Editing Horus (section)

==Good Guy Horus==
It's often forgotten by fans that before he was corrupted and decieved by [[Erebus]] and [[Lorgar]], Horus was a genuinely nice guy. Fans are quick to joke about "that dick Horus," but before [[Heresy|Things Went Wrong]] he was one of the most personable, down to earth primarchs. Yeah, part of the reason people fell for him so easily was that he shared the Emperor's psychic magnetism, but he also went out of his way to be friendly and considerate of custom, if not necessarily polite. Granted, at times he had arrogance to match [[Magnus]] and choler to match [[Angron]], but despite that he always made effort to honor those under his command, mortal and astartes alike. [[Konrad Curze|While]] [[Angron|many]] [[Perturabo|primarchs]] saw their warriors as little more than tools, or [[Fulgrim|were]] [[Ferrus Manus|aloof]] and [[Corvus Corax|unapproachable]], Horus was a true father to his sons, guiding and shaping them personally.

To most legions it would be unimaginable for the primarch to personally seek out and comfort a legionary during a time of crisis, but for the Luna Wolves, it was obvious. He was no saint or coddler, as we see him encourage rivalries within and between his legion and others, but in doing so he brought strength and glory. Even when dealing with outsiders, he always attempted diplomacy before making war, something even his gentler brothers cannot say. In fact, one of the primary reasons why Horus was named Warmaster over other candidates like Guilliman, the Lion, or even Sanguinius was that he was such a people person. He was friends with nearly all of his brothers and was superhumanly savvy when it came to knowing how to talk to people.

In this same vein, he was also a master manipulator, and routinely used his savvy to get people, even people who didn't agree with him, to do what he wanted. He was in fact so good at this this he had the ability to change his personality and demeanor to suit particular situations, appearing a slightly different person to others based on what he thought would get him the best results. He got along famously with all of his brothers save one; even total psychos like Angron and Konrad Curze just couldn't help but love the guy. The only brother of his who didn't like him was Corax, which was due to the newly-initiated Warmaster somewhat clumsily trying to exert his authority over Corax and getting a bunch of Raven Guard killed unnecessarily. Horus was a cunning, brutal, supremely confident warlord who nonetheless took great pains to make sure his warriors and mortal retainers were treated well, and furthermore, from the very few pre-Davin POV scenes we get, we know he ''actually believed'' others deserved to be treated well, it wasn't simply [[Fulgrim|feigned politeness]] or [[Roboute Guilliman|a calculated display of regard]].

In fact, his reaction to both finding the Interex and having to destroy them demonstrates that he was actually one of the most ardent good guys in the entire galaxy. Upon meeting the Interex, a group of humans who had incorporated a Xenos civilization into their own, Horus became absolutely hell-bent on trying to negotiate a Protectorate status for them. This was due not only to the fact that they successfully lived alongside xenos as part of their civilization, which Horus had essentially dismissed as impossible, but also how they had treated another hostile xenos species called the Mega Arachnids. A group of monstrous intelligent murder spiders, they had fought, and lost against, the Interex. But instead of exterminating them, the Interex exiled them to a random planet, took all the resources they could have used to build spacecraft, and quarantined them there. Horus was blown away by this non-violent solution, and wanted to learn as much as he could about the Interex. To make it clear how unusually open-minded this was, even ''Sanguinius'', most noble of men, seemed privately to be a bit iffy about Horus's desire to negotiate with xenos (though he supported Horus without reservation in public). Horus even told his closest advisor and First Captain, Abaddon, who hated the idea of negotiating with filthy xenos, to basically go sit and spin.

Then fucking [[Erebus]] happened, and Horus had to destroy the Interex. Doing so however, affected him so dramatically that he was said to have "lost hope" after the conflict. So after being presented with the idea of the Federation from [[Star Trek]], Horus became completely enamored of the idea, and lost all his optimism after having the possibility of the Imperium becoming that way dashed. Even his edgy rebellion and fall to Chaos was due to his honest love of people. He's basically 40k's version of Arthas Menethil (only bald).

Note also that part of Horus's dislike of mortals had a LOT to do with his dislike of the Imperial bureaucracy, as he considered those who had not fought and bled for the Imperium to be unworthy of simply inheriting that which others had died to obtain. In that regard, one of the things that elevates his good guy status to truly heroic heights was his unabashed hatred of the [[Lawful Evil|tax man]]. When the Emperor retired from the Great Crusade, he had sent tax officials called Exectors to collect the Imperial Tithe. The introduction of the Tithe evoked many different reactions from the Primarchs and the Imperial citizenry, most of them negative. Of Horus's, he was known to have said at one point to his advisor Garviel Loken "If I had my choice, I would kill every Exector in the Imperium. But I'm sure we would be getting tax bills from Hell before breakfast." Loken noted that he had laughed at the statement, but had abruptly stopped doing so when he realized that he couldn't tell if Horus was actually joking. Truly a great man.