Funny / Horus Heresy

WARNING: Unmarked spoilers ahead!

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• The Last Church:
  • When Revelation first tells Uriah Olathaire that nobody is coming to his sermon, Uriah jokes that it was because he scared his congregation away with how poorly he aged.
  • When Uriah brings out a bottle of wine to share with his unexpected guest, Revelation quips that wine is a spirit that both of them can believe in.
  • While telling his life story, Uriah recounts his first encounter with the Emperor's Thunder Warriors. A very, very drunk encounter where he decides it's a good idea to hurl insults at them. He gets thrown off a cliff and into the water.
• At the beginning of Know No Fear:
  • Ultramarine Sergeant Thiel has been marked for discipline and censure due to a serious, unspoken crime. Half-way through the book, after the Word Bearers have begun their devastating attack, it's revealed that his crime was... running theoretical combat scenarios on how to fight and defeat other Space Marines, mainly because he'd already run through every other possible opponent. His commanders found this borderline treasonous and had sent him to Guilliman for punishment just as the Heresy came to Calth.
    Gage: [standing in a ruined corridor of Guilliman's flagship]...That was his infraction?
    Jaer: Looks bloody pitiful from where we’re standing, doesn’t it?
  • While Thiel waits to be called, assuming that he'll meet with his Chapter Master, he spends some time looking around at Guilliman's collection of weapons. Just as he's about to give into temptation and pick one up, an officer comes in to check in on him. When he assures the officer that he can wait as long as necessary, the officer tells him that the primarch will be with him as soon as he can. Realizing that if he's meeting with Guilliman - meaning that he's in very serious trouble - he decides that he's got nothing to lose, and picks out a couple of the swords to test out in one of the practice cages.
  • Later when Guilliman manages to meet with Thiel in his private armoury, Guilliman vents privately about an informal communication he'd just had with Lorgar and Horus' perceived attempts to heal the rift between the two legions. He laments Lorgar's tendencies and darkly comments what he'd do with him if Lorgar weren't a brother primach (put a boot up his ass). Thiel offers to demonstrate how which seemingly earns a rebuke from Guilliman. When Thiel attempts to apologise for his attempt at humour, Guilliman admits the joke was actually pretty funny.
  • At another stage in Know No Fear, it describes the technology involved in a Land Speeder, and then specifically calls out that the Ultramarine behind the wheel (Selaton) is "driving it like an idiot".
  • In the very beginning of Know No Fear there's one sentence that's just inherently funny for some reason:
  [Guilliman] realizes that his brother is not, in fact, mistakenly trying to kill him.
  • There's also Lorgar donning his Troll hat. You can just imagine how mocking his tone must be.
    Lorgar: Have you lost your temper, Roboute?
    Guilliman: I am going to gut you.
    Lorgar: You have lost your temper.
  • The entire scene up to the point Lorgar turns into a daemon is pretty humorous, between Guilliman so utterly furious he can barely get a sentence out without calling Lorgar a name of some sort and a smug-as-all-hell Lorgar gleefully trolling him.
    Guilliman: Either You're Insane!, or the galaxy has gone mad. Whichever...I am coming for you, and I will put you and your heathen killers down. Excommunicate Traitoris: you will not have any opportunity to reflect upon the monstrosity of this crime.
    Lorgar: Oh, Roboute, I can always rely on you to sound like a giant pompous arsehole. Come and get me!
  • This bit from Ventanus and Selaton's visit to the Holophusikon:
    Ventanus: Ventanus, Captain, Fourth Company, First Chapter, Thirteenth. I am looking for Seneschals Arbute, Darial and Eterwin. Or, in fact, any senior municipal servant whose portfolio encompasses the starport.
    Footman: They are all in the building.
    Ventanus: Could you fetch them?
    Footman: They are in session all afternoon. Is it urgent?
    (Beat)
    Ventanus: Yes.
    (The footmen immediately get the hint and scramble.)
  • After Tetrarch Lamiad rescues the Dreadnought Telemechrus from his container, Telemechrus notices that Lamiad has been hurt. Lamiad insists that it's nothing that can't be fixed, save for his broken heart (due to the Word Bearers' betrayal), only for Telemechrus to take it literally and ask which of his hearts has been damaged.
• Frater Thematica, Ironwrought of the Iron Hands Legion in Angel Exterminatus, who is pretty much the Professor Farnsworth of the 30k Universe. Examples of his tinkering include methods of stabilizing Medusa's tectonic plate movement (by causing devastating planetary earthquakes) and inventing lethal quantum rearrangement weaponry (by siphoning starship reactor energy at the most inconvenient of times). He has almost been thrown out of the Mechanicum AND the Iron Fraternity for his experiments.
  Vermanus Cybus: What do you have to do to be exiled from a bunch of scholars?
  Frater Thematica: Oh, that's easy. Both the Mechanicum and the Iron Fraternity have threatened me with expulsion many times. Dangerous experiments, radical thinking, untested weaponry. That sort of thing.
  Vermanus Cybus: The amount of times you've almost blown us up, I almost wish they had.
• Angel Exterminatus also offers an absurd but also hilarious moment of Disability Immunity. During the book, the Kakophoni are presented as a great threat because of their sonic weapons and shrieks which can crack ceramite. However, it turns out one Iron Hand Morlock named Ignatius Numen is immune to the sonic weapons... because he's deaf. After being shot with a sonic pulse from Vairosean, he even shouts "What? I didn't catch that!" before shooting down the Emperor's Children legionary.
• In The Unremembered Empire:
  • Guilliman has found himself stuck with a permanent "escort" of Space Wolves, led by Faffnr Bludbroder, who have been ordered to stick by his side like glue. This includes when Guilliman is laying out the red carpet for his brother Lion El'Jonson, made doubly-awkward considering the long standing grudge between the Wolves and the Dark Angels. Roboute, stoic, stately Primarch of the Ultramarines, is just so annoyed Faffnr is making an already uncomfortable reunion that much worse.
  Guilliman: You’re a pain in the arse, you know that?
  Faffnr: Indisputably.
  • In addition to the trouble he is causing Guilliman, Faffnr's real Sitcom Arch-Nemesis is Drakus Gorod, the commander of the Invictus Guard. As head of Guilliman's Honour Guard, Gorod makes his feelings about a man whose stated intentions are to kill his Primarch known. After an Alpha Legion attack on Guilliman's private quarters:
    Faffnr: We were told not to go in. Told it was your orders.
    Guilliman: They were my orders.
    Gorod: Dogs must always wait at the doorpost until the master lets them in. Good dogs, that is. Good dogs stay at the edge of the firelight, waiting for scraps, until they are allowed near the hearth.
    (Faffnr and Gorod Death Glare each other before one of the Wolves whispers in Faffnr's ear)
    Faffnr: (smiling) No, Bo Soren. I cannot let you do that. Though it would be funny to watch.
  • Also in "The Unremembered Empire" Dantioch trolling Konrad Curze about how Polux escaped him: "The faith and will of good men,’ replied Dantioch. ‘When they stand together against infamy, the galaxy fights for them." U mad, Night Haunter?
  • Any interaction between Roboute Guilliman and his surrogate mother, Tarasha Euten, is either heartwarming or amusing. Her Brutal Honesty makes her his most trusted advisor, but it also means she's not afraid to snark at him frequently, and often comes out on top when they banter. It goes to show that it doesn't matter if one is a demigod-warrior-king in the far future, we still can't help but revert when we're around our parents. Just seeing the Avenging Son gradually devolve into a sulky teenager whenever he talks with Euten, from anything to the crass nature(and lack of bathing habits) of the Space Wolves to Guilliman's jealousy of Lion El'Jonson(which he even denies with a petulant "No!"), is side-splitting.
  • The little detail that in the far future, the Bard is known as Shakespire and Hamlet is called Amulet.
  • After Vulkan attacks Konrad Curze in a psychotic rage, Curze, knowing that Vulkan can come back from the dead, takes a moment to monologue about how he will find a way to kill Vulkan permanently. Barely a few seconds later, Vulkan lives again, much faster than Curze is used to.
    Curze: See? This is death. Learn to accept it, brother!
    Vulkan: eyes snap open
    Curze: Oh. That was quick...
• In Scars, Malcador casually remarks that he once advised the Emperor to make the Primarchs sisters rather than brothers, figuring that there would be less of the division and rivalries inherent in male siblings. Rogal Dorn is not amused. Even more amusing when Malcador informs Dorn that even the Emperor thought he was joking.
• In the beginning of Scars, a group of initiates are instructed to run a marathon course for as long as they can. At the end, the last initiate running, delirious out of sheer exhaustion, tries climbing up one of the Space Marines observing the exercise.
• During a rare family gathering at the triumph on Ullanor, the assembled Primarchs are casually riffing on each other. After being baited by an increasingly irritating Fulgrim, the Khan shoots him down with one sentence. He's probably referring to rumours of the bio experimentation. Probably...
  Fulgrim: I heard from a contact on Mars, Jaghatai, that you do strange things to your ships.
  Jaghatai Khan: I heard you do strange things to your warriors.
• The Remembrancers are a brotherhood created to record mankind's greatest triumphs. They are painters, poets, actors, writers, sculptors, all representatives of High Arts... and in Fear To Tread, there's one that draws comic books. "People love to read those", apparently.
• In the audio-drama "Honour to the Dead", a Brother Gaius of the Ultramarines tells a five-week-old baby, in all sincerity;
  "You are very small."
• Lorgar's frustration with the two heads of Kairos Fateweaver being so self-contradicting in Aurelian:
  Lorgar: Which one of you is telling the truth?!
  Both heads: I am.
• In Vengeful Spirit:
  • After Garviel Loken assaults Iacton Qruze for not telling him Mersadie Oliton was alive, Ares Voitek of the Iron Hands whips up a traditional Medusan drink used to heal rifts within a clan, and passes it around among Rogal Dorn and the Knights-Errant. The resultant brew is so strong that Dorn cocks an eyebrow, while the rest of the Knights act like Voitek just tried to poison them. The only ones who enjoyed the brew are Bror Tyrfinger (Space Wolf) and Altan Nohai (White Scar).
• At times, Pharos feels like /tg/ was feeding Guy Haley ideas.
  • "We float for Macragge!" is what happens when Ultramarines must perform void operations.
  • An exchange between Lucretius Corvo and Techmarine Correlus;
    Lucretius Corvo: What will happen when they reach the maximum?
    Corellus: As my tutors on Mars would say, captain, the Omnissiah acts mysteriously. The ways of the motive force may be understood, from positive to negative and on through the circuit. That which guides it may not.
    Lucretius Corvo: You do not know.
    Corellus: No. That is what they generally meant when they said that.
• In Garro: Vow of Faith: When Garro arrives to a small roadside settlement, everyone present except for one guy instantly flees from him. Garro just sighs, sits himself by the bar and has a drink. Not to mention how he convinces the one remaining guy to give him a lift: by telling him that being associated with a Space Marine will lend man aura of respect in his town. The funny comes in when you realize that he basically paid the guy with swag.
• The Outcast Dead has a World Eater being forced to make social pleasantries with a child. It's a testament to the training and mindset of the Astartes that he's so completely out of his depth talking to a human being, let alone a kid. He's actually relieved when the child starts talking about killing as it brings him back to his comfort zone.
• The prologue to Angels of Caliban has Lion El'Jonson crashing a post-campaign celebration because he's found out Luther and a company of Dark Angels have left Caliban to fight for Horus (It was before Horus turned traitor, so it's all cool). The whole thing plays out like a parent storming into a party to drag a grounded child home, down to the Lion telling Luther "I will deal with YOU momentarily,” The narration even outright says that at that moment, every Space Marine in attendance desired to be anywhere but there.
• Horus Rising:
  • The death of the Rememberancers at the hand of a corrupted Jubal from is hilarious in a darkly comical way. Van Krasten pisses himself before getting beaten to death, Borodin Flora tells it to begone while making the sign of the Aquila (And gets bitten in half for his trouble), and Keeler simply thanks her luck that unlike Van Krasten, she had the dignity to not pee herself before dying (Though she is saved at the last moment).
  • After Horus debriefs Loken about the encounter with Jubal in the Whisperheads:
  Horus: I came here looking for spirits, and all I found was wine. There's a lesson for you.
  • When Loken's about to lead Tenth Company into combat for the first time since elevation to the Mournival, Abaddon very seriously tells him, "Get this right." Loken's response is an utterly deadpan;
  "I'm glad you told me that, Ezekyle. I was considering making a mess of it."
  • At which point the other Mournival members enjoy a good chuckle at how thoroughly this wrongfoots Abaddon (who eventually does chuckle at it)
• In the opening attack on the walls at the Siege of Terra much is made of the ‘First Traitor upon the Walls’, the marine in question being a jump-packing Night Lord with far more enthusiasm than brains. Much is made of the glories he’ll earn for this honored accomplishment…followed and concluded swiftly by the bolt round that catches him in the head and removes it about the same instant his boot fully lands on the parapet. His killer is explicitly noted to not even make note of the kill and the battle proceeds.
• In Warhawk, one of the viewpoints is a relatively new captain in the Sons of Horus, Archeta. He's introduced in this novel and shown to have an array of allies, enemies, opinions and ambitions over the course of his chapters. Then he runs into Sigismund and begins posturing for an epic duel, only to be cut down in three blows.
  Fafnir Rann: A captain. Who, though?
  Sigismund: No idea. Keep moving.

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