How/Why did Curze go bad?

[follower of curze]

Just like the title says, how and why did Konrad Curze go bad? All the background material i can find never mentions anything specific. Was it a build up of circumstances or was it one, definitive event? any help would be awesome. cheers

[Legatus]

He was tormented all his life by visions of his brothers fighting among themselves and he himself dying by the orders of his father. When the emperor found him and took him to take part in the great crusade Curze obeyed, and his ruthless approach was merely a means to an end. However, things went over the edge for Konrad when he was directly confronted by Rogal Dorn over the questionable nature of his visions and the state of his mind on the one hand, and an increasing amount of "criminals" that had been inducted into his own Legion who comitted horrible acts not out of pragmatism but for their own amusement on the other. At that point Konrad probably realized that what he had seen and feared his whole life was inevitable and could not be averted. At that point he lost it completely and took his Legion on a rampage, starting with destroying his own home world (which he may have blamed for the corruption of his Legion which he had not been able to stop). No matter what his state of mind might have been at that point, it was only reasonable to expect that he could never again side with the Emperor or his loyal brothers after what his Legion had done, first without him knowing and now under his direct command, so the only way for his Legion to go on would be to side with Horus when he made his move.

[Hellios]

In the Dark King it suggest he disagreed with the emperor who felt that human could be "naturally" good while Curze felt that fear was needed to keep them in line and without people like himself and his legion the emperor wouldn't be able to keep control and that he knew he was going to be punished/reprimanded/hauled off to the loony bin... So he decided he would run off but that also we would bring fear to man but the way it was suggested sounded like he was almost doing it for the emperor so that out of fear of curze man would look to the emperor for safety.

 

Then when Horus went nuts I guess he was safer with them... they would accept him.

[torgaddon666]

You guys make it sound like that Curze turned Horus into a whackjob and turn to chaos. A more in control and knows what he's doing whackjob with some equally if not MORE unstable whackjobs for allies, kinda makes sense that the HH went to the traitors because they said "Release the nutters." Everyone :P themselves and runs. Then they met the loyalists and the emperor and then it went to the good guys and the whackjob teams plans went pearshaped, because of a few loyalists that got away from Motarions stubborn nutters.

 

He joined them because they all listened to him and accepted him, and thus Horus turned against the emperor because no-one would listen to the schizo primark.

[Corsair]

I don't think the Night Lords ever went 'bad' in the traditional, Chaos-worshipping sense; at least not until after Curze was killed.

 

Rather, I think the Night Haunter sided with Horus because he grew to believe that the Emperor was too weak to rule humanity the way it had to be ruled. Furthermore

(and Soul Hunter appears to support this), I think Night Haunter felt the same about Horus, and always intended to use him to take the throne of Terra for himself.

 

 

While the Night Lords definitely did some messed up stuff, it was due more to ideological differences than it was being evil psychos (even though this began to creep in due to the lapse back into crime on Nostramo). It can also be argued that the Legion doctrine and NH's visions

were always shaped by Chaos (manifesting as a split personality, implied in both Lord of the Night and Soul Hunter), and that many of Curze's self-destructive acts (recruiting scum, wasting his homeworld for it, attacking Dorn, etc, etc) were done because of his visions, thus making them self-fulfilling prophecies

 

 

I've always loved the Night Lords and the fact they weren't just mindless Chaos drones, and the books (particularly Soul Hunter, simply phenomenal) have really given them a unique character far beyond the initial Heart of Darkness/Batman theme they had going originally.

[Monstra Sumus]

As damn cool as the Night Lords fluff is, I just think Curze was a bad egg from the start. He landed on one of the worst worlds in the galaxy and it all just when down hill from there on. As they say, you can take the man out of the ultraviolent, debased, mafioso, tribal hive world but you cant take the ultraviolent, debased, mafioso, tribal hive world out of the man.

[jeremy1391]

he turned because daddy didnt love him!!!!! Papa was never there man!

 

either that or the Emperor found out he is really the Batman and was going to reveal his identity!

[kalicurealm]

imho, Konrad was never actually a bad character. If anything I expect that in his own way, he was a hero. A tragic hero perhaps, but a hero nevertheless.

First of all he was a vigilante and hunted down criminals, saved his planet and people. Sadly, I'm not sure what he did to 'minor' criminals like child pickpockets and such.

Second of all when asked why he was doing this he states (forgive my botched quoting) that he forsaw what he would do for The Emperor and knew it was for the best but that all along he hated his legion and wanted to see it destroyed for the methods that it employed.

 

Oh, and in so far as we know he accepted his death at the hands of the assassin and welcomed it even. I think he did what he had to (or thought he had to) for the good of humanity. After all, we don't know what would have happened if the planets he virus bombed/ declared exterminatus on would have become. Perhaps there was a genestealer cult on them or something?

[Lord Adras]

imho, Konrad was never actually a bad character. If anything I expect that in his own way, he was a hero. A tragic hero perhaps, but a hero nevertheless.

First of all he was a vigilante and hunted down criminals, saved his planet and people. Sadly, I'm not sure what he did to 'minor' criminals like child pickpockets and such.

Second of all when asked why he was doing this he states (forgive my botched quoting) that he forsaw what he would do for The Emperor and knew it was for the best but that all along he hated his legion and wanted to see it destroyed for the methods that it employed.

 

Oh, and in so far as we know he accepted his death at the hands of the assassin and welcomed it even. I think he did what he had to (or thought he had to) for the good of humanity. After all, we don't know what would have happened if the planets he virus bombed/ declared exterminatus on would have become. Perhaps there was a genestealer cult on them or something?

 

IIRC, he welcomed death at the hand of the assassin because it proved that he wasn't in the wrong. To elaborate, he was censured for brutally killing those who disagreed with the Emperor and his vision, and later an assassin was sent to kill him because he disagreed with the Emperor and his vision. His death proved that the Emperor was just as brutal as he was, Curze just had no illusions to the contrary.

[Somar]

for his beloved father he turned into a monster. but when daddy despised that monster like everyone else instead of thanking him for becoming one to serve him, he got a mite peeved.

[Legatus]

There was the episode where Curze and the Night Lords were being very strict in enforcing Imperial rule by fear. Then, after the Legion had been infused with criminals and started massacres without an end goal, there was the episode where Curze snapped and took his Legion on a rampage through Imperial sectors.

There is some tragic element to Curze because he allways knew what was going to happen and was clearly distraught by it, but the assassins were NOT sent after him because of the strict methods he used while still working for the Imperium. He went over the edge and inflicted arbitrary mass genocides on several worlds. He did not do that for the Emperor.

[Emperor's Scourge]

I've never really been clear on why the psycho indoctrination that all marines go through didn't take on the Night Lords.

 

As for the Night Haunter, he was a sociopath that still had some of the Emperor's tube programming rattling around in his head. So he knew what the Emperor's idea of right and wrong were, but he had no context within himself. Throw in the ability to see the future and well...

[Wrath of Terra]

He turned bad because GW are lazy and for years it was easy to have the obvious ones turn evil; Psychopathic Angron, vain Fulgrim, mad Curze etc. They're trying to change that lately by ret-conning stuff like why Alpharius/Omegon 'turned'.

[shatter]

In my opinion, each of the primarchs were object lessons in sin and virtue for the future populations of the Imperium. They were designed to stand (and fall) in opposition to their various ideological polarities. The Emperor wished to underline and in essence metaphor via pantheon for His Imperium. They didn't need to be alive for this. In fact, the manner of their ends could as object lessons be generally attributable to the consequence of their sins or glory.

 

With Curze, no matter how much control is required, cruel oppressive brutality does not serve Him or Mankind... despite the benefits total control gives the prescient. Curze's choice was death of thought and stagnation through crushing control. ~ the wrong model for His Imperium for it is ultimately predictable, uncreative, wasteful and unloving. Curze, bitter as all hell at the realisation, took the bullet because he knew this to be true. His resentful and contemptuous thoughts at the end were The Emperor made him thus and his death was to be on His hands. The Emperor did not falter... He always knew that the facet named Curze was a part of Him with a part to play.

 

The manner of his death also underlines the contempt future generations should have for this archetype. One doesn't glorify through war such a mad dog. One puts it down and lets it be the object lesson of The end justifies the means.

[Ashe Darke]

Except even at the end Curze felt he was right, the fact the Emperor sent M'Shen to go kill him proved to him that what he had been saying all along was true and to allow Martin Sheen to kill him would prove to universe that Colonel Kurtz was right in all that he did because death is nothing compared to vindication.

[shatter]

Sure, that was definitely part of Curze's state of mind but it also underlines the flaw in Curze's ideological polar state.

 

The capacity for this state exists within the Emperor as it does in all mankind. This does not make it's usage to the exclusion of all others just.

 

Because he felt vindicated by his own assassination does not mean adhering only to his ideology is the correct course for mankind. It was just his flawed or unbalanced (read polar) state of mind that allowed his belief in it and therefore 'vindication'.

 

I think the most interesting thing about the story is the locked nature of the prescient battle itself. They both knew the ending.

[Ashe Darke]

My point was to give a different reason as to why he allowed it to happen, not to say his MO was correct for mankind.

 

This is the impression I got from IA and Soul Hunter anyway. He embraced the assassination to prove a point, bad guys get what they deserve. And I'm pretty sure he knew the ramifications when he blew up Nostramo (thus making him a bad guy), an necessary evil as far as he was concerned, the stop to evil spilling from the planet etc. As for him feeling bad about what he did I don't know. You don't let yourself die to prove a point if you regret your actions thus negating the point, but maybe that is the point? He was conflicted. Maybe he felt both things.