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So Games Workshop just published a "40k is satire, nazis pls leave" statement. What do you nerds think?
(hexbear.net)
Here's a link.
Does it fail as satire? Does this kind of thing work as good satire for specific people? Somebody explain.
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.
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 The space elves have models more than twenty years old, the rape elves are even more out of date, god knows what's going on with orks, and do they even sell guard anymore?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
excuse me what
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
Which would still work fine if done with a satirical bent, if the overall theme of these stories was a kind of fatalistic "we could have stopped this" angle, rather than the cynical, psychotic banality of the worst evils mankind can inflict on the universe being the best we could have ever hoped to do.
Exactly, I actually quite like the stupid "stiff upper lip" propaganda side of the Imperium when it's used to shine a light on the realities of life in Warhammer 40k. There was a really good short story I read where after fighting tooth and nail in defence of a planet, a garrison of Imperial Guard get told "The Emperor Protects" at the end of a radio communication informing them that the Administratum have decided that it's more resource effective to nuke the whole battlefield they're on from orbit rather than risk transport ships getting shot down in an evacuation which is both darkly hilarious and, in a very unsubtle way, somewhat poignant but I guess bolter porn sells better so we end up with trash.