Or, to be more specific, that small, sculpted models of said Space Vikings stop being depicted as wearing fur. Or, to be even more specific, PETA UK has written to Games Workshop, makers of Warhammer 40,000 and its myriad table-top gaming models, asking them to cease depicting imagery of its myriad characters wearing animal fur and make them “fur free”.
Logan Grimnar, Warrior King of the Space Wolves. Nobody show this model to PETA. Image Credit: Games Workshop
That’s in quotation marks because, obviously, these models are already fur free in that they’re made out of plastic, resin and metal. It’s just that some of them (say, the Space Wolves, the very Viking-inspired branch of the Space Marines that have a fondness for, well, actual space wolves) are depicted wearing fur pelts on top of their armour. Even that is too much in PETA’s eyes, which claims that it “sends the message that wearing fur is acceptable — when, in fact, it has no more place in 2017 than it would in the year 40,000”.
That’s silly enough, but the message continues, noting that “nothing on the bloody battlefields of Warhammer’s conflict-ravaged universe could match the terrible reality of the fur trade”. Guys, this is the franchise that portrays unspeakably grim catastrophes so casually it gave rise to the term “grimdark” as a storytelling trope! In a recent 40k campaign event, for example, one of the biggest planets in the Human Imperium, Cadia, was destroyed after the evil forces of Chaos (actual demons!) crapped out a mass of nightmarish horrors over the planet, then smashed a giant, ancient spaceship into it, and then absorbed the shattered remnants of the planet and most of its 850 million inhabitants into a rift which was basically a portal to literal space hell. And that’s like, a Tuesday in the Warhammer universe. Nothing can be gained out of a grimdark point-scoring contest when your opponent is Games Workshop.
As PETA itself notes, there are plenty of actual horrors within the fur trade with regards to the abuse animals face. Choosing to make a play against fictional fur garments in a setting as preposterously absurd as the world of Warhammer 40,000 instead seems like a profoundly poor area of focus when it comes to championing animal rights. But given that PETA has a long history of awful stunt campaigns, it probably shouldn’t be all that surprising to hear that they would focus on something like this in the first place.
Comments
37 responses to “PETA Wants Fictional Space Vikings From The Year 40,000 To Stop Wearing Fur”
Generally speaking PETA do an important and admirable job but this..
Kids, don’t do drugs.
Generally speaking PETA mainly focus on stopping people from owning pets or playing games where people have pets. Like Pokemon. Or other dumb stuff like stopping farmers from protecting sheep.
Generally speaking, PETA are hypocritical morons https://www.petakillsanimals.com/
*insert thank you gif here*
Drugs are bad mmmkay.
Generally speaking PETA have lost any credibility/significance years ago when they started focusing on “shock” tactics such as these and other pointless endeavors such as saying farming simulation should include the slaughter of animals for “realism”, etc.
Instead of you know…. actually putting forward more constructive programs like humane farming education, lobbying for better support on fur trade control, etc. etc.
Nope much better to use up all that funding saying a fictional character in a fictional setting is destroying the fabric of society in reality and harming real animals… yup… much better use of money there!
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war and the terrible reality of the fur trade.
Hmmm not as catchy…
pelts for the pelt god, fur for the fur throne
Sounds like a porn tag line
And this, kids, is an example of “picking your battles” poorly. PETA make a habit of it, and have done immeasurable harm to their message over the years because of it.
This is something all extreme left / Social Justice Advocates (Warriors) need to work on. Every time you pick something stupid and petty and without evidence to attack, people listen to you a little less, and roll their eyes a little more, the next time around.
Oh man, I hate the term SJW with the passion of a thousand suns. And I consider myself part of the left.
Doesn’t make you wrong though. Though, I wouldn’t even restrict this behaviour to the “extreme” left – it’s completely typical of many people on the progressive side of politics. It’s a huge problem we have, because we cannot hope to win anyone over to a progressive cause by picking fights – being confrontational just causes people to shut down. Instead, explain to people why it’s a problem and why we’ll all be better off if we did(n’t) do x, y or z. Some people are never going to listen, and picking fights with them is a net loss – we gain no support from those we’re fighting, we learn nothing new and we alienate those that were potentially sitting on the fence.
yeah SJW has become a meaningless pejorative
Nothing to do with Left, Right, Progressive or whatever arbitrary title.
I just see groups of dishonest people, pretending they believe in politics for a sense of belonging.
They have become extremely proficient at focusing on their own positive aspects while showcasing the negative of their “enemies”
Nobody focuses on logic or reason, just rhetoric and agendas.
When everything turns into a fight, you sort of earn the title, don’t you? I am definitely left on almost every issue based on the categorisation other people use, but even “left” and “right” just fosters this Us v Them mentality that again leads to fights, rather than discussions. I think SJW has definitely earned its place in our lexicon, and it’s just as much the fault of those fighting for a subjective good as the ones who disparage them.
You’re exactly right though, nobody has ever said “I didn’t want to listen, but you know what? As soon as they started yelling at me digitally and making wild and extreme claims about the calibre of my integrity and humanity, they really got through to me!”
The problem with political ideologies, be it conservatism, liberalism, feminism, etc. is that everyone and anyone can publicly declare themselves as one, without having adequately educated themselves on the topic. “I’m a woman, so I understand Feminism” holds as much water as “Gravity happens to me, so I understand general relativity”. If everyone stayed the hell away from identifying groups they fit into and instead focused on the strengths of their ideas and arguments, you’d have a lot less dogmatic tribalism and a lot more collaboration.
Its something people on both sides of the fence need to work on.
Definitely. But the narrative being sold is that those who are invested in social justice issues are the “good” ones. Whether that’s true or not depends on your perspective, but if you’re trying to position yourself as the good guys you need to act like it, not like petulant children who never learned to interact with people who carry differing worldviews.
Both push the narrative of being the “good” ones, they also both drape themselves in idea they are they are being attacked.
It really has nothing to do with worldviews, it’s about destroying any meaningful discussion through conflation.
We are so afraid of actually changing anything, that we literally sabotage anything and everything different by muddying it up as much as possible.
The stupid thing is we know politics suck, we have almost universally come to the conclusion that it hasn’t worked correctly in a long time.
But we pretend to be politicians as well.
Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!
Can a cause jump the shark? apparently so….
Things must be pretty good for animals if PETA has got time to spend on this
Pfft, PETA doesn’t care about humans. If anything, they applaud the forces of chaos because less humans means less animals will be harmed….. Right? 😛
Except that Warhammer Fantasy Chaos wear massive fur capes and Norscan Marauders run around in fur loincloths.
I was more poking fun at their “it’s brutal now let aloe 40,000 years in the future” line they’re going with. Especially when you look at the millions of psykers that get thrown into the golden throne just to keep the emperor fueled and protecting humanity from the warp, or the emphasis on brute force and mass numbers of humans as opposed to using mechanical elements to operate or construct much of the heavy equipment in the Imperium.
Games Workshop and PETA both like to create fictional worlds, they should bond over this.
For the record: I don’t kill/skin animals.
Sounds like something an ANIMAL KILLER / SKINNER WOULD SAY.
Nice skin there geometrics, be a shame if anything happened to it 🙂
*fondles knife hilt*
Dude, those wolves are honoured to become clothing for their chapter!
I-don’t-want-to-live-on-this-planet-anymore.jpg
I would say that PETA have jumped the shark with this one, but I’m sure PETA would consider that animal abuse.
“nothing on the bloody battlefields of Warhammer’s conflict-ravaged universe could match the terrible reality of the fur trade”.
fur is officially a bigger faux pas than xenophobia and complete annihilation of a sentient species because it’s not human according to peta apparently. kek.
so peta is racist.
See……my…….power armour?
https://youtu.be/HeN8saLI1IE?t=42
PETA….. stop embarrassing yourselves!
And I want PETA to sod off……
So yeah, here we are
All you getting angry about this is just what PETA wants. They dont care what PR they get. PR is still PR to them. They are keeping their name out there.
You want to know how to kill PETA? Ignore them? Much like a toddler will stop crying if you stop giving it attention when it cries.
Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean. Only wear synthetic space wolf fur.
I have to wonder how many people who paint these miniatures would wear fur? Did somebody get into 40k, start buying Space Wolves and then decided to start wearing fur?
As others have said above PETA need to pick more logical fights. Or change their name to PETFA, F is for Fictional.