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Kragnos

2021-10-31T09:02:26Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* Worship */

[[File:Kragnos.jpg|300px|thumb|right|]]
'''Kragnos''', the god of earthquakes and a central leader for the warmongering tribes of destruction.

==History==
===Age of Myth===
Before Sigmar estalished himself as ruler of Azyr, Kragnos was born a mortal member of a race of [[centaur]]s living in Ghur called the Drogrukh. The Drogrukh carved caves and made a nation of mountain-sized cities called Donse. They were a fierce yet honorable people, only taking what they needed, and while proclaiming themselves the lords of Ghur, they got along with the Draconith (originally a race of reptilian humanoids, retconned to be GW's patent-friendly name for dragons), who worshipped Dracothion and had powerful magic. Together, the Draconith and the Drogrukh won a war that drove the Dragon Ogors out of Ghur before going their separate ways peacefully.

Kragnos was the son of the Drogrukh elder Gorgos and a greedy, short-tempered guy; unusual among the utilitarian yet honorable Drogrugk. One day Kragnos beat up his brother because they both wanted the same Drogrukh mare. When the Drogrukh elders reprimanded him for it, Kragnos got fed up and decided to strike out with his four best bros (likely not including the aforementioned brother), and thus began his violent path that unintentionally led to godhood.

Over the years he accomplished many legendary tasks, some by himself, some with his companions. Among them were crafting the Dread Mace out of the heart of a mountain (which knowing all the living mountains that are in [[Ghur]] is probably literal), climbing the Beastgrave peak and claiming the legendary Shield Involatile, which he made from a disc of rock that [[Gorkamorka (Deity)|Gorkamorka]] himself had broken a tusk on, leaving it with the power to eat spells. His actions earned him the attention and admiration of the Orruks, who named Kragnos "Da Boss Trampla" and his shield "Tuskbreaker". As Kragnos and co. wandered Ghur, he also started killing and eating every big and tough critter he encountered and wiped out any of the nascent Empires that were starting to emerge in Ghur, thus earning him the title of "The End of Empires".

The few local human tribes who survived his rampage began to see him as a god of Earthquakes, while the numerous races of Destruction quickly decided he was a pretty cool guy and began worshipping him in addition to Gorkamorka (aided by the fact that Gorkamorka himself developed a healthy respect for the guy after Kragnos' attack on the Draconine Empire, see below). Given how the power of belief works where Orruks are concerned, Kragnos being the god of Earthquakes became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Humans and Orruks started killing monsters and leaving them as sacrificial offerings to Kragnos - which he happily accepted, as Kragnos actually absorbed more strength from eating the remains of beasts along with offerings of Amberstone. He was happy to be worshipped as a god and co-exist with the greenskins, because the greenskins like him believed that "might makes right". The fact that this stopped the greenskins from attacking his kin back in Donse was lost on Kragnos.

Kragnos and his companions later arrived at the Draconine empire. While they'd never made an alliance following the defeat of the Dragon Ogors, there was a non-aggression pact between them and Gorgos along with mutual respect.

But at that point the proud and headstrong Kragnos didn't care about the accord anymore. He saw the Draconith as a challenging foe worthy of his new power. He and his four companions waged war on them, the act of aggression winning the approval of the belligerent god Gorkamorka. The war waged on, with many Draconith dying and Kragnos and his companions taking many wounds. Eventually the Draconith fell back before Kragnos' might... but they gathered their remaining strength to kill Kragnos' four companions, then withdrew from the ruins of their empire to wipe out the Drogrukh cities of Donse in revenge. Ignorant of the destruction of Donse, Kragnos was devastated and enraged by the deaths of his four companions and destroyed everything he could find of the Draconith, determined to erase them from history for the deaths of his friends. This reached such a boiling point that he even smashed Draconith eggs into scrambled abortion.

Kragnos' attempted genocide of the Draconith was the last straw for the forces of Order. Several Draconith sorcerers, including the brothers Krondys and Karazai, made contact with the legendary Lord Kroak. In exchange for giving Kroak the last of their eggs, Lord Kroak helped them deal with Kragnos. Kragnos was sealed away in a mountain, which was then isolated from the flow of time by an alliance of sorcerers led by Kroak himself. They had the backing of the godbeast Dracothion as well, who personally restrained Kragnos in his coils as the sorcerers and Kroak wove their spell.

===Soul Wars===
The only notable thing that happened at this time was that Nagash's Necroquake left residual energies that, when combined with their opposite in life, would have devestating consequences on Kragnos' prison.

===Broken Realms===
During the [[Broken Realms Saga|Broken Realms crisis]], the energies of Alarielle's Rite of Life reacted with the energy of the Necroquake. It also made the roots of trees on the mountain grow until they pierced the rock encasing Kragnos. These two things unintentionally broke the spell of Kragnos' prison, allowing him to gradually smash his way free.

Unaware that any time had passed since his imprisonment, Kragnos began a rampage across Ghur fueled by his anger at captivity and the desire to reunite with his people ASAP.

Along the way, Kragnos encountered a tribe of five Mega-Gargants, the two immediately attacking each other; the first of several Mega-Gargants to join Kragnos did so after he killed the other four. When Kragnos reached Donse, he found it a lifeless run and got a major sad. This turned to rage when he saw Gordrakk's WAAAGH! and the city of Excelsis in the distance... but first he and his Mega-Gargant groupies had to deal with Gordrakk's army. Both sides fought for a bit, with Kragnos fighting Gordrakk and his Maw-Krusha Bigteef before Kragnos triggered a rockslide that buried the three of them. After fighting their way out, Kragnos - after a distraction from Skragrott and a timely appearance of the Bad Moon, shrugged and invited the Orruks to help him destroy Excelsis...something they were more than happy to do given they were already on their way to do just that when they ran into him.

Kragnos charged the Southern Wall of the city and tore down a large chunk of it while the defenders were distracted by Gordrakk's attack on the North Wall. After Gordrakk's battering ram was shattered by Lord Kroak's enchantment, Kragnos reached the main gate, reared up and hit it with all his might using his front hooves and club simultaneously. Lord Kroak's enchantments couldn't withstand Kragnos' raw might, and the gate shattered with explosive force on impact. This combined with the city’s Ogor mercenaries revealing themselves to be agents of the Loonking and turning on the defenders allowed the Orruk's and their allies to flood into the city.

After Morathi's reinforcements dealt with Kragnos' Mega-Gargant supporters attacking the city docks, Morathi sicced her big serpentine body on Kragnos to distract him while her elven body sought Lord Kroak. But Kragnos was too powerful for any of them to kill, his shielding letting him harmlessly tank Kroak's spells while he beat down Morathi's serpent body. Barely saving herself from death at Kragnos' club, Morathi convinced Kroak to send Kragnos away where he can be someone else's problem. Kroak opened a massive portal which Morathi cast an illusion on to trick Kragnos into thinking it was a city of his sworn foes, the Draconith Empire (who Morathi knew about from studying their ruins in the Age of Myth). Being about as dumb as he is big, Kragnos fell for the illusion and - after promising to finish off Morathi and/or Excelsis - charged through the portal, which proceeded to drop him on the far side of Ghur. Without his presence in the city, the Orruk lines begin to crumble, allowing the defenders to push them back.

Meanwhile Kragnos, upon realizing he'd been duped, proceeded to take out his frustration on the local Chaos fortress while a bunch of local Kruleboyz Orruks, who happened to be an isolated tribe of Kragnos worshippers, looked on in awe at the spectacle. Shortly after finally quelling his rage, he was approached by an Orruk shaman who called himself Gobsprakk, the Mouth of Mork. Surprisingly not only could the orruk speak his language but said that he had foreseen his arrival. Gobsprakk went on to say that he foresaw Kragnos at the front of a great army that would crush the realms under his hooves, and offered to be his intermediary and advisor in this endeavor. Kragnos, not immune to flattery and able to see the value in a strategist and translator, accepted the offer.

Following this Kragnos and his new herald Gobsprakk has taken up cause with other orruk waaaghs and is whipping up as many of them as he can to create a mighty horde. With Gobsprakk acting as an intermediary, Kragnos can actually command his followers as a functioning army, rather than them just following him like bunch of groupies. With more and more followers of Destruction flocking to his banner, Kragnos is shaping to be a true threat to the greater realms.

==Worship==
All the Destruction races have a reverence for Kragnos, some bordering on full on worship. The easy explanation for this being Gorkamorka’s own respect for the End of Empires, which flows down to his children. However each subculture/faction will have additional reasons for following him.

* Orruks of all breeds are the most common followers of Kragnos, who love getting into a good scrap alongside him. Ironjawz in particular follow him as the dead ‘ardest warboss around. The feral Bonesplitterz venerate his beastial appearance and how his godhood was attained via eating the bones of great monsters, literally the cornerstone of their own faith. The Kruleboyz meanwhile are an opportunistic lot who revel in the madness and chaos that ensue following Kragnos’ rampages. A perfect chance for their own sneaky schemes.
* The Grots of the Gloomspite Gitz have a similar mindset like the Kruleboyz; capitalizing on the insanity of Kragnos’ murder spree to pillage and backstab everything in their way.
* Troggoth minds are simple. They see Kragnos, and they know there’s gonna be food wherever he goes. Thus they follow him.
* Ogors of all sorts respect Kragnos’ “eating till you become a god” feat, especially the Gutbusters. The Beastclaw Raiders however focus on his many hunts of great beasts and draconic monsters.
* Gargants respect size above all else. Kragnos towers over Gargants, and although most Mega-Gargants are still head and shoulders taller than Kragnos, they recognize his ability to easily break their bones. However not all Mega-Gargants respect him, chief among them King Brodd, who insists that the only being worthy of gargant worship is their progenitor Behemat.

==Tabletop==
Kragnos can be taken by any {{AOSKeyword|DESTRUCTION}} aligned army.

This big boy is the epitome of the term "mighty glacier", moving only "10 but... read on. He has a 2+ save, 18 wounds and his shield Tuskbreaker to keep himself alive. Tuskbreaker makes it so if he beats the spells casting value on a 3D6, the spell won't work on him. Note, that’s casting ''value'', not casting ''roll'', so Teclis, Nagash, Kroak? None of their bonuses matter.

Despite his slow speed he hits like a runaway train, fitting for the god of earthquakes. His weapon, The Dread Mace, hits harder than Ghal Maraz itself, wounding on 2's, -3 rend and does 4 damage with each attack, and he has six attacks which doesn't diminish if he takes damage. He can also bash enemies with his shield for three Rend -2, D3 damage hits and hit with his hooves for 2 damage at -1 rend up to six times. He also re-rolls charges and hit rolls against units with the Stardrakes, Drakes, Dracoths and Dracolines keyword due to his hatred of dragons (but somehow not Zombie Dragons).

And then there's his ultimate ability "Rampaging Destruction". After the charge, roll a dice for each enemy unit within 1" or an enemy monster within 1"; if the former is chosen, on a 2+ each unit suffers D6 Mortal Wounds, but monsters get it worse if you choose a the latter. On a roll of 7 nothing happens, otherwise the monster suffers a number of mortal wounds equal to the numbers rolled on the dice multiplied... meaning a monster could potentially suffer '''36 MORTAL WOUNDS, AND THAT'S ''BEFORE'' KRAGNOS ATTACKS IN COMBAT!'''

As the god of earthquakes, he has a roar that can burst eardrums, level buildings and make Bloodthristers look like they have laryngitis. Whenever he suffers wounds, roll a dice for each unit and defensible terrain feature within 6". If the number is equal to or greater than the score on the table (the required score decreasing as Kragnos takes wounds), enemy units within 6" suffer D3 Mortal Wounds and that defensible terrain feature is demolished and no longer defensible (any models garrisoning it are slain if they roll a dice roll of 1).

He also buffs the bravery of all {{AOSKeyword|DESTRUCTION}} units within 12" by 1, which is always welcome the cowardly Grot and Hobgrot hordes.

{{AoS-Gods}}
[[Category: Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]]

Ghyran

2021-10-31T09:00:31Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* History */

{{AoS-Stub}}{{NeedsImages}}
Ghyran is the Realm of Life, ostensibly ruled over by [[Alarielle]] the Everqueen, however, Grandpappy [[Nurgle]] has his eye on the realm and its queen so he's been squatting his forces there and messing things up for quite some time. This is starting to change, however, with the Stormcast rolling through to help beat the ever loving crap out of anything even remotely diseased looking. Sometimes with [https://malignportents.com/story/to-truly-excel/ extreme prejudice].

==History==
===Age of Myth===

Alarielle the Everqueen spent this period spreading Soul Pods around the realm like a divine female version of Johnny Appleseed, which would later spawn the [[Sylvaneth]]. She also sang the Song of Life for so damn long that it indoctrinated the Sylvaneth to her ways, and it still echoes around the place in the Age of Sigmar. At one point she cut off one of her hands, gave herself a new one, and the severed limb grew into a Sylvaneth called the Lady of Vines, who was like a daughter to Alarielle and embodied the happy parts of her personality.

At one point undead started popping up in a part of Ghyran where everything went through a cycle of life, death and rebirth and attacking everybody else nearly. Alarielle parleyed with Nagash, letting him have that part as his sovereign territory on the condition that he keep the undead contained to that realm. Nagash agreed to the terms (likely with fingers crossed behind his back).

===Age of Chaos===

This is when Nurgle invaded Ghyran, and the War of Life began, continuing for centuries and into the Age of Sigmar. The Sylvaneth were attacked by the forces of Nurgle and all of their warriors took up arms. The non-combatants [[Grimdark|either learned to fight or died horribly]]. During this time the Alarielle-worshiping aelves inhabiting Ghyran pussied out and fled, abandoning the realm and its people to the forces of Chaos. Enraged, Alarielle declared them exiles and the Sylvaneth have a burning hatred of these aelves, who in time came to be known as the Wanderers. Then it turned out Alarielle had intended to sacrifice all of the wood aelves because apparently only her tree babies deserve to live and the wood aelves should feel thankful to be their meatshields.

Many other mortals that lived in the realm decided it would be better to live under Nurgle than to die from whatever he inflicted, and turned on the Everqueen. Sylvaneth from the other realms rushed in to fight in the war until there were no more reinforcements to be had. At her lowest point, Alarielle even brought back Drycha to help take the fight to Chaos, even though Drycha was a genocidal loose cannon, and even that wasn't enough. Eventually, so many places were destroyed, infested, or corrupted that Alarielle was forced back into the Aethylwyrd, where she presumably pouted about how terribly things had gone. Nurgle couldn't touch her there, so she was content to brood over how shitty a monarch she'd been for the foreseeable future.

===Age of Sigmar===

When Sigmar started to get the band back together, he sent the Hallowed Knights, led by Lord-Castellant Grymn, to go recruit the Everqueen because Sigmar is apparently a lazy dick. However, in doing so, [[fail|they trained a bunch of Nurgle's forces right to her, blowing her hiding spot]]. First she was super pissed at the Stormcast, then realised how much of a puss-bitch she'd been the whole time and decided she could still fight. She also then promptly realised how long she'd left things and became so depressed she basically died, turning into a Soul Pod.

The Hallowed Knights and Alarielle's favored daughter, the Lady of Vines, took her and ran as far from Nurgle as they could manage. Turns out, that wasn't very far, as Torglug the Despised One was waiting for them at Blackstone Summit and ready to finish the job. He killed the Lady of Vines and nearly grabbed Alarielle's Soul Pod before the Stormcast pushed him back. It literally took the Celestant-Prime swooping to the beat Torglug's head in with his lantern (so hard, in fact, that it [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Stormcast_Eternals#Notable_Stormcasts/ changed his alignment]) to put an end to things, and even then ''so many'' people/tree things had died. It was here that Alarielle's Soul Pod was finally planted and allowed to... hatch? I guess? And thus Alarielle was reborn, with a cooler outfit and a giant ride-on beetle. All her past wussiness was gone and her cry of rage echoed across the realms with a promise that she was going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and she's all out of bubblegum. she even regrew the Lady of Vines. [[Awesome|Awesome]].

''And then'' it turns out Sigmar hid some corrupted Black Seeds that grows into Black Oaks which'll ruin Ghyran in vaults across the realm without telling Alarielle, which - naturally - the followers of Nurgle have found and are cultivating all over Ghyran.

===Malign Portents===

Alarielle figures that Nagash is planning something big. Refusing to back down like she did against Chaos, Alarielle spurs the Sylvaneth onto the offensive against the forces of death, even sending Drycha and an army to Shyish. Unfortunately, she also learned that Sigmar hid some dark magic plants in her realm, called Black Seeds, after Nurglites discovered them and started cultivating them.

===Broken Realms===

Alarielle starts chatting with Teclis about Nagash's Necroquake and what to about it and the god-lich behind it. When Teclis has his showdown with Nagash, Alarielle gives him some supernatural support that helps him beat Nagash and send him back to Shyish, tail-bone hanging between his legs.

This is promptly followed by Alarielle enacting a life-based version of the Necroquake called the Rite of <s>Spring</s> Rite of Life. Despite fierce opposition from the forces of Chaos, it's successful, the Oak of Ages (Past) is resurrected and regrows Athel Loren 2.0. Alarielle's own power swells and the forces of Life are finally on the offensive. There was a catch though, as the Rite of Life [[Not As Planned|unintentionally broke the prison of the Destruction-aligned earthquake god]], [[Kragnos|Kragnos]]. Two steps forward, one step back.

==Trivia==
* Ghyran has the most settlements of Order after Azyr, and was the place where the first major cities built after the Age of Chaos were established.
* Ghyran produces magical water called Aqua Ghyranis that's super nourishing to plants, one of their chief exports and is the favored currency of the mortal realms. You'd think this would make Ghyran super important in the lore... but apparently not because it's not Sigmarines or edgy enough.
* Ghyran takes its name, of course, from the Wind of Life, one of the eight [[Magic]]s of [[Warhammer Fantasy]], which revolved around a mixture of healing magic and [[elementalism|manipulation of earth, water and plants]].
* Like all of the Eight Realms, Ghyran is prone to bizarre and highly fantastical magical terrain and environmental effects. Mentioned in passing are "life-quakes", which can result in spontaneous, immaculately conceived pregnancies. [[/d/|Male pregnancies, perpetual pregnancies, interspecies pregnancies, genderflipping + pregnancy]] and more are also implicit things you have to worry about happening to you in this realm, especially if you're stupid enough to try and get close to the Realm's Edge.

{{AoS-Realms}}

Ghyran

2021-10-31T08:54:22Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* Trivia */

{{AoS-Stub}}{{NeedsImages}}
Ghyran is the Realm of Life, ostensibly ruled over by [[Alarielle]] the Everqueen, however, Grandpappy [[Nurgle]] has his eye on the realm and its queen so he's been squatting his forces there and messing things up for quite some time. This is starting to change, however, with the Stormcast rolling through to help beat the ever loving crap out of anything even remotely diseased looking. Sometimes with [https://malignportents.com/story/to-truly-excel/ extreme prejudice].

==History==
===Age of Myth===

Alarielle the Everqueen spent this period spreading Soul Pods around the realm like a divine female version of Johnny Appleseed, which would later spawn the [[Sylvaneth]]. She also sang the Song of Life for so damn long that it indoctrinated the Sylvaneth to her ways, and it still echoes around the place in the Age of Sigmar. At one point she cut off one of her hands, gave herself a new one, and the severed limb grew into a Sylvaneth called the Lady of Vines, who was like a daughter to Alarielle and embodied the happy parts of her personality.

At one point undead started popping up in a part of Ghyran where everything went through a cycle of life, death and rebirth and attacking everybody else nearly. Alarielle parleyed with Nagash, letting him have that part as his sovereign territory on the condition that he keep the undead contained to that realm. Nagash agreed to the terms (likely with fingers crossed behind his back).

===Age of Chaos===

This is when Nurgle invaded Ghyran, and the War of Life began, continuing for centuries and into the Age of Sigmar. The Sylvaneth were attacked by the forces of Nurgle and all of their warriors took up arms. The non-combatants [[Grimdark|either learned to fight or died horribly]]. During this time the Alarielle-worshiping aelves inhabiting Ghyran pussied out and fled, abandoning the realm and its people to the forces of Chaos. Enraged, Alarielle declared them exiles and the Sylvaneth have a burning hatred of these aelves, who in time came to be known as the Wanderers. Then it turned out Alarielle had intended to sacrifice all of the wood aelves because apparently only her tree babies deserve to live and the wood aelves should feel thankful to be their meatshields.

Many other mortals that lived in the realm decided it would be better to live under Nurgle than to die from whatever he inflicted, and turned on the Everqueen. Sylvaneth from the other realms rushed in to fight in the war until there were no more reinforcements to be had. At her lowest point, Alarielle even brought back Drycha to help take the fight to Chaos, even though Drycha was a genocidal loose cannon, and even that wasn't enough. Eventually, so many places were destroyed, infested, or corrupted that Alarielle was forced back into the Aethylwyrd, where she presumably pouted about how terribly things had gone. Nurgle couldn't touch her there, so she was content to brood over how shitty a monarch she'd been for the foreseeable future.

===Age of Sigmar===

When Sigmar started to get the band back together, he sent the Hallowed Knights, led by Lord-Castellant Grymn, to go recruit the Everqueen because Sigmar is apparently a lazy dick. However, in doing so, [[fail|they trained a bunch of Nurgle's forces right to her, blowing her hiding spot]]. First she was super pissed at the Stormcast, then realised how much of a puss-bitch she'd been the whole time and decided she could still fight. She also then promptly realised how long she'd left things and became so depressed she basically died, turning into a Soul Pod.

The Hallowed Knights and Alarielle's favored daughter, the Lady of Vines, took her and ran as far from Nurgle as they could manage. Turns out, that wasn't very far, as Torglug the Despised One was waiting for them at Blackstone Summit and ready to finish the job. He killed the Lady of Vines and nearly grabbed Alarielle's Soul Pod before the Stormcast pushed him back. It literally took the Celestant-Prime swooping to the beat Torglug's head in with his lantern (so hard, in fact, that it [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Stormcast_Eternals#Notable_Stormcasts/ changed his alignment]) to put an end to things, and even then ''so many'' people/tree things had died. It was here that Alarielle's Soul Pod was finally planted and allowed to... hatch? I guess? And thus Alarielle was reborn, with a cooler outfit and a giant ride-on beetle. All her past wussiness was gone and her cry of rage echoed across the realms with a promise that she was going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and she's all out of bubblegum. she even regrew the Lady of Vines. [[Awesome|Awesome]].

''And then'' it turns out Sigmar hid some corrupted Black Seeds that grows into Black Oaks which'll ruin Ghyran in vaults across the realm without telling Alarielle, which - naturally - the followers of Nurgle have found and are cultivating all over Ghyran.

==Trivia==
* Ghyran has the most settlements of Order after Azyr, and was the place where the first major cities built after the Age of Chaos were established.
* Ghyran produces magical water called Aqua Ghyranis that's super nourishing to plants, one of their chief exports and is the favored currency of the mortal realms. You'd think this would make Ghyran super important in the lore... but apparently not because it's not Sigmarines or edgy enough.
* Ghyran takes its name, of course, from the Wind of Life, one of the eight [[Magic]]s of [[Warhammer Fantasy]], which revolved around a mixture of healing magic and [[elementalism|manipulation of earth, water and plants]].
* Like all of the Eight Realms, Ghyran is prone to bizarre and highly fantastical magical terrain and environmental effects. Mentioned in passing are "life-quakes", which can result in spontaneous, immaculately conceived pregnancies. [[/d/|Male pregnancies, perpetual pregnancies, interspecies pregnancies, genderflipping + pregnancy]] and more are also implicit things you have to worry about happening to you in this realm, especially if you're stupid enough to try and get close to the Realm's Edge.

{{AoS-Realms}}

Ghyran

2021-10-31T08:53:59Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* Trivia */

{{AoS-Stub}}{{NeedsImages}}
Ghyran is the Realm of Life, ostensibly ruled over by [[Alarielle]] the Everqueen, however, Grandpappy [[Nurgle]] has his eye on the realm and its queen so he's been squatting his forces there and messing things up for quite some time. This is starting to change, however, with the Stormcast rolling through to help beat the ever loving crap out of anything even remotely diseased looking. Sometimes with [https://malignportents.com/story/to-truly-excel/ extreme prejudice].

==History==
===Age of Myth===

Alarielle the Everqueen spent this period spreading Soul Pods around the realm like a divine female version of Johnny Appleseed, which would later spawn the [[Sylvaneth]]. She also sang the Song of Life for so damn long that it indoctrinated the Sylvaneth to her ways, and it still echoes around the place in the Age of Sigmar. At one point she cut off one of her hands, gave herself a new one, and the severed limb grew into a Sylvaneth called the Lady of Vines, who was like a daughter to Alarielle and embodied the happy parts of her personality.

At one point undead started popping up in a part of Ghyran where everything went through a cycle of life, death and rebirth and attacking everybody else nearly. Alarielle parleyed with Nagash, letting him have that part as his sovereign territory on the condition that he keep the undead contained to that realm. Nagash agreed to the terms (likely with fingers crossed behind his back).

===Age of Chaos===

This is when Nurgle invaded Ghyran, and the War of Life began, continuing for centuries and into the Age of Sigmar. The Sylvaneth were attacked by the forces of Nurgle and all of their warriors took up arms. The non-combatants [[Grimdark|either learned to fight or died horribly]]. During this time the Alarielle-worshiping aelves inhabiting Ghyran pussied out and fled, abandoning the realm and its people to the forces of Chaos. Enraged, Alarielle declared them exiles and the Sylvaneth have a burning hatred of these aelves, who in time came to be known as the Wanderers. Then it turned out Alarielle had intended to sacrifice all of the wood aelves because apparently only her tree babies deserve to live and the wood aelves should feel thankful to be their meatshields.

Many other mortals that lived in the realm decided it would be better to live under Nurgle than to die from whatever he inflicted, and turned on the Everqueen. Sylvaneth from the other realms rushed in to fight in the war until there were no more reinforcements to be had. At her lowest point, Alarielle even brought back Drycha to help take the fight to Chaos, even though Drycha was a genocidal loose cannon, and even that wasn't enough. Eventually, so many places were destroyed, infested, or corrupted that Alarielle was forced back into the Aethylwyrd, where she presumably pouted about how terribly things had gone. Nurgle couldn't touch her there, so she was content to brood over how shitty a monarch she'd been for the foreseeable future.

===Age of Sigmar===

When Sigmar started to get the band back together, he sent the Hallowed Knights, led by Lord-Castellant Grymn, to go recruit the Everqueen because Sigmar is apparently a lazy dick. However, in doing so, [[fail|they trained a bunch of Nurgle's forces right to her, blowing her hiding spot]]. First she was super pissed at the Stormcast, then realised how much of a puss-bitch she'd been the whole time and decided she could still fight. She also then promptly realised how long she'd left things and became so depressed she basically died, turning into a Soul Pod.

The Hallowed Knights and Alarielle's favored daughter, the Lady of Vines, took her and ran as far from Nurgle as they could manage. Turns out, that wasn't very far, as Torglug the Despised One was waiting for them at Blackstone Summit and ready to finish the job. He killed the Lady of Vines and nearly grabbed Alarielle's Soul Pod before the Stormcast pushed him back. It literally took the Celestant-Prime swooping to the beat Torglug's head in with his lantern (so hard, in fact, that it [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Stormcast_Eternals#Notable_Stormcasts/ changed his alignment]) to put an end to things, and even then ''so many'' people/tree things had died. It was here that Alarielle's Soul Pod was finally planted and allowed to... hatch? I guess? And thus Alarielle was reborn, with a cooler outfit and a giant ride-on beetle. All her past wussiness was gone and her cry of rage echoed across the realms with a promise that she was going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and she's all out of bubblegum. she even regrew the Lady of Vines. [[Awesome|Awesome]].

''And then'' it turns out Sigmar hid some corrupted Black Seeds that grows into Black Oaks which'll ruin Ghyran in vaults across the realm without telling Alarielle, which - naturally - the followers of Nurgle have found and are cultivating all over Ghyran.

==Trivia==
* Ghyran has the most settlements of Order after Azyr, and was the place where the first major cities built after the Age of Chaos were established.
* Ghyran produces magical water that's super nourishing to plants, one of their chief exports and is the favored currency of the mortal realms. You'd think this would make Ghyran super important in the lore... but apparently not because it's not Sigmarines or edgy enough.
* Ghyran takes its name, of course, from the Wind of Life, one of the eight [[Magic]]s of [[Warhammer Fantasy]], which revolved around a mixture of healing magic and [[elementalism|manipulation of earth, water and plants]].
* Like all of the Eight Realms, Ghyran is prone to bizarre and highly fantastical magical terrain and environmental effects. Mentioned in passing are "life-quakes", which can result in spontaneous, immaculately conceived pregnancies. [[/d/|Male pregnancies, perpetual pregnancies, interspecies pregnancies, genderflipping + pregnancy]] and more are also implicit things you have to worry about happening to you in this realm, especially if you're stupid enough to try and get close to the Realm's Edge.

{{AoS-Realms}}

Chamon

2021-10-31T08:49:09Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* Seraphon */

{{AoS-Stub}}{{NeedsImages}}

Chamon is the Realm of Metal. It’s the homeland of alchemy, and as such little if anything about it is permanent. It is constantly shifting, as different regions and subrealms move around, interact with each other or even appear and disappear. Unlike the other mortal realms, instead of being a flat plane Chamon consists of many continents suspended in its firmament, linked together by portals.

==History==

The earliest known thing to happen in Chamon was [[Sigmar]] finding the Duardin gods [[Grimnir]] and [[Grungni]] imprisoned and releasing them. While Grimnir went to [[Aqshy]] to fight Vulcatrix, Grungni stayed in Chamon, where he crafted various wonders for the humans and Duardin who lived there. It is said that as he labored, his breath turned into the clouds of Aether-Gold that float through the realm. Eventually he would leave Chamon to go to Azyr and fufill the debt he felt he owed to Sigmar, as he believed that if his worshippers grew too reliant on him they would become weak.

Many great nations grew in Chamon; the [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Khazalid Empire]], the city of Elixia and Metallurgica to name a few. Much of it was powered by the miraculous substance commonly called Chamonite, the Realmstone of Chamon, which became so valuable a single droplet was worth an entire chest of gold coins. The rulers and merchant-princes of Chamon became extremely rich, much to the envy of the lower class. Unfortunately, their prayers for change gained the attention of [[Tzeentch]].

When the Godbeast known as the Lode-Griffon crashed into the Godwrought Isles, the magnetic field it generates causes widespread havoc, to the point that the perfectly geometric isles were distorted into the Spiral Crux. Eventually, a cabal of nine sorcerers came up with a scheme to slay the Lode-Griffon by casting a spell that would transmute it into gold. However, one of the sorcerers was secretly one of Tzeentch's Gaunt Summoners, who corrupted the ritual to tear a massive portal to the Realm of Tzeentch above the Griffon's Eyrie. Thus began the Age of Chaos in Chamon.

The Age of Chaos saw the Khazalid Empire devastated by hordes of Skaven and Disciples of Tzeentch, their prayers to Grungni unanswered. Seeing no safe refuge on the earth, many of them started creating floating cities to escape the carnage. Grungni had not answered his children's prayers because he believed it would make them stronger; arguably he was successful in this regard, because those Duardin he abandoned would become the Kharadron Overlords, the most advanced civillization in the Mortal Realms. Still, permanent damage was done to both parties; the Kharadron forsook the gods who abandoned them, while Grungni was consumed by guilt for not helping his children, eventually causing him to enter voluntary exile.

Chamon was one of the first realms along with [[Aqshy]] and [[Ghyran]] to witness the arrival of the Stormcast Eternals during the Realmgate Wars. Their most notable battle was the quest to reclaim Sigmar's lost hammer Ghal-Maraz, which had been taken by a Tzeentchian sorcerer who had a scheme to use it to power his ritual to corrupt every Realmgate in Chamon so it would lead to Tzeentch's labyrinth, [[End Times|sucking the entire realm into the Realm of Chaos]]. During the battle for the All-Gates, the forces of Chaos managed to hold onto the Chamon gate primarily because it was the one that [[Archaon]] defended in person.

A notable event that happened in Chamon is the rise of the Gloomspite warlord Skragrott the Loonking, who not only managed to conquer the land of Ayadah but also managed to blot out the sun there, becoming the first grot to usher in the Everdank. The most recent event is that Nagash's [[Ossiarch Bonereapers|boney boys]] have set up shop on the realm's edge and started clashing with the local Seraphon there to try and get some sweet dinosaur bones.

Then the shit hit the fan with Broken Realms. Be'lakor made a master plan and destroyed every realmgate in Chamon, all but cutting the realm off from the others (no word whether this effects alternate means of transportation like Sylvaneth realmroots).

==The Warring Factions of Chamon==
===[[Tzeentch|Disciples of Tzeentch]]===
As previously stated, the conniving cuttlefish would very much like to get his grubby little claws on the realm of metal, and his countless cabals control much of it. They even managed to hide Ghal Maraz there during the early years of the Realmgate Wars and it would’ve remained hidden...but as always the Arcanites’ own paranoia and lust for power unintentionally drew the attention of the Stormcast Eternals who promptly took back the god hammer. A “minor” victory though, as the Disciples of Tzeentch still control much of the realm.

===[[Flesh-Eater Courts#The Grand Courts|Flesh-Eater Courts]]===
Chamon is home to the '''Hollowmourne''' Grand Court. They were once a group of noble crusading knights that established numerous bunkers/caches of armor and weapons across the realm, but after the Age of Chaos, they became little more than a band of roving Crypt Horrors looking for what they believe to be treasure.

===[[Kharadron Overlords]]===
The Sky-Dorfs originated from Chamon, as they are all descendants of those brave and enterprising Duardin that decided they were going to be steampunk. All the original sky-ports originated from Chamon and have since scattered and divided into new ports across the Realms.

===[[Gloomspite Gitz]]===
[[Skragrott]]’s main base of power is in the Realm of Metal, specifically the region of Ayadah and the grot-city of '''Skrappa Spill'''. Although, as evidenced in the novel Gloomspite, he has enough time to piss off to [[Aqshy]] to screw over small cities. In the Age of Myth, Skrappa Spill was the birthplace of [[Gnoblar|gnoblars]], who regularly rummaged through the hills of junk and garbage for stuff to throw at each other.

===[[Lizardmen|Seraphon]]===
The Thunder Lizard Constellation (the one known for having shit tons of Stegadons) known for hoarding and protecting some of the most valuable relics of the Old Ones. They guards the more mercurial outer edges of Chamon and are currently waging war on a certain spooky, scary super-skeleton faction.

===[[Ossiarch Bonereapers]]===
The newest arrivals. A contingent of the Null Myriad legion set up shop on Chamon's edge to secure the realm's energy for Nagash and to take advantage of their resistance to the magic of a realm's edge. Came into contact with the Seraphon of the Thunder Lizard Constellation, which quickly resulted in an ongoing war for control of the realm's edge.

{{AoS-Realms}}

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]]

Chamon

2021-10-31T08:48:17Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* The Warring Factions of Chamon */

{{AoS-Stub}}{{NeedsImages}}

Chamon is the Realm of Metal. It’s the homeland of alchemy, and as such little if anything about it is permanent. It is constantly shifting, as different regions and subrealms move around, interact with each other or even appear and disappear. Unlike the other mortal realms, instead of being a flat plane Chamon consists of many continents suspended in its firmament, linked together by portals.

==History==

The earliest known thing to happen in Chamon was [[Sigmar]] finding the Duardin gods [[Grimnir]] and [[Grungni]] imprisoned and releasing them. While Grimnir went to [[Aqshy]] to fight Vulcatrix, Grungni stayed in Chamon, where he crafted various wonders for the humans and Duardin who lived there. It is said that as he labored, his breath turned into the clouds of Aether-Gold that float through the realm. Eventually he would leave Chamon to go to Azyr and fufill the debt he felt he owed to Sigmar, as he believed that if his worshippers grew too reliant on him they would become weak.

Many great nations grew in Chamon; the [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Khazalid Empire]], the city of Elixia and Metallurgica to name a few. Much of it was powered by the miraculous substance commonly called Chamonite, the Realmstone of Chamon, which became so valuable a single droplet was worth an entire chest of gold coins. The rulers and merchant-princes of Chamon became extremely rich, much to the envy of the lower class. Unfortunately, their prayers for change gained the attention of [[Tzeentch]].

When the Godbeast known as the Lode-Griffon crashed into the Godwrought Isles, the magnetic field it generates causes widespread havoc, to the point that the perfectly geometric isles were distorted into the Spiral Crux. Eventually, a cabal of nine sorcerers came up with a scheme to slay the Lode-Griffon by casting a spell that would transmute it into gold. However, one of the sorcerers was secretly one of Tzeentch's Gaunt Summoners, who corrupted the ritual to tear a massive portal to the Realm of Tzeentch above the Griffon's Eyrie. Thus began the Age of Chaos in Chamon.

The Age of Chaos saw the Khazalid Empire devastated by hordes of Skaven and Disciples of Tzeentch, their prayers to Grungni unanswered. Seeing no safe refuge on the earth, many of them started creating floating cities to escape the carnage. Grungni had not answered his children's prayers because he believed it would make them stronger; arguably he was successful in this regard, because those Duardin he abandoned would become the Kharadron Overlords, the most advanced civillization in the Mortal Realms. Still, permanent damage was done to both parties; the Kharadron forsook the gods who abandoned them, while Grungni was consumed by guilt for not helping his children, eventually causing him to enter voluntary exile.

Chamon was one of the first realms along with [[Aqshy]] and [[Ghyran]] to witness the arrival of the Stormcast Eternals during the Realmgate Wars. Their most notable battle was the quest to reclaim Sigmar's lost hammer Ghal-Maraz, which had been taken by a Tzeentchian sorcerer who had a scheme to use it to power his ritual to corrupt every Realmgate in Chamon so it would lead to Tzeentch's labyrinth, [[End Times|sucking the entire realm into the Realm of Chaos]]. During the battle for the All-Gates, the forces of Chaos managed to hold onto the Chamon gate primarily because it was the one that [[Archaon]] defended in person.

A notable event that happened in Chamon is the rise of the Gloomspite warlord Skragrott the Loonking, who not only managed to conquer the land of Ayadah but also managed to blot out the sun there, becoming the first grot to usher in the Everdank. The most recent event is that Nagash's [[Ossiarch Bonereapers|boney boys]] have set up shop on the realm's edge and started clashing with the local Seraphon there to try and get some sweet dinosaur bones.

Then the shit hit the fan with Broken Realms. Be'lakor made a master plan and destroyed every realmgate in Chamon, all but cutting the realm off from the others (no word whether this effects alternate means of transportation like Sylvaneth realmroots).

==The Warring Factions of Chamon==
===[[Tzeentch|Disciples of Tzeentch]]===
As previously stated, the conniving cuttlefish would very much like to get his grubby little claws on the realm of metal, and his countless cabals control much of it. They even managed to hide Ghal Maraz there during the early years of the Realmgate Wars and it would’ve remained hidden...but as always the Arcanites’ own paranoia and lust for power unintentionally drew the attention of the Stormcast Eternals who promptly took back the god hammer. A “minor” victory though, as the Disciples of Tzeentch still control much of the realm.

===[[Flesh-Eater Courts#The Grand Courts|Flesh-Eater Courts]]===
Chamon is home to the '''Hollowmourne''' Grand Court. They were once a group of noble crusading knights that established numerous bunkers/caches of armor and weapons across the realm, but after the Age of Chaos, they became little more than a band of roving Crypt Horrors looking for what they believe to be treasure.

===[[Kharadron Overlords]]===
The Sky-Dorfs originated from Chamon, as they are all descendants of those brave and enterprising Duardin that decided they were going to be steampunk. All the original sky-ports originated from Chamon and have since scattered and divided into new ports across the Realms.

===[[Gloomspite Gitz]]===
[[Skragrott]]’s main base of power is in the Realm of Metal, specifically the region of Ayadah and the grot-city of '''Skrappa Spill'''. Although, as evidenced in the novel Gloomspite, he has enough time to piss off to [[Aqshy]] to screw over small cities. In the Age of Myth, Skrappa Spill was the birthplace of [[Gnoblar|gnoblars]], who regularly rummaged through the hills of junk and garbage for stuff to throw at each other.

===[[Lizardmen|Seraphon]]===
The Thunder Lizard Constellation (the one known for having shit tons of Stegadons) known for hoarding and protecting some of the most valuable relics of the Old Ones. They guards the more mercurial outer edges of Chamon.

===[[Ossiarch Bonereapers]]===
The newest arrivals. A contingent of the Null Myriad legion set up shop on Chamon's edge to secure the realm's energy for Nagash and to take advantage of their resistance to the magic of a realm's edge. Came into contact with the Seraphon of the Thunder Lizard Constellation, which quickly resulted in an ongoing war for control of the realm's edge.

{{AoS-Realms}}

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]]

Edgy

2021-10-31T08:14:14Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* Tabletop Games */

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

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

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

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

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

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding, antisocial, militant types with problems with authority and a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" or representing "the establishment™"). The end result is they makes themselves look silly.

"Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, institutions are the villains unless the edgelord made them and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. In writing, edgelords will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

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

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

[[File:Pizza-slicer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The ultimate apotheosis of an edgelord: All edge, no point.]]
In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus/fairness necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda.

Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful.

The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies or problems with authority, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Anyone or anything standing between them and what they want - or that's presumed to do so - will be seen as a terrible "evil" and dealt with as such. Individuals who pander to said demographic, are downright hacks and/or share their mindset will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Edgy Villains===

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

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

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

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

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

One important partial exception: Sometimes authors include a character that can be considered "Edgy" in theory, but in practice it's clear the author isn't rooting for them because they take things '''way''' too far. We're talking "Utopia Justifies the Means, No Matter How Horrific" and "Death Penalty for Jaywalking"-type characters.

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

===Sidenote: Chunni===

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

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

There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark or pushing boundaries is not profound in and of itself. Shock value, twists and subverting expectations doesn't automatically equal good storytelling. Finally, using these things as an outlet for personal views/grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

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

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

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

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer, but especially when it's Garth Ennis. The ultimate example being Ennis' professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", a comic series written by the edgelord Punisher author named above, using [[Original character, do not steal|knock-offs of Marvel and DC supers]] in an anti-superhero genre power fantasy. Possibly Garth Ennis' edgiest edgelord character ever. Given Ennis well-earned reputation as an edgelord's edgelord, that's really saying something.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
** Batman can be made into an edgelord in an edgy writer's hands (for example, Frank Miller's "All Star Batman And Robin"), although more rarely than you might think, since his respect for at least some parts of the establishment - owning Wayne Enterprises, his unofficial alliance with Gotham's police including his personal friendship with Police Commissioner Gordon - and his "no kill" code usually heads off most of the edgelord tendencies.
* Lono from 100 Bullets skirts the edgelord event horizon so much he might have been one, though himself isn't edgy anymore at the end. Does all the things an edgelord does without the grim unhappiness. Starts out quite mellow and cheerful, kills and rapes for fun, then grows darker and brooding until his extremely painful escape and eventual torture and quasi-redemption as the servant of a catholic orphanage with genuinely good intentions.
* Lord Edgelord, later killed and brought back as Lord Edgegod, from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Adversary from DC Comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also, his edge is undermined by the fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.
* Peter and Paul from "Funny Games". Another "cool psycho gang that tortures, kills and dismembers a family" sort of director's wank which ups to eleven: when the woman in desperation manages to kill one, the other literally turns back time, and kills her child and husband, THEN tortures, gags, takes her for a boat ride and drowns her for fun, go to the next house and wink at the camera while acting happy and nonchalant, to start the cycle anew. Director Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media and definitely not getting his rocks off torturing a whitebread white woman with a family and gagging, killing, and raping her. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight (then again, this is a tame letdown compared to what a hardcore gorehound would watch, with cinematography purposely ruining any payoff. Very messed while also giving a middle finger to [[Slaanesh]] Worshipers as no rape occurs in the film). Oh, and he enjoyed it so much he remade HIS OWN MOVIE; after the original 1997 German language version, he made a 2008 English version.
* "The Strangers" from the 2008 The Strangers film. Literally a bunch of home invaders invade a couple's home, beat, torture and kill the husband, unmask themselves to the wife, act all chill and cute, act cool to a bible tract distributing kid and talk about "it will be easier next time". They are never found, never bested, and simply put, get away with everything in a "cool teenager" attitude. If we didn't know anything better, we would guess it's part of grooming the masses into helplessness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Notable NOT Edgelords===

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

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

* '''Darion Mograine''' (World of Warcraft): Former paladin turned Death knight with a literal hunger for inflicting pain. While bordering on edgelord and looking the part (see below), Darion is not an edgelord because he doesn't oppose love (he became a Death Knight by sacrificing himself to save his father's soul), faith or altruism and he doesn't have problems with authority or even his former paladin order.
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversary" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
File:Tumblr_mv0ibeglwt1s8pkdbo1_1280.png|Characters must be at least Ryuko-level to qualify for edgelord.
</gallery>

Edgy

2021-10-31T08:12:58Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* Comics */

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

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

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

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

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

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding, antisocial, militant types with problems with authority and a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" or representing "the establishment™"). The end result is they makes themselves look silly.

"Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, institutions are the villains unless the edgelord made them and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. In writing, edgelords will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

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

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

[[File:Pizza-slicer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The ultimate apotheosis of an edgelord: All edge, no point.]]
In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus/fairness necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda.

Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful.

The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies or problems with authority, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Anyone or anything standing between them and what they want - or that's presumed to do so - will be seen as a terrible "evil" and dealt with as such. Individuals who pander to said demographic, are downright hacks and/or share their mindset will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Edgy Villains===

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

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

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

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

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

One important partial exception: Sometimes authors include a character that can be considered "Edgy" in theory, but in practice it's clear the author isn't rooting for them because they take things '''way''' too far. We're talking "Utopia Justifies the Means, No Matter How Horrific" and "Death Penalty for Jaywalking"-type characters.

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

===Sidenote: Chunni===

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

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

There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark or pushing boundaries is not profound in and of itself. Shock value, twists and subverting expectations doesn't automatically equal good storytelling. Finally, using these things as an outlet for personal views/grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

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

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

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

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer, but especially when it's Garth Ennis. The ultimate example being Ennis' professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", a comic series written by the edgelord Punisher author named above, using [[Original character, do not steal|knock-offs of Marvel and DC supers]] in an anti-superhero genre power fantasy. Possibly Garth Ennis' edgiest edgelord character ever. Given Ennis well-earned reputation as an edgelord's edgelord, that's really saying something.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
** Batman can be made into an edgelord in an edgy writer's hands (for example, Frank Miller's "All Star Batman And Robin"), although more rarely than you might think, since his respect for at least some parts of the establishment - owning Wayne Enterprises, his unofficial alliance with Gotham's police including his personal friendship with Police Commissioner Gordon - and his "no kill" code usually heads off most of the edgelord tendencies.
* Lono from 100 Bullets skirts the edgelord event horizon so much he might have been one, though himself isn't edgy anymore at the end. Does all the things an edgelord does without the grim unhappiness. Starts out quite mellow and cheerful, kills and rapes for fun, then grows darker and brooding until his extremely painful escape and eventual torture and quasi-redemption as the servant of a catholic orphanage with genuinely good intentions.
* Lord Edgelord, later killed and brought back as Lord Edgegod, from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Adversary from DC Comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also, his edge is undermined by the fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.
* Peter and Paul from "Funny Games". Another "cool psycho gang that tortures, kills and dismembers a family" sort of director's wank which ups to eleven: when the woman in desperation manages to kill one, the other literally turns back time, and kills her child and husband, THEN tortures, gags, takes her for a boat ride and drowns her for fun, go to the next house and wink at the camera while acting happy and nonchalant, to start the cycle anew. Director Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media and definitely not getting his rocks off torturing a whitebread white woman with a family and gagging, killing, and raping her. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight (then again, this is a tame letdown compared to what a hardcore gorehound would watch, with cinematography purposely ruining any payoff. Very messed while also giving a middle finger to [[Slaanesh]] Worshipers as no rape occurs in the film). Oh, and he enjoyed it so much he remade HIS OWN MOVIE; after the original 1997 German language version, he made a 2008 English version.
* "The Strangers" from the 2008 The Strangers film. Literally a bunch of home invaders invade a couple's home, beat, torture and kill the husband, unmask themselves to the wife, act all chill and cute, act cool to a bible tract distributing kid and talk about "it will be easier next time". They are never found, never bested, and simply put, get away with everything in a "cool teenager" attitude. If we didn't know anything better, we would guess it's part of grooming the masses into helplessness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Notable NOT Edgelords===

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

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

* '''Darion Mograine''' (World of Warcraft): Former paladin turned Death knight with a literal hunger for inflicting pain. While bordering on edgelord and looking the part (see below), Darion is not an edgelord because he doesn't oppose love (he became a Death Knight by sacrificing himself to save his father's soul), faith or altruism and he doesn't have problems with authority or even his former paladin order.
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversary" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
File:Tumblr_mv0ibeglwt1s8pkdbo1_1280.png|Characters must be at least Ryuko-level to qualify for edgelord.
</gallery>

Edgy

2021-10-31T08:12:18Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E493:A0DB:241D:D2E3: /* 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 player character of ''Hatred''}}

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

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

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

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding, antisocial, militant types with problems with authority and a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" or representing "the establishment™"). The end result is they makes themselves look silly.

"Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, institutions are the villains unless the edgelord made them and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. In writing, edgelords will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

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

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

[[File:Pizza-slicer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The ultimate apotheosis of an edgelord: All edge, no point.]]
In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus/fairness necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda.

Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful.

The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies or problems with authority, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Anyone or anything standing between them and what they want - or that's presumed to do so - will be seen as a terrible "evil" and dealt with as such. Individuals who pander to said demographic, are downright hacks and/or share their mindset will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Edgy Villains===

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

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

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

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

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

One important partial exception: Sometimes authors include a character that can be considered "Edgy" in theory, but in practice it's clear the author isn't rooting for them because they take things '''way''' too far. We're talking "Utopia Justifies the Means, No Matter How Horrific" and "Death Penalty for Jaywalking"-type characters.

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

===Sidenote: Chunni===

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

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

There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark or pushing boundaries is not profound in and of itself. Shock value, twists and subverting expectations doesn't automatically equal good storytelling. Finally, using these things as an outlet for personal views/grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

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

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

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

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer, but especially when it's Garth Ennis. The ultimate example being Ennis' professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", a comic series written by the edgelord Punisher author named above, using [[Original character, do not steal|knock-offs of Marvel and DC supers]] in an anti-superhero genre power fantasy. Possibly Garth Ennis' edgiest edgelord character ever. Given Ennis has a reputation as the edgiest edgelord author in comics, that's really saying something.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
** Batman can be made into an edgelord in an edgy writer's hands (for example, Frank Miller's "All Star Batman And Robin"), although more rarely than you might think, since his respect for at least some parts of the establishment - owning Wayne Enterprises, his unofficial alliance with Gotham's police including his personal friendship with Police Commissioner Gordon - and his "no kill" code usually heads off most of the edgelord tendencies.
* Lono from 100 Bullets skirts the edgelord event horizon so much he might have been one, though himself isn't edgy anymore at the end. Does all the things an edgelord does without the grim unhappiness. Starts out quite mellow and cheerful, kills and rapes for fun, then grows darker and brooding until his extremely painful escape and eventual torture and quasi-redemption as the servant of a catholic orphanage with genuinely good intentions.
* Lord Edgelord, later killed and brought back as Lord Edgegod, from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Adversary from DC Comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also, his edge is undermined by the fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.
* Peter and Paul from "Funny Games". Another "cool psycho gang that tortures, kills and dismembers a family" sort of director's wank which ups to eleven: when the woman in desperation manages to kill one, the other literally turns back time, and kills her child and husband, THEN tortures, gags, takes her for a boat ride and drowns her for fun, go to the next house and wink at the camera while acting happy and nonchalant, to start the cycle anew. Director Haneke has stated that the film is a reflection and criticism of violence used in media and definitely not getting his rocks off torturing a whitebread white woman with a family and gagging, killing, and raping her. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight (then again, this is a tame letdown compared to what a hardcore gorehound would watch, with cinematography purposely ruining any payoff. Very messed while also giving a middle finger to [[Slaanesh]] Worshipers as no rape occurs in the film). Oh, and he enjoyed it so much he remade HIS OWN MOVIE; after the original 1997 German language version, he made a 2008 English version.
* "The Strangers" from the 2008 The Strangers film. Literally a bunch of home invaders invade a couple's home, beat, torture and kill the husband, unmask themselves to the wife, act all chill and cute, act cool to a bible tract distributing kid and talk about "it will be easier next time". They are never found, never bested, and simply put, get away with everything in a "cool teenager" attitude. If we didn't know anything better, we would guess it's part of grooming the masses into helplessness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Notable NOT Edgelords===

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

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

* '''Darion Mograine''' (World of Warcraft): Former paladin turned Death knight with a literal hunger for inflicting pain. While bordering on edgelord and looking the part (see below), Darion is not an edgelord because he doesn't oppose love (he became a Death Knight by sacrificing himself to save his father's soul), faith or altruism and he doesn't have problems with authority or even his former paladin order.
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversary" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
File:Tumblr_mv0ibeglwt1s8pkdbo1_1280.png|Characters must be at least Ryuko-level to qualify for edgelord.
</gallery>