Magic: The Gathering/Analysis: Difference between revisions

=== Colour misconceptions ===

 

 

The first colour usually to be mentioned is '''White'''. White is easily seen as the "good colour", because it is the colour of law; it concerns itself about other people, focusing on forming a community. Its ultimate goal is peace, and besides, its elemental domain is light, [[Light Is Good|which people see as good]]. However, while White is well-intentioned, calling its methods "good" is... an arguably inaccurate description. To keep the peace, White believes that it has to control its community, and as such, it uses laws and structure to do so; because White is more focused on the group than the individual, it finds satisfying the desires of every single citizen to be too expensive in terms of time and resources, and so it uses its laws to restrict personal freedoms. Individuality is absolutely loathed by White, because it sees it as the producer of conflicts. Therefore, White tries to eliminate individuality to the greatest possible extent; it will readily discriminate against ideas and actions for the sake of them being unpopular or perceiving them as being too individualistic, even if they're largely harmless. The end result is that White, while caring about the community, doesn't care about the individual, and as such gladly sacrifices freedom for peace (hence why systems like fascism and communism are essentially White in nature); White sometimes even sacrifices individuals for the sake of the group. And because it sees its philosophy as superior, and willingly destroys those that oppose it, it is also essentially xenophobic. White is obviously the colour most interested in spreading its philosophy, and depending on who you ask, it may either do so by converting other people to its cause, or by being fiercely elitistic and eliminating its opponents. In war, it is lethally efficient, being a master of strategy and organized armies, which it uses to crush its enemies; it has a strict policy of "killing first, asking questions later". Combined with its black and white view of the world (derived from its focus on morality; whoever strays from it is considered evil), it is very easy to argue that White is far more extremistic than it is benevolent, even if that comes across more as [[Lawful Stupid]] than [[Lawful Evil]] (note that all Lawful alignments are possible within White). So, White can produce a rabid [[Knight Templar]] just as easily as it can produce a noble hero, because [[Light Is Not Good|its light isn't always good]].

=== Horror tropes outside of Black ===

 

 

''White'':

 

''Red'':

* [[Mad Artist]]

* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]

* [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]]

* [[The Unfettered]]

 

''Green'':

* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]

* [[Fauns and Satyrs]]

* [[Gaia's Vengeance]]

* BLUE: White and Blue are allies because they both believe in the common good and in creating improvements in the world, Blue through science and White by focusing on the public good. Having said that, White accomplishes this by implementing laws and regulations, whereas Blue uses technology to improve individuals; one offers police officers, the other plastic surgeons. White and Blue tends to have a lot of "answers;" almost any spell you can play, White and Blue can interfere with somehow. Having said that, Blue tends to strike pre-emptively with [[Anti-Magic|counterspells]] whereas White uses [[Power Nullifier|Power Nullifiers]] after the fact. Plus, counterspells are ''expensive''; White's answers are cheaper but, like most Power Nullifiers, can be removed again, or [[Balance Between Good and Evil|give you something to compensate for your loss]] if it results in a permanent change.

** White/Blue are also the colors of community and society. The laws of white united with the rationality of blue. However Blue/White is the color of [[Lawful Neutral]] and [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]], examples the Azorius in Dissension and the Vogons from ''~The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy~''.

** Ozymandias in [[Watchmen]]. He mixes Blue rationality, {{spoiler|deception}} and praticality with White altruism {{spoiler|and [[Knight Templar]] thinking}}.

* BLACK: White and Black are "enemy colors" not just because of the laws of chromaticism, but because their ideologies are utterly different. White is all about [[The Needs of the Many]], whereas Black believes "[[It's All About Me]]" and is willing to destroy ''anything'' to get itself ahead. Black believes in protecting its individual ambitions from the world, White in protecting the world from individual ambitions. As such, White doesn't call Black "[[Selfish Evil]]"; to White, Selfish ''is'' Evil, making the second word [[Redundant Department of Redundancy|largely redundant]]. In the same vein, Black just calls White "Lawful" because, to Black's way of thinking, [[Lawful Stupid|Lawful implies Stupid]]. Long story short, [[The Fettered|Fettered]] vs [[The Unfettered|Unfettered]]. Are you surprised they can't get along?

*** In Ravnica, the Orzhov Syndicate produced the heroine Teysa Karlov, but has commited many atrocities as well.

*** Likewise, in Innistrad, Sorin Markov's ties of responsibility to the humans of his home bleed him into black/white, and arguably makes him the [[Big Good]] of the whole plane.

*** [[Fullmetal Alchemist|Greed]] is unambiguously selfish and ambitious, but does have a sense of honour and concern for his "possession".

*** [[Scrooge McDuck]] is consistently depicted as selfish but honourable, making him the most iconic examle of a Black/White Disney character ever.

* RED: White opposes Red for similar reasons as it does Black. White understands the strength of putting away its emotions; Red is ruled by nothing else. White thinks Red is [[Chaotic Selfish]], too obsessed with its own pleasure to be trustworthy. For its part, Red sees White as needlessly controlling and doesn't like all the annoying little rules White uses to harsh Red's mellow. White, with its aforementioned specialty in Power Nullifiers, can impose a lot of new rules on players; Red has all the spells that ''bend'' the rules (f'ex, "Spell which used to target [X] now targets something else, which you get to choose"). [[Order Versus Chaos]], long story short.

** White/Red cards tend to be about the middle ground of Red's emotion and White's determination - taking an emotion and harnessing it to a greater cause. The Red/White Boros guild has some prime examples involving martial zeal and loyalty, but other emotions work as well. In short, Red/White is [[The Kirk]] to white's Spock and red's McCoy, able to use the strengths of both philosophies. Interestingly, Red/White almost always uses hybrid means for White-like goals, rarely Red-like goals.

*** Another good example, the Mirran Resistance in the Scars of Mirrodin block, fueled by both devotion to their cause, and defiance to the ever-increasing Phyrexian influence on the world. This leads to the few surviving uncorrupted mirrans to keep from losing hope of a pure Mirrodin once again by remaining defiant to the new Phyrexian rule reinforced by a staunch belief that even in this state they can reclaim their home. In short, this color combination can create a ''really'' stubborn [[Determinator]].

*** An example of the Duality of Red/White is to Compare Alucard and The Major from [[Hellsing]], both are Red/White Charcters but in opposite directions. Alucard uses his Red bloodlust to atains Whites peace of a vampire free England; whereas the Major uses Whites organization to spend 50 years preparing for a Red bloody war.

* GREEN: White and Green are both concerned with community. Green is all about keeping everything strong, but also encourages [[The Social Darwinist|Social Darwinism]], which is why it has a [[Badass Army]] and single-target [[Status Buff|Status Buffs]] which make individual creatures stronger. In comparison, White cares about the [[Littlest Cancer Patient]]; it has a [[Redshirt Army]] and use large global buffs to make them ''all'' stronger. What with all the pumping, though, white/green tends to have a ''scary'' ever-growing army when it's done.

** The human resistance in Innistrad is a good example. The humans are fighting for survival against the monsters, and where Green has all the general buffs, White has more cards that get stronger with more humans, along with more cards that incapacitate creatures.

** The Body Snatchers in ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]'' are, as [[Word of God|Mark Rosewater]] put it, "aliens on a mission". They operate as a collective if not an outright [[Hive Mind]], they're communist allegories, and they look like plants.

** '''[[Friedrich Nietzsche]]''' personifies the worst attributes of Green and White in the Last Man, combining Whites emphasis on conformism and lack of any personal ambition with Greens dislike of thinking and creating to create a being devoid of the will or vision to imrpove or stand out.

 

'''BLUE'''

** Innistrad's zombies are Blue/Black; the Blue zombies are Frankenstein's-monster-type skaab, and they tend to be stronger at the cost of discarding cards or requiring certain cards in the graveyard. Black has the more standard [[Zombie Apocalypse]] cards, which tend to be slower but inexorable. Where Blue can pull out 6/9 zombies, Black can get four 2/2s.

** [[Harry Potter|Serverus Snape]] is a [[Dark Is Not Evil|sympathetic]] example: he is what you get when you add Blue methods to a [[Byronic Hero]].

**** Mark Rosewater has listed [[Superman|Lex Luthor]], [[Star Trek|The Borg]], [[Harry Potter|Rita Skeeter]] and [[Family Guy|Stewie]] as examples of blue-black colored characters.

* RED: Blue and Red fall on opposite sides of the [[Emotions vs. Stoicism]] spectrum. One's passionate, one's logical; one uses fire, the other uses ice; one's-- Look, do we really need to spell this out? Blue has all the poker-face spells, the ones that win games but only if you have the skill to use them; Red, on the other hand, has all the spells that involve the [[Random Number God]].

*** The Izzet Guild in Ravnica is mostly [[Chaotic Neutral]], which a few bad and good apples.

*** Actually Blue/Red is very common; it is the main colour combination associated with arts, with Red providing the passion and Blue perfection.

*** The best traits of a Red/Blue mixture would be the Ubermensch as talked about by '''[[Friedrich Nietzsche]]''' , combining Blues desire to innovate and improve with Reds emphasis on emotion as well as indiviuality and self-expression. Perhaps fitting enough, [[Word of God|Mark Rosewater]] considers the Red/Blue mixture to be opposed to the Green/White mixture, something fitting as Nietzsche also essencially contrasts both (see above). Whereas one supports ultimate conformity, the other supports ultimate individuality.

*** Examples listed as blue-red by Mark Rosewater include [[Back to The Future|Doc Brown]], [[Indiana Jones]], [[Angel|Fred]] and [[Dr. Seuss]].

** Blue/Green, like some other hybrids, involves mixing one color's ends and another's means. More often, Blue more or less forcibly subjugates Green - dragging it to greatness whether it wants it or not - although Green sometimes appreciates the potential for power. Green, however, is not alien to the concept of learning and wisdom. (One of the most noteworthy historians in the game, [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74604 Reki the History of Kamigawa], was Green.) This sort of "[[Closer to Earth|natural wisdom]]" generally manifests as bluish effects on Green cards, but it can cross over into full-on hybrids.

** Another common blue/green hybrid connects green to blue's small but still-present natural side in the form of water. Selkies and feral water-folk from Shadowmoor, humidity-loving [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29304 jungle foliage], and natural springs of [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25832 time-twisting water] use green means for blue effects.

 

'''BLACK'''

*** Notably, Ravnica's Golgari Swarm is one of the few Black guilds to produce a hero - [[Papa Wolf|and a damn caring one at that.]]

*** As someone who identifies strongly with Black/Green, I'd like to chime in here. This intersection of colors is the fullness of the cycle of nature and all of it's complexities. It embodies both life and death, all living things die, but from that death new life comes. It also embraces the entirety of nature...not simply strong beasts, but the worms, the parasites, the bacteria, the mold and fungus. Every form of life is accepted by Black/Green. And for the treatment/consideration of others... Black cares for the self, Green cares for the group. Black/Green cares for both...Black/Green doesn't think about "Me" and "My team": It thinks about "Me and my team." It does what's good for itself and for it's Nakama, it betters itself, but tries to do that in ways that help it's allies. Another bit of harmony between black/green is that it doesn't waste anything. Black sees everything as a resource, and so everything can be used. With Green mixed in, everything can be used then re-used. A creature can be played, then sacrificed, then recovered, only to be played and even sacrificed again, only to be recovered again later. The other half of [[Soylent Green]] is Black.

 

'''RED'''

** Innistrad's werewolves are Red/Green. Although both colors have similar effects, the Red werewolves are almost exclusively humans from the city, while many of the Green ones are pagans, hunters, and people closer to nature.

** Mark Rosewater considers [[The Hulk]], [[The Muppets|Animal]], [[Peter Pan|Tinkerbell]] and [[Seinfeld|Cosmo Kramer]] to be prime examples of red-green characters.