What you like about ... A Thousand Sons

[Petitioner's City]

So ... I wanted to start a new series of 'what you likes' (rather than a series of 'what you don't like') about novels BL has published. Whilst it is important to critique texts, I wanted to get a sense of what we like about these - and even engage at a deeper level about when something works. Yet this is also meant to be fun, not argumentative, hence being purely about what we liked or thought was good or successful in these novels.

So with the Burning of Prospero coming out next week, I have decided to start with A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns (versus Horus Rising). I'll go back in time to Horus Rising after these two if people like these threads. PB will be up later.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/13665924/images/1296060042808.jpg

Censured at the Council of Nikaea for his flagrant use of sorcery, Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons Legion retreat to their homeworld of Prospero to continue their use of the arcane arts in secret. But when the ill-fated primarch forsees the treachery of Warmaster Horus and warns the Emperor with the very powers he was forbidden to use, the Master of Mankind dispatches fellow primarch Leman Russ to attack Prospero itself. But Magnus has seen more than the betrayal of Horus and the witnessed revelations will change the fate of his fallen Legion, and its primarch, forever.

So in A Thousand Sons, I liked ...

1. The Temples - this was a smart way to immediately classify and seperate the Sons from one another. And i liked how the Temple was not a company division.
2. I loved the entrance of the Wolves in the first section - the palpable wow and even fear or intimidation they inspire in the Sons.
3. Magnus - a tragic, complex and prideful creature who does not want to admit people disagree with him (look how he administers his council, like horus in Horus rising or ahriman in sorceror it is a council of ultimately yes-men, no wonder they don't deal well when people disagree!)
4. Lemeul, Kallista and Camille were great human characters. A gay man in 30k. Fun, jokey, flirty, interesting. I had thought remembrancers had become stale and groaned when i read these characters at first, but I soon learned to correct my errors
5. The colour of people in the novel - this is not a white man's tale - and that was really good to 'see'.
6. Ahriman. A wonderful noble heroic, yet as the end comes, a dark and highly punitive character. Perfect 30k focus. Much like how ADB writes Abaddon in Talon years later.
7. Ibid. Was this the introduction of his brother? A great touch - one that French uses well later.
8. Othere - frustrating - seemingly stupid in his 'this is Fenris' yet also fascinating as a villain/antagonist.
9. The destruction of Tizca is heartrending. It makes you hate the Wolves. It is a warcrime, and it is important to see that it is. It is a crime against knowledge too.
10. The depictions of psychic abilities. Very different from French later on, yet wonderfully so.
11. The deaths of each captain in the final battle - each tragic.
12. The tuleries. An excellent idea. At first i was confused, then i was relaxed, then i was horrified.
13. Tizca. A beautiful city.
14. The spireguard and its personification in Sokhem Vithara. A charming, tragic man and militia.
15. Also their flying saucers.
16. The density of Graham's prose and his love of little quaint details (the Reaper discussion about the old autocannon versus the new assault cannon, for example).
17. The cover. Man o man.

This is off the top of my head. And what I did not like, I shall not say...

[Carach]

pretty much all the same reasons as you. 

 

I always had a soft spot for the thousand sons when i was younger despite not knowing a great deal about their past beyond the lightly dusted backstory of Magnus' tragic fall and the rubric.

 

So the fleshing out of the legion was great, making them unique in a different way to simple "magikz!" - the description of their homeworld etc just makes the reader think "the pinnacle of humanity is nigh"

 

then it's torn down as things spiral out of control. You get the warnings throughout that Magnus' is ridiculously arrogant despite having his heart in the right place. Gets more and more tragic as things come to a head. 

 

and i think it's no coincidence that every good HH novel has good human characters going hand in hand with the post-human goings on. 

[Sete]

They are good kindling.

Seriously tho. They have a tragic story and their search for knowledge led them to ruin. They were victims of others plots, and forced into disloyalty. Betrayed by their father and cursed by one that tried to save them.

[Roomsky]

What I liked about: A Thousand Sons

 

Man, this will be easy. Starting strong with one of the series' best novels, I'm excited to see where this goes when we get to the weaker entries.

 

The Space Wolves and Leman Russ

 

I think this is still my favorite portrayal of Leman. I went into this novel dreading my first substantial Space Wolf experience, featuring wolf-jets and wolf-hammers and wolf-wolves. Despite this, Graham delivered a legion that was both respectable and frightening, with Russ epitomizing both those aspects. I would go so far as to say ATS Russ is my favorite portrayal of him in the entire series. 

 

Magnus the Rad

 

What's this? A primarch cracking jokes? A primarch not suplexing his subordinates for the slightest offence? He red bastard was damn likable in ATS, and finally gave us a primarch that has real charisma. Its often difficult to see Magnus as the demi-god he is, he's very personable. You also feel bad for his fall, but are never left going "Jeez, what a moron!" his fall is believable and easily relatable.

 

The Thousand Sons

Ahriman and his Amazing Friends were interesting and full of personality. Ahriman in particular was very well done, organically establishing the ends-justify-the-means attitude that would characterize his eventual fate.

 

The Remembrancers

Graham was always pretty good with the tag-alongs, but these three were particularely well-done. There's a real sense of friendship there, and the frustration I felt about Graham blue-balling us in regards to their fate is a testament to their quality as characters.

 

Psychneuein

I don't think I've read a story featuring creatures more horrifying than these things. Kudos for making me so disturbed through words alone.

[Captain Titus]

The Thousand Sons are my favourite Traitor Legion because of their tragic story. I can't help but feel sorry for them that when Magnus tried to warn his father of Horus' betrayal, his father sent the wolves to kill him and his legion.

If the Emperor hadn't sent the wolves to kill Magnus the heresy could have ended differently, the Emperor might still be around and there would be one more loyal legion.

[Kelborn]

You mentioned all reasons I'm loving as well.

 

ATS was my second or third HH novel (the first being Dark Angel, second being an anthology...the one with Angron on its cover).

Though the first books got me rather disappointed, I was curious about ATS as the TS and the NL were my most favorite traitor Legions at that time. As the NL books were pretty awesome, I gave ATS a try (or maybe it was because of Graham as I was introduced into Warhammer 40K by his Ventris' books and Dawn of War).

 

What should I say? I devoured it. Loved every single scene. At first, I was not interested in the mortals but after a couple of scenes, I understood their pov on the Legion and it suited perfectly.

 

Even the Vlka depictions were great. Wyrdmake is a great antagonist and I was shocked by his speach on Nikaea.

 

The burning of Prospero is so freakin' good that sometimes I'm taking ATS out of my closet just to read this part. Glorious. Just I'd always imagined it.

 

That being sad, I having high expectations about the coming stuff like the Crimson King and the Magnus - Primarch novel. :)

[bluntblade]

I don't have much to add, except that I like how McNeil handled Prospero itself

[Hfran Morkai]

The Thousand Sons are my favourite Traitor Legion because of their tragic story. I can't help but feel sorry for them that when Magnus tried to warn his father of Horus' betrayal, his father sent the wolves to kill him and his legion.

If the Emperor hadn't sent the wolves to kill Magnus the heresy could have ended differently, the Emperor might still be around and there would be one more loyal legion.

But the Emperor didn't send the Wolves to destroy the Legion. He wanted them to bring the Legion to heel and bring Magnus before him but Horus changed the mission to an execution.

[Angel_of_Blood]

The Thousand Sons are my favourite Traitor Legion because of their tragic story. I can't help but feel sorry for them that when Magnus tried to warn his father of Horus' betrayal, his father sent the wolves to kill him and his legion.

If the Emperor hadn't sent the wolves to kill Magnus the heresy could have ended differently, the Emperor might still be around and there would be one more loyal legion.

 

Not to derail the topic here, but: The consequences of his warning were severe though. He destroyed the webway project that the Emperor was working on, that could have and should have negated the Imperiums reliance on the warp for travel. Not only that, but he flooded the Imperial Palace with daemons, putting his father and the very centre of the Imperium in great, terrible danger. 

 

The Emperor also send the Wolves to apprehend Magnus, not kill him, Horus sadly, manipulated that order. But even then, Magnus could have still just surrendered himself to Russ. He knew exactly what was coming. He could have surrendered and allowed himself to be taken into custody. Pride however...

 

All of this still made the novel for me though. Yes the fall of the Thousand Sons was tragic, but it was also almost entirely of their own making.

 

EDIT: The other thing being. Magnus could have tried to warn the Emperor with more conventional means. Sent a ship, an astropathic message. But he HAD to send it psychically to vindicate his use of psychic powers and make the Emperor reconsider the Edict of Nikaea.

[Knight of the Raven]

Yes the fall of the Thousand Sons was tragic, but it was also almost entirely of their own making.

If I remember my literature studies correctly, it's not tragedy if it's not self-inflicted, with hubris being the most common cause.

[Angel_of_Blood]

 

Yes the fall of the Thousand Sons was tragic, but it was also almost entirely of their own making.

If I remember my literature studies correctly, it's not tragedy if it's not self-inflicted, with hubris being the most common cause.

 

 

Tragic is generally just something very sad, sorrowful etc. Doesn't have to be self inflicted. 

[Sandlemad]

This is my favourite work of McNeill's, his other HH output being spotty. Wasn't wild about it upon first pass but there are so many things that pop out upon rereads.

The depiction of Prospero

As has already been mentioned in the thread, it's practically utopian, even by standards not jaded by 30k/40k brutality. Cafes with psychic waiters! All of it sharpens the pain at seeing Tizca so utterly destroyed. That destruction itself was well done and I particularly enjoyed how insane and borderline impressionistic it got towards the end: Magnus's eye appearing in falling shards of glass, weird nightmares being visible in the sky, messed-up wulfen-shapes surging through the lake towards the great pyramid... I've called it a bird's-eye view before (compared to Prospero Burns) but it's not, really, it's a series of horrific glimpses from Ahriman and other TS characters.

The Thousand Sons and Magnus

So civilised. All the little hallmarks of learning and a certain scholarly... not gentleness but a willing to engage with life outside of war. People have mentioned it about Khayon in Talon of Horus but its root is, I think, here. It applies to most of the TS but Ahriman is obviously the closest study. His side-career as a viniculturalist was delightful, using grapes he brought all the way from Tasmania to Prospero, somehow sheltering them through nearly two centuries of war, as well as his quiet pride at getting the chance to share the wine with Lemuel.

Or the way his library just happens to have copies of the Voynich Manuscript and the Codex Seraphinianus. References to old earth in the BL books can be a bit on the nose but fundamentally they rely on the reader's pleasure at spotting the reference and having better uncorrupted knowledge than the characters. Here it's the opposite, we can reasonably expect that Ahriman, master of learning, has done what we cannot nowadays and figured out these mysterious tomes. A nice reversal.

But then, they're astartes. Charming but you see what they're willing to do to further their quest for knowledge. The way they were utterly unconcerned with what happened to Kallista after they practically tortured her to death, the way they didn't even notice (where the remembrancers did) the massive physical and mental toll that Kallimakus's link to Magnus was taking. It's foregrounded throughout the book by Phosis T'Kaar or Khalophis but it's there in Ahriman too.

Magnus himself is, as Roomsky identified, ridiculously charismatic. Maybe the most outwardly charming primarch after Horus, a far cry form the usual image of the introverted or tortured mage. All that Oxford don bonhomie veering into a need to be the smartest man in the room. We usually think of primarchs as 'central' and well-connected (Horus, Fulgrim, Guilliman, Dorn) or more isolated and difficult (Angron, Perturabo, Mortarion, Curze) but Magnus kind of straddles the two. Slightly liminal because of his legion's reputation and the emnity of Mortarion and Russ, but on the other hand he's close mates with Sanguinius, the Khan, Fulgrim, Lorgar, to the point of getting their support for the librarius initiative.

There's other great touches to how he appears in the book. His and Russ's transparently brittle attempts at casual primarch-banter. His bravado in the face of the eldar titan. His utter misreading of the room at Nikaea and of his father's intentions. Poignantly, his bare-faced response to Ahriman challenging him over the fleshchange, like a parent lying to their child: “Trust me, my son, that can never happen again.”

The Wolves and Russ

The description of the VI legion charge is one of my favourite pieces on the wolves anywhere.

THE CHARGE OF the Space Wolves was a thing of great and terrible beauty. They advanced in a great wave of clashing armoured plates, beating shields and waxed beards. They did not run, but came on in a loping jog, their feral grins, exposed fangs and lack of haste speaking of brutal confidence in their abilities. These warriors didn’t need speed to break through their enemies. Their skill at arms would be enough.

Dang. Their overall savagery is well put across through little details: their constantly aggressive stance, Jarl Skarssensen's crown of flint piercings, the darkness of their camp around a pole with a wolf skull on it. It's definitely all through the eyes of the TS but as their first proper depiction in the HH books, it made a statement. Russ too, the way he assessed Ahriman's physical weakspots within milliseconds, or (best line) the way he "roared to the skies, and the devastation wrought by his fleet above was pleasing to him."

Wyrdmake is as interesting a character as everyone has already said. Cunning, manipulative, prickly. Utterly brazen in his statements about 'this is Fenris' and such. This isn't an unknowing hypocrisy, this is someone who's heard the criticisms before, who has looked at it thoroughly and thought 'it's different for us because we're us'. He knows Ahriman is beating his head against the wall trying to make him understand but he already understands the argument, it's just that Ahriman isn't of Fenris and thus he can't understand. It's that same fascinating (frustrating, irritating) Fenrisian certainty you see in Prospero Burns. It's not too different from the kind of things Conan the Barbarian says about the uselessness of civilisation.

And yet, there's glimpses of something like a tentative friendship between him and Ahriman. One of my favourite moments in the book is where Ahriman quotes Beowulf to him - fate goes ever as she shall - and Wyrdmake grins and replies "Aye, she does indeed. The Geatlander knew his business when he said that line." A thawing of relations between librarian and rune priest on the basis of a book enjoyed by both? But it shows that Ahriman was willing to make a stab at getting into a barbarian (M1 Danish or M31 Fenrisian) mindset and that Wyrdmake was not just an untutored savage but knew (probably orally, quite impressive) pieces of ancient Terran epic poetry. Consider how proud and bolshy the wolves were in Prospero Burns about knowing who Ibn Rustah and Ibn Fadlan were. Just a thoughtful little scene showing both characters at their best, and making Wyrdmake's denouncing and Ahriman's vengeance - "So be it."- that bit more forceful.

There's other great elements I could pick from this - a convincing portrayal of Lorgar's finest qualities that didn't even appear in The First Heretic, the unique human culture of the Ark Reach cluster - but I've rambled on. Great book and foundational to a lot of other great TS books.

[Augustus]

Yeah. I liked that Magnus had his sons on a leash. The leash was as long as they wanted it to be. But Magnus could yank it at any time.

 

I like the description of the statue falling and shattering and from there how they learned their crafts. Very neat.

[Petitioner's City]

 

The Thousand Sons are my favourite Traitor Legion because of their tragic story. I can't help but feel sorry for them that when Magnus tried to warn his father of Horus' betrayal, his father sent the wolves to kill him and his legion.

If the Emperor hadn't sent the wolves to kill Magnus the heresy could have ended differently, the Emperor might still be around and there would be one more loyal legion.

 

Not to derail the topic here, but: The consequences of his warning were severe though. He destroyed the webway project that the Emperor was working on, that could have and should have negated the Imperiums reliance on the warp for travel. Not only that, but he flooded the Imperial Palace with daemons, putting his father and the very centre of the Imperium in great, terrible danger. 

 

The Emperor also send the Wolves to apprehend Magnus, not kill him, Horus sadly, manipulated that order. But even then, Magnus could have still just surrendered himself to Russ. He knew exactly what was coming. He could have surrendered and allowed himself to be taken into custody. Pride however...

 

All of this still made the novel for me though. Yes the fall of the Thousand Sons was tragic, but it was also almost entirely of their own making.

 

EDIT: The other thing being. Magnus could have tried to warn the Emperor with more conventional means. Sent a ship, an astropathic message. But he HAD to send it psychically to vindicate his use of psychic powers and make the Emperor reconsider the Edict of Nikaea.

 

 

This has the danger of derailing from positivity, so I'd say I like that the hubris of the Sons is part of their flaw, and the manipulations. These make the novel also, one thing I really like is this section too, which muddies the whole 'Horus did it' narrative:

 

 

“Have you ever met a Custodes?” asked Phosis T’kar.

“No, what has that got to do with anything?”

“If you had, you would know how stupid that question is.”

“I met one on Terra before setting out for Prospero,” said Ahriman, “a young, ramrod-straight warrior named Valdor. I believe the primarch knows him.”

Magnus grunted, telling them everything they needed to know about that acquaintance.

 

 

Ahriman poured everything into the Rune Priest: the corruption of Horus and the betrayal of everything the Emperor had sought to create, the monstrous scale of the imminent war and the horror that lay at the end of it. Win or lose, a time of ultimate darkness was coming, and as Ahriman opened Wyrdmake to all that he had seen, he too learned all that had driven the Space Wolves and the Custodes to make such furious war upon the Thousand Sons.

He saw the honeyed words of Horus and the sinister urgings of Constantin Valdor, each spoken with very different purposes, but designed to sway Leman Russ towards a destination of total destruction.

The scale of this betrayal shocked him to the root of all that he was. Ahriman had come to terms with Horus Lupercal’s betrayal, for it had its origins in the snares and delusions woven by beings to whom the passage of vigintillions of aeons were but the blink of an eye. This? This was all too human treachery. These were lies, told for noble reasons, but which had brought about the unintended consequences of Prospero’s destruction.

[Sete]

So Valdor does not like witchcraft. My kind of guy ;)

Was he with the Emperor when Magnus broke through the palace?

[Petitioner's City]

So Valdor does not like witchcraft. My kind of guy

Was he with the Emperor when Magnus broke through the palace?

He is not mentioned in the novel then, other than his recalling by Ahriman and Magnus earlier in the novel, he is only 'seen' at Nicaea and on Prospero, just "No sooner had the first alarm sounded than the Emperor’s Custodes were at arms, but nothing in their training could have prepared them for what came next." As for Valdor, he is a sinister figure surely. The series does not depict him as a passive watchmen, but a participant in the politics of the day with Malcador, the Emperor et al., as seen here (including Magnus's dislike of him) and when talking to Kasper in Prospero Burns.

[Sete]

Yeah he also assembled a assassins team to assassinate Horus.

He is a shrewd guy.

I need to re read prospero burns.

[Petitioner's City]

Yeah he also assembled a assassins team to assassinate Horus.

He is a shrewd guy.

I need to re read prospero burns.

 

We shall have to wait til that novel to talk about that dirty dozen-by-half! :D

[The_son_of_Dorn]

Space jedi. The PROPER WAY!

[HeritorA]

So ... I wanted to start a new series of 'what you likes' (rather than a series of 'what you don't like') about novels BL has published. Whilst it is important to critique texts, I wanted to get a sense of what we like about these - and even engage at a deeper level about when something works. Yet this is also meant to be fun, not argumentative, hence being purely about what we liked or thought was good or successful in these novels.

So with the Burning of Prospero coming out next week, I have decided to start with A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns (versus Horus Rising). I'll go back in time to Horus Rising after these two if people like these threads. PB will be up later.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/13665924/images/1296060042808.jpg

Censured at the Council of Nikaea for his flagrant use of sorcery, Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons Legion retreat to their homeworld of Prospero to continue their use of the arcane arts in secret. But when the ill-fated primarch forsees the treachery of Warmaster Horus and warns the Emperor with the very powers he was forbidden to use, the Master of Mankind dispatches fellow primarch Leman Russ to attack Prospero itself. But Magnus has seen more than the betrayal of Horus and the witnessed revelations will change the fate of his fallen Legion, and its primarch, forever.

So in A Thousand Sons, I liked ...

1. The Temples - this was a smart way to immediately classify and seperate the Sons from one another. And i liked how the Temple was not a company division.
2. I loved the entrance of the Wolves in the first section - the palpable wow and even fear or intimidation they inspire in the Sons.
3. Magnus - a tragic, complex and prideful creature who does not want to admit people disagree with him (look how he administers his council, like horus in Horus rising or ahriman in sorceror it is a council of ultimately yes-men, no wonder they don't deal well when people disagree!)
4. Lemeul, Kallista and Camille were great human characters. A gay man in 30k. Fun, jokey, flirty, interesting. I had thought remembrancers had become stale and groaned when i read these characters at first, but I soon learned to correct my errors
5. The colour of people in the novel - this is not a white man's tale - and that was really good to 'see'.
6. Ahriman. A wonderful noble heroic, yet as the end comes, a dark and highly punitive character. Perfect 30k focus. Much like how ADB writes Abaddon in Talon years later.
7. Ibid. Was this the introduction of his brother? A great touch - one that French uses well later.
8. Othere - frustrating - seemingly stupid in his 'this is Fenris' yet also fascinating as a villain/antagonist.
9. The destruction of Tizca is heartrending. It makes you hate the Wolves. It is a warcrime, and it is important to see that it is. It is a crime against knowledge too.
10. The depictions of psychic abilities. Very different from French later on, yet wonderfully so.
11. The deaths of each captain in the final battle - each tragic.
12. The tuleries. An excellent idea. At first i was confused, then i was relaxed, then i was horrified.
13. Tizca. A beautiful city.
14. The spireguard and its personification in Sokhem Vithara. A charming, tragic man and militia.
15. Also their flying saucers.
16. The density of Graham's prose and his love of little quaint details (the Reaper discussion about the old autocannon versus the new assault cannon, for example).
17. The cover. Man o man.

This is off the top of my head. And what I did not like, I shall not say...

Great depiction - totally agree with each point. Ty for the time you did that list

[veterannoob]

As posting my podcast review of the box I can now say this but besides it being my fav book in the series the epic duel between Magnus and Russ actually is part of scenario 6 in Burning of Prospero. Each turn we roll-off to see if Russ's psykik scream removes a known psyker power or Magnus generates a new one with immediate effect. Amazeballs.

[b1soul]

People should know that I'm a fan of neither McNeill or the SW . . . but ATS was a thoroughly enjoyable read with quite vivid and memorable prose 

 

The SW were portrayed as hyper-aggressive warriors - the TSons were portrayed as cultured mages who were equally powerful (if not more so) 

 

Both sides were arrogant in their own ways, Magnus and Russ were both forces of nature. 

 

ATS is one of the strongest HH entries. 

[HeritorA]

 

The Thousand Sons are my favourite Traitor Legion because of their tragic story. I can't help but feel sorry for them that when Magnus tried to warn his father of Horus' betrayal, his father sent the wolves to kill him and his legion.

If the Emperor hadn't sent the wolves to kill Magnus the heresy could have ended differently, the Emperor might still be around and there would be one more loyal legion.

 

Not to derail the topic here, but: The consequences of his warning were severe though. He destroyed the webway project that the Emperor was working on, that could have and should have negated the Imperiums reliance on the warp for travel. Not only that, but he flooded the Imperial Palace with daemons, putting his father and the very centre of the Imperium in great, terrible danger. 

 

The Emperor also send the Wolves to apprehend Magnus, not kill him, Horus sadly, manipulated that order. But even then, Magnus could have still just surrendered himself to Russ. He knew exactly what was coming. He could have surrendered and allowed himself to be taken into custody. Pride however...

 

All of this still made the novel for me though. Yes the fall of the Thousand Sons was tragic, but it was also almost entirely of their own making.

 

EDIT: The other thing being. Magnus could have tried to warn the Emperor with more conventional means. Sent a ship, an astropathic message. But he HAD to send it psychically to vindicate his use of psychic powers and make the Emperor reconsider the Edict of Nikaea.

 

No he could not - and it was masterfully explained in 'Thousand Sons'. It would take too long with a ship. Astropathic message would be lost or wouldn't be believed at all. Plus he thought he would show that his craft could be used to avert great tragedies and could definitely help humanity.  He hasn't thought that it's all a set up by Tzeentch

[DarkChaplain]

Astrophatic messages really aren't the solution. They're so prone to interpretation and metaphors, a message like "Horus has turned on the Emperor" wouldn't be as clear as it needed to be and the accuracy of the message would be contested for a while.

 

Magnus was deceived by Tzeentch and his own hubris, but he also wished for his Legion to be vindicated. How better to achieve the Emperor's absolution than to use his powers in a key function to warn his father of the coming doom? He figured he'd get a pat on the head and approving nods, but instead he screwed things up to the point of no recovery.

[HeritorA]

Astrophatic messages really aren't the solution. They're so prone to interpretation and metaphors, a message like "Horus has turned on the Emperor" wouldn't be as clear as it needed to be and the accuracy of the message would be contested for a while.

 

Magnus was deceived by Tzeentch and his own hubris, but he also wished for his Legion to be vindicated. How better to achieve the Emperor's absolution than to use his powers in a key function to warn his father of the coming doom? He figured he'd get a pat on the head and approving nods, but instead he screwed things up to the point of no recovery.

Exactly as Tzeentch planned. Magnus was undone by his own hubris