Wondering on lore

So as the wikia states the kabals overthrew the nobility in a series of conflicts that made them give up there status as aristocrats "medium rare" for good fellas fans. Apparently from what I can read this for debaucheries and rampant corruption to chaos which seems to involve a lot of pointy objects in someones body which they vehemently blame on Slaanesh. They then in turn do "exactly" these actions to stave off Slaanesh who they state they hate with a passion absolutely unmatched... are they everything they despise by word but not action then? how do they stave off being possessed by the very same punchmeat of the other chaos/warp entities... seems like there bitter, full of malice and would naturally be Malals little pawns instead?

Just a musing a plot hole ive noticed in the dark elder codexes elaboration on my noob to 40k mind would be appreciated

Happy hating oneselves or stating the exact opposite

(Dark elder the universe's little emo frak up child it would seem damn interesting faction though looking at getting a 500 or 1000 point army just for crap n giggles.)

There is a difference in indulgence dedicated to she who thirsts and making others suffer. Since the rituals that attract Slaanesh are not just about suffering but sensations as a whole.
Whereas the evil acts the dark Eldar commit are like psychic vampirism.

Here is my take on the Dark Eldar - Slaanesh relationship :

- S : "Your soouuuuuls are miiiiine, frail mortals ! Your soul is corrupted with sins and pleasures and i shall eat it !"
- DE : "Hey ugly. Why don't you take the souls of those three thousand slaves instead ? Might distract you for a while"
- S : "Okay... but i am NOT done with you..."
- DE : "Well... as long as we have slaves to distract here, we're pretty safe".

Which means DE are actually feeding their nemesis in order to survive. Which is of course a paradox.

Heh.

S: "Mmmmm. Tasty full course meal of Aledari!"
DE: "Can I interest you in a starter? Perhaps a dish of steamed human?"

Later

S: "Damn, I've filled up on human. No room in my belly right now for tasy Aeldari....."

Slaakaelris Ra wrote:

They then in turn do "exactly" these actions to stave off Slaanesh who they state they hate with a passion absolutely unmatched... are they everything they despise by word but not action then?

I think you're misunderstanding the mindset of malignant narcissists like the Dark Eldar. It's not wrong to maim, kill, torture, assault, oppress, etc. It's wrong when someone else does it to *them*.

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how do they stave off being possessed by the very same punchmeat of the other chaos/warp entities... seems like there bitter, full of malice and would naturally be Malals little pawns instead?

Malal doesn't exist in canon anymore, but they generally avoid possession by imposing a strict ban on psykers within Commoragh. It's literally their only law. The Dark Eldar are psychically atrophied and so aren't really viable targets for daemonic possession.


And as far as the whole soul-draining business, it's a nitpick but it's not that they feed slave race souls to Slaanesh in lieu of their own. Rather, psychic anguish rejuvenates their souls (and it can be of any race, including other Dark Eldar), replenishing them as they get withered away from Slaanesh's constant gnawing. It's more like constantly pouring more water into a cup with a persistent leak in the bottom.

For me the torture is like weakening the integrity of the unity of the other person (body and soul) and absorbing fractures of the escaping soul of the victim. It's A soul crushing experience to be tortured after all

Jeah,
I am with metal and Deris here.
Slanesh is feeding of the dark eldar.
But the dark eldar themselves feed on the slaves (well and also on each other in my mind).
Which is also why the oldest of the dark eldar (heamunculy etc) need much more suffering, their souls are much further diminished so they need a much bigger slice of soulpie then a newlyborn dark eldar who does not really need anything yet.

Deris87 wrote:

Slaakaelris Ra wrote:

They then in turn do "exactly" these actions to stave off Slaanesh who they state they hate with a passion absolutely unmatched... are they everything they despise by word but not action then?

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how do they stave off being possessed by the very same punchmeat of the other chaos/warp entities... seems like there bitter, full of malice and would naturally be Malals little pawns instead?

Malal doesn't exist in canon anymore, but they generally avoid possession by imposing a strict ban on psykers within Commoragh. It's literally their only law. The Dark Eldar are psychically atrophied and so aren't really viable targets for daemonic possession.

Ahh Malal doesn't exist (although try telling my Beastherd led by Kaleb Daark that ) but Malice does exist and the fluff is still very canon.

And although Malal doesn't exist I see the similar relationship between it's followers and the Dark Eldar. Malal's followers are constantly sapped by their masters parasitic will and I see Slaanesh very much in this way for Dark Eldar. If they do not feed on the essence of others, then their very essence gets drained until they finally perish, thus the needs for slaves. The debauchery of how they refuel so to speak, is of course due to their own depravity from the times before Slaanesh's birth.

Even though GW's excuses for sci-fi writers portray our race as if we had just fallen and as if there was some feeling of remorse, inner turmoil etc, I personally don't believe after many millennia and generations of this that anybody would feel remorse or conflict anymore. Nobody except very few nobles has known anything different, and we need pain to sustain ourselves. By now, we should be psychologically like Affront (aliens from the Culture series of books, eg. Excession), a species evolved from predators who enjoy pain and torture due to natural causes: when they were asked why they don't use technology which they possess rather than slaves for menial work, their reply was along the lines of "Use technology? Why? We have slaves", because conscience is not universal and there is no reason why they would feel conflicted about using slaves, as it's both in their biology and culture; they are equally puzzled about why humans would prefer technology to slaves instead. Likewise when asked why we raid and take slaves, the more natural seeming question to us, at least for somebody born in M39-40, would be, "There's so much prey out there. Why would you not hunt?" and questions about why you torture would be met with similar amazement as if an alien asked you why you eat or have sex.

As for why hate Slaanesh: well he is going to eat your soul. Seems reasonable to at least dislike him.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Here is my take on the Dark Eldar - Slaanesh relationship :

- S : "Your soouuuuuls are miiiiine, frail mortals ! Your soul is corrupted with sins and pleasures and i shall eat it !"
- DE : "Hey ugly. Why don't you take the souls of those three thousand slaves instead ? Might distract you for a while"
- S : "Okay... but i am NOT done with you..."
- DE : "Well... as long as we have slaves to distract here, we're pretty safe".

Which means DE are actually feeding their nemesis in order to survive. Which is of course a paradox.

As far as I can tell, this is 100% correct, with an added extra layer. Most DE have managed to delude themselves into thinking that they are NOT feeding Slaanesh. They view their own gradual wasting and psychic vampirism as something unique to themselves, not a vehicle for feeding Slaanesh by proxy.

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As far as I can tell, this is 100% correct, with an added extra layer. Most DE have managed to delude themselves into thinking that they are NOT feeding Slaanesh. They view their own gradual wasting and psychic vampirism as something unique to themselves, not a vehicle for feeding Slaanesh by proxy.

I agree. I think the big irony is thinking that they are avoiding their curse while they are only making their problem bigger everyday.

Jimsolo wrote:

As far as I can tell, this is 100% correct, with an added extra layer. Most DE have managed to delude themselves into thinking that they are NOT feeding Slaanesh. They view their own gradual wasting and psychic vampirism as something unique to themselves, not a vehicle for feeding Slaanesh by proxy.

It's pretty clear in the novels and any characterization in the codices that they're acutely aware Slaanesh is draining them. The delusion is that they've convinced themselves they continue their debauched lifestyles purely for their own personal satisfaction rather than out of fear of being consumed by She Who Thirsts. They don't admit to themselves they live in abject fear of being utterly annihilated. There's a reason a fair contingent were willing to go with the Ynnari, beyond just Mary Sue-ish writing.

What we're saying is that they think they are feeding themselves in order to compensate from the draining Slaanesh is doing, while they are more likely to be feeding directly Slaanesh.
They think they are vampires, but they are more like cultists.

Mppqlmd wrote:

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I agree. I think the big irony is thinking that they are avoiding their curse while they are only making their problem bigger everyday.

Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Party like there is no together, because likely there won't.

Mppqlmd wrote:

What we're saying is that they think they are feeding themselves in order to compensate from the draining Slaanesh is doing, while they are more likely to be feeding directly Slaanesh.
They think they are vampires, but they are more like cultists.

I guess I'm just not understanding your rationale for that. It's pretty unequivocal that Slaanesh directly feeds on the souls of Dark Eldar (and Corsairs for that matter), slowly draining them of their life and vitality, causing them to wither away and become ghoul-like. This effect can be reversed by feeding on the psychic anguish of others, which is directly shown in the novels/campaign books/game mechanics. In that sense, they are indirectly feeding/empowering Slaanesh, but I've never seen anything suggesting acts of hedonism by Dark Eldar are somehow directly "devotional" to Slaanesh.

I'm going to be realist again and say that in a spacefaring hyper-intelligent race of trillions (?) that doesn't have many laws except "no psyking" and "don't mess with Vect", there would probably be a range of different views on subjects like why torture is good for you. When in reality even in a moderately developed nation of 300M you can have differing explanations for the entire universe living side by side. And even in GW-verse different Imperial worlds develop different beliefs, but are then repressed.

But if you were to be fully devoted to Slaanesh it would make no sense to live in hiding in the Webway not psyking, so that is probably not a prevalent one.

Yeah I think that's one of the best nuances to both the Dark Eldar and Eldar fluff. In their consummate racial arrogance, both factions believe they have duped a lovecraftian entity that owns their souls into letting them survive. Have they? Maybe not, who knows?

The Dark Eldar unwittingly feed Slaanesh. Slaanesh consumes their souls, and the Dark Eldar top them up with the souls/agony/emotion of others. She's basically farming them.

The CWE are likewise feeding her with their relentless pursuit of ascetic perfection in all they do, focussing obsessively on one aspect of their life before moving on to the next once it's mastered.

They represent the duality of Slaanesh, because Slaanesh and the Eldar are one and the same thing, intertwined and springing forth from one another.

I do appreciate the sheer ballsiness of the DEldar plan though.

Slaanesh: I'm going to eat your soul when you die.
Dark Eldar: B*tch please I'm going to live forever.

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But if you were to be fully devoted to Slaanesh it would make no sense to live in hiding in the Webway not psyking

Because fear and worship are totally opposite things, right ?
They aren't fully devoted to Slaanesh. They aren't cultists. But they are fascinated, because they know, deep inside, that Slaanesh is part of them, and they are part of Slaanesh. They created that thing with the most intense part of their soul. They love her, and fear her. She shows to them the best and the worse parts of themselves.

I agree with you that Slaanesh would probably hold great fascination to those who are aware of her. How could you not be fascinated with a god of excess? And, there is no psychological contradiction between fearing something, loving something, and being fascinated by something all at the same time. But does Dark Eldar life really revolve around religion so much?

In 5th edition codex it says (p. 6) that they hate the Eldar gods because these died in the Fall, but still revere Khaine and the Dark Muses (gods of vice). P. 7 says that the scions of the Dark City would never admit their unceasing hunger and maintain that they only act on their own desires. And since a vat-born Kabalite has no education and no access to the Black Library, is he even that educated in something that happened over 10 millennia ago?

Canonically, magic transformed ordinary space elves into vampire space elves a long time ago. And some still remember that. But are ordinary vampire space elves aware of this these days? Or do they just experience a wordless craving and find torture satisfies it, and gives them power?

I suppose this is coming from my personal headcanon, since I am very tired of everything in this fictional universe revolving around magic and chaos gods these days and I would prefer some different motifs in the writing too. I'm not sure if 3rd edition codex even said anything about Slaanesh, now everything is about chaos and magic as opposed to technology and sci-fi these days.

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And since a vat-born Kabalite has no education and no access to the Black Library, is he even that educated in something that happened 10 millennia ago?

That's a good point.

Lord Johan wrote:

I'm not sure if 3rd edition codex even said anything about Slaanesh, now everything is about chaos and magic as opposed to technology and sci-fi these days.

It did. There's not a huge amount, but there's a definite reference;

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The Dark Eldar are inured to terror and death, taking a positive delight in the infliction of pain and misery. Yet there is something that fills their race with an utter dread, driving them onto ever more despicable acts of wanton bloodshed and torture; the Great Enemy; the One Who Thirsts. What the relationship between the Great Enemy and the Dark Eldar is, it is impossible to say. Although the Dark Eldar revel in their own wickedness and evil, there is a desperation about them; an all-consuming horror that forces them to kill and maim each other, to fall upon their prey without mercy, as if their very survival depended upon the extremity of the grievous deeds they perform.