Dark Imperium Spoilers/Plot Summary (Read Along)

[mc warhammer]

it's the leader principle but further impacted by grandiose veneration. yeah, calgar and most chapters would not have worshipped the emp and primarchs as literal gods- but they came pretty bloody close.  right up to the line. the first time roboute excused himself to use the little primarch's room would probably have really bummed calgar out.

 

i did enjoy the parallels between calgar/guilliman and guilliman/emperor where both sons were simultaneously more in awe and more disillusioned with their gene sires than ever before. and how truth sometimes takes us further away from certainty.

 

i really found calgar fascinating in his brief appearance, and while i don't necessarily think he'll pull a horus (despite how much guilliman is being likened to the emp) his struggle with his own insecurity in this novel was a more convincing motivation for a fall than either fulgrim or horus actually got in the hh series. imo, of course.

[Ascanius]

I agree. I got the impression that Calgar was more likely to throw his own life away in some grand gesture fuelled by despair than turn on the Imperium.

 

We can't forget, too, that Calgar's spent his whole life believing that the Imperium is the design of the Emperor, the only way things can be - and now here's one of the original implementers of that vision returned, unable to hide his disappointment with how it all turned out.