Magic: the Gathering - Characters

I'm not entirely sure if this was fit for the Tabletop Games forum, though I can't see anywhere else it would fit (if the mods feel this isn't relevant here, I understand).

This is a thread to analyze characters from different media and determine their characterization according to Magic: the Gathering's concepts of colors.

To kick it off: Harry Dresden. IMO, he's a very good example of a heroic UBR character.

• He has excessive amounts of Blue from his philosophy on magic: that it's a force to be understood and used like electricity or physics. Additionally, he uses large amounts of shields, tracking, etc, which are generally rather Blue in nature (as are his ice spells).
• He has Red from a few different sources. Firstly, he likes fire. It's his weapon of choice in almost every book (barring Cold Days)). Additionally, he's a very impulsive individual who trusts his emotions with his life (literally and figuratively). However, he's also not averse to planning his operations as well as he can (thus the combination of Red/Blue). He also enjoys flouting authority and messing with established authority figures, another key tenant of Red: personal freedom.
• Lastly, he can be... scary. When his friends are threatened, when something nasty is about to hit town, he will destroy it. Hard. Additionally, he also has a fallen angel giving him Hellfire (Black/Red) and is well versed in necromancy (pure black). On top of that, he's the newest Winter Knight in a very Esper-like entity: the Winter Court (WUB).

So, fire away! Make sure to link who you're evaluating, if you would, so we can get a better understanding of which character you're going over.

I can't see black in Harry Dresden at all. Like, "when his friends are threatened he will destroy it" is as far from black as you can get. I'd probably put him in mono-red; I can definitely see some blue (maybe some white too) in him as well but very few characters not designed for Magic's colour system are going to fit perfectly in it and red is definitely predominant.

i was going to do another character but now i cant think of one

I'm not fully up on Dresden Files, but UR seems to fit that description very well - fire and emotion and raw power backed by study and deep understanding. And the spoilered thing.

Well, I'd say that necromancy is a flat out indicator of black. There isn't very much black, but it's definitely there.

Well in Magic necromancy is associated with black, but it's not like it has any particular connection to selfishness and ambition. Which are not things that I would associate with Harry Dresden. I mean, yeah, you'd never see a mono-red or red/blue necromancer in a Magic novel but Harry wasn't created for Magic so you kind of have to fuzzy-match a bit or else every character will end up WUBRG.

edited 10th Dec '13 7:38:20 PM by Nyktos

Innistrad did have blue necromancy, so there is some precedence for non-black corpseraising. White can raise spirits but they dont tend to bother raising physical bodies.

Right, but that's SCIENCE! necromancy, not magic.

And I'm not saying that Harry is very black, but that there is a hint of black in his nature and choice of weapons. He's definitely more R/U than black, but there is some.

Maybe Harry Dresden is a U/R character with an off-colour black activated ability.

OK, I'm going to take a crack at this: Enrico Pucci is how you do a mono-white antagonist. (Despite him being black.)

• He's a priest. Religion and clergy are most closely associated with white and black.
• He's selfless. While he has massive (literally universe-sized) ambitions, he's not in this for Pucci. Even gaining the power to recreate the universe as he wishes was merely a means to bring about what he saw as "heaven."
• He's trying, in his own messed-up way, to make the world a better place. He genuinely believes that by turning You Can't Fight Fate into an Enforced Trope, he can eliminate suffering, fear, and horror from people's lives.
• He's lawful. Even when Dio basically offered Pucci a chance to betray him, claim the World, and set about creating Heaven right there, he didn't take it- because that would be betraying Dio. Even though he could just fix everything on gaining Made in Heaven, the act of betrayal itself made this an unacceptable course of action.

I'll take a crack: Dr. Dinosaur - URG

• He gets Green by default pretty much because he's a dinosaur. A "Hollywood style raptor", essentially. If any of the colors were cut, this would be it I'd say.
• Aside from that, he strikes me as a very Izzet-like chaotic scientist. ("CRYSTALS!")
  • Plus he's certainly smart (smarter than some people [read: Robo] would like at least), but not as smart as he'd like to think. Chaos comes naturally as result.

I'm sorry about necroing this topic, but I love it .

Anyways, Rubicante from Final Fantasy IV is a good villainous example of RW.

For Red he's a Blood Knight, seeking a worthy opponent, and I think being the Archfiend of Fire speaks for itself. He also apologizes for Dr. Lugae's experiments on Edge's parents.

For White he's honorable and heals your party before fighting him, and even emphasizes the Power of Friendship before fighting the elemental fiends a second time.

edited 1st Jun '15 4:37:03 PM by k0n9