...Well, I've been considering something. Something that will make a lot of people very, very angry.
Namely, playing Angron without nails straight in RWBY.
I'm going to set aside RWBY for this. I've laid out my greivances with it before, and will only say that it would feature Angron ripping and tearing people apart, even without Nails.
Instead, I'm going to talk about Angron himself.
Angron's... complicated. All we see of Angron is his Nailed self, which is fucked up. His brain-damaged self, quite explicitly. Incurably ill and stripped away from all he loved. We saw Angron as a broken Primarch. It becomes, from there, difficult to express who Angron is. Who is he? What defines him?
With some Primarchs, it's easy. Dorn is Discipline and Determination. Vulkan is compassion, as seen during his captivity under the Night Haunter. Some it's more complex, the Lion and Russ.
But with Angron, we have nothing. We have a slave biting at the leash.
Fortunately- or unfortunately- we do have a lens into him. The Legions echo their Primarchs, and it is through the Legions that we can observe the Primarch's deepest natures. And there are two incidences that give me a lens into Angron.
The first was just after Angron's abduction- an incident I'll touch later- where he began slaughtering each of his Captains. Seven Captains died before the Eighth Captain- Kharn, bearing the sacred number of Khorne- reached him. Kharn reached Angron, even in the throws of grief and rage.
The second was Angron himself, ordering the Nails to be implanted in his Legion.
There are other incidents, as well, that lead me to my conclusion that he wasn't 'The Emperor's Anger' incarnate.
He reached other gladiators.
He went through hell and back for Lorgar, following him without question- and Lorgar, in turn, loved his brother.
He gave his Astartes, on Itsvaan, what he saw as a glorious, noble death- to see their killer, to die with their brothers fighting, not cowering from an orbital bombardment.
Angron, I believe, is Comradery.
He is loyalty to your brother on the battlefield. He is an ally who refuses to fall not from duty like Dorn, or from ire like Perturabo, but from love for his brothers in arms. He, in turn, trusted them.
It's what Kharn said to him that puts it all together.
Kharn told him that the War Hounds only wanted to fight alongside their Primarch.
Now's where I talk about this intersection and RWBY. This is not open for a debate, and is an explanation on why I hesitate to write this and why it will infuriate people. The statements here are my personal opinion, and I am warning you now- attempting to debate this will, here stated blatantly and plainly, result in a threadban.
Angron's loyalty revolves around Trust. He's the opposite of the Lion in that respect- he trusts his soldiers, he trusted Lorgar. And he followed them to the ends of hell itself. Lies are the fastest way to earn Angron's ire, and standing up, fighting with honor, is the sole way to earn a quick death at his hands without humiliation. To Angron, to be his friend, is to fight at his side without secrets, without ulterior motives he is kept unaware of- or that you attempt to keep from him, successful or no- and to speak to him honestly, to hold to your word.
Thus we come to RWBY.
A Primarch is not subtle. At their full might, a Primarch's mere presence can drive humans to their knees. Astartes, and even at times Custodes, have trouble meeting the eyes of a Primarch for their sheer intensity. There is no doubt that, played straight, Ozpin and Angron would meet.
And Angron would hate Ozpin. Nails or no.
He would hate him not for his secrets, not for his history. He would hate Ozpin because Ozpin is a liar. Because Ozpin is useless and refuses to step aside. He would hate Ozpin with every fiber of his being because while the Emperor is much the same, the Emperor had both the power and knowledge to back himself up in the vast majority of cases.
Ozpin does not. All Ozpin does is the same thing, over and over, uselessly. All Ozpin does is make perhaps the worst decisions possible, and then accuse you of having the problem should you go against him. All Ozpin does is demand others sacrifice for him.
Angron cannot accept this. When Lorgar was injured, when Lorgar nearly died to a Titan, Angron lost his shit. Totally. And he stopped that Titan dead in its tracks, at the cost of his own flesh, to his injury, to his severe injury at that- his nails furthering their damage, his bones cracking, his armor breaking- because to that point, Lorgar had given of himself to him. Lorgar had given him time, respect, compassion, and a willing ear. Lorgar was his friend, and now Lorgar was in need of aid.
And Angron aids his friends.
The same cannot be said for Ozpin. Ozpin is a liar, a fool, and a pretender to power. He would hate Ozpin because Ozpin claims to be a protector and friend... and then demands others risk it all for his mistakes.
It would not be a happy fic. It would be a brutal, hard fic in which Angron drags secrets into the light and breaks them down. My version toyed, even, with Lorgar returning as well- the brothers, freed of Chaos, reincarnate. And it would only be Lorgar, his one friend, who would restrain Angron from simply slaughtering the fools he sees.
Because Angron's wish was not to win on Nuceria. It was to die with those he called brother and sister.
Not to throw their lives away uselessly.
