#grimdark

Round Two.

I've thought about it a lot and it does add up in a horrifying sort of way.

There has been this lil thing needling my brain when consuming Warhammer content where I'm like...annoyed that nobody matters? That 95% of life in this universe is regarded as cheap and meaningless? That, unless you're part of this top echelon of humanity, you're basically on par with a mouse who's solely been bred into existence to feed a snake.

And I've known on an intellectual level it's a dumb thing to feel irked by--like it's a Grimdark setting, this is the whole deal--but I kept asking myself "why does this get under my skin?" and I think that quote perfectly explains why.

The British class system is so fucked and omnipresent that, like, yeah: for the vast majority of British history, most British citizens have been feeder mice and they're well aware of their place in the hierarchy. You aren't allowed to forget it. The aggessive classism is baked so deep into the culture that it becomes a sort of obvious, bland fact of life.

And America has it's own insane class issues and rampant inequality, but we also have the myth of the American Dream and a hyper-individualist culture counteracting it. So while you are almost certainly a feeder mouse, you're still raised to feel "I'm something, I'm important, the world just doesn't know it yet". A whole country of temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

So Warhammer represents the British class system turned up to 10000; most people are a speck floating by in the background of a story about bigger, grander characters and there's nothing they can really do about it. The random guardsman is never going to become a character as important as a fuckin Primarch, there's no narrative upward class mobility if you will.

But Dungeons and Dragons is almost always a story about a ragtag crew of random schmucks taking on Big Bads and defeating them, it's about equal opportunity heroism. You may be a rogue who started life as a pickpocket street urchin, but you and your friends still lay waste to an overpowered evil wizard using naught but wits and teamwork.

And it's embarrassing to admit, but my American brain worms start screaming when presented with such a British worldview because it makes it clear: I would not matter in this setting. If I existed in this universe, I'd be dead, enslaved, a servitor, working myself into an early grave in a hive world factory or cannon fodder because that's just how life is for 95% of humanity and there's no reason why I'd be the exception. And the fact is, as unpleasant as it is to acknowledge, my dogshit American main character syndrome ego does not like that.

Legendary fantasy artist John Blanche has died. He is known mostly for his long association with Games Workshop, where he served as art director and created many of the iconic images that shaped the Warhammer and 40K worlds. He was capable of working in diverse styles, but much of his art and his own creative miniature conversions made his name synonymous with the "grimdark" aesthetic, mixing elements of moody gothic architecture and body horror with a limited color palette.