Yeah, can’t relate to the people complaining. Kaya barely has shown up to get fleshed out. Here maybe she will have a chance where it isn’t really just her being used by other people hopefully. It honestly just reads like a no win situation as you can’t flesh out a character without giving them some spotlight, but you’re going to complain about them getting some spotlight to do what you say needs to happen.
Almost as if its not Kaya character people don't like about her.
^^^^ That is a reasonable suspicion.
I'd also like to point out how strategic and normatively sound it was of WotC to make Kaya the face of the 'vikings' set.
Both ancient Norse fandom generally, and Asatru as a religious and spiritual movement more specifically, have become more and more closely associated with white supremacist movements.
Kaya as Kaldeim's face planeswalker and lead protagonist is brilliant: Not only does her anti-undead power-suit and philosophy work well with ancient Norse beliefs and themes re: the afterlife (honourable death, Valhalla, separation between realms)-
-but also, as a well-written character who is also a Women of Colour, Kaya as Kaldeim's face planeswalker also signals greater commitment on WotC's part at combatting racial discrimination and tropes.
For the record, I'm not at all arguing that WotC's choice of Kaya as Kaldheim's face planeswalker was solely informed by her status as a Women of Colour. As mentioned by myself and many others, Kaya's particular interest in maintaining stability in a plane's afterlife process works well in a set that may have as a main plotpoint, the cosmological discontinuity of life and death. Maybe people are no longer being shepherded to their rightful afterlives by the Valkyrie and other divine servitors? Maybe someone who was supposed to die escaped their fate?
WotC would of course have to be careful at sufficiently differentiating such plot from Theros: Beyond Death but I am confident in thier ability to do so.
This isn't personal toward you - but people have cried wolf so much about "racism" on the heels of America's first black president (that I voted for twice) so much that frankly, I'm worried it's the left that will compromise America's racial progress, and not the fears they've either resurrected or invented.
Kaya is disliked because she killed off a famous Legendary character, a guild leader, that was a facet of Ravnica's core identity. We can see Kaya on any plane, but there is only one Obzedat.
She and her power suite were used to break a fundamental Planeswalking rule. Jiang wasn't even a break in my opinion, but she certainly was.
She was a major player in the most loathed, most abhorrent, most compromising aspect of the lore ever - the War of the Spark novels. And the greatest criticism of the series was in fact undermining a very Left-leaning ideal of embracing the LGBT community and progress.
She is an assassin, and the apprehension that she has returned to kill off another major character on our very first visit and introduction to this plane is a valid concern. Especially when we're first introduced to these characters.
Literally none of this has to do with her race or gender, even for those that want to be about that, against all reason, reality and odds, because the media told them it must.
The issue OrzhovPlaneswalker there is talking about is way, way bigger than some American political drama. Almost all white supremacists in Europe have co-opted Norse myth and imagery, to the horror of those who still actually worship the Norse pantheon. This is more flipping them off and/or helping the pagans (is that what they're called?) get their religion back and/or helping actual Scandinavians rub the white supremacy out of their contemporary culture.
Kaya as a character suffers from every planeswalker's problem of the lore being written by different people. This problem is so old, there's a Dakkon Blackblade version for each author who even remotely mentioned him. Quality has been declining over time: she was used well in Conspiracy 2 (let's be honest, people liked Marchesa way more than Brago), kinda eh in The Gathering Storm (no, she didn't just walk into the Obzedat meeting and John Wick-ed them, but nuance is a bit lacking everywhere nowadays, so that's to be expected), and horrible in the War of the Spark novels. If anything, she has a lack of agenda problem. Killing Brago was a Marchesa move, and killing the Ghost Council was a Bolas move that also became a Teysa move. If Wizards can make her character do something of her own volition like Vraska, she could redeem her character arc. Now, I have higher expectations that Yellowstone will erupt as a full supervolcano than I do of any Kaya fixing, but there is still hope. It will be a good business move, so we'll see.
That being said, I despise how she gets around the planeswalker rule (Possession? Really?) Yanggu gets around it smartly: Mowu is a Chinese guardian lion (also known as a foo dog, hence Mowu is a dog), so he's travelling not with a flesh-and-blood dog, but with a walking statue. Kaya's trick is stupid, and I hope it gets retcon-ed.
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The issue OrzhovPlaneswalker there is talking about is way, way bigger than some American political drama. Almost all white supremacists in Europe have co-opted Norse myth and imagery, to the horror of those who still actually worship the Norse pantheon. This is more flipping them off and/or helping the pagans (is that what they're called?) get their religion back and/or helping actual Scandinavians rub the white supremacy out of their contemporary culture.
Kaya as a character suffers from every planeswalker's problem of the lore being written by different people. This problem is so old, there's a Dakkon Blackblade version for each author who even remotely mentioned him. Quality has been declining over time: she was used well in Conspiracy 2 (let's be honest, people liked Marchesa way more than Brago), kinda eh in The Gathering Storm (no, she didn't just walk into the Obzedat meeting and John Wick-ed them, but nuance is a bit lacking everywhere nowadays, so that's to be expected), and horrible in the War of the Spark novels. If anything, she has a lack of agenda problem. Killing Brago was a Marchesa move, and killing the Ghost Council was a Bolas move that also became a Teysa move. If Wizards can make her character do something of her own volition like Vraska, she could redeem her character arc. Now, I have higher expectations that Yellowstone will erupt as a full supervolcano than I do of any Kaya fixing, but there is still hope. It will be a good business move, so we'll see.
That being said, I despise how she gets around the planeswalker rule (Possession? Really?) Yanggu gets around it smartly: Mowu is a Chinese guardian lion (also known as a foo dog, hence Mowu is a dog), so he's travelling not with a flesh-and-blood dog, but with a walking statue. Kaya's trick is stupid, and I hope it gets retcon-ed.