# Questions on "Descent of Angels" book



## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD....























My question is what the heck did the Lion have against Zahariel??? The only thing I can think of is that he knew about what happend on the flight deck and was dissappointed that Zahariel didnt tell him... but how did he know and why did it piss him off????:scratchhead: Insanely stumped...


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

EL'johnson was paranoid from having lived in the forest for so long, the more he studied liturature, the more he learned about the imperium and about the galaxy and chaos the more he thought it threatened the existance of caliban and the other dark angels who were from caliban. after the lion sent zahariel and the rest back to caliban he did it to ensuree that everything that was the order was maintained. the lion dint trust the terran dark angels so to keep his eye on them at all time he led them into battle and during the crusade he commanded mostly dark angels from earth. When the lion was fired apon by luther it was because luther dint know if the lion had sided with chaos or the imperium, luther though the lion was bad, and he thought that because of what hapened on the ship wit hthe bomb. The lion wanted luther to keep the idea of caliban alive, but luther saw it as leaving him behind, and that if the lion could let go of his closest brother then there was no doubt he could let go of his father. now this is mostly specualtion nothing is written as fact but i hope it helps, the lion had nothing agaisnt zahariel or anyone, he was just paranoid, really badly, thats whats happens when you grow up in th woods like that


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

Not to be mean ArcAngels but thats not anything close to what came out of the end of the book..


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## craigus (Oct 4, 2007)

I think that the book as whole focus's too much on pre heresy and not on the great crusade or heresy so for me it was a big let down


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

To me it seemed like the first part of a two parter. Stuff happened a lot but there was very little explanation of what that stuff was.


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

Yeah it did seem very much a two parter but I was just very confused at why El'Johnson came off as angry at Zahariel at the end and switched from favoring Zahariel to favoring Nemiel.

One moment he is his brother of sorts the next hes giving him dirty looks and putting Nemiel in his place in his command squad.

El'Johnson would have to know what happend on the flight deck but the question is how did he find out and why did he take it out on Zahariel rather then asking/confronting him about it. If he did know what happend then he should well have known that sending Luthor back to Calidan was going to piss him off even more. If he didnt then why the poor treatment of Zahariel..

One other option that I can think of is that El'Johnson felt betrayed by Zahariel as he either hates psychers as ArcAngels was saying before OR that Zahariel was able to use psychic powers to defeat the Calabanite Lion and that betrayed that special brotherhood they had. What do yall think???


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Think this should of been made in the Book discussion forum. To add to the point he sent him back to Caliban because he didn't want to be reminded of his past he wanted to look ahead which is why he sent Zach who is the only other to of slayed a calbinate lion and luthor who was his "father" and best friend since he came to the planet.


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

No I think your wrong, no offence but I have a psychology degree, and upon looking at someone like the lion he was paranoid. if you read anything on the great crusade youl know the emperor ordered all xenos occupied planets to be cleansed and all chaos planets to be taken out by virus bombing, its all written in the collected visions of the horus heresy. 

Now the lion never knew of chaos, but after the defeat of the lupus knights he took there collected knowledge and his discoveries about the beasts that dwelled in the forest and the curruption the had taken root into the planet could never be lifted. he knew that everything he had fought and killed for the btter of his people could be conjured up by spells and witchcraft and easily brought back into our universe

Like do you know how lucky the lion was the his crusade agaisnt the beats was over by the time the emperor arrived because the planet would have been terminated, and the lion never wanted that, so when he took his mantle as primarch he learned of what was to be done to planets touched by the curruption of chaos and he was paranoid thst caliban could be threatened. he sent back luther and his most trusted men to make sure caliban was safe, but the planet was a chaos sanctuary for so long that the dark forces that resided there could never go, and that pretty much why the lion ordered the destruction of his homeworld, because nobody but him could make that descion, look at the gfacts its true, he was paranoid theres no doubt to that


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

So he did have something against Zahariel since he was a psycher and was paranoid about them??

Yeah I was reading somewhere else about people who read Angels of Darkness and said that combined with this book it puts it into a whole new light about the Lions paranoidness. I dont think the Emporer would have bombed the planet as the only reason he went there when he did was because of him sensing El Johnsons presence. Im sure that knowing the Emporer he would have done everything in his power to keep his son happy and would have helped him purge the planet had he arrived earlier and given the psychic power of the Emporer he would have fully purged the planet with a release of but a fraction of his power.

I have read the Collected Visions so I know how things worked with him and I believe he would go to great lengths to keep his children primarchs happy.

But Im still confused on the Zaharial issue. I was told that per the Angels of Darkness book Luthor did tell Johnson about what had happened on the flight deck. This of course makes sense of why he would hate Zahariel and Luthor but if he knew that there were doubts about them why send them back to where they could corrupt future recruits?? If he had no doubts about them why not tell them why he's sending them back and why the nasty looks at Zahariel??


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

One of the things that comes across in the other books, particularly the ones on the Lundar wolves, is that the emperor is trying to spread a secular society and deny the existance of gods, chaos and so on. When characters come across chaos they are always a bit confused by it. This has always seemed a bit odd to me, since the Emperor certainly was aware of chaos at this time.

Johnson, having read a the wolf guys' books and fought the great beasts (and maybe met with the watchers and stuff - as Zahariel had) would have known straight off that quite a lot of what the emperor and his spokesmen were saying wasn't true. Tricky situation. Then they meet a daemon cult with all kinds of odd warp craziness going on. The experiences of the guys from Caliban and the guys who went and fought the daemon cult don't match with what the emperor is saying, and that's a problem for Johnson.


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## cerrakoth (Nov 7, 2007)

arch angel it clearly states he didn't want zahariel to continue on the crusade and he must've felt safe with Terrans on Caliban(defending it) because the Librarian Israfeal(not sure if thats spelt right) was from Terra and my best guess is Nemiel has been spreading lies eg it was Zahariel who plotted the Emperors assassination and no the planet would not have been exterminated as nothing of chaos was known so they wouldn't of known about the corruption and the dark angels were sent to retrieve the Primarch, its not by pure chance that the crusade arrived there, the Emperor had sent them. So I think you must've either not read the book or of missed a massive chunk or something sorry but the Lion did not send them back because he trusted them=]
Sorry for no , etc


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## cerrakoth (Nov 7, 2007)

And also this story line is probably go on for more books than there are legions and as the lunar wolves proved maybe more than one per legion so my best guess is one for every legion then book regarding the assault on holy Terra, the Space Wolves being intercepted by alpha legion(me thinks Alpha legion not 100%) and aided by a unknown ally and another on The attack of Caliban and then possibly regarding Roboute Guilliman, Dorn etc and all the Primarch that disapeared in mysterious circumstances or in Roboute's case how he 'killed' one of the chaos Primarchs but no one saw it.


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

I really think that the character study of the lion will go in any direction we want it to, GW makes hole in stories so we can talk about it in places like this, so in my defence i think none of us can come up with the awnsers as to why the lion did what he did, but we can speculate and thats what weve been doing for 2 pages so, i stand by my point and you can stand by yours but the lion had trust issues and issues of being daddy's first born so it culminated into sending luther home. hey and if you fact check, the lion commanded a massive majority of terran dark angels. he never liked what the terrans were doing to caliban, (clearing the forest for a landing zone for the emperor, destroying the idea of knightly orders by raising military regiments) it was all paranoia, the lion was afraid hed loose the planet he fought so hard to free from curruption, and that he would loose all the respect from the people he had promised better lives to. so in conclusion yeah i stick by my point no matter any of you say, take it into consideration, the lion and Corax are the biggest mysteries to the warhammer 40k world


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

oh yeah and alot of people saw roboute kill alpharius, hell they all celebrated and burned the primarch on a pyre so that his curruption would never sread any further, its the fact that nobodies alive or nobody knows anyone who knew anyone who saw it happen, the only account is documented by an ultramarine sergeant who was there and since the ultramarines have a sense of glorifying there accounts of battle into their favor if they won, that make sthre story questionable cause theres no hard evidence.


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## Elchimpster (Jan 31, 2007)

ArcAngels said:


> I really think that the character study of the lion will go in any direction we want it to, GW makes hole in stories so we can talk about it in places like this, so in my defence i think none of us can come up with the awnsers as to why the lion did what he did, but we can speculate and thats what weve been doing for 2 pages so, <snip>


Honestly, this actually makes a LOT of sense. There has always been talk of The Lion's distrust of the Terran's and his wanting to protect Caliban. Sending back Zahariel and other of the best and brightest (Luther etc) to protect is...makes sense. From THEIR perspective, It may not make sense, and they would likely think the way most folks have said, "Why's he pissed off at us? What did we do wrong?".

The Lion's paranoia is pretty obviously evident. I don't know if anyone can really understand the psychology of a being so singularly special...but it HAS to be lonely, and adding that to his survival in the wilds of Caliban...yeah, I can see The Lion as being at least a bit on the clinically paranoid side.

It wasn't a bad book. It wasn't my favorite, actually it was IMO the worst of the HH series. Regardless, I've LOVED the HH series which still places the book IMO in the "Good" category.


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

I need to read "Angels of Darkness"... a lot of people have said that it puts this book into a whole new light.

As to this books place in the HH series yeah this one is kinda lost so far... some people have said that the sequel to this will show the Lion to be a kinda "Im going to pick the winners side" type light when the Heresy kicks off and his indecision is the reason he's attacked when he goes back to Calidan. Luthor and Zahariel are going to be like "WTF... why didnt you help the Emporer??" And that the true reason Cyber and the Fallen are hunted isnt because they were against the Lion and the Emporer but because they know the truth about the Lion not supporting either side of the HH conflict and instead waiting to side with whoever wins. I cant find any mention of the Lion in the Collected Visions so his role in the Heresy isnt really revealed... so lets hope the sequel shows up what his place in the HH truly is.


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

Thank you Elchimpster, i knew someone understood what i was saying


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## cerrakoth (Nov 7, 2007)

I know what you mean about the paranoia(my bad about the primarch fight I am wrong sorry=])but angels of darkness or w,e cant remember title is from the point of view of a FALLEN angel and so it is(it even states in the book) to be considered falsehood. The Lion was faithful to the Emperor he did not play it out he has a legitimate excuse can't remember it but don't take the words of a raving madman (FALLEN) to be true=] you also can't say we know the least about him as primarchs II and XI are the least known  but we know very little about some chaos primarchs and tbh until the Horus heresy book series we knew very little of the personalities of many of the Primarchs=]


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

lol, i know what yo mean by the two missing primarchs but the lion and corax and vulcan are the three primarchs with information released that lack much of a story, even rogal dorn never told of how he cam to be in command of the phalanx, the two missing are a mystery to me, i dont know what gw is going to do to them


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## Elchimpster (Jan 31, 2007)

My hope is that another book will be written to wrap up the story a bit, give it a little more light/ perspective.

It's possible though that this is a standalone and we're SUPPOSED to be left kinda hanging...wondering about The Lion, his mind, his thoughts and what direction things are going to go because even the characters in the book don't know. (Maybe even The Lion himself doesn't know).

I do know that GW purposefully tells open-ended stories and leaves some things purposefully vague in order to keep the fans guessing (and interested). It's like any media: give the viewers a teaser, feed them a bit more to keep them interested, but leave yourself an "out" so you can write more later. I'm okay with that.

I can't wait to read about the Ultramarines vs Word Bearers fight! (I'm doing up pre-heresy UM now).


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## cerrakoth (Nov 7, 2007)

Gamesworkshop always leave open end stories becuase it allows fans to draw there own conclusion and think of imaginative things which is why the II and XI legions are missing so gamers can make there own conclusions=D


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

What would you do for those 2 missing legions if it where your universe to mold as you wish?


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## craigus (Oct 4, 2007)

out of intrest what do you think the next book will be about? also going back to the missing legions my large space marine and chaos chapter is based on one of the missing legions i called them the lone wolves


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## ArcAngels (Sep 19, 2007)

the next book is called battle legion and it focus's on the alpha legion and the imperial army. the book after that is called battle for the abyss and it focus's on the ultramrines against the word bearers on calth, Kor Phearon vs Roboute Guilliman


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