In the Shadow of Tolkein: 40k and Collaborative Fiction

[The Last Lamenter]

Far removed from fan fiction with its lack of canonization and tendency towards eroticism, (see Kirk and Spock FF) the 40k Universe represent a new prototype of literature, in that the authors of the lore have adopted an unprecedented collaborative, incorporative, and inclusive method of writing. This manner of story-telling is distinct from all other forms of composition theory, in that it does not propose an agenda, it is unrecognized by academia, and it was spontaneously created as a reflection of the next generation reader’s heightened awareness of the fledgling tradition of science fiction and fantasy.
There are themes in 40k that, upon first encounter may seem like the author giving honor to, or perhaps even plagiarizing from, a classic work without giving due credit. For example, we see clear incorporation of classic authors in Inquisitor Czevak’s statement from the fourth edition Eldar Codex where he says “[a]sk not the Eldar a question for they will give you three answers, all of which are true and terrifying to know.” This quote is a pairing of the best of Arthur C. Clark and Tolkien, who lends the Imperium of man its profound sense of tragedy. Clark’s reimagined line is borrowed from Visions 1999, preceding the Codex by seven years, which states that “[t]wo possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying”, and in LOTR, from Fellowship when Frodo says of Gildor, “Go not to the Elves for council for they will answer both no and yes.” Then there is the constant allusions to Blake’s heretical poetry in the first three HH books, and Chris Roberson’s reference to Musashi’s Book of Five Rings with his Book of Five Spheres in Sons of Dorn. This may seem like unconscious referencing or even plagiarism, until we acknowledge what has happened in the mind of the science fiction writer and the reader:
These writers have become part of the communal consciousness of the subculture of which we are part. Just as certain authors and tropes have become part of the national consciousness of England, such as Shakespeare and Thomas Malory, a reference to them or their work is commonplace, for their work is so entrenched in the culture that even the uneducated may reference them unknowingly (i.e. “pomp and circumstance” and “What the dickens?”). And, as I’ve mentioned before, the Brits cannot seem to leave the Arthurian legend alone when constructing any fantasy or science fiction world; so it is with Clark, Tolkien, H.G. Wells, and others in the scifi/fantasy community. But who is to decide when and how these writers should have their work opened for public use when it has already become a cultural touchstone?
40k and other works have incorporated useful science fiction devices to enable traditional story-telling, for example faster-than-light-travel, in Star-Trek’s Warp Drive, Star War’s Hyper Space, or Douglas’s Infinite Improbability Drive, but more on that later… Besides the obvious use of elves (Eldar), dwarves (squats), and orcs (orks), one has to look harder for other characters in other works. For example Dune makes use of a Navigator gene like in 40k. There are many many others, but the point is that this is an indicator of just how big 40k has become. It is incorporating the best of science fiction and fantasy into a master story. It is implicitly acknowledging that the fans have evolved to a higher state where their touchstones are people who are still alive! The tropes are being born right before us and becoming part of the universe.
The rate for assimilation into the tradition of scifi has increased, and these authors’ works have become subject to the fan’s own idea of common law concerning copyright. If it’s good enough, or original enough, it will become a theme of 40k and part of a grand collaborative tradition. These authors are making fantastic use of the best that science fiction and fantasy has to offer at an accelerated rate. Other genres have to wait, oftentimes centuries before touchstones become apparent, but whether out of a lack of scholarly tradition or sheer enthusiasm, I like to think enthusiasm, we are seeing a grand tradition of collaborative literature unfolding in the past 50 years, relatively young for a genre.

[YorkNecromancer]

it was spontaneously created as a reflection of the next generation reader’s heightened awareness of the fledgling tradition of science fiction and fantasy.

Also GW's desire for money. And every fan's desire to "join in" with their hobby. Which is easily as old as Sherlock Holmes.


There are themes in 40k that, upon first encounter may seem like the author giving honor to, or perhaps even plagiarizing from, a classic work without giving due credit.

Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseu? Surely not.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=094OfuWauxCCKM&tbnid=kz9TEFz7EceMEM:&ved=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmkerrchainfist.blogspot.com%2F201 0%2F04%2Fmost-awesome-40k-character-of-all-time.html&ei=Xf2oUcTZCMK80QXSwoGIDg&bvm=bv.47244034,d.d2k&psig=AFQjCNHddcuvGA3XWPmis13YeASRYo9HPg&ust=1370115803535565


Then there is the constant allusions to Blake’s heretical poetry in the first three HH books, and Chris Roberson’s reference to Musashi’s Book of Five Rings with his Book of Five Spheres in Sons of Dorn. This may seem like unconscious referencing or even plagiarism, until we acknowledge what has happened in the mind of the science fiction writer and the reader:
These writers have become part of the communal consciousness of the subculture of which we are part.

OR it could be hack writers wanting to sound clever, and so quoting from deeper and more significant work than theirs to add the illusion of depth.


But who is to decide when and how these writers should have their work opened for public use when it has already become a cultural touchstone?

The same person responsible when any writer's work becomes famous: the artists and writers who steal their ideas.


40k and other works have incorporated useful science fiction devices to enable traditional story-telling, for example faster-than-light-travel, in Star-Trek’s Warp Drive, Star War’s Hyper Space, or Douglas’s Infinite Improbability Drive

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale


It is incorporating the best of science fiction and fantasy into a master story.

That's a nice way to say "it's shamelessly ripping off everything that anyone has ever done in sci-fi for the purpose of selling plastic soldiers".

And I don't know if I'd say "the best of science fiction". Perhaps the best of Western, white, straight, heteronormative, cis-male science fiction. And also ssuming "best" means "most well known" rather than "of the highest quality".

Also, a "master story" seems an overly grandiose term to use. I would have thought a "master story" to be one that was about the whole of human existence; one that enlightened us as to our essential nature. 40K seems to have rather too many chainsaws and gimp masks for that. If you mean a shared continuity, well, Marvel and DC both have those too.


It is implicitly acknowledging that the fans have evolved to a higher state where their touchstones are people who are still alive! The tropes are being born right before us and becoming part of the universe.

We are in the middle of a huge resurgence in the popularity of sci-fi entertainment as a whole. That might be something to do with why...


whether out of a lack of scholarly tradition or sheer enthusiasm

OR a desire for money.

Let's not forget that we live in the real world and that Games Workshop is a business.

Overall, you seem to want to elevate Warhammer 40,000 to the status of High Art. I don't think it is, and honestly? You need to read a lot more around the subject before you try to even begin that fight. Yeah, the books might be fun, but compared to something like 1984 (which has more and better things to say about totalitarianism), Of Mice and Men (which has more to say about the futility of hope in the face of an uncaring universe), The Handmaid's Tale (which has more to say about the exploitation of women by brutal theocracy), Beloved (which has more to say about the lingering effects of brutality), A Song of Ice and Fire (which has a better exploration of the compromises necessary to function in a feudal political system and the conflict between honour, necessity and desire)... seriously, you want to compare 40K's story to literature, you need to bring some serious literary analysis.

You also need to deal with the problematic aspects of the 40K universe - it has the most dreadful issues with ethnicity and gender. Referring back to A Song of Ice and Fire, compare the presentation of women. In A Song of Ice and Fire, there are numerous female characters, each with a story, each used as a lens to analyse a separate theme within the novel, and society as a whole. Yes there is misogyny, but the novel explores it, rather than using it - as some of 40K's defendants have claimed - as background colour (or more horribly, simply reflecting the grotesque personal failings of the author's imagination). There's Danaerys Targaryen, used to explore the ways a woman has to take power by force. There's Sansa Stark, who explores the theme of female powerlessness and lack of agency, as well as the problem of privelege. There's Catelyn Stark, a deconstruction of the "closer to Earth/mother knows best" tropes. There's Cersei Lannister, a case study in the different expectations between men and women, and a demonstration of just how a brutal, unfair society makes one brutal in turn. This doesn't even get into characters like Arya, Brienne of Tarth, Ygritte, Shae, Missandei, Melisandre, and so on. And all this from a series that isn't even primarily about women! It's about war and dragons and ice zombies.

40K is often little more than manly men doing manly things. Which is fine and all, but even by the standards of the genre, 40K is lacking.

If you want a list of narrative things that 40K does do well, I suggest you start here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/Warhammer40000

[The Last Lamenter]

Alright Sergeant York, Let's do this:

You’re dismissing this tradition of writing spanning thirty years because it doesn’t deal with situation of women? Is a heavily gendered text now the paradigm of literature? Are you really slamming 40k because of its lack of a strong female presence? This isn’t even accurate, what about the sisters of battle novels, and the Eldar’s female warriors? What about the major role the Brides of the Emperor fulfill at the end of the Age of Apostasy? What about the remembrencers in the HH novels? What about the Saint? Do I need to give you additional examples? What about the recent female Lieutenant in the game from Relic? Even if your comment was true, it does not hold as a standard of good literature. If situation of women and anti-imperialism was what defined great books, we’d be throwing out around 4,000 years of writing, including ALL of the classics which are 99% “Western, white, straight, heteronormative, cis-male,” to borrow your quote. I’ve spent the past decade studying literature and I can only think of a few exceptions, maybe Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, Bronte, and all the post-Virgina Woolfers. Kind of hard to write from a woman’s perspective if you’re a dude. Women are usually better at writing from a woman’s POV, but I digress. If I had to accept that narrow of a view, I wouldn’t be allowed to read Hemingway and God knows if Julius Caesar would still be taught what with the only female lead spouting off her few lines before swallowing burning coals. Certain feminist academics have done some marvelous analytical gymnastics to rethink these tragic heroines as something they were not, but for whatever reason, these authors just did not deal with situation of women.
I appreciate you trying to point me in the right direction concerning good literature, but the books you’ve listed are the equivalent of any highschool AP lit. course. I know because I teach 1984. So that we can continue from this point with you understanding that I am not an unread Pleb making ignorant claims, let me say that I’ve read all the books you’ve suggested, and even more in college, where I earned a degree in English Literature, then plenty more in graduate school, where I studied American Literature. So let’s keep talking, but not with you thinking that the Space Wolf Omnibus was the first book I’ve ever read.
In keeping with your Marxist approach that it is all shameful trash and smoke and mirrors designed to sell tiny figurines, there is, indeed, some validity in your claim that it’s all about the money. GW and BB are businesses after all. However, I highly doubt someone would devote his life to 40k just for the money, considering the BB has had only one NYT bestseller. I understand that you may be upset over the price of miniatures, but calling all these authors “hack writers” in it for the money is a very broad stroke. Have you read the biographies of some of these guys? Most of them are scholars with degrees in literature and history. Some hold advanced degrees and many are critically acclaimed. I can give you examples if you need them.


I do not include super hero comics because, although they are quite detailed and most of them masterfully crafted, they are not epics; they center around one protagonist like superman or Batman and the story is mainly about that character’s deeds and personal development, or a small group such as X-men, Justice league crossovers, or Watchmen which meets certain criteria for epic and I would rank alongside 40k had it not been the writing of one man, Alan Moore and therefore a noncollaborative affair. Also Superhero comics are nonlinear, or at least they often choose not to be. There is no standard for canon and the Superheroes exist in multiple published universes with dozens of versions of a particular hero and the stories are constantly being retold and rehashed and remade. How many different versions of Spiderman’s origins do we have? What about Frank Miller’s Batman? That is not collaboration and strict canonization; that is everybody doing their own thing to meet the demand for new superhero stories, and keeping an American staple alive- a noble endeavor. 40k deals with the rise and fall of civilizations and is still currently taking place. It is a storyline spanning over 10,000 years with hundreds and hundreds of characters. The main events are happening right now, major plot elements are still in play, GW or the Black library could announce tomorrow that the Lion has woke up or the failures in the Golden throne have gone critical. These aren’t Deus ex Machina either, these are well-foreshadowed eventualities. 40k is also a traditional epic, despite the newness of it currently taking place. No one has done this before, not on this scale, not on such an epic level.
Now, let’s talk about Star Wars and Star Trek. Star Trek is a show and movie series and it is the creation of one man, who, up until 2011’s Star Trek, had the final say considering what was and what was not official canon. Of all the hundreds of books published as star Trek novels only two are considered official canon, Two Voyager novels written by Jeri Taylor, and only because Taylor wanted to have his episode writers use these as reference material to flesh our character’s backgrounds. You can argue all you want that what Pocketbooks publishes is canon, but Gene Rodenberry says that although these books might be based on Star Trek but they are not part of his Universe; they are not even supplementary. Also, Star Trek loses continuity as a traditional epic by revamping the series with an alternate timeline, and different versions of the characters, so now it is really confusing to say what Star Trek is anymore, do we even bother including the old stuff? But either way, it is a film and television franchise and therefore subject to an entirely different critical approach. Everything I’ve said about Star Trek also applies to Star Wars in that the story is complete in film, and please, God, let us keep it that way because Disney is most likely going to screw it up.
40k is totally unique in that it has created a universe that is massive enough to incorporate the best of science fiction themes and it is also old and superstitious enough to include classic fantasy themes, and a canonization process strict enough to preserve a traditional story-arc while still allowing multiple authors from around the world. High art? No. literature? Sometimes.

Thank you for the site link. I enjoyed it very much, but I fully intend to bore you with even more examples of why the writing is solid and the themes unprecedented in my next post. Give me about a week. And thank you for your passionate criticism, I find that these nasty little forums are the only places left to get honest and real responses at the expense of one’s ego, but what a bargain price for getting better at writing.

[The Last Lamenter]

A few corrections:

BB now has 7 NYT best sellers not one

The superhero comic does fill at least two requirements of an Epic hero, but considering how it is a contemporary comic book, grittily reenvisioned, this one would be a hard one to argue, because we see heroes more and more humanized as they go on.

[YorkNecromancer]

You’re dismissing this tradition of writing spanning thirty years because it doesn’t deal with situation of women? Is a heavily gendered text now the paradigm of literature? Are you really slamming 40k because of its lack of a strong female presence?

Yes.

Because any universe where I can be an alien, a daemon, a genetically engineered supersoldier or an undead killer robot but CAN'T see more than a handful of the MAJORITY GENDER OF THE HUMAN SPECIES is problematic for me. I love 40K, but it is undeniably massively problematic in this regard. As fans, our duty is not to "defend" but to demand better.



This isn’t even accurate, what about the sisters of battle novels, and the Eldar’s female warriors? What about the major role the Brides of the Emperor fulfill at the end of the Age of Apostasy? What about the remembrencers in the HH novels? What about the Saint?

What about them?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TokenMinority

The Adepta Sororitas as a very concept is pure segregation. Here's Anita Sarkeesian's excellent video on Lego Friends; everything she says about the ghettoisation of a female prescence can be applied to 40K.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrmRxGLn0Bk


Do I need to give you additional examples? What about the recent female Lieutenant in the game from Relic?

One very minor, unplayable character in a game about men suddenly means 40K is an equal playing field? Nonsense. Tokenism again.


Even if your comment was true, it does not hold as a standard of good literature. If situation of women and anti-imperialism was what defined great books, we’d be throwing out around 4,000 years of writing, including ALL of the classics which are 99% “Western, white, straight, heteronormative, cis-male,” to borrow your quote. I’ve spent the past decade studying literature and I can only think of a few exceptions, maybe Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, Bronte, and all the post-Virgina Woolfers.

We can enjoy things while criticising them. I love lots of things that are deeply problematic, but I DON'T deny they ARE problematic. And yes, I genuinely regard vast swathes of pre-feminist literature as worth criticising due to its massive focus on men and men's issues. Is this due to the fact that most writer then were men? Probably. Was that because they were better writers?

I suspect it's more to do with the fact they had all the power. :rolleyes:One cannot be a writer if one has been denied access to education and never taught how.


Kind of hard to write from a woman’s perspective if you’re a dude.

"Hard" is not equivelant to "impossible". A good starting point is to talk to as many people as you can. I'm not arguing that all books should be about women all the time; that would be just as bad. I'm just in favour of a realistic, interesting portrayal of female characters who have agency and aren't simply reduced to MacGuffins to be saved or prizes to be awarded to a hero who has defeated a villain.


If I had to accept that narrow of a view, I wouldn’t be allowed to read Hemingway

You're swerving into hyperbolic rhetoric. I never said you weren't allowed, nor that you couldn't enjoy what you read. Just that it's problematic. Which it is. No-one is stopping you doing anything.


and God knows if Julius Caesar would still be taught what with the only female lead spouting off her few lines before swallowing burning coals.

Obvious straw man arguments are not worth anyone's time. Please don't use them again.


Certain feminist academics have done some marvelous analytical gymnastics to rethink these tragic heroines as something they were not, but for whatever reason, these authors just did not deal with situation of women.

"Feminism" is as valid a label as "wargamer". Some people play 40K; other Warmahordes; other Malifaux. You're not giving specific examples here, but making a general disdainful remark which, again, is basically a straw man argument. You're also going off-topic. You can't prove 40K isn't problematic by attacking some vague "feminist agenda". Even if they're wrong about everything else (which they probably aren't) that doesn't take away from the problems.


I appreciate you trying to point me in the right direction concerning good literature, but the books you’ve listed are the equivalent of any highschool AP lit. course. I know because I teach 1984. So that we can continue from this point with you understanding that I am not an unread Pleb making ignorant claims, let me say that I’ve read all the books you’ve suggested, and even more in college, where I earned a degree in English Literature, then plenty more in graduate school, where I studied American Literature. So let’s keep talking, but not with you thinking that the Space Wolf Omnibus was the first book I’ve ever read.

I never thought you were an unread pleb. I just think you're getting angry about the wrong things and the wrong people.


In keeping with your Marxist approach that it is all shameful trash and smoke and mirrors designed to sell tiny figurines

How am I wrong? I'm feeling some strong ad hominem here. I never said it was shameful; I see no shame in business - I actually think business is a very worthy thing! I just don't like it when people deny it's not a factor when it clearly is! You can't compare 40K to great literature unless you are fully prepared to address this. Think of Dickens: the man wrote for serial publication, which means his writing has a certain "shape" as a result. Business affects product, and that's what 40K is. Now, if you consider something like the Hammer films of Terence Fisher, those were made to make money, buy Fisher was determined that they be as good as they could within those confines. I don't think there's anything wrong with creating art specifically so it sells - you're the one who has deemed it "shameful".


However, I highly doubt someone would devote his life to 40k just for the money,

You're speculating here. Conjecture is not a valid argumental position.


I understand that you may be upset over the price of miniatures,

I couldn't care less about the price of models. I buy what I can when I can and I'm okay with that. I feel bad for the current generation of teenagers who have to fork out a fortune, but that doesn't extend one iota to me wanting to complain about it. I've been into 40K for years, and I got bored of hearing price complaints in 1993.


but calling all these authors “hack writers” in it for the money is a very broad stroke. Have you read the biographies of some of these guys?

No... but I have met Dan Abnett when he was at a ComicCon in Leeds, UK. A lovely, lovely man, genuine and cheerful. He openly calls his 40K books "War Porn", because he's a craftsman, not an artist. I have copies of the "Action Force" annuals he wrote to sell toys. The man just wants to get paid; now, again, returning to Hammer horror, that doesn't mean what he does is bad (actually, Abnett's better than most), but even he doesn't regard it as high art. As for the other writers? I can't talk for them, but from what I've read of their stuff... yeah, it's pretty dreadful. I don't think "hack writers" is too strong.


Most of them are scholars with degrees in literature and history.Some hold advanced degrees and many are critically acclaimed. I can give you examples if you need them.

Their qualifications do not interest me. The quality of their stories does. Their stories do not interest me, and would have to work very, very hard to do so, as I have no interest in narratives built around an ugly unreconstructed adolescent male power fantasy.


I do not include super hero comics because, although they are quite detailed and most of them masterfully crafted, they are not epics

Warren Ellis' "Planetary" and Alan Moore's "V For Vendetta" disagree with you here. I also take issue with the inference that an "epic" is better than a standalone story. Why must the fate of the world hang in the balance? If I never, ever saw another "epic" story (or anything puffed up enough to call itself a "saga" - ugh) I would be perfectly happy. People interest me, not massive battles.

Now, this is an issue of personal taste - you love epics? Fair enough. But they are not the be-all and end-all of literature, nor are they the be-all and end-all of speculative fiction.


Also Superhero comics are nonlinear, or at least they often choose not to be.

Money defines product. Again.


There is no standard for canon

With a straight face you type this? Truth be told, I despise the whole idea of canon. It's why I despise superhero stories that are in constant publication. Writers should be free to write whatever they wish, free of the constraints of whatever someone before them wrote. The story should be all that matters.


40k deals with the rise and fall of civilizations and is still currently taking place. It is a storyline spanning over 10,000 years with hundreds and hundreds of characters. The main events are happening right now, major plot elements are still in play, GW or the Black library could announce tomorrow that the Lion has woke up or the failures in the Golden throne have gone critical. These aren’t Deus ex Machina either, these are well-foreshadowed eventualities. 40k is also a traditional epic, despite the newness of it currently taking place. No one has done this before, not on this scale, not on such an epic level.

DC and Marvel have. They do it in a different way, but you argue semantics - it's exactly the same. There is a canon of key stories (Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spide; Horus betrays the Emperor) and someone fleshes out the details. If you chose to stick to canon a s a writer? good for you. If not? Good for you. If writing is art, the writer must be free to write what they like, just as you must be free to like it, or not.


Now, let’s talk about Star Wars and Star Trek. Star Trek is a show and movie series and it is the creation of one man, who, up until 2011’s Star Trek, had the final say considering what was and what was not official canon. Of all the hundreds of books published as star Trek novels only two are considered official canon, Two Voyager novels written by Jeri Taylor, and only because Taylor wanted to have his episode writers use these as reference material to flesh our character’s backgrounds. You can argue all you want that what Pocketbooks publishes is canon, but Gene Rodenberry says that although these books might be based on Star Trek but they are not part of his Universe; they are not even supplementary. Also, Star Trek loses continuity as a traditional epic by revamping the series with an alternate timeline, and different versions of the characters, so now it is really confusing to say what Star Trek is anymore, do we even bother including the old stuff? But either way, it is a film and television franchise and therefore subject to an entirely different critical approach.

No it's not. They're stories, they have a canon (for people who care - we've established by now I will never be one of them) - and there you have it.


Everything I’ve said about Star Trek also applies to Star Wars in that the story is complete in film, and please, God, let us keep it that way because Disney is most likely going to screw it up.

It's off topic, but Star Wars has already been ruined. George Lucas did a bang-up job with episode 1, eh?

Jar-Jar Binks.

Disney cannot possibly do anything worse. You know, unless they remade "Irreversible" with lightsabres.


40k is totally unique in that it has created a universe that is massive enough to incorporate the best of science fiction themes

You keep using that word.

"best"

By whose standards? Not mine.


and it is also old and superstitious enough to include classic fantasy themes

Not in and of itself, unique. The whole genre of urban fantasy does that.


and a canonization process strict enough to preserve a traditional story-arc while still allowing multiple authors from around the world. High art? No. literature? Sometimes.

I think you and I are going to have to disagree. :) Probably forever.

Hope these thoughts were interesting for you. If you really want your thinking challenged regarding feminism, I suggest you read the blog Requires Only That You Hate. The author is a self-described feminazghul. She hates Tolkein so much it burns (http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/the-tolkien-fanboy-fallacies-yes-tolkien-was-a-racist-sexist-bore-deal-with-it/). Her posts are normally very, very detailed breakdowns of why a particular book is dreadful, and average 10,000 words, usually with extensive quotations.

Yet surprisingly, she likes Dan Abnett (http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/in-the-grim-darkness-of-future-there-is-demonic-foeyay/).

http://requireshate.wordpress.com/

[Denzark]

York

You rely too much on tvtropes as a source. They are clever snarky types and take as much from your argument as they lend.

[Houghten]

I wouldn't call three links "relying on them too much," and besides which: Feh.

[Anggul]

Yeah York is right. Some 40k books are very cool and very fun to read, but ultimately it would be extremely pretentious to claim that they hold a great deal of depth. Some of them do indeed contain meaning, but it's very up-front about it.

[Gotthammer]

Kind of hard to write from a woman’s perspective if you’re a dude.

If that's your reason for not writing women (or minorities or what have you) then you shouldn't be writing at all. I mean it's kinda hard to write from a two hundred year old, seven foot tall genetically modified super-soldier's perspective (about his childhood on a planet made of lava) if you're not a two hundred year old, seven foot tall genetically modified super-soldier's perspective (who grew up on a planet made of lava).
A less facetious response would be that unless you're writing a slightly existential first person narrative with no other characters you're writing from other people's perspectives all the time (or all your characters act the same).

Many of the 40k novels and extra materials (FFG RPG books etc) are quite good at representing non-white non-dude people (or at least significantly better than they used to be), but the 40k universe as a whole is kinda terrible. The recent Eldar codex, aside from Jain Zar and the Banshees - my next band's name - only features three other depictions of female Eldar (two guardians in photos and a Harlequin in an art panel) - significantly less than the previous edition.


And personally I think the lack of romance in 40k stories is what makes them seem so dry much of the time. I'm not meaning full blown Mills & Boon here, but any sort of deep emotional connection between the characters. I mean taking the ur-novel, Space Marine, it's basically a love story between Lex, Yuri and Biff. Yuri and Biff idealise/idolise and have a very tsundre relationship towards Lex respectively, but he is too proud and stubborn to see it until it's too late and they die (um, spoilers, I guess, but it's 20 years old so whatever). The fact that their emotional link is highly developed gives the ending impact, rather than just being a thing that happens.
Similarly the Inquisition War trilogy is a giant love story with the Ian Watson's self-insert character- I mean Inquisitor Jaq Draco being in love with the super hot assassin babe that everybody want but she only loves him for no explainable reason and going on an impossible quest to save her when she dies (being a colossal dick to everyone along the way).

Do all 40k stories need this stuff? No - I mean Titanicus is awesome and it's just stompy robots except for the bit where the Moderatii is in his situation 'casue he killed a dude because he loved his Princeps so much and the tanker determined to get his rag-tag group through safely could be seen as a father figure analogy... crap.
Well there's Ultramarines where Uriel Ventris shows up and machine guns a bunch of dude and is stone cold about it. But McNiell himself has referred to them as bolter-porn, so that's what they're there for. Not a bad thing, but it's a reach to call 40k high art (I'd say art, because even though it's not exploring the human condition in a revolutionalry or particularly deep way, it's still a lot of creativity going into it).

[Nabterayl]

Like a lot of sci-fi properties, I think there's a wild disparity between the depth in 40K itself and the depth in even the best pieces of 40K art. Or, if you prefer, I think 40K art could have a lot more depth than even the best of the extant pieces actually does and still have the look and feel of 40K.

[YorkNecromancer]

Many of the 40k novels and extra materials (FFG RPG books etc) are quite good at representing non-white non-dude people (or at least significantly better than they used to be), but the 40k universe as a whole is kinda terrible. The recent Eldar codex, aside from Jain Zar and the Banshees - my next band's name - only features three other depictions of female Eldar (two guardians in photos and a Harlequin in an art panel) - significantly less than the previous edition.


This.

This, this this.

FFG's roleplay products really are very good for mixed representations of gender actually (still really bad when it comes to race, though; in the artwork you're genuinely more likely to see a rainbow coloured face than a black one) - I wonder if the gender thing is because roleplaying has a larger female player base than wargaming? And I wonder if the increased female player base is due to White Wolf aggressively targetting women in the early-mid 90's (their suggested characters were a 50:50 male/female split, and a good 75% of the female characters weren't wearing bikinis. Plus all their books used "she" as the default pronoun, rather than "he" - a minor, but interesting change. I just liked it because it was different!) It's pure speculation, so I can make no comment either way. But I do remember the glory days of the World of Darkness -driven roleplay boom when for about a decade tabletop roleplay became art, rather than munchkin-driven murderfests.

Back on-topic, I think, as I have for years, that the lack of female representation really hurts the hobby. REALLY hurts the hobby, as it casually excludes all but the most dedicated female gamers, and allows the community to remain a "boys club" where some very toxic attitudes can fester.

It makes me sad that FFG can get it so right while GW refuse to.

[The Last Lamenter]

See that's where I am right at home. What little boy has never pretended to play war with sticks and dreamed of being a bad *** super soldier? I know it's not politically correct, but I'm sure that the Black Library ought to seek an actual woman's perspective instead of a man's interpretation of a woman's perspective. It feels presumptuous, unauthentic when a man writes a woman. You can always tell if you know what to look for. Maybe there are men and women out there who are really so talented as to make the character utterly convincing, I've found that there is a huge difference from someone writing from their experience and pain and someone writing from their interpretation of someone's experience and pain. Space marines aren't real but women are I can speak for something not real if ever so commissioned, but I can't speak for a woman. They have their own voice now. Isn't that part of what feminism is about? A woman having her own identity and voice. And minorities? I don't feel I've earned the right to speak from a Jim Crow era African American. I think there are some topics that should be treated with some level of refrain. I can deal with situation of women in my writing and talk about gender, but my wife would be the first to tell you that I've no business speaking for women, and if that means that I have no business writing, then I must respectfully disagree with you.

[Nabterayl]

I think you're construing character identity too narrowly. There are two questions here. Not every character trait needs to come through in every character's perspective. If an author adds a character whose only relevant trait is "down and out beggar," "cultist," "sergeant in the Imperial Guard," why shouldn't that character be non-male or non-white? That is one question. Whether an author can convincingly portray a non-male and/or non-white character is irrelevant when the character's gender and/or ethnicity don't need to be portrayed. Even moreso when the artist in question isn't an author. When a rulebook calls for an illustration of a down and out beggar, cultist, or sergeant in the Imperial Guard, we can't exactly explain a white male default by saying the illustrator couldn't convincingly draw a female beggar, non-white sergeant, or brown skinned female cultist.

An entirely separate question is whether an author's art is strengthened by restricting his or her characters to traits that are either within his or her personal experience or in no actual person's personal experience. I'd answer that question no, but apparently you disagree. I take it, then, (to take an example that is probably in our shared reading experience) that you think the characters of Alizabeth Bequin, Patience Kys, and Kara Swole should either have been changed to men or been deleted entirely?

[The Last Lamenter]

Okay so lets say that BB and GW are guilty of this undercurrent of sexism, which seems to be the greatest flaw within the universe of 40k. What do you propose? What should they do differently, where should they start? And how do we, as the players,readers, and customers fit into this? Im not being rhetorical, I really want to know what you suggest.

[YorkNecromancer]

Okay so lets say that BB and GW are guilty of this undercurrent of sexism, which seems to be the greatest flaw within the universe of 40k. What do you propose? What should they do differently, where should they start? And how do we, as the players,readers, and customers fit into this? Im not being rhetorical, I really want to know what you suggest.

1.) Get the community to admit that there is a problem.

Basically, first we need to get to a point where when someone talks about 40K's problematic aspects, the reaction isn't knee-jerk defense. We need to get the community to see that attacking aspects of something they love isn't an attack on them, or even on the thing they love, but a genuine desire to take something good and make it great. To see the critique as a positive step.

2.) Demand better from GW

It's that simple. We're customers and fans. GW has Games Day; if every single fan who speaks to a GW employee that day goes "Wow, I love your models, but seriously - what is up with your companies attitude towards women and people of colour? It's 2013 - you do know that it looks really, really weird to an outsider, right?"

Blogs help. Youtube videos help. The fact you are male helps - I guarantee you won't experience a backlash anything like the level of horror a woman making these complaints would (http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/11/07/why-are-you-in-such-a-bad-mood-mencallmethings-responds/). So there's that. Be aware, you will get horrible comments and people attacking you; maybe not as horrifically as Anita Sarkeesian, but it can be very nasty.

Bottom line, I've been saying these things online since 2007 and nothing has changed. You know what? I don't think it ever will. I genuinely think 40K will stay a little cultural backwater, where this kind of ugly prejudice (always and forever passed off by fans unaware of their privilege as "the natural order") will just continue, because... well, part of privilege is being unaware of it. I keep hoping it'll change, but it never does.

So I don't actually think you or I or anyone here can do anything. I mean, the fact I'm going to fail doesn't mean I'm going to stop. When you know something's morally right, you keep fighting, especially when the fighting takes the form of eating biscuits and typing words into a magical plastic box.

But yeah, I don't think you or I or anyone can change anything.

You could always try incorporating female characters into you fanfiction/blog. I wrote a fanfic a while back with a predominantly female cast purely for this reason. http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?18835-Wherein-I-Attempt-to-Write-40K-Fanfic!

Also, my BoLS blog has characters written in the spirit of Not Just Being More White Boys Saving The Rest Of Us. I've even got some gay Tau in there. Of course, literally no-one has read my blog, so it's a wasted, worthless effort in that regard.

Still, I'm not stopping. :)

[Nabterayl]

As far as what GW itself could do, I think what I'd like to see is a move away from all one-dimensional characters having their incidental character traits be homogenous.


When a character is painted, for instance, I don't think the default should be for that character to look like he or she is from English stock. Sometimes there is a good reason for a given skin tone - a space marine chapter's geneseed seems to influence skin tone, for instance - but if there isn't, then let the skin tones we see have more variation.

When a character is illustrated, same thing. If the rulebook needs an illustration of an Ecclesiarchy priest, for instance, I think that by itself is adequate reason to draw a man. I don't think "Ecclesiarchy priest" automatically encodes "looks like an Englishman," though, in the same way that it codes "looks like a man." Tech-priests, we already know from books, are female just as often as male - but you wouldn't know it from the illustrations.

When a character is sculpted, same thing. Sometimes the character itself incidentally encodes certain information - an unhelmeted Blood Angel probably shouldn't have dreadlocks, for instance, simply by virtue of being a Blood Angel. An eldar guardian, tau fire warrior, or human soldier don't have the same coding of physical traits. I really appreciated the balance of sexes in the recent dark eldar kits, for instance.

When a character is written, same thing. If the protagonist of a Black Library novel meets an incidental character who could be male or female, let them be female as often as they are male. If there is a good reason for there to be gender imbalance in the incidental characters, put that in enough that the attentive reader can notice it. After all, the characters probably do - you'd notice if you were walking down a street in Manhattan and there were literally no women on the street.

As for how to achieve these things corporately, that depends in part on corporate structure and part on the attitudes of the artists themselves. For instance, let's say you tell Jes Goodwin that the next time he resculpts the Tau fire warrior kit there should be the option to create X many female fire warriors per box. If Jes is the kind of artist who would say, "No problem, that sounds great!" then all you needed to do is tell him. If he's the kind of artist who would say, "No way, no armies in 40K should have female models except Sisters and space elves" (not that I think he is), then nothing will change without some corporate coercion.

I think, though, that this sort of incidental sexism and racism in 40K art probably doesn't exactly stem from the artists themselves. I think it more likely that they know they're being paid to produce 40K art, they feel like the people who consume 40K art will consume less of it if it contains fewer white males, and they feel like their corporate patrons value 40K art that people will buy over 40K art that takes the milieu seriously. So I think what needs to change is the messaging from the people who pay the artists: Hey, we want 40K art to look like it draws from the entire human race, and not the male half of England. If there is a fan backlash against that, we will back you. In general, I think artists are happy when their corporate patrons invite them to stretch themselves and/or take their corporately sponsored art more seriously.

For me, that's what this comes down to - not fighting sexism, social change, or even engineering better attitudes in the 40K community. It comes down to taking the universe seriously. I love 40K, and I think it has the potential to be much more mature than it currently is (or has been in the past). I would love it so much more if it was more mature. I think a lot of 40K is dreck, but I don't think that because I think the source material is dreck. It's because the people who make 40K art don't take it seriously, and this is one way in which they don't.

[YorkNecromancer]

When a character is painted, for instance, I don't think the default should be for that character to look like he or she is from English stock. Sometimes there is a good reason for a given skin tone - a space marine chapter's geneseed seems to influence skin tone, for instance - but if there isn't, then let the skin tones we see have more variation.

When a character is illustrated, same thing. If the rulebook needs an illustration of an Ecclesiarchy priest, for instance, I think that by itself is adequate reason to draw a man. I don't think "Ecclesiarchy priest" automatically encodes "looks like an Englishman," though, in the same way that it codes "looks like a man." Tech-priests, we already know from books, are female just as often as male - but you wouldn't know it from the illustrations.

When a character is sculpted, same thing. Sometimes the character itself incidentally encodes certain information - an unhelmeted Blood Angel probably shouldn't have dreadlocks, for instance, simply by virtue of being a Blood Angel. An eldar guardian, tau fire warrior, or human soldier don't have the same coding of physical traits. I really appreciated the balance of sexes in the recent dark eldar kits, for instance.

When a character is written, same thing. If the protagonist of a Black Library novel meets an incidental character who could be male or female, let them be female as often as they are male. If there is a good reason for there to be gender imbalance in the incidental characters, put that in enough that the attentive reader can notice it. After all, the characters probably do - you'd notice if you were walking down a street in Manhattan and there were literally no women on the street.

Agree with all these ideas, although when it comes to painting, I would suggest changing the word "character" into the phrase "model with exposed skin".


nothing will change without some corporate coercion.

Yup. And we as fans have no power to do anything about that; no-one can convince me we can do a damn thing. What it would take is another company to aggressively pursue the as-yet utterly untapped female gamer market - which is definitely out there, but most likely turned off by the brutal "boys only" atmosphere of 40K.

Seriously GW, is it too much to ask to have a human female model who isn't in a corset?


I think, though, that this sort of incidental sexism and racism in 40K art probably doesn't exactly stem from the artists themselves.

I love the idea of racism and sexism being "incidental", like the total abscence of the vast majority of the spectrum of humanity is no big thing; everyone knows the future is for white guys only! Mild joking aside I think "unintended" might be a better word to use. And that's basically the patriarchy in action; it's people, going along with what they've always known, not thinking.

You could argue that if they're not thinking, they're, well... stupid. Because they have no thought in their head.


It's because the people who make 40K art don't take it seriously, and this is one way in which they don't.

I don't even know if it's taking the universe seriously, or just humanity.

It's like when people complain about "political correctness" limiting their vocabulary. If being "politically correct" means not making jokes about people based on their ethnicity, gender, sexuality and so forth... isn't that just another word for respect? Which we should all automatically extend to everyone? (You know, if we all want to be the friendly "Nice Guys" we imagine we are in our heads.) Political correctness has never once stopped me saying something I want to, but it's definitely helped make me a better person.

There's 7 billion people on this planet; we should just be polite to each other, and save our vitriol for the things that matter. Like 40K.

[The Last Lamenter]

A Gay Tau? never thought of that one. Gleehammer 40k "in the Grim darkness of the far future... Wait what are those Tau guys doing?" Only joking though, if you write fiction the way you write on here, I'm sure it's good, send me the link, i promise ill read it and i wont be troll about it.Seriously though, I can't do this, man. I'm not going to get in on this. If this is how its got to be, if we have to compel writers with literary affirmative action, I can't join you in demanding anything from the writers, except they keep producing good stuff. I don't see a grave enough error to warrant me having the right to demand anything or be angry. I would feel like I was complicit with a witch-hunt. I'm not going to join you in this fight, maybe the BB should hire more female writers. This isn't a fight for me, and I will continue to post threads celebrating and perhaps examining what i believe to be some philosophical and even legitimate scifi literature within the 40k universe. Good luck, you seem to have a very pure cause.

[Nabterayl]

Before you leave ... you never did answer my question about the ladies in Abnett's inquisitor books. Do you think the books would have been better with those characters as men, or deleted?

[The Last Lamenter]

Nah I don't like hypotheticals, if abnett stated it that way than it should be kept that way. Exactly the way he wrote it, and by that virtue alone, I think they're totally nessesary, but since we're talking about if, if I had to make an argument to keep them, here is what I'd say.

With Bequin, Eisenhorn had to have a posse, and he needed a foil, as a psyker, what better foil than a blank? Instead of someone who just disagrees with him. 40k has something of a tradition of portraying blanks as female, like in Nemesis, and the sisters of silence in HH.

I don't know about kys.

With Kara we have a love interest! Wouldn't go as far to call it romance. She's an acrobat, spy skilled in infiltration. I kind of see her as a femme fatale.

[Nabterayl]

So ... if you can answer that way, here's my take on the issue of men writing women. I don't think the question should be, "Can a man write a woman as well as a woman could?" We may as well ask whether a non-veteran can write soldiers as well as a veteran can, or whether a non-combat veteran can write soldiers as well as a combat veteran can, or whether a professional author can write secret police as well as a secret policeman can, and on and on the line it goes.

I submit that the question we should be asking is, "Does writing this character as a woman make the work stronger than writing the character as a man, or not writing the character at all?" Sometimes the answer to that question is no, but I think the answer is yes more than you are giving authors credit for.

[The Last Lamenter]

That's a valid point. Cheers.

[YorkNecromancer]

I submit that the question we should be asking is, "Does writing this character as a woman make the work stronger than writing the character as a man, or not writing the character at all?" Sometimes the answer to that question is no, but I think the answer is yes more than you are giving authors credit for.

It's a good way to look at it. The defense of "You have no experience of X, so therefore you can't write X authentically" is obviously a weak argument: if that were a good enough reason to shut people down, every speculative fiction genre would be instantly rendered pointless, as no-one has experience.

Now, it's true that men can often write horrendous femae characters... but those men also tend to write horrendous characters full stop.

The best writing takes reality and extrapolates logically. I have no experience of being a woman, but I have experience of being with women, having them as peers, colleagues, friends, family, lovers. I also have access to this thing called The Internet, where hundreds of thousands of authentic female voices can be read and listened to every day: Jezebel, io9, Feminist Frequency, Requires Only That You Hate, mumsnet, and so on and so forth... All it takes to write female characters is research, and treat the subject matter with respect.

Male writers only fail at female characters when they forget the key word is "character".

[Nabterayl]

I submit that it would not just shut down speculative fiction, but all fiction that was not reworked autobiography.

I don't mean to dismiss The Last Lamenter's point that authors of speculative fiction can convincingly write the speculative part because nobody has lived it, of course. But I think that's not fundamentally different from what fiction writers always do: try to understand something they have not personally lived and present it in an artistically meritorious way. That's why a good writer who has never been a detective can still write mystery stories, and also why a good male writer can write better female characters than can a bad female writer. Personal experience usually helps, but it is a supplement to - not a replacement for - authorial skill.

I'm reminded of an introduction to one of the Ghosts omnibuses in which Abnett said he gets asked by veterans among his readers asking on a fairly regular basis whether he, too, is a veteran. The answer is no, but the fact that the question gets asked goes to show that enough authorial skill can let you convincingly write something with which you have zero personal experience. Comes to that ... I don't know what it's like being a woman reading women characters written by men. But I do know that I have plenty of favorite female authors who I think write men just as well as my favorite male authors do.

[YorkNecromancer]

Literally just found an excellent quote from Joss Whedon on the topic:


Toymakers will tell you [movies with a superheroine as the main character] won’t sell enough, and movie people will point to the two terrible superheroine movies that were made and say, You see? It can’t be done. It’s stupid, and I’m hoping The Hunger Games will lead to a paradigm shift. It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see anybody developing one of these movies. It actually pisses me off. My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, “My favorite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill,” and I thought, Yeah, of course they were. I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: “If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”

Full article: http://jezebel.com/joss-whedon-is-pissed-that-there-aren-t-more-superheroi-511804793

[DarkLink]

Also, something Scott Adams (dilbert guy) said, in response to discussion about a Dilbert movie: "Movies are good or bad because of execution, not concept. Even outside of the movie realm, ideas generally have no economic value whatsoever, except in rare cases such as when a patent is issued. And even in those cases it's the patent law that creates the value, not the ideas."

If there have been crappy superheroine movies, it's because of poor execution, not poor concept. The Dark Knight is a movie about a guy who dresses up as a bat fighting a psychotic clown. It's a terrible idea. But it made one of the most critically acclaimed movies in recent cinema history.

So long as they don't invest in superheroine movies, their failure will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, when it should be an area ripe for investment and untapped wealth.

[YorkNecromancer]

A Gay Tau? never thought of that one.

I imagine not; sexuality is not one of 40K's key themes. Nonetheless, our sexuality, for better or worse, shapes a large part of our character. I see no reason not to include it as a factor in the characters I design, sometimes as a main theme, sometimes as something that's just there in the background. It all depends on the story's need.

I think when it comes to military characters, there are significant areas of human experience that are often ignored, sidelined, or minimised - especially sexuality or orientations that are deemed taboo by the military. Needless to say, we learn more about a culture from what it hides than what it reveals. As a result, some of the most compelling narratives military stories have to offer can be drawn from the difficulties of a soldier forced to hide something essential to his or her nature.

Some interesting links on the topic:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/07/24/48664.htm
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/transgender-navy-seal-article-1.1362490 - the positive responses from the other SEALs is something the American armed forces should be justly proud of.

I currently have a Death Company Dreadnought whose backstory is a homage to the film Gods and Monsters, specifically this heartbreaking scene about Barnett on the wire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgTsJ7hBQ-4

My dreadnought's story is that he was romantically in love with one of his battle-brothers; when his lover was killed, he fell to the Black Rage - because which of us wouldn't? - and his need for revenge was so great even death couldn't stop him. I modelled the Dreadnought so that he has his lover's skull in an ormulu box on the sarcophagus, so that even in death, they are together. Now, that story may make people angry for whatever reason (OMG YOU CAN'T HAVE GAY MARINES BECAUSE FLUFF!!!111!!) but the story appeals to me because it has narrative consistency, because it's what I'd do if the love of my life was killed, and because there's a very Imperium-style poetry to carrying your lover's skull to war with you. Plus, they're my models. I can do what I want with them.


I don't see a grave enough error to warrant me having the right to demand anything or be angry. I would feel like I was complicit with a witch-hunt.

None of us have the right to demand anything. We have the duty to do so; that's kind of how justice should work. As for not seing it as a grave enough error, I invite you to consider that that is due to the fact you're (I presume from your reponses, and I obviously apologise if I am in error) a straight white male - you have all the representations of yourself you need, so of course you don't see a problem. So maybe you could take a stand for those who don't have your levels of representation? Or support those who do? And I think it's important to avoid emotive language and hyperbole - it's not so much a witch hunt (no-one's going to get burned, and no books will be destroyed as heresy); more a group of people saying "Hey guys? Maybe you could try doing this thing you've never done before, instead of this thing you always do. I know you're scared, because it's new and all, but you should do it - even if it scares you - because it's the right thing to do, and you'll make new friends".


I'm sure it's good, send me the link

I had included these in the original post, but for the sake of shilling my work...

My largely dreadful fanfic: http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?18835-Wherein-I-Attempt-to-Write-40K-Fanfic
My blog, which I am slightly prouder of (updated every Sunday): http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/blog.php?17348-YorkNecromancer

This has been a very pleasant discussion so far. I hope it lasts. :)

[Pater Sin]

I would just like to point out that Tau firewarriors are as likly to be female as male. Withe the armour they wear how would you be able to tell the difference, they won't nessesarily have sculpted armour like the assoted types of eldar.

[YorkNecromancer]

Oh indeed. It'd just be nice if there were two helmetless heads - one male, one female.

Seriously, how much does 0.00001 grams of plastic cost? Just leave off a grenade pack or something.