Chaos and the universality of four

[Muninwing]

i like systems.

as a creative but disorganized person ( AKA "as a high-functioning ADHD individual with an adult diagnosis"), i’ve gravitated toward rigid systems that give me enough structure so that my life doesn’t fall apart in a stiff breeze. thus, paying attention to even complex ideas becomes easier if they make sense and can be seen as a greater part of a whole.

as a result, i have always had a pull toward chaos. it’s the ultimate opposite of structure, yet could not exist without any force to categorize and specify itself. given how often my life has seemed an utter mess of conflicting forces, i can empathize with the forces who fall, particularly out of a desire to do good. the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions, after all.

in much of the western canon, particularly in the depression that we call “american literature,” the failures of characters to realize where they have strayed off of those good intentions. from darth vader to holden caulfield, failure to see one’s own path becomes one’s own downfall. chaos might be that failure, might be the process of said failure, or might look at the rest of the world as that failure with them being the only ones who can prevent it. chaos champions are so polarized in one idea or another that they see their way as the ONLY way, and all others as corrupt or unworthy.

often, the number three is a pattern in and of itself. there is a start, a middle, and a finish. there are three example sets to show that someone has changed -- the person they were, the “good” reason they had to lead them astray, and who they become. jokes are often built on threes -- the father talks to his three children, the person sees something twice before asking about it the third time, three whatevers walk into a bar. why? because three is enough to show it’s not coincidence, but not so much that it beats the topic to death. three is enough to show similarity, then intrigue with difference. much of science and writing and math involve a three-step process: see, discuss, connect to a bigger idea… or find the knowns, interpret the unknown, set up an equation to lead you from one to the other. three is a powerful number within how we think and how we react. religiously, the trinity has included threes throughout european cultures. and three is the love triangle, the three musketeers (though in reality there are four), the three amigos, the three little pigs, the three knights on the grail quest (though in some versions there are four), the three primary colors (either paint or light, different but similar). genies grant three wishes. there is also the three wise men with their three gifts, and the three noble goals of alchemy (paired up by the poet H. D) -- the embalming agent (myrrh) and the philosopher's stone (granting eternal life), the gold and the transmutation of lead into gold, and the medicinal incense (frankincense) with the ultimate medicine (universal panacea). threes are a magical (or at least significant) set of concepts.

on the other hand, in many motifs, the number isn't three. it's four. particularly in those tied to a medieval aesthetic, four becomes meaningful and significant.

two sets of opposites. two axial scales. two traits to determine position on a cartesian plane. alignments based on similarity and difference. it's a great system, a logical and visual representation of dualities, and it creates tension. plus, the "one with two enemies" of a three-set is made that much richer by way of the opposition -- instead of being three who hate each other, there are allegiances that do not immediately upset everything. it’s not A hates B and C, but A hates C and grudgingly gets along with B and D (who hate each other), creating a political mess that does not end in a two-on-one teamup.

before anyone mentions Malal, yes i know that there are many chaos beings of many complicated ideas beyond the big four. Zuvassin and Necoho, and any others, fit in complicated ways into the four-square model, but have their own places as commentary (like outside observers commenting on the whole) on the square they form. it all rotates around the square.

think of this though...

"the estates of the realm" was a medieval arrangement of society into rigid categories, and while the french version was three (clergy, noble, and common), it's often written of in the modern age as four, including the soldiery -- making two fixed (noble versus common), and two adjustible (you might never become a cardinal or a general if you join the military as a commoner, but both took members of both sides of society). another version (the more common one) refers to either the bureaucracy of law, or to emerging and current media, as the “fourth estate” instead, but with the devolution of media into partisan branches they may as well be at war with themselves. for the purpose here, i’ll default to the less common version. it is interesting to note though that all three involve opposition, by definition (oppositional defense/prosecution of due process, politicized sides debating ideology with their coverage of events, and actual martial warfare).

indoeuropean mythology scholars breaks deities down into categories -- kingpriests, warriors, and nature/fertility gods. separating the first two out due to shifts in society brings us to that four-point system above.

also were the "four humors" -- medieval medicine based on how much of four elements you had in your body creating disorder and therefore disease. melancholic, sanguine, choleric, and phlegmatic. they in turn are based on hot versus cold and dry versus wet, another set.

i'd be remiss if i didn't bring in Hogwarts: gryffindor and slytherin, hufflepuff and ravenclaw. the brave, the cunning, the smart, and the hardworking.

of course we have the four elements (the western ones) -- fire, air, water, and earth. thank you captain planet for never letting me forget that one.

in GW-verse fluff, we have the four chaos gods. they in themselves are complicated: Khorne and Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch. hate and love, despair and hope. blood and excess, disease and change. each has counterparts within other gods of the realm (especially the Elf/Eldar gods, but one could make a case pre-AoS that Sigmar was just a non-negative Khorne-Khaine for humans, particularly in the long span of time between his disappearance and the beginning of the End Times. so too are each of the others a corruption of a basic human emotion.

i wonder if that will ever be explored? what caused Khorne to be a force of exaggeration of bravery and courage and a soldier’s determination to face his enemies for glory or money or to protect his family? what caused the warping of the love of learning and knowledge that makes Tzeentch from a Mercurian revealer of hidden knowledge to a Lovecraftian horror staring into the depths of intricate madness? if going by the older fluff, was it the “Old Ones” that created the polar gates and the Slann and the other mortal races who finally lost their war with the C’tan? was it a death-curse? or was it something else, like the presence of a deeper evil like the Shadow in the Warp, waking up hungry? what exactly shifted the warp from a reality formed from raw emotion to a shifting nightmare realm populated by daemons that all want to feast on every physical and spiritual aspect of your existence?

Even if that’s just that this world is “Grimdark,” it may not ever be satisfactorily addressed. still, it’s part of an established system, and those systems here are miltileveled. were i to make a single argument against the fluff that AoS has come up with -- though problems they could resolve, and at least one that i think will turn out to be one of their best ideas once they get to it -- it would be messing with such an established system.

look at it this way...

Khorne is blood and skulls... because Khorne (according to the Liber Chaotica) is based on Anger and Bravery, but corrupted from its positive and pure roots to only revel in the most destructive -- instead of being the fight for defense, or for a cause, or to uphold justice, it is just the fighting to kill. instead of being about righteous anger and justified revenge, it is boiled down to the bloodthirsty pursuit of (and the enjoyment of) the kill. but Khorne is also, of the four, the representation of the soldiers, the choleric, the gryffindors, and fire. the soldiery is obvious, those who make their lives at war. Choler is the quick-to-anger spark of the aggressive personality. Fire is the useful tool or the burning and consuming force of nature. and while horcruxes and PTSD explain well why Harry has so many uncontrolled outbursts (particularly in book 5), even in the beginning he has issues with outbursts of aggression or anger -- even if they are often on behalf of others.

Slaanesh is all sorts of excess, whether that be sex or debauchery or perfection or drugs or whatever. but (LC) Slaanesh is based on love, albeit love taken to an extreme, and love's drive for more compelling an individual to go too far. Slaanesh ties directly into the debauchery of the upper class in corrupt society -- from de Sade to Casanova to Bathory, all using their power to indulge whatever desires they had gravitated toward. It also fits the Slytherin’s self-indulging cunning (moreso with the “corrupt nobles” motif), sanguine (pleasure seeking), and air (traditionally paired with sanguine for its changeable and lofty nature).

Tzeentch, the god of change and mutation and planning, is (LC) attributed to be a corruption of the basic emotion of hope. the positive looking forward and planning for the future makes for a twisted, scheming, looping mass of plans-for-the-sake-of-plans and no final move. but as hope and knowledge, it is the ideal for the clergy -- the estate that would offer education to the bright regardless of level of birth. at the same time, knowledge has a long history connected to the changing moon, and that (and the depths of the mind) to water. all together, it's the Ravenclaw ideal, and the phlegmatic nature is tied in with introspection.

Finally, there is Nurgle. Disease, rot, decay, and the nature of all things to break down and fall apart. applied to regular life, this is the idea of despair (LC's interpretation), and giving up the fight against the unstoppable. it's ennui, it's surrender, and it's why people with lengthy illnesses (or whose families suffer from them) are prone to depression -- and for certain illnesses, a serious symptom is “general malaise” (or feeling like something is wrong and uncomfortable inside your body) that lends to mood changes and lethargy and depression. at the same time, those who come to terms with their terminal illness either sink into that depression, or have an odd sense of freedom -- a joy in what they have left and appreciation for what life really is, hence why Papa Nurgle and all his children, freed from the oppressive nature of mortality, are always pictured as so jovial. given how the peasantry were much more affected by plague and illness than the nobles who could flee (and could afford to hole up away from infection with supplies), and how hard and full of potential despair a commoner life could be, this is a no-brainer. add in the plague carnivals of old WHF to the accusations aimed toward actors (professional liars) for bring the plague to London (god's disapproval), and perhaps Nurgle is the most complicated and rooted in history. together with the element of the earth worked by the common people, the simple nature of the hufflepuffs, and the depressive nature of melancholia (which was also associated with earth), and this is also the most accurately depicted by the system.

An orderly, unified system. a wheel of opposites. a complex structure with four at odds with grudging allies and defined enemies.

now, get rid of Slaanesh for not being family friendly. and add the Great Horned Rat, because disease in cities and rats have been attached (rightly or no) since the advent of microbiology, conveniently forgetting some of the earlier implications that GHR was a powerful rebellious aspect of Nurgle. make Hashut a separate entity, instead of the fallen Khornate daemon.

don’t get me wrong -- Slaanesh lives. Archaeon's armor has its symbol, and not the GHR. the "circle-spike crown" symbol that people were freaking out about is the crown of Morathi. and that is a teaser i think we will see more of. Morathi being the force that rehabilitates and refocuses Slaanesh, causing the youngest of the chaos gods to arise more powerful than before. that GHR has been left out of the circle of four, and out of Archaeon’s new model, hints that they have plans to disrupt the skaven power and chaos alignment as well as no plans to drop Slaanesh out of the fluff. As much as i think going character-heavy (particularly with old characters instead of reinventing them for a new age) is simplistic and trite, it’s paying homage to its original source material.

still… it’s an odd gap between product lines. in one, there are only four chaos gods. in the other, there are five but one is missing. though in reality, there are (especially in the older WHF world materials such as the rpg) closer to seven or eight of significant power not including GHR and Hashut. and then the winds of magic too. so it will be interesting how they choose (perhaps with a worldwide event in a year or so) to use the difference between the two, if at all, to affect the other game. as much as they have declared them separate, each development and each enriching of a chaos god gives us a greater picture or concept of who and what they are -- meaning that they cannot be separate ideas, since at heart they stand for the same things.

[Mark Mitchell]

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[Muninwing]

i had forgotten about the Four Horsemen, and didn't want to go back and add them (i figured i'd been going on too long already).

though now that you mention it, it's a pretty interesting set.

also...

Chaos has a tendency to overcome itself.

One of the elements i have always found interesting is the dynamic of opposites.

the Liber Chaotica lists the Four as twisted incarnations of Love and Hate, and Hope and Despair. looking at each in turn, these definitions make sound sense. but what they do not mention -- probably because the LD considers each in turn instead of all together -- is that each individual aspect becomes its opposite in its downfall.

think about Khorne for a second. imagine the proud Knight, or the hero defending his home, growing stronger and more storied as he (or she) wages a personal war on those who challenge their ideals or their family or their country. eventually, their hatred for those who they call enemy, and their mastery of that hate and adversarial relationship is what makes them great, and they may begin to enjoy the fighting for its own sake. at that point is where Khorne would step in... and grant them a love of slaughter instead.

Nurgle releases those diseased from their earthly bonds, allowing them the nihilist's freedom and optimism (the freedom from expectations and the need for significant meaning). they are often pictured as joyful, because they have (as they saying goes) "nary a f**k to give." What else do they grant? a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as life beyond the slow misery of disease -- meaning that he returns hope in a different form to those who have given up, at the moment that they actually give in to despair.

Slaanesh is a particularly sad case. the Slaaneshi concept is excess and indulgence, maximization of enjoyment. what happens to many who engage in the "more for the sake of more" that embodies this? they become burned out, jaded, and unable to reach the same levels of pleasure from the same excesses as before. think of it on a modern scale -- people who listen to loud music, damage their hearing, and have to turn the music up to get the same effect, thus doing more damage. or the effects of drugs when the user becomes more used to their effects, and seeks a stronger effect in return. eventually, slaanesh turns the love of these things into excess, and the excesses turn the love into a jaded disregard (and eventually into a derogatory hate) of what has come before as it is no longer strong enough to give a reaction.

the last is Tzeentch. hope. the devotees who dip too far make plans-within-plans, digging deeper until they realize that there is no end and no endgame... and this realization of pointlessness is one of the most accepting-of-despair ideas that one could ever consider.

by its definition, chaos is self-defeating. unified, it would even eat itself.

thus, the idea that in the End TImes Chaos won is... problematic. and that Sigmar lived as some for of god-figure through that end is just as problematic. and that Chaos continued despite no sentient emotional life giving it strength is problematic. clearly, someone had a good idea and no place to put it, and the wrong idea-people got to run with an idea they did not understand.

[Mark Mitchell]

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[Sicarius182Uk]

I see Muninwing. So you are an advocate of Chaos. I get it. I understand. Chaos=Order etc. But the number of Chaos seems to actually be 5 equated with death. Malice or Malal. 4 is the Apocalyptic number as you rightly say the Horsemen. But it can also mean structure and order as in the four sides of a square-v stable. Would the number of the Imperium be 1 then? Or 20 for the founding Legions? But then you would have to multiply it by however number of Chapters have been created through succession. In your opinion what would be the number?

[Sicarius182Uk]

It is an interesting post/article you have written. Fascinating. In writing style. Etc. All valid points. I'd like to answer more about it but yes Chaos is interesting, the extremes but as you say connected and at the same time at odds. As Humans we are I think more drawn to the order of the Imperium but I get it. It is a kind of choice but at the same time our interests and experiences that influence it.