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How do!

Slightly mind vomit thread, and based on my incomplete and out of date reading of the Heresy novels.

But it seems to me that most, but not all, the Traitor Primarchs weren’t entirely without justification in turning coat.

Case in point? And the one I feel was the most tragic?

Angron.

Poor old Angron. He never really stood a chance, thanks to The Butcher’s Nails. They fundamentally changed him. And seemingly nothing could be done about it.

Yet.....yet despite his rage, his early life points to him retaining his honour. And the worst thing that happened was The Emperor forcibly kidnapping him, causing him to betray his true brothers and sisters. He’d chosen (literally) his Hill To Die On, and was denied.

I think it’s pretty common opinion that The Emperor could’ve handled it so much better. Such as teleport strikes of World Eater (then the War Hounds) Terminators, to aid Angron’s last stand. A relatively healthy way to introduce Angron to his Sons. I’d imagine most rebel leaders would welcome such devastating support. Sure, it’s arguable that Angron might resent his glorious last stand being interfered with - but I’m certain it’d be to a far lesser degree than having to abandon his mates to die, whilst he scooted off to the stars.

With Angron, as with Perturabo, it all seems so unnecessary, and avoidable.

But which Primarch do you feel got the worst treatment? Which do you empathise with the most?

The surprising part of the Heresy isn't that so many Primarchs turned. It's that so few did.

But of everyone I'd say Angron had it worst.

Russ if you go out of universe and look at the community.

I agree with pm713. I think it's surprising so few did. He made 20 super-humans who only had each other for peers and sent them out fairly isolated. When they were with each other, I feel that they were uniquely situated to be susceptible to each other's influences.

I know it's not the best analogy, but I think about how The Boys depicts super heroes living amongst humans and the lack of humanity they feel because of it. I think Primarchs didn't necessarily feel human, so some were susceptible to the call of higher powers.

I also think the misplaced faith the Emperor put into the primarchs' loyalty is an important part of the story. It was his great mistake. He wasn't making perfect decisions and got defeated anyways. He misunderstood chaos and the lure it could have over the primarchs.

To answer you question, I always felt for Lorgar. He was an over the top religious zealot, but the way the Emperor humiliated him and destroyed what he had built didn't seem like the most effective way to set him right (understatement).

This is one of things I dislike most about the horus heresey now that black library have butchered the story. All the traitors are tragic figures with daddy issues. It just feels very trite and condescending. It’s all too good guys vs tragic good guys gone bad. And it makes chaos marines feel more like ordinary marines with spikes on.

Angron and Magnus are the two I felt bad for. Particularly Magnus.

Andykp wrote:
This is one of things I dislike most about the horus heresey now that black library have butchered the story. All the traitors are tragic figures with daddy issues. It just feels very trite and condescending. It’s all too good guys vs tragic good guys gone bad. And it makes chaos marines feel more like ordinary marines with spikes on.

What should the motivation have been?

But that's what chaos marines are... I like the more human chaos space marines that aren't just tentacale toting freaks.

I agree with your summary of angron. I do however have issues with his story though, all the other primarchs basically kick so much ass that people have no choice but to go with them.. It seems odd that normal folks were able to keep him chained up... And then when he did break free, he should've been unstoppable, especially with the addition of the nails. Seems a bit contrite to me..

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
But that's what chaos marines are... I like the more human chaos space marines that aren't just tentacale toting freaks.

I agree with your summary of angron. I do however have issues with his story though, all the other primarchs basically kick so much ass that people have no choice but to go with them.. It seems odd that normal folks were able to keep him chained up... And then when he did break free, he should've been unstoppable, especially with the addition of the nails. Seems a bit contrite to me..

Without any rest, decent weapons or armour and fragile mental state I can see him losing in the big scheme of things. Especially if the planet had things like guns.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Poor old Angron. He never really stood a chance, thanks to The Butcher’s Nails. They fundamentally changed him. And seemingly nothing could be done about it.

Yet.....yet despite his rage, his early life points to him retaining his honour. And the worst thing that happened was The Emperor forcibly kidnapping him, causing him to betray his true brothers and sisters. He’d chosen (literally) his Hill To Die On, and was denied.

I think it’s pretty common opinion that The Emperor could’ve handled it so much better. Such as teleport strikes of World Eater (then the War Hounds) Terminators, to aid Angron’s last stand. A relatively healthy way to introduce Angron to his Sons. I’d imagine most rebel leaders would welcome such devastating support. Sure, it’s arguable that Angron might resent his glorious last stand being interfered with - but I’m certain it’d be to a far lesser degree than having to abandon his mates to die, whilst he scooted off to the stars.

No, Emperor saved his life. It was either they all die, or Emperor saves Angron. I despise Russ, but in Angron's case he was 100% right - Angron was an imbecile, being both unreasonable about being saved and ruining lives of his legion, too. Honour? He was rabid dog who had none, he took a honourable, knightly legion and turned them into a pack of rabid berserkers. QED.

As for teleport strikes, first, World Eaters were in another part of the galaxy, second, while theoretically Emperor could have tried something, the planet had archaotech weapons capable of killing a primarch. A handful of Custodes his ship could teleport would have changed nothing, besides lengthening list of dead. Emperor had little reason for joining the battle, especially seeing the planet joined his side right quick due to not being antagonized by sudden, unprovoked attack.

No, really, the only traitor who had any reason to rebel was Perturabo. His legion could have easily been the best of all, his sons given mental talents to be great scientists, mathematicians, doctors, architects. Instead, they got zero recognition and were squandered on worst, most thankless, dumbest warzones. Their math and scientific skills only use being in calculating artillery bombardments and attrition rates.

Remember the battle where three complete legions got their asses kicked, then Perturabo won it on his own with only part of his legion, but Dorn got all the (completely undeserved) credit? Pert was so loyal he didn't rebel on the spot, like anyone else would in his boots. Oh, then, to add insult to injury, Dorn got comfy job of building the Palace, something Pert always dreamt of, and the only building Perturabo was allowed to do was used to break his friend Magnus in the sham of Nicea, delivering extra kick.

Really, if you traded Iron Warriors for any of the loyalist legions save Ultramarines (and maybe DA) the Imperium would have been in much better shape today, no matter who it was, but Emperor did seemingly everything to ensure any option looked better for Iron Warriors than remaining aboard. Hell, given what Perturabo invented on the side, as a hobby, it's pretty likely Imperium wouldn't need Mechanicus and would actually be close to DAoT technological level by M41...

 Irbis wrote:

No, Emperor saved his life. It was either they all die, or Emperor saves Angron. I despise Russ, but in Angron's case he was 100% right - Angron was an imbecile, being both unreasonable about being saved and ruining lives of his legion, too. Honour? He was rabid dog who had none, he took a honourable, knightly legion and turned them into a pack of rabid berserkers. QED.

The war hounds were already mass murderers before Angron showed up. They were literally the legion that was sent in to do the dirty work and no one else talked about the fact that they were take no prisoner style butchering anyone they were sent to deal with. Angron just focused that rage.

Magnus is the one I feel sorry-est for.

That said, "Fall" presumes that those who didn't "fall" are "good". One look at Russ shows you that "loyalist" doesn't mean "good". He's clearly worse than Magnus. Not that Loyalist primarchs being bad makes Chaos primarchs any less bad.

Russ is a hypocrite with an "ends justify the means" mentality. It was only his overwhelming personal loyalty to the Emperor (his "alpha") that kept him on the straight and narrow. By the end of the HH series, we start to see hints of him questioning his attitude. I hope this will lead to him evolving into the more heroic character he was depicted as in older fluff but it looks like that boat might have sailed.

Yes the fallen Primarchs all had their issues. In a sense, they had to be written that way in order to justify their fall. Otherwise their actions would have looked random and arbitrary.

As for the Emperor mishandling the Primarchs, you have to remember that due to the scattering, they did not turn out as he had planned. Some of them were probably fairly close to what he intended (Guilliman, Vulkan). Others clearly turned out very differently from how they would have been had they been raised on Terra by the Emperor as planned.

This early intervention was what won it for Chaos. Without the Emperor to raise them, many Primarchs grew up into unstable characters. By the time the Emperor found them, their personalities were too strongly set for him to change and he didn't have the time to handle them the way he wanted. The Great Crusade was on a tight schedule as the Fall of the Eldar had only opened a narrow window of opportunity to reunite scattered humanity before some other race (such as the Orks) rose to dominate the galaxy.

This is most clearly explained in Master of Mankind. The Emperor says that he had no choice but to deploy the Primarchs, even knowing that some (particularly Angron) were badly damaged. Humanity's only hope was in the Great Crusade establishing a unified Imperium.

I really love that Fulgrim fell ultimately because he was trying to be better and do better and try to earn the recognition of the Emperor and his brothers as being as good as them despite having a comparatively small legion. I've only read a few HH books, but Fulgrim is by far my favourite. Yes, he's massively arrogant, and can be petulant and stroppy like a child, and wants to be better than everyone - but I love how chaos latched onto his quest for self improvement and improvement of his legion and expoilted it through his failings of personality.

I guess partially it is empathy, as I spent my childhood trying to win my dad's approval. Nothing I did was ever good enough, and I've ended up with impostor syndrome and very low self-worth (both of which I've been working on and have talked about in therapy). It's very easy for me to see how Fulgrim took the path he did. But also he's a massive dick and complete narcissist so I have no sympathy for him.

The primarchs who fell do seem to have had reasons for it, and a path that led them there. But ultimately they all had a choice, too, and they could have rebelled without chaos. Chaos just happened to provide both temptation and power.

 lifeafter wrote:

Andykp wrote:
This is one of things I dislike most about the horus heresey now that black library have butchered the story. All the traitors are tragic figures with daddy issues. It just feels very trite and condescending. It’s all too good guys vs tragic good guys gone bad. And it makes chaos marines feel more like ordinary marines with spikes on.

What should the motivation have been?

indeed. that the traitor primarchs had motivation and reason makes them intreasting characters... as opposed to 80s cartoon villians.

as for chaos marines feeling like ordinary marines, that might be the case early on, but you see the slow descent of the traitor legions into chaos throughout the series. "Slaves to Darkness" is when it is really hammered home

Bharring wrote:
Magnus is the one I feel sorry-est for.

That said, "Fall" presumes that those who didn't "fall" are "good". One look at Russ shows you that "loyalist" doesn't mean "good". He's clearly worse than Magnus. Not that Loyalist primarchs being bad makes Chaos primarchs any less bad.

Citation needed. At worst Russ and Magnus are equally bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Karhedron wrote:
Russ is a hypocrite with an "ends justify the means" mentality. It was only his overwhelming personal loyalty to the Emperor (his "alpha") that kept him on the straight and narrow. By the end of the HH series, we start to see hints of him questioning his attitude. I hope this will lead to him evolving into the more heroic character he was depicted as in older fluff but it looks like that boat might have sailed.

Yes the fallen Primarchs all had their issues. In a sense, they had to be written that way in order to justify their fall. Otherwise their actions would have looked random and arbitrary.

As for the Emperor mishandling the Primarchs, you have to remember that due to the scattering, they did not turn out as he had planned. Some of them were probably fairly close to what he intended (Guilliman, Vulkan). Others clearly turned out very differently from how they would have been had they been raised on Terra by the Emperor as planned.

This early intervention was what won it for Chaos. Without the Emperor to raise them, many Primarchs grew up into unstable characters. By the time the Emperor found them, their personalities were too strongly set for him to change and he didn't have the time to handle them the way he wanted. The Great Crusade was on a tight schedule as the Fall of the Eldar had only opened a narrow window of opportunity to reunite scattered humanity before some other race (such as the Orks) rose to dominate the galaxy.

This is most clearly explained in Master of Mankind. The Emperor says that he had no choice but to deploy the Primarchs, even knowing that some (particularly Angron) were badly damaged. Humanity's only hope was in the Great Crusade establishing a unified Imperium.

The problem wasn't that he was rushed or that they were scattered, the problem was that the Emperor looked at people and acted like they were video game characters he could press buttons to control. That and the colossally stupid idea that loyalty to Horus equated to loyalty to him.

I think with the Emperor, he was so incredibly ancient that he might just have lost the ability to trust or care for people as individuals, even his own family. Imagine having seen so many loved ones come and go over tens of thousands of years, the only constant being humanity as a whole. It would be millennia of heartbreak, and it's perfectly reasonable to assume that someone would emotionally shut themselves down to prevent any more hurt. To him, the human race was the only individual that mattered, the only one who would remain, with individuals simply being means to preserve the precious whole. This theory of course does not excuse his many, many mistakes, but it could be something of an explanation.

Personally, I think it's better to take that approach and try to ignore some of what's written by GW. They make the Emperor seem, frankly, utterly stupid which really shouldn't be a thing seeing as if he was then Chaos would've taken him long ago.

Everyone talking about russ, no mention of the lion? I just finished angels of caliban, and he's a total d bag. No wonder luther turned.

 lifeafter wrote:

Andykp wrote:
This is one of things I dislike most about the horus heresey now that black library have butchered the story. All the traitors are tragic figures with daddy issues. It just feels very trite and condescending. It’s all too good guys vs tragic good guys gone bad. And it makes chaos marines feel more like ordinary marines with spikes on.

What should the motivation have been?

What’s wrong with just simple greed, ambition, basic human failings, why does all have to be based on their daddy issues? They all just come across as simpering little children desperate for approval, it’s all very emo and juvenile. Much better that they had their own personalities and motives outside of their relationship with the emperor.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Everyone talking about russ, no mention of the lion? I just finished angels of caliban, and he's a total d bag. No wonder luther turned.

He doesn't get enormously better in subsequent appearances.
His issue isn't malevolence- he's not trying to be a d bag - so much as being something not totally dissimilar to autistic. Which, given the "feral child on a death world" is quite realistic.

In his brain, he knows he's loyal therefore whatever he does must logically be okay (ironically much like Russ). Equally, he see-saws from naive to paranoid as the heresy unfolds, and his one of his first reactions to hearing about the heresy is "does that mean I get to be warmaster now?".

As a swordsman he's superb, as a tactician he's probably the best of any of them, but as a judge and manager of people he's truly awful.....Which, ironically, makes him one of the worst commanders you could have in a civil war.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to angron....We know the war hounds weren't there - word came to them "at the vueran mustering docks" and they met the emperor at aldebaran where he dumped angron on them post arkham land's inspection.

However, the emperor hadn't just turned up: "The Emperor had observed Angron secretly from orbit for many months" (index astartes) - if he'd chosen to, he'd had time to do something other than kidnap angron as an unwilling conscript.

Note that Nuceria had archeotech, but they were not an advanced world: the gladiators had serious cyber-enhancement (Which is why the eaters of cities lasted as long as they did) it the nucerian military was very distinctly sub-imperial-army tech level: a custodian or astartes strike force would have devastated their armies.

The emperor *could* have saved him, but he decided he'd rather have a bloodless compliance and a conscript rather than a compliance action and a willing volunteer who'd still die from the Nails in the end. Which is an understandable decision, but it still sucked to be angron.

I'm not sure about the lion as a tactician, his answer to the problem of curze marauding around macragge was a strategic bombardment from orbit of an entire population... Although I guess in the imperium that constitutes good tactical acumen

Exactly. It would work - he just doesn't give a gak about collateral damage unless someone tells him that's one of 'the rules' he's supposed to be working to.

Having finished reading The Buried Dagger I see Mortarian as a hypocritical D bag. Unfortunately the coming of the Emperor has parallels with Angrons 'rescue'. which seems a bit lazy on the part of BL.

You can feel sorry for Magnus up to a point but hubris saw his fall coming. His dabbling with the warp showed that he thought to highly of his own intellectual capability.

Perturabo was probably the only Traitor who was really wronged/whose legion was misused but there was a "war" on (of Big Es making but there you go).

locarno24 wrote:
Exactly. It would work - he just doesn't give a gak about collateral damage unless someone tells him that's one of 'the rules' he's supposed to be working to.

Yes but that's not being a tactical genius. Otherwise I'd take my sledgehammer to the world chess championships and become a grandmaster.

Also, he should know the rules. He's supposed to be a Knight with honour and some sort of moral code. Wiping out a bunch of civilians makes him as bad as, (and its possible to argue worse than) Curze himself.

If he was a master tactician he should've been able to predict Curze' behaviour and position himself, and his units accordingly. That's what he did at the end of the book, and one could argue that the hidden orbital bombardment he did subject the area to was pointless as thats what he eventually did anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Having finished reading The Buried Dagger I see Mortarian as a hypocritical D bag. Unfortunately the coming of the Emperor has parallels with Angrons 'rescue'. which seems a bit lazy on the part of BL.

You can feel sorry for Magnus up to a point but hubris saw his fall coming. His dabbling with the warp showed that he thought to highly of his own intellectual capability.

Perturabo was probably the only Traitor who was really wronged/whose legion was misused but there was a "war" on (of Big Es making but there you go).

Of course he is. They're all a bunch of man babies . They had to be to make the story work.

From what I remember Morty was just jealous of Horus.

But then the emperor was hardly the awesome dude he is made out to be. Humiliating Lorgar in front of his entire legion and another was a douche move and that of a terrible commander. A quiet word, followed by a b*llocking would've sufficed.

And leaving the GC to horus with no explanation, another turd move. Sure horus should've been man enough to trust him, but still, it's a big push for anyone to not wonder what was going on in a situation like that.

Out of all of them, the most mature and sensible would be sanguinius, vulkan and the Khan, in my opinion.

Konrad Curze?

I'm in the opposite camp. I've always been drawn to the Traitor Legions, and their Primarchs. It's only from the HH series and post Dark Imperium have I actually gained a better understanding and appreciation of the Loyalists.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Having finished reading The Buried Dagger I see Mortarian as a hypocritical D bag. Unfortunately the coming of the Emperor has parallels with Angrons 'rescue'. which seems a bit lazy on the part of BL.

You can feel sorry for Magnus up to a point but hubris saw his fall coming. His dabbling with the warp showed that he thought to highly of his own intellectual capability.

Perturabo was probably the only Traitor who was really wronged/whose legion was misused but there was a "war" on (of Big Es making but there you go).

It could be argued that The Emperor’s whole ‘total secret squirrel’ thing was the greatest hurdle Magnus encountered.

Consider any particularly intelligent child. One who doesn’t just drink in knowledge, but craves it. For such sprogs, being told ‘no’ needs a proper, considered rationale - a key to understand why we don’t, I dunno, keep prodding a sleeping dog.

He’s also the difference between being well read, and being wise. Had The Emperor not only explained that the warp and Magnus’ powers are dangerous, but the why, we might’ve seen a very different outcome. Perhaps the same pursuit of knowledge, but with greater restraint of its application. Teach Magnus that his powers aren’t to be relied solely upon - after all, the other Legions less psychically blessed achieved great things.

But no. The Emperor, as with the worst autocratic dictatorships refused to believe anyone but him could handle the wisdom and knowledge.

Of course, the natural counter argument is that Magnus’s knowledge craving nature would’ve meant he’d do it all the same, just to show that ever more can be learned. That perhaps he could progress The Emperor’s studies and actually master Chaos.

Which leads into a whole ‘universe head’ topic of whether, when it comes to Chaos, whether it’s ignorance or knowledge that is the biggest danger.

Hmmm...might do a thread on that.

Not just Magnus. If he'd been more open with the threat of the powers of chaos to Lorgar when they were on speaking terms, the Aurelian would have said "hang on....that sounds suspicioulsy like the 'old faith' of Colchis I spent ages eradicating...." Which would have led to a short but interesting conversation between Kor Phaeron and the Emperor, and one major axis the Heresy pivots on being kicked away.

Why? Because the Emperor designed it so they would.

Why else would he coincidentally treat half his Primarchs like crap and the other half as favoured sons?

The Horus Heresy was 100% manufactured to cull the Astartes as he had culled the Thunder Warriors beforehand. I suspect what threw a monkey wrench into the works was Magnus cocking up the Terran webway project.

That is a very interesting train of thought! No,genuinely.

It also, possibly speaks to his underestimating the Chaos Gods, if indeed he’d originally made a pact with them?