Of 40k Traitor Primarchs and their tragedies

[NecroLord]

While there is already a thread about Warhammer 40k Primarchs,let's focus on the Traitor ones and their stories.
What traitors do you consider to be the most tragic in terms of fate,admiring their triumphs and tribulations or in terms of wasted potential? You can choose no more than three.

1. Angron. Damn. This guy got screwed big time ever since he crash landed on Nuceria. So much potential. He had the ability to psychically absorb the pain of his fellow gladiators and dissipate it. He also was a real bro to all of them. He only fought to survive,not due to rage or a sick sense of enjoyment out of shedding blood. When he got implanted with the Butcher's Nails it was the end of Angron and everything he could have been. He was also forced to kill his mentor and father figure Oenomaus(which he did when he got the Butcher's Nails in his head).
Neverending rage that could have been empathy and camaraderie,the story of Angron.

2. Lorgar. What happened to Lorgar was pretty fucked up. Seriously. The Emperor had one of the most LOYAL of his sons humiliated for daring to build monuments in his honor and write the "Lectitio Divinatus",due to his "no faith allowed" policy. Lorgar was known for being charismatic,he conquered through words and faith,not planet wide butchery and destruction. He dreamed of uniting the entire fucking galaxy under the faith and worship of the Emperor,and he had his entire belief system shaken to its core by Big E,almost begging him to become a heretic. Honestly,this was one of the major failures of the Emperor. To not support and encourage Lorgar,further strengthening his faith and zeal.

3. Konrad Curze. This crazy motherfucker could have brought justice and hope to Nostramo. Unfortunately,easier said than done,as Nostramo was one of the most inhumane and depraved of worlds. His idea of bringing justice was through the use of terror. He butchered all who defied law and justice(or at least what Curze considered to be laws and justice). He even tortured a woman to death just because she wanted to attempt suicide. It was against the Law...
Instead of a fair and dedicated justice seeker,he became a bloodthirsty lunatic. His mental state also greatly deteriorated throughout most of his life,hence some of the batshit crazy butchery he was capable of doing.

 

[Poseidon00]

I still think it's Angron. His story is simple but effective. He's a lot more down to earth than the other Primarchs, less interested in high-minded ideals or greatness in general. He had loyalty to his original friends and that was enough.

Honestly,this was one of the major failures of the Emperor. To not support and encourage Lorgar,further strengthening his faith and zeal.

I think "the Emperor is a god, religion is important, and he needs to accept it and get over his mistakes with the religious wars he created in the past" was/is true and was/is a recurring theme.

 

[Storyfag]

I shall always mourn the tragedy of Magnus. He just wanted to warn the Emps ASAP...

 

[NecroLord]

I shall always mourn the tragedy of Magnus. He just wanted to warn the Emps ASAP...

Hell yeah.
Big E had big plans for Magnus,having him sit on the Golden Throne after the Webway Project was complete. However,he did completely ruin the project when he decided to hastily warn him of Horus turning traitor,by projecting himself through the Warp. Emps must have been so furious it made Khorne look zen...

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Lorgar is probably the most tragic one, all things considered because Emprah ended up being a god of the imperium anyway. And the way Emprah solve the problem is just non sensical.

Frankly Emprah was a massive retard savant and half the shit that happens to fallen Primach was his fault.

 

[ASTRAL]

Those backstories should be vague & half mythical.
The more you know the more retarded it becomes.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Essentially. It's why I don't read them except for 2 primarchs: Perturabo and Angron.

 

[J1M]

Those backstories should be vague & half mythical.
The more you know the more retarded it becomes.

Yeah, they've been masturbating over the minute details of the Horus Heresy for way too long. Should have pushed the plot forward a long time ago.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I would rather the vagueness and mythological status of the primarchs as being true demigods akin to ancient legends and such today.

 

[NecroLord]

I would rather the vagueness and mythological status of the primarchs as being true demigods akin to ancient legends and such today.

If you think about it,in current 40k(the age of the Dark Imperium) the average Imperial citizen is mostly in the dark when it comes to what really happened during the Horus Heresy.
Primarchs are true demigods to the imperial citizens,embodiments of either virtue and sacrifice(Sanguinius - Loyalist) or depravity and vanity(Fulgrim - Traitor).
Hence,they are indeed shrowded in mythology,representatives of a terrible age of destruction and where legends were born.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Lorgar is probably the most tragic one

Lorgar is the least tragic one since his fall to Chaos was done willingly, unlike with the others who can blame circumstance (Magnus due to the love for his sons, Mortarion as a way to stop his eternal torment while caught in the Warp, Perturabo due to his shame), lack of agency (total in the case of Fulgrim with the sword, partial in the case of Horus with the rites performed after his wounding) or mental illness (Kurze by nature with his delusions that led to him embracing a self-fulfilling prophecy, Angron by nurture with the nails). Leaving out Alpharius since the backstory of both primarch and legion is being kept contradictory on purpose.

 

[NecroLord]

A shame about Lorgar. He could've been a gigachad preacher of the Imperial Truth. Emps should've treated him better...

 

[Heroic Liberator]

A shame about Lorgar. He could've been a gigachad preacher of the Imperial Truth. Emps should've treated him better...

Well, even if you invoke the religious angle, he's still at fault since he valued the act of worship (selfishly, since it brought him personal satisfaction) more than he valued the one he acknowledged as God. Reminds me of those tradbro LARPers that change denomination for non-theological, superficial reasons. Basically he never worshipped the Emperor himself (unlike Imperials in the post-HH era), but only the Emperor's image as he subjectively constructed it. And when reality came knocking and the gap between the two could no longer be bridged, he discarded the Emperor altogether in favor of the Chaos Gods.

 

[NecroLord]

A very interesting way of putting it.
He is the First Heretic for a reason,no? Without taking Erebus into account,since he was small potatoes compared to Lorgar.

 

[Poseidon00]

Lorgar is probably the most tragic one

Leaving out Alpharius since the backstory of both primarch and legion is being kept contradictory on purpose.

The Alpha Legion aren't traitors and i'm convinced of that because they are assumed to *be* traitors. Fits their philosophy perfectly

 

[lightbane]

Those backstories should be vague & half mythical.
The more you know the more retarded it becomes.

Agreed. The horus Herpdesy book writers seem to compete amongst them to make the Imperium grimdark... BEFORE it was supposed to be that way, and interpret poorly what was known of the Emprah and co, or deliberately paint him as a moron for reasons.

Lorgar is the least tragic one since his fall to Chaos was done willingly, unlike with the others who can blame circumstance

For example: I vaguely recall before the books and such, Lorgar was "only" called out by the Emprah and Lorgar went to hiding and whine about it, instead of being ridiculized in front of his entire army or whatever "reinterpretation" was done in the HH books.

Also stupid stuff such as the Emprah having made a deal with the Chaos Gods to make the Primarchs, which defeats the whole idea of him being a super-scientist.

 

[NecroLord]

I agree. I do not like the way the Emperor is portrayed at all,especially by ADB,who goes out of his way to make him into a cold,emotionless and even malicious tyrant.
I always saw the Emperor as a quasi divine figure of myth. He is inhumanely powerful and gifted and also far above humanity. He has so many problems to deal with(managing the gargantuan sized Imperium and keeping Chaos at bay) that he has little to no time to humanely interact with others,especially his Primarch sons.
One cannot really understand the Emperor and his heavy burden of sheperding humanity.

 

[ItsChon]

After watching through most of ArchWarhammer's 30k series, the vast majority of Primarch stories are terribly written. The Emperor does so much retarded shit that it can't be explained away, and it's just blatantly inconsistent. In terms of which story is the most tragic, it has to be either Angron or Magnus. Lorgar's fall to Chaos is too poorly written for me to view him as tragic. It's a shame because the Warhammer universe could've been truly something great, but now the only thing great about it is the squandered potential.

 

[Storyfag]

It's a shame because the Warhammer universe could've been truly something great, but now the only thing great about it is the squandered potential.

This seems to be a recurring theme among multiple franchises lately. Hell, basic manual competence is in ever shorter supply too.

 

[NecroLord]

It depends on each individual author,I think.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The Emperor does so much retarded shit that it can't be explained away, and it's just blatantly inconsistent.

There are tidbits within the lore that suggest that the Emperor intentionally encouraged rivalries between the legions and alienated some of his sons on purpose since he did want the war to occur in order to get them Thunder Warrior'd. Problem is that it occurred too soon (a.i. before he could finish the Webway Project) and with some unexpected twists in terms of sides (e.g. he thought that the Khan would fall to Chaos while Fulgrim would remain loyal, that Magnus would remain loyal and end up powering the Golden Throne rather than the Emperor himself etc etc).

 

[J1M]

So much heresy.

 

[TedNugent]

I don't really think most of them are tragic, on account of their ridiculous over the top portrayals. They were practically designed to be heretical. Really, more accurately, "on the nose" by GW.

One idiot is literally named "Angron." Because he's angry. This is from an age when GW's authors didn't take themselves so seriously. Look at Kurze. Just look at him.

Some things in 40k really are stupid, among them is the heresy and the primarchs. Most things having to do with the whole space marine bullshit, honestly. It's fun, and it was not meant to be taken seriously.

There's so much great stuff in the setting, it really is a shame that they have spent so much on needlessly fluffing up on this Heresy series.

 

[NecroLord]

Indeed. But that is just because 40k was designed to be over the top and satirical. If you want true "grimdark" read authors like Stephen Baxter and his "Xeelee Sequence" and Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" and "The Road".
Also originality is really not one of Warhammer 40k's traits. Everyone knows that.

 

[Reggin Backward]

The Lorgar downfall is the best because to put it simply, it's an honest intellectual mistake/flaw coming from a good place, faith and zeal (which are not mutually exclusive). It's also an allegory for mankind's desire of spirituality which has been very topical these last years.