The unreliable narrator / deconstructing canon (T Pirinen)

[Wargamer]

I'd have to disagree here. That would just make the Guardsmen look unbelievably stupid. Notably in most BL works, it's the veteran Guardsman who are dismissive of the Primer's propaganda, because they've seen the reality (just like a lot of Allied soldiers in WW2 quickly realised how wrong the propaganda they'd been fed in England was, that the Germans weren't a broken army with inferior tech just waiting to be rolled up etc.). Having the Guard blindly follow the Primer over their own experiences (without Inquisitor O'Brien putting them in the Chair after each firefight) does exactly what too much 40k fluff does, ramp up the grimderp inhumanity to the point it becomes incredulous that the Imperium survived 10 years, let alone 10,000.

 

That said, I do agree with the initial premise that unreliable narrator is a good thing, especially in things like Codexes, which are inherently partisan to begin with. Stuff like this makes me miss the days with Pirinen and co. at the helm. GW have never really achieved those heights since imo.

 

I don't think you've understood what I've said there. I didn't say the veteran ignores reality and obeys the primer; I said the veteran accepts both to be true. Orks are strong and weak at the same time; Genestealers are dangerous and harmless at the same time; Superior officers are fallible and infallible at the same time.

 

That's not the same as being grimderp stupid. It's actually the opposite; it's a bizarre, almost unfathomable state of cognitive dissonance that would be fascinating to see play out.

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

I don't think you've understood what I've said there. I didn't say the veteran ignores reality and obeys the primer; I said the veteran accepts both to be true. Orks are strong and weak at the same time; Genestealers are dangerous and harmless at the same time; Superior officers are fallible and infallible at the same time.

 

That's not the same as being grimderp stupid. It's actually the opposite; it's a bizarre, almost unfathomable state of cognitive dissonance that would be fascinating to see play out.

 

That's entirely possible. But what you've written here just seems to be a version of what we often see in Imperial characters. Although they often are fully aware of the shortcomings of Imperial forces/policy, the ultimate success of the Imperial cause is never in doubt. The regiment may be overrun and slaughtered by Orks, but the Orks will eventually fall before the Emperor's righteous justice, that sort of thing. While Imperial forces can be defeated, ultimate victory is their inevitable right.

 

Sorry if I'm just not getting it, but I just can't see how that level of cognitive dissonance would work, other than ending up as grimderp stupid.

[Wargamer]

During the Crusades, the Princes of Europe led a barefoot procession around Jerusalem so God would ensure their victory.

 

How can anyone believe that would work? Well they did. This is the kind of thing I'm getting at. Too many people in the 40k universe don't act like members of the 40k universe - they act like 20th / 21st century Western Europeans paying lip service to a religion they don't really believe in.

[the jeske]

I don't know, if it is a cultural thing, but I do not understand why people like the non omniscent narrator. It either feels lazy [someone doesn't want to check all the material given] or feels strange, when in one book orcs wrestle marines bare handed to die like rats to lasguns in another. I understand why some stuff is done[like to tell a story, or to tell the same story in a new way], but am in the firm camp that finds the same stories being told over and over as superior. I also like my writers to be craftsman that go over and over their material, so I suddenly do not have to wonder how one dude been in two places at the same time, or traveled from one side of the galaxy to another at over warp speed. But I also understand that not everyone can be Lev Tolstoy.

 

 

 

the most famous instance of it is by George Orwell in his seminal work, “1984” where you realize that everything told to you about the world could (and indeed most like is) a lie, as it comes from the representatives of the horrible regime of Oceania.

 

A lie , but whole 20th century was exactly that way? 

 

 

How can anyone believe that would work?

 

That is a reverse corelation, it was not a question of why do it, because it may not work. they did it, because it worked. Christians were rolling over other nations. They stoped doing it, when they started to lose a lot [or more precise stoped winning]. Although that kind of a drops us in XX century and if I remember right talking about that is not ok.

Edited September 3, 2017 by the jeske

[totgeboren]

I don't know, if it is a cultural thing, but I do not understand why people like the non omniscent narrator. It either feels lazy [someone doesn't want to check all the material given] or feels strange, when in one book orcs wrestle marines bare handed to die like rats to lasguns in another.

 

There are of course many ways stuff can be told. A scene being told from a first person view (or third person, like an observer), were stuff happens 'right now' that simply should not be possible given the framework of the setting is just bad. Like a terminator doing a backflip or a single marine mowing down hundreds of Eldar Apect Warriors. 

But the same scene can be told in-universe were it's obvious it's just an exaggerated story. Like the Guardsman Uplifting Primer, which is just sprouting nonsense and propaganda and it is obviously meant to be read that way.

And then you have stuff stated from a God-pow, but still obviously not entirely true. Like, say the old Index Astartes articles. I loved the one about the Word Bearers, where it matter-of-fact stated they were doing what they were doing in order to save humanity. From their perspective of course they think they are doing the right thing. It should be objectively true that the WB think they are morally justified in their actions. Their background should never present a faction as mustache-twirling villains!

But even if it is objectively true that the WB think they are morally justified does not mean that they in fact are morally justified, and the text should never force any other faction to think they are that either.

 

Bah, dunno, I much prefer the in-universe perspectives and explanations over the dry text that just states how stuff is.

Of course, many seem to have a hard time grasping this (like people insisting orks shoot magic and so on and that the UM are the best thing since sliced bread). If the UM think they are the best marines around, that's fine. If a dry text states the UM are in fact the best marines around, that's bad. Every faction should think they are the best, and be justified in their beliefs for example.

Edited September 3, 2017 by totgeboren

[Donkey Kong]

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

 

No offense intended to Aaron, but this is one of the more major reasons why I don't particularly care for 40k fluff anymore.

 

Too many people in the 40k universe don't act like members of the 40k universe - they act like 20th / 21st century Western Europeans paying lip service to a religion they don't really believe in.

 

This as well. For what's supposedly "the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable" the Imperium is populated by quite a few folks with modern western sensibilities. If 40k was committed to satire, you'd think they'd have remixed a nasheed or two by now.

[Ascanius]

I think one of the things that reinforces the "cruellest and most bloody etc" idea is how many horrors of the Imperium don't cause even the characters with "modern Western sensibilities" to bat an eye. There are servitors everywhere in 30K and 40K, for instance, and no-one gives it a second thought even though everyone knows where they come from.

 

The writer Harry Turtledove included a really clever bit in a YA novel called Gunpowder Empire published in 2003. The protagonists are teenage brother and sister in 2100 whose parents work for a company that trades with alternate timelines for resources that have been exhausted in their world; the kids get stranded alone in a timeline where the Roman Empire never fell, but has only developed about a 17th-century level of technology by 2100.

 

At one point, the brother has to accept the gift of a fur coat to avoid giving potentially fatal offence. Turtledove has him react to it in the same way that people in our time might react to leather coat made from human skin, or at least something like Cruella de Vil's Dalmatian-skin coat; he manages to get home, but then tears it off in disgust and has to rush to the bathroom to vomit and then wash himself off so he doesn't feel so unclean. For Americans in 2100 in his world, fur clothing was a revolting and disgusting practice even if you were otherwise content to eat meat or make use of other animal products.

 

Turtledove included this note just as a way of pointing out how mores change; just as we look back on things our ancestors did with revulsion, so too will our descendants look at things we do as perverse. I bring this up, then, because even the most similar-seeming character in 30K or 40K is the product of a society in which all sorts of things we would consider strange, inexplicable, or horrifying are completely normal, and probably doesn't really think about things in the same way you or I do at all.

 

The best 40K writers are those who make this clear while otherwise painting a portrait of a character that you do feel like you can understand or relate to.

[Donkey Kong]

I'd agree with you if I could recall any examples like that in the 40k fiction I've read, and I'd like to say that I've read my fair share.

 

So, for example, I can't recall any Gaunt's Ghosts characters ever interacting with servitors. But I can recall Caffran getting accused of beat and murder and instead of either being summarily executed on the spot for his perceived crimes or being pardoned because he's a soldier in the God Emperor's Imperial Guard, he is granted the right to a trial and power of attorney. And then it happens again in His Last Command when the accusation is potential Chaos taint. And when the Guard arrive in a WW1 trench war, instead of the Guard assuming control, implementing modern tactics, and imprisoning or executing anyone that got in their way, they defer command.

 

When Grimaldus has to deal with managing Hive Helsreach, he has to contend with trade unions opposing warehouses being requisitioned for barracks. Worker's rights, how authoritarian and dictatorial.

 

But, I admittedly enjoy 40k in two very different perspectives that are oftentimes difficult to reconcile, the over the top sci-fi fantasy smorgasbord 80s action movie Rogue Trader and the hyper literal Forge World Imperial Armour.

[Wargamer]

I don't remember much about Helsreach, but I remember in Necropolis several Nobles and Houses Ordinary hinder the war effort in their attempts to protect their industrial output, and thus their profits. That in my mind is a good approach to take - it speaks to a level of wrong-headed thinking that is often alluded to, as well as hinting at just how much one's power and status are dependent on meeting the Imperial Tithe.

[Trevak Dal]

In a lot of industry get-togethers/projects I've been on or around, this gets referred to as the difference between "wet" and "dry" text.

Wet text engages and immerses. Dry text explains.

You can have in-character or out-of-character text, and there's no guarantee of quality, or wetness/dryness either way. It doesn't have to be IC to be wet; the old 2nd Edition Codex Imperialis (still my 40K Bible) was engaging and immersive despite being out-of-character. But IC text is often wet by virtue of what it is and what it's doing: it's someone in the setting talking about their life and experiences.

Anyone who's read White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade / Mage: the Ascension / Werewolf: the Apocalypse's clanbooks, orderbooks, tribebooks, etc. books knows this by heart. And what Tuomas is referring to with the older Dark Elf book is the same thing. It's in-character, and it's wet. Forge World's HH books do the same - Alan went with a staggeringly unreliable narrator.

There's a very real joy to those kinds of books, with a member of that vampiric bloodline or werewolf tribe telling you about their own people - the people your character is joining, or about a history you're reading - and taking it all on board, flavoured with their prejudices and biases, especially when they even admit to them. It's realistic, and so it makes the world feel real. It's that simple.

I've always believed it's a way better way to write gaming background books, and a huge chunk of why White Wolf used to do so well. It's also one of the reasons I like first-person narratives in novels, to read as well as to write. You retain the critical analysis of being able to go "...no way, you biased goober..." to the main character, but you're still involved in their journey and engaged in seeing the world through their eyes. FitzChivalry Farseer is an incredible example of that: when you're inside his head you think the world is being completely unfair to him and all of his decisions are justified, but in the cold light of day (and when other characters challenge him) you start to think "...hey, wait, you messed this one up, Fitz."

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

Huh so that would mean that the lore is stuff being looked at hundreds or even thousands of years later? The wars long having been decided, whether Terra still stands or has been abandoned, if some humans still live, if the galaxy banded together to resist the Tyranids or if they were that much of a threat.

Sort of like Star Trek. Most episodes are portrayed as logs, played back by a viewer, or literally a holodeck replay shown in Enterprise, and also how Star Wars happened long ago far away.

Interesting to say the least. Edited September 3, 2017 by Trevak Dal

[Brother Sefiel]

Hey

 

I think that risks falling into a lazy cop-out.

I'll be honest, I don't have a problem with that.

What is this "Horus Heresy", of which you speak? Surely you don't believe the obvious attempts to distract from the internal failings of the early Imperium based on a blatant adaptation of ancient myths?!?

I believe what I can see. There's an Imperium There's (probably) an Emperor. There are a bunch of religious fanatics ruled over by a hideously inhuman regime. Beyond that, anything goes.

After all, I've been told many, many times that there's no such things as female space marines, but I've seen several armies of them, and they looked pretty real to me...

[grailkeeper]

Hold on, the Horus Heresy series has a narrator? If that's true I've missed every indication. As dar as I am aware it doesnt have a narratir at all, bever mind an unreliable one.

 

The Black Legion series has a narrator- Khayon,

The Ciaphas Cain series has a narrator- Ciaphas himself.

Those books are clearly told from the perspective of those narrators. What indications have we been given in the HH books that that they are told from a perspective?

[Donkey Kong]

Hold on, the Horus Heresy series has a narrator? If that's true I've missed every indication. As dar as I am aware it doesnt have a narratir at all, bever mind an unreliable one.

 

The Black Legion series has a narrator- Khayon,

The Ciaphas Cain series has a narrator- Ciaphas himself.

Those books are clearly told from the perspective of those narrators. What indications have we been given in the HH books that that they are told from a perspective?

 

The Forge World Horus Heresy Black Books are records written by A.K.

[D3L]

 

Hold on, the Horus Heresy series has a narrator? If that's true I've missed every indication. As dar as I am aware it doesnt have a narratir at all, bever mind an unreliable one.

 

The Black Legion series has a narrator- Khayon,

The Ciaphas Cain series has a narrator- Ciaphas himself.

Those books are clearly told from the perspective of those narrators. What indications have we been given in the HH books that that they are told from a perspective?

 

The Forge World Horus Heresy Black Books are records written by A.K.

 

slight correction, the black books, are presented as historical records assembled by A.K, Amendera Kendel, but with narration from all sources, in Betrayal it's predominately Crysos Morturg who provides the  snippets, some of his interview/debrief is present in the other books (but without whipping them off the shelf, I can't remember off hand which ones)

[the jeske]

 

There are of course many ways stuff can be told. A scene being told from a first person view (or third person, like an observer), were stuff happens 'right now' that simply should not be possible given the framework of the setting is just bad. Like a terminator doing a backflip or a single marine mowing down hundreds of Eldar Apect Warriors.

Isn't that what happened in warrior coven? Although that is unimportant, in the end. Maybe I was not precise enough. What I do not like, and the non all knowing narrator can be a part of it, is writing in a such way that the story told is made good, at the sake of over all canon. So something that is bland or uncool[there are bland and uncool things in the world, tons of them] are made "awesome" for sake of making it easier for the reader to plow through it. It is lazy in two way, first the reader is not taught how to deal with non awesome stuff[which if not done, sooner or later ends up with writers having to over hype everything, vide comics in the 90s]. And it gives the writers , and am not saying all of them end up using it, an easy way to explain inconsistency or to use  your examples a "back fliping terminator". And while this does not make a book bad, it does make the over all story world worse. It is less of a problem when one has to deal with just a few books, but when we are going in to whole libraries of stuff writen, the inconsistencies show more and more.

[Wargamer]

But I can recall Caffran getting accused of crush and murder and instead of either being summarily executed on the spot for his perceived crimes or being pardoned because he's a soldier in the God Emperor's Imperial Guard, he is granted the right to a trial and power of attorney.

I was thinking about this actually, and I wanted to touch on it again because it's another good example of people not writing a 40K story, but a modern story cosplaying as 40K.

 

The issue wasn't that Caffran was spared summary execution - 40K obviously doesn't inflict the Death Penalty for every crime. The existence of Penal Worlds alone is proof of that. Caffran's crime wasn't committed in the heat of battle so simply blowing him away would be overkill. The Imperium has laws, albeit ones that are often unjust by our reckoning, but they are laws nonetheless.

 

The issue is the way the trial functioned. There was a sense of innocent until proven guilty here. Yes, it was obvious the people in charge just wanted to rush him through the court and have him shot, but that was clearly set up as someone not doing their job properly - Gaunt certainly thought that Caffran should have been tried, and was entitled to get him a trial.

 

An opportunity was missed here to demonstrate the brutality of the Imperium; having Caffran tried by one man, with no defence of any kind permitted, based solely upon the report of an arresting Arbite, Imperial Officer, Commissariat agent or regional judicial personnel would hammer home that this is not our idea of justice.

 

But even if we accept the trial, the verdict was wrong. Caffran was guilty. He was guilty the moment he was arrested. Gaunt should not have been able to clear him of all charges, merely the original arresting charge; there is no "innocence" in Imperial Law. If nothing else, Caffran was guilty of wasting the time and resources of the Commissariat and his superior officers. He should have been punished for that! But instead, he's cleared of all charges and given a day pass to go bang his girlfriend. This might be justice in our world, but that is a gross miscarriage of justice in Caffran's world.

 

Little things like that do a very good job of showing that 40K is a dark, cruel place by our measure.

[A D-B]

It's clear this is a complicated issue, and there's a fair bit of projection and misunderstanding going on.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

 

Interested to know how the idea of '40k doesn't have canon' is still viable, when BL HH novels/Dark Imperium are clearly laying out in no vague terms so many secrets that once were just as mythical and shrouded to fans as they were to the characters in-universe.

 

We have stories telling the exact origin of Janus, what Vulkan's artifacts were, flat-out stating and showing that the Emperor bargained with Chaos to create the Primarchs, Custodes 'power levels' in relation to Astartes, let alone the entire Heresy arc itself etc. All of these were once unthinkable, wrapped in awe, myth and heresay, but are now seen as little more than a mundane extension of 40k.

 

How are these stories not contributing to a concrete 'canon'? Almost none of them take place with through an unreliable viewpoint or narrator, or raise more questions than answers. The universe is quite clearly being locked down under these objective events and narratives.

 

This is a difficult position to argue with, not because it's right, but because it's so narrow and you sound pretty hostile about it. You mention a small handful of previous mysteries that were, plainly and understandably, important to you as examples. And I'd agree with a lot of them. A lot of them are things I'd prefer to have remained unspoken and unknown. But information about those (and others!) doesn't mean the entire setting has suddenly gone on a shift towards absolute canon. I can give you a hundred more examples of things that have been explained or enlightened that were vague as hell 20+ years ago, but that doesn't mean everything is powering towards an immediate and final canon.

 

You're looking at individual trees there, and not seeing the forest.

 

 

 

 And what Tuomas is referring to with the older Dark Elf book is the same thing. It's in-character, and it's wet. Forge World's HH books do the same - Alan went with a staggeringly unreliable narrator.

 

 

That actually presents a problem imo. The older Fantasy stuff is the best example because it's so obvious the narrator is an unreliable, partisan cheerleader for the book's faction. 

 

Oh, I wouldn't argue with that. Like I said, it's why I like first-person books, and why my third-person books are so vague with answers. My Night Lords all completely disagreed on what the Legion's glory days ever were, each character seeing a completely different Legion in the past, with completely different values. You don't come out of those novels knowing what the Night Lords were, but what those characters believe the Legion was. (Which is, well, the point.) And for all of the revelations in something like TMoM, there are countless more questions left unanswered. So we know that Custodians are a bit tougher than Space Marines now. Wow. Amazing. Who cares. What does that mean, compared to the actual myths and legends of the setting? Not a damn thing.

 

 

 

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

 

No offense intended to Aaron, but this is one of the more major reasons why I don't particularly care for 40k fluff anymore.

 

There's no way that would offend me. It's not my decision, or anything related to me. Nor is it new. It's not something that's just started happening. The 40K universe has always been treated this way by its creators, so if there's something you don't like lately, this probably isn't its source. Nothing's changed in terms of what you're referring to. The quote from Marc Gascoigne below is, like, ten years old. And he was talking about how things were always done.

 

 

In a lot of industry get-togethers/projects I've been on or around, this gets referred to as the difference between "wet" and "dry" text.

Wet text engages and immerses. Dry text explains.

You can have in-character or out-of-character text, and there's no guarantee of quality, or wetness/dryness either way. It doesn't have to be IC to be wet; the old 2nd Edition Codex Imperialis (still my 40K Bible) was engaging and immersive despite being out-of-character. But IC text is often wet by virtue of what it is and what it's doing: it's someone in the setting talking about their life and experiences.

Anyone who's read White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade / Mage: the Ascension / Werewolf: the Apocalypse's clanbooks, orderbooks, tribebooks, etc. books knows this by heart. And what Tuomas is referring to with the older Dark Elf book is the same thing. It's in-character, and it's wet. Forge World's HH books do the same - Alan went with a staggeringly unreliable narrator.

There's a very real joy to those kinds of books, with a member of that vampiric bloodline or werewolf tribe telling you about their own people - the people your character is joining, or about a history you're reading - and taking it all on board, flavoured with their prejudices and biases, especially when they even admit to them. It's realistic, and so it makes the world feel real. It's that simple.

I've always believed it's a way better way to write gaming background books, and a huge chunk of why White Wolf used to do so well. It's also one of the reasons I like first-person narratives in novels, to read as well as to write. You retain the critical analysis of being able to go "...no way, you biased goober..." to the main character, but you're still involved in their journey and engaged in seeing the world through their eyes. FitzChivalry Farseer is an incredible example of that: when you're inside his head you think the world is being completely unfair to him and all of his decisions are justified, but in the cold light of day (and when other characters challenge him) you start to think "...hey, wait, you messed this one up, Fitz."

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

Huh so that would mean that the lore is stuff being looked at hundreds or even thousands of years later? The wars long having been decided, whether Terra still stands or has been abandoned, if some humans still live, if the galaxy banded together to resist the Tyranids or if they were that much of a threat.

Sort of like Star Trek. Most episodes are portrayed as logs, played back by a viewer, or literally a holodeck replay shown in Enterprise, and also how Star Wars happened long ago far away.

Interesting to say the least.

 

 

Not exactly. That's applying structure to something that's just a vibe. It's treated as a future history. Not a history, looked back on from the future. To quote Marc Gascoigne:

 

"Keep in mind Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are worlds where half truths, lies, propaganda, politics, legends and myths exist. The absolute truth which is implied when you talk about "canonical background" will never be known because of this. Everything we know about these worlds is from the viewpoints of people in them which are as a result incomplete and even sometimes incorrect. The truth is mutable, debatable and lost as the victors write the history...

Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it.

Let's put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex... and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths."

Edited September 4, 2017 by A D-B

[SpecialIssue]

It's clear this is a complicated issue, and there's a fair bit of projection and misunderstanding going on.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

 

Interested to know how the idea of '40k doesn't have canon' is still viable, when BL HH novels/Dark Imperium are clearly laying out in no vague terms so many secrets that once were just as mythical and shrouded to fans as they were to the characters in-universe.

 

We have stories telling the exact origin of Janus, what Vulkan's artifacts were, flat-out stating and showing that the Emperor bargained with Chaos to create the Primarchs, Custodes 'power levels' in relation to Astartes, let alone the entire Heresy arc itself etc. All of these were once unthinkable, wrapped in awe, myth and heresay, but are now seen as little more than a mundane extension of 40k.

 

How are these stories not contributing to a concrete 'canon'? Almost none of them take place with through an unreliable viewpoint or narrator, or raise more questions than answers. The universe is quite clearly being locked down under these objective events and narratives.

 

This is a difficult position to argue with, not because it's right, but because it's so narrow and you sound pretty hostile about it. You mention a small handful of previous mysteries that were, plainly and understandably, important to you as examples. And I'd agree with a lot of them. A lot of them are things I'd prefer to have remained unspoken and unknown. But information about those (and others!) doesn't mean the entire setting has suddenly gone on a shift towards absolute canon. I can give you a hundred more examples of things that have been explained or enlightened that were vague as hell 20+ years ago, but that doesn't mean everything is powering towards an immediate and final canon.

 

You're looking at individual trees there, and not seeing the forest.

 

Sorry, not being purposely combative or anything - just passionate.

 

The individual trees are important in collectively determining the nature of the forest, and what it brings to life and sustains - and I think there are a lot of trees which have been stripped of mystery and nuance.

 

Without the foliage of infinite possibilities that are half-truths and mysteries, inevitably the things that feed on these open endings (ideas, interpretations, versions, viewpoints, fan-imagination, debates and discussion) will starve.

 

Edit: 40k is best as a vague vision into a nightmarish future - broad strokes, and cutting personal snippets - like the scribbles of Blanche which seem to ape an Astropath's autostylus output of his visions of events and people, feelings and themes. Not objective by any measure, but important to communicate what the universe stands for and builds, and what it is like to live in. It is up to the reader to make of it what they will in their own personal 'canon' and forming their own immutable 'truths' from these subjective views. Angels of Darkness, Lord of the Night, even Xenology. There are no hard answers to be found in any of those - but they unmistakably enriched the universe and widened, not shrunk the potential metaplot.

Edited September 4, 2017 by SpecialIssueAmmo

[Petitioner's City]

In a lot of industry get-togethers/projects I've been on or around, this gets referred to as the difference between "wet" and "dry" text.

 

Wet text engages and immerses. Dry text explains.

 

You can have in-character or out-of-character text, and there's no guarantee of quality, or wetness/dryness either way. It doesn't have to be IC to be wet; the old 2nd Edition Codex Imperialis (still my 40K Bible) was engaging and immersive despite being out-of-character. But IC text is often wet by virtue of what it is and what it's doing: it's someone in the setting talking about their life and experiences.

 

Anyone who's read White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade / Mage: the Ascension / Werewolf: the Apocalypse's clanbooks, orderbooks, tribebooks, etc. books knows this by heart. And what Tuomas is referring to with the older Dark Elf book is the same thing. It's in-character, and it's wet. Forge World's HH books do the same - Alan went with a staggeringly unreliable narrator.

 

There's a very real joy to those kinds of books, with a member of that vampiric bloodline or werewolf tribe telling you about their own people - the people your character is joining, or about a history you're reading - and taking it all on board, flavoured with their prejudices and biases, especially when they even admit to them. It's realistic, and so it makes the world feel real. It's that simple.

 

I've always believed it's a way better way to write gaming background books, and a huge chunk of why White Wolf used to do so well. It's also one of the reasons I like first-person narratives in novels, to read as well as to write. You retain the critical analysis of being able to go "...no way, you biased goober..." to the main character, but you're still involved in their journey and engaged in seeing the world through their eyes. FitzChivalry Farseer is an incredible example of that: when you're inside his head you think the world is being completely unfair to him and all of his decisions are justified, but in the cold light of day (and when other characters challenge him) you start to think "...hey, wait, you messed this one up, Fitz."

 

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

 

Huh so that would mean that the lore is stuff being looked at hundreds or even thousands of years later? The wars long having been decided, whether Terra still stands or has been abandoned, if some humans still live, if the galaxy banded together to resist the Tyranids or if they were that much of a threat.

 

Sort of like Star Trek. Most episodes are portrayed as logs, played back by a viewer, or literally a holodeck replay shown in Enterprise, and also how Star Wars happened long ago far away.

 

Interesting to say the least.

 

 

Tangent, but I must say your Trek thing there is itself a fanon/head canon thing - something you as a viewer have established outwith the text. Fair dos, but I don't agree. Unfortunately, Trek rarely does anything to suggest that what is on-screen shouldn't be trusted (with exceptions like Rashomon-influenced episodes, certain "torture O'Brien" or similar episodes, etc). It is not something the episodes themselves substantiate. Most episodes have logs, but you'll notice that fell out of favour in DS9, for example, so that most episodes from season 4 onwards don't use narration (check the companion on googlebooks to see how many lack).

 

There is nothing on-screen - beyond 'These Are the Voyages' and aforementioned psychodramas - which suggests the rest of what is on-screen isn't 'verisimilitudinous'. Of course Rodenberry's intro to his & Alan Foster's Motion Picture novelisation suggests that as a way to retcon the visual changes in that film from TOS - that TOS is a record, but the Motion Picture is more the honest truth - but it isn't a screen-set phenomenon. Interestingly, the logs form the only real unreliable narrator in the episodes, for example when the speaker isn't yet up to date on facts - the cold-open frame for viewers - but then the truth is revealed soon in, rarely do the logs suggest a false understanding of the events on screen. Of course, if there was Fuller's Discovery being made, this may not be the case, but we shall see if Discovery posits a non-realist form of Trek (I hope so!). And although TAS is canon, you could argue media makes it more or less 'real' (I'd say its expansive imagination puts it as 'more' , but then also not  ). 

 

However, 'canon' is itself a fiction - and even with Trek, the formation of canon during the Richard Arnold days was iffy. Canon is always revisable by later generations of creators, even within a series, and things are also consciously ignored as well.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Petitioner's City

[Donkey Kong]

 

 

EDIT: I should add, importantly, another reason unreliable narrators work so well is because of a key theme behind what 40K is. It's future history. It's always been envisioned and explained as fragmented stories being brought back from a past that just hasn't happened yet. Scholars and storytellers piecing it together, like a Dark Age, where truth is so corrupted by time and decay that nothing is absolute. (Another reason why 40K's canon never really existed. It's not accidental or to cover mistakes, it's the point of the setting's theme.)

 

No offense intended to Aaron, but this is one of the more major reasons why I don't particularly care for 40k fluff anymore.

 

There's no way that would offend me. It's not my decision, or anything related to me. Nor is it new. It's not something that's just started happening. The 40K universe has always been treated this way by its creators, so if there's something you don't like lately, this probably isn't its source. Nothing's changed in terms of what you're referring to. The quote from Marc Gascoigne below is, like, ten years old. And he was talking about how things were always done.

 

I don't blame you for making the decision for secrets and lies, but it is something that I hadn't noticed until more recently (i.e. several years ago), most notably through your "loose canon" blog posts. But, the way I interpret GW's or BL's decision, for better or worse, is lazy, and unfortunately it's not something I can rationalize in a forest from the trees kind of way. It feels like GW does not care about maintaining continuity, and if corporate doesn't care about it, I don't feel compelled to either.

 

We had a similar discussion before, I don't know if you remember, in which you replied to something I wrote about being frustrated by continuity as exemplified by Sanguinius's hair in A Thousand Sons. The crux of my argument at the time was that if I can't trust GW to keep continuity on minutia, what can I expect them to do? It doesn't help that there are moments where it feels like authors, including you, revel in the ambiguity of the setting. There's a throwaway line in Helsreach where Andrej doesn't care about whether he's referred to as a grenadier or a stormtrooper. In the grand scheme of 40k, it means less than nothing. Helsreach is still an enjoyable book. Andrej is still a fun character. But, in the moment, it bothers me.

 

All the same, I appreciate you taking time to talk to us on the forums. Thank you Aaron.

[Adeptus]

I don't blame you for making the decision for secrets and lies, but it is something that I hadn't noticed until more recently (i.e. several years ago), most notably through your "loose canon" blog posts. But, the way I interpret GW's or BL's decision, for better or worse, is lazy, and unfortunately it's not something I can rationalize in a forest from the trees kind of way. It feels like GW does not care about maintaining continuity, and if corporate doesn't care about it, I don't feel compelled to either.

 

We had a similar discussion before, I don't know if you remember, in which you replied to something I wrote about being frustrated by continuity as exemplified by Sanguinius's hair in A Thousand Sons. The crux of my argument at the time was that if I can't trust GW to keep continuity on minutia, what can I expect them to do? It doesn't help that there are moments where it feels like authors, including you, revel in the ambiguity of the setting. There's a throwaway line in Helsreach where Andrej doesn't care about whether he's referred to as a grenadier or a stormtrooper. In the grand scheme of 40k, it means less than nothing. Helsreach is still an enjoyable book. Andrej is still a fun character. But, in the moment, it bothers me.

 

All the same, I appreciate you taking time to talk to us on the forums. Thank you Aaron.

 

If we imagine BL/GW as parents, and ourselves (the readers or consumers) as their children, then I think hard facts and strict continuity are like chocolate. We all want it, we all crave it, but it's irresponsible for our parents to just let us have as much as we want. We'll become spoiled and fat. Some of us are self aware enough to realise that too much information is a bad thing for everyone, but at the same time we'd all love to know just what was written on the Terminus Decree, or exactly what the nature of the great evil beneath Mount Anarch is. But as long as there's some wiggle room, so long as the exact truth ISN'T spelled out, we can all have our own interpretations which we can believe are the most accurate, the most concise.

 

 

But I can recall Caffran getting accused of crush and murder and instead of either being summarily executed on the spot for his perceived crimes or being pardoned because he's a soldier in the God Emperor's Imperial Guard, he is granted the right to a trial and power of attorney.

I was thinking about this actually, and I wanted to touch on it again because it's another good example of people not writing a 40K story, but a modern story cosplaying as 40K...

 

 

Dan Abnett, while a good writer, is notorious for setting his stories in the Abnettverse, which bears many similarities to the 41st Millennium, but at the same time is also fundamentally different.

[Azekai]

 

 

Dan Abnett, while a good writer, is notorious for setting his stories in the Abnettverse, which bears many similarities to the 41st Millennium, but at the same time is also fundamentally different.

 

I don't really agree with this. The galaxy is a big place. I think there is room for the rare courtroom drama even in the morally destitute 41st Millennium.

 

It wasn't even much of a trial, just a little guy getting railroaded. The only thing that saved Caffran was that he had powerful friends looking out for him, which seems pretty dystopian (and realistic) to me.

[Adeptus]

 

 

 

Dan Abnett, while a good writer, is notorious for setting his stories in the Abnettverse, which bears many similarities to the 41st Millennium, but at the same time is also fundamentally different.

 

I don't really agree with this. The galaxy is a big place. I think there is room for the rare courtroom drama even in the morally destitute 41st Millennium.

 

It wasn't even much of a trial, just a little guy getting railroaded. The only thing that saved Caffran was that he had powerful friends looking out for him, which seems pretty dystopian (and realistic) to me.

 

 

While it's true that the galaxy is a big place with room for lots of little out-of-character oddities, Abnett consistently chooses to exclusively set his stories in those out-of-character oddities. He predominately writes 21st century stories, with 21st century characters and sensibilities and social norms and social structures, but gives them a veneer of 41st millennium. And I mean, I'm not posting any new ideas here, the concept of the Abnett-verse is old and pretty well established. And I don't want to give the impression than I'm criticising Dan as an author either, he writes very well indeed I just don't think his version of 40K really agrees with the version a lot of people have in their minds. Sometimes that dissonance isn't readily apparent, you might not notice it until someone points it out, and some peoples versions of 40K will be absolutely in line with Abnett's view (indeed, may have been formed BY his view) but for a lot of people it's a "close, but something's slightly off" sort of feeling.

[Azekai]

Just because an idea is established or commonly held doesn't make it insightful or even true. All authors are different. C.S. Goto's 40k is different from Abnett's is different from ADB's. That doesn't make it 'not 40k' or '40k lite.'

 

[Adeptus]

Just because an idea is established or commonly held doesn't make it insightful or even true. All authors are different. C.S. Goto's 40k is different from Abnett's is different from ADB's. That doesn't make it 'not 40k' or '40k lite.'

 

 

 

But when the idea is a collection of commonly held opinions, then those opinions being commonly held make it true.

 

If we take the statement that the sky is red, then lots of people agreeing with it does not make it true.

 

But if we take the statement that lots of people think hamburgers are delicious, then lots of people agreeing with it DOES make it true.

 

Lots of people find Abnett's writing to have inconsistencies with the version of 40K they have in their mind. This is a phenomena common enough among consumers of 40K literature to have it's own name: The Abnett-verse.

 

It's a real thing.

 

EDIT: Of course, the Thorpe-verse and A D-B-verse and Goto-verse are all real things as well, but they're less well-defined than the Abnett-verse. When people make reference to the Abnett-verse they mean a very specific thing, and the term has a commonly understood meaning among readers.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Adeptus