Editing Zarus (section)

==Zarus and the Emperor==
One may wonder: why did Zarus never catch on /tg/ in comparison to The [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]? After all, both deities have a basic portfolio of human supremacy. Well, that's a complex matter, but here's some possible reasons:

*First reason is context: the Warhammer 40.000 universe is a lot darker than the average D&D setting. In 40k, all (or at least 99 out of 100) of the established major alien races range from "complete and utter ''fucking pricks''" to "genocidal abominations" (not that humans themselves are any better), hence a call for human supremacy actually kind of makes sense. In the vanilla D&D setting from which Zarus hails, demihumans are generally okay and only a minority of non-human races are beyond being reasoned with. There is a huge difference between calling for the extinction of sadistic soul-eating monsters or fungus-based biological killbots, and calling for the extinction of quiet shortstack pastoral halflings or grumpy but goodhearted dwarves; and /tg/ knows it.

*Another point is personality: The Emperor, for his flaws, genuinely wants to lead humanity as a whole into a golden age. Zarus wants what is best for Zarus and only those humans he considers worthy.
**For instance, The God-Emperor states that the human form is perfect in all of its variety, whereas Zarus promotes only a very specific ideal of human perfection.

*The God-Emperor is (depending on the writer) portrayed as a paragon, but given some flaws that undercut his inherent Mary Sueness. Zarus grabs the Mary Sue koolaid and chugs the whole bottle without shame even though he knows it's poisoned, because something something honor.

*Zarus's sheer smugness may play a small part in it. The God-Emperor is upheld as a legitimately worthy divinity for mankind. On the other hand you can feel the disdain dripping from the pages when you read Zarus' profile, inspiring a common aversion to wanting to be associated with the smarmy git. Or maybe that's just the way his symbol is drawn.

*Zarus opposes [[Monstergirls]] (or, at least, reproducing with them) which is a big deal in a D&D settings where humans can breed with nearly anything, and these hybrids are generally ''not'' sterile. In 40K [[Eldar]] are the only non-human that would even have matching parts for intercourse and ([[Illiyan Nastase|really old no-longer canon material]] aside) have no chance of crossbreeding due to massively differing reproduction cycles, while [[Tau]], the second closest, are that [[:File:Illus4.jpg|only]] by virtue of having two legs and reproducing sexually.

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