Magic: the Gathering Puzzle Quest, or Call Them the Whitewatch

Disgruntled_Catgirl

Four members of the Gatewatch, and four of the planewalkers most commonly featured in the narratives, arguably making them the protagonists of the whole game. Not depicted: black people, Asians, trans people, and representations.

//Removed 3rd Party Link, Added Pertinent Topic From Article -Brigby

Tourmaline

I don't think you should add a racial context to everything and enjoy it for what it is... a fantasy game 

//Removed Insult -Brigby

Thuran

Well, Gideon is Greek, Chandra is Indian, Koth is black, Sarkhan is Mongolian, Saheeli is Indian...so that is a start

Also, don't forget Chandra and nissa's are in a relationship (referenced during kaladesh)

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Mburn7

starfall said:

Thuran said:

Also, don't forget Chandra and nissa's are in a relationship (referenced during kaladesh)

Are they really? I didn't know that!

Its still more implicit than explicit, but yeah.  Read the Kaladesh (and Amonkhet) story if you're curious (also the stories are good anyway)

https://magic.wizards.com/en/story

ZW2007-

First of all, I'm an American and here we have Freedom of Speech so I'm all for you speaking your mind. However, this post needs to be taken down or edited. This is just a link to a website (most likely operated by OP) that contains an article that could just as easily have been copied and pasted into a forum post. As far as I am concerned, this is in violation of the forum rules. 

Forum Rules:

14. No spamming. This includes posting off-topic content, advertisements, low-content posts like lone emoticons, or any other posts that do not actually contribute information to the topic at hand (such as *bump* posts).

Specifically, the advertisement (as this is directing traffic to OP's website) and the low-content post sections of the rule. @Brigby

wereotter

Thuran said:

Well, Gideon is Greek, Chandra is Indian, Koth is black, Sarkhan is Mongolian, Saheeli is Indian...so that is a start

Also, don't forget Chandra and nissa's are in a relationship (referenced during kaladesh)

Oh but remember....according to this blog post, black representation doesn't count. That's why she coudn't take Koth, Sammut, or Teferi as an example of other races existing in the game... (also maybe Tezzeret? My friends and I haven't ever been able to determine if he's black. Some of his art has him looking like he is, and others not)

Also you forgot Huatli is Native American

Chandra I can see being overlooked, though, since she does look pretty white since her skin is pale and her hair is red.

wereotter

starfall said:

Thuran said:

Also, don't forget Chandra and nissa's are in a relationship (referenced during kaladesh)

Are they really? I didn't know that!

Yeah, they've been gruul friends for a while now

(I'll see myself out)

Mburn7

wereotter said:

starfall said:

Thuran said:

Also, don't forget Chandra and nissa's are in a relationship (referenced during kaladesh)

Are they really? I didn't know that!

Yeah, they've been gruul friends for a while now

(I'll see myself out)

*Insert I'm calling the Lawmages meme here*

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Brigby

*Removed 3rd party website link, however retained the context of the topic by quoting article thesis

OmegaLolrus

wereotter said:

starfall said:

Thuran said:

Also, don't forget Chandra and nissa's are in a relationship (referenced during kaladesh)

Are they really? I didn't know that!

Yeah, they've been gruul friends for a while now

(I'll see myself out)

*slow clap*

Most impressive.

FindingHeart8

Generally the developers of mtg are pretty progressive and put efforts into representing minority groups.  There's a transgender legendary hero in mtg, heroes of every ethnicity, almost every pirate in Ixalan was a female, I can go on but I think everyone gets the point.

The original accusation of this topic is very inaccurate.

wereotter

FindingHeart8 said:

Generally the developers of mtg are pretty progressive and put efforts into representing minority groups.  There's a transgender legendary hero in mtg, heroes of every ethnicity, almost every pirate in Ixalan was a female, I can go on but I think everyone gets the point.

The original accusation of this topic is very inaccurate.

Every legendary pirate was for sure, actually almost every important character in Ixalan period was female. Only male characters in the story of any note were Jace, Angrath, Mavren Fein, and Kumena. If anything, in recent years they've been over representing female characters. Look at the main players in Guilds of Ravnica

For male characters you have:

Ral Zarek
Lazav
Tajic

For female:

Aurelia (angel, yes, but since Amonkhet they've shown that angels are male/female)
Vraska
Etrata
Izoni
Trostani
Emmara

In Ravnica Alliegance it's even more imbalanced

Male:
Dovin Baan
Domri

Female:
Kaya

Vannifar
Teysa Karlov
Lavinia
Judith
Zegana
Nikya

One thing of note too for Ravnica, the only main male characters are previously existing people in the game, and four of the five were previously known inhabitants of Ravnica while Dovin was brought in from Kaladesh. Of the female characters, every single new character is female in addition to retaining the existing female characters and pulling in Kaya. Before that, of all the humanoid legendaries in Dominaria, 17 were female to 13 male. If anything the game has been majority-dominantly female as opposed to male.

OmegaLolrus

FindingHeart8 said:

Generally the developers of mtg are pretty progressive and put efforts into representing minority groups.  There's a transgender legendary hero in mtg, heroes of every ethnicity, almost every pirate in Ixalan was a female, I can go on but I think everyone gets the point.

The original accusation of this topic is very inaccurate.

And the one pirate character that wasn't a female was a freaking minotaur. But, out of curiosity, I broke it down. These may not add up to 100% because of rounding, but they're close enough for the internet:

White People: 48% (I counted Tezzeret in there, even though I think he's more a darker olive skinned individual. Same with Vraska.)

Super White People: 4% (Wow, never realized that the group that sealed the Eldrazi away was pretty much Pale Force.)

Black People: 12% (I apologize for lumping Ob Nixilis in here, but I don't think he deserved his own category. And he is about as black as they come... But I feel like Samut and Teferi, being as bad-**** as they are, balance that jerk's influence out.)

Blue People: 4% (That'll go up when Dovin, the Grand Arbiter inevitably hits, too.)

Shiny, Shiny Silver People: 2% (Poor Karn... all by himself.)

Native American People: 4% (I mean, seriously. At least Huatli has... herself... to keep herself company, I guess.)

Indian People: 8% (Saheeli and the Chandras... I realize she's fairer skinned, but she got her dad's looks and her mom's bad-arsitude.)

Chinese People: 6% (Sure, it's just Sarkhan, but he's nuts... He'll do a better job keeping himself company than Huatli will.)

Cat People: 6% (All Ajani... love that dude. He may be alone, but he probably grates his own cheese on those abs.)

Evil Dragon People: 4% (Stupid Bolas... he deserves to be alone. Bigger jerk than Obby.)

Good Dragon People: 0% (We got Sarkhan, Unbroken, could we pretty please get Bolas' much less handsome twin brother, please?)

Evil Colorless Abomination People: 2% (Ew... all the... the tentacles and... Yech. I didn't feel like Karn deserved to be lumped along with this pile of yuck.)

That's out of a total of 47 'walkers in the game. So what have I taken away from this? Well, strictly speaking of the Planeswalkers, the author of the article isn't 100% wrong. Could they use a little bit more varied representation? Sure. But there are a lot of really awesome characters that aren't Planeswalkers that represent a lot of really awesome cultures.

Also, please, please, please, Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon? I don't care about their stats half a ****, but I love those characters.

...

...man, I'm writing a lot of novels today on the forums.

Mburn7

@OmegaLolrus not the summary we deserved, but definitely the one we needed 

Only comment is Ob was a human before he became a Demon, and he does have one human card (Ob Nixlis of the Black Oath or something, one of the Planeswalker Commanders they came out with).  I guess you could figure out his race from that? 

Also, should Merfolk be their own category?  Or are they "blue folk" with the Vedalken?  Because that might skew your numbers a bit

FindingHeart8

OmegaLolrus said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Generally the developers of mtg are pretty progressive and put efforts into representing minority groups.  There's a transgender legendary hero in mtg, heroes of every ethnicity, almost every pirate in Ixalan was a female, I can go on but I think everyone gets the point.

The original accusation of this topic is very inaccurate.

And the one pirate character that wasn't a female was a freaking minotaur. But, out of curiosity, I broke it down. These may not add up to 100% because of rounding, but they're close enough for the internet:

White People: 48% (I counted Tezzeret in there, even though I think he's more a darker olive skinned individual. Same with Vraska.)

Super White People: 4% (Wow, never realized that the group that sealed the Eldrazi away was pretty much Pale Force.)

Black People: 12% (I apologize for lumping Ob Nixilis in here, but I don't think he deserved his own category. And he is about as black as they come... But I feel like Samut and Teferi, being as bad-tinykitty as they are, balance that jerk's influence out.)

Blue People: 4% (That'll go up when Dovin, the Grand Arbiter inevitably hits, too.)

Shiny, Shiny Silver People: 2% (Poor Karn... all by himself.)

Native American People: 4% (I mean, seriously. At least Huatli has... herself... to keep herself company, I guess.)

Indian People: 8% (Saheeli and the Chandras... I realize she's fairer skinned, but she got her dad's looks and her mom's bad-arsitude.)

Chinese People: 6% (Sure, it's just Sarkhan, but he's nuts... He'll do a better job keeping himself company than Huatli will.)

Cat People: 6% (All Ajani... love that dude. He may be alone, but he probably grates his own cheese on those abs.)

Evil Dragon People: 4% (Stupid Bolas... he deserves to be alone. Bigger jerk than Obby.)

Good Dragon People: 0% (We got Sarkhan, Unbroken, could we pretty please get Bolas' much less handsome twin brother, please?)

Evil Colorless Abomination People: 2% (Ew... all the... the tentacles and... Yech. I didn't feel like Karn deserved to be lumped along with this pile of yuck.)

That's out of a total of 47 'walkers in the game. So what have I taken away from this? Well, strictly speaking of the Planeswalkers, the author of the article isn't 100% wrong. Could they use a little bit more varied representation? Sure. But there are a lot of really awesome characters that aren't Planeswalkers that represent a lot of really awesome cultures.

Also, please, please, please, Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon? I don't care about their stats half a tinykitty, but I love those characters.

...

...man, I'm writing a lot of novels today on the forums.

Interesting analysis! Thanks for taking the time to do that, though I'm definitely going to debate you on Tezzeret being even close to white.  His art from the beginning had him mixed or black 

Vraskas ethnicity is open to interpretation lol

FindingHeart8

Here is a list of just the legendary females in mtg.  As you can see there's been a fair representation of women in mtg since the beginning:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-of-female-legends/

Note there probably isn't as much representation for specific ethnicities, but I think that's what they've been trying to do with the expansions to Amonkhet/Ixalan/etc

FindingHeart8

wereotter said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Generally the developers of mtg are pretty progressive and put efforts into representing minority groups.  There's a transgender legendary hero in mtg, heroes of every ethnicity, almost every pirate in Ixalan was a female, I can go on but I think everyone gets the point.

The original accusation of this topic is very inaccurate.

Every legendary pirate was for sure, actually almost every important character in Ixalan period was female. Only male characters in the story of any note were Jace, Angrath, Mavren Fein, and Kumena. If anything, in recent years they've been over representing female characters. Look at the main players in Guilds of Ravnica

For male characters you have:

Ral Zarek
Lazav
Tajic

For female:

Aurelia (angel, yes, but since Amonkhet they've shown that angels are male/female)
Vraska
Etrata
Izoni
Trostani
Emmara

In Ravnica Alliegance it's even more imbalanced

Male:
Dovin Baan
Domri

Female:
Kaya

Vannifar
Teysa Karlov
Lavinia
Judith
Zegana
Nikya

One thing of note too for Ravnica, the only main male characters are previously existing people in the game, and four of the five were previously known inhabitants of Ravnica while Dovin was brought in from Kaladesh. Of the female characters, every single new character is female in addition to retaining the existing female characters and pulling in Kaya. Before that, of all the humanoid legendaries in Dominaria, 17 were female to 13 male. If anything the game has been majority-dominantly female as opposed to male.

Good points!

Yeah I heard there was a public announcement from the developers recently about the imbalance, in an effort to get more women playing the game.

Mburn7

FindingHeart8 said:

wereotter said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Generally the developers of mtg are pretty progressive and put efforts into representing minority groups.  There's a transgender legendary hero in mtg, heroes of every ethnicity, almost every pirate in Ixalan was a female, I can go on but I think everyone gets the point.

The original accusation of this topic is very inaccurate.

Every legendary pirate was for sure, actually almost every important character in Ixalan period was female. Only male characters in the story of any note were Jace, Angrath, Mavren Fein, and Kumena. If anything, in recent years they've been over representing female characters. Look at the main players in Guilds of Ravnica

For male characters you have:

Ral Zarek
Lazav
Tajic

For female:

Aurelia (angel, yes, but since Amonkhet they've shown that angels are male/female)
Vraska
Etrata
Izoni
Trostani
Emmara

In Ravnica Alliegance it's even more imbalanced

Male:
Dovin Baan
Domri

Female:
Kaya

Vannifar
Teysa Karlov
Lavinia
Judith
Zegana
Nikya

One thing of note too for Ravnica, the only main male characters are previously existing people in the game, and four of the five were previously known inhabitants of Ravnica while Dovin was brought in from Kaladesh. Of the female characters, every single new character is female in addition to retaining the existing female characters and pulling in Kaya. Before that, of all the humanoid legendaries in Dominaria, 17 were female to 13 male. If anything the game has been majority-dominantly female as opposed to male.

Good points!

Yeah I heard there was a public announcement from the developers recently about the imbalance, in an effort to get more women playing the game.

Yeah, I think it was during Ixalan at some point.  Basically because historically most major characters are Men, Wizards is focusing on making more Women characters to try and "catch up" a bit.  I bet it'll even back out in a year or two.  It is definitely a progressive step by a company in an industry that is almost always the opposite.

NinjaE

This has very little to do with MPQ and more to do with MtG, as Wizards determines what cards are printed. If you have complaints about distribution in cards, you really should take them to Wizards of the Coast.