Spoilers ahoy!
Fridge Brilliance
- In The Crimson Fist short story from Shadows of Treachery, much of the Black Templars mindset is explained when Sigismund reveals to Rogal Dorn that Euphrati Keeler told him he needed to stay with Dorn at Terra instead of lead the Retribution Fleet to Isstvan, and Dorn effectively disowns him as his gene-son in a rage for questioning his purpose and believing he knew better than the Emperor, making him no different than Horus. This explains why Sigismund was made High Marshal of the Black Templars and so much of their psychology: their hatred of psykers, the "No Remorse" part of their Battle Cry, and the ten thousand year crusade. Sigismund was not rewarded, he was exiled, and the eternal crusade is his attempt to atone in the eyes of Rogal Dorn.
- Partly jossed later in the series; Sigismund admits to Garro that he (still) cares about ensuring that Keeler and her message survives.
- Whenever the forces of Chaos want to turn someone against the Emperor, they show their target a vision of "the Emperor's true plan"... the 41st Millenium. This effectively makes the entire Warhammer 40,000 setting a giant self-fulfilling prophesy.
- In Unremembered Empire, Vulkan, even in his raving-mad state, avoids harming civillians, even going out of the way to protect Euten, but the moment he saw Guilliman, he's immediately trying to claw his way to Roboute and kill him. It makes little sense until one remembers that, in Vulkan Lives, Curze often appears to Vulkan as Guilliman during his tortures, which leads to Vulkan seeing true Roboute not as his loyalist brother, but as Curze, his torturer he wants to murder, in a disguise.
- In Forge World's Horus Heresy rulebooks, Alpharius has rules but no model. In Forge World's Horus Heresy Character Series, we have Alpha Legionnaire Armillus Dynat. Every member of the Alpha Legion looks exactly like their primarch. Forge World has already released Alpharius' model (though it lacks his custom ceremonial armor known as The Pythian Scales).
- Khârn as he appears in Rebirth is very different to the mostly calm, collected warrior we see later in Betrayer, actively tormenting and threatening to torture a Thousand Son and allowing his brothers to mutilate the ones they kill. The thing is, he's on Prospero, a planet where the Warp is close to the surface and in turmoil because of the Burning. Add that to the psyker-allergy caused by the Butcher's Nails, and close proximity to powerful psykers, and it makes sense for Khârn to be as unstable as he is in that story. Also Kharn frequently blacks out whenever he succumbs to the nails, so the majority of his POV scenes in Betrayer are him at his most calm and collected.
- Ostian Delafour's critique of Fulgrim's statues in Fulgrim may not make a lot of sense to the readers. If the statues are physically perfect, then why aren't they good? However, it makes sense from an artist's perspective. It's not about them being physically flawless, it's about the emotion in them. From the description, it seems like the statues are rather intricate, but are bland. Fulgrim might as well have just asked his captains to stand normally, took images of them, and threw it into a 3D printer. The statues don't have the statue of David's fear in the eyes, they don't have the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile, or any other such personal touch. Fulgrim could have made a statue of his 1st Captain in terminator armor fighting a Lair serpent in a vicious battle to the death. Instead, the statue of the captain looks as if he's just standing around wondering what he should have for breakfast that morning. There's no drama in the statues, just mundaneness.
- One of the contributing factors behind Horus's fall was his disdain for regular humans, who he viewed as inferior. This viewpoint makes a lot of sense when you take his background into account. Horus was discovered by the Emperor not long after he first arrived on Cthonia, so he spent most of his early years under the wing of a super powered demigod. As a result Horus never developed empathy for regular humans, which no doubt contributed to his transformation into an egotistical maniac. This is in direct contrast with the experiences of some of his brothers, who were raised by mortal humans and had much more time to connect with the planets they came to reside on.
Fridge Horror
- A rather disturbing scene in the audio-drama The Sigilite becomes far far far worse when you realise exactly what it means. When Malcador shows the Army Officer Khalid Hassan the catacombs under the Imperial Palace, he also shows him the gates that lead to the Golden Throne, and it's made very clear that the War in the Webway is under way and has been ever since Magnus the Red broke the Emperor's wards trying to warn him about Horus. Think about it for a moment and you'll realise... that the Emperor, his Custodes and the Sisters of Silence have been fighting the resulting Daemonic incursion ever since. They are constantly behind that door, while outside the galaxy burns, trying to hold back the tide of Daemons, and they cannot stop.
- The Pharos device is pretty alien and it takes a lot for either Dantioch or Pollux to attune themselves and get the device to focus. Even Guilliman could only use it inadvertently and even then just the once. Krukesh, on the other hand, gets it working almost immediately and achieves previously unknown effects by seeking terror, violence, and pain; possibly indicating that the Pharos's original makers may not have been as nice as previously thought..
