A High and Lonely Destiny: Lewis On Magicians

“Ours is a high and lonely destiny.”

Many fantasy novels involve wizards. Thanks to Harry Potter, most of these novels deal with wizards positively; they are beneficent and friendly towards the protagonists, if not protagonists themselves. If there are evil wizards, there are just as many good wizards, and in the end these good wizards will win.

The Magician’s Nephew is one of the few fantasy novels that portrays wizards in a wholly negative light. The only two wizards in the novel are titular magician Andrew Ketterley and Jadis, better known as the White Witch of sequel the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Andrew is a preening, vain buffoon who in his cowardice sends two children into an unknown realm instead of going himself. The White Witch, meanwhile, is an arrogant and entitled individual who kills an entire planet with the powerful Deplorable Word spell, simply out of frustration for losing a war to her older sister.

The rationale they use for their actions is that they are supermen, bound to a “high and lonely destiny” which allows them to ignore common moral laws. Although they speak very highly and very well of themselves, even child protagonist Digory can see that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes – in his words, they’re just individuals who think they can do what they like with no consequences.

Not exactly what Nietzsche had in mind.

One could rationalize this away as Lewis’ strong Christianity and resultant contempt for magicians – however, I believe this does a disservice to him. Lewis wasn’t a Jesus-obsessed Luddite, he was a very well-read and well-spoken professor at Oxford University. A close reading of the text reveals a very different stance; in The Magician’s Nephew, magic is a metaphor for science.

What makes this stance clear is the novel’s ending. Aslan mentions that soon humanity may create a weapon with power comparable to the Deplorable Word’s. Written near the beginning of the Cold War, it would be obvious to then-contemporary readers what weapon Aslan was referring to.

I find this metaphor fascinating because of how well it lines up with then-contemporary science fiction trends. C.S. Lewis was in fact a science fiction writer himself! Even his Narnia books incorporate science fiction themes other than the ones being discussed – the concept of Narnia time was derived from Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance.

Before WWII, science fiction was focused on the wonders and marvels of technology. Humanity (well, Europe, at least) had progressed to a point where they no longer had to wage wars! Science fiction reflected that; in the world of sci-fi, enough technology made the need for war obsolete.

This notion was, of course, always complete Eurocentric nonsense. Even before WWII we had the British-induced Indian Famine and Leopold’s abuses in the Congo, to name a few. The War just brought human cruelty to Europe’s front door, eradicating any lie Europe’s people could use to justify naivete and apathy towards it.

World War II thoroughly disillusioned everyone of that notion. The atomic bomb made people realize that technology gave us more destructive power, not less. Similarly, the Holocaust made it clear that human cruelty was not only alive but thriving on an industrial scale. More technology doesn’t curb the worst in humanity, it exacerbates it.

After WWII, we saw in writers a kind of fear. People realized that technology was, at its core, a kind of power; they had seen the worst excesses of this power with their own eyes. Instead of the wonders of new technology, writers wanted to deal with the people that created and used said technology. And the conclusion they came to was as contemptuous of those people as Lewis was of his magicians.

C.S. Lewis was not concerned with what magical laws the rings or the Deplorable Word operated under. Rather, he was concerned with the kind of people who had access to it. It didn’t matter to him if magic worked through the law of sympathy, the law of attraction or through nuclear fission. What matters was what it could do, and what kind of person would seek it out.

To my knowledge, the real world does not have magic words that can kill every living being within it. It does, however, have weapons capable of similar levels of destruction. And the people with access to them don’t have fancy titles like Magician or White Witch – their titles sound more like President or Prime Minister.

So, do you trust these people?

Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump, North Korean President Kim Jong-un, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

I know I don’t.

The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns and how to do adaptations

The Dark Knight Returns film fucking rocks.

A lot of people forget that animated film is a fundamentally different medium than comic books. Comic books are a highly visual medium, but they still rely on words to convey ideas and feelings more than films do. By contrast, films have sound, light, motion – multiple ways of showing what they want to show. Conveyance is the keyword here; conveyance of ideas and feelings through careful use of all these elements.

Misunderstanding of conveyance is why The Killing Joke’s animated adaptation fell flat on its ass. The Killing Joke is painfully faithful at times, but is hamstrung by poor production values and a misunderstanding of the themes that made the original comic one of the definitive Batman stories. And even the stuff that got carried over was conveyed poorly, with some exceptions – the ending, for instance, is wonderfully done.

The Dark Knight Returns, on the other hand, understands exactly what made The Dark Knight Returns (and Frank Miller’s work, by extension) good, arguably better than what even Miller himself has displayed given the Dame to Kill For film. Because this movie is pure, raw, unfettered emotion, delivered by Peter Weller (RoboCop) with so much power and precision that you’d be forgiven for mistaking him for Batman himself.

Remember the scene where Batman interrogates the mutant on the rooftop? Here’s the relevant scene’s equivalent in the comic book.

Just as chilling on the page, but a direct adaptation would be long and dragging. The film understands this and adjusts accordingly. There’s no need for a monologue, just masterful usage of shots, angles and chillingly minimalistic voice acting to convey height, confusion and fear.

Hell, this is what made the original Legends of the Dark Knight short so good too. Look at the Mutant Leader fight scene:

It wouldn’t be as effective if we saw Batman breaking the Mutant Leader’s leg. There’s just a flash of lightning accentuated by the mutants’ (and Robin’s) shocked faces, followed by the rain washing the mud off Batman’s hunched, shadowed face.

That is what all adaptations should do. Don’t give me the comic book, except with moving pictures. If I wanted the comic book, I’d buy the comic book. Use the differences in the medium you’re adapting it in to convey the same themes and invoke the same emotions as the source material.

Both halves are available now on digital and DVD. Buy this masterpiece.

How Chester Helped Me

I always knew that Chester had a shitty life.

The thing about emotional songs is that independent of quality, I can always tell whether the emotions are real. Evanescence’s Bring Me To Life was fake. The Killers’ Mr. Brightside was real. Limp Bizkit’s Nookie and Simple Plan’s I’m Just A Kid were fake; You’re Beautiful, creepy as it was, was real. Hell, I could tell even if they were from the same band – Clocks was all real brooding, while Fix You was just Chris Martin smoking waaaay too much dope.

All of Chester’s songs were real. All of them.

Having grown past the age of 10, I can see why people dismiss Linkin Park’s discography so fast. Crawling and Numb seem like cheesy, over-the-top tracks dealing with ostensibly (and gravely in retrospect) serious topics. For a lot of people, those tracks seem more like some adolescent angst than very real and very adult pain.

But watching the videos on MTV was…this wasn’t something a teenager mad at his dad would make. All that imagery, the isolation, the vulnerability – all of that’s stuff only someone who’s been shaken, beaten and broken can come up with. Even as a kid I understood that this was all in his core, something he felt to the point that it defined him.

The thing is – when you make songs that are always real, people won’t always like them. That’s just how these things go. If you puke out everything you are on the disc tracks, sometimes the stuff that gets dredged out doesn’t look so good. But it’s sincere and when it blooms, it blooms and grabs people in ways that the most meticulously crafted fake song could never do.

I rediscovered Linkin Park at a very bad time in my life. I had yet to be diagnosed with depression, and…well, that’s a story for another post. Then through happenstance, I listened to Burning In The Skies and decided to give the band a second shot. That wasn’t a decision I regret making.

Ostensibly a parable about nuclear power and the possibility of Armageddon, Thousand Suns is as much the journey of one man as it is the journey of the whole human race. There are some weak tracks here and there, but as a whole the album is powerful and knows when to be subtle and when to be all-out.

I remember listening to When They Come For Me and feeling it. This went beyond simply immediate reactions to victimization, this was when you’d been used to exhaustion by others and just had enough of it all. This is what cynicism sounds like – when you’ve been hurt so badly that the only way you could live through it was to grow fangs of your own.

And the next track made me cry when I heard it. Dubbed simply Robot Boy, it took the singer of When They Come For Me and gave him a good, long look in the mirror. His defenses have made him strong, but they’ve taken something away from him, too – was all that cold, unflinching invulnerability worth the loneliness it brought as its price?

That’s something everyone has to answer on their own. Chester gave us his answer, and while the world is the poorer for it, I see no point in judging him for what he did. And while I don’t have my own answer, I’m grateful to him for asking me the question in the first place.

Thousand Suns was more than Linkin Park’s first legitimately great – not good, great – album. It was about a man who’d been torn apart, and his attempt at stitching himself back together.

Izzet DelverDrake

artist: Adi Granov

My first MtG deck ever was an Izzet Delver of Secrets/Kiln Fiend deck. The mentality is simple: nail a guy to the board, then make sure he stays there with counterspells. Budget MtG Decks gives a very aggressive version here, and this deck takes a lot of its cues from that video.

A lot of Kiln Fiend decks take the route of nailing either a Fiend or a backup beater (Monastery Swiftspear and Goblin Guide being the most common ones) to the board and using dedicated pump to trigger KF’s ability. That’s all well and good, but I find that more suited to Selesnya or Naya than I do to Izzet.

Dedicated pump spells aren’t interesting to me for two reasons. One, they’re dead draws in case you don’t have a beater. Two, Izzet is themed around unpredictability. Leave pure beats to the Gruul; Izzet is the color of chaos and versatility.

Another theme that came to me was the idea of fast, efficient creatures. Enigma Drake from the new Amonkhet set is a nightmare. It has the exact same mana cost and toughness as the Nivix Cyclops used above, but trades in fast burst power for reliability and survivability. This led to a slower, more midrangey build overall, with less straight-up burn and more disruption/removal.

With this in mind, I present to you: DelverDrake!

CREATURES

artist: Nils Hamm

I don’t need to tell you why Delver’s here. The absolute best one-drop in Modern Blue. If Mark Rosewater didn't design Palinchron I have no doubt that this would be his biggest regret. Nothing is ever getting this powerful again, period. (lol, Torpid Moloch & Scythe Tiger)

Kiln Fiend is also self-explanatory. You can pump him up to ridic levels using your instant draw spells or whatever. My only complaint is that he has no built-in evasion, which is not a problem the next guy has.

Enigma Drake has the built-in evasion of Delver and the ability to have power way above curve of KF. I initially waffled between this and Spellheart Chimera, but being immune to bolts is huge and this is an intentional departure from the aggressive Delver/Kiln Fiend decks.

SPELLS

artist: Jon Foster

All of your stuff has to be instant speed. Kiln Fiend makes all your instants combat tricks.

Shock is a strictly worse placeholder for Lightning Bolt. Get Lightning Bolt if you can afford it, but don’t bother with the sorcery speed (Lava Spike) or two-drop (Searing Spear) variants. We want instant speed combat tricks here.

Spell Pierce is great for people who can’t afford Spell Snare, like myself.

I have no idea why more decks don’t use Izzet Charm. It is incredible. It is never a dead draw given its instant-speed Faithless Looting mode, can act as a counter or removal in a pinch, can act as a cast trigger for Kiln Fiend and can give Enigma Drake more gas! Best of all, it’s 20 cents! It’s fucking amazing is what it is.

Vapor Snag is the best fatty removal we have mainboarded here. Generally you should be evading fatties with your flying monsters anyway, but that’s what our sideboard’s for.

Mana Leak is just a good card in general, great soft-countering. Replace these with Remands if you can get your hands on some.

Negate is our only hard counterspell.

Finally, we have Telling Time as our other dedicated draw spell. I pick Telling Time over Anticipate to guarantee the Delver flip, but if you like a faster deck experience go nuts.

LANDS

One of the biggest reasons why I put this under Budget Barge is the simple fact that Shivan Reef is now $2! (I have no idea why.) But whatever, it’s a steal at that price. Grab it while you still can!

The rest is just basic ratio. If Shivan Reef shoots up, use basic land ratio. You curve out at 3, you can’t afford to have lands etb tapped.

SIDEBOARD

artist: Greg Staples

4-off Echoing Truth deals with both go-wide and fatty strategies; run it over Spell Pierce.

Electrickery is just there for go-wide, other Delvers or Bogles.

Gut Shot I flip-flopped about. On one hand, a free casting trigger at instant speed is insane. On the other hand, on its own it’s not just that good; 2 life or R for 1 damage to any target kinda sucks. Finally, I decided to sideboard it.

Essence Scatter should be run over Negate against creature-centric decks.

Mountains are for mana fixing.

OPTIONS

Unsubstantiate can be run over any of our soft-counter spells as a poor man’s Remand. Be warned that it’s Standard legal, though, so you might be a bit short.

Spellheart Chimera and Wee Dragonauts are perfectly fine to run over Enigma Drake. Nivix Cyclops is too, but I dislike its lack of evasion. 

Lexicon for Xiombarg's Budget Barge

Okay, a brief primer on the tags I’m going to be using here.

• Pauper Budget – Extremely low price, all cards $1 or (and usually) lower. Can probably be constructed with $20-30, or just from scraps in your shoe boxes. 

• Peasant Budget – Low price, all cards $2 or lower. 

• Jank – These are low-powered, gimmicky decks. Don’t use these in serious games of MtG.

I'll probably be updating these regularly, so watch out!

Hi, everyone!

I'm Xiombarg. I like MtG and live in the Philippines. Sometimes I post about MtG, sometimes about politics.

Enjoy!