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Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?

I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.

Well, I can’t say why you think that of course.

But, Ghaz’s name was originally a pisstake of the bloody awful harridan that was Margaret Thatcher.

Mag Uruk Thrakka. It scans as a send up!

Most importantly? Ghaz, like Grotsnik and others came originally from Battle Reports.

The Thatcher thing is a Warhammer myth according to Andy Chambers.

Ah, that's interesting and it seems to be a play on her with Tolkien's baddies. I assumed it was purely Tolkien inspired return to Ghazghkull and Nazgul.

Here we go...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Speech#Parallels_to_natural_languages

 Gert wrote:
The Thatcher thing is a Warhammer myth according to Andy Chambers.

I’ll need to check me books. And be sober. But he first showed up as a Warboss in a sample army. Might’ve been by Andy Chambers.

But, super politely, and not calling you out, don’t suppose you have a source for the counter claim? Now worries if not, but always happy to expand and correct my own knowledge

An interview at some point in the last few years, not sure of the exact one and there are a fair whack kicking around. But it is real and has been referenced in a few places (sadly without links to said interview).

Fair dos

After a little internet digging, this might be the "source"?

https://img.ifunny.co/images/490682877469c33cee3897cf14e767dad59519d094ea180e8460c3e73b3b207e_1.webp

Well now i want to find the origin of my own statement!

Could well be water from the same font!

 Gert wrote:
The Thatcher thing is a Warhammer myth according to Andy Chambers.

Yes, but then again I would expect denial even if it were true.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well now i want to find the origin of my own statement!

Could well be water from the same font!

I don't recall having ever seen an official source for it. It's just one of those things, like the 2 missing Legions supposedly being based on missing Roman legions, that everyone 'knows' because it's been repeated so many times over the years.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It seems like a pretty straightforward case of:

“I can write a slur about my people, and Those Other people can write a slur about themselves. So, when I write a slur about Those Other people, how am I suddenly the bad guy?”

Who's writing slurs? We're talking about fantasy/sci fi factions not being 100% accurate representations of modern or ancient cultures, and how some representations are somewhat more accurate than others. Not about deliberately writing - or saying - slurs about other cultures.

 Adeptekon wrote:
Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?

I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.

Much of the ork-stuff is taken from Tolkien, especially stuff like names and words, and there are indeed hints and arguments that Tolkien constructed the Black Tongue modelled on the then-recently decyphered Hurrian language, which is from Mesopotamia and related to modern-day Turkish, and shares important grammatic structures with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Speech#Parallels_to_natural_languages

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?

I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.

Much of the ork-stuff is taken from Tolkien, especially stuff like names and words, and there are indeed hints and arguments that Tolkien constructed the Black Tongue modelled on the then-recently decyphered Hurrian language, which is from Mesopotamia and related to modern-day Turkish, and shares important grammatic structures with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Speech#Parallels_to_natural_languages

And not to confuse the language families either. I don't think Tolkien thought his work would reach the audience it has now either.

I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.

One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.

Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.

One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.

Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.

Not to sound condescending, but consider the source. I'd say GW on the other hand has been very generous towards age, just look at the space marines.

my locals are very diverse, we have socialists, libertarians, conservatives, trans, gay, Nigerians, Ugandans, English, Welsh, Scots, Japanese, Malaysians, though English people are the majority of course as one would expect being in England, black English, white English, mixed English.

one could just say they are "white" "black" "asian" or whatever but that is very reductive and anti inclusive.

Very diverse, of course I mean the real meaning of word Diverse and not the "we all think and look the same and anyone that does not look and think the same as me is not diverse"

I mean diversity of character and thought, the thing that actually matters.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.

One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.

Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.

It’s all relative.

My place of work is currently looking at why the upper management structure is predominantly white male.

At other levels, the only thing holding you back is your own ability. Applications for advancement are anonymised, so provided you can sell yourself, nobody is actively holding you back.

The realisation seems to be “minority folk don’t seem to be applying”. Now the ins and outs of that are largely unknown to me, but Societal Expectation may play into it.

And that’s what they’re trying to work around or eliminate. Because we want everyone to feel valued, and take their careers as far as their ability will carry them. Anonymising applications feels like a simple, straight forward step to that.

Is it perfect? No. Is it guaranteed to work? Nope. But there’s little harm in trying, and removing as many unnecessary barriers to progression as possible.

There are other quite major issues. We had a temporary High Heedyin in for around 2 years, and nothing got done. Around 9 months ago they cancelled the current Career Progression Model. And….we’re still waiting for details on what is replacing it. I feel sorry for our current, permanent High Heedyin as whilst they’ve been left an awful mess by their predecessor(s), and they get flak for it, they have at least got things moving again.

Oh, and last year? To help with retention, the two levels below me received a 10% pay rise. My level and the level above? 2%. So they essentially devalued us. Before, there was a roughly £3,500 salary difference between each level. Now? Between Level 1 and Level 2 (my level) it’s around…£700. My duties are no less. My know-how and experience are no less. But it is what it is. Thankfully for them, I’m now of an age where I really can’t be arsed to update my CV, and Pension wise I know which way my bread is buttered. But yeah. They solved one retention problem and caused entirely another.

Sorry. Went off on a tangent.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.

One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.

Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.

The problem with 'diversity' like anything that is pushed and doesn't evolve naturally, is that it inevitably becomes the imperative end rather than the means it usually starts as.

But if there are active forces pushing against diversity as a natural evolution, then why shouldn't those who are pro-diversity push back? Should we just let those who want to exclude nonstraight whites do what they want because fighting them would be "forcing" diversity?
The concept of "forced diversity" is always just a dog whistle for people not wanting to have minorities represented in media. It never comes up unless a black Space Marine is on a book cover or a female character gets a novel series.

 Gert wrote:
But if there are active forces pushing against diversity as a natural evolution, then why shouldn't those who are pro-diversity push back? Should we just let those who want to exclude nonstraight whites do what they want because fighting them would be "forcing" diversity?
The concept of "forced diversity" is always just a dog whistle for people not wanting to have minorities represented in media. It never comes up unless a black Space Marine is on a book cover or a female character gets a novel series.

No, just like black cleopatra?

I am sure the egyptians and greeks and macedons are very happy about that documentary.

Many major social shifts also took some pressure to change. Women had to fight to get the vote; gays had to fight in court and still are for acceptance and equal rights.



There is always a degree of force to change because chance can often be new ways of thinking that needs pushing to be accepted by the masses. This pushing doesn't have to be outright fighting or hostility; but it does require active action to make the change happen, not simply sitting back and hoping it might change.

Heck I noted that women had to fight for the vote, and yet one of the major contributing factors of them gaining the vote wasn't them fighting against men nor fasting in protest, but their efforts in manufacture, medical and many other fields during WW2.

I think it helps to highlight that action and movements to promote change don't have to be hostile or offensive or aggressive, there are many ways that they can be promoted in neutral and positive angles for all.

But they DO need action.



Which is where we got to with this thread, the concept of understanding the barriers (real, imagined, visible, invisible etc..); understanding what we could do to take them down and also how we could encourage and promote others joining the hobby from a wider variety of backgrounds.

The vast majority of which are already accepted by the majority of society in general.

This isn't a massive social change to the nation, its more about getting the social changes that already have taken place to be seen within a niche of the population.

As ever, not aiming this at anyone in this thread?

“Forced Diversity” is such a loaded phrase, because it’s so poorly defined. And sadly, deliberately so.

Consider Rings of Power, which in the run up revealed the casting of a black woman as a Dwarf. Well before anyone knew anything of the plot and the acting talents etc, the usual Weird Internet Man Babies were making ever more bizarre claims.

Now the show turned out distinctly average, sure. But the cast were….perfectly fine.

Funniest thing to me is when someone claims “Go Woke, Go Broke”, as they’re so selective with their evidence, and indeed even go so far as to claim evidence against it (SW sequels being comfortable box office successes, GW making record profits despite going for greater diversity) must be lies and a conspiracy etc etc.

It’s almost as if pushback against diversity is being driven by bad-faith actors.

Princess Disa lacked a beard... that was the biggest complaint by far and she was pretty one of the few good things about that series.

As for "forced diversity" being a vague term, sure, so define diversity in clear terms, what does it actually mean, as others have stated a 100% female, Anglo American writers room is considered diverse but a 100% Anglo American male writers room is not, why is that ?

 cuda1179 wrote:

Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.

They shared a picture of the women on their editorial team. It wasn't the entire editorial team, and it was a post celebrating having so many women on the team, not diversity in general.

I’d argue it relates to the historical status quo.

Traditionally, white men have run the western world, with others actively kept out.

Whilst that is now changing, it’s still predominantly white men running the show and calling the shots. Not just in government, but in industry.

An all white female writing room is still noteworthy, because it remains rare/unusual.

Black Panther having a predominantly black cast and crew is still noteworthy, because it remains rare/unusual.

Where does it end? Well, I’d argue when nobody bats an eyelid at a woman or minority in any given role, anymore than they bat an eyelid at a white man in said role.

Given how long the current status quo has stood, the change has been deceptively rapid. To use an extreme example without intending to be provocative, America went from segregation to a black President in just 55 years.

Homosexuality was illegal in the U.K. until 1967, a fleeting 13 years before I was born. Same Sex marriage was legalised fully on 13 March 2014, a piffling 9 and a bit years ago.

More and more senseless taboos are being left by the wayside.

Again relying on my own life experience, I live in a still predominantly white town. Whilst seeing someone not white isn’t exactly remarkable here, it is more noticeable than London. In my place of work, I have gay, lesbian, trans, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist etc colleagues, and nobody seems to care, provided, y’know, nobody is bad at their job, or making my day to day gubbins any harder than they have to be. Like setting things up wrong, shooting me in the foot on progression by allowing X to refuse to send stuff then giving them 5 week response time etc.

Yet in the 21st Century, we still experience racist/sexist/homophobic/generally unpleasant customers. For me being a white bloke, it is of course super rare. But it still happens.

Two examples spring to mind. Being called, if memory serves “a short arsed ginger Fifer poof”. Which is hilarious, because I’m actually 6’2”, grey hair but dyed black because I’m not ageing without a fight, from Edinburgh, and straight. That comment came around the same time as the Last Jedi, so you can imagine which film quote sprung to mind. The other was helpline call, where the guy was proper going off about the Scots. I explained whilst happy to help, if he could knock that off and explain the actual problem, that’d be great. He didn’t. So I hung up on him. Which we’re not only allowed, but encouraged to do.

So clearly, societal work remains to be done. Despite rising far right sentiment in the West, I think we’re on an inexorable path to being closer to egalitarian ideals.

 Formosa wrote:
Princess Disa lacked a beard... that was the biggest complaint by far and she was pretty one of the few good things about that series.

As for "forced diversity" being a vague term, sure, so define diversity in clear terms, what does it actually mean, as others have stated a 100% female, Anglo American writers room is considered diverse but a 100% Anglo American male writers room is not, why is that ?

Tolkiens lore has the additional problem of being considered 'serious' in that it has been analyzed and re-analyzed by a couple of generations of scholars. Of course because Tolkien himself had been a serious scholar and did years of research and development for things like the various languages he invented, the different cultures and so on with a diligence and determination that was only possible in that very time period due to riding the last ebbing waves of the great british empire and never really having to worry about worldly pursuits.

Thus, it opens up all sorts of avenues for scholarly-adjacent critique from superfans, about not getting things 'right' because somewhere in the extensive body of work there's a line or two about the color of the garments that some second-tier character favoured when he dwelt in whatever city in the second age - ultimately, it does not matter, but it's easy to rile up the sticklers with accusations of 'not respecting the source material' and such. And that's before we get into the themes about skin colour etc. pretty much determining if you're good, evil, or even just 'lesser' all around that are unfortunately present in the works, and understandably make people uncomfortable - it's a body of literature that was composed by a man that was probably less racist than average for his time, but 'his time' is pre-great war British Empire. Born before the beginning of the last century and socialised and educated before the first World War, the standards by which you could fairly judge him still make a faithful-to-the-letter adaptation of the more epic of his works (that unlike the Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit do not consider bands of outcasts and reluctant adventurers) practically impossible. It was imho the right decision to try and depart so much from his descriptions that it was clear that adhering to them was not even attempted, instead of doing a half-assed job you could defend to either side. Ultimately, the show still was bad, but it was not due to this specific decision, at least in my opinion.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

It’s almost as if pushback against diversity is being driven by bad-faith actors.

The issue is the people trying to force diversity are also all too often acting in bad faith.

Rings of Power's diversity wasn't a problem, except for the fact they were pushing it as the main selling point rather than trying to make a good story. Because there was no attempt to actually write a good story or faithfully bring Tolkein's Middle Earth to life. It was a horrible fan-fic with the strongest selling point being "We have black elves, dwarves, and hobbits". Nothing was wrong with the actors chosen, they did a good job with what they had, but the marketing around the show made such a big deal about it to cover up the fact that everything else about the show sucked.

Same with people casting black actors as Anne Bolyn, the little Mermaid, rewriting history so Cleopatra is black(she was not), etc... Its false virtue signaling and tokenism.

If you want to have more actors of color, then write original stories where you can do whatever you want OR use stories that originally have people of color in them. Adapt the wealth of African folk tales into movies. I really like a lot of African folk tales, they're really good. Stop forcing black people into shows and movies set in places and times where it either doesn't make sense or is outright incorrect. Use actual African stories and legends instead of black-washing western and European stories.

 Grey Templar wrote:

If you want to have more actors of color, then write original stories where you can do whatever you want OR use stories that originally have people of color in them. Adapt the wealth of African folk tales into movies. I really like a lot of African folk tales, they're really good. Stop forcing black people into shows and movies set in places and times where it either doesn't make sense or is outright incorrect. Use actual African stories and legends instead of black-washing western and European stories.

I mean, I'm all for adapting more stories from non-European backgrounds... but the modern pushback against adapting existing stories is just weird. For as long as people have been writing stories, other people have been adapting them - taking the basic premise and switching it into a different setting, gender-swapping characters, altering key details to see how that changes the overall story. When I was growing up, that was considered creative. In recent years, we're suddenly being told it's 'forced diversity'...

There is no modern pushback against adapting existing stories, see all the money Marvel has made. There are people screaming about it in Twitter, but that isn't particularly important.