It has been brought up before that the older sets were something of a mish-mash (a formal term ) of flavor, much of which has little to no bearing on contemporary story canon. This makes me wonder, then, about the flavor orphans of those early sets, and how we, a community of Vorthos players, can deal with them.

One of, if not THE most, glaring to me is Frankenstein's Monster. This card, apart from being a wording nightmare and a user of the taboo +2/+0 and +0/+2 counters, also poses serious problems by merging a specific and well-known fictional character of our world into Magic's canon.

I was wondering if other people had problems with this card, or a decent solution to resolving the flavor issue the early sets occasionally create. Also, what early cards do you have the most problem with from a flavor perspective?

Wow, I had literally never heard of the set The Dark before now. I can only assume that that is where The Gathering Dark came from.

Anyway, as a relative newcomer to the scene, it might be useful for someone to mark around where/when these sets stopped mattering to the story or multiverse.

I don't think you can really draw a line. The brother's war, chronologically, and presumably set-wise as well, came before the dark, but it's still considered canon.

Whether right or wrong, I am working under the assumption that every card printed, apart from the silver-bordered "un-cards," are canon, whether they should be or not. It is possible that Wizards has stated otherwise at some point, but not to the best of my knowledge.

ALL of it is still canon, except where specifically contradicted by postrevisionist canon (i.e. everything that was published after they decided that the Spark was an innate thing, among other things). The Dark, as Luna mentioned, is the source of most of The Gathering Dark including a LOT of cards referenced within the novel. Antiquities is all of the Brother's War, not including what was revealed in Urza's Saga. What of Ulgrotha is canon is a bit nebulous these days. All of Mirage should still be canon, and some of it might've come post-revision anyway, I don't really remember.

Aaaaanyway Mirage is probably the most useful demarcation as after that things started to firm up storyline-wise with the Weatherlight Saga. The further back you go the less sense stuff starts to make.

I don't really know how you deal with something like Frankenstein's Monster to be honest... Was there an Argivan Doctor Frankenstein? That'd probably have to be the only way you can explain it...

Maybe Dr. Frankenstein is an Innistradian planeswalker...who can time travel...

I sure hope so.

I like this idea. Lets do this.

You know what REALLY throws a wrench in the works?

The fact that Islam apparently exists in Magic. Some old materials describe the presence of Muslims on Jamuraa, and Rabiah actually features Baghdad and Alexandria, among other places that actually exist.

Honestly, compared to that Frankenstein isn't too bad.

Don't you get it? The multiverse was created in a freak accident of physics tearing the universe apart with earth at it's center, splitting it into multiple connected realities.

Islam can just exist on that plane

Of course how silly of me I can't foresee how that could possibly cause any problems.

Only with prejudice people

For what it's worth, my attitude is that you treat it like a translation of a foreign word or concept into a language that we can understand.

After all, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that all the planes in the multiverse don't just conveniently share a set of languages with the countries on Earth where it is profitable to market and sell a particular card game. So, by necessity, you kind of have to accept the fact that what we're seeing and reading is a translated/retold version of what is "really happening" out in the multiverse.

Well, sometimes translators may use a familiar concept in one language to help create a point of reference. Don't assume that Frankenstein's Monster is literally supposed to be the same one as in the Mary Shelley story. Let's just assume that it's a monster type thing which was created by a mad scientist from reanimated body parts, and that the easiest way to explain what it is to you or me is to simply call it "Frankenstein's Monster," because that's an analog in our language and culture which makes sense to us.

I'm not saying this is the "correct" way to think about these, but it's a way I like to get around Shakespeare in flavor text, Frankenstein in card names, and Einstein in the art for Presence of the Master without having to assume that those people or things are literally supposed to exist out in the multiverse.

Hmmm wonder if I should respond to this thread...
nooooooooope

Are you saying we need to call Kenny Loggins?

Your archer obsession is getting borderline obsessive. Stupid Olympics making it not new!

Obviously Frankenstein is a Post Brothers War "scientist" who experimented with the idea of using more mechanical means to animate, over the extremely grisly necromantic magic used by the taboo use of magic.

However, the Church of Tal felt that even if it wasn't magical, it was still an extremely grisly and taboo act, and had him burned at the steak, his monster destroyed.

Obviously in the eternity that is Dominia, some alchemists on Innastrad discovered by chance a similar method to reanimating the dead.

Also it never says Earth isn't apart of the Multiverse. Who is to say we aren't a shard of The Thousand Fold reflection?

I can explain that.
When they designed Arabian Nights, they didn't design a world that was based on 1001 Arabian Nights, they designed cards that matched Arabian Nights.
Arabian Nights IS Arabian Nights.