Sanguinius and his flaws or otherwise

[carlisimo]

I thought Sanguinius was pretty well written in Fear to Tread - it’s the other Blood Angels (except Amit) that are bland and indistinguishable from each other. The book still didn’t give me any impression that Sanguinius was warmaster material but I don’t think that was the point. (As an example of that, the Alpharius scene seemed to be more about showing the Blood Angels’ initial naïveté; a warmaster candidate would’ve found a way to either lead Alpharius or predict his actions and coordinate without him knowing.)

 

But after Fear to Tread’s loss of innocence moment, subsequent books have portrayed Sanguinius as brooding, mopey, self-obsessed… anything but powerful. Not even interesting, imo. More of a father than a leader. If he’s on a typical character growth curve, he’s been in the negative part of it for a long time.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Sang definitely broods a lot and I think we need a piece that pulls him out of this at this point. However, to be fair, Fear to Tread wasn't just a loss of innocence moment for Sanguinius and the BAs. It was major psychic trauma that almost saw their destruction. I can see why he is reflective and a bit overprotective of his legion at this moment. But, you're right Brother carlisimo, that moment needs to be over, and the Blood Angels and their Primarch need to get back in the fight with all glory and fury.

[Leonaides]

I could have sworn i once read a little snippet about how in the dark days of the heresy the blood angels were a beacon for the loyalists. That while the Fists were the emperors shield and Dorn his praetorian, the blood angels were his blade unleashed against the heretics across the galaxy, with Sanguinus his warmaster. Must have been 3rd or maybe 4th ed, possibly in a wd commentary for codex release or simething like that. Its a shame that the shattered legions have actually done more than the entire blood angels legion for the whole hh, and it looks like they've pretty much painted them into a corner now with only the siege left to show anything about them. Which will be overshadowed by the rest of what happened there...

[DogWelder]

Another thing that frustrates me about Sanguinius is that he hasn't shown any kind of capability to be more than just a great fighter through his own doing.

 

Guilliman became a great statesman who built the 500 Worlds. The Lion became a military mastermind who won the greatest amount of victories for the Imperium. Dorn had his own Empire of Inwit and then went to work on the Imperial Palace/Terra.

 

Sanguinius has become a symbol of awe and respect for billions across the Imperium but that wasn't through his own doing. He was just a figurehead who passively received the admiration of others.  We see this in Imperium Secundus. While yes, it made sense for him to leave most of the work to Guilliman and the Lion, he could have done something at least.

 

Maybe a scene of him using his charm to negotiate his way around angry Ultramarian governors who felt abandoned after the Shadow Crusade. Or a morale raising speech of some kind. Or better yet, him having the Blood Angels act as relief forces across Ultramar to protect vulnerable civilians from remaining traitors. 

 

Something that shows us the value he brings to the Imperium besides killing demons/traitors.

[Indefragable]

The IX Legion gets so little mention during the entire Imperium Secundus arc that it borders near comical. Seriously, as far as the BL books go, Sanguinius and the bulk of the IX Legion after Signus arrive in Ultramar...and then show up punching out during Ruinstorm. Otherwise there is 0 sighting of the entire Legion other than Azkaellon and the Sanguinary Guard, Raldoran for all of 2 seconds, and a couple BA in the crowd during

the trial of Konrad Curze

. Even Sanguinius is guarded by mostly Ultramarines aside from his handful of golden nipple dudes. Seriously. It's comical how much the BA do not appear during that arc.

 

One HAS to believe that the IX Legion was off doing something during that period. Scouting for routes through the Ruinstorm, hunting for survivors, or chasing down traitors. Anything. The only hint we have is the Scouring of Gilden's Star from FW Book 6. According to Lexicanum:

Hidden Content

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Scouring_of_Gilden%27s_Star

The Scouring of Gilden's Star was a battle during the Horus Heresy. Fought in 010.M31, during the battle elements of the Blood Angels fought a long and bloody campaign against the Word Bearers near the Galactic Core on the borders of Imperium Secundus. The Blood Angels proved merciless in scouring worlds which had embraced the Ruinous Powers and the teachings of the Dark Apostles of the Word Bearers. Most infamously, all seven worlds of Gilden's Star were purged. Ultimately, the battle resulted in the near total destruction of both armies.^[1]

 

...and even that seems like a loss for the BA, considering if that's the only thing they were doing, an entire Legion to come out even against a pocket of the enemy is an epically Pyrrhic victory at the very best.

[bluntblade]

You'd think it would also open up the possibility of several shorts exploring different Blood Angels as they try to establish some sort of business as usual.

[DogWelder]

Especially since the current books seem to imply that Sanguinius basically did nothing on Macragge for 4 full years of the Heresy (which is 12 years by our calendar since Imperial years are a 1000 days).

[Indefragable]

You'd think it would also open up the possibility of several shorts exploring different Blood Angels as they try to establish some sort of business as usual.

 

There is a short (and that is quite literal....it's like 10 pages if that) about the 50ish BA left to hold Baal called Lost Sons: https://www.blacklibrary.com/the-horus-heresy/quick-reads/lost_sons.html

 

It's not a bad little read though it's honestly so short that it's hard to make note of anything at all.

 

A Warden (HH-era Chaplain) and around 50 brothers of the BA are tasked with keeping Baal functional while Sanguinius and the IX are at Signus. It starts at a point where no contact has been made with the IX for a long, long time. One of Malcador's totally-not-proto-Grey-Knight dudes shows up and says that Malcador is assuming command of all remaining BA assets/Baal and that the IX will be disbanded and absorbed into other forces. The gist of the narrative is the Warden, the other BA, and the Baalite mortals themselves all ready to come to blows and basically rebel because they call bull- :cuss on Malcador's order and say that if Sanguinius is alive, then they still follow his orders. If Sanguinius is dead, then their loyalty is to his name and his vision and he would want them to fight on as they are.

 

It's neat-o, but nothing epically revealing.

 

What is cool though is just how integrated the Baal mortals are into the BA legion: they are given genuine status and in fact not a single Astartes is on any of the fleet assets in orbit: they are all entirely crewed by IX Legion mortal auxiliaries so great is the Warden's faith in them. The mortals feel they are just as much a part of the Legion in their own way. Pretty cool just what sort of effect Sanguinius' and IX Legion is on their home system.

[nagashnee]

See i always hated Lost sons as it made little in universe sense. A legion homeworld would not have a garrison of 50, much more so if for years they have had no where to send the marine they MUST be making in great numbers to feed the crusade (even assuming on fleet and off world recruitment). I mean just think of the numbers of apothecaries and techmarines you would need to keep 30k Baal going. Not to mention orbital assets and the like. 

 

If nothing else it should be a small scale caliban, with thousands of marines having been made and now just waiting. The fact that future fw books had baal come under attack/ act like a loyalist rallying point ( iirc) makes the numbers even more silly. 

 

Not even going to touch how Malcador expected to get the gear across the galaxy during the heresy. 

[pandion40]

Why do people think so little has been written about the Blood Angels, as stated above it seems the lost legions have more of an impact on the Heresy so far, it was comical how little we saw the Blood Angels in the unremembered empire arc, this was one of many reasons I stopped reading Black Library books for a long time. I still haven’t caught up but it sounds like the BA situation doesn’t improve much.

 

Blood Angels are one of the more popular Chapters/legions but I remember Guy Haley saying he was surprised at how little was written about them when he was writing Dante and Devastation of Baal. That’s 40k but it’s part of the same issue I think.

 

I remember authors used to have pet factions that only they could write about, and Blood Angels were Swallow’s faction, so at the start nobody wrote about them because it was seen as swallow’s job and everyone loaded down their schedule with other factions. Later on this was no longer the case but maybe later BA were a victim of a simple lack of interest. The way I see the Heresy novels being developed is their’s a skeleton of events that must happen, Istvaan, Signus, Calth, Prospero. The rest seems to have been developed by authors and others pitching ideas. It seems nobody was pitching ideas for the Blood Angels, indeed by the books I read authors were actively avoiding writing about them.

[Fedor]

Didn't Swallow have some noted success with some books outwith BL? Him focusing on that maybe contributed to the gap in Blood Angels stuff.

 

Some legions or characters have just slipped through the cracks...the Iron Warriors, Blood Angels and Death Guard really come to mind. Ferrus could have done with some earlier focus on the Iron Hands that could have set him up as the Ned Stark of the series instead of just a small supporting character part with McNeil  squeezing everything into one book, but obviously the HH wasn't as planned out back then. The lack of Blood Angels and Death Guard are harder to explain, but hopefully we'll get plenty of Sanguinius in the siege books.

[pandion40]

My fear is the siege of terra is going to be like infinity war, almost all payoff that works because of all the character development and plots that went into the 17? movies before it. But the Blood angels, one of the big players in the siege are going into it with little or no character development beforehand. That lack of prior development is the biggest problem I had with fear to tread and as a big Blood Angel fan I’m worried it’s going to happen again in the siege of terra.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Reading through Ruinstorm, it's actually almost comical, as one character, a Blood Angels Librarian, even thinks to himself that Sanguinius has been a shadow of his former self ever since what happened on Signus Prime.

 

We had better get a Primarchs novel about him in his prime.

[mc warhammer]

The question one must ask, when meditating on Sanguinius, is:

 

 

Was Sanguinius meant to have his wings?

 

 

Were the wings part of his design...his nature, or were they caused by the external forces of Chaos, Baal's hostile environment, or some other source...his nurturing?

 

Hidden Content

 

There is no doubt that Sanguinius thought about this for most of his life. Of the 18 demi-gods who were charged with seeing the grandest human endeavor ever brought to life, Sanguinius was different. His difference was apparent and obvious and inescapable. No Primarch (unless II or XI were mermaids or something) was as clearly far removed from baseline humanity as he. This contrast was even more extreme given the atheistic nature of the Imperium and Sang's overt religious symbolism.

 

From the very first moments of his conscious life, when the leader of the Blooded stayed his knife upon discovering the winged youth, to his foreseen death at his favorite brother's claws, Sanguinius had to prove his humanity. He had to prove his role in the universe, let alone at the head of his father's vanguard. The existential conflict of this "fey mutant" (to use Angron's words) informed his life, his purpose, and his actions. It was part of where his emotional nature came from: even demi-god can not contain his emotions when your very being appears at odds with the purpose for which you were created.

 

And those emotions were as much a strength as they were a perceived weakness. For just as melancholy and sorrow could be near-debilitating, so too could righteous fury be unstoppable in combat and victorious exultation be inspiring and energizing. What other Primarch weeps for his sons? Many pay lip service to their dead. Or discuss their concerns with an operation's potential cost to their geneseed. But Sanguinius so loves his genetic progeny that he tattoos his own flesh to mark their loss. How inspiring is that to his troops! <real world analogies removed>

 

No other Primarch --excluding the legitimately damaged Angron -- wore his flaws so plainly for all to see. Even Curze cloaked his deranged sense of justice in a Joker-esque sort of gallows humor and nihilism.

 

And we have not even talked about the Red Thirst. For the wings are but the outward aberration that he can not escape. And the genetic flaw is far more potentially damning.

 

It is no wonder that after Signus Prime--when everything he had been told wasn't real was proven to be quite lethally and existentially real--he was shackled by introspection and melancholy. For if daemons are real....then are angels, too? And if angels are real, then how can their blood be so corrupting?

 

So what was Sanguinius' flaw?

 

Self-doubt.

 

"My sin is the greatest." He says in the opening lines of Ruinstorm. As @Manchu Warlord points out ( http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/346586-sanguinius-and-his-flaws-or-otherwise/?p=5066777 ), during the Imperium Secundus arc, people are operating on their genuine belief at the time that the Emperor is dead and Ultramar is all that is left. And in those moments, two of his brothers point out that Sanguinius is the best leader of them.

 

He could not see what others' saw in him. He knew the power his own imagery and abilities had over others, especially mortals, yet he could not see it himself.

 

It was no wonder Horus and Sanguinius were the best of friends: they were two sides of the same coin, in many ways. Both were peerless warriors and effortlessly charismatic leaders. Yet Horus' excellence came from a well of arrogance born of compensating for his daddy issues: his fear of abandonment...a flaw that ultimately led Horus into the titular Heresy that shaped the galaxy for 10,000+ years. Horus needed to be the best at all times to maintain that status; he had to be First Among Equals. Sanguinus' needed to be the best because he never could be the best in his own eyes. While others saw how his wings (both literal and metaphorical) could propel him to great heights, he only saw how they held him back and distanced him. Sanguinius admired Horus' confidence, how effortlessly he won at all he did, whether through charisma or martial might. Horus admired Sanguinius' ability to go toe-to-toe with all other in spite of his lack of confidence. I imagine Horus and Sanguinius sitting at a bar together, sharing a pitcher....Horus drinking in Sang's praise who he values more than anyone's but the Emperor's....and Sanguinius allowing Horus to actually build him up a bit and actually take a compliment from someone.

 

And it could well be that self-doubt that almost cost the loyalist war effort and indeed the survival of humanity.

 

At Signus, Sanguinius is so ready to sacrifice himself to save his sons when put in the conundrum by the two greater daemons. Why? Because he feels he has no other option when later on--when he puts his mind to it--he epically owns both daemons with his own bare hands (and gets some good one-liners in as well). And Signus can be seen as a microcosm of Sanguinius' effect on the HH as a whole: If Sanguinius had only done something sooner then perhaps Horus' efforts could have been defeated much sooner and at far less cost.

 

If Sanguinius didn't actually believe that the Emperor was dead, then why didn't he act on his beliefs earlier (I mean, he is Regent-Emperor, no one can tell him no) and probe the Ruinstorm for routes like they finally start doing at the beginning of that titular novel. If he does believe the Emperor is dead, then sure, heavy is the head that wears the crown and all, but dammit…do something!

 

Yet of course it is easy for us to judge since we are not the ones that are living a lie…we are not the ones who are trapped between being a hypocrite or the bad egg that should not have hatched…

 

 

TL;DR:

...if Sanguinius was meant to have his wings, then that meant he was supposed to be an angel…and what role does an angel play in Imperial Reason? He is a walking hypocrisy. If he was not meant to have his wings, then he is an aberration…a mutant…a walking flaw to the Emperor's design. He has failed before he has even begun.

Either possibility catches him in an existential crisis that he cannot mentally escape from. His vision is obscured to the point that only moments of extremes clear the fog from his eyes and allows his true inner nature of the angelic protector to come out. And that is the best hope all of humanity has against the encroaching tide of Horus' chaos. For Horus's flawless exterior hides a shallow core while Sanguinius' outward self-doubt belies an empowering righteous vision.

 

 

"Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle."

 

-G.K. Chesteron

 

the dude who looks like an angel stayed loyal

 

while the dude who looked like the reaper, the dude who looked like a goth with claws and the dude with one eye all turned “bad”

 

certainly looks like it was all on purpose

[carlisimo]

On purpose by the Emperor, or by Chaos? The primarchs have two “parents” working against each other.

[Brother Lunkhead]

As I recollect from the old fluff, Sanguinius' wings are not part of the Emperor's design. But even if it is a chaos taint I think Brother mc put it best, "the dude who looks like an angel stayed loyal". That's good enough for me 

[Manchu warlord]

Why does wings have to mean being an angel? Why can't it be... Umm... A swan? Swans are beautiful birds, and Sanguinius is a beautiful Primarch.

[Aothaine]

It's not a matter of emo Sanguinius to me, so long as it's handled well. It certainly could be played in a way that's very shallow indeed, but in the hands of AD-B, Wraight or French it could be really quite powerful.

 

 

I really hope AD-B writes the book. I really enjoy his writing style. Also, after reading Devastation of Baal I think Guy Haley would also be an amazing author for the book.

 

Something else they could do is write several books that are written from the different perspectives. Horus, Sanguinius, etc.. If done correctly it could be very very cool!

 

[mc warhammer]

Why does wings have to mean being an angel? Why can't it be... Umm... A swan? Swans are beautiful birds, and Sanguinius is a beautiful Primarch.

the blood swan legion. can totally see it

[TheRealMcCagh]

Swans are pretty flawed and terrible creatures on the inside. I guess it still fits

[Leonaides]

you certainly dont want to get in a fight with one...

[Lord_Caerolion]

And so would that make Flesh Tearers geese? The horrible, rage-filled cousins of swans?

[bluntblade]

Take it from a kayaker. Swans rage way harder than geese.

[Lord_Caerolion]

True, I'd thought I may have gotten it the wrong way around.

[mc warhammer]

i'm assuming the geese chapter would be a successor? the geese resplendent? the goose tearers? the honkers