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Angron wanted to fight and die with his gladiator friends. They were the only comrades he'd ever known in his entire life. They were the only ones who stood with him against their tyrannical overlords. They were basically family to him. Of course he'd rather not have his skin forcibly saved, only to have to watch the only friends he's ever had die. He gets vengeful as a result.

Angron was pretty deluded as well, he very well may have thought he could have lead his army to victory, he very well may have blamed the Emperor for his "families" deaths.

There is a difference between the selfish desires of an eternally angry egomaniac-- IE Angron's pointless, wasteful daethwish-- and a desire to try to change the Imperium for the better. Alicia Dominica was not just trying to die out of some warped sense of family, but because she wanted to save trillions of lives from Vandire's madness.

Even if she had failed, that would still put her as morally superior to Angron. Angron's a villain, that's all he ever will be. He's not even a particularly interesting villain. Neither are most of the other traitor primarchs.

 Melissia wrote:
There is a difference between the selfish desires of an eternally angry egomaniac-- IE Angron's pointless, wasteful daethwish-- and a desire to try to change the Imperium for the better. Alicia Dominica was not just trying to die out of some warped sense of family, but because she wanted to save trillions of lives from Vandire's madness.

Even if she had failed, that would still put her as morally superior to Angron. Angron's a villain, that's all he ever will be. He's not even a particularly interesting villain. Neither are most of the other traitor primarchs.

what's explicitly wrong with a fictional character being a villain? And it seems you have forgotten that in 40k there are no heroes...

I find the argument that any person in the Imperium, especially those that are defending the Imperium being morally superior to anyone else in the setting quite hilarious.

Lets not forget that Angron, whilst a bezerker, before he was taken by the big E, he was not currently inducted into the xenophobic, racist, genocidal etc etc Imperium, and this was the great crusade era, it didn't even include all the religious dogma reasoning behind it that the later Imperium used to justify it.

Morally superior.... What a phrase to use.

Bronzefists42 wrote:
what's explicitly wrong with a fictional character being a villain?

Nothing. But it does mean that, unless they're particualrly sympathetic (Angron is not), I don't cheer for them. I don't LIKE them; I want to see them defeated and cast down.

Magnus One-Eye presents a traitor primarch that is much more sympathetic and much better written, for example. I can sympathize iwth why he turned traitor. I don't for Angron.

Bronzefists42 wrote:
And it seems you have forgotten that in 40k there are no heroes...

On the contrary, there are heroes everywhere, just as there are also villains everywhere.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
I find the argument that any person in the Imperium, especially those that are defending the Imperium being morally superior to anyone else in the setting quite hilarious.

Lets not forget that Angron, whilst a bezerker, before he was taken by the big E, he was not currently inducted into the xenophobic, racist, genocidal etc etc Imperium, and this was the great crusade era, it didn't even include all the religious dogma reasoning behind it that the later Imperium used to justify it.

Morally superior.... What a phrase to use.

The argument on its own is flawed for a 40k one. Moral high ground doesn't even exist in 40k much less does it define how well written a character is. And to be fair the emprah didn't care enough to make Angron anything but a bezerker.

Angron is stupid.

There, back to the topic!

It is appalling that you would suggest that a person, even a fictional one, who wishes to slaughter a billion people in order to sacrifice their blood to selfishly raise his own power so that he might put a reign of terror over billions more, is somehow morally equivalent to a person who would try to stop him explicitly to save those people, with no benefit to themselves.

There is moral ambiguity in 40k. But it isn't so gray that everything blends together and becomes samey.

 Melissia wrote:

Bronzefists42 wrote:
what's explicitly wrong with a fictional character being a villain?

Nothing. But it does mean that, unless they're particualrly sympathetic (Angron is not), I don't cheer for them. I don't LIKE them; I want to see them defeated and cast down.

Magnus One-Eye presents a traitor primarch that is much more sympathetic and much better written, for example. I can sympathize iwth why he turned traitor. I don't for Angron.

Bronzefists42 wrote:
And it seems you have forgotten that in 40k there are no heroes...

On the contrary, there are heroes everywhere, just as there are also villains everywhere.

....
What.
40k does not have any heroes. They have people considered heroes by their factions but in reality are just as bad as everyone else. All of the Primarchs were hideously flawed and honestly some of the loyalists should be traitors the way they acted. And that's the Horus Heresy. Here we have 40k where everyone is insane and/or desperate. It so grimdark there can't be any real heros.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
It is appalling that you would suggest that a person, even a fictional one, who wishes to slaughter a billion people in order to sacrifice their blood to selfishly raise his own power so that he might put a reign of terror over billions more, is somehow morally equivalent to a person who would try to stop him explicitly to save those people, with no benefit to themselves.

There is moral ambiguity in 40k. But it isn't so gray that everything blends together and becomes samey.

I'm saying is the Imperium isn't much better. Even if it is for the benefit of mankind, the Imperium is horrible to it's populace it doesn't matter if they save them since their lives are so horrendous. I'm not saying Angron has any moral high ground at all just that no one in the IOM is any better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Angron is stupid.

There, back to the topic!

Sorry for going off on that. Tau aren't that bad. Not everything in the universe has to be extra grimdark with a side of depression. Even then the Tau are pretty freaky on their own in how they structure their culture and lives.

I do think there are genuine heroes in the setting -- they're just all tragic ones: The genuinely good people who refuse to do horrific things even though they know the result will be their crushing defeat, and the genuinely good people who realize the only way to avoid defeat is to do horrifying things even though they know they'll stop being good people.....

 SisterSydney wrote:
I do think there are genuine heroes in the setting -- they're just all tragic ones: The genuinely good people who refuse to do horrific things even though they know the result will be their crushing defeat, and the genuinely good people who realize the only way to avoid defeat is to do horrifying things even though they know they'll stop being good people.....

yeah I guess never looked at it that way

Bronzefists42 wrote:
40k does not have any heroes.

There are people in 40k that honestly try to do good things, both great and small. Therefor there are heroes.

Whether or not they succeed is irrelevant. A fallen hero was once a hero, even if they aret any longer. A flawed hero is still a hero to some extent. An anti-hero is still trying to do good things, even if they're bad at it. And so on and so forth. Not all heroes have to be perfect moral paragons.

Arguably, the best heroes aren't.

Bronzefists42 wrote:
I'm saying is the Imperium isn't much better.

Irrelevant because I did not mention the Imperium at all.

 Melissia wrote:
It is appalling that you would suggest that a person, even a fictional one, who wishes to slaughter a billion people in order to sacrifice their blood to selfishly raise his own power so that he might put a reign of terror over billions more, is somehow morally equivalent to a person who would try to stop him explicitly to save those people, with no benefit to themselves.

There is moral ambiguity in 40k. But it isn't so gray that everything blends together and becomes samey.

Huh? Umm, Angron was not aligned with Khorne at that time, so that statement is irrelevant, there is no argument for morales in the 40k setting.

There are definitely heroes in the fiction for 40K. Colonel Commissar Gaunt, for example. He is a flawed hero, as he is still tied to the Imperial Commissar dogma, but time and time again he tries to do the best to keep the First and Only from being ground into the dirt by commanders who don't dare like other regiments. He actually sees them as people.

I personally think all the Primarchs are, at least to some extent, sociopaths. Doesn't matter if it's Horus or Guilliman. They aren't quite human, and so are portrayed as having lines of thought that are pretty alien. I think the Lion in particular is well-written that way in the books.

Dunno about alien. A lot of them do seem childish though.

Angron's grudge against the Emperor was justified.

Everything else was not. It's easy to forget that he was a total donkey-cave to people that had never wronged him, such as Argel Tal.

The Butcher's Nails can account for some of Angron's psychopathic actions, but not all of them. He isn't a good person, even among the traitor Primarchs. With his ascension to Daemonhood, he's become a monster.

Not sure why that makes him whiny. He hated the Emperor because his family was slaughtered like animals and Emprah forced him to not help them. Someone being upset about his entire family dying = Whiny? Who knew.

Though he can out-debate Leman Russ.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Angron's grudge against the Emperor was justified.

Everything else was not. It's easy to forget that he was a total donkey-cave to people that had never wronged him, such as Argel Tal.

The Butcher's Nails can account for some of Angron's psychopathic actions, but not all of them. He isn't a good person, even among the traitor Primarchs. With his ascension to Daemonhood, he's become a monster.

Not sure why that makes him whiny. He hated the Emperor because his family was slaughtered like animals and Emprah forced him to not help them. Someone being upset about his entire family dying = Whiny? Who knew.

Though he can out-debate Leman Russ.

I rather enjoyed watching that stuck up bastard get his ass handed to him in a an argument and the get his ass handed to him gain in a combat where he attacked.
XXXX

Dunno about alien. A lot of them do seem childish though.

I know in Descent of Angels the Lion almost comes off to me like a Tolkien elf, where he just can't connect with "the little people" around him.

I never thought about any of the Black Library novels (other than Horus Heresy. I was thinking more the "heroes" depicted in the rulebooks and background sections.

It should also be noted that IIRC, Primarchs experienced emotions in far greater intensity than mortal humans or Astartes, similar to the Eldar. And Astartes already experience emotions in greater strength than humans. And enraged humans can already succumb to crimes of passion.

Really, the GEOM should have simply attempted to mold the Primarchs into Vulkan's personality. If they're going to experience emotions of crippling strength, at least let them weep for humanity and aspire to protect it.

(Reminds me as well of the Black Legion Chaos Space Marine that cries for every single enemy he kills.)

So, being angry that your family was slaughtered by your father = whinny. Got it.

 MWHistorian wrote:
So, being angry that your family was slaughtered by your father = whinny. Got it.

While were at it lets just lump Shinji Ikari in that category too He has literally no reason at all to be whiny

 Troike wrote:

Jes Goodwin talks about the problems in detail in that first source I linked. Essentially, it seems to be that they want to do something new with the models, but can't due to the differences betweens metal models and posable plastic models. Take it as you will:

...snip...

Ahh, thanks for that. That makes a lot more sense; it being the nature of the design, rather than the original models, posing problems in designing new multi-part plastic kits. I still have my suspicions about the non-studio parts of GW, but there is clearly a lot more going on here than I originally believed.

Ok, end tangent.

 Wyzilla wrote:
It should also be noted that IIRC, Primarchs experienced emotions in far greater intensity than mortal humans or Astartes, similar to the Eldar. And Astartes already experience emotions in greater strength than humans. And enraged humans can already succumb to crimes of passion.

Really, the GEOM should have simply attempted to mold the Primarchs into Vulkan's personality. If they're going to experience emotions of crippling strength, at least let them weep for humanity and aspire to protect it.

(Reminds me as well of the Black Legion Chaos Space Marine that cries for every single enemy he kills.)

I really liked that merry band. A singing heavy weapons guy, a previously happy dude that got considerably less happy when he got some strange mutations, and so on.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
It should also be noted that IIRC, Primarchs experienced emotions in far greater intensity than mortal humans or Astartes, similar to the Eldar. And Astartes already experience emotions in greater strength than humans. And enraged humans can already succumb to crimes of passion.

Really, the GEOM should have simply attempted to mold the Primarchs into Vulkan's personality. If they're going to experience emotions of crippling strength, at least let them weep for humanity and aspire to protect it.

(Reminds me as well of the Black Legion Chaos Space Marine that cries for every single enemy he kills.)

I really liked that merry band. A singing heavy weapons guy, a previously happy dude that got considerably less happy when he got some strange mutations, and so on.

And the sobbing Black Legion CSM that weeps for his enemies that will never know the love of the Chaos Gods.

In my opinion, Orks are the lamest faction. I feel that they're laughably one-dimensional: Orks only care about fighting, which is all they do in this setting; they aren't easy to relate to, like the Imperial Guard; they aren't even exceptionally evil like Chaos Space Marines. The only reason Orks exist is to provide an ubiquitous foe that a given army can fight when there aren't any other enemies.

My favorite factions are the Imperial Guard and Chaos Space Marines. The former because it represents the unbreakable spirit of humanity, and the latter because they are wicked and unrepentant.

One could say that Chaos Space Marines are themselves one-dimensional in their cartoonish wickedness. However, I think that their fall from grace and their sometimes justified hatred towards the Imperium is much more interesting than a faction that can't be characterized beyond a love of fighting is.

In addition, Chaos Space Marines have some of the best Black Library fluff released; Aaron Demski-Bowden's Night Lords novels are not only good 40k books, but also good sci-fi books in general. Orks, on the other hand, have no such thing.

Black Knight wrote:
The only reason Orks exist

Orks are far too awesome to need a reason to exist.

Their love of fighting is something that is truly alien, they take it to the logical extreme in every way. That's a good amount of the reason why they're both funny AND frightening, which gives them far more depths than boring factions like CSMs.

Black Knight wrote:
In addition, Chaos Space Marines have all of the worst Black Library fluff released

Fixed that for you

 Melissia wrote:

Black Knight wrote:
The only reason Orks exist

Orks are far too awesome to need a reason to exist.

Their love of fighting is something that is truly alien, they take it to the logical extreme in every way. That's a good amount of the reason why they're both funny AND frightening, which gives them far more depths than boring factions like CSMs.

Black Knight wrote:
In addition, Chaos Space Marines have all of the worst Black Library fluff released

Fixed that for you

I think you might want to re-read your loyalist SM books oh and most of SoB appearances. Watch the loyalists be 100x better and sisters gain faith from watching SPEES WULVES!

Also, let us be honest. Orks are lame. Tau are lame. SM are lame. Eldar? Lame. CSM? Lame. Daemons? Lame. Every single faction in this is lame. It's all so blatantly ripped off of other things and tossed together with little regard and so every faction is lame to no end.... which is why they are all glorious (although all of us will find certain factions lame. For example, Necrons for me )

 Melissia wrote:

Black Knight wrote:
The only reason Orks exist

Orks are far too awesome to need a reason to exist.

Their love of fighting is something that is truly alien, they take it to the logical extreme in every way. That's a good amount of the reason why they're both funny AND frightening, which gives them far more depths than boring factions like CSMs.

Black Knight wrote:
In addition, Chaos Space Marines have all of the worst Black Library fluff released

Fixed that for you

How the hell is CSM fluff bad? It's certainly better than nearly everything released for Loyalist Astartes or Sisters of Battle. It even manages to create sympathetic characters despite them being utter monsters, which is a bloody literary miracle.

You claimed CSM have good fluff and criticised SoB in the same post?

Now you've really done it...