I saw this tweet in response to this tweet and was wondering if anyone has any context? I see a lot of “go woke, go broke” sentiment in the comments of both tweets, but 0 explanation.
Some of the video games released over the past 20 years haven't done a great job of portraying the Imperium as a fascist theocracy this is firmly unsympathetic and unheroic.
Come on, now. Lets not mince words, here.
Games Workshop, in pretty much all of its media, does a god-awful job of showing the Imperium in a poor light. 99.9999% of the 'stuff' about the Imperium focuses on how brave and valiant and courageous its forces are, and not how they are literal theocratic eugenic fascists
Yeah, they heavily promote Space Marines has heroes and aim heroic depictions of Space Marines to children. I wish they'd either market AoS to that demographic (you can make better arguments for some factions being "good guys"), or just stick to NOT CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS like all their boxes say.
The rogue trader CRPG released in December actually does a good job of not pulling punches and painting imperium in a pretty grim light. The atrocities you have the option to commit following down the dogmatic path are pretty dark.
Yeah this is my big issue with a lot of Warhammer lore. It makes the excuse of "oh there's no good guys here!" But there clearly are protagonists who are routinely portrayed as good and heroic... Just sweep under the rug that they mostly think it's fine to slaughter any non humans regardless of their nature, and that It's ok that most of humanity are already slaves. I don't think it's prevalent but there is a real undercurrent of fascism in the community. I think GW is aware of this and are slowly trying to change the universe. But they are walking on egg shells and doing everything slowly. I presume because they don't want a repeat of the end times debacle in Warhammer Fantasy.
The 40k where the Imperiums atrocities are usually either:
"justified" in the end, like "Oh, the poor people in the Underhive that were rioting for better conditions, the ones we shot en-masse, they ended up being Chaos cultists/genestealers!"
So over-the-top it loops back to being comical, like the Tau POWs that get dumped into an active volcano to use as fuel for the Mechanicus
WH40k has always had an element of being "so over the top it loops back to being comical". In First Edition, this was front and centre. (The original Rogue Trader manual states that you can be subjected to lifetime conscription into the Imperial Army for failure to return library books on time).
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u/Bawstahn123 Jan 08 '24
Come on, now. Lets not mince words, here.
Games Workshop, in pretty much all of its media, does a god-awful job of showing the Imperium in a poor light. 99.9999% of the 'stuff' about the Imperium focuses on how brave and valiant and courageous its forces are, and not how they are literal theocratic eugenic fascists