Anybody else take issue with how characters won't stay dead?
Lore forum
Posted on Jan. 24, 2024, 1:58 a.m. by TypicalTimmy
It seriously bothers me that characters won't stay dead, lest the extremely rare examples such as Gideon. Because we know characters will just be brought back to life through some magical shenanigans, there is no finality to it. There is no weight. No ultimatum. No ultimate price. There is no tension, no nuance, no passion.
Just
oh he died, see ya next week
This is being brought up because of that new Ravnica set. The Clue-style murder mystery.
For those who don't know who was killed, I won't spoil it.
But apparently that individual just comes back as a spirit and continues their service uninterrupted.
Which makes the entire story rendered moot. You can't have a compelling and theatrical story if at the very end, literally none of the consequences mattered.
It pisses me off because it's really lazy writing. And I totally get it, it's the "safe bet". You don't want to alienate and isolate fans of the franchise by stepping on their feelings and letting their beloved characters be cast off to the æther.
But, I would argue at the same time, you promote lazy writing and no consequences so now your stories can't be taken seriously and you disengage a much larger portion of your fan base.
You can either satisfy a fringe few who are to emotional to get over it, or upset a larger swath who actually risk leaving.
Idk, I just hate this lazy crap and I'm tired of seeing it.
I mean the person you're referring to comes from a guild whose entire ruling class is known to come back as ghosts so....
The others certainly don't. *** wasn't the most impactful death sure, but the others stayed dead.
January 24, 2024 7:45 a.m.
In general, I agree 100%. In this one specific case, though, return was pretty much a foregone conclusion, as other people have said. And yeah, if anyone else just shows back up and keeps going as normal, it hugely reduces any stakes. Although, Ravnica seems to be pretty generous with its post-mortem options. Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier came back as early as Jumpstart 2022, and everyone else has a home in the Ghost Quarter.
De-compleating major characters, on the other hand... It's going going to take a while before I come to terms with that.
January 24, 2024 11:52 a.m.
I am sick of lazy writing. MoM end with no real build up, no sense of emergency and nothing really coming of their really bad attempt to dominate the multiverse, (For what felt like 5 minutes). The last good story arc IMO was the build up to War of the spark. War was executed poorly (I think) again because it wrapped up so fast it didn't feel like it impacted much. If Wizards was looking for a place to downsize Planeswalkers it was then. I will just pray that they figure out how bad their climax's are and work on bringing real consequences and real victory.
January 24, 2024 3:10 p.m.
TheoryCrafter says... #7
This is nowhere near as bad as the roughly decade long storyline between Massacre Girl and Ruzi & Nikya only to put Nikya and Massacre Girl in the same room and not so much as a mention of the massacre that started that desire for vengeance.
January 25, 2024 8:04 p.m.
I'm definitely bothered by it, but not as much now since they really seem to like only killing off characters
January 25, 2024 8:15 p.m.
well, it is the stereotypical "sacrifice for the greater good" color
January 25, 2024 11:24 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #10
What about Jace and Vraska in Outlaws of Thunder Junction? I am not pleased that they have returned, and apparently have not suffered from any physical or mental trauma from being completed; did Phryexia's invasion of the multiverse have any consequences, at all? This is akin to how Elspeth returned to life without any consequences, as well; why are the writers doing this?
March 26, 2024 8:40 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #11
I was speaking about specifically Jace when I made my comment earlier and I am very disappointed. They couldn't even leave him dead for a full freaking year. I am very disappointed. I thought maybe we were free from Jaceus ex Machina. Though maybe Jace will be the next villain and we can see "our heroes®" kill the bastard once and for all. I would almost be OK with him coming back if we got to see him killed again.
March 26, 2024 10:58 p.m.
Yeah. None too pleased about it. Bad writing plagues MTG for years now and the train just keeps trudging along through it. No sign of derailing this train of bad writing in sight. I've completely given up. I don't even like magic for this anymore and I play all my games rpg style too so it pains me to play this game at all lately
Gidgetimer says... #2
There are multiple murders in the story as the title of the set is "Murders at Karlov Manor" I don't think that is a spoiler. I don't know how to say this next part without spoilers so.
Story spoiler Show
If there are other returns I'd be pretty upset. And I wasn't a fan of Elspeth coming back despite her being my favorite planeswalker or how "maybe the completion got undone even, on the ones who were corpse puppets" as I understand the story at the end of March of the Machine to be.
January 24, 2024 6:58 a.m.