What's the Point of the Horus Heresy Now?

[bluntblade]

@bluntblade not sure I agree my post is headcannon. This thread has ebbed and flowed around how we might change the HH series (which tenuously tied into OP’s point).

 

Head Cannon is surely how you would change the lore. This was more about how we would change editorial/publication decisions for the HH series?

That's what I mean - we have a thread for that :)

[Xisor]

Right, but is anything lost by not reading it?

 

I don't think so, so in my series I would exclude the whole Vulkan arc.

Pfft. Kyme gets a lot of flakk, even from the likes of me at times, but the reveal surrounding this bit is ace.

 

It's a touch sad that it went essentially nowhere in Unremembered Empire, and UE had next to no impact on the substantive side of Deathfire.

 

But there's elements that are worthy. If Brynngar can be remembered fondly, so too can this.

 

‘Cut my bonds and find out, brother…’

 

Curze laughed. ‘Still fierce, eh, Vulkan? The monster within isn’t cowed quite yet, is he?’

 

I growled, ‘Kill me or fight me, just get it over with.’

 

Curze shook his head.

 

‘I didn’t want you to beg. I don’t want you to beg. I would not have you brought low like that. You are better than that, Vulkan. Better than me at least. Or so you think.’

 

‘I’m not begging, I’m giving you a choice. One way or the other, you will have to kill me. As a dog or as your equal.’

 

‘Equal?’ Curze snapped in a sudden burst of apoplexy. ‘Are we peers then, you and I? Are we

, bonded by common cause and blood?’

[Scribe]

A great song call out, is not enough at all to redeem that book, or the entire arc honestly lol.

[mc warhammer]

i mean, shared universes are just that...shared. there's always going to be star authors and there's always going to be a baseline

 

the question might be "do the majority of heresy books fall below the baseline?"

[Scribe]

i mean, shared universes are just that...shared. there's always going to be star authors and there's always going to be a baseline

 

the question might be "do the majority of heresy books fall below the baseline?"

 

Yes, probably. I'd have to go book by book, but almost certainly the majority of books fall well short of what I consider the 'baseline'.

[mc warhammer]

who's a baseline author for you? what are the standards? comparative novels outside of the 40k range?

[Scribe]

who's a baseline author for you? what are the standards? comparative novels outside of the 40k range?

 

French/Wraight/ADB form the baseline for me within BL.

[mc warhammer]

so who are the star writers then?

[mc warhammer]

let me guess...you're gonna say abnett haha

[Scribe]

let me guess...you're gonna say abnett haha

 

You would be mistaken there. :D

 

They are the baseline, and the stars. 

[mc warhammer]

right, that's a different definition of baseline to what i proposed

 

we might say that all warnerbros studios films must be directed by nolan, but that ...just might...not happen. reasons

[DukeLeto69]

 

 

who's a baseline author for you? what are the standards? comparative novels outside of the 40k range?

French/Wraight/ADB form the baseline for me within BL.

You meant to say:

 

Abnett/ADB/Farrer/Fehervari/French/Wraight !!!!!

 

There corrected it for you

[Scribe]

I actually have not read Fehervari, but hope to soon. Farrer is great and so was Reynolds.

 

Abnett is below those main 3 for me.

[Fire Golem]

I actually have not read Fehervari, but hope to soon. Farrer is great and so was Reynolds.

 

Abnett is below those main 3 for me.

No way?!

[Scribe]

I assume you jest, my thoughts on him should be well known. :p

[Fire Golem]

I assume you jest, my thoughts on him should be well known.

I jest indeed ;)

[DukeLeto69]

I actually have not read Fehervari, but hope to soon. Farrer is great and so was Reynolds.

 

Abnett is below those main 3 for me.

No just no! Ha ha of course I know that is the case for you and totally your prerogative (you are wrong though

Edited September 4, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Kelborn]

Hm...

It began with discussing the reasoning behind the HH series, etc. and now it's about how would who have done the series and which author is favoured by whom....

 

Could it be that we're in off-topic territory again?

Hm....

[DukeLeto69]

Errr yeah soz

[Volt]

it's easy in a perfect world.  or one we imagine to be perfect. no complications...no rocket science needed. 

 

but if marketing interferes? that's a block. if investors interfere? that's a block. if an author gets a better offer elsewhere? that's a block. the showrunner or editor changes? block.

 

and even if you have continuity of project management from beginning to end; you better have a hot showrunner or producer or editor to wrangle a project like that, with an iron fist and they better be experienced.

 

but it also depends on where we're aiming: what level of coherence? what's the next bar up for coherence? the coherence we currently see in the siege books? the coherence in a comparable shared universe franchise? or tolkien level world-building coherence?

 

tolkien level? sounds like tv level continuity where one episode has to pick up seamlessly from the last; that requires a tonne of money and time and hours and coordination. as i understand it though, the work flow and payment systems for tie-in novels don't work that way.

 

comparable shared universes? i read some doctor who and dragonlance when i was a kid. outside of the weis and hickman triologies, i'd say they were on par with the horus heresy effort.

 

siege level? well, we know they can pull that off under the right circumstances.

The issue isn't the matter of a shared universe being inconsistent so long as it all vaguely tracks and characters do not do 180's. But characters often do 180's in personality, and the only real matter of inconsistency that I can think of is mostly a matter of "biggatons" which can be filed under literary irrelevance as how powerful a character is doesn't really matter in terms of writing a story (and who think purely in that matter are doomed to be mediocre authors at best). But that the Horus Heresy utterly fails in the most important regard, telling an actual good story. Most of its filler that can be simply binned to no loss of the story of the Heresy as irrelevant side shows or plain and simple fan service that doesn't actually do anything.

 

The stories that are vital to the action in terms of driving contact for the tale of the Heresy suffer horrifically from being persistently side tracked with utterly meaningless plot hooks and twists that serve zero purpose but to edge a fanbase via vague promises of hints or random twists that do nothing but to muddle the waters, and forget that the core of the Heresy is the tale between a father and son (or brothers, if you go by the oldest heresy lore) and the fall of the Imperium. Dan obviously here is the most guilty of this, with his obsession with perpetuals, cabals, Astarte, and Erde being function-less affairs that do nothing to actually drive the story, merely detracting from it while missing the point of the Heresy in the first place. And it's your looking to such fiction as Doctor Who or Dragonlance I think is the problem. As frankly as literary works (in terms of the writing of Who, not the cinematography or performances) sucks and is nothing to look too as any form of good art. It's mediocre serialized content that degraded over time and merely serves more of an example of why you need an exit strategy for any long term project lest it become a muddled mess with no end in sight as profit takes precedence over any degree of quality (which is partly why any good writing teacher in high school and college veritably scalds the idea of an outline into your head, because they're invaluable to keeping control).

 

When I think of stories, I never ever think of such bad projects simply because they were disappointments in the first place. I always look to classical works (either ancient or more contemporary, but generally what is upheld as by most to be 'pretty damn good') as a form of foundation for what a good story contains. The subplots of the Horus Heresy would be like, if in the middle of Lord of the Rings there was a sudden spinoff about what Rosie was doing in the Shire. Certainly it provides some fleshing out for the Shire, but functionally it's derailing everything to focus on somebody who does not matter in the context of the tale being told. Having books about what Lion El' Jonson was doing out in the boonies of the galaxy was certainly something, but as a Dark Angels fan I don't need to know what the entire First Legion was even doing in a tale that orbits around Horus and the Emperor, unless the Lion's tale is specifically intersecting with one of those points. And while you can simply skip those books, that both ends up with skipping most of the entire book series in question, and the few books that do focus on the Emperor and Horus do nothing to develop either person as a sympathetic character. Quite the opposite, they either obfuscate their personality on purpose, make them out to be a frank jackass, or in Horus' case take place when he's already become a chaos stooge robbed of any agency and is basically a meat robot marauding across the galaxy.

 

What the Horus Heresy needed to focus on above all else is who Horus and the Emperor were as people. There should be more scenes with Horus and the Emperor simply conversing, not with each other necessarily, but being the focus of the tale. Not a bajillion instances of marines shooting marines, which is not only hopelessly boring after literal decades of bolter porn, but serves no purpose in the narrative outside of the quintessential scenes of combat. And even then the climax should be focused on the passion of both figures. If the final battle between Horus and the Emperor is just a cool fight scene with flashy descriptions of blows laid it is missing the point of the conflict. What makes a conflict actually matter is the emotional stakes involved. To draw an example from cinema, the defining seen and climax of the original Star Wars trilogy is when Luke tosses the lightsaber and staunchly refuses to repeat the sins of the father and submit to his anger. If it had just been a lightsaber duel followed by Luke cleaving Vader's head, the entire scene would have pointless and the action would have essentially just been gratuitous action fulfilling a similar line of pleasure as pornography. No substance, purely aesthetics. If the Siege of Terra series ends with the Emperor just noping Horus away with mind bullets after a flashy fight scene with no emotional conflict between the two figures, there was no point to a Horus Heresy series in the first place. The same end could have been achieved by a child crudely smashing respective models together making laser noises.

 

But the problem I see with the HH itself is that, due to basically doing nothing to develop either the Horus or the Emperor in any respect, there's no tension in the first place. Nothing is felt when they clash because the fight is known to be superficial before it happens. The end is predetermined. The means of its occurrence invokes no emotion, it is merely a stale duel between beings we have no cause to care for. It is pure aesthetics, with no substance to be found at all.

 

To concisely summarize my point in a single sentence; without passion, there is nothing.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Volt

[Scribe]

 

 

But the problem I see with the HH itself is that, due to basically doing nothing to develop either the Horus or the Emperor in any respect, there's no tension in the first place. Nothing is felt when they clash because the fight is known to be superficial before it happens. The end is predetermined. The means of its occurrence invokes no emotion, it is merely a stale duel between beings we have no cause to care for. It is pure aesthetics, with no substance to be found at all.

 

To concisely summarize my point in a single sentence; without passion, there is nothing.

 

 

This is what I've come to as well. The Heresy simple failed to deliver on its basic premise, or it never even defined one for itself.

 

We absolutely needed more Emperor and Horus.

[Volt]

 

 

 

But the problem I see with the HH itself is that, due to basically doing nothing to develop either the Horus or the Emperor in any respect, there's no tension in the first place. Nothing is felt when they clash because the fight is known to be superficial before it happens. The end is predetermined. The means of its occurrence invokes no emotion, it is merely a stale duel between beings we have no cause to care for. It is pure aesthetics, with no substance to be found at all.

 

To concisely summarize my point in a single sentence; without passion, there is nothing.

 

 

This is what I've come to as well. The Heresy simple failed to deliver on its basic premise, or it never even defined one for itself.

 

We absolutely needed more Emperor and Horus.

 

One of the other problems is the entire nature of Horus' fall. Instead of possessing agency and being a gradual slip into the abyss or built tension suddenly exploding, the only two means of interpreting Horus' fall is that either he was mind thralled to the will of Chaos upon being stabbed or fell to argumentation that should have been deflected by a child. One makes him out to be an idiot and thus is sub-optimal, and the first option has the most support to back it up with subsequent books. Yet if Horus is a puppet of the Chaos Gods there isn't even a fall in the normal sense because his actions are in as much his own as a man doped against his will who then drives his car through a random family. Tragic certainly but only in the accidental sense. His actions are not his own so he cannot bear blame, and there is no room for real tension between Horus, the Emperor, and the Primarch brood because they'd be/they are arguing with what is just a chaos automoton. You can't make him reflect on the horror of his choices or try to bring him back from the brink - he's simply possessed.

 

Horus' fall needed to have some modicum of agency so we actually feel something for evil Horus. Otherwise he's the current mustache twirling Chaos Lord, little different from the dime-a-dozen terminator wearing lords of the rest of the canon with similar puppeted actions. And unlike other Chaos Lords he didn't at least willingly throw himself in the abyss, he was merely shanked with a unique dagger.

[Scribe]

Thats why at this point, all we can hope is that the series wraps with a considerable focus on the tragedy that is the Emperor and his plan. Its gotta be all about his failures, his choices, and the end outcome being his doing.

[Karhedron]

Having books about what Lion El' Jonson was doing out in the boonies of the galaxy was certainly something, but as a Dark Angels fan I don't need to know what the entire First Legion was even doing in a tale that orbits around Horus and the Emperor, unless the Lion's tale is specifically intersecting with one of those points.

I don't entirely agree. The 40K setting is huge and lots of armies have background that is key to their character. Yes Horus' betrayal of the Emperor is the heart of the story, that does not make non-intersecting stuff irrelevant. The falls of several of the Primarchs do much to establish the character of their forces in the 41st millenium (granted some of these stories are better told than others). Reducing the HH to focusing too much on Horus and the Emperor takes away from some of the sweeping scope of the universe GW has made.

 

Granted there are some pretty tedious books in the HH series but relatively few strike me as totally skippable.

[Volt]

 

Having books about what Lion El' Jonson was doing out in the boonies of the galaxy was certainly something, but as a Dark Angels fan I don't need to know what the entire First Legion was even doing in a tale that orbits around Horus and the Emperor, unless the Lion's tale is specifically intersecting with one of those points.

I don't entirely agree. The 40K setting is huge and lots of armies have background that is key to their character. Yes Horus' betrayal of the Emperor is the heart of the story, that does not make non-intersecting stuff irrelevant. The falls of several of the Primarchs do much to establish the character of their forces in the 41st millenium (granted some of these stories are better told than others). Reducing the HH to focusing too much on Horus and the Emperor takes away from some of the sweeping scope of the universe GW has made.

 

Granted there are some pretty tedious books in the HH series but relatively few strike me as totally skippable.

 

The sweeping scope is the problem itself. The Horus Heresy isn't a story about people not actually present at its key events because their life and death does not matter to the main arc. It's fat to be trimmed. It perfectly fits the definition of irrelevancy because it's information that is unneeded for the main story as background events that have no affect on the main arc. Books on what the Lion was up to could be a series unto themselves, but when shoved into the Horus Heresy it's pulling the reader away from the main arc and investment to run off to look at the completely pointless adventures of some guy with the events of said adventures never even intersecting with the main story at the end.

 

The problem is that the sweeping scope of the concept comes at the detriment of all, degrading the book series to focus on irrelevant nerd trivia regarding who was doing what instead of focusing on the nature of the driving actions of the core narrative. If we need background lore details that function is provided by the Black Books made with the express purpose of fleshing things out. Primarchs should get coverage, but when their story is relevant to the main thrust of Horus' fall and the Emperor's hubris. Otherwise you get bloated threads off the yarn that are nothing more than gratuitous fan service.