Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

That's a bit of a catch-22. The Imperial Creed is protecting humanity from a threat that exists only because Lorgar brought it upon them in the first place. If the Heresy hadn't happened, there would be no breach in the webway and the Emperor would be fine.

I'd say that Lorgar is ultimately one of the least sympathetic Primarchs. The Emperor outright told him to stop worshiping him, but that's the only stimulus that was required to bring about his fall. He wasn't abused, he didn't have a gak life, there were no nails in his head pushing him to incite violence, no torturous nightmares about his own death or the Eye of Terror like Curze and Perturabo. He wasn't an outcast, he and Magnus were best friends, and the only Primarch he was ever explicitly at odds with was Guilliman.

So what exactly drove Lorgar to chaos? Nothing but his own neurotic obsession with worship; and once he'd found something that would accept his worship, he had zero compunction about throwing all of Humanity under the bus.

Even Magnus, despite being a pretentious idiot, didn't explicitly turn against the Emperor until his entire planet was razed to the ground and thousands of his sons were slaughtered by the hypocrite Space Wolves. Up until that moment, he was still firmly on the Emperor's team, despite everything that had happened.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
That's a bit of a catch-22. The Imperial Creed is protecting humanity from a threat that exists only because Lorgar brought it upon them in the first place. If the Heresy hadn't happened, there would be no breach in the webway and the Emperor would be fine.

I'd say that Lorgar is ultimately one of the least sympathetic Primarchs. The Emperor outright told him to stop worshiping him, but that's the only stimulus that was required to bring about his fall. He wasn't abused, he didn't have a gak life, there were no nails in his head pushing him to incite violence, no torturous nightmares about his own death or the Eye of Terror like Curze and Perturabo. He wasn't an outcast, he and Magnus were best friends, and the only Primarch he was ever explicitly at odds with was Guilliman.

So what exactly drove Lorgar to chaos? Nothing but his own neurotic obsession with worship; and once he'd found something that would accept his worship, he had zero compunction about throwing all of Humanity under the bus.

Even Magnus, despite being a pretentious idiot, didn't explicitly turn against the Emperor until his entire planet was razed to the ground and thousands of his sons were slaughtered by the hypocrite Space Wolves. Up until that moment, he was still firmly on the Emperor's team, despite everything that had happened.

You should check out The First Heretic.

Lorgar doesn't just skip merrily into the arms of Chaos. He may not have been abused physically as a child, but he DID grow up on a planet that had been touched by Chaos hundreds of years ago. The seeds of his downfall had been planted even then; the society of Colchis made his dependence on faith a given. The society he grew up with also began the poisoning of his soul.

Lorgar is in many ways ruled by his fear. He fears disappointing those around him, fears being a failure, fears not being able to measure up to his brothers. Erebus and Kor Phaeron play on these fears to steer him towards the Chaos forces that they themselves have already been corrupted by.

Is there any big event that corrupts Lorgar? Not so much. Really, he is corrupted a little at a time over the course of his entire life. The destruction of the worlds he brought into compliance aren't the event that drove him to Chaos; they were just the excuse that his treasonous advisors had been waiting for to reave him from the Emperor and into their corrupt little circle. Lorgar is like a kid brought up in a cult. He wasn't corrupted in one fell swoop like some of the others. Instead, he was brainwashed so slowly (and thus, so thoroughly) that he wound up being one of the truest believers.

I'm not so sure it makes him one of the most sympathetic Primarchs--he's a hard guy to like. But it absolutely makes his fall the most believable, at least to me.

The First Heretic is where I'm getting my information from.

Lorgar's planet was touched by chaos? So was the Lion's; most of the Primarchs had interactions with Chaos before the Emperor found them.

I think you're right that his fall wasn't sympathetic so as much as believable. I'd even go so far as to say that it was much better written than Horus' fall.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The First Heretic is where I'm getting my information from.

Lorgar's planet was touched by chaos? So was the Lion's; most of the Primarchs had interactions with Chaos before the Emperor found them.

I think you're right that his fall wasn't sympathetic so as much as believable. I'd even go so far as to say that it was much better written than Horus' fall.

Oh, absolutely better than Horus's. Bottom of the believability ladder has to go to Fulgrim, though.

Alright. Here's what I would say. Let's try to see it from the perspective of the Emperor. He unites mankind through the worst time in it's history when humanity was going to burn out in the old night and proceeds to unify humanity by destroying religion (either to unify humanity or to stop chaos or even both). He does so with conquest and through might because humanity cannot come together in peace and SUCCEEDED!
He then decides to conquer all the stars and unit all the lost colonies of humanity in the same way. As he cannot do this solo, he builds 20 genetic 'sons' with his own DNA and the help of the Chaos gods. He doesn't uphold his bargain and the chaos gods toss his sons all over to piss him off (also making it so that they can be susceptible to chaos).
Emperor goes WTF and starts to look for his sons through the stars. Is he attached to them? Not in anyway apparent but he does have a connection with them seen through how he likes Horus (the first one found) and his discussion and talks with Magnus pre and post separation. The previous army he used to unify the world was destroyed because why leave such a dangerous tool to start up things back home.
The Emperor makes the space marine legions and each time they find a lost son assigns him to the legion based on the primarch's genetic makeup. Does he care about if they all like him? Not really they just need to follow and obey. During this crusade worlds are conqured and mankind has pushed xeno threats and unified planets with force or just diplomacy.
We are almost complete unifying the world. There are no religions because of the Imperial Truth and the Xeno races are being pushed back. All is good. However, we still have chaos travel which is dangerous and unstable. The Emperor's solution is to create or access the webway. Keep in mind that the Eldar were mortified that humanity did no know of chaos and it's influence. He cannot trust this grand scheme so he just's up and leaves.

Horus (his most trusted son) falls and turns to chaos. His reason was to strengthen the Imperium and quickly evolves to just a mad power dash with no nobility behind it. His brothers follow him for varying reasons. Some because they were tricked and others because it's in their best interest. It doesn't matter the end result is that the loyalists and traitors fight and die against each other. This leads to the fight with the Emperor. During that time massive sacrifice is done. Sanguine sacrifices himself to allow a chink in Horus' armor knowing he would die in the process (he was able to see future events), the sigilite scarified himself by keeping the golden chair running and burning out into nothing both in soul and body (wasn't strong enough but knew that anyway) and the Emperor HESITATES to kill/destroy his loved son Horus and then CHOOSES to be tied to the Golden throne where he suffers non stop holding back the forces of chaos and acting as a light house for humanity.

His last order before he goes on the chair is to exterminate the traitorous forces.

So history lesson aside the Emperor was willing to sacrifice everyone and everything (himself included) to unify and save humanity. He proved this by doing this pre-heresy. Will he have used Magnus as the beacon. Probably but it sounded like it was going to be a temporary thing. Even if it wasn't it's not like he wasn't above doing it himself.
There are moments in the interactions between characters in the HH and the Emperor that you see a fatherly figure for humanity. He is upset that Horus rebels, he does want to help his loyalist sons and feels that burden, he was disappointed with Magnus when he broke the Edith of Nikeah and later came to warn him of Horus' betray. Even with that he had sent the Wolves to bring back Magnus but Horus switched that message to destroy Magnus something Ferrus was prepared to so as the 'executioner'.

The Emperor is portrayed as a detached figure because, depending on the book, the perspective is based on the Legion and the perception of him. Ultimately, anything that contradicts that is just Chaos propaganda. Finally, there's is no advancement in Chaos. Chaos exists in constant conflict, pure indulgence, disease or decay or the pursuit of self destructive knowledge. The eye of terror is poison to the mortal form and any sane individual would avoid that with the plague. Why people seem to think that Chaos society can thrive and exist is beyond me.

I get that you're trying to make a point there, Inkubas, but you've got a big wall of text with a lot of composition errors in it, and I'll admit that I'm not entirely sure what you're saying beyond that you like the Emperor and don't understand why other people don't agree with you.

If there's something else, I think you might want to give the post a quick edit. You might be the victim of some bad auto-correcting or some tablet/smart phone issues.

In any event, Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Master of Mankind novel should clear up any lingering doubts about how benevolent/evil the Emperor really was! (Or leave us with more deliberate confusion.)

Yea. I'll look over my wall of text and make it more reader friendly when I get home.

Here's the TL;DR version for you.

The Emperor was/is a benevolent ruler that was willing to do anything and everything to ensure that humanity ruled the stars. He was not devoid of emotions and the whole HH destroyed that dream of unity and prosperity.

I also exalted your post as it gave me a book to look forward to

I caught that you were trying to say that the view of the Emperor as an aloof, manipulative, psychopathic madman is just Chaos propaganda.

I think the corollary is true to: any of the stories about his 'heroism' are told from an inherently Imperium-friendly perspective, and are equally unreliable.

I think one of the points of the whole Horus Heresy series is that the stories are conflicting, sometimes contradictory, and not always a hundred percent accurate. It leaves a great deal (especially concerning motivation) open to interpretation.

Just like Jimsolo says, it is all propaganda. One of the sentences that defines the setting is 'Everything you have been told is a lie'. From there on, we work with what we have.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
That's a bit of a catch-22. The Imperial Creed is protecting humanity from a threat that exists only because the Emperor brought it upon them in the first place. If the Great Crusade hadn't happened, there would be no breach in the webway and Humanity would be fine.

Fixed it for you .

Humanity co-existed with the gods for thousands of years without any problem. It was only when the Emperor betrayed them and actively tried to destroy them that they reacted, declaring a truce in their eternal war against each other. The Heresy, and 10000 years of carnage, suffering and terror, are the final results of the Emperor´s attemp at destroying all forms of religion.

In this regard, Lorgar was just a tool, a prophet of the gods like countless others along the history of mankind. Perhaps more important than others, but not different from the rest of prophets.

So what exactly drove Lorgar to chaos? Nothing but his own neurotic obsession with worship; and once he'd found something that would accept his worship, he had zero compunction about throwing all of Humanity under the bus.

So what exactly drove Lorgar to chaos? Nothing but the belief that he was doing the only right thing to do.

He believed in gods, and was absolutely sure of the divinity of his father. When the Emperor denied this, Lorgar tried to find answers elsewhere. He was not a warrior, but a priest. He cared nothing about victories, personal power or wealth, only about the truth. After a pilgrimage, he actually found the gods. And they gave him the answers he was searching for. So he fully committed to what he believed was the right thing to do, and set the galaxy on fire.

Lorgar is a religious fundamentalist, with the only difference between him and the countless others religious fundamentalists in both the setting and the real life being that he actually talked with the gods.

And... which was the other option? Follow a tyrant? Keep conquering the galaxy in the name of a set of moral values he didn´t share? He didn´t believe the Emperor was in the right. Lorgar was a religious fanatic and the Emperor was trying to destroy all forms of religion. It should have been pretty obvious what was going to happen.

That´s something to think about: Mortarion, Angron, and Lorgar didn´t share the Emperor´s vision. They saw him as a tyrant and a monster. Why should they follow him? Would you follow a psychotic, bloodthirsty tyrant that it is murdering billions just because he gave you an army?

I'm not so sure it was "without any problems".

There's no lore to back that up.

The lore talks about a golden age for humanity in the distant past, stopped by the coming of the Age of Strife.

More telling, the current age is part of the setting. We have religion now. And we had (still have somehow) equivalents of a god of wrath, a god of lust and so on. I mean, Tzeentch is pretty much another name for Thoth, and the ancient Egyptians, while being all-out pagans, didn´t indulge in endless suffering for everyone. None of the pagan cultures did...

...unless you believe the propaganda written by monotheistic religions. During the Middle Ages, pagans were identified with evil, and all pagan gods merged with Satan, a word that means 'the Enemy'. Every source coming from the church pictured pagans as insane, brutal, feral and more...

Which mirrors the Imperium / Chaos situation in the setting. The Imperium even has an Inquisiton searching for witches that worship polytheistic gods, in case someone missed the reference.


Nevertheless, when I said 'without any problems' I actually meant 'without any problems, compared with the hellish nightmare that is 40k´s setting'. The War of Troy as written by Homer is a god example of the kind of problems the gods had with humanity in a religious / polytheistic setting.

Fine then, examples of the Chaos Gods being evil? The Fall of the Eldar. I'm sure that worked out just fine for the majority of the Eldar race. "She who Thirsts" is probably just parched after a long day of working out, and just needs excessive amounts of Kool Aid. There's a reason for why the Eye of Terror is named what it is.

The 4th edition Codex: Eldar describes Daemon worlds as:

Codex: Eldar 4th edition page 5 wrote:[...]Daemon Princes and the worshippers of Chaos rule over planets turned into nightmare worlds of fire and darkness.

The reason the Emperor exists in the first place, according to "old fluff", is because the Warp became too dangerous, preventing Shamans and the like on Terra from reincarnating. So yeah, Chaos started eating people's souls, the people at risk create the Emperor by collective suicide. Hardly humanity making the first move.

 StarTrotter wrote:

The Emperor was a terrible man that crushed many under his foot with little regard and was absolutely idiotic despite his "intellect"
The Chaos Gods care little for humans besides being fed by them but largely treat humanity at best like playthings. Under them crazy things happen and your planet might develop only to be destroyed or not with an extremely random reasoning behind it that is unfatomable.

Both options are terrible. Despite my love for chaos, the Emperor is the only choice. If we are going to suffer at least let us suffer under the heel of a "human" whom has good intentions gone horridly wrong.

This, more or less.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Fine then, examples of the Chaos Gods being evil? The Fall of the Eldar. I'm sure that worked out just fine for the majority of the Eldar race.

The Eldar before the fall where similar to the current Dark Eldar. They were torturers and sadists of the worse kind, evil individuals who deserved total destruction. They created a god that destroyed them in the moment of its creation.

The Chaos God they created was not the source of evil here. The source of evil was the Eldar race instead. It is another example of living things falling to Chaos, instead of Chaos rising to get them. Slaanesh is the god of Obsession: the Eldar were undone by their own obsessions. This is not the fault of the emotion itself. It is the fault of the Eldar.

(...)The 4th edition Codex: Eldar describes Daemon worlds as:

Codex: Eldar 4th edition page 5 wrote:[...]Daemon Princes and the worshippers of Chaos rule over planets turned into nightmare worlds of fire and darkness.

Which still contradicts the books that actually depicts a Chaos world. They really look as a fantasy setting: the worlds of Daemon Wolrd, Pawns of Chaos, Blood Gorgons, Eye of Terror and many other novels are clear about this. Also, the Warhammer Fantasy world has a gate open wide to the Eye of Terror.

May be it is propaganda. May be not. Perhaps there are worlds that are too close to what Chaos is and are consumed by madness, and perhaps those worlds that are just inhabited by humans worshipping the gods are just fine.

The reason the Emperor exists in the first place, according to "old fluff", is because the Warp became too dangerous, preventing Shamans and the like on Terra from reincarnating. So yeah, Chaos started eating people's souls, the people at risk create the Emperor by collective suicide. Hardly humanity making the first move.

The Star-Child theory... let me check some references.

 StarTrotter wrote:

The Emperor was a terrible man that crushed many under his foot with little regard and was absolutely idiotic despite his "intellect"
The Chaos Gods care little for humans besides being fed by them but largely treat humanity at best like playthings. Under them crazy things happen and your planet might develop only to be destroyed or not with an extremely random reasoning behind it that is unfatomable.

Both options are terrible. Despite my love for chaos, the Emperor is the only choice. If we are going to suffer at least let us suffer under the heel of a "human" whom has good intentions gone horridly wrong.

This, more or less.

But the Emperor was not a man! Either he was a god or something else. It is clearly not human. And about his intentions, I still think we know nothing.

Lorgar was driven to chaos when the man he idolized as a god put a smack down on him and rode him around infront of his brother like a pony and then killed a whole city/world he made for him..... mindfuck

I had to vote for Perturabo. He marches to war on the Imperium because he's embarassed that his home world rebelled, and convinced that the Emperor won't forgive him for the actions taken to put down that rebellion. A long campaign alongside Russ would probably have given him a renewed sense of the value of being "a bent backed shoveler". He could have learned to take pride in being the hammer that sunders the walls of those who stand against his father, since regardless of how little gloss the other legions might see in the IVth, the Emperor would know his greatness.

I will agree that Magnus is a tragic character, in the classic Greek sense. He's a powerful hero of noble status with a massive character flaw (his hubris) that is his ultimate undoing. He's convinced that he's smarter than everyone in the galaxy, including the chaos gods. Tzeentch sets out to prove him wrong by giving him all the rope he wants, knowing the Crimson King will hang himself with it.

Curze is a broken toy who needed to spend some time crusading alongside Sanguinus to get comfortable with the whole psychic visions thing.

Angron was also a broken toy, though with the War Hounds on the verge of morale collapse, Big E gambled that Angron would be the boost they needed. Instead, he destroyed them.

Fulgrim was haunted by the understanding that he and his legion were and would always be an inferior copy of horus and the Luna Wolves.

Mort is kind of a mystery. I liked him in Scars. I hated him in Vengeful Spirit, since BL completely forgot to publish the book that takes place between the two and explains the radical shift in his attitude.

Alpharius. Destroy the whole of humanity to enact the emperor's dream of destroying the Chaos Gods?

Lorgar was led astray by the man who raised him.

I think people miss one notable aspect of Lorgar's character.

Namely that he was incredibly mentally unstable even before falling to Chaos. IMHO, he is one of the most terrifying Primarchs if you're a mere human. Angron and Curze are obviously unstable and dangerous, and others, like Magnus, Leman Russ and Mortarion, though mostly stable are physically intimidating.

Lorgar at face-value seems to be one of the most kind and sentimental Primarchs, a fragile flower among his brothers that might fool you into thinking him relatable. But recall this: During his mourning for Monarchia, Erebus and Kor Phaeron tried to console him, and their attempts at being his personal self-esteem team seemed to be working. Then Kor Phaeron slips, says something mildly offensive to Lorgar, and suddenly Lorgar is strangling Kor Phaeron with one hand, threatening to kill him. This bipolarity is not a one-off occurrence with Lorgar. He has another violent outburst with Argel Tal after his son becomes a Daemon, nearly killing him merely because Tal perhaps suggested him becoming a fething abomination was Lorgar's fault. Later on he angrily IIRC suggests tearing the head off a Custodian and pissing down his neck.

A human or even a Space Marine has to walk on eggshells when interacting with Lorgar, for fear of a sudden and unwarranted violent reprisal. He's a cooky guy, that Lorgar.

I'm not really sure if there's any point to this post, but I made it.

Edit: Oh, and his talk with Magnus in The First Heretic really shows off how frankly obsessive and unstable he is too. At one point Lorgar indeed is about to snap on Magnus, and Magnus says "What now? Will you strike me as you struck Roboute?", cowing Lorgar from doing so. Later on, his rant about how he needs something to worship proves how neurotic and fethed in the head Lorgar really is: He doesn't care if his road will lead to ruin, as Magnus suggests, he needs a god(s) to worship.

 da001 wrote:
Just like Jimsolo says, it is all propaganda. One of the sentences that defines the setting is 'Everything you have been told is a lie'. From there on, we work with what we have.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
That's a bit of a catch-22. The Imperial Creed is protecting humanity from a threat that exists only because the Emperor brought it upon them in the first place. If the Great Crusade hadn't happened, there would be no breach in the webway and Humanity would be fine.

Fixed it for you .

Humanity co-existed with the gods for thousands of years without any problem. It was only when the Emperor betrayed them and actively tried to destroy them that they reacted, declaring a truce in their eternal war against each other. The Heresy, and 10000 years of carnage, suffering and terror, are the final results of the Emperor´s attemp at destroying all forms of religion.

In this regard, Lorgar was just a tool, a prophet of the gods like countless others along the history of mankind. Perhaps more important than others, but not different from the rest of prophets.

So what exactly drove Lorgar to chaos? Nothing but his own neurotic obsession with worship; and once he'd found something that would accept his worship, he had zero compunction about throwing all of Humanity under the bus.

So what exactly drove Lorgar to chaos? Nothing but the belief that he was doing the only right thing to do.

He believed in gods, and was absolutely sure of the divinity of his father. When the Emperor denied this, Lorgar tried to find answers elsewhere. He was not a warrior, but a priest. He cared nothing about victories, personal power or wealth, only about the truth. After a pilgrimage, he actually found the gods. And they gave him the answers he was searching for. So he fully committed to what he believed was the right thing to do, and set the galaxy on fire.

Lorgar is a religious fundamentalist, with the only difference between him and the countless others religious fundamentalists in both the setting and the real life being that he actually talked with the gods.

And... which was the other option? Follow a tyrant? Keep conquering the galaxy in the name of a set of moral values he didn´t share? He didn´t believe the Emperor was in the right. Lorgar was a religious fanatic and the Emperor was trying to destroy all forms of religion. It should have been pretty obvious what was going to happen.

That´s something to think about: Mortarion, Angron, and Lorgar didn´t share the Emperor´s vision. They saw him as a tyrant and a monster. Why should they follow him? Would you follow a psychotic, bloodthirsty tyrant that it is murdering billions just because he gave you an army?

"From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" is essentially your argument here.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
I think people miss one notable aspect of Lorgar's character.

Namely that he was incredibly mentally unstable even before falling to Chaos. IMHO, he is one of the most terrifying Primarchs if you're a mere human. Angron and Curze are obviously unstable and dangerous, and others, like Magnus, Leman Russ and Mortarion, though mostly stable are physically intimidating.

Lorgar at face-value seems to be one of the most kind and sentimental Primarchs, a fragile flower among his brothers that might fool you into thinking him relatable. But recall this: During his mourning for Monarchia, Erebus and Kor Phaeron tried to console him, and their attempts at being his personal self-esteem team seemed to be working. Then Kor Phaeron slips, says something mildly offensive to Lorgar, and suddenly Lorgar is strangling Kor Phaeron with one hand, threatening to kill him. This bipolarity is not a one-off occurrence with Lorgar. He has another violent outburst with Argel Tal after his son becomes a Daemon, nearly killing him merely because Tal perhaps suggested him becoming a fething abomination was Lorgar's fault. Later on he angrily IIRC suggests tearing the head off a Custodian and pissing down his neck.

A human or even a Space Marine has to walk on eggshells when interacting with Lorgar, for fear of a sudden and unwarranted violent reprisal. He's a cooky guy, that Lorgar.

I'm not really sure if there's any point to this post, but I made it.

Edit: Oh, and his talk with Magnus in The First Heretic really shows off how frankly obsessive and unstable he is too. At one point Lorgar indeed is about to snap on Magnus, and Magnus says "What now? Will you strike me as you struck Roboute?", cowing Lorgar from doing so. Later on, his rant about how he needs something to worship proves how neurotic and fethed in the head Lorgar really is: He doesn't care if his road will lead to ruin, as Magnus suggests, he needs a god(s) to worship.

This is from Know No Fear:

‘He is so… changeable,’ Guilliman says. ‘He is so prone to extremes. Eager to please, quick to take offence. There is no middle to him. He’s so keen to be your best friend, and then, at the slightest perception of an insult, he’s angry with you. Furious. Offended. Like a child. If he wasn’t my brother, he’d be a political embarrassment and an impediment to the effective rule of the Imperium. I know what I’d do with him.’

 BlaxicanX wrote:
(...)
"From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" is essentially your argument here.

The Jedi? I don´t get it. Are you comparing the Imperium (the cruellest and most bloody regime ever to exist) to the Jedi?

"From my point of view the Jedi are evil" was Anakin Skywalker's ultimate argument when confronted by Obi-Wan with the accusation that the Sith were evil. It is simultaneously the pinnacle of the character's whiny attitude, and the lowest point of him making sense. (To be fair to Star Wars, I think it was perfectly in character for a teenager with near unlimited power and some serious issues with authority figures to be whiny, self-serving, and nonsensical.)

I could be wrong (I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth) but what I took from that was a humorous attempt to say that your argument didn't make a whole lot of sense.

You're crazy, Anakin Skywalker was Grand Master of the Jedi debating team. He made Obi-Wan look like a fething noob.

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes!"

 Jimsolo wrote:
"From my point of view the Jedi are evil" was Anakin Skywalker's ultimate argument when confronted by Obi-Wan with the accusation that the Sith were evil. It is simultaneously the pinnacle of the character's whiny attitude, and the lowest point of him making sense. (To be fair to Star Wars, I think it was perfectly in character for a teenager with near unlimited power and some serious issues with authority figures to be whiny, self-serving, and nonsensical.)

I could be wrong (I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth) but what I took from that was a humorous attempt to say that your argument didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Oh, I get it. It means 'I think your argument makes no sense'. By the way I think the same about the character.

@BlaxicanX: what part of what I wrote doesn´t make sense to you? The part about Lorgar, for instance, is taken from The First Heretic. He was a religious fanatic who refused to fight a war he didn´t believe in and tried to search for the 'ultimate truth about life' (is there a god? what is the meaning of life?). I get the impression people expected the Primarchs to shut up and blindly obey orders regardless of their beliefs.

I am re-reading the Star Child part in the Realm of Chaos books, and I am having a bad time trying to merge it with the rest of the background. It is a lot of stuff, and it actually depicts the Emperor as a being with good intentions. By the way, it also says 'Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard Chapter fully believed that he was the herald of a new age of justice' and 'Angron of the World Eaters genuinely thought that he alone could save humanity from destruction'. In most sources (I am deliberately ignoring 6th edition), csm don´t think of themselves as 'evil guys', or at least not most of them. They believed they were doing the right thing... which is the reason why they are interesting for some people.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes!"

But... everyone in 40k deals in absolutes... that means Orks are Sith!!

There is also the problem that the lore is based on the novels that are written by various authors, Each can change a vital key bit like this picture.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdjhacoFD91rgb5qno1_500.jpg

I don't get why everyone likes Magnus so much. Ok he wasn't even incarnate but he's someone who is incapable of taking any responsibility for his actions. Its everyone else s fault that his Legion was destroyed. The fact that he wanted his Legion to pay the price of his treachery, Curze may have hated his Legion but he at least cared enough about them to try to keep them alive. He talks down to Lorgar on pretty much every occasions when Lorgar may be the only friend he ever had laughing about how Lorgar "thinks were kindred spirits". Most of all is what he did to his Legion is what bugs me about him, these were his sons, and not treacherous ones, not the ones from other Legions that were conspiring against each other and their primarchs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lorgar was the most sympathetic. All he ever wanted was the truth. After Monarchia he had no choice but to try to find out what went wrong. He knew that something was wrong with the Imperium, so he set out looking for truth fearing that he was destroying the truth humanity needed to survive. He did'nt want to start a civil war he just wanted the truth, truth that was denied to him, worse than shaming him was that he left him in the intellectual dark. By the time he found out what the truth was their was no going back. Every action he took was in the pursuit of truth and a better future for mankind. If the Emperor had been more honest with the Primarchs this might not have happened.

You're all wrong about Lorgar. One of the key things is that he knew there was something else and the Emperor lied to him. I can certainly sympathize. He is chastised and has one of his worlds destroyed with people, innocent people, killed because of a "truth" he doesn't believe... the kicker is he is right and learns so. The emperor was a complete idiot for lying about chaos

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
I feel sorry for Lorgar - there's a lot of stuff with people calling him an emo loser, but for me, the Emperor did not treat him right at all - "My son thinks I'm awesome enough to be a god - I know! I'll crush an innocent, loyal planet to make him stop!" The guy needed a good father figure - probably why Kor Phaeron and Erebus had so much power over him. He didn't want to be a warrior either - but no choice given!

I went with Magnus, but I have to give Lorgar a second as well. He gave EVERYTHING for the Emp (including killing the priests who raised him) and the Emp threw it back in his face. Not only did the Emp tear down everything he'd come to believe and humiliate him, he massacred a whole planet just to teach Lorgar a lesson. Why does anyone think the Emperor was a good guy again?

Emperor warned him numerous times to stop worship as its counter intuitive to destroying religion. He didn't listen so he had the ultramarines evacuate everyone from the city then blew it up to get through to Lorgar.
What planet are you talking about?

 Inkubas wrote:
Emperor warned him numerous times to stop worship as its counter intuitive to destroying religion. He didn't listen so he had the ultramarines evacuate everyone from the city then blew it up to get through to Lorgar.
What planet are you talking about?

You should read The First Heretic again. There's no way everyone got out of that city okay. What's more, the people who DID get out were left without food, shelter, or support. The ones who didn't die immediately of starvation, dehydration, or exposure were left with only one resource to prey on: one another. The Emperor/Gulliman's actions towards Lorgar went well beyond punishment and into the realm of the sadistic.

No love for Mortarion?

He only sold his soul to the devil to save all his children that Typhus had trapped in the warp, while everyone else was drinking the chaos kool-aid. Since then he's done almost nothing besides brood on his daemon world knowing what he did was irredeemable instead of taking it out on humanity.

He betrayed the Emperor without needing to be mentally ill or Chaos controlling him, and seemingly without any sympathetic reason. That I recall.

He's ventured outside his Daemon world at least twice. Once when he got beaten up by Draigo, again when he turned a bunch of Orks into disease-carrying suicide bombers. He hasn't left his Daemon world as often as, say, Angron or Magnus, but more than anyone else I can recall.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
He betrayed the Emperor without needing to be mentally ill or Chaos controlling him, and seemingly without any sympathetic reason. That I recall.

He did so to save his legion from being stranded in the warp and turned into Nurgle zombies. His intention was to open fire with his fleet upon Horus' when they broke back into real-space at Terra. This is why Typhus killed all of their navigators and stranded them.

Magnus deliberately, knowingly, and voluntarily corrupted his entire legion with daemons moments after being reunited with them.

At least Mortarion had it forced upon him.