LGBTQ+ in the multiverse
Lore forum
Posted on Aug. 16, 2021, 9:29 p.m. by Wendithewendigo
Are there any LGBTQ+ main characters in magic? I know there's nico aris and I think they were really well done. And as a queer person myself it's great to see people like myself represented in magic and I want to know if there are any others. (Side note: what group do you want to see represented in MTG?)
What is social science? Conjecture by consensus? If you feel that’s a valid field of study, I can’t say anything to sway you but social science ‘data’ will equally do little to sway me. If everyone but me decided to jump off a cliff, social science metrics would dictate that that has become common practice. I can concede that data may be true but it isn’t persuading me to jump off said cliff.
I don’t think my point of view is commonplace. Quite the contrary, probably a rarity. But that doesn’t sway me into thinking I’m wrong. I haven’t at all claimed to be speaking on anyone’s behalf but my own. All of you can disagree but we are talking about mass subjectivity. At the end of the day, that’s still subjectivity. If everyone feels comforted spending their time on social media, that doesn’t sway me from thinking that that might not be good for them.
I’m not against inclusivity. I want a multitude of views and motivations and machinations to be expressed. I don’t even like the term inclusivity as that goes back to my point about reality invading fantasy. I prefer the term variety. Mass Effect demonstrates this wonderfully. Conflict is what drives a story and having differing motivations and drives forces the butting together that creates that conflict. Having a variety of characteristics does help with world building but that also depends on the scale of your setting. I hear that movie, The Lighthouse, is pretty good. But from what I understand, the setting doesn’t leave a lot of room for variety. So that variety isn’t as integral to a story as one might think. It depends on the scale and focus of the story. Magic spans a multitude of planes and yet it has a rather homogenous humanoid population. I think we could use some more variety there but it hasn’t been necessary so far to keeping people engaged. Change a skin color here, add a couple fingers there seems to satiate the consumer. That or that variety just isn’t something the majority of Magic’s consumer pay attention to. We talk about having our reality represented in fantasy but why not represent six armed humanoids? Or make a plane where Nantuko butterflies are the predominant species? Let the fantasy be fantastical. We seem to be selective in where we want our representation. As an HVAC technician, I can say females are extremely under represented in the field. But I don’t hear cries for the field to be more representative or inclusive in having the ladies haul compressors up a rooftop or replacing toilets or working on power lines. Makes me wonder what the selective desire for inclusivity and representation is really about. Maybe we should have a plane of athletes? A plane of redheads? How far does this inclusivity of characteristics go? Is it possible those things don’t exist because those examples (and by extension the core concept of inclusion) are plainly hollow, meaningless, and non sequiter?
August 19, 2021 1:05 a.m.
Sociology is one of several fields I hold a degree in, and I will be the first to admit that it has more than its fair share of flaws. However, dismissing it as a whole because of the prevalence of those who put their personal beliefs ahead of the science is woefully ignorant of the field. At its purist, sociology is just as valid as any other science - you form a thesis and you design experiments or observations to test the thesis.
Empirically, and with studies conducted by competent and scientifically rigorous members of the field, it can be demonstrated that greater inclusivity is a net benefit for those who are represented. It also is empirically provable that lack of representation leads to increased rates of depression, addiction, suicide, and others.
The simple fact is that you and people like you - people who see representation on lines of race, gender, and culture as not all that important - are perpetuating a harmful worldview for the sake of… quite literally no personal benefit.
Anyway, that is my two cents on the subject. I do not think I am going to change your heart - frankly, it was foolish of me to try and teach empathy to the kind of person whose first reaction to a thread on tolerance was to make a trolling post.
To Wendithewendigo - my apologies for detailing your thread. Hopefully it’ll go back on track shortly! I’ll post something more substantive and on-point in a bit to try and get the ball back on its track.
August 19, 2021 1:23 a.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #4
Oof_Magic variety for variety's sake is not what we're after here--rather, representation of underrepresented folks.
Your point "variety...hasn’t been necessary so far to keeping people engaged" is irrelevant; the issue isn't that WotC isn't pulling people (people who don't care about this subject at hand, which is a lot but not everyone), it's that it has a vastly homogenous character base that could really use some shaking up.
I would bet you that women haven't had trouble hacking it in the HVAC field, they just haven't wanted to--why would people argue against something that doesn't need arguing against? (Don't answer that, I understand some people like to rant)
Similarly, why would we need a plane of redheads? That's not a marginalized group that generally lacks for role models, nor one commonly discriminated against past, like, elementary school.
August 19, 2021 1:24 a.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #5
...i mean im all for a plane of redheads... y'know, if we're just throwing ideas at the wall...
...WAIT YOU MEAN LIKE A MAGIC-PLANE! I was thinking like an airliner :3
I'm dumb and it's past my bedtime
August 19, 2021 1:32 a.m. Edited.
I felt there may be an open door to an interesting philosophical an sociological conversation. Thank you all for including me.
August 19, 2021 2:04 a.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #7
Oof_Magic I may not agree with you, but I can respect a respectful man. Thank you for understanding that there's a person behind every username--I often forget.
August 19, 2021 2:11 a.m.
Omniscience_is_life I try. I certainly won’t make claims about anyone’s experiences. I have indeed gone through extensive periods of loneliness and alienation. Hell, I was medicated through most of my teen years for it. Hopefully everyone remembers these usernames are operated by humans.
August 19, 2021 2:37 a.m.
I would be fascinated to see Wizards’ take on Chinese and Arabic cultures. Both have long, rich histories with complex and deep cultures, and likely would make for some rather interesting settings. Additionally, Wizards has touched on both, but not in a manner that was their own - Portal Three Kingdoms was based on the very real Three Kingdoms War, and Arabian Nights was based on the story collection by the same name.
I would not be surprised if a China set is in the works right now. After all, we have two Chinese planeswalkers whose home plane we have not really explored. Not to mention Wizards has been trying to expand its foothold in the lucrative Chinese market.
August 19, 2021 11:15 a.m. Edited.
Wendithewendigo says... #10
Oof_Magic "hopefully everybody remembers that these usernames are operated by humans" speak for yourself.
August 19, 2021 12:31 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #11
I would love to see--looks at map--some Inuit-area action; seal tribal, anyone? More bears? But seeing as that'd have to a be Snow set, I doubt we'll see it until years after KHM.
August 19, 2021 1:39 p.m.
A bug plane? A bird plane? A completely volcanic plane? A completely artificial plane? I think Mirrodin was the result of a conversion rather than a construction. Phyrexia itself? An oceanic plane with civilizations on the ocean floor? A plane with extreme seasons? A plane on a gas planet with flying cities like Colombia in Bioshock infinite, Skytown Elysia in Metroid Prime 3, or.. shit. The name escapes me of the planet from Star Wars.
To take it back to characters, I’d like to see a hive mind character. Maybe it self replicates or Mind Controls creatures (put a submission counter on the creature) it damages and can’t take an action whether attacking or activating an ability unless all creatures with submission counters do so. That could function like the class enchantments of AFR or level up creatures of Zendikar but in creature form.
August 19, 2021 4:15 p.m.
Wendithewendigo says... #13
It seems like a good idea, but it could be too wordy to explain on a card. Could it be doubled by things like Vorel of the Hull Clade? If not then what is it, because then it's not a counter. The text would need to be very long and specific.
August 19, 2021 5:32 p.m.
Creature with submission counters can’t attack unless each creature with said counter you Control does so. Activated abilities can’t be activated unless you pay it for each creature with a counter on it and the effect would be multiplied that many times.
I think a class subtype enchantment would be the best way to execute it while making text box space.
Mental Network 2UU - Enchantment -Class
1) Choose a creature you control. When that creature or a creature with a submission counter deals damage to another creature, gain control of that creature until Mental Network leaves the battlefield and put a submission counter on it.
1U 2) The chosen creature and creatures with submission counters can’t attack unless each creature you control with a submission counter on it attacks. (This effect remains after Mental Network leaves the battlefield)
3U 3) Activated abilities of the chosen creature and creatures with a submission counter on them can’t be activated unless you pay the activation cost for each of those creatures. Multiply the effect that many times. (This effect remains after Mental Network leaves the battlefield)
August 19, 2021 8:41 p.m.
Wendithewendigo says... #15
I I think it would work better thematically if it was
1 put a hive counter on target creature you control. Whenever a creature with a hive counter damages a creature that creature gets a submission counter.
That way if creatures with no connection to a creature with a hive counter or the chosen creature fights another unrelated creature it wouldn't give it a hive counter. (Changed this to hive since it works better for my idea than infecting your own creatures with submissiveness)
August 19, 2021 9:13 p.m.
Wendithewendigo says... #16
I guess that would work for any disease type thing
August 19, 2021 9:14 p.m.
Wendithewendigo says... #17
As far as hive minds go, we have slivers, th ultimate hive mind
August 19, 2021 9:15 p.m.
Slivers are definitely a formidable hive mind and possibly as well executed as one can be within the confines of the game. I was aiming for something that assimilates to the collective and can retain the knowledge of its nodes even if that original node dies. Each member assimilates is downloaded and can then be discarded having given its knowledge to the collective. Slivers ‘forget’ their abilities if the one granting it dies. This sounds more like a swarm intelligence where the collective knowledge is proportionate to the swarm size.
I think a plane similar to Pandora from Avatar would be cool where creatures can plug into the planar intelligence, gaining knowledge from the plane itself through some innovate set mechanic and leaving that knowledge to be accessed by others should the creature die. Perhaps this would be a cool way to make emblems into a set mechanic? A whole set that utilizes emblems would also assuredly offer some way of interacting with emblems which I’ve heard many complain about not having.
August 19, 2021 11:36 p.m.
I'd just like to see another world that isn't a single gimmick. I'd like to see multiple cultures interacting, the actual effects of the presence of magic, and, like I said before, some non-humanoids showing their presence. Alara was and still is my favorite plane, and it left on a giant cultural and social cliffhanger. I've mentioned this in previous threads, but I'm a little tired of "real world (mythology/stories), but people cast spells". Zendikar and Ravnica are pretty much the only examples that don't fit that in the last four years, and both of those are returning planes. I feel like conceptual originality has sort of fallen by the wayside when it comes to world building. It doesn't help that we're seeing new planes at a record pace, but all of them have almost a direct 1-to-1 correlation with Earth culture or history.
I apologize if this mini-rant is off topic on a discussion of character representation, but I'd like to see more planar representation.
August 20, 2021 12:59 a.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #20
I've long since said I really want to see Jace's homeworld of Vryn. I want to know more about the Mage-Ring Network, why it was constructed and why it's assumedly failing, given the artwork of Mage-Ring Responder.
And most importantly, what happens when it does fail.
August 20, 2021 1:04 a.m. Edited.
TypicalTimmy says... #21
My hypothesis is that the leylines are fractured, possibly by Bolas which explains Jace's innate connection to him, and the network helps keep it stable, but it's a slowly dying heartbeat.
August 20, 2021 1:06 a.m.
Now that I think about it, Ikoria also hits most of my check marks--new plane, significant non-humanoid presence, not directly inspired by a real-world society. So I'll let that one slide.
August 20, 2021 1:07 a.m.
Speaking as a huge fan of Surrak Dragonclaw who's story is horrifying. Screw lore!
This is a fantasy game, any card can be anything we want it to be and i for one do not need the confirmation of others.
with that said, I'm tossing Zedruu the Greathearted in the ring as a non binary furry
Omniscience_is_life says... #1
Oof_Magic that YOU personally do not need these things is frankly a useless argument. You have clearly never encountered the feeling of aloneness and alienation that many have; when you see everyone else doing something differently than you, is it not hard to feel like you're wrong?
Your definitions of justification and validation are simply flawed--here's Merriam-Webster's definition of validate: to recognize, establish, or illustrate the worthiness or legitimacy of. Justify follows along (from the same source) as to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable.
August 19, 2021 12:24 a.m.