Pattern Recognition #77 - A Response to the Tolarian Community College

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

26 July 2018

2664 views

Hello everyone. My name is berryjon, and this is Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.net's longest running article series wherein I talk about the subject of the day and attempt to educate, entertain and in all try to make your day better by what I impart. Or something like that.

Today's article is not going to be the promised delivery of the lacklustre story that came out of the Return to Ravnica block. No, instead, today I am going to be issuing a response to some comments made by the wonderful Professor over at the Tolarian Community Collage on Youtube and elsewhere.

To whit, before I begin my observations and commentary, I would like all of you to watch This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix3enxUiGVM) in which the Professor discusses Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded, and suggests a way to reincorporate him into the story of Magic by having Wizards embrace his community-developed nature.

...

Welcome back.

At the end, the Professor asked his viewers for opinions on what they thought the best and the worst villains in Magic are, and while I was tempted to snap off a reply, I realized that there was something deeper involved that needed to be examined. That there is no simple answer, because as I am about to discuss, this isn't a simple question.

An so, today's article shall be entitled: The Nature of Villainy in Magic; a Response to the Tolarian Community Collage.

How pretentious of me.

Before we can begin any discussion about Villainy, we must first come to some sort of agreement about what Villainy actually is. It is easy to say that the Villains are Evil, if you will pardon the capitalization of those words. They are for emphasis, not because I want to delineate them as some sort of proper noun. But there is more to it than that, as I will discus. "Evil" is a deep metaphorical concept that has driven whole branches of philosophy to the breaking point.

However, the definition I like to use for basic work, and which I shall work from for the purposes of this article, comes not from some deep musings of some long-dead thinker whom I studied in University. No, it comes from the well-deserved Hugo Award winning comic "Digger" by Ursula Vernon. In it, a protagonist struggles to define good an evil to someone who is effectively innocent, and when they confer their failings to an artist, the response is thus:

(Protagonist): "All I could come up with is 'Hurting people for no reason'."
(Artist): "What? No. Digger-Mousie is not knowing evil very well. Evil is having reason. Always. Many and many. If hunter beats mate, has reason. Mate is lazy, burning food, is stupid, is speaking on and on. Is always being a reason."
(Protagonist): "What? But those aren't good reasons!"
(Artist): "No, but evil is still being - is having reason - being unreasonable! Mousie understands? Is always having reason. Is punishing world for not being... like in head, is always reason. World should be different, is reason. Is only good is not having reason. Little one hugs, no reason. Digger-Mousie giving name to nameless, no reason. Skin-painter paints skin of child, no reason. Just is."

Emphasis is mine, by the way.

Evil is in having a reason for their actions, but the actions themselves, or the goal or the source of their actions, those are unreasonable. But even this eloquence does not meet the full needs of the examples I will soon produce.

With this in mind, a Villain is a person who does reasonable things unreasonably. Who acts in such a manner that is internally consistent, but can cause those on the outside to object to their plans. They are the ones who have an accurate view of the problem they are trying to address, but their solution isn't going to work out for them.

Magic: the Gathering has had villains since they first started writing a story into their game. It's part of the nature of the story to have villains. Except that it's not. Not really. If you question literary hypothesis about the nature of conflict, you would tend to be given that there are four broad types (though it is also suggested that there are five or even six as our understanding of the world has changed) which are enumerated as such;

• Man vs Man: The most basic form of conflict is derived from two persons who hold something that differ against each other, and their attempts to resolve the situation.
• Man vs Nature: At its core, this is where the 'man' is faced with an insurmountable problem, one that cannot be defeated, only endured until it has passed.
• Man vs Society: In this archetype, it is the contrast of the individual against the larger group of which they are a part of. Victory is not assured in any means, simply that the effort is undertaken.
• Man vs Self: In which the protagonist and the antagonist are the same person, and the conflict is internal rather than external.

The other two types that have grown out of these, for all you non-traditionalists out there, are Man vs Supernatural, a subset of Nature in which the force to be endured is not random or part of the existing order of the world, but rather directed or existing beyond it and still cannot be overcome. The other is Man vs Machine, a specific reflection of the Society conflict where the opposition force to the protagonist is not the society in which they are a member, but rather the impersonal society that sees the individual as less than even that. No, it's not a Terminator reference. Stop thinking that.

As you may have noticed, in only two of these archetypes of conflict are there those who can be described as villains. Against another man, or against society. Nature has no real antagonist. Can a Hurricane be said to be evil or a villain? It is simply coming, passing through causing devastation then leaving. And Man vs Self? There is no antagonist there, just a man and his better or worse nature. The Man is their own opposition, and the two become one.

So we have Villains. But we are still missing a vital piece of the puzzle. In each of the types of narrative above, there is something that is a common theme, a factor that is first required for there to be any sort of story to occur.

Every narrative needs a protagonist. It needs the "Man". It needs a Hero.

Ever hear of the Law of Bruce? No? Yes? Well, this is a statement that is often attributed to the actor Bruce Willis when he was asked about the success of his movie Die Hard. Go see that movie. Seriously. Even if you already have it memorized, go see it again.

Anyway, his response to that question was that "A Hero is only as good as the Villains he faces" or words to that effect. In other words, we define the importance and the effectiveness of our heroes, our protagonists not by them in of themselves, but rather by the quality of the foes they face. A poor foe who is defeated easily with the barest or non-existent effort means that our hero is not very heroic. A foe that requires massive amounts of effort on the part of our heroes, whose mere existence or presence is enough to make things harder, for whom victory can only be won by dint of supreme exertion? Those are better.

This is the importance of our villains. They are the measure by which our heroes are measured, by which we cheer or reject to our pleasure.

Villains make or break a story that has them. And this is Important with a capital "I".

So what makes for a good villain? While a good hero is defined by having a good villain, a villain is not defined by the heroes they square off against. They are, as I have noted earlier, defined by their reason.

In his video that started me writing this, the Professor noted that we as a culture accept the concept of the 'Idiot Villain', the one who is driven by the most banal of ideas, whose every action is doomed to failure from before they even begin.

This isn't wrong. It's a reflection and an exaggeration of our own failures. We can look at a villain like this, and sympathize with them. For we too have failed. We too have been driven to succeed only to find the whole world against us and our failures to be laughed at.

On the other end of the spectrum are the competent ones. The ones who plot and plan and act with supreme confidence. Those whose every action is made with a goal and a purpose and that will not be denied. They will be victorious.

This isn't wrong. It's a reflection and exaggeration of how we want to be. We want to be better. We want to be able to act confidently in all things and sweep aside all that would stand before us. We want to be better. We want to be more.

But these two extremes share a common point in how they are presented, and it is not that they win. The fool cannot, by definition, win anything more than a set up for greater failure and any failures the supreme ones suffer are little more than temporary setbacks on the road to victory already accounted and planned for.

No, villains cannot win to be good villains, to be something worth the effort of the hero to over come.

Rather, they must be compelling. We must come to understand and sympathize with them, to see ourselves, even for a moment, in their shoes. To see their reason and ask ourselves that if we were in their shoes, would we do what they are? Would we be the ones to fight against a world whole rules or those in whom we see that they have an accurate vision of the problem, but that it's just their solution is just going to cause more problems than is solves?

And the best villains are those who are those who let those around them walk in their shoes. Even the hero.

So let's talk about some of the villains in Magic's past that I think are good ones.

Let's start with one of the minor villains in Magic's history. From the Weatherlight Saga, I give you Starke of Rath.

Starke was born on the demi-plane of Rath, which as you may recall from my discussion of Phyrexia, was a place constructed by Phyrexia to act as a staging ground for the Invasion of Dominaria and populated by various slave races collected from across the multiverse.

Having the clan name il-Vec, which meant that he was of the Vec people in service to Volrath, the Evincar of Rath, he found love and was secretly married to a woman of the en-Dal tribe, and they had a daughter, Takara en-Dal.

However, as an il-Vec, he was bound to a foul fate. His daughter, having grown up to become a leader of the resistance to Volrath, was captured by the forces of the same and held hostage. No, not because of her politics, but because Volrath wanted leverage over Starke as he did his bidding.

Starke was sent to infiltrate the crew of the Weatherlight under the command of Sisay. He did so by using knowledge provided by Volrath as to the location of several pieces of the Legacy, a collection of artifacts designed and purposed by Urza Planeswalker to destroy Yawgmoth, Lord of the Wastes. Under his guidance, Sisay was able to accelerate her gathering of her life's goal.

However, Sisay was being played by Starke, and during one such trip to get an artifact, Starke led her into a trap where she was captured by Volrath and held as a hostage to draw Gerrard Capashen to him.

I'm beginning to sense a theme in Volrath's plans, but I would have to check the details.

Starke stayed aboard the Weatherlight as the only person who 'knew' where Sisay had been taken. He helped recruit Gerrard to take command, and led them to Rath where Sisay was being held. Now, Gerrard had reservations about all this, but Starke is able to assure him that he is who and what he says he is. A Desperate Gambit leading to a very false Debt of Loyalty.

Man, I miss the days when the art and the flavour text of the cards were actually related to the story. None of these "Story Highlights". Where you could see the entire story of the set by arranging the cards in the right order.

Anyway, while the rest of the crew were looking for Sisay, Starke separated from the group and went looking for his daughter. He found her and rescued her, but not before she was mind-controlled by Volrath into attacking and blinding him. Penitent for what she had done, Takara helped him back to the Weatherlight for their escape.

After escaping from Rath, the ship crashed on the plane of Mercadia. During the efforts to restore the ship (and collect more of the Legacy), Starke was murdered. It is revealed that the murderer was his daughter, Takara. However, she was not who she presented herself as. Rather, she was Volrath, who shapeshifted himself and manipulated Starke into bringing him aboard the Weatherlight as someone less suspicious than Sisay herself.

Starke's story isn't deep or complicated. He was a man simply out for what was best for him and his family, something that the players of Magic can understand with, that they can sympathize with. He was a man who was forced into doing things because Volrath threatened the one he loved, and when Starke's usefulness was at an end, he was killed.

(As a side note, Takara was killed on Dominaria during the Invasion, not by Volrath on Rath.)

Now, let us talk about Konda, Lord of Eiganjo. From the Kamigawa block, Konda was the first major antagonist, a deliberate break from everything that had come before where White was affiliated with the protagonists almost exclusively. There was a bend with the affiliated Kamahl, Pit Fighter, but he changed over to , the secondary 'Protagonist' colour.

So from the beginning, Konda took what was conceptually one of the most secure 'hero' niches, the idea of the "Good King", and turned it upside down.

You see, Konda was a mighty ruler from his castle. His armies and his way spread across the world, conquering many lands, and bringing many new people under his banner. However, he also recognized that it wasn't likely his successor - whom ever that might be - would be like him in that regard. So he hatched a plan with the input and influence of several others, including one of the Soratami of that plane named Meloku, whom it is implied gave Konda the idea for this course of action in the first place.

Konda decided that if there would be no one like him after he passed on, then it would be best for his people and the world that he not pass on. To that end, he enacted a ritual that while already considered profane by the standards of his culture, required one additional little thing. On the night of the birth of his only child, the mad Konda exploited the arrival of many of the Kami in the realm to celebrate said birth to reach past them and snatch from the Spirit That Which Was Taken.

With that in his possession, he would be immortal, able to guide and protect his lands and his people from all the threats that would come their way. A very laudable goal, save that in performing this act, in drawing into the mortal world the divine child of the immortal demiurge of Kamigawa, he created the very foes he sought to deny in the first place.

Konda's villainy extended into a war between the two halves of Kamigawa, material versus immaterial. It lasted for twenty some years before the Toshiro Umezawa, in the greatest positive example of Black before Kaladesh, was roped into instigating the end of the War by forces outside of his control and whom he objected to as much as he could possibly get away with.

I love him for it. If I ever get around to talking about heroic characters in the game, he's going to be right there at or near the top.

But back to Konda. Konda's villainy is far more grand than that of Starke's. One was a double agent, while the other acted of his own volition. Konda was a grand, important man, and he knew it. Kind of like Kamigawa's version of Iskander of Macedonia if you squint just right. And his evil was directed against the natural order of the world in which he lived. He sought to control that which was by definition uncontrollable, and he turned a blind eye to the suffering he caused in the pursuit of his goal. Or rather, when you read the few passages that detail his actions more directly before his end, he simply saw the suffering he caused as a necessary part of his grand plan, that the end result would be worth it.

Konda was a man blinded by the power he held, literally as it turned out. He did not see the results of his actions even when they were right in front of him, pleading for his aid. He is the authority figure that we all fear would be real, the one who wields power for the sake of power and nothing else.

These are two examples of good villains in Magic. Not great. I didn't talk about Yawgmoth or Leshrac as I didn't want to blow your minds (again), and I wanted those whom I could cover quickly given that this is already a long article.

In fact, it's long enough as it is. Join me next time as I look at the three major villains of Modern Magic and break down why they simply don't measure up.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!