Hang on, so I remember second-handedly there being a conversation during SoI of why Nahiri's card is still part white while her actions seem to be all red. Supposedly, MaRo said that we would find out why in Eldritch Moon. Now that all of the spoilers are out, do we know yet or is the story not yet finished?
He basically pulled a Tara Gillesbie ("stop flaming da story ok u dnot no wutz even gona happen ok"). There's nothing about her we didn't know before.
I'm surprised that you of all people would say that, considering we did learn more about her thought process and how it aligns with white. It would have been reasonable pre Moon to believe that she had gone crazy, but the solid long term planning, her opinions on Innistrad and its inhabitants, and her vengeance being based not only on personal vendetta (which would be mono red) but on a sense of justice (punishing Sorin for his crimes) all point to her retaining her white side. The passion, anger, hate, and bent toward reckless destruction are all red, but everything else is white, and most of that was confirmed or expanded upon during the Eldritch Moon story line.
To reply to the title: I view her as neither, either and both simultaneously. She is only a threat or menace if you or another person slight her or attempt to hurt something she cares about. She is neither of these if you avoid her destruction or help her. As remember that Nahiri actually made a fast friend on Innistrad by the name of Ghoulcaller Gisa. She is very much a Lawful Neutral character that took the Eye For An Eye approach to her justice when it came to Sorin. She is definitely unhinged and a bit stir crazy and that is why Sorin gets his kumuppins from Nahiri in the end. Unlike Garruk she isn't out to kill people out of some primal urge but to instead exact vengeance where is judge, jury and executioner. Will she always be evil? She might get a redemption arc although it might be handled the same way as Nissa.
She was never Gisa's friend. Gisa thought she was, because Nahiri isn't an idiot and realized that Gisa would be easy to manipulate if she was nice to her. "Wow Gisa, you sure are cool and you raise such awesome zombies. If you raise a troop of zombie slaves to build me a temple we can be besties." Gisa was a useful pawn, one she tossed aside once her usefulness was at an end.
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
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To me, Nahiri is in the wrong. Her sense of scale is just too far off. The collateral of her revenge is too much. She had plenty of ways to get back at Sorin. There's certainly enough people on Innistrad who hate Sorin for her to get her revenge. Her long term planning shows she could have figured out something.
Now, that doesn't mean Sorin is squeaky clean, either. All he had to do when Nahiri came is be like "Nahiri, I'm sorry that my new protections messed up the call. I'll do what I can to help." Now, how he actually was out of line but Nahiri then escalated it further by threatening his life. And things went downhill from there...
Now the difference is that Sorin never intended for any of this to happen. The fact that he tried to reseal the Eldrazi despite Ugin was unable to show up, does speak to his sense of responsibility. He would have been successful if not for Nissa.
At the end of the day, Nahiri doesn't have leg to stand on. She intentionally incited genocide and doomed many, many innocent people to unspeakable fates. Not even to mention what her actions did Avacyn, one the wholly good characters in MTG. Also, she's done this in the name of a plane that is, ultimately, safe. Zendikar will recover with time and with 2/3 of the Eldrazi gone and none left on it, Nahiri actions are only about her need for revenge.
How she responds, once she finds that out will show her true nature, if you ask.
She is everything Sorin deserves, everything Innistrad deserves. She worked really hard to make a plan so that Sorin would have to make the same sacrifice she made in order to save her plane, what she didn't expect was him to forsaken his plane and let it be destroyed rather than chain himself to a duty o maintaining Emrakul under control. She knows how to invoke emrakul, she knows how to trap it, she knows about the magical properties of the moon, so I expect as the story is revealed that we will see her offering rendemption to Sorin in exchange a of a sacrifice he wont accept. Of all the planes, one must suffer Emrakul, and it is fair that innistrad is the one. So I think that the eldrazi threat is treated by her as a white character would, someone has to do the work, then the red aspect of her personality is pretending Sorin to suffer as much as she did, Innistrad as much as Zendikar did. So I think that her motivations are legitimate, her actions are fair, but the way she involves other people (Sorin) is emotional and irrational. I don't know if she might end being a hero, I think they have chosen her to be the mad planeswaker, if so we will know in the end of the story, it would be sad, though I dont think she is far from sanity, eventually she will find out Zendikar was saved and probabibly that will give her some peace. I think that the new antagonist is Ob Nixilis, he is more of a threat, the chain veil is, Garruk is, but she is not. She is not evil, she has passed through many traumtic situation and even then remained quite ethical.
White can do Vengeance. She also gathered an army of followers to fight for her. There was also the elimination of anything linked to Sorin and the Markov vampires which fits into White.
I'd argue that now a days White/Red would have more of the monopoly on vengeance than Red or White alone. It feels like a very natural fit for the combo.
To reply to the title: I view her as neither, either and both simultaneously. She is only a threat or menace if you or another person slight her or attempt to hurt something she cares about. She is neither of these if you avoid her destruction or help her. As remember that Nahiri actually made a fast friend on Innistrad by the name of Ghoulcaller Gisa. She is very much a Lawful Neutral character that took the Eye For An Eye approach to her justice when it came to Sorin. She is definitely unhinged and a bit stir crazy and that is why Sorin gets his kumuppins from Nahiri in the end. Unlike Garruk she isn't out to kill people out of some primal urge but to instead exact vengeance where is judge, jury and executioner. Will she always be evil? She might get a redemption arc although it might be handled the same way as Nissa.
yea she's a threat or menace to people who hurt her as well as anybody else that lives on the same planet as said person
there's no defending what she's doing, and any attempt at redemption for her Wizards tries to spin for us better be damn good if it doesn't want to come off as completely insincere and shallow
Unexplained nothing. Many of this block's stories have featured her descent and the motivations behind it, and her sympathisers are desperate enough to ignore them.
I was pretty clear with what I meant, if you're going to respond to me, respond to me and not a strawman. Her turn to pure villainy isn't adequately explained from the character she used to be. Getting revenge on Sorin is one thing. Dooming his whole plane because of one guy's actions is a whole other level.
Your presumption is that her actions are villainous. They are at worst neutral in the grand scheme of things. She spared one innocent plane and directed Emrukul to Innistrad and doomed it instead. In the grand scheme of things her actions didn't kill any more innocent people than would have died anyway. Her reasons were a selfish sense of vengeance and poetic justice but her actual actions aren't really detrimental in the grand scheme of things. The universe pretty much breaks even for what she did. As she said herself, Emrakul had to go somewhere. This is in stark contrast with what Sorin pulled where his selfish actions directly led countless millions of more innocents dying than would otherwise have, ultimately including his own kin on Innistrad.
Had he not broken his oath and cast the Eldrazi's jailer into that eternal torture chamber he designed to hold his enemies then the Eldrazi's warden would have still been on the job preventing their escape. He wasn't just negligent in his duties to help keep them locked up, he directly interfered with and dispatched the one being capable of properly tending to their prison. Nahiri just switched some of the victims that resulted from Sorin's selfish and treacherous actions which ultimately led to the Titans being freed. Nahiri didn't really do anything to increase the grand death toll caused by Sorin's treachery. She just made sure that some of the people who were destined to die were the ones he cared about rather than the ones she did.
She's certainly no hero, but calling her a full blown villain is maybe pushing it a bit. Even if you consider her a bad guy, she certainly isn't the same caliber of villain that Sorin is, for instance. She reminds me of Beatrix from Kill Bill. Not really a villain, but not really a good guy either.
Where do I even begin?
- I take it you're not taking into account that she didn't intend to seal Emrakul. Meaning there was no reason she had to drop it on Innistrad. Per her own admission, she just wanted Emrakul out of Zendikar. Per her own admission, she wanted to damn a random plane, and just got decided to use Sorin's as means to get revenge.
This is not a case of sacrificing one thing for the greater good. This is by all means an extremely pointless, petty sacrifice.
- Except Sorin did eventually come to honour his deal (see: original Zendikar block). He thought that using Nahiri was his personal guard dog on Zendikar worked on the grand scheme of things, but came to understand otherwise. Granted, his actions to Nahiri were heinous, but he did realise that his negligence wasn't getting him anywhere.
- If anything, Sorin is much more justified here since he isn't killing thousands for pointless reasons.
I never implied what Nahiri did to sate her lust for vengeance and justice was for the greater good. All I did was point out that what she did basically didn't cause anymore loss of innocent life than was already going to be lost due to the series of events Sorin's selfish and treacherous actions set into motion to begin with.
Sorin broke his promise to his allies, Nahiri and Ugin, and when confronted about it, cast the Edlrazi's only warden into a dungeon with a pack of demons for a thousand years. In the warden's absence the Eldrazi inevitably ended up getting free and started munching on planes killing millions of innocent people.
At this point Sorin was given yet another opportunity to choose to honor his oath and take the greater good into consideration and release from his dungeon the one person in the multiverse capable of sealing away the Eldrazi. Ugin, the other walker he had made an ancient pact with concerning the imprisonment of the Eldrazi, strait up demanded Sorin find Nahiri and put aside whatever petty differences he had with her so that they could all put right what had gone so terribly wrong and prevent further loss of innocent life.
He chose instead not to honor is promise or listen to Ugin. Rather than ruin his precious dungeon to free his old friend so that the Eldrazi threat could be properly taken care of he decided instead to let the multi-verse rot and condemned millions to die. Sorin didn't just make one or two careless mistakes. He intentionally put his own selfish desires ahead of those of his friends and the entire multi-verse repeatedly. He broke his oath, condemned his former friend and ally to an eternal Hell of his own design and in doing so condemned countless millions to be devoured by the Elrdrazi. Unlike Nahiri his selfish and treacherous actions led to a net loss of millions of innocent lives.
Now, that doesn't mean Sorin is squeaky clean, either. All he had to do when Nahiri came is be like "Nahiri, I'm sorry that my new protections messed up the call. I'll do what I can to help." Now, how he actually was out of line but Nahiri then escalated it further by threatening his life. And things went downhill from there...
Nahiri never at any point in their initial confrontation threatened his life. She did the planes walker equivalent of slapping him across the face and twisting his arm behind his back to try and force him into honor the promise he had broken. Nahiri even strait up tells him her intent is to drag him back to Zendikar by force if necessary and make him do his damn job. She makes it quite clear she intends to drag him there alive so they can finish the work together. She doesn't leave it ambiguous. She at no point tells him or implies that she harbors murderous intent or even a desire to do him real harm. Planes walkers play rough. I mean Sorin strait up shattered her arm at one point while sparing just to teach her a lesson about how her body worked when she was younger.
Sorin's actions right up until he casts her into the Helvault and then leaves her to rot are very understandable if a bit selfish and arrogant. I was seriously on his side up until this point. Nahiri has the right to be pissed, but she shouldn't have slapped him around like that. She should have been a bit more patient. This however in no way excuses what Sorin does next. He basically does the equivalent of reacting to his angry step daughter slapping him by chaining her up in a sensory deprivation torture chamber with a horde of Hell's most vile demons for the rest of eternity. This is a fate considerably worse than being tortured to death for days with blow torches and pliers. Seriously, that is some next level evil right there. He didn't just do this to some enemy or even a stranger, this is what he did to his old friend for no other reason than she got a bit rough with him after he broke his promise to her. Never was his life in danger. She had made it quite clear what her intentions were and they were not to kill him, but simply to force him to make good on his word whether he liked it or not.
Nahiri never at any point in their initial confrontation threatened his life. She did the planes walker equivalent of slapping him across the face and twisting his arm behind his back to try and force him into honor the promise he had broken. Nahiri even strait up tells him her intent is to drag him back to Zendikar by force if necessary and make him do his damn job. She makes it quite clear she intends to drag him there alive so they can finish the work together. She doesn't leave it ambiguous. She at no point tells him or implies that she harbors murderous intent or even a desire to do him real harm. Planes walkers play rough. I mean Sorin strait up shattered her arm at one point while sparing just to teach her a lesson about how her body worked when she was younger.
You have to consider it from Sorin's point of view at that time. He's in a weakened state, he's only just finished his defenses for Innistrad and here Nahiri comes attempting to coerce him into coming to Zendikar right then and there. Yes, Nahiri made it clear she didn't want to kill him but you're assuming that Sorin actually believed that throughout everything that went. She obviously wasn't going to let him go and he was adamant he wasn't going to leave Innistrad. Nahiri resolved to beat him down to make him respect her and fulfill his promise. She initiated combat with him and then held him at sword point.
No matter what Nahiri says her intentions are at that point, Sorin obviously felt that he couldn't trust them and in his weakened state he has no real way to end the conflict by making her leave. Thus, he sealed her away.
Nahiri's actions and motivations are completely clear to the reader. But Sorin does not have that perspective and he's not really a mind reader.
Sorin and Nahiri are Planeswalkers especially ancient ones, being reasonable is as rare as a spark. Nahiri was never going to be reasonable being locked away for 1000 years letting that grudge (R) shimmer and grow.
Sorin was arrogant and stubborn who didn't take the Eldrazi threat seriously as needed, Her justice was to deliver a massive stab of reality by stripping his illusions away piece by piece.
Nahiri never at any point in their initial confrontation threatened his life. She did the planes walker equivalent of slapping him across the face and twisting his arm behind his back to try and force him into honor the promise he had broken. Nahiri even strait up tells him her intent is to drag him back to Zendikar by force if necessary and make him do his damn job. She makes it quite clear she intends to drag him there alive so they can finish the work together. She doesn't leave it ambiguous. She at no point tells him or implies that she harbors murderous intent or even a desire to do him real harm. Planes walkers play rough. I mean Sorin strait up shattered her arm at one point while sparing just to teach her a lesson about how her body worked when she was younger.
You have to consider it from Sorin's point of view at that time. He's in a weakened state, he's only just finished his defenses for Innistrad and here Nahiri comes attempting to coerce him into coming to Zendikar right then and there. Yes, Nahiri made it clear she didn't want to kill him but you're assuming that Sorin actually believed that throughout everything that went. She obviously wasn't going to let him go and he was adamant he wasn't going to leave Innistrad. Nahiri resolved to beat him down to make him respect her and fulfill his promise. She initiated combat with him and then held him at sword point.
No matter what Nahiri says her intentions are at that point, Sorin obviously felt that he couldn't trust them and in his weakened state he has no real way to end the conflict by making her leave. Thus, he sealed her away.
Nahiri's actions and motivations are completely clear to the reader. But Sorin does not have that perspective and he's not really a mind reader.
Sorin has no reason to believe she is lying to him. She isn't some stranger who just shows up and attacks him without explanation. They are old friends. If your old friend came by and got angry at you for breaking a promise, then slapped you and stated quite clearly that she was going to make you go do your job even if she had to use force would you then turn around and shoot her in the face fearing for your life? Even if you look at it from a completely utilitarian and logical perspective and ignore the fact they are are friends, why would somebody who needs you alive to help them attempt to kill you?
She strait up told him what her intent was. Sorin at no point showed any indication he was actually afraid she was trying to kill him, or any fear at all of her for that matter, only irritation that she would have the audacity to confront him about his broken promise and to challenge him in his own home. Sorin didn't like that his student had gotten the upper hand and he was no longer in control of the situation and decided rather than take the defeat and agree to help her he banished her for eternity in a sensory deprivation torture chamber full of demons. Unless Sorin is autistic or perhaps seriously mentally ill there really is not excuse for his psychotic level of escalation and retaliation and certainly no excuse for him not letting her back out of his dungeon once he regained his strength.
At this point Sorin was given yet another opportunity to choose to honor his oath and take the greater good into consideration and release from his dungeon the one person in the multiverse capable of sealing away the Eldrazi. Ugin, the other walker he had made an ancient pact with concerning the imprisonment of the Eldrazi, strait up demanded Sorin find Nahiri and put aside whatever petty differences he had with her so that they could all put right what had gone so terribly wrong and prevent further loss of innocent life.
He chose instead not to honor is promise or listen to Ugin. Rather than ruin his precious dungeon to free his old friend so that the Eldrazi threat could be properly taken care of he decided instead to let the multi-verse rot and condemned millions to die.
I'm curious to what do you base your ideas on, since Sorin went to Tarkir AFTER the Helvault was shattered, so he couldn't choose to keep it whole despite Ugin's words...
You're right I got one of the events slightly out of order although that really doesn't change much. Sorin doesn't go looking for Ugin until after he has botched his mission by choosing to bring a poorly qualified and hot headed neo-walker to the Eye of Ugin to try and get her to fix the Eldrazi mess rather than freeing the one person in the multi-verse that is actually qualified to do so. The results of that poor and selfish choice led to said hot headed elf freeing the Eldrazi. Sorin had already screwed things up so horribly by not letting Nahiri out to fix the problem before it was too late, that by the time he talks to Ugin there simply is no way to fix it. Sorin has already made his fatal and selfish errors in judgement prior to that conversation. Still, all of the mistakes he made and the selfish reasons behind them remain exactly the same regardless of whether he had the conversation with Ugin before or after the fact.
She was never Gisa's friend. Gisa thought she was, because Nahiri isn't an idiot and realized that Gisa would be easy to manipulate if she was nice to her. "Wow Gisa, you sure are cool and you raise such awesome zombies. If you raise a troop of zombie slaves to build me a temple we can be besties." Gisa was a useful pawn, one she tossed aside once her usefulness was at an end.
I would have to agree with that. Nahiri pulled a total Sorin with Gisa. She just strait up used her. Nahiri did apparently manage to pick up a few tricks from her old teacher.
If your old friend came by and got angry at you for breaking a promise, then slapped you and stated quite clearly that she was going to make you go do your job even if she had to use force would you then turn around and stab her in the face fearing for your life?
Bad comparison. Nahiri initiated the physical combat. Nahiri impaled Sorin by hurling pointed darts of stone at him while he is in a weakened state at one point. What if, given his drained state, that had been enough to kill him?
Sorin at no point showed any indication he was actually afraid she was trying to kill him, or any fear at all of her for that matter, only irritation that she would have the audacity to confront him about his broken promise and to challenge him in his own house.
You don't have to be afraid or scared to be in danger and given Sorin's level of experience and his composure, I doubt he'd express any at all. Besides, the story of their fight never delves into Sorin's head on what he's actually feeling at the time. It's told from Nahiri's point of view for the most part. It explains her feelings and motivations as the events go down. All we get are Sorin's verbal responses to show his state of mind at the time.
Unless Sorin is autistic or perhaps seriously mentally ill there really is not excuse for his psychotic level of escalation and retaliation and certainly no excuse for him not letting her back out of his personal dungeon once he regained his strength.
What you don't seem to get is how Nahiri's actions would most likely changed his view point on her. By attacking him, harming him, refusing to leave when he asked, attempting to make him leave before he's sure Innistrad was secure and before he's fully recovered, Nahiri goes from being a friend and ally whose (justifiably) angry to a threat. If not a threat to his life, then to a threat to the security of his home and his plans. Thus, he locked her away.
Now, everything I just said, DOES NOT excuse him from not letting her back out once he's at full power and Innistrad is safe. That is very clearly, completely on him. But then again, we know Sorin doesn't really abide by conventional morality, so really, it's not that unexpected, even if he's wrong.
At the end of the day, they both handled this poorly. Sorin did not adequately explain his situation and callously disregarded Nahiri. Nahiri, instead of realizing that Sorin is a dead end due to his attitude and simply leaving, starts a fight. Sorin, due to Avacyn's intervention, gets the upper hand and seals her away, because Nahiri is now a danger to Innistrad and what else is he going to do with her? Kill her? Nahiri wasn't going to leave.
But you know what? At the end of the day, this is all pointless. Who was really wrong in that situation? Who has more blame? Semantics and interpretations. Because what Nahiri has done to Innistrad, invalidates any sympathy. No matter how much of a jerk Sorin was to her, no one else on Innistrad did anything to deserve Nahiri's wrath and/or Emmrakul's corruption.
If your old friend came by and got angry at you for breaking a promise, then slapped you and stated quite clearly that she was going to make you go do your job even if she had to use force would you then turn around and stab her in the face fearing for your life?
Bad comparison. Nahiri initiated the physical combat. Nahiri impaled Sorin by hurling pointed darts of stone at him while he is in a weakened state at one point. What if, given his drained state, that had been enough to kill him?
Sorin at no point showed any indication he was actually afraid she was trying to kill him, or any fear at all of her for that matter, only irritation that she would have the audacity to confront him about his broken promise and to challenge him in his own house.
You don't have to be afraid or scared to be in danger and given Sorin's level of experience and his composure, I doubt he'd express any at all. Besides, the story of their fight never delves into Sorin's head on what he's actually feeling at the time. It's told from Nahiri's point of view for the most part. It explains her feelings and motivations as the events go down. All we get are Sorin's verbal responses to show his state of mind at the time.
Unless Sorin is autistic or perhaps seriously mentally ill there really is not excuse for his psychotic level of escalation and retaliation and certainly no excuse for him not letting her back out of his personal dungeon once he regained his strength.
What you don't seem to get is how Nahiri's actions would most likely changed his view point on her. By attacking him, harming him, refusing to leave when he asked, attempting to make him leave before he's sure Innistrad was secure and before he's fully recovered, Nahiri goes from being a friend and ally whose (justifiably) angry to a threat. If not a threat to his life, then to a threat to the security of his home and his plans. Thus, he locked her away.
Now, everything I just said, DOES NOT excuse him from not letting her back out once he's at full power and Innistrad is safe. That is very clearly, completely on him. But then again, we know Sorin doesn't really abide by conventional morality, so really, it's not that unexpected, even if he's wrong.
At the end of the day, they both handled this poorly. Sorin did not adequately explain his situation and callously disregarded Nahiri. Nahiri, instead of realizing that Sorin is a dead end due to his attitude and simply leaving, starts a fight. Sorin, due to Avacyn's intervention, gets the upper hand and seals her away, because Nahiri is now a danger to Innistrad and what else is he going to do with her? Kill her? Nahiri wasn't going to leave.
But you know what? At the end of the day, this is all pointless. Who was really wrong in that situation? Who has more blame? Semantics and interpretations. Because what Nahiri has done to Innistrad, invalidates any sympathy. No matter how much of a jerk Sorin was to her, no one else on Innistrad did anything to deserve Nahiri's wrath and/or Emmrakul's corruption.
Generally sums up my thoughts. I definitely agree, Sorin is not in the right. Nahiri escalated things, then Sorin did, and then Nahiri went even further. Neither of them is a good guy in all of this. Both of them committed great wrongs against the other, Nahiri just went above that and committed great wrongs against an entire plane intentionally, not incidentally.
You see, this is the point where I stop respecting your opinion, because you feel the need to change the story to fit your point since it isn't strong enough on its own.
First, when Nahiri was sleeping, she had an alarm to wake her up if anything happened, and it worked. You focused on the length of time because its the only argument you have, even though its not relevant. Sorin kept her locked away from any chance to do her job for 1,000 years. It quite simply doesn't matter if she slept (or rather meditated) for longer than that, because while she was sleeping she had mechanisms in place to ensure that she would wake up to do her job.
Your trite little metaphor is inapplicable to the situation. Sorin did quite a bit more than not go with her to see that she fixed the issue. He, first of all, did not show up to honor his oath when the time came, while she spent millennia stuck on Zendikar to make sure someone would be there while Sorin went gallivanting across the multiverse. Second, the reason he wasn't able to fulfill his oath was that he was busy creating his own planar defense system, which he basically told her meant that he no longer cared about outside threats since Innistrad was safe. We know that he still cares, but she doesn't. Then, when she asks him to come with her to help check on the defenses to make sure that she actually fixed them right, he blows her off, not even bothering to explain why, just talking down to her. Considering that Sorin taught her about planeswalker duels, it shouldn't be surprising that such an exchange leads to one.
Dude, none of this exonerates Nahiri, but stop pretending that she didn't have legit reasons to hate Sorin, or that Sorin didn't handle it as poorly as he possibly could have. And going off on the speculation tangent like you did shows you to be as biased, and wrong, as the people defending Nahiri as not a villain.
Her alarms were not strong enough then. The people made temples and statues of the Edlrazi and worshiped them but she had no idea. Also it took all that time for a little crack to form.
He wasn't going to go with her because he was tired. Then she started ordering him around, he refused to be ordered around by someone he viewed as a child. Then she attacked him. He did not ignore the call nor miss it on purpose. He even said that perhaps it is due to the work he is doing that caused that and maybe he should of foreseen it but he did not. After several thousand years the one time a call comes and he happens to miss it because of doing work and also possibly passed out. You are the one twisting it to sound like he purposely ignored it.
I highly doubt that Sorin felt his security system he set up was going to keep out the Eldrazi. When Nahiri first showed up he had just finished and was still unsure if it would work at all. Then he was excited that it was working but Nahiri was about to destroy all the hard work so he had to step in. So he went from not even sure if it was going to do anything to see it was there and working but could not stand up to someone he felt was below him. We are both speculating on how he felt, but unless he is way overconfident I would probably go with my speculation.
They could of both handled the wording exchange better. Though she took it to the next level by attacking him. Maybe where you are from it is OK to come after someone with a weapon when they say no to you? Her imprisonment is because she refused to stop and go away. At that point she should of started blaming herself for the attack, though she instead blames him for stopping her attack. I think my level of resentment for Sorin would of been "we aren't friends anymore" and would of been before the attack.
At the moment, Nahiri scores higher in the "Eviler-than-thou" index, because she consciously redirected Emrakul to Innistrad without the intention to seal Emrakul for the sole reason of revenge. She also suffers from temper issues for sure, considering she attacked Sorin almost straightaway after "miscommunication" from his part (Honestly, Nahiri probably should have been RW from the start, her quick-temper seems to have been a rather dominant feature).
Does that mean Sorin gets away scot-free simply because he was exhausted? Not quite. Yes, he can be excused for not hearing/being unable to hear the beacon signal when the Eldrazi first broke out... but he knows very well how dangerous the Eldrazi are in the first place and "miscommunication" with the some of the worst possible responses... except I don't think it was miscommunication, it was structured out of his nature (either he's superior to all others and they must shut up and obey, or he's weaker and he shuts up and listens) - no amount of exhaustion was going to change that, honestly - he'll probably say the same things (minus the exhaustion itself) even if he wasn't exhausted. Then he pushes it more and more when his berserk button was pressed and I'm not buying exhaustion as an excuse (his interaction with Liliana was bordering on that as well). Sure, we haven't seen him actually physically retaliate (unless Avacyn counts) and in Nahiri's case she attacked first, so it justified his actions into self-defense instead, but at this point of characterization, I won't be surprised if he could be provoked into action directly.
What makes him "evil" in my opinion though, is simply that he consciously left Nahiri in the Helvault for 1000 years. Even with all the justification she gave him for the retaliation, I would never feel it justified that retaliation to last for 1000 years. Sorin no doubt knew Nahiri's nature, which probably included her quick temper and I highly doubt they had a spat before that needed 1000 years for Nahiri to cool down for him to have a 1000 year estimate. In fact, if anything, from his response to Ugin's query on Nahiri's whereabouts, either the estimate was way longer than 1000 years... or he was callous enough to just really forget about her in there until Ugin reminded him... actually he probably already thought of Nahiri when the Eldrazi broke out in Rise, but he still decided not to release her, probably simply out of "inconvenience" of having to deal with her anger and even attempted to ask Ugin if they really needed her. That's the pinnacle of "miscommunication evil" right there - Sorin doesn't want to face the emotional responses to something that happened 1000 years ago and avoided it by sealing the other party in the Helvault for that long...
That's my point of view using the "relative human morality in real-life society standards" though. Reminder in the end I still think the oldwalkers in particular are way closer to the Eldrazi than to any species that are plane-bound and that they mostly work as individuals (like Eldrazi), so bluntly put, there are no actual Standards that are applicable to them in their "reality", since there is no society more powerful than them to determine that.
You see, this is the point where I stop respecting your opinion, because you feel the need to change the story to fit your point since it isn't strong enough on its own.
First, when Nahiri was sleeping, she had an alarm to wake her up if anything happened, and it worked. You focused on the length of time because its the only argument you have, even though its not relevant. Sorin kept her locked away from any chance to do her job for 1,000 years. It quite simply doesn't matter if she slept (or rather meditated) for longer than that, because while she was sleeping she had mechanisms in place to ensure that she would wake up to do her job.
Your trite little metaphor is inapplicable to the situation. Sorin did quite a bit more than not go with her to see that she fixed the issue. He, first of all, did not show up to honor his oath when the time came, while she spent millennia stuck on Zendikar to make sure someone would be there while Sorin went gallivanting across the multiverse. Second, the reason he wasn't able to fulfill his oath was that he was busy creating his own planar defense system, which he basically told her meant that he no longer cared about outside threats since Innistrad was safe. We know that he still cares, but she doesn't. Then, when she asks him to come with her to help check on the defenses to make sure that she actually fixed them right, he blows her off, not even bothering to explain why, just talking down to her. Considering that Sorin taught her about planeswalker duels, it shouldn't be surprising that such an exchange leads to one.
Dude, none of this exonerates Nahiri, but stop pretending that she didn't have legit reasons to hate Sorin, or that Sorin didn't handle it as poorly as he possibly could have. And going off on the speculation tangent like you did shows you to be as biased, and wrong, as the people defending Nahiri as not a villain.
Her alarms were not strong enough then. The people made temples and statues of the Edlrazi and worshiped them but she had no idea. Also it took all that time for a little crack to form.
He wasn't going to go with her because he was tired. Then she started ordering him around, he refused to be ordered around by someone he viewed as a child. Then she attacked him. He did not ignore the call nor miss it on purpose. He even said that perhaps it is due to the work he is doing that caused that and maybe he should of foreseen it but he did not. After several thousand years the one time a call comes and he happens to miss it because of doing work and also possibly passed out. You are the one twisting it to sound like he purposely ignored it.
I highly doubt that Sorin felt his security system he set up was going to keep out the Eldrazi. When Nahiri first showed up he had just finished and was still unsure if it would work at all. Then he was excited that it was working but Nahiri was about to destroy all the hard work so he had to step in. So he went from not even sure if it was going to do anything to see it was there and working but could not stand up to someone he felt was below him. We are both speculating on how he felt, but unless he is way overconfident I would probably go with my speculation.
They could of both handled the wording exchange better. Though she took it to the next level by attacking him. Maybe where you are from it is OK to come after someone with a weapon when they say no to you? Her imprisonment is because she refused to stop and go away. At that point she should of started blaming herself for the attack, though she instead blames him for stopping her attack. I think my level of resentment for Sorin would of been "we aren't friends anymore" and would of been before the attack.
Good, now you even have to lie about what I said to prove your point. I never said he ignored it or missed it on purpose, and I challenge you to point out where you think I said it. What I actually, and clearly, said was that while she was tasked with staying on Zendikar, he was free to do whatever with his only responsibility being that he would answer the call. Yes, the reason he didn't answer was because he was building the Helvault and Avacyn, but when it became apparent that had caused him to miss the call his attitude was a flippant "Huh, I guess it could do that, whatever." Not "I'm sorry, I didn't realize it would do that." Not even "Hey, back off, I didn't think it would do that." No, his response at best implied he simply never thought about the possibility, and at worst that he didn't care, and certainly that he didn't care after the fact.
No need to speculate, Sorin basically said that it was to keep out Eldrazi:
"You dedicated yourself to watch over the imprisoned Eldrazi, and it became clear to me that my plane was in dire need of its own protection, particularly in my absence. This Helvault is half of what I created to serve as such protection. It's not inconceivable that your signal from the Eye was unable to break through the magic that protects this plane."
They were made specifically to protect against extra planar threats. The fact that Avacyn, on her own as only half of his defense system and while being actively compromised by Nahiri, DID manage to prevent Emrakul from coming through proves it. He wasn't overconfident, his plan worked, even when it was broken.
Yes, Nahiri missed her teachings falter and the temples being built. Guess what though? She was still there to fix things when they began to bear fruit, as her alarm woke her at the first crack. She could have even more closely managed Zendikar's inhabitants, but remember the reason she went to sleep was to stave off the madness of eternal life and seeing generations pass in the blink of an eye. Even if you don't care about that, its fundamentally dishonest to compare sleeping with an alarm and being imprisoned and physically prevented from doing your job.
And again, back of your childish assertion of " Maybe where you are from it is OK to come after someone with a weapon when they say no to you?" Guess what, Oldwalkers weren't people, they were basically gods, and it is established that the sort of attack Nahiri carried out was normal for them. Not just in this story, mind you, but in all of Magic's history. Sorin himself practiced formal duels, instructed Nahiri in them, AND BROKE HER ARM WITH A SWORD just to teach her that such things are trivial to a planeswalker. Its the Oldwalker equivalent of flipping the bird and saying go f yourself. This is the second time you've went down this route, so let me echo her sentiments. When you have to make things up to support your point and ignore the lore, then imply that other posters who point it out are OK with getting violent with people that disagree with them, you've lost the debate. I don't mean that your ideas are invalid, or that posters who agree are wrong, but that you, personally, have lost, because you, personally, have decided to be a tool.
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No need to speculate, Sorin basically said that it was to keep out Eldrazi:
"You dedicated yourself to watch over the imprisoned Eldrazi, and it became clear to me that my plane was in dire need of its own protection, particularly in my absence. This Helvault is half of what I created to serve as such protection. It's not inconceivable that your signal from the Eye was unable to break through the magic that protects this plane."
You are still speculating. It has been well established that at least part of the protection, if not the main part, was to keep the vampires from destroying the human population. Then also through Liliana we learn he keeps track of the planeswalker visitors coming and makes sure they know they can be there but they better not cause trouble. Is your speculation that they were made specifically for extra planner threats every said? He seemed to focus more on general protection rather than Eldrazi. If he really thought these protections would stop the Eldrazi then why even get involved in the trapping scheme to start with? Why not just set up these protections on the places he likes to visit and be done with everywhere else? Why go back to check on the Eldrazi prison? Why look for Ugin on help for the Eldrazi? His actions do not support your speculation.
As far as the old walker battling, just because a group of lets say 50 people (beings) in the entire universe has a sub-part of the group that feels it is OK to do something does not make that thing actually OK. It is also not a valid excuse to start something just because your teacher, or former teacher, called you young one and that makes you mad. She was treated like a child, then got mad and proceeded to act like a child to show she isn't one?
She did not even know if her alarms were going to wake her. I think she became more apathetic to the people rather than hiding herself away to keep from going crazy. From all I have seen in life you are more likely to go crazy or develop strange morals if you are shut off from human (sentient) contact rather than watch people you know slowly die. If anything she was making herself more likely to go crazy and not care about her own duties by shutting herself off.
Saying that he broke his oath by not going heavily implies it was purposeful. What I said was to put perspective and make sure the facts were reviewed. I did not lie about what you said. I did not even say you said something. I was trying to put perspective into what you were implying, or your choice of words was implying.
You seem to be giving a lot of cues into being reacting to the story emotionally rather than logically. Things like "stop respecting", "lie", and "childish".
I'm reacting to you, personally, because you, personally, made a childish statement and then repeated it. I will no longer respond to you, personally, because you have demonstrated an inability to actually address my points and have chosen, repeatedly, to ignore what I have actually written in favor of constructing strawmen. There is no point in having any further conversation with you.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
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It's not really my place, but I think we've reached a consensus on the topic. What Nahiri has shown and what she's willing to do has put her on the path of crossing the Moral Event Horizon, if she hasn't crossed it already. I THINK most of us can agree to that.
Now the conversations are getting heated over how much of jerk/villain Sorin is in the grand scheme of things, which is kind of irrelevant. At the end of the day, no matter what he did to Nahiri, he didn't make her bring Emrakul to Innistrad. A whole plane didn't have to be all but doomed for Nahiri to get back at him. Heck, you could really say that by forcing him to destroy Avacyn, Nahiri got her revenge. She made him destroy his most beloved creation...
She was treated like a child, then got mad and proceeded to act like a child to show she isn't one?
If we're being logical (as so many people see to want the characters to be as if its a story about robots, but whatever) Nahiri can deduce that Sorin will not help her voluntarily. He sealed the Eldrazi to protect Innistrad. Now that Innistrad is safe with its own wards he's not going to care about what happens in Zendikar in the slightest. And indeed that's exactly what happened. He ignored Zendikar for a thousand years despite having been told that there were critical problems with containment and once he found out they were free assumed he could just ignore the Eldrazi and hide on Innistrad thanks to Avacyn and the Helvault. And apparently he believed Nahiri was so irrelevant that after the Helvault was broken it didn't even occur to him that she might be capable of revenge.
Sorin's ability to always make the worst possible choice in every situation is, as other have documented, pretty startling.
You seem to be giving a lot of cues into being reacting to the story emotionally rather than logically. Things like "stop respecting", "lie", and "childish".
Something something blatant trolling and baiting of other people something something but I'm not a mod not a mod something something.
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Sorin didn't hide on Innistrad though. He went looking for Ugin. I'm not going to say he made great decisions, but he wasn't completely ignoring the Eldrazi.
Sorin didn't hide on Innistrad though. He went looking for Ugin. I'm not going to say he made great decisions, but he wasn't completely ignoring the Eldrazi.
Correct. Once everything went to hell, he finally decided to figure out what happened to Ugin. He did basically blow off the problem for 1000 years though, but he deserves credit for eventually caring about the problem even though his wards still stood. Did Avacyns disappearance occur before or after the release of the Eldrazi, or are we not clear on the timeline? Also, do we know if Sorin regularly checked up on Zendikar, or was he responding to what happened to the Eye? It would yell us a lot about his character if he was doing his duty while everything was going right with the Helvault and Avacyn, or if he only started caring again after Avacyn disappeared .
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No idea on either of those. My best guess would be Avacyn was still up, but not sure when Avacyn went away. Kind of curious given it would help give an idea of how quickly things went downhill.
Based on Innistrad though I think if Avacyn was gone his first priority would be finding her, not the Eldrazi.
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I'm surprised that you of all people would say that, considering we did learn more about her thought process and how it aligns with white. It would have been reasonable pre Moon to believe that she had gone crazy, but the solid long term planning, her opinions on Innistrad and its inhabitants, and her vengeance being based not only on personal vendetta (which would be mono red) but on a sense of justice (punishing Sorin for his crimes) all point to her retaining her white side. The passion, anger, hate, and bent toward reckless destruction are all red, but everything else is white, and most of that was confirmed or expanded upon during the Eldritch Moon story line.
She was never Gisa's friend. Gisa thought she was, because Nahiri isn't an idiot and realized that Gisa would be easy to manipulate if she was nice to her. "Wow Gisa, you sure are cool and you raise such awesome zombies. If you raise a troop of zombie slaves to build me a temple we can be besties." Gisa was a useful pawn, one she tossed aside once her usefulness was at an end.
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Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Now, that doesn't mean Sorin is squeaky clean, either. All he had to do when Nahiri came is be like "Nahiri, I'm sorry that my new protections messed up the call. I'll do what I can to help." Now, how he actually was out of line but Nahiri then escalated it further by threatening his life. And things went downhill from there...
Now the difference is that Sorin never intended for any of this to happen. The fact that he tried to reseal the Eldrazi despite Ugin was unable to show up, does speak to his sense of responsibility. He would have been successful if not for Nissa.
At the end of the day, Nahiri doesn't have leg to stand on. She intentionally incited genocide and doomed many, many innocent people to unspeakable fates. Not even to mention what her actions did Avacyn, one the wholly good characters in MTG. Also, she's done this in the name of a plane that is, ultimately, safe. Zendikar will recover with time and with 2/3 of the Eldrazi gone and none left on it, Nahiri actions are only about her need for revenge.
How she responds, once she finds that out will show her true nature, if you ask.
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White can do Vengeance. She also gathered an army of followers to fight for her. There was also the elimination of anything linked to Sorin and the Markov vampires which fits into White.
yea she's a threat or menace to people who hurt her as well as anybody else that lives on the same planet as said person
there's no defending what she's doing, and any attempt at redemption for her Wizards tries to spin for us better be damn good if it doesn't want to come off as completely insincere and shallow
I never implied what Nahiri did to sate her lust for vengeance and justice was for the greater good. All I did was point out that what she did basically didn't cause anymore loss of innocent life than was already going to be lost due to the series of events Sorin's selfish and treacherous actions set into motion to begin with.
Sorin broke his promise to his allies, Nahiri and Ugin, and when confronted about it, cast the Edlrazi's only warden into a dungeon with a pack of demons for a thousand years. In the warden's absence the Eldrazi inevitably ended up getting free and started munching on planes killing millions of innocent people.
At this point Sorin was given yet another opportunity to choose to honor his oath and take the greater good into consideration and release from his dungeon the one person in the multiverse capable of sealing away the Eldrazi. Ugin, the other walker he had made an ancient pact with concerning the imprisonment of the Eldrazi, strait up demanded Sorin find Nahiri and put aside whatever petty differences he had with her so that they could all put right what had gone so terribly wrong and prevent further loss of innocent life.
He chose instead not to honor is promise or listen to Ugin. Rather than ruin his precious dungeon to free his old friend so that the Eldrazi threat could be properly taken care of he decided instead to let the multi-verse rot and condemned millions to die. Sorin didn't just make one or two careless mistakes. He intentionally put his own selfish desires ahead of those of his friends and the entire multi-verse repeatedly. He broke his oath, condemned his former friend and ally to an eternal Hell of his own design and in doing so condemned countless millions to be devoured by the Elrdrazi. Unlike Nahiri his selfish and treacherous actions led to a net loss of millions of innocent lives.
Nahiri never at any point in their initial confrontation threatened his life. She did the planes walker equivalent of slapping him across the face and twisting his arm behind his back to try and force him into honor the promise he had broken. Nahiri even strait up tells him her intent is to drag him back to Zendikar by force if necessary and make him do his damn job. She makes it quite clear she intends to drag him there alive so they can finish the work together. She doesn't leave it ambiguous. She at no point tells him or implies that she harbors murderous intent or even a desire to do him real harm. Planes walkers play rough. I mean Sorin strait up shattered her arm at one point while sparing just to teach her a lesson about how her body worked when she was younger.
Sorin's actions right up until he casts her into the Helvault and then leaves her to rot are very understandable if a bit selfish and arrogant. I was seriously on his side up until this point. Nahiri has the right to be pissed, but she shouldn't have slapped him around like that. She should have been a bit more patient. This however in no way excuses what Sorin does next. He basically does the equivalent of reacting to his angry step daughter slapping him by chaining her up in a sensory deprivation torture chamber with a horde of Hell's most vile demons for the rest of eternity. This is a fate considerably worse than being tortured to death for days with blow torches and pliers. Seriously, that is some next level evil right there. He didn't just do this to some enemy or even a stranger, this is what he did to his old friend for no other reason than she got a bit rough with him after he broke his promise to her. Never was his life in danger. She had made it quite clear what her intentions were and they were not to kill him, but simply to force him to make good on his word whether he liked it or not.
You have to consider it from Sorin's point of view at that time. He's in a weakened state, he's only just finished his defenses for Innistrad and here Nahiri comes attempting to coerce him into coming to Zendikar right then and there. Yes, Nahiri made it clear she didn't want to kill him but you're assuming that Sorin actually believed that throughout everything that went. She obviously wasn't going to let him go and he was adamant he wasn't going to leave Innistrad. Nahiri resolved to beat him down to make him respect her and fulfill his promise. She initiated combat with him and then held him at sword point.
No matter what Nahiri says her intentions are at that point, Sorin obviously felt that he couldn't trust them and in his weakened state he has no real way to end the conflict by making her leave. Thus, he sealed her away.
Nahiri's actions and motivations are completely clear to the reader. But Sorin does not have that perspective and he's not really a mind reader.
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Sorin was arrogant and stubborn who didn't take the Eldrazi threat seriously as needed, Her justice was to deliver a massive stab of reality by stripping his illusions away piece by piece.
Sorin has no reason to believe she is lying to him. She isn't some stranger who just shows up and attacks him without explanation. They are old friends. If your old friend came by and got angry at you for breaking a promise, then slapped you and stated quite clearly that she was going to make you go do your job even if she had to use force would you then turn around and shoot her in the face fearing for your life? Even if you look at it from a completely utilitarian and logical perspective and ignore the fact they are are friends, why would somebody who needs you alive to help them attempt to kill you?
She strait up told him what her intent was. Sorin at no point showed any indication he was actually afraid she was trying to kill him, or any fear at all of her for that matter, only irritation that she would have the audacity to confront him about his broken promise and to challenge him in his own home. Sorin didn't like that his student had gotten the upper hand and he was no longer in control of the situation and decided rather than take the defeat and agree to help her he banished her for eternity in a sensory deprivation torture chamber full of demons. Unless Sorin is autistic or perhaps seriously mentally ill there really is not excuse for his psychotic level of escalation and retaliation and certainly no excuse for him not letting her back out of his dungeon once he regained his strength.
You're right I got one of the events slightly out of order although that really doesn't change much. Sorin doesn't go looking for Ugin until after he has botched his mission by choosing to bring a poorly qualified and hot headed neo-walker to the Eye of Ugin to try and get her to fix the Eldrazi mess rather than freeing the one person in the multi-verse that is actually qualified to do so. The results of that poor and selfish choice led to said hot headed elf freeing the Eldrazi. Sorin had already screwed things up so horribly by not letting Nahiri out to fix the problem before it was too late, that by the time he talks to Ugin there simply is no way to fix it. Sorin has already made his fatal and selfish errors in judgement prior to that conversation. Still, all of the mistakes he made and the selfish reasons behind them remain exactly the same regardless of whether he had the conversation with Ugin before or after the fact.
I would have to agree with that. Nahiri pulled a total Sorin with Gisa. She just strait up used her. Nahiri did apparently manage to pick up a few tricks from her old teacher.
Bad comparison. Nahiri initiated the physical combat. Nahiri impaled Sorin by hurling pointed darts of stone at him while he is in a weakened state at one point. What if, given his drained state, that had been enough to kill him?
You don't have to be afraid or scared to be in danger and given Sorin's level of experience and his composure, I doubt he'd express any at all. Besides, the story of their fight never delves into Sorin's head on what he's actually feeling at the time. It's told from Nahiri's point of view for the most part. It explains her feelings and motivations as the events go down. All we get are Sorin's verbal responses to show his state of mind at the time.
What you don't seem to get is how Nahiri's actions would most likely changed his view point on her. By attacking him, harming him, refusing to leave when he asked, attempting to make him leave before he's sure Innistrad was secure and before he's fully recovered, Nahiri goes from being a friend and ally whose (justifiably) angry to a threat. If not a threat to his life, then to a threat to the security of his home and his plans. Thus, he locked her away.
Now, everything I just said, DOES NOT excuse him from not letting her back out once he's at full power and Innistrad is safe. That is very clearly, completely on him. But then again, we know Sorin doesn't really abide by conventional morality, so really, it's not that unexpected, even if he's wrong.
At the end of the day, they both handled this poorly. Sorin did not adequately explain his situation and callously disregarded Nahiri. Nahiri, instead of realizing that Sorin is a dead end due to his attitude and simply leaving, starts a fight. Sorin, due to Avacyn's intervention, gets the upper hand and seals her away, because Nahiri is now a danger to Innistrad and what else is he going to do with her? Kill her? Nahiri wasn't going to leave.
But you know what? At the end of the day, this is all pointless. Who was really wrong in that situation? Who has more blame? Semantics and interpretations. Because what Nahiri has done to Innistrad, invalidates any sympathy. No matter how much of a jerk Sorin was to her, no one else on Innistrad did anything to deserve Nahiri's wrath and/or Emmrakul's corruption.
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Generally sums up my thoughts. I definitely agree, Sorin is not in the right. Nahiri escalated things, then Sorin did, and then Nahiri went even further. Neither of them is a good guy in all of this. Both of them committed great wrongs against the other, Nahiri just went above that and committed great wrongs against an entire plane intentionally, not incidentally.
Her alarms were not strong enough then. The people made temples and statues of the Edlrazi and worshiped them but she had no idea. Also it took all that time for a little crack to form.
He wasn't going to go with her because he was tired. Then she started ordering him around, he refused to be ordered around by someone he viewed as a child. Then she attacked him. He did not ignore the call nor miss it on purpose. He even said that perhaps it is due to the work he is doing that caused that and maybe he should of foreseen it but he did not. After several thousand years the one time a call comes and he happens to miss it because of doing work and also possibly passed out. You are the one twisting it to sound like he purposely ignored it.
I highly doubt that Sorin felt his security system he set up was going to keep out the Eldrazi. When Nahiri first showed up he had just finished and was still unsure if it would work at all. Then he was excited that it was working but Nahiri was about to destroy all the hard work so he had to step in. So he went from not even sure if it was going to do anything to see it was there and working but could not stand up to someone he felt was below him. We are both speculating on how he felt, but unless he is way overconfident I would probably go with my speculation.
They could of both handled the wording exchange better. Though she took it to the next level by attacking him. Maybe where you are from it is OK to come after someone with a weapon when they say no to you? Her imprisonment is because she refused to stop and go away. At that point she should of started blaming herself for the attack, though she instead blames him for stopping her attack. I think my level of resentment for Sorin would of been "we aren't friends anymore" and would of been before the attack.
Does that mean Sorin gets away scot-free simply because he was exhausted? Not quite. Yes, he can be excused for not hearing/being unable to hear the beacon signal when the Eldrazi first broke out... but he knows very well how dangerous the Eldrazi are in the first place and "miscommunication" with the some of the worst possible responses... except I don't think it was miscommunication, it was structured out of his nature (either he's superior to all others and they must shut up and obey, or he's weaker and he shuts up and listens) - no amount of exhaustion was going to change that, honestly - he'll probably say the same things (minus the exhaustion itself) even if he wasn't exhausted. Then he pushes it more and more when his berserk button was pressed and I'm not buying exhaustion as an excuse (his interaction with Liliana was bordering on that as well). Sure, we haven't seen him actually physically retaliate (unless Avacyn counts) and in Nahiri's case she attacked first, so it justified his actions into self-defense instead, but at this point of characterization, I won't be surprised if he could be provoked into action directly.
What makes him "evil" in my opinion though, is simply that he consciously left Nahiri in the Helvault for 1000 years. Even with all the justification she gave him for the retaliation, I would never feel it justified that retaliation to last for 1000 years. Sorin no doubt knew Nahiri's nature, which probably included her quick temper and I highly doubt they had a spat before that needed 1000 years for Nahiri to cool down for him to have a 1000 year estimate. In fact, if anything, from his response to Ugin's query on Nahiri's whereabouts, either the estimate was way longer than 1000 years... or he was callous enough to just really forget about her in there until Ugin reminded him... actually he probably already thought of Nahiri when the Eldrazi broke out in Rise, but he still decided not to release her, probably simply out of "inconvenience" of having to deal with her anger and even attempted to ask Ugin if they really needed her. That's the pinnacle of "miscommunication evil" right there - Sorin doesn't want to face the emotional responses to something that happened 1000 years ago and avoided it by sealing the other party in the Helvault for that long...
That's my point of view using the "relative human morality in real-life society standards" though. Reminder in the end I still think the oldwalkers in particular are way closer to the Eldrazi than to any species that are plane-bound and that they mostly work as individuals (like Eldrazi), so bluntly put, there are no actual Standards that are applicable to them in their "reality", since there is no society more powerful than them to determine that.
Good, now you even have to lie about what I said to prove your point. I never said he ignored it or missed it on purpose, and I challenge you to point out where you think I said it. What I actually, and clearly, said was that while she was tasked with staying on Zendikar, he was free to do whatever with his only responsibility being that he would answer the call. Yes, the reason he didn't answer was because he was building the Helvault and Avacyn, but when it became apparent that had caused him to miss the call his attitude was a flippant "Huh, I guess it could do that, whatever." Not "I'm sorry, I didn't realize it would do that." Not even "Hey, back off, I didn't think it would do that." No, his response at best implied he simply never thought about the possibility, and at worst that he didn't care, and certainly that he didn't care after the fact.
No need to speculate, Sorin basically said that it was to keep out Eldrazi:
"You dedicated yourself to watch over the imprisoned Eldrazi, and it became clear to me that my plane was in dire need of its own protection, particularly in my absence. This Helvault is half of what I created to serve as such protection. It's not inconceivable that your signal from the Eye was unable to break through the magic that protects this plane."
They were made specifically to protect against extra planar threats. The fact that Avacyn, on her own as only half of his defense system and while being actively compromised by Nahiri, DID manage to prevent Emrakul from coming through proves it. He wasn't overconfident, his plan worked, even when it was broken.
Yes, Nahiri missed her teachings falter and the temples being built. Guess what though? She was still there to fix things when they began to bear fruit, as her alarm woke her at the first crack. She could have even more closely managed Zendikar's inhabitants, but remember the reason she went to sleep was to stave off the madness of eternal life and seeing generations pass in the blink of an eye. Even if you don't care about that, its fundamentally dishonest to compare sleeping with an alarm and being imprisoned and physically prevented from doing your job.
And again, back of your childish assertion of " Maybe where you are from it is OK to come after someone with a weapon when they say no to you?" Guess what, Oldwalkers weren't people, they were basically gods, and it is established that the sort of attack Nahiri carried out was normal for them. Not just in this story, mind you, but in all of Magic's history. Sorin himself practiced formal duels, instructed Nahiri in them, AND BROKE HER ARM WITH A SWORD just to teach her that such things are trivial to a planeswalker. Its the Oldwalker equivalent of flipping the bird and saying go f yourself. This is the second time you've went down this route, so let me echo her sentiments. When you have to make things up to support your point and ignore the lore, then imply that other posters who point it out are OK with getting violent with people that disagree with them, you've lost the debate. I don't mean that your ideas are invalid, or that posters who agree are wrong, but that you, personally, have lost, because you, personally, have decided to be a tool.
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You are still speculating. It has been well established that at least part of the protection, if not the main part, was to keep the vampires from destroying the human population. Then also through Liliana we learn he keeps track of the planeswalker visitors coming and makes sure they know they can be there but they better not cause trouble. Is your speculation that they were made specifically for extra planner threats every said? He seemed to focus more on general protection rather than Eldrazi. If he really thought these protections would stop the Eldrazi then why even get involved in the trapping scheme to start with? Why not just set up these protections on the places he likes to visit and be done with everywhere else? Why go back to check on the Eldrazi prison? Why look for Ugin on help for the Eldrazi? His actions do not support your speculation.
As far as the old walker battling, just because a group of lets say 50 people (beings) in the entire universe has a sub-part of the group that feels it is OK to do something does not make that thing actually OK. It is also not a valid excuse to start something just because your teacher, or former teacher, called you young one and that makes you mad. She was treated like a child, then got mad and proceeded to act like a child to show she isn't one?
She did not even know if her alarms were going to wake her. I think she became more apathetic to the people rather than hiding herself away to keep from going crazy. From all I have seen in life you are more likely to go crazy or develop strange morals if you are shut off from human (sentient) contact rather than watch people you know slowly die. If anything she was making herself more likely to go crazy and not care about her own duties by shutting herself off.
Saying that he broke his oath by not going heavily implies it was purposeful. What I said was to put perspective and make sure the facts were reviewed. I did not lie about what you said. I did not even say you said something. I was trying to put perspective into what you were implying, or your choice of words was implying.
You seem to be giving a lot of cues into being reacting to the story emotionally rather than logically. Things like "stop respecting", "lie", and "childish".
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Now the conversations are getting heated over how much of jerk/villain Sorin is in the grand scheme of things, which is kind of irrelevant. At the end of the day, no matter what he did to Nahiri, he didn't make her bring Emrakul to Innistrad. A whole plane didn't have to be all but doomed for Nahiri to get back at him. Heck, you could really say that by forcing him to destroy Avacyn, Nahiri got her revenge. She made him destroy his most beloved creation...
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
If we're being logical (as so many people see to want the characters to be as if its a story about robots, but whatever) Nahiri can deduce that Sorin will not help her voluntarily. He sealed the Eldrazi to protect Innistrad. Now that Innistrad is safe with its own wards he's not going to care about what happens in Zendikar in the slightest. And indeed that's exactly what happened. He ignored Zendikar for a thousand years despite having been told that there were critical problems with containment and once he found out they were free assumed he could just ignore the Eldrazi and hide on Innistrad thanks to Avacyn and the Helvault. And apparently he believed Nahiri was so irrelevant that after the Helvault was broken it didn't even occur to him that she might be capable of revenge.
Sorin's ability to always make the worst possible choice in every situation is, as other have documented, pretty startling.
Something something blatant trolling and baiting of other people something something but I'm not a mod not a mod something something.
Correct. Once everything went to hell, he finally decided to figure out what happened to Ugin. He did basically blow off the problem for 1000 years though, but he deserves credit for eventually caring about the problem even though his wards still stood. Did Avacyns disappearance occur before or after the release of the Eldrazi, or are we not clear on the timeline? Also, do we know if Sorin regularly checked up on Zendikar, or was he responding to what happened to the Eye? It would yell us a lot about his character if he was doing his duty while everything was going right with the Helvault and Avacyn, or if he only started caring again after Avacyn disappeared .
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Based on Innistrad though I think if Avacyn was gone his first priority would be finding her, not the Eldrazi.