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Just finished up The First Heretic in my jaunt through the Horus Heresy, and I've got to say, Lorgar strikes me as the most un-primarchial of the primarchs. The book was quite enjoyable, and well-written, but the dude seems to spend a lot of time being led around by the nose by some of his Astartes, not to mention the fact that he doesn't seem to be that particularly good a warrior, at least when compared with the others; Corax hands his ass to him, despite having been fighting daemons when Lorgar engaged him, and it's only the intervention of Curze that saves Lorgar in the end.

He's certainly a tragic figure, arguably the most tragic of the Heresy, but if the theory that each primarch was created for a certain purpose - Horus to lead, Guilliman to administrate, Russ to keep the others in line, Magnus to sit on the Golden Throne, etc. - then I'm not sure what Lorgar's would have been. He, by his own admission, doesn't want to be a warrior. The Emperor had to know that creating a fervently faithful philosopher was going to bite him in the ass someday, didn't he?

Its a shame really. I liked that Dembski took a different look at a Primarch, he didn't want to be a general, and whilst its one of my favorite books of the series, my one main annoyance is how wimpy it paints Lorgar. He is literally lead on my Kor Phaeron, who calls him 'boy' in a derogatory manner. Again, I like the different perspective, but I believe that the author went too far on the humanity side of the character. Lorgar has his advantages, he's a good speaker, able to inspire those who hear him, and he's an intelligent philosopher, which kinda belies his lack of military skill. My hope is that later in the story, Dembski writes another story which includes Lorgar taking control of his own future and his Legion, displaying the almighty Chosen of The Pantheon aspect he is supposed to be during The Heresy.

I don't know if that was the Emperors intention for his sons or more the way they turned out and believed were their roles. In Lorgars case you can't really blame the Emperor, Cholchis was where the Gods wanted him to be.

Like taco, I hope this means that Lorgar is going to man up and take the Chosen of the Primal Annihilator seriously.

Lorgar will probably not be mentioned again for the rest of the Horus Heresy books. If he suddenly manned up and become the Chosen of the Primordial Annihilator, he would still be doing that today instead of sitting alone in his tower.

Anyway, all that "Chosen" talk I think is crap anyway. Chaos wasn't really interested in Lorgar, they just needed a way to get to Horus.

You can think its crap if you want, they had a plan for Lorgar, and he is a Daemon Prince, so he must have done something during the Heresy. Remember, Angron is the only Primarch not sitting in some tower.

Most of the traitor primarchs didn't achieve anything after the heresy.

Mortarion sits on a copy of his homeworld and...... gets cut...
Perturabo starts a fight with dorn and... sits in his fortress brooding since...
Curze gets himself killed
Magnus is caught in scheming and petty attacks on SW...
Fulgrim got himself taken hostage and has to watch until someone frees him....
Angron is the only active one, but ineffective and only receives a bloody nose...
Alpharius and omegon may be lost in secrets inside secrets...too much lies to keep a grasp on truth there....
Horus managed to fail like any other major arch villain does, in the last second, and his successor is a fool...
Lorgar is the scribe of chaos, and a tool of kor phaeron and erebus.

Almost everyone there had his future ruined by Lorgars "underlings", but it wasn't Lorgar who planned it all or was at least in charge.
So Lorgar is IMO the crack in the Crusades armor. The weak spot of the 18(20)brothers.
What would change if Corax had killed Lorgar?
Not much. Erebus and kor phaeron would have continued and with horus already turned, Lorgar was no longer needed....

People forget that without Lorgar's leadership, philosophy, and charisma, neither Erebus or Kor Phaeron would've become anything notable.

I think you have that the other way around. Kor Phaeron was "notable" before Lorgar even showed up on the planet, and he raised Lorgar as a son. He also converted Erebus. And then the both of them led Lorgar around by the nose, where without them he would probably still be sitting in his quarters whipping himself.

Aaron Dembski-Brown's fairly active over at the Bolter and Chainsword, and apparently my accusation's been leveled at Lorgar before.

Paraphrasing the author, we haven't seen the last of Lorgar, what we've seen has been him at his nadir, his lowest point, and he's really the only primarch that truly thrives under Chaos. So, chances are, his badassery's going to increase considerably now that he's in his element.

Lorgar had always been a wuss. The characterization of The First Heretic wasn't groundbreaking, only expanded.

Wrong.

iproxtaco wrote:Wrong.

Not going to explain anymore about that? Doesn't really help anything.

imo, Lorgar seemed to be a sheep like, as to me it seemed he went to Chaos because everyone else was doing it, and so were his close brothers.

We have never had this information on Lorgar. Before, he was simply a Primarch who chose Chaos first, the instigator. The First Heretic now makes paints a picture of a loyal servant whose faith was crushed by a father he adored, and was then led on by those he trusted.

A Sheep? No not really, he found Chaos for himself. He was the Shepherd manipulated by his own flock.

When i read 'The First Heretic', i was alittle confused by how how Aaron dembski bowden was trying to portray the Crimson lord, Argel tal, i really didn't need to look at lorgar for longer then 30 seconds before i knew where he was going.

To set alot of things straight, Lorgar was the only primarch who didn't want to be a warrior. This was imo for one reason, the Emperor created all of his sons to take over a role, and i feel that while Horus was the Emperor's ambition, Lorgar was a direct copy of the emperor, right down to the Golden tinted skin and Psychic powers.

For me, Kor pharon took advantage of a trust which the other primarchs never FULLY build with their ''best buddy's'' from their ''homeworlds''. Lorgar was unfortunate that he was raised by an old (old even then) man with ambitions, and is quite frankly, emotionally unstable at the best of times * suppresses the urge to slap lorgar and tell him to grow up*.

Magnus had Ahriman, Horus ''Had'' Sejanus and for a time Loken, Dorn had Sigismund, Angron had Kharn, Alpharius and Omegon had each other so didnt so much make a ''Buddy'' but amongst their captains they were ''buddy like'', and so on. Lorgar had a twisted bar-stool for a ''buddy'' and thats really where it all went wrong, that and Big E not thinking things through fully before letting a raving psychotic, emotional ecentric control a legion.

dakkawolf wrote:
Lorgar was a direct copy of the emperor, right down to the Golden tinted skin and Psychic powers.

In that case he should have been kicking ass and taking names. He looked like him, but that was as far as the similarities went.

I think the Emperor only created the Primarchs to be his generals, it's the way that they were separated from him that led them to be anything different. If Chaos hadn't had split them up from the Emperor they would be as dedicated to the Emperor as the Custodes, the little trip they took in the warp was pretty much what did them in.

He was the side of the scholar side of The Emperor, the author, the poet, all in one. Lorgar was described as the spitting image of his father in youth. And yes, he was the only Primarch who refused to accept his purpose. Magnus may have wanted knowledge more than conquests, but he was able to realize what he was created for.