How Not To Write a Villain: The Horus Heresy

 My gleeful slog through pulp continues, this time into the world of Warhammer 40K, “Where there is only war”. The Horus Heresy series takes place ten thousand years before the 40k games and stories. It shows the slow decent of the Imperium of man from an empire of reason and science hell-bent killing everything alien to a theocracy that’s hell-bent on killing everything. It’s not much of a change, but it’s Warhammer. That means gritty, violent, and dark. Regardless, at the center of this transformation is Warmaster Horus, the greatest Primarch the Emperor ever made. The Horus Heresy novels open with a trilogy of books that set the stage. During the second book, False Gods by Graham McNeill, we finally see what caused this great and honorable warrior to become a dark servant of Chaos. Or rather we would, if the author didn't duck behind a curtain first.

Because the reader is (assumedly) approaching these books with knowledge of Warhammer 40k, we know that Horus is going to be a bad guy. We already know that everything going to go belly up and we’re just holding our breaths as to when and how. Even so, the first impressions of the Warmaster are positive. He’s shrewd, honorable, and full of more sense than we usually ascribe to Space Marines. At one point, he decides not to murder a peaceful race of distantly-related humans, a rarity in this xenophobic universe. After a while, we start to forget how twisted he’s soon to become and actually like him. This was how first book, Horus Rising by Dan Abbnet ended.

After an amazing introduction, I had to dive right into the second book. This is where everything has to get juicy, right? We see more of the dark conspiracy dedicated to warping Horus, and the tension ramps up. At the climax two-thirds of the way in, Horus is finally caught in the trap. Finally, we get to see what can change this paragon into a monster, right? Instead, the scene cuts away and next we see Horus, he’s an evil, bloodthirsty guy talking about overthrowing the Emperor.

 That’s right, instead actually showing us what we waded through 1000 pages for, we get a quick edit that explains nothing. I read Warhammer for the grand, bloody space operas, not the literary depth. Even so, it’s an incredibly unsatisfying resolution. If you’re going to go through the trouble to add a deep backstory to a villain, it’s a good idea to include why he’s a villain in the first place.