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Now, my favorite part in the history of 40K(apart from the beast almost conquering the galaxy, which isn't well documented) is the Horus Heresy. I have been thinking over whether it was Horus's fault, whether the Emperor was a fool and should be right now. So, Horus was doubting the Emperor because he wouldn't tell him what was going on. He then was corrupted, not willingly , by the Chaos Gods. I do not fully now if this is true. Please tell me if this is true, if not, well, I will reconsider a few things.

It's neither the Emperor's or Horus' fault for the Horus Heresy. Horus was simply the puppet of Chaos- it would be better named the Erebus Heresy.

Erebus. Hate that guy.

I do feel the Emperor made a lot of mistakes that didn't exactly help, but it wasn't his fault really. And it wasn't Horus's either, he was manipulated by Chaos as Wyzilla said.

Anyone who claims that Horus wasn't to blame because his hand was forced is deluding themselves.

Horus had a choice. Turn to Chaos, or die. He chose Chaos, the coward's path. The path of the faithless, the path of failure.

Call him a patsy if you like. Blame Erebus. Blame Lorgar, blame the Emperor, blame the Leyr, but ultimately, the Horus Heresy happened because Horus chose to serve Chaos instead of dying for his duty.

Wasn't it his men who chose to let the chaos followers do their work to heal him though?

This story is heavily based on the myth of lucifer. Horus was too prideful, thought he knew better than God... er I mean the emperor and rebelled taking a large portion fo the angels... er astartes, with him. It ultimately was because horus was confronted that humanity was the emperor's chief concern and that the great crusade was a function of that. He couldn't accept his role in the larger scheme.

Yes it was his men who let the followers of chaos do their thing in the temple, where horus was having a dreamlike experience where he made up his mind or something.

I dont remember if he was tricked in this dream or mislead or persuaded, perhaps someone else remembres more.


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And the decision to take horus to these chaos followers, was influenced by the mournival, who was horus own councel, made up of his most trusted astartes.
The mournival, at this time, was influenced by the warrior-lodge that existed in the legion.
The warrior lodge was a place to hang out and discuss ideas outside of the chain of command, and a lot of the ideas that influenced the legion was planted there by erebus i think.

Erebus was from the word brearers legion, who started the whole tradition of warrior-lodge, and instilled this tradition into other legions, as a way to inseminate ideas that could lead to a way of thinking that would be easier to influence by chaos.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Horus had a choice. Turn to Chaos, or die. He chose Chaos, the coward's path. The path of the faithless, the path of failure.

That's one of the things I liked about the original background in Space Marine. Horus didn't have a choice. He let his guard down for a moment on Davin during a ritual and got possessed. It served as a lesson on concentrating authority and power, as well as just how insidious and dangerous Chaos was. That the greatest of the primarchs could be lost due to a moment, not of weakness, but mere inattentiveness made Chaos truly frightening.

Of course you're right, the HH novel version of Horus is to blame. But I think that version is pretty poorly done.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Anyone who claims that Horus wasn't to blame because his hand was forced is deluding themselves.

Horus had a choice. Turn to Chaos, or die. He chose Chaos, the coward's path. The path of the faithless, the path of failure.

Call him a patsy if you like. Blame Erebus. Blame Lorgar, blame the Emperor, blame the Leyr, but ultimately, the Horus Heresy happened because Horus chose to serve Chaos instead of dying for his duty.

It's better to assume Horus was being mind fethed at the time- the alternative is that thanks to McNeil being a garbage writer who is far worse than Matt Ward, Horus has the critical thinking skills of a mentally challenged child and failed to see through the PAINFULLY obvious deception of the Word Bearers.

So I guess you could blame the Emperor on grounds of giving some of his children an IQ of 10. Damn that hack of a writer- the one book from the HH I would erase above all others is False Gods. Not even Battle for the Abyss approaches the astonishing level to which it mauls important characters and makes complete fools of them.

Yeah Horus's fall in the book is very poorly written.

The greater issue (and one which the novels do not do well in illustrating) is the struggle for civilian control of the military within the Imperium. The Primarchs are all basically warlords, with vast personal armies and fleets loyal to them personally first above all, with loyalty to the more abstract and distant ideal of the Imperium second. Part of the discontent stemmed from their unwillingness to submit to the civilian administrative structure of the new Imperium. Their own reasons vary but underlying it all is often a streak of feeling themselves better than normal humanity, and that therefore they should be the ones in charge. We can see the result of this in the societies of the Chaos Space Marines in the Eye of Terror which generally have the CSM as a ruling warrior class with normal humans as downtrodden slaves and expendable cannon fodder. As a warrior class they are also generally contemptuous or at best take for granted, all the normal humans doing the administrative, manufacturing, and logistic work that sustains their war efforts.

Thematically the Heresy is a take on the Christian War in Heaven myth with Horus filling the role of Lucifer. Like the War in Heaven, the Heresy can be viewed as a refusal by superior "angelic" beings to submit to a perceived inferior species (humanity in both cases).

Where the novels fail is in dealing with this theme in a nuanced way and the the thing comes off as a bad superhero/supervillain comic.

Horus is to blame for some of it. There is a lot of blame to throw around. Horus's fall was terribly written. It was so bad I don't know why he actually went renegade even after coming back


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Iracundus wrote:
The greater issue (and one which the novels do not do well in illustrating) is the struggle for civilian control of the military within the Imperium. The Primarchs are all basically warlords, with vast personal armies and fleets loyal to them personally first above all, with loyalty to the more abstract and distant ideal of the Imperium second. Part of the discontent stemmed from their unwillingness to submit to the civilian administrative structure of the new Imperium. Their own reasons vary but underlying it all is often a streak of feeling themselves better than normal humanity, and that therefore they should be the ones in charge. We can see the result of this in the societies of the Chaos Space Marines in the Eye of Terror which generally have the CSM as a ruling warrior class with normal humans as downtrodden slaves and expendable cannon fodder. As a warrior class they are also generally contemptuous or at best take for granted, all the normal humans doing the administrative, manufacturing, and logistic work that sustains their war efforts.

Thematically the Heresy is a take on the Christian War in Heaven myth with Horus filling the role of Lucifer. Like the War in Heaven, the Heresy can be viewed as a refusal by superior "angelic" beings to submit to a perceived inferior species (humanity in both cases).

Where the novels fail is in dealing with this theme in a nuanced way and the the thing comes off as a bad superhero/supervillain comic.

Thank you for this. I was missing a little piece of what made the connection to the fall, and I think you're right. It's stated how much they resent having to listen to humans or answer to them in a lot of the HH books.

Hawehu@hotmail.com wrote:

I dont remember if he was tricked in this dream or mislead or persuaded, perhaps someone else remembres more.

Yes he was tricked.

He was shown a vision of a 40k shrine world with statuary of the loyalist primarchs and the big e, and was specifically pointed to the fact that his statue was not there.

It was presented as a possible future after his death if the big e was allowed to continue his current plans/machinations.

The big e had some fault in all of it as well what with the leaving the crusade and distancing himself from his sons without any explanation.

Also there is another bit where the powers show horus the scattering of the primarchs and the author specifically points out the big e seems to look directly at horus and the daemon.

I have maintained the theory that if big e ever got a game profile he would have every core psychic power from all but divination.

 Kojiro wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Horus had a choice. Turn to Chaos, or die. He chose Chaos, the coward's path. The path of the faithless, the path of failure.

That's one of the things I liked about the original background in Space Marine. Horus didn't have a choice. He let his guard down for a moment on Davin during a ritual and got possessed. It served as a lesson on concentrating authority and power, as well as just how insidious and dangerous Chaos was. That the greatest of the primarchs could be lost due to a moment, not of weakness, but mere inattentiveness made Chaos truly frightening.

Of course you're right, the HH novel version of Horus is to blame. But I think that version is pretty poorly done.

I also liked the original background more.

One more possibility is that Horus wanted to cheat the powers of Chaos, but what came back wasn't real Horus but a warp creature.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Horus had a choice. Turn to Chaos, or die. He chose Chaos, the coward's path. The path of the faithless, the path of failure.

That's one of the things I liked about the original background in Space Marine. Horus didn't have a choice. He let his guard down for a moment on Davin during a ritual and got possessed. It served as a lesson on concentrating authority and power, as well as just how insidious and dangerous Chaos was. That the greatest of the primarchs could be lost due to a moment, not of weakness, but mere inattentiveness made Chaos truly frightening.

Of course you're right, the HH novel version of Horus is to blame. But I think that version is pretty poorly done.

I also liked the original background more.

One more possibility is that Horus wanted to cheat the powers of Chaos, but what came back wasn't real Horus but a warp creature.

I find that comment interesting due to the vengeful spirit novel ....

Well the blade used on Horus was daemonic that why it had the effect and his men not willing to see their leader die brought him to a lodge to be cured by people (chaos) while in healing he received visions of a future where the he along with some of the primarchs are forgotten and big e is worshiped as a god (ironically) this future was brought about by the HH. So it was his choice but he wasn't rly in his right mind IMHO

 VulkanKiller wrote:
Well the blade used on Horus was daemonic that why it had the effect and his men not willing to see their leader die brought him to a lodge to be cured by people (chaos) while in healing he received visions of a future where the he along with some of the primarchs are forgotten and big e is worshiped as a god (ironically) this future was brought about by the HH. So it was his choice but he wasn't rly in his right mind IMHO

Its more like the omniscient chaos gods ticked him into believing what he wanted to believe. We can go back and forth on this,but it is a matter of interpretation. Horus had a choice between chaos and death, but is that really a choice? second it could be argued that the chaos gods, who are all powerful in a sense, constructed this fate for Horus and because of shaping everything in his existence to be what it was, he could only make one choice. so from that perspective he didn't have choice so much as he ran down a predetermined path. It is the same existential question humanity wrestles with: Is everything predetermined or random. The reality is that whether by choice, coercion of predestination, Horus embraced chaos for his own ends. Fault implies that something is perceived as wrong so that the mistake wont be repeated, but this mistake can't be repeated, so determining fault is irrelevant.

I get that some people think it could matter in terms of Horus' character and its classical tragic status, but even in this it is irrelevant because whether forced or chosen his actions led to what they did, and really Horus is supposed to be ambiguous. We are supposed to determine for ourselves if Horus is a sympathetic character worthy of our pity, or a merciless self-centered demigod who rebelled and was put down. We can argue back and forth on this, but the answer, like many of the most important points in Warhammer fluff, is up to you.

Yes. Death is always a choice. It might not be the right one to make, but sometimes it is.

It wasn't just a case of 'turn or die' - Horus probably would have accepted dying in that case.

What settled it was exaclty the same one that caused Lorgar to accept the Chaos God's deal - discovering (or at least believing they had discovered) the extent to which the Emperor was lying to them.

Nothing makes people more angry than discovering that a cause they've fought for and seen people they care about die for is just words that the people you're fighting for will modify or discard when they become inconvenient.

It didn't help matters that the Emperor did lie - either directly or by ommission - to his sons a hell of a lot. Not necessarily about the things Erebus told Horus he did, but enough that the lies were believable.

The Emprah knew what was gonna happen. He gave Horus an out though, but Horus didn't take it.

The Heresy could have ended when the Sons of Horus met the interex, remember the Saggitarius Ring?

Horus was made warmaster. Literally the master of all things that pertained to war. This is important because in the sequence where Horus remembers speaking to the Emperor, he straight up tells Horus why he was made warmaster. The metaphor about the Sagittarius was the Emperors way of telling Horus that he needed to recognize his own role in the crusades and be ready to step aside when the need for a warmaster had passed.

People say it was on the Davin moon that Horus was corrupted but in truth it was at the end of the first book when Horus decides to fight the interex. That race was the peaceful sentient race that could have shown mankind how to rule the stars and it was exactly the sort of allies humanity needed. Instead of giving himself up, Horus chose to fight, damning himself and the universe as well. What would have happened if Horus had been able to defeat his prides and accepted the wrongful accusations and punishment of the interex? Horus would have been executed, there is no doubt. But in executing Horus the interex would have realized their mistake, as soon as the real culprit tried to use the anathame the interex would have figured it out and then perhaps the Heresy would still have happened. But that is not the point.

When Horus chose to fight the interex it was a metaphor for our humanity. We would rather fight and kill than be falsely accused. Our pride is our most fickle weapon, as Horus learned the hard way. At that moment when Horus cursed his father, his father was cursing him. You were the best and the brightest, wept the Emperor, but you are so blinded by pride. Horus felt betrayed, but in reality it was the Emperor who had been burned. All Horus had to do was accept that he was Warmaster, master of only war. When the situation with the interex demanded a statesman, Horus could provide only one recourse.

Who is to blame? Ultimately we all are, in the fictional sense. The Emperor rules an earth where all we could muster in the bright halls of the future was "techno-barbarism" and we didn't get any better after Unification. Sure the Emprah protects. But behind him is an infinite mass of humanity, each soul a little Horus in and of itself and when Chaos comes calling, who is the first to turn?

Blame Horus if you want to but realize that in a way, you blame yourself, for what is Horus but a fictional epoch of humanities greatest strengths and our most terrible weaknesses?

GW used to be pretty satirical, and some people think that element went out of GWs writing, but in truth the satire just became philosophical debate. It's just hard to recognize the artistic and social worth of something like 40k because well.. GW doesn't exactly help its own cause. Also the subject matter is pretty deep. Much more than your typical under 23 crowd can usually handle and so a lot of the real gems in GWs mine get overlooked in favour of whatever works best on the table. If you were to really look at the 40k universe there is a lot of subject for debate, and I believe they are topics worth discussing.