In the grim darkness of the far future... [Controversial]

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Yeah I've kinda grown weary of ADB's shtick by now. He overuses the formula to the point that it's expected now. Which quickly turns me off later novels, because I start to see almost the exact same dialogue (and he does repeat scenarios/characters). I'll still read his stuff, but he seriously needs to break out of it. It's just lazy writing basically. It irritates me especially because despite (rather than because) of the formula, he does show flashes of genius (like giving Sigismund a worthy death etc). He is one of the most inventive writers at BL, he kinda needs to be made to write out of his comfort zone though.

 

Kyme is just dull. His work isn't even terrible, its just flat and mediocre. All of the aspects that make Salamanders interesting are never explored properly, and instead I hear 'anvil', 'fire' and 'hammer' about a billion times. There are some moments of insight into Vulkan's unique perspective (he's the humanitarian of his brothers), but it gets lost in oceans of cringe or tedium. 'Old Earth' is boring and pointless, just in case anyone thinks because they're in the webway it has any impact on the Siege.

 

I agree with people praising 'Fulgrim', I liked it a lot. I'm not a fan of Emperor's Children, but the more novels I read about them, the more they grow on me. They're still arrogant peacocks, but the 30k series has fleshed them out properly (especially Fabius). 'Palatine Phoenix' was surprisingly good, despite the cheesy premise (Fulgrim decides to prove a point and conquer a world with a command squad). Iron Hands remain boring and no one seems to be able to write them intelligently, by comparison (for me at least).

 

I agree Thorpe is overrated, but you can't accuse him of being boring (which is Kyme's problem). I think I'm an outlier in that I actually like the 30k Dark Angels novels, although I agree 'Descent' is a slog at times. 

[rendingon1+]

I noticed that best McNeill novels were set before/at the start of heresy. Mechanicum (like it a lot), Fulgrim, False Gods and Thousand sons. I like his portrayal of legions before the :cuss hits the fan. Conclusion: McNeill is good at setting fundamentals, characters and general feel etc. but he get's lost in the plot when things are supposed to get complicated and complex. I certainly not like his "how x falls to chaos" scheme, laer sword and erebus convincing (eh) Horus to be bad are so weak..

[depthcharge12]

He's written before it's more that he wants to have a more realistic gender portrayal. The main character in Emperors Spears will be female too. He also has a lot of non-white characters too. My only real criticism of his comes from Helsreach, in that apparently every Ork can be described as "piggish".

Yup I’ve got no problem with that and he does a good job not shoehorning or forcefeeding us that material. Thousand Sons having Iranian influence and Word Bearers have middle eastern themes makes sense.

 

It’s just seeing the same character in a different shirt pop up in each novel is a bit tiring. His new side project has a strong female lead with another tanky male character. The Emperor’s spears will predictably have...you guessed it, a strong female character and an Astartes companion :P They do say you will find patterns in anything, so it could just be me being loony as usual. I wrote out a list of commonalities between ADB’s cast before, but he took it the wrong way. At least he is genial and tries to talk to his critics - one particular BL writer (not ADB) just blocks people on Twitter when his material and worldview is challenged <_<

 

Sometimes I wonder if ADB just wants to write himself and his wife into his novels lol. I can’t fault him for that, I have a hard time not wanting to write myself into my fanfap. It’s a fun universe, so I can’t blame anyone for wanting to roleplay into their own stories!

 

 

I sort of wish Sarah Cawkwell would come back. I enjoyed her Silver Skulls stuff (the bad guy is actually pretty dang evil and can kill good characters! An effective bad guy! *gasp*) :P I think she’d be ideal for a toss up between Meduson and Tybalt Mar.

[Withershadow]

Haha, I vaguely remember that. Yes, he was pretty salty and I'm sure the chorus of stans screaming "NOO, DON'T LISTEN, EVERYTHING YOU DO IS PERFECT!" didn't help your criticism find purchase. :P

[carlisimo]

Didn't ADB break his pattern in The Master of Mankind?

 

Anyway, I think we've known since Battle for the Abyss that the Horus Heresy series wasn't going to be 100% high art. That book was, at best, standard bolter porn: simple genre fiction for the undiscerning audience. We've gotten a lot of that since, and the worst part is that a lot of legions have only gotten that. I'll take inconsistency from big names like Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill over consistently shallow efforts - at least we got Know No Fear and Fulgrim from those guys.

 

A more general criticism of mine is that weaving multiple ongoing plots into the books rarely seems to make them better. I could've done with one arc fewer in Vengeful Spirit, for example.

On the other hand, we do have some good authors involved, and some of the guys who aren't as consistent still do certain things very well (e.g. Gav Thorpe playing the long game with some plot points).

 

I wish we could see what Peter Fehervari could do in a Heresy novel.

[Withershadow]

There was that Baroness or whatever that went into the Webway with them that had a few parts, but yes, there was no usual outsider or any sort of main protagonist (except the Emperor maybe?). Definitely a pattern break.

[Lord_Caerolion]

There was the crippled Blood Angel character.

[bluntblade]

Lotara's interactions with Khârn are far, far smaller than Cyrene's with Argel Tal, mind. Ditto Jaya's with Zephon.

[A D-B]

 

He's written before it's more that he wants to have a more realistic gender portrayal. The main character in Emperors Spears will be female too. He also has a lot of non-white characters too. My only real criticism of his comes from Helsreach, in that apparently every Ork can be described as "piggish".

Yup I’ve got no problem with that and he does a good job not shoehorning or forcefeeding us that material. Thousand Sons having Iranian influence and Word Bearers have middle eastern themes makes sense.

 

It’s just seeing the same character in a different shirt pop up in each novel is a bit tiring. His new side project has a strong female lead with another tanky male character. The Emperor’s spears will predictably have...you guessed it, a strong female character and an Astartes companion They do say you will find patterns in anything, so it could just be me being loony as usual. I wrote out a list of commonalities between ADB’s cast before, but he took it the wrong way. At least he is genial and tries to talk to his critics - one particular BL writer (not ADB) just blocks people on Twitter when his material and worldview is challenged

 

Sometimes I wonder if ADB just wants to write himself and his wife into his novels lol. I can’t fault him for that, I have a hard time not wanting to write myself into my fanfap. It’s a fun universe, so I can’t blame anyone for wanting to roleplay into their own stories!

 

That would be really weird. Also, it's the opposite of that. If something is too close to real life, I change it. Altani, the young girl in The Long Night, was male, but I'd just had a son before writing it, so she got changed to female. I wanted to avoid any stupid "AD-B just had a son" stuff.

 

I didn't disagree with your list, by the way, because I couldn't see the pattern. It was because it was the wrong pattern.

 

 

It's (partly) noticeable because they're female. It's not noticeable because it's not actually true, though. Let me put it this way, there's nothing particularly similar about Octavia, Ultio, Cyrene, or Lotara, except for their junk. They're entirely different characters with almost nothing in common, and entirely different relationships to the protagonists.

 

And that isn't counting the male characters, to whom several of my protagonists have interacted with more, or been closer to. But they never get the same complaints, because people don't notice it when it's with males.

 

You're always going to get a fair chunk of Chaos/Space Marine interaction with human/non-Marine characters. That's a pattern. That's not "lazy writing", that's what I'm interested in writing, and a significant factor in the setting. But the "female best friend" thing is nonsense, which is why I objected to it-- and why I shot it down in such detail. It sounds credible, until you actually look into it. Then it vanishes, under any analysis at all. Many of those female characters aren't even the closest human character to the Marine protagonists. Other, male characters are. But the males get ignored to reinforce the misleading point.

 

For anyone curious, with a great many thousands of words on explanation and analysis:

1. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/338425-the-black-legion/?p=4850527
2. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/338425-the-black-legion/?p=4850533
3. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/338425-the-black-legion/?p=4850903
4. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/296283-chaotic-thoughts-after-reading-talon-of-horus-spoiler-alert/?p=3825637 (post #43; it won't link cleanly for some fun reason.)

And you've got to remember, chief, you're setting down a very, very narrow set of limitations here. Because, as I said before:

 

 

Every single one of those female characters being listed occupies a vastly different role in the story, with completely different relationships to the protagonists. There are no real similarities beyond the shallowest interpretation.

 

The protagonist of my current novel has three human thralls, whom he interacts with extensively and realistically, because the theme of the novel is what it's like to be a human around Space Marines-- something I've touched on from the Marine POV but never focused on in terms of a human's POV before. It would be odd if at least one of those thralls wasn't female. And if there's only one, she's going to be accused of being "the female best friend", no matter what her relationship to the Marine is. 

 

So, what's the answer there? The limitations set on this stuff by people that don't really think it through means literally anything but a 100% dudefest will be taken as reinforcing their point. You cant win unless you present the setting unrealistically for several books in a row, acting scared of nonsensical criticism.

 

Yes, there are patterns. And if you're bored of Marine/human interaction and find it repetitive, I'm fine with that. I think there should be way more of it, and I'm interested in writing it from a variety of angles and perspectives. I'll never argue with someone who's sick of seeing it, because it's their call. But there are ways to highlight patterns without falling into dangerous and inaccurate meme territory.

Edited March 12, 2018 by A D-B

[rendingon1+]

So, what's the answer there? The limitations set on this stuff by people that don't really think it through means literally anything but a 100% dudefest will be taken as reinforcing their point. You cant win unless you present the setting unrealistically for several books in a row, acting scared of nonsensical criticism.

 

 

Instead of female characters you can use Jokaeros. Neither a dudefest nor femfriend. Let's see what they say about that!

That's what I would do.

[Gorgoff]

 

So, what's the answer there? The limitations set on this stuff by people that don't really think it through means literally anything but a 100% dudefest will be taken as reinforcing their point. You cant win unless you present the setting unrealistically for several books in a row, acting scared of nonsensical criticism.

 

 

Instead of female characters you can use Jokaeros. Neither a dudefest nor femfriend. Let's see what they say about that!

That's what I would do.

They don't have girls?

But... where do their babies come from? :o

 

@adb: I haven't seen a "Marine has BFF girl around him " pattern either. More like "marine interacts with humans" which is fine by me.

It creates those "Wait, what? You can't breathe under water?!?" moments which I really like.

For me those "friendships" Show even more how far from humanity marines are and that they are Not basically roided up fighters in big armour.

And as long you finally write me a nice story about Kyr Vhalen I won't be mad at you, Aaron. :D

 

@angel exterminatus: I liked that book. First one where I kind of liked the EC and Perturabo and his boyz are written as a very likable and interesting bunch.

And by the way: making Peter Turbo a high end geek who builds miniatures from scratch in his nerdcave was plain awesome.

 

@Fulgrim: Noice book but the fall was way to fast for my liking and I still think that they should've stayed with the original fluff where Horus turns him, instead of letting him touch a demon blade.

Speaking of:

The way Horus fell in book two was ludicrous. Gone was the clever smart and charming demi god from book one and here we are with some dumb half wit moron who runs into an obvious trap head on because someone called him names.

That could be explained for me with the superhuman balls only primarchs have but that doesn't explain why he all of the sudden trusts a :cuss like Erebus. ;)

I usually like Grahams work but that seemed... odd and not very believeable to me.

 

And so forth.

 

We had great books and we had bad books so far and all in all it had been a fun ride. :)

Like some smart men once said:

We only get to enjoy that ride once. When it's told and read, it is over and will never feel the same again.

 

I remember very vividly the first time book one of that series and Horus had his first appearance. It was for me the first time a Primarch showed of in a novel and wasn't just a sidenote of some long forgotten time. That was awesome and still is. But that was a singular moment in my nerdlife. The excitement of finally "meet" a Primarch only had been in that book and that book only. After that Primarchs got a regular part of those books.

So cherish those moments guys.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Gorgoff

[Hellrender]

I think gorgoff hits the nail on the head there :)

[depthcharge12]

@ADB

I’m glad we can have an amicable chat and that you are willing to speak with the community. I believe you may be right that it could be a shallow comparison but I’ve heard from others that have noticed it as well - so I can’t attribute it to my lunacy this time :D

 

I don’t know how to describe it other than maybe your writing style? I read a book by Abnett with female characters and I don’t see the pattern. I read a McNeill book with female characters in it and I don’t see the pattern. I read most of your books (and with the exception of MoM and to an extent the most recent Black Legion book) and I see it there - two main story paths followed by the outcast and the strong female lead. Lotarra Sarrin has few lines, but she has been well imprinted into the mind of your readers (she’s a badass yo)...I couldn’t tell you the name of that one perpetual lady in Vengeful Spirit that had a major role in trying to close the gate. Or hell, even the name of that one psycho painter chick in Fulgrim, which is one of my top three novels btw. Yet I can name each and every one of your female cast and what was going on in their heads because I saw a pattern.

 

They definitely have different areas so to speak, and you are correct that on the surface, they are different. And you bring up your male characters but I never seem to notice it. Andrej, the wolf in BL, Septimus, the dream eater, etc.

 

 

As for your new novel, why not two or more female thralls? Like I said, you always have just the one (ADB’s female Sith rule of One) :P If any of your cast regardless of what they are under the sun that day has a meaningful role, then I could care less about the gender, that’s not the issue. I see Lotarra, Octavia, Ultio, or Cyrene as above the crop of normal human serfs who don’t take :cuss from nobody (ya hear?). Well..I guess that’s because two of them are wired into god machines, but the other two are at the spiritual heart of legions as well.

 

 

As for human/Astartes relation...that I have no issue with other than maybe there should be more conflict? I like the way the SoH act toward the remembrancers in most novels, though I guess that could be attributed to their Cthonic abrasiveness. They act like the petulant roided up barbarian children I expect them to be until they grow up in their mid 200’s haha :D

 

What is your point of view on that (or even the Black Library at large)? I feel like Astartes sometimes act way too nice or collected for psychotic genocidal child soldiers.

 

One last thing (sorry for the wall of text), I’m happy you’re taking on the spears my dude. Will it be Polynesian/Maori in nature? They’ve deserved some time in the sun, and I had been making a titan legion from a Maori ocean world, and I won’t bore you with the details, but they had curved swords Nautilus class Titan tridents and rode out of sick underwater/volcano/AdMech bases.

[A D-B]

@ADB

I’m glad we can have an amicable chat and that you are willing to speak with the community. I believe you may be right that it could be a shallow comparison but I’ve heard from others that have noticed it as well - so I can’t attribute it to my lunacy this time

 

I don’t know how to describe it other than maybe your writing style? I read a book by Abnett with female characters and I don’t see the pattern. I read a McNeill book with female characters in it and I don’t see the pattern. I read most of your books (and with the exception of MoM and to an extent the most recent Black Legion book) and I see it there - two main story paths followed by the outcast and the strong female lead. Lotarra Sarrin has few lines, but she has been well imprinted into the mind of your readers (she’s a badass yo)...I couldn’t tell you the name of that one perpetual lady in Vengeful Spirit that had a major role in trying to close the gate. Or hell, even the name of that one psycho painter chick in Fulgrim, which is one of my top three novels btw. Yet I can name each and every one of your female cast and what was going on in their heads because I saw a pattern.

 

They definitely have different areas so to speak, and you are correct that on the surface, they are different. And you bring up your male characters but I never seem to notice it. Andrej, the wolf in BL, Septimus, the dream eater, etc.

 

Part of the issue there is that they're not "strong female leads". For almost every one of those women, there's a male human character either closer to the protagonist, or more crucial to the story, or even other female characters. And every single one of those females is completely different in personality, narrative role, and relationship to the protagonist. Even some of the ones you're listing there; Octavia? She gets the same (or less) screen time than Septimus, and isn't closer to Talos than Septimus is, but it's Octavia that gets considered the lead. People say it about Zarha and Grimaldus, ignoring that Andrej has almost exactly the same role and screen time with Grimaldus. 

 

It's not that there's a pattern (or rather, it's butting up against a real, different trope and looks like a pattern without thinking about it). It's that we notice women way, way more easily in these novels. (Eventually, we won't.) Of course we don't think we do. No one realises their own bias, and people ferociously resist the notion of it. 

 

As for outcasts, we covered that in the old thread, too. 50% of my novels have the 'outcast' you're talking about, the other 50% don't, and have characters that are basic examples of their rank in their respective factions. I usually worry I play it too safely and don't do enough outcast protagonists, which is what 90% of sci-fi and fantasy seems to be. The current one is "just a Mentor officer", f'rex. He hangs out with "some Spears". But people who are looking for a pattern will see one, wait and see. ("This guy is from a super-special Chapter with cool tech, what a Mary Sue." Siiiiiiigh.)

 

All the links before cover it well enough, so I don't want to retread old ground repeating myself. They're very, very detailed. I have the advantage of not going by gut feeling, in this. I've mentioned it to my test reading circle, my editors, and my lore checkers, and they - like me - see why it's a meme, but that doesn't make it accurate. I was going to change the narrator of SPEAR to a male, just to avoid this nonsense. But then it's an unrealistic dudefest (and I want to have Khayon have an apprentice soon, so I need to avoid heavy male human / Marine interactions because I want to delve into that with Khayon.)

 

(Oh, and two of the thralls in SPEAR OF THE EMPEROR are female, but you watch this conversation emerge again because the narrator is female. It won't matter if she despises the main Space Marine character or thinks he's great; if she does nothing at all compared to the others or does absolutely everything; she'll still get singled out as part of a pattern.)

Edited March 13, 2018 by A D-B

[Marshal Rohr]

It wouldn’t be odd if it was a 100% sausage fest all the time. All societies in all of world history have favored the male. All examples of matriarchal society would still never approximate equality in our modern sense. Women are important in sci-fi because it reinforces technologies role in leveling out society (before inevitably breaking it again) but for the purposes of 40k where each world can run the spectrum from primitive to transhuman - the primitive societies will always have a male bias. Space marines frequently draw from primitive societies and would bring that cultural bias with them and marine can only be male, so that male subconscious resistance to the female would carry as well.

 

Tl;dr: Marines will be sexist if they’re from a primitive, feral, or pre-modern culture.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Marshal Rohr

[bluntblade]

But then if they've become ruthlessly logical than they'll recognise that some females represent resources that would be wasted outside of command capacities.

[rendingon1+]

There will always b female Legion/chapter servants because:

Not all astartes human resources come from their own domains. What I mean is they use: navigators, astropaths, qualified ship crew etc. These humans come from let's say "outside" because they cannot be trained by SM and I don't believe even astartes can pick and choose what they get (on the other hand: how do SM get them anyway?) And Let's not forget battleships with their thousands of crew who basically live their entire life there, they form societies on their own, they produce children etc. In "Legion of the Damned" there is a chapter serf who has a son and daugther and they all serve (forgot the name). It's a family bussiness. It all comes down to a question: How one becomes a chapter serf? If t

Edited March 13, 2018 by rendingon1+

[depthcharge12]

As for outcasts, we covered that in the old thread, too. 50% of my novels have the 'outcast' you're talking about, the other 50% don't, and have characters that are basic examples of their rank in their respective factions. I usually worry I play it too safely and don't do enough outcast protagonists, which is what 90% of sci-fi and fantasy seems to be. The current one is "just a Mentor officer", f'rex. He hangs out with "some Spears". But people who are looking for a pattern will see one, wait and see. ("This guy is from a super-special Chapter with cool tech, what a Mary Sue." Siiiiiiigh.)

I think the Mentor Officer should escape the outcast role because of his station (I’m assuming you mean the Mentor’s chapter correct?) as a liaison. The Mentors have always been in the background and I think the Mary Sue aspect might come from them being reasonable-marines. However, I’ve heard from other people that Mr. Abnett handled the Snakes chapter really well for reasonable marines that didn’t come off as Mary Sues.

 

I was trying to include a Mentor in the inquisitorial band for my BL submission and the problem that I faced was, what is his fault? He’s not an outcast, nor a deus ex Alpharius, but he acts in a way that’s counter to traditional Astartes roles. Hubris would be the low hanging fruit, but I think the real issue is that he is trying to fill a role for an Astartes that is inefficient. His crime is fulfilling a role for that which he was not made for - it may even get him killed. While traditional writing on Astartes will see them dominate mortals, this Mentor will be the opposite of that. Sort of the vision at the end of the great crusade that marines are less needed now and will be phased out. By creating real moral dilemmas or making the space marine have real, believable faults (I’m preaching to the choir here), you can avoid having a Mary Sue despite having the dude be an absolute beast in combat. It’s what the Emperor made them for after all, right?

 

(Oh, and two of the thralls in SPEAR OF THE EMPEROR are female, but you watch this conversation emerge again because the narrator is female. It won't matter if she despises the main Space Marine character or thinks he's great; if she does nothing at all compared to the others or does absolutely everything; she'll still get singled out as part of a pattern.)

Well that depends on how you handle them now. I wouldn’t say any of your female characters have despised the Astartes other than Octavia being abducted or the Titan Princeps in Helsreach fighting over how a relic is used, but I’d say to actively not write another character in a position of power (as in usefulness, can’t fly a ship without a navigator/captain/Princeps-analogue) that verbally or passive-aggressively fights with an Astartes. Even if they are immediately useful, mortals tend to be a dime a dozen and replaceable...and they know that. There’s been a lack of transhuman dread in the writing lately, and that was one of the cool features about Astartes was that they’d make a battle hardened master sergeant turn his undies a different shade of brown. If I wrote about say, a planetary governor, gender doesn’t matter, that grows cajones for a split second and mouths off to a marine sergeant and gets splattered against the wall - the general reaction of the other mortals would be “well, they had it coming now didn’t they?” Doesn’t matter how high your rank is, Astartes tend to have a much higher value than you.

 

Want to write a different character? Have one that mouths off to an Astartes and experiences rag doll physics, which leads to all the other serfs/supporting staff never contemplate anything other than a.) that was harsh and unnecessary b.) I’m going to shrink into a corner for the rest of this novel

 

 

I was going to say writing a maternal character for Astartes is a rare thing indeed but I could bring up Guilliman’s Mom and to an extent - Cyrene. I guess you had that one scene in your NL series with the Astartes Mom (which had me crying man tears btw), but an interaction between an Astartes and a traditional Mom could be an interesting one if you want to avoid the “position of power mouthy female” trope.

[Marshal Rohr]

But then if they've become ruthlessly logical than they'll recognise that some females represent resources that would be wasted outside of command capacities.

I totally agree, and I’m certainly not saying sausage feats would even be the norm - but the chance of a chapter being misogynistic in organization is just as likely as not, if that makes sense. It’s not that it makes for good storytelling but it’s a possibility.

[A D-B]

 

As for outcasts, we covered that in the old thread, too. 50% of my novels have the 'outcast' you're talking about, the other 50% don't, and have characters that are basic examples of their rank in their respective factions. I usually worry I play it too safely and don't do enough outcast protagonists, which is what 90% of sci-fi and fantasy seems to be. The current one is "just a Mentor officer", f'rex. He hangs out with "some Spears". But people who are looking for a pattern will see one, wait and see. ("This guy is from a super-special Chapter with cool tech, what a Mary Sue." Siiiiiiigh.)

I think the Mentor Officer should escape the outcast role because of his station (I’m assuming you mean the Mentor’s chapter correct?) as a liaison. 

 

No, you're assuming he will avoid it because he should. He won't escape it among certain people because it's easy to apply false logic after the fact. He's from a Chapter with weird tech that occupy a unique role; it doesn't matter if he's the blandest, most average member of his faction and rank, he will get singled out by people looking to single him out and make a pattern. That's what poor criticism does. It's famous among authors knowing what kinds of reviews aren't all that useful. 

 

I've written 13 novels. Fewer than 50% of them have the outcast-as-lead trope, which is staggeringly less than a lot of other BL novels and sci-fi and fantasy in general, but you're still deigning to criticise me for doing it "every book". Do you see what I mean? It's often not about what's actually in the books, it's about what people bring to them and look for. Plus, it's also not easy to see, sometimes, to see the border between what makes a character unique and interesting, and what makes them unrealistically stand out. One person's Kvothe is another person's Drizzt. One person's nuanced character is another person's Mary Sue.

 

Sevatar on the other hand is an outcast character like Drizzt, which is very much the point. I loathe characters like that, and Sevatar's arc-- which he's about 30% of the way through-- is my desire to redeem that kind of character over time.

 

 

 

(Oh, and two of the thralls in SPEAR OF THE EMPEROR are female, but you watch this conversation emerge again because the narrator is female. It won't matter if she despises the main Space Marine character or thinks he's great; if she does nothing at all compared to the others or does absolutely everything; she'll still get singled out as part of a pattern.)

Well that depends on how you handle them now.

 

This is the part I already dealt with comprehensively in the earlier links. It isn't about how I handle them, and this is the part where the misunderstanding arises. It doesn't matter what personality, role, or narrative function female characters have-- several of those you've labelled with "mouthy woman in power" are entirely different, react entirely differently to the protagonist, have entirely different agendas and perspectives and behaviours, have moments of craven fear as often as "mouthy" defiance (and in some cases more often, or have zero "mouthy" moments at all), and so on. There's honestly no way to make this clearer. Like I said, it's not seeing a pattern, it's twisting the information to make a pattern:

 

Annika doesn't trust Hyperion and betrays him. Zarha likes Grimaldus immensely for his backbone, and comes to deeply respect him. Octavia is valued as a kidnapped trophy until she's abused by Talos and flees him. Cyrene is saved by Argel Tal and becomes maternal to him, giving her life for his cause. Lotara cringes in fear before Angron and barely even talks much to Khârn, with no actual deep interaction with the protagonists, but has a no-nonsense job to do despite her emotions.

 

It goes on an on. They're women. Some of them are in power or valuable, like various males in the same positions in the same books: Annika and the Lord Inquisitor; Zarha and Andrej and Cyria Tyro and the General; Octavia and Septimus and Nonus, etc. None of them act the same. None of them say similar things to the protagonists or express the same feelings or serve the same narrative role.

 

This conversation wouldn't even be happening with the male characters (it never has, and never does). That's not to say you're sexist or whatever, it's just that female characters stand out far more easily, and it's easier for the human brain to go "Pattern", even if there isn't one. The human mind famously and constantly sees patterns in things where there aren't any.

 

Really, I think I've said enough on this, and the links cover it in insane detail, including the vast differences between characters you're labelling as exactly the same, so I'm bowing out, as it's going nowhere.

[Gorgoff]

 

But then if they've become ruthlessly logical than they'll recognise that some females represent resources that would be wasted outside of command capacities.

I totally agree, and I’m certainly not saying sausage feats would even be the norm - but the chance of a chapter being misogynistic in organization is just as likely as not, if that makes sense. It’s not that it makes for good storytelling but it’s a possibility.

Legioneries are beyond those kind of stuff.

For them we are all puny humans look more or less the same and suffer all from "feelings" and other weird stuff.

[A D-B]

(Also, DepthCharge, I'm not saying you're wrong, exactly. I'm just saying you're half-wrong and butting up against a much bigger rightness. I do appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me.)

[Memento Of Prospero]

At the risk of sounding rant-like, here's my opinion. It seems to me that the overreaction to "patterns" with female characters comes from the fact that ADB's writing breaks from the rather misogynistic warhammer writing tradition. His female characters are no stronger leads than there strong men leads. You seem to expect it to be otherwise and are just choosing to ignore the fact that they are equally human beings and deserve a spot in the sunlight as well. There is no feminist agenda at work.

 

It has always been a male dominated universe written for men who don't see them as worthy in combat roles because of the "grim dark" logic. Guess what, the Emperium is so hardcore that it does not care if you are a man or a women; you can hold a lasgun, pull the trigger and report your neighbor for being a heretic, you are doing your job or die trying. It will never sideline 50% of it's human resources for any reason you can come up with. This isn't the 90s anymore. The more we progress as a society in allowing women into those "dangerous" outlets, the more we realize that the slight difference in raw physical potential is completely overrun by their ability to empathize. It's like all the conservative minds claiming that women joining the police force would increase the amount of assaults against officers and use of firearms by said officers because they are not as strong physically. That's not what happened in reality, quite the opposite. It's proven that female officers can de-escalate situations and obtain cooperation much more efficiently than their male counterparts. 

 

The same needs to apply to the novels we write and read about, because the fantasy that stems from real world human interaction are the ones you can relate the most to and enjoy. It's the great moments of humanity that makes the Warhammer universe great, not the bolter porn novels.

[Marshal Rohr]

‘The Imperium doesn’t care if a man or woman can hold a lasgun’ - yes, that’s 100% true, but it’s also 100% true that a world’s culture dictates who serves in the IG. On Cadia, it’s everyone. On Vostroya, it’s only firstborn Sons. Women are a staple of sci-fiction. The most iconic sci-fi movies all have female leads or equally as strong female supporting characters. Ripley, Sarah Connor, General Organa, Imperator Furiosa. These aren’t feminist or not feminist, it’s foundational in the genre because of the nature of the universes these stories are told in. The Mobile Infantry is all male, ships are almost exclusively piloted by females. Is Heinlein trying to say women aren’t as capable as men? No, in the universe he constructs that’s just the social norm. In ADBs 40k gender equality is the norm, and in that exact same universe where Lotarra Sarrin commands the conqueror, there is a backwater when women aren’t allowed to learn to read. There is just very little point to showing those places unless you’re trying to show someone is bad, because of how narratives work.

[Hesh Kadesh]

Can someone define strong character? And what gender has to do with it?

 

If a book is good, it's good. I doubt that there is anyone alive who can convince me Jane Eyre is a good book, for all that it is a strong female character taking the reigns, nor Pride and Prejudice, nor do I think that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a bad story due to its lack of strong characters (in the Anglicied Translation).

 

I'd also question the necessity for a moralising role model figure within the environs of a 40K novel.