Editing Dante (section)

===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.