If all the walkers have sided (whether directly or indirectly with Bolas), how come the Azorius are trying to hold back the Gruul? Shouldn't they be more worried about the Simic and Rakdos? Also, it would make more sense for the Boros to be stopping the Gruul instead since the Boros are also similar in function to the police of Ravnica.
I'm guessing that Bolas' plan requires the guilds to be at odds with each other, and it's easier to set up conflict between two groups that are under your control. Bolas' planeswalkers don't necessarily know that all of the other planeswalkers on the plane are working for Bolas too.
Plus the Azorius and the Gruul are just the most philosophically opposed to each other out of all the guilds, especially with Dovin kicking the Azorius' "law and order by any means necessary" policies into overdrive. As the last story showed, they've been buying up property in the other guilds' territory in an attempt to bring civilization to the more lawless parts of the plane, and I'd imagine that the Gruul would object to that even more than the Golgari or the Rakdos.
When is the last time a UW Legend get some good heroic treatment? Dovin is Evil, you could say he was ambiguous in Kaladesh but now its confirmed and he is best buds with Tezz. Azor was dismissed by Jace and incompetent who ruined Ixalan, was told to sit down on a worthless island like a kid sent to his room so Jace could get a new gf. Teferi was a sad sack who couldn't do anything without Jhoira and seemed to forget most of his spellbook. Raff? Not especially relevant comic relief. Isperia, an incompetent idiot who let Dovin takeover in record time and who walked into an obvious trap and jobbed out to Vraska worse then Azor did to Jace.
I am not see this fair and balanced color portrayals. WOTC has had it out for UW Legends in my book since Kaladesh.
I agree with you when it comes to Dovin's characterization: on Kaladesh, he was perfectly neutral and conpletely focused on doing what, in his point of view, was the right thing. And that made him a fantastic foil for Tez and created and interesting dynamic with the Gatewatch in general, and with Chandra in particular. Making him a full-on bad guy who's best buds with Tez is a major mistake, as it takes away his most interesting characteristic.
Dovin wants to change Ravnica for the better, or at least what he considers better. He was attracted to the plane because of its law magic, he saw it as a unique opportunity to create a perfect system. He doesn't know that Bolas and Tezzeret are planning to bring in an undead army and kill everyone; it's clear that Bolas has all of his guildmasters working at cross purposes, so I'd imagine that none of them know his full plan (I can't imagine Dovin approving of Domri's actions, and we know that he ends up in a conflict with Ral).
All five of the Bolas-controlled guildmasters seem to be well-intentioned puppets who are being manipulated. Dovin wants to optimize everything, Kaya wants to living to be free from the control of the dead, Vraska wants to help end the oppression of her people, Domri is justifiably pissed off because the Gruul lands kept getting taken until they had no place left to go, and Ral is apparently working with Niv on some kind of secret project. All of them have understandable and sympathetic motives.
Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that he's "best buds" with Tezzeret. They didn't seem to like each other in Kaladesh, and the art book states that he sought out Bolas after Tezzeret's defeat, since he'd somehow figured out that there was a higher power involved. At most he and Tezzeret are reluctant allies since they're both working for Bolas.
Yes, I was planning to do a writeup for Jund to finish out the set. And yes, the traits you've described all seem to be Black, Red, Green, or some mix of the above. Being Black/Red/Green doesn't mean you have to be a barbarian or a savage; Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec is a good example of a modern and fairly positive Black/Red/Green character.
Do we know what these things are? Did we miss some ancient war where Sorin crushed the Local Religions
I vaguely recall something from the original Innistrad set about how people on Innistrad used to practice shamanism before the Church of Avacyn, relying on primitive elemental magic to protect themselves from the plane's various horrors. It's not clear if people simply stopping practicing shamanism because Avacyn's divine magic was more effective, or if the Church took a more active role in eliminating the shamans. Either way, Innistrad's witch cults are the lingering remnants of the old religion. I don't think they have anything to do with the entities in this story, though.
I agree that, going by personality alone, Niv Mizzit and Ral Zarek would be Grixis. Likewise, Momir Vig from the original Ravnica block would probably be Sultai. But from a gameplay perspective, having the cards for guild leaders be differently colored than their guilds would be a terrible design mistake. Although I can see Ral having a Grixis card if we ever see him in a non-Ravnica set.
And yes, I meant Simba from The Lion King, I think I got mixed up because I was using Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist as another example of a White/Red/Green character.
I'd agree that White is his primary color, but I still see definite shades of Green and Black in his Malthusian view of nature. To put it another way, his willingness to do anything for the greater good is White, but his idea of what the greater good is is Green/Black.
On that note, I've changed my mind about the MCU version of Dr. Strange being Blue/Red/Green, that color combination fits the Dr. Strange of the comics, but not the movies. After re-watching Infinity War, I have to agree with the people saying he has White and Black traits: It's pretty clear that letting Thanos win is actually part of his plan, and a willingness to sacrifice trillions of people's lives for the sake of an eventual victory is definitely a White/Black approach; it's not really compatible with Red's concern for specific individuals. Thinking it over, I'd say that White/Blue/Black fits better than anything else.
Tapping lands for mana is an abstract representation of the way that mages draw power from their environment. Presumably they can only pull a finite amount of mystical energy from any given area at one time, so a land being tapped symbolizes the fact that all of the mana reserves in an area have been depleted. But the flow of mana naturally replenishes itself over time, even in areas that have been drained, which is why those lands will untap the following turn.
Azor creating the Immortal Sun isn't the kind of event that can be represented by game mechanics. Casting it for 6 just means that you're using your energy to activate the artifact once it's already in your possession, it doesn't mean that you're creating it from scratch.
As for planeswalkers not being able to summon the Immortal Sun from another plane, that's just one of the cases where the game's rules don't match the setting. In the game, you can summon anything from anywhere, without any limitations. But in the setting, creatures can't be transported from one plane to another, which is why Bolas needed to orchestrate an elaborate 60 year plot just so he'd have an army that he'd be capable of transporting across the multiverse. Likewise, it seems like artifacts can't be transported between planes unless a planeswalker manually carries them. (But if you really want an in-game representation of Ixalan's events, you could say that Bolas didn't have the Immortal Sun in his deck, which is why he needed to have Tezzeret make a Mastermind's Acquisition to get it into his hand.)
A quintessential example of a White/Red/Green character would be Wolverine. Depending on circumstance, he can be a savage and near-feral beast of a man driven almost entirely by impulse and emotion (Red/Green), a loyal soldier dutifully defending a small community of people like him (White/Green), or a simple but practical man dedicated to protecting and guiding the people he cares about (White/Red). He's largely guided by his senses, instincts, and intuitions (Green), but he's also prone to almost mindless outbursts of berseker rage when his loved ones are harmed or threatened (Red) – and yet, in spite of his poor temper and brusque demeanor, he still tries his best to maintain and uphold his personal code of honor (White).
Another White/Red/Green hero would be Ahsoka Tano from the Star Wars expanded universe: Like Qui-Gon, she's an unorthodox Jedi who takes a much more spontaneous approach than the Jedi Code allows (Red). However, Qui-Gon maintains the detached serenity of the Jedi even while simultaneously living in the moment, but rejects the Order's strict moral code in favor of a more flexible approach (keeping Blue and Green but rejecting White), whereas Ahsoka retains the Order's sense of moral universalism but rejects their passivity and calculated utilitarianism in favor of direct action (keeping White and Green but rejecting Blue). Other examples of White/Red/Green heroes include Tarzan, the Disney version of Pocahontos, and Simba from The Lion King.
Unsurprisingly for the color triad of empathy, it's hard to think of many overtly villainous White/Red/Green characters. One possible archetype would be a Red/Green barbarian chieftain who uses White methods to keep his forces united; Mance Rayder from Game of Thrones is a great example. The Wildlings as a whole are firmly Red/Green, but Mance's White side is evident from his ability to unify hundreds of different tribes under his banner against a common enemy (the Night's Watch), in order to ensure their survival in the face of a common threat (the White Walkers). Another archetype would be a White/Green monster hunter who's driven to fanaticism by Red zealotry and vengefulness; Alexander Anderson, the relentless and near-unkillable vampire hunter who serves as the primary antagonist of Hellsing, exemplifies this archetype to a tee. Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist is an even better example, as he's driven to purge the world of “unholy” magic and to get revenge on the government that committed genocide against his people, but also seeks to preserve the traditions of his culture and protect the few remaining members of his race.
Yet another villainous archetype would be a White/Red vigilante with a deep streak of Green savagery. The more anti-heroic portrayals of Venom fit into this category: The Venom symbiote is Green to the core, as it's a primordial lifeform that only cares about its own survival – and it survives by feeding off the adrenaline of its host, encouraging them to engage in risky and impulsive behavior and to give in to their instincts. Its host, Eddie Brock, is a delusionally self-righteous vigilante who's determined to enforce his own twisted brand of justice on the world. Despite being a murderous psychopath, I would still consider him White/Red due to his absolute and unwavering conviction that he's doing the right thing and serving the greater good (although in his original, purely villanous portrayal he was more of a Black narcissist who only cared about getting revenge on the people who personally wronged him). Together, they form a composite entity that fights against real and perceived evils with the most brutal methods possible, and hypocritically claims that it's only reluctantly doing “what needs to be done” while clearly relishing every moment of the violence and destruction it causes with gleeful abandon.
White/Red/Green societies often reflect the ideal of the Noble Savage; less primitive versions tend to be Arcadia-style small town rural communities. The Ewoks from Star Wars and the Na'vi from Avatar are both examples of the former, while the Shire from Lord of the Rings is an example of the latter. They're not always necessarily opposed to technology; the Minutemen from Fallout 4 would be a rare example of a high-tech White/Red/Green faction (although they're still fairly low-tech by the standards of the setting). Zion, the underground city of the human resistance in the Matrix films, is about as large and technologically-advanced as White/Red/Green societies get; the humans living there are devout freedom fighters (White/Red), they maintain a thriving community based around personal loyalties and family ties (White/Green), and they celebrate their independence with massive debaucherous revels (Red/Green).
The Kazon would clearly be a purely Red/Black race, that's why they were considered anathema to a White/Blue/Green race like the Borg. Anyway, onto the second to last entry. One more to go!
WRG combines White's demand for unity and Green's respect for tradition with Red's emotional nature and desire to be free, emphasizing strong but voluntary associations based upon personal trust and shared values. It also combines the raw authenticity of Red/Green and the zealous devotion of White/Red with White/Green's focus on maintaining a sustainable community. The end result is a color triad that lives up to its own innermost nature through its connections to other people, and through its ties to the traditions and ideals of its culture – traditions and ideals which serve to further bind it to its loved ones and neighbors. It's a color triad that never feels more like itself than when it's around others of its kind, engaging in the kinds of activities that bring them all together.
Its primary tools are earnestness, honesty, empathy, close-knit community, and natural growth. It's the most compassionate and empathic color combination, as it combines White's general altruism and Green's sense of community with Red's deep-rooted emotional concern for the people it cares about. It's also the most genuine and honest color triad, as it shares Green's belief that people have an “inner self” or a “true nature” that they should strive to follow, Red's belief that people should express their feelings and act on their emotions, and a White code of honor that demands straightforwardness and forbids deception.
White/Red/Green also manages to allow for a great deal of individuality and freedom within the confines of a strongly unified community: Its ideal community is a small and voluntary one, where people are neither forced together by some external authority nor united under the banner of some abstract ideal, but rather bound together by their personal connections to one another. In such a community, there would be no need for a top-down system of control to keep everyone in line through authoritarian means; people would simply help each other out because they actually cared about each other. Likewise, White/Red/Green doesn't believe that growth needs to be guided by some detached central planner, or that it needs to follow some carefully laid plan; it believes that growth will happen naturally over the course of time, in whatever ways suit it best.
It's opposed to Blue/Black, the color pairing most associated with cold pragmatism, phoniness and insincerity, secrecy and subterfuge and manipulation, ambition and material gain, self-improvement and social mobility.
Blue/Black constantly seeks to better its own life, to improve itself and its material circumstances – primarily through the pursuit of wealth and resources and power and influence. It seeks to gain control over physical, economic, social, and political assets that it can use to put itself in a better situation, to rise to a higher status, and to increase the number of options available to it, and it sees other people as tools to be used to further its own ends. In contrast, someone who's White/Red/Green is wholly accepting of her lot in life. She knows who she truly is, deep down, and she knows how to be content with herself rather than constantly seeking to become something better. She's learned to be content with her situation and her circumstances, to find happiness and fulfilment and even some degree of freedom in the life she was born into. She has the wisdom to be content with what she has, rather than endlessly yearning for more. She sees other people as valuable beings in their own right, rather than as means to an end, and she knows that her relationships with her loved ones and her ties to her community will last longer and bring her more satisfaction than any fleeting and shallow material gains.
Blue/Black is dedicated to carefully controlling the image that other people have of it, wanting to be seen – or remain unseen – in whatever ways will best help it to achieve its goals. It's a creature of pretense and artiface, with no real identity beyond whatever facade it puts on for the sake of its agenda. It's cold and calculating in its thoughts and actions: uninhibited by sentimentality and ethical constraints, free from the pulls of instinct and impulse, and fully in control of its own emotions. On the other hand, someone who's White/Red/Green isn't concerned with her image at all, except to the extent that she wouldn't want anyone spreading falsehoods about her. She doesn't care what strangers think about her; she only cares about the opinions of her relatives, her friends, and her neighbors, and she feels no need to lie to them, because she knows that they all like her for who she really is. From the White/Red/Green perspective, it's immoral and unethical and dishonorable to pretend to be someone or something you're not, and besides which, it's a betrayal of one's true self – and beyond all that, it's unhealthy and self-destructive and just plain exhausting for someone to repress their emotions and hide their true feelings that much.
Blue/Black is obsessed with gaining knowledge, particularly knowledge of other people, and keeping it closely guarded. It seeks to learn people's secrets so it can better understand them and predict them and exploit their weaknesses, and it's careful to hold its own secrets close to its chest in order to prevent anyone from finding out too much about it. Conversely, White/Red/Green has no desire to figure out anyone else's secrets or weaknesses; it prefers to have open and earnest relationships with its friends and to engage in fair fights against its enemies. It also hates keeping secrets, since doing so feels too much like lying through omission – not to mention it's hard for someone so open and honest to keep anything hidden for long.
White/Red/Green is similar to White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green, as they all prefer to live in harmonious traditional communities where people are bound together by a shared cultural history and a shared set of customs and beliefs. However, it's not as strictly bound by rules or traditions: White/Red/Green opposes White/Black/Green's belief that people should bury their emotions, repress their desires, and suppress their creativity in order to adhere to tradition. On the contrary, it believes that traditions should be used to encourage people to show their emotions, fulfill their desires, and express their creativity. It also opposes White/Blue/Green's view that the concerns of individuals and small groups need to be put aside for the sake of some greater collective good; White/Red/Green believes that every person and every community has the right to stand up for their own interests, and it aims for compromise between the needs of the individual, the needs of the few, and the needs of the many. In short, it seeks a balance between harmony and freedom.
White/Red/Green also differs from White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green when it comes to social change: White/Black/Green views society as a stone fortress, unyielding and unmoving, unchanging and immutable, static and stagnant. White/Blue/Green views society as a walled garden to be carefully tended, with growth and expansion serving mainly to preserve the existing structure of things against the forces of decay and entropy, with actual change only rarely and cautiously attempted – and only when it's absolutely certain to result in a strict improvement over the status quo. In contrast, White/Red/Green views society as a forest, living and breathing, wild and untamed – subject to grow and change over time, and not always in controllable or predictable ways. It knows that even if the customs and rituals are different, the culture itself fundamentally remains the same, retaining a sense of continuity that keeps it connected to its past.
White/Red/Green also doesn't share White/Black's tribalism or Green/Black's cynicism, making it far less insular and far less hostile to outsiders. It rejects the isolationism and xenophobia of White/Black/Green: It wants to be around others of its kind, but it wants to explore the world together with them, rather than hide behind fortified walls. It prefers the company of its own people, but it still enjoys getting to know people from other cultures, and it's capable of having friendly (or at least not-overtly-hostile) relationships with them. It's even welcoming enough to let others join its society, if they're willing to abide by its norms, follow its customs, and respect its beliefs. However, it doesn't share White/Blue/Green's universalist outlook either. It doesn't seek to spread its beliefs to the world or to force its culture on others, since it doesn't see its way of life as the only way – just as the way that happens to be right for it.
White/Red/Green can also be compared to White/Blue/Red: They're both optimistic idealists, yet they reject the conformist utopianism of White/Blue/Green, in favor of a system that allows for individual freedom. They both oppose the idea that there's any one “best” way for a society to be run, instead preferring a diverse and pluralistic world where many different cultures can peacefully coexist, despite holding a multitude of different beliefs and values. However, White/Blue/Red is always seeking to improve society and bring about a better world, while White/Red/Green is generally content with things as they are. When it does change something, it's usually for intuitive reasons; as such, its changes don't always correspond to Blue's idea of “progress.” Similarly, White/Blue/Red is strongly opposed to traditionalism, believing that traditions stifle progress and freedom and self-expression, while White/Red/Green finds traditions liberating. It would feel less capable of expressing itself without them, to the point where not following its traditions would feel stifling to it.
It's the color triad of family, of marriage, of love for one's kith and kin. It's the color triad of holidays and festivals, of celebrations that bring people together while also allowing them to express themselves, indulge their desires, and enjoy the natural pleasures that life has to offer. It's the color triad of ethical hedonism and communal revelry, of simple joys and vibrant enthusiasm for the world. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of naturalism and small-scale communalism.
Creative missed the opportunity to flesh them out better. Why aren't they also the press? That would make a ton of sense for a city themed plane, and fit well with blue black (both from an investigative journalism standpoint, which would also provide cover for spying, and from the fact that they could use their role as the press to spread propaganda and influence public opinion). It would also give the average Ravnican more of a reason to tolerate their existence, as they'd be serving a real need. I mean, I'd imagine Ravnicans would be more OK with the Dimir being around of they exposed Azorious red tape problems, Orzhov corruption, and Boros screw ups.
According to the Planeswalker's Guide to Ravnica, that's exactly what they do: "The Dimir are just like any Ravnican guild, serving a public purpose for the good of the city. They often serve as couriers, investigators, reporters, and archivists. They serve twin purposes: to give the rest of Ravnica a "friendly" face of the guild and to be the street-level eyes and ears of the Dimir. Many entry-level candidates to the Dimir guild begin as overt agents until they can prove their trustworthiness."
Since when is Dovin considered evil or villainous? Ral, Vraska, and Domri aren't evil or villainous, they've just been tricked into serving Bolas (in some cases unknowingly) for various reasons. I don't see why you'd assume it would be any different for Dovin, especially considering he was portrayed in a fairly heroic light during the Kaladesh storyline, despite being an antagonist.
It's also the realistic outcome of any revolution that involves more than one group rising up against the ruling class. Historically, revolutions almost never result in total societal equality; they usually result in whichever group was the second most powerful becoming the most powerful, and whichever group was on the bottom staying on the bottom. The nobility might rise up against the monarchy, and the wealthy merchants might rise up against the nobility, but the peasants and the workers remain poor regardless. When the American revolutionaries won their independence from Britain, they didn't suddenly start treating Native Americans or African slaves or poor whites any better, they just replaced a distant British landed aristocracy with a local American landed aristocracy. When Mao Zedong overthrew the Chinese government, he didn't implement racial equality, he just had the Han majority take control from the ruling Manchu minority; under the new system, the traditionally-oppressed Uyghurs remained subject to extreme oppression, just like they had been under the previous one.
It doesn't matter what Vraska personally wanted either, just like it didn't matter that some of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery and favored a more egalitarian form of democracy. If most of the Elves still view the Gorgons as monsters despite being forced to treat them as equals, and most of the Gorgons still resent the Elves for oppressing them for so long, just keeping those two groups from killing each other is going to be difficult enough. And when there's a third race who they both view as being far beneath them, it's pretty obvious who's going to get thrown under the bus.
I'm guessing that Bolas' plan requires the guilds to be at odds with each other, and it's easier to set up conflict between two groups that are under your control. Bolas' planeswalkers don't necessarily know that all of the other planeswalkers on the plane are working for Bolas too.
Plus the Azorius and the Gruul are just the most philosophically opposed to each other out of all the guilds, especially with Dovin kicking the Azorius' "law and order by any means necessary" policies into overdrive. As the last story showed, they've been buying up property in the other guilds' territory in an attempt to bring civilization to the more lawless parts of the plane, and I'd imagine that the Gruul would object to that even more than the Golgari or the Rakdos.
Dovin wants to change Ravnica for the better, or at least what he considers better. He was attracted to the plane because of its law magic, he saw it as a unique opportunity to create a perfect system. He doesn't know that Bolas and Tezzeret are planning to bring in an undead army and kill everyone; it's clear that Bolas has all of his guildmasters working at cross purposes, so I'd imagine that none of them know his full plan (I can't imagine Dovin approving of Domri's actions, and we know that he ends up in a conflict with Ral).
All five of the Bolas-controlled guildmasters seem to be well-intentioned puppets who are being manipulated. Dovin wants to optimize everything, Kaya wants to living to be free from the control of the dead, Vraska wants to help end the oppression of her people, Domri is justifiably pissed off because the Gruul lands kept getting taken until they had no place left to go, and Ral is apparently working with Niv on some kind of secret project. All of them have understandable and sympathetic motives.
Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that he's "best buds" with Tezzeret. They didn't seem to like each other in Kaladesh, and the art book states that he sought out Bolas after Tezzeret's defeat, since he'd somehow figured out that there was a higher power involved. At most he and Tezzeret are reluctant allies since they're both working for Bolas.
I vaguely recall something from the original Innistrad set about how people on Innistrad used to practice shamanism before the Church of Avacyn, relying on primitive elemental magic to protect themselves from the plane's various horrors. It's not clear if people simply stopping practicing shamanism because Avacyn's divine magic was more effective, or if the Church took a more active role in eliminating the shamans. Either way, Innistrad's witch cults are the lingering remnants of the old religion. I don't think they have anything to do with the entities in this story, though.
And yes, I meant Simba from The Lion King, I think I got mixed up because I was using Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist as another example of a White/Red/Green character.
I haven't watched Legend of Korra, I've only seen the original show.
On that note, I've changed my mind about the MCU version of Dr. Strange being Blue/Red/Green, that color combination fits the Dr. Strange of the comics, but not the movies. After re-watching Infinity War, I have to agree with the people saying he has White and Black traits: It's pretty clear that letting Thanos win is actually part of his plan, and a willingness to sacrifice trillions of people's lives for the sake of an eventual victory is definitely a White/Black approach; it's not really compatible with Red's concern for specific individuals. Thinking it over, I'd say that White/Blue/Black fits better than anything else.
Azor creating the Immortal Sun isn't the kind of event that can be represented by game mechanics. Casting it for 6 just means that you're using your energy to activate the artifact once it's already in your possession, it doesn't mean that you're creating it from scratch.
As for planeswalkers not being able to summon the Immortal Sun from another plane, that's just one of the cases where the game's rules don't match the setting. In the game, you can summon anything from anywhere, without any limitations. But in the setting, creatures can't be transported from one plane to another, which is why Bolas needed to orchestrate an elaborate 60 year plot just so he'd have an army that he'd be capable of transporting across the multiverse. Likewise, it seems like artifacts can't be transported between planes unless a planeswalker manually carries them. (But if you really want an in-game representation of Ixalan's events, you could say that Bolas didn't have the Immortal Sun in his deck, which is why he needed to have Tezzeret make a Mastermind's Acquisition to get it into his hand.)
Another White/Red/Green hero would be Ahsoka Tano from the Star Wars expanded universe: Like Qui-Gon, she's an unorthodox Jedi who takes a much more spontaneous approach than the Jedi Code allows (Red). However, Qui-Gon maintains the detached serenity of the Jedi even while simultaneously living in the moment, but rejects the Order's strict moral code in favor of a more flexible approach (keeping Blue and Green but rejecting White), whereas Ahsoka retains the Order's sense of moral universalism but rejects their passivity and calculated utilitarianism in favor of direct action (keeping White and Green but rejecting Blue). Other examples of White/Red/Green heroes include Tarzan, the Disney version of Pocahontos, and Simba from The Lion King.
Unsurprisingly for the color triad of empathy, it's hard to think of many overtly villainous White/Red/Green characters. One possible archetype would be a Red/Green barbarian chieftain who uses White methods to keep his forces united; Mance Rayder from Game of Thrones is a great example. The Wildlings as a whole are firmly Red/Green, but Mance's White side is evident from his ability to unify hundreds of different tribes under his banner against a common enemy (the Night's Watch), in order to ensure their survival in the face of a common threat (the White Walkers). Another archetype would be a White/Green monster hunter who's driven to fanaticism by Red zealotry and vengefulness; Alexander Anderson, the relentless and near-unkillable vampire hunter who serves as the primary antagonist of Hellsing, exemplifies this archetype to a tee. Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist is an even better example, as he's driven to purge the world of “unholy” magic and to get revenge on the government that committed genocide against his people, but also seeks to preserve the traditions of his culture and protect the few remaining members of his race.
Yet another villainous archetype would be a White/Red vigilante with a deep streak of Green savagery. The more anti-heroic portrayals of Venom fit into this category: The Venom symbiote is Green to the core, as it's a primordial lifeform that only cares about its own survival – and it survives by feeding off the adrenaline of its host, encouraging them to engage in risky and impulsive behavior and to give in to their instincts. Its host, Eddie Brock, is a delusionally self-righteous vigilante who's determined to enforce his own twisted brand of justice on the world. Despite being a murderous psychopath, I would still consider him White/Red due to his absolute and unwavering conviction that he's doing the right thing and serving the greater good (although in his original, purely villanous portrayal he was more of a Black narcissist who only cared about getting revenge on the people who personally wronged him). Together, they form a composite entity that fights against real and perceived evils with the most brutal methods possible, and hypocritically claims that it's only reluctantly doing “what needs to be done” while clearly relishing every moment of the violence and destruction it causes with gleeful abandon.
White/Red/Green societies often reflect the ideal of the Noble Savage; less primitive versions tend to be Arcadia-style small town rural communities. The Ewoks from Star Wars and the Na'vi from Avatar are both examples of the former, while the Shire from Lord of the Rings is an example of the latter. They're not always necessarily opposed to technology; the Minutemen from Fallout 4 would be a rare example of a high-tech White/Red/Green faction (although they're still fairly low-tech by the standards of the setting). Zion, the underground city of the human resistance in the Matrix films, is about as large and technologically-advanced as White/Red/Green societies get; the humans living there are devout freedom fighters (White/Red), they maintain a thriving community based around personal loyalties and family ties (White/Green), and they celebrate their independence with massive debaucherous revels (Red/Green).
WRG combines White's demand for unity and Green's respect for tradition with Red's emotional nature and desire to be free, emphasizing strong but voluntary associations based upon personal trust and shared values. It also combines the raw authenticity of Red/Green and the zealous devotion of White/Red with White/Green's focus on maintaining a sustainable community. The end result is a color triad that lives up to its own innermost nature through its connections to other people, and through its ties to the traditions and ideals of its culture – traditions and ideals which serve to further bind it to its loved ones and neighbors. It's a color triad that never feels more like itself than when it's around others of its kind, engaging in the kinds of activities that bring them all together.
Its primary tools are earnestness, honesty, empathy, close-knit community, and natural growth. It's the most compassionate and empathic color combination, as it combines White's general altruism and Green's sense of community with Red's deep-rooted emotional concern for the people it cares about. It's also the most genuine and honest color triad, as it shares Green's belief that people have an “inner self” or a “true nature” that they should strive to follow, Red's belief that people should express their feelings and act on their emotions, and a White code of honor that demands straightforwardness and forbids deception.
White/Red/Green also manages to allow for a great deal of individuality and freedom within the confines of a strongly unified community: Its ideal community is a small and voluntary one, where people are neither forced together by some external authority nor united under the banner of some abstract ideal, but rather bound together by their personal connections to one another. In such a community, there would be no need for a top-down system of control to keep everyone in line through authoritarian means; people would simply help each other out because they actually cared about each other. Likewise, White/Red/Green doesn't believe that growth needs to be guided by some detached central planner, or that it needs to follow some carefully laid plan; it believes that growth will happen naturally over the course of time, in whatever ways suit it best.
It's opposed to Blue/Black, the color pairing most associated with cold pragmatism, phoniness and insincerity, secrecy and subterfuge and manipulation, ambition and material gain, self-improvement and social mobility.
Blue/Black constantly seeks to better its own life, to improve itself and its material circumstances – primarily through the pursuit of wealth and resources and power and influence. It seeks to gain control over physical, economic, social, and political assets that it can use to put itself in a better situation, to rise to a higher status, and to increase the number of options available to it, and it sees other people as tools to be used to further its own ends. In contrast, someone who's White/Red/Green is wholly accepting of her lot in life. She knows who she truly is, deep down, and she knows how to be content with herself rather than constantly seeking to become something better. She's learned to be content with her situation and her circumstances, to find happiness and fulfilment and even some degree of freedom in the life she was born into. She has the wisdom to be content with what she has, rather than endlessly yearning for more. She sees other people as valuable beings in their own right, rather than as means to an end, and she knows that her relationships with her loved ones and her ties to her community will last longer and bring her more satisfaction than any fleeting and shallow material gains.
Blue/Black is dedicated to carefully controlling the image that other people have of it, wanting to be seen – or remain unseen – in whatever ways will best help it to achieve its goals. It's a creature of pretense and artiface, with no real identity beyond whatever facade it puts on for the sake of its agenda. It's cold and calculating in its thoughts and actions: uninhibited by sentimentality and ethical constraints, free from the pulls of instinct and impulse, and fully in control of its own emotions. On the other hand, someone who's White/Red/Green isn't concerned with her image at all, except to the extent that she wouldn't want anyone spreading falsehoods about her. She doesn't care what strangers think about her; she only cares about the opinions of her relatives, her friends, and her neighbors, and she feels no need to lie to them, because she knows that they all like her for who she really is. From the White/Red/Green perspective, it's immoral and unethical and dishonorable to pretend to be someone or something you're not, and besides which, it's a betrayal of one's true self – and beyond all that, it's unhealthy and self-destructive and just plain exhausting for someone to repress their emotions and hide their true feelings that much.
Blue/Black is obsessed with gaining knowledge, particularly knowledge of other people, and keeping it closely guarded. It seeks to learn people's secrets so it can better understand them and predict them and exploit their weaknesses, and it's careful to hold its own secrets close to its chest in order to prevent anyone from finding out too much about it. Conversely, White/Red/Green has no desire to figure out anyone else's secrets or weaknesses; it prefers to have open and earnest relationships with its friends and to engage in fair fights against its enemies. It also hates keeping secrets, since doing so feels too much like lying through omission – not to mention it's hard for someone so open and honest to keep anything hidden for long.
White/Red/Green is similar to White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green, as they all prefer to live in harmonious traditional communities where people are bound together by a shared cultural history and a shared set of customs and beliefs. However, it's not as strictly bound by rules or traditions: White/Red/Green opposes White/Black/Green's belief that people should bury their emotions, repress their desires, and suppress their creativity in order to adhere to tradition. On the contrary, it believes that traditions should be used to encourage people to show their emotions, fulfill their desires, and express their creativity. It also opposes White/Blue/Green's view that the concerns of individuals and small groups need to be put aside for the sake of some greater collective good; White/Red/Green believes that every person and every community has the right to stand up for their own interests, and it aims for compromise between the needs of the individual, the needs of the few, and the needs of the many. In short, it seeks a balance between harmony and freedom.
White/Red/Green also differs from White/Black/Green and White/Blue/Green when it comes to social change: White/Black/Green views society as a stone fortress, unyielding and unmoving, unchanging and immutable, static and stagnant. White/Blue/Green views society as a walled garden to be carefully tended, with growth and expansion serving mainly to preserve the existing structure of things against the forces of decay and entropy, with actual change only rarely and cautiously attempted – and only when it's absolutely certain to result in a strict improvement over the status quo. In contrast, White/Red/Green views society as a forest, living and breathing, wild and untamed – subject to grow and change over time, and not always in controllable or predictable ways. It knows that even if the customs and rituals are different, the culture itself fundamentally remains the same, retaining a sense of continuity that keeps it connected to its past.
White/Red/Green also doesn't share White/Black's tribalism or Green/Black's cynicism, making it far less insular and far less hostile to outsiders. It rejects the isolationism and xenophobia of White/Black/Green: It wants to be around others of its kind, but it wants to explore the world together with them, rather than hide behind fortified walls. It prefers the company of its own people, but it still enjoys getting to know people from other cultures, and it's capable of having friendly (or at least not-overtly-hostile) relationships with them. It's even welcoming enough to let others join its society, if they're willing to abide by its norms, follow its customs, and respect its beliefs. However, it doesn't share White/Blue/Green's universalist outlook either. It doesn't seek to spread its beliefs to the world or to force its culture on others, since it doesn't see its way of life as the only way – just as the way that happens to be right for it.
White/Red/Green can also be compared to White/Blue/Red: They're both optimistic idealists, yet they reject the conformist utopianism of White/Blue/Green, in favor of a system that allows for individual freedom. They both oppose the idea that there's any one “best” way for a society to be run, instead preferring a diverse and pluralistic world where many different cultures can peacefully coexist, despite holding a multitude of different beliefs and values. However, White/Blue/Red is always seeking to improve society and bring about a better world, while White/Red/Green is generally content with things as they are. When it does change something, it's usually for intuitive reasons; as such, its changes don't always correspond to Blue's idea of “progress.” Similarly, White/Blue/Red is strongly opposed to traditionalism, believing that traditions stifle progress and freedom and self-expression, while White/Red/Green finds traditions liberating. It would feel less capable of expressing itself without them, to the point where not following its traditions would feel stifling to it.
It's the color triad of family, of marriage, of love for one's kith and kin. It's the color triad of holidays and festivals, of celebrations that bring people together while also allowing them to express themselves, indulge their desires, and enjoy the natural pleasures that life has to offer. It's the color triad of ethical hedonism and communal revelry, of simple joys and vibrant enthusiasm for the world. Fundamentally, it's the color triad of naturalism and small-scale communalism.
According to the Planeswalker's Guide to Ravnica, that's exactly what they do: "The Dimir are just like any Ravnican guild, serving a public purpose for the good of the city. They often serve as couriers, investigators, reporters, and archivists. They serve twin purposes: to give the rest of Ravnica a "friendly" face of the guild and to be the street-level eyes and ears of the Dimir. Many entry-level candidates to the Dimir guild begin as overt agents until they can prove their trustworthiness."
It doesn't matter what Vraska personally wanted either, just like it didn't matter that some of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery and favored a more egalitarian form of democracy. If most of the Elves still view the Gorgons as monsters despite being forced to treat them as equals, and most of the Gorgons still resent the Elves for oppressing them for so long, just keeping those two groups from killing each other is going to be difficult enough. And when there's a third race who they both view as being far beneath them, it's pretty obvious who's going to get thrown under the bus.
Yes, that's basically the impression that I got too.