So Games Workshop just published a "40k is satire, nazis pls leave" statement. What do you nerds think?
Here's a link.
Does it fail as satire? Does this kind of thing work as good satire for specific people? Somebody explain.
i think that "satire requires a clarity of purpose blah blah blah" meme is the product of diseased minds. some people are just stupid, especially nazis. art isn't supposed to force everyone to have the one correct reaction to it and if it can't do that it's failed.
but also this is way late for them to start doing something about the nazi problem in the community.
Some nazis are just stupid and don't understand that this depiction is not an endorsement, but there's a good proportion (don't know the percentage) that are doing the "yes, but unironically" thing. The 40k lore is conductive to this because as the GW's statement points outs it's not a "ha-ha" kind of satire.
I just think WH40k kind of fails as satire because the type of storytelling they need to do is basically incompatible with satire. Like they have this long running universe with sure this evil fascist state, but contrasted against literal gods of death and decay and demons, which naturally makes even the fascists seem good in comparison. Also you publish like 60 books a year about the adventures of space marines from a variety of authors that clarity of satire is going to be lost rather quickly.
It's very similar to the satire issues you get in Judge Dredd, it's like yea he's a fascist cop executing people for minor crimes but the world he is operating in is a crime-ridden hell hole so it's easier to see it as necessary. I think the take away here is that British people need to stop making post apocalyptic future fascist satire.
At least with Dredd its written in a way that makes it very hard to take seriously.
Dredd has outgrown his origins in a lot of ways. He's a product of Thatcherite England and so much of the banality and evil of the post-Reagan/Thatcher world has become completely normalized, so the satire doesn't hit the same.
Every satirical universe like this explicitly needs to end with a pan out through the fourth wall, showing some gammon fuck roleplaying his fantasy with his pants around his ankles.
Disclaimer: Against my better judgement I’m a pretty big 40k fan even though I realise the fanbase is painfully infested with chuds and a lot of the content enables that.
Like the book took pains to make Inquisition or Space Marines or whatever seem as cool as possible, not ridicule them.
Interestingly from what I understand the earlier portrayals of Space Marines (going back to Rogue Trader, which was a D&D like tabletop game that I believe was the first ever 40k thing) were a bit better for this - They were roided out fascist thugs who were good at slaughtering targets softer than themselves but prone to hubris and fanatacism that would often get them killed in droves for basically no reason. There was a lot more lore about how the Imperium was barely functional and the cause of a lot of it’s own worst problems, too.
Unfortunately I think GW realised that dorks who loved the Empire were a good market so they gradually revised Space Marines to be perfect badasses (something that’s only gotten worse recently with the Primaris Space Marines who are basically Space Marines but with a tacticool aesthetic and with any interesting facets about how they can turn against the Emperor ironed out) and made the Imperium seem more functional. By and large in regards to Warhammer 40k related media it kind of depends on who’s writing it. Obviously being a Capitalist product a lot of the lore serves to sell overpriced miniatures too which probably stifles some of the creative intent behind it.
I guess ultimately it’s good that GW put this message out, although I can’t help but feel like they also massively enabled the worst parts of their fanbase with all the "Purge the Xenos the Emperor protects bolter porn blah blah blah :le-pol-face: " shit lmao
It doesn't help at all that they push the ubermensch marines so hard while neglecting their other lines. The space elves have models more than twenty years old, the rape elves are even more out of date, god knows what's going on with orks, and do they even sell guard anymore? The only line that consistently gets new models, new lore, and new books is the space marines. I mean the poor bolter bitches barely even have an army
rape elves
excuse me what
There was a lot more lore about how the Imperium was barely functional and the cause of a lot of it’s own worst problems, too.
aint that still how it works
Depends. A lot of the books make things seem more functional because it's hard to tell an interesting story when things are too grimdark. And they've turned away from the good old days when the Space Marines were so honor bound that they would do stupid shit like marching in a firing line in to enemy anti-tank fire FOR THE EMPRAH. Now the marines use tactics and shit.
When handled by better writers very much so, but I've seen a lot of cringe "The Empire is super evil but it's the only thing stopping humanity from being wiped out" bs before
I think that even with GW literally spelling it out for them most of the cryptofascists who idolize it will carry on carrying on unperturbed.
Makes sense. "Death of the author" is a double-edged blade.
What could work is to push a sessesion narative over this, to make the Nazis split from the main fandom and then fade to irrelevance. Like, seed the idea that this is going wrong and that they need their own even more fascist version that hardly nyon with a brain would support. Could keep em distracted though
The only way to defeat them is by printing your own Girl Marines.
I'm not really into 40k, but my group to played the Dark Heresy ttrpg for a bit and I could never figure out how this kind of satire supposed to work. Like the book took pains to make Inquisition or Space Marines or whatever seem as cool as possible, not ridicule them. Novels and faction (?) books might be different, I dunno.
People on twitter are angry and calling GWS a "nazi bar". Then again I know leftists who swear by the setting...
I think the problem is that little kids who played warhammer grew up to be writers who write warhammer and they've forgotten that the nazi genocidal space empire is supposed to be tongue in cheek.
Yeah they have a real problem with the space marine fan boys, every fascist I've ever encountered who was into 40K played space marines because they obviously salivate over being "inherently superior" to the masses.
Playing Guard against them is very fun because exploding from a mortar round fired by some acne scarred teenage conscript is just about the funniest and least dignified end possible for their beloved immortal uber-soldiers.
Mfs out here playing Buzz Lightyear while I'm playing Stalingrad.
I could never figure out how this kind of satire supposed to work.
Judging by the letter, it doesn't. But then people think I'm ridiculous for suggesting that maybe dressing up kids as storm troopers or Darth Vader isn't the greatest idea. So what do I know?
Absolutely fails in its current state. If there's anyone responsible for attracting fascists to it, it's GW for for the way it's depicted the Imperium for decades.
Also, apparently chuds were mad when a recent book had a black ultramarine on the cover. But as far as i know this is literallly the first black person ever pictured in warhammer art. You're telling me that humanity has spread to thousands of planets with a population of trillions and everyone is just a white british guy with an aquilline nose?
But as far as i know this is literallly the first black person ever pictured in warhammer art
It's not the first, 40k art is white as low fat mayonnaise, but like, 5% of the human artwork is of black people.
One of the Emperor’s 20 sons, Vulkan He’stan is black, as are the Salamanders, his legion and all of their successor chapters.
They’ve got their own their own models rules and lore books with pictures of them on the front cover.
There was a recent series of 40k childrens books called Warhammer adventures chuds got big mad about that had a black child protagonist featured on the cover art.
And just generally in the 40k lore and art when they’re depicting humans some are depicted as black.
In universe it’s shown as everyone’s too busy hating aliens and mutants to be properly racist to other humans. What’s really problematic, and a big part of the reason why 40k has so much appeal to fascists, is that the imperium’s extreme violent xenophobia towards aliens, mutants and people with different religions is typically portrayed as wise and justified. There is orders of magnitude more 40k media about the Imperium’s extreme xenophobia saving billions of people from horrible deaths than there isof it causing problems or biting the imperium in the arse. It’s often portrayed as horrible, there’s a lot of “we firebombed this entire city of innocent people to kill 1 (one) genuinely dangerous heretic” or “if you fail in your mission space marine we will have no choice but to glass the entire planet from orbit” but it’s not portrayed as ineffective. It’s generally shown that if that one heretic was allowed to live or the mission failed then the entire planet or star sector would die such horrible deaths they would be begging us for the swift release of an orbital bombardment we would no longer be capable of delivering 😔.
Which is the sort of strength and sacrifice, death before dishonour, murder 100 to save 1000, hard men making hard choices slop fascists absolutely adore, so of course they love 40k and games workshop, being spineless capitalists, are more than happy to feed into it and write a once satirical anti fascist piece of media entirely unsatirically so long as they don’t have to engage with real life fascism. This statement is nice, but unless they seriously re-evaluate how they present fascists (as cool horribly effective ubermensch who do WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE) they’re not going to impact the portion of their audience that is fascist or their ideologically based enjoyment of the media Games Workshop is putting out.
there are no goodies
I always liked the Tau but I never got further than painting some figures and playing one or two skirmishes with a friend. Do the Tau suck in some way?
Cultures without art of their own will glom unto satire as if it were a compliment.