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Finished reading Battle for the Fang last night and was quite literally aghast at the following piece:



I might very well be a sensitive soul but I though Wraight crossed the line here. Although 40k purposes to be Grimdark and fairly violent it has its comical Grimdark elements too and writing about children being flayed and then actively engaging in combat I felt was totally OTT.

In addition there are subjects that 40k has never gone near from a canon PoV despite its Grimdark - rape, excessive torture, child abuse, incest etc.
These are subjects rightly or wrongly avoided by 40k (rightly imho) but Wraight has just done so.

The thing that probably caught me off guard so much is that the rest of the book is just a battle book, its writing is ok, if a little naiive and almost basic imo in places.
Typical stuff that you would read from most average authors and it dosent touch on any really dark areas of the fluff or have a brooding feel overall.

And then about 80 pages from the end this happens.

I feel it was completely out of place (maybe in another much darker novel it might have fit but not here).

Opinions? Am I being a wuss?

So? What's new there?



So that story about TS wanting to to that is not really somethign new for me in 40k.

Killing, and you have to take me with a huge grain of salt here, is killing. Happens in every book ever written about 40k.

Eating prisoners is harsh but the kroot are aliens and we can desensitise ourselves from that.

Fanfic I dont rate whatsoever and specifically mentioned canon in my post.

is anotehr level entirely imho.

That's still nothing new in 40k, servant of chaos Gods are known for their harsh nature. They do not fell pity or remorse for their crimes - and they shall not receive the same from us.

Kind of hard to say without having read it. If it was out of tone with the rest of the book then, yeah, it was OTT, even if just from a literary point of view. It is typically poor writing to suddenly have a dramatic, out of place shift of tone.

Is it OTT for the setting? Not by a long shot, I've seen much worse in the setting. And the crime didn't even happen, so it's just mustache twirling and puppy kicking to make the bad guys look bad.

Welcome to Grimdark.

It's part of the setting, and I do recall having read things like that elsewhere a lot. Hell, the 2E SoB Codex outright references forced child prostitution in the Schola Progenium during the Age of Apostasy. I think some people may have either gotten a bit too sensitive about this sort of stuff in fiction - or that GW may have scaled back these references in their attempt to make it more "kids friendly" (just look at the new Daemonettes) so far that it is now regarded as inappropriate despite once having been normal.

Personally, the only thing that I find wrong is that a bunch of kids manages to outperform CSM - but it's a novel and it's Fenris, that's two explanations already for why anything is possible.

I hate it when my followers of irredeemably evil gods are too evil.

Welcome to the real world mate! If you find warhammer to harsh, go watch Hello Kitty.

Warrior Squirrel wrote:Welcome to the real world mate! If you find warhammer to harsh, go watch Hello Kitty.

+1

can I use this for a sig?

Veteran Sergeant wrote:I hate it when my followers of irredeemably evil gods are too evil.

Khorn warrior: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD errr what do you want?

Editor: *adjusts glasses* excuse me but blood is to violent and... dare I say it, risque... so you will now replace it with cherry coolade when you wish to say blood.

Khorn warrior: * throws down weapon* screw that, I know better than to take the coolade

Welcome to the real world mate! If you find warhammer to harsh, go watch Hello Kitty.

Who said anything about finding 40k too grimdark? Did youy read the OP? It was the specific instance and subject matter I found OTT not 40k itself.

@Lynata/Rip
Fair points. I agree Lynata that GW definelty have toned down the Grimdark element in recent years, I'd wager those topics simply dont show themselves anymore due to the fanbase shift and realisation that they wont go down very well in certain quarters now that 40k has become much more mainstream.

You find the fictional Chaos marine wanting to flay the fictional kids over the line. For your own sake dont read any books about real war. No offence intended.

Feel free to use it as a sig by the way HappyGoLucky.

None taken.

Ratius wrote:In addition there are subjects that 40k has never gone near from a canon PoV despite its Grimdark - rape, excessive torture, child abuse, incest etc.
These are subjects rightly or wrongly avoided by 40k (rightly imho) but Wraight has just done so.

Have you read the Dark Eldar codex?!

Ratius wrote:I'd wager those topics simply dont show themselves anymore due to the fanbase shift and realisation that they wont go down very well in certain quarters now that 40k has become much more mainstream.

It's a sad thing, ain't it. Makes you wonder how the setting will look in another 10 years. :(

yeah I miss the days of the Slaves to Darkness books with the first ever " mature readers label" in tabletop gaming history.

Maybe with a potentialy more complex ruleset and a hopefully more involved storyline we will see a bit of "age" return to the setting...but I am not holding my breath.

*Never Mind*

@Ratius: I tend to agree that this is OTT .. and I'd also say that it's boring. This is a fictional universe based on a game. The point of the "grimdark" is not to teach us lessons about real-world morality, such as "the horror of war." The point is to entertain. I don't think the torture or murder of children really fits into that goal, no matter how "relevant" it is to a literal interpretation of the setting. Similarly, a novel about how Chaos-worshiping traitor guardsmen rape all the women in a hive might be "realistic" but it's hardly appropriate or even necessary to convey "grim darkness." The use of violence against children in a case like this seems like laziness on the part of the author. In so many modern stories, the writers let you know that someone is really bad because they abuse children or animals. Abusing children or animals is certainly vile but it's so overdone. I think TVTropes has an article on this -- "kick the puppy" or something.

Well, I suppose it should come to no surprise that there are a lot of perspectives concerning the direction the style of narration has taken.

However, entertainment takes many forms. Horror movies, splatter action and hardcore porn all incorporate the things criticized here, yet all are obviously popular genres. One could of course argue that this has no place in 40k, yet it doesn't have to do anything with an issue of morality - merely that an individual may not like the level of detail in which something is described. Tastes are different. For me, whilst I agree that it is quite possible to "overdo it", I like a certain sense of realism in what I read, simply because it serves to set the background, the atmosphere. It makes the reader fully appreciate the horrors of the 41st millennium and underlines the evil of the bad guys.

Sure you can just as well describe the setting in a less "complex" manner, but in my opinion you run a huge risk of failing to convey the fine nuances that make the setting so exceptional. It ends up with people looking at Space Marines as if they'd be nothing else but cool dudes who run around kicking ass - and whilst this is certainly a valid and entertaining interpretation, it sacrifices a lot of potential. In essence, it makes the setting less grimdark. 40k, to me, isn't about Honorable White Knights vs Faceless Bad Guys, it's the lesser versus the greater evil with a lot of misguided fanatics and atrocities on every side where a single human life isn't worth gak.

Are you sure it's actually children and not aspirants?

Aspirants are going to be teen-ish in their ages. In most of the Fenrisian clans they recruit from, these individuals had already engaged in warfare and caught the eye of the Space Wolves.

Ratius wrote:I might very well be a sensitive soul but I though Wraight crossed the line here. Although 40k purposes to be Grimdark and fairly violent it has its comical Grimdark elements too and writing about children being flayed and then actively engaging in combat I felt was totally OTT

I don't really see why having Chaos Marines say they will do something Chaosy is OTT, or having children (who are obviously the children of serfs, so are being raised as warriors) fighting back OTT, seeing as child soldiers still fight wars now and we don't have evil mega-wizard-warriors trying to kill us. It just sets the scene of both sides and shows their personalities.

CSM gotta be CSM. Though honestly I'd expect that kind of behavior from the Night Lords or Word Bearers.

You don't have to incorporate scenes of CSM murdering children in order to convey that they're "Chaosy." It's a lazy/unimaginative shortcut.

Manchu wrote:You don't have to incorporate scenes of CSM murdering children in order to convey that they're "Chaosy." It's a lazy/unimaginative shortcut.

And they might not necessarily be children.

Manchu wrote:You don't have to incorporate scenes of CSM murdering children in order to convey that they're "Chaosy." It's a lazy/unimaginative shortcut.

What's a better way to convey a morality difference? Shooting SW prisoners? Hell, Astartes do that to captured CSM on a regular basis. When everyone is so cruel in 40k the badguys gotta up the anty.

Lynata wrote:Sure you can just as well describe the setting in a less "complex" manner, but in my opinion you run a huge risk of failing to convey the fine nuances that make the setting so exceptional. It ends up with people looking at Space Marines as if they'd be nothing else but cool dudes who run around kicking ass - and whilst this is certainly a valid and entertaining interpretation, it sacrifices a lot of potential. In essence, it makes the setting less grimdark. 40k, to me, isn't about Honorable White Knights vs Faceless Bad Guys, it's the lesser versus the greater evil with a lot of misguided fanatics and atrocities on every side where a single human life isn't worth gak.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Manchu, the TVTropes entry you're thinking about is "Kick The Dog". They also have something at "Double Standard"...
Why should women and children be spared if they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time ? Because it's "overdone" ? I beg to differ. The goal is not to make a specific character or group look evil ; the real star of the show is the setting itself, of which Lynata has given a very good definition. Violence against children is relevant to the verse.

Now, it seems the author did it in a heavy-handed way which does not bring much to the table indeed. It would be much more interesting, for example, to see an Imperium commander order their culling afterwards to prevent the seed of corruption from taking root in them after they were in direct contact with Chaos.
The "bad guys" didn't kill you ? Don't worry, the "good guys" will take care of it.
Now that's 40k.

I have to say mate, Childeren have been used as a Guerilla weapon for years. In Vietnam for instance 3 or 4 US marine were KIA because a Child ran up to them. With 2 Grenades. Writing about them in a story isn't exactly odd, especially in the Grimdark far future

In addition there are subjects that 40k has never gone near from a canon PoV despite its Grimdark - rape, excessive torture, child abuse, incest etc.

Rape: See Night Lords novel Soul Hunter. Female astropath is dragged by a gang of prisoners to the darkest parts of the prison complex for 4 hours.

Excessive Torture: Dark Angels love torture. Any story involving Dark Eldar had torture.

Child Abuse: Conscript platoons.

Incest: The Navigator Houses are completely reliant on incest.

Lynata wrote:Sure you can just as well describe the setting in a less "complex" manner ...

This is the opposite of complex. Splatter horror and hardcore porn also are not complex. They're extremely superficial.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hyd wrote:Why should women and children be spared if they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time ?.

You're pretending that this is a book about real life. It's actually a book about genetically engineered space monks.

Let me put it to you like this: humans feth, right? And Guardsmen are humans? So how about an IG novel with graphic sex scenes? No, I don't mean something reasonable. I mean something along the lines of "Commissar Smirnov shoved his XXX into Lieutenant Ashburn's YYY." Unless XXX stands for fist and YYY stand for face, this kind of thing is totally unnecessary for a 40k novel. Realistic? Maybe but who cares.

There are a million other ways that one could communicate "this is a Chaos marine and he's a bad fella" so using the image/expectatoin of child torture/rape/murder is hardly necessary and I doubt it was selected by the author for the sake of "realism."

And, in any case, realism is a poor excuse for bad taste.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Harriticus wrote:When everyone is so cruel in 40k the badguys gotta up the anty.

I have no doubt that if we took the premise of the setting to its logical conclusion, loyalist Space Marines would also kill and, if they deemed it necessary, torture children. My point is that these sorts of images are not appropriate to what is just entertainment. The books are NOT realistic, thoughtful depictions of war and human cruelty. They'r cartoons. And that's fine. Cartoons are very entertaining. The murder of children does not belong in cartoons, however.

So all the other novels where billions of people are killed in all sorts of horrible ways are fine, but the threat of killing children somehow pushes things over the line?