#Screens: Oketra

[cindernet-exploded]

Well one of us has to change...

Happy All Saint's Wake!

~~~

Outfits Left to Right!:

Nabette (she/her) as A'vyra

U'nia (she/her) as a Dullahan

Shyssa (they/them) as a Dullahan

Oketra (she/her) as a Vampire

A'vyra (he/she/they) as Alisaie

[askkrenko]

While I appreciate the attempt to have more and more ties between the Magic story and the actual cards, my discontent at inconsistencies between the two continues. While the War of the Spark novel has nothing so egregious as Rivals of Ixalan (which was an entirely different story in text than on the cards) there are still a handful of disparities.  I’ll put a keep reading line, but if you’ve seen the set there shouldn’t be anything here that’s really a spoiler.

The cards depict Angrath as working for Bolas and commanding eternals. In the story, he’s strictly a protagonist.

Finale of Devastation does not correspond to a story moment. There is no giant dinosaur. This wouldn’t be a big deal, but the other four are (even if FInale of Eternity is... not depicting it right.) 

Jace’s Triumph does not correspond to a story moment, though that’s probably because all of Jace’s ‘wins’ here come from talking to a room full of people and sending them in different directions.

The cards make it clear that Liliana gives Oketra and Bontu back some measure of control. In the story, she just puppets them directly.

A minor complaint: Ilharg isn’t in the novel. This wouldn’t normally warrant noting, because Massacre Girl, Feather, Fblthp and I aren’t in the novel either, but like with the FInale of Devastation, it’s part of a cycle that is. 

Dack Fayden is one of the main characters in the novel. Dack Fayden is not in the set. 

Well, at least they got Araithia’s card perfect.

Oh, and I actually find it hilarious that Tezzeret’s the BAB promo because he’s completely vital to the story but doesn’t once set foot on Ravnica (He’s on the Amonkhet side of the gate.)

Anyway, the story is... fine. It’s got a lot of problems, and it’s not actually any better written than the online stories. Going through different character viewpoints is fun, but there’s a lot of characters with a ‘and i’m here too!’ that do nothing with the story. It’s nice to see them, and a few characters get more screen time than I expected, but it’s clear that the narrative was more ambitious than they could handle even with 350+ pages, and there’s a lot that feels like it should have come up that didn’t (There’s no mention of the Raven Man, or Nissa’s prior interaction with Kefnet,  and we come in with some pretty big stuff having already happened... Seriously, where were the Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance stories...?  )

Look, it’s more Magic story. I read it. I’m glad I read it. I wish it was better. Such is the nature of Magic story.

There’s some smooching, though, so that’s nice.

[abzanascendancy]

In Today’s Magic Story...

The Hour of Promise

I can promise one thing right off the bat: bad shit’s about to go down.

Oh shit, Hapatra!  She just watched her patron deity die!  Well not yet, but she will!

She and the other viziers recognize the other three as gods.  Which, considering how different they look, is surprising.

"The prophecies have always been unclear about where we were supposed to be for all of this.” -- Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons

It’s almost as if you didn’t matter in the grand scheme of the God-Pharaoh...

May the God-Pharaoh's mercy be more bountiful than his communications, Hapatra thought to herself.

Hapatra woke

Ah, there it is!  Rhonas dies, and his viziers feel his death.  Even though it’s off-screen here, what else would cause them to feel pain?  Gods know what Nissa is going through right now...

Next up, Kefnet vs Locust!

Her snake slipped off her finger and slithered into a crack in the temple wall.

“Fuck this shit I’m out!” -- Hapatra’s snake, probably

Hapatra keeps her cool in the midst of all this chaos.  World is going to hell?  New rules, time to get shit done!

She’s also figuring out the real meaning behind the Hours

Reminder that because Amonkhet has two suns, night is a near impossibility.  Now imagine experiencing night for the very first time..

Hang on here, I thought the mummies were inside the city, and the accursed were outside (apart from the WB uncommon draft archetype).  What gives?

RIP Kefnet, smothered by locusts.  Not even Locust, just locusts.

Also If I call Locust Locutus in this, I apologize beforehand, but I gotta name ‘im something.

Can we appreciate that we’re getting an actual Zombie apocalypse in magic?  Dark Ascension doesn’t count because vampires and werewolves were involved too -- this is zombies bent on wiping out humanity.  Unless the Curse of Wandering is going to make ‘em go after the Three.

Hapatra asks the question we’re all thinking: where do gods go when they die?

Hapatra also has a weapons cabinet, ready to go for the apocalypse!

She gestured with a lift of her proud chin and asked the group of students a simple question. "How do marauding mummies move through the sandy desert?" Hapatra waited for a beat and then broke into a dazzling smile. "With grit!"

Hapatra, Vizier of Puns.  Actually with Unstable coming out, that might be an actual card!

Poison vs undead?  Unless they do a cop-out and just make it acidic poison.  Like... just have poison and acid be different things!

Actually, the Amonkhet people have anatomically correct knowledge of how the brain works in connection to the body.  Kinda scary.

Hapatra has a pet basilisk.

Looks like we know who uncaged the menagerie.

Oh wow, Kefnet is still alive!  I���m gonna attribute that to Nissa’s meddling. Locutus is still sending locusts after him, and he’s still trying to repair the Hekma.

Cue gratuitous badass montage!

And again, the God-Pharaoh is noticeably absent!

The anointed are still performing their duties... I just... why???

“Come with me if you want to live.” -- Hapatra, probably.

Okay, the anointed are fighting now, good.  And some more people as well.

Oh hey, Samut and Djeru!

"If you're here to say 'I told you so,' I don't want to hear it," -- Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons

Why do you need to protect Oketra?  I mean sure, screw blue, and the Hekma is already down so Kefnet is pretty much useless, but why Oketra next?

Don’t shake your head, Djeru.  Just... deep breaths, I saw your card, I’ll give you time.

Why don’t you want to find out if your God-Pharaoh can be killed?  He caused all of this, all this hurt to your world.  Surely, you want him to suffer, don’t you?

What are Gideon and Liliana doing together?  What’s the gameplan now that Razaketh has been vanquished?  Admit it, you thought I was going to use a different v-word, didn’t you?

Okay, color pie wise, it makes no sense that you don’t like Oketra, Hapatra.  Granted, in the order of the trials, it goes WUGBR, so they’re technically enemy colors on this plane.

Such a white action, sacrificing yourself to save others.  But seriously, Oketra, the world is going to hell and Hapatra is one of the few people with a head on her shoulders!

Scorpion vs Oketra!  Can the bow-wielder take out the melee fighter before he closes in?

Kefnet is rightly scared shitless.

I don’t care what your color alignment is, you do not offer the apocalypse a last chance to flee!!!  Oh wait, ‘this day.’  Good on you, white god!

Okay, so we have an archer and a ranged caster versus a melee bruiser.  SO WHY THE HELL IS KEFNET FLYING TOWARDS DANGER???

Hapatra becomes Oketra’s cheerleader.

Oketra has slain Scorpion!  And Kefnet is surprisingly alive!  Well, good things can happen after...

When The Scorpion God dies, return it to its owner’s hand at the beginning of the next end step.

And Kefnet’s dead, no surprise.

Oketra mentioning the mausoleums in the wastes leads me to think that they’re slowly recovering their memories, late though it may be.

Gideon feels the death of Oketra.  Like I said, imagine what Nissa must be feeling, if she’s connected to the leylines...

It looked to the sky, seeking something, and proceeded on its way through the streets of Naktamun, ignoring the mortals in its wake.

He seeks, as do we all, the elusive God-Pharaoh.

"The source of this hell is a trespasser like yourself, isn't it?" Gideon swallowed hard and nodded. Hapatra glared and spoke with a voice that dripped with venom. "Then he is your responsibility to kill. Be done with your task and get out of my city."

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Also, Queen Hapatra for Amonkhet!

Also good luck trying to keep your gods alive.  Unless one of you has an exile spell, you ain’t doing shit.  Your efforts are noble, but I doubt you’ll be effective at all.

Only two gods remain.  The mortals are told to look to the deserts for safety.  The planeswalkers are charged with defeating Nicol Bolas.  Who, I’d like to point out again, still hasn’t arrived to his party!  There’s showing up fashionably late, and then there’s showing up late to your own set!  That’s like going to a Dragons of Tarkir pre-release and not pulling a single dragon!

But will Bolas show his face at last?  Will Samut’s spark ignite?  Will Djeru swallow his pride and aid the trespassers?  Will Nissa survive the death of the leylines?  Will Hazoret and Bontu bite the dust?  Will we ever learn about Raven Man?  Or will Scarab decide to play his hand?  Tune in next time!

[doctor-roman]

Alright, theory time.

I think Kefnet will survive Hour of Devastation.

Reasons and rambling under the cut.

-So far, a week into spoilers, we’ve had cards that hint or confirm the deaths of the other four gods.

Oketra’s death is confirmed in the art for Solemnity (I will never forgive you for this one Wizards):

Bontu’s death is hinted at in Bontu’s Last Reckoning:

Hazoret’s death is hinted at in the art for the Forbid Invocation:

And Rhonas’s death is confirmed both in story and in Hour of Glory:

Notice someone missing? Kefnet. Maybe his demise is being saved for this upcoming week of previews, but it seems strange that his death (should it happen) was the only one left out in this week’s previews. 

-In The Hand That Moves by Ken Troop, we get this passage:

Nissa altered Kefnet. Not a lot; definitely not enough to break Nicol Bolas’s hold on him at least, but there’s something there. But why Kefnet?

From the player’s hand guide that comes with each bundle, Kefnet is mentioned to have complete control over water and the protective magic of the Hekma.

So here’s the scenario:

Naktamun will be destroyed. We know this from the trailer:

In those last seconds of video, Bolas reaches god-like levels of power (moreso than he commanded already) and sends out a wave of destructive energy that flattens the city.

So now we have a number of survivors (I place my estimate at just a few hundred, and that’s being generous) stuck outside in the blasted deserts of Amonkhet, with no food, no water, no shelter, nothing.

Now maybe this next part is me hoping that Wizards isn’t going to pull another Innistrad and put its human population in an unwinnable scenario. I really, really hope that’s the case because the only way we’d be able to return to Amonkhet (assuming there’s even anything worth returning to, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think there will be after the death of the gods as that’s what made Amonkhet special to me but moving on) is if we see a deus ex machina type situation where when we next go there, everything is just fine.

I don’t think I can overstate how much I fucking hate situations like that: where we have dozens of plot points and situations present at the end of a block and none of them are touched up on ever again (the revelation that Avacyn was made by Sorin and never went public*coughcough*) or at the very least, get dropped off screen between departures and returns.

I’d really like to think that Wizards’ creative team is better than that, especially in this new pattern of story telling and with the amount of information they send out about their settings and characters.

Anyway, I’m prattling. Moving on.

Kefnet has control over water. Nissa has control over plants and leylines.

I don’t think Nissa will ever be able to heal the worldsoul of Amonkhet. That’s just wishful thinking at this point. But what she can do is work with Kefnet to make another oasis that the people of Amonkhet can start over with. He pulls up a new body of water, she grows trees and fruit, and it’s a start at least.

It’d be a way for Wizards to let the development of a new identity be created for Amonkhet - one not intrinsically tied to Bolas - so that we can finally have an ancient Egyptian styled plane in the multiverse. Granted, there’d be nothing special about it aside from that, considering all the gods died, but it would at least be something.

I dunno, I’m just really upset that I’m currently two for two in planes that I fall in love with that end up with shitty endings and I just want a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to.

If Ixalan ends up having a bad ending too I’m probably just going to stop keeping up with Magic because I’m tired of getting the shit end of the stick when it comes to settings that I like.

[cindernet-exploded]

Oketra/Krile pose set over at my Blue Sky.

[abzanascendancy]

In Today’s Magic Story...

Brazen

Oh hey, its Gideon!  Been a while, hasn’t it?  And he’s still in some sort of awestruck trance, like a lovesick puppy.

So Oketra speaking words to people isn’t a special thing she did for Gideon.

Then again, she did this with Nissa too, though now we know the gods of Amonkhet are or are made of leylines,  that could be how she communicated with her.

Everything is so ideal here, I almost want a cut-back to Theros and its gods, with Thassa buttering up Purphoros to make her a better bident, Nylea becoming jealous of this, Heliod trying to keep himself in the pantheon, and Erebos just chilling out somewhere, drinking wine and watching the drama unfold.

Worthy to note that Gideon is worried about the rigidity & structure of life on Amonkhet.  And when the white-aligned mage is worried about order, you know you done screwed up.

The cartouche is confirmed as blue, so I feel it’s safe to say they’re partially made of lazotep.

Wait... Gideon only had one cartouche when we saw him last, right?  Is he being allowed to skip the Trial of Knowledge?  Or are we already seeing the ripples of Nissa’s meddling?

I wish we got to see more stories with the non-human races of worlds.  We had Yahenni’s beautiful saga, but I want to see more less-human races’ perspectives on everything.

Also, everyone’s having one last friendly meal together before they all turn around and murder each other in the Trial of Ambition.  Yay...?

And we get to meet Djeru!  And he’s clapping Gideon on the back -- they’d become bff’s, if we didn’t see the story card already...

Also kissing is part of a greeting on Amonkhet.  Either that, or Djeru is unabashedly gay, which I’d approve of.

Names are an important thing in Egyptian mythology -- knowing the true name of something gives you power over it.  I find it interesting that Djeru’s looking for Gideon’s true name.

And of course you enjoy puzzles, Djeru -- you finished Kefnet’s Trial, duh!

Samut was part of Djeru’s crop.

Djeru is better at wrestling than Gideon, though the latter is out of practice.

Actually now that I’m reading this, this is the first mention we have of “leisure” activities.  Celebrations before a trial, games (though they’re probably in preparation for the Trial of Knowledge), and even betting/gambling on said games.

Then again, this is the preparation for Bontu’s trial, the black-aligned god.  A bit of hedonism before your eminent demise never hurt anyone.  Maybe that’s when they have time to make babies...

A couple of days ago, we watched the shower scene in Psycho.  Hitchcock knows how to build up anticipation, but part of that comes from our foreknowledge of what is to come.  We know she’s going to get stabbed, but it’s the agonizing tension leading up to it that really takes the cake.  Reading about the twins, and even the flavortext on the card... I hate what’s about to happen...

So crops get merged with other crops as they take losses.  I dunno, but it sounds like solidarity might be lost from trial to trial in this way.  Still, considering what the Trial of Ambition entails, I think it could work in their favor.

Oh sure, your fallen brethren will be “restored.”  Riiight... if by restored you mean “turned into an undead army for your God Pharaoh,” then yes, I agree.

Given what we’ve seen in the Trial of Knowledge for Nissa, I’m wondering if it wasn’t altered to become a trap for her.  From what Meris & Djeru talk about, it should’ve been something completely different entirely, or else meant to be taken on as a group rather than an by an individual -- which is probably the case, as crops get merged with others.

Oh shit, that’s two trials Gideon skipped out on -- the Trial of Knowledge and Strength!  Unless he beat them off-screen.

What’s this Ceremony of Measurement?

You're all still children. -- Beefslab

The same could be said for the Gatewatch.  Except Nissa.  There’s more to her than meets the eye.  But Beefslab’s overconfident, Jace is awkward, Liliana is full of herself and rightly so, Chandra is... Chandra.

Ooh, this is interesting.  Each gods presence invokes a different emotion.  Oketra exuded warmth and calmness; Bontu exudes pride and power.

Furthermore, Bontu isn’t often seen in Naktamun, only coming here because of the approaching Hours.  Then again, she’d kinda clash with Oketra’s mantra...

Also, I get that crocodiles hiss and all, but I imagined Bontu having a richer, fuller voice, like a deep horn.

Also Also, Bontu has two eyelids, or else is imitating the Kaladeshi Vedalken gesture.

Indeed, how brazen, Gideon.  Like, blimey -- what a rebel!

Going back to what I said about names and power, note that both gods addressed Gideon as Kytheon.

Bontu’s trial is a speedrun, essentially.  And is also culling the weak, aided by Djeru’s remarks.

Also, angry red boils?  I thought we weren’t referencing the biblical Plagues of Egypt, but oh well.

Indeed, why would Oketra guide Gideon to this trial?  Maybe with the arrival of planeswalkers, they see a chance to avenge their fellow fallen gods?  And she’s trying to tell him in a way that isn’t overtly telling him?

It also makes a lot of sense.  Gideon understands Chandra more than he does Liliana.

You just had to say that, Imi...

I protest -- Gideon of the Trials can become a 4/4 creature, more than enough to take out an Ammit, even if the -1/-1 counter was placed on him somehow.

Gideon’s invulnerability seems to be wavering... hmm... and this Ammit is ridiculously strong...

Is this what reading the Hunger Games was like?  I never read it, but from what I heard this is pretty close...

I was going to ask how invulnerability was a curse, but then I remembered Beefslab’s Tragic Arrogance.

"The Hours draw nigh. Your numbers are too great. Pay the toll, or fall short and perish." -- Bontu

Very interesting tidbit of information here.  What, does Bolas require a certain number of people for his grand scheme?

Also, very nice reference with the scales and the heart.

Okay, fuck you, Djeru.  I was expecting you to give Meris a painless death, but no: you just shove him into a poisonous snake pool.  Cool water my asp.

Bontu knows your true name, Kytheon.  Of course she knows you’re not of this world.  Plus, Temmet probably blabbed about it to everyone he knows.

Bontu, laying down the cold hard truth about Beefslab.

Yet still, their ambitions drive them to shine brighter, reach higher, unsatisfied by complacent divinity. When will you be able to say the same for yourself? -- Bontu

Okay, this is the second time we’ve heard mention of someone becoming greater than they are, and both came from the trials.  I really hope Emrakul makes an appearance, but with this fresh bit of dialogue, I’m not so certain...

Now that’s the ambition I’m talking about, Gideon!  Or just another Tragic Arrogance...

Alright, that was a depressing story, not just because of its contents, but because it puts one of my theories in doubt.  It’d be so cool not just to see Bolas’ endgame, but Emrakul’s as well.  I also hated how we had to see all these characters die, betray each other, etc.  Out of the stories in Amonkhet thus far, this one is my least favorite.  While Servants didn’t have a lot going on, in terms of major goings-on, and is blase at the absolute worst (I still love Liliana’s dialogue and the Raven man’s hints), I actively hate Brazen.  We got to see so much potential built up, so many people, personalities get introduced, only to come crashing down.  Even when there was the perfect opportunity for redemption, Djeru kills Meris the most painful death possible given the circumstances.  And to think, Michael Yichao is the same person who wrote Impact... Ugh, I feel revolted... fuck this story.