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Damon Prytanis..... beast or what?


malorn24

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See, this is all new to me.  I had no idea that Sharrowkyn was unliked by the populace at large.  I had no problem with the character, and overall enjoyed AE.  In fact, the only part that immediately springs to mind as being run-of-the-Mcneil-bad was the deaf Iron Hand being immune to sonic weapons.

 

So tell me, Cormac, because I really am curious: why is Sharrowkyn so disappointing a character for you?

The McNeil hate started after The Outcast Dead.

Suuuuuuuuuure no one ever had a problem with Graham McNeil before Outcast Dead. How could anyone have disliked books like False Gods ("Well, Erebus, you used sorcery to disguise yourself as my dead son so I probably shouldn't trust you...but WHERE WAS MY STATUE, MAGNUS? Sanguinus got a statue and I didn't! LET THE GALAXY BURN!") or Fulgrim ("I'm a pompous incompetent who bullies mortals and sends my gene sons into hopeless death and glory assaults while I sit around sculpting. Then I found an evil sword and somehow became even more useless.")

 

And your comparison to ADB and Abnett is...this isn't even logic. It's unlogic! It's anti logic!

 

It's like saying that because the same people who would be thrilled to see Ron Perlman play Khârn in Betrayer: The Movie would scream bloody murder if

Leonardo DiCaprio got the part, this PROVES they're just irrationally prejudiced against Leo.

 

No. No it doesn't. 'Tis a silly claim, and I do wag my finger at you for putting it forward.

For me, personally, it was how he was written. I don't write myself, so I can't throw out any technical jargon that would accurately describe something that otherwise just comes across as a "feeling." He came across as special for specialness' sake. You know the phrase: show, don't tell? If you say something is amazing, but don't show it, it makes it feel forced, faked. Nykona did show himself to be amazing, but the portrayal of those moments made it seem more like I was being told. It felt clear that things were being written specifically to showcase overly awesome features, which made those same features seem bland and uninteresting. The argument could be said that this is done by every author, like that AD-B specifically set things up to show off Sevatar space-surfing. But reading his work, I get too caught up in the story to even notice or care. McNeill showed his hand in the writing of Nykona. The strings that made the puppets move was too visible, which made a character clearly intended to be seen as some amazing, super-awesome bad :cuss seem artificial.

 

To me, the worst of this was his duel with Lucius. But I actually don't care that it changes something considered st in stone in the future. Warhammer could be more said to be of retcons than grim dark, and this particular one didn't really bother me. What did was that the whole fight scene seemed choreographed for the sole purpose of having the Raven Guard kill Lucius. It wasn't a fight scene where Nykona happened to win, and win especially favorably. It was mechanical, written foe the specific purpose of Nykona having the most favorable win.

 

Edit: For what it is worth, I didn't mind Fulgrim. There were parts I felt were off, but it was on par with A Thousand Sons in my mind.

 

Edit Edit: Though the insinuation that your liking of it was somehow more correct is really unnecessary.

Look, if you guys liked Fulgrim...well, more power to you, I guess. I have openly professed my admiration for Drizzt Do'Urden, so stones, glass houses.

 

The reason for the III's fall, or even the character of the III Legion...they just never clicked for me in that book. And Fulgrim himself earned my loathing when he browbeat the Imperial Army general in the first staff meeting, so my reaction to his downward spiral was "Meh. Not losing much of value when HE goes down the tubes".

 

I just take issue with people telling me I only dislike Graham McNeil because of Outcast Dead. I am QUITE certain I know when, where, and why my disdain began better than others do.

The McNeil hate started after The Outcast Dead.

It's like saying that because the same people who would be thrilled to see Ron Perlman play Khârn in Betrayer: The Movie would scream bloody murder if

Leonardo DiCaprio got the part, this PROVES they're just irrationally prejudiced against Leo.

No. No it doesn't. 'Tis a silly claim, and I do wag my finger at you for putting it forward.

Except that is a different comparison then what I was saying. Since I'm not identifying a single point. So it would be more like:

"Hey there is a movie coming out starring Ron Perlman". Internet = yay!

"Hey there is a movie coming out starring Leonardo DiCaprio". Internet = grumble, grumble, grumble... Woe is us, he starred in a movie before that I didn't like.

If everytime you hear about McNeil writing a book you feel wronged somehow. Then yes you have a bias against him and when you read his books you are going to find problems with them. No author is perfect and will always write things that some people don't like.

Your example of Horus' fall. You see "I had no statue" and I see that Horus had a real fear of being "Thunder Warriored" (killed off at the end of the great crusade). Strong enough fear in fact that Horus is willing to burn the galaxy just to see the "Thunderbolt" fall. "Rage agianst the dieing of the light" and all that.

If you feel strongly enough that you really have to come out and say "I disliked McNeil before it was cool" thumbsup.gif. It still doesn't change the fact that post TOD the McNeil hate really took off. Example "The timeline is completely screwed up, or "Graham'd" as I'd like to term it", posted today on this forum. If you believe that that came from anywhere except TOD. Along with all of the others trying real hard to find problems with the timeline in VS. Then I really don't know what to say.

Back on topic, then:

 

UE is a bad place where to gouge Prytanis' 'power level' (though we know he's probably a peak-performance human, right?): Vulkan was behaving like a berserker, Curze was too busy with said berserker who, while easily caught off-guard, was still an immortal capable of breaking him in two. So Prytanis' greatest power seems to be a millenia-honed tactical instinct and two very dangerous pistols. Which, as he demonstrated, aren't negligible. Sure, UE showed us Primarchs as glass cannons of a sort, but that's not really new. Their resistance powers lie mostly in regeneration. They can take a lot of punishment, but it isn't the first time a single shot/blow leaves one of the Emperor's sons reeling.

 

And they're definitely not bullet/bolter-round proof.

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