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2022/12/07 20:08:12
Subject: Re:Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
GrosseSax wrote: I have a real hard time believing this about boobies in a piece of fantasy artwork.
Its got to be something else.
A lot of the book in question is written in-character from the perspective of a imperial scholar, maybe that's part of the problem. I'm sure that the Slaanesh part contains lots of passages that mention ''unnatural acts'' and so on, that could be understood as homophobic if you are very sensitive and also ignore the fact that it is obviously not the opinion of the author or the company, but the opinion of a fictional character inside a fictional society that is, in fact, actually homophobic as well as a lot of other bad things.
Is the Imperium homophobic?
I mean, the Imperium sucks. It's a monstrous monolith of pain and destruction. But I didn't think it really cared who Joe Schmoe loves. Like, the cruelty and horror is that Joe is torn away from his loving spouse, given a rifle and maybe a flak vest, and thrown into the meatgrinder for a battle that's probably not even needed. It doesn't matter what gender his spouse is.
I'm sure there are homophobes and homophobic cultures WITHIN the Imperium, but that's because the Imperium is damn big.
To clarify: we are talking about the Old World Warhammer Fantasy Empire here, not the 40k Imperium of Man. My fault for not making that clear, they're both called ''Imperium'' in German.
Ah, okay. I know not much of that entity. Thanks for the clarity.
2022/12/07 20:15:19
Subject: Re:Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
GrosseSax wrote: I have a real hard time believing this about boobies in a piece of fantasy artwork.
Its got to be something else.
A lot of the book in question is written in-character from the perspective of a imperial scholar, maybe that's part of the problem. I'm sure that the Slaanesh part contains lots of passages that mention ''unnatural acts'' and so on, that could be understood as homophobic if you are very sensitive and also ignore the fact that it is obviously not the opinion of the author or the company, but the opinion of a fictional character inside a fictional society that is, in fact, actually homophobic as well as a lot of other bad things.
Is the Imperium homophobic?
I mean, the Imperium sucks. It's a monstrous monolith of pain and destruction. But I didn't think it really cared who Joe Schmoe loves. Like, the cruelty and horror is that Joe is torn away from his loving spouse, given a rifle and maybe a flak vest, and thrown into the meatgrinder for a battle that's probably not even needed. It doesn't matter what gender his spouse is.
I'm sure there are homophobes and homophobic cultures WITHIN the Imperium, but that's because the Imperium is damn big.
To clarify: we are talking about the Old World Warhammer Fantasy Empire here, not the 40k Imperium of Man. My fault for not making that clear, they're both called ''Imperium'' in German.
Ah, okay. I know not much of that entity. Thanks for the clarity.
It's mostly modelled after the Holy Roman Empire in early modern times, when stuff like wars of religion or witch hunts were common, and is generally depicted as a paranoid, insanely bigotted and very violent place. All sorts of people are lynched, socially shunned or driven out of society for the merest hint at a deviance from the norm that could be due to the influence of chaos or other dark forces. Witch hunters are an official institution whose agents travel the land and have power of life and death over whole villages. Not the most tolerant place.
2022/12/07 20:42:57
Subject: Re:Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
GrosseSax wrote: I have a real hard time believing this about boobies in a piece of fantasy artwork.
Its got to be something else.
A lot of the book in question is written in-character from the perspective of a imperial scholar, maybe that's part of the problem. I'm sure that the Slaanesh part contains lots of passages that mention ''unnatural acts'' and so on, that could be understood as homophobic if you are very sensitive and also ignore the fact that it is obviously not the opinion of the author or the company, but the opinion of a fictional character inside a fictional society that is, in fact, actually homophobic as well as a lot of other bad things.
Is the Imperium homophobic?
I mean, the Imperium sucks. It's a monstrous monolith of pain and destruction. But I didn't think it really cared who Joe Schmoe loves. Like, the cruelty and horror is that Joe is torn away from his loving spouse, given a rifle and maybe a flak vest, and thrown into the meatgrinder for a battle that's probably not even needed. It doesn't matter what gender his spouse is.
I'm sure there are homophobes and homophobic cultures WITHIN the Imperium, but that's because the Imperium is damn big.
To clarify: we are talking about the Old World Warhammer Fantasy Empire here, not the 40k Imperium of Man. My fault for not making that clear, they're both called ''Imperium'' in German.
That seems a rather odd specific jump to conclusions as opposed to that it seems over the years GW has been cleaning up some of the more obscene and offensive imagery and writings of chaos over the years, in may cases from older works. For example the Daemonculaba from Dead Sky, Black Sun released in 2004 (still sold by black library oddly enough), the Liber Chaotica was originaly released in 2006. In general some of the older chaos stuff would expand on and go into some degree of detail of evil demonic things, body horror, obscene (mostly slanesh) and offensive imagery and writing. In comparison to newer stuff for chaos tends to write around some of these topics instead of delving into them, more commonly we will get "and the whole population was enslave/killed/sacrificed in the name of the dark gods". Its more likely the continued clean up for the wider audience as to not offend the Karens of the world.
2022/12/07 21:07:58
Subject: Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
See, I always took "unnatural acts" as things involving animals, beastmen, mutants, and Daemons(all things hinted at a Slaanesh cult doing at an orgy by Felix in Trollslayer) rather than anything non-heteronormative.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/12/07 21:09:19
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was
2022/12/07 21:25:40
Subject: Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
Platuan4th wrote: See, I always took "unnatural acts" as things involving animals, beastmen, mutants, and Daemons(all things hinted at a Slaanesh cult doing at an orgy by Felix in Trollslayer) rather than anything non-heteronormative.
For a very long time, the expression covered a wide variety of things considered ''unnatural'', including intercourse with animals, between men or even stuff like fellatio; if you want to take a tour of the museum of bigotry have a look here:
I guess it's better to stop that specific discussion here however; we have no evidence that any of that is the reason for the book no longer being in accordance with GWs purported values, that was all just conjecture on my part as one among a handful of possibilities. As i said before, we probably won't get a direct answer from GW anyway.
Shame about the books, Liber Chaotica was a very thorough look at the metaphysics of Chaos, especially in conjunction with all the extra stuff the author later explained on WarSeer... i guess one could look at least some of it up in the internet archive.
2022/12/07 21:47:32
Subject: Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
Platuan4th wrote: See, I always took "unnatural acts" as things involving animals, beastmen, mutants, and Daemons(all things hinted at a Slaanesh cult doing at an orgy by Felix in Trollslayer) rather than anything non-heteronormative.
For a very long time, the expression covered a wide variety of things considered ''unnatural'', including intercourse with animals, between men or even stuff like fellatio; if you want to take a tour of the museum of bigotry have a look here:
I know what it means in the real world, I meant the specific book reference.
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was
2022/12/08 04:17:10
Subject: Re:Liber Chaotica won't be translated into Polish due to change of GW's 'values'
Oh look, it's the thread that was instantly locked on B&C once it became obvious it was dumped by a troll seeking cheap rile up, only a week or two late
You guys realize you're debating some GW statement we didn't see, that was then translated to Polish, presented in very speculative (the bit about no English reprints literally says 'there might possibly not be any more, probably, that is if they are not inclined to publish' which is completely meaningless) and excusey (it's totally not our fault!) manner which was then put through google translate (come on, at least use DeepL or something) back to English in a whispers game giving next to no concrete information, right? Outside of usual crew looking for things to whine about, there is very little that can be debated here.
JWBS wrote: That's very unlikely to be relevant since it would in no way prevent further English editions, which as the link explicitly says (this is a publisher and I don't see an obvious reason to disbelieve them) is probably the case.
First, it says nothing concrete, never mind 'explicitly'. It's all very speculative. Second, it says it can't be 'published in current POLISH form'. Which might be the problem here, maybe translation is bad or something was translated in insulting manner that can't be published without becoming a landmine for GW. Which might be or not be company's fault (see the whole Witcher debacle for one). We could only say for certain seeing both GW reply and said translation.
Overread wrote: As noted it could be the artwork and Poland's specific stance on things and GW simply issued a blanket statement that is a neutral one that doesn't point the finger at anyone.
Or it could be some bit of lore in the book that's similar to how the fimir were written out of things*.
If that was bit of lore, GW would simply tell them to edit it. But if I were to speculate on reasons, I'd point out current boss of Ministry of Witch Hunts (formerly known as Ministry of Justice) is religious nutjob more extreme than Taliban or Saudi Arabia (literally, he forced through laws going further than both said countries combined) who might not look kindly at book that his goons would outright call 'satanism'. Seeing Polish catholic church does yearly legal attacks and even burnings of even such mild stuff as Harry Potter as SATANIC (especially hilarious considering Rowling's recent statements) I would really not be surprised GW didn't wanted to fight that particular nonsense. And no, I am not making this up:
Outside of usual crew looking for things to whine about, there is very little that can be debated here.
