PETA, Games Workshop And Are You really Doing This?

To me this is a bit like asking a vegetarian to give up meat. I cannot think of any nerd I have ever known that would wear a fox fur jacket or any other kind of animal fur. Let alone contemplate the pros and cons of the matter. A bit of fake fur trim n a jacket is about as close as they would probably come. This PETA statement is about making a rather pointless statement to people who are pretty much irrelevant to the debate. Not uninterested but irrelevant.

I am a nerd. I like nerdy things. I see nerdom everywhere I go. For the most part nerdom is pretty far removed from the real world. Things in history. Things in the future. Things from alternative realities. Other than history, things from unreal places and times clearly do not reflect the world as it happens around us. I have some sympathy for animals. I have pets so it is not just I like animals roast on a stick kind of thing. Killing something just for it's hide seems perverse to me. Killing something that is going to end up in a pie with it's hide being used for leather seems a lot less perverse. Plus I like pies.

Historically people wore fur. Are PETA going to write to every manufacturer of Dark Age miniatures for instance, asking them not to use fur on their viking miniatures then? What about stopping Zulu miniatures from wearing cheetah skins? They seem to have singled out 40k and not the fantasy game because it's newsworthy and GW is a big worldwide company. I can see that this is all about changing attitudes towards fur. Things still need to change but the reality is that this is about as obscure an idea as you can get. It seems inherently crazy to ask a company like GW to alter a product for nerds.

How far do you take it? No fur in films and TV. What about comics? What about fake fur anywhere? Maybe we ban Chewbacca from all Star Wars films. Mind you that might be a blessing if it means you can get rid of Ewoks as well. Super heroes end up killing people, often lots of people so lets get rid of them too. Lets get rid of science fiction, war, action adventure and cop films not to mention westerns. It is just crazy to ask things like this of people.

It's a wargame. Why be bothered about having a miniature with a little bit of fur? Wargames involve shooting and killing. If you are going to ask for a ban on fur as a product placement why not ask to ban wargaming altogether. I cannot help but think this must have been a slow news day at PETA and someone's mum, who works for them objects to paying the obscene prices that GW are asking.