Wizards has done an amazing job at dancing around the concept of religion and worship in all sorts of ways without tying anything back to the real world. All the references to angels, chapels, missionaries, etc. are all in a fantastical context.

I would argue that Heaven’s Gate is tied to realism more closely than, say, Isolated Chapel. There can be sanctuaries and priests, but no heavens and Cardinals because those are tied to religious realism that Wizards now avoids (but didn’t back in the day).

The creature getting burned in Incinerate isn’t a religious figure…at least not obviously so.

only one “church” in the name, sure, BUT:

there’s Church of Avacyn, complete with angels, parishes, chapels, cathars, missionaries, chaplains,

many cards referring to “sin” and “grace”

there’s at least one Deacon, and many many Priests

and of course an untold number of Shrines

So Incinerate is a problem too?

It goes beyond just the killing of a religious figure, IMO. It’s also the WAY they’re being killed. Burning a person alive supercharges the religious undertones…if the artwork was of the same character getting killed in a duel of swords, it wouldn’t be nearly that risky.

I have really enjoyed all these comments! It’s so funny because sometimes I write what I believe is a really meaningful MTG finance article, and it gets 0 comments. Then I write something purely for the fun of it with only tangential mtg finance content and the comments are explosive! Just goes to show that people appreciate going outside the box once in a while!

That and the term “ethnic cleansing” carries a ton of bagging. Therefore a card called “cleanse” that wipes out all creatures of a single color being offensive doesn’t feel like a large leap to me. The term isn’t “ethnic massacring” after all.

I don’t think people from my culture would mind (see comment below). However, I am not from the same culture as people at Wizards. Despite my feelings on it you are more likely to be right that they wouldn’t want to as you are from their culture.

I’m perfectly happy to disagree on what could be acceptable in this regard and grant you that you are more likely to be right on what they won’t actually print.

I’ve just been trying to show that these cards may feel different to different people.

If I’m not mistaken phyrexian trader has the same cultural background as I do (otherwise one nearby). It may be a cultural thing. I only remember 1 religious person being killed in our history (which may very well be my lack of knowledge of history! Saint Boniface btw)).

I also don’t feel that killing a religious figure changes much versus a regular person. It’s like 99.9% of the impact is killing someone and then maybe 0.1% is added for it being a religious figure (if anything is added at all actually). So to my mind Murder and Martyr’s Cry are in the same ballpark.

I believe it’s the combination of the name and rules text.

I know in Alpha the artists literally just got not a name of a card over the phone. Legends wasn’t that much later. I know the Dark was the first set with a unified art direction. So likely very little to no input from wizards on the card.

This article has sparked some awesome debate!

I don’t have attachment to Aurelia, but I shed a tear every time someone kills my Jaya Ballard in Commander ;-).

phyrexian trader,

Killing and murdering sells! That’s my simple answer to your question.

Many games revolve around destruction I suppose. Even something classic like Battleship involved destroying ships…what do you think happens to the “people” on those ships when they’re sunk? They probably die!

That said, there’s a continuum here between “murder a creature” and “burn a religious figure at the stake”. I don’t think we will see anything that hints at real-life religious views or concepts anymore. There will be references to fantasy people worshiping fantasy gods but certainly not Allah.

Thanks for chiming in!

Sig

Peter,

Thanks for the encouraging feedback! I was nervous that people would read this article and dislike it for its loose (nonexistent?) connection to MTG Finance. But it sounds like once in a while people appreciate pieces that are more off-the-wall. I’ll keep this in mind!

I made the EXACT same observation as you regarding SOI. I could have seen some very dark themes in the set given its theme; but to me it was watered down as well. Nothing about repenting, preaching, etc. It was very much “these are zombies, these are angels, etc.” without any in-your-face religious references. I think that’s WOTC’s intent from now on…the good old days of making people uncomfortable are long gone.

Do you think they’ll ever print a card with a pentagram on it again? Pentad Prism is kind of close…but it doesn’t hold a candle to Demonic Tutor or Unholy Strength!

Thanks for sharing!

Sig

It is important to remember that Invoke Prejudice as a card isn’t outwardly in support of the KKK. We now assume that because of Mr. McNeil’s vocal racism, however, the card art itself is a hooded figure with an axe, and hooded figures have been around for centuries (look at many medieval secret societies).

The other question I’m curious on is how the artwork was chosen/directed. I’ve read that nowadays WoTC is far more specific on what the general artwork on a card should look like to fit the card itself, however, that wasn’t always the case. I also read that going back to say Urza’s Saga artists were given more leeway in what was in the actual picture. If we go back all the way to Legends (which is one of MTG’s earliest sets, it’s entirely feasible that WoTC didn’t want to risk turning off artists by being too demanding given they hadn’t established the company or brand at the time). I’m not trying to defend Mr. McNeil by any means, but I’m just curious how much he knew of the card BEFORE it was printed (i.e. did he know the name or what it did or was he given a general guideline).

I get your point that as a culture we glorify violence, but magic is a fantasy game about conflict. Conflict is interesting. Because of the fantasy setting, Murdering a creature isn’t like watching some atrocity on the news. My Aurelia got shriekmawed last night, and my thoughts were not “Poor Aurelia. She is just a hardworking Angel trying to provide for her family, and instill order into a chaotic society.” Although I might say this next time she gets blown up in a game of commander. My point is that yes as a society we are violent, but I don’t think the violence depicted in MTG contributes any meaningful amount of impact to this problem, TV, Internet, and Video games do way more on that front than MTG ever could.

About the religious cards, I understand the current sensitivity in the cards with references to islam.

But not with the others. Murder is a card and as disturbing as martyr’s cry.

death, murder, killing, pain is part of such a big part of our entertainment products that it starts hurting if you think about it.

Why does every major entertainment product needs so much killing and/or hurting?

And Dystopia… same thing. It’s a color pie thing, nothing more. Besides, Dystopian societies are actually VERY popular topics in recent years, at least according to the box office and Hollywood. People show up in droves to watch Hunger Games, The Purge, Divergent series, Elysium, Maze Runner. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an entire dystopian world in the next two years (although it would be hard to do correctly.)

pi,

Indeed, Army of Allah is another one I forgot to mention. Good add. Looking at Wikipedia, Allah is the Arabic word for “The God”, which can be interpreted as the Abrhamic God. Could you ever imagine Wizards making a card “Army of Jesus”? Never!

Do you think WOTC wants to be printing religious-themed cards nowadays? I’m trying to think of new cards from SOI that had religious themes – there are references to sanctuaries and the like. But Orzhova, the Church of Deals is the only card I found in gatherer with the word “Church” in its name.