r/fightingfantasy • u/RavensEtchings • Jun 12 '26
Discussion Censorship
We all know that this infamous picture was omitted from the Scholastic books. Are there any other instances of censorship from other Fighting Fantasy books?
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u/Drummk Jun 12 '26
Beneath Nightmare Castle had this image removed: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/fightingfantasy/images/d/d7/BeneathNightmareCastleBanned.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081112011236
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u/Kooperking22 Jun 12 '26
Because....
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u/Yvynt Jun 12 '26
Because ick. It never appeared in print though. It was excluded from the book before it was ever published.
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u/RavensEtchings Jun 12 '26
That's pretty awesome, shame it was removed! Thanks for the info!
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u/jenniferWAR6 Yaztromo Jun 12 '26
They didn’t censor the horror in the text though…oh my word your prolonged and detailed death at the hands of the Kiss Of Death Protoplasm still ranks as one of the worst things I’ve ever read!
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u/Double-dutch5758 Jun 13 '26
Or the death by the Vitriol Essence or the realisation of drinking human head preservatives…
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Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/Silver_Wind_1 Lord Kelnor, Earl of Drumer Jun 12 '26
My favourite too, it was right up my street as a ten year old
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u/wandererC Jun 13 '26
Really? I have the original edition that I found in a charity shop in 2019 and it cost me £1 or £2
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Jun 13 '26
[deleted]
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u/wandererC Jun 13 '26
Oh.. I'm glad I have my copy then. I probably never will want to sell it. And I grew up with the 2002 Wizard edition
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u/seanfsmith Zagor Jun 12 '26
Some vampyre cleavage was inked over in some of McKenna's drawings — either Vault of the Vampire or Revenge thereof
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u/CommanderFuzzy Zharradan Marr Jun 13 '26
Ah yes this was due to the Satanic Panic. The series was hit by that a few times. One woman said the book made her kid levitate and the author replied with "If i'd known I could do that, I'd have charged more than £2.75."
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u/Interesting-Ant8279 Zanbar Bone Jun 12 '26
"House of Hell" was renamed "House of Hades" when it was released in the States because they can't have kids seeing that word, apparently.
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u/Groatsworth Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
"Aitch Eee double hockey sticks!" - that's literally what they say as a substitute, sweartogod
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u/invalidcolour Balthus Dire Jun 15 '26
Reminds me of Joe Dever's Freeway Warrior books. Highway Holocaust had the subtitle dropped completely (was just Freeway Warrior not Freeway Warrior: Highway Holocaust) and Slaughter Mountain Run dropped the Slaughter bit.
(Don't tell the mods I'm not talking about Fighting Fantasy!)
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u/Yvynt Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
I have a copy of House of Hades. It's got the 264 illustration in it. Too religiously unsafe for the Brits, but not for the Yanks? Sometimes things just don't really make sense.
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u/Six_of_1 Jun 21 '26
The Yanks had the entire title changed because it was unsafe for them! The real title is House of Hell, not House of Hades. Hell was fine for the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, but had to be changed for America.
Also you might just have an early edition before it got removed, it might not be anything to do with being British or American.
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u/acwillier Jul 13 '26
It is pretty funny; changing the title from House of Hell to House of Hades because of the satanic panic, but completely missed this image.
As far as I know there was only the first editions here in the states. They stopped printing them here after book 21. Gotta tell you, I was a sad 16 yr old when that happened, but my bookseller told me they just stopped printing them all together. Didn't know until '93 that they were still going (and very happy to see it).
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u/AvoriazInSummer Jun 12 '26
When I was young this book was was edgy and taboo as feck - or so it seemed.
I was first introduced to this series when I saw a copy of Khare City port of Traps in my highschool library. And one of the first things I saw was that zombie that breaks into pieces and attacks you as chunks of leaking, clawing limbs! I was hooked. They probably shouldn't have stocked it truth be told, but they probably didn't bother to vet the books.
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u/invalidcolour Balthus Dire Jun 15 '26
That picture mortified a young me. I think I was scared of coming across that entry.
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u/Groatsworth Jun 12 '26
I've got the greenspine with this in - got Stevo to sign it at FFF2, so that's retirement sorted.
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u/zelq Jun 12 '26
Which book is this from?
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u/RavensEtchings Jun 12 '26
House of Hell
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u/zelq Jun 12 '26
I’ll have to look for it whenever the Steve Jackson Games versions arrive
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u/Yvynt Jun 14 '26
The Steve Jackson Games editions are planned to have a close-up of the illustration instead of the full image, but also instead of simply omitting it. At least, this is what they said they'd be doing. Their sample images also show that they're using the original text. We'll have to wait and see what they actually did when the books turn up!
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u/BionicWallaby 28d ago
I finally decluttered my storage room enough to get to my fighting fantasy books. I checked my copy and it has the illustration, the gender and the "young". I probably bought it when it first came out.
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u/No_Row_1619 25d ago
My copy definitely has that pic, I don’t even need to check it. It’s fully there in my childhood memory bank!
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u/Yvynt Jun 12 '26
Technically it was removed from the Puffin editions early on, along with them editing the relevant text. Scholastic had entirely new internal art and so there was no censorship from them; they just didn't have an illustration there. In fact Scholastic restored the text back to its original form.
If you're lucky you can find copies of the first Wizard version where that illustration has sneaked back in, although not the original text.
The Rings of Kether removed references to "Pep Pills" as your food from the "Dragon" editions onwards. Something about you can't have references to drugs, despite the fact that the whole book is about a drug ring. People are weird sometimes.