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Klawz wrote:Errrr...three people.
BTW Legion, this is Fantasy, NOT 40K.

I'm not sure what you're counting. I'm not saying nobody agreed with me, I'm saying that nobody used the specific term "offended" in their post.

Don't think so but it looks like it will make playing his hurdy-gurdy difficult

The Old World is full of ignorant and cruel people. This mini is just a depiction of that.

It's a hilarious mini, you're looking into it too much. The Warhammer universe is many things and kind to animals is not one of them.

PETA agenda do not want thx bye

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:All of which are represented by Warhammer on a grand scale

I agree CT, but if people find the representation of animal cruelty disturbing, it is probably because they have some empathy and the ability to link it with what is actually happening to bears as we speak. There is no need to chastise people for this.

And all the things I listed are happening to human beings as we speak.

My point was that the themes and imagery of this sort of hobby trivializes lots of things that are actually ongoing in the world, but that most gamers have a disconnect.

Most view it simply as entertainment/fantasy with no real-world connotations. For most it is simply a game that utilizes imagery and concepts that might be seen as repulsive in real life as fictional details of a fantasy setting in order to provide atmosphere.

I found it interesting that a bear with an eye patch was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak given many of the human focused atrocities that are central to most of GW's fluff/game imagery...

The original poster had had his own personal "danger sense" triggered by this miniature and was wondering if the emotions it was arousing in him was shared, so yes Polonius he was opening the door to inquire if the miniature is in some way morally offensive or repugnant.

I am reminded of a young man who used to be a customer at my game store that went off on multiple tours of Iraq and upon returning never returned to wargaming or paintball. For him the thought of glorifying and "play-acting" such things was no longer something he wished to indulge in.

Polonius, try to relax just a little huh?

Thanks for the comments to my post. I think some people missed the point I was making though. I was just wondering if anyone could see where I was coming from. Considering nearly everyone likes the mini in some way I am pretty much alone on this. Thats ok.

Yes, it is just a mini in a game of slaughter and death. Yet here we have a bear with a chain. Not a bad thing in the light of things. Was just stating "I" found it bad taste. Dark Eldar may offend others too but not myself so I get the point.

Some stated its just a 40k toy. Well a ton of things could have been done to make the mini more in the feel of 40k and less in the feel of the little "dancing bears". The way its been made to me looks like who ever created it used the dancing bears as reference. I dont see much of "40k" in the feel of this mini. Personally I would have liked to see the bear without the chain. It would be cooler to have the bear as if its a loyal pet that protects its owner. Hell, put an ork head in its mouth or on the ground next to it. Have the owner pointing towards an enemy and the bear growling in that direction. That would be cool. I dunno, whatever...

Some of you mentioned we worry about animals more then humans and that humans come first. Maybe in your world they do. I dont see humans becoming extinct anytime soon. If horses over populated the planet and sucked the resources dry we would be killing them too (Ill leave it at that, better to use on another forum).

As for this Wojtek (Voytek), I have never heard of them but a very good point. If someone can see the min in a positive light then thats great news. Its a pity the mini doesn't have more of a positive vibe about it for you.

I think the model is pretty amusing. Its a game peice for use in game I don't see this as any different from something like the warmachine nightmore warjack that has a small child cowering in fear or the slave girls from arsubral vechts pleasure yatch raider/ravager. Its meant to be fun and amusing some may think its in bad taste which is there right, personally I won't buy it cuase it will probably be something like $40 but I saw it and I laughed. If it was given to me I'd use it an an objective like the mad dwarf that is tied up.

Razzle wrote:It's a hilarious mini, you're looking into it too much. The Warhammer universe is many things and kind to animals is not one of them.

PETA agenda do not want thx bye

To the point. I agree.

Planets do tend to get completely wiped out in 40k.

OoieGoie wrote:
Some of you mentioned we worry about animals more then humans and that humans come first.

Just to clarify: that isn't what i said at all.

I never ranked the value of concern for humans in comparison to animals. Both are equally valid.

My observation was that i found it interesting that of the many thousands of images, stories, and miniatures that make up what GW has produced; most of which glorifies and is based upon some form of human suffering, that the one miniature you keyed in on was a bear with a collar and eye patch.

BTW, I think it's safe to say that the sculptor was indeed referencing the dancing bears, and the "sadness" of the bear was intentional and vitla to selling the intended mood of the model...

hmmm PETA

People for the
Eating of
Tasty
Animals

count me in.

as far as the miniature, if you dont like it dont buy it. personally i wouldnt buy it cause i dont like the way it looks. same reason i didnt buy the current dark eldar wyches i think they looked horrid.

A bit off-topic,but:

While I can´t understand the problem with the bear, which I think is a very cool miniature, I have a similar problem with the Vampire Counts Corpse Cart. Yes,
it´s fluff makes sense and there used to be corpse carts in former editions of the game, too. But I think the pile of dead on top of it is too realistic and very tasteless.
They could have made a less realistic and more dark humourus corpsecart; the way it´s looking now reminds me in a very gruesome way of the victims of the nazis.

I'm a fan of maintaining animals in the best reasonable conditions you can for welfare purposes.

Needless suffering is needless suffering. I possess enough higher reasoning to realise that animals are capable of feeling pain and debilitation due to the way they are treated.

I understand that this mini represents a historically factual imitation, that it represents a historically factual imitation of something I despise, and that still occurs today in parts of the world, means that it's not something I'd wish to own. Perhaps I'll be taking a jovial pig dressed like a Brettonian or a mastiff in armour.

PS, believing living things shouldn't needlessly suffer doesn't make you a PETAfag!!! or whatever, it means you possess empathy. I have hunted and fished throughout my life and that has certainly aided in my opinion about ensuring decent living and clean, efficient ,and as painless as possible, death.

lixulana wrote:hmmm PETA

People for the
Eating of
Tasty
Animals

count me in.

as far as the miniature, if you dont like it dont buy it.

Pointlessly emitting trite assertions?

Of course we are going to buy it

The humorous approach makes it worse inho Bigfoot. Don't see how any amount of Post-Modern irony helps tbh.

Umm....yeah.
So in a game with hedonistic murderers and destroyer gods and undead hordes you worry about the dancing bear.
I don't really see any problem with this. It's not actually a REAL bear with chains and stuff, it's a *representation* of a bear. Why does anyone really care...
Besides, PETA can go shove it sometimes anyway.
P.S. Oh yeah, and any dancing bear that can stand on two legs as well is even more awesome.
Greetz,
Mr. Self Destruct

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:


The humorous approach makes it worse inho Biffoot. Don't see how any amount of Post-Modern irony helps tbh.

By saying "humorous" I didn´t mean that this would make a pile of dead nicer to look at . I thought one could have done something completely unrealistic or
something full of zombie-humour, like the usual over-the-top stuff instead of a realistic scene of massacre.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Umm....yeah.
So in a game with hedonistic murderers and destroyer gods and undead hordes you worry about the dancing bear.
I don't really see any problem with this. It's not actually a REAL bear with chains and stuff, it's a *representation* of a bear. Why does anyone really care...
Besides, PETA can go shove it sometimes anyway.
P.S. Oh yeah, and any dancing bear that can stand on two legs as well is even more awesome.
Greetz,
Mr. Self Destruct

Perhaps we could also include camp followers like child prostitutes dying of syphalis?

To be honest when I first saw the mini in white dwarf I thought i was quite cool, I did not even make the real life connection to Dancing Bears or bear baiting. The chain i thought was just to keep it under control (dogs on leads anyone) and the patch I thought just showed it had been through the wars. If i'm not mistaken later in the same issue is a bulldog with a wooden leg, I assumed that any damage done was done by the enemy and that it was a beoloved pet/mascot to the regiment.

Looking at it again after reading this thread I can sort of see what th OP meant. If it was menat to be funny could have been funnier and the bear does sort of look sad, but diregarding the fact its "only a mini" in a fantasy game, how do we know its even a bear. Might be wrong here but in a world populated by goatmen, minitors, lizardmen and the whatever I missed how do we know its not a bear man and he normally walks on two legs? don't know if that makes it better.

It's a bit odd trying to reconcile reality and wargaming.

Atrocities exist in all of these game worlds. I mean, pick
any game world and you're bound to run into conscription,
civilian casualties, genocide, torture, etc.

But I think the important question is, does a line of good taste exist,
and why do we recognize it?

There IS a line, right? I mean, even though we have Dark Eldar
slavers with slave bodies on the skimmer, we wouldn't want minis
that are suffering gross inhumane behavior. In our minds we know
that these things happen in the games, but graphic depictions would
disturb us greatly.

Maybe this is like the uncanny valley from animating human faces. The more literal
realism we see in our hobby, the more disturbed we're bound to get.

I don't know. Just some random thoughts.

And a note on the bear: the suggestion of torture isn't enough for it
to disturb me. I think models depicting the act of torture itself would
be the thing to do it, but then I'm not so sure. The Fantasy worlds
we play in don't trivialize reality, but they abstract it enough for us
to stomach and even glorify battle.

This is going to be my Golden Demon entry.

I'll paint him like a panda bear and model a cattle prod in the master's hand.

I shall title it... 'Damn! Ran out of baby seals.'

I'm so evil.

Everyone assumes that bears innocent.. I like to think he mauled a bunch of children in an orphanage and is now forced to dance for other children.

You like to think that children got mauled?
What sort of mad, depraved, sadistic are you?

Highlighted part in bold:

malfred wrote:It's a bit odd trying to reconcile reality and wargaming.

Atrocities exist in all of these game worlds. I mean, pick
any game world and you're bound to run into conscription,
civilian casualties, genocide, torture, etc.

But I think the important question is, does a line of good taste exist,
and why do we recognize it?

There IS a line, right? I mean, even though we have Dark Eldar
slavers with slave bodies on the skimmer, we wouldn't want minis
that are suffering gross inhumane behavior. In our minds we know
that these things happen in the games, but graphic depictions would
disturb us greatly.

Maybe this is like the uncanny valley from animating human faces. The more literal
realism we see in our hobby, the more disturbed we're bound to get.

I don't know. Just some random thoughts.

I think this actually hits the nail on the head. This mini disturbs the OP because it reminds them of an instance of extreme cruelty to bears in reality. The corpse cart for vampire counts disturbs another poster because it reminds them of the way Nazis piled bodies in concentration camps. I think the line of "bad taste" is usually crossed when we can relate to the cruelty in a way that's too close to reality. There have been a number of times when people attmempted to model IG as Nazis, and it is nearly universally decried as being in bad taste, because it basically reminds all of us of something atrocious in reality.

This mini doesn't touch that nerve for most, so it's not as much of an issue for many of us. But I can see why it would disturb the OP. And for what it's worth, some of the Dark Eldar slave models (or slave models by other mini makers) do disturb me- I might want to play the "bad guys", but actually depicting torture or slavery in my models hits too close to reality for me. I know others might not be bothered by it, but it crosses that "line of taste" that malfred mentions above.

For example, I play a tree army for fantasy. And while I like my trees to be a bit evil, kind of like the forest of mirkwood in Lord of the Rings, I don't actually want to model a person being torn limb from limb by my treeman. I don't know, it's just a bit too much for me. I guess in chess I could model or animate a gruesome deathmatch between pieces, but I prefer just to take the one that lost off the board . I love competition, but torture, cruelty, and inhumanity are things I don't want modelled in my wargames, even if it is something that would occur in reality. That separation from reality is a key reason why I enjoy these wargames, but don't want to experience an actual war.

Just my $0.02

I hope the OP never finds the Malifaux line. There's some stuff there way more disturbing than this. This fig is poor taste IMO.

This miniature is -edit by moderator- sad. - So is deliberately bypassing language filter. Don't do it. - the Of course it's just a game, but nonetheless. They may incorporate bear mascots, okay, but not ones that look so sad. Another sad thing is the internet toughmanship on display in this thread. Disagreeing is one thing, making fun of someone who cares is another.

*shrugs* by the look of the handler is he handling the bear or is the bear handling him? He looks to be a bit mauled to me.

Lets assume the people that found it found it ransacking an orphanage and killing babies and this is its just reward. Oops too grimdark for fantasy I suppose.

back to 40k where you get captured, tortured for months on end, get skinned alive where the torturers get off on your screams and use your blood as... unpleasantries before being sacrificed to daemons and spend an eternity as a whipping/******* slave.
Coming from a line of GW products a bear with a handler aint that bad.

I Look at this mini and think....Where the hell does this fit into ANY army or faction in the Warhammer universe?

Yep it does seem in poor taste, all the more so for me because it is so random.

Even as a collectors mini it bears no relation to Warhammer. All the sculpter has done is put a stupid drum on the bear to make it vaguely fantasy, very vague indeed.

I would buy it. In fact im planning on getting it when i start an empire army

*shrug* I dont see the problem about it, people dont seem to complain about Shemale demons or obvious BDSM references with slaanesh, and yet they make a song n' dance about a bear.

ghosty wrote:I would buy it. In fact im planning on getting it when i start an empire army

*shrug* I dont see the problem about it, people dont seem to complain about Shemale demons or obvious BDSM references with slaanesh, and yet they make a song n' dance about a bear.

Ridiculous comparison is ridiculous.

I AM A BEAR. I HAVE... BEAR POWERS!

I like it, but then again, I thought that the Soviet Attack Bears of RA3 were awesome too, and I can't imagine what horrors they must have gone through at the mercy of Tim Curry.

Ooiegoie: I see your point, and see how someone could find this mini in bad taste.

I, for one, am not as affected by it, but if we were playing I would even go so far as to proxy it out for a different fig if you so asked. (Assuming you asked nicely.)

I mean, I understand people saying 'It's only a game!' but on the other hand, it IS only a game, and I am not so proud of my work that I DEMAND it be on the table.