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I think Perturabo could have been the one that could have remained loyal. If he could get passed his self pitying and his demands to be celebrated he could have stayed loyal.

Fulgrim.

Doesn't pick up a sword and get possessed. Done.
Like Magnus, Fulgrim's 'fall' is a weird one. In Fulgrim's case he doesn't fall at all, a daemon sticks him in a soul jar and masquerades as him.
Knowing nothing of daemons and the warp, he's completely helpless to prevent it, beyond 'not picking up the shiny thing' in the first place.

-
Angron.

Gets put down like the rabid dog he is and given peace (that was the 'saving' he needed), and the legion isn't ruined by Nails of their own.

-
Magnus.

He WAS loyal, he turned because he was set up to fail, and his legion targeted for destruction because of anti-psyker dogma and hysteria. While Horus manipulated the wolves invasion of Prospero, that Emperor kept too many secrets specifically to Magnus' detriment and over-reacted to Magnus' attempts to help.

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Alpharius

What is this I don't even. This is why listening to ancient Xenos conspiracies is a bad thing

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Perturabo

Both he and his legion were wasted. His resentment is fairly legitimate, and actually speaks well of him.


----
The questionable:

Mortarian

Shrugs and goes along with the Istvaan betrayal. No idea what his motivations were or how this worked. He liked Horus, I guess?

-
Horus

Shrugs and decides to be a puppet of chaos, despite knowing they were trying to trick and manipulate them. OK then.


----
The unsavable-
Lorgar,

The true believer, so desperately small and frightened, he had to have something bigger than himself to serve and worship.

Cruze.

Embraced his visions as ultimate truth and didn't swerve from their end, despite knowing how bad it was going to be. He essentially gave up any pretense at free will entirely

Voss wrote:
Fulgrim.

Doesn't pick up a sword and get possessed. Done.
Like Magnus, Fulgrim's 'fall' is a weird one. In Fulgrim's case he doesn't fall at all, a daemon sticks him in a soul jar and masquerades as him.
Knowing nothing of daemons and the warp, he's completely helpless to prevent it, beyond 'not picking up the shiny thing' in the first place.

-
Angron.

Gets put down like the rabid dog he is and given peace (that was the 'saving' he needed), and the legion isn't ruined by Nails of their own.

-
Magnus.

He WAS loyal, he turned because he was set up to fail, and his legion targeted for destruction because of anti-psyker dogma and hysteria. While Horus manipulated the wolves invasion of Prospero, that Emperor kept too many secrets specifically to Magnus' detriment and over-reacted to Magnus' attempts to help.

-
Alpharius

What is this I don't even. This is why listening to ancient Xenos conspiracies is a bad thing

-
Perturabo

Both he and his legion were wasted. His resentment is fairly legitimate, and actually speaks well of him.


----
The questionable:

Mortarian

Shrugs and goes along with the Istvaan betrayal. No idea what his motivations were or how this worked. He liked Horus, I guess?

-
Horus

Shrugs and decides to be a puppet of chaos, despite knowing they were trying to trick and manipulate them. OK then.


----
The unsavable-
Lorgar,

The true believer, so desperately small and frightened, he had to have something bigger than himself to serve and worship.

Cruze.

Embraced his visions as ultimate truth and didn't swerve from their end, despite knowing how bad it was going to be. He essentially gave up any pretense at free will entirely

Actually Fulgrim is right, the daemon that possessed him told Horus that he would have never have turned if it weren't for him, though it is the testimony of a daemon.

Couldn't disagree more with Magnus though. He had so many opportunities and wasted them all, even before Nikaea at Aghoru the daemon he tangled with told him he was damned for the deal he made, then Nikaea happened and he still used sorcery.

You are wrong about Kruze, he did waver, he wanted to die because what he was and he desperately wanted to be like the other legions and wanted to be loyal in Prince of Crows when Sevatar was in his dream. That's why he wanted to die, because he couldn't be anything but a killer, even though he tried and wanted to be something more.

Pretty good summary there Voss but I to have to disagree with your point on Magnus, he may have had Tzeentch manipulating things behind the scenes but honestly it was probably the easiest manipulation Tzeentch ever had to do.

Magnus epic levels of blind arrogance meant he was easy to fool. He was always utterly convinced he was the smartest person in the room, he’s a con mans dream.

I think Horus fell because his ego was like a vast open wound, it needed constant tending and was very sensitive to pressure. Simply having the emperor tell him why he had to go back to earth and giving him an important role for after the crusade would probably have worked.

I think Perturabo was probably the easiest to save though.

Magnus' needed a stern private talking to by the Emperor before he left on the great crusade. Magnus is a very clear case of should have warned him.

there is also the minor problem of the flesh change, that's when Tzeentch first snared Magnus, and really who gave him that problem as an inheritance?

He did have epic lvls of Arrogance but make no mistake that was originally stoked by the Emperor.

Saving Magnus is possible but like Horus and Perturabo it required something the Emperor had nothing of: empathy and people skills.

Perturabo I think could have been saved. Horus manipulated him by saying that the Emperor couldn't have forgiven him for what he had done to Olympia but I think the Emperor would have forgiven him as Olympia had no longer been compliant.

Kurze chose not to do anything different, he blamed his visions for the way he was and his fate proved to be a self fulfilling prophecy. Sanguinius knew he would die at the hands of his brother yet he still went on to be his closest ally, accepting his fate. In Prince of Crows also Sevatar says to Kruze that he didn't try anything other than his way.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
Perturabo I think could have been saved. Horus manipulated him by saying that the Emperor couldn't have forgiven him for what he had done to Olympia but I think the Emperor would have forgiven him as Olympia had no longer been compliant.

Kurze chose not to do anything different, he blamed his visions for the way he was and his fate proved to be a self fulfilling prophecy. Sanguinius knew he would die at the hands of his brother yet he still went on to be his closest ally, accepting his fate. In Prince of Crows also Sevatar says to Kruze that he didn't try anything other than his way.

Never said that he could be saved, but Kruze definitely wanted to be, he wanted to be more than just a killer, but he also knew that he could never change.

This is an interesting question, given the role of the Emperor in the lore and Sanguinius' visions. I listened to a number of HH books a few months ago, where predestination is a big theme. The narrative established that the future was not written, it's a series of likelihoods and your actions take you different directions.

This really played out in the stories about Sanguinius, knowing that he would perish fighting Horus and seeking the one way to prevent that from happening. Can't remember the title of the Novel, but there's this whole scene that plays out where Horus doesn't kill him and he becomes the new Warmaster. It's presented as half dream, half psychic exploration of the future, and I think it was meant to explain how fate works in the 40k universe.

Assuming it's safe to trust the narrator of those books, this puts a whole new meaning on the Emperor's role in the fall of his sons. Unless the future was written in such a way where it was impossible to save the ones who did fall, he was making a sacrifice by not doing more to save them. If it was possible to save some of them, that has implications for the Emperor himself. Either he's a cruel and uncaring E who ultimately doesn't care, or he knew that saving one meant another would fall and he chose his favorites. Both are bad meanings.

I keep thinking about the Council of Nikea, for example, and what it means. If the Emperor knew Magnus was going to fail to keep faith with the pact they established there, why would he go to the trouble of having it at all? It would have been for the benefit of the others who attended, it's really a way of sanctioning the eventual execution of his son. But why would he do that? Was it because Magnus was so powerful he had no place in the Universe, or was it because the E simply did not care to have him around?

And I keep thinking about the title of Warmaster. Giving that to Horus without explaining what it actually means, then going into reclusion. It feels like the title was meant as a curse, something to lead him down a path he would not come back from.

From that perspective, the question of who could have been saved becomes who would the Emperor choose to save.

Out of all the Primarchs, he seemed to love Horus and Fulgrim the most. If he could have prevented them from falling, he would have, unless it was necessary to let them fall to save his other sons. It seemed he wanted Magnus to go away, probably because he saw the threat of having that kind of power in the Materium.

We know a lot less about his relationships with the other Primarchs. But if there was one he could have chose to save, I think it would have been Alpharius. This goes back to the lore about how Alpharius was discovered, he had no home world and attacked an Imperial vessel the Emperor happened to be on. Alpharius was just a capable, competent combatant throughout the events leading up the Horus Heresy, there's no flaw in him that would have lead to a need to let him go nor was there some political station he inhabited that would have lead to his downfall.

I picture the Emperor sitting on a throne with a checklist, knowing half his Primarchs had to fall, some needed to be on the list and others were judgement calls. He looked at Alpharius and Rogal Dorn and flipped a coin.

 Earth127 wrote:
Magnus' needed a stern private talking to by the Emperor before he left on the great crusade. Magnus is a very clear case of should have warned him.

there is also the minor problem of the flesh change, that's when Tzeentch first snared Magnus, and really who gave him that problem as an inheritance?

He did have epic lvls of Arrogance but make no mistake that was originally stoked by the Emperor.

Saving Magnus is possible but like Horus and Perturabo it required something the Emperor had nothing of: empathy and people skills.

Magnus was warned plenty of times though, then decided to be stupid anyways. I don't think he could have been saved. Tzeentch rigged the whole thing from the start and Magnus' personality was such that he walked into it with his eyes wide open.

Perturabo is the one who could have been saved most easily. He and his legion were probably the most tragic of the traitors. If only people hadn't been constantly treating them like gak and acknowledged their accomplishments more then it is unlikely Perturabo would have been swayed by Horus.

Fulgrim would have been hard to save because he fell through no real fault of his own (his vanity and pridefullness contributed, but without that he might still have been corrupted) but through a daemon.

Angron was too mad at the Emperor to be saved. His legion could have been saved if the Emperor had just left Angron to die.

As usual, it is impossible to say anything definite about Alpharius. His motives for betrayal (or was he really loyal?) are still shrouded in mystery. Also, I am Alpharius.

Mortarion also did not fall through his own fault, he and his legion were set up and trapped by Calas Typhon and had no real way out but to pledge their allegiance to Nurgle. Saving Mortarion would involve saving Typhon, which would mean preventing him from developing a friendship with Erebus.

Lorgar could have been saved if the Emperor had not humiliated him and his beliefs. That would have left him less susceptible to Erebus's and Kor Phaeron's influence. Furthermore it would have meant Erebus and Kor Phaeron themselves might not have fallen to Chaos. All of the Primarch including Lorgar could have been saved if Erebus is either prevented from falling to Chaos or killed, and Kor Phaeron is also prevented from losing his faith in the Emperor or killed.

Horus could have been saved if he had not been wounded on Davin, if he had not been under influence of the Serpent Lodge, Erebus and Kor Phaeron during his treatment or if as above Erebus and Kor Phaeron are prevented from falling to Chaos.

Curze was an irredeemable madman like Angron. His legion could have been saved if the Emperor had put him down.

1. Those who can't be saved

Curze and Angron. Both due to their upbringing and home worlds, they were always living on borrowed time. Even in a universe where the Imperial Truth was true and chaos wasn't a thing, at some point these two would have needed to be put down or removed and imprisoned. Angron was fundamentally broken and Curze was mentally ill and cursed with foresight that paralyzed him to self improvement.

2. Those that would be a tough to save

Lorgar, Mortarion, and Magnus. Lorgar was fundamentally incompatibly with what the Emperor wanted the future of humanity to look like. Again even if Chaos wasn't a thing, he was always headed towards a confrontation with Dad. If the Emperor had handled it better though it might have been possible to keep him loyal but that's a hard task since Lorgar needed something to worship in order to feel complete. Mortarion had a lot of issues with Dad stealing his kill and his major hang ups about pyskers. Again, might be able to stay loyal but wasn't really down with what the Emperor was trying to create. Magnus is the hardest to judge since he wanted to be loyal but chaos had it's claws in him and his legion from day one. At some point his arrogance was probably going to doom him and his sons, though that might have been avoided if the Emperor hadn't lied about the fundamentals of the universe.

3. The rest

Horus and Fulgrim could have been saved since their falls involved a ton of outside manipulations, chaos artifacts and Dad again not siting his kids down for the talk (about chaos). As for Pert and Alpha/Omega those are two I'm not sure since we don't have a ton of info on them/ it's alpha legion.

Perty had too much of a martyr complex and was kinda nuts from the beginning. The only way he turns out better is if he lands on Macragge instead of Guilliman and Konor raises him right, and even then he'd have some underlying emotional problems.

I think that's true of any of the Traitor Primarchs accept Horus, Fulgrim and Alpharius who were either manipulated down their path or accepted it willingly. I believe also that their character and what aspect of the Emperor the Primarch shared played a big part. Lorgar landing on Colchis was a double whammy for example. If he had landed on Inwit, would the Fists have been more like Lorgar or Dorn still? The First Heretic suggests that the traitors and additionally, the Lion, were all delivered on their respective homeworlds intentionally. I think it's mentioned in Scars that The Khan had been intended for Chemos, but Fulgrim was sent their.

I think what annoys me most about the HH novels is the fall of far too many of the primarchs amounts to romantic comedy logic.

That is, the third act 'misunderstanding' where everyone gets angry about something trivial and the whole thing would be completely nullified if they acted like adults and had a conversation instead.

Picking one I'd say Alpharius. His reasons for turning are either the dumb Cabal stuff or the fact that everyone who was decent to him was on the traitor side. If someone had just told him "good job." and "Roboute shut up" maybe things would be better.

Magnus could have been saved, BUT he had already made a deal with Tzeentch way before Nikaea and the Heresy, to save his legion from the flesh-change. Is there really a come-back from such taint ?

Magnus could have been saved if the Emperor said "Dear Son, please don't break down the big freaking wall protecting Terra."

Engrenages wrote:
Magnus could have been saved, BUT he had already made a deal with Tzeentch way before Nikaea and the Heresy, to save his legion from the flesh-change. Is there really a come-back from such taint ?

Probably not, chaos had him from the beginning. Magnus and his legion unwittingly got in way over their heads due to their arrogance and lack of caution when it came to the warp.

Voss wrote:I think what annoys me most about the HH novels is the fall of far too many of the primarchs amounts to romantic comedy logic.

That is, the third act 'misunderstanding' where everyone gets angry about something trivial and the whole thing would be completely nullified if they acted like adults and had a conversation instead.

98% of the Black Library 'books', as they will insist on calling them, that I have read have been complete and utter trash. Like, so bad Dan Brown would be embarrassed to publish.

Which is probably why almost every 'book' ends with what you call the romcom ending and I call the sitcom ending.

It’s easy to blame Russ.

In Wolfsbane the first niggles of doubt hit Horus when he meets Russ and finds out he’s not the special only child and light in his father’s eye anymore.

I think Angron could have been saved by sending just about anyone but Russ after him.
Russ preached freedom - Angron had been dragged from one servitude to another and laughed at Russ’s idea of freedom.
Russ preached of loyalty - Angron had made a loyal band of rebels and the Emperor had allowed them to be slaughtered, he laughed at Russ’s idea of loyalty.
Russ preached of Glory - Angron had faught for glory in the pits and watched his owner take credit, much like the Emperor was currently doing.
Russ then tried to teach a military lesson.
Anyone else might have made sure his lesson stuck, Russ won the battle but lost the fight and in losing the fight gave Angron the justification to keep doing what he was doing.

Magnus is a hard one to defend because he’d already made a deal with the devil but sending the guy who leads an army of burners, pillagers and murder-makers in to quietly collect a figurehead of a faction they have embittered relationships with just screams “fall guy” so we blame Russ for that too.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Engrenages wrote:
Magnus could have been saved, BUT he had already made a deal with Tzeentch way before Nikaea and the Heresy, to save his legion from the flesh-change. Is there really a come-back from such taint ?

Probably not, chaos had him from the beginning. Magnus and his legion unwittingly got in way over their heads due to their arrogance and lack of caution when it came to the warp.

Shame no one had the knowledge to teach him. Except the Emperor, tons of xenos, at least a few human remnants, any of the wacky Perpetuals and probably others.

'No and here's why' is a conversation that could have been had at any point between recovering Magnus and introducing him to the Legion.

Of course, the Emperor should have also done something about the Flesh Curse itself, as its very unlikely he or his chief scientists on the Astartes project were unaware of the problem.
If some of your soldiers from the same batch are spontaneously exploding into fleshy growths and going mad, the logical thing is to do something about that, either terminating the gene-line or look into sane ways of fixing it.

Voss wrote:
If some of your soldiers from the same batch are spontaneously exploding into fleshy growths and going mad, the logical thing is to do something about that, either terminating the gene-line or look into sane ways of fixing it.

That's assuming the problem was detrimental for role of them. Which was warriors for brief period before getting rid of them. You could also see it as way to ensure the T-son's don't become TOO powerful. They would need to be killed off later after all.

If the mutations gets rid of t-son's after they have served their purpose...All the better.

I always assumed the Flesh Curse was actually just warp mutation from overuse of psychic powers and Tzeentch's meddling rather than a specific problem within the Thousand Sons genetic make-up. I'm not sure if it was ever really curable. I always saw it as Tzeentch simply stringing Magnus along when he struck a bargain to stop it.

Having said that, it is kind of infuriating watching the fall of many of the Primarchs. You have Magnus and Fulgrim who could have been saved (or at least given a fighting chance) just by telling them about Chaos. The same holds true of Lorgar, though possibly to a lesser extent. Whatever you think about Lorgar I think we can safely say humiliating him and his entire legion was a pretty stupid piece of man-management by the Emperor. For some of the other Primarchs I'm not actually sure why they even rebelled in the first place, so it's difficult to say how they could have been saved.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
It’s easy to blame Russ.

In Wolfsbane the first niggles of doubt hit Horus when he meets Russ and finds out he’s not the special only child and light in his father’s eye anymore.

I think Angron could have been saved by sending just about anyone but Russ after him.
Russ preached freedom - Angron had been dragged from one servitude to another and laughed at Russ’s idea of freedom.
Russ preached of loyalty - Angron had made a loyal band of rebels and the Emperor had allowed them to be slaughtered, he laughed at Russ’s idea of loyalty.
Russ preached of Glory - Angron had faught for glory in the pits and watched his owner take credit, much like the Emperor was currently doing.
Russ then tried to teach a military lesson.
Anyone else might have made sure his lesson stuck, Russ won the battle but lost the fight and in losing the fight gave Angron the justification to keep doing what he was doing.

Magnus is a hard one to defend because he’d already made a deal with the devil but sending the guy who leads an army of burners, pillagers and murder-makers in to quietly collect a figurehead of a faction they have embittered relationships with just screams “fall guy” so we blame Russ for that too.

You can't really save Angron without taking the Nails out of his head. Everything else is basically a detail that makes it take a bit longer or shorter.

pm713 wrote:

You can't really save Angron without taking the Nails out of his head. Everything else is basically a detail that makes it take a bit longer or shorter.

Lorgar figured out a way to save Angron from the Nails.

Angron and Kurze were lost causes, and doomed to be traitors no matter what anyone did.

Alpharius, Horus, and Fulgrim only turned because of plot devices.

The rest could have been saved situationally, including Magnus.

If someone gave perturabo a hug and a pat on the back, he wouldve chilled out. He turned to chaos cuz Horus gave him a hug

 EmpNortonII wrote:

pm713 wrote:

You can't really save Angron without taking the Nails out of his head. Everything else is basically a detail that makes it take a bit longer or shorter.

Lorgar figured out a way to save Angron from the Nails.

Do you mean Chaos or was Lorgar actually useful for once?

Lorgar performed the ritual that allowed Angron to ascend to daemonhood

Nature's Minister wrote:
Lorgar performed the ritual that allowed Angron to ascend to daemonhood

Which didn't actually remove the nail, it just stopped it from killing him since he was now immortal. It didn't really fix him though, he was still angry and insanely aggressive just with a side of demon. .

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
It’s easy to blame Russ.

In Wolfsbane the first niggles of doubt hit Horus when he meets Russ and finds out he’s not the special only child and light in his father’s eye anymore.

I think Angron could have been saved by sending just about anyone but Russ after him.
Russ preached freedom - Angron had been dragged from one servitude to another and laughed at Russ’s idea of freedom.
Russ preached of loyalty - Angron had made a loyal band of rebels and the Emperor had allowed them to be slaughtered, he laughed at Russ’s idea of loyalty.
Russ preached of Glory - Angron had faught for glory in the pits and watched his owner take credit, much like the Emperor was currently doing.
Russ then tried to teach a military lesson.
Anyone else might have made sure his lesson stuck, Russ won the battle but lost the fight and in losing the fight gave Angron the justification to keep doing what he was doing.

Magnus is a hard one to defend because he’d already made a deal with the devil but sending the guy who leads an army of burners, pillagers and murder-makers in to quietly collect a figurehead of a faction they have embittered relationships with just screams “fall guy” so we blame Russ for that too.

Angron could never be saved, the only reason he joined the Great Crusade was to war, he never wanted anything to do with the Imperium.