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We live in a grossly unheroic world. Most people over the age of ten can tell you that believing something is true does not make it so, and most people over the age of fifteen know that when someone offers you a hand, you’d better be prepared to give them a bit of cash or help them move a couch.

Traditional heroes don’t line up with our world on a good day. And this mismatch is all the more insulting for those of us following the fantasy genre. Who among us has not thought about Aragorn’s coronation and let off a bitter laugh as we try to reverse an atomic wedgie?

We’re dorks. We get picked on, knocked down, tongue-tied, and most of the time, defeated. We do our own awkward battle in a world where cute boys stare past us and pretty girls forget we exist, which makes marrying them at the end of the story kind of difficult. We come in every color and shape, and according to society’s rather narrow standards, most of them aren’t ideal. We do the right thing and help one another, and get laughed at for it.

No, the problem with the classical heroes isn’t the heroes- it’s the stories they live in. The truth is we grew up with these do-gooders as our idols, and we try to live up to their ideals every day. But we know how their stories actually play out, and reading about their happy endings insults our intelligence and serves as an ugly reminder: We’re probably never going to come out looking that good.

We want the truth instead. The more we see the bad in the world, the more we need heroes who experience similar troubles and survive them. Forget triumphing over their challenges, or even meeting them – we just want someone who makes it to the next act without becoming a complete monster.

"Prepare thyself to enter a world of daemons and vile sorcery, of battle and death, of violence and of madness."
"The fate of the world, be it damnation or salvation will soon be decided. This is a world of eternal war and fleeting glory. This is the world of Warhammer."
"The gods of strife shall feast upon this day, and every day hence, until the end of time."
Excerpts from the introduction to the 8th edition rulebook of Warhammer

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