So, planeswalkers so far have sparked due to traumatic/stressful circumstances, right? Childbirth falls under those parameters, so if a pregnant mother sparked, would the child come with her?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Your new prescription eyeglasses don’t work. You still can’t see things my way.
Long answer: it depends on what WotC wants for the story. If its before the birth maybe the cild being within the mother provides some amount of protection. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe she arrives on the new plain bleeding and figures out she's miscarried. And that can lead to something. But in truth I imagine this will never come up. Its an incredibly touchy subject that I don't imagine they will wamt to deal with. I mean they won't even touch "living" religions. Theres no way in hell they'd mess with pregnancy and miscarriages and all the stuff that goes with it. Even if they said hey the mother protects the baby and now look the baby is some sort of special planeswalker now too and everything is happy, she didn't land on New Phyrexia or midair over a volcano. There would be people unsatisfied by the lack of conflict or some crap like that.
I actually have a fanwalker who sparked this way, when she started going into labor. The child came with her and she was forced to give birth by herself, on Grixis. And because her son couldn't 'walk with her and she wasn't willing to abandon him, they were both stuck there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Planeswalkers don't always spark due to trauma. The best example of this would be Narset, who apparently sparked through deliberate practice, meditation, and desire for greater knowledge than could be found on Tarkir. And a planeswalker who sparks does not necessarily planeswalk in that moment-- again, Narset's story implies her spark was active before she saw Ojutai again and got his blessing despite her heresy. Other good examples would be Venser and good old Urza.
Urza's moment, combined with Narset's story, has some important clues which might help us speculate on the pregnant mother hypothetical. At the end of The Brother's War, Urza and Mishra get into one last duel with their halves of the powerstone from the beginning of the book. Notably, both are skeptics in the existence of magic throughout the book leading up to this moment-- they are artificers and industrialists, after all. However, during the beam struggle, Urza suddenly has a... revelation of sorts as he is suddenly overwhelmed with an overwhelming determination to win and a swell of power coming from within himself, which he releases as a fire blast. His first spell. But the narration of the event and of what is going through Urza's mind immediately during and after indicate what is really going on is that his spark has ignited. He suddenly can feel the mana running through the land, as well as the pain and suffering of Argoth (the forested island they are battling over). He can suddenly understand the ancient script written on the Golgothian Sylex despite not knowing a single word of the language (much as the Gatewatch casually stroll from plane to plane and aren't tripped up by the local languages unless they run into words they truly have no reference for). And all he wants to do is end the war decisively and immediately, not run away from it. So he does not planeswalk immediately, which is why so many people misunderstand and think he became a planeswalker when he used the Sylex-- in fact, he wouldn't have been able to activate it at all in that case.
So what this tells me is that when a planeswalker's spark ignites it doesn't necessarily cause them to planeswalk right off the bat. It has to do with whether they desire to do so in that moment. Most planeswalkers spark during a traumatic event, so their natural impulse is to run away. In the recent lore planeswalking is explicitly referred to as a kind of spell, so it would make sense that the burst of energy they experience when their spark ignites would usually be used to leave the plane-- they are literally running away from the trauma. But Narset explicitly wanted to stay on Tarkir at first, so she refused to do it even though she knew she could. Urza sparked under stress, but it was the stress of combat and the situation demanded he stand and fight if he wanted to walk away alive. So he used the surge of mana to cast a burn spell instead. So I think that if a planeswalker sparked during childbirth they probably wouldn't planeswalk immediately unless something unusual and distressing happened, such as a stillbirth. The usual maternal instinct is to stay with their child at that moment, not run away. Indeed, I doubt a normal childbirth would be considered traumatic enough to cause a female planeswalker's spark to ignite-- a lot of people overestimate the stress of it and forget that childbirth literally takes hours. Only a few minutes of it are stressful or painful, and not all forms of stress are experienced as distress. To call it traumatic is... exaggerating. Or so I'm told.
The more interesting question is whether a pregnant planeswalker can planeswalk at all, IMO. Does the baby experience the protection of their mother's spark? Although we know Tamyo has several children, so... possibly?
I just thought of a kind gross/weird rationalisation for this question...
Intestinal bacteria.
They're not biologically a part of the host, but do live in the host's body, aaaaand since Planeswalkers don't experience, err, interesting side effects from them dying en masse every time that Planeswalker 'walks, we must assume that the host body protects them during transit.
We can therefore assume that a fetus should be perfectly safe as well.
I just thought of a kind gross/weird rationalisation for this question...
Intestinal bacteria.
They're not biologically a part of the host, but do live in the host's body, aaaaand since Planeswalkers don't experience, err, interesting side effects from them dying en masse every time that Planeswalker 'walks, we must assume that the host body protects them during transit.
We can therefore assume that a fetus should be perfectly safe as well.
Hey... That would make for an interesting Un-card....
Sorry, I don't have anything more productive to put in. I always felt the whole concept of the "Spark" was on par with Midichlorians. It was probably better if WotC writers just left that part of the mythos unanswered.
I always felt the whole concept of the "Spark" was on par with Midichlorians. It was probably better if WotC writers just left that part of the mythos unanswered.
Eh, I think since the "Spark" is essentially a metaphor it's not as bad as Midichlorians. I picture it as the potential to be a Planeswalker that people possess, like a recessive gene (probably a bad example but I can't think of anything better).
I'm going to say that as far as the overall question goes, I picture Planeswalkers who are 'walking as having this thin "layer of magic" of some sort around them that briefly protects them from the Blind Eternities. Thus, anything that is inside their body would share in that protection, so a baby would be safe physically. That also explains why any organic materials like leather or plant fibers they have in their clothing don't disintegrate or implode or do whatever it is non planeswalker or Eldrazi stuff does in the Blind Eternities.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Long answer: it depends on what WotC wants for the story. If its before the birth maybe the cild being within the mother provides some amount of protection. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe she arrives on the new plain bleeding and figures out she's miscarried. And that can lead to something. But in truth I imagine this will never come up. Its an incredibly touchy subject that I don't imagine they will wamt to deal with. I mean they won't even touch "living" religions. Theres no way in hell they'd mess with pregnancy and miscarriages and all the stuff that goes with it. Even if they said hey the mother protects the baby and now look the baby is some sort of special planeswalker now too and everything is happy, she didn't land on New Phyrexia or midair over a volcano. There would be people unsatisfied by the lack of conflict or some crap like that.
Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Urza's moment, combined with Narset's story, has some important clues which might help us speculate on the pregnant mother hypothetical. At the end of The Brother's War, Urza and Mishra get into one last duel with their halves of the powerstone from the beginning of the book. Notably, both are skeptics in the existence of magic throughout the book leading up to this moment-- they are artificers and industrialists, after all. However, during the beam struggle, Urza suddenly has a... revelation of sorts as he is suddenly overwhelmed with an overwhelming determination to win and a swell of power coming from within himself, which he releases as a fire blast. His first spell. But the narration of the event and of what is going through Urza's mind immediately during and after indicate what is really going on is that his spark has ignited. He suddenly can feel the mana running through the land, as well as the pain and suffering of Argoth (the forested island they are battling over). He can suddenly understand the ancient script written on the Golgothian Sylex despite not knowing a single word of the language (much as the Gatewatch casually stroll from plane to plane and aren't tripped up by the local languages unless they run into words they truly have no reference for). And all he wants to do is end the war decisively and immediately, not run away from it. So he does not planeswalk immediately, which is why so many people misunderstand and think he became a planeswalker when he used the Sylex-- in fact, he wouldn't have been able to activate it at all in that case.
So what this tells me is that when a planeswalker's spark ignites it doesn't necessarily cause them to planeswalk right off the bat. It has to do with whether they desire to do so in that moment. Most planeswalkers spark during a traumatic event, so their natural impulse is to run away. In the recent lore planeswalking is explicitly referred to as a kind of spell, so it would make sense that the burst of energy they experience when their spark ignites would usually be used to leave the plane-- they are literally running away from the trauma. But Narset explicitly wanted to stay on Tarkir at first, so she refused to do it even though she knew she could. Urza sparked under stress, but it was the stress of combat and the situation demanded he stand and fight if he wanted to walk away alive. So he used the surge of mana to cast a burn spell instead. So I think that if a planeswalker sparked during childbirth they probably wouldn't planeswalk immediately unless something unusual and distressing happened, such as a stillbirth. The usual maternal instinct is to stay with their child at that moment, not run away. Indeed, I doubt a normal childbirth would be considered traumatic enough to cause a female planeswalker's spark to ignite-- a lot of people overestimate the stress of it and forget that childbirth literally takes hours. Only a few minutes of it are stressful or painful, and not all forms of stress are experienced as distress. To call it traumatic is... exaggerating. Or so I'm told.
The more interesting question is whether a pregnant planeswalker can planeswalk at all, IMO. Does the baby experience the protection of their mother's spark? Although we know Tamyo has several children, so... possibly?
I hope that helps.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Intestinal bacteria.
They're not biologically a part of the host, but do live in the host's body, aaaaand since Planeswalkers don't experience, err, interesting side effects from them dying en masse every time that Planeswalker 'walks, we must assume that the host body protects them during transit.
We can therefore assume that a fetus should be perfectly safe as well.
So would that be er... Circle of Protection: Mother?
Hey... That would make for an interesting Un-card....
Sorry, I don't have anything more productive to put in. I always felt the whole concept of the "Spark" was on par with Midichlorians. It was probably better if WotC writers just left that part of the mythos unanswered.
Eh, I think since the "Spark" is essentially a metaphor it's not as bad as Midichlorians. I picture it as the potential to be a Planeswalker that people possess, like a recessive gene (probably a bad example but I can't think of anything better).
I'm going to say that as far as the overall question goes, I picture Planeswalkers who are 'walking as having this thin "layer of magic" of some sort around them that briefly protects them from the Blind Eternities. Thus, anything that is inside their body would share in that protection, so a baby would be safe physically. That also explains why any organic materials like leather or plant fibers they have in their clothing don't disintegrate or implode or do whatever it is non planeswalker or Eldrazi stuff does in the Blind Eternities.