Author: SamRandom

But a figment of the internet.

Worldbuilding and context: the existential questions of Pixar films

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Introduction

When creating a narrative, it is up to the author to make the world around the text itself. When it comes to real world stories is this a relatively straightforward task. The references exist to draw upon, and more importantly, there are already rules that the reader will understand. The more removed from this common ground, the more the text needs to explain how it works.

There is an interesting problem in writing, and movie making, where you have a set a specific time to explain how a narrative works, and how the fictional setting works. The more time spent on making a setting work, the less time you can spend on the narrative itself, but without explaining the narrative the story might not work as well. 

The less you explain the more holes are allowed to be filled in the text. There is less of a narrative background, and it is more difficult to explain and understand the text when thought about outside of the premise. The more the text is set in a world that is dissimilar to our own, the more things need to be explained, and the more space must be given for the audience to get used to how the world and narrative works.

Pixar movies

Pixar, the branch of Disney has made a large number of amazing 3D animations and narratives over the years, and are very much pioneers in the field. Their stories are heartfelt, complex and often focus on family, friendship and loyalty. Very much following the stories of older Disney filmed. The pixar films are often very good at putting effective visuals to the narrative they are presenting. often is the fact that most, if not all their main characters in the early movies are not human. This allows them to discuss hard questions via proxy- By using humanised robots, toys or cars can you tell stories of death, growing up and loss without having explicitly tying them to humans. THere also let’s be honest, it’s a lot easier to monetize.

 With that said, does many of their earlier films have things and settings that are very abstract, and can be downright strange if they are set under too much consideration. This is not a fault of these films, and not a criticism of the art, but rather an interesting analysis of how different stories are told,and what consequences the choices as well as restrictions are set on to a film.

A bug’s life: gender and sex in the insect world

A bug’s life is an interesting little film, and a grand example of early 3d. It is a classic pop cultural exploration of the time. One fascinating thing that seems to plague every animated film about swarming insects, is the concept of gender. In both bugs life, ants and in the bee movie are the main character, the downtrodden worker, a man, while all colones in reality are made out of almost exclusively women.

Cars: classism and racism

Cars is one of the most abstract films that the studio has made, while being the most straightforward on the surface. On a narrative level it is a simple tale of a popup superstar learning the joy of the little things, and the slow life. It is also a love letter to a certain american small town that may or may not have ever existed. It is nostalgic and feels like a good lesson in a simple but enjoyable tale.

The largest consist and the gimmick of the tale is the fact that every character is some sort of car or other kind of vehicle. There seems to be no humans in the setting, and they are never mentioned. With that said, do we later learn that cars are constructed, and it seems that most are made for a specific role in mind. Lighting Mcqueen is a race car so he races, his semi truck driver is made to transport cars, so he transports Lighting Mqueen.

There are some cars shown to not have a clear role to serve, and one school bus is working as a wrestler, or the car related version of wrestling. The general public seems to be made out of personal cars with no job related to them. In the later movies it is introduced that there are new models of cars being made and built explicitly. Before it was implicit since there are older and newer models of cars, especially in the racing circuit where old models are being retired for the newer faster cars to take their place.

Toy story: Rules with no consequences, eternal servitude

There is a rule in the toy story universe where the toys must never be seen to be alive by humans. This is clearly a reference to the raggedy ann movies where the toys die if the humans see a toy moving, that toy dies. This is initially set up as somewhat of a rule in the first movie, until the climactic finale where the toy tortures a struggling depressed from a poor family for the crime of taking out his aggression on inanimate objects. There can be argued that the scare helped ZId, as his behavior could be seen as early 

Later it is proven that the toys are not aware originally that they are toys and indeed believe that they are the person they are emptying. Making the rules about not being seen even more strange. In the third movie the implications of being a toe is being seen as a toy, ergo the craft comes to life. A concept that deepens the rabbit hole even further.

The rules are expanded and changed between the movies and does not entirely keep to the same internal logic. Something that is understandable since the goal is not to make a deep deconstruction on how toys work in the universe, but rather themes of growing up and family and aging.

Conclusions

Note that none of these critiques are meant to be critical of the texts, but rather how texts can be formed and presented when the goal is not to make a cohesive world but rather to present morals and a sense of a narrative. The early pixar movies are not meant to be deconstructed in this way. They are meant to present tales and lessons to kids, and in this way they are highly effective.

I write this text as a fun way to discuss and think about narratives, and the implications of what sections in storytelling can lead to. A way of peeling back the curtains and looking behind the walls of narrative writing. There are always limits for what you can tell in a story, there are boundaries for when a story starts and where it ends. You must choose what to tell and what to be left implied. The more fantastical a tale, the more things need to either be explained or left unsaid. For every sentence you lay on explaining a world or a narrative, is a sentence you can not use to drive the narrative forward.

This is why some fantasies can often either feel like they are giving you a lecture, or leaving you in the dark on how the world works. It is a delicate balance to tread, one that I myself struggle with a lot. 

The wonder with analysing texts is that it will inevitably tell you something about yourself in the process. Just like telling a story, is there a limit for how much you can say in one analysis before it gets too long, too complex and granular. In this text I have focused on the holes in the canvas of a tale, the places where the set stops. I have done this because it inevitably opens a lot of room for imagination and contemplation. 

I can not tell why these decisions were made, only that they were, and that me and many others have noticed them in one way or another.  everything we write and not write into a text will have a reaction from the  reader. the reader will understand it in one way or another. That is the joy of storytelling, you never have the entire picture, a story is always created in collaboration with the reader.

Premium essay: Cyberpunk and Solarpunk, a different kind of hope

~ SamRandom

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Altdorf misadventures: the comedic joy of warhammer fantasy writing

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Introduction

The reason that I started writing and researching warhammer again has been the joy reading materials for the roleplaying game Warhammer Fantasy, specifically the supplement Altdorf: Crown of the Empire, the supplement that allows you to play adventures in the capital of the Empire. There are large collections of descriptions of quest hooks, characters and storylines, as well as a large amount of descriptions of the streets, districts and institutions that are present in the town. I wish to discuss the setting, the characters as well as the tone and writing style of the supplement as well as the rest of the series.

Comedy and grounding

One thing that I have discussed earlier and that are very much part of this supplement is the tone of the writing. There is a reference to everything that is written in the supplement. The Altdorfer’s like to see themselves as master engineers, artists and aristocrats. but are in fact quite the opposite. The buildings of Altdorf are described both in drawings and in descriptions to be quickly built, hastily prepared and rickety. except for the buildings either built by Elves or by Dwarves.

The grand cultures enjoyed by all are theatre, in a deeply Shakesperian tone, that most pretends to enjoy for the visuals of it. On the streets are things like pig chasing and pie eating contests enjoyed by nobles, learned and peasants alike. The city itself is described as smelly and almost unbelievably so, with a reeking river going through the centre of the town. There are many strange districts of the city, from the warped magic district to the deep and dark slums. 

There are many organizations, from the high and mighty royal houses that pretends to care about the poor while taxing them deeply. There are also the revolutionary factions of P.L.A.N.T that despite their egalitarian and positive goals are sadly engaged in infighting and any official critical power. Despite this is it clear that the narrative is always with the poor, revolutionary and the downtrodden.

By now will the setting remind you of another setting, namely Ankh Morpork of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. This is indeed an apt comparison, and I found a lot of comparisons to the british writer as well, to the point where the supplement has their own version of Captain Sam Vimes in the setting, a gruff captain of the guard, forced in to leading a progressive new guard while he would rather drink and patrol all night.

The Pratchian comedy can be found in many places, as well as the target of the comedy, as in there are always the cruel, powerful and hypocritical that are the target of this derivement. All of this leads to a very enjoyable read, and is a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the other things that the company has released, especially in the Warhammer 40k setting, see my earlier series.

Queerness and minorities (woke, actually)

Fantasy has sadly never been the most inclusive of genres, and I am afraid that warhammer fantasy in general has not been an exception to this. Warhammer fantasy has often fallen into a trope of writing that plagues many Games Workshop franchises. This would be the concept of the girls club. Where the women of a faction are truly and definitely a part of the faction’s army, it just happens that all of them are in their own little corner of the faction, put in a unit, army or group made out of all women. Not to mention other minorities or anyone that falls outside of the genre of straight, cis, and white. 

Warhammer RPG is a breath of fresh air in this regard. There are women, there are queer individuals, and most interestingly is there an open transman in the form of the ship’s architect Herr Arnold Spald. It is made clear in the text that his crew is fully on his side, and that anyone that has a problem is “politely made to remove themselves”. There are also openly gay and lesbian characters as well as individuals from outside of the empire described at the same level as the ones from inside the empire.

Justice and revolution

There is a clear political message in the Warhammer Fantasy setting regarding the Empire. The Empire itself is shown to be inefficient, somewhat corrupt and ruled by the inept elite and the zealous and cruel. There is one grand exception to this, the downtrodden and the poor, as well as those that fight for equal rights, while having jokes written about them are always seen in the right, and always having the sympathy and empathy of the narrative. It is always clear that the corrupt and lazy lords are always in the wrong.

 The rich are seen as dumb, cruel and simpleminded, partly by the Altdorf students organizations of the Karl Franzers. A bullying fraternity that makes fun and territories the so called Inkies, or students that have joined higher learning for learning itself. There’s a clear divide between those that are studying by birth and those that are studying by skill. Fans of Pratchett’s work will recognize the same dynamic in the Assassin’s Guild.

This class struggle is one that can be seen on many modern campuses, even more so when the money your parents had directly decided if you had the right to learn to read or not. The rich and powerful are often depicted as just as uneducated, and often dumber than the general public.

These are themes that very much echoes their inspiration of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. And there are in fact many comparissons that can be found both in defense of queerness, and in the defense of those that are oppressed and abused on the socioeconomic ladder. Like terry pratchett are these not a black and white picture, and there are indeed those in a privileged position that tries and do go good.

Gods, magic and silliness

Magic is described in the Warhammer Fantasy world to be something truly amazingly dangerous, and mind bendingly evil. It has the power to turn you into a multiplied several mouthed monstrosity or break your mind beyond repair. What makes the text interesting is that it still keeps the comedic side to the much darker descriptions of magic that can be found elsewhere. 

It is true that magic is still very dangerous, and magic users are shunned and many factions would like to see them killed. With that said is the area where the arcane college is described with an air of dark comedy, the area is described as often being transformed in strange and mysterious ways. Entire streets have been transformed in wonderful and majestic ways, except for the streets of the pyromancy department, they were simply burnt down. 

The wizards themselves are described as strange and eccentric, and their personalities are to some degree exaggerated by the various forms of magic, so fire mages are easier to anger, and nature mages find towns and cities claustrophobic.

Peppered around the description of the pantheon of Sigmar are the mentions of the old gods, and their workshop. These are often given a lot more empathy than the very catholic coded Sigmarites. The aesthetics might be a bit condescending and tonification of the Celtic faith, but they are mostly treated with respect. At some parts they are seen as primitive and strange for wanting to bathe in sacred springs, but this is more seen as eccentricities than anything malicious.

Sigmarites, the followers of Sigmar are often seen as zealous, aggressive and brutal in their treatment of others. Witch hunters are a thing that exists within the universe and they do exactly what their name entails, as well as hunting vampires and demons. The Sigmarites are made up of several factions, one more jealous than the other, all looking at themselves as the true faith. I imagine I don’t need to point out the obvious allegories ast play here.

What makes the Sigmarites and Witch Hunters interesting in Warhammer Fantasy is that they are mostly right. That is to say, untrained and unsupervised magic users are objectively dangerous. If you cast a fireball spell wrong you might summon a horde of demons to your doorstep, or turn yourself inside out, or unleash a plague of blood boils on your neighborhood. This is a narrative point that Games Workshop loves using. The protagonist’s human factors often do incredibly heinous and repressible things, but they are often justified by the universe being so much worse.

Final thoughts

In this essay have I gone through the one text that made me inspired to go back to the Warhammer series again. The pure joy I had reading through this text made me inspired to once again get back into text analysis and discussion. The text itself is in my opinion well worth picking up even if you are not interested in Warhammer, but are a fan of fantasy, and especially if you are a fan of Terry Pratchett’s work.

The text is a grand example of the fact that Warhammer is not always grim and dark and can often be rather humorous. It is a setting that keeps its inspiration on its sleeves, and for its good I would say. There is darkness and horror, yes, but there is also space for levity and humor, as well as the sensation that the person that the thing happens to kind of had it coming in one way or another. It is an interesting dichotomy to the often serious and depressingly dark fiction that one finds in Games Workshop’s writing.

Warhammer exploratory essay: Humans in warhammer

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Introduction

This chapter will go trough and present some of the basics of the human factions in both Row and Aos. Being human ourselves it is easy to see how this faction, above even the other more humanoid fractions, had been the one that authors have found the easiest to relate to and write about. Fantasy, or at least in the way that is understood is highly focused on western experiences and western cultures. This is particularly true when it comes to what kind of people and factions that the audience is meant to relate to. 

WHen other cultures are used in western fantasy they are often used to describe the other or the strange na virgin. Orientalism is very much alive and well in western fantasy. In this essay will I discuss how the ways that warhammer talks about humanity has changed, and what has stayed the same. I will begin to discuss the various kinds of humans that exist in the old world, before going over to discuss those that can be found in Age of Sigmar, as one is a continuation of the other.

This is a way for the readers not familiar with the tone and setting of Warhammer to ease into the analysis, as well as a way for me to catch up on the many changes of the first since I last played myself. Understandably have the setting changed a lot during the many years it has been in production. I will do my best to point out what version of the game, and what edition of that game I am talking about in my essays. When no edition is mentioned, assume it is a topic that is overarching for all or most of the editions.

The Empire and its neighbors

The empire is highly based on germany and the holy roman empire, having german names, and being set roughly around the central northern part of europe. The architecture and the clothing style of the empire humans that we see are also clearly taken from this era and culture for inspiration and world building. It is interesting to note that a British company decided to place their fantasy world not in England, but in Germany, or rather the Holy Roman empire.

They are a parody of the late medieval and early renaissance confidence and sense of culture that was prevalent during that part of Europe’s history. The architecture, art and culture do not at all follow the high ideals of the empire which is where much of the humor comes from. The buildings of the empire for example are ramshackle and and shoddily built. Often they can easily be confused with goblin or orc settlements from other genres. To the north east lies Kislev, a clear example of the eastern European nations like Lithuania and Ukraine of the era, with stout and serious humans with cold magic and a warlike disposition.

The Border princes is another faction that is often tied to the empire and is a small collection of duchies and kingdoms that works as a bulwark between the Civilized empire and the rest of the world, to the east and south.

The empire is a land of many gods and folk traditions, with many faiths coexisting within the nation. The official faith is that of the godking Sigmar, who unified the land and drove off the hated greenskins. Mirroring many a germanic tale. The Sigmarian faith is clearly a parody of the catholic churches’ more warlike traditions under this era. With warrior priests and proclamations of doom and destruction being yelled from grand cathedrals and small churches alike.

Knights and peasants

To the east are the knightly bretton, the other major playable faction, they are knightley and popups to the extreme. they are a parody of the perceived early knightley medieval ages and the actual medieval age of feudalism and extreme class differences. The knights and church keep all but a tenth of all the income from each of the peasants under their protection, and the peasants are illiterate, weak and fearful, and under the total control of their knightley masters. They are highly devout to their lady of the lake, and are deeply built on the Arthurian legend.

The faith in the lady of the Lake is clearly an example of perhaps a more anglo saxon version of the christian faith, but a christian faith nonetheless. To the fact that there have been several crusades from Brittony to the Fantasy Middle East of Araby, One specific crusade drove the Arraby sultanates out of Estalia, the fantasy Sapin, clearly mimicking several specific historical events.

East and south

To he south are two non playable factions of Fantasy spain and italy, and while they are mentioned in the stores and lore are they not very present in the base WF game, but has had more of a presence in the smaller games, mostly as mercenaries or as a counterpoint of actual culture and art compared to the often face and uncivilised cultures of the Empire and Brettonia. It is here that the version of leonardo da vinci comes from, it is here that the renaissance inspirations spring from. 

Araby, or fantasy middle east has sadly gotten much of the treatment you would expect from a 1980s british publication written by middle aged white men. Orientalism, turbans, curved swords and a lot of piracy and slavery. They have mostly exist as an antagonist for Brettonia, as well as to add more flavor to the area’s beautiful skeletons and mummies. 

The far east

Likewise fantasy Japan and China are mentioned and many of the Empire’s more advanced inventions do come from Cathay or fantasy China, as a clear nod to the actual history of the period. Mostly is asia used as a way to allow asian stereotypes to be added to the game, often via the use of other factions such as the Ogres and the Skaven.

There is sadly little to say when it comes to the older versions of the franchise, other than tokenism and borderline racist depictions are as common as you would fear that they are. Ninjas, samurai, jade dragons and Kimonos are all part of the general repertoire. Later the franchise gave more respect to the cultures the area is so clearly based upon. I was for example glad to find that the warhammer roleplaying game very much treated chinese culture and traditions with a fair amount of respect.

In the tabletop game is their previously mentioned inspiration on the other races and nations. Gunpowder has for example originated in Chatay, as has the skill of rocketry. The Skaven and in some more comedic retellings, the Ogres have also learned the way of stealth from the “mysterious far east”. Clan Eshin of the Skavens has particularly adopted this stealthy way of warfare, using disguised positions and throwing stars.

The north

More interesting to this narrative deconstruction is the lands of the far north as well as the south lands of what would be real life Egypt. THe norse lands, sweden, norway and finland are in the fantasyworld a frozen hellscape controlled by demons and other monstrosities, it’s a land of violent men that worship dark gods, a reputation not dissimilar to what the real world norse lands had for a very long time. The norse and their dark gods make up one of the many antagonists of the old world.

The norselands are cold and unforgiving, and tied directly to the corrupted north pole that, depending on edition, might have been corrupted by strong magical forces, or a malfunctioning teleportation device built by a long dead alien race. The norse are described as wild, cruel and uncultured. They are brutal and violent and spend most of their time raiding or feasting. The gods too are cruel and unforgiving, and it is these gods that present the setting with its biggest threat, for if they ever manage to break free from their frozen prision will destroy the entire world.

There have been some attempts to humanise the Norsemen, claiming that only the most extreme and violent of the Norsemen follow the Chaos gods or go on raids and plunderings. A description that many modern historians would most likely agree with.  Only the rich and the influential were ever allowed to travel on the real life viking boats, and only they were allowed to share in the plunder.

Undead humans

To the south in the northern part of Africa lies the land of the undead, a land of mummies and skeletons, cursed by the evil warlock NAgash to forever exist in a parody of their former self. The connections to real life Egyptian aesthetics and to some form Egyptian mythology is easy to see. Though it is interesting to note that the motivation between the mummification of real life and magical Egypt are rather the opposite, while the real life pharaohs adored life, their warhammer counterparts instead fear death.

The undead are roughly separated into two distinct facets, the Tomb kings and the Vampire counts. Tie first was primarily seen as unwilling servants, and only the most powerful of their kind were ever able to gain any real sense of sentience and agency in death. This has changed somewhat in ToW. The tomb kings have also been given more goals than simply existing and protecting their tombs as was their goal in the older editions. The Tomb Kings of ToW have empires, kingdoms and their rules have plans and wishes of their own, even human and other mortal servants to do their bidding.

The second faction of undead, the Vampire counts are as the name suggests, humans that have turned into vampires. Now these vampires has their origins within the lands of the Tomb kings in the narrative. The vampires of warhammer fantasy follow a lot of the tropes that exist within other vampire lore and fiction, but still mostly manage to create their own niece within the genre. 

The Von Cerstenis being the most clear example of iteration with their obvious inspiration in Dracula as well as other gothic literature and art. being pale, handsome and dark haired, and ruling from crumbling castles decorated with gargoyles. The undead is something that I will return to later in this series, as they are worth their own spot when comparing them to their AoS counterparts.

Conclusions

Who gets to be a human, and who gets to be a monster is an interesting conundrum in many fantasy settings, Warhammer fantasy included, as while the warhammer world is filled with humanoid creatures, and most, if not all are inspired by real life human cultures. There are only a few of them that get to be humans in the setting.

As I mentioned before are there a clear that there is a western bias to the ones that gets to get to be human, but interestingly enough is the same true for the human cultures that has had a direct relationship to medical europe, China boeing a big trade partners, and the islamic middle east being a trade partner and foe during this time. While technically humans are part of the middle east turned into undead, but still defined as humans. The other factors are distinctly humanoid and still culturally compared and related to other human cultures. Next time we will look at how the humans in Aos have changed and become involved.

Warhammer exploratory essay: Old Worlds and new

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Introduction

Warhammer fantasy has existed for decades in one form or another. What started as a roleplaying game with models and rather simple and generic fantasy settings has transformed and morphed with time into something very unique indeed. In a series this old, and with so many creative voices is it inevitable that changes happen. It is these changes that I am interested in, what changed and what have stayed the same.  

The Warhammer fantasy franchise has recently taken the stance of having it both ways. Keeping the old and making the new. This is a rather strong contrast to how the company looked at Warhammer Fantasy when Age of Sigmar was first released, where more of a scorched earth approach was implemented. This was true both in the product line, where many options disappeared, as well as in the universe where the old world was literally and metaphorically destroyed.

This has had several explanations, ranging from a need to unify the narrative and to make sure that Games Workshop owns the copyright to all their model lines. This has historically been a problem as the warhammer franchise has involved a lot of generic fantasy terms like Orcs and Elves.

Similar changes have been done by several other franchises, for example did DC comics wildly simplify their extended universe in their series Crisis on Infinite Earths. Disney after acquiring the rights to Star Wars also drastically changed what texts were considered to be in the official canon, and what texts were considered to be in the Legends canon. In the narrative are the legends texts supposedly tall tales. In a meta sense is this a clear delineation of what is considered to be part of the marketable and saleable part of the franchises, and what will continue to be supported.

In this series I will return to my roots and analyse a series of texts given out by games workshop. Rather than making another breakdown will I this time focus on themes and settings as well as to try and set the series in a wider concept of fantasy and mythology. There are two distinct iterations of warhammer fantasy, and I aim to explore both of them in my series going forward. 

Age of Sigmar

First is the Age of Sigmar series, the largest departure from the classic elves and dwarfs fantasy of the past, with a clear cut from the past and making something that is wholly unique to the franchise. The magic is more abstract and the factions more extreme, the world is sundered and reality is warped. The setting is now made explicitly with the idea of marketability and copyright in mind. Creatures like Orks are now called Oruks, and a lot more care and time has taken in making sure that the races, nations and species present in Age of Sigmar are nor solely copies of other fantasy tropes, or asd was often the case in WF, a blatant copy or simplification of a real life culture.

The world if AoS is made out of realms, all that have their own rules and are governed by special kinds of magic. In order to travel between the realms one must use special gateways or risk the perils of the warp. This is as a result of the catastrophic disaster that sundered the old world into pieces. It is interesting to note that there once was a grand scale campaign played through hundreds of official matches of warhammer fantasy to decide the fate of the word world. IN that game the good side won and the world stayed intact.

The setting has indeed done a lot to reinvent the setting, and a lot of genre bending writing has come from the setting. To understand the genre defining changes and their implications must the reader first understand where the genre comes from.

The Old World

In order to give this context I will also analyse and discuss the Old World franchise. The Old World series is a return to the old and more traditional setting of the franchise. WHere humans lived in either an exaggerated version of France or an even more exaggerated version of the Holy Roman empire. The empire is a land of olympus humans and poor and desperate peasants. It is a land of innovation and superstition. A place where you are just as likely to meet a town witch or seer as you are to meet a powerful steampowered tank. Bretonnia is likewise a land of grand contrasts, being primarily a parody of the glorification of the noble times of swords and dragons  described in myths like the war of the roses and the Arthurian myths. In fact despite the fact that Beroettonia is clearly set in France, or brettony is the setting itself heavily inspired by the arthurian myth, down to the lady of the lake and the grand templars of the round table.

Dwarves and Elves are both present in the OW and share a lot of appearance with their Tolkien counterparts. Two things are distinctly different, the first is that they both have a distinct satirical side to them. The Dwarves are petty, long sighted and rather boring, the ELves are apathetic, selfish and condescending to everyone else. 

The OW is inhabited by many strange and magical creatures, primary of them are the Ogres, Orcs, goblins and lizardmen. The Orcs and goblins primarily keep their role as general antagonists and destroyers that can be found both in classic mythology and in contemporary fantasy, their big twist being that they are part fungi, and grow out of fungal patches. 

The Ogres are located geographically in what would be real life Mongolia, and are described as dumb, greedy and gluttonous. A description that is not made with the fact that the earlier Ogres was often described as having thick eyebrows and distinct pointy mustache.

The Old World title is a reference both to the fact that the series is set in the old Warhammer setting that was destroyed in the Age of Sigman franchise, as well as the fact that Europe in the old Warhammer setting was called The Old world. This old world is a clear and apparent translation of Europe, and much of the warhammer world is set in an allegory to the real world, with mixed results. 

Final thoughts

I will discuss both these series in the light of what was once called Warhammer Fantasy. In order to make it easier to differentiate will I dub Age of Sigmar AoS the old world OW and the original warhammer fantasy WF. Warhammer fantasy has in and of itself gone through a large number of iterations, one of the more interesting changes being a distinction from its Tolkien inspired roots, as well as a larger focus on humor and satire.

There is a clear theme of political and social commentary and comedy in the many factions of WF, especially the humans are more often than not painted in a comedically pathetic and backwards way, strongly contrasting the actual often uncultured and simple ways of even the highest of nobles with the grand and culture image that the nations like to present themselves as. There are these differences and similarities that I aim to analyze in this series. I will begin with analyzing and discussing how humanity is described in ToW followed by AoS, finishing with a  discussion on who gets to be human, and who gets to be a monster.