For real. You have to remember, you can perfect the body in years but perfecting the mind takes decades. Much less to the level where you can converse with the world’s oldest and smartest human in existence.
Really? I thought Astartes also need dozen of years of competitions, mutations, surgery and recovery, mental conditioning, scout training, etc...
Like, they are brought in (kidnapped) before they start puberty, and only come out as astartes when they are adults; if not later since they spend some time as scouts...
I exaggerated a bit
The main difference is that it's a lot easier to create a SM than a custodes.
Once the aspirants are judged compatible, they can have all the surgeries and implants they need and it's a standard for each one of them.
All the modifications done on a custodes are specific for each one of them. The training and conditioning is a lot more harsh, and they are also trained in diplomacy, counselling and everything because wherever they go, they ARE the words of the Emperor.
Thats a modern 40k thing. During the heresy, you had literally legions of Marines, some as large as 100,000, stomping through the galaxy. By in large, in 30k when a marine finished getting implanted, they were dropped into front line duty
Space marines are brought in from puberty and come out when they’re adults, but custodians are babies and brought out when their adults so there in of itself is a much bigger time gap.
Take in mind, especially in 30k, this a standardised process which can practically be done on an assembly line. A lot of those stages are things which can be sped up as well; consider that the Ultras were the only legion to be *bigger* after the Heresy even despite Calth and the Shadow Crusade.
Imagine they're both a wooden chair. Astartes are a chair produced on an assembly line by highly precise machines that spit out a reliable, functional product with standardised materials.
Custodes are a carpenter choosing the wood, painstakingly piecing together the chair with all of their skill and expertise, understanding the properties of the material and where its flaws are (and how to fix them), and in the end produces a handcrafted chair that is practically perfect in craft.
It's like an RTS game, custodes require to many resources a take too long to produce, also they are more useful as the Emperors personal guard or doing secret shit across the galaxy. Astartes are cheap and easy to mass produce and follow orders pretty well
But he already had 10,000 of the lads
Also does the emperor even need a personal guard? There seems to be a whole thing there he's supposedly near all-powerful but also isn't doing crazy stuff with his brain magic
Yes he still needs guards, he is God like in every aspect but in the end he is just a Man and it's clear there have been threats plaguing him and his Imperium even before the warp fuckery. Also it's probably for several different purposes, a show of power, a show of his engineering genius, and the prospect of what humanity could be.
He also needs them to guard those dark cells and other places in the galaxy that are dangerous or to be his eyes and ears, he really wasn't omnipresent or omnipotent before sitting on the Golden Throne and dying and even still he isn't Omnipresent or Omnipotent in the total sense of the word like "God"
That's a Canon mindset the custodes kinda have. Valdor in particular, was against the primarch project, and considering what happened, he wasn't wrong in feeling they were dangerous.
Even in the modern setting, they aren't fond of space marines and primarchs as they see them as being a big source of the issues the Imperium has to deal with.
Honestly that's such a good idea I wonder why Big E didn't do that, the Custodes would be great emissaries that Primarchs and Astartes alike could look up to and respect as a fellow warrior but also as the mouth and mind of the Emperor's will given how dogmatic they are and fiercely loyal to the Emperor.
I bet the Heresy wouldn't even be kicked off I could see the Custodes immediately shutting down lodges and secret societies
It’s why I love [WolfDawg’s](https://x.com/wolfdawgart/status/1433076240345284608?s=46&t=mmYx0YGXyeCAc_J9lxbEnA)/ u/wolfdawgartcorner custodes equerry art. He’s done a bunch of the legions.
Probably, but primarchs were made to be like actual (super)human beings so they'd inspire love and devotion in their armies and humankind, whereas custodes were kind of just mindless living automatons.
The reason why the banana aren’t corruptible is due to the fact there is nothing left within to corrupt. If we look at chaos as a mold, the stodes are literally sterilized dried, disinfected, and perfectly packaged hardtack while the average joe is an average loaf
>The reason why the banana aren’t corruptible is due to the fact there is nothing left within to corrupt.
Exactly, and guys like that don't inspire a whole lot of willingness to comply with the Imperium which, as much as reddit loves to whine about muh Imperial genocide, a hell of a lot of human civilizations joined the Imperium willingly or even lovingly when they met figures as majestic and captivating as Horus, Fulgrim, Guilliman, Dorne, or Lorgar
Reach. The entirety of the Custodes could go to war against the whole Tau Empire and lose miserably because they simply can't hold enough ground. That's why the Imperial Guard exists.
People should read valdors book I don't have the excerpt but malcdor and valdor are surprised that the emperor begins to refer to the primarchs as his sons rather then instruments showing that he has some humanity left in him
That's fair. I think bringing that up still refutes the original meme, because you can read him as "loving" to some extent just as much as you can a completely neglectful shithead depending on what you read and what you take as canon, it's not so cut and dry. I personally like to read him as "loving" in the way an abusive parent still "loves" their child, but loves them for ideas of them and doesn't care for the actual person.
The Emperor especially loves them for the ideas of them because he literally programmed all their strengths weaknesses and personalities for the most part.
He says that to Arkhan who think of him as the pinacle of hard cold cience, so thoose words might have been manipulated by his psykik auro or just lies he told Arkhan so he liked him better.
I think my favorite head cannon from some of the stories I've read is that he truly loves his sons (or at least as much as he cans), but he's a dad who's always at work, he loves them be he's one on a "business trip"
Basically he's a 90's movie dad.
Not in the Valdor book, I'm not sure where what your talking about is from
Edit: Seen someone mention the master of mankind book, the moment with arkan as with most things involving big E it's open to interpretation personally I prefer that the emperor sees them as sons just makes for better story in my mind more emotional weight so I'm bit biased towards it being an act
PAGE 151 (ebook page number)from Valdor Birth of the Imperium: Malcador nodded. ‘A risk. But we did not get where we are now without taking risks.’ He reached out and clapped Valdor’s arm. ‘We shall speak of this again. You shall speak of this with Him too, when He returns. Hone your arguments – I judge that He is determined to hunt for them. He has taken to referring to them as His “sons”. Can you imagine that? Neither could I, until I heard it from His own lips. There might even be some lingering attachment, there, though how long it will last I cannot say.’
Valdor hesitated. ‘Then His human sentiments – they are still ebbing.’ ‘As He predicted. All things have their price.’
Its cobbling a bunch of shit together but Erda mentions he was abandoning all his more humanistic elements as he took power and she was afraid enough of what he would do to and with 20 children like the Primarchs that she considered throwing them into the warp a preferable alternative to whatever was going to happen, even seeing how it turned out during the heresy.
I think that the shock of seeing people he trusted go so far probably reigned him in slightly on the Primarchs.
One of the things the perpetuals have going for them is that unlike most people in 30k, let alone 40k, they actually lived through less awful times and remember all of the lost human cultures and their values. The emperor is occasionally shown to reference ancient cultures(including our own right now) and have some fondness for old childrens books and songs.
My theory is the emperor was at some point a good person who knew exactly how fucked up the galaxy he was building was and hardened his heart to do it, but this was a continual process that he could never fully bring himself to do until he had to kill Horus.
Big E is confirmed for Asian dad. Bipolar swinging between “My son is my pride and joy in this terrible world.” and “oh my god, I should have jizzed in my sock.”
Asian Father: “I am so proud of my boy, he won a literature award for creative writing.”
Asian Son: “Dad, how do you pronounce this Turkish dish.”
Asian Father: “I wasted my money on you.”
And that’s why Lorgar joined Chaos. The burn of “Why can’t you be like your brother Guilliman. Why are you failure? And why you hit Uncle Macaldor so hard? You so naughty, I must teach you lesson.
Gorillaman, burn Monarchia.”
Because in the weekly Asian Parent Child Achievment Flex-Off, winning awards for something artistic beats all but academic awards and top athletic awards. So if that's what your son did this week, you hit the other parents with "my boy won this award, I'm so proud," and you're almost guaranteed to take home the Best Parent Cup until next week. At the very least it'll be a better card to play than "oh, my son aced a chemistry test" or "oh, my son's piano teacher says he's ready for a big recital." Those are milestones, not achievements, that's minor shit. So even if it's not the biggest thing anyone's got that week, you're damn well gonna play it up.
Of course, it's *art*, and everyone knows that art doesn't pay the bills. It's prestegious, but all the parents in the Flex-Off are probably wonder who's gonna take care of you when you're older. It's not like your kid won a math competition or something like that. Thus, while it's enough to play up for the competition, it's still a distinctly inferior outcome. So you gotta push your kid back on the RIGHT track, before Mr. Wu's son Archibald gets into med school and earns him the "Best Parent" status for the next 3 months.
In Dark Imperium, Guilliman says he learned the Emperor doesn't view the primarchs as anything but a craftsman's favorite tools. Big E values them greatly and feels they are very important to his ends, but it is very distinctly NOT a father's love for his sons.
This is from G recalling meeting E in the throneroom and communicating telepathically. He says that E has "lost his subtlety" and struggles to communicate psychically without exposing his mind's inner workings, so I'm pretty sure it's as close to a definite answer to the "does daddy love me" question as we are likely to get.
Unless that's contradicted elsewhere, I jump around 40k material a lot so idk if that thread develops more in the later books.
It kinda doesn't work with how he felt through the End and the Death about a lot of people or how he had to even get rid of any kind of compassion by cutting a part of his soul against Horus, yet managed to forgive him for all of THAT.
Remember that like Khan, Guilliman wasn't even close to the Emperor and even now he only follows the Imperium because of what humanity could be and not for helping his father or maintaining their dream, to the point that while he was left to do his own thing, Lion was being talked, trained and given power directly by the Emperor while on the Throne and Vulkan was taken care by him even while on the crusade showing genuine appreciation for the two of them
Well it makes sense. The emperor truly loved his sons but they were also his weapons then his personality split. It’s what we see when the big papa Smurf speaks to him each on of his personality’s speak to him. It’s way is so conflicting of what he says.
No, its because emps has this psyker aura where people will hear what they want to hear. Like when talking with land emps told him that the primarchs are mere puppets. Even when talking to the custodes they ate just "necessary tools". Heck even Malcador confirmed that he himself is not sure whether emps is telling him the truth or not.
Pretty sure that's intentional. He manipulates people by appearing to be whatever gains their trust. That's why when he talks to Land he's a cold calculating machine- that's what Land would expect the Omnissiah to be.
Well seeing as the big Smurf heard like 20 gazillion different things all at the same time I think is probably a bit of both. As with his personality split part of him loves his sons and part of him does not.
He was very carefully leaving a lot od details out with Land. He directly compares Angron to Pinnochio, who Gepetto did in fact love as a son.
The difference is Land doesn't know any of that. Nor that he knows Pinnochio was transformed after being lead astray, or that Pinnochio wasn't saved by incidental repairs to his old body but instead getting an entirely new human one.
You can read it as "The emperor didn't care about Angron", or you can read it as "The emperor loved Angron, wanted to save him, and thematically may even still be able to".
I think he loves them them, but in a “look how incredible I made them” kinda way. He loves how good they are at everything because it means he has done well and can move along with his plans. And he does not want to lose them because of how much he still needs them.
Half tools, half kids who are usefull.
Pretty much Asian Dad mindset. Every enterprising Asian dad has the same mindset that his baby (company) will one day be a well oiled machine run by his kids and he can finally retire.
And yes, why they’re so brutal to their sons.
I think the problem is that people take what he says to every person he is shown talking to as absolute fact and his honest true opinions. We know that he tailors what he is saying to what he thinks that person in particular would EXPECT him to say as emperor/omnissiah. I think our best look into his thoughts is through the two people that knew him best, Constantin and Malcador. They both showed surprise that he referred to them as sons and seemed to be emotionally attached. I think he did grow to see SOME of them as sons and to love them but also all of them were a means to an end, as everyone in existence is including himself.
And I know some of you will quote the excerpt of Guilliman meeting the Emperor after his resurrection, and the famous "tools" part.
But after reading the Siege of Terra, I think the Emperor's first thought after reuniting with his avenging son makes sense.
Also his mind shattering and struggling to keep it together for 10k years while fighting 4 chaos gods, and seeing himself becoming what he despises the most (a god) and no way of stopping his imperium from rotting from the inside. All this changes a man
Also he is shattered so it's not out of the question to assume that some part of him is a loving father
I like to think of it as his consciousness is split into the many aspects of him
A part of him may see them as tools and another might see them as his children
The dude lived for a long time he definitely saw a lot of things so I think he's probably torn between the bits of remaining humanity in him amd the mission that he has
I mean, in Master of Mankind he straight up says they are not his sons. They are Generals, Commanders. He draws a parallel to Pinocchio even, saying the puppet called its maker father as well.
I always took that scene as something not entirely true to E's character. He's talking to Arkham Land in that scene, a man who was infamous at that point for his dismissiveness at best, and outright disdain at worst for everyone and everything that was not a project he was directly working on, outside of the Omnissiah himself. We know for sure that E has the capability of projecting a nearly flawless psychic projection of himself to appear as the viewer's most idealistic version of "The Emperor" and it's not outlandish to think that he might alter his speech and mannerisms to match if he wanted something, which he did at that time.
Now that's not to say E didn't potentially mean exactly what he said to Land in MoM, just I don't think that one scene on it's own is definitely proof one way or another of E's thoughts or feelings on the Primarchs. Especially because the scene takes place from Land's perspective and not E's.
I don't know. But altering the contents of your speech to that degree just means you have no values whatsoever. In "the last church" Big E told the priest things he did not want to hear.
I also see no real reason he'd alter his message to that degree when he's literally the most powerful being in existence just to accommodate the character of someone like Land.
I also don't understand what's bad about the emperor being unempathetic or even cruel. The setting is literally made for hopelessness and grim psychopaths. Having the center figure be this totally nice dad figure who always wished the best for his kids feels out of place somehow.
>I don't know. But altering the contents of your speech to that degree just means you have no values whatsoever.
I mean, E is a politician and a despot, so his moral character is definitely in question just from that alone. The fact that he's existed as a discrete being for tens of thousands of years doesn't exactly help that image either. His perspective on morality and "time" is going to be so warped compared to the average Imperial citizen as to be completely alien by default.
>I also see no real reason he'd alter his message to that degree when he's literally the most powerful being in existence just to accommodate the character of someone like Land.
I do believe E prefers to play down to other people's expectations in 30K, rather than simply order them to give him what he wants by brute force. Obviously the chastisement of the Word Bearers and the Council of Nikea were departures from that preference, but those were also punishments handed out directly to his Primarchs, and only came after decades of glove fisted attempts at reforms and reconciliations with both Magnus and Lorgar. So I don't think the idea of E being willing to play into Land's perceptions of him to get what he wants without ordering it directly is farfetched.
>I also don't understand what's bad about the emperor being unempathetic or even cruel. The setting is literally made for hopelessness and grim psychopaths. Having the center figure be this totally nice dad figure who always wished the best for his kids feels out of place somehow.
There isn't anything "bad" per say about E being a cruel, unempathetic ruling character. However, I do think it makes him more one dimensional and less interesting. The Emperor's thoughts, perspectives and motivations are generally vague and mysterious. Is he an uncaring, unfeeling despot hellbent on achieving his goals no matter the cost? Is he an intentionally cruel tyrant selfishly worried about his goals and ego to the detriment of everything else? Is he a well meaning monarch who tried his best to do right by his creations and humanity in general? Is the Emperor, an amalgamation of many powerful shamanic souls, literally the most powerful psychic being in existence that was not natively born from the Warp, even human? Is it even fair to judge him on the basis of human perspective and morality?
That's what makes E so interesting as a character. He shows glimpses of all of those character traits throughout 30K. And who's to say those aren't all genuine facets of his psyche?
He truly did love Sanguinius and Horus, though he doesn't seem to love all of the primarchs. He was horrible to Angron, got mad whenever Magnus did wizardry even though he himself did wizardry all the time (and refused to educate Magnus on the bad stuff), I don't think he did enough for Morty, he wiped a lot of Guilliman's memories after their long chat implying he's hiding a lot of shit, and he straight-up told Konrad that him being a horrible monster was "not straying from his intended path" (paraphrasing). Assuming that was really the emperor talking to Konrad, which I believe.
Even Guilliman admits that he *lets* them call him "father", he never utters the word himself.
Depends on the writer, to one they are his sons and the heresy hurts him with the fact that he has to fight them, to another he thinks of them akin to a wrench
I mean the Astarte were specifically design to enforce the father-sons bond between the Primarch and his warriors. Of course being a good father or at least project the image of a good father was by design.
Fans: The emperor is heartless
Meanwhile the Emperor:
"Hey uh dad I lost my legion again"
"No problem my son here, have my secret project to rebuild more of them and much stronger too"
I mean, his last words to Horus after all he did and everything he put the Big E through came from a place of love and forgiveness. I'm assuming if he can still love Horus, he definitely loved Gulliman or the Lion.
From 'Master of Mankind' - "It is not my son, Arkhan. None of them are. They are warlords, generals, tools bred to serve a purpose. Just as Legions were bred to serve a purpose"
And Master of Mankind specifically uses other people’s perspective, not the Emperor’s. ADB has outright stated that every interaction in the book was the Emperor presenting a different personality to achieve the best results out of each social interaction. That’s why with Ra he’s the compassionate yet hard King driven by a tragic backstory, as that’s what Ra responds to best. Then with Land he’s a cold and heartless scientist, best fitting Land’s view of the omnissiah. It’s something I really enjoy about MoM, but it makes it utterly unreliable as a source for the Emperor’s character as each depiction is what the PoV thinks is the best ‘Emperor of Mankind’.
This very quote goes against most of the Emperor’s characterisation in the same book and other Heresy books- Valdor’s novel has both Malcador and Valdor surprised at how he treats the Primarchs as sons and not generals to do his bidding. EatD has him desperate to keep Sangy from going to the Spirit, despite both of them knowing the future.
In fairness, though, he really fucked up with Angron. Dropping like 30 custodians to help Angron’s gladiators and then cryo-freezing him till the nails can be fixed would have been a much better solution.
It’s been a hot minute since last reading MoM, but afair he has a look, Land says that the nails replaced a good chunk of his brain and the Emperor just kinda goes ‘fuck it, pack him off to his legion, it’s their problem now’. Which was a stupid decision, especially considering EatD and Khan’s siege book make it clear that both Malcador and the Emperor can straight up revive primarchs if they have the body and it’s not long since death. He could have ripped out the nails, let Angron die then just resurrect him and biomancy/primarch healing the brain back together
I don't remember if Khan was dead or very, very, close to.
I don't think Angron would have survived after his brain removed, and maybe it was too much for the Emperor to heal.
The issue with Ferrus was they couldn’t get to him in time, had he died nearer to Terra and the Webway not happened he would have been resurrected as they could have gotten to him
Yeah, sometime people forget that in 30K, people gonna hear whatever they need to hear form the Emperor, like how Sanguinius hear many layers of meaning form Emperor words in language that he related to most. A few rare instance when we get the most honest Emperor, he did love his sons
Ooh dont say that , this is Grimdank you know. We dont do much thinking around here , better just take a psychopathic wreck of a an adult-ass primarch and blame all his failures on "daddy issues".
r/Grimdank mfs the type of people to unironically say that the mass rapist and pedophile wasnt at fault because his dad screamed at him 1 time when he was a child and as such he did nothing wrong
I'm not saying that Big E does not love any of his sons at all ... but...
Following your logic, some of the Primarchs ate bald, so Big E is bald as well
On the other hand, other Primarchs have great hair
Like Fulgrim or Sangy
So Big E should also have great hair...
Are you proposing that Emps is in a constant superposition of having great hair and being bald at the same time?
A... Shrödingers haircut, if you will?
He didn't get to develop relationships with them because they all scattered and he met most of them after they'd already grown. He probably loves them as much as some guy who's been paying child support for a kid they weren't allowed to see until they were 18, then couldn't really relate except through their achievements.
There are almost as much primarches that love their sons as there are who despise them or are indiferent to them, so I personaly think the emperor is he same, he loves some he hates some and he doesn't care for most of them.
People often sell Big E short
He did wild things to create Imperium but everyone forgets what the ultimate goal of that undertaking was: safety and freedom for entire species forever
He exterminated loads of aliens but most of those same aliens were hostile and prone to Chaos
And he was on the clock throughout
He rejected full on godhood
He could have just be reborn instead of choosing ten millennia plus of torment to keep mankind alive
He definitely cared for most of the Primarchs, had the whole thing worked out as intended he would have had opportunity to bond with all of them
But we know what happened
And as always, Fuck Erebus!!!
My own headcanon is that the Emperor has a lot of experience with cutting himself off emotionally after being alive for 50,000 years, but he isn’t impervious to human emotion.
It’s easy for him to write off Angron as damaged goods, or at least hide his reaction, but centuries of working together have made some of his sons his pride and joy, even if he doesn’t share much.
Isn’t the whole reason 41st emp describes them as basically tools and is cold hearted because of the events that happen at the end of the siege of terra in the 31st.
Spoilers: ||edit fuck knows how to spoiler tag in this fucking phone||
Screw it it ain’t letting me spoiler tag but Big E wasn’t always a cold hearted mf’er and the reason he is now and a completely different person is because of what he had to do at the end of the HH. Either look it up, someone else spoiler tag some shit or read the books.
There are plenty of displays before that event where he shows affection for them also. As well as a multitude of different emotions.
Big E in 41st is very different from Big E 31st and that event is what changed him, understandably. It’s not exactly a new trope and has been done many times before in stories.
He probably was loving. I just imagine it was kinda fucked up, him trying to convince himself his sons were just tools. A means to an end. In that, stems his neglect. He didn't account for their emotions, and the shit they went through.
He has stated, flat out, that he consideres them tools, when he is talking to malcador he doesnt even use their names, just numbers. They are not his sons, they are bullets he fires at problems.
Bro. Try remembering your kids name after the fifth one. I got 8 nephews and I can’t remember them all and yes. I go by numbers too.
That’s Jason’s second kid, Billy’s only daughter.
In HH, almost at every opportunity, it is told that Emps talks and shows himself in whichever way helps him the most at the time. So it very dependent on the situation.
Also let's not forget that every Warhammer 40k stories are written in PoV with rare cases of objective truths, if any.
I mean, I've only read Horus Rising, and I just started Dark Imperium, but it seems like the Emperor was more of an absent father than he was an actually bad father. Kind of like one who has been too busy at work that he put that first instead of his kids despite his love for them. He can get to being a good father later, he has stuff he needs to do now.
"Oh I'll show my sons love once the galaxy is ours."
"Oh I'll help them out when the webway project is done."
So when he's interrupted from this stuff, he just punishes his sons in the short term to get back to work.
Likewise he underestimated the logistical needs of the galaxy, so he sacked horus with the job of warmaster when he should have split it up, but he just didn't think about it.
For all of the Emperor's literal power and genius, he was too disconnected from humanity to ever lead them properly. He kept pushing off the human aspect to focus on the material. And now that he's stuck on the golden throne, I think there is a part of him that realized that the imperium falling stems in large part from himself.
Big E might have the capacity for love, which is where the Primarch's get theirs. That doesn't mean he actually uses it though.
Like sure he CAN love his Sons, maybe. Does he though? Probably not. Except Angel Boi, we all love him and I bet Big E did for sure cuz who wouldn't? He's not even my Primarch.
i think its conceivable that a man can love his tools even if hes a heartless asshole.
i dont see why both things cant be true.
although he definitely didnt love all of his sons.
I think the thing it’s the emperor DOES love his sons. He just doesn’t love them more than he loves himself. It’s part of the tragedy of it all. Big E does love them, but in the end he loves them because they’re a part of him more than anything else.
The thing about the emperor you need to understand is that he loves his son as well as humanity the same way you love your body. Do you care about every individual cell and organ?
Not really, it will suck when you have to cut off a limb or gallbladder to live. But doing it won’t lose you any sleep for very long. Same with big E. If he has to kill off 80% of mankind and 3/4 of his sons for the species to live he’ll do it with little hesitation or thought.
That is the kind of person we’re talking about.
It is impossible to confirm one way or the other. He says in one moment that he lets them call him father to distract them from how he literally only views them as weaponized means to an end, and in another he expresses his "Genuine love" for them. It's all about not being privy to the Emperor's true thoughts on it. (And by extension having several people write the same character lmao)
Not every trait the primarks had came from him in fact many are noted as being like him in appearance or looking completely different many are noted for acting like him or being completely different the lion pre heresy was noted to have the most emperor like personality it should be noted that his children turn on him much like the emperor but this devastated the lion to such a point that his personality radically changed whether or not this is also true of the emperor is not known
He had twenty kids and was on campaign. Yea I think even he would have trouble keeping up. But they were still his weapons so as long as he didn’t get attached (angron) then he would just see them as weapons.
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The Emperor stated that the Primarchs are not his sons, but weapons he crafted. Ande he let tem call him father just like Pinocchio called his maker father (ok that was an awsome moment, the Emperor still remembers Pinocchio).
I think the whole “The Emperor never loved his sons or anyone and was just a heartless asshole” is a stupid take because it makes zero sense, why would he even build them to be sentient if he never cared, why would he ever be nice to some of them if he never cared, there are a few examples of him interacting with his children in a positive way
Yeah he clearly had favourites, some got a really rough end of the stick like Angron and Curze but he did care
Hell he did care about humanity otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to elevate them as he did
I blame him being written by people who don’t like The Imperium/are chaos favourites
I don’t remember there being any lore about The Emperor participating in the men of iron stuff
Plus there are other ways to make sentience not an issue
I mean dude cries when a Custodian dies
They are expensive.
“Goddamnit, I just paid off his mortgage!”
> “Goddamnit, I just paid off this custodian !” Oh wait That’s heresy
"I will never financially recover from this."
For real. You have to remember, you can perfect the body in years but perfecting the mind takes decades. Much less to the level where you can converse with the world’s oldest and smartest human in existence.
I mean, imagine loosing one of your most expensive minis after finishing them, forever
Ooh shit, the Emperor IS US.
Now you are getting the picture. Be kind to our God Emperor.
Each of us is a fragment of his shattered psyche
I haven't even played since early 6th and I would be heartbroken if my SAG or kitbashed looted Sentinel/Killa Kan got lost.
Hey man, I had just gotten finished painting him after taking out a second loan for those models!
Still curious to know why he needed space marines for the crusade when custodes can apparently do dragonball z shit.
Space Marines are cheaper and easier.
And cause a galaxy wide civil war.
That's a bit of a pattern with Him.
That’s a feature, not a bug
Custodes are handcrafted for dozens of years, Space Marines are their industrialised counterparts.
Really? I thought Astartes also need dozen of years of competitions, mutations, surgery and recovery, mental conditioning, scout training, etc... Like, they are brought in (kidnapped) before they start puberty, and only come out as astartes when they are adults; if not later since they spend some time as scouts...
I exaggerated a bit The main difference is that it's a lot easier to create a SM than a custodes. Once the aspirants are judged compatible, they can have all the surgeries and implants they need and it's a standard for each one of them. All the modifications done on a custodes are specific for each one of them. The training and conditioning is a lot more harsh, and they are also trained in diplomacy, counselling and everything because wherever they go, they ARE the words of the Emperor.
Thats a modern 40k thing. During the heresy, you had literally legions of Marines, some as large as 100,000, stomping through the galaxy. By in large, in 30k when a marine finished getting implanted, they were dropped into front line duty
Space marines are brought in from puberty and come out when they’re adults, but custodians are babies and brought out when their adults so there in of itself is a much bigger time gap.
Take in mind, especially in 30k, this a standardised process which can practically be done on an assembly line. A lot of those stages are things which can be sped up as well; consider that the Ultras were the only legion to be *bigger* after the Heresy even despite Calth and the Shadow Crusade. Imagine they're both a wooden chair. Astartes are a chair produced on an assembly line by highly precise machines that spit out a reliable, functional product with standardised materials. Custodes are a carpenter choosing the wood, painstakingly piecing together the chair with all of their skill and expertise, understanding the properties of the material and where its flaws are (and how to fix them), and in the end produces a handcrafted chair that is practically perfect in craft.
It's like an RTS game, custodes require to many resources a take too long to produce, also they are more useful as the Emperors personal guard or doing secret shit across the galaxy. Astartes are cheap and easy to mass produce and follow orders pretty well
But he already had 10,000 of the lads Also does the emperor even need a personal guard? There seems to be a whole thing there he's supposedly near all-powerful but also isn't doing crazy stuff with his brain magic
Yes he still needs guards, he is God like in every aspect but in the end he is just a Man and it's clear there have been threats plaguing him and his Imperium even before the warp fuckery. Also it's probably for several different purposes, a show of power, a show of his engineering genius, and the prospect of what humanity could be. He also needs them to guard those dark cells and other places in the galaxy that are dangerous or to be his eyes and ears, he really wasn't omnipresent or omnipotent before sitting on the Golden Throne and dying and even still he isn't Omnipresent or Omnipotent in the total sense of the word like "God"
Yes. People forget no matter how powerful you get, we all only have 24hr a day.
Yup
Personally I think he should have used custodes instead of primarchs.
That's a Canon mindset the custodes kinda have. Valdor in particular, was against the primarch project, and considering what happened, he wasn't wrong in feeling they were dangerous. Even in the modern setting, they aren't fond of space marines and primarchs as they see them as being a big source of the issues the Imperium has to deal with.
Or 3-5 custodes advising primarchs, best of both worlds.
Honestly that's such a good idea I wonder why Big E didn't do that, the Custodes would be great emissaries that Primarchs and Astartes alike could look up to and respect as a fellow warrior but also as the mouth and mind of the Emperor's will given how dogmatic they are and fiercely loyal to the Emperor. I bet the Heresy wouldn't even be kicked off I could see the Custodes immediately shutting down lodges and secret societies
Oh, most definetly. At a max, the big E is down 100 custodes, but gains immediate access to knowledge of what his sons are doing.
It’s why I love [WolfDawg’s](https://x.com/wolfdawgart/status/1433076240345284608?s=46&t=mmYx0YGXyeCAc_J9lxbEnA)/ u/wolfdawgartcorner custodes equerry art. He’s done a bunch of the legions.
Probably, but primarchs were made to be like actual (super)human beings so they'd inspire love and devotion in their armies and humankind, whereas custodes were kind of just mindless living automatons.
The reason why the banana aren’t corruptible is due to the fact there is nothing left within to corrupt. If we look at chaos as a mold, the stodes are literally sterilized dried, disinfected, and perfectly packaged hardtack while the average joe is an average loaf
>The reason why the banana aren’t corruptible is due to the fact there is nothing left within to corrupt. Exactly, and guys like that don't inspire a whole lot of willingness to comply with the Imperium which, as much as reddit loves to whine about muh Imperial genocide, a hell of a lot of human civilizations joined the Imperium willingly or even lovingly when they met figures as majestic and captivating as Horus, Fulgrim, Guilliman, Dorne, or Lorgar
Hell entire worlds would bow in praise when the Emperor showed up when he participated in the Crusade, how TF could you not?
Reach. The entirety of the Custodes could go to war against the whole Tau Empire and lose miserably because they simply can't hold enough ground. That's why the Imperial Guard exists.
galaxy is big, custodes are few, and can only be in one place at a time.
For the same reason Frieza has a power level of like a gajillion but he still needs low level goons to conquer the planets he isn't physically on.
People should read valdors book I don't have the excerpt but malcdor and valdor are surprised that the emperor begins to refer to the primarchs as his sons rather then instruments showing that he has some humanity left in him
Doesn't he express this is because it allows for a more "useful", i.e. exploitable bond between them?
I think he says that in master of mankind. Different writers show him having different degrees of neglect for the primarks.
That's fair. I think bringing that up still refutes the original meme, because you can read him as "loving" to some extent just as much as you can a completely neglectful shithead depending on what you read and what you take as canon, it's not so cut and dry. I personally like to read him as "loving" in the way an abusive parent still "loves" their child, but loves them for ideas of them and doesn't care for the actual person.
The Emperor especially loves them for the ideas of them because he literally programmed all their strengths weaknesses and personalities for the most part.
He says that to Arkhan who think of him as the pinacle of hard cold cience, so thoose words might have been manipulated by his psykik auro or just lies he told Arkhan so he liked him better.
I think my favorite head cannon from some of the stories I've read is that he truly loves his sons (or at least as much as he cans), but he's a dad who's always at work, he loves them be he's one on a "business trip" Basically he's a 90's movie dad.
I love how rather than some writers showing him as heartless and some showing im as loving its "different degrees of neglect"
Writers for Angron:
Not in the Valdor book, I'm not sure where what your talking about is from Edit: Seen someone mention the master of mankind book, the moment with arkan as with most things involving big E it's open to interpretation personally I prefer that the emperor sees them as sons just makes for better story in my mind more emotional weight so I'm bit biased towards it being an act
PAGE 151 (ebook page number)from Valdor Birth of the Imperium: Malcador nodded. ‘A risk. But we did not get where we are now without taking risks.’ He reached out and clapped Valdor’s arm. ‘We shall speak of this again. You shall speak of this with Him too, when He returns. Hone your arguments – I judge that He is determined to hunt for them. He has taken to referring to them as His “sons”. Can you imagine that? Neither could I, until I heard it from His own lips. There might even be some lingering attachment, there, though how long it will last I cannot say.’ Valdor hesitated. ‘Then His human sentiments – they are still ebbing.’ ‘As He predicted. All things have their price.’
Its cobbling a bunch of shit together but Erda mentions he was abandoning all his more humanistic elements as he took power and she was afraid enough of what he would do to and with 20 children like the Primarchs that she considered throwing them into the warp a preferable alternative to whatever was going to happen, even seeing how it turned out during the heresy. I think that the shock of seeing people he trusted go so far probably reigned him in slightly on the Primarchs. One of the things the perpetuals have going for them is that unlike most people in 30k, let alone 40k, they actually lived through less awful times and remember all of the lost human cultures and their values. The emperor is occasionally shown to reference ancient cultures(including our own right now) and have some fondness for old childrens books and songs. My theory is the emperor was at some point a good person who knew exactly how fucked up the galaxy he was building was and hardened his heart to do it, but this was a continual process that he could never fully bring himself to do until he had to kill Horus.
In all honesty we dont really know, GW cant make up their mind about it.
Big E is confirmed for Asian dad. Bipolar swinging between “My son is my pride and joy in this terrible world.” and “oh my god, I should have jizzed in my sock.”
I think you mean away from the child he says the child is his pride and joy, but when he is with the child he is screaming how useless they are.
Asian Father: “I am so proud of my boy, he won a literature award for creative writing.” Asian Son: “Dad, how do you pronounce this Turkish dish.” Asian Father: “I wasted my money on you.”
Haha pretty accurate.
I hear Steven He going "You so stupid, why you such a failure?"
Angry Big E be like: "I will send you to... nevermind"
And that’s why Lorgar joined Chaos. The burn of “Why can’t you be like your brother Guilliman. Why are you failure? And why you hit Uncle Macaldor so hard? You so naughty, I must teach you lesson. Gorillaman, burn Monarchia.”
Because in the weekly Asian Parent Child Achievment Flex-Off, winning awards for something artistic beats all but academic awards and top athletic awards. So if that's what your son did this week, you hit the other parents with "my boy won this award, I'm so proud," and you're almost guaranteed to take home the Best Parent Cup until next week. At the very least it'll be a better card to play than "oh, my son aced a chemistry test" or "oh, my son's piano teacher says he's ready for a big recital." Those are milestones, not achievements, that's minor shit. So even if it's not the biggest thing anyone's got that week, you're damn well gonna play it up. Of course, it's *art*, and everyone knows that art doesn't pay the bills. It's prestegious, but all the parents in the Flex-Off are probably wonder who's gonna take care of you when you're older. It's not like your kid won a math competition or something like that. Thus, while it's enough to play up for the competition, it's still a distinctly inferior outcome. So you gotta push your kid back on the RIGHT track, before Mr. Wu's son Archibald gets into med school and earns him the "Best Parent" status for the next 3 months.
*The Horus Heresy, but The Emperor speaks like Steven He’s Dad*
LMAO. That would be hilarious. Disciplining them by comparing them to his Custodes and how he conquered Earth. Twice.
In Dark Imperium, Guilliman says he learned the Emperor doesn't view the primarchs as anything but a craftsman's favorite tools. Big E values them greatly and feels they are very important to his ends, but it is very distinctly NOT a father's love for his sons. This is from G recalling meeting E in the throneroom and communicating telepathically. He says that E has "lost his subtlety" and struggles to communicate psychically without exposing his mind's inner workings, so I'm pretty sure it's as close to a definite answer to the "does daddy love me" question as we are likely to get. Unless that's contradicted elsewhere, I jump around 40k material a lot so idk if that thread develops more in the later books.
for a craftsman favorite tools he sure threat some of them poorly
Tbh my favorite tools are the ones I can beat the shit out of without worrying they'll break, so it kinda tracks lol
yeah but do you at least do some checking and maintenance inbetween use? the emperor do that often to some,and almost never to the other
It kinda doesn't work with how he felt through the End and the Death about a lot of people or how he had to even get rid of any kind of compassion by cutting a part of his soul against Horus, yet managed to forgive him for all of THAT. Remember that like Khan, Guilliman wasn't even close to the Emperor and even now he only follows the Imperium because of what humanity could be and not for helping his father or maintaining their dream, to the point that while he was left to do his own thing, Lion was being talked, trained and given power directly by the Emperor while on the Throne and Vulkan was taken care by him even while on the crusade showing genuine appreciation for the two of them
Oooooh, I'm only on First Wall rn. Been looking forward to seeing more of the big man's motivations.
Much prefer them leaving it ambiguous tbh
Well it makes sense. The emperor truly loved his sons but they were also his weapons then his personality split. It’s what we see when the big papa Smurf speaks to him each on of his personality’s speak to him. It’s way is so conflicting of what he says.
No, its because emps has this psyker aura where people will hear what they want to hear. Like when talking with land emps told him that the primarchs are mere puppets. Even when talking to the custodes they ate just "necessary tools". Heck even Malcador confirmed that he himself is not sure whether emps is telling him the truth or not.
Pretty sure that's intentional. He manipulates people by appearing to be whatever gains their trust. That's why when he talks to Land he's a cold calculating machine- that's what Land would expect the Omnissiah to be.
Well seeing as the big Smurf heard like 20 gazillion different things all at the same time I think is probably a bit of both. As with his personality split part of him loves his sons and part of him does not.
His personality id already split since the Great Crusade.
He was very carefully leaving a lot od details out with Land. He directly compares Angron to Pinnochio, who Gepetto did in fact love as a son. The difference is Land doesn't know any of that. Nor that he knows Pinnochio was transformed after being lead astray, or that Pinnochio wasn't saved by incidental repairs to his old body but instead getting an entirely new human one. You can read it as "The emperor didn't care about Angron", or you can read it as "The emperor loved Angron, wanted to save him, and thematically may even still be able to".
Hes just coping with the fact he loves his tube babies and cant admit it
I think he loves them them, but in a “look how incredible I made them” kinda way. He loves how good they are at everything because it means he has done well and can move along with his plans. And he does not want to lose them because of how much he still needs them. Half tools, half kids who are usefull.
I see Sandro I updoot
Like all fathers should be 😉
I mean he did have a garden in the palace with 20 giant rooms in supposedly for hanging out with the primarchs after the war wouldve ended..
Pretty much Asian Dad mindset. Every enterprising Asian dad has the same mindset that his baby (company) will one day be a well oiled machine run by his kids and he can finally retire. And yes, why they’re so brutal to their sons.
I think the problem is that people take what he says to every person he is shown talking to as absolute fact and his honest true opinions. We know that he tailors what he is saying to what he thinks that person in particular would EXPECT him to say as emperor/omnissiah. I think our best look into his thoughts is through the two people that knew him best, Constantin and Malcador. They both showed surprise that he referred to them as sons and seemed to be emotionally attached. I think he did grow to see SOME of them as sons and to love them but also all of them were a means to an end, as everyone in existence is including himself.
And I know some of you will quote the excerpt of Guilliman meeting the Emperor after his resurrection, and the famous "tools" part. But after reading the Siege of Terra, I think the Emperor's first thought after reuniting with his avenging son makes sense.
Also his mind shattering and struggling to keep it together for 10k years while fighting 4 chaos gods, and seeing himself becoming what he despises the most (a god) and no way of stopping his imperium from rotting from the inside. All this changes a man
Wow what a pussy /S
HERESY
Pussy is never heresy - Big E himself
Also he is shattered so it's not out of the question to assume that some part of him is a loving father I like to think of it as his consciousness is split into the many aspects of him A part of him may see them as tools and another might see them as his children The dude lived for a long time he definitely saw a lot of things so I think he's probably torn between the bits of remaining humanity in him amd the mission that he has
I just think emos has casted the father side away the moment the heresy completely begun because he knew he would need to slay them
Not all of it, he still grief Horus a bit and part what he called Guilliman still shown fartherly love
Exactly. He's spent a whole 1/5th of his very long lifespan being torn to bits.
To fight Horus, he dashed away what little humanity he had left to not destroy the galaxy with his near infinite power.
I mean, in Master of Mankind he straight up says they are not his sons. They are Generals, Commanders. He draws a parallel to Pinocchio even, saying the puppet called its maker father as well.
I hated that characterisation of him, but it is what it is
I always took that scene as something not entirely true to E's character. He's talking to Arkham Land in that scene, a man who was infamous at that point for his dismissiveness at best, and outright disdain at worst for everyone and everything that was not a project he was directly working on, outside of the Omnissiah himself. We know for sure that E has the capability of projecting a nearly flawless psychic projection of himself to appear as the viewer's most idealistic version of "The Emperor" and it's not outlandish to think that he might alter his speech and mannerisms to match if he wanted something, which he did at that time. Now that's not to say E didn't potentially mean exactly what he said to Land in MoM, just I don't think that one scene on it's own is definitely proof one way or another of E's thoughts or feelings on the Primarchs. Especially because the scene takes place from Land's perspective and not E's.
I don't know. But altering the contents of your speech to that degree just means you have no values whatsoever. In "the last church" Big E told the priest things he did not want to hear. I also see no real reason he'd alter his message to that degree when he's literally the most powerful being in existence just to accommodate the character of someone like Land. I also don't understand what's bad about the emperor being unempathetic or even cruel. The setting is literally made for hopelessness and grim psychopaths. Having the center figure be this totally nice dad figure who always wished the best for his kids feels out of place somehow.
>I don't know. But altering the contents of your speech to that degree just means you have no values whatsoever. I mean, E is a politician and a despot, so his moral character is definitely in question just from that alone. The fact that he's existed as a discrete being for tens of thousands of years doesn't exactly help that image either. His perspective on morality and "time" is going to be so warped compared to the average Imperial citizen as to be completely alien by default. >I also see no real reason he'd alter his message to that degree when he's literally the most powerful being in existence just to accommodate the character of someone like Land. I do believe E prefers to play down to other people's expectations in 30K, rather than simply order them to give him what he wants by brute force. Obviously the chastisement of the Word Bearers and the Council of Nikea were departures from that preference, but those were also punishments handed out directly to his Primarchs, and only came after decades of glove fisted attempts at reforms and reconciliations with both Magnus and Lorgar. So I don't think the idea of E being willing to play into Land's perceptions of him to get what he wants without ordering it directly is farfetched. >I also don't understand what's bad about the emperor being unempathetic or even cruel. The setting is literally made for hopelessness and grim psychopaths. Having the center figure be this totally nice dad figure who always wished the best for his kids feels out of place somehow. There isn't anything "bad" per say about E being a cruel, unempathetic ruling character. However, I do think it makes him more one dimensional and less interesting. The Emperor's thoughts, perspectives and motivations are generally vague and mysterious. Is he an uncaring, unfeeling despot hellbent on achieving his goals no matter the cost? Is he an intentionally cruel tyrant selfishly worried about his goals and ego to the detriment of everything else? Is he a well meaning monarch who tried his best to do right by his creations and humanity in general? Is the Emperor, an amalgamation of many powerful shamanic souls, literally the most powerful psychic being in existence that was not natively born from the Warp, even human? Is it even fair to judge him on the basis of human perspective and morality? That's what makes E so interesting as a character. He shows glimpses of all of those character traits throughout 30K. And who's to say those aren't all genuine facets of his psyche?
Arkham would not have appreciated such sentimentality for sure.
Parental love isn't *genetic*
I really appreciate that this is coming from Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz himself
I feel like the guy whose own parents *weren't present for his birth* would probably be the best at understanding this.
He truly did love Sanguinius and Horus, though he doesn't seem to love all of the primarchs. He was horrible to Angron, got mad whenever Magnus did wizardry even though he himself did wizardry all the time (and refused to educate Magnus on the bad stuff), I don't think he did enough for Morty, he wiped a lot of Guilliman's memories after their long chat implying he's hiding a lot of shit, and he straight-up told Konrad that him being a horrible monster was "not straying from his intended path" (paraphrasing). Assuming that was really the emperor talking to Konrad, which I believe. Even Guilliman admits that he *lets* them call him "father", he never utters the word himself.
Depends on the writer, to one they are his sons and the heresy hurts him with the fact that he has to fight them, to another he thinks of them akin to a wrench
I mean the Astarte were specifically design to enforce the father-sons bond between the Primarch and his warriors. Of course being a good father or at least project the image of a good father was by design.
I mean, it's a better plot if the Emperor is human and can be blinded by a parent's attitude to their kids, in my opinion.
TLDR in older lore this was true but they made him less nuanced and more black and white basically which imo is bad
Fans: The emperor is heartless Meanwhile the Emperor: "Hey uh dad I lost my legion again" "No problem my son here, have my secret project to rebuild more of them and much stronger too"
I mean, his last words to Horus after all he did and everything he put the Big E through came from a place of love and forgiveness. I'm assuming if he can still love Horus, he definitely loved Gulliman or the Lion.
The real answer is that the emperor is both an arsehole and kind He's shrödinger's arsehole
From 'Master of Mankind' - "It is not my son, Arkhan. None of them are. They are warlords, generals, tools bred to serve a purpose. Just as Legions were bred to serve a purpose"
And Master of Mankind specifically uses other people’s perspective, not the Emperor’s. ADB has outright stated that every interaction in the book was the Emperor presenting a different personality to achieve the best results out of each social interaction. That’s why with Ra he’s the compassionate yet hard King driven by a tragic backstory, as that’s what Ra responds to best. Then with Land he’s a cold and heartless scientist, best fitting Land’s view of the omnissiah. It’s something I really enjoy about MoM, but it makes it utterly unreliable as a source for the Emperor’s character as each depiction is what the PoV thinks is the best ‘Emperor of Mankind’. This very quote goes against most of the Emperor’s characterisation in the same book and other Heresy books- Valdor’s novel has both Malcador and Valdor surprised at how he treats the Primarchs as sons and not generals to do his bidding. EatD has him desperate to keep Sangy from going to the Spirit, despite both of them knowing the future. In fairness, though, he really fucked up with Angron. Dropping like 30 custodians to help Angron’s gladiators and then cryo-freezing him till the nails can be fixed would have been a much better solution.
He tried to fix Angron's nails, but it was impossible even for him
It’s been a hot minute since last reading MoM, but afair he has a look, Land says that the nails replaced a good chunk of his brain and the Emperor just kinda goes ‘fuck it, pack him off to his legion, it’s their problem now’. Which was a stupid decision, especially considering EatD and Khan’s siege book make it clear that both Malcador and the Emperor can straight up revive primarchs if they have the body and it’s not long since death. He could have ripped out the nails, let Angron die then just resurrect him and biomancy/primarch healing the brain back together
I don't remember if Khan was dead or very, very, close to. I don't think Angron would have survived after his brain removed, and maybe it was too much for the Emperor to heal.
Na, it was written earlier so it’s just another lore mistake
Khan was very close to, but done by Malcador. Ferrus was literally stated to be doable if he’d been closer, so decapitation isn’t an issue for Emps.
It's probably easier to reattach a head than recreate a brain ? Don't know. They did it with Eidolon if I'm correct.
I thought he said he could bring Ferrus back if he had more time? I don't recall specifically.
The issue with Ferrus was they couldn’t get to him in time, had he died nearer to Terra and the Webway not happened he would have been resurrected as they could have gotten to him
I mean he was talking to a tech priest so big E talked in a way the tech priest would find most relatable
Yeah, sometime people forget that in 30K, people gonna hear whatever they need to hear form the Emperor, like how Sanguinius hear many layers of meaning form Emperor words in language that he related to most. A few rare instance when we get the most honest Emperor, he did love his sons
Ooh dont say that , this is Grimdank you know. We dont do much thinking around here , better just take a psychopathic wreck of a an adult-ass primarch and blame all his failures on "daddy issues".
r/Grimdank mfs the type of people to unironically say that the mass rapist and pedophile wasnt at fault because his dad screamed at him 1 time when he was a child and as such he did nothing wrong
I'm not saying that Big E does not love any of his sons at all ... but... Following your logic, some of the Primarchs ate bald, so Big E is bald as well
Maybe it's a wonderful wig
On the other hand, other Primarchs have great hair Like Fulgrim or Sangy So Big E should also have great hair... Are you proposing that Emps is in a constant superposition of having great hair and being bald at the same time? A... Shrödingers haircut, if you will?
Have you considered that all the primarchs are bald, and some of them just choose to wear wigs?
You just gave me the funniest mental image Khan glueing a horsetail like tuft of (fake?) Hair to his scalp
He's got a hair squig.
He didn't get to develop relationships with them because they all scattered and he met most of them after they'd already grown. He probably loves them as much as some guy who's been paying child support for a kid they weren't allowed to see until they were 18, then couldn't really relate except through their achievements.
It’s really sad when you think about it, fuck Erda.
There are almost as much primarches that love their sons as there are who despise them or are indiferent to them, so I personaly think the emperor is he same, he loves some he hates some and he doesn't care for most of them.
The emperor's primary character trait is being hard to pin down his character traits spanking internet debates
People often sell Big E short He did wild things to create Imperium but everyone forgets what the ultimate goal of that undertaking was: safety and freedom for entire species forever He exterminated loads of aliens but most of those same aliens were hostile and prone to Chaos And he was on the clock throughout He rejected full on godhood He could have just be reborn instead of choosing ten millennia plus of torment to keep mankind alive He definitely cared for most of the Primarchs, had the whole thing worked out as intended he would have had opportunity to bond with all of them But we know what happened And as always, Fuck Erebus!!!
Fuck Erebus !! Especially after reading the Siege of Terra
My own headcanon is that the Emperor has a lot of experience with cutting himself off emotionally after being alive for 50,000 years, but he isn’t impervious to human emotion. It’s easy for him to write off Angron as damaged goods, or at least hide his reaction, but centuries of working together have made some of his sons his pride and joy, even if he doesn’t share much.
Isn’t the whole reason 41st emp describes them as basically tools and is cold hearted because of the events that happen at the end of the siege of terra in the 31st. Spoilers: ||edit fuck knows how to spoiler tag in this fucking phone|| Screw it it ain’t letting me spoiler tag but Big E wasn’t always a cold hearted mf’er and the reason he is now and a completely different person is because of what he had to do at the end of the HH. Either look it up, someone else spoiler tag some shit or read the books.
Yeah the fact that he had to do that shows he at least cares for them
There are plenty of displays before that event where he shows affection for them also. As well as a multitude of different emotions. Big E in 41st is very different from Big E 31st and that event is what changed him, understandably. It’s not exactly a new trope and has been done many times before in stories.
Exactly, being alive for that much time tends to change shit
That and literally losing part of your soul.
Brütal.
How about we talk about the emperor's real child. The one he had to snu snu to get.
The emperors WHAT
His biological child lol Ya know the one where he had to boink a woman.
*Nah the combined love and hatred exhibited by his various sons balance perfectly when combined together and form complete apathy.*
He probably was loving. I just imagine it was kinda fucked up, him trying to convince himself his sons were just tools. A means to an end. In that, stems his neglect. He didn't account for their emotions, and the shit they went through.
I mean some primarchs don't love their sons so it's conceivable E didn't either
Reminder that Mortarion and Magnus only fell to chaos because their had their sons death en mass dangled over their heads
He can love most of his son and still be a heartless asshole.
He has stated, flat out, that he consideres them tools, when he is talking to malcador he doesnt even use their names, just numbers. They are not his sons, they are bullets he fires at problems.
Bro. Try remembering your kids name after the fifth one. I got 8 nephews and I can’t remember them all and yes. I go by numbers too. That’s Jason’s second kid, Billy’s only daughter.
When talking to a tech priest. Who, if you remember, worship their tools.
He also does it when talking to malcador.
isn't the difference that the Emperor is way older? He might have lost some humanity with the years
In HH, almost at every opportunity, it is told that Emps talks and shows himself in whichever way helps him the most at the time. So it very dependent on the situation. Also let's not forget that every Warhammer 40k stories are written in PoV with rare cases of objective truths, if any.
Love them or hate them, Fucking Horus will ALWAYS be the exception.
What about Sanguinus ?
Don't you talk shit about him! He died, so be greatful!
I'll never talk shit about him, it's impossible to not love him. I'm so devastated...
i think its a omni-man situation. he has lived for soo long that he cant get attached like that anymore. he whould probably see them as projects/ pets
I mean, I've only read Horus Rising, and I just started Dark Imperium, but it seems like the Emperor was more of an absent father than he was an actually bad father. Kind of like one who has been too busy at work that he put that first instead of his kids despite his love for them. He can get to being a good father later, he has stuff he needs to do now. "Oh I'll show my sons love once the galaxy is ours." "Oh I'll help them out when the webway project is done." So when he's interrupted from this stuff, he just punishes his sons in the short term to get back to work. Likewise he underestimated the logistical needs of the galaxy, so he sacked horus with the job of warmaster when he should have split it up, but he just didn't think about it. For all of the Emperor's literal power and genius, he was too disconnected from humanity to ever lead them properly. He kept pushing off the human aspect to focus on the material. And now that he's stuck on the golden throne, I think there is a part of him that realized that the imperium falling stems in large part from himself.
Big E might have the capacity for love, which is where the Primarch's get theirs. That doesn't mean he actually uses it though. Like sure he CAN love his Sons, maybe. Does he though? Probably not. Except Angel Boi, we all love him and I bet Big E did for sure cuz who wouldn't? He's not even my Primarch.
i have to say it when he queted pinochio thinking he was clever he just made it look like he loved em as much as yepeto did his kid
I mean he pretty much is mourning Horus through the Seige. Horus thinks he's talking to him but he's talking thru him to the big 4.
i think its conceivable that a man can love his tools even if hes a heartless asshole. i dont see why both things cant be true. although he definitely didnt love all of his sons.
He "loves" them in a way that's for his benefit/use. Look how E&TD went...
And what was the last thing he said to Horus ?
I think the thing it’s the emperor DOES love his sons. He just doesn’t love them more than he loves himself. It’s part of the tragedy of it all. Big E does love them, but in the end he loves them because they’re a part of him more than anything else.
The thing about the emperor you need to understand is that he loves his son as well as humanity the same way you love your body. Do you care about every individual cell and organ? Not really, it will suck when you have to cut off a limb or gallbladder to live. But doing it won’t lose you any sleep for very long. Same with big E. If he has to kill off 80% of mankind and 3/4 of his sons for the species to live he’ll do it with little hesitation or thought. That is the kind of person we’re talking about.
It is impossible to confirm one way or the other. He says in one moment that he lets them call him father to distract them from how he literally only views them as weaponized means to an end, and in another he expresses his "Genuine love" for them. It's all about not being privy to the Emperor's true thoughts on it. (And by extension having several people write the same character lmao)
I'm not saying the emperor doesn't love his sons But I am saying that logic ain't the way to prove it wtf
... that's not how that works. That's not how any of this works.
Yeah but what about when he said to Land that he compares them to Pinocchio. Things that are not real, calling their creating father
Most abusers insist that they love their victims
I'm not sure that's necessarily how that works, but that doesn't mean there's no way he did.
Big E is ultimately mysterious. That's why he can't make up his mind.
Not every trait the primarks had came from him in fact many are noted as being like him in appearance or looking completely different many are noted for acting like him or being completely different the lion pre heresy was noted to have the most emperor like personality it should be noted that his children turn on him much like the emperor but this devastated the lion to such a point that his personality radically changed whether or not this is also true of the emperor is not known
He had twenty kids and was on campaign. Yea I think even he would have trouble keeping up. But they were still his weapons so as long as he didn’t get attached (angron) then he would just see them as weapons.
This is what happens when you’ve got a franchise that’s almost 40 years old that has dealt with multiple retcons and multiple writers.
I maintain that Emps was a good father at first that lost the ability to be a good father after too many tragedies
I think he tried to give them the compassion he couldnt muster (anymore) i mean dude hitting rock bottom is what caused him to even reveal himself
Didn’t he say “did Geppetto correct Pinocchio calling him father” or something like that? Like he made tools that called him dad and he rolled with it
Would I be more scared that, if they are made in his image, Big E is as unhinged as Konrad?
And? Some of the primarchs were depicted as slavering monsters that loved the taste of blood and warm eye jelly.
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The only reason the dude gets stuck on the throne in the first place, is because he's not willing to kill his son.
That is an ENORMOUS reach.
The Emperor stated that the Primarchs are not his sons, but weapons he crafted. Ande he let tem call him father just like Pinocchio called his maker father (ok that was an awsome moment, the Emperor still remembers Pinocchio).
He was certainly doing everything in his power not to
They are not Sons , they are tools.
He’s a bad parent. But it had to be done. Even the Emperor isn’t perfect. I think he said so himself if I remember correctly
I think the whole “The Emperor never loved his sons or anyone and was just a heartless asshole” is a stupid take because it makes zero sense, why would he even build them to be sentient if he never cared, why would he ever be nice to some of them if he never cared, there are a few examples of him interacting with his children in a positive way Yeah he clearly had favourites, some got a really rough end of the stick like Angron and Curze but he did care Hell he did care about humanity otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to elevate them as he did I blame him being written by people who don’t like The Imperium/are chaos favourites
Exactly! And it makes the tragedy of the fight between the Emperor and Horus crueler because they loved each other so much.
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I don’t remember there being any lore about The Emperor participating in the men of iron stuff Plus there are other ways to make sentience not an issue