Why are we obsessed with the Horus Heresy??

[wittdooley]

[QUOTE=MaltonNecromancer;159171]Knowing the end of a story at the start isn't a bad thing. Done well, it can be utterly compelling. It's called "dramatic irony", and is an extremely effective technique to really create tension. Some famous writers have used it. You may have heard of William Shakespeare (though I hate to presume). He uses it in almost all of his stories; look at Romeo and Juliet - we're told right at the start that they kill themselves. The thing is, we're not told why or how. Thus, the more they fall in love, the worse we like it. When Romeo leaves, Juliet says "Oh Lord, I have some ill-divining soul; methinks I see thee now thou art so low as one dead in the bottom of a tomb", and we as an audience know: she right. The next time she sees him, he's going to be dead in a tomb. Thus we feel more sympathetic for her; fate is not necessarily a nice thing, yes? Knowing the future can be a terrible burden, and you can inflict it on an audience wilfully.
[QUOTE]

This is the reason when we see Horus, post turn, do noble things, we can't help but ask, "why, man, why"

[Lord Anubis]

Knowing the end of a story at the start isn't a bad thing. Done well, it can be utterly compelling. It's called "dramatic irony", and is an extremely effective technique to really create tension. Some famous writers have used it. You may have heard of William Shakespeare (though I hate to presume). He uses it in almost all of his stories; look at Romeo and Juliet - we're told right at the start that they kill themselves. The thing is, we're not told why or how. Thus, the more they fall in love, the worse we like it. When Romeo leaves, Juliet says "Oh Lord, I have some ill-divining soul; methinks I see thee now thou art so low as one dead in the bottom of a tomb", and we as an audience know: she right. The next time she sees him, he's going to be dead in a tomb. Thus we feel more sympathetic for her; fate is not necessarily a nice thing, yes? Knowing the future can be a terrible burden, and you can inflict it on an audience wilfully.
)

Actually, Malton (may I call you Malton?), I have a very good knowledge of Shakespeare, which is why I know Romeo & Juliet isn't a good analogy.

Shakespeare announcing right at the top of the play that Romeo and Juliet are going to fall in love, die, and reunite their families isn't dramatic irony. We know they die but the real dramatic irony (the classic example of it, in fact, when you study such things) isn't knowing they die, it's realizing they didn't have to die. The whole thing was just bad timing. More to the point, we don't know how they meet, about the deaths of Mecrutio and Tybalt, Romeo being banished, the sleeping draught-- all of this gets revealed in the telling and that's why it's a tragedy.

In the Horus Heresy books, we do know why and how. It's not a situation where we know one or two key things the characters don't. We know pretty much the whole story. So the way most of the HH books I've seen are trying to create dramatic irony is by showing us that Primarch X was actually a really good guy trying to do really good things, and he only turned evil by accident while trying to act on his immense love for his brothers and the Emperor.

And as a few folks have pointed out in this thread... that gets old real quick.

[Wildeybeast]

In the Horus Heresy books, we do know why and how. It's not a situation where we know one or two key things the characters don't. We know pretty much the whole story. So the way most of the HH books I've seen are trying to create dramatic irony is by showing us that Primarch X was actually a really good guy trying to do really good things, and he only turned evil by accident while trying to act on his immense love for his brothers and the Emperor.

I don't know about you, but when I read Legion that was real eye opener. I like to think I'm fairly fluent in the fluff, but I had never heard any of that before.

[Lord Anubis]

No, actually that's a fair point. I thought Legion was absolutely fantastic, and the best Heresy book by far.

However, I think it's also proving my point that one of the coolest HH books involves the legion that we know the least about, and they're dealing with events that have never been hinted at before.