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Episode 282: Omens of Chaos with Seanan McGuire!
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! We have a very special episode today as Hobbes makes his triumphant return to the cast. Oh and more importantly, we get to sit down with Seanan McGuire and discuss her New York Time's Best Selling Magic the Gathering Lore Novel! OMG y'all it's finally happening. We have Magic Novels back and we want more!
It is also Mental Health Awareness Month!
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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
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of Goblin Lore Podcast. Today is a very special episode because we have two people on that have been on before, but we have not had in a while.
Hobbs' Recent Activities
00:00:43
Speaker
But first I'll introduce myself. I'm Taya. You can find me on blue sky at Taya transcends or on the discord. ah And ah we also have Alex with us as usual.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yep. I'm Alex. I pronounce he him and also found on the Goblin Lord discord. Not really anywhere else on social media. And we have Hobbs back.
00:01:05
Speaker
Hello. Hello. hu Hi, everybody. yeah um I'm back. So yeah, i'm ah I'm glad to be back. It's been quite
Seanan McGuire's Book and Achievements
00:01:18
Speaker
a while. i have missed everybody as I was first marathon training and then dealing with just significant life upheavals almost immediately after i finished doing my marathon.
00:01:30
Speaker
if People don't know I was ah kind of unceremoniously in the middle of the day received an email telling me that I would be transferring teams at my work that I have been with for over 10 years. It's something that has never happened to a psychologist before. And it was done by email.
00:01:48
Speaker
And that led to kind of just from there into ice being in Minneapolis. And my return to the show just kept getting delayed. So I am very excited to feel that I'm in a place that I can be back recording and contributing.
Choosing Majors at Strixhaven
00:02:03
Speaker
Well, glad to have you back. And thank you for doing our editing while you were doing all that stuff. So you're so you're still involved with the cast, which i really appreciate. But it's nice to have you back.
00:02:14
Speaker
Thank you. You and Pam make it very easy. You are are not hard people to edit at all. And our other um special returning guest is none other than Seanan McGuire, back to discuss her book, Strixhaven Omens of Chaos. Welcome back, Seanan.
00:02:30
Speaker
Thank you for having me. And welcome back, Magic Novels. I know, right? Congratulations on the bestseller. New York Times bestselling magic author.
00:02:44
Speaker
We are the second Magic the Gathering novel ever to make the New York Times list. And it is so incredibly exciting to me that we were able to make our return with that much.
00:02:55
Speaker
No, really, you need to let us stay.
00:03:01
Speaker
Now everybody's briefly been introduced. Let's get to our question of the week, ah which is what would be your major at Strixhaven? Not your school, but your actual major. ah I did not have to think about this one for long because I would I would have a master's in art in pyromancy. That would be pretty obvious for me.
00:03:23
Speaker
um all the great uses for fire that the prismari could teach me, I would be putting them all to work, making really cool things and making things explode. There you go. Boom, boom.
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. What about you, Shannon, since you spoke up? Oh, that's kind of you. Very good for your guests to participate. I would be majoring in cross-planar folklore and mythology. I think that there are enough planes that have been interconnected at various points in the past that we will find a lot of information buried in supposed myths and legends.
Overview of 'Strixhaven Omens of Chaos'
00:04:02
Speaker
Also, it would give me an excuse to go and poke the Gitchrog monster. poke like with this dick or with what? In the real world, i was a dual major in folklore and herpetology. is i just want to go to Innistrad and find out how many bodies of water that bastard is hiding in. you know, I want to figure Innistrad students who come to Strixhaven now that the omen paths are open are just living in a constant state of pre-jump scare. There's a water fountain over there. The Gitchrog might be in it. Yeah.
00:04:33
Speaker
My thought has always been that the Innistrad students would just be like, why are any of you scared by any of this? At all. Do you not understand? Any body of water could contain the Gitchrog monster at any time.
00:04:49
Speaker
So is this a Lorehold Prismari like overlap here with mythology and history? Like is, or is this straight up? folklore and mythology is usually lumped into the English departments. I'm sticking and still in silver, in silver quail.
00:05:03
Speaker
Okay. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Okay.
00:05:10
Speaker
andil hobbes Why don't you go for it? Damn it. We all know that I would be in Prismari, right? And I think that that's pretty much a given. What my specialty would be within that?
00:05:26
Speaker
um Yeah, like it would be like a chaos theory, except not the math of applications of it. So I would be looking at just the the chaos of art. um this is some there's This is random. I mean, i see this like now I feel like we're back almost in quandrics, but there actually has been studies that they can almost tell ah Jackson Pollocks that are real or fakes based on some of the math that went into the art.
00:05:56
Speaker
And I feel like I'm in some overlap between those two. Unless they'll let me just do photography and still be Prismari.
00:06:08
Speaker
It's just art. i i I was trying to to think. like For me, Lorehold is easily easy for the college. um I think that that kind of fits me. But some of the archaeology stuff I could could definitely major in.
00:06:24
Speaker
But I definitely wouldn't be doing something in the field, at least not as a as like a primary thing. So maybe majoring in something along our archaeology, but to be more of like the the the researcher who goes through things that people bring back, it puts things together. Yeah, that seems that seems a lot safer to me. don't think there's such a thing as safe when you're in a Lorehold lab.
00:06:50
Speaker
I did say safer. That's fair, and I will yield the floor. Yeah. Yeah.
Character Introductions
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, and and i don't I did see when i was I was Googling around to look at some of the Planeswalkers guides, just to get some ideas of like what some of the majors or some of the different roles within the schools are. And I found from the original one, they meant talk about Lower Hold. on They mentioned honor bringers and illusionists can draw the on the truths of history to enhance, inspire, and empower allies. And that definitely, that feels like almost every character I've ever played in an RPG. And so I feel like that might be some...
00:07:28
Speaker
tied into what I'm doing. History support class. That'd be a pretty cool RPG class. All right. Well, um,
00:07:38
Speaker
Now that we've gotten through the introductory stuff and we haven't actually gone off track yet, which is probably a new record for us, ah why don't we start discussing the book? Seanan, you want to give us a a quick overview for those who haven't read or aren't familiar? at First, we should say the book has been out for nearly a month at this point, so we probably will get into some spoilers. We're not going to spoil the whole thing. But if you haven't read the book yet, you probably want to stop listening here and go read the book first. unless spoilers don't bother you at all.
00:08:12
Speaker
um But sure, Seanan, want to kind of give the quick pitch for the book? So Strixhaven Omens of Chaos is our first full-length print Magic the Gathering adventure since 2019. It follows the first ever class of transplanar students at Strixhaven University located on the Plain of Arcevios as they attempt to survive their first year of schooling.
00:08:37
Speaker
i I was 2019. would ah I don't remember anything coming out around that time. There was a book in 2019. I could not for the life of me tell you the title of it right now.
00:08:49
Speaker
Hmm. I might be able to, but I just pretend it didn't happen. So it's OK for me. That's fair.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's ah it follows, um you know, not surprising because it's magic. It follows five students representing the five colleges overall. ah We get a diverse selection of planes, um which is one of the things that really interested me is where the different students came from. If you listened to the book launch event that we released the recording of that I did with Seanan several weeks ago, ah you'll already have a ah quick understanding, but why don't we go through the characters real quick? ah We can start with Eula Blue from Kepenna, who is our shield mage and wannabe Silverquill student.
00:09:45
Speaker
And primarily our non-Nepo baby. Yeah, Eula is is a non-Nepo baby. ah Eula is one of our two canon foreigners in the cast, the other being Sagante, who we'll get to in a moment. And she is a black-white shield
Impact of Phyrexian Invasion
00:10:01
Speaker
mage from Cappenna, who was intending to attend the Broker's Mage College in Park Heights. But unfortunately, this little thing called the Phyrexian Invasion, which... had absolutely no consequences and left no mark on the multiverse broke her entire home city to such a degree that the college collapsed and anyone who wanted to go to school and actually learn how to do a damn thing was screwed yeah I think a lot of things got screwed up by that whole little event um no no but see people didn't die so nothing happened
00:10:40
Speaker
Okay, so I would like to note, even as I know that we're all joking about, oh, the Phyrexian invasion had no consequences, that that is the most Planeswalker-centric perspective you can possibly take.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah. um And has has been driving me slowly up a tree because it's like hundreds of thousands of people died, maybe millions. We know that just from the main set stories and from the cards. The death toll on Theros was obscene.
00:11:10
Speaker
Capenna, we dropped an entire level of the city. And if you look at the way that Capenna is constructed, that is roughly the equivalent of dropping Coney Island. Yeah. And not to get too far ahead, but I think there there was a lot of examining some of those consequences in this book. And I think that worked well. And it's the the magic story in general has kind of been doing some of that. But I think you've got more space in here to kind of talk about that from all these five students. so we get kind of six different planes perspective on this a little bit.
00:11:44
Speaker
That's just also how empty the school was and the fact they had to go look for students everywhere. It's just kind of, you know, I keep going back to like the main building they're in throughout the story is practically empty because they lost so many students and teachers during the invasion.
00:12:00
Speaker
Well, and there's also the issue, you know you mentioned Magic Story is trying to go into it a little. And yes, Magic Story does try to go into it.
Metaphysical Aspects of Planes
00:12:08
Speaker
But Magic Story is super limited. We get 5,000 words an episode.
00:12:13
Speaker
That's a chapter in this book, max. So here I have the time to have Eula talk about how she hasn't worn her best dress since her best friend's funeral.
00:12:25
Speaker
And how for a little while there, she was literally going to a funeral every other day. And that doesn't noticeably deduct from my word count. If I were writing this as a set story, that would be good character work and I would be praised for it. And then it would be cut because we wouldn't have room for it in the budget.
00:12:44
Speaker
yeah The episodic nature of what we've had with story, which is, you know, one of the reasons personally I'm heavily invested in this novel doing well outside of enjoying Shannon as a human being, is that we have been getting incredible story for magic. It's just very quick paced.
00:13:00
Speaker
And it's not as deep dive or room to canonize some of the stuff that we're going to talk about that you were able to canonize or have discussions of things. Alex, i was when I was thinking about this, we got actual metaphysics of the planes and like how planes function and some are planets versus some are not. We talked about this seven years ago on the show. was one of our early episodes. Yeah. Yeah, and the story hasn't had the space to do that. And, you know, we'll we'll get sets like Edge of Eternities and we're so happy that they got like more space. But even that is so little compared to a full novel.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um It was great to get that expanded space and that ah extra background that came with it. um you know Continuing with the characters, you already mentioned Sagante, who is our representative from Fiora. Yes, so we have our two most Italian planes knocking against each other like angry geese.
00:14:01
Speaker
It's magical. And they do have a lot in common. They both seem like terrible places to have to deal with some of the living environment, uh, uh, background. Um, yeah, they are neither Fiora nor Capenna is a very nice place to live, but if that's where you're from, that's what normal looks like.
00:14:23
Speaker
So neither Eula nor Sagante thinks their home plane is very strange. Um, And then we've got Alondra, who we met in Jumpstart 2021, Alondra Skydreamer. She is confirmed to be Talrun's daughter, and she is from the plane of Shandalar.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yay, Shandalar mentioned. Shandalar mentioned so incessantly. But that's a lot of fun because, again, back to the meta to the planar metaphysics, we've known for a long time that Shandalar is unique because of the density of its mana.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, which plays a big role in her story. Chandelar is a plane where every land taps for two. And so you go from that to Arcevios, and it's it's like taking someone from Hawaii to Denver. You can't breathe.
00:15:16
Speaker
I spent a lot of time during the writing of this figuring out how things would translate into game mechanics just for my own grounding. And that actually helped keep stuff consistent.
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, ah that that's a good way to put it, the Taps for Two, because, yeah, i mean, for people who aren't aware of the background of Chandelars, it was introduced from the first Magic video game, and it was described then as a mana-rich
Challenges in Crafting the Novel
00:15:41
Speaker
plane, which is why everybody was fighting over it in a video game.
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, that you could get an unusual amount and purity of power from Chandelars, so I think Taps for Two is really the only logical way to describe that.
00:15:58
Speaker
And seeing, you know, we're going to be talking about environments like, you know, this getting to see how Strixhaven is even trying to have these students and and mimic their environment and still not, you're not going to be able to do it. And I think yeah it's not that gets into that.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah. I think it gets into the metaphysics of the planes again, which is saying that like we've, we've only been, really been seeing the impact on, say, planeswalkers again, people who who supposedly are able to do this a little bit.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, we've got Kequia, who is from Dominaria, and she is Teferi's granddaughter. She's our first confirmed psychometrist since Dak Faden. Rest in peace, Dak.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, so she's she's not having a great time in this place with all these new surfaces and sensations and people who like to shake hands. ah And Jamiro, who is Angrath's older daughter. Angrath and Rumi did make it through the Phyrexian invasion. They're doing fine ah for values of fine that are, again, no consequences to the invasion. Their entire plane was lost.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah. that No home plane for you. Yeah, the the the nomadic Angrath now. Murder dad. He is looking to settle down with Rumi and find a new place to establish as a home. The place that we hear him referenced as kind of going to do a house tour on is Innistrad. I don't think they're going to wind up settling there for some reason. I just feel like they're going to find that to be an environment incompatible with anything.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah. ah
00:17:46
Speaker
not incompatible being a vampire. i do not want to see vampire minotaurs. Do you want to see vampire minotaurs? I feel like vampire minotaurs are a bad time. yeah Now that you've mentioned it, though, that would be pretty I want to see vampire goblins.
00:18:07
Speaker
Oh, good lord. A very large beetle that does not belong to me just buzzed my head and landed on the shelf next to me. So a vampire goblin. Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
That's freaky. Don't wobble your antenna at me, you little bastard. I'm sorry. I didn't think people could see that. ah I had to laugh because you you mentioned psychometrist.
00:18:32
Speaker
Stop moving! Oh, God. Are you okay there? There is a very large beetle flying around the room I am recording in and it keeps buzzing my head. It's not mine. It's not one of my pet beetles. It's just a random wild beetle that has decided that this is what it wants to do with its time. How large?
00:18:57
Speaker
About the size of a quarter. That's, yeah. And when that's flying unexpectedly at your head, it is the size of a of a jet plane. Like that is that is too much beetle to be loose in my room.
00:19:13
Speaker
You need to pause for a moment. I can't catch it. It's on the light. So unless it comes back down, I will be good
Mental Health Themes
00:19:21
Speaker
to continue. It was just a beetle.
00:19:26
Speaker
Let us know. i will. do go You'll know. i was i noticed, right? I was like, if you need to loosen a mantis on it or something, like... I think that if i release one of my mantises in the room, I have a new problem. It's different. It would definitely be different, but unfortunately the cats would think that it was great enrichment and I don't want my mantises.
00:19:51
Speaker
um I was saying I have to laugh about the psychometrists because of my field. Psychometrists are the ones who administer and score like neuropsych testing. They're like the techs who do that. Oh, wow.
00:20:02
Speaker
So psychometrists, that is like what did they do for a career? And it's like that's all I could picture this entire time. i was like this this person. i was like, OK, so she's she's administering neuropsych tests. She's she's she's making sure people have ADHD or not.
00:20:20
Speaker
kind of funny that the last one since dak faden and we lost dak faden the last time we had magic novels but oh no no yeah we got to find out about that one in the trailer because they couldn't even wait to kill them oh yeah and then well but then we don't talk about those novels it's fine He was killed on screen in a trailer. Yeah, the entire book, I wasn't just saying, well, cool, I love this characterization of Dak, how long until he dies. First time I cared about him. And then I knew he was going to die before it happened. It just wasn't a great way to tell a story, unfortunately.
00:21:01
Speaker
But we are glad that that she is hopefully safe for now. I expect she will be. Yeah. You know, she's a legacy character. She's a legacy character that people like.
00:21:14
Speaker
I think we're good to go there. Yeah, and I think that there's an interesting kind of relationship with this this book being like its own thing. It's not connected to sets and things, which is different from when we last had magic novels. um I think that is is it's cool to then get more story. This isn't replacing the story we already had. It's it's adding to the story that we're already – that we're getting.
00:21:39
Speaker
Well, this is much more like the early magic novels where they were kind of running in parallel to the card sets rather than being directly yoked to the card sets. yeah And as you mentioned during our previous interview is that this wasn't even originally timed to come out with Strixhaven. It just ended up being that way because of all the other things that happened.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah. Originally, this was supposed to come out right around Bloomberg. Oh, yeah. that And then I'm guessing ATLA and stuff getting pushed up. ah No, it was more a matter of none of the people I was working with at Wizards had ever edited a magic book before, because at this point there's been total turnover.
00:22:21
Speaker
ah And the folks that I was working with at Penguin Random House, who were lovely, if you're listening to this, please, I want my sequel. I love you. I'll say anything you want. um But who were lovely had also never edited a magic novel. So we round wound up with things where one side of the fence was trying to edit stuff that was already magic canon to make it make more sense. And the other side of the fence was just kind of going, no, this is wrong, but we have no concept of how to articulate why.
00:22:52
Speaker
So timing wise, it was kind of fun to see. So I know that for so for some people that ended up getting the book right after they'd already read the story for Strixhaven. It was interesting reading it, I think, how you had kind of intended with having the advanced reader's copies. Thank you so much um once again. But being able to see then as I was reading the storyline for Strixhaven, some stuff that I was like, oh, people are about to find out in a week or two how that happening. already kind of known about or, you know, how that carries over.
00:23:23
Speaker
Well, and it was also, um i am genuinely grateful that we wound up coordinating with Strixhaven the way we did. it gave us a lot more visibility and it gave me a lot more access to events that I could tie into and such to promote the book. But at the same time, it's been a tiny bit frustrating because a lot of people just assume that this is the story of Secrets of Strixhaven, that we have come out the gate putting magic lore back behind a paywall. rather than it being a supplemental thing that does not in any way replace the story, only enhances it.
00:23:58
Speaker
And i I sometimes have a shorter temper than I should for explaining things 27 times. So I have long since reached kind of done on explaining certain things.
00:24:12
Speaker
We call that acceptance. I don't accept it. I just get irritated. yeah that's ah That's why acceptance does not be mean being okay with. It's that's what it is at this point.
00:24:25
Speaker
Which I think is, as you said, um this isn't meant to replace it. If anything, it's meant to replace potentially for me, other magical school stories. Yes. That I would love to have a replacement for.
00:24:41
Speaker
So as I've been saying for quite some time, the best way that we convince wizards that we want to replace those stories, that we don't yearn for those stories suddenly being a part of magic, is to embrace Strixhaven as heartily as possible.
Kasmina's Character Exploration
00:24:56
Speaker
We vote with our dollars and what we vote for is Strixhaven. Seeing how successful the set has been too, I think that's a pretty big indicator between the book and the set release that ah people do like Strixhaven. Oh yeah. Strixhaven is a popular place and I am glad of that.
00:25:12
Speaker
I mean, it thinks it speaks to the fact that magical school fiction isn't new. It isn't owned by one person yeah is as much as that became the cultural zeitgeist.
00:25:23
Speaker
And so I think you have people that want that setting have already said, you know, magic has their own setting. They're not trying to copy something that came before.
00:25:35
Speaker
It is magical school. If anything, every modern magical school, including the one we're not identifying by name, is attempting to copy and replace the Scholomance,
00:25:47
Speaker
which is the original folkloric magical school.
00:25:52
Speaker
And I think that that's something that people forget, that there is other examples, that it didn't just magically pop into being...
00:26:01
Speaker
And so having it tied to a Wizards or a Magic IP, but being able to be read even without, like you said, you don't need to know the cards, you don't need to tie it in directly to the specific mechanics for a set, means that it could be accessible to, or or or ah even maybe an on-bringing or an onboarding for people to Magic.
00:26:23
Speaker
It was very intentionally written to be accessible to folks that are not yet into magic. They're not yet fans. um And for the most part, I think we managed to bridge that pretty well. I haven't had a lot of complaints that why did you explain what a planeswalker is or any of that?
00:26:38
Speaker
um And that's good. That's that's what you want. I mean, I got two non-magic people to read it. So success on that front. I and my students genuinely thank you. i want my sequel so badly. Yeah, I want the sequel too. I do want, I want a Capena summer break. Yeah. happen I want to get the hell off of Archavios. Like I've been here long enough. I've just got here. I've been on Archavios for the last two and a half years. I'm done.
00:27:14
Speaker
Don't they need to go back and finish their studies? They need to go to spring break first. They need to survive it. yeah And since spring break would let me take every everyone to Capenna, don't you want this level of information about Capenna?
00:27:33
Speaker
Yes, I do. Let me go to Capenna. I glo-key want this amount of information about basically every plane. I know, right? Like, i've we've got a we've got an 80-book concept here. Let's just keep rolling. We're going to go plane to plane and irritate people. It'll be great.
00:27:50
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, i would absolutely just... I have enjoyed planes that we have gotten one set on, and that's part of the problem um with a move away from blocks, and I understand the reasoning for it.
00:28:05
Speaker
But we we don't stay anywhere very long. Mm-hmm. Well, I'm just kind of going, and we've got all of these planes that we are not currently announced to be returning to, so I could break so much shit there before anyone's going to have to worry about Who cares?
Liliana's Development
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, just... And you know what? We have reality fracture. They can just undo it all. It's fine. Sorry. Sorry.
00:28:33
Speaker
But I would. I would love to know. I want to go to Bloomberg. I want more, right? I want to see more cute animal versions of everything. ah I want to know what happened on Duskworn.
00:28:46
Speaker
There's another author I've been reading, Mira Grant, that I think would do fantastic with a Duskworn novel. I want to do an actual splatterpunk Duskworn novel. That would be... i was thinking about that as a follow-up. I was trying to picture Duskworn novel, and I...
00:29:04
Speaker
would read it I mean, the thing i keep pointing out whenever whenever folks are like, the Omen Paths are an unmitigated good thing, is like, you do realize that the Omen Paths totally ruined the lives of every survivor living on Duskmorne, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker
yeah paths valgovoth could work up the energy to open a doorway to another plane maybe once every seven to ten years which meant that he did not have a lot of opportunities to abduct new breeding stock for his livestock. ah So the survivors that were still there had to be taken care of to a certain degree. Like the monsters were still farming them, but they had to be careful. They had to go slow because otherwise you risk running out. As soon as the omen paths opened up,
00:29:49
Speaker
There is no more need to preserve these populations of people who are already kind of canny and have an idea of how to evade you. It's like telling the Red by Daylight Killers, hey, you can purge the server of all the experienced survivors and just have newbies.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's, ah you know, why grow your own food when you can door dash it? Exactly. The almond bath for multiversal door dash. As somebody who likes to garden, it I don't know.
00:30:19
Speaker
I'm sure that there are monsters on Duskmoren are... You've got to admit it's harder, right, Hobbs? yeah Yeah. I'm sure that there are monsters on Duskmoren who will argue that homegrown organic survivor terror tastes better, but they are rarer and they have to constantly guard their tomato patches against being raided by the seller spawn.
00:30:38
Speaker
it's it's true It is true. Hobbes, I think if your your peppers started to hide from you, you might have a different opinion about the situation. I know there was a Serrano ready to be picked tomorrow. Where did that go? Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
So we brought these students together with a fantastic introduction. And by that, I mean Kesmina.
00:31:05
Speaker
I, yes, Kasmina.
00:31:10
Speaker
Kasmina is not having her best day ever. No, somebody really misses her spark. I mean, I feel like it's important when we've de-sparked quite this many planeswalkers this quickly to show that they have different reactions. Some of them are fine with it. Some of them are a little cranky, but willing to adjust. And some of them are full on Batman villain over it.
00:31:35
Speaker
You know, Kasmina is not having a good time. And if she's not having a good time, neither are you. Oh, she she decides to pull a bolus over this whole thing. I was trying to think of how to reference bolus.
00:31:50
Speaker
Oh, poor Hobbs. you you know i i i Wow, look at that. My time back on the show was very short-lived.
Alondra's Emotional Journey
00:32:00
Speaker
Are we cranky about Bolas? He just loves Bolas. He's misunderstood.
00:32:07
Speaker
You know, as the number one Nahiri defender in any room I happen to enter, I don't necessarily agree with you, but I will support your right to be wrong.
00:32:19
Speaker
Listen, he's he's just a guy who likes to read books and and people forget that. I think he forgot that. Yeah, he forgot that. Think how much that would suck. That would bother me.
00:32:33
Speaker
Make me wake up a little cranky. But yes, Kazmina is not having her best day and she wants to do something about it. Yeah. And I mean, she actually has a viable reason, which is alluded to without being spelled out. It's one of those things that you kind of need to be a magic person to care about. But she was the head of a of an organization of planeswalkers that's existed since the very beginning of magic novels.
00:33:01
Speaker
And now she's kind of locked out. She can't do anything. And she truly believes that only Planeswalkers can save the multiverse. and And that, like, it being open to everybody is not a good thing.
00:33:14
Speaker
The multiverse being open to everybody is...
00:33:20
Speaker
A very squishy thing in a lot of ways. um I don't think Kasmina is quite as anti people being able to move around the multiverse as some people are. She's just kind of anti them not being planeswalkers.
00:33:35
Speaker
Like if she could spark the whole world, I think she'd do it.
00:33:40
Speaker
But barring that as an option, she just wants hers back, whatever it takes. And we know that sparks can be created. We know that we've seen the Aether Spark in recent memory. We know that Urza did something. Who knows? Urza at some point. Well, yeah, yeah he got Glaceon's spark through the Mike Stone and Meek Stone. They can be exchanged. Like she is not completely out of um out of line and thinking that she can find a way to fix herself.
00:34:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Her methods, maybe I disagree with a little bit. um Her methods are, I don't think we can really go into them without deep spoilers, but her methods are kind of stupid.
00:34:26
Speaker
um And that was actually important because she, like everyone else in this book, is suffering trauma. And when I'm traumatized, I'm not necessarily making my best possible choices. What I'm making are the choices that seem to make sense at the time.
00:34:45
Speaker
yeah So I did want to, because this is something that ended up for me crossing over between the book and the set story was a lot more discussion of how sparks have previously been acquired, or at least the primary way. We've talked about this before, right? We know that they can be acquired other ways, but historically in magic, it's been through trauma. And it's once again,
00:35:14
Speaker
that's something that we talked about going back how far is seven years plus to Alex, right? Like early episodes that that kind of that trope of like trauma makes you stronger or trauma is what gives you this spark versus other strong emotions.
00:35:29
Speaker
And you can kind of see for Kazmina, that's all she really knows.
00:35:35
Speaker
And so like her methods are to basically try to, you know, can I get it back through the same thing that I went through, which to me is just that, that cycle yes yeah that is exactly a good way to put it i i yeah that i mean i think that resonates throughout more of the story too i think our our five students have some of that wrestle with some of that too and that is that is a natural and normal initial response
00:36:08
Speaker
ah Which I know, you know, I'm not telling you anything new, but it's when you're hurt, lashing out seems perfectly reasonable. What I wanted to do is try to get these people to a point where they could stop and think.
00:36:20
Speaker
And like actually reason again. I don't feel like sparks erupting in trauma is meant to say trauma makes you stronger. i always viewed that as a flight response.
00:36:34
Speaker
You know, and trauma really does frequently give you the. not ability, but the impetus to run. Yeah. And, and my read a little, like the, the historical trauma kind of being the main figure is, is more of a convenience of the storytelling medium.
00:36:54
Speaker
um Like we have seen some others and I'm totally blanking her name, but during Amonkhet. ah so Yes. Thank you. Some mo um sparked through euphoria.
00:37:04
Speaker
Like it's it's, it was a, um a rare sort of being, you know, bestowed ah the gift by their gods. And I was like, there was this moment of of great joy and euphoria. And it so it's like there there were a few exceptions, but.
00:37:18
Speaker
I've always assumed that Tyvar sparked because Harold tried to make him wear a shirt to his coronation. um But that said, hi I actually like the fact that sparks come in trauma because for me, it makes magic one of the most hopeful universes in existence.
00:37:35
Speaker
in the same way that Law & SVU is the most optimistic show on television.
00:37:41
Speaker
There is one major assault per week in a metro area the size of New York. The police always care. They will always do their best to help. And even if they don't always you know get the bad guy, they will genuinely believe you and listen and do their best. And it doesn't matter if you are straight, queer, a sex worker, any of that. There's no discrimination from
Book Reception and Future Stories
00:38:04
Speaker
the cops. I know that's not reality, but that makes Law & Order SVU a super optimistic show. Well, if you look at how few planeswalkers there really are,
00:38:13
Speaker
If you planeswalk because you've been traumatized, there is so little trauma in the multiverse. Like this is a very emotionally healthy setting.
00:38:26
Speaker
Conversely, now I'm thinking the fact that most British mystery shows would be the complete opposite because you live in a tiny village where there's a murder every single week. People are just dying constantly. Yeah, like everybody the town has basically been killed left and right. So I like that perspective.
00:38:49
Speaker
So... One thing we talked about briefly before the show, and and I thought, you know, it's a really good something to bring up when we have Hobbs back here, especially as we were talking about, you know, by the time this comes out or close when this comes out, it'll be May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month.
00:39:06
Speaker
And were talking a bit about how much mental health discussion there is in this book. Um, And I think Hobbs, you had a couple of things that you wanted to highlight or talk about from that.
00:39:19
Speaker
I mean, it's really funny because Shannon's already brought up some of it. So I mentioned kind of the the trauma response and then you just the hurt people hurt, but also the fact that trauma oftentimes leads to fight or flight or especially, you know, depending on which end you may be at, like everything is somebody like Angreth. But I was also thinking along that lines of just anxiety tends to come from that kind of more primal part of the brain. um And what I thought was very interesting. And so you were kind of mentioning this before we started, Sean, and I really specifically was thinking um about Alondra and the fact that she was wanting to find a place that would make her feel more comfortable, specifically the potential that Witherbloom swamps could be closer in mana density and just also what her not feel kind of is dry.
00:40:11
Speaker
And there's a passage where she talks about this fear of just even asking. And it comes and she says, because it's just second nature to her, like to her people, I think, as we talked about, right, is it it's part of them as a as a whole, like as is part of her her species living in the deep.
00:40:30
Speaker
And you perfectly, I think, describe the fight or flight mechanism. And I love this idea. It says she's more attuned to those fears than most are or more.
00:40:41
Speaker
But her ancestors came by their terror. Honestly, somehow that doesn't make her feel much better. Yeah, she's just very overclocked by human standards.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I think what I think it is that you could be aware of it. And once again, these if these things were logical, if you could logic brain your way out of the reptilian side of fight or flight,
00:41:03
Speaker
That would be fantastic. It's not realistic. You can know that it comes from a place of like, my body is now scared of things that it shouldn't be. So have historically worked with a lot of veterans and we talk about this, that coming back to society for from something like war, I think of like aftermath of something that can be completely thought of this, is that there was very adaptive elements to this type of anxiety.
00:41:34
Speaker
But it's not working now. You can know that. It doesn't make it not true. yeah Unfortunately, you once you've adapted, it's hard. You can't just unadapt. It doesn't go away.
00:41:47
Speaker
And I think that I like that you get to canonize service animals or or or even just emotional support animals or beings or animals.
00:41:58
Speaker
we We got both. There is at least one student that is very clearly in a crowd scene using a seeing eye animal. I don't remember what species it was, but it's called out.
00:42:10
Speaker
And then Alondra is using what is, Orestes is simultaneously an emotional support animal and a PTSD service animal. You know, animals that keep you from having total meltdowns are absolutely service animals. And I would argue that this is kind of where the metaphors start to fall apart. One of the other things I mentioned before we started is you can't one-to-one map human mental health issues onto non-human creatures. They have...
00:42:37
Speaker
different issues. So if Alondra has a total panic attack, she just starts casting chain lightning with storm. Whatever is around. Yeah, it is not a thing she can control if you let her go too far. So Orestes is not just here to kind of keep her happy. He's here so that if she starts doing that, he can snap her out of it before she electrocutes everyone. And that' that's not an issue you have if I have a panic attack.
00:43:06
Speaker
I wish it were. That'd be great. yeah Well, people would stay away from you. Yes, that's why it would be great. Oh, my God. That would be as as an author. That would be like the best thing. If you bother me, I'm going to electrocute you.
00:43:24
Speaker
it It turns out there may be some other consequences that come from that. and and and Yeah. that's future shanen's problem future shanen can cope yeah like so you know orestes orestes how orestes um i really appreciated this idea that what he was basically doing is grounding i mean he was bringing her back to be able to the awareness right and that is something that a ptsd specific animal can do
00:43:56
Speaker
And Melandra, we didn't really have
Encouragement to Support the Book
00:43:58
Speaker
time to go into it much, but she does have active PTSD from the Phyrexian invasion. When, you know, the giant monsters killed a whole lot of people she knew and she couldn't do anything about it.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I kind of think they all have some level of it. um which I think, honestly, the least PTSD in this group is Sagante. Yeah. Like all of the bad shit that happened to him. oh sorry. I've been trying not to swear, but all of the bad stuff that happened to him happened because of who he was and where he lived. Not because giant robot monsters fell out of the sky and started slaughtering everyone he'd ever loved.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. And I think it also highlights that the, you know, just trauma doesn't have to to trauma is not the only thing that causes issues. And I think that that is an important distinction. Yeah, family is a great source of trauma as well.
00:44:57
Speaker
Doesn't have to be biomechanical whores from across the multiverse. and It doesn't even need to be assault. it doesn't need to be anything other than like you said. Yeah.
00:45:11
Speaker
So i I really was keeping an eye out, obviously, through this novel um for those themes ah that were kind of showing up as that impact of of war. Well, the impact of kind of these events and seeing the different responses and they are not the same across people, right. Even if we want to say they're all kind of have been traumatized, the depictions of that and and what that looks like for them are not the same, you know, but I think it makes me understand a little bit about Kazmina is taking something like Nyssa and just being like,
00:45:49
Speaker
who's just more moving towards depression on it. And Kasmina instead is trying to hurt people.
00:45:59
Speaker
And Kasmina has completely justified hurting people in her own head. She can explain to you why what she is doing is the right thing, is the ethical thing, and not doing it is the unethical thing.
00:46:11
Speaker
And I do feel like it's occasionally important to have those contradictions where it's just like, no, this character i don't agree with can completely justify their actions. I think that makes better villains in general when they can justify their actions. It does. Yeah. And and speaking of of better villains, I like we also got to see Liliana doing some... um <unk> oh I thought I had a ah thought and now I'm trying to figure out to put it in words, but Liliana trying to help people, which is maybe a change from some of the things she's done in the past. Well, she never dropped an army of the undead on anyone who didn't deserve it. That line was just true. Yeah, which is great.
00:46:56
Speaker
I love seeing a return to what I've always wanted to see since we got Flipwalkers, which where they did not do them for the very first ones to be too colored. Yeah. Yeah. Her, her flip Walker totally should have been white on the front black. on Correct.
00:47:13
Speaker
And seeing her almost back into a cleric healing type role versus just necromancy rising the dead type role has been amazing. Like the decision to just stay and that she's going to clean up after the, we saw her at the end of kind of what was going on with the war.
00:47:32
Speaker
to where she is now, rebuilding a school. Yeah. yeah i She has tenure. yeah You don't leave. You don't go to another plane when you got tenure. I appreciate that sort of... her Her getting that new arc, sort of. you know she She had the...
00:47:53
Speaker
The villain arc is is the way the story would have been ever framed her, leading into kind of the war the spark thing, where she has a you know a turn and then a moment of redemption, and now she gets a chance to just pick a place and say, I'm going to... She she doesn't have a spark. She can't walk, but she's like, I'm here. I've established a place here. There's good I can do here, regard kind of regardless of past actions, and I'll just do my best moving forward.
00:48:20
Speaker
I like William. Yeah, I like Liliana. I like how you wrote her. i also like the reputation that she brought with her from ah from a native Dominarian. Yes.
00:48:35
Speaker
I mean, we see the interesting part here, you know, kind of almost going back to some of that idea that, ah you know, ah obviously when Alondra believes that she has found kind of this idea, this i mean, not My mind is now going to go blank for a second. Is it when Alondra discovers about the Dominaria connection?
00:48:56
Speaker
Yes. So yes, so when she does that, and when they even end up with Liana at that point, and and she's basically trying to rant about like, you know, you created this wanting to find that blame.
00:49:08
Speaker
And Lily Ana is basically like, you can act like we didn't suffer, but we were, you know, I was there basically at multiple of these time points and to act like we didn't suffer. Dominaria was Phyrexia's first victim.
00:49:22
Speaker
I think it's very reasonable when you're dealing with something as big and kind of amorphous as the Phyraxine invasion to look for someone you can blame.
00:49:32
Speaker
And there are about 90 places you can point the finger. And one of the big ones is Dominaria because we have the luxury of being outside the situation looking in. So we can see all the places they could have handled it better.
00:49:47
Speaker
And I liked seeing that be Alondra's kind of like perspective right like to just and it's not lie that Phyrexia originated there you know dogmouth was a throne from Dominaria
00:50:04
Speaker
um definitely a homegrown threat even if you know it was when he really took over the original Phyrexia and set up shop there that he became kind of the interplanar god of evil for a while um even new Phyrexia had its you know origins in Karn from Dominaria. Oh, my poor depressed boy. Oh, poor Karn.
00:50:31
Speaker
i yeah God. um But i I really appreciated to see, we were talking about like these different responses and you mentioned, we talked fight or flight and you talked about right um understanding Kazmina's hurt people hurt and kind of how you can run to that.
00:50:50
Speaker
I also was fascinated by this.
00:50:55
Speaker
The second one of the hallmark things I think of when it comes to trauma and and PTSD in particular is avoidance and specifically seeing Jalera basically want to avoid any, option like being willing to not believe that she, would you know, I think the justification that she was going to betray potentially. And I know once again, I'm, it's hard to talk about this without too much spoilers, but the fact of the matter is she did not want to take any chance of this happening to her.
00:51:30
Speaker
And avoidance is such a powerful coping strategy. And I will use that lightly. It is a very good, effective strategy. in the short term, especially.
00:51:43
Speaker
And she is willing to do with avoidance. You are willing to do anything, even if it hurts others and even hurts people that you care about to not have it happen.
00:51:55
Speaker
And I, to me, that was one of the, I, I love her characterization because I love her family. Like I've been wanting more about the Angrath lineage um and seeing that,
00:52:09
Speaker
There was two parts to it. A Minotaur going into Quandrix, who was a blacksmith, was hard for me to swallow ah and not having some of that red identity.
00:52:20
Speaker
And then seeing that like reaction to learning that she might have this quote unquote potential.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah, I can see the difficulty with swallowing a Minotaur without redden their identity. But at the same time, that takes us to one of the arguments I keep having, which is that if all of these species of the multiverse are fully sapient, they should have as much flexibility and mana identity as humans do.
00:52:48
Speaker
Either we need to pigeonhole the humans more or we need to let everybody else out of their boxes. And I'd be more in favor of letting everybody out their boxes. We've had the discussion here about even trying to theorycraft what, you know, mono blue goblin looks like. Right. yeah So Jameera made perfect sense. She is rejecting everything that she thinks might take you away.
00:53:12
Speaker
and she's just doing her best there.
00:53:17
Speaker
It is such an interesting because like you just get your father back in time for this invasion. um yeah and out of all of them, she really did lose the lose the most.
00:53:30
Speaker
That's where I like to be able to take that. That that step back view to see just the impact. and Like literally the world is gone. Yeah.
00:53:41
Speaker
But even so, Jameera, not Jameera, Eula and Sagante kind of flirt and they're using the um the rule books that are provided by their planes for how dating looks. And this is what courtship is like. And Fiora and Capenna are close enough because of their shared roots that are shared in our world, not in theirs, but parallel evolution, that they can find their way to agreements.
00:54:09
Speaker
Jameera is unlikely to ever meet another Minotaur that understands how she is signaling.
00:54:17
Speaker
She has lost her home, her culture, her history. Everything is gone.
00:54:24
Speaker
And that is just, that's a wound she's dealing with every single day. And all of these people who are trying to move on, you know, like all of us that want to write the story, because there's only so long that you can wallow in the aftermath.
00:54:37
Speaker
It's kind of a slap. Yeah. and And I think like when the story too, as just as a reader, kind of seeing, we hear that pretty early, but don't always have to confront it. Don't really have to confront that until later as things are starting to come more to a head. And i think that was really ah effective because you get Eula is the, like the the main point of view character for for most of the book outside of a handful of interludes.
00:55:04
Speaker
And so you get her story, and like all of them, there's some trauma from the invasion. but they, like you say, they're they're trying to move on from that, trying to figure out what's next, and and that is such a different question for Chimera.
00:55:20
Speaker
And Yuga's response is much more fawn than fight or flight. She will just convince you that that you don't want to hurt her. She is perfectly safe, everything is fine, this is great.
00:55:33
Speaker
And that is not a thing that Jameera really understands.
00:55:38
Speaker
But it's a great thing for Alondra who needs someone whose response is, let's not set that on fire.
00:55:49
Speaker
yeah I don't understand that one if you can set it on fire, you know, why not? That is not what you said to me when I got annoyed the other night during drafting.
00:56:02
Speaker
ah Go on. I'm just saying, if you're going to cite the pyromaniac life, you should let me burn stuff more.
00:56:15
Speaker
I don't remember telling you to not burn something. All I can think of is, Taya, you're just, to me, embody the, it's a double-edged sword.
00:56:27
Speaker
Fire is fun. So yeah, ah book good. If you haven't already bought book, please buy book. Book make happy. Book have command tower. Book good, get me more book.
00:56:39
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, the the first print run has to be getting close to running out, of the right? cheap run is The first print run is sold out at the distributor level. Sweet. means that you might still be able to get the special command tower if you find a bookstore that has the shrink-wrapped copies. You also might not.
00:56:56
Speaker
You also might be able to get one by listening to this very show as I have a copy to give it away. So we had asked people to repost um the just discussion about buying the book, encouraging people to buy the book. I have done my normal thing where with 600. I haven't pulled a winner.
00:57:16
Speaker
So this will be coming out Wednesday, which would be you know give people a couple more days to decide. But we have at least one copy to give away to somebody that does is shrunk wrapping with hopefully the command tower in there because I didn't open it.
00:57:31
Speaker
I have not seen a single shrink wrapped book that didn't contain the command tower. Now, I have seen command towers that got caught in the packing machine and sliced in interesting ways. But you can either view those as miscuts or contact customer service and they can provide you with a replacement.
00:57:47
Speaker
Yeah, was gonna say, yeah I would pop over immediately to the misprint group on Facebook, sell it and buy yourself a command tower. Right. But that's just me. but we We all have choices in this world. ah
00:58:04
Speaker
But we want more. Yes. Yes, we'd like more books. If somebody, whoever makes those decisions is listening to this show, please, this this was an amazing return for us to be able to get deeper dives into questions that that that people have been asking for many, many years. And when we have had, we've gotten incredible story. I have been very happy with magic magic story.
00:58:32
Speaker
I have wanted deeper dives into both, theoretical and philosophical nature of things like sparks and planes and what these things mean or learning more about a specific plane that we can't get in six chapters as you said 5,000 words we can't do it or just like the threat of biological disaster via um Omen pass.
00:59:00
Speaker
Yes. I'm to break so much stuff if they let me. Please, please let her break stuff. The whole conversation about invasive species. Oh, yeah.
00:59:11
Speaker
Haven't had that in the, you know, short stories on the website. There's just no room. There isn't room. It has to be action. Right. And you can't stop for anything else. Yeah.
00:59:23
Speaker
But yeah everyone at Magic Story has been incredibly supportive. The team is fantastic. And I have already made it very clear that I am ready to go. I've turned in my pitch for book two. So we'll see.
00:59:36
Speaker
course if they okay it you know that it'll probably be like two years before i'm allowed to say anything so you'll ask me if i'm writing a sequel and i'll ask you if you've ever thought about the weather patterns on chandalar and i'll be like did she just say yes or is that just shanen yeah we we still won't know but yes oh you well you'll you'll find out when they announce it at a magic con oh that's why she wanted to know what it was like when it snowed on eldraine yeah Oh, goblin anatomy is, oh, there's a purpose behind it. Okay.
01:00:14
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I always like fielding your, your interesting lore questions shown in. I am glad because they're not going to stop. Yay! Also, anyone at Magic Story who is listening, that is not Taya saying that I ask questions about things I'm working on. That is Taya saying that sometimes I really do just stop and go, can the Gitrog monster be in your goldfish bowl? Discuss. Yes, 100%. You mean you like to just have discussions as a fan as well? Huh.
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, I like to argue about magic theory and magic planar development and why we should all acknowledge that Nahiri was right.
01:00:55
Speaker
in the goblin lore podcast thank you for listening we can be found both on twitter and blue sky at goblinlorepod check out our linktree for our discord and our discounts we appreciate you listening and welcome feedback via social media or discord Until next time, Podwalkers, remember that goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.