I mean, we saw stuff like that coming from a mile away. Remember the article where they annoucned that Magic will play fast and loose with continuity if it makes for a better story? Here we see the results of such an approach.
Personally I don't believe it leads to a better story, but whatever.
Sign-ups? A while ago (Tarkir) Wizards switched from books to online stories, to have everything in one place and flavour people didn't have to chase stuff down and juggle multiple sources. And now we have books, online stories and E-Mail sign-ups? Why does Wizards keep repeating the same mistakes all over?
There has never been a character in Magic that almost made me want to quit reading. (Well, maybe the two portal men in Onslaught, but the entire novel was a bit unhinged.) Until Rat. Sheesh, she hits all the boxes of how not to write a character. She doesn't fit the tone of the story, she's got too many abilities that don't fit her and actively detract from the plot, she has no weaknesses, no story arc, no nothing. I'm trying hard to find a single good aspect about her character, but there isn't any.
Sheesh, I was kinda on the fence about the book between the nagtive reviews and actually knowing the story, but... Whew, I expected little and was still surprised.
For clarification: I'm refering to the web stories of this and last week. I haven't read the book, hence the still on the fence part.
That's what people say. That's the reason Wizards often gives. But - and understanding that I can only speak from my own perspective and acknowledging that my experiences are not universal - I have never, ever experienced that. Not once. Ever. I have never found myself relating to a character just because they have the same basic physical shape as me. Back when the planeswalkers were first introduced in Lorwyn and had no character beyond what was depicted on the cards, I didn't find myself relating to Jace purely because we share a species. And in all honesty, despite how common that reason is, I don't even really understand it. How can anyone think that a character is relatable purely because of their physical shape? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
Repeat something often enough and it becomes the truth. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people believe human characters are more popular, they make more human characters, which means there will be more human popular characters (simple numbers game, if 90% of your characters are human, then the odds of having more popular human characters is higher). More human popular characters makes it look as if humans are inherently more popular so people make more human characters. Rinse and repeat. Hence positive feedback loop. It's the same reasoning given with human-like aliens in science-fiction. Back when special effects and such weren't as sophisticated and budgets low, aliens were just humans in suits often with minimal changes. Since 95% of all aliens were such humanoids in media, the bulk of those that ended up being popular were humanoid, resulting in the misconception that people are naturally more inclined to empathize with humans.*
*Which, again, they do, to a degree, but the factor of physical-based empathy is more based on a) displaying emotions, which you can totally do on non-humans, see dogs; or b) even sexuality, which is a whole other can of worms and not at all applicable to the bulk of all characters and thus largely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
You're also arguing based on your own personal opinion against the research WotC has done on the matter, while comparing two rather wildly different franchises to try and make the point. Pokemon and Alien are both named after the non human entities, they're clearly the focus. That doesn't mean that generally humans aren't more popular (bear in mind that none of those franchises are devoid of humans) or even that in the specific case of MtG that non humans are more popular.
I'm not arguing from personal opinion. I'm arguing from observations across multiple franchises. There is a slight trend towards liking humans more, but it's nowhere, nowhere near as strong as people claim it is. Humans are able to empathize with cubes for crying out loud.
Jace become popular because he was the posterchild since his inception and shoved down everyones throats since the start. The gatewatch rose in popularity (though most members were chosen by popularity in the first place) because they featured extensively in the storyline. The pattern repeats itself time and time again.
On this feedback loop. Whether you choose to believe this or not we've been told this is false. A major point on their humans are better liked cones from people who have never been exposed to either characters and they consistantly rate humans higher. So while you are welcome to your own tinfoil hat theory it's been explicitly stated as wrong and the only reason to disbelieve them is more tinfoil hat theorys about wizards pushing some kind of human supremacist agenda.
A feedback loop makes a lot more sense for the franchises you mention. They are explicitly selling the monsters as they are the stars so they HAVE to force the normally unpopular monsters down everyone's throats until people get used to them and like them.
Dude... Nobody said anything about Wizards doing this on purpose. I actually assume they are not even aware of this problem. Way to miss the mark.
You're also arguing based on your own personal opinion against the research WotC has done on the matter, while comparing two rather wildly different franchises to try and make the point. Pokemon and Alien are both named after the non human entities, they're clearly the focus. That doesn't mean that generally humans aren't more popular (bear in mind that none of those franchises are devoid of humans) or even that in the specific case of MtG that non humans are more popular.
I'm not arguing from personal opinion. I'm arguing from observations across multiple franchises. There is a slight trend towards liking humans more, but it's nowhere, nowhere near as strong as people claim it is. Humans are able to empathize with cubes for crying out loud.
Jace become popular because he was the posterchild since his inception and shoved down everyones throats since the start. The gatewatch rose in popularity (though most members were chosen by popularity in the first place) because they featured extensively in the storyline. The pattern repeats itself time and time again.
Its not that nonhumans aren't popular look around and its obvious they are. Its that Humans are MORE popular/liked. While a minority is always unhappy because the majority is being favored, in this instance they are trying to be as reasonable as possible. They make nonhumans 'sometimes' but the majority are humans because the majority like humans better than nonhumans. They've heard the cry of the minority and are trying to accommodate them but as seen right here even what constitutes nonhuman among the players that want nonhumans varies.
I would argue that that's not even true. Humans in Magic are more popular because they get more screentime and all. Non-human characters are usually relegated to the sidelines or are one-offs. It's a positive feedback loop thing. Give character A more exposure -> character A becomes more popular -> fans ask for more of A.
Humans aren't inherently more liked or popular, it all depends on how the cast is presented. Take Pokemon for example. Nobody really cares about the humans in the games (or movies). People care about the real stars, the pokemon. Or even Alien, even the most popular human character in the franchise does not even come close to the popularity of the Xenomorph.
Thing is, we were told outside the lore that Bolas is a scheming mastermind genius. He was always intended to be one. This whole thing isn't on Bolas (as much as it can be for a fictional character anyway) but on creative/WotC mishandling the character.
I'd argue that comparing LotR to MtG is unfair because both exist in different thematic contexts. LotR does not allow a lot of wiggle room between good and evil, if any. It's built around the notion and good and evil exists and that everyone gets what they deserve, resulting in good triumphing over evil in the end (even if it doesn't look like it temporarily). Even Gandalf who died, was resurrected, because he was on the good side. He didn't go through any real character development. He was just popped back into existence and given a more powerful role. It's a rigid take on what it means to do the right thing.
MtG on the other hand is much more "modern" in its take on good vs evil. Shades of grey exist everywhere and there are numerous conflicts where it is hard to say who is the villain and the hero, or whether these distinctions are meaningful in the first place. The feud between Sorin and Nahiri comes to mind, but also Vraska's and Liliana's entire story arcs. MtG dabbles in all sorts of shades of grey, mostly because of the colour pie and the fact that each colour has positive and negative aspects. It also frequently uses "tragic" endings, like Amonkhet and New Phyrexia, which clash with the "the just will triumph over evil" approaches of more traditional fantasy.
Saying that MtG could get away with an "everyone (or at least most) gets a happy ending" ending because LotR did it too is completely ignoring that they both operate on fundamentally different levels beneath the narrative surface.
Well, LotR has plenty of grey characters running about, and once you expand beyond that to the Hobbit and the Silmarillion there are plenty of grey characters. The universe has a clear demarcation between good and evil, but individuals don't always share that. The ending of LotR is also more bittersweet than happy. Sauron is defeated, as is Saruman the world is saved, orcs are driven off, and Aragorn becomes Elessar expanding Gondor to reclaim Arnor. But all this comes at a great price: magic will leave the world. Rivendell, Lorien, the Grey Havens, will all come to an end, their splendor fading with the destruction of the One Ring and the subsequent deactivation of the Three that maintained the works of the Noldor. Even Greenwood, nee Mirkwood, will fade, as all the elves of middle earth are doomed to leave or fade, taking all their works with them. The Dwarves, too, will dwindle, their great halls and treasures being lost to time. The Ents are without Entwives and will become Huorns in time, little more than great old trees. Everything that makes Middle Earth special, everything that makes it magical, fades away, even the Shire. Only Man will be left in the end, with all our petty squabbles and faults, a mundane world, stripped of its splendor and wonder.
I mean I think such ends are distinct from "the villain ending them" in the same vein a character dying of old age is different from a character getting murdered by another. Those empires and cultures had their time and it passed, that's how it goes. A big theme in LotR as a whole is the gradual passing of one world into another. It's not really tragic, more like, I dunno, wistful?
At any rate, I see your point though, even if I don't agree with the details.
I'd argue that comparing LotR to MtG is unfair because both exist in different thematic contexts. LotR does not allow a lot of wiggle room between good and evil, if any. It's built around the notion and good and evil exists and that everyone gets what they deserve, resulting in good triumphing over evil in the end (even if it doesn't look like it temporarily). Even Gandalf who died, was resurrected, because he was on the good side. He didn't go through any real character development. He was just popped back into existence and given a more powerful role. It's a rigid take on what it means to do the right thing.
MtG on the other hand is much more "modern" in its take on good vs evil. Shades of grey exist everywhere and there are numerous conflicts where it is hard to say who is the villain and the hero, or whether these distinctions are meaningful in the first place. The feud between Sorin and Nahiri comes to mind, but also Vraska's and Liliana's entire story arcs. MtG dabbles in all sorts of shades of grey, mostly because of the colour pie and the fact that each colour has positive and negative aspects. It also frequently uses "tragic" endings, like Amonkhet and New Phyrexia, which clash with the "the just will triumph over evil" approaches of more traditional fantasy.
Saying that MtG could get away with an "everyone (or at least most) gets a happy ending" ending because LotR did it too is completely ignoring that they both operate on fundamentally different levels beneath the narrative surface.
And not remotely in agreement on the writing but I don’t really use number of bodies as a metric for quality.
It's not a direct line from "body count" -> "quality". Rather quality of a piece of entertainment is measured by enjoyment, which in turn is influenced by immersion, emotional investment etc.
The issue is that for alot of people a high stakes conflict with out-of-proportion consequences is not only immersion breaking, as it pulls you out of the narrative, but also the emotions felt during the story have been changed or cut entirely. Amonkhet set up Bolas as a major villain, a serious threat, in a way a mastermind as he was several steps ahead. I can only speak from my own personal viewpoint here, but to me Bolas switched from a mere antagonist to a real villain with Hour of Devastation. I suddenly felt for the gatewatch and the characters involved in the plot, because the threat Bolas posed became palpable.
The same feeling was there when previews for WotS started. I knew Bolas would lose one way or another, but I didn't expect him to just flounder around uselessly. He didn't even manage to kill Gideon. He sacrificed himself. The plot has now retroactively been made worse, because now my emotional reaction to Bolas is that he's completely incompetent. A gloating villain, even if they lose in the end, should earn their arrogance. If they come across as some dip*****, the entire plot, including the protagonists suffer from it, because all they fight against is some petulant child, not some scheming mastermind. And honestly if the heroes' achievement is put a petulant child into place, why call them heroes?
They turned Bolas from a serious threat to a complete buffoon. That is the problem, not the body count itself.
It's not like every story kills off all of it's named characters.
I feel like if you'd stopped strawmanning for a minute, we might begin to have a constructive discussion. As it stands you're being extremely manipulative in your argument.
I feel like Maro really gets why just killing characters off haphazardly is pretty bad. There isn't any merit in just tossing characters into a grinder, even if some people like it that doesn't really resonate with most people.
If they don't want to see high stakes conflicts through, then they shouldn't do high stakes conflicts.
I really find this "omg they shouldn't kill off characters ever" to be super annoying. Nobody is asking for planeswalkers to die constantly. There's plenty of storylines where planeswalkers dying would actually detract from the plot and not fit thematically. Ixalan and Kaladesh come to mind. Even Amonkhet had an okay resolution with the planeswalkers getting their butt handed to them by Bolas, without dying. The game isn't just for those who don't want any casualties ever. To say that the only alternative is to kill planeswalkers every other set is intellectually dishonest, because that's not what the other camp is asking for. They merely ask for casualties when the story is set up in such a way that no or minimum casualties simply don't fit with the stakes established beforehand. There's a solution where you can have both, storylines with and without casualties, but asking to never do it is effectively claiming that the wants of other people are not as important as your own.
Also, few casualties actively detract from the plot. Having Gideon die as the only character of note kind of retroactively makes the whole conflict about him. But the thing is, it isn't about him. Gideon is just one piece in it all, and not even the most important one. It is, if anything, about Bolas. Having multiple characters die "seemingly haphazardly" (major emphasis on seemingly) makes the conflict feel like a planeswalkers' war and not a personal feud between Bolas and the gatewatch.
Personally I don't believe it leads to a better story, but whatever.
For clarification: I'm refering to the web stories of this and last week. I haven't read the book, hence the still on the fence part.
Repeat something often enough and it becomes the truth. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people believe human characters are more popular, they make more human characters, which means there will be more human popular characters (simple numbers game, if 90% of your characters are human, then the odds of having more popular human characters is higher). More human popular characters makes it look as if humans are inherently more popular so people make more human characters. Rinse and repeat. Hence positive feedback loop. It's the same reasoning given with human-like aliens in science-fiction. Back when special effects and such weren't as sophisticated and budgets low, aliens were just humans in suits often with minimal changes. Since 95% of all aliens were such humanoids in media, the bulk of those that ended up being popular were humanoid, resulting in the misconception that people are naturally more inclined to empathize with humans.*
*Which, again, they do, to a degree, but the factor of physical-based empathy is more based on a) displaying emotions, which you can totally do on non-humans, see dogs; or b) even sexuality, which is a whole other can of worms and not at all applicable to the bulk of all characters and thus largely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Dude... Nobody said anything about Wizards doing this on purpose. I actually assume they are not even aware of this problem. Way to miss the mark.
I'm not arguing from personal opinion. I'm arguing from observations across multiple franchises. There is a slight trend towards liking humans more, but it's nowhere, nowhere near as strong as people claim it is. Humans are able to empathize with cubes for crying out loud.
Jace become popular because he was the posterchild since his inception and shoved down everyones throats since the start. The gatewatch rose in popularity (though most members were chosen by popularity in the first place) because they featured extensively in the storyline. The pattern repeats itself time and time again.
White lives matter.I would argue that that's not even true. Humans in Magic are more popular because they get more screentime and all. Non-human characters are usually relegated to the sidelines or are one-offs. It's a positive feedback loop thing. Give character A more exposure -> character A becomes more popular -> fans ask for more of A.
Humans aren't inherently more liked or popular, it all depends on how the cast is presented. Take Pokemon for example. Nobody really cares about the humans in the games (or movies). People care about the real stars, the pokemon. Or even Alien, even the most popular human character in the franchise does not even come close to the popularity of the Xenomorph.
Thing is, we were told outside the lore that Bolas is a scheming mastermind genius. He was always intended to be one. This whole thing isn't on Bolas (as much as it can be for a fictional character anyway) but on creative/WotC mishandling the character.
I mean I think such ends are distinct from "the villain ending them" in the same vein a character dying of old age is different from a character getting murdered by another. Those empires and cultures had their time and it passed, that's how it goes. A big theme in LotR as a whole is the gradual passing of one world into another. It's not really tragic, more like, I dunno, wistful?
At any rate, I see your point though, even if I don't agree with the details.
MtG on the other hand is much more "modern" in its take on good vs evil. Shades of grey exist everywhere and there are numerous conflicts where it is hard to say who is the villain and the hero, or whether these distinctions are meaningful in the first place. The feud between Sorin and Nahiri comes to mind, but also Vraska's and Liliana's entire story arcs. MtG dabbles in all sorts of shades of grey, mostly because of the colour pie and the fact that each colour has positive and negative aspects. It also frequently uses "tragic" endings, like Amonkhet and New Phyrexia, which clash with the "the just will triumph over evil" approaches of more traditional fantasy.
Saying that MtG could get away with an "everyone (or at least most) gets a happy ending" ending because LotR did it too is completely ignoring that they both operate on fundamentally different levels beneath the narrative surface.
It's not a direct line from "body count" -> "quality". Rather quality of a piece of entertainment is measured by enjoyment, which in turn is influenced by immersion, emotional investment etc.
The issue is that for alot of people a high stakes conflict with out-of-proportion consequences is not only immersion breaking, as it pulls you out of the narrative, but also the emotions felt during the story have been changed or cut entirely. Amonkhet set up Bolas as a major villain, a serious threat, in a way a mastermind as he was several steps ahead. I can only speak from my own personal viewpoint here, but to me Bolas switched from a mere antagonist to a real villain with Hour of Devastation. I suddenly felt for the gatewatch and the characters involved in the plot, because the threat Bolas posed became palpable.
The same feeling was there when previews for WotS started. I knew Bolas would lose one way or another, but I didn't expect him to just flounder around uselessly. He didn't even manage to kill Gideon. He sacrificed himself. The plot has now retroactively been made worse, because now my emotional reaction to Bolas is that he's completely incompetent. A gloating villain, even if they lose in the end, should earn their arrogance. If they come across as some dip*****, the entire plot, including the protagonists suffer from it, because all they fight against is some petulant child, not some scheming mastermind. And honestly if the heroes' achievement is put a petulant child into place, why call them heroes?
They turned Bolas from a serious threat to a complete buffoon. That is the problem, not the body count itself.
I'm so glad you are the only one who isn't out of touch and can tell us, the fans, what we really want.
I feel like if you'd stopped strawmanning for a minute, we might begin to have a constructive discussion. As it stands you're being extremely manipulative in your argument.
If they don't want to see high stakes conflicts through, then they shouldn't do high stakes conflicts.
I really find this "omg they shouldn't kill off characters ever" to be super annoying. Nobody is asking for planeswalkers to die constantly. There's plenty of storylines where planeswalkers dying would actually detract from the plot and not fit thematically. Ixalan and Kaladesh come to mind. Even Amonkhet had an okay resolution with the planeswalkers getting their butt handed to them by Bolas, without dying. The game isn't just for those who don't want any casualties ever. To say that the only alternative is to kill planeswalkers every other set is intellectually dishonest, because that's not what the other camp is asking for. They merely ask for casualties when the story is set up in such a way that no or minimum casualties simply don't fit with the stakes established beforehand. There's a solution where you can have both, storylines with and without casualties, but asking to never do it is effectively claiming that the wants of other people are not as important as your own.
Also, few casualties actively detract from the plot. Having Gideon die as the only character of note kind of retroactively makes the whole conflict about him. But the thing is, it isn't about him. Gideon is just one piece in it all, and not even the most important one. It is, if anything, about Bolas. Having multiple characters die "seemingly haphazardly" (major emphasis on seemingly) makes the conflict feel like a planeswalkers' war and not a personal feud between Bolas and the gatewatch.