Robert Conway at Reaxxion asks if Magic: The Gathering adding a transsexual character is a problem:
Magic the Gathering has been a mainstay in geek culture since the 90’s, so it should come as no surprise that people are making a big deal about the addition of a new trans character, Alesha, Who Smiles At Death. The announcement came in the form of a short story on Wizards Coast’s website entitled The Truth of Names, and is not actually indicated on the card itself. In fact the only text besides the card’s ability is a quote: “Great death with Sword in hand”. The art doesn’t necessarily give you the impression that Alesha is a trans-person either.
The card’s back story, as detailed by writer James Wyatt, discusses a clan of people who earn their names in battle. The tale depicts an Orc who fights for the Mardu clan, which is lead by Alesha. During the battle the Orc questions Alesha’s gender, after failing to kill a dragon and claim his own name. The story goes on about the battle and eventually ends with other warriors detailing deeds that deemed the Orc worthy of the name. However at the end the Orc admits he has yet to figure out who he is and willfully acknowledges that Alesha is in fact a woman.
Certainly this news has caught the attention of SJW-friendly meadia such as Kotaku (archived link) and of The Mary Sue (archived link). To put it simply Nathan Grayson thinks it’s “pretty darn cool”. Not everyone is on board with it. Several IGN users have voiced their concerns as I’m sure many of our readers will do the same.
The answer is, ABSOLUTELY YES, it is a problem. It is a very serious and ultimately fatal problem that will eventually kill the game dead. It is a problem of such gargantuan and epic proportions that the only rational thing to do is to immediately stop playing Magic: The Gathering, and stop purchasing any of its related products, until the Alesha, Who Smiles At Death card is publicly withdrawn. The card is the gaming equivalent of a small but malignant melanoma.
One might as reasonably ask if the original decision to permit women to read Bible verses was a problem for the Anglican Church. Or if the original income tax, which was introduced with a maximum rate of 7 percent and affected less than 1 percent of the U.S. population was a problem for US taxpayers.
The point is not whether the addition of an overtly propagandistic SJW element immediately breaks the game. The first step never does. That’s because the first step is always only symbolic, a testing of the waters to see if the invasion of the SJWs is going to be resisted or not. When it is resisted, of course, there will be endless protestations of how it is harmless little thing, how it is “just this one brick”, and hand-on-heart vows of how there is, of course, absolutely NO intention of building a damn brick wall in the future.
The time to smack down the SJW entryists is when the camel first sticks its nose in the tent, not when it is already fully ensconced and defecating all over the carpets.