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Stupid Good

2020-12-11T14:49:30Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:C127:B94E:F124:2B8B: /* Examples of Stupid Good */

{{fail}}
{{Topquote|Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled.|Jason Todd to Batman about Joker, nailing how Stupid Good characters actually end up causing massive harm for the sake of their own "morals."}}

{{Topquote|Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.|Dark Helmet, ''Spaceballs'', having just casually disarmed Lone Starr with a trick that even [[Lawful Stupid|Ned Stark]] would have seen coming.}}

'''Stupid Good''' is a term derived from the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[alignment]] system, but can easily be applied to [[character]]s in any [[role-playing game]] in fact, it can be applied to characters in any medium, for a specific way of playing a morally good character, usually a [[Paladin]] with a relatively even split between this and [[Lawful Stupid]].

==Definition==
[[File:Stupid Good Bender.jpg|300px|right]]
A Stupid Good character takes actions with good intent, but without regard to long-term consequences and obeying one typically "good" principle while ''completely'' disregarding all other principles. This alignment is not at all selfish, just rigid to the point of insanity. For example, a character might refuse to lie (an action that, in a neutral context, is usually considered "bad") under any circumstances. If asked by a serial killer whether he'd seen a man running past, such a character might say that he did see that man running past, even though this would realistically lead to the man's entire family being tortured to death. A good rule of thumb is to ask whether any person in real life would consider this to be an ethical and reasonable course of action. If not, time to check for Stupid Good.

Batman's treatment of the Joker is probably the most famous example. By not only refusing to kill the evil clown, but often saving his life, Batman has enabled the murder of millions of people. When it comes to deciding which action is right, they pick one specific idea (don't kill the Joker) and make it the absolute cornerstone of their decisions on morality. This also highlights another aspect of a Stupid Good character - they can be shown to be intelligent in many other ways. A refusal to kill an enemy is probably the most common form of Stupid Good presented in media. This is usually applied selectively instead of generally, as a character who refuses to kill the villain may have just burned twenty of the villain's henchmen to death without a second thought. The villain is often spared simply because they are narratively important.

A common thought experiment in the field of ethics is the Trolley Problem, where you have a choice to directly cause the death of one innocent person and save ten people, or save one person and indirectly cause the death of ten others. This can be argued either way, but Stupid Good is a matter of extremes. A dead giveaway of Stupid Good is if that person would not kill the villain even if it would save the lives of a billion people the villain himself put in danger.

While crazy in the context of real life, Stupid Good characters are sometimes shown to be right within the context of their very contrived narrative. Stupid Good cartoon characters can seem to have made the "good" choice, but only in retrospect and only because they got lucky with a one-in-a-million matter of pure chance. A leader with responsibility to subordinates or subjects who acts in this way in real life would clearly be betraying their team in order to "uphold their morals".

In the vast majority of cases, however, a Stupid Good character will become [[That guy]] in a gaming group. The player's Disneyland version of what he thinks a really nice character would do is sure to get in the way of the plot and make it seem very stupid if he is allowed to influence the direction of the story. [[Cegorach|Amusingly]] common in terms of actual game mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons, along with Lawful Stupid. Paladins often suffer from some degree of [[MAD]] in various D&D editions, thus leading to intelligence being a dump stat, leading to characters who are literally lawful good and very, very stupid.

===Examples of Stupid Good===
*The '''Autobots''' particularly from the classic 80s cartoons. Almost incessantly "good" and stubborn in their refusals to do anything remotely bad. Seriously, in the whole run of the original series and the millions of years of war between them and the Decepticons, did they kill anyone?
**Optimus Prime can also be equally described as [[Lawful Stupid]], thanks to shit like the time he let himself get blown up as a consequence of a duel in which he ''knew'' the other guy cheated.
*The '''Organians''' from the original series of [[Star Trek]] are peace lovers to the extreme, to the point in intervening in the Federation/Klingon War and stopping all fighting across the galaxy. Particularly in the expanded content where they refuse to get involved in Q-Wars threatening multiple dimensions of existence.
*[[Batman]]. Just...how many times did he let the Joker live or even went out of his way to save him, FULLY KNOWING that he'd escape Arkham and kill many more innocents, and doing the whole dance over again? Various reasons have been given of varying validity, from "Killing the Joker means ''he wins''" to "Batman is already unhinged and you want him to start ''killing people?''", but the core sentiment remains the same: the Joker is extremely dangerous, clearly incapable of plus unwilling to try rehabilitation, and not containable without drastic measures. Death is probably the most humane option at this point, and sending him back to Arkham is just kicking the can down the road.
** It should be added that this stupidity well goes deeper, even ignoring Batman's part in it: Given that many versions of the Joker have known kills numbering in the three, four, or even five digits, why hasn't he "broken his neck falling down the stairs" or "jumped out a tenth story window" while in Police custody? How did he avoid capital punishment when even pleading insanity has its legal limits? Certain versions of The Joker remaining alive remains somewhat inexplicable in realistic terms, full stop. That's comic book logic for you.
*Ned Stark can both fit into Lawful Stupid and Stupid Good, as his penchant for mercy (he doesn't want Robert to murder Tommen and Myrcella in a fit of rage) ends up getting him executed and generally starting the major clusterfuck known as the War of the Five Kings.
** The War would have likely happened anyway because Stannis and Renly were both gathering armies & planning their moves, plus Littlefinger was playing everybody to destroy the realm while Ned was already on Littlefinger's hitlist for being married to his crush. The real stupid things there were not only not getting his kids out faster (he tried but Sansa wanted to stay), but not getting more trustworthy allies and confronting Cersei privately about her crimes and expecting her to turn herself in. Another note is that Ned’s execution was both unexpected by most and virtually everyone thought it was a bad move. Tywin personally claimed it made no sense and was forced to fight Ned’s angry family as a result. Numerous others acknowledged that they just executed a highly valuable political hostage and pissed off powerful family members and vassals of Ned. Ned himself didn’t expect to be executed because he did his part and knew how valuable he was. Had things gone “normally” (fan theories include Joffrey being insane or Littlefinger whispering into his ear to cause this), Ned would have gotten out alive but still badly off.

==The darker side of goodness==
<blockquote>''"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." ''</blockquote>

On the flip side of Stupid Good, there are those who attempt to justify whatever it is that they do so long as their characters create good outcomes. In essence as opposed to good '''actions''' "no matter the cost", the other side of stupid good is good '''consequences''' "no matter the cost". Generally those who circumvent moral problems with clever use of ethics and is therefore more often associated with Chaotic Good on the alignment scale ''(though not exclusively).''

This ''"ends justifies the means"'' approach is less like taking good actions to the point of situational absurdity and more like players using logic to create goodness out of absurd situations.

An example of a dilemma surrounding this phenomenon is: Is it morally good to do something evil, to result in an even [[Greater Good]]? Such as killing an innocent to save the king/country/world/universe?

The '''[[Book of Exalted Deeds]]''' says that the above example is most definitely '''not''' a Good act, no matter the intention of the PC and treads the muddy Neutral ground at best, however not all RPGs use the [[D&D]] alignment system, but any RPG that involves some mechanical tracker of morality may inevitably encounter a player action which causes an awkward collective intake of breath, followed by the question of ''"[[This Just Happened|did you really just do that?]]"''.

This is dangerous ground for any potential [[GM]] and needs to be [[Rules Lawyer|decided]] upon firmly when it arises. While there are many examples of real-world applications of the line of thought historically and politically, they are controversial almost without exception. In roleplaying games; the end justifies the means approach can certainly be seen as upholding the "moral good", but if a GM allows attitudes like this to take root, savvy players may eventually find reasons to do anything and have essentially just become [[Murderhobo]]s with apparent moral authority, and it can force hard-alignment systems to lose their legitimacy.

If "Good" players start justifying why they are [[Imperium|seeking out and slaying whole villages]] of Orcs "just BECAUSE they are evil" or if they are committing acts of [[Alpha Legion|terrorism against an oppressive state]] even when that state system is perfectly codified and functional then a GM should probably think about dropping any alignment systems rather than attempt to enforce muddy and dubious decisions.

===Examples of "Good" done Stupidly===
* The [[Tau]] in 40k, though with particular reference to the harsher side of the [[Greater Good]] where they believe that people can be forcibly brought into harmony with one another. It's not terribly unreasonable given that pretty much everyone else in the setting is either [[Orks|insane]], [[Chaos Space Marine|evil]], or [[Imperium of Man|xenophobic]] ([[Dark Eldar|or all three]]) to the point where almost nobody gets along without a gun to their head.
*[[Konrad Curze]] - VERY VERY much so, despite the fact he [[Noblebright|brought crime and corruption on his world to near-zero, improving efficiency and bringing hope]] to his world, he was NOT a good person, no matter what he was attempting to argue.
*The '''Organians''' again; Though only in [[/v/|video games]] where they have given up the non-violent approach and decide to force everyone into peace by [[derp|declaring war on them]].
* Stannis Baratheon, from the show adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire. He keeps on committing morally dubious and sometimes even downright villainous acts, such as sacrificing his own daughter to a fire god, in order to save Westeros from a bunch of evil elves, their zombie minions, and their Darth Maul lookalike leader; all at the behest of a crazed priestess who can't see that Stannis is NOT the chosen hero of yore, which she has fooled both herself and him into believing. In other words, he's a more well intentioned Macbeth who will end up with the same fate.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]]

Stupid Good

2020-12-11T14:44:57Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:C127:B94E:F124:2B8B: /* Examples of Stupid Good */

{{fail}}
{{Topquote|Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled.|Jason Todd to Batman about Joker, nailing how Stupid Good characters actually end up causing massive harm for the sake of their own "morals."}}

{{Topquote|Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.|Dark Helmet, ''Spaceballs'', having just casually disarmed Lone Starr with a trick that even [[Lawful Stupid|Ned Stark]] would have seen coming.}}

'''Stupid Good''' is a term derived from the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[alignment]] system, but can easily be applied to [[character]]s in any [[role-playing game]] in fact, it can be applied to characters in any medium, for a specific way of playing a morally good character, usually a [[Paladin]] with a relatively even split between this and [[Lawful Stupid]].

==Definition==
[[File:Stupid Good Bender.jpg|300px|right]]
A Stupid Good character takes actions with good intent, but without regard to long-term consequences and obeying one typically "good" principle while ''completely'' disregarding all other principles. This alignment is not at all selfish, just rigid to the point of insanity. For example, a character might refuse to lie (an action that, in a neutral context, is usually considered "bad") under any circumstances. If asked by a serial killer whether he'd seen a man running past, such a character might say that he did see that man running past, even though this would realistically lead to the man's entire family being tortured to death. A good rule of thumb is to ask whether any person in real life would consider this to be an ethical and reasonable course of action. If not, time to check for Stupid Good.

Batman's treatment of the Joker is probably the most famous example. By not only refusing to kill the evil clown, but often saving his life, Batman has enabled the murder of millions of people. When it comes to deciding which action is right, they pick one specific idea (don't kill the Joker) and make it the absolute cornerstone of their decisions on morality. This also highlights another aspect of a Stupid Good character - they can be shown to be intelligent in many other ways. A refusal to kill an enemy is probably the most common form of Stupid Good presented in media. This is usually applied selectively instead of generally, as a character who refuses to kill the villain may have just burned twenty of the villain's henchmen to death without a second thought. The villain is often spared simply because they are narratively important.

A common thought experiment in the field of ethics is the Trolley Problem, where you have a choice to directly cause the death of one innocent person and save ten people, or save one person and indirectly cause the death of ten others. This can be argued either way, but Stupid Good is a matter of extremes. A dead giveaway of Stupid Good is if that person would not kill the villain even if it would save the lives of a billion people the villain himself put in danger.

While crazy in the context of real life, Stupid Good characters are sometimes shown to be right within the context of their very contrived narrative. Stupid Good cartoon characters can seem to have made the "good" choice, but only in retrospect and only because they got lucky with a one-in-a-million matter of pure chance. A leader with responsibility to subordinates or subjects who acts in this way in real life would clearly be betraying their team in order to "uphold their morals".

In the vast majority of cases, however, a Stupid Good character will become [[That guy]] in a gaming group. The player's Disneyland version of what he thinks a really nice character would do is sure to get in the way of the plot and make it seem very stupid if he is allowed to influence the direction of the story. [[Cegorach|Amusingly]] common in terms of actual game mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons, along with Lawful Stupid. Paladins often suffer from some degree of [[MAD]] in various D&D editions, thus leading to intelligence being a dump stat, leading to characters who are literally lawful good and very, very stupid.

===Examples of Stupid Good===
*The '''Autobots''' particularly from the classic 80s cartoons. Almost incessantly "good" and stubborn in their refusals to do anything remotely bad. Seriously, in the whole run of the original series and the millions of years of war between them and the Decepticons, did they kill anyone?
**Optimus Prime can also be equally described as [[Lawful Stupid]], thanks to shit like the time he let himself get blown up as a consequence of a duel in which he ''knew'' the other guy cheated.
*The '''Organians''' from the original series of [[Star Trek]] are peace lovers to the extreme, to the point in intervening in the Federation/Klingon War and stopping all fighting across the galaxy. Particularly in the expanded content where they refuse to get involved in Q-Wars threatening multiple dimensions of existence.
*[[Batman]]. Just...how many times did he let the Joker live or even went out of his way to save him, FULLY KNOWING that he'd escape Arkham and kill many more innocents, and doing the whole dance over again? Various reasons have been given of varying validity, from "Killing the Joker means ''he wins''" to "Batman is already unhinged and you want him to start ''killing people?''", but the core sentiment remains the same: the Joker is extremely dangerous, clearly incapable of plus unwilling to try rehabilitation, and not containable without drastic measures. Death is probably the most humane option at this point, and sending him back to Arkham is just kicking the can down the road.
** It should be added that this stupidity well goes deeper, even ignoring Batman's part in it: Given that many versions of the Joker have known kills numbering in the three, four, or even five digits, why hasn't he "broken his neck falling down the stairs" or "jumped out a tenth story window" while in Police custody? How did he avoid capital punishment when even pleading insanity has its legal limits? Certain versions of The Joker remaining alive remains somewhat inexplicable in realistic terms, full stop. That's comic book logic for you.
*Ned Stark can both fit into Lawful Stupid and Stupid Good, as his penchant for mercy (he doesn't want Robert to murder Tommen and Myrcella in a fit of rage) ends up getting him executed and generally starting the major clusterfuck known as the War of the Five Kings.
** The War would have likely happened anyway because Stannis and Renly were both gathering armies & planning their moves. The real stupid things there were not only not getting his kids out faster (he tried but Sansa wanted to stay), but not getting more trustworthy allies given how Littlefinger betrays him. Another note is that Ned’s execution was both unexpected by most and virtually everyone thought it was a bad move. Tywin personally claimed it made no sense and was forced to fight Ned’s angry family as a result. Numerous others acknowledged that they just executed a highly valuable political hostage and pissed off powerful family members and vassals of Ned. Ned himself didn’t expect to be executed because he did his part and knew how valuable he was. Had things gone “normally” (fan theories include Joffrey being insane or Littlefinger whispering into his ear to cause this), Ned would have gotten out alive but still badly off.

==The darker side of goodness==
<blockquote>''"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." ''</blockquote>

On the flip side of Stupid Good, there are those who attempt to justify whatever it is that they do so long as their characters create good outcomes. In essence as opposed to good '''actions''' "no matter the cost", the other side of stupid good is good '''consequences''' "no matter the cost". Generally those who circumvent moral problems with clever use of ethics and is therefore more often associated with Chaotic Good on the alignment scale ''(though not exclusively).''

This ''"ends justifies the means"'' approach is less like taking good actions to the point of situational absurdity and more like players using logic to create goodness out of absurd situations.

An example of a dilemma surrounding this phenomenon is: Is it morally good to do something evil, to result in an even [[Greater Good]]? Such as killing an innocent to save the king/country/world/universe?

The '''[[Book of Exalted Deeds]]''' says that the above example is most definitely '''not''' a Good act, no matter the intention of the PC and treads the muddy Neutral ground at best, however not all RPGs use the [[D&D]] alignment system, but any RPG that involves some mechanical tracker of morality may inevitably encounter a player action which causes an awkward collective intake of breath, followed by the question of ''"[[This Just Happened|did you really just do that?]]"''.

This is dangerous ground for any potential [[GM]] and needs to be [[Rules Lawyer|decided]] upon firmly when it arises. While there are many examples of real-world applications of the line of thought historically and politically, they are controversial almost without exception. In roleplaying games; the end justifies the means approach can certainly be seen as upholding the "moral good", but if a GM allows attitudes like this to take root, savvy players may eventually find reasons to do anything and have essentially just become [[Murderhobo]]s with apparent moral authority, and it can force hard-alignment systems to lose their legitimacy.

If "Good" players start justifying why they are [[Imperium|seeking out and slaying whole villages]] of Orcs "just BECAUSE they are evil" or if they are committing acts of [[Alpha Legion|terrorism against an oppressive state]] even when that state system is perfectly codified and functional then a GM should probably think about dropping any alignment systems rather than attempt to enforce muddy and dubious decisions.

===Examples of "Good" done Stupidly===
* The [[Tau]] in 40k, though with particular reference to the harsher side of the [[Greater Good]] where they believe that people can be forcibly brought into harmony with one another. It's not terribly unreasonable given that pretty much everyone else in the setting is either [[Orks|insane]], [[Chaos Space Marine|evil]], or [[Imperium of Man|xenophobic]] ([[Dark Eldar|or all three]]) to the point where almost nobody gets along without a gun to their head.
*[[Konrad Curze]] - VERY VERY much so, despite the fact he [[Noblebright|brought crime and corruption on his world to near-zero, improving efficiency and bringing hope]] to his world, he was NOT a good person, no matter what he was attempting to argue.
*The '''Organians''' again; Though only in [[/v/|video games]] where they have given up the non-violent approach and decide to force everyone into peace by [[derp|declaring war on them]].
* Stannis Baratheon, from the show adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire. He keeps on committing morally dubious and sometimes even downright villainous acts, such as sacrificing his own daughter to a fire god, in order to save Westeros from a bunch of evil elves, their zombie minions, and their Darth Maul lookalike leader; all at the behest of a crazed priestess who can't see that Stannis is NOT the chosen hero of yore, which she has fooled both herself and him into believing. In other words, he's a more well intentioned Macbeth who will end up with the same fate.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]]

Edgy

2020-12-11T14:12:16Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:C127:B94E:F124:2B8B: /* Gallery */

{{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 pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

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

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

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, 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 or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies, 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]].

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

A lot of "edgy" characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values, but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

===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.

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

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, aggressive, has easy access to weapons and are some kind of non-conformist. These alone or even together do not make a character an edgelord. If the character has these four traits, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom;

* Are they a power fantasy against "The Man™"? Note, a "Yes" answer here automatically grants the character edgelord status regardless of whether or not they have anything else on this list.
** Bonus points if the writer's idea of "The Man™" big business, the education system or organized religion? Double bonus points if it ''is'' a real-life group or industry, and triple bonus points if the real life group is already frequently targeted in this kind of media (like car manufacturers for companies or Christianity for religions).
* Do they openly mock gods/faith/hope/love/peace/compromise/fate/all of the above? Bonus points if they ever attack representatives of the Power-That-Be at the cosmic level (ranging from mocking religious characters to their faces to an outright war on the gods).
* Do they have a tragic and/or violent backstory?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards if not actively despises?
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? It's not just having trust issues, it's having a negative attitude towards anyone besides themselves having authority.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview? Bonus points if they alter the original quote.
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by Ayn Rand or Jack Chick). Bonus points if they're a nihilist. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or, for partial credit, are the challengers clearly strawmen?
** The Star Trek Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire?
** If they wear armor, does it have blades or spikes built in to it?
** Is it emblazoned with insults, profanities or threats of violence?
** Does it come in dark colors?
* Do they have tattoos or wear warpaint?
* Do they have built in weapons, such as horns or cybernetics? Bonus points if they're alterations of their original body's state.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have a vice, such as smoking? Bonus points if it's an addiction instead.
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by Gav Thorpe, Garth Ennis, George RR Martin, Pat Mills or Alan Moore? (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are quite capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords; it's just that a lot of their characters tend to be unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis; the ultimate example being the professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from The Boys, another of Garth's stories (Garth is quite the edgelord himself), this one an anti-superpowers power fantasy. Billy is violent, racist, often dresses in black and is such a Punisher knock-off he even recycles Punisher's story arc from the comic linked above.
* The title character from the Marshall Law comics.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s><span style='color:red;font-size:100%'>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!</span>
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
* Adversary from DC comics, a parody of edgelord characters and their fans. Always smoking, cusses a lot, wants to kill Superman to build his reputation, works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad" is an almost textbook example of pointless "edgelord".
** The difference can be seen compared to the Joker portrayals in ''The Dark Knight'' and ''Joker'' (2019), which are both "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (and both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club", albeit with an element of "edge with a point"; criticizing the growing cultural and familial vacuum prevalent in the 90's, though it was wrapped in edgelord antics.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmati,c 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.

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

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Illidan Stormrage (pictured below), Deathwing and Sylvanas Windrunner from the Warcraft franchise.
* Reaper from Overwatch.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example that predates Elric. After his father dies dies, he starts wearing black, becomes foreboding and dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months. Has monologues with skulls and murders his friends and the harmless father of his girlfriend.

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Konrad Curze]]
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. A callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich, she hates religion but wants to become a goddess herself, values strength but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her, and all without a higher goal than her own selfish gain... textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender in that regard, so let's just say the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]], the [[Dark Eldar]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]] for this one.
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the Chaos Gods.

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape and eugenics, and when the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

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

Edgy

2020-12-11T14:11:21Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:C127:B94E:F124:2B8B:

{{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 pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

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

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

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, 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 or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies, 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]].

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

A lot of "edgy" characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values, but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

===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.

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

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, aggressive, has easy access to weapons and are some kind of non-conformist. These alone or even together do not make a character an edgelord. If the character has these four traits, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom;

* Are they a power fantasy against "The Man™"? Note, a "Yes" answer here automatically grants the character edgelord status regardless of whether or not they have anything else on this list.
** Bonus points if the writer's idea of "The Man™" big business, the education system or organized religion? Double bonus points if it ''is'' a real-life group or industry, and triple bonus points if the real life group is already frequently targeted in this kind of media (like car manufacturers for companies or Christianity for religions).
* Do they openly mock gods/faith/hope/love/peace/compromise/fate/all of the above? Bonus points if they ever attack representatives of the Power-That-Be at the cosmic level (ranging from mocking religious characters to their faces to an outright war on the gods).
* Do they have a tragic and/or violent backstory?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards if not actively despises?
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? It's not just having trust issues, it's having a negative attitude towards anyone besides themselves having authority.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview? Bonus points if they alter the original quote.
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by Ayn Rand or Jack Chick). Bonus points if they're a nihilist. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or, for partial credit, are the challengers clearly strawmen?
** The Star Trek Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire?
** If they wear armor, does it have blades or spikes built in to it?
** Is it emblazoned with insults, profanities or threats of violence?
** Does it come in dark colors?
* Do they have tattoos or wear warpaint?
* Do they have built in weapons, such as horns or cybernetics? Bonus points if they're alterations of their original body's state.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have a vice, such as smoking? Bonus points if it's an addiction instead.
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by Gav Thorpe, Garth Ennis, George RR Martin, Pat Mills or Alan Moore? (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are quite capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords; it's just that a lot of their characters tend to be unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis; the ultimate example being the professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from The Boys, another of Garth's stories (Garth is quite the edgelord himself), this one an anti-superpowers power fantasy. Billy is violent, racist, often dresses in black and is such a Punisher knock-off he even recycles Punisher's story arc from the comic linked above.
* The title character from the Marshall Law comics.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s><span style='color:red;font-size:100%'>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!</span>
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
* Adversary from DC comics, a parody of edgelord characters and their fans. Always smoking, cusses a lot, wants to kill Superman to build his reputation, works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad" is an almost textbook example of pointless "edgelord".
** The difference can be seen compared to the Joker portrayals in ''The Dark Knight'' and ''Joker'' (2019), which are both "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (and both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club", albeit with an element of "edge with a point"; criticizing the growing cultural and familial vacuum prevalent in the 90's, though it was wrapped in edgelord antics.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmati,c 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.

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

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Illidan Stormrage (pictured below), Deathwing and Sylvanas Windrunner from the Warcraft franchise.
* Reaper from Overwatch.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example that predates Elric. After his father dies dies, he starts wearing black, becomes foreboding and dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months. Has monologues with skulls and murders his friends and the harmless father of his girlfriend.

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Konrad Curze]]
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. A callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich, she hates religion but wants to become a goddess herself, values strength but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her, and all without a higher goal than her own selfish gain... textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender in that regard, so let's just say the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]], the [[Dark Eldar]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]] for this one.
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the Chaos Gods.

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape and eugenics, and when the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversay" from DC Comics. Sinister-looking clothes? Check. Over-the-top aggressive name? Check. Smoking? Check. Swearing? Check. Violent would-be killer of Superman for no good reason? Check! Edgelord confirmed.
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
</gallery>