WH40K canon is like “what if we made up the entire terrible history of modern Europe so we could sell WWII soldiers” and then not only did some fans idealize the Nazis despite the “obvious bad guy” label, but the Napoleonic Wars and interwar Glasgow razor gangs started as spin-offs which became favorite games in their own right.
｜霜の狼｜人面獣心」
@Leucrotta ...does WH40K have /any/ good guys?
@frost nope. Individuals can be humorous, kind and heroic, but factions aren’t.
@Leucrotta That just sounds..depressing.
cut cause it's a long response!
@frost Yes and no;
No, because we know everyone in the game is kinda terrible to holy crap that's terrible, but the game's background largely doesn't come into actual play (the Imperial penchant for vivisection and fundamentalism gets reflected in some, not all, visuals).
Yes, because the game's future is *supposed* to be bleak. Keep in mind the game starts out in the 80s, when you've got the Cold War, the Troubles, and no internet to challenge fairly tight conservative control of the media, so despite how bad your reality looks, you're very much being told that England (er... the UK!) or the USA are saintly good guys, Christianity is flawless, the future is wonderfully bright etc. AND your escapism is mostly Tolkien, Star Wars, Star Trek, D&D's good alignments, lots of noble good guys versus horrible baddies.
A "dark future" or "shades of gray" might seem trite and overdone now after that's been around for decades - but in the 80s and even into the 90s, saying "Judge Dredd /Lobo/Elric of Melnibone *isn't* a good guy" or "there are no good guys in 40K" is pretty revolutionary. If you read the canon, too, it's very influenced by Dune, Arthurian mythology, and WWI, all of which are distinctly tragic.
And it's not just counterculture, there's a practical aspect; the GW folks wanted to sell their game, and the quickest way to steer people from just playing the official good guy faction is to make no official good guy faction.
Does all this make sense?
re: cut cause it's a long response!
@Leucrotta Huh! Huh, neat. Yeah, that makes sense!
I totally forgot the "most people would want to play the good guys" aspect.