Which Primarch had the most difficult upbringing?

So sort of like Mortarion, if Mortarion were even remotely justified in feeling the way he did.

I believe thats actually the case. Doesnt help that he's standing next to Magnus though.

Didn't Mortarion basically breathe in toxic fumes for the entirety of his life

Who is standing between Dorn and the Khan?

Yes. And I do mean the entirety. Even when he had the option of not breathing in toxic fumes he went out of his way to keep doing it. He had his gear modified to keep the air he breathed polluted and poisonous.

Lorgar.

Curze had it pretty bad. I wonder if he would have stayed loyal if he hadn't had years of of psychologically damaging visions/nightmares. He was batshit crazy in the later years of his life.

Doesnt seem right. He doesnt have golden skin and why is he in white?

>This planet over here treated your actual son like dogshit
>Don't destroy it, even though you could
>This planet over here started worshipping you like a god
>Destroyed
One of these events happening is enough to make the Emperor seem reasonably flawed.
Both of them just makes the HH seem like daddy-issues bullshit.

The Lion was literally a feral child but Angron was probably the worst off.

The Word Bearers used to go in grey. Anyway look at him, his face is covered with scripture and he's got scrolls and shit pinned to him.

Mortarion is probably right behind Angron in terms of fucked up upbringings.

>raised by xenos sorcerer Overlord on a toxic planet
>humans treated like animals and turned into zombies for sport
>Emperor goads Mortarion into either submitting to him or defeating his adoptive father without even revealing who he is
>Mortarion forced to challenge the Overlord in an area so poisonous that it destroyed his armor and permanently fucked him up physically and mentally
>Emperor shows him up with an 'I told you so' and told him to get to work

The Lion grew up alone in a literal daemon world

At least Angron and Cruze were dealing with humans

The Emperor deserved what he got just by looking at how inconsistent and careless he was when finding a Primarch.

Some of them he shows up as the Emperor, in full regalia, retinue, the whole nine yards. Some of them he shows up as a stranger, and does dumb contests. Then there's shit like Angron where he could have easily had his legions touch down on the planet to satisfy Angron, or Mortarion where he tells him to pledge himself to a complete stranger or go win an impossible fight.

>Mortarion forced
That's not true. He only felt forced because he would rather die than ask for help, and desperately wanted to one up the new guy that showed up that everyone instantly liked. He was enormously proud and deeply insecure and crazy jealous. It's stupid to blame the Emperor for that.

Mortarion knew he couldn't defeat the Overlord of Barbarus, but he was determined to do the impossible because he hated the idea of someone else taking the credit for his glorious revolution. His own men tried to stop him, but he was having none of it, because he knew Emps was going to fix everything and he needed to be the one to do it first.

And after he failed, just like everyone told him he would, he never forgave the Emperor for showing up to save the day and denying him his big hero moment.

There are a lot of series where people write fanfiction to tweak little mistakes, but Warhammer needs an entire rewrite from the bottom up.

I swear people only like Mortarion because the death guard have strong rules.

I think there are things to like about Mortarion, but his motivation after his discovery was never one of them. Almost everything he did after that was for dumb reasons relating back to the moment the Emperor showed up and dared to help him. Among the handful of Primarchs that would have been way better off had the Emperor never found them, I'd say Mortarion easily tops that list.

Why do you think that?

I specifically Mortarion because he's a shitty person. I don't give a shit that he's not a heroic or brave character, I like that he's irreparably flawed in character--even beyond the whole Chaos stuff.

Honestly, after reading Dark Imperium, Mortarion's shitty character is almost canon; Typhus basically laughs in his face, tells him he fell to Chaos entirely because of Typhus' machinations, and that rather than being a champion of Nurgle, he was more of a trophy to how much of a dick Typhus was.

I love mortarion. He's stubborn, completely intractable, generally unpleasant, and suffers heavily because of it.

But his motivations are his own, rather than what the demon faggots in his ear tell him to do. Not that it did him any good when typhon bamboozled him, but again, him getting the shit kicked out of himself for his own mistakes is A+

mort and pert are best traitor bois

Lion El'Jonson is the only correct answer

Literally had chaos whispering in his ear for the first 10 years of his life and never caved.

Alpharius and only he knows the real reason why.

He was justified in both.

>destroying an entire world out of pure spite, one that's completely compliant once you take it over
>destroy a world that isn't compliant at all and breaks one of your golden rules that you've politely warned your son about over and over and over and over and over

That boy Lorgar just ain't right. Emps should have just dismissed Lorgar and exiled him somewhere. He was the total antithesis of everything the Imperium was supposed to stand for and making a big show of killing a planet wasn't going to change that.

And Perturabo should also have been relieved of duty after he gave the order to execute a tenth of his Legion for not being the very best, like no one ever was the very second he showed up.

t. not Girlyman

The Emperor's largest and one true mistake was not just killing the Prinarchs that were obviously damaged goods. Like there is zero reason to trust people like Angron and Curze with thousands of warriors and near-unlimited power.

Honestly? Gotta agree. He thought his kiddos would all come around and that none of them were really bad, and with his half assed guidance they'd all be just like if they'd never gotten kidnapped. I want to think as he's rotting away, having psychic kung fu battles in the warp, he regrets being so god damned arrogant and idealistic.

Ferrus had things pretty rough, albeit it was intentional on his own part.

mortarion traded glory in the fluff for strong rules. Truly a loving father to allow himself to be humiliated repeatedly in lore while plague marines get to be decent in every edition.

He'd have killed a few of those that ultimately turned out loyal in that case, though.

I don't know how anyone can really argue anyone but Angron and Curze. Even between those two, Angron is the clear winner. Fucking space elves tried to murder him as a baby, he's enslaved immediately after, has his fucking brain cut into, then implanted with crazy space magic tech that drives him slowly insane. I mean, cmon man.

Totally right, he should have just offed at least Angron and Curze. Or possibly used them like one man armies ala massive transhuman assassins.

what do you guys think happened to number II and XI?

Lorgar had his uses. His worlds were incredibly loyal to the fledgling Imperium, something that was massively valuable at the time. If Imperial Truth was really the Truth, his worlds would have come around eventually. The Emperor handled Lorgar in the dumbest fucking way possible.

Short term it was useful, but it was really the beginning of the end. They were less loyal to the Imperium and more to Lorgar's woo-woo bullshit distortion of Imperial dogma, which of course came back to bite the Emperor in the ass hard with Lorgar. And how could it not have? It was a fundamental and irreconcilable difference in values.

Religious faith seemed like the biggest thing Emps wouldn't compromise on and it was everything Lorgar wanted. Without compromise how could he have handled Lorgar better besides to contain and isolate him?

I think they were intentionally left out of fluff to give players the legit option of muh original primarch/legion do not steal. They were purposefully left to the imagination so your guess is as good as anybody's.

The one with nails shoved into his skull and forced to fight as a gladiator.

not even close.

Loyalty is its own reward.

Mortarion is truly pitiable in a pathetic way. He is a daemon primarch that could be one of the most powerful and influential characters in the setting, but instead is a brooding wreck of a man who is not even the true champion of his patron god.

As a Death Guard player I kind of like this, as it's a weirdly nice feeling to pity your primarch and try defend him from the majority of people who hate him. But then you have to look at it realistically, side with Typhus and acknowledge that our primarch is just a fuck up.

>He thought his kiddos would all come around and that none of them were really bad
Sounds like he had a blind spot for his kids, but isn't BL also trying to make it canon that he never really cared about them?

Alpharius. You don't know the suffering he went through.

>You don't know the suffering he went through.
Neither does anybody else.

You are wrong. It's said that the other two Primarchs failed and that necessitated their erasure.

How they failed is a mystery but they were erased with such prejudice that the other Primarchs live in fear of their fate.

>but isn't BL also trying to make it canon that he never really cared about them?
>trying

It's already canon. Even before it was made official, the notion that the Emperor felt any sort of compassion or love for any of the Primarchs, aside from Horus, is just retarded at this point. The HH series has just fucked that idea out of existence.

I mean, that's the new canon explanation, but the explicitly stated original reason for there being two empty legion slots is what the user said.

Conformed in the novels and outside the novels by authors but the degenerates here want to make the Emperor into some sort of Jesus. I suspect its yankie Christfags doing it. Projecting their views of Jesus on the Emperor.

Number XI... we don't talk about him though... II had the best though... but we don't talk about him either.

We do know that the fault wasn't with the legions, it was explicitly with the Primarchs themselves.

Perhaps the authors should stop projecting their daddy issues onto fictional characters in attempts to deal with how they feel daddy never loved them?

You're refuting a meta answer with a fluff explanation. The original purpose of the II and XI Legions WAS for players to self insert their own Legion/Primarch into the lore without it completely fucking the setting. This was when the Horus Heresy was still largely a mystery and more of a legend we had bits and pieces of rather than a true accounting. Now we know every stupid fucking detail of these autistic manchildren with daddy issues that could have conquered the galaxy if the Emperor wasn't completely pants on head retarded.

Not even The Emperor knows.
youtube.com/watch?v=e9-3RZkzpwM

>pants on head retarded
If more-than-mortal demigod super-smart lords of war can't stop being autistic manchildren with daddy issues for a couple of decades, then I'd say the flaw lies less with the Emperor and more with the fact that the Primarchs are the pants on head retarded ones.

In RougeTrader back in the day, the were a reference to the legions lost at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, were two entire roman legions were wiped and the emperor Augustus was reported to have shouted "Varus give me my legions back!". Due to the shameful defeat both roman legions were stricken out of records. But that fluff has changed with time, now its hinted that Leman Russ killed both of the missing Primarchs under orders of the Emperor

If the Emperor believed in the Imperial Truth, he shouldn't have been afraid that religion would triumph over it.

You only fear and destroy that which you cannot conquer by logic and reason. How truthful can the Imperial Truth be if it cannot overcome superstition and faith

Considering how badly it lost to superstition and faith he had good reason to treat it like some fragile little thing. Maybe he thought if he could protect it, it might one day grow into something that wasn't so delicate and easily suppressed. But alas, people gots to have they church, so his militant atheism was one of the biggest contributors to his downfall.

It was clearly a flawed idea or at least, an idea not fit for a flawed universe

Personally, I think a tactic that might have been interesting if it worked out was realizing how much emotion and the need for faith fed the Warp.

If the Emperor worked hard to genetically engineer humanity to be nulls and gather more necrodermis or other metals incorruptible by the warp.

You would have a Dark Age of Technology mankind that does not feed the warp no matter what it feels or does, and an army of Iron Men that won't be corrupted by being made of Necrodermis. A huge shadow in the warp would generate from humanity, delaying or maybe even preventing the death of Slaanesh and possibly without an astronomoicon not attracting the Tyranid horde to our Galaxy. Maybe.

Even the Ork WAAAGH might be dulled by it.

The problem with that is that it makes the Emperor into an idiot as well.
If the Primarchs are just tools, then WHY THE FUCK doesn't he just kill Angron? He's clearly damaged goods, there's nothing that can be done for him. The 'they're only tools for my ambition' guy would have no reason to leave him alive, much less give him a fucking army. But no, Angron gets the World Eaters, because 'shut up, we're brilliant writers'.

Let us not forget that the Emperor must have had dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of human sensei in his lifetime before he had the Primarchs.

If he ever had a paternal sense toward any of them, it must surely have been snuffed out by the march of time. What's another son, after 10000 sons.

If he even cared for his bastard children anyway.

Here is a Tau saying for you.

"A broken sword can still cut".

He can still Angron in his present state and Angron was going die anyways due to the nails. So the problem was going to solve itself by itself.

I disagree. Alivia Sureka which was a fellow True Perpetual and companion of the Emperor, was sterile.

Perpetuals could be all sterile. After all, what does an immortal need of offspring?

>He's clearly damaged goods, there's nothing that can be done for him.

The Emperor did try to fix him. He couldn't. But at that point as well, remember that he's already lost two Primarchs. Angron is in a bad way, but he wasn't completely compromised, he still had a decent amount of his faculties. So he took a risk because he simply didn't want to lose another Primarch (and, consequently, legion).

Of course, that does make it stupid in light of BL's other wonderful additions like "steal power from Chaos Gods, including one whose main component is RAGE" to his character.

I've seen this kind of thread tens of times and this is my favorite answer regardless of all biases

Perhaps those perpetuals were sterile, but the Emperor explicitly had sensei offspring.

>angron, magnus, curze and mortarion made the cut
>these two didn't
Holy shit how bad can you possibly be

That still doesn't explain why he let Angron do it to all his marines too.

> but the Emperor explicitly had sensei offspring.

That's old lore that exists in the same period that had the Emperor being a fusion of shaman souls. So its canon is dubious.

Was he paying that close attention to the inner workings of the legions after handing them over to their Primarchs? It seems like he only got involved when they really stepped out of line, such as Lorgar.

When in doubt, everything is canon. The Emperor is a fusion of shaman souls who also made a deal.

New canon does not refute old canon unless explicitly says so.

Wrong post?

Teaching worlds you conquer to worship the Emperor is apparently something he notices, but the fact an entire legion now has rage wires hammered into their heads is something he misses? Surely he must have interacted with them at least once after Angron started doing it, or at least had some report of it.

The Emperor tries to take the nails out of Angron, because he knows it's a problem, but doesn't stop him from not only implanting them in his marines but actually having them manufactured as well.

It doesn't add up.

Isn't Angron supposed to be one of the shortest in the fluff anyway?

What I don't like is how small Magnus is. He should be much bigger.

I bet Cawl could've fixed it.

menducia.atspace.com/primarchs/II.html
Each Primarch is given a Major Arcana that fits them best. The High Priestess and The Fortune are left for the missing Primarch
TL;DR One was had a greater implicit understanding of the Warp than Magnus, rather than being able to throw it about. The other was a lucky, friendly fellow, if naive and too trusting.

Obviously not canon in the slightest, but I think it's interesting basis for imagining.

>Teaching worlds you conquer to worship the Emperor is apparently something he notices
He only noticed because they were very slow in progress across the galaxy.

It probably went something like

>right, let's check how my Primarchs are doing
>hmm, most pretty good, Horus and the first one are still up the top, excellent
>Blueboy has a lot of compliance going on, that's real good, pity his victories aren't quite as good, but good record all the same
>Alpharius and his twin are a bit low, not to worry, they showed up last anyway, they're making good progress
>Lorgar's doing we- hang on what, why are they taking so fucking long?
>I mean, it's a pretty big legion, they should be much faster
>lemme see here
>...
>......
>.........
>what.

>People are overall rationale and will believe the truth if its presented to them in a logical and coherent fashion

Oh to be young.

primarch heights have never been consistent

Though I will say they were at their best when they were the same size as their marines.

Alpharius, stop posting on my korean impressionist painting wall.

See, but thats exactly it. It doesn't work.

For the Emperor to think it works is incredibly flawed.

Forcing people to recite a "truth" will never be as truthful as what they themselves believe it to be. A man with a tumor in his brain that sees 2+2=5 will always believe 2+2=5 no matter how logical and rational you tell him the answer "4" is.

>He should be much bigger
for you

I mean, how did he not notice? I'm sure he met some World Eaters in person, even at a distance. Hell, they would have paraded right in front of him at the Triumph of Ullanor. And it doesn't even get a comment?

>Hey Angron, what's that one your marines heads down there in the parade?
>...
>Are you fucking serious?

Not all the WE had the nails, I don't think.

And wouldn't the ones marching at Ullanor have had their helmets on anyway?

Not captains or sergeants.

Besides, my point is that the Emperor or someone close to him would have had ample opportunity to even just catch a glimpse of an uncovered World Eater or even their requisitioning a bunch of nasty archaeotech. To say he had no idea, when the Crusade went on for literally decades and World Eaters as important as Kharn did it, strains credulity at best.

Still, at one point he had to have TALKED TO FUCKING ANGRON, he's completely barking pants on head MAD

He already knew Angron had the nails for the obvious reason that he tried to get them out, user. He couldn't do it without killing him. Angron could be talked to, though, and reasoned with. He wasn't constantly chained up like a madman.

"Hey Anne, how's my little Spartacus rip off doing?"
>"AAAAAAAAAAFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUILLRIPYOURARMSOFF"
"Oh still mad about letting your only comrades die? Whatever kid, daddy's gotta Empire to run."

If anything he should have let the Primarchs who didn't really want to fight (Lorgar, Perturabo) sit back and be the key figures in building the Imperium while the others could continue the wars.

That would have fixed a lot of the "we're just tools to be disposed of" angst.

>IT'S THE HARD KNOCK LIFE.. HORUS
>THE EMPRAH ABANDONED.. US.
>INSTEAD OF FORTRESSES.. WE GET DIRT
>INSTEAD OF LIBRARIES.. WE GET HURT
>IT'S THE HARD KNOCK LIFE

Little Orphan Anniegron

>MY AXE WILL SPILL BLOOD, TOMORROW
>BET YOUR SHARPEST BLADE THAT, TOMORROW
>THERE'LL BE BLOOD

I'd put Mortarion second to Angron, he literally crash-landed into a battlefield and was raised as weapon by an alien king.
Curze is very close though.

Angron. Taken as slave, turned into gladiator, turned into perma-rge gladiator by Nails, which are DAoT thingies, also stole his ability sleep or rest at all. Started rebellion to save what little he had as friends, even if it meant dying as free man.

Emperor steals this moment, letting his only friends die in vain, gives up on Angron quite shortly after that. Uses his marines as battering ram and hopes boy dies during one of the campaigns.

Mortarion would come first if it werent for his aptitude to rebel against father, not once but twice. Yes, poison planet, but he actually had childhood of education under adoptive father overlord, before turning against him, later same with emperor before once again turning against father.