State of Health for Grimdark in Warhammer 40,000

[Bryan Blaire]

But... fortunately those opinions aren’t really valid

Fortunately, if you start dismissing opinions as invalid, you dismiss your own too - your own opinion is only as valid as someone else's. If they don't get to hold a valid one, neither do you.

 

All views of all Frater are equally valid.

 

Even though I don't like the way some people view things doesn't mean their opinions are some how not worth the discussion of those opinions or are some how less worthwhile than mine. If you don't like someone's opinions or how they have reached those opinions/reasons for them, you should feel free not to engage them - but telling them that their opinions aren't worthwhile makes you a smaller person for the dismissal, not them.

 

Black library writing has (apart from a few authors past and present) improved immensely since 3rd, and modern era campaign books 8th (PA books), 9th codex’s and Rulebook are the same in tone as the earlier editions if not more edging towards hopelessness

Yes, the last year to year and a half of game materials is definitely moving the tonal quality of the material that had been done for probably 6th-ish (maybe a bit earlier) to most of 8th back - that doesn't mean there wasn't some tonal shift in those materials.

 

But Black Library writing improving has no bearing on the tone carried by game materials - and if the game materials and novels aren't carrying a similar tone when they should, then there is a disconnect on it with players vs. readers. Honestly, the Black Library materials really should have more varied tone to them than just carrying the "grim darkness" mantle on their back for the wider lore.

 

If you watched horror films 5 nights a week I you’d be pretty desensitised as well... the only really disappointing thing is people don’t realise this and like to pile on GW or their writing team for imagined failures instead of accepting their view point has shifted

I think people are misunderstanding how tone is communicated in writing (or visual art, or media like movies).

 

If you are writing something and want it to have a dark tone, you do certain things with the wording, choose certain words, etc. It isn't just about writing gore and death, things like pervasive shadow, dearth of flowery or bright description, etc., are also hallmarks.

 

Not even the most hardened "heart of darkness" person is going to mistake the tone of something like GRRM's A Song of Fire and Ice as a less than bleak world where death and the encroaching winter set the overall tone. You don't get "desensitized" to tone.

 

If folks are reading the game material and saying "the game doesn't seem as 'grim darkness of the far future' any more', there are likely some tonal disconnects there for some reason (like the art presented, or the focus more on characters who are presented as more heroic and less on the overall setting), in that all portions of the presented work aren't conveying the same tone - and people are picking up on that. I'm one of those that will agree that the tone of the gaming material did seem to slip some, I think more in visual and character focus than specifically writing, for a couple of editions, and the overall presentation is dragging back more to the "grim darkness" concept, but I do agree that it was never wholly abandoned in favor of some brightly colored high fantasy work.

 

Blinders work on everyone, as do rose-colored glasses.

[WARMASTER_]

@Bryan Blaire

 

I think your lecture would hold more weight Bryan if it wasn’t entirely Hypocritical?? If you read through the discussion I dismissed the thought that 40K is no longer mature or “grim dark” and even gave reasonable quotes from recent lore to reinforcement my point. I also further went on to state it’s probably a number of reasons someone would feel that way instead of outright dismissal

 

Where as about 5 post ago you gave us this?

 

"Pretty sure an opinion is a glorified *cuss* at this point - everyone's got one, none of them smell of roses (and some are even disturbingly biased). Oddly enough, we all get to discount opinions based on our perceptions. No one's opinion is more or less official or "true to the material", as none of us here have official standing, so really all you show is your personal bias with them."

 

So if we just dismiss everyone’s it’s ok?

 

“All views of all Frater are equally valid”

 

Or in your case equally all wrong? Maybe leave it for the mods if they have an issue?

 

Your later points I actually agree with, and it was my earlier point too that I gave multiple reasons for, there’s a disconnect somewhere with the art or prose because 40K hasn’t ever really shifted its focus since say 3rd, it’s our own perceptions that change or our intimacy with the source material.

[Bryan Blaire]

BladeOfVengeance - don't see anything hypocritical in my statements. Everyone does have an opinion, and they are all just that - opinions. None of them are any more or less valid than any others. It's human nature to read others' opinions and dismiss them in favor of your own based on your own reasoning and viewpoint. That doesn't mean those dismissed opinions are now somehow invalid/less valid, and it doesn't make you a bigger person, or "correct" as some are wont to see it, for doing so.

 

I think you and I are just talking about different things. You stated you provided quotes from recent material, when I personally have been saying that the recent material is bringing those more mature and "grim darkness of the far future" tones back to the game material, so while we are saying similar things, we have different points. It doesn't mean much to me that the evidence was recent, as to me that's evidence it's being brought back (and it isn't just the text that's bringing it back, IMO, and it wasn't necessarily the text alone that was making those same tonal elements less in previous Editions).

 

In the original posts, it's interesting to me that none of the art used in the discussion is from anything after 5th, from what I can see (maybe the Tau on the skull pile is from 6th?), because the art in the books definitely helps set the tone of the work.

 

40K has had shifting tone over the years, and I don't think it started out in the "grim darkness of the far future" as much as others, beyond the statements, but the tone in 2nd Edition (and from what I've seen and read of Rogue Trader) didn't seem as pervading darkness and grimness - mostly in that it wasn't as serious and a lot of the painting was pretty bright. That shifted in 3rd and 4th to be much more pervading darkness, grim and gritty lives, with the game material having less or no satirical styling, less comedy elements, etc. Parts of 5th seemed to continue that on, while other parts seemed to start shifting a bit (and some of the stuff that is decried about Ward I found to be pretty grim and dark). 6th - 7th seemed to tonally start getting brighter, especially in the art area, and seemed to be more about heroics and highlighting great leaders (and their downfalls, but not so much discussing that in more detail), so it did seem a little less mature and more comic book-y than the previous 3-4 Editions (although there still seemed to be less zany stuff or any satire as found in 2nd) - 7th seemed the biggest "offender" in this area, but to me it still wasn't bad (I really don't mind it and I think it can easily sell war games). 8th seemed to carry on this mixed tone set of works, with points of bright mixed with points of dark, but no ultimate overshadowing of one or the other. 9th has seemed to move toward a more pervading dark and grit, both textually and visually.

 

I don't personally think any of this is a "bad thing" and I think it makes sense for the game material to have some varying tone. I personally don't need the pervading dark with grim hopelessness being the ultimate order of day to enjoy the game of 40K. I can see multiple POVs in the situation, and I don't think any of them are necessarily "correct."

[Lexington]

I just read a story involving a person having to murder their own commander and friend because said commander had been mentally broken by the experience of watching his own crew burning to death.

 

In the last three books I’ve read some moments have made my skin crawl...

 

Weeeelllllllll, I don't think we're talking about the same thing here, really. This is pretty shallow blood n' guts fare, the sort of eye-popper bits you get from a schlocky Corman flick. I'm an unabashed connoisseur of Cormanian schlock, but when you compare these examples to earlier works of 40K, the differences are pretty stark. To bring up the 3rd Edition book again, you actually don't really get anything that's so visceral in there. Instead, it's a vivid portrait of religious totalitarianism taken to a galactic extreme, filled humans shaping their minds and bodies to better serve as the cogs in a brutal machine of war and dominance. I actually do think that's darker and more more mature subject matter than what's generally on display in today's 40K, which often traffics in standard ultraviolence more as a way to tick a box than to make anything more of it. Flaying is fun, but "the loyal slave learns to love the lash" it ain't.