Malcador: First Lord of the Imperium.

[Loesh]

Been awhile since i'v posted on here, hasn't it? Well I still keep tabs on the Warhammer community and check in from time to time. Most people I imagine passed this audio book up for something else, it looked uninteresting on the surface or with so many other big releases other things took priority. But in addition to being an Emperor's Children fan, I also adore the human elements of the Imperium and decided to give it a look. 

Do NOT pass this 20 minute audio book up. I knew as soon as I saw Goulding this might have something big in it, and...boy it's a lot to unpack. Suffice it to say, I have to re-examine every interaction with Malcedor and the Horus Heresy itself. Some of the weird things that happen like 'How did that painting make it up to Rogal Dorn and Pertarubo to start that fight?' now have some fairly plausible explanations for why they happen.

 

Anyway, feel free to use this thread for discussion!

[m0nolith]

Big discussion about it here starting on page 4.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/341922-black-library-advent-calendar-2017/page-4

[mc warhammer]

i'm looking forward to this one.

[Kizzdougs]

I agree that it was an excellent listen, but it doesn't really give us any concrete answers. I didn't know what to think afterwards...

[Loesh]

I didn't think there was any ambiguity personality, it explains so much about the Horus Heresy that i'm willing to take it at face value.

[Kizzdougs]

I didn't think there was any ambiguity personality, it explains so much about the Horus Heresy that i'm willing to take it at face value.

Except that at least some of what he said was a straight up lie and he acknowledged this. The question is how much of what he said was a lie…

 

Malcador says “You promised. You Promised me it wouldn’t be like this. I lie to them to spare their sorrow even as I envy their mortality and it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.” So what was he lying about?

 

·      Was it all a lie? Probably not.

·      Was he lying when he said that he trusted in the Emperor’s vision? Probably.

·      Was he lying when he said that the Heresy was planned? Maybe.

·      Was he lying when he said that they were still ‘controlling’ the Primarchs? Probably.

·      Was he lying when he said that the Primarchs/marines never had a future? What about Magnus on the Golden Throne? Maybe.

·      Was he lying when he said that the Primarchs had been manipulated and manoeuvred from the beginning? Maybe.

·      Was he lying when he said “let yourself fall and He will catch you. This I swear.”? Probably.

 

At least some of that was a lie...

[Loesh]

I choose to believe that, most likely, only number 2, 4, and 7 were a lie. Could it all be a lie? As per 40k fashion it's possible, maybe for some reason none of it's a lie. But minus those ones? it makes so much sense and the idea that this whole thing was a massive work, that it's entirely possible that the Primarchs and the Emperor both were decent people by the standards of 40k, and that the actual causes of the galaxies current problems were atomized millennia ago with no possible chance of any kind of karmic retribution for annihilating the galaxy is so absurdly comically hilariously grimdark that I have no choice but to accept that as my personal true canon.

[m0nolith]

It was also beautifully written and preformed piece.

Absolutely top notch!

[Kizzdougs]

Or the Chaos Gods just got their revenge for the Emperor's betrayal...

 

I got the feeling that Malcador was trying to give the impression that everything was going to plan (although a bit a head of time) and that it was all part of the Emperor's vision, but when he was being honest with himself he accepted that they were all doomed and there was no hope (because the war in the Webway was lost/un-winnable and therefore the Emperor's vision for humanity was unattainable and humanity would be prey to the Chaos Gods even if the loyalists defeated Horus).

 

He felt that he was significantly overplaying his and the Emperor's agency in the whole affair to comfort his dying friend.

[m0nolith]

Or the Chaos Gods just got their revenge for the Emperor's betrayal...

 

I got the feeling that Malcador was trying to give the impression that everything was going to plan (although a bit a head of time) and that it was all part of the Emperor's vision, but when he was being honest with himself he accepted that they were all doomed and there was no hope (because the war in the Webway was lost/un-winnable and therefore the Emperor's vision for humanity was unattainable and humanity would be prey to the Chaos Gods even if the loyalists defeated Horus).

 

He felt that he was significantly overplaying his and the Emperor's agency in the whole affair to comfort his dying friend.

Excellent point. I always thought that myself after I found out what he did on Molech. 

 

Initially Malcador is talking to her, but at one point she coughs, clearly disturbed by everything Malcador has told her to this point.

After this Malcador changes his tune and goes "oh its ok, we planned it all along"

I think everything before this was true, and everything after this is not.

I discussed this a lot more in the other thread.

[Kizzdougs]

I think that once the Primarchs were scattered the Emperor lost a lot of his agency as far as controlling the whole situation was concerned and he probably had to change his plans concerning the Primarchs (or at least a fair number of them) once they rediscovered. Did he only come up with and begin to implement the plan described by Malcador once he discovered that some of the Primarchs were irreparably damaged by their experiences on their home worlds (Angron, Curze, Mortarion etc.) or was that his plan all along?

 

Did he plan for Magnus to make a deal with Tzeentch to save his Legion? I though Magnus was supposed to sit on the Golden Throne...

Why would he make Vulkan an Eternal if he was going to be cast aside like the Thunder Warriors? Surely he had a role to play in the Emperor's vision for humanity.

Did he plan for Fulgrim to find the Laer Blade and fall to Slaanesh? Probably not, considering that the Emperor's Children were one of if not the most favoured Legions. But then again maybe he favoured them because they were supposed to be one of the Legions that would stay loyal in the 'planned' Heresy and it was a ploy to make other Legions jealous of the IIIrd. Or maybe he stoked their pride and arrogance to make them more susceptible to Slaanesh, but I'm pretty sure the Emperor never planned for Chaos to become involved in his planned Heresy...

 

[nagashnee]

This audiobook was the worse kind of story telling, answer the major fans questions, but then immediately muddy the waters just enough so you have not tied yourself to anything and have full plausible deniability. 

 

Simply put this audibook doesnt matter other then friendly lore talk, because it was DESIGNED not to matter. They will simply/ignore/prove/deny/alter/change/etc any and all 'revelations' as they go forward.  

 

If it had ended with 'and then he woke up and it was all a dream' it would be just as credible. 

[Kizzdougs]

This audiobook was the worse kind of story telling, answer the major fans questions, but then immediately muddy the waters just enough so you have not tied yourself to anything and have full plausible deniability. 

 

Simply put this audibook doesnt matter other then friendly lore talk, because it was DESIGNED not to matter. They will simply/ignore/prove/deny/alter/change/etc any and all 'revelations' as they go forward.  

 

If it had ended with 'and then he woke up and it was all a dream' it would be just as credible. 

While it's true that the story didn't definitively prove or disprove any theories, it put words to what a lot of Heresy fans have been thinking for a while now. So while it didn't vindicate those theories, it most definitely acknowledged them in a way that we haven't seen before. Those theories aren't just fan theories anymore, they're in-universe theories and I think that's a significant difference.

 

Edit: hearing the same ideas (no future for the Primarchs/Legions) from Malcador that were fed to Horus by Chaos is a big deal, even if it isn't clear if Malcador was lying or not. Maybe the Word Bearers were right all along, and maybe Horus' rebellion was founded on legitimate fears/suspicions after all. I think that's pretty massive even if the audio book isn't conclusive.

[Phoebus]

Ugh.

I'm in a frustrating position in that I won't be able to appreciate this piece until it's part of a numbered entry, but can't help but read the spoilers. With that in mind, I'm sorry, I don't think Laurie Goulding was trying to troll anyone, per se, but the way "Malcador" is being described makes it sound like an in-progress retcon. Personal opinion follows:

 

You're just not going to convince me at this point that the Emperor was the mastermind behind the Heresy, or that setting his primarchs up to act as foils for one another and engineering enmity between them even makes sense. But let's say the Emperor reveals to us that this was the case. I can't see how this will be done satisfyingly. The writing team had eleven years and almost fifty titles to lead up to such a twist. So where has the foreshadowing for such a complete reversal been? Forget foreshadowing, we've had multiple entries where Primarchs and Astartes alike are confronted by daemons for the express purpose of getting them to turn on the Emperor, going so far as showing them edited visions of the future and selective glimpses into the past. I'm pretty sure that, "And here's your father outlining his plan to make you and your brothers hate each other as a prelude to throwing the Galaxy into a civil war," works better than "Look, a future where you don't have shiny statues, Horus!"

 

But if the intent is for Malcador to muddle the waters for the sake of... giving a dying person an easier last half hour of life? Come on. I still wouldn't call it trolling, but it's another instance of "here's mysterious stuff!" that stimulates discussion about nothing of much consequence.

 

I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but what's being said about this story doesn't make me look forward to it, at all. Right now, all it's doing is reinforcing in me the idea that the Horus Heresy has gone from a very ambitious tale on a grand scale to a series of enjoyable novels bookended by lackluster efforts and collections of various shorts that would've served the reader better by inclusion in a novel.

[Perrin]

I haven't listened to this (not a fan of audio books), but I've read the summaries above and would recommend that anyone interested check out Laurie's Twitter feed. 

 

I won't quote anything for fear of it being taken out of context, but he has been replying to some tweets about the book and the truth/lies thing.

[Marshal Rohr]

The same twitter feed where he and DarkChaplain talk so much :cuss about readers?

[Apothecary Vaddon]

The same twitter feed where he and DarkChaplain talk so much about readers?

[insert snark about people not getting it and lots of salt on forums]

Really makes you wonder if trolling the theorists out there was the primary purpose of writing it

[DarkChaplain]

The same twitter feed where he and DarkChaplain talk so much about readers?

 

Ah, yes. The three tweet replies where I mentioned that I feel utterly baffled by the amounts of nerd-rage going on about said audio drama and told Laurie I'm happy to see a story that connects dots without having to spoon-feed revelations to the impatient reader, and likened it to Peter Fehervari's works in that regard. Truly, utterly maddening :cusstalking right there. The Black Rage is just around the corner, I think.

 

I'd also recommend Laurie's tweet from a few days ago regarding cold tea and bourbon. That was a good morning laugh for me.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

 

 

The same twitter feed where he and DarkChaplain talk so much about readers?

Ah, yes. The three tweet replies where I mentioned that I feel utterly baffled by the amounts of nerd-rage going on about said audio drama and told Laurie I'm happy to see a story that connects dots without having to spoon-feed revelations to the impatient reader, and likened it to Peter Fehervari's works in that regard. Truly, utterly maddening :cusstalking right there. The Black Rage is just around the corner, I think.

 

I'd also recommend Laurie's tweet from a few days ago regarding cold tea and bourbon. That was a good morning laugh for me.

Save it, buddy. This isn’t the first time you’ve been snide about us disliking bits of the lore.

[m0nolith]

I haven't listened to this (not a fan of audio books), but I've read the summaries above and would recommend that anyone interested check out Laurie's Twitter feed. 

 

I won't quote anything for fear of it being taken out of context, but he has been replying to some tweets about the book and the truth/lies thing.

After taking a look through it, it seems that the whole “turn them against each other” thing is actually true.

Interesting.

[mc warhammer]

This audiobook was the worse kind of story telling, answer the major fans questions, but then immediately muddy the waters just enough so you have not tied yourself to anything and have full plausible deniability. 

 

Simply put this audibook doesnt matter other then friendly lore talk, because it was DESIGNED not to matter. They will simply/ignore/prove/deny/alter/change/etc any and all 'revelations' as they go forward.  

 

If it had ended with 'and then he woke up and it was all a dream' it would be just as credible. 

 

 

it's not that different to the horus sees the emperor with baby primarchs dream sequence.

 

or the word bearers discuss lost legion conspiracy theories.

 

or every i.a article.

 

it's seriously ok.

[mc warhammer]

Ugh.

 

I'm in a frustrating position in that I won't be able to appreciate this piece until it's part of a numbered entry, but can't help but read the spoilers. With that in mind, I'm sorry, I don't think Laurie Goulding was trying to troll anyone, per se, but the way "Malcador" is being described makes it sound like an in-progress retcon. Personal opinion follows:

 

You're just not going to convince me at this point that the Emperor was the mastermind behind the Heresy, or that setting his primarchs up to act as foils for one another and engineering enmity between them even makes sense. But let's say the Emperor reveals to us that this was the case. I can't see how this will be done satisfyingly. The writing team had eleven years and almost fifty titles to lead up to such a twist. So where has the foreshadowing for such a complete reversal been? Forget foreshadowing, we've had multiple entries where Primarchs and Astartes alike are confronted by daemons for the express purpose of getting them to turn on the Emperor, going so far as showing them edited visions of the future and selective glimpses into the past. I'm pretty sure that, "And here's your father outlining his plan to make you and your brothers hate each other as a prelude to throwing the Galaxy into a civil war," works better than "Look, a future where you don't have shiny statues, Horus!"

 

But if the intent is for Malcador to muddle the waters for the sake of... giving a dying person an easier last half hour of life? Come on. I still wouldn't call it trolling, but it's another instance of "here's mysterious stuff!" that stimulates discussion about nothing of much consequence.

 

I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but what's being said about this story doesn't make me look forward to it, at all. Right now, all it's doing is reinforcing in me the idea that the Horus Heresy has gone from a very ambitious tale on a grand scale to a series of enjoyable novels bookended by lackluster efforts and collections of various shorts that would've served the reader better by inclusion in a novel.

 

 

even though i'm a firm believer in taking the text on its own merit, it can still be fun to discuss the larger mechanics as a tangent. with that in mind

 

on the first exp boards, laurie used to float the theory that the emp planned the heresy but lost control of it. even if LG wasn't putting it forward as fact, he did seem to think it was a viable and strong interpretation.

 

as a further tangent, [tangent] LG also suggested that alpharius really was a loyalist and the tragedy of PoD was that it was dorn's sitck-up-butt attitude that prevented a good outcome for humanity. but then, i think you could as easily blame alpharius' lack of eq in knowing how to talk to his brother,. you don't riddle-me-this with dorn, you spell it out plainly. in huge letters. twice. and even then, you hope for the best [/tangent]

 

as for foreshadowing

 

is it possible to maybe clue some together over the course of the hh novels? the chaos vision where horus watches the emperor disperse the infant primarchs would be part of that. were there further clues seeded through MoM? nighthaunter kinda implies it a few times in some appearances. maybe he's that broken clock after all.

 

and of course, there's of evidence to the contrary. why build cubby houses for the primarchs to retire in after the crusade (unless he was lulling them into a false sense of security. what a sociopath)

 

sometimes i find myself similarly frustrated. say with the alpharius/omegon reveal, [tangent] it was the opposite for me there;  rather than a lack of foreshadowing, i felt there was a lack of pay off. but then, i'm willing to give BL a bit of slack as the publishing seems to be moderately non-linear and i hope they circle back to it at some point down the line) [/tangent]

[Phoebus]

I recall the conversations you mentioned. Laurie is a very intelligent and creative individual, but he strikes me as loyal and self-assured to a fault. He has unflinchingly defended some monumentally bad decisions made by Primarchs as being not the result of poor writing choices, per se, but of mere hubris on the part of the characters themselves. Criticism raised at TFE's forums, specifically, has often been deflected by claiming that the Primarchs flaws, too, "are cranked up to eleven."

Frankly, that bothers me. At best, it's a bad baseline for how these characters will operate. For example, Magnus sincerely thinking that using raw sorcerous force is the best way to warn his father doesn't make him as arrogant as he is brilliant; it just makes him stupid. I get it, Magnus thinks he knows better than anyone else; that shouldn't make him immune to nuance, though. 

 

Anyways, the idea that the Heresy as an event engineered by the Emperor makes sense strikes me as incredibly lazy: it sacrifices logic for the sake of shock factor, and - this late in the series - assumes the latter will make up for the former. "Pay no attention to the fact that the Imperium had effectively conquered the galaxy by the time of Davin, allowing for the Emperor to start focusing on the projects the future of humanity most depended on. We promise, we'll deliver a convincing reason as to why the Emperor would want to see such unprecedented success riven by a galactic civil war!" I love keeping an open mind about the series, but I can't find myself even entertaining this idea.

 

My half-hazard, on the spot guess? I wouldn't be shocked if the Heresy is presented as the means by which the Emperor meant to cull the Legiones Astartes, except it all went out of control!

[mc warhammer]

I recall the conversations you mentioned. Laurie is a very intelligent and creative individual, but he strikes me as loyal and self-assured to a fault. He has unflinchingly defended some monumentally bad decisions made by Primarchs as being not the result of poor writing choices, per se, but of mere hubris on the part of the characters themselves. Criticism raised at TFE's forums, specifically, has often been deflected by claiming that the Primarchs flaws, too, "are cranked up to eleven."

 

Frankly, that bothers me. At best, it's a bad baseline for how these characters will operate. For example, Magnus sincerely thinking that using raw sorcerous force is the best way to warn his father doesn't make him as arrogant as he is brilliant; it just makes him stupid. I get it, Magnus thinks he knows better than anyone else; that shouldn't make him immune to nuance, though. 

 

Anyways, the idea that the Heresy as an event engineered by the Emperor makes sense strikes me as incredibly lazy: it sacrifices logic for the sake of shock factor, and - this late in the series - assumes the latter will make up for the former. "Pay no attention to the fact that the Imperium had effectively conquered the galaxy by the time of Davin, allowing for the Emperor to start focusing on the projects the future of humanity most depended on. We promise, we'll deliver a convincing reason as to why the Emperor would want to see such unprecedented success riven by a galactic civil war!" I love keeping an open mind about the series, but I can't find myself even entertaining this idea.

 

My half-hazard, on the spot guess? I wouldn't be shocked if the Heresy is presented as the means by which the Emperor meant to cull the Legiones Astartes, except it all went out of control!

 

yeah, i take your point. maybe i just have a different view of people and failure as a concept. history and (my life) is full of extremely talented and capable people who make poor decisions from time to time.  throw mythology and religion in there too (the gods constantly did things that made audiences face palm).

 

you can spend your whole life making all the right choices, but eff up that one time and people will focus on that misjudgement foreverrrrrr. especially if it had big consequences.

 

and if they are trying to reconcile poor writing choices, i don't think that's a bad thing....only if the writers are actively dismissing more interesting alternatives in favour of attempting to patch over writing that doesn't/can't work.

[Phoebus]

I'm not opposed to errors or failure. I simply want for either to be relevant to the character's context. This is as true with modern fiction as it is with the epics that the Horus Heresy often finds inspiration in.

 

For example, Achilles and Agamemnon squabble over Briseis because the king of the Mycenaeans had to give up his own consort. This rift deprives the Achaeans of their finest warlord until Patroclus is slain and Achilles is convinced to come back and avenge his best friend. This may sound very petty to us, but I'm capable of recognizing the characters' choices make sense within the context of an archaic, hyper-macho warrior culture.

 

Magnus, on the other hand, doesn't just decide to go against the Emperor's edict. That, in and of itself, would be par for his character. He decides to use raw power to intrude in his father-creator's most protected domain. Even that would have been acceptable, had Magnus intended to wield his sorcery in such a way as to achieve his point without jeopardizing his father's works. Even then, McNeill could've used the old "Chaos throws a wrench in the works!" plot device and had Tzeentch super-charge what may have been intended to be a more nuanced, measured ritual, so as to cause catastrophe and get Magnus sanctioned. But no, it's Magnus who arrives like a metaphorical bull in a china shop, causing incredible damage because a being of his super-genius supposedly didn't bother to consider the consequences of his raw force against his father's wards (or didn't care about the results). Subsequently, Magnus made a number of decisions throughout the buildup and execution of his censure that are incredibly convenient to the author but make little sense otherwise. The end result is a character who is often referenced as brilliant, but whose actual depiction is that of a short-sighted, indecisive and yet oh-so vacillating individual.

And this what it really comes down to: this series has been remarkably ambitious, but I can count the number of novels in it where Primarchs are shown (not said) to be brilliant in one hand. More often than not, either the perspective of the movers and shakers is missing, or it is their (often inexplicable) errors that receive the spotlight. All that adds up, and it becomes very difficult for me to take Laurie seriously when either he or one of his characters ...

 

... talks about how the Heresy may have been this carefully calculated scheme that unfortunately went very wrong.