I'm in the awkward position of liking both Sorin and Nahiri. So unless they miraculously decide they can be friendsies again, I'm likely in for a kick in the feels no matter what.
Oh, I'm well aware of the maxim. I don't even mind it. What they did with Ugin is fine. But Avacyn didn't leave a body and we're pretty sure she's dead? So again, I just feel like it could go either way in regards to the angel.
If Sorin could somehow get the power again, I'm sure he could re-create her.
Well, Nahiri IS conveniently focusing huge amounts of Innistrad's mana at a central point... All it would take is for someone to come along and hijack that...
Honestly the very premise of a living guildpact is ridiculous. Jace is a human, with presumably human lifespan and mortality*. Even if he lives/manages to avoid assassination to be a hundred, that's insignificant compared to the ten THOUSAND years the prior guildpact existed.
Then they'll be right back in the same position.
*Correct me if I'm unaware of the guildpact somehow extending his lifespan.
Chandra is all about freedom. I think we will find an reverse Jace planeswalker as the bad guy.
I think the woman in the picture is Chandra mentor not her enemy.
Well, apparently her name, Saheeli Rai, means "friend of the king" which to me implies she'll be pro-establishment (at least at the start), putting her opposed to Chandra's anti-establishment.
Saheeli Rai's name meaning "friend of the king" implies to me that she'll be pro-establishment, putting her opposite our friendly neighborhood pyromancer as a potential antagonist. Though of course a heel-face-turn is always a possibility.
In all honesty, I don't like Jace all that much. I mean, I don't rabidly hate him like it seems some people do, but frankly I'm one of those people who likes seeing more characters/each character get the spotlight rather than the same one(s) over and over.
That said, I appreciate a good pun, and I like that I can use it tongue in cheek whenever Jace's near omnipresence starts to grate on me. (Again, not necessarily because I dont like Jace, just that there are many other characters I'd like to know more about instead.)
Voted in the minority. Jacetus league is cool, but I can understand why some people might not like it.
Edit to add: regardless of your feelings on Jacetus League, Gatewatch is bland and ill fitting imo. Gatewatch is fitting for a Ravnican organization. Not a multiplanar alliance.
He spat at her after she began to hurl rocks at him. And even if he was being a jerk she hurled rocks and threatened him at sword point. She's not exactly the virtue of maturity either.
She never actually threw stones at him. In fact she never threw any stones, and never attacked Sorin at all. She lifted the stones as a show of power, pulled her sword out of one of them, and demanded that he fulfill his promise. Then he spat.
The only people who fought at all were Nahiri and Avacyn, and it was Avacyn who attacked first. Sorin's only involvement with the actual fight was to parry Nahiri's sword (which was again, directed at Avacyn, not him) and disarm her.
After rereading Stirring from Slumber, one thing I haven't seen on here is that Nahiri spent considerable time battling Eldrazi and fixing the Hedron network. We aren't given exact measurements, but it's implied that good portions of time pass during the story, like when Nahiri waits after sending the initial call for help and when she's creating a new hedron. The other thing the story brings up is that while Sorin may have visited from time to time shortly after the Titans were sealed, his visits quickly become decades to centuries inbetween until he stops all together. That's a few thousand years without so much as a 'Hi, how are you?' from her mentor.
I feel this gives Nahiri a little more credence to being angry as her out look is 'I've been cooped up on Zendikar and cannot leave while you gallivant across the Multiverse.' And even if she was understanding why Sorin missed the distress call, she'd still be angry that he never visited enough to think 'Gee, I've been so busy setting up protections here, let me check up on Zen.' Seems like enough time went by between Nahiri waking up to her leaving for Sorin to pop in if he had felt like it.
I'm not reiterating the whole 'Blame Sorin b/c he's a D**K,' just saying that yeah, Nahiri's right to be angry and has some pent up aggression that's just barely contained at this point. From the story:
--Perhaps she had been cocooned long enough and she was ready to emerge into a new life, like a fully grown geopede. Perhaps the taste of bitter memory—of wistful longing, and especially of passionate rage—had awakened her from her centuries-long slumber and sparked her into a new wakefulness. In any event, she wanted to finish this so she could set out on her life's next step, whatever it might be.--
Thanks for the title. I've searched for that article about half an hour. IT also sais that Nahiri was inside a cocoon of stone in the bedrock of Zendikar for millenia so she was definitly not trapped in the Helvault.
Those events took place before she left to find Sorin. They don't invalidate the possibility that she was trapped in the Helvault afterwards, and the current story makes a point of stating that she wasn't able to manipulate it (thus wouldn't be able to simply crack it open and escape, like her own stone cocoon).
Something that hadn't occurred to me until now; if Nahiri was only recently able to return to Zendikar (such as if she'd been trapped in the Helvault) and so arrived after the titans were already released, she may not be trying to feed Innistrad to the Eldrazi solely out of spite. This could also be her plan to save Zendikar.
Not sure if it's been brought up before, but in Drana's UR when she drank the Eldrazi's essence she got the feeling that the Eldrazi were "supposed to be there and not here". Wonder if that's Nahiri trying to lure them away with the cryptoliths.
I think Drana's quote is more likely referring to the Blind Eternities, not physically manifest on a plane. In their natural state Eldrazi don't have physical forms. They only do on Zendikar because they were forced into it so that they could be bound.
Building off Dire Wombat's speculation, it's entirely possible that this might have been Nahiri's plan to both save Zendikar (not knowing that Ulamog and Kozilek were destroyed), and punish Sorin all at once. This forces Sorin to uphold his promise to contain the Eldrazi, because this time it's HIS plane getting destroyed.
It's implied that whatever Sorin did when creating Avacyn/the Helvault/whatever somehow interferes with inter-planar magics (hence why he never heard her call for help), so she'd need those protections undone. The cryptoliths and the Drownyard could essentially be a giant magnet/grapple designed to drag the Eldrazi across the Blind Eternities to Innistrad.
He's not exactly a douche for missing her call. He set up several planar wards, and was severely weakened from his recent Apollo mission. He was a douche for brushing off Nahiri's request with a "Oh well, your home plane just nearly got eaten, but since you handled it easy-peasy, I'll just blow that promise I made because it is no longer directly tied to my best interests."
Basically. All he had to do was say, "Allow me to recover and we can pop over and double check the network."
Nahiri had already contained the threat. It wouldn't have taken long for him to just give the system a quick once-over and maybe throw her a pat on the head and a "Good job, young one." and been on his way.
I'm not forgiving Nahiri's current actions, or even justifying them. But Sorin's also at fault here.
There's absolutely no evidence that Nahirir made any threats against Innistrad. That was all Sorin's mind working itself up. The ONLY thing that Nahirir did was attempt to force Sorin to come back to Zendikar with her, and defend herself when Avacyn attacked her. She made no threats against the plane, no ultimatums. Merely a "You're going to fulfill your promise if I have to drag you back to Zendikar kicking and screaming."
That's HARDLY "flying off the handle." Did she overreact? Sure. But Sorin did absolutely nothing to remedy that. Made no explainations or apologies, and treated her and the threat against her plane with disregard. He exacerbated the situation, and then Avacyn's untimely arrival just made it even worse.
The story ends at that point, so we can't say for certain what happened after Sorin disarmed Nahirir, but I think it's pretty obvious that he yet again didn't take the opportunity to DIFFUSE the situation at all.
I have no problem on seeing why Nahiri is upset with sorin for not keeping up the deal. When looking at this from an outside view i see Nahiri reseal the Eldrazi on her own. Which was not the plan at all and she should be angry with that. However, my problem is that if she does indeed blame Sorin that she leaves Zendikar to go after him. So after Oath of the Gatwatch lets say Jace finds Nahiri on Innistrad just ******* up the whole plane. Jace says to Nahiri "Hey the Eldrazi were released and your home plane was practically destroyed. We really coulda used your help with that you know." And she would be like "OH NO! i had no idea they were out again!" but Sorin is in the exact same court. He had no idea they were almost free so how could he have known to go to Zendikar? So how can Nahiri blame Sorin so harshly for something that her herself is now guilty of? Except Sorin was busy trying to save his home plane and Nahiri is busy trying to destroy it...
This of course is assuming that she was free to return to Zendikar and simply chose not to.
If, as many people speculate, Nahiri was trapped in the Helvault (either knowingly by Sorin, or some time later by Avacyn) then she wouldn't have been capable of returning until after the Eldrazi were released. At that point, in her now much weakened "newwalker" state she'd have seen the Eldrazi raging across Zendikar with no sign of Ugin (whether she knew he was dead or not, who knows), and no sign of Sorin (because he'd already washed his hands of the whole mess by that point, thank you very much, Nissa), seen it as a lost cause (because if it took three oldwalkers to seal them the first time, and all of her strength as an oldwalker to reseal them the second time, how could she possibly stop them in her current state?) and left to repay Sorin for his perceived wrongs.
Yeah, the timing just works out perfectly to explain her rage and desire to wreck Innistrad. First, she's trapped for an incredible amount of time which is already enough to make anyone hate Sorin with a white-hot fury, and finally she's set free. Finally, I'm out! OMG, I need to get back to Zendikar, I need to check on the Eldrazi. Ahhh!!! NO, they are out and destroying my world! I could have prevented this if I wasn't trapped! I can't save Zendikar! I'm dead inside, nothing matters. This is Sorin's fault, he must pay. I'll do everything I can to destroy his home. Oh hey, Emrakul, sup. Here, lemme lure you into this plane....
I could see it playing out that way.
It would also explain how she's still ALIVE over a century after she'd have lost her immortality. (Though they've fudged that up in the past with characters like Venser and his mysterious agelessness, so who's to say they ever bother explaining it.)
I believe, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, that the only requirements for possibly possessing a Planeswalker spark is to be a natural born member of a sapient species. No artificial life forms, this typically includes artifact creatures*, Angels, Demons** and/or Elementals, and possibly others that I can't think of off the top of my head.
Djinn are obviously sapient, which just leaves the question as to whether or not they procreate. This could well vary between planes, and honestly I have no idea if Tarkir's Djinn do or not.
*Karn being the exception, and even his Spark was originally from a natural source.
**Ob Nixilis may look like a demon, but he is/was originally a human.
I have no problem on seeing why Nahiri is upset with sorin for not keeping up the deal. When looking at this from an outside view i see Nahiri reseal the Eldrazi on her own. Which was not the plan at all and she should be angry with that. However, my problem is that if she does indeed blame Sorin that she leaves Zendikar to go after him. So after Oath of the Gatwatch lets say Jace finds Nahiri on Innistrad just ******* up the whole plane. Jace says to Nahiri "Hey the Eldrazi were released and your home plane was practically destroyed. We really coulda used your help with that you know." And she would be like "OH NO! i had no idea they were out again!" but Sorin is in the exact same court. He had no idea they were almost free so how could he have known to go to Zendikar? So how can Nahiri blame Sorin so harshly for something that her herself is now guilty of? Except Sorin was busy trying to save his home plane and Nahiri is busy trying to destroy it...
This of course is assuming that she was free to return to Zendikar and simply chose not to.
If, as many people speculate, Nahiri was trapped in the Helvault (either knowingly by Sorin, or some time later by Avacyn) then she wouldn't have been capable of returning until after the Eldrazi were released. At that point, in her now much weakened "newwalker" state she'd have seen the Eldrazi raging across Zendikar with no sign of Ugin (whether she knew he was dead or not, who knows), and no sign of Sorin (because he'd already washed his hands of the whole mess by that point, thank you very much, Nissa), seen it as a lost cause (because if it took three oldwalkers to seal them the first time, and all of her strength as an oldwalker to reseal them the second time, how could she possibly stop them in her current state?) and left to repay Sorin for his perceived wrongs.
Also you must keep in mind that Sorin was Nahiri's mentor, and she's seeing him in possibly a new and very unflattering light here. She almost certainly trusted and believed in him. Looked up to him even, and here he is essentially treating her and the potential doom of her plane with casual disregard.
From her point of view, she helped him quite possibly condemn her entire plane to death, and all the while he's been off strengthening the protections of his own. Was he just using her? Has he possibly been using her all along? It's something that shakes the very core of a person, forces them to question their own beliefs, and when people are confronted with things that compromise their beliefs it's natural for them to lash out in anger. I'm not saying it's acceptable but it's certainly understandable, and rather than make any effort to diffuse the situation, Sorin continued to act dismissively.
Now, obviously (possibly) attempting to destroy Innistrad (eye for an eye) is a massive, MASSIVE overreaction and can't really be justified. But then it's not something that doesn't fit millennia old planeswalkers.
Well, Nahiri IS conveniently focusing huge amounts of Innistrad's mana at a central point... All it would take is for someone to come along and hijack that...
Then they'll be right back in the same position.
*Correct me if I'm unaware of the guildpact somehow extending his lifespan.
Well, apparently her name, Saheeli Rai, means "friend of the king" which to me implies she'll be pro-establishment (at least at the start), putting her opposed to Chandra's anti-establishment.
So, baseless speculation time.
Saheeli Rai's name meaning "friend of the king" implies to me that she'll be pro-establishment, putting her opposite our friendly neighborhood pyromancer as a potential antagonist. Though of course a heel-face-turn is always a possibility.
As I said, baseless speculation.
That said, I appreciate a good pun, and I like that I can use it tongue in cheek whenever Jace's near omnipresence starts to grate on me. (Again, not necessarily because I dont like Jace, just that there are many other characters I'd like to know more about instead.)
Voted in the minority. Jacetus league is cool, but I can understand why some people might not like it.
Edit to add: regardless of your feelings on Jacetus League, Gatewatch is bland and ill fitting imo. Gatewatch is fitting for a Ravnican organization. Not a multiplanar alliance.
She never actually threw stones at him. In fact she never threw any stones, and never attacked Sorin at all. She lifted the stones as a show of power, pulled her sword out of one of them, and demanded that he fulfill his promise. Then he spat.
The only people who fought at all were Nahiri and Avacyn, and it was Avacyn who attacked first. Sorin's only involvement with the actual fight was to parry Nahiri's sword (which was again, directed at Avacyn, not him) and disarm her.
Those events took place before she left to find Sorin. They don't invalidate the possibility that she was trapped in the Helvault afterwards, and the current story makes a point of stating that she wasn't able to manipulate it (thus wouldn't be able to simply crack it open and escape, like her own stone cocoon).
I think Drana's quote is more likely referring to the Blind Eternities, not physically manifest on a plane. In their natural state Eldrazi don't have physical forms. They only do on Zendikar because they were forced into it so that they could be bound.
Building off Dire Wombat's speculation, it's entirely possible that this might have been Nahiri's plan to both save Zendikar (not knowing that Ulamog and Kozilek were destroyed), and punish Sorin all at once. This forces Sorin to uphold his promise to contain the Eldrazi, because this time it's HIS plane getting destroyed.
It's implied that whatever Sorin did when creating Avacyn/the Helvault/whatever somehow interferes with inter-planar magics (hence why he never heard her call for help), so she'd need those protections undone. The cryptoliths and the Drownyard could essentially be a giant magnet/grapple designed to drag the Eldrazi across the Blind Eternities to Innistrad.
Basically. All he had to do was say, "Allow me to recover and we can pop over and double check the network."
Nahiri had already contained the threat. It wouldn't have taken long for him to just give the system a quick once-over and maybe throw her a pat on the head and a "Good job, young one." and been on his way.
I'm not forgiving Nahiri's current actions, or even justifying them. But Sorin's also at fault here.
There's absolutely no evidence that Nahirir made any threats against Innistrad. That was all Sorin's mind working itself up. The ONLY thing that Nahirir did was attempt to force Sorin to come back to Zendikar with her, and defend herself when Avacyn attacked her. She made no threats against the plane, no ultimatums. Merely a "You're going to fulfill your promise if I have to drag you back to Zendikar kicking and screaming."
That's HARDLY "flying off the handle." Did she overreact? Sure. But Sorin did absolutely nothing to remedy that. Made no explainations or apologies, and treated her and the threat against her plane with disregard. He exacerbated the situation, and then Avacyn's untimely arrival just made it even worse.
The story ends at that point, so we can't say for certain what happened after Sorin disarmed Nahirir, but I think it's pretty obvious that he yet again didn't take the opportunity to DIFFUSE the situation at all.
It would also explain how she's still ALIVE over a century after she'd have lost her immortality. (Though they've fudged that up in the past with characters like Venser and his mysterious agelessness, so who's to say they ever bother explaining it.)
Djinn are obviously sapient, which just leaves the question as to whether or not they procreate. This could well vary between planes, and honestly I have no idea if Tarkir's Djinn do or not.
*Karn being the exception, and even his Spark was originally from a natural source.
**Ob Nixilis may look like a demon, but he is/was originally a human.
This of course is assuming that she was free to return to Zendikar and simply chose not to.
If, as many people speculate, Nahiri was trapped in the Helvault (either knowingly by Sorin, or some time later by Avacyn) then she wouldn't have been capable of returning until after the Eldrazi were released. At that point, in her now much weakened "newwalker" state she'd have seen the Eldrazi raging across Zendikar with no sign of Ugin (whether she knew he was dead or not, who knows), and no sign of Sorin (because he'd already washed his hands of the whole mess by that point, thank you very much, Nissa), seen it as a lost cause (because if it took three oldwalkers to seal them the first time, and all of her strength as an oldwalker to reseal them the second time, how could she possibly stop them in her current state?) and left to repay Sorin for his perceived wrongs.
From her point of view, she helped him quite possibly condemn her entire plane to death, and all the while he's been off strengthening the protections of his own. Was he just using her? Has he possibly been using her all along? It's something that shakes the very core of a person, forces them to question their own beliefs, and when people are confronted with things that compromise their beliefs it's natural for them to lash out in anger. I'm not saying it's acceptable but it's certainly understandable, and rather than make any effort to diffuse the situation, Sorin continued to act dismissively.
Now, obviously (possibly) attempting to destroy Innistrad (eye for an eye) is a massive, MASSIVE overreaction and can't really be justified. But then it's not something that doesn't fit millennia old planeswalkers.