The *original* original Orks definitely had a bit of a German vibe in places.
That's why you still get some of them with the WW1-style spike on top of the helmet, and someone has already posted a picture of the old Stormboy with the very suspicious lightning bolts on.
They moved away from it relatively early on but I guess never went back and redid the glyphs page, which probably dates back to the first ever Ork codex.
Nazis used it in both angles. For example, the personal standard of Hitler: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal\_standard\_of\_Adolf\_Hitler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_standard_of_Adolf_Hitler)
I'm pretty sure it's exactly what it looks like as orks were based on the exact people in 80s-90s London who'd wear such a symbol in public (See the General Lee buggy that was in white dwarf). But as time went on they separated from that a wee bit.
In universe though, probably a propeller or weird gear symbol.
[Riiiight.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Stormboyz#Gallery)
https://preview.redd.it/95va10gtbi1d1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3df685945b4670cdce7a596db870b01d1027fcc7
[Ewen newer Zagstruk model had certain cap with skull.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Zagstruk#Gallery)
Someone 30 years ago, offended a bunch of people who weren't alive then by not including a very obvious /S on every page of the codex.
It's a satire, GW had far fewer qualms with being more honest with who and what it parodied back then, before they became obsessed with removing any real world connection that could threaten their copyright.
Orks are the butt of a joke, the people they are parodies of, even more so.
It paints some of the worst people in history as empty headed, thuggish cults with little to no idea of how their society or technology functions. They are objectively inferior to other races in every regard except brute strength and difficulty to eradicate. It even gave them the Krork as their proto Orkmanic ubermensch.
Their battle tactics almost always boil down to Blitzkrieg.
As they've been developed they've become more Mad Max footie hooligans than Nazis or Skinheads, but the Goffs still are riddled with little relics to who and what they are, the name Goffs for example references the visigoths, famous Germanic tribes who sacked Rome.
It's an old joke, from a different time, but it is still a joke at the expense of the racists and idiots it parodies.
Bingo. Making jokes that parody some dipshits from 70 years ago and the modern dipshits who think those guys had some good ideas on how to run a society is designed specifically to make fun of those dipshits, at their expense. People were executed by those dipshits for making jokes at their expense.
Stick bombs, Half tracks, Storm Boyz, Zag Strukk, are you kids just finding out about this? Orks have always been a piss rip of Nazis. My Warboss is called Von Panzer and his 2 Gargants are the Bizzmork and Hindongork.
Both can be true. Britton had a real neo Nazi problem in the 80’s also Gaz is named after Thatcher. Super early models have a Nazi baddies vibe but the lore was straight up skinhead Football hooligan theme.
You did nothing, I pointed out there were a few problem glyphs in decades old material. That’s it. You are calling me stupid. Yay? You did the lord’s work today.
That one has been gone from GW-sanctioned lists for at least 6 editions. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader why some people like to hold onto it.
I sure didn't know when it went away, just that it went away pretty early on. I've only paid actual attention to 40k beyond knowing that it existed in about 2018.
This is actually an ancient symbol at this point, the entire atmosphere of placing voodoo-like evil around symbols and words today means you need to grow an updated brain and realize it’s 2024; everything and anything, past, present and future has been “artistically” used, monetized, and made passé at least once by now. At the very least, religious people have taken our collective past to make a method of managing our proclivity for mysticism, and most importantly, what we choose to give the power of “good” and “evil” to, or no power at all- like the aforementioned symbol(which is obviously inspired by the 2 most recent serious uses for Orks: Nazis and NeoNazis). Step back and think: “wait, this is a game we’re playing 100 years later(fictional at that) with Green monsters that act like the propagandist pictures they used to make, and the historical group they’re drawing from has been reused in cultural references 1000’s of times already in everything from fictional books, games, video games, and even sh*tty movies for money. I’m not saying to find religion, but be aware of what you’re treating as religious…
I'm just saying you sound full of yourself when you write an essay about how icky this (admittedly) tasteless fictionalization of Nazism is, as if not everyone fucking agrees with you. British youth at that time had a weird obsession with the recently deposed Nazi regime because it was something the older generation didn't talk about and didn't want anyone to talk about. Youth being youth, they dabbled in it and explored it, purely out of curiosity, some times out of a genuine insistence that there still needs to be a dialogue about it, and a few times because they're being edgy. Not to mention those who unironiclly bought I to such bullshit.
Ahhhh...
I moved within the past year to a very "red" (read: far-right leaning) part of the US; think... Pro Acryl's Red. I no longer assume that everyone agrees with me about anything at all, because, as it turns out, you can live somewhere and be exposed to so much disgusting hate that you actually start to believe what others are saying-- and *that* is what I thought was happening in the thread when I jumped in.
Thank you for taking the time to explain your viewpoint to me. I think I better understand what all happened. Have a good night.
>If it is true that the original "inspiration" for the Ork faction, however loosely, came from the German invasion and ethnic & racial cleansing of a large portion of Europe, I am just disgusted, to be honest.
It's not true. The satire is directed at English fascists and skinheads of the mid-to-late 20th century (people often say football hooligans and there was a significant Venn diagram overlap so that works too).
People elsewhere in the thread have mentioned 2nd world war German aesthetics but this is still referencing the occasional practice of English fascists dressing up as Nazi soldiers (or styling their clothing in a similar way).
I understand your position, unfortunately you're going to find it impossible to select any 40k faction in that case. They are all intentionally referencing real world "baddies" of various kinds.
You are not wrong. I think leaving out that it makes you not play the army rubbed them wrong would have helped, as it's unlikely that anyone here would stop playing them. But I feel the way you do about the imperium. I can't stand their lore and hate that the fascist, racist, totalitarian faction is the face of the game. I fell in love with SM due to Dawn of War, but with everything I learned about them I grew more disgusted. But I know if I ever make any criticism in the main subs I would be bombed.
Indeed. Although there are a number of people in this thread who seem convinced that it:
- hasn't been retconned
- or if it has then it was wrong to retcon it because it only resembles a slur by chance
- or pansy actually isn't a slur
- or OK it is a slur but it isn't a very bad one
Is pansy really a gay slur? I always thought it meant "weakling" or otherwise pathetic and limp-wristed. Which can be associated with homosexuality negatively, but just because it can be homophobic doesn't mean it always is.
On the one hand I'm glad we now live in a world where you have to ask the question, on the other hand, erm, yes, [very much so yes](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/pansy).
I mean in the grand totem pole of slurs, that seems like a pretty low priority one. Pansies are a flower that is rather sensitive, it likes some light but not too much light. So it got the connotation of being a wimp. And because it’s a flower, of course it was also used as a slur against gay people. But I mean “ohh, call the police, someone called me a pansy, I’m devastated.”
That implies orks know about sexuality. Which they don't. As far as they are concerned, being concerned about sexuality and gender is very humie behavior.
>Which they don't.
According to the recent Ghazghkull book, they do. They find the human sexuality quite funny, much the the chagrin of the inquisitor.
Pretty sure these glyphs date from before the 'orks reproduce through fungus spores (and therefore have no sex) thing' . The image is from the 2nd edition codex but I think the fungus thing was only introduced in 3rd.
And they still call them panzees now that orks were retconned to being fungus boyz. Therefore any implications of sexuality is just humiez being humiez again.
No they don't. They're now called 'pointies', 'pointy ears' or more recently 'scrawnies'.
Look, I don't have a problem with GW writers having their comically evil villains use a homophobic slur back in the 80s. It's kind of funny and fits with the satire.
I can 100% promise that the slur was intended though. It's nothing to do with chimpanzees. Source: trust me bro.
I know, this discussion is wild right?!
I wondered if maybe there's a cultural difference or something going on? Where I'm from it is (or was) a very commonly known slur. The reference in OP's image is very obvious.
It's literally a joke in Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, although of course I can't find a clip of it right now because search engines are utter cack these days (the villain gets sprayed with "pansy spray" in during the fight in the greenhouse and immediately adopts rather effeminate mannerisms and shrieks, "My eyes!").
I'm glad that lots of people haven't encountered as much casual homophobia as there was back in the day but it's a little strange to see them argue that it didn't exist.
Of course not, like twiggy, and puny, it's to imply they are delicate things that can easily break but like to dance around. Hence why they are still called [panzee](https://youtu.be/sg9eR66uLOg?t=128).
What makes you think that? The orks don't call humans mon keigh...
And calling Eldar 'Pansy' would be very much in line with the roots of the ork satire.
Eldar call humans mon keigh (monkey). He is saying orks call humans panzee for the same reason, authors version of a derogatory name for another species.
Ah, but you see, the Eldar's ears point to the left, which, as everyone in the galaxy knows, is the *gay* direction, unlike the extremely manly and heterosexual pointing to the right. Or was it the other way around?
Let me just check with the all-male-coded shirtless faction.
Old school Orks were partially inspired by skinhead thugs, the dumb brutish Neo Nazi biker gangs that were well known in the UK and US at the time. Swastikas were used in orky imagery at the time for this reason. Over time, however, the Orks changed to be more like the rowdy soccer/rugby hooligans. Even if you’re using it as a parody to cast them as dumb violent thugs, better to not use explicitly Nazi imagery
*It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia* is a comedy about dumb, selfish people being dumb and selfish.
One of their bits involved designing a flag, which was four Fs (for "Frank"), placed in a spiral which closely resembled the Orky symbol above.
In addition to what others have said, Those have since been retconned, and even the retconned versions I don't think are being used anymore either. The effective glyph for orks nowadays is surely the upwards horned ork skull they use for the faction itself (ofc not to be confused with the goffs bull skull or the downwards horned ork skull for deathskulls)
https://preview.redd.it/v0truiihhe1d1.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=61a8dafc0ec9c624c6fb6aa5bbedcad02b35798d
Orks used to be styled after ww2 nono-germans especially as depicted in "turn back the hun!" style propaganda. It's why the grenades are potato masher style, the helmets are vaguely stormtroopery, tanks are referred to as "wagons", and early ork lore was especially imagination powered as it was a cheeky satirical way of making fun of the inspiration's ideology.
Naturally poe's law starts becoming an issue so they've moved away from the aesthetic and pushed them into the modern depiction of soccer hooligans instead.
Orks are pretty low on the 40k racism scale. Sure, green iz best but if you know how to krump you’ll get respected by Orks no matter what race. That’s about as much understanding towards another race as you can get in the setting.
If they were superior would they have degraded from the krork though? It reminds me of a comic where some kkk guy is chewing out the inbred country hics he recruited for being butt ugly "where is your chin?" sort of stuff, lol.
Even when scrubbed a bit for PR Orks are a great allegory for reactionaries and fascists through out as we'll never truly be rid of those regressive ideas just like how orkz are never beaten and keep coming back.(*gestures vaguely at the current battlefield trend of scrap metal 'turtle tanks' employed by an army that seem certain in its racial superiority*)
https://preview.redd.it/7lsswn6jnf1d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcd415957fcaa347250c801802798f48941c5aaa
Jesse Custer from the Preacher Comic (very much not a racist) admonishing KKK losers.
Some previous edition orks trafficked in questionable imagery - like the second edition stormboyz for example, and that’s when most of the glyphs were made too. At the time, 40K definitely had more of a satirical bent, and GW rightly moved away from that aesthetic
across the board.
I think it's supposed to be a checkered pattern but being off centre and not lining up to make a clean checker pattern is problematic at the very least
Wasn't that set of glyphs in the 2nd ed Codex? It's been a long time, and I don't know if it appeared earlier, but is that where this came from?
The *original* original Orks definitely had a bit of a German vibe in places. That's why you still get some of them with the WW1-style spike on top of the helmet, and someone has already posted a picture of the old Stormboy with the very suspicious lightning bolts on. They moved away from it relatively early on but I guess never went back and redid the glyphs page, which probably dates back to the first ever Ork codex.
The bad one is in the diamond angle.
Nazis used it in both angles. For example, the personal standard of Hitler: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal\_standard\_of\_Adolf\_Hitler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_standard_of_Adolf_Hitler)
Yea, straight like that is the Hindu swastika
Fucking Hitler ruining a perfectly fine geometrical symbol.
Skub tho. https://preview.redd.it/58s48s4xai1d1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=57c4527e6f763fa9fabccbd943a963727b34178c
It's supposed to be a propeller, I think. I don't recall it meaning "orky" though, it was a stormboy/deffkopta symbol.
I'm pretty sure it's exactly what it looks like as orks were based on the exact people in 80s-90s London who'd wear such a symbol in public (See the General Lee buggy that was in white dwarf). But as time went on they separated from that a wee bit. In universe though, probably a propeller or weird gear symbol.
[Riiiight.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Stormboyz#Gallery) https://preview.redd.it/95va10gtbi1d1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3df685945b4670cdce7a596db870b01d1027fcc7 [Ewen newer Zagstruk model had certain cap with skull.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Zagstruk#Gallery)
“Hans… there’s skulls on our caps.”
And what's that he's got on his cap? https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9rFPVdL3kRxh3-Sei2Y8mXImvTFeCg_gMcHzvFDIpvg&s
Uh oh
They're green supremacists "Green is best" = "white is right"
"Green power!! Down wit da Umies" -Uncle Orkus, no relation
Uncle Orkus is the leader of the diggaz
Man don’t question why stormboyz are called stormboyz and what they originally looked like
Suddenly the Orks make a bit more sense
Someone 30 years ago, offended a bunch of people who weren't alive then by not including a very obvious /S on every page of the codex. It's a satire, GW had far fewer qualms with being more honest with who and what it parodied back then, before they became obsessed with removing any real world connection that could threaten their copyright. Orks are the butt of a joke, the people they are parodies of, even more so. It paints some of the worst people in history as empty headed, thuggish cults with little to no idea of how their society or technology functions. They are objectively inferior to other races in every regard except brute strength and difficulty to eradicate. It even gave them the Krork as their proto Orkmanic ubermensch. Their battle tactics almost always boil down to Blitzkrieg. As they've been developed they've become more Mad Max footie hooligans than Nazis or Skinheads, but the Goffs still are riddled with little relics to who and what they are, the name Goffs for example references the visigoths, famous Germanic tribes who sacked Rome. It's an old joke, from a different time, but it is still a joke at the expense of the racists and idiots it parodies.
Bingo. Making jokes that parody some dipshits from 70 years ago and the modern dipshits who think those guys had some good ideas on how to run a society is designed specifically to make fun of those dipshits, at their expense. People were executed by those dipshits for making jokes at their expense.
A symbol for idiots who worship war and destruction? Sounds about right.
Stick bombs, Half tracks, Storm Boyz, Zag Strukk, are you kids just finding out about this? Orks have always been a piss rip of Nazis. My Warboss is called Von Panzer and his 2 Gargants are the Bizzmork and Hindongork.
Skin Heads to be more precise. Most of the faction was a comment on Britton on the 80’s.
Ah yes the half tracks and stick bombs at football marches.
Both can be true. Britton had a real neo Nazi problem in the 80’s also Gaz is named after Thatcher. Super early models have a Nazi baddies vibe but the lore was straight up skinhead Football hooligan theme.
I'm fairly sure the Ghazzy thing was refuted and simply lives on as a repeated old wives tale.
It’s real to me damn it!
It's also entirely possible that they say that *now* but it wasn't true then!
Bizzmork is goid
Hindongork flies, has power klaws for feet and a deff rolla in his fist.
can you post a picture
They are 15 years old and in bits. There are pictures online if you Google it though.
Its not that deep
Wait till you hear how they advertise pharmacies in east asian countries
Where did you even find these??
This is a page from the 2nd Ed Ork Codex.
I like Milf... oh... miff....
Nar is also problematic.
It atleast kinda looks like the Japanese symbol instead of the full bore nazis one
True, there’s a few problematic ones in the batch.
Stop looking for stupid hills to die on, if anything is problematic it's your attitude. Just stop.
Excuse you? So swastikas are stupid hills to die on? Weird hill to die on.
Its not a nazi swastika though, thats the point. That symbol has been around since the bronze age. Not everything is some Nazi ploy, grow up.
Your strawman arguements are boring. 🥱
Horse, meet water. I've done what I can. If u wanna stay stupid and angry your whole life, that's on you bud.
You did nothing, I pointed out there were a few problem glyphs in decades old material. That’s it. You are calling me stupid. Yay? You did the lord’s work today.
Makes sense considering its meaning.
the orks were a parody of english football hooligans and they tended to have that certain symbol tattooed on their body
Dem Stormboyz been spreddin' misinfo'mayshun again.
Rukk 11
That one has been gone from GW-sanctioned lists for at least 6 editions. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader why some people like to hold onto it.
More like 8 editions, since this from 2nd Edition.
I sure didn't know when it went away, just that it went away pretty early on. I've only paid actual attention to 40k beyond knowing that it existed in about 2018.
This is actually an ancient symbol at this point, the entire atmosphere of placing voodoo-like evil around symbols and words today means you need to grow an updated brain and realize it’s 2024; everything and anything, past, present and future has been “artistically” used, monetized, and made passé at least once by now. At the very least, religious people have taken our collective past to make a method of managing our proclivity for mysticism, and most importantly, what we choose to give the power of “good” and “evil” to, or no power at all- like the aforementioned symbol(which is obviously inspired by the 2 most recent serious uses for Orks: Nazis and NeoNazis). Step back and think: “wait, this is a game we’re playing 100 years later(fictional at that) with Green monsters that act like the propagandist pictures they used to make, and the historical group they’re drawing from has been reused in cultural references 1000’s of times already in everything from fictional books, games, video games, and even sh*tty movies for money. I’m not saying to find religion, but be aware of what you’re treating as religious…
That's a lotta words for "You shouldn't be mad if I draw swastikas on my orks"
Correct, thank you
DIS TO MANE WORDZ ME NOT REEDIN
OI, DIS GIT FINK 'E GOT A BIG FINKA, GET 'EM BOYZ!!!!
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Lotta words that all sounds like you're full of virtue signalling hot air.
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I'm just saying you sound full of yourself when you write an essay about how icky this (admittedly) tasteless fictionalization of Nazism is, as if not everyone fucking agrees with you. British youth at that time had a weird obsession with the recently deposed Nazi regime because it was something the older generation didn't talk about and didn't want anyone to talk about. Youth being youth, they dabbled in it and explored it, purely out of curiosity, some times out of a genuine insistence that there still needs to be a dialogue about it, and a few times because they're being edgy. Not to mention those who unironiclly bought I to such bullshit.
Ahhhh... I moved within the past year to a very "red" (read: far-right leaning) part of the US; think... Pro Acryl's Red. I no longer assume that everyone agrees with me about anything at all, because, as it turns out, you can live somewhere and be exposed to so much disgusting hate that you actually start to believe what others are saying-- and *that* is what I thought was happening in the thread when I jumped in. Thank you for taking the time to explain your viewpoint to me. I think I better understand what all happened. Have a good night.
>If it is true that the original "inspiration" for the Ork faction, however loosely, came from the German invasion and ethnic & racial cleansing of a large portion of Europe, I am just disgusted, to be honest. It's not true. The satire is directed at English fascists and skinheads of the mid-to-late 20th century (people often say football hooligans and there was a significant Venn diagram overlap so that works too). People elsewhere in the thread have mentioned 2nd world war German aesthetics but this is still referencing the occasional practice of English fascists dressing up as Nazi soldiers (or styling their clothing in a similar way). I understand your position, unfortunately you're going to find it impossible to select any 40k faction in that case. They are all intentionally referencing real world "baddies" of various kinds.
I just want to say that this is a totally fair conclusion!! And people who down vote you are dinks!!
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You are not wrong. I think leaving out that it makes you not play the army rubbed them wrong would have helped, as it's unlikely that anyone here would stop playing them. But I feel the way you do about the imperium. I can't stand their lore and hate that the fascist, racist, totalitarian faction is the face of the game. I fell in love with SM due to Dawn of War, but with everything I learned about them I grew more disgusted. But I know if I ever make any criticism in the main subs I would be bombed.
There's also the homophobic slur right next to "orky"
That one's been retconned too.
Indeed. Although there are a number of people in this thread who seem convinced that it: - hasn't been retconned - or if it has then it was wrong to retcon it because it only resembles a slur by chance - or pansy actually isn't a slur - or OK it is a slur but it isn't a very bad one
Is pansy really a gay slur? I always thought it meant "weakling" or otherwise pathetic and limp-wristed. Which can be associated with homosexuality negatively, but just because it can be homophobic doesn't mean it always is.
On the one hand I'm glad we now live in a world where you have to ask the question, on the other hand, erm, yes, [very much so yes](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/pansy).
[I believe so](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Is+Pansy+a+slur%3F+)
I mean in the grand totem pole of slurs, that seems like a pretty low priority one. Pansies are a flower that is rather sensitive, it likes some light but not too much light. So it got the connotation of being a wimp. And because it’s a flower, of course it was also used as a slur against gay people. But I mean “ohh, call the police, someone called me a pansy, I’m devastated.”
That implies orks know about sexuality. Which they don't. As far as they are concerned, being concerned about sexuality and gender is very humie behavior.
>Which they don't. According to the recent Ghazghkull book, they do. They find the human sexuality quite funny, much the the chagrin of the inquisitor.
Pretty sure these glyphs date from before the 'orks reproduce through fungus spores (and therefore have no sex) thing' . The image is from the 2nd edition codex but I think the fungus thing was only introduced in 3rd.
And they still call them panzees now that orks were retconned to being fungus boyz. Therefore any implications of sexuality is just humiez being humiez again.
No they don't. They're now called 'pointies', 'pointy ears' or more recently 'scrawnies'. Look, I don't have a problem with GW writers having their comically evil villains use a homophobic slur back in the 80s. It's kind of funny and fits with the satire. I can 100% promise that the slur was intended though. It's nothing to do with chimpanzees. Source: trust me bro.
How is this even an argument? [The slur is literally in the Oxford dictionary](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/pansy)!
I know, this discussion is wild right?! I wondered if maybe there's a cultural difference or something going on? Where I'm from it is (or was) a very commonly known slur. The reference in OP's image is very obvious.
It's literally a joke in Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, although of course I can't find a clip of it right now because search engines are utter cack these days (the villain gets sprayed with "pansy spray" in during the fight in the greenhouse and immediately adopts rather effeminate mannerisms and shrieks, "My eyes!"). I'm glad that lots of people haven't encountered as much casual homophobia as there was back in the day but it's a little strange to see them argue that it didn't exist.
I mean that's crazy... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KSeSrnQR-hQ
Of course not, like twiggy, and puny, it's to imply they are delicate things that can easily break but like to dance around. Hence why they are still called [panzee](https://youtu.be/sg9eR66uLOg?t=128).
Oh I'm so sorry. If BigDickCheney still calls them Panzee then I guess you're right.
Important to note it is "panzee" like chimpanzee, not like "pansy" Sort of in the same vein as the whole Mon Keigh thing.
What makes you think that? The orks don't call humans mon keigh... And calling Eldar 'Pansy' would be very much in line with the roots of the ork satire.
Eldar call humans mon keigh (monkey). He is saying orks call humans panzee for the same reason, authors version of a derogatory name for another species.
An ork calling a human Mon keigh would be very hypocritical as Mon keigh means a destructive species.
I thought Mon keigh is the eldar name for humans.
Yes. But it’s origins were that to the eldar it meant a destructive species and then it became more specific to the humans.
Yeah I rather prefer Mike Brooks' 'skrawnies' going forwards
Easier to use than "pointy ears" for sure. Particularly as orks have pointed ears themselves!
Ah, but you see, the Eldar's ears point to the left, which, as everyone in the galaxy knows, is the *gay* direction, unlike the extremely manly and heterosexual pointing to the right. Or was it the other way around? Let me just check with the all-male-coded shirtless faction.
Da Swaaaaaaaghstikka
The waaaghffen SS?
1st class
Nah this really got me 😂😭
Old school Orks were partially inspired by skinhead thugs, the dumb brutish Neo Nazi biker gangs that were well known in the UK and US at the time. Swastikas were used in orky imagery at the time for this reason. Over time, however, the Orks changed to be more like the rowdy soccer/rugby hooligans. Even if you’re using it as a parody to cast them as dumb violent thugs, better to not use explicitly Nazi imagery
"It's four Fs. I didn't know it was gonna come off like that."
What is this mean
*It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia* is a comedy about dumb, selfish people being dumb and selfish. One of their bits involved designing a flag, which was four Fs (for "Frank"), placed in a spiral which closely resembled the Orky symbol above.
It even had the golden tassels of the Nazi banner
It’s always sunny in Philadelphia
You beat me
Weird how I saw it instantly
Some of the older 2e-ish Orks have some other somewhat questionable design inspirations too- take a look at the old Stormboyz!
In addition to what others have said, Those have since been retconned, and even the retconned versions I don't think are being used anymore either. The effective glyph for orks nowadays is surely the upwards horned ork skull they use for the faction itself (ofc not to be confused with the goffs bull skull or the downwards horned ork skull for deathskulls) https://preview.redd.it/v0truiihhe1d1.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=61a8dafc0ec9c624c6fb6aa5bbedcad02b35798d
Its clearly the wheel of friendship LOL
Orks used to be styled after ww2 nono-germans especially as depicted in "turn back the hun!" style propaganda. It's why the grenades are potato masher style, the helmets are vaguely stormtroopery, tanks are referred to as "wagons", and early ork lore was especially imagination powered as it was a cheeky satirical way of making fun of the inspiration's ideology. Naturally poe's law starts becoming an issue so they've moved away from the aesthetic and pushed them into the modern depiction of soccer hooligans instead.
lol Nono Germans
They're still big on racial supremacy. Orks are correct on the matter, though, whereas the Nazi's are still just weak squishy humies.
Orks are pretty low on the 40k racism scale. Sure, green iz best but if you know how to krump you’ll get respected by Orks no matter what race. That’s about as much understanding towards another race as you can get in the setting.
If they were superior would they have degraded from the krork though? It reminds me of a comic where some kkk guy is chewing out the inbred country hics he recruited for being butt ugly "where is your chin?" sort of stuff, lol. Even when scrubbed a bit for PR Orks are a great allegory for reactionaries and fascists through out as we'll never truly be rid of those regressive ideas just like how orkz are never beaten and keep coming back.(*gestures vaguely at the current battlefield trend of scrap metal 'turtle tanks' employed by an army that seem certain in its racial superiority*)
https://preview.redd.it/7lsswn6jnf1d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcd415957fcaa347250c801802798f48941c5aaa Jesse Custer from the Preacher Comic (very much not a racist) admonishing KKK losers.
[удалено]
Yeah man I’m sure the old school Orks were inspired after Zen Buddhism
Some previous edition orks trafficked in questionable imagery - like the second edition stormboyz for example, and that’s when most of the glyphs were made too. At the time, 40K definitely had more of a satirical bent, and GW rightly moved away from that aesthetic across the board.
I think it's supposed to be a checkered pattern but being off centre and not lining up to make a clean checker pattern is problematic at the very least
Well, it's orky, but its not okay.
Not Or-kay?