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Obviously many would think "poor sanguinius, betrayed by his closest friend and brother and then killed by him" or for some of the loyalists who saw their brethren turn on them. I'm more meaning the Chaos primarchs.

Take Lorgar. He wanted nothing more than to be a priest and worship the Emperor. But the Emperor didn't allow that. And plus, his chaplain and number 2, Erebus and Kor Phaeron, basically set the heresy ball rolling without his knowledge iirc.

And then there's Magnus. He basically had figured out what had happened to Horus, and warned the Emperor. And what did he get? The Wolves razing his planet and destroying a lot of his Legion. Some reward.

They're the main 2 I can think of, but does anyone feel sorry for another Primarch, loyalist or traitor?

Fulgrim was pretty sad to me. He sounded like a great Primarch. Then they went and fought the lear and became comsumed by slanessh and didnt even know it. Where he fought the IH primarch and was forced by the demon in him to land the death blow i was a little upset. That whole book was great.

I wanted to start and EC legion that repersented them as if they never turned to chaos.

Yea, Fulgrim's turn to chaos was more or less forced on him. Haven't read the novel and I don't know the details so I may be wrong, but unlike all the others whose descent to chaos was voluntary, looks like Slaanesh took a rather nasty shortcut with Fulgrim.

Not to mention that somewhere inside the monster that is today's Fulgrim lies the real primarch, fighting a losing battle against the daemon that took his body. That's sad.

Btw, SheSpits! I've always believed that, while other legions fell to Chaos on their primarchs' trail, a certain... corruption was already taking root amongst the EC, perhaps without Fulgrim even noticing. Take Fabius Bile. He was a psychopath even before learning of Chaos...

Agreed, bile was bonkers.

I also think Ferrus Manus was a bit hard done by (I still find his name cheesy). After all in 'Wrath of Iron' the prologue is his diary (do primarchs have diaries?) saying how he wanted to rid his legion of reliance on the machine after the HH or GC was over. He never got chance, and know his beloved human-ish marines are basically becoming one with the machines with bionics and all that

Pawns on Erebus's chess board.

Hard to feel sorry for them when you're busy high-fiving Destiny's hand for doing more to change the galaxy than the Emperor himself ^^

Didn't Mortarion have a pretty bad time of it? Pretty much forced to give himself up to Nurgle or have his entire legion suffer some insanely slow grim death?

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
Yea, Fulgrim's turn to chaos was more or less forced on him. Haven't read the novel and I don't know the details so I may be wrong, but unlike all the others whose descent to chaos was voluntary, looks like Slaanesh took a rather nasty shortcut with Fulgrim.

Not to mention that somewhere inside the monster that is today's Fulgrim lies the real primarch, fighting a losing battle against the daemon that took his body. That's sad.

Btw, SheSpits! I've always believed that, while other legions fell to Chaos on their primarchs' trail, a certain... corruption was already taking root amongst the EC, perhaps without Fulgrim even noticing. Take Fabius Bile. He was a psychopath even before learning of Chaos...

Bile was nuts, if you read the book Fulgrim would have killed him if not for the sword he got from the learen planet. Basicaly the EC fought on a planet that was already taken over by a Slanessh DP. The DP was trapped in this sword in the middle of a temple. Once the EC made way into the temple Fulgrim took the sword, the temple also gave off a must like smell that awoke your inner diser. Fulgrim let Bile work on one of the lord commanders in hopes of making the EC perfect. If Fulgrim didnt let the sword persway him, I belive he would have killed Bile on the spot when he brought up the idea, as he was about to do it anyways. EC where so set on being perfect in the art of war and everything they did even if they where on "that path" if Fulgrim didnt have the sword and the DP inside eating at him, he would have killed off those that switch to choas in his legion. He would have turned the tides of the HH the EC are a bad ass legion.

Obviously as an Iron Warrior collecter I want to say Perturabo was pretty hard done by. He should have been seen as on a par with Guilliman and Dorn but was, for what ever reason, overlooked and ignored and no matter what victories he won someone else always got the credit; it's easy to see how that might tip someone over the edge.

Angron was also let down badly by the Emperor. It's clear that what should have happened was for the Emperor, his Custodes and the War Hounds to drop pod down in front of Angron and help him win his rebellionside by side and then take ou the Butcher's Nails when it was still possible. That that did not happen is what makes you want to shout in frustration!

Angron was done dirty by the Emperor in person, Letting his group of escaped fighter stay and die. While Angron got tellyed away.

Its like the Emperor ment for this gak to happen......

I feel sorry for all of the evil primarchs. Except Mortarion. And Curze. Other than that though, they all have fairly tragic stories (from what I've read). I feel the most for Lorgar, who essentially started the whole thing because The Emperor was pretty cruel.

I dunno. I feel kinda bad for Curze. I mean he ended up with a whole legion of murderers, rapists and sex maniacs.

Yeah, but there's nothing he could have done about that. Or anyone, really. And it didn't help that Curze was bat crazy (sorry, it was too punny for me to resist).

Hard to feel sorry for Fulgrim. As soon as the rush of negative emotions over his brother's death faded a tad, he was hungry for more.

Plus the whole Picture of Dorian Grey but with poop thing was kind of silly.


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 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

Not to mention that somewhere inside the monster that is today's Fulgrim lies the real primarch, fighting a losing battle against the daemon that took his body. That's sad

Also, not at all the case.

Read Reflection Crack'd.

Guess what, I've just ordered Fulgrim. Was going to help myself to some Jonathan Franzen, but finally it's going to be Black Library who gets my monthly book buy. Screw highbrow literature, I just need to get my fix of 40k!

Lorgar's a tragic figure, of course. And not only because he's shunned by the other primarchs, manipulated by outside influences (I actually think that the fact that he didn't sever all ties with his foster father makes Lorgar more relatable, more human than the other primarchs. On the other hand, Kor Phaeron is simply despicable, second only to Erebus in perversity) and publicly reprimanded by the Emperor himself.

What makes Lorgar tragic is the fact that, despite it all, he, the underdog amongst the primarchs, got everything right from the very beginning - The Imperial Truth is, ironically, a lie of cosmic proportions.

Strange Stargasm mentioned Mortarion, as I've always thought of him as some sort of "Astartes supremacist" who sided with Horus out of merely political reasons - Namely, the dissolution of the War Council giving leadership over the Imperium to non-astartes civilians. His pact with Nurgle came well after his treason.

Poor Angry Angron. Ironically, I felt most pity for him on that particular scene in Know No Fear where Guilleman glosses about the roles the Primarchs will fulfill come peacetime. The lawmaker, the scientist, the architect, the enforcer, the propagandist, the scout, the spy... There's a place for every one of them save for Angron, his harsh upbringing having undone whatever genetic potential he had. He'd become that ugly thing that must be swept under the carpet, or, worse yet, put to sleep like a rabid dog. In some sense, when the Crusade ended, betraying the Emperor was the only sensible thing Angron could do to remain free -or alive. He was lucky to find allies amongst Horus' side.

 Gogsnik wrote:
Obviously as an Iron Warrior collecter I want to say Perturabo was pretty hard done by. He should have been seen as on a par with Guilliman and Dorn but was, for what ever reason, overlooked and ignored and no matter what victories he won someone else always got the credit; it's easy to see how that might tip someone over the edge.

In my opinion quite the opposite. The "I'm not getting enough respect so I'll turn against my father, my family, my country and my race and instead of doing the right thing I'll destroy everyone and everything" is the most childish and petty motive possible, especially for a soldier. I'm not sure if you've been / know anyone in the military services, but the respect of your superiors, a sense of duty and the honour in your service shouldn't be foreign to you. A general is still a general even if one or two of his colleagues have a couple more medals of honour than he does. To turn against humanity and go on a galactical campaign of genocide against your own people because of "being overlooked" is laughable. That's why the Iron Warrior fiction is very hard to take even remotely seriously or believe (in the sense of suspension of disbelief). It's one of the few really badly written / developed parts of the horus heresy.

In fact quite a few of the Primarches seemed to be not much more than oversized apes, considering their lack of intellectual development. That's why it sometimes makes me chuckle when the authors describe the Primarches as godlike beings or pinnacles of evolution. The fiction about primarches is one of cavemen or medieval warlords with primal motives but romanticised with boltguns and cruise missiles instead of spears and catapults.

That said, I quite like some of the stories, having read most or everything 40K related Black Library has published. Most of the stuff around the Thousand Sons was quite fascinating as really neither side (the TS and Magnus nor the Emperor and the armies sent to destroy the TS) can be perceived as evil or immoral (much like it is in the real world). It was a tragedy based around a severe lack of knowledge about the universe, miscommunication and some politics.

I always felt sorry for Lorgar. To go from one of the most devoted Primarchs to one of the chief catalysts of the Horus Heresy would have been a bigger fall than most. That said, the Emperor shouldn't have been overly shocked when the Word Bearers turned, given the humiliation he dished out to them.

If by "feel sorry for" you mean "be disappointed with the treatment this character who had been built up in fans' minds for years was treated by the author given to write about them," then yes, I feel sorry for many of them. (But none more so than Fulgrim.) I'm normally really in GW's corner, and hate all the whining, griping, incessant hand wringing and nitpicking you get when it comes to 40k on the internet. But when it comes to the Horus Heresy, I have been almost universally disappointed with the way that Primarchs have been written.

I certainly feel sympathy for a great many of them. Some of them I'm supposed to and do (Ferrus Manus), some of them I'm not supposed to and don't (Lorgar), some of them I'm supposed to and still don't (Horus) and some of them I'm clearly not supposed to but do anyway (Curze).

Pretty sure ADB wanted you to feel sympathy for Lorgar in The First Heretic.

Curze is also meant to be pitiable. Due to being a loser.

At the moment, only Mortarion is portrayed as below pity, due to being a huge douchebag way before he fell. And maybe Alpharius, but feth Alpharius.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Pretty sure ADB wanted you to feel sympathy for Lorgar in The First Heretic.

Curze is also meant to be pitiable. Due to being a loser.

At the moment, only Mortarion is portrayed as below pity, due to being a huge douchebag way before he fell. And maybe Alpharius, but feth Alpharius.

I apologize for any slight to ADB. Along with Abnett, he's one of the few writers that I trust to be able to handle Primarchs well. (And I agree with you that Abnett never intended for the chief emotion evoked by Alpharius to be pity.) Unfortunately, some of the truly atrocious narrative turns (particularly the loathsome nonsense that was Fulgrim) turned me off of the series before ADB got a shot. I've been thinking about picking up The First Heretic and Betrayer at some point, though.

It's hard to feel sorry for any of them really.

Fulgrim had a conflict with a Daemon, but at the start he believed it was his own conscious talking to him so he harboured those feelings within himself already for him to believe that and then, when he was made aware to the Daemons presence, he allowed it to coerce him into doing things he wanted to do, but knew that he shouldn't.

He had plenty of opportunity to not follow Horus, he made the choices. When he cast the Daemon out he still went down the path and willingly ascended to daemonhood. The words that ghost Ferrus say to him are quite poignant really, I suppose that's the saddest thing.

In the end they all chose to follow Horus, even Magnus did, his hand was forced into it but his actions were what made him have to make that choice, even if he thought he was doing the right thing.

 Jimsolo wrote:

I apologize for any slight to ADB. Along with Abnett, he's one of the few writers that I trust to be able to handle Primarchs well. (And I agree with you that Abnett never intended for the chief emotion evoked by Alpharius to be pity.) Unfortunately, some of the truly atrocious narrative turns (particularly the loathsome nonsense that was Fulgrim) turned me off of the series before ADB got a shot. I've been thinking about picking up The First Heretic and Betrayer at some point, though.

I think ADB is actually the single most overrated author in BL to be honest. Maybe it's because I have yet to read his Night Lords trilogy, but the rest of his work did not inspire near as much awe from me, and one really good trilogy does not a god tier author make.

The First Heretic is good though.

Betrayer is not.

I feel sorry for Curze.

Growing up, knowing when you're going to die would pretty much ruin your life.
Knowing that everything, the great crusade, the emperors ideals etc, is all guaranteed to fail makes eveything seem pointless.
Knowing that when he tried a different tack (murder everyone - its all the same in the end ) he got reprimanded/sulked at by Dorn. He let his conscious get the better of him and tried to explain this - but the person he told (Fulgrim) went straight to Dorn and sang like tweetie pie. And obviously Dorn took it as a personal insult...

Of course, then he went *more* flying rodent gak crazy and any feelings of pity evaporate - round about the time he decided he didn't like the Phoenix Guard in 'The Dark King'...

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:

I apologize for any slight to ADB. Along with Abnett, he's one of the few writers that I trust to be able to handle Primarchs well. (And I agree with you that Abnett never intended for the chief emotion evoked by Alpharius to be pity.) Unfortunately, some of the truly atrocious narrative turns (particularly the loathsome nonsense that was Fulgrim) turned me off of the series before ADB got a shot. I've been thinking about picking up The First Heretic and Betrayer at some point, though.

I think ADB is actually the single most overrated author in BL to be honest. Maybe it's because I have yet to read his Night Lords trilogy, but the rest of his work did not inspire near as much awe from me, and one really good trilogy does not a god tier author make.

The First Heretic is good though.

Betrayer is not.

I think we like different things in the BL, though. (If I recall, you don't like Abnett either, am I right?) That's perfectly ok, I'm not knocking your tastes. One of the best parts about Black Library fiction is that the setting is so vast and expansive that it can accommodate a wide variety of authors with a wide variety of styles. Some people love Ben Counter, and I find his writing to be abhorrent. Some people dislike ADB, but I personally think he's one of the best writers out there.

For years I despised the very concept of Chaos marines, since they were (as written in the books) completely nonsensical. Just absolutely ridiculous. I liked the Night Lords trilogy primarily because he managed to turn me around on the idea of Chaos. I'm hoping he will be able to do the same with his Black Legion series. (His comments on the subject so far have me drooling for the first book, I'll be honest.) Of course, I'm willing to admit to being a fairly devout fan of Bowden's, so I may not be the most unbiased person on the subject, but if you like 'no-heroes-here' stories like Unforgiven, Get Shorty, or Mark Millar's Wanted (the book, not the movie), then you should definitely check out Soul Hunter. It was the first ADB book I read (before I'd ever heard of him) and it was what got me hooked on his work.

He didn't have to go around flaying people alive though and his tactics according the IA article were already pretty questionable before Cheraut, already raising a few eye brows amongst his brothers.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
He didn't have to go around flaying people alive though and his tactics according the IA article were already pretty questionable before Cheraut, already raising a few eye brows amongst his brothers.

If I knew when and where and how I was going to die, I wouldn't give a gak about killing people to death either. What are they going to do about it?

What can they do?

Thinking about it - his whole point was that free from reprisal, people are evil to each other. He was free from reprisal all his life so he did what he liked. (no one could kill him as his death was pre-ordained)

That proves his own point...and now I've gone cross eyed...

He knew he was going to die and that his Legion would end up fighting others, he didn't necessarily know how his life would go up to that point or how he got there.

I am not sure that 'they can't do anything about it' warrants skinning people alive.

Curze didn't have to be a psychotic murder.

And then when he does face reprisal, he runs away.

I find it very hard to feel sorry for Curze, it's pretty much his own fault. I like Curze the character, just don't feel any sympathy for him.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
He knew he was going to die and that his Legion would end up fighting others, he didn't necessarily know how his life would go up to that point or how he got there.

I am not sure that 'they can't do anything about it' warrants skinning people alive.

Curze didn't have to be a psychotic murder.

And then when he does face reprisal, he runs away.

I find it very hard to feel sorry for Curze, it's pretty much his own fault. I like Curze the character, just don't feel any sympathy for him.

I was approaching this with Curze logic
The skinning people alive was environmental - if he hadn't grown up on Nostramus, but had ended up on Macragge he'd have been a bit different...

He knows all the time that trying to do the great crusade doesn't work. He tells people and they don't believe him. So he tries alternate methods (I'll admit it didn't have to be skinning people alive, someone else may have tried other methods - like possibly a poster campaign? maybe a wist drive, a car-boot sale. And if that doesn't work, then I'm sorry, its time for the t-shirts - Mutants out, Chameleonic life forms? No thanks )

I thought he had foreknowledge of his own death - specifically the time frame.

And yep, he does run away from reprisal - but he's not magnus, he didn't waste his legion through inactivity. Instead he blew the crap out of his home planet cos they'd pissed him off by ruining his legion. I think he ran away cos he wasn't finished being horrible to the galaxy

He had visions of him killing people and taking heads, you know a way to stop the vision ... don't kill people and take heads He could have made Nostramo a better place by doing what he had been doing but without the flayings and skinnings, the other Primarchs seemed to manage it just fine. But I guess Curze was flawed from the beginning. He could have changed his path at anytime, but he didn't.

I don't think his methods in the Crusade were that different from the ones he implemented on Nostramo, so he tried to go with the Imperial doctrine at the start because he was told to, but left to his own devices he slipped back into old habits because they seemed to work better, old dog and all that.

"At times, in raptures of pain, I saw what was to occur laid out before me. In these waking dreams, I took countless lives with my bare hands, heads taken as trophies. I died again and again at the hands of my father. My sons butchered and maimed their brothers. My name was to become synonymous with dread. But most vividly and with most frequency, I saw my world pierced by a lance of purest light, splitting it, shattering it into dust." - Konrad Curtz

So maybe it was a set of events set in a chronological order, but to me it seems like there is no set series, just the same images and experiences over and over.

Curze ruined his Legion, he let it happen, he knew that the gak of Nostramo was replacing the dead but he still let it happen. Maybe if he would've destroyed Nostramo sooner, he and the Night Lords could have been saved.

Do we know what he did from the destruction of Nostramo up to the beginning of the Heresy, I don't think we do. For all we know he could have been cowering in the shadows hiding from any reprisal.

I always felt bad for horus. He didnt ask for the lodge to bring him back from death, and prior to his underlings going rogue, he was pretty straight up.

 Jimsolo wrote:

I think we like different things in the BL, though. (If I recall, you don't like Abnett either, am I right?)

No, not necessarily, I am much more critical of some of Abnett's books and of some aspects of his writing in general, like his inability to end a book or a series satisfyingly IMO, or his tendency towards cardboard cut-out cartoon villains (With a few exceptions, Cherubael being a very prominent and effective example of a character who, while wholly, unrepentantly evil, is charismatic and intelligent enough that he remains interesting and fun to read about), but his reputation as one of BL's top-tier writers is well-deserved. Legion is the heat death of the universe though.

And honestly, I don't even really dislike ADB, I loved The First Heretic and Helsreach. The Emperor's Gift just left me so assmad that I still can't get over it. And even that wasn't really a "bad" book, it had a lot of aspects I like, but the total buttfury the parts I didn't like gave me has made me something of a grumpy old man on the topic of him to this day.

That's perfectly ok, I'm not knocking your tastes.

Oi, betta not be 'umie, else I'd aft ta krumpt yer noggin'.

One of the best parts about Black Library fiction is that the setting is so vast and expansive that it can accommodate a wide variety of authors with a wide variety of styles. Some people love Ben Counter, and I find his writing to be abhorrent.

I liked Galaxy in Flames, though apparently Counter had some amount of help from Graham McNeill with that book. Battle for the Abyss I've heard is so bad that it has left many a neckbearded GUO clutching his prized special edition Ciaphas Cain model to his chest at night as he bled tender tears of pain, much like Corvus Corax before them. I've heard mixed opinions on the Grey Knights series. Some hate it, my boyfriend thought it was pretty good, so eh.

If nothing else, one must agree that he is the most badass-looking melon-fether in Black Library. He looks like how I originally hoped Graham McNeill would.

Some people dislike ADB, but I personally think he's one of the best writers out there.

That's because he is.

For years I despised the very concept of Chaos marines, since they were (as written in the books) completely nonsensical. Just absolutely ridiculous. I liked the Night Lords trilogy primarily because he managed to turn me around on the idea of Chaos. I'm hoping he will be able to do the same with his Black Legion series. (His comments on the subject so far have me drooling for the first book, I'll be honest.) Of course, I'm willing to admit to being a fairly devout fan of Bowden's, so I may not be the most unbiased person on the subject, but if you like 'no-heroes-here' stories like Unforgiven, Get Shorty, or Mark Millar's Wanted (the book, not the movie), then you should definitely check out Soul Hunter. It was the first ADB book I read (before I'd ever heard of him) and it was what got me hooked on his work.

I have every intention to read the Night Lords series eventually, but I've taken a break on 40k books at the moment, been busy reading non-EU fiction. Discworld, as of right now.

On the actual topic of the thread though...

Fulgrim: Nope, he was a jerkass before he ever started talking to gak paintings or ripping his penis off*.

Horus: Eh, McNeill dropped the ball in False Gods, making Horus something of a huge douchebag. His portrayal in Horus Rising was spectacular though, you could really feel the buttsad emanating from him.

Lion El'Jonson: Depends on if you are able to feel sorry for people who through chance happened to be born unfeeling sociopaths.

Magnus the Red: Oh yes.

Lorgar: Yeah, it sucks being born to do something you really don't want to do.

Mortarion: Too sinister from the start to be pitiable.

Perturabo: Mah birdcages.

Leman Russ: What a self-righteous douche.

Ferrus Manus: Pretty gakky way to go, and such a loyal guy of true integrity and disciprine. Truly one of the unsung heroes of 40k.

Vulkan: How could you not feel sorry for him? Being sucked into the worst sub-plot in the series is terrible indeed.

Rogal Dorn: Can you feel sorry for a hurricane? Nor can you feel sorry for Rogal Dorn. The man is a force of nature, a raging tempest of insanity that can not be controlled.

Roboute Guilliman: Nothing bad really happens to him, relatively speaking.

Sanguinius: Yes, for self-evident reasons.

Jaghatai Khan: You could no more feel sorry for the Khan than you could Gaviel Loken's favorite chair. The Khan is a piece of the scenery.

Konrad Curze: Yeah, there was basically no hope for this guy to grow into a stable element in Imperial society.

Angron: Read above, add in being screwed over by daddy before it became the cool thing to do.

Corax: AND CORAX CRIED A SINGLE TEAR

Alpharius Omegon: Ew