Warhammer 40K's story, how is it even remotely appealing?

[el_kabong]

As a DEldar player, I have to say I take exception to that. ALL other races only exist in order to be massacred and/or raped by the Dark Eldar.

Seriously though, and as other have said, it really depends on the writer and the story he's trying to convey.

How does it feel to play the faction that no one ever writes about unless they need a mustache-twirling villain?

That's actually one of the reasons I love the DEldar. My Razorwing Jetfighters are painted like the Gen1 Decepticon Jets (Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker) and my Jetbikes are painted blue and red (very much like Cobra Commander).

In a grimdark universe, they are arguably the grimdarkiest because, DEldar literally live off of grimdark. They're a race that went so Caligula that it tore permanent hole in reality. Then, instead of apologizing and changing their ways, found that if they killed at an even FASTER rate, it prolongs their life (thus preventing an eternity of tentacle rape in the afterlife). Murder is their breakfast. Torture chambers are their hospitals. They make over-the-top look quaint by comparison.

Also, I like tying space nuns to space railroad tracks as the audience boos and hisses.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Warhammer 40k is shlock - badly written, but fun. Some people, like myself and the OP, are turned off by it. I don't like Twilight either, but I proudly display several Aliens and Resident Evil novels on my bookshelf. Are they well written? No - they're shlock. They're guilty pleasures.

I don't confuse them with literature. Lois McMaster Bujold and Jacqueline Carey are literature. S.D. Perry (of the Aliens and Res Evil novels) is shlock. I enjoy reading both.

Basicaly this. Gaunts ghosts and Ravenor are the only 40k books to make me actually care for the characters but mainly because they killed most of the "Grimdark" off. It was basically like reading the same kind of horror real soldiers endure except the enemy are satanists. Its a very good series and i enjoyed it massively, both in fact. Eisenhorn can have a medal too. These are the 3 series i give credit for being above average reading. Cephias Cain gets points for pointing fun at the grimdark in a pretty straight forward way. Its a fun read but definitely satirical.

The rest? I own EVERY book in the black library. I LOVE the universe and i LOVE the books but you know what? Its shlock. Its ALL shlock. I love it because its pants on head retarded in almost all aspects and it doesnt care. Its not meant to be serious. Its meant to be SO serious its almost taking the piss. This is the area of play for such over the top "Turn it up to 12" events that we dont get to enjoy in other media. In this respect its unique. And i like that. Any new avenue for a story is good. And while one where "ALL IS ALL BAD ALL THE TIME" is limited its still got something in it. And it produces some good shlock.

I mean the guy i quoted has a similar taste in shlock. Aliens is a story of the same aliens constantly dominating and eating humanity over and over and over without fail because humans are pretty much retarded when dealing with them all the time.

The SPESS marines are PURELY shlock. The night lords trilogy has more personality to the space marines than any other since introspection is common in the soldiers regarding, you know, their job as soldiers. They actually think about the choices they made to become soldiers and how their lives affect others and the impact of the desire to be a "hero". Its quite interesting and its basically about a faction whose basic tenant is "FUCK THIS GRIMDARK WE ARE NOT GETTING INVOLVED WITH ANY OF THAT SHIT WE ARE SO TIRED OF GRIMDARK I MEAN CMON OUR NAME IS GRIMDARK WE DONT EVEN LIKE THE GUY WHO NAMED US THAT ITS GETTING BORING". I found them pretty interesting characters. Im tired of spess marines who constantly scream "SPESS MARINES SMASH EMPEROR WE ARE BEST NO REGRET OR FEELINGS JUST SMASHY RELIGIOUS SMASH". Nightlords gets major props. Also in it the human space marine interaction is honest and sincere. Feels a lot better.

But yeah mostly shlock. Gotta admit its shlock. Its lovely shlock but its just shlock.

The series above (Ravenor, Nightlords, Eisenhorn and Cephias Cain) are all books ive read hundreds of times. The rest of the shlock gets 1 or 2 affectionate reads. Any new person to the universe i say read those 4. These are actually quite good.

 

[Waaghpowa]

So, what is everyone's favorite chapter of the glorious Imperium of Man?

Heretics and xenos need not apply.

Ultramarines

Mainly for their above average ability to kill Tyranids, because I hate bugs.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Admittedly this might be due to over-exposure from a friend who won't shut the hell up about it, but I really can't see the appeal of the story of Warhammer 40K. (I emphasize story because the games are pretty fun gameplay wise)

The entire setting seems like a big case of Darkness Induced Audience Apathy [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy].

I read through some wiki pages and listened to my friends and have played enough of the games to know the basic premise and factions; and I couldn't give less of rats ass who wins. 90% of the characters are jackasses and the ones who aren't are probably dead knowing this setting, and that's not getting into how there are no actually "good" or even "meh" characters.

Hell reading the wiki alone made me feel uncomfortable, there's no hope, its overly violent and its practically childish; something an "edgy" thirteen year old would make up.

Not to mention its a tad misogynistic (Such as there being limited female soldiers that aren't part of the female only faction, the eldar or the dark eldar) and obviously caters to younger males. (Something that irks me to no end)

Can someone explain the appeal of this universe to me? Because to me it all seems over the top and plain stupid.

Not any of the videogame stories no.

But the original Workshop game's meta-story and lore?

Its appealing because its a vicious parody of exactly the kind of dark and dreary and bloody sort of story you're talking about.

 

[NiPah]

Reading this immediately made me think of the phrase "Those who can do, those who can't teach".

Bullshit. That is one of the stupidest adages in all of western culture. It is flat out wrong.
I teach writing. I'm also a published author. Most teachers ALSO do.
Or, to put it another way, the adage should be "those who can do, and also teach."

It's a humorous statement meant to point out the often disconnect between the world of academia and the world outside of the school setting.

I'll also throw out the old adage ?it?s a poor score keeper who can?t win a game?.

The fact that the story breaks rules on what makes good stories and yet people (and lets be honest, a lot of people) greatly enjoy it means that those rules are wrong, simple as that.

Actually, no. Lots of people enjoy Porn too, but that doesn't mean that Porn is the ultimate form of story telling.

People enjoy Jerry Springer, but he isn't a modern Shakespeare.

People enjoying something that happens to have a bad story doesn't mean that the definition of a good story needs to be revised - it means that people sometimes like guilty pleasures. Like Porn. Or bad romance novels. Or those 'novels' that are basically corporate fan-fictions for various science fiction franchises. Or Twilight.

Warhammer 40k is shlock - badly written, but fun. Some people, like myself and the OP, are turned off by it. I don't like Twilight either, but I proudly display several Aliens and Resident Evil novels on my bookshelf. Are they well written? No - they're shlock. They're guilty pleasures.

I don't confuse them with literature. Lois McMaster Bujold and Jacqueline Carey are literature. S.D. Perry (of the Aliens and Res Evil novels) is shlock. I enjoy reading both.

I?m simply posing the question why such rules are needed, besides rating higher on a technical English level what separates literature from sclock.

I'm not trying to be negative about literature, I?m just interested in how you defend the merits of the art form above the common porn mags and Alien novels (of course we?re not talking about Playboy here, those early issues had some quality writing).

 

[Old Father Eternity]

Sure it may not be for everyone but same goes for every other thing out there.
However ...
How can anyone not like green glowing, sentient, silent death legions guided by entities, who have existed pretty much since the first stars flickered into life.

 

[poodlenoodles]

i like the art direction and little snippets of the story, but i don't really know enough about the story to conclusively say whether or not it is very well written

 

[NinjaSocks333]

The Appeal to me is the fact that its set SO far in the future, they can pull off alot of different things. Alot of the lore is based of historical events, armies, and figures, but in this very grim setting that can get away with things like 500 year nuclear bombardment.

 

[Gepwin]

The story of Warhammer 40K exists for two reasons, to pad out the rule books so they can claim they are worth $50, and to give a semi-valid reason that any faction can face off against any other or the same faction. "Everyone is fighting, so this makes sense" is as good an explanation as any.

 

[Denamic]

Never post tvtropes links in the middle of your post if you want people to read the rest of your post.
If you have to post them, post them at the bottom.

 

[Godhead]

I've never found a lot of stories that have gripped me in the 40k universe, with the notable exception of The Last Chancers, the Space Wolf Omnibuses, and Fifteen Hours. I do love the background that the universe gives you so you can make your own stories, or campaigns for Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader however.

 

[Iwata]

I'm one of those rare people that like the setting better than the game. And I really like the game.

I've been playing since 1992, and it remains, to this day, my favourite SF setting, bar none. It's very hard to pinpoint exactly why that is, but even after more than two decades playing it, I am in love with it. It's very much like the Dune series, or Lexx: you either like or... you don't.

In fact, I have an Imperial aquila tattooed on the back of my neck.

So, what is everyone's favorite chapter of the glorious Imperium of Man?

Heretics and xenos need not apply.

Blood Angels player here. And I've been playing since Matt Ward was a toddler, so I'm not in it for the cheese.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I?m simply posing the question why such rules are needed, besides rating higher on a technical English level what separates literature from sclock.

I'm not trying to be negative about literature, I?m just interested in how you defend the merits of the art form above the common porn mags and Alien novels (of course we?re not talking about Playboy here, those early issues had some quality writing).

Actually I meant video porn. With rare exceptions, that is generally not good quality storytelling.

As for these rules - what rules? The OP quoted TV Tropes. Tropes are a collection of storytelling techniques that authors use as shorthand ways to convey information to the audience, but they are not rules. Tropes can be used or inverted, or subverted, or averted - that is, used normally, reversed, made fun of, or ignored. Shlock is just as likely to include tropes as literature, although shlock is more likely to use a trope straight whereas literature is more likely to invert, subvert, or avert a trope.

From a literary theory point of view, there are guidelines to how to write a good story, but those guidelines are just that. A true literary master knows how to bend or ignore the "rules" because they know what those rules are meant to ensure and can accomplish the same goals in other ways.

Good literature typically has a unifying theme, deep characters, good foreshadowing, and excellent prose.

Shlock, typically, is a collection of tropes and flat characters thrown together without any attention to literary theory beyond possibly a some sort of story charting.

And, to paraphrase Movie Bob, you can create good literature out of anything. Jim Butcher took the concept of Pokemon meets the Lost Roman Legion meets Aliens and turned it into a best selling novel series that uses every old cliche he could think up to throw in. But, because he wrote it well, with a unifying theme, deep characters, skillful foreshadowing, and beautiful prose, he made it into literature.

 

[Nouw]

I have rearranged your post so it is easier to reply to.

Call it whatever you like but it's still a novel of camaraderie between a unit of soldiers. Maybe Dan Abnett did draw inspiration from novels he read as children/teenagers but what's wrong with that?

Maybe that's how the story progressed, I admit I haven't read later entries, but I remember in early works the officers of the First and Only were at each others throats. In fact it seems I'm correct, the tvtropes page you linked to mentions that this wasn't the case in the early novels.

Anywho, it's one thing to draw inspiration from it's quite another to take the plot of another story and put in another setting and go "ok this was what would happen if Sharpe happened in the 40k setting."

But the latter is inspiration and ultimately, it ends up with the same result. Dan Abnett obviously put more thought into writing the books than 'what was Sharpe like?' The different things the 'successor' does is what makes the 'successor' good.

The second most popular series, The Horus Heresy, is actually based on the Fall of Lucifer. And once again, I don't see a problem with that.

Basically my issue is that I'm tired of authors looking at works in the public domain and going "ooo, free ideas!"

Why?

Considering almost nothing is original anymore, taking inspiration from an existing piece of media and/or literature is hardly a heinous sin. The same stories have been re-told through different settings and different mediums for quite some time now, including the story of a 'band of brothers.' Through this, we have gotten some truly kickass films, books and t.v. shows. I love experiencing the same story over and over again as long as the setting, the characters and themes are somewhat different. It's somewhat lazy, yes, but using the same premise requires a unique effort by the creators to differentiate enough to make it stand on its own. As I said before, what the 'successor' does different from its 'predecessor' is what matters to me. The fact that they picked and chose from the public domain, assuming they did, doesn't turn me off at all as long as they do something new with it. Same applies for using the same setting, themes and messages and characters. Is it different enough?

It's a case by case thing considering there are many times it does not work, such as Avatar. The setting and some of the characters were new and amazing but that wasn't enough to cover up the story. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work, I detest it but that doesn't mean the rest of the inspired media and literature have to be in the same category. I suppose it is very subjective as to what does it well and what doesn't but that's my general view of things.

Sort of rambled on there, sorry >.>.

The trope, called Band of Brothers, is hardly exclusive to any genre anyway.

That's nice, I never claimed it was.

My apologies, I misinterpreted your post.

 

[JJMUG]

Empire?

You mean the highly oppressive religiously dogmatic country where even the colleges of magic are held with a deep mistrust for being different, and only the direct protection of the emperor helps keep them going?

Yea. Religiously oppressive.

That's why they kill off all non Sigmarites...OH WAIT, the HIGH PRIEST OF ULRIC THE WHITE WOLF HAS A SPOT AMONG THE ELECTOR COUNTS AND IT HAS TO BE WHY MIDDENHEIM, ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL CITY-STATES IN THE EMPIRE IS ALMOST ENTIRELY IN CONTROL OF THE TEMPLE OF ULRIC. It's also why this religiously oppressive regime dedicates all mausoleums to the pagan death god Moor.

And no, the direct protection of the Emporer is not what keeps them going. The Empire survived after Karl Franz got gang-stomped by trolls at Wolfenburg, after all.

Don't forget how the Knights of the Blazing Sun and Knights Panther were killed for worshiping the goddess Myrmidia. The Raven Knights and the Knights of Morr killed for worshiping the god of death, and the killing off of many priests of Morr.