Thematic Discussion of Female Custodes - Straight From the Page

[Crimson Longinus]

 

 

 

 

I think you sadly misunderstood me pretty significantly. When I refered to them as "atypical", refering specifically to the women I've known over the years who were very invested in video gaming and other nerd culture, I wasn't making a claim about "gender essentialism", but they themselves found themselves not fitting in with their peers.

 

 

One person in particular I'm thinking of, who I've sadly lost touch with a few years back but had been a close friend for a dozen years until that point, wasn't bullied by the boys who wanted to keep her out of the nerdspace. Quite the opposite, those were the people who openly engaged with her in those things. It was other girls, particularly classmates, who put her down over it. She didn't fit the norm expected of her gender, by her own peers, and was shunned for it.

 To be really hyperbolic in my statement: You would not have been able to "attract" those bullying peers to the space just by painting video games pink in an attempt to cater to them in particular. It doesn't work that way, and more often than not I've found that doing those sorts of well-meant changes intended to widen the target audience even ticked my female friend(s) off, while failing to attract the intended fresh audience.

We can certainly have an argument about "gatekeeping" and the sort of filth you can find online a dime a dozen, and we certainly do have some extreme scum within the Warhammer fandom, including among the bigger Youtubers, but that's not what I was getting at with my earlier post at all.

 

I was arguing that the oft-cited statistics are, at best, misleading, while sharing lived experience from engaging with women who I shared hobbies with, often being dragged around by their deep investment into various fandoms, and hearing their stories.

Which makes it sound way more grand than it actually is: They were and are my friends and they just engaged with what they found interesting, no matter if it was blue or pink. Funnily enough, the particular friend I mentioned was just as fired up about magical girl anime as the most violent, brutal stuff you could find (more so than me, frankly; then again, I was the one who made her watch Romcoms in return, checkmate).

 

 

And since we've been rather candid in here, sharing our own unique perspectives and lived experiences more openly than usual, I'm gonna chip in, too. Even though actually airing this stuff is difficult as heck for me.

 

 

Personally speaking, I'd describe myself as atypical in a heartbeat, too, for similar reasons, and to this day I have a difficult time engaging with men in private or direct conversation. I feel far, far more at ease dealing with women in general. That goes from cashier at the grocery store low-level engagement up to professional dealings and private friendships.

It's been that way since my early childhood, I'd play with the neighbor's kids and was friends with the boy my age, but was actually closer with his older sister. In school, I was usually uncomfortable around the other boys in class, and instead talked a lot to various girls. I'd take lengthy detours on the way home to keep talking to them about this and that on the bus, while when stuck with the boys only, I'd make my exit as soon as I could. My hobbies even then didn't align with the typical boys stuff, but doing drawing or crafts related fiddling often intrigued the girls. I couldn't be bothered to invest myself in "male-read" hobbies at the time.

The closest I got to engaging with the boys in my class were literally the rare week-long class trips where we were forced to sleep in the same rooms and were out of the typical school environment. There was enough room there to spend time with individuals or small groups in a context that didn't foster the more typical competitive rivalry or power dynamics. Instead, more emotional connections and talking about tougher things were possible and took place for a while. That's something I was able to engage with!

And that lasted exactly until the bus arrived back home, if even that far. And even then I have more fond memories engaging with the girls from class at those occasions than the boys.

Even today, decades since last getting graded in school environments, my contacts are pretty lopsided. I still don't relate to men as well as I probably should. It still makes me uncomfortable being around dudes in a private environment. Even my regular boardgame group of three other dudes who I've known for 16 to 30 years, is taxing for me to be around. One of them I talk to online on the daily, but I still sometimes come up short when responding to things at times, or hold myself back from talking about certain things I'd really want to speak about. Instead I end up talking to female friends about those things, if at all, and can handle that just fine, usually. Even back in the day, when we had fewer responsibilities, while I felt free enough engaging with those blokes and some other extended friend circles, I'd probably sit more with the women and chat than getting drunk with the guys.

There's a truckload of things that societally, I'm expected to know or do or recognize from my own experiences with other guys, broadcast in media especially, that I've never known (even accounting for regional differences). On the flipside, there's a ton that I do recognize and connect with.... on the other side of the alley. Funny how that works.

There's no problem in recognizing that I don't fit the mold laid out by general society, that my interests, character and behavior are atypical and I'm anything but being catered to outside of my specific range of chosen interests (if even there).

I just had over a year of therapy end on me and a lot of that time was spent talking about my issues in this regard (and damn do I have need for more, with how abruptly that stuff ended...). And frak, my therapist was a guy, you can probably imagine how that put me on edge for about half the therapy's runtime! There's a lot I would've liked to talk about in certain situations, but couldn't bring myself to trust him with (stupid, I know), or found myself fighting against windmills on certain issues because he very much espoused the more traditional gender norms and expectations. And it was extremely difficult for me to even start openly arguing with him rather than sitting it out and clamping down on my thoughts and feelings on the matter. Counterproductive, but it highlights the uphill battle for me. As I said, I've never been a competitive sort, and while I enjoy arguing online through text, and discussing stuff to the point of writing essay-length posts on here, that works because I'm arguing about a non-personal thing I might happen to connect differently with from other "fraters" on here, and there's a certain distance between myself and the "opposition". I normally can't do the same in direct confrontations, and it's been holding me back plenty in life.

It's a struggle, just as it was a struggle for my friends to go up against the expectations they were confronted with. I'll never be able to connect with more traditional versions of masculinity the way Captain Idaho clearly has. That's okay, even if it comes with its own problems. I wouldn't dream to try to force, say, boxing or rugby to be less boxing or rugby just so I could engage with it (regardless of probably never being able to engage with it in the first place... though I do enjoy Blood Bowl!). It's just one of those things I can't find myself connecting with.

That societal change we're hoping for is sloooooowly happening (though seemingly backsliding over here, looking at recent voting results and attacks on non-conforming left/green folks... :cuss:), and I'm almost certain that I'd have an easier time growing up today, going solely by societal tolerance shifts, but this progress isn't something you can force to occur (and said backslides would indicate that even the appearance of "forcing" it might have major adverse effects), but mostly have to wait out.

 

 

So, eh, for me, it's the boys that are icky! :')

I won't let it be said that I somehow want to keep women out of my hobby spaces, considering they're the ones I try to actually consistently engage with there, if available and possible.

 

Thank you, that was a very thoughtful post. 

 

I was never saying that gendered tendencies do not exist, merely that traits are not inherently masculine or feminine. A tall person to whom it is difficult to talk about their feelings might be a woman, even though those both are traits that definitely are more common in men. I think labelling or thinking traits as gendered is harmful, and I think your post illustrates several ways how it can manifest in the society. People who do not sufficiently display traits stereotypically associated with their gender or display traits associated with the other gender get negative reactions. And this of course is partially a vicious circle. Children are bombarded from young age with gender stereotypes, and this will enforce the stereotypical behaviours. And yeah, perhaps even in absence of that some behaviours would be more common in one gender than in another, but part of it is definitely societal, and the biggest thing is to stop siloing genders into these boxes, so those who do not fit that mould, be that a small portion of people or large, are not shunned for it. Now I don't of course think that Warhammer has much of an impact in the gender roles of society at large, but it still a tiny part of that fabric. 

 

 

Edited September 8 by Crimson Longinus

[Crimson Longinus]

 

(she thinks that Sisters of Battle are for boys, and anecdotally, none of the women at my gaming club play SoB)

 

Yeah, I don't have hard time believing that fetish nuns with guns are not something that appeals to that many women. Definitely something that is more appealing to men. 

And they're cool, and this in itself is not a problem, it is just a problem in the context where there being so little of other kind of female representation. 

[hd3]

 

 

 

Edited September 7 by hd3
Withdrawn in full as tangential

[Marshal Reinhard]

What other kind of female representation is missing at this point? Other than femarines?

 

Granted, there could and should be more female models in terms of quantity. But we have female guardsmen, inquisitors, rogue traders, assassins, xenos...

But I'd take another female inquisitor model to the two we have in a heartbeat (so long as its not designed by the person who did diaper-man)... can't think of an overtly female techpriest, but those are hard to tell, and in lore most have probably abandoned the notion.

 

Note, not to be read as "no more", but more that I think you come across as a bit... uncharitable?, with what we have.

[Captain Idaho]

@DarkChaplain thank you for your openness, that's very gracious of you to trust us with it. Much love and respect your way.

[aa.logan]

This is the BL subforum, the discussion is about the change on the page, so let’s look at how it affects storytelling potential. My desire for more stories about internal conflict in the Imperium rather than it being engineered by nefarious Chaos agents pushes me to side with @DarkChaplain on the issue of Soritas, but I see no reason not to accept the ‘always has been’ approach to female Custodes from GW.

 

Billy Long-Name, the Custodes Captain needn’t be written any different to Billie Long-Name, the Custodes Captain. Either of them could have a terrible sense of humour, a fierce loyalty to their comrades, a penchant for translating poetry fragments from the Dark Age Of Technology in their downtime, a unique way of wielding a custodian spear and piercingly green eyes. Let’s be honest, BL aren’t going to go anywhere near even suggesting what’s in their auramite undies, let alone directly mentioning it. In a flashback scene, one may receive a tearful “farewell brother” and the other “farewell sister” from an otherwise stoic sibling upon their ascension but otherwise I cannot see any material difference to the storytelling.

 

Im assuming most people like the short story ‘Blood Games’. Here is the opening paragraph, but I’ve changed the gender of the protagonist. I’m certain if it originally continued in this way my enjoyment of the text wouldn’t have been affected.

 

“SHE HAD BEEN circling for ten months. Ten months, and eighteen identities, most of them so authentic they had fooled Unified Biometric Verification. She’d faked out three blind trails to throw them off his scent, one into the Slovakian fiefs, one to Kaspia and the Nord Reaches, and the other a meandering route down through the Tirol to the Dolomite Shrines overlooking the Pit of Venezia. She’d overwintered in Boocuresti Hive, and crossed the Black Sea Basin by cargo spinner during the first week of ice-ebb. At Bilhorod, she had turned back on herself to lose an unwanted tail. She had spent three weeks hiding in a disused manufactory in Mesopotamia, preparing her next move.”

 

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Speaking of themes of the Custodes, they have never really clicked to me. Especially not that they're running around the galaxy doing normal missions, they just come across as blander and more perfect extra shiny Space Marines. As mysterious an imposing guardians of the Emperor they kinda worked, but more we get to the personal level and more that veil of mystery is removed, more boring they become. 

 

With this latest lore change I have still been tempted to get a box of models just to convert and paint. Black colour scheme definitely, I can't stand the gold. Though I've also contemplated red like the guards of Emperor Palpatine. 

[Rob P]

@DarkChaplain thanks for openness. I used your word "atypical" but the reply wasn't supposed to a specific attack at you personally, but rather an attack on gender essentialism (which is a phrase I will magically see everywhere now it's unlocked!) that lies underneath some of the POV's. I'd hope that this is a safe space to express things, even if some of the nuance is missed by me. Your experience isn't irregular at all but I think our interpretation of where that takes us is different.

 

I'm only going to write a couple of paras and I'm only doing that to try and bring a bit more context back in.

 

Women hating on women for liking something coded male. I can and have seen that. I don't expect any people that have grown up to any extent in a world that splits people by sex and then imposes gender expectations on those sexes to feel comfortable when gender norms are altered. Similarly, I can see how men can feel certain erosions of male spaces in a world where female spaces are a thing (and a hot topic) and men are often portrayed negatively (although I don't feel the people pushing back,  i.e influencer proponents of gender essentialism, are nice people).

 

I am drawn to your last point in hidden. The world moves forward and occasionally backslides. I'm 40. When I first had a computer it was for geeks. When I first got into Warhammer in the mid 90s it was for geeks. Even having tattoos was broadly a subculture thing when I was a kid. My first lfgs was run by tattooed uni students that played queer bands like Placebo and I was in my element. All of these things are very mainstream now even if games and Warhammer are male dominated. I suppose my point there is that things change actively or organically and it's broadly oldies (myself included) clinging to the past and trying to push back. What is normal or perceived to be normal is led by parents and the world we live in rather than biological urge. And push back shouldn't be a reason not to more forward; it should be a reason to advance further

 

I vaguely recall a Lego study on societal biases. Representation matters if more people are to be brought into the hobby. Yes, not everyone needs to see themselves to enjoy something, but broadly people do. An example is the recent(ish) surge in women's football/soccer. I also like that we have more women writers in Black Library too (I believe JS Collyer has been pulled in too - a great sci-fi writer). It's about making things normal. If only atypical women step into these spaces they fetishized or put on a pedestal. I suppose the issue in the modern world is that all changes are viewed through the lens of "how does this ruin the thing I love?" or "how does this confirm my biases?". Votann pandering to the vertically challenged? Nothing can just be "I thought it'd be cool if we did this".

 

So back to custodes. I think the change is neutral to positive. Neutral in that nothing changes. Positive in that girls see they are represented in another small way. Could it have been handled differently? Probably. As before, Cawl primaris should have been used to make women marines. Main faction representation is much more logical than niche faction representation. One tiny hangup I have had for years was that there was a short SoB story where one was corrupted and up to that point my head canon has been that they were incorruptible. This left a situation where Grey Knights and Custodes were incorruptible but the woman only faction were corruptible. It felt unintentionally unbalanced but tiny hangup resolved by female Custodes

 

I'll moan the changes have gone too far when it's said that all the factions are friends.

 

(That's a lot words for someone staying out of it)

Edited September 7 by Rob P

[Rob P]

 

Speaking of themes of the Custodes, they have never really clicked to me. Especially not that they're running around the galaxy doing normal missions, they just come across as blander and more perfect extra shiny Space Marines. As mysterious an imposing guardians of the Emperor they kinda worked, but more we get to the personal level and more that veil of mystery is removed, more boring they become. 

 

With this latest lore change I have still been tempted to get a box of models just to convert and paint. Black colour scheme definitely, I can't stand the gold. Though I've also contemplated red like the guards of Emperor Palpatine. 

From a gaming perspective I feel their power level is destabilising too - space marines are the elite faction.

 

Although I guess the cat is out of the bag in lore and on TT.

[Captain Idaho]

@Crimson Longinus

 

It all comes down to interpretation. Whilst you labelled it essentialism, like it or not, a significant number of people feel there is a genuine difference between men and women on a fundamental level.

 

This isn't the place to discuss who is right or wrong, but many people will see a women's experience as different to a man's on an intrinsic level.

 

That's their position, as such when a story is written about a woman doing something, the associated expectation and interpretation of said person's experiences is reflected in the mind of the observer.

 

Crucially, whether people see it that way or not, their own experience matter. I'm quite open to many ideas and have friends of many walks of life, in a social job meeting every type of person. However, I want to see something that reflects me, my life and experiences and then bond with it that way.

 

It doesn't matter on the macro scale, because on my personal side of it, my interest will or won't be kept if it does or doesn't appeal to me.

 

Edited September 7 by Captain Idaho

[hd3]

 

This is the BL subforum, the discussion is about the change on the page, so let’s look at how it affects storytelling potential. My desire for more stories about internal conflict in the Imperium rather than it being engineered by nefarious Chaos agents pushes me to side with @DarkChaplain on the issue of Soritas, but I see no reason not to accept the ‘always has been’ approach to female Custodes from GW.

 

Billy Long-Name, the Custodes Captain needn’t be written any different to Billie Long-Name, the Custodes Captain. Either of them could have a terrible sense of humour, a fierce loyalty to their comrades, a penchant for translating poetry fragments from the Dark Age Of Technology in their downtime, a unique way of wielding a custodian spear and piercingly green eyes. Let’s be honest, BL aren’t going to go anywhere near even suggesting what’s in their auramite undies, let alone directly mentioning it. In a flashback scene, one may receive a tearful “farewell brother” and the other “farewell sister” from an otherwise stoic sibling upon their ascension but otherwise I cannot see any material difference to the storytelling.

 

Im assuming most people like the short story ‘Blood Games’. Here is the opening paragraph, but I’ve changed the gender of the protagonist. I’m certain if it originally continued in this way my enjoyment of the text wouldn’t have been affected.

 

“SHE HAD BEEN circling for ten months. Ten months, and eighteen identities, most of them so authentic they had fooled Unified Biometric Verification. She’d faked out three blind trails to throw them off his scent, one into the Slovakian fiefs, one to Kaspia and the Nord Reaches, and the other a meandering route down through the Tirol to the Dolomite Shrines overlooking the Pit of Venezia. She’d overwintered in Boocuresti Hive, and crossed the Black Sea Basin by cargo spinner during the first week of ice-ebb. At Bilhorod, she had turned back on herself to lose an unwanted tail. She had spent three weeks hiding in a disused manufactory in Mesopotamia, preparing her next move.”

 

 

Aa.logan brings up several excellent points here. They rewrote several decades of lore and threw out the codex where they explicitly stated only men can become custodes (it's in the 8th codex in black and white) among other places. Now one of the main arguments people have brought out that this was good and necessary has been the apparently much richer story possibilities we have with this new female perspective. What has the custodian being female here instead of male contributed that was so lacking beforehand? The same question can apply to Tithes for that matter. What was so much richer, story wise with the female custodian that was absent before?

Especially if we discard any notion of 'gender essentialism' or any behaviour, trait or tendency being associated with female and male, what has the female custodian contributed uniquely that was lacking before? 

 

[Crimson Longinus]

 

Aa.logan brings up several excellent points here. They rewrote several decades of lore and threw out the codex where they explicitly stated only men can become custodes (it's in the 8th codex in black and white) among other places.

 

Yes, one line in the eighth edition codex, that was already changed in the ninth. That is hardly "decades of lore."

 

Like I said (in another thread perhaps) the exact same thing happened with the Imperial Knights. The first codex said all the pilots were sons of noble houses, but in the next codex that was gone and they could be women too. 

 

 

 

Now one of the main arguments people have brought out that this was good and necessary has been the apparently much richer story possibilities we have with this new female perspective. What has the custodian being female here instead of male contributed that was so lacking beforehand? The same question can apply to Tithes for that matter. What was so much richer, story wise with the female custodian that was absent before?

Especially if we discard any notion of 'gender essentialism' or any behaviour, trait or tendency being associated with female and male, what has the female custodian contributed uniquely that was lacking before? 

 

 

Diversifying representation. More options to have prominent and powerful female characters. And the option of having big and strong superhumans that are women, something that didn't exist in 40K before, as marines are men too.  

 

BTW, I have noticed that it is this archetype of a big and strong warrior that the Custodes and Space Marines embody that some men seem to be strangely protective about. Like women can be warriors, but they need to be only lithe and graceful (and preferably traditionally sexy) sorts. Being a big and powerful is for boys only! 

 

 

Edited September 7 by Crimson Longinus

[Captain Idaho]

 

Diversifying representation. More options to have prominent and powerful female characters. And the option of having big and strong superhumans that are women, something that didn't exist in 40K before, as marines are men too.  

 

BTW, I have noticed that it is this archetype of a big and strong warrior that the Custodes and Space Marines embody that some men seem to be strangely protective about. Like women can be warriors, but they need to be only lithe and graceful (and preferably traditionally sexy) sorts. Being a big and powerful is for boys only! 

 

 

That's because people can see echoes of themselves in characters. I'm big, strong and a modern interpretation of a warrior in that I'm a boxer who has seen and done many an extra curricula thing in my time.

 

It's odd that people say they want representation, but not extend that to everyone. What about my representation for a fraternity?

 

I do struggle to understand that position because it doesn't hold consistency. 

 

If we wanted better representation, why not have a new faction by the High Lords, like their own enforcement force, have it cutting edge super human and have it the new men and women preference? Why erode what has come before?

 

Then all sides can be happy, can they not?

[Crimson Longinus]

 

 

That's because people can see echoes of themselves in characters. I'm big, strong and a modern interpretation of a warrior in that I'm a boxer who has seen and done many an extra curricula thing in my time.

 

Ok. And such male characters have not been removed from the setting. And there are women who are big and strong or alternatively ones who aren't but find that as an appealing power fantasy (which I'm sure how it is like for most men who find these big and strong male heroes appealing.) Why are you threatened by women getting to have that as well?

 

 

It's odd that people say they want representation, but not extend that to everyone. What about my representation for a fraternity?

Literally the overwhelmingly most over presented faction of the game is that! Like it is completely ludicrous that you feel that is thing that is not represented enough. 

Hell, even if they added female marines, you would still have that, as chapters are different and you could still have all male chapters.

 

 

I do struggle to understand that position because it doesn't hold consistency. 

 

If we wanted better representation, why not have a new faction by the High Lords, like their own enforcement force, have it cutting edge super human and have it the new men and women preference? Why erode what has come before?

 

Then all sides can be happy, can they not?

 

I don't think the game needs even more space marines or things that are in practice like space marines!

 

 

Edited September 7 by Crimson Longinus

[Captain Idaho]

 

 

Ok. And such male characters have not been removed from the setting. And there are women who are big and strong or alternatively ones who aren't but find that as an appealing power fantasy (which I'm sure how it is like for most men who find these big and strong male heroes appealing.) Why are you threatened by women getting to have that as well?

 

I have always explained that it's about a fraternity and how they deal with the trials and tribulations of the setting.

 

So having big male characters is all well and good, but I want to read and watch them in a fraternal setting. Otherwise I'd collect Astra Millitarum.

 

 

Literally the overwhelmingly most over presented faction of the game is that! Like it is completely ludicrous that you feel that is thing that is not represented enough. 

Hell, even if they added female marines, you would still have that, as chapters are different and you could still have all male chapters.

 

 

But I didn't once say there isn't sufficient representation for male characters. I said I don't like the removal of a fraternity that already exists and now force everyone to play Space Marines, that ironically you want removed as a fraternity as well.

 

Edited September 7 by Captain Idaho

[Marshal Reinhard]

I also think the idea of historical precedent is clearly not being valued much here. Things are as they are because that's how they were.

 

Speaking to my main faction the Black Templars, their lore received a major change in the past. They went from being militant atheists, as has been the prevailing notion among pretty much all space marines until that point, to being the first, and at the time only, confirmed chapter following the imperial cult. That was in 6th edition. The forum has never recovered since.

 

People value how things were, even if that wasn't the most ideal possible version in the view of some.

[Crimson Longinus]

 

 

I have always explained that it's about a fraternity and how they deal with the trials and tribulations of the setting.

 

So having big male characters is all well and good, but I want to read and watch them in a fraternal setting. Otherwise I'd collect Astra Millitarum.

And you would have an option of making an all male IG regiment. That is perfectly coherent within the fluff, and many books have featured such. However, if one wants a mixed gender marine chapter or previously a Cusodes chamber that is/was not an option with the fluff. 

 

 

 

But I didn't once say there isn't sufficient representation for male characters. I said I don't like the removal of a fraternity that already exists and now force everyone to play Space Marines, that ironically you want removed as a fraternity as well.

 

 

Not remove, but not make it the only flavour available. What you're saying is like opposing there being non-white space marines because you want space marines be like old European knightly orders. Different chapters do and should have different flavours, so I am merely proposing widening that palette. 

 

 

[hd3]

 

 

Yes, one line in the eight edition codex, that was already changed in the ninth. That is hardly "decades of lore."

 

Like I said (in another thread perhaps) the exact same thing happened with the Imperial Knights. The first codex said all the pilots were sons of noble houses, but in the next codex that was gone and they could be women too. 

 

 

Diversifying representation. More options to have prominent and powerful female characters. And the option of having big and strong superhumans that are women, something that didn't exist in 40K before, as marines are men too.  

 

BTW, I have noticed that it is this archetype of a big and strong warrior that the Custodes and Space Marines embody that some men seem to be strangely protective about. Like women can be warriors, but they need to be only lithe and graceful (and preferably traditionally sexy) sorts. Being a big and powerful is for boys only! 

 

 

 

It's been literally decades since the creation of the custodes as a concept and they've been referred to in exclusively masculine terms every time since then in every text until the introduction of 'fem'stodes# in 10th, to pretend that wasn't a lazy retcon that discarded decades of lore is literally, not figuratively inaccurate. 

 

Secondly, what was the reason for this change? As you yourself and other people in this thread have repeated, it wasn't really anything to do with the setting or anything thematically related to the narrative. It was "diversifying representation". Even though women are of course already well represented in 40k (despite that arguably rather sexist reduction of sisters of battle to "fetish battle nuns" and then immediate marginalizing every significant female character in 40k in order to justify said change). Its about bringing current year politics in, it has nothing to do with 40k.

 

 

 

 

 

[Crimson Longinus]

 

I also think the idea of historical precedent is clearly not being valued much here. Things are as they are because that's how they were.

 

Speaking to my main faction the Black Templars, their lore received a major change in the past. They went from being militant atheists, as has been the prevailing notion among pretty much all space marines until that point, to being the first, and at the time only, confirmed chapter following the imperial cult. That was in 6th edition. The forum has never recovered since.

 

People value how things were, even if that wasn't the most ideal possible version in the view of some.

 

I actually and genuinely get that. There are some fluff changes and developments that I truly despise (the loyalist primarchs returning easily being the worst.) It is just that in this particular franchise it is a rather questionable hill to die on, given how much stuff they change and retcon all the time. And some of the changes are actually good! Like at least to me, the Votann are an massive improvement over the squats of old!

 

 

[Crimson Longinus]

 

 

It's been literally decades since the creation of the custodes as a concept and they've been referred to in exclusively masculine terms every time since then in every text until the introduction of 'fem'stodes# in 10th, to pretend that wasn't a lazy retcon that discarded decades of lore is literally, not figuratively inaccurate. 

 

So what? Military units are often talked in masculine terms due the real world history. IG has been shown to be mostly men too until recently. Besides, Custodes are a marginal niche faction anyway, it was relatively recently they were made a proper army. They don't have that much fluff to begin with, and not that many people are well versed in it.  It's really not a big deal.

 

 

Secondly, what was the reason for this change? As you yourself and other people in this thread have repeated, it wasn't really anything to do with the setting or anything thematically related to the narrative. It was "diversifying representation". Even though women are of course already well represented in 40k (despite that arguably rather sexist reduction of sisters of battle to "fetish battle nuns" and then immediate marginalizing every significant female character in 40k in order to justify said change). Its about bringing current year politics in, it has nothing to do with 40k.

 

Mate. 40K wouldn't exist if the creators would have not been influenced by current politics! It was given birth as a commentary of conservatism in Thatcherian Britain. 

 

 

Edited September 7 by Crimson Longinus

[Captain Idaho]

 

And you would have an option of making an all male IG regiment. That is perfectly coherent within the fluff, and many books have featured such. However, if one wants a mixed gender marine chapter or previously a Cusodes chamber that is/was not an option with the fluff. 

 

 

That argument holds in reverse - if you wanted your Custodes female, you could model them that way and not impose on everyone else.

 

If it doesn't matter, then why add women to Custodes at all?

[Crimson Longinus]

 

 

That argument holds in reverse - if you wanted your Custodes female, you could model them that way and not impose on everyone else.

 

If it doesn't matter, then why add women to Custodes at all?

 

 But it is not the same argument. All male regiments do exist within the fluff, mixed gender marine chapters do not. 

 

Also, I used to think that official fluff didn't matter that much, and people could just model their own armies however they like. Then I actually put some female heads on marines and posted them online. Oh boy! Negative reactions were pretty staggering, and often FB groups just deleted such pictures. And yeah, many of the comments were blatantly misogynistic, and if I had been a woman and new to the hobby and that had happened to me, I probably wouldn't want have anything to do with the hobby anymore. It is not like people modelling loyalist versions of chaos legions or even silly stuff like pony marines. Like people do not take it like "your models, do what you want," it incites hostility. And sure, most people actually are cool about it, but there is a very vocal and very annoying minority that are really toxic. So yeah, at this point I want GW to make the inclusion part of the official fluff to deny ammunition from such people and send a message to prospective hobbyist that they as company support inclusiveness. And if that means that these toxic gatekeepers are driven away, then all the better. 

 

(I want to add that discussion here has in most part been perfectly civil, and it's not what I mean by toxicity.)

 

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

 

And you would have an option of making an all male IG regiment. That is perfectly coherent within the fluff, and many books have featured such. However, if one wants a mixed gender marine chapter or previously a Cusodes chamber that is/was not an option with the fluff. 

 

 

 

 

I'm fairly sure that currently all Guard regiments are assumed to be mixed sex by default.

[phandaal]

 

 

I'm fairly sure that currently all Guard regiments are assumed to be mixed sex by default.

 

According to past lore, mixed-sex Guard regiments are rare, with all-male being the most common and all-female being the next most common.

 

On the tabletop, yeah they can have whatever because it is up to how people model them.

[Shield-Captain]

 

Secondly, what was the reason for this change? As you yourself and other people in this thread have repeated, it wasn't really anything to do with the setting or anything thematically related to the narrative. It was "diversifying representation". Even though women are of course already well represented in 40k (despite that arguably rather sexist reduction of sisters of battle to "fetish battle nuns" and then immediate marginalizing every significant female character in 40k in order to justify said change). Its about bringing current year politics in, it has nothing to do with 40k.

 

 

If it doesn't matter, then why add women to Custodes at all?

 

 

"Tyrith Shiva Kyrus (the first three of a long list of honorific names earned fighting for the Emperor) has the privilege of being our first portrayal of a female Custodian Guard since the recent revelation that Custodians can be any gender. This fact came as a real surprise to many, since it wasn’t something previously explored. That, in and of itself, isn’t a particularly unusual thing for Warhammer 40,000 and its lore; there are simply loads of things the Warhammer Studios have never expressly stated, whether that’s ruling them in or out.

Since the earliest conversations about bringing the Horus Heresy to the tabletop and Black Library fiction, the exact nature of the Custodians has been under discussion – after all, their origins and means of creation, unlike for example, the Legiones/Adeptus Astartes, are shrouded in mystery.

A significant advantage to this portrayal is that it helps us to address a common misconception – that the Custodes are just bigger, better Space Marines. They aren’t."

 

That's directly from the article, posted by GW. They say that the reason for the change, or part of it, is to further differentiate the Adeptus Custodes from the Space Marines. They simply are not the same thing, despite the fact that a lot of the people in the 40k community believe that they are. This change pushes them away from that and allows them to inhabit a new space in the background. I think part of the problem with the introduction of the female Custodes stems from this idea that they are just big Space Marines in gold. Despite the design language of the models being very different, people see "big person in power armor" and assume Space Marine. And there's a lot to be said about GW marketing and how effective it is. 

 

For me, having read all of the available lore on and novels featuring Custodes since they were re-introduced in the Horus Heresy and then 40k, this change makes sense. It does its job and pushes Custodes further from the Space Marines they already weren't. I always saw Custodes as totally different from Space Marines. It has been described that Custodes do not fight as squads but as individual champions, simply so well-versed in various arts of combat that they don't get in each others' way. Their individuality has been stressed over the squad-level, chapter-level, fraternal-bonding of Space Marines. And I think the novels and the lore reflect that as well, from the Blood Games to simple interactions between Custodes characters. They seem more like... co-workers than battle-brothers. But that's me. I can see not everyone having the same view. But I do think that stems from that popular misconception.

 

I think there is a lot more one can infer from the language used in those paragraphs as well. For what it is worth, I think that this statement in particular also shuts the door on female Space Marines, but that's not the subject of this discussion.