Are there any theories on Anval Thawns immortality?

[Crimson Sentry]

Anval Thawn is a Justicar for the Grey Knights, who has apparently straight up died several times and then ressurected every time a few days later. Is he a Sensei by any chance or is there something more sinister going on with him :/?

[LoneWolf666]

Senseis resurrect? O_o

And I thought they were pacifists, hardly GK material. Also you'd think he would be found out during screening.

[819244]

Senseis reincarnate, and they're not total pacifists (or else the Emprah has got a LOT of explaining to do).

I think it's just a quirk of the Warp. (The 40k equivalent of "a wizard did it".)

[Crimson Sentry]

I'm surprised he hasn't been labeled a saint or something, it seems a little Mary Sue to me, like him and Kaldor Draigo get tea together in the afternoons or something. Because if he just ressurects, and considering spacemarines are technically immune to dying of old age, this guy potentially could live forever...

[819244]

Kaldor "Daemon Primarchs are my B****es" Draigo, Vorth "My Dead Allies Help Me - Especially If I'm wounded" Mordrak, Arvaan "Takes on Greater Daemons Even Without a Dreadknight" Stern, Garnan "I-Don't-Care-That-It's-A-Daemonsword" Crowe and Anval "Edward Cullen" Thawns are not Mary Sues. How dare you suggest such a thing. Go kill some Sisters of Battle, bathe in their blood, and come back to this thread once your faith is reinforced against heresy.

In the GrimDark future of the 41st Millennium, there are only Sues.

[Crimson Sentry]

lol I can't believe matt ward wrote that trash, I'm not goign to turn this into a matty hate fest by any means, but god >< how do you have grey knights bath in the blood of the sisters as protection?! How does that even help! Go to http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Khornate_Knights, I love 1d4 chan so much, and this article is hilarious.

[819244]

I've been playing 40k just long enough to remember that it was supposed to be a parody. It was further in the future than everything else on the Sci-Fi scene. It was bigger, badder, grimmer, darker than everything else. It drew inspiration from everything else. It was supposed to be a self mocking reference to everything 80s Sci-Fi was because that was fun.

If Thawn had been a 2nd ed character, people would have laughed and got on with the game. But as the universe has gotten bigger, and GW gotten more corporate, 40k has tried to become serious Sci-Fi, which is what makes the obvious Mary Sues obvious. In all honestly though, Thawn coming back from the dead is no worse than how EVERY Tau army in the galaxy seems to be led by Farsight, and that no matter how many times I hit Captain Tycho with a lascannon, I know he'll always be waiting for me next Veteran's night. (^{So, that's an average day for you then?} _{No doubt.} ^{You take a lascannon blast to the face and die?} _{Warp, yeah!} ^{And I think you said something about succumbing to the Black Rage?} _Nope.)

[Crimson Sentry]

I wish in the 6th ed chaos book they'll talk about the emperor's "positive" chaos gifts to saints and stuff because that'd explain a lot.

[Lord Abaddon]

considering spacemarines are technically immune to dying of old age, this guy potentially could live forever...

Almost every book with space marines in it has a moment where they reveal how space marines age and feel fear in order to humanize them. Qruze in Horus Heresy has been called a relic by Dorn and an Iron Warrior warsmith in The Iron within was exposed to some entropy field where everything aged rapidly and he was reduced to the Space Marine equivalent of a pensioner.

[CommissarRezail]

Also the fact that space marines usually die before they get really old, die in combat. You probably won't find one of them die of old age.

[Rukoth]

That was the age old question all space marines asked themselves pre-heresy when they thought they would simply conquer the galaxy. They wondered what they would do with themselves when it was over since it seemed like they never aged, but that ironically they died anyways and all expected to die and be replaced before that ever happened.

As for "aging" goes though. Look at Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, hes like 3000 years old. Somewhere around there. Capable of fighting too and everything.

[Lord Abaddon]

He's a bit over 1000 years old though the Blood Angels are supposedly notorious for aging well.
Last I heard senior Astartes get sent back home to teach the aspirants and neophytes how to wreck xeno and heretic balls when they are action-approved. Can't be that dangerous of a job.