There's nothing invalid about starting from the facts that we know about the multiverse -- that there are numerous planes with wildly varying cultures, types of life, and physical appearances, and that there are individuals who can travel between them -- and noting that these facts are readily discoverable by many residents of the particular planes for which we have information. Many people have both the means and the motivation to find out about planeswalkers. You seem to think that there's some sort of imaginative limitation that would prevent them from believing the most obvious explanation for the planeswalker phenomenon. I don't see any warrant for this assumption.
Again, look at our world: we have no experience of parallel dimensions, alternate realities, or strange visitors from unknown worlds. And yet we have no trouble imagining such things, creating stories using them, and even believing in their existence on very thin shreds of evidence. Why do you think the typical Ravnican is more skeptical than the typical Earthling? And why is Niv-Mizzet an inferior logician than the typical quantum physicist?
You seem to think that there's some sort of imaginative limitation that would prevent them from believing the most obvious explanation for the planeswalker phenomenon. I don't see any warrant for this assumption.
This right here is the problem. This is not the most obvious explanation. It is quite possibly the least likely explanation. To you it is obvious because you are starting with the solution then working out the problem, everyone else has the problem, which has hundreds if not thousands of answers most if not all more likely than others worlds exist. I'm not saying people would have a hard time imagining other worlds, we do it all the time, but they would have a hard time believing other worlds are real. If someone vanishes right in front of you there are a lot of explanations many of which are covered under the worlds magic, but the one you are insisting is the most obvious is the one that isn't covered under the worlds magic, planeswalking. So how can the option that isn't covered by common sense and in fact defies all schools of magic be the most obvious explanation? There are many(an unreasonably small number in the scope we are speaking) individuals with the means and motive to discover planeswalkers but even if/when they do that doesn't make the whole plane aware. If we aren't talking about the average person or entire planes then obviously everything I've said doesn't matter because there are individuals out there who are specifically looking into this, but I have only spoken of the average person or entire planes because that was the basis for this thread.
So lets not start from the conclusion. If you met a person in strange cloths tomorrow and they told you they were from a parallel dimension. Would you immediately believe them? What would they have to do to prove this to you? What if they said they were an alien? or Subterranean? How often do you think planeswalkers would try to prove what they are before deciding its better to go with the flow? This isn't about it being impossible for planewalkers to prove what they are, this is about it being obvious to individuals who have no knowledge of other worlds.
I think you give people way too much credit. For starters it is INCREDIBLY difficult to empirically prove the existence of other planes. The only instance of it happening required the input of a planeswalker. Lets say, under the assumption that we lived in a world of magic, that you, a planeswalker, approached me, a normal person, on Ravnica and told me that there is an infinite expanse of worlds beyond an invisible boarder of my world and you are one of a rare few who can breach the boarder and traverse these worlds. My first reaction would be "okay prove it." So you planeswalk away and return. But from my perspective all you did was vanish and reappear. I know magic is a thing so Okham's razor dictates that you probably just used invisibility magic. "Ill go get something from another plane then!" you declare. So you zip off to another plane and grab something cool and plane specific and bring it back to show me. Well, again I know magic exists, "I work for the Izzet, we make weird ***** like that all the time!"
I think your reasoning that they know magic is exactly the reason they shouldn't immediately know of or assume planeswalker. Especially Niv. He's the ultimate scientist. Skepticism is his bread and butter.
Oh and do you really think that Rakdos would give a half eaten rats ass about planeswalkers? Really?
Also, there are many wizards, powerful ones, that know of the existence of other planes. They can see them, even if they can't go there.
No, no there isn't. There might have been once. But since the mending these types of wizards don't exist.
That's not true. Just one set ago: Rashmi.
She isn't a wizard, nothing suggested she has magic (and due to magic being rare on Kaladesh chances are she only has the elf ability to see aether trails) and she only saw other plane because she feel got catch up in the portal. If Tezzeret hadn't been involved she would have never known about other planes.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Also, there are many wizards, powerful ones, that know of the existence of other planes. They can see them, even if they can't go there.
No, no there isn't. There might have been once. But since the mending these types of wizards don't exist.
That's not true. Just one set ago: Rashmi.
Since the mending we haven't seen anyone who can do this, closest to this is Khans timeline Narset who probity could because of her latent spark.
But yes many people outside of planeswalker know about other planes from contact with them. From the Ravnica books info we know everyone who heard Feathers story of Razia being killed know about other planes and we can guess nearly all of the paruns know about planeswalkers, Azor I wasn't a naive of Ravnica though cause of Ravnica being an oldwalker army dumping ground it is unknown he was pulled from his home plane or was a walker. The only ones still around who know this would be Rakdos (who won't care), Niv, maybe some members of the Obzedat (unknown if any of them are left from the original signing) and possibly some part of Mat'Selesnya.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
There's a whole lot of people on this planet who say they have encountered spirits, extradimensional beings, aliens, angels, bigfoots, etc... And none of the people on Magic's planes even have the Internet to spread the info of their amazing encounters.
There's a whole lot of people on this planet who say they have encountered spirits, extradimensional beings, aliens, angels, bigfoots, etc... And none of the people on Magic's planes even have the Internet to spread the info of their amazing encounters.
What percentage of the population would you say has had such an experience? And without the internet how much of the world do you think would be aware of such events? Does it some anywhere close to a majority? Even a significant minority?
There has never been a question of whether there exist some people on some planes that know or believe. What is in question is whether most-planes-should-know-about-planeswalkers, not just individuals on those planes but large enough amounts of the populace to say that the entire plane knows.
I don't know man it doesn't really matter... I was just trying to say that a significant amount of people on a plane can have direct experience with planeswalkers and that doesn't mean that the entire plane should have knowledge of planeswalkers or take anyone who claims they have encountered beings from another world seriously. Most people wouldn't even have the motivation or means to make their newfound information public knowledge.
A cosmopolitan place like Ravnica maybe it's unlikely that some planeswalker didn't just show up and do the Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man thing... But it's only been less than a century since planeswalkers could access the plane if I understand correctly and Niv Mizzet seems pretty close to nailing the target. Who knows how much Niv Mizzet even knows. For all we know he is 99.9% sure of the existence and nature of planeswalkers and even the identities of individual planeswalkers but wants iron clad scientific proof before he tells anybody about his extremely strong hunch.
What percentage of the population would you say has had such an experience? And without the internet how much of the world do you think would be aware of such events? Does it some anywhere close to a majority? Even a significant minority?
There has never been a question of whether there exist some people on some planes that know or believe. What is in question is whether most-planes-should-know-about-planeswalkers, not just individuals on those planes but large enough amounts of the populace to say that the entire plane knows.
Except in our world, a clear majority of people do actually believe in some form of these things. A vast majority, in fact. Pretty much every religious person on earth at least tacitly believes that there are invisible beings and realms of existence beyond our everyday world. And that's been the case for a long time before we had the internet.
And whether you think this is because some version of this is true, or you think it's because of some limitation in human cognition, the fact is that most earth humans believe it on much thinner evidence than the average resident of the major story-line MtG planes would have for planeswalkers.
I don't have to have experienced an angelic visitation to believe in angels. Even more to the point, I don't have to have used a radio telescope to believe in extrasolar planets. I just have to have some authorities that I know about and trust tell me about them. And if nothing in my preexisting mental prejudices prevents me from doing so, I'll believe what they say.
You seem to argue that having tons of everyday magic would strengthen people's mental prejudices against the idea of planeswalkers. I don't see any warrant for this. If anything, pervasive magic would make people more willing to accept a new idea about their world, since the laws of the world are already so wild and varied. If people can appear and disappear at will, shoot fireballs, fly around, and summon life from nothing, what's the big deal about traveling to alien realities? Why would people draw the line there?
You seem to argue that having tons of everyday magic would strengthen people's mental prejudices against the idea of planeswalkers. I don't see any warrant for this. If anything, pervasive magic would make people more willing to accept a new idea about their world, since the laws of the world are already so wild and varied. If people can appear and disappear at will, shoot fireballs, fly around, and summon life from nothing, what's the big deal about traveling to alien realities? Why would people draw the line there?
This seems to be the major point where you and I diverge. As far as I can tell in a world of magic the laws of the world aren't wild and varied, merely different. For those who know the laws of the world, one such law would be the inability to travel beyond it, so when a person says they have broken this fundamental rule you would not believe them without significant evidence.
We have never had reason to believe that the worlds in the multiverse act on wild and varied rules(other than random exceptions always pointed out). The addition of magic doesn't make 'anything' possible. So if the limits of the world are that people can appear and disappear at will, shoot fireballs, fly around, and summon life from nothing; then anything beyond those limits, such as traveling between realities would seem far-fetched.
So ine the many many wizards can see into other planes topic.
Non Planewalker who knows other worlds
1. Kruphix - Knows (or somewhat knows) Bolas, Phyrexia and Eldrazis.
2. Kothoped - knows about chain veil from Shandalar.
Kruphix (and Rashmi) seem to be the only one who actually witnessed other worlds?
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MtG is where you can hate white players or black players, and still not be racist.
I'm pretty sure Alhammaret from Vryn must have known about walkers, considering that he was physically capable of pulling Jace back from the Blind Eternities when he sparked.
Again, look at our world: we have no experience of parallel dimensions, alternate realities, or strange visitors from unknown worlds. And yet we have no trouble imagining such things, creating stories using them, and even believing in their existence on very thin shreds of evidence.
Now this argument can easily be turned around: Individuals who figure out something strange about a planeswalker still do not equal the plane as a whole knowing about planeswalkers. They could be ridiculed and disbelieved as the story goes in our world regarding those claiming to have met and even been abducted by extraterrestrials. They might draw wrong conclusions e. g. an Innistradi assuming Nissa's ears are just another and comparitively mild deformation relative to what happened to their buddy Paul, the Paranoid Parish-Blade or Manfred Many-Fingers; or a Ravnican wondering whether Tamiyo also hails from the so called "ocean" the Merfolk appeared from without warning years ago (or just a peculiar nonamphibian hybrid); Alarans probably think a lot about other worlds recently, but even the most scholar among them might conceptualize a visitor from another world that openly talks about it (but without going into unnecessary detail) as a being from just another shard.
Sometimes people draw wrong conclusions even if making important obesrvations. Most planes don't have a central knowledge database and we have, but there is still a lot of knowledge that earth as a whole probably has somewhere, but I don't know about and vice versa, history is full of people ridiculed in their time for ideas that we now in hindsight consider visionary.
I personally consider the latest plane of Amonkhet one of the most problematic settings since it actually revolves all around of this one Oasis of life in-midst a hellscape of a Zombie+Sandwurm-Desert, so whenever characters in the story seems to be even able to easily conceptualize outsiders it strains suspension of disbelief. On most other worlds it seems quiet acceptable.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
SecretInfiltrator, That's a fairly legitimate counter-argument; there are certainly planes where it's more plausible for most people not to know about planeswalkers. Though I don't think Ravnica is such a plane, for the reasons I've detailed above. It might be more plausible for there to be small groups of illuminati on many planes that know about planeswalkers but don't share that information.
I agree with you about Amonkhet; but I'm willing to chalk up some irrational behavior among the Amonkheti to the effects of PNBSD (Post Nicol Bolas Stress Disorder). Though I think an even better question is why Bolas didn't deliberately leave behind some stronger countermeasures against other planeswalkers, like an intense ideology of xenophobia.
I agree with you about Amonkhet; but I'm willing to chalk up some irrational behavior among the Amonkheti to the effects of PNBSD (Post Nicol Bolas Stress Disorder). Though I think an even better question is why Bolas didn't deliberately leave behind some stronger countermeasures against other planeswalkers, like an intense ideology of xenophobia.
But then he would have to have created the idea of foreigners, and that leads to a crack in the dogma of the God-Pharaoh protects everyone with the Hekma. So which is more important, an iron-clad dogma to lead the people, or a fail-safe to stop walkers? Remember that walkers now suck as opposed to their once god-like position.
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Again, look at our world: we have no experience of parallel dimensions, alternate realities, or strange visitors from unknown worlds. And yet we have no trouble imagining such things, creating stories using them, and even believing in their existence on very thin shreds of evidence. Why do you think the typical Ravnican is more skeptical than the typical Earthling? And why is Niv-Mizzet an inferior logician than the typical quantum physicist?
So lets not start from the conclusion. If you met a person in strange cloths tomorrow and they told you they were from a parallel dimension. Would you immediately believe them? What would they have to do to prove this to you? What if they said they were an alien? or Subterranean? How often do you think planeswalkers would try to prove what they are before deciding its better to go with the flow? This isn't about it being impossible for planewalkers to prove what they are, this is about it being obvious to individuals who have no knowledge of other worlds.
I think your reasoning that they know magic is exactly the reason they shouldn't immediately know of or assume planeswalker. Especially Niv. He's the ultimate scientist. Skepticism is his bread and butter.
Oh and do you really think that Rakdos would give a half eaten rats ass about planeswalkers? Really?
She isn't a wizard, nothing suggested she has magic (and due to magic being rare on Kaladesh chances are she only has the elf ability to see aether trails) and she only saw other plane because she feel got catch up in the portal. If Tezzeret hadn't been involved she would have never known about other planes.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
But thats not what you where saying;
Since the mending we haven't seen anyone who can do this, closest to this is Khans timeline Narset who probity could because of her latent spark.
But yes many people outside of planeswalker know about other planes from contact with them. From the Ravnica books info we know everyone who heard Feathers story of Razia being killed know about other planes and we can guess nearly all of the paruns know about planeswalkers, Azor I wasn't a naive of Ravnica though cause of Ravnica being an oldwalker army dumping ground it is unknown he was pulled from his home plane or was a walker. The only ones still around who know this would be Rakdos (who won't care), Niv, maybe some members of the Obzedat (unknown if any of them are left from the original signing) and possibly some part of Mat'Selesnya.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
There has never been a question of whether there exist some people on some planes that know or believe. What is in question is whether most-planes-should-know-about-planeswalkers, not just individuals on those planes but large enough amounts of the populace to say that the entire plane knows.
A cosmopolitan place like Ravnica maybe it's unlikely that some planeswalker didn't just show up and do the Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man thing... But it's only been less than a century since planeswalkers could access the plane if I understand correctly and Niv Mizzet seems pretty close to nailing the target. Who knows how much Niv Mizzet even knows. For all we know he is 99.9% sure of the existence and nature of planeswalkers and even the identities of individual planeswalkers but wants iron clad scientific proof before he tells anybody about his extremely strong hunch.
Except in our world, a clear majority of people do actually believe in some form of these things. A vast majority, in fact. Pretty much every religious person on earth at least tacitly believes that there are invisible beings and realms of existence beyond our everyday world. And that's been the case for a long time before we had the internet.
And whether you think this is because some version of this is true, or you think it's because of some limitation in human cognition, the fact is that most earth humans believe it on much thinner evidence than the average resident of the major story-line MtG planes would have for planeswalkers.
I don't have to have experienced an angelic visitation to believe in angels. Even more to the point, I don't have to have used a radio telescope to believe in extrasolar planets. I just have to have some authorities that I know about and trust tell me about them. And if nothing in my preexisting mental prejudices prevents me from doing so, I'll believe what they say.
You seem to argue that having tons of everyday magic would strengthen people's mental prejudices against the idea of planeswalkers. I don't see any warrant for this. If anything, pervasive magic would make people more willing to accept a new idea about their world, since the laws of the world are already so wild and varied. If people can appear and disappear at will, shoot fireballs, fly around, and summon life from nothing, what's the big deal about traveling to alien realities? Why would people draw the line there?
We have never had reason to believe that the worlds in the multiverse act on wild and varied rules(other than random exceptions always pointed out). The addition of magic doesn't make 'anything' possible. So if the limits of the world are that people can appear and disappear at will, shoot fireballs, fly around, and summon life from nothing; then anything beyond those limits, such as traveling between realities would seem far-fetched.
AN INTERNET FIRST
Non Planewalker who knows other worlds
1. Kruphix - Knows (or somewhat knows) Bolas, Phyrexia and Eldrazis.
2. Kothoped - knows about chain veil from Shandalar.
Kruphix (and Rashmi) seem to be the only one who actually witnessed other worlds?
Now this argument can easily be turned around: Individuals who figure out something strange about a planeswalker still do not equal the plane as a whole knowing about planeswalkers. They could be ridiculed and disbelieved as the story goes in our world regarding those claiming to have met and even been abducted by extraterrestrials. They might draw wrong conclusions e. g. an Innistradi assuming Nissa's ears are just another and comparitively mild deformation relative to what happened to their buddy Paul, the Paranoid Parish-Blade or Manfred Many-Fingers; or a Ravnican wondering whether Tamiyo also hails from the so called "ocean" the Merfolk appeared from without warning years ago (or just a peculiar nonamphibian hybrid); Alarans probably think a lot about other worlds recently, but even the most scholar among them might conceptualize a visitor from another world that openly talks about it (but without going into unnecessary detail) as a being from just another shard.
Sometimes people draw wrong conclusions even if making important obesrvations. Most planes don't have a central knowledge database and we have, but there is still a lot of knowledge that earth as a whole probably has somewhere, but I don't know about and vice versa, history is full of people ridiculed in their time for ideas that we now in hindsight consider visionary.
I personally consider the latest plane of Amonkhet one of the most problematic settings since it actually revolves all around of this one Oasis of life in-midst a hellscape of a Zombie+Sandwurm-Desert, so whenever characters in the story seems to be even able to easily conceptualize outsiders it strains suspension of disbelief. On most other worlds it seems quiet acceptable.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
I agree with you about Amonkhet; but I'm willing to chalk up some irrational behavior among the Amonkheti to the effects of PNBSD (Post Nicol Bolas Stress Disorder). Though I think an even better question is why Bolas didn't deliberately leave behind some stronger countermeasures against other planeswalkers, like an intense ideology of xenophobia.