Hello, 40K fans! I’ve got something a bit different from the usual philosophy lineup, but not too far a deviation. Mental health in the hobby is a topic that has gained steam in recent years. It should come as no surprise then that as we talk about the themes behind 40K’s narratives that we touch…
Essentially, a warrior will live on after death through the passing forward of his genetic material to new initiates via the progenoid glands. Progenoids are not a phallus, but Freud knows what they are there for as clear as daylight.
I definitely respect storytelling that is more than black and white representations of people and circumstances. That said, giving fans of 40K or even fans of “good guys” something good to root for isn’t making the grimdark a black and white moral picture.
The 40K universe, like our own world, has a bevy of origin myths. Our world has legends like the creation of the world by Marduk in his clash against Tiamat the great dragon of chaos from Mesopotamian myth, the creation of the world from the body of a dead giant in Norse mythology, the creation of the world from a great sea when the sun rises as depicted in Egyptian mythology, as well as the commonly known Old Testament account from the Abrahamic religions. Many of these stories borrow from each other in many different ways as they have influenced each other across history, and many of their themes have made their way into the creation mythology of 40K
I am not saying that all 40K stories must be or are inherently deep and meaningful, I am simply pointing out meaning or significance where I see it, and am making the case that we shouldn’t dismiss the genre out of hand simply because of its connection to tabletop wargaming or the science-fiction genre of writing.
Welcome, 40K fans, to the first in a series of articles I will be writing about some of the deeper aspects of Warhammer 40,000. These articles are a thought exercise, and by writing them I hope to improve my thinking about 40K and its fiction (and maybe about much more). Topics in this series will…
