Wizards of the Coast

Hi friends, it's me again!

Today I wanted to talk about how the Magic: the Gathering facebook page changed their profile picture to the planeswalker symbol in rainbow colors.

There were the usual retorts, "Magic is gay, lol!" and "leave politics out of my game!"
But you know what, an overwhelming number of responses were positive, "Thank you for representing me and my partner in the game that we love!"

Let me preface this by saying that I am a cis white woman, so I don't want to put words into anyone's mouths about how they feel about WotC being more inclusive. There are some people that feel that they are being exploited, and that is a valid concern that I don't want to dismiss. I have always been interested in these liminal spaces, like where to draw the line between being inclusive and exploitative, but I don't feel qualified to comment on that too much.

Instead, as something I DO feel qualified to discuss, I want to express my gratitude for how Wizards has handled their treatment of women characters over the years. I have definitely noticed that over time, the female planeswalkers have been more realistically clothed. When I see a franchise that is mostly male characters, and the only female present is there in like, a bikini or something, I dismiss it and think "this is obviously not for me."

Magic, at this time, has countless badass female characters in important roles, even in different body shapes and sizes! It's great!

Take Saskia, for example! She is wearing real armor! 

Now, some of you may be thinking, "but what about Liliana, she is sexy!"

Well let us not forget that it is ok to be sexy. Women are complex, multi-faceted beings. Being sexy is  one of Liliana's facets. She literally traded her soul to four demons for youth, beauty, and powers. I would do the same thing!

It's just nice to know that there are people out there trying to do better and reshape the gaming industry. If you want straight white protagonists, look around, they are everywhere!