Branimir's Open Letter to Games Workshop

[Fenris-77]

I'm indifferent to the 'lore' of 40K. The setting is awesome, but the 'lore' can be whatever I want it to be. Inclusiveness and representation in GM terms means models, so I can see why they'd go the female marine route. It's probably a good idea, or something like it.

I think Buffy's a little different, as it's an RPG and people's expectations are a little different. I don't think there's a hue and cry to allow male slayers for example, for a bunch of good reasons. I get the example though.

 

[Immeril]

I'm ambivalent when it comes to female Space Marines. I'm fine with them not existing but if they suddenly appeared tomorrow the odds of me purchasing some are pretty close to 100%. Though I'd say I'm leaning closer to wanting female Space Marines these days simply to make some heads explode with apoplectic fury.
As far as lore goes, I sometimes think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you're unfamiliar with Buffy (ha ha, as if people on a geek site might be unfamiliar with Buffy), it's established that only women can be slayers and in the sixth or seventh season we find out why. I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I've run campaigns using the Eden Studios licensed game, and of course the only characters permitted to be Slayers were women. If they continued the Buffy story and suddenly men could be Slayers I wouldn't be too happy about it though I wouldn't wail, tear out my hair, and gnash my teeth because of it. For me, a lot of the arguments for GW to allow female Space Marines would be applicable to adding male Slayers for Buffy.

I'm not a big fan of lore change for the same of change. On the flip side, the lore in Warhammer only exists to support the selling of models. And I'm not going to get too attached to lore designed to sell me plastic models.

Exactly! If one accuses people who oppose female Space Marines of racism, they should be prepared to allow male Slayers.
Turning existing lore upside down for inclusiveness is weak. Look at Rowling. Posting on Twitter that Dumbledore was gay, instead of actually writing the character as gay? I think I prefer Willow & Tara, where the screenwriters showed their relationship to the audience.

 

[Retreater]

Getting (back) into WH after many years away, I was amazed by the amount of toxicity in the groups I met through local gaming events. Adult players who would wreck children's armies and laugh were pretty common. But then I gamed with two guys who would use racist language during our matches, referring to models as "this little N. is going to attack." (Of course you know what "N." is.)
I'm happy if those guys are offended by the statement and don't come back.

 

[MGibster]

Turning existing lore upside down for inclusiveness is weak. Look at Rowling. Posting on Twitter that Dumbledore was gay, instead of actually writing the character as gay? I think I prefer Willow & Tara, where the screenwriters showed their relationship to the audience.

See, here's where we part ways on this. I don't actually think changing the lore for inclusiveness is weaksauce. People who want the addition of female Space Marines make some decent arguments and their inclusion wouldn't constitute a fundamental change to the setting. This is already a setting where things have changed quite a bit since it's inception and I don't think female Space Marines would be the most radical of changes.

 

[MGibster]

Getting (back) into WH after many years away, I was amazed by the amount of toxicity in the groups I met through local gaming events. Adult players who would wreck children's armies and laugh were pretty common. But then I gamed with two guys who would use racist language during our matches, referring to models as "this little N. is going to attack." (Of course you know what "N." is.)
I'm happy if those guys are offended by the statement and don't come back.

I'm happy to say that I haven't encountered people like that on game days. I'm sorry you did and I hope they're offended by GW's statements and don't come back. Who needs them?

 

[Dausuul]

Posting on Twitter that Dumbledore was gay, instead of actually writing the character as gay? I think I prefer Willow & Tara, where the screenwriters showed their relationship to the audience.

Dumbledore was headmaster of the teenage protagonists' school. He wasn't "written as gay" because there was no occasion for us to find out if he was gay or not. His romantic life never came up at all, and why would it? I can only think of two professors whose sexual orientations were ever revealed* in the text of the books.

Authors typically come up with a lot of details about their characters that never find their way into the book proper. Fans like to hear about those details, and many authors are happy to indulge them. Rowling tweeting about Dumbledore being gay is no different from Tolkien writing a letter about which of the heroes could have used the Ring to defeat Sauron in single combat**.

Willow was a protagonist, so of course we got to see her relationships up close.

*Those two being Remus Lupin and Severus Snape.
**If you're wondering, the answer was "Gandalf."

 

[Immeril]

Authors typically come up with a lot of details about their characters that never find their way into the book proper. Fans like to hear about those details, and many authors are happy to indulge them. Rowling tweeting about Dumbledore being gay is no different from Tolkien writing a letter about which of the heroes could have used the Ring to defeat Sauron in single combat**.

Except that Gandalf was wise enough to never use the ring, so it's only a hypothesis, not an integral part of the character's identity. While I agree that authors come up with more background details than they are able to fit into their books, don't you at least think that it's a bit lazy?
"I'm all for inclusiveness, because Dumbledore was gay. I just didn't write about it."
Same with Rowling all of a sudden stating that Hermione could have been black. Now, I get that she was supporting Noma Dumezweni with that message, but it just doesn't fit with her writing style (she felt the need, for some reason, to explicitly mention the skin color of non-white characters such as Lee Jordan and Kingsley Shacklebolt).

 

[MGibster]

Authors typically come up with a lot of details about their characters that never find their way into the book proper. Fans like to hear about those details, and many authors are happy to indulge them. Rowling tweeting about Dumbledore being gay is no different from Tolkien writing a letter about which of the heroes could have used the Ring to defeat Sauron in single combat**.

You're right that it's no different because in either case it's meaningless. I'm going to bring this 'round to Games Workshop. When they released Age of Sigmar a while back they tried to push the Stormcast Eternals as the poster boys much in the same way that the Ultramarines are for 40k. To give you an idea of what they all looked like here's a picture.

They were all male and GW was criticized for yet another game where the flagship army had no females. Now some critics pointed out, hey, we don't know what their gender is under all that heavy armor and helmeted heads. They could all be women for all we know. But here's the thing, if it's not up there in the text then it doesn't matter. If they all look like men then they are perceived as men. So GW started producing some female Stormcast Eternal figures.

Here's the thing, JK Rowling coming to us after the fact and telling us Dumbledore was gay didn't really matter. Because it wasn't in the story. Likewise, just saying the Stormcast Eternals could be female wasn't good enough because they all looked male.

 

[Immeril]

Here's the thing, JK Rowling coming to us after the fact and telling us Dumbledore was gay didn't really matter. Because it wasn't in the story. Likewise, just saying the Stormcast Eternals could be female wasn't good enough because they all looked male.

That's what I liked about The Loud House. Clyde's parents were gay. Period. No 'look how progressive we are' from the writers.
How can an author convince people who don't think this is normal, that it in fact IS normal, when the author is making such a big deal about it?

 

[jasper]

If warhammer was smart, they would dropped the last line. I don't play war hammer and the last line sound like they want to start a fight.