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Episode 121: Yahenni and the Aetherborn
136 Plays4 years ago
Hello Podwalkers, and welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! Today on the cast we sat down with Nathan (aka @FNatesta) to discuss the Aetherborn, especially through the lens of Yahenni. We revisit the stories related to this and follow up on our previous episode about Queerness in Magic. Nathan discusses their experience being nonbinary and also the relationship with this and the representation of the Aetherborn.
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).
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Background
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast. I am Hobbs Q and before we get started today, I just want to make sure that we thank the Grinding Coffee Company for being just letting us partner with them, offering kind of a discount to all of you listeners out there. We have links in our Twitter bio at the Goblin Lore Pod. And just Goblin, sorry, the Grinding Coffee Company is a
00:00:56
Speaker
minority owned LGBT brand coffee company that has partnered with gamers. And we're just so thankful to kind of have that relationship with them. So yeah, so want to make sure we got that out of the way. And want to start us off with doing some introductions. Alex and I are joined by a guest today. So we're joined by Nathan. Nathan, do you want to just go ahead and do a quick introduction? We normally do pronouns. And then if you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself, because you're brand new to the first time being on this cast.
00:01:25
Speaker
why yes hello uh... my name is uh... nathan uh... at f nysta on twitter and out of mana on youtube uh... my pronouns are they them and um... i am a person who uh... likes and enjoys playing magic modern and commander mostly uh... and yeah that's that's that's my personality i just order of breathe and eat magic you know
00:01:57
Speaker
I mean, there's other things that I definitely have seen you post about. You know, I believe you got your start doing doing some makeup tutorials and stuff too. Yes, there's a whole other element that I think is cool within the magic community. No, I, um, I do have a beauty YouTube channel, but I'm kind of languishing at the moment. Fashion nadestah.
00:02:22
Speaker
that's just fashion and then Nate and then stuff. On YouTube, it's just a lot to try. It's a lot for me to commit to editing one video a week for one channel already. So trying to do two can get a little bit dicey at times, but I'm hoping that I'm starting up college, or I'm starting resuming college next month and getting my own place and I'm hoping
00:02:52
Speaker
that when that happens, I can kind of get into a bit more of a workflow. And can you tell us a little bit, you mentioned the YouTube channel and having to post or edit and post video a week there. What is your kind of main focus for people that are listening so they can know what you do?
Magic: The Gathering & Nathan's Content Plans
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, so for my makeup channel, it's really varied. Sometimes you're going to get some commentaries. Sometimes you're going to get some makeup tutorials. Sometimes you're just going to get live streams, just chatting, hanging out. Those are, I've recently been doing a bit more of live streams hanging out on that channel. It's a lot easier for me to produce, and it's a nice way for me to interact with my community.
00:03:32
Speaker
on my Out of Man of Magic channel. I haven't really settled into exactly a niche yet. I find myself a lot of the times doing kind of either modern or commander content, whether it's kind of going through deck lists, talking about how I feel decks have been performing. I know that I have a video recorded that I haven't sat down and fully edited.
00:03:59
Speaker
where it's me talking about how I feel like my modern decks have been doing in the last couple F&Ms. I think I'm going to start up a series, a little sneak peek here I guess, but I guess I'll probably have started hopefully the series before this episode goes up, so maybe less of a sneak peek.
00:04:15
Speaker
But I'm going to hopefully start doing Friday Night Magic Recaps as like a weekly series because I feel like it's something that I can keep short, concise, and like produce. And so I'll probably be doing that just talking about whatever Friday Night Magic format I played. And then I'm going to hope to have maybe one other video talking about various other things going on in the community. You know, this week I might talk about me grieving over my precious merfolk
00:04:43
Speaker
being unrightfully banned and commander and pirate and my merfolk pirate is your merfolk pirate has been murdered no more calls will be reached they all of the treasure look whole breacher is a communist okay he he saw these ships holding too many cards in their hands okay you had too many cards in your hand you got greedy you know what happens
00:05:08
Speaker
We had to redistribute the wealth. We had to take the treasure, and we always spent that treasure, okay? We always spent that treasure. I think the problem is it wasn't so much a redistribution of wealth as a seizing the wealth for only the whole breacher.
00:05:24
Speaker
Now, to be fair, communal. So there there's a good chance that this this might have been. But but yeah, it's hard to make that claim. I am not sure that the whole breacher was seizing the means of production. You know, I would like to.
00:05:43
Speaker
Whole Breacher died for Wheel of Fortune sins. We can just say it that way. Potentially, yes. Anyways, this comparison has gone a little bit off the rails. Yes, so welcome to the Goblin Lord Pod. I guess that means it's a good time for Alex to introduce yourself, Alex.
Collaborating on Non-Binary Representation
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll just make this quick because we're not here to listen to me right now.
00:06:10
Speaker
I'm Alex, who've been phoned on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I am HobSkew. I can be found on Twitter at HobSkew and my pronouns are also he him. So Nathan, you approached, you know, kind of had approached me a while ago about potentially collaborating, you know, kind of saying, you know, I like the product that you guys are putting out. I would like to be able to come on and talk. And so we've we've been having a plan to record this for quite a while numerous. Yeah, numerous.
00:06:44
Speaker
interruptions and kidney stones and things we don't talk about. But all along, there was kind of at least a running current or thread of things that you wanted to kind of that you approached us about. So I want you to kind of take the lead on that. Like is because I think that this was a great idea and a great topic. And I think that you've done a great job of bringing it to us.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah. Um, well, um, as I mentioned a little bit before, I am a non-binary person. Um, and I, um, happened to remember a little bit of a call-out and I believe it was when sheep wave was on, um, to kind of like, you know, wanting to talk a little bit more about like the non, the trans non-binary experience in terms of relating to like magic lore and whatnot. Um,
00:07:36
Speaker
And I remember there being kind of a little bit of a touch on like Aetherborn and stuff. I am personally a bit of a lore buff. I did take a break when the Chandra Nissa stuff happened. So... You do listen to the show. Yeah, I very much listen to the show. You guys came back a little bit before I did.
00:08:04
Speaker
But very, very shortly after the whole Chandra Nissa stuff happened, I just kind of, I still listened to some podcasts, because I, you know, I still liked you guys, but you guys were no longer creating content for a little bit. But I still wanted to support, you know, like the lore go east, the board those casts. So I stayed a little bit up to date, but just eventually just life and then the pandemic hit and then, but I didn't buy,
00:08:31
Speaker
like any sort of magic product whatsoever, didn't really watch any videos about it, didn't go to any tournaments for a good year and a half, two years, and then didn't really start playing again until like kind of early this year. So there's a little bit of a lore cap. I've since gone and listened to
00:08:54
Speaker
Podcasts catching me up a little bit more on throne of Eldraine story and that kind of stuff I've read
00:09:02
Speaker
I've read most of Strixhaven's story. I've read all of the main stories, but I haven't, there's still, I just didn't read the Killian side story. There's reasons that we can just leave to a previous episode with Michelle and Orion. So, you know, if you want to know why I decided to just skip that story, there's a great episode for you.
00:09:30
Speaker
So one of the things that I guess that really kind of I wanted to talk about was like the second that Aetherborn come out. I personally really love Aetherborn because like before Aetherborn really like the only non like I'm using air quotes when I say non-binary representation here was Ashiok and the reason that I use kind of air quotes around that non-binary representation is because
00:10:02
Speaker
Ashiok was very questionable whether he was ever really intended to be non-binary, or whether Ashiok's whole androgyny kind of thing was just supposed to be a kind of add-on to Ashiok's aesthetic.
00:10:28
Speaker
Yes, um, kind of a lack of gender or there isn't the concept or, you know, like themselves. Yeah. And there was a style where they said, Oh, okay. Good. Like I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. You're good. Um,
00:10:49
Speaker
Because so the basically, so the card Ashiok Nightmare Weaver from Theorist represents planeswalker Ashiok. Ashiok is androgynous and does not subscribe to the binary, which is kind of complicated because there's there's this difference between gender presentation and gender identity. And also like it does like I will say like the use of binary there like
00:11:16
Speaker
I think is why people latched on to this non-binary label for Ashiok. And at the same time, it also feels kind of a little bit like, it feels like Ashiok becoming non-binary is more of a kind of like, I don't want to necessarily say retcon, but more of like a
00:11:44
Speaker
Societals evolving to understand gender therefore retroactively kind of means that this character fits into this category. Yep.
Aetherborn & Non-Binary Representation
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, and it feels less like an intentional choice from the beginning which I could be wrong on because They
00:12:09
Speaker
Basically they did because they do The kind of old make like the they is not a singular pronoun argument, which is like I don't really want to go into that I've watched these position on that has clearly changed with new characters that we've gotten But it's just it was just a very it felt very
00:12:29
Speaker
It felt like maybe they were trying but maybe didn't have people that were bad. I felt like it was like a dipping the toes in the water in some ways. And it's hard to say exactly what the intentionality is because we don't fully know.
00:12:46
Speaker
You know, I think as Alex mentioned, the style guide, right? And that was kind of like the first kind of acknowledgement of it. And then it's gone back and it's kind of been like, well, no, that's not really what Ashiok is. And as you said, kind of this idea of expression versus identity too, which is kind of wrapped up in it. So we had that. Yeah. I will, I will say that like, I find something just like a little bit funny in the concept of like the nightmare magic character.
00:13:15
Speaker
Um, being like, like the first, like, I, like, gender non-conforming, using not she, him pronouns, because I like, I just like think of this, like someone sitting down in a boardroom, just like, okay.
00:13:36
Speaker
So we have this character, right? Like, they're a nightmare weaver. What can make it more nightmarish? And someone just like pops up just like, what if they just don't have gender? And then just like everyone, like every cis person in the room is just like, this how? Why? And I just like imagine that like, that's like, I'm sure that this is not the pitch, right? But but I just I just I find it I have some headcanon about Ashiok being the nightmare weaver. Because
00:14:02
Speaker
not having to subscribe to a gender binary is people's nightmares. You know what? I like it. It's possible. I mean, and legitimately, it's possible that they weren't thinking of it from that angle. But more of a, you know, the monster you don't see is more terrifying than the monster you see. And by having so little of Ashiok known, even a gender,
00:14:25
Speaker
is removing knowledge of who this entity is and maybe that's what they were going for and kind of hamfisting other things. Kind of gets to the sometimes it's nice to have not even sometimes that's why it's nice to have diverse people in the room so that people can say hey this is how this might be perceived. Yeah and I feel I feel like it was
00:14:48
Speaker
I feel like it was a choice specific for the aesthetics of the character rather than the character being designed around that choice. And I feel like, and don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Ashiok. Ashiok is like a character that I think looks cool. Ashiok looks badass.
00:15:07
Speaker
I love Ashiok. I still to this day want to know what Ashiok was doing in the meditation realm. Ashiok is very interesting. Yeah. Even when I was first getting into magic, you know those points when you're just like as a kid where you're just like, this should have been a sign, right? When I was first getting into magic, my favorite planeswalker was Ashiok.
00:15:33
Speaker
And this was before I was out yet, right? So my favorite playing soccer was Ashiok. I absolutely loved Ashiok. The Nightmare Weaver, it went immediately into my Attraxa Super Friends Commander deck. One of the first cards slotted in. I love Ashiok, and I also, and I think that they can be, in the future, like a source of representation. I just don't necessarily think they were created with representation in mind.
00:16:00
Speaker
Which kind of brings me to the aetherborn, because I feel like the aetherborn... Yeah, let's talk about it. That's what we're here to talk about. Yeah, this is what we're here to talk about. This is the meat potato. We had a real girl that kind of attentioned Ashok. We had mentioned kind of that everything around Ashok when Sheepy Wave was on, we kind of at least briefly touched. And I think that we wanted on this episode, you know, when I talked to you earlier, Nathan,
00:16:24
Speaker
of talked about that. And then we really want to talk about like Yehenny and the Aether. Because they're pretty awesome. I can go on and on. And we're just we're just going to start. So I love, I absolutely love the Aetherborn.
00:16:44
Speaker
The Aetherborn, for those who do not know, they were introduced in Kaladash and they have three kind of stories where they're majorly prominent. And I'll link the three of those in the show notes so that people want to go check out kind of the main storyline of Yehenni especially. Yehenni is the main Aetherborn that we really follow. There is some Aetherborn mentioned in other stories, but
00:17:11
Speaker
Episode 5 of Kaladesh, Born of Aether, is when Yanny is first introduced. And then Episode 1 of Aether Revolved and The Dead of Night, Yanny is in that one. And then Yanny is also in Episode 9 Renewal. I am going to be talking about Spoilers for Yanny's story winds and for Kaladesh and Aether Revolved.
00:17:31
Speaker
So, warning there. Warning there. It's an old story, but a lot of people are new to the lore, a lot of people are new to the game. I really love these stories and would highly recommend them for a read. Though, I will say I don't think that I'm going to say anything that is going to be... If you've looked at any magic card that mentioned Nicole Bolas and Lore of the Spark, I don't think you're going to be very surprised at any of the things I have to say today.
00:18:00
Speaker
You know, those are the big plot points, story-wise, so... Anyways, so... We're introduced to the Born, uh, Aetherborn in Episode 5, Born of Aether, and what we really learn about them is that they are... They are birthed, like, basically, like, full height, whatever, and they know exactly how long they have to live. Um, it can be anywhere, I believe, from like four months to like four years.
00:18:27
Speaker
And we are introduced to Yehenni. Yehenni is a longer living aetherborn, about four years. And their bodies are made through this weird kind of, as an aftermath of aether refinement processing.
00:18:45
Speaker
And as they kind of exist and as they get closer to their death date, they decay, their bodies decay over time. But the interesting thing about the aetherborn is that all aetherborn are genderless. All aetherborn are born without gender and aetherborn start off using pronouns they them. This isn't mentioned in the main story, but it is mentioned in
00:19:14
Speaker
the D&D guide for Kaladash that some aetherborn do choose to use he him or she her pronouns and do choose a gender identity but the majority and the inherent kind of general is just kind of this they then and of course there is something to be said about
00:19:37
Speaker
human versus non-human representation, the sheepy wave in yellow, or sheepy, the sheep wave in yellow talks about, and I will touch on it a bit.
00:19:49
Speaker
I think, so we get really introduced to any in this like party, right? So one of the... So like the big thing is it's like, they're born are very hedonistic because of this, like they seek out as much pleasure as they can get in life, because they've got this like idea of like four weeks to four years. Yeah. And they know,
Aetherborn Culture & Mortality
00:20:10
Speaker
like they know how they are born, knowing how long they have to live.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm gonna jump in. There's actually another, I have another quote from that plane shift for Kaladesh at the beginning of the section when they talk about aetherboard. It says, a day not spent indulging the senses is a day wasted. And as a separate thing, like the
00:20:31
Speaker
Non-binary representation is great, especially if that's something that works well for you. That's awesome. But as a story thing, something else that I love The Aetherborn for is a different representation of mono-black characters.
00:20:48
Speaker
because we get the color pie. And the color pie, the whole point of it is that there isn't necessarily a bad color. This isn't certain houses in a school. Characters who are black in the color pie aren't necessarily bad. It's that these are the values that are the most important to them. And for the aetherborn, that is Hobson. It's hedonism. For them, it is indulgence because they know that they only have so long to live.
00:21:17
Speaker
moments compared to even, you know, humans, humans who are relatively short lived, aetherborn are way short lived. And I think the other thing that I mentioned with the hedonism of the aetherborn is that they are all inherently like empaths, they are very empathetic, they have the ability to sense emotions of other people and process them like it was conversation. And
00:21:42
Speaker
one of the stories i believe it's in the dead of night which is the which is the first eighth revolt story um
00:21:49
Speaker
there's this conversation that happens between Ganti and Yehenni, where Yehenni mentions a couple of times, like talking between A-type 1 is super different than talking between humans because they have an immediate inherent understanding of each other's emotions. So it's almost like they talk and then they send an emotion to reinforce what they talk and then
00:22:15
Speaker
All of that it's it's like a this very cool interesting concept and later on in renewal. Um, there's like a point where Yeah, Henny's like a third-born family Like communicates via that and the other thing that I think is Interesting and I I am a young queer But I can't help but notice
00:22:46
Speaker
some similarities between the aetherborn and between kind of this idea of partially like
00:23:00
Speaker
uh, like the AIDS kind of crisis that happened in terms of like this only being like, you know, when the age crisis kind of struck, there was this idea in the gay community, like, shit, well, we've only got, you know, if you get a diagnosis, you've only got X amount of time to live. Right. And then like this idea kind of of, okay, well, let's like party and live it up while we can until we're on our death beds. Right.
00:23:24
Speaker
Um, and I'm not saying that necessarily that was something that was created like in mind with the eighth of one. Like I don't know. Um, but I also see some similarities in that. Um, if that makes sense as well, um, which is not necessarily w which is kind of non-binary, also not explicitly, um, is something that like, I just noticed a little bit, especially with like,
00:23:52
Speaker
all aetherborn kind of being inherently adopted. It's just something that kind of, I guess, just came to mind that was kind of a connection that I can't necessarily say to the writers intended, but something that I see and perceive. I mean, I think it's a reading that is, you know, I don't think, once again, we can talk all day long about intentionality, but the reading of it undertones of that.
00:24:21
Speaker
I don't think is a gross misreading or a gross interpretation. And that's why telling stories can be so important. That's why telling personal and varied stories can be so important, because sometimes you intend to make these connections, and that's good. And sometimes you don't, but people still make these connections, and that is also a good thing. Yeah. And the other thing is that
00:24:50
Speaker
So a third born really like one of the big things like, you know, one of the big moments in like an a third born's life is their death they like the because because of their hedonism like they throw a lot of parties and stuff and They like have this giant giant party when they are about to die and
00:25:12
Speaker
to like celebrate that because all of them are super like empathetic, right? They will like have these huge parties where like everyone's there. I'm sorry, I feel like I'm not like tying, I meant, I meant to like kind of cut that point there and like resume but I don't know if I did a good job with like transitioning. Well, we don't worry about transitioning on this show. You don't have that's like, that's like the least of our worries. As a trans person, I always have to worry about. Oh, wow. That's my job.
00:25:40
Speaker
Thank you. That was really impressive right there. See, this is why we don't cut those things because they often lead to great moments. I mean, there is this whole idea around knowing your death is coming. Yeah. Means that, you know, Yehenni is very interesting in the sense that Yehenni has an ability to basically steal essence. Yes. And so has to make a conscious decision
00:26:05
Speaker
… to not kill – well, to die because they could choose not to. They could choose not to. Absolutely. They at one point do – they're into a situation where they do make the decision actually where they're about to die alone, which is something that is even very…
00:26:23
Speaker
Very taboo in their culture. Yes, but like sad very sad because because we learned that earlier there was a you know, like Basically, yeah, Henny was throwing a party and somebody who was dying They usually throw their own party unless they don't have enough people and find out it's somebody who just escaped basically. Yeah prison but
00:26:43
Speaker
Yes. Yeheni then finds themselves in basically the same situation, about to die knowing that it was coming around nobody because there's this whole curfew in place. And so she's a friend that gets attacked by the consulate, the guard, and they make the decision to, like, their friend is getting killed.
00:27:06
Speaker
and getting like attacked is going to be killed is going to be killed. And so the conflict guard specifically is like, yo, I'm going to kill your friend. Yes. And so yeah, any steals that person's essence and discovers all of a sudden they got 12 more days. Well, yeah, and it's also really well written in terms of like, when they steal the essence of a living person, right? Like,
00:27:31
Speaker
they've accidentally killed their friend's dog, well, Hyena, but friend's dog, as a kid, and they only felt like that life force, right? But when killing a person, because, and it's never really said whether it's because Yehenny's killing a person, or whether it's because Yehenny is at the end of their life, and therefore, it does mention a couple of times that as Yehenny is aged,
00:28:00
Speaker
Perceptive powers have become even stronger And I do so it's never really stated whether it's because the perceptive powers or whether that but yeah any simultaneously experiences this exhilaration of their life being restored and this crushing pain of The person's life that they're taking Like it's and it's like
00:28:25
Speaker
It's described later on when Gandhi like asks Yehenny about it and Yehenny like lists just like all of these like amazing things where it's just like it was like absolutely, you know, it was like when they introduce someone to someone that will change their life, when they dance under the stars, when they close a deal, but then it also feels like
00:28:53
Speaker
You know, all of these horrible things at the same time. And it was like, both of the times that Yehenny kills in the story, it's kind of implore, like it is kind of unnecessary, right? Yeah, yeah. The other time is to kind of save the Gatewatch from being discovered. And that's like basically the next day. And so, you know, we have the situation with somebody like Yehenny who,
00:29:24
Speaker
could prolong. But the thing is that death is usually to be
00:29:29
Speaker
Celebrate it and and and actually you Henny gets that I actually that's the the thing that we get is that you Henny ends up getting that and it's almost like there was a choice Which by the way is also great to have in a mono black character because that's another common mono black thing is the the arch lich the you know mages who extend to their life because they fear death or whatever and to have someone You know accept that is and to say that
00:29:59
Speaker
I think that's great. Yes, I agree. Because there's this line when Yehenny and DePaul are talking in Renewal, and Renewal is a little bit hard because Renewal starts off with the Gatewatch storyline, and then in the middle is Yehenny's storyline, and then right after Chandra, and then at the very end, literally at the very end, there's a little bit more that's tossed on that you'd miss if you didn't catch it.
00:30:26
Speaker
Um, there's the, um, where DePaulus, uh, Yehani's friend, and DePaulus, also a legendary creature from the set, says, um, I was worried you would never say that. And Yehani, like, thinks, like I was supposed, I was always a little worried about that too. Like, like, cause there is that temptation of, I'm about to cease to exist.
00:30:55
Speaker
You know, there's this panic of this countdown, I have four hours to live. And choosing to then say,
00:31:06
Speaker
Let's make the best of that four hours, I think is a very interesting interpretation of black where it's just like, I have four hours left to live. Hell yeah, let's make this the best four hours of my life. It's funny. It almost feels very rectos if we were going to go that direction more so than just the mono black. So it's great to see this element.
00:31:26
Speaker
explored. I know we're pretty far off of non the binary, gender expression and everything right now. But I just think even the aetherborn in general are fascinating for this reason. I mean, even Dante is. And to just throw a linguistic thing in there because I'm a nerd for these things and I love it. I love too that they call them their penultimate party.
00:31:53
Speaker
which is the word penultimate means second to last or second to greatest, second to final, not the final. So even though that's their death party, that is their death party. So that can imply a relationship or a
00:32:10
Speaker
idea about death not necessarily being an ending, or not necessarily being, you know, how a lot of human earth cultures perceive it. Not all, like there's a lot there that celebrate that as the next thing. Yeah, and there is a cycle of rebirth in the Aetherborn kind of... Yeah, this is the community's first connections with Nissa. Yeah, Nissa is the... But in Kaladesh there's this thing kind of called the Great Conduit, which
00:32:46
Speaker
I don't necessarily really know how to describe it, and I believe it's based off of
00:32:54
Speaker
like Hindu culture and I don't want to misrepresent it. So I'm trying to be very careful with my word choices. And I also think that we can acknowledge, and this has been said numerous times when you've seen this, that that is where Kaladesh unfortunately did fall short too. So even with being careful with your words, there was a lot of falling short when it came to some of these very concepts.
00:33:19
Speaker
And I think that that's just a great shame too, because it also leads to these situations where we're talking, and it's just like, yeah, no, the Great Condo wasn't really super well explained besides being this kind of, it's kind of like, if you read through the Caleduct stories, the Great Condo can kind of just come off as the force.
Diversity in Magic: The Gathering
00:33:43
Speaker
Um a little bit um, so yeah, and it's hard to it makes it hard to know exactly what is which like the the great conduit is kind of like this circle of Life and rebirth kind of thing for my understanding Um, and if you look at like if you if at the very very end of renewal, um, definitely spoiler alert here, um Nissa Connects to like the the ley lines of caledash
00:34:12
Speaker
and sees an aetherborn being burned, being born. And when that aetherborn is born, it's kind of implied to be the reincarnation of Yehennai. As this aetherborn's family is leading them away, Yehennai looks back at this flower that Nissa is connected to and says,
00:34:42
Speaker
you have gorgeous eyes, sweetheart. And that was the first thing that Yehennie said to Nissa. So it's also kind of the penultimate one, because they know that there is a rebirth, and I think that there's this idea that as one dies, another eighth of one is born.
00:35:05
Speaker
the aether is basically real. So we've now gotten into a very good discussion on the aetherborn. I am very happy with where we are. I want to know kind of why, because you did mention kind of the human piece and there is something to be said. We've had this come up on a couple of our episodes that have really dealt with diversity is kind of that idea that
00:35:31
Speaker
of kind of the differences in maybe, for at least some people, seeing this in human characters within magic versus different races or different, well, creature types. I'm just going to go with that. Creature types is a good word for it. Yeah. Talking about diversity. Yes, because we had this discussion with the Quan when we talked about cloth.
00:35:56
Speaker
And we talked about it a little bit with me again when we did talk about the other born as a shock. But i do think that there still can be a place for people to find some of that and i think that's why stories are great is alex talks about a lot is. What resonates and i think that something resonated where you when i gave you open ended.
00:36:20
Speaker
Come on the show. What do you want to talk about? This was the thing. Yeah. And I think that unfortunately, the way to test the waters a lot of the time with, hey, are we going to lose a profit if we actually aren't
00:36:45
Speaker
you know, like this white cis male oriented IP is to introduce these like, well, if you squint it, you know, they might be kind, like if they're born a kind of human, like if they're born as a humanoid, like how, how is our fan base, you know, it's kind of that seeding, you know, the whole Chandra Nissa thing, like,
00:37:13
Speaker
the whole kind of like, oh, well, and I don't, the soundness of things complicated, because it definitely feels like... Story design at that point were, that was a very clear, there was a direction the story was going that got shifted. Well, and also, it's also very kind of complicated, because it feels very much like the people writing the stories and the people in charge of lore.
00:37:41
Speaker
very much felt like this wanted to happen. And if I remember correctly, Greg Weissman was the one who wrote the War of the Spark novels, correct? Yeah, that's what I thought. I don't want to give him a full clearing. If I remember correctly, there was something that was mentioned on Twitter
00:38:04
Speaker
about how he kind of said that he had a different writing of it and that some people made some edits from corporate and that he thinks that that might have led to part of. So it very much does feel a little bit like, oh, like a bit kind of this corporate kind of come down and
00:38:25
Speaker
what the f*** have you guys been doing writing lesbians into our mo- get- you know what I mean? Like, and it's not to give Greg- like, it's- it's just hard because there's never- as humans we want to like be able to assign the blame and be mad at a person or at a tangible thing, um, and in these scenarios the people making the decisions will never be the people that are
00:38:49
Speaker
going to be front facing and able to you know what i mean we're not going to know who made these decisions um it's going to be someone in the back end that's at an office that's not on twitter that we know of um so it's kind of that complicated thing of well i think it really hit me on the point of that there have been things to test in the waters to the point where
00:39:13
Speaker
We're starting to get this and I think that is because it is now profitable or it's not at least hurting profit because as Alex said, you know, um, we mentioned in commander legends, right? Like we got today them that was on a human character and it went in the short blurbs that we did. We did the rundown of that. Um, we got, uh, uh, the, the two trappers from Innistrad confirmed as a couple. Yeah.
00:39:42
Speaker
Well, partners and partners in life and work, I believe, precisely was the wording. And then we got, you know, we get Nico and we get an actual story we get we get some using neo pronouns in that story.
00:39:58
Speaker
Yes, we get the Norse mythology not being white-haired, blonde, blue-eyed, everything. Very happy about that. I was ready to pull all my funds away from magic once again. So we see that there is potential that, like you said, it has to be profitable. I'm going to just acknowledge that from the standpoint of our capitalist society. It has to be profitable.
00:40:25
Speaker
There are these ways that maybe toes are dipped, though, to see responses is kind of what I'm hearing your. Yeah. And I think that it's unfortunate.
00:40:37
Speaker
And I'm also glad to see them now creating characters. If I was to have to guess, there was enough public outcry when the Shondurasia thing happened, and enough people that walked away from the game, and enough people that stopped spending my money on the game, that they took a big oh shit. And if you kind of look at things, things didn't really start getting super good again until kind of Caledon.
00:41:07
Speaker
Which is when I came back into the game after seeing them kind of I wanted to wait to start spending my money again until I saw that the Norse that wasn't what the Norse that could have been But you know, I think that and I believe Michelle talked about this but to is I Korea was kind of disappointing when it came from
00:41:29
Speaker
looking at for Asian representation and the set that was kind of that I believe Michelle talked a little bit about that. I think Ryan was a lot like, yeah, I think it was the kaiju the kaiju theme set was yeah, yeah, that might have been Ryan the brother. Yeah, it was on that episode. Yeah, so Ryan talked a little bit about that. And I don't even remember what were the other sets that came out commander, commander legends did come out in November. But what was the other main sets? I don't thrown it all drain, which was
00:41:59
Speaker
Very, um, I mean, no, no, no, no. Hey, I got Sir Gwen out of it. I got, I got my daughter's card. So we're good. And, um, now God, what's, what's the Queen's name? Oh, God.
00:42:19
Speaker
Is it Rowan? I think a lot of people are very happy with Linden and the representation of Linden. I don't know.
00:42:32
Speaker
It feels like they maybe just weren't sold on queer representation until the Chandra-ness of thing happened and then people got outraged and then pockets started hurting and then they kind of started throwing in. But then again, they also mentioned that Rowan and Will were both bi in the Eldraine story, so I don't know.
00:42:51
Speaker
I don't know. And who knows? One thing that may play a factor too is development cycles. Story is a little easier to play with a little bit, so you can tweak that a little bit, but at the same time, like an actual set, if they're going to make changes to a set, that takes a year or two years, depending on where the development is in the thing. And you look at where the spark to
00:43:20
Speaker
uh, theros or, uh, call time, you know, that, that's in that year and a half-ish, two year-ish range. Yeah. I, yeah. And that's kind of where I was kind of thinking, you know, is, is that, that's kind of where I was kind of leading on a little bit with where I feel like might've been a little bit like,
00:43:44
Speaker
Gave that two years to kind of be like but I digress Well, yeah, I mean decide that we've this is you know This is where I think on the show we've struggled to kind of talk about because you as you said we took that was our break That's when Joe left the show That's when we had to make a decision on what we were gonna do and when we came back We have been less lore focused. So this is the types of questions. We're always asking um, and I think that One of the things that you kind of hit on I think
00:44:13
Speaker
was the idea that the aetherborn are at least humanoid, right? So there's – it's almost like we can explain this away if we need to, but at least they're starting to be humanoid. For you, it sounds like though there was at least something to maybe the – either the – even the pre-
00:44:31
Speaker
Yeah out the pre-bean open. Oh, yeah, absolutely Yeah, any was my like favorite character and I Again, always there's always there's always like the facts whenever whenever whenever you come out you always you always look back and you're just like This makes a lot more context knowing things about myself that I know. Um, it's Yeah, any
00:44:55
Speaker
It's it's not just okay, and I guess that this is what I guess I should it's not just um Like that yeah, Henny is like kind of non-binary like in that kind of realm of not having a gender It's just also they are very queer coded. They are like they are very flamboyant one of my favorite lines is
00:45:19
Speaker
is right is is the first the let me just read like the first little paragraph that we that we get for our yahennies i adore getting dressed in the mid-afternoon there's something to be said about preparing for an all-nighter in the middle of the day a level of foresight and preparation that can be lost when attending a last-minute party i'm not dressed from two hours from now i'm dressing for two days from now
00:45:43
Speaker
What kind of host looks like a thrown together mess, 16 hours into their own party? Hosts who are failures, that too. That is our first introduction to Yehennie. That is just, if that is not peak flamboyance, you know, eccentricity kind of that's been, for better or worse,
00:46:11
Speaker
Connected to gay culture for a while. I do not know what this Yeah, I mean I would say completely what you read it it reads I think as you kind of said it reads flamboyant, but not necessarily like Stereotypical like in a negative
Personal Reflections & Representation Importance
00:46:29
Speaker
way. It is very this is that this is that character This is who this character is this character throws the parties. They know how to host them They know how to be the good host
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah. And also, this is what is expected of the Aetherborn. It's not like the Aetherborn are some weird outcasts and everyone thinks that they're too much this or that. No, the Aetherborn are loved. They have inventors that have statues of them in the statue garden. That's something that's mentioned.
00:47:06
Speaker
In one of the stories and they are you know, they throw the best parties and everybody loves like, you know, it is this kind of like integration and acceptance piece and mixed with this Not having any gender mixed with this heavily kind of queer coded Kind of language, you know always saying Yeah, Henny's expertise quote is like the time push subtlety is over darling and
00:47:36
Speaker
Like it's, let me see, let's see. Is it on Yannie's expertise or is it on Yannie's other cards? Yes. Oh no, it is. It's on Yannie's actual card. Oh, sorry. We need to end the episode now where you got the card wrong, which you've never done on the show. I'm, I'm, I am entire. I had like a little bit, like, I thought that someone like that you may have been getting like a heart attack or something. I was like,
00:48:04
Speaker
You have to, I'm just like, wait, are you passing another kidney stone? Like, do I need to call an ambulance? We immediately into mom friend mode. Oh my gosh, we literally did have to end a recording due to a tornado warning one time. So yeah, that has happened. Yes, that has happened. I was I was I was I've listened to that episode. No, okay. It's on your Henny's own card. Yeah, Henny's own flavor text is
00:48:30
Speaker
The time for subtlety is over, darling. I love it. I love it. They are eccentric and flamboyant, and they are allowed to be extra. They're allowed to wear their favorite capes. They regularly wear capes. Who wouldn't regularly wear a cape? I would love to walk around with a cape. Very much this kind of
00:49:00
Speaker
idea of um just like this like like it's it's very it's almost kind of like you know like the it's it's like it's like the um the kind of i don't even know how to word it but like kind of like the kind of like this mixture of
00:49:30
Speaker
you know, being able to be this eccentric. Like one thing that resonated to me reading this character as a kid is being able to be this eccentric, being able to be this outgoing, especially as someone who like, especially like, at younger was a lot more
00:49:46
Speaker
introverted than I am now and now I've who who knows what who knows what I am now um but you know especially as a kid being a little bit more shy having anxiety having depression not like being seeing this of being able to be like oh like you can be like this you can be that and people will love you and in fact like
00:50:10
Speaker
People won't hate you for being like flamboyant and wearing flashy clothes and being eccentric and you know doing that stuff. In fact, there will be people that love you and for that and I have like 1000% like somewhat internalized. Like if you catch me in like a really good mood, like in my element, I have 1000% somewhat internalized from being a kid like Yehenny's kind of like
00:50:38
Speaker
Confidence of just being able to like talk to people and that kind of stuff so that's the part part of the reason that I really love you heading in the other one is it's like personal connection of just like as a kid seeing this and being like I Want to be the type of person that puts on a cape and just fingers and talks to people and is fabulous doing it
00:50:59
Speaker
I think that whatever it is, you know, with the eighth they're born, there is kind of a clear, this acceptance piece is actually just a huge thing. And I really want to hit on the, you completely said, Nathan, when you, when you pitched this and you and I were talking earlier that like, we could easily devolve into talking gender expression versus gender identity. And I think that Yehani is a clear example of that of like,
00:51:24
Speaker
these things are not necessarily even binary, you know, non-binary is even getting into that idea that there can be spectrums, that there's so much to this with even how maybe you choose to present versus how you identify. Basically, you're coming back for at least one more episode because that's like, that's kind of where we're ending here. You know, like this is the dipping our toes in the water again of like,
00:51:50
Speaker
This is a much deeper and bigger conversation that the aetherborn are even setting up or allowing us to have a lens for. I will 1000% 1000% anytime, anywhere.
00:52:07
Speaker
Well, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing kind of your thoughts of the eighth they're born and bringing us this, this, you know, it was important to us, like you said, to have that representation on the show, to have somebody that's able to speak to those voices. We're in a way that maybe Alex and I cannot, but we want to be able to have that conversation and learn, I mean, as best as we can. I mean, that's, yeah. And of course, you know, non-binary people like any
00:52:37
Speaker
you know, marginalized group or not, you know, a not no one the pillar. So turns out there's not just monoliths and pillars in this. We found that out with a few things in the last year. Yeah, some people have different opinions. And that is fine. And of course, you know, if you have a non binary person in your life, who, you know,
00:52:59
Speaker
Says things that are different than my things. You should listen to them Then listen to their experiences because their experience are just as valid as mine I guess in conclusion I guess I just want to say that I think that like if we're just to wrap up the eighth of born conversation a little bit with a bit of a bow is that I feel like you know the eighth of born I You know, they weren't the perfect forms of representation. I
00:53:25
Speaker
There was definitely stuff that could have been human, could have been this stuff. And I also think that as a race, there was something that was very compelling to me as a queer and as a non-binary person that I really did see a reflection of myself in. And I am very glad for that and also hopeful and pushing for there to be more
00:53:55
Speaker
non-binary representation in the future for Magic Story.
00:54:01
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HotzQ can be found at HotzQ, 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 gmail.com. If you want to support your friendly neighborhood Gobsmites, the cast can be found at patreon.com slash goblinmoorpod.
00:54:27
Speaker
Opening and closing music by Vindergarten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergarten, or online at vindergarten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raffaeo, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffel. Babylon 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.
00:54:57
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.