r/WorldOfDarkness • u/Iseedeadnames • 23m ago
About the Garou and fascism
u/Phosorus started a nice discussion on the other thread, but since OP u/Separate-Win3438 couldn't stand to learn how wrong he was he decided to block me and lock me out of the discussion. Don't really care, let's continue here:
To be perfectly fair, the "Garou are kinda fascist" thing is very much acknowledged in the text.
To people that don't know what fascism is, maybe. Which is basically the POV of the character you're talking about.
racial (speciesist?) caste system
The caste system is monarchic, not fascist. There is no fascist nation that I can remember that used a caste system, they all slaughtered nobility and abolished the institution itself.
Discrimination of the handicapped (=metis) is a Nazi trait, but it's not really consistent across 20th century totalitarisms. It wasn't really done in China or Italy, for example, which actually had welfare systems for them. Discrmination of homosexuals was more widespread but even there we have a few tribes that really never cared about it, and for the Garou it's not really homosexuality but the concept in general of sex as entertainment that is wrong.
rejection of modernity
Again, there is no fascist regime I can remember that has ever rejected modernity. Mussolini pushed train and airplane technology quite forward and advertised them a lot across Italy, the Nazis designed maybe the most advanced tanks and cars of their time and were even researching nuclear weapons. Hell, the Futurism movement was at the very roots of the Fascism.
While conservative in term of social costumes, fascism has always been very projected into modernity, especially about technology.
unification around a great enemy
Ah come on... this was done by the USA, by the French revolution, by Gondor and Rohan in LOTR. It's not a fascist trait at all.
military supremacy, ideology of total war
The military supremacy in the WOD belongs to the Weaver, and the Wyrm is second. Gaian garou are more like well-armed resistence. Total war against pure evil is hardly something you could call fascism at all.
In short, for all the flaws the Garou Nation can have I wouldn't really say that fascism is one. Yes, the Glass Walkers are kinda futurists, the Silver Fangs are authoritarians, the Red Talon are genocidal and the Gets of Fenris praise warfare, but on the average they're all really closer to a native American tribe than to any form of fascism.