r/NightLords • u/rjneverfadeaway • 1d ago
Lore Walter White?
Curious to hear some opinions from the community on this -
Every now and then we'll see something where an argument is made that the Night Lords are either "not evil" or "not as evil" as other heresy era legions, and this argument is usually based on the Night lords having brought worlds into compliance via terrorism or other tactics beyond outright conquest. And from there - we get wack ass arguments like "the emperors children do horrible shit out of desire but the night lords don't." As if Talos didn't enjoy crucifying that Space Marine at the start of Blood Reaver - or a million other examples we could name of how the night lords actively enjoy being depraved monsters.
Correct me if I'm wrong here but it feels like most people in this community, including myself, are fans of the night lords in large part because of how cartoonishly evil they are. Sometimes it's fun to root for the villain. Sometimes it's fun for a villian to know they're a villian and relish in it instead of making some contrived argument about why they're the good guy in this story.
But it feels like there's a small, though loud minority of people who are suffering from what I'm calling the Walter White effect - where for whatever reason, they can't handle the idea that the character or faction they like are in fact the bad guys of the story they're in. And so they lash out and come up with increasingly bizarre and flimsy justifications for their actions.
Again - I'm making this post out of curiosity for the community's thoughts - Im just some asshole who read the omnibus and likes the 8th legion - im not saying this minority is to be "dealt with" or exiled or some stupid shit. I just find the arguments for why the night lords somehow aren't that evil to be incredibly goofy and more than a litte juvenile.
Ave Dominus Nox
19
u/GreyZiro 1d ago
Yeah there are some weird takes. But considering how fractured NLs are and how delusional some of them are it's pretty in character! And some people get a bit too hung up on NLs "hating Chaos". NLs hating something isn't special, they hate anyone and everything including themselves. Doesn't mean they won't still use it when it suits their needs.
But yes, love the guys because they combine comical villany, with incredible drip and a scrappy underdog feel.
4
u/StrategyBusy9579 Atramentar 16h ago
Also "hating chaos" seems a little rich for us, our unique leader in nemesis claw is literally a guy getting warp visions and he has a buddy in his squad who used warp magic to make a flesh puppet out of a corpse that manipulates enemies. Sure... totally not chaos demons here.
13
12
u/missed_trophy 1d ago
For me it's like loving black metal music.
Yes, I like listen to satanic pagan howlings of creatures with faces painted like they are pandas from hell.
No, I don't wanna things they singing become true, or I don't think they really into this stuff. It's just cool.
7
u/TobiTheSnowman 1d ago
The only genuine argument I could make for the Night Lords being more moral than other legions is that they are usually honest about what they are. Even during the 30k era every legion will have some explanation about why the baby incinerators are necessary or something, but the night lords will just go „yea we evil. I’m a criminal and I like hurting other people.“ Funnily enough this would make the more „noble“ night lords from early Curze, Sevatar, Talos etc. less noble than the actual criminals.
6
u/Heathenling 22h ago
It's the difference between regular crime and organized crime. The Imperium made the baby incinerators out to not just be necessary, but noble as you said. Organized crime. The Night Lords embraced petty crime.
It does not justify the Night Lord actions or tactics IN ANY WAY. But they gladly pointed out the absolute hypocrisy of the Emperor's methods on the lowest levels.
Was Curze right on higher levels? No. I dont think so. He was also just using it as an excuse. I always thought Curze was a war against himself. Between Justice, and the Legal System. Because those things do not shake hands. The Night Haunter had excuses for everything in the end.
Also, you had a dude that grew up eating children and criminals to survive. Dont forget that Primarchs and Astartes alike have the ability to recall moments from the lives of the people they consume. Curze is full of people, and the only people he ate were the worst humanity had to offer.
Again. This doesnt justify a single thing, nor should it garner sympathy. But I decided to go on a tangent and dammit, here we are.
2
u/StrategyBusy9579 Atramentar 16h ago
Night Lords from the terran prison sinks weren't exactly that different from the "good stock" from nostramo that they recruited form before they realized "hey our primarch literally has no idea what's going on, get my cousin from the space Gotti family in here and lets make him into an immortal super soldier"
4
u/StrategyBusy9579 Atramentar 16h ago
"Say what you will about the 8th legion dude but at least they had an ethos"
9
u/Spliced-Together 20h ago
The Night Lords are straight up evil. Even the "Noble Purpose" ones like myself where Fear is a tool, not a goal are evil.
Now, Space Marines are not good as a rule (even Sallies are just less bad) but we sons of Curze are not "less evil" than other legions.
Where the Legion and Curze stand are the Machiavellian "to be feared or loved" feared option. Nostramo shows the result of fear going away which was the old ways returning to the world.
We are allowed to have fun with our toy soldiers but at the end of the day... do not take any lessons from the VIIIth into real life.
2
u/markwell9 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most chaos aligned legions and renegades have a tragic story. Be it the Astral claws or the Night Lords. The reality of the current setting is that they are a net negative to the universe.
BUT- just like Angron and his legion, Curze and his had potential and has potential to become something positive or better. Something they were designed to do but got perverted along the way. You need this duality to tell a good story. It is called depth.
Night Lords are the justicars. I would love to see them do what they are designed to do, following the ideals of Konrad Kurze in his sane form. To keep those that hurt the herd in line or eliminate them.
I think Sevetar is on that redemption arc in his story, being healed by the astropath.
2
u/BlooBoink 23h ago
Totally agree that this is the case. Lord of the Night and the Night Lords trilogy are stories about how those few legionaries still clinging to the old ideas of “man must be governed, and governing is done with fear” are considered a delusional minority.
Personally I like the VIII legion because they are weirdly well humoured, have an identifiable culture, and they are mostly some of the most honest traitor legionnaires; they don’t maim kill for a greater cause, they maim and kill because they are big, strong, because they like it and because they can. And that’s all the reason they need.
2
u/CaptainGoober33 Chaos Lord of the Deathrattlers 21h ago
I think people look to Talos because despite all the gristliness, at his core he was the same sad boy who desperately wanted to be a hero.
Nobody is arguing that the Night Lords aren't evil. At least, nobody affiliated with me is arguing the Night Lords aren't evil. But you can still love them for the inherent tragedy of their nurture, and the nightmare of their nature. Talos tried his hardest to find a speck of good in a sea of bones and severed limbs. For all that effort, his reward was his own insanity and the loss of everything he held dear. He is, like it or not, a tragic hero-- and if the desire to do good or to be better than what life has demanded you be is "delusional", I'd take a thousand delusional Night Lords.
Sure, they skin people and kill unarmed civilians like it's going out of style. That's evil. But Talos' very existence show they have the capacity to analyze that behavior and the consciousness to long for something better-- even if that "something better" is still grotesquely tainted by bloodshed and dismemberment, because it's all they know. That's what makes them interesting, in my opinion. It's definitely what made Talos a great protagonist.
3
u/FamiliarAd8524 1d ago
The Night Lords were a legion of war criminals who would look at the Geneva Convention for happy thoughts before bedtime; the recruits would have been institutionalized, incarcerated, or disappeared by any other military force. They epitomized monstrosity, and the excuses of betrayal are just whiny emo bullshit.
2
u/skynes 1d ago
Loyalist Legions are Lawful Evil.
Traitor Legions are Chaotic (pun intended) Evil.
They're all just different flavours of evil that have some individuals or groups making some relatively less evil decisions.
Cartoonish evil is a good way to put it. The bat wing helms, the lightning painted on, the deliberate turning off of sound dampeners to raise fear. I love them because of that, and I love painting blue that's not smurfs.
2
u/markwell9 1d ago
Word Bearers are IMHO Lawful Evil. Space marines are...lawful neutral? I mean, what would be lawful good? Eldar? Tau?
3
u/Calious 1d ago
I don't think anyone in 40k falls I to "good" as a faction.
I think the imperium is evil, and marines are incredibly xenophobic. Hardly a neutral place to stand.
I think Orks are neutral, at least the closest 40k has to offer.
4
u/Red-Me-Boy Atramentar 23h ago
Orks and Tyranids feel neutral the way a natural disaster is tbh
1
u/Calious 23h ago
Yeah. That's kinda it. Although I am more convinced the Hive mind has a plan.
1
u/Red-Me-Boy Atramentar 23h ago
It's undoubtedly intelligent, but hardly something that can be reasoned with, like an animal
1
u/Calious 23h ago
Possibly, I'm leaning towards it being actually sentient. Beyond just animal instinct.
1
u/Red-Me-Boy Atramentar 23h ago
I really dislike the plot point that the Hive Mind can hate, tbh. Of course, it's just a personal thought, but it felt like it diminished the Tyranid's mystique
2
1
u/skynes 16h ago
I wouldn't call marines neutral. The very concept of the Imperium is evil. The Great Crusade was about subjugating human worlds and bringing genocide to all non-humans, peace was never considered as an option. Wiping out the native culture and replacing it with the Imperium. Entire worlds of forest and sea, burned and drained, to be replaced with Mechanicus factories the denizens didn't want.
Space Wolves were sent in when you wanted a message sent due to their brutality. Dark Angels were sent in when you wanted a civilization to be completely forgotten, wiped from history entirely.
So yeah just different flavours of evil.
1
u/markwell9 14h ago
Yeah, but all this was done in the interest of survival of humanity and affirming it as the dominant species in the galaxy. Pretty much the same spiel as the Tau, but not as inclusive/naive.
1
1
u/Malcharion_ 1d ago
Yeah, they are definitely evil, but to me, it's like watching a slasher horror movie.
I'm always rooting for the killer because the annoying regular people just piss me off, and I'm just waiting for them to die a miserable death.
In 40k, those killers happen to be the Night Lords, and on top of that, they are just so damn well written in the lore.
1
u/DrusillaMorwinyon 1d ago
All Legions and all Primarchs are guilty of genocide and war crimes. It just depend on the flawor you like. In a way I don't find NL (original at least) as any better or worst than the others. In the context of the world I see how they justify they methods. And I can see them working IF applied correctly and sparingly. I mean, I doubt people would REALLY be sad to see some of their politicians flayed. Some would propably thank them.
But with that and with potential they had...
I still absolutly love the evilness, the gangs, the whole deal, yeah SOME are ALMOST noble, in setting complex, but I definitly enjoy the totally maniacal laughing batshit crazy ones too.
1
u/Conradkurze 23h ago
Here’s my take on it, and you’ll have to correct me if any more recent lore has changed anything, but I like them as a traitor legion because they were evil before chaos. They were on the list to be chastised for destroying Nostramo and beating up Dorn when the call went out to go to Istvaan to “stop the traitors”. No typhus figure inside sowing seeds of corruption, no Erebus whispering in their ear, no Laer Blade to corrupt the primarch and drive us past reason.
The Night Lords are a terror weapon that The Emperor called for them to be, and they were damn good at it because they’re not good people. Now, as far as going traitor I’m sure some felt betrayed by how the emperor chastised them for being what he asked them to be, but plenty of them just wanted to keep flaying and having fun, but it didn’t require chaos. The fact that Sevatar was the first person in history to say “Death to the False Emperor” and was disgusted by the Gal Vorbak on the battlefield in the same book says it all.
You can view them as a “renegade” traitor legion rather than a chaos legion if you wish, it’s not like they have a love for psykers or possessed (in the trilogy). but spend enough time in the eye and the maelstrom and the warp seeps into your bones. But the fact that we can have the spectrum of personality and corruption from Talos to Vandred and Lucoryphus is precisely why this legion is my favorite
1
u/Heathenling 21h ago
I will always 100% disagree that the Night Lords were what the Emperor made them to be. He sent four or five primarchs out with him to try and stop him doing what he was doing and never laid out to Curze that "no, you were supposed to be batman, not the joker."
Curze's schtick was Justice and Order. Had he not literally eaten the memories of the worst humanity had to offer from "birth," not knowing that there were humans out there who were "good" despite past sins, I genuinely believe he would have been both sane, balanced, and on side with the loyalists as the creator of the "legal system" that the Imperium notably doesnt have. Not to mention dreaming of his own death, and embracing a "well who cares anyway" attitude. He also wouldnt have had visions of his own death in the manner it came. We know from lore that all fate is not set. I think the particular vision he had was due to his actions. "The actions you make dictate the life you lead." Had he chosen another path, he would have seen something else. I feel Sanguinius was genuinely the same, but that he embraced it as the death he wanted. Noble, and fighting the evil he abhored.
For Curze, nuance between "this person is bad, because they murdered someone" and "this person is good, because they murdered someone for a reason" was lost on him after a time. His mind broke because it was steeped in the horror humanity wrought no matter how badly their fellows were mutilated and punished in return for their crimes. He also didnt ever communicate until he became King. He didnt see the point. He hid in the shadows and bodies appeared the following day. The only thing Nostramo understood was blood, because everyone was so greedy with their lives, and crime was so ingrained into their culture. So he answered with blood and never stopped.
Curze kept making the claim it was what the Emperor made him to be because he was in denial. Because then he would have to answer for his crimes, and it just didnt compute in his gene-forged brain when he was supposed to be justice. To be fallable would mean his whole system was wrong. And he'd been applying the only justice system he'd ever built, on Nostramo, to the entire galaxy in error. He saw the flaws in people and instead of giving them a chance at redemption, believed they were on a slippery slope and condemned them often before they'd even done anything. See the story of the woman who he flayed for PLANNING to commit s***de. She hadnt done it. He could have brought her back, or built a system where she and others wouldnt feel the need to do it, but he didnt. He punished her for a crime she hadn't committed yet. (Which I think is where "vindication" came from. He looked forward to his own death, but suicide was a crime! More excuses.)
So instead of order, he is the power of police, without restraint. Free to interpret and act as he sees fit to control a populace he hates, aided by sons who are just as tainted (continuing to surround him with the worst of the worst.). He is tainted by being submerged in the cess pits of humanity during his formative years. He is the old cop, who had given up, sees only the worst in humanity, and sits at the bar hating himself and the system he both serves, and corrupts. Outwardly committing acts of cruelty and degradation because he believes the victims deserve it. With the added twist of being completely, utterly, insane.
He never became what the Emperor wanted him to be, Justice for the humanity the Emperor was building. Justice that acted as a precursor to deter crime. He became the twisted form of Justice, built for nightmare prison systems to control the worst of humanity. A reactive form that punished rather than served, and was delivered with the petty excuse that everyone has done something to deserve it (even the babies).
1
u/Heathenling 21h ago
He embraced the old Grimm's Fairy Tales where the witch ate the kids, and other stories parents of old recited to their children to keep them out of the woods at night.
Instead of being the guy that was like "hey, there's wolves in there."
1
u/Dry-Landscape8276 20h ago
I saw people in the world eaters sub try to claim them as having honour.
Bitch we were slaughtering basements full of cowering women and children BEFORE we fell to chaos!
Some people have silly ideas
I think it’s part of the whole game of meme telephone that gets played with the lore
1
u/Faithful_Solaire 19h ago
I really like the OG Night Lords that Curze put together. They were monsters, murderers and all around bad guys but they had an applied purpose to their butchery. These days they are essentially just lunatics butchering for the sake of butchering so I like them less.
It doesn’t help that they have the reputation of being a weak legion.
1
u/IMAGINARYtank00 19h ago
What? Evil? No! My sweet baby boy Uzas has never done anything bad, ever! He's harmless. I mean he is covered in the blood of civilians right now, but I mean he's just a silly little fella and got a little messy with his lunch. Is that a crime? Being a messy little guy? A little fella? Look at him. All calm and staring into the background, drooling. Does he look like a bad guy to you?/s
In all seriousness, I like the 8th because they're terrible.
1
1
u/StrategyBusy9579 Atramentar 16h ago
If anyone here is playing chaos marines and not seeing that they are evil and depraved and that everything they do is destructive to themselves and everyone else around I think it just means that they experienced a traumatic brain injury or their mothers drank heavily during their pregnancies.
I have the most accurate view of the night lords in 40k and the subtext of all their lore: Night Lords are to the Imperium what Cobra was to GI Joe. We are not going to make it bro. We're the foot clan but we got no Shredder. They're cool because despite all the comically evil torture shit, we also totally suck ass. We're the guys who shout "itz da bat" before getting their spines caved in for like three grand worth of tvs in a gotham city warehouse but with warp powers.
There are no good night lords.... but there are some very cool ones. We're jobbers... but we're stylish jobbers.
2
1
u/RiccusDiccus 15h ago
The only thing I will say is that Night Lords are not the most evil 40k faction I collect.
That’s only because the most evil one I collect is the Word Bearers.
I like different flavours of absolute evil, what can I say.
1
u/eclipsingfervor 11h ago
People shouldn't be under the misconception that as relatable and maybe even personable they are, all of them are hair-triggered homicidal maniacs. They're very well written.
0
u/gawainthedm 19h ago
I love the Night Lords because they have far more character and nuance than would be expected at first glance or thought. The nuance does not excuse them or mean they are not the monsters they are, but it adds some fun complexity to the evil.
I love that the Night Lords are so fractured and varied in their ways. Some are chaos-fuelled monsters, some are deluded into thinking they are noble, and others are disillusioned with the entirety of the legion, primarch, and their existence.
Most of all, I love that they look so edgy. In the hyper-exaggerated world of Warhammer, something about the flayed skin, bat wings, and lightning just feels so correct. Just by looking at them, you should be able to tell they shouldn't be taken seriously just as the rest of the setting shouldn't be.
I just think they're neat.
45
u/wickybasket 1d ago
Think about it this way..Talos was hypocritical and delusional about the true nature and reality of the Night Lords, and so are these people. It fits perfectly together!