We have always had female Adeptus Custodes

 Long wall of text which is justified not because of the recent changes regarding the Custodes fraction in Warhammer 40K but because it is indicative of larger cultural trends.

 

So now we have female Custodes in Warhammer 40K. Or rather, we always had. (Quite an Orwellian turn of events, if you think about it.)

The reaction is obviously quite vocal, as is the reaction to the reaction. On one part people are swearing that they will quit the hobby, make dramatic statements, get into flamewars into other people who gloat about this whole thing, and call everyone who are critical of this move an incel.

So why is this a problem, regardless of incels or not? (I am sure there are some sexists in this crowd, but then again, I have not met them. I only saw a bunch of angry nerds, and boy, nerds are people you do not want to piss off.)

There are a  couple of issues; some pertain our real world, and the trends we see, some pertain the sacred, inviolate lore.

So the real world issues.

 

1. Pandering to the DEI crowd

 

Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. There is a small town somewhere in the countryside which is, for any reason, an attractive tourist destination. You have a pub there, which the locals love, and have been going there for decades. You now turn this pub into a club where rave parties are thrown, in the hopes of attracting the tourists with their big money, and tell the locals who grumble about you taking their favorite spot away that they are a bunch of in-bred bigots. (Especially that this happened to other pubs in the area, too.) And then you see your income fall, because –pikachu face- tourists are not as committed to your establishment as the regulars. This happened to countless franchises: Star Wars, Star Trek, Witcher, Wheel of Time, Rings of Power, Marvels, Dr Who, Indiana Jones… and the list is long. Not to mention the computer gaming industry. People who have no real interest in the franchise –and more importantly, no knowledge- demand changes. The franchise is changed, and nobody cares about it any more, since it is fundamentally different from what it was, AND it insults the original customers either directly or indirectly, or the franchise runners do it (or both).

 

One thing that really irks people (and annoys me as well) is the mindless pandering. This is a franchise that is highly nerdy, hence mostly the interest for boys (and boys who grew up to be adult men). Like it or not, nerdy stuff was not sexy back then, and you were an outcast in „normal circles” if you professed your love of Star Wars, Warhammer, whatever. Star Trek was kind of an outlier in this respect, but still – „cool kids” were not into these things. Neither „grown adults”. Fort he people who demand inclusivity for the missing female-base: do try to ask a girl out for a date, and talk to her about wargaming; there is no better way to avoid ever getting laid. Let’s face it: the number of people with large gametes (those would be the menstruators we are talking about) are not exactly drawn to these hobbies. The reason for this –and I am going to be highly controversial here, and probably would be arrested in Scotland for saying this- men and women have different interests when it comes to a hobby. (Among other things.) The fact that women were not in doves in this hobby was not due to the fact that they were chased away; normally women are not reading books about interstellar conflicts of space demons, supersoldiers and god-emperors if they can help it, and they are also not very much inclined to paint little miniatures with which they would play wargames using elaborate rules which require almost an autistic-level of concentration and devotion.

So the hobby is redominantly male, and despite of this, has several fractions that are either mixed, or female-only, just as the books have several incredibly well written female characters. So ”representation” was never an issue. People now are celebrating that finally in Warhammer you have female representation, which kind of shows how little they know about this franchise. (Not to mention the Custodes fraction was significantly nerfed in the same time, so now you can make an argument that the two things are connected… All in all, nobody (who actually was into the hobby) wanted your stupid identity politics in this game, and yet, it was pushed onto the fan base by a small, vocal crowd, who will not make up for the income lost by alienating the fans. This lesson has been taught to Disney, Netflix and other „woke” companies; time will tell if WG will see any monetary reprecussions. (They can always chalk losses up to 3D printing, though; they are resolutely resisting the new technologies, only embracing new, divisive ideologies.)

 

2. The one-sidedness

While this is a wider issue, but in recent decades we see a systematic destruction of male-only spaces, and a constant attempt to change male-oriented products. (Let’s face it; WH40K is a product – it is there to sell plastic toys priced in their weight in gold). And we do not see any similar attempt to „diversify” female-focused ones. Why is it a problem to have a franchise that serves predominantly boys and men who have interest in a weird, grim-dark fantasy setting in space? If you are a woman, and like it, great; play or read or paint. You will be welcomed; nerds are very happy when someone, who does not have a penis, shares their interests. I dare say you will even get marriage proposals in tournaments. But why do you want to twist it to fit your own taste? Why do you have to go in a house and demand that they redecorate the way you want them to? All those who demand that computer gaming, WH40K, Star Wars, etc. be changed to conform a certain ideology–do they demand similar changes in products aimed at women and girls? Of course not. Are they creating wargames, computer games, etc. representing their ideology, rather than demand changes to existing ones? Of course not.

This double standard says a lot, and it also irks people. Make your own damned franchise; don’t destroy others’.

 

3. The usual accusations: fans are toxic.

Well, fuck right off. Nerds, who make up the fan base of comic books, Star Wars, WH40K, etc. are passionate people. They spend an awful lot of time and money on these things because it matters to them, more than it matters to the tourists (you remember the pub above?), or the ideologues who demand these changes. And passions will run high when you change anything, let alone make a change that is so fundamental and ideological, so go to hell with these very predictable accusations of sexism, racism and other isms that have been used to shame fans before, and shut them down (just look up Gamersgate if you don’t believe me). And listen to what Cavill has to say about them.

 

4. The way it was handled

As I said „it was always so” shows a significant similarity to “we have always been at war with Eastasia”. “He who controls the past controls the present, and he who controls the present controls the future”. Not only that, WG and unofficial channels ban anyone who expresses displeasure of this situation. ’Nuff said.

 

5. „It is not a big thing, why are you so upset?”

Well, if it is not a big thing, why do it at all?

 

Lore issues

1. Many suspects that the whole thing was done to appease two sides: one that demands female space marines, and one that does not. So now both sides –supposed to- have gotten something. (Or it is a first step to introduce female space marines.) Again: why is it a problem to have male-only fractions? Why is it NOT a problem to have female-only fractions? (The ongoing joke about having Misters of Battle now in the Sisters of Battle fractions is very much real.) So someone please explain it to me: why is it a problem to have male-only fractions? Why it is a problem to have male-oriented games?

 

2. Why not female Custodes? For one, they have always been male. Always. Pretending it was not so is idiotic.

Changing the lore here and there is not necessarily bad, and it happened before (and the resistance was always fierce), but this is a tad big even for that, you know. Plus where were they? There are lots of books, artwork, minis, and female custodes had not been seen ever since the creation of the Custodes. So where were they? Making sandwiches for the Emperor? Mopping the Palace floor? Why were Custodes always saying „brother”? Are the terms „broter” and „son” now gender neutral?

 

3. Biology also matters- Custodes are even bigger than Astrates, so imaging to create supersoldiers from women –who, by large are not really good at being large and muscular- instead of using a stock that is already better at it –you know, boys- is stupid. It takes a lot of work to create a person who looks like a male out of a female; so why bother? Not to mention Custodes and space marines are more of weapons rather than persons. They are essentially genderless, just as a sword is genderless. Their point is to fight and die; what residual sexual organ they have is irrelevant. More on this issue: the „brotherhood” between fighting men is very much a real thing, and in this setting, has been exploited by both the Emperor and his primarch sons; I think this is a profound message that  can be taken to the real world as well. Throwing women in this mix is destroying this idea.

 

4. There is always the point of not creating a new species. If you want to create supersoldiers who are genetically modified it makes very good sense not to make male and female versions of it, because no matter what you do, sexual reproduction can happen (you can put in safeguards, but those always fail in the long run in biology), and then you will have a superrace of humans taking over from base line humanity. Not a good idea.

 

5. Plus, if you want to make female Custodes (and space marines) as effective as males, then you have to do away with all their female-specific things, like the female hormone system, skeletal structure, etc etc., effectively turning them into males. Congratulation, now you would not be able to tell the difference anyhow, as you have created a bunch of trans warriors. Boobs, long hair, female facial features, long, shapely legs and the rest of the stuff are out, you know. (Are these people really a mixture of ideologically driven activists and fetish porn consumers? You won’t have sexy space marines, no matter what, you know that, right?)

 

All in all, this is a serious fuckup on behalf of GW. It is a free market, you know; people can take their money to other wargames; they can print minis, pirate books, or even rulebooks – so actions will have consequences; the income can dry up. Publishers will –one day- learn that bringing divisive contemporary politics into their product will drive customers away to other products which do not do that. The comic book industry in the US is losing to Manga; Helldivers is winning over games in which Sweet Baby Inc. put their corrosive touch into; and other wargames –which are also cheaper- will gain serious customer base if this keeps up. They may think they should be pandering to appease the loud online activists, but the tourists, the „normies” will never make up for the lost income caused by alienating fans, and nobody is too big to fail –as Disney is refusing to learn this lesson over and over again. Social activists may be having a field day calling everyone a bigoted sexist incel over this, loudly declaring victory, signalling that incredible virtue, but the fact is that they are either not here as paying customers, and will move over to other franchises to destroy (hence never really were paying customer base to GW), OR they will also lose since their self-professed „favorite hobby” will wither, and they won’t be able to enjoy it much longer. A Pyrric victory over an idiotic ideology. Congratulation; well done.

 

 Wait, what? We can now criticize the new Star Wars movies?? Now we can admit that those evil fans who criticized were not racist and sexist pigs and all?*

 

*Again, a few vocal morons do not make a toxic fandom, otherwise feminism, trans activists, and literally every other group of people more than ten individuals would be in great trouble. But they were useful to dismiss valid criticism, weren't they?

 

Oh, I forgot. We do not go that far. In true Orwellian fashion we never did like the new Star Wars sequels. Also, Ghostbusters 2016 wasn't really good, either.

This is normally what happens. For some mysterious reason the "progressive" parts of the media absolutely stands beside extremely flawed movies, TV series because of the message they are forcing, and are useful for propagating their own culture wars fighting the evil White Patriarchy. The quality is irrelevant, the message matters. (Usually the forced message is the reason for the sh... questionable quality anyhow.) Part of it is the nature of the 'access media', but a large chunk of it is activism.

Some time passes, there are new outrages, so it is then becomes safe to actually admit that the work in question is actually sh... not very good, and has nothing to do with the original franchise/work it was adapted from. Now it is time to push the new stuff (like the new Snow White(ish), or the planned diverse Viking live action How to Train Your Dragon.) So the circle continues.

I guess it is The Wheel of Time's and the Rings of Power's turn now. I am sure we will see some articles in the mighty Guardian saying that the series strayed very far from the source material, and the character of Galadriel, is in fact, bad. You know, the very thing they called you a racist, sexist pig for.

Star Wars and racism

Well, look at the reactions to an obviously not white guy cosplaying Luke Skywalker.

Why it is important is two-fold.

1. You do not need exact representation for people to see themselves in a character. It is not to say that you should only have white men playing every single role from babies to grannies, but the current forced diversity is patently idiotic and stupid. (Not to mention divisive and counterproductive, but whatever.)

2. Star Wars fans, by large, are NOT racist or sexist. The criticism Rey, Reeva, Rose, and the rest of the newer characters get is not due to racism or sexism. That is not to say a little vocal minority does not have issues -they are shit people, and there are shit people everywhere. Ewan McGregor's rant in a car got that right -although the problem with these virtue signaling messages is that they address a truly small group of people, giving them more prominence than they actually deserve. Oooor -they are used to deflect any and all blame from a shit show and a shit character with accusing anyone who dares to criticize them as racist and sexist trolls. This is part of a well-known strategy you could see in the all-female Ghostbusters, Rings of Power, Star Wars, etc. called fan baiting. 

So, are Star Wars fans, by large, racist and sexist? 

Dunno, let's take a look.

Was Yar Yar Binks was reviled (and poor Ahmed West hated) because the actor was black or because Yar Yar was a terrible character? He did get personal attacks by those already mentioned assholes which are unacceptable -but the fandom also stood behind him and was happy for him in his return role en masse. Did people dislike Reeva's character because she was a black woman, or because it was a shit character?  How were other actors of color treated? Did Pedro Pascal, Billy Dee Williams, Samuel L. Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Carl Weathers, Ming-Na Wen, Temuera Morrison, Gina Carano, Titus Welliver, Michael Lang, Rosario Dawson, John Boyega, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Giancarlo Esposito, etc. etc. needed special treatment from Disney warning them of those horrible, racist, toxic fans like Moses did? 

I guess not. Do they get massive hate on social media by those toxic fans? I guess not.

By the way, why wasn't the criticism of the Book of Boba Fett met with accusations of anti-Maori and anti-Asian racism and sexism? It does not work as well as with black actors, eh? Or maybe it was so bad even they could not bring themselves to do it... Oh, and maybe it is not the fans who are racist, but Disney itself... (Weird turn of events, ain't it?)

So what is it, dear Disney? You know, to keep a franchise alive, it is not enough to bring a crowd into the movie theater. "Casuals" will watch your show, then forget about it, and get to the next Avatar or whatever that comes after. You actually need fans. Fans that you are actively pissing off and alienating in order to please a non-existent mass of potential fans who express their opinions on Twitter quite loudly, but who are actually a minority (just like those racist assholes you use to taint the whole of fandom). They will not bring in revenue for you. They will not buy your Rose action figures, your spinoff books, your computer games, they will not subscribe to your streaming service for your shows. They will wreck this franchise and move onto the next one to destroy.

And one more thing: Star Wars was always inclusive. In fact Star Wars was always the refuge of the outcasts, who were not cool enough for the cool kids, so any and all were invited. Now you are alienating the people who buy your merchandise, your books, your DVD special editions, and the rest -and this will kill your franchise.  

The Force is Female

 So Kennedy is doubling down on the whole direction Star Wars is taking.

The problem is not that there are girls playing with our toys -Star Wars has always been inclusive, no matter what certain media organizations claim. Reeva, Rey, Rose, that purple-haired admiral, and the rest were not reviled because they were women and or black. There were plenty of women and non-white characters before and since who were absolutely adored by the very same toxic fans who hate the second-hand Inquisitor, Ms Mary Sue Skywalker and the rest. It has been talked about why the sequel trilogies were horrible, why the new series are trash (with the exception of the Mandalorian, which is mediocre, but enjoyable - although...) so that is not the point here.

The point is that falling profits from movie tickets, from merchandise, from theme parks matter not - they are pushing the same idiotic strategy to make sure Star Wars die completely. (Well, Mando, which was "the" successful show so far, is turning into a Bo-Katan show now, too, and viewership is falling...) 

Not sure what is going on, honestly. As with many things it seems like the inmates took over the asylum. The people who make decisions are absolutely distanced from the real world, they seem to have no idea about the franchise they are leading, and they do not seem to care about profits. There were so many squandered opportunities to create truly great shows, movies, whatever -and they conscientiously thrown everything into the gutter, and went with the "strong female character takes over from the incompetent original male character". Guess what. People do not like their beloved characters deconstructed, dragged into the mud so that new ones can "take over" without actually earning their place. We saw a Han Solo that reverted to his old scheningans becoming a deadbeat father, a failure in all fronts. Luke Skywalker became cynical pessimist who is ready to kill the son of his sister and his best friend because he had a bad dream, and then goes off sulking alone. (Don't worry, Rey will create that Jedi Academy for you, old man.) And so on and so forth. For some reason people do not like this, do not buy the tickets, the merchandise. Yes, a wider audience will go to the movies -but franchises are not sustained by casual viewers. They are sustained by those people Disney reviles -the fans.

This is truly puzzling because so far it seemed like these high level decision makers are perfectly fine with corrupting anything in the name of profit. But now they behave like full-blown activists - very much like the revolutionaries of old in the USSR and China who were full of great ideas and disregard of how the real world actually works. The results are usually catastrophic - in this case it merely leads to the death of a franchise and the lay-off of seven thousand (!) people. Obviously this number does not include those who are responsible for steering the ship into the rocks. Those people will not be fired; they will get a cushy bonus, and maybe a golden parachute, so they can try their hands on ruining another franchise in a different company.

Star Wars and the hierarchy of victimhood

 Well, identity politics is an insane ideology. On face value, if you do not think about it much, it may make a tiny bit of sense for "oppressed" groups, but if you really, really, really think about it it really quickly becomes clear how stupid and how dangerous the whole thing really is. And I do mean dangerous. Just because you are not an Aryan German in the '30s defining yourself and those dastardly Jews based on their group identity and not as individuals, it does not mean it is not the same idea. Only you approach it from the "victims' " side, not the perpetrators' - and you are free to define who the victim is. As long as you keep in mind who is not a victim: white males. Perhaps just white people in general, and sometimes it could be just males in general, even though that would include males who happen to belong to a victim group otherwise.

But it gets confusing really fast because it leads to a weird hierarchy of victimhood where you need to weight different victim groups against each other to determine who the victim is in any particular case where there are no white males to blame, which is made even more confusing considering the issue that a person can belong to several different victim groups at the same time. After all, how do you judge the group of black males against white females, for example? Does having black skin outweight having a vagina in this victimhood olympics? How about black bisexual males vs black transgender females? How about a disabled gay white male vs a lesbian Asian female? Do you count Jews as white or as a minority? What about Caribbean blacks and African blacks in the UK?

See: the sequel trilogies of Star Wars.

It has become clear very early that Disney approached the whole trilogy not from the side of telling a good Star Wars story, but from the perspective of social justice, more importantly, feminist social justice.

From the ridiculously Mary Sue female lead(s), the "The Force is female" stupidity, the disregard of extended lore, the emasculation and killing off important and beloved characters, the weak writing, to the vilification of the fanbase, it was very clear from the start that they were not interested in telling a good story or build the universe. They were interested in pushing an agenda even if it meant the destruction of the franchise. The agenda being some sort of warped version of feminism (4th wave now I believe).

So they pushed and pushed the unrelatable female characters -starting from Rey to that weird purple-haired admiral-, and forced everyone else to the background.

Which ranked some actors who were poised to play a much bigger role based on the first movie that came out. And who also had their victimhood agenda -in case not centered on their gonads, but on their skin color. Enter: John Boyega. 

The poor chap is really, really into how much he is suppressed, and how much he is fighting the good fight. The fact is that he is not the victim of racism. He simply lost the victimhood olympics. Apparently in this case his skin color was not enough to elevate him into a victim status - he merely became "just another male" in the trilogy, pushed aside to give way to the female heroes. And no, it is not because Disney is racist (they might be, who knows), it is because they were doing the feminist thing in identity politics, and kinda forgot about the race stuff. Sorry buddy, having a vagina trumps your skin color. Try again next time, will you?

But this is the issue with this whole exercise... you can't include all victim groups. You can never achieve inclusivity, and it means you will by definition exclude certain groups, meaning you are going to be the very evil you fight against if you believe in this nonsense. It is literally impossible to cram every single downtrodden identity groups into a 2 hour movie (it might be possible to do in a TV series, though -they are trying their utmost with Star Trek Discovery and Picard), and even if you try, it will be like trying to shovel sand in the desert: as you get more and more groups, they will fragment into further groups, and you will never be able to include them all. You included females? Great- now include black females you racist. Black females are included? How about Asian? South-East Asian? Non-able? Inuit? Aboriginal? Lesbian? Bisexual? Pansexual? And the list goes on. You can't include all female groups to begin with, let alone all groups you take to be victims. Which will make the members of those groups really angry at you, and you will be probably scratching your head like Katherine Kennedy is probably currently doing about what you did wrong. She made one mistake: she thought the only victim group is the female one, and forgot about the others. If you play this game you can only lose -even if you try your best to be the most socially justicest (I know it is not a word) warrior. Which makes it a delicious irony to see all the accusations they levelled at the "toxic fandom" come back at them.