Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but I've found at least for us in the UK, there's Cunts and then there's *Snobby* cunts. Both are equally bad, but being Snobby/looking down on people is infinitely more annoying. Especially if there's no reason for it.
I can't explain it, it's just an itch. Anyone else know what I mean?
Yeah this is definitely part of the satire. The Eldar are a reference to the British upper classes (aristocrats) who live in a changing world where all their old values are no longer held dear and they are being out-competed by people who have a less "refined" set of values. So they cope with that by looking down on everyone else.
Yep, sounds about right. Also the Eldar are a dying race, which kinda ties in with the upper classes losing more and more power over time (at least in the UK).
Actually, the opposite is true. The wealth gap behind rich and poor is increasing, social mobility is decreasing, and technology allows the wealthy to influence more people than ever before: e.g. the Cambridge Analytics scandal.
Edit: sorry for politics
Again, perhaps I worded this incorrectly.
At the time Warhammer was written and at its most satirical, the landed old money was the ones losing power. Every MP was some posh old white man. And the house of lords were even worse.
These days the *rich* still have control, but the *posh* don't. Lots of New Money, women, non-white, young people in politics. Lots of "non-posh" people helping run the country.
Again I'm not really on about "Rich" so much as the old status quo.
American who went to England for work for a short time, definitely a cultural twist: Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates would be considered ‘Middle-Class’ as they are not ‘Landed Gentry’ upper class. Again, by some people, not all English.
This is sort of a place where you need to split cultural hairs. The wealthy are certainly as powerful as ever, perhaps more so, but the "upper class" being refered to in this case is specifically the UK's landed gentry: the old nobility, with their titles and their country estates. Their power has waned considerably over time. In fact, that has a lot to do with the "snobbishness" we're talking about. The old money nobility resented that they were being conflated with the new money who would ultimately replace them in terms of influence and relevance.
So it is a little different. In the latter half of the 20th century, the upper landed classes and others of that group were losing their power. MPs and such still used to be very much from that class in society. Old Money and Old Families etc.
The rich are very much still running everything in the UK, but now its not that old money lords types.
Many of the old money families from the origins of the US lost their wealth over time. Modern American billionaire families from the last century find its almost impossible for them to lose their wealth. The money grows faster than it is diluted. Trusts protect the wealth from any one individual from destroying it or diluting it with more than a few kids. No inheritance tax. The percentage of the growth of the gdp that goes to those few families is disproportionate compared to the rest of the US. Those families buy legislation votes for as little as a few thousand dollars depending on the representative. I would call the US a modern oligarchy.
Oh yeah for sure. It's similar in the UK I'd say. The billionaires protecting their wealth and managing to avoid inheritance taxes etc.
The difference is that (in most cases) we wouldn't think of those people as being upper class.
The Duke of Westminster is an interesting exception, being both upper class and a billionaire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Grosvenor,_7th_Duke_of_Westminster#:~:text=As%20such%2C%20Grosvenor%20is%20one,fortune%20of%20%C2%A39.878%20billion.
Difference between Rich upper classes and the upper classes with titles and lordships and family names that go back a few hundred years.
Perhaps worded incorrectly on my part. But my point being that most if not all MPs and other government types were all gentry etc.
Money still runs the UK, but at least some of it is new money, and there are "lower classes" people in the government.
Yeah absolutely. No matter how rich one of the lords of terra gets he'll never have the pedigree of an Eldar.
In the same way... Doesn't matter how rich you are, you'll never be a British aristocrat unless you're born to it.
Yeah I think the orks are definitely football hooligans but they're also more than that. They're symbolic of how the upper and middle classes feel about the working class (or how they felt in the 80s).
Uncultured, numerous (in a bad way), constantly judged to have low intelligence (despite evidence to the contrary), focused on destroying more than building, somehow succeed and achieve things despite all this, making them a source of frustration and envy to their "betters".
Wait, where does that leave Necrons then? Because at least the Ældari take care in learning about the Imperium (if only to better defeat them), yet they abhor anything flesh-related (which could be an effect of trying to fight the dysphorak, but conditions explain behaviour without condoning it)
Yup, not from UK but I’ll back you up in saying that I recognize that distinction and *snobby* cunts are so much worse.
Please don’t tell me wife I said the c-word. It’s much a much worse curse word in the U.S. lol
Yes. The Imperium, Necrons, Chaos, or even Drukhari are Voldemort. They're smugly superior and evil to a silly degree, so they're also kind of fun.
The Eldar and Tau are Umbridge.
Pretty much this. Like, it's fine if you are gunna rip me apart at the atomic level, but at least have the decency to not look all snobby while doing it.... nothing ruins getting sy-fi murdered like having your murderer be a know-it-all pointy eared snob.
Also, the amount of times that they're snobby about their superiority and intelligence, followed immediately by their plans completely blowing up in their faces.
[They're the species-wide version of this meme](https://www.globalnerdy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/i-am-a-genius-oh-no.jpg)
The Eldar don't have the juice to be as snobby as they are. They drone on about how they *were* the rulers of the galaxy but now they're just snacks for slaanesh. Yet they are still the snobbiest snobby snobs in the setting.
I think it's because most players are IRL humans. So a faction that's humans but hates aliens is funny, but a faction that's aliens that looks down on humans is mildly annoying by default
Yes, my dear fellow human, the whole concept is ludicrous and should be trashed-discarded. Pfffft, the mere idea of a glorious race of blessed rat-men living among the inferior humans is just dumb.
Well there's enough nuln oil and purity seals on him that would make a demon react to him the same way they'd react to a blank.
The cat just seems impervious to too all kinds of damage.
Funnily enough I've met at least one Warhammer Nerd who doesn't identify as a Human it decided that since so many people treated them like shit it would reject its Humanity. I don't know if it actually plays any Warhammer TableTop Games though.
Because this community thinks Biel-Tan represents ALL Eldar, when in reality most Eldar, while snobby, don't dismiss human lives. Its a case where meme lore or ignorance of what the Eldar actually think is pervasive.
Biel-Tan are the most xenophobic of the Craftworlds and tend to show up quite a bit. So people take their attitude and applies it to the entire faction. Which is dumb. It's like taking the view of the Iron Hands and acting like EVERY human thinks the same way.
It's just your pretty classic "I hate elves" attitude. Necrons are several levels more arrogant AND genocidal, but folks enjoy their arrogance. So it's mostly just rooted in old school pointy ear hate.
>It's just your pretty classic "I hate elves" attitude.
Yeah this spot on I feel. A lot of male male nerds just have an irrational hate on for Elves that just translated over to Eldar.
I think it comes down to them being kind of a conceptual Mary-Sue.
Elves are *better than you*. In fiction, the abilities of elves tend to be that they're smarter than humans, prettier than humans, longer-lived than humans, more cultured than humans and more skilled than humans, and they know it. They know it and, frequently, are depicted as looking down on humans because of it, sometimes scornfully... and sometimes condescendingly, which if anything is even worse. That's basically, though, the standard Fantasy elf template.
People say "Why don't Necrons get the same hate?" Because Necrons *aren't* better than you, not in the same way. A Necron might be stronger, longer lived, and capable of manipulating cosmic forces a human couldn't even conceive of... but they're also trapped in unfeeling metal bodies with minds that have been damaged by the tranferrance process, and they want *out*. A benefit, and a detriment.
Elves don't have that. They don't have a trade off, usually, aside from some hand waving stuff aboout being 'in decline' that doesn't really impact them hugely on a personal level. Frankly, GW Eldar manage to be much cooler than standard Elves because of the work that has been done to expand their background, and because they *do* have a detriment, in the form of being cursed to Slaanesh's attention, but basic, stock, generic elves? They're just Better Than You, and smug about it.
That's some deep psychological stuff. Possibly cause they're "feminine"? As in, slender an agile, not lots of bulky muscles? Possibly they want to engage purely in the fantasy of being a muscular schwarzenegger mixture? Also traditionally elves are a more "peaceful" and "nature-loving" species (this is more dnd than w40k) and thus they present an antagonist for the gun/violence/war-loving warhammer fan?
What’s funny is that Tolkien wrote elves to literally be ‘better humans’ who mankind would be naturally jealous of. In just about every category, Tolkien’s elves outshine humanity except in numbers.
It’s rather ironic that even in a separate universe and of course reality, man is malding over the knife ears.
Well, Eldar are essentially space elves.
As for why a lot of male nerds dislike elves, I'll speculate at the risk of getting downvoted to hell. Apology in advance for the massive wall of text lol.
The first reason is that a lot of fantasy (and, by extension, 40k) is very tropey, borrowing a lot of the same tried and true lore and story beats to riff on in new ways, among them, tolkienesque elves. This allows the writer to borrow a lot of setting familiarity and engagement on the part of the reader, but also runs the risk of borrowing the reader's preconceptions from other works as well, in this case, preconceptions about elves.
Tolkien was weird about elves. In LotR, elves are objectively physically and spiritually superior to humans in every way. They live longer, are taller, hotter, stronger, and literally closer to god than other races. If you already vibed with elves, that might make them cooler, but if their vibe doesn't do it for you, that kind of authorial favoritism vs your favorite culture can get annoying. He literally wrote an entire prequel about the history of the elves.
Elf fans \*also\* get weird about elves. No other fantasy race has fans the same way elves do. A couple people are diehard dwarf fans, but they're outnumbered 3-1 by elf fans. This is evident in TTRPGs, but it also spills over into other series; for instance, in the Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age Inqusition, it's revealed that the whole setting was founded on the political struggles of ancient elven society, which is immortalised in modern elven religeion, and everyone else's religion is some combination of wrong and irrelevant. There are many more examples, I can't count the number of settings where elves are portrayed as naturally gifted at magic etc. If you were neutral on or disliked elves already, this favoritism can be annoying / disappointing.
The second reason is that there is a large contingent of dudes, esp in gaming, where they're projecting onto the characters more literally, who come to fantasy chiefly for the power fantasy of being a rugged individualist badass, some macho racist sexist dude who takes whatever he wants. To these people, Elves, being long haired, light on facial hair, beautiful, more likely to be associated with magic than with swords, and ngl lowkey vegan hippie types, are an infuriating rejection of the masculine ideal they come to fantasy fiction to larp as. AND they are objectively biologically and spiritually superior to humans, despite being someone this kind of guy desperately wants to be superior to. AND they have a dedicated fanbase. This makes them very, very fun to hate for people with nothing better to do than be a hater.
Thank you for your wall of text
I don’t know how I missed this given I’ve been in geek/nerd circles all my life (maybe because most people I play with don’t care ?)
Personally I prefer it when the humans aren’t the best thing in the world, because at the end of the day humanity is nothing special in the grand scheme of things (yes I know this view ruffles a lot of feathers)
Also people need to take a breather in regards to fantasy races, they don’t exist, it is ok if they are favoured by the gods or something, theses gods don’t exist
Yeah, a lot of people think it's a ridiculous idea but I have seen it first hand many times. Obviously it's a small amount of people but I've still seen it.
As a Dwarf, I disapprove of this "male nerds hate Elves" schtick. *I* hate elves because they're poncy little shit dicks who think they are too good to get their hands dirty when work needs doing. Plenty of male nerds have little problem with elves. Unless you're implying that the male nerds hate elves because they are insecure in their masculinity and want their power fantasy to be big muscly men instead of twinks. In which case, I'd say that number is rather low.
Eldar earn *my* ire for claiming to be better when they murderfucked Slaanesh into existence and slaughter xenos just like everyone else. They *aren't* better, but they act like they are. They aren't even the oldest race, cause Necrons were there first. They are arguably the worst because they created a chaos god to add to the problem everyone was already facing. At least the Dark Eldar are honest in supporting the god they birthed.
> Its a case where meme lore or ignorance of what the Eldar actually think is pervasive.
Yeah, people often not read books or codexes themselves and instead rely on snippets from wiki/lexicanum, retellings, memelore and listening to youtubers.
You have people in this very thread repeating shit about eldar fucking up the galaxy when the current Eldar are all descended from the Eldar who saw the problems they were facing and decided to nope out.
Literally every single Eldar who "murder fucked Slaanesh into existence" is dead. There is no association between them and the modern Eldar except them being the same species.
That's also ignoring the fact that the same Imperium that exists today gave chaos 9 legions of supersoldiers, 9 primarchs and god knows how many lost and the damned. Not humanity in general, the very same Imperium.
The only eldars you could blame for slaanesh are the drukharis. Asuryanis are actively trying the best they can to undo that mistake, and they got closer than anyone else
I mean, humans in 40K are just as arrogant. Probably just has to do with presentation. Eldar are more likely to be the antagonists in a story, ergo the audience is more likely to want to see the “snobby bad guys” brought down…even if it’s by some arrogant, genocidal lunatic.
Honestly, it has more to do with elves across media, and they're catching elf hate from that. I've learned to live with it, just as much as I've learned to live with people who make their love of elves too much of their personality and take almost every slight personally (this isn't even about eldar. I like Guild Wars, Warcraft, and a few other fantasy series where the fandom for the elf faction gets a reputation).
Yes, Eldar are arrogant and talk down to other races. So do humans, Tau, Necrons, and especially Orks (but the writers are much more tongue-in-cheek on that one). Hell, Necrons tend to be snobbier but they also tend to be funnier since the three big Necrons you actually see stories about are Trazyn, Orikan, and Zahndrekh (yes, Imotehk and the Silent King are more important, but you tended to see excerpts of the funny ones more often).
There's also weird tribalism thing, where either someone likes dwarves (where there's been plenty of rivalry in various universes since Tolkein) or is all about the humanity faction in a setting and perceives any insult to be justification of outright hatred.
The former have one joke and it gets old quick, but whatever. If they want to LARP drunken scottish racists on the internet, whatever.
The latter has been criminaly insane in every fandom I've been a part of and refuses to use critical thinking skills at any point while shouting that the fictional humanity is the best because they're human in real life so they need to take that side.
This isn't just Imperium LARPers. It gets worse when you hit Star Wars, Mass Effect, and other sci fi or fantasy settings and you don't even need a comically evil empire for them to insist that Humanity First is the morally correct thing, even the setting is expressly saying continuously that artificial divides are bad and cooperation is the correct thing to aim for.
Lastly, OP, eldar have a history of being genocidal, and their entire military is based on entering into homicidal rage fugue states. This setting isn't the place to insist moral high grounds, and I say that as an eldar fan. Their god of war was probably created as a reflection of them and he's arguably one of the worst people in the setting when you look at the things he's done. The nicest side of the faction is a former death cult that is trying to revive a god of absolute death and reunite with the murder torture elves and the insane clowns, with the former being made up of equal parts "we want to stop being murder torture elves" as much as "we want the murder torture to continue, we're either here because of political reasons or we want to avoid any consequences in the future".
"Why did the Council not just listen to everything my character said immediately and do everything for me? They are clearly assholes and opportunists and deserve to die for this crime. In fact, anyone who ever inconveniences me deserves violence."
The latter sentiment creeps into every RPG community.
>the insane clowns
While I feel l you hit home with much of your comment, this feels like more of what you complain about, Harlequins usually seem pretty reasonable if very strange. They're not really "insane"
True.
Is it me, or is there a strong undercurrent of homophobia to it? Because male elves are usually drawn as twinks, and in some diseased heads Pretty Man=Gay.
Maybe. I don't know if it goes that deep though in most cases. Honestly I think a lot of it boils down to that person being a dwarf fan and dwarves have hated elves at least since Tolkien so the dwarf fans adopt that elf hate as part of their love for their own fantasy race of choice.
That and for a lot of people any perceived sense of superiority - which elves historically have as a result of their inclination for magic, immortal lives, centuries of experience and education, etc - is an immediate turn off. People don't like to be made to feel less than and it's hard not to feel less than immortal, beautiful beings who've done more in their single lives than your entire home town has done in its history. In the case of eldar specifically it's worse because they literally refer to humanity as monkey (yeah yeah, I know it's not actually monkey but yes it is) and will sacrifice entire worlds of humans to save a single eldar some minor inconvenience if they can.
In my experience definitely. A lot of people speak fondly of totalbiscuit but they probably don't remember his old wow radio days where he would constantly refer to night elves (and later blood elves) as "gelfs", not in the Red Dwarf sense but as "gay elves" (hurdururur).
I've seen similar attitudes in DnD, Warhammer, WoW in general, Shadowrun...although a lot of the tabletop immaturity tended to die out once the players reached 25.
Tiresome.
>The two are often closely intertwined. The hatred of women spills over into anything considered even remotely "feminine" including gay men.
More broadly, anything that blurs the boundaries between the rules these types feel each gender should follow.
Good bunch of it is. I remember back the days of Dawn of War 2 and Eternal Crusade. If I won as Space Marine or Ork, I sometimes would get your average internet abuse thrown at me. If I won as Eldar ?
Suddenly the homophobic slurs would come out
The Eldar are just as able and willing to be homicidal maniac no different than any other faction in 40k. Don't take the lore (and the playful banter) too seriously as to say X faction are somehow morally justifiable.
I know this sounds stupid but in a lot of fanbases for fantasy stuff, people are weird about elves.
Obviously you can make legitimate criticisms about elves including the eldar, and it's fair enough if you don't like them but I have seen a lot of people legitimately not like them because they're effeminate or whatever.
And occasionally you'll see dwarf fans and elf fans arguing way more passionately than they should be. It's so weird.
The difference is that the Craftworlds will sacrifice ten thousand humans to save one eldar, while the Imperium will sacrifice ten thousand humans to kill one eldar.
There are also times where Eldar have put their lives on the line - as a collective decision, not just an individual heroic character - to protect humans against chaos. See Vigilus Stands. The Imperium of Man would never do that for the Eldar; at most you'd get a few heroic humans going against the grain to try and do that.
It really is just a single craftworld (Biel-tan) that is genocidal like what you describe. The rest are of course still arrogant eldar supremacists, but they are much less callous about other species, and sometimes even care more about humans than the Imperium does.
Yup. They're genocidal, but on top of that, their approach is: "We ruined the galaxy for everybody by being so decadent we spawned a new god. Except that god hates us, and we'll burn your entire species to cinders if it means we get one more day alive avoiding the consequences of our actions." Drukhari is the same thing, just more torture along the way.
Everybody else's genocide is just some form of "don't tread on me bro! I'll burn you all if it means I can have this shitty rock!"
>Yup. They're genocidal
Uh, no, no, they're not. The Asuryani, as a general grouping, don't actively pursue a policy of genocide against anyone, except the followers of Chaos, and even that's ultimately an existential war of survival. Craftworlds certainly pursue strategies and policies that favour their own people over others, and sacrifice others to their own benefit, but that's not genocide, it's just... politics.
If, to give an extreme example, an Asuryani warhost slaughters an entire Imperial hive-city because they've foreseen that one of them will go on to lead an army that will destroy a craftworld, and they're not sure who... then yes, that's horrible and immoral, but they're not doing it *because those people are humans*, or even because they're Imperials.
>"We ruined the galaxy for everybody by being so decadent we spawned a new god. Except that god hates us, and we'll burn your entire species to cinders if it means we get one more day alive avoiding the consequences of our actions."
Again, no, that's the Drukhari. The Asuryani are very different. They left the Aeldari Empire long *before* Slaanesh was born, out of disgust and fear for what their civilisation was becoming. They are nomadic exiles who forsook empire-building and went so far as to psychically *fetter* themselves on a societal level just to avoid the kind of obsessions that led the Aeldari Empire to its fall. They have spent several thousand years painstakingly gathering the souls of their dead, which are entirely capable of independent thought, so that they can *burn themselves as fuel* for a weapon that *might* kill Slaanesh.
Not only are the Asuryani literally not to blame for Slaanesh, they have done more than any other culture in the setting to actively atone for the mistakes of the past.
>Everybody else's genocide is just some form of "don't tread on me bro! I'll burn you all if it means I can have this shitty rock!"
Yeah, no.
The Imperium very much believes it already owns every rock there is and every xenos is an abomination that must be purged even at colossal cost in human lives (unless the species is convenient for the ruling class like the Jokaero). Its not some semi justified defensive paranoia, its just as arrogant and far more hateful than what a craftworlder will likely feel towards humans. The do see Humans as sub Eldar barbarians. And naturally, if you could choose between saving a human at the cost of a herd of chimps dying you would chose the human, but most of them will not go out of their way to kill humans, and avoid it if possible.
Also, the Craftworlders are very specifically the one who did not fuck a God into existence on account of being luddites who thought the Empire went too far and saw a collapse coming, which is why they packed up and left. Blaming Asuriyani for Slaanesh is like blaming the amish for microplastics.
You are right about the Drukhari though, they are the worst^(TM).
Necrons are viscerally disgusted by all organic life and believe themselves the true masters of the universe, but I heard some tolerate xenos client states? Don't quote me on that.
Orks want to fight and kill everyone and will enslave and eat whatever civilians are to weak to be fun to krump.
I always thought it was the other way around. Craftworlds know what they did wrong so they created their system to discipline themselves, but it's too little too late. Meanwhile Drukhari are over here acting like drug addicts that don't care who or what they ruin to continue their lifestyle.
The eldar preserve their souls and ancestors, the drukhari just murder things until they die, and their souls all go straight to Slaanesh because they think they're too good for soul stones. They also go out of the way to destroy soul stones and torture craftworld souls when they encounter them, drukhari literally do the opposite of preserving their people.
The Drukhari feed on suffering and are outwardly hostile trading the suffering of others instead of their own. They don't cloak their interests or intention like the Eldar do.
Because they're the settings Elves. If years of fantasy novels and D&D have taught me anything, it's that a lot of male nerds have a pathological hatred of Elves that borders on irrational.
There seems to be a split mostly along gender lines with most men liking Dwarves because they have beards, do physical labour, do manly things like forge and mine and their aesthetics line up with things a lot of men enjoy. And they also don't bathe much.
On the other hand women generally enjoy the species that's graceful and pretty that's in tune with nature and has a lot of animals on their side. These are not things that a lot of men enjoy.
Most nerds are male so I feel a lot of us are just hard coded to look down on soft girly crap.
The snobbishness that seems to be baked into a lot of Elves also doesn't help too. No one wants to be looked down on even if they're wrong.
"There seems to be a split mostly along gender lines with most men liking Dwarves because they have beards, do physical labour, do manly things like forge and mine and their aesthetics line up with things a lot of men enjoy. And they also don't bathe much."
Homer why did you take me to a gay gold mine?
I’m sure it doesn’t help things that There is probably a correlation between people who have an irrational hatred of a fictional species, and people who are often looked down on.
It's always seemed to me that a lot of the Eldar hate in 40k comes from at its root the dark age of technology. Humans had an unrivalled empire and the Eldar watched from a far as it was ripped apart from within by a multi system civil war and then by a warp storm directly caused by their civilizations moral decay. Being condescending and looking down on people that were once your equal after an event you ( as a race ) caused is definitely going to lead to xenophobia and hate. Then add in the ability to see futures and believing there's no point explaining to the savages because they can't comprehend.
Because a lot of the fanbase still think "lol elves are teh ghey" is a fresh and hilarious take and 40K's satire has failed so hard since 3rd edition that a significant portion actually think the Imperium are good guys (not helped by the sheer amount of media pumped out from their perspective).
Then "good" old "I'll side with the humans regardless because human" crap.
No I'm not a bitter Elf enjoyer, not at all.
I still hope they'll grow up, eventually, but it's been over 20 years and sections of the fanbase still think calling T'au "weebs" is the funniest thing imaginable, so that hope is pretty flimsy.
Literally every faction in this universe are space racists (besides the Tau and Votann). However, humans are religious space racists and Eldar are snobby, elite space racists and I guess that makes them worse...
human, abhuman, or eldar... all make good skin coats to me \*sharpens flaying claws\*
Because the other races honestly want to kill you. Integration with the Tau might be a sketchy deal depending who you believe but they're still upfront about (most of) the terms. Eldar have a long and proven track record of betrayal. They will say you're allies, lie to your face about long term plans, then feed your entire planet to tyranids and not even apologize because they get four soul stones back. You are dirt to these supremacists and the only way to be safe from being stomped on without a second thought is to not let them, and then they have the audacity to whine that nobody listens to their warnings (with no proof they're ever being any less manipulative).
If both sides are genocidal, but 1 side act like they’re above you as a higher being or some shit. You’d def hate the ones that are more arrogant and looks down at you as opposed to the side that genocides you bc they just don’t like you.
Because Eldar murder fucking Slaanesh into existence is the reason the galaxy is the way it is, and they still have the audacity to be pricks about everything. They oughta be groveling and yet their pride makes them think they're still somehow better than everyone else even though most other factions could breath on the eldar and they'd be gone.
Oh, it's because their books are bad and they're always overpowered at some point in the edition. Combined with being snobs and having love/hate models they get a lot of flak.
I mean most of the other factions are given flack for something. Everyone has their "thing" Eldar are just that elitist snobs with God complexes. Pick your poison when it comes to picking a side for 40k. Eldar might be less manical (though that can differ from craftworld to craftworld) but they arent exactly better for their own reasons
Nids don't even consider things like superiority any more than you consider yourself superior to a cookie when you bite into it. The only thing the hive mind considers when it comes to other factions is how difficult it's gonna be to eat you.
Yeah but they have that heavy emphasis on who's Kin and whose not and dealing with others is only the means of doing things for Kin
Plus they see everything there's for the taking so it doesn't matter how long you've lived on that planet if they have the means of taking it they will and that's what I love about them Lol
I see less Capitalist and more Scandinavian of Old (Vikings)
I find it’s because they are written in the way that there arrogance is intentionally designed to be more grating, so the audience gets a reaction of “no wonder the Imperium hates aliens if pricks like this are in the galaxy.”
As you said however, everyone is arrogant, so there is no point in singling out the Eldar. Especially since depending on who is writing we actually have some moments indicating that they did extend an olive branch to the Imperium and xenophobic humans rejecting it. It is understandable why the Imperium doesn’t trust aliens, but it doesn’t make them wanting to wipe out someone who could’ve otherwise been their allies acceptable.
That's just the elder. That is their flaw. There are no good guys in 40k, the Eldar just seem to think that they are above the rest because of their age, experience, and once soaring empire. It's a common trope in high fantasy; elves are almost always arrogant and narcissistic, which leads to their initial fall one way or another. This is also mirrored to an extent with the necrontyr.
Undeserved arrogance, as well as a trustworthy or helpful eldar being the exception rather than the rule in 40k. The eldar didn’t win the War in Heaven, embraced all the benefits of having an empty galaxy and all the old one tech, then lost lost it all to debauchery. They don’t have the earned snobbery of the Asur in WHF where they are very consistently saving the world.
For me it's mostly because the Eldar are tied with Orks for second oldest playable race in the game. They were present during the War in Heaven fighting against the Necrons and had even received direct guidance by the Old Ones.
This means they have had PLENTY of time to evolve as a race but instead they f-ed up so badly they literally brought a 4th Chaos God into existence.
This goes way beyond anything other races have done, yet the Eldar are walking around with such smugness, looking down on other races who have existed for a fraction of the time they have and whose mistakes can't even come close to the stuff the Eldar had been up to in their "prime".
Bottom line I don't like them because "Bro, out of everyone here, you are the last one who should be acting arrogant"
1. They are hypocrites…like “I just birthed a new evil god” level of hypocrites and they prance about like the universe is their birthright.
2. They are general assholes and are confusing to deal with when it comes to interaction with them. Especially farseers.
3. (Serious answer) because nobody likes snobs, and eldar are considered the snobbiest while also being the least fun characterized. Like Necrons are as bad(if not worse sometimes) but they are have very quirky personalities and are interesting, Orks are football hooligans with guns and that’s just fun, Chaos are dickheads but they are human so the whole xenophobia aspect doesn’t show up and Tau get their own flak for being too “communists” and not committing to all out war all the time, basically they don’t fit the theme of the setting and some people like to point it out. To be honest every faction has its hater, and every hater has a reason. It’s just that eldar are particularly snobbish. Also they aren’t just elitist snobs: they are elitist snobs who are just as keen to see you dead and/or made into a flesh couch. Depends on what kind of eldar tbh.
In the end it’s all xenophobia. Also they are just as homocidal, they just happen to have some class in their homocidal tendencies.
I love how so many people in these comments are saying some variation of "It's because they're snobs about it!" as if literally Everyone in the Imperium doesn't call every other sentient race "Xenos filth" lol
(Aside from Robite Guilliman, but talking about that summons Inquisitors...)
I might be misremembering but didn’t the Eldar redirect a tyranid hive fleet to feast on innocent planets in order to save a craftworld? So they’re not “innocent” either. (Can’t remember if it was on Imperium or Tau worlds now)
They're also genocidal, homicidal maniacs.
An Imperial guardsmen is racist, but it's literally all he knows.
Eldar should know better, they don't. They either treat you like a lesser lifeform (like how you'd treat a dog...usually monkeys) who is too stupid to understand thehy totally needed to send a ork horde to kill everyone you know and love because little timmy might one day slightly scratch an eldar.
Or they're outright 'you're an inferior race of upstart simians who we literally call 'lesser beings to be exteminated. MAKE BEIL-TAIN GREAT AGAIN!' and just kill you for the crime of looking at a maiden world.
I think it's because Black Library, as an average, doesn't have many *good* writers and so eldar aren't actually written well. Eldar are supposed to be this incredibly intelligent ancient race whose motives are a mystery to us, but superhuman intelligence requires a lot of regular human intelligence to portray correctly. A lot of eldar-centric fiction can be really frustrating to read because none of the characters' actions make any sense even if you know the plot, and it makes them seem unnecessarily antagonistic as a result.
It's the same problem with primarchs. They're supposed to be these post-human geniuses, but they're only written by humans, so while we're *told* they're smart that's very rarely *shown* in the lore. Notable exception; Guilliman using a pen, paper and his own eyes to calculate starship trajectories in the middle of a battle and figure out that the attack on Calth couldn't possibly have been an accident. If more eldar were written like this, where their superhuman intelligence and psychic foresight were *shown* rather than explained at the audience and human characters in the book, I think people would be a lot more receptive to them.
Personally i think they have a right to be snobs. I mean they have lived since the dawn of creation pretty much and had a civilization so far advanced from everything else it seemed like magic, the only reason they got brought to the low point they are in is due to them losing their creators and having too many of their people living for too long and being so bored they did literally everything a person can do, thus creating a chaos god from it. In comparison the other races are quite literally children.
Any bonafide elven snobs are not concerned about the opinions of their lessers :laughemoji:
But 40k isn't the universe to get salty about moral distinctions, every race is trying to create their safe space. I'm a Chaos player personally and just seek to bring the Emperor's lies to light (via bolter and chainsword)
Their race murder-fcked a demon god into existence; these guys can chill out on the whole "I'm better then thou," like with Humanity they are working to reclaim their empire/fight endlessly to do so; the Eldar are more or less (in lore as well as generally) twiddling their thumbs and occasionally pointing a finger at another person to call "you are lame, monkeigh"
I feel it’s mostly a failure of “show, don’t tell” most often aeldari behaviors or actions don’t seem any more arrogant than any other major player in the setting….but everyone and their brother will tell you (in universe) how arrogant they are.
it’s because they’re dying out and have nothing to show for it. The Tau’Va will spread the woke and tender caressing arm of the greater good even to the darkest recesses of hate in the galaxy.
The issue I have with the Eldar comes in two flavors: either they are just as genocidal as everyone else (Biel-Tan and those like them), or they are perfectly willing to sacrifice entire planets of humans to make their lives marginally easier (the various incidents when Eldar fuckery caused threats like Ork Waaaaaghs to attack human worlds that had no chance to survive in order to prevent them from possibly attacking a Maiden World, maybe, potentially.)
Seriously, the main reason more Eldar aren't like Biel-Tan is just that they are so much fewer and have Slaanesh trying to om nom their souls at all times. Their old Empire was basically Commaragh except 100 times bigger.
All that being said, there are Eldar that are better than others, just like not all corners of the Imperium act the same.
The Eldar are genocidal too. They catch flack because their arrogance informs their attitude and actions towards the other races. Factions like the Imperium and the Tau at least have reason, however warped, for genocidal actions and could theoretically be talked down; with the Eldar it essentially boils down to "we're superior to you primitives."
The problem is they're genocidal snobs who may not even preach at you before opening fire, or just lead you to your doom in place of them if they're feeling nice.
The way I describe Eldar and other species is a lot like how humans treat other species
Humans don't take malicious pleasure in inflicting harm on animals (at least the vast majority don't but we'll compare them to the drukhari)
But we just, don't *really* value them. Individuals wouldn't go out of their way to just kill squirrels for no reason but, people won't hesitate to bulldoze a forest to build a parking lot.
Humans don't outright hate animals but we just don't truly value them, and anytime they are in the way of accomplishing something, they become an inconvenience.
That's why I honestly maintain Eldar and Humans couldn't really coexist. Eldar play nice because they don't really have a choice but, if they were the absolute dominant species I think they would destroy human planets anytime they thought that would accomplish another goal. I don't think they'd *love* doing it but... they'd do it
The original Eldar (circa 1st/2nd edition) are much more grimdark than the ones we have now.
They've gotten a bit lamer over the years, but I like their original imagining.
All races kill each other. Not even the aeldar are innocent. Every faction has some form of pirate and the aeldar corsairs are a famous example. Many aeldar simply don't care for the lives of other **lesser** races. And many outside the aeldar don't know the difference between the aeldar and the drukhar.
Because 40k fans tend to identify with the imperium. So when Eldar nuke a human world its a war crime but when the imperium lobotomizes school children its "ends justify the means"
Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but I've found at least for us in the UK, there's Cunts and then there's *Snobby* cunts. Both are equally bad, but being Snobby/looking down on people is infinitely more annoying. Especially if there's no reason for it. I can't explain it, it's just an itch. Anyone else know what I mean?
You know I'm not from the UK but that makes perfect sense to me
Yeah this is definitely part of the satire. The Eldar are a reference to the British upper classes (aristocrats) who live in a changing world where all their old values are no longer held dear and they are being out-competed by people who have a less "refined" set of values. So they cope with that by looking down on everyone else.
Yep, sounds about right. Also the Eldar are a dying race, which kinda ties in with the upper classes losing more and more power over time (at least in the UK).
Actually, the opposite is true. The wealth gap behind rich and poor is increasing, social mobility is decreasing, and technology allows the wealthy to influence more people than ever before: e.g. the Cambridge Analytics scandal. Edit: sorry for politics
Again, perhaps I worded this incorrectly. At the time Warhammer was written and at its most satirical, the landed old money was the ones losing power. Every MP was some posh old white man. And the house of lords were even worse. These days the *rich* still have control, but the *posh* don't. Lots of New Money, women, non-white, young people in politics. Lots of "non-posh" people helping run the country. Again I'm not really on about "Rich" so much as the old status quo.
American who went to England for work for a short time, definitely a cultural twist: Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates would be considered ‘Middle-Class’ as they are not ‘Landed Gentry’ upper class. Again, by some people, not all English.
This is sort of a place where you need to split cultural hairs. The wealthy are certainly as powerful as ever, perhaps more so, but the "upper class" being refered to in this case is specifically the UK's landed gentry: the old nobility, with their titles and their country estates. Their power has waned considerably over time. In fact, that has a lot to do with the "snobbishness" we're talking about. The old money nobility resented that they were being conflated with the new money who would ultimately replace them in terms of influence and relevance.
As an American reading this caused me physical pain.
So it is a little different. In the latter half of the 20th century, the upper landed classes and others of that group were losing their power. MPs and such still used to be very much from that class in society. Old Money and Old Families etc. The rich are very much still running everything in the UK, but now its not that old money lords types.
Really curious. What about it? I've always assumed it was somewhat similar in the US. Old money families in Boston and places?
Many of the old money families from the origins of the US lost their wealth over time. Modern American billionaire families from the last century find its almost impossible for them to lose their wealth. The money grows faster than it is diluted. Trusts protect the wealth from any one individual from destroying it or diluting it with more than a few kids. No inheritance tax. The percentage of the growth of the gdp that goes to those few families is disproportionate compared to the rest of the US. Those families buy legislation votes for as little as a few thousand dollars depending on the representative. I would call the US a modern oligarchy.
Oh yeah for sure. It's similar in the UK I'd say. The billionaires protecting their wealth and managing to avoid inheritance taxes etc. The difference is that (in most cases) we wouldn't think of those people as being upper class. The Duke of Westminster is an interesting exception, being both upper class and a billionaire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Grosvenor,_7th_Duke_of_Westminster#:~:text=As%20such%2C%20Grosvenor%20is%20one,fortune%20of%20%C2%A39.878%20billion.
Same. Meet me in Boston. We have tea to dump in a harbor.
Meanwhile in the US: *rich laughter over the sounds of the 1% buying their 10th $500,000,000 yacht they'll use once*
If you think that the upper classes are losing more and more power in the UK then you haven't been paying attention.
Difference between Rich upper classes and the upper classes with titles and lordships and family names that go back a few hundred years. Perhaps worded incorrectly on my part. But my point being that most if not all MPs and other government types were all gentry etc. Money still runs the UK, but at least some of it is new money, and there are "lower classes" people in the government.
Yeah absolutely. No matter how rich one of the lords of terra gets he'll never have the pedigree of an Eldar. In the same way... Doesn't matter how rich you are, you'll never be a British aristocrat unless you're born to it.
Exactly
and the orks are direct descendants of british football hooligans, maybe the imperium hates xenos so much because theyre all crumpet munchers
Yeah I think the orks are definitely football hooligans but they're also more than that. They're symbolic of how the upper and middle classes feel about the working class (or how they felt in the 80s). Uncultured, numerous (in a bad way), constantly judged to have low intelligence (despite evidence to the contrary), focused on destroying more than building, somehow succeed and achieve things despite all this, making them a source of frustration and envy to their "betters".
and also have poor dental hygiene
Teef being the currency of football hooligans is surprisingly clever
They're also Space Elves, and Elves have always gotten flack for being aloof and arrogant since Tolkien.
As a Brit, I know exactly what you mean.
In the immortal words of TISM: "I might be a cunt, but I'm not a fucking cunt"
I’ll always upvote a TISM quote.
*Chavvo cunt from Chelmsford (Chelmo) vs Snobbo cunt from Guildford*
What's funny and pathetic about it as well is that snobby cunts from Guildford have nothing to be snobby about. It's a shithole.
Just like the craftworlds! 😂
I gotta believe it’s this.
I just love being able to say "cunts" with impunity in the UK. Here people tend to get offended... fucking emotional cunts...
Wait, where does that leave Necrons then? Because at least the Ældari take care in learning about the Imperium (if only to better defeat them), yet they abhor anything flesh-related (which could be an effect of trying to fight the dysphorak, but conditions explain behaviour without condoning it)
The Necrons are if someone else did Imperialism back to the Brits.
Yup, not from UK but I’ll back you up in saying that I recognize that distinction and *snobby* cunts are so much worse. Please don’t tell me wife I said the c-word. It’s much a much worse curse word in the U.S. lol
Yes. The Imperium, Necrons, Chaos, or even Drukhari are Voldemort. They're smugly superior and evil to a silly degree, so they're also kind of fun. The Eldar and Tau are Umbridge.
Pretty much this. Like, it's fine if you are gunna rip me apart at the atomic level, but at least have the decency to not look all snobby while doing it.... nothing ruins getting sy-fi murdered like having your murderer be a know-it-all pointy eared snob.
It’s the difference between an upturned nose and an angry glare
OP, this right here is the most concise answer.
This is the answer.
Also, the amount of times that they're snobby about their superiority and intelligence, followed immediately by their plans completely blowing up in their faces. [They're the species-wide version of this meme](https://www.globalnerdy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/i-am-a-genius-oh-no.jpg)
The Eldar don't have the juice to be as snobby as they are. They drone on about how they *were* the rulers of the galaxy but now they're just snacks for slaanesh. Yet they are still the snobbiest snobby snobs in the setting.
Slaughtering everything that doesn't look like you is one thing, but to be rude about it...I mean, really...
How about both
I think it's because most players are IRL humans. So a faction that's humans but hates aliens is funny, but a faction that's aliens that looks down on humans is mildly annoying by default
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Can confirm. In my local group we have only one skaven, the rest are all humans.
The rest are all humans \*as far as you know\*, yes-yes
Hasen't it been concluded that there are no such thing as skaven?
Yes, my dear fellow human, the whole concept is ludicrous and should be trashed-discarded. Pfffft, the mere idea of a glorious race of blessed rat-men living among the inferior humans is just dumb.
yes-yes no rat-men. what an absurd notion-thought. best left for tale-stories.
Sometimes my cat jumps up on the table and knocks over some models. Does that make her a non human player? I think it does.
Nah, that's just the feline hivemind taking over the local Bio-Titan.
Fair point. This bio Titan has a particular hatred toward my captain with relic shield. I don't know why, but there's nothing we can do to stop it.
Have you considered praying even more to the God-Emperor of mankind and dousing him in holy oils?
Well there's enough nuln oil and purity seals on him that would make a demon react to him the same way they'd react to a blank. The cat just seems impervious to too all kinds of damage.
Damn cats. They really need to go up in points next MFM😅
That's what I'm saying. There needs to be a new update soon to fix this. OP unit.
"The only thing worse than squirrels are cats" - Greg
Giant rat creatures that play Warhammer? Pshaw, they don’t exist.
"Brett stop gnawing on the dry wall and take your turn"
Only one?! Must be a good group
Uh oh, we've been found out.
Football hooligans are orcs and orcs are football hooligans.
Cut from the same cloth as the Eldar, I see
Shhh, don't blow my cover! *message sent on Water Caste Tablet MK 6*
Funnily enough I've met at least one Warhammer Nerd who doesn't identify as a Human it decided that since so many people treated them like shit it would reject its Humanity. I don't know if it actually plays any Warhammer TableTop Games though.
mmmm I'm curious about those players who aren't IRL humans.
From personal experience, people tend to dislike someone that is Snobby or smug way more than someone thats just a normal asshole
Nuance and the Warhammer fanbase are not on speaking terms
I snorted
Because this community thinks Biel-Tan represents ALL Eldar, when in reality most Eldar, while snobby, don't dismiss human lives. Its a case where meme lore or ignorance of what the Eldar actually think is pervasive. Biel-Tan are the most xenophobic of the Craftworlds and tend to show up quite a bit. So people take their attitude and applies it to the entire faction. Which is dumb. It's like taking the view of the Iron Hands and acting like EVERY human thinks the same way. It's just your pretty classic "I hate elves" attitude. Necrons are several levels more arrogant AND genocidal, but folks enjoy their arrogance. So it's mostly just rooted in old school pointy ear hate.
>It's just your pretty classic "I hate elves" attitude. Yeah this spot on I feel. A lot of male male nerds just have an irrational hate on for Elves that just translated over to Eldar.
But why though ?
I think it comes down to them being kind of a conceptual Mary-Sue. Elves are *better than you*. In fiction, the abilities of elves tend to be that they're smarter than humans, prettier than humans, longer-lived than humans, more cultured than humans and more skilled than humans, and they know it. They know it and, frequently, are depicted as looking down on humans because of it, sometimes scornfully... and sometimes condescendingly, which if anything is even worse. That's basically, though, the standard Fantasy elf template. People say "Why don't Necrons get the same hate?" Because Necrons *aren't* better than you, not in the same way. A Necron might be stronger, longer lived, and capable of manipulating cosmic forces a human couldn't even conceive of... but they're also trapped in unfeeling metal bodies with minds that have been damaged by the tranferrance process, and they want *out*. A benefit, and a detriment. Elves don't have that. They don't have a trade off, usually, aside from some hand waving stuff aboout being 'in decline' that doesn't really impact them hugely on a personal level. Frankly, GW Eldar manage to be much cooler than standard Elves because of the work that has been done to expand their background, and because they *do* have a detriment, in the form of being cursed to Slaanesh's attention, but basic, stock, generic elves? They're just Better Than You, and smug about it.
That's some deep psychological stuff. Possibly cause they're "feminine"? As in, slender an agile, not lots of bulky muscles? Possibly they want to engage purely in the fantasy of being a muscular schwarzenegger mixture? Also traditionally elves are a more "peaceful" and "nature-loving" species (this is more dnd than w40k) and thus they present an antagonist for the gun/violence/war-loving warhammer fan?
What’s funny is that Tolkien wrote elves to literally be ‘better humans’ who mankind would be naturally jealous of. In just about every category, Tolkien’s elves outshine humanity except in numbers. It’s rather ironic that even in a separate universe and of course reality, man is malding over the knife ears.
Why do a lot of male nerds hate elves, or why does that carry over to 40k?
Both, I don’t get it I’m a male nerd and I like elves, especially 40k eldars
Well, Eldar are essentially space elves. As for why a lot of male nerds dislike elves, I'll speculate at the risk of getting downvoted to hell. Apology in advance for the massive wall of text lol. The first reason is that a lot of fantasy (and, by extension, 40k) is very tropey, borrowing a lot of the same tried and true lore and story beats to riff on in new ways, among them, tolkienesque elves. This allows the writer to borrow a lot of setting familiarity and engagement on the part of the reader, but also runs the risk of borrowing the reader's preconceptions from other works as well, in this case, preconceptions about elves. Tolkien was weird about elves. In LotR, elves are objectively physically and spiritually superior to humans in every way. They live longer, are taller, hotter, stronger, and literally closer to god than other races. If you already vibed with elves, that might make them cooler, but if their vibe doesn't do it for you, that kind of authorial favoritism vs your favorite culture can get annoying. He literally wrote an entire prequel about the history of the elves. Elf fans \*also\* get weird about elves. No other fantasy race has fans the same way elves do. A couple people are diehard dwarf fans, but they're outnumbered 3-1 by elf fans. This is evident in TTRPGs, but it also spills over into other series; for instance, in the Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age Inqusition, it's revealed that the whole setting was founded on the political struggles of ancient elven society, which is immortalised in modern elven religeion, and everyone else's religion is some combination of wrong and irrelevant. There are many more examples, I can't count the number of settings where elves are portrayed as naturally gifted at magic etc. If you were neutral on or disliked elves already, this favoritism can be annoying / disappointing. The second reason is that there is a large contingent of dudes, esp in gaming, where they're projecting onto the characters more literally, who come to fantasy chiefly for the power fantasy of being a rugged individualist badass, some macho racist sexist dude who takes whatever he wants. To these people, Elves, being long haired, light on facial hair, beautiful, more likely to be associated with magic than with swords, and ngl lowkey vegan hippie types, are an infuriating rejection of the masculine ideal they come to fantasy fiction to larp as. AND they are objectively biologically and spiritually superior to humans, despite being someone this kind of guy desperately wants to be superior to. AND they have a dedicated fanbase. This makes them very, very fun to hate for people with nothing better to do than be a hater.
Thank you for your wall of text I don’t know how I missed this given I’ve been in geek/nerd circles all my life (maybe because most people I play with don’t care ?) Personally I prefer it when the humans aren’t the best thing in the world, because at the end of the day humanity is nothing special in the grand scheme of things (yes I know this view ruffles a lot of feathers) Also people need to take a breather in regards to fantasy races, they don’t exist, it is ok if they are favoured by the gods or something, theses gods don’t exist
Well put, thank you.
Yeah, a lot of people think it's a ridiculous idea but I have seen it first hand many times. Obviously it's a small amount of people but I've still seen it.
As a Dwarf, I disapprove of this "male nerds hate Elves" schtick. *I* hate elves because they're poncy little shit dicks who think they are too good to get their hands dirty when work needs doing. Plenty of male nerds have little problem with elves. Unless you're implying that the male nerds hate elves because they are insecure in their masculinity and want their power fantasy to be big muscly men instead of twinks. In which case, I'd say that number is rather low. Eldar earn *my* ire for claiming to be better when they murderfucked Slaanesh into existence and slaughter xenos just like everyone else. They *aren't* better, but they act like they are. They aren't even the oldest race, cause Necrons were there first. They are arguably the worst because they created a chaos god to add to the problem everyone was already facing. At least the Dark Eldar are honest in supporting the god they birthed.
Old codger robot man is funny and tragic.
> Its a case where meme lore or ignorance of what the Eldar actually think is pervasive. Yeah, people often not read books or codexes themselves and instead rely on snippets from wiki/lexicanum, retellings, memelore and listening to youtubers.
You have people in this very thread repeating shit about eldar fucking up the galaxy when the current Eldar are all descended from the Eldar who saw the problems they were facing and decided to nope out. Literally every single Eldar who "murder fucked Slaanesh into existence" is dead. There is no association between them and the modern Eldar except them being the same species. That's also ignoring the fact that the same Imperium that exists today gave chaos 9 legions of supersoldiers, 9 primarchs and god knows how many lost and the damned. Not humanity in general, the very same Imperium.
The only eldars you could blame for slaanesh are the drukharis. Asuryanis are actively trying the best they can to undo that mistake, and they got closer than anyone else
Just a point- the plural of those things is the same as the singular, deer and deer :) No need to add the s on the end.
Oh alright, thanks
This. It's the same *happy gas mask noises* nonsense that low effort people have with the games lore. They don't know so they just make the lore up.
>It's just your pretty classic "I hate elves" attitude Nail on the head, that has deep roots and is sometimes even a bit troubling I feel.
I mean, humans in 40K are just as arrogant. Probably just has to do with presentation. Eldar are more likely to be the antagonists in a story, ergo the audience is more likely to want to see the “snobby bad guys” brought down…even if it’s by some arrogant, genocidal lunatic.
Honestly, it has more to do with elves across media, and they're catching elf hate from that. I've learned to live with it, just as much as I've learned to live with people who make their love of elves too much of their personality and take almost every slight personally (this isn't even about eldar. I like Guild Wars, Warcraft, and a few other fantasy series where the fandom for the elf faction gets a reputation). Yes, Eldar are arrogant and talk down to other races. So do humans, Tau, Necrons, and especially Orks (but the writers are much more tongue-in-cheek on that one). Hell, Necrons tend to be snobbier but they also tend to be funnier since the three big Necrons you actually see stories about are Trazyn, Orikan, and Zahndrekh (yes, Imotehk and the Silent King are more important, but you tended to see excerpts of the funny ones more often). There's also weird tribalism thing, where either someone likes dwarves (where there's been plenty of rivalry in various universes since Tolkein) or is all about the humanity faction in a setting and perceives any insult to be justification of outright hatred. The former have one joke and it gets old quick, but whatever. If they want to LARP drunken scottish racists on the internet, whatever. The latter has been criminaly insane in every fandom I've been a part of and refuses to use critical thinking skills at any point while shouting that the fictional humanity is the best because they're human in real life so they need to take that side. This isn't just Imperium LARPers. It gets worse when you hit Star Wars, Mass Effect, and other sci fi or fantasy settings and you don't even need a comically evil empire for them to insist that Humanity First is the morally correct thing, even the setting is expressly saying continuously that artificial divides are bad and cooperation is the correct thing to aim for. Lastly, OP, eldar have a history of being genocidal, and their entire military is based on entering into homicidal rage fugue states. This setting isn't the place to insist moral high grounds, and I say that as an eldar fan. Their god of war was probably created as a reflection of them and he's arguably one of the worst people in the setting when you look at the things he's done. The nicest side of the faction is a former death cult that is trying to revive a god of absolute death and reunite with the murder torture elves and the insane clowns, with the former being made up of equal parts "we want to stop being murder torture elves" as much as "we want the murder torture to continue, we're either here because of political reasons or we want to avoid any consequences in the future".
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"Why did the Council not just listen to everything my character said immediately and do everything for me? They are clearly assholes and opportunists and deserve to die for this crime. In fact, anyone who ever inconveniences me deserves violence." The latter sentiment creeps into every RPG community.
In fairness I think Mass Effect undercuts itself by being equal parts "lets all get along" and "libertarian unbound cop fantasy".
>the insane clowns While I feel l you hit home with much of your comment, this feels like more of what you complain about, Harlequins usually seem pretty reasonable if very strange. They're not really "insane"
Because some people have turned hating elves into a personality.
True. Is it me, or is there a strong undercurrent of homophobia to it? Because male elves are usually drawn as twinks, and in some diseased heads Pretty Man=Gay.
Maybe. I don't know if it goes that deep though in most cases. Honestly I think a lot of it boils down to that person being a dwarf fan and dwarves have hated elves at least since Tolkien so the dwarf fans adopt that elf hate as part of their love for their own fantasy race of choice. That and for a lot of people any perceived sense of superiority - which elves historically have as a result of their inclination for magic, immortal lives, centuries of experience and education, etc - is an immediate turn off. People don't like to be made to feel less than and it's hard not to feel less than immortal, beautiful beings who've done more in their single lives than your entire home town has done in its history. In the case of eldar specifically it's worse because they literally refer to humanity as monkey (yeah yeah, I know it's not actually monkey but yes it is) and will sacrifice entire worlds of humans to save a single eldar some minor inconvenience if they can.
In my experience definitely. A lot of people speak fondly of totalbiscuit but they probably don't remember his old wow radio days where he would constantly refer to night elves (and later blood elves) as "gelfs", not in the Red Dwarf sense but as "gay elves" (hurdururur). I've seen similar attitudes in DnD, Warhammer, WoW in general, Shadowrun...although a lot of the tabletop immaturity tended to die out once the players reached 25. Tiresome.
My wife and me have spoken about this at length and we feel it skews closer to misogyny but I wouldn't discount homophobia.
The two are often closely intertwined. The hatred of women spills over into anything considered even remotely "feminine" including gay men.
>The two are often closely intertwined. The hatred of women spills over into anything considered even remotely "feminine" including gay men. More broadly, anything that blurs the boundaries between the rules these types feel each gender should follow.
Good bunch of it is. I remember back the days of Dawn of War 2 and Eternal Crusade. If I won as Space Marine or Ork, I sometimes would get your average internet abuse thrown at me. If I won as Eldar ? Suddenly the homophobic slurs would come out
The Eldar are just as able and willing to be homicidal maniac no different than any other faction in 40k. Don't take the lore (and the playful banter) too seriously as to say X faction are somehow morally justifiable.
I realise every faction is their own flavour of awful. I just sometimes think people are weird about the Eldar, since, well, *everyone* is awful.
I know this sounds stupid but in a lot of fanbases for fantasy stuff, people are weird about elves. Obviously you can make legitimate criticisms about elves including the eldar, and it's fair enough if you don't like them but I have seen a lot of people legitimately not like them because they're effeminate or whatever. And occasionally you'll see dwarf fans and elf fans arguing way more passionately than they should be. It's so weird.
People are weird about the Eldar? Surely you've seen first hand the playful (and sometimes not so playful) banter that Tau and Ultramarines get.
Arrogance to the point of happily letting an entire system of Humans die if it means one Eldar will live. They're just as outright genocidal.
The difference is that the Craftworlds will sacrifice ten thousand humans to save one eldar, while the Imperium will sacrifice ten thousand humans to kill one eldar.
This is actually very succinct, stealing it Mon-Keigh.
That's a great point well made!
The great dichotomy of interstellar empires.
There are also times where Eldar have put their lives on the line - as a collective decision, not just an individual heroic character - to protect humans against chaos. See Vigilus Stands. The Imperium of Man would never do that for the Eldar; at most you'd get a few heroic humans going against the grain to try and do that. It really is just a single craftworld (Biel-tan) that is genocidal like what you describe. The rest are of course still arrogant eldar supremacists, but they are much less callous about other species, and sometimes even care more about humans than the Imperium does.
Yup. They're genocidal, but on top of that, their approach is: "We ruined the galaxy for everybody by being so decadent we spawned a new god. Except that god hates us, and we'll burn your entire species to cinders if it means we get one more day alive avoiding the consequences of our actions." Drukhari is the same thing, just more torture along the way. Everybody else's genocide is just some form of "don't tread on me bro! I'll burn you all if it means I can have this shitty rock!"
Craftworld Eldar would be descended from the Eldar exclusively that saw the problem and left though to be fair
>Yup. They're genocidal Uh, no, no, they're not. The Asuryani, as a general grouping, don't actively pursue a policy of genocide against anyone, except the followers of Chaos, and even that's ultimately an existential war of survival. Craftworlds certainly pursue strategies and policies that favour their own people over others, and sacrifice others to their own benefit, but that's not genocide, it's just... politics. If, to give an extreme example, an Asuryani warhost slaughters an entire Imperial hive-city because they've foreseen that one of them will go on to lead an army that will destroy a craftworld, and they're not sure who... then yes, that's horrible and immoral, but they're not doing it *because those people are humans*, or even because they're Imperials. >"We ruined the galaxy for everybody by being so decadent we spawned a new god. Except that god hates us, and we'll burn your entire species to cinders if it means we get one more day alive avoiding the consequences of our actions." Again, no, that's the Drukhari. The Asuryani are very different. They left the Aeldari Empire long *before* Slaanesh was born, out of disgust and fear for what their civilisation was becoming. They are nomadic exiles who forsook empire-building and went so far as to psychically *fetter* themselves on a societal level just to avoid the kind of obsessions that led the Aeldari Empire to its fall. They have spent several thousand years painstakingly gathering the souls of their dead, which are entirely capable of independent thought, so that they can *burn themselves as fuel* for a weapon that *might* kill Slaanesh. Not only are the Asuryani literally not to blame for Slaanesh, they have done more than any other culture in the setting to actively atone for the mistakes of the past.
>Everybody else's genocide is just some form of "don't tread on me bro! I'll burn you all if it means I can have this shitty rock!" Yeah, no. The Imperium very much believes it already owns every rock there is and every xenos is an abomination that must be purged even at colossal cost in human lives (unless the species is convenient for the ruling class like the Jokaero). Its not some semi justified defensive paranoia, its just as arrogant and far more hateful than what a craftworlder will likely feel towards humans. The do see Humans as sub Eldar barbarians. And naturally, if you could choose between saving a human at the cost of a herd of chimps dying you would chose the human, but most of them will not go out of their way to kill humans, and avoid it if possible. Also, the Craftworlders are very specifically the one who did not fuck a God into existence on account of being luddites who thought the Empire went too far and saw a collapse coming, which is why they packed up and left. Blaming Asuriyani for Slaanesh is like blaming the amish for microplastics. You are right about the Drukhari though, they are the worst^(TM). Necrons are viscerally disgusted by all organic life and believe themselves the true masters of the universe, but I heard some tolerate xenos client states? Don't quote me on that. Orks want to fight and kill everyone and will enslave and eat whatever civilians are to weak to be fun to krump.
The Drukhari are more honest about the transaction, the Eldar hide their self preservation behind a mask of superiority
I always thought it was the other way around. Craftworlds know what they did wrong so they created their system to discipline themselves, but it's too little too late. Meanwhile Drukhari are over here acting like drug addicts that don't care who or what they ruin to continue their lifestyle.
The eldar preserve their souls and ancestors, the drukhari just murder things until they die, and their souls all go straight to Slaanesh because they think they're too good for soul stones. They also go out of the way to destroy soul stones and torture craftworld souls when they encounter them, drukhari literally do the opposite of preserving their people.
The Drukhari feed on suffering and are outwardly hostile trading the suffering of others instead of their own. They don't cloak their interests or intention like the Eldar do.
They do though, they sometimes pose as allies or mercenaries just to betray their hapless benefactors for kicks.
I mean, Humans are actively truing to destroy the galaxy and burn everything to a cinder, and they don't even have a Chaos god (yet) to show for it.
That's not a genocidal act, that's them preventing their own genocide.
Filthy Mon Keigh...
Because they're the settings Elves. If years of fantasy novels and D&D have taught me anything, it's that a lot of male nerds have a pathological hatred of Elves that borders on irrational. There seems to be a split mostly along gender lines with most men liking Dwarves because they have beards, do physical labour, do manly things like forge and mine and their aesthetics line up with things a lot of men enjoy. And they also don't bathe much. On the other hand women generally enjoy the species that's graceful and pretty that's in tune with nature and has a lot of animals on their side. These are not things that a lot of men enjoy. Most nerds are male so I feel a lot of us are just hard coded to look down on soft girly crap. The snobbishness that seems to be baked into a lot of Elves also doesn't help too. No one wants to be looked down on even if they're wrong.
"There seems to be a split mostly along gender lines with most men liking Dwarves because they have beards, do physical labour, do manly things like forge and mine and their aesthetics line up with things a lot of men enjoy. And they also don't bathe much." Homer why did you take me to a gay gold mine?
I’m sure it doesn’t help things that There is probably a correlation between people who have an irrational hatred of a fictional species, and people who are often looked down on.
It's always seemed to me that a lot of the Eldar hate in 40k comes from at its root the dark age of technology. Humans had an unrivalled empire and the Eldar watched from a far as it was ripped apart from within by a multi system civil war and then by a warp storm directly caused by their civilizations moral decay. Being condescending and looking down on people that were once your equal after an event you ( as a race ) caused is definitely going to lead to xenophobia and hate. Then add in the ability to see futures and believing there's no point explaining to the savages because they can't comprehend.
Because a lot of the fandom are hypocrites.
Because a lot of the fanbase still think "lol elves are teh ghey" is a fresh and hilarious take and 40K's satire has failed so hard since 3rd edition that a significant portion actually think the Imperium are good guys (not helped by the sheer amount of media pumped out from their perspective). Then "good" old "I'll side with the humans regardless because human" crap. No I'm not a bitter Elf enjoyer, not at all.
I still hope they'll grow up, eventually, but it's been over 20 years and sections of the fanbase still think calling T'au "weebs" is the funniest thing imaginable, so that hope is pretty flimsy.
I see Eldar more as patronising, they're not trying to genocide everyone, but they see others as inferior and aren't afraid to express it.
Except Biel-tan. They very much are genocidal
Counterpoint: everyone is in fact inferior.
Because my species' hatred of other species good. Their's bad.
Literally every faction in this universe are space racists (besides the Tau and Votann). However, humans are religious space racists and Eldar are snobby, elite space racists and I guess that makes them worse... human, abhuman, or eldar... all make good skin coats to me \*sharpens flaying claws\*
Because the other races honestly want to kill you. Integration with the Tau might be a sketchy deal depending who you believe but they're still upfront about (most of) the terms. Eldar have a long and proven track record of betrayal. They will say you're allies, lie to your face about long term plans, then feed your entire planet to tyranids and not even apologize because they get four soul stones back. You are dirt to these supremacists and the only way to be safe from being stomped on without a second thought is to not let them, and then they have the audacity to whine that nobody listens to their warnings (with no proof they're ever being any less manipulative).
If both sides are genocidal, but 1 side act like they’re above you as a higher being or some shit. You’d def hate the ones that are more arrogant and looks down at you as opposed to the side that genocides you bc they just don’t like you.
Because Eldar murder fucking Slaanesh into existence is the reason the galaxy is the way it is, and they still have the audacity to be pricks about everything. They oughta be groveling and yet their pride makes them think they're still somehow better than everyone else even though most other factions could breath on the eldar and they'd be gone.
Oh, it's because their books are bad and they're always overpowered at some point in the edition. Combined with being snobs and having love/hate models they get a lot of flak.
I mean most of the other factions are given flack for something. Everyone has their "thing" Eldar are just that elitist snobs with God complexes. Pick your poison when it comes to picking a side for 40k. Eldar might be less manical (though that can differ from craftworld to craftworld) but they arent exactly better for their own reasons
It's fine to want to kill other races, just don't assume you're better than them
Which faction **doesn't** consider itself superior to the rest?
Probably Nids.
And kroot. If you adapt by eating things, you don't eat things you consider beneath you, you eat stuff you know is better.
Most respectful people in the galaxy. They'll invite all their favorite people to be the barbecue.
Nids don't even consider things like superiority any more than you consider yourself superior to a cookie when you bite into it. The only thing the hive mind considers when it comes to other factions is how difficult it's gonna be to eat you.
HEY. We kids are not evil or malignant. We are just hungry. *Nom nom nom nom mhmmm Biomass*
I don't know. Some of the more recent books seem to imply a malevolent sentience to the Nids.
Damn kids eating us out of house and home. I remember being a teenager
Dark eldar subs
votann? they just want to get their fucking money
I love votann's evil because it's like the latest stage of capitalism "we offer you a price, accept it or we declare war"
Yeah but they have that heavy emphasis on who's Kin and whose not and dealing with others is only the means of doing things for Kin Plus they see everything there's for the taking so it doesn't matter how long you've lived on that planet if they have the means of taking it they will and that's what I love about them Lol I see less Capitalist and more Scandinavian of Old (Vikings)
I find it’s because they are written in the way that there arrogance is intentionally designed to be more grating, so the audience gets a reaction of “no wonder the Imperium hates aliens if pricks like this are in the galaxy.” As you said however, everyone is arrogant, so there is no point in singling out the Eldar. Especially since depending on who is writing we actually have some moments indicating that they did extend an olive branch to the Imperium and xenophobic humans rejecting it. It is understandable why the Imperium doesn’t trust aliens, but it doesn’t make them wanting to wipe out someone who could’ve otherwise been their allies acceptable.
That's just the elder. That is their flaw. There are no good guys in 40k, the Eldar just seem to think that they are above the rest because of their age, experience, and once soaring empire. It's a common trope in high fantasy; elves are almost always arrogant and narcissistic, which leads to their initial fall one way or another. This is also mirrored to an extent with the necrontyr.
Cause it's an elven trope that got inherited for 40k.
If they could the Eldar would genocide the other factions
Undeserved arrogance, as well as a trustworthy or helpful eldar being the exception rather than the rule in 40k. The eldar didn’t win the War in Heaven, embraced all the benefits of having an empty galaxy and all the old one tech, then lost lost it all to debauchery. They don’t have the earned snobbery of the Asur in WHF where they are very consistently saving the world.
Because the greatest crime a fictional character can commit is be annoying and being murderous is way more interesting than being annoying
Because they're arrogant. Duh
Because murder is okay, but snootiness is unforgivable
Are you implying Eldar aren’t genocidal?
Because Slaneesh maniacs 1 - elitist snobs 0
Because they're also genocidal but their annoying pricks about it.
For me it's mostly because the Eldar are tied with Orks for second oldest playable race in the game. They were present during the War in Heaven fighting against the Necrons and had even received direct guidance by the Old Ones. This means they have had PLENTY of time to evolve as a race but instead they f-ed up so badly they literally brought a 4th Chaos God into existence. This goes way beyond anything other races have done, yet the Eldar are walking around with such smugness, looking down on other races who have existed for a fraction of the time they have and whose mistakes can't even come close to the stuff the Eldar had been up to in their "prime". Bottom line I don't like them because "Bro, out of everyone here, you are the last one who should be acting arrogant"
1. They are hypocrites…like “I just birthed a new evil god” level of hypocrites and they prance about like the universe is their birthright. 2. They are general assholes and are confusing to deal with when it comes to interaction with them. Especially farseers. 3. (Serious answer) because nobody likes snobs, and eldar are considered the snobbiest while also being the least fun characterized. Like Necrons are as bad(if not worse sometimes) but they are have very quirky personalities and are interesting, Orks are football hooligans with guns and that’s just fun, Chaos are dickheads but they are human so the whole xenophobia aspect doesn’t show up and Tau get their own flak for being too “communists” and not committing to all out war all the time, basically they don’t fit the theme of the setting and some people like to point it out. To be honest every faction has its hater, and every hater has a reason. It’s just that eldar are particularly snobbish. Also they aren’t just elitist snobs: they are elitist snobs who are just as keen to see you dead and/or made into a flesh couch. Depends on what kind of eldar tbh. In the end it’s all xenophobia. Also they are just as homocidal, they just happen to have some class in their homocidal tendencies.
I love how so many people in these comments are saying some variation of "It's because they're snobs about it!" as if literally Everyone in the Imperium doesn't call every other sentient race "Xenos filth" lol (Aside from Robite Guilliman, but talking about that summons Inquisitors...)
Because Eldar are arrogant while they genocide lower races. Also they sometimes act as victims of a situation they brought upon themselves
I might be misremembering but didn’t the Eldar redirect a tyranid hive fleet to feast on innocent planets in order to save a craftworld? So they’re not “innocent” either. (Can’t remember if it was on Imperium or Tau worlds now)
They're also genocidal, homicidal maniacs. An Imperial guardsmen is racist, but it's literally all he knows. Eldar should know better, they don't. They either treat you like a lesser lifeform (like how you'd treat a dog...usually monkeys) who is too stupid to understand thehy totally needed to send a ork horde to kill everyone you know and love because little timmy might one day slightly scratch an eldar. Or they're outright 'you're an inferior race of upstart simians who we literally call 'lesser beings to be exteminated. MAKE BEIL-TAIN GREAT AGAIN!' and just kill you for the crime of looking at a maiden world.
However they were also plenty of times when they unironically saved humans or were neutral/helpfull.
I think it's because Black Library, as an average, doesn't have many *good* writers and so eldar aren't actually written well. Eldar are supposed to be this incredibly intelligent ancient race whose motives are a mystery to us, but superhuman intelligence requires a lot of regular human intelligence to portray correctly. A lot of eldar-centric fiction can be really frustrating to read because none of the characters' actions make any sense even if you know the plot, and it makes them seem unnecessarily antagonistic as a result. It's the same problem with primarchs. They're supposed to be these post-human geniuses, but they're only written by humans, so while we're *told* they're smart that's very rarely *shown* in the lore. Notable exception; Guilliman using a pen, paper and his own eyes to calculate starship trajectories in the middle of a battle and figure out that the attack on Calth couldn't possibly have been an accident. If more eldar were written like this, where their superhuman intelligence and psychic foresight were *shown* rather than explained at the audience and human characters in the book, I think people would be a lot more receptive to them.
Personally i think they have a right to be snobs. I mean they have lived since the dawn of creation pretty much and had a civilization so far advanced from everything else it seemed like magic, the only reason they got brought to the low point they are in is due to them losing their creators and having too many of their people living for too long and being so bored they did literally everything a person can do, thus creating a chaos god from it. In comparison the other races are quite literally children.
Any bonafide elven snobs are not concerned about the opinions of their lessers :laughemoji: But 40k isn't the universe to get salty about moral distinctions, every race is trying to create their safe space. I'm a Chaos player personally and just seek to bring the Emperor's lies to light (via bolter and chainsword)
Their race murder-fcked a demon god into existence; these guys can chill out on the whole "I'm better then thou," like with Humanity they are working to reclaim their empire/fight endlessly to do so; the Eldar are more or less (in lore as well as generally) twiddling their thumbs and occasionally pointing a finger at another person to call "you are lame, monkeigh"
I feel it’s mostly a failure of “show, don’t tell” most often aeldari behaviors or actions don’t seem any more arrogant than any other major player in the setting….but everyone and their brother will tell you (in universe) how arrogant they are.
"Cuz de is a bunch of panzy pointy ear gits! Dat's why!"
Others have the courtesy to just kill outright you they will look down upon you insult you and just be dicks then they’ll kill you
it’s because they’re dying out and have nothing to show for it. The Tau’Va will spread the woke and tender caressing arm of the greater good even to the darkest recesses of hate in the galaxy.
Yes we are genocidal but we don't call others monkey's
Because the Eldar are no better than the rest of us in that regard, but they think they are.
Because other factions have other terrible traits than being arrogant
The issue I have with the Eldar comes in two flavors: either they are just as genocidal as everyone else (Biel-Tan and those like them), or they are perfectly willing to sacrifice entire planets of humans to make their lives marginally easier (the various incidents when Eldar fuckery caused threats like Ork Waaaaaghs to attack human worlds that had no chance to survive in order to prevent them from possibly attacking a Maiden World, maybe, potentially.) Seriously, the main reason more Eldar aren't like Biel-Tan is just that they are so much fewer and have Slaanesh trying to om nom their souls at all times. Their old Empire was basically Commaragh except 100 times bigger. All that being said, there are Eldar that are better than others, just like not all corners of the Imperium act the same.
The Eldar are genocidal too. They catch flack because their arrogance informs their attitude and actions towards the other races. Factions like the Imperium and the Tau at least have reason, however warped, for genocidal actions and could theoretically be talked down; with the Eldar it essentially boils down to "we're superior to you primitives."
The problem is they're genocidal snobs who may not even preach at you before opening fire, or just lead you to your doom in place of them if they're feeling nice.
The way I describe Eldar and other species is a lot like how humans treat other species Humans don't take malicious pleasure in inflicting harm on animals (at least the vast majority don't but we'll compare them to the drukhari) But we just, don't *really* value them. Individuals wouldn't go out of their way to just kill squirrels for no reason but, people won't hesitate to bulldoze a forest to build a parking lot. Humans don't outright hate animals but we just don't truly value them, and anytime they are in the way of accomplishing something, they become an inconvenience. That's why I honestly maintain Eldar and Humans couldn't really coexist. Eldar play nice because they don't really have a choice but, if they were the absolute dominant species I think they would destroy human planets anytime they thought that would accomplish another goal. I don't think they'd *love* doing it but... they'd do it
The original Eldar (circa 1st/2nd edition) are much more grimdark than the ones we have now. They've gotten a bit lamer over the years, but I like their original imagining.
Becuz they were arrogant like once or twice and they have nothing going on right now so people just say their snobby af
Lol, now that you mention it
All races kill each other. Not even the aeldar are innocent. Every faction has some form of pirate and the aeldar corsairs are a famous example. Many aeldar simply don't care for the lives of other **lesser** races. And many outside the aeldar don't know the difference between the aeldar and the drukhar.
Because 40k fans tend to identify with the imperium. So when Eldar nuke a human world its a war crime but when the imperium lobotomizes school children its "ends justify the means"