Betrayer

[DarthMarko]

He is humanity personified in a way nothing else is. He is our bloodthirst, our envy, our love, our mercy, our logic, our nihilism and our hypocrisy. Thus not only was he perfect, but his very perfection is what made him imperfect.

Whole HH is vague my friend - I'mean we have a tone of OP charatcters whos portrayal can be put into 3 words...

[Billuriye]

He is humanity personified in a way nothing else is. He is our bloodthirst, our envy, our love, our mercy, our logic, our nihilism and our hypocrisy. Thus not only was he perfect, but his very perfection is what made him imperfect.

 

Really? I thought he was shaman soul gestalt or something. Personally i favour the theory that he's a failed experiment of Old Ones meddling with humanity.

[Beef]

Personally, the frustratingly vague portrayal of the Emperor throughout the HH books is bais to legitimize the traitor's ideals and actions which gives them a bit of fresh spice. I dont think he's an uncaring or complacent tyrant because we havent really seen his detailed perspective on matters yet.

 

so far, and in my opinion alone, almost the entire HH series has been nothing but excuses for the traitor legions.

 

WLK

 

 

This ^^^^

 

Added with a bit of negative writing for the loyalist Primarchs. for example its shown that they keep a few close warrioer to 'supposedly guide them' sucha as Ralderon of the BA or Sigismund of the IF, yet Neither Sang nor dorn listen to them. Only when it suits their own plans do they let these guys think that they have contributed to a desision.

 

And the whole father sone things is nonsence, the EMp created the Primarchs, they are his science experiments, when as kids you grew some fungus in a lab did you call it son?

 

Also the SM are made from genetic leftover of their Primarchs so instead of the Primarchs refering to hem as sons also should they not call them Genetic Leftover or GF's for short, hey GF go shoot those Orks,

 

I know the son thing is a figure of speach.

[Billuriye]

And the whole father sone things is nonsence, the EMp created the Primarchs, they are his science experiments, when as kids you grew some fungus in a lab did you call it son?

 

They have every right to be called "sons". Just like Pinocchio is the son of Geppetto. Emperor is involved with every each of their ounce while creating them. They are more of a son to him than a child who is just the result of sexual activity.

[Yogi]

Before the Horus Heresy series the Emperor was depicted as an amazing, arrogant bastard. People just finally have to see it.

 

He's the guy who goes, I think I will unite humanity under one rule. Mine.

 

And then he does it.

 

He allows "desirables" join his empire.

 

And slaughters wholesale everyone else (mutants, xenos etc).

 

Brakes a few eggs here and there in the name of his empire. Just a few billion people no big deal, its not like he killed them personally. He doesn't worry about hurt feelings.

 

Then he gets to Angron, and he's just like "I don't have time for this Angron."

 

"B-But but my glorious death."

 

"Its time to Crusade boy! Get conquering."

 

"Raaaaaargh Angron mad."

 

That's pretty much how it was before HH series. The Emperor still comes across as a arrogant bastard. That is his character. Millions of people die in his name every day and he's supposed to care about the most worthless son he's encountered (who is a slave despite being a primarch) feelings. Really? REALLY?

 

But why put him in charge of his legion? Because that is what he is made for. He can always have Horus look in on him, see if Angron needs a kick in the butt, he has 17 other legions if he needs to put all the Warhounds to the sword, there's nothing wrong with his decisions if you recognize the Emperor is a tyrannical ruler of an ever expanding galactic empire of over a million words. Who the hell has time for Angron? The bugger is lucky the Emperor remember's his name.

 

Loyalist fans always make out like he is some carebear messiah, but this guy has enough blood in his hands to rival a chaos god. He has and always will be depicted as an amazing arrogant bastard. And the Horus Heresy series has not changed that.

[Haranin]

The Emperor is dammed if he does, and dammed if he doesn't.

 

Compare and contract Mortician and Angron... one the Emperor teleports down and kicks ass. Primarch hates him.

 

The other the Emperor teleports up, and the Primarch hates him.

 

He can't win! <_<

[RapatoR]

Before the Horus Heresy series the Emperor was depicted as an amazing, arrogant bastard. People just finally have to see it.

 

He's the guy who goes, I think I will unite humanity under one rule. Mine.

 

And then he does it.

 

He allows "desirables" join his empire.

 

And slaughters wholesale everyone else (mutants, xenos etc).

 

Brakes a few eggs here and there in the name of his empire. Just a few billion people no big deal, its not like he killed them personally. He doesn't worry about hurt feelings.

 

Then he gets to Angron, and he's just like "I don't have time for this Angron."

 

"B-But but my glorious death."

 

"Its time to Crusade boy! Get conquering."

 

"Raaaaaargh Angron mad."

 

That's pretty much how it was before HH series. The Emperor still comes across as a arrogant bastard. That is his character. Millions of people die in his name every day and he's supposed to care about the most worthless son he's encountered (who is a slave despite being a primarch) feelings. Really? REALLY?

 

But why put him in charge of his legion? Because that is what he is made for. He can always have Horus look in on him, see if Angron needs a kick in the butt, he has 17 other legions if he needs to put all the Warhounds to the sword, there's nothing wrong with his decisions if you recognize the Emperor is a tyrannical ruler of an ever expanding galactic empire of over a million words. Who the hell has time for Angron? The bugger is lucky the Emperor remember's his name.

 

Loyalist fans always make out like he is some carebear messiah, but this guy has enough blood in his hands to rival a chaos god. He has and always will be depicted as an amazing arrogant bastard. And the Horus Heresy series has not changed that.

 

Agreed.

 

In a universe that is made of shades of grey, why we shold look upon Emps as white?

 

Also he is powerful, but at the end, he is still human being.

 

Also lets not forget that hindsight is 20/20. Everyone can look and tell: "Yeah that was really stupid." after he screwed up. But in the actual moment, it is not so easy.

[Unintentional Batman]

In a universe that is made of shades of grey, why we shold look upon Emps as white?

 

I think it's a bit sad that quite a few on the loyalist "side" of the fandom seem to want Black & White Morality for the good guys when that pretty much flies against everything WH40K stands for. That's 40K for us. Fleshing out the traitors is just that - fleshing them out. They still jumped ship and rebelled. That there are reasons beyond "Evil" (for most of them) is a good thing. And that the Emperor and the loyalist primarchs are portrayed as bit more grey and a lot more jerkish is what separates 40K from the bland and boring Good vs. Evil we see in almost every other fantasy/scifi setting. Everyone is a bastard at best and a complete monster at worst - even the good guys.

 

Except Vulkan, he's the only decent human being in the whole setting. That's cool too, to have one genuinely nice chap in the story to stand out. :)

[Ju'kosian]

most already knew the bad parts about the traitor primarchs.. so why not shed a bit light on the bad parts of loyalists.. nobody is perfect after all.

[Russ Brother 92]

As others have mentioned before me - now I've only read snippets of the book BUT I do like Angron, I agree with his views on Ye Olde Emperore; he's the biggest dictator in the history of man, after all what did he do first? Crush all those who didn't agree with his views on how humanity should be run on Terra/Ancient Earth. second? He perfects his creation of an immovable, semi-immortal army with which he can conquer the stars... and finally? he turns his 'children' creations upon themselves by placing one above another, by introducing rules which were entirely "one rule for him and another for me" especially where Russ and Angron or Perturabo and Dorn, even between Mortarion and Vulkan - he didn't try to stop the conflict with decisive action UNLESS it was a threat to HIM and HIS rule...

 

Therefore, Angron though he became a pawn of true Gods, he was at least satisfied that he was destroying a dictatorship in the same vein as that which get crushed and/or removed in this era.

 

Whereas those who stayed loyal to the extreme (such as my own brother wolves) stopped being pawns when he died, we fight against the constraints of the dictator's rule and only bowed to him due to his strength and loyalty (perhaps misplaced) - by the end of the heresy the universe is far from Black and White, it's every colour EXCEPT Black and White, mostly Grey and misconstrued with major faults on all sides.

[Artein]

I'm not reading any of the posts above because I'm just at 1/3 of the book or so....

I'm just saying a few things in case ABD reads it....

 

Thing number one, I love the way that you use The Battle for the Abyss. It's barely mentioned anywhere, I believe Graham wrote a sentence about it in Mechanicum and.... I've seen it in one other novel, not sure where now. I was hoping for it in Know no Fear but sadly no.

The book happened, it was written, published and event from it are pretty much a Horus Heresy canon (if there is such thing in HH).

I totally enjoy when someone mention that yes, there was such ship, Furious Abyss, there was a plan to take down Macragge, it failed but we tried to do it, at least some of us did.

 

Thing number two, Lotara. Can she be my waifu? Pretty please! Out of all twenty-something books + audio dramas + novellas and what not she is still my very favorite character in Horus Heresy series. Probably better than any 40k and Fantasy character (at least for me, haven't read everything). Please don't kill her! Anyone but her! Kill Argel Tal, Sevatar.... I don't care. Don't kill Lotara. I don't want to go to a Black Library Live (or whatever) just to punch you in the face. And I'm totally not threatening you. So can she be my waifu? Forever?

 

Thing number three, Kargos. Come on, the guy is totally rad! So far I enjoy him as much as pre-berserker Kroeger (who got boring and uninteresting after going khornish).

 

Thing number four, the Primarchs are awesome but they're awesome in everything you write about them, The First Heretic, Aurelian, Butcher's Nails, Savage Weapons, Prince of Crows.... well, maybe not so in Prince of Crows.... but still! Angron and Lorgar are awesome. Totally different and also awesome in a different way but awesome. And awesome. Awesome is such an awesome word.

 

Now I'm going back to the realm of Ultramar....

[Rain]

The Emperor is dammed if he does, and dammed if he doesn't.

 

Compare and contract Mortician and Angron... one the Emperor teleports down and kicks ass. Primarch hates him.

 

The other the Emperor teleports up, and the Primarch hates him.

 

He can't win! :nuke:

 

Well--not really. See the Emperor came down to Mortarion and offered him the XIV Legion. Morty replied that his place was here protecting his people and that he still needed to kill his adoptive father, the charming alien overlord chap that lived on top of a poisonous mountain. So Big E puts down an ultimatum, if Morty can kill the overlord himself the Imperium packs up and leaves Barbarus alone, if not, Mortarion has to swear himself to the Emeperor. So Morty climbs the mountain but it is so toxic up there that the atmosphere eats through his rebreather equipment and overwhelms his primarch physiology. Then the Emperor shows up and kills the overlord, leaving Mortarion to have to honor his oath and join up, also making Mortarion the only primarch to join out of personal failure, which crimped his pride a bit. Also he hated dictators because of the whole overlords of Barbarus thing and the Emperor was one so it didn't end well.

[wtwhizz]

Emperor is sure bloodthirsty(Angron and Sanguinius had to take from their father after all) but i don't think he's your average tyrant. He pulled humanity from brink of extinction and took the leash only to secure a place in the galaxy. He doesn't seem to trip on power.

 

 

He's definitely not just a typical tyrant, he's of a position anyone in the galaxy could meet him regardless of race and could see he's just something else. A believable God born from a soon-to-be secular race. The Big E is portrayed as pure ambition, but the way the heresy is playing out he's looking like a God of ambition who may have got so high up he could no longer see the finer details. His main fault just seems to be neglect, which is a tragic mistake to make for the being who was so powerful it could challenge and defeat the entirety of Chaos one on one to make.

 

I can jive with this explanation, except for the fact that the Emperor often shows himself to be aware of the details and to be a very caring Godlike dad. He tries to get through to Kurze. He loves/trusts Horus enough to hand over the reigns to him. He clearly has a soft spot for Sangy. He stops the "future High Lords of Terra" on ethical grounds when they go all assassin-y trying to kill Horus. He and Magnus share a deep understanding. The list goes on and on.

 

And again, my argument really isn't about whether the Emperor is a good guy or not. We know the Emperor is a "this is gonna hurt, but I'ma do it anyway because Humanity won't survive otherwise" type of guy. This was shown from Grammaticus' viewpoint and clearly shown when the Emperor has the convo with the last preacher on Earth and then burns down his church. I think it's a reasonable expectation for people to want the Emperor to have SOME nobility since he clearly does, but I don't think there are too many people out there that demand the Emperor be a lily-white protagonist in the Frodo Baggins mold or whatever. I certainly don't. The argument is whether the Emperor is dumb/blinded enough to make all these missteps. Hell, there are psychotic serial killers out there that absolutely can't feel real human emotion but they're smart enough to fake it and do what they need to to pass off as normal.

 

The Emperor being above it all or whatever and just uncaring/unable to not be a complete buffoon on some of these issues just doesn't jive with him being the Master of Mankind and a shamanic gestalt of greatness, IMHO. Let's say he didn't give a hoot about Angron, Angron's feelings, or anything else. It's just bad generalship (I think I just made that word up) to leave your forces with an unstable and aggrieved leader.

 

Besides, I just can't wrestle my brain into accepting that the Emperor is THAT oblivious to everything that goes on with his kids, his great Crusade, etc. It's like when Magnus tries to psychically commune with Big E and breaks through the Webway and wrecks the Emperor's plans. The Emperor just stares at him knowingly and says, "Magnus." And Magnus realizes he done screwed up. The way that was written was clearly intended to give the impression Big E knew all along that Magnus was going to mess up. There's plenty of other examples of this deep understanding and knowledge the Emp has throughout the books. Like his dream-convo with Kai Zulane from Outcast Dead.

 

It would just be nice to get some more background on The Big E, maybe some talks between him and Malcador, maybe some motivations for how he handles his son and the Crusade, and some explanations for why he does what he does. I like that the BL has some "mysterious stuff we won't ever touch" like the two missing legions. However, they've gone overboard on that little game with the Emperor. Find someone who isn't afraid of tackling the issue and doing it justice and throw us a freaking bone. Oh, and making Horus out to be a complete clown probably isn't the way to go either. When Lorgar is laughing behind Horus' back and smirking at how he's manipulating the guy it's a bit goofy. I can dig that Horus gets a bit manipulated like all the Primarchs do, but give him some oomph, ya know?

[Kol Saresk]

Well Horus is being manipulated. He is the lead actor in the cast, the one everyone knows. Lorgar just happens to be the director. And the only people who know the true roles are the fans and the Word Bearers.

 

Also, despite the major cluster bomb that it was, the Outcast Dead did throw a little something out there, a quote from the Emperor. I can't remember exact words but it basically said "I can be all-powerful or all-knowing. I can't be both." And since he is all-powerful 99% of the time we see him, I'm willing to bet that he did not choose all-knowing on the basis that he already knows what he thinks he needs to achieve his goals and instead choose power as he did not have that apparently.

 

Also, there are two sides to every coin. Where one person sees the Emperor trying to help Curze by getting Fulgrim to talk to him, another could see it as the Emperor dumping Curze onto Fulgrim. Where person sees it as the Emperor just stealing Angron and dumping him on his own Legion... Well I'm actually not sure what the plus side to that is. But I imagine one could find out.

[Zynk Kaladin]

Also, there are two sides to every coin. Where one person sees the Emperor trying to help Curze by getting Fulgrim to talk to him, another could see it as the Emperor dumping Curze onto Fulgrim. Where person sees it as the Emperor just stealing Angron and dumping him on his own Legion... Well I'm actually not sure what the plus side to that is. But I imagine one could find out.

 

This is an excellent point. The Emperor's point of view on Angron has been neglected by fluffsmiths which is frustrating for those who like the big E.

[Kol Saresk]

As there is supposed to eventually be a book about the Heresy-era Emperor of Mankind, I imagine we will either fin the answer in there, or the time is drawing near that we will find out through another source within the series, like Malcador, Khârn, or maybe even a Custodes who was there at the time.

[DarKnight]

The whole point of Primarchs was that it was impossible, even for the Emperor, to pull of the Great Crusade by himself a fair amount of delegation had to be done. I don't see how you could call it uncaring when the Emperor's ultimate goal was the liberation of the human race from Warp Gods with the Webway. Angron whining about "Daddy wasn't fair!" means nothing to me. He definitely caught a raw deal due to his circumstances of falling upon Nuceria, but I have a question for you guys and maybe ADB as well, when the Emperor lands upon Nuceria and tells Angron that he has inherited the XII Legion and must join the rest of his brothers in the Great Crusade, he refuses out of hand and requests to die with his army. He brings examples of Russ and The Lion who's allies were brought with them when the Emperor returned to his sons, however, did he even ASK for the Emperor's help? Or did he just refuse out of hand? If he asked and was turned down, I could better understand his bitterness and rage, if he didn't then of course a Primarch is more important than a slave rebellion on a backwater planet.

[Kol Saresk]

The problem is that Angron never had a chance to ask. There was the battle and then in the middle of the battle Angron was teleported up to the Adamant Resovle(the soon to be Conqueror) and from there it was too late to do anything. There was no beforehand encounter between the Emperor and Angron, at least in this current edition of the fluff, which I think started with After Desh'ea by Matthew Farrer in Tales of Heresy.

[DarKnight]

The problem is that Angron never had a chance to ask. There was the battle and then in the middle of the battle Angron was teleported up to the Adamant Resovle(the soon to be Conqueror) and from there it was too late to do anything. There was no beforehand encounter between the Emperor and Angron, at least in this current edition of the fluff, which I think started with After Desh'ea by Matthew Farrer in Tales of Heresy.

From what I understand there was the initial contact where Angron refused the Emperor, out of hand, then was teleported away.

[Visitor13]

So basically all this time Angron believes that the Emperor is little better than his Nucerian captors. And he is continuously tormented by the Nails.

 

So why didn't he simply tell the Emp to stick it and allow himself to be killed or something? He'd have saved face and found release from his suffering.

[Billuriye]

So basically all this time Angron believes that the Emperor is little better than his Nucerian captors. And he is continuously tormented by the Nails.

 

So why didn't he simply tell the Emp to stick it and allow himself to be killed or something? He'd have saved face and found release from his suffering.

 

You asking why he didn't commit suicide? Probably because he couldn't. Suicide requires willpower unless you're so utterly devoid of life. Angron and most of the primarchs don't possess such willpower.

[Kol Saresk]

Personally, I believe he tried. After all, there is the fact that Angron killed most of the War Hounds comman structure until Khârn found a way to talk to him and reached a compromise.

[Visitor13]

So basically all this time Angron believes that the Emperor is little better than his Nucerian captors. And he is continuously tormented by the Nails.

 

So why didn't he simply tell the Emp to stick it and allow himself to be killed or something? He'd have saved face and found release from his suffering.

 

You asking why he didn't commit suicide? Probably because he couldn't. Suicide requires willpower unless you're so utterly devoid of life. Angron and most of the primarchs don't possess such willpower.

 

Nah, I'm asking why he didn't charge the Emp and/or his retinue and keep charging until the Emp got fed up with it and killed him, realising he'd be no good as a general.

[Kol Saresk]

Because the Emperor dumped him on the Adamant Resolve and left the Legion to deal with him. It's in After Desh'ea. By the time the Emperor finally got around to meeting his newfound son, Khârn had already calmed him down and got Angron to pledge to be the Primarch in exchange for the XII to learn his traditions and become the Eaters of Worlds in place of the Eaters of Cities.

[Visitor13]

And yet as Betrayer shows Angron had nothing but contempt for the Emp regardless. Sure, his bloodlust could override it most of the time, but I can't imagine Angron resisting every temptation to go for the Emp's throat.