Is Alith Anar a good 'dark elf'?

[Vargas78]

I ask because of his black hair, and he is lord of Naggaryth where the dark elves came from before the sundering.

[zefyris]

nah, he's a high elf through and through. He's part of those who refused to follow malekith and fought a guerilla against them, refusing to give up that fight even when their families got tortured and murdered, so he's amongst those with the highest loyalty toward the twin thrones of Ulthuan out there.
Peoples from Naggaryth usually have black hair, regardless of who thy chose to follow.

[reevestone]

I think Alith Anar would shoot you right between the eyes for that insinuation :)

I'll cover the backstory as quickly as I can... Nagarythe was once the greatest kingdom in Ulthuan, where the OG Phoenix King Aenarion held his court, where Malekith was raised and which Malekith inherited when Aenarion died. Aenarion had slid into darkness and madness in his later years, and this created a widespread arrogance, decadence and perversion among much of the Nagarythe nobility. When Malekith was spurned in becoming the next Phoenix King of all Ulthuan and responded by killing the new Phoenix King and getting himself barbecued, almost all the Nagarythi nobility joined in his rebellion since, well... they agreed with him: Malekith was the among the best warriors, generals, and magicians around, the son of their great hero, and Nagarythe deserved to always be the pinnacle of Ulthuan.

Alith Anar's grandfather and father were among the few Nagarythi nobility that despised the decadence and corruption that had taken root, and sided against Malekith despite how suicidal of a choice that was, being right in his heartland. Despite being massively outnumbered, Alith Anar's father used cunning guerrilla tactics to harass and bleed Malekith's forces in the earliest battles of the war, before ultimately being cornered and crushed by Malekith directly through sheer numbers and power. Alith Anar's father was killed by Malekith in battle, his grandfather taken to the dungeons to presumably be horrifically tortured to death. The rest is covered by the intro cutscene... war goes bad for Malekith, he decides to kill everyone and everything, it backfires on him and completely devastates Nagarythe, leaves him and his followers running across the sea to what would become Naggaroth.

Alith Anar was named the new King of Nagarythe by the handful of loyal, surviving Nagarythi, but it was an empty title considering the land was completely ruined and useless, and all Nagarythi elves were looked upon with disdain, scorn and distrust by other High Elves, seeing all Nagarythi as implicitly linked to Malekith's corruption and evil. Unsurprisingly, Alith Anar swore eternal, personal vengeance on Malekith, and at first devoted his small but elite and loyal groups of followers to hunting down all the remaining vestiges and holdouts of the Dark Elves on Ulthuan itself, using the same guerrilla tactics his father had taught him and utilized so effectively against them before, until eventually there just weren't really enough Dark Elves left to kill on Ulthuan itself, so he went over to Naggaroth to keep doing this more directly and personally to Malekith's legions, harrassing his armies, sabotaging his efforts, spying on his movements and assassinating his servants.

So, in short-short... he is Nagarythi, like pretty much all the Dark Elves, but would really not take kindly to the notion that he's anything like the Dark Elves.

[Vargas78]

Interesting, thanks.

[barfbag69fartmachine]

Alith Anar actually lived a suite life on a black ark with his identical twin until his twin got into some weird ♥♥♥♥ so he stopped doing that

[StarofTanuki]

he just forget to wash his hair.

[Ape-tier Buffoonery]

Originally posted by Salty Skeleton:

Alith Anar actually lived a suite life on a black ark with his identical twin until his twin got into some weird ♥♥♥♥ so he stopped doing that

Let's not forget that before they lived on an Ark together they also lived in a large residential tower owned by a Cathay heiress. Who knows what sheninegans they got up to while under the watchful guidance of a Nehekharen steward of the tower.

[barfbag69fartmachine]

Originally posted by Cornchip Dictatorship:

Originally posted by Salty Skeleton:

Alith Anar actually lived a suite life on a black ark with his identical twin until his twin got into some weird ♥♥♥♥ so he stopped doing that

Let's not forget that before they lived on an Ark together they also lived in a large residential tower owned by a Cathay heiress. Who knows what sheninegans they got up to while under the watchful guidance of a Nehekharen steward of the tower.

Steward was actually malekith himself and he would not allow them to run in the lobby

[Alpharius]

Originally posted by reevestone:

I think Alith Anar would shoot you right between the eyes for that insinuation :)

I'll cover the backstory as quickly as I can... Nagarythe was once the greatest kingdom in Ulthuan, where the OG Phoenix King Aenarion held his court, where Malekith was raised and which Malekith inherited when Aenarion died. Aenarion had slid into darkness and madness in his later years, and this created a widespread arrogance, decadence and perversion among much of the Nagarythe nobility. When Malekith was spurned in becoming the next Phoenix King of all Ulthuan and responded by killing the new Phoenix King and getting himself barbecued, almost all the Nagarythi nobility joined in his rebellion since, well... they agreed with him: Malekith was the among the best warriors, generals, and magicians around, the son of their great hero, and Nagarythe deserved to always be the pinnacle of Ulthuan.

Alith Anar's grandfather and father were among the few Nagarythi nobility that despised the decadence and corruption that had taken root, and sided against Malekith despite how suicidal of a choice that was, being right in his heartland. Despite being massively outnumbered, Alith Anar's father used cunning guerrilla tactics to harass and bleed Malekith's forces in the earliest battles of the war, before ultimately being cornered and crushed by Malekith directly through sheer numbers and power. Alith Anar's father was killed by Malekith in battle, his grandfather taken to the dungeons to presumably be horrifically tortured to death. The rest is covered by the intro cutscene... war goes bad for Malekith, he decides to kill everyone and everything, it backfires on him and completely devastates Nagarythe, leaves him and his followers running across the sea to what would become Naggaroth.

Alith Anar was named the new King of Nagarythe by the handful of loyal, surviving Nagarythi, but it was an empty title considering the land was completely ruined and useless, and all Nagarythi elves were looked upon with disdain, scorn and distrust by other High Elves, seeing all Nagarythi as implicitly linked to Malekith's corruption and evil. Unsurprisingly, Alith Anar swore eternal, personal vengeance on Malekith, and at first devoted his small but elite and loyal groups of followers to hunting down all the remaining vestiges and holdouts of the Dark Elves on Ulthuan itself, using the same guerrilla tactics his father had taught him and utilized so effectively against them before, until eventually there just weren't really enough Dark Elves left to kill on Ulthuan itself, so he went over to Naggaroth to keep doing this more directly and personally to Malekith's legions, harrassing his armies, sabotaging his efforts, spying on his movements and assassinating his servants.

So, in short-short... he is Nagarythi, like pretty much all the Dark Elves, but would really not take kindly to the notion that he's anything like the Dark Elves.

Malekith was out for most of his rebellion due to being charred, so it was seen as more Morathi's second rebellion at the time because they all believed Malekith was dead. So Alith's family were fighting against Morathi, and Morathi is the one that ordered Alith's family killed and nailed to their family home alive while he was sent off in hiding. Malekith later had magical rune armor built for him to allow him to become mobile and went to try to recruit Alith and his Shadow Warriors who were causing all kinds of trouble in Nagarythe personally, and they didn't join.

[Pimpin Pippin]

To be honest the main difference between dark elves and high elves is political and cultural/religious.

They are 99% the same people in terms of biology but have vastly different ideals and principles.
As far as the hair and skin color goes i am sure that makeup and even magic is used to look "ideal" based on their factions styles.

[Alpharius]

Read the second book in the Sundering book trilogy called The Shadow King. It covers Alith Anar’s story. It’s very good and made him my favorite character in Warhammer. He is pretty much Batman. He is High Elf, but from Nagarythe. He hates the Dark Elves and through trickery and like Batman became their biggest fear.

From what I remember he’s not loyal to the High Elves and will kill them if they trespass into Nagarathe, and he hates the Dark Elves and lives to wage war on them and terrorize them.

[Trooper #900129-H]

Originally posted by Vargas78:

Is Alith Anar a good 'dark elf'?

Just to be annoying:

There is no such thing as "Good" or "Evil" in the Warhammer universe.


All there is, are a set of factions vying for dominance and survival in a world where most other races are trying to murder those not of the same race.
More often then not, the next-to-commit-genocide-on-killing-list actually DOES include those of the same race.

If you absolutely ~HAVE TO~ divide the factions into sub-sets, you'd be left with "Order" vs "Destruction", where Order tries to survive and preserve their way of living for the good of their collective societies, and where Destruction only cares for the outcome (and not their "people") and vies to remake the world in the image they prefer by (usually excessive) force.

Regardless of their motivation, everybody is a douchebag, all the time.


This is also very true for factions usually nominated as "good" in regular fantasy settings.

Examples:

> The Empire is a superstitious hellhole, where the poor are surpressed and the inquisition dialed things up to eleven.
Also: They do not tend to stop the infighting/provincial rivalry, untill their last friggin' stronghold is about to go down.
> The Elves (of all flavours) are arrogant sh*ts, unable to cope with the fact they are not top-dog anymore, are a dying people and need allies. (Kind of like the US in 2018)
> The Dwarfs are arrogant, nostalgic, vengefull hermits, unable to accept new developments unless an arbitrary amount of (rediculous amounts of) time has passed without said development mucking things up horribly.
> Bretonnia is a backwards, exploitative society, refusing to modernise for he sake of tradition and religion, not just surpressing, but downright and openly exploiting the poor in the name of "Rightiousness" and/or "Honor".


In case of all of the above factions, a hanging (or whatever death-penalty) is usually the most lenient of results when not conformng to the state narrative.

And these are the "good" factions in Warhammer, never mind the "Evil" one's

[Pimpin Pippin]

Very nice post Captain

[Trooper #900129-H]

Originally posted by Pimpin Pippin:

Very nice post Captain

Thank you, also for the fact you remind me of the most important thing:


We need to remember, that -ALL- Warhamer lore thusfar, has been written to make players of the TableTop game happy about the models they just bought, painted, play a boardgame with and overall would be made to buy additional models and paints for, regardless of whatever faction they play.

In other terms: GW has written all lore, for all factions in a way they would offer something for every kind of player: Players need to be able to relate to Chaos as much as they do to the Empire or Lizard Men.

IMHO, that's the brilliance of Games Workshop: Their game has something for everybody!
Sales need to be made! Models need to be sold!



Anyway, to get back on topic:
It's irrelevant whether or not Alith Anar is a "good" or "evil" Elf.
He is a leader related to the factions of the High Elfs of Ulthuan, whether he runs his kingdom in a "good" or "evil" way, is irrelevant to the overall narrative.

He is bound to be an *ssh*le, just like everybody else.

[RED /(Weber)\]

Originally posted by Captain of the Empire:

> Bretonnia is a backwards, exploitative society, refusing to modernise for he sake of tradition and religion, not just surpressing, but downright and openly exploiting the poor in the name of "Rightiousness" and/or "Honor".

Well also because the Dwarves gave the Empire a tech boost through the simple act of giving them firearms tech, so the Empire could progress to a early Renaissance tech period.

[Rhedd]

Ignoring Captain's logical points for a moment and assuming that trying to protect the world is "good" and trying to destroy it in a storm of blood and pain is "evil", then there's literally no such thing as a "good Dark Elf". This isn't D&D, all of the Warhammer Elves are the exact same race. The only thing that makes a Dark Elf different from a High Elf is that they've decided to do evil things. Just like the only thing that makes a Wood Elf different from a High Elf is that they live in harmony with Athel Loren.