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Episode 85: Karn in the Time of Cholera
89 Plays4 years ago
Hello Podwalkers,
Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! For today's episode Alex and Hobbes were joined by the now officially sometimes hose of the cast Chase (aka ManaCurves) to discuss what Depression using the story of Karn as the jumping off point. This episode will be part 1 of 2 as talking about the real world implications needed a fair amount of time devoted to it (and there were real world implications that interrupted the recording as you will hear).
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter (with a link to where you can offer support both monetary and not).
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
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As promised, we plan to keep these Mental Health Links available moving forward too. For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sound Quality Issues
00:00:30
Speaker
Hi everyone, HobbsQ here just with a quick note before we get started today. So you're going to notice that in this episode that the sound quality is down a little bit. We actually had some, it sounds like some recording issues on our end where there is periods where our voices really tend to go between either
00:00:48
Speaker
Too high or too low they almost sound slowed for periods of time I don't think that it takes away from the overall message or the contents that is there But I just wanted to give people kind of a heads up This will also begin to be this will also be a two-part episode a lot of ours with chase are usually because we spend the first episode kind of establishing the story and what the topic is gonna be the second episode is really where we kick in and kind of talk then about our whatever the
00:01:14
Speaker
kind of take-home message a real world is. In the middle of doing this episode, Alex and I were actually in the middle of a severe thunderstorm watch, and then we then got a tornado warning, some combination. We got a tornado warning. We had to break up the recording in order for me to go down to the basement, and I don't know if Alex had to or not either, but either way, the second half has not fully been recorded yet, so we're going to be working on getting that done.
00:01:41
Speaker
so that we can hopefully have this to you next week to follow up this episode. So without any more qualifications or anything, I just want to say thank you for being here and we'll get started shortly.
Mental Health Focus with Corn's Story
00:01:53
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Today we want to bring you another mental health topic. I think this is our first since May when we observed Mental Health Awareness Month and did a mental health topic each episode for that month. Yeah, I think it definitely is our first really dedicated episode.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a topic we talk about a lot. So I'm sure it's come up, but the focused topic. Yeah. Anyway, so the topic for today is depression. And we want to use corn as the story topic for that. And I'll get to kind of why in a little bit. But first, we have Chase back. Excited. It's me. Hello. I've returned. You cannot get rid of me.
00:02:38
Speaker
Why do we want to? It's been a while since we've talked to Chase. So why don't we just, you know, as part of our introductions, just kind of catch up on what's going on.
00:02:57
Speaker
What is in Chase's world right now?
Chase's Personal Updates and Transition
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. Last we talked to you was I think right when we did the like coping with social anxiety and you were deep into Animal Crossing. Yes, I was deep into Animal Crossing. I've since taken a step back from Animal Crossing. It's like one of those games where you you're in in it in it and then you're out of it.
00:03:16
Speaker
But I need to get back in it. But um Well, I just finished well, I mean I finished grad school in in May But I just got my diploma in the mail. So this is my like official yay They didn't mistake mess me up and like I was scared that like even though I graduated and I had like a 3.95 Actually, no 3.98 GPA that like what if I didn't graduate? But I got my diploma in the mail. So technically they can't take it back. So I graduated
00:03:46
Speaker
How it's officially no-backsees. Not officially no-backsees. You didn't have like outstanding library finds or anything like that? Nope. I have the world's prettiest piece of paper to match my other pretty piece of paper that I get to hang on a wall and look cool. When are you gonna hang in that? Whenever I get a job, which is so difficult.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, so hard right now finding a job in my field in the middle of a global pandemic, while people also simultaneously want to not wear masks, but you know, that that's really exciting. So so then I guess, you know, if you're, you said you haven't, it's not the best time to be looking for social work jobs, what have you been doing?
00:04:32
Speaker
Um, mostly I've been digging deep into content creation, which has been really cool and fun, but it's also been anxiety inducing at the same time. Um, I've been playing a lot more of other video games on my Switch. I just got SpongeBob Battleford Bikini Bottom, which was a childhood game of mine. It got remastered.
00:04:49
Speaker
So I've been playing through that. The new Twilight book just came out called Midnight Sun and it's in the point of view of Edward and I like I've regressed into my middle school stage and I'm reading that.
00:05:05
Speaker
which is interesting. And I've gotten back into my big love of Star Wars. I finished the most recent season of Clone Wars. And I'm also currently reading a book about Padme because I love Padme. And also been working out and that's what I've been doing. So you've been working out, are you doing the like the Davy workout plans or?
00:05:29
Speaker
Um, so, uh, a friend of mine for my birthday, uh, he has a friend who was a personal trainer and he hired her to kind of help me get like a plan and, uh, like a, like a food plan to like, we're gonna plan a food plan, um, going. So I've been following that and I've kept up with her a little bit, but now it's time for me to pay. And so now I'm trying to figure out how to keep her. Cause I am actually doing things and enjoying it. So, um, fingers crossed that that sticks.
00:06:00
Speaker
Like, have you asked? Have you broached that yet? Like, you'll help her build an EDH deck and trade off? I've told her about magic, but she thinks it's a video game, like an actual video game, video game. And I'm like, oh, no, I can't pay you a card. I wish I could. But you also have to support people by actually paying them real money. So I'm going to try and support her by paying some real money.
00:06:21
Speaker
Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. And I like it. And you mentioned a lot of the, like leaning into the content
Streaming and Content Creation Journey
00:06:28
Speaker
creation. And I would say that, yeah, I kind of, you're streaming, you're writing and you're writing. We were just talking about this before the show. You got featured on the mother show even. And I just, can you talk a little bit about that, like just that series or what you've been doing? Because it's, it's, it's fantastic. I think it's such a, there's like smart idea.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, so that was my second time on the mothership, which is absolutely exciting and fantastic because I never thought I'd ever get there. So I write for TCG player, which is super exciting and like a wow thing to say for me. But I do a stream on Tuesdays at 7pm Eastern, and it's called Always Be Brewing. And I typically either pick a commander or I have chat help me pick a commander. And then within the timeframe of an entire stream, we build a complete fully functioning EDH deck.
00:07:17
Speaker
And I then write an article about that for TCG Player, and that comes out on Sundays. And usually it's about the deck, but the most recent one is about collaborative deck building, which is something I wanted to talk about for a while.
00:07:32
Speaker
which is essentially what my stream is on Tuesdays. It's working together with individuals to kind of make a complete and cohesive piece and the benefits and the struggles with that and how collaborative deck building can help build you up as a deck builder, but also help build community on a large scale and small scale.
00:07:59
Speaker
Which sounded like way cooler. Will you read it? What? That sounded like super professional for a second. I was like, whoa. I think there's a reason you got featured for it. I love that article. It is probably my favorite one I've ever written so far. In second place would be Karabek. Definitely like my Karabek build. What was your Karabek build?
00:08:22
Speaker
Karabek was so cool. I did the newest Karabek, the Karabek the spiteful that gives other creatures minus one from M21. And I chose that specifically because he was less than stellar compared to his original printing in Ractos. And I thought that this would be a challenge to build and not many people would build him. So I built
00:08:46
Speaker
not not minus one minus one counters, but I built like Caravec, like aristocrats, functioning mainly off of making tokens in my black and subsequently killing our tokens and dealing damage and gaining life. And we had the Kormis Bell and herb board combo in there paired with like, how people this in case they don't know what that is, because Kormis Bell is a very old card, old card.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yes, it is. Awesome. It is probably one of the coolest things I've ever written about is Kormisvall is an artifact that makes all lands 1-1 creation. 1-1 swamps. 1-1 swamps, thank you. Yeah. And then Urborg makes everything swamps. Sorry, it makes all swamps 1-1. 1-1, there we go. So what happens is the combo worked out is that you have
00:09:39
Speaker
you have Karabek out, then you have to have Urborg out, which makes every single land a swamp, and then you play Kormis Bell, which makes everything a one-one, and it all subsequently dies to Karabek, so it's mass land destruction with Karabek. But with our little aristocrats that we have in the deck,
00:09:57
Speaker
you're essentially going to be taking everybody for a bunch of damage and you gain a bunch of life. And then I popped in a crucible of worlds in there just so you can kind of get your lands back if you needed in case you, because you don't want to suffer. But that was really cool because a lot of people were like, you should do motto, like I was like, motto black troll. And then I was like, okay, let's do like aristocrats and last line, last line destruction. And that's what I did. And it was great. And I love that brew so much.
00:10:23
Speaker
That is really fun. Yeah, the corn spells and like the airborne corn spell, I actually first saw that in Commander in non-black decks. Just to get around the fact or just like make fun of the fact that you can play airborne in any deck. Yeah, because it has no mana symbol in it. It just turns things into swamps. So I saw it played in like mono white or something like that. It was like all non-white creatures get minus one, minus one. What is that?
00:10:53
Speaker
Is that Crovex? Crovex, the alternate future, or the alternate path. Crovex. It was on a deck like that. A monolite. Cool. Well, you haven't had a lot going on. You've been staying busy. Yes, very busy. And I'm also playing in the Command Fest too.
00:11:18
Speaker
in a week? Yes. A week from the recording date. A week from the recording date. I'm sorry if I like spoiled the recording date. Cut this. Cut this. You don't want the recording date in. No. Chop it. You're going to know how we function now. Just chop it. Talk about time travel. Time travel of content creation. That was one of the conversations we had with Kevin, which was really funny. Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
And then, yeah, that is my birthday weekend, the command fest. Oh my God. There's a lot of birthdays in August because I know that it was Carson's birthday, I think today. And then Pixie, Pixie Kitten, her birthday was, I think a week ago. My birthday is on the 17th. And your birthday is the weekend of command fest. As is at Sheepy Cutie.
00:12:17
Speaker
Oh Megan! Oh my god, there's somebody on August's birthday. Wait, let me see. Wait, no. Did I get her... I think I'm back. It's Sam's. Oh, Sam's! Yes. God, there's so many August birthdays. It's crazy. And it is Erin Campbell's birthday. Oh my god. Yeah, like there is a lot of August birthdays in the Magic community, actually. There is, or in all videos it makes sense. It makes sense. We're all very headstrong. Sorry, Alex. Yeah. It's like a Leo thing.
00:12:47
Speaker
I'm going to be 24. I'm going to be 41. Listen, I can, don't judge me, but I do feel my own mortality right now. Cause I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm almost 30. Almost 30. You're not even your mid 20s yet. No, I don't. I'm like, I'm six years away from being 30. Freaking me out.
00:13:14
Speaker
Cool. Well, that's, that catches us up. So, uh, where can people find all your stuff? I didn't mention one or two things, but like, where are you at? So you can find me on Twitter at manicurbs. I also am on myspace, linked in Squarespace.
00:13:32
Speaker
Twitch as mana curves. I also upload regularly to YouTube at mana curves and that's just my archive where I archive all my media streams in case you missed it. I do deck building streams Tuesday to 7pm Eastern Standard Time and Paper Magic Paper Commander Wednesdays and Sundays at 7pm Eastern and I also write an article for TCG player that comes out on Sundays.
00:13:56
Speaker
That's it. Like another sponsor or anything that we gotta make sure that we're hitting. I'm sponsored by Ultra Pro and TCG player and that's it. Thank you. I still feel like it's not enough. I know people who stream like four times a week or every day and I do it three times a week. I still feel like I'm not doing enough but you know. And you have another job. And I have another job but you know I still feel like I don't know. Yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
Well, hey Alex, we should at least introduce ourselves. Yeah, probably. You want to go first? Sure.
New Sponsorship Announcement
00:14:30
Speaker
So, I am HobbsQ, I can be found on Twitter at HobbsQ. I did want to share too, once again, this is our second episode. Well.
00:14:39
Speaker
It's going to be our third by the time it comes out, but we recently partnered with Grinding Company. So they are a coffee company, Grinding Coffee Company. They are a black owned LGBTQ company that does their own roasting and production of coffee. And they actually are grinders for gamers in some ways. So they are sponsoring a lot of gamers and the Gotland Board podcast was submitted for that after I had tried their copy and went and read their mission statement.
00:15:09
Speaker
So you can actually go to our Twitter page at goblin or pod, and there's a link there for an affiliate link that gets you a discount. Uh, 30% off under coffee purchases. It's been free shipping. I so far I've had Mexican chocolate, which I'm going to actually be turning into cold brew. And I'm steeping some of it in heavy cream to make a coffee flavored ice cream.
00:15:33
Speaker
Um, and it is fantastic. And then, uh, we also ordered there right now we ordered, they have a, uh, mix. So a blend that is an African blend that we ordered. So I just want to throw them in. I'm going to actually record something at some point that goes into our outro, but I just wanted to give them another shout out.
00:15:52
Speaker
Right. And then that leaves me. Alex Newman phoned on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. And I don't have anything else really. Um, I'm playing a lot of well classic. That's my life right now. Record this podcast. I go to work. And it's not bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. All right. So that's, let's get into the story. So Carn is, well, he's, he's a character with a lot of story.
00:16:22
Speaker
He's been around a long time, like literally. And I think I just happened to be on the Wiki page. Oh yeah, yeah, here we go. I even, I pitched this episode after I was reading on Wiki page. I think I was looking, I was just kind of reading about Arizona.
00:16:40
Speaker
how terrible he is, and I just ended up on Karn's page. To be fair, you could have started anywhere on Wikipedia and probably gotten to Karn, I mean, gotten to Urza as bad, and then- Oh yeah, and then got to Karn. But so what I found was, reading through his history, there were two specific instances in the Wikipedia page that described Karn as falling into depression. There's a lot of story with him, but I thought that was a really interesting,
00:17:09
Speaker
that we have a character specifically talking about them being depressed because it's the thing is a lot of time is in the story because there's, you know, fighting and stuff and magic that just kind of how the game works. We don't always have time to kind of see those character moments. And so we don't always see a lot of this mental health stuff.
00:17:26
Speaker
But that's a big topic we love to talk about. And we found some good cases, like when we talked about this and burnout and things. And so there are definitely parallels that we found. But this is one that was straight up specifically called out. And so I thought, Hey, this is a great, let's just talk about that. So, Karne has a ton of stories. I do want to give a quick breakdown kind of of his, the stories that he's been involved in, what he's had going on. I'm going to try to keep this
00:17:54
Speaker
quick and high level there's a lot of it so we kind of get into the more relevant bits these these two instances and kind of talk about his depression and depression in general yes because we're seeing carne literally for people who maybe are newer to the game you're gonna know carne as a planeswalker and if you don't know a lot of the story you're gonna know him as somebody with pretty powerful cards even if you start looking back to the modern kind of era you're gonna be seeing
00:18:21
Speaker
Karn is this powerful being and a planeswalker. Karn has not always been that. Karn has been around, actually, in the storyline for a very long time in very different worlds. And I think that's why this is such an interesting one to be looking at. Yep. So, Karn, I'll just start
Karn's Creation and Role
00:18:40
Speaker
right at the beginning. He was created by Urza as an attempt to use time travel to stop the Phyrexians.
00:18:46
Speaker
Excuse me. This plan did not go well. That is a whole other thing. I think we've mentioned it here and there. I know we talked about it in the Sci-Fi episode. There was literally a time travel plot that Urza came up with. It wasn't great. But so what ended up happening is Urza, who is terrible, he didn't really know what to do with Karn after this plot failed, after his whole time travel idea failed. So Karn just kind of stayed.
00:19:15
Speaker
at the academy. So then after you know eventually Urza found other things he didn't know what to do with and he ended up putting those together as the legacy and Karn became its keeper. That's we've talked about the legacy here and there that's a thing that eventually Gerard used to help defeat Yawgmoth and end the invasion. Karn was a big part of that along with the rest of the legacy and there's some history there with the weather light.
00:19:43
Speaker
going to find the legacy dealing with plain hopping here and there. So that's all that happened. As a result, at the end of the invasion, Karn gained a spark, a planeswalker spark. It was the same one that Urza was using, which
00:20:01
Speaker
You go far enough back in the story, Urza probably wasn't Urza's. Yeah, this is back in this kind of idea that we covered in the sparking episode where sparks weren't necessarily innate, but like click along to things. Yeah. Well, and that was this whole thing with the thrones, like that was a spark. It was somebody else's spark that Urza sort of inherited, but.
00:20:25
Speaker
Anyway, so now Karan is a planeswalker. I want to real quick, before we get back, he was also given to basically Gerard's clan by Urza. This is kind of how he did it to protect the Bloodline, so this was after the part where he had been kind of the... Yes. ... been made part of the legacy thing, but like, this is one of those things like, Gerard did not know anything about this other than Karan was kind of his protector.
00:20:48
Speaker
And then he kind of gets separated for a long time from Karn, if I remember rightly, right? He's kind of like reunited with them as part of the Weatherlight crew. Yep. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and there's this whole... He's mixed in. He's kind of a protector, actually. It's a role that he has. Well, and there's a whole bunch of story that actually I think would be really interesting to talk about. We have to kind of figure out where we might go, but there's a point where Karn
00:21:15
Speaker
being a gold mimicked out of silver like he's a
00:21:18
Speaker
metal being like he ends up fighting somebody and killing someone and he goes and like, that's when he becomes a pacifist. Yeah, like literally the original art for pacifism was calm. So like, yeah, he was not going to fight again. Yeah, like that whole thing happened way in the in the background of the sort of legacy building into you know, the way before the invasion. So like, there's a whole bunch of background there.
00:21:48
Speaker
But then to kind of go back, you know, to keep moving forward a bit. So after he got his planeswacker spark, he went off and created the world Argentum, which is a quick side that I think is fascinating. To the best of my knowledge, there's only one magic card that references the world Argentum, and that is Argentum armor. Just kind of a neat thing. But so he created this world to be a mathematical perfection. There was no living creatures.
00:22:16
Speaker
This is just, this is kind of what he was doing. We've, we talked about that because this is where, eventually. Spoiler. Spoiler. Yeah. It becomes verdant. Becomes verdant after the car sends out some drones to go observe these other worlds and to see what's going on in Dominaria.
00:22:33
Speaker
One of them malfunctioned and then contributed, slash caused another apocalypse or two in Dominaria. Yeah. I mean, you know, just, he's following in Ursa's footsteps there. So after- Not intentionally. Not intentionally. In fairness, not intentionally. Yes. So that happened. He went in to try to, you know, make up for that, I guess, to help fix it. He took that probe and it turned it into Mimnarc. Make Mimnarc the steward of Argentum.
00:23:04
Speaker
Then he, Karn left, apparently Karn, some phyrexian oil from Karn's phyrexian heart that was once part of someone that her zone was workplace friends with. It's a whole other thing. Apparently that corrupted Memnarch and then Memnarch, you know, decided that he needed to be just like his creator and so he ended up bringing living creatures to this plane to try to harvest a spark so that he could become like Karn.
00:23:32
Speaker
We've talked about Maminar a couple of times on both of our Slobed episodes. Again, I don't want to get too deep with that. It's kind of relevant to the building of his story here. After this, Karn went back to Dominaria to deal with the time rifts that threatened to destroy the everything because of reasons. Really, I'm just trying to be brief. Like I really liked the Time Spiral Block story. That's when this was happening. I think it was a great way for them to kind of soft reboot their whole multiverse without
00:24:00
Speaker
actually ret-counting things. But Karn was a part of that because part of the Time Spiral storyline was basically trying to fix the aftermath of all of these various Apokolites. He had a hand in a couple of them. So he gave up his spark to help fix those. In the last moment, he realized something was going on back in Mirrodin. So he went back there as it was being converted by the Phyrexians, the new Phyrexians.
00:24:28
Speaker
Then without the protection of his spark, he started to be incorporated, perfected, assimilated into the Phyrexians. Eventually, Vencer, who was a friend that Karn made during the Time Spiral block, Vencer gave his spark to Karn to help free Karn of the corruption. Karn went back to Dominaria to get a really big bomb that Ursa just left laying around.
00:24:57
Speaker
Because there's a... He's now coming back into the story kind of as it relates to the Gatewatch and others. And also these other reasons. And then Karri ended up in the War of the Spark because just about everybody did. He helped people out because Karne's...
00:25:21
Speaker
wants to try to make things better when he can, I guess, except for when he accidentally doesn't. But I mean, that's, you know, that's just about everybody. So that kind of brings us up to current day. Yeah. I mean, I think just to highlight from storyline before we kind of are moving on, we have kind of two different things going on, which is, Karn giving up his spark and in turn, having somebody give up their spark to him, which I think is
00:25:45
Speaker
kind of an interesting idea for kind of how we've seen Karn.
Karn's Depression and Personal Struggles
00:25:48
Speaker
We've seen him. We're going to be talking about the explicit descriptions of depression. We also have somebody else that this now is a character who was created to basically be in some ways a weapon or part of it. You know, has this kind of soul or this, you know, this
00:26:09
Speaker
conscience about him where he ends up killing without meaning to, takes on about pacifism, which he has to break again later to save friends, you know, to kind of continue with this. And he's now involved with our two storylines of people giving up sparks back when kind of this was more of a transfer of spark kind of situation. And I just want to highlight that before we kind of move on to the kind of the two pieces of flavor text or story that you want to talk about.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and that's, that's a good point. And to keep in mind kind of who Karna is in a lot of ways, I know he's got a lot of personality and, and things, but he's, he's a lot of, was it the Iron Giant type of story, the, the being created to be a weapon, as you said, who
00:26:57
Speaker
tries to become something more tries to do more like he never put that together he ends up swearing a vow of a pacifism after the first time when he really got engaged in a fight with someone and yet he was created to literally go back in time and and try to end a threat before it was a threat
00:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's like like Terminator kind of situation. Yeah, well, yeah, no, that's. Yeah, like an altar of a, you know, corn, but make him the Terminator like the Godzilla type alters, but make it Terminator. But make it Terminator, but like the make a Terminator like the Terminator two. Right. Um, what's what's what's what's the one where he's like liquid? That's for me too.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah, but like Arnold is the one who's sent back in time to be the protector at that point. I mean, I don't know why they can't just do like multiples. They're more than one card, or you just do the same card like three times or three different. Well, they did like 80 different Godzilla's so. They did like nine different Godzilla's, let's be honest. I mean, and we had four very slightly different arcs for it to vary in the most recent.
00:28:11
Speaker
I didn't notice any difference. I stared at them for so long. I could not tell. Yeah, both those two fairies and the magic eye pictures from the 90s. Welcome for that reference for some reason. Stare at them, couldn't get it. So I just I couldn't ever get those either. Yeah. That was weird. That's about it. Yeah. Well, maybe they're going to plot us better about it. Just be aware of what that is.
00:28:41
Speaker
What? Okay, like they have those still weird, like, like, trip that you look at on a picture, you have to try and find the hidden picture by kind of like, unfocusing your eyes, but you never end seeing it. Yeah, I'm sorry, too. I was asking that more of me not being aware if that was still a culturally relevant reference.
00:29:04
Speaker
I mean like we don't like like us cool young people don't talk about it regularly maybe like once a month but like um I saw it at a Barnes and Noble once okay yeah so he was a hot phenomenon for us that's why it was like Barnes and Noble it tastes as that is like almost like their museums whereas Alex and I were like oh yeah they had a little perk of them up front but you know like those big books that are like five dollars for like this book of things that you'll never look at again
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah. That, it was that. See, I was more worried that Chase was going to be like, you know, there's research showing the people who can't see him with psycho pounds. Oh, I, I, but that could be a cool thesis for like my future doctorate. Nice. I'm here for it. So that does bring us kind of up to, that brings us to knowing Karn. Anything that we missed about Karn.
00:29:59
Speaker
To be honest, Karn is a special place in my heart as a character. I was quiet for a reason. I like listening about Karn. In college, I remember I had a little bit too much to drink one night and I had my boyfriend at the time explain to me the lore of magic because I wanted to know it.
00:30:19
Speaker
And he told me everything and like everything is connected. Like I was like, oh, my God, everything's connected. And I realized it that night. And then the following morning I woke up and I had the original car and art as my background on my laptop. I woke up, I opened up my laptop and I was like, what the fuck? It's car. I don't remember doing this.
00:30:47
Speaker
And my boyfriend at the time was like, yeah, you were really into the story. You really liked Karn. I think Karn's a pretty cool person. Yeah. I think Karn really is. And I mean, I think there's a reason that Karn has been relevant for as long as he has. And not just from gameplay. I mean, he's obviously his original card, as you're saying with the art on it, is, you know, with one of the early colorless options for EDH. That's the first colorless pliz marker.
00:31:16
Speaker
I mean we also have like a really cool thing to notice about too before the horrid war of the spark books came out. Kara was originally the only like non like like I don't want to say meat but like organic matter I guess well like silver is organic but you know what I mean they're not flesh like the only non fleshy thing that could go through like you know the in-betweens and like planes walk
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, until you know the War of the Spark book where Kaya was like, yeah, I can like teleport my cat to a different plane when I go ghost like Danny Phantom.
00:31:56
Speaker
He was like the original Danny Phantom. No, he's not the original Danny Phantom. I'm getting my wires crossed. I love Kaya, but the way that the War of the Sparks book wrote everybody, I was like, oh, no. And then I saw that. I don't know. Anyway, the point is that- What do you mean? We never saw War of the Sparks book. We didn't know. I didn't read it. I was tempted to buy it once, but I didn't want to waste my money, but I watched the professor's video on it.
00:32:21
Speaker
And his video on I remember it because I was dumbfounded. He was like, Oh, yeah, did you know that you could also like, Kaya could like transport other matter that's not that doesn't have a spark to other planes? And I was like, What? And then he did the excerpt and the excerpt was written so casually. It was said in passing like, Oh, yeah, I practiced this once or twice with my cat once.
00:32:42
Speaker
And I was like, um, whoa, that's a very casual bomb to drop right there. Because originally, Karn, it was like this big deal that he was like the only like thing. Yeah. You know, I've actually been picturing Kaya going through more than one cat and just not telling anybody. Like, like when dads go to like when dads accidentally kill their kids pet fish, and they go back to the pet store and buy like nine more goldfish.
00:33:07
Speaker
that look the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's I actually read the first with spark book. Oh, no. Do you know what I'm talking about then where she said that? Or was that the final one? Maybe the second one. I honestly can't remember. It was there were two. I blocked all of that out. All of it. Two. There was one paycheck. That's a whole other thing that I don't want to
00:33:32
Speaker
Talk about like how terrible it was, because to be perfectly honest with you, I don't think it was terrible. The characters weren't developed super well. Yeah. But there was some other issues there. That is something maybe we could talk about. I definitely, I think we definitely need to talk about. Oh, I have. I'm so sorry. This is unrelated to card, but it needs to be said. What if we, um,
00:34:01
Speaker
What if we take a moment and like we find a way to read the first book. So give me Hobbs and I'll be a book club. And we'll take like a good chunk of time to read it. Cause you know, like I'm reading two books and we have life and stuff. But then we do, I know this book has been long since then out, you know, and the hype is down about it, but I think it'd be cool to have like an episode or we all like, I bring my book and it's like highlighted and like sticky noted.
00:34:29
Speaker
And we go through each like bit by bit by bit and kind of like talk about like the the the the issues or the or the faults within the lore within the text. So one thing that we were going to do before Joe left was was a book club for the Goblin or podcast. So let us know. I mean, I would be down for trying to book club again. But only those two books. I only want to read something if it's bad. OK. That's why I'm reading Midnight Sun.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, see, I was tempted to pick up Midnight Sun. I can admit it. I was a Twihard in middle school. I went to every midnight premiere. I had hand-painted sneakers. I had a specially made t-shirt because I wasn't Team Edward or Team Jacob. I was Team Jasper. And on the New Moon midnight release, the radio was doing calls from fans, and I was on the radio in my hometown. So I could go on, but I was really into Twilight.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yeah, that is the thing. I did not read those, but there's no, I have no issues with people who enjoy things. Like it's, that's a good thing that someone enjoys something. We could be Twilight and compare it to the lore within the Gatewatch.
00:35:43
Speaker
We could do it. I could find parallels. You asked the Scooby-Doo previously, so I'm pretty pretty good. I did a great job with that Scooby-Doo parallel. It was... Mmm, chef's kiss. Okay, step one. Ajani is Jacob Black because Jacob can turn into a werewolf and Ajani is a giant cat. Oh my god! Edward is Jace because Jace Edward can read people's minds and Jace can read people's minds. Oh my god! Oh my god, it's happening. I actually made the parallel.
00:36:16
Speaker
That's the thing with Twilight. I made the best parallel. Oh my god, I gotta turn that out. Somebody is definitely Olivia, not even just as a planeswalker. We gotta have background characters.
00:36:27
Speaker
We do have to have background characters. All right. Okay. Gideon is Carla because he's righteous and a good dude. Alice is going to be Nissa because, you know, they're, they're very like, like, like soft, but also very strong, you know, kind of quiet. Chandra, I'm going to say is Rosalie because Rosalie is, she's, she's, she's a, she's a,
00:36:56
Speaker
you know like she's a badass you know like she's like she's like she's like spiteful but also cool um other members of the gate watch that i'm forgetting um i think that's the gate watch like like the main like four um this is why we have this we have case on because yeah yeah oh my god
00:37:23
Speaker
I actually love the soundtracks from the first day. Anyway, let's get back to the car. Everything's connected. My car was depressed, actually depressed. Yes. Everything's two degrees of separation from Twilight.
00:37:41
Speaker
We'll see how we look this up. Who's Urza in Twilight? Who's the most terrible person in Twilight? Urza in Twilight? Okay, so Urza is an asshole. He's very self-centered. He wants what he wants. He doesn't care who dies. I would say Urza is Arrow from the Volturi.
00:37:58
Speaker
I was thinking, he has to be one of the Volturis. Yeah, Arrow from the Volturi, if you didn't know. Arrow is like he, he, it's the Volturi is like the government, I'm using like quotes in there, the government of Twilight. And, um, essentially, like they dictate what's right or wrong, but they eat people and the Collins are vegetarians, but we'll get into that later. Um, but essentially, Arrow, like
00:38:20
Speaker
collects vampires who have special abilities, like literally superpowers. And he will kill entire covens and massacre people just to get them. And he wanted to keep things to the benefit of the vampire. Yeah, he's like, Oh, it's to the benefit of you that I'm collecting you literally is my private collection of strong superpower badasses. He collected Dakota fanning, he collected
00:38:42
Speaker
I don't know, but like the point is like I would say that Urza is that like power seeking jerk and he would be Aro from Twilight. Urza literally had a genealogy project where he was like trying to breed a perfect person for his party. There you go. That's Aro from Twilight to a T. I could write. And now we're back, wait, now we're back to Urza. We're full circle, we're back to Urza. Which brings us back to Carne as Bella's truck.
00:39:20
Speaker
The truck is very important. Yeah. The truck is old and loud and clunky, but she likes it because it's hers and it's a clunky car and she, it's not like a character or anything. It's not like, not like, not like a Herbie, but like it protects her. Um, so yes, that is in this Ted talk. I will.
00:39:43
Speaker
Okay, I'm done staring at something. I promise this was so good. Oh, it was good. It was good. Perfect. The comparisons are just too unique. We love heaven. Yeah, it's it's always a great conversation. But so, talking about Carn. So when Carn was at the Academy, this is going way back to like, the very beginning of his life, like when he was created to go back in time.
00:40:09
Speaker
who was at the academy with Urza that Urza founded to kind of like study magic and teach students and things. Well, so Khan became good friends with Joyura. Eventually she left to go work on the Mana Rig. At that point, Khan was no longer part of Urza's plans. His friend was gone and he became depressed. He was also like, for a while I know Taferi was making fun of him, but at the point I think Taferi had left, so I don't think that was a part of it.
00:40:37
Speaker
But so Barron, who was the head of the Academy, showed concern for Carnes' mental health, and he pleaded with Urza to do something. And so Urza, his grand solution, was to put a cap on Carnes' memories so that he couldn't remember more than 20 years. Right. That's the solution. Urza is terrible.
00:41:00
Speaker
So well, and then I want to I want to read this quote straight like this is from the wiki and I'm guessing this was from a reference but said there was only one thing that Karn never wished to forget. And every night he would hold a picture of Joyra and repeat the mantra. Joyra is my friend. Oh, also she's the one who gave him his name, because apparently Urza couldn't be bothered.
00:41:24
Speaker
The name Karn was an Othron name, and I can't remember what it was, but I'm slowly going into a bad mood because every time I get reminded of Urza, I'm like, oh yeah, ha ha, Urza. And then everybody tells me how horrible he is, they remind me. And then I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:41:48
Speaker
So I want to highlight real quick while we're here, especially because we're going to get into this with depression. But this idea that like almost the solution is to kind of cap his memory. And he's having to repeat this kind of sad mantra to remind himself that he has a friend. Just like every night is the only way that he can kind of keep this going because he's been robbed in some ways of his memory. So you said that the second instance that we have is much later after the invasion and Karm has created Argentum.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yep, this was when he was sending out the probes to check in on these other worlds, and he checked in on Dominaria. And here's another quote that I want to read. Looking out upon the worlds, he found nothing but greed and death, blind as he was to the beauty of the worlds he found. Once again, Khan fell into depression and stagnated upon his plane.
00:42:41
Speaker
Eventually he met Corona who, there's a weird story there, but like that kind of I think helped pull him out of his depression to some degree because he started to realize what was going on and that gave him something to do, to go deal with the Marari and bring it back and try to help repair those of the damage.
00:43:02
Speaker
that was done from this thing that he sent out. But that was just this other instance, and especially this quote where it said, you know, he saw nothing but greed and death, blind as he was to the beauty of the worlds he found. So it's not that there wasn't beauty, it's that he was not seeing it, because that's not what he was looking for. This is after the invasion. This is after
00:43:26
Speaker
He sees just kind of how terrible people can be, because like Yagmuth was a person at some point, and then he became whatever he became. The books, it's a weird, this cloud of death sort of thing. But, and like he built, Yagmuth built into and just during this massive war, and Khan stops that, but then he leaves. And I think this is, and especially now, during this whole point, he is just,
00:43:55
Speaker
watching everything through this filter of the death and destruction. This is after he had to break his vow of pacifism, I believe. It's just like this idea that he's depressed and he's not seeing
00:44:10
Speaker
He's only seeing a piece of the picture and I think that was helped to kind of fuel that depression. I mean, I like this idea of the stagnated upon his plane because that is a lot of what depression can feel like. It is a stagnation. You know, I've worked with people that
00:44:29
Speaker
you talk about this idea that you know what he has to do when he leaves kind of he had some responsibility something to do is kind of this idea of behavioral activation he actually started doing something again because you can become so stagnant and it just reinforces the depression um yes depression sucks i mean we're just going to be talking about this for the rest of the time and at the same time depression is known for people that have this experience and so
00:44:58
Speaker
it may not it's it's somewhat comforting to kind of get stuck in because you can know that what it is you know what it feels like making change is something that's scary making changes something that can make you feel even worse. And so this image of a car here and then as you said, this being blind to the fact that the beauty that may have been around him, you know, Alex, when we did the
00:45:21
Speaker
cognitive distortions episode, one of the ones we talked about was kind of those filters. It's like the opposite of rose-colored glasses, but it's that idea that, you know, you drop just a single drop or two of ink into a glass and the entire glass gets colored. And we talked a little in that in one of those episodes about, you know, there is research studies that show that people with depression are actually, you know,
00:45:47
Speaker
They respond quicker to words related to depression or words related to negative things. And when it comes to like a task where you have to identify things are slower to identify the positive emotions or the beauty, that's actually a cognitive thing that happens. And so I think that that is just a great, this is, you know, talking about it with Ursa, this is a great representation of that, that phenomenon.
00:46:13
Speaker
So another point I wanted to make is in regards to the stagnation, I really like that. I have to agree with Hobbs that I really like that description. Oftentimes when working with individuals or even just trying to find a way to describe to everyday individual what depression feels like, I think stagnation is a good way to explain that. I also like to describe it as feeling like you're in quicksand.
00:46:41
Speaker
You know, it's kind of like, I like to describe it sort of like at first trudging through mud. So you're moving, but then it feels like you have like weights around your ankles and it gets harder to move through the mud and it gets slower and it gets slower and it gets slower. You're still moving. It's taken a lot more effort just to kind of, you know, get to where you're going. And I think that's a kind of really good way to kind of describe that sort of feeling.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. Yeah, because in that can kind of feel on itself, because it's taking so much effort to move such a small amount. And then it makes it feel like was it even worth moving?
00:47:28
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HopsQ can be found at HopsQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel Underscore. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinmoorpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinmoorpodcast at email.com.
00:47:46
Speaker
If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gospel, the cast can be found at patreon.com slash goblinworkpod. Opening and closing music by Vindergotten, who can be found on twitter at Vindergotten, or online at vindergotten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raphael, who can be found on twitter at steveraffle.
00:48:09
Speaker
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmtg or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you all for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.