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I understand that after the Davin incident that Horus was "corrupted", but i'm really not exactly clear on the motivation he had for rebelling from the emperor. Was it more "I'm better than the Emperor" or more "The chaos Gods are BEtter than the imperial truth. I guess i'm asking was it Hubris or zealotry that led to his corruption? I have a feeling, from what i have read it is closer to hubris. And if that is the case was he more motivated by Selfish "I deserve to be emperor because i'm more awesome/better than he is" or is is more misguided "I could do a better job for the people of the imperium if i were in charge." I only ask because I am about to participate in a HH campaign and i am taking a thousand sons legion. we get to choose which side we go to and i wanted to be clear on Horus' motivation before i really picked sides. Most things i have read just say he was corrupted after Davin and don't give much insight into his reasoning or rationale.

He didn't rebel. Well, at least that's the sensible thing to take away from the book, is that he simply was mindfethed by the Chaos Gods into service. The other option is that from the events of the books, he simply threw a hissy fit like a spoiled brat over lacking a statue in the future.

Honestly, this was pretty poorly handled by BL.

He jumps from trying to save the universe from the terrible 40k imperium he was shown to vengeance against the Emperor's "lies" to basically just being a dick.

Horus went from Abnett's masterful portrayal to a pretty two-dimensional villain in no time at all, it seemed.

It was written terribly.

Horus has almost no actual motivation that sticks to the character throughout the series.



Looking at the rest, they have clear motives in most all cases:
Angron: A psychopatch
Curze: A dick psychopath
Mortarion: A dick psychopath with delusions of grandeur
Fulgrim: Daemon seductions and what-have-you
Alpharius: For the Emperor
Perturabo: "Accidently" lost his temper with his home world and was a bitter guy anyway

Horus honestly had no motivation going in or throughout. The entire time he seems to just be villainous for the sake of being villainous. No author had the guts to take a chance and stick the Heresy on one thing. By doing that, they left us with it happening for no reason at the hands of a petulant child with no depth of character.

Nearly all of the primarchs' falls was handled pretty terribly. Fulgrim bounced back and forth from possessed to not possessed, Mortarion hates the warp magic that he now is fighting for (and never got his own novel yet, unlike the others), Perturabo seems to be just... there when it comes to Chaos (Sure, he himself was handled well in Angel Exterminatus but his turn to Chaos is... not even there yet, really), Lorgar has doubts for some stupid reason when he's supposed to be the most fervent supporter, and Horus... they don't even TRY to give an actual explanation for him. And Alpharius is just Alpharius. (like everything else)

The only falls that make any lick of sense are Angron and Magnus. But you'd have to be a really terrible writer to screw those ones up. The two don't even "basically write themselves" so much as "were already written."

(Kurze basically started out fallen. There was no fall to write for him).

I guess it's too much for GW to focus on the positive aspects of Chaos for even one iota to at least try to give most of those primarchs a justification for what they did (so far, hilariously enough, only ANGRON of all people at least touched on the positive aspect of his Chaos God. ANGRON, who most see as the most simplistic of the primarchs.)

As far as i can tell, the motivations are a combination of Hubris and altruism... but those are not inherently present in horus' 'Final Form" aboard the vengeful spirit. if he could do better than the emperor, that would be a valid motivation, because honestly the emperor was a colossal dick. I can respect that motivation even if it was borne of corruption. What i don't want, and cant find contrarian evidence to, was basically Horus was pissed that daddy went home and left him in charge, and because of the biggest daddy/abandonment issues in the galaxy he set out to destroy the emperor because he was mad at daddy leaving and the "visions" planted in his fevered mind of being forgotten or reviled... and while hubris is a worthy catalyst, petulant hubris is not, and it makes him seem kind of infantile. That being said, the handling of other situations (the entire magnus situation, the censuring of loregar, the edict of Nikea,) show the emperor to be as petulant and tyrannical as anything the traitor primarchs did... but i guess it will jsut have to be up to my interpretation and circumstances when it come to picking sides in the upcoming campaign.

TiamatRoar wrote:
Nearly all of the primarchs' falls was handled pretty terribly. Fulgrim bounced back and forth from possessed to not possessed, Mortarion hates the warp magic that he now is fighting for (and never got his own novel yet, unlike the others), Perturabo seems to be just... there when it comes to Chaos (Sure, he himself was handled well in Angel Exterminatus but his turn to Chaos is... not even there yet, really), Lorgar has doubts for some stupid reason when he's supposed to be the most fervent supporter, and Horus... they don't even TRY to give an actual explanation for him. And Alpharius is just Alpharius. (like everything else)

The only falls that make any lick of sense are Angron and Magnus. But you'd have to be a really terrible writer to screw those ones up. The two don't even "basically write themselves" so much as "were already written."

(Kurze basically started out fallen. There was no fall to write for him).

I guess it's too much for GW to focus on the positive aspects of Chaos for even one iota to at least try to give most of those primarchs a justification for what they did (so far, hilariously enough, only ANGRON of all people at least touched on the positive aspect of his Chaos God. ANGRON, who most see as the most simplistic of the primarchs.)

In terms of Mortarion, the best part written about his turning is actually his dialogue with Jaghatai Khan in Scars. It shows why Mortarion turned pretty well, I thought, and his disappointment that he's picked the side that now openly uses sorcery. I love Scars.

Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

Lucifer felt God was replacing the Angels with mankind.

There, one of the most famous father-son stories now has motive.




Horus and the Emperor? .....ehhhhh

 Shidank wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

Lucifer felt God was replacing the Angels with mankind.

There, one of the most famous father-son stories now has motive.




Horus and the Emperor? .....ehhhhh

Horus and the Emperor? same motivation.

We see throughout the inital trilogy that the Primarchs, some of em at least, are feeling they are losing their special place. The Emperor, whom maintained a close personal relationship with them, had retreated and you saw the expeditionary fleets being forced to put up with "annoying paper pushers" and the prototypical high lords. Horus, whom for so long had always flet he had a special relationship with his father, and no doubt assumed that following the great crusade, would rule along side him, began to find it somewhat vexxing. still he was mostly loyal. Chaos found this niggling string of doubt, and pulled on it, convinced him that the Emperor saw him simply as a tool, and would discard him when he was done with him. In short Horus is rebellion because he has always wanted to rule the galaxy, and basicly became convinced that the Emperor far from wishing to raise him up to help him in doing so, has... ulterior motives.

The thing is, I can almost see that that's why he turned, it was just written so poorly that it just robbed it of any of that. He basically went 'ah yes Erebus, I've already established you've been lying this entire time, but I shall follow exactly what you say!' I can see why he would turn, he's worried about his fathers motivations, worried about his fate when the crusade is over, and is ambitious and jealous and doesn't feel he's getting the glory he deserves. That makes for a believable fall, in my mind. When you actually read it though, that barely comes across at all.

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Kurze basically started out fallen. There was no fall to write for him).

Kurze started out knowing that everything was going to fall. He did his best to stop it, knowing the Emperor was going to kill him and tried to change the way things would turn out. Before there was a Horus Heresy, he was already a renegade because his brothers turned on him- refused to understand him.

How can anyone fault Curze for being unloyal when he already knew he'd be killed by the Emperor?

Curze wasn't killed by the Emperor and I'm pretty sure he didn't have visions that he would be...

Oh I guess he was in that he was killed by the Imperium, is that what you meant? Even then you can still fault him, he was only killed because of his disloyalty.

 ImAGeek wrote:
Curze wasn't killed by the Emperor and I'm pretty sure he didn't have visions that he would be...

Oh I guess he was in that he was killed by the Imperium, is that what you meant? Even then you can still fault him, he was only killed because of his disloyalty.

one would argue curze suffered from the tragedy of the self fufilling prophecy

 ImAGeek wrote:
Curze wasn't killed by the Emperor and I'm pretty sure he didn't have visions that he would be...

Oh I guess he was in that he was killed by the Imperium, is that what you meant? Even then you can still fault him, he was only killed because of his disloyalty.

Go and read The Dark King. Then, you won't have to guess!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Curze wasn't killed by the Emperor and I'm pretty sure he didn't have visions that he would be...

Oh I guess he was in that he was killed by the Imperium, is that what you meant? Even then you can still fault him, he was only killed because of his disloyalty.

one would argue curze suffered from the tragedy of the self fufilling prophecy

As I understand it, he managed to avoid some of it coming true. That's why he blew Nostramo up himself.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Shidank wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

Lucifer felt God was replacing the Angels with mankind.

There, one of the most famous father-son stories now has motive.




Horus and the Emperor? .....ehhhhh

Horus and the Emperor? same motivation.

We see throughout the inital trilogy that the Primarchs, some of em at least, are feeling they are losing their special place. The Emperor, whom maintained a close personal relationship with them, had retreated and you saw the expeditionary fleets being forced to put up with "annoying paper pushers" and the prototypical high lords. Horus, whom for so long had always flet he had a special relationship with his father, and no doubt assumed that following the great crusade, would rule along side him, began to find it somewhat vexxing. still he was mostly loyal. Chaos found this niggling string of doubt, and pulled on it, convinced him that the Emperor saw him simply as a tool, and would discard him when he was done with him. In short Horus is rebellion because he has always wanted to rule the galaxy, and basicly became convinced that the Emperor far from wishing to raise him up to help him in doing so, has... ulterior motives.

Pretty much.

I know that good books show and don't tell, but, well, not all the Black Library authors are great authors. But, fortunately, even if the narrative itself isn't very convincing sometimes, the books still tell us what Horus was afraid of, and that was being cast aside after the Great Crusade was concluded and the galaxy was under human control. I mean, we can sit here and debate the quality of various license fiction, but it isn't like there's some grand debate on why Horus did what he did.

I mean, we're complaining that Horus knew Sejanus was a fraud and believed his story anyway? Lorgar met a daemon that told him "I'm going to tell you one lie and one truth" and still took basically everything he said at face value. The entire story is based on the idea that the traitor primarchs were seriously flawed, usually revolving around the Eight Evil Thoughts/Seven Deadly Sins (as opposed to the Classical Roman Virtues the loyal primarchs typically embody). They were, for the most part, arrogant and foolish. The handful that had legitimate gripes were overreacting sociopaths.

Horus fall was terribly written in my opinion. It's supposed to have been written better and more in depth in the rereleases of the original three, but I am not going to buy a book again that I already own. To me there has been no sense of why he has really turned his back on the Emperor, and no real explanation as to why. From previous versions, like in Visions, we know that it was for a better Imperium, but that seems to have been lost in the series. The only mention of it to date has been in the mediocre Vengeful Spirit

 ImAGeek wrote:


In terms of Mortarion, the best part written about his turning is actually his dialogue with Jaghatai Khan in Scars. It shows why Mortarion turned pretty well, I thought, and his disappointment that he's picked the side that now openly uses sorcery. I love Scars.

Scars is certainly one of the outstanding books in the series. Magnus, The Khan and Mortarion are all portrayed very well and in my opinion, bang on the money.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:

(Kurze basically started out fallen. There was no fall to write for him).

Kurze started out knowing that everything was going to fall. He did his best to stop it, knowing the Emperor was going to kill him and tried to change the way things would turn out. Before there was a Horus Heresy, he was already a renegade because his brothers turned on him- refused to understand him.

How can anyone fault Curze for being unloyal when he already knew he'd be killed by the Emperor?

He did nothing to stop it, he had visions of Nostramo being pierced by light and destroyed and he was the one that destroyed it. All of Curze's actions led to his eventual assassination, there was no other way attempted. Even Sevetar reflects on this in Prince of Crows, I think it is.

He can be faulted because he didn't do anything to attempt to prevent it.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Shidank wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

Lucifer felt God was replacing the Angels with mankind.

There, one of the most famous father-son stories now has motive.




Horus and the Emperor? .....ehhhhh

Horus and the Emperor? same motivation.

We see throughout the inital trilogy that the Primarchs, some of em at least, are feeling they are losing their special place. The Emperor, whom maintained a close personal relationship with them, had retreated and you saw the expeditionary fleets being forced to put up with "annoying paper pushers" and the prototypical high lords. Horus, whom for so long had always flet he had a special relationship with his father, and no doubt assumed that following the great crusade, would rule along side him, began to find it somewhat vexxing. still he was mostly loyal. Chaos found this niggling string of doubt, and pulled on it, convinced him that the Emperor saw him simply as a tool, and would discard him when he was done with him. In short Horus is rebellion because he has always wanted to rule the galaxy, and basicly became convinced that the Emperor far from wishing to raise him up to help him in doing so, has... ulterior motives.

I can definitely see this. The Emperor discarded the thunder warriors after unification, and horus had legitimate fears that the astartes would suffer a similar fate after the great crusade concluded (if it ever concluded). My follow up question, bad writing aside, Was the "cruelty" of which i don't have many examples, but i know that Horus became known for it, a function of his personality or his corruption. I know most of the traitor legions gave in to chaos and thus became hedonists/psychotic berzerkers/ plague bearers/ sorcerers and gave into depravity in its myriad forms, but did Horus and by extension his legion? What little i have read about Abaddon and black legion ( mainly Horus' talon) shows their mindsets not to be zealots, or fanatics, but rather a bunch of expatriated guys with no country existing in what was basically the wild west of space. Im not saying that they were altruistic and or eve that Horus was, but was his legion as depraved as say the EC or DG or WE? and do we knwo Horus' opinion on actual chaos worship and daemons? did he fully embrace it or was it just another tool in his arsenal?

After reading Fulgrim, I think it really just comes down to Graham McNeill's writing. Horus Rising set the story up beautifully and then McNeill kinda reduced it down to a one dimensional "voodoo hut made me evil" thing seen in False Gods (the exact same as "oh no, seeing the temple on Laeran made us evil" thing seen in Fulgrim).

BrianDavion wrote:

 Shidank wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

Lucifer felt God was replacing the Angels with mankind.

There, one of the most famous father-son stories now has motive.




Horus and the Emperor? .....ehhhhh

Horus and the Emperor? same motivation.

We see throughout the inital trilogy that the Primarchs, some of em at least, are feeling they are losing their special place. The Emperor, whom maintained a close personal relationship with them, had retreated and you saw the expeditionary fleets being forced to put up with "annoying paper pushers" and the prototypical high lords. Horus, whom for so long had always flet he had a special relationship with his father, and no doubt assumed that following the great crusade, would rule along side him, began to find it somewhat vexxing. still he was mostly loyal. Chaos found this niggling string of doubt, and pulled on it, convinced him that the Emperor saw him simply as a tool, and would discard him when he was done with him. In short Horus is rebellion because he has always wanted to rule the galaxy, and basicly became convinced that the Emperor far from wishing to raise him up to help him in doing so, has... ulterior motives.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, Horus lacked this "Daddy why?" motivation. I chose God and Lucifer specifically because that's what the Horus Heresy is based on and that the 40k account doesn't even have the modicum of motive that the biblical one had.

The abandonment idea would have worked if it had been written in with anything more than a passing glance. Since it wasn't and numerous times it has been Horus saying they are fighting against the Emperor's "lies".

It's bad plot, man. Each Primarch has their own reason, but it all falls apart if the leader of the heresy doesn't have the best reason of all. Discarding worked for as long as they were willing to write that plotline(which was until the end of that particular book).

I'm glad you have a solid head-canon for it, but this is a sticking point that just enrages me. It smacks of a glaring lack of collaboration between the BL writers on what is possibly the most impactful plotline of the series.

 Shidank wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Shidank wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Because in most mythologies there is a son that attempts to overthrow his father/god. It's Freudian and Jungian. It works on a storytelling level. GW fluff steals from everything imaginable. Funny how they are so possessive of their own IP.

Lucifer felt God was replacing the Angels with mankind.

There, one of the most famous father-son stories now has motive.




Horus and the Emperor? .....ehhhhh

Horus and the Emperor? same motivation.

We see throughout the inital trilogy that the Primarchs, some of em at least, are feeling they are losing their special place. The Emperor, whom maintained a close personal relationship with them, had retreated and you saw the expeditionary fleets being forced to put up with "annoying paper pushers" and the prototypical high lords. Horus, whom for so long had always flet he had a special relationship with his father, and no doubt assumed that following the great crusade, would rule along side him, began to find it somewhat vexxing. still he was mostly loyal. Chaos found this niggling string of doubt, and pulled on it, convinced him that the Emperor saw him simply as a tool, and would discard him when he was done with him. In short Horus is rebellion because he has always wanted to rule the galaxy, and basicly became convinced that the Emperor far from wishing to raise him up to help him in doing so, has... ulterior motives.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, Horus lacked this "Daddy why?" motivation. I chose God and Lucifer specifically because that's what the Horus Heresy is based on and that the 40k account doesn't even have the modicum of motive that the biblical one had.

The abandonment idea would have worked if it had been written in with anything more than a passing glance. Since it wasn't and numerous times it has been Horus saying they are fighting against the Emperor's "lies".

It's bad plot, man. Each Primarch has their own reason, but it all falls apart if the leader of the heresy doesn't have the best reason of all. Discarding worked for as long as they were willing to write that plotline(which was until the end of that particular book).

I'm glad you have a solid head-canon for it, but this is a sticking point that just enrages me. It smacks of a glaring lack of collaboration between the BL writers on what is possibly the most impactful plotline of the series.

Honestly? that's not head canon. that's just my interpretation of the character as what we saw. they didn't lead us by the hand to that conclusion, but they laid the details there.

Your interpretation and ideas that aren't directly corroborated by the source material isn't head-canon?


....Ok.

You think the motivation is weak.

Okay.

But the setting is still explicit about what his motivation was. Just because they tell you instead of show you, doesn't mean it's not there. Stop with the head-canon nonsense. The only person working on head canon is you.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You think the motivation is weak.

Okay.

But the setting is still explicit about what his motivation was. Just because they tell you instead of show you, doesn't mean it's not there. Stop with the head-canon nonsense. The only person working on head canon is you.

I welcome elaboration then. =)

If you want to throw around accusations and dismissals, you should have no problem backing it with some sort of argument. No?

What they failed to portray was just how close Horus was to falling before he was struck by the anathame. It was poorly written.

 EngulfedObject wrote:
After reading Fulgrim, I think it really just comes down to Graham McNeill's writing. Horus Rising set the story up beautifully and then McNeill kinda reduced it down to a one dimensional "voodoo hut made me evil" thing seen in False Gods (the exact same as "oh no, seeing the temple on Laeran made us evil" thing seen in Fulgrim).

Thank feth I'm not the only one. Very recently I started the HH series - I've only read Horus Rising, and False Gods thus far. I had to force myself to finish FG, it was such a departure in quality and explanation from the first book. I was stoked after HR, as Horus was such a lovely dude, albeit flawed, and then bam, bag of dicks. I wanted to see some kind of slipping, explanation, reasoning for how this poor guy crashed and burned.
Lots of references to how things were great, and how much Loken feels it's now fallen apart, but unless I was skim reading, FG kinda leaped a chasm without building the bridge.

 Shidank wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
You think the motivation is weak.

Okay.

But the setting is still explicit about what his motivation was. Just because they tell you instead of show you, doesn't mean it's not there. Stop with the head-canon nonsense. The only person working on head canon is you.

I welcome elaboration then. =)

If you want to throw around accusations and dismissals, you should have no problem backing it with some sort of argument. No?

as I said they give you examples that do require you to draw some conclusions. they don't have Horus go out and say in a monologue "yeah I'm turning to chaos because of X Y and Z. but his reasons should be obvious if you pay attention

The whole thing were they show the future with no mention of horus and the emperor being worshiped seems to be the lies that horus is referring to. The idea that he, the right hand of the emperor is not being glorified while the emperor is worshiped as a god is what tips him over, but later it is mentioned that horus knew that chaos powers were lying, I think it is simple the idea that with the power of chaos he could take over the empire and do a better job.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The whole thing were they show the future with no mention of horus and the emperor being worshiped seems to be the lies that horus is referring to. The idea that he, the right hand of the emperor is not being glorified while the emperor is worshiped as a god is what tips him over, but later it is mentioned that horus knew that chaos powers were lying, I think it is simple the idea that with the power of chaos he could take over the empire and do a better job.

This is exactly right. It's the sticking point that comes off as poor collaboration between the writers. The simple "I can do it better" is a childish motive and isn't something we can sink our teeth into with any kind of satisfaction.