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From what I've read about the Space Marines, they generally have bland and boring characters. I don't see them joking around often, they're so serious!

Do their personalities undergo change during the human to SM transformation process? Besides the know no fear bit.

They have personalities...

To an extent yes, but I was curious about the personalities that would be more human.

You know, muck around, be happy etc. We already know they can feel sorrow or anger.

 Far Seer wrote:
To an extent yes, but I was curious about the personalities that would be more human.

You know, muck around, be happy etc. We already know they can feel sorrow or anger.

In the grim darkness of the far future, no one can be happy. Except Orks, they get a jolly good laugh when they can.

You have to keep in mind that emotionally speaking, Space Marines are rather stunted, since they're taken in and indoctrinated at such a young age to become Space Marines. That being said, there's more than a few Space Marines with cheerful dispositions, and more than that who like to crack the odd joke. Roboute Guilliman in Know No Fear kept making poor jokes in front of his legionaries, it was really weird.

Oh? I never expected him to be making jokes...
I must get my hands on that novel soon.

Yep, that's why it was weird
I felt about as uncomfortable as the legionaries he was with.

Read the HH books Humanises the Astartes a lot more than the codex' a lot more. In their own company anyway


Von Chogg

Guilliman isn't a marine though to be fair. The primarchs were mostly raised as people, so they have a wider range of emotions in that most had parents or mentors and just eventually realised that they were different to everybody else. The exceptions being Kurze, Angron and the Lion who had far more brutal upbringings. Although Angron was presumely raised by other pit slaves, his mind was too damaged to understand how normal people think. Kurze and the Lion grew up bereft of any guidance so are far removed from the men they command and the human empire that they are supposed to protect.

Space Wolves seem to be an odd bunch then, what with all that drinking and brawling

Yes, but they were always a special bunch

To be honest, if you want rounded, believable characters, there's a whole world of literature out there which features no genetically-engineered supermen or epic battles. That the Space Marines are primarily one-dimensional, cliché-spouting cyphers is an integral part of 40k's style.

And no, Space Wolves, drinking beer and having a beard do not count as character traits.

 English Assassin wrote:
To be honest, if you want rounded, believable characters, there's a whole world of literature out there which features no genetically-engineered supermen or epic battles. That the Space Marines are primarily one-dimensional, cliché-spouting cyphers is an integral part of 40k's style.

And no, Space Wolves, drinking beer and having a beard do not count as character traits.

No, drinking and having facial hair don't constitute personality traits, but a good number of Space Wolves do have a sense of humor. All of the books I've read with a Space Wolf as a main character show it to an extent.

I dunno about the Space Marines themselves but this site http://menducia.atspace.com/primarchs/I.html has some pretty good ideas on the personalities of the primarchs.

I guess through extension it could apply the space marines, though in that case alot of space marines are very similar (Ultra's and successors)

 beezley1981 wrote:

 English Assassin wrote:
To be honest, if you want rounded, believable characters, there's a whole world of literature out there which features no genetically-engineered supermen or epic battles. That the Space Marines are primarily one-dimensional, cliché-spouting cyphers is an integral part of 40k's style.

And no, Space Wolves, drinking beer and having a beard do not count as character traits.

No, drinking and having facial hair don't constitute personality traits, but a good number of Space Wolves do have a sense of humor. All of the books I've read with a Space Wolf as a main character show it to an extent.

Here is funny moment of SW is in "Emperor's gift" ( in the highlight of the siege ) Logan get's reprimanded by Bjorn, calling him something like impetuous young one and all the wolves in behind start to piss them self from laughter, because he is like 700 years old....

I think they do have a gsoh, it's just a little 'special'.

Can't see them getting past a 40k style knock knock joke...

 kitch102 wrote:
I think they do have a gsoh, it's just a little 'special'.

Can't see them getting past a 40k style knock knock joke...

Ha, you mean like - Knock, knock!!! Who's there !? This (Big deaf dread)!!!! Oooo, boyz are the funniest...

Or even

Knock knock!
Who's there?
WAAAAAAGH!

WAAAAAAAAGH who?

WAAAAAAAAAGH'sup man, how you doin'?

Pretty sure that's the extent of astartes tom foolery.

They must have a USR for it - "And they shall know no humour".

 English Assassin wrote:
To be honest, if you want rounded, believable characters, there's a whole world of literature out there which features no genetically-engineered supermen or epic battles. That the Space Marines are primarily one-dimensional, cliché-spouting cyphers is an integral part of 40k's style.

And no, Space Wolves, drinking beer and having a beard do not count as character traits.

My cultural heritage and I beg to differ

Astartes have just enough emotion to help them make human judgements in critical situations. Some emotions are useful for a marine as is obvious. So they must be present, others, as is also obvious, aren't. Fear (though not completely absent) is a good example.

This has more to do with indoctrination and training as opposed to their genetics. The Primarchs, the source of the genetics for the Legions, were emotional beings. Those attributes varying from the near Bi-polar, to the sociopathic. Typical of heroic characters.

Space Marines with personalities are rare but do exist. Night Lords trilogy probably pulls it off the best, and those were CSM even (which imo is more difficult to write an interesting character for then loyalists).

English Assassin wrote:To be honest, if you want rounded, believable characters, there's a whole world of literature out there which features no genetically-engineered supermen or epic battles. That the Space Marines are primarily one-dimensional, cliché-spouting cyphers is an integral part of 40k's style.

This so much. GW's fluff mentions a million times how Space Marines "sacrifice their humanity" to become what they are. Their minds are altered by hypno-indoctrination, chemosurgery and various drugs, and their lifestyle exists of fighting wars and preparing for it in a monastic environment. That doesn't turn Astartes into mindless robots, but it should be obvious how it might affect a recruit's personality (which did not even have time to develop fully, keeping in mind the age at which they are inducted) and how the resulting soldier has a, shall we say, rather limited range of behavorial patterns. You may still get a Marine who enjoys talking about past deeds more than his brothers, or a Marine who likes a bit of philosophy, or a Marine who is more interested in technology than others (and subsequently might become a Techmarine), or a Marine who is a little more reckless, or more arrogant, or more humble. What you won't (shouldn't) get is a prankster who goes around telling silly jokes.
Some other Imperial factions such as the Adepta Sororitas, the Storm Trooper regiment and the Commissariat face the same "issue".

Unfortunately, it is rather difficult (but possible!) to write such persona as interesting characters for a reader, which is why various novels may deviate from this depiction whenever an author feels too constrained by such limitations or is simply unaware of these things. Lack of canon means that such presentations are just as valid as the studio fluff, but we still end up with some vastly different versions of Space Marines due to this approach. Quite a number of fans actually favour the standard novel interpretation, though. I guess it's a matter of preferences - some like the narrative balance that comes with the sacrifice ("there's a price to pay for such power"), others like to cherrypick the "best" things from superhumanity and humanity to combine them in some sort of supersoldier who can still behave like the best buddy from next door.

For better or for worse, the Space Wolves are actually a GW example of the latter, and in this they seem to stand apart from any other Space Marine Chapter there is. Just another way in how they are "special".

 Harriticus wrote:
Space Marines with personalities are rare but do exist. Night Lords trilogy probably pulls it off the best, and those were CSM even (which imo is more difficult to write an interesting character for then loyalists).

I wouldn't say "pulls it off" so much as "fills the book" with it.

I'm pretty the last sentence in the prologue of Soul Hunter is "The demigod gave a rare smile. 'Home'.

It isn't rare if they smile every other page.

Blood Angels get bloody, blood blood bloods.

Space Wolves get wolfy wolf wolfson on wolf-wolf with a wolf of wolfness.

Grey Knights get psi-cannons that shoot psi-bolts with psi-psi-psi-riflemen dreds who have psi-wiches for lunch in their psi-boxes with psi-thermos. Psi-sigh psi-duck.

Night Lords get smile. Smile armour with smile-smirk smiles. Their new character in the chaos codex should be Smiley McGringiggle. Smiler of the eternal smiles.

Well I only saw a few examples of how they can be funny:

"Dont worry about your missing arm. wipe your arse with the other one and you'll be fine."-a luna wolf captain in Horus Rising to a wounded marine

.

"Telramund is right. we move out, draw your chainswords."
Telramund was already holding his meltagun. "this weapon will suit me fine, commander"
"And what of the civilians who where captured? No meltaguns, no flamers, no frag grenades..."
"how about missile launchers?"
"...how about you take point?"
-Tower of Blood short story in Hammer and bolter volume one

Dunno if it is really funny, but hey, as people said before, "sacrificed humanity" and all that.

Tiger9gamer wrote:Dunno if it is really funny, but hey, as people said before, "sacrificed humanity" and all that.

With the Space Wolves it's probably more that they just have a different sort of humour to modern people. I don't see them sacrificing much of their humanity at all, it's just that they are basically making "Viking Warrior Jokes", if that makes any sense. Look around then you will see plenty of movies where you find it in use as well.

The marines in the Battle for the Abyss were absolutely horrible though.
Absolutely no interesting characteristics. Space Wolves were absolutely feral.

It just goes to show that marine personalities also depend on the author

Crucuially it boils down to expectations of professionalism in the face working under an extreme dictatorship.

I don't imagine the dispositions of the soldiers of Hitler, Kim Jong, or Stalin to be particulary sunny either.

Being an effectively immortal being who has been trained since childhood to be a ruthless killer probably does some things to your perspective.

The Apothecary from the book Helsreach kept whining about marines dying. And the champion went all rage mode on the salamanders. So they have some emotion.

I think for the most part Marines do tend to be fairly serious, for good reason! But there are those who still do have a sense of humour though. It's just not the blatant, practical-joke, har-de-har kind of humour. I think Marine sense of humour tends towards the more dry, deadpan, almost morbid, gallows-style type of humour. More subtle than cracking obvious jokes and such.

Most have a personality...
Though it'd be understandable if they didn't given their circumstances...