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Episode 185: Yankees Suck... but we love Kyra
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! The goblins want to remind you that we have a very active and open Discord and love for you all to join! On today's episode we sit back down with K Arsenault Rivera (the writer for March of the Machines) and she reveals her true Goblin Nature as we talk MoM story, Elves on Innistrad, and Baseball. Also if you like black oil and women falling in love you should check out her book The Tiger's Daughter!
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter
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.
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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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 to the Podcast and Magic Con Minneapolis
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. We are like two weeks away from Magic Con Minneapolis in Alex and I's backyard. Like, I mean literally almost my backyard. I'm two and a half miles from the venue. So we are in the throes of preparing for it.
Panel on Mental Health Recovery Journeys
00:00:52
Speaker
So if people do not know,
00:00:53
Speaker
The cast, so myself, Alex, and Taya, along with frequent collaborators, Kiln, Feene, Potter, or Michelle, and Manicurve, Chase, will be doing a panel on Sunday.
00:01:08
Speaker
at the magic fest, we will be doing a panel on how I sparked mental health recovery journeys. We are very, very excited to be able to do a part of this. And actually next week's episode is going to be talking about that concept of mental health recovery is a lead up to the con with one of the members of the Trevor project. So that's also pretty cool too. Cause they're, they're involved as the kind of de facto charity for this event.
00:01:34
Speaker
And they actually are going to come on and talk a little bit about the Trevor Project, but also Nicholas, who's in communications is going to be joining us, is a lifelong Magic the Gathering player, which is just a fantastic confluence.
Cookout Preparations and Event Excitement
00:01:45
Speaker
So yep, I spent all day today. We were saying before we got on the show, I am preparing to host people in a cookout. So I spent all day today.
00:01:53
Speaker
cooking enchiladas and generally freaking out about the fact that this is two weeks away. Yeah. Exciting, right, y'all? Yeah. Yeah. Tae and Alex, how you all feeling about us on stage? Us on stage? Yeah. No, I'm looking forward to that. It's a really great panel that we've assembled and I'm happy to be part of it.
00:02:20
Speaker
I also am happy to be part of it and looking forward to it. I also am getting increasingly anxious as we get closer. My social anxiety is starting to kick in, which is fun. But I'm really genuinely looking forward to doing this. This is why we're talking about it. We're habituating you. Exactly. Well, and it's a thing I've wanted to do panels for a long time because I've been going to cons for a while now. But
00:02:48
Speaker
And panels have been a big part of what I've done at conventions. And so it's cool to finally kind of be on the other side of that and help to create those panels that other people can come sit in and kind of consume as part of their con experience.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, so in our preparation this week, we're not doing something about MagicCon in particular. However, we do have a guest who is also on panels and going to be at MagicCon Minneapolis.
Guest Introduction: Kay Arsenault Rivera
00:03:16
Speaker
Returning guests, Kay Arsenault Rivera. Welcome back, Kay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and thank you in advance for feeding me.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yes, I am very excited. I hope you like let me see with sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. I'm here for the tri tip. That's a tri tip. Yep. Yeah, that's the key. A lot of people don't know what tri tip is out here. So I so this is kind of cool. The butcher from my local grocery store actually is from Southern California, which is the reason that they stock it locally. It took I used to like specialty order it, but not anymore. So
00:03:56
Speaker
I'm going to devour all of them. I'm on the phone right now, increasing my order. So what is your panel? I mean, we'll go around. I guess we should do introductions, I guess. That's kind of important. Hi, y'all. I'm Hobbs. I can be found on Twitter at HobbsQ. Pronouns are he him.
00:04:19
Speaker
And yeah, let's go ahead. Somebody else take this from me. Yeah. Um, Taya, Taya transcends on Twitter, pronouns are she, her, or they, them. And, uh, yeah, let's, uh, hand it off to Alex. Uh, I'm Alex. I'm phoned on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler sometimes now more than recently, but I still take big gaps and breaks. Uh, pronouns are he, him.
00:04:50
Speaker
And I'm Kira Arseneau Rivera. I'm found on Twitter, unfortunately. As at Arseneau Rivera, those are both of my last names. I don't have a middle name. If you're calling me the first name, it's Kira. Yeah, I write stuff for magic. I guess. I guess that could be a statement that is made.
00:05:14
Speaker
To be fair, if you're joining in now, Kira was on the show previously, went through March of the Machines, kind of more of the process piece with Taya and I. Alex is now fully caught up. I believe that Alex has read every piece of magic that he could find in a very short period of time to catch himself up. Is that correct?
00:05:33
Speaker
Yes. No, no, not. If you have been listening, I believe our last episode was me and Reinhard talking through the story. I'm caught up through that stuff. I have a list of things I'm planning to go read, including most, if not all, of the recent set. That seems like a good place to read more deeply, but I have not actually read any of that stuff.
00:06:02
Speaker
That is a great place.
Magic Lore and Panel Discussions
00:06:05
Speaker
It's if you want to catch up on more of that stuff, you can come to my panel at MagicCon Minneapolis, which is on Saturday at one o'clock, if I'm not mistaken. I'm doing it with Roy, with Roy Graham, the story lead, Tyler Ingverson, and I think our host is Matt Danner. And it's all about March of the Machine and March of the Machine Aftermath in specific.
00:06:30
Speaker
we're going to be talking over some of the changes to the multiverse and how the set came together, because it was kind of a unique process. That's really cool. I'm excited for that. Yeah. And the whole aftermath thing with the convention is part of why I decided that this was a good time for me to catch up. So that's awesome to know that that panel's going on at the Con. Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
Well, before we dive into our further discussion of March on the Machines, Teia was nice enough to give us a question, which is, what is your favorite piece, like deep cut of magic lore? So Teia, since you proposed a question, that means you get to go first by my arbitrary rules of I need to think.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's not like I shared this question right a few minutes ago or anything. No, no, God no. It's never like that. It's never like that. No, it's hard for me. I'm going to go with a recent one and there was a lot of deep cut callbacks in Marching Machine, which is why I brought this question up now, but I'm going to
00:07:42
Speaker
go with Granny Sengir, which I thought was, you know, she, you know, we haven't heard anything about El Grotha in 20 years, 20 plus years. And we get this wonderful callback and just like, remember the Sengir family is, is around still. And, you know, who knows where we might be going from there.
00:08:07
Speaker
hopefully not homelands too, but I would love to see more in El Girtha. So, do you think we're going to get to find out what's behind the Dolmans Gate? I'd hope so after all this time. That is the next big question that hasn't been answered. A lot of wins in CEDH, that's what's behind that gate. I also have to admit, Granny Sangier got a glow up to look like a vampire.
00:08:35
Speaker
Though still not a vampire. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Alex, since I know you said you thought long and hard about this, you're putting this off more and more hops. And he knows that sometimes I my answers will tangent on themselves and this is one that might be longer. So.
00:09:03
Speaker
I'm trying to figure out, okay, we'll just start with the straight answer and then the complication can come later and I can figure out how to say it late then. So probably the first one I thought of is like, so the ancient throne on Dominaria, the ancient throne empire,
00:09:18
Speaker
They didn't understand from what I recall, it's been a while since I read the book, but they just understood of mana as just a generic thing. They didn't have the color theory with mana and the five colors that we use mechanically with the game.
00:09:33
Speaker
Which kind of leads into one of the things that I think is interesting, if you listen to the cast enough of some of the stuff that I really get into. I have a lot of Milthos, so I like the mechanics of the game in addition to the story, but kind of where they interact. And I'm fascinated by, not just in Magic, but on the Magic podcast, we'll talk mostly about that one here.
00:09:56
Speaker
but this idea of rules and structures of games that exist for gameplay purposes, but how they are represented and understood by the characters in the fictional worlds that are part of that game.
00:10:07
Speaker
And so this idea of characters within the magic universe, how do they understand mana and spells and the different colors? And that kind of gets, honestly, this is a topic that I've wanted to try to figure out how to express so that we can try to have an episode talking about this. This would be a great episode. And the thing that really got me thinking about it,
00:10:33
Speaker
a few years ago, more than a few years ago at this point, though, was on Theros, where we had the whole storyline with, you know, the missing green, red God. And people were like, well, if I was on Theros, I would know that that was missing. And it's like, but do the people in Theros understand how colors work in magic? And would they see that as a missing hole in the Pantheon? Or are we only saying that because of how we understand the mechanics of the game?
00:11:00
Speaker
So I think that was mine. Hobbs, did that give you enough time to come up with something? Oh, gosh, yes. Oh, man, I've got like 12 windows open because we're going to go down some deep, deep lore right here. Actually, I sadly have talked about this on the show previously, I think, but it still is one of my favorites. And I also want to come back to it because there's been a little bit of an update in some ways. So one of my favorite characters of all time is Noren the Wary, who we really only knew basically through
00:11:27
Speaker
So this is where my story gets a bit convoluted because I'm going to be talking about Nora and the Wary, but I'm also going to be talking about one of the biggest art mistakes ever made in magic history. So Nora and the Wary I just love because Nora and the Wary is like the brave Sir Robin from Monty Python. I love callbacks to Monty Python at any time. It's one of the reasons I love the art for Angus Mackenzie.
00:11:49
Speaker
Norrin the Wary is basically a adventurer, I don't know, that runs away at the sight of any trouble or anything happening. And when we were in Time Spiral, Norrin the Wary, who had been featured on a lot of flavor texts, finally gets a card, which mechanically I just loved the concept of, which is basically anything happens, Norrin runs away. I loathe playing against it in Commander.
00:12:17
Speaker
It was fun because Commander was something that let that ability shine. I actually, I used to play it in casual 60 card too with things like Genesis Chamber and Soul Warden and just like ridiculousness. But anything that would take advantage of this little guy running back and forth and running away every time something happens. But where it gets really interesting is,
00:12:43
Speaker
Way back in, oh gosh, my brain's gonna go deep, but I believe Ice Age.
00:12:48
Speaker
Is that when we first saw? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hyleptorus limure. And it turns out, if you look at the art for this card, it is an adorable little thing with potentially wings on it. And this is because the artist who did it was they knew what the first word meant, but they thought that limure was the same as one of the large eyed ring tailed lemurs.
00:13:16
Speaker
And so they drew, you know, basically lemures are like a thing for what are they ghosts, some sort of spirits that are more from like a fantasy world. And they are not supposed to be like cute or adorable at all. They're supposed to be very scary, but like it got printed on the card. So fast forward to Time Spiral. We get Visted Lemures and the flavor text on it is lemurs. Is that all? Finally something harmless.
00:13:42
Speaker
quote, nor in the wary, like doing a callback to that. Well, why get to update this when Wizards did Dominaria remastered, they reprinted the original high up high leptarists linear with linear art with noon nor the wary flavor text that says I was wrong. They're not harmless at all.
Story Writing for March of the Machine
00:14:05
Speaker
I just love the fact that like a lemur got drawn into magic art is this like very scary scary thing. And they just they went with it. They just did it. And then they made the I love callbacks to that and then it getting to be to like the one person who wouldn't really be scared of it.
00:14:22
Speaker
was amazing with Norton the wary. So that's my deep one. That is pretty deep. That was a good one though. I was looking that up as you as you were talking about it. I have like a PowerPoint going. It's great. It's so good. Yeah. So anyway, Kira, how about for you? Okay, so
00:14:43
Speaker
All of mine have to do with Innistrad, which surprises absolutely no one. But firstly, I wanted to tie back to Alex's in terms of stuff that ties in with lore. One of the things that I've always loved about the original Powerpuff Girls, that is to say, Avacyn and her sisters,
00:15:02
Speaker
is that Sigurda is the only one who didn't get hecked up by the Eldrazi because she has hex proof, which is just, it's very good to me. I've always loved that. And when that fell into place for me, it made me really happy. And in fact, we did, when we were developing stuff at the march of the machine, it kind of, that sort of thing came into play where
00:15:29
Speaker
the reason that they're able to heal.
00:15:35
Speaker
Nissa and Ajani at the end of it is because they flicker the permanence and when you flicker permanence, the counters get off of them. And so that's why we did it that way. So like, we could have fixed everything by just having Brago and Rune show up is what I'm hearing. Like, why do we have to go through all this? Venter was also out of commission. You know, he's a corpse puppet these days.
00:15:59
Speaker
But I mean, I'm simplifying the process here, right? Because there were a lot of proposed solutions for it, and that was just one of them. But we decided that that had enough harmony with game mechanics that it was a good way to go. And then Malira came out, the new Malira, and that's exactly what she does. So that was very satisfying for me because I didn't know that was happening.
00:16:27
Speaker
But my actual answer, because that was a digression, is that Innistrad used to have elves. What? Yes, that is the right reaction. So we all know that elves are some of the most widespread groups in magic. They're one of the most popular archetypes going all the way back.
00:16:53
Speaker
Once, during a panel at a convention, somebody from Wizards mentioned that there were once elves on Innistrad, and that they had died off a very long time ago. And this was never spoken of again. But I desperately want to know what was up with those elves. Can you tell us who said it? I don't know offhand. I'd have to look it up. I'd have to look it up. Yeah, that would be...
00:17:24
Speaker
Oh, that that's really fascinating, though. Right. To know what what was up with the elves and were they just delicious to vampires? Is that why they're extinct? If I if I had if I can speak purely speculative, this is just my opinion. This is not canon whatsoever. I'm speaking as a magic fan right now. I think personally,
00:17:53
Speaker
that it'd be cool if they had something to do with the Dawnheart Coven, right? Because the Dawnheart Coven uses all of these naturalistic motifs and stuff. And we know that there's a whole lot of stuff, like the celestis that's going on in those woods. So I think it would have been really cool if the elves were involved with all of that somehow and have survived via the customs of the Dawnheart Coven. But yeah, I'd love to see more about that.
00:18:20
Speaker
I would write more about funny is that I had I had a note to ask you about elves on Innistrad. And I think that came from Hobbs. And then we asked the question and we got to tie it back to elves on Innistrad. So that's great. So I added those notes because she wanted to make sure that she hadn't spoken about it last time. And I said that my memory was God awful.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yes, yes, because I bring this up a lot. It's just a weird thing, you know, like the X-Files theme playing over. Where did it go? This is my X-Files. I'm going to turn into the lone gunman over this. This is your lone gunman moment? Yes, yes, it is. That's why we got the raven, man.
00:19:18
Speaker
Speaking of, during this whole thing, did anybody ever see Merit Lage during this invasion? I'm sure she's fine. I'm sure. Everything is perfectly fine. Well, when you were on last time, we did talk a lot about more of the process. We talked a little bit about this concept of stakes, your own kind of
00:19:44
Speaker
I'm sorry to stump all over, but I realized something we missed at the very beginning, and I don't know what to do with this now. We didn't actually shout out Grinding Coffee Company. Oh, yeah. Well, you know. Are you going to put that in post? I should probably just thank the Grinding Coffee Company right now, because if I had had my Grinding Coffee Company already today, I would be more alert and awake and wouldn't miss stuff like that.
00:20:15
Speaker
I just know, because normally when I record episodes on my own, I tend to forget all the way to the end and... But yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
I don't know with this point. Yeah, especially with with the stuff coming up We know that they're gonna be you know, we've got charity stuff that we're gonna be doing there in May We do we do we have? Yeah, you're right. You're right. We do we should we should we should shout out the grinding coffee company so if people do not know at this point the grinding coffee company is a
00:20:47
Speaker
minority-led LGBT-owned coffee company that supports gamers. And one of the things that they really do for us, you know, we're partnered with them, there's a code, you can go buy coffee from them. But I mean, their biggest collaboration with us has really been on these kind of charity events. And I think that we've been so thankful to have them and we'll be able to, you know, we're, like you said, Alex, we have stuff coming up in May, you know,
00:21:12
Speaker
in June, I have kind of the one that I've been doing every summer there, the wrestling themed one, and they are always willing to just jump on board and just donate and give coffee. And like I said, they do keep me fueled. And usually it means that I'm much more alert. So yeah, there we go.
00:21:29
Speaker
We've got mid-roll advertisements now. Does that mean we're a big grown-up podcast? Yeah! Alex was smart. Like, you know, this was nice. I didn't have to, like, add it in. Like, it's just, it's there. 20 minutes in, go buy a grinding coffee company, use code goblinlorepodca. So those unexpected moments in content creation where your brain just for a moment goes, is this what making it feels like? That was the panel. It still is.
00:21:59
Speaker
having guests like Kira on the show is like continually I'm not just completely smoothly transitioning in us because I would never do that.
Character Developments: Elspeth and Karn
00:22:08
Speaker
However, having guests of this caliber on really is like moments where I feel a little surreal. And I know that that's what it was last time when we recorded with you is
00:22:20
Speaker
It meant a lot to me to talk about your own kind of mental health journey. And we talked a lot about like the fear and that theme of fear that played its way through. And that concept of stakes, which people will, I think we did a good job of hitting that right up front with it. I think so too. I think so. We acknowledged it. We put it out there. One of the things though, Taya and I really were saying, okay, well, we got story specific beats that we wanted to have you back on to talk more about.
00:22:50
Speaker
So with that, Taya, I know that you've kind of started some notes on this. So do you want to jump in to kind of start us off? Beat me up. I'm not going to beat you up, but you know, I kind of went through and took some highlights from each of the episodes that I thought were either really interesting or just worth talking about.
00:23:15
Speaker
The first one that I put on the list was just children calling out Norn on her selfishness right before she gets executed. And I think that just sets the tone for Norn continuing to go off the deep end throughout the whole story.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's 100% the intent of that section too. Of the Praetors, Sheildred is my favorite. Believe it or not, I was kind of sad killing them all off, and especially because I didn't have very much space with which to do it, but Sheildred being somebody who has always been extremely ambitious and extremely sensitive to whispers and rumors and struggles for power.
00:24:03
Speaker
I thought that Shaldred would be somebody who would recognize what was going on easier than any of the other praters did. So I definitely wanted her to have that call out and start setting things up in that first chapter.
00:24:18
Speaker
I mean, she's the one who had most worked to kind of undermine up, up until Urbrask later on. The whole time was kind of undermining everybody, everybody. Right. Yeah. Children specifically, though, I feel like had worked against Nord for quite a while. I mean, the moment I guess when she was on Dominaria, Dominaria, children kind of just
00:24:45
Speaker
was working, I guess, for Norn, but it wasn't, it like went away very quickly after that. Yeah. And, you know, all of the Praetors have their strengths and their faults. And I thought that getting executed for treason was probably the strongest way to show what children is good at, which is, you know, machinations of this sort.
00:25:12
Speaker
So, you know, if you have a character who's sensitive to that, I think they're a very good viewpoint person to set up your foreshadowing. And especially because another thing too is white and black are, they're often portrayed as, you know, diametrically opposed colors, but norn in the way she acts is very much like fascist white. Whereas, you know, that that has a lot of overlap with blacks.
00:25:37
Speaker
sort of at any cost ambition energy. So I think that they probably understand each other better than either of them wants to admit.
00:25:46
Speaker
And I'll say from my position of not being too involved in the story lately, I agree it feels a lot like the black side of white, if that makes sense, because a lot of like the black-white color pie. And you see this in like the Orzhov where it's like, it's about the community because it's a strong white thing, but it's about our community at the cost of anyone else's. And that kind of fits what Norman was doing in a lot of ways.
00:26:12
Speaker
A hundred percent. That's exactly what Morn was doing. When we were writing Morn, we were very... I was very into the idea of her as this hierophant of herself. And, you know, there's a lot of ostracization that happens in those groups and it was something that I wanted to play into. And that's part of why everybody approaches her the way they do and part of why her downfall is written in that specific way as well.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, I do want to touch on one thing you mentioned was just not having space when it came to the paraders and how they were all often. That was one thing that I had actually noted down to talk to you about and was going to ask, was that just a space limitation that you didn't have more time to spend on all of their executions and messy deaths?
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah, so March of the Machines, most magic web fiction is about 5,000 words per chapter, which is regular short story length for those of you who do not deal in word counts. That ends up being about 50,000 words, which is a very short novel, you know, like one of those Hemingway things that you would have had to read in high school.
00:27:33
Speaker
You don't have space for a lot in a world spanning event like March of the Machine and something like that. If I had had, if I could do a director's cut, I probably would do five or more chapters, I think, one for each of the praters and maybe one for Koth to kind of just give them a bit more. But with the story that I was trying to tell and with the way that I was trying to tell it, it was important for me to focus on
00:28:03
Speaker
the I would say the heroes of the story and known as the main villain. That was just the most efficient way to tell as much of the story as I could. You know, when you when you're working in IP fiction, there's always a bit of a trust fall involved. You're not quite sure how much of what you don't write will end up in the cards versus in the side story somewhere or as trivia that Mark Rosewater posts on blog talk.
00:28:28
Speaker
So you kind of have to prioritize. And for me, the priority was this grand feeling of overcoming all of this and of going into the pits, seeing all of these planes getting ruined, and then coming together and being able to overcome that.
00:28:51
Speaker
So I didn't have as much space to write the Praetors as I think, you know, I could have given them more space and probably they would have been extremely long chapters in that case if I had done that. So yeah, I recognize that the Praetors do get killed off pretty quickly. I think that's valid. And I think if I had to do a director's cut, I probably would put more in there for them.
00:29:19
Speaker
I do appreciate though that, you know, Urbrask and Schilder had both got, they got personally executed. That just shows how important they were. Yeah, Urbrask especially gets drawn and quartered. Oh, not going to be so hasty anymore. No, no poor guy.
00:29:47
Speaker
creatures are coming in to play tapped. It's holly, it's holly a brask. Wow. That was the matchup I was waiting for. And the other one from episode one I just want to mention was referring to Kamigawa as the land of betrayers and champions. That was just... We have a little fun. We have a little fun. Fantastic.
00:30:13
Speaker
I know that line got memed a little bit after I posted it, but it's just fun. I hadn't even seen this memed at all anywhere. I thought it was great. Yeah, it's just a fun little callback. I always really liked Kamagawa Block, so I had an opportunity and I took it and I don't regret it.
00:30:36
Speaker
One question I had just kind of throughout this is what you have against trees. So yeah, I just got to know because the trees did not fare well in this multiversal. I mean, when Mark Rosewater said in a complete upset of how things were going forward, I didn't realize that that's what we were talking about. But Basaju
00:31:00
Speaker
Well, the thing is, I've lived in New York City all of my life, and specifically in Brooklyn. And if I want to see a tree, I got to walk like two miles, buddy. You got to get your way all the way over to Central Park to have a tree. So you developed a new rational hatred. I have fond memories of going to Prospect Park as a youth.
00:31:25
Speaker
I once hit my head on the ice so hard there that I zoomed out of my body and looked down on myself for a second. And that's kind of neat, I think. But as far as communion with the trees, I don't spend very much time in nature. Rip. Sorry. Literally rip. I mean, I get it. Rip and tear. Yeah, ripping the sage was a tough one for me. So yeah.
00:31:54
Speaker
Oh, you want to talk sticks. There's a good one there is, um, you know, if you're a long time fan of magic and you're reading something like this story, you see something like the sage, you getting messed up. You're like, Oh my God, they got the tree. I mean, my exact reaction.
00:32:13
Speaker
I loved it because of the whole even setup. And like I said, I once again, I don't know the fact that it was the last time we see Besaju when we were on Neon was it's Besaju who endures. Like we literally get a name for this thing that is about its like ability to be around still. And yeah.
00:32:39
Speaker
Just, I had to throw that in there. Cause I, I, that was my biggest question. Why trees? Cause it was funny. I, you know, maybe I'll go for a hike and I'll, I'll, I'll atone for my sins. I'll, I'll apologize. I mean, Shawn is always trying to get me to visit her. So maybe she'll take me on a hike in the Pacific Northwest and I'll never be heard from again, but you know, you don't have to go that far to be surrounded by trees. I just step outside my front door.
00:33:08
Speaker
Check your tree privilege! Taeya, come on, be cool. She's gonna kill another tree, okay? There are still trees out there, okay? Don't make me kill Moltani. Oh god, I was just thinking that Ren just got replanted. Wow. Okay. Well, that's what I had for the show, so sorry. Taeya, are we on?
00:33:36
Speaker
Something about Luca maybe? I don't know. Are we on episode two yet? Who cares about Luca? It was a dig at Luca, so that's why it included it. There we go. We hit that. We hit the dig at Luca. We're doing great. The one thing from episode two was really
00:34:01
Speaker
The part that Chandra is asking herself, how can she focus on something like that right now and looking at like everything else is going normal? Is that nothing's normal and no one wants to talk about it? And that feels so much like reality when there's a lot of big things going on and it just feels like nobody's listening, like being trans right now. So that whole conversation with
00:34:32
Speaker
Your whole internal monologue with Chandra, that jumped right out to me and definitely recognize that. Yeah, it's real tough.
00:34:43
Speaker
being a trans person right now. I'm sure I don't have to tell you at all, but I do think it bears saying, and I think it bears recognizing even from cis people just how bad things are and that we shouldn't really let things be normal and not talk about it. I think it's important to address things as they come up. Back to the story. So when you've got anxiety, when you've got any other kind of, you know,
00:35:13
Speaker
anything that really separates you from other people, whether that be a mental thing or a physical thing, it can really alienate you from the way that other people seem to be going about their lives because there's
00:35:25
Speaker
so much that means so much to you and it's happening all at once and it's a very physical thing and Chandra to me has always felt like somebody who's very in touch with her physical self and the way that things feel and sometimes you know to the detriment of her shall we say decision-making skills but it was something that I wanted to spotlight is how much
00:35:48
Speaker
that can really weigh on somebody who doesn't have a healthy way to express it right then. Because who's she gonna talk to about all of this? Everybody knows this guy is falling down. Talking about it isn't helpful, really, except her. But, like, she still needs to, you know? Yeah, like most planeswalkers, my poor little fire baby needs a therapist bed. Well, he's back to life now.
00:36:20
Speaker
He needs therapy too! I mean, let's be honest, everybody in these needs therapy. We already said, Nuke Capena's covered. Fabine's got Nuke Capena covered. We don't have to worry about that, but... She's got confidant in the name. She does?
00:36:42
Speaker
And she really is my god. The nicest guy in my EDH pod who is also kind of like the platonic ideal of a magic player. I keep in mind when I'm writing these stories because like every single reference to anything that's like
00:36:58
Speaker
five years or more old, he just, he marks out. It's wonderful. The dude has a kavu deck, a kavu deck. But he plays a fabine deck that has beaten me silly more than once.
00:37:14
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I have for being because as being a therapist, it was my first representation of therapy and my worst deck construction philosophy. So it was, it was definitely an interesting experience just even doing it. So
00:37:30
Speaker
But yes, so next we get to see Tamio and what I think had written down but kind of curious was using Ursa's story for Tamio section. Your idea. Was that something that they wanted brought in? That was my idea.
00:37:45
Speaker
cool. Yeah, it's, um, I'm about to cause Ursa's the worst, but Ursa's the worst, but there's a lot of parallels here, right? And it's a 30 year anniversary set. So we'd be remiss if we didn't include some callbacks, especially if those callbacks can be as thematic. Um, so this is the first time that Ursa comes up in the story. Uh, there's,
00:38:08
Speaker
I think two other times. Yeah, so there's this time, there's the Elspeth bottle episode, and there's one mention at the very, very tail end when they're trying to reverse Phyresis. And I think it's impossible to talk about the 30-year history of magic without talking about Urza in some way. A lot of what's going on right now is, you know, direct result of the dude, you know, messing around, shall we say.
00:38:39
Speaker
But so Tommy has always had these these three scrolls, right? It's been a mystery what's in them. And I wanted to touch on Ursa's story and I wanted to solve the mystery of what was in that last scroll before the last time that we saw her. You know, we needed to know. So. That using Ursa's story there came from me because I wanted to set up the
00:39:05
Speaker
I guess the grand feeling of March of the Machines, and I wanted to tie in more of Magic's lore. At the time I didn't know that I was going to be bringing Urza up in Episode 6, but I had the feeling that I would be using him again at some point. So I just, you know, it felt good to reach for that reference.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah, there are some writers who are extremely meticulous in their outlines, and I'm not one of them. So sometimes when I'm writing, I just reach for something that feels right, this being one of those cases. And we refined it over the course of the revisions. It's not just Urza's story, by the way. It's also Yawgmoth's. So Yawgmoth's, and then Urza's, and then the last story there, Karn. Oh, we'll get back to Karn. Don't worry. Oh, I'm sure.
00:39:56
Speaker
Poor depressed car, never gone right for it. Though, you know, the other thing that I really know, and it comes up again later, but just in Tammy or not Tammy, oh, sorry, getting back on the end of episode two, it's just referring, Ren referring to Ferry getting caught in a tangle again. And I really enjoyed that callback.
00:40:24
Speaker
Uh, I can, I can give you a fun fact about that, which is March of the Machine was written so early that tangles had just been turned in by the time that I was doing revisions. So I was actually able to read tangles ahead of time to make sure that I could see the callbacks there properly.
Exploring Tyvar's Growth
00:40:46
Speaker
Seed. Yeah.
00:40:49
Speaker
We're back on trees again. Oh, you got me. I was like, haha. See, we're planting seeds. Finally, we're doing something. Let's branch out a little bit further. I think we can leaf the subject alone. Dang it, see. We've gotten to the root of it. I'm trying to be so nice to our guests that I didn't even get to use leaf, which is like my favorite.
00:41:13
Speaker
Speaking of those seeds, the line Tyvar has about New Phyrexia planting the seeds of doubt and fear within him. And I'm just like, I don't know if I can buy him being afraid of anything. Well, that's part of why that bit is there, though, because even Tyvar is afraid. I know.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's that he's afraid too, and someone who couldn't even be magically feared by Tybalt. Yeah, it's more than magical fear at that point. It's personal too, because he's with his brother. He's with all of his people. They're all trying to come together too.
00:41:58
Speaker
fight everything off here and he doesn't know what's going to happen next. Tyvar just learned to planeswalk. Well, he learned that he was planeswalking like two weeks ago. All of this is happening very quickly for him. Yeah, poor, poor guy. I hope, I hope he recovers.
00:42:16
Speaker
I'm sure he'll be fine. The good news is that he's going to really grow from this because what I had noticed a lot with Tyvar was that it seems like he's now set up to be able to travel between the realms to learn from, oh wait, the world tree's dead. Sorry. Let's move on to something else. Man, I didn't know I would be hammered about these dead trees when I came on here. This is a real gacha.
00:42:40
Speaker
It's really surprising to me too because Hobbs is not a fan of green in magic. And all of a sudden he is all about the trees and I'm trying to figure out what's going on. See, it's this weird thing. I love nature. I just don't like the color green in magic. And I struggle with that myself, Alex. Thanks. My biggest insecurity now brought up on the cast.
00:43:05
Speaker
I got nothing. For some reason, these trees are just sticking with me. Is this the happening now? Are you Marky Mark? My whole color identity is shifting as we're talking and I'm getting very uncomfortable. Alex, was there anything you wanted to ask about all this?
00:43:32
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. No, that's fine. So I'm trying to to listen. And if I have questions kind of in topics that are brought up, I'll jump in. I mean, I figured Alex would have something to say on Ursa, but here we are. Right. I. Yeah. I mean, you covered it. Or is this the word? He is important. Yeah. Note there. Well, I like to that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll get there because.
00:44:02
Speaker
Carne's still lingering in this story right now. Oh yes, there's another mention of her. So yeah, because Carne remembers something terrible about it. What else is Carne going to remember about it? The man who made him but didn't give him a name because
00:44:23
Speaker
Urza. That's just kind of encapsulates. This one now, since we're already on the topic. Do it. Episode seven. Karne used to wonder why he could feel pain. People are less likely to hurt something that screams, Urza said. Urza is the worst. Yeah, Alex, I was wondering if you had caught that yet. Nope, I didn't. Nope. Nope. Yep.
00:44:51
Speaker
But very in line with like everything we've ever talked about. Like we did the whole two partner on car and depression. It was literally about like how big of a dick like Urza was to him to make him the way he did. And then we get this new line. So, yeah. Kiro, you want to tell us a little bit more about why we had to do that? OK, so that line comes from one of my partners being really, really into Ghost in the Shell, right?
00:45:20
Speaker
So I've watched a lot of Ghost in the Shell in my time. And one of the things that they have in Ghost in the Shell is pain receptors that they can turn off and on. And all of the cybernetically enhanced people have these. And it's brought up several times throughout the course of the series. Once I saw that, I was like, why don't other things address that at all? That's a cool concept. So when I was in Karn's head, because there's not very much left of Karn at that point,
00:45:56
Speaker
It was just what came to mind. It was like, why does Karn have pain receptors? Because Urs is a dick. Why would Urs want Karn to have pain receptors? Oh, the practical, you know, air quote, practical, extremely detached reason is it makes him more sympathetic.
00:46:15
Speaker
things that can feel pain are more sympathetic to us, that we feel some kind of, you know, tie to them. Even people who don't like dogs, let's say, if they step on a dog's tail, we'll feel bad about it, right? And, you know, I thought that made sense for somebody like Urza. Yeah. So, go Sojal. That is cool. I'm glad I asked about that. Yeah. Yeah, that is a cool connection.
00:46:47
Speaker
I like card. I love card. And there's a lot there's a lot of self identification with cards.
00:46:57
Speaker
You know, that's why Karn gets to kill Norn at the end. It's because he's damn well learned it. So we are jumping. I do want to bring that up because that was a moment of contention among some to see Karn decide to like put aside the pacifism that he's walked in and like kill his creation. I saw people that were worried that they felt that it was out of character for Karn. I personally did not feel that it was.
00:47:26
Speaker
But I'm curious about that decision to have Karn basically make like have to return to that life where he has to like snuff something out or he has to like kill basically, or he doesn't have to, he chooses to.
00:47:43
Speaker
I think that taking responsibility is also a big theme of the set. And one of the things that really contrasts Karn and Teferi and Urza, Karn and Teferi being one unit here, is that they've learned to take responsibility for what they've done.
00:48:00
Speaker
Ferry was kind of an ass for quite a long time. And, you know, he in doing so phased out Jelfier. He lost his home. He's had he lost a great deal of his power due to the mending and he had to scrape everything together. At the end of the day, he kind of just lucked into being able to return Jelfier to its proper place and fix all of this. Right. But part of looking into it was becoming the sort of man who could take responsibility for it.
00:48:30
Speaker
and having that character growth. That's something that Urza kind of sort of vaguely gestures that, but like he's still Urza, right? That's not what people remember. With Karn, even though he didn't mean to do any of this harm and did a lot of it completely unknowingly, it's still his mistake that's cost so many people their lives. And I think that when we talk about pacifism, we have to realize that there are different types of pacifism, right?
00:49:01
Speaker
There's complete and utter non-resistance. There's pacifism that functions by self-defense. There's different philosophies. If we are to consult something like the life-giving sword, for instance, just that entire concept of somebody who strikes not to take a life but to save another life. So I can understand why some people think it's out of character for Karn, but I would encourage them to think of it
00:49:30
Speaker
in the larger arc.
00:49:32
Speaker
especially with regard to where Erza ended up and where Karn is now. It's not something that's easy for him by any means, and that's very much stressed throughout the passage is that this isn't something he enjoys doing. It's just something that he feels like is the only thing that there is left to do. He can't have Elspeth. He could have Elspeth do it. It would be very easy, but that's not really taking responsibility for it. That's making somebody else clean up after his problems again.
00:50:01
Speaker
Which I would contend that's the thing that to me felt okay. I mean, I got not okay. It felt, it felt Karnan in character with Karnan because our previous episode about depression and Karnan, a lot of this was right. Like he basically leaves Mirden can't be bothered with it in part because of depression, or at least what we're hypothesizing. He is one of the only characters that actually depression or the concept of is explicitly tied to him.
00:50:32
Speaker
in the story and in my misremembering Alex, we could literally we started this from Yeah, he is, if I remember correctly twice, specifically described as being depressed or stepping into depression, like, okay, the word is actually used to describe him at least once, but I believe twice.
00:50:51
Speaker
So, you know, we kind of talked about, right? Like, he kind of like leaves Mirrodin like that. He just kind of like abandons it. And just, as you said, there's an incredible sense of responsibility to this world that, you know, and him wandering and coming back, bringing the glistening oil back and allowing that to like corrupt this world that he had tried to make mathematically perfect.
00:51:12
Speaker
So to me, I understand that a lot of what Karn has done even in recent times is to he's been running away from it and he's been not taking that responsibility and he has to do it and.
00:51:27
Speaker
You know, I would have liked to have seen, well, I guess this is kind of more of the horrible person in me, like him seeing Venser's body, you know, kind of seeing the like the Phyrexians using Venser. But it just is, yeah, sorry. Just to cut in there, I would have if I knew Venser was going to be in that set.
00:51:52
Speaker
Are you kidding me? When I saw that spoiler, I was like, what? How dare you, wizards? How dare you? No, everybody of us is just wonderful. No, I don't. But I understand. Like, yeah, like, right. But like, it's God, the guy just cannot. I mean, card could not catch a break. Yeah, that's why Venser is such a touchpoint for Karn throughout. We see Venser come up in Karn's thoughts the first time that we're in Karn's head.
00:52:18
Speaker
And also later, it's Ventser's spark that they use for the healing process. And Ventser was one of the people that Karn was closest to and was the guy who came looking for him when he crawled into his little depression pit. There's something deep in that friendship there, and it meant the world to Karn. And it was important for me to keep that at the forefront whenever I was writing him.
00:52:45
Speaker
I also do appreciate you kind of mentioning that the Fairy Carn kind of similarities or the responsibility piece that we also get this kind of, we've seen a little bit as time has been going on with basically repairing what was a really bad relationship to start with, just with how the Fairy treated Carn initially, basically as a toy and somebody to play games on and to harass.
00:53:14
Speaker
You know, that and that is the yeah. Artie Shovelhead is what he called him. I mean, yeah, character to fairy was was one of the things that actually was a hard part of the to learn Academy for car. To see them actually now working together and to be these growth characters, I really personally appreciate it. Yeah, it was honestly, I really love writing to fairy. He's very easy for me to write.
00:53:43
Speaker
especially now in his more fully realized form. But it was honestly a joy to get to write him showing up with the entire cavalry and realizing his life's dream for so many years.
00:53:58
Speaker
So I'm sorry I took this off on that Karn tangent. It was a good tangent. Last time that was one of the main area that I wanted to go deeper in. And like I said, part of that is just my identification with Karn and understanding that responsibility piece.
00:54:14
Speaker
I mean, as we're talking kind of like about Urza, the other area was it? Did he come up during the discussion of Elspeth in your stories? Yes. Okay. Because that was the other area that I think I really wanted to hit on from the stuff that you had outlined, Teia.
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah, one quick thing I'm using point from episode five is when cough is flinging everybody across the thing and we did get a card for it and it's a combat trick. I wish it would have been a planeswalker fling spell. It would have been great. You want to know what the funny thing is? That's actually a callback. That's not the first time Kyle has done that. Do you know what that's a callback to? No.
00:54:56
Speaker
It's a callback to quest for car, which I actually read in preparation for writing this, but, um, and quest for car and he does the same thing. He eats planes walkers. He eats Benzer that way actually. Oh, that's.
00:55:15
Speaker
Did not know that, that is awesome. Not a lot of people have been asked for cards. No. I did read it and I didn't remember that. Well, you memory hold it as you should have. Yeah, that in test a medal of both in memory. Yeah, so Elspeth. Something that had been talked about, I mean, I don't know, I had definitely seen this
00:55:44
Speaker
theories about Elspeth and potentially this next glow up of hers. And I'm curious how excited you were to write Elspeth. Oh, God, I did. I did a backflip. Are you kidding me?
Elspeth vs. Norn: Transformation and Symbolism
00:55:58
Speaker
I love Elspeth. She is my second favorite planeswalker behind Lilliana, who cannot be bested. I'm very sorry. But Elspeth is about as close as you can get.
00:56:11
Speaker
So as, again, somebody who has anxiety and has always been afraid, having a character that has always been her foible is that she's terrified of these things, but she keeps doing them anyway. And sometimes she runs away. She ran away from bed for quite some time. She's had these moments of very human weakness. So I was so excited to be able to explore those and to bring her arc to this conclusion here.
00:56:41
Speaker
the conclusion of Human Elspeth, shall we say, and to bring her to this next level and kind of confront all of that head on. So excited. Was using Sarah your idea?
00:56:55
Speaker
I am going to level with you. I don't remember because the thing is that I wrote this in kind of a fugue state. And we revised it a couple times. I think that I did have Sarah in the original draft. I'd have to pull it up to see. But this was actually the most free form of the episodes.
00:57:16
Speaker
I'm pretty sure my outline for it was like, Elspeth talks to some angels and they encourage her to do angel stuff and she's confronted with some moments from her past. And I passed it to the story team and they were like, yeah, that sounds great. It's on Dominaria, right? And then I wrote the chapter and they're like, this is not on Dominaria.
00:57:38
Speaker
But we're going to let it rock. That chapter is, I will say, hugely indebted to Martha Wells' stories in Dominaria, because she has this whole thing about Angel Sarah that's also really great.
00:57:55
Speaker
The idea of kind of like a young angel being born in an angel workshop borrows a lot from that. So the story wouldn't be here without that. I do think it's important to call that out. But I'm pretty sure Sarah was in the original. I'm pretty sure it feels like one of those things that I put in and I was like, there's no way they're going to let me get away with this. And then they did.
00:58:17
Speaker
But it could also be that they were like, make this Sarah. So I don't want to say either way, because I can't this episode just to me, it was just kind of fully formed from the outside. You know, that's, that's really cool. How that came together. See, I love hearing about process stuff like that. Yeah, that creative thing of just like, it's hard to even remember because it just the stories there. Yeah, for you.
00:58:45
Speaker
It's like, if I were to think of my magic legacy UTM, you know, a deck I would pay $10,000 for, I would say that I'm probably happiest so far with that Elspeth episode and that, you know, no matter what, I've got that and I'm extremely proud of that. I think I did great on it. But yeah, there's a lot to that Elspeth episode and it touches back on
00:59:13
Speaker
a wide range of magic's history because Elspeth is so directly tied to so much of it. And of course, Erza being a dick. You can't talk about magic history without confronting it, so. At least we're confronting it at this point. You know, I think that that was one of our
00:59:38
Speaker
you know this is going off a little bit but you know the return to to kind of the brother's war was it wasn't just like a whitewashing of history you know it wasn't just like we're gonna like we're gonna just retcon this that there's much better elements or things that yeah i but my brain like there was better reasons for why like there were reasons that are there but we didn't like make ursa into a good person it was just misunderstood or something like
01:00:08
Speaker
Ursa is still allowed to be a bad person and that is part of magic history. And I always, I just worry when we return to certain things that it's just kind of like, we need to make it better. And Brothers War I thought ran that line really well.
01:00:22
Speaker
Yeah, they had a hell of a tightrope, but they knocked it out of the park. I'm mixing sports metaphors, but it's fine. It's fine. People play baseball on tightropes. It definitely makes me watch it. Baseball's great, okay? I'm sorry, as a Puerto Rican from New York City, they have to defend the honor of baseball.
01:00:51
Speaker
Well, okay, but now, I mean, I have to ask Mets or Yankees for you. Yankees, obviously, God. Okay, this cast has ended.
01:01:01
Speaker
I have to tell you, the most patriotic thing I have- I can't believe I'm talking with a Mets fan. The only thing that's been the most patriotic thing I've ever gotten to be a part of is being in Boston for July 4th. And as the fireworks went off, the crowd swelled and joined each other in chanting Yankee suck. And I don't think I've been more proud of humanity in that moment. This is a family-friendly podcast. We're not for the laws of this land.
01:01:30
Speaker
You know, to be fair, I have seen games in old Yankee Stadium playoff games, and the best part of getting to see a game in those stadiums was when the Yankees lost to the Angels both times. You know what? We had a good run. We had a good run. This was really... Yeah.
01:01:55
Speaker
Can I interest you in Japanese baseball? Because the Hanshin Tigers are actually, I'll go on a whole digression, all right? I will add 20 minutes to this podcast right here talking about Hanshin Tigers deep lore if you let me and you should not.
01:02:14
Speaker
You know, the deepest I can get on Japanese lore is that there literally was a manga that basically parallels Shohei Otani's rise as the two-way athlete. And that's about as far as I know. He's incredible. Yeah, so I'm actually an Angels fan, so that's where mine is. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. Hatred of. You can be an Otani fan. I'll forgive that.
01:02:39
Speaker
Yes, we need we need to get back to Patrick because I will keep talking. This is. I would love to see the baseball plane. We need this like we need more sports. Yes, yes, I would I would love to write the baseball plane. I think it is my my birthright. Battle bond to Gavin Verhey, if you're paying attention, we not only need battle bond to we need story for it.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yes, yes. But yeah, I mean, if you guys want to talk more about the Elsewith episode, there's a lot to dig into there. Otherwise, that's fine. That's great.
01:03:18
Speaker
Well, I was actually going to, you know, ask about the next one. And it's when, you know, Elspeth shows up in the steel chair. Yeah. Yeah. Elish Nord just has a total breakdown and starts losing it. And he goes, you know, eventually slips. And, you know, as far as I know, for the first time is when he goes, you, I hate you and slips into the first person. You know, I just the way that Elish Nord loses it is
01:03:46
Speaker
It was fantastic to see it play out like that for a white aligned villain. Yeah, we always knew Norton was going to break down. And we always knew that it would happen in that episode during that confrontation with Elspeth. We knew that there would be a you're not so different section there and that.
01:04:03
Speaker
you know, that confrontation would happen. But I do want to point out that the switch from personal to well, secondary to personal was in fact a story team thing. And that actually came before I was done with I think I had done like episodes one through three. And they're like, we think this is a cool beat. Can you work it in? And I was like, that's sick. Yeah.
01:04:26
Speaker
So I worked it in, and I think it's a really great moment that encapsulates a lot of what's wrong with Alice Schnorn. I do feel bad for the translators who had to process that in different languages, so my bad. I have a lot of Japanese co-workers, and I was actually calling some of them over to
01:04:47
Speaker
tell me how they had worked on that translation in the Japanese version. And they were like, nobody speaks like this. What is this? You're having a sweet. So I could only imagine what it was like in other languages.
01:05:01
Speaker
But I think it does encapsulate a lot. And Norne has always been somebody who's obsessed with power, who's obsessed with, like Shale turned obsessed with power. But more than that, she's also obsessed with her image of herself, right? When we see Norne's annex, when we see Norne's anything, they look much more like her than any of the other Praetors peeps.
01:05:25
Speaker
look like them, right? There's this tendency within the white-aligned Phyrexians to be even more like a hive mind than they are in a lot of the other factions. So that's something that I wanted to play with and I wanted to highlight. And I wanted to have those cracks there from the very beginning with Shaildred, with, you know, attracts of questioning her a little, with Tomio being able to resist Phyresis a bit.
01:05:54
Speaker
Because, you know, you want to have lasting questions about this invasion, too, is how much of what happened in this invasion is norn, you know, being overreaching and deciding to invade a bajillion planes at once instead of going, hey, let's just mess up theros or something, you know? Like, you get the feeling that if they had tried to do this one by one, they would have been able to.
01:06:21
Speaker
proceed much more methodically and increase the ranks a lot more methodically. Instead, what you're left with is this kind of slipshot operation. How much of that is because Norn wants to project this unfailing idea of Phyrexia? How much is because Norn wants there to be this pluralization of Phyrexia?
01:06:43
Speaker
So when she sees Elspeth again after she thought she got rid of her in a way that really no one, no one could have accounted for that. It's this serious break for her. She doesn't know how to handle it.
Elish Norn's Downfall and Psychological Unraveling
01:06:59
Speaker
She's throwing a 404 there. Maniacal plan not found.
01:07:11
Speaker
Her trying to account for for Elspeth in some way is to like try to do things to draw Elspeth different directions, especially after the dream that she was kind of given by Ashiok, which shout out to Ashiok for saying multiverse, by the way, I was going to say, right, I have lots of questions about where Ashiok is. I've had them for a while, not not just now.
01:07:33
Speaker
ever since his card art or that, well, the card art for Ashiok has shown Bolas' meditation realm. And we don't know why Ashiok was really there. They're just having a great time. They're talking about machinations. Were they? It's just two pros chilling six feet apart in the meditation realm.
01:07:59
Speaker
With Ugin just sitting there shaking their head. Yeah, that's how it goes. I mean, but no, shout out to Ashiok. But I mean, like we saw those like that was kind of a cool thing. Like Norn was already just like really afraid of Elspeth. Right. That we know that she's terrified. She's terrified.
01:08:16
Speaker
She had these backup plans. She was like, okay, Atraxxi, you're going to mess up Kepenna so that if Elspeth goes back to Kepenna, it's in ruins. And Ajati, you're going to go mess up Theros, because if she goes back to Theros, then not only is Theros messed up, but you're also there. Could you work on getting Heliad on board in this too? I heard she hates him. The easiest getting on board ever.
01:08:48
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, she is so paranoid about this that she's made all of these backup plans. And the last thing that she expects is for Elspeth to just show up in the fair basilica. Like, who does that? Who would expect that? No one would expect that. And I think
01:09:06
Speaker
It's, you know, it's a bit like Macbeth, right? It's when Burnham Wood comes to Dunson Nade. It's when Macduff goes, Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped. You're just like, aw, hell. Just the prophecy is falling into place in ways that you thought there was no way that it could. You realize, you know, your feet are clay. Everything is coming down around you. You're desperately trying to get her onto your side because
01:09:33
Speaker
You know, there's not that much different between you and angels. You're kind of familiar with that at that point. And that's not working. What are you going to do? Yeah, I mean, I appreciated the basically descent into madness that we saw starting in this moment.
01:09:52
Speaker
But I mean pulling us all the way to episode nine when, you know, defeat is at her doorstep and she still is basically, you know, we're still going to last, like what we've done, what I built will last forever. Phyrexian will never die. You know, it's you're only delaying. You know, it's like there's just this this complete descent in like lack of
01:10:27
Speaker
you know, doesn't necessarily want to be the leader of anything. Like, it feels like interpersonal stuff is just not what he wants to do with his life. So, you know, Sheldred, Norn, whoever it is that's in charge of fine, whatever, as long as they're making logical choices. But... As long as he gets to do the science. Exactly. The science must continue. Exactly. But he's been trying to tell Norn this whole time.
01:10:36
Speaker
grip on reality that I appreciate also slips in the first person again. Yes.
01:10:54
Speaker
that she's being a bit of a boob. And she just doesn't want to listen. So I think like any STEM major, he just gets to a point where he's just trying to usurp the whole thing. And it was important, I think, too, to have that moment for Jenga Taksios, because he's the kind of guy that you would expect to be like, this is not working. What are you doing? None of this makes sense.
01:11:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And then we get another absolutely brutal Jenga Taxius card out of it too. Yep. I am never happy to see that guy hit the field. No, and Seanan has all three of him in her Nira deck now. Oh god.
01:11:42
Speaker
I actually, I pulled a, Shale drew the apocalypse, like the etched foil and everything. Oh cool. Yeah. It was like the first pack I opened from Dominaria United. I was just like, Oh, well, I'm retired. No more Dominaria United for me. I might as well, right? I'm still awesome. And nothing, nothing's met that high. It's like, maybe I'll find a Tolarian Academy. No, you don't. Nobody ever does. I think I need to, you know, wrap this up pretty soon, but
01:12:11
Speaker
I just want to say how much I appreciate Tyvar boasting when he jumps out of the water with the serpent's head. Yeah, that's such an important moment. I mean, honestly, it is because it's that moment where you've been holding your breath this whole time. And there was actually a lot more about holding your breath in episode two originally. No, actually,
01:12:38
Speaker
Wait, now I'm getting this wrong. There's a lot more about holding your breath in episode two now. The original version used a different metaphor, but it's holding your breath and realizing that everything is going to be okay. I know for me I've had moments where I've been anxious all day and a stupid song will come on shuffle and I can just feel it break.
01:13:03
Speaker
I can feel everything loosening up and thinking to myself, all right, we can deal. We're gonna get through this. And that's what that moment is. That's what that moment is, is for Tyvar. It's what that moment is for Pia. It's what that moment is for everyone. And having that moment of, he's not waiting to see how the war's gone. He's waiting to see if his brother's still there. It's these little moments that are the most vital parts of this story to me.
01:13:32
Speaker
And I know that we talked a lot about the conclusion and just the end, kind of the stakes that we get.
Conclusion and Farewell
01:13:41
Speaker
We are, as you said, I can't wait to hear the discussion of aftermath at the convention. I'm going to be very excited to hear more about that.
01:13:49
Speaker
But really, Kira, I just want to say thank you for coming back on again, going through the story with us, getting us kind of these moments that we had really wanted to dive deeper in because there were so many of them that stood out that, you know, as we were talking last time, an hour was not enough and an hour is not enough this time either. I mean, it's... I'm down for round three at some point. Did you want to talk after aftermath drops? Sure.
01:14:15
Speaker
Wow. Oh, my arm's being twisted. I don't want to do any of this. Oh, no. I mean, I got to overcome the trees and the Yankees now. It's two things. It's like a double win. Don't don't make me go over there. I thought I was like I thought I was going to be able to cope with the trees. I will bring you a Yankees cap. I will do it. So help me. God, I will do it. This is like the Midwestern version. Like I'm going to show you all. I'll I'll I'll show you. I'll bring you a gift.
01:14:46
Speaker
And you're going to be too impolite to not accept it. It will torture you.
01:14:56
Speaker
Well, y'all, thank you for joining us. We will be, like I said, we'll be, all of us that are here today, we'll be at Magic Con for Minneapolis, and we look forward to hopefully seeing some of you out there. And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatransense, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore Chronicler.
01:15:20
Speaker
Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lord pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
01:15:30
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood Gob's Hugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link from our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Gob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
01:15:58
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.