What is an Edgelord?

[mgshamster]

A simple question.

Just, in your own words, what do you think an edgelord is, as a character (not as a troll or a real person).

[Scripten]

Generally they are characters that are tragic, but feel absurd due to the nature of their execution. That is, they are unrealistically dour, uncooperative, or angsty. I find that it is less a matter of specific points of plot or characterization, as a character can have an outright depressing backstory and still be multifaceted and interesting.

The common definition likely includes things like having a mountain of dead friends/relatives, dark clothing, "repressed" emotions up the wazoo, and being Drizz't.

[Ninja_Prawn]

(not as a troll or a real person).

I always thought 'edgelord' referred to a type of player, like 'munchkin' or 'rules lawyer'...

Anyway, in my own words: a character that is overly edgy or angsty, especially to the detriment of verisimilitude or player fun. The '90s Antihero' page on TVTropes is their bible.

[mgshamster]

character that is overly edgy

As a follow up - what is it to be 'edgy'?

[Segev]

Being "edgy" generally means you're trying to be on the edge of shocking, if not more than a little over. An "edgy" character is one who is trying to live on the edge of morality. Antiheroes, sympathetic villains, "dark" characters who have unacceptable or antisocial behaviors that are supposed to be sympathized with and accepted anyway due to their traumatic pasts that "justify" them.

An "edgelord" is a character who is designed to be the edgiest of the edgy. Dark, troubled, "misunderstood" by design (and yet don't you dare fail to understand him how his designer wants you to, as an audience or as main characters), and prone to some combination of brooding silence, violent outburst, and oversharing of tragic backstories.

This is because an "edgelord" is almost parodic. But often, not intentionally so.




Alternatively, it could be one of the lords of the keeps that form the outermost borders of the empire, along a mountain range known as "the Edge."

[JNAProductions]

Shadow the Hedgehog, in his titular game.

I would consider probably the most defining, relative to the rest of the table, trait of an edgelord is that their character does NOT play nice with others. Not necessarily fighting them, or working against them, but they don't care about the other characters. They're very selfish characters.

You can have an edgy, angsty character (although I'd prefer you didn't) but you HAVE to work well with the party. Maybe the party saved your life, and while you angst over that, you know you owe them. Maybe they're simply friends, and some of the few people who you can actually open up to. Maybe something else. The point is, make sure your character, even if their natural instinct is to be a loner, sticks with and helps the party.

[Hooligan]

• Player brings an actual sword to gaming sessions
• Character uses 2 katanas
• Character adventures to "avenge my dead parents"
• Character has heterochromia
• Player wears a duster and possibly sunglasses inside
• Player/Character is unnecessarily quarrelsome with party members and NPCs.
• Player exclusively plays Drow, Tiefling, Vampire, or Lycanthrope characters
• Character is named "Drizz't" or "Legolas" (I find this one does not occur as frequently as it did in the late 90's/early 00's)
• Character unsolicitedly tells others "I have a dark past" or "I have a lot of scars inside"
• Character backstory: A. is like 6-7000 words long AND/OR B. Reads like bad fan fiction obviously aping popular fantasy characters
• Character has a genius-level intellect, player has crumbs on him (it is usually a male).

Good examples of "edgy" behavior. True, I've not provided a rigorous definition but I think this paints a vivid picture.

[Pex]

Another word for Drama Queen. It's all about "me me me". This player only cares about his character and his character's story. He has an elaborate backstory and wants to continue it through the game. When plot happens in game that does not directly relate to his character he doesn't want to be involved. He wants motivation as to why he should bother, and even then couldn't care less. Other players are to be tolerated to exist at the table as the price he must pay to play his story.

[mgshamster]

You can have an edgy, angsty character (although I'd prefer you didn't) but you HAVE to work well with the party.

What if you're playing a solo game?

[JNAProductions]

What if you're playing a solo game?

Then just play well with the DM. You can do a lot in a solo game you can't with a party.

[gkathellar]

It's someone who's trying way too hard to be cool.

[Nifft]

An attention hog wrapped in a flag of suffering.

The suffering part can be worked into a game, if it's too disruptive, but the attention hog part often needs to be overcome.

[Segev]

What prompted this question, anyway, mgshamster?

[Anonymouswizard]

The prime example is of course Marty/Ao-Sue from The SUE Files. While others may beat him in a single element he gains extra points for literally being lord over his favourite fictional realities and being able to read the GM's mind as a character power.

More generally, has an agnsty personality (at least in theory) and more than one of the following elements, the more the better.
-Dual wields katana. They are the best swords ever created.
-Have a unique, ideally 'gothic' look.
-Be a member of a unique species or bloodline.
-Be absolutely hated by everybody. Bonus points if it's only a backstory element and never comes up in game.
-Absolutely loved by everybody. Likely never comes up in game.
-Is significantly more powerful than they have any right to be, even if not supported by their game mechanics.
-Has a special destiny. Either they're the chosen one, chosen to help the chosen one do everything, or something else stupid.
-Their name is incredibly long or obviously is supposed to be cool. Like Darksaber Stormeater.

Note that these elements aren't generally that bad on their own, I've even considered a character for a supervillains game who's power is literally 'everybody within a couple of hundred metres who sees them likes them', a sort of super charisma/mind control mix. It's the combination of them, likely most of them, that creates the Edgelord.

Didn't we make a set of DIY Edgelord tables at some point? I remember supplying a random dead family member chart (I still do want to create a random backstory system, the problem is I can't justify it outside of my homebrew game as it'll essentially be a Lifepath chargen system).

EDIT: Found it!

[mgshamster]

What prompted this question, anyway, mgshamster?

A friend of mine asked me to read a book for him, to see if he would like it. I'm big into scifi books, and he's more into fantasy genre. And he had heard that this book was similar to a fantasy novel he liked.

I'm about halfway through, and from the opening chapter the main character just screams 'Edgelord' to me. But I am having a hard time explaining why.

So I thought if I asked what an edgelord was in a forum where I value the opinion of most everyone, it would help me put into words why this character in an edgelord.

Basically, we have a guy who is dark and powerful. He starts off in prison about to be exectued for his crimes. Some call him a war criminal, for he has killed billions of people and even destroyed an entire star (killing all the people living on the planets around that star). But others call him a hero. And before he dies, he wants to tell you, the reader, his story.

His story is that he's a Noble's first born son and he was born into wealth and privilege, including genetic enhancement, top notch education and combat training, a path to wealth and power where he would be set for life... But father doesn't love him, and so his life is filled to the brim with tragedy. Father doesn't like that he's going against the grain of society and family tradition (because the empire is rather evil and oppressive and he doesn't like ruling by fear) and that he isn't doing exactly as father wants him to. So he runs away (getting people killed in the process, but always somehow through no fault of his own), and then bad things keep happening to him and the people around him. Sometimes it's not his fault and so highlights the tragedy in his life. Sometimes it is his fault, for which he has no end of self-pity.

Seruously, self-pity drips off his tongue like molasses. It's getting to the point where I can predict exact lines from him before they happen.

He got into an argument with a friend of his, and he went one step too far with his words. His friend punched him. And I immediately thought, "He's going to say I deserve this." And sure enough, he did! Within the paragraph. And then twice more in the chapter. Other friends are concerned and ask him about what happened, "but eventually, they too left me alone as I deserve. I deserved to be alone."

I've even been able to predict full story archs and events. He fell in love with a girl and spent two years with her. I asked myself, "What would he the most tragic thing to happen which could add yet more tragedy to this Character?" And look and behold, it happens! She dies in his arms from something he has no power to stop - in this case, the plague.. He's immune to the plague, because of his genetic enhancement from being a Noble's son.

Every step of the way, all I've had to do to predict what would happen is ask, "What would happen to this character which would add tragedy or self-pity to him?" And so far, that thing has happened every single time.

About a third of the way through the book, I got the feeling that this isnt just some character in a novel, but it's actually the author's Character. Like, a D&D character. I could swear that the author picked up the 5e PHB and said, "I want a character with all the backgrounds!" I've actually made a list of all the 5e PHB backgrounds and have been able to check almost all of them off as to which apply to this character.

The book starts with him both a Criminal and a Folk Hero, then he tells the story of being a Noble where dad wants him to become an Acolyte in the setting's primary church (to the point where he's been educated in all religious law and custom and can even recite the punishment for religious crimes off the cuff), but he doesn't want to be an Acolyte, he wants to be a Sage like his tutor - the only man who acted like a father to him. So he runs away to join the Sage college, but tragedy happens (of course) and he ends up an Urchin. He falls in love, but she dies. So what's next? Let's become a Gladiator (Entertainer variant). But he's only doing that to buy a ship and become a Sailor (literally, space ship crews in this book are called Sailors).

But then he finds out that he can't actually afford one by being a gladiator, so he uses his Guild Merchant knowledge (his Noble family got their wealth by creating a monopoly, and so he's been trained in how to negotiate with the Guilds and navigate the markets) to talk shop with the ships guild. And then he tries to run a con (Charlatan) on the guild by using his privilege from being a Noble to spend money that he doesn't have and try and have his father's account pay for it (which he knows will never happen).

I'm still waiting for Outlander and Hermit to show up. Since we know that he eventually will lead an army, that means Soldier will come up eventually.

I still have about 40% of the book to go, and I've promised my friend I'll read it to the end. But at this point, I've lost all hope that it will get any better.

It would be decent if it were a satire, but it unfortunately isn't. It's means to be a serious scifi space opera where the main character is truly a dark and tragic individual who just so happened to muder billions of people and enslave an entire sentient species. But he's really the hero. Or anti-hero. Or whatever.

[Segev]

Okay. To simplify it, an Edgelord is a particular brand of Mary Sue. He (and it's usually a he, though it CAN be a she) will be the tragic Sue, and will mix being an iconoclast with "darkness," because Dark Is Cool. He'll either be cursed with evil powers but strive to use them for good, or be from an evil society and be struggling to be good but darn it, his upbringing keeps telling him all the wrong (i.e. evil) ways to handle things. But never quite "too" evil. Unless the evil is really necessary (and thus totally justified, honest), and then often just an excuse to feel sorry for himself.

The Edgelord is the tragedy Sue mixed with the antihero Sue. He often substitutes "unique bloodline" for "unique amongst the heroes, because I come from the evil culture."

They want to be Worf or Teal'c, but take it waaaay over the top.

[Mordar]

The common definition likely includes things like having a mountain of dead friends/relatives, dark clothing, "repressed" emotions up the wazoo, and being Drizz't.

I think this is probably a minority opinion...but Drizz't isn't an Edgelord. He is what Edgelords want to be, and fail...and that is why they are Edgelords.

At least, the first 6-9 Drizz't books. Beyond that, I think Salvatore lost some creative control, or at least interest.

- M

[Scripten]

I think this is probably a minority opinion...but Drizz't isn't an Edgelord. He is what Edgelords want to be, and fail...and that is why they are Edgelords.

At least, the first 6-9 Drizz't books. Beyond that, I think Salvatore lost some creative control, or at least interest.

- M

Absolutely. That section of my post was meant to list traits that people use to define Edgelord characters that don't necessarily mean anything. The important part of any Edgelord character is that they are unbelievable. (As in, literally so - they break suspension of disbelief.)

[Andor13]

A friend of mine asked me to read a book for him, to see if he would like it. I'm big into scifi books, and he's more into fantasy genre. And he had heard that this book was similar to a fantasy novel he liked.

I'm about halfway through, and from the opening chapter the main character just screams 'Edgelord' to me. But I am having a hard time explaining why.

That... sounds absolutely dreadful. And yes, it does scream edgelord.

[Braininthejar2]

So... Sasuke?

[Daremonai]

...some truly horrifying stuff.

Dear gods, how have you managed to keep your brain from destroying itself in protest?

[Segev]

Dear gods, how have you managed to keep your brain from destroying itself in protest?

He did say that he trusts our judgment. Are we sure he hasn't been driven mad?

[2D8HP]

As a follow up - what is it to be 'edgy'?

If his tear ducts had not long dried out one such as Steeldark Darksteel McAngsty would weep blood that you don't know what "edgy" means

The master of the assassin school is already doomed to failure, because he is working against the prophecy foretelling Darkblade Shadowedge's supremacy.
He is the chosen vessel of the ancient spirit of the first assassin. We know this because only a half tiefling, half aasimar child can withstand the forces burning inside the vessel of the ancient spirit of the first assassin.

Darkblade Shadowedge always refers to himself as "Darkblade Shadowedge, vessel of the ancient spirit of the first assassin"

Needs 500% more torture.

Leather, leather and leather. Also, metal studs everywhere, even when he's trying to sneak around. I don't know why looking like you got lost on your way to the BDSM club is edgy, but it is.

Also good candidates are words invovling death or imagery of death. Can't forget RAVEN DARKBLADE.

You simply cannot forget the gritty exposition as he talks to himself in his mind. Some **** like 'The rain was cold and wet. And it still wouldn't wash the sins off of me.'

Spoiler: And for the "realistic" version:

Show

.
2D8HP curses cruel fate:

CURSE YOU CRUEL FATE!
"mumble, mumble, mumble, I must, mumble WHATEVER THE COST!

[Luccan]

It's notable, an Edgelord is generally formed from a poor handling of tropes and cliches (both of which can be used well by a decent writer), rather than displaying specific traits. A character like Zuko could easily become an edgelord and a character like Cloud actually has in everything outside his original game, but they don't have much in common except power and a lot of reasons to be angry and sad. It's the poor handling of power and tragedy that makes a classic edgelord, but it can just be a poor handling of tragedy.

[mgshamster]

In case anyone else wants to read this travesty, here it is:

Empire of Silence

Note that it has a ton of good reviews on Goodreads. That was rather shocking to me. I checked out the Goodreads reviews when I was about a quarter of the way into the book just to see if anyone else was as appalled by the book as I was, and it turns out that very few have been.

Most of the one star reviews are from people who thought it was so bad that they didn't even finish it. They got a lot of criticism for that, so I'm determined to finish it now just so I can give it a complete review.

Even from the beginning when the Edgelordiness screamed at me, I thought, "Maybe it will get better." But it hasn't yet.

I don't know.. maybe one of you will read it and see something good about it that eludes me. Maybe it's not the writing but the narrator (I'm listening to the audiobook, so the sorrow and pity are much more evident in the voice). It's like all the sorrow and tragedy of Darrow from Red Rising, but coming from a privileged brat instead of an oppressed people.

Here's the snippet from the back of the book:

It was not his war.

The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.

But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.

On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe starts down a path that can only end in fire. He flees his father and a future as a torturer only to be left stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Forced to fight as a gladiator and navigate the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, Hadrian must fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.

A note: he wasn't forced to fight as a gladiator. He literally chose it. He walked in and asked to sign up. Just goes to show the extra pity the author tries to heap on.

[2D8HP]

Not only have I finished some deeply "Edgelord" novels, I have even re-read them, such as Michael Moorcock's "Corum" series, which begins with

A Knight of Swords (1971):

"In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and wild flying beasts of bronze. There were herds of crimson cattle that roared and were taller than castles. There were shrill, viridian things that haunted bleak rivers. It was a time of gods, manifesting themselves upon our world in all her aspects; a time of giants who walked on water; of mindless sprites and misshapen creatures who could be summoned by an ill-considered thought but driven away only on pain of some fearful sacrifice; of magics, phantasms, unstable nature, impossible events, insane paradoxes, dreams come true, dreams gone awry, of nightmares assuming reality.

It was a rich time and a dark time. The time of the Sword Rulers. The time when the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, age-old enemies, -were dying. The time when Man, the slave of fear, was emerging, unaware that much of the terror he experienced was the result of nothing else but the fact that he, himself, had come into existence. It was one of many ironies connected with Man, who, in those days, called his race "Mabden."

The Mabden lived brief lives and bred prodigiously. Within a jew centuries they rose to dominate the westerly continent on which they had evolved. Superstition stopped them from sending many of their ships toward Vadhagh 9.and Nhadragh lands for another century or two, but gradually they gained courage when no resistance was offered. They began to feel jealous of the older races; they began to feel malicious.

The Vadhagh and the Nhadragh were not aware of this. They had dwelt a million or more years upon the planet which now, at last, seemed at rest. They knew of the Mabden but considered them not greatly different from other beasts. Though continuing to indulge their traditional hatreds of one another, the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh spent their long hours in considering abstractions, in the creation of works of art and the like. Rational, sophisticated, at one with themselves, these older races were unable to believe in the changes that had come. Thus, as it almost always is, they ignored the signs.

There was no exchange of knowledge between the two ancient enemies, even though they had fought their last battle many centuries before.

The Vadhagh lived in family groups occupying isolated castles scattered across a continent called by them Bro-an-Vadhagh. There was scarcely any communication between these families, for the Vadhagh had long since lost the impulse to travel. The Nhadragh lived in their cities built on the islands in the seas to the northwest of Bro-an-Vadhagh. They, also, had little contact, even with their closest kin. Both races reckoned themselves invulnerable. Both were wrong.

Upstart Man was beginning to breed and spread like a pestilence across the world. This pestilence struck down the old races wherever it touched them. And it was not only death that Man brought, but terror, too. Willfully, he made of the older world nothing but ruins and bones. Unwittingly, he brought psychic and supernatural disruption of a magnitude which even the Great Old Gods failed to comprehend.

And the Great Old Gods began to know Fear. And Man, slave of fear, arrogant in his ignorance, continued his stumbling progress. He was blind to the 10.huge disruptions aroused by his apparently petty ambitions. As well, Man was deficient in sensitivity, had no awareness of the multitude of dimensions that filled the universe, each plane intersecting with several others. Not so the Vadhagh nor the Nhadragh, who had known what it was to move at will between the dimensions they termed the Five Planes. They had glimpsed and understood the nature of the many planes, other than the Five, through which the Earth moved.

Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking.

"If they valued what they stole, if they knew what they were destroying," says the old Vadhagh in the story, "The Onfy Autumn Flower," "then I would be consoled."

It was unjust.

By creating Man, the universe had betrayed the old races.

But it was a perpetual and familiar injustice. The sentient may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient. The universe sees no distinction between the multitude of creatures and elements which comprise it. All are equal. None is favored. The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controled by its creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their fists at blind stars.

But this does not mean that there are some who will not try to do battle with and destroy the invulnerable.

There will always be such beings, sometimes beings of great wisdom, who cannot bear to believe in an insouciant universe.

Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei was one of these. Perhaps the last of the Vadhagh race, he was sometimes known as The Prince in the Scarlet Robe.

This chronicle concerns him...."

---

And the single fantasy novel that I've most re-read,

The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981),

also by Michael Moorcock, began:

"It was in that yeat when the fashion in cruelty demanded not only the crucifiction of peasant children, but a similar fate for their pets, that I first met Lucifer.
Until May of 1631 I had commanded a troop of irregular infantry, mainly Poles, Swedes, and Scots. We had taken part in the destruction and looting of the city if Magdeburg, having somehow found ourselves in the army of the [........] forces under Count Johann Tzerclaes Tilly. Wind-borne gunpowder had turned the city into one huge keg and she had gone up all of a piece, driving us out with little booty to show for our hard work.
Disappointed and belligerent, Westfield by the business of rapine and slaughter, quarreling over what pathetic bits of goods they had managed to pull from the blazing houses, my men elected to split away from Tilly's forces. His had been a singularly ill-fed and badly equipped army, victim to the pride of bickering allied. It was a relief to leave it behind us.
We struck south into the foothills of the Hartz Mountains, intending to rest. However, it soon became evident to me that some of my men had contracted the Plague, and I deemed it wise, therefore, to saddle my horse quietly one night and, taking what food there was, continue my journey alone.
Having deserted my men, I was not yet green from the presence of death or desolation. The world was in agony and shrieked its pain..."

And it goes on for pages with a backdrop of the 30 years war (1618 to 1648), befofe getting to the supernatural elements, and it's not hard for a reader to think of 20th century parallels, but as much as I mock the like now, as a teenager, I ate it up.

I had actually read the sequel, 1986's

City in the Autumn Stars

which has the French reign of terror as a backgrounf first, the protaganist of which, a descendent of the War Hound, is initially more of a hero that inspires sympathy than the War Hound.

Anyway, after pages of character building biography, the protaganist of The War Hound and the World's Pain, Graf Ulrich von Bek, enters "the oak groves of the northern fringes of the great Thuringian Forest", and finds that "the deeper into the forest I moved the less life I discovered", , and "Through the treetops I saw clear blue sky, and sunlight warned the glades. But insects danced in the beans; no bees crawled upon the leaves of the wild flowers; not even an earthworm twisted about the roots, though the soil was dark and smelled fertile", until "breaking out of the forest proper one afternoon, I saw before me a green, flowery hill which was crowned by the most beautiful castle I had ever beheld", he wonders "How could a building demand calm, to the degree that not even a mosquito would dare disturb it?"¡ but while "It was my first impulse to avoid the castle, but my pride overcame me", and "I refused to believe that there was anything genuinely mysterious...."

It's not much of a spoiler to say that what starts a historical tale of a man who's become evil in an evil time of war becomes a fantasy of redemption, and it's the fantasy novel that, perhaps to my shame, I've probably re-read the most, even more than Tolkien

And then there's the Elric stories...

Is it possible to squee and shudder at the same time?

[Anonymouswizard]

At this point it's important to point out that good writing can make the edgiest of Edgelords work, because that's true of everything.

I'm struggling to read the first Polity novel because the AIs are just coming off as so Mary Sueish and annoying, and the main character isn't really that likeable. But I loved how unlikeable Case was in Neuromancer (I found it a highlight of the book), and love the Minds from the Culture books (who at least have a massive sense of humour, if Possessing a Disturbing Lack of Gravitas*), so it's entirely possible that just being more into SF books (of a certain type potentially) you're noticing more flaws. The rented might be from people only looking for Epic space opera, while you're noticing the lack of decent characterisation.

* Original Character do not steal.

[DavidSh]

And I was hoping that an Edgelord was just the matter-of-fact term for a lord who's area of rule covered land at the Edge of the World. Analogous to a Marcher Lord in England or a Margrave in continental Europe, he would be given special status in recognition of his responsibility in dealing with that which comes from beyond the Edge.

I remember a Larry Niven story, "Transfer of Power" I think it was, where one such Edgelord had been deposed for imposing high taxes in order to keep off the Cloud Dragons.

[Xuc Xac]

It seems that everyone is using "edgelord" to mean "emo marysue". Is that specific to fanfic subculture? The way I've seen edgelord used everywhere else (I try to avoid fanfic) is rather different.

There's a line between "stuff that's OK" and "stuff that's not ok". In a D&D game, it's ok to kill orcs. Even if your character has an Evil alignment on their character sheet, very few players would think it's acceptable tabletop behavior for your character to rape the orc infants. That's the kind of thing that makes the other players at the table say "dude, you crossed a line!" Edgelords try to get as close as possible to that line without crossing it while drawing attention to themselves for doing it. Basically, they act as badly as they can without suffering the consequences of bad behavior.

Antiheros and outright villains are legitimately exploring darker sides of human experience. Edgelords claim to be doing that while they're actually just playing a stupid game of "I'm not touching youuuu!" with morality, ethics, and good taste.

[MrStabby]

Having read this the first character that comes to mind is the main protagonist from the TV Series Dr Who:

Last of his super special kind
Responsible for the deaths of his entire species; but
It was kind of justified
and he angsts about it
Is loved across the cosmos
Is hated...
Is feared...
Goes a little bit bad from time to time
Has a disproportionate number of plot connections to random events
Goes out of his way to be "quirky" and is generally an attention seeker

Would they qualify?