The History and Future of Blackness in Magic | Feat. Amanda Stevens
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- Why not watch another whilst you're here? • The Forgotten BRILLIAN...
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Massive thank you to Amanda Stevens for her wonderful insight. You can find her at the links below!
Website: www.amandastevens.org/
Twitter: / amandatnstevens
Articles: commandersherald.com/author/a...
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:50 - 1993: Mirage
00:09:36 - Magic's Drought of Blackness
00:14:53 - Let's Talk About Problematic Cards
00:23:33 - Black Planeswalkers
00:32:43 - Why Does Representation Matter?
00:38:40 - 2000: Invasion
00:42:29 - Now & The Future
00:52:54 - The Limits of Represenation
00:58:20 - Conclusion
~Tags~
Magic the Gathering, MTG, Magic the Gathering Story, Magic the Gathering Lore, MTG Story, MTG Lore, MTG Blackness, Black Characters Fantasy, Black Characters Scifi, Blackness, MTG Racism, Magic the Gathering Racism, Teferi Lore, Brothers War Lore, I'm afraid Timmy doesn't feel well today Miss Bullsworth at least I assume he doesn't seeing as we haven't fished him out of that sulfer cave yet, Urza Lore - Hry
![I gave every Magic: the Gathering Planeswalker a Fursona [CC]｜Spice8rack](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YCVTlCIDqls/mqdefault.jpg)
Vorthos: "Since Zhalfir was fully phased out of the multiverse before the Mending, we could have some pre-Mending Planeswalkers appearing!"
WOTC: "...huh...wow, that's way better than what I was thinking of"
"What were you thinking of?"
"Well, now I'm embarrassed to say..."
RIGHT?? What a BRILLIANT narrative idea!
Im actually pumped if thay does end up happening.
Maybe that's our next big villain after they beat back the phyrexians? You get one premending Planeswalker with godlike powers that just goes wild and the gatewatch have to shut him down. Honestly I would be super down for that just because it's new and not reusing the same villains and story plots over and over.
@@C._Bradford Sounds like Nicol Bolas pre mending haha
That segment of the video was heartbreaking because I was just sitting there thinking, "but they aren´t gonna do that are they?"
41:52 Urza's plan relies on the legacy weapon, especially Gerard and the "legacy bloodline"; he relied on a specially-bred species of supersoldiers; and he needed the nine titans. That last part absolutely involved killing the other eight planeswalkers to harness their sparks (it's why he brought Tevish Szat along!)
So Urza's plan was "let's use eugenics, slavery, and exploitation to fight the bad guys" and Phyrexia was kinda like "Dude we're torturing the wrong brother"
And Urza agreed as he refused to nuke phyrexia because he though they were actually pretty cool
Get in the F**king robot, Tefeiri !
Regarding 9:09 "Ixalan takes place essentially in all of Ixalan" however Ixalan is only one of the continents of the plane of Ixalan, the Legion of Dusk come from another continent that is not featured in the set called Torrezon.
I am aware of the greater point that most sets don't focus on a single region and deal with the plane too broadly and I agree with it, it is just unfortunate that Ixalan was used as an example.
Aye! I was supposed to put an edit in to clarify that exact point after that was said but forgot to do so! That's on me, my apologies
@@Spice8Rack we also had strixhaven where the entire story happened on the grounds of not-Hogwarts(TM)
Ravnica's stories takes place largely in the tenth district, no? It's supposed to be a planewide city, right, like Coruscant from star wars?
@@eggsburst789 That is correct, Ravnica's story doesn't particularly use the rest of the ecumenopolis
Also, battlebond is set exclusively in the arena, we never see any other multiple other countries that commune at the arena
*tongue in cheek*
Obviously magic's lack of representation is Teferi's fault. He blinked away a huge chunk of the black characters that could show up on cards.
And people are still trying to kill him for it
@@duane6386 The dude is fucking with us in lore and in game. I take great pleasure in killing him on sight
WotC still has a lot of work to do here. Fun fact, RtR's only black person was a token. Literal tokenism.
I knew that fact but also wasn't sure if it was a fever dream
@@SageGnosis they did put a cool reference to her and Precinct Captain on the card Spirit Bonds, but that doesn't really excuse it.
Wow. Literal tokenism? Jeez
Oh muh godzez! Do better WoTC!
Fun Fact: the majority of black people on Ravnica are part of the Boros guild, which was in Gatecrash, not RTR.
Also one of the guys on Azor's Elecutors is half black.
Aminatou is fantastic, the problem they've said they have is they made her too powerful. Would love to see more of her but its tricky. Her whole thing is she can control and manipulate fate, and push people towards certain fates. She saw herself becoming a planeswalker in one possible future and decided to just make it happen now. There was this brilliant fan art someone did of her surrounded by a bunch of her possible futures.
She was teased to be in the next arc of the alternate continuity Boom comics, so there's a good chance that she'll be in the next few issues.
I'm hoping Aminatou shows up in a future part of the story as being partly responsible for fishing Teferi to wherever he currently is. Millenia spanning time travel would logically come up on the radar of someone who manipulates fate.
I think there was a mention of Bolas deliberately not bringing her to Ravnica for War of the Spark, which should tell you how op that character is.
I think she could work as a possible wild card. Someone that can see and change fate probably wouldn't want to be tied down to what the main cast is doing. She could be in a set just learning/ interacting with the inhabitants. Perhaps the current "bad" has a lot of good people and Aminatou is forced to act or play referee.
God you have no idea how much I want Aminatou to make more appearances in the story. Her character design and powers are exactly my deal. I was so psyched to see her show up on Preordain for jumpstart, but please, I'm begging you WotC, give me a playable version of her! Seb McKinnon's glorious rendition of Aminatou is trapped on a build-around commander with a really weak ultimate.
Minor correction: Ixalan was very specifically NOT about an entire plane, and was instead based on a specific continent.
I'll also say that Kaladesh and Strixhaven were similar in that they both focused on a single location.
Strixhaven is a small plane restricted to the school grounds pretty much
@@twi1ightknight Strixhaven is located on the decently-sized plane of Arcavios. There's a map if you google it. The school takes up less than 3% of its local continent, and there's another whole continent to the south that's unmapped
@@Stonewren I think part of this ends up stemming from the ditching of blocks as well. Every new plane gets a single fly-by set that immediately gets thrown to the side for the next one.
Ixalan is debatable in that the rest of the plane outside of the Ixalan sub continent is said to have been lost/conquered by vampire conquistadors and everyone is migrating to Ixalan because there's nothing left.
While Ixalan isn't about the whole plane, it does kind of feel like every main faction of the plane is converging on this one place. It ends up kind of having the same thing happens where the scale is way bigger than it was in a block like Mirage
Re: Vivien, she feels like a character designed specifically as a safe Nissa replacement without nearly as much of the character development (shoehorning in the Bolas vendetta to give her some purpose and leave the door open to showing her now-dead world if WotC wants to pile on extra drama). Nissa's past as a reformed Elf Nazi, her romantic interest in Chandra, and being yet another white-presenting character on the Gatewatch all combine to a perfect storm of setting her aside, and Vivien has absolutely felt like she's up for the mono-green spot. Any recent role she's had in the story could've been filled by anyone, but makes even more sense if you imagine Nissa in the spot instead. I'm hoping we get more interesting things done with her in the future as I don't think we're seeing her go away anytime soon.
I agree with her taking that role up until New Capenna. I feel as though that PI role is the first time she strongly diverged from Nissa in characterization
@@abeesknee8306 Yeah, I’m hoping that divergence from Generic Green Walker in the New Capenna story is the signal of her unique storytelling coming into existence, because she does have potential! I’m happy to see her supplant Nissa if we have another developed character due to it.
I overall like Viven aesthetically and mechanically a lot more than Nissa but everytime I see her I can't help but think that WOTC pressed the "UNGAY" button because of China and that just makes me :/
I think that they have given Vivien a kind of character recently; that she's a Tourist. That's what she was doing before the Plot happened in SNC, and that's what happened in Ikoria.
Pretty much this. And what bothers me the most about Vivien is that without the Arkbow she seems to be utterly useless (?) while every other planeswalker is shown to be able to fight/do something by themselves...
And given her recent involvment with Urabrask and her atitude in Ikoria, I'm pretty certain that she'll shelter Urabrask/be responsible for the Phyrexians not being fully defeated once the War against Phyrexia II ends.
In the Phyrexian Invasion book I read Teferi noped Jammura out of existence. Then Urza went to Shiv to get the Mana forges ready to pump out mana crystals, but Jhoira said "hold up a minute." Then Teferi popped out of the closet started noping Shiv out, and Jhoira programmed one remote backup pod from one reactor to detach from the rest of the forge and walk on giant metal spider legs outside of the borders of Shiv. Then Urza is left staring at the one reactor/forge starter kit and the two continent sized craters left from where his two best students stole half the military might of the world.
I love that whenever you have a guest over to talk about an Important Topic, you're always so respectful with your questions and listening, but as soon as the topic shifts off of meaningful stuff you're very quick with a joke. Love that no matter the video, I can learn about real things through this card game. Great vid as always!
@Always On It "say you're white and also probably scream about wokeness without telling me you're white and probably scream about wokeness"
Genuinely, people like you need to take *several* seats. When people who are affected by a topic TELL you said topic is important, you don't get to say 'um ackshually' like some brain rotted mongoose who's only coherent thought of the last 2 months was that chocolate is kinda nice.
As much as I'd like to agree that Ixalan showed the whole plane, it was entirely centered on the continent of Ixalan on the plane we call Ixalan because the set was called Ixalan since it was on the continent of Ixalan. But! If we include the Jace lands, it also takes place on Useless Island.
High and Dry was really just mentioned, even though the story actually used it as a set piece, and we still know little of the homeland of our evil, spanish vampires aside from Vona's backstory and Vivien's story debut.
On top of representation, I want to see consistency of characters' faces and such. The most consistent is Jace, but they already named a font after him with his big disguise in SOI being an EXTRA leather jacket ON TOP OF the cloak he lives in (separate issue, I know).
In more fantasy representation, I want to see other fantasy races on just a single planeswalker card. Yes, we have Daretti and Baan and Angrath and a healthy amount of catboys, but there are other races. I'm surprised we've gone so far without either a single aven or ainok (I want to see a naga personally) . These characters also have skin colors and can be of any race in conjunction depending on iteration. There could easily be a black centaur from somewhere familiar or new. Where the fuck are the black dwarves in Kaladesh, WOTC?
There's no kithkin planeswalker. No. 1 reason to return to Llorwyn.
The consistency is a real problem. The one I noticed the most which I am surprised they didn't talk about is in fact Teferi. I noticed because one of his arts looks VERY similar to Eddie Murphy, and none of the others do. Literally the only consistency there is black, bald, and a dude, but it looks like a different guy every time.
@veggiedragon1000 i dont think this particular detail is gonna be fixable because each set has a different design team and they rarely bring back character artists for (essentially) side characters....we dont even have consistent artists returnjng for lilly and she is a hugely central character to the largest storyline
I agree with the overall points of the video, but some of Amanda’s examples are brought up in bad faith. For example, the flavor text on “Reparations.” 17:26 She says “Is it satire if it’s really what happens?” Yes, that is what satire is. It breaks down an event, place, or person to it’s ridiculous extreme. “Sorry I burned down your village, here’s some gold” perfectly encapsulates the attitude of colonizers in many contexts, and that quote highlights how ridiculous the sentiment is. Also, just because something is offensive doesn’t mean it isn’t a joke. Even if you don’t think it’s funny (which I agree with), doesn’t mean it isn’t a joke by definition.
Amanda started this video with a fight and I'm now hyped for the resr of it
I hope it was uphill from there
I can't believe you guys talked about disabled characters in magic and forgot to mention my main man DARETTI
Literally playing ffxiv when she started talking about the characters being great and I just wanted to say that she is correct
Not to detract from your point about Chandra but she's not supposed to be Middle Eastern, she's supposed to be Asian.
India, even the Punjab, isn't the Middle East. Afghanistan isn't the Middle East. There are parts of Hungary closer to the Arabian desert than India.
Me likey the pedantics (not sarcasam. I legit find this fact interesting)
Go to Jamuura, Zalfir phases back in, and we visit it through the eyes of specifically Tezzeret, Saheeli Rai and Kaito Shizuki. One from each technologically advanced plane to contrast.
Post Realmbreaker shenanigans? I don't think those three planeswalkers are currently on good terms at the moment.
I would absolutely love to have a proper magic set set in Jamuraa because with Dominaria being so big and diverse you don't get the little intricacies with how the general population see things, their clothing style and the architecture. And the artstyle for the Mirage set was something different and I would like to see that different kind of art style come back.
18:13 It seems to me like the satire is that colonialists are so stupid that they think the flavor text is unironically acceptable.
fuck, this is a good comment
The joke could be the absurdity of them even saying sorry. A lot of colonialists never apologized, and plenty had the gaul to say they oughta be thanked for all the murder and pillaging.
I love the Mirage block so much; I constantly wish we'd get a remastered version of it. But alas; the reserve list keeps this beautiful set away from the public.
Worth mentioning the Kamigawa Nezumi reflect the Burakumin, an oppressed minority in Japan. Like, as in its still socially acceptable in many circles to hate them openly.
That said, though there’s references to how messed up it is, the overall tone is still that nobody cares about them. Like, the Wandering Emperor didn’t start caring. Nashi is still relevant only by his adoption to a rich (definitely Han-descended) person.
The Kamigawa rats are literally living in slums because its okay to hate them, which forces them into gangs and ninja schools and that’s just kinda cool with everyone.
I always default to not speaking about cultures that are not directly mine
Minute 12 super got to me as a latino who was ultra excited for Ixalan. I was hyped for latino rep and instead we got pirates, vampires, merfolk, and a bunch of legendary dinos.
Viejo, mtg es mas fantasías antigua, ixalan tenía mucho de mesoamericana y la conquista española, no esperes cosas latinas premodenas en mtg(no digo que sea imposible, pero sería difícil, sólo mira el nuevo kamigawa
huh...
if there were a video on "latinoness" in mtg itd probably be a white frame with "lol" in the center.
ouch.
Me too. As a latino of Hopi descent I was all hyped. Nope. But hey we have… Dino girl?
I felt that. It seemed more than happy to take imagery/garb from Aztec, Incan and Mayan culture but did piss all for actually presenting any indigenous or Latino characters. Like pretty much Urban Outfitters but mtg. And I don't think Huatli counts.
@@aa-tx7th latinos*
These style of videos, where Spice basically just hands It's platform over to someone else (in this instance, Amanda) and sits there as a sounding board/clarifier for the duration, are some of my favourite videos because it really signal boosts things that should be discussed by the people who have been directly affected by it to a wider audience. Thanks for making this a semi-regular thing on your channel Spice 💛
Also to Amanda if you're reading this, you're an inspiration and an icon.
But simic needs to get in the bin
What a lovely comment that's also so completely correct about the correct placement of Simic
This is such an incredibly kind thing of you to say....minus the Simic slander
My Simic and Spike bois will not stand for this slander! 🐌🐌🐌
On the topic of disabled characters I would like to point out that Daretti is a wheel chair user, Elspeth has PTSD, Narset is typcially considered to be ND, Freyalise wears an eyepatch, even Urza used powerstones as prosthetic eyes. I'm not trying to refute what Amanda was saying but I do love pointing out disabiled representation when possible
Just needed Will Kenrith (amputee) and Teysa Karlov (congenital hip defect), I think : )
@@Ceil420 oh neat! i was wondering why spice & amanda showed an image of teysa when mentioning disability!
I love daretti so much
Cause ya know he probably spends 99% of his time adding horsepower and random scrap tools to his chair
@@Ceil420 Wait, when did Will get his arm cut off?! If that happened, I totally forgot about it.
@@TheAwakeOrangutanghis leg, at the end of Strixhaven, from sort of a last swing by the Blood Avatar after they beat Extus.
(Latin person here) I think the issue I saw with alot of the middle of this discussion was a huge line in the sand of, you're either 100% under represented in magic and media and need to be angry, or are a white person. and how you framed that puts alot of comments in two boxes real quick, and can be used to disregard other view points. As a Latin person we have conquistadors vampires and that's about it, but I still relate to other characters, and stories in my own way. as far as media I watch anime, and I assure you there aren't a lot of Latin characters but I still connect with the stories and personalities of the characters I watch. All to say, please don't straw man the comments, and frame any criticism or other opinion as "just the white people", discussions are great. Thanks for the great video
We were quite literally referring to a large swarth of people telling me I was wrong about sex being a social construct and not real in our previous video on Trans representation. We did not straw man the comments and have been actually engaging with the comments quite fairly so far. I am glad as a Latin person you are 100% okay with the lack of representation and identify with other characters. That's cool. Your experience is an anecdote and doesnt change the fact that across all marginalized groups representation is bad in Magic and there are a plethora of studies that talk about lack of representation causes disengagement with media.
As a fellow black magic fan I want to say that the finer details of Amanda's points I don't fully agree with but the broad strokes sum up my major issues so I'm glad she was allowed to speak.
In specific I don't think Koth is a piccolo situation but rather a different issue. We get so few black characters and so few non-human characters Koth being non-human is weird. It can be a bit dehumanizing especially when like his personality can sometimes drift into stereotyping. I still love him but he's best in a franchise where there is a plethora of black characters that aren't just stereotypes or nothing burgers and that isn't Magic.
I mean this sincerely but I don't speak as a monolith. What I mean by this is that I work in DEI and gaming (especially Magic) and so when Spice wants to do videos like this and our Trans video, I am most speaking with two lenses:
1) the work that I do
2) My thoughts & experiences as a nerd
Nothing I say is to be fact. I am just another nerd sharing her thoughts.
I can see where you are coming from with Koth. But I can not express fully how many people have told me Koth is Black & how exhausting that was considering where Magic was with representation sat the time. And the few Black fans I knew who claimed him as Black mostly did it as "well, who else we got?" perspective. That was the angle I was speaking from
@@SageGnosis I understand where you're coming from and no harm done. 👍🏾
Didn't they agree that Koth is human? It just seems like the people behind the lore were tone deaf, which I think happens a lot in media representations (disney, dc, and marvel come to mind). If they had made his mirrodin bits with a different rock or metal it would not only look better but also avoid the issues mentioned in the video.
Koth is a difficult one and a lot of the points brought up in this are things I never would have considered. Given the lore of Mirrodin/Argentum having no native humans him and the vulshok could have black ancestry who were brought to the plane, and then developed the metal/stone growths that people do there, though then that leads into the issues brought up anyway and that where's the line with human/rock man.
Even for people who do see him as black representation, its been a 12 years since we have seen him. The other walkers from that block, 3 white people and a machine man, 1 died and the rest have had a lot of cards.
I think a big problem with representation and planeswalkers that's leading to the small card pool and token-ism is how WotC deals with new walkers. They fill a color need for a set, and then WotC keeps them in their back pocket until they have a design hole to fill after the rest of the set is centered around the Whiter legacy walkers. I remember seeing Vivien on New Capenna, and thinking, "You need a character to slink around in a leather coat gathering information, and Kaya is where, exactly?" I think the set was designed around Elspeth and Ob, so Viven was slotted in after the fact for color balance without much thought. She got the same treatment on Ikoria. Kaya went hunting on Kaldheim in Vivien's place so we could have Tibalt and a GB elf walker, and Nico Ares, who reads as mono-red from the story, ended up crammed into UW with Narset and Teferi, so we probably won't see them for a bit. I don't want to see a return to the Jace-tice League, where we see the same 5 characters every set, but establishing a norm where they start with minority characters and then choose accompanying side characters from your Lilianas and Jaces could help. WotC showed they were willing to do exactly that with Liliana and Garruk both taking backseat roles to Will and Rowan, who are out here repping for... stepchildren?
Exactly this. Wizards designs a game and characters are an afterthought, which might be fine, but it's clear that black characters are more of an afterthought (as they often are in media, so characters in general taking a backseat to gameplay needs compounds this problem even further) so what we get are tokenist plot devices that either fill a very surface level function in the story and are simply there to fulfil a 1 dimensional role OR they fill NO FUNCTION in the story and are there for pure mechanics and gameplay balance.
Im a simple man, I see a discussion of blackness in TCG space, I like.
Let's GOOOO I can't wait to watch this new episode!!!!!
I love linden so much. Not only in the lore is she a badass, but she even gave up on her quests to be a badass Queen mom.
With all due respect to M*** vs D******, this is the one I’ve been waiting for. I’m a Black person who’s about the same age as Amanda (old lol) and started playing in Urza’s block. Disruptive Student - amongst other cards - always stuck in my craw…I stopped playing just as Odyssey came out but have come back to the game in the last year or so, not least thanks to finding your videos. Amanda said it all really, but the difference is astonishing. There is still a long ass way to go. But hey, at least it’s being acknowledged by Wizards.
This video means a lot. Thank you.
Yess! It could be so cool to see Zhalfir dramatically phase back in, kinda as Rath did for the Phyrexians in the first war!
Wish granted Ig
In regards to the fact that Dominaria is really the only plane where we've had sets that are about a specific continent instead of "the whole plane", I wish they would do that more. So many planes end up feeling like the "planet of hats" trope. Ya got yer city plane, Egypt plane, Gangster plane, Japanese plane, etc. Dominaria actually feels like a fleshed out world because it has so many different biomes and cultures. Its funny you mentioned Ixalan while listing "whole plane" sets, because ironically, it didn't really span the whole plane, just one island. We hear about another continent on the plane (where the inquisitor vampires come from), but we never really see it. A return to Ixalan could feasibly go there and start fleshing out the plane a bit more. Zendikar also feels like a plane that could potentially do that. Fleshing out planes by focusing on different regions of them is not only a good opportunity for better representation, it just makes the world feel more rich and real. I hope they do that, instead of what they've been doing with Ravnica, just rehashing the same hat planet over and over.
My dumbass before watching the video: "... but teferi is a UW card?"
Okay - I almost spit out my drink
🤣
Love having Amanda on the channel. Her takes on simic always get me hyped
While I do agree that the representation in card art has been improving and hope that trend continues, the cultural representation is very much a mixed bag. Basically, sets from places that are more ingrained in American popculture get it more and better. Kamigawa and Kaldheim got to feel way more Japanese and Nordic than Kaladesh, Amonket, and Ixalan got to feel Indian, Egyptian, and South American. The card names are so much more plain in these less "well-known" settings. Kaldheim was chock-full of Alrund's this, Axgard's that, where was that in Kaladesh? I guess we want "but not too foreign"?
As a Central Eastern European, I find this especially egregious in the case of Ravnica. Og Ravnica was full of names and folklore pulled from all over our slice of the Earth, Croatian, Polish, Hungarian, the architecture was all Prague... it was really nice to see something not in the old mold of "calling everything Russian Slavic, so that everything Slavic can be called Russian" (and of course, we're not all Slavic here). But I guess Ravnica was too much of a hit to keep these "quirky" names and references going forward, so Return of Ravnica has almost none of that and Return to Return to Ravnica likewise. Which is also my worry for the potential Mirage 2. I love Mirage, it was such an inspired block, but it was also very weird and autochthon and I'm not sure Hasbro would do that justice nowadays.
now that you mention it, that is true, yeah. as a (southern) slav, i was so excited by the fact that OG Ravnica straight up had words pulled from my mother tongue on the cards that it sparked pretty much the only conversation i ever had with my Mom about Magic.
not so much of that on returns to the plane that i can recall.
a lot of the (non-character) names in kaladesh are ironically probably the most indian thing about it, the set as a whole is not very indian. art and themes and all were very much like 5% indian, 95% filigree steampunk. them using “bandar” for monkeys (the hindi word for monkey) is the one of the best parts of the set in my eyes
Having read the Time Streams novel (the tie-in novel for Urza's Saga), seeing Teferi go from the child prodigy with behavioural issues into the man he would eventually become was one of the highlights.
I read all those books and literally the only thing I remember about Teferi is that he talked to Karn and Jhoira once, got frozen in a time bubble and did nothing for nearly an entire book, got thawed out, and then didn't show up again until the start of the Phyrexian invasion where he suddenly is a planeswalker and he and Jhoira nope two continents from existence.
Fell off the novels a third of the way through planar chaos because Teferi came off as slightly more insufferable than Urza.
And the fact he fucking stood up to urza too
Visions had some of the best art and flavor of any set in Magic ever. It'd be so cool to do more like that.
Always glad to see Amanda on a YT vid. When she speaks, you listen.
If we're gonna talk about Planeswalkers that aren't technically black but are adopted by the black community we gotta talk about Lord Windgrace, he's a black panther.
Imagine loving your people so much and having a sense of justice so strong that you just are like. "I don't want to be here anymore. You got yourself into this mess, now get out of it." And you and your homeland just are gone.
Mhm. And of note, the generals of Zhalfir were down to scrap. Teferi just wasn't about the casualty number a war with Phyrexia would bring
@@SageGnosis indeed its so crazy home much love Teferi has for his people, as Spice and Amanda said Most Planeswalkers are imortal beings detached from the world so it's so cool to see one that's so tied to who he was.
@@thegrayfox9179 Btw - I am the Amanda in the video ^^;;
@@SageGnosis ahhhhh!!!! Oh my lanta I m such a silly goof, thanks for the reply I feel so happy. Loved the video, super awesome to get a varying perspective on a really strong issue
About the prosthetics: Dominaria United has Juniper Order Rootweaver, which has a (black) woman with a prosthetic arm made of wood. I agree we could do with more disabled characters and prosthetics, but we do occasionally get some!
I'd love for you to do one of these on Mexican/Indigenous rep because of MTG returning to Ixalan on how all of THAT was handled
absolute banger of a video! I learned a lot.
And AWESOME video as always. You never cease to deliver great quality (and relevant from so so many diferent facets) content, paired with great discussion and arguments. Onwards to 100k subs!
This was a really good conversation!
Insightful video. Thanks for sharing Amanda 👍
As I'm watching this, I'm realizing that Amanda basically predicted how the March of Machines story line was going to end with Teferi showing up and kicking ass with his home in tow
What's crazy to me is how it's still so very possible we actually see pre-mending Zhalfirin planeswalkers join Teferi on New Phyrexia. This prediction is so incredibly accurate that it spooks me a little bit!
Vivian's first story was great i really like her! i thought she was the protagonist in ikoria but that story sucked so that doesn't mean much. She hasn't really felt like shes existed since her first story id love to see more of her
@25:10 Holy shit they just pulled a Last Jedi Finn move with Vivien, didn't they?
"What should we do with this foundation of a strong black character? I dunno, have them rescue some animals on a side mission or something."
sigh
Live your best life and do what you want, but can you imagine the reaction if someone said they only build commander decks that feature white characters or only male characters? That’d be seen as kinda messed up. I don’t know why a just woman commander deck or just black people one would be ok if the other isn’t. I personally don’t mind either way.
I'll just repeat what my friend Jayden said in regards to Koth being referred to as a "Black Planeswalker" in that he's more akin to a "kayfabe" of what people think is a black planeswalker. He's literally and figuratively artificial, and yes he has struggles against an oppressive class (Phyrexians), and yes he has dark skin, but that's it really.
To me (no longer speaking for my friend), there's a huge ludonarrative dissonance between what makes Koth "black" as a character (which I feel honestly was written to be at least mixed race considering he literally *is* born of two tribes) and what he does in game. His card should show more of that community and humanity that makes him so special in the story. I think him being called a "kayfabe" is extremely accurate since he has the aggression expected of a young black male in media but something you'd never know from just the cards is that he's actually very cool headed, emotionally mature guy who always wants to see the best in people (like Elspeth) and not just "Lava Spikes McGee."
TL;DR: In my humble opinion, Koth as a character is black, but as a card is unsurprisingly, disappointingly red.
I would like to know more of the deal behind some Mirran characters being from multiple tribes because I did not know the two tribe thing about Koth (I have not read Quest for Karn in a long while). Hopefully we get more of that but odds aren't great.
I love videos with Amanda! This is very exciting!!!!
Really interesting episode, Amanda is a great guest :D
I can't be the only one who saw Teferi in the thumbnail and was like "Teferi's not black, he's blue and white" and thought it was one of those clickbait incorrect thumbnail&title combos for a good few seconds.
Child Teferi tried to make Buckethead stick as a name for one of urza's creations(we can thank Jhoira for giving us Karn (old thran for Strength))
MILL VS DISCARD IVE BEEN WAITING AHHH also very good discussion very much enjoyed.
New spice8rack video makes me mucho happy
Love these videos, I'm building my own fantasy world and things like this help a lot 😊
Regarding disabled characters, the only one I can think of at the moment is Winota! If memory serves correct, she lost her right arm trying to kill the monster that she ended up bonding with, who she now travels Ikoria with, basically mentoring and advocating for bonders and their companions. Again, she's victim to the common pitfalls of not much story representation and being a single disabled character in an ocean of mostly able-bodied characters, but I just thought I'd bring her to everyone's attention - considering I didn't even know she was disabled until someone else bought it up!
Will Kenrith lost a leg at Strixhaven in the fight against the Blood Avatar. I'm less familiar with a different character, but I understand Daretti also uses a mobility aid. The nice lady with the cane they showed in the video was Teysa Karlov, who has a bad hip.
I always thought that kaya was missing (an) arm(s) because I never actually learned more about kaya than looking at her art. Turns out her body can just do that. Very disappointing. But legitimately the only other "disabled" "representation" that I can think of now that I've ruled out kaya is a joke about how jhoira must be representing the deaf community what with how close she is standing to the cannons on her most recent card art
Legit comment:
If they made a new major character/Planeswalker who was blind, would a promo card of them in Braille be a good idea, or no?
It would be rad as all hell. That's for sure. And alternate language cards are fully legal for play and have been promos before.
A true braille promo card in paper magic may nevertheless present an opportunity for cheating, with the card's identity being able to be felt without looking at it.
As a purely digital release, or by not embossing cards, there'd be no issue. Save for the fact it wouldn't actually be usable as braille anymore -_-
Might be a bit difficult production wise since one off brail pieces are hard to produce, they'd need entire machines specifically for it. BUT they're a multi million dollar company, they can afford it and it would be rad
16:48 The punchline is that it's not a fitting reporation payment for the crime commited.
The white skin is just an easy way to show he's not from there.
Hello! I love the video, it was great! Such a good conversation taking place, I myself learned a lot! So thank you for that. But there is one thing I would like to bring up, and that's the use of the term differently abled(starting at about 54 minutes in). For me, and my understanding of the rest of my community as a disabled person, I don't like the use of such a term, it makes it feel like disability is taboo to say or talk about, and is flat out wrong. We are disabled, we cant do things, we don't have the ability to fly, that's what differently abled sounds like(this also plays into inspiration porn, a large issue around the disabled community). When you use euphemisms for our community, such as special needs or differently abled, it makes it feel like you can't say disabled, or that being disabled is so shameful you have to come up with new names for it. Special needs is much worse, but I wont get into that as this is already a long comment.
Hi, as someone who works in diversity, equity, and inclusion I want to just point out that a lot of my language comes from talking to different people in the fields I do not specialize in. A lot of the people I've spoken to in the disability advocacy space go back and forth on "differently abled" because there is a lot of stigma attached to saying someone is disabled. I, personally, index towards differently abled because I have been in situations where my disabilities have been used to discount my qualifications. I'm not a monolith though. I just wanted to give my reasoning for why I use the language I do.
I love Zimone so much, I headcanon her as a sort of anime magical girl but mtg style. I play her in my simic degenerate value engine with no real wincons deck, even thought Dryad of the Ilysian Grove or other extra land cards could be better but they're not as cool, and yes! I wish she was way more impactful, like I'm hoping Liliana just goes back to Strixhaven after all this Phyrexian mess, to rest because she actually ended up enjoying teaching or maybe she developed a not great coping mechanism of escapism while living incognito there, idk but then give us a Zimone arch there.
To me, MTG(and D&D in recent years) has had a big part of its appeal rooted in its push for inclusiveness. Yeah, they haven't always done a perfect job, and holy carpe diem I hope they fired whoever approved the art for "Invoke Prejudice." But all things considered it's good that we get to have a decades-spanning conversation about the nuances of the depiction of black people in MTG. So often in elements of white culture the way people of color are included is "not included." There's no discussion to be had. Here we get to have a reasonable discussion about what was done well and what was done poorly, and that makes all of us better people.
Also Hasbro needs to chill the fork out with their money-grubbing.
Thank you for this. I needed this kind of thing to teach me more about a game I have loved for most of my conscious life. You've given me a lot to think about.
I never realized how bad consistency is in some character’s cards. I thought Basri ket was a light skinned black dude, but everything but the base 2021 planes walkers art depicts him much more middle eastern presenting
This and him being a core set character with essentially no lore is why I left him out,.
Yall forgot about Vivien, which ironically, summerizes her character really well lol
Edit: Well, I commented early I suppose!
We technically did, caught it, and made a fix
@@SageGnosis Yes I saw that. I just commented early before the section where you talk about Vivien !
Thanks, Amanda
On the topic of Magic characters with prosthetics: Will Kenrith lost his leg below the knee at the climax of the Strixhaven and replaced it with a magical ice sculpture.
Damn Kenrith twins again! 😅
I suppose I should note that this isn't shown on any cards, and it might not even show up his next card because of the framing of Planeswalker cards focusing on the waist up.
Daretti is the big other one.
Winota (not a planewalker, but powerful popular card anyways) is an arm amputee as well. Doesn't even wear a prosthesis!
Very great video. I think you gave a nice introductionary overview of Blackness in MtG and managed to explain why representation matters.
I might use this topic for one of my american studies papers in my history master. Thank you for taking the time to make this podcast/lecture like video.
Great video as usual! I shall comment for the algorithm.
It's very untrue that most MTG story telling takes place over an entire plane. Especially not lately,
Ixalan is actually a prime example, there's the whole continent the colonizer vampires are from we don't see.
Or there's Battlebond which only shows us the arena it's in, Conspiracy largely only shows us the city of Fiora and not the wilds of the plane, New Capenna is just the city of New Capenna and not any of the wasteland created by the phyrexian invasion of the plane of Capenna. Strixhaven was just the colleges of Strixhaven and not the larger plane of Arcavios. Kamigawa Neon Dynasty was largely just the city of Towashi.
We get such limited glances into these worlds, especially the newer ones. Which I like, I'm running a dnd campaign on Arcavios that started in Strichaven but when the players graduated they had to go out into the world and do things in a place I made using the aesthetics of the school and knowing that magic is highly valued on the plane.
I think the broader point was that we get very little world building that these planes are MORE than the little snippet we get to see.
holy shit I didn't even know about this phyrexian invasion of New Capenna??? I need to do some more reading clearly
@@cataposs yup it's why she has such fierce hatred for them, her first planeswalk happened when her and a childhood friend were captured and she was about to be vivisected.
It's also why she was one of the walkers Koth brought to Mirradin to help him fight the phyrexian takeover because she already knows what it means to be from a place controlled by them.
I thought Aminatou wasn’t going to be put into the main story because of her power
Something I didn't see among the top comments is the existence of Daretti, a goblin with a wheelchair/spider construct thing. I would love a more interesting mono red up to date Daretti card for everyone's gobliny goodness reasons. Also the planeswalker I related to most when I started play was Karn, the silver golem like many of us on the ASD and I think for the sake of the story he should also die, perhaps in order to save Slobad, as he was given a spark twice, so too should he give up his to save another rounding out a triplet. You can probably guess how those of us on the spectrum feel about our best representations in media being robots, automatons, and constructs.
This is excellent video. There are a few things I disagreed with but most of it brought stuff up that even I missed
I’ve been gaslit so much when bringing up disruptive student. It definitely is a tone def card.
Honestly, it reminds me of a late 19th early 20th century political cartoon, in the worst possible way.
Lemme just look that u- what the fuck? that's a straight up goblin skull shape they've drawn there
That card is horrendous in a style only old mtg cards can be ; I will point out at how much improvement the artist has had on that subject matter which you can see on his latest card, Instrument of the Bards
@@manjackson2772 so you're saying the black guy looks like a goblin
Looks like two kids to me. Bigot
Speaking of Zimone, I was excited to learn today she's reappearing on a new art reprint of Rhystic Study, appearing in Jumpstart 2022. In universe art that's not by a terf. I'll be happy to be asked if I pay the one with that facing across from me.
Hard agree! Very excited to have non terf art!
Always enjoy your stuff.
I'm pretty late getting to this video, but it's a very good one! Well done to you both.
I can't help feeling kind of weird about the Koth bit because he's very visibly a black guy? Like he's very clearly a human with dark brown skin and chunks of rock growing from his body. He's not soot black like the salamanders in 40k are and I don't think the presence of stone growths or glowing eyes take away from the fact that he's visibly a flesh person with skin. Especially when you show the different depictions of him on screen and he's clearly not like obsidian or anything.
It was a great episode
It's something Amanda was bringing up towards the end of the video, but really a big step towards having more POC and black specifically stories and characters is a move away from the gatewatch, and frankly Planeswalkers in general.
He's an example of the one black character in a block, but Agrus Kos is the protagonist of the OG Ravnica trilogy, but we don't get that kind of plane-bound character because it's gotta be Planeswalkers running around.
Zimone could have had much more of a focus if, again, the story didn't need to care about Planeswalkers, especially not the literal white skin blonde hair ones lmao.
A story like the Mirage block could happen because at the time they weren't so focused on these big, super hero events, and could do a deep dive, while a universe spanning war is the focus, there is no Jamura and Otaria, just Dominaria, and new characters will take a back seat to legacy characters doing Epic Iron Man Moments. (Though in saying that, the idea of Teferi managing to undo the time bubble and have Zhalfir appear at the last minute would be very hype)
Yes, please! I'm so sick of stories being all about random planeswalkers farting into some place they have no connection to, declaring themselves the heroes because obviously the people who are actually directly involved with the conflict can't do anything about it, then running off to do it all over again.
Planeswalkers are just glorified isekai protagonists and have all the usual associated problems.
I'm sorry but "Zalfir could have pre-mending sparked planeswalkers on it" is an idea WAY TOO good for the MTG Writers to ever think of. Please write them.
great video!
Despite being a white guy I have always identified with Teferi because I too am a formerly gifted child who grew into an adult who severely messed stuff up for myself and others, went into an aimless depression for a while, and now is trying to fix his mistakes.
so soon was waiting for next year for a vid of yours
Amanda is right!
As a teacher, the card disruptive student does bother me. The art reminds me of other art depictions of black people that felt racist, and due to that, the card itself feels racist. Now I can already hear people arguing that there are disruptive students who are black, but there are also disruptive students of all ethnicities, races, skin colors. (Not sure which of those is the term I should use, feel free to help me out). When you don't have enough representation to begin with, using negative representation feels short-sighted at best, and pretty racist at worst.
I love this
28:43 Small corection, Teferi was in Crimison Vow.
Oh and about Vivien, the official reason given to why she was created, is because Core set 2019 had a cycle of Planeswalkers somehow related to Bolas past, and there existed no green walker that fit that criteria.
EDIT: just saw that it was corrected in the following graph (28:57)
Teferi was not in Crimson Vow... both of the graphs correctly represent sets that feature a Teferi Card
@@800mls Yes, both correctly show sets in which he had a card (in red), but the graphs are also marking sets he doesnt have a card but is still present (in blue).
Open to the floor, I'm curious as to what tweaks could be done for Teferi and Kaya to help them kind of break the mold? Like, I write a lot of MtG fanfic with a specific mentality of trying to be better than the canon, and would be very interested to know how these characters could be improved as regards defying stereotypes!
Teferi unfortunately kinda falls into the "wise mystic shaman" stereotype, even though he does lean away from in some aspects. It might be nice to expand on his personality besides his time bending abilities, maybe a fanfic about *just* him spending time with his family?
Kaya also kinda falls into that stereotype with the whole mystical arts and ghost hunter thing (as well as the "bitchy cocky black woman" stereotype) so maybe a story where she goes on a very squarely corporeal adventure and show more facets of her personality besides cocky self assuredness.
At 54:30 you talk about the lack of people with prosthetics outside of phyrexians and esper. But there is one "main character" with a prosthetic... Will Kenrith (: ; it's always the twins everytime
Algorithm comment.
Please do planes walker political compass. And explain how jace is more right than nicole bolas.
I thought the joke of the reparations card is that. Of course the gold is not enough compensation for the harm done.
The lore of teferis protection
CORRECTION: Ixalan only takes place on the archipelago of Ixalan, but the continent of Torrezan is just mentioned en-passsant, same for the floating city of the brazen coalition.
Bring Back Prophet of Kruphix!
This toxic Simic apologia will NOT be tolerated >:[
@@Spice8Rack while I have you here, I'm an incredibly huge fan of your work and love your ability to bring queerness and radicalism to the forefront of this incredibly deep game. Allowing people to learn about their own lives in meat space from a hobby in meaningful and well thought out ways. Thank you for everything and I will support you always.
Mirage block is my favorite block, the art is most of why, and now I recognise another reason I love mirage block
The Zhalfir phasing back in idea sounds absolutely epic