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Dark Eldar

2021-09-02T06:03:29Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:55E9:CC28:D442:5184: /* COMMORRAGH WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS */

{{Heresy}}
[[Image:Dark_Eldar_Symbol.png‎|center]]
[[Image:Dark Eldar Raid Colored by MajesticChicken.jpg|right|thumb|600px|Mercy? Interesting word, I always wanted to know its meaning.]]
{{Topquote|Last call for morals! Better cover your drink! Sodom and Gomorrah’d! Let it pour down the sink!|”Front Street” by Will Wood and the Tapeworms (also known as the national anthem for [[Commorragh]])}}
{{Topquote|If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin into their clothing. And, if we're really, really lucky, they'll do it in that order.|Zoe Washburn, ''Firefly''}}
{{Topquote|What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick, and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolent.|Alex - A Clockwork Orange (describes their attitude to raiding quite well)}}

The '''Dark Eldar''' (also known as the '''Drukhari''', cuz trademark reasons or ''Aeldarix malum'' if you're a xenobiologist) are the villainous, Extra [[Grimdark]], and more BDSM obsessed counterparts of the [[Eldar]], who followed the horrific depravity that saw the Eldar Empire destroyed. Continuing such lovely traditions as mutilation for its own sake, creative variations of rape, and dedicated polysubstance abuse constitute the Dark Eldar's claim to be the "true" and "traditionalist" Eldar, while disparaging their Craftworld and Exodite kin as having abandoned their grimdark elfiness because said grimdark elfiness caused, you know, the whole [[Fall of the Eldar|goatse-in-the-fabric-of-the-galaxy thing.]] They kind of have a point, but given how they have to suppress their innate psychic natures, lacking an anchor of a world spirit, spirit stone, or Creepy Clown God, they have to keep Creepy Rape God from trying to nom their soul-stuff by doing horrible things to others. And each other. And themselves. Truthfully, all of the elfy branches have deviated in their own ways after the Fall, but only the Dark Eldar do so by way of doing even more of the depraved shit that caused the Fall in the first place. So there's something to be said for them being traditionalists, after all; His Grand Spikiness [[Asdrubael Vect]] is hinted at having been around for the last big [[Anal circumference|blowout]] [[Eye of Terror|party]], and Commorragh's [[Urien Rakarth|Chief Surgeon]] is confirmed to have been present for it.

They get away with this in part by living in the byzantine port city [[Commorragh]] in the [[Webway]], spiriting out from the shadows on occasion to take slaves and to commit unspeakable atrocities on whoever they capture. Particularly when they are outside the Webway, they're in constant danger from [[Slaanesh|"She Who Thirsts"]] unless they go on and on in a self-reinforcing, vicious cycle of debauchery. They're the [[Honsou|sickest fucks]] in all of [[Warhammer 40,000]], which is a hell of an accomplishment, even for [[Slaanesh|the literal god of pleasure and excess]]. Their lives revolve around sadistic torture, making them a sort of cross between the Cenobites from Hellraiser and the Reavers from Firefly. They are mainly pirates, though sometimes hire themselves out as mercenaries before they inevitably betray their employers.

Surprisingly, Dark Eldar draw a lot of inspiration from the Fair Folk - not the pussy Disney pixi-fairies, but the [[World of Darkness]]-style inhumanly beautiful monsters that make humans suffer just for their own amusement, kidnap children to turn them into pets/slaves, and run the Wild Hunt that kill maim and rape everything in its wake, vanishing without a trace at dawn. Commonly derided for being the biggest Edge-Lords in the galaxy (or "scene-kid" Eldar), Dark Eldar come across as the only race that's actively trying to ''one-up'' Chaos for title of the universe's most grimdark faction.

For their fantasy counterparts see [[Druchii]].

==History==
The Eldar, after the [[FATAL|disaster]] that caused [[Slaanesh]] and [[Eye of Terror|turned their empire into the universe's biggest Goatse.cx reference]], destroying their race and [[grimdark|killing 90% or so of their population outright]], were a dying race. Slaanesh was devouring their souls like Eldar McNuggets, and it was only through ascetic mysticism and use of Soulstones that the Eldar could avoid getting vored by She Who Thirsts. Conventional wisdom was that these Eldar only survived on craftworlds and the maiden worlds that the Eldar had colonized before the fall, and some of these still fell into genocidal madness (the Blood Angels and Ordo Sinister were needed to destroy one such Craftworld).

[[Dawn of War|Conventional wisdom]], of course, [[C.S.Goto|means little in the 40K universe]]. Whilst most of the Eldar were mass-raped to death by Slaanesh when their falling into depraved cycles of decadence reached critical mass and caused a Chaos god to be born, a few of them survived because they were in parts of the Webway (a portal network that the Eldar use for transportation). They escaped with no real ill-effects, or so they thought. In reality, Slaanesh was slowly nomming their souls just like she does every Eldar without a Soulstone - however, they found that by [[Grimdark|continuing to engage in rampant hedonism and by torturing and inflicting pain and anguish on other creatures would reduce or even reverse the effects of Slaanesh's hold on them]], forcing them to seek out and capture, kill, and torment the "lesser" races of the galaxy in order to satiate themselves and stave off their doom. Which actually seems to be working out pretty well for those deldar who are sick enough fucks, because they wind up being more or less immortal.

Sadistic and psychotic to the point of making your average [[Chaos Space Marines|Chaos Marine]] look like hippies in contrast, hopped up on cocktails of combat stimulant drugs, and armed predominantly with weapons and equipment that cause [[Indrick Boreale|unspeakable immeasurable agony]] in those they go after, the Dark Eldar are easily the most depraved and vicious race the 41st millennium has. Hated by literally every single faction in the 41st millennium, the Dark Eldar are perhaps the only race with [[Anal circumference|bigger assholes]] than [[Eldrad]], though in spite of this, unlike their sissy counterparts, the Dark Eldar are hated much less by the playerbase - presumably because their army actually takes some brains to use and isn't a giant bunch of status-quo-defending [[Eldar|losers]]. Well, that and its implied they use [[/d/|sexual torture]] along with the normal kind.

In battle, Dark Eldar center around hit-and-run tactics, dealing huge damage and moving fast; few of their units can really take much abuse, making them even more fragile than their less edgy counterparts. Their standard infantry armor is identical to that of a Guardian (not terribly good), their vehicles are predominantly lightly-armored transport and attack craft that can be brought down by anti-infantry gunfire, and the armor on a typical Wych or Grotesque is no tougher than the ramshackle metal plating favored by Orks, but without the whole "I believe this armor will protect me, which is why it does" and at absolute best will cover only nipples and vulva, meaning that it would take considerable skill (and a somewhat sadistic shooter) to bounce a round off of their 'armour'. Suffice to say, they are extremely fragile and metaphorically half-naked in battle (literally if female), and getting the most out of them takes skill and patience that is rarely-seen on [[/tg/]]; whilst most fa/tg/uys will openly mock your average Eldar player, they will give pause and show some respect to a Dark Eldar player worth their salt.

The Dark Eldar are known for the ''excessive'' amount of [[Faptau|fapping]] [[Heresy|material]] involved with them, and they are the subject of thousands of sexual fantasies by desperate masochistic teenagers and middle aged neckbeards incapable of handling [[Female Space Marines|real women]]. They did, after all, kind of rape/drug/kill/etc themselves into oblivion, which tends to lend itself towards certain excessive abuses. They are also known for having some of the most fucking awesome-looking models on the tabletop, even if the armor of half of what they field will suffer instant critical existence failure at the hands of your typical [[Space Marine]]. This is pretty standard for all Xenos though.

==Codex Update==
[[File:Dark_Eldar_Safe.jpg|thumb|right|1998-2010 - twelve years of codex blue balls]]
The Dark Eldar, historically, have long been considered the faction for professionals because the army was perceived as being very difficult to use correctly. Their units, while generally quite fast, were almost uniformly fragile; this meant that the army was very intolerant of mistakes on the tabletop. Consequently they were easily the ''least'' played faction in 40k. Nearly 12 years passed before a codex update - but finally, in 2010, [[Games Workshop|GW]] decided to throw Dark Eldar players a much-needed bone.

Sweet [[Emperor|Jesus]], talk about buffs. The new 5th edition Codex changed very little fluff-wise, but the Dark Eldar gained substantial staying power and could actually field a reasonably <s>tough</s> hard-hitting army. The Power from Pain rule made them tougher as they scored kills, and the army also had a lot of potential for being much more forgiving of mistakes (previously it was a case of either steamrolling foes or getting curb-stomped). Lots of new options and extensive access to poisoned range weapons made them extremely versatile - as well as the bane of Tyranid players everywhere.

The 7th edition Codex was a mixed bag, with some serious nerfs. On the downside: Vect, Sliscus, Malys, Decapitator and Baron are no longer playable, though most of them are still mentioned in the fluff. Flickerfields have disappeared from all vehicles except Venoms, and Wyches somehow got ''even'' worse by losing haywire grenades and their gladiator weapons just becoming variants on re-rolling. On the upside, Power From Pain became something that happened to the whole army with the bonuses stacking each turn, rather than having to make mediocre units kill things in order to become useful. Mandrakes actually became half-decent (though still vastly inferior to Incubi & Trueborn), Grotesques no longer exploded when left alone, Talos & Chronos engines came in squads, and Scourges became able to spam more toys.

As of 8th Edition the Dark Eldar have been renamed the 'Drukhari' for trademark reasons. Like most armies in this edition they have their own equivalent of Chapter Tactics, Toughness on vehicles, and varying movement rates. All of these elements are considerable improvements compared to the previous editions. Dark Eldar armies can also gain extra CP for bringing multiple smaller detachments; combine this with the considerable buffs on wyches and Mandrakes, and you've got an army that has the potential to become more popular than ever before! They are still a "glass cannon" army, but are way more forgiving and benefit from both aggressive and conservative playstyles.

==The Dark Eldar Themselves==
[[Image:1287692229240.jpg|thumb|right|A lot like this, really.]]
{{topquote|I came to bring the pain, hardcore from the brain/Let's go inside my astral plane.|Method Man, Archon of the Wu Tang Kabal}}

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8tvBUfanu0]''''The fall of the eldar to present drukhari''''

The story of the Dark Eldar's fall and their need to inflict pain and horror in order to live - as well as elaboration on their kabalistic practices - have gone a long way towards deepening their fluff considerably (as one noble fa/tg/uy surmised, less retarded Saturday morning cartoon villainy). While some have balked at the more vampiric flavor of the New DE Codex, several denizens of /tg/ have managed to extract comic gold from this. A common musing is that they are ambitious, sex-crazed, easily shot down, boat-and-plane-loving pseudo-aristocrats (although many of the Dark Eldar really are aristocratic) haunted by a dark curse - ergo, they're not vampires, but, in fact, the Kennedys.

Putting it simply, the soul of a Dark Eldar is [[Grimdark|an open wound that can only be salved with suffering, a void that can only be filled with tortured bodies, a thirst that can only be quenched by spilled blood.]] Just like my ex girlfriend!! The origin of this void within the Dark Eldar, and the source of the nigh-religious terror that drives them to commit these daily atrocities, is the knowledge that [[Matt Ward|<s>THEY WILL NEVER BE ULTRAMARINES</s>]] upon death, their soul is forfeit to the Chaos God Slaanesh - an eventuality they intend to stave off at all costs.

Fortunately for the Dark Eldar, provided that someone recovers enough of their remains, their dead body parts can be brought to the Dark Eldar Haemonculi (an ancient order of Dr. Mengeles, the people that educated [[Fabius Bile]] in the art of being a gigantic [[Eldrad|dick]]) and regenerate themselves in case of death, complete with personality and mental faculties intact. This also keeps their soul from being devoured by Slaanesh - but at a price - this regenerative process is fueled by pain just as surely as the Dark Eldar themselves. This is the reason Dark Eldar raids are so eager to get in and get out as fast as possible; [[grimdark|if the subject is dead for more than a day or so, they're beyond recovery]]. (Actually that's a lie the Haemonculi tell their clients so the clients won't risk the truth: any subject can be revived, but the longer it's been dead the more likely the reviving chamber will attract daemons and cause a disjunction/warp storm)

Their diet of anguish has blessed the Dark Eldar with some of the longest lifespans in the setting, only surpassed by godlike figures like the C'tan, Necrons, the [[Emperor|Emprah]], [[Phoenix Lords]] and the Chaos Gods. If they die, they can just respawn back at base once the Haemonculi have managed to torture and/or bosh enough pain out of their subjects to allow the occupants of their rejuvenation pods to regenerate. This system is dependant on the Haemonculi though, and as a result they are the single most crucial group within all of Commorragh. The process gradually has diminishing returns though and truly ancient Dark Eldar will eventually require an ever increasing amount of pain infliction to rejuvenate themselves.

The Dark Eldar have also overcome the traditional [[Gay|Elven birthrate problem]] by finding a fun workaround to the long gestation period of conventional Eldar - they can remove a fertilized ovum and place it in an amniotic tube to age them quickly enough to be useful. This is looked down on by Dark Eldar society however - they even have an elite unit, the Trueborn, that are basically a bunch of spoiled brats who feel entitled to all the good weapons just because they got pushed out of a proper twat (that and the fact that ones born from a tube also get older faster and need to feed on pain more often). The fact that hedonism is the rule in Commorragh probably helps too.

The Dark Eldar have some of the most advanced tech in the 41st millennium, in some cases even surpassing the most powerful weapons of their cousins. Access to weapons that basically fling incandescent dark matter and miniature stars around goes a long way towards giving them serious "I'm going to fuck your shit up" power, and their access to arcane wargear and super-fast vehicles even more so. In fact the only race that comes even close to the technological level and destructive power of the Dark Eldar is the [[Necrons]], whose basic weapon rips the molecules off its target, flaying one layer off at a time (though it's still near-instant). Despite this the majority of the most powerful technology cannot be used by the Dark Eldar anymore as it was psychic in nature, and their psychic abilities have long since atrophied away (truly making them the degenerate Eldar). The little psychic ability that they have left tends to be unimpressive.

All that being said, their continued survival is not as implausible as it might seem at first glance. The Dark Eldar are smart, technologically advanced, quite numerous, and even though they'll fight each other to death over a biscuit in Commorragh, during a raid into Real Space they set aside their differences to [[/tg/ gets shit done|GET SHIT DONE]]. The new codex also points out the Dark Eldar do follow a fairly strict set of rules while fighting each other and running shit; one of the reasons they enjoy raiding realspace is that it allows them to cut loose and just butcher innocents for a while.

It is also worth noting that the closest word Dark Eldar have to the concept of love is something along the lines of willingly submitting one's will to another.

==COMMORRAGH WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS==
[[Image:Dork_Elfdar_Winch.png|thumb|right|My bra is a face. Your argument is invalid.]]
The Dark Eldar live in the Dark City of Commorragh, basically an impossibly large extradimensional port city fueled by two stolen suns (and they made sure to steal suns from inhabited planetary systems, because fuck those guys). Think of a sprawling cross between 17th century Port Royal with Mos Eisley space port (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) with a drug/torture/rape-based economy (Detroit) and the warped architecture of ''Inception''. So watch out, Utica! Commorragh is a city on the... Grow!

Dark Eldar civilisation (if you care to call it such) in Commorragh is mirrored on real life 19th Century Singapore, the Aztecs, depictions of ancient Rome and Greece at their most decadent and depraved plus the city's real-life namesakes the Cammora clans and [[religion|Gomorrah]].

Every Dark Eldar aspires to join a Kabal - an organisation that functions like a mixture of a crime syndicate, a pirate fleet and a classical Italian city state family (i.e the Borgias), the smallest being a couple dozen elves with rifles and the very largest rivalling Craftworlds in military might. Membership in a Kabal brings social security (being in a Kabal basically makes you a made-man so nobody can kill you without reprisal from the rest of the Kabal) and more importantly, the big chance to go out into a realspace raid. Continuing the mafia analogy, Kabals are run by Archons (the bosses) and their subordinates the Dracon (the underboss) and Sybarites (the caporegimes). [[Orks|You advance inside a Kabal by killing the guy above you and then convincing the others over the cooling body of your former superior that you can do a better job.]]

Realspace raids are wrought with risk and success can bring much prestige (and failed raids can cause much losing of political face), so the Dark Eldar have no tolerance for weak and foolish leadership. If you don't fancy the Kabal route, you can try to induct yourself into a Wych Cult (a gladiatorial society) or a Haemonculi Coven (you go to be a bitch-boy assistant for a cackling BDSM lunatic who works in flesh-sculpting). Both are equally valid and valuable components of Dark Eldar society - the Cults provide entertainment and bits of delicious suffering for the masses to savour, and the Covens manage the Dark Eldar's resurrective technologies and torture of slaves. It is not uncommon for larger Cults and Covens to work together with the Kabals on realspace raids, or even conduct their own independent ones.

It goes without saying that Commorragh is extremely dangerous to live in. There are very few laws and violence is an everyday fact of life. However you should abide by a handful:
* First law, [[Heresy|anything relating to psykers or Warp magic in Commorragh is strictly, and I do mean strictly, verboten]]. As that means possibly drawing the attention of [[Slaanesh]] to the Dark City.
* Second law, obey Vect - he is the top dog in Commorragh, so if he says jump, you jump; if he says piss your pants, you piss your pants.
* Third law, obey the Kabals, unless doing so conflicts with the aforementioned "Don't disobey Vect" law.
* Fourth law, don't fuck around with [[Harlequins]]. That's generally good life advice no matter what race or creed you are, but the Dark City still fosters relations with the ''de facto'' leaders of the Aeldari race, so they enjoy diplomatic immunity, if you will.
* Fifth law, don't kill Scourges, unless your name is Asdrubael Vect.

Apart from that, basically anything goes.

Despite common misconception, Commorragh is not purely an Eldar city - various human and alien mercenaries ply their trade in the Null City, and a burgeoning population of Orks have managed to infest the lower levels. Sometimes they become stars in Commorragh's fighting pits. At least they have universal healthcare, though.

[[Story:A cage, shattered|If you can survive the inhabitants of the Dark City]] there is only one problem. Being in the Webway, every now and then the Dark City will suffer something called a Dysjunction; the Webway/Warp equivalent of a natural disaster which is a more powerful combination of earthquake/firestorm/hurricane that can spread across large parts of the Webway and really wreck Commorragh. In addition, it damages the walls of the Webway, which can allow daemons to invade all across Commorragh. Fortunately, this is rare and only happens during huge bouts of Warp-related turmoil, hence why Dark Eldar are so serious about enforcing the ban of sorcery and psychic power usage inside Commorragh. These Dysjunctions, when they do occur, regularly destroy subrealms of Commorragh.

It's only been invaded thrice. First by Orks (that time with daemons, apart from Dysjunctions, they were summoned into Commorragh) and the second was when Vect, plotting a coup against the ruling Archons, arranged for a ship filled with a few hundred Space Marines (in a shocking change from the norm, the [[Salamanders]], for once; [[Matt Ward]] is rumored to have had the vapors from this, though the Salamanders are frequently depicted as having a huge grudge against the Dark Eldar due to Vulkan's origin story) to be towed to the Dark City. Of course, ''most'' of Commorragh's armed forces fought the Space Marines, who managed to escape with ease. The City was also invaded by the [[Death Guard]] at some point.

[[Lucius]], whilst not invading it, did manage to destroy an entire subrealm of Commorragh and kill so many Dark Eldar it was noted as the largest single loss of Eldar life since [[Eye of Terror|the Fall]], and cowed all of Commorragh into a defensive mode, with Vect and the other leaders powerless to do anything to stop Lucius and his single ship.

Apart from invasions, however, Space Marines have made a frequent habit of entering and exiting it, the Salamanders, [[Space Wolves]] and [[Deathwatch]] all having successfully entered the city and exited alive, along with the [[Emperor's Children]], Deathmongers and Death Guard. In fact there are precious few times Space Marines don't enter and exit Commorragh at their own leisure, and Dark Eldar seem particularly bad at containing them.

Not to be outdone, the Black Legion once laid siege to Comorragh to wipe out one of its great houses. Don't steal from [[Iskandar Khayon]], kids.

==The name==
Despite having been plastered on the boxes and rules for the better half of their existence, the term "Dark Eldar" almost never appears in universe - no one really calls them by that name. Dark Eldar call themselves just Eldar, since they think they are the only true Eldar, inheritors of the old Eldar Empire, while all other are defectors from the true Eldar path (of rape, drugs and rock-n-roll); most will admit they have a point, but whether they're outright correct is a debate for another time. Craftworlders call them the Dark Kin, Exodites call them the Children of [[Khaine]], and Corsairs and Harlequins simply call them Commorites. As for other races, most of them don't know and/or care about the differences between Eldar subraces/cultures, at best distinguishing Commorites (and sometimes Corsairs too) by their MO as as pirates or raiders of Eldar, or by their appearance as Spikey Panzees. About the only people who actually use the term "Dark Eldar" in-universe are some of the Ordo Xenos Inquisitors and their acolytes, and even they also often call them Chaos or Tainted Eldar, mistakenly thinking DEldar are Chaos-worshipers.

The modern name "Drukhari"™ doesn't make much more sense from a DE perspective. If we assume the Eldar lexicon to be based on IRL Celtic languages (some Eldar sentences are ''literaly'' Irish/Scottish), then "Drukhari"™ would be related to ''drouk'' (Breton) or ''droch'' (Old Irish), from Gaullish ''drucos'' meaning "evil, bad". Something quite weird given how DE are beyond moral considerations, so it's probably a term coined by other Eldar subcultures. (Droch, Drouk, Drucos / Drukos also can mean 'Wheel', 'Circlet', 'Bridge', 'Wet', 'Drown' and 'To Deceive'. It is entirely possible while it's coined by other subcultures, it could be the inhabitants of Commorragh see themselves as 'Eldar of the Dark City', or other Eldar may name them 'The Eldar that Deceive', both of which may feasibly be 'Drukhari'™) Really, though, its just an alteration of the name for Warhammer Fantasy's Dark Elves, Druchii.

The term 'Eladrith Ynneas' (Ee-lad-rith Yin-nee-ah-ss) was coined in 5th ed by Vect shortly after his meteoric rise to power, and is widely considered to sound much cooler than American comedian Drew-Carey.

==Tactics==
The Dark Eldar put a lot of emphasis on lightning fast piratical raids; their vehicles are lightly armoured, but are the fastest available, allowing them to get in and out as quick as possible. They have a lot of units who prefer getting up close and personal, such as Wyches and Incubi, who put emphasis on causing as much pain as possible whilst still getting home in time for tea. This doesn't mean to say they don't have good ranged weaponry; their splinter rifles fire crystalized poison and their blast weapons fire dark matter, completely annihilating anything in their path. In short, all of their weapons are designed to fuck up everything they touch in the most extravagant and painful way possible. Fear, infiltration and sabotage are their main weapons, and usually their enemies don't know they are fighting the Dark Eldar until it's far too late.

The Dark Eldar themselves despise a fair fight. They will use anything at their disposal, and no tactic is too underhanded, no ploy too despicable. They have no code of honor (save for the Incubi) and will do anything as long as they come out on top, which to them is coming away with as many slaves and stolen raw materials as possible. And when they do get home with their booty, they will open their finest wines, sit on thrones made of dead slaves, kick up their heels on living slaves being used as footrests (or just rape them) and twirl their metaphorical handlebar mustaches. Cue evil laugh.

==Special Characters==
At least the Dark Eldar had playable special characters now, before most of the rules were squatted.

===RIP===
*[[Asdrubael Vect| Asdrubael Vect]], the Pimp Master General of Commorragh who's now a manipulator on par with Eldrad (hardly high praise) and, impossibly, an even bigger dick. A tragic loss, he is much missed; his rules helped your army like crazy and made him the deadliest [[Primarch|non-HH]] [[Swarmlord|infantry-sized]] model in 40k, impossible to re-create without lucky rolls on dice and homebrews. Why Games Workshop saw fit to remove Vect from the latest Codex is a mystery as he had a model (based on the out-of-production plastic raider kit) but given the latest trend of shifting some characters off into the Lord of War section, Vect on the Dais of Destruction would've been a nice fit, especially considering that Santa Claws based monstrosity we were given in the Space Wolves codex.
*[[Lady Malys]], an anime villainess and Vect's pissed-off ex. She won [[Daemon|someone's heart]] in a contest and shoved it in her chest. She was ''okay'' as a character so her passing isn't that big a deal. She was also dropped from the rules but still also features heavily all the way through the new codex as the up and coming rival to Vect, her loss was more inexplicable since she could have easily filled the gap of special character Archon, since Succubus & Haemonculi both have theirs; but she was likely cut because she doesn't have a model and GW couldn't be bothered to give her one.
*Kruellagh the Vile, a name too silly even for [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|Rogue Trader]], being based off of "Hundred and One Dalmatians" villain Cruella de Vil. Also her model made her look like a cheesy DC supervillain.
*Lord Hellion [[Baron Sathonyx]], who many on /tg/ believe to be Spider-Man's archnemesis. Was kinda cool for his FOC-shifting abilities with respects to Hellions.
*[[Kheradruakh]] the Decapitator, who, uh, cuts peoples heads off and collects them like beanie babies. Implied to be collecting them like coconuts to do some serious warp-related shit. Was also never used because [[Counts as|Mandrakes sucked]]. He recently played a major role in the Gathering Storm, saving all of Commorragh from a massive Dysjunction.
*[[Duke Sliscus]], the Pirate Duke who drinks poisons, has all the best drugs, and brings all the bitches to the yard with his gigantic [[Eldrad|cock]]. Almost as insufferable as [[Assholetep]]. Much missed because his contraband rule stopped you from rolling terrible combat drugs, and now this is gone. The rest of his rules weren't particularly special though, so you can still have him using the Archon rules.

===Survivors===
*[[Urien Rakarth]], a hyper-evolved Pavi Largo. Quite possibly the sickest fuck in the galaxy (at the very least a strong contender), and that is really an achievement of unimaginable proportions.
*[[Drazhar]], the Master of Blades, who does not speak and slashes other Incubi to bits from time to time just to throw his weight around. Nobody knows his real name as he just appeared one day out of nowhere, never removes his armor, and probably kills anyone who tries to touch the goods. Many people believe Drazhar is Arhra, An additional piece of <strike>bait</strike> evidence is that his warsuit is much more ancient than any other one available to the incubi cults and pretty much out of their understanding, leading some to think it's -the- original warsuit. Considering Ahra disappeared after getting buttfucked by his successor and disappeared some time before Drazhar showed up, and you can pretty much piece the evidence of the <strike>mystery</strike> thinly veiled "but what if it's not trueeeeeeeee" tactic together.
*[[Lelith Hesperax]], an oversexed gladiatrix/snuff-film porn starlet (srsly, so much implied masturbation in her profile, it's not even funny). Jumped ship to the [[Ynnari]] faction for personal goals.

== Dating a Dark Eldar ==
{| border=2 cellspacing=2 cellpadding=2
|-
! Likes !! Dislikes
|- valign=top
|
* "Playthings"
* Flesh
* Latex
* Leather
* Whips
* Spikes
* Cock and ball torture
* Hardcore, ballbusting Sex
* Drugs
* [[Ork#Rokkas|Rock'n'Roll]]
* S/M
* Holes
* [[Truly_Immovable_Rod|Rods]]
* [[/d/|Other odd fetishes]]
|
* Sunshine
* Lollipops
* Rainbows
* Flowers
* Puppies(that (s)he doesn't get to flay)
* John Denver(same deal)
* Sobriety
* Handholding (unless one of them has been involuntarily detached)
* "Vanilla" sex
* Erectile Dysfunction
* Prudishness
* R&B music
* Weak constitutions
* self-denial
|}

==See Also==
*[[Dark Eldar Kabal Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Dark_Eldar (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[The Enshrouded]]

{{Dark Eldar-Characters}}
{{Dark Eldar-Forces}}

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
Image:Dark eldar.jpg|
Image:Commorragh Runner.jpg
Image:40kshock.jpg
Image:Commorragh.jpg|What is up?
File:Blackholeinabox.jpg#file.png|Oh, that wacky Vect.
File:Duke_uses_poison.jpg#file.png|Kill like a DEldar, DEldar.
Image:Dark_Eldar_Combat_Drugs_-_Not_Even_Once_2.png| Combat drugs: Not even once.
Image:Advice_Darkeldar.jpg.jpg|No, no, you got it right the first time.
Image:Wrack by moonskinned-d5tx8oj.jpg|He's only a gimp but he's not that funny.
Image:LynnminwenCD.jpg|Buying this CD is [[Heresy]]! <s>Download it from torrent. </s> {{BLAM|HERESY!}}{{BLAM}}
File:1381591104255.jpg|Lelith Hesperax, right after killing someone and cleaning off the blood.
File:Wych Cat.jpg|Kitty Wych is sexy.
Image:Dark_Eldar.png|...but at least you can't call them quitters! Keep fucking that chicken!
Image:Idealized.jpg|Fucking [[My Little Pony|Pony]] nonsense... Fucking with... Sense of... What were we talking about?
File:Warhammer 40k sisters of battle adeptas sororitas battling Dark Eldar.jpg|If an army of evil space-dominatrices squared off against an army of semi-heroic space nuns, who would win? We don't care its HAWT.. SOON AVAILABLE TO PLAY WITH THE NEW "PIETY AND PAIN" BOX.
File:Wych_Battle.jpg|Some armies clad their dedicated combat units in armor that covers more than areolas and genitals. Some armies are for ''pussies''.
Image:Talos pain engine by moonskinned-d5tx8v6.jpg| "Well, look. I mean, is he gonna be able to chase us? Cause if I woke up lookin' like that, I would just run towards the nearest living thing and kill it."
Image:Inception.jpg|Your daily commute in Commorragh, except everyone's an [[Dwarf Fortress|elf-rapist]], the pistols shoot poison that can kill robots, and the chicks are soul-sucking crack whore gladiators.
Image:Bell_cel_warhammer_sketch_by_elvishprincess25-db0et80.jpg| As I understand it, this is an interesting idea for a crossover...
Image:Dark Eldar DC.png|The crossover you never knew you needed, [[Tau Diplomacy|now throw in the Tau Diplomat who sounds like Starfire]].
Santa Lelith Hesperax 1.jpg|Maybe she'll give you a kiss under the mistletoe, maybe something more, or maybe she'll kill you. Personally, I think it's worth the risk.
Image:Deldar wracks.jpg
</gallery></center>

{{WH40k-Factions}}
{{Template:Important Species in 40k}}
[[Category:Xenos]]

Edgy

2021-09-02T05:53:54Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:55E9:CC28:D442:5184: /* Notable NOT Edgelords */

{{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 player character of ''Hatred''}}

{{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 pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. 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 and contrarians, 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 a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding, antisocial, militant types with problems with authority and a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" or representing "the establishment™"). 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. In writing, edgelords 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, extremism and rape 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.

[[File:Pizza-slicer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The ultimate apotheosis of an edgelord: All edge, no point.]]
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 or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. 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 or problems with authority, 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]].

===Who's An Edgelord?===
Who's a cute little Edgelord? Yes, you, you adorable little mass-murderer, you!

"Edgelord" gets applied to two groups: '''Authors''' fixated on making edgy material, and the '''Edgy characters''' they write. While most of this article assumes the latter definition (as we at least try to avoid authorial mind-reading), it's quite possible for an Edgelord author to create an edgy work without an Edgelord character<ref>How? Well, just to start with, picture a modern retelling of The Little Match Girl (the one where the title character freezes to death on the street--looking back on it, Hans Christian Anderson was Edgelord as fuck).</ref>, and a non-Edgelord author to create an Edgelord character (either unintentionally, satirically, or de-constructively).

===Edgy Villains===

There's an important argument to be made about villains and edginess. Frequently, it's necessary to engage in authorial behavior that would be considered edgy in order to properly develop a bad guy. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a [[Mary Sue|Villain Sue]] situation, and if so, what kind of Villain Sue are we dealing with?"<ref>For an example of a non-Edgelord Villain Sue, there are plenty of Villain Sues who the author clearly hates, but can't bring themselves to kill off for reasons of marketability. It's usually only when the Doylist definition of Mary Sue comes into play, where the Author sees themselves as the villain and has more sympathy for them than the protagonist, that Edgelordery starts to set in.</ref> and "are the author's sympathies clearly with the villain's agenda?"<ref>Not with the villain himself; plenty of villains clearly have the author's sympathy (what [[TVTropes]] might call a "Villain Woobie" or "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds"); what matters here is does the author believe what the villain believes. That may sound odd, but many cases of "The Bad Guy Was Right" involve characters created by another author, or are (usually bad) parody of such.</ref>

===Edgelords and [[Mary Sue]]s===

A lot of edgy characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Another reason is the "Power Fantasy" route, where the author uses their work and the character in question to attack something or someone from real-life that they oppose. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a Jerk Sue situation?", "do the villains represent a work the author hates?" and "do the villains represent a real person or thing the author is against?"

Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

==="Right Target, Wrong Method" Characters===

One important partial exception: Sometimes authors include a character that can be considered "Edgy" in theory... but in practice, it's clear the author isn't rooting for them, because they take things '''way''' too far. We're talking "Utopia Justifies the Means, No Matter How Horrific" and "Death Penalty for Jaywalking"-type characters here. For an example of "edgy hero vs edgelord villain", compare [[Judge Dredd]] to his archnemesis, Judge Death.

While they can degrade into regular Edgelords quite easily, as long as it's clear that either the author's sympathies are not with them, and/or the story spends a lot of time on the collateral damage they inflict, they can be considered not wish-fulfillment enough to count as Edgelords... although note that such characters, particularly if allowed to be a protagonist or in the hands of more than one author, tend to degrade into Edgelordery for subtly obvious reasons.

===Sidenote: Chunni===

In some Weeb circles, an "Edgelord" is called "Chuuni", short for "Chuunibyou". This delightful Japanese word combines the concepts of "Sophomoric" ("Chuunibyou" literally translated means "Middle [School] 2[nd Year] Syndrome") and "Edgelord", with an optional side note of "I have supernatural powers". Importantly, the "Stupid and Lame" part is baked right into the word, while "Edgelord" is usually only ''implies'' stupidity.

===In closing===
{{Topquote|So maybe ordinary people ''don't'' always crack. Maybe there ''isn't'' any need to crawl under a ''rock'' with all the ''other'' slimy things when trouble hits... maybe it was just ''you'', all the time|Batman, The Killing Joke}}

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 or pushing boundaries is not profound in and of itself. Shock value, twists and subverting expectations doesn't automatically equal good storytelling. Finally, using these things as an outlet for personal views/grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

==How Can I Tell If My Character Is An Edgelord?==

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, moody, has easy access to weapons and are aggressively contrarian. While alone or even together these traits don't make an edgelord, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom:

* Are they either a power fantasy against or deliberately written to offend "The Man™" or "the establishment™"? (NOTE: With one exception below, and even if not targeting "the establishment™"/targeting enemies of theirs such as criminals, '''a "yes" answer here automatically grants the character edgelord status.''')
** Bonus points if the writer goes after ''the usual targets''; [[Capitalism|big business]], organized [[religion]], the education system or law enforcement. Double bonus points if they're a real-life example from the above, triple bonus points if they've already been frequently targeted in media (eg; oil companies, the Catholic Church, strict schoolteachers or the police) and quadruple bonus points if its a mix (such as Catholic boarding schools).
** The one exception are characters who '''start out''' as merely mildly edgy (particularly antagonists of the "right target, wrong methods" variety), and only graduate to full edgelord status if other writers are allowed access to them or the current writer gets carried away.
* Do they openly mock altruistic traits (like hope and love)? Compromise? faith or the Powers-That-Be? Bonus points if they do so without suffering negative consequences for it.
* Do they have a backstory dominated by abuse they suffered (often trotted out as an excuse for their violent contrarianism)?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards, if not actively despises?
** Partial credit if they're seeking redemption... but only changing their targets instead of their approach or methods.
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? As in a negative attitude towards anyone else having authority over them.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview?
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by [[Ayn Rand]] or [[Jack Chick]]). Bonus points if they're nihilistic. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or are the challengers clearly strawmen, including tarring the entire group with the same brush as an extremist minority?
** The [[Star Trek]] Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire? Bonus points if the outfit;
** Includes a cloak or a long trenchcoat (think Neo's from the Matrix films).
** Has [[Chaos|built-in blades or spikes]]
** Includes a fedora
*** Any other excessively Cool Hat counts for half-credit--and yes, this does include Judge Dredd's Helmet.
** Is covered in insults, profanities, curses or threats
** Has tailored-on violent, anarchic or sacrilegious imagery
** Incorporates or is made of others' body parts
** Is alive (especially if it's a monster in clothing form or possessed)
* Do they wear warpaint?
* Do they have body modification, ranging from minor such as tattoos to extreme examples such as horns or wings? Bonus points if the modifications can be weaponized.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have an "adult" vice such as drinking or smoking (fantastical ones count). Bonus points if its an addiction.
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by [[Gav Thorpe]], Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, [[A Song of Ice and Fire|George RR Martin]], Garth Ennis or Alan Moore?<ref>Yes, we did mention Garth Ennis twice on purpose; man is so edgy he probably belongs in the list ''three times''. In short: Ennis is a fucking edgelord even compared to other edgy authors, so any character he creates is probably going to be either an edgelord or a punching bag for one.</ref> Honorable mention: [[Judge Dredd|Pat Mills]] (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords despite lots of their characters being unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis. The ultimate example being Ennis' professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", a comic series written by the edgelord Punisher author named above using [[Original character, do not steal|knock-offs of Marvel and DC supers]] in an anti-superhero genre power fantasy. Billy himself leads the titular group, and is a racist Punisher knock-off and author mouthpiece.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
** Batman can be made into an edgelord in a edgy writer's hands (for example, Frank Miller's "All Star Batman And Robin"), although more rarely than you might think, since his respect for the part of the establishment - owning Wayne Enterprises and his respectful alliance with most of Gotham's police, chief among them Commissioner Gordon - and his "no kill" code usually heads off most of the worst edgelord tendencies.
* 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!
* Adversary from DC comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[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.
* Peter and Paul from "Funny Games". Another "cool psycho gang that tortures, kills and dismembers a family" sort of director's wank which ups to eleven: when the woman in desperation manages to kill one, the other literally turns back time, and kills her child and husband, THEN tortures, gags, takes her for a boat ride and drowns her for fun, go to the next house and wink at the camera while acting happy and nonchalant, to start the cycle a new. Director Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media and definitely not getting his rocks off torturing a whitebread white woman with a family and gagging, killing, and raping her. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight (then again this is a tame letdown compared to what a hardcore gorehound would watch, with cinematography purposely ruining any payoff. Very messed while also giving a middle finger to [[Slannesh]] Worshipers as no rape occurs in the film). Oh, and he enjoyed it so much he remade HIS OWN MOVIE; after the original 1997 German language version he made a 2008 English version.
* "The Strangers" from the 2008 The Strangers movie. Literally a bunch of home invaders invade a couple's home, beat, torture and kill the husband, unmask themselves to the wife, act all chill and cute, act cool to a bible tract distributing kid and talk about "it will be easier next time". They are never found, never bested, and simply put, get away with everything in a "cool teenager" attitude.

===Live Action TV===
* Stargate's Sohkar- It's hard to get more edgelord than literally masquerading/cosplaying as Satan.

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a radical edgelordy cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Several characters from World of Warcraft, prime individuals being Deathwing, Sylvanas Windrunner, Sargeras and Illidan Stormrage (pictured below). There's also edgy groups including the Forsaken, Death Knights and Demon Hunters (Illidan even founded the latter) with edgelord members.
** Special mention goes to pre-retcon Sargeras. Originally, Sargeras was so traumatized by the evil of the demons he fought... [[Stupid Evil|he became convinced that good was futile and conscripted those same demons into an army to destroy the cosmos]]).
* Reaper from Overwatch. For whatever reason he cannot die, as he constantly regenerates his tissues (with an advanced necrosis, so he's basically sort of sci-fi undead). Of course, he blames his former friends from Overwatch (like he never considered it COULD be some side effect from supersoldier genetic modifications he'd received before forming of the Overwatch, even moreso when the shady scientist who modified him also joined Talon) for his sorry condition, so he became fixated on revenge and killing. Also, he was super jealous for his best friend, who was getting all the praise, while he was getting his hands dirty.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to 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.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger, and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example predating Elric. After his father dies dies, he wears black, becomes foreboding, dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months, monologues with skulls and murders his friends including the harmless father of his girlfriend (though to be fair he thought he was stabbing the man who he suspected killed his father).

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. On top of being a callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich, she hates systems of authority but wants to be goddess of her people [[What|despite hating religion most of all]]. She values strength... but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her; textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there. For more information, look at the [[Drow]] and remember they're like that because her laws require it.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender, with groups such as the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]].
*** In particular, there's [[Konrad Curze]]...
*** ...[[Fabius Bile]]...
*** ...and the [[Dark Eldar]], each to such a degree they each deserve a separate bullet point all to themselves.
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most [[Dark Elves]]. (None of whom are quite so ''needlessly'' edgy as to deserve their own separate bullet points, unlike the 40k Edgelords above.<ref>Nagash might come close, but is presented as more "he's just an asshole", compared to the "he might have a point" presentation of Bile or full Tragic Backstory of Curze. A similar point can be made about the Dark Elves (just assholes) compared to the Dark Eldar (who need to feed Slaanesh because if they don't s/he eats them).</ref>)
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the other [[Chaos Gods|Ruinous Powers]].

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape, killing, eugenics and an violent solipsistic protagonist with enough plot armor to make Ciaphas Cain look like a [[Star Trek|redshirt]] one day away from retirement. When the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" [[meme]] originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
* As a general trend: Vegeta, of Dragonball Z started a long term trend in Shonen anime and manga for "edgy badboy antagonistic rival" (who usually either starts out or winds up as a full-on (anti)villain) characters who are frequently more popular than the milktoast main character, especially in fanfiction. Examples include Sasuke Uchiha of Naruto, Bakugo from My Hero Academia, and, going further afield, Riku from Kingdom Hearts (/v/, rather than /a/, if a very /a/ shaded /v/), and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (a Western example modeled on the type). Note that not all of them qualify for full "Edgelord", as many of them are merely ''mildly'' edgy, but it's a frequent enough vein of Edgelords that we need to mention it here. Particular mention should be made of...
** Bakugo from My Hero Academia, who probably counts as a deconstruction/parody of one. What else do you say about somebody who chooses the codename "King of Explodo-Kills" and later "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight" while training to be a super'''hero'''?
* Keyaru from Redo of Healer deserves a spot for causing a localized [[Warp Storm|shitstorm]] involving massive levels of [[skub]] in the anime fandom. He's a healing slave who was physically and sexually abused until he finds out a [[Mary Sue|loophole in his magic to resets time]] and fulfills his fantasy. Keyaru believes that since history was reset, he can't take revenge for acts that were not commited; and in a twisted leap of logic, instead of preventing those things from happening, he decides to make sure his abusers actually repeat their wrongdoings (which include several months of sexual abuse while drugged in a filthy cell) so he feels justified when he inflicts his own kind of revenge. Revenge such as: breaking all the fingers of a princess, THEN healing them and start anew, THEN [[rape|raping]] her repeatedly, THEN erasing her personality and make her his sex slave; or turn a guard into a little girl, and turns all his men into [[Slaanesh |horny rape zombies]], and has him raped to death, while he torches the building to make sure no one survives; or lock an enfeebled knight lady in a room with brainwashed, sex-crazed hungry [[Cannibalism|cannibals]], and promises her he will free her if she manages to satisfy them sexually all night long. She gets devoured by midnight. And the list keeps going. Of course, Keyaru will say that hatred is what gets him going and revenge is the best feeling in the world, next to sex and eating. When [[Grimdark|his whole home village gets razed in retaliation for the princess]], he's actually overjoyed to finally have a justification to brutally murder THE WHOLE ARMY; he only manages to save a single boy from his village, but he makes sure the boy holds a grudge on him, because in his words [[derp|"Only hatred can wash up the sadness of losing all your loved ones"]]. Truly an endgelord among edgelords.

===Notable NOT Edgelords===

* '''Cad Bane''' (Star Wars The Clone Wars): Mostly lone wolf bounty hunter who once killed a guy in front of their brother just to get his fedora back (''"What are you lookin' at? It's a nice hat."''). Not an edgelord because he's perfectly happy to work for the establishment as long as the establishment is the highest bidder.

* '''Bronn/Ser Bronn of the Blackwater''' (A Song of Ice and Fire): Snarky mercenary who would kill a baby for the right price. Not an edgelord because he'll also work for the establishment - and does for much of the story - plus his SOLE focus in life is looking out for number one; he loves life and doesn't want to die.

* '''Darion Mograine''' (World of Warcraft): Ruthless member of an order of undead knights with a literal hunger for pain after sacrificing his soul to save his father's. While bordering on edgelord and looking the part (see below), Darion is not an edgelord because he doesn't oppose love (he still loves his father), faith or altruism and he'll work with the establishment - including his former paladin order.
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversary" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
</gallery>

Edgy

2021-09-02T05:48:59Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:55E9:CC28:D442:5184: /* Notable NOT Edgelords */

{{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 player character of ''Hatred''}}

{{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 pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. 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 and contrarians, 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 a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding, antisocial, militant types with problems with authority and a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" or representing "the establishment™"). 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. In writing, edgelords 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, extremism and rape 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.

[[File:Pizza-slicer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The ultimate apotheosis of an edgelord: All edge, no point.]]
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 or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. 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 or problems with authority, 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]].

===Who's An Edgelord?===
Who's a cute little Edgelord? Yes, you, you adorable little mass-murderer, you!

"Edgelord" gets applied to two groups: '''Authors''' fixated on making edgy material, and the '''Edgy characters''' they write. While most of this article assumes the latter definition (as we at least try to avoid authorial mind-reading), it's quite possible for an Edgelord author to create an edgy work without an Edgelord character<ref>How? Well, just to start with, picture a modern retelling of The Little Match Girl (the one where the title character freezes to death on the street--looking back on it, Hans Christian Anderson was Edgelord as fuck).</ref>, and a non-Edgelord author to create an Edgelord character (either unintentionally, satirically, or de-constructively).

===Edgy Villains===

There's an important argument to be made about villains and edginess. Frequently, it's necessary to engage in authorial behavior that would be considered edgy in order to properly develop a bad guy. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a [[Mary Sue|Villain Sue]] situation, and if so, what kind of Villain Sue are we dealing with?"<ref>For an example of a non-Edgelord Villain Sue, there are plenty of Villain Sues who the author clearly hates, but can't bring themselves to kill off for reasons of marketability. It's usually only when the Doylist definition of Mary Sue comes into play, where the Author sees themselves as the villain and has more sympathy for them than the protagonist, that Edgelordery starts to set in.</ref> and "are the author's sympathies clearly with the villain's agenda?"<ref>Not with the villain himself; plenty of villains clearly have the author's sympathy (what [[TVTropes]] might call a "Villain Woobie" or "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds"); what matters here is does the author believe what the villain believes. That may sound odd, but many cases of "The Bad Guy Was Right" involve characters created by another author, or are (usually bad) parody of such.</ref>

===Edgelords and [[Mary Sue]]s===

A lot of edgy characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Another reason is the "Power Fantasy" route, where the author uses their work and the character in question to attack something or someone from real-life that they oppose. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a Jerk Sue situation?", "do the villains represent a work the author hates?" and "do the villains represent a real person or thing the author is against?"

Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

==="Right Target, Wrong Method" Characters===

One important partial exception: Sometimes authors include a character that can be considered "Edgy" in theory... but in practice, it's clear the author isn't rooting for them, because they take things '''way''' too far. We're talking "Utopia Justifies the Means, No Matter How Horrific" and "Death Penalty for Jaywalking"-type characters here. For an example of "edgy hero vs edgelord villain", compare [[Judge Dredd]] to his archnemesis, Judge Death.

While they can degrade into regular Edgelords quite easily, as long as it's clear that either the author's sympathies are not with them, and/or the story spends a lot of time on the collateral damage they inflict, they can be considered not wish-fulfillment enough to count as Edgelords... although note that such characters, particularly if allowed to be a protagonist or in the hands of more than one author, tend to degrade into Edgelordery for subtly obvious reasons.

===Sidenote: Chunni===

In some Weeb circles, an "Edgelord" is called "Chuuni", short for "Chuunibyou". This delightful Japanese word combines the concepts of "Sophomoric" ("Chuunibyou" literally translated means "Middle [School] 2[nd Year] Syndrome") and "Edgelord", with an optional side note of "I have supernatural powers". Importantly, the "Stupid and Lame" part is baked right into the word, while "Edgelord" is usually only ''implies'' stupidity.

===In closing===
{{Topquote|So maybe ordinary people ''don't'' always crack. Maybe there ''isn't'' any need to crawl under a ''rock'' with all the ''other'' slimy things when trouble hits... maybe it was just ''you'', all the time|Batman, The Killing Joke}}

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 or pushing boundaries is not profound in and of itself. Shock value, twists and subverting expectations doesn't automatically equal good storytelling. Finally, using these things as an outlet for personal views/grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

==How Can I Tell If My Character Is An Edgelord?==

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, moody, has easy access to weapons and are aggressively contrarian. While alone or even together these traits don't make an edgelord, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom:

* Are they either a power fantasy against or deliberately written to offend "The Man™" or "the establishment™"? (NOTE: With one exception below, and even if not targeting "the establishment™"/targeting enemies of theirs such as criminals, '''a "yes" answer here automatically grants the character edgelord status.''')
** Bonus points if the writer goes after ''the usual targets''; [[Capitalism|big business]], organized [[religion]], the education system or law enforcement. Double bonus points if they're a real-life example from the above, triple bonus points if they've already been frequently targeted in media (eg; oil companies, the Catholic Church, strict schoolteachers or the police) and quadruple bonus points if its a mix (such as Catholic boarding schools).
** The one exception are characters who '''start out''' as merely mildly edgy (particularly antagonists of the "right target, wrong methods" variety), and only graduate to full edgelord status if other writers are allowed access to them or the current writer gets carried away.
* Do they openly mock altruistic traits (like hope and love)? Compromise? faith or the Powers-That-Be? Bonus points if they do so without suffering negative consequences for it.
* Do they have a backstory dominated by abuse they suffered (often trotted out as an excuse for their violent contrarianism)?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards, if not actively despises?
** Partial credit if they're seeking redemption... but only changing their targets instead of their approach or methods.
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? As in a negative attitude towards anyone else having authority over them.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview?
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by [[Ayn Rand]] or [[Jack Chick]]). Bonus points if they're nihilistic. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or are the challengers clearly strawmen, including tarring the entire group with the same brush as an extremist minority?
** The [[Star Trek]] Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire? Bonus points if the outfit;
** Includes a cloak or a long trenchcoat (think Neo's from the Matrix films).
** Has [[Chaos|built-in blades or spikes]]
** Includes a fedora
*** Any other excessively Cool Hat counts for half-credit--and yes, this does include Judge Dredd's Helmet.
** Is covered in insults, profanities, curses or threats
** Has tailored-on violent, anarchic or sacrilegious imagery
** Incorporates or is made of others' body parts
** Is alive (especially if it's a monster in clothing form or possessed)
* Do they wear warpaint?
* Do they have body modification, ranging from minor such as tattoos to extreme examples such as horns or wings? Bonus points if the modifications can be weaponized.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have an "adult" vice such as drinking or smoking (fantastical ones count). Bonus points if its an addiction.
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by [[Gav Thorpe]], Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, [[A Song of Ice and Fire|George RR Martin]], Garth Ennis or Alan Moore?<ref>Yes, we did mention Garth Ennis twice on purpose; man is so edgy he probably belongs in the list ''three times''. In short: Ennis is a fucking edgelord even compared to other edgy authors, so any character he creates is probably going to be either an edgelord or a punching bag for one.</ref> Honorable mention: [[Judge Dredd|Pat Mills]] (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords despite lots of their characters being unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis. The ultimate example being Ennis' professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", a comic series written by the edgelord Punisher author named above using [[Original character, do not steal|knock-offs of Marvel and DC supers]] in an anti-superhero genre power fantasy. Billy himself leads the titular group, and is a racist Punisher knock-off and author mouthpiece.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
** Batman can be made into an edgelord in a edgy writer's hands (for example, Frank Miller's "All Star Batman And Robin"), although more rarely than you might think, since his respect for the part of the establishment - owning Wayne Enterprises and his respectful alliance with most of Gotham's police, chief among them Commissioner Gordon - and his "no kill" code usually heads off most of the worst edgelord tendencies.
* 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!
* Adversary from DC comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[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.
* Peter and Paul from "Funny Games". Another "cool psycho gang that tortures, kills and dismembers a family" sort of director's wank which ups to eleven: when the woman in desperation manages to kill one, the other literally turns back time, and kills her child and husband, THEN tortures, gags, takes her for a boat ride and drowns her for fun, go to the next house and wink at the camera while acting happy and nonchalant, to start the cycle a new. Director Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media and definitely not getting his rocks off torturing a whitebread white woman with a family and gagging, killing, and raping her. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight (then again this is a tame letdown compared to what a hardcore gorehound would watch, with cinematography purposely ruining any payoff. Very messed while also giving a middle finger to [[Slannesh]] Worshipers as no rape occurs in the film). Oh, and he enjoyed it so much he remade HIS OWN MOVIE; after the original 1997 German language version he made a 2008 English version.
* "The Strangers" from the 2008 The Strangers movie. Literally a bunch of home invaders invade a couple's home, beat, torture and kill the husband, unmask themselves to the wife, act all chill and cute, act cool to a bible tract distributing kid and talk about "it will be easier next time". They are never found, never bested, and simply put, get away with everything in a "cool teenager" attitude.

===Live Action TV===
* Stargate's Sohkar- It's hard to get more edgelord than literally masquerading/cosplaying as Satan.

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a radical edgelordy cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Several characters from World of Warcraft, prime individuals being Deathwing, Sylvanas Windrunner, Sargeras and Illidan Stormrage (pictured below). There's also edgy groups including the Forsaken, Death Knights and Demon Hunters (Illidan even founded the latter) with edgelord members.
** Special mention goes to pre-retcon Sargeras. Originally, Sargeras was so traumatized by the evil of the demons he fought... [[Stupid Evil|he became convinced that good was futile and conscripted those same demons into an army to destroy the cosmos]]).
* Reaper from Overwatch. For whatever reason he cannot die, as he constantly regenerates his tissues (with an advanced necrosis, so he's basically sort of sci-fi undead). Of course, he blames his former friends from Overwatch (like he never considered it COULD be some side effect from supersoldier genetic modifications he'd received before forming of the Overwatch, even moreso when the shady scientist who modified him also joined Talon) for his sorry condition, so he became fixated on revenge and killing. Also, he was super jealous for his best friend, who was getting all the praise, while he was getting his hands dirty.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to 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.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger, and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example predating Elric. After his father dies dies, he wears black, becomes foreboding, dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months, monologues with skulls and murders his friends including the harmless father of his girlfriend (though to be fair he thought he was stabbing the man who he suspected killed his father).

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. On top of being a callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich, she hates systems of authority but wants to be goddess of her people [[What|despite hating religion most of all]]. She values strength... but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her; textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there. For more information, look at the [[Drow]] and remember they're like that because her laws require it.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender, with groups such as the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]].
*** In particular, there's [[Konrad Curze]]...
*** ...[[Fabius Bile]]...
*** ...and the [[Dark Eldar]], each to such a degree they each deserve a separate bullet point all to themselves.
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most [[Dark Elves]]. (None of whom are quite so ''needlessly'' edgy as to deserve their own separate bullet points, unlike the 40k Edgelords above.<ref>Nagash might come close, but is presented as more "he's just an asshole", compared to the "he might have a point" presentation of Bile or full Tragic Backstory of Curze. A similar point can be made about the Dark Elves (just assholes) compared to the Dark Eldar (who need to feed Slaanesh because if they don't s/he eats them).</ref>)
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the other [[Chaos Gods|Ruinous Powers]].

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape, killing, eugenics and an violent solipsistic protagonist with enough plot armor to make Ciaphas Cain look like a [[Star Trek|redshirt]] one day away from retirement. When the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" [[meme]] originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
* As a general trend: Vegeta, of Dragonball Z started a long term trend in Shonen anime and manga for "edgy badboy antagonistic rival" (who usually either starts out or winds up as a full-on (anti)villain) characters who are frequently more popular than the milktoast main character, especially in fanfiction. Examples include Sasuke Uchiha of Naruto, Bakugo from My Hero Academia, and, going further afield, Riku from Kingdom Hearts (/v/, rather than /a/, if a very /a/ shaded /v/), and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (a Western example modeled on the type). Note that not all of them qualify for full "Edgelord", as many of them are merely ''mildly'' edgy, but it's a frequent enough vein of Edgelords that we need to mention it here. Particular mention should be made of...
** Bakugo from My Hero Academia, who probably counts as a deconstruction/parody of one. What else do you say about somebody who chooses the codename "King of Explodo-Kills" and later "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight" while training to be a super'''hero'''?
* Keyaru from Redo of Healer deserves a spot for causing a localized [[Warp Storm|shitstorm]] involving massive levels of [[skub]] in the anime fandom. He's a healing slave who was physically and sexually abused until he finds out a [[Mary Sue|loophole in his magic to resets time]] and fulfills his fantasy. Keyaru believes that since history was reset, he can't take revenge for acts that were not commited; and in a twisted leap of logic, instead of preventing those things from happening, he decides to make sure his abusers actually repeat their wrongdoings (which include several months of sexual abuse while drugged in a filthy cell) so he feels justified when he inflicts his own kind of revenge. Revenge such as: breaking all the fingers of a princess, THEN healing them and start anew, THEN [[rape|raping]] her repeatedly, THEN erasing her personality and make her his sex slave; or turn a guard into a little girl, and turns all his men into [[Slaanesh |horny rape zombies]], and has him raped to death, while he torches the building to make sure no one survives; or lock an enfeebled knight lady in a room with brainwashed, sex-crazed hungry [[Cannibalism|cannibals]], and promises her he will free her if she manages to satisfy them sexually all night long. She gets devoured by midnight. And the list keeps going. Of course, Keyaru will say that hatred is what gets him going and revenge is the best feeling in the world, next to sex and eating. When [[Grimdark|his whole home village gets razed in retaliation for the princess]], he's actually overjoyed to finally have a justification to brutally murder THE WHOLE ARMY; he only manages to save a single boy from his village, but he makes sure the boy holds a grudge on him, because in his words [[derp|"Only hatred can wash up the sadness of losing all your loved ones"]]. Truly an endgelord among edgelords.

===Notable NOT Edgelords===

* '''Cad Bane''' (Star Wars The Clone Wars): Mostly lone wolf bounty hunter who once killed a guy in front of their brother just to get his fedora back (''"What are you lookin' at? It's a nice hat."''). Not an edgelord because he's perfectly happy to work for the establishment as long as the establishment is the highest bidder.

* '''Bronn/Ser Bronn of the Blackwater''' (A Song of Ice and Fire): Snarky mercenary who would kill a baby for the right price. Not an edgelord because he'll also work for the establishment - and does for much of the story - plus his SOLE focus in life is looking out for number one; he loves life and doesn't want to die.

* '''Darion Mograine''' (World of Warcraft): Ruthless member of an order of undead knights with a literal hunger for pain after sacrificing his soul to save his father's. While bordering on edgelord and looking the part (see below), Darion is not an edgelord because he doesn't oppose love (he still loves his father), faith or altruism and he'll work with the establishment if necessary - including his former paladin order.
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversary" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
</gallery>

Edgy

2021-09-02T05:44:12Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:55E9:CC28:D442:5184: /* Notable NOT Edgelords */

{{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 player character of ''Hatred''}}

{{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 pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. 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 and contrarians, 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 a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding, antisocial, militant types with problems with authority and a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" or representing "the establishment™"). 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. In writing, edgelords 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, extremism and rape 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.

[[File:Pizza-slicer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The ultimate apotheosis of an edgelord: All edge, no point.]]
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 or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. 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 or problems with authority, 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]].

===Who's An Edgelord?===
Who's a cute little Edgelord? Yes, you, you adorable little mass-murderer, you!

"Edgelord" gets applied to two groups: '''Authors''' fixated on making edgy material, and the '''Edgy characters''' they write. While most of this article assumes the latter definition (as we at least try to avoid authorial mind-reading), it's quite possible for an Edgelord author to create an edgy work without an Edgelord character<ref>How? Well, just to start with, picture a modern retelling of The Little Match Girl (the one where the title character freezes to death on the street--looking back on it, Hans Christian Anderson was Edgelord as fuck).</ref>, and a non-Edgelord author to create an Edgelord character (either unintentionally, satirically, or de-constructively).

===Edgy Villains===

There's an important argument to be made about villains and edginess. Frequently, it's necessary to engage in authorial behavior that would be considered edgy in order to properly develop a bad guy. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a [[Mary Sue|Villain Sue]] situation, and if so, what kind of Villain Sue are we dealing with?"<ref>For an example of a non-Edgelord Villain Sue, there are plenty of Villain Sues who the author clearly hates, but can't bring themselves to kill off for reasons of marketability. It's usually only when the Doylist definition of Mary Sue comes into play, where the Author sees themselves as the villain and has more sympathy for them than the protagonist, that Edgelordery starts to set in.</ref> and "are the author's sympathies clearly with the villain's agenda?"<ref>Not with the villain himself; plenty of villains clearly have the author's sympathy (what [[TVTropes]] might call a "Villain Woobie" or "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds"); what matters here is does the author believe what the villain believes. That may sound odd, but many cases of "The Bad Guy Was Right" involve characters created by another author, or are (usually bad) parody of such.</ref>

===Edgelords and [[Mary Sue]]s===

A lot of edgy characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Another reason is the "Power Fantasy" route, where the author uses their work and the character in question to attack something or someone from real-life that they oppose. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a Jerk Sue situation?", "do the villains represent a work the author hates?" and "do the villains represent a real person or thing the author is against?"

Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

==="Right Target, Wrong Method" Characters===

One important partial exception: Sometimes authors include a character that can be considered "Edgy" in theory... but in practice, it's clear the author isn't rooting for them, because they take things '''way''' too far. We're talking "Utopia Justifies the Means, No Matter How Horrific" and "Death Penalty for Jaywalking"-type characters here. For an example of "edgy hero vs edgelord villain", compare [[Judge Dredd]] to his archnemesis, Judge Death.

While they can degrade into regular Edgelords quite easily, as long as it's clear that either the author's sympathies are not with them, and/or the story spends a lot of time on the collateral damage they inflict, they can be considered not wish-fulfillment enough to count as Edgelords... although note that such characters, particularly if allowed to be a protagonist or in the hands of more than one author, tend to degrade into Edgelordery for subtly obvious reasons.

===Sidenote: Chunni===

In some Weeb circles, an "Edgelord" is called "Chuuni", short for "Chuunibyou". This delightful Japanese word combines the concepts of "Sophomoric" ("Chuunibyou" literally translated means "Middle [School] 2[nd Year] Syndrome") and "Edgelord", with an optional side note of "I have supernatural powers". Importantly, the "Stupid and Lame" part is baked right into the word, while "Edgelord" is usually only ''implies'' stupidity.

===In closing===
{{Topquote|So maybe ordinary people ''don't'' always crack. Maybe there ''isn't'' any need to crawl under a ''rock'' with all the ''other'' slimy things when trouble hits... maybe it was just ''you'', all the time|Batman, The Killing Joke}}

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 or pushing boundaries is not profound in and of itself. Shock value, twists and subverting expectations doesn't automatically equal good storytelling. Finally, using these things as an outlet for personal views/grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

==How Can I Tell If My Character Is An Edgelord?==

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, moody, has easy access to weapons and are aggressively contrarian. While alone or even together these traits don't make an edgelord, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom:

* Are they either a power fantasy against or deliberately written to offend "The Man™" or "the establishment™"? (NOTE: With one exception below, and even if not targeting "the establishment™"/targeting enemies of theirs such as criminals, '''a "yes" answer here automatically grants the character edgelord status.''')
** Bonus points if the writer goes after ''the usual targets''; [[Capitalism|big business]], organized [[religion]], the education system or law enforcement. Double bonus points if they're a real-life example from the above, triple bonus points if they've already been frequently targeted in media (eg; oil companies, the Catholic Church, strict schoolteachers or the police) and quadruple bonus points if its a mix (such as Catholic boarding schools).
** The one exception are characters who '''start out''' as merely mildly edgy (particularly antagonists of the "right target, wrong methods" variety), and only graduate to full edgelord status if other writers are allowed access to them or the current writer gets carried away.
* Do they openly mock altruistic traits (like hope and love)? Compromise? faith or the Powers-That-Be? Bonus points if they do so without suffering negative consequences for it.
* Do they have a backstory dominated by abuse they suffered (often trotted out as an excuse for their violent contrarianism)?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards, if not actively despises?
** Partial credit if they're seeking redemption... but only changing their targets instead of their approach or methods.
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? As in a negative attitude towards anyone else having authority over them.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview?
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by [[Ayn Rand]] or [[Jack Chick]]). Bonus points if they're nihilistic. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or are the challengers clearly strawmen, including tarring the entire group with the same brush as an extremist minority?
** The [[Star Trek]] Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire? Bonus points if the outfit;
** Includes a cloak or a long trenchcoat (think Neo's from the Matrix films).
** Has [[Chaos|built-in blades or spikes]]
** Includes a fedora
*** Any other excessively Cool Hat counts for half-credit--and yes, this does include Judge Dredd's Helmet.
** Is covered in insults, profanities, curses or threats
** Has tailored-on violent, anarchic or sacrilegious imagery
** Incorporates or is made of others' body parts
** Is alive (especially if it's a monster in clothing form or possessed)
* Do they wear warpaint?
* Do they have body modification, ranging from minor such as tattoos to extreme examples such as horns or wings? Bonus points if the modifications can be weaponized.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have an "adult" vice such as drinking or smoking (fantastical ones count). Bonus points if its an addiction.
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by [[Gav Thorpe]], Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, [[A Song of Ice and Fire|George RR Martin]], Garth Ennis or Alan Moore?<ref>Yes, we did mention Garth Ennis twice on purpose; man is so edgy he probably belongs in the list ''three times''. In short: Ennis is a fucking edgelord even compared to other edgy authors, so any character he creates is probably going to be either an edgelord or a punching bag for one.</ref> Honorable mention: [[Judge Dredd|Pat Mills]] (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords despite lots of their characters being unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis. The ultimate example being Ennis' professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", a comic series written by the edgelord Punisher author named above using [[Original character, do not steal|knock-offs of Marvel and DC supers]] in an anti-superhero genre power fantasy. Billy himself leads the titular group, and is a racist Punisher knock-off and author mouthpiece.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
** Batman can be made into an edgelord in a edgy writer's hands (for example, Frank Miller's "All Star Batman And Robin"), although more rarely than you might think, since his respect for the part of the establishment - owning Wayne Enterprises and his respectful alliance with most of Gotham's police, chief among them Commissioner Gordon - and his "no kill" code usually heads off most of the worst edgelord tendencies.
* 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!
* Adversary from DC comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[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.
* Peter and Paul from "Funny Games". Another "cool psycho gang that tortures, kills and dismembers a family" sort of director's wank which ups to eleven: when the woman in desperation manages to kill one, the other literally turns back time, and kills her child and husband, THEN tortures, gags, takes her for a boat ride and drowns her for fun, go to the next house and wink at the camera while acting happy and nonchalant, to start the cycle a new. Director Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media and definitely not getting his rocks off torturing a whitebread white woman with a family and gagging, killing, and raping her. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight (then again this is a tame letdown compared to what a hardcore gorehound would watch, with cinematography purposely ruining any payoff. Very messed while also giving a middle finger to [[Slannesh]] Worshipers as no rape occurs in the film). Oh, and he enjoyed it so much he remade HIS OWN MOVIE; after the original 1997 German language version he made a 2008 English version.
* "The Strangers" from the 2008 The Strangers movie. Literally a bunch of home invaders invade a couple's home, beat, torture and kill the husband, unmask themselves to the wife, act all chill and cute, act cool to a bible tract distributing kid and talk about "it will be easier next time". They are never found, never bested, and simply put, get away with everything in a "cool teenager" attitude.

===Live Action TV===
* Stargate's Sohkar- It's hard to get more edgelord than literally masquerading/cosplaying as Satan.

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a radical edgelordy cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Several characters from World of Warcraft, prime individuals being Deathwing, Sylvanas Windrunner, Sargeras and Illidan Stormrage (pictured below). There's also edgy groups including the Forsaken, Death Knights and Demon Hunters (Illidan even founded the latter) with edgelord members.
** Special mention goes to pre-retcon Sargeras. Originally, Sargeras was so traumatized by the evil of the demons he fought... [[Stupid Evil|he became convinced that good was futile and conscripted those same demons into an army to destroy the cosmos]]).
* Reaper from Overwatch. For whatever reason he cannot die, as he constantly regenerates his tissues (with an advanced necrosis, so he's basically sort of sci-fi undead). Of course, he blames his former friends from Overwatch (like he never considered it COULD be some side effect from supersoldier genetic modifications he'd received before forming of the Overwatch, even moreso when the shady scientist who modified him also joined Talon) for his sorry condition, so he became fixated on revenge and killing. Also, he was super jealous for his best friend, who was getting all the praise, while he was getting his hands dirty.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to 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.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger, and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example predating Elric. After his father dies dies, he wears black, becomes foreboding, dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months, monologues with skulls and murders his friends including the harmless father of his girlfriend (though to be fair he thought he was stabbing the man who he suspected killed his father).

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. On top of being a callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich, she hates systems of authority but wants to be goddess of her people [[What|despite hating religion most of all]]. She values strength... but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her; textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there. For more information, look at the [[Drow]] and remember they're like that because her laws require it.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender, with groups such as the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]].
*** In particular, there's [[Konrad Curze]]...
*** ...[[Fabius Bile]]...
*** ...and the [[Dark Eldar]], each to such a degree they each deserve a separate bullet point all to themselves.
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most [[Dark Elves]]. (None of whom are quite so ''needlessly'' edgy as to deserve their own separate bullet points, unlike the 40k Edgelords above.<ref>Nagash might come close, but is presented as more "he's just an asshole", compared to the "he might have a point" presentation of Bile or full Tragic Backstory of Curze. A similar point can be made about the Dark Elves (just assholes) compared to the Dark Eldar (who need to feed Slaanesh because if they don't s/he eats them).</ref>)
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the other [[Chaos Gods|Ruinous Powers]].

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape, killing, eugenics and an violent solipsistic protagonist with enough plot armor to make Ciaphas Cain look like a [[Star Trek|redshirt]] one day away from retirement. When the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" [[meme]] originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
* As a general trend: Vegeta, of Dragonball Z started a long term trend in Shonen anime and manga for "edgy badboy antagonistic rival" (who usually either starts out or winds up as a full-on (anti)villain) characters who are frequently more popular than the milktoast main character, especially in fanfiction. Examples include Sasuke Uchiha of Naruto, Bakugo from My Hero Academia, and, going further afield, Riku from Kingdom Hearts (/v/, rather than /a/, if a very /a/ shaded /v/), and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (a Western example modeled on the type). Note that not all of them qualify for full "Edgelord", as many of them are merely ''mildly'' edgy, but it's a frequent enough vein of Edgelords that we need to mention it here. Particular mention should be made of...
** Bakugo from My Hero Academia, who probably counts as a deconstruction/parody of one. What else do you say about somebody who chooses the codename "King of Explodo-Kills" and later "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight" while training to be a super'''hero'''?
* Keyaru from Redo of Healer deserves a spot for causing a localized [[Warp Storm|shitstorm]] involving massive levels of [[skub]] in the anime fandom. He's a healing slave who was physically and sexually abused until he finds out a [[Mary Sue|loophole in his magic to resets time]] and fulfills his fantasy. Keyaru believes that since history was reset, he can't take revenge for acts that were not commited; and in a twisted leap of logic, instead of preventing those things from happening, he decides to make sure his abusers actually repeat their wrongdoings (which include several months of sexual abuse while drugged in a filthy cell) so he feels justified when he inflicts his own kind of revenge. Revenge such as: breaking all the fingers of a princess, THEN healing them and start anew, THEN [[rape|raping]] her repeatedly, THEN erasing her personality and make her his sex slave; or turn a guard into a little girl, and turns all his men into [[Slaanesh |horny rape zombies]], and has him raped to death, while he torches the building to make sure no one survives; or lock an enfeebled knight lady in a room with brainwashed, sex-crazed hungry [[Cannibalism|cannibals]], and promises her he will free her if she manages to satisfy them sexually all night long. She gets devoured by midnight. And the list keeps going. Of course, Keyaru will say that hatred is what gets him going and revenge is the best feeling in the world, next to sex and eating. When [[Grimdark|his whole home village gets razed in retaliation for the princess]], he's actually overjoyed to finally have a justification to brutally murder THE WHOLE ARMY; he only manages to save a single boy from his village, but he makes sure the boy holds a grudge on him, because in his words [[derp|"Only hatred can wash up the sadness of losing all your loved ones"]]. Truly an endgelord among edgelords.

===Notable NOT Edgelords===

* '''Cad Bane''' (Star Wars The Clone Wars): Mostly lone wolf bounty hunter who once killed a guy in front of their brother just to get his fedora back (''"What are you lookin' at? It's a nice hat."''). Not an edgelord because he's perfectly happy to work for the establishment as long as the establishment is the highest bidder.

* '''Bronn/Ser Bronn of the Blackwater''' (A Song of Ice and Fire): Snarky mercenary who would kill a baby for the right price. Not an edgelord because he'll also work for the establishment - and does for much of the story - plus his SOLE focus in life is looking out for number one; he loves life and doesn't want to die.

* '''Darion Mograine''' (World of Warcraft): Ruthless member of an order of undead knights with a literal hunger for pain after sacrificing his soul to save his father's. While bordering on edgelord and looking the part (see below), Darion is not an edgelord because he doesn't oppose love, faith or altruism and he'll work with the establishment if necessary - including his former paladin order.
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversary" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
</gallery>