Good and evil are illusions, a construct of values inherent in a subjective society. One is only as good or evil as one perceives themselves as in that society.


But yeah, no, this is a terrible way to tell a story for Wizards and this idea has been bandied about since the Phyrexians reappeared. It's not a good story. It's a dead end.
Even thematically, it's working against itself in terms of threat. Oh no! The Phyrexeldrazi are here! Everyone is getting compleated, jk nevermind the plane is dead now and everyone compleated is dead.

No your not understanding what i am trying to say. Like the eldrazi are compleated, not that their destructive nature and the phyrexian nature are combined, it's more like the eldrazi have become almost drones for the phyrexians. I know their ideals are opposites, but the phyrexian oil doesn't let you maintain your own ideals, so why not the eldrazi.

The Eldrazi don't even really have ideals. That's part of it. They are vast immortal incorporeal world eating creatures that exist outside space. There's nothing there for the Phyrexians to corrupt. There's no commonality partly because the Eldrazi barely understand what mortals are to begin with. It's akin to an ant trying to explain its ideals to you, complete with the premise the ant doesn't speak English. You wouldn't understand.

Even then, it's only the titans' main self that move between worlds. It isn't like the Phyrexians could hitch a ride on their bodies either.

Beyond that still, the Eldrazi don't choose to do things to the worlds they consume. It just happens because they're there. If the phyrexians managed to catch one, it would be eating the world around them even as they tried to compleat it. If they emulated the hedron network long enough to compleat it, then when they let it go, it would end up eating whatever world they sent it to, making it a lot of wasted effort. And that's providing the physical form even maintained whatever changes were made, but since they're actually spiritual beings of the Eternities and their physical forms are more like shadows cast on the world, I doubt that'd be true.

They are ultimately two very different forms of villains whose themes are incompatible based on the very nature of what the narrative wants from them.

I agree with you dude, we haven't been shown if the eldrazi have a goal in the first place. until wizards actually admits that the eldrazi are "mindless" per se i don't believe that they would put something in the story just to complicate the narrative. I don't understand why you aren't for the idea? It would be interesting, that's all i'm saying. If i am correct the titans do have the ability to shift through planes, there has never been any direct conformation on the extent of the eldrazi's abilities. we know of their abilities to completely destroy whole planes, but what if they can control what they destroy. that would change the whole story, the eldrazi infected with the ideals of phyrexia creates a destructive machine that can destroy those who don't cooperate with their ideals. It's not even the fact that they need to understand why they have those values, but it's like trying to understand why a bird flies. They don't quite have an idea of why they do it, they just do it because they can.

The only Eldrazi Titan that bothered to try and explain itself was Emrakul, and that was only in odd dream fragments that tried to explain to Jace that he was an idiot for even trying to understand what the Eldrazi are for and trying to accomplish.

It's a theory as old as the New Phyrexians and they don't really mesh. It's just something we've had to hear a lot since it started.
It really isn't as cool as it is to theorize how cool it would be. That's getting into a lot of issues in narrative theme and subverting underlying lynchpins of the villain's points. It might make the Phyrexians more cool, but it makes the Eldrazi substantially less so. Even then, I'd argue it harms the phyrexians because it removes their own agency by giving them a diabolus ex machina to solve their problems instead of making them earn a victory.

Not really. They never actually leave the Blind Eternities. When they manifest on a world, it's the equivalent, as Ugin put it, of someone sticking their finger into water.


That's the problem I've got with this theory. It's reliant on a 'what if' that can't be answered.

I'd argue they can't hold ideals as small as Phyrexia's. And if they aren't believers, they're just weapons, in which case it'd be way scarier if they Phyrexians just built something that could destroy planes.

man can we talk about how evil old phyrexians were? i'm talking Artifacts Cycle yawgmoth here. woof

Planeswalker says Phyrexians have neither a concept of nor a word for 'happiness'. Being happy is not in their nature and irrelevant to their purpose. In a way, that's all they have: purpose. So, if you're interested in pursuing a good life, giving yourself to Phyrexia is probably a really bad idea (and no-one can guarantee you they won't just cut you into slices and feed you to the newts anyway). Unless your idea of a 'good life' is really messed up and doesn't include happiness, but I refuse to believe anyone would think like that. Sure, as soon as you have been brainwashed really hard and adopted the Phyrexian outlook, it won't matter to you anymore, but that doesn't mean it isn't horrible. Whether you call them 'evil' or not is semantics, they're bad and need to be opposed either way. The transhumanist aspects some people might find promising about them (I don't) were just Yawgmoth's hook to get his first followers among the Thran, before he turned them into his puppets and destroyed most of their civilisation.

Edit: I don't get what people see in Phyrexianised Eldrazi either... The idea has seemed cheesy to me right from the start.

why are we talking about phyrexianized eldrazi? it's dumb for two reasons: 1) everything we know about eldrazi makes me believe they're un-compleatable; and 2) why would you jump the shark by mixing two evil things when you could just make another interesting and distinct evil thing

now what we should be talking about is eldrazified phyrexia, which is only dumb for the second reason

Well, I don't know too much about old Phyrexians. That Planeswalker thing is probably about old variant.
It seems for me that they were a really evil civilization. Not sure though. What I told about new ones is based on their flavor texts and stories.

"The transhumanist aspects some people might find promising about them (I don't) were just Yawgmoth's hook to get his first followers among the Thran, before he turned them into his puppets and destroyed most of their civilisation."

Well, Yawgmoth actually gave phyrexians their expansive ideology, right ?
He probably wouldn't lead an entire civilization to global conquest if he wouldn't think there is something in it. According to MTGsalvationwiki
he viewed Phyrexia as perfection before it was so brainwashing. Maybe juuust because
"being a phyrexian means being immortal, ethernally happy, and in an absolute harmony with your kind" ?

what about eldrazified phyrexians

"Planeswalker says Phyrexians have neither a concept of nor a word for 'happiness'. Being happy is not in their nature and irrelevant to their purpose. In a way, that's all they have: purpose. "

Precisely !
If you have a concept of happineess and unhappiness, if you are constantly pursuit first and run away from the second, you are not ethernally happy.
If you don't have a concept of happineess and unhappiness, if you only have your "purpose" as an only motivation, you are really, absolutely happy.

But there is a quote where new phyrexians desribe their work as "Joyious". I don't think new phyrexians are that unemotional.

"Whether you call them 'evil' or not is semantics, they're bad and need to be opposed either way."
True about Eldrazi, because they want only obliteration. Not true about antagonists that want power - like Bolas or New Phyrexia.
Thing that really matters is how they want to use their power. Bolas just wants to tyrnanize everyone, New Phyrexia wants everyone to
be united
be immortal
be ethernally joyious
be more logical (You would sacrifice yourself fo a greater good ? Now you will do in in a most effective way possible, and without any regret. You pursuit knowledge ? Becoming a part of a supercomputer is the most effective way to do it, and you would do so happyly. Etc etc etc...)
have a wierd aestetics
spread things listed above.

Not THAT horrifying, right ?

"As long as one drop of oil remains, we will never stop trolling."

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.

Your avatar is a non useless rare.

First, irony.
Second, it seems that I am an ethernal opposition here.

Doesn't feel like irony

feels more like an enjambment really. could be an ironic enjambment tho
and i'm just saying, consider inquisitor exarch with an emerge cost

That's for all intents and purposes Propaganda. Sure, Yawgmoth might have believed this stuff himself when he discovered Phyrexia and the oil, but in the end it was just about seizing more power and taking revenge on the Thran. He had seized power over a good portion of the Thran empire before he even started turning people into Phyrexians, and it was basically a fascist military dictatorship. Becoming the Father of Machines was just the next logical step. So I would argue that Yawgmoth's goals were messed up and selfish to begin with. Besides, if it had been about happiness and immortality and all that, he could have stopped much earlier.

Not knowing happiness isn't the same as being happy. Even if it was, no-one could bear constant happiness.

The red faction seems to have some sort of compassion with the Mirrans while the white faction follows a quasi-religious doctrine (but in a way, so did Old Phyrexia). I'm deeply suspicious about their use of the word "joyous", though. I find it much more likely that they use that to mean their work is in line with their goal and their purpose, and maybe some of the factions use it to differentiate themselves from the others, because their takes on what Phyrexia should be are all pretty different.

The Eldrazi are like a forest fire, but Phyrexia is like a virus. Both will be opposed by the people threatened by them if they have the means, even though the forest fire and the virus just do 'their thing'. And from the perspectives of the people on Dominaria, Mirrodin, Elspeth's homeplane and all the other worlds that have confronted Phyrexia, it must have felt A LOT like obliteration at best and as something even worse at worst. Sure, technically they are united and immortal (but not joyous), but what use is unity if it kills individuality? What use is immortality if your life isn't your own? Or your mind and body? Also, the notion that tyrannical people who want power don't need to be opposed is profoundly messed up.

VERY horrifying indeed.

Basically, imagine if a fleshless metal-spiked monster came up to you on the street. Instead of running in terror from it, you stand there, maybe with a little apprehension, to see what it does next. Instead of outright destroying you, surprisingly, it begins a grindy monologue about how it's going to be great! It's going to kill you, rip the flesh from your bones, and stretch that skin over an animotronic metal skeleton that is programed to be happy about its lot in life for the rest of time. You'll love it. You'll technically be immortal and happy forever! I mean, you'll be dead, but your parts will be immortal and happy. What's not to love? Why do you look so apprehensive? Wait, why are you running away? Don't you want to be happy and immortal? Why does the monster have to chase you down and beat you into pulp with its claw hands to show you what true happiness is? Why is nobody ever happy about this sort of thing?

Phyrexians are evil.

Even if they weren't depicted as the bastions of horror and, nowadays, everything wrong with the specific colours of mana (except ), they're emotional black voids whose entire existence is devoted to spread horrific suffering unto others.

They have idealogical reasons, but at the end of the day they're dealing misery that cannot be justified in any conceivable way.

End of discussion.