This paper explores the Horus Heresy (HH) series – comprising 64 novels and over 10 million words – as a foundational myth within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, using tools from corpus linguistics and the historical approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, particularly following Ruth Wodak’s framework.
While the Warhammer 40,000 setting (W40K) presents a vast and diverse fictional galaxy, the setting as it is made accessible to players is predominantly filtered through the dominant point of view of humanity – specifically, its authoritarian arm, the Imperium of Man.
Drawing from a custom-compiled, annotated corpus of the entire HH narrative, the study examines discursive strategies that construct founding myths centred around the primarchs.
Ultimately, the HH appears as a lore narrative justifying the structure of the W40K universe, taking the form of founding myths of authoritarian regimes centred around deified heroic figures embodying political ideals. What’s even more interesting is that these narratives are not so much intended to underpin the structures of domination in-universe – almost all oppressed people ignore them – but among players. In this way, they represent a trans-medium authoritarian discursive allegory whose study can serve as a proxy for the study of contemporary mechanisms of domination.
This presentation will focus on three points: introducing the framework of corpus analysis and critical discourse analysis, and how HH fits into it; presenting the complete HH corpus and its methods of statistical analysis; illustrating how statistical analysis can be put to use in critical analyses of in-universe structures of domination and the relationship players have with the medium.
By applying Wodak’s historical approach, the analysis reveals how the fictional past is continually re-articulated to legitimize present conditions – both within the narrative and in the reception of the universe by its audience.
Author bios
Mathilde: Just bringing skulls for the skull throne and blood for the Blood God ; also a (corpus) linguist.
Anna Baleige is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, sexologist, community researcher working on the subjugation of community knowledge, a daemonette of Slaanesh, and an enemy of the Imperium.
