Darkness falls
September 19th 2009 01:40
By now, you’ve probably noticed a particular subtheme in the official Zendikar previews.
Zendikar is the first Magic set in which vampires have a unique visual style that unifies them as a “tribe,” and a significantly-developed culture in the world’s lore. Vampires have appeared in many Magic sets in the past, but usually at a rate of only about one or two per expansion, and were almost stand-alone characters with less of a flavor connection to the rest of the set.
Cynical marketing? Magic’s new vampires come hard on the heels of Twilight, and we’ve all heard the lame jokes about how premium copies of Sorin Markov will sparkle in the sunlight. But suggestions that the two events are connected are severely misplaced – it only looks like they’re connected if you consider the last couple of headlines on the page like a good little YouTube viewer. Before Twilight, there was Underworld. Before that, there was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Before that, there was Interview with the Vampire. Before that, there was Dark Shadows. And all the time, there were more movie portrayals of Count Dracula than I can even count. The question of “why did Magic do this now?” might be less pertinent than “what took Magic so long?”
In reality, all Twilight did was introduce vampires to a younger audience than would have participated in the past: people have been fascinated with these creatures more or less since the beginning of popular culture, as they stand on the junction of immortality and oblivion, freedom and danger, power and sex, instinct and culture. The imminent release of the first Magic set with a major focus on them strongly suggests that the game is moving towards stories told for adults, by adults. And that, as they say in the boardroom, is smart marketing.
Zendikar is the first Magic set in which vampires have a unique visual style that unifies them as a “tribe,” and a significantly-developed culture in the world’s lore. Vampires have appeared in many Magic sets in the past, but usually at a rate of only about one or two per expansion, and were almost stand-alone characters with less of a flavor connection to the rest of the set.
If you prefer Dungeons and Dragons terms, you could say the creature type has moved from high-level challenge monster to playable race.
Cynical marketing? Magic’s new vampires come hard on the heels of Twilight, and we’ve all heard the lame jokes about how premium copies of Sorin Markov will sparkle in the sunlight. But suggestions that the two events are connected are severely misplaced – it only looks like they’re connected if you consider the last couple of headlines on the page like a good little YouTube viewer. Before Twilight, there was Underworld. Before that, there was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Before that, there was Interview with the Vampire. Before that, there was Dark Shadows. And all the time, there were more movie portrayals of Count Dracula than I can even count. The question of “why did Magic do this now?” might be less pertinent than “what took Magic so long?”
The Ghet clan has an entirely different set of goals and methods than the Cullen family, to say the very least.
In reality, all Twilight did was introduce vampires to a younger audience than would have participated in the past: people have been fascinated with these creatures more or less since the beginning of popular culture, as they stand on the junction of immortality and oblivion, freedom and danger, power and sex, instinct and culture. The imminent release of the first Magic set with a major focus on them strongly suggests that the game is moving towards stories told for adults, by adults. And that, as they say in the boardroom, is smart marketing.
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