Nicol Bolas and Liliana
Lore forum
Posted on Sept. 11, 2016, 4:04 a.m. by Aztraeuz
I have heard that Liliana may fight against Nicol Bolas, specifically in the Archenemy: Nicol Bolas set.
Does anyone know when Bolas and Liliana had a falling out? I was under the impression that they were still on good terms. I am having significant issues finding the Lore in which this happened.
I was also thinking that maybe people were thinking this simply because she joined the Gatewatch. I don't expect the Gatewatch will last forever, and especially Liliana will be tempted to leave to serve her own interests.
Last I heard, Bolas and Liliana had a relationship that mutually benefitted each other. What has changed and when?
Homura_Akemi says... #3
Oops! Lol I just read your profile page. I'm a HUGE Liliana fan
September 11, 2016 8:56 a.m.
shinobigarth says... #4
she was mad because she lost a lot of power with the mending, while it seems like he didnt. he told her how he lost more power than she could ever imagine which also made her mad. from her point of view, it was his fault she had to make the deal with the 4 demons to get more power and life back.
and also i think the whole betraying Jace thing because of Bolas didnt help.
September 11, 2016 12:27 p.m.
Homura_Akemi says... #5
If only Liliana could have kept as much power as Nahiri after the Mending sigh
September 11, 2016 1:37 p.m.
Homura_Akemi Don't you mean Sarkhan the Mad? ;)
Nicol Bolas and Liliana made a deal that he would help her break her deals with the Demons. Since this we haven't heard anything from them together. I think. There isn't a good reason why they should be on bad terms though.
Liliana has chosen to keep her distance from Jace herself. She asked for his help to defeat the remaining demons, two by my count. He turned her down to go fight the Eldrazi on Zendikar.
Even after joining the Gatewatch, she hasn't been loving towards Jace and hasn't been shown to care much about the Gatewatch's goals. She seems to be plotting on how to use the Gatewatch to benefit herself.
So we are at this point in the story, yet I still don't see why she would have a problem with Nicol Bolas.
Both Liliana and Bolas are pre-mending Planeswalkers. Bolas is powerful enough even after the mending that he is able to stay alive. Liliana HAD to make the deals with the Demons after the mending because she was aging and would have died.
As it sits, I don't see any problems between Liliana and Bolas, I do see a working relationship that could benefit the both of them in the future.
The big question here is, what will she do when the Gatewatch go after Bolas? Nothing in the Lore tells us that she has a problem with Bolas or even cares about the Gatewatch's goals.
September 11, 2016 3:25 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #7
To clarify from azire, Bolas is still alive because dragons have an indefinite life span in MTG. They won't die of age, it isn't about individual power level.
I can't imagine lili and bolas getting along. I didn't read the old lore but my understanding of Liliana's character is that she would never actually like the person she's taking orders from. So like, I doubt she actually liked bolas, and is probably bitter that she had to have his help to stay alive. Also regardless of the front she puts on she has some emotions and cares about the gatewatch to some extent. I would imagine her joining them against bolas. it would probably also be the last bit of leverage she could need to tell them to help her with the demons.
September 11, 2016 11 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #8
To clarify from azire, Bolas is still alive because dragons have an indefinite life span in MTG. They won't die of age, it isn't about individual power level.
I can't imagine lili and bolas getting along. I didn't read the old lore but my understanding of Liliana's character is that she would never actually like the person she's taking orders from. So like, I doubt she actually liked bolas, and is probably bitter that she had to have his help to stay alive. Also regardless of the front she puts on she has some emotions and cares about the gatewatch to some extent. I would imagine her joining them against bolas. it would probably also be the last bit of leverage she could need to tell them to help her with the demons.
September 11, 2016 11 p.m.
Liliana didn't necessarily need help from Bolas to stay alive. She got that help from the demons. Liliana needed help from Bolas to kill the demons she had made the pacts with. Why would she turn on Bolas on the hopes that the Gatewatch would help her against the demons? Jace has already told her no to helping against the demons, AND she KNOWS Bolas will help against them as he has helped her in the past.
As it stands in the Lore, Liliana is strictly in the Gatewatch to see what they can do for her. But to fight against Bolas, it doesn't make sense.
Like I said, she wasn't necessarily taking orders for Bolas, they had what you could call, a working relationship. They made deals that mutually benefitted each other. They were swapping favors.
September 11, 2016 11:21 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #10
yeah, her #1 goal right now is killing the remaining demons. she will do whatever it takes to accomplish that, whether its joining the Gatewatch, going against them, or whatever it takes to further that goal. being black she is selfish and all about herself and what benefits her the most. but the thing with Jace is she sort of has feelings for him but hates that she feels anything for him (or anyone else for that matter), as she wants to be able to exploit whoever she needs to without feeling sorry or guilty.
September 12, 2016 12:38 a.m.
The problem with Liliana and Jace is that Jace chose to follow Gideon to Zendikar instead of help her hunt demons.
Once they met on Innistrad, she agreed to join the Gatewatch but has been keeping her distance from Jace.
It seems she will be helping (manipulating), Chandra on Kaladesh. I assume this is to get Chandra to help her in her demon hunt. She may even be successful in having Chandra leave the Gatewatch when she does.
As you mentioned, this does point towards her selfishness and Black alignment. Looking at the original point, I'm not convinced that she would turn on Bolas. She is focused on her own selfish needs, her demon hunt. She knows Bolas' power and probably wouldn't waste her time. She may even take Chandra with her.
September 12, 2016 1:27 a.m.
Just checking, did anyone here actually read Agents of Artifice? Because they definitely did have a falling out at the end of that.
Summarizing:
Before Agents of Artifice:
Liliana and Bolas are both pre-mending Planeswalkers. The mending happens, Bolas loses a lot of his power; Lili loses a lot of power and her immortality. Lili starts to age and is not pleased about the development. She reaches out to Bolas for help and Bolas brokers her deal with 4 demons. (It's unclear exactly what Bolas is getting out of this. It may be that he just wants to have a powerful necromancer owe him favors.)
During Agents of Artifice:
Lili reaches out to Bolas again, this time because she wants help killing her demon benefactors. Bolas agrees to help, but this time he wants to get some work out of her, so he tasks her with infiltrating Tezzeret's Infinite Consortium and getting close to Jace. (I forget exactly what she was supposed to do, but I'm pretty sure she was supposed to both bring down the organization and deliver Jace into Bolas's service.) He also sets up a psychic barrier in Lili's mind, so Jace won't be able to read her thoughts.
The events of Agents of Artifice happen; Lili manipulates Jace into bringing down the Consortium (and mind-wiping all its members); Lili double crosses Jace and Tezz a few times; Jace mind-wipes Tezz, cuts off his etherium arm (this got retconned), and leaves him to the vengeance of some Nezumi on Kamigawa. (Jace's badass knife-fighting skills also seem to have gotten retconned. Unfortunately.)
At the end of the story Lili goes back to Bolas thinking she fulfilled her end of the bargain and that he'll help her now, and Bolas tells her to piss off because she didn't deliver Jace to him. Lili gets SUPER MAD, but controls herself enough that she doesn't suicidally attack a 5 millennia old dragon. We see this out of Bolas's eyes, and he muses that when he was her age he would have attacked without hesitation and is impressed with her self-control. After she leaves he retreats into his sanctum, and it is revealed that he recovered Tezz's body and is rebuilding his mind, which he remarks is "an even greater prize."
After Agents of Artifice:
This is when Kothephed sends Lili after the Chain Veil, and you know how the story goes from here.
So yeah, Liliana and Bolas are most definitely not on good terms.
September 12, 2016 1:51 p.m.
shinobigarth, I didn't feel like looking up the actual number, so ok.
(I don't it's 20 though...)
September 12, 2016 4 p.m.
It's definitely over 20, like 24-25.
sonnet666 So Bolas never helped her with her demons? How did she find them? I thought that is what she need Bolas' help for.
September 12, 2016 6:10 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #16
he did help her find them. that's what sonnet said.
checks Salvation wiki i guess he is around 25,000 years old. he was born around -20,000 AR and currently its around 4600 AR.
September 12, 2016 10:59 p.m. Edited.
iAzire, No, at that point she didn't have the chain veil yet, so she had no hope of defeating the demons on her own. She wanted Bolas to kill them for her.
He helped her find them originally when she was brokering the pacts, but that's not what she needed the second time around.
After that I think Kothephed sought her out himself to fetch the chain veil for him, and she was all "nah fuck u," and killed him with it instead. (Cause seriously, nobody likes a fetch quest.) Then she planeswalked to Innistrad and spent that block looking for Griselbrand. (The story's a bit spotty here because it was only told in comic books.)
That's also when she runs into Garruk and gives him his curse.
Homura_Akemi says... #2
I also am not 100% certain of this, but my guess would be the Agents of Artifice book where Liliana was forced to betray Jace because of Bolas. I assume she wouldn't like him for that and if you reread her origin story she disliked how he thought (and was) more powerful than she was. I mean, who would like Bolas? cough cough Sarkhan the crazy
September 11, 2016 7:45 a.m.