Speaking of Warhammer, I recently picked up the 'Ciaphas Cain' omnibus featuring a Commissar from the Imperium in Warhammer. Entertaining reading. Ciaphas isn't exactly a noble hero, per se, he just gets railroaded that way by fate despite his efforts to the contrary. More of a scoundrel in hero's clothes.
I haven't read any of the Warhammer 40K fiction myself, but I've heard of that series being called out for just the reasons you describe - the "railroaded hero" aspect providing a touch of humor to the relentlessly (and ridiculously) "GRIMDARK" tone of the Warhammer 40K universe in general.
(This is not to say that Warhammer 40K is "serious." I mean, they've got Orks, for crying out loud, and there's all sorts of cynical, dark humor about ordinary people being doomed because of bureaucratic ineptitude, great disasters being re-spun into victories through propaganda, and so on and so forth. I've just heard this described as "Oh So GRIMDARK" by way of labeling the mindset.)
I think the author actually made fun of the 'typical' Warhammer 40k literature by including snippets of 'other sources' of information in the purported Inquisitorial editorial comments on Ciaphas Cain's private records, being overblown and purple prose-ish.
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Speaking of Warhammer, I recently picked up the 'Ciaphas Cain' omnibus featuring a Commissar from the Imperium in Warhammer. Entertaining reading. Ciaphas isn't exactly a noble hero, per se, he just gets railroaded that way by fate despite his efforts to the contrary. More of a scoundrel in hero's clothes.
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(This is not to say that Warhammer 40K is "serious." I mean, they've got Orks, for crying out loud, and there's all sorts of cynical, dark humor about ordinary people being doomed because of bureaucratic ineptitude, great disasters being re-spun into victories through propaganda, and so on and so forth. I've just heard this described as "Oh So GRIMDARK" by way of labeling the mindset.)
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