So, you wrote that but you expected us to interpret it in this context as something other than "I want my fantasy card game to be all white people"? C'mon.
For real? So saying fantasy shouldn’t dip too much into realism means I wish it was all white? Was it because I took issue with the point of this character being “needed”? As that means it’s forced? I think that spin would give sir mix-a-lot a run for his money.
Perhaps you weren't reflecting very much on what you were writing. Or maybe you're in denial about your true feelings. Who knows? But it feels increasingly bizarre to me that you came to this thread being so upset and expressing such animus against "SJWs" when your point is that WotC actually needs to do better than Throne of Eldraine. *****' amen, dude.
Ah yes. More character assassination based purely on assumptions. Please, point to where I said this. I’ll be more than happy to wait.
Sure thing:
don’t see why they are needed. This makes it sound forced, and inevitably leads to “token” status. @highholder makes a valid point, though you can not determine ethnicity through suits of armor. It is a perfectly reasonable to ask how this character came to be in this setting.
Then there are those using the “‘cuz fantasy” to explain it away. Well, to me, fantasy is used to sever ties with reality. Injecting realism via PC “checkboxes” crushes that in totality. I’m not saying they shouldn’t do this, but as mentioned above, you end up creating “token” characters just to please the masses. That’s not creativity, that’s being lazy.
Emphasis added.
So, you wrote that but you expected us to interpret it in this context as something other than "I want my fantasy card game to be all white people"? C'mon.
You see, I’m a 30 something White male. What I also am is a father of 2 children, one of which is a 7yo stepdaughter who is black. We live in a small town, mostly white peeps. She just started second grade and is currently the only child in her grade that is “caramel” as she calls it.
A few things I’ve experienced first hand, that I’m 100% certain none of you SJW’s(yeah, flag me) have ever had to experience is trying to explain to a 7yo why she isn’t white. Why all of her friends are white. Why all of the things she likes feature mostly white people. She has 2 Disney princesses to choose from, or she immediately questions if she should be that character for Halloween or not. My 7yo has chosen to be Minnie Mouse. She could have been Moana, or that one from Princess and the frog, but she chose Minnie Mouse. She adores the other Disney princesses, so the only reason I can assume she chose neither is because she feels she can’t. Why does she get 2 choices?
Same here, how is “normal” 4 choices(sorry sap, like 3 of those are actually recognizable as PoC, the others are for sure reaches). You took the opportunity to make female Knights feel normal(coincidently, they are all White) by pushing them hard enough into your fantasy setting that it feels normal. Why not do the exact same with PoC?
I’m done. You people go right ahead and sit up there on your high-horses. Cool beans. But you don’t know me. You don’t know who I am. And you certainly don’t know the life I’ve lied. So go ahead and be fine with a this showing here. I guarantee if my daughter was old enough, she would be underwhelmed with the showing of people who share her characteristics.
Again, *****ty people, all of you.
I see that you chose to ignore how in my comment you just replied to, I suggested our positions on tokenism are in agreement? So I'll repeat myself: you're right, WotC throwing in a token or two of PoC is not the same as giving representation. But I'm far from being a person who is giving them nothing but praise for Throne of Eldraine. Earlier in that thread I called it bourgeois and romanticist, which for me is a pretty scathing criticism.
Please, I beg you, call me a racist. No need to tiptoe around me with that nonsense. I’ll go to bat for my beliefs and not be shouted down by anybody. You shamed the other user for refusing to engage, you will not get that same luxury here.
Well, I'd like to applaud you for your conviction. It goes without saying I consider it misguided, but it's something. I would venture to say you could even be a good man, if only you chose a better principle to live by than "adamantly maintain at all costs that I'm totally not racist." So don't go saying I never gave you any credit.
That said, there's no tiptoeing going on here. Just asserting that you're racist is not how it works. The personal biases or prejudices that you may or may not have against PoC is kind of small fry compared to the bigger issue: whether the argument you're making is racist. Excessive focus on whether an individual is racist misses the important relationship between the underlying ideas being expressed and the systems in place in society.
Why be ok with just a sprinkle of PoC if you’re so adamant that this is fantasy and you can make that whatever you wish? Why not give relevant back story as to how a singular black woman was able to achieve royalty status and become knighted in the 4 courts, as she is clearly of a minority race on her own home plane? @gutterstorm makes a valid point, but not in the way they had expected. They could literally be any color, so what is the significance here? Why not a Latino? Asian? Or anything in between? What separates her from her peers?
I can assure you that PoC would choose relevance over existence. I’m glad your ok with simply making sure the boxes are checked, but I’m not.
Again, sh***y human beings, all of you. Hell, you judged me and you don’t even know me. That tells me all I need to know about you.
I think you and I have made quite similar points about tokenism, perhaps we're actually in agreement there?
Now, when you went to say that your ideal fantasy world meant no black people, then maybe you were being just a little overconfident about your ability to stand your ground...
It’s also pretty disheartening to associate some of those comments with someone being a racist. If anything, that’s more annoying than the hot takes. Oh, you don’t see how this can be possible because source material? Racist. Don’t understand the role of the character? Racist. I love it. All of you guys high-fiving and doing victory laps for calling somebody racist, on the internet. Good for you.
For instance-
I think or at least hope WOTC sees discussions like this and realizes exactly why a character and card like this are needed.
I don’t see why they are needed. This makes it sound forced, and inevitably leads to “token” status. @highholder makes a valid point, though you can not determine ethnicity through suits of armor. It is a perfectly reasonable to ask how this character came to be in this setting.
Then there are those using the “‘cuz fantasy” to explain it away. Well, to me, fantasy is used to sever ties with reality. Injecting realism via PC “checkboxes” crushes that in totality. I’m not saying they shouldn’t do this, but as mentioned above, you end up creating “token” characters just to please the masses. That’s not creativity, that’s being lazy.
Either way, I just can’t believe this discussion is even allowed to exist. Both the comments that cross the line and those here on the last page taking continued shots at another user, valid or not. You’re all pretty s****y human beings, just saying.
Not sure why it's such a priority for you to offer up apologia for racist comments. I'm disinclined to give your judgments about other people's character much stock.
Ah, yes, PoC will surely hang their hat on this achievement, being represented on a single card, without any context, in a TCG designed for tweens. Present them their participation trophy and call it a day, #winning.
Flip that around and ask yourself why anyone could complain about something so trivial. A thing so trivial that you even saw fit to post comments about the issue. You're not being very honest.
Forgive my ignorance, but are there lots of dark skinned people in this set/plane?
If there are, then having a black queen makes perfect sense. If there are not, then it makes no sense because kings and queens usually inherit titles, not take them, so they are usually the same race as the general populace.
Edit: from the current spoiler i see zero other black people, which does make this queen kind of bizarre.
It would be the equivalent of Henry the eigth having a black queen from Africa. Not impossible, but definitely strange.
Not exactly the point you were raising, but if Linden is basically the only PoC being depicted, that's tokenism which is also bad. I "spent an hour" reviewing the spoiled cards and it looks like there's a couple of examples of nonwhite characters depicted in each color. White has the most legendary depictions of PoC. I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions.
And if I may say, I think Linden being black does matter. It matters to PoC whether they are represented or not in the game. Instead I would argue, if you're complaining about PoC getting representation, regardless of your rationale, it is *without exception* racist. This is really simple. It's 2019 guys, try not being racist please.
There are a total of 58 results to spend 'an hour' looking at, proving that Mr. Bhogal83 has done *none* of the research on the matter. They also state that none of the examples provided show people with skin tones that befit people of European origin (who, may I remind everyone, includes people from the Mediterranean).
I submit to the jury of public opinion whose case was properly argued and who failed to address any of the points raised, as had been put in the complaint by Mr. Bhogal83 in an earlier post.
Is it so much to ask that if you start an argument, you should see it through? Has the valor of the right fallen so low that at every turn they are opposed they resort to intellectual cowardice?
Or should it not come as a surprise that those who have admitted from their own mouths that they hate justice, also hate honor?
The hilarious part is that despite his "I'll no longer be checking this thread", everyone knows he is checking the thread. Shaking, cdovered in sweat, and considering it better to have made it out alive than to lose more of his dignity.
I'd like to think so. But I'm especially disappointed that I didn't get to ding him for the error he made conflating an analogy with equating. A critical analytic difference!
There are a total of 58 results to spend 'an hour' looking at, proving that Mr. Bhogal83 has done *none* of the research on the matter. They also state that none of the examples provided show people with skin tones that befit people of European origin (who, may I remind everyone, includes people from the Mediterranean).
I submit to the jury of public opinion whose case was properly argued and who failed to address any of the points raised, as had been put in the complaint by Mr. Bhogal83 in an earlier post.
Is it so much to ask that if you start an argument, you should see it through? Has the valor of the right fallen so low that at every turn they are opposed they resort to intellectual cowardice?
Or should it not come as a surprise that those who have admitted from their own mouths that they hate justice, also hate honor?
I'm sorry to see my arguments remain unaddressed. Mr_Lord_Mr gave it the best shot. Kudos to him. The worst shot is the guy who wasted an hour checking Amonkhet cards to find evidence of white people, but failed, and then somehow tried to twist it as disproof of my argument. Or maybe it's the guy who equates the card art of Triumph of Ferocity with child pornography.
In any case, the responses I received are now sufficient for me to conclude that my initial concerns do indeed have merit. I'll no longer be reading this thread as I have work to get on with. Thank you.
Bhogal's reply is brought to you by ego defense mechanisms!
I think what upsets many of us "alt-right Nazis" is the double standards exhibited by WOTC and the MTG community. It's perfectly fine for an editor of MTG Salvation to publish an editorial implicitly calling for right-wingers to literally be burned alive in the streets, but any criticism of WOTC's heavy-handed far-leftism is labelled racism/trolling.
I understand that many people on this forum perceive "double standards," but double standards are only a problem under the condition of all other things being equal. The examples you provide don't meet this condition.
Also, while I would agree that the themes of Throne of Eldraine are perhaps heavy-handed, it's simply inaccurate to characterize those themes as "far-leftist." Throne of Eldraine is basically a bourgeois, romanticist take on feminism--it's centrist and liberal, not far leftist.
It's perfectly fine for Medieval-Europe-inspired planes to be populated with dark-skinned people, but no one questions why Amonkhet or Kamigawa are devoid of Caucasian natives.
Those two examples are not equivalent. Why is this an issue to be discussed?
It's perfectly fine for the WOTC community to complain about a picture of Garruk threatening to punch Liliana in the face, but no one questions when we have pictures of women like Massacre Girl standing over the bloodied bodies of her victims.
Probably we should steer away from depictions of violence against women for the same reason that, say, child pornography is not allowed. Is it an unfair "double standard" that other forms of pornography are legal?
And before the tendentious mods of this website label this post as hate speech/racism/flaming/trolling, bear in mind that, since you care so much about increasing the presence of brown people in the game, I am a brown-skinned Indian, and my message is this: If diversity is so important to you, then perhaps you should allow diversity of thought. And if you wish to keep politics out of MTG, then perhaps you shouldn't try to sneak it in.
I for one am in favor of diversity of thought. Although maybe not so diverse that it includes interlocutors who make bad arguments and maintain their position even after being refuted. Diversity of thought cannot come at the expense of rationality of thought.
To be fair, it *is* pretty explicitly political, which makes it a culturally relevant artistic choice for the game. Hardly anything in the world related to human beings can be totally divorced from politics, which makes the forum policy against discussing it a little overweening imo.
I would say that this issue shouldn't be *controversial*, but it evidently, sadly, is.
There is no forum policy against discussion of themes and representation on cards or in art.
There is a forum policy against racism, hate speech, flaming, personal attacks, etc.
For some reason, so far, no conversation has managed to have the first, without the second.
For example, a comment such as "I find it interesting that Wizards has chosen to have a much stronger abundance of female and minority characters this set's theming", and the following polite, on topic, discussion about the art and themes of spoiled cards would be acceptable.
As a second example: "Women can't be knights, why are all the women taking men's roles? Why is Wizards making everything so gay? This isn't the Magic I signed up for. GG, this game suxks with these changes" - is not acceptable. Comments such as that will be infracted on sight.
I agree with you that this topic should not be so controversial. And yet... it is.
It’s not political to have female knights. It’s not political to be a PoC who is a ruler. Both of those have existed in our world, let alone a fictional world.
To be fair, it *is* pretty explicitly political, which makes it a culturally relevant artistic choice for the game. Hardly anything in the world related to human beings can be totally divorced from politics, which makes the forum policy against discussing it a little overweening imo.
I would say that this issue shouldn't be *controversial*, but it evidently, sadly, is.
Would it have killed them to push Linden a tiny bit? Like, "Whenever you gain life, you may pay 3. If you do, return a creature card with converted mana cost 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. If you paid three white mana this way, return two creatures each with converted mana cost 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield instead." That would tie nicely into her abilities in the lore.
And it helps with representation if people actually want the diversely represented cards in their decks.
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Perhaps you weren't reflecting very much on what you were writing. Or maybe you're in denial about your true feelings. Who knows? But it feels increasingly bizarre to me that you came to this thread being so upset and expressing such animus against "SJWs" when your point is that WotC actually needs to do better than Throne of Eldraine. *****' amen, dude.
Sure thing:
Emphasis added.
So, you wrote that but you expected us to interpret it in this context as something other than "I want my fantasy card game to be all white people"? C'mon.
I see that you chose to ignore how in my comment you just replied to, I suggested our positions on tokenism are in agreement? So I'll repeat myself: you're right, WotC throwing in a token or two of PoC is not the same as giving representation. But I'm far from being a person who is giving them nothing but praise for Throne of Eldraine. Earlier in that thread I called it bourgeois and romanticist, which for me is a pretty scathing criticism.
Well, I'd like to applaud you for your conviction. It goes without saying I consider it misguided, but it's something. I would venture to say you could even be a good man, if only you chose a better principle to live by than "adamantly maintain at all costs that I'm totally not racist." So don't go saying I never gave you any credit.
That said, there's no tiptoeing going on here. Just asserting that you're racist is not how it works. The personal biases or prejudices that you may or may not have against PoC is kind of small fry compared to the bigger issue: whether the argument you're making is racist. Excessive focus on whether an individual is racist misses the important relationship between the underlying ideas being expressed and the systems in place in society.
I think you and I have made quite similar points about tokenism, perhaps we're actually in agreement there?
Now, when you went to say that your ideal fantasy world meant no black people, then maybe you were being just a little overconfident about your ability to stand your ground...
Not sure why it's such a priority for you to offer up apologia for racist comments. I'm disinclined to give your judgments about other people's character much stock.
Flip that around and ask yourself why anyone could complain about something so trivial. A thing so trivial that you even saw fit to post comments about the issue. You're not being very honest.
Not exactly the point you were raising, but if Linden is basically the only PoC being depicted, that's tokenism which is also bad. I "spent an hour" reviewing the spoiled cards and it looks like there's a couple of examples of nonwhite characters depicted in each color. White has the most legendary depictions of PoC. I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions.
And if I may say, I think Linden being black does matter. It matters to PoC whether they are represented or not in the game. Instead I would argue, if you're complaining about PoC getting representation, regardless of your rationale, it is *without exception* racist. This is really simple. It's 2019 guys, try not being racist please.
I'd like to think so. But I'm especially disappointed that I didn't get to ding him for the error he made conflating an analogy with equating. A critical analytic difference!
Is it so much to ask that if you start an argument, you should see it through? Has the valor of the right fallen so low that at every turn they are opposed they resort to intellectual cowardice?
Or should it not come as a surprise that those who have admitted from their own mouths that they hate justice, also hate honor?
Bhogal's reply is brought to you by ego defense mechanisms!
I understand that many people on this forum perceive "double standards," but double standards are only a problem under the condition of all other things being equal. The examples you provide don't meet this condition.
Also, while I would agree that the themes of Throne of Eldraine are perhaps heavy-handed, it's simply inaccurate to characterize those themes as "far-leftist." Throne of Eldraine is basically a bourgeois, romanticist take on feminism--it's centrist and liberal, not far leftist.
Those two examples are not equivalent. Why is this an issue to be discussed?
Probably we should steer away from depictions of violence against women for the same reason that, say, child pornography is not allowed. Is it an unfair "double standard" that other forms of pornography are legal?
I for one am in favor of diversity of thought. Although maybe not so diverse that it includes interlocutors who make bad arguments and maintain their position even after being refuted. Diversity of thought cannot come at the expense of rationality of thought.
Thank you, I appreciate the clarification.
To be fair, it *is* pretty explicitly political, which makes it a culturally relevant artistic choice for the game. Hardly anything in the world related to human beings can be totally divorced from politics, which makes the forum policy against discussing it a little overweening imo.
I would say that this issue shouldn't be *controversial*, but it evidently, sadly, is.
And it helps with representation if people actually want the diversely represented cards in their decks.