WH40000 - what's your opinion?

Started by Beorning, August 09, 2014, 03:58:53 PM

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consortium11

It's easy enough to come up with the concept for a somewhat sympathetic Dark Eldar character; the whole "I only torture people because I have to in an effort to avoid my soul being feasted on by a depraved God" has already been mentioned and adds a certain amount of sympathy (although it also wears somewhat thin). But then you have to work out how that fits in the existing canon. And it basically doesn't. Dark Eldar society is largely defined by treachery, backstabbing, plotting and ruthless attacking any perceived weakness. If a character ever even hinted at their doubts about what they did then it would immediately be taken as a sign of weakness and they'd likely be either assassinated or enslaved within a week. That's the nature of who the Dark Eldar are.

And that's the second argument. What's the point? The nature of who the Dark Eldar are is that they don't just torture because they have to, they actively enjoy it. Everything from their social system to their weapons is largely based on inflicting as much pain and agony on others as they can. A Dark Eldar who turns away from that is little different to a vegetarian Tyranid... a funny one-liner.

If you want to use the Dark Eldar (or at least the Dark Eldar rules) as a sympathetic force then your best bet is to homebrew a backstory for a completely different group (a lost offshoot of the Eldar for example) with the Dark Eldar models being "the equivalent of" whatever you come up with.

TheGlyphstone

Necrons aren't necessarily 'evil', but they're not nice either. They're the old man who yells at children to get off his lawn...except he hasn't lived in that house for fifty years, someone else is living there now, and he's got an assault rifle. Their worldview starts at reclaiming the empire they lost after millions of years of hibernation, and ends at making that empire even bigger than it was - having given up their life energies/souls to the C'tan when they were transformed, they're forever frozen developmentally at that point in their history. The living races look to the future, but all the Necrons can do is try and rebuild the past, and in the process, they simply don't care who or what they trample over on the road to that old glory. So they've got some pathos and tragedy of their own.

Craftworld Eldar aren't exactly evil, but they are possibly the most utterly arrogant creatures in existence. Their entire culture and mindset revolves around the 'undeniable' truth that the Eldar are the greatest things to ever walk the stars, even with how far they've fallen since their prime, and no non-Eldar is fit even to be used as the ground they walk on to keep their boots from getting muddy. They might hide this attitude for diplomatic reasons when they need to, but the idea that a planet full of humans dying now is a perfectly acceptable sacrifice to save the life of one Eldar who would otherwise die later (which is something they have literally done, via the divinations of the Farseers) is how every last one of them thinks at the core.

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Oh, I do enjoy them... although it kind of worries me ;)

Although I'm not sure if a sympathetic DE character is necessarily emo... I can imagine that it could be interesting to explore someone who is a product of this vile society, but starts questioning it for some reason.

But okay, I admit that I have a knack for sympathetic monsters and scary people seeking redemption. I've been coming up with such characters for years...

You've probably been told this before, but don't be worried. Like I said, there's a little monster inside everyone - the good people just keep it little and quiet most of the time, the bad ones let it grow big and loud.

And as for a sympathetic DE character...maybe not emo, but definitely tragic. You could go that route, but it would be a tragedy in the classical sense, because it's not just a cultural and societal tendency towards vile sadism. They're literally physiologically dependent on it and die without it - and if they die, their soul is snack food for a Chaos God, so there's not even any sort of 'redemption through death' waiting at the end.

deadmanshand

And everyone has managed to adequately sum up why I despise the Dark Eldar in just a few posts.

Beorning

Quote from: Inkidu on May 30, 2015, 07:44:12 PM
Yes, the sympathetic Dark Eldar is much like the Ork Rhodes Scholar. Neither last too long in their respective societies. XD

Ork Rhodes Scholar. Heh :)

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Also if we're talking about entities that can survive in 40K my vote has always been for Samus Aran. Mainly because she's got tech that starts out on the level of the tau if not higher and she can pretty much absorb any piece of tech. XD

Possibly, but I feel that it's not tech that's crucial to survival in that universe... it's mentality. Is Samus really cruel enough? ;)

Quote from: consortium11 on May 30, 2015, 07:58:23 PM
If you want to use the Dark Eldar (or at least the Dark Eldar rules) as a sympathetic force then your best bet is to homebrew a backstory for a completely different group (a lost offshoot of the Eldar for example) with the Dark Eldar models being "the equivalent of" whatever you come up with.

Ah, you're right. I'll go with normal DEs as my army *starts thinking on suitable bloody concept for the Kabal*

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on May 30, 2015, 08:00:15 PM
Necrons aren't necessarily 'evil', but they're not nice either. They're the old man who yells at children to get off his lawn...except he hasn't lived in that house for fifty years, someone else is living there now, and he's got an assault rifle. Their worldview starts at reclaiming the empire they lost after millions of years of hibernation, and ends at making that empire even bigger than it was - having given up their life energies/souls to the C'tan when they were transformed, they're forever frozen developmentally at that point in their history. The living races look to the future, but all the Necrons can do is try and rebuild the past, and in the process, they simply don't care who or what they trample over on the road to that old glory. So they've got some pathos and tragedy of their own.

Craftworld Eldar aren't exactly evil, but they are possibly the most utterly arrogant creatures in existence. Their entire culture and mindset revolves around the 'undeniable' truth that the Eldar are the greatest things to ever walk the stars, even with how far they've fallen since their prime, and no non-Eldar is fit even to be used as the ground they walk on to keep their boots from getting muddy. They might hide this attitude for diplomatic reasons when they need to, but the idea that a planet full of humans dying now is a perfectly acceptable sacrifice to save the life of one Eldar who would otherwise die later (which is something they have literally done, via the divinations of the Farseers) is how every last one of them thinks at the core.

Still, both of these races sound more sympathetic that the Imperium of Man. :)

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You've probably been told this before, but don't be worried. Like I said, there's a little monster inside everyone - the good people just keep it little and quiet most of the time, the bad ones let it grow big and loud.

I know, I know. I certainly won't be losing any sleep about it... And it's just a game, after all.

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And as for a sympathetic DE character...maybe not emo, but definitely tragic. You could go that route, but it would be a tragedy in the classical sense, because it's not just a cultural and societal tendency towards vile sadism. They're literally physiologically dependent on it and die without it - and if they die, their soul is snack food for a Chaos God, so there's not even any sort of 'redemption through death' waiting at the end.

See, I like that :) Tragic is good. I like writing tragic :)

Quote from: deadmanshand on May 30, 2015, 08:05:32 PM
And everyone has managed to adequately sum up why I despise the Dark Eldar in just a few posts.

Hey, don't badmouth them! Or they will come for you :)

In fact... I think that a Mandrake is right behind you already ;)

deadmanshand

My fear of the Dark Eldar is non-existent. Spikes and chains and whips don't impress me.

Oniya

I think the closest I've come to a character who is like the Dark Eldar and is still roughly sympathetic would be Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone.  I was never quite sure if I felt sorry for him or if he scared the crap out of me - and whether I should be cheering his victories or not.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Beorning on May 30, 2015, 08:14:04 PM


Still, both of these races sound more sympathetic that the Imperium of Man. :)


They're not much better, though. The Imperium is, above everything else, bloated and inefficient, but that's because of its utterly unfathomable size. There are over a million inhabited planets in the Imperium, plus the orbital settlements, asteroid mines, moon colonies, and space ships, the last of which have permanent populations big enough to qualify as a city in their own right; there's no possible way mere humans could efficiently manage anything that big. So you're down to the small scale level, where you find...humans. There are as many truly good Imperial officials as there are outright evil ones, but the good one are hampered by the weight of the bureaucracy in getting anything done, while the bad ones benefit from that same bureaucracy to keep anyone else from stopping them. The rest end up somewhere in the middle. It's authoritarian and oppressive as a whole, but when you look at everything they're up against, it really is the only way to ensure the survival of the human race. Literally every single other group of sentients in the galaxy wants to kill us all, the game tagline 'there is only war' isn't exaggerated. The entire human race is at war, even if 90% of it will never see a xenos or a heretic or a mutant or a demon in their entire lifetime, because their purpose is to provide support - logistical or simply motivational - for the ones who do.

You see the Imperium as big and monstrous and corrupt and evil...but once you consider everything they're up against, you should instead be amazed that they're not even worse.

deadmanshand

Quote from: Oniya on May 30, 2015, 08:30:12 PM
I think the closest I've come to a character who is like the Dark Eldar and is still roughly sympathetic would be Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone.  I was never quite sure if I felt sorry for him or if he scared the crap out of me - and whether I should be cheering his victories or not.

Elric is much closer to Craftworld Eldar. It's the pointless sadism of the Dark Eldar that ensures he would be something else. Everything he did he did for love or revenge. He took no pleasure in inflicting pain.

Beorning

Quote from: Oniya on May 30, 2015, 08:30:12 PM
I think the closest I've come to a character who is like the Dark Eldar and is still roughly sympathetic would be Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone.  I was never quite sure if I felt sorry for him or if he scared the crap out of me - and whether I should be cheering his victories or not.

That reminds me that I need to read these books sometime...

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on May 30, 2015, 08:30:29 PM
You see the Imperium as big and monstrous and corrupt and evil...but once you consider everything they're up against, you should instead be amazed that they're not even worse.

I know, I know :)

Although the Tau don't want to kill us all, right? And the ordinary Eldar don't have any kind of genocidal agenda (although I know that they do kill humans if they get in the way)...

TheGlyphstone

The Tau just want to force us to their strict ethos, and if we're not cooperative, they sterilize us to breed us out of existence. And while the Eldar aren't actively genocidal, that's like saying humans aren't actively genocidal towards ants. We go where we want and do what we need to, and if a few anthills get stepped on, that's not our problem.

Oniya

Quote from: deadmanshand on May 30, 2015, 08:41:58 PM
Elric is much closer to Craftworld Eldar. It's the pointless sadism of the Dark Eldar that ensures he would be something else. Everything he did he did for love or revenge. He took no pleasure in inflicting pain.

Yyrkoon was closer to Dark Eldar in that respect, but hardly sympathetic.  (And it says something that I can still remember how to spell that without looking it up.  Not sure what, but it says something.)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

deadmanshand

Yrkoon and Dr. Jest definitely qualify for DE. Melnibone as a whole strikes me more as pre-fall Eldar.

TheGlyphstone

Wouldn't that make him even worse, not having read the books in question? Dark Eldar at least have a purpose to their excessive sadism - the pre-Fall Eldar went to far greater lengths of sensation and depravity for no reason other than that they could, simply to find new limits then break them for even more extreme experiences. There's a reason that the god they birthed was Slaanesh.

deadmanshand

The Dark Eldar sadism serves no purpose other than a cheap reason for being Eeeevvvvillll. Yrkoon was an idiot. Jest was a sadistic sociopath. Elric was honorable if alien.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: deadmanshand on May 30, 2015, 09:27:22 PM
The Dark Eldar sadism serves no purpose other than a cheap reason for being Eeeevvvvillll. Yrkoon was an idiot. Jest was a sadistic sociopath. Elric was honorable if alien.

You're conflating out of universe and in-universe, and treating them as the same thing. I'm looking at in-universe in both cases. Elric sounds like a Craftworld Eldar, Jest sounds like a Dark Eldar. None of them combined and multiplied by a few orders of magnitude could come close to the depravity of the pre-Fall Eldar race.

deadmanshand

The Melnibonean culture is the pre-fall Eldar. It's sensation, depravity, and dark magic for entertainments sake including many elements that inspiree the Noise Marines. The original story for the Eldar was based off of the story of Melnibone.

Inkidu

Oh what's the point, Chaos will always win.

Every act of treachery or wisdom
Every act of slaughter or bravery
Every act of rot or simply the passing of time
Every act of debauchery or purest love

It all feeds the Chaos Gods.

That game was rigged from the start.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

TheGlyphstone

Of course, Chaos can't win, because then they would ultimately defeat themselves. It's a rigged game where everyone loses, no matter what side they're on.

Inkidu

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on May 30, 2015, 10:26:20 PM
Of course, Chaos can't win, because then they would ultimately defeat themselves. It's a rigged game where everyone loses, no matter what side they're on.
Actually thinking about it. The Orks win.

Orks like fightin'! Because Orks iz da best!

If enough Orks believe something is true, it is.

In the grim, dark future of the 41st. Century there is only war.


If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Inkidu on May 30, 2015, 10:29:10 PM
Actually thinking about it. The Orks win.

Orks like fightin'! Because Orks iz da best!

If enough Orks believe something is true, it is.

In the grim, dark future of the 41st. Century there is only war.

That's actually one of the better crackpot theories I've seen pop up every so often - the universe is locked into its stasis of perpetual warfare thanks to the overwhelming collective effects of WAAAAAAUGH power, an entire galaxy's worth of Orks believing in the most fundamental aspect of their entire existence and causing a correspondingly galactic-scale effect.

Inkidu

You can't really beat an Ork. How are you supposed to fight something that can hold space ships together simply because they don't see a hull breach or fire at you for an afternoon with a machine gun that has an un-rifled barrel, no real moving parts, and the firing bolt is in backward. Orks have no logistical problems of which to speak. :|

Forget the Eldar, when that stupid precursor race made the proto-Orks they got it right on the first go.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Oniya

Quote from: deadmanshand on May 30, 2015, 10:01:28 PM
The Melnibonean culture is the pre-fall Eldar. It's sensation, depravity, and dark magic for entertainments sake including many elements that inspiree the Noise Marines. The original story for the Eldar was based off of the story of Melnibone.

>_>  I actually wasn't aware of that when I made the comparison.

But yes - the Melniboneans would do things like take slaves that had been surgically altered to only be able to produce a single note and whip them to produce musical compositions.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

TheGlyphstone

And Elric still holds to that culture?

deadmanshand

No. Not at all. There is a reason he is the Last Emperor of Melnibone. He personally leads the army that sacks the Dreaming Isle.

Oniya

Yyrkoon and Dr. Jest certainly did, though.  Elric - got caught up in a few things.  Killing Chaos gods and the like.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17