Aaron Dembski-Bowden

This article or section is EXTRA heretical. Prepare to be purged.

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail.
Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

The mag size indicates that he only has about 6 shots. The question is, did he already fire four, or six?

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

– Gilbert K. Chesterton

Aaron Dembski-Bowden is not Graham McNeill.

ADB is a writer for the Black Library. He also has a blog. He is known to be responsive to fan inquiries on the Internets. He has actually given his thanks to /tg/ in print as "the elegan/tg/entlemen", in the Night Lords omnibus acknowledgements page.

He's considered a controversial figure in the black library for his style of moralising 40ks villains, his ridiculous portrayal of events, his favoritism for factions and groups he likes, his stances on representation, his seeming determination to flesh out beings that would otherwise be beyond the comprehension of regular humans, and his own personal creative commentaries. Outside the Black Library, Aaron has also worked on Hunter: The Vigil, wrote a short story for League of Legends From the Ashes and penned the short pieces of fiction, Dude, Where's my Land Speeder? and "What it's like".

Achievements[edit]

ADB does deserve his due. He has made serious strides in rehabilitating the image of once-hated factions and characters. The Grey Knights have had their lore made far more palatable. Whereas they were once Mary Sues after the glory days of 3rd Ed, there’s now at least a semblance of deeper character to the 5th Ed. Grey Knights. He even ties them back into threads left from Ravenor, so that the influence of Saint Abnett can cleanse them. Given the rage inducing material he had to work with and the idiocy written by a certain Spiritual Liege, this is pretty impressive. He’s also made Abaddon the Despoiler cooler as well, or at least tried to. He's certainly not above ripping into old Failbaddon either, as evidenced in the Night Lords trilogy where Talos has nothing but open contempt for him, point blank outlining all the reasons the Despoiler and his Legion suck, to his face. This is particularly noteworthy when contrasted with Talos' genuine respect for Huron Blackheart's power, authority, and achievements, even while planning on backstabbing the Corsairs.

His work towards the traitor legions of 40k is also worthy of high praise. He went against the 1-dimensional edgy mustache twirlers or berserkers that the Night Lords, World Eaters, and Word Bearers are portrayed as and fleshed all of them out. Each legion can now be better described as a bunch of pitiable badasses who blame others for their problems. This is doubly true for their primarchs, who’ve been given levels of depth that make them highly popular to this day. First Heretic showcases just how desperate they are for purpose after being shamed (along with how strident they are in said zeal when they get it back), even if the shaming event in question is well... questionable. More on that later. In Betrayer he does a really good job at conveying just how much potential for greatness the World Eaters lost, especially compared to the Ultramarines.

On the topic of characters, ADB has made or fleshed out some great ones. Ekene Dubaku - may his soul rest- has become a widely beloved and martyred character. Grimaldus has also become a popular marine, and the posterboy of the Black Templars. Talos is another widely hailed example, and yet another aspect of why his Night Lords books are so enjoyable. Then there's Argel Tal, who's almost universally considered to be the most awesome Word Bearer in existence whose life was tragically cut short. Last but certainly not least is his best friend Kharn, whose scene depicting him beat the shit out of Erebus will be forever immortalized in the 40K hall of fame.

ADB is also excellent at dialogue. His skills at making witty/funny banter or intriguing conversations does wonders at making his books a fulfilling read. But perhaps the greatest legacy of his skill with words is the speeches that spawn from it. He has created what are universally regarded as amongst the best speeches in 40k over a multitude of books. Lorgar addressing the reinforcing traitors as they land at Istvaan V, Angron as he denounces Leman Russ and Guilliman later on, Sanguinius as he rouses the loyalists on Terra, Sevatar dressing down Konrad Curze for his failed strategy/philosophy, and Grimaldus as he stokes the fury of Hades hive. Each and every one of them are speeches worthy of the characters’ deeds, the moment, and the men who speak them. They are all made of such undiluted Awesome that it can probably be harvested like a precious metal.

Also, if you want to see how Chaos corrupts, you'd be hard pressed to find a better writer. From his mainline Heresy-era novels, to his novellas, to Echoes of Eternity, you're gonna get a feel for how shit things are for the traitors. For a Chaos simp, he went above and beyond to show that the traitors chose the wrong side. And it's not just marines growing an extra tentacle or armor fusion that benefits them. The mortal humans who are responsible for much of the war-effort experience through their eyes what it means to live in Chaos-corrupted machinery- be it Titans or the Conquerer. The degradation of the traitors is also a major factor that readers will see in great detail, which adds much-needed context as to why the traitors are so shit nowadays in terms of gear and abilities in some cases. In a roundabout way it makes them look better, because despite such degradation they still manage to be the greatest threat Humanity has ever known.

Criticisms[edit]

ADB has received fierce criticism over the years, to a point where /tg/ (insofar as one can actually speak for a large, completely anonymous community) has turned against him as of late. Best case scenario, opinions are still mixed. It's an entirely different story on Reddit, which has been for the most part glazing ADB to the point of worship and takes any criticism of the guy very personally. /tg/ and redditors not agreeing on a skubworthy subject? Shocker.

The biggest source of this criticism by far comes from ADB's portrayal of The Emperor in the Horus Heresy series. Let's be clear: though by no means the sole cause, ADB is in large part responsible for the wide-spread misrepresentation of Big-E as Golden Space Hitler. His depiction of Him can be best described as someone dropping about 40,000 IQ points and evilmaxxing. No one is asking for Big-E to be completely flawless and good at all times, but ADB's hate-boner for the man at times has seemed to rival that of the Chaos Gods. ADB's take on the guy had gotten quite egregious, and while the character assassination of the Emperor is bad enough, as a side effect, this creates glaring plot holes and utterly nonsensical plotlines that make everyone involved look bad while diminishing the narrative as a whole. Even if ADB still managed to create widely lauded stories in the end, a closer examination as to how the ball got rolling in said books reveals that he did the equivalent of building a skyscraper on a foundation of toothpicks. Moreover, it's actually taken multiple Black Library heavy-hitters years of retcons and clarifications to undo the damage done to The Emperor's narrative reputation, and even then it won't all be fixed.

One example that comes to mind is the Lorgar saga, which is more fully explained on his respective page. Long story short, Emps tips His fedora so hard that it flings Lorgar over to space satanism and by extension reduces the Heresy to Emps behaving like an r/Atheism moderator. Making things crazier in that whole fracas is Lorgar complaining to Magnus that he was never told about the Imperial Truth and being shocked that Emps never addressed Lorgar's disobedience for a CENTURY until Monarchia. In order for it to be even remotely possible that a golden control freak would ignore/tolerate a century of direct insubordination while a son of the Emperor can worship Him as a God but still be ignorant of His biggest law, the brains of the author and the aforementioned characters would have to be out to lunch. Future authors probably realized this plothole and tried to solve this by making it clear in many ways that Lorgar DID know of the I.T. and WAS warned to stop breaking it by Emps before Monarchia. Unfortunately, that expanded the plothole from the size of a highway entrance to a fucking Warp Rift. Now, Lorgar is knowingly disobeying a dude he WORSHIPS, lying to Magnus about being kept ignorant, wondering why he's getting punished for what (by Lorgar's logic) would constitute heresy, and then choosing to betray his father as revenge for a punishment that Lorgar knows anyone else would deserve! Behold, the most rational Imperial Creed believer. Weird fact: ADB stated his desire to kill off Lorgar "like a dog". After all that time he spent shitting on Big E to hype up Lorgar's arc, that's what he had in mind? Huh???

Not to be outdone, ADB has Emps decide that a childhood assassination attempt by aliens, slavery, and lobotomization by regular humans wasn't enough character development for Angron. He stole him away on the eve of his final stand and told a reasonably enraged Angron to quit bitching and move on, rather than... anything else, like sending in His entire fleet of Custodes and War Hounds to aid Angron's slave rebellion and turn the people who permanently mutilated and enslaved HIS OWN SON into a parking lot. He then puts Angron in charge of the War Hounds despite this dude very clearly demonstrating his inability and unwillingness to command a legion. Anyone whose default position isn't "Golden Man bad" have earned gold medals in mental gymnastics as they try to theorize why Emps would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As with the Lorgar situation this plot point has gotten worse with age. Emps stepped in to save His sons, indulge in their petty challenges, and/or stick around for their tutelage before and after meeting Angron. And with revelations that Emps actually did love His sons and had plans for all of them post-crusade as per HH/SoT lore, the idea that Emps would ever do this makes less and less sense. Hell, even Angron himself wonders why Emps didn't come to his aid in Betrayer, inadvertently giving voice to the fact that this is a plothole. If only Angron was that intelligent long enough to actually escape slavery by regular mortals before getting nailed. It also shutters the theory that Angron only wanted to die with his troops at that point and would've refused Daddy's help.

Witnessing the mounting criticism at how ADB portrayed the Emperor convinced Black Library that he was the perfect author to write The Master of Mankind. Fuuuuuck. In said book Emps appeared to claim that the Primarchs are tools and views them with scientific but detached fascination. He refers to them as numbers and 'it' (in Angron's case) but lets them think He's their 'father' as a useful lie. These revelations are 'revealed' to cold and assholish characters who merely interpreted Emps saying this, but by the time any clarification was made the damage was already done (many people who believe Emps meant this are ADB's fans, ignoring his statement on the matter). He also staked the future of mankind on a project that -unlike everything else He did- had no contingencies in the event of a failure for some reason (despite being the guy known for His creation of contingency after contingency in His Great Work). Wonderful. The referring to the primarchs as numbers bit in particular though has in effect, become one of ADB's most enduring transgressions; to this day, it gets cited as a black mark against The Emperor. As others have said, it has taken literal YEARS of revisions over many different novel series and from multiple venerable, well-established authors for Black Library to refute this falsehood and repair the damage done, but even then, the memory lingers around and muddies the water. It took the likes of Saint Abnett himself to finally put this nonsense into the ground, dedicating many lengthy passages in The End and The Death Volumes 1-3 to explaining Big-E's aloofness, and laying out his love of his sons in such a way that it can't really be subverted like this again in future. Much of this is explained in soliloquies from Malcador, but also by The Emperor's own actions, such as referring to Horus as his son when speaking directly to the Chaos Gods, and in the final words to Horus when he says "I wait for you. And I forgive you." before then finally laying Horus low. Those last 2 examples occurred even after Big-E had forcibly detached all but the most infinitesimal portion of his human emotions, and can't be written off as performative by naysayers. The point here is that Dan Abnett had to dedicate a CONSIDERABLE amount of time of the final Horus Heresy/Siege of Terra novel into 1) refuting these spurious assertions. 2) explaining the truth of the matter. 3) doing so in such a way that flows into the larger story while also showing where the various misunderstandings could have come from. 4) laying the ground work for future events while also building them to be proofed against similar character assassination attempts. 5) positioning and directing the overall plot in such a way that the course of events all naturally coalesce in their prearranged spots while also voiding the "Emperor Bad" nonsense. That is an awful lot of moving parts and extra work to have to juggle, and which only became necessary due to ADB's previous folly; at the very least,The End and The Death probably wouldn't have consisted of 3 WHOLE VOLUMES otherwise.

Much later in Imperial history, we'd have the Celestial Lions saga. While they're a beloved chapter with a tragic story, this too is undercut by grimderp and hack-ish writing. Some random nameless Inquisitor (who was likely Apollyon) prosecuted a campaign of assassination and sabotage against a demonstrably loyal chapter for one hundred years, which escalated into preventing Primaris Marines/tech from arriving to the Lions and infiltrating the Mentors chapter with an assassin to murder Ekene Dubaku. How he had the authority, resources, or clout to do this without having the plot armor of a main character is one of 40k's biggest mysteries. The fucking Custodes ensure the Primaris shit is signed, sealed, and delivered with the authority of Roboute Guilliman and the Emperor themselves. The Officio Assassinorum was also roped into this shit somehow for the entire thing, even though the deployment of ANY operative requires a political process that could last long enough to exceed said rogue Inquisitor's lifespan. TWICE! Perhaps the Inquisitor exceeded his remit and appropriated an Assassin on the battlefield once, if his charisma somehow overpowered the assassin's ironclad faith in the Imperial Creed, hatred for internecine politicking, and intolerance to being unduly infiltrated and co-opted by 3rd parties. But TWICE to kill a chapter master?! Come on.

He also has a major issue with making the characters he likes look perfect while shitting on other groups: see Grey Knights which just becomes a Space Wolves wank. Echoes of Eternity had this in spades, with the Blood Angels and Sanguinius being glazed massively while the World Eaters were effectively their completely inferior counterparts. Hell, it got so bad that the only time they were effective melee shock troops was when they committed friendly fire! However, without wishing to excuse ADB or diminish the consternation of other contributors to the article [as is perhaps already evident, this is a bit of a touchy issue] in the interest of fairness, it's worth noting that the Blood Angel's superior prowess is described as both conditional and as a pretty close call, one measured by a difference of inches, rather than feet. It can essentially be summarized as saying that the Blood Angels do have a bit of an edge, but it only does them any good if they use it to make the kill quickly, because once the engagement becomes drawn out, the odds become more even and starts shifting in the World Eaters' favor. This is far from some blanket Mary Sue crap, and the broader concept is a topic that has been covered in our own history at least as far back as Sun Tzu. More importantly though, it's a dynamic consistent with the whole tormented angels vs. brawlers theme of the two legions. ADB may have summarized the distinction, but he didn't invent it. An argument could perhaps be made that the description is trite or lacking, but it has to be said that it does track with their respective depictions throughout the course of the Horus Heresy. Given what Sangy would later suffer along with the fact that his primarch novel barely featured him, EoE being a Blood Angels novel wasn't as bad of an idea in retrospect however, even if said book should've featured other shit more pertinent to the siege. More on that later. Oh, and let's not forget a chapter serf of the Mentors being armed with a shotgun with an underbarrel grenade launcher rocking 3 Vortex Grenades. You know, the kind of weapon Cato Sicarius himself was issued only one of during the second battle of Damnos where the honour of the Ultramarines chapter was supposedly at stake?

He also makes attempts at morally rehabilitating and justifying absolutely evil and sadistic characters like Talos, who still torture people for shits and giggles, but its somehow okay because they are somewhat self-aware of their own jackassery. This appears to be a common theme in his works, with evil actions being justified by the barest minimum of self-awareness and badassery, very typical of modern writing where evil anti-heroes or villains are worshipped while real heroes get constantly disrespected. It could also be seen with Angron- the text wants you to believe that he's cooking when denouncing the Great Crusade and Emps to Leman Russ with the help of the cringe 'at least I know I'm bad' defense, even though he's responsible for a huge chunk of the Crusade's atrocities to such an extent that Leman Russ of all people went to Angron and told him that he was being excessive. On his own volition.

Then there's the matter of the Blood Ravens, whom in older lore were heavily implied to be missing loyalist offshoots of the Thousand Sons. ADB apparently tried to jettison this theory by having the "missing" Thousand Sons from the Horus Heresy reappear in one of his novels. A later index would retcon them to be Ravens afflicted by flesh-change, but the 'damage' was already done: Some neckbeards just don't like it when you fuck around with the bread and butter, and who are we to blame them?

Another notable fuck-up is in Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters. As writer of the games' script, he apparently saw nothing wrong with having Mortarion (and hordes of his best men) be defeated by Draigo and a few chosen Grey Knights while in the Garden of Nurgle. This was the first time a Primarch has ever been directly portrayed and fought in an official 40K game (BFGA2 and its nominal appearances notwithstanding), and ADB made Mortarion look like a complete joke. It's quite likely to be worse than the heart-carving incident too. When Draigo carved the heart, he spoke a true name created by the God Emperor. But in Daemonhunters, no such excuse exists for defeating Morty in the WARP. Making things even worse is that this is a mistake ADB should've known better than to make: Eldar fans will be particularly insulted to see a few Grey Knights successfully storm the Garden when an ENTIRE ARMY of Craftworld Lugganath's most powerful psykers were killed casting their minds into that realm after a few days of battle to try and free Isha.

ADB has once again made himself skub-bait with his Siege of Terra book, Echoes of Eternity. Reception by fans has been somewhat mixed thus far, with many vociferous complaints leveled against his entry to the series. Some readers (but World Eaters fans in particular) were beyond livid to see Angron beg as Sanguinius banished him by ripping the Butcher's Nails from his skull. Defenders of the novel counter that this is a logical endpoint of a daemon primarch who is by now a demonstrable shell of himself, and/or that Angron was saying no to the nails being ripped out because of how fundamental they are to Angron now. But detractors point out that Angron did in fact beg for his life and that the text explicitly portrayed it as something that was meant to be shameful for Angron. This was preceded by Angron feeling cowed in the face of Sanguinius' fury so much that it not only exceeded his own but it made Angron JEALOUS. At the time of the incident, Angron's fury was being bolstered by the Butcher's Nails, the voices of Khorne and (an increasingly panicked) Horus themselves, and Angron's justifiably pre-existing rage. Whatever his goal, ADB's result was severe character assassination. The detractors go on to claim that such a moment and behavior is unbecoming to a character who only sought death over servitude to anyone; servitude that he never chose, either. This also makes terrible advertising for Angron's new model.

Another sore spot was the duel between Magnus the Red and Vulkan, with Vulkan essentially acting as a walking soap box for the author to cast aspersions at the 'Magnus Did Nothing Wrong' meme. On the one hand, the points Vulkan makes are admittedly hard to refute. But what's much less convincing is why they're even being brought up in the first place within the context of the story, especially when these points largely rely on knowledge that seems odd for Vulkan to have at this point. While it's mentioned a few times earlier in the book that Vulkan had been asking around about the previous events by speaking to the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Mechanicum, and others who had been party to prior events, as well as receiving some supplemental information from Malacador (and maybe even the Emperor during the duel), this doesn't prevent the scene from coming off as contrived and ham fisted.

That's to say nothing of how the defining sequence of Fury of Magnus was retconned into being an elaborate hallucination by a fragmented Magnus, used to highlight the primarch's martyr complex, arrogance, and continued fall in his subservience to chaos. ADB denied 40k a heartbreaking, tragic, and more complex portrayal of Magnus, who loved his sons so much that he'd choose eternal damnation if it meant a chance at saving them. His retcon erased pretty much all of it with some 'whoops turned out you just imagined this' twist and left him looking like some big red evil retard instead. Fucking yay...

Yet another issue raised was about the book being filler. Instead of spending the penultimate entry in the Siege of Terra tying up unresolved plotlines and building up to clashes between significant characters, the book focuses on shit no one cares about. The Revenant Legion's origins caught some understandable flak for getting so much coverage that it belonged in a BAngels book or the Sanguinius Primarch novel that was releasing later, but said Primarch book barely featured Sangy or the early legion history so ADB gets a slight pass here. Far too much attention also goes towards plotlines with people that even the book stated were meaningless, if their unceremonious and unregarded deaths didn't already convey that to you. Hundreds of pages are dedicated towards setting a mood/scene that's blatantly obvious to anyone who's picked up the SoT series or even has an interest in 40K.

There were other minor-yet-jarring mistakes, such as Arkhan Land referring to Rogal Dorn as the 4th (this is Arkhan being deliberate) - and Dorn not knowing (or pretending not to know) Vulkan was on Terra.

Common Themes[edit]

Through his novels you can notice a handful of common themes, listed below:

He likes Chaotic Neutral(ish) characters.
- He is hence great at writing Robert E. Howard-styled characters.
He enjoys writing in first-point-of-view, although he can work in third-point-of-view.
He mostly portrays Space Marines in his novels, although he has a few works with non-SM as well.
If there is a ship at one of his stories, expect him to make the ship be controlled by a young woman. He says he tries to balance the testosterone with female mortal characters, which naturally creates the evident observations of diversity quotas, waifu-shilling and the like.
- ADB admitted to doing this DEI-style casting in his works, such as the Celestial Lions, just to trigger the haters. It hasn't worked, of course. It's quite odd that he admitted this, as his desire to portray the Imperium as a fascistic hellhole would be undermined. This is also a very stupid and shitty thing to do for many reasons, Ghostbusters 2016 being one of them.
- Naturally, he was the main guy pushing for the whole Femstodes bullshit that has practically split the fandom in half, and therefore is being blamed for it.
He tends to write events through the protagonist's perception, and thus has to spend lots of time telling people not to take the opinions of said protagonist (for example, anything said by or about the Emperor in MoM) at face value.
- Considering the average neckbeard's tendency to erect anything written as holy unalterable canon, it is a necessary reminder. Unfortunately ADB seems to have forgotten this himself, as he treats his own writing as holy, unalterably canon that nothing else can ever contradict or oppose.
He seems to have spearheaded ruining of the classic image of the Emperor, turning Him from a complex, benevolent and ruthless mastermind driven by harsh necessity and love for His species into an emotionless, incompetent, short-sighted, psycho/sociopath with scarcely a redeeming trait to be had.
He considers the 40k franchise fated to be ultimately won by Chaos. Despite all the anti-Chaos stuff in 40k. (It would be funny seeing him getting charged to write some stuff about Age of Sigmar.) Seriously though, with the Eldar, the Tyranids, Orks, but especially the Necrons, and all that anti-psyker and anti-Warp tech everyone else has, not to mention the non-chaos gods of the warp, as well as the infighting of the Ruinous Powers themselves... Even with the Great Rift cutting the galaxy in two, with all of that arrayed against them, Chaos needs a boost to have a real chance. To say nothing of the C'tan. It doesn't help that daemonic characters regularly get their asses kicked because their deaths don't affect anything.
He is quickly approaching Dan Abnett's record of number of beloved characters murdered. Seriously. Reading his books, especially the Horus Heresy ones, is like watching him rip your heart out and chew on it while he coos: "Was it good for you too?"

ADB on the Emperor in Master of Mankind[edit]

In response to criticisms on his portrayal of the Emperor, ADB posted this detailed answer:

That's true, and I definitely wanted to bring out a better understanding of his vision and what he was up against, but that's also lore I'd wager anyone with a deep knowledge of the setting already had a handle on to some degree, whether explicitly or not. What I wanted to avoid was too much "new" stuff. You have to put in something new, and thankfully what little newness I do introduce in my work is seemingly well-regarded, but I've always said our job (as I see it) is to illustrate the setting and show what it's like to live there, not to set it in stone. As much as the fandom adores "advancing the storyline", it's not something that interests me, by and large. I try my best to show things from the perspectives of characters on the ground level, bring a few perceptions of the setting through the lens of my own imagination and the insight I'm lucky enough to get endlessly talking about the setting with its creators and inheritors, and then get out. Most of my books are, to some extent, not definitive. They're about Some Guy, not the entire faction. Grimaldus in Helsreach has no bond to the wider war on Armageddon and hates that he's been left behind by the Black Templars, but he's (hopefully) a good example of what it feels like to be a Black Templar, and to think like one, and - crucially - what it feels like to be a human around them. Talos and the other characters of First Claw spend a trilogy unable to decide what the Night Lords Legion really was, and each of them remembers their glory days differently. I didn't want to speak for the whole Legion. Hyperion in The Emperor's Gift is a largely generic Grey Knight present in dire circumstances. HH-wise, I didn't want to show all of the Word Bearers and base a book around the expectations of Kor Phaeron, Lorgar, and Erebus, so I focused on the Serrated Sun in the middle of the changes taking place across the galaxy. Savage Weapons is largely about Corswain, not about Curze and the Lion. The Master of Mankind is about Ra, Zephon, Jaya, and Land in the heart of the Emperor's plans for the species, not about the Emperor himself. As much as I wrote about Angron and Lorgar, they get significantly less in-their-heads screen time than most other primarchs in most other books. It's harder to do that with the Heresy, but - again - I do my best to present individual experiences and mindsets in characters like Khârn, Argel Tal, and Ra, rather than definitive looks at the entire Chapter/Legion/faction and setting its events in stone. I try to present a feel for how it is to live inside that culture and be part of the experiences they go through; it's about immersion into the Chapter or Legion, presenting them as believable and real, not definitively saying "All of Chapter X are like Y." So: I'm reluctant to talk about TMoM and the Emperor's perception in that book in any real detail, partly because the book is still new and there's a lot individual readers would do better discovering for themselves without my thoughts in public, and partly because everything I'd say is ultimately in the book. Anything I say will be taken out of context or weaponised one way or another somewhere, and used in a way that makes me sigh, cringe, or a dramatic melange of both that shall hereafter be called the sigh-cringe. (Plus, most of all, I have faith in readers. They don't need me defining anything, even if it might be interesting for a few peeps.) So, I'll just say this. The Master of Mankind is entirely from the perspectives of people that meet the Emperor in pretty specific circumstances. There are, obviously, other circumstances to come. Nothing in it is definitive, even less so than my usual work. Any definitive statement you can make about how the Emperor sees something or does something is almost always contradicted in the book itself. That's not an escape clause or an excuse. It's the point. Writing him definitively would've been the easiest and most disappointing thing in the world. (And on that note, remember, everyone views 40K differently. What Person X is absolutely certain is the truth of the Emperor and the best way to present him would be laughed off by Persons A, B, and C. The flip side to that is that not every perspective is founded in fact or understanding. The earliest "I've not read this yet, but..." criticisms and misunderstandings of TMoM in, ah, certain reddit/chan-style locations was regarded by GW IP folks as, I quote: "These angry people seem to be beholden to a version of 40K that has never existed...") But in all seriousness, I don't want to delve too deeply into explaining the ways the Emperor's contradictions matter or don't matter. They're there, and they're definitely formative - totally agree - if not exactly definitive. With the Emperor, a lot of interaction is about getting out what you put in. You get what you give. Your perceptions and expectations are reflected back on you because that's how the human brain perceives everything (a fact that cannot be overstated; the science behind it is fascinating and all-important), especially when you're talking about someone who exists on that plane of power. At one point the Emperor makes mention of the notion that he's not even speaking, that being near to him allows the conveyance of meaning through psychic osmosis, and communication telepathically. He's not even talking. It's raw understanding filtering through a mind, or just the way the mortal mind comprehends the aura of what the Emperor intends, or, or, or... That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...? "Magnus." Like... that's a pretty strong indication that the interactions which follow are playing by different rules. Ra sees the Warlord of Humanity, just a man, but a great mean, weary and defiant, burdened by responsibility. Daemons see their annihilation, and go insane in his presence. One of the Knights, as they're marching through the Throne Room, is caught in religious rapture, unable to do anything but stare at the glorious halo of the Emperor of Mankind on the Golden Throne. One of the Sisters of Silence, in the same room, literally just sees a man in a chair. Another character, not Imperial, asks a Custodian if the Emperor even breathes. She believes he's a weapon left out of its box from the Dark Age of Technology. (With thanks to Alan Bligh for that one, he adores that theory.) So I don't think it's exactly a spoiler to say that if and when I get to write a character like Sanguinius in the Emperor's presence, or Malcador, they'd have entirely different experiences than Ra and Land. I'd loved to have had that in TMoM, but as much as it would've given wider context, these aren't rulebooks and essays; it would've been self-indulgent for the sake of 'hoping people get it', and cheapened the story being told, which was ultimately in a very narrow and confined set of circumstances. Breaking out of that narrative would be offering a sense of scope and freedom I was specifically trying to avoid in a claustrophobic siege story. Because theme and atmosphere is a thing.

TL;DR: Everyone who has the chance to be in the Emperor's presence perceives something different, based on their own experiences and expectations. Nothing He ever says should be taken at face value, since it is 'warped' by the narrator's interpretation.

Gallery[edit]

Just like you, ADB doesn't play 40k or paint minis.
ADB on your nonsense and why it's "easy to ignore"
ADB, defending Abaddon, and comparing forced memery to the antics of his small children.
A well-thought-out comparison between ADB and Abnett's storytelling styles.
How to ask ADB a question
Pure OC DONUT STEEL, directly from the man's work. Big tiddy goth eldar gf included.
Trying to justify said Deldar online, because he didn't do it in his books.
A fa/tg/uy on Spears of the Emperor
Writing different protags is one thing, but "50-50" just screams tokenism unless you remember only about one tenth of the population of the real world is white and we're dealing with 40,000 years of megacity melting pots. It should be a hell of a lot less than 50-50 (by that logic there shouldn't be any races at all).
He considered writing female Custodes in, but was overruled. Probably for the better, people are pretty attached to their fabulous Sacred Band of Thebestodes.Not that it'll stop some fans. More importantly, while female Custodes would not have the issues of Female Space Marines they could breed with male Custodes and Empy is big time against transhumans breeding. About that…