Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 222: The Story and Themes of Thunder Junction
153 Plays8 months ago
Hello Podwalkers, and welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! All three hosts are back for the long awaited discussion on the Story from Thunder Junction. For much more in depth analysis of each episode we highly recommend checking out our friends The Vorthos Cast, while we look at higher level themes, story direction, the metaphysics of omenpaths and of course Uncle Breeches and Uncle Malcolm. We also want to point people to the You Tube video hosted by Kathleen from LRR and includes Michelle Rapp, Radley, and Alison Luhrs about Jace and his presentation in story!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
____________________________________________
As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But 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: 988
- 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
____________________________________________
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Recommended
Transcript
Reunion and Personal Updates
00:00:30
Speaker
Podwalkers and welcome back to another episode of the goblin lore podcast a very special episode of the goblin lore podcast And by that I mean all the hosts are here Thanks, thanks, thank you too for doing such an amazing job of you know continuing to hold down the fort well while I Last week ended up having um Bay our uh, well I
00:00:57
Speaker
My wife was doing laundry and the sewer, well like the water line just overflowed, like our sink overflowed. So that's what was going on last Monday.
Introduction to Outlaws of Thunder Junction
00:01:09
Speaker
You've been having a very cursed 2024 Hobbs. It like it really feels that way. It really does feel that like just it feels cursed. And I will say that.
00:01:22
Speaker
This episode, in fact, is one that we've had planned multiple times for it to be the episode we were going to do. So I'll just say without further ado that it is about the outlaws of Thunder Junction actual story. Because there's a lot of it between regular story or main story, side story, epilogue. And there's a lot to say. And we kept delaying this with everything that was going on because I really, really wanted to be
00:01:51
Speaker
a part of this discussion. I, I'm really excited for it. So yeah. So I, as I've been talking now for a while and as Alex is want to remind me, this could be anybody's first episode. My name is Hobbs Q and the pronouns are he, him, and we usually have a starting question. And my question today is for, for my co-hosts and I'm have not given them any time to think at all. And that is.
Favorite Characters and Comedy Tropes
00:02:21
Speaker
Who is your second favorite character from Outlaws of Thunder Junction? Now, this is preface the way that it is, because it needs to be your second favorite character, because without a doubt, well, let's even go beyond that. It is the third favorite character, because if you're not choosing Breaches and Malcolm, which we will count one to, who is your third? I'm going to pass that off as I try to figure out why there might be some cracking.
00:02:47
Speaker
Oh, see hubs. And now I'm jumping in. So I guess I volunteered to go first. So I'll introduce myself and say what I was going to say. I'm Alex phone on Twitter sometimes at Mel underscore chronic clear. And my pronouns are he him. But see, I thought you were invoking what is one of my like, weirdly favorite tropes in comedy, where someone will just do something outrageous and be like, that is the third most outrageous thing I've ever done in my life.
00:03:11
Speaker
just sort of invoking like, not necessarily comedy, but just sort of like leaving that space in world building for people to be like, if that's third, what the heck is two and one? No, you were going a different direction. And I only caught up about halfway halfway through. Yeah, I really liked the idea of doing like just giving you who's your second favorite. And then I almost wanted to do it and say who's your second favorite, but you can't tell us who your first favorite is. Yeah. However,
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that's where you were going with this. And then when you said, oh, breeches and Malcolm, and I'm OK, I thought you just didn't want us to tell you who our favorite was. Well, let's do it that way. Now you can tell me your fourth favorite because I don't want to know who your favorite is. I actually love it that way. But time to get down to here. It's going to be like a villager number one. Yeah, I will just go with the 15th grain of sand that Kellan stepped on as he entered the point.
00:04:10
Speaker
There's enough legends in this set. I don't think we can get that far down. That is fair. Unexpected for me. I would never have put this person in my top three, top five, I don't know where Hobbs is at right now, but somewhere in that number range.
Character Highlights: Tiny Bones and Rakdos
00:04:26
Speaker
I'm going to go with Rakdos. And I think maybe when we talk about the story later, kind of elucidate that because I will definitely go on a tangent about it, but I really
00:04:36
Speaker
liked where Ractyl sort of played in this story. More is a background flavor with all the main things that were going on in this storyline, but it ties into something that I think we're gonna talk about a lot. So that's what I'll say for now. All right. You know, I would like to say, you know, there's a couple I'd like to say, I'd like to say,
00:05:03
Speaker
Riku, I'd like to say Vile Smasher, but we didn't get any story for them, so I'm going to skip over there. Oh, by the way, my name's Taya. She heard they-them pronouns. You can find me on Blue Sky at Taya Transcents. So I'm going to go with
00:05:24
Speaker
Someone, you know, I'd even say Rebecca because she's really awesome, but she only got a small part in the side story. So I'm going to go with someone from the main story and someone that really surprised me with how much I liked them. That's Tiny Bones. I really enjoyed that character. They were just so much fun in the story.
00:05:46
Speaker
And for a character that had no prior character story and the way they used him as, you know, like stick him in a box and, you know, have him be the key inside the office.
00:06:02
Speaker
sort of thing. And, you know, he's practically indestructible, he can reassemble himself, he steals anything he can get his hands on. I don't know, I thought he was a fun little character. Yeah, that's, it's a character in the preview. I shouldn't have let Tae go before me. We had that preview and I was like, here's all the people in the gang. And there was a lot of like, okay, I mean, okay. Like,
00:06:27
Speaker
Tiny Bones is one that I just, I knew nothing about. And I wasn't really, and I'm just trying to, I was like, I'm trying to figure out like, was I just not paying attention to the story? No, Tiny Bones was in Jumpstart. Yeah, Tiny Bones had no story. Yeah. Okay.
00:06:43
Speaker
Wasn't there a little flavor similar to what they gave us for Muxus, where we learned that Muxus is one of five goblins? Yeah, I think we got a flavor paragraph on him. I think it's like he steals for his family, basically. And there's this flavor text from the first card that definitely fit. Big distractions mean tiny nuisances could slip by unnoticed.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he's he's he was my favorite. He was my fourth, third, fourth, fourth favorites. I wasn't going to tell you who my third is. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so for me, I'm actually going to go with any flash. So I really liked the I like the trope of the grizzled veteran. We're going to get into why.
00:07:28
Speaker
There's some problems with that, but the way that she was written to be that kind of out of retirement thing, she obviously has a moral compass that is very good and points her even in the right direction, very willing to not leave like Kellen and stuff behind. I really like that kind of character within Western fiction or Western fantasy. So Annie Flash was a home run for me completely.
Western Tropes and Storytelling in Magic
00:07:53
Speaker
I would love to see more. I really want to know more, especially when we got the little character blurbs that about her people, because we know that Stella Lee, one of the other legends from the commander deck, actually also has she is from the same group. So, yeah, so that's going to be what mine is. So we're going to jump in and let's talk about the story. So who would like us to start out?
00:08:21
Speaker
Where do we want to start with the story? Because there was a main story, side stories, epilogue. We actually got an incredible map. We'll just start with anything from the side stories we want to mention because they're kind of short and contained. And I'm just going to start real quick with Yuma and congratulations on finally having some trans mask representation in the story.
00:08:43
Speaker
It was a good story. Vorthos Cast did a whole episode where they interviewed the author. It was really good. Go listen to it if you want to hear from the author. The whole bar fight scene with the fire breathing lizard gun was fantastic. I really enjoyed that. I'm sorry, Yuma's bar burned down. Poor guy.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah. And, and it very hit, hit a lot of those good Western trumps really well too, which is a thing that this set, I think did well overall, but it was very nice to see side stories get to kind of pull some of that weight where they're like, there's things that just aren't going to fit in the main story. So let's have a bar brawl. Yeah. Like this, like, I suppose a good bar brawl story. Uh, it was a one-on-one bar brawl, but they, they did knock the, they got the.
00:09:38
Speaker
they got the highlights in there and it was uh i love the lizard flamethrower yes definitely makes it feel it brings in a little more fantasy than you would see in a normal like a western setting which is
00:09:55
Speaker
This is a tonal thing that I've been going back and forth with the game. I mean, it's a conversation that we don't need to rehash the whole thing with the universe beyond and magic doing different things. It's a good thing that magic is trying new things. I'll say as a baseline, but sometimes that tone can feel weird, but it's nice that they're like, here, we're going to do this old West stuff, but there's going to be a lizard flamethrower because we're still magic. We're still fan. We still have some fantasy trappings. It's too bad we didn't have reconfigure in this set because I would have liked a card for that.
00:10:28
Speaker
I really, really liked the Nashian-Obecca side story in part because…
00:10:38
Speaker
Nashie, um, um, Tamio is one of my favorite characters of the story and all of the things that happened with Tamio and the Phyrexian storyline that we just finished. So it was really nice to see her son, but I'll sort of carry that forward a little bit with her presence. It's still having
00:10:58
Speaker
influence on her son still being a very important part of his life. But also this whole story about him kind of learning to walk his own path. Well, yeah, he he learns how to use her story magic, but in his own way, which is really cool.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah. In a weird way, there's a little bit of resonance for me there. I don't know. Maybe I'm just going through the weird phase of life and I'm old enough. I'm realizing there's little habits that I had or little things that I thought about myself because of my dad. It's a weird small example. For most of my life, I thought I loved mushrooms because my dad loves mushrooms.
00:11:39
Speaker
I don't dislike mushrooms, but it was a few years ago that I realized that I've never really actually loved them. I just sort of thought that I did because of him. And it's not nearly the same thing, but it's just that little bit of resonance for something in my own life, matching up with a character that we'll see. Has Nashie had story before?
Nashie's Journey and Storytelling Themes
00:12:02
Speaker
Did I just miss that? He showed up in the Kamigawa stories. Okay, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I was like, he was in it because that's how we learned that he was Tamio's kid, basically. And I mean, he did show up in the story where Jason and Tezzeret murdered his whole, you know, clan. Yes. He was unnamed at the time, but... Okay.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, I really liked it. This was really good writing. You know, literally, like you both said with learning the scrolls and learning the story magic, but really that idea of like, you know, finish the story, give it life. I mean, that's that's just gut punching. Tambio's death still hits me.
00:12:51
Speaker
way, way hard. Yeah, but you know him learning that a story doesn't have to be written down, you can you can transform it into new media and it's still a story. And still being able to interact with his mother in some shape. I mean, I mean, you know, okay, he's not going to be
00:13:16
Speaker
Hey, that that's the you know, what was the song video killed the radio star but it's like there's still art good art being created just because the medium has changed. Yeah. And podcasts exist. So sometimes that old media comes back in new ways. And there are people doing audio dramas now like they used to do in the 20s on the radio stations.
00:13:35
Speaker
So if you like audio dramas, check out Mask of Anana. One of my friends did it. It is a fantastic audio drama. I really recommend it. And I'm so sorry to tangent here, but I have to share this bit of trivia.
Seanan's Writing and Character Dynamics
00:13:51
Speaker
Video Killed the Radio Star was the first video ever on MTV. Yeah. So, you know, got that going for it. Sorry. So Hobbs, what's a point you want to
00:14:07
Speaker
So from the side stories, I love that we get Shaun in back because if we're going to have bickering, if we're getting to have bickering siblings, that is who I want writing my bickering siblings. So if people don't know, this is the basically it's I love it because it's one of the ones that ties to the main story, but you don't have to have read it because basically they need a map.
00:14:38
Speaker
Gissengrath, I don't even know how to pronounce them, not gonna lie. They go off to go find the map and they come back basically just like looking horrible saying don't ask about it. But we get that, so we get that with Seanan. And like I said, if anybody is going to write siblings going at each other, I want it to be Seanan. And I do not mean that sexually, I just realized that that could be misconstrued.
00:15:07
Speaker
It's a really good story. Many of these tie into this in some way. We're going to talk a lot about, I think, how well this story executes on the promise of the Yeoman Paths. But in particular, the story that Hobbs is talking about, a pleasant family outing, by the way, is what that one is called.
00:15:30
Speaker
There is juice and draw stories always have great titles too okay haven't read a lot of just not a big haven't read a lot of industry stuff so this one of my first stories i really read with him in it. But it has actual like and this is the thing i'm super nerd for i love this like.
00:15:48
Speaker
characters writing in universe text and you have you have Gerald like writing the monograph. If you haven't read a lot of their stories that has been one of the continuing things through all of their stories is it started like their first story was letters back and forth between the two of them.
00:16:10
Speaker
which feels very Victorian, very Frankenstein. And that kind of style has continued throughout their stories where there's been some kind of framing in how their stories are told.
Omen Paths and Story Evolution
00:16:23
Speaker
Hey Alex, guess you need to go back. Yeah, I guess I have to go back and read those because that's super cool. I love that idea.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, so that that has been a constant with their stories ever since the first time that they had their own story. I don't know. I don't remember who it was. I don't think it was. Well, I think it was shadows block when I had their first story. OK, but also in in his little passages that he's writing, you get to a one of it happens here or there, but you get a really good examination of at least some concepts of the metaphysics of health.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, I figured you'd be all over the story, Alex. This one had a lot of metaphysics in it. It hits a lot of my interests. It checks a lot of boxes for me. You know, like we always were trying to figure out, well, even this time from the beginning of the show, we talked about the nature of the planeswalker spark. The Omen Pass opens up a whole new thing for us to discuss, right? Like, that's pretty awesome.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, and the nature of how people use magic and how that just it's a whole thing and this touches on and it's not necessarily the place to examine a lot of that to be honest, there probably is no place to have a deep examination of that for me. It'd be like an art book where they can do that or something. But it's really cool to get to touch on a lot of those things and explore them a little bit and maybe go deeper into later in the story or maybe
00:17:47
Speaker
Maybe we don't. If you're gonna have somebody do that, having Seanan do it is definitely the person to have dig into the metaphysics. Yes, absolutely.
00:17:59
Speaker
So from the side, I think that was the biggest thing for me. Like I said, I really love them as characters. And so especially with the revelations, well, I don't know if it's a revelation, but the more unhingeness of Gissa in this story being the true murder hobo of the group, that not actually being for once the goblin. So I really liked that. And like I said,
00:18:28
Speaker
But I also just, I like the exploration of what are the Omen Pass and what do they mean? Because I think that is something that...
00:18:36
Speaker
I wanna know, that's just from story that I care about. Yeah, and I think that we can just, before we go into the main stories, we can talk about that. And I think, we mentioned it briefly last week and we've talked about it on the Discord, but this is, it's been a year since we've started the Omen Path arc. And this is the first set where the Omen Paths are really paying off, where we're getting this cross multiverse
00:19:04
Speaker
you know, collection of people, where we've seen it here and there, where one character has shown up on a plane they don't belong in, like we've gotten a built-out gun on Eldraine, or this person just makes a guest appearance here. But this has been a real melting pot of characters from across the multiverse. And this is kind of the big payoff of the whole, you know, omen path.
00:19:30
Speaker
thing is like we can see characters from anywhere with anyone and you know you also see some of it is just happenstance but then you also see people like oko that are doing this intentionally and bringing together people from across the multiverse with first specific task although we all know it wasn't really oko doing it he was just being
00:19:56
Speaker
manipulated like everybody else. That's for a long time. Magic has been trying to work out how do they want to tell a story. We've talked about this on and off in various episodes.
00:20:12
Speaker
in our past, in our back catalog. But there's the earliest magic story was this long, you know, fairly long running arc that they managed to pack a lot of people in and a lot of different things. And they found ways to just have this big cast and be able to represent all these characters and kind of sense that I think they've been looking for that. They tried that with when they did the new Planeswalkers, because the old ones were so powerful, it's hard to tell stories about them.
00:20:37
Speaker
So they make the new planes walkers and then there's just some issues with that and this smaller cast people showing up over and over again and people kind of getting tired of this character that character and there's some various things there. But I think this is I'm so you know we talked about this a year ago like like you said that.
00:20:54
Speaker
The elmen path showed up this seemed like this is this was kind of what we were hoping for and this set executes on it So I'm so excited for the next multiple years of magic story because they This is the first this is the end of the first year of a three-year mega art. Mm-hmm so we're just now set up for the next two years of magic story and
00:21:20
Speaker
And which we'll talk about more when we get into the specific details
Diverse Characters and Future Set Speculations
00:21:25
Speaker
of this story. But even beyond that, now they have this structure that I think will serve them for many more years than that, to tell stories using the Omen Paths. And I love that. I'm so excited to see what, just what kind of stories they come up with. Say, and I don't know, I can't remember if I saw somebody say this, or maybe this was just in my own head, but like looking at this set,
00:21:47
Speaker
There's so many legends. There's so many legends in this set. It feels a lot like a commander set because that's the before this. You said that last week. Before this set, the commander sets were the only sets we've ever had with that many legends from that many different planes because that was the only place they could do it.
00:22:07
Speaker
Now they get to do that and tell story with many of them interacting with each other. Yeah, and I don't know if every set is going to be like this where we get this many legends. I hope it isn't. Yeah, that's fair. And that's totally fair. But it's like the fact that that is a possibility. I'm excited about that. Hopefully.
00:22:28
Speaker
like say, I honestly, I would hope that there's fewer legends overall, just because it's can be so hard to follow. They work for this set. Yes. Because of what it represents. And this is where so sorry, go ahead. Yeah.
00:22:44
Speaker
I do have to say real quick, I hope that we get a fair number in Bloom Barrow because I want to see furry versions of some of our favorite characters. Okay, that's fair, right? I'm totally fine with just a bunch of people. I want to see everybody's personas. Absolutely not. It's a small sample size still, but in our previous set, which could have invoked the Omen Paths and brought in all these people,
00:23:11
Speaker
It didn't fit as well. It didn't fit in Ravnica, Movers of Karlov Manor. I think most of the sets are going to be more like that. I don't think we're going to see what we got without Laws of Thunder Junction in most of the sets.
00:23:25
Speaker
That makes sense because it's supposed to represent the frontier, right? It's supposed to represent the thing that people would be clamoring to and that there's a power vacuum in part because people are going there to establish power. And it's not only that, it seems like it was a barren plain that seems like a lot of Omen Pass opened to it. It's literally called a junction.
00:23:50
Speaker
It's basically like if you think, yeah, like I think of the, there's some fantasy literature that has multiversal type stuff where there's like a hub world or there's a world in the middle with all those things kind of coming out of it. Which works. For Planeswalkers, it was kind of like Ravnica was the bright center of the multiverse. And it's like a lot of people's first planeswalk or a default planeswalk was to Ravnica just because it seemed to shine bright in the multiverse. And it seems a lot of Omen Paths just lead to Thunder Junction.
00:24:20
Speaker
which is cool. And I think that that is why we saw a ton there. And, you know, this is where I get into my frustration with the story given. And this is the thing I think Alex, your reference.
00:24:33
Speaker
The timeline, the timeline does not, I still, it does not work for me that it's been basically a year since aftermath or a year since March of the machines. In story, I'm not talking, you know, set wise, which had also has been roughly a year, but it's, it's the fact that we have
00:24:57
Speaker
A plane that was unspoiled, we can get into a lot of discussions about colonialism and Alex and I were talking about this. That's one thing that they decided to sidestep with having any flash. They did have consultants on that.
00:25:17
Speaker
She is the closest we have to kind of a native population or appearing indigenous. However, she is not. And I think that is was probably done intentionally. That was probably might have been the decision with the consultant. We don't know. And we don't know what their decision was, but we do know that they decide to set this up as kind of a plane without a indigenous people to it so that we don't have to deal with those issues, which is is OK. However,
00:25:46
Speaker
the timeline of this plane that like the war of the sword the war of spark god jesus christ march of the machines the fire axians ending
00:25:56
Speaker
People being willing to then go into the Almond Pass, and there's always people that'll be willing to. I mean, I think that's the thing is we can establish even from our own history. There was a really cool thread about this from Jay and from John Beatty about like the gold rush and how quickly that did happen in the real world to come to San Francisco, right? And how quickly the population exploded there.
00:26:20
Speaker
And that was in response to things that were going on in other people's countries and within our own that led people to there that quickly. However, the only thing you've ever known is your own world. This is a literal opening up of the multiverse, something that was only available with planeswalkers. And we saw the results of this on Ravnica with attitudes towards planeswalkers.
00:26:43
Speaker
We have all of that going on. People getting over the trauma from March of the Machines aftermath, traveling, establishing a colony, any flash, being willing to be part of a gang, from a marauding gang with Akol, and then being betrayed, having her nephew
00:27:08
Speaker
like basically maimed, hanging up and burying her guns and then being found in less than a year.
00:27:17
Speaker
Well, plus just look at people dug up and moved all their dead to this mega graveyard. Yes. There is something that I'm struggling with and part of it is because I said at the beginning, the grizzled veteran hanging up and coming out of retirement is one of the tropes I like about having to do one more thing.
00:27:38
Speaker
And like theoretically, she can't even been in the business unless it happened on another plane, which we, that's the retcon or what we can say. But it made it seem like it was on this plane. And then she like hit her guns away and Akles not looking for, is not looking for her. And she's found and it's been like a couple months. It's like maybe been six months since she retired.
00:28:08
Speaker
Like, it's like, it's not even long enough to get a diagnosis of PTSD. Like, let's be like, you have to have a year out from your trauma. So that is the struggle for me of this whole like coming out of retirement and having the knowledge of the land, you know, being the person whose expertise you need for this mission, the grizzled veteran, right? I mean, I think that's, that's what her title is.
00:28:31
Speaker
I think we're actually we're you know, I'm trying to piece it together We're like two years out from the invasion because there was like a year passed from when Kellen From the invasion when we're first introduced to Kellen and Kellen's been traveling for like a year now So I think we're about two years out
00:28:51
Speaker
But that still isn't a lot of time. No. There's a suggestion of a lot more history than there is actual history. Yeah, it's like 18 months to two years tops. Tops, yes. They explained in the epilogue, which I think is the thing that I want to get to the most when we talk through the story somewhat.
Thunder Junction's Role in Magic Lore
00:29:13
Speaker
They explained that like planes walkers had visited here, some had deposited stuff. That's how we get the Fomari vault being there, right? And all the relics that are in that vault is kind of like people were using it or coming in that were planes walkers.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, but this was a plane that had no native population. It was just planes who would come here and then leave. Potentially cactus. In a way, yeah, potentially cactus. That's a whole other conversation, which could be part of this one, but in a way, maybe it's so weird to make, but it's a little bit like the old Phyrexia, or was it created by a planes walker and abandoned? Doesn't matter. That was the basic premise of it, because it was definitely a created plane.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah. So where this would be a natural plane, but still, there had been no sapient life as far as the humanoids who showed up were aware or keeping track on this plane until the open path opened up to allow people to actually emigrate here as opposed to emigrate here. I'm not sure how to conjugate the word right, but to move here and start to establish their own stuff.
00:30:28
Speaker
as opposed to the planeswalkers who, especially back at that time, generally didn't put down roots unless they had like a particular project they were working on. I mean, it's suggested this plane was like a good place to meet for clandestine meetings, I guess. Yeah. I mean, that, that fits a little bit with the, the, the old west trope of meeting in the desert where there, there isn't anybody anyway. Mm hmm.
00:30:54
Speaker
Right. Well, so how much do we want to talk about the actual stories? I know I know we definitely want to talk about the epilogue stuff. Yeah. Let's just hit some highlights because we have six episodes. You know, I think there's a. A few things that, you know, they go through this and like like all good, you know, the main story is a high story, a good old fashioned Wild West high story, so very
00:31:20
Speaker
you know, very trope-heavy. It's kind of a standard Wild West, you know, themed set. So that's, they nailed the kind of expected story you would have for the sort of a set from the beginning.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah, that hits the top down stuff. Yeah. Like Mark Groser talks a lot about theros, whether they did the Greek mythology, they did a lot of that. Like one of their first design things was what are things people will expect? Yes. Let's hit some of those, get those out, you know, just make sure those are established.
00:31:53
Speaker
We've got a jailbreak. We've got a train robbery. Recruiting a gang. Recruiting your gang members. Yeah. So trust each other. They're like showing across the room, giving each other side eye for half the story. Yeah. Hanging out in a saloon. You know, we kind of hit all of those things. Nothing ever goes right for the gang. You know, so that's.
00:32:18
Speaker
Whether it's blowing up a bridge too early or... No, no, the bridge blew up right on time. The problem was there was no one to stop the train. Because the zombies got going a little early. Yeah, the zombies got going early. That is fair. Early and over enthusiastic. Yeah. You're not supposed to eat the conductor.
00:32:43
Speaker
You have people in the gang going at each other. It's tenuous at best. Everybody's in it for their own, quote, unquote, reasons, usually money, or as we discovered, things like loyalty to somebody else, or there's a veteran. Maybe a good time to talk about Rakdos.
00:33:05
Speaker
if you guys don't mind me tangenting after I tried to get it on track, but that kind of fits our show. So, like, Rakdos, I will be honest, at first I was trepidatious about Rakdos showing up. I'm like, what in the world are you doing here? Like, I get the Omen Path. It's cool. We could have anybody show up anywhere if we can find a good reason. But, like, why is Rakdos there? But I really like
00:33:28
Speaker
when he showed up in
Rakdos and Character Motivations
00:33:30
Speaker
the story. And it's just like hanging out, because it got me I was thinking about this beforehand. And I'm like, you know, I realized
00:33:36
Speaker
at least for me, like how I'm thinking about it in my head and it makes a lot of sense and I really like this. In fiction, a lot of times there'll be conversations or meditations, they're trying to like examine immortal creatures. If a being literally has all the time in the universe, like how do they motivate themselves to do anything? Or how do they pass the time? What would that do to someone's psyche?
00:34:03
Speaker
Oh, yes. That is on my list to watch. Anime reference helps. Yes. Just in case you didn't catch that. But is this one of the fake ones or is this a real? No, this is a real good one, too. Yeah. It gets into the whole analyzing when you have an immortal life. What do you do with it?
00:34:22
Speaker
So very topical to this discussion. And like, for Rakdos, in the world of, you know, in the universe, in the multiverse of magic, you had
00:34:33
Speaker
Planeswalkers back in the day who had that power and immortality, but they could go places. They could like get hobbies and build planes and things and squeeze well. But then you have characters like Squee, you have characters like Rakdos who were immortal and stuck in one place. And I think there's some story suggestion or maybe not even suggestion, straight up fact that Rakdos would like sleep for long time. Oh, he'd sleep for decades in his lava pit because he was just bored out of his mind.
00:35:02
Speaker
And it's like, and so that really actually makes sense where he's just like, what, I can put on a cowboy hat and go like beat people up on this world.
00:35:10
Speaker
Hell yeah, let's go, Oko. Like, I don't know what you're talking about, but let's do it. He was promised a good time. That's what he was in for. And he got a good time. And it's like that, I just, that's why Rakdos, like, makes my top five for, for this set, because it just, I was not, at first I was a little skeptical about his role. Like, why is he here? Is this just kind of a, it's a big name that people would be familiar with, which can be cool to bring up, but I'm so glad he was in the story. He really fit. I really enjoyed that aspect of it.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, he didn't get to shine till the end of the story, but he did get to shine and it was. And while we get good comedy relief, right? Yeah, actos making friends with with little bones, tiny bones, tiny bones like that. Beautiful. Just we get the call back to.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yes, nobody will ever write me again and then it's like everybody's writing him. Yeah, this is really the last time I swear. This is the last time. I loved it where we saw Rakdos with like Judah trying to manipulate in MKM so in the Karlov Manor manner going into this. I actually really liked that to set this up because he was he was being manipulated too.
00:36:19
Speaker
Or at least she would have thought she was and so she was trying to keep him slumbered. And it's like he learns about, yeah, he learns about something that is nothing that he knows in his existence of immortality. For the first time, John said it. Probably millennia. He's like, there's something new. I get to go somewhere else. Yeah. I'm, you know, he's, he's the only parent that's still in charge of his guild.
Plot Twists and Character Betrayals
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, Aaron. Amazing. Yeah. So we have the ice. We end up with the double cross. Yep. Classic. This case is also the fake out that we learned that it's not actually Ashiok. It was Jase the entire time. Yep. And I will say the way the story came out, that also meant that it was kind of a little like... We didn't know what else we were getting at that point. Yeah. To be honest.
00:37:21
Speaker
I was really upset at first when I saw this in the dark pack cosplay.
00:37:32
Speaker
Is that what their name is? Yeah. Yeah. Dark Pack cosplay who is known for being the Ashiok cosplay. They posted that they were a little upset that they kind of, this was like, you know, erasure of one of the few non-Sishet planeswalkers from the story. And I was like, yeah, you know, that, that's a really valid point.
00:37:56
Speaker
And then when, you know, we'll discuss the epilogue stories next, when that came out, I'm like, I can see why they went this route, but it also, I totally feel that point is valid as well, is you've had Ashiok in the story ever since Wilds of Eldraine, and then it's like, ha ha, it's me, Jace, it's been a white bread boy all along. And you have to question, right? You know, like, we don't know how long is Jace been Ashiok sort of thing, right? I mean, because you could go back and do it,
00:38:26
Speaker
the entire time on Eldraine or further, I guess. Yeah. My read, and I don't think the text necessarily says that this is true. My read was it was for this job. Jace borrowed Ashiok's visage and reputation, essentially, for this job.
00:38:44
Speaker
And there's that rate. I'm glad you're sharing that. I hadn't seen that, and that is a very valid concern to bring up. The thing I was going to kind of say as a little aside to this, obviously, we were expecting the betrayal with this sort of group.
00:38:59
Speaker
The fact that it didn't come from Oko kind of shocked me, I'll be honest, in a good way. Like after sort of the Eldritch Moon sort of turned, you know. I was fully expecting Ash shock to betray everybody. I just didn't expect it to be Jace.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was expecting either Ashiok or Oko or both to betray each other or the whole group. And for them to go in a different direction with it, that story beat was a pleasant surprise to me. But the particular characters involved, I understand that that is totally valid and kind of an issue. I would say even with the epilogue being as good as it was,
00:39:42
Speaker
that it still was a decision to make. It doesn't erase the concern there. They still had your poster white boy masquerading as one of the few queer characters in Magic for a year.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah. And, and so this, this is why representation can be so nice. If there were a lot more queer characters, this would be less impactful. So, you know, I don't know how you address that other than it made sense story wise, but just because of how
Jace and Vraska: Epilogue and Character Development
00:40:23
Speaker
little representation there really is, it also kind of feels like a kick in the pants to especially people that identify with those characters.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah. And then, you know, then we got, you know, a couple of weeks later after the whole set was released, we got the epilogue stories, which once again, for me, at least. I think are an example of why, uh, personally, I feel Alison Lurs might be the greatest magic writer of all time.
00:40:58
Speaker
she somehow makes me like jace i've always liked verasca so that's not a problem but i like i read these two stories and i'm like i like jace what's wrong with this uh
00:41:11
Speaker
And I want to throw out, so this week there was, so Kathleen from LLR, from Loading Ready Run, did a sit-down panel on Jace, talking about Jace's history in the story, and in particular the lore, because this is where we can run into some hard parts of people knowing Jace from lore versus story.
00:41:37
Speaker
I'm more versus cards versus marketing versus everything. Because there's this community, right? Use of a character. Because we did our episode on Jace for toxic masculinity with Michelle, with Cale and Fiend Potter, talking about, you know, the representation of Jace at times for the stand in for the white male player, especially.
00:42:01
Speaker
And that can go from everything to do with more, to do with marketing and cards and not even to do with what was going on in the story, but not everybody knows the story, right? And in the story, Jace was inconsistent. There have been amazing Jace stories.
00:42:18
Speaker
and Agents of Artifice is the one that I am personally meaning to read and I am being convinced to by this, by all of this. It is. Agents of Artifice is a good book. And, you know, it's Jace's origin story. You know, Socks as much as anybody has been traumatized since the beginning of his story, like, you know, most of the planeswalkers are. Yeah.
00:42:43
Speaker
But, you know, we inconsistent from that point, you know, different points in there. Then we got amazing Ixalan. Yeah. Followed by horrible war of the spark. Where he even like doesn't let everybody know what's going on fully. He knows about Uginan doesn't tell. He kind of goes back into that mind made. I mean, it was not great for the development of his character or even to show him in Vraska where we left them in Ixalan to war of the spark.
00:43:14
Speaker
So anyway, I just want to point out that they did do a sit down with Radley, who was one of the people who reached out to us after that Jace episode, who has written an article about their fan theory on Jace being transmasc.
00:43:30
Speaker
And then Alison and then Michelle sat down and talked about Jace as a character. We, I have not watched it yet. It is an hour and 45 minutes. It is on YouTube. It just came out today. I had a chance to watch it either, but given who's involved, I have no problem endorsing watching it. Yes. Because as you said, Alison, you know, well.
00:43:52
Speaker
We know she created Breaches and Malcolm. Yeah, I've gotten confirmation from her that she created those two, so thank you, Allison. Thank you, Allison. Already, you know, makes you go up in our book. You didn't need that. But she wrote that Grace Jay storyline that we used for talking about Breaches and Malcolm. We talked about Jayce in that storyline and how he was used.
00:44:14
Speaker
And she writes him beautifully here. She does. She literally set up a six-year payoff with the illusion of his horse being the first thing that he sees on Ixalan, right? Yeah. A story from his mom about it being the first thing, the first illusion he ever created. Yes. Yeah. A six-year payoff. That is amazing. Yeah, and especially in a property where
00:44:44
Speaker
the you don't it's not your characters you're you're writing you know the company hires you to write these characters and you get to put your own pieces in this and that's part of why they are higher good writers to to to write the story but ultimately it's not your characters it's not your story they're Jason Vraska are not Allison's characters but Wizards has let them be her characters as much as they possibly can they have let her write
00:45:12
Speaker
those two since Ixalan and I'm and she has said it on the panel that we're in that we were on and said she is thankful that her current employer continues to let her write for Magic Story because we continue to get this great writing and she continues to be able to write for Jason Nebraska because Bungie lets her do it and I'm thankful they let her do it because we get to keep getting these stories.
00:45:39
Speaker
Yeah. And, and just before I forget, cause I thought about it and it didn't feel relevant. We have a pause here. One thing I want to mention, I really appreciate how much story we got here and how they played with the structure a little bit.
Magic's Storytelling Challenges and Innovations
00:45:51
Speaker
This is the thing a little bit in our most recent talk with Sean and the story isn't.
00:45:56
Speaker
doesn't make them money. This story isn't the thing that they're selling right now. This is a free thing they do to help players engage and to give us something cool to engage with. But they still have to pay the writers. So the writers get paid for this, but they don't get direct income. And so whenever they put a good focus on story,
00:46:19
Speaker
This is a good thing. A lot of these sets have 10 stories. Even before we got the epilogue, which gave us 12 total, but even before the epilogue, I really like how almost every story is five episodes main, five episodes side. Seanan got to mess with that a little bit with Karlov. She got all 10, right?
00:46:42
Speaker
And so it was like, that's really cool that they're like, let's change the structure because it fits the story that we're trying to tell. They did a similar thing here where we got six episodes of the main story and then the four side stories to flesh things out. And then they were out in Allison to do the two epilogue stories to really help set us up for.
00:47:01
Speaker
the rest of the story arc. So I really, I want to give that shout out and also remind people if this is something that you really are interested in, you really like, go and read the stories because that helps wizards know that people care about this and that it's something worth their time. Even if you don't have time to read the stories, go open them in your web browser and stay on there for a little bit. Yeah, stay on the site for a little while.
00:47:25
Speaker
let wizards know that you actually care about the story because that's the only way we keep getting a story. And I will say too, even to the fact that they've now listened enough to push previews, push the story in front of, bring the story back to happening before cards spoiled the story. That's a very good point too. For a very long time that's what we were getting.
00:47:50
Speaker
We were getting the story first in the cards. And I was like, all right, like War of the Spark. That was one of the big things. It's just like there was other issues with War of the Spark, too. Yeah. It was like all the big story between you before we could even read any of it. And I know you're mentioning, right? Like and Alex spoke, but you're saying that, you know, characters don't belong to authors. This is one of those ones where it's like if we want to give them a cutesy name like Jaska or race that that they really do.
00:48:20
Speaker
go to Allison. I was just recalling the fact that she also did the March of the Machines story, right, that we got about the two of them. It was like the dying moment. So Jace and Vraska don't belong to Allison, but what did you say? Vrace? Vrace or Jaska? You know, like those cutesy celebrity names? So Jaska sounds really close to Jessica and that's really confusing for me.
00:48:47
Speaker
Because everybody knows Jessica. Jessica, right? And I just said it wrong. Trying to make a joke about the character from old lore. But we get the epilogue. We get basically the end of War of the Spark. So we get a lot of questions answered that I think a lot of us did want answered. You know, you don't need to tell us or show us everything.
00:49:10
Speaker
And we also, you know, one of the things we get in this story is we get shown just how terrifying Jace's power set is when he, when he's not in control of himself and the phrexian side is in control. He's just ripping people's minds apart left and right. And he commits atrocities. Yeah. He, you know, and that's. You know, it's just how powerful a mind mage with no morals is, is. Yeah.
00:49:40
Speaker
And those atrocities aren't limited by the reach of his arms. He doesn't need weapons. He doesn't need physical connection. He can just basically kill people by thinking about it.
00:49:56
Speaker
And it's terrifying and he's always been scared of his powers. That's something that's been a continual thing with Jace and his whole story arc. And that's one of the things that he's always had issues with. And because he's repeatedly been in cases where he's used his powers for things he's not felt good about doing.
00:50:20
Speaker
like going back to like the thing I discussed earlier about wiping out Nashi's village is that's something that he's regretted for his entire life. And, you know, and he keeps falling into things like that. And this time he's was forced against his will to invade his own home plane. And he kept fighting back against that Phyrexian influence as much as he could, but until Norne was defeated, he didn't have a lot of control over himself.
00:50:50
Speaker
In his own home plane that for a long time, he didn't even know where it was and had never been back himself. Like as herself. Yeah. At that point, never being back. They had not seen his mother. Right. And, yeah, and I'm sure, you know, and she was quite shocked when he shows up with Braska, both partially forexinized and just possibly the living room.
Epilogue's Role in Story Closure and Future Speculations
00:51:15
Speaker
Ask the important questions.
00:51:17
Speaker
Like, is this your wife? Yeah, flat out. Yeah. And he's like, No, she's my world. You know, it was a great moment that Jace talked about the like the concept hadn't even occurred to him because of how limiting the concept of life was. Yeah, but he also was imagining her dressed up in classic Brin wedding ceremonial dress and everything.
00:51:44
Speaker
And I do enjoy, too, the line his mother had, when she said that, like, you're not the only prodigy in our family. Like, is it called back to his subtitle from his Magic Origins card? Oh, I didn't even think about that. That is, that is great. That is another great callback. Nice job, Allison. Yeah. Well, I.
00:52:11
Speaker
I devoured these two stories. As much as they were an epilogue, about 90% of them were actually a prologue. And then we get the little bit of actual epilogue where
00:52:32
Speaker
They've got their loot from the vault, which is a creature named Luke, which is the one, my one big nitpick with this entire story is that the creature that has been locked in the vault for 8,000 years or whatever, since the Formari Empire existed, which is, it's more than 8,000 years because they predate the throne. The creature in the vault is called Luke. And I like what they could have done so much better. Yeah.
00:53:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. That joke is not worth that character bearing that name for the rest of the time they're in the story. No. We need to give them a different name, Jason. We know this story is going for at least another two years. It's like 18 months, two years from now, that name is not going to make sense.
00:53:20
Speaker
No, it's not going to be relevant to newer players. It's just the joke was not worth it. I want to say, well, gave me hope for my, my, um, my, my fan theories that Malcolm and breaches will be traveling along as basically the nanny, uh, the nannies for, um, loot, because, you know, Jason Frost, they're going to have stuff that they have to get done. And somebody has to take care of this for more, you know, I mean,
00:53:46
Speaker
They're gonna be busy trying to burn the multiverse down to its foundation. So... Somebody has to... Yeah, somebody has to watch the kid. Specifically, Malcolm and Breaches. Because she was thankful they were not on the belligerent because she did not want to have to go to the belligerent to find them. But they are who she sought out. I think Breaches would be a great babysitter. I do too.
00:54:17
Speaker
That kid is going to learn a lot. Yeah. A lot about explosives and a lot of dirty songs. That's when I literally had somebody like made a joke about the swearing. I was like, well, we already have evidence that when I said this, somebody was like making jokes about like, like loot swearing. Where did you learn that? Uncle Breeches. Like, yeah, yeah, we've got we've got already canon evidence that that will happen.
00:54:46
Speaker
But I mean, I told, you know, so I had brunch this weekend and I was telling Alex, I was saying, you know, like, I love that little bit because it really ties nicely. Yes, we already knew that it was kind of like.
00:55:00
Speaker
Like, yeah, boss, they were loyal to Nebraska. They just peaced out. They went off into the sunset. But like, did they really go off into the sunset or did they just meet them somewhere? I mean, that's what I that's what I guess. You know, I'm assuming they had some kind of meetup set up someplace off to the side.
00:55:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just saying that like you don't let good lackeys go you do not once it will call you captain captain and do your bidding when you are now gonna go travel around doing who knows what
00:55:31
Speaker
you take known elements with you. Especially one who you know can wait for the appropriate time to set off the explosives. Not the appropriate time to teach loot things, but the appropriate time. No, that's not in Red Scholar Pie. But appropriate time to set off the explosives.
00:55:55
Speaker
Got that. I really liked the touch, though, when they were going over the map and Luke's head and talking about all the planes that, like, Verask had been to, that Jace had never been to. And, like, of course, Jace is like, what's the coffee like here? That was such a Jace thing. Like, it's iced, right? Yeah. Yeah, Verask is explaining iced coffee to him, which I'm like, how does Ravnica not have iced coffee?
00:56:24
Speaker
but yeah, Jay steps out to get a coffee. And they mentioned Tarkir, of course, because we know we're going back to Tarkir soon.
00:56:34
Speaker
furry goblins cannot wait but we've got a whole plane of furries to come first i'm yes i'm so excited the box art with uh with furry ral and all the other otters swimming around him was adorable i don't know if you saw the box art previewed i did not oh it was really cute one of my friends sent it to me
00:56:56
Speaker
It's got furry rails standing on a rock with a bunch of furry, a bunch of otters around him. It's really cute. It's the box art from the bundle box. I saw some of the concept art up on the Facebook market, art market already starting to pop up. Some of the like pre sketches for some of the art that's been released and I'm like cute furry animal sketches and prelims. Oh no.
00:57:22
Speaker
I have to own an original from this set. I don't know what it's going to be, but I have to own an original from this set. It's going to be so good. Yeah. My weird little thing that I'm super excited about now is that the Fomori sounded familiar and I'm like, I'm pretty sure that was from a future site.
00:57:44
Speaker
It is. It was part of the the full art vanilla creature cycle from future site. There was the Filmori Nomad. And I'm I'm I'm hopeful that they we will finally see what set that was a reprint from. Mm hmm. Oh, that was so much story. It was so good. And we just skimmed the surf and we just we just breeze through that story. We went through themes, y'all. Yeah, the story is well written. The lines are well written. Everything.
00:58:15
Speaker
Yeah. If you want to hear breakdowns of all the individual stories, you can go listen to the Vorthos cast. They did their usual breakdowns of each story and the epilogues. But yeah, I mean, this was a great set story, loved it, loved the side stories, loved the epilogues. I was happy with what we got. We finally got the payoff for the Omen Path that I had been waiting for.
00:58:43
Speaker
This was like a giant Marvel mash-up Yep episode
00:58:50
Speaker
We got our setup for the next arc because we knew that just from sort of meta things, folks and wizards talking about the story, saying that we were setting up this three year arc. We didn't really know what it was about. Now we know kind of the central piece of this at least. Yeah, I think we said our goodbyes to Callan. I think we followed him through his arc and I think we're done following him.
00:59:15
Speaker
Settle down with Annie Flash and enjoy your life, Kellen. Annie and, uh, Amelia. Yep. Amalia and just ignore your, that your dad is an asshole. Yeah. Cause we're going to do our best to ignore Oco. And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at TayatranSends, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler.
00:59:43
Speaker
Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord Pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
00:59:53
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobsugs, our link tray can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link for our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at stevereffel on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
01:00:21
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.