Will Emrakul’s Influence Be Felt on Innistrad?
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Aug. 6, 2021, 11:41 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Mark Rosewater has confirmed no Eldrazi shall appear in the upcoming two Innistrad sets, but I hope that Emrakul’s influence is shown in some way, since it nearly destroyed the plane, and Zendikar Rising did show the aftermath of the battle against the Eldrazi, there.
What does everyone else say about this? Will Emrakul’s influence be felt in the upcoming Innistrad sets?
I think there is also opportunity for devils, maybe our first arch-devil to utilize leftover Eldrazi seed to grant hideous mutations to a group of cultists. Very devil to polymorph a bunch of psychopaths. Then you would have very Lovecraftian cultists with hideous deformities. I think a solid story is the chaotic eldrazi leftovers on a given plane become color-aligned aberrations over time. A solid explanation for some aberrations & also some of those devoid eldrazi. They simply become less otherwordly & less attached to their broodmasters (they somewhat naturalize). I too don't usually hold much hope for neat world-building or plot depth though. They will probably just focus on a gay vampire or something
August 7, 2021 9:10 a.m.
Using Zendikar 3.0 as a guide, I am guessing there will be a few references, but it will not be all that pervasive in the cards. Which is fine by me - I think Wizards did a particularly poor job crossing 19th Century Gothic Horror with 20th Century Cosmic Horror, and did a disservice to the entire plane in the process. I think a lot of that stems from Wizards’ failure to understand Cosmic Horror as a genera, which is why the Eldrazi have been so inconsistently written throughout their tenure in the game.
August 7, 2021 10:32 a.m.
Caerwyn: while I don't agree to the incompatibility between gothic and cosmic horror (therefore between Innistrad and Eldrazi), I completely agree on the fact that wizards doesn't really understand cosmic horror. For example for me an important part of it is the utter pointlessness of human resistance. You know, the "keep them imprisoned/slumbering because we can't even remotely hope to understand, let alone defeat them". And, well, that was completely ruined for me when Chandra Fireballed a far-more-than-three-dimensional beeing. That thing exist outside of normal space and time, the sole thinking of it can make you mad, and you hope to destroy it with a big enough matchstick???
That's why I think Innistrad+Emrakul can be good. They can't ruin her if she's imprisoned on the Moon. So, something more like shadows over Innistrad than Eldritch moon, maybe with Emrakul's cultists still having the Delirium ability
August 7, 2021 11:17 a.m.
passimo - I did not say that Cosmic and Gothic Horror were incompatible--Lovecraft himself was clearly born of the Gothic Horror that was still popular at the time of his writing. They are, however, incompatible when wielded by the rather incompetent and inconsistent writing staff Wizards of the Coast employs.
I feel I must disagree with the idea that "sole thinking" about Cosmic horrors can make you mad--that is the exact kind of thinking that leads us to the suite of mediocrity that constitutes the vast majority of post-Lovecraft Cosmic horror, including everything Wizards has done with the Eldrazi.
Cosmic horror, at its heart, is about madness brought on by something greater than comprehension. However, most authors tend to focus on the madness brought on simply by seeing the cosmic entity, by simply seeing the effects of the cosmic entity, or giving too much thought to the cosmic entity.
All of those are wrong--true Cosmic horror is about madness brought on by the understanding the Cosmic entity. Lovecraft and the other great stories of the genera are not "I went mad because I saw something and it made me crazy" or "I was kind of thinking about something and that made me crazy." They are about characters who catch a glimpse of understanding far beyond the reality that they as a mere human could ever know. They dedicate their entire life trying to recapture that one glimpse; trying to convince others that the reality they all experience is but a fraction of true realities beyond.
They go insane because their mind is warped with its newfound understanding of man's place in the cosmos. The exposure to the Cosmic entity is merely the catalyst for the understanding that brings madness; it is not the source of the madness itself.
August 7, 2021 11:41 a.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #7
Caerwyn, I have often heard that the reason we mere mortals struggle with a real depiction of cosmic horror is because our minds are unable to comprehend the depths of it. Even Lovecraftian horror is, when examined through the lens of modern story telling, not that scary.
We simply can not comprehend what it means to have a singular being devour an entire world, or a creature the size of a galaxy, or the twisted mangled flesh of millions rise up in a hive-mind.
It's not something we can experience, so we don't know how to write it.
August 7, 2021 6:16 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #8
But to your point about dedicating an entire life to catch a glimpse of it and going mad as a result, I think a great reference for that is in Shazam when Doctor Thaddeus did exactly just that.
August 7, 2021 6:19 p.m.
Can't make a card to depict "The Color Out of Space" ... To be fair about fire & many cosmic horrors though, they often don't mix well. Particularly if you go newer, more like S.King where fire has this purifying constant to it. I guess that is more run of the mill horror with some smattering of Cosmic horror influence
August 7, 2021 9:07 p.m.
Light, stars, & to an extent fire are aberrations for Yog-Sotthoth
August 7, 2021 9:09 p.m.
TypicalTimmy - I am not sure I agree. I think Lovecraft’s particular brand of storytelling does a vastly better job at building suspense than most modern horror. His secret was knowing the limitation of the written word - and that what goes unsaid the mind will imagine. He was an expert at providing just enough detail to build suspense and plant the seeds for horrific visualisation, without going into so much detail that the reader cannot fill in gaps with their own particular fears.
I’d say his short stories and novellas create more horror and suspense than the overwhelming majority of modern horror films, who rely so much on cheep and clearly telegraphed jump scares that they border on comedy.
August 7, 2021 9:22 p.m.
Sometimes less is more. More often than not the gruesome fate of the victim does it for me. Throw in the fear of the unknown. Or that idea that nothing is sacred, there is no protecting spirit, & NO ONE is safe... These are more potent concepts than showing us the actual perp - which can often cheapen things. Though there's exceptions to everything - I have huge love for Carpenter's 'The Thing' ... But again, that is more about the hideousness of how that abomination goes about its' business, the fact that it dopplegangs, how horrible it must be to slowly be absorbed & have your consciousness subverted by The Thing. Also, in the story it is based on you become a sleeper vessel it once you've been absorbed, so there is the horror in not even knowing if you are truly yourself or just a sleeper ready to vomit a bunch of tentacles!
August 7, 2021 11:30 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #13
My preferred "genre" of horror is Religious Horror. The idea of eternal damnation, celestial wars, cosmic endings, etc.
But that's not very common.
From what I have read and watched, amid lectures, analysis, breakdowns and studies is that whenever something is relatable, we can understand and fear it. Obviously.
We all know what a dead body looks like. Let's be honest here. We know what a corpse is.
We also know what being bitten feels like, even if it didn't tare flesh from your bone. Like a dog bite or a toddler bitting down hard on a finger.
We also know what a group of a hundred or a thousand people looks like.
So imagining what a hoard of 1,000 zombies who want to eat you, and how painful that would be, is something our minds can comprehend and imagine. It can easily create a deep sense of fear.
Similarly, we all know the darkness of the ocean and the weight of water. Anybody who had ever went swimming knows the pain of being under for too long. The fatigue. The silence. The cold. The weight.
The imprisonment.
So it's easy to understand the lurking, savage depths of an ocean and the monsters beneath it.
While we do not know for certain what a dinosaur looks like or how they act, we have been exposed to them since our early childhoods. So, a movie like Jurassic Park (original) allows us to feel their presence.
But a cosmic horror? Something so vast and incomprehensible that it melts your mind, drives you insane and strikes fear into your soul?
A being the size of a galaxy?
Something made of a fluid solid that can morph it's presence at will?
We have no real-world connection to these. They are so abstract that we can not actually imagine them. As such, it's nearly impossible to portray them, making it incredibly difficult to craft true terror, fear and horror for them.
It's not that any one author is bad, or any group of work is terrible. Rather, it's that we are not anchored in such a way to have it be relatable.
It's so vastly alien from the Human Condition that our brains simply do not understand it.
It's like a middle schooler being shown vector calculus. They may grasp the concept of a few symbols here and there but they have no clue what it means, how to rationalize it, how to interpret it, how to understand it or how to mentally respond to it.
It just... is.
Our experience in this world doesn't permit us to something such as true cosmic horror. Nothing we have in our entire history is even remotely relatable. And I believe it is for that reason that the most common "trope" is for merely viewing it to melt your mind into madness. Because it is so vastly bizarre, foreign, alien and unknown that our brains shuts down, regresses and drives into insanity trying to even comprehend the damn thing.
And it's not just the visual sensory either. The smell, the sound, the presence, the distortion of time and space, the weight. It drives all of it mad. Almost like being inundated with forces so extreme that it shattered your psyche and splits your mind in half.
But again, aside from horrifying trauma, we do not and can not experience that. So, we can not portray that.
So, we fail at it.
August 8, 2021 12:02 a.m.
All that being said, Lovecraft was solid at using the tool of empathy & some personal experience with mental health issues to convey that symptom of cosmic horror in a relatable way. The feeling of not being yourself is a symptom of exposure to incomprehensible horrors & this was the more tangible concept that was usually focused on. & veering toward the topic more I hope THAT is how Emrakul's presence remains - an inordinate amount of Victorian-style psychopaths, & horrifying transformations
August 8, 2021 12:18 a.m.
& my ArchdDEVIL whose cultists delight in force-feeding people from the chalice of transformation :) - not happening, but I can dream
August 8, 2021 12:20 a.m.
TypicalTimmy - I disagree with your thesis--Cosmic horror, when done correctly (and the overwhelming majority of its writers do it poorly) works precisely because it plays on very comprehensible fears.
Lovecraft uses a mix of a few different themes, all of which the reader can easily relate to. To provide a few examples:
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Fear of the unknowable. Humans are hardwired to fear that which they do not understand--we might never experience a cosmic monstrosity, but we will be put in situations that we cannot explain.
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Fear of corruption. Though generally rooted heavily in his racism, Lovecraft has a number of stories where there is something fundamentally wrong with a character; something they cannot control. That is another fear most folks can understand.
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Fear of insignificance. Everyone likes to feel they are important; that they are the protagonist of their own story. Good cosmic horror focuses on the idea that we are not as significant as we like to think we are.
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Fear of madness and loss of identity. Everyone is defined by who they are, and there is a natural fear of losing everything you are to madness or some revelation that changes you at your very core.
The problem with the genera--most writers, such as Wizards' writers with Zendikar, try to focus on the cosmic element, but miss the underlying themes that can actually make the genera effective. Obviously I, the reader, am not going to feel afraid of something like Emrakul--she's a big flying blob made even less scary by her inane conversations with Jace.
But of course I'll be much more afraid of a sudden onset of madness than I would be of zombies (where generally the writing quality is far more frightening than the actual stories). I am not likely to be eaten by zombies; but there are countless ways one could lose their very identity.
August 8, 2021 12:27 a.m.
Ever had a bad trip? Something like someone playing music downstairs can make you think you are hearing voices, they get mixed with your inner monologue, you wonder if you fried your brain with your dumb choices & lost it for good, every minute feels like 10. That #4 above is very palpable.
August 8, 2021 12:56 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #18
The planeswalker's guide all but confirmed that Emrakul's presence is what is causing Innistrad's nights to become longer and its days become shorter and I am glad that WotC included such a detail.
passimo says... #2
Well, while being imprisoned, Ulamog's influence on Zendikar caused the creation of that plane's vampires, if I'm not wrong. So it would be logic to assume that Emrakul, being probably the strongest of the three, and surely the one with the strongest telepathic abilities, would somehow influence the people of Innistrad from the moon.
There's also the fact that the titans triggered Zendikar's "immune system", the Roil, by being held on the plane. So maybe we will see a version of that on Innistrad, maybe some sort of stirrings among the undead, that are basically to Innistrad what elementals are to Zendikar. (Even though probably Zendikar is much more mana-rich, and that must have something to do with it).
I'd personally like to se some Emrakul (even in its Emeria form, being she a angel, and being angels very important to the plane) cult sprouting thanks to the dreams and visions "emanated" from the moon. Something like a more eldritch Skirsdag cult, maybe focused around Nephalia, which if I remember correctly is where Emrakul emerged from the blind eternities.
Though, I don't have a high opinion of the recent mtg storylines, so I don't think they will go in such depth.
August 7, 2021 7:05 a.m.