Fantasy Thoughts on the End Times (contains spoilers)

[Scalenex]

I recently finished reading the three current End Times books. Overall, I'm pleased at the quality of the written fluff. If it were priced at 50% I'd consider it fair (but that's normal for GW books).

It's not just a bunch of "and then the cavalry charge saved the beleagured army." Well it is, but it's told primary from the view of a rotating cast of interesting characters. At least Nagash and Khaine do. Glottkin is the weakest of the books so far. I just have trouble getting emotionally invested in Chaos characters, they rarely have depth. Worse, Glottkin did not feature major known characters from the Warriors of Chaos army book much, they were background characters at best. So Glottkin was a dud, but the other two were interesting reads. They came up with a lot of imagination grabbing unspeakably awful Nurgle mutations and poxes but I think they beat that to death with the Tamurkahn. Are the writers/sculptors too afraid to take on the other three Chaos gods?

A few things particularly stuck in my craw. The drama was done well, but the horror was not handled well. It's well established that the Warhammer Fantasy world is a very bad place to live. Orcs and Goblins are remorseless killing machines and they....are....the ...comic relief! When really horrible things happen in literature or cinema they need appropriate gravity.

The three most despicable crimes a person can do to another person in the real world are murder, mutilation and rape. Because of the nature of modern media, we are more desensitized to murder than the other two. That's fine, I have no complaints that GW does not delve too deeply into mutilation and rape (though Morathi does both with her brainwashed minions). Sci-fi and fantasy settings often have a fourth despicable crime: obliteration of souls.

I think the obliteration of the souls should be treated as the worst possible crime one individual can do to another. Destroying the one eternal aspect of someone is worse than murder and mutilation combined. Perhaps it's my religious upbringing, but I think it's fairly universal opinion, and it has been established in pre-existing GW fluff. In the High Elf book, it states that some elves would prefer eternal torment over oblivion for their souls.

So the four Chaos gods eat souls as do their daemon minions. That’s reasonable. They are the literal embodiments of the world’s evil with a hint of nihilism. Eating souls adds a visceral level of fear since fear of being eaten is instinctual. That’s why cannibalism is taboo in the real world. That is also why the variety of sapient beings who eat other sapient beings in the WHF is so good at establishing the horror of the setting.

Then Nagash needed to consume hundreds of souls to recover his power. No to partially recover his power, that makes it worse. That raised some hackles. Nagash is supposed to be a lesser evil than the Chaos powers, and I thought he wanted to rule souls, not eat them. I let it slide because Nagash is basically the Hitler character of a world darker than our own. If anyone other than the Chaos Gods would eat someone’s soul, it’s Nagash. There is a little bit of that in pre-End Times fluff. Morathi and a few Chaos sorcerers sacrifice some souls here and there. Malekith sells out thousands of his kin to keep Slaanesh from claiming his soul once. That’s fine, Morathi and Malekith are the most evil non-Chaos aligned mortals. On a related note Morathi always seemed like a Chaos sleeper agent in her portrayal in earlier GW books to this point, until Khaine with the dramatic reveal that she is just desperate for her ex-man Anarion (never mind that Morathi was Anarion’s rebound girl). Sexist and lazy writing? Maybe, but I’ll let it slide.

In the Khaine there is a big focus on utilitarianism versus the ethical imperative. “Do the ends justify the means?” A lot of the focus on the central characters is their internal battles over this. Tyrion was basically becoming evil personified, but even he violently reprimanded his then girlfriend Morathi when she destroyed some Elven Waystone to sacrifice Elven souls to Slaanesh for daemonic favors. That made me think GW had their good drama in place. There are some evil acts even evil beings won’t do.

Now you throw in Eldyria. She becomes one with Ereth Khial, the Elven death goddess. Korhil, Teclis, Imrik and many others all have multiple paragraphs describe their ethical slide for the ends justifying the means. Eldyria has one sentence describing revulsion before she decides to consume thousands of the souls of her kin for the greater good. Her characterization up to this point is that she was one of the more gentle and noble elves. Male characters commited suicide after doing far smaller crimes for the greater good and they had more detailed narration for the rationale behind their deeds. I don’t know if it’s sexist or lazy, but Eldyria at least needed a narrated “fall” to get to that point. Don’t blame Ereth Khial either. First off with the avatars of elven gods, the moral elf is always in the driver seat (described thoroughly by this point in the book). Second off, the goddess of death whose only divine purpose is to collect Elven souls wouldn’t casually destroy them.

Now to a segue to the other major thing that bothered me in the End Times books. There are too many avatars of the gods. It’s fine that Tyrion and Khaine merge via the legendary sword Widowmaker. That was foreshadowed in all the High Elf army books to this point and the whole book is named after Khaine. The problem is it’s handled sloppily with the other gods. “Oh by the way, this guy was secretly Vaul the whole time!” I enjoy Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse, and Native American myths among others. Generally speaking gods do not directly interfere with mortals lightly. If they did it would make poor stories. If you like exciting reveals, you can rapidly cheapen dramatic reveals with overuse. For a nerdy example, Battlestar Galatica had a few well written cylons but then they ran out of ideas and started making characters cylons seemingly at random.

On the whole I mostly liked the End Times fluff books so far. Compared to the other fantasy sci-fi stories I’ve read I give the End Times books a C+. Compared to what I consider the baseline of WHF official fluff, I give the End Times books a B. What do the rest of you guys think about the fluff.

It’s almost impossible to make major changes on a franchise story without bothering some people. A lot of people don’t like the ending of Khaine where all the surviving High, Dark, and Wood Elves are one faction. “It throws out decades of fluff!” Not really. See the 5th ed, 6th ed, 7th ed, and 8th ed army books have more or less the same fluff over and over just with minor revisions to make it look like the new units were there all along. It always mildly bothered me that the WHF sat in a story stalemate so long.

I am mildly concerned that the Lizardmen will not get very good literary coverage in the End Times, but I am going to withhold judgment until I see the finished product. I like to ignore official GW fluff when it suits me anyway. I started plotted out my own version of “the End Times” before I knew GW was. I plan to continue. All of my fluff pieces from a Divided We Fall onward are slowly setting up my own version of the End Times. With Spawning of Bob helping me correct my egregious typos, I plan to release my own End Times story on L-O…eventually. You can be rest assured in two things. 1) The Lizardmen will be the most important player for the Forces of Order in the End Times and 2) characters will die in memorable ways.

What are your thoughts on End Times fluff?

Please do not discuss the new mechanics or speculation on what the future of Lizardmen in 9th edition will be. We have other threads for that.

 

[Mr Phat]

I agree with you on all accounts actually.

I love the books, and also found Glottkin the weaker one (Not counting the final battle where they were hardly the center)

The whole ".....and then she devoured and destroyed 10.000 souls to save her kind. the end" also left me a little ....displeased.

Then again I think Eldyria's descent might be covered in one of the novels linked to the end times.
I know that "The Rise of Nagash" covers a lot of things happening in "End times: Nagash" way more thoroughly.
It also tells of things that wasnt even mentioned in Nagash.


all in all, I think the books should be a story that could hold itself up, and not support itself on the novels, but I liked them just the same.
I think they did a tremendously good job, as it it is TONS of fluff that has to co-exist without errors occurring.
Must have been quite some work.

Really looking forward to Thanquol !mostly cause I think the Lizardmens fate will be revealed quite clearly.

 

[Scalenex]

Hard to have a discussion with someone who agrees with everything I said, then said something new (that the End Times books should be able to stand without supporting novels) that I also agree with.

Well done on on being insightful and intelligent, as all who agree with me are insightful and intelligent.

 

[spawning of Bob]

What does that make me?



I own 3 end times books, and half read 3/4 of the Fluff bit of Nagash, but not the others. I get Son of Bob to read them and then summarise for me.

Why do I find this stuff so annoying? It seems like:

a) The level of peril is overstated. If half of the Empire's citizens have fallen to Chaos or Plague, then the Empire is already ended. It seems that every reference to the geopolitical backdrop indicates that continued resistance is futile. "Kislev fell over last night." "Again? That's the fourth time this week!" "No really, it's gone this time." "Oh well, I'm sure Tilea, Estalia and the Border Princes will back us up." "I wouldn't count on that....."

b) In counterpoint, every individual's actions seem to have direct cosmic significance ALL THE TIME. Give me some simple relatable characters who do stuff which makes a difference locally. If the butterfly effect causes wider ripples, so be it, but don't ask me to stay inetersted when every round of single combat decides the fate of the cosmos every single time.

I think stories should be about people with an interesting backdrop which makes their stories significant. Here the rearranging of the scenery is the objective, and there is the sad inevitability that, no matter what you believed about your little plastic (or finecast) buddy before, he is being used as a tool to achieve that end.

Strangely this is a good thing - better to do a fluff reset for a reason rather than just drop it on us. I don't have to enjoy it.



Makes for good material for cartoons though...

 

[Scalenex]

What does that make me?



I own 3 end times books, and half read 3/4 of the Fluff bit of Nagash, but not the others. I get Son of Bob to read them and then summarise for me.

Why do I find this stuff so annoying? It seems like:

a) The level of peril is overstated.

Since the bulk of L-O, CN, and the UE are depending on your cartoons to understand this confusing new world, perhaps you should read more of the books.

IN any event, the level of parallel has always been overstated. Every army that attacks the Empire and Ulthuan has math problems. Every attack is bigger than the last. Every attack leaves the good guys unable to recover yet they always managed to scrape up a bigger army than ever before. To quote a moderator from the Dark Elf fourms.

..but I sincerely doubt any writer of Warhammer fluff every bothered with such details. They contradict themselves in every book, almost in the same sentence: "every soldier, every man, woman and child of the entire Empire stood there in defense of their homes, weapon in hand.... Luckily two bigger armies from nearby Empire cities came to their aid".

Why do we lose? Why does Gargamel lose? Why does James Bond win?
The outcome is set in stone: it's going to be a narrow victory for the good guys. It has to be a narrow victory to make it more exciting. We are pumped up to be the ultimate badass opponent, not because it makes sense but to glorify the winners. Nobody is going to watch a James Bond movie where he narrowly wins in a heated debate over a tuna sandwich during lunch break. Nah, he's up against the largest evil crime organisations.

Just looking at High Elf fluff, it's always the same:
- "It were desperate times, so they gathered all their troops to an army the size not seen in centuries to fight a desperate battle. They won, but at a cost from which they could never recover"

100 years later:
- "It were desperate times, even more so now. So they gathered all the troops they could find, for such an invasion wasn't seen in millennia. They won, but at a cost from which they could never fully recover."

100 more years later:
- "It were desperate times, for such a foe was not seen from the times since Aenarion. So they united all Kingdoms and fought their desperate battle. They won, but at a cost from which they could never recover."

100 years later:
- "They are about to die and still they are going to march to that one final battle which will cost them so much they will never recover. Armies of such size have never been seen before, and will never be seen again. It truly are desperate times."

My prediction is that, fluff wise, in 100 years we'll get:
- "They hadn't even recovered, but so desperate were the times that they amassed an army bigger than ever! They won, but at a cost from which they would never recover".

The Tyrion and Teclis novels are the pinnacle of this style of writing. "Oh no! N'Kari is out to seek revenge! The Daemon has come back, after millenia! It is a demi god of unfathomable power! Nobody can beat this! Not even us, because our limbs don't work!" Then it is defeated once in the first book. And again in the second book. And again in the third book. And again in the ET books. The writers simply can't come up with a new name (the real challenge of writing) so they'll probably beat N'Kari again in the future. They'll beat it to the point you wonder if it is a Keeper of Secret, the demi-god they describe... or whether it's a target dummy for whomever wants to make a name for himself.


Victory is assured for the party that will lose, only to make the predetermined, but otherwise completely surprising winning hero even more cunning and powerful. And the victory is never complete to keep a lingering sense of foreboding for the future. That is the status quo. This is the same story told in almost every book. In fact, that is what we expect from a book. Even worse: that is what we -want- from a book. That is why the End Time books are somewhat surprising and upsetting, because they are breaking the status quo. Because good and evil are switched around, and people are angry (especially High Elves) because now they lost the certainty that their hero will win.

Unfortunately, Khaine takes this into overdrive. The writer(s) only have two numbers in their vocabulary. "thousands" and "billions"

If one death is a tragedy, and a million deaths is a statistic then a billion deaths will challenge the suspension of disbelief of your readers in fiction. They might as well have written "zillions." Grown up writers can use adjectives like "unthinkable losses" "innumerable dead" or even" unprecedented deaths" letting readers fill in the blanks themselves.

 

[spawning of Bob]

Daeron is more eloquent than I.

But can he draw stick men?

I think not.

 

[Scalenex]

Daeron is more eloquent than I.

But can he draw stick men?

I think not.

That's why I opted not to collect Dark Elves long ago.

 

[Mr Phat]

That's why I opted not to collect Dark Elves long ago.

I love what you did there.



I dont really feel like im contributing, but I also agree on the writing part -.-

Even though Bob! there is plenty of things that doesn't actually have to do with the universe!
(he might just have summed up the big happenings?)
A lot of the characters interact on accounts that has nothing to do with the big picture.

like
Neferata and khalidas fight. It is more personal than "THE WORLD IS AT STAKE"

Vlad is attempting to get his beloved back, and becoming Elector Count in the process.

Apophas is still a poor bastard who cant collect a soul for the lif.....unlife of him.

....aaaaand im out of examples.......BUT THERE MIGHT BE MORE?

While it might not be "...and then the farmers were safe from the pesky pie theif!"
its still more down to earth and character defining.

 

[Scalenex]

Nagash had relatively little microcosm fights for the fate of the universe but Glottkin had a fair bit. The healers quarters was resisting Nurgle's infection. Somehow they made it so the fate of the Empire rested on their ability to defend the Healer's quarter. Nevermind if all the rest of Altdorf is now an outpost of the Chaos Realms....only a few blocks are needed to save the Empire. Oh yeah and the Imperial Zoo is intact too because the critters in there are a good deus ex machina.


Khaine is drowning in battles that are tied to the fate of the universe because there are so many avatars of the gods fighting and every battle seems to occur on sacred ground.

 

[Mr Phat]

Khaine is drowning in battles that are tied to the fate of the universe because there are so many avatars of the gods fighting and every battle seems to occur on sacred ground.

thats elves for you.
always so dramatic with their enormous importance, egos ..and hats.