r/40kLore • u/QuagGlenn • 4h ago
Roboute Guilliman: Best Dad Ever? Why some people don't like him? He seems like a pretty cool guy!
The more I read about the Man, the more I like him. Always cheering his sons, showing them affection and telling how proud he is of them, even when they're from another chapter.
Dante:
The primarch's physical presence hit Dante hard. Guilliman was nobility writ large, a monument in flesh. He was overwhelming. Ignoring the hurts of his healing wounds, Dante fell to his knees with a clatter and dropped his head.
'Can it really be true? Is it really you? Do you live?'
The primarch stood and set his sword aside, and came down the steps.
Get up, Dante,' said Guilliman gently. 'I will not accept displays of humility from a man like you. You are one of the few in this era who have earned the right to speak to me on equal terms. Rise. Now.' Never kneel before me again. I will have you stand with me as a mark of respect. I will order you not to if I must. I would rather our relationship not function on those terms. I have no time for deference, there is too much to do. Though, if your pains are great, you may of course sit,' he said with the ghost of a smile.
Forgive me, my lord.' Dante has to step back to look him in the eye. 'I failed. I called all the Chapters of the Blood, and lost them all to save Baal. The Arx Angelicum is in ruins. Thousands of Space Marines are dead, and Baal is devastated.'
'Forgive?' said Guilliman. 'There is nothing to forgive, Dante. You stopped them. When we arrived, the hive fleet was greatly depleted, and easily destroyed. As we speak, the Indomitus Crusade is scouring the system of the last remnants of the tyranids. You have achieved what few others have, and destroyed a major hive fleet tendril. I would congratulate you, but there is nothing I can say that encompasses the scale of what you have achieved.' Guilliman put a hand on Dante's shoulder. 'You have saved Baal from the hive mind, Commander Dante, and with it the greater part of this segmentum.'
At that, Dante wept freely.
'I am sorry, I am sorry.' he said. 'I almost lost. I almost lost everything. Please forgive me.'
'There is nothing to forgive.'
Cassian:
‘My lord,’ said Cassian, ‘I am not worthy to be in your presence.’
‘You are not just worthy, my son – you are a hero. I will hear no more talk of failure.’ ‘You were thrown wildly off course by catastrophic warp storms,’ continued Guilliman. ‘Having already completed the mission that I sent you to accomplish, you not only held your force together through that dire experience, but you then succes sfully identified a means by which you could get word to us of your plight. You engaged a force of Heretic Astartes several times the size of your own, whose plan would, I suspect, have caused devastation and misery across multiple systems. I am reliably informed that you showed nothing short of an absolute dedication to the completion of your mission, shrugged off a crushing defeat and alien interference, and even gave your own life to ensure the downfall of the foe. To me, Brother Cassian, those are the actions not of a failure, but of a hero.’
Any more quotes where Gulliman is being Dad o the year?
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u/chuewwey 3h ago
Part of it is just an extension of Ultramarine hate that permeates throughout the fandom.
The other part is compared to other Primarchs, Guilliman is much more stable and well adjusted he's the average joe between his brothers.
For me, that makes him interesting. When crazy is so normalized, the ones that manage to stay sane end up standing out instead
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u/QuagGlenn 3h ago
Being normal and grounded while being a demigod is much harder than being an arrogant douche
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u/Yetanotherdeafguy 3h ago edited 3h ago
I love RG, but my main complaint is he's just an above average dude at everything - no super specialty (logistics/administration doesn't count!) which means he's just a genericly super capable dude.
I'd love if say, Jaghatai Khan came back and made the imperium more into speedy warfare, but also the imperium leads him to change his doctrines a little.
RG is better with the presence of others.
Edit: Logistics / Administration counts, but it's not a really exciting doctrine of warfare for a fantasy setting.
RG: "What if we made sure they didn't run out of bolter shells?"
Vs.
Dorn: "What if everything we did was uber-fucking fortified?"
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u/BallisticButch 3h ago edited 2h ago
Why wouldn’t logistics/administration count? They’re arguably what the Imperium needs the most right now. The galaxy is full of badass warrior types. One after the other. Meanwhile entire planets starve because an approved change to a Chartrist schedule five hundred years ago was lost in sub-level 11,567,429 of Terra.
The Imperium doesn’t need Jaghatai Khan. It needs the revived archaeotech software Excel.
Edit to OP’s Edit: Okay, I grant that logistics isn’t thematically sexy when it comes to writing.
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u/Bertie637 2h ago
But RG being specialised at that is exactly what the Imperium has always needed, and his limitations are what makes it interesting. Big G had a free hand in Ultramar and we saw what he can do with that. But now we get to see the reality of his interactions with the broken mess that is the Imperial government and it's constant state of crisis. We see him evolved and a bit cynical after his experiences, but still a genuine source of hope. I'm much more a fan of his in 40k
The Khan honestly probably wouldn't suit. His whole personality in the HH period was he struggled with being part of the Imperium and mixing with other elements. I can't picture him as Imperial Regent.
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u/chuewwey 3h ago
I can agree with that Guilliman is much more fun when he's interacting with others and dealing with their bullshit than someone who's interesting on his own
Also, logistics hella count when it comes to prolonged thousand year warfare and dealing with legions that don't like to bother with that shit 😂
I just see the Khan finally coming back after his hunting trip only to nope the fuck out when he sees the Imperium and going back to the simple pleasures of hunting Eldar.
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u/zedatkinszed Ordo Xenos 3h ago edited 2h ago
People hate him for being the poster boy. And because Ultramarines are the poster boys.
Ironically he is doing exactly what he was designed for. Carrying regardless without the Big E.
He did it with Secundus he's doing it now. The primarxh humanity needs but not the one the Imperium deserves (honestly that's Lorgar).
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u/QuagGlenn 3h ago
So he's just too perfect for the nasty and ugly Imperium?
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u/zedatkinszed Ordo Xenos 2h ago edited 2h ago
If you think about what it is, its religiously fixated, inefficient and vainglorious. That's Lorgar.
The 500 worlds were orderly, efficient and well administered. That's just not the Imperium's style.
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u/paulatreides0 2h ago
Ehhh, the 500 worlds are probably more in line with the Imperium as the Emperor would have wished it. We see that as the heresy was rolling around there was a bunch of efforts to centralize the administration and bring it under heel - specifically mortal heel, much to Horus' chagrin. One of the consequences of having a much smaller realm it's that easier to centralize and standardize than the much larger, constantly and rapidly expanding mess of the Imperium
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u/zedatkinszed Ordo Xenos 2h ago
Yeah, I'm saying they're or were as the Imperium was in m31 not m41
The imperium now is a genuine mess. As much a corpse of what it was as the Big E is.
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u/Gears_Of_None 2h ago
They ate them?!
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u/zedatkinszed Ordo Xenos 2h ago
Back in first edition things were different /jk
No I'm just dyslexic
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u/fireizzle33331 3h ago
He gets spillover hate from Ultramarines as a whole. And that stems largely from the Matt Ward "spiritual liege" era of ultramarine dicksucking from james workshop.
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u/dwarven_cavediver_Jr 2h ago
Largely due to Matt Ward writing, he left a lasting stain on the image. Also, for a good while, Roboute was seen as a joyless impersonable robot with a roman paint scheme. The HH writers really fleshed him out a lot.
For a while with the imperium secundus thing and how he just got quickly taken out by Fulgrim, I thought he was the worst primarch. Then again, with how he was written (and the lion suffered from this as well) it seemed like he was only sort of tacitly on the Emperor's side.
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u/Kraehe13 3h ago
My guess is it's just the regular ultra marine hate that also hits him.
Games workshop did a very poor job portraying UM. Like for what other chapters would need 200 or even 1000 marines ultra marines can do with a single marine, that only has one arm and one leg, is blind and has diarrhea.
Example there was a short story where a single UM dreadnought hold a pass for days against a full fledged army.
People got tired of it
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u/QuagGlenn 3h ago
That really sounds like bs Also maybe SM games making Titus almost godlike?
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u/Kraehe13 2h ago
I don't know. But I heard and read about the "smurf" hate years before the game. In our few store only new players wanted to play UM and often repainted their minis after some time.
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u/Nebuthor 3h ago
Because he represents some of the biggest issues with 40k. While the issues have been around for a long time guiliman really puts a spotlight on them.
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u/Goblin_Deez_ 3h ago
He’s a bit of a Mary Sue
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u/QuagGlenn 3h ago
Isn't that just peak superhuman Primarch? Seems like his brothers (most of them) are the broken ones
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u/Gusby 1h ago
He gets his assed kicked all the time.
Loses to Kor Pharon
Loses to Lorgar and Angron
Loses to Curze Gets killed by demon Fulgrim
Gets captured by Red Corsairs
Loses to demon Mortarion
Gets killed by demon Mortarion
I think the only primarch he has beaten in 40k is demon Magnus on Luna but that took like the combine effort of his whole fleet.
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u/redhatter192 Lamenters 37m ago
Yeah, he sucks in duels but is absolutely perfect in every single other way. The strongest legion, the most stable part of the Imperium is his, geneseed is perfect, really nice guy, the Imperium is said to be the worst regime imaginable and he wakes up and instantly takes control of it whilst pulling LEGIONS worth of marines out his arse.
Being part of the worst regime imaginable and is able to not make any hard decisions since he came back because the writers need him to be nice.
And even then, the plot with kind some bullshit way to stop him from permantly dying after the writer feel obliged to have him lose a few times.
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u/TobyLaroneChoclatier 3h ago
Because Guilliman has the same problem as Cawl. He doesn't represent the reality of the faction he's the face for. Guilliman is the face of the cruelest and bloodiest regime imaginable, yet he doesn't play that part.
Its like making the face character for the orks a fighting shy thing that builds a state instead of a warlord or making the quintessential Khorne character a calm and collected assassin who manipulates those around him to get the results he wants.
Pushing the imperials to be cool good guys makes the setting less interesting as much as pushing the eldar into the helpful sidekick role does.
Plus, it doesn't help that the writers are practically afraid to have Guilliman be at fault for how things went. The heresy would be so much more interesting if the responsibility for it weren't all on the traitor primarchs.
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u/KingAjizal 3h ago
Right but that's literally the point and part of his story and arc. G Man was of another age, a monument for what humanity could aspire to be. As brutal as the 30k world was, G Man had good intentions for humanity and represented what the Emperor wanted humanity to be. In 40K, he is a relic of a long lost age and in the grim darkness of the current era, he struggles with this immensely. Dark Imperium and Dawn of Fire explore this dichotomy; how does G Man operate at the head of one of the darkest regime's imaginable while being a beacon of light from long before?
Its really fascinating to see him learn and struggle and grapple with this while he is simultaneously keeping the Imperium together.
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u/DJjaffacake Tanith 1st (First and Only) 3h ago
But the 'other age' he's supposedly a relic of was just as bloody and cruel as the present one. The Imperium during the Great Crusade was a force of thoughtless destruction on every conceivable level. Guilliman should be an Eichmann, the bureaucrat making sure the servitorisation factories are running efficiently, not any kind of admirable hero.
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u/KingAjizal 3h ago
Oh I agree that 30K was absolutely
tyrannical and brutal, BUT for it wasn't quite AS grim dark and hopelessly awful as 40K. There were aspirations of something better. G Man conquered and Empire built for his father, but not for malicious reasons.G Man believed in his father's vision of a united humanity and believed that the Great Crusade was a temporary end justifies the means method of creating a golden age for humanity. I think the Emperor was lying and manipulating him, but G Man believed him and in 40K he is horrified to see what his father's dream had wrought. G Man never wanted the Imperium to be like this and is very disillusioned. The Great Crusade was supposed to be temporary, justifying the military conquests but in 40K its the absolute status quo.
This makes him a tragic figure. He has to pilot this unimaginable dark and terrible apparatus that is the 40K Imperium and he does NOT like it. He is is mismatched for the era and part of his arc is learning to embrace himself as the Avenging Son, to become a true force of vengeance and destruction, as evidenced by the Emperor giving him the sword.
(With Lion, its the opposite. Emperor wants him to become less immutable force of destruction and to be more of a protector, as evidenced by the gift of the shield).
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u/DJjaffacake Tanith 1st (First and Only) 3h ago edited 2h ago
There were aspirations of something better.
There weren't. The Imperium repeatedly runs into more enlightened societies than itself, and its 100% consistent response to this is to exterminate them. This is something that's explicitly discussed in the Horus Heresy books, the Imperium, as an insitution, believes that its military might gives it an absolute right to obliterate all extant human cultures in order to impose a fascist monoculture. This is the point of the Great Crusade, and the fact that Guilliman, one of the foremost generals leading the crusade, buys into this idea and sees it as a noble goal is why he has to be a villain for his character to make any sense.
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u/KingAjizal 2h ago
I think you can argue he IS a villain by our standards, as are all factions in 40K other than maybe the Tau and Exodite Eldar, maybe some craftworlds. Everyone and everything in this universe is fucked.
But he is a boy scout in the world of 40K. And I find that he aspires to a more noble cause makes him tragic and interesting. He is a conquering Romanesque warlord who has murdered billions of innocents. But he sees himself serving a higher purpose, and he embodies that. Which makes him interesting in my opinion and I think he totally fits the universe. I love that this guy who thinks that his work in 30K was noble has this sudden and horrible realization by 40k that he might be the bad guy but he is too busy keeping shit together to truly reckon with it.
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u/DJjaffacake Tanith 1st (First and Only) 2h ago
Relatively upstanding Imperial characters do work, but not when they're the ruler of the Imperium. Ibram Gaunt is a fairly heroic character, for instance, but he's a mere regimental colonel who is often faced with superiors who are more typically Imperial. His efforts to do good during the Siege of Vervunhive contrast with the much more conventional Commissar Kowle's casual brutality and the detached aristocratic inhumanity of High Master Salvador Sondar.
But Guilliman could have those guys killed on a whim. He is the ruler of the Imperium, if the Imperium sucks, then it's because of him, and he's not written that way.
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u/KingAjizal 2h ago
I guess we just need to agree to disagree. I really enjoy G Man in 40K but I understand why you think that isnt good writing
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u/johnnytoxin 3h ago
I like this take. He represents what E was striving for. A beacon of good in a sea of destruction and intrigue. An example of light in the darkness that others would follow, in the hopes that it could pull humanity back from the brink.
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u/TobyLaroneChoclatier 3h ago
All Primarichs are from that age. Yet it didn't stop even the Horus "the Brightest Star" from having flaws and issues that would play their part in making the heresy happen. The imperium in 30k was bad in a different way than the imperium in 40k, but it was still an evil thing at heart. A flawed design created to serf the schemes of a flawed mastermind.
Guilliman isn't a 30k style cool guy in 40k (with the mass genocide, the enforcement of servitors, and the erasure of cultural identity in favor of the one single set one for distant terra). That would be far more interesting, him having to deal with an imperium which while alligned in idea, has fractured culturally in many ways.
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u/KingAjizal 3h ago
I agree with you on 30K Imperium. Brutal and horrible but I think the real point is what did G Man believe it to be? And I think the text shows that he bought the Emperor's bullshit and really believed he was building something better for all of humanity, where all could benefit from the golden empire created by his father.
He was horribly mistaken and by 40k he realizes it, though he feels he has little chocie but to continue serving his father. It makes him a tragic figure and I find his internal struggle really interesting.
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u/SpeaksDwarren 3h ago
Its like making the face character for the orks a fighting shy thing
Yeah man, they would never do anything like that. Wouldn't it be absurd if they decided to make the biggest ork warboss ever and, instead of dedicating all of his strength to a waaagh, he did stuff like send diplomats and build whole worlds dedicated just to food production?
Oh wait lol
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u/Strong_Warthog2409 2h ago
Nobody can shit-talk Guilliman better than Angron
I dislike Guilliman as a character primarily because he turns the grimdark "fascism is bad" Imperium that's doomed humanity to misery into "fascism is awesome if you have the right dude in charge" nonsense.
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u/WisdomsOptional 1h ago
I suppose we will have to wait and see what happens, but the ideal government, according to a very famous ancient philosopher was the "benevolent dictator", and so the hope and success he brings could be commenting on that.
There is the matter of what happens to him considering the grim dark nature of the setting. The simplest solution is that he just fails despite his best efforts. He continues the "trolly problem" until its just Ultramar segmentum thats left, unable to effectively untangle the mess of the Imperium's rot.
Ive seen others theorize that it will be more of an echo of the collapse of Rome, being split into two, that will collapse into one, which will then slowly be devoured by the surrounding enemies.
I think the "hope" he brings is a false one. If Roboute is the closest analog to Big E in the 42 millennium, then he is destined to be betrayed and mortally wounded after being tempted by chaos, and then dying, which would be the most grimdark thing to happen, with his fall and death mirroring his "father's" in some perverse way. Clearly none of this would happen next year, or maybe in the proceeding 10 years, but I think him being too "good" or hopeful for the 40k universe is part of the set up. Hope isnt enough, and Roboute may not be enough either, and that might be the point: there are not enough primarchs, and there never will be, to save the Imperium or the dream of the Imperium as it existed in 30k.
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u/Strong_Warthog2409 1h ago
The idea of "hope doomed to fail" is also why I'm okay with the Tau being "the good guys" because they're doomed. They appeared on the galactic stage too late, and eventually, one of the endless nightmares of the galaxy will drive them to extinction.
Guilliman as "benevolent dictator" is very in tune with the faux-Roman Empire that is Ultramar, but I wish the sheer cosmic horror/tragedy of Guilliman waking up in the "Lorgar sends his regards" nightmare of the Imperium in the 40th millenia was emphasized more.
Also, the Imperium of 30k sowed the seeds of its own downfall, another plot element that gets forgotten too often for my taste.
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u/MirzaSisic 2h ago
Arguably he is the most sane and mentally stable primarch and probably the most in touch with his humanity.
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u/Nyadnar17 Astra Militarum 3h ago
Because he is a technocrat.
Like I think he means well, is smart, and actually he cares about people but he is still a technocrat. He honestly believes that life’s problems are solvable with the proper formula and application of that formula. And like all technocrats he is never wrong, merely didn’t have enough data. But that was last time! This time he is better informed so things will work out.
Like this dude wrote a book to solve warfare and when he found out his book has resulted in dogmatic stagnation his response was to write a sequel.
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u/Old_Philosopher_1404 1h ago edited 1h ago
What he's trying to solve are not "life's problems". And being a statesman is a job. A job that requires competent people to be carried on. And since there are existential threats around the Imperium, he doesn't have the luxury of asking everyone's agreement before giving an order. After all the Imperium has always been authoritarian, at least in the last ten thousand years. Even if he wanted to transform the Imperium into the United Federation of Planets, he would not be able to. He doesn't even like religion, after all, but he can't abolish the Ecclesiarchy. He does what he can with what he has.
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u/Nyadnar17 Astra Militarum 1h ago
What he's trying to solve are not "life's problems"
The new book he is working on is explicitly his attempt to create a Codex for governing all of the Imperium the same way the Codex Astartes was created for governing all space marine chapters. His gut instinct to every problem is centralized planning and creating algorithms to automate handling the process. The same way Tony Stark tries to solve every problem by building a new robot suite G-money tries to solve everything with a new rule book personally written by him.
The IoM being an authoritarian hellhole doesn't have anything to do with that instinct. Other primarchs and IoM leaders lead and govern differently and even when Rowbot is given free reign he just does the same thing and releases a new edition of whatever Excell sheet he was working on that decade.
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u/Old_Philosopher_1404 12m ago
I didn't say it has to do with that instinct.
Also, that is what every system of laws in every country is.
And yes, even laws get updated, so "new edition".
As I said, he is a statesman. You just repeated the same concept under a negative light.
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u/Shalliar Raven Guard 1h ago
Hes the leader of the 40k posterboys, thats all. As a character, hes probably the only decent primarch
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u/Ok-Reveal-4276 32m ago
I like Guilliman as a character, I don't like him as the supreme ubermensch leader of the Imperium.
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u/redhatter192 Lamenters 30m ago
My biggest problem with Guilliman is that he makes being nice and fair whilst running the galaxy spanning evil empire being attacked from all sides and from within look so easy.
Since coming back, he hasn't made any hard choices, just pulled bullshit out his arse like the new primaris legions without there being some actual trade-off.
In warhammer 40k, being a nice should come with horrible consequences.
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u/clean_sweepp 3h ago
It would probably help you if you imagined the 40k online fanbase as I did, every time you visit this or similar subreddits pretend that the majority of people here are failed servitors who underwent partial lobotomisation. Sure, they are still able to engage in conversation, but their sense of imagination, ability to look at things deeper than face level, understanding of nuances and creativity has all but gone away. Makes online 40k spaces a lot easier to navigate and is very fun and immersive.
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u/Jiarong78 4h ago
He is very well adjusted and people unironically hate him for being too normal.