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Commorragh

2020-09-08T00:31:00Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:28CE:8ECD:4662:4FE9:

{{Infobox 40k Nations
|name=Commorragh
|image=[[Image:Dark Eldar Lexicon Flag.PNG|230px|center]]
|bgcolor=
|fgcolor=
|Capital= [[Commorragh]]
|Official Languages=Eldar Lexicon
|Power=Great Power
|Size=Unknown, presumed Galactic
|Head of State=(''Incumbent'') [[Asdrubael Vect]]
|Head of Government=Ythillian Dynasty, Kraillach Dynasty, Xelian Dynasty (''prior to Vect''), Various [[Archon_(Warhammer_40,000)|Archons]] (''current'')
|Governmental Structure=Authoritarian Aristocracy (''M30-M35'') Libertarian Meritocracy (''M35-current'')
|State Religion/Ideology=State Atheism/Secularism (''Post-Fall of the Eldar'') Temple of Khaine, Dark Muses, Secularism (''32nd Millennium onward'')
|Demographic= [[Eldar]], [[Mandrakes]], [[Sslyth]], [[Humans]], various [[Xenos]], various slaves
|Military Force= Kabals, Wych Cults, Haemonculi Covens, [[Eldar]] [[Corsairs]] and Mercenaries.
}}
{{Topquote|Is an Eldar not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the Eldar in the Exodite Worlds, 'it belongs to the land.' 'No!' says the Harlequin, 'it belongs to Cegorach.' 'No!' says the Eldar in the Craftworld, 'it belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Commorragh. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the Haemonculus would not be bound by petty morality; where the Archon would not be constrained by the slave! And with the sweat of your brow, Commorragh can become your city as well.|<s>Andrew Ryan</s> Asdrubael Vect on Commorragh}}
{{Topquote|If the galaxy was a giant rundown town, Commorragh would be the local nightclub-turned-insane asylum.|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Big E making his opinion on the city clear]]
}}
'''Commorragh''' is the main realm (there really is no better word for it) of the [[Dark Eldar]]. It sits at the heart of the [[Webway]]. Games Workshop named them after/based them on the Camorra clans of Naples, the Scriptural city Gommorrah and Mos Eisley spaceport (though Commorragh makes Mos Eisley look like an Amish community).

Sounding like something that would be named by a [[Ork|Mon-Keigh]], it started out during the days of the [[Eldar]] Empire as a bunch of private realms where bored Eldar could do perverse things in privacy -- or in large groups, if that floated their boats. These realms' relative isolation from reality partially shielded those within from the birth of [[Slaanesh]], preventing them from being outright sucked into the [[Warp]], though they quickly realized that they were still in danger as their souls began to erode from within their bodies.

Then, they discovered that [[Grimdark|causing pain to other creatures allowed them to top up their souls and stay youthful and energetic]]. These realms slowly coalesced as their occupants found common purpose in raiding realspace for victims, and then bringing them home to torture them. Eventually, some of these raiders banded together under the banners of the old noble houses, and the alliances and mergers brought about the Dark City we all know and love.

Because [[Dark Eldar]] have no need for foolish things like supports or foundations, structures get built at all sorts of crazy angles, which makes things that much more entertaining for the residents; from jet-bike races among the rooftops to gladiatorial challenges in the arenas to the [[Rape|therapist's office]], Commorragh has it all!

Despite it being hidden in the Webway and being crazy heavily defended Commorragh has been invaded multiple times: often by [[Orks]], one time by [[Space Marines]] ([[Salamanders]] and their successors, fittingly) or [[Chaos Space Marines]] ([[Death Guard]] of all people), but mostly by Daemons. Almost '''all''' of these invasions were engineered by the Dark Eldar themselves to deal with their rivals in the ensuing chaos of battle. Denizens don't even consider these incidents threatening anymore. If anything your average Kabalite sees it as an upgraded version of a realspace raid - you get the joy of the hunt without leaving the Dark City and subjecting yourself to a withering influence of materium sucking half of the energy you take from torturing your quarry, AND you can backstab your competitors, superiors or aspiring underlings as there's no realspace raid truce to stop you. Sure, some would die in the fighting, but most invaders don't have body annihilating weapons, so the neighborhood Haemunculus can fire up a resurrection chamber and regenerate you from little more than a phalanx digit in their back-alley shop of horrors. Anyone who gets "accidentally" vaporized by "friendly" darklight fire certainly ''deserves'' to stay dead for not watching their back. Despite probably having one of the smallest populations for a faction in the galaxy, the fact that they are all in one "place" makes any attack a supremely risky proposition.

However, in at least three instances the forces of the [[Imperium]] have displayed that they can locate, enter and exit Commorragh, with both the [[Deathwatch]] and [[Space Wolves]] having done so and the forces of the [[Forge World]] Stygies also having marched an army right into the city before.

==The History of the Dark City==
[[File:DEMapNew.jpg|500px|right|thumb|Known Kabals, webway gates and planets leading to Commorragh.]]
Commorragh's history begins with the rise of the Eldar Empire, a stellar nation which straddled the galaxy for countless millennia and was the dominant force in the galaxy until the Fall which saw their almost total collapse. One of the key advantages which allowed the Eldar Empire to grow so powerful was their ability to use the Webway, a form of movement left to them by their creators; the [[Old Ones]]. The Webway was the principle mode of transportation for the Eldar during the tenure of their Empire and, as a result, numerous port cities were constructed within it. Greatest of these was the city of Commorragh itself.

However, when the spiritual malaise and decay that would doom their species set in, places like Commorragh were not exempt, with the inhabitants becoming cruel and capricious creatures, seeking ever more decadent, and often violent, forms of self-gratification. When [[The Fall]] occured and [[Slaanesh]] was birthed into the galaxy in an orgy of...well just about everything, the Eldar Empire practically ceased over night, with countless Eldar simply falling dead.

The Eldar within the Webway, however, were shielded from this effect. Although Slaanesh had purchase on their souls, the Young God could not simply extract it at will, instead slowly draining the soul away. As a result the Webway, like the [[Craftworlds]], [[Cegorach]] or the World Spirits of the [[Exodites]], became a form of refuge for the surviving Eldar. Commorragh, as the greatest of these Webway Cities, became a hub for surviving Eldar to gather and exist in relative safety.

Unlike their Craftworld, Exodite and Harlequin cousins, however, the Eldar of Commorragh chose not to give up their old ways, even though it had now literally damned their souls to an eternity of torment. Instead they devised a method by which they could sustain and feed themselves off the misery and suffering of others, ensuring they could live and escape Slaanesh as long as they could get access to adequate amounts of pain, sort of like garmonbozia. Indeed the Dark Eldar are, effectively, pain [[vampires]].

In the initial history of Commorragh it was ruled by dynastic noble families and clans, feuding with each other, and leaving it a rather anarchic place. Their rule was, however, eventually overturned by a former slave known as [[Asdrubael Vect]] who was smart enough to realize that there wasn't anything that couldn't be solved by a Space Marine and, so, managed to lure the heads of the major noble families into fights with some Salamander Chapter Space Marines which saw them all promptly killed. In the aftermath Asdrubael took over and instituted a new system based off Kabals, and became the top authority within the Dark City. Of note the term 'Dark Eldar' only came to be used by the inhabitants of Commorragh to describe themselves following Asdrubael's rise to power.

During the [[Great Crusade]] the Dark Eldar were not heard from much, but continued to be the sadistic freaks that we know and loath today, but with one new addition to their gruesome to do list. In order to hold off Slaanesh from devouring their souls they needed slaves (lots of them) to take their place. The Dark Eldar proceeded to launch raids across the galaxy where they plundered countless defenceless worlds including [[Vulkan]]s adopted home world which certainly didn't help to convince the Imperium to drop its xenophobic views. In the aftermath of the Great Crusade the Dark Eldar were involved in one incident; it is believed that the [[Primarch]] of the [[White Scars]] went missing pursuing Dark Eldar into the Webway. What exactly happened is unknown though, but it is unlikely he ever was taken to Commorragh or found by any of the leadership of the Dark City as the Dark Eldar would most likely all be dead in that case.

After the Horus Heresy the next major event to occur to the Dark City was when the Champion of Slaanesh, [[Lucius the Eternal]] was briefly detained along with [[Fabius Bile]] within an outer satellite of Commorragh. The capture was revealed to be a ruse, however, by the [[Emperor's Children]] who proceeded to release Daemons to feast upon the souls of the Dark Eldar present. It was noted as being the largest single loss of Eldar life in ages, with the Daemons of Slaanesh so overjoyed that the entire Dark City was briefly cowed from action as they looked to their own defences.

Despite these incidents the reign of Asdrubael Vect only saw one serious challenge, from the domain of Shaa-dom, a powerful holdout of the former nobility. Although they proved a worthy adversary for a while the master of the Dark City eventually doomed the domain to a Daemon infestation, removing that threat. Although the leader of Shaa-dom was briefly restored to life by descendants of the nobility, and plunged Commorragh into war, this threat too was halted eventually at great cost. Only much later would another, more serious, competitor for power emerge in the form of a jilted former consort of his; Lady Malys.

Lady Malys became a powerful Archon with connections to the Harlequins, who seemed set to guide her on a path perhaps connected to the [[Ynnari]] as they helped bring [[Yvraine]], future Herald of [[Ynnead]] to her attention. For a while the Dark City began to devolve into tension from the rising enmity between Lady Malys and Asdrubael...as well as the ominous collapsing of the defences around a part of Commorragh named 'Khaine's Gate'.

==Fracture of Biel-Tan==
Of late Commorragh has been rather turbulent. The emergence of [[Yvraine]] as the Herald of [[Ynnead]] saw the largest dysjunction in Commorragh's history, the infamous Khaine's Gate tearing open and allowing a veritable flood of Daemons to begin overwhelming the city. Although Vect had put counter-measures in place, and the Kabals did attempt to counter-attack, these did little to stop the invasion, with the Daemons continuously gaining ground and feasting on the souls of the slain Dark Eldar. Indeed the situation became so grim that many Dark Eldar began to talk openly of overthrowing Vect for allowing such an event to occur in the first place. Actually when you think about it it couldn't have been ''that bad'' considering they had the luxury of plotting a coup over the dinner table rather than being more worried about being gutted by a daemon and sent on the express route to their creepy stalker goddess.

Certainly the Dark Eldar did not help themselves by continuing to fight against each other and by dispatching some of their own even in such a dire time to chase down and slay the Ynnari.

However, just as things began to look truly dire for the home of the Dark Eldar two things occurred; first the famed Decapitator of the Mandrakes completed his ritual, causing the Dark Dimension to flood out into Commorragh proper and a tidal wave of Mandrakes to counter-attack the Daemons, and secondly the Haemonculi decided the threat was at last dire enough that they opened up their abattoirs and released their most deranged and fearsome of beasts. Combined, these two attacks finally quelled the Daemon invasion, saving Commorragh from destruction.

In the aftermath, though, the status quo had shifted. The city is damaged like never before, Asdrubael Vect's position is now shakier than ever and the effects of the Mandrake's dimension intruding on Commorragh is not yet fully known.

== Law and Order ==
Yes, there are LAWS in this god forsaken place. Like all laws, it is something that stops the society itself from collapsing. For a society that runs on debauchery, piracy and slavery however, this is no exception.

The laws are:

*Do not bring psykers (unless they're a [[shadowseer]]) or use any psyker power. This one in general has to do with the frigging Gates of Khaine which block daemons from entering the city, as well as not letting Slaanesh itself sense their presence and follow it to the city.
*Obey Vect. He is the top dog of the city. If he tells you to jump, you jump. If he tells you to get fucked by Haemonculi or go on a death match in the arena, you do it.
*Obey the Kabals, unless doing so involves disobeying Vect (even then one may still suffer for disobeying the Kabals).

That's pretty much it. However, since there's no police force in Commorragh, the city has a lot of personal freedom where you can murder people whenever you want, stealing shit and play grimdark cyberpunk grand theft auto. However, killing the wrong or important people like a member of a Kabal or a Haemonculus can grant yourself an instant death sentence, where instead of people watching you get publicly execute, you will find a mob of fully armed Commorrites on your ass. The same goes to messing with the fighting arena (dark eldar need their entertainment), Haemonculi (dark eldar needs their healing and resurrection) and Scourges (dark eldar need their communication relays).

The religious situation in the Dark City has been complex. Given their tendency towards selfish hedonism, Commorrites tend to play fast and loose with religion as a whole, with secularism as the main order of the day. Many in Commorragh outright dismiss religion and gods altogether for their own selfish desires. After the Fall of the Eldar, Slaanesh nommed all the Eldar gods save Khaine, Cegorach and Isha; coupled with their toxic culture, social Darwinist tendencies and selfishness, many decided to just abandon religion altogether - although atheism was never officially enforced it was encouraged (this is commemorated in-universe with Iconoclast's Mound, a mountainous landfill of various religious icons from all different races, beginning with Eldar religious icons when the Commorrites threw away their own beliefs). Later they learned that Khaine, Isha and Cegorach survived. Some Dark Eldar do revere Khaine and some occasionally join the ranks of the Harlequins, but most Dark Eldar are either non-religious or atheistic. Vect himself has some syncretized views on religion in Commorragh; he is a self-serving - as our frenemies at Tv Tropes say - naytheist (meaning he believes gods exist but refuses to worship or follow them), is dismissive of religiosity in all its forms unless he finds an adherent useful to him (unless they serve Chaos), and brushed off Ynnead as a myth until Ynnead awakened his power in Yvraine while in Commorragh, whereupon Vect's view on anything Ynnead changed from "it's a worthless myth" to "destroy it all".

As of the Gathering Storm, Yvraine's sudden awakening to Ynnead's blessed power has broken one of the above law to not use any psyker power. As a result, daemons poured in and Vect had to deal with this shit himself. Welp surprisingly, he failed and now Commorragh is more chaotic than before, riots everywhere with Dark Eldar joining either Lady Malys or Vect for more misunderstood infighting.

So yeah, order for the sake of disorder, ironic huh?

== A Tour Guide of Commorragh ==

[[File:Commorragh_Better.jpg|thumb|400px|The skyline of Commorragh. Can--and will--be viewed from any angle.|right]]

If you're not a Dark Eldar, Harlequin, or a badass mercenary, Commorragh can be difficult to get around in. It's a city that destroys the weak, torments the slow, and kills the stupid. Of course, all the previous three will die, it just varies on how and when. Despite popular theory, non-Eldar can prosper in Commorragh, since there are several parts where aliens live in towns and the most fearsome can be recruited into Dark Eldar Kabals, mostly because outsiders are at least familiar with the concepts of loyalty and honesty, unlike your average Dark Eldar, and those are often in demand in the Dark City.

A list of tips for newcomers.

* Head to the district called 'Null City' and become a badass alien mercenary (humans are aliens to Dark Eldar).
* Don't fuck with [[Asdrubael Vect]].

Otherwise.

* You were most likely brought back so Dark Eldar could feed off your pain so Slaanesh won't eat their souls/ sacrificed to Slaanesh in their place.
* You may have been brought back to be a [[Haemonculus|Haemonculi's]] guinea pig, snack, pet, a diversion so they won't get bored (which still involves unspeakable torture) or all of the above.
* You may be sent to the gladiator arenas of Commorragh to fight for your life against Wyches, dangerous beasts ranging from Razorwing flocks to captured Carnifexes, or both at the same time. This will last until you die.
* You can be killed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or even if you went where you're supposed to go).
* If you're a slave, you're expendable currency
* If you stare at [[Scourges]] for too long, they will fly down, pick you up and impale you on a spire.
* Don't feed the Scourges, they're not pigeons, if you do expect things to end up like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds!
* There's no night or day, just the dull, baleful glow of stolen stars. It also has many areas where light never reaches (Dark Eldar adapted by developing natural night vision).
* In the shadows you can encounter Mandrakes, who will kill and/or eat you.
* The unnatural geometry of Commmoragh can be extremely disorienting for visitors.
* That banging noise near Khaine's Gate isn't [[Skarbrand]] and his daemonic hordes (see [[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device]]) it's absolutely nothing at all. NOTHING-AT-ALL!
* Commoragh could be called a "tourist trap" in the most literal sense of the word, as anyone who tours Commoragh will end up trapped in an arena or Haemonculus lab and end up as a meat puppet for some demented Haemonculus who thinks you'd look better with snake skin and swords for arms and legs!
* Commoragh has free healthcare, just see Dr Haemonculus for the slightest cough.
* [[Reaver Jetbike]]s and [[Hellions]] HATE each other and they hate you, but while it's likely that the reavers would run you down for fun, the hellions aren't so sadistic, they'd give you a head start first!

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Eldar]]

[[Category: Dark Eldar]]

{{Template:40k-Governments}}

Edgy

2020-09-08T00:28:10Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:28CE:8ECD:4662:4FE9:

{{Topquote|As far as I can make out "edgy" occurs when middlebrow, middle-aged profiteers are looking to suck the energy--not to mention the spending money--out of the "youth culture." So they come up with this fake concept of "seeming to be dangerous when every move they make is the result of market research and a corporate master plan".|[[Daria 40k|Daria]], Episode [3.05] The Lost Girls.}}

{{Topquote|My name is Not Important; what is important is what I'm going to do. I just fucking hate this world, and the human worms feasting on its carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred, and I always wanted to die violently. This is the time of vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill and it's time for me to die; my genocide crusade begins... here!| The Crusader, aka Not Important}}

{{Topquote|Make it [[World of Darkness|dark]], make it [[Grimdark|grim]], make it [[ANGRY MARINES|tough]] but then, for the love of God, [[Comedy Marines|tell a joke]].|Joss Whedon giving a nice example on how to avoid being edgy even while creating a dark world}}

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people trying too hard (and sometimes too aggressively) to make things more tragic, [[grimdark]], controversial or cool. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

Another far less negative use of the term is to describe something on the 'edge' of what's acceptable, pushing established boundaries of convention. For example, by this definition ''Batman: The Animated Series'' was edgy for making an animated series which defied expectations of how true to its base concept and generally well-written a show designed to sell toys could be. Some more examples of this would be Ren and Stimpy (which was crude and vulgar) or Invader Zim (which could get dark in subject matter, and used a fair bit of black humor); in both cases, a decent bit of the comedy was of the "I can't believe that they did ''THAT'' on a kid's cartoon show!" variety. A milder version of this was Sonic the Hedgehog in contrast to Mario. In 1989 the Simpsons was the Edgy take on the classic family sitcom archetype and in 1999 Family Guy had slotted itself in as the Edgy version of The Simpsons. For the 1990s and early 2000s Edgy was a favored term of cynical marketing types which drew the attention of the world's sarcastic snarkers, many of which came to congregate on sites such as 4chan.

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes brooding loners skilled at violence who hate anyone else having authority over them (a sentiment common among real-life edgelords), are obsessively nonconformist and have a troubled past (shit, they might also wear sunglasses at night) but without the nuance or skill to pull it off. The end result is they makes themselves look silly. "Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, institutions are the villains unless the edgelord made them and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. An edgelord in writing will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, rape and bodily harm are bad for literature, but rather that their sloppy execution with no regard to their depth is. As shown above, even the most "edgelord" of concepts can be salvaged and even made bearable with proper handling, especially going by the latter definition - but if you do it enough, the boundaries shift and what was edgy becomes the new norm, and there is always the risk of falling ''over'' the edge. This is why the old definition has fallen increasingly out of favor as time has gone on — people began seeing the dross sold under the title of "edgy", and the idea of what it meant thus moved away from the positive connotations marketing execs desired and closer to the qualities described above. Plus, this is the internet, and people would rather a word just be an insult or a compliment to reduce confusion.

==The Anatomy of Edginess==
Edginess is in some ways like a cargo cult. During WWII in the Pacific, the US military set up bases on remote, but inhabited islands, bringing with them a lot of stuff like planes and cars and so forth that was quite amazing to the stone age natives, to whom the world had been a few dozen square kilometers of land surrounded by ocean, with hazy stories of other such islands. When the military left, some of the natives took to making coconut and wooden radios and flight towers based off of some vague recollection of the military variants, unaware that making the shape alone does not get you the functional item.

In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Individuals who pander to said demographic (or are otherwise just downright hacks) will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

===Edgy and [[Grimdark]]===
While edginess is frequently associated with invoking grimdark [[Derp|for the sake of it and nothing else]], it's important to remember that this alone does not edgy make. As an example, [[WH40K]]'s [[Imperium of Man]] has reasons to be fair and kind when capable: though it has plenty of genocide, xenocide (completely annihilating species even when they are gentle and kind), torture, forced labor (they draw the line at commercialized chattel slavery, but un-unionized indentured servitude is fair game), witch hunts and militarism that would give Hitler a chubby beyond the grave, said horrors have reasonable justifications. Aliens were buying and selling humans like pets and culling them by the billion, operating slaver outposts even in our solar system before the Emperor came into leading humanity into a roaring rampage of revenge. And regarding souls and the universe after the Heresy, any deviation from faith in the Emperor will ''literally'' send a human to hell upon death, with their soul becoming dæmon food (and/or sex toys).

Any mistreated machinery will attract foul entities and corruption that will fuck you up seven ways till Monday and chew you out; any ill-coaxed [[Machine Spirit]] will jam and blow up in your face; and any laxity will make [[Chaos]] cults pop up by the billion in a week. Then there's [[Necrons|the genocidal robots from another age]], [[Eldar|space elves that would murder a planet on the off chance that their]] [[Farseer]] would break a nail otherwise (and they're still the nice space elves despite that, as their [[Dark Eldar|webway dwelling cousins are even worse - murdering entire planets just because they like the sound of millions of people screaming]]), [[Orks|the ambulatory (AND belligerent) fungi that plague the entire galaxy in a series of wars]], and [[Tyranids|extragalactic horrors that intend to eat everyone's face.]] [[TL;DR]] The Imperium acts like an asshole Hitler/Hirohito bastard child because the alternative is much, MUCH worse.

At the level of narrative, the fact that things are very very bad is a core thematic element of this world. As pointed out there are reasons why things are so miserable in this world which flow logically and despite this there can be points of contrast. Imperials still have the same potential to love and be kind like modern real world humans do. The Tau are hopeful despite the evils of this world. Occasionally pragmatism can overcome the deep seeded prejudices to overcome greater evils, if only for a while. And even if it is preformed by Conscript Guardsmen, Commissars or Space Marines, each the product of horrendous military institutions, can fight to achieve acts of genuine (if still typically brutal) heroism.

Now if you want a senselessly edgy story in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, an example would be the now non-canon [[Khornate Knights]].

===In closing===
There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark is not a magic bullet for achieving profoundness without trying.

==Notable Edgelords==

*[[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
*The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer.
** The ultimate example of "pointless edge" with this character is writer Garth Ennis' (and Ennis himself is quite the edgelord) professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
*The Joker, depending on the writer. In particular, look at Heath Ledger's, Joaquin Phoenix's and Jared Leto's takes on him.
** However, both Ledger's and Phoenix's Joker portrayals were "edge with a point". Ledger's Joker was an exploration of human evils regarding terrorism and the various morality problems in dealing with it. Likewise for Phoenix's Joker, except the exploration was on the Origins of Evil. Jared Leto's Joker, on the other hand, was almost textbook pointless "Edgelord".
*[[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
*Some [[World of Darkness]] characters, particularly Sabbat or Baali.
*Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
** If you want the textbook definition of "pointless edge", go look up [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** And in the game ''Sonic Forces'', which actually lets you play as your OC through a custom avatar, the villain Infinite is a parody of edgy villain sue characters.
*Several in [[World of Warcraft]]. Character-wise the worst offenders - in ascending order - are Illidan Stormrage (in ''"Burning Crusade"'' and the second half of ''"Legion"''), Deathwing (in ''"Cataclysm"'') and Sylvanas Windrunner (the entirety of World of Warcraft). Others include several Death Knights and lots of the Demon Hunters and Forsaken (even their faction names are edgy).
*Several characters from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]], depending on the books or the TV adaptation. Examples from both include Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton.
*Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
**[[Goblin Slayer]]. Goblins' characterization is based solely on the fact that they rape (in the sexual and the "defile the land" sense), to the point where most drama from the already bare-boned story comes from "x character was traumatized by goblin rape" in some way or another. The protag - the titular "Goblin Slayer" - is obsessed with killing Goblins so much that it's all he could think of because they destroyed his hometown and raped his sister to death in front of him when he was a kid.
*Reaper from Overwatch
*[[Blackguard]]s
* Warhammer 40k has so, so many there's entire edgelord ''factions'', such as the [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]], the [[Black Templars]] and [[Dark Eldar]] (DE get extra points for their love of selfishness, dark colors and torture). Character examples include Rogal Dorn, Konrad Cruze, Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra, Urien Rakarth and Drazhar.
* Warhammer Fantasy, similar to above but to a lesser degree. Notable examples here include [[Valnir|Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
*[[Malal]]. As if the Chaos gods' emotional tantrums are not enough, there exists this guy who out-hates everyone, including himself, with servants who are tougher and stronger than theirs.
*Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
*[[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also his edge is undermined by fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to edgy nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Edgy

2020-09-08T00:26:34Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:28CE:8ECD:4662:4FE9:

{{Topquote|As far as I can make out "edgy" occurs when middlebrow, middle-aged profiteers are looking to suck the energy--not to mention the spending money--out of the "youth culture." So they come up with this fake concept of "seeming to be dangerous when every move they make is the result of market research and a corporate master plan".|[[Daria 40k|Daria]], Episode [3.05] The Lost Girls.}}

{{Topquote|My name is Not Important; what is important is what I'm going to do. I just fucking hate this world, and the human worms feasting on its carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred, and I always wanted to die violently. This is the time of vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill and it's time for me to die; my genocide crusade begins... here!| The Crusader, aka Not Important}}

{{Topquote|Make it [[World of Darkness|dark]], make it [[Grimdark|grim]], make it [[ANGRY MARINES|tough]] but then, for the love of God, [[Comedy Marines|tell a joke]].|Joss Whedon giving a nice example on how to avoid being edgy even while creating a dark world}}

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people trying too hard (and sometimes too aggressively) to make things more tragic, [[grimdark]], controversial or cool. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

Another far less negative use of the term is to describe something on the 'edge' of what's acceptable, pushing established boundaries of convention. For example, by this definition ''Batman: The Animated Series'' was edgy for making an animated series which defied expectations of how true to its base concept and generally well-written a show designed to sell toys could be. Some more examples of this would be Ren and Stimpy (which was crude and vulgar) or Invader Zim (which could get dark in subject matter, and used a fair bit of black humor); in both cases, a decent bit of the comedy was of the "I can't believe that they did ''THAT'' on a kid's cartoon show!" variety. A milder version of this was Sonic the Hedgehog in contrast to Mario. In 1989 the Simpsons was the Edgy take on the classic family sitcom archetype and in 1999 Family Guy had slotted itself in as the Edgy version of The Simpsons. For the 1990s and early 2000s Edgy was a favored term of cynical marketing types which drew the attention of the world's sarcastic snarkers, many of which came to congregate on sites such as 4chan.

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes brooding loners skilled at violence who hate anyone else having authority over them (a sentiment common among real-life edgelords), are obsessively nonconformist and have a troubled past (shit, they might also wear sunglasses at night) but without the nuance or skill to pull it off. The end result is they makes themselves look silly. "Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. An edgelord in writing will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, rape and bodily harm are bad for literature, but rather that their sloppy execution with no regard to their depth is. As shown above, even the most "edgelord" of concepts can be salvaged and even made bearable with proper handling, especially going by the latter definition - but if you do it enough, the boundaries shift and what was edgy becomes the new norm, and there is always the risk of falling ''over'' the edge. This is why the old definition has fallen increasingly out of favor as time has gone on — people began seeing the dross sold under the title of "edgy", and the idea of what it meant thus moved away from the positive connotations marketing execs desired and closer to the qualities described above. Plus, this is the internet, and people would rather a word just be an insult or a compliment to reduce confusion.

==The Anatomy of Edginess==
Edginess is in some ways like a cargo cult. During WWII in the Pacific, the US military set up bases on remote, but inhabited islands, bringing with them a lot of stuff like planes and cars and so forth that was quite amazing to the stone age natives, to whom the world had been a few dozen square kilometers of land surrounded by ocean, with hazy stories of other such islands. When the military left, some of the natives took to making coconut and wooden radios and flight towers based off of some vague recollection of the military variants, unaware that making the shape alone does not get you the functional item.

In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Individuals who pander to said demographic (or are otherwise just downright hacks) will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

===Edgy and [[Grimdark]]===
While edginess is frequently associated with invoking grimdark [[Derp|for the sake of it and nothing else]], it's important to remember that this alone does not edgy make. As an example, [[WH40K]]'s [[Imperium of Man]] has reasons to be fair and kind when capable: though it has plenty of genocide, xenocide (completely annihilating species even when they are gentle and kind), torture, forced labor (they draw the line at commercialized chattel slavery, but un-unionized indentured servitude is fair game), witch hunts and militarism that would give Hitler a chubby beyond the grave, said horrors have reasonable justifications. Aliens were buying and selling humans like pets and culling them by the billion, operating slaver outposts even in our solar system before the Emperor came into leading humanity into a roaring rampage of revenge. And regarding souls and the universe after the Heresy, any deviation from faith in the Emperor will ''literally'' send a human to hell upon death, with their soul becoming dæmon food (and/or sex toys).

Any mistreated machinery will attract foul entities and corruption that will fuck you up seven ways till Monday and chew you out; any ill-coaxed [[Machine Spirit]] will jam and blow up in your face; and any laxity will make [[Chaos]] cults pop up by the billion in a week. Then there's [[Necrons|the genocidal robots from another age]], [[Eldar|space elves that would murder a planet on the off chance that their]] [[Farseer]] would break a nail otherwise (and they're still the nice space elves despite that, as their [[Dark Eldar|webway dwelling cousins are even worse - murdering entire planets just because they like the sound of millions of people screaming]]), [[Orks|the ambulatory (AND belligerent) fungi that plague the entire galaxy in a series of wars]], and [[Tyranids|extragalactic horrors that intend to eat everyone's face.]] [[TL;DR]] The Imperium acts like an asshole Hitler/Hirohito bastard child because the alternative is much, MUCH worse.

At the level of narrative, the fact that things are very very bad is a core thematic element of this world. As pointed out there are reasons why things are so miserable in this world which flow logically and despite this there can be points of contrast. Imperials still have the same potential to love and be kind like modern real world humans do. The Tau are hopeful despite the evils of this world. Occasionally pragmatism can overcome the deep seeded prejudices to overcome greater evils, if only for a while. And even if it is preformed by Conscript Guardsmen, Commissars or Space Marines, each the product of horrendous military institutions, can fight to achieve acts of genuine (if still typically brutal) heroism.

Now if you want a senselessly edgy story in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, an example would be the now non-canon [[Khornate Knights]].

===In closing===
There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark is not a magic bullet for achieving profoundness without trying.

==Notable Edgelords==

*[[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
*The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer.
** The ultimate example of "pointless edge" with this character is writer Garth Ennis' (and Ennis himself is quite the edgelord) professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
*The Joker, depending on the writer. In particular, look at Heath Ledger's, Joaquin Phoenix's and Jared Leto's takes on him.
** However, both Ledger's and Phoenix's Joker portrayals were "edge with a point". Ledger's Joker was an exploration of human evils regarding terrorism and the various morality problems in dealing with it. Likewise for Phoenix's Joker, except the exploration was on the Origins of Evil. Jared Leto's Joker, on the other hand, was almost textbook pointless "Edgelord".
*[[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
*Some [[World of Darkness]] characters, particularly Sabbat or Baali.
*Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
** If you want the textbook definition of "pointless edge", go look up [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** And in the game ''Sonic Forces'', which actually lets you play as your OC through a custom avatar, the villain Infinite is a parody of edgy villain sue characters.
*Several in [[World of Warcraft]]. Character-wise the worst offenders - in ascending order - are Illidan Stormrage (in ''"Burning Crusade"'' and the second half of ''"Legion"''), Deathwing (in ''"Cataclysm"'') and Sylvanas Windrunner (the entirety of World of Warcraft). Others include several Death Knights and lots of the Demon Hunters and Forsaken (even their faction names are edgy).
*Several characters from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]], depending on the books or the TV adaptation. Examples from both include Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton.
*Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
**[[Goblin Slayer]]. Goblins' characterization is based solely on the fact that they rape (in the sexual and the "defile the land" sense), to the point where most drama from the already bare-boned story comes from "x character was traumatized by goblin rape" in some way or another. The protag - the titular "Goblin Slayer" - is obsessed with killing Goblins so much that it's all he could think of because they destroyed his hometown and raped his sister to death in front of him when he was a kid.
*Reaper from Overwatch
*[[Blackguard]]s
* Warhammer 40k has so, so many there's entire edgelord ''factions'', such as the [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]], the [[Black Templars]] and [[Dark Eldar]] (DE get extra points for their love of selfishness, dark colors and torture). Character examples include Rogal Dorn, Konrad Cruze, Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra, Urien Rakarth and Drazhar.
* Warhammer Fantasy, similar to above but to a lesser degree. Notable examples here include [[Valnir|Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
*[[Malal]]. As if the Chaos gods' emotional tantrums are not enough, there exists this guy who out-hates everyone, including himself, with servants who are tougher and stronger than theirs.
*Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
*[[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also his edge is undermined by fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to edgy nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Edgy

2020-09-08T00:19:17Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:28CE:8ECD:4662:4FE9:

{{Topquote|As far as I can make out "edgy" occurs when middlebrow, middle-aged profiteers are looking to suck the energy--not to mention the spending money--out of the "youth culture." So they come up with this fake concept of "seeming to be dangerous when every move they make is the result of market research and a corporate master plan".|[[Daria 40k|Daria]], Episode [3.05] The Lost Girls.}}

{{Topquote|My name is Not Important; what is important is what I'm going to do. I just fucking hate this world, and the human worms feasting on its carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred, and I always wanted to die violently. This is the time of vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill and it's time for me to die; my genocide crusade begins... here!| The Crusader, aka Not Important}}

{{Topquote|Make it [[World of Darkness|dark]], make it [[Grimdark|grim]], make it [[ANGRY MARINES|tough]] but then, for the love of God, [[Comedy Marines|tell a joke]].|Joss Whedon giving a nice example on how to avoid being edgy even while creating a dark world}}

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people trying too hard (and sometimes too aggressively) to make things more tragic, [[grimdark]], controversial or cool. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

Another far less negative use of the term is to describe something on the 'edge' of what's acceptable, pushing established boundaries of convention. For example, by this definition ''Batman: The Animated Series'' was edgy for making an animated series which defied expectations of how true to its base concept and generally well-written a show designed to sell toys could be. Some more examples of this would be Ren and Stimpy (which was crude and vulgar) or Invader Zim (which could get dark in subject matter, and used a fair bit of black humor); in both cases, a decent bit of the comedy was of the "I can't believe that they did ''THAT'' on a kid's cartoon show!" variety. A milder version of this was Sonic the Hedgehog in contrast to Mario. In 1989 the Simpsons was the Edgy take on the classic family sitcom archetype and in 1999 Family Guy had slotted itself in as the Edgy version of The Simpsons. For the 1990s and early 2000s Edgy was a favored term of cynical marketing types which drew the attention of the world's sarcastic snarkers, many of which came to congregate on sites such as 4chan.

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes brooding loners with a knack for violence who hate anyone else having any authority over them (a sentiment common among real-life edgelords) and have a troubled past (shit, they might also wear sunglasses at night) but without the nuance or skill to pull it off, and thus just constantly makes themselves look silly. "Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. An edgelord in writing will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, rape and bodily harm are bad for literature, but rather that their sloppy execution with no regard to their depth is. As shown above, even the most "edgelord" of concepts can be salvaged and even made bearable with proper handling, especially going by the latter definition - but if you do it enough, the boundaries shift and what was edgy becomes the new norm, and there is always the risk of falling ''over'' the edge. This is why the old definition has fallen increasingly out of favor as time has gone on — people began seeing the dross sold under the title of "edgy", and the idea of what it meant thus moved away from the positive connotations marketing execs desired and closer to the qualities described above. Plus, this is the internet, and people would rather a word just be an insult or a compliment to reduce confusion.

==The Anatomy of Edginess==
Edginess is in some ways like a cargo cult. During WWII in the Pacific, the US military set up bases on remote, but inhabited islands, bringing with them a lot of stuff like planes and cars and so forth that was quite amazing to the stone age natives, to whom the world had been a few dozen square kilometers of land surrounded by ocean, with hazy stories of other such islands. When the military left, some of the natives took to making coconut and wooden radios and flight towers based off of some vague recollection of the military variants, unaware that making the shape alone does not get you the functional item.

In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Individuals who pander to said demographic (or are otherwise just downright hacks) will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

===Edgy and [[Grimdark]]===
While edginess is frequently associated with invoking grimdark [[Derp|for the sake of it and nothing else]], it's important to remember that this alone does not edgy make. As an example, [[WH40K]]'s [[Imperium of Man]] has reasons to be fair and kind when capable: though it has plenty of genocide, xenocide (completely annihilating species even when they are gentle and kind), torture, forced labor (they draw the line at commercialized chattel slavery, but un-unionized indentured servitude is fair game), witch hunts and militarism that would give Hitler a chubby beyond the grave, said horrors have reasonable justifications. Aliens were buying and selling humans like pets and culling them by the billion, operating slaver outposts even in our solar system before the Emperor came into leading humanity into a roaring rampage of revenge. And regarding souls and the universe after the Heresy, any deviation from faith in the Emperor will ''literally'' send a human to hell upon death, with their soul becoming dæmon food (and/or sex toys).

Any mistreated machinery will attract foul entities and corruption that will fuck you up seven ways till Monday and chew you out; any ill-coaxed [[Machine Spirit]] will jam and blow up in your face; and any laxity will make [[Chaos]] cults pop up by the billion in a week. Then there's [[Necrons|the genocidal robots from another age]], [[Eldar|space elves that would murder a planet on the off chance that their]] [[Farseer]] would break a nail otherwise (and they're still the nice space elves despite that, as their [[Dark Eldar|webway dwelling cousins are even worse - murdering entire planets just because they like the sound of millions of people screaming]]), [[Orks|the ambulatory (AND belligerent) fungi that plague the entire galaxy in a series of wars]], and [[Tyranids|extragalactic horrors that intend to eat everyone's face.]] [[TL;DR]] The Imperium acts like an asshole Hitler/Hirohito bastard child because the alternative is much, MUCH worse.

At the level of narrative, the fact that things are very very bad is a core thematic element of this world. As pointed out there are reasons why things are so miserable in this world which flow logically and despite this there can be points of contrast. Imperials still have the same potential to love and be kind like modern real world humans do. The Tau are hopeful despite the evils of this world. Occasionally pragmatism can overcome the deep seeded prejudices to overcome greater evils, if only for a while. And even if it is preformed by Conscript Guardsmen, Commissars or Space Marines, each the product of horrendous military institutions, can fight to achieve acts of genuine (if still typically brutal) heroism.

Now if you want a senselessly edgy story in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, an example would be the now non-canon [[Khornate Knights]].

===In closing===
There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark is not a magic bullet for achieving profoundness without trying.

==Notable Edgelords==

*[[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
*The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer.
** The ultimate example of "pointless edge" with this character is writer Garth Ennis' (and Ennis himself is quite the edgelord) professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
*The Joker, depending on the writer. In particular, look at Heath Ledger's, Joaquin Phoenix's and Jared Leto's takes on him.
** However, both Ledger's and Phoenix's Joker portrayals were "edge with a point". Ledger's Joker was an exploration of human evils regarding terrorism and the various morality problems in dealing with it. Likewise for Phoenix's Joker, except the exploration was on the Origins of Evil. Jared Leto's Joker, on the other hand, was almost textbook pointless "Edgelord".
*[[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
*Some [[World of Darkness]] characters, particularly Sabbat or Baali.
*Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
** If you want the textbook definition of "pointless edge", go look up [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** And in the game ''Sonic Forces'', which actually lets you play as your OC through a custom avatar, the villain Infinite is a parody of edgy villain sue characters.
*Several in [[World of Warcraft]]. Character-wise the worst offenders - in ascending order - are Illidan Stormrage (in ''"Burning Crusade"'' and the second half of ''"Legion"''), Deathwing (in ''"Cataclysm"'') and Sylvanas Windrunner (the entirety of World of Warcraft). Others include several Death Knights and lots of the Demon Hunters and Forsaken (even their faction names are edgy).
*Several characters from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]], depending on the books or the TV adaptation. Examples from both include Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton.
*Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
**[[Goblin Slayer]]. Goblins' characterization is based solely on the fact that they rape (in the sexual and the "defile the land" sense), to the point where most drama from the already bare-boned story comes from "x character was traumatized by goblin rape" in some way or another. The protag - the titular "Goblin Slayer" - is obsessed with killing Goblins so much that it's all he could think of because they destroyed his hometown and raped his sister to death in front of him when he was a kid.
*Reaper from Overwatch
*[[Blackguard]]s
* Warhammer 40k has so, so many there's entire edgelord ''factions'', such as the [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]], the [[Black Templars]] and [[Dark Eldar]] (DE get extra points for their love of selfishness, dark colors and torture). Character examples include Rogal Dorn, Konrad Cruze, Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra, Urien Rakarth and Drazhar.
* Warhammer Fantasy, similar to above but to a lesser degree. Notable examples here include [[Valnir|Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
*[[Malal]]. As if the Chaos gods' emotional tantrums are not enough, there exists this guy who out-hates everyone, including himself, with servants who are tougher and stronger than theirs.
*Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
*[[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also his edge is undermined by fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to edgy nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]