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Dorn and Perturabo


malorn24

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I have always loved the style I which I view the Imperial Fist. Reading tid bits of fluff about Perturabo always painted him as a whinny butt monkey. Yet I am almost done with Angel Extreminatus and I would have to say that I am actually more impressed my Perturabo then Dorn. The tid bits of dorn so far have him all over the map (maybe because of hte different authors and different views) In some cameo's he is this impressive Master of Defense and in other he is an unsure cry baby that gets his but kicked by the night lords primarch. I don't know what to think of Dorn right now. But I will tell you that I DO like the Perturabo is protrayed. Especially when he plays table tennis with Fulgrims face. What do you guys think?

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True ( and think you for the name help I couldn't for the life of me remember Curze's name LOL) And I guess that could be said for any of the Primarchs since they all throught eachother to be completley loyal and "brothers" however they should have known that all brothers fight!

There needs to be more distinct characterization for Dorn in my opinion. We have the stern and stout Master of Defense one moment and then arbitrarily whiny brat the next. The lack of consistent and deeper characterization for a lot of the loyalist Primarchs is really starting to bother me actually. 

This is exactly why I feel that we have begun looking at the primarchs too closely, and from their own point of views far too much.

 

They are caricatures, Gods amongst men. They should never be understandable, and attempts to give them human depth is doomed to abject failure. At best, they are convincing liars, creatures who mimic human nature. Some, like Guilliman, are so good at it, they believe their own lies. Others, like Perturabo, mimic such nature poorly, and is hollow at heart.

 

Some, like Curze, are so confused, that they have developed multiple personalities in an attempt to control the lie. And fail.

 

Literature can only take you so far. One must reach behind the words, and realize that attempts to rationalize a creature that is so far removed from humanity, is utterly impossible. It would be like trying to make Zeus a mortal, with mortal wants and desires. Or Mercury. Or Hades.

 

The. Primarchs. Are. Not. Human. They will never make sense to us, because our rational, weak, mortal minds cannot cope with their vast and unfathomable mindsets and spirits. Making them human, so that the readers can understand them, makes them weaker. Makes them pointless. Makes them comic-book characters, no better than one Superman vs. Superman fight after another. Makes folks say stuff like "they're whiny", or "they're stupid", or "they're wusses".

 

Monsters clad in human flesh, living the lies taught to them by man. That's how the Primarchs should be.

 

Not reduced to pointless "my daddy can beat up your daddy" arguments.

Literature can only take you so far. One must reach behind the words, and realize that attempts to rationalize a creature that is so far removed from humanity, is utterly impossible. It would be like trying to make Zeus a mortal, with mortal wants and desires. Or Mercury. Or Hades.

 

Except neither Zeus, Mercury, nor Hades was "free of mortal wants and desires". The Greek pantheon as a whole often seems (to this poster's modern sensibilities) to be all too full of mortal desires, whether it was Zeus chasing after anything in a skirt or Athena pitching a hissy fit because some mortal wench's weaving was better than her's. If you're looking for unknowable and unfathomable, that's entirely the wrong bunch to use as an example.

 

The Primarchs have NEVER been incomprehensible Yog Soggothians in power armor, not even in the Index Astartes days! Russ ate, drank, and did great deeds for glory. Angron mourned his gladiator brothers and sisters. Corax fought for freedom, Lorgar grieved because the object of his adoration spurned him...none of these are ineffable beings whose motivations are unknowable to feeble human brains.

 

Honestly?

 

If I wanted to read about carcitures of humanity that can only semi convincingly ape actual feelings, I'd crack open the 5th Edition Grey Knights Codex.

 

PONDER! Ponder, puny mortals, why the Chaos immune Grey Knights had to kill Chaos immune Sisters of Battle to be double Chaos immune! But though you contemplate for eons, know your thoughts cannot encompass the mind of Lord Khaldor Draigo!

Enjoy what you enjoy, brother. I cannot agree.

 

I prefer the hollow, cold monster that was Perturabo in the old IA and the HH book three (And the Crimson Fist), over the...thing... in AE, that was bummed out that Dad never worked on a car engine with him.

 

Or every other Primarch who has a sad story that makes them oh so tragic. Boo hoo, everyone is sad. Lorgar, Magnus,...poor, poor Russ. Poor weakling mortals that get shot up by their nephews, or have step moms, or get sporked to death, or constantly duke it out with each other all over the galaxy, with zero conclusions.

 

No sir. I don't want 12 foot tall children in my books.

Enjoy what you enjoy, brother. I cannot agree.

 

I prefer the hollow, cold monster that was Perturabo in the old IA and the HH book three (And the Crimson Fist), over the...thing... in AE, that was bummed out that Dad never worked on a car engine with him.

 

Or every other Primarch who has a sad story that makes them oh so tragic. Boo hoo, everyone is sad. Lorgar, Magnus,...poor, poor Russ. Poor weakling mortals that get shot up by their nephews, or have step moms, or get sporked to death, or constantly duke it out with each other all over the galaxy, with zero conclusions.

 

No sir. I don't want 12 foot tall children in my books.

 

Interesting, I just posted in my other thread that the latest fluff makes me emphatize more with the 'traitor' Primarchs for the reasons you've described as 'sad stories'.

 

But you do make a compelling point that if every antagonist can be empathized with - it does become something of a cliche.

 

As I surmise from your previous post - some legends should not be humanized.

1000Heathens - monsters who are, as you say far far beyond humans and human understanding, but also in many cases far far below human in many specific respects. eg. Angron and Curze for all their superior intellect and abilities are in several important ways far below most humans by dint of a lack of familial foundations to their world view, a lack of the shared, maybe biologically implanted, attitudes that define what it is to be human.

 

As you said, in many ways they are best considered to be aliens, rather than humans.

As I surmise from your previous post - some legends should not be humanized.

 

Basically what I'm getting at.

 

Sometimes, it's ok. Horus's acid trip with Erebus and Magus on davin was fine. It was something that truly needed to be seen by we, the readers. Lorgar's trip through the Eye, and what he saw. Again, it was needed. We needed to know why the most loyal son turned so drastically.

 

The Lightning Tower? The Dark King? The weird story about Fulgrim in the Primarch's book? Perty and Fulgrim talk in AE? The Primarchs are slowly turning into simple superheros / villans. You can nearly figure out what's going to happen, simply because the story has become so, as you said, cliche.

 

When a Primarch becomes emotional, the galaxy should beware. Instead, I feel like the Primarchs are being turned into people with fantastic powers, which cheapens what they should be.

 

There are so many characters in the HH series that could be developed. Sevetar is an amazing character. Sigismund is an amazing character. Corswain, Lucius (well, he should be... ), Bjorn, and on and on. Why can't we turn the focus away from the same dang 18 gods, who are being overexposed, and turn the light on more Legionaries, ones we know, and ones we don't.

 

I want a story about Fafnir Rann. I want a story about Katalfaque. I want a story about Cadaras Grendel. Or Astelan. Or Raldoron. Characters that oh, so desperately need real development.

To my understanding, the Perturabo in AE has come to accept that he's on the traitor side. And yet he doesn't seem whiny nor serene at all. Sure, he's not as incensed as in Crimson Fist, but that's easily explained: the closest yellow thing are the chevrons on his armour. He's still paranoid, unforgiving, brutal to his sons - he just doesn't chew on a Captain's arm during a meeting because...yellow.

 

The only way for us not to grow a little too familiar with the Primarchs would be if all the HH novels were from a Marine's POV. And even then it'd have to be an insignificant Marine not to get a good glimpse of his sire. What we're experiencing is the natural "boredom" that comes with knowing someone all too well.

 

Lastly, 'character inconsistency' isn't just a literature thing, especially when you're in the middle of the biggest crisis of your life. Not to dismiss instances of bad writing, but the Heresy is the perfect time to shatter the Primarchs' [childish] psyche.

Sometimes, it's ok. Horus's acid trip with Erebus and Magus on davin was fine.

This would be the one where the Beloved Son, the one Primarch that the Emperor was truly a father too, fell from grace because the man pretending to one of his beloved sons that died showed him a vision where people built statues of Sanguinus and not him.

 

Certainly, it's a fine example of Primarch thought processes being completely beyond human understanding, with "WAAAAAAH! RUSS AND KHAN GOT STATUES AND I DIDN'T! WAAAAAAAAAAH!" leading to the murder of one's parent and billions of others.

 

OR it's just awful, awful writing.

You're oversimplifying it. From what I recall of the scene, it's perfectly in line with Horus both being a glory-hound and having serious issues with the Emperor's detachment. Isn't that the same vision in which Horus notices there're skulls everywhere, something the Emperor didn't approve at all in Imperial architecture?

 

Sometimes, it's ok. Horus's acid trip with Erebus and Magus on davin was fine.

This would be the one where the Beloved Son, the one Primarch that the Emperor was truly a father too, fell from grace because the man pretending to one of his beloved sons that died showed him a vision where people built statues of Sanguinus and not him.

 

Certainly, it's a fine example of Primarch thought processes being completely beyond human understanding, with "WAAAAAAH! RUSS AND KHAN GOT STATUES AND I DIDN'T! WAAAAAAAAAAH!" leading to the murder of one's parent and billions of others.

 

OR it's just awful, awful writing.

 

I would agree if that was just a one off event that had turned Horus from 100% loyal to 100% traitor. It was not.

 

Horus was already displaying doubts over his own abilities and whether or not he was up to the task. He also had huge abandonment issues, after the guy that he had followed for almost all of the past two centuries just left him to go focus on something more important, that Horus wasn't allowed to know about.

 

Coupled with the fact that Horus had just been mortally wounded by a guy that he himself chose to put in charge, who hadn't wanted the responsibility, had failed massively and proven that Horus had already made a catastrophically bad choice. That sounds awfully familiar. Surely it must have crossed Horus' mind while organising the campaign against Demba that this could very well happen to him sometime soon if he wasn't up to the task.

 

All the acid trip did was play on and magnify feelings and doubts he already had.

 

As I surmise from your previous post - some legends should not be humanized.

 

Basically what I'm getting at.

 

Sometimes, it's ok. Horus's acid trip with Erebus and Magus on davin was fine. It was something that truly needed to be seen by we, the readers. Lorgar's trip through the Eye, and what he saw. Again, it was needed. We needed to know why the most loyal son turned so drastically.

 

The Lightning Tower? The Dark King? The weird story about Fulgrim in the Primarch's book? Perty and Fulgrim talk in AE? The Primarchs are slowly turning into simple superheros / villans. You can nearly figure out what's going to happen, simply because the story has become so, as you said, cliche.

 

When a Primarch becomes emotional, the galaxy should beware. Instead, I feel like the Primarchs are being turned into people with fantastic powers, which cheapens what they should be.

 

There are so many characters in the HH series that could be developed. Sevetar is an amazing character. Sigismund is an amazing character. Corswain, Lucius (well, he should be... ), Bjorn, and on and on. Why can't we turn the focus away from the same dang 18 gods, who are being overexposed, and turn the light on more Legionaries, ones we know, and ones we don't.

 

I want a story about Fafnir Rann. I want a story about Katalfaque. I want a story about Cadaras Grendel. Or Astelan. Or Raldoron. Characters that oh, so desperately need real development.

 

I agree. Lately we've got a huge focus on the Primarchs and little to none on their warriors. At some point it's normal, because we needed to undestand them, but right now, we know all of them, it's time to focus on other characters. I want more POV on characters like the ones you said. Sigismund, Rann (this one could be very interesting), Raldoron, or Amit, Sevatar (but will have this when A-D-B write the NL novel), Corswain, Bjorn (and not only in Audiobooks or damned limited edition stuff). Hell, or some new ones. the guys in FW  wrote some interesting characters like Kyr Vhalen or Mawdrym Llansahai in a couple of paragaphs, and I know they are not by BL, but why couldn't they be added to some novels? As was Sevatar or Loken included in the FW books. And besides the legions, I want more POV on characters like Lotara, Keeler, etc... Common people in the midst of a war between gods. My sensation right now is that this has escalated to the huge Epic mode, and everything that's not some huge magical gate, primarch fight, inmortal guys or suicidal mission is like meh. But it shouldn't IMO

Surely it must have crossed Horus' mind while organising the campaign against Demba that this could very well happen to him sometime soon if he wasn't up to the task.

 

Organize the campaign? Horus' s plan for Davin was "We all run right at the thickest concentration of enemy forces waving our chainswords. I'll be out in front."

 

This takes organization? (Angron: "No. No it does not.")

 

Not to mention the ham handed, subtle as a brick to the face way Erebus manipulated him into it.

 

"Horus. This guy said you stink. But whaaaatever you do, don't lead the assault in person. Doooooon't lead the assault in person...no, stop, come back."

 

The only way he could have been any less subtle is if he had a 200 voice choir of XVII serfs follow him around chanting "This is shady! This is shay-di!" to the tune of "O Fortuna".

 

"False Gods" Horus isn't a mythical legend, he's a blustering manchild who stumbles into obvious traps and is suckered by the most blatant lies imaginable.

To be honest, first captains and at least one or two others per Legion get some good air-time in the novels. Not that I don't see how the Primarchs are more and more exposed but their behaviour can't just be blamed on bad writing. They're supposed to be more or less bewildered with their power, both from their birth and over the Legions.

 

They're very aware of their superiority and I still think their tragedy is in the way they believe themselves completely superior, only for the basest of human emotions to betray them. Most of them are really not prepared for it, I think.

 

That being said the POV of a regular human caught in all this is very much 'wantable'

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