Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #225 - White-Black

Episode Date: May 8, 2015

Mark about the color pair White-Black. ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today is another in my series on two-color podcasts. But I finally crossed the middle way. We're going from allied colors to enemy colors. So we're going to start with white-black. So enemy colors are a little bit different than allied colors. I want to discuss them a little differently. With the allied colors, I was talking about their overlap. What do they agree on? So enemy colors, we're going to talk a little bit about what the conflict between them represents and then sort of how you can cut the middle on the conflict. So we'll talk about that.
Starting point is 00:00:38 Okay, so what does white want? What does black want? So white, white wants peace. It wants peace through structure. White believes that we have the means to make sure that everybody can be happy, that everybody can live in peace, and that what we need to do to make sure such a thing happens is that we use a very exact structure to make sure everybody involved knows the rules and knows what they need to do so that everybody acts accordingly. White tends to make its rules on two levels. One is spiritual and
Starting point is 00:01:13 one is moral, if you will, and one is civil. So the civil has to do with making laws. When we get to red, we'll talk all about that one. Today we're going to talk about the moral end of the spectrum, which is White's idea that how do you protect the innocent? By making sure that people understand a sense of morality. And white is very much about saying there are rights and there are wrongs. There are absolute rights, absolute wrongs. This is
Starting point is 00:01:37 a good thing. This is a bad thing. Do good things. Don't do bad things. Don't do evil things. Now, black on the flip side, black is very self-centered. Black believes that each individual, that nobody's going to look out for each individual other than themselves, meaning that the primary responsibility of each person is to look out for themselves. And that if everybody looks out for themselves,
Starting point is 00:02:00 then everybody has somebody who's looking out for them. And black definitely believes that, look, not everybody's equal. Those that are able to survive will. Black is like, look, I've got to do what I've got to do for me, and other people have got to watch out for themselves, and that if I'm able to survive at the cost of them, well, then I can. And Black is very self-centered in the way it looks at things. Now, to be fair, black's entire idea, black believes
Starting point is 00:02:26 black believes that it's a harsh world, and you have to do harsh things to live in a harsh world. So let's look a little bit at white and black and how white and black see each other. White sees itself as being the paragon of virtue, of it's a good color in an evil
Starting point is 00:02:44 world, doing what it can to try to, White believes that within everybody is a potential for good and that there are a lot of impulses and things that lead people to want to do bad things, that evil is a learning at times, but if people
Starting point is 00:02:59 just understand, if there's a clean, clear set of rules, so people know right from wrong, that people have the ability to do right, and that they could live together in a peaceful way. Black believes it's a rough world. Black believes that people inherently are selfish. Black's like, I didn't make people selfish.
Starting point is 00:03:19 They are selfish. And black is recognizing the reality of what the world is. Black is making sure that, you know, black's like, everybody else wants the world to be the way that they want it to be and black's like, I'm the one that just recognizes it as it is. It's a mean, rough world. It definitely is something that can be very harsh and that part of existing in that world is looking out for yourself.
Starting point is 00:03:45 So black is very, look, I've got to put me first. I have to be the first one there. Okay, so black and white look at each other. White looks at black and says, oh, that is just pure evil. Every impulse that black has. Black is looking at itself at the expense of the group. That is the embodiment of what evil is. And so white looks at black and says evil
Starting point is 00:04:05 black looks at white and thinks that white is just a fool life is hard you don't need made up rules like life is already really hard just pure foolishness to make extra rules now white is not amoral white is not immoral by the way
Starting point is 00:04:22 white believes black is immoral white believes itself is moral and black. I said white is not immoral, by the way. I mean, white... Sorry. White believes black is immoral. White believes itself is moral and black is immoral. Black is like, I'm not immoral. I don't believe in morality. I'm amoral. I don't believe in morality. So white and black are pretty on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
Starting point is 00:04:37 You know, white is light and black is dark. You know, white is defense and black is offense. You know, they have a lot of different qualities to them. White really wants to live in a place, in a world, where everything is set up to maximize. And white is all about the good of the group. White believes that if there's a decision to be made and one person suffers but the group is rewarded,
Starting point is 00:05:03 that decision should be made in the group's favor, even if that decision is being made by the individual. The individual is supposed to say, I know this choice is bad for me personally, but it's good for the group
Starting point is 00:05:15 so I should do it. And black looks at that and goes, what? People have to look out for their own interests. Why in the world would you ever do something that's in your own disinterest
Starting point is 00:05:23 for other people? Black looks at white as just being naive. White sees black as evil, black sees white as foolish and naive. Okay, so how? How do these colors ever get along? They seem fundamentally opposed. They are fundamentally opposed. So the interesting thing about enemy colors is trying to find out how you split the middle. How do you live in a place where you touch upon both sides of the conflict? So the five dual color, two
Starting point is 00:05:55 color combinations are, they're, it's not so much about finding overlap as it's about finding a middle ground between the conflict. Okay, so there's a couple different ways you'll see white-black sort of work together. Number one is, you believe in a group, but that group is not the whole group, it's a subgroup. And so what you're saying is, instead of just looking out for me, I'm looking out for my group, but my group is not everybody, my group is my group. So a classic example of this would be Magneto,
Starting point is 00:06:33 who is a villain in the Marvel Comics universe. So Magneto is what they call a mutant. In the Marvel universe, some people are born mutants, and mutants have special powers and things. But they're born that way. They're not, you know, they didn't get bit by a radioactive spider or anything.
Starting point is 00:06:49 They're just born with these powers. And they're shunned by society because society fears them. It's a good metaphor for minorities and such. Anyway, Magneto fights for the rights of mutants. Now, will he do anything it takes for them? Yes. So he acts very black in his nature. He will do what he needs to do,
Starting point is 00:07:12 but his motivations, it's a very white-based motivation, which is, he is, he's not trying to help himself, he's trying to help his group. Not the society as a whole, his group. So that's one way you can see black-white, where the person is trying to
Starting point is 00:07:27 be protective, but instead of being protective of just themselves, they're protective of a group. Another place you see black-white is where you see an organization that is very black in nature, but within
Starting point is 00:07:44 the organization has a lot of white qualities. So the place I talk about that is very black in nature, but within the organization has a lot of white qualities. So the place I talk about that is like organized crime. I joke, what's more white black than organized crime? Organized white, crime black. So the idea is, here's a group of people that have banded together. They're doing pretty horrible, evil things. They're killing, and they're doing a lot of black type things. The group is doing whatever it needs to do to survive. But within the group they're doing a lot of black type things. The group is doing
Starting point is 00:08:05 whatever it needs to do to survive. But within the group, there's a lot of structure. There's a sense of honor, you know, that there are things that you can't do within the group because it is wrong within the group. And so you have to honor the group. You have to do what is good for the group. But the group itself goes out and does horrific things. That's another way. The Orzhov sort of plays into that space. The one other time that you'll see white-black, one other example
Starting point is 00:08:34 is also from the Marvel Universe, the Punisher. The Punisher, in my mind, I'm talking about Punisher when he kind of was a villain. So the Punisher was a guy who his family was gunned down in Central Park. And he decides that organized crime,
Starting point is 00:08:49 the crime is just, it's a plague that he needs to solve. So what he does is, he goes around and he kills bad guys. And the reason, the sort of white blocknessism, in his heart, he is really, he is trying to make society better. He is trying to improve society. He's like, these things are just an evil in society.
Starting point is 00:09:09 I need to get rid of them. But he follows no rules. He is definitely sort of a white guided individual using very black means. He's not just beating them up. He's not just trying to teach them a lesson. He's just taking them out. Now, I mean, Punisher went on to be kind of a hero, and they've lessened a little bit of this aspect of him.
Starting point is 00:09:33 I thought he was more interesting as a villain when he's just like, I kill bad guys. It's what I do. Anyway, so let's talk mechanically where the overlaps come, because there's a lot of overlap between white and black. One other thing that's very interesting, by the way, is while Because there's a lot of overlap between white and black. One other thing that's very interesting, by the way, is while there's not a lot of philosophical
Starting point is 00:09:47 not a lot of philosophical overlap, there's a lot of mechanical overlap. In fact, the enemy colors, in some ways, have more overlap than some of the ally colors. And white and black has plenty. Okay, so there's, let's start with keyword abilities. There are three keyword abilities that white and black share,
Starting point is 00:10:05 although one of them just barely. The big one that they shared is lifelink. This is the one whenever we're doing shenanigans and we're doing multiple color things or we're trying to get the overlap. Lifelink's the ability that is in white and in black. The ability started in black on El Hajaj from Arabian Nights, but then became really kind of, claim to fame was on
Starting point is 00:10:25 an enchantment called Spirit Link in Legends. And so it's kind of funny. In white, it's kind of like a life-gaining thing that you're using your noble fighting to sort of gain life. Where in black, it's kind of like, I'm draining you. So they have very different flavors. But
Starting point is 00:10:42 both white and black do life link. They both fly. Blue is the number one flying color, but white is very, very close to number two. Black is third, but flying's a big enough color that it gets three colors that have it. Red and green, I mean, red is dragons, and green, everyone's in a blue moon dips its toe, but really red and green, barring dragons and phoenixes, do not have flying normally, where white, blue, and black do. So white and black both have flying. The third thing is white is first in first strike. Black is what we call tertiary in first strike, which means every once in a while, usually it's on like a night or something. We love
Starting point is 00:11:20 making like white nights and black nights. So every once in a while when there's a knight, we give it first strike. Black doesn't do it very much. Okay, now speaking of lifelink, life gained is something that both white and black do. But once again, and a good example when you see the contrast is white is all about
Starting point is 00:11:39 life gain. I gain life. I cast spells. creatures with ETB effects, whatever. I just get it. I gain life. I cast spells. creatures with ETB effects, whatever. I just get it. I gain life. I'm probably the color most associated with life. I gain life. Black gains life, but at the cost. So the most common way black gains life is what we call drain life,
Starting point is 00:11:58 where something loses life. It deals damage either to a creature or a player, and then it gets that much life. So, you know, it does two damage to a creature and gains two life. It does three damage to a player and gains three life. That flavor there, it's not just gaining it, it's taking the life from something else.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Now, black can also get life gain through sacrifice. It can sacrifice creatures or discard cards or you know, black has access to life gain, but it comes at a cost. It's another one of those abilities where black doesn't really do it, either whether it's taking it from something else or it's using a cost to get it. Okay, now let's talk destruction.
Starting point is 00:12:33 So black and white both overlap in creature destruction. Black pretty much can kill whatever it wants. It has stuff like murder. A lot of times its stuff will have restrictions just because it plays more interestingly if a kill spell can't kill everything. But Black's allowed to kill pretty much any creature. There's no type of creature that Black can't kill. White,
Starting point is 00:12:52 on the other hand, has the don't mess with me and my guys philosophy which says, White's kind of like the Federation in Star Trek. White wants to see itself as the good guy. So White tends to not take the first step toward violence. Now there's exceptions.
Starting point is 00:13:07 If white sees you as inherently evil, there's things where white sometimes gets proactive, but usually it's like, oh, are you attacking me? Are you getting in combat with me? Are you attacking or blocking? Okay, I can deal with it. Have you hurt me?
Starting point is 00:13:19 Okay, I can deal with it. White tends to be, now, white does have some answers. I'll get there in a second. White has some answers that are temporary, but we'll get there. But as far as destroying creatures, white and black both have the ability to destroy creatures. White sometimes, by the way, at a high cost, will exile creatures. So sometimes when we overlap black and white, we'll do, like,-cost exile things. Okay, Black also has the ability to kill planeswalkers. White, well, I guess we'll get into this now.
Starting point is 00:13:50 So one of White's answers is, White has what we call answers with answers. So it will have creatures or it will have enchantments that will remove things, and as long as that thing stays in play, the thing stays removed. So White, for example, its answer to planeswalkers is white has things like oblivion ring, where it can play it, remove the planeswalker, and as long as the oblivion ring stays in play, the planeswalker is removed. Black can just kill planeswalkers, just not destroy planeswalkers.
Starting point is 00:14:18 Black and white also have mass creature kill, so wrath of god and damnation type stuff. White tends to, when it destroys creatures, usually just destroys everything. Black has a couple other options. Black sometimes will just destroy it. Sometimes it'll deal damage to it.
Starting point is 00:14:35 Sometimes it'll do minus N, minus N to creatures. So, black has more range of how it can kill things. Although white more often gets the plan out to just destroy all creatures. Black gets it occasionally, but black's more likely to sort of do something else to kill everything. And now also, black and white also sometimes use auras as a means to deal with creatures.
Starting point is 00:15:00 White for example have pacifism. White sometimes is a creature that does damage. White has different answers that it'll use on the opponent's creatures to prevent stuff. Black, too, has auras that it'll use on the opponent's creatures. Usually, the one overlap that white and black will have sometimes is white does straight-up taxing when you have to pay mana. Black sometimes does taxing when you pay life or sacrifice a creature. They'll sometimes overlap there.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Black, usually, its negative auras are more like minus N, minus N, or something that's sort of harming things. White, usually the flavor of white auras is I'm preventing you from doing something, where black is I'm kind of hurting you, and in hurting you, I'm preventing you to do what you want to do. They both also have positive auras.
Starting point is 00:15:41 They both will do, like in alpha, for example, there was unholy strength and holy strength, where unholy, like in Alpha, for example, there was Unholy Strength and Holy Strength, where Unholy Strength was plus two, plus one, and Holy Strength was plus one, plus two. As a general rule of thumb, White leans a little bit more towards toughness than Black, a little bit more towards power. Both of them can do
Starting point is 00:15:57 plus one, plus one, plus two, plus two. So both of them have that, and both of them will buff things. They also will have small abilities. White does, I talked about when I did white-green, how white will boost things and often give them abilities. Black occasionally will boost things. Usually it's plus one, plus zero, or plus two, plus zero.
Starting point is 00:16:17 Black doesn't tend to gain or grant toughness. But it will sometimes grant abilities. It will sometimes regenerate or grant lifelink or death touch is very common. So black and white have some sort of spells in combat that will do boosting and add something else.
Starting point is 00:16:36 White and black also are two of the colors that have interaction with the graveyard. White, for example, black can regrow creatures. It has the raise dead type thing white will get back artifacts or enchantments every once in a while it will get back small creatures
Starting point is 00:16:52 those are things it can regrow reanimation wise white will reanimate small creatures sometimes it talks about CMC sometimes it talks about power I tend to lean towards CMC because the intent is to get back small things, and
Starting point is 00:17:08 there are very powerful things that have low power, so we nowadays lean a little bit more towards Converted Manacross. The reason that we do that is that White needs, one of White's problems, built on purpose, is that White has issues running out of card advantage, and so
Starting point is 00:17:23 we want to give White some way without sort of straight-up card advantage to keep refilling its small group of creatures for its army. So the reanimation of small things is one way to do that. Black can reanimate anything. White more often gets small things, usually have its own graveyard. Black gets whatever it wants out of whatever graveyard it needs. One of the big things that black tends to do sometimes is steal stuff out of the opponent's graveyard as a resource, that it'll kill things and animate their own creatures.
Starting point is 00:17:49 It'll do that. So that's the graveyard. As far as the library goes, both black and white have some tutoring ability. White tends to get artifacts or enchantments. And within artifacts, especially equipment, white is very big on equipment. Black can get whatever it wants thanks to the grandfather of demonic tutor.
Starting point is 00:18:09 But oftentimes black will come at a cost. Sometimes it's a life payment. Sometimes it's top of library. We don't do quite as many just clean tutors for black as we used to. Usually black has to perform some little sacrifice or something as a means to get what it wants. Black and white both have means to protect themselves. White tends to use indestructible. Black tends to use regenerate. So both of them have creatures that are hard to kill. White and black will also, not only will they buff individual creatures
Starting point is 00:18:46 but each of them can buff the team white more often does power toughness pumping, like the entire team gets plus one plus one, usually when black affects the whole team it's more to grant an ability to grant it some sort of evasion type thing or death touch
Starting point is 00:19:04 or something in which it makes the creatures meaner or scarier, usually, is the flavor of black buffing. The other thing that both black and white do is both black and white make use of sacrifice, but they make use of it very differently. And this is a good example of how you can have something where the colors can use their differences to show the differences between them. So white is self-sacrifice. White says, I will sacrifice me, and usually by sacrificing me, I help somebody else.
Starting point is 00:19:32 Sometimes I'm the planeswalker, but often I'm helping my team. So the idea of, like, I sacrifice myself and then give a boost to the team, that's a very common white thing. The flavor of, this guy is sacrificing himself for the good of the group. Black, on the other hand, tends to sacrifice other things. It doesn't have creatures that sacrifice themselves as much as creatures that sacrifice other creatures. And black's whole philosophy is
Starting point is 00:19:53 I will use what I need, that if somebody else's sacrifice helps me, okay, then I've got to sacrifice them. Now, black and white, through different flavoring, often will have other things that sacrifice. White's flavor, once again, is always a self-sacrifice, and black is, I'm using others to advance my agenda. White and black also overlap in exiling cards from graveyard.
Starting point is 00:20:21 That's one that's very specific. graveyard. That's one that's very specific. So white has it from sort of a consecrating dead kind of standpoint of, you know, like deeming clerics and like dealing with the dead. So white can sort of do it that way. Black just is like, it's king of the graveyard, so it has the ability to sort of answer graveyard threats. Sometimes we like cards who like, the card that best can do something has the ability to deal with it. Um, finally, the last big mechanical overlap between white and black, uh, is token making.
Starting point is 00:20:52 Um, the difference is white tends to make smaller tokens. White tends to make, um, 1-1s, usually 1-1 humans or soldiers, or make spirits that fly. Where black's most common token is zombie tokens, which are 2-2 normally. So black tends to make slightly bigger tokens. It doesn't make them as often. White is primary in token making. Green is secondary.
Starting point is 00:21:17 Black, all the colors other than white and green, I guess, am I sure? Well, red is kind of secondary. I guess black and blue are tertiary, although tertiary is not kind of right in that they black and blue are tertiary, although tertiary is not kind of right in that they do it a lot more,
Starting point is 00:21:29 especially black will do it more than that. Maybe black is like bottom and secondary, I guess. So anyway, as you can see, black and white, there's a lot of overlap, but the big difference is
Starting point is 00:21:40 how exactly they make use of stuff. That white tends to say, what can I do to help everybody else? How can I work together? Where black, the funny thing is, actually this is kind of neat. Both white and black have a group strategy. It's just a very different kind of group strategy.
Starting point is 00:22:01 White's group strategy is, I'm going to overwhelm you with small creatures that are going to work together to sort of slowly defeat you. I have an army, and you might take out pieces of my army, but my army will work together to stop you. Black, on the other hand, its army is an army of the undead. It has zombies, and a lot of its zombie strategy is, I'm just going to overrun you with zombies, and you can kill as many zombies as you want, I'll just make more zombies, and my zombies will eventually overrun you.
Starting point is 00:22:27 So it's funny that white's army flavor and black's zombie flavor, the flavoring is completely different, but the actual sort of gameplay is a little bit the same, where white is just going to keep attacking you, and that even though you get rid of individual pieces of it, the strength of the group will
Starting point is 00:22:44 overwhelm you. And black zombies definitely have a similar sort of feel to it, the strength of the group will overwhelm you. And black zombies definitely have a similar sort of feel to it, that they're going to overwhelm you with their forces. And that both white and black in those cases, it's like the individual piece is not as important as what the overall thing is doing. Okay, so now that we've talked mechanics, let's get back to talking about where do white and black... So why...
Starting point is 00:23:08 One of the things that's most interesting about the enemy colors is sort of... I don't know, we'll talk about the conflict a little bit. I find the conflict to be... I'm fascinated by... The five conflicts in my mind are... It's one of the neat aspects of how the colors work. So for example, let's look at white and black's
Starting point is 00:23:29 conflict in contrast to the conflicts on the side of it. This is very interesting. Okay, so white is all about the good of the community versus black, which is about the good of the individual. Okay, now let's take white let's shift over. What is white's next conflict?
Starting point is 00:23:44 White's next conflict is white and red. Where there, white is all about the need of structure and order versus need of chaos. So when you get to there, white pivots in the sense that white is looking out for the good of the group, but between black's conflict, it's looking about sort of the moralness of the group. Is the group spiritually in the right place?
Starting point is 00:24:06 Are they doing the right things? Are they being good or being bad? And you get to the red side, and it's more about, like, are they being orderly or not? Are they following their chaotic emotional impulses, or are they being orderly? But the same idea there is white's constant between white and black. White is kind of taking the same side.
Starting point is 00:24:24 It's just different facets of that coin. Okay, so now let's look at black. So black versus white is all about black, the rights of the individual. So let's get to black to green. And black to green is all about free will versus determinism, where black believes that you've got to do what you've got to do, and green believes, no, you fulfill a larger role.
Starting point is 00:24:46 So once again, look at black. Black, once again, is taking the role of the individual. Black's taking the role of saying, I have, you know, I have freedom to do what I need to do. And white, white is saying, no, you know, you are not doing what's good for the group. And green is saying, no, you're not fulfilling your role in the larger ecosystem. Both of them are sort of talking about how black is not placing its, you know, black needs to think about the bigger picture, and black in each case is going, no, I need to think about myself.
Starting point is 00:25:17 I need to do what's right for me, not what's right for everybody else. So the neat thing about those conflicts is, in each case, when you shift over, white has the same conflict with black and red, just slightly shifted. Black has the same conflict with white and green, just slightly shifted. And one of the neat things about the conflict, I know a lot of times it's easy,
Starting point is 00:25:38 so one of the things that's very easy when looking at white and black is to want to see white as good and black as evil. Now, to be fair, we humans are more white aligned than black aligned, and a lot of the teachings of religions and things very much look at what white represents as being good and what black represents as being evil. But that doesn't inherently mean that white and black are good or evil. Black, But that doesn't inherently mean that white and black are good or evil.
Starting point is 00:26:07 Black, you know, take something like capitalism. Capitalism is a very black thing. The idea of each individual looking out for themselves. You know, and that's not inherently evil. There are plenty of things that black preaches that you can go to self-help groups and stuff, and they'll say, hey, it's important that you look after yourself. It's important that at times you prioritize what you need. That it's not that black is necessarily preaching inherently evil. White sees black as evil, but it's very careful to us that there is good and evil in every color.
Starting point is 00:26:35 That just like white can do good and try to help people, white can get kind of fascist at times and apply rules that aren't necessarily good to the point of of I'm trying to protect everything by making these rules exist, but are these rules really helping everybody? Meanwhile, black sometimes, black is looking out for itself, but sometimes
Starting point is 00:26:55 in the system it sets up, it makes something that really gives people more access to freedoms. Black leans more toward individual freedoms than white does. White leads toward the idea of, you know, people doing what they need to do for the good of everybody else so white, I mean, white-red is a
Starting point is 00:27:12 little more where you get into true personal freedom, red is the color of freedom, but you see that spill over a little bit into black likewise, if you take the black-green conflict of green's idea of that you have a role to fill, that you have a destiny,
Starting point is 00:27:27 that spills a little bit into white. White definitely believes there's a role that you have to fill. Now, white's is a little more structural and spiritual than green's. Green's a little more ecosystem-y, but you can see how those spill over. So the idea is when white takes on black,
Starting point is 00:27:44 there are different conflicts sometimes sometimes the good it's very easy to see the good of the group being the good side but also sometimes the good of the individual there are definitely stories you see where
Starting point is 00:28:00 the white is being abusive in power and the white is not understanding the freedom of the individuals or not seeing the, what's the word I want? Not seeing that white is eclipsing
Starting point is 00:28:17 sort of the forcing everybody to make decisions based on the group and not on itself. And that black, that's where, I mean, there definitely are stories where black steps in and black is like, this is wrong. You know, a lot of the stories where black's protagonist
Starting point is 00:28:31 and white is the antagonist stems from a place where, you know, usually it's the person fighting the system that's very common, where I think a lot of stories where black's protagonist, the idea of personal identity starts getting stripped away and
Starting point is 00:28:49 someone reclaiming their own personal identity you know like Logan's Ron or stuff like that. There's somebody who, it's a lot of where black's protagonist in Black White is where black is trying to say white is eclipsing identity, that is not okay. There's a lot of science fiction films you in Black-White is where black is trying to say white is a clipsing identity that is not okay.
Starting point is 00:29:06 There's a lot of science fiction films you see where the villains are white in that they've taken to such a far extent that someone has to reclaim the rights of the individual. The flip side, it's easy. Black villains are a lot easier to see. Black villains, you know, just people out for themselves doing something evil
Starting point is 00:29:22 and that the white has stopped them. A lot of traditional dynamics, a lot of superheroes are very white-black in that, you know, I'm trying to save the good of the group. But it's important to understand. So the one example people ask all the time is, are we ever going to do a story in which we have a black protagonist and a white
Starting point is 00:29:39 antagonist? We actually did in Champions of Kamigawa. The emperor, Emperor Kanda, was trying to do what he thought was right for his... He kidnapped the spirit baby and he was trying to do something that he thought was going to benefit his kingdom as a whole.
Starting point is 00:30:02 But in doing so, did great atrocities in the name of trying to do that. And the person who was the hero, Umagawa, he was trying to sort of, I mean, he was, I think, a thief? I mean, he was
Starting point is 00:30:18 someone who normally looked out for himself and realized that, like, the emperor had overstepped his bounds and took steps to stop that. And so, like I said, you can get black protagonists. I know a recent example, a good one, anyone who watches Orphan Black,
Starting point is 00:30:34 Sarah Manning is a good example of a black protagonist where she really does not start trying to help anybody but herself. But in trying to help herself, she achieves some larger goals in helping other people. And that's the trick of a black protagonist, by the way, is that the black protagonists, they start trying to help themselves, but then they help the larger agenda of people helping themselves. That's kind of where black goes.
Starting point is 00:30:59 Anyway, I'm always to work. I got a little more philosophical today. I think the enemy ones lean themselves a little more toward that. Because the white, the ally color ones are talking about overlaps and the enemy ones are talking about conflict. So it is very interesting. I think that white and black actually kind of work well together at times. And normally, like I said, the two most common ways is
Starting point is 00:31:24 white motivation, black means, or black motivation, white means. And I think there's a lot of fun in white and black. White and black also, the other thing you'll notice about anime colors is they make great reflections. White and black is king of this.
Starting point is 00:31:41 Unholy Strength, Holy Strength, Black Knight, White Knight, where you see two things that in some ways are very, Holy Strength, Black Knight, White Knight, where you see two things that in some ways are very, very similar. They just, you know, it's funny how enemies can kind of come to a similar place, and that's a lot to do with reflections. That the White Knight and the
Starting point is 00:31:55 Black Knight, on some level, represent completely opposite things, yet in the trappings, in the way they function, in what they are, they're very similar. And I think that's a neat thing. And white-black, probably if I had to pick up all the five-color conflicts, white-black is kind of the cleanest. It's the most classic. A lot of fantasy is all about sort of the fight over morality and that you have, you know, the embodiment of
Starting point is 00:32:22 evil fighting the cause for good. That sort of sense shows up in fantasy a lot. And that's very white-black oriented. So anyway, that, my friends, is number six of our podcast on two colors. So to remind everybody, I'm going in, I don't know, I guess, color order. So the next one we'll do will be blue-red. Then we'll be doing black-green.
Starting point is 00:32:47 Then we'll be doing red-white. And then finally we'll be doing green-blue. Which everyone's asking for but we'll get there. So anyway
Starting point is 00:32:55 I'm parking my car. So we all know what that means. That means this is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic. See you guys next time.

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