Pre-Mending Planeswalkers Were Not Omnipotent
Lore forum
Posted on Feb. 27, 2020, 8:55 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
WotC has stated that one of the main reasons for which they had the mending occur in the story was that planeswalkers were too powerful, so that the players could not identify with them.
However, having read the novels, I have learned that planeswalkers before the mending were far from omnipotent, and they certainly had a great range of personalities, so they were hardly unidentifiable to the players.
There were a number of times when pre-mending planeswalkers were killed, so I do not see why it was necessary to make them less powerful. Prior to the mending, a planeswalker’s body was merely an extension of their will, and they could alter their form with merely a thought, so I do wish that they had at least kept that ability when the mending occurred.
What does everyone else say about this? Why was it necessary to make planeswalkers less powerful when they previously were not omnipotent?
Essentially, WOTC believes that the community cannot commiserate nor feel as deeply about deities as one of our own mortality. It's not necessarily that their omnipotence enisled them, but it did estrange relatability.
February 27, 2020 11:35 p.m.
Another thing they patched with the mending was the ability for planeswalkers to bring other to people with them which I think makes story writing easier since then you can’t have other characters like Thalia or some other normal person appear in other sets just because “Oh Jace brought them over.” Since if that was still a thing Planeswalkers could just grab all of their powerful allies and hop from plane to plane with a swat team of Jeskai monks, Dominarian wizards, and all sorts of other crazy characters.
Or at least this way the norm until Kaya was able to do it because of BS story writing.
February 28, 2020 11:34 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #5
Icbrgr, I believe that the Superman and Justice League_ animated series did an excellent job of making Superman a multi-faceted and relatable character, despite his power.
Joe_Ken_, that is rather unfortunate, because, when Bolas brought his army to Ravnica, how awesome would it have been if the Gatewatch had been able to bring their own army, akin to what happened in Avengers: Endgame?
Icbrgr says... #2
Well take superman for example... not omnipotent however many people dont care for him as a hero because "he's boring" or too powerful %90 of the time.
Other super heroes get a lot more praise and fandom because they are "dynamic/interesting" yet 9/10 times are not gonna beat superman in a fight.
At the end of the day I suppose if the writing quality and character development was there/met readers approval the power level of planswalkers wouldn't matter.
February 27, 2020 9:15 p.m.