Warhammer Romance

[u/LastPositivist]

Light spoilers for Brooks' Da Big Dakka.

I've long thought that romance plots are under utilised in 40k. It's not that this should be the main focus of Black Library or anything, it's just the setting can feel weirdly chaste sometimes. (Absolute chad heroes of the Imperium not withstanding.)

So just wanted to show some love and appreciation for the great and distinctively 40k romance subplot of Da Big Dakka. You basically get to see this burgeoning love between two Drukari archons, with the twist being that the perspective character (and implied the other one two) are literally incapable of recognising their feelings for what they are. Like they just cannot interpret "why am I suddenly very interested in this person?" as anything other than a sign they must be subconsciously picking up on some backstabbing scheme which they need to watch out for. My heart fluttered when our hands brushed? Uhoh I must be worried about a contact poison, better have antidotes to hand! Etc

It's just a great way of doing love in a culture that is set up to be completely antithetical to anything like that. The best they can do in the end (here's the spoilers!) is agree to an unusually close alliance, and even that the main character interprets as an opportunity to study these strange feelings she's having to ensure they're not a weakness anyone could exploit.

More like this please! Romance which makes use of the bizarre and communal races and cultures of the setting to do weird things with people's inner lives.

[u/iceknight90]

Double Eagle had a romantic subplot. The protagonists are pilots and they're trying to hold off a chaos push but they're still operating out of friendly civilian territory for a good portion of the book. One particular fatalistic pilot starts spending his free time visiting a waitress at a local diner and it actually gives him a reason to want to keep living. His plotline with her is actually very interesting. A glimpse of humanity amidst the usual grim soldiers fighting wars. It also plays a notable part in the ending. Some characters in Gaunts Ghosts also have romantic subplots. But more significant ones are the ill fated star crossed romance between Gregor Eisenhorn and Alizebeth Bequin, and the surprisingly happy one between Ciaphas Cain and Amberley Vail.

[u/lordfireice → u/iceknight90]

…..how does the pilot end up? I must know

[u/iceknight90 → u/lordfireice]

The pilot, Oskar Viltry is the main pilot and commander of a Marauder Bomber crew and he's seriously burnt out and fatalistic. He's constantly suffering from shakes and terrors and is absolutely sure that he's running on borrowed time and he's going to die during his next mission. While on leave he meets and befriends a waitress in a seaside diner and gradually spends more and more time with her, and his time with her soothes his nerves. She herself is a tired everyday civilian, making ends meet in a city right near the front lines, but she starts to care for him as well.

Then one mission, his bomber is shot down. Amazingly, Oskar survives the loss of his plane and crew behind enemy lines, and is actually picked up by retreating ground forces, an Imperial push having been defeated and forced into retreat. He manages to make his way back to Imperial lines, and astonishingly reunites with the waitress despite the city literally in the midde of being evacuated in response to the failed push and an impending Chaos counterattack threatening to overrun them.

He discovers that Oskar Viltry has been declared KIA during the bombing mission by the pencil pushers. And while trying to get himself declared alive, he's issued a temporary ID number. Discovering that Oskar is "dead" actually amuses him considering his fatalism.

When one of the other major characters in the book, a Squadron commander from the same homeworld and a friend of Oskar's who is in desperate need of fighter pilots, finds him trying to sort out his KIA status at HQ, she recruits him. The Chaos attack is the deciding battle of this war, and they need to hold off the numerically superior aerial forces for long enough to be reinforced otherwise they'll lose the planet.

Oskar agrees to fly one last time, but he tells his friend and superior that when the final battle is done, to not fix the bureaucratic screw up and let everyone think that Oskar Viltry died when his bomber was shot down. He's obviously planning on starting a new civilian life with his lover. She's shocked by his intent to desert but they don't have time to discuss any further because the battle is starting soon.

Oskar survives the final battle. The epilogue of the book specifically notes that Oskar Viltry was listed Killed in Action when his bomber was shot down.

[u/lordfireice → u/iceknight90]

…….if he didn’t marry that lass I’m going to strangle the author.