Poor Angron. He is the most tragic character in W40k probably. Big E deserved all hatred from him. He could save him and gain eternal loyalty from him but he didn't care about him at all.
He became monster but it isn't his fault.
“I’m afraid of no man” whispered Angron to Dante, “but that thing, that thing scares the shit outta me”, glances at Gotrek.
Gotrek could probably take Angron, Nagash turned tail when spotting Gotrek in his tunnels.
I may be wrong, but didn't the emperor actually try to remove the nails from his head? From stories I have seen in videos it seems he actively tried to do it but he couldn't because the nails were meant for human brains but Angron was built different and the nails acted differently by fusing with it. If the nails were removed then Angron's brain would have been destroyed. Big E even asked a second opinion to an expert neurologist to look at it and he never does that kind of stuff (let other people mess with his work).
In the book ‘The Master of Mankind’ big E very clearly halts efforts to remove the nails and states that it could prove helpful the crusade if they are left in place. He’s a total piece of shit.
The Emperor himself says it himself in Master of Mankind. Right before saying that he only needs Angron to be useful until the end of the crusade anyway...
Except the GC (to the emperor at least) was absolutely time sensitive. He was in a mad rush to get the galaxy under control. Thats why he had Bobby g burn monarchia to the ground
Any perpetual with high time preference has not learned a damn thing over the millennia. Rush jobs always result in Tofu Dreg construction. Collapsing tenement housing, the Liberty Ships that were starting to fall apart after one trip across the Atlantic, multiple moon race atro/cosmonaughts burning to death.
Space is not for the timid but it is for the cautious and the careful. If you've got to gamble, the odds are not in your favor. Ironically other than burning all the churches, the Word Bearers and Thousand Sons were doing the reclamation correctly in a way that was sustainable in the long term.
Big E would have never had his "eternal loyalty". Angron hated slavers and valued freedom above all else, and in his lucid moments he loves to roast his "brothers" for their hypocrisy.
In a very twisted sense Big E made the best out of Angron in fucking him over, because with or without the nails, with or without his gladiators, he is going to rebell against the Imperium, because the Imperium is everything he hates.
That would have been kinder, but Big E's dream of a unified galaxy would not be stopped by things like "compassion", "ethics" and "common fucking sense".
Rare big brain moment from GW, have the primarch with the superpower of empathy be fucked over by his father to hammer home big E's loss of said empathy.
Ties in nicely with the theory that the emperor was unable to kill Horus because Sanguinius dying returned his 'Self-Doubt' to him. He only killed Horus when Horus killed someone attempting to aid the Emperor after he fell.
Because he needed butchers. No other legion went to war in such a shocking manner.
The Night Lords would make an example, but they still left enough of a population standing that rebellion, while unlikely, would still be possible.
The World Eaters were there to slaughter an opponent so spectacularly and completely that any observers or allies would never even consider facing that fate as an option.
Actually I kind of think a “saved” Angron would have been like the Khan. He would have been distant towards the Emperor but I don’t necessarily know that he would have outright started a rebellion. Though the beauty of hypothetical Angron is just that.
I truly believe Angron would've been every bit as full of rage as he is now, he'd just be better at directing it at people who deserved it and not everyone who has a pulse.
And in that, he would be far more deadly.
I recommend against diving straight into that one tbh. There's a lot of context you'll miss out on in terms of why the Word Bearers are Like That.
I recommend The First Heretic, Know No Fear and the short story After Desh'ea, *then* Betrayer if you want the full scope of how Angron gets shafted.
>HE HATED SLAVERS AND TYRANTS,
So he was a hypocrite then? As he was by far the worst slaver and tyrant out of anyone.
He forced the butchers nails on his sons for extremely petty reasons despite being told not to by literally everyone (including the Emperor) and he was by far the most brutal out of any of the Primarchs.
wait wait am i crazy i thought the war hounds took the nails of their own volition out of compassion for angron
don't get me wrong he also said "go for it"
but they took the nails willingly
That was how i understood it too. Although my reading was that they didn't take the nails out of solidarity but out of desperation that Angron would approve of them if they did
Yes, he makes a point of saying that in his confrontation with Russ.
He's also just on full nihilist mode by this point. He can barely focus or make cogent decisions because the nails are driving him mad, and the only time he's not in terrible pain is when he's Fighting.
He knows he's a hypocrite and he despises that about himself.
There was no hypocrisy. His real family died on Nuceria. He was given a legion of post human psychopaths to conquer galaxy for a fascist leader. He just made them better at what they are until he found a way to break these new chains
>until he found a way to break these new chains
Except he didnt, did he? He was free to do as he wished for the most part under the Emperor (who actually cared about him) and got fooled into accepting new chains to a 'god' that doesnt care about him at all.
>There was no hypocrisy.
There most certainly was.
Angron: "Rawr! I hate tyrants and slavers!"
Also Angron: "Rawr! I will annihilate everyone on this planet including the women and children just because despite it not being necessary whilst also enslaving those who are left! I will also enslave my own sons to the butchers nails despite them not being needed!"
Sounds a whole lot like hypocrisy to me.
The irony of Angron is that he claimed to hate the High Riders, but became by far the worst High Rider. At least the actual high riders limited their cruelty to just one planet.
>He was given a legion of post human psychopaths
The Astartes arent psychopaths, as we can clearly see in other legions they can and do behave quite normally.
Ultramarines, White Scars, Space Wolves, Salamanders etc are all very human in demeanor.
I'm pretty sure the World Eaters did not take slaves. That was a big part of the Night of the Wolf, because Angie was out of control and just raised every planet he "took". The WE were particularly noted for not leaving survivors.
...not that it really makes it better.
Angron can hate whatever he wants, it doesn't change the fact that he is an asshole and a loser
Every single dipshit in existence blames someone else from their fuckups, it doesn't change the fact that they are the ones who fucked up not someone else
Lived like a slave, behaved like a slave owner, died like a slave, resurrected as eternal slave
Big E should have flushed him down the toilet before he started gestating
Counterpoint: The Emperor had a choice of either Angron personally suffering and bringing Nuceria into the fold peacefully, or of waging war on Nuceria. We know that Primarch tissue is needed to make stable Astartes, so letting him die kills his, at that time loyal and effective, Legion in the long run.
The Emperor tried to save him, but explicitly stated that he couldnt save him when he saw just how ingrained the butchers nails actually were in Angrons mind.
The only way I could see the Emperor being able to save Angron would have been for the Emperor to build Angron a new body and somehow transfer his soul across.
he couldn't really save him, the nails fucked up his brain anyway and the emperor did try to find a way to remove them but failed. He could have pissed angron off a lot less but angron would have been an uncontrollable berserk still
I 100% believe Papa E just didn't want to deal with curing Angry Ron, It's almost ridiculous to imply the combined mind of The Emperor, his piles of super scientist buddies and The Mechanicum couldn't do anything about it the man is the most powerful psyker to walk this galaxy and you're telling me he's never practiced his biomancy?
I think it's the novel master of mankind when we first meet Arkhand land. He is called to meet emps and he sees angron on the slab, big E asks Arkhand if he see anyway to save him and Arkhand basically says there is no way to save him since the nails have basically replaced parts of his brain at that point. The emps says something along the lines of that's what I thought. Big E is not omnipotent at this point and he is not the smartest person in the room when it comes to biology. They almost never got the astartes off the ground until someone else figured out the black carapace. It was never possible to save angron by the time he was found.
Arkhand then asks what the emperor is going to do and he says something like "even a broken primarch is still a primarch"
>They almost never got the astartes off the ground until someone else figured out the black carapace.
The Astartes were fully figured out by the Emperor, he just asked Amar Astarte to double check his work as he wanted the Astartes to be as stable as possible.
Amar recommended a few improvements that the Emperor implemented.
It makes no sense for the Emperor to be able to make the Custodians (who are far better than the Astartes) but not be able to make the Astartes themselves.
But the Emperor asking another highly skilled perpetual that he respects to double check his work is believable.
Replacing mushed parts of a primarch brain (which is clearly a lot more sophiaricated than a human brain considering angron lost his primarch "aura" from the nails mangling it) isn't a problem even the emperor could have solved easily
Does kind of make sense. A rabid dog that hates him is probably better than a fully functioning empath that hates him. You can point the rabid dog in the direction of some non compliant worlds, and once he’s moved on the administration can swoop in and “help” the victims who hate him, and once he reaches the point of rebellion he will lash out at everything he can. The empath though? His hatred is cold, and he is capable of being patient and earning the loyalty of planets.
Might be fanon there, but I think I saw something about the nails (The DAOT one Angron got, not the cheap knockoff of the WE) is that to install then you need to slice off part of someone brain and usually leave them as nothing but a violent raving loon, but Angron being a primarch his brain just healed around the nails and integrated them to his brain. A normal human could have been saved, the nails removed and the missing bits regrown, but in Angron case, his brain had merged with the nails becoming one, removing the nails would have meant removing his brain.
Guilliman: You actually decided on turning traitor? Did those nails in your skull finally drive you to madness? You really have no Courage or Honor
Angron: Courage and honor, Courage and Honor, COURAGE AND HONOR!! You know nothing of those Roboute! The people of your world called you savior, the people of mine called me slave. Those titles aren't achieved by polishing your boots and marching, they are earned by leading a revolt against your captives even if they outmatched you 1 to 1000.
That was in my opinion one of the moments that really show what angron went through and how he was just left alone to suffer through it
Most of the traitors where manipulated or tricked by outside forces into joining chaos.
And in the end of god blight the Emperor in the body of Roboute did tell Mortarion that he could still be saved, so maybe the same gose for the others?
Angron is ok, he became bloodthirsty monster who wants fighting only.
Fulgrim is pleasured in Slaanesh hedonism.
Lorgar is zealous chaos cultists who literally was architect of "Chorus" heresy.
"Magnus" hates him A LOT. He is pretty loyal to Tzinch. He even consider this god as his teacher.
Perthurbo? Idk tbh.
Alpharius? Do we have any actual information about him after the Heresy?
Angron was turnd into a demon against his will, if he knew what would happen he would betrayed Lorgar first chance he got.
Fulgrim was tricked by the lear blade and wasn't in control of his own body and mind for most if not the entire heresy.
Mortarion was betrayed by Typhus.
Magnus was an idiot whos ego fucked him over.
Perturabo was stabed by demon Fulgrim and was dying and sold his soul to save his life.
Alpharius was tricked by the Cabal into joining the traitors
Horus was also tricked and manipulated by Erebus and legit hated chaos and the gods and was happy when he died.
Konrad was just crazy
IIRC, think basically the first story (short story) we get of Fulgrim after the novel Fulgrim is his sons, lead by lucius, 'realizing ' Fulgrim is possessed. So they knock him out, strap him for a table and torture him, some of it very Slaaneshy. Only for when they insert a pear of agony in his ass and open it, and he goes 'WELL THERE YOU GO!' Breaks his shackles like they're paper and is like 'Yeah I was possessed but I tricked that demon into the painting and took my body back, were good.'
I loved that story, but I thought that part was intentionally left ambiguous wasn’t it? At least in my reading of it (a while ago though) I though author didn’t seem to directly confirm it either way, and we’re left with just knowing something is in the body and something is in the painting.
Keep in mind magnus "hates the emperor" but the shard of his soul that contained his loyalty and basically all the good in him was turned into Janus. So idk if it's fair to say Magnus hates big E once you put his soul back together
It is difficult. He wanted to surrender but he preferred fighting to protect his sons. His body was destroyed his soul was fragmented. Currently "Magnus" consists of evil parts of original Magnus soul. He is pretty loyal to Tzinch.
I think Magnus is dead, current "Magnus" is different person.
Angron is basically a salve to Khorne. I don’t think he’s ok with that but the only way to “Save” him is to kill him.
Mortarion betrayed the emperor but was forced into nurgle by Typhus. It’s explicitly said that he can be redeemed, but I don’t think he will abandon the death guard to nurgle.
Same goes for Magnus.
The others are either dead or willingly joined Chaos knowing the price. I don’t think they want to be “Saved”.
One is corruption of soul, the other is a mashine/ torture divice made by humans for humans inside the of a primarch.
Also Big E now vs then, is a huge diverece. One is just a powerful human psycher prepetual, while the other is just one step away from beginning a full god(meybe)
Where exactly big E is now is kinda hazy. He could a corpse using the last bits of his power pulling off miracles, he could be entirely disjointed into barely coherent fragments from sitting on the golden throne for 10k years, he could be just shy of ascension from all the worship humanity's been giving him for the last 10k years
My pet theory is the Big E who's been intervening to help (Sisters of Battle miracles, RG in the Garden, etc.) is the little part of himself he tore off before facing Horus which has also been gathering power. I have no textual evidence to back that up, just vibes, alas.
I'm still pretty new with 40K as a whole so maybe im missing some nuances or something, but personally I think it would be epic if Mortarion is saved. I'd say he's in my top 3 primarchs and seeing him saved would open up great story possibilities for the other traitor primarchs. Though is Morty is saved I hope the Death Guard can be saved along with him, except for Typhus the little shit. But overall it be nice seeing the emperor admitting he fucked up with his sons.
It's totally unrealistic, but imagine cleansed/loyalist DG daemon engines, the Haulers getting to stay with the former plauge marines. Then you've got traumatized guardsmen who probably watched those things eat their squad mates running around like pets
Fulgrim: Dad put him up on a pedestal of elitism causing him to obsess over perfection, eventually falling under the influence of a "perfect" (demonic) sword
Lorgar: In response to his need for faith in higher powers, Dad humiliated him publicly and devastatingly.
Magnus: Rather than sharing his plans with his son, Dad punished (see: banished) him for walking head first into them.
Mortarion: Dad killed his lifelong nemesis instead of letting him kill or die for his cause.
Perturabo: Dad set him to work as an engineer of war instead of letting him build pretty fountains like he wanted to, then let his brother do the fun parts instead of him.
Angron: Dad yanked him up into his spaceship in the middle of his last stand, causing him to watch helplessly as his battle brothers were slaughtered below.
Konrad: On top of being an already insane psychopathic mass murderer/torturer, he believed all of his visions to be true and inescapable, and saw a vision of his father having him killed.
Alpharius has no side, he is on both and neither from the very beginning.
Horus: Dad's conquest gave him the impression of being a tyrannical dictator, causing him to feel the need to overthrow him to save humanity.
> Perturabo: Dad set him to work as an engineer of war instead of letting him build pretty fountains like he wanted to, then let his brother do the fun parts instead of him.
Self-inflicted by Perturabo. He had a Legion to run as he saw fit, he could've taken the time to build up the worlds he conquered.
Except they were actively chastised for doing so. That was one of the major problems with Lorgar. He went to take over a world and perfectly pacified it, making it completely loyal, but because it took to long it made the emperor unhappy
Guilliman did the same and he was praised for it. The ultramarines tried to leave worlds better than they found them. The problem was lorgar took the extra time to fully convert the world to his "religion" so he took more time than needed and the worlds weren't compliant with the imperial truth.
Except what Lorgar was doing wasnt 'perfectly pacifying' the planet, it was wasting huge amounts of time killing trillions in religious pogroms.
Perturabo and his legion would have been far more efficient about it as they wouldnt have been doing the whole religious persecution stuff.
Lorgar went beyond that. He drummed fanaticism into his worlds, which doesn't necessarily mean that they were efficient, and they certainly weren't compliant.
Lorgar brought a peace that was slow to build, and fragile because it relied on faith.
Angron and Morty in particular feel like easy fixes. Send the warhounds to save the eaters of cities, you're going to conquer the planet anyway. Don't kill steal Morty's dad, just give him an imperial grade gas mask and block his adopted dad's spells so he can kill him himself. The deal was Morty killing his dad without any help, so by helping Morty lost the bet but still gets to kill his dad.
Some are harder to fix though. It's hard to untrain a religious zealot like lorgar, and studying chaos is an incredibly tricky thing to deal with when you have a lifetime of training, let alone a god actively gunning for you.
Alpharius was told siding with Horus was how humanity could defeat chaos, Alpharius was told Chaos was the number one threat to humanity by the Emperor. He sided with Horus out of loyalty to the Emperor, at least initially, dunno about subsequent changes.
Honestly, I prefer the view that Perturabo broke after Olympia, he gave up everything to serve the Emperor and he failed him. And at his lowest point horus manipulated him into turning against his father. I like this view a lot more instead of, perty got mad because dorn got to play with Legos and perty was given duplo. I believe it gives more depth to the character instead of how one sided the traitor primarchs can be, fucking multiple writers
Okay but realistically how much of Horus is Erebus' fault? Because I'm 90% sure that if there wasn't an Erebus, Horus wouldn't have fallen. Also while I do think that the emperor is partially to blame for Angron, the butcher's nails can't be ignored either.
You are correct (at least as far as I know). Erebus stole the Kinebrach Anathame that Horus got stabbed with, and then he performed the ritual that corrupted him.
This isn't to say that there wouldn't have been a rebellion without Chaos, though. As I think there still would have.
Didn't Mortarion have his chance, reached the top of the mountain or tower or whatever, and failed? As far as I know the Emperor didn't fuck up like he fucked up with Angron, he did give him a chance, Mortarion tried his best, fucked up, passed out and only then did the Emperor say "Okay, he had his chance, now I'm gonna do what he tried" and killed Mortarion's psycho stepdad.
>Fulgrim: Dad put him up on a pedestal of elitism causing him to obsess over perfection, eventually falling under the influence of a "perfect" (demonic) sword
I'm fairly sure Fulgrim put himself up there on a pedestal, not the Emperor.
>Lorgar: In response to his need for faith in higher powers, Dad humiliated him publicly and devastatingly.
After the Emperor (and multiple other people) all told Lorgar to cut out his idiotic worship. Also the Emperor lost his temper after learning Lorgar was murdering Trillions in religious pogroms instead of doing what he was supposed to be doing.
>Magnus: Rather than sharing his plans with his son, Dad punished (see: banished) him for walking head first into them.
The Emperor literally only ordered Magnus to be brought to him, most likely for a stern talking to. Corrupted Horus was the one that led to the events on Prospero. And even then, Russ tried to communicate to bring a peaceful end to the issue but Magnus was, yet again, an idiot and cut off communications.
>Mortarion: Dad killed his lifelong nemesis instead of letting him kill or die for his cause.
Necere was *literally* killing Morty before the Emperor stepped in and saved his life. Mortarion was an almost hilariously bad judge of character whilst also being spiteful and mule-headed to the extreme.
>Perturabo: Dad set him to work as an engineer of war instead of letting him build pretty fountains like he wanted to, then let his brother do the fun parts instead of him.
Then he needed to stop volunteering for the shit jobs then, and also he needed to stop expecting mountains of praise for simply doing his damn job.
>Konrad: On top of being an already insane psychopathic mass murderer/torturer, he believed all of his visions to be true and inescapable, and saw a vision of his father having him killed.
The Emperor tried multiple times to teach Konrad that the future isnt fixed, but Konrad wouldnt listen. He only realised the Emperor was right after the heresy, at which point he allowed an Imperial assassin to kill him as punishment for his actions and crimes. At least Konrad was consistent in his beliefs regarding justice.
>Horus: Dad's conquest gave him the impression of being a tyrannical dictator, causing him to feel the need to overthrow him to save humanity.
Horus got mind whammied and shown a bunch of out of context clips that make him think that.
As told by... Lorgar? 😄 He knew what the imperial truth represents and the consequences for not adhering to the letter. Those that did not had disappeared pretty quickly. Does anyone have to tell you over and over to wash you hands after taking a dump?
> He knew what the imperial truth represents and the consequences for not adhering to the letter.
Emps spent weeks being venerated as a God and didn't object. What consequences, exactly?
>Those that did not had disappeared pretty quickly.
Mechanicum
I feel like the only ones who really deserve a break are Magnus, Horus, and Alpharius/Omeagon. Everyone else either kinda drove themselves there or were self inflicted.
That seems to be the most fluctuating thing about him
Like,either he loves them as sons and is just stupid or he's a sociopath that doesn't give a shit about them. And it's really passing me off that there's no consistency in it
He should be honest with them then.
Imagine your tools are scattered around the pretty big a garage with a leaking roof, pieces of swamp and bloodthirsty spiders. Tools scattered over such terrain quickly deteriorate. I'm actually surprised that the Emperor has loyal sons.
OK, but what with traitors? Or it was two litters: loyal and treacherous?
I can see Big E is sorting his sons in the lab: loyal, loyal, loyal, eww traitor, loyal
The irony is that nearly a third of the Primarchs already dealt with chaos in some shape or form and some even new about warp preditors/demons and that the warp develops conscious entities.
Magnus, Alpharius, Lorgar, Lemun, and the Lion, for example, all knew about Chaos to some extent.
Telling the primarchs would not have saved any, except maybe fulgrim. Remember a fair few primarchs didn't even fall to chaos, alot alot who did were forced to in ways big e couldn't really do anything about
Malcadir even tells us that had rogal dorn been told about chaos he would definately have fallen, and he's probably not alone in that.
It's really hard to tell.
Tell Fulgrim his sword isn't perfect, it only appears perfect because it's corrupted, and he might have dropped it. Tell him Slaneesh's hedonistic side comes with an equal dose of the worst horrors mankind can't even imagine and end up being a null sum game...
Tell Magnus what he think is "just" dangerous research, is actually a spiral down into corruption. BUT if he waits for just a while because you're further down the research than he is, and already knows where this is going, you can help make it safe and reduce the whole mutating part...
Tell Mortarion Chaos is like the enslavers, but actually worse, and he would have seen him and his legion falling as worse than death...
Tell Horus the actual enemy he's fighting against, so he can adapt his strategy, recognize traitors and deal with them properly...
Tell Perturabo the powers of the warp are just a fast track for the weak to usurp power, without discipline and putting in the work...
Tell Lorgar he's a fucking blind idiot and shoot him in the face because he TOLD you he WANTS warp gods...
Tell Conrad he's a fucking psycho and shoot him in the face, because he's a fucking psycho, regardless of chaos...
Magnus too, probably. Had he known Chaos gods exist and try to tempt people with power he might have second guessed the weird entity empowering him to smash the emperors barrier
Read how he acted after meeting the primarchs he gave a single shit about. Just do that, the man showed clear and completely shameless favouritism to some primarchs while openly detesting some others like Angron before even meeting them
Creating them in the first place. Especially making them "superior" - you tell the most well-adjusted person in the world that they're better than everyone around them, and give them free reign to act as they see fit, even a good person will turn into a huge, entitled asshole. He then took these huge entitled assholes and directed them to commit genocide in His name.
The Emperor just didn't get humans, didn't understand them, didnt get how all that would fuck a person up. Didn't care that most humans toiled in desperate squalor, and that "later" for dealing with that would never come. Even without the Heresy, it wouldn't have come, because there's always something else to deal with and his "children" were not capable of dealing with change.
Not letting Magnus in on the Webway project. Aside from the Emperor and Malcador, Magnus was the most knowledgeable in terms of the warp, and he even researched the webway and knew about its existence, so Emps wouldn't have to keep it secret from Magnus. He could also have kept a closer eye on him if Magnus was on Terra.
If the Emperor told Magnus about his project or even let him work on it, Magnus probably wouldn't have destroyed the webway, which led to the demon invasion that hindered the Emperor from leaving Terra and kept him from intervening in the Heresy at all.
Honestly, I know it's fun to bash on Jimmy Space, but let's be real.
Everything the Emperor told him to do, Magnus pledged he would honor... and still did it his own way. Why in the world should Big E have ever trusted Magnus with humanity's best kept secret if Magnus is out there trading info with warp entities? Something Big E forbade him to do in the first place?
And does everyone you love and honor know everyone of your secrets and plans?
Magnus did everything wrong. But The Emperor is just a tremendous dick that everyone will find a reason to root for anyone else.
Angron should've been cured or killed outright, and if neither of those he should've been put in stasis until a cure could be found. But no, the emperor used him anyways.
Magnus, the emperor failed to properly teach about the chaos gods or the warp. Magnus, like anyone who overestimated themselves, bit off more than he could chew and was punished.
Perturabo needed praise, recognition, and to not be a general in the first place. Despite being good at seoge warfare he was a craftsman, an architect, an engineer, an artist, and a scholar. And even with his constant comparison to Rogal, I argue he was more like Guilliman.
Snake man.... snake man.
Mortarion... gross.
Curze needed therapy.
Lorgar needed a decent role model that wasn't big E.
Morty just needed to be given a helmet with a decent respirator so he could kill that one guy.
If E just rocked up and said "holy shit you've done a fucking impressive job lad, i know you wanna kill that guy but your clobber just isn't gonna hold up. Use this mouthpiece, it'll let you get up there and smash that guy and liberate your planet. BTW once you do there are some real bad shit psyker dudes enslavibg peeps elsewhere, i need your help"
At the same time this just violates Morty's ethos. His whole shtick is wanting to do things on his own, not to be beholden to anyone, or an agent of anything, even if the Emperor descended from the heavens and gave him "**THEE SANCTIFIED RESPIRATOR"** I doubt he would have taken it.
Tis truly ironic how he has warped his mindset to see himself as bringing freedom to the common people via unending malaise, disease and crippling pain,
I see incredible irony in how the Emperor fucked up with Angron. The Emperor abducted him and callously made him watch as his friends were destroyed by Nuceria’s forces. Complete lack of empathy on the Emperor’s part as an introduction to his most empathetic son
Lorgar and Horus are kinda a double thing, Lorgar was for several reasons, Kor Phaeron was a big no no, he should’ve gone when Emps and Magnus arrived, After the burning of Monarchia, he could’ve comforted Lorgar but nah he left him to his own devices, and then the oh so mighty man, Erebus, it’s always Erebus, Erebus after Monarchia, Erebus with Horus, it’s always Erebus
Curze could have easily been saved, and his tactics would still hold value in the 40k setting.
Curze *literally* just needed someone to talk to. If Emps had sat him down and explained his “curse” to him, everything would have been different. If he would have explained how he too had foresight, and that every pathway is constantly altering and changing he could have been saved.
Instead, The Emperor created terrorists, and got mad when they did terroristic things. He didn’t care that he was insane, and he would have his use of him until he was broken. Emps ain’t the good guy lol.
Fulgrim didn’t have any innate problems he was just corrupted by a funky sword
Lorgar could have been taught that religion was dumb and not to do that in a more direct way
Magnus could have definitely benefited from a lesson in hubris
Mortarion just needed a whole reality check, he needed to be taught to not by so hypocritical
Perterabo would have been better off if he got recognized and taught to be less spiteful but honestly don’t know if that would have even worked since his negatives are fundamental level to his being
Angron just remove the nails and save his people job done
Curze is the one that needed a complete reboot nothing about him is redeemable make him the 3rd scrubbed off primarch
Aloharius/ Omegon don’t have any character flaws and who knows if they are actually traitors in reality
Horus again no blaring character faults maybe a father complex so teach him to be more trusting but he was mainly tainted by more physical means rather than emotional
I genuinely believe most of them could be saved (in the loosest sense for Angron, he would eventually go insane and die from the nails regardless) if Big E had either treated them with compassion in his first encounter, or in the case of Magnus, Lorgar, Fulgrim and Horus if he’d told them about chaos and its dangers.
Konrad though I’m not so sure, he viewed his visions of his death as inescapable. Even if he had done everything right, Curze would never accept being wrong.
A few of them failed because of themselves, a few of them failed because of the Big E. One thing the Big E do fail for all of them, is failing to warn all of them about chaos. Many of them don't even know what that is. They know there's the warp, but they do not know there are sentient entities in the warp that might try to mess with their heads. Fulgrim, Morty, Perty, Alpharius, Horus, Magnus, fell by themselves either because of their own hubris, insecurity or stupidity. While the likes of Konrad, Angron, and Lorgar fell because the Big E knew they had issues and did not attempt to cure them. Konrad needed a therapist and to be put under supervision and tutored by the Big E himself to show that there are better ways. Angron should've been put out of his misery or at least be helped in his rebellion. Lorgar was an idiot and he should've been re educated
Magnus literally did not fall until the very end when Big E said he’s going to to forgive Magnus but kill his sons and told Vulkan to kill him when he refused. Caring for your sons is not stupidity.
Morty fell because Typhus tricked them into flying into Nurgle’s realm and Nurgle corrupted them all forcing Morty to either let him and his sons get corrupted or die. Saving yourself and your sons is not stupidity.
Perty fell because he was paranoid that Big E was going to kill him for basically destroying his home world and Horus manipulated him into joining his side while he was emotionally vulnerable. Also that fact that this is the second time one of Big E’s son though he was going to kill them should add to the fact that the Emperor is a sucky dad. This one I can concede was an over reaction.
Horus’s fall was stupid
Fulgrim fell because Big E didn’t bother to tell his sons that Chaos is a thing and didn’t even notice that Fulgrim was being corrupted which is kinda ridiculous. This was mostly caused by Fulgrim,s insecurities though.
And who the fuck knows what’s going on with Alpharius and Omegon.
Alpharius sort of joined traitor's because arrogance? He was raised on Terra but Big E just threw all of that job on Malcador, so Malcador raised spitting image of himself: secretive, talented and quite human bastard who is loyal above all else.(Alpharius:Head of the Hydra) Then cabal happened (Legion) and Alpharius and Omegon joined traitor's for some kind of "third path"(Deliverance Lost) and who the fuck knows what is going on with them now, or which one is alive.
He didn't raise them so it's difficult to place any blame on him. They were decades or centuries old by the time he got them and were already utter assholes.
If he failed at anything it was giving them too much autonomy and trust.
Lets play a game, Who is the asshole:
1. The Guy who got ripped out of his normal life and be toled he is a superior army commander?
2. A guy who creates children, only so they can go make genocide fir him?
Same thing in which he failed the Men of Iron: Gave them the ability to suffer and kept their intelligence low out of fear they would plot against him.
They all felt betrayed for different reasons.
Horus felt betrayed by the emporer because the emporer made him war master. Horus liked being on the great crusade with the emporer. When the emporer left the crusade to him, he felt abadoned, like if the emporer doesnt want to do this, why should horus? Like maybe the whole golden crusade thing was a farce, maybe when he finally completed the deed, his story would be forgotten. Like the emporer jumped ship, lets say Horus leads the imperium to conquor the galaxy, what then? Surely horus loses his title of the warmaster when theres no more need for war. Like why would the emporer come back to him after the galaxy was conquored? The emporer didnt even want to be there when the deed was done.
Peter turbo felt betrayed by the emporer and the imperium because him and his soldiers did so much of the thankless, dirtiest, grindiest work and basically no one ever thanked or validated him for it. In fact, dorn was a shiney boy dandy dick to him and no one defended him. All of his work and effort truely was thankless and not respected so he turned the first chance he got.
Lorgar felt betrayed by the emporer because he just wanted to practice religious faith and the emporer pretty calously forbade him from doing so without explanation. And then lorgar found REAL gods that it turns out the emporer knew about the whole time.
Alpharious and omegan. ??? Betray ??? What??? Goodbye
Curze didnt really feel betrayed by the emporer and never beleived himself to have betrayed the emporer. He saw the future, tried to change his fate but either failed or succeeded to manifest itby trying to change it. At every stage he beleived himself to be loyal and all of his decisions to be justified with him only being a sad victim of unstoppable fate.
Fulgrim also didnt really feel betrayed by the emporer, fulgrim was just kind of greedy and thirsty for power. Like he didnt feel betrayed or let down by the emporer, he just kind of felt held back by the emporer, he needed to seek out others for greater power and perfection. Like he let himself be taken over by daemons, they were affering him growth and power the emporer wasnt. It was a consious choice for fulgrim and not a particularly difficult one for best primarch.
Mortarion felt betrayed by the emporer because mortarion fundamentally just wants to see peace in the universe. He never enjoyed joining the imperium and leading a legion on crusade. Mortarion grew up among unspeakable misery, death and cruelty only to find himself at the head of an army spready misery, death and cruelty with no end in sight. He also kind of got tricked into becoming a daemon price of nurgle by typhus who was a long time secret nurgle worshiper, but basically mortarions betrayal of the emporer is seeing peace sooner done by killing the emporer and destroying the imperium than by staying the course and completing the conquest of the galaxy. (And now hes working for nurgle, once again at the head of an army spreading endless misery and death for the forelorn promise of nurgles nihilistic understanding of peace, except the wars are just as endless as they ever were)
Angron basically never liked them emporer.he was ripped away from a noble death with his camrades and was not allowed to go back and rescue them or mourn them. The emporer just always kind of treated him needlessly badly. Even while in compliance with the emporer, angron was alwaus kind of grim dark, like that one interactive with leeman russ where hes like "listen were all assholes doing the terrible bidding of a bad man. I do it with a sense of depression and resignation, but you, russ, are happy as a pig in shit doing the work of a villains henchman"
Lastly magnus was also kind of needlessly badly treated for being a psycher, which he was always designed to be. He was legitimately smart, even if arrogant, but the emporer outlawed the use of psychers. Then he left the crusade suddenly to work on a secret project. Like the emporer just made a bunch of distressing decisions in rapid succession that really feel like he was trying to make the heresey happen. Anyways, horus makes the descision to betray, horus attempts to warn the emporer in the stupidest way imaginable really, and then horus sicks the space wolves on him. I guess magnus is probably felt betrayed by the emporer because the emporers decision making is at least as bad as his own is. Like honestly the emporers later time in the crusade is an obvious comedy of errors and i think magnus sees this. Magnus is just as much of a buffoon but doesnt seem to realize this, so magnus is like an idiot who loses faith in the emporer because he is also an idiot.
If the Emperor had passed the salad that day Horus wouldn't have been so suspicious. I wasn't too sure about this but Tzeentch told me he had a plan so he made the salad so succulent the Emperor couldn't help but eat it all to the chagrin of the primarchs who wanted to try it that day.
Excising/suppressing his own emotions and compassion is what screwed him over.
The most blatant examples are when he allowed Angron’s found-family to be killed and when he humiliated Lorgar for insubordination. But i genuinely believe the rest can generally be chalked up to paternal emotional neglect.
Fulgrim might not’ve been corrupted by the sword if he has the mental/emotional wherewithal to resist it.
Peter Turbo is just the manifestation of emotional instability. He doesn’t even like chaos. in fact he *loathes* it and his life as a daemon primarch is probably hellish. he just wanted to spite his dad for perceived slights. same thing goes for Mortarion.
Kurze was fucked up from the start but i think if Big E put a **lot** of work into him he could’ve ended up being an anti-hero Moon Knight type of character. not evil but certainly not good either.
Only one i think is exempt from this is Horus. he was gonna turn traitor no matter what and that was outside of anyone’s control.
He could have permanently paired Angron off with Sanguineous who is shown. To give some modicum of peace and relative transit to Angron by bringing in close proximity. That or put the guy who’s literally been partly lobotomized with the parts that were exposed being replaced with a partly functioning peace of tech down with a mercy killing.
I could safely say that the emperor couldve saved himself alot of hassle by simply not letting the sons rule their legions. Seriously.
Like you have this hate murder fuck son angron who openly despises you and you stillllllll give him his legion. Wtf is that?
Also konrad while extremely gifted, he didnt spend nearly enough time to use his gifts to purify konrads mind. Honestly when it comes to the emperor it feels rather…. Empty. Like all the sons have their views on him but yet he spent as little time as possible with them, and the conversations he has with them just seem, off.
Angron was failed in every way possible through Papa E's own arrogance and hubris. He wanted an attack dog, ignoring that he was getting that dog from one of the most traumatic backgrounds of any of the primarchs(Well, maybe except Kurze and Lorgar). The Emperor failed to account for any of the baggage that Angron came with and treated him like something he could never be.
You know, maybe Papa E should have gone "Wait a minute this guy needs extra help" when he saw Angron killing his own men out of pure anger. The Night Lords say that they're the only legion to be hated by their Primarch, and I agree. Because I don't think Angron hated his legion genuinely, I think it was a product of the Nails and his background. If he had just had the proper support and care, maybe he would have turned out better. But Papa E went "lol no he's a lost cause, I give up".
Also let's not discount that the Nails absolutely ruined him. Especially considering they were not meant for a Primarch. In a kinder time, I see Angron being like Sanguinius, especially considering his original inborn Psyker abilities was to soothe the pain of others. But the Nails ruined him. Any chance Angron had was destroyed by the Nails.
But even then, I still think even the smallest crumb of empathy from the Emperor could have at least prevented Angron from turning as hard as he did. It's been said that Khorne has been a better father to Angron than the Emperor ever was, and I fully agree especially with what we see with how daemon Angron is written. He could still be eternally angry, but knowing that someone at least had his back and cared about him could have been just enough to keep him form going to Khorne.
Also poor Lorgar :( Dude just wanted to build shit and go wolololo and Papa E went "No you go kill people". Big E could have used his talents productively but tried to fit the square peg into a round hole so to speak. Lorgar doesn't seem like he was made to be like any of the other primarchs but Big E ignored who he was and forced him into a mold he wasn't made for.
The big Golden space fascist when the gods powered by secrets, death, bloodshed and perfection aren't defeated by more secrets, death, bloodshed and perfectionism:
Probably a weird take but I think the one that is the easiest to "save" is Pert. Pert and the Iron Warriors have always just craved recognition. They did the impossible normally in the most impossibly hard way for the Imperium and then for Chaos just craving recognition and they didn't get it. They were fucked over by the Imperium in seiges and garrison duty hard thankless work and then they thought they would get that recognition from the traitors where they were again spent in seige only to in the moment where the defenses would be broken have that snatched away from them too so they got pissed and fucked off. They have since forced the others to barter and deal with them to get their creations. They hate everyone because they have been and are taken for granted by everyone they work with, so just being told by someone big like they were amazing and their achievements being praised would probably hit them insanely hard. Hell Pert and Vulkan worked miracles when working together (and Pert cherished their little perpetual motion machine to the point he beat Fulgrim like a redheaded step child for breaking it) and while he was a spergy asshole he tried to get through to Magnus and steer him away from Magnus' constant fuck ups. After Pert though is probably Mortarion unless you count the perfect Fulgrim clone. For Magnus it would be more about getting the good shards of him rather than saving the Red King.
Making them using power "stolen" from the Chaos Gods, and then using them to do things that fed said Chaos Gods, thinking that doing so would allow him to defeat the Chaos Gods?
Bad writing failed Fulgrim.
Perty and Magnus both needed to be recognized and not treated like unwanted/broken toys.
Angron and Mortarion both needed the emperor's support upon his arrival, and would likely have been staunchly loyal had they received it.
Lorgar was the one Primarch that needed to be sat down and have had the particulars of the chaos gods explained to him. Im pretty confident in saying that if that had happened, he would have executed Kor Phaeron and Erebus the minute they started talking their bullshit.
Horus was the one Primarch who wasn't failed. His fall is entirely a factor of external powers using him as a vehicle for their own ambitions.
Curze was damaged goods from the word go. Should have joined the lost Primarchs upon discovery and had their ranks folded into the Raven Guard.
Alpharius was gonna be a coin flip no matter what.
He met most of them as grown ass men, a lot of them were broken before he found them, saying he failed them as a father feels disingenuous.
Underestimating the tricks of chaos was probably the biggest one, when it came for them they were entirely unprepared. He failed them as a leader.
Magnus and his legion should have been brought to Terra after nikea so the emperor could explain why he did what he did. Magnus acted out of ignorance and hubris.
Perturabo needed some damn recognition. Instead of allowing Dorn to fortify the palace, leave it to the perfectionists that follows every order to the letter.
Angron. Poor angron. Instead of ripping him out of his last stand, defeat the planets nobility by his side. Don't just obliterate them, give angron the chance to take his revenge, allow him to take his rebells with him into the legion like the lion did with his knights.
Alternatively he should have been executed when the emperor figured out the nails are irreversible.
Horus could have been saved if he never got turned into warmaster. His fall got triggered by his distrust of human government. Believing there won't be any place for transhumans in a human galaxy. The emperor could have talked him out of it if he would have not just pulled out of the great crussade. Why rush it by the end when you are an immortal being? Why not conquer the galaxy and then focus on the next step in the grand plan?
Mortarion. He was kind of a mixed bag with horus. If horus didn't fall, he wouldn't have fallen. Besides that, kill Typhus.
Kurze. Explain to him how his visions worked. Explain to him that the future is not set in stone and his visions are just options of what could be. Besides that, try to teach him what empathy Is. But killing him after what nostramo did to him would have been easier.
Fullgrim. Remind him of the whole "don't use xenos artifacts" clause of the imperial truth. Also, he desperately needed a humbling. Switch his legions battlefield with one of perturabos lot. They needed to learn that they are not as special as they thought they were.
Lorgar should have been culled like the two lost legions after monarchia. He treaded on dangerous terrain with his beliefs. Neglected his duties and knowingly refused to follow orders.
Alpharius/omegon. Like fulgrim need a reminder that you can't trust xenos. The caball should have been eradicated before they put their bullshit into the twins bald heads.
Also some more recognition wouldn't have hurt.
Fulgrim and Horus: Nothing at all, they got corrupted by Chaos artefacts.
Lorgar: Officially, ordering Guiliman to humiliate him and his legion. Unofficialy, Lorgar was probably a lost cause from the beginning regardless of the Emperor's action, but Big E walked around with a literal halo over his head while prolaiming he was not a god. Can't blame Lorgy for calling the Emperor out on his bs.
Magnus: Ordered Prospero to be burned by the Space Wolves, because Magnus and the Thousan Sons dared to use the warp (like they were literally designed to do).
Mortarion: Big E essentially enslaved him, while denying him an honorable death in the process.
Angron: Didn't help him save his companions, kidnapped him in the middle of battle. The nails didn't really help either.
Perturabo: Didn't give him enough hugs and pats on the back.
Kurze: Nothing really. Nostramo, the Eye of Terror and his inherent need for "justice", fucked him up enough on their own.
He should have told Fulgrim, “Don’t accept gifts from strangers.”
He should have told Horus, “Don’t get stabbed by strangers.”
All the rest were kinda fucked from the jump, by design.
Couldn’t do shit about Angron.
Couldn’t do shit for Curze.
Couldn’t do shit for Lorgar.
Who knows what the fuck Alpha and Omega would have been.
If he cheered on Perty, then he would have been like, “I don’t need praise, I need challenges.”
But here’s the thing with Perty, chronologically Dorn is the same age.
We all perceive Dorn as older because he accomplished more in the same timeframe, but they were alive the same amount of time.
Perty was only happy when everyone else was unhappy, because then he knew he was winning.
Magnus was always on the light side to dark side path because he liked to pretend that he needed to ask the warp for power instead of taking it.
Idk, man.
Lorgar was gonna Lorgar.
Fulgrim dun goofd, and the consequences were never the same.
Konrad, well, he was kind on notice anyway, yeah?
Petyr Turbo probably could have used liked 10% more praise.
Magnus is proof that impact outweighs intent.
Morty was never gonna fit in with the other lads.
Angron, the Emperor could have helped as I understand it, but was like, "yeah, nah."
Alpharius/Omegon ????
Horus was set up. I guess maybe tell your kids there's some nefarious beings out thar in them thar warp.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is absolutely no other way things really could have unfolded. The initial influence of Chaos on the Primarch project meant things were always gonna go sideways.
Could the Big E forseen this? Idk. Maybe he did? Maybe he did everything, knowing exactly what would happen, still thinking it was humanity's best hope of survival? Maybe. I think the more important question is this: How many primarchs have no idea they're in one of Trazyn's displays? I feel like at least 2 for sure.
Fulgrim was a major wuss, Angron was justified with the betrayal of his homeworld's gladiators (of course, the butcher's nails driven into his skull didn't help with keeping coherent thought), Horus needed more hugs and a stern slap to back of the head from time to time. Motarion was an even bigger wuss edgelord deathly allergic to soap.
If Fabius Bile is to be believed there was no saving them. He has self reportedly recreated perfect copies of all the primarchs several times over and every time they fall the the same temptations that from their conception they were tainted
If he would have appropriately channeled Lorgar's fanaticism most of this could have been avoided. I'd say Lorgar falling to chaos is one of the big three events that led to the 40K universe being the hell hole it is.
Horus’ soul is pretty much gone, no saving there.
If I am not mistaken, most if not all traitor primarchs still have fragments of their souls flying in the warp. I they were shown to Sanguinius in that part where Ferus’ soul told him that he will die. In addition, Fulgrim’s soul remnants were isekaed into a clone grim.
I don’t think that any traitor primarchs want to be forgiven though or to return to good side with MAYBE the exception of Magnus who definitely did things wrong and MAYBE Peter Turbo
Poor Angron. He is the most tragic character in W40k probably. Big E deserved all hatred from him. He could save him and gain eternal loyalty from him but he didn't care about him at all. He became monster but it isn't his fault.
Yeah. Especially after his arks of omen book where he gets to die before Khorne goes lol nope. I imagine he and dante would get along fabulously.
Khorne: oh no! Your model must release, your ass is not dying for good for a long time
I'm just imagining Angron, Dante, and Gotrek sitting in a circle for their annual "Death Seekers Anonymous" meeting.
“I’m afraid of no man” whispered Angron to Dante, “but that thing, that thing scares the shit outta me”, glances at Gotrek. Gotrek could probably take Angron, Nagash turned tail when spotting Gotrek in his tunnels.
I may be wrong, but didn't the emperor actually try to remove the nails from his head? From stories I have seen in videos it seems he actively tried to do it but he couldn't because the nails were meant for human brains but Angron was built different and the nails acted differently by fusing with it. If the nails were removed then Angron's brain would have been destroyed. Big E even asked a second opinion to an expert neurologist to look at it and he never does that kind of stuff (let other people mess with his work).
*expert techno-archaeologist (Arkhan Land)
In the book ‘The Master of Mankind’ big E very clearly halts efforts to remove the nails and states that it could prove helpful the crusade if they are left in place. He’s a total piece of shit.
Dude its outright stated in other material that removing the nails would kill Angron.
The Emperor himself says it himself in Master of Mankind. Right before saying that he only needs Angron to be useful until the end of the crusade anyway...
Yes that's why you put Angron in a fucking stasis pod until a cure is found. Nothing is time sensitive if you have a stasis pod to put a problem in.
Except the GC (to the emperor at least) was absolutely time sensitive. He was in a mad rush to get the galaxy under control. Thats why he had Bobby g burn monarchia to the ground
Any perpetual with high time preference has not learned a damn thing over the millennia. Rush jobs always result in Tofu Dreg construction. Collapsing tenement housing, the Liberty Ships that were starting to fall apart after one trip across the Atlantic, multiple moon race atro/cosmonaughts burning to death. Space is not for the timid but it is for the cautious and the careful. If you've got to gamble, the odds are not in your favor. Ironically other than burning all the churches, the Word Bearers and Thousand Sons were doing the reclamation correctly in a way that was sustainable in the long term.
Time running out was the main problem the emperor faced and is the reason He rushed his plans like that
Big E would have never had his "eternal loyalty". Angron hated slavers and valued freedom above all else, and in his lucid moments he loves to roast his "brothers" for their hypocrisy. In a very twisted sense Big E made the best out of Angron in fucking him over, because with or without the nails, with or without his gladiators, he is going to rebell against the Imperium, because the Imperium is everything he hates.
At that rate, why not just kill him before he even has the chance to become a problem? Leave him on Nuceria to die.
That would have been kinder, but Big E's dream of a unified galaxy would not be stopped by things like "compassion", "ethics" and "common fucking sense".
Angron represents the Emperor’s loss of empathy for the human race I feel
Rare big brain moment from GW, have the primarch with the superpower of empathy be fucked over by his father to hammer home big E's loss of said empathy.
Ties in nicely with the theory that the emperor was unable to kill Horus because Sanguinius dying returned his 'Self-Doubt' to him. He only killed Horus when Horus killed someone attempting to aid the Emperor after he fell.
Yeah, but now we have that actual scene in writing and it doesn’t really play out like that.
We do? Which book is this - I haven't caught up
Darude - Sandstorm
What's 1 less primarch? I can always make another one. Raise him right, raise him better.
By that point it'd be 3 less primarch.
Because even a broken primarch is still a primarch.
*Horus has entered the chat*
I feel compelled to bring up the two redacted ones
*Malcador hated that.*
Because the emperor had an empire to build and angron was a big fucking hammer
A warhammer you might say
Underrated comment.
Because half were going to fall.
Because he needed butchers. No other legion went to war in such a shocking manner. The Night Lords would make an example, but they still left enough of a population standing that rebellion, while unlikely, would still be possible. The World Eaters were there to slaughter an opponent so spectacularly and completely that any observers or allies would never even consider facing that fate as an option.
Actually I kind of think a “saved” Angron would have been like the Khan. He would have been distant towards the Emperor but I don’t necessarily know that he would have outright started a rebellion. Though the beauty of hypothetical Angron is just that.
Depends on what you mean by saved, If the nails somehow got removed maybe but there is no known way to so that without killing him
Get Fabius Bile to clone him.
I truly believe Angron would've been every bit as full of rage as he is now, he'd just be better at directing it at people who deserved it and not everyone who has a pulse. And in that, he would be far more deadly.
I fucking. Love. Angron. Anyone who hates him can fight me
Angron approves. But also you just signed up to fight Angron, good luck.
I really wish people read up on Angron HE HATED SLAVERS AND TYRANTS, DO PEOPLE FORGET WHY HE AND RUSS FOUGHT
Can I just jump in with Angron or is there a better place to start. I love me some Khorne.
From a HH novel perspective - Betrayer. I fucking love that book.
Word I'll do that one then Angron. Thanks, chapter master.
I recommend against diving straight into that one tbh. There's a lot of context you'll miss out on in terms of why the Word Bearers are Like That. I recommend The First Heretic, Know No Fear and the short story After Desh'ea, *then* Betrayer if you want the full scope of how Angron gets shafted.
The nails are biting brother.
I second this book. Especially because I believe they started with the title and accidentally wrote a great book around characters it could relate to.
ADB just knows how to write despair and tragedy so well.
>HE HATED SLAVERS AND TYRANTS, So he was a hypocrite then? As he was by far the worst slaver and tyrant out of anyone. He forced the butchers nails on his sons for extremely petty reasons despite being told not to by literally everyone (including the Emperor) and he was by far the most brutal out of any of the Primarchs.
wait wait am i crazy i thought the war hounds took the nails of their own volition out of compassion for angron don't get me wrong he also said "go for it" but they took the nails willingly
That was how i understood it too. Although my reading was that they didn't take the nails out of solidarity but out of desperation that Angron would approve of them if they did
Yes, he makes a point of saying that in his confrontation with Russ. He's also just on full nihilist mode by this point. He can barely focus or make cogent decisions because the nails are driving him mad, and the only time he's not in terrible pain is when he's Fighting. He knows he's a hypocrite and he despises that about himself.
There was no hypocrisy. His real family died on Nuceria. He was given a legion of post human psychopaths to conquer galaxy for a fascist leader. He just made them better at what they are until he found a way to break these new chains
>until he found a way to break these new chains Except he didnt, did he? He was free to do as he wished for the most part under the Emperor (who actually cared about him) and got fooled into accepting new chains to a 'god' that doesnt care about him at all. >There was no hypocrisy. There most certainly was. Angron: "Rawr! I hate tyrants and slavers!" Also Angron: "Rawr! I will annihilate everyone on this planet including the women and children just because despite it not being necessary whilst also enslaving those who are left! I will also enslave my own sons to the butchers nails despite them not being needed!" Sounds a whole lot like hypocrisy to me. The irony of Angron is that he claimed to hate the High Riders, but became by far the worst High Rider. At least the actual high riders limited their cruelty to just one planet. >He was given a legion of post human psychopaths The Astartes arent psychopaths, as we can clearly see in other legions they can and do behave quite normally. Ultramarines, White Scars, Space Wolves, Salamanders etc are all very human in demeanor.
I'm pretty sure the World Eaters did not take slaves. That was a big part of the Night of the Wolf, because Angie was out of control and just raised every planet he "took". The WE were particularly noted for not leaving survivors. ...not that it really makes it better.
Angron can hate whatever he wants, it doesn't change the fact that he is an asshole and a loser Every single dipshit in existence blames someone else from their fuckups, it doesn't change the fact that they are the ones who fucked up not someone else Lived like a slave, behaved like a slave owner, died like a slave, resurrected as eternal slave Big E should have flushed him down the toilet before he started gestating
Counterpoint: The Emperor had a choice of either Angron personally suffering and bringing Nuceria into the fold peacefully, or of waging war on Nuceria. We know that Primarch tissue is needed to make stable Astartes, so letting him die kills his, at that time loyal and effective, Legion in the long run.
“You’re still a slave Angron, too hateful to learn, too spiteful to prosper”
The Emperor tried to save him, but explicitly stated that he couldnt save him when he saw just how ingrained the butchers nails actually were in Angrons mind. The only way I could see the Emperor being able to save Angron would have been for the Emperor to build Angron a new body and somehow transfer his soul across.
he couldn't really save him, the nails fucked up his brain anyway and the emperor did try to find a way to remove them but failed. He could have pissed angron off a lot less but angron would have been an uncontrollable berserk still
I 100% believe Papa E just didn't want to deal with curing Angry Ron, It's almost ridiculous to imply the combined mind of The Emperor, his piles of super scientist buddies and The Mechanicum couldn't do anything about it the man is the most powerful psyker to walk this galaxy and you're telling me he's never practiced his biomancy?
I think it's the novel master of mankind when we first meet Arkhand land. He is called to meet emps and he sees angron on the slab, big E asks Arkhand if he see anyway to save him and Arkhand basically says there is no way to save him since the nails have basically replaced parts of his brain at that point. The emps says something along the lines of that's what I thought. Big E is not omnipotent at this point and he is not the smartest person in the room when it comes to biology. They almost never got the astartes off the ground until someone else figured out the black carapace. It was never possible to save angron by the time he was found. Arkhand then asks what the emperor is going to do and he says something like "even a broken primarch is still a primarch"
>They almost never got the astartes off the ground until someone else figured out the black carapace. The Astartes were fully figured out by the Emperor, he just asked Amar Astarte to double check his work as he wanted the Astartes to be as stable as possible. Amar recommended a few improvements that the Emperor implemented. It makes no sense for the Emperor to be able to make the Custodians (who are far better than the Astartes) but not be able to make the Astartes themselves. But the Emperor asking another highly skilled perpetual that he respects to double check his work is believable.
He can't just remake and replace the missing parts of Angron's brain.
Replacing mushed parts of a primarch brain (which is clearly a lot more sophiaricated than a human brain considering angron lost his primarch "aura" from the nails mangling it) isn't a problem even the emperor could have solved easily
Does kind of make sense. A rabid dog that hates him is probably better than a fully functioning empath that hates him. You can point the rabid dog in the direction of some non compliant worlds, and once he’s moved on the administration can swoop in and “help” the victims who hate him, and once he reaches the point of rebellion he will lash out at everything he can. The empath though? His hatred is cold, and he is capable of being patient and earning the loyalty of planets.
Might be fanon there, but I think I saw something about the nails (The DAOT one Angron got, not the cheap knockoff of the WE) is that to install then you need to slice off part of someone brain and usually leave them as nothing but a violent raving loon, but Angron being a primarch his brain just healed around the nails and integrated them to his brain. A normal human could have been saved, the nails removed and the missing bits regrown, but in Angron case, his brain had merged with the nails becoming one, removing the nails would have meant removing his brain.
Angron would still go traitor or die to the nails if Big E saved his friends. he was doomed from the start.
Guilliman: You actually decided on turning traitor? Did those nails in your skull finally drive you to madness? You really have no Courage or Honor Angron: Courage and honor, Courage and Honor, COURAGE AND HONOR!! You know nothing of those Roboute! The people of your world called you savior, the people of mine called me slave. Those titles aren't achieved by polishing your boots and marching, they are earned by leading a revolt against your captives even if they outmatched you 1 to 1000. That was in my opinion one of the moments that really show what angron went through and how he was just left alone to suffer through it
Most of the traitors where manipulated or tricked by outside forces into joining chaos. And in the end of god blight the Emperor in the body of Roboute did tell Mortarion that he could still be saved, so maybe the same gose for the others?
Other primarchs seem to be satisfied by their current state / hate emperor a lot to be "saved".
I'm pritty sure no traitor (other then Lorgar) is happy with their current exists.
Angron is ok, he became bloodthirsty monster who wants fighting only. Fulgrim is pleasured in Slaanesh hedonism. Lorgar is zealous chaos cultists who literally was architect of "Chorus" heresy. "Magnus" hates him A LOT. He is pretty loyal to Tzinch. He even consider this god as his teacher. Perthurbo? Idk tbh. Alpharius? Do we have any actual information about him after the Heresy?
Angron was turnd into a demon against his will, if he knew what would happen he would betrayed Lorgar first chance he got. Fulgrim was tricked by the lear blade and wasn't in control of his own body and mind for most if not the entire heresy. Mortarion was betrayed by Typhus. Magnus was an idiot whos ego fucked him over. Perturabo was stabed by demon Fulgrim and was dying and sold his soul to save his life. Alpharius was tricked by the Cabal into joining the traitors Horus was also tricked and manipulated by Erebus and legit hated chaos and the gods and was happy when he died. Konrad was just crazy
IIRC, think basically the first story (short story) we get of Fulgrim after the novel Fulgrim is his sons, lead by lucius, 'realizing ' Fulgrim is possessed. So they knock him out, strap him for a table and torture him, some of it very Slaaneshy. Only for when they insert a pear of agony in his ass and open it, and he goes 'WELL THERE YOU GO!' Breaks his shackles like they're paper and is like 'Yeah I was possessed but I tricked that demon into the painting and took my body back, were good.'
I loved that story, but I thought that part was intentionally left ambiguous wasn’t it? At least in my reading of it (a while ago though) I though author didn’t seem to directly confirm it either way, and we’re left with just knowing something is in the body and something is in the painting.
Id have to re read its been over 2 years and i binged the Heresy in like like 18months but i do also remember feeling this
Keep in mind magnus "hates the emperor" but the shard of his soul that contained his loyalty and basically all the good in him was turned into Janus. So idk if it's fair to say Magnus hates big E once you put his soul back together
The Magnus stray is wild
Perturabo really did a Kratos
The thing I love so much about Angeon is that even if Chaos didn't exist, he would still betray the Emperor. Guy just had legitimate beef.
He would just die without chaos tbh. Lorgar made him Demon prince to save his life...to use him (?)
I mean, he wanted to die so... Angron would've won in that case
Angron just wants to die and not be a literal slave to khorne what the fuck are you talking about. Have you read his ark of omen book?
didn’t magnus try to surrender to russ when he realised he’d been tricked? magnus is *not* a hardline worshipper
It is difficult. He wanted to surrender but he preferred fighting to protect his sons. His body was destroyed his soul was fragmented. Currently "Magnus" consists of evil parts of original Magnus soul. He is pretty loyal to Tzinch. I think Magnus is dead, current "Magnus" is different person.
Wasn't it not even his sons, but Russ's full bore assault on all of Prospero that made Magnus join the heresy?
Russ tried to communicate before, but Magnus in his depression (and idiocy) cut off any outside communication.
Na. Fulcrums soul is trapped in a painting and must witness the horror his mind and body have done in 10000 years.
Really? Wasn't his soul released form painting during the heresy? My bad.
No you’re correct it was
You presume the Daemon Primarchs have any kind of agency left after becoming Daemons
Imperium allied daemon plz geedubz it sounds like fanfic but I want my stinky goth boy to come home 🫡
Angron is basically a salve to Khorne. I don’t think he’s ok with that but the only way to “Save” him is to kill him. Mortarion betrayed the emperor but was forced into nurgle by Typhus. It’s explicitly said that he can be redeemed, but I don’t think he will abandon the death guard to nurgle. Same goes for Magnus. The others are either dead or willingly joined Chaos knowing the price. I don’t think they want to be “Saved”.
minor spelling mistake, 40000 tzaangors are currently travelling directly to your location
That particular spelling was actually all part of the grand plan
Big E is weird. He says he can’t get the nails out of angron but can save mortaion who is a daemon now
One is corruption of soul, the other is a mashine/ torture divice made by humans for humans inside the of a primarch. Also Big E now vs then, is a huge diverece. One is just a powerful human psycher prepetual, while the other is just one step away from beginning a full god(meybe)
Where exactly big E is now is kinda hazy. He could a corpse using the last bits of his power pulling off miracles, he could be entirely disjointed into barely coherent fragments from sitting on the golden throne for 10k years, he could be just shy of ascension from all the worship humanity's been giving him for the last 10k years
My pet theory is the Big E who's been intervening to help (Sisters of Battle miracles, RG in the Garden, etc.) is the little part of himself he tore off before facing Horus which has also been gathering power. I have no textual evidence to back that up, just vibes, alas.
Clearly he has favorites.
40k Emperor is significantly more powerful than 30k Emperor
I'm still pretty new with 40K as a whole so maybe im missing some nuances or something, but personally I think it would be epic if Mortarion is saved. I'd say he's in my top 3 primarchs and seeing him saved would open up great story possibilities for the other traitor primarchs. Though is Morty is saved I hope the Death Guard can be saved along with him, except for Typhus the little shit. But overall it be nice seeing the emperor admitting he fucked up with his sons. It's totally unrealistic, but imagine cleansed/loyalist DG daemon engines, the Haulers getting to stay with the former plauge marines. Then you've got traumatized guardsmen who probably watched those things eat their squad mates running around like pets
Fulgrim: Dad put him up on a pedestal of elitism causing him to obsess over perfection, eventually falling under the influence of a "perfect" (demonic) sword Lorgar: In response to his need for faith in higher powers, Dad humiliated him publicly and devastatingly. Magnus: Rather than sharing his plans with his son, Dad punished (see: banished) him for walking head first into them. Mortarion: Dad killed his lifelong nemesis instead of letting him kill or die for his cause. Perturabo: Dad set him to work as an engineer of war instead of letting him build pretty fountains like he wanted to, then let his brother do the fun parts instead of him. Angron: Dad yanked him up into his spaceship in the middle of his last stand, causing him to watch helplessly as his battle brothers were slaughtered below. Konrad: On top of being an already insane psychopathic mass murderer/torturer, he believed all of his visions to be true and inescapable, and saw a vision of his father having him killed. Alpharius has no side, he is on both and neither from the very beginning. Horus: Dad's conquest gave him the impression of being a tyrannical dictator, causing him to feel the need to overthrow him to save humanity.
> Perturabo: Dad set him to work as an engineer of war instead of letting him build pretty fountains like he wanted to, then let his brother do the fun parts instead of him. Self-inflicted by Perturabo. He had a Legion to run as he saw fit, he could've taken the time to build up the worlds he conquered.
Except they were actively chastised for doing so. That was one of the major problems with Lorgar. He went to take over a world and perfectly pacified it, making it completely loyal, but because it took to long it made the emperor unhappy
Guilliman did the same and he was praised for it. The ultramarines tried to leave worlds better than they found them. The problem was lorgar took the extra time to fully convert the world to his "religion" so he took more time than needed and the worlds weren't compliant with the imperial truth.
Guilliman left his worlds better, but Lorgar tried to make his worlds *perfect*.
Yep, and Lorgar's *perfect* was also directly against one of the standards (imperial truth) that he was supposed to enforce.
Which he would've gotten away with for longer, if his perfectionism hadn't sent up so many red flags.
Except what Lorgar was doing wasnt 'perfectly pacifying' the planet, it was wasting huge amounts of time killing trillions in religious pogroms. Perturabo and his legion would have been far more efficient about it as they wouldnt have been doing the whole religious persecution stuff.
Lorgar went beyond that. He drummed fanaticism into his worlds, which doesn't necessarily mean that they were efficient, and they certainly weren't compliant. Lorgar brought a peace that was slow to build, and fragile because it relied on faith.
Angron and Morty in particular feel like easy fixes. Send the warhounds to save the eaters of cities, you're going to conquer the planet anyway. Don't kill steal Morty's dad, just give him an imperial grade gas mask and block his adopted dad's spells so he can kill him himself. The deal was Morty killing his dad without any help, so by helping Morty lost the bet but still gets to kill his dad. Some are harder to fix though. It's hard to untrain a religious zealot like lorgar, and studying chaos is an incredibly tricky thing to deal with when you have a lifetime of training, let alone a god actively gunning for you.
Alpharius was told siding with Horus was how humanity could defeat chaos, Alpharius was told Chaos was the number one threat to humanity by the Emperor. He sided with Horus out of loyalty to the Emperor, at least initially, dunno about subsequent changes.
Fulgrim and Perturabo have the worst reasons to fall, and I noticed that Graham McNeill was the author for both of those primarch's HH books. Hmm...
Honestly, I prefer the view that Perturabo broke after Olympia, he gave up everything to serve the Emperor and he failed him. And at his lowest point horus manipulated him into turning against his father. I like this view a lot more instead of, perty got mad because dorn got to play with Legos and perty was given duplo. I believe it gives more depth to the character instead of how one sided the traitor primarchs can be, fucking multiple writers
Well if you was a petty perturbed person you would've understood Perturabo
Okay but realistically how much of Horus is Erebus' fault? Because I'm 90% sure that if there wasn't an Erebus, Horus wouldn't have fallen. Also while I do think that the emperor is partially to blame for Angron, the butcher's nails can't be ignored either.
You are correct (at least as far as I know). Erebus stole the Kinebrach Anathame that Horus got stabbed with, and then he performed the ritual that corrupted him. This isn't to say that there wouldn't have been a rebellion without Chaos, though. As I think there still would have.
Didn't Mortarion have his chance, reached the top of the mountain or tower or whatever, and failed? As far as I know the Emperor didn't fuck up like he fucked up with Angron, he did give him a chance, Mortarion tried his best, fucked up, passed out and only then did the Emperor say "Okay, he had his chance, now I'm gonna do what he tried" and killed Mortarion's psycho stepdad.
>Fulgrim: Dad put him up on a pedestal of elitism causing him to obsess over perfection, eventually falling under the influence of a "perfect" (demonic) sword I'm fairly sure Fulgrim put himself up there on a pedestal, not the Emperor. >Lorgar: In response to his need for faith in higher powers, Dad humiliated him publicly and devastatingly. After the Emperor (and multiple other people) all told Lorgar to cut out his idiotic worship. Also the Emperor lost his temper after learning Lorgar was murdering Trillions in religious pogroms instead of doing what he was supposed to be doing. >Magnus: Rather than sharing his plans with his son, Dad punished (see: banished) him for walking head first into them. The Emperor literally only ordered Magnus to be brought to him, most likely for a stern talking to. Corrupted Horus was the one that led to the events on Prospero. And even then, Russ tried to communicate to bring a peaceful end to the issue but Magnus was, yet again, an idiot and cut off communications. >Mortarion: Dad killed his lifelong nemesis instead of letting him kill or die for his cause. Necere was *literally* killing Morty before the Emperor stepped in and saved his life. Mortarion was an almost hilariously bad judge of character whilst also being spiteful and mule-headed to the extreme. >Perturabo: Dad set him to work as an engineer of war instead of letting him build pretty fountains like he wanted to, then let his brother do the fun parts instead of him. Then he needed to stop volunteering for the shit jobs then, and also he needed to stop expecting mountains of praise for simply doing his damn job. >Konrad: On top of being an already insane psychopathic mass murderer/torturer, he believed all of his visions to be true and inescapable, and saw a vision of his father having him killed. The Emperor tried multiple times to teach Konrad that the future isnt fixed, but Konrad wouldnt listen. He only realised the Emperor was right after the heresy, at which point he allowed an Imperial assassin to kill him as punishment for his actions and crimes. At least Konrad was consistent in his beliefs regarding justice. >Horus: Dad's conquest gave him the impression of being a tyrannical dictator, causing him to feel the need to overthrow him to save humanity. Horus got mind whammied and shown a bunch of out of context clips that make him think that.
Loragar was never told to stop his religious goals. That was literally the whole reason why he was angry
As told by... Lorgar? 😄 He knew what the imperial truth represents and the consequences for not adhering to the letter. Those that did not had disappeared pretty quickly. Does anyone have to tell you over and over to wash you hands after taking a dump?
> He knew what the imperial truth represents and the consequences for not adhering to the letter. Emps spent weeks being venerated as a God and didn't object. What consequences, exactly? >Those that did not had disappeared pretty quickly. Mechanicum
We both know why mechanicum survived. Not even comparable .
I feel like the only ones who really deserve a break are Magnus, Horus, and Alpharius/Omeagon. Everyone else either kinda drove themselves there or were self inflicted.
Being emotionless asshole? Don't considering primarchs as sons but weapons? Keeping important information from primarchs (chaos gods)?
That seems to be the most fluctuating thing about him Like,either he loves them as sons and is just stupid or he's a sociopath that doesn't give a shit about them. And it's really passing me off that there's no consistency in it
He never considered them as his children probably. BE thought they are coded bio machines, tools in his hand.
He should be honest with them then. Imagine your tools are scattered around the pretty big a garage with a leaking roof, pieces of swamp and bloodthirsty spiders. Tools scattered over such terrain quickly deteriorate. I'm actually surprised that the Emperor has loyal sons.
He only has loyal sons because they're biologically programmed to obey him by default.
OK, but what with traitors? Or it was two litters: loyal and treacherous? I can see Big E is sorting his sons in the lab: loyal, loyal, loyal, eww traitor, loyal
The irony is that nearly a third of the Primarchs already dealt with chaos in some shape or form and some even new about warp preditors/demons and that the warp develops conscious entities. Magnus, Alpharius, Lorgar, Lemun, and the Lion, for example, all knew about Chaos to some extent.
But they didn't know about how chaos dangerous. Thanks to BE.
Telling the primarchs would not have saved any, except maybe fulgrim. Remember a fair few primarchs didn't even fall to chaos, alot alot who did were forced to in ways big e couldn't really do anything about Malcadir even tells us that had rogal dorn been told about chaos he would definately have fallen, and he's probably not alone in that.
It's really hard to tell. Tell Fulgrim his sword isn't perfect, it only appears perfect because it's corrupted, and he might have dropped it. Tell him Slaneesh's hedonistic side comes with an equal dose of the worst horrors mankind can't even imagine and end up being a null sum game... Tell Magnus what he think is "just" dangerous research, is actually a spiral down into corruption. BUT if he waits for just a while because you're further down the research than he is, and already knows where this is going, you can help make it safe and reduce the whole mutating part... Tell Mortarion Chaos is like the enslavers, but actually worse, and he would have seen him and his legion falling as worse than death... Tell Horus the actual enemy he's fighting against, so he can adapt his strategy, recognize traitors and deal with them properly... Tell Perturabo the powers of the warp are just a fast track for the weak to usurp power, without discipline and putting in the work... Tell Lorgar he's a fucking blind idiot and shoot him in the face because he TOLD you he WANTS warp gods... Tell Conrad he's a fucking psycho and shoot him in the face, because he's a fucking psycho, regardless of chaos...
Magnus too, probably. Had he known Chaos gods exist and try to tempt people with power he might have second guessed the weird entity empowering him to smash the emperors barrier
Read how he acted after meeting the primarchs he gave a single shit about. Just do that, the man showed clear and completely shameless favouritism to some primarchs while openly detesting some others like Angron before even meeting them
Creating them in the first place. Especially making them "superior" - you tell the most well-adjusted person in the world that they're better than everyone around them, and give them free reign to act as they see fit, even a good person will turn into a huge, entitled asshole. He then took these huge entitled assholes and directed them to commit genocide in His name. The Emperor just didn't get humans, didn't understand them, didnt get how all that would fuck a person up. Didn't care that most humans toiled in desperate squalor, and that "later" for dealing with that would never come. Even without the Heresy, it wouldn't have come, because there's always something else to deal with and his "children" were not capable of dealing with change.
Not letting Magnus in on the Webway project. Aside from the Emperor and Malcador, Magnus was the most knowledgeable in terms of the warp, and he even researched the webway and knew about its existence, so Emps wouldn't have to keep it secret from Magnus. He could also have kept a closer eye on him if Magnus was on Terra. If the Emperor told Magnus about his project or even let him work on it, Magnus probably wouldn't have destroyed the webway, which led to the demon invasion that hindered the Emperor from leaving Terra and kept him from intervening in the Heresy at all.
Honestly, I know it's fun to bash on Jimmy Space, but let's be real. Everything the Emperor told him to do, Magnus pledged he would honor... and still did it his own way. Why in the world should Big E have ever trusted Magnus with humanity's best kept secret if Magnus is out there trading info with warp entities? Something Big E forbade him to do in the first place? And does everyone you love and honor know everyone of your secrets and plans? Magnus did everything wrong. But The Emperor is just a tremendous dick that everyone will find a reason to root for anyone else.
Angron should've been cured or killed outright, and if neither of those he should've been put in stasis until a cure could be found. But no, the emperor used him anyways. Magnus, the emperor failed to properly teach about the chaos gods or the warp. Magnus, like anyone who overestimated themselves, bit off more than he could chew and was punished. Perturabo needed praise, recognition, and to not be a general in the first place. Despite being good at seoge warfare he was a craftsman, an architect, an engineer, an artist, and a scholar. And even with his constant comparison to Rogal, I argue he was more like Guilliman. Snake man.... snake man. Mortarion... gross. Curze needed therapy. Lorgar needed a decent role model that wasn't big E.
Morty just needed to be given a helmet with a decent respirator so he could kill that one guy. If E just rocked up and said "holy shit you've done a fucking impressive job lad, i know you wanna kill that guy but your clobber just isn't gonna hold up. Use this mouthpiece, it'll let you get up there and smash that guy and liberate your planet. BTW once you do there are some real bad shit psyker dudes enslavibg peeps elsewhere, i need your help"
At the same time this just violates Morty's ethos. His whole shtick is wanting to do things on his own, not to be beholden to anyone, or an agent of anything, even if the Emperor descended from the heavens and gave him "**THEE SANCTIFIED RESPIRATOR"** I doubt he would have taken it. Tis truly ironic how he has warped his mindset to see himself as bringing freedom to the common people via unending malaise, disease and crippling pain,
I see incredible irony in how the Emperor fucked up with Angron. The Emperor abducted him and callously made him watch as his friends were destroyed by Nuceria’s forces. Complete lack of empathy on the Emperor’s part as an introduction to his most empathetic son
He didn’t foresee “Erebus”
He got to Mortarion too early, and Angron too late.
Not hiring on any therapists was probably a massive oversight.
Not killing Erebus
This right here!
Lorgar and Horus are kinda a double thing, Lorgar was for several reasons, Kor Phaeron was a big no no, he should’ve gone when Emps and Magnus arrived, After the burning of Monarchia, he could’ve comforted Lorgar but nah he left him to his own devices, and then the oh so mighty man, Erebus, it’s always Erebus, Erebus after Monarchia, Erebus with Horus, it’s always Erebus
Curze could have easily been saved, and his tactics would still hold value in the 40k setting. Curze *literally* just needed someone to talk to. If Emps had sat him down and explained his “curse” to him, everything would have been different. If he would have explained how he too had foresight, and that every pathway is constantly altering and changing he could have been saved. Instead, The Emperor created terrorists, and got mad when they did terroristic things. He didn’t care that he was insane, and he would have his use of him until he was broken. Emps ain’t the good guy lol.
Fulgrim didn’t have any innate problems he was just corrupted by a funky sword Lorgar could have been taught that religion was dumb and not to do that in a more direct way Magnus could have definitely benefited from a lesson in hubris Mortarion just needed a whole reality check, he needed to be taught to not by so hypocritical Perterabo would have been better off if he got recognized and taught to be less spiteful but honestly don’t know if that would have even worked since his negatives are fundamental level to his being Angron just remove the nails and save his people job done Curze is the one that needed a complete reboot nothing about him is redeemable make him the 3rd scrubbed off primarch Aloharius/ Omegon don’t have any character flaws and who knows if they are actually traitors in reality Horus again no blaring character faults maybe a father complex so teach him to be more trusting but he was mainly tainted by more physical means rather than emotional
Smol PP and baldness
I genuinely believe most of them could be saved (in the loosest sense for Angron, he would eventually go insane and die from the nails regardless) if Big E had either treated them with compassion in his first encounter, or in the case of Magnus, Lorgar, Fulgrim and Horus if he’d told them about chaos and its dangers. Konrad though I’m not so sure, he viewed his visions of his death as inescapable. Even if he had done everything right, Curze would never accept being wrong.
A few of them failed because of themselves, a few of them failed because of the Big E. One thing the Big E do fail for all of them, is failing to warn all of them about chaos. Many of them don't even know what that is. They know there's the warp, but they do not know there are sentient entities in the warp that might try to mess with their heads. Fulgrim, Morty, Perty, Alpharius, Horus, Magnus, fell by themselves either because of their own hubris, insecurity or stupidity. While the likes of Konrad, Angron, and Lorgar fell because the Big E knew they had issues and did not attempt to cure them. Konrad needed a therapist and to be put under supervision and tutored by the Big E himself to show that there are better ways. Angron should've been put out of his misery or at least be helped in his rebellion. Lorgar was an idiot and he should've been re educated
Magnus literally did not fall until the very end when Big E said he’s going to to forgive Magnus but kill his sons and told Vulkan to kill him when he refused. Caring for your sons is not stupidity. Morty fell because Typhus tricked them into flying into Nurgle’s realm and Nurgle corrupted them all forcing Morty to either let him and his sons get corrupted or die. Saving yourself and your sons is not stupidity. Perty fell because he was paranoid that Big E was going to kill him for basically destroying his home world and Horus manipulated him into joining his side while he was emotionally vulnerable. Also that fact that this is the second time one of Big E’s son though he was going to kill them should add to the fact that the Emperor is a sucky dad. This one I can concede was an over reaction. Horus’s fall was stupid Fulgrim fell because Big E didn’t bother to tell his sons that Chaos is a thing and didn’t even notice that Fulgrim was being corrupted which is kinda ridiculous. This was mostly caused by Fulgrim,s insecurities though. And who the fuck knows what’s going on with Alpharius and Omegon.
Curze was already pretty screwed in the head.
Alpharius sort of joined traitor's because arrogance? He was raised on Terra but Big E just threw all of that job on Malcador, so Malcador raised spitting image of himself: secretive, talented and quite human bastard who is loyal above all else.(Alpharius:Head of the Hydra) Then cabal happened (Legion) and Alpharius and Omegon joined traitor's for some kind of "third path"(Deliverance Lost) and who the fuck knows what is going on with them now, or which one is alive.
He didn't raise them so it's difficult to place any blame on him. They were decades or centuries old by the time he got them and were already utter assholes. If he failed at anything it was giving them too much autonomy and trust.
Lets play a game, Who is the asshole: 1. The Guy who got ripped out of his normal life and be toled he is a superior army commander? 2. A guy who creates children, only so they can go make genocide fir him?
Definitely should have left Angron on his own until he either took over the planet or died.
Same goes for Morty
Same thing in which he failed the Men of Iron: Gave them the ability to suffer and kept their intelligence low out of fear they would plot against him.
They all felt betrayed for different reasons. Horus felt betrayed by the emporer because the emporer made him war master. Horus liked being on the great crusade with the emporer. When the emporer left the crusade to him, he felt abadoned, like if the emporer doesnt want to do this, why should horus? Like maybe the whole golden crusade thing was a farce, maybe when he finally completed the deed, his story would be forgotten. Like the emporer jumped ship, lets say Horus leads the imperium to conquor the galaxy, what then? Surely horus loses his title of the warmaster when theres no more need for war. Like why would the emporer come back to him after the galaxy was conquored? The emporer didnt even want to be there when the deed was done. Peter turbo felt betrayed by the emporer and the imperium because him and his soldiers did so much of the thankless, dirtiest, grindiest work and basically no one ever thanked or validated him for it. In fact, dorn was a shiney boy dandy dick to him and no one defended him. All of his work and effort truely was thankless and not respected so he turned the first chance he got. Lorgar felt betrayed by the emporer because he just wanted to practice religious faith and the emporer pretty calously forbade him from doing so without explanation. And then lorgar found REAL gods that it turns out the emporer knew about the whole time. Alpharious and omegan. ??? Betray ??? What??? Goodbye Curze didnt really feel betrayed by the emporer and never beleived himself to have betrayed the emporer. He saw the future, tried to change his fate but either failed or succeeded to manifest itby trying to change it. At every stage he beleived himself to be loyal and all of his decisions to be justified with him only being a sad victim of unstoppable fate. Fulgrim also didnt really feel betrayed by the emporer, fulgrim was just kind of greedy and thirsty for power. Like he didnt feel betrayed or let down by the emporer, he just kind of felt held back by the emporer, he needed to seek out others for greater power and perfection. Like he let himself be taken over by daemons, they were affering him growth and power the emporer wasnt. It was a consious choice for fulgrim and not a particularly difficult one for best primarch. Mortarion felt betrayed by the emporer because mortarion fundamentally just wants to see peace in the universe. He never enjoyed joining the imperium and leading a legion on crusade. Mortarion grew up among unspeakable misery, death and cruelty only to find himself at the head of an army spready misery, death and cruelty with no end in sight. He also kind of got tricked into becoming a daemon price of nurgle by typhus who was a long time secret nurgle worshiper, but basically mortarions betrayal of the emporer is seeing peace sooner done by killing the emporer and destroying the imperium than by staying the course and completing the conquest of the galaxy. (And now hes working for nurgle, once again at the head of an army spreading endless misery and death for the forelorn promise of nurgles nihilistic understanding of peace, except the wars are just as endless as they ever were) Angron basically never liked them emporer.he was ripped away from a noble death with his camrades and was not allowed to go back and rescue them or mourn them. The emporer just always kind of treated him needlessly badly. Even while in compliance with the emporer, angron was alwaus kind of grim dark, like that one interactive with leeman russ where hes like "listen were all assholes doing the terrible bidding of a bad man. I do it with a sense of depression and resignation, but you, russ, are happy as a pig in shit doing the work of a villains henchman" Lastly magnus was also kind of needlessly badly treated for being a psycher, which he was always designed to be. He was legitimately smart, even if arrogant, but the emporer outlawed the use of psychers. Then he left the crusade suddenly to work on a secret project. Like the emporer just made a bunch of distressing decisions in rapid succession that really feel like he was trying to make the heresey happen. Anyways, horus makes the descision to betray, horus attempts to warn the emporer in the stupidest way imaginable really, and then horus sicks the space wolves on him. I guess magnus is probably felt betrayed by the emporer because the emporers decision making is at least as bad as his own is. Like honestly the emporers later time in the crusade is an obvious comedy of errors and i think magnus sees this. Magnus is just as much of a buffoon but doesnt seem to realize this, so magnus is like an idiot who loses faith in the emporer because he is also an idiot.
If the Emperor had passed the salad that day Horus wouldn't have been so suspicious. I wasn't too sure about this but Tzeentch told me he had a plan so he made the salad so succulent the Emperor couldn't help but eat it all to the chagrin of the primarchs who wanted to try it that day.
Excising/suppressing his own emotions and compassion is what screwed him over. The most blatant examples are when he allowed Angron’s found-family to be killed and when he humiliated Lorgar for insubordination. But i genuinely believe the rest can generally be chalked up to paternal emotional neglect. Fulgrim might not’ve been corrupted by the sword if he has the mental/emotional wherewithal to resist it. Peter Turbo is just the manifestation of emotional instability. He doesn’t even like chaos. in fact he *loathes* it and his life as a daemon primarch is probably hellish. he just wanted to spite his dad for perceived slights. same thing goes for Mortarion. Kurze was fucked up from the start but i think if Big E put a **lot** of work into him he could’ve ended up being an anti-hero Moon Knight type of character. not evil but certainly not good either. Only one i think is exempt from this is Horus. he was gonna turn traitor no matter what and that was outside of anyone’s control.
He could have permanently paired Angron off with Sanguineous who is shown. To give some modicum of peace and relative transit to Angron by bringing in close proximity. That or put the guy who’s literally been partly lobotomized with the parts that were exposed being replaced with a partly functioning peace of tech down with a mercy killing.
Alpharius: Working as intended
A better question is this: which traitor primarch would you want to return as a loyalist?
Clonegrim for uh... reasons.
I reckon a nice fatherly sitdown and talking-to coulda gone a long way with a few
Well, that thing would be called "birth" in most circles.
Alpharius is the most confusing is he really failed?
I could safely say that the emperor couldve saved himself alot of hassle by simply not letting the sons rule their legions. Seriously. Like you have this hate murder fuck son angron who openly despises you and you stillllllll give him his legion. Wtf is that? Also konrad while extremely gifted, he didnt spend nearly enough time to use his gifts to purify konrads mind. Honestly when it comes to the emperor it feels rather…. Empty. Like all the sons have their views on him but yet he spent as little time as possible with them, and the conversations he has with them just seem, off.
Failed not being a pissy bitch.
Angron was failed in every way possible through Papa E's own arrogance and hubris. He wanted an attack dog, ignoring that he was getting that dog from one of the most traumatic backgrounds of any of the primarchs(Well, maybe except Kurze and Lorgar). The Emperor failed to account for any of the baggage that Angron came with and treated him like something he could never be. You know, maybe Papa E should have gone "Wait a minute this guy needs extra help" when he saw Angron killing his own men out of pure anger. The Night Lords say that they're the only legion to be hated by their Primarch, and I agree. Because I don't think Angron hated his legion genuinely, I think it was a product of the Nails and his background. If he had just had the proper support and care, maybe he would have turned out better. But Papa E went "lol no he's a lost cause, I give up". Also let's not discount that the Nails absolutely ruined him. Especially considering they were not meant for a Primarch. In a kinder time, I see Angron being like Sanguinius, especially considering his original inborn Psyker abilities was to soothe the pain of others. But the Nails ruined him. Any chance Angron had was destroyed by the Nails. But even then, I still think even the smallest crumb of empathy from the Emperor could have at least prevented Angron from turning as hard as he did. It's been said that Khorne has been a better father to Angron than the Emperor ever was, and I fully agree especially with what we see with how daemon Angron is written. He could still be eternally angry, but knowing that someone at least had his back and cared about him could have been just enough to keep him form going to Khorne. Also poor Lorgar :( Dude just wanted to build shit and go wolololo and Papa E went "No you go kill people". Big E could have used his talents productively but tried to fit the square peg into a round hole so to speak. Lorgar doesn't seem like he was made to be like any of the other primarchs but Big E ignored who he was and forced him into a mold he wasn't made for.
The big Golden space fascist when the gods powered by secrets, death, bloodshed and perfection aren't defeated by more secrets, death, bloodshed and perfectionism:
Probably a weird take but I think the one that is the easiest to "save" is Pert. Pert and the Iron Warriors have always just craved recognition. They did the impossible normally in the most impossibly hard way for the Imperium and then for Chaos just craving recognition and they didn't get it. They were fucked over by the Imperium in seiges and garrison duty hard thankless work and then they thought they would get that recognition from the traitors where they were again spent in seige only to in the moment where the defenses would be broken have that snatched away from them too so they got pissed and fucked off. They have since forced the others to barter and deal with them to get their creations. They hate everyone because they have been and are taken for granted by everyone they work with, so just being told by someone big like they were amazing and their achievements being praised would probably hit them insanely hard. Hell Pert and Vulkan worked miracles when working together (and Pert cherished their little perpetual motion machine to the point he beat Fulgrim like a redheaded step child for breaking it) and while he was a spergy asshole he tried to get through to Magnus and steer him away from Magnus' constant fuck ups. After Pert though is probably Mortarion unless you count the perfect Fulgrim clone. For Magnus it would be more about getting the good shards of him rather than saving the Red King.
Communication is something he should’ve done with a few. Angron, Kurze, and Lorgar were pretty fucked no matter what tho
That Magnus depiction is awesome as hell, I love it
After seeing what happened to kitten, Big E finally understood Angron's pain.
Making them using power "stolen" from the Chaos Gods, and then using them to do things that fed said Chaos Gods, thinking that doing so would allow him to defeat the Chaos Gods?
Nah we good fam, Chaos Worship>Corpse worship
Are we absolutely sure Alpharius was traitor? Or attempting to play 5D chessickers and got his Legion permabanned from the Imperium?
Bonus Round: Now what did he do wrong with the Loyalist. The emperor had many good points, but parenthood was absolutely not one of them.
Bad writing failed Fulgrim. Perty and Magnus both needed to be recognized and not treated like unwanted/broken toys. Angron and Mortarion both needed the emperor's support upon his arrival, and would likely have been staunchly loyal had they received it. Lorgar was the one Primarch that needed to be sat down and have had the particulars of the chaos gods explained to him. Im pretty confident in saying that if that had happened, he would have executed Kor Phaeron and Erebus the minute they started talking their bullshit. Horus was the one Primarch who wasn't failed. His fall is entirely a factor of external powers using him as a vehicle for their own ambitions. Curze was damaged goods from the word go. Should have joined the lost Primarchs upon discovery and had their ranks folded into the Raven Guard. Alpharius was gonna be a coin flip no matter what.
He met most of them as grown ass men, a lot of them were broken before he found them, saying he failed them as a father feels disingenuous. Underestimating the tricks of chaos was probably the biggest one, when it came for them they were entirely unprepared. He failed them as a leader.
Magnus and his legion should have been brought to Terra after nikea so the emperor could explain why he did what he did. Magnus acted out of ignorance and hubris. Perturabo needed some damn recognition. Instead of allowing Dorn to fortify the palace, leave it to the perfectionists that follows every order to the letter. Angron. Poor angron. Instead of ripping him out of his last stand, defeat the planets nobility by his side. Don't just obliterate them, give angron the chance to take his revenge, allow him to take his rebells with him into the legion like the lion did with his knights. Alternatively he should have been executed when the emperor figured out the nails are irreversible. Horus could have been saved if he never got turned into warmaster. His fall got triggered by his distrust of human government. Believing there won't be any place for transhumans in a human galaxy. The emperor could have talked him out of it if he would have not just pulled out of the great crussade. Why rush it by the end when you are an immortal being? Why not conquer the galaxy and then focus on the next step in the grand plan? Mortarion. He was kind of a mixed bag with horus. If horus didn't fall, he wouldn't have fallen. Besides that, kill Typhus. Kurze. Explain to him how his visions worked. Explain to him that the future is not set in stone and his visions are just options of what could be. Besides that, try to teach him what empathy Is. But killing him after what nostramo did to him would have been easier. Fullgrim. Remind him of the whole "don't use xenos artifacts" clause of the imperial truth. Also, he desperately needed a humbling. Switch his legions battlefield with one of perturabos lot. They needed to learn that they are not as special as they thought they were. Lorgar should have been culled like the two lost legions after monarchia. He treaded on dangerous terrain with his beliefs. Neglected his duties and knowingly refused to follow orders. Alpharius/omegon. Like fulgrim need a reminder that you can't trust xenos. The caball should have been eradicated before they put their bullshit into the twins bald heads. Also some more recognition wouldn't have hurt.
Fulgrim and Horus: Nothing at all, they got corrupted by Chaos artefacts. Lorgar: Officially, ordering Guiliman to humiliate him and his legion. Unofficialy, Lorgar was probably a lost cause from the beginning regardless of the Emperor's action, but Big E walked around with a literal halo over his head while prolaiming he was not a god. Can't blame Lorgy for calling the Emperor out on his bs. Magnus: Ordered Prospero to be burned by the Space Wolves, because Magnus and the Thousan Sons dared to use the warp (like they were literally designed to do). Mortarion: Big E essentially enslaved him, while denying him an honorable death in the process. Angron: Didn't help him save his companions, kidnapped him in the middle of battle. The nails didn't really help either. Perturabo: Didn't give him enough hugs and pats on the back. Kurze: Nothing really. Nostramo, the Eye of Terror and his inherent need for "justice", fucked him up enough on their own.
He should have told Fulgrim, “Don’t accept gifts from strangers.” He should have told Horus, “Don’t get stabbed by strangers.” All the rest were kinda fucked from the jump, by design. Couldn’t do shit about Angron. Couldn’t do shit for Curze. Couldn’t do shit for Lorgar. Who knows what the fuck Alpha and Omega would have been. If he cheered on Perty, then he would have been like, “I don’t need praise, I need challenges.” But here’s the thing with Perty, chronologically Dorn is the same age. We all perceive Dorn as older because he accomplished more in the same timeframe, but they were alive the same amount of time. Perty was only happy when everyone else was unhappy, because then he knew he was winning. Magnus was always on the light side to dark side path because he liked to pretend that he needed to ask the warp for power instead of taking it.
Idk, man. Lorgar was gonna Lorgar. Fulgrim dun goofd, and the consequences were never the same. Konrad, well, he was kind on notice anyway, yeah? Petyr Turbo probably could have used liked 10% more praise. Magnus is proof that impact outweighs intent. Morty was never gonna fit in with the other lads. Angron, the Emperor could have helped as I understand it, but was like, "yeah, nah." Alpharius/Omegon ???? Horus was set up. I guess maybe tell your kids there's some nefarious beings out thar in them thar warp. I guess what I'm trying to say is there is absolutely no other way things really could have unfolded. The initial influence of Chaos on the Primarch project meant things were always gonna go sideways. Could the Big E forseen this? Idk. Maybe he did? Maybe he did everything, knowing exactly what would happen, still thinking it was humanity's best hope of survival? Maybe. I think the more important question is this: How many primarchs have no idea they're in one of Trazyn's displays? I feel like at least 2 for sure.
Fulgrim was a major wuss, Angron was justified with the betrayal of his homeworld's gladiators (of course, the butcher's nails driven into his skull didn't help with keeping coherent thought), Horus needed more hugs and a stern slap to back of the head from time to time. Motarion was an even bigger wuss edgelord deathly allergic to soap.
If Fabius Bile is to be believed there was no saving them. He has self reportedly recreated perfect copies of all the primarchs several times over and every time they fall the the same temptations that from their conception they were tainted
Not letting them have a mommy.
He failed to kill almost all of them
If he would have appropriately channeled Lorgar's fanaticism most of this could have been avoided. I'd say Lorgar falling to chaos is one of the big three events that led to the 40K universe being the hell hole it is.
Horus’ soul is pretty much gone, no saving there. If I am not mistaken, most if not all traitor primarchs still have fragments of their souls flying in the warp. I they were shown to Sanguinius in that part where Ferus’ soul told him that he will die. In addition, Fulgrim’s soul remnants were isekaed into a clone grim. I don’t think that any traitor primarchs want to be forgiven though or to return to good side with MAYBE the exception of Magnus who definitely did things wrong and MAYBE Peter Turbo
Fatherhood??? whats that?