/lit/ - Literature

>>11882548
and any use of 40K art or aesthetics in general that i might use isn't really there to critique either 40K or girardian thought; if anything, the aesthetic of 40K is a kind of satire raised to such an exquisite degree that it becomes a kind of high art in itself.

the Emprah himself is purest freudian death-wish, but the science-fiction component of that world goes directly to the nerve-cluster of what makes this stuff interesting in both a literary and a philosophical capacity. the Emprah is both dead and not-dead, and his throne is both throne and tomb. the more awesome the aesthetics become, the more horrifying is the reality of what lies within it, and vice-versa. the whole balance of the universe of 40K hangs on this distinction, the sense in which the Emperor is both living and unliving, physically located in a single place and yet psychically present everywhere. his presence sustains the entire cosmology, but the fundamental lore is predicated on there being no substantially new plot developments either. were it so the whole thing would collapse.

40K - Catholic Space Nazis - are probably the supreme aesthetic example of girardian stuff, and it is what i would run and not walk to deploy if i were trying to get people unfamiliar with his ideas interested in his thinking and why he matters. the Eternal Crusade founded on the tomb of an undying god-king has been fascinating for decades and will continue to do so. and in the case of culture and aesthetics, it is worlds upon worlds of fun.

but IRL it's different. IRL we do not actually have the Emprah, and there are no orks, tyranids or genestealer cults. it doesn't mean we still can't have war, and we will. it's that there will be *profound confusion* as to who the good guys and the bad guys are. all that we will know - or be told - is that There Can Only Be One. and who knows, theologically this may be true; politically, not so much.