Editing Dante (section)

==Background==

===Early life===
[[File:Baal.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Where it all begins.]]
Dante's childhood is detailed in the novel ''Dante'' by Guy Haley. According to the book, Dante was born in the Great Salt Waste of Baal Secundus (Baalfora) in approximately 445.M40. His father, Arreas, was a kind but undistinguished member of the Salt clans (Irkuk clan to be specific) that made a living harvesting salt from the chemically contaminated land (they travel in sand roamers, very much like the sandcrawlers of Tatooine). His mother died giving birth to a younger brother when he was seven (452.M40), the baby [[grimdark|naturally]] dying as well.

Dante was the boy's 'Angel' name, equivalent to the traditional Christian baptismal name, whereas Luis was his personal name. Most Baalite clans used their Angel name in day-to-day life, but Dante's people preferred their personal names. So, Luis is generally used in the book for the scenes where Dante is a child.

As Baalfora was a post-apocalyptic hell-hole (think [[Fallout]] with a strong flavour of Mad Max), the Salt clans were malnourished, physically stunted, and suffering from radiation. The Blood Angels did not think highly of them as a source of potential recruits. An in-universe observation is made that the Salt Clans were small and scattered, and so the inference to be drawn is that there was not much fighting to be had to breed a martial culture among them. You can imagine Dante's relative chances of becoming a Space Marine in such conditions. That said, life in the Great Salt Waste was no easy-living. Dante killed his first man when he was ten, helping his people fight off nomads who had attacked their caravan.

===Journey to Angel's Fall===
Dante had grown up hearing the stories of the Blood Angels from his father. When news came that there was to be a trial (456.M40), Dante decided to attempt it. However, his father Arreas tried to discourage him from attempting to join by guilt tripping about abandoning family. Arreas also pointed out that Dante's chances were not good: Dante would be much smaller and weaker physically than other potential recruits, being only eleven. The ''Warlords of the Dark Millennium'' (WotDM) info book is more explicit in stating that Dante’s growth had been stunted by malnutrition, and his body damaged by exposure to the rad-deserts of Baalfora (but so too the case for everyone else).

Regardless, Dante knew the next trials would be a generation away (he would probably be dead then, and certainly too old for the gene-seed implantation procedure if he did live that long), and so this was now or never. One night, Dante left home without a farewell to his father, making off for Angel's Fall where the trials were held.

Dante seems to carry the guilt of this abandonment in his subconscious for his entire life - early on he hallucinates a disapproving image of his father, and at the end of ''The Devastation of Baal'' a half-dead Dante hallucinates his father's image onto one of his brothers, and with child like excitement, presents himself to the illusion saying that he is an angel now and asking if he's proud of him. It's even noted in the book that him retaining such clear memories of his father is unusual, as most Blood Angels partly or completely forget their pre-recruitment lives over time.

Dante made it, showing bravery and character, but also benefiting from a combination of luck and fate. Dante fucked up at the very beginning, losing his roamer to a type of quicksand due to his own fault. He would have died of thirst while traveling across the sand dunes on foot, if not for the [[Sanguinor]], who appeared and pointed the way to life saving water. Dante subsequently befriended a pair of older aspirants (Florian and Daneill) who did not kill him opportunistically (what are the chances?), as you suspect might or should happen to small boys traveling alone in WH40K. Well, Florian and Daneill did contemplate snuffing Dante there and then, but you can only take [[Grimdark]] so far (plus with Dante's literal guardian angel keeping an eye on him, its not like this would get anywhere if they tried).

Thereafter there is a heroic episode in which Dante shows great bravery and resolve, but continues to benefit from luck. It was this and numbers that saw the boys through when attacked by a Fire Scorpion (and it was only a juvenile), though a thirst-crazed Daneill later died when he drank 'thirstwater', which [[grimdark|sucks the moisture out of anything it touches and looks exactly like normal water]]. This stroke of relative luck was pretty much the only thing that let Dante survive to take the trials, as he was running out of supplies and lacked a glider kit (critical to the next step) - both issues which were solved when he inherited Daneill's gear.

The final hurdle is using a winged para-glider to traverse the canyon from the Heavenwall mountains (the 'Angel's Leap', here being where Sanguinius first flew). The potential aspirants were attacked by Blood Eagles, fuckhuge airborne predators with a taste for human flesh that downed numerous aspirants - including Dante, who was forced down and had to walk the rest of the way, narrowly reaching Angel's Fall alongside Florian (by now his best friend, and vice-versa).

===The trials===
[[File:Blood angel aspirants.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Blood Angels and their aspirants. Don't worry, you'll be as pretty as us in no time.]]
After receiving a pass for genetic compatibility and potential (''First Winnowing''), Dante begins the first set of athletic trials, where he fails to distinguish himself. He expects to be failed at this stage (''Second Winnowing''), but makes it through into the second stages, which he also survives without distinction in feats of combat and physical valour. However, it is here that Dante begins to show a flair for leadership, which he uses to help guide his team to victory in the ''Trial of War''. Besides leadership, Dante's biggest strength and ultimate point of character, is his heart and morality.

When it came to his final physical test (''Final Choosing''), the High Chaplain of the time pitted him against his best friend Florian, whom he was urged to kill. Although Florian had reluctantly committed himself to the task, Dante pulled a [[Star Wars|Luke Skywalker]] after getting the best of his friend and threw down his staff, telling the Chaplain to shove it up his arse. To which the Chaplain gave him a pass (Florian obviously failed) -- clearing the most treacherous test of all, the [[Horus|Test of Horus]].

Essentially, the Blood Angels egg on aspirants to shed their inhibitions about personal loyalty by [[Angron|matching them against those who were observed to be have become their friends or close comrades during earlier in the trials]]. First, the chaplains would urge them to kill comrades for the 'greater good' of serving the Emperor as remorseless killers. If that fails, aspirants are threatened with rejection from the selection process, or tempted furthermore by promises of power and glory. Everything is a trick, patterned after Horus (40K's Satanic Archetype) tempting Sanguinius (40K's version of Jesus Christ) on the [[Vengeful Spirit]] during the [[Siege of Terra]]; all true Blood Angels will do as Sanguinius did. [[Awesome|Fucking Brilliant]].

In the ultimate trial, the ''Winnowing of Weariness'', aspirants are made to stay awake for three days without falling asleep. However, Dante fell asleep, dreaming of his parents and failing the task by doing so. [[Plot Armor|It was the Sanguinor that roused him before the Blood Angels could catch on. Damn, he is a man of destiny or what?]]

During the gene-seed implantation (''Blood Change''), Dante drank from the chalice containing the blood of Sanguinius, and then [[Vampire|slumbered in a sarcophagus for a year]]. As was normal, Dante had visions of Sanguinius' life and times. What was unusual was that Dante survived drifting in and out of consciousness, while screaming the names of figures and events from Blood Angels history in great torment. Normally those who suffered like this [[grimdark|died while trying to claw their way out, or emerged as monsters in the thralls of the]] [[Black Rage]].

However, Dante emerged in normal condition, every inch the angel that the gene-seed implantation was supposed to produce. Some Blood Angels believed that it was a sign of greatness. The Black Rage could not be held off forever, but only forestalled. Dante's mastery of his anger inside the sarcophagus basically foreshadowed his future potential to hold off the Black Rage for an absurd length of time ([[Awesome|1600 years and counting]], even if he has [[Devastation of Baal|nearly slipped once or twice]]).

Generally, the novelisation (if you can't tell by now, it is fucking awesome) tries to avoid making Dante a Mary Sue (Haley neatly undercuts the trope in chapter one), but it is clear that he is a man of destiny. So, there is a bit of a revisionism to the earlier fluff about his non-Mary sueishness that readers drew from the WotDM info book. Dante (at this stage) is clearly not the strongest, but he is good enough, and certainly good-hearted enough to be the chosen of whatever force that guides the Sanguinor.