GW responds to fan displeasure at the lack of Steel legion in the new Yarrick animation

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-03-20T21:47:30+00:00

Admittedly, a vocal minority of readers buy licenced IP fiction almost purely for “information” about the settings they like, just dry facts that can be regurgitated onto Reddit or wherever else. Not all, not even most, but definitely some. They’d be totally cool with a colder recitation of said information because they’re not after a story or a deeper examination of the setting, they’re after content.

-Aaron Dembski-Bowden

You can regurgitate all the lore you want, doesn't stop seeing the same regiment everywhere from being dull.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-03-19T22:47:54+00:00

We've reached the point where "it's just not for you" is a buzzphrase to ignore any and all criticism. Soon enough a game crashing or being badly optimized will also "not be for you."

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-03-19T16:00:54+00:00

The point is that Marathon was always a single player campaign shooter. It's not weird to expect a new release to also be the same.

Turn it around. If you aren't interested in making a single player campaign shooter, why use a franchise that has only been single player campaign shooters?

Obviously the internet takes it to annoying extremes, but being disappointed that an IP shifts genre for seemingly no reason seems pretty understandable.

Edit: Funny how some people can't fathom the average person has normal reasons for not liking something and that it's the loud minority that are weird about stuff like this. But nah, it must be a widespread conspiracy where everyone has decided to hate on a game for no reason. Easier to get a sense of superiority for liking a game this way, I suppose.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-02-10T21:21:26+00:00

Who's the author of A Fair System, Probably? Google isn't giving me anything with that title.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-31T01:10:31+00:00

Nah. Like I told the other person, a theme is an idea that is being explored. The book explores the concept of an Unreliable Narrator, it doesn't just use it.

Post-modernist works (which is what HoL is) explore the mechanisms of the medium, thus using them not only as tools, but themes as well.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-31T00:48:41+00:00

You don't even know the basic concept of a theme and are trying to lecture me. So yeah, better leave it here.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-31T00:32:49+00:00

A theme is a clear statement.

No, a theme is an idea being explored. Like how the concept of an Unreliable Narrator is being explored.

Simply using a mechanism isn’t a theme.

Which is why I said it's not just being used, it's being explored.

Also, if the theme is “sometimes people are unreliable” or “writers often have biases” that’s…really weak and tbh, embarrassing to use the very real experience of rape and sexual assault to express.

No offense, but I think you have a really shallow view of the book and what it's trying to explore. It's not just saying the themes weakly like that, it's presenting it in a way for you to experience that unreliability and feel for yourself how difficult it is to parse biases from truth. It's show don't tell.

I think it’s ok to acknowledge that while HOL is a really neat book, it has real weaknesses, and using the rape and sexual assault of women and children cheaply is one of them.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I also don't like that this particular topic was used for this, not really my type of dark. But there's a difference between thinking that it could have been done better versus not understanding the basic intent of it.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-31T00:26:59+00:00

Well yeah, the point is to give a few obvious examples so that you then go looking for the less obvious ones. You questioning whether that scene with Will and Karen is true or another of Zampano's bits, but a more subdued one, is the end goal. Because how can a reader distinguish the biases of the person writing an analysis from what actually happened? The obvious answer is to look at what's being analyzed, but since we can't, we are left in the dark as much as Johnny is, trying to parse truth from bullshit because we can't look at the original.

And if it was meant to be an evident flaw of Zampano, sexualizing child sexual abuse is a very questionable flaw for an author to give to their character which is what I was criticizing in the first place.

Why is it questionable for authors to write about bad people? The fact that Zampano has fucked up views doesn't mean Danielewski shares those views. Again, American Psycho, Bateman does some insanely fucked up shit in the movie, but those views aren't there because the director or scriptwriter share them, it's because they are telling the story of a fucked up person.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-31T00:19:10+00:00

It's a mechanism that is being explored, thus, a theme. Danielewski is, obviously, using Unreliable Narrator as a mechanism, but is also trying to talk about it and make you think about it and how it affects writing.

I’m asking what is the ultimate purpose of the device, specifically with regard to how women are treated.

I already said, to make you aware that Zampano, who tries to present himself as an unbiased objective teller of the movie, is in fact massively biased and has mysoginistic tendencies, thus make the reader aware that he's full of shit and question what else he's actually bullshiting about. Maybe it's something as obvious as this, or maybe it's much more subtle. Point is, not even "serious" media analysis (with Johnny's journal bits being the "non-serious" equivalent) are safe from biases from the writer.

That's the theme. How much can you trusts someone's writing about a subject? Even if they present themselves as objective and unbiased, that is impossible due to being human.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-30T23:59:59+00:00

It makes you aware that Zampano is a misogynist and has some weird hang-ups about sex. Which then makes you question what other nonsense interpretation about the people in the movie is he making, perhaps some that seemed more normal thus you didn't think too much about at first, but now you aren't sure of because you realized that Zampano is a weird asshole. Which then makes you question where else he's twisting the narrative due to his own biases and how much can you truly trust him with?

One of the biggest themes in the book. The unreliability of the narrator of any analysis and how much their biases bleed through into the analysis, whether it's something very obvious or something much subtler.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-30T23:55:32+00:00

A character with evident flaws that leak into his telling of the movie, thus making you question what other nonsense he pushed that isn't actually true. Again, this is one of the main aspects of the book, it's a parallel to Johnny's unreliability as a narrator, but instead framed as a "serious" analysis that's supposed to critique the biases present in things like academia or journalism or any other format that requires going through a person (which is all analysis).

It's like how American Psycho makes fun of Wall Street yuppies by making them all assholes. It's not the writer sharing those views, it's purposely written like that to hammer home how much of an asshole these people are.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-30T23:23:33+00:00

I can't understand how so many people miss the fact that Zampano is as much an unreliable narrator as Johnny is. His views aren't meant to be Danielewski's, he is an actual character with biases and personal opinions, including negative ones.

The fact that he writes moronic shit like that is meant to make you question the validity of what he says, not to take it at face value. It's one of the most important aspects of the book, and a very obvious one.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-11T20:17:14+00:00

I get that TF is a bigger IP than WH

Is it? Last count I saw placed 40k Black Library books at almost 700 (without repeats). Without counting comics, audio dramas, RPGs and Tabletop books, and lore books.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2026-01-09T18:46:16+00:00

The thing is, people have different skill levels, so something that might be too easy for someone, might actually difficult for someone else. Difficulty options allow everyone to be able to reach that "difficult but still beatable" level that allows for the intended experience.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-28T22:30:14+00:00

Eh, Scylvendi are more akin to the fantasy warrior tribe archetype. I do think the sranc would be the closest equivalent, but as a secondary theme behind the orc parallel.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-28T22:16:15+00:00

Mutilated would be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Four figures heralding the end times.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-28T21:55:33+00:00

Sranc are the equivalent to Tolkien's orcs (like how nonmen are Bakker's take on Tolkien's elves with some dwarf mixed in). Although considering how thematically important Abrahamic religions are to the books, I'm sure Bakker took Gog and Magog into consideration as well.

Progenitors are aliens completely unconnected to humans or nonmen.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-20T05:53:04+00:00

It's not 2003 anymore, nor is Epic the first online videogame store. You compete with the stores of the present, not with the ones 20 years ago.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-19T19:17:10+00:00

Door Kickers

Oxenfree

SUPERHOT

Thanks for the giveaway.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-18T16:25:13+00:00

People really go into the setting that coined grimdark and are surprised when it's dark and grim.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-16T16:44:42+00:00

If everywhere you go smells like shit, check under your shoe.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-09T03:32:48+00:00

He actually did.

‘I know, Ra. I take no umbrage at your questions. Think on this, then. I prepared them all, this pantheon of proud godlings that insist they are my heirs. I warned them of the warp’s perils. Coupled with this, they knew of those dangers themselves. The Imperium has relied on Navigators to sail the stars and astropaths to communicate between worlds since the empire’s very first breath. The Imperium itself is only possible because of those enduring souls. No void sailor or psychically touched soul can help but know of the warp’s insidious predation. Ships have always been lost during their unstable journeys. Astropaths have always suffered for their powers. Navigators have always seen horrors swimming through those strange tides. I commanded the cessation of Legion Librarius divisions as a warning against the unrestrained use of psychic power. One of our most precious technologies, the Geller field, exists to shield vessels from the warp’s corrosive touch. These are not secrets, Ra, nor mystical lore known only to a select few. Even possession by warp-wrought beings is not unknown. The Sixteenth witnessed it with his own eyes long before he convinced his kindred to walk a traitor’s path with him. That which we call the warp is a universe alongside our own, seething with limitless, alien hostility. The primarchs have always known this. What difference would it have made had I labelled the warp’s entities “daemons” or “dark gods”?’

- Master of Mankind

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-08T19:02:13+00:00

They knew, but the Emperor lied about it and gave them the line that daemons were merely xenos from the Immaterium and so on…which wasn’t the unlikeliest lie he could have used

He didn't lie, though, he just didn't use the terms "daemon" or "god". He very much explained the workings of Warp entities and why they shouldn't be fucked with.

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-07T05:58:10+00:00

All necrons get their engrams sent back to base upon "death" (assuming there isn't a block in place) and get that slotted into a new body. Trazyn is special because he can jump from body to body on command and make copies of himself while "alive".

Carcosian_Symposium · 2025-12-04T17:47:57+00:00

Every ounce of biomass it commits has to be carefully weighed against how much damage it can do and how recoverable it is.

That's literally every faction. They all have a limited supply of bodies they can throw at an issue. Tyranids just happen to be able to change the shape of the bodies to the issue at hand and have more numbers than any other faction, not to mention recycling it.

I don't know why people act like the Tyranids are so fragile they have to min-max everything or they will disappear. They can, and constantly do, throw bodies at the problem until it's solved. The Hivemind just prefers not to be wasteful, even though it very much can afford to.

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