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Hello folks , registered just to ask this bit. Before the actual question let me first give off some important details.

I'm a fan of the video games and all the lore i could find in the Lexicanum and wiki (the fiction basically).
I respect the fact that there is a tabletop game yet i'm not interested in it at all.

I've noticed on a few places that the lore and the game itself are hard to take seriously at times. Apparently it's because this setting was intended as a semi-joke in previous decades. Now i truly love the detail and absurdity of it all , i do not appretiate any in-jokes or pop-culture referrences.

Is WH40K (the video games , novels and wiki/lore) currently headed in the "soon to be a full-on-joke again or are they actually trying slowly to make some use of it? Is the vast amount of current information already humorous?

I'd just like to know whether i should continue to follow WH40K if it's not going to take itself seriously.

Warhammer has always had tongue in cheek sense of humor and purposeful over-the-topness, and that's one of the things I love about it. Although it's a little annoying when they still write something over the top but then be asked to be taken seriously (pick any recent SM codex). However I doubt they're going back to the old rouge trader style of humor, so your seriousness is safe.

It seems like it started as tongue-in-cheek silliness but got more serious over time.

The 40k novels, including the HH books are very grim-dark. However, I still chuckle at some of the Primarch names: Angron, Ferrous Manus, Alpha & Omega, Perturabo.

That's good i guess.

I hear there's been a lot of retconning going on with certain elements - when they do that do they do it gracefully with some witty explanation or just "insert men in black mind-wipe stick and use the new material"?

It really depends what you read or look at. The style of narration goes all the way from gritty to heroic to tongue-in-cheek to slapstick.

You mentioned the video games, and I know that in DoW2 they adopted the internet meme with the Commissar on the tank yelling "drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!" Obviously, that's not quite something a Commissar would really say, at least not in this fashion.

Then you have the Cain novels, which, as far as I heard, are meant as a satire on 40k and intended to include quite a few funny moments. The Deff Skwadron graphic novel is also quite lulzy thanks to the orky humour in it (and personally, unlike the Cain books I actually wholeheartedly recommend reading it, if only for the laughs).

My advice would be to simply disregard what you don't like from your perception of the setting. The more I investigate the subject of canonicity amidst the fluff, the more it seems that GW intentionally keeps the setting rather open so that you can pick and choose what you like. For example, novel authors are in no way obliged to respect what one another wrote in their books, and often they also deviate from Codex material, so there's no reason why you should not have the same degree of freedom.

It seems to be getting more serious in my opinion

Lynata wrote:
My advice would be to simply disregard what you don't like from your perception of the setting. The more I investigate the subject of canonicity amidst the fluff, the more it seems that GW intentionally keeps the setting rather open so that you can pick and choose what you like. For example, novel authors are in no way obliged to respect what one another wrote in their books, and often they also deviate from Codex material, so there's no reason why you should not have the same degree of freedom.

Indeed , i stay away from Goto and things like Angry Marines (as hilarious as they can be) , i just like to have a solid base that nobody can screw up.

Don't know the rules about mentioning other games here but let me give an example - Warcraft 3 = mostly serious , some retcons , nothing too immersion-breaking. WoW = can't go five seconds without some puns in the item names , NPC's dialog or the story being completely thrown out the window.

I don't want that to happen to Warhammer.

It won't. The humorous elements are a contrast, and thus a highlight, to the grim-darkness of the setting.

I all ways enjoyed the dark humor that Sandy Mitchell has injected into his stories, this is how i have always pictured the 40k universe.

The Mad Tanker wrote:I all ways enjoyed the dark humor that Sandy Mitchell has injected into his stories, this is how i have always pictured the 40k universe.

Ciaphas Cain got me into Warhammer because it was funny, and because it was really interesting how Cain's little adventures were part of a bigger universe.

I don't like some of the parts of the books in retrospect (For example, him easily facing the World Eater at dueling was just WHAT). However, the series really nails a good feel that deals with one aspect of the universe (Its silliness), just like I think the Gaunt's Ghosts series hits another interesting part (The universe's human aspect).

The original fluff stays around as long as some remember it.

The idea of the overdone grim-darkness is itself a big joke.

I quite like the in-jokes.
The more subtle ones are better.

I think the game was far more 'tongue in cheek' back in the day. The fluff has been constantly evolving, with the fan base getting older bit by bit not the least of the reasons as well.

Their appears to be some effort now with the Horus Heresy books to get a bit more serious and coordinate the fluff far more than had been done in the past.

For my money, this new effort has paid off with some well written material. There are turds to be sure, but fluff consolidation has been something I've always wanted and 40k desperately needed.

Because of this fluff variance you will find different 'camps' in the fan base who desperately hold on to those threads that they grew accustomed to. Serious arguments can erupt at a moments notice as you will soon see the more you peruse this forum.

You still have vestiges of the old "nyuck nyuck, let's put orks and dwarves and elves in space," humor lingering around - Sly Marbo, for example - but by and large the setting is trying to move beyond its origins into a more "serious" brand of storytelling. I think this is especially true with the Black Library stuff.

Unfortunately, they can't really go back and retcon some of the major stuff that needs it - the name of almost every primarch, for example - and the design studio is still incapable of making subtle allusions, instead preferring to bash you over the head with them on the off chance you're a house plant. The game lore's never going to be completely capable of divorcing itself from its, "Let's make thirteen year-olds laugh!" roots.

Seaward wrote:The game lore's never going to be completely capable of divorcing itself from its, "Let's make thirteen year-olds laugh!" roots.

Could you show me the most obvious and glaring attempts at humour disrupting the setting?

I'm actually fine with having orcs and elves in space , i easily manage to mentally separate the medieval ones from the sci-fi. And since 99% of all races or creations fall into a pre-existing pattern it doesn't bother me at all.

I would agree with those saying it's becoming more serious, especially Black Library stuff (with some exceptions such as Sandy Mitchell - and it's also true that although he's known as the writer of tongue-in-cheek BL stories his novels still contain plenty of horrible things happening and gruesome battle scenes; they're still based on 40K after all). I think some of it is also down to your own perspective - for example, the grim-darkness and seriousness is sometimes so over the top I find I can't help but laugh, but there's also room for other people to take it more seriously.

Of course there are also those times when non-Black Library background material is overtly humorous, such as the Ork Codex.

The body of lore and fan-work is expansive enough that you can probably find a pretty significant spectrum of silliness/seriousness. Pretty much the only common element in 40k fluff is that romantic involvements are always on the sidelines.

Though almost all of the really silly stuff is either fan work or Matt Ward being a lunatic, avoid those and you're pretty much fine.

It's getting more serious...definitely, but every now and than you can find some dark humor.