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1[[folder: Classic Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]
2* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
3** Are the Garou and Fera noble warriors who serve as the last, best hope against the Wyrm, or childish thugs who waste so much time fighting among themselves that they neglect their common enemy? Are they [[TheAtoner atoners]] who are [[SinsOfOurFathers coping with the consequences of their ancestors' bloody mistakes]], or potential tyrants with social beliefs a modern human would charitably call reactionary who [[AesopAmnesia failed to learn from history and who would dominate humanity again if given the chance]]? Or indeed are they both depending on the tribe?
4** Are the Nuwisha a race of {{trickster mentor}}s who teach important lessons to the Garou and Fera, or lazy troublemakers who would rather sit back and let the Garou do the heavy lifting in the war against the Wyrm?
5** Are the Ratkin and Ajaba vital tools of Gaia who keep the human population in check, or murderers from a barbaric era that has long passed?
6** Are the Ananasi the only faction who can see the big picture, or callous manipulators blindly obeying their goddess?
7** Are the Red Talons {{well intentioned extremist}}s dedicated to the protection of wild places in a [[GaiasLament dying world]], or rabidly misanthropic butchers that embody everything wrong with the Garou's methods?
8** Ultimately, is siding with Gaia in the best interest of humanity as a whole? Or is she an EvilLuddite who would rather they be knocked so far back into primitivism that the Stone Age looks like a pleasant dream than enjoy the benefits of civilization, for reasons of purest dogmatism?
9* AluminumChristmasTrees: The Seventh Generation was likely inspired by a mass panic in the late 80s involving supposed child abuse cults that took years to debunk.
10* {{Anvilicious}}: Civilization and all its fruits are '''''EVIL!'''''
11** Discussed within ''Book of the Weaver'' where the designers point out that ''no'', they don't go around preaching how we'd be better off living in caves -- they're merely telling a story in which two of the three most powerful supernatural entities have gone mad (and the third was never all that sane to begin with) and a self-destructive civilization is one of the results. To create a CrapsackWorld setting, of course they're going to focus on the bad stuff. That said, said book ''does'' include an openly pro-eugenics tract about the evils of modern medicine saving the "inferior" that doesn't really pass the smell test, so take it with a grain of salt.
12--->'''Antonine Teardrop:''' "Millions of people also can only survive through the intervention of modern medicine and its attendant technology; people who, even a mere century ago, would not have lived past early childhood are now living to ripe old ages. From the human point of view, of course, all this is for the best. After all, very few people wish to see their children or other loved ones die of conditions that are, in the modern age, preventable or curable, Darwin be damned. On the other hand, genetic problems that would otherwise be weeded out are instead propagated throughout the human population, weakening the species in general and making humans even more dependent on science and technology for their continued survival ... [[LampshadeHanging I realize that this is a disturbing point for me to argue]]; truly, I must sound almost like a [[TheSocialDarwinist Get]] or [[HobbesWasRight Shadow Lord]] when I talk about the deterioration of the human stock. But it is a real issue; your wolf side should tell you how wrong this feels ..."
13** Played straight in the Pentex splat where it has been stated that there's quite a few things in the book that are barely exaggerated and merely given a spiritual background for the real-world corruption that already exists in the name of the Bottom Line.
14** The Gaia-aligned factions in the game don't necessarily agree on whether human civilization is positive, neutral, or negative. For example, the Red Talon Garou and Ratkin blame human civilization for everything that's wrong with the world. The Glass Walkers, Bone Gnawers, and other city-dwelling shape-changers embrace a more positive outlook on civilization. ''Book of the City'' is ambiguous on the subject. Several Gaia Garou describe cities as snares, "hellish dead places", and playgrounds for the Weaver and Wyrm. One Uktena even describes them as "scabs on the Mother's body made by the parasite Man whom the Wyrm infects". Other Garou depict cities in a more neutral light, likening them to battlefields, obstacle courses, and magnifiers of whatever is in humans' hearts. Some Gaian Garou describe them in glowing terms, describing them as living systems, collections of tools, or beautiful and ever-evolving abodes.
15* BaseBreakingCharacter: [[MisanthropeSupreme The Red Talons]]. You see them as [[KillAllHumans psychotically misanthropic]] {{Designated Hero}}es who exist to act as White Wolf's [[WriterOnBoard authorial beatstick whenever a writer wants to heavy-handedly rant on humanity and civilization's evils]], or {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s with [[JerkassHasAPoint valid points]] whose brutal behaviour is driven by the CrapsackWorld they live in and [[HumansAreBastards WoD-humanity's destructive nature]]; there is no middle ground. Tellingly, their {{spiritual successor}}s in the TabletopGame/ChroniclesOfDarkness are out and out ''villains''.
16* BrokenBase:
17** The revised Black Fury tribebook. On the one hand, some complain that it abandoned many of the feminist themes of the original tribebook -- in other words, throwing out what made the Black Furies distinctive and appealing in the first place. On the other hand, its defenders reasonably argue that their initial characterization and tribebook painted them as the worst kind of {{Straw Feminist}}s:
18--->"We have every reason to hate Man. The catalogue of his outrages against us would fill the Abyss. Across the world in recent years, Man's fear of our rising power has led us into open war with him. But even if Man were faithful to the Goddess, he would still have no place with us. Our way is the way of Artemis, the Virgin huntress, and her purity is our own. We shun Man for his weakness, his place in Gaia's shadow, not for his crimes."\
19"Man can be kind, gentle, respectful and understanding. Like a dog, he may be a faithful companion, but will bite, and bite hard, if he feels himself wronged. Sadly, his confidence is so fragile that any hint of his weakness is often enough to bring him to homicidal rage. Man makes a good lap-dog, but far too often he has rabies, and must be put down for his own good. In the end, the choice is yours. Man is not evil by nature. The Wyrm, however, is only footsteps away from his heart."
20** The existence of ''lupus'' werewolves, with [[InterspeciesRomance all it implies]]. A unique, clever PC background that logically extends from the idea of a "werewolf", a [[BestialityIsDepraved disgusting act of shock-jockery]], or a good idea ruined by White Wolf's glee in trying to be as "punk" and "edgy" with it as possible?
21** ''Freak Legion''. Full of badly written shock-jockery such as the infamous [[VaginaDentata Savage Genitalia]] power and {{Narm}}y attempts at making Pentex even more evil (including what are basically evil Boy Scouts), or a well-written look into the lives of Pentex's [[{{Mooks}} mutant footsoldiers]] that provides legitimately cool examples of BodyHorror for use in games?
22** While 5th edition is a work in progress, it's fair to say the corebook has raised a ''lot'' of consternation in the fandom. Does the book properly focus on the faults and sins of the Garou Nation, or is it acting like the Garou never did anything right in their existence before the Nation collapsed? By downplaying the Garou's oral history or putting it under a fog of war, is it trying to create a clean slate for the new player characters to make something better, or is it saddling them with a "white guilt" state where they know their ancestors sucked but can only dwell in that shame without offering a way to correct it? Does the game properly emphasize direct action and local change, or is it spending too much time telling the players what ''not'' to do in the name of praxis, especially when pointing to the Cult of Fenris's Hauglosk-driven direct action as the greater evil? Has downplaying the ethnic roots of the tribes and Garou spirituality properly erased all the cringe stereotypes while allowing for new avenues for cultural syncretization, or has it gone too far and created an anodyne culture that feels far too "Western default"?
23* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/TheWorldOfDarkness here]].
24* DesignatedHero:
25** The Red Talons. The vast majority want to wipe out the human race, or at the ''best'' leave maybe 10% of us around to make more Kinfolk. Many Storytellers relegated them to NPC-only status, because who the hell wants to play that? Or worse, ''mediate'' for the players when that one misanthrope wants to play one and everyone else has to put up with it? It's telling that their ''Forsaken'' equivalents, the Predator Kings, are out-and-out villains.
26** Some of the more ruthless Fera, such as the Ananasi, Ratkin, and Ajaba, also qualify. The game presents them as servants of a goddess who seeks to restore order to a broken universe (Ananasi), creatures of the Wyld (Ratkin), or agents of the natural order (Ajaba), but their cruel and frequently destructive actions make it very difficult to cheer for them.
27* EsotericHappyEnding: In the Time of Judgment scenario ''Weaver Ascendant'' in which the Wyrm is released from confinement in the Weaver's web, the Weaver and Wyrm become sane again, and the cosmos is restored to balance. However, virtually all the changing breeds have been killed and the human race has been hurled back into the stone age. While it's implied that the spirits of the breeds will be able to help humanity rebuild a better world in the ''long term'', things kinda suck for everyone ''right now''. At the end of said scenario, the Wyrm and Weaver are symbolically depicted as a man and woman at the edge of reality, watching over the cosmos and finally at peace with each other and themselves. In other words, all the pain, struggle, and death of the Apocalypse was nothing more than a cosmic ''lovers' quarrel''.
28* FanonDiscontinuity: Several books are considered this for various reasons, but the revised Children of Gaia Tribebook gets hit especially hard with this, due to the book drastically misunderstanding the Tribe's character and including all sorts of badly-designed rituals.
29* HilariousInHindsight: Granted, it is appropriate, but the ''Changing Breeds'' supplement has one such moment. A werehyena (who are at war with the werelions) stating that they should get back to what matters -- "[[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 killing Simba]]". The Ajaba are, in fact, Ethan Skemp's "Take That" at the "uppity" lions in ''The Lion King''.
30* HoYay:
31** According to the write-ups in the tribebooks and sourcebooks, there is quite a bit (albeit of the "don't ask don't tell" variety) among the Get of Fenris, and more openly among the Black Furies. (Also some among the Fianna, who are known for, [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl having had a few (by Garou standards)]], being indiscriminate with their choice of sexual partners.) And according to the novel ''Breathe Deeply'', Shadow Lords do it in secret rituals.
32** Also, read the Galliard chapter of ''Book of Auspices''. The debate between Samir the Jackal and Malcolm Night-Smile is thick with HoYay.
33** And it doesn't stop there. The narrator of the Ahroun chapter (a Get of Fenris writing it just after World War II, no less) takes a look at all the various romantic possibilities for high-Rage Garou and admits that same-sex loving between two Garou is probably the best option one can get while ''technically'' not breaking the Litany.
34** They still don't hold a candle to the Nuwisha, who have a high level gift called "Teasing Mate", which their Tribe book specifically says is for attracting lovers of the ''same'' gender. That's right, they have an actual Gift for getting some gay lovin'.
35* HumorDissonance: The Nuwisha are presented to readers as hilarious trickster mentors, but your mileage may vary as to whether they're funny or just annoying. This also applies InUniverse, with Garou often finding their actions baffling where the Nuwisha find themselves hilarious.
36* JerkassWoobie:
37** Rorg, the Celestine of the asteroid belt. He's a savage, unstable deity, but it's difficult not to pity him. His realm was destroyed by the Wyrm eons ago, and he's been in physical and psychological agony ever since.
38** Among the tribes, the Wendigo and ''especially'' the Red Talons are violent, angry, and deaf to reason and attempts to reconcile, but the former have been traumatized by the horrific treatment of Native Americans over the last few centuries and the latter are slowly going extinct as the wild wolves of the world die out.
39* MisaimedFandom: Despite the genre-criticism not exactly being subtle, the game still had a strong group of fans who loved it as a hack-and-slash combat game, and an even larger group of detractors who saw it as nothing but this. This is despite it being a game that is, explicitly, one in which absolute evil exists, and you play creatures designed to kill it, to the end result that the world ends and nothing is fixed.
40* MoralEventHorizon: An in-universe example: the Wyrm created numerous "urge wyrms", which are basically [[TheHeartless personifications of bad emotions and impulses]]. Many of the Garou regard him creating Angu (the urge wyrm of cruelty) as evidence he is past redemption.
41* {{Narm}}: [[EvilInc Pentex]] is often accused of being an example of this; between their rather bizarre and nonsensical schemes and StupidEvil tendencies, it's hard not to snicker and roll your eyes when they unveil their latest attempt to [[MayContainEvil corrupt and brainwash the populace with evil energy drinks.]] ''Freak Legion'' presents the nadir of this, with the reveal that they run an evil version of ''the Boy Scouts''.
42* NauseaFuel:
43** Lord Collum, the Maeljin Incarna of Sludge, is an anthropomorphic being made of sewage. His realm in Malfeas is a frozen landscape made of filth.
44** Any Pretanic Order rite in honor of an Elemental Wyrm requires a human sacrifice, after which the devotee devours part of the victim's body. The body part in question depends on which Elemental Wyrm is being honored, but all four scenarios are disgusting.
45* SpiritualAdaptation: The game is a ''significantly'' DarkerAndEdgier ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'', given that it's about magical beings tasked by Gaia to battle deformed madmen polluting the Earth ForTheEvulz.
46* {{Squick}}: You play as a creature whose society can only sustain itself through sex with animals.
47* TearJerker: In a game rife with cosmic tragedy and horror, sometimes it's the little personal tragedies that hit the hardest. One of the sample characters in the Red Talons tribebook is a metis with the Hairless deformity. One of the character's only listed possessions is a nature magazine full of photos of wolves with beautiful, glossy coats.
48* ValuesDissonance: Several of the first edition books from the early 1990s have not aged well because of this.
49** At least two of the first edition books treat autism as a derangement rather than a developmental disorder or a form of neurodiversity. The first edition Corax breedbook states that Corax children whose spirit egg is stolen or destroyed before their first change become autistic. Hunts-at-Night, a Black Spiral Dancer described in ''Warriors of the Apocalypse'', has autism as his derangement, exhibiting autistic traits such as poor social skills, diminished verbal communication, and an all-consuming special interest (hunting).
50** Most of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters from the first edition of the game (especially in ''Warriors of the Apocalypse'') were Wyrm servants. Later editions of the game were more enlightened about LGBTQ+ people, though the occasional severe gaffe does show up.
51** The first edition of the game featured the Seventh Generation, a Wyrm cult that abused and killed children. ''Rage Across New York'' stated that the Seventh Generation sexually abused children so that their victims would go on to abuse others, and that several Seventh Generation leaders were themselves abused as children. The first edition Children of Gaia tribebook also stated that "deep inner wounds" turn children into sadists and sexual predators in adulthood. This plot point was based on the myth than victims of childhood sexual abuse would themselves become sexual predators in adulthood. While this myth was widely believed in the 1990s, when the first edition books were written, it has been largely rejected by the public and [[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2086458 disproven by research]] in the 21st century.
52** The unfortunate racial and cultural implications of Evan-Heals-The-Past make some modern readers uncomfortable. Evan was a white teenage boy, raised as white by white parents in a majority-white country. Because he had a tiny percentage of Native American blood, however, the Wendigo spirit welcomed him into the Wendigo tribe and entrusted him with the task of healing bitterness among his tribemates. Meaning the main sacred duty of the iconic Wendigo is to tell a bunch of indigenous Americans to stop being angry about colonization. ''Icons of Rage'' for 20th Anniversary Edition leans into this, by showing that a number of Wendigo aren't big fans of Evan supposedly being the voice of the tribe, right down to calling him "Evan Steals-the-Past" behind his back (which is a name many Indigenous commentators in real life use to refer to Evan).
53** In earlier editions, many Ratkin saw society as inherently corrupt and wanted to hasten its collapse by spreading chaos. Their goals bear an unfortunate resemblance to 21st century far-right/far-left [[https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch accelerationism]], which has been embraced by some white supremacists.
54** The changing views on portrayal of Indigenous culture in media is why the Uktena and Wendigo tribes were converted into the Ghost Council and the Galestalkers in Fifth Edition; a number of Indigenous commentators were uneasy about having "the" Indigenous tribes named after ''monsters'' out of native myth, though the Wendigo were the major source of contention, as they were a tribe made up almost entirely of Indigenous people who were proud advocates for their heritages and foes of the legacy of colonialism... named after a monster that embodies cannibalism and greed, one that a number of Indigenous commentators aren't even comfortable ''naming'' out of the idea that doing so strengthens it.
55* {{Wangst}}: Subverted. Oh, werewolves (and other Changing Breeds) have ample reasons for sorrow and despair, but they're certainly not supposed to spend their time Wangsting when the world burns around them. In fact, losing one's will to act and succumbing to Wangst is an actual werewolf-specific psychical disorder in this game (and a [[HeroicBSOD pretty serious one]]).
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder: Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition]]
59* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
60** Are the Cult of Fenris actually AlwaysChaoticEvil and irredeemable Nazi scum or are they actually the only Garou who seem interested in stopping environmental collapse?
61** Are the other Garou right to believe that what they'd been doing was pointless or should they be doubling or tripling down now that the environment is about to collapse?
62* BrokenBase: Many fans were not happy with the Get of Fenris being removed as a playable tribe due to two factors. 1) It has long since be established that the Get not only were TheAtoner for their past support for the Nazis and actively purged those that did supported it years ago. And 2) the fact the Red Talons, who want to straight up Genocide the human race were allowed to stay while the Get were removed is very hypocritical.
63* ValuesDissonance: Many environmental activist fans dislike the book's message than the violent bold action that Garou are (in)famous for are decried now as having been worse than the polluters themselves.
64[[/folder]]

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