Why We Love Erebus | Warhammer 40K Lore

Erebus is likely the single most loved character in the history of Warhammer and no I don't mean that as a joke in the slightest [Music] boo you stink but now hear me out genuinely hear me out when people say F aribus and that sort of thing to me it always did seem as a kind of affection for this character in a way if that makes sense like I've never once seen anyone have that kind of hatred for a Rebus that I have for John grammaticus my mortal enemy where it's oh he just destroys the story he ruins everything just by being in it God I hate it when he shows up no he absolutely is the quintessential man you'll love to hate like if ever a Time came where they said oh we've ret condoribus or we just killed him off for whatever reason don't worry y'all hate him so much so now he's gone hooray there would be such groans and eye rolling people would miss him the second he was gone the same way you would hopefully miss me if I was gone that's why you should subscribe to the channel but in all seriousness this video seeks to really pick erebus's brain really delve into his history and explain why he is the way he is as well as everything he's done and just get into the general trivia around this character so as to explain why I and so many others love him so much and to start off with that name of his Erebus it is supposed to be pronounced arabis in the Canon but a lot of people do pronounce it iribus and I honestly do switch back and forth the reason it's okay to switch back and forth is because both pronunciations are technically wrong in reality it's actually pronounced eravos in the original Greek and yes it is a Greek name specifically ervos is the Greek deity personifying Darkness he's actually one of the children of chaos the primordial state that existed before creation hence why it's so fitting that his background story written by Chris wraith is called Erebus child of chaos a side note there Warhammer actually does this now and again where it will take some mythological figure or deity and name an evil character after them aramin for example is is actually a figure from Zoroastrianism that is essentially analogous to Satan or the devil when we first meet Erebus in the Horus heresy I think it's really telling that his opening action is to effectively start destroying everything in the opening volley of meeting this guy he becomes immediately responsible for killing God knows how many millions or even billions of people and I think there's just something beautiful about that for those who don't know what he did was when Horus and his expedition Fleet met up with a human offshoot called The interex Who were highly Advanced with a developed culture a working knowledge of chaos and their own very strong military structure as well as a more Progressive way of thinking regarding xenos Erebus sabotaged their negotiations by stealing from them and burning a building yeah that's our introduction to this character and believe me it only gets better because what he's stole from the interex was the anathame blade a type of sword imbued with power by the kinebrack a Xeno Ray subjugated by the interex and carried as sort of Junior Partners in their empire that has sorcery to it wherein if you speak a name to it it has a nemesis he would later give it to a former friend of Horus named Eugene temba a now corrupted by nergal planetary governor on Davin this wounding of Horus by Eugene temba with the anathame something Tembo was only able to do because it was the Anna theme that possessed the name of Horus caused Horus to go into essentially a catatonic state where aribus could go into his dreams and start influencing him towards chaos now we've all come to accept that hey arribus is responsible for bringing Horus to the side of chaos the heresy is his fault yada yada but let's take a moment to stop and appreciate the sheer god-tier plan in going into that he had to make sure he a was with the lunar wolves B that the lunar wolves would by chance because it was mostly by chance come into contact with the interacts C be able to get this heavily guarded artifact and cause enough chaos to spark war between the Advanced interact civilization and the Imperium of man how much planning went into this when did the planning start how much of this was luck and how much of this was his pure genius and how much of this was the gods of the warp alfarious could never holy [ __ ] iribus's preferred nickname for himself is quote the hand of Destiny now people actually make fun of him for that in Canon but by God does he deserve it he has absolutely earned such an audacious name hand of Destiny indeed there is actually a name for this specific Trope that aribus embodies it is a character archetype called The Magnificent bastard third and it's because it gets you to stop and say you magnificent bastard they are awful and repugnant but so charming and intelligent and when you see a character like this have their plans come to fruition so perfectly it is so rewarding and you can't help but root for them in a way nobody and I mean nobody ever says oh Rebus is lame I just don't like him he's a lame story element he's not a good character okay now that I said it some people might try and say it in the comments but be realistic you cannot hate a character this smooth what's always made me gravitate to characters who are so unrepentantly and simply evil in this way is because a lot of the really cool things a character does can get bogged down with a clunky backstory that makes you think yeah what happened to you is bad but it doesn't really justify any of this it all feels disproportional it all feels out of really character but when someone is so perfectly evil like this it all just fits so well even at his lowest points he still manages to win that's what stops aribus from being something like a quote-unquote Mary Sue we see him struggle we see him Panic we see him fail and get thrown out but he keeps coming back he keeps getting back up and he never loses that insufferable smug attitude the big examples of aribus failing are the fact that he a got beaten down by Karn to a pulp B got thrown out by lorgar and C got nearly killed by Horus himself and then effectively had to go it alone for the rest of the siege of Terra you know he actually says as much himself that that's impressive specifically he is known for having killed argel tal the leader of the gal vorback and someone Karn the betrayer was very very close to Karn when he finds out about this beats arabis so badly in such an intimidating way and when I say intimidating I'm mean completely calm he just beats Erebus to the ground looks at him and says get up Beats him down again says get up Beats him down again get up this is the first time we see Erebus well and truly lose his cool he thinks to himself no I can't die like this this can't be it out of the thousands of possibilities I've foreseen this was never it I'm the hand of Destiny I can't die like this and he actually does an emergency teleport off of the Conqueror Flagship and actually circling back that's one thing people hate him for is having killed argeltal who was such a great character but even his killing of argeltal says so much his controlling of events his smug superiority as he directs everything from the Shadows because he had foreseen that Argyle tall's friendship with Karn would draw Karn away from chaos and you can't have that even when killing his brother argel he's so smug about it that I just cannot hate him for it it's not that annoying anime girl that you see weird people on Twitter do it's such an unmitigated sense of cruel superiority as he mocks argeltal in his dying moments and for a lesser character he would just get away with this but it really comes back to bite him in the ass and that's what I love that's not even the worst of his humiliations because after the failed Battle at cygnus Prime and ill-fated attempt to try and turn sanguinius and the blood angels over to the worship of corn which almost did work but ultimately was a complete failure Erebus blamed Horus to his face with an athame dagger he got from Erebus himself all because Erebus is so arrogant he couldn't control his mouth for five minutes it's one of those rare moments we see Erebus panic and even then he actually does take it like a champ effectively waving his Warriors away knowing that what's about to happen is gonna happen no matter what and even after this he still turns up later in the heresy in the book Vulcan lives where are in he kills some fellow wordbearers who were still loyal to him because Erebus and gives the fulgarite that's a different kind of worms to John grammaticus I would say that's probably the worst thing about Erebus he had the opportunity to kill John grammaticus and didn't take it it's this consistent ability to stay in the fight despite acknowledging his own ass kickings that makes him so compelling he recounts his own failures and then acknowledges the fact that a lesser man would have just quit would have just slunk into the Shadows happy to be alive and licked his wounds but not him that's not how he plays and we get some really amazing insight into his life before the Marines as to why he is the way he is this comes from the aforementioned short story child of chaos part of what makes this story so interesting is the format of it because it's Erebus recounting his life story to an invisible narrator and acting as though there is someone in the room with him almost as if he's talking to a remembrancer it's here we finally find out why he is the way he is and what happened to make him into the man he is that being literally nothing for all intents and purposes his family life was normal he was just an average colchician child with little to do little to gain and who would have been completely unremarkable if it not for one thing in particular Erebus has a raging case of anti-social personality disorder in the more common parlance he's a sociopath as a child what he would do to deal with his boredom was sit in the shade of his house and find scorpions in the sand he would then proceed to dismember them with his fingers for fun seeing how much of them he could pull off before they died and he would get stung he recounts a specific instance where he was stung so badly he spent weeks in bed racked with sweats and fevers and chills and it really seemed like he would die he barely pulled through and immediately after he was back in the shade of his house playing quote unquote the Scorpion game cruelty towards animals a disregard for one's own safety and repeated risk-taking Behavior are some of the clear indicators especially in young people for anti-social personality disorder and it only gets worse as he increases his pension for manipulativeness and a desire to hurt other people this is the Crux of the man we know as Erebus and I use that term very specifically because Erebus is not Erebus we don't actually know his true name because his mother once said to him why can't you be more like that other kid in the village the one who writes in Henna words from the holy texts on his face everybody loves him why can't you be more like Erebus so he takes that to heart and garats Erebus to death and this isn't just some random act of violence there's a method to this madness and that's another thing for people with antisocial personality disorder oftentimes things have a design behind them it's not wanton the reason for this is because Erebus himself States in any other situation he would have just been stuck working some kind of trade for the rest of his life being a carpenter or what have you or a Potter but he didn't want that he wanted ever since he was little to be rich he wanted to be powerful he wanted to be bathed in luxurious robes and have a palace with a fountain and lots of quote pretty young things lounging around the way to do this would be getting in with the priesthood that existed on coaches before lorgar's rise to power he recognized them as extremely corrupt and his first thought was man I want to be corrupt too that looks awesome so he killed the Erebus who was famous took his reputation and his name and used that to get in with the clergy at a young age becoming a quote-unquote prodigy child who everybody loved but despite all that Garb it was all a facade those tattoos he had on his face none of it really ever meant anything to him to start with but eventually it did start to really hit home with him these words of chaos is that didn't he didn't know what they were but that is what they were began to really resonate with him on the inside and eventually he began to believe it himself he wasn't just citing scripture to get people to like him he was doing it out of a bit of a genuine sense of earnest but he still never lost that incredibly selfish manipulative Edge and one day day he looked at his face in the mirror and saw four aspects of himself staring back at him that's when he began to worship chaos that's when he understood chaos and became the arabis we know today he looked in the mirror and realized chaos had been directing him ever since the beginning that is so cool to me now obviously nothing good lasts forever and eventually lorgar would begin his conquest of the planet spreading his more monotheistic Faith predicting the emperor and magnus's arrival on colches so lorgar and his fellows who understood the true nature of what they were worshiping went underground doing their best to keep the real Faith alive as lorgar spread but they would eventually jump ship and join lorgar's side because that's part of the thing with Erebus he has no problem switching sides and being with whoever will support him if he gets to operate how he sees fit from the shadows and secretly direct events he does eventually through a lot of machinating getting close with lorgar and that's not just for the reasons of chaos because apparently chaos had sort of had its eye on logar from the beginning and Erebus knew that it's actually for erebus's own enjoyment more than anything because Erebus explains like the sociopath he is he views people a lot like the Scorpions he used to play with as a kid he likes to get close to the biggest most powerful ones and see how long it takes him to get stung because risk-taking behavior is a big part of anti-social personality disorder that's why things like getting beaten by Karn or flayed Alive by Horus don't phase him all that much or take him out of the fight because it's all part of the game to him similarly when he first lays eyes on the emperor he sees the biggest scorpion he's ever seen and the only thought in his mind while the whole planet is on its knees in Rapture on colches is exhilaration at the sight of the man that he will bring low he knew this from the first moment he laid eyes on the emperor and he did the entire galaxy was brought to its knees and has been burning for ten thousand years all because of the little boy sitting in the shadow of his house playing the Scorpion Game Jesus Christ and what's more he acknowledges how much people hate him he knows how many people despise him and how they want answers they want some closure about him and he does not care he literally laughs to saying you're probably gonna want some closure you'll want some defining moment in my life you can point to and that can be regretted over but the fact is there isn't one I've always been this way even characters like the Joker have some sort of quote-unquote message to them where they're like oh it's all Society it's there so one bad day or something like that not Erebus he is pure evil distilled to its best Essence and I love it it even gets better from here because he spends a bunch of time hunting down alanius Pearson in his group and eventually kills erdog the mother of the primarks sure he summons four greater demons to do it but he does kill her a supremely powerful entity and character everybody hated I've actually seen people joke that having Erebus kill erda was supposed to make Chris seems sympathetic or make us like her by having her killed off by the quote unquote biggest villain in 40K but it just made everybody cheer Erebus on people literally cite that as one of his redeeming qualities even when he realizes that erda played him in death by delaying him he still doesn't Flinch he just realizes that and says huh I guess there's surprise is in for me yet onward and upward I suppose then crushes one of her belongings under his heel and walks off through a rift so impertinent so slick he does not slip that was back in the book Warhawk and now we're closing in on the end in the death Vol 2. we haven't really heard much of him since then but I do believe in the final book he will have a role to play one thing we do need to keep in mind though is we know what happens to Erebus after the heresy so don't expect him to die in the last book because he is known to be one of the main members of the ruling dark Council on the word Bears Demon World in the eye of Terror sicaras with lorgar questioned away in meditation for the last 10 000 years it's Fallen to him and core Ferron to quote unquote rule the word bears but in reality they just squabble against each other for power and influence something he actually enjoys doing because he finds corferon to be unthreatening and effectively a Jester of the Legion as I have previously stated the word bearers ever since the opening of The Great Rift have been making a lot of moves in terms of spreading the dark faith in engaging what is known as a war of Faith against the Imperium to topple the Imperial cult so there is a good chance we could see him return to the setting especially since coron recently has returned at least in a small capacity now when he does return it's unsure what exactly he'll do or how much of a role he'll play but one thing can be for certain he's gonna be doing what he's always been doing working in the back line and pulling strings in that puppet Mastery way that made us love him so much and hate him just as much Erebus himself actually comment comments on this saying people hate him because he's a quote-unquote traitor but despite the fact that he is the architect of the greatest betrayal in Galactic history he claims that to be a complete misnomer stating I am no traitor I was always in League with chaos I am what I have always been and he explains why that's how the chaos gods have come to Value him so much because in their ever shifting games and machinations he provides the one thing nobody else really could stability and consistency because Erebus is Erebus and he was Erebus before he even was Erebus and he always will be I for one really want him back because lately in Warhammer things have been very Brute Force if you know what I mean a lot of really big actions people slamming into each other arcs of omen there tyranits there the Lion's back Gilman's fighting off the demons and getting Tara under control I think it's been missing this level of subtlety and scheming that punctuated a lot of the earlier stages of the heresy and is something I always really really loved but what do you guys think do you guys think arabis will bring a lot to the setting if he returns or would he just be a relic of a bygone age clinging to relevance despite the fact that his star has fallen do you guys like Erebus at all or do you just think he's a [ __ ] character and despising the guy does actually kinda mean you like him because that means he did his job effectively I'd love to hear your guys opinions on the character in the comments below and until then I will see you in the next video

Channel: Live! From The Black Library

Views: 25,194

Keywords: warhammer40k, 40klore, imperiumofman, horusheresy, chaosspacemarines, chaos space marines, erebus, word bearers

Id: 32rYzyVDneo

Length: 20min 38sec (1238 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2023