1. This post will contain some spoliers about the Horus Hersey books.

I have read a lot of horus heresy books since they were published and i have thought about some of the primarchs.

1. Magnus the red. The primarch of the thousand sons. Personally i like the pre heresy Thousand Sons the most. They could use magic.
They were very intelligent and they tried to think "out of the box" which most of the other legions did not liked.

The choas gods once stated it should be Magnus who should lead the forces of the horus heresy to victory. But his will power was to strong even for them. They only way they could break him, was through his sons. Because of the incurable genetic desease which plagued the thousand sons, magnus was forced to make a pact with the demons of the chaos gods, not fully aware how evil the powers really were, which he formed a contract with.

The interesting thing is, Magnus was on the emperors side even after what happened on Nikea. (The emperor forbid all sorcery)

But he thought, he was more intelligent than even the emperor. Because of this he tried to warn the emperor of horus betrayel, but in the same moment he destroyed everything the emperor worked the whole time for in his throne room. ( The gate to the eldar network)

The emperor was enraged. (Of course he was ^^ ) and ordered the space wolfes to bring Magnus to Terra. (Not to wipe prospero out)

But horus interfered and as we all know prospero burned in the end.

Even after this Maguns was not sure if he should really join the chaos forces. He knew he made bad mistakes, but getting slaughtered by the space wolves for this was to much. (Even Leman Russ said this in the end. The space wolves overreacted on this)

Lorgar convinced him in the end to join the chaos and he did it. But more out of the bond to his brother, while he felt betrayed by the emperor, even when he tried to warn him of horus.


2. Lion EL' Johnson The primarch of the Dark Angels.

Puh this guy is very hard to understand. His motives were as clouded as the Dark Angels whole chapter doctrine is.

While a great commander and general and loyal to the bone to the emperor, he was VERY suspiciously about everything concerning his person and his orders. He ordered Luther, his closest friend and "father in law" back to Caliban because he only ONCE questioned his orders.
While the "good" Horus appreciated it, when his closest generals sometimes questioned his orders, the Lion was the opposite. In my opinion he had somewhat of a paranoid complex about his person.

It is a sad thing he set the stones for the betrayel by himself only because his pride does not allowed him think clearly in just one moment. (Of course there was the bad chaos influence on Caliban itself but the chaos seed could grow, because Luthers will was destroyed)

But who knows. Maybe he would have ended like Perturabro after destroying his own planet, because of a rebellion against him.

Maybe it was exactly this sitution, which made sure the Dark Angels stayed loyal to the emperor. Because they saw, what could be the price of betrayal.


3. Ferrus Manus. Primarch of the Iron Hands

Ferrus Manus is one of the most contrary primarchs in the Horus Heresy universe. On one side a great leader, craftsman and tactican, he was on the other side often very hotheaded and very strict in his doctrine. (Purge the weakness)

In my opinion he was portrayed in the horus heresy books sometimes TO hotheaded. (Because the Iron Hands were the coldest and most logical thinking space marines of all)

While Fulgrims falls through his obsession with perfectness, Ferrus Manus falls through his obsession with weakness. When he heared about the betrayel he rushed to Istvaan with all his veterans not waiting for the rest of is legion. He did this, because he did not want to be considered weak by Fulgrim.

We all know the outcome. Ferrus Manus dead. All of the veterans of the Iron Legion dead. Fulgrim alive and Horus victorious.

Before the betrayal Ferrus was considered a great leader of the space marine legions. Even so great, he was one of the candidates to become the next war master.

But sad he became like Angron, when it was time to stay coolheaded.

(Excuse me for my english. I am german ^^)

on Lion, the dude raised himself till he was about in his 20's by pretending to be big boss from metal gear, so his trust issues are a little validated.

Haha, well i think i can agree with that

Ok so i will continue my thoughts on the primarchs.

Next 2 primarchs: Corvus Corax of the Raven Guard and Night Haunter or also called Konrad Curze of the Night Lords.

These two primarchs were very close to their war doctrine pre heresy.

Both took out far bigger armies with smaller forces and both used "dirty" warfare methods to gain victory.

Furthermore they prefered to take on the most important enemy target.

The difference was the inner mindset of the primarchs and their legions. While Corax tried to "liberate" the planets and held up a code of honor Curze thouht it was better to gain victory through terror and fear.

Both of them had to fight hard against the former ruling body of their homeworld, to became its leader.

But while Corax had comerades and friends, Curze was alone. Corax was nearly as brutal as Curze while fighting against the elites, but he was supported by his slave comerades, who would become the first space marines from Deliverance (the hombase) later.

Curze had nothing of this. He had to learn everything by himself. Landing on a planet full of criminals, he learned it was the best to supress false behaviour, before people began to change to criminals.

Another problem of Curze was, he was plaqued by visions abou the death of the emperor, his death and the burning of the galaxy. The irony of this is, he even told Fulgrim, his former mentor about his visions.

Sadly Fulgrim told it Rogal Dorn, the Primarch of the Imperial Fists, who had the empathy of a stone.

Rogal Dorn branded Curze a heretic and the proud Curze, going into blood frenzy, nearly killed Rogal Dorn for this.

(The only primach who REALLY could safe the emperor and mankind was branded a heretic )

But even before this happened Curze and Dorn hated each other. Curze was very ruthless in the crusade and everytime he had the chance he killed all prisoners of war.

Rogal Dorn was against this, because it was not honorable. Curze told him, only when they would kill all prisoners of war, the conquered people would understand not to go against the imperium.

(The irony of this is, the imperium is fighting exactly like Curze right now, using terror as a normal way to treat its citizen)


In the end both primarchs (Corax and Curze ) were bitter but still held up somewhat of a code of honor.

Corax became mad, because of what he did to his legion resulting in going into the warp as redemption.

Curze let an imperial Assasin kill himself, because of all the bad things he did and he knew, his legion became an
accumulation of murderers.

Corax and Curze were both "right" in their own ways. Corax was the more honorable primarch. Like the yang, the white, he fought against slavery and surpression but ignoring the fact, there was evil in the world you can not oppose only with honor.

Curze was like ying, the dark. His methods often were based on the realism of human nature. But at some point he became depressed and TO pessimistic about the dark flows of the galaxy. He only knew white and dark. No grey.

Last words: The Night Lords were indeed a weapon of terror, created by the emperor himself. Everytime someone did something bad in the eyes of the emperor, the Night Lords would bring justice in form of terror, to make sure it would never happen again.

(They brought fear into the hearts of the enemies, not like the Space Wolves, who were the executioners of the emperor, but not his weapon of terror)

And I love the Night Lords for that reason, Night Haunter was basically Batman, striking fear into the hearts of G̶o̶t̶h̶a̶m̶ ̶C̶i̶t̶y̶'s Nostramo's worst criminals.

Where as the Nightlords themselves were basically the millions of Robins to his Batman.

Luther literally almost got me and everyone on board my ship killed. I think it was justified.

I was right most of the time, if anyone wanted to question me, with their flawed suggestions (like Nemiel)...well I have no time for that.

Now as for Ferrus. I do believe he WAS right in his decision to push the attack. If anything Corax and Vulkan were wrong to retreat. If all three legions rushed the traitor line, they could very well have struck the Emperor's Children down. At the same time the "Loyal legions" would have lost their huge advantage, as no one was going to retreat into their gunfire. Ultimately I believe Ferrus was right in his assault, if the others had followed the battle would have gone way more successful.

I enjoyed your thoughts on the Night Haunter and Corax (I don't know as much about Corax).

Have you considered that Konrad Curze is also very similar to Vlad the Impaler? They had a similar approach to punishment and allegedly there was very little citizen crime under Vlad. He had a ... certain idea about making the punishment fit the crime (according to his own logic). And he certainly used impaling as a terror tactic.

I'm not saying there are no Batman parallels - of course there are - but so far as I know the Caped Crusader didn't skin anybody, or indeed, eat the dead. (I don't think that would be approved by the Comics Code ...) Despite the things he did, I have a lot of sympathy for the Night Haunter, because as you say he never had any guidance. I think in the end, he was tired of being the monster and he had had enough. That's my idea of why he let M'Shen kill him - that, and he had known for most of his life what would happen. I wouldn't want to have that knowledge hanging over me. It also parallels what happens to Kurtz in the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (I would recommend the book, and the film, but not for the love of Khaine the director's cut ).

Well the thing with the primarchs is, they are not really "bad" or "good". This makes the warhammer universe so great.

Each primarch was somewhat the aspect of the emperor himself.

Fulgrim = perfection, Horus = The will to rule, Guillame = The calculating mind, Angron = the brute force and so on...

As you said Curze was not "evil" because he felt, it was fun to be the evil guy. He performed his actions because they were necessary in his opinion. Who knows. Maybe the cold calculating Gillaume would become exactly like Curze when he had to deal with a planet full of murderers.

+ He had the ability to look into the future. And what he saw was death and the chaos gods.

If the emperor just have told his primarchs how evil the chaos gods were, maybe the story would have taken another turn.

But then in the end the world Bearers might be anhilated for treachery as well as the Thousand Sons and the World Eaters.

When i have time i will write about the other primarchs.

Please do, I'll be interested in what you have to say! The Primarchs are a very deep subject, even for someone like me who's not really a Marines fan. They are so complex.