Theros: Beyond Death Story Summary
Lore forum
Posted on Jan. 11, 2020, 1:33 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Yesterday, WotC posted the story summary for Theros: Beyond Death.
I am very disappointed with how they handled that; this could have been an epic story told in weekly installments on the website, but instead it was reduced to several paragraphs that would take an average reader only several minutes to read. Hopefully, in the future, they shall return to havign stories with greater detail.
Disappointing new lore for MTG how shocking, seriously it’s at the point where you wonder if they care anymore.
January 11, 2020 4:11 p.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #4
This...
...is ridiculous.
I can't believe what they did here. This would even have been a great novel, but this is barely a short story. I'm heavily disappointed.
January 11, 2020 4:33 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #5
The story up until War of the Spark was all right, and Children of the Nameless was spectacular (attaboy, Brandon!!). It's only been this past year that the Magic story fell behind the paywall and got markedly worse.
January 11, 2020 4:35 p.m.
CastleSiege says... #6
Ah yes, the Magic story. Always epic concepts and fantastic in summary. But incredibly mediocre and disappointing when you actually read them. Only a handful are actually worth reading :\
January 11, 2020 5:16 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #7
Update: I decided to read it and BUMMER man!! This story is awesome! I can literally see it now: where all the chapters begin and end and their purpose in the narrative! WotC dropped the ball here, big time, as they have been doing a lot recently.
However, I'm doubling down. I think that, for what it was, the Magic the Gathering story from BFZ through RNA was perfectly fine. Did it develop the characters a ton? No, not really. Did it have interesting narrative subtext that savvy readers could dig into? Well, no, but it was never meant to. This was always designed to be the Magic the Gathering storyline, and part of that is having many different writers writing the same character. As a result, we've got this sitcom syndrome, where you can't really develop any of the characters because consistency is just too damn much work.
I think that the story was just fine. A perfectly tolerable pretext for a card game with protagonists who are likable enough to root for and villains that are always leagues more powerful than the heroes, but the heroes always manage to best them.
January 11, 2020 8:34 p.m.
ork_mcgork says... #8
Devil's advocate: This version of storytelling is easier for people that aren't as invested in the story side of MTG to access it. I don't have time to sit down and read a novel right now so being able to take a few minutes to get the short version was really nice.
January 12, 2020 11:56 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #9
I see your point, ork_mcgork, but you assuming they had posted a bigger story as they once did, you still could have found a quick summary somewhere.
January 12, 2020 1:17 p.m.
I would have been more satisfied if this entire short story had been replaced with a single line of text:
"RTFC noobz"
Seriously, I'd rather just read the cards to learn the lore than waste my time with this. If WotC can't afford writers for actual lore, at least put some effort into the flavor text.
January 12, 2020 2:52 p.m.
VampiricJace says... #11
ork_mcgork: I'm in the same boat. Actually prefer this. When it's long and drawn out, I usually just ask someone for the highlights, until I eventually get an idea. The story spotlight cards don't do enough.
But I definitely understand why people are upset about this, especially with how inconsistent they are. They range from tiny things like this, to entire novels.
January 12, 2020 3 p.m.
This is the best way to experience MTG stories - short and sweet. Usually, the more detail they include, the worse the stories get, as they are passed around like a blunt between a few writers who all seem to have slightly different ideas.
I would not mind to have such 1 page summary for every set and let the cards dictate the key Story Spotlight (tm) moments.
January 13, 2020 3:58 a.m.
Not at all a troll - I am not a fan of Magic's story as a whole because it is convoluted, distorted and often just bad - when they write less of it, it is probably a good thing. The story got condensed to this because one or more of several reasons:
- After the terrible War of the spark stories and novels, they realised they need to keep the story tight to avoid it being bad.
- The focus of the Story team is not on Theros, but other sets.
- This is set is just a side story.
- They did not hire anyone to write a story - the Throne of Eldraine story was all in a novel, the Wildered Quest, which was probably not commissioned by anyone.
- This story summary clearly highlights nothing new about the world of Theros - this set brings next to 0 to worldbuilding, except Clothys existing.
Regardless, this is a nice story synopsis that literally tells all three acts and their main beats in a page. Magic story has never had something so useful before - no need to go through several novels, various weekly stories, there are no web comics that finish the stories, novels that come out 6 months after the set that finish its story, etc.
TLDR: I think this is a good step forward for Magic's story and needs to be there for every future set. However, it may not necessarily come at the expense of a "full" story.
January 13, 2020 5 a.m.
RicketyEng says... #14
Boza has some very good guesses as to why the story is in the format that it is for this set.
I think I find myself being very in my consumption of narratives. I typically enjoy a story for what it is. This leads me to disagree with many of the criticisms about the story which are found in threads like this one.
I can agree that I also would have enjoyed a fully fleshed out story. However, instead of brooding on what I don't have, I can look at what we did get. The story we have is a nice and complete skeleton story. I think it is good for what it is. Even if it might have been interesting to see some of the details, we still have the crucial plot points and they make up a pretty good story.
DemonDragonJ looks like he might be on to something with his other thread wondering about Ashiok and the Phyrexians. Ashiok did indeed planeswalk away to go looking for them. I suspect it is more for inspiration than to actually team up with them however.
Calix reminds me of Inigo Montoya (from The Princess Bride) and the Alliance operative (from Serenity). It will be interesting to see future stories of him tracking Elspeth across the multiverse. What are folks' opinions on Elspeth joining the Gatewatch? I think Ajani could convince her. Then she might have a lot of backup the next time Calix tries to confront her and maybe they can finally try talking it out ... maybe. If he really is anything like the operative then he is a true believer in his mission and is not likely to let up for any reason.
January 13, 2020 10:12 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
In this article, here, Mark Rosewater said that WotC was reevaluating how they shall write the stories in the future, and said that they shall return to e-book format for Ikoria, which is nice, but I really miss the weekly stories on the website, since not everyone is willing to pay for e-books.
January 28, 2020 8:27 p.m.
There are multiple channels giving a good gyst of the story. My personal favorite is Magic Arcanum. I am much more willing to invest ten minutes into someone entertainingly regurgitate the few tids of info sprawled all throughout a badly written Magic book than actually read said book.
ZendikariWol says... #2
"Marley was dead to begin with..."
January 11, 2020 4:10 p.m.