Today welcomes the explosive first episode of Interrogator’s second act. No more waiting – you can catch it right now on Warhammer TV.
Fans of the show will know that it contains some strong stuff, but the latest episode dials the grimness right up. We’ve got torture, psychic-suppressing drugs, and all the brisk language we’ve come to expect from the potty-mouthed Interrogator Jurgen. So how does swearing work in the Dark Millennium? We called on the remarkably well-spoken Adam Troke to investigate.
AT: Feth, but there are a lot of reasons to swear in the grim darkness of the far future… Rage, hate, and fear are the rawest of emotions, and sometimes we need our heroes (or villains) to make some noise about them! Of course, in an Imperium of a million worlds there are that many ways to express every such feeling – with a multitude of examples across the pages of Black Library and in each Warhammer animation.
Many years ago, much to my late mother’s chagrin, I owned a t-shirt with “Hard as Feth” emblazoned across the back. As a fan of the Gaunt’s Ghosts series, it delighted me – but the hardest thing about “feth” turned out to be defining it, which I found myself doing a great deal as I wore it around town. It was a pretty cool t-shirt, and it helps me illustrate an important point.
One of the unique challenges of exploring the Warhammer 40,000 setting in writing or animation is keeping things rooted. It’s oppressively grim, and our protagonists need to express their emotions – nothing ruins immersion quite like false indignation.** But Warhammer is for everyone, and many don’t appreciate language strong enough to turn an Archon's ears blue, so our writers have got creative over the years. Here are my cheeky top-five pseudo-swears!
Feth
The calling-card of the Tanith First-and-Only, “feth” is so versatile that you can “fething well use a tread-fether to feth up a fething tank” before inviting someone to “feth off back to the fethed-up feth-hole you came from”. It’s the perfect example of a completely made up word that just sounds right – and it’s just about ambiguous enough that nobody needs to be genuinely offended.
Frag
This has done the rounds for decades, calling out the humble fragmentation grenade. Frag is perfect for when you want to “frag up a room full of feth-wipes”. Perhaps the only limitation is the dual meaning, which can cause confusion. If you tell someone to frag themselves, does it involve self-detonation with a stikkbomb? Not the kind of insult you want to hurl at an Ogryn.
Grox
The far future has a wealth of dietary options beyond corpse starch – such as delicious grox meat. These reptilian livestock are farmed across the Imperium,*** and they’re none too bright. Thus, grox is one of the tamer pejoratives. You can be dumb as a grox, stink like a grox, and even be a grox-lover. It can even be used as a compliment – perhaps you’re as tough or strong as a grox? See, we’re learning things!
Throne
Sweet golden throne of Terra, it’s nice to dive into the maniacal theocratic heart of the Imperium. When your squad’s “taking a throne-damned beating from that warp-cursed traitor artillery”, you’re in the right neighbourhood. And warp-cursed is the flip side of it – if your protagonist is knowledgeable enough to know anything about the warp, then they know it’s dangerous, not to be trusted. That always makes for good profanity!
Git
The nice thing about Orks is that their most egregious insults tend to work just as well for people they admire. Every Ork has a favourite git or two, and while Chaos Space Marines might be “spiky gitz”, even that is grunted with a hint of grudging respect.
Even at the end of our etymological journey, so many questions are left unanswered. How does a Space Marine swear? Do the Ecclesiarchy get offended by throne-related curses – or are they more holy than the alternative? How about T’au? They always seem so calm, but we bet La’koma could swear up a storm…
Interrogator isn’t the only awesome piece of Warhammer+ content landing this week. We have a Citadel Colour Masterclass on painting a Sons of Horus Praetor, a Loremasters episode all about the Imperial Fists on Warhammer TV, and yet more new content for the Warhammer Vault.
* I’ll save you looking it up – it’s a forest spirit on Tanith. Or, er, it was…
** When the Siege of Terra gets to the final confrontation between Emperor and Warmaster, I’ll bet there are words stronger than ‘rotter’, ‘scoundrel’ and ‘scallywag’ being thrown about.
*** Grox can eat basically anything – so much like anything the Imperium finds useful, they’re treated cruelly and kept in vast numbers. You’ll find a picture in the original Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, on page 213.