Reading World Eaters, III: Angron, Slave of Nuceria.

 This is the first big one in the list I put here, and it's a blast. You can find it as an eBook on Amazon and on the Black Library (in this case theres's also the audiobook version). Regarding it being a blast, you'll have to bear with me, I'm a fan since the early nineties, so each form of lore is welcome, even if the literary quality is not at its best, or even regular. But this book is definitely recommendable, if only because of these three things:

• We get to know what the Ghenna massacre was, and how it developed. And quite frankly it's not that horrible unless you're a supporter of synthetic replicas, which by the way the Ghennans used callously. It's not that the World Eaters didn't willingly massacre the whole Ghennan population, which they did. It's that most of it was made up of inorganic replicas, and it was the organic Ghennans who used the replicas literally as cannon fodder.
• We are told how the implantation of the Butcher's Nails went on, and how it was that apothecary Gahlan Suhlak managed to carry out the whole thing. We too can take a look at the rebellion against Angron's ways, how it was planned, and its swift conclusion. Really, it's a fast and predictable thing. And really you can empathize with  Angron and his pals, because let's face it, their arguments are not only very convincing but also true to heart.
• Finally, and (for me) most importantly, we are offered a privileged look at Angron's past (quite ironically, thanks to a librarian). After such an experience, the Red Angel emerges as not just an interesting character, but a tragically heroic one, almost like coming out of a Shakespearean tragedy. One whose abilities could soothe people, who could have been the anchor for every other primarch, but who suffers the worst of the fates, his gift being stolen from him and himself being finally made a natural-born killer.

I've enjoyed Slave of Nuceria because of the understanding it has allowed me to develop for both Angron and the World Eaters. I have already commented before that they were back in the day sort of a unidimensional, flat character thing, just plainly killers without any motive beyond an irrational bloodlust. After reading this story, they are a whole new, different thing. The World Eaters are sons of their father, yearning to commune with him as if something was missing from their inside.

Now this is a thing that repeats itself with every space marine legion and its primarch. By their very nature, one could say, marines long for the reunion with their genetic ancestors, quite literally as if their very blood demanded it. This metaphorical demand sparks what amount to a spiritual journey, where the legion (as a whole, as most if not all of its members seem to share this drive) looks for its origins, both to better understand themselves (and the universe around them, one could say) and to feel complete, whole.

In the case of the WE and Angron, fate is doom, and they stoically embrace it. The sheer significance of this sacrifice, the acknowledgment of their role, of their position in the (chaotic, as it is) natural order of things, suddenly puts the World Eaters in a whole new level of deepness regarding their psyche.

That's why I said that "you can empathize with  Angron and his pals", and that they are true to heart, while the rebels in the ranks of the legion are the ones negating their very nature, their lot in life, so they're conforming to a role of lackeys, unquestioning servants of an emperor whom we know as an unconcerned, insensitive master, and this is a point to make: the emperor is a master, an owner, while Angron is a father. And the World Eaters are definitely not the pets of anybody but the sons of Angron.