This maybe would've been cooler if we didn't already know Arlinn was once a Goldnight archmage. It was just kind of an "oh yeah, that's right" moment instead.
I was hoping the angels would be freed of their insanity after Avacyn was destroyed, since she was described as a source of it amongst the angels. Though not as the only source, I guess. The time jump is also kind of a bother, I would think the most immediate reactions and circumstances of Innistrad's defenses falling would be a lot more interesting to warrant a "and things have since gone down the drain" summary. Finally, Kreine's article in SOI was a bit more enjoyable, with Hal and Halana (and Arlinn). This was kinda corny.
Why are we assuming that Sorin had actually killed that many people. If we've learned anything from HBO, there may be hundreds of willing volunteers that gladly offer their life blood, so Sorin can survive for years without killing a single soul. He is half white, feasting on humans/animals may be a necessity, but actually killing, is not.
[quote from="Jenrik »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-storyline/675516-magic-story-articles-discussion-shadows-over?comment=1350"]
It's not that she has such amazing and dynamic characterization, it's the fact she had the potential to become so much more. She is a run of the mill angel, but she had a very unconventional origin. She wasn't just some random embodiment of goodness that coalesced from the natural forces of white on the plane, like most other angels. No, she was created by Sorin, a twisted, arrogant, and cruel monster who survives by killing others. Sorin requires one human worth of blood a month. He's over 6000 years old. That's 72,000 people Sorin has killed. 72,000. Think about that, and tell me Sorin isn't a monster. Now imagine having to live with the fact that you were created by that monster. Think of what a compelling story that could be! What's more, Avacyn is powered by human need. Her power grows when more humans are dying. I don't know about you, but that would make me question my existence. Such potential, all wasted.
I don't like this prejudice against vampires. Yes, they kill people, but otherwise they would starve to death. I disapprove how they can often act very gratuitously, but regarding their feeding habits, well, humans kill alot of animals to eat too, so we don't have the moral high ground to judge just because in this case we are not the ones at the top of the food chain. In fact, as you can see by the text of Bloodflow Conoisseur, as far as vampires go, Sorin has more respect for life than you give him credit for. If the guy is indeed a monster, it is not because of this 72000 kill count.
</blockquote>
</blockquote> I fully agree! Sorin is a monster due to his M.O. of killing first and asking questions later... usually of their reanimated corpse. My favorite example is of him barging into Olivia's house uninvited. Olivia tells him to get out he then proceeds to kill all her guards because he was insulted by the thought of someone who clearly doesn't like him wanting him the hell out of her house. And they were his kind not food animals like humans are to vampires.
This maybe would've been cooler if we didn't already know Arlinn was once a Goldnight archmage. It was just kind of an "oh yeah, that's right" moment instead.
I was hoping the angels would be freed of their insanity after Avacyn was destroyed, since she was described as a source of it amongst the angels. Though not as the only source, I guess. The time jump is also kind of a bother, I would think the most immediate reactions and circumstances of Innistrad's defenses falling would be a lot more interesting to warrant a "and things have since gone down the drain" summary. Finally, Kreine's article in SOI was a bit more enjoyable, with Hal and Halana (and Arlinn). This was kinda corny.
Please no, that'd be a silly "bad guy is gone, ergo curse is gone" scenario. Damage is done, and zealous angels now are part of the monster pantheon.
This maybe would've been cooler if we didn't already know Arlinn was once a Goldnight archmage. It was just kind of an "oh yeah, that's right" moment instead.
I was hoping the angels would be freed of their insanity after Avacyn was destroyed, since she was described as a source of it amongst the angels. Though not as the only source, I guess. The time jump is also kind of a bother, I would think the most immediate reactions and circumstances of Innistrad's defenses falling would be a lot more interesting to warrant a "and things have since gone down the drain" summary. Finally, Kreine's article in SOI was a bit more enjoyable, with Hal and Halana (and Arlinn). This was kinda corny.
Please no, that'd be a silly "bad guy is gone, ergo curse is gone" scenario. Damage is done, and zealous angels now are part of the monster pantheon.
In all fairness, in this case it could have been justified. If Avacyn is the source of all power, it stands to reason that the angels were only corrupted because Avacyn was controlling them.
Back at it again with the angel hate was hoping this one survived. Anyway for Avacyn being on innistrad for thousands of years she hasn't been on innistrad much and that's kinda sad.I so hope we get one more good memory of Avacyn.The story was good anyway but what was innistrad doing before avacyn tho? Like its worse than tarkir it is a miracle angles survived till avacyn was made they just come and die each one of them maybe that question applies to magic in general. I would kill to read one story where the angel survives till the end in MTG.
This maybe would've been cooler if we didn't already know Arlinn was once a Goldnight archmage. It was just kind of an "oh yeah, that's right" moment instead.
I was hoping the angels would be freed of their insanity after Avacyn was destroyed, since she was described as a source of it amongst the angels. Though not as the only source, I guess. The time jump is also kind of a bother, I would think the most immediate reactions and circumstances of Innistrad's defenses falling would be a lot more interesting to warrant a "and things have since gone down the drain" summary. Finally, Kreine's article in SOI was a bit more enjoyable, with Hal and Halana (and Arlinn). This was kinda corny.
Please no, that'd be a silly "bad guy is gone, ergo curse is gone" scenario. Damage is done, and zealous angels now are part of the monster pantheon.
In all fairness, in this case it could have been justified. If Avacyn is the source of all power, it stands to reason that the angels were only corrupted because Avacyn was controlling them.
If you follow this line of thought though, Avacyn getting destroyed would mean all the others would be too.
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Avavyn isn't the source of all power just a focus for a substantial amount of it. Angels existed on Innistrad prior to Sorin making her. it stands to reason, to me at least, that rather than Avacyn acting as a medium by which her own madness spread whatever caused her madness was affecting all of the angels. Sigarda was able to resist the effect somehow but the rest are driven mad by the effects that the cryptolyths and the Eldritch Moon are having on the planes mana.
This maybe would've been cooler if we didn't already know Arlinn was once a Goldnight archmage. It was just kind of an "oh yeah, that's right" moment instead.
I was hoping the angels would be freed of their insanity after Avacyn was destroyed, since she was described as a source of it amongst the angels. Though not as the only source, I guess. The time jump is also kind of a bother, I would think the most immediate reactions and circumstances of Innistrad's defenses falling would be a lot more interesting to warrant a "and things have since gone down the drain" summary. Finally, Kreine's article in SOI was a bit more enjoyable, with Hal and Halana (and Arlinn). This was kinda corny.
Please no, that'd be a silly "bad guy is gone, ergo curse is gone" scenario. Damage is done, and zealous angels now are part of the monster pantheon.
This is actually exactly what should happen. Jace confirmed that Avacyn was the source of the angels' madness. They existed as naturally occurring beings of white mana before Sorin created Avacyn. She was so powerful, that the exiting angels fell in sync with her, as she was an extremely stroung nexus of white mana. The planar mana flow sort of bent to accommodate her. Even though Avacyn is was artificial, she ended up connecting to the rest of them. The madness flowed through Avacyn into them, and caused them to go crazy. Without Avacyn to induce the madness anymore, they should start reverting to their previous states.
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Yeah I don't really know if it would be the best idea, storytelling-wise, but given the info we've been served, Avacyn was totally the reason the majority of the other angels linked together into that hive-mind. What with the buzzing and sounding exactly alike and what not. So for this much time to have passed and random angels are just going berserk, dive-bombing into towns wailing about Avacyn's death and purification is just odd. Wasn't the whole purify-by-fire mandate mad-Avacyn's thing? Doesn't seem like something the prospective big bads would care about.
Didn't earlier stories say that Avacyn was added to the angelic pantheon and took over? While the angels won't die with her it stands to reason that she'd imprint her madness on them.
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Didn't earlier stories say that Avacyn was added to the angelic pantheon and took over? While the angels won't die with her it stands to reason that she'd imprint her madness on them.
It seems like the damage is done with the Angels who fell to her madness.
This likely means that Sigarda and Traft will be the 'heads' of the church that forms in the wake of Avacyn.
I see it more like ants loosing a queen. They gonna be running around mad and confused for a while until they start coming to their scenes.
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Will the Angels come back to their senses? Likely.
Will it be instantaneous? No, as evidenced by the story.
With Avacyn gone I think 'normal' white mana will start to turn the angels back into forces of good, starting with those affected the least and ending with (if they aren't killed off) Bruna and Giesla, as they were closest to Avacyn. It will take a much longer time for the non-Sigarda flights to be trusted be humans again, which could lead them to being weaker for some time
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Still, even if Avacyn's gone and the flow of mana returns to its original form, let's not forget something: the cryptoliths. They're still bending the mana flow, so probably still affecting the angels' sanity (albeit probably less than when they were all connected to Avacyn). So we can't really know just how long it could take for them to revert to their original state of mind :/
Hopefully it happens before creative gets around to killing Bruna and Gisela.
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"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Knowing Creative, they'll think killing off both Bruna and Gisela will make "great" storytelling. This is why we can't have nice things.
Well, can you blame them? With everyone here constantly calling for more bloodshed and death everytime a character does something and survives. So it really is our fault if they die, we need to stop asking for characters to die because creative only hears the 'kill' part and not the 'who' part so they kill whoever they want.
Okay......been waiting a few days since the new story to post, and came back to find angel discussions at it again. Thought I'd buried the angel talk along with my favorite Avacyn, but guess not. I mean, come on guys and gals; some like angels, some don't, some are just kind of "eh" like me. Can't we all just get along and enjoy the new Arlinn story? Please?
Speaking of which, this wolf lady is speaking to me on spiritual levels:
"I am no longer slave to the curse," Arlinn said. "I am free now to be a protector as I was meant to be. Please. You knew me once, know me again."
Rembert's eyes glistened behind tears as the trunk creaked under his weight.
Arlinn reached out anew. "Take my hand."
Rembert steeled himself and lifted his arm. "Avacyn help me," he whispered.
"Avacyn is gone," Arlinn said. "We must find strength in each other."
Oh. How did you know, sexy mature werewolf lady that my favorite character got unmade? What's that? Join your fanclub now? I don't know. The wound is still fresh. What's that? You're a werewolf? A werewolf with an interesting background, a desire to protect your own kind and a steely resolve in the face of abundant prejudice? And you're not just depicted as a sexy half-naked woman, but instead are an older walker and not whining about your troubles because there's work to be done?
.....Well played creative.... throw the canine lover a bone.....I'll bite. I really can sink my teeth into this new character. Bet she'll be a howling good time......Dog pun.
....I like Arlinn.
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Most of these stories are looking lukewarm at best. Time for a rant.
First and foremost, I will express my opinion and my opinion only. Let's start addressing the elephant in the room: yes, these stories are better than BFZ ones. I dare say almost 'much' better, but the bar was so low with BFZ that I think they had to dig to unbury the bar just so they could set it at a new height. This form of serialized storytelling is not working for me properly, and maybe that's just me, but I read the stories of the planeswalkers with a casual passing interest and nothing that really makes me stay in awe, you know? Maybe I'm projecting too much my hopes and dreams that there will ever be really good fiction coming from these stories, but since I hope someone in charge is reading these foruns, maybe voicing my opinion here can make a shred of a difference (maybe not).
Alright, here we go: ever since we started in Innistrad we jumped between worldbuilding stories and plot progressing ones, so to speak. I consider Alena and Halana's, Thalia and Odric's, Gitrog's, Gisa and Geralf's and the last one from Arlinn Kord mainly worldbuilding tales. Of these stories, the only one that I actually liked was the last one from SOI (Games), where the letter-format added a new interesting dimension to the story. All the other stories were left lacking, and I have a hunch as to why. The plot progressing stories were... not good. They ranged between 'fine' and 'meh'. Once again, nothing that I see that was as terrible as the worst stories of BFZ, but nothing too exciting either. The best of the bunch to me curiously was "A Gaze Blank and Pitiless" that did not featured any planeswalkers in it, only Avacyn and her transformations. This one I actually felt it was almost great.
Now, what's my take on why the stories are not hitting home, at least for me: the storytelling is somewhere in between an effort to make a serial story and also have one or two tales featuring important characters. The problem with that is stories like The Gitrog Monster end up feeling to detached from the whole, and there is nothing connecting the ins and outs of that story to anything else. It basically had the same connection with SOI that "All that Came Before" had (the story about Mercadia). There was no setup, the story had to be gigantic because of that, and I felt like the writer couldn't developed it properly. I could make a similar critique about Odric's story (or I should say Thalia's). So disappointing. We barely got a glimpse of what was happening at the Lunarch Council, they just spitted out there something about the Skirsdag and there was a fight and that was it. The difference here is that not only we had no setup, but when can we realistically expect to see a continuation from that story? Maybe they'll show Odric and Thalia one more time and that's it. These stories are too short and too isolated for the characters to have their time to shine, and in the end I feel like we're left hanging, waiting for when they will develop these plotlines again and wrap it up.
Meanwhile, the main storyline has the opposite problem. Jace goes bouncing around from place to place, and in the effort to keep the 'mistery', the writers don't reveal anything to us and the story becomes miserably poor in content. Jace going back and forth to Liliana was an unnecessary drag, but him being found by Avacyn and having her being killed in the story was rushed. The pacing is all over the place. I think these stories are suffering from overexposition, where the writers just have to keep finding things for Jace to do, and so he goes to Markov Manor, and then he goes back to Liliana, and then he goes to the Cathedral, yadda yadda. Meanwhile the interesting characters with different plotlines don't have that great a chance to shine.
Now, my biggest critique to the story yet: we are in Innistrad goddamnit! WHERE are the horror stories? Aside from Alena and Halana's and the Gitrog's, almost every single other story didn't feel at all like gothic horror world. Maybe the one where Jace goes to the Markov manor, but even then it is poor. The stories look more like fantasy fanfiction than horror, and after that article mentioning mutations, lattice patterns, etc. I can't help but wonder if there wasn't a better story to tell behind all this. One that actually followed the misteries and the clues. Maybe we start with Geralf in his lab making a new experiment when he realizes the unusual mutations and sends a letter to Ludevic. That could be told from the perspective of a commoner who stumbles in his lab by accident and we would have our 'mad scientist horror story trope'. Then we change to Odric's and Thalia's, seeing the beggining of an inquisition starting to happen in the church, and they positioning themselves at first in opposite sides. We may get, at the end of the story, a hint that the Skirsdag are involved. That would be, if well written, a story with a deep moral debate and our 'inquisition trope' story. We then see the letter that Geralf sent being intercept by Gisa (after her escape), and she may be breeding her zombies again to terrorize some citizens. That would be our 'night of the living dead trope' story, and in the end she meets with Nahiri and shows her the letter, Nahiri takes it and burns it. We move now to the Ulvenwald, and we make a more decent tribute to the Wolfir mentioning them in the story and showing maybe madness-induced wolfirs infected by the same evil afflicting Avacyn. Then Arlinn shows up and helps a small farm and its shepherd to not be attacked by the wolfir. That would be another story with a moral where you see that your allies (wolfir) can turn bad and your enemies (the werewolves) could help. Anyway, the list goes on and on.
My point is: forget about following Jace up and down. We could develop a little bit more and with decency the one-shot stories, maybe making them into two-shot stories, while knitting a whole mistery together with the mutations, the madness, the alteration of matter and Nahiri's endgame. These would allow us to get more than just a glimpse now and then from the actual legendary creatures and would make the mistery feel much more organic. If we see multiple characters involved in the mistery studying different aspects of it then we, as the readers, could piece it together and study the clues in a more interesting and satisfactory way. Instead, we get to see Jace explicitly following the mistery and finding out basically nothing we didn't know already from pictures, arts and speculation. And he finds out nothing because there was a specific time date for we to see what is happening. If the mistery couldn't be develop, why make a character trying to solve it almost blindly? Why not just show us different pieces of it, explored by different characters, all the while developing the horror tropes and making us wonder who, if anyone, is trying to put things together and solve the mistery?
Whew. That's it. Summing it up: more emphasis and more developed singular stories with legendary creatures, but not just for the sake of developing the main plot. Develop the story, the horror trope, that's what Innistrad is about. Drop hints of the main mistery in the main story. Substantially reduce Jace's participation in all this, and just show him when it is really an important main point (his encounter with Tamiyo was interesting, that could've been of his stories in the way I'm imagining). This way we get to see more than glimpses from Innistrad itself, we get to have our horror stories, we get to develop our mistery in a healthy way that does not make us go around in circles finding out stuff we already know. We probably would've seen everything the characters would point out, but it would be interesting because we would see how they, the characters, are interacting with this change. Following Jace we just don't have the opportunity to see that.
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Your expectations are far, far, FAAAR too high. It seems to me that you are expecting the work of a professional author, who has worked on a story for months if not years, that then has gone through editing, revisions, etc.
What they are tasked to provide us is a story supporting a card game. A story which they do not have complete control over, did not (usually) independently think of, and which I assume each member has maybe a few weeks or a month to write, for a small audience, before they move on. The writing has been fine. Some creative team members are better than others and write better stories than others, but they are all fine and always have been fine.
Your expectations are far, far, FAAAR too high. It seems to me that you are expecting the work of a professional author, who has worked on a story for months if not years, that then has gone through editing, revisions, etc.
What they are tasked to provide us is a story supporting a card game. A story which they do not have complete control over, did not (usually) independently think of, and which I assume each member has maybe a few weeks or a month to write, for a small audience, before they move on. The writing has been fine. Some creative team members are better than others and write better stories than others, but they are all fine and always have been fine.
I disagree. I'm not asking for the work of a professional author, but rather a restructuring of what they have going right now. They are not fleshing out the legendary characters enough and, besides that, they could have written more real horror stories for the horror-ghotic world.
Diminishing the participation of the planeswalkers and spreading the mistery into pieces seems pretty doable as well. Trying to make a character find out what the big mistery is and have a bunch of filler stories with said character is a sign that you shouldn't be following the mistery that closely.
And last but not least, I want the stories to be more than just 'fine'.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
Your expectations are far, far, FAAAR too high. It seems to me that you are expecting the work of a professional author, who has worked on a story for months if not years, that then has gone through editing, revisions, etc.
What they are tasked to provide us is a story supporting a card game. A story which they do not have complete control over, did not (usually) independently think of, and which I assume each member has maybe a few weeks or a month to write, for a small audience, before they move on. The writing has been fine. Some creative team members are better than others and write better stories than others, but they are all fine and always have been fine.
I disagree. I'm not asking for the work of a professional author, but rather a restructuring of what they have going right now. They are not fleshing out the legendary characters enough and, besides that, they could have written more real horror stories for the horror-ghotic world.
Diminishing the participation of the planeswalkers and spreading the mistery into pieces seems pretty doable as well. Trying to make a character find out what the big mistery is and have a bunch of filler stories with said character is a sign that you shouldn't be following the mistery that closely.
And last but not least, I want the stories to be more than just 'fine'.
Fair enough. I believe that what we are getting now is just fine for a story supporting the card game, especially when the story is a very minor part of the game, added to help convince people to buy more cards. I admit I'm annoyed when people complain about a story when it comes out on Wednesday and criticize the writer, but I usually just move on since it seems like a few people here are interested in that sort of thing.
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I was hoping the angels would be freed of their insanity after Avacyn was destroyed, since she was described as a source of it amongst the angels. Though not as the only source, I guess. The time jump is also kind of a bother, I would think the most immediate reactions and circumstances of Innistrad's defenses falling would be a lot more interesting to warrant a "and things have since gone down the drain" summary. Finally, Kreine's article in SOI was a bit more enjoyable, with Hal and Halana (and Arlinn). This was kinda corny.
Please no, that'd be a silly "bad guy is gone, ergo curse is gone" scenario. Damage is done, and zealous angels now are part of the monster pantheon.
In all fairness, in this case it could have been justified. If Avacyn is the source of all power, it stands to reason that the angels were only corrupted because Avacyn was controlling them.
Somebody's channeling Lilliana pretty good thar.
If you follow this line of thought though, Avacyn getting destroyed would mean all the others would be too.
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"Kiora is the Aquaman of planeswalkers."
"Useless and everyone pretends to like her?"
This is actually exactly what should happen. Jace confirmed that Avacyn was the source of the angels' madness. They existed as naturally occurring beings of white mana before Sorin created Avacyn. She was so powerful, that the exiting angels fell in sync with her, as she was an extremely stroung nexus of white mana. The planar mana flow sort of bent to accommodate her. Even though Avacyn
iswas artificial, she ended up connecting to the rest of them. The madness flowed through Avacyn into them, and caused them to go crazy. Without Avacyn to induce the madness anymore, they should start reverting to their previous states."You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Art is life itself.
This likely means that Sigarda and Traft will be the 'heads' of the church that forms in the wake of Avacyn.
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Will it be instantaneous? No, as evidenced by the story.
With Avacyn gone I think 'normal' white mana will start to turn the angels back into forces of good, starting with those affected the least and ending with (if they aren't killed off) Bruna and Giesla, as they were closest to Avacyn. It will take a much longer time for the non-Sigarda flights to be trusted be humans again, which could lead them to being weaker for some time
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
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"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
"Kiora is the Aquaman of planeswalkers."
"Useless and everyone pretends to like her?"
Speaking of which, this wolf lady is speaking to me on spiritual levels:
"I am no longer slave to the curse," Arlinn said. "I am free now to be a protector as I was meant to be. Please. You knew me once, know me again."
Rembert's eyes glistened behind tears as the trunk creaked under his weight.
Arlinn reached out anew. "Take my hand."
Rembert steeled himself and lifted his arm. "Avacyn help me," he whispered.
"Avacyn is gone," Arlinn said. "We must find strength in each other."
Oh. How did you know, sexy mature werewolf lady that my favorite character got unmade? What's that? Join your fanclub now? I don't know. The wound is still fresh. What's that? You're a werewolf? A werewolf with an interesting background, a desire to protect your own kind and a steely resolve in the face of abundant prejudice? And you're not just depicted as a sexy half-naked woman, but instead are an older walker and not whining about your troubles because there's work to be done?
.....Well played creative.... throw the canine lover a bone.....I'll bite. I really can sink my teeth into this new character. Bet she'll be a howling good time......Dog pun.
....I like Arlinn.
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First and foremost, I will express my opinion and my opinion only. Let's start addressing the elephant in the room: yes, these stories are better than BFZ ones. I dare say almost 'much' better, but the bar was so low with BFZ that I think they had to dig to unbury the bar just so they could set it at a new height. This form of serialized storytelling is not working for me properly, and maybe that's just me, but I read the stories of the planeswalkers with a casual passing interest and nothing that really makes me stay in awe, you know? Maybe I'm projecting too much my hopes and dreams that there will ever be really good fiction coming from these stories, but since I hope someone in charge is reading these foruns, maybe voicing my opinion here can make a shred of a difference (maybe not).
Alright, here we go: ever since we started in Innistrad we jumped between worldbuilding stories and plot progressing ones, so to speak. I consider Alena and Halana's, Thalia and Odric's, Gitrog's, Gisa and Geralf's and the last one from Arlinn Kord mainly worldbuilding tales. Of these stories, the only one that I actually liked was the last one from SOI (Games), where the letter-format added a new interesting dimension to the story. All the other stories were left lacking, and I have a hunch as to why. The plot progressing stories were... not good. They ranged between 'fine' and 'meh'. Once again, nothing that I see that was as terrible as the worst stories of BFZ, but nothing too exciting either. The best of the bunch to me curiously was "A Gaze Blank and Pitiless" that did not featured any planeswalkers in it, only Avacyn and her transformations. This one I actually felt it was almost great.
Now, what's my take on why the stories are not hitting home, at least for me: the storytelling is somewhere in between an effort to make a serial story and also have one or two tales featuring important characters. The problem with that is stories like The Gitrog Monster end up feeling to detached from the whole, and there is nothing connecting the ins and outs of that story to anything else. It basically had the same connection with SOI that "All that Came Before" had (the story about Mercadia). There was no setup, the story had to be gigantic because of that, and I felt like the writer couldn't developed it properly. I could make a similar critique about Odric's story (or I should say Thalia's). So disappointing. We barely got a glimpse of what was happening at the Lunarch Council, they just spitted out there something about the Skirsdag and there was a fight and that was it. The difference here is that not only we had no setup, but when can we realistically expect to see a continuation from that story? Maybe they'll show Odric and Thalia one more time and that's it. These stories are too short and too isolated for the characters to have their time to shine, and in the end I feel like we're left hanging, waiting for when they will develop these plotlines again and wrap it up.
Meanwhile, the main storyline has the opposite problem. Jace goes bouncing around from place to place, and in the effort to keep the 'mistery', the writers don't reveal anything to us and the story becomes miserably poor in content. Jace going back and forth to Liliana was an unnecessary drag, but him being found by Avacyn and having her being killed in the story was rushed. The pacing is all over the place. I think these stories are suffering from overexposition, where the writers just have to keep finding things for Jace to do, and so he goes to Markov Manor, and then he goes back to Liliana, and then he goes to the Cathedral, yadda yadda. Meanwhile the interesting characters with different plotlines don't have that great a chance to shine.
Now, my biggest critique to the story yet: we are in Innistrad goddamnit! WHERE are the horror stories? Aside from Alena and Halana's and the Gitrog's, almost every single other story didn't feel at all like gothic horror world. Maybe the one where Jace goes to the Markov manor, but even then it is poor. The stories look more like fantasy fanfiction than horror, and after that article mentioning mutations, lattice patterns, etc. I can't help but wonder if there wasn't a better story to tell behind all this. One that actually followed the misteries and the clues. Maybe we start with Geralf in his lab making a new experiment when he realizes the unusual mutations and sends a letter to Ludevic. That could be told from the perspective of a commoner who stumbles in his lab by accident and we would have our 'mad scientist horror story trope'. Then we change to Odric's and Thalia's, seeing the beggining of an inquisition starting to happen in the church, and they positioning themselves at first in opposite sides. We may get, at the end of the story, a hint that the Skirsdag are involved. That would be, if well written, a story with a deep moral debate and our 'inquisition trope' story. We then see the letter that Geralf sent being intercept by Gisa (after her escape), and she may be breeding her zombies again to terrorize some citizens. That would be our 'night of the living dead trope' story, and in the end she meets with Nahiri and shows her the letter, Nahiri takes it and burns it. We move now to the Ulvenwald, and we make a more decent tribute to the Wolfir mentioning them in the story and showing maybe madness-induced wolfirs infected by the same evil afflicting Avacyn. Then Arlinn shows up and helps a small farm and its shepherd to not be attacked by the wolfir. That would be another story with a moral where you see that your allies (wolfir) can turn bad and your enemies (the werewolves) could help. Anyway, the list goes on and on.
My point is: forget about following Jace up and down. We could develop a little bit more and with decency the one-shot stories, maybe making them into two-shot stories, while knitting a whole mistery together with the mutations, the madness, the alteration of matter and Nahiri's endgame. These would allow us to get more than just a glimpse now and then from the actual legendary creatures and would make the mistery feel much more organic. If we see multiple characters involved in the mistery studying different aspects of it then we, as the readers, could piece it together and study the clues in a more interesting and satisfactory way. Instead, we get to see Jace explicitly following the mistery and finding out basically nothing we didn't know already from pictures, arts and speculation. And he finds out nothing because there was a specific time date for we to see what is happening. If the mistery couldn't be develop, why make a character trying to solve it almost blindly? Why not just show us different pieces of it, explored by different characters, all the while developing the horror tropes and making us wonder who, if anyone, is trying to put things together and solve the mistery?
Whew. That's it. Summing it up: more emphasis and more developed singular stories with legendary creatures, but not just for the sake of developing the main plot. Develop the story, the horror trope, that's what Innistrad is about. Drop hints of the main mistery in the main story. Substantially reduce Jace's participation in all this, and just show him when it is really an important main point (his encounter with Tamiyo was interesting, that could've been of his stories in the way I'm imagining). This way we get to see more than glimpses from Innistrad itself, we get to have our horror stories, we get to develop our mistery in a healthy way that does not make us go around in circles finding out stuff we already know. We probably would've seen everything the characters would point out, but it would be interesting because we would see how they, the characters, are interacting with this change. Following Jace we just don't have the opportunity to see that.
End rant.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
What they are tasked to provide us is a story supporting a card game. A story which they do not have complete control over, did not (usually) independently think of, and which I assume each member has maybe a few weeks or a month to write, for a small audience, before they move on. The writing has been fine. Some creative team members are better than others and write better stories than others, but they are all fine and always have been fine.
Diminishing the participation of the planeswalkers and spreading the mistery into pieces seems pretty doable as well. Trying to make a character find out what the big mistery is and have a bunch of filler stories with said character is a sign that you shouldn't be following the mistery that closely.
And last but not least, I want the stories to be more than just 'fine'.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Fair enough. I believe that what we are getting now is just fine for a story supporting the card game, especially when the story is a very minor part of the game, added to help convince people to buy more cards. I admit I'm annoyed when people complain about a story when it comes out on Wednesday and criticize the writer, but I usually just move on since it seems like a few people here are interested in that sort of thing.