Fem-Custodes and the Liberal Deity w/ Arch: The J. Burden Show Ep. 416

What's everyone talking about?

starting with in entertainment at large. And I decided quite soon that this was something that wasn't going to stop. It wasn't going to limit its to one thing. It was going to try and infiltrate entertainment in general. So I started talking about that as well, at significant personal cost over the years. But well we're sitting here in twenty twenty six with female custodies and I feel pretty justified, honestly validated, even.

was studying economics. I decided to take game theory, naively, assuming that would be game theory, right, And what I'd actually done is signed up for a course on the critical theory of video games. So I was hot gamer Gate at a collegiate level. A funny story, that's a large part of the reason I ended up here. You go through a course with an obese, actually purple haired woman yelling at you about gamer Gate, and you're like, okay, well,

whoever you hate, I think those are my friends. And obviously, you know, that was sort of the canary in the coal mine. Many of these trends have been observed in other hobbies, you know, similar thing has happened obviously to anything that Wizards of the Coast owns. But forty k, as we discussed in a previous episode, is structurally resistant, you know, within the universe. It is illiberal, right, it doesn't conform to certain of our our modern sensibilities. And

the specific issue is seemingly minor. Right, it's this desire to turn factions that are male, right, entirely male, desire to diversify them, right, desire to bring women into these male spaces, as they would say. And the battles lost a while ago, right, there was a. I can't remember which one of the horace heresy books I tapped out a long time ago, which featured one of these female custodies.

For those who aren't aware, Giant Royal Protectors, right, Giant Armor, the best of the best, right, always been exclusively male, and they wrote in to one of these books a female character. Funny enough, arch As, I'm sure you're aware, she is featured in the book and does bawling her eyes out completely ineffectual, which is kind of funny. But the big update is now they have little plastic guys. Right, they have taken it down to that level, the thing

that matters, so to speak. So Arch if you could, could you describe one why that matters? Right, Why this is a significant change for the franchise, And two what's the reaction been? Right? Who is celebrating? Who is upset?

progress is dead. There is no progressivism in it, but Games Workshop wants it to be, and they've been waging an active war against their fans for quite a few years now. One of the central parts of that conflict was a man named Tom Mendelssohn, who was their community manager. He was revealed a few months ago to have celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I broke that story and nobody else talked about it in the Warhammer community. Of

the commentators. Gainst Workshops suspended him and have still not elected to fire him because well, they sympathize with his point of view. And I stress that to make you understand just how progressive the company actually is. They put out a whole plan for female custodes, which, as you say, is an all female faction, which began with a small line in their codex, their rule book, which mentions a female custodes, and it's very vague. It's just the pronouns

that give it away. This meant that a lot of people back then were basically coping like, oh, this probably isn't official rogue in turn, stuff like that. But this was a part of Against Workshop's long term campaign to introduce them boiling the frog on it. They later introduced the female custodies in an animated short, and now like a year or so later used models, which is essentially

the standard of canonization. When something has a model, it is properly officially a part of the Warhammer forty K universe. So that's why that was a big deal, because now there's no more excuses nobody can trick themselves into thinking that this isn't happening anymore. It is the most blatant declaration of war in essence.

It came out of a very unique culture, right, the English culture of the seventies and eighties, and that unique flavor is what made it popular. But it's the exact same mechanism you see in anything else, which is on one hand, the tactical invocation of the wider audience. It's sort of up for debate if they actually believe this or not, because it has yet to materialize. But it's idea that if we know jam in representation, we will unlock this kind of secret, untapped audience for XYZ product.

It will become this kind of global brand. And look, some of this is entirely that it's business sensibility. This has gone from being a small to a very large company. Understandable. But also you see these people who are sort of derisively referred to as tourists, right, those who are simply there because it is current thing, and when it is popular but not in accordance with current values, they want

to pull it into line with everything else. And the combination of these two yields a gray, neutral product, a product of nowhere for everybody. And you can see this in any number of things. Right. I'm not a big like warhammer fantasy guy. It was never my bag for

a number of reasons. But the way that that world, that sort of franchise, I guess you could say, was very casually disintegrated and replaced with Ages of Sigmar, which is vaguely the same thing, right, It's a medieval fantasy ish, but it's completely stripped of any cultural really weight to

it at all. It again becomes another one of these mass market products, and I think that that is additionally, even a side from the politics, a big reason people are unhappy about this because something that was unique, that touched a very you know, specific subset, is being massified. It turned into kind of gray cultural good.

quite fresh. It's quite the deviation from things now. Most of those, all traditional universes have either fallen out of popularity or been broken into the attempt to, you know,

bring in the wider audience. This meant that forty K and Warhammer had a great window there, particularly during the COVID season, where a lot of people discovered it, and a lot of people were kind of like, oh my god, it's a war game, grim dark, brutal, something for boys and men in an age where that was becoming vanishingly rare, like even Star Wars was entering the full swing of the Disney era back then, and so it appealed to a lot of people, and it grew very, very rapidly,

to the point where it is now pushing on the gates of mainstreameddness and it's about to break through. Like I firmly believe that forty K will probably become the next Star Wars, the next cultural phenomenon in entertainment. But that has also drawn in the vultures. In this case, Amazon and also games workshops desire to appeal to the wider audience, partially for economic reasons. As you mentioned, though,

the problem with it is we've seen this happen. We've seen Star Trek try it, Star Wars try it, countless other entities. The wider audience doesn't exist, that exists the casual audience. But the casual audience can never be appealed to for long. They will simply go towards whatever is currently popular, and they will stay with it for however

long it is popular. And then once they have managed to reduce it to the gray, bored, turgid slop that appeals to everyone, they will move on because it appeals to no one. And this is one step in that process, by taking what was an exclusively male faction that was exclusively designed to appeal exclusively to males, and turning it into a diverse faction, and well, damn the law in the process.

And yes, you know, the the idea that this is some sort of tolerant force, right, the idea that this is some sort of battle for inclusion. I mean, that's a tactical assumption. Right. They're stepping into that because it gives them, you know, some sort of advantage. It's not real. They don't actually think that. That's just a cope.

with strong Christian imagery. Surely that is a bastion of even if not right wing politics, at the very least a political wargaming. So what say you to the to the Trench Crusade question?

away from it. And there was a game to go along with it, this sort of you know, if you can imagine a sort of like Eldritch World War One theme, that's sort of what it was. And so many people thought that this is my new place, my new replacement for this hobby. And what they found is that the invasion was done before they ever showed up, right, the same sort of you know, political activists had found their

way there. And again, right, it's another way in which these kind of traditional nerd hobbies have been completely and totally subverted, right by these these sort of like political actors. So at the same time, obviously there's the direct politics. But there have been other people who aren't necessarily politics or politically minded per se, who are leaving forty K. We're no longer interested. How would you describe those people?

internal consistency to the best of your ability. Otherwise is the argument loses its credibility. You're no longer making sense. You're making a shit up. And that's why people are leaving forty K. Even if they don't care about the politics. They now look at a universe that can apparently change overnight. Never before has there been any mention of female custodies at any point. There have never been any art of them. In fact, the faction has been specifically and explicitly described

as all male on multiple occasions previously. And when they just change that, well, people now understand that the argument is no longer solid, it is no longer internally coherent, and that turns people off on a basic level. It's not even about whether or not there should be custodies from a political point of view. At that point, it is simply you've changed the thing. I like, why did you do that?

was this massive ret con right which featured several things. One, obviously, you need to buy more stuff. You need to buy it now, you can't use the old stuff anymore, and the economics of this certainly need to be addressed. But also of going back to your previous point, was a massive ret con right to how these super soldiers were made, you know what the plan was all along, But also there was this great secret plan right all along, right that these new you know, extra super space marines. Okay,

fair enough, the Lord's stupid. But what with it was this idea that technological progress has resumed, right, we are no longer stuck in this kind of era of decay. And it's a very core premise to the setting. So you have and even like geez, it's been almost ten years, right, which is kind of crazy to think. There was a very conscious decision to discard the lore, to discard the rules, to discard the thing that people liked, and drew them

to this setting or eight cash grab. And if you look at the you know, bringing in the politics as yet another cash grab. You certainly could. It's the same thing, the idea that we are sacrificing the product to make it more economically successful. What do you make of that transition? Right the launch of primaries, because in my mind as well, it also was a market move towards the kind of you know, chasing after the whales, right as well on

the purchasing side. Do you see what I'm getting at their arch?

very bulky, very symbolic looking armor covered in iconography. These new ones were very rounded, very tactical, very modern esque, and they lacked a lot of the charm of the old school of startes. But this was definitely first and foremost an economic decision to sell people space marines. Again, as they've continued to sell Space Marines constantly ever since.

They are their best selling faction, so beyond economics an indication that they were losing contact with their own setting, definitely, But I think that was the primary motivation for the Space Marines relaunch rather than the political side of it.

of people designing files. Right, some of them, let's be honest, you are ripping off other properties, right, You've got to squint your eyes and you know exactly what they're going for. But also you know, making their own, making their own systems, which are absent of these kind of you know, political overtons. So I'm curious, Arch, is there anything you see on that front that you see as sort of a sign for hope.

do so. And there have been many alternatives that have been around for quite some time that have never managed to really get going either. It's one of those problems where you don't want to give up on the thing

you like. Anyone has been a fun of a style of Star Wars has known that feeling for quite some time, even as you see it on its deathbed, and like forty K two has the problems you mentioned with the economy of it that gw has just been increasing their prices add infinitum to the point where their specialty paint now costs ten times that of their competition and sell

simply because of brand and market recognition. It's I suppose one of the problems with our current day internet based system as well, that once you have a thing become big, it usually becomes the dominant force in its own arena, rather than back in the day when we had far

more competitors to all of this. Wow, it's difficult to say if we'll see anything rise up to replace it, but eventually, because we were kind of in the early stages of a replacement period right now, right where we're seeing many of the primary entertainment things like Star Wars are beginning to fall off. A lot of The Rings was lauded for the longest time due to the excellent trilogy, and then came to The Rings of Power, which is

severely damaged its reputation. Game of throneses was lauded until his final season, and so on. So we're kind of seeing the end of many of these cultural giants right now, and we're not yet sure what will emerge now, like what comes next.

out at the point which there's very little left. And I think it's interesting to see, and I know that you've done a few videos on this, the sort of later attempted editions. So I'm sort of fascinated by Avatar for a number of reasons, James Cameron, not the Cartoon

Network show. And perhaps the reason I'm the most interested in it is that it is the message of that movie is the most insane boomer slot possible, but it is sort of out of date, right, So the central conceit of Avatar is very much the sort of male baby boomer fantasy, right of finding people who were connected to the earth, who are you know, from a different culture, you know, being placed in charge of them, made a warlord,

and getting you know, a really hot alien babe. This is the plot of you know, obviously Dances with Wolves, any number of you know, similar Western movies. I mean, honestly, the Last Samurai is very similar as well. Right, there's this whole genre of film, but Avatar is that same story, just remade much past its cell by day. And obviously the politics of Avatar are completely and totally insane on

multiple different levels. But it is sort of this interesting instance of both being the property that never was right, the movie that sold a billion tickets but no one

actually talks about or remembers particularly. But you see that same trend, you see that same narrative, that same thing once the sort of roots that underpinned have begun to rot, you know, And I think that you're entirely right to talk about this era of replacement because so many of these large legacy properties that have taken up so much of everyone's time and kind of psychic energy are running out or petering out and sort of converging into kind

of gray ubisoft slop. It's an interesting thing.

that is obviously evil. So I firmly believe that is the reason why it has failed to have the cultural impact, because when people go to watch the movie, even if they are not entirely aware of it, not quite cognizant, they understand that the bad guys are winning, and that makes them disconnect from it.

circle of life. But and I'll be one hundred percent honest, I haven't seen the first one since it came out, right, So I'm not gonna pretend to be a scholar. Actually, now that I think about it, I've seen all of these movies when they came out and never you know

again since. But point is, there's this really interesting dynamic that comes up in the third one where there's sort of this debate raging about purity, right, the genetic purity of the nov because of course you have you know, Jake I always want to say it, Jake Soley, because

that's how they say it in the films. But Jake Sully, you know who has been He has a man's soul transported into a you know, a nave body, right he is, you know, which is again the idea of having a soul and a body disconnected to sort of an interesting one orright, you know, a spirit in in kind of current politics, right if we look at gender or something else. But nonetheless you have this debate between him and his wife, and you know, they're constantly arguing back and forth about,

you know, the need to keep their planet pure. And a large part of the conflict of the second movie is that there is a you know, a kid who through bs earth magic, it's not particularly important, has gained the ability to breathe the toxic air. And of course everyone's all worried because oh no, now the invaders can

live here, right if they discover his secret. And so it's quite funny because again this is a deeply progressive movie intentionally, but the unintentional message, of course is we can't allow the invaders here because once they get a foothold, they'll take over. And so that's this bizarre kind of you know, mixed up you know, racial politics if you will, where it could very easily be recast as you know, something that you know, a certain mid century German would

have made. But if you see what I'm going to get there, they almost can't keep their own you know logic straight.

idea of Awa the goddess. We have now had it basically confirmed in the third movie that yeah, no, she is a fungus. She lives within people. She uses their memories as a way to prey upon their psyche. Oh you want to see your loved once again, Well you're going to have to worship me then, because I.

a way you have progressives flocking to it. It's kind of become this form of how did I put in like a secular god to them where they worship realism almost it's.

this movie as far as I remember. Their explanation as to why he is back is a single line which basically just says he was resurrected. Am I am I misremembering that? Or is there some greater explanation for why this dead character is back now?

there was okay, well, I can't not. And that's also kind of, you know, one of the things that have damaged the overall story because Avatar really only had one movie in it, and every movie since the first one has basically just been a retelling of the first movie in slightly different circumstances, to the point where now it's almost as much of a tale between Qurridge and Jake Sully as anything else, because again James Cameron doesn't quite

know what he's doing with this. But no, he was just brought back and it's like, oh, yeah, we decided to back up your mind in a navvy body because you know, fuck it, why not?

this is a profoundly anti human movie. And Korich again, who is this villain? He declares that his loyalty is to the human race. I'm sure you're familiar with the heat map meme arge, right, which is comparing you know, left wing and right wing people on their assigned amount of loyalty. Right, You're given ten points, will say to

assign to different groups. Generally speaking, conservatives assign that to their family first, in ever decreasing amounts going outwards, whereas people who self identify as progressives are the exact opposite. They feel the most loyalty to the universe at large, the least to the people around them. Right. And so, what's again kind of interesting about the mixed up politics of this movie is Korich is the villain, right, He certainly played sympathetically, but he is a bad guy. Right,

We're supposed to be rooting against him. But right before he dies for the third time in the third movie, he basically says like, no, I did this all for humanity. Everything I did was in service of the survival of the species. And it's profoundly amusing to me that this is basically a liberal movie about the the need to prioritize your tribe quite literally over the human race. I just think that that's a very funny message for a progressive to put forth.

a real god, and therefore they're good. Now again, if we start to actually analyze what's going on there, you can very clearly see that the now we are not.

But there is a lot of contradictions because it does absolutely boil down to well, you know, I am on this side of the fence now, so I will do anything I can to protect this side of the fence over yours at any cost. And the way they'll probably square this is by simply just bioterror bombing Earth with AOA spores, and then we'll all become monkeys living the Stone Age.

alliteration is not intentional, but we'll go with it. Another one is the second Dune film, which got panned by a lot of our guys, and I understand why, But in a way, I actually thought that having you know, Chini be this kind of you know, scowling character, you know, doubting you know, poll's ability to sort of you know, unite the stars in this kind of global giha or this you know, galactic chihat, I thought that it was actually an oddly poignant thing, right where effectively, you know,

this image of you know that this woman looking over her shoulder scowling because he didn't pick me. He wanted to go, you know, change the entire you know, destiny of the human rights. I thought that was an oddly poignant message. And the movie, of course, is trying to tell you that you know, she's right, that he really should stay at home, that you know, this destiny isn't real,

that he's you know, he's given into toxic masculinity. But they're almost unable to present that message in a compelling way and end up sort of communicating the exact opposite. So these, you know, not particularly good progressive science fiction movies are kind of a fascination of mine, if you see what I'm getting at.

And when you understand that, when you understand this is a cast made by very metrosexual people, by very metrosexual producers, developers, written in a very modern fashion, they obviously can't understand the destiny of Paul the Tradees. They can't understand this is a man who will conquer the galaxy through force, who will eventually be haunted by the force he was forced to unleash in largely the defense of himself and

his family as well. They can't understand that very idea of being willing to do these things, even knowing they are going to result in horrible consequences, in order to defend yourself and your own as as you say it, Shanni is very much so the counterpoint of well, shouldn't you just roll over and die, shouldn't you just let the evil empire win and your family be eradicated if you're so horrified by your own actions? And no, because there there is actually a morality in looking out for

your own people. That is not moral. In fact, it is a very definition of morality. These are mine, I will defend them to the best of my abilities.

and you know him marry into the imperial household. But what's interesting about that is obviously there is the death right, the death of Paul you know, the birth of Madep the man who is a god. But also in that right, he is saying, you know, I am giving up the happiness of being a normal man right be married to the woman I love. I am taking this sort of

loveless imperial marriage. And that's another level as well. That's sort of interesting because he is, you know, killing the man to sort of become a legend, right to become a demigod almost, and with that, you know, there is glory with it. Right, he will be the most powerful man in the history of the human species. But also

right he is, he is giving something up there. There's a sacrifice there, and I think that that's a very interesting element to the film that again they are unable to recognize because in the progressive vision, power and a press are one and the same thing. Of course stated not revealed. They're more than happy to be in power,

they just can't recognize it. But I think that that's another interesting element as well, where they simp they cannot understand the fact that there is a sort of tragedy to that right, that you must sacrifice your personal happiness

for something greater. It's kind of great destiny. And it's again it's a concept that would be very basic to pre moderns, right to anyone really before the nineteen forties John Carter, you know any number of these even you know, kind of pop cultural or you know, we could say, you know, a pulp right would recognize this and show similar themes. But the modern progressive is simply unable to recognize that. And again, right, this is something that you

see in forty k as well. It's funny if if you go on you know, Reddit or something like that, which I don't recommend, it's it's poisonous to your brain, but you can find very funny interactions. So owl caat right did a CRPG in the Warhammer universe that you know, I quite enjoyed, but the coverage of it was quite interesting, right because you see, you know, people saying, oh, is this a fascist game?

way to recognize that. You know, in the Warhammer universe or and Doing or anything else, there are these hard limitations placed, right, There are tough choices that require sacrifice sometimes you know, not willing sacrifice even and I think that's sort of an interesting element to watch them, you know, grapple with something they can't understand and sort of mess it up in the process.

have never accepted the idea of the personal cost. They are fundamentally a very selfish political movement that pretends to not be. It's one of the interesting things that whenever you see any progressivist group argue for something, it is always going to be in their own favor in some way. The Great War between the proper progressives and the radical feminists was very interesting in this regard because the radical feminists,

of course, simply wanted things that benefited them. They wanted greater power for themselves, greater privileges for themselves, and that of course ran into a big conflict with the progressives, who didn't want more powers for feminists, for women. They wanted to define what a woman was. They wanted a man to be able to be a woman because that would grant them more power, and the radical feminists didn't have any good arguments against it other than to continue

to be radical feminists. And that didn't work because the only reason why that worked was because they were arguing against men who have also been through Western society well programmed into being like, no, no, no, you've got to take care of the women. They're a little bit brain damaged, we all know, but you gotta agree with them even when they say crazy shit, And that, of course didn't

work on the progressives. So they have an interesting thing where they don't seem to understand negative consequences, Like they live in this weird kind of world of duality where at the one time they are always the victim. It's always terrible, they're always undergoing great hardships, but they seem to never actually be able to expect those hardships to occur, oh.

of this story. I mean, honestly, if we're talking about the great, you know, the great kind of you know, turnover in culture, I think a large part of it is, honestly the mythology of World War Two, not that it didn't occur, right, but that as the defining moment for our culture, you know, that as the story which must be eternally retold. Obviously Star Wars dude, it's just it's World War two in space, right. You don't have to

be a genius to figure this out. But that kind of core story, the idea of you know, the plucky resistance if you will, built into that is ultimately a lie. Sorry, but America wasn't the underdog and world or too, you know, like you were a continent size superpower and you bolt us to the Soviet Union and you know it, It's not exactly like that was the you know, the plucky underdog against you know, the empire from Star Wars. So I think that's that's definitely part of it. Not looking

to get into a historical digression there. But I think another part of that right is an inability to have true evil, right to have an objective you know, good and ill, because you know you have shades of it, right obviously, you know the Nazis. That's a reason that slur is used. But I think that you know, really there is this kind of baked in idea that you know, the outsider, the downcast, that's never evil, right, it is simply misunderstood. It is simply something that can be normalized

and brought into the fold, and that's ultimately good. And I think that when we're talking about that kind of you know, particularism of sacrifice, right, it's a sacrifice for who. You know, when when Beowulf, you know, tears Grendel's arm off, right, he is doing that to protect definite people and he is ultimately killed in battle with the dragon, it is

he is a king protecting his people. And I think that that's an element as well, right, that the lines become very blurred and there's an unwillingness to accept, you know, a world, whether ours are a fictional one, where there is an absolute, irredeemable evil that cannot be normalized, that cannot be brought into the fold that is not misunderstood.

It is simply you know, wrong and evil. And so even in like the modern Wolfenstein games, right, which are perhaps the most egregious versions of that, you know, twentieth century myth. You know, every one of these German soldiers is, oh, well, you know, he's a he's a sexual degenerate, or oh there's some other reason he's doing that, and he is, you know, fundamentally, he cannot even simply be evil. He must be this sort of twisted, misunderstood thing. And I wonder if that's an element as well.

not finesse necessarily, but depth of understanding. I guess because on the one hand, I kind of sympathize with the idea of the misunderstood villain, because there's a lot of interesting things you can do with that. Magneto used to be one of my favorite villains from the old, you know, comic book days, because he was a victim of the Nazi purchase who then became a mutant and started basically

becoming the Nazis. And his journey of discovering this is quite fascinating, and the way that he rationalizes his own crimes without understanding the parallels between them and the Nazis. But there's also this kind of intersects with the idea that the enemy must be both infinitely powerful and malicious

and infinitely retarded at the same way. In old law of propaganda, which is where you arrived in kind of around that the Avatar thing, where the humans are evil, they do random evil shit for absolutely no gardamn reason, and at the same time they're also incompetent. You have humans here fighting an underwater alien species with our underwater alien mounts that refuse to use a simple sona to wipe them out in a single goddamn ping, but simultaneously

they're going to kill their ancestors. These whale creatures practically just for shits and giggles to take like a single vial of magical, obscure liquid nonsense out of them and dump their carcasses back into the water.

what does the progressive do with a vanquished evil? Right now, we can look to you know the history of the American South or you know, continental Europe and say, well, they will simply socially engineer them out of existence, right, they will attempt to sort of reform them in a very kind of Quaker way. But that's sort of an

interesting question. Again because part of that, you know, that kind of founding myth, right in the same way that like Romulus and Remus or the Trojan War would have been for previous empires, for US is is you know, World War Two, and so you know, in the kind of retellings of this, it's like, well, you you blow up the Death Star and then it just goes away, right, It's just done. It's crumbled, and you know, even in the sequels you can see that they're not entirely sure

what that looks like. Where it's you know, fifty years on and well, the rebellions now the resistance, and I guess they're kind of in charge. But also you know, the is that the first Order I can't remember what they rebranded it. To the point is they're still stormtroopers, right,

There's no way to conceptualize what winning looks like. And I think a big part of that is that idea around power, which is the idea that you know, power is fundamentally illegitimate, that if you were in charge, there's something wrong with you and you ought to be resisted. And so that question of what does a victory look like, what does beating the big bad It's sort of a gray area, right one where there's there's nothing to find.

and this can manifest itself in many ways. Like a favorite favorite quote of mine is the idea of George R. R. Martin quote, But Tolkien doesn't ask the question what was Adragon's tax policy? And the reason why that is so amusing to me is because, on the one hand, I actually like the idea of a fantasy setting where you delve into that, Okay, what does Gondor look like after defeating Mordor? What happens to the Orc? And the answer

is probably just simple genocide. But it's also one of those ultimately reductivist tastes where I actually don't give a shit about what Adragon's tax policy is. I give a shit that he is the king that was chosen, He is the king that was promised, He returned, and he beat the Big bad and the story is over. That's where Star Wars should have ended. Now the Imperium was destroyed.

There you go, You're done, You're finished. To then have them transition into the Resists whilst being the masters of the Galaxy to the point where you have to have the best scrawling introtext in the history of cinema going somehow Palpaty in returned. You don't have a plot anymore at that point. And I don't know if it's a lack of imagination to not understand where you could possibly go with this, or simply an inability to understand that sometimes you have to have a goal in mind, and

I don't think the progressives do. I don't think the progressives have an idea of the ideal society, and I don't think they're working towards it. They just have these loose promises, these thoughts in their minds, which, amusingly they were a part of tearing down I mean, you can look at the acceptance rate of things like gay marriage or transgender people today and they've all nose dived after

progressivism became more popular. Estually, the progressive victory would have been to shut up in the nineties and just let everything proceed as it was.

right who have held onto their positions of powers. Actor directors, you know, James Cameron is a great example, and the people underneath them did not come up under the same circumstances. They were not forced to compete in any sort of meritocracy whatsoever, and they were pushed well ahead of their

skills sets. And so if you look at you know, Millennial and you know gen X directors, writers and all their diversity hires, so even you know, the kind of like core skill set of how to write something compelling, right, even if the politics in it are horrible, and there's a great number of examples of films that have bad politics,

but are you know, great to watch. I think that's another element as well, that they have sort of undercut their own talent based to the point where I don't think they have anyone who even understands what they're doing anymore. Maybe a discussion for another day that but arch we're oh sorry, I'll let you respond.

they have been sort of hoard out. And again, as you said, the best bet we've got is sort of either going back right to a previous version or you know, to the source material, or making your own because clearly, you know, the people in charge of these different franchises you know, pick your poison right, are complete and total idiots, to be blunt about it. Absolutely well, Arch, we are fast approaching time. This was a fun discussion. We talked

about Warhammer much less than I thought. Where can people find you? Where can they find your work?

can support me. There again, Archie was a ton of fun.

like you. Enjoy alcohol responsibly offers end second of February and participating in stores Whilstock's last.