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.
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?
Wait do you have a link? Sorry I’m lazy googlewise but you’re saying they aren’t buddhist trots anymore?
I’m not too deep into 40k lore, but I think it ended up being something along the line of classic anti-communist brainworms, about how any good ideology is actually just a smokescreen so a small elite can rule over everyone with lies and manipulation, because obviously a society couldn’t actually pursue a noble goal without there being an ulterior motive. Also, collectivism bad, individualism good, Tau bad for disrespecting :freeze-peach: and forcing ideology on others.
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…
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.
guard is great you get to be like those historically incorrect descriptions of the Soviet Union, sending unarmed masses to soak up the bullets with their cheap bodies while your commissars shoot everyone who even thinks of running away. Great fun.
I love that the Catachan have an officer fragging mechanic
For non 40K-Knowers, the Catachan are a Guard subfaction very obviously styled after US troops in Vietnam. If your army includes any commissars, you have to roll a die during deployment to see if they even make it to the battlefield. The rule is called Oops, sorry sir!
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?
I, too, am seriously creeped out by people who dress up as spacce nazis for funsies.
Seriously fucking weird shit. Like those storm trooper cosplay regiments. Wtf.
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.
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
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.
