods who are all corrupted/insane (I liked Tainted Grail but holy fuck is it textbook for this shit). Imo this is the fault of both the trannies who want to subvert historical tropes (what if the church le evil!) and rightwing larpers who want to follow them autistically (omg le stoic tradcath knight persisting a dying world, he is literally me!) and as a result skybabies have literally forgotten that fantasy doesn't have to be based on reality to be good.