So, with the well-known satire problem, people can’t tell satire even if it’s clearly stated to the point of being obnoxious. (See: Scott Pilgrim being a horrible person is the point)
The real problem here is that we have a Grimdark setting where the only way to survive is through constant struggle. So, we have a setting that attracts edgelords and a framing that is explicitly core fascist. I mean, if that doesn’t scream “We’re going to have to beat nazis off with a stick”, I don’t know what does.
Tim Colwell says that Warhammer was heavily inspired by 2000 AD and the “it’s satire!” defence rests on the vestiges of those influences still embedded in the Warhammer canon.
But with almost 40 years of distance, it’s impossible to avoid concluding that many of the ideas that Games Workshop and Rick Priestley ‘bunged in there’ — ideas which we now think of as ‘iconically 40K’ — are directly inspired by the 2000 AD properties which the company published for so long. Rogue Trooper’s genetically engineered supersoldiers fighting in toxic chemical wastelands, Judge Dredd’s continent-sized mega-cities, enormous eagle-draped shoulder pads and massive ‘Lawmaster’ motorcycles, and Nemesis the Warlock’s chainsword-wielding “Terminators” launching crusades on behalf of a xenophobic religious Terran empire, are all undeniably present in one way or another in Rogue Trader, persisting down the editions to this day, fossilised deep in the bedrock of the setting.
When fans (or the company itself) point at Warhammer 40,000 and call it ‘satire’, it is really 2000AD that they are pointing to — exhuming the skeleton of the old license from deep beneath the earth, hosing it off and saying “Look, it’s satirical innit — if you take a couple of steps back and squint you can see that we’re sort of displaying people’s vices or a system’s flaws for scorn, derision, and ridicule, yeah?”
Of course, that’s the exact definition of low-hanging fruit. American media used fascism to satirize Reagan. Canadian media used fascism to satirize Brian Mulroney.
It’s always been used to satirize conservatives. That’s not news. I wasn’t making a criticism of the art, merely stating that it used to be acceptable in a way it no longer is. Fascism was not an imminent threat to the world in the 1980s. It is now.
It’s a relatively minor thing; but I think you hit on what bugs me about the redesign of the Primaris Space Marines: 40k has never had an…entirely consistent…art direction or level of production values; but historically it had a lot of the same somewhat goofy, theatrical, knowingly over-the-top vibe that metal album covers have. A lot of the models really look at their best when standing in a line with forced perspective causing them to burst out of the codex cover art/album cover. Not like the metal scene doesn’t have its own undesirables(NSBM, anyone?) but there’s a slightly playful, LARPy tone to it in a lot of places.
The Primaris guys? Arguably much more even in term so design quality; but they all look so serious. Sci-fi power armor; but otherwise largely the rifleman dudes that you’d see in a real war; not the goofy beak dudes with the big boomy cartoon bolters blazing away.
There’s certainly nothing stopping you from being deeply problematic in the older aesthetic, or being perfectly lovely in the new one; but it does feel like the vibe has shifted slightly from being zOMG Grimdark! but in a somewhat lighthearted way to somewhat more serious toy soldiers.
A great essay. I don’t believe GW HQ are deliberately turning fascist but there’s no doubt the fun began to get leached out of the game at least a decade ago.
The Tau have been turned grimdark after they were originally introduced as a specifically non-grimdark option.
On the modelling front, all support for making your own scenery and vehicles has been eradicated and you are expected to buy the increasingly expensive official models, with their attached special rules in the increasingly expensive supplements.
I gave up WK40K during 6th edition, but I still wander around DakkaDakka, a long-running Warhammer player forum.
Reading the linked article and the comments as someone who played the game back in the early to mid 90s (and not at all since) is a bit wild. It was pretty obvious to my play group back then that anyone who played the Imperium / Space Marines seriously instead of with a firm sense of the intended satire wasn’t someone you invited back to your table. This isn’t really new, but it sounds like the issue is there’s a lot more of them now.
It was a threat in Britain in the 1970s-80s, and I am not talking about Margaret Thatcher.
Since then fascism kept appearing every few years only to get shut down until about 10-15 years ago, when idiots thought it was a good idea to invite Nick Griffin to the Oxford Union and BBC Question Time in the name of freedom of speech. Nigel Farage was more presentable as he started saying the quiet part out loud. Brexit then opened the doors to horrific ideas not considered by the mainstream since the 1930s. Now we have the Conservative British Cabinet and Equality and Human Rights Commission talking about commiting genocide like it is an everyday issue.
This didn’t come from nowhere, it came from people dropping their guard as the survivors of WW2 and the Holocaust died of old age and the warnings from our elders stopped being heard.
