Not as I do
April 10th 2011 00:55
One quick final aside: The Phyrexians are villains. The corruption of Mirrodin is not supposed to be a happy thing. What has happened is truly evil and awful, but the goal of this block was to reintroduce the Phyrexians as villains and establish that they are truly a malevolent force in the multiverse.
-- Mark Rosewater, ”The Untold Story (Well, Until Today)”
Thanks, Mark. We might not have gotten that the faction of H.R. Giger biomech types with a religion that involves sewing people together were the villains of the piece unless you told us explicitly. Well, time to sign off . . .
. . . or perhaps not. I’m curious about what is actually going on here. Consider that Rosewater literally created New Phyrexia. He was partly responsible for the story of their civilization’s resurrection on Mirrodin, and for the marketing gimmicks that encouraged us to be invested in the outcome of the war. He’s been Phyrexia’s number one spokesman on the website and on Twitter. He worked hard to make them interesting both in gameplay and in lore, and now he’s the one turning around and delivering a moral lesson about why you shouldn’t like them.
Why, then, were they even a choice in the first place? Nobody forced them to tell the story from both sides’ points of view. This is like Ed Boon getting on his Twitter account to talk about how a ninja whose signature move involves pulling his opponent’s spine out of their body with his bare hands isn’t a positive role model.
Nobody with half a brain genuinely thinks that Phyrexia is good, or that its philosophy is correct or beneficial. And crucially, I don’t believe that Rosewater, or anybody inside Wizards of the Coast, actually thinks that anyone thinks that. I see no evidence that they’re really concerned about their players’ moral alignment - if they were, they would have much stronger regulations against cheating and timewasting at tournaments.
No, I think this is the kind of jealousy and possessiveness you sometimes see from authors. “I know what I want this story to be about, and I know everything that everyone could possibly see in it. Don’t you dare perceive anything different.” There are plenty of writers out there who think that putting a warning on their website that they don’t allow fan fiction will actually do anything to stop it, which is really the same problem. It’s too bad Rosewater went this way, because in New Phyrexia he contributed to creating something that’s more interesting than a lot of the one-dimensional fantasy writing out there right now. On the other hand, once the cards are on the shelves, he can’t call them back, and there’s no way to stop us from enjoying them however we want to.
-- Mark Rosewater, ”The Untold Story (Well, Until Today)”
Thanks, Mark. We might not have gotten that the faction of H.R. Giger biomech types with a religion that involves sewing people together were the villains of the piece unless you told us explicitly. Well, time to sign off . . .
. . . or perhaps not. I’m curious about what is actually going on here. Consider that Rosewater literally created New Phyrexia. He was partly responsible for the story of their civilization’s resurrection on Mirrodin, and for the marketing gimmicks that encouraged us to be invested in the outcome of the war. He’s been Phyrexia’s number one spokesman on the website and on Twitter. He worked hard to make them interesting both in gameplay and in lore, and now he’s the one turning around and delivering a moral lesson about why you shouldn’t like them.
Why, then, were they even a choice in the first place? Nobody forced them to tell the story from both sides’ points of view. This is like Ed Boon getting on his Twitter account to talk about how a ninja whose signature move involves pulling his opponent’s spine out of their body with his bare hands isn’t a positive role model.
Nobody with half a brain genuinely thinks that Phyrexia is good, or that its philosophy is correct or beneficial. And crucially, I don’t believe that Rosewater, or anybody inside Wizards of the Coast, actually thinks that anyone thinks that. I see no evidence that they’re really concerned about their players’ moral alignment - if they were, they would have much stronger regulations against cheating and timewasting at tournaments.
No, I think this is the kind of jealousy and possessiveness you sometimes see from authors. “I know what I want this story to be about, and I know everything that everyone could possibly see in it. Don’t you dare perceive anything different.” There are plenty of writers out there who think that putting a warning on their website that they don’t allow fan fiction will actually do anything to stop it, which is really the same problem. It’s too bad Rosewater went this way, because in New Phyrexia he contributed to creating something that’s more interesting than a lot of the one-dimensional fantasy writing out there right now. On the other hand, once the cards are on the shelves, he can’t call them back, and there’s no way to stop us from enjoying them however we want to.
| 20 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
