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Hi guys,
I am currently reading The Battle of Molech and I got struck by how well written is Horus Lupercal. Even in-universe, he is pretty self conscious, he sounds in charge, capable, conscious about Chaos, deamons and their true aims.
In comparison, Abaddon always sounds and looks like he is 1/ dumb 2/ just always angry
I really don't see how he is supposed to become the head of the forces of Chaos later but whatever
Usually loyalists are just more well written than traitors (just look the story of Dantioch and Krendl...) and that's why I noticed Horus so much.
Is there any other traitor as well written as Horus, Aximand and Noctua and not like mustach twirling Abaddon ?

It depends on the book.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden writes traitors really well with First Heretic and Betrayer being two of the most lauded books in the Heresy series.

I guess part of it is Horus is such a Main Character.

Though I’d also say Erebus is also well written, because he’s such an oily weasel. We hate to see him succeed, and take joy when bad things happen to him, like when Horus set about his face with his own Anathema.

 Gert wrote:
It depends on the book.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden writes traitors really well with First Heretic and Betrayer being two of the most lauded books in the Heresy series.

Indeed he does. I'd also recommend his Night Lords short stories if someone is sticking to 30k. Sevatar is one of the coolest "Bad Guys" around. And if 40k is an option, you can't leave out the Soul Hunter trilogy.

And don't forget, some of it is writing about the "past" while you already know the "future".

Abby NOW is Angry all the time, and extremely unhinged by the loss of his Primarch. Its very easy to make him the same back then just turned down to 10, instead of 11.

As for why Horus is written with so much depth and some sort of humanity? I call it the JFK/Lincoln Effect. For you Brits it might be the Mountbatten Effect. We don't write ill of the dead very often. In fact we tend to canonize and RetCon them. Even the fictional dead.

 Gert wrote:
It depends on the book.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden writes traitors really well with First Heretic and Betrayer being two of the most lauded books in the Heresy series.

I agree for First Heretic, but I haven't read betrayer yet
I'll check it out !


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breton wrote:
And don't forget, some of it is writing about the "past" while you already know the "future".

Abby NOW is Angry all the time, and extremely unhinged by the loss of his Primarch. Its very easy to make him the same back then just turned down to 10, instead of 11.

As for why Horus is written with so much depth and some sort of humanity? I call it the JFK/Lincoln Effect. For you Brits it might be the Mountbatten Effect. We don't write ill of the dead very often. In fact we tend to canonize and RetCon them. Even the fictional dead.

Interesting, I'll take a look into it !
But yeah, I could understand in 40k, it's just so sad that a simple sergeant like Noctua is able to show more strategic cunning that Abaddon the ever angry childman that is supposed to be the Big Bad Guy

 godardc wrote:

In comparison, Abaddon always sounds and looks like he is 1/ dumb 2/ just always angry

I'm fairly sure that's deliberate from the writer's part. Like most other things in the 40k universe, Abby is supposed to be a deconstruction/sarcastic take on the classic arch-villain tropes.

 godardc wrote:

But yeah, I could understand in 40k, it's just so sad that a simple sergeant like Noctua is able to show more strategic cunning that Abaddon the ever angry childman that is supposed to be the Big Bad Guy

Abby also has something of a reputation for lacking that cunning. I mean the whole plan to win on Vigilus was for Calgar to screw with his head over potentially losing his Battle Barge.

Whether that should be the case for a defacto faction leader is another question.

I feel the need to point out that the Vengeful Spirit isn't just a Battle Barge. Its the most powerful ship of all the Traitor Legions and most of the remaining Loyalist Chapters with perhaps only the Phalanx edging out on top.
Its not something that Abaddon can ever replace and would be akin to the losing the USS Enterprise (either the IRL one or the Star Trek one) or the HMS Hood (which in reality was a massive shock when it was sunk in WW2).

As for the comparison between Noctua and Abaddon, the latter being a generally angry dude with a lot of aggression doesn't take away from the fact that he is an extremely good field commander with a good grasp of tactics. He wouldn't have been able to ascend to First Captain of the Luna Wolves and then Warmaster of Chaos if he wasn't. His aggression allowed him to command the trademark tactic (the Speartip Strike) of the Luna Wolves with great skill. It took being humbled by Perturabo and disgusted with the worship of Horus Lupercal for Abaddon to break free from his father's shadow and come into his own as a leader of Legions. It was also not a walk in the park and the Black Legion came close to being annihilated before Abaddon was able to claim Drachnyen and eventually gain the favour of the Chaos Gods.
Noctua on the other hand was good at killing. He only got into the Mournival because Horus Aximand needed someone to counter Abaddon's appointment, Falkus Kibre. Noctua got killed and later possessed by Tormageddon as well so he clearly wasn't that good.

 Gert wrote:
I feel the need to point out that the Vengeful Spirit isn't just a Battle Barge. Its the most powerful ship of all the Traitor Legions and most of the remaining Loyalist Chapters with perhaps only the Phalanx edging out on top.

It's also not why he was so predictable when it came to risking it - both in not seeing the ploy coming, and for reacting exactly like he was supposed to. He is not well written. He's generally consistently written, but not in a good way.

The Vengeful Spirit is a Gloriana class. It is broadly on par with similar vessels like the Iron Blood, Invincible Reason, and Macragge's Honour. I am sure it has received all manner of daemonic and warp gifts that may enhance its power over a "typical" Gloriana, but it isn't as large or powerful as the Furious Abyss class or the Phalanx.

The Phalanx is truly enormous with immense power, but it is more of a mobile space station than a true void warship.

Of course, the Vengeful Spirit is still an immensely powerful and irreplaceable vessel for Abaddon that he would want to carefully protect.

Breton wrote:
It's also not why he was so predictable when it came to risking it - both in not seeing the ploy coming, and for reacting exactly like he was supposed to. He is not well written. He's generally consistently written, but not in a good way.

Hardly fair to say it's bad that Abaddon didn't see the Imperium allying with Aeldari they were fighting, to load a very rare and ancient Aeldari stealth ship full of Vortex missiles and use it as a giant torpedo.

As far as well written villains I think I’m going to go with fabious bile. Absolutely detestable guy but you are still routing for him all the way through

I would like to nominate Trazyn, especially after the release of The Infinite and The Divine. I think he has really won over a lot of people to the newcrons lore and shown that Necrons can be interesting and entertaining characters.

Villains are much better written in Black Library novels than in the Games Workshop books.

GW is writing at a much lower level, concentrating on plot over characterization. They also have a much lower word count available to them. Fleshing out characters is not something they do. And commanders, no matter how good, get surprised. They don't say "no plan survives contact with the enemy" for no reason. You always think you thought of everything, until the unthinkable happens. Then you often think why you didn't see something so obvious. Otherwise you are thinking, where the hell did that come from?

Black Library has much more space to make characters more interesting and nuanced, if the writer chooses to. Erebus is oily scum, but well written and motivated oily scum. I've found Kor Phaeron in the books I have read (HH 1 - 26) to be as mustache-twirling a villain you can be without a mustache.

Alpharius/omegan are pretty well written in general. (Or is they?!?!) They both walk that knifeedge of being incredibly intelligent and capable with colossal arrogance and insanity lurking just over the edge

Breton wrote:
For you Brits it might be the Mountbatten Effect. We don't write ill of the dead very often. In fact we tend to canonize and RetCon them. Even the fictional dead.

Not so much Mountbatten - I mean his family still pen stuff defending him, but largely he is remembered as the person that made a bad situation worse in the partition of India. People alive at the time remember the assassination, but I am not sure that is as well known now as partition.