I was confused as to why Bolas being mostly depowered wasn't taken as an opportunity to just kill him. You would think that someone other than Gideon would actually try that when he's most vulnerable.
Then I realized that keeping him tucked away gives WOTC an easy excuse to re-use the character later. Feels cheap tbh. I hope I'm wrong and that this really is treated as a final act in Bolas's story and they don't bring him back.
On the flip side, if Bolas and Ugin are both trapped forever, that means they never did much with Ugin. Sigh.
Well, there's your ****ing Gatewatch death, folks. And of course it was my favorite member of the team, continuing Magic's long-standing tradition of killing off itscoolestheroes. Happy now!?
The heroes most willing to sacrifice themselves for others are usually the ones who least deserve to.
I'm guessing this takes place right after Bolas "LOLNopes" Gideon. At least Gideon still has a hand in Bolas' downfall.
Nah, people are still griping about the story. Nothing would be a good story except a complete rout of the Gatewatch it seems.
Yep. It seems like it has to be some sort of Game of Thrones level of deaths, or the story just sucks. Including the death of the villain.
I mean, ffs. In Lord of the Rings, exactly one major face hero dies in the second act (Boromir), and one in the third act (Theoden). And the BBEG doesn't even die in the end. Sauron does NOT die in the LotR. He simply has all his power stripped from him, and is doomed to wander Middle Earth as a shattered fraction of his former self. Clearly, half of more of the Fellowship needed to die, and Sauron needed to die, or the story is garbage, right?
Same with a great many pieces of fiction, including some of the very best out there. Where there are major wars or the like, and virtually none of the heroes die. But many background characters die all around them, and it is the deaths of the many background characters that show the high stakes, not the deaths of the heroes.
And now and then, someone sacrifices themselves for the good of the others, becoming one of the only major deaths in the whole overarching story.
Because we're following the story of the survivors, in the end. The stakes didn't just disappear because most of the heroes lived to the end of so many top-notch fictional stories. We could have followed the story of one of the many background characters, watching them die tragically, but that does not, in fact, a better story make.
But yeah. The nonstop griping because *gasp* most of the heroes lived through to the end, except for those who heroically sacrificed themselves at a key moment, as the "only way the story could have been redeemed/good" doesn't remotely mesh with the vast majority of top-notch fictional narratives. Note: this is not a statement by me about the quality of this story either positively or negatively. Simply a statement that the assertion many seem to be making that a lot of planeswalkers printed in the set "needed" to die for the story to be good or the stakes to be high, while the dozen or more definitely dead planeswalkers whose sparks we see floating around indicating they definitely DIED (along with countless citizens of Ravnica) don't count as high-stakes-enough, comes across as absurd on its face. A massive number of fantastic narratives do not, in fact, have all that many heroes die. Not even during a great war/battle in the final act. Yet somehow manage to remain both high-stakes and great stories with most of the heroes themselves surviving.
It's quite astonishing, really.
There are two big reasons for this. Firstly, the Gatewatch from its inception has never felt like an organically put together team for many people. As evidenced by characters like Nissa recieving retcons explicitly so that they can fit into a market-friendly team of face characters. Along with the slapdash way that the team was assembled. Secondly, the Gatewatch's plot armor is noticably thick. Things happen to the team seemingly because the plot requires it, they have over thrice now come into contact with beings noted by the writers to be far beyond their league and have either prevailed or come out otherwise largely unharmed in ways that many see as unearned and contrived. Destroying two of the most powerful known beings in canon when their god-like predecessors stated that they would have great difficulty in doing so seemingly because they are the main characters. Also the plane those beings were destroying is going to be mostly fine. Also one (arguably three) member(s) of the team was to blame for those beings being unimprisoned in the first place and saw little in the way of consequences. Then the third being just decides to be defeated my our MCs for reasons that are just left for some kind of "future mystery" that likely won't be touched on for another half decade. Not to mention that if anyone else comes close to these beings, they are met with any combination of: A. Being disintegrated immediately, B. Losing their minds, or C. Being horribly transmogrified. The Gatewatch is immune, though. Because main characters. They also defy the most powerful existing planeswalker sans maybe Karn or Ugin and all get off pretty okay (Jace literally becomes a better person because of this). Because main characters, again.
The thing about LoTR is that it's loved because not only is it a story about someone who is largely a nobody rising to the occasion and making sacrifices to then become a hero, it is also densely rich in well constructed lore. The Gatewatch's story on the other hand features a collection of characters who were already The Special(tm) set in a multiverse that is presented as noticably shallower than it used to be even just 8 years ago. Look at the presentation of Zendikar vs BFZ block.
TL:DR: People don't belive that stories are only good if people die, they're dying for the Gatewatch to really find soke hard consequences after avoiding them for years now. And a lot of people probably do also want these characters to either die or be pushed out of the limelight because of how they've found the Gatewatch to be unlikeable and uncompelling on top of the team being shoved down the throats of the playerbase as a pretty transparent marketing scheme to the detriment of other characters and sometimes even Gatewatch members themselves.
Imo, War of the Spark should be a soft reboot of how the story is handledz but that isn't going to be the case, most likely.
Long ago on a distant plane...
I, Bolas, the spark-stealing master of the multiverse, unleashed an unspeakable evil. But, a foolish hunky planeswalker wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, Ugin tore open a portal in space and flung me into the prison where my boredom is law. Now I seek to return to the plane and undo the failure that is Nicol.
People in this thread are really trying to argue that a group who trick people into predatory loans, binds their souls into eternal servitude, and racketeers people for protection money while burying them under incomprehensible legal jargon isn't bad.
That is the least Orzhov flavor text this card could have besides "Exploiting people is bad, actually".
Well, order benefits the Orzhov, too. And the Orzhov do haveenforcers, though maybe not the kind you'd associate with enforcing the law.
Agreeing on order wasn't the main subject of the first statment, it qas the idea that order benefits everyone. Orzhov really couldn't care less about benefitting others.
Yeah... it wouldn't be so bad if WOTC didn't beat you over the head with explainations mid one-liner. "Unstoppable fighters created to harvest souls" is the least smooth way they could have written this.
Then I realized that keeping him tucked away gives WOTC an easy excuse to re-use the character later. Feels cheap tbh. I hope I'm wrong and that this really is treated as a final act in Bolas's story and they don't bring him back.
On the flip side, if Bolas and Ugin are both trapped forever, that means they never did much with Ugin. Sigh.
The thing about LoTR is that it's loved because not only is it a story about someone who is largely a nobody rising to the occasion and making sacrifices to then become a hero, it is also densely rich in well constructed lore. The Gatewatch's story on the other hand features a collection of characters who were already The Special(tm) set in a multiverse that is presented as noticably shallower than it used to be even just 8 years ago. Look at the presentation of Zendikar vs BFZ block.
TL:DR: People don't belive that stories are only good if people die, they're dying for the Gatewatch to really find soke hard consequences after avoiding them for years now. And a lot of people probably do also want these characters to either die or be pushed out of the limelight because of how they've found the Gatewatch to be unlikeable and uncompelling on top of the team being shoved down the throats of the playerbase as a pretty transparent marketing scheme to the detriment of other characters and sometimes even Gatewatch members themselves.
Imo, War of the Spark should be a soft reboot of how the story is handledz but that isn't going to be the case, most likely.
Also, your chances of death in MTG are increased by 200% if you're a white aligned planeswalker.
I, Bolas, the spark-stealing master of the multiverse, unleashed an unspeakable evil. But, a foolish hunky planeswalker wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, Ugin tore open a portal in space and flung me into the prison where my boredom is law. Now I seek to return to the plane and undo the failure that is Nicol.
Bolas: b r e a k e g g
>crickets
>Tamiyo drawn with unambigously asian features
>immediate complaints about how Tamiyo looks
Hmmm.jpg