Honestly, it's just because she laid it on SUPER thick and that felt a bit much.
That's my feeling about the character in general, just too much.

That and i can't think of anything they could do practically with Aminatou and that bugs me.

Late to the party, but, eh, it headed to a topic I care about. The way WotC runs now, we're lucky to get any good characters. I don't even think they realize how with the rules of universe the built, they can't actually stop having to resort to Apocalyptic situations so much (And why Mowu was actually something you couldn't simply hand wave; even though an explicit one line would be enough.). Simply put, good characters have their motivations show through their actions. I hate to bring politics into it, but being more left might actually be a detriment.

When planeswalkers first appeared, I thought Garruk would be a more rural hunter/ranger archetype, but it never happened. Over time, when I saw that that wasn't going to happen, it also dawned to me that they were never going to be able to use it for a major character. Vivien seems to be an attempt, but she doesn't capture the "country" aspect to me. With how it seems green characters being the hardest for WotC to make, it bothered me that they can't seem to make the obvious one. They typically resort to -green race- character is the green character.

The problem with "Tokenism" and such is because it doesn't actually do anything unless people relate to the character. While it might seem great to make a -blank- character the person in charge, it doesn't actually inspire people unless they see themselves in the character. The character being -blank- doesn't necessarily make that happen. It's not even the best shortcut for getting a sense of a character. In real life, one of the best things a sales person can look at is a potential customer's shoes. "Tokenism" just is a way to say that they're trying to appeal to a demographic without understanding what that demographic responds to.

This lack of understanding of the structure of good character building lately seems to be just part of a lack understanding of good creative structure building in general. The reason why all the world ending events happen is because it's the easiest way to build conflict for planeswalkers by the rules of the multiverse. After the Mending, the primary rule for planeswalking was that planeswalkers could no longer bring others along. That means that a planeswalker's main source of conflict will come from that inability since it's the way planeswalkers can't "game the system" by planeswalking. Since it's such a generous rule, it pretty much takes a threat of planar annihilation to stress the rule. It's easier to make more compelling stories if there's a stricter rule set for gaming the system. In Sliders, there was a cooldown time between dimension hopping along with a lack of control of destination. In Tsubasa: Resevoir Chronicle, the Dimensional Witch could help you out of any situation, but you always had to bargain for it.

I’m not sure if I misread your post but war of the spark actually did have a one line answer for Mowu. He’s a clay figure brought to life by magic so he’s inorganic. Unless you meant that they needed the one line to explain him so they couldn’t hand wave it any more in which case ignore this, no response needed

I don't follow the connection between planeswalking and needing world ending conflicts. Kaladesh seemed like a perfectly good conflict between planeswalkers and that was just over the government of a single large city. I think the one-note worlds are the problem. I want to see how Krenko is doing every once in a while but not if it means 3 more months of Ravnica being mostly the same as it always has been. Apocalypses are the only way that we can see those characters in a "new" setting because they are unable to just go to another continent or something. Fighting over the fate of one city wouldn't have to feel apocalyptic if the world had more than one city in it.
You seem to be saying that the story can't focus around a fight of a few individuals because planeswalkers can leave but I think it can't focus on a few individuals because they need 150 cards a set, half of them being creatures.

That one line answer was enough, but important. Before the book came out, Maro was confused as to why people kept asking about it when other characters have more unbelievable abilities. It was because Yanggu's ability with Mowu seemed to contradict the fundamental story constraint on planeswalking.



The connection between walking and apocalypses is because WotC wants the main characters to be planeswalkers. It doesn't mean that every story will be world-ending, but rather that it's the easiest default to make those planeswalkers care. You need a story where "Why didn't ~ just go some plane where that rare item is plentiful, bring it back here, make money and influence, and solve the problem?" doesn't work. You can do it by making it harder to gain influence in the time needed (though Jace kinda makes even that trivial), but it's easier to just make a threat where money and influence are insufficient. Something as simple as a week-long cooldown on planeswalking would allow lesser conflicts to be important to planeswalkers, along with requiring more ingenuity.

If the main characters aren't planeswalkers, then they don't have that auto-"get out of dodge" card. So you can have them in the same place with a larger array of possibilities for tension, like Krenko having to deal with a courtroom setting vs on the streets in a gang dispute.

About the set concerns, that has been an issue, but I think that's easier to solve: [Main Plot] + [Vignettes]. It's something they did before that worked for further exploring worlds, and it leaves room for the main plot not to be as "heavy."

A good abstract example for the problem on display here: You can have a story where the characters are magic unicorns that can breathe in Space. This is fine, even though magic unicorns that can breathe in space are a really unbelievable concept to common sense. People will follow the rules you set. But when, at the climax, the villain unicorn is thrown out an airlock and promptly asphyxiates because, you know, SPACE... that's what readers will call bull on, because it violates The Rules as you established them. Consistency is more important for spec-fic storytelling than realism.

~~~

Also, there's an infinitely more simple answer to "Planeswalkers can just bugger off" than having an apocalypse every damn set. It's establishing that there's something the 'walker in question WANTS. Give them a personal stake in the action that they would lose if they hit their escape button. I actually think Dack Fayden had the right concept (if not necessarily the right execution) there. He's a thief, a treasure hunter, out for Fortune and Glory as the esteemed Dr. Jones would put it. If he Planeswalked out in the middle of a heist, there would be good odds he'd lose his chance at the prize. Because of that, there's an incentive for someone with Dack's motivations to stay around and try to fight and/or think their way out of a predicament they could escape with planeswalking. The only issue here is this: it requires you to write your planeswalkers as characters with convictions, desires, and drives, for which they're willing to take at least a certain level of risk. And I'd consider writing at that level to be a win.

If it were just a story, yeah, that'd be the easier way. However, in my experience, there's time when you find that you can't make characters do what you originally planned and have to tweak the outline a touch to get things back on track. When designing a set concurrently, I'm not sure how much wiggle room you can get. So it might not be as simple as it should be.

It also leans into what was actually my primary gripe was to begin with: I don't think WotC understands how to motivate their characters. It gets harder the more people they want to drag to each plane.

Well, part of that comes from a slavish adherence to the tropes attached to the colors and the non-inclusion of character traits that exist outside those colors. The idea that facets of other colors can't exist in a mono-color represented individual is a real issue. The worst of it is when they introduce a new color purely as a means of explaining a part of a behavior rather than simply letting a color deviate from it's proscribed motivation suite.
See also: Red means angry, so Nahiri is red now. Or whatever the hell was with Nissa getting blue for half a damn second. (also obligatory, shut up Nissa)

I think a big problem is the reliance on WOTC's roster of existing characters. It might not be hard to write a new character that has stakes in a particular conflict, but that wouldn't be leveraging the brand, now would it? So you have to fit at least one of the 5ish most-recognized faces into the conflict. And you have to take into account which walkers are slated for exposure in the preceding and proceeding sets. And then there's color balance and mechanics within the set to worry about. And after all that you can worry about how that character fits into the setting.
With all those factors in play, WOTCs main roster should have been written with ease of narrative insertion* front of mind. Dack Fayden and Gideon are to good walkers to have in the roster for that reason. It's easy to stick Dack on a plane- just say he has a shot at some sweet loot. Gideon doesn't like to give up on people, so having him run into some folks in danger is a great way to ground him on a plane- or at least get him to come back for round 2. A dogged detective/explorer archetype, somebody on an assigned mission, somebody who can only planeswalk intermittently, somebody avoiding walking to escape notice of another walker, a figure who can banish walkers elsewhere semipermanently- these would all be good tools to have in the narrative roster. MTG's multiplanar angle pretty much demands at least a few characters who can slot in anywhere. I suspect the Lorwyn 5 and most walkers to follow were built to tick off marketing objectives instead.
Just having planeswalkers able to interfere with one another's walking would be an alright out too. Or put some real weight behind the "planeswalking takes time and energy angle".


*It's a term now. I termed it.

Let's say you want to tick off a color wheel of marketing as well. You could still do it while providing good narrative motivation, and without changing the planeswalking rules (though I *like* the time and energy constraint and wish it was better used)

A "hero" who won't let innocents come to harm (Gideon) -- Doesn't want to planeswalk while peril or injustice exist for others in their immediate presence
A researcher that would have to give up on knowledge by exiting the scene (Tamiyo) -- doesn't want to planeswalk until their research project is complete
A Assassin, who always sees their job through (Think Angel Eyes, from The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly) -- doesn't want to planeswalk until they've fulfilled their contract and gotten paid.
A "thrill seeker" with a personally-driven desire (Dack or Tibalt) -- doesn't want to planeswalk until they've achieved their particular form of satisfaction
A Explorer, who will be found seeking some sort of natural wonder -- Doesn't want to planeswalk until they've experienced and bonded with the object of their journey.

You can apply whatever tick boxes you feel compelled to after that, but those characters will still be united by possessing personal goals

The funniest part of much of that, is that in those terms, many of our walkers have ANTI walking goals. Elspeth and Jace were looking for roots, for example.

Which is fair, IMO. Of course, you do want your face 'walkers to be able to pack up at the end of the story and move to the next one, which is a problem with non-recurrent goals (Elspeth, for instance -- she had to get screwed or chicken out every time, because if she ever made her goal, she was done for the rest of the Multiverse). Something I'd realized a while ago working with M:EM walkers, but am just now putting into words as a problem with some of the canon character writing.

"But it's strange that it feels so automatic. We became her loyal entourage in a matter of hours."

Love the self-awareness.

"The Gathering Storm" chapter one is now available if you are a part of the Random House mailing list. Here's a link if you haven't signed up yet http://www.randomhousebooks.com/campaign/magic-gathering-newsletter/
I have to say the prose in this is very well done, especially when compared to the novel.

Did WOTC ever discuss their logic in releasing the Django Wexler War prequel novella after the War's climax novel? I know it wasn't uncommon for sword and sorcery heroes to have their tales told out of chronological order back in the days of Conan and Elric, but here it doesn't make much sense.

The most we know is legal issues and that's probably all that's going to be said about it.

Read both Django Wexler stories delivered by mail. Wonder if these will be published publically, there's some quite interesting tidbits in them.

The Wexler stuff is pretty good.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/war-spark-forsaken-2019-10-09

If you haven't quite given up on War of the Spark yet, some new information has come forward about the sequel.