I love Night Lords!
I don't think I really articulated why and I've been trying to figure it out in a way that makes sense to me. It's not just like, "oh, haha Konrad was right (he both is and is not)" or "sadism is so fun in stories (because it is)"
I think I love Night Lords because they remind me of every single edgy, lonely teenage boy I knew and loved and spent time with listening to. They're the cringe of my childhood, the "What if Justice was Evil" gritty reboot that didn't make much sense. They're every flavor of edgelord crammed into a package colored my favorite color and crowned with the heraldry of my favorite animal.
They're the legion of paradoxes and they know it. They're honest about loving to kill and maim and torment, they're creative artisans of pain but declare that their legion has no art or motivation for art. They're sarcastic but claim no sense of humor. They don't understand beauty. They stare blankly instead of responding. They're passive aggressive. They'll cut your arm off if you keep touching them after they tell you not to, enforcing their boundaries by violence.
Talos wanted to be a hero. Talos wanted to be a hero so badly, but he was born on Nostramo and Nostramen don't get to be heroes.
Gendor Skraivok is worried about his own men and manipulates them casually and cruelly. He was nobility, but that means nothing. They will gut him if he makes one wrong move as their master, rendering his position oddly egalitarian.
Kellenkir and Kellendvar are brothers, entirely codependent and enmeshed. Kellenkir made himself into a monster to protect his younger brother, who remains disturbed by the Legion activities. Kellendvar used to pray that the Night Haunter return and end the violence.
Uzas, caught up in bloodsport, no longer knows who he is or where he's at. All that matters is that the blood flows more, more, more, to soothe the ache inside his head. There's honor inside him, somewhere. He can be trusted to defend their Navigator. He doesn't know where he is anymore.
And there are more! I love Night Lords, so, so much. The futile legion, the hopeless, the ones locked in the nightmares that they make for other people. It was never about making compliance easier. It was always about making compliance easier. It was always predetermined. Always.
Except that it was never predetermined.
