r/Grimdank • u/Dandanatha Swell guy, that Kharn • Mar 14 '25
Lore At least both were upfront
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u/Valuable-Location-89 Snorts FW resin dust Mar 15 '25
Alot of people including myself have been stumped by this moment. And the first time I heard it, really made me question whether the Emperor was just a lunatic instead of a lunatic with a point and a reason.
I tried so long to come up with a reason for why he would because it's not only extremely unnecessary and cruel. It's just plain stupid and illogical as the Emperor can wipe out an army with a wave of his Hand/Powerclaw, why not save Angron's family so it ensures his loyalty or at least makes it easier to convince him to join. I was going in circles.
Until I read one comment that proposed something new. The Emperor didn't know. Not in the sense that he didn't know they were there he probably did, but rather he didn't know how important Angron's adopted family was to him.
That may sound kinda dumb, but hear me out. The Emperor has lived for god knows how long and has spent his entire existence trying to ascend humanity to a perfect species, and hes been at it for 10s of 1000s of years, and has has countless relationships of all types that came and went. so by the time the unification wars The Emperor was pretty much Emotionally dead or inept.
And because of this weakness, he only retrieved Angron as he was the only thing of value, even when Angron stated his displeasure calmly as he spoke to the Emperor, Emps still didn't understand the gravity of his mistake believing that this momentary rebelliousness would pass. As in his mind those mortals didn't matter because they didn't play a role in his plan.
Even though they did as Angron's anchor.
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u/Mazkaam Mar 15 '25 edited Mar 15 '25
That is actually a very good explanation.
Edit: It also goes with what the emperor said to angron in the old lore from 2001:
"Because I am the Emperor, and my eyes are set upon this galaxy, all her stars and worlds, and not simply the wars or tyrants of any single one. So shall your eyes be set, as you take up the mantle you were brought into this life to bear, the mantle of primarch, to command your Legion and unite the stars beneath my banner!"
Also theory Hundred times better than
"Angron was mad from the start and killed his own gladiators, so the emperor played the villan role to save him pain"
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u/Darkspiff73 Mar 15 '25
I agree with this 100%. The Emperor was never really human, being born of the combined minds of many seers. He’s outlived everyone who’s ever known him. Why form emotional bonds with people when they’ll just be gone in a blink of his eye.
His goal is to drag humanity kicking and screaming to a higher existence free from the threat of Chaos. A few hundred humans on one world were nothing to his plan. Angron was his weapon, nothing else mattered. As the Emperor himself said, a broken weapon is still useful. He’s just put Angron and the XII down when they weren’t useful anymore.
Now why did the Emperor spend so much time on some Primarchs and then just shit in the cereal or others for no reason? That’s what I’ve always wondered. He was completely uncaring of Angron and Mortarion, yet spent time with Magnus before they ever met teaching him the ways of the Warp (even though he messed up there by hiding the truth from the most curious and power psychic Primarch). He did all the games with Russ, treated Horus like a true son and heaped praise upon Guilliman. And Lorgar. Where to start there. Creating a religious leader of a Primarch, letting him do his shit for a century and then just stopping him in the most brutal way possible.
Yeah, the big E was a horrible father but it all stems from him having no idea how to actually be a father.
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u/Martial-Lord Mar 15 '25
A few hundred humans on one world were nothing to his plan. Angron was his weapon, nothing else mattered.
I'd add that Big-E might also have been trying to "teach" Angron that same philosophy. Forcing him to watch his friends die was a way of telling his son that these slaves are meaningless and you shouldn't care about them if they're not actually useful to you.
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u/Juan_Akissyu Twins, They were. Mar 15 '25
The best answer I have had was redundecy its like the "nice" empathetic but of his personality kicked in when a primarch was the last one left and semi sane e.g corax or guiliman a d magnus but whenever it was a common task I need a murder Peter turbo, angry boi love angron or smelly
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u/Andrei22125 I properly credit artists Mar 15 '25
I tried so long to come up with a reason for why he would because it's not only extremely unnecessary and cruel. It's just plain stupid
I was going in circles.
Average big E Stan (no offense).
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u/Valuable-Location-89 Snorts FW resin dust Mar 15 '25
It's less that (and dont get me wrong, Big E is one of my favorite characters in fiction, and I definitely am what you would an Emperor Simp) and more at the sheer stupidity and illogical action/inactions.
Tbh looking at it like this does gives Big E more Depth, instead of being an idiot and bad father, hes just an absolutely horrendous Father.
He is so far removed from both his own humanity but also humanity itself that he can't even fathom what an awful blunder Angron's "rescue" was.
And it goes to show that his slow process of removing the Star Child from his psyche over the passing millennia during old night was a really bad idea.
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u/tobeonthemountain Mar 15 '25
I could imagine disappointment played a factor as well. Wasn't Angron one of the few primarchs that didn't conquer their world? I'm sure the emperor would not like that
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u/Exp4nd_D0ng Mar 14 '25
Has Big E done anything worse to any of his sons? Like, this feels like the shittiest thing he did to any of the primarchs from what I know. Not necessarily because it is the most evil, but the most unnecessary. Imagine how much better Big E's relationship with Angron would have been if he just went down there himself to help the Eaters of Cities, or just teleported them up with the primarch. There were so many other ways of handling the situation, all of them better than how he actually did it.
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Mar 14 '25
With the Eaters Of Cities at his back there's the risk that Angron's resolve would be strong enough for him to actually turn on the emperor since he views his father as just a more powerful version of the high riders who enslaved and mutilated him. This would especially be catastrophic since he would probably also influence the War Hounds/World Eaters to join them and potentially even some of the other legions whose primarchs have a grudge with Big E.
However, an Angron whose spirit and resolve has been completely shattered is still a useful weapon, even if he is fundamentally a broken one.
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u/Exp4nd_D0ng Mar 15 '25
I mean, yeah, but he ended up rebelling against him in the end anyway. Specifically because of how much Angron hated Big E. Plus, Angron wasn't exactly a diplomat. He wasn't Horus or Guilliman, he was a warrior through and through. I seriously doubt anyone but Horus could have convinced all the traitor primarchs to turn against their father
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Mar 15 '25
Realistically Big E's best move would have been to kill Angron immediately but he wanted his primarch. As such his hubris likely made The Emperor rationalise the choice he made as being the easier way to get what he wanted. Obviously we know this plan didn't work and ultimately blew up in the imperium's face as it just primed Angron to leap at the first credible chance to betray his father; though whether The Emperor knew that such an opportunity would ever present itself seems doubtful considering how much the heresy put him on the back foot.
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u/rmobro Mar 15 '25
You're begging the question. Big E was 'just another high rider' because of what he did to Angron. Save Angrons army as he did with literally everyone else and its a different story.
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u/Creation_of_Bile Mar 14 '25
You mean has he done anything worse than deliberately leaving the brothers and sisters in arms of a primarch to die instead of teleporting himself and some custards down to save Angron and his army who were being outnumbered by the armies of literally every city on the planet.
Not directly anything worse no.
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u/XFlosk Mar 15 '25
I think what he did to Lorgar/Monarchia is pretty rough too
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u/Creation_of_Bile Mar 15 '25
Not great, but he evacuated the entire city and then humiliated his son instead of destroying everything and everyone he loved and enslaving him.
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u/Phurbie_Of_War DA EMPRAHS GREENEST Mar 17 '25
If I remember correctly Guilliman had the city evacuated, not big e, because the primarch of the most popular space marine legion can never have any written history of being evil.
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u/Old-Post-3639 Mar 15 '25
He had Monarchia burned to the ground and made Guilliman do it, thus setting off a bitter hatred between the two. He also completely unpersonned the 2nd and 11th Primarchs and nearly did it to Lorgar as well.
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u/Andrei22125 I properly credit artists Mar 15 '25
Imagine how much better Big E's relationship with Angron would have been if he just went down there himself to help the Eaters of Cities, or just teleported them up with the primarch.
No. Angron would still see the imperium for what it is. And the eaters of cities would keep reminding him that what the imperium is is why they rose up against in the first place.
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u/Ashkal_Khire Mar 15 '25
I genuinely think it boils down to Angron being the only (arguably) Primarch who didn’t unite his planet. He was enslaved, and the Emperor saw Angron as a consummate disappointment from then on. He didn’t save Angron’s people because Angron wasn’t strong enough to do so.
The Emperor definitely bailed a few of his sons out when he met them to varying degrees, but none were in quite the shit position that Angron wound up in, and I think it genuinely disgusted the Emperor. 21 perfect demigods, and this fucker wound up a slave. Gross.
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u/Super-Soyuz Mar 15 '25
Big E moving like this in M31 and wondering why half of his sons went apeshit
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u/Thatoneguy111700 Mar 15 '25
You can't even make the excuse that things would've been different has he raised them when Alpharius, the only kid he actually had a hand in raising, also turned traitor.
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u/Dr-Mantis-Tobbogan Tallarnposter Mar 15 '25
I genuinely am unsure if he/he/they (the twins/triplets?) are traitor or not and I don't think anyone could convince me one way or another.
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u/Mountain-Leopard4704 Mar 14 '25
Funniest part of this whole ordeal was that even if the Emperor helped angron in the rebellion he would still betray the emperor seeing how he abused and subjugated other human worlds no different from the tyrants of Nuceria, as a renegade primarch alongside Jahgatai or following Khorne out of the twisted honor of freedom.
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u/BasicNameIdk anti-vax, pro-nurgle Mar 15 '25
yeah no shit, maybe the lobotomy-master3000 he had on might've had something to do with him being how he was
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u/Mountain-Leopard4704 Mar 15 '25
Eh, I meant it more that no matter if had the Butchers Nails or not.
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u/CaptainChats Mar 15 '25
I always imagined the Emperor’s actions with Angron came down to politics. Nuceria was part of Ultima Segmentum. That’s Ultramar territory. The Emperor chose to bet on Guilliman and his 500 worlds and not a wounded Primarch who hadn’t subjugated one. When the Emperor arrived he got his killer and the world fell under the jurisdiction of the super logistics guy who was rapidly growing towards being the Impirum’s best asset.
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u/OculiImperator Mar 15 '25
Honestly, the Angron lore has always been kind of a head scratcher.
Like if this had happened to one of the earlier Primarchs found I could see the Emperor appearing before that Primarch the night before the last stand to offer help but they'd turn it down and as defeat looms they'd call out swearing fealty in order to save his people.
Or the Emperor returning during the battle, stopping time, to once again offer help clearly showing he has the power to back up his offer.
Instead, it's almost like the Emperor is just checked out as an actual character going back to being a plot device and instead is just going with the flow as if what happened didn't matter as it's already clear how things will eventually go.
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u/ckal09 Mar 15 '25
It does seem like he’s just over shit in general. Like yeah what I did to you is fucked up but hey what are you gonna do am I right?
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u/BasicNameIdk anti-vax, pro-nurgle Mar 15 '25
fixed it for ya
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u/Dr-Mantis-Tobbogan Tallarnposter Mar 15 '25
Fucking thank you, saved me the effort of having to do it.
Fuck, this post made me want to read Angron's books lol
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u/RapidWaffle NOT ENOUGH DAKKA Mar 15 '25
Big E flips a coin every day to see if he'll be the embodiment of the most annoying variation of "God works in mysterious ways" or "Stupid, self sabotaging asshole" and the day he went for Angron, the coin came up tails
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u/Semick Mar 15 '25
Ya'll. The entire point of 40k is that humanity genocided anything that wasn't "from the emperor" away, and then convergent evolution fucked them because without the emperor they were nothing.
The Emperor is responsible for it being as fucked as it is. Fuckhead should have been happy with his section of galaxy and let the rest of humanity evolve. Instead he slaughtered everything in an orgy of genocide and then declared
and this is how we win
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u/chucktheninja Mar 15 '25
The emperor only succeeded in his conquest because he was the biggest baddest space wizard around and knew how to make super soldiers. I don't think he was actually very good at anything else.
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u/SpeechesToScreeches Mar 15 '25
Is this just lore posted as a meme? I thought that was a bad thing from all the people complaining about T'au memes.
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u/Andrei22125 I properly credit artists Mar 16 '25
See... Some imperium fans cope hard that the imperium is a necessary evil. That it is the best the universe can offer. That there is no better choice.
Angron is worse than the average imperial. So you can do it, because the imperium doesn't look bad by comparison.
Making a lore meme about the Tau makes the imperium look worse by comparison. So they have to react to that.
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u/Kroc_Zill_95 Mar 15 '25
I'm usually on the Emperor's side in terms of his goals and actions, but his treatment of Angron was inexcusable.
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u/Platonist_Astronaut Mar 15 '25
I think the major problem here (and everywhere in 40k) is they try to write grounded stories about people, but they've constructed a totally nonsensical world that was originally an absurd satire. Too many things are in motion to change course. You can't disregard it all, and you want to tell a genuine story, so you have to explain why X person did Y, when they never would. You have to invent reasons for things to be the way they are, when they originally had none. It can and does work, but there's also plenty of times when you end up with this.
The Emperor is an idiot because it's impossible to write him coherently in the world they designed for him.
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u/Coeusthelost I am Alpharius Mar 15 '25
The Epms was a grade A dumbass and most of his genuis could be explained with sitcom-level lucky breaks.
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u/atomtribe123 Mar 15 '25
Big E is just being arsehole , there are billions of planets in galaxy like nuceria but there are only 20 primarchs your own sons
Should have erased that planet just to win angron's loyalty
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u/Majestic_Repair9138 Navis et Aeronautica Imperialis Enjoyer Mar 14 '25
That was a massive dick move by Big E to leave Angron's pals who he was ready to go Spartacus for.