Marshal Loss Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 With regards to Horus still being hurt, it explicitely states that the wound only reopened as he led the final speartip on Beta-Garmon, thus suggesting that he did heal after Wolfsbane. ....which is kinda my point. So much for all-powerful-take-on-the-Emperor. Is he gonna duel Sanguinius and Big E with a crutch now? I'm being harsh, but I just found it a bit jarring, especially without yet knowing what happened in between the two novels. No, he's not going to duel Sanguinius and the Emperor with a crutch now. That is kind of the entire point of Horus' arc in this novel, and I'm unsure how anybody can leave Slaves to Darkness thinking that the malice at the palace isn't going to be close between the two main drawcards. We don't need to know what happened between the two novels. You may have found it jarring, but I didn't, because nothing happens off-screen that impacts this book. To simplify it as much as I possibly can: Horus is still hurt from Wolfsbane? Again, this is what kept taking me out of it considering we skipped over what is being hinted as an engagement even bigger than the Siege of Terra itself. What the heck was he doing that whole time then? The wound struck by Russ and his magic golden stick revealed to Horus the truth of his situation; that he, the Warmaster, is a slave who has wrought ruin on the galaxy to the point where his original motivations don't matter, and showed him the vision of pre-Chaos Horus fighting an endless tide of daemonkind. It appeared at the time that this was a metaphor for the sliver of good still within his soul, but Slaves to Darkness reveals that it was far more than a metaphor: part of Horus' soul is literally bound to the gods and is resisting falling wholly under their control. To avoid being torn apart by the Gods squabbling over his soul, he has to give himself entirely to them; mind, body, and soul. And by the end of the novel, thanks to Maloghurst, that is what happens. As far as we know, the old Lupercal is gone ("Lupercal is no more. Horus Rises."), and the Warmaster is now irrevocably set on his course. The reason why he healed at the end of Wolfsbane but had a major relapse after Beta-Garmon is that the effects of the wound were not immediately obvious; a crisis of faith and purpose that took time to bubble up and make itself visible, undermining his dedication to the cause. As for his power...Horus is quite clearly paralleled with the Emperor at the end of this novel. And yeah, he didn't kill Lorgar, but it's pretty obvious that he could have done so without effort. Through the eyes of his mask Layak saw the sight of the Warmaster flicker, blinking between images: a towering figure of black shadow, face lit by ghost-light; a warlord clad in wolfskins, his hands and face red with blood; a king cloaked in sable and crowned with burning laurels; a cloaked prince in pearl-white and gold plate. Each image slid into being and away, each as real as the one that had just passed. TLDR: Horus at the end of Wolfsbane = riven by doubt, aware of the turmoil within his soul, being torn apart by the gods Horus at the end of Slaves to Darkness = all doubt removed, wholly a slave of the ruinous powers, ready for the showdown Remember: we know that Horus would not have left the Serpent Lodge alive if not for the gods. He had to give himself to them in order to survive. There are so many metaphors here - it is no accident that his rebirth coincides with his return to Ullanor, the world on which he was proclaimed Warmaster. If Ullanor was his coronation as Warmaster of the Emperor, Slaves to Darkness is his coronation as Warmaster of Chaos. In the end, this makes the fight against the Emperor more ambiguous re: the ending, not less, because it doesn't exactly look like Horus is going to have a crisis of conscience of his own accord. Wolfsbane & Slaves to Darkness make it pretty obvious he has the power to take on the Emperor. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5178723 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fedor Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Surprising that Horus just let the Alpha Legion representative go after what amounts to a gross insult. I guess killing him would have been a bit too obvious of a "was it Omegon" situation, but just letting the Alpha Legion go seems a dubious strategic choice. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5178744 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkimaskMohawk Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Was it an insult? What was alpharius' lesson in PoD with the spear and breaking it? Maybe it was them telling Horus that the alpha legion arent all on ullanor, but still United. All subjective of course Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5178773 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc warhammer Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 TLDR: Horus at the end of Wolfsbane = riven by doubt, aware of the turmoil within his soul, being torn apart by the gods Horus at the end of Slaves to Darkness = all doubt removed, wholly a slave of the ruinous powers, ready for the showdown which is fair enough, but i would have liked to have seen something done with the post wolfsbane status quo for horus before just erasing/reversing it in StD. it could have hung around for at least another novel? or is that beta-garmon? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5178790 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Caerolion Posted October 24, 2018 Share Posted October 24, 2018 Sounds like that will be Beta-Garmon. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5178816 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc warhammer Posted October 24, 2018 Share Posted October 24, 2018 Sounds like that will be Beta-Garmon. well that was easy Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5178828 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son of Carnelian Posted November 13, 2018 Share Posted November 13, 2018 Just finished the book and I absolutely loved it. What a ride! Up there with Scars and Betrayer for me. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5190852 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scribe Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 Just got it myself as the series had slipped from my mind until the whole Siege topic came up. Book was amazing. 10/10. The only parts I glazed on were the very few fight scenes with the Iron Warrior pilot, but that was it. The opening scene was amazing. Every scene honestly was amazing, and Khârn...man that scene choked me up. This is what the Heresy should have been providing all along, not 10000 Shattered Legions books. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5203786 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkChaplain Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 To be fair, while the Shattered Legions feature in a bunch (like The Unremembered Empire, or Angel Exterminatus), books that actually are about them were basically just Deliverance Lost & Corax (though they're not really Shattered in the sense that the Iron Hands and Salamanders were), half of Vulkan Lives, Deathfire, Old Earth and Shattered Legions. The Iron Hands shared Fulgrim with the Emperor's Children and only appeared again in Feat of Iron in The Primarchs iirc. Considering that the Shattered Legions include three entire Legions, I wouldn't say that's excessive coverage, and their cameos here and there are simply due to them being, well, shattered and scattered, waging a guerilla war.. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5203862 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelborn Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 And for the sake of completeness: Angelus Exterminatus. :) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5203863 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scribe Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 Even featuring was too much for what should have been a very small set of appearances. When they are popping up all over the place that doesnt strike me as 'shattered' when you essentially have entire series dedicated to 2 of them, thats too much. The whole chain of Salamanders and Raven Guard books could have been 1 or 2 books tops. I know someone posted up a thread for 'what are your must reads' and in a 50+ book series, I'm almost positive I was under 20. More books like this, would have fixed that. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204090 Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordOfIron Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 *Cough* DamnationofPythos *Cough* Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204106 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fedor Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 I'm glad we got what we did for the shattered legions, though there definitely should have been more on the SoH, Blood Angels, Death Guard and one or two others over the course of the series before that. Once things got bigger in scale and it became clear this was going to be a long running series, i think it would have benefited from bringing in mayhbe 4-5 more writers than there was. Of course some would argue that would be even tougher to plan, too many cooks etc Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204124 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tymell Posted December 1, 2018 Share Posted December 1, 2018 I recently (now that the end is in sight) tried tallying up all the appearances of the different legions, to kind of quantify how much coverage they'd been given. It involved assigning values to novels, novellas, shorts, shared novel appearances, etc. It's open to debate exactly how much "coverage" each is worth, of course, but based on my estimations, the most covered were the Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Sons of Horus, Salamanders, Iron Hands and Word Bearers, while the least were the Blood Angels, Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Imperial Fists, World Eaters and Death Guard. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204187 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkChaplain Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 And we'll be seeing a lot more Imperial Fists, Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Death Guard and Blood Angels during the Siege anyway, while the Iron Hands, Dark Angels and Raven Guard (who had two numbered books total to "themselves", despite featuring Alpha Legion, Imperial Fists, Space Wolves, Sons of Horus etc) all bowed out already. The Ultramarines likely won't be seen again until the finale either. I'm not saying that there shouldn't have been more Blood Angels action before the Siege, but having less Shattered Legions would not have meant more BA being written whatsoever. It'd have just meant that neither had decent coverage. I'd argue that the lack of Blood Angels and Death Guard for so long had more to do with both of them being basically locked to James Swallow (to the point where apparently he'll be writing Sanguinius' Primarchs novel despite not having a real idea for it, just out of having dibs on the Angel. And despite other authors to have stated interest in the book). That, and the way Fear to Tread was handled, with the end setting up the Imperium Secundus arc ahead of time, basically rushed through their big engagement pre-Siege Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204240 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tymell Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 And we'll be seeing a lot more Imperial Fists, Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Death Guard and Blood Angels during the Siege anyway, while the Iron Hands, Dark Angels and Raven Guard (who had two numbered books total to "themselves", despite featuring Alpha Legion, Imperial Fists, Space Wolves, Sons of Horus etc) all bowed out already. The Ultramarines likely won't be seen again until the finale either. Exactly, I'm thinking that too. The Siege series will likely help redress that balance at least somewhat. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204371 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc warhammer Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 in regards to balance, i suppose if the shattered legions didn’t get some air time during the heresy pre siege, then there would have been no real opportunity to showcase them at all? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204873 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc warhammer Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 oh, and just finished this book: unpopular opinion…i thought it was just “ok”. It only really kicked in for me in the last third and i skipped huge chunks along the way. fight me. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204874 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scribe Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 I've been fighting too many wrong opinion's on other boards/games lately, I've not got it in me for this, but skipping huge chunks? I mean I guess I cannot ask 'which' since you skipped them, but very little here was totally skip worthy to me. As to the Shattered Legions, both the RG and Salamander Arcs should have been done in 2 books, and the entire Imperium Secundus arc should never have happened. :p Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204907 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarl Kjaran Coldheart Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 oh, and just finished this book: unpopular opinion…i thought it was just “ok”. It only really kicked in for me in the last third and i skipped huge chunks along the way. fight me. Im not going to fight and I made sure to trudge through every page of the book...and dont understand the praise it got here. it certainly wasnt Pythos or Abyss, but nowhere near the heights discussed earlier. Just my opinion of course Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204920 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc warhammer Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 I've been fighting too many wrong opinion's on other boards/games lately, I've not got it in me for this, but skipping huge chunks? I mean I guess I cannot ask 'which' since you skipped them, but very little here was totally skip worthy to me. As to the Shattered Legions, both the RG and Salamander Arcs should have been done in 2 books, and the entire Imperium Secundus arc should never have happened. if an opinion is just a personal assertion not based on fact...i'm not sure it can be wrong. just my opinion, of course when i say skip, i don't mean i just randomly deciced not to read chapter 5, 8 and 16 cos i hate those numbers. maybe "skim" is more accurate. it started with the iron warrior dude, then it spread to layak's bits and then i was breezing through entire chapters. i got the gist of each page in a speed-read sort of way. oh, and just finished this book: unpopular opinion…i thought it was just “ok”. It only really kicked in for me in the last third and i skipped huge chunks along the way. fight me. Im not going to fight and I made sure to trudge through every page of the book...and dont understand the praise it got here. it certainly wasnt Pythos or Abyss, but nowhere near the heights discussed earlier. Just my opinion of course absolutely, not a bad book, but just not gripping (for me). i'm also not a huge fan of horus' stop/start character arc over the course of the heresy. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204924 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scribe Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 ;) The Iron Warrior was the low point of the book, I won't argue against that. Layak imo was a neat case, and I really came to enjoy him by the end. I liked all the SoH characters. I love, seriously love, anything that gets into the Webway, or Warp, or Daemon World's. So you can imagine those all scored major points for me. I also am in this for the examination of the fact these 'super beings' are broken. From Horus and the Primarchs to Khârn and down to the role players in the book, this is the story of the Legions broken, beaten down, their minds fraying. The little tidbit on leadership and loyalty at the end from Fulgrim really got me too. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204940 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mc warhammer Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 layak definitely became more interesting for me in part 3. ekkadon was the one constant bright spot for me, and even though i'm not a fan of horus' arc, i did like his depiction in this book more than most. remind me what fulgrim said? i might have missed that or forgotten... Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204947 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scribe Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 Dont have the book on me, but it was the line about not willing to take on a job, leaving it to others, breeding resentment. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5204964 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockagh Posted December 3, 2018 Share Posted December 3, 2018 So you’re suggesting they should have a child together and then offer it to the Black Library Gods? I’m game! A ‘star child’ as such?? Hhhhmmm perhaps prophetic Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348222-hh-51-slaves-to-darkness/page/11/#findComment-5205039 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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