#i like mortarion in many ways because i feel hes more true to the setting

[ask-mortarion-the-death-lord]

An interesting thought, AoT despite its myriad of problems such as trying to rehabilitate eren yeager for his actions in any way despite the inexcusable horror of said actions, is a story i would call fundamentally anti fascist. what i find interesting about this, is that i would also argue AoT better understands its position as anti fascist then warhammer 40k, despite both being a younger series in general and Aot's own problems.

that is, AoT successfully illustrates [albeit not as clearly to the surface level read as one might like] to its audience that an inherent and fundamental flaw of fascism that causes it as an ideology to fall down under its own weight is that fascism requires conflict and expansion to maintain and propagate itself. there has to be an enemy to fight and land to take in essence, as such fascism propagates conflict on a grander and grander scale to maintain cohesion as an identity and avoid the inevitable conclusion of fascism that is turning inwards and tearing itself apart.

the survey corp is only heroic so long as its enemies are inhuman monsters determined to tear apart 'humanity' for no other reason then the destruction of humanity, once the enemy is no longer inhuman monsters however these stakes change and the survey corp become gradually less and less heroic as an organization and more and more villainous in the eyes of the narrative to the point of the survey corp staging a military coup to install its own governmental figures with plans on forming an empire well murdering all of their competition. The main characters inspirational effect of his near suicidal levels of bravery and aggression become more and more uncomfortable for the people who were close confidents of him, causing said allies to break away from him and the survey corps as a whole in order to do the right thing when eren yeager will not. in that manner it displays how eren and his supporters become trapped in the fascistic cycle of violence and expansion in pursuit of an imaginary freedom and defeat of 'the enemy', well the characters who break away from this cycle attain a true freedom as it were in choosing to do the right thing. [where aot stumbles is in the implications of all this being predetermined, but overall id still regard the narrative as whole as anti fascist].

warhammer 40k retains similar aspects, the imperium makes enemies where it doesnt need to, is brutal in its zeal of implacable enemies, is always looking to expand and is barely kept together by outside pressure. what i would identify as its problem however, especially a lot of the more recent lore, is that it doesn't sufficiently answer that cycle of fascistic violence. not that it supports it per say, brass tacks 40k constantly shows the imperium is a barely coherent mess kept together more so out of stubborn resistance to its enemies then actual cohesion. its more so that as a setting 40k seems largely indifferent to the question of fascistic violence and expansion, space marines for instance. hypnosis indoctrinated children pushed through a physical and mental meat grinder to reshape them into the ideal murder weapon without a concise or at least one unwilling or unable to deny the wishes of the state. thats inherently fucked up, but then why do they still get to play the hero in most situations? why do we only ever hear about the 'good' chapters of the imperium? for me, its not a question of not having heroes in the setting at all, its more so a question of why those heroes arent more closely contrasted against a backdrop of a setting where the dressings are just dressings to hide that enemy and ally alike blend together. why we dont see more state propped up propaganda heroes, why the 'enemy' is always flawed or inhuman in some manner enough that the audience doesn't have to think about the violence around them [in regards to the setting].

ended up writing more about this then i thought i would...