So, tell me if you've heard this one before.
A publisher or developer in the nerdisphere slowly begins inserting woke content into their source material. A little changing of the language here, a little retroactive continuity there -- nothing that's immediately noticeable, say, unless you look really closely.
Then, all of a sudden -- WHAM! You have a full-on update that busts open that wokeness door. And not only that, when fans notice, fandom media begins branding them as troglodyte misogynists who need to be chased from whatever fandom they're a part of.
It's like clockwork, and it's happened again. This time, it's Warhammer 40K, the tabletop game which -- up until the latest update to a codex, or rules supplement, for the game -- had an all-male faction known as the Adeptus Custodes.
But not anymore -- because, thanks to some slow retconning, the Custodians can now be women. But don't get angry at this, gaming media tells you! As The Gamer noted in an article earlier this week, "loud, right-wing voices" are foaming at the mouth that Games Workshop, which publishes the codices, "has mentioned women again."
"This particular flavour of misogyny comes in shiny, gold packaging. Yes, the new 10th Edition Adeptus Custodes Codex has got everyone frothing at the mouth, thanks to a story about a Custodian Calladayce called Taurovalia Kesh," The Gamer's Ben Sledge wrote.
"The story is a double-page spread of juicy lore about the Blood Games, a competition in which members of the Adeptus Custodes attempt to assassinate the Emperor of Mankind in order to test Terra’s defences. Kesh’s plan is to teleport a planet-levelling Exterminatus explosive right into the Emperor’s throne room. It’s a bold move, Cotton.
"However, most people have read this and looked past the great writing. It’s a story that humanises the Custodes to some extent, gives nuance to their orders, and moves away from depicting them as robotic servants, AI automata, or pompous Servitors clad in the Emperor’s finery. It’s tense and exciting, but all people can think about is the fact that Kesh uses she/her pronouns."
And trust them: This has nothing to do with the fact that anyone is retconning the lore of Warhammer! Just ask "[p]rolific Warhammer author Aaron Dembski-Bowden," as he was described by Sledge, who reportedly put this to rest in a Reddit post long ago.
“There is no lore saying Custodians are X, Y, or Z, because until very recently, there was no Custodian lore at all,” he wrote.
“That's why I'd be fine with female Custodians (and the models would look bad***). Anyone saying it breaks the lore is lying and/or wrong, because we were actually in the meetings and sending the emails discussing the invention of said lore, and there was literally nothing in the old lore that weighed comprehensively (or at all) either way. I can think of reasons it would make sense. I can think of reasons it wouldn't. But it's a very minor point.”
But the right-wingers, they're going insane! It's GamerGate 6.0! They're summoning Milo Yiannopoulos with revival spells! (Actually, I think that carbon-waster is still around, but who cares?)
This sounds like another non-controversy controversy that geek media loves to make a controversy out of in order to make an object lesson of their stereotype of the anti-woke male: fact-averse, pallid, rabid, misogynist, hateful, blundering through this 21st century world with a 1950s mentality.
There's kind of a problem with this, though: The lore did exist, the retconning happened, and the reason why, one guesses, is all too predictable.
First, the lore. Here's the eighth edition of the Adeptus Custodes Codex, as published in numerous places on social media:
WARNING: The following posts contain graphic language that some readers will find offensive.
Hearing seemingly verified rumors that they snuck Female Custodes into the new Adeptus Custodes codex.
If so, standard schelling point / Brown M&M rules apply: It'll be a hard stop of my collecting the army, and probably 40k in general.
Fortunately I have a decent collection… pic.twitter.com/u6lLW5ZIHH
— KiTA (@eldarmark) April 14, 2024
"It is known that all Custodians begin their lives as the infant sons of the noble houses of Terra. It is a mark of incredible prestige to surrender one's child to this most glorious of callings within the Imperium, and many notable clans among the Terran aristocracy have willingly given up almost entire generations of newborn sons to earn it." [Emphasis added.]
Then came the ninth edition, in 2022, which cracked open a back door for female Custodians through weasel-word language.
"Potential Custodians are taken in at a very young age to better survive -- no older than late infancy -- and it is a great honor for those of Terran noble houses to submit a son ... The Custodes also seek out suitable candidates by other means, or encounter them by chance on their missions to protect the Throneworld. What is clear is that none besides the Custodes themselves truly know what criteria they require." [Emphasis again ours.]
