https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-12-08

This is pretty good news.

I'm feeling kind of ambivalent about the news.
On the one hand, I like the word "diverse" and I'm pretty sure we know they're talking about China's despotic censorship, which really objects to some subject matter.

On the other hand, I actually don't like the word "relatable" because that's explicitly subjective. I could very well be overreacting, fully aware, but I've seen that go bad.

"Tune in next week to meet our next cast of characters as we adventure into Kaldheim and beyond."

Does... does this mean we may be done with the Gatewatch? New cast?

wellllll, Kaya is confirmed for Kaldheim and she's a part of the Gatewatch. technically. She'll probably be acting of her own accord in Kaldheim, although it will be interesting to see how we get from the end of Forsaken to here.

Oh for the love of... Kaya? Ugh... I am deflate.

Not bowing to censorship is great news.

I'm not going to expect this to read as anything more than "we're going to put more queer characters into our stories", which I doubt will address any of the problems with or otherwise elevate the storytelling of Magic.

I love how we're presented with a clear statement that censorship will not be an issue (which, mind you, was one of the reasons Forsaken is so reviled) and you see fit to be homophobic about it.

Sure, higher amounts of LGBT characters will not by themselves improve the story. But A) MTG's storytelling quality has always facillated wildly, so even if it is garbage at least there's something to look forward to, B) less censorship by default constraints writing quality less.

There's nothing bigoted about calling a duck for a duck. But you're right, as long as wotc gives me some shallow gay pandering then I should just sit back and shut up so white women who fight on my behalf can keep patting themselves on the back while they continue to ignore actual problems. The death of the lesbian dream team is definitely the central reason why War of the Spark failed to be a satisfying ending to a story that was begging to be put out of its misery, and certainly the main concern that needed to be addressed.

I think a lot of the recent problems with the story have come from corporate interests forcing the hand of the creative department. This will not remove all of that, but some of it. It is not the solution to all of their problems, but these issues require time and work, and this could be a good first step. And hey, I can't believe I'm saying this, but recent corporate culture has been so thoroughly disappointing that the bare minimum step of "we will not allow the censorship of oppressive regimes dictate our decisions" is frankly more than I would have expected. You are absolutely right that it is not enough, but at the same time you have to agree that it is not a bad thing.

I support the hate on the terrible ship. That said, I did like how they handle Ral's relationship much better in the same pair of books.

No, I'm all for standing against Chinese market pressure and standing for your ideals, I just feel like a small subset of topics get the vast majority of attention from wotc publicly.

And maybe that's wrong, maybe wotc has made an official statement on what canonically happened on Ikoria, or apologized for their disregard of their setting's established principles, or acknowledged that maybe Bolas's arc was a mess with a lukewarm ending, and I've just never seen them because they haven't been brought to my attention in the same way.

I just happened to read this quote (in an article about this same thing):
“The blowback from Forsaken illuminated that we needed a better validation strategy not only for issues of representation, but for narrative content in general,” Franchise Creative Director Jeremy Jarvis said at the time. “[S]o we made the hard call to delay Theros Beyond Death fiction until we could create a new vetting process.”

So they are at least aware of the fact that they needed to change more than just the representation issue. I must admit that I haven't kept up with the story lately, but the impression I have is that the recent Zendikar Rising stories were at least not bad. And the mere fact that they are doing free online short stories again is a big positive in my book, even though I don't really read them myself.

Have they ever done this with any of the horrible wring choices in the past?

I do personally like the Zendikar Rising stories, though there are some valid criticisms on Nahiri's previous actions being glanced over and the inconsistency about what the lithoform core can do.

Ikoria's situation is nothing out of the ordinary, though given these statements I do think we can look forward to less of a wedge between the books and the set.

Eh, bleh. I want my fantasy to be about characters I *don't* relate to. *Friends* but where everyone rides dragons instead of taking cabs would be a worse show because I *want* the dragons to be culturally impactful enough that the society is foreign to my own. The more similar the cultural norms and priorities are, the more it detracts from the overall experience. I want to see the subtle ways things are different beyond the blatant. For example, in dragon land, I'd be nice to see, when people start looking for someone they lost, they first look up before looking side to side.

On the whole LGBTQA+ stuff, the whole reason Ral's reveal was so much better handled is because it wasn't a love story. It was about how the story affected those he loved. Typically "will she, won't she" type love stories are usually a detriment to the type of stories WotC tells. They are often more a drain on the story, whether it's straight or not. The current pop culture views on love and marriage don't really fit well in these types of stories, because we've stripped the business and legacy aspects out of romance (AKA, we focus on the getting together part, not the long term adjustments people make for each other after the commitment. What a couple is capable of accomplishing by their partnership is way better for an adventure story than how their partnership hinders them from taking their typical actions. For example, a hostage situation is only good if it fosters *more* drive, ingenuity or attention to detail from the characters; and typically is best when the hostage is also taking an active role in getting free.).

My issue with storytelling is that none of the current roster of storyline protagonists are remotely as interesting or flawed as Urza, Chainer, Garth One-Eye, Toshi Umezawa, or even the Jace we got from Ari Marmel's Agents of Artifice. I'm not as interested in the relationship stuff and the "will they, won't they" bull. I'm here for the adventures and pulp fiction, not the trashy YA romance.

not bowing to censorship is good

LGBT representation is good in theory but not if it replaces things that actually help the LGBT community in a significant capacity

I think its very limiting to say LGBTQ characters can only be in romantic stories and of the few LGBTQ characters there are in magic who been featured in the lore, only Chandra and Nissa had a romantic story arc.

A big issue is that sexuality is only really a relevant characteristic to a character when it is on display. I'm not saying it isn't an inherent characteristic, but if it isn't directly relevant to a scene at hand, it shouldn't be brought up. Because it's irrelevant. (This extends to any expression of sexuality, not exclusively representational material)
So, unless it is saying something else about the character, that they are flirty or awkward, then it's going to come across as extremely ham fisted to bring it up just to say it.

Because in the entirety of however many Harry Potter books, what relevance did Dumbledore's sexuality have?