Maybe, just maybe Ugin lied to Azor. He did want bolas there, but Azor being batsht crazy that he is, Ugin thought "sure it could also work as prison to batsht crazy Azor"
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MtG is where you can hate white players or black players, and still not be racist.
Today’s article left me a little bitter as there’s a lot to Azor that I can agree with.
TBH I’m a little tired of the anti-interventionist themes in MTG these days. Just because something is natural, cultural or endemic to a plane doesn’t mean it is good, healthy, right or desirable. It doesn’t mean that they are negative or need be replaced either but I think Azor was fine to bring civilization to other planes.
There's probably a much larger discussion to be had about this, but just taking the two examples at hand - Azor's actions on Ravnica have certainly led to problems, but as others have already noted, a case can be made that A) on the balance, the Guildpact was still a net-positive for Ravnica, and B) Azor has been trapped for a thousand years, so if Azor had been present, those problems would not have manifested. On the other hand, as already discussed by others, Ixalan is demonstrably in worse shape as a result of Azor's actions, and Azor has been here the entire time, so he doesn't get a pass.
To me, the thrust of the critique isn't against intervention* per se , but specifically against the behavior of the Oldwalkers, who frequently acted like gods but refused to take responsibility for the long-term consequences of their actions except when it affected them directly. (See also: Zendikar) Azor bringing civilization may or may not have a been a good thing (to me, it would vary on a case by case basis) but as presented (and I agree he was presented as a blatant Straw Man) he seemed to blame the natives on Ixalan when the consequences of his own actions yielded negative results he failed to properly anticipate.
I’m a little tired of the themes of authority = tyranny,
Organized religion = corruption, and other such themes. I understand Social Justice as an important philosophy to share in stories but it shouldn’t be the only animating philosophy among our heroes.
I dunno, I guess I wish there was more nuance to MTG stories these days.
To my mind, this is a direct consequence of adopting the tropes of both Modern Fantasy and the Superhero genre. Both genres tend to focus on (in D&D terms) Chaotic Good Heroes vs. both Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil villains, with the Chaos vs. Law conflict being the relevant one here. And the reason is obvious - the underdog narrative of how the downtrodden Few triumph over the powerful, elitist, Many is both archetypal and popular. Superheroes may (or may not) be supported by law-enforcement, but in most stories they are still independent operators by narrative necessity because the stories being told are about how they overcome great odds, not how Batman called in a SWAT team to arrest the Joker or Spider-Man requested tactical air support from SHIELD to destroy Dr. Octopus's giant robot.
By the way, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your point about how stale the story structure has gotten, at times. I just don't think it's an issue of promoting the idea that authority = tyranny (at least, as a direct intention) so much as emulating long-standing story-telling tropes and cliches.
*There is a strong argument that the Superhero genre traditionally (and paradoxically) promotes a non-interventionist position because naturally following through on the implications of superheroes and super-science changes the setting to be too different from our own world, and because it places a level of responsibility in the hands of the characters that writers seldom want to be burdened with having to properly explore. (e.g. should heroes try to directly attempt to reshape society?)
The whole thing felt kind of rushed and some of the dialogue wasn't particularly good. Having characters TALK IN ALL CAPS to be funny has gotten kind of old at this point. Many people seem to adore Breeches but he feels like lazy comic relief to me. Angrath, on the other hand, has the potential to be a legitimately interesting character and using him as comic relief feels like a waste of potential. Also, the Jace banishing Azor happened way to quickly. Having Azor be defeated by his own laws was a nice touch, but it happened so quickly that it felt like it came out nowhere.
While Azor probably never intended to return to Ravnica and had no reason to expect that the Living Guildpact would happen to be a planeswalker who could use it to exert power over him, making the Living Guildpact a person in the first place seems like a terrible idea. The only reason that it was even possible for the original Guildpact to be broken was because of the clause about the Dimir being revealed. That might have made sense if Azor and Szadek (and presumably the other paruns) were all on equal terms, allowing each of them to negotiate so that certain things would be in the document, but if Azor was an oldwalker and Szadek was just a planebound vampire, Azor should have been able to do whatever he wanted. As such, there was no reason to make the Guildpact breakable in the first place, let alone make the backup Guildpact a person rather than just another enchantment.
Jace calling out Azor for what he did to Ravnica would have been fine coming from any other person, but since it's Jace it just sounds hypocritical. Yes, Azor shouldn't have completely neglected Ravnica despite being the embodiment of law, but Jace did the exact same thing.
"The Guildpact was perfect"? Really? Even before the original was broken, you had guilds systematically oppressing the guildless, as well as some guilds straight-up murdering people. Loopholes in the original document made it possible for the Dimir to exert influence on every guild with no consequences, and the Guildpact being broken only made them more powerful. How was that a perfect system? Again, if Szadek was on equal footing with Azor, it would make sense for him to have been able to negotiate these advantages, but there's no reason why an oldwalker should have had to concede anything.
Telling the second part of the story from the perspective of Vraska didn't really add anything. There was nothing particularly relevant to be gained from getting Vraska's perspective on this rather than Jace's. I guess that they wanted to avoid using Jace so that they could fit it in this story and save the BIG REVEAL that Ugin was the one working with Jace for the next story... but it's such an obvious twist now that they brought up Ugin right before this story, and it's going to force them to at least partially retell the events of this story from another perspective. It would have been better if they had put the Huatlli/Tishana/Angrath part in a different story and just had one full story dedicated to Jace and Vraska confronting Azor, from Jace's perspective, including all the knowledge Jace got from Azor and his recollections about Bolas.
Good stuff:
It was good, if unsurprising, to see that Kumena is still alive. He was one of the most interesting villains we've had in a while and killing him off so quickly and unceremoniously would have been a waste. Since he's evidently going to join up with Tishana, he might be more of an anti-hero now, but hopefully he gets a larger role in a later story. It might largely depend on which tribe wins the poll and is given more attention in the story as a result.
I was legitimately afraid that the writers would just let Ugin and Bolas know about Ixalan because they're super smart elder dragons rather than actually explaining how they find about the binding if no one can leave. Fortunately, this story offers a real explanation: Ugin knew Azor and planned the binding with him, while Bolas most likely found out by reading Ugin's mind before he killed him.
Ixalan has managed to make Ugin become one of the most interesting characters in the entire story without even featuring Ugin onscreen at all. Bolas had the advantage of existing in the story for decades, which allows us to see his influence on numerous planes, exactly the way we should for a mastermind planeswalker. Ugin, on the other hand, wasn't given a proper introduction until a few years ago, and until now has been almost exclusively tied to the Eldrazi. What we've seen from this block tells us that Ugin, like Bolas, has influence on lots of other planes and planeswalkers, and he could actually be a formidable threat to Bolas despite being out of commission for over a thousand years. But Ugin still shows the trademark oldwalker disregard for individual lives that we know and love, making him only a good guy when looking at the big picture. While he still looks like a saint compared to Bolas and is functioning as Magic's "big good" type of character for the time being, he could still easily serve as a villain eventually due to his disregard for individual people or even entire planes. If Bolas kicks the bucket somewhere down the line, Ugin could easily replace him as the big bad.
Speculation:
Since presumably the fifth story will resolve who gains control of the city (making it the one that they have, at least in theory, written four different versions of), we should see the last two story spotlights resolved next week.
There's no way in hell in that Jace remembers everything about Bolas and still lets Vraska deliver the Immortal Sun to Bolas, and we also know that Vraska doesn't betray Jace. There has to be something we don't know about. At this point I still think it would make the most sense for them to let Azor take his spark back out of the Immortal Sun, so that when Vraska delivers it to Bolas he doesn't get what he was hoping for.
Since we now know that Jace has control of Azor, after commanding him to remove his spark from the Immortal Sun, Jace could command him to take over as Guildpact. The narrative requires Jace to do lots of plane-hopping so continuing to have him tied down to one plane - especially when Azor offers an easy out - would be a huge mistake. Plus, this would allow players to get the sphinx planeswalker that is constantly being requested - teasing one like this would be cruel to those players and only cause more demand. And this might make it possible for Azor to not have the lamest role in story since... Kumena two stories ago? Azor as he appeared in this story was nowhere close to meeting the hype for a former oldwalker/guild parun, and it would be disappointing and surprising if we have already seen his entire presence in the story.
To those who think Jace's actions were petty and hypocritical in some way, I interpreted things differently.
""Thank you, Azor," he said. He stood, taking a moment to compose himself and think through whatever evidence he had just seen. After a few seconds, he let out a shuddering sigh.
Jace continued, a crease on his brow and a grimace in his expression. "Your intentions were noble, but the effect of the Immortal Sun on Ixalan has been catastrophic. You and the Immortal Sun are a danger to the stability of this plane.""
There are several things at play here.
First of all, Jace recieves information we do not have yet. You say he should have used Azor as an ally? Well, he now probably knows all he needs to know, so he probably doesn't need Azor.
Secondly, he deems Azor a threat of sorts to the people of this plane. I...can't necessarily disagree. He's clearly been acting like he owns the place. Jace probably figured that letting the sphinx do what he wants wasn't the best option, yet he didn't want to kill him either, so seeing how Azor does not have a spark and can't leave Ixalan, banashing him was the next best option. Also, like Jay13x points out, mad oldwalker BS should not necessarily be tolerated <.<
As for Vraska's reasoning not being all that sound, well, I don't really blaim her judgement to be somewhat clouded, given her backstory.
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First, he DIDN'T abandon his guildpact duty. He wasn't the living guildpact. He created a system that ran itself, the Living Guildpact was a failsafe. He wasn't a dictator. He was interested in creating governments that let the people of the plane run their own business. He is also completely in the right to say that the people failed, as it was the actions of the people working against the system that caused the failure. At least for the only two instances we know about anyway.
On Ravnica, based on what we know, the Guilds existed before Azor "fixed" the plane. They had been at war with eachother, five on five, order vs chaos, and it had grown into a world war with all factions at total mobilization. It was apocalyptic. Azor convinced the other Paruns to sign the Guildpact because it was an alternative to mutual annihilation that ensured everyone's survival. The Guilds then transitioned from the nation states they had been to the organizations they were during Ravnica block, each serving a purpose in the system. The Guildpact stopped the Guilds from destroying each other, it literally prevented them from doing so, while allowing occasional scuffles. It was only through the actions of people that sought to take power for their guilds beyond what was allotted to them, and one Vampire who actively sought to destroy the system, that this fell. After 10,000 years of peace and prosperity I might add. "But what about the corruption and evil that Vraska endured?" Everything bad that happened to Vraska happened while the Guildpact was not in effect. Between the end of Ravnica Book 1, when Kos arrested Szadek, and Jace becoming the living guildpact, the Guildpact was non-functional. The "Guildpact" created by Teysa was nothing more than a political agreement, which broke down and then was reinstated and in the process of breaking down again at the onset of RTR. The Azorious committing warcrimes against the Golgari occurred while Azor's system was inactive. Vraska, and Jace, are blaming him for something he had no hand in. Remember, the Azorious were trying to wipe out the Golgari BEFORE Azor ever came to Ravnica, back when the Guilds were all nations at war, so its not like Azor created these factions and set them against each other, and the guildpact was inactive when this all happened to Vraska, so his magics did not drive the Azorious to do that. He came to a world on fire and left it 10,000 years of peace and prosperity, which only ended when the inhabitants broke from his system.
Now, I was only exaggerating when I said he did nothing wrong, as there is plenty wrong with the Guildpact system. It uses a degree of mind control, and it limits freedom (though it does not eliminate it). It involved a key member of the system being allowed to, and even required to, work to destroy it, and fell apart once he could not do so. It was convoluted and fragile. Still, it worked, and it made Ravnica one of the best places in the multiverse for its inhabitants, coming in beyond near utopias like Bant.
Ixalan is less clear cut, mainly because we don't know what it was like before he intervened. What we do know, based on the stories told by every faction, is that while the proto-Legion controlled the sun it was pretty nice. The proto pirates were prosperous merchant republics. The merfolk and sun empire did cool stuff together. Torrezon was mostly peaceful. Life was good. It only went downhill when the sun was stolen. Then Azor gave it to the Sun Empire, and they screwed it up. Then he decided to hide it and leave the inhabitants of the plane to their own devices. The result is what, different cultures fighting each other? Like, the baseline on every plane? Not even an apocalyptic war, just your run of the mill stronger powers conquer weaker ones. Sure, these cultures are motivated by the fact that they want the power of the immortal sun, but its not like they wouldn't have been fighting over something else otherwise, or that we can assume they never fought before Azor came to Ixalan. Really, the worst take on this is that Azor gave them plane a couple hundred years of peace before it returned to normal, which resulted in the Sun Empire basically setting off a nuke at which point he took that away from them just let people be people. And Ixalan was a half assed afterthought. He had this super artifact laying around, no way off the plane, and clearly Ugin had failed, so he decided to use it to try to help the plane, and when it failed he withdrew it and let things return to (mostly) normal.
Now, if he intended to trap Bolas on Ixalan, that would have been a dick move, to Ixalan. To the rest of the Multiverse, it would have been a gift. We don't know that he was supposed to draw Bolas there and trap him, or if he was supposed to use it to trap him elsewhere, though him not having a spark makes it seem like he was stuck there and thus Bolas would have to go there. Of course, he was supposed to get his spark back somehow, and then presumably be able to leave Ixalan, so maybe the plan wasn't to just use the sun to stop planeswalks away from Ixalan, and that is just a side effect, but rather to trap him IN the sun, or steal his spark, or something else. We really don't know what the damn thing is capable of yet, and he wasn't exactly given the chance to explain the plan in detail. The plan failed of course, but because Ugin failed, not because of anything Azor did.
Now, we of course do not know what went on with all the other planes, but from the two we do know of, his M.O. was to create a system that results in peace, give it to the plane's populace, then let them run it. If they do what he told them, it works, and if they decide not to, it doesn't, but he doesn't force them. The story presents him as an antagonist, but it doesn't really sell his supposed "villainy" very well.
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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"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
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!
I do not like the way Azor was handled. Before they enter the Sanctum Jace feels his mind and its like a maze. Five minutes later he has Azor doing tricks when he gives the order. They didnt even have a mental showdown like with Alhammaret.
You'll tell me that Azor is primarily a hieromancer not a mind mage. Fine. But he is also a 10,000 year old sphinx. He brought order to many planes. He made the frigging Guidpact. He made yhe immortal sun. This implies tremendous skill and knowledge of spellcasting not just raw power. Power might have faded with the loss of his spark but his knowledge and expeerience should still be there. My point is, Azor is no small fry, oldwalker or not. Jace entered his mind way too easy.
Also Jace finally shows what being the Living Guildpact means... And it raises more questions than answers. What are the conditions? Is every Ravnican magically compelled to obey him? Can he only use it when a law has been broken? And if so then how is Azor affected?
The whole thing felt kind of rushed and some of the dialogue wasn't particularly good. Having characters TALK IN ALL CAPS to be funny has gotten kind of old at this point. Many people seem to adore Breeches but he feels like lazy comic relief to me. Angrath, on the other hand, has the potential to be a legitimately interesting character and using him as comic relief feels like a waste of potential. Also, the Jace banishing Azor happened way to quickly. Having Azor be defeated by his own laws was a nice touch, but it happened so quickly that it felt like it came out nowhere.
While Azor probably never intended to return to Ravnica and had no reason to expect that the Living Guildpact would happen to be a planeswalker who could use it to exert power over him, making the Living Guildpact a person in the first place seems like a terrible idea. The only reason that it was even possible for the original Guildpact to be broken was because of the clause about the Dimir being revealed. That might have made sense if Azor and Szadek (and presumably the other paruns) were all on equal terms, allowing each of them to negotiate so that certain things would be in the document, but if Azor was an oldwalker and Szadek was just a planebound vampire, Azor should have been able to do whatever he wanted. As such, there was no reason to make the Guildpact breakable in the first place, let alone make the backup Guildpact a person rather than just another enchantment.
Jace calling out Azor for what he did to Ravnica would have been fine coming from any other person, but since it's Jace it just sounds hypocritical. Yes, Azor shouldn't have completely neglected Ravnica despite being the embodiment of law, but Jace did the exact same thing.
"The Guildpact was perfect"? Really? Even before the original was broken, you had guilds systematically oppressing the guildless, as well as some guilds straight-up murdering people. Loopholes in the original document made it possible for the Dimir to exert influence on every guild with no consequences, and the Guildpact being broken only made them more powerful. How was that a perfect system? Again, if Szadek was on equal footing with Azor, it would make sense for him to have been able to negotiate these advantages, but there's no reason why an oldwalker should have had to concede anything.
Telling the second part of the story from the perspective of Vraska didn't really add anything. There was nothing particularly relevant to be gained from getting Vraska's perspective on this rather than Jace's. I guess that they wanted to avoid using Jace so that they could fit it in this story and save the BIG REVEAL that Ugin was the one working with Jace for the next story... but it's such an obvious twist now that they brought up Ugin right before this story, and it's going to force them to at least partially retell the events of this story from another perspective. It would have been better if they had put the Huatlli/Tishana/Angrath part in a different story and just had one full story dedicated to Jace and Vraska confronting Azor, from Jace's perspective, including all the knowledge Jace got from Azor and his recollections about Bolas.
Good stuff:
It was good, if unsurprising, to see that Kumena is still alive. He was one of the most interesting villains we've had in a while and killing him off so quickly and unceremoniously would have been a waste. Since he's evidently going to join up with Tishana, he might be more of an anti-hero now, but hopefully he gets a larger role in a later story. It might largely depend on which tribe wins the poll and is given more attention in the story as a result.
I was legitimately afraid that the writers would just let Ugin and Bolas know about Ixalan because they're super smart elder dragons rather than actually explaining how they find about the binding if no one can leave. Fortunately, this story offers a real explanation: Ugin knew Azor and planned the binding with him, while Bolas most likely found out by reading Ugin's mind before he killed him.
Ixalan has managed to make Ugin become one of the most interesting characters in the entire story without even featuring Ugin onscreen at all. Bolas had the advantage of existing in the story for decades, which allows us to see his influence on numerous planes, exactly the way we should for a mastermind planeswalker. Ugin, on the other hand, wasn't given a proper introduction until a few years ago, and until now has been almost exclusively tied to the Eldrazi. What we've seen from this block tells us that Ugin, like Bolas, has influence on lots of other planes and planeswalkers, and he could actually be a formidable threat to Bolas despite being out of commission for over a thousand years. But Ugin still shows the trademark oldwalker disregard for individual lives that we know and love, making him only a good guy when looking at the big picture. While he still looks like a saint compared to Bolas and is functioning as Magic's "big good" type of character for the time being, he could still easily serve as a villain eventually due to his disregard for individual people or even entire planes. If Bolas kicks the bucket somewhere down the line, Ugin could easily replace him as the big bad.
Speculation:
Since presumably the fifth story will resolve who gains control of the city (making it the one that they have, at least in theory, written four different versions of), we should see the last two story spotlights resolved next week.
There's no way in hell in that Jace remembers everything about Bolas and still lets Vraska deliver the Immortal Sun to Bolas, and we also know that Vraska doesn't betray Jace. There has to be something we don't know about. At this point I still think it would make the most sense for them to let Azor take his spark back out of the Immortal Sun, so that when Vraska delivers it to Bolas he doesn't get what he was hoping for.
Since we now know that Jace has control of Azor, after commanding him to remove his spark from the Immortal Sun, Jace could command him to take over as Guildpact. The narrative requires Jace to do lots of plane-hopping so continuing to have him tied down to one plane - especially when Azor offers an easy out - would be a huge mistake. Plus, this would allow players to get the sphinx planeswalker that is constantly being requested - teasing one like this would be cruel to those players and only cause more demand. And this might make it possible for Azor to not have the lamest role in story since... Kumena two stories ago? Azor as he appeared in this story was nowhere close to meeting the hype for a former oldwalker/guild parun, and it would be disappointing and surprising if we have already seen his entire presence in the story.
Azor's M.O. doesn't seem to be total control, but rather giving people the tools to control themselves. The OG Guildpact required the guilds to all sign on to it to work because Azor didn't impose it, he suggested it and persuaded the others that it was the only way to prevent the ongoing war from destroying everything. He created the guildpact with input from all the guilds.
Now, the real explanation is that Ravnica was written before creative had any idea that the story would go in this direction, and that Azor being a Sphinx, and a Walker, are likely retcons, regardless of what they claim. Lets face it, they've written themselves into a bit of a corner and its up to readers to make it all fit. We can find explanations that sort of work, but we wouldn't have to if this was actually the plan all along. The way the Guildpact works makes perfect sense when Azor is just a guy, maybe a guy with magic, and its a completely collaborative effort between the 10 OG Paruns. Once Azor is an Oldwalker Sphinx, it gets messed up. He's either an idiot who made a needlessly convoluted system with loopholes and unreasonable weak points that still managed to work for 10,000 years, or you have to start assuming things about his motivations that would explain why he accepted those weaknesses, things that haven't actually been stated in story. It can work if, like I said, he is looking to give the populace a system to use to govern themselves effectively rather than trying to impose control, that rather than a W/U Lawful Neutral "I will impose order" jerk he actually wants the planes he visits to control their own fate, that this matters to him as much as creating order, and that he really is gifting them with the tools to better their lives and showing them how to use them, then giving them the freedom to succeed or fail. That would explain the weaknesses of the OG Guildpact, because he'd have to find a way to make it work without eliminating the people's ability to rule themselves. But none of this is in the story, so its headcanon. The alternative, though, is just bad storytelling.
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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"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
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!
Today’s article left me a little bitter as there’s a lot to Azor that I can agree with.
TBH I’m a little tired of the anti-interventionist themes in MTG these days. Just because something is natural, cultural or endemic to a plane doesn’t mean it is good, healthy, right or desirable. It doesn’t mean that they are negative or need be replaced either but I think Azor was fine to bring civilization to other planes.
There's probably a much larger discussion to be had about this, but just taking the two examples at hand - Azor's actions on Ravnica have certainly led to problems, but as others have already noted, a case can be made that A) on the balance, the Guildpact was still a net-positive for Ravnica, and B) Azor has been trapped for a thousand years, so if Azor had been present, those problems would not have manifested. On the other hand, as already discussed by others, Ixalan is demonstrably in worse shape as a result of Azor's actions, and Azor has been here the entire time, so he doesn't get a pass.
To me, the thrust of the critique isn't against intervention* per se , but specifically against the behavior of the Oldwalkers, who frequently acted like gods but refused to take responsibility for the long-term consequences of their actions except when it affected them directly. (See also: Zendikar) Azor bringing civilization may or may not have a been a good thing (to me, it would vary on a case by case basis) but as presented (and I agree he was presented as a blatant Straw Man) he seemed to blame the natives on Ixalan when the consequences of his own actions yielded negative results he failed to properly anticipate.
I’m a little tired of the themes of authority = tyranny,
Organized religion = corruption, and other such themes. I understand Social Justice as an important philosophy to share in stories but it shouldn’t be the only animating philosophy among our heroes.
I dunno, I guess I wish there was more nuance to MTG stories these days.
To my mind, this is a direct consequence of adopting the tropes of both Modern Fantasy and the Superhero genre. Both genres tend to focus on (in D&D terms) Chaotic Good Heroes vs. both Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil villains, with the Chaos vs. Law conflict being the relevant one here. And the reason is obvious - the underdog narrative of how the downtrodden Few triumph over the powerful, elitist, Many is both archetypal and popular. Superheroes may (or may not) be supported by law-enforcement, but in most stories they are still independent operators by narrative necessity because the stories being told are about how they overcome great odds, not how Batman called in a SWAT team to arrest the Joker or Spider-Man requested tactical air support from SHIELD to destroy Dr. Octopus's giant robot.
By the way, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your point about how stale the story structure has gotten, at times. I just don't think it's an issue of promoting the idea that authority = tyranny (at least, as a direct intention) so much as emulating long-standing story-telling tropes and cliches.
*There is a strong argument that the Superhero genre traditionally (and paradoxically) promotes a non-interventionist position because naturally following through on the implications of superheroes and super-science changes the setting to be too different from our own world, and because it places a level of responsibility in the hands of the characters that writers seldom want to be burdened with having to properly explore. (e.g. should heroes try to directly attempt to reshape society?)
This form of discussion is helpful and thoughtful and regardless of where we agree or disagree I feel like I understand better the challenges within the narrative while being admittedly tired of the pattern. Sometimes the rebels are not truly just or thier methods as harmful or even worse than the authority they oppose.
Today’s article left me a little bitter as there’s a lot to Azor that I can agree with.
TBH I’m a little tired of the anti-interventionist themes in MTG these days. Just because something is natural, cultural or endemic to a plane doesn’t mean it is good, healthy, right or desirable. It doesn’t mean that they are negative or need be replaced either but I think Azor was fine to bring civilization to other planes.
I’m a little tired of the themes of authority = tyranny,
Organized religion = corruption, and other such themes. I understand Social Justice as an important philosophy to share in stories but it shouldn’t be the only animating philosophy among our heroes.
I dunno, I guess I wish there was more nuance to MTG stories these days.
That's not what the message of Azor's part of the story is, like, at all. The message is that a just society can only be achieved if the effort towards creating a solid government and righteous laws is made collectively by all interested parties: but if solid government and righteous laws are FORCED UPON THEM by an external source that has minimal understanding of how said interested parties work, then the results will most likely be disastrous. Look at Africa: we Europeans brought them our concept of "civilization", and how well did that work out?
Turns out people don't enjoy being enslaved and/or having their lives revolutionized by an external force that cares very little for their individual well-being. Shocking, I know.
Your tone and writing explicitly demonstrates an equally if not greater inability to understand the point I was trying to make, as your disagreement over my interpretation and personal feelings.
The stories of Innistrad, Kaladesh, Amonkhet and Ixalan have all, to varying degrees, chosen to to present protagonistic societal rebels, antagonistic Lawbringers/governments and antagonist organized religions.
I recognize that there were narrative
necessities that made some of these themes present in these storylines but I refuse to be shamed by my wishing Wizards mixed it up a little.
I recognize that the imposition of Laws and mores upon unwilling societies can often be both morally wrong and even counterproductive, as the real-life colonization of Africa and fictional Azorius meddling in Ixalan shows.
Yet There are also moments where intervention is necessary and sometimes even unwanted, where many if not all the conflicting parties are unwilling to come to peaceful terms. While the Yugoslav peacekeeping mission was not desired by all the belligerents involved, it was still a necessary intervention that required no small amount of military force to bring relative stability and peace to the region.
I would appreciate it if my beliefs in the sometimes necessity of intervention was not taken as support for colonialism. I may be a gay man but I fear that sometimes, in the name of social justice, people are deliberately misunderstood. Just as they can be deliberately misunderstood in the context of other philosophies.
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Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
Just to say, this is the second time Huatli has been annoyed at Angrath for killing a dino that she was using as part of an attack on him that she started. What the hell? You attacked him! You don't get to be angry about him fighting back!
I'd like to think that it was his carrying the dino's head all the way there just to show what he did that made her upset, rather than simply the act of killing it.
Now, if he intended to trap Bolas on Ixalan, that would have been a dick move, to Ixalan. To the rest of the Multiverse, it would have been a gift. We don't know that he was supposed to draw Bolas there and trap him, or if he was supposed to use it to trap him elsewhere, though him not having a spark makes it seem like he was stuck there and thus Bolas would have to go there. Of course, he was supposed to get his spark back somehow, and then presumably be able to leave Ixalan, so maybe the plan wasn't to just use the sun to stop planeswalks away from Ixalan, and that is just a side effect, but rather to trap him IN the sun, or steal his spark, or something else. We really don't know what the damn thing is capable of yet, and he wasn't exactly given the chance to explain the plan in detail. The plan failed of course, but because Ugin failed, not because of anything Azor did.
The Immortal Sun was built to imprison one specific enemy. It amplifies the magical abilities of whoever touches it, and it prevents planeswalkers from leaving a plane. The perfect cage for a diabolical Planeswalker! I gave up my spark to help create the Immortal Sun, the lock of my prison, my greatest gift to all living things."
From what I gather from this, the Immortal Sun is clearly intended to lock walkers to a plane, including Bolas. Also IMO there would be no reason to do this on Ixalan unless they intended to trap Bolas there.
To those who think Jace's actions were petty and hypocritical in some way, I interpreted things differently.
It's not the actions that are hypocritical, it's the justification. Jace criticizes Azor for abandoning Ravnica to its own devices so that he could go and meddle in the affairs of various other planes. He says this after we have just watched Jace abandon Ravnica to its own devices so that he can go and meddle in the affairs of various other planes. Why is it only wrong when Azor does it?
Jace continued, a crease on his brow and a grimace in his expression. "Your intentions were noble, but the effect of the Immortal Sun on Ixalan has been catastrophic. You and the Immortal Sun are a danger to the stability of this plane.""
Just to be clear, I don't have an issue with this logic. It's some of the other accusations that are hypocritical. It's extremely ironic that Jace is upset at someone for doing the exact same things he's been doing, except on a larger scale. Maybe that's the entire point, and this experience will make Jace realize the error of his ways and try harder to not be like Azor. Or maybe it's selectively forgetful writing to establish a clear protagonist and antagonist despite the similarities between them. We'll see if they can justify it in the next story.
First of all, Jace recieves information we do not have yet. You say he should have used Azor as an ally? Well, he now probably knows all he needs to know, so he probably doesn't need Azor.
If Jace can get Azor to do whatever he wants, which seems to be the case, then why wouldn't he make more use of that? Sure, he doesn't necessarily need to, but he certainly could have if he wanted to. Assuming that Azor getting his spark back is not possible, he could have at the very least given Azor instructions that would have been beneficial to the inhabitants of the plane - for instance, not meddling with the factions any further and acting exclusively to protect the plane from external threats.
And if it is possible for Azor to get his spark back, Jace could get even more use out of him. Granted, there's no way for Jace to know if retrieving the spark is possible (unless he found out from Azor's memories), but what it really comes down to is whether the writers want Azor to be a planeswalker again or not. There are several reasons why having Azor be a planeswalker would be beneficial - namely, the popular demand for a sphinx planeswalker, the necessity of explaining why Jace would let Bolas have the Immortal Sun, and the potential benefits of getting Jace out of his job as Guildpact - so I think that there is still a possibility they could choose to take the story that direction.
Secondly, he deems Azor a threat of sorts to the people of this plane. I...can't necessarily disagree. He's clearly been acting like he owns the place. Jace probably figured that letting the sphinx do what he wants wasn't the best option, yet he didn't want to kill him either, so seeing how Azor does not have a spark and can't leave Ixalan, banashing him was the next best option.
But why banish him when you have complete control over him and can make him do something that's actually beneficial to the plane? Or when you can (assuming that it's possible) give him back his spark and have him take over your job that you can't/won't do?
Also, like Jay13x points out, mad oldwalker BS should not necessarily be tolerated <.<
Jace is guilty of much of same "oldwalker BS" that Azor is. He's meddled in plenty of planes and failed to pay any attention to the consequences of his actions. So far Jace has:
Worked for an interplanar crime syndicate
Accidentally helped to release the Eldrazi upon the multiverse
Accidentally became the leader of an entire plane's government without any qualifications
Neglected his position on that plane by leaving for months at a time, causing chaos on Ravnica
Removed the hedron from Ob Nixilis, allowing him to regain his spark and terrorize other planes
Helped to kill two of the Eldrazi he released, which could have apocalyptic consequences in the distant future
Helped overthrow an entire government as a means to get to the one guy who was a threat within that government
So while someone should call out Azor for what he's done, someone should call out Jace for all the stuff he's done as well.
Azor's M.O. doesn't seem to be total control, but rather giving people the tools to control themselves. The OG Guildpact required the guilds to all sign on to it to work because Azor didn't impose it, he suggested it and persuaded the others that it was the only way to prevent the ongoing war from destroying everything. He created the guildpact with input from all the guilds.
Now, the real explanation is that Ravnica was written before creative had any idea that the story would go in this direction, and that Azor being a Sphinx, and a Walker, are likely retcons, regardless of what they claim. Lets face it, they've written themselves into a bit of a corner and its up to readers to make it all fit. We can find explanations that sort of work, but we wouldn't have to if this was actually the plan all along. The way the Guildpact works makes perfect sense when Azor is just a guy, maybe a guy with magic, and its a completely collaborative effort between the 10 OG Paruns. Once Azor is an Oldwalker Sphinx, it gets messed up. He's either an idiot who made a needlessly convoluted system with loopholes and unreasonable weak points that still managed to work for 10,000 years, or you have to start assuming things about his motivations that would explain why he accepted those weaknesses, things that haven't actually been stated in story. It can work if, like I said, he is looking to give the populace a system to use to govern themselves effectively rather than trying to impose control, that rather than a W/U Lawful Neutral "I will impose order" jerk he actually wants the planes he visits to control their own fate, that this matters to him as much as creating order, and that he really is gifting them with the tools to better their lives and showing them how to use them, then giving them the freedom to succeed or fail. That would explain the weaknesses of the OG Guildpact, because he'd have to find a way to make it work without eliminating the people's ability to rule themselves. But none of this is in the story, so its headcanon. The alternative, though, is just bad storytelling.
These are all good points. You're absolutely right that the retcons are probably the reason for the majority of the plot holes, and your explanation could easily account for most of it. I just wish that we could get some sort of acknowledgement from the writers of the past storylines rather than acting like it all lines up in a perfect and obvious way, because it most certainly doesn't.
I've got to agree with the posters who're upset/displeased about Azor's handling and treatment in this story.
Honestly, this story made me mad. Like, literally mad.
I also agree that MTG's constant (in recent history) casting of the "government" (whatever form that body happens to take) as the enemy is really tiresome.
Today’s article left me a little bitter as there’s a lot to Azor that I can agree with.
TBH I’m a little tired of the anti-interventionist themes in MTG these days. Just because something is natural, cultural or endemic to a plane doesn’t mean it is good, healthy, right or desirable. It doesn’t mean that they are negative or need be replaced either but I think Azor was fine to bring civilization to other planes.
There's probably a much larger discussion to be had about this, but just taking the two examples at hand - Azor's actions on Ravnica have certainly led to problems, but as others have already noted, a case can be made that A) on the balance, the Guildpact was still a net-positive for Ravnica, and B) Azor has been trapped for a thousand years, so if Azor had been present, those problems would not have manifested. On the other hand, as already discussed by others, Ixalan is demonstrably in worse shape as a result of Azor's actions, and Azor has been here the entire time, so he doesn't get a pass.
To me, the thrust of the critique isn't against intervention* per se , but specifically against the behavior of the Oldwalkers, who frequently acted like gods but refused to take responsibility for the long-term consequences of their actions except when it affected them directly. (See also: Zendikar) Azor bringing civilization may or may not have a been a good thing (to me, it would vary on a case by case basis) but as presented (and I agree he was presented as a blatant Straw Man) he seemed to blame the natives on Ixalan when the consequences of his own actions yielded negative results he failed to properly anticipate.
I’m a little tired of the themes of authority = tyranny,
Organized religion = corruption, and other such themes. I understand Social Justice as an important philosophy to share in stories but it shouldn’t be the only animating philosophy among our heroes.
I dunno, I guess I wish there was more nuance to MTG stories these days.
To my mind, this is a direct consequence of adopting the tropes of both Modern Fantasy and the Superhero genre. Both genres tend to focus on (in D&D terms) Chaotic Good Heroes vs. both Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil villains, with the Chaos vs. Law conflict being the relevant one here. And the reason is obvious - the underdog narrative of how the downtrodden Few triumph over the powerful, elitist, Many is both archetypal and popular. Superheroes may (or may not) be supported by law-enforcement, but in most stories they are still independent operators by narrative necessity because the stories being told are about how they overcome great odds, not how Batman called in a SWAT team to arrest the Joker or Spider-Man requested tactical air support from SHIELD to destroy Dr. Octopus's giant robot.
By the way, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your point about how stale the story structure has gotten, at times. I just don't think it's an issue of promoting the idea that authority = tyranny (at least, as a direct intention) so much as emulating long-standing story-telling tropes and cliches.
*There is a strong argument that the Superhero genre traditionally (and paradoxically) promotes a non-interventionist position because naturally following through on the implications of superheroes and super-science changes the setting to be too different from our own world, and because it places a level of responsibility in the hands of the characters that writers seldom want to be burdened with having to properly explore. (e.g. should heroes try to directly attempt to reshape society?)
This form of discussion is helpful and thoughtful and regardless of where we agree or disagree I feel like I understand better the challenges within the narrative while being admittedly tired of the pattern. Sometimes the rebels are not truly just or thier methods as harmful or even worse than the authority they oppose.
Today’s article left me a little bitter as there’s a lot to Azor that I can agree with.
TBH I’m a little tired of the anti-interventionist themes in MTG these days. Just because something is natural, cultural or endemic to a plane doesn’t mean it is good, healthy, right or desirable. It doesn’t mean that they are negative or need be replaced either but I think Azor was fine to bring civilization to other planes.
I’m a little tired of the themes of authority = tyranny,
Organized religion = corruption, and other such themes. I understand Social Justice as an important philosophy to share in stories but it shouldn’t be the only animating philosophy among our heroes.
I dunno, I guess I wish there was more nuance to MTG stories these days.
That's not what the message of Azor's part of the story is, like, at all. The message is that a just society can only be achieved if the effort towards creating a solid government and righteous laws is made collectively by all interested parties: but if solid government and righteous laws are FORCED UPON THEM by an external source that has minimal understanding of how said interested parties work, then the results will most likely be disastrous. Look at Africa: we Europeans brought them our concept of "civilization", and how well did that work out?
Turns out people don't enjoy being enslaved and/or having their lives revolutionized by an external force that cares very little for their individual well-being. Shocking, I know.
Your tone and writing explicitly demonstrates an equally if not greater inability to understand the point I was trying to make, as your disagreement over my interpretation and personal feelings.
The stories of Innistrad, Kaladesh, Amonkhet and Ixalan have all, to varying degrees, chosen to to present protagonistic societal rebels, antagonistic Lawbringers/governments and antagonist organized religions.
I recognize that there were narrative
necessities that made some of these themes present in these storylines but I refuse to be shamed by my wishing Wizards mixed it up a little.
I recognize that the imposition of Laws and mores upon unwilling societies can often be both morally wrong and even counterproductive, as the real-life colonization of Africa and fictional Azorius meddling in Ixalan shows.
Yet There are also moments where intervention is necessary and sometimes even unwanted, where many if not all the conflicting parties are unwilling to come to peaceful terms. While the Yugoslav peacekeeping mission was not desired by all the belligerents involved, it was still a necessary intervention that required no small amount of military force to bring relative stability and peace to the region.
I would appreciate it if my beliefs in the sometimes necessity of intervention was not taken as support for colonialism. I may be a gay man but I fear that sometimes, in the name of social justice, people are deliberately misunderstood. Just as they can be deliberately misunderstood in the context of other philosophies.
Well, colonialism was never about intervening to make the lives of the natives better, or to install good governance. It was about pillage, and occasionally territorial expansion aided by some degree of genocide. That's it. So the holding the idea that sometimes intervention can be necessary to improve conditions in a territory should not only not be taken to construe that you may support colonialism in some degree, it is actually not at all related to colonialism.
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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"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
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!
To those who think Jace's actions were petty and hypocritical in some way, I interpreted things differently.
It's not the actions that are hypocritical, it's the justification. Jace criticizes Azor for abandoning Ravnica to its own devices so that he could go and meddle in the affairs of various other planes. He says this after we have just watched Jace abandon Ravnica to its own devices so that he can go and meddle in the affairs of various other planes. Why is it only wrong when Azor does it?
Jace continued, a crease on his brow and a grimace in his expression. "Your intentions were noble, but the effect of the Immortal Sun on Ixalan has been catastrophic. You and the Immortal Sun are a danger to the stability of this plane.""
Just to be clear, I don't have an issue with this logic. It's some of the other accusations that are hypocritical. It's extremely ironic that Jace is upset at someone for doing the exact same things he's been doing, except on a larger scale. Maybe that's the entire point, and this experience will make Jace realize the error of his ways and try harder to not be like Azor. Or maybe it's selectively forgetful writing to establish a clear protagonist and antagonist despite the similarities between them. We'll see if they can justify it in the next story.
First of all, Jace recieves information we do not have yet. You say he should have used Azor as an ally? Well, he now probably knows all he needs to know, so he probably doesn't need Azor.
If Jace can get Azor to do whatever he wants, which seems to be the case, then why wouldn't he make more use of that? Sure, he doesn't necessarily need to, but he certainly could have if he wanted to. Assuming that Azor getting his spark back is not possible, he could have at the very least given Azor instructions that would have been beneficial to the inhabitants of the plane - for instance, not meddling with the factions any further and acting exclusively to protect the plane from external threats.
And if it is possible for Azor to get his spark back, Jace could get even more use out of him. Granted, there's no way for Jace to know if retrieving the spark is possible (unless he found out from Azor's memories), but what it really comes down to is whether the writers want Azor to be a planeswalker again or not. There are several reasons why having Azor be a planeswalker would be beneficial - namely, the popular demand for a sphinx planeswalker, the necessity of explaining why Jace would let Bolas have the Immortal Sun, and the potential benefits of getting Jace out of his job as Guildpact - so I think that there is still a possibility they could choose to take the story that direction.
Secondly, he deems Azor a threat of sorts to the people of this plane. I...can't necessarily disagree. He's clearly been acting like he owns the place. Jace probably figured that letting the sphinx do what he wants wasn't the best option, yet he didn't want to kill him either, so seeing how Azor does not have a spark and can't leave Ixalan, banashing him was the next best option.
But why banish him when you have complete control over him and can make him do something that's actually beneficial to the plane? Or when you can (assuming that it's possible) give him back his spark and have him take over your job that you can't/won't do?
Also, like Jay13x points out, mad oldwalker BS should not necessarily be tolerated <.<
Jace is guilty of much of same "oldwalker BS" that Azor is. He's meddled in plenty of planes and failed to pay any attention to the consequences of his actions. So far Jace has:
Worked for an interplanar crime syndicate
Accidentally helped to release the Eldrazi upon the multiverse
Accidentally became the leader of an entire plane's government without any qualifications
Neglected his position on that plane by leaving for months at a time, causing chaos on Ravnica
Removed the hedron from Ob Nixilis, allowing him to regain his spark and terrorize other planes
Helped to kill two of the Eldrazi he released, which could have apocalyptic consequences in the distant future
Helped overthrow an entire government as a means to get to the one guy who was a threat within that government
So while someone should call out Azor for what he's done, someone should call out Jace for all the stuff he's done as well.
Azor's M.O. doesn't seem to be total control, but rather giving people the tools to control themselves. The OG Guildpact required the guilds to all sign on to it to work because Azor didn't impose it, he suggested it and persuaded the others that it was the only way to prevent the ongoing war from destroying everything. He created the guildpact with input from all the guilds.
Now, the real explanation is that Ravnica was written before creative had any idea that the story would go in this direction, and that Azor being a Sphinx, and a Walker, are likely retcons, regardless of what they claim. Lets face it, they've written themselves into a bit of a corner and its up to readers to make it all fit. We can find explanations that sort of work, but we wouldn't have to if this was actually the plan all along. The way the Guildpact works makes perfect sense when Azor is just a guy, maybe a guy with magic, and its a completely collaborative effort between the 10 OG Paruns. Once Azor is an Oldwalker Sphinx, it gets messed up. He's either an idiot who made a needlessly convoluted system with loopholes and unreasonable weak points that still managed to work for 10,000 years, or you have to start assuming things about his motivations that would explain why he accepted those weaknesses, things that haven't actually been stated in story. It can work if, like I said, he is looking to give the populace a system to use to govern themselves effectively rather than trying to impose control, that rather than a W/U Lawful Neutral "I will impose order" jerk he actually wants the planes he visits to control their own fate, that this matters to him as much as creating order, and that he really is gifting them with the tools to better their lives and showing them how to use them, then giving them the freedom to succeed or fail. That would explain the weaknesses of the OG Guildpact, because he'd have to find a way to make it work without eliminating the people's ability to rule themselves. But none of this is in the story, so its headcanon. The alternative, though, is just bad storytelling.
These are all good points. You're absolutely right that the retcons are probably the reason for the majority of the plot holes, and your explanation could easily account for most of it. I just wish that we could get some sort of acknowledgement from the writers of the past storylines rather than acting like it all lines up in a perfect and obvious way, because it most certainly doesn't.
I think your last point there is really the source of most of the problems with the story overall, excluding the occasional bouts of terrible writing. Many of the things that draw ire aren't really that bad in concept, its how they are handled that's the problem. Things that create massive inconsistencies that could be easily cleared up with like five minutes of thought on the part of Creative, easy solutions that can also be satisfying but are just not done leaving a finished product that is obviously slapdash. It reminds me of the Elder Dragon controversy in Tarkir. Elder Dragons had a lot of lore baggage and were pretty damn important, so when the Fate Reforged legends got upgraded to Elder in DoT, it was a big deal. Some people were mad right from the start, but a lot more people got pissed when, rather than come up with a decent explanation, Creative straight up admitted that they didn't because it seemed cool and said they became Elder because they were old, which was stupid considering there are older, more powerful dragons in the story that aren't Elder. It was even dumber because a much better explanation was sitting right in front of them that could have added to Elder Dragon lore. Creative could have said something about how the Tarkir dragons being created by the rifts is what enables Elders to rise from their ranks, either because they aren't normal dragons that are hatched, or because they are connected to Ugin and the original Elder Dragon race, or any number of explanations that would have explained what conditions made getting new Elder Dragons possible, why it hasn't happened since the OGs, and delved deeper into how Elders are created and possibly how the OG Elders were created. Instead, we got "they got older so they are Elder, also its rad right?" Lazy.
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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"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
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!
Maybe it's just my political beliefs but I found Azor's preaching, while interesting from a characterization standpoint, to be unbearable and I found little sympathy for him outside of his apparent mental health issues from being in isolation for a thousand years.
Another self righteous person preening over the virtues of forced order and how authoritarianism has cleaned up these "savage" lands. Ugh. How many of those have I seen online? And how many has the world dealt with?
Seeing Jace make him squirm made me like Jace more.
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"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
On a somewhat unrelated note, what the hell is going on with Sphinx's Decree? It clearly shows Azor using his magic on Huatli, but we just saw him fly off to Useless Island without even encountering Huatli at all.
So either:
A. We haven't seen the last of Azor in the story for this set or
B. It was just an oversight by the creators.
The latter seems likely, since as we know they've had some serious issues lately as far as lining up the story between different mediums (cards, story articles, fat pack summaries, art books, etc.), especially when they change things at the last minute. But I really, REALLY hope it's the former instead. Partly because the sloppiness of showing a story moment on a card that never even happened in the actual story is irritating for those who read the story and misleading for those who don't, but also because Azor's appearance so far leaves a lot to be desired.
I think the main reason that Jace banished Azor instead of controlling him was because it's the Guildpact Magic that allows him to do so, not his mind magic. I'm under the impression he only used his mind Magic to knock Azor off-guard to the point he has enough time to utilize the Guildpact Magic to punish Azor - and considering Azor created said Magic, I don't think it's capable of any direct control. Jace doesn't have enough actual experience in mind-controlling Sphinxes from his own Magic (the only time he did it completely ran off the rails) and certainly wasn't going to risk Azor as a second attempt (not that he even actually considered them attempts to begin with).
What really irritates me about Azor is his naivety - it was clear as day that the paruns of Ravnica (besides himself) were all gunning to utilize the Guildpact to their advantage (the very fact they were still skirmishing with each other in the first Block is some form of evidence) and he fell for that (not sure how convincing an act the other paruns had to put up) - The Dimir set up the whole thing to fail, the Ghost Council already prepared countermeasures prior to the pact (the no-pact room) and Niv-Mizzet might have planned to snipe the Maze from all of them if it weren't for the fact the Maze doesn't trigger without the other Guilds apparently, so he had to announce it after he prepared Melek (not that Melek did anything, although that might extend back to Bolas again).
I want to say Azor actually didn't care and enjoyed creating these systems for the sake of it, but the combination of his rants in the story alongside his stupidity (or lack of self-preservation) when he set himself up to be affected by the very system he created convinced me he was just naive. This irritates me to no end because Azor is a Sphinx. Nahiri had the excuse of being a Kor (on Zendikar no less, so I presume they don't usually survive that long otherwise thanks to the Roil) and was presumably rather young when she ascended, so unless Azor ascended when he was a baby Sphinx, my impression is that he should be much, much wiser and jaded than Nahiri.
I've more or less accepted the nature of oldwalkers as meddling ones with no sense of responsibility since they largely were immune to repercussions, but Azor's stupidity (I really thought how to be nice about it, but at the end of the day, I couldn't find anything more fitting for Azor other than the word Stupid, so excuse the bluntness) really brought it up to a whole new level - he set up repercussions for himself (every fiber of my own self-preservationist is screaming at this move). Being a Sphinx just doubled the amount of salt on that self-inflicted wound, I think.
I do know (and understand) that Azor runs on the "Laws I create are above even myself" logic, which is why he created the repercussions for himself, but you cannot combine that together with "Systems I built to be flexible and entrusted to the citizens", because when you do that and blame the citizens later on, you're basically saying, "I'm entrusting my life to the citizens of every plane I meddled with", which is well, just pure stupid. In fact at this point I feel like Azor is just getting his punishment for being stupid rather than for being a meddling oldwalker.
I'm going to make the disclaimer now all the bluntness is just directed to Azor as a character, nothing about the writing, writers or creative, for all I know it was an intentional decision to make Azor "lawful stupid", but as a "systems" person myself, it pains me to see arguably the most "systems" character in the lore so far is a notch crazier than the typical oldwalker category and not in the "good way" and I really had to state this opinion out. (In fairness I also praise characters when it is due, such as Nissa's correctly-done introverted nature which I could really relate to nicely, it's just I think Azor hit the exact opposite end this time).
the prison where I suffered needlessly on Ravnica, where my people were subjugated, was ultimately of your making... A leader cannot abandon their responsibilities.
All my whats. Yes, her suffering was made because something Azor did 10000+ years ago, not because of trashy people doing trashy things. Also a leader can retire and find a suitable replacement. Seeing how the Azorius had plenty of guild leaders throughout the Guildpact's 10000 year term, I'm sure the guild had someone in charge even if it wasn't the OG guild leader.
the prison where I suffered needlessly on Ravnica, where my people were subjugated, was ultimately of your making... A leader cannot abandon their responsibilities.
All my whats. Yes, her suffering was made because something Azor did 10000+ years ago, not because of trashy people doing trashy things. Also a leader can retire and find a suitable replacement. Seeing how the Azorius had plenty of guild leaders throughout the Guildpact's 10000 year term, I'm sure the guild had someone in charge even if it wasn't the OG guild leader.
Not to mention Azor did not intend to rule as THE leader. If Azor intended to lead, he would have created only Azorius and no other guild, the fact that ten guilds were created to accommodate different persona on the plane showcases Azor's ability to make laws according to the locals (arrogance and blaming aside). Both Vraska and Jace were acting out of emotions, even if they don't admit it, talking as if Azor is responsible for crime of people committed after 10,000 years of a once responsible government.
Azor is delusional to think he could control people forever, and some of us are equally delusion to believe Azor or ANYONE ought to have foresight beyond 1,000 years, let alone 10,000.
I'm going to make the case here that Jace, while inherently a very intellectual and logic-oriented character, was not acting rationally when he banished Azor.
For starters he was about fifteen minutes past a life-altering traumatic experience involving memories of a shady-as-Dauthi sphinx at the time he made that decision. In fact, as recently as the climb up the steps to Azor's gateway, he was still getting random invasive memories, they just weren't flooding about anymore. We see how frazzled Jace still is about the whole thing in a couple of quotes: "Was Azor a sphinx? he asked Vraska in her mind with hushed terror." and "He is so much like Alhammarret, Jace thought, his chest tightening with the ache of memory. He stowed his fear. He was not ruled by a sphinx. Not anymore." In that same story we got a resolution that he would be suspicious of powerful, ancient beings ("never trust your memory around anything older than yourself") after he had an encounter with another oldwalker - and being a clever guy, he probably made the connection that Azor and Ugin were most likely in cahoots. On top of that Jace is low-key in love with Vraska, who holds a strong prejudice against Azor for other reasons, ie being the Parun of the Azorius. She's helped nurture an individualist, anti-authority streak in Jace that jives well with his own predisposition to both fear and dislike Azor.
So yeah. He probably could have put Azor to better use, once he had him under Guildpact control, and yeah, his judgement was severe and abrupt, an gave no room for pennance (which a more compassionate Guildpact might have given him), but I don't think that's just New Enlightened Jace exercising his clearest moral judgement. I think we are meant to understand that Jace came into that confrontation loaded with personal prejudice and bearing open wounds, and that Azor was the right guy to pour salt all over them, and that Jace was harsh and swift in his judgement as a result.
Totally sidestepping the colonialism argument and the Azor characterization, except to say that the big difference between Azor and Jace is that Jace freely and fully admits that he's terrible at being Guildpact. Azor refuses to accept responsibility for the failed systems he put into place. I found the extreme anti-Deming stance of Azor's horribly clashing.
Couple things here.
1) How old is Hixus (from Theros)? In Gideon's origin story, Hixus clearly implies (or outright states) that he knows what Planeswalkers are. Hixus is the person who taught Gideon hieromancy. So a narrative shortcut would be that Hixus learned hieromancy from Azor. Low-probability scenario given the 1000+ years Hixus would have to be to make this work, but it would be interesting.
2) Now we know what Ugin's tripwire in Jace's mind was meant to do: lure Bolas to Ixalan. It is likely that Ugin figured that there were few mindmages that could render Jace defenseless, and seeing how Jace is quite meddlesome, might run into Bolas. So Ugin first protects himself by having Jace PW away, but why Ixalan? Perhaps to punish Jace, but Jace didn't work alone... much more likely is the idea that he expected the PW who tripped the tripwire to follow Jace... and they would also then be stuck on Ixalan.
Recall that there must be VERY few PWs in the Multiverse who have knowledge of Ixalan and the Sun. Azor and Ugin have that knowledge because they created it. Nicol Bolas knows presumably from Ugin. Anyone else who would know about Ixalan would get trapped by the Sun...
3) We now know why Bolas wanted the Planar Bridge. Its immediate use is to retrieve the Immortal Sun. Tezzeret--as the agent with the Bridge--is now scary powerful. Since the Bridge is obviously not affected by the Sun--presumably because the Bridge doesn't use a Spark to PW--Tezzeret could move the Sun somewhere and leave it. Doing so would strand any PWs on that plane. It would also likely become a Conflict Ball given its other properties.
4) This also explains why Tezzeret was on a timetable to finish the Bridge. He needed it completed before Vraska found the Sun, or otherwise the summons given to her that summoned Tezzeret would either not work or--more likely--pull Tezzeret and strand him on Ixalan. Pretty sure Bolas would see that as poetic retribution for failing him.
The above gives hope that there are indeed reasons for Bolas's other... acquisitions.
As for Ugin, he is becoming more and more enigmatic. I don't believe he is a villain, but he certainly is not... proactive. He is a planar ecologist. It is clear from both the Eldrazi and the Immortal Sun that he prefers to imprison/contain threats rather than destroy them. This seems to go along with a 'long view'. But he is also risk-averse. Unlike the Gatewatch, he does not make rash decisions or act ahead of the evidence.
Most likely, he views the Multiverse as an organism, which would put individual planes on the order of tissue or even cells. From that perspective, Ugin is a physician trying to keep the organism alive even if he has to sacrifice a few cells.
Ugin's plan was smarter than I think most give it credit for. If Ugin and Azor had trapped Bolas on Ixalan, it is quite possible Azor's hieromancy--empowered by the Sun--could have kept Bolas under control. More importantly, we know that the Sun was originally created to trap Bolas specifically. It is highly unlikely that Ugin would have made a mistake in the design of the Sun so as to enable Bolas to escape without issue. Also consider that Bolas had to be an extreme Multiversal threat, or else it would be highly unlikely that Azor would even risk his PW spark for the attempt. Given all of that, Ugin's plan seems to make sense.
On a somewhat unrelated note, what the hell is going on with Sphinx's Decree? It clearly shows Azor using his magic on Huatli, but we just saw him fly off to Useless Island without even encountering Huatli at all.
So either:
A. We haven't seen the last of Azor in the story for this set or
B. It was just an oversight by the creators.
The latter seems likely, since as we know they've had some serious issues lately as far as lining up the story between different mediums (cards, story articles, fat pack summaries, art books, etc.), especially when they change things at the last minute. But I really, REALLY hope it's the former instead. Partly because the sloppiness of showing a story moment on a card that never even happened in the actual story is irritating for those who read the story and misleading for those who don't, but also because Azor's appearance so far leaves a lot to be desired.
Came to post exactly that.
In my opinion, the same thing like Shake the Foundations. The cards depict something that does not happen. Azor and Huatli not interacting, Zacama not wrecking the Sanctum...
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There's probably a much larger discussion to be had about this, but just taking the two examples at hand - Azor's actions on Ravnica have certainly led to problems, but as others have already noted, a case can be made that A) on the balance, the Guildpact was still a net-positive for Ravnica, and B) Azor has been trapped for a thousand years, so if Azor had been present, those problems would not have manifested. On the other hand, as already discussed by others, Ixalan is demonstrably in worse shape as a result of Azor's actions, and Azor has been here the entire time, so he doesn't get a pass.
To me, the thrust of the critique isn't against intervention* per se , but specifically against the behavior of the Oldwalkers, who frequently acted like gods but refused to take responsibility for the long-term consequences of their actions except when it affected them directly. (See also: Zendikar) Azor bringing civilization may or may not have a been a good thing (to me, it would vary on a case by case basis) but as presented (and I agree he was presented as a blatant Straw Man) he seemed to blame the natives on Ixalan when the consequences of his own actions yielded negative results he failed to properly anticipate.
To my mind, this is a direct consequence of adopting the tropes of both Modern Fantasy and the Superhero genre. Both genres tend to focus on (in D&D terms) Chaotic Good Heroes vs. both Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil villains, with the Chaos vs. Law conflict being the relevant one here. And the reason is obvious - the underdog narrative of how the downtrodden Few triumph over the powerful, elitist, Many is both archetypal and popular. Superheroes may (or may not) be supported by law-enforcement, but in most stories they are still independent operators by narrative necessity because the stories being told are about how they overcome great odds, not how Batman called in a SWAT team to arrest the Joker or Spider-Man requested tactical air support from SHIELD to destroy Dr. Octopus's giant robot.
By the way, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your point about how stale the story structure has gotten, at times. I just don't think it's an issue of promoting the idea that authority = tyranny (at least, as a direct intention) so much as emulating long-standing story-telling tropes and cliches.
*There is a strong argument that the Superhero genre traditionally (and paradoxically) promotes a non-interventionist position because naturally following through on the implications of superheroes and super-science changes the setting to be too different from our own world, and because it places a level of responsibility in the hands of the characters that writers seldom want to be burdened with having to properly explore. (e.g. should heroes try to directly attempt to reshape society?)
Good stuff:
Speculation:
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
""Thank you, Azor," he said. He stood, taking a moment to compose himself and think through whatever evidence he had just seen. After a few seconds, he let out a shuddering sigh.
Jace continued, a crease on his brow and a grimace in his expression. "Your intentions were noble, but the effect of the Immortal Sun on Ixalan has been catastrophic. You and the Immortal Sun are a danger to the stability of this plane.""
There are several things at play here.
First of all, Jace recieves information we do not have yet. You say he should have used Azor as an ally? Well, he now probably knows all he needs to know, so he probably doesn't need Azor.
Secondly, he deems Azor a threat of sorts to the people of this plane. I...can't necessarily disagree. He's clearly been acting like he owns the place. Jace probably figured that letting the sphinx do what he wants wasn't the best option, yet he didn't want to kill him either, so seeing how Azor does not have a spark and can't leave Ixalan, banashing him was the next best option. Also, like Jay13x points out, mad oldwalker BS should not necessarily be tolerated <.<
As for Vraska's reasoning not being all that sound, well, I don't really blaim her judgement to be somewhat clouded, given her backstory.
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First, he DIDN'T abandon his guildpact duty. He wasn't the living guildpact. He created a system that ran itself, the Living Guildpact was a failsafe. He wasn't a dictator. He was interested in creating governments that let the people of the plane run their own business. He is also completely in the right to say that the people failed, as it was the actions of the people working against the system that caused the failure. At least for the only two instances we know about anyway.
On Ravnica, based on what we know, the Guilds existed before Azor "fixed" the plane. They had been at war with eachother, five on five, order vs chaos, and it had grown into a world war with all factions at total mobilization. It was apocalyptic. Azor convinced the other Paruns to sign the Guildpact because it was an alternative to mutual annihilation that ensured everyone's survival. The Guilds then transitioned from the nation states they had been to the organizations they were during Ravnica block, each serving a purpose in the system. The Guildpact stopped the Guilds from destroying each other, it literally prevented them from doing so, while allowing occasional scuffles. It was only through the actions of people that sought to take power for their guilds beyond what was allotted to them, and one Vampire who actively sought to destroy the system, that this fell. After 10,000 years of peace and prosperity I might add. "But what about the corruption and evil that Vraska endured?" Everything bad that happened to Vraska happened while the Guildpact was not in effect. Between the end of Ravnica Book 1, when Kos arrested Szadek, and Jace becoming the living guildpact, the Guildpact was non-functional. The "Guildpact" created by Teysa was nothing more than a political agreement, which broke down and then was reinstated and in the process of breaking down again at the onset of RTR. The Azorious committing warcrimes against the Golgari occurred while Azor's system was inactive. Vraska, and Jace, are blaming him for something he had no hand in. Remember, the Azorious were trying to wipe out the Golgari BEFORE Azor ever came to Ravnica, back when the Guilds were all nations at war, so its not like Azor created these factions and set them against each other, and the guildpact was inactive when this all happened to Vraska, so his magics did not drive the Azorious to do that. He came to a world on fire and left it 10,000 years of peace and prosperity, which only ended when the inhabitants broke from his system.
Now, I was only exaggerating when I said he did nothing wrong, as there is plenty wrong with the Guildpact system. It uses a degree of mind control, and it limits freedom (though it does not eliminate it). It involved a key member of the system being allowed to, and even required to, work to destroy it, and fell apart once he could not do so. It was convoluted and fragile. Still, it worked, and it made Ravnica one of the best places in the multiverse for its inhabitants, coming in beyond near utopias like Bant.
Ixalan is less clear cut, mainly because we don't know what it was like before he intervened. What we do know, based on the stories told by every faction, is that while the proto-Legion controlled the sun it was pretty nice. The proto pirates were prosperous merchant republics. The merfolk and sun empire did cool stuff together. Torrezon was mostly peaceful. Life was good. It only went downhill when the sun was stolen. Then Azor gave it to the Sun Empire, and they screwed it up. Then he decided to hide it and leave the inhabitants of the plane to their own devices. The result is what, different cultures fighting each other? Like, the baseline on every plane? Not even an apocalyptic war, just your run of the mill stronger powers conquer weaker ones. Sure, these cultures are motivated by the fact that they want the power of the immortal sun, but its not like they wouldn't have been fighting over something else otherwise, or that we can assume they never fought before Azor came to Ixalan. Really, the worst take on this is that Azor gave them plane a couple hundred years of peace before it returned to normal, which resulted in the Sun Empire basically setting off a nuke at which point he took that away from them just let people be people. And Ixalan was a half assed afterthought. He had this super artifact laying around, no way off the plane, and clearly Ugin had failed, so he decided to use it to try to help the plane, and when it failed he withdrew it and let things return to (mostly) normal.
Now, if he intended to trap Bolas on Ixalan, that would have been a dick move, to Ixalan. To the rest of the Multiverse, it would have been a gift. We don't know that he was supposed to draw Bolas there and trap him, or if he was supposed to use it to trap him elsewhere, though him not having a spark makes it seem like he was stuck there and thus Bolas would have to go there. Of course, he was supposed to get his spark back somehow, and then presumably be able to leave Ixalan, so maybe the plan wasn't to just use the sun to stop planeswalks away from Ixalan, and that is just a side effect, but rather to trap him IN the sun, or steal his spark, or something else. We really don't know what the damn thing is capable of yet, and he wasn't exactly given the chance to explain the plan in detail. The plan failed of course, but because Ugin failed, not because of anything Azor did.
Now, we of course do not know what went on with all the other planes, but from the two we do know of, his M.O. was to create a system that results in peace, give it to the plane's populace, then let them run it. If they do what he told them, it works, and if they decide not to, it doesn't, but he doesn't force them. The story presents him as an antagonist, but it doesn't really sell his supposed "villainy" very well.
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You'll tell me that Azor is primarily a hieromancer not a mind mage. Fine. But he is also a 10,000 year old sphinx. He brought order to many planes. He made the frigging Guidpact. He made yhe immortal sun. This implies tremendous skill and knowledge of spellcasting not just raw power. Power might have faded with the loss of his spark but his knowledge and expeerience should still be there. My point is, Azor is no small fry, oldwalker or not. Jace entered his mind way too easy.
Also Jace finally shows what being the Living Guildpact means... And it raises more questions than answers. What are the conditions? Is every Ravnican magically compelled to obey him? Can he only use it when a law has been broken? And if so then how is Azor affected?
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I'm sensing jace is finally remembering about bolas
And azor friend by imprisioning bolas it has to be ugin.
Azor's M.O. doesn't seem to be total control, but rather giving people the tools to control themselves. The OG Guildpact required the guilds to all sign on to it to work because Azor didn't impose it, he suggested it and persuaded the others that it was the only way to prevent the ongoing war from destroying everything. He created the guildpact with input from all the guilds.
Now, the real explanation is that Ravnica was written before creative had any idea that the story would go in this direction, and that Azor being a Sphinx, and a Walker, are likely retcons, regardless of what they claim. Lets face it, they've written themselves into a bit of a corner and its up to readers to make it all fit. We can find explanations that sort of work, but we wouldn't have to if this was actually the plan all along. The way the Guildpact works makes perfect sense when Azor is just a guy, maybe a guy with magic, and its a completely collaborative effort between the 10 OG Paruns. Once Azor is an Oldwalker Sphinx, it gets messed up. He's either an idiot who made a needlessly convoluted system with loopholes and unreasonable weak points that still managed to work for 10,000 years, or you have to start assuming things about his motivations that would explain why he accepted those weaknesses, things that haven't actually been stated in story. It can work if, like I said, he is looking to give the populace a system to use to govern themselves effectively rather than trying to impose control, that rather than a W/U Lawful Neutral "I will impose order" jerk he actually wants the planes he visits to control their own fate, that this matters to him as much as creating order, and that he really is gifting them with the tools to better their lives and showing them how to use them, then giving them the freedom to succeed or fail. That would explain the weaknesses of the OG Guildpact, because he'd have to find a way to make it work without eliminating the people's ability to rule themselves. But none of this is in the story, so its headcanon. The alternative, though, is just bad storytelling.
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This form of discussion is helpful and thoughtful and regardless of where we agree or disagree I feel like I understand better the challenges within the narrative while being admittedly tired of the pattern. Sometimes the rebels are not truly just or thier methods as harmful or even worse than the authority they oppose.
Your tone and writing explicitly demonstrates an equally if not greater inability to understand the point I was trying to make, as your disagreement over my interpretation and personal feelings.
The stories of Innistrad, Kaladesh, Amonkhet and Ixalan have all, to varying degrees, chosen to to present protagonistic societal rebels, antagonistic Lawbringers/governments and antagonist organized religions.
I recognize that there were narrative
necessities that made some of these themes present in these storylines but I refuse to be shamed by my wishing Wizards mixed it up a little.
I recognize that the imposition of Laws and mores upon unwilling societies can often be both morally wrong and even counterproductive, as the real-life colonization of Africa and fictional Azorius meddling in Ixalan shows.
Yet There are also moments where intervention is necessary and sometimes even unwanted, where many if not all the conflicting parties are unwilling to come to peaceful terms. While the Yugoslav peacekeeping mission was not desired by all the belligerents involved, it was still a necessary intervention that required no small amount of military force to bring relative stability and peace to the region.
I would appreciate it if my beliefs in the sometimes necessity of intervention was not taken as support for colonialism. I may be a gay man but I fear that sometimes, in the name of social justice, people are deliberately misunderstood. Just as they can be deliberately misunderstood in the context of other philosophies.
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I'd like to think that it was his carrying the dino's head all the way there just to show what he did that made her upset, rather than simply the act of killing it.
From what I gather from this, the Immortal Sun is clearly intended to lock walkers to a plane, including Bolas. Also IMO there would be no reason to do this on Ixalan unless they intended to trap Bolas there.
It's not the actions that are hypocritical, it's the justification. Jace criticizes Azor for abandoning Ravnica to its own devices so that he could go and meddle in the affairs of various other planes. He says this after we have just watched Jace abandon Ravnica to its own devices so that he can go and meddle in the affairs of various other planes. Why is it only wrong when Azor does it?
Just to be clear, I don't have an issue with this logic. It's some of the other accusations that are hypocritical. It's extremely ironic that Jace is upset at someone for doing the exact same things he's been doing, except on a larger scale. Maybe that's the entire point, and this experience will make Jace realize the error of his ways and try harder to not be like Azor. Or maybe it's selectively forgetful writing to establish a clear protagonist and antagonist despite the similarities between them. We'll see if they can justify it in the next story.
If Jace can get Azor to do whatever he wants, which seems to be the case, then why wouldn't he make more use of that? Sure, he doesn't necessarily need to, but he certainly could have if he wanted to. Assuming that Azor getting his spark back is not possible, he could have at the very least given Azor instructions that would have been beneficial to the inhabitants of the plane - for instance, not meddling with the factions any further and acting exclusively to protect the plane from external threats.
And if it is possible for Azor to get his spark back, Jace could get even more use out of him. Granted, there's no way for Jace to know if retrieving the spark is possible (unless he found out from Azor's memories), but what it really comes down to is whether the writers want Azor to be a planeswalker again or not. There are several reasons why having Azor be a planeswalker would be beneficial - namely, the popular demand for a sphinx planeswalker, the necessity of explaining why Jace would let Bolas have the Immortal Sun, and the potential benefits of getting Jace out of his job as Guildpact - so I think that there is still a possibility they could choose to take the story that direction.
But why banish him when you have complete control over him and can make him do something that's actually beneficial to the plane? Or when you can (assuming that it's possible) give him back his spark and have him take over your job that you can't/won't do?
Jace is guilty of much of same "oldwalker BS" that Azor is. He's meddled in plenty of planes and failed to pay any attention to the consequences of his actions. So far Jace has:
So while someone should call out Azor for what he's done, someone should call out Jace for all the stuff he's done as well.
These are all good points. You're absolutely right that the retcons are probably the reason for the majority of the plot holes, and your explanation could easily account for most of it. I just wish that we could get some sort of acknowledgement from the writers of the past storylines rather than acting like it all lines up in a perfect and obvious way, because it most certainly doesn't.
Honestly, this story made me mad. Like, literally mad.
I also agree that MTG's constant (in recent history) casting of the "government" (whatever form that body happens to take) as the enemy is really tiresome.
Well, colonialism was never about intervening to make the lives of the natives better, or to install good governance. It was about pillage, and occasionally territorial expansion aided by some degree of genocide. That's it. So the holding the idea that sometimes intervention can be necessary to improve conditions in a territory should not only not be taken to construe that you may support colonialism in some degree, it is actually not at all related to colonialism.
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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!
I think your last point there is really the source of most of the problems with the story overall, excluding the occasional bouts of terrible writing. Many of the things that draw ire aren't really that bad in concept, its how they are handled that's the problem. Things that create massive inconsistencies that could be easily cleared up with like five minutes of thought on the part of Creative, easy solutions that can also be satisfying but are just not done leaving a finished product that is obviously slapdash. It reminds me of the Elder Dragon controversy in Tarkir. Elder Dragons had a lot of lore baggage and were pretty damn important, so when the Fate Reforged legends got upgraded to Elder in DoT, it was a big deal. Some people were mad right from the start, but a lot more people got pissed when, rather than come up with a decent explanation, Creative straight up admitted that they didn't because it seemed cool and said they became Elder because they were old, which was stupid considering there are older, more powerful dragons in the story that aren't Elder. It was even dumber because a much better explanation was sitting right in front of them that could have added to Elder Dragon lore. Creative could have said something about how the Tarkir dragons being created by the rifts is what enables Elders to rise from their ranks, either because they aren't normal dragons that are hatched, or because they are connected to Ugin and the original Elder Dragon race, or any number of explanations that would have explained what conditions made getting new Elder Dragons possible, why it hasn't happened since the OGs, and delved deeper into how Elders are created and possibly how the OG Elders were created. Instead, we got "they got older so they are Elder, also its rad right?" Lazy.
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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!
Another self righteous person preening over the virtues of forced order and how authoritarianism has cleaned up these "savage" lands. Ugh. How many of those have I seen online? And how many has the world dealt with?
Seeing Jace make him squirm made me like Jace more.
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So either:
A. We haven't seen the last of Azor in the story for this set or
B. It was just an oversight by the creators.
The latter seems likely, since as we know they've had some serious issues lately as far as lining up the story between different mediums (cards, story articles, fat pack summaries, art books, etc.), especially when they change things at the last minute. But I really, REALLY hope it's the former instead. Partly because the sloppiness of showing a story moment on a card that never even happened in the actual story is irritating for those who read the story and misleading for those who don't, but also because Azor's appearance so far leaves a lot to be desired.
What really irritates me about Azor is his naivety - it was clear as day that the paruns of Ravnica (besides himself) were all gunning to utilize the Guildpact to their advantage (the very fact they were still skirmishing with each other in the first Block is some form of evidence) and he fell for that (not sure how convincing an act the other paruns had to put up) - The Dimir set up the whole thing to fail, the Ghost Council already prepared countermeasures prior to the pact (the no-pact room) and Niv-Mizzet might have planned to snipe the Maze from all of them if it weren't for the fact the Maze doesn't trigger without the other Guilds apparently, so he had to announce it after he prepared Melek (not that Melek did anything, although that might extend back to Bolas again).
I want to say Azor actually didn't care and enjoyed creating these systems for the sake of it, but the combination of his rants in the story alongside his stupidity (or lack of self-preservation) when he set himself up to be affected by the very system he created convinced me he was just naive. This irritates me to no end because Azor is a Sphinx. Nahiri had the excuse of being a Kor (on Zendikar no less, so I presume they don't usually survive that long otherwise thanks to the Roil) and was presumably rather young when she ascended, so unless Azor ascended when he was a baby Sphinx, my impression is that he should be much, much wiser and jaded than Nahiri.
I've more or less accepted the nature of oldwalkers as meddling ones with no sense of responsibility since they largely were immune to repercussions, but Azor's stupidity (I really thought how to be nice about it, but at the end of the day, I couldn't find anything more fitting for Azor other than the word Stupid, so excuse the bluntness) really brought it up to a whole new level - he set up repercussions for himself (every fiber of my own self-preservationist is screaming at this move). Being a Sphinx just doubled the amount of salt on that self-inflicted wound, I think.
I do know (and understand) that Azor runs on the "Laws I create are above even myself" logic, which is why he created the repercussions for himself, but you cannot combine that together with "Systems I built to be flexible and entrusted to the citizens", because when you do that and blame the citizens later on, you're basically saying, "I'm entrusting my life to the citizens of every plane I meddled with", which is well, just pure stupid. In fact at this point I feel like Azor is just getting his punishment for being stupid rather than for being a meddling oldwalker.
I'm going to make the disclaimer now all the bluntness is just directed to Azor as a character, nothing about the writing, writers or creative, for all I know it was an intentional decision to make Azor "lawful stupid", but as a "systems" person myself, it pains me to see arguably the most "systems" character in the lore so far is a notch crazier than the typical oldwalker category and not in the "good way" and I really had to state this opinion out. (In fairness I also praise characters when it is due, such as Nissa's correctly-done introverted nature which I could really relate to nicely, it's just I think Azor hit the exact opposite end this time).
All my whats. Yes, her suffering was made because something Azor did 10000+ years ago, not because of trashy people doing trashy things. Also a leader can retire and find a suitable replacement. Seeing how the Azorius had plenty of guild leaders throughout the Guildpact's 10000 year term, I'm sure the guild had someone in charge even if it wasn't the OG guild leader.
Not to mention Azor did not intend to rule as THE leader. If Azor intended to lead, he would have created only Azorius and no other guild, the fact that ten guilds were created to accommodate different persona on the plane showcases Azor's ability to make laws according to the locals (arrogance and blaming aside). Both Vraska and Jace were acting out of emotions, even if they don't admit it, talking as if Azor is responsible for crime of people committed after 10,000 years of a once responsible government.
Azor is delusional to think he could control people forever, and some of us are equally delusion to believe Azor or ANYONE ought to have foresight beyond 1,000 years, let alone 10,000.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
For starters he was about fifteen minutes past a life-altering traumatic experience involving memories of a shady-as-Dauthi sphinx at the time he made that decision. In fact, as recently as the climb up the steps to Azor's gateway, he was still getting random invasive memories, they just weren't flooding about anymore. We see how frazzled Jace still is about the whole thing in a couple of quotes: "Was Azor a sphinx? he asked Vraska in her mind with hushed terror." and "He is so much like Alhammarret, Jace thought, his chest tightening with the ache of memory. He stowed his fear. He was not ruled by a sphinx. Not anymore." In that same story we got a resolution that he would be suspicious of powerful, ancient beings ("never trust your memory around anything older than yourself") after he had an encounter with another oldwalker - and being a clever guy, he probably made the connection that Azor and Ugin were most likely in cahoots. On top of that Jace is low-key in love with Vraska, who holds a strong prejudice against Azor for other reasons, ie being the Parun of the Azorius. She's helped nurture an individualist, anti-authority streak in Jace that jives well with his own predisposition to both fear and dislike Azor.
So yeah. He probably could have put Azor to better use, once he had him under Guildpact control, and yeah, his judgement was severe and abrupt, an gave no room for pennance (which a more compassionate Guildpact might have given him), but I don't think that's just New Enlightened Jace exercising his clearest moral judgement. I think we are meant to understand that Jace came into that confrontation loaded with personal prejudice and bearing open wounds, and that Azor was the right guy to pour salt all over them, and that Jace was harsh and swift in his judgement as a result.
Couple things here.
1) How old is Hixus (from Theros)? In Gideon's origin story, Hixus clearly implies (or outright states) that he knows what Planeswalkers are. Hixus is the person who taught Gideon hieromancy. So a narrative shortcut would be that Hixus learned hieromancy from Azor. Low-probability scenario given the 1000+ years Hixus would have to be to make this work, but it would be interesting.
2) Now we know what Ugin's tripwire in Jace's mind was meant to do: lure Bolas to Ixalan. It is likely that Ugin figured that there were few mindmages that could render Jace defenseless, and seeing how Jace is quite meddlesome, might run into Bolas. So Ugin first protects himself by having Jace PW away, but why Ixalan? Perhaps to punish Jace, but Jace didn't work alone... much more likely is the idea that he expected the PW who tripped the tripwire to follow Jace... and they would also then be stuck on Ixalan.
Recall that there must be VERY few PWs in the Multiverse who have knowledge of Ixalan and the Sun. Azor and Ugin have that knowledge because they created it. Nicol Bolas knows presumably from Ugin. Anyone else who would know about Ixalan would get trapped by the Sun...
3) We now know why Bolas wanted the Planar Bridge. Its immediate use is to retrieve the Immortal Sun. Tezzeret--as the agent with the Bridge--is now scary powerful. Since the Bridge is obviously not affected by the Sun--presumably because the Bridge doesn't use a Spark to PW--Tezzeret could move the Sun somewhere and leave it. Doing so would strand any PWs on that plane. It would also likely become a Conflict Ball given its other properties.
4) This also explains why Tezzeret was on a timetable to finish the Bridge. He needed it completed before Vraska found the Sun, or otherwise the summons given to her that summoned Tezzeret would either not work or--more likely--pull Tezzeret and strand him on Ixalan. Pretty sure Bolas would see that as poetic retribution for failing him.
The above gives hope that there are indeed reasons for Bolas's other... acquisitions.
As for Ugin, he is becoming more and more enigmatic. I don't believe he is a villain, but he certainly is not... proactive. He is a planar ecologist. It is clear from both the Eldrazi and the Immortal Sun that he prefers to imprison/contain threats rather than destroy them. This seems to go along with a 'long view'. But he is also risk-averse. Unlike the Gatewatch, he does not make rash decisions or act ahead of the evidence.
Most likely, he views the Multiverse as an organism, which would put individual planes on the order of tissue or even cells. From that perspective, Ugin is a physician trying to keep the organism alive even if he has to sacrifice a few cells.
Ugin's plan was smarter than I think most give it credit for. If Ugin and Azor had trapped Bolas on Ixalan, it is quite possible Azor's hieromancy--empowered by the Sun--could have kept Bolas under control. More importantly, we know that the Sun was originally created to trap Bolas specifically. It is highly unlikely that Ugin would have made a mistake in the design of the Sun so as to enable Bolas to escape without issue. Also consider that Bolas had to be an extreme Multiversal threat, or else it would be highly unlikely that Azor would even risk his PW spark for the attempt. Given all of that, Ugin's plan seems to make sense.
Came to post exactly that.
In my opinion, the same thing like Shake the Foundations. The cards depict something that does not happen. Azor and Huatli not interacting, Zacama not wrecking the Sanctum...
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)