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Angry Grimace posted:I don't even really understand why people have such a hardon for proving black is not evil to begin with. restrictions breed creativity maaan
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Mar 10, 2016 13:03
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Angry Grimace posted:I don't even really understand why people have such a hardon for proving black is not evil to begin with. It's more interesting to not be absolute, and opens things up if the heroes can be in black and the villain elsewhere representing "negative" aspects of other colors. Black I think can be said to represent ambition, pragmatism, equivalent exchange and self-reliance/independence (bleeds over into red) which I think can all have a positive spin. A black hero breaking free of a rigid white status-quo is probably a good way of expressing it.
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Mar 10, 2016 13:46
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reminder that maro used unfettered capitalism as an argument for why black isn't evil
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Mar 10, 2016 14:20
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Black is Slytherin.
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Mar 10, 2016 14:23
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Extend Black's selfishness to a community-wide sentiment, and I can easily see it as something good. "I am going to channel my ambition for myself and my fellow workers, and sacrifice myself and whatever it takes to earn what we deserve." Of course, replace "workers" with "Aryans" and it's not quite as good...
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Mar 10, 2016 14:27
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Color philosophies for anything but game design is bad and leads to rigid D&D alignment grid thinking. Black = evil has gotta be magic's fallen paladin shenanigans.
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Mar 10, 2016 14:27
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Lancelot posted:reminder that maro used unfettered capitalism as an argument for why black isn't evil Unfettered capitalism employs him, you can't go shittalking the conceptual framework behind your boss.
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Mar 10, 2016 14:44
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Elyv posted:I think white might actually the second or third most common for villains. Of course, they're still having problems with the whole "black hero" thing. Speaking of black heroes:  Finn fits the bill in numerous ways. He's a total coward with his first driving motivation being "I want to get my rear end out of here alive" and promptly books it to wherever safety is. Even if that isn't necessarily Magic's black, at no point in the movie is he ever thinking about the greater good in any sense of the word. Not to mention, much of what he does involves marking himself as an individual among a faceless mass, something else black aims to do. He makes multiple attempts to exit stage left wherever possible and when he finally does go in for the heroic rescue, he actively lies to the entire rebel fleet just so he can get his friend back alive because he's a lonely dude. All of that can be considered a perfectly rational form of self centered thinking that happened to, by circumstance, force him into being one of the main two protagonists of the story. That's black pragmatism. Also he's black.  Feel free to resume your arguing over pies.
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Mar 10, 2016 14:53
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The difference between green's sense of community and white's is that green has to yell "NATURE!" like a weird MGS boss. Same with their sense of individuality vs. red or black, except here it's "THE LAWS OF NATURE!" or "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, BITCH!"
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Mar 10, 2016 15:06
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Turn 1: Eye, Mimic, Mimic, Mimic Turn 2: Scalding Tarn, Crack for Steam Vents, Vile Aggregate, Attack for 12. Ladies and gentlemen: MODERN!
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Mar 10, 2016 15:09
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Ramos posted:Speaking of black heroes: he's BW by the end, since he cares about his friends and the Resistance enough to go to Starkiller Base
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Mar 10, 2016 15:25
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Caring about people doesn't make you White unless it's specifically due to your dedication to the ideals of communities. All the colours can have friends and family and act in their interests.
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Mar 10, 2016 15:37
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mcmagic posted:Turn 1: Eye, Mimic, Mimic, Mimic It's a good format since the games are quickly over so you can do something else instead. Looking forward to grinding modern at GPDC and getting 3 MPH (matches per hour).
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Mar 10, 2016 15:45
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Allstone posted:Caring about people doesn't make you White unless it's specifically due to your dedication to the ideals of communities. All the colours can have friends and family and act in their interests. Maro has said a number of times that the biggest problem with a black protag is that the game being almost wholly centered around combat makes most characterization "I fight for [reason] by [action]" which means that the most straightforward black character will always be fighting for themselves by summoning zombies or ruining your brain. Sorin does okay at selfishness that is generally good, but being pegged mechanically to horror elements and death and rot makes it hard to make the plucky necromancer just trying to get by or w/e
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Mar 10, 2016 15:51
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Black getting Exalted in one of the core sets was a nice change of pace
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Mar 10, 2016 15:54
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Bring back the Western Paladin
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Mar 10, 2016 16:28
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mcmagic posted:Turn 1: Eye, Mimic, Mimic, Mimic Tap Plain, Cast Holy Day *snicker*
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Mar 10, 2016 16:36
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Archenteron posted:Bring back the Western Paladin And Eastern, and Northern. Did they make a Southern?
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Mar 10, 2016 16:38
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Archenteron posted:Bring back the Western Paladin #MakePhyrexiaGreatAgain
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Mar 10, 2016 16:38
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Chill la Chill posted:Color philosophies for anything but game design is bad and leads to rigid D&D alignment grid thinking. Black = evil has gotta be magic's fallen paladin shenanigans. It's neat that you bring up D&D alignment grid, because that's another good example of when prescriptive thinking ruins a system that's cool (in my own opinion, anyway) when it's used descriptively. People saying that channeling mana from a swamp makes you ~teh selfish~ are basically Magic's equivalent of a DM saying "you're a gnoll, you're Always Chaotic Evil** and it says so in the book." **I don't actually remember whether gnolls are Always Chaotic Evil Magic Creative has made a token effort to show other colors in an evil light, and probably even more than a token effort if I'm being fair, but the fact that people can still straightfacedly argue based on the cards that black is "worse" than white or green, or the fact that we still see black protagonists as the "exception," shows that a lot of people still don't get it, perhaps including Creative themselves and definitely including Maro himself.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:39
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We still only see Black Protags as the 'exception' cos in the real world we would consider black aligned characters sociopaths for the most part. Again, they've made an effort to not do as D&D does and say their alignments are textbook good or evil, but most people are capable of seeing it for what it is. To be fair, I personally think White & Black are both pretty lovely. edit: I say this, while having an Orzhov sticker on my laptop. Rimusutera fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 16:41
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For me the silliest thing with the colors is that sometimes they represent a more metaphysical concept or attitude or whatever, and sometimes they just straight up represent elements. Blue can be "raw" magic and introspective blah blah, or it can just mean water and ice and sea monsters cause the symbol is a little blue water droplet. It's a silly thing to try and dig into because it really is all very, very arbitrary.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:46
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Good and Evil aren't even particularly meaningful categorizations for "magic qualities" anyway. DnD and Magic have this hardon for Good/Evil for nothing more than token gestures as this dumb way to generalize motivations. It's silly. Really we should look at which Reasons from SMT Nocturne each color falls into quote:Maro has said a number of times that the biggest problem with a black protag is that the game being almost wholly centered around combat makes most characterization "I fight for [reason] by [action]" which means that the most straightforward black character will always be fighting for themselves by summoning zombies or ruining your brain. Nothing wrong with pragmatism~. Zoness fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 16:48
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Rimusutera posted:We still only see Black Protags as the 'exception' cos in the real world we would consider black aligned characters sociopaths for the most part. Again, they've made an effort to not do as D&D does and say their alignments are textbook good or evil, but most people are capable of seeing it for what it is. Well, people aren't wrong when they think of a Randian sociopath and go "oh yeah, that's black" but the double standard comes in when it doesn't occur to us that a pyromaniac or the Westboro Baptist Church would make equally if not more undesirable neighbors. BFZ block is probably one of the better ones for showing how a black person (in the Magical sense) would be someone you'd want to have as an ally, but that's because most of the non-devoid (that is, Zendikar-aligned) users of black mana in the setting are going to be aligned against an existential threat. Gumdrop Larry posted:For me the silliest thing with the colors is that sometimes they represent a more metaphysical concept or attitude or whatever, and sometimes they just straight up represent elements. Blue can be "raw" magic and introspective blah blah, or it can just mean water and ice and sea monsters cause the symbol is a little blue water droplet. It's a silly thing to try and dig into because it really is all very, very arbitrary. Growing up as a child, I made my first mana bonds with the nearby ocean and rivers. Clearly this makes mine a superior intellect to yours, a dumb jock from the mountain forests.  the color pie: magic's equivalent of 
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Mar 10, 2016 16:53
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Black can be the good guy in as much as its in contrast to White or Green being the really bad guy. Its like the Finn example; his desire for individuality against an upbringing in a horribly authoritarian and rigidly conformist regime, the First Order, which can be seen as White. This is endearing to us to a degree and doesn't come across as evil or malicious. edit: JerryLee posted:Well, people aren't wrong when they think of a Randian sociopath and go "oh yeah, that's black" but the double standard comes in when it doesn't occur to us that a pyromaniac or the Westboro Baptist Church would make equally if not more undesirable neighbors. Pretty sure most people realize that.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:55
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:colorpie: would be an excellent emoticon.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:55
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The biggest faux pas I've ever made (okay, maybe not the biggest) was looking at a D&D alignment chart and calling my fiance 'Lawful Evil' cause she's a rules lawyer. Yeaaaah. Just call em the exception to whatever and don't go down that rabbit hole.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:56
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:The difference between green's sense of community and white's is that green has to yell "NATURE!" like a weird MGS boss. come on the joke is staring you right in the face when is the JACK IS BACK set, wotc???
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Mar 10, 2016 16:58
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This philosophy poo poo is the worst part of the color pie, and frankly magic.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:07
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Rimusutera posted:Pretty sure most people realize that. Obviously it occurs to us if we think of the Westboro Baptist Church themselves. Is that what you meant? I don't disagree with that. The point, which I may have phrased poorly, is that for some significant proportion of people--myself possibly included if I'm not being mindful of it-- it doesn't occur to them to think of WBC when they see the little white sun, or at least not to the same extent that it occurs to them to think of icky eeeeevil when they see the little black skull.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:07
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It's much easier to come up with a WURG colored villain than it is to come up with a "good guy" black. The closest they've got is Liliana. A spy could work as a black hero but that would probably end up being UB and a Punisher style antihero would definitely be BR. Turns out if your only defining characteristics include looking out for number one it still makes you an rear end in a top hat even if you aren't hatching an evil plot.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:09
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The funny thing, there's a lot of complaining about White villains(when there have been a bunch) and Black heroes(when there have been a couple) but no one ever talks about the lack of Green villains when I think there have been literal zero(unless Vorinclex counts)
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Mar 10, 2016 17:09
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Garruk
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Mar 10, 2016 17:11
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dragon enthusiast posted:Garruk He went black.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:12
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JerryLee posted:Magic Creative has made a token effort to show other colors in an evil light, and probably even more than a token effort if I'm being fair, but the fact that people can still straightfacedly argue based on the cards that black is "worse" than white or green, or the fact that we still see black protagonists as the "exception," shows that a lot of people still don't get it, perhaps including Creative themselves and definitely including Maro himself. Other colors get a fair number of villains, especially white. Looking back over recent blocks, the villains have been: SOI: White BFZ: Colorless KTK: Was there a villain? THS: RG, and also white since heliod's a jerk RTR: Azorius and Dimir, I think? I didn't read the ebooks ISD: Nonwhite, especially black SOM: White ZEN: Colorless, and I guess grixis because it's a bolas plot somehow ALA: Grixis White is the main bad guy at least as often black, and I think people get that white can be evil sometimes. The problem is that when white isn't the main villain, it's usually the brave folks rallying against the impending doom, or the angels protecting the innocent. But when black isn't the main villain, it's usually some looting orcs or mass-murdering demons who happen to have also showed up. White heroes are common, but black heroes are very rare -- all we have is Sorin, who's half-white anyhow, and Samurai Dude From More Than A Decade Ago. The mono-white walkers are Elspeth, Ajani, and Gideon -- unqualified heroes. The mono-black walkers are... Bobby Nixon and A Villainess. Elyv posted:The funny thing, there's a lot of complaining about White villains(when there have been a bunch) and Black heroes(when there have been a couple) but no one ever talks about the lack of Green villains when I think there have been literal zero(unless Vorinclex counts) If you include multicolor, there was the RG guy from Theros, and the elves from Lorwyn. Nissa started out as mono-green hitler, but wasn't the block's main villain and has now retroactively never been hitler.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:12
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Xenegos was one, if R/G, but I'd say Vorinclex counts. KTK had the Sultai as a whole as pretty menacingly evil, and Zurgo was kind of a dick.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:12
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dragon enthusiast posted:Garruk Any man with the potential to murder Jace is a hero in my heart.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:12
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dragon enthusiast posted:Garruk Green garruk good, black garruk bad. Planeswalkers turning black consistently means they've been evilly corrupted -- Garruk, Sarkhan, Tezzeret. Nobody ever turns black to show that they've embraced their individual value, or turns white to show that they want to be a fascist.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:15
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Elyv posted:The funny thing, there's a lot of complaining about White villains(when there have been a bunch) and Black heroes(when there have been a couple) but no one ever talks about the lack of Green villains when I think there have been literal zero(unless Vorinclex counts) That's because green doesn't encapsulate any motivations that could really be considered villainous, unless you go into eco-terrorism types of things which aren't really applicable to a MtG setting. There also aren't really any green heroes that aren't also white. I don't consider Garruk heroic because he never really has been unless out of necessity. There are definitely a lot of green characters and concepts that aren't good, but also aren't explicitly bad, like massive monsters and beasts that will just wreck the poo poo out of whatever gets in their way.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:16
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Nahiri is a white villain really only by circumstance instead of philosophy. She's white mostly only because she's good at building things out of rocks, and a villain cause she wants to gently caress up Innistrad, which don't exactly have natural overlap.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:19
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