How do you view the Horus Heresy setting? (SPOILERS)

[Verity]

WARNING: It's going to be a bleeding struggle for me to make this coherent as it is, so for the moment, I've done away with spoiler tags. At some point I might revise this and clear it up and include them - however understand that by reading this, you accept that I assume you already know the events of the latest Horus Heresy novels, and that significant events may follow.

 

 

So after reading a few threads on this forum, especially with regards to things like how people see the Primarchs - Gulliman's recent assassination attack, Space Wolves having Angron apparently at their mercy, Curze' exploits in in Unremembered Empire, Lorgar surviving titan blasts (and the list goes on...) - I got curious about how people view the setting. One of the things that got me thinking the most (and Marko, this is absolutely not meant as an attack on you - just that you put into words what I'm sure many people think, and I've decided it's a good quote) was the following post.

 

 

 

And I'm not buying that the Wolves were in a position to kill Angron with their bolters.  Primarch power can change based on the needs of the story, but Corax is literally bulletproof, Angron can shoulderpress a Warhound, and Lorgar (with a little help) can get shot in the face with an anti-titan weapon (twice) and walk away from it, so saying a bunch of mooks with bolters had him cold is crazy talk.

Damn - Vulkan was overpowered by NL squads, Dorn was killed by CM, Fulgrim was sniped in AE...Also you need to read the damn book and disregard drangonball Z pov...

Also who is to say that they needed to kill him ? Only distraction gives Russ a fair advantage (remeber Lion vs Curze???)...Anyway who knows what would happened...Maybe SW would piss Angron even more (you would like that I'm sure ), and he would kill them and Russ ??? But this makes too much rarrrghhh moment....

 

 

The bolded bit, about Dragonabll Z POV, is in particular significant. See, a lot of people dislike viewing the Primarchs through the lens that you oh so often get in Anime and Manga in particular, where they are ludicrously over the top and powerful, and instead prefer to rationalise things. I have no objection to this - just that, personally, I like to view things from that perspective. I like things like Lorgar surviving plasma blasts and Angron lifting titans, like Curze running rampant and Magnus potentially having the power to wipe out fleets. I like the Dragonball Z POV. I've also seen that there are occasionally people who like the Dragonball Z POV but at the same time only want it to be a result of myth, perspective and legend all combing to twist the viewpoint of the individuals involved - for me it is quite literally the case that I like it having played out as it was said, with Primarchs being godlike beings at that point in time.

 

At the same time, that's not all I like. Another thing I see people want is consistency across the board - the idea that if Primarchs are superhuman monstrosities, then make them superhuman monstrosities all the time and be done with it, or if they're just a few steps above mortal, then reflect that and be done with it. On the other hand, for me, I don't really care about consistency - back when I did, I had merely resigned myself to having to deal with the fact that a setting put together by so many different authors was bound to have bits and pieces that just don't feel like they add up. At this point, however, I've taken to liking the inconsistency, and the bits that highlight Primarchs as mortal. So at the same time as liking Angron tearing his way through hordes of his power armoured nephews (and on occasion, his sons) and watching him shrug off Titans, I also like the idea of him being cornered, about to be gunned down like a rabid dog. I like Gulliman having to struggle to defeat assassins and Curze not instawinning against the Space Wolves he faced, and Vulkan dying (over and over and over...).

 

Above all this, there's occassionally a sense of things MUST play out realistically. So, for Nostramo, there was a bit of a debate about whether or not the homeworld of the Night Haunter was, really, that bad. And someone managed to conclude with pretty well thought out and reasoned points - that no, actually, it can't have been that bad. To assume so would be unrealistic and in reality, it's probably not as horrible as living in a constant warzone like, say, the place of my birth and raising. 

 

Now whilst I don't disregard the logic he used, the reasons he put up or the conclusions he drew - for me, it simply becomes a case of well, I wish to view things in a manner where they ARE that bad, and Nostramo WAS that horrible. It WAS a place, as far as I'm concerned, to rival and even overshadow those horrific areas that exist in our own world. I just don't feel the need to apply the fully consistent logic.

 

So, with all that being said and done, I was curious as to how other people viewed the setting. How do you like your Primarchs? What about your overall realism? How about the levels of consistency, what are you expecting there? Are you seeing it all as myth and exaggerated legend told from unreliable viewpoints, or...?

 

Please note that all that is above is merely my opinion, and in no way am I saying that it invalidates yours. I subscribe to the "everything is canon and nothing is canon" way of regarding Warhammer 40k, so again, you can very easily disregard all I have said. Also, English is nowhere near my mothertongue, so apologies if any of that comes across as hard to read.

[Scribe]

I like my Marines significantly better than humans (even geneforged) and my Primarchs as near gods.

 

I dislike on principle the idea that 2 shuriken pistols, no matter how epically named, can SHRED a Primarch. Or that a blow landed by a primarch doesnt obliterate another Primarch, while a marine can nearly kill one with a sword strike.

[Marshal Rohr]

Oh god another Warhanime argument.

 

 

40K is not meant to be animelike. At all. Primarchs are meant to be heroes from Western-esque mythology, not cartoon characters. 

[Scribe]

Yet Angron can stop a Titan from stepping on him. Yet Lorgar can deflect/absorb 2 shots from a titan grade plasma cannon, yet Magnus can shoot himself across the Universe, Corax can hide in the shadows (as can his marines...) and all the primarchs are super fast, super strong, and can power up to over 9000.

 

Primarchs are essentially Daemon Princes, they bend or break the rules all the time. Hell, Perpetuals? The setting is fantastical. 

[daveNYC]

I'm not a huge fan of the Dragonball Z levels of power that the primarchs all exhibit.  The only exception there is Magnus, and that's because all his crazy stunts are due to magic, which works under a different set of rules and comes with other limitations and story hooks.  Over the top physical activity like Angron, Lorgar and everyone get up to are not items I'm a fan of.

 

That said, I'm a big fan of consistency.  So if Lorgar can shrug off (sorta) a plasma blastgun, then anything less than that should barely be able to raise a blister.  Same goes for all the other silliness they get up to.  I might not like the stunts, but I like the idea of raising and lowering their power simply to get some drama going even less.

 

What I am a huge fan of is the primarch's place in the narrative.  I think they should be Gods of War, untouchable superbeings whose only counter is another primarch or a tactical nuke.  The difference between what I feel should be their godlike status and my previously mentioned dislike of primarch power creep (super sayan, super-duper sayan, merged super-duper sayen whatever) is that the should exhibit their prowess in ways that don't just rely on brute force.  Which is something that most authors have failed miserably at.  Corax is the master of stealth?  Yes and no, sure he's stealthy, but when you can just 'cause people not to see you even when you're in their grill', well, that doesn't require much actual talent at skulking in shadows.  Same with Lorgar eating the plasma blastgun, or Angron holding up the Warhound.  They demonstrate how powerful the primarchs are, but they do so in a ham fisted sort of way, one which leads the reader down the path of "well if they could do X in book Y, how come they're getting crumped so badly in book Z".

 

And back to my original rant that 50 bolters are a laughable threat to a primarch... it comes down to the fact that the primarchs' place in the 30k narrative is a very special one.  They're the Emperor's sons, super beings which unlike the astartes were never mortal to begin with, distillations of what is best in humanity with dark sides that reflect what happens to those virtues when they're not tempered by human limitations and experience.  To say that one was at a disadvantage and use that to show the advantage of discipline vs uncontrolled aggression is most excellent, to actually believe that that represented a mortal threat to a being who could move faster than most can think, and think and assess situations even faster than that... it's insulting to what they represent.

[Verity]

Oh god another Warhanime argument.

 

 

40K is not meant to be animelike. At all. Primarchs are meant to be heroes from Western-esque mythology, not cartoon characters.

Please do me the favour of not presuming to tell me, in this condescending manner, how I interpret the setting or how I should do. I merely made one comparison with a trait I found common to both. No need to respond like that, at all. Even if, as you put it, this was an argument for Warhanime - which you'll note it isn't, merely an explanation of my interpretation and a request for others - then your argument there would still come of poorly.

 

Many thanks to the othrrs for ypur interpretations, and even to you for the slight hint of what your interpretation is.

[Vazzy]

I found the easiest way to not get irritated over "trivial" (I use quotes because warhammer is srs business to some and not trivial apparently) details is imagining the setting like a comic book. Everyone is as strong or weak as the author needs them to be for the story to work. I like that way and it helps me not get stupid over inconsistencies.  But that's my opinion, and I'm sure some of you think that's stupid as Hell. 

[Cerbero666]

My POV is more like that of the mediterranean mythology, you know like Heracles. Sometimes he's portrayed as capable of separate continents with his own hands (Strait of Gibraltar) and some times he's just a warrior who needs high amounts of effort to defeat a giant enemy (which is considerable less effort than the separation of tectonic plates) that is as well the case of the Trojan War, some time we see someone like Diomedes, or Hector throwing a gigantic rock but then they are severely wounded by an arrow in the leg, or a spear that barely touch them. It depends on the author, and the time, it's not a prefixed scale of power is more a literary device to exemplify their prowess and greatness and at other moment show their vulnerabilty and humanity, even in the same literary work. So this as a debate is highly difficult to set properly, the power of each primarch depends as much as the author as the reader. We could argue about some situations and the "possibilty" of sucess or not in a combat (a shot in the head, could it killed him yes or no? decapitation? a plasma blast from a titan?) but that's all, speculation and a necessity to put it in a way that we can read the series without get crazy of the absurd of some situations (from an human-real life POV). 

[Kol Saresk]

Yeah, it's just that unfortunately the power levels are sometimes also associated with specific authors. For example, with Gav Thorpe, an author whose number one complaint that springs to mind is that his "standard" characters are OP, apparently writes the ideal Primarch who is invincible, if only 2D. Meanwhile, Abnett and A D-B flesh them out while making them less OP, but to the dismay of some of the fans. Then we get Nick Kyme who I'd have to honestly say makes them way to underpowered. I mean come on, a fork? Even if it's fake, it means that the possibility of being disemboweled by a fork is more realistic to Vulkan than Corax actually trying to kill him. What does that say about a Primarch that he's willing to believe in death by cutlery?

 

Essentially, the one universal rule of Warhammer will always apply "Your perception is your reality". If you want Primarchs to be immortal demigods who can only be killed by each other, special weapons, or other beings of demi-god(or greater) status, that's a-okay. If you want to acknowledge the fact that an Ork was able to throttle the Emperor and He had to be saved by someone else, and that means that the Primarchs can also be injured by "lesser" demi-gods(such as Astartes, 200 year old gene-enhanced, warp-tainted sorcerers or Ork Bosses) provided extenuating circumstances(massed fire, battle-fatigue) that is acceptable as well. And if your of the opinion that a Primarch believes it is possible for him to be killed by silverware, that too is acceptable. Essentially, it's a wild wild place out there.

[Cerbero666]

Yeah, it's just that unfortunately the power levels are sometimes also associated with specific authors. For example, with Gav Thorpe, an author whose number one complaint that springs to mind is that his "standard" characters are OP, apparently writes the ideal Primarch who is invincible, if only 2D. Meanwhile, Abnett and A D-B flesh them out while making them less OP, but to the dismay of some of the fans. Then we get Nick Kyme who I'd have to honestly say makes them way to underpowered. I mean come on, a fork? Even if it's fake, it means that the possibility of being disemboweled by a fork is more realistic to Vulkan than Corax actually trying to kill him. What does that say about a Primarch that he's willing to believe in death by cutlery?

Essentially, the one universal rule of Warhammer will always apply "Your perception is your reality". If you want Primarchs to be immortal demigods who can only be killed by each other, special weapons, or other beings of demi-god(or greater) status, that's a-okay. If you want to acknowledge the fact that an Ork was able to throttle the Emperor and He had to be saved by someone else, and that means that the Primarchs can also be injured by "lesser" demi-gods(such as Astartes, 200 year old gene-enhanced, warp-tainted sorcerers or Ork Bosses) provided extenuating circumstances(massed fire, battle-fatigue) that is acceptable as well. And if your of the opinion that a Primarch believes it is possible for him to be killed by silverware, that too is acceptable. Essentially, it's a wild wild place out there.

The "Fork Paradox" should be named, is in the way to become a theory on its own

"Guilliman can't be killed by a shot to the head!"

"The Fork Paradox"

"Hey, Angron didn't died from a damn wall falling upon him, how can he...'"

"The Fork Paradox"

"C'mon, some random servitor killed the Emperor with a shovel?"

"The Fork Paradax dude, always the Fork Paradox"

Nick Kyme is a genius, you got to admit it hahaha

[Kol Saresk]

Dangnabbit, and somewhere I had used up all of my likes! Curse you foul fates!

[Brother Captain Achilles]

 

 

Essentially, the one universal rule of Warhammer will always apply "Your perception is your reality".

 

This, a thousand times this.

 

There is a BIG objective difference between "That was a bad scene and it ruined the book." and "I didnt like that scene so I don't like this book." Which people seem to get confused. I am an Ultramarine fan to the core, all I want is the old Rowboat to kick someones teeth in while screaming Courage and Honor! But, that does not a story make and him getting caught flat footed and almost killed by the alpha legion hit squad simply reinforces his character as developed by Abnett. His greatest weakness is his Loyalty, he wanted to trust Thiel. To have an ally at his side, THIS above all other things nearly killed him. Its a central theme to his character that the traitors are exploiting.

 

The whole Hersey becomes silly when established power levels come into effect because simply put If the Emperor is who he is built up to be he should've mind fryed Horus from across the Galaxy before it ever happened.

 

You cant let things get in the way of a good story, and Guilliman almost dieing but fighting and finding a way to survive a pure flatfooted ambush of 10 of the most cunning assassins in the Galaxy is by no means cause for the dismay its generated.

[Entei]

My idea is that they seem to be "unrealistic" in the sense that they can carry on despite horrible injuries simply due to willpower, and the more emotional a Primarch currently is, the more dangerous. Take Angron for example. He is for most of the time, angry. Emotional. Passionated. While Guilliman on the other hand is rational and tactical. Then it makes sense that Angron seems to be able to survive more than Rob. When Guilliman faces Lorgar on the other hand, he is filled with anger and hatred, therefore he is able to take more damage and becomes less concerned with his own life, thereby making him more resilient. To that extent they share similarities with anime-characters imho. And something else of note is that we know very little about primarch-biology, and so do the primarchs themselves. Just because an Astartes or mortal dies from a certain percentage of blood-loss doesn't mean that a primarch will, for example. He might however believe that he will, simply because he has nothing else to compare with. A Primarch should probably be to compared to an Astartes like an Astartes is compared to a mortal. Could ten guardsmen take down an Astartes? Under the right conditions, yes. Could ten Astartes take down a Primarch? Under the right conditions, yes.

 

Feel free to critisize my idea.(and grammar!)

[Wade Garrett]

 

40K is not meant to be animelike. At all. Primarchs are meant to be heroes from Western-esque mythology, not cartoon characters.

Okay. Hercules held up the entire sky. Thor drank so much water it noticeably lowered the level of the Atlantic Ocean. That's just off the top of my head.

 

The average mythological guy would do just fine for the first three/four seasons of the average anime.

[Brother Captain Achilles]

 

 

40K is not meant to be animelike. At all. Primarchs are meant to be heroes from Western-esque mythology, not cartoon characters.

Okay. Hercules held up the entire sky. Thor drank so much water it noticeably lowered the level of the Atlantic Ocean. That's just off the top of my head.

 

The average mythological guy would do just fine for the first three/four seasons of the average anime.

 

 

But Wade, Thor doesnt have the power of the Daisuke skara bara sakurai amulet! how is he ever going to be able to defeat The Primordial Annihilator!

[Wade Garrett]

Easy peasy. He grabs Achilles, holding him by the vulnerable part of his foot, and then uses the rest of the Greeks completely invincible body as a combination beating stick and meatshield.

[Brother Captain Achilles]

Its a solid Theoretical... but will it work? we need more tests, someone get the Mechanicus on the line... and tell them we are going to need them to find that cloning crap that Corax was messing with.

[pingo]

I suppose since Primarchs having something of the warp within their make-up, their abilities might wax and wane in the same way the warp does. The point made earlier about emotional states might come into play for the same reasons.

 

In reality, it's probably the case that the Primarchs are as powerful as needed by the story. I think most of the differences can be rationalised away in your own head. Take Guilliman's near-assassination. My interpretation was that while Primarchs are incredibly hardy and can heal at an unnatural rate, there are only so many lumps of flesh they can have exploded off before they become severely impaired and then killed. Their bodies are machines, incredible machines, but machines can be broken. So too, Primarchs are quicker than just about anything, but when all the space they have to move into is filled with bolter rounds, what can they do? It is testament to the speed of a Primarch that Guilliman was able to flip over a table and get into cover before the first shot was fired. A marine wouldn't have lasted 3 seconds.

 

I get both sides of this argument, but I'm inclined not to let it worry me. it's all interpretation really, and also all about context. Your mileage may vary.