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Edgy

2020-07-14T00:09:54Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9DF4:F64E:ED6B:AE42: /* Notable 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 Crusader, aka Not Important}}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Notable Edgelords==

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

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Edgy

2020-07-14T00:04:46Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9DF4:F64E:ED6B:AE42: /* Notable 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 Crusader, aka Not Important}}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Notable Edgelords==

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

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Religion

2020-07-13T23:51:31Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9DF4:F64E:ED6B:AE42: /* Religion as a Bad Thing/Detractors */ What makes you think Preacher isn't Garth's attack on Christianity? A former priest gets a power and uses it to call out God, who's portrayed as a petty, incompetent coward. Jesus didn't die on the cross and has an inbred descendant called Humperdoo, plus Garth himself hates religion (as does Seth Rogen, the guy who directed the live-action adaptation of Preacher).

{{Heresy}}
{{topquote|Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.|Martin Luther King, Jr}}

:'''Dracula''': ''I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!''
:'''Richter Belmont''': ''Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!''
:'''Dracula''': ''Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.''
::--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in [[Castlevania#Castlevania:_Symphony_Of_The_Night_.28Castlevania_9.29|Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.]]

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure [[skub]] that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily [[SJW|debated]] [[communism|subjects]], religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

==Religion vs. Mythology==
While [[Mythology|mythologies]] aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions add rituals and practices that link those mythologies directly to the lives of their believers in one form or another, typically by describing how to properly serve to a god (or multiple gods, it depends) a significant role in the mythology a given religion is derived from. [[Skub|Whatever the source]], the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in [[cleric|various]] [[Paladin|ways]], depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and how humans should relate to the supernatural, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become [[Exarch|dangerously single-minded]] about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that [[Heironeous|some]] are more benevolent than [[Asmodeus|others]] and in numerous cases even [[Heresy|if it involves going against the religion's teachings]]; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics- both in fantasy and in the real world.

==Role in Society==
A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally. Historically, these and other religions were frequently enshrined in law as the "state religion", giving them special privileges such as extensive influence over the government or tax exemptions. In some cases, they even took over the functions of the government entirely in a system known as theocracy; while uncommon in the present day, theocracies are still in use in places such as the Vatican and Iran.

Within the last few centuries, due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, which regards religion as at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). For the most part, a combination of people identifying more with their culture or nation than their religion and the concept that religion and functions of state should not interfere with each other has turned into more of a "live and let live" mentality that doesn't really support or oppose any one religion and only reacts when said religions begin actively defying the state or the state starts bringing the boot down on religion.

Throughout history, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions. This is usually because religious teachings put the figure/object of worship before the state in a conflict of interest and most religions' teachings condemn tyranny or [[Slaanesh|the vices tyrannical leaders indulge]]. Other reasons include tyrants dislike being answerable to anyone besides themselves and a tyrant may have some form of anti-religious prejudice. While nations have usually tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: religions opposing the state-sponsored religion in any way), several nations (usually [[Communism|Communist]] states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context as a call to arms rather than a passive theory) have tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Militant_Atheists results] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia#Religious_communities each] time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers who manage to survive the regime try to continue their activities in secret. Worst case scenario, the society and its population degenerates into [[Commorragh|a violent, fractious, and nihilistic shell of their former selves]].

Unsurprisingly, the most religious nations are the aforementioned theocracies, and apart from them are countries such as Brazil in South America or Ghana and Zambia in Africa (Zambia even has a state religion alongside a law that allows for freedom of religion). China is - at the time this was written - the world's least religious and most atheistic country (the situation around North Korea is [[Skub|debatable]], since even though they violently supress religions [https://www.foxnews.com/world/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-some-for-videos-or-bibles-report-says to the point that merely having copies of religious texts can be grounds for execution], they also have the Kim Cult blended with the Marxist offshoot ideology Juche).

==How this impacts /tg/==
A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:
* Purely functional use of religion as a story device.
* Endorsement of religion and/or religious people.
* Criticism of religion and/or religious people.
For ease of categorization, writers who use these modes will also be called proponents, detractors or functionalists (who can be pro, anti or neutral).

===Religion as a story device/Functionalists===
Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world [[Mythology]] and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:
* The [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of [[Paladin|Justice]] and [[Druid|Nature]] are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
* The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in [[Exalted]] just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are the guys who were made specifically to do whatever the gods needed them to do for reasons inherent to the setting, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do '''almost anything''', except ''avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything''".

===Religion as a Bad Thing/Detractors===
There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", often alongside having an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. Despite that, the view is found among some fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials", Philip Pullman (he wrote it as pushback against C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Whatever the genre, this comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that below) or "The Gods are Evil". Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens" (for example; the author who codified the genre, [[H.P. Lovecraft]], was an avowed anti-religious atheist - note the recurring theme of villainous cults). This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. A writer could have resentment against a specific religion or even the higher power a religion reveres (though opposition to a god or gods is called anti-theistic, not anti-religious), and single them out in their works due to personal bias or agenda. Worst case scenario, the story is some sort of anti-religion wish fulfillment power fantasy - such as Frank Miller's "Holy Terror" comics against Islam and Garth Ennis' "Preacher" comics (and their live-action adaptation) against Christianity.

Whatever the motivation, writers saying this message either model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people or use a fictional religion as a - usually obvious - stand-in or strawman of a real one. The most frequently targeted religions are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced human sacrifice (such as the Aztec religious practices) and Scientology. Cults, especially those with beliefs that mainstream religions consider unorthodox or outright heretical, are especially fertile ground for this message, albeit running the risk of being misapplied to tar other groups with the same brush.

===Religion as a Good Thing/Proponents===
There are several Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either are religious themselves and want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being THE fundamental element of the genre, this gives opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. This is less common in science-fiction, but not unheard of, such as Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" where God's signature is found in the digits of pi. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or [[CS Lewis|an alternate world (such as Narnia)]]. Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions or figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three). In other cases they all but abandon any form of subtlety, with the fictional religion being distinguished from the real-world religion the author follows by only a handful of minor changes. Naturally, those kinds of works tend to come off as preachy, to say the least.

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power as per "[[Belief Function|Belief Function]]" (think Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, but applying at the cosmological level). In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either [[Sigmar|caused some people have risen to godhood]] or [[Ynnead|caused new gods to be born in the setting]]. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

===Somewhat special cases===

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology and/or the various Abrahamic religions. They also often draw from those found in the writings of H.P Lovecraft. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity to be some form of destructive activity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

* All three types need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality-of-killing fodder (based on the idea that everyone in is group is evil because you have to do evil to be part of the group).
* Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", that "Religion can be used to justify anything", use it as a strawman to tar all with the same brush or they have a specific axe to grind (either against an entire religion, a group within that religion or individual adherents the author personally dislikes).
* Religion is Good types or the sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism, criticize Real World cults, say "there is good religion so don't tar all with the same brush", compare different beliefs or deal with negative aspects of religion (occasionally making jabs at competitive religions, or fellow believers the author disagrees with).
** As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as [[Always Chaotic Evil]] races (questions of whether this fosters prejudice against real-life groups and audiences and authors demanding more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights. Popular options are for them to be an off-shoot/denomination/subset of another religion and/or be taking vengeance for a real or perceived injustice (which has '''plenty''' of real-life precedent).

[[Urban Fantasy]] writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:
* The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible ([[True Faith|Faith]] being the power that repels [[Vampire]]s rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
* The second most common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is the "Religion as a Bad Thing" route from above. The story is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" [[Imperial Truth|propaganda]], and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion. It's a popular choice for writers trying to be [[Edgy]] who want to include religious subject matter in their stories, and they almost exclusively go after the most established religion in the area or any new cults that have emerged at the time. Furthermore, any fictional religions will most likely be thinly-veiled stand-ins for real life religions.
* Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically [[Chick Tracts|barely veiled proselytizing]] or [[Twilight|just straight up terrible]], though [[Monster Hunter International|there are some good ones]].
* The fourth route, taken most notably by [[Supers|DC and Marvel comics]] among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi teams up with Apep to get up to no good and start making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague, albeit more powerful (and yet infinitely less accessible) than anyone else in the setting, and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

===Miscellaneous Observations===

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available since if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be anything for the adventurers to do.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is [[World of Warcraft|the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe]] and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it may end up swinging back and forth between both sides or settle in a mid-point which doesn't take a strong stance either way.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

==Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions==
===Warhammer 40k===
* The [[Imperial Truth]] was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emps' interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself, [[Exterminatus|he responded accordingly]], and the Chaos Gods got a new tool in the form of [[Lorgar]]. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
** The [[Imperial Cult]] is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by [[Lorgar]] pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he ''must'' be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
** The [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Cult Mechanicus]] (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

* Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and [[Malal]]. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.
** Interestingly, there is a Space Marine of the Chaos faction who follows the Imperial Truth, and that is [[Fabius Bile]].

* All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]] do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. The closest thing they have to tenants is that Gork favors violence, Mork favors cunning. Greenskins have gotten into fights over this, but violence is part of their nature and that of their gods. While they fight over religion, they also fight over almost any dispute anyway, and may even start a religious argument just to enjoy a good fight among themselves (though the only theological argument they can formulate is "is Gork the god of cunning or is Mork?" or vica versa). On the surface, religion does not play a big-enough role in Ork society compared to other races, being just another outlet for Orks to fight about. But if [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Ghazghkull]] is any indication: religion can have a great impact on Orks, with him being becoming one of the greatest Warlords in the galaxy, primarily because he thinks he's personally blessed by Gork and Mork themselves. So if you throw in the Orks' gestalt field into the mix, its likely that its not that religion doesn't matter to them, it's under-utilized.

* The Tau's creed "The [[Greater Good]]" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
**The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
**As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
**At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

* The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their religion is polytheistic, with henotheistic offshoots, and Ausryan was the highest ranking god. However all of the Eldar gods were murder-raped to death by Slaanesh except for Isha (taken by Nurgle), Khaine (shattered and flung into realspace), Cegorach (hiding in the Webway) and Ynnead (born long after Slaanesh's birth). Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. With most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
** Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites, though nearly all give Khaine some tribute during war.
** Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
** Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around [[Cegorach]], whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
** The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals.
** Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the [[Incubi]] who hold [[Khaine]] in high regard.
** There are numerous rumors of a very small number of Chaos Eldar, but these are barely fleshed out and heavily classified in-universe. There have been verified Nurgle-worshipping Eldar and persistent rumors that some have embraced Slaanesh without becoming soul-food. Apart from this, some Dark Eldar have been willing to summon Chaos Daemons or work with Chaos worshippers ([[Fabius Bile|or allies of Chaos]]) to further their own ends.

* While the Necrontyr had religions before certain [[C'tan|star entities]] [[Necrons|roboticizied them]], those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

* The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. [[Genestealer]]s infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult (such as one that worships a [[Swarmlord|four-armed]] version of the Emperor) or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

===Dungeons and Dragons===
* Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, [[Planescape]], [[Eberron]], and [[Pathfinder]] are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
** Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce [[Cleric]]s ([[Planescape: Torment#Fall-From-Grace|Atheist ones at that]]). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps ''especially'' the Athar.)
** Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The [[Blood of Vol]] seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the [[Path of Inspiration]] seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The [[Path of Light]], [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Becoming_God|Becoming God]] and [[Warforged_Mysteries#The_Reforged|Reforged]] all seek to ''create'' a deity. Even some interpretations of the [[Sovereign Host]], like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
** There's a handful of religions on [[Golarion]] that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the [[Prophecies of Kalistrade]], which is basically fantasy [[Star Trek|Ferengi]].

* [[D20 Modern]]'s [[Urban Arcana]], unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a <s>cleric</s> "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

===Star Wars===
* [[Star Wars]] is inconsistent on if the [[The Force]] is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith ''could'' both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including [[Heresy|disagreements over the teachings of that creed]]. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
** There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

===Star Trek===
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
** While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
** The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
*** Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of [[Science Fantasy]]). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
** <s>In the fifth Star Trek movie, ''"The Final Frontier"'', some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe</s> '''Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!'''

===World of Darkness===
* Very large books could be written about religion and [[World of Darkness]]/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
** From [[Vampire: The Requiem]], there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
** [[Hunter: The Vigil]] has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
** [[Mage: The Ascension]] has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

==See also==
* [[Mythology]]

[[Category:Not related]]
[[Category:History]]

/pol/

2020-07-13T23:37:42Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9DF4:F64E:ED6B:AE42: For one of many examples of SJWs aggressive disregard for history https://pjmedia.com/culture/tyler-o-neil/2020/06/23/blm-leader-statues-and-stained-glass-of-jesus-are-white-supremacy-must-be-torn-down-n566469 ...and don't get me started on their tendency for anti-religious hostility (albeit often with a double standards exception for Islam)

{{editwar}}
{{Flamewar}}
{{fail}}
{{heresy}}
{{delete| Lets just delete this and, as its eventually gonna become spammed by /pol/'s many idiotic supporters. Besides, we could always redirect this page to skub. If we don't delete this, then please permanently protect it.}}

[[File:QnVjrKW.jpg|thumb|right|300px]]

{{topquote|Gas the kikes! [[Racial Holy War|Race war]] now!|/pol/'s battlecry}}
{{topquote|1=Gentlemen, I had a vision of the future. One day because we won [[The_World_Wars#The_First_World_War|this war]], a man called Adolf Hitler will take power and he will make a lot of people angry about the Jewry. And also romani. And also the blacks. And the non-whites. Except for the Japanese, they're honorable Aryans, I guess. Also there will be a website called 4chan.org, and there will be a board called /pol/, and it will just be about what I have described. Its kind of a [[My Little Pony|one-trick-pony, except the pony is retarded]].|2=[https://youtu.be/Tj-nCjnVDKM?t=2133 The Fresh Sorcerer's accurate summary of /pol/]}}

[[Skub]]'s OTHER final form, and the polar opposite of [[SJW]].

'''/pol/''' is 4chan's "Politically Incorrect" board, nowadays mostly <s>populated by</s> used for incarcerating <s>people who identify as</s> neo-nazis, alt-righters, ancaps, edgy contrarians, and other colorful characters who rant on Jews, black people, women, Marxists, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, and every variety of white depending on the time of day. This also entails dumb shit such as long passionate debates on whether Slavic or Southern European people count as white, or complaints about Jews causing everything from financial crises to World Wars to hurting your toe on a table leg (the phrase "[[Meme|Baton Roue]]" might come to mind).

If you ask /pol/, they'll claim to be the best and most enlightened board that can see through the lies of society, while everyone from the other boards will call their userbase arguably the most obnoxious and [[cancer]]ous board on the whole site and nothing more than a far-right [[My Little Pony|containment board to prevent them spreading their cancer elsewhere]].

People who frequent /pol/ usually refer to themselves as /pol/lacks, but much more terms have been used to describe them by people outside of /pol/ such as /pol/io, /pol/luters, /pol/tards, /pol/yps, tad/pol/es, /pol/esmokers, and /pol/tergeists. The recently coined-term "alt-right" has quickly become for the right what the term SJW is for the left. On that note, some SJWs and /pol/acks aren't above having similar ''fundamental'' attitudes towards both their ideology and people who don't agree with it, which may seem odd - unless you're familiar with the idea of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory horseshoe theory] as it applies to political radical behavior, though that in itself isn't always the case.

==Origins==
...What, the above wasn't enough?

Do you REALLY want to know more about this?

...alright, fuck it. Put on the helmets and bring the bleach, this is going to be real long and real boring.

4chan's userbase is naturally a product of the industrial society, i.e. it bred a lot of NEETs and frustrated people who are largely kept in line with entertainment and porn and economic welfare, and will [[Roman Empire|gladly support any political party as long as their needs are met, inasmuch as they don't bother thinking about anything beyond their immediate well-being]]. Additionally, /b/ in particular had a history of racial supremacy expressed via memetic bigotry (i.e. using "nigger" as an insult, "faggot" as an endearing word, and "jewgolds" or "shekels" as the term for money) since around 2008, prior to the Anonymous v. Scientology clashes that brought them into more of a "spotlight". Most times it was considered little more than a joke by its userbase, just another way of ensuring that people who couldn't demonstrate thick enough skin to handle the typical level of discourse on /b/ would be driven off.

However, as time went on, people who took such things at face value began to show up more and more often - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498 it's been said that] "any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company." Eventually, some of the aforementioned idiots began espousing positions that couldn't be dismissed as attempts at humor any longer, but were soon seen for the representation of their values that it really was.

...Then along came the economic housing bubble of 2009, and said NEETs found their bread and circuses were not enough in the face of concepts such as "darkening future" and "imminent poverty". And that opened Pandora's box, unleashing the suppressed anger (normally kept in check by porn, cheap entertainment and welfare) of the NEETizens of 4chan. Unsurprisingly, the first mention of the "alternative right" coincides around the bubble, with this "internal" discontent playing a part in their rise alongside the external 'friction' that social justice represented.

People can get defensive about their opinions about Kirk vs Picard or their taste in anime or opinions about Warhammer fluff or berate others for having opinions which they disagree with, but in the end that's just talking about fiction. In contrast politics is about stuff which actually matters to you in the Real World. Political discussions, especially online, are volatile things at the very best of times. Given that 4chan is '''''the''''' place where reasonable discussion goes to die, it was inevitable that even the calmest attempt at discussing politics quickly devolved into extremist arguments. Trolls and fanatics alike, in many points, became impossible to distinguish from one another - they either forgot whatever original aims they may have possessed, or else simply used those aims as a cover for something they now legitimately believed in and gained validation from.

''If I'm damned anyway, then what is my incentive to be "good"?'' - ''Anonymous reacting to [[SJW|Identity Politics]]''

While they gleefully embraced the Nazi accusations that both sides of a debate would make at each other - and invariably decided to supercharge the politically incorrect arguments with shitposting just to enrage their opponents further - they did all of it with only a marginal knowledge of what the issues they were arguing about even entailed at any given time, if they remotely cared at all. Thus many political arguments far too numerous to count here, from immigration to crime and race, began to take root in /b/ and quickly spread elsewhere; Moot, being the [[Tzeentch|Eternal Planner]] that he is, created /n/ (what /pol/ started as) to corral the arguments.

As you can see, [[Not as planned|it's gone swimmingly for everyone involved.]] Sort of like a multilayered monkey's paw of pure [[fail]].

===Containment Board===
[[File:Pol leaves containment.png|thumb|right|200px]]
As stated earlier, /pol/ is meant to contain the population of stormweenies (named for Stormfront, a website that can be considered a precursor to /pol/, and whose community still overlaps with them) on 4chan. Pretty much everyone, including both Moot and most of /pol/ itself, has acknowledged this; Global rule #3 was once 'Keep /pol/ in /pol/'. The rule has since been changed to a more general version saying not to post flames, racism, off-topic replies, uncalled-for catch phrases and other things that are unhelpful to a board, but since that's what /pol/ shitposting essentially IS, the rule is still the same in spirit. Several boards have a sticky at the front page telling people to keep politics in /pol/ as well.

Though /pol/ isn't the only containment board on 4chan, the other containment boards such as /mlp/ and /soc/ are considered to have better userbases - those users have (mostly) less volatile baggage and the sense to leave it ''on'' those boards. When they venture onto another board, they stay on topic and only ''occasionally'' derail threads or start inflammatory ones (complete with /tg/ [[rage|deriving]] [[lulz|entertainment]] from it), but overall aren't ''nearly'' as insufferable in comparison.

Most attempts to curb /pol/, on the other hand, result in them [[Cancer|spreading to other boards]], where they will try to de-rail the threads on those boards to whatever political event that is galvanizing them and spreading around conspiracy theories. Whenever they are told to fuck off and quit derailing threads, they will change the subject, gaslight, and say whatever it takes to counter any arguments to the point of self-contradiction - in short, anything but backing down or even just going on the defense. This hasn't stopped the board from being deleted twice throughout their history, mind, but the inevitable spread forced it to be brought back both times. Even to this day, you'll still get threads here and there that fall victim to politically-based derailing.

==/pol/ using [[Warhammer 40,000]] as propaganda==
{{topquote|Suffer not the [[xenos]] to live!|Battle cry of the [[Deathwatch]]}}

One of the greatest [[RAGE|headaches]] that /tg/ in particular has with /pol/ is the misuse of the [[grimdark]]ness and xenophobic policies of the [[Imperium of Man]] by /pol/'s [[Neckbeard|Trump supporters]], who apparently believe that he is quite possibly a modern day incarnation of [[The Emperor]], and that the Western world should really become an IRL Imperium with zero tolerance against "Xenos" and "[[Tau|Cultural Marxists]]", with lots of conspiracy theories that Trump is fighting an endless battle against the "Ruinous Powers" of Liberalism supposedly led by [[Tzeentch|George Soros]]. It's basically yet another "Jews secretly controlling the world" episode on top of the usual boogeyman of "The All-Powerful Left" already invoked by many of the "cuckservatives" the alt-right railed against at their inception.

Initially, they "helped" him the only way they knew how: shitposting about [[anime]], Pepe the Frog, and [[Touhou|Momiji Inubashiri]] in a MAGA hat. One of their most widespread propaganda involving 40k was the complete stereotyping of all Muslims as [[Ork|ultraviolent savages who reproduce by the thousands and have no other instinct than to kill, maim and pillage]], Mexicans being cast [[Tyranids|an all-consuming swarm migrating to America to consume all of its resources]], and that every single one of them should be subject to [[Exterminatus]]. AS if that wasn't insulting to all parties real and fictional, eventually they finally "invented" a shitty forced meme where [[Heresy|they put Donald Trump's head on images of the great God-Emperor of Mankind]]. Not many people find them funny, even in the rare case of the Photoshop job being decent, and the Trump buzz started to fade anyway as reality promptly ensued and people realized he was largely more of the same checkers-level propaganda volleys designed to sway voters (if "[[Derp|uber-rich American politician claiming to be the champion of the poor]]" sounds familiar to you, anyway).

The new wave of French elections brought a more horrific wave of shitposting, with [[Extra Heresy|Marine le Pen being photoshopped into Sister of Battle pictures]]. However, Le Pen lost the French election by [[Fail|a 30% margin]], much to the [[Butthurt|chagrin]] of various /pol/tards. This was possibly compounded by the fact that Le Pen's campaign partly ran off the idea of a 'Frexit', only for Le Pen to abandon the entire idea post-election; between this and the Trump supporters in the userbase becoming nigh-indistiguishable from the more stereotypical ones, it proves for the umpteenth time that relying on any kind of political figurehead for overall validation is a universally bad idea.

Given 40k had its start as a ''satire'' of dystopian fiction and a bitter, ironic reflection of right-wing 80s Britain (see also: [[Rogue Trader]]), other right-wingers latching onto 40k-memery as a vehicle for demagoguery, propaganda and appeals to emotion, and further conflating it with modern politics is perhaps a schadenfreudish circle finally come complete. Without the original context, they see nothing more than an unironic heroic fantasy that validates their beliefs, rather than the proper mockery that it constitutes. Needless to say, many in /tg/ find such inclusion of real world politics in our 40k to be a sad, idiotic and pathetic phenomenon that should be punished by summary [[Exterminatus|SAGE'ing]].

==Ideology and Methodology (such as it is)==
While the full history of the SJW phenomenon is way too complicated to describe on their page and is usually less relevant to /tg/ (at least far less so than interactions with other boards on the site), suffice to say that while SJWs are the product of modern civil rights movements [[Ultramarines|who blindly adhere to the LETTER of a given progressive political creed's code of conduct without understanding the spirit of it]], /pol/acks essentially aspire to become the uber-racist, sexist, [[Chaotic Stupid|hyper-reactionary]] [[Marines Malevolent|card-carrying degenerates]] they think the other side believes them to be.

That this is (again) close to the same way some SJWs would come to conduct themselves - down to and including the general rudderlessness, the ''typical'' response to anyone who doesn't share their opinion, and the general prevalence of bullshit artists as figureheads - may explain why /pol/, by and large, seem so eager to join them in the race to the bottom. However, the horseshoe theory only holds water if you have the most basic and binary grasp of the political spectrum; everyone likes to think their "side" is the most rational.

Admittedly, badly implemented and ham-fisted progressive policies tend to alienate the people not supported by them, just like any other political policy, and it's not uncommon for social justice narratives (or ANY kind, really, but specifically these) to be astroturfed and exploited by politicians and corporations alike, as well as the grifters out for social currency. Thus, some people feel an instinct to rebel against a status quo that supposedly coddles and encourages "white guilt" and "political correctness gone mad", while others seek out the "rightful" social positioning they couldn't get elsewhere - and still others are looking for fresh marks after their recruitment pool in other activist circles went dry. From these groups, the edgiest and the craziest form the core of /pol/.

However, any analysis going beyond the surface for more than five minutes would recognize progressive lip service to be just that - lip service designed to appease 'SJW' demands rather than actually meet them. In addition, the "horseshoe theory" school of thought seems slightly more merited upon recognizing that, when they're not using it as a thoroughly cynical ploy to draw attention and stir shit, /pol/acks will use eerily similar rhetoric to signal their own virtues of traditional values, being "rational" thinkers, and otherwise acting in defense of "freedom", at least when they're genuinely believing anything beyond what directly benefits them. The words "refuge in audacity" should come to mind for the [[TVTropes|tropers]] in the audience, albeit in a far more disingenuous sense - the right to offend and be irreverent is elevated to a sacred cow, which is about as self-defeating as it sounds.

That said, most /pol/tergeists have no idea how anything actually works - even the basics of their own most common political beliefs are notoriously flimsy (if not OUTRIGHT blatant) myths and lies, often more than the SJWs they denigrate. The average /pol/ user tends to conduct themselves and their approach to politics across the board with all the nuance and subtlety of any given sportsball fandom, even '''before''' the slow bleeding of the glorified sportsball spectacle that is modern mainstream politics into the board itself commenced. While 4chan at large is and always has been something of a self-sustaining shitshow even at its best, /pol/ is (ostensibly) despised even by the rest of the userbase because they take their views to the logical "conclusion" and render themselves little more than bizarre caricatures.

Example of such nonsensical claims include: Stalin being a Jew (he was Georgian and a major anti-Semite to boot; the Jewish influence, of course, was mainly from Trotsky, which makes it all the more ironic); the first reports of Nazi death camps came from the Soviets (it came from Poland); most welfare recipients being unemployed black people (evidencing a misunderstanding of "majority" and "disproportionate number", as most people on welfare are white and only use it for 3 years or less); and the British Empire started declining by 1800 (their Golden Age was from 1816-1915, with Jews very well represented). And the coup de grace theory to rule over them all is another theory, "The Khazar Theory", that the real good Jews are actually all white people (Jacob's sons), while all the stereotypical Jews are [[Mongols|Khazar nomads' descendants]]. [[What|Yes, this is your brain's sound when it shifts without the clutch.]]

This is indicative of one of the biggest problems with /pol/, even more than not staying in their containment board: its denizens suffer from a board-wide Dunning-Kruger effect, believing themselves expert authorities on a multitude of subjects that individually take years of study at minimum, and shitpost and overuse bad memes as a substitute for wit and intelligence, ignoring that even the most casual Googling could debunk most of their narratives. Even Stormfront (which was run by an actual member of the Ku Klux Klan at one point, if it somehow still isn't) had ''slightly'' more principle; gods help you if you enter /pol/ from Israel.

Whenever a meme becomes popular on /pol/, they will begin forcing the meme on every other board, rapidly driving it so far into the ground that it will come out on the other side of the planet before the day is out. The memes they spam tend to be childish insults that will only impress people below 18. It says a lot about their board when getting merged with /mlp/ during an April Fools' joke '''improved''' it.

'''TL;DR:''' Even ignoring their disgusting traits AND putting aside "keep /pol/ in /pol/" talk, /tg/ remembers first and foremost that /pol/ is a containment board for a ''very good'' reason.

===Connections with the Christchurch Mosque Attacks===
{{BLAM|This section concerns the attacks on the Christchurch Mosques in New Zealand, the consequences of which affected the entire board, and by extension /tg/.}}

Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old man who attacked two Mosques in Christchurch, NZ, apparently identified as a "/pol/ack" and made a <s>detailed</s> barely literate manifesto mostly in the form of a "Q&A," containing absolutely zero original political thought and nary a trace of coherent ideology besides repetition of the basic White Nationalist complaints of a Western demographic upheaval (the "fourteen words," basically). It is all the more pathetic because he characterizes the poorly-formatted PDF as a ''magnum opus'' of three years' worth of political growth; one critical point of [[Derp|critical fuckstupid]] is his admiration for Communist China, known for its violation of basic human rights, especially free speech, against the Muslim Uyghurs of and even its Han (the dominant Chinese ethnic group) citizens.

Even '''/pol/ itself''', for all its numerous faults, practically worships the concept of the free exchange of ideas: A common point of contention with SJWs, perceived and otherwise, is freedom of debate and free speech at all costs, especially when it's offensive...at least, up until the point where their '''''own''''' views are challenged, of course. Then they suddenly decide that maybe censorship isn't so bad after all, which explains quite a lot about the board's fascist sympathies.

Said manifesto referenced several questionably tasteful memes (prominently, "remove kebab"), and the fucking degenerate actually went so far as to shout out those memes in public and play [[/v/|video game soundtracks]] and songs that /pol/ has turned into memes, while actively shooting people and live-streaming it. Sick fuck. Naturally, this means more conversations about the impact of the Internet/social media and technology in general and its role in the lives of disaffected millennials (and doing it full justice is a tall order and a half); the level of disconnect displayed, even by the expected standards of radical politics, that would allow a person to take a life while joyfully shouting silly sayings from the Internet like he was at an anime convention is disgusting and hard to fathom.

His goal, apparently, was to cause more hysteria and retribution: in his manifesto, he specifically spoke of wanting to stir up shit regarding ''inter alia'', laws regarding the rights of free speech and bearing arms which, in his mind, would lead to civil war and an ultimate victory for his ideology, such as it is. He imagined himself becoming a full martyr for the cause, or else incarcerated and (if the latter) perhaps later to be broken out of jail by a movement inspired by his "noble actions"...and yet few people online seem to consider his actions or their results desirable, even among those who would inevitably be even ''remotely'' 'sympathetic' to his cause. The only ones who would wholeheartedly support him were likely deadset on their ideology to begin with.

This, along with his choice to attack extremely soft targets (including women, children, and mainstream, non-radical places of worship), is enough to demonstrate that he was not a political actor in any real sense, but rather amounts to the perpetrator of an incident far more serious and tragic. Rather than a "proper 'domestic [i.e. white] terrorist'" (say, Timothy McVeigh), he comes across more as an aimless man on a demented rampage.

By virtue of being a white man in a European culture instead of, say, a member of a rival sect in an Islamic country, his attack on a mosque actually makes international headlines for more than five minutes; with his point well out the window, his pathetic attempts at justifying his attack only harmed his cause in the imagination of the general public and even amongst his peers. Needless to say, the consequences of his actions were quite serious: political groups of which he was a member or tangentially related to are being attacked by the government, despite their having no part in the violence, and the blood was not yet dry when the PM said that New Zealand's already highly restrictive gun laws "had to change". Most directly relevant to /tg/, their neighbor Australia [[Exterminatus|banned access]] to 4chan, 8chan and ''even fucking LiveLeak'' for distributing video of the massacre, which indirectly fucks over that entire sector of the userbase(s), likely due to the fact that the shooter, Brenton, is an Australian.

As if that wasn’t enough, the level of irony to Tarrant’s actions defies reality. Tarrant was fixated on mass migration in his manifesto, but thanks to his attack, New Zealand (and possibly other western countries) will accept EVEN MORE migrants from the Middle East and Africa in an effort to show that they’re tolerant of said migrants despite Tarrant’s attack. Way to go.

Though /pol/, with its vulgar and juvenile approach to issues of demography and race, is a tempting target to assign blame for his actions, 4chan might not be the genesis of his personal dissatisfaction; if the manifesto is to be trusted (itself a dicey proposition) he had apparently become interested in racial questions while touring the world and seeing the demographic changes which are afflicting Europe first hand. The problem is that when shitposting manchildren drink their own Kool-Aid and take up their guns alongside to murder innocent people, the average reasonable person can make a connection between the violence and the [[Star Wars|wretched hives of scum and villany]] said bad actors frequent, and so here we are.

This isn't entirely news to these folks, of course: "screw your optics, I'm going in" was how the last significant /pol/ terrorist put it, before attacking a defenseless synagogue which had no remote relation to any of /pol/'s 'concerns'. The inherent cowardice in that aspect of ''that'' attack and the most recent one are only one of the ways in which they are alike, but one of the most telling, not least because it begs the question of why the phrase "the last significant /pol/ terrorist" is even applicable.

Any reasonably well-adjusted person from anywhere on the political spectrum can see that the culture and posters of /pol/ are what give it its unfathomably bad name, which by extension affects already-considered-malignant *chan subculture such that one would be hard-pressed to assert otherwise. Inasmuch as /pol/acks even take their own putative ideas seriously, they don't tend to do themselves any favors - on- OR off-line. In addition, despite 4chan supposedly not being the birthing place for the ideals of Mr. Tarrant, the fact that it can now be tangibly tied to such people AND the resulting Australian lockdown on 4chan/8chan/etc. is certain to impact perception of the board and anyone seen as aligned with them - likely for the worse.

==What Do?==

{{editwar}}

If you encounter a /pol/ack, treat them with love and respect, and politely but firmly tell them to live. Set the better example. They are human beings suffering from hatred and ignorance. Set a good example of what a human should be like. If you are not capable of remaining calm, avoid and move on. The Overton Window is extremely skewed against them, and as such they are easier to ignore and kick out than [[SJW]]s.

Keep in mind that some are otherwise good people who are hurting and tired. Their hearts may be in the right place, they are just going about it the wrong way. They need to be challenged amicably, given empathy, and be shown that the world isn't a burning cesspit. To say that these people do NOT deserve to have their views debated and only deserve ostracization (let alone ''violence'') only pushes them deeper into an inescapable corner, with no choice but to join truly dangerous groups for social acceptance or survival. Lastly, to uniformly dismiss and hate them all is to spit on the legendary efforts of stellar individuals like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis Daryl Davis], a black man who went out of his way to befriend and deradicalize KKK members in real life, ''face to face''. It is no better than calling Daryl a white supremacist to his face, [https://www.facebook.com/daryl.davis.104/posts/10217755060641033 something which actually happened].

It's a bad idea to challenge /pol/ users on their home turf echo chamber. If somehow encountering one outside of 4chan, gauge the user to determine if said debatee is 1) good but misguided, 2) a believer that's not beyond redemption, 3) a true believer that's beyond redemption or 4) purely a shit-stirring troll. Avoid the latter two, and guide the former two away from their influence. Remember: Amicability and empathy. [[This Guy|Be like Daryl]].

==See Also==
*[[SJW]]s, the (mostly) left-leaning "contrast" to /pol/'s alt-right twattery, subjected to constant, though often inaccurate, comparisons due to hypocrisy and similar but better justified zealotry. Some major distinctions are that SJWs have much more influence in the media, a greater contempt for history and their goals are generally noble and idealistic, though they go about accomplishing those goals the completely wrong way, which can make them range from slightly obnoxious to [https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/steven-universe-fanartist-bullied-controversy/ dangerous] - [https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-mysterious-death-of-a-cyberbullied-porn-star even deadly].
*[[/k/]]
*[[Board-tans/pol]]
*[[Racial Holy War]], for what the rest of 4chan thinks would happen if a /pol/ack made an RPG.
*[[MYFAROG]], for when a /pol/ack actually made an RPG.
*[[Nazi]], what these guys ''wish'' they were.
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBpijRDDOxQ An appropriate response] to the forced Trump meme.

==Gallery==
<gallery class="center">
File:First_visit_to_pol.gif
File:1477229948688.jpg
File:Never Relax.jpg
File:1491144651231.png
File:1475903382909.jpg
File:Global Rule -3.jpg
File:Shitpost.png
File:1490344868585.jpg
File:1518620305269.jpg
File:1517880145411.png
File:Srgfd.png|All anyone needs to know.
File:1495590391196.png|Same as before but adapted to new memes.
File:5680446+_b10ddaacb84c03cf89b71c1f1327e25b.jpg|Cap doing what Cap does best.
File:Back_to_pol.jpg|The appropriate dismissal of all /pol/tards.
File:1481725926368.jpg|Some guy on Stormfront planning on using /pol/ as ''agitprop''.
File:1488601566861.jpg|/pol/tards delude themselves into thinking that it's only liberals who dislike them.
</gallery>

[[Category: Meme]]
[[Category: 4chan]]
[[Category: RAGE]]
[[Category:Pure Evil]]
[[Category:Sick]]