The Complexity of Leman Russ (Spoiler heavy)

[Kasper_Hawser]

"He ends up helping throw the Thousand Sons into Tzeentch's embrace." Unfortunatly they were in Tzeench`s embrace the second Magnus asked for the stabilization of his 1000 Sons. A sad story.

 

Sigh, you got that right and that mistake was in no way related to anything the Wolves did.

 

@ Greyall - You are right, in terms of action and results, the evidence is actually against the big brother complex opinion. Sigh. Oh well here's hoping I have more ammunition in the Scars novel next year to support Russ integrity as a brother and primarch. For now I will accept that my big brother complex as nothing more than a possible character study of Russ, no less valid than the usual self arrogant appointed executioner of the Primarch family.

 

By the way, when did he defend Lorgar? What did he have to defend Lorgar against? Which book was that?

[Greyall]

I'm not against the 'big brother' theory at all, Kasper, it's more of a matter of how Russ acts in that role. It doesn't mean he isn't misunderstood, as people in 'authority' often are. But the whole thing ends up being a matter of perception, as ADB said, and of matching each character's acts and motivations with your own values. Russ' simply conflict with many of ours, but his moral compass is in the right place, methinks.

 

Also, you mentioned fanboyism a few posts back. Au contraire, I want to commend you for starting this thread and taking all opinions as valid, that this has managed to become such an interesting discussion about a character who definitely deserves one is just awesome. Well done.

[Ozeryk_Sleipnijr]

The big brother idea is plausible but not set in stone. Lion and Russ had a pretty intensive relationship according to older fluff about the Horus Heresy. One writer will tell the tale of this frienship/rivalry one day.

[Greyall]

Of course, and it's not an absolute, Russ is also a warrior, a man who likes glory and a good fight, a leader, etc. Whatever his mindset, the same stance will obviously be met with different reactions by his brothers. Remember, the 'big brother' attitude is Russ', it doesn't mean the other Primarchs see him as such. Hell, some Primarchs, like the Lion, might even see the others as us humans do - same species, not all related.

 

To my memory, Angron uses the term in a very mocking tone.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

Horus is the warmaster. He is currently trying to win the war. That's why he put effort into trying to turn Sanguinius, despite Lorgar's warnings that it would never happen. Do you really think people are going to just accept Lorgar's explanation that he saved Angron because Angron was his brother? No. Of course not. Look at the reactions of some of the fans. They don't believe it.

 

Besides, I believe it was two birds with one stone. Horus needed someone who could at least slow Sanguinius down. A Daemonic Angron can do that. Lorgar wanted to save his brother. Making him Daemonic Angron could do that. BAM! We have motive and justification.

 

And as we know, Sanguinius gets slowed down from fighting in the Siege. Horus does not. Sanguinius boards his flagship. And then Horus kills him, setting the stage for the Emperor to fight Horus and for both of them to die, thus ensuring the Ten Thousand Years that would birth the Eternal War.

Kol it's the eternal tea party of happiness remember no more grim dark

NEVER! I REFUSE TO BOW DOWN TO 6TH EDITION TELETUBBY FLUFF! BURN THEM! FLAY THEM! DESTROY THEM ALL!

[Greyall]

Kol, Horus never tried to turn Sanguinius. He was afraid of being deposed as Super Master Ambassador of Chaos if the Angel, with his charisma, innate symbolism and fighting prowess ever came to the fore and attracted the Chaos Gods. Horus approved of Signus, yes...

 

 

but had a secret plan to get Sanguinius killed rather than turned

 

[Jareddm]

I feel people are imposing very different criteria to what it means to be a big brother for Russ. There was mention earlier that Horus did not fit that role because he manipulated his brothers to suit his needs. In my personal experience that is exactly what a big brother is.

 

Legatus mentioned that he feels Russ doesn't fit as a role model for many of his brothers, whereas I see Horus filling that particular trait of the 'big brother' trope and Russ filling a more authoritarian role.

 

Also, we do know Russ was the second primarch found as Laurie Goulding himself posted the official list a number of months back on The First Expedition forum.

[Conn Eremon]

No offense, but you are basing your opinion of how a big brother acts off of your personal experience, which sounds like an abnormal case.

[daveNYC]

So... we've decided that Russ wanted to be the 'big brother' to the other primarchs, and his only flaw, is that he loved them too much?  Right off the bat, there's so much emotional baggage that goes along with the phrase big brother (if Russ is a big brother, then all the others are little brothers, with all the attendant patronizing that goes along with it), that were someone to try and apply it to any other primarch, the cries of Mary-Sue would be loud enough to wake the dead.

 

Second, Russ as the big brother?  Seriously?  That's assuming that any of the other primarchs, demigods whose formative experiences nearly all involve conquering their home planets, even remotely want or need someone to watch over them and teach them the ropes.  Hey Lion, good job uniting the forces of your planet and cleansing it of chaos tainted monsters, want me to teach you how to ride a bike?  And even if the primarchs somehow needed someone to be a big brother to them, why in gods name would Russ be even remotely qualified?  Does he have some great wealth of relevant life experiences that he gained while growing up in a pack of wolves and later being the barbarian king of an ice planet?

 

Then we've got people mentioning that Russ and the Wolves are humane with a strong moral compass.  That this is reflected in the fact that in 40k, they're considered one of the 'good' chapters.  Never mind that the Thousand Sons and the Wolves first come to blows over the fact that the Wolves wanted to burn a library, or the short story where they freed a colony from the predations of the Dark Eldar only to immediately turn on the inhabitants when it turned out they weren't that interested in trading one master for another.

 

And finally, I've read a number of comments praising the ambiguity of the fluff allowing for people to have their own interpretation of the fluff and leave Russ as a mythic figure.

 

I'm going to skip the devil's advocate step and go straight to being a devil, allow me to be as uncharitable as possible in rebuttal.

 

Russ behaves the way he does because he is certain.  He has such an absolute believe in his own correctness that it blinds him to other possibilities and leads him to take actions that are ultimately destructive.

Examples: 

Shrike: The Wolves want to burn the library and the Son's want to save it.  The Wolves actually start a physical altercation in order to get to the library in order to burn it.  Eventually there's flesh change action and Russ publicly declares that Magnus is a sorcerer, Lorgar has to step in to prevent Russ from going after Magnus.

Nikea: Russ gathers support from other primarchs, sends a Rune Priest to spy on the Sons, and eventually gets enough support to bring about Nikea.  This leads to the banning of psykers from the Legions.  Certain other events happen at this point in Prospero Burns, but they're stupid.

Yeah, a daemon manifests in the same zip code as the Emperor and he doesn't do anything and nobody thinks to mention it.

 

Prospero: Russ is convinced that Hawser is a spy for the Sons, so he attempts to use him to communicate with Magnus.  Russ is incorrect in his assumption, but assumes that since Magnus didn't respond via Hawser, than there's no reason to use something like a radio and ends up nuking Prospero from orbit.  So to speak.

Night of the Wolf: Russ decides that the World Eaters' violent ways require an intervention.  He meets with Angron and implies that the Emperor sent him to get Angron back to Terra (for therapy or something).  Angron tells him to get bent, and that the Emperor is simply another master, a master that Angron is only able to bring himself to serve because serving allows him to indulge in the ultra-violence, which is the only thing that eases the pain of the Nails.  Russ has problems grasping the idea that a childhood of slavery, a lifetime of mental torture by the Nails, and a single moment when he was snatched away from the only family he had ever had, thus leaving them to be slaughtered by the armies of the slavers, might have made Angron a tad bitter towards his father.  His solution is to keep pushing things until violence erupts, Angron beats him like a rented mule, and then he expects that Angron will notice all the bolters pointed in his direction and realize that 'fighting, U R doing it wrong'.  Russ thinks that a gladiator with a rageputer in his head is going to beat him to a pulp, and then suddenly believe he didn't actually win the fight because a bunch of mooks are pointing guns at him.  That's not even getting into whether or not bolters would even scratch him (he did after all manage to shoulder press a Warhound Titan and other primarchs have shown themselves to be literally bulletproof).

 

What we have isn't a primarch who is showing brotherly love.  We are seeing a primarch who thinks that he knows the way of things and acts accordingly.  Hawser can contact Magnus, the flesh change means Magnus is evil, Angron will come back to Terra because I said the Emperor said so.  These aren't well thought out positions.  They work on the surface, but start to fall apart the second you ask "but what if..."  And Russ never seems to ask "but what if...".

 

Now to all the people praising the fact that this is open to interpretation, let me cast doubt on your motivations.  Curze, Magnus, Lorgar, Horus, Fulgrim.  We know these primarchs well now.  We know their greatness and their failures.  Alpha Legion, we know the event that led to them joining Horus, if not the actual motivations and schemes that they are up to.  We've learned that The Lion has the empathy of a rock and that Perturabo really wanted to be an architect and is very pissed off about that.

Is knowing this level of detail better or worse than not knowing?  I'm not going to touch that.  What it does mean is that we know.  There's no sugarcoating these guys.  Horus doubted his father and himself, Magnus felt he could master that which by it's nature cannot be mastered, Fulgrim strove for perfection regardless of the cost, Lorgar needed something to worship, Curze was an utter cynic about humanity.  Flawed individuals all.

 

Being ambiguous and leaving things open for interpretation allows you to believe that Russ is this shining example of awesomeness without having to nut up and admit that what you're constructing isn't a good character.  If someone says, "but look, this Russ guy is perfect there's nothing real about him" you can say, "But look, ambiguous!  Open to interpretation!  He totally has flaws, just nobody can actually articulate what they are, but we have invented 500 new words to describe just how awesome his love for his brothers is."

 

The second someone fleshes out Russ that all falls apart.  He'll either become a flawed godling, the same as any of the other primarchs, or he'll be revealed as a Mary Sue wish fulfillment character.  Right now, you're able to take Russ, this Schrodinger's primarch, and ascribe concrete positive traits that are balanced by abstract and ambiguous flaws.  I'm going to posit that many of you are so enthusiastic about Russ being ambiguous because you don't want him to be anything less than perfect, yet neither do you want to be forced to face that what you've been constructing in your mind is nothing more than a vacuous Mary Sue.

[Scribe]

Curze was a cynic, yes.

 

Curze was a self loathing creature (Vulkan Lives.)

Curze wanted to give his people back their humanity, raise them above their base behaviors, through fear of punishment (Prince of Crows)

 

Is there a glimmer of positivity in Curze's desires? Its more than being a cynic, for all we know (actually we do know) he degenerated a great deal during the Great Crusade. Perhaps he was that 'batman' figure at the onset? We dont have a clear picture of that.

 

All the Primarchs are flawed beings, the whole humanities best and worst, magnified. Its a central tenant of the setting.

[Ozeryk_Sleipnijr]

Well if you say so . .

[daveNYC]

Curze was a cynic, yes.

 

Curze was a self loathing creature (Vulkan Lives.)

Curze wanted to give his people back their humanity, raise them above their base behaviors, through fear of punishment (Prince of Crows)

 

Is there a glimmer of positivity in Curze's desires? Its more than being a cynic, for all we know (actually we do know) he degenerated a great deal during the Great Crusade. Perhaps he was that 'batman' figure at the onset? We dont have a clear picture of that.

 

All the Primarchs are flawed beings, the whole humanities best and worst, magnified. Its a central tenant of the setting.

 

Cynical in the sense that he didn't really believe much in humanity's good side (hence terrorizing instead of inspiring them to better behavior).  He took the idea that it's better to be feared than loved, and ran with it.

[Kol Saresk]

Curze was a cynic, yes.

 

Curze was a self loathing creature (Vulkan Lives.)

Curze wanted to give his people back their humanity, raise them above their base behaviors, through fear of punishment (Prince of Crows)

 

Is there a glimmer of positivity in Curze's desires? Its more than being a cynic, for all we know (actually we do know) he degenerated a great deal during the Great Crusade. Perhaps he was that 'batman' figure at the onset? We dont have a clear picture of that.

No. From what we can see of Curze's time on Nostramo, he was never concerned with "justice" or "wanting to stop what happened to him from happening to someone else". Just maintaining order and punishing those who contributed to chaos. When the Imperium arrived at Nostramo, Curze had become its ruler and the planet was the epitome of an ideal Imperial World. In fact, it was only after he left and the people of Nostramo forgot what it was like to have order forced upon them at the edge of a knife, that they slipped back to the chaotic society they were before.

 

Curze is something like Punisher, or Sinestro, but not Batman. Actually, I'm surprised I've never seen the Sinestro connection before.

[Wade Garrett]

I don't think it's fair to hold fights with Angron and Lion up as evidence of Russ having a bad attitude.

 

Yes, he did strike the first blow at the Night of the Wolf, but still.

 

So he got into fights with Angron ("Hey, sire. Want a juice box and some graham crackers?" "MY BROTHERS ARE DEEEEAAAAD!" *sound of chainaxe going through flesh and ceramite*) and Johnson ("I want to break the Edict of Nikea." "But the Emperor said..." *sound of powersword going through flesh and ceramite*).

 

I would personally class those two and Konrad Curze as "The Holy Trinity of Primarchs Who Can't Even Get Along With Themselves. "

[Augustus]

Dave. Your right in many accounts. I believe that Russ thinks it's his duty to protect the fraternity/pack of primarchs. So while he may be a bad "big brother" some of his actions could point to the possibility that he thinks it's his job to police the Primarchs in order to (possibly) keep the pack strong (for the Alpha-Emperor). Perhaps he took it upon himself but if you look at him defending Logar from censure in First Heretic, bad attempt at teaching Angron, his (what appears to be heartfelt) request to get Magnus to come quietly he can be seen as policing the primarchs ( not executing)

 

I believe that maybe arrogance caused him to take up "policing" the primarchs. So maybe Russ didn't go out and teach the Lion to ride a bike but maybe their fight wasn't a result of just different battle plans and in ATS it was said they reconciled.

 

Look, the Emperor too had many (so it appears anyway) strange attempts at securing the loyalty of his sons. Angron. Mortarion.

 

Just a thought :)

[Augustus]

No offense Kol, but we only have Curze saying the Emperor said it was the model of an Ideal world. (Or so I remember) he also said assassins were out to get him (possible LOTN suggests this wasn't true either.

[Grimtooth]

 

I suppose one could look at the Night of the Wolf as Russ being the only one of Angron's brothers besides Lorgar to care enough to try and save the Red Angel and his Legion.

 

Which would be even cooler if he's not Emperor appointed to poke his nose in everyone's business, he's just a bro like that.

 

Speaking up for Lorgar before Monarchia, apparently caring enough to talk philosophy with him even though it seems Lorgar considered him a feral warlord, and trying to reach out to Angron? Russ isn't the Executioner, he's that one guy that looks out for everybody else in the family, even that one brother that just got out of jail and who's standing on the front yard drunk in his underwear waving a machete.

 

Because the Emperor's too busy at the office to care about his kids. And the cat's in the cradle with the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon...

 

This is 100% personal bias, I admit that upfront, but that's the Russ I see, yeah. I try not to present him purely like that - everything is implication and suggestion, so I don't collide with other interpretations, but that's the Russ I like best. And the source is likely pretty obvious, in that I freaking love all of Howard's perceptions on barbarism versus civilisation, with the merits and flaws of both.

 

There's also that great Stephen King quote, when good ol' local boy Stu Redman says in The Stand, when he's being talked down to by the government pen-pusher: "Country don't mean dumb." I love that. Same thing here; a tribal culture doesn't mean primitive thought. It means grounded, down-to-earth thinking, at every level of intelligence, and a lack of pretension. It means honesty. Not universally, but generally. It's why Loki's such an incredible aberration that forever confounds the other gods. He's so... dishonest. 

 

I read a lot of Howard, and I love the Conan stories. They're far, far from the shallow drek a lot of people take them for (see: Arnie's movies, and the new movie), and what barbarism comes down to above all else is honesty. The Russ I love most speaks his mind, does what he thinks is right, and is honest unto death. His Wolves are the same. 

 

"What do I know of cultured ways; the gilt, the craft, and the lie?

I who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.

The subtle tongue, the sophist guile; they fail when the broadswords sing,

Rush in and die, dogs. I was a man before I was a king."

 

-- The Phoenix on the Sword.

If you go through and read just about every prayer Conan says, curses, yells, or rants to Crom, you are able to see that "barbaric" honesty in all of them.

[depthcharge12]

Hmmm

 

maybe the whole executioner thing is just a facade like the whole barbarianism thing.

 

Think about it.

 

 

The night of the wolf really drives this point home. Angron points out that Russ might not have been sent by the big E, but of his own initiative. Russ just uses the executioner thing to bring about a seriousness of the matter he wants to change.

 

 

During the French Revolution, one could possibly see the execution as a harbinger of change and the elimination of a diseased and draconic way of thinking.

 

Russ in the same manner is just a metaphorical or spiritual executioner in the above sense. He wants to bring Magnus back from his path of damnation and way of thinking just in the same way as Angron.

 

With the Lion, he offered himself up  (after the siege not the punch to the face we all love) to be killed, which evidently hit the lion at the last moment of realization that his thinking was flawed and not what the Emperor was trying to install in all of them.

 

Yes?

[Greyall]

Nowhere has this thread cleaned up Russ' flaws and mistakes, no matter how each poster views his motivations. Russ is a disgraced Primarch, right now, in the narrative, but he hasn't turned into a daemon, culled his homeworld, made a pact with an evil deity or betrayed his father/brothers/race.

 

There's just no way we can reasonably discuss Russ' as we'd do any of the traitor Primarchs you mentioned. He's a good man. Maybe not a nice guy, but surely not the master of all character flaws. And he's much more human and down-to-earth than many of the other loyalists, so he's supposed to be relatable.

[Kol Saresk]

No offense Kol, but we only have Curze saying the Emperor said it was the model of an Ideal world. (Or so I remember) he also said assassins were out to get him (possible LOTN suggests this wasn't true either.

Actually the IA article says it, not Curze. Of course, it was the IA article that said the Callidus assassins were sent after Curze. So we have am Imperial viewpoint that calls it an ideal world. Considering how crappy 40K is, ideal is tantamount to miraculous.

 

EDIT: I'm not trying to make Curze look better than he is. I like to think I do more than required to point out his flaws. But, I also do point out that Curze is a perfect example of "the ends do not justify the means". He started out with that philosophy and at first it worked, but look where it got him? Taking joy in the slaughter of women and children and leading a Band of Merry Murderers on a galactic tour of the cosmos.

[Kol Saresk]

Kol, Horus never tried to turn Sanguinius. He was afraid of being deposed as Super Master Ambassador of Chaos if the Angel, with his charisma, innate symbolism and fighting prowess ever came to the fore and attracted the Chaos Gods. Horus approved of Signus, yes...

 

 

but had a secret plan to get Sanguinius killed rather than turned

 

According to Betrayer, IIRC, it originally started out as a conversion and only later turned into an assassination. If you wish, I am more than willing to provide the quotes.

[Greyall]

If you're talking about their encounter aboard the Vengeful Spirit, then you're right. Although what accounts I'm familiar with show it to have been a short talk before the all-out beating began.

[Kol Saresk]

Yep, it was. And it is also briefly repeated when Erebus makes an appearance. Between that, and later on when the objective changes to killing Sanguinius, I think its safe to infer that the original intent was conversion while the modified intent was execution.

[Conn Eremon]

Since the order has been brought up, I figured I would post the whole list. Actual post can be found here.

 

 

Horus
Leman Russ
[DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS]
Ferrus Manus
Fulgrim
Vulkan
Rogal Dorn
Roboute Guilliman
Magnus the Red
Sanguinius
Lion El'Jonson
Perturabo
Mortarion
Lorgar
Jaghatai Khan
Konrad Curze
Angron
Corax
[DELETED FROM IMPERIAL RECORDS]
Alpharius

 

It is true that Leman Russ is very, very self-assured. He is certain of his beliefs, of his rightness. And in many ways, he has been proven right, even if in the case of Magnus and his Thousand Sons it ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. But that's the kind of guy he is. He doesn't back down from what he thinks is right, no matter what others think of his opinion. It doesn't particularly matter to his character whether or not the Emperor has sanctioned him and his actions. As far as Russ is concerned, his actions are sanctioned because they are right. It is an incredibly honest view, though rife with faults that are now breaking through to him, according to Scars. It is also arrogant, because Russ is saying that what he views as right has precedence over what others think, despite having zero grounds for that kind of self-importance. In some cases, that might not be an unfounded view, such as Magnus' naive outlook on the Warp and Angron's self-destructive and self-reviling taking it out on his sons. With the Lion, that might have been more of a grey area, but in that instance we know that Russ himself realized his own mistake and stopped duking it out with the Lion, who misinterpreted the laughter as mocking rather than self-deprecating.

[Kol Saresk]

That order seems weird. Deliverance Lost says that the Emperor would tell Corax about both of his missing brothers. How could he tell him about both if one wasn't even missing yet?