Editing Eldar (section)

==Skub Time!==
[[File:Eldar_Chinese_Beard.jpeg|300px|right|thumb|Eldar cosplaying as a [[Cathay|Chinese Warlord?]] [[Heresy|HERESY!]]]]
It has long been stated by many a fa/tg/uy that the [[Tau]] are [[Weeaboo|Japs]] in space while the Eldar are Space Chinese in that they had a more established civilization as old as the beginning of history itself, with a fucking complicated language and philosophy. Some history/culturefags strongly dispute this assertion as being simplistic and inaccurate, as the Chinese language is marked by relatively light grammar and high syllable-information density, as well as one unified set of logographic symbols (that mostly have one pronunciation). Japanese has low syllable-information density and has a sophisticated agglutinative grammar structure, like Korean, and also possesses two syllable-alphabets in addition to utilizing Chinese characters (often with multiple readings). To add to the language debate, Only War describes the Eldar tongue as 'tonal', something that is a prominent feature in the Chinese language, and is not present in Japanese. So if FFG are to be trusted, the Eldar speak a language more similar to Chinese than Japanese. Just don't ask why the Eldar religion is sorta Hindu (India) and the Tau religion is sorta Buddhist, the only difference between East and Southeast where you haven't been and where you'll never go.

The problem in this comes not just from language, but fundamentally more on how their ideologies and society is constructed. A problem with this idea is that the Tau philosophy of the "[[Greater Good]]" is practically derived from Confucius, who lived in China, while the Eldar's divisions between Aspect Warriors and Guardians can be better compared to those between Japanese samurai warriors and ashigaru peasant conscripts. Linguistically and ideologically, the Tau draw influence from Confucianism combined with post WWII Chinese-Communist culture. The Eldar is admitted by Games Workshop as being openly modeled on Japanese culture (possessing Japanese-style robes and wielding katanas and shurikens into battle) combined with space Ancient Greece (complete with the togas and the complete hubris that brought them down).

It should be noted that even Gav Thorpe, who was there at the development of both armies recognized that they were both influenced by Anime (https://gavthorpe.co.uk/2017/06/26/the-origins-of-the-tau/):

>And with them were the Tao (later Tau, now T’au) based on the underlying concept of the five elements I had originally come up with for the Shishell. I had kept my hand-typed reams of background and pencil sketches and persuaded the rest of the team that it was worth a punt, marrying some of the background to the idea of a more modern army, mecha-themed force (as opposed to the far more organic anime influence in the Eldar designs).

Then again, any debate on [[Weeaboo]]ism in 40k lore is meaningless because the argument is corrupted so much that anything fa/tg/uys or 4chan residents do not like can be labeled with the term once they have found something about it that vaguely invokes anime tropes... such as, for example, the [[Imperium]]'s extensive use of [[Titan|gigantic overpowered mecha]].

Seeing as they're visually very obviously inspired by the Romani people, about whose culture nobody on /tg/ knows anything and would rather die (or spend another three hours arguing which flavour of east asian they want to think they are) than bother to research, it's something of a moot point anyway.

The moral of the story is that no major race in 40K is based on a singular culture (except maybe the Orks who are cockney/football hooligan stereotypes down to the bone marrow) and insisting on referring to any of them as ''space-x-ethnicity'' only makes you look like an idiot who doesn't really get the setting.

===/tg/ Feelings on the Eldar===
[[Image:Banshee_x_Tau.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Elfdar vs. weeaboo: whoever loses, we win.]]

The Eldar's arrogance and penchant for [[Just as planned]], paired with their being used as the defenders of the status quo (see below) [[Dawn of Eldar|and the blatant favoritism they seem to get in any work featuring them]] (with some exceptions, such as if they're fighting Imperium Space Marines), have caused them to be the single most-''hated'' race by [[/tg/]]. Yes, more than the [[Necrons|space zombies]] and [[Tau|weeaboo space communists]]. Part of this stems from the fact that they are a hit-or-miss army, much as their [[Dark Eldar|counterparts]] were in the last edition. When they work, they work amazingly; when they don't, they tend to [[Fail|fail]]. [[Reasonable Marines|Some argue]] that a lot of the hate has been due to them being insufficiently [[Orks|Orky]], which, if true, is [[/pol/|RACIST]]. It doesn't help that in the crunch, Craftworld Eldar have a bit of a history with having rather overpowered rules or codexes. This hasn't been the case with recent editions; with the rise of Space Marines mid-8E and early 9E combined with the neutering of the Ynnari and with the uninspiringly mediocre 8E Craftworld codex (a few solid or cheesy builds, but a rather large swath of price inefficient units and nothing blatantly overpowered), [[That Guy|power gamers]] have more or less allowed these Space Elves to fall out of sight and out of mind.

Thankfully, some of the hate has recently started to abate, and this has everything to do with the fact that the Eldar seem to have become the whipping boys of [[Games Workshop]]. You know they hate you when you can't even win in your own codices. Also, almost every victory they get nowadays is a Pyrrhic one. Indeed, the precious few bits of focused fluff that comes out about the Craftworlders rarely provides [[Advancing the Storyline|any genuine progression]], with whatever gains made by the eldar faction quickly being stripped away or tempered by extreme casualties or MacGuffin bait-and-switches that more or less invalidates the entire story in question. [[Matt Ward]] especially enjoys his crusade against the Eldar, with Avatars dying in almost every codex the guy's written, and if not that then expect similarly one-sided defeats for the Eldar. The Irish goblin [[C.S. Goto]] had a hate boner so hard for the Eldar that he did everything he could to make their race into fucking terrible awful clowns, such as but not limited to: torturing Eldar characters in the most gruesome way he could possibly describe for pages and pages and pages, making them incapable of speaking the human language, making them need to steal IG vehicles because their vehicles are terrible in comparison, and literally having human children destroy an Eldar grav tank by throwing rocks at it, then having them rape and kill the commander with a stick. This is not a joke.

[[Gav Thorpe]], on the other hand, will fight to the death to write about anything starring the Eldar, because he just loves the elves (enough to stop them from losing in their own codex, so he's a much better kind of fan than Phil Kelly in this regard) and it's more or less agreed that he's really the only one who can portray them totally accurately since he is the Eldar expert. However, a sizable number of the older 40k playerbase [[Rage|hate]] Thorpe for turning [[Exarch|Exarchs]] into watered-down [[Space Marine]] sergeants and other travesties of fluff. Eldar are also noted to have a major Asian influence, most notably from [[China]], with their martial arts, yin-yang symbol, phoenix and dragon worshiping, cultural pride and philosophy. Pre-1945 Japan factors in as well, with an infantry standard weapon called the [[Shuriken Catapult]], their belief in racial superiority and their ideas about being direct descendants of gods. So all in all this means that the Space Elves are the 40k equivalent of [[Cathay|East Asia]]... huh.

===Eldar as Defenders of the Status Quo===
[[Games Workshop]] is well-known (read: <s>notorious</s> infamous) for using the Eldar as a gigantic fiat that everything remains exactly as it is (which is to say, in a state of imminent-but-not-quite-here-yet disaster).

It must be noted, however, that they aren't the sole custodians of this. Necrons, pre-update, used to be pretty bad for doing this, and the [[Tyranid]]s in general seem to exist to [[Squat|eat GW's mistakes]], but both of those can be written off as the fault of the armies themselves, since the Tyranids exist only to consume biomass, and the pre-5th edition Necrons just wanted to kill everything. In short, whenever something needs to be [[Tyranid|eaten]], [[Necron|destroyed]], [[Khornate Knights|turned into armour paint]], or [[Tau|involve the interplanetary equivalent of poking an electrical outlet with a fork]], GW uses one of the other armies. But when a situation calls for things to remain exactly as they are, the Eldar, traditionally, get the call.

Thankfully, this is no longer the case, as the Eldar are at least partly responsible for the massive shakeup that was 8th edition. Basically, Biel-Tan is gone, the Eldar have a [[Ynnead|scary new god]], and one of them does the impossible and revives [[Roboute Guilliman|Rowboat Girlyman]]. So much for status quo. That being said they did it during the Gathering Storm events and their actions prevented an ultimate Chaos victory and stirred the setting back to the state of (you guessed it) imminent-but-not-quite-here-yet disaster.

After the events of the Gathering Storm, Eldar storyline progression can only be summed up as stagnant. As mentioned before, the Ynnari hasn't really accomplished jack since they helped wake Guilliman from his power nap. Every step towards an awakened Ynnead they take, they pay for it in so much blood that it's a surprise [[Khorne]] hasn't tried to claim them as his own yet. A majority of the Craftworlds are still extremely hands-off in regards to the Ynnari and rarely ever offer them token support even if they share an immediate goal (like the defense of their own [[Saim-Hann|Craftworld]] from an awakening Tomb World). Some are even borderline hostile towards them. [[Commorragh]] is still in a state of complete [[Chaos|chaos]], with [[Asdrubael Vect|Vect's]] faction wanting Yvraine dead and bickering with [[Lady Malys]] over control of the city. Whenever any large, multi-faction gatherings occur to discuss potential long-term alliances, a [[Drazhar|big]] [[Shalaxi Helbane|bad]] shows up and spoil the mood so hard that negotiations break down and nothing comes of the meetings.