I just realized

Rogal Dorn was trapped in a Khorn maize

It's basically a solid tome of padding. That one guy on Reddit said it best: "If there's a third book and the second volume is only the middle, that means it takes The Emperor an entire book to walk from one end of The Vengeful Spirit to the other."

"I was merely pretending to be retarded" - Horus, Warmaster

There are 3 things that are certain in 40k: Death, Imperial Tithes, and Eldrad Ulthran being absolutely wrong about everything he predicts or believes he has seen.

I like the Dark Eldar out of all the other Eldar was actually listening to the whole conversation and when all the bickering ceases does the most logical thing, "Why don't we just ask the Harlequin in person?",

I think Sanguinus' last thoughts could be a cool excerpt to open the 3rd book on, only to be revealed to be from a raving Blood Angel's perspective as he starts massacring everyone around him.

So it followed the Horus Hersey tradition of having a solid first act (part 1), and bad second act (part 2) and will likely have a middling third act. All is right with the world.

A Catholic servator, beating Erabus over the head with a metal box. That's amazing. Stupid, but amazing

Personally I loved how the handled the H vs S fight. It made Horus feel truly Powerful. He literally attacks him through 4D Plane

"If light's so fast, how did the dark get there first?"

-Horus

Just a small note for the Sanguinius death. I think most of the character development for the Horus fight was done in the book 'HH: Runistorm'. This mostly tackles his turmoil and acceptance of his death, plus a chance for hope which is ultimately fails in this book. Really important context before reading 'The End and The Death'.

The fact that Horus DOESN'T treat the murder and death of his favorite brother as anything more than killing a disobedient dog, I think, adds to the sadness and impact of Sanguinius' death. Horus doesn't even respect his most loved brother enough to kill him with honor, instead, like an animal beneath his contempt. This to me shows how truly far gone Horus is in redeeming himself on a personal level.

When BL announced that tEatD was going to be 3 volumes instead of 2 I knew this book was going to have a lot of padding. Which I think the book suffers from well written padding, It's good, but it isn't what is important for the macro of the story.

But yeah, 2 volumes was good to end the story, and they could've released a short story collection to end the story of minor characters.

1:19:40 A nice payoff to this is that Manus's skull is with the Iron Hands as of the current lore. It's on a memorial shrine on Medusa, where the Helfathers take shifts guarding it.

I do sorta like how they bounce around to different parts of the siege to sell the 'hopelessness' of it. Different small last stands and such while showing off how desperate it was. However due to how Warp Flooded Terra is the whole WAY they tell it is annoying. They keep cutting to random parts of the Siege rather than following one small part of it and telling their arc they just snap-cut everywhere and randomly and it is frustrating.

But I do sorta see what they are trying. They are trying to SHOW off how certain people deal with Reality colapsing. How Amit and others end up barking and stressed, how mortals do it. But GOD it was annoying to read in the 'flow' of it.

Wait, Typhus finally put down his margarita and got off his loungechair long enough to finally fight the Dark Angels at the Astronomicon?!

Imma tell you this: The moment between Horus and Sanguinius slapped.

The situation where the palace and world's geometry being jumbled is unintentionally or god help me, intentionally hilarious. I was expecting 'oh shit! demons in the palace!' type of stuffs. You know something horrific. There is that but very minor. Instead we get this scooby-doo chase scene where everyone's running around, goes through one door and pops up through another.
There are many scenes that made me chuckle. The part where a custodian got confused and asked wether he's lost and he answered no. The empty prison doors start knocking only when closed and the commander ordered 'then open them all!'. Traitor astartes teleports behind you.
When I think 40k comedy I think Trazyn and Ciaphas Cain not the final part of Horus Heresy.

Dorn lecturing Khorne on the philosophy and history of war was great

The final thoughts of Sanguinius should have been “Sh*t… I forgot about Manus’s skull”