Okay, so something is bothering me, and I thought I should put something together to illustrate my point. But here it is: Humans are VASTLY overrepresented in planeswalkers, both in the official canon and in the M:EM. And I do mean vastly. By my count (which admittedly might be slightly off, because I had to assume on some of these) there are 58 human 'walkers between official canon and the EM canon. There are 38 other 'walkers that have been at least partially featured in either canon. So by that count, humans outnumber ALL OTHER RACES COMBINED by approximately 20 characters. Here is my count (names in green font are M:EM characters):



Granted, every time I had to make an assumption on a character's race, I assumed it was human. But still, even if I were wrong about every one of them, that's one 7, still meaning humans outnumber others by at least ten. I also have to admit that I did not include some of the pre-revisionist walkers, like Greensleeves, Garth One-Eye and others (most if not all of whom were human.)

Anyway, I wanted to mention this for the purpose of discussion, but also because I think we, as the M:EM, should start closing the gap a little bit. I am by no means guiltless here; 9 of the humans on this list are my creations. But I do think that recognizing this disparity is important, and that maybe we should try to recognize some of the holes, some of sapient races that don't have ANY representation, and consider ways to fill those niches.

Thoughts?

I don't think we should force anything. Aside from that, for writing purposes, it IS important to remember that writing for a different species should feel different, so as a result, it has a large potential to be more difficult and requires more time investment and thought. For a lot of characters for our purposes, if we have a story in mind that requires a more immediate empathy, it might clash prominently if we have to take time out to explain what the differences might be. I think we should let our characters be what they want to be.*
Then again, I have more non-humans than humans so...

I'm also working on another entry for the "elf" list... though he's a half elf, but if Freyalise makes elf then he should too.

For the record, I'd take out Slobad. He's a walker by formality only and no stories were ever meant to be told from his perspective. He's a plot device. I know that further skews things, but... call a spade a spade. If you want to put anyone there, it'd have to be Glissa since the story revolved around HER being a nascent walker, not Slobad. Additionally, even if he lost his spark, there is Ob Nixilis. He's not a natural demon but... well, do we go with appearances? We don't for Tevesh Szat, but we might need to for both of them.

I also, quite truthfully worry about the number of walkers who might have been grandfathered in from the contests who might be eating up design space for other walkers.

Lastly, I don't think I'd count, for our purposes, the official walkers. They have to worry about branding and connectivity in a visual medium. It skews everything they do and if we respond, it will skew OUR numbers.



Btw, you forgot Rishima.
There are two other walkers incoming, one of whom is a shapeshifter by nature.

*Don't get me wrong, if you want to make more nonhumans, go for it, but I don't think, as a group, we should force it.

I'd actually count Szat, Leshrac, and Ellia all as Other. I think they all pushed far enough beyond their humanity that they just don't really count anymore as human. I mean, Molcru and Vasilias are both ex-humans but they've transcended that humanity (or descended from that humanity in the case of Vasilias, arguably).

I do agree that it's a problem but I'm not sure how to solve it without being prescriptive. It's definitely something to be aware of though. I have three 'walkers bouncing around in my head but they're all human... I miiiight be able to twist things around a bit though.

Also, weren't we ditching Kaapse since he eats space for Cara Holis?

What other characters are eating space, Barinellos?

I'm not entirely happy that Kashius's gimmick has been eaten by an official walker.

Aside from that, I'd have to go through the grandfathered list.

I certainly admit I'm not the ideal person to compile this list, just because my knowledge of either canon is decent, but not encyclopedic, as it is for some of you. I know I likely missed some, and others, I honestly didn't know what to do with. Oldwalkers who chose unique forms, like Tevesh Szat and Manatarqua pose major problems for this sort of thing, because, well, what the hell are they? I was really tempted to put "Pavilion" as a race, but we know that's not really the case. There is also the dragon-walker who built Phyrexia, but I'm not clear on whether he was a dragon planeswalker, or a planeswalker that preferred the form of a dragon. For most of these, I went with what they originally were, which granted, causes a problem with the liches, and the vampires for that matter, and Tibalt...

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to get this out there for discussion. As I said, I'm pretty guilty of gravitating toward humans, myself. As I said, nine of my 'walkers are human. And while I also have a giant, some goblins, a vedalken, a vampire, a dragon and a siren, most of them were not particularly developed.

I just think it's something we should think about. The multiverse as a ton of sentient, sapient species, and despite that, both sides of the canon clearly gravitate toward humans. I'm not saying we should go out of our way, necessarily. But I do think that as creative people working in a world like the MTG Multiverse, we should be asking ourselves the question: Does this character I just created NEED to be human? If not, maybe there's an area for expansion there.

That's all I'm saying.

The latter. It was stated exactly as so.

Quite honestly, it tends to work the other way. If you make them nonhuman, it has to be for a significant reason. Not just because you can, otherwise it loses the importance of that choice.

It'd be nice if there was some place to visualize roughly how developed the different characters are as well since, as you say, a lot of your secondary characters are nonhuman but they also aren't particularly developed.

I've been wanting to do an index for absolute ages, but it's been awkward bringing it up.
Though in fairness, my index was so that we could match creators to their creations.

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but I would love to have a cleaned-up version of the character dossiers that appear on the mothership. When I was compiling the above list, it was occasionally difficult to know what race some of the characters were, and whether or not they were 'walkers (thanks again, Barinellos!)

Kirsh, for instance, was only mentioned as an Aven off-handedly in the middle of a paragraph. Now, I already knew he was Aven, but finding it in the dossier was a challenge, which might become a problem later on, as we gain newer members. Maybe some sort of index would clear that sort of thing up a little.

All of this will be a hell of a lot easier when a wiki finally happens on this site.

Some standardization of basic biographical information to put at the top of dossiers would be great.

Yeah, that would be very nice. And if we could get some of you artistic types to drawn some visuals for them, that would be unbelievable...

I wonder how hard it would be to come up with a sort of M:EM comprehensive list of characters. Something like a Planeswalker Helper List of the Expanded Multiverse...

No, wait, that's PHLEM. We don't want that.

How about an Expanded Multiverse Encyclopedia of Titles, Individuals and Creators? Wait, that's an EMETIC, that's even worse...

This is not going to be easy, is it?

well, if we extend your second one to the Magic: Expanded Multiverse Encyclopedia of Titles, Individuals, and Creators, it's MEMETIC, which is pretty good I'd say.

HA! Well done.

It'd be great if we could put together a "Who's Who of the M:EM."

RE: The question of humans being so overrepresented among planeswalkers, I think there's nothing wrong with reminding people that there are other possibilities out there, without creating an expectation that people must start writing more non-humans.

It's not a huge shock that humans are overrepresented given that, despite what our screen appellations might seem to indicate, I suspect that most of us would be checking the "human" box on our multiverse census forms. (With all due apologies to Barinellos, 'natch. I hope there's a checkbox for "old one.") It's just our default mode of thinking. It takes more of a creative leap to create non-human characters, since our shared assumptions about what humans are and how they act no longer apply, and you have to do the extra work to fill in those new blanks.

That said, variety is indeed the spice of life, and I have extra admiration for people who can execute that extra work and write great non-human characters. I think we can and should salute them when they come across our radars.

I realize I didn't really address the main topic, but... yeah, I've got no belief that we *need* more nonhumans, and really fall in the camp that nonhumans need to be properly nonhuman -- that they've got to have a reason to be done right.

Now let me tell you all a story. I may have told it before, so bear with me if old man Tevish is getting senile. As you may or may not know, I do a good deal of writing on private projects (novels I intend to finish, polish, and hopefully get published some day; not fanfic related). I have a LOT of these projects, though many of them currently exist in the form of notes files or outlines if they're lucky. Well, some time ago when I was young and just getting used to being a fantasy writer, a large number of the protagonists of these stories were elves. Why? because I liked elves. I thought they were pretty awesome and fantastical.

Then, in 2009 or so, I asked myself, "Why?". What was really elven about most of these characters. Hell, what was nonhuman? A lot of shyte changed -- I jokingly call the analysis and revision of my notes files the "Great Ear-Blunting of '09", since a lot of formerly elven characters were turned human (they had, you see, basically just been pointy-eared humans). A few, where racial distinction was important, were shunted over to become fantasy abhumans*. They're doing really well: I actually found that they developed more nuance once stripped of the lazy shortcut to being distinct (though really, that might just have been my progressing skills as a writer). To this day, I continue to ask myself 'why?' and while some of my stories retain elves, those that do seem to do so in a reduced form, but also a more interesting one. Though none are the lead characters of their stories, they now actually have an identity as elves rather than simply having "Elf" on their character sheet and an extra 1 in front of their age like some D&D character.


*Is this a normal term? I'm not sure where I picked it up so I don't know if anyone else really uses it. Basically, an Abhuman is catchall for mutants, blessed/cursed creatures, and subraces derived from formerly human stock. They're not exactly nonhuman, but neither are they familiar humanity, either. Generally, I'd only use the term where nothing else really fits. So not, say, for familiar undead.)

Mm, I can understand that concern but I'm not sure it's one that we have to worry that much about. Everyone writing actively at the moment is pretty good at making nonhuman things feel nonhuman, right?

You guys bring up some very interesting points. I'll have to think about them. But in the meantime, let me play devil's advocate here:

What does it mean to be non-human? Hell, in fantasy terms, what does it mean to be human? Let's take Jakkard, for example. A human from Jakkard is fairly well removed from our experience today. Sure, we can identify that character with aspects of the mythic figures of the Old West, but is that enough? If they're older than the event horizon of the reopening of the Waste, then they were born into a claustrophobic world (The city of Verkell), they were born into a socio-economic conflict that fell almost solely down racial lines (Foxes on top) and they had to scrap out a living. Then the Wastes opened up, and many moved out of the city and began to try to work the Wastes.

Now, I have to ask, is a Jakkardian human REALLY that different from a Jakkardic centaur? What about the above description of a human doesn't fit a centaur? So, someone's spark ignites out in the Wastes. That person is the sheriff of some fledgling prospecting town. Isn't it pretty likely that that character will act in a similar fashion whether it happens to be a human or happens to be a centaur? Isn't it more the world the character comes from and the life they led there that is more likely to influence their personality, rather than their species?

Now, like I said, that's me playing devil's advocate. Obviously, there are certain exceptions. A Jakkardith Rattler, for instance, IS going to be different. But again, I have to ask: What is non-human. Does that mean it has to be "alien" to our contemporary understand of what may or may not be quintessentially human?

Nicol Bolas is a dragon, but I have little to no difficulty understanding his motivation or his character. Ajani Goldmane could, in my opinion, just as easily been human from a close-knit tribe. Garruk Wildspeaker could just as easily been a cat-folk who was a loner. I don't believe that I "identify" any more with Garruk just because he's presented as human.

Now, all that being said, I do think I overstated myself in my original post by saying we need to make more non-humans. I'm sorry for that. What I meant was, we have a huge segment of untapped potential for non-humans, and I think the M:EM is an ideal place to develop some of them. Granted, Magic has been expanding to these, as well, with characters like Vraska, Kiora, and Xenagos. I just think it's an opportunity we should be aware of.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. So, to use a concrete example, an Esper human might be more similar to an Esper vedalken than a Naya human--and, of course, we saw the conflict play out along those lines when the Conflux fluxed. And of course we also saw things like Esper vedalken finding greater kinship with the wild beasts of Naya.

That said, I think there's a value in pushing the weirdness factor a bit more in some ways. I like Molcru and Vasilias as characters not just because they're nonhuman, but because they're really dramatically alien in intellect, physical presence within the world, and perception of the world. (In some ways they are very alike--both have extended their perceptual consciousness out into a wider territory than their own bodies.) I think there's value in pushing the alien nature of characters--even human characters. I like Alessa and Asher for that reason--both are human characters but their abilities are rare and their intellects maybe in some ways as alien as Molcru's, Alessa because her perception of the world is so dramatically different from other people's, and Asher because his head doubles as a pocket dimension full of horrifying monsters.

So I guess I'm arriving at Raven's thesis--that we should take advantage of this opportunity--via Szat's argument--that nonhuman races should feel nonhuman. I'd just extend that and combine it with Raven's post to say that we can push even the human characters further, since they're also coming from strange and alien settings often.

Also, figuring out nonhuman romance is weird, can I just say that? I've spent way too long probably trying to figure out how Kirsh works anatomically with respect to his apparently cross-species interest in dudes. Which in retrospect is also pretty weird since he's more concerned about gender apparently than species???? Maybe he's just attracted to particular models of masculinity?????? Writing fantasy is haaaaard. Anyone who says otherwise is either reading really lazy fantasy, or isn't reading fantasy at all, damn lit snobs.

@ Raven - Your devil's advocacy is not wrong at all. If anything, you're so correct, that you're functionally next-levelling my earlier comment.

To clarify, when I say that writing a human is just an easy default because we already have a shared basis of knowledge for how humans work, I'm not even talking about life experience or philosophical perspective. I'm talking about things at an even more basic level, as in humans (most of the time) have two arms and two legs, could wear pants if they wanted to, have opposable digits, can't breathe underwater, can't see very well in the dark, sleep at night, etc.

Questions like the ones you raised about Jakkard are a full level above where I'm thinking. For example, in my most recent story, I accidentally put boots on a snake, because my lazy brain just wants to assume that everyone can wear boots. Falling into the "can wear boots" portion of the multiverse Venn diagram is the sort of shortcut which I'm saying comes with thinking about humans.



Quoted for truth.



And again.

I think it's best to use the "bathrooms on the Starship Enterprise" method. We know it has to be there, but it doesn't need to be shown.

I think inter-species relationships, particularly sexual relationships, are cool, but ultimately the mechanics of how it works is probably not worth the time going into. I think the way Orcish handled the relationships in Love and Theft is probably the best way to do it. The relationships were clear, but implied rather than implicit. I think that tends to work.

Although, I do wonder how Denner Fabellian goes about ranking the physical beauty of women of different species...