I agree there are problematic elements, most exemplified by the whole “no girls allowed” nonsense so much of the fandom engages in (tho the addition of female Custodes has been a welcome development) and the Slaanesh faction, which is in dire need of more fleshed out characterization
But I don’t agree with there being a genuine lack of mockery of fascism, there’s just so much to pick from, take for instance this single excerpt from one of the most popular space marine novels, where the undoubted protagonist of the novel slaughters alien refugees, the point is absolutely obvious, and the satire is blatant, the space marines literally lose their humanity as they descend into bloodlust, if a nazi looks at that and thinks COOL then who gives a shit, 99% of people reading that excerpt understand what’s being described
Mockery of fascism that leans on how evil it is fundamentally fails because that is the point of fascism. Many believers unironically are aware of these things and subscribe to them exactly because they view them as necessities, not because of outside forces, but vaguely gestures human nature or something.
As long as space marines are Epic Tier Iron Man Shiny Cosplay and/or Tacticool Secret Agent that’s on every piece of promo art and game art for the game, no amount of lore-based satire will have any relevancy. Warhammer 40k is fundamentally a visual game first and while the in-universe diegetic reality may be that the space marines are actually evil and therefore the writers aren’t complete fascists, the company still pumps out toy after toy and book after book that portrays these clean, shiny, but still human and Cool imperial soldiers while having all of their significant opposition be seemingly purposely inhuman, faceless beings (even the Eldari have full face helmets that are shaped weirdly) or grotesque monstrosities, it will still be a Hitlerite game through and through. No fascist cares how evil they’re portrayed as long as they come out looking cool, because people care about that, and they know they care about that. When it comes to the “new wave” of terminally online Hitlerites, making themselves seem good comes later, once they collect enough support to make it happen. And also why would anyone read the lore when they could actually play the game
People do not get into Warhammer 40K for the boxart or even the figurines, they get into it because of the LORE, that’s not an in-universe diegetic reason, that is the literal motivation for why people in the real world consume this product, it’s pure nerd shit distilled, it’s Verhoeven, it’s Hellraiser, it’s Dune, its Isaac Asimov meets gothic horrors meets Lovercraft meets Moorcock
Aesthetics does not define art alone, what matters is what is being said, what is the nature of the satire, the critique, the presentation being shown thru in-universe elements and characters, and for that 40K can’t be “Hilterite” for the simple reason that FASCISTS DO NOT MAKE FUN OF THEMSELVES and that crtitical mockery is present even in the most bolter porny, tacticool crap produced by GW and certainly present in the actual worthwhile productions
Again if the expectation is you can’t make satirical anti-fascist art without guaranteeing every single nazi out there will get it and hate it then frankly no one can make any anti-fascist art whatsoever
The whole point of online discourse around Starship Troopers wasn’t that Verhoeven shouldn’t have made the film, the point is fascists are brain-dead and their opinions of art should ever be taken seriously, let alone form the reactionary crux of how leftists should create and interact with art themselves
If a fascist likes it, I can’t like it, well ok, have fun with that
If a fascist likes it, I can’t like it, well ok, have fun with that
I never said this???
you can enjoy it perfectly fine while still acknowledging the original text has a problematic degree of fascism apologia in it. You don’t have to just drop everything you enjoy because Hitlerites have their hands in it, otherwise you wouldn’t enjoy anything because our entire culture is tainted by shitty people
People do not get into Warhammer 40K for the boxart or even the figurines, they get into it because of the LORE, that’s not an in-universe diegetic reason, that is the literal motivation for why people in the real world consume this product,
uhhh no i’m pretty sure people get into the miniatures game for the cool miniatures and not because of the obscure lore books 10% of the game’s playerbase actually reads
i care about this stuff because i like the game, because i don’t want it to be easy for fascists to just post weird hitler memes using it’s characters, or for them to push marginalized people out of our spaces without anyone noticing. this sort of “no actually we already have changed enough” mindset is fundamentally just a defeatist acceptance of their intrusion
Aesthetics does not define art alone, what matters is what is being said, what is the nature of the satire, the critique, the presentation being shown thru in-universe elements and characters, and for that 40K can’t be “Hilterite” for the simple reason that FASCISTS DO NOT MAKE FUN OF THEMSELVES and that crtitical mockery is present even in the most bolter porny, tacticool crap produced by GW and certainly present in the actual worthwhile productions
hard disagree, again, mockery that relies on “these people are wrong and evil” doesn’t work in this case. the people it is mocking are not affected by this criticism, their beliefs are fundamentally in strength and performance. without needling their strongman personas and aesthetics it’s a toothless satire, just like it would be if it only focused on making fun of those aesthetics without criticizing their ideology. and as long as the people they’re fighting are always just as evil if not more so it’s pointless regardless
Again if the expectation is you can’t make satirical anti-fascist art without guaranteeing every single nazi out there will get it and hate it then frankly no one can make any anti-fascist art whatsoever
you don’t have to guarantee anything, just if you have a thriving hitler follower community in your game’s playerbase you may have taken a wrong step with your satire somewhere
The majority of fans literally cannot afford the miniatures lmao, I was serious when I said the majority of the fandom are in it for the lore, not simply books or comics, but youtube, video games, TV shorts, the wikis, the tabletop game is in a firm last place for the simple reason it’s freakin expensive as a hobby, people don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on this shit. And even then, why would anyone buy a specific min if they don’t care about the backstory behind the figures? And this has become especially true after the success of Space Marines 2
Also those lore examples I gave aren’t simply representative of “10% of lore books nobody reads” they’re representative of the vast majority of the lore, you can keep asserting without proof that the mockery “doesn’t work in this case. the people it is mocking are not affected by this criticism” when in reality the 40K chuds are famous for doing nothing but complaining that their faction is unfairly being represented as incompetent, evil, and gross. The fascists who like this game are affected by the critique because they’re constantly whining about it and throwing fits every time new lore about their favorite faction drops, again to the point where that whining becomes the butt of countless memes
Again I think you’re letting the chuds lead you by the nose when it comes to this franchise, is GW trying to have it’s cake and eat it too with the way they unduly focus so much of the narrative on the imperium at the expense of other factions, along with their obsession with tacticool aesthetics, yes absolutely, it’s a capitalist game company. But the satire, the mockery, and anti-fascist subtext are still fully intact and still pissing the chudy fans off to the point they have to rely on fan fiction to get their nazi rocks off, fan fiction that is widely mocked among a fandom that isn’t exactly all that progressive
Warhammer 40K isn’t the kind of satire that’s gonna hit bullseye 100% or even 80% of the time, that wasn’t even true during the 80s, but considering the wasteland of anti-fascist satire out there, I’ll take my cool 75% hit ratio thank you very much
Ok with seeing you spelling out your opinion very explicitly I probably shouldn’t have argued that much. Yeah the satire definitely still exists. I do disagree that it’s entirely effective or great satire -a lot of plot elements including the “recently” reintroduced Guilleman make it really difficult to peace apart. But I don’t think you would think it’s perfect either. And you’re right that chuds are basically always only coping by thinking the setting actually fully validates them. I just think the satire could be improved without dumbing it down, and obviously I believe the issue with why it hasn’t been improved in these more effective ways is because GW can’t really afford to make the cognitive dissonance of their (as you have pointed out relative minority) of miniatures-game players too great when they see the shiny tacticool man game box
I just think the satire could be improved without dumbing it down
I couldn’t agree more, that’s why I’m cautiously optimistic about the recent direction of the franchise, compared to pre-2017 I’ve noticed a more critical tinge to alot of the writing (which personally I believe is the result of Trump and the politics centered around him) even tho alot of the problematic and annoying aspects still remain
I agree there are problematic elements, most exemplified by the whole “no girls allowed” nonsense so much of the fandom engages in (tho the addition of female Custodes has been a welcome development) and the Slaanesh faction, which is in dire need of more fleshed out characterization
But I don’t agree with there being a genuine lack of mockery of fascism, there’s just so much to pick from, take for instance this single excerpt from one of the most popular space marine novels, where the undoubted protagonist of the novel slaughters alien refugees, the point is absolutely obvious, and the satire is blatant, the space marines literally lose their humanity as they descend into bloodlust, if a nazi looks at that and thinks COOL then who gives a shit, 99% of people reading that excerpt understand what’s being described
And here we have GW literally making allusions to 20th century lynchings of black Americans in a scene describing the lynching and burning alive of suspected “mutants”, I mean come on how blatant does the satire have to get before we acknowledge, just because there are nazis in a fandom doesn’t mean the writing caters to them, because it certainly doesn’t in those examples I gave
Mockery of fascism that leans on how evil it is fundamentally fails because that is the point of fascism. Many believers unironically are aware of these things and subscribe to them exactly because they view them as necessities, not because of outside forces, but vaguely gestures human nature or something.
As long as space marines are Epic Tier Iron Man Shiny Cosplay and/or Tacticool Secret Agent that’s on every piece of promo art and game art for the game, no amount of lore-based satire will have any relevancy. Warhammer 40k is fundamentally a visual game first and while the in-universe diegetic reality may be that the space marines are actually evil and therefore the writers aren’t complete fascists, the company still pumps out toy after toy and book after book that portrays these clean, shiny, but still human and Cool imperial soldiers while having all of their significant opposition be seemingly purposely inhuman, faceless beings (even the Eldari have full face helmets that are shaped weirdly) or grotesque monstrosities, it will still be a Hitlerite game through and through. No fascist cares how evil they’re portrayed as long as they come out looking cool, because people care about that, and they know they care about that. When it comes to the “new wave” of terminally online Hitlerites, making themselves seem good comes later, once they collect enough support to make it happen. And also why would anyone read the lore when they could actually play the game
People do not get into Warhammer 40K for the boxart or even the figurines, they get into it because of the LORE, that’s not an in-universe diegetic reason, that is the literal motivation for why people in the real world consume this product, it’s pure nerd shit distilled, it’s Verhoeven, it’s Hellraiser, it’s Dune, its Isaac Asimov meets gothic horrors meets Lovercraft meets Moorcock
Aesthetics does not define art alone, what matters is what is being said, what is the nature of the satire, the critique, the presentation being shown thru in-universe elements and characters, and for that 40K can’t be “Hilterite” for the simple reason that FASCISTS DO NOT MAKE FUN OF THEMSELVES and that crtitical mockery is present even in the most bolter porny, tacticool crap produced by GW and certainly present in the actual worthwhile productions
Again if the expectation is you can’t make satirical anti-fascist art without guaranteeing every single nazi out there will get it and hate it then frankly no one can make any anti-fascist art whatsoever
The whole point of online discourse around Starship Troopers wasn’t that Verhoeven shouldn’t have made the film, the point is fascists are brain-dead and their opinions of art should ever be taken seriously, let alone form the reactionary crux of how leftists should create and interact with art themselves
If a fascist likes it, I can’t like it, well ok, have fun with that
I never said this???
you can enjoy it perfectly fine while still acknowledging the original text has a problematic degree of fascism apologia in it. You don’t have to just drop everything you enjoy because Hitlerites have their hands in it, otherwise you wouldn’t enjoy anything because our entire culture is tainted by shitty people
uhhh no i’m pretty sure people get into the miniatures game for the cool miniatures and not because of the obscure lore books 10% of the game’s playerbase actually reads
i care about this stuff because i like the game, because i don’t want it to be easy for fascists to just post weird hitler memes using it’s characters, or for them to push marginalized people out of our spaces without anyone noticing. this sort of “no actually we already have changed enough” mindset is fundamentally just a defeatist acceptance of their intrusion
hard disagree, again, mockery that relies on “these people are wrong and evil” doesn’t work in this case. the people it is mocking are not affected by this criticism, their beliefs are fundamentally in strength and performance. without needling their strongman personas and aesthetics it’s a toothless satire, just like it would be if it only focused on making fun of those aesthetics without criticizing their ideology. and as long as the people they’re fighting are always just as evil if not more so it’s pointless regardless
you don’t have to guarantee anything, just if you have a thriving hitler follower community in your game’s playerbase you may have taken a wrong step with your satire somewhere
The majority of fans literally cannot afford the miniatures lmao, I was serious when I said the majority of the fandom are in it for the lore, not simply books or comics, but youtube, video games, TV shorts, the wikis, the tabletop game is in a firm last place for the simple reason it’s freakin expensive as a hobby, people don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on this shit. And even then, why would anyone buy a specific min if they don’t care about the backstory behind the figures? And this has become especially true after the success of Space Marines 2
Also those lore examples I gave aren’t simply representative of “10% of lore books nobody reads” they’re representative of the vast majority of the lore, you can keep asserting without proof that the mockery “doesn’t work in this case. the people it is mocking are not affected by this criticism” when in reality the 40K chuds are famous for doing nothing but complaining that their faction is unfairly being represented as incompetent, evil, and gross. The fascists who like this game are affected by the critique because they’re constantly whining about it and throwing fits every time new lore about their favorite faction drops, again to the point where that whining becomes the butt of countless memes
Again I think you’re letting the chuds lead you by the nose when it comes to this franchise, is GW trying to have it’s cake and eat it too with the way they unduly focus so much of the narrative on the imperium at the expense of other factions, along with their obsession with tacticool aesthetics, yes absolutely, it’s a capitalist game company. But the satire, the mockery, and anti-fascist subtext are still fully intact and still pissing the chudy fans off to the point they have to rely on fan fiction to get their nazi rocks off, fan fiction that is widely mocked among a fandom that isn’t exactly all that progressive
Warhammer 40K isn’t the kind of satire that’s gonna hit bullseye 100% or even 80% of the time, that wasn’t even true during the 80s, but considering the wasteland of anti-fascist satire out there, I’ll take my cool 75% hit ratio thank you very much
Ok with seeing you spelling out your opinion very explicitly I probably shouldn’t have argued that much. Yeah the satire definitely still exists. I do disagree that it’s entirely effective or great satire -a lot of plot elements including the “recently” reintroduced Guilleman make it really difficult to peace apart. But I don’t think you would think it’s perfect either. And you’re right that chuds are basically always only coping by thinking the setting actually fully validates them. I just think the satire could be improved without dumbing it down, and obviously I believe the issue with why it hasn’t been improved in these more effective ways is because GW can’t really afford to make the cognitive dissonance of their (as you have pointed out relative minority) of miniatures-game players too great when they see the shiny tacticool man game box
I couldn’t agree more, that’s why I’m cautiously optimistic about the recent direction of the franchise, compared to pre-2017 I’ve noticed a more critical tinge to alot of the writing (which personally I believe is the result of Trump and the politics centered around him) even tho alot of the problematic and annoying aspects still remain
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