Certain Planeswalkers Losing their Sparks Deprived Them of What Made Them Special
Lore forum
Posted on Nov. 27, 2024, 10:55 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I am not pleased with how many planeswalkers lost their sparks after the Phyrexian invasion, because of how random it was, and how it happened for no logical reason or with no clear explanation in the story, and I am especially annoyed that that phenomenon deprived several planeswalkers of the traits that made them special and unique, specifically, Calix, the Wanderer, and the Kenrith twins.
Calix was noteworthy because he was the first artificially-created being who ignited a spark naturally; Karn is also an artificial being, but Venser gave him his spark when he died, so Calix, was one-of-a-kind, in that regard, but, without his spark, he is simply another enchantment creature.
The Wanderer was unique because she could not control her planeswalking; she would involuntarily jump from one plane to another, so it would have been a wonderful storyline, and source of character development, for her to learn to control her ability, but the loss of her spark essentially solved her issues without her needing to do anything, a deus ex machina.
The Kenrith twins shared a spark between them, which meant that they needed to always planeswalk together, but, without their shared spark, they no longer have that special bond, although I am certain that them losing their spark occurring nearly concurrently with them becoming mortal enemies was not a coincidence.
As a side note, I am certain that WotC had Ashiok retain their spark, to avoid WotC needing to assign a creature type to them, so as to keep their origins mysterious.
What does everyone else say about this? Do you believe that certain planeswalkers losing their sparks deprives them of what made them special?
I admit I'm not completely up-to-date on the story, but there are days when I feel like writing my own fan fiction just to explore some of this stuff. I agree that it's too fast-paced, and focused on the protagonists. If something isn't an easily-solved obstacle or problem for the heroes, it might as well not exist. Everything that's not a major story arc has to be wrapped up in four months.
Calix is the biggest loss, in my opinion. The nature of his spark was theoretically impossible, but it worked for him. His story also revolved around being able to track people across planes, which is now actually impossible. In contrast to other stories ending too fast, I'm not sure it's possible for his story to get a conclusion. Either he gets a ride on an Omenpath Plot Taxi, he somehow regains a spark, or there's a string of convenient coincidences to bring him back into the story. For his targets, Elspeth is an angel, and Niko is also desparked. Calix is stuck on Theros (I think), unable to do his literal one job. Actually, that might bring him into interesting conflict with Klothys, his creator, since he's not simply denying his destiny, he's actually incapable of completing it. Fan fic ideas...
If Ashiok was given a creature type, my money's on Horror or Nightmare, with an outside chance of Avatar.
November 28, 2024 12:19 a.m.
wallisface says... #4
I’m pretty happy with the change actually, for the following reasons:
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long-lived games like magic need to change over time or become stale. While reducing the number of planeswalkers in a set doesn’t feel like much of a change, it creates a lot of flow-on effects. Namely, planeswalkers actually feeling more special/impactive, and also queueing up different directions for future story arcs.
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when we were getting 3-4 planeswalkers a set, sooo many of them felt boring or just rehashes of what we’ve already seen. Since the desparking, the walkers we have gotten have felt more interesting and unique. Not having to force such a high quantity of this card-type feels like it’s provided some more room to innovate.
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there’s been a bunch of times in the past where Standard has just become a mess of planeswalker-based decks becoming the entire meta. Lessening their quantity helps prevent people in that format just bungling a bunch of walkers into a deck.
November 28, 2024 9:31 p.m.
wallisface - While I agree with your game design points, those are game design issues, not lore ones. Everything you mention could be solved without annihilating entire plot lines from the lore - they simply could just use fewer planeswalkers in the stories and thus print fewer in the sets.
The entire elimination of sparks and subsequent rise of Omenpaths felt like bad writing to me - a lazy excuse to shoehorn popular, marketable characters into whatever sets they want.
November 28, 2024 10:44 p.m.
Honestly I think Magic's problems with impatient story-lines is indicative of a wider trend in popular media. There are very few stories that really take their time to build themselves up, establish the stakes and be complex and engaging. And often the ones that start that way end up with very unsatisfying endings because there is pressure to rush to the end (cough Game of Thrones cough).
November 29, 2024 3:11 a.m.
wallisface says... #7
Caerwyn yeah that’s definitely a valid point. I guess i’ve personally just always found all of magics storytelling to be lazy, so none of this spark-removal-stuff felt comparably jarring or out-of-character with Wizards general story progression.
As far as ”annihilating entire plot lines”, it always feels like they have a ton of story arcs they never get around to progressing. I’d personally prefer they be open about which stories they’re not planning on moving forward. I’m not convinced that the spark-removal is a definitive-enough answer to halting all of the various plot points they have zero-intention of continuing.
Caerwyn says... #2
I was not overly fond of how the Wanderer was handled in the recent Kamigawa set - even before she was desparked, they rapid-fire revealed her identity and solved the chaotic nature of her Planeswalking. This was, effectively, the second time she was a major character in a set--so they had an introduction, a solution, and no real time in between exploring the interesting nature of her spark. The Kenrith twins and Calix getting desparked added insult on top of that injury.
Frankly, I think moments like this are indicative of one of the fundamental flaws in Magic's current story - impatience. The stories are often too self-contained or, when they are there to support other elements, those elements get solved incredibly fast looks pointedly at the Phyrexian arc ending in a single set.
November 27, 2024 11:41 p.m.