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Jan 10, 2012 -- 9:43PM, Vektor480 wrote:

Am I the only one who thought this story was laaaaaaaaaaaame?

I can't speak for the entire rest of the human race, but if I could I'd say "yes".  I was absolutely floored; I was ready to hear that Sorin had created the moon which was an artificial source of silver to help Avacyn stop the werewolves, but for Sorin to have created the angel herself was incredible.  Remember, Innistrad's vampires are created in a ritual that uses angel blood - this brings the connection between immortal human-looking winged protectors and immortal human-looking sometimes-winged predators full circle.  (I'm guessing Sorin didn't really wave his hands and make Avacyn coalesce out of thin air, but rather that he took one or more existing angels, poured a ton of hopefully-colorless mana into her/them, and transmuted their essence into a single godly-powerful being.)  I thought it was brilliant.
Really, my only complaint with this article was the reluctance to credit an obviously principled and noble (if spectacularly arrogant and draconian) individual with actual "responsibility" just because someone thought that wasn't a Black trait - it totally is.  (The colors which wouldn't recognize "responsibility" as a concept are Red and possibly Blue, but this is one of several cases where Black agrees with its enemies and disagrees with its allies - really, the enmity between Black and White-Green isn't that they're opposites, but that they're eerie reflections of one another unwilling to tolerate in the other what they wish they didn't recognize in themselves.
Oh and also, a non-ultimate Emblem ability is nuts.  I still hate emblems (most especially the "you get an emblem" wording), but this at least hints at the idea they have actual design space associated with them, instead of being a bad excuse for not saying "for the rest of the game").

Jan 11, 2012 -- 5:52AM, willpell wrote:

Really, my only complaint with this article was the reluctance to credit an obviously principled and noble (if spectacularly arrogant and draconian) individual with actual "responsibility" just because someone thought that wasn't a Black trait - it totally is.  (The colors which wouldn't recognize "responsibility" as a concept are Red and possibly Blue, but this is one of several cases where Black agrees with its enemies and disagrees with its allies - really, the enmity between Black and White-Green isn't that they're opposites, but that they're eerie reflections of one another unwilling to tolerate in the other what they wish they didn't recognize in themselves.

I don't always agree with you, willpell, but this is exactly how I see the more aristocratically arrogant Black-aligned types of people. I don't think wanting order and having the strong sense of responsibility to bring it about are always White.

Maybe he's supposed to have been ambivalent about becoming a vampire in the first place and so to have more Whitish remnants of regrets?

I agree with the earlier poster who said Sorin doesn't really sound like himself in this trailer; I'd say they made a poor choice of voice actor for him.  (Presumably they couldn't afford Michael Dorn again.)  Also, he talks about creating Avacyn in the video, but the video is earlier on the page than the spoiler that he created her; it was a bad editing mistake to put the video before the "click here".  I only saw them in the correct order because I read articles at work and our company has no reason to let us use YouTube, so I just had a big white space where the video was.
Beyond that, this video was not spectacular (admittedly the Mirrodin vs. Phyrexia videos set a very high bar, it may be a long time before they are equaled).  However I did get a lot of interesting ideas from watching it - a conflict between Sorin's white-aligned leanings and the red "taint" of his reckless brethren; the idea that Sorin thinks of the "balance" between human and vampire as a sort of chess match, in which he protects humans a little because he likes having a worthy opponent; and the "give herself freely" girl, whose story I would love to hear - we associate black with ambition and perhaps she's just a schemer who sought out the vampires and struck a deal, but it's also interesting to think that she was motivated more by fear, as the voiceover suggests, and that she accepted transformation as an alternative to death and is now throwing herself into the role because she's still afraid, knowing the other vamps will kill her if she isn't vampirey enough to earn their trust.  Lots of good stuff, even if it could have been better.
I did get a tickle out of hearing a vampire (well, a black-aligned noble, who in Sorin's case also is a vampire rather than destined to become one) talk about "my angel" - it made me think of Crovax.  Given that Sengir Vampire and Serra Angel were a mirror in Alpha, it would be very apropos to rule that the vampire/angel connection is one of Magic's inherent twists on classic mythology and to apply it to all Magic worlds, though I don't know if that would be consistent with canon to date.
(Also, to be snarky, Sorin isn't a creature so I don't think anyone can "block" him and answer to his sword.)

White is in part about duty, compassion, peace. All of which would appear to be driving Sorin's actions on Innistrad

Duty and peace, certainly. True compassion, however, not really.
All colours are representations of mental concepts. is emotions, is morality; the two easily interchange and this is why we have so many / characters or characters with atributes and vice versa, but at their purest neither are identifiable as human.

Pure and pure , I think, are very rare, but the kami show more or less what you get when you have no restraining factors. The Myojin of Cleansing Fire burned his own devoted followers alive in his unmoving devotion to O-Kagachi, and the Myojin of Infinite Rage ...also burned his followers alive, most likely either out of fear of O-Kagachi, because he felt like it or, worse yet, because of an infatuation with O-Kagachi.

Sorin cares about people. Even those who aren't truely his own. If that's not white, then honestly I don't understand what you'd consider to be white anymore. Do we even need a 5th color or can we just fold all white things into your beloved black and red and be done with it?

It's debatable if he cares about people or if it is a more abstract sense of duty and guilt as mentioned previously. If the latter, then yes, he is unambiguously , but the first can also be within or , which were always noted to also have empathy, as empathy is driven by instincts and emotions. Even Maro's articles go on lengths to show that cares about it's community as much as , and that is the colour associated with love.

Rezzing for white is true resurrection. A dead person being brought back to life as a fully thinking and living individual.

Not really. Let I remind you that deals with spirits as much, if not more so, than , and thrulls and the like already existed long before New Phyrexia was on the works, not to mention that, mechanical speaking, there is no difference between a random soldier and a random zombie (other than the differences in mechanics between and , which exist in all beings from those colours). For all we know, Reya Dawnbringer is bringing back soldiers who are perfect in body with with an altered mind.

 

Meh, I wouldn't put much thought into her. She's Village Cannibals with more powers and a pretty face.

And this is why I don't like the "black and white" way of thinking does. Everyone's a shade of grey, and I would love to learn how she went from a peasant to a Disney villain wannabe.