#monarchia

[drbigsadbabymd-blog]

I find the idea that the Emperor censured Monarchia with no warning extremely implausible. Lorgar (and certain fans) like to act as though it was a bolt from the blue but fuckin...I doubt that very much.

That has the same vibe as shitty husbands who say the divorce came out of nowhere, when in reality their wife had been trying to talk to them for like 5yrs before pulling the rip cord. That's painfully self-centered, entitled asshole talk and we know that's extremely on brand for our boy.

Logic dictates a few different things.

Lorgar knows damn well the Emperor hates religion, he knows his father is not on board with the proselytizing, that he's repeatedly and firmly stated he's not divine. Lorgar knows what the Imperial Truth asserts. He's just decided he knows better, which is wild behavior from a guy who insists he lives to serve his god. Lorgar loves talking about submitting to the will of a higher power but if he actually gave a shit about that, it would look like him keeping his faith to himself and maybe, at most, practicing in private. Yet he doesn't, because he has such a monstrously huge ego, it allows him to believe he knows better than the man he views as a god.

He knows what the deal is, but he decides to do his bullshit anyway and then pulls a surprised Pikachu face when it blows up in his lap.

It's not because it genuinely came without any warning, it's because Lorgar is an entitled narcissist who has been operating under the belief that the rules don't apply to him; he's a special exception and he's correct, so he gets to do what he wants.

He's shocked by the destruction of Monarchia because his mind could never have conceived of a scenario wherein he isn't granted full carte blanch to do as he pleases by virtue of the fact he's the special son of a special man. You see this with how he later interacts with the Custodes after Monarchia; he has mini-tantrums at them when they do their babysitting duty, as if he thinks it's reasonable to believe the beings programmed on a molecular level to obey the Emperor's every word will defy the Emperor simply because Lorgar commanded it.

Even when Malcador shows up to give him his official face-to-face warning, Lorgar is still going full-blown "MY FATHER WILL HEAR OF THIS". Meanwhile, anyone with a lick of common sense would be able to deduce that Malcador isn't here just because he feels like making Lorgar's life harder. Lorgar's brain won't let him accept that, so they literally have to bring the Emperor down in person to put the boot to his neck. That's the extent they have to go to to finally penetrate his narcissistic delusion. Hell, even then, he's still arguing with the Emperor until his father has to use psyker abilities to make him shut the fuck up. It's honestly insane how resistant Lorgar is to being told to cut it out.

It makes you wonder how many other times in the years preceding Monarchia that Terra tried to talk to him while he just went "Mm...nah, no I don't think so :)"

Also the Emperor is consistently reluctant to throw Primarchs in the trash. You can be pretty fucked up and he'll still figure out a way to use you. See: Angron, Curze, Mortarion, etc. He'll find workarounds. He'll give chances. Even towards the end of the Heresy, Sanguinius is pretty sure the Emperor would forgive Curze, even after everything he's done. It takes so much shit for Big E to finally order Curze's death.

And in no way am I saying this is driven by paternal sentiment: the Emperor spent a lot of time and money and a chunk of his soul on creating the Primarchs, he's already had to kill two, he's not eager to throw away any more priceless resources.

So it should be very telling that the Emperor was going around in the lead up to Monarchia, asking the other Primarchs if they believed he should just say fuck it and kill Lorgar.

This tells me that efforts had been repeatedly made to get Lorgar to shut up and sit down over the course of 200 years, but nothing was working. If anything it speaks to the Emperor's patience; he'd probably been sending "Lorgar, stop it" emails for decades.

The Emperor considering making Lorgar a third Lost Primarch implies he was beginning to suspect there was no way to salvage the situation, that he had to go big as a last ditch effort.

Which ultimately makes Lorgar even less sympathetic. He likes to pretend "Woww Terra allowed me to think I was doing right by the Emperor for years, only to humiliate me and my sons for no reason without any warning. I'm being abused. This is abuse."

But if you stand back to look at the situation objectively, there's no fucking way it actually played out like that. No shot, dude.

EDIT: just remembered a part in The First Heretic where one of the Wordbearers--maybe Erebus--mentions a past compliance and calls their proselytizing "spreading the Imperial Truth"

Which is wild because we all know that is not the Imperial Truth in 30k, it's the exact opposite of the Emperor's doctrine, and they all know that. It really showcases his narcissism; Lorgar's been running a cult with himself as its central figure the entire time. Within the only group who views the Emperor as a god, Lorgar's word takes precedence over his. Lorgar solely views the Emperor's "divinity" as a tool, it's a means to lend himself credibility and bolster his greatness. He's doing a juiced up version of namedropping.

[lastpositivist]

This is probably my favourite bit of 40K fanart.

[askmagnus]

What's your opinion on the burning of Monarchia

Unconscionable.

A barefaced display of power and control when compassion would have been both an easier and more effective solution.

But certain of my family members only understand destruction. And perhaps that is by design.

Obviously, I was not in favor of the alternative. My father had in mind. But… poor Lorgar.

[caiusmajor]

First Heretic reread

Monarchia is a whole nexus of terrible Emperor decisions, but the funniest one is still the way he decided 20 Custodes was the correct number of Custodes to supervise 100,000 Word Bearers.

19? not nearly enough, those WB will sneak off and do religion things!

21? don't be ridiculous! they'll be tripping over each other!

20 Custodes? Yes! a perfect 1:5000 ratio for keeping an eye on those wayward grandkids!

[rulernogard156]

More Fem Lorgar(Aurelia) cause im slowly falling in love with her!

[gregor-samsung]

" Nella teoria classica delle forme di governo, l’oligarchia, come governo dei molti impotenti da parte di pochi potenti, sta, per così dire, in mezzo, tra la monarchia, il governo di uno, e la democrazia, il governo dei molti o di tutti*. Questo, in teoria. In pratica, si conoscono solo oligarchie, del più vario tipo, più o meno ampie, più o meno strutturate, più o meno gerarchizzate e centralizzate: ma sempre e solo oligarchie. Questo è vero con riguardo alla monarchia, non essendo nemmeno immaginabile, soprattutto negli odierni regimi politici altamente ramificati, un sistema di potere che si regga sulla concentrazione in uno solo. Quello che appare come il monarca o il despota, in realtà è sempre l’espressione di un gruppo organizzato che, in vario modo, lo sostiene e, contemporaneamente, lo tiene imbrigliato. Ma è vero anche, per il verso opposto, con riguardo alla democrazia. "

*Nella concezione moderna, la democrazia è il governo ‘di tutti’, cioè del popolo tutto intero. Nella concezione antica, la democrazia era il governo del démos, da intendersi il ‘popolo minuto’ o, anche, dei poveri, contrapposto all’oligarchia (o aristocrazia) come governo dei ricchi. Era cioè il governo dei molti, o dei più, in quanto, di fatto e per lo più, i poveri sono più numerosi dei ricchi. Ma la democrazia non si sarebbe trasformata in oligarchia se, per ipotesi, vi fossero stati più ricchi che poveri. Aristotele, Politica, 1279b, dice così: «La ragione sembra dimostrare che l’essere pochi o molti sovrani nella polis è un elemento accidentale, l’uno delle oligarchie, l’altro delle democrazie, dovuto al fatto che i ricchi sono pochi e i poveri sono molti dovunque […] mentre ciò per cui realmente differiscono tra loro la democrazia e l’oligarchia sono la povertà e la ricchezza: di necessità, quindi, dove i capi hanno il potere in forza della ricchezza, siano essi pochi o molti, ivi si ha oligarchia; dove invece lo hanno i poveri, la democrazia: e tuttavia capita, come abbiamo detto, che quelli siano pochi, e questi molti».

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Gustavo Zagrebelsky, La difficile democrazia, (Collana Lezioni e Letture della Facoltà di Scienze politiche “Cesare Alfieri” dell’Università di Firenze), Firenze University Press, 2010. [Corsivi dell’autore]

NOTA: Lectio Magistralis inaugurale dell’anno accademico 2009-2010 dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze.

[blacklotus-bloog]

Se lei è d'accordo potremmo utilizzare un tono più confidenziale...

... Passo al Voi, come da antico regolamento Sabaudo. Vedete, ho precisi valori: Onore, Patria, Re ed Esercito.

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EDGARDO SOGNO - dal libro di Aldo Cazzullo "Memorie di un anticomunista: dalla Resistenza al golpe bianco"

[sculptorofcrimson]

Even the Devil once read scripture

Where’s the fun in love if you aren’t willing to destroy each other?

Treachery is broken. It is black and seething and hateful, it suffocates itself in its greed, it has killed fathers and sons, and dragged corpses from its graves to be beaten to death at the hands of vengeful mobs. It is broken, dying and hating its death, it crawls in between lines to soak and grieve. 

But at its roots, it was once loyalty, broken and wounded beyond repair and grieving. 

Treachery hates, it grieves, it hungers, and it shows its naked face. It is the harbinger of change, black or white, horrible and contested. It is what turns the wheel of civilization, the revolts that unseat merciless tyrants, for freedom is why tyrants must always fall. Treachery is the root of change, the catalyst of fate. 

But loyalty? What could be said of loyalty except that even Lucifer himself was loyal once? 

(They loved Him. And He burned them at stake for the sin of their love.)

What could be said of loyalty, to those who blindly believed and were falsely betrayed, to those who prayed so fervently that their gods stamped their temples to dust? What could be said of those whose loyalty was rewarded with treachery and betrayal? What could be said of their loyalty? 

Is it not just as pure as those who were favored by a heartless god? Is their love no better than those who were forgotten? 

Did He think their love was blasphemy, for He did not love them back? 

(They loved Him. And He hated them.)

And so they were heretics, by dint of their existence, for the sin of their love. And so they were false-priests, simply because they dared to love a heartless god. 

Loyalty. It can taste just as sweet as sin, and suffer twice the same.

Loyalty. It is what brought them to the altar, to their shrines, it is what brought them to the slaughterhouse, lambs to the butcher, it is what brought Monarchia to its knees and laid it atop a pyre of scriptures. Loyalty, it is what lit the flames, when brother razed brother to dust, and father strangled son. Loyalty was what burned in Gabriel’s spear as he cast Lucifer down, down, down, dragged into the fires where he would drown.

(They loved Him. And He razed Monarchia.)

Loyalty. 

Loyalty is why Monarchia burned.