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Libluini posted:Dramatis Personae work best if they're in a glossary at the end of the book, imho. Then you can go take a look if you want to know who the gently caress someone is. DPs at the beginning of a book I always skip past and then just use them like a reverse-glossary someone put in the wrong place. I like em, especially in an ongoing series, I get jazzed up seeing my guys’ names at the front. I won’t claim it’s rational.
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Jan 28, 2024 12:38
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von Metternich posted:I finished it. The whole drat thing. And my reaction was...was all that necessary? If you read the afterword he addresses a lot of the issues you raise. Not saying it will change your mind but maybe you will find it interesting
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Jan 28, 2024 13:58
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von Metternich posted:I finished it. The whole drat thing. And my reaction was...was all that necessary? I really liked it. The Emperor being weaker than Horus and making it through - to a given definition of making it through - by the skin of his teeth? That it wasn't the Emperor's humanity or kindness or whatever holding him back against the corrupted form of his son, but rather Horus's combination of ambition and love for his father leading him to hope to work with him instead? Great stuff. Instead of it being the Emperor as the hero with the friends he made along the way, the Imperium is an entity that wasn't upheld by just the Emperor who can save everyone - it takes the wilful sacrifice of all peoples from all walks of life, from the mighty to the weak, to prop up the husk of the Empire.
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Jan 28, 2024 14:08
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(Ollanius)Arc Hammer posted:Moriana literally starts spreading the story among Agathe's troops and when questioned she says that good lies are better than bad truths. And even then she was technically correct that Olly stood up to Horus, even if he wasn't the last defender. I think the seed had already been planted back in Saturnine, with Olly Piers dying defending the banner of the Emperor and the remembrancer getting away to tell the story. Piers even says to make it a bigger story than the real thing, to say he's defending the actual Emperor instead of a banner because it'll inspire people better. So I don't think Moriana came up with it herself, I think she's repeating it. And the clever thing is that even though people think it's a lie, it's actually true.
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Jan 28, 2024 14:16
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I really liked it. Loken and horus having essentially a proxy conversation for the emperor and horus was well done and cypher getting the astronomicon lit i didnt see coming. also yeah gently caress erebus
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Jan 28, 2024 14:21
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I appreciate this is a complicated question but I don't really know much about the Dark Angels. What's going on with this Cypher guy?
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Jan 28, 2024 14:25
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oh cool one of my favorite topics Cypher Cypher is pretty much how he is named, a big old gently caress off mystery and he is one of neato-est thingies in the dark angels lore Originally on Caliban pre-terran dark angels, they were known as the knights of caliban. there was a role known as the "lord cypher" basically the keeper of all the great mysteries and secrets of the "chapter" (this was pre-astartes) those chosen for this role lost their name and past and would act as a mentor and advisor to the chapter. during the heresay the current lord cypher ended up lumped in with luther and the fallen and is considered basically target alpha for the dark angels. however no one really knows what his motivations are. he has a big gently caress off sword he carries on his back but never draws. it is rumored that it is the lion sword, and his destiny depending on what theorycraft you subscribe to is A: he is destined to kill the emperor or B: he is going to present the sword to the emperor to atone for the sins of the chapter. or C: gently caress if i know e: oh and D: The sword is a key, much like the other so called "heavenfall blades" that opens... something. maybe the prison of luther, no one knows. Dark angels are pretty much super secret squirrels about everygoddamn thing In the titular book "Cypher" he legitimately makes it all the way to the sanctum imperialis before being stopped at the very end by a dying custodes telling him "not yet" and he legit walks away, all the while being hunted by dark angels who have murderhoboed their way through the imperial palace looking for him. He gets away, but often pops up in other lore, sometimes helping the imperium, sometimes attacking them. Him playing a critical role in firing up the astronomocon was a really nifty thing lorewise. a good example of the tone of that book: "Which is more important, the truth or what people believe? Most would say the truth, but that is too easy. No one actually wants the truth. Not in this universe. Hearing the truth is like looking on the face of a god – you have a moment of pure revelation, and then you are ash carried away to oblivion, knowing nothing, seeing nothing. When people say they want the truth, they mean that they want something they can understand, something that fits, that they can carry around in their thoughts like a relic, to touch and take away the fear of what they are living. Am I a traitor? Am I one soul, or am I many? Have I had many names or only the one? Do I wish redemption or vengeance? It’s comforting to be able to pick one, and then see everything fall into line behind it – villain-hero, right-wrong, on and on. That’s what people want when they ask for the truth. They want the lie that makes the world simple. But you are not like that, are you? You know that it is better not to ask for the truth. That what you should ask for are secrets." Its very pointedly an unreliable, or at best a suspect narrator, often addressing the reader directly TehRedWheelbarrow fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 14:38
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Zahariel/Cypher getting swept up in the avalanche after taking a gut wound from Typhus does go a long way into explaining how he could presumably vanish following the Siege. If Sigismund survived the avalanche others did too.
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Jan 28, 2024 14:46
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euphronius posted:If you read the afterword he addresses a lot of the issues you raise. Not saying it will change your mind but maybe you will find it interesting I did, and it was interesting, but also underlined that Abnett/much of the creative team working on this series thinks about this stuff differently than I do.
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Jan 28, 2024 15:22
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von Metternich posted:I like em, especially in an ongoing series, I get jazzed up seeing my guys’ names at the front. I won’t claim it’s rational. The End and the Death Volume III Dramatis Personae posted:The XVI Legion ‘Sons of Horus’ None of these characters appear in the book  It's a very stupid and petty thing for me to notice but I gotta think an editor should have trimmed these names out. Having a dramatis personae is fine, it's just silly when it's padded out with unimportant or entirely unused names.
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Jan 28, 2024 15:47
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I liked the nod to the Bequin books - the revealing of the real name of the archivist of the Hall of Leng and the bits about The City of Dust as the warp disentangles Vengeful Spirit, the Palace, and the Inevitable City. Makes me think the third Bequin book is going to properly push the 40K storyline forward, hopefully.
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Jan 28, 2024 16:08
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I liked it a lot, all of it. As for the fight I keep coming back to Lorgar in the beginning of the book making the determination that Horus is both too weak and too strong. Like others have said it inverts the idea that the Emperor is holding back until he knows his son is too far gone, he knows this immediately. Horus is the one holding back and it's because he's too weak to finish it, his remaining humanity is what allows humanity to survive and it ties together very well I think.
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Jan 28, 2024 16:16
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kim jong-illin posted:I liked the nod to the Bequin books - the revealing of the real name of the archivist of the Hall of Leng and the bits about The City of Dust as the warp disentangles Vengeful Spirit, the Palace, and the Inevitable City. Makes me think the third Bequin book is going to properly push the 40K storyline forward, hopefully. I really think pushing the 40k storyline forward would be good for the game and the setting. It doesn't need to be dramatic but - well, also, in a sense what else do they start driving books towards? Part of the success of the HH was that it was a narrative which promised actual development and conclusion, at a time two decades ago when I think the main setting was resolutely stuck in a holding pattern.
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Jan 28, 2024 16:16
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I have a question about the end of the Sea of Souls book. What weapon is the knife fragment from? In the context of EatD it seems to be a mirror of how the Emperor kills Horus in that Abaddon is going to use this knife to kill the Emperor.
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Jan 28, 2024 16:20
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kim jong-illin posted:I liked the nod to the Bequin books - the revealing of the real name of the archivist of the Hall of Leng and the bits about The City of Dust as the warp disentangles Vengeful Spirit, the Palace, and the Inevitable City. Makes me think the third Bequin book is going to properly push the 40K storyline forward, hopefully. lines posted:I really think pushing the 40k storyline forward would be good for the game and the setting. It doesn't need to be dramatic but - well, also, in a sense what else do they start driving books towards? Part of the success of the HH was that it was a narrative which promised actual development and conclusion, at a time two decades ago when I think the main setting was resolutely stuck in a holding pattern. The 40K storyline is already being pushed forwards, though - in the Dawn of Fire ongoing series, in Guy Haley's books about Belisarius Cawl, Chris Wraight's Watchers of the Throne, Mike Brooks' book of the Lion returning, and no doubt more that I'm overlooking. The setting is no longer static. I don't know what the current grand narrative arc is heading towards, but it's definitely going somewhere. Bequin takes place hundreds of years before the events of all of those, it's still like year 800 of M.41 in Bequin whereas the "cutting edge" of the storyline is well into M.42 by this point. I'd like to be proven wrong, but my prediction is that the Bequin series will get wrapped up with zero impact on the setting. Maybe it'll introduce some plot threads for Abnett or other authors to weave into subsequent M.42 stories, but it's not going to change anything. Kylaer fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 16:23
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Kylaer posted:(Ollanius) that remembrancer doesn’t get away - he dies, and there are no witnesses to piers’ death. That’s the whole point of his arc, really: that all these stories about glory and heroic last stands are all lies to help people deal with the fundamental horror of war, but when someone finally does make a heroic last stand against impossible odds, nobody witnesses or remembers it.
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Jan 28, 2024 16:46
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:that remembrancer doesn’t get away - he dies, and there are no witnesses to piers’ death. That’s the whole point of his arc, really: that all these stories about glory and heroic last stands are all lies to help people deal with the fundamental horror of war, but when someone finally does make a heroic last stand against impossible odds, nobody witnesses or remembers it. (more Saturnine than TEatD) Are you sure he dies? I did a quick check and in the last Olly Piers passage, it mentions that Hari went away to find more troops to rally, and didn't return. I can't find anything saying what happens to him afterward. Piers then makes his last stand in front of the banner and is killed by Angron. The story, though, is from the earlier defense of the banner, against a "regular" World Eater who is killed by Jenetia Krole. That's the story that Piers tells Hari to embellish, to turn it into a Guardsman defending the Emperor from Horus in the flesh. So I think the implication is that Hari gets away and spreads the story which is false-yet-true, and then it becomes false-but-even-more-true when Oll Persson makes his stand against Horus himself. Ultimately, I think the point is that Olly Piers and Hari Harr are the source of the story and Moriana was repeating it rather than creating it. Edit: Maybe I'm wrong after all because it was Moriana who sent John and Oll the knowledge that let them cut through the warp to Horus' location. So she knew the names and knew that they'd gone there. Maybe Olly Piers never mattered at all 
Kylaer fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 17:04
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Regarding "the Emperor was supposed to be stronger and restraining himself" The Uplifting Primer tells me that orks are frail, a solid punch can render one incapacitated.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:14
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Kylaer posted:The 40K storyline is already being pushed forwards, though - in the Dawn of Fire ongoing series, in Guy Haley's books about Belisarius Cawl, Chris Wraight's Watchers of the Throne, Mike Brooks' book of the Lion returning, and no doubt more that I'm overlooking. The setting is no longer static. I don't know what the current grand narrative arc is heading towards, but it's definitely going somewhere. I hope the Bequin series either is the catalyst for the return of the primarchs or gets time warped into current-day 40k.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:17
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i would also submit the whole lore of the the emperor has evolved to where its not just even remotely simple or clean cut anymore. the whole scene where horus realizes big E isnt even acknowleging him or talking with him at all was really well executed
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Jan 28, 2024 17:17
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Looks like scalpers got into the last pre-order again. So now it sounds like a 3rd attempt to get the LE will go back up again.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:40
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OPAONI posted:I hope the Bequin series either is the catalyst for the return of the primarchs or gets time warped into current-day 40k. yeah it could very easily be a case where bequin gets out of the impossible city and a thousand years have passed! in the regular 40k world.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:43
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TehRedWheelbarrow posted:i would also submit the whole lore of the the emperor has evolved to where its not just even remotely simple or clean cut anymore. What scene is this? - oh nvm, I hadn't realized book 3 was out already. Mikojan fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 17:46
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Philthy posted:Looks like scalpers got into the last pre-order again. So now it sounds like a 3rd attempt to get the LE will go back up again. An open queue is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:51
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I was really talking about the modern era as well, I guess. I know things are moving forward but I don't have a sense for where they are going - if anyone has a good notion I would be interested.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:58
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Kylaer posted:(more Saturnine than TEatD) Are you sure he dies? I did a quick check and in the last Olly Piers passage, it mentions that Hari went away to find more troops to rally, and didn't return. I can't find anything saying what happens to him afterward. Piers then makes his last stand in front of the banner and is killed by Angron. The story, though, is from the earlier defense of the banner, against a "regular" World Eater who is killed by Jenetia Krole. That's the story that Piers tells Hari to embellish, to turn it into a Guardsman defending the Emperor from Horus in the flesh. So I think the implication is that Hari gets away and spreads the story which is false-yet-true, and then it becomes false-but-even-more-true when Oll Persson makes his stand against Horus himself. it’s very clear that harr dies. Piers and Harr are at Eternity Wall as it’s being completely overrun and everyone slaughtered, and they go looking for more soldiers, and they don’t find anyone still alive. Also after Piers says that Harr didn’t come back, he thinks that “some losses are oddly hard to take.” He is dead, dead, dead, they both are. Moriana is the source of the Pius legend and she’s basing it on Ollanius.
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Jan 28, 2024 18:13
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^^^ I suppose. In that case I don't get the point of Olly Piers and his inclusion in the storyline, just a weird sideline? lines posted:I was really talking about the modern era as well, I guess. I know things are moving forward but I don't have a sense for where they are going - if anyone has a good notion I would be interested. Bringing back the Primarchs seems to be the main thing at present. Corax has been confirmed to be alive* and active but hasn't really been folded back into the setting yet, ditto Vulkan IIRC. There's no word on Russ, Dorn, or Jaghatai but I guarantee there's some kind of long-term arc that's been conceived for working them all into the ongoing setting. *He's apparently become essentially a warp entity after spending the past ten thousand years in the Eye of Terror murdering traitors in his neverending hunt for Lorgar There's also the Star Child, (TEatD2 spoiler) which is the Emperor's aspect of love and compassion that he severed: TEatD2 posted:For my King-of-Ages has done more than divest himself of godhood. In that shockwave of warp light, I saw something else, something perhaps only I was in a position to see. He has cast aside a fragment of himself. Reuniting the Emperor with that part of himself could be another Big Turning Point for the setting in the same way that breaking Cadia was a Big Turning Point. Something that years of stories work towards and then changes the setting in a big way. I'm not sure that's where they're going, but it's a plausible longterm arc.
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Jan 28, 2024 18:33
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Kylaer posted:^^^ I suppose. In that case I don't get the point of Olly Piers and his inclusion in the storyline, just a weird sideline? The purpose of his inclusion is that he fits the themes that Abnett is trying to bring out and serves as a POV for the fall of eternity wall. Not everything in the books is meant to be missing pieces for Lexicanum, filling in who’s really who and where X came from. Some of it is just there because it’s a good story and makes you think or feel what the author wants.
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Jan 28, 2024 18:50
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:The purpose of his inclusion is that he fits the themes that Abnett is trying to bring out and serves as a POV for the fall of eternity wall. Not everything in the books is meant to be missing pieces for Lexicanum, filling in who’s really who and where X came from. Some of it is just there because it’s a good story and makes you think or feel what the author wants. I phrased that badly. I think character arcs like Jenetia Krole and Camba Diaz are exactly what you're saying, and Piers too, it's just weird that Piers' story is beat-for-beat exactly what is needed to become the legend, and Piers himself even discusses the value of becoming a legend, but...that's all a red herring? quote:Piers nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good, then.’ With some effort, he got back down on his knees, and began scrubbing the banner again. ‘But tell it right, if you’re telling it,’ he added. ‘What I’m saying is, do it justice. Make a proper tale out of it, eh? It wasn’t no banner, it was the Emperor Himself. In person. I stood before the Emperor on the battlefields of Terra, to protect Him. Put myself in harm’s way, for His sake. And it wasn’t no raving World Eater, neither. Make it… say it was the Great Traitor himself. Big, bad Lupercal.’ It just seems like some M Night Shyalaman-grade twist to say "No, this isn't where the legend of a guardsman named Ollanius defending the Emperor got started."
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Jan 28, 2024 19:00
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Kylaer posted:It just seems like some M Night Shyalaman-grade twist to say "No, this isn't where the legend of a guardsman named Ollanius defending the Emperor got started." A story about a Normal Person (arguably a Normal Man due to the bubbling  the Imperium was going to become) defending the Emperor was going to happen, be it due Actually Happening or due to a Space-CIA agent ensuring the story gets told as propaganda.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:23
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yup.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:25
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Ok, I'm finally done with the book. 18 loving years, holy poo poo they happened fast for me. Others have already talked about this but I really think these last books are too bloated and drag too much. Don't get me wrong, I like them and have some really strong scenes and creative ideas. I know Abnett had good reasons to do this, but still the pace and structure is an unholy abomination and should have been curtailed. However, in the end it is too fitting and representative of the Horus heresy books as a whole, so it's fine. Also, gently caress Samus and gently caress Erebus, seriously he's the biggest piece of poo poo to ever existed
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Jan 28, 2024 19:26
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Kylaer posted:I phrased that badly. I think character arcs like Jenetia Krole and Camba Diaz are exactly what you're saying, and Piers too, it's just weird that Piers' story is beat-for-beat exactly what is needed to become the legend, and Piers himself even discusses the value of becoming a legend, but...that's all a red herring? Abnett discusses exactly this in the afterword to Saturnine. The legend of Pius comes from Piers’ stand before the banner, and the real Ollanius’s death, and probably other, similar heroic stands too, all amalgamated with the details mixed up through thousands of years and thousands of retellings. That’s how legends are born.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:29
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It should also be said that the artwork in the book is really loving good.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:32
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alpharius grammaticus and persson were def the ones i wanted to see in the people list at the beginning of any/all these books.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:34
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:Abnett discusses exactly this in the afterword to Saturnine. The legend of Pius comes from Piers’ stand before the banner, and the real Ollanius’s death, and probably other, similar heroic stands too, all amalgamated with the details mixed up through thousands of years and thousands of retellings. That’s how legends are born. Oh, okay. I misread you at the very start of this line of discussion, and thought when you said this: DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:that remembrancer doesn’t get away - he dies, and there are no witnesses to piers’ death. That’s the whole point of his arc, really: that all these stories about glory and heroic last stands are all lies to help people deal with the fundamental horror of war, but when someone finally does make a heroic last stand against impossible odds, nobody witnesses or remembers it. You were saying that Olly Piers didn't contribute or factor into the legend of Ollanius the Guardsman. I think we've just been talking past each other. I agree with what you're saying now.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:46
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Perturabo doing the 40K equivalent of sitting down and watching world shattering events unfold on TV broadcast didn't add much to the book but it was also really, really funny. He became the blue glow of his monitor, which he refuses to turn off and go touch grass.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 19:46
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Arc Hammer posted:Perturabo doing the 40K equivalent of sitting down and watching world shattering events unfold on TV broadcast didn't add much to the book but it was also really, really funny. Also breaking all the stuff in his room in a fit of  rage. It's perfect. Just the right note to go out on before spending the next 10,000 years as a NEET.
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Jan 28, 2024 19:48
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ok its been a full day of reflection and re-reading a few parts gently caress erebus. i know loken dying was thematically appropriate but ugh i hate that loving guy
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Jan 28, 2024 19:51
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He won’t get it but abnett deserves a Hugo for that
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Jan 28, 2024 19:51
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