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Whilst I enjoy the overall Horus Heresy series, one thing has recently occured to me that sort of detracts from the orginal story in my opinion.

In the background we know so far, The Emperor fights Horus on the Vengeful Spirit, even after seeing Sanguinius cast down, he cannot belive that his son has been corrupted and holds back some of his strength, resulting in Horus breaking his back. Only when seeing Horus brutally murder a soldier that runs into the room, does the Emperor see how far Horus has fallen and psychically blasting the Warmaster and destroying his soul for good.

Now my thought is this; In the Horus Heresy novels, the Emperor has been portrayed as anything but an emotional, emphatic being, and certainly not a loving father. In "The Last Church" he has a long philosophical chat with a priest, whom he seems to like and respect, yet as soon as the priest has said his bit, the Emperor burns down his church anyway, allowing the priest to walk into the flames and die, because he didn't want to compromise.

In every novel since Istvaan he has barely shown his face (I know he is busy) let alone seemed upset about the loss of his Legions. He sort of half assedly helped Corax out but more so he could win the war, not so much because he was saddened by Corax's loss. He left Lorgar crying in the dirt at Monarchia, his crime being that he loved the Emperor too much, he had Russ destroy Prospero (it may have been Horus that ordered Magnus death but the Emperor must have known a great deal of innocents would die by unleashing the wolves) He is hinted at removing all trace of 2 of his sons and considered doing it to Lorgar too. He shamed Magnus in front of baying crowds instead of having a heart to heart. He makes no mention at all of feeling the loss of Ferrus. Basically he is only concerned with the end game.

So when we finally got the Battle of Terra, will this still be the case? Because it seems odd that he would condemn sons to die for disobeying an arbitrary command, but seeing one of them coursing with Chaos energy after just killing another Primarch, he feels emotional and can't finish the job? I think they are making the Emperor far too grim, like so far I totally empathise with most of the traitors. I don't want a detailed look at the guy, I understand we need the mystery, but maybe have him do at least one thing that doesn't scream "I am a control freak, do what I say or you are dead to me"

Horus was the only one to really receive that kind of affection from the Emperor, and as far as I know it has been described that way for a while. Horus was the first primarch discovered, and as such was raised by the Emperor as his actual son. The other primarchs were discovered as adults. So even his favorites didn't even come close to the connection he had with Horus.

Very little makes sense to me when it comes to the emperor. It seems like all the inconsistencies with the imperium fluff are lumped onto the emperor so much so that there is frequently no way to explain his motivations. I think this is the reason not very much is written about him. Anyone that tries is going to have a hard time of it because of his seemingly erratic and illogical behavior.

The Heresy was much better when it existed only as mythology.

He didn't just break his back, he burst one of his eye balls and ripped one of his arms out of its sockets. All because The Big E was an idiot.

Could have just done a mind-shot the moment he walked in the room.

Unfortunately the Emperor has been written as a plot device, he is exactly as aloof and nearsighted as required to provoke the grimdark setting.

Unfortunately, everything that has been added to the mythos automatically makes the reader wonder why/how he fethed up so bad at all, considering.

The short answer is that the classic depiction of the battle between between Horus and the Emperor was done years ago and was one of the incredibly few, rare depictions of the Emperor as an active figure and it is an utterly pivotal moment in 40k lore- it can be changed only so much. All the other stuff from the HH series is 20 years after the fact but trying to end up at the same moment but with a very different lead up. The fact is prior to the HH we really didn't have much clue what the Emperor was like and the utter monster he is in contemporary stories does seem out of character for the caring father he is originally depicted as.

Psienesis is right though, much better as myth.

I think it's because GW's authors are too scared to actually write the Emperor, since he's kind of like the Jesus of the setting. But the Bible actually has a good deal of Jesus' perspective and focus on him, since Christians are supposed to feel closeto and love him. Without any true focus on him, Emps is more a plot device than a character. Which is dumb because he clearly had feelings and emotions if the account of his battle against Horus had any truth to it.

Too bad. Honestly, what did they expect? If you're going to write a series of which the Emperor is one of the biggest factors, you'd really damn well be ready to address him instead of ignore him! But nooooo, Emps has to be all mysteeeeeeerious. End result is that he's impossible to sympathize with.

TiamatRoar wrote:
I think it's because GW's authors are too scared to actually write the Emperor, since he's kind of like the Jesus of the setting. But the Bible actually has a good deal of Jesus' perspective and focus on him, since Christians are supposed to feel closeto and love him. Without any true focus on him, Emps is more a plot device than a character. Which is dumb because he clearly had feelings and emotions if the account of his battle against Horus had any truth to it.

Too bad. Honestly, what did they expect? If you're going to write a series of which the Emperor is one of the biggest factors, you'd really damn well be ready to address him instead of ignore him! But nooooo, Emps has to be all mysteeeeeeerious. End result is that he's impossible to sympathize with.

Just to offer a counterpoint here...but less mystery does not mean better.

After all, before the prequels, the Clone Wars in Star Wars were cool. Are you happier with what we have now?

TiamatRoar wrote:
I think it's because GW's authors are too scared to actually write the Emperor, since he's kind of like the Jesus of the setting. But the Bible actually has a good deal of Jesus' perspective and focus on him, since Christians are supposed to feel closeto and love him. Without any true focus on him, Emps is more a plot device than a character. Which is dumb because he clearly had feelings and emotions if the account of his battle against Horus had any truth to it.

Too bad. Honestly, what did they expect? If you're going to write a series of which the Emperor is one of the biggest factors, you'd really damn well be ready to address him instead of ignore him! But nooooo, Emps has to be all mysteeeeeeerious. End result is that he's impossible to sympathize with.

Thinking of it in that way, The Emperor is more comparable to Satan in the bible; someone who is mentioned, occasionally interacts with somebody but we never know why he does what he does.

Even the whole thing about the Emperor loving Horus was stretched thin with the part in 'False Gods' where Horus is taken back to the moment the Primarchs were set adrift and the Emperor basically tells him he shouldn't be there and then just walks away, ignoring his son pleading for answers. I know, I know...this whole moment may have been a hallucination, but so far it seems that while twisting the truth, the forces of Chaos didn't really lie, so I am one of the camp that belives that Horus (and Later the Gal Vorbak) really were transported to the past Terra in their "visions"

It's a problem with the series as a whole, either it should have been left unexplained or they should tell us everything. Because leaving us in the dark about certain points in the story is now starting to create huge inconsistencies and plot holes. And no, this isn't one of those, "all will be revealed" stories either. It's one suffering from the "Lost" effect. The writers came up with all these cool mysteries and promised answers, then realised they had no idea what answers to give, so they keep creating more and more mystery to keep you interested, until the audience realises that it's going nowhere satisfying and give up on it, or end disappointed.

The first 5 books created very few "new" unknown factors, the whole thing seemed on track in line with what we sort of knew about the heresy. Then we had the Dark Angels books which all seemed to hint that the Lion was possibly less loyal than we though, in a convoluted mess, until we hit the Thramas Crusade where it was shown that all that was filler and the Lion is in fact totally loyal. Same for Guilliman, we had tons of little snippets from other Primarchs that seemed to suggest he was trying to avoid the Heresy to build his own Empire, but Unremembered Empire shows this to be totally untrue. While I loved 'Legion' the Alpha Legion/Cabal plotline has got so convoluted it doesn't even make sense anymore. We have no idea what the Alpha Legion are doing/if they are even of one mind. Eldrad Ulthuan seems to think that the Cabal is wrong, in which case supplying Horus with one more Legion was as terrible idea. The Fulgrim storyline got too convoluted and stupid in an attempt to "add mystery." Being ambiguous for ambiguity's sake is not only pointless but it derails an otherwise good narrative.

And don't get me started on Eldar Prophesies in the series. I cannot concieve of a more incompetent "all knowing" race. So far we've had Eldrad screw up by trying to befriend the one Primarch corrupted by their ultimate foe, Slaanesh; The Cabal getting the Alphas's to assist Horus, when they could have easily tipped the scales to an all out Imperial victory if they were with the loyalists; Eldar trying and failing to warn Ferrus Mannus, the worst offender is the Eldar who try to kill Angron, when the Word Bearer's and World Eaters were about to kill each other, instead they basically tell Lorgar, "Hey evil chaos dude, your crazy brother that you hate is actually going to be the blood god's champion, so spare him awhile and work on corrupting him hey! Oh our plan, yeah a bunch of us flimsy types were going to kill 2 Primarchs in close quarters even though an Avatar (our god) got pulled apart by just one"

I see why writers think it is cool to weave in these plots and mysteries but when the mystery was never part of the original storyline and then the series debunks it's own new myths a couple of novels later, it just seems like pointless filler that is watering down what started off as a very good series.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Heresy was much better when it existed only as mythology.

Yup, or left to Alan Bligh

Question: hey, what about the HH books?

Short answer:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Heresy was much better when it existed only as mythology.

Long answer:

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:

It's a problem with the series as a whole, either it should have been left unexplained or they should tell us everything. Because leaving us in the dark about certain points in the story is now starting to create huge inconsistencies and plot holes. And no, this isn't one of those, "all will be revealed" stories either. It's one suffering from the "Lost" effect. The writers came up with all these cool mysteries and promised answers, then realised they had no idea what answers to give, so they keep creating more and more mystery to keep you interested, until the audience realises that it's going nowhere satisfying and give up on it, or end disappointed.

Good description.
It is a mess. The plot doesn´t make sense any more. The Emperor´s motivations, the thrice damned perpetuals or the Alpha subplot are major problems, but there are many more.

 curran12 wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
I think it's because GW's authors are too scared to actually write the Emperor, since he's kind of like the Jesus of the setting. But the Bible actually has a good deal of Jesus' perspective and focus on him, since Christians are supposed to feel closeto and love him. Without any true focus on him, Emps is more a plot device than a character. Which is dumb because he clearly had feelings and emotions if the account of his battle against Horus had any truth to it.

Too bad. Honestly, what did they expect? If you're going to write a series of which the Emperor is one of the biggest factors, you'd really damn well be ready to address him instead of ignore him! But nooooo, Emps has to be all mysteeeeeeerious. End result is that he's impossible to sympathize with.

Just to offer a counterpoint here...but less mystery does not mean better.

After all, before the prequels, the Clone Wars in Star Wars were cool. Are you happier with what we have now?

Less mystery usually isn't better when the guy is one of the friggin' main characters of the story, which is the case with the Horus Heresy. It's fine keeping Emps mysterious when he's just a corpse on a throne. When he's a FATHER with DIRECT SUBORDINATES that he's physically interacting with man-to-man (or supposed to be!) DIRECTLY commanding things (or supposed to be!), that's another story. If they wanted to keep Emps a mystery, they shouldn't have written the Horus Heresy series. The Horus Heresy series forces them to explain away a huge chunk of the mystery yet they are unwilling to touch upon the mystery of one of its most central aspects, despite how the series basically revolves around his own sons whom are supposed to have interacted with him. The whole thing just makes the Emperor look like an ignorant dumbass with a ton of "Informed Ability".