Warhammer 40k, Space Marine 2, and Fragile Masculinity
So the CEO of Saber, the game studio that made Space Marine 2, posted this comment on Asmongold's channel (full disclosure, I got this from a reddit post and confirmed it was indeed on an asmongold video, but I did not watch the video because fuck that):
So here's the thing, and bear with me here because I promise I'll be getting to the shitty shitness in this in a moment. But at the top just let me say that this comment, totally removed from the context of where it was posted, isn't too far off a valid point. I share the idea that games are overblown, over-budget, and have lost a sense of pure fun somewhere along the way. It's not that every game has to be an 8 - 12 hour romp of escapist power fantasy, but in the same way that it's nice to have a John Wick to watch every now and then, it's nice to have a silly, stupid game to turn your brain off and play for a bit here and there.
Games, being art, can have all sorts of methods and messages and ideas, and they should! They should be experimental and weird and have purpose and express experiences and put players in other realities. I'm a firm believer that games, probably more than any other artistic medium, have a power that is not yet fully explored or understood - the power to, in some way, truly put a person in another's shoes. To build empathy and understanding through the facsimile of experience. I support that endeavor as full-throatedly as I possibly can.
But when we're talking about the modern AAA industry, about games flooded with copy/paste ubisoft worlds and games plagued by pretty but ultimately vapid and empty open world filler that takes 80+ hours where they should take 20 or less, I can't help but be sympathetic towards the idea that we need more games like Space Marine 2. We need comparatively bite sized games, crafted by creators for a specific experience, that leaves the player wanting more.
We can't remove this comment from its context though, can we? And we can't conveniently ignore that little line, "I saw games there that made me want to cry with their overblown attempts at messaging or imposing morals on gamers."
Out of context briefly again, if we're being generous with the reading of this particular statement, I could squint and see an angle where he's emphasizing the "overblown" term, or is of the opinion that people should be trusted to be smart enough to reach logical, moral conclusions. I would have a hefty amount of doubt based purely on the wording of that sentence, but I could at least understand that as an argument.
But this comment is on an asmongold video. This comment opens with "I love your videos." Asmongold's videos.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have never watched an asmongold video. I've only seen the occasional clip, and I've had the misfortune to read what some of his audience has to say here and there. I feel like that alongside the internet cultural osmosis is enough for me to conclude that asmongold is of the gamergate "games should be for the straight men power fantasy bros and we should stop having to see the gays all the time" ilk. Maybe you know more about him, maybe you've never heard of him. If I'm totally off base let me know but I doubt it.
So one can see how Warhammer 40k falling into the hands of these wannabe gamergater idiots: with it's big, powerful shooty manly men who go on about courage and honor and brotherhood and fighting against all the heretical evils in the name of the god-emperor is a problem. I don't even have to watch one of these dumbass videos to know exactly what they're saying. You probably don't either. I already feared this outcome as I knew it would happen. I doubly fear it if and when that Amazon show goes live.
But one can doubly see how it's a problem when the CEO of the company that made the fucking game is not only a fan of these assholes but is condoning their perspectives in their youtube comments of all places.
Anybody who knows anything about WH40k knows it has a troubled and storied history of being misunderstood. Those who can't understand the distinction between "protagonist" and "good guy" often flock to it as a bastion of fascistic propaganda, despite it being a very obvious condemnation of that same system. Open any WH40k book and you'll find the words:
*To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable...
...Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. *
It's not subtle. It never has been subtle. It never will be subtle. Lest we forget the warhammer is for everyone post, even the corporation making it knows it's not subtle. And yet here we are, not only having to fight off the fascitic and backwards dregs of the internet, but the head of the studio who made what is arguably the biggest video game to ever come out of this universe too. They have a leader now, a banner. They have an authority to which they can and will appeal.
They will take the input, ignore the satire, and proclaim that finally a game has been made "for them" again. That it's time for them to "become the target demographic" again. And in some way they will be right, because the CEO who made the game and targeted their demographic told them this was true.
And it's frustrating beyond frustrating. It's frustrating because beyond the pulpy good time of bashing alien bugs with a hammer, there are good lessons and morals that can be gained from WH40k, and even Space Marine 2 - despite the CEO's supposed stated intent. There's the built in lesson that this system is terrible, of course. That is inescapable within the universe. Servitors and cherubs (lobotomized adults and infants turned into slave-machines) line the halls of vast, crumbling ships. A man who is guilty of no greater crime than showing a modicum of self-determined thought is sent in penance for a century. There is no peace among the stars.
But there's more there, too. And this is where it gets tricky.
For a long time I've wanted to write up a post about the troubles of modern day masculinity. The issue is I never knew how to frame it, how to say it. I can't find the words to express what I think is lacking, to express the one minor seed of truth that these putrid trolls glom onto and stay latched like some vile parasite. But there is a truth to it, and we ignore it at our own peril:
Men are adrift.
In our fight to rightly overturn patriarchy and tear down senseless gender norms and allow people to be fully themselves we are shattering the structures on which men have stood for time immemorial. Make no mistake, this is a good thing. I am by no means bemoaning the demolishing of these harmful societal ills, but this is why I've found it so hard to find the words for writing out this post on masculinity. In our justifiable eagerness to jackhammer at the columns of what is, undoubtedly, an evil, we've failed to consider what will happen to all the bricks when they fall.
We know that men and masculinity are just as much victims of patriarchy as anyone else, if not more so, and yet when we justly smash that column out from under them and find them wounded and flailing, we are the first to say they deserve it. And no doubt, many do. I'm hard pressed to ask you, dear reader, to lament the fallen men. Especially when they've hardly fallen at all. Yet at the same time, we, as a society, need another use for those fallen bricks. Certainly some should be shattered, but others have been mortared in not of their own free will, but by those who built the accursed patriarchal temple.
We don't have a place to plug those bricks in, though. We bust the column, watch bricks fall, celebrate when they shatter, and then tell them to pick themselves back up, put themselves back together, and to find another structure to fit in. It's no wonder, then, that they simply try to rebuild a worse version of the structure from whence they came. It's all they knew.
Again, this is tough to properly express, because even now as I write this I feel distaste for these bricks. As a man who managed to see the truly green grass on the other side, I find it incredibly difficult to find sympathy with those who wish to plaster themselves back into a rigid, rotten, crumbling structure. They are most often vile. And yet they are still human. They are me, or what I would've been if not for a few fortunate breaks. I was a slightly altered personal path away from being one of those bricks, and I'm only not because I was lucky enough to find another place.
This is the great societal ill of masculinity. The complicated, double-edged sword of reality. Men have had it too good for too long. Patriarchy should be demolished. An equal and equitable society absolutely is a goal for which we should all strive. And, yes, this does require shattering the columns. Yet at the same time, we leave destruction in our wake. An unchecked entropy follows our path, wreaking havoc in the shadow of our every swing of the pick.
And here again I struggle, because it is unfair and unjust for it to fall on those most wounded by the existence of such patriarchal structures to help find and build a new place for the fallen bricks. There is no denying that fact. But the simple truth is there are only two options: smash the bricks into dust, or use them to build something better. The former, obviously, is untenable as, again, most men are also a victim of this patriarchal structure. The latter, obviously, is both difficult and justifiably distasteful to those who are already doing the incredibly hard work of trying to dismantle the structure to begin with. And yet it's the only options we have.
So what could all of this possibly have to do with 40k and Space Marine 2? A lot and not much. Throughout the plot of Space Marine 2, and in many of the books, there is a focus on brotherhood, unity, and a combined purpose in the pursuit of a goal. It's no big surprise that these values are largely missing in our fractured, digital age. There is talk of the death of third spaces and the disconnected shards of community rotting the roots of our society on a daily basis. But even in all that talk, we rarely see a place for these values as it applies to the formation of a modern, better masculinity. We frequently associate these values with their ill-begotten associations: military, fundamentalism, hate groups. We don't separate them and give them another place to go.
And I think it's something men, generally speaking, need. There is a compulsion to bond with your male friends and fight, in some fashion, for a better tomorrow. To charge head first into a fray, whether it be physical or metaphorical, and vanquish a foe. It's why all these internet shitheads are men talking to other men like they're in some sort of battle. It's why all this hate and distrust is labeled as a "culture war." They are shattered bricks, bonding together as best they know how, and being pointed in a destructive direction.
Why?
Because it's easy. Because, as Ian Danskin said in his "How to Radicalize a Normie" video, there isn't really a place for a person who is "a bit of a nazi but working on it."
In the same way, there isn't really a place for the man who is stuck in the patriarchy, but doesn't know it. Or is stuck in the patriarchy, but doesn't see how that's a bad thing. The only place there is for them, as far as they can see, is that very same patriarchy. Demolish it, and they will try to rebuild it, because where else would they go?
And that is why something like 40k will always have its issues with these types. A thing I like to ask whenever I see people greatly misinterpreting the message of a given piece of art or media is "what is the seed of truth in their misinterpretation, if any?" The seed of truth here, I think, is the fragility of that particular type of masculinity and the aimlessness, isolation, and fear the justified shattering of it does and will bring.
If that's true, what better universe to consolidate around than 40k? It's simple, it's structured. You, fragile man, have a purpose, you have a role, you can be a big muscled manly man with big guns surrounded by other big muscled manly men who call you brother and strive with you towards a common goal.
They're so scared of the alternative, the aimless isolation, that they'd rather be fodder than free.
I don't have an answer on this, or even an idea to propose. I can simply point at the problem and say "I think we should look at this." But it is a problem, and as these people continue to find their leaders, no matter how large or small they may be, it'll only get worse.
We need third places, and for this fragile masculinity we need a second way. A way to pick out the good, discard the bad, and build a better, stronger, non-patriarchal masculinity.