Emrakul, the Creator?
Lore forum
Posted on Aug. 15, 2017, 3:37 a.m. by flaminghome
While reading the lore of Eldritch Moon, I've came to a conclusion about Emrakul that I haven't seen a lot of talk about.
In the finale of EMN, Emrakul sends a shock of insanity outwards and Jace is forced into his own mind. Throughout this whole sequence, Emrakul steadily tries to break through and break the Mage. One by one, Jace experiences the darkest thoughts of his allies before Emrakul finally makes it through. But not as a monster, as an Angel. The Angel Emeria, Zendikar's distorted deification of Emrakul in the years that have passed since her first arrival. While in this form, Emrakul talks to Jace, explaining that "It's all wrong, there should be ribbons" and that she is sick of the destruction and wishes to leave the plane.
Later, the titan imprisons herself in the moon.
This got me thinking about the Eldrazi cycle. As Ulamog is destruction, and Kozilek is distortion...could Emrakul be creation?
landofMordor says... #3
That's really an interesting and compelling thought. So I guess the next question is, how do we reconcile the fact that for the Eldrazi to work, Zendikar must die? And also, what happens now that 66% of the titans died?
August 15, 2017 7:33 a.m.
I missed this part of the story and WOW, it actually makes sense.
August 15, 2017 9:25 a.m.
For the record the titans did not truly die. Only their manifestations on zendikar did. As it was once Put by Ugin? The eldrazi are like a man sticking his hand into a pond. Zendikar is the pond, the zendikari and planeswalkers are fish in the pond and what we've seen so far is the mans hand. The true form of the eldrazi exists outside the multiverse in the blind eternities. It was even hypothesized that if every plane in the multiverse ended, the eldrazi would still be around.
I also have a theory about bolas regarding emrakul and her position as a creator titan. But that's a post for another thread.
August 15, 2017 9:42 a.m.
RicketyEng says... #6
Ulamog and Kozilek have been properly killed. Jace took the hand in a pond metaphor one step farther. Where Ugin put a spike in the hand to keep it there and prevent the person from moving to other ponds, Jace realized that you could also go one step farther and use that spike to pull the entire person into the pond. That is exactly what they did and it almost destroyed Zendikar in the process. Then Nissa and Chandra channeled huge amounts of Zendikar's mana into a fire spell along Zendikar's leylines and it killed the titans.
Ugin was very upset with the Gatewatch for killing the titans instead of re-imprisoning them.
Innistrad was the second plane in a row that Emrakul had been lured to which wasn't actually dying. She would be understandably upset or confused that things weren't going the way they should have been. Her response was then to put herself on time out until things can be set right again.
August 15, 2017 10:50 a.m. Edited.
KingMathoro says... #7
Man that makes me sad that we have lost Ulamog and Kozilek. Because these primordial entities were not understood we have lost some very important presences in the multiverse...
August 15, 2017 11:25 a.m.
filthyc4sual says... #8
Ooooh, and the Gatewatch finds out and Lili makes zombie Ulamog and Kozilek
August 15, 2017 2 p.m.
filthyc4sual is it even possible to make zombies out of incorporeal manifestations of some larger being?
August 15, 2017 2:55 p.m.
I doubt it. Maybe, and i said maybe, if she restores her pre-mending powers, Liliana can reanimate eldrazi's corporeal incarnations.
August 15, 2017 3:28 p.m.
flaminghome says... #11
What if the big three are actual just like creature-types and not unique beings and there are more Emrakuls, Ulamogs, and Kozilek's out there
August 15, 2017 3:32 p.m.
I don't think Liliana could reanimate them as they were not only killed but blown to bits by Chandra's spell
August 15, 2017 10:06 p.m.
Very interesting thought OP. If it's true, wouldn't now technicaly the multiuniverse, well um, die? Also I remember reading somewere that a character from the Weatherlight getting trapped on a dying plane? It would make no sense that titans wouldn't go there? Also, how then could they be draw to innistrad?
August 16, 2017 10:04 a.m.
flaminghome says... #15
Well the idea is just that she is able to create, not that she is the creator
August 16, 2017 10:55 a.m.
MindAblaze says... #16
But what if that's how the multiverse recycles itself, and removing two of the three pieces breaks the cycle? They're essentially cosmic decomposers.
August 16, 2017 11:55 a.m.
Ok here's an idea: what if the Eldrazi are an invasive species to planes?
In their own habitat, they're manageable, but when they arrive on planes, they grow out of control and damage the natural habitat. Then, the reason the eldrazi fashion themselves as Gods is actually due to their treatment on Zendikar.
How they started going into other planes? The same way other creatures crossed oceans. They latched onto Planeswalkers and followed them.
The best part of this theory is we can blame Planeswalkers for the eldrazis.
August 16, 2017 12:36 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #18
I don't think the Eldrazi fashion themselves one way or another, though it is interesting that at least Emrakul has some intelligence that has been demonstrated.
I guess the question that wasn't really answered on Zendikar for me is "Does Kozilek reshape Ulamog's wastes, or does Kozilek function independently?"
August 16, 2017 2:18 p.m.
I would imagine that each Titan functions independently, but each is drawn to a specific set of planar characteristics. I would think that ulamogg looks for dying souls of worlds. We see on amonket that nissa could tell that the soul of the plane was dying. Ulamogg finds such planes and turns them to Dust, expediting the decomposition process. Note that ulamogg's brood are all colorless (hi devoid) (Note: this would also provide bolas motive to want the eldrazi imprisoned, so that ulamogg couldn't disrupt his millennial plans on amonket by eating the plane).
Kozilek is drawn to wastes, processing the now blank slate of a world and spitting out [ribbons of?] colored mana. This is supported by the fact that kozilek's brood does have a color identity in their abilities, but many of its members are still summoned using colorless mana.
Emrakul is drawn to this wild and formless soup of mana and knits it together into cohesive life. This is supported by the meld and flip mechanics featuring her "stitching" life together. It's also supported by the fact that her brood in original zendikar were largely colored, and summoned with colored mana.
As to how all three got on zendikar... they were lured there by insert plot device created by sorin, nahiri, and ugin for imprisonment. Something to do with leylines and hedrons.
Nahiri then lured emrakul to innistrad using cryptoliths, structures which nissa noted in story citation needed that the cryptoliths felt like they warped the flow of the plane's leylines, perhaps to emulate these "ribbons," tricking emrakul into coming to innistrad. (Note: silver can be transported by planar portals; perhaps emrakul's imprisonment is bolas scheming too).
Tl;dr: each eldrazi is attracted to a specific set of characteristics, it just so happens that kozilek is attracted to those conditions created by ulamogg, and emrakul is attracted to those conditions created by kozilek. The only reason all 3 were on zendikar is because a group of three pre-mending walkers knowingly lured them there for imprisonment.
This theory is supported by circumstantial lore evidence and circumstantial tribal-pattern evidence among cards.
August 17, 2017 12:57 a.m.
filthyc4sual says... #20
That sounds great, but there's one problem. Bolas didn't try to imprison Ulamog. He actually tricked Jace and Chandra and Sarkhan (could be wrong on the specific walkers but I think it's them) into releasing the Eldrazi. Why would he do that if they would just eat Amonkhet?
August 17, 2017 2:57 a.m.
Also it's any inorganic material that can go through planar portals. Silver is just the only material capable of going through the Time Machine that Urza made.
August 17, 2017 11:12 a.m.
Point of the matter with the silver moon is that it's capable of going thru the portal because it's inorganic. Not that silver alone could be transported.
As for bolas releasing the eldrazi... maybe he knew the gatewatch would kill the titans. Maybe his plan A was to have the gatewatch re-imprison them all on innistrad, but they killed ula and kozi along the way. Bigger point there is that ulamogg wasn't around for the 1000 years of setup that amonket needed, which is likely more significant than ulamogg being dead for the last... 6 months? of the amonket plan
August 17, 2017 12:26 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #23
The current state of Amonkhet had only been brewing for the 60 or so years since the Mending, devil in the details and all that.
So the thought process is Bolas schemes to have the Eldrazi released, with the foresight to expect Nahiri's wrath will draw Emrakul to Innistrad's silver moon, for transport?
August 17, 2017 2:26 p.m.
Yes, that's the thought process, and I would not be surprised in the least if that were the case.
Although I realize my idea of bolas premeditating the eldrazi imprisonment to avoid disrupting amonket plans is BS because it's cannon that amonket was a play made by bolas out of desperation.
Their release on the other hand may well have been one of his schemes, or at least a part of one.
August 17, 2017 6:46 p.m. Edited.
MindAblaze says... #25
I think it was, Bolas sent Sarkhan there knowing Jace would be there and betting in Chandra showing up. We don't know why He would want them released, but he seems to have.
August 17, 2017 7:37 p.m.
Wonder if bolas premeditated imprisoning at least one eldrazi in a transportable, inanimate material. Remember, Ob Nixilis broke the hedron network on zendikar when jace and co aligned it. Ob could be another agent of bolas (wittingly or otherwise), and bolas planned that, with zendikar lost, the gatewatch would try to imprison the eldrazi elsewhere (maybe he knew nahiri would get pissed and lure them to innistrad even). Long story short, I'm sure bolas thought far enough ahead to know that releasing the eldrazi would only result in them being imprisoned in another, more conveniently transportable material than the entire plane of zendikar.
August 18, 2017 3:03 p.m. Edited.
MindAblaze says... #27
It's an interesting preposition. I think it speaks to the omniscience of our God-Pharoah.
August 18, 2017 7:28 p.m.
We mortals have conceived of it... therefore it must be more complicated! Unless we can only figure it out because we take a third person omniscient perspective on the story
August 19, 2017 1:12 a.m.
Sorry, but just to make a point, Emrakul is called the Aeons Torn and the Promised End. Doesn't that kinda mean, destroying, bisecting the cosmos and whatnot?
Also, the multiuniverse is called the multiuniverse because it is many separate universes, and as planes are then many different planets and stars, destroy one planet in a Galaxy will have a pityfull effect on the comine events.
No matter how powerful, if the Eldrazi are reclers, they would be deadly behind scedul and never able to keep up with they job. It's a really cool theroy, but not practical
August 22, 2017 11:25 a.m.
Firstly, emrakul is titled based on the heroes perspective of her. Bear in mind WotC tells these stories from walker perspectives, most frequently jace's.
As far as our friends know, emrakul IS the ultimate destroyer.
Similarly, if we subscribe to your infinite universe each with infinite planes theory, who is to say the eldrazi don't have manifestations in each of these universes? Unless of course it's all one massive universe and the planes are what is infinite, thus creating a multi[planar]-universe, or a multiverse for short.
If we're attacking this from a practicality angle, I don't think we have enough data to call the eldrazi impractical on any level, because all that the lore has taught us is that there are infinite planes, not infinite AU's, and that the eldrazi's physical forms are only a partial manifestation of their true forms in the blind eternities, a human finger in a pond as ugin put it, meaning more than one set of physical manifestations on different planes at the same time is an entirely pheasable theory, which handles the efficiency issue.
August 22, 2017 1:30 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #31
I have to agree with that. Based on Ugin's understanding, the Eldrazi as they are known to the heros are manifestations of their incorporeal forms.
Whether the 'Watch's plan to pull them into reality worked or not is yet to be seen, but the fact that they exist in the space between the planes theoretically allows them to be wherever they need to be. That being said it's interesting that on Zendikar, for example, Emrakul disappeared after she was summoned away by Nahiri. It makes you think her corporeal form/body requires her attention to exist. We're missing too much information to do any more than speculate I think.
August 22, 2017 2:03 p.m.
Do you think that the eldrazi were as powerful pre-Mending, or did they become the destructive things they are perceived as now after all the planeswalkers became less God-like? And we're they also hit by the Mending? (I understand we probably don't have concrete answers, but what are your opinions?)
Zero1911 says... #2
There is a lot story that points to this as a possibility. It seems like the 3 titans have a higher purpose. Ugin clearly thinks so as he tells Jace not to kill them.
My personal opinion is they are tasked with ending planes (already on the brink) then restarting them anew and not just mindless monsters. Ulamog finishs what life is left. Kozilek reforms the world into basic madder. Then Emrakul reforms life.
August 15, 2017 5:04 a.m.