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I have not read this as yet、but in reference to the gods as arrogant jerks — basically that is how Greek and Roman mythology has led me to view gods in the first place。Think about it: when you’re an immortal being that can do pretty much anything、it’s probably way too easy to do things for your own amusement and pleasure than give a pack rat’s ass about humility。
I really enjoyed the book. Heliod is a much bigger jerk than I anticipated which is pretty cool. Based Goddess Thassa is well-presented in my eyes #bias. Indifferent until "taken for a trip" against her will, then Mogis hath no fury like an angry Thassa. I love all of her interactions with the other gods, especially Purphoros. Speaking of which, I got money on him in his fight. Nylea is a badass and that's all I will say. Xenagos is alright, even if he's a bit cheesy IMO. Elspeth is... Elspeth.
The number of disasters caused by "acts of gods" is a respectable amount in this half of the story. I expect more in the second half. I can't wait for the other half to come out, preferably with the Gods still doing god things at the end of the book. I think they're a pretty cool bunch.
Hopefully, I avoided any spoilers. I tried to be as vague as possible lol.
I finished the novel yesterday. Really enjoyed it. Thassa as a character took me by surprise. I expected her to be more stoic, although she was certainly insightful. My only complaints are:
SPOILER WARNING:
1) I'd have liked a little more mourning and detail about the emotions Daxos felt having lost his mother that way. Such an event gives him identity as a character and I'd have loved more insight on that dramatic moment.
2) The gods in Theros often seem to attack each other physically rather than conniving and recruiting mortals to do their bidding or being generally manipulative. There's a little meddling, but I expected it to be more akin to Greek god meddling.
3) I'd love more talk and references of various myths Theros itself has, such as how the Dakra isles of enchantment came to be.
4) Polukranos deserved not only more screen time, but a greater effort to conquer IMO. I resent that it had to die at all, but I wouldn't have minded it as much had we got more descriptions of how awe inspiring he was. After all, it did take 3 gods to bind him.
Beyond that, great glimpse into the plane. I guess Xenagos ascends in the next book and is hopefully defeated then too.
After having finished the novel, some reflections:
As with Purifying Fire written by Laura Resnick, this tale written by Jenna Helland is female-centric. I have no problem with this and enjoy it quite a lot, but I find it interesting that the stories with female leads are written by women. I am not dismissing Liliana in Agents, Emmara in Secretist, or Nissa in Teeth, but I think the choices of author-character matching is obvious (and the quality of presentation of our female leads is noticeable, especially contrasting Nissa to Elspeth).
That said, I also like the different focus this provides. We open with a mother caring for her child (Daxos) and are presented a female pair in Elspeth and Nikka at the end of the novella. We still get the classic action-adventure story (the female characters are not subverting standard, male-based fantasy archetypal patterns too much), but the focus on women is appreciated. Indeed, even Nylea is onto something that some of the other characters cannot grasp yet in regards to Xenagos.
I thought Helland did an admirable job introducing and balancing between a variety of new characters in the novella. What I overall found lacking was the depth of the world of Theros. Given the length, focus was paid to plot and characters, which left the setting a bit shallow. It was complete, of course--we understood Nyx, came across some Greek words, and contrasted stayr-life with Akroan culture--but the wealth of setting was limited. I found this to be the same in Secretist, but again, I think that is due to the limited word count.
I was surprised to see Elspeth's summoning powers in her battle against Poloukranos; I had been fully expecting her crazed battle-dance utilized in Quest for Karn, which she did use a bit (and her Bantian training was referenced), but not to the extent I anticipated (which is nether here nor there).
It feels like there is still a lot of ground to cover--minotaurs, Xenagos's gambit, leonin and Ajani, the journey into Nyx--but I anticipate we'll be generally pleased.
Overall, I also commend Helland on her references to former stories--we got mention of Aran from Alara, Koth from Mirrodin, Phyrexians from her homeplane and Mirrodin, and, of course, Ajani from Alara and Urborg. This helps tighten the continuity, which I think is absolutely a strong choice
For those who enjoyed the presentation of the gods in Godsend, I'd recommend N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, where the gods have been limited in their powers by their ruler Itempas. While Itempas rules supreme as a god (similar to Heliod), his siblings and children are enslaved by the ruling class of humans to use a weapons to enforce the law. The idea of fickle gods and destructive acts immediately made me think of Jemisin's fantasy trilogy. Check it out!
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Dominian Scholar of the Old Guard, specializing in pre-revisionist (Armada comics) and revisionist (Brothers' War through Apocalypse)history
Personally, I really liked how Daxos of Meletis was portrayed, I think it matches his card abilities well.
He is an oracle for Heliod that can always see/hear all of Nyx, day and night. Plus he is constantly training his martial skills. I thought that translated well to his card abilities... Daxos can see things others cannot and use that knowledge to his advantage. His constant martial training allows him an advantage on the battlefield. I know many posited that he was an Odysseus card, but I don't think that was really the case from any official source.
First off, let me say that this is a fairly good story, but there are parts that could be better. It isn’t so much even the usual complaints that might be had of magic books, but rather more general fiction. Jenna does a fantastic job at spreading the focus around, but there are portions of the story where it feels a lot like she’s just telling us portions of it instead of letting us see it. These moments aren’t very long, but they begin to become more frequent as the book goes on.
Similarly, there were several characters who felt like nothing but cutouts meant to progress the story, and luckily most of these were just minor characters, but given how hollow they felt, it made the interactions they had with the more important characters feel empty as well. Several of them were so extraneous that I doubt the story would have really had much change if they had been removed entirely. Perhaps they were just dropped here so they could be more important in the next iteration, but for now, I don’t feel as if the time spent dedicated to them was worth it. The funniest part of that is that there were even less important characters who felt more fleshed out than the mid tier side characters.
Lastly, in terms of characters, there were a lot of expectations that weren’t met, but that is not a complaint. Merely… slightly confusing. This is most apparent given the way the meta-narrative of the game has been developing for several of the gods, chiefly Heliod. You see, from all descriptions and depictions we’ve had, the expectations carried in is one of the ONLY gods who are dedicated to the peace of the world. And then we find out he is the CENTRAL CAUSE of the greatest conflict Theros has known for ages. It wasn’t in pursuit of peace either, but vanity. As I said, this isn’t a complaint, but Heliod is not the beneficent deity he has been described as prior to this. He is a vainglorious and spiteful being who regularly throws tantrums when he does not get his way and very regularly disregards the safety of the world for his own ego. He is, in all terms, more of an antagonist than Xenagos. He has an immense rivalry with several of the other gods and when confronted with Elspeth, he attempts to burn her alive because of the weapon she carries. He is shaken when that does not work and changes her weapon, demanding her obeisance to his wishes without any comment about what she gets out of the deal, but that seems fairly common given his relationship with Daxos.
So, with all that in mind, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the story plays out, and I for one am hoping Heliod is going to get taken down on the way to stopping Xenagos. Theros would be better for it.
Now, in terms of the actual story, it’s fairly solid. We begin by learning quite a bit about Daxos and more about Elspeth’s first visit to Theros all those years ago. There are one or two inconsistencies with previous details, but those are honestly so minor that it’s hardly worth mentioning. The characterization of Elspeth’s younger self is really solid and creates a good sense of who she was and how she came to be the person we know today. Following the prologue, we skip to modern day Akros where Elspeth has been trying to learn as much about all the gods as she can, and specifically avoiding Heliod because of her memories of him. This is where things start to get weird because she seems to be carrying the same expectations of the god as we had prior to actually seeing what a towering jackass Heliod actually is. What she expects out of him and what he actually does makes one wonder if she’s just blinded herself to his actions because she prefers the fantasy she’s created about him in his head. Anyways, there are a lot of name drops between the gods and the temples as Elspeth tries to find religion. It isn’t until she visits the Temple of Deception and meets an oracle of Phenax that the plot really starts to get underway, but that’s roughly midway through the book.
Shortly after that, her weapon is turned into Godsend, the titular artifact of the book, and she’s charged with taking it to Meletis. Cue the ramping aggressions of the gods, largely stirred up because of Heliod’s own jackassery, and the clashes that happen because of the weapon. We get a lot of insight into the politics and relations of the gods and it becomes fairly clear that there is a line drawn in the sky and the gods fall into one of two camps, either siding with Heliod because of Purphoros’s destructive reactions or siding with Purphoros because Heliod makes himself an easy enemy and a far far more difficult ally. Most, if not all the gods seem to be against Heliod. The one god who has not taken sides at all is Nylea, and in many ways, I feel she’s the one god who is the most unequivocally sympathetic. To add to it, there’s an interesting relationship blooming between Nylea and Daxos, but it ultimately detracts from Daxos in this chapter of the story as much as it adds to Nylea.
With the gods going to war against each other, the mortals are caught in the middle and as the destruction becomes more and more disastrous, the climax quickly approaches. Nylea is the only one to understand that Xenagos is subtly antagonizing everyone else, but her pleas fall on deaf ears as Kruphix enforces the Silence and binds all the gods to Nyx.
The showdown of the gods is followed very shortly by a fight that the entire book has been building up. Unfortunately, coming off of the climax of the gods facing each other, it ends up coming off rather… lackluster. All throughout the book, we’ve been building up Polukranos as a threat, but his appearance for Elspeth to battle is underwhelming and over very quickly. She doesn’t fight him alone, but as most of the soldiers and extras were never developed, it is hard to feel any threat as they are dispensed with. Polukranos did not live up to the hype and for all the attention they paid it, both in the book and the meta-narrative of the block, it really wasn’t anything more than a footnote. Ultimately, that was a large let down, particularly for how significant an event it was supposed to be for everyone.
As a part 1, the story is a very solid entry, but considering how little it actually deals with, I worry over the length and events they have left to cover in the next part. Jenna has a great deal of material to cover and considering how much time she spent on the events of this one… Jenna is going to have to pack them in fairly tightly which might pose problems with the pacing. I’m looking forward to the next book, but I go in with some reticence.
This was posted on my shared tumblr as well, but I didn't want to link to it since it felt too much like plugging it.
How was the portrayal of Elspeth? Is she as whiny/selfish/boring/useless as the haters make her out to be? I really want to like her, because she's depicted on some of my favorite planeswalker cards, but I thought her motivation for leaving at the end of Alara was pretty rubbish. (She ditches Bant now that it's no longer her special sparkly magical paradise, apparently disregarding that every other person there - many of whom she's presumably developed close friendships and comradeships with - is going to have to actually deal with this situation like a grown-ass wo/man instead of running away from it. But they don't have planeswalking powers, so SCREW THEM.) At least in SoM she had some decent character development in the comic with the random Vulshok woman.
I haven't been terribly impressed with the preview material so far. The prologue focuses on some random chick who isn't mentioned at all in the cards. The DailyMTG spoiler is a bit better, in that it suggests some interesting stuff is going to happen with Polukranos (which makes the apparently anticlimactic hydra fight even more of a letodown, given that it was the focus of THS Game Day as well). Still, Xenagos murders some random dude because he was bored... which shows he's a villain, I guess? ... but it's so cliche that I don't have high hopes for his character.
There's also a line about Xenagos perched on a "chaise lounge," which makes me visualize him as some snooty French dude delicately sipping wine out of a dinky cocktail glass.
many of whom she's presumably developed close friendships and comradeships with
You are vastly overestimating how undamaged she is.
Elspeth doesn't have friends, not really. She has people she surrounds herself with, but she stays aloof. It's an artefact of her childhood.
How was the portrayal of Elspeth? Is she as whiny/selfish/boring/useless as the haters make her out to be?
I was actually surprised by how "un-whiny" she was. Her attitude is more like "I've seen some *****, but I need to look ahead." She admits to have failed Bant and Mirrodin, but doesn't let it keep her down.
And as Barinellos said, she doesn't get too friendly with people. She's not being a jerk by any means, but it's obvious she doesn't expect much from bonding with others. That's why I find the picture of her and Ajani to be heartwarming. She really needs someone she can trust and be friend with.
In a lot of the neo-walker stories, the walkers are shown to be what they are now: mortal, and capable of death, fatigue, limited in their powers, etc. For instance, Jace gets exhausted and almost burns out trying to connect minds before becoming the Guildpact. The walker narratives seem to get the point across that they're no longer fonts of unceasing power. But in the first ebook, Xenagos is creating things that interfere with the gods with a wave of his hand, causing massive growth, not being killed, things like that, which seem far more powerful, and easy, than the usual walkers. Was that just me? I thought that the author was over-writing the abilities and powers of Xenagos.
And then more generally:
It seemed to me, and it looks like others have brought it up, that the gods were kind of strangely written. Heliod seemed counter to the entire build up of cards and backstory before the book, Erebos seemed to be presented as way more petulant than he is in the cards and such, instead of being more resigned and 'ultimate', I guess. And I think the short amount of pages in the ebook do the story no favors, as a lot of interesting background and descriptions are tossed out to make room for the bare essentials of a story. Also, Polukranos seemed to be a bit of a letdown.
In a lot of the neo-walker stories, the walkers are shown to be what they are now: mortal, and capable of death, fatigue, limited in their powers, etc. For instance, Jace gets exhausted and almost burns out trying to connect minds before becoming the Guildpact. The walker narratives seem to get the point across that they're no longer fonts of unceasing power. But in the first ebook, Xenagos is creating things that interfere with the gods with a wave of his hand, causing massive growth, not being killed, things like that, which seem far more powerful, and easy, than the usual walkers. Was that just me? I thought that the author was over-writing the abilities and powers of Xenagos.
Xenagos has also been doing the all rituals to turn him into a god, so I think that is where most of his power comes from.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I think 'walker discrepancies also need to take into account the nature of the magic being used. Xenagos is using magic specific to the workings of his homework (and those workings are rather unique). We did have Barrin with an Obliterate spell and other wizards with strong magic (Johan in the Legends I cycle could teleport as I recall). I actually had not considered the differences in power--I think it depends on the strengths of the specific 'walker and the context in which they spellcast. Some of Xenagos's magic comes from the power generated by the revelry--he's almost channeling power at times (but not always, as Perkunas noted).
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Dominian Scholar of the Old Guard, specializing in pre-revisionist (Armada comics) and revisionist (Brothers' War through Apocalypse)history
You had to know that Xenagos wasn't going to remain a god.
The thing is... Gods can't be killed. That's a huge part of what they are.
What the sword that became Godsend was designed to do is CUT NYX. To excise things from Nyx and reduce them to mortality.
What we see in Deicide is Elspeth stabbing Xenagos with the sword that severs things from Nyx.
What happens following that?... nobody knows, but I don't think Deicide shows the exact end of Xenagos. What happens after he falls from Nyx, THAT'S the real end o the story.
I do like that a "major" event is depicted in the cards. While I know not everyone loved the intimate linking of art, flavor text, and novels of the Weatherlight Saga, I think a few cards that depict major events is helpful to the cohesiveness of the story--and may serve to sell a few more ebooks.
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Dominian Scholar of the Old Guard, specializing in pre-revisionist (Armada comics) and revisionist (Brothers' War through Apocalypse)history
You had to know that Xenagos wasn't going to remain a god.
The thing is... Gods can't be killed. That's a huge part of what they are.
What the sword that became Godsend was designed to do is CUT NYX. To excise things from Nyx and reduce them to mortality.
What we see in Deicide is Elspeth stabbing Xenagos with the sword that severs things from Nyx.
What happens following that?... nobody knows, but I don't think Deicide shows the exact end of Xenagos. What happens after he falls from Nyx, THAT'S the real end o the story.
This. Xenagos is going to get cut down from Nyx and fall to Theros. We don't yet know what that implies (though given that he's a 'walker and Creative doesn't like killing non-Venser 'walkers, and Deicide exiles rather than destroys, I'm confident he'll live).
The last time Godsend was in Nyx (back when it was Purphoros's Sword of Chaos), it sliced the very fabric of reality and accidentally released Polukranos. The impression I got was that damaging the fabric of Nyx is a Bad Thing™ (Xenagos did some serious damage to Nyx to get up there in the first place, which caused all kinds of problems), and there will be consequences for cutting a god down from the sky. We have no idea what those consequences will be.
I do like that a "major" event is depicted in the cards. While I know not everyone loved the intimate linking of art, flavor text, and novels of the Weatherlight Saga, I think a few cards that depict major events is helpful to the cohesiveness of the story--and may serve to sell a few more ebooks.
This a thousand times. The Kamigawa and Ravnica blocks needed this badly. I want card art of Konda getting shattered into dust.
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"I'd rather die speaking the truth than live a lie." --Gix, to Yawgmoth (pre-Phyrexia)
This a thousand times. The Kamigawa and Ravnica blocks needed this badly.
There are STILL people who don't have a clue what the hell was going on in Dragon's Maze.
Then again, I feel like that entire block was pretty egregiously bungled from narrative standpoints.
I do like that a "major" event is depicted in the cards. While I know not everyone loved the intimate linking of art, flavor text, and novels of the Weatherlight Saga, I think a few cards that depict major events is helpful to the cohesiveness of the story--and may serve to sell a few more ebooks.
I like it as well. This is probably the most direct depiction of a major climax event since Vindicate.
What confounds me is the fact that only two cards in the whole set address the story itself. Deicide and Revel for the Fallen God. And Worst Fears, but that is quite generic. And for crushing majority of people, what they did not see on cards, it never happened. People were speculating about Elspeth or Ajani dying. If that was the case, it would have been depicted on some card, or at least referred (remember Remember the Fallen). The only possible MaRo-hinted "lasting consequence" from current info is the potential permanent death of Xenagos, that means he won't be ever getting another walker card. And as many of you pointed out, his permanent death is questionable.
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100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
However, two cards are, I suppose better than none. We also have some references to the plot in the Theriad, but we also know not all of them deal with Elspeth. Perhaps this is thematic in the way of mythology--we don't know what is real and what is story. However, the two you mentioned, Caranthir, do give us some ideas--regardless, it's a good direction to move in!
I think we've discussed this before... but does anyone else think Rollick in Abandon's art is reminiscent of Bolas's horns? I thought the same of Xenagos and found the design curious. I'm not baselessly speculating Bolas is connected, but their similar shape struck me.
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Dominian Scholar of the Old Guard, specializing in pre-revisionist (Armada comics) and revisionist (Brothers' War through Apocalypse)history
Since it seems folks have addressed my primary concern upon the full reveal of JOU (dead Xenagos), I'm more comfortable with him only losing godhood. But, a question remains for me as to why Xenagos was considered a 'villain' at all in this block and worthy of 'death', or an attempt at killing him. It just seemed like he was more thumbing his nose at the establishment than anything else, and from the ebook, the gods are certainly full of themselves and, for lack of a better word, a bunch of jerks. Then there's the video on Youtube where suddenly Erebos is talking in menacing terms? So where do Phenax and Ashiok fit in here? I'm hoping the ebooks address this, but it seems that the first ebook, the flavor of the first set, and what I've read online don't necessarily match up. Am I the only one who thinks this way? Sorry if I seem like I'm rambling, getting over an illness and coughing up a storm.
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The number of disasters caused by "acts of gods" is a respectable amount in this half of the story. I expect more in the second half. I can't wait for the other half to come out, preferably with the Gods still doing god things at the end of the book. I think they're a pretty cool bunch.
Hopefully, I avoided any spoilers. I tried to be as vague as possible lol.
"Kiora is the Aquaman of planeswalkers."
"Useless and everyone pretends to like her?"
SPOILER WARNING:
1) I'd have liked a little more mourning and detail about the emotions Daxos felt having lost his mother that way. Such an event gives him identity as a character and I'd have loved more insight on that dramatic moment.
2) The gods in Theros often seem to attack each other physically rather than conniving and recruiting mortals to do their bidding or being generally manipulative. There's a little meddling, but I expected it to be more akin to Greek god meddling.
3) I'd love more talk and references of various myths Theros itself has, such as how the Dakra isles of enchantment came to be.
4) Polukranos deserved not only more screen time, but a greater effort to conquer IMO. I resent that it had to die at all, but I wouldn't have minded it as much had we got more descriptions of how awe inspiring he was. After all, it did take 3 gods to bind him.
Beyond that, great glimpse into the plane. I guess Xenagos ascends in the next book and is hopefully defeated then too.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Mage: Norin the wary I cast giant growth on you...Norin?
Norin: Nope.
Boldwyr Intimidator doesnt think he's a coward.
As with Purifying Fire written by Laura Resnick, this tale written by Jenna Helland is female-centric. I have no problem with this and enjoy it quite a lot, but I find it interesting that the stories with female leads are written by women. I am not dismissing Liliana in Agents, Emmara in Secretist, or Nissa in Teeth, but I think the choices of author-character matching is obvious (and the quality of presentation of our female leads is noticeable, especially contrasting Nissa to Elspeth).
That said, I also like the different focus this provides. We open with a mother caring for her child (Daxos) and are presented a female pair in Elspeth and Nikka at the end of the novella. We still get the classic action-adventure story (the female characters are not subverting standard, male-based fantasy archetypal patterns too much), but the focus on women is appreciated. Indeed, even Nylea is onto something that some of the other characters cannot grasp yet in regards to Xenagos.
I thought Helland did an admirable job introducing and balancing between a variety of new characters in the novella. What I overall found lacking was the depth of the world of Theros. Given the length, focus was paid to plot and characters, which left the setting a bit shallow. It was complete, of course--we understood Nyx, came across some Greek words, and contrasted stayr-life with Akroan culture--but the wealth of setting was limited. I found this to be the same in Secretist, but again, I think that is due to the limited word count.
I was surprised to see Elspeth's summoning powers in her battle against Poloukranos; I had been fully expecting her crazed battle-dance utilized in Quest for Karn, which she did use a bit (and her Bantian training was referenced), but not to the extent I anticipated (which is nether here nor there).
It feels like there is still a lot of ground to cover--minotaurs, Xenagos's gambit, leonin and Ajani, the journey into Nyx--but I anticipate we'll be generally pleased.
Overall, I also commend Helland on her references to former stories--we got mention of Aran from Alara, Koth from Mirrodin, Phyrexians from her homeplane and Mirrodin, and, of course, Ajani from Alara and Urborg. This helps tighten the continuity, which I think is absolutely a strong choice
For those who enjoyed the presentation of the gods in Godsend, I'd recommend N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, where the gods have been limited in their powers by their ruler Itempas. While Itempas rules supreme as a god (similar to Heliod), his siblings and children are enslaved by the ruling class of humans to use a weapons to enforce the law. The idea of fickle gods and destructive acts immediately made me think of Jemisin's fantasy trilogy. Check it out!
EDH: Dragonlord Ojutai, Convoltron
Similarly, there were several characters who felt like nothing but cutouts meant to progress the story, and luckily most of these were just minor characters, but given how hollow they felt, it made the interactions they had with the more important characters feel empty as well. Several of them were so extraneous that I doubt the story would have really had much change if they had been removed entirely. Perhaps they were just dropped here so they could be more important in the next iteration, but for now, I don’t feel as if the time spent dedicated to them was worth it. The funniest part of that is that there were even less important characters who felt more fleshed out than the mid tier side characters.
Lastly, in terms of characters, there were a lot of expectations that weren’t met, but that is not a complaint. Merely… slightly confusing. This is most apparent given the way the meta-narrative of the game has been developing for several of the gods, chiefly Heliod. You see, from all descriptions and depictions we’ve had, the expectations carried in is one of the ONLY gods who are dedicated to the peace of the world. And then we find out he is the CENTRAL CAUSE of the greatest conflict Theros has known for ages. It wasn’t in pursuit of peace either, but vanity. As I said, this isn’t a complaint, but Heliod is not the beneficent deity he has been described as prior to this. He is a vainglorious and spiteful being who regularly throws tantrums when he does not get his way and very regularly disregards the safety of the world for his own ego. He is, in all terms, more of an antagonist than Xenagos. He has an immense rivalry with several of the other gods and when confronted with Elspeth, he attempts to burn her alive because of the weapon she carries. He is shaken when that does not work and changes her weapon, demanding her obeisance to his wishes without any comment about what she gets out of the deal, but that seems fairly common given his relationship with Daxos.
So, with all that in mind, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the story plays out, and I for one am hoping Heliod is going to get taken down on the way to stopping Xenagos. Theros would be better for it.
Now, in terms of the actual story, it’s fairly solid. We begin by learning quite a bit about Daxos and more about Elspeth’s first visit to Theros all those years ago. There are one or two inconsistencies with previous details, but those are honestly so minor that it’s hardly worth mentioning. The characterization of Elspeth’s younger self is really solid and creates a good sense of who she was and how she came to be the person we know today. Following the prologue, we skip to modern day Akros where Elspeth has been trying to learn as much about all the gods as she can, and specifically avoiding Heliod because of her memories of him. This is where things start to get weird because she seems to be carrying the same expectations of the god as we had prior to actually seeing what a towering jackass Heliod actually is. What she expects out of him and what he actually does makes one wonder if she’s just blinded herself to his actions because she prefers the fantasy she’s created about him in his head. Anyways, there are a lot of name drops between the gods and the temples as Elspeth tries to find religion. It isn’t until she visits the Temple of Deception and meets an oracle of Phenax that the plot really starts to get underway, but that’s roughly midway through the book.
Shortly after that, her weapon is turned into Godsend, the titular artifact of the book, and she’s charged with taking it to Meletis. Cue the ramping aggressions of the gods, largely stirred up because of Heliod’s own jackassery, and the clashes that happen because of the weapon. We get a lot of insight into the politics and relations of the gods and it becomes fairly clear that there is a line drawn in the sky and the gods fall into one of two camps, either siding with Heliod because of Purphoros’s destructive reactions or siding with Purphoros because Heliod makes himself an easy enemy and a far far more difficult ally. Most, if not all the gods seem to be against Heliod. The one god who has not taken sides at all is Nylea, and in many ways, I feel she’s the one god who is the most unequivocally sympathetic. To add to it, there’s an interesting relationship blooming between Nylea and Daxos, but it ultimately detracts from Daxos in this chapter of the story as much as it adds to Nylea.
With the gods going to war against each other, the mortals are caught in the middle and as the destruction becomes more and more disastrous, the climax quickly approaches. Nylea is the only one to understand that Xenagos is subtly antagonizing everyone else, but her pleas fall on deaf ears as Kruphix enforces the Silence and binds all the gods to Nyx.
The showdown of the gods is followed very shortly by a fight that the entire book has been building up. Unfortunately, coming off of the climax of the gods facing each other, it ends up coming off rather… lackluster. All throughout the book, we’ve been building up Polukranos as a threat, but his appearance for Elspeth to battle is underwhelming and over very quickly. She doesn’t fight him alone, but as most of the soldiers and extras were never developed, it is hard to feel any threat as they are dispensed with. Polukranos did not live up to the hype and for all the attention they paid it, both in the book and the meta-narrative of the block, it really wasn’t anything more than a footnote. Ultimately, that was a large let down, particularly for how significant an event it was supposed to be for everyone.
As a part 1, the story is a very solid entry, but considering how little it actually deals with, I worry over the length and events they have left to cover in the next part. Jenna has a great deal of material to cover and considering how much time she spent on the events of this one… Jenna is going to have to pack them in fairly tightly which might pose problems with the pacing. I’m looking forward to the next book, but I go in with some reticence.
This was posted on my shared tumblr as well, but I didn't want to link to it since it felt too much like plugging it.
How was the portrayal of Elspeth? Is she as whiny/selfish/boring/useless as the haters make her out to be? I really want to like her, because she's depicted on some of my favorite planeswalker cards, but I thought her motivation for leaving at the end of Alara was pretty rubbish. (She ditches Bant now that it's no longer her special sparkly magical paradise, apparently disregarding that every other person there - many of whom she's presumably developed close friendships and comradeships with - is going to have to actually deal with this situation like a grown-ass wo/man instead of running away from it. But they don't have planeswalking powers, so SCREW THEM.) At least in SoM she had some decent character development in the comic with the random Vulshok woman.
There's also a line about Xenagos perched on a "chaise lounge," which makes me visualize him as some snooty French dude delicately sipping wine out of a dinky cocktail glass.
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You are vastly overestimating how undamaged she is.
Elspeth doesn't have friends, not really. She has people she surrounds herself with, but she stays aloof. It's an artefact of her childhood.
I was actually surprised by how "un-whiny" she was. Her attitude is more like "I've seen some *****, but I need to look ahead." She admits to have failed Bant and Mirrodin, but doesn't let it keep her down.
And as Barinellos said, she doesn't get too friendly with people. She's not being a jerk by any means, but it's obvious she doesn't expect much from bonding with others. That's why I find the picture of her and Ajani to be heartwarming. She really needs someone she can trust and be friend with.
And then more generally:
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
The thing is... Gods can't be killed. That's a huge part of what they are.
What the sword that became Godsend was designed to do is CUT NYX. To excise things from Nyx and reduce them to mortality.
What we see in Deicide is Elspeth stabbing Xenagos with the sword that severs things from Nyx.
What happens following that?... nobody knows, but I don't think Deicide shows the exact end of Xenagos. What happens after he falls from Nyx, THAT'S the real end o the story.
This. Xenagos is going to get cut down from Nyx and fall to Theros. We don't yet know what that implies (though given that he's a 'walker and Creative doesn't like killing non-Venser 'walkers, and Deicide exiles rather than destroys, I'm confident he'll live).
The last time Godsend was in Nyx (back when it was Purphoros's Sword of Chaos), it sliced the very fabric of reality and accidentally released Polukranos. The impression I got was that damaging the fabric of Nyx is a Bad Thing™ (Xenagos did some serious damage to Nyx to get up there in the first place, which caused all kinds of problems), and there will be consequences for cutting a god down from the sky. We have no idea what those consequences will be.
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This a thousand times. The Kamigawa and Ravnica blocks needed this badly. I want card art of Konda getting shattered into dust.
There are STILL people who don't have a clue what the hell was going on in Dragon's Maze.
Then again, I feel like that entire block was pretty egregiously bungled from narrative standpoints.
I like it as well. This is probably the most direct depiction of a major climax event since Vindicate.
What confounds me is the fact that only two cards in the whole set address the story itself. Deicide and Revel for the Fallen God. And Worst Fears, but that is quite generic. And for crushing majority of people, what they did not see on cards, it never happened. People were speculating about Elspeth or Ajani dying. If that was the case, it would have been depicted on some card, or at least referred (remember Remember the Fallen). The only possible MaRo-hinted "lasting consequence" from current info is the potential permanent death of Xenagos, that means he won't be ever getting another walker card. And as many of you pointed out, his permanent death is questionable.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
I think we've discussed this before... but does anyone else think Rollick in Abandon's art is reminiscent of Bolas's horns? I thought the same of Xenagos and found the design curious. I'm not baselessly speculating Bolas is connected, but their similar shape struck me.