Five Reasons Why The Custodes Can (And Should) Have Female Members
Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com
For the past several months, certain parts of the Warhammer community have been vociferous in their statements that the Adeptus Custodes, the Emperor of Mankind’s elite bodyguard, cannot have female members, in direct contradiction to recent comments made by Games Workshop stating they can. These feelings came to a head recently as a range refresh for the Custodes for the Horus Heresy vertical of the tabletop game featured female head sculpts, affirming the Custodes to have female members. CultureSlate thought it would be a good time to interject and make it clear that it is perfectly okay, if not perhaps necessary, for the Custodes to have female members using five key reasons.
5. Lore Is Always Changing
Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com
Some of the arguments against the inclusion of female Custodes relies on years of prior statements, phrasing and storytelling that has implied only men form the ranks of the Custodes. This is true…but it is also true that a lot of what was stated in lore from as recently as the 2000s and certainly before that, would be considered outdated and incorrect by lore readers today. Indeed, the in-universe explanation for erroneous lore, or very strange characterizations across real-world decades of time, is that due to the vastness of the Imperium of Man, scribes can get information wrong.
It helps that much of the older lore, and even reference-style lore today, is purposefully written in the style of reports and records rendered by figures in the universe. Some people strongly dislike this, and wish to catalogue Warhammer lore as canon, non-canon, or retconned, but like many fictional franchises, that line can blur in many places. Here, it is simply the case that female Custodians have seemingly been overlooked by available records until this point, and who knows, maybe the yet-to-be-released new Custodes lore coming with the refreshed models will address this point.
RELATED:
4. The Sisters of Silence Are Not Equivalent
Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com
The Sisters of Silence are an elite all-female force of black-armored badasses in service to the Emperor who seek out Psykers to feed to the Golden Throne, thus maintaining the Emperor’s lifeforce…or whatever it is that’s clinging on in the Throne Room. The Sisters work closely with the Custodes, and some fans have expressed annoyance that the Sisters appear to have been overlooked, and neglected, when they already existed if Games Workshop wanted to add more female representation within the Imperium’s elite warriors. But the Sisters are not an equivalent to female Custodes because of the inherent inequalities that exist between those two groups.
Silent Sister lore can be read as incredibly sexist, as an all-woman order made up of Blanks, physically null persons who actively repel other forms of life. They also often swear vows of silence, and wear body armor which isn’t exactly practical or at times, protective. Certainly, some of them do talk and are prominent characters in recent novels and storytelling, but the overarching lore of women who make everyone’s skin crawl, who don’t talk, and do some of the most horrible, thankless work in the Imperium of Man, really isn’t equal to a perfected entity of genetic refinement highly praised and well respected by almost every person of political power in the Imperium. There are more comparisons or arguments to be had (certainly, Sisters should get a range refresh themselves soon!), but we firmly believe that just expanding the Sisters of Silence is not the answer to greater integration of female roles in the Imperium’s elite.
3. The Sisters Of Battle Are Not Equivalent
Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com
The Sisters of Battle are militarized nuns raised and trained to fight for the Adeptus Ministorum, the church of the Imperium, after the faith’s leadership was banned from maintaining armies of men-under-arms. Sisters' lore heavily draws from ideas about the medieval Catholic Church, and they are broadly interesting characters in the stories where they appear, but they also run into similar issues as Silent Sisters.
Their combat presentation is often very gendered, while their obsession with penitence, redemption and sin means they don’t leave much room for wider viewpoints. They are instead very likely to damn people for the slightest infractions of faith, and they are also often rabid xenophobic pyromanics with some extremely intense lore (though to be fair, almost all Warhammer factions do). This means you sometimes can’t really connect with them if you’re of a mindset to avoid some of the more extreme areas of the Warhammer lore.
There is also the issue with the idea that an army of all women should remain the only way for people who want elite female warriors in the Imperium to participate in the hobby. That is prohibitively restrictive, in light of many other armies including female models in their ranks without the gender binary. Much like the Sisters of Silence, but especially because the Sisters of Battle range is larger, the answer is not “Just play/let them add more Battle Sisters”.
2. You Don’t Have To Use Them!
Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com
Here’s the biggest thing with the female heads for the upcoming Custodes range: You don’t have to use them when you build your Custodes. While there may be fewer male-presenting heads as a result of the inclusion of female heads, we would hazard a guess that enough heads exist to make one’s unit of models all men or all women. If it isn’t, there are still the helmets you can put on your models, which means you can state which gender you prefer is under that helmet. While that might annoy some who prefer to have the helmets off their models, there are sure to also be methods for acquiring non-female heads or more helmets if anyone really is really focused on a particular format of presentation.
The whole range has female Custodes as an OPTION, not a mandatory must-use-all-men-dead-in-a-ditch situation. Some are responding to the range reveal as if the more extreme option is what is happening, but that is far from the truth. You simply do not have to use the female heads if you personally, for whatever reason, prefer to use the male ones.
1. This Isn’t Just About Appealing To Female Players
Image Source: Warhammer-Community.com
Some have been extremely cynical about the range refresh and claim that the only reason Games Workshop is doing this is to get more women to play the game. This writer has also seen some reactions from women online opposed to the new models, but more on aesthetic grounds than the idea that their existence is somehow an affront to Warhammer lore. Other women appear enthusiastic about the new models, but ultimately, this move is not just an attempt to get a certain demographic into the game (though we will not act like this choice isn’t at least partially driven by that kind of thinking).
Instead, it seems likely a key reason Games Workshop is doing this is to help their game better reflect the real world. Women are half of the current global population and unless the Emperor of Mankind is an egregious sexist, there is no reason why his genetically perfect companions numbering 10,000 elite individuals cannot feature SOME women in their ranks given the Custodes have existed for over 10,000 years. He is the Emperor of all of mankind, women are part of humanity, and there is no reason why he wouldn’t see women as equal to men.
We mentioned it earlier, but many other ranges where mono-gender recruitment is not upheld as a critical fact have seen considerable and growing inclusion of female sculpts for heads and bodies, to make it clear that women play a role in the broader 40K galaxy. The Custodes may be an example of what could become a loosening of what, broadly, are very restrictive aspects of Imperium lore that favor an outdated view of gender roles and participation of the sexes. Or, it might not be, and this is just one choice being made and reinforced, without any further movement made other mono-gendered Imperial armies.
We’ll likely have to wait quite a while to see if that proves correct, as it may be some weeks before the new Custodes even reach the hands of players and many more months if the overall reaction prompts any response from Games Workshop. In the meantime, we should sit back, and enjoy the new wonderfully detailed models as well as the many other releases for various factions Games Workshop has coming down the pipeline.
CultureSlate: Made by humans, for humans.
Please consider supporting our AI-free content via our Patreon page.
READ NEXT:
Latest News
Featured
