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Horus did not believe Erebus and only joined Chaos because he did not want to be forgotten by the Imperium. What kind fall is that for Horus if he did not believe Erebus? Horus' talk with Magnus (and his talk with Magnus took place during his talk with Erebus) confirms that.

Laurie Goulding thinks it is poorly written.

There are things to love about the Horus Heresy books (I love the Perpetuals, even though they are controversial), but so many things are crappy.

I’ve just recently started going back through the Horus heresy books and I’m going to have to say yes, I’m not really sure why it is though, it could possibly be that it was intended to only be a trilogy so they needed him to fall hard by the end of the third book, or they simply didn’t have a handle on the character at the time.

As the series progressed though and his personality changed, we got little snippets of who he was, which i quite like, that is until wolfbane, from that point Horus was dead, the thing that calls itself Horus is nothing but a shell of the man he was.

Horus' fall is pathetic, even worse than annikin skywalker's fall.

That make it very fitting to the frimdark setting of 40k, his fall and the 10,00p0 years of hell it inflicted on countless hundreds of billions of humans over 400 generations was all due to pathetic, petty, selfish motives.

I used to like perpetuals, now every man and his dog is a bloody perpetual, it’s an overused meme at This point, the most recent anthology adds yet another one....

 Formosa wrote:
I used to like perpetuals, now every man and his dog is a bloody perpetual, it’s an overused meme at This point, the most recent anthology adds yet another one....

Oh no, you used the "p" word in a onething thread, be prepared for a tidal wave of quotes about Ollanius Pious and Damon Pyrantis or whatever coming your way as he tries to prove you wrong.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I used to like perpetuals, now every man and his dog is a bloody perpetual, it’s an overused meme at This point, the most recent anthology adds yet another one....

Oh no, you used the "p" word in a onething thread, be prepared for a tidal wave of quotes about Ollanius Pious and Damon Pyrantis or whatever coming your way as he tries to prove you wrong.

I won't. I love the Perpetuals, even though they are controversial.

What I find particularly interesting about the mechanics of the Heresy series is that the entire thing is an exercise in expanding a story backwards. It all started out as just a few paragraphs of story, and grew and grew and grew, and the whole time the beginning and end were already mapped out; only the stuff in between was really mutable. So in a way I do think his reasons for falling may have been somewhat petty, but I also think they've done a good job justifying some of Horus' fears. We know that The Emperor did actually eliminate his past soldiers that he didn't need anymore, and that he had purged legions (presumably) for some reason. If you're his new general, you've got to have that at the back of your mind, and that has to lead to some pretty messed up feelings which could contribute to Horus falling more easily than may be readily apparent.

Laurie Goulding thinks it is poorly written. That's saying something.

Banana pudding.

That's also saying something.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Banana pudding.

That's also saying something.

Now THAT'S comedy!

Have a piping hot exalt.

Onething123456 wrote:
Laurie Goulding thinks it is poorly written. That's saying something.

You got anything to back that up?

The problem with a lot of the Horus Heresy content is that it was all completely mythical, legendary stuff up until the novel series started. The actual information, as Kinstryfe says above, amounted to probably less than a page of background. It went: Horus turns traitor, Istvaan massacre, Battle of Terra. There's obviously a bit more to it than that, but not much. Within those events there's barely any detail so we were left to fill in the blanks, which will almost always be better than whatever a writer can come up with. So Horus's fall was always going to be disappointing. I think it was OK but I'm not sure they gave us enough time to get to know Horus before his fall.

I'd be surprised if BL's editor has publicly stated the fall was poorly written - that's a pretty unprofessional comment to make. Where was that said?

Yes. The whole series is.

Onething123456 wrote:
Laurie Goulding thinks it is poorly written. That's saying something.

It isn't saying much, as Mr. Goulding is a rather thin reed to lean upon for most things HH.

Well, it _was_ poorly written. 'You're lying to me, but I'm gonna do what you want anyway' is piss poor motivation.

Isn't exactly anything to discuss here.

 foostick wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:
Laurie Goulding thinks it is poorly written. That's saying something.

You got anything to back that up?

Yes.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefirstexpedition/the-master-of-mankind-t1979-s100.html#p40004756



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:
The problem with a lot of the Horus Heresy content is that it was all completely mythical, legendary stuff up until the novel series started. The actual information, as Kinstryfe says above, amounted to probably less than a page of background. It went: Horus turns traitor, Istvaan massacre, Battle of Terra. There's obviously a bit more to it than that, but not much. Within those events there's barely any detail so we were left to fill in the blanks, which will almost always be better than whatever a writer can come up with. So Horus's fall was always going to be disappointing. I think it was OK but I'm not sure they gave us enough time to get to know Horus before his fall.

I'd be surprised if BL's editor has publicly stated the fall was poorly written - that's a pretty unprofessional comment to make. Where was that said?

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefirstexpedition/the-master-of-mankind-t1979-s100.html#p40004756

The only falls I read was Horus, Lorgars and Fulgrims. Lorgars I completly buy, given his need to worship somethings. Horus falling after the vision of the future and being a sick, not so much. Fulgrims because a sword told him to, not so much either. I'd have bought it if Horus went completly Hubris (I am the greatest so I shall rule), wanted more power (I bow to the gods to challenge my mean father) or just thought it was right from a philosophical standpoint (everyone should be free! Not have to follow the rigid imperial dogma). As it is his fall was pretty much just a deamon (who are very trustworthy btw) telling him that:

Horus just fraking bought it. I always thought he sucked after that, though the Istvaan massacre was beautifully written.

 Nerak wrote:
The only falls I read was Horus, Lorgars and Fulgrims. Lorgars I completly buy, giving his need to worship somethings. Horus falling after the vision of the future and being a sick, not so much. Fulgrims because a sword told him to, not so much either. I'd have bought it if Horus went completly Hubris (I am the greatest so I shall rule), wanted more power (I bow to the gods to challenge my donkey-cave father) or just thought it was right from a philosophical standpoint (everyone should be free! Not have to follow the rigid imperial dogma). As it is his fall was pretty much just a deamon (who are very trustworthy btw) telling him that:

Spoiler:

"in the future you'll be forgotten and you where made from chaos"

Horus just fething bought it. I always thought he sucked after that, though the Istvaan massacre was beautifully written.

Horus did not believe what Erebus said about the Emperor and only joined because he did not want to be forgotten.

Onething123456 wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
The only falls I read was Horus, Lorgars and Fulgrims. Lorgars I completly buy, giving his need to worship somethings. Horus falling after the vision of the future and being a sick, not so much. Fulgrims because a sword told him to, not so much either. I'd have bought it if Horus went completly Hubris (I am the greatest so I shall rule), wanted more power (I bow to the gods to challenge my donkey-cave father) or just thought it was right from a philosophical standpoint (everyone should be free! Not have to follow the rigid imperial dogma). As it is his fall was pretty much just a deamon (who are very trustworthy btw) telling him that:

Spoiler:

"in the future you'll be forgotten and you where made from chaos"

Horus just fething bought it. I always thought he sucked after that, though the Istvaan massacre was beautifully written.

Horus did not believe what Erebus said about the Emperor and only joined because he did not want to be forgotten.

wasn't Erebus, was a deamon. You know, the flashback where the baby-primarch pods are thrown out in space.

Horus Rising was really well written, as 40k novels go, but it was by Dan Abnett so it's pretty standard for him. I really liked how Horus at the end of it was likened to a Christ figure, being impaled through the wrist, and crying out for his father.

Unfortunately it was then followed up by Graham McNeil, who I don't feel is as successful as Abnett in implementing things like theme and writer-craft. It really shows in Fulgrim, but False Gods didn't carry forward that 'character-as-destiny' stuff that made the fall of the Luna Wolves seem inevitable (pride, being a bunch of monsters, etc) and a logical result of where they were in the 40k ficton.

 Nurglitch wrote:
Horus Rising was really well written, as 40k novels go, but it was by Dan Abnett so it's pretty standard for him. I really liked how Horus at the end of it was likened to a Christ figure, being impaled through the wrist, and crying out for his father.

Unfortunately it was then followed up by Graham McNeil, who I don't feel is as successful as Abnett in implementing things like theme and writer-craft. It really shows in Fulgrim, but False Gods didn't carry forward that 'character-as-destiny' stuff that made the fall of the Luna Wolves seem inevitable (pride, being a bunch of monsters, etc) and a logical result of where they were in the 40k ficton.

I loved reading Horus Rising. Horus even said around page 353 when talking about the Interex to Abaddon and the other Marines that the Emperor was born in Anatolia (or 'Anatoly', as it was spelled in the book), and showed a ring the Emperor gave him created a year before he (the Emperor) was born.

I was active in the First Expedition when Laurie Goulding wrote that post. At the time, in the context of all the other posts in that thread, I thought Goulding was mostly saying that the original story was difficult to turn into something that made sense, and also we would have needed to see more Crusade-era Horus in order to feel for him as he fell.

It’s worth noting that he wasn’t at BL until the novel series was in the teens, and he left when it was in the mid-forties.

The original Space Marine rulebook (“Space Marine” was the name of 1st and 2nd edition Epic) has Warmaster Horus, who’s recently recovered from an illness, go into a feral warrior lodge induction ceremony on Davin to establish ties with the natives. He gets possessed by a daemon, and then you get Isstvan III and V, which are only a little different from the current version. I’m surprised how much of the original story has been maintained through 30 years of rewrites.

I agree what happened in False Gods wasn’t the most compelling fall, but I’m glad they gave Horus some agency. I was surprised that they made it more about his doubts (about the Emperor getting rid of them after the Great Crusade) than about his hubris. I guess that made him more sympathetic, but if all the primarchs embody one aspect of humanity (or of the Emperor’s personality), Horus’s was ambition. That’s my criticism. But it was an improvement over just getting possessed by a daemon as if it were something the Chaos gods could do to anyone at any time.

And as great as Horus Rising was, it was written by the same guy who wrote Alpharius’s very questionable fall...

I really liked Legion, but then I also really like damnation stories where it's the best of intentions. Save the galaxy at the expense of Humanity, or maybe it's a xenos-trick... The back-story of the Alpha Legion already entertaining heretical thoughts, and the underlying theme of betrayers betraying each other through Tzeentchian-plotting sold it to me.

 Nerak wrote:
The only falls I read was Horus, Lorgars and Fulgrims. Lorgars I completly buy, given his need to worship somethings. Horus falling after the vision of the future and being a sick, not so much. Fulgrims because a sword told him to, not so much either. I'd have bought it if Horus went completly Hubris (I am the greatest so I shall rule), wanted more power (I bow to the gods to challenge my mean father) or just thought it was right from a philosophical standpoint (everyone should be free! Not have to follow the rigid imperial dogma). As it is his fall was pretty much just a deamon (who are very trustworthy btw) telling him that:

Spoiler:

"in the future you'll be forgotten and you where made from chaos"

Horus just fraking bought it. I always thought he sucked after that, though the Istvaan massacre was beautifully written.

That's a bit over simplified. Fulgrim was around a Demon for years and gradually fell and only completed things when he went a bit nuts killing Ferus and Horus was stabbed and infected by a Chaos weapon.

Everything sounds stupid when you oversimplify e.g. Dark Angels are Marines but with robes.

 Nurglitch wrote:
I really liked Legion, but then I also really like damnation stories where it's the best of intentions. Save the galaxy at the expense of Humanity, or maybe it's a xenos-trick... The back-story of the Alpha Legion already entertaining heretical thoughts, and the underlying theme of betrayers betraying each other through Tzeentchian-plotting sold it to me.

I liked the rest of the book, and I’m comfortable with the idea of the Alpha Legion betraying the Imperium for its own good. But the details here didn’t work for me. It required allowing humanity to get wiped out, and with how xenophobic the Imperium was, I absolutely could not see its soldiers prioritizing the destruction of Chaos above the survival of humanity. “Taking one for the team,” is at odds with the whole spirit of the times.

It also doesn’t make much sense in that they could have nipped the Heresy in the bud with their foreknowledge and let the Emperor complete his plan - either before Horus’s fall or with a triple-crossing at Isstvan V.

Later books give the impression that the Alpha Legion started doubting the Cabal and maybe saw an opportunity to gain power in the midst of a civil war, but there were few hints of that in Legion.

Voss wrote:
Well, it _was_ poorly written. 'You're lying to me, but I'm gonna do what you want anyway' is piss poor motivation. .

Except that wasn't what happened. Erebus didn't convince Horus to turn. Getting stabbed with a warp-tainted blade, and the subsequent daemonic 'intervention' was what turned him.

Carlisimo wrote:
I was active in the First Expedition when Laurie Goulding wrote that post. At the time, in the context of all the other posts in that thread, I thought Goulding was mostly saying that the original story was difficult to turn into something that made sense, and also we would have needed to see more Crusade-era Horus in order to feel for him as he fell.

I think that's the crux of it. The turn seems quick if you only consider the contents of those first three books. But to see how Horus got to that point in time you have to consider his whole life and that doesn't get fleshed out until much later in the series. First Heretic, Wolfsbane, Slaves to Darkness and many other novels cover the information that makes the turn a much more gradual process than what's presented in False Gods.

The problem with many of the early bits of the Heresy is that the Black Library doesn't seem to have expected to get more than a dozen books out of it. Things are very rushed and Horus is barely developed as a character before the fall occurs. Worse, different authors often took character in completely different directions (Magnus). This exploited the already existing weakness that as Myths, the primarchs were already dangerously two-dimensional and the compression makes it so much worse.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
The problem with many of the early bits of the Heresy is that the Black Library doesn't seem to have expected to get more than a dozen books out of it. Things are very rushed and Horus is barely developed as a character before the fall occurs. Worse, different authors often took character in completely different directions (Magnus). This exploited the already existing weakness that as Myths, the primarchs were already dangerously two-dimensional and the compression makes it so much worse.

I think it's perfectly serviceable as a space soap opera.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
The problem with many of the early bits of the Heresy is that the Black Library doesn't seem to have expected to get more than a dozen books out of it. Things are very rushed and Horus is barely developed as a character before the fall occurs. Worse, different authors often took character in completely different directions (Magnus). This exploited the already existing weakness that as Myths, the primarchs were already dangerously two-dimensional and the compression makes it so much worse.

Like many successful series, the HH is a victim of it's own success. GW probably never planned to have as many novels as it has pumped out but they sold very well, with a few even topping the NY times best selling chart. So they order and print more books. It ends up a bloated mess but it still makes money and that is at the end of the day what any company generally will care about.