nerdish thing ive noticed about hh stories

[hummus]

They seem to blaspheme saying stuff like "for thrones sake" etc like in more modern 40 k novels,

but would they know about the throne yet?

[veterannoob]

I asked either Dan Abnett or Graham McNeill about this before an interview about two years ago, I think was Dan...and that was certainly not the first time the questions came up. Best guess, meaning the intention to build off a rapidly developing series never planned near to the scale it has become, was the throne of Terra (used as Throne and Throne of Terra--in Thousand Sons, actually--refers to the seat of power, kinda like the GoT Iron Throne (with far less ergonomic problems). Holy Throne as in religio or belief comes up later .

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I'm not sure all the 30k people mean the Golden Throne per se, just that he's the Emperor and he's on Terra on a Throne; The Throne, obviously, the only one capable of holding his being. 

[Mellow]

Yes, makes sense that it means The Throne, the seat of power, etc. I'm unsure they would even have known about the Golden Throne at this point.

[Marshal Rohr]

Plot Twist: The Emperor was dead the whole time.

[veterannoob]

What a tweeeeest!:) muhaha!

[Phoebus]

hummus,

 

I'm right there with you. The series started with a good deal of attention paid to suppressing superstition and religion*, but as time passed I began noticing more and more references, titles, and slang that just felt contradictory.

* Then again, the Black Templars were called just that even at a time when that would have been a red flag.

[Kol Saresk]

They seem to blaspheme saying stuff like "for thrones sake" etc like in more modern 40 k novels,

but would they know about the throne yet?

They probably don't, but it could be that similar to how a crown was seen as the symbol of authority for kings, that the Throne is seen as a symbol of authority for the Emperor. And as such, considering the Lectitio Divinatus, it's entirely possible that anything related to the Emperor that seemed to have any kind of religious context is just naturally discouraged.

 

Of course, it is also possible the Lectitio used the Throne as a religious iconography, similar to how the Christian New Testament always describes God as sitting on a Throne and the second century Church onwards uses crucifixes to represent their faith, until the Protestant Reformation where many Protestants began to see it as akin to idol worship.

 

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think the Lectitio Divinatus is the reason for concern. Because if I remember the few times we've seen trinkets from those who worship the Emperor, the trinkets are described as being inages of a throne.

 

So chances are that the Lectitio Divinatus was writtenas associating the Throne with the Emperor's authority, and then after the Heresy when the Emperor's corpse was placed on the Golden Throne, it simply took on a new meaning and understanding.