Fulgrim

[meltedwing]

Just finished reading this book. What a terrible piece of garbage. Having read this after reading the Horus heresy, it's become clear that the authors of these books intend for readers to come to the conclusion that Humans are smarter than Astartes, who are in turn smarter than Primarchs, who are in turn smarter than the Emperor. Between the Horus Heresy and Fulgrim, I definitely think Fulgrim was the most ridiculous of the lot.

[shadowhawk2008]

Err... Fulgrim is part of the Horus Heresy series....

And what exactly was your problem with the novel? "garbage" and "ridiculous" don't really explain much at all to be honest.

[meltedwing]

I think my biggest problem with the novel is how incredibly two dimensional all of the characters are. It also bothers me a bit how the more "powerful" a character is, the less intelligent they become and more prone to making incredibly stupid decisions.

[Melchiah]

Fulgrim is one my my faves in the series. To each their own.
Humans and Astartes/Primaches are not really meant to be "better or worse" they are just different. You cant expect a human who has lived a human life to have the same mentality as an astartes that has lived say 100 odd years to think and feel the same as he did when he was human; and at that point wasnt "human" for very long.

[Londinium]

I think my biggest problem with the novel is how incredibly two dimensional all of the characters are. It also bothers me a bit how the more "powerful" a character is, the less intelligent they become and more prone to making incredibly stupid decisions.

Because the humans in the novel that fell to Slaneesh were particularly clever aswell? :|

[Lupe]

I don't see the Astartes and Fulgrim as two dimensional, really. I actually interpreted it as them being so different from the human race that they will become blindsided by the simpler leaps of logic a human makes on a daily basis. Basically, that's a problem every Astartes and every primarch suffers from. However, with their single-minded goal of nothing short of perfection, the Emperor's Children further distance themselves from humanity by willingly isolating themselves in a mindset of absolutes and abstract ideals.

[Wyrmwood]

I'm going to chime in here

For a tragedy, I didn't find Fulgrim or any of the Emperor's Children to be especially sympathetic characters*. Know No Fear did a much better job of this, with the 'perfect' Roboute Guilliman** - a man who's most intrinsic characteristic is his logic; within this, he prizes every detail of every facet of relevant information that he can gets his hands on, overlooking the obvious and essentially compromising his own principals because he is simply unwilling to accept that his brother is capable of such an act of personal betrayal.

With Fulgrim though, one can argue the point that the reader is supposed to see where it's all going to lead. Because of our knowledge of the Horus Heresy, and the pretty obvious signs within the novel. I wouldn't call it garbage, because it's quite fun - but I'd also rate it at the lower end of quality in the series.

*But then, thinking about it, most characters in your classic tragic tale aren't very sympathetic. Sometimes, it's downright obvious where their path is going to lead: in which case, the journey there should be compelling which, in my opinion, Fulgrim is not.
**I find that he's somewhat like Magnus without the hubris, and the twisted tendrils of Tzeentch transmuting his passion into a lust for power. Or Perturabo without the bitterness.

[Wazzahamma]

I agree with what Wyrmwood has written, more or less. That

most characters in your classic tragic tale aren't very sympathetic

is broadly true and something I'd forgotten. So perhaps that's what McNeill intended for Fulgrim in this novel (though McNeill's desire to populate most of his novels with superficial and obvious characters makes me kinda wonder).

Two things that spring to mind though:

The big reveal to Fulgrim of the depth of his own betrayal when he hacks off Ferrus' noggin at the end, seems to be asking for some sort of empathy and pathos from the reader. And that can only come about if we either empathise, sympathise or at least have some measure of respect for the character or what he (once) represented. If McNeill was writing Fulgrim as an unsympathetic character that we're supposed to condemn from the beginning and watch slide into total failure with a smile of satisfaction on our faces, it seems like he fumbled that ball somewhat in this scene.

Similarly " The Primarch of the Emperor's Children was lovingly portrayed in perfect detail, every nuance of his grandeur and the life that made Fulgrim such a vision of beauty captured in the exquisite brushwork. The daemon knew that no finer figure of a warrior had ever existed or ever would again, and to even glimpse such a flawless example of the painter's art was to know that wonder still existed in the galaxy" is kind of lost in that context.

Y'know...cos... Fulgrim was basically a tool.

[meltedwing]

That! That is basically something that drives me nuts in these books. When the authors state that someone is perfect or exquisite or beautiful or whatever. I don't need someone to tell me that something is perfect. I want them to show me that it's perfect and then do a fantastic enough job of showing me that I wholehearted agree with you.

If an author wants me to feel something, they need to create a bond with me emotionally and then they have permission to manipulate that bond. This author just fails really hard at making me like any of the characters. The one emotion I had during this book (aside from severe boredom) was anger at the end when I felt like the author himself betrayed me, the reader, by killing off the good people when he had spent zero time establishing that it was even remotely likely.

Yeah, I could go on for a while about how terrible this book is, but I think you guys get the point. Thank you all for your perspective on this.

[Sqallum]

I liked it, but I thought Fulgrim was a two dimensional pretty boy, and as a result I have no empathy or sympathy towards him. Only hate, as he killed Ferrus Manus, who was simply AWESOME! (would like some more HH on the Iron Hands and Ferrus Manus though, and how they rebuild after Istvaan )
Sqallum

[shadowhawk2008]

Squallum, I would suggest reading Little Horus (an Iron Hands makes an appearance IIRC). And there's some nice pre-Istvaan Ferrus/Iron Hands action in The Primarchs. Plus there have been some rather subtle indications that the Iron Hands are gonna be making a good post-Istvaan comeback pretty soon.

[Wyrmwood]

Squallum, I would suggest reading Little Horus...

Seconded. Bion Henricos is a very high-end badass!

[Casper Hawser]

I really enjoyed Fulgrim I think Mcneil, Abnett, Swallow and Dembski have done a amazing job portraying the Primarch's and showing they may be post-human but they still suffer from human emotions.
I liked Gav Thorpe's portayal of Corax in Ravens Flight but felt he lost it a bit in Deliverence lost especially when the rememberancers start complaining about going back to Terra but thats a diffrent post.

[DDM]

The sex-rock opera thing was pretty crazy, I must admit.
Fulgrim himself, isn't particularly developed, and the marines all clearly fall into the "future Slaanesh cultist" or "boyscout" camp almost imnmediately.

That being said, I did get a little teary-eyed when Vespasian died. What the Emperor's Children should have been...

[DietDolphin]

The sex-rock opera thing was pretty crazy, I must admit.
Fulgrim himself, isn't particularly developed, and the marines all clearly fall into the "future Slaanesh cultist" or "boyscout" camp almost imnmediately.

That being said, I did get a little teary-eyed when Vespasian died. What the Emperor's Children should have been...

This. All of it.

For the Record I really like the book but the marines fall to Slaanesh was not a gradual and smooth as it could have been. It felt like one minute they were good and the next minute crazy, and then the rest of the book is just examples of different kinds of crazy. One problem I have with most HH novels is you can tell immediately who will be the good guys and who will be the bad. I know that some characters we know what will happen, but it would have been a neat twist if say Eidolon for all his arrogance had stayed loyal to the Emperor (I like how Lucius was handled).

Agreed about Vespasian, that was the moment you knew that Fulgrim and the Emperors Children had past the point of no return. He really deserved some more screen (word?) time.

Also someone mentioned how all the good guys got killed off. This was something I actually really liked, it was a sinister twist I didn't see coming and not only did it make me really hate what the EC had become but added a real grim atmosphere to the legion, that sometimes the bad guys don't get there come upings and that they truly are damned.

[Londinium]

This. All of it.

For the Record I really like the book but the marines fall to Slaanesh was not a gradual and smooth as it could have been. It felt like one minute they were good and the next minute crazy, and then the rest of the book is just examples of different kinds of crazy. One problem I have with most HH novels is you can tell immediately who will be the good guys and who will be the bad. I know that some characters we know what will happen, but it would have been a neat twist if say Eidolon for all his arrogance had stayed loyal to the Emperor (I like how Lucius was handled).

Agreed about Vespasian, that was the moment you knew that Fulgrim and the Emperors Children had past the point of no return. He really deserved some more screen (word?) time.

Also someone mentioned how all the good guys got killed off. This was something I actually really liked, it was a sinister twist I didn't see coming and not only did it make me really hate what the EC had become but added a real grim atmosphere to the legion, that sometimes the bad guys don't get there come upings and that they truly are damned.

I forget who it is (Solomon Demeter?) but one of the Emperor's Children is set up to be an obvious fall to Slaneesh, with talk of how he likes to go into battle without his helmet on to better experience the pleasures and the thrill of warfare. However he then turns out to be one of the loyalists, so it's not like every character was obviously signposted from the start. Although this is one of the problems of the HH series.

[Sqallum]

A bit off topic here, but yeah, somewhere in Tempus Fugitives it says that when the Emperor's Children kill all those worlds during the seige of Terra, the Iron Hands managed to launch a devestating counter-attack against them..... can't remember where it is though
Sqallum

[Wyrmwood]

Eh? I can't remember either, but considering the supposed secondary source is the Tempus Fugitives I'd put it down to their own homebrew fluff. Doesn't mean it won't actually happen at some point in the Horus Heresy series, as there are a lot of pissed off Iron Hands wandering the stars.

[Sqallum]

Ah, okay. I was wondering about that, actually. I tried to look it up on Leixcanum, so Tempus Fugitives must have mad it up oh well..
Sqallum

[Ragnarfan_12]

I get why all the dislike for Fulgrims quick downfall but i mean it wasnt as quick as it could have been we see fulgrims slow decline arguing with himself and when he meets the eldar had he not had the blade on him it would have turneed out differently and if your goinbg to complain about how quickly the EC turned to chaos shouldnt you hte every book in the HH series look at legion they have the meeting and bam done all agains the emperoer Horus is dieing in the lodge erberus offers a way and bam most of the mournovial and the legion follow down the path i personally liked fulgrim we see the nobility and strive for perfection go slowly wrong and then with each step it gets easier and tehy degrade faster i thought the ending was well done seeing fulgrim finally realize how far he and his legion had fallen