Alesha, Who Smiles At Death is MTGs first trans character

[Richard Cheese]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/uncharted-realms/truth-names-2015-01-28



Alesha nodded and stepped close to the nameless orc. She grabbed the edge of his armored collar and pulled his head down, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

"I know who I am. I am not a boy. I am Alesha, like my grandmother before me."

Several of the nearest warriors murmured their approval.


I like it.

[Barook]

Quite frankly: Who cares? I hate that kind of corporate pandering, pretending to be "progressive".

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm going to leave this thread here for now with the somewhat optimistic request that it not turn into a shitshow.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm going to leave this thread here for now with the somewhat optimistic request that it not turn into a shitshow.

Ugh, sorry. That's exactly what I was afraid would happen, but I just hoped we'd be civil for once.

Who knows, maybe it is just "pandering" to the extremely lucrative transgender fantasy/gaming enthusiast demographic, but given that it's generally safer for a corporate entitey to entirely avoid race, religion, or sex, I was kinda hoping this is something a little more genuine.

Maybe it's just that they recognize that magic attracts all kinds of people, and this is just a little nod to say "doesn't matter who you are, you're one of us". Or maybe I'm over thinking it and it really is just a PR move.

[danyul]

You might call it "corporate pandering" but I'd call it "being nice"? Marvel has introduced reimaginings of popular characters outside of their traditionally White Male roles (Thor is a woman, Spiderman is Black/Hispanic, one of the Spiderwomen is a lesbian, Ms. Marvel is Muslim, and of course Nick Fury is Black) and I think it's awesome that this kind of mindset is expanding to other nerd realms.

The "who cares?" mentality is childish. People care. If you don't care, then either way (minority character vs non-minority character) you should just...be quite over there. For people to whom those characters are reflections of themselves, they do care. Very much. For every transgender kid, or Hispanic kid, or FEMALE kid, or whatever, seeing heroes and characters that *look like you* really does matter, especially when almost all of the "heroes" we grew up on really, really, really do not look a damn thing like us.

If you grew up White, male, and generally oblivious to the very real ways that race and media interact, then this may seem like a "who cares" scenario. But for the rest of us, these things matter.

I think WOTC gets +10 Gryffindor points for this move. And I think other companies with entrenched heroes, or heroes with flexible identities, should follow suit. It's not "pretending" to be progressive. It's actually...*being* progressive.

[Phelix]

I personally will give one of my griffindor points for this.

I care.

Not honeybadger on the subject

[Ace/Homebrew]

Good post
Danyul is right! It can be little things like this that raise awareness and acceptance. And it is a big deal for people struggling with gender identity to see positive (or even neutral) characters they can relate to.

Up until a few years ago I would snicker or joke about seeing a trans person. It wasn't done out of hate, but I think I'm funny and have had little exposure to anyone trans.

Turns out they are people like anyone else and deserve the same level of respect and politeness.

It took me some time to use the proper gender pronouns, but it is stuff like the story in the WotC article that helped me. Way to go Wizards! :smile:

[TsumiBand]

I had to read the story twice because I missed the reference - at first I just thought it was one of those stories where a woman dressed as a man to perform a role the others would not have allowed her to engage.

Well, good on 'em.

The best statements are generally 'loud silence' in my opinion, xample - the DS9 episode Rejoined where no one comments on the same-sex nature of the relationship (there's still a taboo in play but it isn't the w4w aspect, it's the whole "no lovers from your past lives" thing) and no one even really bats an eyelash. There's not really a way to do that with a card game, so if MtG wants to adopt an inclusive stance, they'll have to actually tell the story, somehow.

[Quasim0ff]

It actually is quite large, considering the general attitude in the Magic community, regarding females playing the game. (Anyone remember how Melissa DeTora etc. had to put up with all kind of bullshit earlier?)

I find it a nice gesture.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Quite frankly: Who cares? I hate that kind of corporate pandering, pretending to be "progressive".

Pretty much. The shift in the left from a class-driven narrative to an identity-driven one has been a boon for corporations and other entrenched power structures, allowing them a means to redirect any ire towards them onto some ill-defined group of "bigots". Instead of fighting against the interests of the moneyed elite, people waste their time fuming on snarkerati shitblogs like Gawker, going through the two-minutes-hate whenever somebody, somewhere says something impure, and NOT OKAY!

[maharis]

Pretty much. The shift in the left from a class-driven narrative to an identity-driven one has been a boon for corporations and other entrenched power structures, allowing them a means to redirect any ire towards them onto some ill-defined group of "bigots". Instead of fighting against the interests of the moneyed elite, people waste their time fuming on snarkerati shitblogs like Gawker, going through the two-minutes-hate whenever somebody, somewhere says something impure, and NOT OKAY!

Somebody read Jonathan Chait this week

[danyul]

I'm not gonna post anything else in this thread because I can tell I will just get pissed at some of you who seem to be a rather close-minded. But I'll just say this: if a little bit of diversity makes you upset, then you are gross and could benefit from some self-reflection.

[nedleeds]

I thought Ertai was first ... but I'm hopelessly naive.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ex/33.jpg

[Richard Cheese]

Pretty much. The shift in the left from a class-driven narrative to an identity-driven one has been a boon for corporations and other entrenched power structures, allowing them a means to redirect any ire towards them onto some ill-defined group of "bigots". Instead of fighting against the interests of the moneyed elite, people waste their time fuming on snarkerati shitblogs like Gawker, going through the two-minutes-hate whenever somebody, somewhere says something impure, and NOT OKAY!

So you're saying this is just WotC/Hasbro trying to distract players from record profits or something? I'm not seeing who the "bigots" are in this scenario though...people that are uncomfortable with a fictional transgender character?

[nedleeds]

Technically Mistform Ultimus came first as the first legend ... it's omnigender.

[Richard Cheese]

I thought Ertai was first ... but I'm hopelessly naive.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ex/33.jpg

Nah, according to the Salvation Wiki, he's just a dude...who apparently got it on with a cyborg elf? The storyline of Magic is some silly shit sometimes.

[nedleeds]

We've had characters have sexual relations with a cat and people care about this. Seems in-congruent.

[thecrav]

I say "who cares" but I say it for different reasons than the ones that are being assumed further up. I guess when I say "who cares" I really mean "I don't care." I don't care because I have no problem with a character being trans (or anything else for that matter) and I think it's pretty ridiculous that someone would.


But I'll just say this: if a little bit of diversity makes you upset, then you are gross and could benefit from some self-reflection.

[Barook]

Nah, according to the Salvation Wiki, he's just a dude...who apparently got it on with a cyborg elf? The storyline of Magic is some silly shit sometimes.
Note that the Nemesis book is regarded as one of the best MtG books. Which is kinda telling how bad the rest is.

IIRC, it went like this: Eldamri's daughter got killed and turned into a cyborg called Belbe, which the captured Ertai boned while he tried to make the best out of his situation - to become the next Evincar of Rath. In the end, he lost to Vampire Crovax (who now was on roids for no apperant reasons) and Belbe got killed by Eldamri/his troops who had no idea who she was. At that point, Ertai lost all hope and turned himself into Ertai, the Corrupted.


We've had characters have sexual relations with a cat and people care about this.
A cat is fine, too. But who was that?

In the end, Alesha is highly likely to be a throwaway side character with no impact on anything since we're in the long-gone past. Unless they pull off a "Hey, that character got a spark off-screen to be relevant again" if the character gets popular.

[nedleeds]

I thought somebody nailed Mirri. Maybe I'm wrong. Or perverted.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaQFC0h91zQ

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Pretty much. The shift in the left from a class-driven narrative to an identity-driven one has been a boon for corporations and other entrenched power structures, allowing them a means to redirect any ire towards them onto some ill-defined group of "bigots". Instead of fighting against the interests of the moneyed elite, people waste their time fuming on snarkerati shitblogs like Gawker, going through the two-minutes-hate whenever somebody, somewhere says something impure, and NOT OKAY!

Very well put.

[TsumiBand]

Pretty much. The shift in the left from a class-driven narrative to an identity-driven one has been a boon for corporations and other entrenched power structures, allowing them a means to redirect any ire towards them onto some ill-defined group of "bigots". Instead of fighting against the interests of the moneyed elite, people waste their time fuming on snarkerati shitblogs like Gawker, going through the two-minutes-hate whenever somebody, somewhere says something impure, and NOT OKAY!

Fft, is it though?

I mean, the mere mention of Gawker just makes this sound like someone doesn't like the shit that shows up in their Facebook feed and then uses ellipsis logic to suggest that internet trolls are the rudder on the political narrative. As if a wash of 15 year olds that just learned to copypaste from Wikipedia are convincing dyed-in-the-wool straight-ticket voters to lean harder, or something.

I hear your complaint, I do, but I just think the scope of the narrative goes a little further than all that.

Also I think the scope of this narrative is much smaller than that. Alesha, Who Smiles At Gender Identity is still just a Magic card. The fact is, any group of individuals can point at other individuals in the game and say, "Why do they even bother printing [fffzzzzt] characters at all? I mean who cares. I don't care. So it must be stupid."

It's still ultimately just storyline fluff anyway, right - it's no more central to the storyline than JK Rowling letting everyone know that Dumbledore was gay. Sure okay fine - there are no movie scenes dedicated to Albus Dumbledore and the Lemon Party at Godric's Hollow, and there are no game mechanics that check under anyone's skirt for whether they're who they said they are.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

It's more about conformism than anything else. The nowadays trend is "it's cool to be different" without any further thought on the particular difference. Both the corporations and common people are jumping on the train because of the herd mind, as they don't want to be different from the majority that celebretas difference as if it's valueable on its very own. Just like the people of yesteryears believed in flat earth, flogeston or w/e other misconception or superstition, nowadays throng celebrates diversity just because. Would be pretty boring if not for the fact that it spoils public space with all kinds of bizzare and incomprehensible stuff, be it gay wizards or bearded female vocalist.

Brought to you by New Left since 1960's.


And...
Inb4: "but their lgbt identity is central to them just like your straight identity is central to yours so you must accept that". Yeah, but their fictious persons, right? So it was a willing decision to make them as such, one that has either an agenda behind, or at least expects admission.
Inb4: "but you must be a biggot gibbon to hate them". Not hating anyone, I'm simply uninterested in 24/7 propaganda of diversity for diversity alone. Moreover I question the reasons behind this flood of minority heroes. Seeing what kind of people most often support these ideas, I'm more than sure that their real reasons are obscure and weird.

[barcode]

Good for Wizards and a hearty "Go fuck yourself" for others trying to shit on someone else's hero parade.

[phonics]

We've had characters have sexual relations with a cat and people care about this. Seems in-congruent.

This. In reality no one should care because her being whatever gender is a complete non issue to both the lore (in terms of being unprecedented) and the game. I mean the game has beings of different species, universes and dimensions getting along but the moment they put a trans character in people say its progressive. I would say it panders more to social progressives than the actual lgbt community, which is actually just a fraction of the population that is overrepresented in national political discourse. Inclusiveness would be to treat them no differently than anyone else, whereas now the character is very much defined by her being trans. No one cares about whether or not Emrakul used to be a girl/guy/whatever.

[Barook]

I think the problem with these kind of characters is that their defining (and only) trait is their sexuality.

Characters are basically reduced to whatever minority they belong, which is cheap, shitty writing:


(Thor is a woman, Spiderman is Black/Hispanic, one of the Spiderwomen is a lesbian, Ms. Marvel is Muslim, and of course Nick Fury is Black)
Are any of those remembered for what they did or just for what they are?

Nick Fury is probably the only exception because he was played by Samuel L. Jackson.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I think the problem with these kind of characters is that their defining (and only) trait is their sexuality.
I'm pretty sure Alesha's defining trait is her smile. :wink:

[TheArchitect]

It's more about conformism than anything else. The nowadays trend is "it's cool to be different" without any further thought on the particular difference. Both the corporations and common people are jumping on the train because of the herd mind, as they don't want to be different from the majority that celebretas difference as if it's valueable on its very own. Just like the people of yesteryears believed in flat earth, flogeston or w/e other misconception or superstition, nowadays throng celebrates diversity just because. Would be pretty boring if not for the fact that it spoils public space with all kinds of bizzare and incomprehensible stuff, be it gay wizards or bearded female vocalist.

Brought to you by New Left since 1960's.

Next level their non-conformism and be a non-non-conformist. That will show those evil progressive-leftists trying to bring tolerance and respect for everyone!

[H]

Pretty much. The shift in the left from a class-driven narrative to an identity-driven one has been a boon for corporations and other entrenched power structures, allowing them a means to redirect any ire towards them onto some ill-defined group of "bigots". Instead of fighting against the interests of the moneyed elite, people waste their time fuming on snarkerati shitblogs like Gawker, going through the two-minutes-hate whenever somebody, somewhere says something impure, and NOT OKAY!

You should probably read this: Greetings from Idiot America (http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0207GREETINGS). Mind you, it was written at the end of the Bush administration, but still relevant.

Chances are good most people will TL;DR it, so allow me to summarize why I am including it here: while I don't think your point is wrong, per se, I do believe it is misguided in scope. Of course there is an onus on keeping people separate and divided, but it is a pretty "tin-foily hat" idea that somehow corporations are engineering the situation we're in, culturally. At best, they are perpetuating the situation that already exists, largely because they have found a way to derive profit from it. I think his point is real close to exactly why the situation exists in the first place, though, so I really suggest reading the article.


I'm not gonna post anything else in this thread because I can tell I will just get pissed at some of you who seem to be a rather close-minded. But I'll just say this: if a little bit of diversity makes you upset, then you are gross and could benefit from some self-reflection.

Well, yeah, people are almost always closed-minded. In-groups and out-groups are pretty powerful, as is our implicit cultural imperative of "there is only one right way to live," which, naturally, everyone unerringly believes they are on the right side of, where everyone else who doesn't agree is flatly wrong.


It's more about conformism than anything else. The nowadays trend is "it's cool to be different" without any further thought on the particular difference. Both the corporations and common people are jumping on the train because of the herd mind, as they don't want to be different from the majority that celebretas difference as if it's valueable on its very own. Just like the people of yesteryears believed in flat earth, flogeston or w/e other misconception or superstition, nowadays throng celebrates diversity just because. Would be pretty boring if not for the fact that it spoils public space with all kinds of bizzare and incomprehensible stuff, be it gay wizards or bearded female vocalist.

Brought to you by New Left since 1960's.

I get your point, but I think you are taking it a bit too far. Is there a monetization of "diversity" that is specious? Of course, but it's a lot better that way than the opposite. I would much rather live in a world that celebrates diversity too much than in one where it's demonized and condemned. I'd rather have people be publicly falsely "open-minded" than be publicly truly "bigots." It would be nice if everyone was genuinely open-minded and no one was a bigot at all, but we're not even close to that culturally yet. The first step is to at least be publicly accepting of things, even things you don't necessarily agree with, especially those things that have no impact on my life what-so-ever.

Dude wants to be a woman? Cool. Woman wants to be a dude? Cool. Man wants to be a potato? Cool. Dudes want to marry each other? Cool. Want to tell a story about any of that? Cool.

Good fiction should be a place to explore the world, not a place for simple escapism. Of course there are ham-handed attempts to shoe-horn diversity in to works, but that is really a condemnation of bad writing more than the idea that diversity can, or should, be represented in fiction. In fact, including diversity in the same subtle way in which diversity is often present in our own world is a good way to have your fiction having the feeling of realism.


And...
Inb4: "but their lgbt identity is central to them just like your straight identity is central to yours so you must accept that". Yeah, but their fictious persons, right? So it was a willing decision to make them as such, one that has either an agenda behind, or at least expects admission.
Inb4: "but you must be a biggot gibbon to hate them". Not hating anyone, I'm simply uninterested in 24/7 propaganda of diversity for diversity alone. Moreover I question the reasons behind this flood of minority heroes. Seeing what kind of people most often support these ideas, I'm more than sure that their real reasons are obscure and weird.

I think the idea the genre-fiction can and should reflect the diversity of the real life world is something that can definitely elevate it about the trash/slash/escapist drivel that gets pushed out far too often. We'll be past all this when it no longer even needs to be remarked upon that Superman is black, or that Thor is a woman, or that Spiderman is a Muslim, or whatever. We certainly aren't there yet. I think it's actually pretty obscure and weird that people get up-in-arms about this shit. I mean, how does it matter to me if Alesha is a transgender? Or if Spiderman is Muslim?

The question should be, is the story well told? Is it well written? Is it interesting? Does it capture my attention?

Not what color are the characters? Do they look like me? Are they the same religion as me? Are they living their life in a way I wouldn't want to or don't agree with?

I think if you read something and answer yes to the first set of questions, yet find yourself not liking the story because of hang-ups like those in the second set of questions, it might be time for self-reflection as to why?


Aaaaand, this post has turned out much more incoherent and a lot longer than I intended. Oh well...

[maharis]

I think the problem with these kind of characters is that their defining (and only) trait is their sexuality.

Characters are basically reduced to whatever minority they belong, which is cheap, shitty writing

I actually agree that this can happen and be potentially insulting to the community that is supposedly "served" by the diversity. The character is developed by people who aren't members of the minority community (let's be honest, white dudes) who might really struggle to portray a three-dimensional character outside of their one defining trait. The characters exist for us to see how more fully developed white, male protagonist interacts with him or her. This is a problem not just of sexuality but of characters representing a certain race/religion as well.

I don't think that's a problem here just because the MTG narrative is tertiary (or farther removed) to the gameplay in the experience of most players, so it's unlikely that Alesha's status will ever be top of mind. Plus, the Alesha reveal was done fairly tactfully IMO, other than the predictably poor writing of the Uncharted Realms column.

I do remember some people (not sure if it was here or other places) made passing remarks about how Nahiri was presented basically as a crushing girl hanging on to Sorin, who was the real leader/mastermind behind the plan to trap the Eldrazi. Since I can't get through an uncharted realms column without wanting to go hug my English degree, I didn't pay close attention. However it certainly wouldn't be the first time a female character in fantasy/sci fi has only existed as a boy-crazy pixie who lacks her own ideas.

I have a saying about these issues: If you didn't do it in your pilot, you don't really care all that much. Girls (HBO), like Sex & The City before it, was widely panned for not including any minority characters in the main cast despite the fact that it took place in one of the most diverse cities on Earth. Invariably the show's creators defended it as based on an experience that POC don't often get access to, and said that their non-inclusion was more of an accident.

Believe me, I live in a pretty "white" neighborhood of Brooklyn and I will see plenty of non-white people today the only time I leave the house to take my son to preschool. (I actually typed out all the examples, but didn't want to get too specific because internet.)

Girls was an example of privileged white lady wanting to make a show about being a privileged white lady, where the creator (NYC art scion Lena Dunham) cast her equally privileged friends (NYC theater scion Zosia Mamet).

Contrast that with the comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine (despite the main character being a white man, the two highest-ranking officers are black, and their backstories fully established; the show also features two Hispanic women) or Mulaney (OK, it's a crappy show, but Mulaney lives with an Iranian woman and a black man, not five other white people like in Friends). The appearance of these characters in the pilot and on the main cast means that they will have ample opportunity to develop as characters and not have to be "stuck in" for appearance's sake.

Like I said, I don't think that's a problem for MTG/Alesha because of the nature of how the story works. But the best solution to these issues is to have more minority communities creating the art, not just being cast to cross off a trait on a list down the road.

[Lemnear]

It actually is quite large, considering the general attitude in the Magic community, regarding females playing the game. (Anyone remember how Melissa DeTora etc. had to put up with all kind of bullshit earlier?)

I find it a nice gesture.

Could you elaborate as I have not heared what happend to Melissa? I admit, I'm a bit split between the honorable attempts to make those leading roles for a new and open Community which isn't dominated by Males and the other negative pictures our community has Painted of itself (#crackgate) and the fact that their outstanding factor was gender and not game/community related :/

The game and lore isn't appealing to most of women for various reasons and WotC gives a fuck, otherwise a character like Alesha would not only be a loud mouthed and rude supporting act in a story about war. If they would care we would see such a character in a leading Position in Ravnica (or a more politics driven plane) and their story told in more than 3 sentences

It's absolutely shallow and irrelevant if it's a woman, a guy or a transgender who picks up dumb Male stereotypes of acting

[wonderPreaux]

Note that the Nemesis book is regarded as one of the best MtG books. Which is kinda telling how bad the rest is.

IIRC, it went like this: Eldamri's daughter got killed and turned into a cyborg called Belbe, which the captured Ertai boned while he tried to make the best out of his situation - to become the next Evincar of Rath. In the end, he lost to Vampire Crovax (who now was on roids for no apperant reasons) and Belbe got killed by Eldamri/his troops who had no idea who she was. At that point, Ertai lost all hope and turned himself into Ertai, the Corrupted.
As someone who read the entire novelization of the Urza/Yawgmoth/Gerrard storyline, I can confirm that it is some strange stuff. The minor detail worth mentioning is that Ertai didn't seem to consider himself a serious candidate for evincar, he mostly wanted to not die as long as he could, and was steadily become addicted to a black mana infuser. regarding crovax, at the beginning of the plot, phyrexian overseers gave him a soul to consume and augmented him before he became a candidate, throughout that time he slaughtered many (Massacre) people to draw strength from their deaths.



A cat is fine, too. But who was that?

In the end, Alesha is highly likely to be a throwaway side character with no impact on anything since we're in the long-gone past. Unless they pull off a "Hey, that character got a spark off-screen to be relevant again" if the character gets popular.
In Rath and Storm, the Rath block anthology book, it was established that Mirri was secretly in love with Gerrard Capashen. This culminated in an awkward scene where some cat-dude tried to pick her up and then Gerrard didn't realize why she was as offended as she was at the scenario, and she realized Gerrard didn't see her that way. Later on, she would ended up dying to Crovax who was in the midst of his transformation into a vampire.

re: OP I haven't read the storyline for Khans, but does it really matter that Alesha is trans-gender? I feel as though, if it actually doesn't actively contribute to the character, you don't really need to write in details like that. I may have to look for it again, but didn't one of the writers on their blog pretty much declare ashiok to be genderless for the very reason that it just doesn't matter to ashiok's character so there was no point defining it?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Next level their non-conformism and be a non-non-conformist. That will show those evil progressive-leftists trying to bring tolerance and respect for everyone!

Except that those people ARE NOT bringing any tolerance and respect for everyone.
From what experiences I had with the whole lgbt/pcmc/liberal/feminist/havlist community, I'm totally convinced that they're the worst sort of intolerant hypocritical bigots ever. They routinely mock, threaten and troll anyone who doesn't unconditionally accept their worldview.

[barcode]

Except that those people ARE NOT bringing any tolerance and respect for everyone.
From what experiences I had with the whole lgbt/pcmc/liberal/feminist/havlist community, I'm totally convinced that they're the worst sort of intolerant hypocritical bigots ever. They routinely mock, threaten and troll anyone who doesn't unconditionally accept their worldview.

Wow. I don't even.

[Aggro_zombies]

This thread has taken a turn for the worse. Goodnight, thread.