Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a bit more gray. Maybe the Consulate restricted access to prevent aether from being depleted totally or the like, but doesn't seem to be any hint of that. The story filled in some key stuff though, and wasn't bad. Sad Dovin is very blatantly a villain too.
"Gearhulks in the front line—I will see no injuries on my watch."
If that is 'blatantly villainous' I'm not sure what you want. Dovin specifically cares about the security and safety of the peoples of Kaladesh.
Should have clarified that it's where I see them going with things. It's more that he's allied with the Consulate which is very clearly built as a villain that I expect that.
I see a FF VII Mako energy vibe going on. As was already said, maybe Aether just doesn't replenish as fast as they use it, and without restriction the whole ecosystem could be damaged.
Hopefully it's not a simple black and white "down with the establishment" situation, that would blow really hard.
Meanwhile Baral is one of the most cartoonishly evil characters we've seen since... Man I don't even know. All that sadistic needling and taunting. A character can be evil without looking like a deranged psychopath. (Just look at Bolas. (Though that character has his own problems...))
This.
It's already ridiculous that they retconned Chandra's story for a single evil dude (she originally did set fire to her village in TPF, so you can hardly blame the authorities for having sentenced her to death in the book). Now he's got an evil scar, openly taunts her mother, and outrightly admits to having a sexual thrill out of killing children.
Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a bit more gray. Maybe the Consulate restricted access to prevent aether from being depleted totally or the like, but doesn't seem to be any hint of that. The story filled in some key stuff though, and wasn't bad. Sad Dovin is very blatantly a villain too.
"Gearhulks in the front line—I will see no injuries on my watch."
If that is 'blatantly villainous' I'm not sure what you want. Dovin specifically cares about the security and safety of the peoples of Kaladesh.
I enjoyed the story today, like seeing how things are lining up. I don't really see the issue with Baral, i felt that he was "cartoony" in Chandra's origins story. Also interesting to the mention of natural mages being rare on Kaladesh.
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Well yes, he was unrealistically ********ish there, but at least he had a semblance of a point. Here he degenerates fully into pointless taunting like a schoolyard bully and admiting to like killing children without a hint of irony.
In TPF, the autorities that sentenced Chandra had a point, since she did burninate her village. But nope, we gotta absolve our heroes from past sins... by retconning them!
Dovin clearly loathes disorder, but he doesn't seem at all like a moustache-twirling antagonist in the vein of Tezzeret or Baral. I feel like he'd be equally likely to crack down on corrupt individuals within the Consulate if he were aware of their existence. To me, he's the most interesting "bad guy" from the last few blocks (with maybe the exception of Liliana and the Harmless Offering kitty).
Dovin is a typical good man in service of a corrupted organization. His primary concern is indeed the safety of the people. In this, he is pretty much like Odric in Shadows over Innistrad.
It is kind of funny how Kaladesh vedalken are more emotional than any of those we met so far, but Dovin, with his Spock-like behavior, seem to be an exception - far more similar to Ravnican or Esperite vedalken.
And yeah, Baral is really a cartoon villain here...
Last but not last...is it just me, or does Tezzeret look like an evil Jesus on the last pic?
Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a bit more gray. Maybe the Consulate restricted access to prevent aether from being depleted totally or the like, but doesn't seem to be any hint of that. The story filled in some key stuff though, and wasn't bad. Sad Dovin is very blatantly a villain too.
Yeah, that is a let down =/ A nice twist would have been Pia and the other renegades being more like anarchists who believe they're doing good but are really doing more harm. Chandra would slowly have to come to that conclusion, realizing that sometimes authority and the impediment of freedom can be a good thing if applied rationally, growing her as a character. Drama? Her having to turn on her own mother...right after burning Baral to a crisp of course.
Speaking of Baral: yes, he's a cartoon villain, but I don't mind those once in while...they just shouldn't become the norm <.<
Also I am so so so so so so so happy they mentioned the mana blade and Jace's scars <3 Turns out (some of the details) in Agents of Artifice actually happened
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Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
The problem is when they retcon villains that weren't (or, more specifically, an entire backstory). This gets all the more infuriating when it's coming right off the heels of Nissa's mass retocons.
Is Baral really any more cartoony than Inspector Javert?
I'd argue yes?
At last recollection, while Javert was a hound, and certainly no friend to a criminal past or present, he wasn't the kind of person that reveled in child-murder and imprisonment. Javert had a hard-on for justice, not torture.
Of course, my perception may be skewed by both the length of time since last I consumed any media relating to the novel (including the novel itself) and my own general sympathy towards Javert's own death. We don't know how Baral's gonna end this. But I doubt that there'd be any sympathy drawn.
Someone who harms or kills a child is not a pedophile and you should probably not make that sort of drastic leap. You can call characters evil without misusing words or misrepresenting the character as a whole.
Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
Yes, but if a character isn't any deeper than the ink used to make them why should we be invested in them? Why should we care more than the author did.
Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
Yes, but if a character isn't any deeper than the ink used to make them why should we be invested in them? Why should we care more than the author did.
Normally i would agreed but MTG stories latelly has been very shallow that i just don't care enough to complain about minor stuff like Baal. They ****ed up Ulamog and Kozilek so i just don't care anymore, im only reading for the sake of curiosity and hoping it improves.
Maybe we'll get it in the next set, but I have yet to see what exactly the renegades are fighting for. We were told that the Consulate shut off some aether and are focused more on inventions to control it and use it for weapons, but it isn't very visceral yet, basically sounds like the renegades are complaining that the government doesn't give everyone free Wi-Fi.
It seems like creative has tried to give us variety on the Consulate side, there was a straight-up Consulate defector amongst the renegades today, Padeem was fairly sympathetic in her brief appearance earlier, and Dovin is definitely taking the logical "needs of the many" approach from what we have seen so far. It seems clear that Kambal is in it for personal profit (from the cards) and Baral is going to be a fairly one-note sadistic revenge hypocrite guy, but that makes five characters already showing a variety of viewpoints while being associated with the Consulate. If anything, for me the burden is still on the renegades to make me sympathetic to their cause.
Also renegades, rebels, partisans, allies, coalition...at some point here they are going to run out of names for their struggling resistance factions.
Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
A character doesn't need to be a sadist to be a villain. Being selfish would suffice fully. Baral could have been a mage who, out of fear for being executed himself, used his mage abilities to hunt down other mages and thus secure his own position in the hierarchy of the consulate, drawing away suspicion from himself. Bam, suddenly you have an evil character with an actual motive and all of that in two lines of text.
Instead we got "MWAHAHAHAHA *twirls mustache*" levels of stupid. Man, I can already see him trying to kill Chandra in the most convoluted and time-consuming way possible, giving the gatewatch more than a chance to free her in time. Bonus points if he will "curse those meddling kids" when defeated.
Also, he still needs to kick that gremlin grub to show just how evil he is.
Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
A character doesn't need to be a sadist to be a villain. Being selfish would suffice fully. Baral could have been a mage who, out of fear for being executed himself, used his mage abilities to hunt down other mages and thus secure his own position in the hierarchy of the consulate, drawing away suspicion from himself. Bam, suddenly you have an evil character with an actual motive and all of that in two lines of text.
Instead we got "MWAHAHAHAHA *twirls mustache*" levels of stupid. Man, I can already see him trying to kill Chandra in the most convoluted and time-consuming way possible, giving the gatewatch more than a chance to free her in time. Bonus points if he will "curse those meddling kids" when defeated.
Also, he still needs to kick that gremlin grub to show just how evil he is.
Well, he at least imprisons Chandra (and I think were some others), I'm betting that he does have a very time-consuming plan at least for her death. Hoping it's not convoluted though.
Also was nice to get confirmation that the quirks of Kaladesh artifice is just due to how aether reacts to metal. It isn't people adding twirly stuff just for it's own sake. Though ornamentation is fine I like seeing that it does have a good reason for it.
Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
A character doesn't need to be a sadist to be a villain. Being selfish would suffice fully. Baral could have been a mage who, out of fear for being executed himself, used his mage abilities to hunt down other mages and thus secure his own position in the hierarchy of the consulate, drawing away suspicion from himself. Bam, suddenly you have an evil character with an actual motive and all of that in two lines of text.
Instead we got "MWAHAHAHAHA *twirls mustache*" levels of stupid. Man, I can already see him trying to kill Chandra in the most convoluted and time-consuming way possible, giving the gatewatch more than a chance to free her in time. Bonus points if he will "curse those meddling kids" when defeated.
Also, he still needs to kick that gremlin grub to show just how evil he is.
Or, better yet, they could honor TPF and actually make Chandra guilty of accidental destruction, making him immediately well-intentioned even if he wasn't particularly sympathetic.
Wait, what did I miss here? Pia was jailed after Chandra ascended, so how did she escape? And why is it that Pia's speech seem to NOT imply that the consulate is a bunch of jerks except for this year's Inventor's Fair?
Everything felt rushed somehow; may need to reread... ugh, I hate rereading.
I don't think people are giving Baral's psychology enough credit here.
The guy's a Knight Templar extremist bully through and through, although you can see his reasons for being so. They're not sympathetic reasons at all, but they are there.
First, the guy's a mage on a plane that's not a fan of non-artificer mages. Hence, likely treated as an outcast as a kid. Parents probably weren't exactly the most supportive either, if I'm guessing. Anyways, guy becomes a Consulate guard, gets a bit of power in him. Suddenly, he's not the outcast mage anymore, he's got power, and his magic powers are now considered valuable (maybe they're not known as magic powers, but whatever he does and however he presents it, its working for him). He gets promoted, moves up in the world. Still bitter that he was looked down on, and like any good bitter person who's suddenly been lifted up into power, its not a good combination. A draconian extremist mentality sets in.
Then he meets Chandra. First he's piqued that there's another mage just like him. Then he discover's she's a pyromancer, the worst kind of mage by Kaladeshi standards- a veritible bug of society. Oh, he's gonna look so good when he hauls this vermin in!
And then she runs away, and blows up the Foundry. I'm gonna bet that gets put on his head (Baan did mention that he got in trouble for making things so expensive, and it probably started with this). Now the little brat's made him look bad, and by Aether, he's gonna get her and drag her in and make her pay. So he starts investigating her whereabouts, no longer just to feel powerful about kicking a lesser mage around, but to save face with the Consulate. And during his investigation he finds out that not only does the brat escape out of the city from him, she does so with her parents, who are totally on board and proud to have a pyromancer daughter.
OH. HELL. NAW.
Why does this little destructive ***** get to run around in freedom wholly supported by her criminal mommy and daddy? His magic's is used for GOOD, and all he did was get kicked around for it. Her magic is BAD, and yet she's loved and coddled and... OH THAT LITTLE BRAT IS GONNA GET IT!
So now its not just a matter of dominance, its not just a matter of saving face with the Bosses, its flipping PERSONAL. Who cares if she's a kid, because evil can take any form, and it needs to be eradicated regardless. If this guy was in The Omen, he woulda stabbed Damien in his cradle.
So he goes into full Knight Templar mode. Scours the plane looking for three people on the run- pisses his bosses off even more, because now in addition to a ruined foundry, he's using up valuable resources up on three black-market smugglers. But it's all gonna be worth it, just as soon as he brings them to JUSTICE.
And so he does. He finds them, captures Pia, then gets Chandra. Suddenly it occurs to him, as he's about to haul Chandra off, that he just spent a Thopterload of money on hunting down an 11-year old girl. He knows she's the worst thing in existence- but will his bosses?
Nope, time to save face.
First, just to hurt Chandra even more (like I said, its personal in his mind), he kills Kiran in cold blood. Then he frames her for the villiage- two reasons here- one, to let Chandra know that HE has the power... and secondly, because he can now point out to his bosses just how dangerous the girl really is, and the expenses to bring her in were completely warranted. Power, revenge, and saving-face. What more could a guy want?
Except it doesn't really work that way- the Consulate's still not impressed, and formal charges are brought against him for wasting too many resources on the search. All that's left to him is the fact that, at the end of the day, he gets to execute the evil, flamey-handed, villiage destroying*, witch.
And then even that backfires. He raises the sword, bring it down, and BOOM! Apparently pyromancers explode when they die. Kinda wish the consulate training manual had mentioned that. He's engulfed in the flames from her "death" (totally unaware its actually a free trip to Pyromancertopia on Regatha), and disfigured for life as a result. Yet again, a moment of triumph has been taken from him and turned into a moment of humiliation and agony. He's been disgraced. He's been written up. Possibly he's been demoted. And now he's been deformed. All because of one little girl- and even worse, he can't get anymore revenge, because she's "dead"
There's just one person left he can kick around. One more way he can hurt the evil little girl, even after she's gone. Her mother, now sitting in a jail cell. Its the one part of his life that he can show dominance in right now, and really, Pia enabled Chandra, so she's just as bad. Torturing her would be the right thing to do. He can't do anything physically, but whipping out ye olde emotional salt and rubbing in ye olde emotional wounds? Well, if that's the best he can do, then so be it. And off he goes.
So yeah, I can't buy him as cartoon- he's not evil just because he's evil- he's an emotionally bitter, broken man who masks his insecurities behind a veil of power, authority, and his own brand of justice. Authoritarian dictatorships the world over have been havens for people like this. Remember, there's been plenty of real-life people who were more than happy to brutally kill children because they fit into some "evil" demographic.
Baral is a minor villain so im fine with him been cartoonish. Not every villain needs to be uber complex
A character doesn't need to be a sadist to be a villain. Being selfish would suffice fully. Baral could have been a mage who, out of fear for being executed himself, used his mage abilities to hunt down other mages and thus secure his own position in the hierarchy of the consulate, drawing away suspicion from himself. Bam, suddenly you have an evil character with an actual motive and all of that in two lines of text.
Instead we got "MWAHAHAHAHA *twirls mustache*" levels of stupid. Man, I can already see him trying to kill Chandra in the most convoluted and time-consuming way possible, giving the gatewatch more than a chance to free her in time. Bonus points if he will "curse those meddling kids" when defeated.
Also, he still needs to kick that gremlin grub to show just how evil he is.
Or, better yet, they could honor TPF and actually make Chandra guilty of accidental destruction, making him immediately well-intentioned even if he wasn't particularly sympathetic.
Slightly off topic, I thought that most of TPF was still canon (figured Chandras guilt post-origins was that Baral was after her and that if she hadn't been around her parents won't have died) since they mentioned the Order of Heliud and having Gideon and Chandra having already known each other (biggest reason Gideon even went to Zendikar the first time IIRC) but then Gideon says Chandra never mentioned to the Gatewatch her past which was what kept her from being strip of her fire. I'd say that the planeswalkers book shouldn't be taken canon since they where written by someone outside of wizards, but AoA seems mostly in tact.
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Should have clarified that it's where I see them going with things. It's more that he's allied with the Consulate which is very clearly built as a villain that I expect that.
Hopefully it's not a simple black and white "down with the establishment" situation, that would blow really hard.
This.
It's already ridiculous that they retconned Chandra's story for a single evil dude (she originally did set fire to her village in TPF, so you can hardly blame the authorities for having sentenced her to death in the book). Now he's got an evil scar, openly taunts her mother, and outrightly admits to having a sexual thrill out of killing children.
He cares about the Consulate AND the people.
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In TPF, the autorities that sentenced Chandra had a point, since she did burninate her village. But nope, we gotta absolve our heroes from past sins... by retconning them!
Dovin is a typical good man in service of a corrupted organization. His primary concern is indeed the safety of the people. In this, he is pretty much like Odric in Shadows over Innistrad.
It is kind of funny how Kaladesh vedalken are more emotional than any of those we met so far, but Dovin, with his Spock-like behavior, seem to be an exception - far more similar to Ravnican or Esperite vedalken.
And yeah, Baral is really a cartoon villain here...
Last but not last...is it just me, or does Tezzeret look like an evil Jesus on the last pic?
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Yeah, that is a let down =/ A nice twist would have been Pia and the other renegades being more like anarchists who believe they're doing good but are really doing more harm. Chandra would slowly have to come to that conclusion, realizing that sometimes authority and the impediment of freedom can be a good thing if applied rationally, growing her as a character. Drama? Her having to turn on her own mother...right after burning Baral to a crisp of course.
Speaking of Baral: yes, he's a cartoon villain, but I don't mind those once in while...they just shouldn't become the norm <.<
Also I am so so so so so so so happy they mentioned the mana blade and Jace's scars <3 Turns out (some of the details) in Agents of Artifice actually happened
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Purphoros, God of the Forge
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Gishath, Sun's Avatar
The Ur-Dragon
The problem is when they retcon villains that weren't (or, more specifically, an entire backstory). This gets all the more infuriating when it's coming right off the heels of Nissa's mass retocons.
Yes. Javert had ethical reasons for his dogmatism and at least wasn't a cackling pedophile
I'd argue yes?
At last recollection, while Javert was a hound, and certainly no friend to a criminal past or present, he wasn't the kind of person that reveled in child-murder and imprisonment. Javert had a hard-on for justice, not torture.
Of course, my perception may be skewed by both the length of time since last I consumed any media relating to the novel (including the novel itself) and my own general sympathy towards Javert's own death. We don't know how Baral's gonna end this. But I doubt that there'd be any sympathy drawn.
Yes. I suppose if you ignore the entirety of Javert's arcthen yea he seems a little silly.
Normally i would agreed but MTG stories latelly has been very shallow that i just don't care enough to complain about minor stuff like Baal. They ****ed up Ulamog and Kozilek so i just don't care anymore, im only reading for the sake of curiosity and hoping it improves.
It seems like creative has tried to give us variety on the Consulate side, there was a straight-up Consulate defector amongst the renegades today, Padeem was fairly sympathetic in her brief appearance earlier, and Dovin is definitely taking the logical "needs of the many" approach from what we have seen so far. It seems clear that Kambal is in it for personal profit (from the cards) and Baral is going to be a fairly one-note sadistic revenge hypocrite guy, but that makes five characters already showing a variety of viewpoints while being associated with the Consulate. If anything, for me the burden is still on the renegades to make me sympathetic to their cause.
Also renegades, rebels, partisans, allies, coalition...at some point here they are going to run out of names for their struggling resistance factions.
A character doesn't need to be a sadist to be a villain. Being selfish would suffice fully. Baral could have been a mage who, out of fear for being executed himself, used his mage abilities to hunt down other mages and thus secure his own position in the hierarchy of the consulate, drawing away suspicion from himself. Bam, suddenly you have an evil character with an actual motive and all of that in two lines of text.
Instead we got "MWAHAHAHAHA *twirls mustache*" levels of stupid. Man, I can already see him trying to kill Chandra in the most convoluted and time-consuming way possible, giving the gatewatch more than a chance to free her in time. Bonus points if he will "curse those meddling kids" when defeated.
Also, he still needs to kick that gremlin grub to show just how evil he is.
Well, he at least imprisons Chandra (and I think were some others), I'm betting that he does have a very time-consuming plan at least for her death. Hoping it's not convoluted though.
Also was nice to get confirmation that the quirks of Kaladesh artifice is just due to how aether reacts to metal. It isn't people adding twirly stuff just for it's own sake. Though ornamentation is fine I like seeing that it does have a good reason for it.
Or, better yet, they could honor TPF and actually make Chandra guilty of accidental destruction, making him immediately well-intentioned even if he wasn't particularly sympathetic.
Everything felt rushed somehow; may need to reread... ugh, I hate rereading.
The guy's a Knight Templar extremist bully through and through, although you can see his reasons for being so. They're not sympathetic reasons at all, but they are there.
First, the guy's a mage on a plane that's not a fan of non-artificer mages. Hence, likely treated as an outcast as a kid. Parents probably weren't exactly the most supportive either, if I'm guessing. Anyways, guy becomes a Consulate guard, gets a bit of power in him. Suddenly, he's not the outcast mage anymore, he's got power, and his magic powers are now considered valuable (maybe they're not known as magic powers, but whatever he does and however he presents it, its working for him). He gets promoted, moves up in the world. Still bitter that he was looked down on, and like any good bitter person who's suddenly been lifted up into power, its not a good combination. A draconian extremist mentality sets in.
Then he meets Chandra. First he's piqued that there's another mage just like him. Then he discover's she's a pyromancer, the worst kind of mage by Kaladeshi standards- a veritible bug of society. Oh, he's gonna look so good when he hauls this vermin in!
And then she runs away, and blows up the Foundry. I'm gonna bet that gets put on his head (Baan did mention that he got in trouble for making things so expensive, and it probably started with this). Now the little brat's made him look bad, and by Aether, he's gonna get her and drag her in and make her pay. So he starts investigating her whereabouts, no longer just to feel powerful about kicking a lesser mage around, but to save face with the Consulate. And during his investigation he finds out that not only does the brat escape out of the city from him, she does so with her parents, who are totally on board and proud to have a pyromancer daughter.
OH. HELL. NAW.
Why does this little destructive ***** get to run around in freedom wholly supported by her criminal mommy and daddy? His magic's is used for GOOD, and all he did was get kicked around for it. Her magic is BAD, and yet she's loved and coddled and... OH THAT LITTLE BRAT IS GONNA GET IT!
So now its not just a matter of dominance, its not just a matter of saving face with the Bosses, its flipping PERSONAL. Who cares if she's a kid, because evil can take any form, and it needs to be eradicated regardless. If this guy was in The Omen, he woulda stabbed Damien in his cradle.
So he goes into full Knight Templar mode. Scours the plane looking for three people on the run- pisses his bosses off even more, because now in addition to a ruined foundry, he's using up valuable resources up on three black-market smugglers. But it's all gonna be worth it, just as soon as he brings them to JUSTICE.
And so he does. He finds them, captures Pia, then gets Chandra. Suddenly it occurs to him, as he's about to haul Chandra off, that he just spent a Thopterload of money on hunting down an 11-year old girl. He knows she's the worst thing in existence- but will his bosses?
Nope, time to save face.
First, just to hurt Chandra even more (like I said, its personal in his mind), he kills Kiran in cold blood. Then he frames her for the villiage- two reasons here- one, to let Chandra know that HE has the power... and secondly, because he can now point out to his bosses just how dangerous the girl really is, and the expenses to bring her in were completely warranted. Power, revenge, and saving-face. What more could a guy want?
Except it doesn't really work that way- the Consulate's still not impressed, and formal charges are brought against him for wasting too many resources on the search. All that's left to him is the fact that, at the end of the day, he gets to execute the evil, flamey-handed, villiage destroying*, witch.
And then even that backfires. He raises the sword, bring it down, and BOOM! Apparently pyromancers explode when they die. Kinda wish the consulate training manual had mentioned that. He's engulfed in the flames from her "death" (totally unaware its actually a free trip to Pyromancertopia on Regatha), and disfigured for life as a result. Yet again, a moment of triumph has been taken from him and turned into a moment of humiliation and agony. He's been disgraced. He's been written up. Possibly he's been demoted. And now he's been deformed. All because of one little girl- and even worse, he can't get anymore revenge, because she's "dead"
There's just one person left he can kick around. One more way he can hurt the evil little girl, even after she's gone. Her mother, now sitting in a jail cell. Its the one part of his life that he can show dominance in right now, and really, Pia enabled Chandra, so she's just as bad. Torturing her would be the right thing to do. He can't do anything physically, but whipping out ye olde emotional salt and rubbing in ye olde emotional wounds? Well, if that's the best he can do, then so be it. And off he goes.
So yeah, I can't buy him as cartoon- he's not evil just because he's evil- he's an emotionally bitter, broken man who masks his insecurities behind a veil of power, authority, and his own brand of justice. Authoritarian dictatorships the world over have been havens for people like this. Remember, there's been plenty of real-life people who were more than happy to brutally kill children because they fit into some "evil" demographic.
Slightly off topic, I thought that most of TPF was still canon (figured Chandras guilt post-origins was that Baral was after her and that if she hadn't been around her parents won't have died) since they mentioned the Order of Heliud and having Gideon and Chandra having already known each other (biggest reason Gideon even went to Zendikar the first time IIRC) but then Gideon says Chandra never mentioned to the Gatewatch her past which was what kept her from being strip of her fire. I'd say that the planeswalkers book shouldn't be taken canon since they where written by someone outside of wizards, but AoA seems mostly in tact.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"