TheIronCaptain has been disciplined as appropriate for his ignoring of a moderator request and spamming the thread with his nonsense. I will not be deleting his posts, but please ignore everything he has posted regarding the storyline of Tarkir and let's move on.
At this point, is it now safe to presume that the fact that "Jeskai" sounds similar to "Jeska" is merely a coincidence?
Yes.
Quote from Blogatog, Mark Rosewater"s Blog »
taramoor asked: Will it later turn out that the original Khan of the Jeskai was, in fact, Jeska and we were on Dominaria the whole time? Or are the names just a coincidence?
I’m not sure what to say when I think something was a coincidence when I always say there are no coincidences. If Narset pulls off a mask and says “Jeska, I am”, I admit I would be surprised.
Even Maro says it's a coincidence, and he never believes in coincidence. So no, the names share no connection other than both existing in a cardgame known as Magic: the Gathering.
I'm really inclined to think that Ugin was truly being pragmatic.
What we've seen of Ugin so far has been building towards him being a genuinely benevolent force for good in the verse. I dont think we need another jerk dragon planeswalker zooming around.
I'm really inclined to think that Ugin was truly being pragmatic.
What we've seen of Ugin so far has been building towards him being a genuinely benevolent force for good in the verse. I dont think we need another jerk dragon planeswalker zooming around.
I hope he isn't benevolent. The idea of big evil dragon vs big good dragon just sounds so incredibly stupid for Magic. I have hope that Ugin exists with more depth than Bolas.
I'd much rather have a big evil dragon vs a big good dragon showdown than a big evil dragon and a big morally ambiguous dragon who sorta don't like each other because their goals don't currently line up. Besides, Magic's got plenty of big bads, would a big good be so terrible? Especially considering the fact that, compared to the antagonists, the heroes we've gotten so far are rather miniscule?
I'd much rather have a big evil dragon vs a big good dragon showdown than a big evil dragon and a big morally ambiguous dragon who sorta don't like each other because their goals don't currently line up. Besides, Magic's got plenty of big bads, would a big good be so terrible? Especially considering the fact that, compared to the antagonists, the heroes we've gotten so far are rather miniscule?
Karn.
Karn is the big good. Why do people keep forgetting Karn?
Anyways, regardless, Ugin IS a dragon. I've gone on the spiel about nonhuman morality and the fact you can't really use a human perspective to measure a dragon's actions in a really meaningful way.
Well I can't speak for anyone else, but *I* keep forgetting about Karn because I started playing the game with Scars block. So I'm not super familiar with all the stuff he reportedly did before then, and know him best as "that mcguffin that the phyrexians had control of for a while who went of to do good in the multiverse and hasn't been seen or heard from since". Admittedly I'm a whippersnapper who's missed out on a lot of the story that featured Karn, but from what I do know he seems kinda...well, lame, if I wanna be brutally honest. I mean, he not only royally screwed up Mirrodin in most imaginable ways, he also got himself kidnapped by the phyrexians and potentially tainted a bunch of other worlds as well. That seems less like a big good and more like a bumbling sidekick to me, though again, I do admit I could be missing vital context.
And if you can't really use a human perspective to measure a dragon's actions in a really meaningful way, how come people complain about Nicol Bolas being a one dimensional mustache twirler?
In his defense, a lot of the mistakes made he couldn't have known about ahead of time. He had no idea what the oil was until it was too late to do anything about it, for example.
The point being that he is a walker who, A, has a strong moral compass and B, the ability to back it up and act as a force of good in Dominia.
@Bolas,
Because he seems like a mustache twirling supervillain by human standards. By his standard, he's just looking out for himself, the way he always has.
We 100% can judge Bolas as humans as that is how the story is written. Bolas isn't described with any kind of orange/blue morality to make it where we "can't get it" (see: Eldrazi). He is a mustache twirling villain because that is how he both acts and is described.
I feel like I would be more on board with Karn, even just as a character if not a big good, if I could get access to more of his story through things other than the wiki. As a broke college student I don't really have the funds to go buy ebooks or anything like that right now, so that's not an option, and to my knowledge Karn hasn't ever had an UR or anything of that nature where he was a character.
Also do the Eldrazi have an orange/blue morality thing going on? I was under the impression they were just mindless horrors bent on eating eating all reality, but I wasn't around for Zendikar so I admit that could just be a misconception on my part.
I feel like I would be more on board with Karn, even just as a character if not a big good, if I could get access to more of his story through things other than the wiki. As a broke college student I don't really have the funds to go buy ebooks or anything like that right now, so that's not an option, and to my knowledge Karn hasn't ever had an UR or anything of that nature where he was a character.
Also do the Eldrazi have an orange/blue morality thing going on? I was under the impression they were just mindless horrors bent on eating eating all reality, but I wasn't around for Zendikar so I admit that could just be a misconception on my part.
By virtue of not functioning like any other being in the multiverse due to their colorless nature they are perfectly orange/blue morality. We cannot know if they think/feel/want. And even if we did it wouldn't matter.
Bolas isn't a mustache twirler. If I lived most of my life as what is effectively a god and then suddenly had it ripped from me because some young punks had to be messing with time and eventually had to change the nature of what makes me god-like I'd be hurt and angry and searching for whatever method would get me back my godhood. I've lived longer than some planes have existed so whats the value of a single plane to me? It is perfectly viable to say that we can't judge Bolas or Ugin's morality. They've lived so long that their paradigm is so vastly different than ours that they would almost qualify as O/B morality. Sorin is similar.
I think the main problem is that the term "mustache twirler" is thrown around so often that people aren't even sure what it means anymore.
I mean, to me a mustache twirler is a villain that is being evil for evil's sake and enjoys the suffering of others for no reason.
Bolas isn't that. He just goes to any lengths to get what he wants. He wouldn't kick puppies if it wasn't part of a plan and he wouldn't build a giant doomsday device that slowly kills a hero just to see them suffer. The problem is that in order to reach his goals he steps on everyone's feet, feet of people he considers ants due to his history as a former oldwalker and his status as an Elder Dragon.
As for Bolas being a one-dimensional character: I believe it is very hard, if not impossible to write a character that is smarter than the author, which Bolas needs to be in order to be a convincing master schemer. So basically we don't get to look into Bolas' mind, because creative wouldn't be able to come up with anything satisfying. That's why we don't get to know about his "personality" and are only told about his goals, which are relatively straight forward. I consider Bolas not a true character, but a danger the heroes have to overcome, similar to the Eldrazi and the Phyrexians.
Firstly, lots of people are using the term "orange/blue" for some reason. I feel so very out of the loop with this, and while I've worked out what it means, I'd love to know what it's from.
Secondly, Karn did a lot of good things in the old stories, if I understand correctly, but his pacifism means he's no where near as strong a force for good as is needed with the phyrexians, eldrazi and such out there. A powerful, but imperfectly moral, force for good seems like something we need right now.
Thirdly, judging the morality of creatures like Bolas, Ugin and Sorin is still reasonable. The fact that their alignments are placed on the color wheel by human perceptions of morality and the like means that it's fair to judge them as such.
Secondly, Karn did a lot of good things in the old stories, if I understand correctly, but his pacifism means he's no where near as strong a force for good as is needed with the phyrexians, eldrazi and such out there. A powerful, but imperfectly moral, force for good seems like something we need right now.
He stopped being a pacifist during the Invasion though, so his morality no longer interferes with his actions.
Thirdly, judging the morality of creatures like Bolas, Ugin and Sorin is still reasonable. The fact that their alignments are placed on the color wheel by human perceptions of morality and the like means that it's fair to judge them as such.
The biggest difference is in scale. When you're talking about people who influence the very fate of worlds, the sheer SIZE of those decisions and the capacity to make them completely trade off the intimate morality of "good" and "evil" in simple terms.
But aside from that, color doesn't really have anything to do with morality. It has to do with motivation. The Color Wheel is not black and white in that regard... in often times white is even more evil than black.
Firstly, lots of people are using the term "orange/blue" for some reason. I feel so very out of the loop with this, and while I've worked out what it means, I'd love to know what it's from.
As far as I know, it comes from TVTropes, but they may have gotten the term from somewhere else.
As for big goods in MTG: we have several big bads at the moment, so adding another big good at this point is reasonable. Karn is at this point the big good to the big bad Phyrexians; and to this point, Sorin has been the big good to the Eldrazi. While Ugin's story is tied to the Eldrazi, it seems like they're using him to be a heroic counterpart to Bolas. I don't have any issue with this. In fact, a heroic master schemer is an interesting character that is often difficult to pull off convincingly, but I think the multiverse is a perfect setting for one. In this case, I find it hard to see Karn as fulfilling this role; he's got too much baggage from unintentionally spreading the Phyrexian contagion around, and he seems like the kind of character that doesn't handle that kind of guilt too well. The kind of character I'm hoping we see in Ugin is anti-heroic enough to make the hard decisions that a schemer of this level needs to make without coming off as a complete ***hat. His one Uncharted Reams story seems to imply this will be the case, so I think we're off to a good start.
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A polite player might call my card choices "interesting." At my budget, "interesting" is the only option.
Secondly, Karn did a lot of good things in the old stories, if I understand correctly, but his pacifism means he's no where near as strong a force for good as is needed with the phyrexians, eldrazi and such out there. A powerful, but imperfectly moral, force for good seems like something we need right now.
He stopped being a pacifist during the Invasion though, so his morality no longer interferes with his actions.
Thirdly, judging the morality of creatures like Bolas, Ugin and Sorin is still reasonable. The fact that their alignments are placed on the color wheel by human perceptions of morality and the like means that it's fair to judge them as such.
The biggest difference is in scale. When you're talking about people who influence the very fate of worlds, the sheer SIZE of those decisions and the capacity to make them completely trade off the intimate morality of "good" and "evil" in simple terms.
But aside from that, color doesn't really have anything to do with morality. It has to do with motivation. The Color Wheel is not black and white in that regard... in often times white is even more evil than black.
Why did Karn leave Mirroden then? I thought, until now, that he left because he was unwilling to fight it physically, instead choosing to invest in preventing it from growing in other worlds...
As to judging creatures who live for eons, I still disagree as to the point that we can't judge them based on our own standards. The eldrazi are different, as we've been explicitly told that it is impossible to comprehend their minds, but Bolas, Sorin and Ugin all clearly think with similar patterns as we do, even if the scale at which they consider things is greater. Would you argue all premending planeswalkers are impossible to judge in the same way, due to their near immortality?
Why did Karn leave Mirroden then? I thought, until now, that he left because he was unwilling to fight it physically, instead choosing to invest in preventing it from growing in other worlds...
Because it is hopeless. Better to fight Phyrexia on the other planes he also accidentally contaminated with the Oil. This one is beyond salvation.
See: Argent Mutation - "My world is corrupted beyond cleansing. I must prevent this from happening to other worlds."
Koth, by the way, disagrees, and will keep fighting for Mirrodin. Darksteel Plate - "If there can be no victory, then I will fight forever."
Would you argue all premending planeswalkers are impossible to judge in the same way, due to their near immortality?
Actually, the inability to get into the mindset of an omnipotent and immortal planeswalker was precisely the reason of the mending. So I believe that kinda answers your question.
Living for eons changes how you think about things. For example, prior to the website update Sorin's bio said something to the effect of he cared little for the lives of individuals as the scope of his concerns were substantially larger. The average human lives 75-100 years these days. That life is hardly enough to even see all of our one planet. Thus it's hard for us to learn to concern ourselves with something more than our immediate circle of influence. Someone the age of Sorin or Bolas has seen more than you could imagine just based on age alone. Add onto that the fact that they can walk between multiple dimensions of reality and you get something well beyond your realm of understanding. It's not about your ability to think abstractly. It's about the globality of your paradigm. Sorin, Ugin and Bolas have paradigms that span entire planes of existence. You, me Thoctar, we're too small to understand their goals or what they care about etc etc. They're beyond us.
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“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
Yes.
Even Maro says it's a coincidence, and he never believes in coincidence. So no, the names share no connection other than both existing in a cardgame known as Magic: the Gathering.
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Special thanks to Serrot_29 for Catbug'mrakul!
What we've seen of Ugin so far has been building towards him being a genuinely benevolent force for good in the verse. I dont think we need another jerk dragon planeswalker zooming around.
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I hope he isn't benevolent. The idea of big evil dragon vs big good dragon just sounds so incredibly stupid for Magic. I have hope that Ugin exists with more depth than Bolas.
More pragmatic and big picture than Bolas at any rate, who's only in it for Bolas.
Level 1 Judge
I write flavor articles for RoxieCards.
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Karn is the big good. Why do people keep forgetting Karn?
Anyways, regardless, Ugin IS a dragon. I've gone on the spiel about nonhuman morality and the fact you can't really use a human perspective to measure a dragon's actions in a really meaningful way.
And if you can't really use a human perspective to measure a dragon's actions in a really meaningful way, how come people complain about Nicol Bolas being a one dimensional mustache twirler?
In his defense, a lot of the mistakes made he couldn't have known about ahead of time. He had no idea what the oil was until it was too late to do anything about it, for example.
The point being that he is a walker who, A, has a strong moral compass and B, the ability to back it up and act as a force of good in Dominia.
@Bolas,
Because he seems like a mustache twirling supervillain by human standards. By his standard, he's just looking out for himself, the way he always has.
Level 1 Judge
I write flavor articles for RoxieCards.
I play and judge at Giga Bites Cafein Marietta, Georgia.
Also do the Eldrazi have an orange/blue morality thing going on? I was under the impression they were just mindless horrors bent on eating eating all reality, but I wasn't around for Zendikar so I admit that could just be a misconception on my part.
By virtue of not functioning like any other being in the multiverse due to their colorless nature they are perfectly orange/blue morality. We cannot know if they think/feel/want. And even if we did it wouldn't matter.
I mean, to me a mustache twirler is a villain that is being evil for evil's sake and enjoys the suffering of others for no reason.
Bolas isn't that. He just goes to any lengths to get what he wants. He wouldn't kick puppies if it wasn't part of a plan and he wouldn't build a giant doomsday device that slowly kills a hero just to see them suffer. The problem is that in order to reach his goals he steps on everyone's feet, feet of people he considers ants due to his history as a former oldwalker and his status as an Elder Dragon.
As for Bolas being a one-dimensional character: I believe it is very hard, if not impossible to write a character that is smarter than the author, which Bolas needs to be in order to be a convincing master schemer. So basically we don't get to look into Bolas' mind, because creative wouldn't be able to come up with anything satisfying. That's why we don't get to know about his "personality" and are only told about his goals, which are relatively straight forward. I consider Bolas not a true character, but a danger the heroes have to overcome, similar to the Eldrazi and the Phyrexians.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
Secondly, Karn did a lot of good things in the old stories, if I understand correctly, but his pacifism means he's no where near as strong a force for good as is needed with the phyrexians, eldrazi and such out there. A powerful, but imperfectly moral, force for good seems like something we need right now.
Thirdly, judging the morality of creatures like Bolas, Ugin and Sorin is still reasonable. The fact that their alignments are placed on the color wheel by human perceptions of morality and the like means that it's fair to judge them as such.
The biggest difference is in scale. When you're talking about people who influence the very fate of worlds, the sheer SIZE of those decisions and the capacity to make them completely trade off the intimate morality of "good" and "evil" in simple terms.
But aside from that, color doesn't really have anything to do with morality. It has to do with motivation. The Color Wheel is not black and white in that regard... in often times white is even more evil than black.
As far as I know, it comes from TVTropes, but they may have gotten the term from somewhere else.
As for big goods in MTG: we have several big bads at the moment, so adding another big good at this point is reasonable. Karn is at this point the big good to the big bad Phyrexians; and to this point, Sorin has been the big good to the Eldrazi. While Ugin's story is tied to the Eldrazi, it seems like they're using him to be a heroic counterpart to Bolas. I don't have any issue with this. In fact, a heroic master schemer is an interesting character that is often difficult to pull off convincingly, but I think the multiverse is a perfect setting for one. In this case, I find it hard to see Karn as fulfilling this role; he's got too much baggage from unintentionally spreading the Phyrexian contagion around, and he seems like the kind of character that doesn't handle that kind of guilt too well. The kind of character I'm hoping we see in Ugin is anti-heroic enough to make the hard decisions that a schemer of this level needs to make without coming off as a complete ***hat. His one Uncharted Reams story seems to imply this will be the case, so I think we're off to a good start.
Why did Karn leave Mirroden then? I thought, until now, that he left because he was unwilling to fight it physically, instead choosing to invest in preventing it from growing in other worlds...
As to judging creatures who live for eons, I still disagree as to the point that we can't judge them based on our own standards. The eldrazi are different, as we've been explicitly told that it is impossible to comprehend their minds, but Bolas, Sorin and Ugin all clearly think with similar patterns as we do, even if the scale at which they consider things is greater. Would you argue all premending planeswalkers are impossible to judge in the same way, due to their near immortality?
Because it is hopeless. Better to fight Phyrexia on the other planes he also accidentally contaminated with the Oil. This one is beyond salvation.
See: Argent Mutation - "My world is corrupted beyond cleansing. I must prevent this from happening to other worlds."
Koth, by the way, disagrees, and will keep fighting for Mirrodin. Darksteel Plate - "If there can be no victory, then I will fight forever."
Actually, the inability to get into the mindset of an omnipotent and immortal planeswalker was precisely the reason of the mending. So I believe that kinda answers your question.
That reasoning is something I have never and will never agree with.
Level 1 Judge
I write flavor articles for RoxieCards.
I play and judge at Giga Bites Cafein Marietta, Georgia.