#asurya

Let is begin by doing something of a recap:

For all the sound and fury Gathering Storm brought with it, and 8th Edition brought with it as a result, only 4 significant changes.

The return of Primarchs as the primary agents of the narrative, subsuming the story into their own personal narratives as they did in Horus Heresy as clear symptoms of GW's continuing efforts to model 40k off the Horus Heresy and neglect aspects of the setting that do not resonate with the Horus Heresy fandom.

Primaris Marines as an excuse to make Space Marines even stronger because, apparently, GW will not be satisfied until a base Space Marine is slaying the Swarmlord.

The Cicatrix Maledictum as a stakes-raising threat with mixed results due to, as usual, GW's unwillingness to actually follow through and have the Imperium significantly, visibly, affected by loss, leading most of the threat of the Cicatrix Maledictum to be reduced to simple offscreen 'many worlds are threatened...somewhere...out there...by someone’ but almost never anything of import, or if something of import is threatened (Baal, Vigilus, Ultramar) the Imperium still wins and thus creates the same enduring pattern of the Imperium's consistent victories undercutting any sense of tension.

A brief intermission. Astute readers will have noticed something at this point: "Wait, doesn't every single one of these points ONLY impact or deal with Chaos and the Imperium?”

This is, of course, correct. An (un)intended consequence of 8th Edition has been to shove Xenos even further from the narrative than they have ever been. There was, however, in all of Gathering Storm, a single plot development that did impact the Xenos factions, one group of them at least:

The stirring of Ynnead, Yvraine's emergence as their prophet and the formation of the Ynnari as a movement to unite the Aeldari behind an actual, credible, chance at success for once.

In all this there was one chance at Xenos having agency, being important to the narrative. Sadly it was undercut in the very same book it was introduced to and reduced to serving primarily as only another vessel for further Imperial development. I've discussed before how enormously depressing, as a long time fan of the Ynnead plotline, it was to watch it's culmination end up having almost no import beyond buffing the Imperium.

It was gutting. It also continues to be gutting as GW and BL show little to no interest in ever developing the Ynnari at all beyond ‘the people who brought Guilliman back,’

I've said before the plot arc of the Ynnari was badly established from the get-go. To explain for those who do not know: Yvraine's Ynnari movement has only really one goal, something known as the Seventh Path. This is meant to be a method by which Ynnead can awaken and defeat Slaanesh without requiring all Aeldari to first die and join with them. Key to the Seventh Path is the gathering of five Croneswords, said to be the chewed off fingers of the goddess Morai-Heg. With the five Croneswords combined the Ynnari would be able to complete the Seventh Path, Ynnead would awaken, usurp Slaanesh's hold on all Aeldari souls, and the living Aeldari would not all need to die first to achieve it. 

This is not a terrible plot. It is a bit to much like an RPG Quest for a story geared mostly towards war, which explains why the Ynnari seem perpetually so small-fry and insignificant, they have no real motive to gather a major army and engage in major wars when their entire motive and cause is simply a series of fetch-quests. Still it is somewhat workable, particularly if rather than becoming their own faction the Ynnari are only intended to be a small group of flavourful characters you can add to any Aeldari army to give some variety.

However, sadly, GW again seems to have decided to shoot themselves in the foot. For in the very book where this motive is created the Ynnari gather every single Cronesword but one successfully. One does not need to be a student of literary studies to no why, in a setting that can have no definite end till the company's profit margins slip, having 4/5 of the objectives the faction needs to complete it's very reason for existing isn't a good thing to do. It majorly stymies the Ynnari's capacity for plot advancement as now every single quest and adventure they do relating to their core motive has to end in failure.

And this is what we've seen. Every single major book about the Ynnari relating to their objective always results in the Ynnari coming no closer to achieving their goal. It always ends in the Ynnari, usually, creating their own problem, getting their people killed, for no actual advancement of their cause. Unsurprisingly this is very unsatisfying to read if you invest in them and, as a result, has the side-effect of leaving people uninterested in the Ynnari as they seem, since raising Roboute, to simply never actually meaningfully impact the setting in any manner.

There were potential work-arounds on this matter, but that'd be a lengthy story so I won't go into it now. Suffice to say that it was poorly handled.

Then came the drought. Despite being introduced two years ago as one of the few major developments of the Gathering Storm, and despite being the only significant Xenos plot advancement since the tepid advancement of the Ghazghkull Supplement, the Ynnari simply...vanished. For two years, as 8th was hammered out, the Ynnari were almost completely gone. Barring two books from Black Library, they ceased to appear in codices almost completely and received virtually no attention. Come May there was an Index Xenos, the first and only so far, in White Dwarf dealing with them but...this turned out to literally only repeat existing fluff, adding not a single new piece of lore, unlike the comparable Index Astartes, and then largely served only as a nerf for the Ynnari due to their rampant success and domination of tournament scenes at the time. Basically: the only significant attention the Ynnari received in two years added no new lore and purely existed as a mechanical nerf.

The results of this are plain to see: though the Ynnari have left a mark mechanically on the game of 40k, mostly in the form of fervent hate for their ridiculously overpowered meta, their lore and fluff impact and role in the fandom is vanishingly small. For the only significant Xenos development of the entire last two years the Ynnari have almost no presence in the fandom and almost no interest in them. There is a single aspect of the Ynnari that has resonated among the wider fandom and crystallised and it is the nauseatingly cliché; ‘Yvraine's a girl so she has to have the hots for Guilliman’ angle of any female character helping a male main character ever. 

Now it should be clear: Xenos have a minute reception in the fandom even at the best of times. How many stories, pictures or memes do you know of Ghazghkull? Nazdreg? The Phoenix Lords? Lelith Hesperax? Any of the Necron characters? There are probably more fanworks of a single Space Marine Chapter than all Xenos fan-material combined.

So the Ynnari failing to make any impact of note, any major breakthrough, and then being left by GW to simply wither away into insignificance is indicative of the Company's unwillingness to actually support or make an effort to make a Xenos faction or character group important. 

Primaris Marines had a cold reception but were supported by waves of miniatures, stories which established the likes of Felix, and now already 6 Special Characters in the space of 2-3 months. By contrast the Ynnari triad have never even moved past being sold as a single box group, and they’ve received almost no further support at all. The Ynnari were the one chance for Xenos importance in 8th Edition but they landed poorly and then were for almost two years simply abandoned by GW to rot in darkness and apathy.

This brings us, at last, to Phoenix Rising and Blood of the Phoenix. Touted as a major shake-up, part of a series that would make the likes of the 13th Black Crusade look like a border scuffle, this was, seemingly, finally the chance for the Ynnari and the Aeldari at large to advance. It brought with it the marginal updates of some parts of the Asuryani’s atrociously ancient Aspect lines and the first plastic Phoenix Lord (of course whilst the Space Marines got no less than 4 of their characters redone in plastic in 2-3 months, no such luck for the Phoenix Lords). 

I don't need to go into too much depth on how this book simply failed. To put it in brief: it's marketing was very bad. It stressed the idea of a consistent plot, of a 'Phoenix Rising and Falling’ arc and of being a pivotal watershed for Aeldari lore, a new step forwards. Honestly the marking it so deceptive it's angering. Jain Zar and Drazhar's miniature previews were touted with slogans of ‘A Phoenix Rises’ and ‘A Phoenix Falls’, the preview video trailer involved a Shadowseer granting a human a psychedelic vision of Jain Zar and Drazhar in which she chants the same.

None of this happens. None of this matters. In Phoenix Rising not only do neither Jain Zar or Drazhar 'fall’ or ‘rise’ in any meaningful way but the two characters are almost completely exogenous. Jain Zar makes two small appearances of a couple of lines and Drazhar makes one single appearance to fail in a mission and then vanish from the storyline. 

What it turned out to be is 20 pages in which a select few items from the Codex Craftworlds timeline section: the Three Sisters, Alaitoc's attack against the Necron, Alaitoc avoiding a Daemon Prince, Iathglas, Fracture of Biel-Tan and Death Masque were simply repeated and given a page or two more information to lightly flesh them out. The only significant introduction of new lore it brought with it is an escalating series of attempts in Yvraine's life which always failed but always saw Yvraine fleeing with her army defeated.

Things were even worse for the Drukhari who got all of a page-and-a-half fleshing out their 8th Edition fluff in incredibly lazy and sparse detail.

Overall the book is far more valuable for the rules than the lore. The lore largely serves as a companion to the Craftworlds Codex which lightly expands on it. I feel particularly sorry if this is all the Drukhari are getting as well, as they were majorly side-lined in favour of the Asuryani and Ynnari in this book.

But then what of the Ynnari? This book was finally a chance for them to shine again, to move forwards again, to maybe diversify their plot, to expand on their culture, how they've grown, their influence, significant figures, battles, achievements, losses, how did they manage their alliance with the Imperium etc. etc. etc.

To put it bluntly there are a LOT of questions about the Ynnari that could use answering. To put it even blunter the book answered very little other than giving the Ynnari a large heaping new losses. Indeed, throughout the book, Yvraine and the Ynnari lose and retreat from practically every single battle till the final one.

The book does not look good for the Ynnari in terms of doing little to flesh them out and giving them very little in the ways of success. This is particularly galling since the book is, on it's back, stated to be about Yvraine, but within the book Yvraine does almost nothing ever but react to numerous attempts to murder her by losing and running away.

But what of the Ynnari's plot? Their narrative arc? Their agency? Sadly here is where we see, again, GW seemingly double down on making the Ynnari plotline inherently something that is hard to write or care about. 

The final Cronesword is now revealed to be within Slaanesh's Palace. This, for all intents and purposes, and as stated explicitly by the book, means mass suicide is now the only option the Ynnari have for awakening Ynnead. 

The narrative arc of the Ynnari has gone from: complete 4/5ths of their objective - vanish for two years from all relevance - return and instantly find out their entire objective has already failed.

For the only major Xenos protagonists at the moment, the only major Xenos narrative arc, it is a poor, awful, shitty fucking way to end things with a sad whimper.

This lack of a clear motive or narrative is shown in the book itself. Though Phoenix Rising is mostly just a recap and fleshing out of some Asuryani timeline fluff, the thread connecting it, the single story that can be found in it, is per the blurb of the book meant to be: Yvraine is trying to unite the Aeldari but Shalaxi Hellbane is hunting her.

The problem comes in the fact that because the book reveals the fifth Cronesword is now beyond Yvraine's reach, and this is known to Yvraine, by about the fifth page, the book doesn't actually have a plotline of Yvraine uniting anyone. Yvraine's plotline in the story is literally just; Yvraine runs like a headless chicken from one fight to another, always losing, makes a small team of mostly ladies, and then finally on Iathglas beats Shalaxi. But there is no expansion of their motive or agency. Yvraine is a purely reactionary character in this, always a very poor hallmark of a protagonist, who achieves nothing other than reacting to Shalaxi Hellbane's attempts to murder her. The only agency Yvraine exerts is to gather Jain Zar, Lelith Hesperax, a Solitaire, the Visarch and the Yncarne to help her fight. But even this ends up self-defeating because of that group the Visarch and Yncarne are always on her side, and thus no agency is needed to gain them, Lelith Hesperax has no plot involved in securing her aide, she just appears at the final battle, the Solitaire is recruited by a pair of side characters with Yvraine doing nothing and Jain Zar takes all of a few lines.

The result is Yvraine spends almost the entire book exerting no agency and simply losing and losing and losing till finally she reacts to Shalaxi and the final battle and wins. The less said on how ridiculous that final battle is the better, I will make a write-up about that event alone later.

So; the Ynnari motive has a bridge dropped on it, they receive little further expansion, Yvraine is an almost purely reactionary protagonist who exerts almost no agency, no Phoenix of any sort rises or falls, and Jain Zar and Drazhar are near completely exogenous characters to the story. 

Still. The final section of the book could at least have done something by using Yvraine's triumph over Shalaxi Hellbane as a metaphorical 'rise of the Phoenix’ by showing her taking command of the joint Aeldari forces their through this victory, showing how Shalaxi Hellbane's attempted assassination actually only strengthened Yvraine's position by giving her a moment to show the Aeldari the merits of unity. A clever writer would have tapped into the Aeldari's nature for prophecy and manipulation to even reveal that the likes of Eldrad and Yvraine had actually foreseen this and allowed it to transpire as it did, costing lives, but giving Yvraine a stronger hand among the Aeldari than ever before. This would at least give some credence to a name like ‘Phoenix Rising’.

But, alas, the final battle is Iathglas. The primary narrative thrust of Iathglas is that ‘Aeldari are dumb’ and the specific takeaway the Aeldari take from Iathglas is not that they should work together but, instead, it increased mistrust and disunity among them.

So what is the coda then? The final take-away from this book then appears to be largely one serving to show the Ynnari as a failed movement who do more harm than good, inciting more intercine conflict, failing to achieve their motives and agendas, and lacking the power to do almost anything other than flee from their foes.

After reading Phoenix Rising only one question really remains: 

What Phoenix Rose?

From what I can read there was no moment of ascendency, of rising from the ashes, of hope blazing into life from despair at all, not narratively, not for a character, not as a theme. If anything the theme of the book is; the Ynnari have already lost before they began. This is honed in by the atrocious ending of the final battle: Shalaxi is defeated through the combined efforts of the Yncarne, the Visarch, Yvraine, Jain Zar, Lelith Hesperax and a Solitaire...and then reveals that what took them all to beat was but a tiny fraction of Shalaxi's fullpower, revealing that apparently even if the greatest luminaries of the Aeldari join together under the Ynnari they still don't stand a chance against Slaanesh’s minion. This is a microcosm for the book's message: Even if the Ynnari unite all Aeldari they still don't stand a chance at escaping Slaanesh. 

The result is that for Aeldari fans, and Ynnari fans in particular, this ending is simply morose, dreadful and offering nothing to look forwards too or any Rising Phoenix to latch on to.

I said before that I worry the Rise of the Ynnari book series is over. It's been a year and a half now and there has been no noise about a potential third instalment. But, reading this, seeing GW's angle on the Ynnari, I understand why now.

What could a third book be about? The Fifth Cronesword can never be acquired. Now that the Ynnari know where it is they can't even have silly adventures looking for it and failing. What can their narrative arc or motive be? Books about them trying to convince all Aeldari to commit suicide? That's not a narrative thrust anyone cares for and since the Ynnari clearly don't have the military power to rival any of the Aeldari factions they cannot turn into a ‘kill them all’ faction at all. 

So...what do you do?

Games Workshop, seriously, what do you want Aeldari fans, Ynnari fans, to take from this? That we should just give up hope of ever achieving anything in the lore?

Since Death Masque I've been wondering, I thought it was just me, but I seriously do begin to wonder now, why does Games Workshop specifically seem to hate the Aeldari so much in the lore? More than any group the Aeldari are consistently, narratively, crushed, beaten down, and have their every effort failed or stymied unless said effort bolsters the Imperium.

Why is this?