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Traitor primarchs forgivable or at least understandable? Help me finish out this list or post your own. I would love to hear every one else's opinion

Magnus- The emperors punishment was to harsh. Magnus inadvertently ruined the emperors plan. Horus tricked the space wolves into delivering an even more harsh punishment. I understand why this man turned traitor.

Horus- Killed by a chaos blade brought back as a zombie Horus. When the emperor finally gave Horus the death blow the demonic force in Horus left and Horus cried in shame? Forgivable and understandable.

Angron- Seemed to just be jealous of Horus and the emperors favor towards Horus. Unforgivable but I kind of understand in a teenage jealousy way. Still a lame reason for a super being to turn bad. Angron is the one honest guy, who hated big E from the start, and never really got on with anyone particularly well.

Mortarion- I have no information

Fulgrim- This guy jumped strait into Chaos. Oh? Horus is turning traitor? ME to ill do it! If fulgrim had been captured he would have deserved a death sentence. Unforgivable.

Lorgar- Guilty of loving the emperor to much. Worshiped the emperor as a god. The emperor didn't like this so he crushed Lorgars greatest creation (a big awesome city). Lorgar was full of spiote after this. Understandable but unforgivable.

Purterabo- For Perturabo he's the classic case of the guy who works hard, tries hard, acheives an aweful lot, yet his acheivements, his capabilities, his potential are never, (as leasta s far as he is concerned) reckongnized, he is forever in the shadow, not of more capable, but of more COLOURFUL brothers.
Eventually these feelings (justified or not, we just have his word he wasn't given reckongization) are going to lead to a high degree of frustration. this made him vunerable to the manipulations of Horus

Cruze- Seemed to be bread to be a bad guy. I lack information

Alpharius- Is he even a traitor? I would like to believe hes still a good guy.

What do you guys think? Im trying to nail down the reasons the primarchs turned.

Perturabo and Lorgar are certainly understandable. They've both been mistreated REALLY bad.

Most of the traitor primarchs, as of the Heresy book series, at least have sympathetic qualities, as almost every one of them are products of their environment.

That doesn't justify their actions, however.

Erm, Magnus is definitely the most sympathetic, his entire life is basically one big Greek tragedy, with his hubris bringing him down.

Perturabo is pretty sympathetic too, as he was treated pretty badly by everyone, with no glory or recognition for his abilities as a planner/architect.

Alpharius is tricky, purely because no one has a fething clue as to his location, reasons, legion, brother, backstory or opinions on anything. He's either a mega-donkey cave or just misinformed.

Angron is the one honest guy, who hated big E from the start, and never really got on with anyone particularly well.

Horus....I don't know enough about. I found his side of the story a bit boring, so I never really read up on him.

The rest are just asshats. Especially Mortarion and Fulgrim.

 Inky wrote:


Perturabo is pretty sympathetic too, as he was treated pretty badly by everyone, with no glory or recognition for his abilities as a planner/architect.


The rest are just asshats. Especially Mortarion and Fulgrim.

I would like to know why you view Pertuarbo as sympathetic. I must have missed his story.

You view Lorgar as a jerk? I thought he was one of the more relatable primarchs.

Teleporting away Angron instead of aiding him and his friends was an act of almost unmatched dickery on the Emperor's side. No wonder Angron was angry.

They have reasons, but not excuses. The acts they committed were ultimately ones of selfishness.

Yes, the Emperor is a dick. Yes, they all have tragic past.

'No one cares about your lonely soul. We strive towards a larger goal. Our little lives don't matter at all' sums it up quite nicely.

sirlotsofpain wrote:

 Inky wrote:


Perturabo is pretty sympathetic too, as he was treated pretty badly by everyone, with no glory or recognition for his abilities as a planner/architect.


The rest are just asshats. Especially Mortarion and Fulgrim.

I would like to know why you view Pertuarbo as sympathetic. I must have missed his story.

You view Lorgar as a jerk? I thought he was one of the more relatable primarchs.

Perturabo was a magnificent architect, and no one ever even bothered to ask his opinion on anything.
He was the primarch equivalent of the genius yet socially dumb kid that everyone knows.
Think ugly version of Sherlock Holmes, but instead of criminography his schtick was designing civilian buildings, yet no one cared about him, and only saw Dorn as the builder guy. The other Primarchs treated him more as a tool than a brother.

And Lorgar was (in the HH books at least) a whiney little sod, who is so weak willed that he always takes the easy route out of everything. He had the option to nip the whole heresy thing in the bud, but didn't because he was sulky and jealous.

Perturabo was not treated right. His legion did a lot of hard work and then the shiny yellow siege masters took all the credit and got everyone's favour. Despite Perturabo being a brilliant strategist and architect.

For Perturabo he's the classic case of the guy who works hard, tries hard, acheives an aweful lot, yet his acheivements, his capabilities, his potential are never, (as leasta s far as he is concerned) reckongnized, he is forever in the shadow, not of more capable, but of more COLOURFUL brothers.
Eventually these feelings (justified or not, we just have his word he wasn't given reckongization) are going to lead to a high degree of frustration. this made him vunerable to the manipulations of Horus

Angron [To Rawbutt]: What would you know of struggle, Perfect Son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? when have you had to do anything more than tally compliances and polish your armour?" [...] "The people of your world named you Great One. The people of mine called me Slave. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian high-riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue-clad wretches yelling of courage and honour, courage and honour, courage and honour. Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. You know nothing of courage. Honour is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honour.

Also, my sig.

"A heretic may see the truth and seek redemption. He may be forgiven his past and be absolved in death. A Traitor can never be forgiven. A Traitor can never find peace in this world or the next. There is nothing as wretched or as hated in all the world as a Traitor."

They where all Messed up someohow, betrayed, broken, or otherwise mistreated or had reasons for turning to chaos side. Maybe not good reasons but they had solid reasons for there treachery and this is grimdark with too many skills universe,

Not just the tipical 2d villain that is evil for no reason,they had complex back stories

jhe90 wrote:
They where all Messed up someohow, betrayed, broken, or otherwise mistreated or had reasons for turning to chaos side. Maybe not good reasons but they had solid reasons for there treachery and this is grimdark with too many skills universe,

Not just the tipical 2d villain that is evil for no reason,they had complex back stories

I agree on large. I am haveing a REAL hard time agreeing when it comes to Fulgrim

Angron is the ONLY primarch with a legit reason to have rebelled.

Everyone else was either tricked or fell prey to their own weaknesses.

He did'nt owe the emperor a a damn thing.

Angron never lied about who he is and what he does.

 ChazSexington wrote:
Angron [To Rawbutt]: What would you know of struggle, Perfect Son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? when have you had to do anything more than tally compliances and polish your armour?" [...] "The people of your world named you Great One. The people of mine called me Slave. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian high-riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue-clad wretches yelling of courage and honour, courage and honour, courage and honour. Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. You know nothing of courage. Honour is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honour.

Also, my sig.

Hahah awesome.

Farseer Anath'lan wrote:
They have reasons, but not excuses. The acts they committed were ultimately ones of selfishness.

Yes, the Emperor is a dick. Yes, they all have tragic past.

'No one cares about your lonely soul. We strive towards a larger goal. Our little lives don't matter at all' sums it up quite nicely.

Using this logic still excuses Angron imho because he never had those goals, he wanted to die with his brothers and once that was taken away from him he didn't care about anything else. The others were just fools for never seeing that.

Sure they had reasons, but forgiveness no, no forgiveness for traitors.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
Using this logic still excuses Angron imho because he never had those goals, he wanted to die with his brothers and once that was taken away from him he didn't care about anything else. The others were just fools for never seeing that.

The Emperor created them for his goals. It was expected that they would obey. Really, the Imperium was screwed when the Primarch's were taken only because it gave them the illusion of free will. They should have realised that they were never more then tools. They were like the thunder warriors-means to an end. The space marines were always humanity's hope.

+this may contain spoilers so skip it if you havent real a lot of the books+



+Bear in mind its not deep dark he killed him or he done this because it just general knowledge type bits that we all tal about on here+








Angron- should have been put down from the start. he killed a fethton of his sons just because he wasnt allowed to die with his slave army.

Curze- unforgivable. he is the personification of evil. always was alwasy will be

Magnus- he never wanted to side with horus or the emperor during the heresy but unfortunatly he didnt have much of a choice after he was mulched by Russ

Perty- i do feel sorry for him. he is a neglected son who, although sometimes quick to temper, just wanted recognition. in angel exterminatus he says about how the only reason he sided with horus is because horus recognised him (or something along those lines)

Fulgers- what a dick. just what a self loving bragging rub it all in your face dick. he was everything that the legions shouldnt have been. the legions were built to bring humanity together not for them to build up this superiority that the emps children had

Mortarion- again neglected like perty but he was a miserable sod anyway. i dont feel sorry for him but i feel he could be forgiven for his actions.

Lorgar- if monarchia never happened he would be among the most loyal of the emperors sons. however he orchestrated the whole thing (well kor and erebus did) so no forgiveness for you guys.

Horus- he was manipulated by lorgar and eventually Chaos. it is understandable why he switched because he didnt exactly have a choice in it. it was side with chaos or die.

Alpharius- "the alpharius position" so he switched for a noble cause. he played the long ball. and he was doing pretty well. just a shame Omegon had other ideas. i can see why he went the other way and at the same time i can see that his legion was loyal and i feel sorry for him in that sense but he cant be forgiven. all he had to do was make sure horus won... and he failed. instead he created a worse war that it needed to be.

sirlotsofpain wrote:


Alpharius- Is he even a traitor? I would like to believe hes still a good guy.

As I understand it from books isn't Alpharius basically a savior of the entire galaxy and the greatest martyr?

I find Cruze really forgivable since his birth he was haunted with dark visions of the future, He landed on a world orbiting a dying sun where everyone was either a criminal or depressed he was alone for his whole life and had to fend for himself killing any who tried to harm him. He eventually seized control of the planet and turned it away from crime and then was promptly found by the big E and told to lead his army in the great crusade. Eventually after learning that his planet had reverted back to the state it was in before he got there he blew it up which he saw as the only true way to solve the problem, the emperor was out raged despite having done the same thing to countless worlds and declared Cruze a traitor.

He even states this to the assassin sent to kill him who he allowed to kill him just to prove a point.

"Your presence does not surprise me, Assassin. I have known of you ever since your craft entered the Eastern Fringes. Why did I not have you killed? Because your mission and the act you are about to commit proves the truth of all I have ever said or done. I merely punished those who had wronged, just as your False Emperor now seeks to punish me. Death is nothing compared to vindication."

...Curze is based on Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's "Hearts of Darkness", and is the same character played by Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now". The dude is evil, through and through.

Cyten wrote:

sirlotsofpain wrote:


Alpharius- Is he even a traitor? I would like to believe hes still a good guy.

As I understand it from books isn't Alpharius basically a savior of the entire galaxy and the greatest martyr?

No. He's a traitor, but has noble intentions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure at this point even the Cabal doesn't know what the hell Alpharius is doing. I don't know if we can say his intentions are noble or not because whatever goal he's working towards, it doesn't appear to be either the Cabal's or Horus's or anyones' (he's been explicitly shown to be refusing and lying to pretty much all the factions, including the Cabal). Though they sure are being moustache twirling villains about whatever it is they're working towards these days.

TiamatRoar wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure at this point even the Cabal doesn't know what the hell Alpharius is doing. I don't know if we can say his intentions are noble or not because whatever goal he's working towards, it doesn't appear to be either the Cabal's or Horus's or anyones' (he's been explicitly shown to be refusing and lying to pretty much all the factions, including the Cabal). Though they sure are being moustache twirling villains about whatever it is they're working towards these days.

Very true. In Deliverence Lost, we see



So yeah.

Magnus was screwed over, tricked Russ into a kill all life order so they would turn to chaos.

He had it hard, even tried to warn of rebellion to loyalists I believe.

I totally disagree with the OP in regard to Fulgrim -- he didn't just dive into Chaos. He had his mind taken over by a Daemon.

He was fighting it at first, but when the Daemon forced him to kill the Iron Hands Primarch and then let him regain control long enough to see what he had done - it broke his spirit.

If he could ever regain the courage/spirit to fight back and if he ever won his mental fight against the Daemon I would say that he should be forgiven.

I think some folks need to relook in to Fulgrim going traitor. Based on current fluff Fulgrim did not turn traitor, but was either possessed by a daemon or had his personailty split and the loyal fulgrim trapped in a painting of himself. A very Dorian Gray twist on a primarch.

It is Imperial policy to neither forgive nor forget.