I normally don't care about Nissa that much, because it's really hard for me to empathize with green ideas. But this story was different for me. I can definitely relate to feeling pain others don't understand, and that driving you angry and possessive of the subject. It's really normal, I think.
In particular, I thought the waves crashing at the shore metaphor was pretty beautiful.
That said, I can understand why for others it was just pointless filler. I feel that if stories keep being just one main character's point of view and filler characters, each week will be disappointment for many readers, for the very simple fact that we can't empathize with every character. Hopefully the planeswalkers join together soon instead of keeping splitting up.
I have to disagree with this. I never thought of Garruk as monoG. He's a senseless killer who hunts for nothing more then pleasure. He's always been BG in my eyes. A monoG character believes all life is equal and sacred. Nissan is a better green character because in all of her URs she is looking to be at peace both with the world as a whole but with all the inhabitants of that world too.
I dont know where you got that interpretation of garruk from. I'm pretty familiar with the pw's lore and i just dont recall every getting that sense from him. If im wrong please show me a source where he acts like that. Garruk is about natural selection and the strong surviving, which is very green. He didnt hunt ceaselessly, he did care for nature pre-curse. He became a senseless killer after the chain veil cursed him.
If my memory serves (and someone again correct me if in wrong) the whole reason he attacked Lili in the first place was bc she killed one his beasts that he had a bond with. So Garry was very mono green before his encounter with Lili.
I didn't mind the story too terribly, and even though it's technically filler, I think the part with the goblin losing her friend was very touching. (Though it's speaks volumes if I feel more for a goblin who has 2 lines of text and shows up in 3 paragraphs in total than for Nissa's entire arc).
The last paragraph of the story completely ruined it though. Creative doesn't even use maps to keep geography stuff as ambigious as possible and they still manage to screw it up.
I have to disagree with this. I never thought of Garruk as monoG. He's a senseless killer who hunts for nothing more then pleasure. He's always been BG in my eyes. A monoG character believes all life is equal and sacred. Nissan is a better green character because in all of her URs she is looking to be at peace both with the world as a whole but with all the inhabitants of that world too.
Nissa and Garruk are two sides of green. Nissa is the "everything is connected" part of green, while Garruk represents the "you are what you are" part. Garruk hunts, because he is a predator. That's what predators do. He doesn't enjoy it at all, not until he became cursed that is. Garruk follows the philosophy of "eat or be eaten" to its core.
I have to disagree with this. I never thought of Garruk as monoG. He's a senseless killer who hunts for nothing more then pleasure.
No, you're talking about Garruk AFTER his corruption.
A monoG character believes all life is equal and sacred.
No, not at all. A Green character believes nature and the cycle of life are king (when you dig into this part of Green, THEN you can get a character that cares about all life). Hunting the weak is Green. Garruk hunted not just for sport, but to add monsters to his "pride". Let's not forget that the whole reason Garruk started to track Liliana in the first place is because she killed one his pack members.
Nissan is a better green character because in all of her URs she is looking to be at peace both with the world as a whole but with all the inhabitants of that world too.
Nissa embodies only one aspect of Green. That's not what you want for the "iconic/base/primordial/whatever word you want to use" Green character. Garruk scratched the surface of all aspects of Green, and that meant you could take any one of those aspects and then make a whole character out of it.
Disappointing. The writers aren't even to blame at this point, nearly everyone's had a turn at writing her for the BFZ lead up. At least, not the writers involved with her base identity. She's simply not very exciting at this point. Personality is stale, and her talents are run of the mill. Her "quest" does not have enough substance to warrant this many UR articles. I'd rather read a story about the goblin. Or a craw wurm.
But... that article only mentions the location of the Khalni Stone, not the Khalni Heart. The article never mentions where the Khalni Heart is. Maybe the stone is something made from the Heart that was moved to Akoum long ago, but I don't consider this a retcon if they didn't specifically mention the Khalni Heart.
I have to disagree with this. I never thought of Garruk as monoG. He's a senseless killer who hunts for nothing more then pleasure.
No, you're talking about Garruk AFTER his corruption.
A monoG character believes all life is equal and sacred.
No, not at all. A Green character believes nature and the cycle of life are king (when you dig into this part of Green, THEN you can get a character that cares about all life). Hunting the weak is Green. Garruk hunted not just for sport, but to add monsters to his "pride". Let's not forget that the whole reason Garruk started to track Liliana in the first place is because she killed one his pack members.
Nissan is a better green character because in all of her URs she is looking to be at peace both with the world as a whole but with all the inhabitants of that world too.
Nissa embodies only one aspect of Green. That's not what you want for the "iconic/base/primordial/whatever word you want to use" Green character. Garruk scratched the surface of all aspects of Green, and that meant you could take any one of those aspects and then make a whole character out of it.
I'm talking about how he hunts as a game and kills wildlife (NOT humans, at lease before being cursed) as a hobby and a game. He doesn't need to kill, and his killing can be seen as senseless and unnatural. In the wild, animals only kill to survive, either to eat or as protection. He kills for sport. Not green. Nissa empathizes with another life form that she never has before in this UR (the goblins) and that's very green.
I'm talking about how he hunts as a game and kills wildlife (NOT humans, at lease before being cursed) as a hobby and a game. He doesn't need to kill, and his killing can be seen as senseless and unnatural. In the wild, animals only kill to survive, either to eat or as protection. He kills for sport. Not green. Nissa empathizes with another life form that she never has before in this UR (the goblins) and that's very green.
I'd also like to add that in nature, many animals hunt and kill for sport to train their young and to stay sharp. If Garruk was the sort to kill for fun (which he wasn't until the black corruption), it'd still be because of his survival of the fittest mindset and still be green.
I guess I'm in the small demographic that enjoys a good amount of the stories. I can agree with some of the issues poised, I do think that it didn't get to me emotionally like some of the past stories had, though I do sympathize with the poor goblin, and wish that they had Nissa think back to when those two trees had their tragic moment.
Anyways, summary for the next Episode is up as well.
The merfolk Planeswalker Kiora returns to Zendikar wielding a stolen prize of great power: the bident of Thassa, god of the sea on the plane of Theros. But her escape was a narrow one, her strength drained, and her people scattered. The merfolk of Zendikar face their own gods risen against them, a mockery of everything they once held dear, and hope is hard to come by. But Kiora is no stranger to defying the gods.
I've been bored with Nissa ever since the racism was retconned out of her character, and this latest UR just seems to confirm why.
Don't get me wrong, a character who can relate to the "soul of the land" as a person is an interesting concept that MTG hasn't done before. But when every. single. Nissa story is 50% philosophical pondering, one generic Eldrazi fight scene, and a tidbit of actual plot at the end, it makes me extremely weary of her real fast. Especially since for all her pondering, she never actually makes changes to her life or stops moping or exhibits any shifts in her thinking.
We've seen the teaser images for Oath of the Gatewatch and it's blazingly obvious Nissa's going to stick around and defend Zendikar, so why did we need almost 5000 bloody words of "should I stay or should I go"? Trim the first half down to a paragraph or two, same with the Eldrazi fight scene, then have her actually GET to Khalni Heart and wrap up the "missing Ashaya" plotline. Or have her run into Omnath. Hopefully there's a character who can actually DO something instead of endlessly whine.
I'm talking about how he hunts as a game and kills wildlife (NOT humans, at lease before being cursed) as a hobby and a game. He doesn't need to kill, and his killing can be seen as senseless and unnatural. In the wild, animals only kill to survive, either to eat or as protection. He kills for sport. Not green. Nissa empathizes with another life form that she never has before in this UR (the goblins) and that's very green.
I agree that Garruk, pre curse, was a better representation of Green overall. He didn't kill for sport as has been mentioned before. And he was always reverent and thankful to each beast he killed. Garruk is a predator. He hunts to make himself strong. Nissa is less a representation of nature and more a meta-aspect of it. Nissa is here to show that everything is connected if we just listen. If we put Nissa and Garruk in a forest together Garruk would hunt her down like Prey is meant to be hunted.
Also: If you really think animals only kill for survival you need to get out of your story books. Lion males kill cubs not sired by them, feral small cats literally hunt for sport. Nature is not all cuddly teddy bears and tigers protecting lost human children.
Nissa is so alien to me it's getting funny. Her methods of search are too similar to what my husband does when he doesn't want to search but wants me to do that instead: to stand in the center of room calling for the missing item. Hell, girl, judging by how it's treated as big reveal the lost thing will be in the first place you really thought about! Use your brain to solve problems, do not wander around waiting for solution to drop on you!
Also about center of all leylines being on Bala Ged: the same Bala Ged which is overrun by Eldrazi except by tiny area occupied by Drana? Please don't tell me there's a center of planar mana, which is supposed to be the biggest prize to mana devourers, which somehow wasn't nommed.
Speaking of Drana: there survivors' population dropped from 15000 to 5000 before the start of story, then to 2500 to the end, as I recall. 12500 dead, and that's only from whom Drana supervised to count. That magnitude made me kinda callous to plight of one goblin... and to whining of one elf, for that matter. Entire world is falling apart and you're torn if you should carry seeds around or plant them on another world? Plant them, and then replant them on Zendikar when you win or be happy to save anything when you lose; anyway, do that and move to actual problems.
I guess I'm in the small demographic that enjoys a good amount of the stories. I can agree with some of the issues poised, I do think that it didn't get to me emotionally like some of the past stories had, though I do sympathize with the poor goblin, and wish that they had Nissa think back to when those two trees had their tragic moment.
Anyways, summary for the next Episode is up as well.
The merfolk Planeswalker Kiora returns to Zendikar wielding a stolen prize of great power: the bident of Thassa, god of the sea on the plane of Theros. But her escape was a narrow one, her strength drained, and her people scattered. The merfolk of Zendikar face their own gods risen against them, a mockery of everything they once held dear, and hope is hard to come by. But Kiora is no stranger to defying the gods.
I'm excited for Kiora being a badass.
I'm disappointed for no Ob Nixilis. Come to think of it, I don't really connect with the stories of any of the green planeswalkers.
I'm guessing this didn't go unseen by everyone just no one cares?
Well it's specifically targeted at people who don't bother to read the UR every week. So, probably not this thread. If it was in a format other than ebook I might care, but AFAI can see it's strictly inferior to just reading UR.
I'm disappointed for no Ob Nixilis. Come to think of it, I don't really connect with the stories of any of the green planeswalkers.
Lessee here:
Xenagos. No personal connection there, but I felt like he was a very effective and well-developed villain. All the necessary questions you could formulate about him were answered, but there's still so much room there in his character for more if you decide to analyze him deeper. I prefer that method than Magic's go-to one of "we'll just not answer your questions!"
Kiora. Meh.
Vraska. Meh.
Ajani. Good, well-developed guy. I got hit in the feels for him when Elspeth died. Didn't feel anything for him when Jazal died because we were only just introduced to thim. Overall, he's understandable, but that's probably mostly on him being white with shades of other colors.
Sarkhan. This guy. He's nuttier than a fruitcake. He's a monster and needs to be put down. He's just so insane.
Garruk. I honestly didn't feel much of anything for him until he got cursed (because he was never really in any stories before that). Pretty much my favorite green character and overall my second favorite Walker, behind Ob Nixilis and Tezzeret (and tied with Ugin).
I'm disappointed for no Ob Nixilis. Come to think of it, I don't really connect with the stories of any of the green planeswalkers.
Lessee here:
Xenagos. No personal connection there, but I felt like he was a very effective and well-developed villain. All the necessary questions you could formulate about him were answered, but there's still so much room there in his character for more if you decide to analyze him deeper. I prefer that method than Magic's go-to one of "we'll just not answer your questions!"
Kiora. Meh.
Vraska. Meh.
Ajani. Good, well-developed guy. I got hit in the feels for him when Elspeth died. Didn't feel anything for him when Jazal died because we were only just introduced to thim. Overall, he's understandable, but that's probably mostly on him being white with shades of other colors.
Sarkhan. This guy. He's nuttier than a fruitcake. He's a monster and needs to be put down. He's just so insane.
Garruk. I honestly didn't feel much of anything for him until he got cursed (because he was never really in any stories before that). Pretty much my favorite green character and overall my second favorite Walker, behind Ob Nixilis and Tezzeret (and tied with Ugin).
Yeah can we not ***** on people with mental illnesses here, kthx?
Adding to the list:
Domri: He's the same problem I have with Young Jace. I was never a hormonal teenage boy, so I can't relate to him purely from that angle, and his characterization isn't deep enough for me to relate to him in any other way.
Freyalise: Didn't get into Magic until well after Invasion Block, so I don't really know anything about her other than "Ice Age, Elves, Pernicious Deed, she died."
Nissa: See my posts above.
I don't really count Ajani as a green 'walker. He's been partly or wholly white in all of his incarnations.
And I only care about Garruk insofar as I want him to get rid of his curse and get revenge on Liliana.
How boring. I should just stop wasting my time with Nissa stories.
Way ahead of you on that one. Hopefully Kiora's story will be interesting or advance the plot.
They've made Nissa out to be a whiny little git who can't really do anything on her own. I can deal with a bad character or two, it happens, but the story today didn't even actually tell us anything new or really advance the plot at all. Just that she decided to go to Khalni Heart after a bit more whining about Ashaya being gone and another random encounter with some eldrazi. At the end of the story, I just thought "why did I even read this?" The whole thing today was entirely pointless except that it led her to decide to go to Khalni Heart. The whole damn article was just bad exposition for her epiphany.
Sarkhan's not crazy anymore. And before that he was only ever crazy because Bolas broke his mind and then he was sharing a skull with the ghost of Ugins past.
I'm talking about how he hunts as a game and kills wildlife (NOT humans, at lease before being cursed) as a hobby and a game. He doesn't need to kill, and his killing can be seen as senseless and unnatural. In the wild, animals only kill to survive, either to eat or as protection. He kills for sport. Not green. Nissa empathizes with another life form that she never has before in this UR (the goblins) and that's very green.
I agree that Garruk, pre curse, was a better representation of Green overall. He didn't kill for sport as has been mentioned before. And he was always reverent and thankful to each beast he killed. Garruk is a predator. He hunts to make himself strong. Nissa is less a representation of nature and more a meta-aspect of it. Nissa is here to show that everything is connected if we just listen. If we put Nissa and Garruk in a forest together Garruk would hunt her down like Prey is meant to be hunted.
Also: If you really think animals only kill for survival you need to get out of your story books. Lion males kill cubs not sired by them, feral small cats literally hunt for sport. Nature is not all cuddly teddy bears and tigers protecting lost human children.
Off topic, but from the studies I've read, young lions left alive tend to kill the foster parents. Ill admit I can't justify that from a purely green point of view, but instinctivly killing the young has been more or less proved, acording to books I've read over the years, to be a survival instinct. That said, from what I've read, Garruk saw himself as a hunter, and wanted to hunt greater and greater pray, which is why he was on shandalara in the first place. Then when liliana killed his animal in self defence, he attacked her.
Now that I think about it Sarkhan is actually probably more Green than Garruk. While Garruk was out trying to be the greatest predator in the multiverse Sarkhan simply wanted to stand at the feet of the beasts that already sit at the top of the food chain in awe and reverence. When he saved Ugin and created the DTK timeline it was because he saw a world in which everyone is stronger because the weak have been devoured and those that can survive under the reign of dragons are going to be naturally stronger and propagate their strength. Sarkhan's desires are basically natural selection incarnate.
How boring. I should just stop wasting my time with Nissa stories.
Way ahead of you on that one. Hopefully Kiora's story will be interesting or advance the plot.
They've made Nissa out to be a whiny little git who can't really do anything on her own.
Upon further reflection, I think this is the fundamental problem with Nissa.
All of the other Origins 'walkers had goals, personalities, and conflicts that were central to them. Gideon has a savior complex and is struggling to juggle the expectations of hundreds of people who he needs to gain the loyalty of in order for his plan to take back Zendikar to succeed. Jace lives in a world that hates and fears him for who he is is, at the very least, deeply suspicious of what his powers can do while simultaneously pleading with him to fix their problems. He believes that solving the puzzle of the hedrons and getting to the Eye is more important than anything his ally Gideon is doing, and judging from the cards' flavor text, he doesn't exactly think Ugin is going about things in the right way, either. Also, there's that awkward on-again-off-again thing with Liliana. Speaking of her... hoo boy is she full of conflict. She's the only character of the Origins Five who is primarily proactive instead of reactive, but her resultant goal has made her enemies of Garruk, at least two demons, and potentially Nicol Bolas, Jace, and Gideon, to say nothing of the Chain Veil which is trying to use her to its own ends. Chandra's not involved in this story, but she did have a character defining moment when she got over her insecurities about being a pale shadow of Jaya (which, let's face it, she kinda is) and agreed to lead the monastery instead of going to Zendikar.
Nissa's problem is that she's signed on to be a bit player in a conflict between two vast, faceless, inhuman entities who we can't exactly capture in short story format very well. Her goal is "save Zendikar." Her spark ignites when she realizes her bond with Zendikar. Her relationships are "Allies: Zendikar" and "Enemies: Beings that are harming Zendikar." Her origin story consisted entirely of listening to the voices in her head tell her what to do, and thus to the present, she's stuck wandering aimlessly calling out to Zendikar "What do I dooooooooo?" because she was never written to have anything else she wanted to do. Sadly, Nissa is not Nahiri, either in terms of personality or powers.
Supposing Nissa were an oldwalker, she'd potentially have a very interesting story to tell, as essentially the one-man military command of an entire plane. What if we could see the conflict, not from the viewpoint of the random human-sized mortals, but from Zendikar itself? What if Nissa could teleport from continent to continent in an instant allowing her to be anywhere but not everywhere at once? What if we could see the land itself fighting back -- elementals spontaneously rising up from waterfalls and caverns, chunks of infected land lifting into the air or crumbling into the ocean to quarantine themselves? What if we could see a fuller picture of how much or fast Zendikar was losing, as opposed to going off of incidental fight scenes and third-hand reports from random nameless refugees? Then Nissa could be at the center of that, and her detached perspective wrt the human planeswalkers would make sense. She would be empowered to do stuff with impact on a global scale, and she'd have to live with the long-term ramifications of the actions she did and didn't take, the places she did and didn't try to save. As-is, her limited mortal perspective makes reading about all her fight scenes pointless, because she's only skirmishing over interchangeable, small patches of Zendikar, and we know that Zendikar, the plane, is going to be still here at least for another three months worth of story. Nissa would have been able to provide a face to the Zendikar (as opposed to Zendikari) perspective of the conflict, which up to now has felt sporadic, undirected, and instinctual (very green, in fact).
I do think this is an unfortunate side effect of how Nissa came to be. She was originally created to serve as the headliner planeswalker for "the Elf deck" in DOTP. Her original incarnation was, shall we say, not well received. She was forced into the core set because the storyline demanded that Garruk turn black-green and WotC couldn't justify a mono-green planeswalker card for any other character. Then she was forced into the core set again because the next set was going to take place on Zendikar. For whatever reason, Creative decided that the personality and backstory she originally had wasn't good enough, so they gave her a new one. However, "I have a special bond with a vast, faceless, inhuman entity that no one else can understaaaaand!" doesn't exactly translate well into a format composed entirely of words, which, when spent on description instead of dialogue and action, break up and distract from the story. It doesn't exactly translate well to an audience of humans, either.
In particular, I thought the waves crashing at the shore metaphor was pretty beautiful.
That said, I can understand why for others it was just pointless filler. I feel that if stories keep being just one main character's point of view and filler characters, each week will be disappointment for many readers, for the very simple fact that we can't empathize with every character. Hopefully the planeswalkers join together soon instead of keeping splitting up.
Not according to the original Planeswalker's Guide to Zendikar, which discussed Akoum and Bala Ged as separate geographical locations.
I dont know where you got that interpretation of garruk from. I'm pretty familiar with the pw's lore and i just dont recall every getting that sense from him. If im wrong please show me a source where he acts like that. Garruk is about natural selection and the strong surviving, which is very green. He didnt hunt ceaselessly, he did care for nature pre-curse. He became a senseless killer after the chain veil cursed him.
If my memory serves (and someone again correct me if in wrong) the whole reason he attacked Lili in the first place was bc she killed one his beasts that he had a bond with. So Garry was very mono green before his encounter with Lili.
The last paragraph of the story completely ruined it though. Creative doesn't even use maps to keep geography stuff as ambigious as possible and they still manage to screw it up.
Nissa and Garruk are two sides of green. Nissa is the "everything is connected" part of green, while Garruk represents the "you are what you are" part. Garruk hunts, because he is a predator. That's what predators do. He doesn't enjoy it at all, not until he became cursed that is. Garruk follows the philosophy of "eat or be eaten" to its core.
No, you're talking about Garruk AFTER his corruption.
No, not at all. A Green character believes nature and the cycle of life are king (when you dig into this part of Green, THEN you can get a character that cares about all life). Hunting the weak is Green. Garruk hunted not just for sport, but to add monsters to his "pride". Let's not forget that the whole reason Garruk started to track Liliana in the first place is because she killed one his pack members.
Nissa embodies only one aspect of Green. That's not what you want for the "iconic/base/primordial/whatever word you want to use" Green character. Garruk scratched the surface of all aspects of Green, and that meant you could take any one of those aspects and then make a whole character out of it.
Your mods are terrified of me.
But... that article only mentions the location of the Khalni Stone, not the Khalni Heart. The article never mentions where the Khalni Heart is. Maybe the stone is something made from the Heart that was moved to Akoum long ago, but I don't consider this a retcon if they didn't specifically mention the Khalni Heart.
I'm talking about how he hunts as a game and kills wildlife (NOT humans, at lease before being cursed) as a hobby and a game. He doesn't need to kill, and his killing can be seen as senseless and unnatural. In the wild, animals only kill to survive, either to eat or as protection. He kills for sport. Not green. Nissa empathizes with another life form that she never has before in this UR (the goblins) and that's very green.
But that's wrong and you're making it up.
Garruk hunted to add animals to his pack and for food.
I'd also like to add that in nature, many animals hunt and kill for sport to train their young and to stay sharp. If Garruk was the sort to kill for fun (which he wasn't until the black corruption), it'd still be because of his survival of the fittest mindset and still be green.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Anyways, summary for the next Episode is up as well.
I'm excited for Kiora being a badass.
Don't get me wrong, a character who can relate to the "soul of the land" as a person is an interesting concept that MTG hasn't done before. But when every. single. Nissa story is 50% philosophical pondering, one generic Eldrazi fight scene, and a tidbit of actual plot at the end, it makes me extremely weary of her real fast. Especially since for all her pondering, she never actually makes changes to her life or stops moping or exhibits any shifts in her thinking.
We've seen the teaser images for Oath of the Gatewatch and it's blazingly obvious Nissa's going to stick around and defend Zendikar, so why did we need almost 5000 bloody words of "should I stay or should I go"? Trim the first half down to a paragraph or two, same with the Eldrazi fight scene, then have her actually GET to Khalni Heart and wrap up the "missing Ashaya" plotline. Or have her run into Omnath. Hopefully there's a character who can actually DO something instead of endlessly whine.
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Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
I agree that Garruk, pre curse, was a better representation of Green overall. He didn't kill for sport as has been mentioned before. And he was always reverent and thankful to each beast he killed. Garruk is a predator. He hunts to make himself strong. Nissa is less a representation of nature and more a meta-aspect of it. Nissa is here to show that everything is connected if we just listen. If we put Nissa and Garruk in a forest together Garruk would hunt her down like Prey is meant to be hunted.
Also: If you really think animals only kill for survival you need to get out of your story books. Lion males kill cubs not sired by them, feral small cats literally hunt for sport. Nature is not all cuddly teddy bears and tigers protecting lost human children.
Also about center of all leylines being on Bala Ged: the same Bala Ged which is overrun by Eldrazi except by tiny area occupied by Drana? Please don't tell me there's a center of planar mana, which is supposed to be the biggest prize to mana devourers, which somehow wasn't nommed.
Speaking of Drana: there survivors' population dropped from 15000 to 5000 before the start of story, then to 2500 to the end, as I recall. 12500 dead, and that's only from whom Drana supervised to count. That magnitude made me kinda callous to plight of one goblin... and to whining of one elf, for that matter. Entire world is falling apart and you're torn if you should carry seeds around or plant them on another world? Plant them, and then replant them on Zendikar when you win or be happy to save anything when you lose; anyway, do that and move to actual problems.
I'm guessing this didn't go unseen by everyone just no one cares?
I'm disappointed for no Ob Nixilis. Come to think of it, I don't really connect with the stories of any of the green planeswalkers.
Well it's specifically targeted at people who don't bother to read the UR every week. So, probably not this thread. If it was in a format other than ebook I might care, but AFAI can see it's strictly inferior to just reading UR.
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Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
Edit: I also expected Ob Nixilis to pop up in today's story. "and now she'll go to Khalni heart and meet... what do you mean that was all for today?"
Yeah it ended awfully abruptly.
Lessee here:
Xenagos. No personal connection there, but I felt like he was a very effective and well-developed villain. All the necessary questions you could formulate about him were answered, but there's still so much room there in his character for more if you decide to analyze him deeper. I prefer that method than Magic's go-to one of "we'll just not answer your questions!"
Kiora. Meh.
Vraska. Meh.
Ajani. Good, well-developed guy. I got hit in the feels for him when Elspeth died. Didn't feel anything for him when Jazal died because we were only just introduced to thim. Overall, he's understandable, but that's probably mostly on him being white with shades of other colors.
Sarkhan. This guy. He's nuttier than a fruitcake. He's a monster and needs to be put down. He's just so insane.
Garruk. I honestly didn't feel much of anything for him until he got cursed (because he was never really in any stories before that). Pretty much my favorite green character and overall my second favorite Walker, behind Ob Nixilis and Tezzeret (and tied with Ugin).
Your mods are terrified of me.
Way ahead of you on that one. Hopefully Kiora's story will be interesting or advance the plot.
Decks:
Casual
R Burn R
EDH
R Godo Voltron R
RUG ETB Overload RUG
BW Clerics Pain and Drain BW
GW Spirits!!! GW
RUG Landfall Silliness RUG
Yeah can we not ***** on people with mental illnesses here, kthx?
Adding to the list:
Domri: He's the same problem I have with Young Jace. I was never a hormonal teenage boy, so I can't relate to him purely from that angle, and his characterization isn't deep enough for me to relate to him in any other way.
Freyalise: Didn't get into Magic until well after Invasion Block, so I don't really know anything about her other than "Ice Age, Elves, Pernicious Deed, she died."
Nissa: See my posts above.
I don't really count Ajani as a green 'walker. He's been partly or wholly white in all of his incarnations.
And I only care about Garruk insofar as I want him to get rid of his curse and get revenge on Liliana.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
They've made Nissa out to be a whiny little git who can't really do anything on her own. I can deal with a bad character or two, it happens, but the story today didn't even actually tell us anything new or really advance the plot at all. Just that she decided to go to Khalni Heart after a bit more whining about Ashaya being gone and another random encounter with some eldrazi. At the end of the story, I just thought "why did I even read this?" The whole thing today was entirely pointless except that it led her to decide to go to Khalni Heart. The whole damn article was just bad exposition for her epiphany.
Off topic, but from the studies I've read, young lions left alive tend to kill the foster parents. Ill admit I can't justify that from a purely green point of view, but instinctivly killing the young has been more or less proved, acording to books I've read over the years, to be a survival instinct. That said, from what I've read, Garruk saw himself as a hunter, and wanted to hunt greater and greater pray, which is why he was on shandalara in the first place. Then when liliana killed his animal in self defence, he attacked her.
Upon further reflection, I think this is the fundamental problem with Nissa.
All of the other Origins 'walkers had goals, personalities, and conflicts that were central to them. Gideon has a savior complex and is struggling to juggle the expectations of hundreds of people who he needs to gain the loyalty of in order for his plan to take back Zendikar to succeed. Jace lives in a world that
hates and fears him for who he isis, at the very least, deeply suspicious of what his powers can do while simultaneously pleading with him to fix their problems. He believes that solving the puzzle of the hedrons and getting to the Eye is more important than anything his ally Gideon is doing, and judging from the cards' flavor text, he doesn't exactly think Ugin is going about things in the right way, either. Also, there's that awkward on-again-off-again thing with Liliana. Speaking of her... hoo boy is she full of conflict. She's the only character of the Origins Five who is primarily proactive instead of reactive, but her resultant goal has made her enemies of Garruk, at least two demons, and potentially Nicol Bolas, Jace, and Gideon, to say nothing of the Chain Veil which is trying to use her to its own ends. Chandra's not involved in this story, but she did have a character defining moment when she got over her insecurities about being a pale shadow of Jaya (which, let's face it, she kinda is) and agreed to lead the monastery instead of going to Zendikar.Nissa's problem is that she's signed on to be a bit player in a conflict between two vast, faceless, inhuman entities who we can't exactly capture in short story format very well. Her goal is "save Zendikar." Her spark ignites when she realizes her bond with Zendikar. Her relationships are "Allies: Zendikar" and "Enemies: Beings that are harming Zendikar." Her origin story consisted entirely of listening to the voices in her head tell her what to do, and thus to the present, she's stuck wandering aimlessly calling out to Zendikar "What do I dooooooooo?" because she was never written to have anything else she wanted to do. Sadly, Nissa is not Nahiri, either in terms of personality or powers.
Supposing Nissa were an oldwalker, she'd potentially have a very interesting story to tell, as essentially the one-man military command of an entire plane. What if we could see the conflict, not from the viewpoint of the random human-sized mortals, but from Zendikar itself? What if Nissa could teleport from continent to continent in an instant allowing her to be anywhere but not everywhere at once? What if we could see the land itself fighting back -- elementals spontaneously rising up from waterfalls and caverns, chunks of infected land lifting into the air or crumbling into the ocean to quarantine themselves? What if we could see a fuller picture of how much or fast Zendikar was losing, as opposed to going off of incidental fight scenes and third-hand reports from random nameless refugees? Then Nissa could be at the center of that, and her detached perspective wrt the human planeswalkers would make sense. She would be empowered to do stuff with impact on a global scale, and she'd have to live with the long-term ramifications of the actions she did and didn't take, the places she did and didn't try to save. As-is, her limited mortal perspective makes reading about all her fight scenes pointless, because she's only skirmishing over interchangeable, small patches of Zendikar, and we know that Zendikar, the plane, is going to be still here at least for another three months worth of story. Nissa would have been able to provide a face to the Zendikar (as opposed to Zendikari) perspective of the conflict, which up to now has felt sporadic, undirected, and instinctual (very green, in fact).
I do think this is an unfortunate side effect of how Nissa came to be. She was originally created to serve as the headliner planeswalker for "the Elf deck" in DOTP. Her original incarnation was, shall we say, not well received. She was forced into the core set because the storyline demanded that Garruk turn black-green and WotC couldn't justify a mono-green planeswalker card for any other character. Then she was forced into the core set again because the next set was going to take place on Zendikar. For whatever reason, Creative decided that the personality and backstory she originally had wasn't good enough, so they gave her a new one. However, "I have a special bond with a vast, faceless, inhuman entity that no one else can understaaaaand!" doesn't exactly translate well into a format composed entirely of words, which, when spent on description instead of dialogue and action, break up and distract from the story. It doesn't exactly translate well to an audience of humans, either.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!