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Depends who their mother was

I've read the first 4 or 5 HH books and to me it seems to be 100% the Chaos Gods. Horus was corrupted first when he nearly died to the xenos anathema weapon and the other Primarchs slowly started to follow suit. Fulgrim was corrupted by a Slaneesh possessed blade. Angron was practically a follower of Khorne from the beginning because of his bloodlust and rage implants. Mortarion and his legion became corrupted after being stuck in a warp storm and exposed to Nurgle. Magnus spent a lot of time trying to manipulate the warp (not sure about Magnus haven't read that far yet) etc. etc.

There may have been seeds of doubt within the traitor Primarchs that made it easier for them to be swayed, but ultimately I think the responsibility solely belongs to the Chaos Gods.

Way to let the Big E off the hook there man. He gave the Chose Gods an opening, hell he served up his sons and his troops on a silver platter.

Considering the Emperor took it upon himself to personally "protect" humanity through the creation of the primarchs and the legions, failure lays firmly at his feet.

It's hinted at that he made deals with the various Chaos gods in order to build the primarch program to begin with. My guess is that "he" made those deals sometime after the various shaman had committed suicide in order to merge their souls together to be reborn into a single body.

Regardless, E made a LOT of mistakes when finding the grown up primarchs and certainly should have put down more than the mysterious 2. Ultimately he had created a group of super beings with the emotional stability of a 3 year old and did nothing to form them into well adjusted adults. Simply using and ignoring them did nothing to promote the long term health of the Imperium.

Even if Chaos didn't intervene he would have lost control of the Imperium due to civil war. So, yes, it's his fault.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Using the best brother to chastise the worst one? Good lord, lol. What an awful choice.

As I recall, Sanguinius was not used to chastise Lorgar, Guilliman was.

But no, seriously. When you look at what Lorgar was being chastised for, there was no worse choice than Guilliman to carry out the punishment. He was "The Good Son". The one who had done everything exactly the way he was supposed to. If Lorgar was to look at one of his brothers as the "example", it was Guilliman. By using Guilliman to destroy Monarchia, the Emperor was trying to say "Guilliman does what he is supposed to. You should be like him." Lorgar interpreted it as "You're worthless. I wish you had been like Guilliman." And that was why Lorgar developed such an irrational hatred of Guilliman, because he thought that Guilliman despised him, and had taken pleasure in destroying Monarchia. In reality, Guilliman had destroyed Monarchia because the Emperor told him to, and Guilliman always did what he was told.

It doesn't help that, on Monarchia, he personally called Lorgar a failure of a son. His only failure of a son. Never mind those two who were purged from history for whatever crimes they commited. Never mind his sorcerer son who he knows is meddling with powers he shouldn't be. Never mind his mindless berzerker son. Never mind his muderer son from planet murder.

Monarchia was a farce. 'Your worlds are the most compliant worlds in the galaxy! This is an outrage! You made them worship me! I'm not a god, you imbecile. Now kneel before your go... I mean father while I punish you for being a failure!'.

Yeah, the Emperor was kind of a douchebag.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Using the best brother to chastise the worst one? Good lord, lol. What an awful choice.

As I recall, Sanguinius was not used to chastise Lorgar, Guilliman was.

But no, seriously. When you look at what Lorgar was being chastised for, there was no worse choice than Guilliman to carry out the punishment. He was "The Good Son". The one who had done everything exactly the way he was supposed to. If Lorgar was to look at one of his brothers as the "example", it was Guilliman. By using Guilliman to destroy Monarchia, the Emperor was trying to say "Guilliman does what he is supposed to. You should be like him." Lorgar interpreted it as "You're worthless. I wish you had been like Guilliman." And that was why Lorgar developed such an irrational hatred of Guilliman, because he thought that Guilliman despised him, and had taken pleasure in destroying Monarchia. In reality, Guilliman had destroyed Monarchia because the Emperor told him to, and Guilliman always did what he was told.

It doesn't help that, on Monarchia, he personally called Lorgar a failure of a son. His only failure of a son. Never mind those two who were purged from history for whatever crimes they commited. Never mind his sorcerer son who he knows is meddling with powers he shouldn't be. Never mind his mindless berzerker son. Never mind his muderer son from planet murder.

Monarchia was a farce. 'Your worlds are the most compliant worlds in the galaxy! This is an outrage! You made them worship me! I'm not a god, you imbecile. Now kneel before your go... I mean father while I punish you for being a failure!'.

Yeah, the Emperor was kind of a douchebag.

I can't help it, I actually lol'd

The emperor is at fault when it comes down to it.

HIS hubris, in refusing to see his flawed creations as anything but imperfect, his inability to heed advice and warnings, his belief that he alone was strong enough to protect humanity and his general boneheadedness.

Can't really blame the primarchs that fell for their flaws - they were BUILT that way and Chaos was nothing if not efficient in its capitalising on those flaws (Opportunism, thy name is chaos).

Though it is intresting to think about it-with so many of his sons being so fundamentally flawed, murderous, borderline chaos worshipppers from the get-go and generally monsters, just how bad were the two he wiped out?

Or maybe they were in fact the two who went right, being honorable, wise and natural leaders and in his great hurbis he saw them as the ones who threat to take his place, because they are as good/better then him?

Ultimately I think its the emperors fault. Sure the chaos gods corrupted many primarchs BUT thats what they are supposed to do, corrupt stuff. The emperor however hid the threat of chaos from his sons and as such some were dampering in it, thinking they could use and control it (Magnus) and some others searched for the mightiest beings of existence (Lorgar). I think, if the emperor had warned the primarchs about the true form of the warp, all the heresy wouldnt have happened.

It was the idolatry of the Word Bearers. They were the legion to first fall to Chaos ways with the securing of the Anathame.

There will always be opposing forces, the Emporer vs Chaos.

-Loki- wrote:
It doesn't help that, on Monarchia, he personally called Lorgar a failure of a son. His only failure of a son. Never mind those two who were purged from history for whatever crimes they commited. Never mind his sorcerer son who he knows is meddling with powers he shouldn't be. Never mind his mindless berzerker son. Never mind his muderer son from planet murder.

Monarchia was a farce. 'Your worlds are the most compliant worlds in the galaxy! This is an outrage! You made them worship me! I'm not a god, you imbecile. Now kneel before your go... I mean father while I punish you for being a failure!'.

Yeah, the Emperor was kind of a douchebag.

Nobody will argue that the Emprah was (has become due to the sometimes poorly conceptualized expanding fluff, lol) a bit of an arrogant douchebag.

Then again, maybe the two "missing" Primarchs weren't failures. We don't know anything about them aside from the games the BL authors like to play with them, lol.

But remember, we have to look at the expectations that were set. The Space Marines were designed to conquer, not to administrate. The HH books have shown us that there were follow-on forces whose job it was to bring the worlds back into the fold. The Space Marines were there merely to subjugate worlds that refused, and to exterminate any xenos that were infesting the path. What Lorgar and the Word Bearers were doing was wasting time, and not achieving their objectives. The Ultramarines got away with participating in the empire building because it didn't slow them down. Remember, when the Emperor found him, Guilliman was already an emperor himself. It didn't matter that the Word Bearers were creating compliant worlds. They were making far too few of them, and worse, making them compliant wasn't their job.

So while Magnus was dabbling in Warpy stuff, and Curze was all murdery, and Angryon was a two dimensional cardstock villain that should have been put down like a rabid dog when he was found, but all three of them went about doing what they were supposed to. Which was conquer worlds and kill aliens. In the context that the primarchs and Space Marines were created for, Lorgar and the Word Bearers were failures.

Of course, the Emprah shouldn't have been such a dick about it, lol.

No offense to anyone as all of this is sheer conjecture, but I must disagree with the apparent one sided bashing of Angron. There are two primary reasons why the Angron bashing is wasted effort. Thesis as follows:

Angron was and is not a one dimensional slavering half imbecile creature that is evil and needed to be put down. He has been portrayed this way only most recently and has had his background fluff (as well as that of Khorne) amended to change him from a marital and proud warrior to a veritable ravenous dog who is better off dead.

Angron landed on and grew up on a planet where gladiatorial combat was the de rigueur form of entertainment. As such, being a very large, powerful, and innately skilled orphan (and all that is entailed in such) he was placed into gladiatorial combat. He was very successful and led a coup against the corrupt leaders with his band of loyal followers. Most people reading will now see that this is homage if not exact replication of the Spartacus story. There are no essays or historical writings referring to Spartacus a ravenous or rabid dog that needed to be put down. If there are, no doubt they were written by former slave holders who were afraid of losing their slaves or lives. Therefore, anyone who sights his gladiatorial upbringing as a reason to “put him down” is in essence agreeing with slavery and the right of a slave owner to destroy their own property, even if it is a living breathing human.

Also, following the Spartacus storyline, Angron’s band is trapped and is soon to be destroyed. The emperor (who easily has the power to destroy any resistance on the planet) seemingly on a whim decides to pull Angron off of the planet and let him watch as his men are slaughtered. He then asks him to lead a group of men he knows nothing about on a quest that is not his own. Why the Emperor decided to not let Angron die with his men (and thereby forever betray his men and dishonor himself and Angron). This clearly shows that not only does the emperor not value martial pride, but he also has zero empathy or understanding for his children and the world they grew up on.

Lastly, after the emperor took Angron amongst his forces he pushed him into all of the frontline shock force, fear breeding missions. Instead of trying to tutor or enlighten, the emperor feeds into the very ideas he promulgated though his negligence. He forces his progeny into the very rols he sought to save him from, the height off arrogance and hypocrisy.

The emperor has forced Angron’s hand and more than any other primarch pushed him into betrayal (or justice as it looks to me). Chaos, just so happened to be waiting to catch him when he leaped. If the emperor had respected martial valor, and let Angron die with his men, no issue. If he had respected pride and the desire to win freedom he could have pulled them all from the planet or gone ahead and had the future group of marines Angron was to lead crush the planets corrupt and kleptocratic government. Finally, the emperor chooses, blatantly to hold him in the same roles he was pulled from cementing his mind set and life path. All in all, the emperor pushed Angron into rebellion, into chaos, and into revenge.

It's weird, because actually, Angron started off as a ravening rage monster, and it is only recent fluff which is trying to amend this.

Also Angron's rage was artificially inhanced by the people that put him into Gladitorial combat. Did the emperor attempt to remove them, no. He just said stop doing it to the rest of the World Eaters which Angron ignored. Maybe if the emperor sedated Angron and emoved the rage Monster implants he could have been a somewhat calmer and more logical leader, instead the emperor just unleashed him like a rabid dog. The emperor was never in a position to control Angron and it is surprising he didn't kill the Emperor outright at his first opportunity, or he just never got one. It almost like if in Star Trek they had just left Captain Picard all borgified as Locutus and just said all well he's better off this way and shrugged their shoulders.

Angron's escaped slaves were useless to the Emperor. They were as bad, or worse than he was.

It's easy to look at this from Angron's perspective and say "They Emprah should have let him die (fat chance, this was a perfect super being he'd created to lead his armies), or that he should have saved his army (and add a few thousand uncontrollable pyschopaths to his fleet?).

No, Angron was destined to be a general of Space Marines. There was no place for him on his home planet, and there was no room for his slave army in the Imperium. On the other hand, the planet was willingly compliant, "civilized", and stable.

The argument for putting down Angron has nothing to do with being a Spartacus trope. It has to do with the fact that, unlike Spartacus, he had mechanisms jacked into his brain that made him psychotic, and he'd grown so accustomed to them that he refused to have them removed, which should have bespoke the fact that he was an uncontrollable lunatic. It has nothing to do with his upbringing, aside from the fact that he was brought up with the murder monster machine in his head.

I will agree with the sentiment that the Emprah should have just unplugged Angron's head (assuming he had the ability to) and not asked first.

But we're talking about a two dimensional character that was invented 25 years ago when it was okay to be called Mortarion because you were a giant grim reaper daemon and it was okay to be called Angron because you had so much anger, and therefore were perfect to be a giant Khorne daemon prince.

The stuff that people like to point out as having "caused" Angron to do things aren't actually "causes" at all. This stuff has all been invented, long, long after the fact, to try and make Angron less one-dimensional. The truth is, the more you look at the story of Angron, the less sense it makes.

Why does the Emperor let an uncontrollable lunatic like Angron run a Space Marine Legion? No, it's not because he had it in mind for him to be a shock force of terror troops. It's because 25 years ago, it was written that he did.

Why doesn't he just put him down like a rabid dog like he assumedly did the II and XI? Because 20 years ago the II and XI were actually supposed to have been traitor legions that had switched back and had their records deleted as a reward.

This idea that Angron was once some kind of proud warrior and that the fluff has been changed to make him a monster is laughably silly. On the contrary, he was always a cartoon villain monster, and only recently have they tried to rationalize his behavior. The reason he was a cartoon villain was because in the old days that's all he needed to be. The old days when primarchs were named after 19th century homosexual British poets, Inquisitors were named Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, Squat models were named after guns, and Imperial Guard models were named after prog rock band members. I mean, not that it has gotten a whole heck of a lot better, but at least they try to pretend it is serious these days.

Angron and the World Eaters are the Orks of Space Marines. They don't make any sense at all, but their antics are entertaining.

This is great how BL is heading with HH - "Traitors - good; Loyalists - bad"....