So I want to like Chandra, but between her cards never seeing play and her storyline so empty feeling. I was thinking of what would make her a better character to me. What would pull me into the story?
I feel largely unattached to her parents having such a small amount of buildup and her spark igniting with the new origins story. It felt rushed, lackluster, and the antagonist just felt black to me on a plane that has strong veins of individuality and inspiration in its people. Also the story of having not a knack for things but being a savant in red aligned spells makes her feel like a special snowflake x2. She's just good at what she does AND gets to be a planeswalker. Where's the payoff for her hard work? How's does she grow?
Wouldn't it be neat to make ties of Jaya Ballard, task mage being Chandra in an almost Phoenix sort of way? I.e. Jaya dies in a confrontation and then is born again as Chandra. Her parents could have found her or adopted her. Planeswalking for the first time and meeting the monks of keral keep is the subconscious remnants of a former life. Chandra is the culmination of the same old walker repeating a life/death cycle and there are enough breadcrumbs among the planes in the multiverse to piece it together now.
Thematically I can see it tying out phoenixes being an iconic red creature and would be a neat story twist. Cards like reforge the soul being a good spring board for a storyline reprint card without the miracle rider of course. Reds issues with identity crisis, her reminding the old abbot of Jaya, her maturing character as the story moves along, and her less reliant on running from responsibility (or who you really are and what your feelings are), etc. I dunno I could see it being a fun subplot to the eventual kaladesh storyline. Maybe Nicol Bolas has met her former self at some point? How does she deal with not being who she thought she was all these years? Does it matter, do you run from the past, do you hurl fire at it, can Jace help her solve the mystery?
It's also a pretty fun nod to older players who liked Jaya. I'm a big fan of her flavor text and she was one of my first red cards I actively sought out.
If this was already covered sorry, I tried looking but maybe didn't use the right terms in my search function. Doesn't seem too far fetched of an idea to me.
We've been talking about Chandra recently in some of the other threads.
I don't think we should explicitly connect Chandra to Jaya. They don't need to be the same character reborn. Chandra is already Jaya's thematic successor. Chandra has been living for years at a monastery that Jaya inspired. That's already a pretty close connection.
I have my complaints about Chandra, but I don't think this would fix them. If anything, before I read The Purifying Fire, I used to wish they had made Chandra less like Jaya. As the second goggles-wearing pyromancer in Magic who became famous for her snarky flavor texts, she always felt too indistinct - someone who should have either gone in a different direction, or just literally been Jaya.
Eventually, I read The Purifying Fire, where they address this directly through the ties Jay mentions, as well as by having Chandra herself complain about how people liken her to Jaya... but I had a new set of complaints by that point.
Wouldn't it be neat to make ties of Jaya Ballard, task mage being Chandra in an almost Phoenix sort of way? I.e. Jaya dies in a confrontation and then is born again as Chandra. Her parents could have found her or adopted her. Planeswalking for the first time and meeting the monks of keral keep is the subconscious remnants of a former life. Chandra is the culmination of the same old walker repeating a life/death cycle and there are enough breadcrumbs among the planes in the multiverse to piece it together now.
I can get behind this a point, though. After all, Chandra certainly seems to be adopted! Pia and Kiran Nalaar both look like badass Indian inventors. Chandra... is pale with freckles.
Anything to bring some clarity to that issue would make me happy.
I find Chandra's problem to be similar to that of the new Origin 5 overall; Magic went from the Lorwyn 5 - walkers where the stories seemed to develop organically around interesting card designs - to 5 walkers now who are pidgeon-holed into certain roles that are meant to be broad and appealing rather than in-depth and focused.
Let's start with the 2 changes. Ajani and Garruk were originally in the Lorwyn 5. Ajani was a Leonin antrho-walker who was built upon the white mechanics of lifegain, tokens and a few boosts. They gave him arcs of seeking out a righteous justice to avenge his brother's murder through violent means and his current quest to avenge the death of his friend Elspeth through a more peaceful endeavor to teach Therosians of the treachery of the Gods. Ajani has depth, developments, flaws and strengths.
Garruk was a green viking-esque hunter who fully embodied the idea of survival of the fittest, but hunted with respect for what he killed. His whole quarrel with Liliana began over her killing one of his pack. Upon being cursed by the introduction of black mana, Garruk becomes - in a sense - corrupted, seeking bigger and more dangerous game until now he even hunts other planeswalkers. Although a more dark turn, Garruk is shown to enjoy his new black mana ties, and just wishes to be left to his own affairs. Garruk never had much development character-wise, but at the minimum had interesting story elements happening around him.
Jace and Liliana were more or less quickly developed around the idea of Blue draw and Black necromancy. There characters might not be overly complex, but they've filled their roles well since the beginning. Despite my hatred of Jace for having 0 personality or relatability to myself persoanlly, I get that he fits his niche well.
Here's my point: Gideon, Nissa and Chandra have - so far - not been written or developed as the best choices for the faces of the game for their colors. Let me explain. Gideon is great. I love Gideon. I like the idea of the one guy who is just srraight-up "right or wrong." The superman character, if you will. His cards are strong. He has the soldier theme of being in the trenches leading his friends into battle. Here's my problem with Gideon; what room is there for him to grow? Despite Crestive's efforts, most remember Gideon fought and learned tactics along side the Boros. He's not just the dumb beater. His development also happened already in his Origin story, where his hubris and feelings of personal invincibility led him to try and attack a god, which inadvertently caused his friends to be killed. So where does he go from here? It seems Gideon more or less is always in the right, always knowing what to do. He even stood up against Ulamog and held him back. Nissa has the opposite problem. Rather than having her character have an interesting origin and little room to grow, she had an interesting story that was cut and is stuck in a vicious cycle of losing confidence in her self before finding it again each story article. I know, I know. Can't have a racist protagonist. Cool. Then don't force her into one of the main 5 role. Keep an intesting character rather than retcon her whole key feature of xenophobia and that leading to her releasing the Eldrazi, thus her fear and self-pride leading to her own world being destroyed. We took two characters in garruk and Ajani with interesting stories and designs and replaced them with Superman and female Legolas. You cant just take out Captain America and Hulk and put the Winter Soldier and Vision in and say it's the same. It's not. It might not be bad, but it's not the same.
Which brings us to Chandra. She has never been her own character. Shes Jaya without being Jaya. A red walker that's never been agressive enough in a card to be in red aggro, nor powerful enough or spell-based enough to be in red spell-slinging. She was an Irish looking girl with no home plane that they just shoved onto the Indian-based plane based on her name which was problematically given out when Magic cared less about cultural sensitivity. Chandra's issue to me isn't even just her origin story, nor the uncertainty of how much of the Purifying Fire is canon or not. To me it's that she's never been given any sense of direction. Koth is red's fury and passion focused. Tibalt is red's hedonism and lack of responsibility taken to the extreme. Even Sarkhan is red's devotion to the fury of nature in the form of the Dragon literally embodied. Chandra.....burns stuff. Because she wants to. Chandra hates restrictions and responsibility. So when approached to help Gideon and Jace with a problem she helped create, she ducks that responsibility to agree to the.....responsibility of the monastery. Where she is reminded of being like Jaya, which she hates the comparisons to. Then in her very next story, she leaves the monastery to go to Zendikar anyways. So what did we learn there?!? That she is more sure that she should go because she decided to? I want to like Chandra. I really do. But minus her having some sort of mistake that comes back to bite her and forcing her to grow as a character, this whole freedom for freedom's sake approach is not making her appealing. Like Gideon and Nissa, we're currently stuck with a character with little room to grow and little sense of direction on where Creative wants the character to go. And that's a real shame 20+ years into magic.
Vorthos-player with way too much time on his hands and a love of thematic decks.
EDH - Yes, Each One is Named After a Song. I love tying music to my decks.
I feel largely unattached to her parents having such a small amount of buildup and her spark igniting with the new origins story. It felt rushed, lackluster, and the antagonist just felt black to me on a plane that has strong veins of individuality and inspiration in its people. Also the story of having not a knack for things but being a savant in red aligned spells makes her feel like a special snowflake x2. She's just good at what she does AND gets to be a planeswalker. Where's the payoff for her hard work? How's does she grow?
Wouldn't it be neat to make ties of Jaya Ballard, task mage being Chandra in an almost Phoenix sort of way? I.e. Jaya dies in a confrontation and then is born again as Chandra. Her parents could have found her or adopted her. Planeswalking for the first time and meeting the monks of keral keep is the subconscious remnants of a former life. Chandra is the culmination of the same old walker repeating a life/death cycle and there are enough breadcrumbs among the planes in the multiverse to piece it together now.
Thematically I can see it tying out phoenixes being an iconic red creature and would be a neat story twist. Cards like reforge the soul being a good spring board for a storyline reprint card without the miracle rider of course. Reds issues with identity crisis, her reminding the old abbot of Jaya, her maturing character as the story moves along, and her less reliant on running from responsibility (or who you really are and what your feelings are), etc. I dunno I could see it being a fun subplot to the eventual kaladesh storyline. Maybe Nicol Bolas has met her former self at some point? How does she deal with not being who she thought she was all these years? Does it matter, do you run from the past, do you hurl fire at it, can Jace help her solve the mystery?
It's also a pretty fun nod to older players who liked Jaya. I'm a big fan of her flavor text and she was one of my first red cards I actively sought out.
If this was already covered sorry, I tried looking but maybe didn't use the right terms in my search function. Doesn't seem too far fetched of an idea to me.
Thoughts? Thanks!
I don't think we should explicitly connect Chandra to Jaya. They don't need to be the same character reborn. Chandra is already Jaya's thematic successor. Chandra has been living for years at a monastery that Jaya inspired. That's already a pretty close connection.
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Eventually, I read The Purifying Fire, where they address this directly through the ties Jay mentions, as well as by having Chandra herself complain about how people liken her to Jaya... but I had a new set of complaints by that point.
I can get behind this a point, though. After all, Chandra certainly seems to be adopted! Pia and Kiran Nalaar both look like badass Indian inventors. Chandra... is pale with freckles.
Anything to bring some clarity to that issue would make me happy.
Let's start with the 2 changes. Ajani and Garruk were originally in the Lorwyn 5. Ajani was a Leonin antrho-walker who was built upon the white mechanics of lifegain, tokens and a few boosts. They gave him arcs of seeking out a righteous justice to avenge his brother's murder through violent means and his current quest to avenge the death of his friend Elspeth through a more peaceful endeavor to teach Therosians of the treachery of the Gods. Ajani has depth, developments, flaws and strengths.
Garruk was a green viking-esque hunter who fully embodied the idea of survival of the fittest, but hunted with respect for what he killed. His whole quarrel with Liliana began over her killing one of his pack. Upon being cursed by the introduction of black mana, Garruk becomes - in a sense - corrupted, seeking bigger and more dangerous game until now he even hunts other planeswalkers. Although a more dark turn, Garruk is shown to enjoy his new black mana ties, and just wishes to be left to his own affairs. Garruk never had much development character-wise, but at the minimum had interesting story elements happening around him.
Jace and Liliana were more or less quickly developed around the idea of Blue draw and Black necromancy. There characters might not be overly complex, but they've filled their roles well since the beginning. Despite my hatred of Jace for having 0 personality or relatability to myself persoanlly, I get that he fits his niche well.
Here's my point: Gideon, Nissa and Chandra have - so far - not been written or developed as the best choices for the faces of the game for their colors. Let me explain. Gideon is great. I love Gideon. I like the idea of the one guy who is just srraight-up "right or wrong." The superman character, if you will. His cards are strong. He has the soldier theme of being in the trenches leading his friends into battle. Here's my problem with Gideon; what room is there for him to grow? Despite Crestive's efforts, most remember Gideon fought and learned tactics along side the Boros. He's not just the dumb beater. His development also happened already in his Origin story, where his hubris and feelings of personal invincibility led him to try and attack a god, which inadvertently caused his friends to be killed. So where does he go from here? It seems Gideon more or less is always in the right, always knowing what to do. He even stood up against Ulamog and held him back. Nissa has the opposite problem. Rather than having her character have an interesting origin and little room to grow, she had an interesting story that was cut and is stuck in a vicious cycle of losing confidence in her self before finding it again each story article. I know, I know. Can't have a racist protagonist. Cool. Then don't force her into one of the main 5 role. Keep an intesting character rather than retcon her whole key feature of xenophobia and that leading to her releasing the Eldrazi, thus her fear and self-pride leading to her own world being destroyed. We took two characters in garruk and Ajani with interesting stories and designs and replaced them with Superman and female Legolas. You cant just take out Captain America and Hulk and put the Winter Soldier and Vision in and say it's the same. It's not. It might not be bad, but it's not the same.
Which brings us to Chandra. She has never been her own character. Shes Jaya without being Jaya. A red walker that's never been agressive enough in a card to be in red aggro, nor powerful enough or spell-based enough to be in red spell-slinging. She was an Irish looking girl with no home plane that they just shoved onto the Indian-based plane based on her name which was problematically given out when Magic cared less about cultural sensitivity. Chandra's issue to me isn't even just her origin story, nor the uncertainty of how much of the Purifying Fire is canon or not. To me it's that she's never been given any sense of direction. Koth is red's fury and passion focused. Tibalt is red's hedonism and lack of responsibility taken to the extreme. Even Sarkhan is red's devotion to the fury of nature in the form of the Dragon literally embodied. Chandra.....burns stuff. Because she wants to. Chandra hates restrictions and responsibility. So when approached to help Gideon and Jace with a problem she helped create, she ducks that responsibility to agree to the.....responsibility of the monastery. Where she is reminded of being like Jaya, which she hates the comparisons to. Then in her very next story, she leaves the monastery to go to Zendikar anyways. So what did we learn there?!? That she is more sure that she should go because she decided to? I want to like Chandra. I really do. But minus her having some sort of mistake that comes back to bite her and forcing her to grow as a character, this whole freedom for freedom's sake approach is not making her appealing. Like Gideon and Nissa, we're currently stuck with a character with little room to grow and little sense of direction on where Creative wants the character to go. And that's a real shame 20+ years into magic.
EDH - Yes, Each One is Named After a Song. I love tying music to my decks.
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