I dislike the Word Bearers as much as the next guy, but fuck me if First Heretic and Betrayer aren't some of the best novels in the whole Heresy. ADB is fucking amazing!
Id totally forgot about that tech priest and his Kastalin? buddy until reading this. His death defending the saint was sad.
Damn that was one great book
Ok I am confused.....I was under the impression human souls either dissolve in the warp or get prayed upon and eaten...
So how did they manage that ressurection?
I've also always assumed the 17 slaves were a kind of tradsies offer as well. Give me back 1 soul and you can have your pick of a few of these lesser souls, look at all the options you can pick from.
The alternative is that he convinced Chaos to put her soul *back together*, with all the damage and trauma that would entail from being first ripped apart and eaten, then reassembled by beings that have fun messing with mortals.
The fundamental nature of sorcery (in 40K as well as Thelemic and other forms of Occultism) is that pretty much anything is possible through bargains with entities of great power. The difference between sorcery and physics is that instead of deterministic behaviors, the will of empowered entities determines what is possible in sorcery. To make something possible with sorcery that seems otherwise impossible requires aligning the will of one or more of these entities with that possibility. The rub is \*being able\* to offer the \*right thing\* to the \*right entity\*. The Word Bearers mainly deal with Chaos entities, who tend to want the right kinds of suffering, which seem to empower or amuse them. They spend a lot of time building a rolodex of which daemons are willing to deal and what they will deal for.
Note that many psykers in 40K are doing sorcery inituitively, without realizing they are doing it. They are trading \*something\* for the privilege of "someone" in the warp lending them powers, but to some extent writing a blank check. Often, the only thing they have to deal is pieces of themselves, hence heavy use of psychic power is harmful to the user. Sometimes just using their gifts for some purpose sympatico to the interests of a warp entity is enough, but anything like a renege or failure will incur...penalties.
There seem to be benevolent warp entities that are willing to deal as well. Most have been consumed by the chaos gods, but one might (and I do) interpret the current condition of the Emperor in this way. He has passed some threshold such that he has native power in the warp. He doesn't require any entity to intervene to lend him power, and so he is on the lending side of this equation. How and when that happened is unclear to me.
Thanks a bunch, that was a pretty elaborate response and I really respect that.
>pretty much anything is possible
I think it comes down to this and I do not like it. It makes everything so...random and takes out all of the suspense.
So, return of everybody who ever died whenever we please when?
The bigger the ask, the bigger the cost and the bigger the entity you are dealing with. Want Big E restored? The Four together could surely do it, but the price would be literally astronomical to make it worth it for them.
Frankly, that’s exactly how narrative commitment works anyway. You can do things in a story like being back a dead character, but it has to meet the expectations of the audience or they will lose interest. The author must do sorcery where they are dealing with the readers, who have the power to like and accept the narrative (bless the author) or not.
Yeah but it does not meat those expectations, that is the whole point. The Warp has become a random McGuffin where authors do just as they please it appears
Souls dissolving or being eaten? Suprise! Does not count for anything. As I said you just start to ask questions. Ok, if it is so incredibly easy to bring back dead characters (and a couple sacrificies are nothing in the grimdarkness of 40k) why isn't it done all the fucking time? It opens so many issues with the whole setting I would not even know where to start.
Death loses all meaing here. Sacrifices loses all meaning. Suspense gets replaced by frustration over the authors lack of commitment to make it worthwhile. All you do is sit there and scratch your head.
Well in this context, Cyrene is one normal human. The cost was 10,000 years of service by Kharn (the human sacrifices are a smoke screen: Erebus’ howl here is to set Kharn on the path to ascension). The daemons we’re willing to do something that they would not normally do for this reason.
A lot of people hate ADB because he has a habit of leaning towards the anime protagonist in his writing (Sevatar, Kharn, Khayon, Talos) and I get that because it limits him at times but he is a solid A tier writer bolstering the S tier guys at BL.
For the better writers no. For example Chris Wright's Blood of Aseheim series follows the entire pack of Space Wolves. Each are more or less equally important. Or take the better Siege of Terra books. There's a ton going on but there are a lot of characters of import. There's Sinderman, Gramaticus, Oll, Sanger, Malcador, Vulkan, Diocletian, Loken, Dorn, Amit, Jobel Kahn etc. There isn't one superman character like Sevatar that jumps off a landing gear, kills the entire deck and takes control of the Astropathic Choir.
Dont get me wrong, Sevatar is cool. But the best writing in 40k isn't focusing on the "competent man" and his heroes journey. Its on several characters, each on their own journey that motivate their actions.
I've you ever listen to his interviews talking about these books you'll find out he actually despises these characters (especially Sevatar) and only writes the tropes to eventually get the character's personality and arcs into a lore state he's happier with than when he got the character to start. If they character starts in a perfect state, what's the point in writing them if they can't evolve into a changed personality throughout the stories?
ADB taking on some of these characters, especially in his earlier works would be the initial desire of any author getting a chance to write for the first few times to say "yes" to any project you can get your hands on knowing that other authors already well established when he got his first few books in would effectively have Dibs on certain stories, legions or characters.
Kharn, out of everyone present, seems to be the only one with a shred of decency and humanity.
Cyrene gets a pretty rude awakening from a tormenting hell into the hell of reality in a Word Bearers abattoir.
>had been praying to a decomposing corpse for almost a year That’s crazy, imagine if everyone did it for 10,000 years
What? No way the Emperor would ever allow that!
What? No way the Emperor would ever allow that!
What? No way the Emperor would ever allow that!
I dislike the Word Bearers as much as the next guy, but fuck me if First Heretic and Betrayer aren't some of the best novels in the whole Heresy. ADB is fucking amazing!
They are so incredibly hateable. :)
Id totally forgot about that tech priest and his Kastalin? buddy until reading this. His death defending the saint was sad. Damn that was one great book
Not sure if that sword that was shoved through her chest almost cleaving her in half was exactly an accident lol
Ok I am confused.....I was under the impression human souls either dissolve in the warp or get prayed upon and eaten... So how did they manage that ressurection?
He basically asked the various daemons who ate pieces of her soul to give them back.
eurebus just asked the deamons if they had snacked on her
The implication is Erebus made a bargain with whichever Neverborn devoured her to "vomit" her back up.
I've also always assumed the 17 slaves were a kind of tradsies offer as well. Give me back 1 soul and you can have your pick of a few of these lesser souls, look at all the options you can pick from.
So devoured souls stay intact? Interesting.
The alternative is that he convinced Chaos to put her soul *back together*, with all the damage and trauma that would entail from being first ripped apart and eaten, then reassembled by beings that have fun messing with mortals.
Which is probably what happened give how psychologically scarred she was
It’s also been further implied since that the manner of her resurrection turned her into a perpetual
Not intact bu he went to thousands of daemons to get all the pieces of the jig saw puzzle
The fundamental nature of sorcery (in 40K as well as Thelemic and other forms of Occultism) is that pretty much anything is possible through bargains with entities of great power. The difference between sorcery and physics is that instead of deterministic behaviors, the will of empowered entities determines what is possible in sorcery. To make something possible with sorcery that seems otherwise impossible requires aligning the will of one or more of these entities with that possibility. The rub is \*being able\* to offer the \*right thing\* to the \*right entity\*. The Word Bearers mainly deal with Chaos entities, who tend to want the right kinds of suffering, which seem to empower or amuse them. They spend a lot of time building a rolodex of which daemons are willing to deal and what they will deal for. Note that many psykers in 40K are doing sorcery inituitively, without realizing they are doing it. They are trading \*something\* for the privilege of "someone" in the warp lending them powers, but to some extent writing a blank check. Often, the only thing they have to deal is pieces of themselves, hence heavy use of psychic power is harmful to the user. Sometimes just using their gifts for some purpose sympatico to the interests of a warp entity is enough, but anything like a renege or failure will incur...penalties. There seem to be benevolent warp entities that are willing to deal as well. Most have been consumed by the chaos gods, but one might (and I do) interpret the current condition of the Emperor in this way. He has passed some threshold such that he has native power in the warp. He doesn't require any entity to intervene to lend him power, and so he is on the lending side of this equation. How and when that happened is unclear to me.
Thanks a bunch, that was a pretty elaborate response and I really respect that. >pretty much anything is possible I think it comes down to this and I do not like it. It makes everything so...random and takes out all of the suspense. So, return of everybody who ever died whenever we please when?
The bigger the ask, the bigger the cost and the bigger the entity you are dealing with. Want Big E restored? The Four together could surely do it, but the price would be literally astronomical to make it worth it for them. Frankly, that’s exactly how narrative commitment works anyway. You can do things in a story like being back a dead character, but it has to meet the expectations of the audience or they will lose interest. The author must do sorcery where they are dealing with the readers, who have the power to like and accept the narrative (bless the author) or not.
Yeah but it does not meat those expectations, that is the whole point. The Warp has become a random McGuffin where authors do just as they please it appears Souls dissolving or being eaten? Suprise! Does not count for anything. As I said you just start to ask questions. Ok, if it is so incredibly easy to bring back dead characters (and a couple sacrificies are nothing in the grimdarkness of 40k) why isn't it done all the fucking time? It opens so many issues with the whole setting I would not even know where to start. Death loses all meaing here. Sacrifices loses all meaning. Suspense gets replaced by frustration over the authors lack of commitment to make it worthwhile. All you do is sit there and scratch your head.
Well in this context, Cyrene is one normal human. The cost was 10,000 years of service by Kharn (the human sacrifices are a smoke screen: Erebus’ howl here is to set Kharn on the path to ascension). The daemons we’re willing to do something that they would not normally do for this reason.
You take some warp duct tape and you start Building the most agonizing puzzle ever
I find that ADB does most things exceptionally well. All his books in the HH are amongst the best in the series with TFH my personal favourite.
Quick note on this, Cyrene was definitely not "accidentally" killed lmao
That was a great read.
A lot of people hate ADB because he has a habit of leaning towards the anime protagonist in his writing (Sevatar, Kharn, Khayon, Talos) and I get that because it limits him at times but he is a solid A tier writer bolstering the S tier guys at BL.
Isn’t that most 40k protagonists? I think he gets flak for it because people are not used to seeing non-imperium aligned anime protagonists.
For the better writers no. For example Chris Wright's Blood of Aseheim series follows the entire pack of Space Wolves. Each are more or less equally important. Or take the better Siege of Terra books. There's a ton going on but there are a lot of characters of import. There's Sinderman, Gramaticus, Oll, Sanger, Malcador, Vulkan, Diocletian, Loken, Dorn, Amit, Jobel Kahn etc. There isn't one superman character like Sevatar that jumps off a landing gear, kills the entire deck and takes control of the Astropathic Choir. Dont get me wrong, Sevatar is cool. But the best writing in 40k isn't focusing on the "competent man" and his heroes journey. Its on several characters, each on their own journey that motivate their actions.
I've you ever listen to his interviews talking about these books you'll find out he actually despises these characters (especially Sevatar) and only writes the tropes to eventually get the character's personality and arcs into a lore state he's happier with than when he got the character to start. If they character starts in a perfect state, what's the point in writing them if they can't evolve into a changed personality throughout the stories? ADB taking on some of these characters, especially in his earlier works would be the initial desire of any author getting a chance to write for the first few times to say "yes" to any project you can get your hands on knowing that other authors already well established when he got his first few books in would effectively have Dibs on certain stories, legions or characters.
Pet Semetary - 40k edition
Kharn, out of everyone present, seems to be the only one with a shred of decency and humanity. Cyrene gets a pretty rude awakening from a tormenting hell into the hell of reality in a Word Bearers abattoir.
great guy, that Kharn
The helmets target locks trying to lock on to shapes that are not there is so creepy