Is the Heresy series too apologist

[Darkchild130]

Its like being an atheist, by denying a higher power you inherently admit there is a higher power to deny.

 

I might just be being thick, but I don't understand what you mean by this. Are you saying that disbelief in something is evidence for its existence?

That appears to be what he's saying.

And no, that doesn't make any sense.

 

There are no dragons. <---Therefore I think there are dragons? WTH?

That's not how logic works!

 

It is however, how religious arguments work.

 

So, from this thread, in a nutshell I have discovered:

 

There are no genuine psycopaths in the heresy because it is poor writing.

 

Indeed, from my own minor dabblings in the written arts, proper psychos make good supporting characters, but you cant write a story around them.

Primarchs are rarely side characters, an evil one would get real boring very quickly.

 

And that's a good enough reason for me as to why no primarchs are really evil.

 

Darkchild

[Greyall]

I disagree, people have demonstrated throughout history that they can and will be truly monstrous to one another. Genocide and mass slaughter are very clearly evil. There's no justifying anything of that nature.

Unfortunately, the capacity to do evil is a real part of human nature. That's partly why I like Magnus the Red, he did truly have a sense(flawed as it was) of morality. He tried to save as much as destroy.

You class it is as evil because society does.

 

Go back to the Roman era for example (one of many) and things like mass slaughter were celebrated at certain points, times and culture change, thus effecting how people think.

 

Go forward even further to 40k and the whole galaxy is fighting in one on going war, most people will see (or hear about) death, genocide and war constantly and so be far less emotional because of it, to a degree.

 

 

Turning against your race/civilization for personal gains/personal reasons and killing whole worlds/cities/settlements is considered evil by any society, even the more martial ones.

[Legatus]

What if the motive for performing a hostile action is not self preservation or a sense of justice or duty, and merely based on personal enjoyment? Would that be considered evil? Because there are human beings like that. I assume most of you have heard about the term of "griefing". And some people do not have to play games in order to be like that. Countless violent or depraved acts are performed because they are "fun" for the perpetrators. These people are certainly not seeing themselves as doing "good".

[Pulse]

Turning against your race/civilization for personal gains/personal reasons and killing whole worlds/cities/settlements is considered evil by any society, even the more martial ones.

Most conflicts in the world going back to before records began, right to the start of our species, have been because of personal gains or at least gains for a or group of people or tribe, leading all the way up to countries forming. So that is not nessessarly evil, even if you had to make war on "your own race" to expand boarders or to raid for goods etc etc etc.

[Lexington]

I want to see a baddy who is bad because he is just a nasty piece of work! Someone who doesn't have an excuse except for being self serving and power hungry. Someone who isn't a pawn, just wants his slice of the pie!

I'm with you here, in a sense. As others have said, 'evil for its own sake' is a crappy motivation for anyone, but I also wish the Traitor Primarchs were driven by ideals, rather than their own personal crises. I think this was set up rather well in their original incarnation, back in the 2nd Edition Chaos Codex, where the non-aligned Legions and Primarchs represented a darker warrior ideal or philosophy. These were beliefs they would kill and die for. "Death is nothing compared to vindication" is the sort of thing I wish every Traitor Primarch could have uttered.

 

Joker doesn´t want anarchy per se. His point is that the principles and value systems our society is built on are inherently flawed and so he consequently wants to 'enlighten' us. A Prometheus with a pretty scary smile, so to speak. At least, thats my understanding of this awful movie.

Off-topic and all, but, wow, I think you're the only other person I've seen on the interwebs who dislikes that movie. Crappy, half-baked ideas wrapped around one phenomenal performance.

[The Emperor's Champion]

What if the motive for performing a hostile action is not self preservation or a sense of justice or duty, and merely based on personal enjoyment? Would that be considered evil? Because there are human beings like that. I assume most of you have heard about the term of "griefing". And some people do not have to play games in order to be like that. Countless violent or depraved acts are performed because they are "fun" for the perpetrators. These people are certainly not seeing themselves as doing "good".

Exactly. There are more than enough people that are just malicious for no other reason than because they want to be.

 

It's true, the world is made up of shades of grey, but SOME things are black and white.

There are people who are just outright good, there are people who are just outright evil.

For reasons I don't quite understand, a lot of people can't seem to wrap their heads around this.

[Ubermensch Commander]

Exactly. There are more than enough people that are just malicious for no other reason than because they want to be.

 

It's true, the world is made up of shades of grey, but SOME things are black and white.

There are people who are just outright good, there are people who are just outright evil.

For reasons I don't quite understand, a lot of people can't seem to wrap their heads around this.

 

Off-Topic

 

Probably because one persons "black"(bad) is another persons "white" (good).

Committing genocide against a population, stealing their land, breaking any and all treaties made with them? Sounds pretty messed up to me. But some people like call it just and proclaim it Manifest Destiny.

Engaging in "holy" wars over centuries against those dirty "others" to convert them to the "proper" faith? Well, arguments are its good wholesome values and it's better to kill them than let them compound their sins.

Ethnic cleansing in the name of (sometimes God) and country? Obviously protecting one's race against dilution and weakness.

 

While I agree there is "good" and "evil", sadly so very often what is good and what is evil is dependent upon what side of the line you are standing upon.

I wrap my head around it, I just reject it as way to view the world without some stringent analysis.

Reality is a bit too messy to divide into a "good/bad" dichotomy.

 

On-Topic

That being said: Yeah the Traitor Primarchs are given alot of sob stories and personally I find NONE of them acceptable as reason for betraying your brothers, your father/creator/liege lord, and condemning the entirety of creation to Chaos.

But, I do not find the HH series apologetic. I may not agree or like all the angles taken by the authors in the series, but I understand why they write it that way.

By giving some rationale, however twisted, to the antagonists it creates a more interesting story as a whole. Not to mention, it is hard (for me anyway) to suspend disbelief when entire legions of super human warriors turn on their empire "For the Evi-luls" of it all.