VictorK wrote:At which point the whole question of aspectation is moot. They're different entities, end of story.
I did not say that Khaine
is Khorne, or vice versa. You misunderstand the subtleties of the aspect relationship. Khaine and Khorne may well be different, but they are, so to speak, different 'faces' of the one Aethyric vortex.
If they share a psychic link that has no influence on them, who cares? Why do we even talk about it if it has no impact?
Of course it influences them. It has great impact. Khaine and Khorne are both gods that rely on the thrill of battle for sustenance. Is that not an impact? At present in Warhammer Fantasy, they seem different, because the distinction between...
Actually, forget that. I really don't like WHF Khaine. Or rather, I don't like Khaine as Lord of Murder. I don't care for WHF Dark Elves in general. Assuming I'm talking about the High Elf Khaine, because that one is more or less the same as the Eldar Khaine in 40k, and that's a Khaine I'm interested in. Khaine the demon god of murder and assassination is quite dull and I do not wish to speak of him. The Dark Elf Khaine is a different aspect to the High Elf Khaine, much like the Wood Elf Isha is a different aspect to the High Elf Isha.
... yes, anyway, Khaine and Khorne seem different because the distinction between the types of emotion they feed on remains clear. They would become more similar, and blur together at the edges, if that distinction became less clear. That's where the Dark Elf Khaine is: right between the High Elf Khaine and Khorne.
Basically, the question is one of differentiation. Khaine and Khorne seem qualitatively different because while they are of common origin, they are specialised in ways that allow for the existence of a coherent Khaine-concept as distinct from the Khorne-concept. Should these concepts lose their coherency and the deities become less conceptially differentiated, they should begin to merge more.
You seem determined to say that they are the same entity, and then completely walk away from any implications of that statement! It's meaningless! Why are we even talking about it?
I've not said that Khaine and Khorne are
the same. I've said that there is an aspect relation between them. That's not the same thing. They are of the same origin and composed of the same Aethyric vortex, which is what the aspect relation derives from.
If I may respond in kind, you seem determined to say that the aspect relation is actually an identity relation. It is not. You're oversimplifying it.
I suppose that's one interpretation, though it again leads to the pointlessly reductionist interpretation that the gods are nothing more than warp blobs in four general divisions which makes the whole thing confusing and ultimately irrelevant.
Why is that pointless?
Incidentally, why four general divisions? There is that statement in the Hordes of Chaos AB about the Chaos gods being the four corners of mortal emotion and primal, elemental forces in their own right, but that's actually in the category of things that I choose to disregard for reasons of personal preference. I don't make any claims about how many Aethyric vortices there are. It's actually a pretty arbitrary judgement, based on where you think irreducible nuclei of pure emotion exist, and that's a very subjective judgement, based on whatever theory of mortal psychology you prefer. The four corners theory is one, but I don't subscribe to it.
We could also say that Slaanesh was simply more powerful and chose to devour the other gods.
We could. I would not want to, however. I feel it is a much clumsier explanation. I like my explanation because I can explain all the gods reductively, in terms of a relatively small list of base axioms.
It was a fundamental shift in the Eldar, and it did weaken the traditional pantheon, but I don't believe that Slaanesh devoured them because they were similar to Slaanesh. Slaanesh devoured them because they were dissimilar, destroying and uniting the pantheon at the same time. It seems hardly fit to describe it as a conflict, indeed the rape of the Eldar psyche, if things simply changed and shifted so that the other gods became Slaanesh.
The Fall
wasn't a conflict. Slaanesh arose, triumphant and invincible. There was no war. There was never any chance of standing against Slaanesh successfully. That's what lends the event its dread majesty; that events had transpired that there was simply no fighting Slaanesh. The Eldar could not fight Slaanesh because it meant fighting themselves, and while the Craftworld Eldar did come to develop fighting themselves into an art form, at the time of the Fall it was never going to happen. It would be like the Dark Eldar trying to fight Slaanesh; impossible, because their very actions are what create and rejuvenate Slaanesh in the first place. And the Eldar gods? They had no power, because of that shift in the Eldar psyche. Remember that the Eldar gods were once mighty. The Eldar gods once strode across the galaxy and crushed all before them, scattering the Necrons and the Yngir before them. How weak were they by the Fall? How much had the Eldar gods' own identities become subordinated to the overpowering influence of Slaanesh?
You're wrong. It wasn't the rape of the Eldar psyche. The Eldar psyche was itself the rapist. The gods were the victims, and Slaanesh is what they became.
Have you ever heard of a concept called the Greatest Secret? A well-known 40k internet guru, Kage2020, produced it. The idea is this: the Keepers of Secrets are the greatest daemons of Slaanesh, right? What secrets do they keep? All of them: except the secret of their own identities. Only Slaanesh knows that, and that's why she has power over them. The Keepers of the Secrets
are the Eldar gods, twisted and perverted to have become Slaaneshi. The Eldar, before the Fall, made their gods into those things.
Mine fully allows for the rise of Slaanesh and the weakening of the elven pantheon while explaining why there was a conflict at all and not a "peaceful" transition from one warp blob to another. You drain out that conflict and make the canon sterile if we adopt your approach.
I believe you misunderstand my approach. I find that yours is formulaic, clichéd, and simply boring. I believe that I can explain the Aethyr more elegantly than you can, and thus the interactions of the gods and the changes they undergo.
As I said before, while Khaine might have different aspects (the Destroyer) that does not mean that this situation is analogous to Khaine as an aspect to Khorne (The Destroyer is to Khaine as Khaine is to Khorne).
I think it is. The Destroyer is a real entity. On top of that layer, Khaine is the rage vortex, and Khorne is the rage vortex, but Khaine is not Khorne.
You don't change Khaine to make him The Destroyer, but he sure as hell is different than Khorne
You're jumping from level to level. You don't change the rage vortex to make it Khaine, nor do you change it to make it Khorne. You would need to change Khaine to make him into Khorne, because Khaine and Khorne are on the same level. Similarly, you don't need to change Khaine to make him the Destroyer, nor the Dire Avenger, but you would need to change the Destroyer to make it into the Dire Avenger.
So here, we have three levels of aspection, from the gross (the rage vortex) down to increasingly subtle refinements of the concept (the Destroyer, the Dire Avenger). The more subtle the refinement, the weaker it is, naturally, but also the more defined sense of self it possesses and the more anthropomorphised it becomes. (Hence why no one worships the rage vortex, and no Aspect Warrior imitates
Khaine, only the more anthropomorphic aspects.)
I really think you and Eldacar need to go back over what I'm saying.
Right back at you.
But you go too far in the other direction. You make the gods boring.
I do not believe so. I believe the approach that I have been outlining is the most intriguing one. That is why I hold to this approach. Should I find a more interesting one, I will adopt that one.
Oh, they're all the same warp blob with different faces? Well then, who cares? Why should I feel anything as a gamer at a reader for any of these gods if they infinitely reduce down to nothing? Because that's ultimately the implication of your argument that gods cannot be independent and are all essentially unthinking and unreasoning entities bouncing around for no purpose.
You're oversimplifying the argument again, and essentially attacking a straw man of my position. I shall not respond to it, because I only feel compelled to respond to criticisms of what I'm
actually saying.
We need to have a middle ground between this concept and our traditional mythic pantheons with anthropomorphic gods.
It is my opinion that I have provided that. You swing too far towards anthropomorphic deities.