">leave me alone we're making fanfic
>we are making a point your fiction grooms people INTO LITERAL NAZIS"
It always comes down to this doesn't it?
If we claim, if we even ASSUME, that a piece of fiction you have enjoyed is kinda fucked up, it means we think you are fucked up.
If Warhammer 40k promotes fascism, and you like 40k, then you must be a fascist.
But you aren't a fascist! You are a good person! Not a Nazi! Warhammer 40k CAN'T promote fascist Ideological axioms because that would mean YOU support fascist ideological axioms! So it must be completely unproblematic.
And those people calling Warhammer a NAZI GAME? They must be insulting you personally, out of malice. There is no possible alternative.
But you aren't a fascist! You are a good person! Not a Nazi! Warhammer 40k CAN'T promote fascist Ideological axioms because that would mean YOU support fascist ideological axioms! So it must be completely unproblematic.
He was implying its some kind of violation of human rights to enjoy plastic figures shooting each other. Now you are getting super accusatory when I was merely pointing out people who enjoy the fiction are being "groomed" or some other such inanity. I dont care if you deem it problematic nor do I care if Im considered good or not by strangers online. I was making a point
>leave me alone we're making fanfic
>we are making a point your fiction grooms people INTO LITERAL NAZIS
Im pretty sure this is what people take umbrage to not the navel gazing thing my dude. Some people just like to talk about plastic models and make jokes on the setting not bring about a 4th righ.
He was implying its some kind of violation of human rights to enjoy plastic figures shooting each other. Now you are getting super accusatory when I was merely pointing out people who enjoy the fiction are being "groomed" or some other such inanity. I dont care if you deem it problematic nor do I care if Im considered good or not by strangers online. I was making a point
Fiction has an effect on those who read it man, you can't deny that.
No, this doesn't make you a nazi for enjoying something that has some pro-fascist elements (If it were so I would be a nazi for enjoying 40k). But those elements do exist and do have an effect on the consumers of the fiction.
The use of the term "grooming" here makes it sound like some sinister mind control by nefarious pro-nazi GW, but that isn't it at all. It's just that parts of the fiction are implicitly pro-fascist, something that will effect the reader in some way, even if they don't realize it.
In the nicest possible way, this is a very bad attempt to be disingenuous in defence of the fiction written about a model soldier game.
Barack Obama isn't currently President of the United States, he doesn't presently hold rallies across America to crowds of devoted followers, and he doesn't have a massive subreddit called r/theDonald where people venerate him using imagery and words lifted from the aforesaid model soldier game. One picture isn't as meaningful as years of pictures and videos and memes and reddit posts and twitter accounts.
You probably know this, but instead of doing the gracious thing and admitting that unpleasant people like the thing you and I like at no cost to yourself or our hobby, you've decided to deflect and hem and haw and pretend that it's all the same, guv.
It's a bit weak and it's not a good look on several levels.
It grooms people into making excuses for Space Nazis.
Whether that then translates into making excuses for actual Nazis, let alone for being Nazis, are two entirely separate questions we can discuss later.
But seeing as how for you, it's only about making innocent jokes and talking about the plastic models, and not about making excuses for Space Nazis... Well, I'm a bit confused as to why you're here, in this thread, arguing with people who want to take some liberties with the Space Nazis and try painting their opponents as, y'know, not actively-worse-than-Space-Nazis.
I asked for clarification in order to evade. I asked, so that when I DO get around to addressing it this evening at a time when I can sit down and spend an hour working on it if I need to, I won't proceed to waste that hour answering the wrong question.
It's a thing I do sometimes.
As far as disruption goes, can we be clear here. I haven't said "stop having a discussion of non-canon interpretations of a work of fiction, don't you understand that the canon is such-and-such?"
Not once, at all , in any shape or form. So I'd like you to be equally clear that if you're accusing me of such, I'd ask you to show me where I've done that.
As noted, you've come into the discussion, made it clear that you have no plan to contribute in the spirit of what the thread was originally supposed to be about. You have insulted the participants who are contributing in that spirit. And you appear to be doing this the name of underlining and emphasizing that our interpretation of the fictional setting is somehow objectively wrong,
That is to say, you're acting in a way consistent with the goal of stopping our discussion of non-canon interpretations of a work of fiction, by bringing up assorted details from canon in an attempt to "disprove" those interpretations." Or at least sabotaging and undermining said discussion.
I think "disruptive" is the word.
I, for one, would appreciate it if you'd either try to contribute, or at least refrain from insulting those of us who are trying to contribute.
Oh please do go find it for me. You can't do the whole implied " hur hur you are already dead" thing and not give me the payoff of explaining which of my pressure points you've attacked.
Yes but really not at all, when you actually take into account how popular the respective variants are. Anecdotal, but the first 150 results for 'obama god emperor' on Google image gives me literally one Obama-as-God Emperor 40K meme, as the first result, and then about 15 Trump. The vast majority of results are neither. 'trump god emperor,' on the other hand, gives me 15 Trump 40K memes in the first 25 results alone.
He was implying its some kind of violation of human rights to enjoy plastic figures shooting each other. Now you are getting super accusatory when I was merely pointing out people who enjoy the fiction are being "groomed" or some other such inanity. I dont care if you deem it problematic nor do I care if Im considered good or not by strangers online. I was making a point
A: It is ridiculous for us to tell you not to play with plastic toys, especially since we seem to think you are committing a grave moral offense be doing so.
B: It is also ridiculous for me to become "super accusatory" when... actually your second sentence implies that you actually DO think that Warhammer 40k fiction is somehow grooming people, but I doubt that was your intent give the rest of the paragraph.
C: You don't care about my (or others? Is that meant to be implied?) options about Warhammer 40k fiction.
D: You don't care if others in this thread think you are a good person or not (presumably based on your enjoying Warhammer 40k fiction).
Every (legible) argument you've made has already been made in this thread. Every argument has already been discounted as a cheap diversion or laughable misinterpretation of the purpose of basic literary technique. If you can't and won't engage with the thread's central purpose, and you can't or won't read enough of the thread to understand that you are repeating the same platitudes as every other poster who doesn't understand that fiction could possibly have more meaning than a randomly assembled pile of pleasing shapes and colors, then why are you still here?
See, we KNOW the canon characterization, we're not just stupid and blind and unaware of these things. Just repeating the canon characterization at us isn't going to tell anyone anything they don't already know.
That's, like, the place we're all using as a launchpad.
That's where the objection comes from.
...
The objection here is "Gee, isn't it awfully interesting that the only deity in 40k associated with sexuality as opposed to just killing things, associated with queerness, associated with ICKY NO NO stuff like art as opposed to BIG MEN WITH BIG GUNS, just happens to be the evil god of corrupting you into a parodic giggling torturer? Did we really have to set things up that way? Really?"
Remember Umberto Eco's characterization of th.e essence of fascism:
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
This is the very definition of "reading too much into things". Slaanesh has nothing to do with your crusade against anything authoritarian, it isn't even native to 40k. Slaanesh, and Chaos on a whole, didn't even originally exist in Warhammer. It was ripped off from Moorcock and got crowbarred into the setting with the Realm of Chaos supplement, which is why Slaanesh has an odd vendetta against elves in Fantasy for no good reason (because it's a ripoff of Melniboné from Moorcock, along with the Dark Eldar). Slaanesh wasn't made because it's some absurd continuation of fascist ideology, it was made because it's the typical elvish bdsm-murder god that has been around since pulp nerd literature took off and acts as a magnet for the metalhead crowd. Not to mention the British's usual hangup over the issue of sex due to lingering Victorian moral busybodies, resulting in you having to hide the BDSM murder part of the setting under the rug so they won't come down like a tsunami on you. It's why Slaanesh has unfortunately been smothered for most of its existence. GW markets to teenagers and children, whose parents would be enraged if Timmy brought home a Slaanesh army because people have some weird simultaneous approval/condemnation regarding violence and sensuality.
Also you are not only barking up the wrong tree, but doing so akin to a dog on LSD if you think Slaanesh is the main "homosexual" faction, and accusing it of fascist machoistic intention is utterly hilarious when the gay faction if obviously,
(this wasn't actually published by GW, but by Dragon Magazine, but it hammers home the rather obvious homoerotic points of Astartes' creation, although back in RT they didn't really have the modern gene seed either. That and of course there's the Dark Angels. I typically hear at least one closet joke whenever I field a dark angels kill team.)
And everything that isn't just a complete disruptive waste of time in this thread, comes in after this objection. Not from blandly repeating the in-story justification ("But the god of sex is also the god of perverted deranged degenerate all-corrupting horror!"). But from trying to build and adapt beyond that.
The entire reason this thread exists is to try to exercise some imagination about the core concepts of 40k. Not so that three people can try to be imaginative while constantly being randomly dogpiled and shouted down by an endless stream of other 40k fans. Fans who seem to think that if they just repeat the canon explanations for why the Imperium is the way it is, if they double down on the Thermian argument hard enough and pretend that the fact that in-story justifications exist for the Imperium being this way mean that there really, truly, is no other valid way for the setting to be depicted by or for ANYONE... That somehow they'll "win."
Somebody asked what Slaanesh is, and I provided as I (correctly) assumed that those able to properly answer his question, wouldn't have. Furthermore re-writing something to the point that it is no longer even recognizable as the source material is silly - you might as well not waste time on creating original-unoriginal work and just make your own individual setting. Not only can you market it without a legion of lawyers descending upon you, but it also achieves more than what would ultimately be nothing than an SI Fic. As frankly that's what happens whenever you or anyone else tries to write a faction to 'fix' something in the 40k setting. It will be little more than wish fulfillment found in ay other SI fic as the protags somehow manage to achieve something meaningful to improve something in a setting where victory is almost always Pyrrhic.
That and ignores that 40k sans chaos already exists. It's called Rogue Trader before Realm of Chaos. The Horus Heresy doesn't even exist yet. There's nothing that needs to be done to create something new, because what you desire was already made in 1986/7. All you need is the Rogue Trader core books and some issues of White Dwarf and you even have enough rules to make up any human rebel faction so desired, and easily write any manner of fan fiction for.
This is the very definition of "reading too much into things". Slaanesh has nothing to do with your crusade against anything authoritarian, it isn't even native to 40k. Slaanesh, and Chaos on a whole, didn't even originally exist in Warhammer. It was ripped off from Moorcock and got crowbarred into the setting with the Realm of Chaos supplement, which is why Slaanesh has an odd vendetta against elves in Fantasy for no good reason (because it's a ripoff of Melniboné from Moorcock, along with the Dark Eldar). Slaanesh wasn't made because it's some absurd continuation of fascist ideology, it was made because it's the typical elvish bdsm-murder god that has been around since pulp nerd literature took off and acts as a magnet for the metalhead crowd. Not to mention the British's usual hangup over the issue of sex due to lingering Victorian moral busybodies, resulting in you having to hide the BDSM murder part of the setting under the rug so they won't come down like a tsunami on you. It's why Slaanesh has unfortunately been smothered for most of its existence. GW markets to teenagers and children, whose parents would be enraged if Timmy brought home a Slaanesh army because people have some weird simultaneous approval/condemnation regarding violence and sensuality.
It's almost as if ripping off something from one context and ramming it into another changes they way it's interpreted, as is described in the very first post in this thread, describing how a lot of the Imperium's aesthetic comes from Nemesis the Warlock.
This is the very definition of "reading too much into things". Slaanesh has nothing to do with your crusade against anything authoritarian, it isn't even native to 40k. Slaanesh, and Chaos on a whole, didn't even originally exist in Warhammer. It was ripped off from Moorcock and got crowbarred into the setting with the Realm of Chaos supplement, which is why Slaanesh has an odd vendetta against elves in Fantasy for no good reason (because it's a ripoff of Melniboné from Moorcock, along with the Dark Eldar). Slaanesh wasn't made because it's some absurd continuation of fascist ideology, it was made because it's the typical elvish bdsm-murder god that has been around since pulp nerd literature took off and acts as a magnet for the metalhead crowd. Not to mention the British's usual hangup over the issue of sex due to lingering Victorian moral busybodies, resulting in you having to hide the BDSM murder part of the setting under the rug so they won't come down like a tsunami on you. It's why Slaanesh has unfortunately been smothered for most of its existence. GW markets to teenagers and children, whose parents would be enraged if Timmy brought home a Slaanesh army because people have some weird simultaneous approval/condemnation regarding violence and sensuality.
Also you are not only barking up the wrong tree, but doing so akin to a dog on LSD if you think Slaanesh is the main "homosexual" faction, and accusing it of fascist machoistic intention is utterly hilarious when the gay faction if obviously,
(this wasn't actually published by GW, but by Dragon Magazine, but it hammers home the rather obvious homoerotic points of Astartes' creation, although back in RT they didn't really have the modern gene seed either. That and of course there's the Dark Angels. I typically hear at least one closet joke whenever I field a dark angels kill team.)
Somebody asked what Slaanesh is, and I provided as I (correctly) assumed that those able to properly answer his question, wouldn't have. Furthermore re-writing something to the point that it is no longer even recognizable as the source material is silly - you might as well not waste time on creating original-unoriginal work and just make your own individual setting. Not only can you market it without a legion of lawyers descending upon you, but it also achieves more than what would ultimately be nothing than an SI Fic. As frankly that's what happens whenever you or anyone else tries to write a faction to 'fix' something in the 40k setting. It will be little more than wish fulfillment found in ay other SI fic as the protags somehow manage to achieve something meaningful to improve something in a setting where victory is almost always Pyrrhic.
That and ignores that 40k sans chaos already exists. It's called Rogue Trader before Realm of Chaos. The Horus Heresy doesn't even exist yet. There's nothing that needs to be done to create something new, because what you desire was already made in 1986/7. All you need is the Rogue Trader core books and some issues of White Dwarf and you even have enough rules to make up any human rebel faction so desired, and easily write any manner of fan fiction for.
It's almost as if ripping off something from one context and ramming it into another changes they way it's interpreted, as is described in the very first post in this thread, describing how a lot of the Imperium's aesthetic comes from Nemesis the Warlock.
It changes the way it's seen, but the issue is that anybody trying to "read into it" is going to suffer the same effect of staring into tea leaves for too long. Fundamentally there is no greater meaning with Warhammer besides "it's cool". Various things were shamelessly ripped off and shoved into it for no other reason than "it's cool", ranging from the Tolkien elements of Elves to the later introduction of the Tyranid, Tau, and Necron factions. Or now, the Primaris Marines.
It changes the way it's seen, but the issue is that anybody trying to "read into it" is going to suffer the same effect of staring into tea leaves for too long. Fundamentally there is no greater meaning with Warhammer besides "it's cool". Various things were shamelessly ripped off and shoved into it for no other reason than "it's cool", ranging from the Tolkien elements of Elves to the later introduction of the Tyranid, Tau, and Necron factions. Or now, the Primaris Marines.
Why are you so obsessed with the idea of defending things?
It changes the way it's seen, but the issue is that anybody trying to "read into it" is going to suffer the same effect of staring into tea leaves for too long. Fundamentally there is no greater meaning with Warhammer besides "it's cool". Various things were shamelessly ripped off and shoved into it for no other reason than "it's cool", ranging from the Tolkien elements of Elves to the later introduction of the Tyranid, Tau, and Necron factions. Or now, the Primaris Marines.
Literature/film studies 101: textual meaning is derived not from authorial intent but the substance of the text itself. The creative history of the franchise is interesting and notable here, don't get me wrong, but's definitely not the discussion-ender you seem to think it is.
It changes the way it's seen, but the issue is that anybody trying to "read into it" is going to suffer the same effect of staring into tea leaves for too long. Fundamentally there is no greater meaning with Warhammer besides "it's cool". Various things were shamelessly ripped off and shoved into it for no other reason than "it's cool", ranging from the Tolkien elements of Elves to the later introduction of the Tyranid, Tau, and Necron factions. Or now, the Primaris Marines.
All media, even ones that run on "rule of cool" can be subject to literary criticism. Just because an author didn't put a lot of thought as to why certain things they thought were cool were put into the setting, doesn't mean that these things were put in for no reason. And even in a world where media was constructed full formed in a creator's head, trashy media can still be analysed.
Literary criticism can't just be deflected because "nah bro it doesn't mean anything it's just meant to be cool".
I can't speak for Wyzilla on this, but I seem to remember him over on SB arguing that it's not really murder or genocide if the targets in question aren't homo sapiens on several occasions, such as in this thread here.
I assume he may be defensive because he has realized he likes Warhammer specifically because of some of the things we have referred to as elements of fascist thought?
Maybe he just has a beef with the apocryphal English teacher who asked him what the blue color of the curtains really mean?
If you can't and won't engage with the thread's central purpose, and you can't or won't read enough of the thread to understand that you are repeating the same platitudes as every other poster who doesn't understand that fiction could possibly have more meaning than a randomly assembled pile of pleasing shapes and colors, then why are you still here?
I'm not. The only people here who are right now are you and Simon_Jester, who are those who raised the idea in the first place. All I care about is people actually knowing the source material properly if they're going to discuss it, instead of weird shit like Slaanesh being a stand-in for queerness for a fascist hero to beat up to promote fascist views when the god's just good old robbery.
All media, even ones that run on "rule of cool" can be subject to literary criticism. Just because an author didn't put a lot of thought as to why certain things they thought were cool were put into the setting, doesn't mean that these things were put in for no reason. And even in a world where media was constructed full formed in a creator's head, trashy media can still be analysed.
Literary criticism can't just be deflected because "nah bro it doesn't mean anything it's just meant to be cool".
Literary criticism is worthless when it has nothing to do with the work itself and instead the individual observation of the reader. What matters is the execution, purpose of the work, and the context of its creation. All else is ultimately chasing the ghosts of subjective perception which is a vain and worthless endeavor. "Cool" in this case is the purpose, as the goal is to create a fun setting to mash miniatures into each other while any amount of "depth' is merely an excuse slathered on later to justify the latest absurdity.
It's for this reason that trying to warp modern 40k into something it isn't for a fic is silly and wasteful. Rogue Trader is a thing, and it's basically everything this thread discussed, including being absent of Chaos (mostly), although Chaos is easily excised from it. It's so easy to bolt things onto Rogue Trader that an acquaintance of mine made an original-ish setting with an RPG book based within it in little over a month. It's ripe fodder for this kind of thing.
I'm not. The only people here who are right now are you and Simon_Jester, who are those who raised the idea in the first place. All I care about is people actually knowing the source material properly if they're going to discuss it, instead of weird shit like Slaanesh being a stand-in for queerness for a fascist hero to beat up to promote fascist views when the god's just good old robbery.
Literary criticism is worthless when it has nothing to do with the work itself and instead the individual observation of the reader. What matters is the execution, purpose of the work, and the context of its creation. All else is ultimately chasing the ghosts of subjective perception which is a vain and worthless endeavor.
Literary criticism is worthless when it has nothing to do with the work itself and instead the individual observation of the reader. What matters is the execution, purpose of the work, and the context of its creation. All else is ultimately chasing the ghosts of subjective perception which is a vain and worthless endeavor.
Well this is where we fundamentally disagree. It's ultimately how a work is interpreted by the audience that matters. Just because you believe Death of the Auther is vain and worthless doesn't mean it isn't a useful tool of literary criticism.
Well this is where we fundamentally disagree. It's ultimately how a work is interpreted by the audience that matters. Just because you believe Death of the Auther is vain and worthless doesn't mean it isn't a useful tool of literary criticism.
The audience however has subjective individual opinions. It is impossible to concisely reach a consensus regarding any work as there will always be large bodies of people grouping together with differing interpretations that refuse to negotiate. Thus, caring about the individual observer's view of a work is a vain pursuit that will yield nothing and remain an open question until the end of time - with no consensus ever being achieved in the collective of all observers. However, while still infuriatingly subjective, it is possible to mechanically disect a work and also trace the context of its creation to try to parse what goes on behind the eyes of the author, in the same manner an archaeologist might try to uncover the meaning behind a particular embossed scene on a Greek pot. There a reasonable consensus can be achieved as it is based on the actions, background, and interviews of the author(s).
If you dont recognize the backround of something...why do you even care is my response to that statement. Theres no discussion of it properly yes people can interpet it as they want but if you dont at least ackowlege what you are working with whats the point at all friend?
Literary criticism is worthless when it has nothing to do with the work itself and instead the individual observation of the reader. What matters is the execution, purpose of the work, and the context of its creation. All else is ultimately chasing the ghosts of subjective perception which is a vain and worthless endeavor.
A discussion about the themes and semiotics of a work and how they reflect problematic real-world politics is absolutely a discussion about the work's execution and the context of its creation, my dude.
"Cool" in this case is the purpose, as the goal is to create a fun setting to mash miniatures into each other while any amount of "depth' is merely an excuse slathered on later to justify the latest absurdity.
Has somebody told all of Games Workshop's paid writers that? The ones who write that whole big Black Library of prose fiction? Because I can't really imagine they'd all be cool with having their bodies of work dismissed as meaningless arbitrary junk that doesn't bear any further examination or thought. People might start wondering why they get paid at all, if the story of 40K matters so little.
Not that it really matters much for the purposes of this discussion, because again, lit theory 101 says authorial purpose/intent does not determine textual meaning.
