I probably won’t watch the video because the one and only video I watched with the “professor” was cheesy and annoying. But I actually enjoyed the book. Some of it was paced a little too quick and not everything was touched upon but I thought it did a good job of covering everything it needed to cover as far as telling the story of the set, even if it wasn’t perfect as the ending to an arc. In general I also liked characterization and believe it was consistent at least with recent material and thought it was written well. The worst of the magic books I’ve read has to go to:
1:Quest for Karn 2:Teeth of Akoum
And this to me was nowhere near as bad. But I’m also told I’m easy to please.
I probably won’t watch the video because the one and only video I watched with the “professor” was cheesy and annoying. But I actually enjoyed the book. Some of it was paced a little too quick and not everything was touched upon but I thought it did a good job of covering everything it needed to cover as far as telling the story of the set, even if it wasn’t perfect as the ending to an arc. In general I also liked characterization and believe it was consistent at least with recent material and thought it was written well. The worst of the magic books I’ve read has to go to:
1:Quest for Karn 2:Teeth of Akoum
And this to me was nowhere near as bad. But I’m also told I’m easy to please.
Both of those are notoriously bad.
Add in Prophecy, Test of Metal, and the entirety of the Onslaught Trilogy (most especially The Book that shall not be named) I also have to put this above the Return to Ravnica duology.
Now, I will say that it's not as good as even recent fair, like The Children of the Nameless or 3/5ths of Ixalan.
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At twilight's end, the shadow's crossed / a new world birthed, the elder lost. Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind. To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"
I probably won’t watch the video because the one and only video I watched with the “professor” was cheesy and annoying. But I actually enjoyed the book. Some of it was paced a little too quick and not everything was touched upon but I thought it did a good job of covering everything it needed to cover as far as telling the story of the set, even if it wasn’t perfect as the ending to an arc. In general I also liked characterization and believe it was consistent at least with recent material and thought it was written well. The worst of the magic books I’ve read has to go to:
1:Quest for Karn 2:Teeth of Akoum
And this to me was nowhere near as bad. But I’m also told I’m easy to please.
Both of those are notoriously bad.
Add in Prophecy, Test of Metal, and the entirety of the Onslaught Trilogy (most especially The Book that shall not be named) I also have to put this above the Return to Ravnica duology.
Now, I will say that it's not as good as even recent fair, like The Children of the Nameless or 3/5ths of Ixalan.
I’ve not read a lot of those but I may avoid now lol. Children of the nameless was excellent. It made me want to build a deck with Davriel really bad. I can’t wait to see more of him. Ixalan was good too. Some of it was a little cheesy (but I think that was the point?) but it made me fall in love with Vraska as a character and was kind of redeeming for Jace.
Maybe I’ll have to read this one again with a more critical eye. But with the hype up of the set and the fact Ral (who has been one of my favorites) featured pretty heavily in it, may have made me a little biased. I also thought Teyo would be another obnoxious Domri but I actually really liked him and liked that he wasn’t a powerful magical prodigy as everyone else seems to be and I’m excited to see him more too.
Edit:I may just be more excited for the potential future of Magic’s story telling than I was for this novel and I’m having trouble separating the two. But as of right now I still like the novel.
It might not be the worst Magic book, but after going almost a decade without them AND being the conclusion to an arc that technically started in Kaladesh but realistically started back in Alara, it left A LOT to be desired.
I honestly see a lot of parallels here between it and the Invasion cycle, so i can't say it's caught me by much of a surprise. I'm not even disagreeing with you either, let me be clear, it's just I feel like I set my expectations realistically given their history.
Mind, I'm aware I'm also being fairly forgiving of the book as well since I've a huge soft spot for Greg.
I guess I set my expectations too high. I can't comment on Invasion since I wasn't around for it, but everything surrounding the story of WotS leaves me...frustrated. -The fact that the prequal stories come out in June is mind numbingly aggravating. I know there's legal involved in some way, but this is Magic's Avengers Endgame and we never got to see Infinity War. -I am also a fan of Weissman's work but the book is... On the one hand, it definitely shows that Greg did his homework and littered the work with references. But on the other hand, the actual writing of the story is...poor. I'll use Chapter 44, the fight with Dovin Baan from Chandra's perspective as an example. -I'll be picking and choosing lines because recapping the whole chapter in a forum post is unrealistic.
Spoiler
-But the priority must be to shut down the Sun that was trapping Plansewalkers on Ravnica, where the Eternals could harvest their Sparks to feed the power of Nicol Bolas. Did you really need to reaffirm what we already knew about the Eternals, the Sparks, and Nicol Bolas? There are a lot of lines that feel like a recap of things that we already know.
-Over the din of aether and wings, Lavinia shouted, "We'll never disable the Sun as long as those things protect it. To complete our mission, we must locate and bring down thier master, Dovin Baan." Who talks like this? We know Dovin Baan is the thopters' master and the characters do too. One or the other, you don't need both. Additionally, the line could be more succinct. Over the din of aether and wings, Lavinia shouted, "We'll never reach the Immortal Sun at this rate. We need to find Dovin, and fast. I don't think this line is necessarily better but it is mercifully brief and gets the same point across.
-Two sentences later; The blue-skinned vedalken, Dovin Baan, stood atop the platform, hands behind his back, leaning judiciously over the side- there's more to the sentence that isn't relevant to my point. The sentence is mostly fine on it's own, but in context, the mention of the blue-skinned vedalken being Dovin Baan is superfluous when you just talked about finding and bringing down the master, Dovin Baan two sentences ago.
Cases like this would be alright if literally the entire book didn't read this way.
-Speaking of which, who is this book for? The introduction of Teyo Verada as a fish out of water and audience surrogate shows that they don't want new readers to be completely lost. Which is fine. I actually like Teyo and don't mind Rat as an exposition dump, even if it's painfully obvious that that is what she is. However, by spending so much time explaining things and throwing backstory at you, it leaves little room for telling you what is happening now. Which leads me into my next point.
-Details: Greg Weismann is best known for his TV shows (Gargoyles, Young Justice), a visual medium. Books are not a visual medium and need the author to provide details to the reader to create a mental image. Let's use the emergence of the God Eternals as an example.
Spoiler
The pounding footsteps were coming from the Planar Bridge. And then she emerged, ducking her head, as she exited the portal; Bontu-Amonkhet's immense God of Ambition, who had been killed by Bolas during an hour of pure devestation, when the plane had fallen. Only now she had been resurrected as a lazotep-covered God-Eternal. And she wasn't alone. Kefnet, God of Knowledge followed. Then Oketra, God of Order. And finally, Rhonas, God of Strength. All dead. All Eternal. All as big as Vitu-Ghazi. The God-Eternals advanced. The Parhelion II fired its cannon, but to little effect, and was forced into retreat.
Now, if I were to see this scene play out in a movie or TV show, it would probably look really cool. But I also know these characters and what they look like. Let's pretend that I'm a new reader that only has passing familiarity with Magic. What do these God-Eternals look like? There is no indication that the God Eternals have animal heads. Do they have weapons like the other Eternals? What did the Parhelion fire at and what caused it to retreat? These questions tie back into who is this book for.
I have so much more to say about this story, but I have tickets for Endgame in a half hour. I'll will be back though.
In the last post, I spent a lot of time discussing the writing of the story. Now I'd like to talk about the story beats themselves. For the most part, the story follows what we see on the cards, with a couple of notable exceptions (Chandra's triumph being the most blatant). I thought the non-Gatewatch perspectives were pretty good for what they were but I had issues with most of the Gatewatch in one way or another. Also Vraska. Let's start with her.
spoiler
-So according to the prequal novels that we didn't get, Vraska's memories were unlocked by a random kraul in her swarm. Then, after allying with former pawns Kaya and Ral, she Grunkle Stan's it up and kills Isperia anyway, playing right into Bolas hands. I can't decide if this in character for her or if they handed her the idiot ball. The prequals probably would have made this better but oh well. -Remember all that character growth Jace went through on Ixalan that made people that didn't read Agents of Artifice appreciate his character as more than New Ertai based on flavor text? Yeah, throw that away, because he goes right back to his old habits and even hangs a lampshade on doing it. Also remember how he was completely over Liliana in his brief time on Dominaria? NOPE! -Gideon was a little too meathead at points for my liking. Definitely not the worst thing they did to him, though. -Liliana was about what I expected, trying to be pragmatic and lying to herself about caring and the whole nine yards. While I like her as a character, I hate her as a person and karma houdini and look forward to when she faces the consequences of her actions. -Chandra was pretty spot on with how she's portrayed recently. It's just a shame that I really hate a certain part of the direction they are taking her (more on that in a bit).
So those are my issues with the story beats. However, the most frustrating part of the War of the Spark is the meta-story.
the meta
-They did Gideon dirty. I know it's completely in character for him to sacrifice himself for others but the way they went about it was so frustrating. He 'gifts' his protection to Liliana, a power we have never seen before, instead of extending his shield like he did with Chandra in Aether Revolt, and as a result takes on her contract? -The other four Origins Five walkers have had at least a partial resolution with their origins (Nissa saved Zendikar, Chandra reunited with her mother and saved Kaladesh, Liliana put her brother to rest on Dominaria, and Jace regained his memories of Vryn.) Gideon died and returned? to Theros. Maybe? It's ambiguous. It's also frustrating knowing that Gideon doesn't know if he succeeded or not but that comes with the territory of dying. -Remember how Gideon was introduced as a foil to Chandra in The Purifying Fire and how the two of them went through hell and back together and help each other grow as people? Yeah, Chandra relegates that time to 'a major crush' so we can focus on 'developing' Nissa and Chandra's relationship. -Yeah, I have an unhealthy loathing for 'ChannelFireball' or 'Gruulfriends'. I don't like Nissa, I don't like how Chandra is reduced to a 'giddy schoolgirl' whenever she's around, I don't like how Gideon was reduced to former flame major crush status, and I don't like how Gideon just kind of forgets that it was a two-way attraction. -It's especially frustrating because I had to wait SIX years for Gideon and Chandra to reunite just so they could do nothing with the relationship. -It's even more frustrating because it didn't even start that way! While Kaladesh definitely pushed the Chandra/Nissa ship, it fed Team LightningHelix a bone in both directions; -Chandra caught up to Gideon, slugged him in the arm, then brushed passed him, bounding down the stairs two at a time. Gideon, for his part, tried to ignore the tightening in his chest as he followed her back down. From Quiet Moments -Chandra was avoiding Gideon's eyes, and she smiled when she saw Liliana. Gideon followed her gaze.-From Puppets right after Chris Rallis's beautiful piece. -The part that's probably most controversial about my displeasure is my dislike of how representation was handled in this particular instance. I'm definitely not against representation in general (Ral/Tomik was one of the better parts of the novel) but I'm not a fan of when creators take a 'straight' character and throw a 'bi' or 'closeted gay' label on them instead of expanding a character with an unknown orientation or creating a new character altogether. -Gideon/Chandra was doomed as soon as Nissa showed up because there is no way that Creative would 'queerbait' its audience like that. -The worst part of all this? Gideon Jura is dead. Nothing more than a pile of ash and armor. We have a Signature Spellbook coming to celebrate his life. He died in the culmination of a major arc of the story with all his plot threads either tidied up or discarded. Characters don't usually come back from deaths like this, no matter how much we may want them to. Creative could pull some strings; he is from Theros after all, and the gods could have sufficient magic to resurrect him if Creative so chose. He would still be sparkless, but he could have closure with Chandra and maybe Chandra could give her spark to Elspeth (since that SHOULD be a problem when we eventually go back) so they can live happily ever after. But why would they do that? -Conversely, Nicol Bolas is alive. Desparked and depowered, but alive. He will wither away under the watchful gaze of Ugin until he finally reaches his natural end...or Creative decides to take him off the shelf, steal a spark and start his schemes again.
future storyline speculation
So Tezzeret seems like a likely target for spark siphoning. He knows the location of the Meditation Realm and definitely has some schemes brewing. I could see him retreating to what he assumes is an abandoned Meditation Realm after one of his schemes goes wrong to find Bolas on the brink of death. Ugin had to step out for a moment because of Emrakul shenanigans (which would help explain why Bolas released them in the first place if he could forsee his defeat) and isn't around to stop Tezzeret from mocking Bolas by name. The gift of Bolas's name gives him back his magic and allows him to elderspell Tezzeret's spark and go back to what he was doing before.
-So what did Gideon die for in the end? He saved Ravnica, yes, but ultimately he died to remove the third point in a love triangle and to stop an ultimate evil until Creative wants to use them again.
Aaaaand that took a lot longer than expected and I probably missed a few points but that is my frustration with War of the Spark summarized.
I have not read the novel but I don't like this conclusion to Gideon because I feel like his character from Origins on was about his obsessive martyr complex stemming from his guilt. I don't feel like letting him finally complete his mission to commit suicide by heroism was an actual character arc.
That was not a good book, but I *liked* it and enjoyed it. Totally went in expecting pulpy, clumsily-written fantasy fare and received exactly that, but fortunately that's a thing that I shamelessly enjoy. It's kind of a shame that the conclusion of the story that's been playing out since before I got into the game is eclipsed so totally by Children of the Nameless, which was excellent and something I want in physical print. (Side note, I liked the little Easter egg of Dack trying to steal the Seelenstone.)
Something cool about Gideon's sacrifice was that a mono-White character rejected the worst traits White can have (judgmental, exclusionary, merciless) and embodied the best (selflessness, mercy). It makes sense for Gideon's character. I don't have a problem with it.
There was an incongruity I noticed between the flavor text on Prison Realm, which says Bolas is locked away for eternity, and the book, where Ugin clearly states that Bolas is mortal and will die in the Prison Realm.
It was nice that Ral and Tomik's relationship was mentioned consistently throughout the book and wasn't just a throwaway sentence, and that it factored frequently into Ral's POV chapters. Kinda wish Kaya had gotten more than a single sentence saying she liked someone with a feminine-sounding name. The tinfoil-hat part of me almost wonders if putting more focus on the gay couple than the lesbian couple was a deliberate choice to give representation and a sympathetic portrayal to a kind of relationship that the toxic elements of nerd culture don't already voyeuristically enjoy, if that makes any sense.
Kinda wish there had been more Planeswalker deaths that weren't just nameless redshirts.
Am I crazy, or was Hazoret missing an arm by the end of Hour of Devastation? It wasn't mentioned when she appeared in the book, which seems like something a character like Dack who was unfamiliar with her would notice.
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"Not all those who wander are lost" - J.R.R. Tolkien
"The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks" - Douglas Adams
It was nice that Ral and Tomik's relationship was mentioned consistently throughout the book and wasn't just a throwaway sentence, and that it factored frequently into Ral's POV chapters. Kinda wish Kaya had gotten more than a single sentence saying she liked someone with a feminine-sounding name. The tinfoil-hat part of me almost wonders if putting more focus on the gay couple than the lesbian couple was a deliberate choice to give representation and a sympathetic portrayal to a kind of relationship that the toxic elements of nerd culture don't already voyeuristically enjoy, if that makes any sense.
I have, ultimately, mixed feelings regarding this. On the one hand, I did think the motivations felt natural for it to play out, and it did inform aspects of Ral's character well. Unfortunately, it also felt REALLY thin to drop in there. I think their relationship really suffers from missing the other damned half of the story.
But that also means that its inclusion skirts dangerously close to being in there just to serve an agenda. It narrowly misses that mark, but it's still too close for my comfort. Admittedly, part of this is a frustration that a bunch of thirsty AF fans who've been speculating Ral is gay since BEFORE he even had a written word to his name are all now smugly crowing and choosing their next target and won't shut up about how 'they called it' based on literally no evidence.
The Chandra/Nissa ship can go die in a fire. The dumpster fire that is Nissa's character specifically. I'm also willing to throw Chandra on that pyre now too.
Quote:
Kinda wish there had been more Planeswalker deaths that weren't just nameless redshirts.
It does leave you somewhat hollow, does it not? But honestly, at the end of the day, Dack's the only character that feels like he died pointlessly. And that's more sad than I care to admit.
Good riddance to Domri though. And in a lesser way, Gideon too. It was a slow death since the Kytheon reveal in Origins. The only two that came out of Origins OK were Jace and Liliana.
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At twilight's end, the shadow's crossed / a new world birthed, the elder lost. Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind. To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"
Just from what I have read of your posts, I think there is a very narrow band of any sort of lgbtq character or character of color that would satisfy you, and you have a very high bar placed on these characters to justify their existence that does not exist for white or straight characters to just be white or straight.
Just from what I have read of your posts, I think there is a very narrow band of any sort of lgbtq character or character of color that would satisfy you, and you have a very high bar placed on these characters to justify their existence that does not exist for white or straight characters to just be white or straight.
Not necessarily. It's only when it feels like their characteristics were added only as an excuse to pander that I take issue with it. (hell, I'm specifically asking for more of Ral's relationship up there because I want it to be fleshed out)
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At twilight's end, the shadow's crossed / a new world birthed, the elder lost. Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind. To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"
But that also means that its inclusion skirts dangerously close to being in there just to serve an agenda.
Sorry Barinellos, I'm going to have ask you to clarify what you mean here? Serve an agenda...of more representation?
Quote:
Kinda wish there had been more Planeswalker deaths that weren't just nameless redshirts. It does leave you somewhat hollow, does it not?
I'm conflicted on this. On the one hand, the stakes felt kind of artificially high with all these walkers showing up and only three dying, one of which was an eleventh-hour addition. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of character death since it generally means the end of their story. I think a good compromise would have been to have the chapter after Domri gets desparked dedicated to an Hour of Eternity/The Stand type exploration of several one-off characters before they get offed. Also, probably unpopular, but we might have been able to lose Jaya. She's been around since Ice Age, Chandra fills most of the same space in pyromancy, and she would have been the Obi Wan to Chandra's Luke. Of course, losing Jaya AND Gideon probably would have broken Chandra. (Also also, I REALLY don't want to make a big deal out of this, but I do feel the need to point out that the only named casualties were cis white men.)
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And in a lesser way, Gideon too. It was a slow death since the Kytheon reveal in Origins.
What was wrong with this? It retconned a couple things, yes, but Desperate Stand shows that they have been planning this since Journey into Nyx.
Shallow representation does nobody any good. It's just virtue signaling and reduces characters to token inclusion, which lack depth and is as harmful as just not trying in the first place.
Beyond that, I'm deeply bothered by the divisive nature of shallow representation and the narrative that you can only relate to characters who are superficially like yourself. If a character is well written, they should be able to appeal to everyone, not one demographic. Representation is important, I'm not arguing that, but it should mean something and not just be some badge to show off.
That's what I meant by agenda.
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At twilight's end, the shadow's crossed / a new world birthed, the elder lost. Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind. To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"
I see the point you are trying to make but I'm not sure that I fully agree. There is definitely a portion of the fan base that cares more about what a character is rather than who a character is and I don't agree with that. However, I'm not sure what you mean by "shallow" representation. Is Teyo being left hand dominant shallow? It does nothing for his character but I definitely appreciated it. What if Ral was a fully fleshed out character who just mentioned his boyfriend in passing? I don't think that would work in the context of this story (finding Tomik was a major plot point for Ral's character), but I don't think every character needs to be fully fleshed out from the start either.
Also, while I appreciate the sentiment of a well written character appealing to everyone, that will never happen in reality. Just looking at Blogatog, I don't think anyone can write a character that would appeal to both the people complaining about too many girl pirates in Ixalan being "unrealistic" on one end of the spectrum and on the other end of the spectrum, someone complaining that the WotS planeswalkers had a good gender ratio, but not by RARITY.
I see the point you are trying to make but I'm not sure that I fully agree. There is definitely a portion of the fan base that cares more about what a character is rather than who a character is and I don't agree with that. However, I'm not sure what you mean by "shallow" representation. Is Teyo being left hand dominant shallow? It does nothing for his character but I definitely appreciated it. What if Ral was a fully fleshed out character who just mentioned his boyfriend in passing? I don't think that would work in the context of this story (finding Tomik was a major plot point for Ral's character), but I don't think every character needs to be fully fleshed out from the start either.
See, that's why I mentioned that I felt it was natural and said something of Ral's character since it establishes priorities in his life. The problem that I have is that I don't really believe the relationship that strongly. (regardless of lgbtq) We see him going through a lot of finding Tomik, but we're really only supposed to care because Ral does and that feels more hollow. It's why I said I'd like to see the pair fleshed out more. Otherwise, it's just "Ral cares for his boyfriend" and in today's climate, that usually just means a token effort was thrown in for virtue signal points.
I'm hoping when the other novels come out they develop the pair more and we're just getting things after the fact.
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Also, while I appreciate the sentiment of a well written character appealing to everyone, that will never happen in reality. Just looking at Blogatog, I don't think anyone can write a character that would appeal to both the people complaining about too many girl pirates in Ixalan being "unrealistic" on one end of the spectrum and on the other end of the spectrum, someone complaining that the WotS planeswalkers had a good gender ratio, but not by RARITY.
Yeah, those folks aren't really worth trying to appease. To borrow from your own words, there is a portion of the fan base that cares more about what a character is than who they are and that portion will never be satisfied no matter what you do.
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At twilight's end, the shadow's crossed / a new world birthed, the elder lost. Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind. To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"
Joined: Sep 25, 2013 Posts: 14141 Location: Kamloops, BC
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I can't be too worried about LGBTQ characters not having a lot of development when, by the sounds of it, none of the characters are getting a lot of development. As long as they meet par I'll take it.
*"To YMTC it up" means to design cards that have value mostly from a design perspective. i.e. you would put them in a case under glass in your living room and visitors could remark upon the wonderful design principles, with nobody ever worring if the cards are annoying/pointless/confusing in actual play
To weigh in on this debate, I feel like people are too forgiving of poorly written characters when those characters are of some manner of minority, as though 'representing' changes whether or not a character is credible or human. A character who's a colossal tool as a straight white guy is still a colossal tool as a gay black chick, they're just a gay, black, female colossal tool. Bad writing and good writing alike are largely blind to such considerations. There's probably a small bias in that it's easier to "write what you know", but I don't think it's that big a deal that you couldn't have these minority characters written well. And lapping up lazily and sloppily written tripe just because it ticks census boxes is a problem because it tells creators [WotC] that it's OK to be lazy and not put in effort with the craft of writing as long as they tick boxes. The end result is not just one that holds back good writing in general, but also in specific good writing for the 'represented' minorities that get the free pass of laziness, since less effort will be put into characters their creators think less effort can be put into when deadlines loom.
Tangential to all this, I miss getting weird, high-concept Planeswalkers. They were never very numerous, but they existed before the Mending. I want to see a few distinctly inhuman characters, who take advantage of the fact that the multiverse is a huge and strange place wherein can dwell intelligent beings that defy human racial description. I want to see more like Manatarqua or Tevesh Szat (big surprise, I know) that are weird and wonderful in a way that only Dominia could give us. We have the dragons and Karn, to a lesser extent maybe Ajani and Vraska, but it's been a long time since we've gotten a really new idea that belongs solely to M:tG. Gimmee something so strange it really blows my mind, in a commander supplement if nothing else.
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"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."
I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook! The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure. Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.
Maybe it's because "virtue signaling" and "tokenism" are terms that are front loaded with a lot of baggage that I'm getting tripped up, but I think we mostly agree. You don't want to see a sort of "benevolent homophobia" in the creation of characters where a character is all flash and no substance. Okay, I agree with that. But on the other hand, while some people may be more forgiving of "poorly written characters when those characters are of some manner of minority", other people are more scrutinizing of "poorly written characters when those characters are of some manner of minority" that they wouldn't be if the character were straight. Bad characters happen. Slapping representation on them doesn't help them, but it shouldn't detract from them either. Calling it virtue signaling seems to attach an authorial intent that may or may not be there. Magic Creative has made it very clear in various panels that they don't want characters to simply fill a checklist (I distinctly remember someone asking when we are getting A,B, and C walkers one year, then the next year, thanking them for A,B, and C and asking when we are getting D,E, and F. I felt so frustrated for Creative listening to that knowing that it was never enough.) That doesn't mean that every character is going to work for everyone. To quote Jenna Helland, "While we don't expect you to identify with every story, we hope you find characters that you can relate to and experiences that resonate with your own." Which leads into my next point that I don't think has been really answered; what constitutes a shallow character? That distinction is different for everyone. I really liked Gideon, but other people find paragon characters boring and one dimensional. I really (REALLY) dislike Nissa, but she resonates with other people. I can't sit here and tell that little girl that dresses up like Nissa that she's wrong because it's completely arbitrary and different people have different life experiences.
To get to Tevish's tangent, do you mean characters like we saw in the DotP player icons? There were some pretty out there designs there.
Last edited by VLW on Sat May 04, 2019 8:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Regarding the tangent, I never got into DotP so I wasn't familiar with the icons, but a quick google search says, yeah, there were some pretty cool designs in there I'd like to see the likes of applied to developed and/or intriguing characters. (I say or because lets face it, a commander blurb isn't full development, but an interesting one can be a good start)
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"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."
I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook! The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure. Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.
My definition of shallow specifically deals with when a superficial characteristic informs more of the character than any motivation or history does. Though it also applies when the creator feels it necessary to put more weight on a superficial characteristic as well, like when they revealed they hired someone out to make Kaya more "real". It's not really the fact they did it, it's that they felt they needed to mention it. (though the Aminatou article is also really cringe inducing). Just let the character speak for itself.
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At twilight's end, the shadow's crossed / a new world birthed, the elder lost. Yet on the morn we wake to find / that mem'ry left so far behind. To deafened ears we ask, unseen / "Which is life and which the dream?"
I will admit that I rolled my eyes at the Kaya reveal when it first came out. Why would you need to hire someone to write a black person when that character's history shouldn't be influenced by the real world struggles of black people. Just write a good character and then make them black! But I recently realized that if it means avoiding another Kiora Atua faux pas, then what's the problem? I hadn't actually read the Aminatou article until just now. The amount of character building we see in this short article makes me miss Savor the Flavor. I'm not necessarily a fan of the character concept (her power suite seems a little too much for the main plot), but I don't see the problem with explaining how a character came about because you wanted to make a strong female character without falling into the trap of making her a tomboy.
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