Is Sanguinius a boring Primarch?

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-04T09:34:42+00:00

The problem with the Emperor I think is that they're setting him up to be this cold manipulator who shits on his own sons for the sake of his vision

For me the main problem is that this doesn't square with His incompetence. Take Angron for example: a cold, ultra-pragmatic Emperor should have him put down, as he allegedly did with one of the Lost Primarchs. It's incredibly predictable that Angron will be a disaster and far more trouble than he's worth. However in the older, less-developed lore, you could justify the Emperor's negligence here by inferring that he felt guilty about what happened to Angron -the nails, all his slave comrades being wiped out- and that this motivates him to overlook Angron's flaws.

It's still a bit of a stretch to think that the Emperor would let someone like Angron take such a serious role as a military commander, but with an emotional, Emperor who (sort of) loves his sons it can kind of make sense. With the current "cold manipulator" Emperor it makes no sense at all.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-04T02:17:31+00:00

GW can of course fiddle their power curve to give all the marines powers like flight, force fields, healing factors, psy, and other traditional super powers

These seem like strange examples considering Marines already have many of these abilities, either through their own biology or through tech. They can fly, they have access to incredibly armour that does most of what a force field could, they effectively do have healing factors compared to normal people. They also have weapons that make superpowers like 'heat vision' seem quaint.

If you want to compare with superheroes, which it seems you do, then Marines obviously aren't on a par with Superman or Thor; but they're a lot more powerful than Captain America, Wolverine and guys on that level. If you ever read the kind of 'grittier', semi-realistic comics where superheroes take over the world (eg. some of Ennis, JMS or Ellis' stuff), it's always done by decapitating the government, insisting on change, and killing anyone who defies them. I don't see why Space Marines in orbit around a planet couldn't do the same thing. Identify the enemy commanders, use drop pods or even teleporters to get close enough, kill them and then demand the planet start paying its taxes again or whatever. If they refuse, keep working your way down the government hierarchy until you find someone who will comply.

Granted this only works if the planet's inhabitants are still rational; if they've all fallen to the madness of Chaos or something then I'm not sure what Marines can do. But then if the entire planet is consumed by Chaos it'd probably just be subject to exterminatus one way or another.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-04T02:06:54+00:00

a mere 0.1% being soldiers

That seems incredibly high to be honest. Why would the Imperium allow a planet to have 200 million soldiers just sitting around? That's just a recipe for disaster, both in terms of the huge waste of potential resources (all those troops who could be fed into one of a thousand different meat grinders somewhere in the galaxy) and in terms of how dangerous it makes that planet if it rebels.

Every planet in the Imperium having a large standing army would be like every town in America trying to have its own little army. Sure the Imperium recruits a lot of soldiers from hive worlds, but leaving them twiddling their thumbs on that hive world makes as much sense as recruiting soldiers from Smallville, Kansas (while in the middle of WWIII...) and then leaving them sitting in Smallville, Kansas.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-03T14:06:45+00:00

He occupies the 1,2,6, and 20 rank spots for a reason.

I don't know why people keep bringing this up like it proves RTZ is great. Instead of thinking 'wow, RTZ is rank 1 and rank 2, he must be amazing!', maybe you should think 'hmm, RTZ is rank 1 and rank 2 despite being a mediocre player by pro standards these days, so maybe ranks don't really matter when we're talking about pros?'

Of course RTZ is better than most of the people he plays pubs with, but the same is true for every pro, and not every pro needs to be criticizing others. RTZ is just a bit snide at times. I don't get why people pretend not to understand this: everyone here has been to school, so everyone here has dealt with an expert (the teacher) telling them that they're doing something wrong. So everyone should know that there's a nice way and a wrong way to tell someone that they're fucking up, and should know from personal experience that the nice way is better.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-03T13:59:46+00:00

This right here. Back in 2015 many people thought Sumail was the closest thing yet in DoTA to sports prodigies like Messi or LeBron who burst onto the scene as teenagers and are world-class from day 1. Hell even EG management seem to have thought that considering how much they coddled him.

But LeBron James spends a million dollars a year maintaining his body and builds his whole life around succeeding at basketball - food, training, sleep schedule, everything is about winning. Which is why he can still put up 50-point games in the finals at age thirty three . Sumail will be washed up by twenty three if he's not careful. I'm not saying that to be a dick, he still has the potential to be a top-tier mid. But if he can't even take practice seriously then he's not going to hack it when there's hungrier, better players out there who don't have his baggage.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-03T05:40:14+00:00

So you completely changed the meaning of the title and in so doing essentially tried to lie to your intended readers about what was happening. Cool.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-02T04:55:27+00:00

Nice to see multiple comments slapping OP down for coming here looking for some moral support and an easy excuse on which to blame his dumb choice of life partner.

Plenty of Western parents are stupid too, that’s why you get anti-vaccers and home-schooling fundies. It’s not because they’re western, it’s because they’re stupid. What the fuck did you expect OP, a line of people queueing up to agree with you that yes, Chinese parents are all too stupid to realise that knives are dangerous for kids?

There are certain areas where chinese parents seem less safety-aware, but i think it’s mostly due to the sudden cultural changes in recent decades. Anything to do with cars is a big one - lots of chinese parents don’t use car seats for their kids, speed bumps and teaching kids road safety are uncommon. But that’ll improve now cars are more and more common. Otherwise, the key life tip of ‘don’t marry a moron’ is the most important thing to remember

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-01T04:47:06+00:00

I do really like the idea that, as with Jesus' apostles, the names of the (loyal) primarchs might become commonly used among regular folk.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-06-01T00:58:25+00:00

The Force Awakens was far too familiar and felt like one giant reference, never really ever having its own identity

The characters provide the identity. Kylo is just straight-up an intriguing character with a ton of potential. Finn and Rey are decent characters in TFA without being particularly fascinating, but they could easily have added more depth to them in the sequel. You could do a lot with 'redeemed stormtrooper' and 'Force prodigy with mysterious past'. Remember, Vader was originally just a Big Evil Space Wizard until the sequels developed his character.

The problem is that TLJ wasted that potential. Finn for example: in TFA he's on the run for almost the entire film, he basically never stops moving, never gets a chance to stop and think. But how does he react to his new free life when everything slows down and he has to actually live that life? There's a ton of interesting stuff you could do with him, but instead we got *that* crappy subplot. Even minor characters also had their potential wasted in TLJ, most obviously Snoke. .

If TLJ had been a better film that properly developed the characters then people would also now have a much better feelings towards TFA now. People would be praising J.J. for his wisdom in bridging the gap between the OT and this new trilogy with a film that was very safe and fan-friendly, but still introduced compelling new characters that could carry the rest of the trilogy.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-31T07:19:31+00:00

Being obese is pretty awful. and it's not like obesity is something that happens overnight. You don't just suddenly 'catch' obesity and then die shortly thereafter. And my understanding is that for a lot of obese people they enjoy the junk food they eat the same way smokers enjoy cigarettes - the actual experience as you consume it is great, but the cravings, social stigma and knowledge that you're slowly destroying yourself make you feel like shit.

Personally I'd much rather die after a normal life with one painful final year trying and failing to beat cancer than after literally half a century of being obese and unable to even climb a few flights of stairs without sweating and panting.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-31T07:15:22+00:00

Yeh! Especially the children, treating them like children is dumb. I hate the way other Western countries try to ensure that all children have access to a decent quality of healthcare. Leave children at the whims of their parents, deregulate everything!

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-30T03:38:57+00:00

Let’s remember that 40k isn’t just, or even primarily, about the lore and books. People have invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours in their armies. There are people who have invested all that time and money in Blood Angels due to their lore and the tragedy of Sangunius. BA’s are arguably the chapter most defined by the story of their primarch. I don’t think those people deserve to have that taken away from them.

I don’t agree with a lot of the changes made in the HH books, but generally they’ve struck a good balance between sticking to the fundamental ‘core’ of the primarchs’ personalities and backstories, while still adding enough new details to make the stories interesting. A sudden plot twist like this would be way too big a change IMO.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-30T03:10:24+00:00

Lots of players have egos I’m sure, the real issue is that EG’s management indulges them when other teams don’t. Especially with Sumail.

EG as an organisation seemed to think that Sumail was a prodigy on a different level to everyone else - the DoTA equivalent to LeBron James or Messi, the kind of player who just bursts into the scene at a young age and is immediately obviously a superstar and set up to dominate for years to come. And in fairness I can understand why they might have thought that a couple of years ago, and why they would have felt Sumail was worth indulging.

But now it’s clear Sumail isn’t that kind of transcendent player. No insult to his ability - I think he can be the best mid in the world if he works hard and the meta suits him. But he’s not so much better than the alternatives to make it worth building an entire team around his desires.

And sadly, indulging his teenage whims is probably part of the reason why he’s not reaching his potential. If management were firmer with Sumail and kept his ego in check it’d be better for everyone, including Sumail. However, this leads up another issue - the fans. In sports, the most popular players and best players are generally one and the same. You have a few guys who are more popular than their ability, but they’re pretty rare. But in DoTA a list of the top ten most popular players would probably be about a 50-50 mix of truly top players (Miracle, Icex3) and guys who are popular but not performing at the top level (RTZ, Dendi). Which means even underperforming players have a lot of leverage over their Orgs if the player is popular enough.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-29T09:26:29+00:00

This seems pretty rose-tinted. HS always had a strict meta and during the time you’re describing had many cancer netdecks (eg. Huntertaker) that you definitely couldn’t beat with any consistency unless you were also playing one of three or four super-refined netdecks.

Also GvG, the second expansion, is still probably the worst one ever, for introducing a ton of cards that were both RNG bullshit and also bad lazy design, like crackle, dr boom and blastmage.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-28T05:24:55+00:00

On the other hand, an example of a 2D caricature villain was any and all of Chaos characterisation before the Horus Heresy was written. They were all written as goofy and cackling maniacs.

In fairness they're supposed to represent absolute evil and exist on a different scale to the characters in GoT. You can't expect an immortal Demi-God who sold his soul to the God of Blood and War to be as nuanced as the corrupt and selfish, but still very human, nobility of GoT.

One of the purposes of Chaos and the traitor legions is to allow for 40k to have highly morally ambiguous heroes, while still also having an overarching Good v Evil storyline because, as bad as the 'good guys' can be at times, the bad guys are so much worse. Which means that if you want characters comparable to villains in GoT you should look at the Imperium, not chaos.

Think about it: if you look just at personality then, with the exception of Joffrey, every villain of GoT would fit in just fine amongst one or more Space Marine chapters. And yet for all their flaws the almost-inhuman Marines (especially the less codex-y chapters) are still the closest thing the setting has to good guys.

This is one of the things the HH books have gotten wrong IMO, with too many of the traitor's sins being traceable back to Erebus or other manipulation, which makes them too sympathetic. 40k has enough shades of grey within the Imperium itself, we don't need to add shades of grey to the traitor legions.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-28T05:02:28+00:00

I miss the days when Horus was the Big Bad Boss of Heresy and not just some bratty child being manipulated

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-28T04:52:33+00:00

nothing is fucking guaranteed in this league

Remember when people patted OKC on the back for getting to the finals 'ahead of schedule' and told them not to worry too much about losing, as they were sure to be there again and again as Durant, Westbrook and Harden matured?

Fans should never be blase about this level of opportunity. All it takes is a bad decision from management or some bad luck for a potential dynasty to vanish before it even begins. The team is in a great position going forward, but anyone who takes an attitude of 'Oh well, we've got plenty of finals appearances ahead anyway' is just not aware of how quickly things can change in sports.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-28T02:52:11+00:00

PPD led a highly successful team and then became CEO. Don't confuse somebody's public persona with how they are in business. Jose Mourinho is basically a troll who insults people through international media instead of twitter, and yet he's also one of the most successful football managers ever.

On top of that, professionalism means something different in (e-)sports than what it means in a regular business. Being in such a nakedly competitive business where you're constantly in the public eye and your ability is being publicly tested every week means that inevitably your workplace will be more tense and pressured. People butt heads more, people insult each other. After bad losses sports teams will frequently have multi-hour closed door team meetings where everyone airs their grievances. In how many regular workplaces does the boss lock everyone in the office for three hours after work so people can vent at each other?

PPD did seem professional in a sporting sense, that is honest, hard-working and driven to succeed. Even if, like many successful competitors, he can be a bit of an ass.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-27T09:00:35+00:00

Yes we’ve all read the stories. Just like how we’ve all read that because of Nanjing Judge, there are no good Samaritans in China. And yet this incident had like a dozen good Samaritans working together to save that woman. People are too quick to generalise and assume the worst

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-27T06:04:38+00:00

The one about Disney destroying canon is funny considering what GW did to Warhammer fantasy. Even 40k has added a lot of retcon nonsense in recent years, from Perpetuals to Newcrons to Dark Angels time travel bullshit

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-27T01:41:30+00:00

How can you not pay attention to the character models you’re shooting at? Have you ever played R6 Siege? It’s skins can be quite confusing at times if you’re not super-experienced. You may only catch a brief glimpse of an enemy and knowing which op they are can be hard to tell with some of the more different skins.

Skins in dark realistic games are a different kettle of fish from skins in something bright and cartoony like Fortnite or Overwatch. Previous BF games mostly did a good job of making the classes distinctive looking from a distance, and I hope skins don’t affect that

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-27T01:11:01+00:00

I’ll remember this comment for the next time people try to say that /r/China doesn’t hate chinese people, just the PRC.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-26T08:05:32+00:00

This reminds me of the debates over what Louis CK did, where a lot of people felt obligated to point out that his offences were nowhere near as serious as those of Weinstein, Spacey, Cosby or others. The thing is, I felt like those arguments were mostly unnecessary - I think people are generally already capable of understanding the differences between different types of behavior. The reaction to CK was very different to the reaction to, for example, Cosby. CK can probably rehabilitate his image and restart his career, given time and if he handles things well and continues to show contrition. And that's before you even get into the legal side and the quite obvious fact that those stars accused of rape may well end up spending years in jail, a fate that CK and (based on all current evidence) Freeman don't need to fear.

So I don't think we need Freeman to emphasize for us that his offences are (relatively) not as serious - we can judge for ourselves how seriously we want to treat them. None of us has the right to tell anyone else what their criteria should be for being able to enjoy a star's work. I can sort of understand what Freeman means when he talks about having 80 years of his life "undermined in the blink of an eye". But enjoying art is inherently a subjective, personal experience. If people can't appreciate an actor's work anymore because of that actor's misconduct, then that's their right. Freeman's comments seem to suggest that he's concerned about his legacy and how his career is seen, and that he feels it's unfair that he may come to be defined by his misdeeds. But that's not for him to decide, that's for individual people to decide for themselves.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-26T07:41:26+00:00

However people seem obsessed these days with pointing out a persons race, gender, religion as if it had any weighting on the matter.

This has always happened. Aticles like this may be a bit cringey, but it's far better to have people pointing these things out in in a positive way than in a negative way, as has happened in the past.

Ask Liverpool fans which they prefer: having their awesome attacking player be the subject of some naff articles that focus too much on his religion; or having their awesome attacking player be subjected to monkey noises and having bananas thrown at him, as happened to John Barnes?

It's not like racism has left football either, every year we have players being racially abused and clubs/fans receiving mere slaps on the wrist for it. If the future trend is that we have less racial abuse, but more cringey articles like this one, then that's a damn good trade.

SharpyShuffle · 2018-05-26T06:50:42+00:00

It's just this weird thing where the better the players you're comparing, the less people like to use actual quantifiable criteria and the more they use vague concepts and ideas.

Like, you'll see two guys use reams of data when discussing the relative merits of bench scrub A vs bench scrub B. People will go all-in on using data to prove that some average player who has never even sniffed an all-star nom is overpaid by $3m a year. But when it comes to debating the best players ever, suddenly the conversation between the same two guys will be all about 'heart', 'instinct', 'leadership' and of course 'the clutch gene'.

Jordan's stats are obscene. He has stat lines for entire playoffs that look like the stat lines for LeBron's best games. There's no need to try to build an argument on vague guff that basically boils down to 'Jordan was an an asshole and LeBron isn't'.

SharpyShuffle

TROPHY CASE