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besides Khan which you can argue is Asian

the vast majority of the Primarchs are straight white dudes

would you accept a diversity reboot of the primarchs if GW went down that road?
[img]
http://spikeybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/primarch-cartoon.jpg[/img]

Why are you assuming they're straight? if anything the over whelming evidance is the primarchs are asexual.

Forgetting Vulkan and Magnus?

Don't see why such an idea is necessary, come up with some new characters instead of retconning past content.

I am generally against the changing/retconning a mythology for socio-political reasons.

I'd also note that there wouldn't be any potential issue if the primarchs had remained more of a mystery.

Also, the primarchs ARE diverse. The diversity just isn't skin color or gender, but their entire purpose in the lore seems to be different representations of martial personality/leadership. In a sense, they are diverse in deeper ways that matter to the story rather than diverse in a more fundamentally superficial way.

Ehh, that's going to be controversial, but that's my take about it at the moment.

BrianDavion wrote:
Why are you assuming they're straight? if anything the over whelming evidance is the primarchs are asexual.

Heteronormative rules.

-----------------------------

Fulgrim, if he isn't asexual, is pansexual.

I wouldn't care if they retconned the Primarchs. 40K is nothing but nearly forty years of retcons.

It seems pointless to me. It adds nothing to the story or their character and I'd bet that GW would just make a mess of it anyway.

Excommunicatus wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Why are you assuming they're straight? if anything the over whelming evidance is the primarchs are asexual.

Heteronormative rules.

The assumption that a humanoid being (because hey, they're not even human) is hetero is the problematic thing at play here, is it not?

Fulgrim, if he isn't asexual, is pansexual.

Which makes him the minority of all of the Primarchs. If there's another Primarch who might not be asexual, it's Russ, but then, that's Russ for you. Two Primarchs out of twenty one who are not asexual. That IS a strong lack of diversity, but not in the kind of way that "diversity" seems to mean now.

LightKing wrote:

the vast majority of the Primarchs are straight white dudes

How is that an issue ?

Which makes him the minority of all of the Primarchs. If there's another Primarch who might not be asexual, it's Russ, but then, that's Russ for you. Two Primarchs out of twenty one who are not asexual. That IS a strong lack of diversity, but not in the kind of way that "diversity" seems to mean now.

Two Primarchs are missing.

So two out of 19.

Percentage wise that is an over representation of sexual orientation based on our current human orientation.

Why are you assuming they're straight? if anything the over whelming evidance is the primarchs are asexual.

Hes right you know.


Classic example of someone trying to make an issue where there is no issue.

I’d like to see a female primarch.

I would not except a we-write that exists only to satisfy the PC brigade.

look at it practically, Most GW customers are white geeks (me included) some are are sexually diverse and others are ethnically diverse, and although it would be hard to quantify imagine that roughly 20-25% of the customer base does not fit the straight white male geek profile.

that being considered, we have a couple of Primarchs are sexually diverse (see above).

There are also some ethnically diverse Primarchs in Khan and Vulkan.

That's 4 out of the 20, that are either sexually ambiguous or ethnically diverse. If 20% of Primarchs are already diverse, in the way that the PC brigade wants, and yet they still want more diversity it would simply be a political move that is solving a problem that does not exist.

The Primarchs are already diverse in character, design, sexuality and ethnicity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
I’d like to see a female primarch.

this maybe the only addition I could get behind.

NO.

Theres enough socio-political nonsense going on. Don't need it seeping into make believe world and plastic toys to score virtue signalling brownie points and ultimately failing from a business perspective(looking at you marvel comics)... If you don't like the setting because its not "diverse" enough for you, play a different game. Don't force your ideals on other people and mess with their established narrative.

I think bringing in sexual orientation is so completely unnecessary.

Now if Cawl found an advantage in female biology for a female super solider similar but different to a space marine. That'd be kind of cool.

Absolutely, 100%.

A Primarch reboot would tickle me pink. Gay, straight, ace, and pan. Primarchs who are non-white, but from strong non-white cultures. Masc, fem, enby, and trans. All of it. The more the merrier.

The sexuality, gender identity, and ethnicities of the primarchs aren't their defining character traits. They aren't even relevant character traits. Shoot, added diversity would potentially enhance the core character traits of some of the primarchs.

I would love to see a 'Second Primarch Project:' Corax comes back, and he, Gulliman, and Cawl team up to try to recreate the original primarch project, but to do it 'right' this time. They scour the stars for genetic and spiritual material from their fallen brethren and 'reincarnate' all of them. Roboute or Corax even sacrificing their own life in the process. (Probably Corax.)

Primarchs get scattered (again) and have to be tracked down (again). Only when they're found, they aren't from predominantly white European cultures.

That would be enormously fun.

EDIT: Alternately, an alternative product line. Marvel's 'Ultimates' titles did well enough, and Star Wars has ran multiple different continuities. The massive interest people had in 'alternative Heresy' settings over the years indicates the idea has some gas. Keep the legions similar enough to be recognized, but increase the diversity of the primarch characters and the cultures they come from. I'd play the heck out of that.

i wouldn't have a problem with it, but GW certainly wouldn't do a very good job with it, so what would the point be? Besides they just wrote all those Horus Heresy books, so while GWS is amenable to retcons, they are redoing some pretty recent stuff with it.

If they want to be more inclusionary, which I am all for - they are better ways to do it. Introduce new characters! New lore! They're no longer averse to that, either...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:
EDIT: Alternately, an alternative product line. Marvel's 'Ultimates' titles did well enough, and Star Wars has ran multiple different continuities. The massive interest people had in 'alternative Heresy' settings over the years indicates the idea has some gas. Keep the legions similar enough to be recognized, but increase the diversity of the primarch characters and the cultures they come from. I'd play the heck out of that.

That would be cool. It would nicely pair GW's lack of originality with people's love of alternate history.

Vulkan was black (call it a skin mutation if you want, in my mind he is black), Khan was Asian... By percentage of the US population compared to percentage of the primarchs, Asians are fully represented, and African-Americans are only underrepresented by ~8%. Hispanics are the only ethnicity that sticks out to me as being really underrepresented among the primarchs, but on the other hand the Emperor is Turkish.

So, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing another black primarch, and maybe one hispanic one, at the cost of two "white" ones. But any more than that and then minorities would technically be overrepresented among the primarch count. Don't get me wrong, I don't think diversity and minority representation are bad things, but I do think that intentionally overrepresenting minorities in an effort to be "woke" and score social justice points is just as racist (in its own way) as having an entire cast of white people. It is racist because you are reducing characters and people down to a skin color and effectively saying that is all that matters about them.

It really doesn't matter what skin color the characters in my media are, just enjoy the media for what it is without trying to inject social issues and politics into everything. As people become more inclusive media will naturally evolve to become more inclusive as well, there is no need to force that process, or worse yet, rewrite/destroy an established and cherished narrative simply because you don't like the skin color of the people in that narrative.

The fact that pretty much every character in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was black and I am white did not stop me from enjoying that show immensely. That show didn't need white people in it to be good.

w1zard wrote:
It really doesn't matter what skin color the characters in my media are, just enjoy the media for what it is without trying to inject social issues and politics into everything.

By taking that stance, you are interjecting your own social beliefs by explicitly voting for the current status quo.

w1zard wrote:
Vulkan was black (call it a skin mutation if you want, in my mind he is black)

Technically, this WAS as racial retcon. As it stands, Vulkan has coal black skin and represents no skin color generally found on earth.

 Ouze wrote:
By taking that stance, you are interjecting your own social beliefs by explicitly voting for the current status quo.

You are assuming the status quo is static. The status quo is constantly changing and will naturally evolve towards a more diverse state on it's own without hamfisted attempts at forced overrepresentation.

Minority underrepresentation and white cultural centrism is a real thing, but that will never be fixed by affirmative action. You cannot reverse centuries of cultural hegemony and oppression with more racism but in the opposite direction, that is crude thinking.

w1zard wrote:
Vulkan was black (call it a skin mutation if you want, in my mind he is black), Khan was Asian... By percentage of the US population compared to percentage of the primarchs, Asians are fully represented, and African-Americans are only underrepresented by ~8%. Hispanics are the only ethnicity that sticks out to me as being really underrepresented among the primarchs, but on the other hand the Emperor is Turkish.

So, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing another black primarch, and maybe one hispanic one, at the cost of two "white" ones. But any more than that and then minorities would technically be overrepresented among the primarch count. Don't get me wrong, I don't think diversity and minority representation are bad things, but I do think that intentionally overrepresenting minorities in an effort to be "woke" and score social justice points is just as racist (in its own way) as having an entire cast of white people. It is racist because you are reducing characters and people down to a skin color and effectively saying that is all that matters about them.

It really doesn't matter what skin color the characters in my media are, just enjoy the media for what it is without trying to inject social issues and politics into everything. As people become more inclusive media will naturally evolve to become more inclusive as well, there is no need to force that process, or worse yet, rewrite/destroy an established and cherished narrative simply because you don't like the skin color of the people in that narrative.

The fact that pretty much every character in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was black and I am white did not stop me from enjoying that show immensely. That show didn't need white people in it to be good.

Sorry but mrica doesn not = the world...
95% of thailand is thais... 99% of eatsern european countries is white people... etc.

Are you saying western culture needs to represented above of say Asia?
If you want to be reflective of a global profile you'd need like 1/3 of the primarchs to be Indian & chinese lol... How GW models are sold in India & china? Does it matter? Should it matter? What are we doing here?
How long until we re-do tolkien because all the elves are white? Where does it end....

 Argive wrote:

Sorry but mrica doesn not = the world...
95% of thailand is thais... 99% of eatsern european countries is white people... etc.

Are you saying western culture needs to represented above of say Asia?
If you want to be reflective of a global profile you'd need like 1/3 of the primarchs to be Indian & chinese lol... How GW models are sold in India & china? Does it matter? Should it matter? What are we doing here?
How long until we re-do tolkien because all the elves are white? Where does it end....

I was using the ethnic makeup of the United States (a pretty ethnically diverse country) to illustrate a point... that if we consider Vulkan is black, Khan is asian, and that the Emperor is Turkish that the primarchs + emperor have pretty good ethnic representation already compared to the ethnic makeup of the US. But thanks for missing my point entirely.

w1zard wrote:
that if we consider Vulkan is black, Khan is asian, and that the Emperor is Turkish that the primarchs + emperor have pretty good ethnic representation already compared to the ethnic makeup of the US.

Why would we consider Vulkan to be black? GW explicitly retconned this to make that not the case. He has coal black skin. That doesn't represent, generally speaking, anyone on earth. Why are you handwaving it it away, other than that it hurts your arguments?

 Ouze wrote:
Why would we consider Vulkan to be black? GW explicitly retconned this to make that not the case. He has coal black skin. That doesn't represent, generally speaking, anyone on earth. Why are you handwaving it it away, other than that it hurts your arguments?

Right, the guy with black skin doesn't count as black because he isn't "real" black. Does Corax not count as a white primarch because his skin color (pale, alabaster white) is also a genetic mutation that does not represent, generally speaking, anyone on earth?

I don't think it'll honestly add anything other than lip-service and virtue signalling that the company is being "more progressive". It's not like making Sanguinius an Aboriginal is going to make the story more interesting, nor does it matter in universe. This is humanity 10,000 years in the future, where the emphasis is on fighting aliens and daemons whilst screaming and waving swords. Any concerns we have regarding race there is going to be background noise at best, because I'm pretty sure no one's going to give a gak when you have a literal "other" that's not human next door and trying to kill you. Not to mention whatever cultural connotations tied with race wouldn't survive in the future anyways. I don't play or read 40k so I can find something to identify racially with.

w1zard wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Why would we consider Vulkan to be black? GW explicitly retconned this to make that not the case. He has coal black skin. That doesn't represent, generally speaking, anyone on earth. Why are you handwaving it it away, other than that it hurts your arguments?

Right, the guy with black skin doesn't count as black because he isn't "real" black. Does Corax not count as a white primarch because his skin color (pale, alabaster white) is also a genetic mutation that does not represent, generally speaking, anyone on earth?

Does Corax have Albinism? Because if that's the case, he doesn't really have any skin color, period. So no, not white, as in caucasian.

I would accept that (current) Vulkan is a racist little-black-sambo-style representation, though. That would create issues of its own though of course. So that can't possibly be true, either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimskul wrote:
I don't think it'll honestly add anything other than lip-service and virtue signalling that the company is being "more progressive".

Voting for the current status quo is virtue signaling all its own. Don't pretend it isn't.

w1zard wrote:

 Argive wrote:

Sorry but mrica doesn not = the world...
95% of thailand is thais... 99% of eatsern european countries is white people... etc.

Are you saying western culture needs to represented above of say Asia?
If you want to be reflective of a global profile you'd need like 1/3 of the primarchs to be Indian & chinese lol... How GW models are sold in India & china? Does it matter? Should it matter? What are we doing here?
How long until we re-do tolkien because all the elves are white? Where does it end....

I was using the ethnic makeup of the United States (a pretty ethnically diverse country) to illustrate a point... that if we consider Vulkan is black, Khan is asian, and that the Emperor is Turkish that the primarchs + emperor have pretty good ethnic representation already compared to the ethnic makeup of the US. But thanks for missing my point entirely.

Cant miss somethings that's not really there.
There is no logical rationale for this proposed change.

 Ouze wrote:
I would accept that (current) Vulkan is a racist sambo representation, though.

If you seriously think that Vulkan's characterization in the lore is anywhere close to a racist sambo representation then you have no idea what that actually means.

 Argive wrote:
Cant miss somethings that's not really there.
There is no logical rationale for this proposed change.

You don't really have strong reading skills do you? I was arguing against it.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I am generally against the changing/retconning a mythology for socio-political reasons.
.

Ironic that actual mythology did that all the time.

Would I accept a diversity reboot of the Primarchs, yes I would. Do I want one in the sense that I would push for one? No, I wouldn't. If we were to make a reboot of the Primarchs we could try to make them less then bad caricature and stereotypes from the 90's.

w1zard wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I would accept that (current) Vulkan is a racist sambo representation, though.

If you seriously think that Vulkan's characterization in the lore is anywhere close to a racist sambo representation then you have no idea what that actually means.

I don't think it is, because I don't think Vulkan is made to represent black people. I have been pretty clear on this point. This is your contention, not mine.

Vulkan did represent normal black skin previously - both in tone and features - and GWS explicitly and unambiguously reconnected this away, and you are repeatedly handwaving this away for reasons I don't understand, but you don't seem to be able to articulate, other than it tanks your argument normal black skin is represented by a primarch.

Why do you think Vulkan represents black people with his coal black skin and glowing red eyes?

Do you think Magnus represents native Americans? If not, why is your reasoning different than Vulkan representing black Americans?

 Excommunicatus wrote:
40K is nothing but nearly forty years of retcons.

This. It's not like anything else about GW's fluff has been constant, so why worry about the primarchs? If anything retconning them would help to offset GW's poor decisions to erase the mythological aspect of them and give us too much detail. If there are such obviously conflicting accounts of the primarchs then how can you consider any fluff reliable? The 30k novels become one more set of myths, just with a longer word count.

By the way, I would be way, way more in favor of a retcon to remove all that stupid wolf action from Space Wolves. They were about a million times cooler when they were space vikings.