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wielderofmysteries · 1 year

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(We Need to Talk About Narset)

[Left: Narset, Enlightened Master - Livia Prima. Right, clockwise from top left: Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, Dr. Shaun Murphy from The Good Doctor, Sam Gardner from Atypical, Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds.]

(This is a re-upload of the original article since there were some formatting issues with the original. You can still read it at this link, but the pictures aren't full resolution.)

This is article is intended to be a primer for my larger upcoming article on autistic representation in Magic.

I found out about Narset in 2018, when I had just started learning about Magic’s lore for the first time. I was overjoyed to see that Magic’s first official autistic character seemed to be the complete opposite of the stereotypical depictions of autism I’d seen in other media. Instead of a nerdy brown-haired white boy, Narset was a 50 year old Asian woman and a badass martial artist. As an Asian autistic kid, I often felt invisible and underrepresented in the media I consumed, so Narset really meant a lot to me.

However, when I actually read Narset’s lore, I was disappointed to find that she wasn’t nearly as revolutionary as I’d thought.

When the Dragons of Tarkir stories were being published in 2015, Doug Beyer, a writer and designer for Magic, confirmed in a Tumblr post that Narset was intentionally created to be an autistic character.

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maudlingoblin asked:

hi doug!! reading the new uncharted realms, i felt an enormous amount of sympathy for narset, specifically with reference to the beginning sequence with her as a kid. the restlessness, the sensory overload, the self-distraction with counting and observation - these, to me, heavily code narset as being autistic. i am autistic myself and it would mean the absolute world to me to know that a character in a game i care deeply about is like me, and many other folks. is this something you can confirm?

dougbeyermtg answered:

That was the intent, yes. The most important part of Narset’s character is her amazing mind, which is central to her potential as a powerful Planeswalker and as a pursuer of knowledge — but it happens that she processes information and input differently than a lot of other people. Tarkir denizens might not have a term for the autism spectrum or being neurodivergent or neuro-atypical, but those terms would correctly describe her. In this timeline she is not khan of the Jeskai, but no matter the circumstances, she hasn’t let go of her commitment to seeking her own path to wisdom and truth. Kudos to Creative Team member Kimberly Kreines for exploring this aspect of Narset in her story “The Great Teacher’s Student.”

[https://dougbeyermtg.tumblr.com/post/112727174244/hi-doug-reading-the-new-uncharted-realms-i-felt]

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(Art: Dragonlord Ojutai - Chase Stone)

The Great Teacher’s Student tells the story of Narset’s childhood under the rule of Dragonlord Ojutai. At eight years old, Narset was a pretty realistic autistic child, having many traits that I shared. She fidgeted restlessly, had sensory overloads, and her mother found it difficult to take her out to public spaces. Narset’s brain was extremely pattern-oriented, one of the most defining traits of autism. She saw numbers everywhere, and counted to soothe herself.

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The cries of the merchants, the bold colors of the wares, and the too-sweet aromas of the produce were like walls that made the marketplace feel too tight, too close, too much. The muscles of Narset’s legs twitched and her lungs felt cramped. She tugged at her robe; it was strangling her. Her mother must have cinched it too tightly.

“Stand still,” her mother scolded from above. “You’ll knock something over.” She was poring over the apples at the top of a tall mound too high for Narset to see.

Narset tried to stand still, but she couldn’t. The restlessness inside her wanted her to move. Sometimes when she felt that way she distracted herself. She would count things, or search for patterns, or study people’s expressions. But she knew the marketplace too well; she knew its numbers and she knew its patrons. She had already taken inventory. The man with the cane was limping less that day, putting more weight on his bad leg; Narset supposed the balm he had purchased from the herbalist the week before had worked to ease the pain. There were, as usual, three dozen meat slabs hanging at the butcher’s stand with an average of eighteen striations per slab; the average number of striations hardly ever changed, although sometimes there was greater variance. The merchant at the squash stand had uneven stains on his sleeves and three stray threads hanging from his robe; he must have gotten it caught in his cart and had to pull himself free. And there were sixty-eight apples in the mound in front of Narset; that was accounting for the volume inside the mound, which she couldn’t see but could predict well enough. There would be sixty-seven apples if her mother would ever just choose one.

Her mother hemmed and hawed, her fingers alighting first on one apple and then another, fluttering over the choices, but never settling.

She’s never going to pick one, Narset thought. We’re never going to leave. Panic set in. Her vision blurred, her ears rang, and her forehead began to sweat. She frantically searched for something else to distract her, but there was nothing else she could see. At eight, Narset wasn’t tall enough to see over any of the stands or any of the bodies. It was like she was in a never-ending maze of tall sweaty, smelly people-trees.

She was trapped.

[The Great Teacher’s Student - Kimberly J. Kreines]

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Narset was a believably written autistic character in this story, but that doesn’t automatically mean it was good, or that it was what autistic people wanted to see. To be clear, this story was neither unrealistic nor offensive to me. Writing Narset as an autistic character was something the creative team genuinely cared about and tried to do well. But I was still disappointed because Narset in this story is just another example of the “autistic savant” trope that the media can’t seem to let go of.

Fictional or real, almost every autistic person you will see in the media will be a savant; some kind of socially-inept genius whose intelligence or skill far surpasses their peers. This person may be a mathematician, a surgeon, a child prodigy who attends college but can’t tie their shoes– the list goes on and on. You’ve probably seen many stories like this before.

As a child, Narset had an extraordinary memory and a gift for mental math. She was able to calculate the volume of a pile of apples, find the exact trajectory of a falling apple to catch it in mid-air, and memorize things like the pattern of a river’s flow; all at a glance.

In The Great Teacher’s Student, Narset accidentally knocks over a pile of apples at the market, upsetting the merchant and prompting her mother to send her outside. Dragonlord Ojutai noticed Narset’s talent and desire for knowledge as she explored the field outside, and wanted to encourage her. He tutored her from a distance for several years before officially deciding to train her as a student when she was 11 years old.

After this moment, the story shifts its focus almost entirely to Narset’s academic journey. We get to see that in the years that passed since Narset became a student of Ojutai, she was still really, really smart. She finally felt challenged and supported in the way she needed, and she was good at so many things.

In fact, she was better than everyone else at everything.

She learned more, and faster than everyone else. She won every fight. She spoke Draconic intuitively, and Ojutai constantly praised her. At age 15, Narset became the youngest person to ever hold the rank of Master.

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As she looked back now, she recognized her time at the sanctuary as the best years of her life. She was happier than she had ever been; she was challenged, recognized, fulfilled. Her restlessness had ceased haunting her; she had felt a sense of peace. And while she wasn’t physically moving, she knew she was on a path, going where she was meant to go, becoming who she was meant to be. Ojutai was leading her. And not a day went by that she didn’t thank her dragon for the gift.

Narset advanced more quickly than any other student, climbing the ranks of Dragon’s Eye Sanctuary, moving upward from the lowest balconies to the highest terraces, until one day Ojutai called for her to come stand on his own private perch.

[…]

“My student, Narset, it is time. Your hunger for knowledge is your greatest strength. You have become strong, and powerful, and wise because you have never stopped seeking enlightenment.” The dragon beamed down at her. She knew what was about to come, and for one glorious moment everything felt perfect. “I now bestow upon you the title of Master, which you have assuredly earned, and with it all the honor and responsibility it brings.” Ojutai bowed his head and rested his giant paw on her shoulder.

Narset bowed her head in return and clasped her small hand over the dragon’s paw, making no attempt to wipe the hot tear that streaked down her cheek. At fifteen, she was the youngest master Ojutai had ever named. She had reached the top.

[The Great Teacher’s Student - Kimberly J. Kreines]

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I didn’t like how Narset’s story focused so much on autistic exceptionalism– on how Ojutai gave her special treatment because she was better than everyone else at everything.

Autistic achievement should be celebrated, and Narset’s desire for endless learning is so deeply, truly autistic. But I feel like Narset’s story and those of other autistic savants are just so extraordinary that it’s too hard to relate to them. These kinds of fictional portrayals and real-world news features attempt to endear autistic people to allistic (non-autistic) audiences by saying, “Look! Autistic people aren’t bad, they’re actually better than us!” But focusing on exceptional individuals doesn’t help to humanize autism.

It sets an unrealistic expectation for autistic people, and can be extremely alienating. Autistic people shouldn’t have to be superhuman to be respected, and the truth is that the overwhelming majority of autistic people are completely ordinary.

When I was diagnosed with autism at age 11, I obsessively searched the internet for information about autism, to learn what other autistic people experienced, and what “normal” people thought of us. I learned that geniuses were loved, and everyone else was hated. I hoped for years that I would magically develop some kind of incredible talent so I could be like the autistic geniuses in the news. I hoped someone would notice me and enroll me in college early or make me famous so I would be respected for something. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t fair to myself, but when I saw stories about savants, I didn’t feel proud to be autistic. Instead, I saw myself as a failure.

Autistic savants don’t need more representation. Most autistic people, even most of the geniuses and prodigies, will never have the kinds of opportunities that Narset and other famous savants have had. But when neurotypical people have only ever seen autistic savants, they expect you to be a genius. And when people expect you to be a genius, being ordinary just makes you a disappointment.

The Magic narrative team clearly recognized the fact that most allistic peoples’ first exposure to autism is through popular media and that it’s a major influence on the audience’s image of what autism is like. So they tried to make a good first impression by making Narset a positive portrayal, but it backfired in one key way: Narset’s writing in this story was so focused on making her as extraordinary and obviously autistic as possible that it neglected to make her a human being. She’s believable, but not compelling. Narset’s story is about an autistic character, but it’s not really about what it’s like to be autistic.

(And I hate to say it, but… there’s nothing revolutionary about making your Asian autistic character a math genius.)

What frustrates me about the way Narset was written is that I actually believe her autism was extremely under-utilized in her writing.

Autism is lifelong, but I don’t really feel like the story treats it that way. Beyond the first scene of Narset as a younger child, the story doesn’t show how Narset’s autism affected her life other than making her really smart.

Upon realizing that Ojutai had nothing left to teach her, Narset became restless and anxious again. She was desperate to learn anything new. When she was 16 years old, Narset discovered the lost history of Tarkir, and it was the possibility of new knowledge that ignited her Planeswalker spark.

Narset’s greatest challenge was that she was literally so good that she couldn’t get any better.

As a child, Narset was shown to have trouble communicating and interacting with others. After Narset became Ojutai’s student, she’s barely shown interacting with anyone other than Ojutai ever again. How did Narset’s differences affect the way she interacted with her fellow students? Did she want to try to make friends? What happened to her mother? How would she have felt about Narset’s progress? The story doesn’t explore any of this. What about her overwhelming sensory overloads? Did she still have them? If so, did her triggers change? She used to soothe herself by counting and finding patterns. When her anxiety returned later in the story, did her coping mechanisms change or stay the same? This isn’t shown, either.

At the end of The Great Teacher’s Student, Narset was still a teenager, but she’s supposed to be about 50 years old now. We know that the present Narset is an independent autistic adult, who has friends and goals and decades of life experience, and that’s beautiful– but we never get to see how she got there. How did she learn to make friends? How did she decide what she wanted to do with her life? That journey is what I want to see being written for autistic characters.

(Art: Quiet Contemplation - Magali Villeneuve)

To contrast, Narset’s story in the Khans of Tarkir timeline does address these things. In Enlightened, Narset is the narrator, and she speaks personally of her challenges as a young autistic person: her academic struggles as a daydreaming student, her feelings of alienation, being bullied, and how she threw herself into her training to cope. These experiences and feelings carried on into adulthood, and influenced the way she approached her responsibilities as the Jeskai Khan.

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As a young girl, I had the same “problem,” as my teachers called it. I always lived in my head, but not in the way the instructors wished. I dreamt of fantastical worlds and used the scrolls given for lessons to draw them, incurring the wrath of my elders. I found solace in my own mind and often had difficulty knowing how to talk to others. It was as though my mind was always five steps ahead of my mouth. It was so taxing interacting with others. I never knew what to say, often causing me to blunder, and I was embarrassed in front of my teachers and classmates. I then went over those failed interactions in my mind, and I found the imaginary worlds more forgiving.

Studying was a way to escape my anxiety and I eagerly embraced history and philosophy, memorizing all I could about Jeskai teachings. I impressed my teachers, but I still felt like an outsider. I did enjoy sparring with those who had taunted me, easily humiliating them in combat as they had humiliated me with their words.

[…]

Even though I am now their khan, I still felt like an outsider—like the young girl always fumbling her words—only now I don’t show it. I think this has been what gives me the strength to do what is needed, looking at the Jeskai like I am not really a part of them.

[Enlightened - Matt Knicl]

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Overall, I feel like Enlightened was a much more thoughtful story despite being much shorter. Sadly, Tarkir’s time travel plot means that version of Narset no longer exists. We haven’t gotten any stories featuring Narset since 2015, so the version of Narset we saw in The Great Teacher’s Student is the Narset we are stuck with.

I don’t necessarily believe that Narset is “bad” autistic representation. I still love Narset, and she means a lot to me. But Narset’s stories are focused on setting her apart, separating her from other people, and showing that she is too different to be a part of the world around her. In my opinion, Narset deserves better than that, and that is why I believe Narset is not the best autistic representation Magic has to offer.

My next article will be about the autistic representation I wanted to see in Magic. Something a little more down-to-earth. Something I could more easily relate to. And I found that in an unexpected character: Nissa.

#mtg #narset #analysis #reupload

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