Konrad Curze: A Cautionary Tale 

This dude can see the future, but couldn’t see that Vulkans hammer, was in fact, a hammer

I liked how Konrad liked Sanguinius enough to always be honest with him, always held him to high regards because he could see there was no deviousness about him

When my (ex)wife was pregnant, we were talking about names. I started listing off the names of the primarchs in a joking way(she knew nothing of Warhammer40k). When I landed on Konrad Curze, she said she loved that name, and now my son is named Conrad. Though... He got my tanned skin and her blonde hair instead of her pale skin and my black hair 😤

Konrad isn't my favorite primarch, I'd honestly hesitate to say I have one at all. But I'd be hard pressed to say to you with a straight face he isn't the most compelling of them. He's an absolute monster of a human being that, by the time of the Emperor's arrival I don't think he could have been redeemed. But I'll never hold that against him. He still could have changed and been a necessary monster instead of a hopeless one. Edit: Also, Transylvanian power armor is such a fuxking look, my GAWD, he and his sons have style!

Arguably the Goofiest Goober among the Primarchs to be honest.

Arthur. My guy, you know how to dive into the psyche of characters in 40k. The Lion and Dorn videos you made changed me in a way.

If you view all of the Primarchs as the Emperor's sons imbued like children are with certain characteristics of their parents, I think each of the Primarchs is an example of what the Emperor himself might have been. The canon is the canon, but basically each of them had the essence of the Emperor yet with a chaotic random number generator assigned to their upbringing. Sanguinius and Curze are maybe the two best examples of the noble heights and ignominious depths of what the Emperor could be as a ruler if he weren't imbued with plot armor.

what do you mean fans of kurze is not normal? i am perfectly normal and totally not see my own pessimism in Kurze's character

An alternative to the S Word that shouldn’t get demonized would be “self checkout”

Though Konrad is not my favorite… some of the artwork his insane fans make is my favorite. And then theres *that* artwork of him… which also is my favorite.

I just want a Decimus book or trilogy from ADB. But alas I doubt my children will live to see that day.

Let’s not forget that as a child, after he dug his way out of the crater his pod made, if my memory is correct he was hungry and there was only an abandoned guy in said crater. Who, coincidentally, was a monster and Curze’s weird Primarch and Primarch-based gene absorbed some of the information from said person’s brain, leading to see horrible memories of where the hell he was at. So like many of the traitorous Primarchs, they were forced into a position where they were either metaphorically, or quite literally (in which case can be literally or figuratively) poisoned from the start. It’s a pattern that happens throughout -all- most of them. Horus with the anathema blade, Angron cursed with the butcher’s nails, Lorgar and his horrible father and Erebus’s goading, Fulgrim and the Slaanesh blade, Perturabo and insufficient parenting, Magnus and not knowingly dealing with Tzeentch, and Mortarion with Barbarus. But what about Alpharius, some of you may ask. Well, as the saying goes. This is a lie.

0:01 suddenly want to see how "curse of Strahd" would run with Strahd being possessed by Curze (has the same stats, but the entire personality being replaced by Curze)

It's interesting to consider the juxtaposition between Curze and the next Primarch Arthur will be looking at, especially the ways their lives ended and their own role in that.

Sanguinous has and always will be my favorite primarch but curze is such a fun character

When I first got into Warhammer I though Curze and the Night Lords were insane nihilist that I could never like. Then I got to Unrememebered Empire, Pharos and Angels of Caliban. Yes the Night Lords are monsters but somehow they can have interesting and enjoyable charcters for a pact of murders.

Best primarch and the best legion. Ave dominus nox

The Night Haunter is a big example that there was a vast swathe of the primarchs, about half, who needed some pretty significant therapy but the Emperor is a terrible parent.

I’m ashamed of the amount to time it took me to realizes Conrad Kurze and his justifications were very close to Col. Kurtz from “Apocalypse Now” Also his home world is named after the ship from the first Alien movie

Ave Dominus Nox! Solruthis veh za jass!

I honestly enjoy you talking about life philosophies more than 40k, you have such a beautiful mindset, thank you for inspiring me gang.

he’s such a tragic character, i get the feeling if that he never landed on nostromo, got the help he needed, be cared for, be loved, he would genuinely be a decent person

Ah yes strahd. My favourite night lord captain.

Ugh. Careful Konrad, youll cut yourself on all that edge.

I always thought the death vs vindication line was also a slam on the Emperor and all others in the imperium who abhorred The Nighthaunter’s tactics and sense of justice. The assassin arriving was proof the Emperor was no better than him, and that he was right not only ethnically, but also factually correct in his pessimistic fatalism.

Just wanted to say thanks for your videos, Bones. I’ve been following you since you were under 5 or 10k I think, and it’s been a pleasure seeing your channel grow! I hope it keeps going. I just recently moved back to Halifax after many years away, and it had lead to a pretty busy and stressful year of work. Your videos and passion for 40k have helped me get through it all, so thanks!

Your deeper interpretation of the motivations and psyches of the characters in 40k is what makes this the best grimdark content on RU-vid. Excited for Martarion... eventually.

What he did to Vulcan can never be forgiven.

I opened the video for a good time and then i felt judged

Good is not the oppositie of evil. The oppositie of evil is also evil. Ave Dominus Nox.

Curze, Lorgar, and Angron are my top three picks for most compelling stories. That being said? I will always be a Word Bearer lad. Remember Monarchia!

It's ok, he had a sould stone on his crown so not too dead

Curze has slowly gone from least favorite to one of my absolute favorite primarchs.

I consider Konrad Curze to be my favorite primarch, with either Sanguinius or Rogal Dorn tied for second. Konrad stands for justice as a principle...but he does so with absolutely no concept of grace. As a Christian, I find that fascinating, because one might look at Curze and the Night Lords as what happens when one applies the concept of justice for the wicked, but with no opportunity for redemption, and how that turns to be self-destructive when our own sins become apparent before us. Sanguinius is...okay, I'm going to hate the way I phrase it, but he is the richest and sweetest form of vanilla you can get your hands on, and I love him for it (platonically). More specifically, I love the fact that besides his courage and the way he deals with the flaws within himself and his legion, he stands for compassion, for a willingness to strive to better oneself and the world one interacts with, and that he's willing to display compassion and humility in order to accomplish these ends. Rather than making himself too aloof, I'd argue it makes him human in a way Konrad never allowed himself to be: he knew he could be wrong and he was willing to interact with his sons and normal people as people, not just subjects to be sat over and judged. If Konrad could have adopted that mindset, he might be alive and at the imperium's service today. Rogal Dorn is rigid to a fault. Like Konrad, he has an unairing sense of right and wrong and will act on it for better or for worse. That stalwart (and sometimes pigheaded) assurance in his cause and his willingness to bare enormous costs for those beliefs are compelling, admirable...and given how things panned out between him and Sigismund as well as between himself and Purterabo, it shows how being able to bend a bit or trying to understand others before commading or condemning them (as well as basic people skills) are essential. For the other two, both their strengths and weaknesses play into their heroics. For konrad, his play into why he's a compelling *villain,* and I'm a fan of him as he fulfills his role *as a villain.*

Fatalistic determinism is a tough mentality to break out of as a normal human who isn't plagued by schizo visions from the Warp.

I USED to like curze a lot I uh Having since had (and won) my own battle with depressive pessimism he just makes me sad He makes me sand and he kind of frustrates me to be honest People like him do And I try not to hold that against them, I know what its like to be where they were, but I also know what its like to climb out of that hole and I know its possible to stop being that way And so I see curze and people like him languishing in that misery and I wish I could do something to pull them out of it cause Im like "Oh honey no what is you doing"

If you can see Konrad, he can see you. If you cannot see Konrad, you may be moments away from death.

Loved this one! Couldn't agree more with your points my dude.

This video isn't in your "Meet the Primarchs" playlist fyi

Big E allowing these edge lords to exist, is proof that he is the 5th Chaos god

Pimp slapped with the omori music at the end

The reason I'm a realist is when the pessimist says "it can't possibly get any worse", the optimist says "oh yes it can". 🤪

Had the 2nd worst upbringing out of the primarchs. I love him. And even the Russ himself said he didn’t want to fight Cruze 1v1 “he has the power of the insane..”

I honestly feel so sorry for the night lords, since they are forced to watch their dad mentally breakdown in a rapid pace and they can’t do anything to stop it.🐱

I used to love the Night Lords, circa Lord of the Night/Index Astartes days. I was one of the weirdos and the Night Haunter's fatalism and horrible visions added a sense of high drama and tragedy. It felt like fate itself was herding him down a path. For example, in the old fluff, when Curze was struck by a terrible vision of his end and some events of the Heresy so bad he had to reach out to Fulgrim, his assigned mentor, to tell him about the horrors he saw and then Dorn wanted to start something because of this "slight on the Emperor's honor" it was tragic. You could see how this guy teetered on the edge and could believe the terror had a higher purpose. There was ambiguity there, if their visions and poision of Nostromo pushed the Primarch and Legion into the arms of damnation or if they were fooling themselves the whole time. Then the fluff kept going. Now, the ambiguity is GONE. These psychos, INCLUDING CURZE, were making flayed baby pits and saying to his brothers "totes necessary" as they worriedly attempted to console and reason with Curze. There were a PLETHORA of shining examples of compliant, thriving, happy worlds that DIDNT need SAW 40k going twenty four seven to keep folks in line and they still chose torture and dismemberment as "reasonable" responses for jaywalking. ADB, in particularly, is on record loathing the prior Ravenloft style brooding edgelord fest and pushed to show how looney tunes Curze was from the jump. Sure, he writes Sevatar as a likeable, self aware bastard, but it still shows they are all self aware as to their sadistic proclivities, what with flayed skins and corpse galleries all over the place. It's hard to have sympathy when mountains of incidents show nothing PUSHED them off the edge, they were taking a running start the whole time.

Curze Lives!, now let me preface this as I am not a 'Nightlords' fan but a 'Emps TTS' fan and my favs for SMs is Deathwatch for the 'band of brothers' found family stories and 'Iron Warriors' for everything MrBones said in the Perturabo video, but what I have come to really love about Warhammer in any setting is the 'comedy', there's something I connect with when seeing characters faced with the most nightmare/bad luck moments one could be asked to face and respond with laughter. I see myself as very empathetic to the point of absolute fault, it was a long time for me to figure out "some people just dont want to be helped" and to accept that there was nothing I could do to change that but that should not stop me from being a decent person, be kind, be polite, be patience, now to get back to my first comment. I could fully see Curze 'existing' still, how you may ask, well when his time came he was completely naked and we know in Warhammer souls tend to end up somewhere, and seeing how the Eldar solved the getting eaten by 'HER' with soulstones. What did Curze have, with alot of gemstones on it, his jeweled crown the 'Corona Nox' the thing that was as close as a Mental Limiter that he ever had, I just find it so hilarious to think Curze instead of tombstoning he ends up in his safety helmet, stuck, and has to experience 'living' not as a pawn to fate but a tool, also the image of Rowboat or Lion arguing with 'Magic 8 Ball Curze' is just hilarious, absolute meme if it ever comes to that.

14:00 not optimistic or or pessimistic. Law of averages, lifs is neither that bad or that good. The glass is always half filled. Which means theirs always something their. If your hearing that with a tone of optomisie, its just if you roll a sided die your gonna get odds and your gonna get evens. Some people on both sides forget your gonna get one or the other.

This is another one of the Primarchs that really really really REALLY!! needed a hug

FYI: The forbidden S word is actually sudoku, don't worry about it.

Konrad is also my fav primarch, for the very simple reason that in the end, he was right..

Not a single normal Nightlords-Fan? I am sorry, but me and my other personas want a word with you...at least if they would stop humming the tetris melodie.

You'll accept that life can get better when things get better 😂

10:09 clearly his psychic "gift" used the German meaning of the word

Sir, I would like to state, I am a normal night lords fan. I love their lore and love painting them. They are my adorable Sparkle Vampires with tragic backstories. 😊❤

It sounds like Bioshock in the background.

You should do a podcast for each of these videos

HEY HEY, The Batman Who Laughs was great, in the beginning. Then writers saw his popularity and threw him in everything for any reason to increase the sales and interest of a dying medium. (hyperbole i mind you but it stands)

Death is nothing compared to vindication.

I fooking love Konrad, but I can't give a concrete reason as to why I like him. It's weird...

Did anyone else get that mental flashbang at the beginning of the video?

Hi, I'm from the 9th. This'll be good with your spooky boyz 😂

I'm not particularly a fan of konrad a little too dark and twisted for my taste but I can definitely see and understand why a lot of people find him very compelling and interesting as a character One thing I really found interesting was his sort of telepathic/hallucination of him arguing with the emperor with the emperor trying to convince him that the reason why his visions that konrad always leaned on we're only negative because konrad let them be as such when in fact his visions we're always offering a door to a more positive outcome but konrad in his Twisted nihilistic ways always refused it

Arthur's been cooking on late

A Nightlord fan calling out other Nightlord fans. That's very Kurze of you, Arthur.

Kurze is like Angron, a tragic character who could have been so much happier if he had just landed on another planet... not as much fun though.

As an avid Night Lord fan, (my CSM army is all NL painted and I adore the books), I can confirm that I am a huge fucking weirdo. Great video! Ave Dominus Nox!

im allways tried to be positive, happy, and other shit. but my bad luck always made me remember me how bad shit can be so quickly.. so i stopped to be positive, dont get me wrong im still trying.... but its pointless... so i figured it out.. just go with the flow... something will happen its 50/50 how good or bad could it be.... but never go holllow.

Curze is a noble soul who sees the things he had to do to survive, suppresses his true nature, and calls himself a monster. Then he suppressed that and called himself a man who hates and kills monsters. All the while, he never really had the opportunity to be convinced of, nor forgive himself acting like a monster. He tries to aspire to the nobiltiy in him while thinking he doesn't deserve it, and that idea tears him apart. Its small wonder he goes insane, and uses fatalism to justify his actions. He's the ultimate example of the lession that sometimes it does right to treat yourself with a bit of kindness. Otherwise, you will keep embracing all the horroble shit you say about yourself and turn into the monster you make yourself out to be.

This video made me understand him better and also hate him cause it hits too close to home.

1:04 GW put two K’s in a sub blurb about the heresy in the chaos codex so it’s everyone

He is not supposed to be relatable but for some reason I always relate to Curze, I dunno why.

Thinking Curze's approach is effective is not a good mentality if you also don't think that it's incredibly fucked up. Konrad did that mistake himself.

>Things do get better. Just don't have any real convictions or principles or you might experience bad feelings. Fence setting midwittery at it's finest

The Night Lords are interesting. They seem to be far more similar to Drukhari than any Astartes and aesthetics-wise they look cool af. But as a Blood Angels/ Sanguinius fan I just can’t get into Curze. Like yes you see a possible vision of a horrible thing happening in the future. So do something to change it don’t just give into it and let it happen. Obviously this is just my own outlook and bias coming through but ye great vid!

Konrad is literally me

Accepted Assassination 40k version of AA

konrad sounds like evil batman

Damn. He needs a hug for real

Ya know what i like about konrad? Unlike every literary work with a character like him, there isnt that person who shocked him by being kind to him, showing him there was some positivity and kindness to humanity. It usually creates that situation later where they make the better choice later, ya know? Konrads character should be that guy, but nope. Absolutely not. He depends on no one for anything and thats all there is to it. Follows his own compass.

Curze is one of the ones I consider “a tragedy to have lost” and Magnus is the other. To the Emperor each Primarch and legion lost is a tragedy, however some were more useful and necessary than others. Magnus he needed for the Golden Throne webway project. Konrad… in a world of the most horrifying things, it is very useful to have someone willing to smile back at them and say “I am worse.” then actually cause them to pause and feel fear. Konrad was not made for compliance of normal populations or fighting space bugs. There are better primarchs for that. Konrad was made for human populations that are so corrupt and irredeemable that they need to know their only two options are sort yourself out or face the worst thing you can imagine. And for the sentient horrors of the future that are formidable in head to head warfare, but will lose their nerve and have their fear eat them out from the inside knowing that “Mankind has acknowledged you, now sends it’s worst.”

AVE DOMINUS NOX!!!

Can't wait to see what is your view on "Raven Lord," "The Liberator," "The Deliverer," "Chooser of the Slain" and the "Shadowed Lord" Corvus Corax The Lord Of The Ninetheen 🐦‍⬛

the white womans favorite primarch.

"all night lord fans are weirdos" I feel called out but your right

Konrad is based Konrad is beautiful

konrad a real LA kid

I know he was assasinated, but i dont think hes really gone. All primarchs are made from warp with power bargained from the chaos Gods. His soul had to go somewhere and it was not to the emperor. I have a feeling hell come back, just as Ferrus Manus came back. I just hope its in a good new narrative, not just a reason to try a pimp a new night lords refresh

I don’t know if you can have a normal modern legal system on a planet like that and the recruiting should never be done from such a hell 🕳️ but in the end world where speed is more important than anything else 🤷‍♂️

So if letting yourself be ended is considered self termination... what does that mean for the byble?

technically angron was th more suicidal one

How to relate to Konrad Know someone you hold dear is going to betray and use you, stick with them, or your employer is planning to fire you for literally doing what you are asked to do and acknowledgement you get is demands to do more when you are holding up over a position that requires at least a dozen people. So this goes on, 3 years later or even 12 years later in my case and behold the results. I disrespected my boss, pissed him off, and he had me fired and now managers are quitting because they are firing too many people that i covered for and i was the only person that trained people on my job- my boss fired those I trained because they said he didn’t know how to do the job. My former boss was demoted into the position he was cutting corners on. He hated working with anyone with any accent- not even a language issue like a guy came from a few miles away, had a accent and he kicked him out. Now he is surrounded by people he has to call translators to talk to them through and last i saw he spent hours in the break room. The person who i went into psychosis between 2013 and 2021, then 3 years of relapse of repressed memories and processing stuff, i saw her a few weeks ago and she just talked to someone else and ignored me. Basically she promised to let me visit her cousins grave, found out through someone else that she made the accoujt of her cousin to guilt someone else into dating her because she had her ‘cousin’ or the account… uh, censor herself. Heck people called her out when she said she had nobody to back her, they said i was always there and have been there for months on every post trying to cheer her up (from her not dating someone she was friends with.) so i basically backed off when she was around people so it made it look like there was less and i wasn’t there as often and tried to cheer her up via leaving stuff where she would go, and talking to her once she was away from any groups, basically stealthily trying to make her happier as i promised her ‘cousin’ i would, a promise that seemed like a death bed promise. After 1 year and 2 seasons i found out the truth, i lasted 1 season before i repressed so much and went into a mentally fucked state where i was like ‘yes i cannot process this’ and just focused on trying to find ways to make people happy, after that my mine is blank, and when i came through 10ish years later i found i was hanging with new people and was being attacked and stalked. I only found it was 1 year and 2 seasons recently when i tried to count the winters we shared, only 1 winter. I had for years thought it had lasted for 4 years. During that 1 year and 2 seasons… a total if 10 friends… unsubscribed from 1ife’, 2 from car crashes, 1 during a surgery, 1 from sports, 1 or two went missing.

I love Curze, and I feel that the gulf between he and his legion is... problematic. Konrad is a badass who does badass things and is portrayed in art as a badass of unparalleled proportions. Kudos! By contrast, the Night Lords are just extra quiet space marines with head fins. Sure, they have a a patch of skin that could pass as the khakis they stole off a Best Buy employee. And they're purple. So we are told that they do terrible things without any visual indication of their badassery. And this leads to my core complaint about Chaos Marines in general. It looks like they made really good life choices. They painted their armor cool colors, adorned themselves with some random spikes and skulls, and secured their tix to the next Amon Amarth concert. But they should be going to see GG Allin, IMO, because they made TERRIBLE life choices. They should embody misery and depravity. Skin?!?!?! Entrails!!!! At the very least, they should attach a crown of "rubbery adult marital aids" to their helmets. This would give the enemy more pause than does their stupid bat wings. I would as soon assume that Night Lords batusi as they would serve fate to their enemy. Indeed, theirs is a "unique" brand of justice that is closer to Burt Ward than it is to Bill Ward ('Sabbath).

hi, Arthur

as an Ultramarine fan who loves to always do his homework right after coming home from the schola, I can not abide the ruffianism of the nightlords, big ew from me

He's babygirl coded

Okay so Konrad Curze himself, great really intresting character, but I hate how his legion is written, mainly in 40k times. Like for me, a big part of why Konrad's character works in being moral grey is becuase he, in his own fucked up way, takes responsbility for how evil he became, but his legion doesnt do that and yet we are supposed to try and see some good in them, and I just cant. I want them to be unremorsefully evil, both because I want 40k to not take itself as seriously as it does these days but also becuase that way the tragedy of what Kurze and his legion became isnt undermined.

Waiting on my boy Angron like T-T

All hail the night haunter

God dammit man. Good work.

It just dawned on me watching this video. People love to compare Kurze to Batman but Kurze is not Batman, Kurze is Rorschach from Watchmen. Delusional and uncompromisable in his own ideal of justice. You can even find paralallels between his world view and Objectivism, the philosophy that inspired Rorschach. The only real difference is that Kurze takes it to even more extreme and sadistic levels.