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The Beast Arises


Vorenus

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My inability to take jokes about this is because of how people can be incalculably crappy about it. It's used as one of the most bizarre, evidenceless accusations that sounds great and makes an easy soundbite ("lol waifu lol") that I've long since lost my sense of humour about it.

"lol waifu lol"

"Well, Altani is a metaphor for a threefold concept: Sevatar's sterility, his distance from humanity, and his savage sense of isolation and distance from his own Legion despite being glorified by them, and her presence plays into a fourth aspect, discussed later. You see the same allusions elsewhere in Sev's life, where he talks about not understanding other people's jokes or knowing what to say to them - a play on Space Marine angelic/inhuman/transhuman 'autism' - but taken to a sociopathic extreme, from a lot of my reading regarding serial killers. Add that to his repeated desire to work out just what side he's on amidst the hypocrisy of ignorance and selfishness, and those claiming to follow ideals that he doesn't care about. That also ties in with his desire to see the Night Lords accept their place as the Legion was intended to be - which he references a few times - as the bringers of terrifying, merciless justice, not simple slaughter and pleasure in terror. Which links back to Altani perfectly, since he exacts revenge for her not because he's nice, but because she has been wronged. This also makes Sev a counterpoint to Talos, because Talos's core beliefs were essentially delusion: even his own brothers told him the 'pure' wars he wanted to fight had never been in the Legion's history, but Talos was blind and insisted on seeing the best of what might be, and idolises the Night Haunter as that avatar of justice. There's even a quote where the Night Haunter says he cares nothing for what the Legion has become, but Talos stands there, takes it, and worships his father for centuries after, despite that - a showing of the unbreakable faith most Space Marines have in their primarch and refusal to see the flaws of one's idols. Sev, however, isn't so lost in Gothic romanticism; he realises the Legion deviated from its course the moment the Night Haunter entered the Legion's life, and he's slowly learning that the father that defended him, trained him, and loved him all these years is actually the cancer eating away at the Legion's heart. Altani is the very first time in his life that - at rock bottom, with nothing to lose and everything stripped away from him - he's able to follow a path of what he sees the Night Lords could have been. It took me a long time to think up and decide how to--"

"lol ADB space marine girlfriends"

"...um, right, but in half my books the human perspective characters are male, so--"

"waifus"

"Ah. Right. I... I see."

(...and I just realised this a TBA thread, so with an apology for being off-topic I'll bounce out of here!)

So, all I'm learning from this entire string of poorly-made jokes is that if you poke fun at Aaron's books long enough, he gives you beautiful expositions on the writing process behind the decisions he makes for their overall narratives. Which of course just encourages me to keep making terrible jokes so Aaron will keep telling me why they're wrong with these wonderful mini-essays.

...

I may be taking away the wrong lesson from all of this unsure.png

don't hurt me ADB, you're the best, write everything for GW ever please

EDIT: All poor attempts at humor aside, I am sorry for making cracks about the characters in The Long Night and Talon of Horus. Didn't realize it was such a sore spot (though I probably should've guessed). I really do enjoy everything you've written, and for what it's worth, everything you posted made perfect sense. Which you know, since you wrote it. Er uh ahem, yes. Sorry. Back to our regularly scheduled programming, and so on.

Think that Ullanor will soon be ready to charge at Terra.

The Necron World Engine? A giant webway portal opening a black whole inside of Ullanor? A black Crusade of Abaddon?

Angron unleashed? How were these black planet killer fortresses called which Abbadon would capture during the Gothic War again?

So how will the beasts die? Ma money is on the mechanicus. They will cook something up and just blow up the planet. Imperium is spent. Going in there a third time will just be beating a dead horse

I kinda hope they don't die.  That they're still out there like some of the loyalist primarchs.  That maybe one or two of them led a forgotten Waaagh! in the intermittent millennia but for the most part are just one more forgotten horror that the galaxy holds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is one rule in all fandoms that cannot be broken.

 

Ship happens.

Um...well I was joking about the whole astropath girlfriend thing. A lot (okay, like three) of ADB's stories have otherwise inhuman murder-machines with a soft-spot for some mortal woman

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/296283-chaotic-thoughts-after-reading-talon-of-horus-spoiler-alert/page-2?do=findComment&comment=3825637

I too have a soft-spot for mortal women in my everyday life, that's fine Aaron.

 

My inability to take jokes about this is because of how people can be incalculably crappy about it. It's used as one of the most bizarre, evidenceless accusations that sounds great and makes an easy soundbite ("lol waifu lol") that I've long since lost my sense of humour about it.

 

"lol waifu lol"

 

"Well, Altani is a metaphor for a threefold concept: Sevatar's sterility, his distance from humanity, and his savage sense of isolation and distance from his own Legion despite being glorified by them, and her presence plays into a fourth aspect, discussed later. You see the same allusions elsewhere in Sev's life, where he talks about not understanding other people's jokes or knowing what to say to them - a play on Space Marine angelic/inhuman/transhuman 'autism' - but taken to a sociopathic extreme, from a lot of my reading regarding serial killers. Add that to his repeated desire to work out just what side he's on amidst the hypocrisy of ignorance and selfishness, and those claiming to follow ideals that he doesn't care about. That also ties in with his desire to see the Night Lords accept their place as the Legion was intended to be - which he references a few times - as the bringers of terrifying, merciless justice, not simple slaughter and pleasure in terror. Which links back to Altani perfectly, since he exacts revenge for her not because he's nice, but because she has been wronged. This also makes Sev a counterpoint to Talos, because Talos's core beliefs were essentially delusion: even his own brothers told him the 'pure' wars he wanted to fight had never been in the Legion's history, but Talos was blind and insisted on seeing the best of what might be, and idolises the Night Haunter as that avatar of justice. There's even a quote where the Night Haunter says he cares nothing for what the Legion will become after his death, but Talos stands there, takes it, and worships his father for centuries after, despite that - a showing of the unbreakable faith most Space Marines have in their primarch and refusal to see the flaws of one's idols. Sev, however, isn't so lost in Gothic romanticism; he realises/believes the Legion deviated from its course the moment the Night Haunter entered the Legion's life, and he's slowly learning that the father that defended him, trained him, and loved him all these years is (he believes) actually the cancer eating away at the Legion's heart, and the fulcrum where it all went wrong. You see that embodied when he asks the Night Haunter if he tried any other methods of pacifying Nostramo, in that bitter argument between them. Altani is the very first time in his life that - at rock bottom, with nothing to lose and everything stripped away from him - he's able to follow a path of what he sees the Night Lords could have been. It took me a long time to think up and decide how to--"

 

"lol ADB space marine girlfriends"

 

"...um, right, but in half my books the human perspective characters are male, so--"

 

"waifus"

 

"Ah. Right. I... I see."

 

 

 

(...and I just realised this a TBA thread, so with an apology for being off-topic I'll bounce out of here!)

I would love to hear the rest of that :o

 

Is it typed out anywhere? On another thread?

I'm going to put Beasts in my own personal fan-version of the End Times. Ghazkull or somebody else is gonna find an Ork Attack Moon, maybe a Beast corpse, and the residual Waaagh energy is going to trigger his own metamorphosis and turn him into the next Blacky. (Yeah, that's right. I'm not dropping my names for them until an official book tells me otherwise.) By the time of the final battle, it'll be a 5-way brawl between the Returned Primarchs, the Daemon Primarchs, the Beasts of Ullanor, the Phoenix Lords, and maybe the Necron Whatever-they-decide-to-use. Oh, and Tau. Cause naturally the Tau will develop a new battlesuit that'll let O'Kais go toe-to-toe with living demigods.

So here's a crazy question for all of you; I'm not sure it belongs in this forum, but I can't think of anywhere else to put it.

 

I really, really, really want to see some good artwork of the Beasts. (Screw spoilers, in a week the next book is coming out) Like, honest to Emperor epic scale and detailed pictures of each of them. My imagination is pretty good at drawing pictures in my head, but there's still a difference between that and a well-drawn fight scene between Vulkan and Blacky. If these beings are meant to be the apex predators of their species then they should show it.

 

Now, there are still two books left, so there might be a chance one of them will have a picture gallery of them. But if they don't, then I'd like to try something (here's the question part): Would any of you here be interested in funding some kind of Kickstarter or donation pool, with the goal being to hire a professional artist to draw appropriately awesome artwork of The Six Beasts? I myself would be willing to pony up a hundred bucks to it, but there's no way I can afford to have all Six done justly by myself.

The imperium didn't know how to use the alien superweapons on the Blackstone fortress or the propulsion systems.  The admech just hacked the power grid and installed flight bays and human weapon systems. Then Abandon figured out how to activate them and decided to go GTA on them.

Unless Veritus turns out to have the instruction manual and control codes for the Blackstone fortresses and it's just been forgotten by the time of the gothic war. He seems to be a Deus ex machina for finding things :p

Wasn't it mentioned that the GK numbered nearly in Legion size when Malcador returned to them?

 

Maybe they will battle the Beasts, die in thousands and be reduced to about normal chapter size?

Malcador died before their training was complete though.

One thing I didn't like throughout the series is 

 

 

the change in the character of Grand Provost Marshal Zeck. He has gone from a man uninterested by the political intrigues of his compatriots, being instead focused on the management of Terra's crime, to a wholly political animal said to be blind to corruption. It seems a rather large character change.

 

If that is a great character change for you, read Butlers Djihad by Frank Herbert. There, a slave becomes the leader of the entire human realm because of symbolism, treachery and manipulation.

 

A great series. Seriously. :)

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