Once I read an anecdote from a person who worked in healthcare, and they were talking about misconceptions people had when they lacked senses. An example was a person who was born deaf but was given the ability to hear- the person remarked at their surprise that the sun in the sky was silent. They'd assumed it must have been roaring in the distance.
I like the metaphor "To imagine the Blind Eternities, try to imagine a color that you never saw before", since it parallels really well with colorless mana. It's mechanically a color, some spells require it, but it's not a _color_ . Abilities that "add one mana of any color" cannot add colorless mana. It's something grounded in rules we know and experience, and yet is alien and inaccessible unless you specifically try and get it
Emrakul is an Eldrazi, a big scary abomination from The Blind Eternities, the space between the planes. They are filled with chaotic energy. I’ve never been to The Blind Eternities myself, but they sound a little like Disneyland which I did go to when I was nine. - Alex Steacy, Friday Nights
In the novel "Planeswalker". Urza visits the Plane of Equilor. Equilor is said to be one of the most ancient planes. It was so "far away" that it took Urza 100 years to get back to Dominaria after his visit to the plane. I think about that a lot, especially when watching this video. Thanks Sam, you're a gem.
Thats a good take on the constant expansion of the universe and the relationshipof time & space. in our reality it's hypothesized that even with FTL travel one wouldn't be able to get from one edge of the universe to the other because of the speed of expansion around the edges. To help conceptualize the differing rates expansion in 4-D, take an un inflated balloon and make some dots on it with a large tipped marker, then inflate it. (and of course, looking up at the stars is "seeing" back in time. i.e. the light we actually see is ancient and the source isn't even close to being at the position we now perceive.) Anyways.. Planeswalker is one of my favorite books of all time. 🖖
@@BurnDoubt The universe expands too rapidly for anything starting on one axial extreme to reach the other axial extreme. I could be wrong as I haven't delved into physics since I first went to college but I was under the impression that the accepted theory of expansion currently has a uniform rate of expansion that is accelerating. Hell, it won't be that long on the cosmic scale until no more light from distant stars can even reach us due to spacetime expansion and our bright, starry backyard becomes an abyss of blackness forever. Something that's expected to happen before the final expansion of the Sun. A ship that leaves the edge of the universe today heading in a direct line across a singular plane at the speed of light will have its atoms torn apart by the breakdown of the fundamental forces as the universe approaches heat death long before it could ever hope to see the other side.
The concept of the eldrazi being projections of the blind eternities into planes reminds me of those visualizations of 4-dimentional objects projected into 3d space, and the fact that we as 3d beings will never be able to see an accurate representation of, say, a tesseract (4d cube).
But we are 4d beings. We occupy the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. You aren't wrong that we struggle to be able to reproduce a visible representation of that fourth dimension, but it is inaccurate to say we're three dimensional beings.
@@just_gut that's disingenuous, when one says "we are three dimensional beings" everyone knows that the speaker is talking about spatial dimensions. Time being a dimension is a useless concept in these discussions.
@@just_gut Also, using a single time dimension is popular, but it doesn’t have to be one. And it is not a typical dimension. I think you and others have a tendency to conflate 4-D in a relativity space-time sense rather then consider of just spatial dimensions. Eldrazi are 5-D to our 4-D in space-time or 4-D to our 3-D to just our spatiality.
Came to say the same... you put it way better. Id like to add that the ambient musical choices are very good and the sudden cuts to very dark frames really put me in the mood watching this in a dark room.
This video brought me to an interesting thought: the complete defeat of the Eldrazi means stagnation of the multiverse. Eldrazi is an extention of Blind Eternities, from which all planes once popped. Eldrazi come into a plane to destroy it, collect it's mana and disappear back into The Blind Eternities. But the mana harvested by Eldrazi doesn't faint into nothing. My idea is that this same mana is used to create other planes of existence. Eldrazi are not a multiversal evil, they are a part of natural order of the multiverse orchestrated by whatever it is Blind Eternities have for intellect. Without the process of planar destruction, new planes are simply stopped from being created. Who knows what consequences this might have on already existing planes? What scares me more is that these destructors of planes have a "mind" of their own. They can be called upon, and they can choose to answer. What does it say about The Blind Eternities?
This has been a prevailing theory of the Eldrazi for a bit now, actually! They're not the Lovecraftian elder gods who are creatures beyond our understanding, with dark plots for the world. They're... just the Multiverse's clean up crew, the garbage men, the repair folks. You can see that in their processes; Ulamog consumes, removing the last remnants of order and calming everything down to silence. Kozilek distorts, changing the ruin and dying into clean, sterile colorless mana. And Emerkul mutates, rebuilding what her brothers have given her and ultimately birthing a new world. Without them, we might not have the death of planes anymore. But does that mean we also no longer have BIRTH of new planes, as well?
I don't know. That implies that the multiverse is finite, which is kinda weird to me. I always saw it as the infinite, as if it was finite, then that makes it so much simpler, too simple.
@@genzo454 If the Eldrazi were genuinely recycling the mana for continuous birthing of new planes that sorta keeps the multiverse infinite in it's own way when considering the passage of time, no? In fact, if entropy exists in mtg, it's the only for the multiverse to escape our own realities ostensible fate of thinning out to nothing and achieving a truly stable "infinity".
This is a good thought. Very "There is no war. There is only the harvest" (such a cool line from what ended up being completely ruined cosmic horror in another piece of media)
This and a few others (I follow market watch to see if anything in my bulk binder is worth it - if reaper of the wilds ever somehow finds a home, and becomes a $10 each... I get to retire)
Many Magic the Gathering players ask the question: why does this game suck now? For real though, I never thought wizards could push me this far away from a game I used to love so much :(
Soon as i saw the title i dropped everything just to watch. The Eldrazi are my favorite tribe and their lore is so intriguing. It is a shame their existence was so frightening to everyone. Now Wizards will probably never use them again out of fear. Emrakul shall remain locked in the moon with story unfinished. No conclusion to her lingering words left before she locked herself in the moon.
I love how magic seems to be the ultimate intersection of all these disciplines and art forms and I doubly love how you go about so eloquently explaining how it is that ultimate intersection
How lucky is the magic community, that rhystic studies analyzes it's oscure lore, puts it in context of current and past culture and science, in a poetic and artistic manner? Very very lucky indeed.
Imaging the blind eternities reminds me of a little logical loop my brother and I discovered as children where we'd Imaging what nothing looked like only to realize we imagined something and needed to try again.
This was incredible. I always pigeonholed the Eldrazi/Blind Eternities to Lovecraftian type creatures/entities. This similar, but different perspective really opened my eyes and wowed me. I’m definitely going to check out the Italian author mentioned in the video. This might be not only my favorite video you’ve put out, but my favorite story telling of the MTG universe as a whole. I’m recommending this to everyone I know, MTG players or not.
I like the thought that in some sense the lovecraftian beings are a similar idea through the paranoid and terrified lens of Lovecraft's mind. He saw malice and madness there, because that is who he was, in the same sense as the blind eternities appearing to planeswalkers depending on who they are.
I think the Eldrazi are actually very close to the true concept of cosmic horror Lovecraft envisioned. His focus was always on creatures, magnitudes, sounds, and colors that could not be described or comprehended, and that would drive people to madness or suicide if observed (as the fish observes the hand). The pop culture depictions of Cthulu and friends are misleading.
Videos like this have a weird way of helping me whenever I have any kind of collapse of myself. Your video essays have a way of soothing me. Thanks for the release right when I needed a bit of calm considering of The Blind Eternities to centre myself. Eldrazi are cool. Another to the list with Red Deck Wins, One With Nothing, and your video on Rancor to listen to for that good experience
This video is SO GOOD. I love how the blind eternities isn’t just the generic “nightmare fuel we weren’t meant to perceive” Avenue that lots of fantasy media go down, but also a metaphorical space of possibility and invention.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind if fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear, is fear of the unknown." -HP Lovecraft This is now my new favorite video from you, absolutely phenomenal.
That story about Ugin describing the hand grabbing the fish is very reminiscent of Leitner's description of the Entities in The Magnus Archives. That podcast, in my opinion, does a great job at making characters who "understand" the way the lovecraftian abominations work and explain it a lot, yet still making them feel utterly alien and indescribable
TMA is such a good podcast. My friend introduced me to it with S1E2: Do Not Open, and I immediately had to start listening. That playlist was open for months.
Hot off the presses! Another banger. Love how you tie everything in Magic to everything possible outside of Magic. It really helps us laymen feel the artistry that was put into everything Magic, and makes me more excited to see where the magic of humanity takes us!
Just like how the Blind Eternities stretches and challenges our imaginations of the real, imaginations of 'what's out there,' this video challenges the limits of the video essay. So much of the video essay genre is characterized as an essay made into a video. This work leverages what makes the video essay special- the direct engagement with the reader, the inclusion of visual media- and turns them up to 11. It is abstract, but in the best way. It is a prose essay of the highest sense, a blurring of genres, of the arts.
I always loved the flavor text for the Serum Visions secret lair cards. The poems about desiring knowledge from the blind eternity coupled with the surrealist art really make for intriguing cards "What would you exchange for a cosmic secret? Any payment is a small price for insight." "She drank, and in the depths of the Blind Eternities, an ancient eye opened." "Future, present, and past become one in the blink of an eye." "'Why stop at the third eye?' came a whisper from the cup. 'Drink more, and open them all.'" (Idk if there's a proper order for these but I usually assume it's this)
This was an incredible video as always, and I think you've outdone yourself with the writing and structure here. I wasn't expecting the part about the dragon and cat avatars, and other dragons and cats being shadows on cave walls. It's such a perfect way to evoke the kind of... I don't know, salience, or dimensionality that we have trouble wrapping our heads around. Reminds me of Interstellar a little bit. Thank you, Sam.
fun fact, the "picture of us" featured early on is called "earthrise" but only because upon being disseminated, the image got rotated clockwise by 90 degrees, making it appear as if the photo was taken from the moon's surface looking out over a horizon. really, it was taken from an orbiter, and relative to the camera (if you had been looking through a viewfinder) the moon would have been to the right, and the horizon(tal) would be vertical (rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise)
I've listened to this at least a dozen times. This is, so far, at least, your own personal masterpiece. When I recommend your stuff to people who don't play magic, this is what I send them.
I remember back when I was reading Battle for Zendikar, and the Eldrazi were released. Though it wasn't described, the mental image that immediately popped into my head when the binding of (I think) Kozilek came undone, was just of a flood of tentacles and flesh simply... appearing from all directions. Like a fish observing a finger breaking the water's surface, I could not comprehend how something could simply step into the fabric of my reality, but my brain tried anyway
As much as I love the concept, I wish Wizards was more consistent with their interpretation. There are many examples of planes being describes as if they took up space, Dominaria being “in the center”, Kamigawa being “far away”
Maybe those distances are just to describe the ease with which you can planeswalk from those plane to others, or how much they are planeswalked to and from. Dominaria is a crossroads to which almost everyone has gone at least once, whereas as Kamigawa may be a bit more isolated and unknown. To continue the apartment complex metaphor, maybe the walls are a bit thicker in some places. Maybe some rooms are so tiny that you can easily miss them, while others are so big and full of activity that you simply can't miss them
@@Le_Codex Or to put it even more simply, it's convention. Dominaria is in the center because that's where all the important early characters are from and interact with. Think of it like the model of geocentrism vs heliocentrism. It's the MTG version of geocentrism.
This is a masterpiece. Not only are you explaining a facet of a beloved card game, you're breaking down the correlations between truly deep cuts into consciousness, perception and reality. The Blind Eternities. Thank you for your efforts, this is truly appreciated.
Wake up babe, new Rhystic Studies just dropped Outstanding work as always, Sam. Abstract thought is always a wild thought experiment. Have you ever pondered words, like "why do we call the color orange 'orange' and not something else?" Or considered the concept of nothingness and non-existence? It's like you can feel you brain trying to fold itself over like a blanket or a towel in an attempt to comprehend it.
Idk. Non existence is pretty easy to grasp. Just take what you have now and subtract everything. Maybe other people can't understand that, but it's easy for me. I've never felt my brain fold up or get exhausted thinking about this stuff. Lots of people apparently do when doing abstract thinking. That, I don't think I can comprehend. Sorry if this came off as like, pretentious or whatever. I just find other people struggling to comprehend such simple things fascinating. Perhaps they are thinking visually or in ways that are otherwise not completely void of all but logic? That would make sense. I wonder if its because people normally can't grasp what they haven't experienced, and nothingness is a lack of experience. Oh BTW the answer to that orange question is just that that's the name everyone decided on in the English language. Its entirely arbitrary. But it was going to be something. And its not like its gibberish. Its named after the fruit. Sure other orange objects exist, but that's a pretty common always orange one, so it makes sense we chose that. Even if other names might have also made sense, if it was one of those instead, we would be asking the same question for that one, and why it isn't called orange. In other words, its called orange because of the many options we have, that's the one that it became. And all that's ignoring that it was likely a natural cultural development. Given how language works. No one really put much thought into it then either, so my explanation, which basically just boils down to "it is because we said it is, and if we had arbitrarily decided something else, we'd be asking the same question about that choice anyways", is sufficient. Its like asking, how are humans alive if its so unlikely for life to form. I don't know, but if we weren't, we wouldn't be able to ask that question, so really we just happen to be the one version of reality where we are, and we are that one because we couldn't be a different one and still exist to ponder such a thing. I realize that probably just made it more confusing but whatever. Was just a fun parallel I noticed. Once again, apologies if I'm being annoying. I literally can't help it. I'm neurodivergent. I'm not even really writing this for the person I'm responding to, but rather for no one in particular. I'm just writing this because I can. Uhhhh. Idk how to end this.
@@--CHARLIE-- just be honest with yourself. you wrote it to demonstrate value in yourself as being very clever. you clicked post so others would see and validate that desire. the problem is that when its filtered through the lens of anothers perspective, it comes off vulnerable and condescending.
That one painting you showed, *In Absentia* by Tanner Ortery, is beautiful. I found his site and am heavily considering purchasing a print of it. Thank you.
oooooh a video that weaves together some of my favorite things. I am a bit shocked at how deep this goes in my interests outside of mtg, thank you so so much.
OMG WOTC give this man a job, pay for Rhystic Studies. Like I want full booklet art analysis of every set ever to be printed. or no stay free i'll pay for Rhystic Studies. You are so good for this community.
Since I'm comment-banned on the account I'm watching this on: I had to stop watching and switch accounts to tell you this video was an immediate sub. I don't even care what the other content is about, I'll watch it all.
I've always been a bit dissatisfied with the fact that every creature is canonically just an aether replica. It feels like another case of flavor folding in the face of function (I guess in this case one form of flavor folding to a different sort of flavor). That's probably always going to bug me, but the idea that _everything_ in the Multiverse is nothing more than a construct of aether puts an interesting spin on the concept.
@@brunopereira6789 I know, that's what I mean. I think it's kinda lame that when I play a Niv-Mizzet card, within the game's fiction it's just a facsimile of the real thing. But if even the "real" thing is himself a facsimile of some planotic ideal and is also built of aether, in a way, that I find more interesting.
Well aren't we all but stash of molecules, mainly Hydrogen, Carbon and Nitrogen? We can even dare say that, putting faith in some theories, we are all but local fluctuations of quantum fields!
In Arena, Garth One-Eye describes summoning as LITERALLY pulling the creature across planes into your plane. I think magic and aether and metaphysics is just as open to interpretation in magic lore as it is irl. Of course a blue mage would make copies, and a red mage would forcefully summon the original entity...
Renewal is a fantastic chapter of writing. Between Pia's admission to Chandra and Nissa's parting secret to Yahenni, I can't decide which moved me more. One lays bare the complicated emotions of a mother who, despite being caught up in a revolution, had been processing her emotions at the realization that the daughter she had buried had grown into an angry and vengeful woman. The other marks a moment of growth for a character who had once been prejudiced, and had developed the empathy needed to be able to gift a person of a short-lived species a final comfort. I'm always a little bummed that most people didn't get why Pia's Revolution was an enchantment whilst Chandra's Revolution was a sorcery. It's cos Pia's Revolution was built on wanting to change things and actually make a permanent impact. Chandra's was just for the sake of her venting her feelings.
INVISIBLE CITIES QUOTE!!! It’s my favorite book of all time, I have reread it twice and still find new details in every vignette. Instant like on the video from me!
The eldrazi are like 3d objects in a 2d world. We can only see a slice of them and they have a complex perspective we can’t imagine. Much like flatlands
Man your videos always leave me with more questions, in a good way! Your storytelling is infectious and keeps the mind wanting more. Please continue these and I hope Wizards does more with you in the future. Great work!
I felt awkward posting that this video brings me comfort when I'm feeling down in the dumps, and then I scrolled down and a bunch of other people posted the same thing and I don't feel so down in the dumps anymore. Thank you so much for gifting us this video.
The fact that I feel like I both gain knowledge and also gained nothing I think is the point. We are blind to what we can't see, but that's just one of the senses. It may not be tangible, but there are other ways to experience or witness the blindness
I love this video. It's a masterpiece. I can't describe how or why very well, but it's the weaving of magic and real life that you have become a master of. Gods, I love your content
To those who like exploring this concept, I recommend checking out Jacob Geller's video "Fear of Depths" as well as checking out the anime Made in Abyss.
This comment made me go watch several of Geller's videos, and on one of those videos Rhystic Studies commented about how much they loved it. Time is a flat circle.
I like to describe the blind eternities similar how dream was described in the sandman comics: The infinite planes of the multiverse represent everything that is possible. And even in a word filled with reallity changing magic, all it's potencial is just a drop of the ocean of unprobabilities of the blindceternities.
This is the most profound video you've made. The way you take a video about Magic and make it into so much more is phenomenal. There's the whole Universe and its mysteries- The Blind Eternities, there's our world which we live in, and then there's the worlds we create within our world- like Magic. The firmament of Magic is the cards themselves, leave the frame and you enter our world, which in a way is the Blind Eternities for the game.
You know, I have had an on going existential crisis ever since I was about 7 and someone explained to me that some people can't see certain colors or see colors differently then me. I quickly realized that I could never see the world through their eyes, smell it with their nose, hear it with their ears. In that moment I realized that I am trapped in my brain. More extreme thoughts followed such as, where was my mind before it was born. As an adult I spend a lot of time thinking and pushing back those thoughts. So thank you for bringing them to the front in a way that doesn't trigger a panic attack. Thank you for putting them so powerfully and poetically. I'm really glad I found your channel a few years back.
I juste can't find the words on how interesting you are to listen to, I never played magic, never watched someone played, I'm not an artist of any kind and everythime I find myself watching one of your video I just can't help being immersed in a world I don't know nor understand and I love it so much You are truly one of the best videomaker thanks a lot my friend
This is my new favorite Studies video, I don't even have words for how profound this is. This video took me into the blind eternities itself, and asked me what I saw. Excellent as always.
The blind eternities present the same truth described in mathematics as Gödel’s incompleteness theorem - there are truths which exist outside and beyond us which we can approach, but never truly know. Many infinite realms of knowledge, none of which we can see. Dune has a lot of elements of this too, actually. It’s one of my favorite ideas in fiction
14:01 "Matter certainly likes to show off" bro I came here for magic stuff, not to question the nature of reality as we perceive it, taking into account the stance that we are just matter trying to quantify our existence as particles. Excellent work as always
This is the most comprehensive and interesting video on such an incomprehensible topic. Thank you for these 15 minutes filled with thoughts that are far beyond mtg alone and excellent examples from art, science and philosophy. As a big fan of Eldrazi, I just bow down
I found the use of modern and surrealist art in discussion of this topic thoroughly enriching for me. I never thought much of Dali's "Los Elefantes" (9:54) prior to this video, for example, but now I see how art, especially surrealist art, can illustrate concepts yet unknown to us. There are many of Dali's paintings that don't make sense, or maybe aren't meant to make sense, but will become more and more understandable the more we understand about ourselves and our universe.
This video sent me into a still-ongoing existential crisis. At time of writing I'm onboard the "nothing any person thinks or does matters because we're all just atoms" train.
A small detail that I adore is that you said that the aether is “no longer useful” as a concept in physics. It is a subtle difference to saying Einstein’s theory “disproved the existence of the aether”, which is an easy mistake to make. It represents physics as a science of models and predictions, not of explicit true and false statements. A theory no longer being useful feels like a more damning statement than a theory being proven false.
Wow I don’t know if this was the best video from Rhystic Studies but what I will say is watching this felt like no time had passed at all and then it was done.
You have reminded me why I love magic. The lore that is connected to our world through art and story telling is why I got into magic in the first place.
I had just reread the Revelation at the Eye of Ugin story a couple days ago. What luck to stumble onto this video! I like how the story depicts the Eldrazi and how Ugin uses metaphors to compensate for the limitations in mortal perception. This video is a perfect follow up to that. 😊
Before I was born, there was an eternal nothing I can only approximate it’s unnameable color as a Black deeper than that of VantaBlack. It was unlike anything I remember after becoming aware of my own memory, it’s location forever just behind my vision wherever I look 👀
You are one of my favorite "content creators", because you like to ponder on the in betweens of life and reality itself. I love MTG, but I like to hear your thoughts a lot more. Two other channels that are similar to yours are TheNerdwritter and ThePassionoftheNerd. They are a deep look into other types of media, also questioning in a philosophical/psychological way the information presented and how it relates with "our reality". Thank you for existing and doing what you like, it makes me happy to interact with you even in a virtual way.
This is one of your best videos, you keep proving me that, despite being just a card game and a marketing product, Magic the Gathering is a vehicule for legit artistic and philosophical discussion. I no longer play but i have total respect for what Richard Garfield created. Pd: i love how you used the art for Dandan and Fear to convey existential dread, those are some of my favorite magic cards
I'd extend it beyond Richard Garfield, honestly. He (and the design team he worked alongside) laid the foundation but countless hands have helped build and shape Magic.
@@nathanl8622 you are absolutely right, the people who worked in MtG through the years have put a lot of love into creating the lore and the feeling of the game.
The blind eternities - that region between the graveyard and the library outside of the battlefield. This is what my simple mind can wrap itself around :) But seriously, thanks again for another compelling dissection. Will be waiting for the next one.
Love your work, Sam. Teaches me to always think critically and appreciate things for what they represent as well as what they are. Thank you for the content.
Your passion and poetry in describing the words and art of MTG always increase my appreciation of this game Sam, and that's really remarkable. Thank you.
I love the idea of the eldrazi being a part of a natural cycle. Ulamog strips away the world, while kozilek reshapes it, and emrakul deals with living organisms. Wether it be for distruction or creation .
Once I read an anecdote from a person who worked in healthcare, and they were talking about misconceptions people had when they lacked senses. An example was a person who was born deaf but was given the ability to hear- the person remarked at their surprise that the sun in the sky was silent. They'd assumed it must have been roaring in the distance.
The sun would, if there were air in space, in fact make a tremendously loud sound. It's just so far away I think we wouldn't be able to hear it.
@@nicholascarter9158 Oh contrair, it would be as loud as my mom when she gets mad, or in better words: ~100db.
Wow that's amazing
@@nicholascarter9158 if we were close enough to hear it, we would die from the heat and/or radiation exposure. Zero sum game.
@@MerlinTheCommenter Pretty sure that that's only because of the lack of air, though.
I like the metaphor "To imagine the Blind Eternities, try to imagine a color that you never saw before", since it parallels really well with colorless mana. It's mechanically a color, some spells require it, but it's not a _color_ . Abilities that "add one mana of any color" cannot add colorless mana. It's something grounded in rules we know and experience, and yet is alien and inaccessible unless you specifically try and get it
Its not special to me,Since its a color I already imagined before the eldrazi were created by MTG
It also references Lovecrafts Color out of Space
@@Dehalove Also Annihilation
Emrakul is an Eldrazi, a big scary abomination from The Blind Eternities, the space between the planes. They are filled with chaotic energy. I’ve never been to The Blind Eternities myself, but they sound a little like Disneyland which I did go to when I was nine.
- Alex Steacy, Friday Nights
Which episode?
@@SethG27 Strange Brew
Was an incredible quote
@@validtangent I just watched it back. I forgot that they did a Glengarry Glen Ross parody.
what planeswalker is that?
In the novel "Planeswalker". Urza visits the Plane of Equilor. Equilor is said to be one of the most ancient planes. It was so "far away" that it took Urza 100 years to get back to Dominaria after his visit to the plane. I think about that a lot, especially when watching this video. Thanks Sam, you're a gem.
Thats a good take on the constant expansion of the universe and the relationshipof time & space.
in our reality it's hypothesized that even with FTL travel one wouldn't be able to get from one edge of the universe to the other because of the speed of expansion around the edges.
To help conceptualize the differing rates expansion in 4-D, take an un inflated balloon and make some dots on it with a large tipped marker, then inflate it.
(and of course, looking up at the stars is "seeing" back in time. i.e. the light we actually see is ancient and the source isn't even close to being at the position we now perceive.)
Anyways..
Planeswalker is one of my favorite books of all time.
🖖
@@BurnDoubt The universe expands too rapidly for anything starting on one axial extreme to reach the other axial extreme. I could be wrong as I haven't delved into physics since I first went to college but I was under the impression that the accepted theory of expansion currently has a uniform rate of expansion that is accelerating. Hell, it won't be that long on the cosmic scale until no more light from distant stars can even reach us due to spacetime expansion and our bright, starry backyard becomes an abyss of blackness forever. Something that's expected to happen before the final expansion of the Sun. A ship that leaves the edge of the universe today heading in a direct line across a singular plane at the speed of light will have its atoms torn apart by the breakdown of the fundamental forces as the universe approaches heat death long before it could ever hope to see the other side.
Ah the old space is expanding meme, didn't the science priests already backtrack again and say we are constricting now lol
say sike rn bro pls @@offlineraided
@@dragondeeznutts I wish I could
The concept of the eldrazi being projections of the blind eternities into planes reminds me of those visualizations of 4-dimentional objects projected into 3d space, and the fact that we as 3d beings will never be able to see an accurate representation of, say, a tesseract (4d cube).
I think that's the idea they're trying to convey.
But we are 4d beings. We occupy the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. You aren't wrong that we struggle to be able to reproduce a visible representation of that fourth dimension, but it is inaccurate to say we're three dimensional beings.
@@just_gut that's disingenuous, when one says "we are three dimensional beings" everyone knows that the speaker is talking about spatial dimensions. Time being a dimension is a useless concept in these discussions.
@@just_gut Also, using a single time dimension is popular, but it doesn’t have to be one. And it is not a typical dimension.
I think you and others have a tendency to conflate 4-D in a relativity space-time sense rather then consider of just spatial dimensions. Eldrazi are 5-D to our 4-D in space-time or 4-D to our 3-D to just our spatiality.
Time doesn’t even exist, it’s a concept made by man, not something that actually happens. So it’s useless to even have a conversation about it.
This video is an exquisite art.
Even by the high standard of Rhystic Studies, it is truly remarkably formulated.
Agreed. The pacing and discussion are themselves an expression of poetry.
Cringe
Came to say the same... you put it way better.
Id like to add that the ambient musical choices are very good and the sudden cuts to very dark frames really put me in the mood watching this in a dark room.
This video brought me to an interesting thought: the complete defeat of the Eldrazi means stagnation of the multiverse. Eldrazi is an extention of Blind Eternities, from which all planes once popped. Eldrazi come into a plane to destroy it, collect it's mana and disappear back into The Blind Eternities. But the mana harvested by Eldrazi doesn't faint into nothing. My idea is that this same mana is used to create other planes of existence. Eldrazi are not a multiversal evil, they are a part of natural order of the multiverse orchestrated by whatever it is Blind Eternities have for intellect. Without the process of planar destruction, new planes are simply stopped from being created. Who knows what consequences this might have on already existing planes? What scares me more is that these destructors of planes have a "mind" of their own. They can be called upon, and they can choose to answer. What does it say about The Blind Eternities?
This has been a prevailing theory of the Eldrazi for a bit now, actually! They're not the Lovecraftian elder gods who are creatures beyond our understanding, with dark plots for the world. They're... just the Multiverse's clean up crew, the garbage men, the repair folks. You can see that in their processes; Ulamog consumes, removing the last remnants of order and calming everything down to silence. Kozilek distorts, changing the ruin and dying into clean, sterile colorless mana. And Emerkul mutates, rebuilding what her brothers have given her and ultimately birthing a new world.
Without them, we might not have the death of planes anymore. But does that mean we also no longer have BIRTH of new planes, as well?
I don't know. That implies that the multiverse is finite, which is kinda weird to me. I always saw it as the infinite, as if it was finite, then that makes it so much simpler, too simple.
@@genzo454 If the Eldrazi were genuinely recycling the mana for continuous birthing of new planes that sorta keeps the multiverse infinite in it's own way when considering the passage of time, no? In fact, if entropy exists in mtg, it's the only for the multiverse to escape our own realities ostensible fate of thinning out to nothing and achieving a truly stable "infinity".
This is a good thought. Very "There is no war. There is only the harvest" (such a cool line from what ended up being completely ruined cosmic horror in another piece of media)
@@inaraoftyria3878 I was thinking the same thing
I haven't watched one of these videos in a while. Lost some interest in Magic, I guess. But I love the Eldrazi, so I clicked as soon as I saw.
Same
Wow exactly same
This and a few others (I follow market watch to see if anything in my bulk binder is worth it - if reaper of the wilds ever somehow finds a home, and becomes a $10 each... I get to retire)
Magic costs too much, it will die eventually if they keep increasing the prices
Many Magic the Gathering players ask the question: why does this game suck now?
For real though, I never thought wizards could push me this far away from a game I used to love so much :(
That Calvino quote at 8:23 is something i could spend the rest of time thinking about. goodness gracious. incredible work Sam
this is why fiction is so important. It gives us an opportunity to highlight the truths of reality.
Except that quote doesnt apply to me, my existence goes against existence itself, and that is my goal
Yeah, it hit hard
Yeah, it hit hard
Soon as i saw the title i dropped everything just to watch. The Eldrazi are my favorite tribe and their lore is so intriguing. It is a shame their existence was so frightening to everyone. Now Wizards will probably never use them again out of fear. Emrakul shall remain locked in the moon with story unfinished. No conclusion to her lingering words left before she locked herself in the moon.
only until power creep makes the eldrazi we know relatively balanced
Emrakul's Imprisonment and the Eldrazi themselves were in some DMU lore spoilers
They are only scary due to Annihilator being a busted mechanic. If it weren't for thay we wouldn't have had the eldrazi winter.
I literally just did the exact same thing
@@garrethatch5362 you realize most eldrazies in eldrazie winter didn’t have the annilhiotor ability.
I love how magic seems to be the ultimate intersection of all these disciplines and art forms and I doubly love how you go about so eloquently explaining how it is that ultimate intersection
How lucky is the magic community, that rhystic studies analyzes it's oscure lore, puts it in context of current and past culture and science, in a poetic and artistic manner? Very very lucky indeed.
Imaging the blind eternities reminds me of a little logical loop my brother and I discovered as children where we'd Imaging what nothing looked like only to realize we imagined something and needed to try again.
This was incredible. I always pigeonholed the Eldrazi/Blind Eternities to Lovecraftian type creatures/entities. This similar, but different perspective really opened my eyes and wowed me. I’m definitely going to check out the Italian author mentioned in the video.
This might be not only my favorite video you’ve put out, but my favorite story telling of the MTG universe as a whole. I’m recommending this to everyone I know, MTG players or not.
I like the thought that in some sense the lovecraftian beings are a similar idea through the paranoid and terrified lens of Lovecraft's mind. He saw malice and madness there, because that is who he was, in the same sense as the blind eternities appearing to planeswalkers depending on who they are.
I also shared it with everyone in- and outside of magic
@@willowarkan2263 I love that
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. -H.P. Lovecraft
I think the Eldrazi are actually very close to the true concept of cosmic horror Lovecraft envisioned. His focus was always on creatures, magnitudes, sounds, and colors that could not be described or comprehended, and that would drive people to madness or suicide if observed (as the fish observes the hand). The pop culture depictions of Cthulu and friends are misleading.
Videos like this have a weird way of helping me whenever I have any kind of collapse of myself. Your video essays have a way of soothing me. Thanks for the release right when I needed a bit of calm considering of The Blind Eternities to centre myself. Eldrazi are cool. Another to the list with Red Deck Wins, One With Nothing, and your video on Rancor to listen to for that good experience
This video is SO GOOD. I love how the blind eternities isn’t just the generic “nightmare fuel we weren’t meant to perceive” Avenue that lots of fantasy media go down, but also a metaphorical space of possibility and invention.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind if fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear, is fear of the unknown." -HP Lovecraft
This is now my new favorite video from you, absolutely phenomenal.
That story about Ugin describing the hand grabbing the fish is very reminiscent of Leitner's description of the Entities in The Magnus Archives. That podcast, in my opinion, does a great job at making characters who "understand" the way the lovecraftian abominations work and explain it a lot, yet still making them feel utterly alien and indescribable
TMA is such a good podcast. My friend introduced me to it with S1E2: Do Not Open, and I immediately had to start listening. That playlist was open for months.
More TMA fans! I was wondering if I'd find any here.
Hot off the presses! Another banger. Love how you tie everything in Magic to everything possible outside of Magic. It really helps us laymen feel the artistry that was put into everything Magic, and makes me more excited to see where the magic of humanity takes us!
This is not only some of the best Magic: The Gathering content on the internet, it's some of the finest content period.
Please don't ever stop making these. You're incredibly articulate and a joy to listen to. Well done!
Just like how the Blind Eternities stretches and challenges our imaginations of the real, imaginations of 'what's out there,' this video challenges the limits of the video essay.
So much of the video essay genre is characterized as an essay made into a video. This work leverages what makes the video essay special- the direct engagement with the reader, the inclusion of visual media- and turns them up to 11.
It is abstract, but in the best way. It is a prose essay of the highest sense, a blurring of genres, of the arts.
It's poetry, I absolutely love it
I always loved the flavor text for the Serum Visions secret lair cards. The poems about desiring knowledge from the blind eternity coupled with the surrealist art really make for intriguing cards
"What would you exchange for a cosmic secret? Any payment is a small price for insight."
"She drank, and in the depths of the Blind Eternities, an ancient eye opened."
"Future, present, and past become one in the blink of an eye."
"'Why stop at the third eye?' came a whisper from the cup. 'Drink more, and open them all.'"
(Idk if there's a proper order for these but I usually assume it's this)
This was an incredible video as always, and I think you've outdone yourself with the writing and structure here. I wasn't expecting the part about the dragon and cat avatars, and other dragons and cats being shadows on cave walls. It's such a perfect way to evoke the kind of... I don't know, salience, or dimensionality that we have trouble wrapping our heads around. Reminds me of Interstellar a little bit. Thank you, Sam.
fun fact, the "picture of us" featured early on is called "earthrise" but only because upon being disseminated, the image got rotated clockwise by 90 degrees, making it appear as if the photo was taken from the moon's surface looking out over a horizon. really, it was taken from an orbiter, and relative to the camera (if you had been looking through a viewfinder) the moon would have been to the right, and the horizon(tal) would be vertical (rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise)
A perfect exercise in framing, both literally photographically but also the storytelling technique
It's still the earthrise even if you're in orbit. The ISS still sees sunrises.
I've listened to this at least a dozen times. This is, so far, at least, your own personal masterpiece. When I recommend your stuff to people who don't play magic, this is what I send them.
I remember back when I was reading Battle for Zendikar, and the Eldrazi were released. Though it wasn't described, the mental image that immediately popped into my head when the binding of (I think) Kozilek came undone, was just of a flood of tentacles and flesh simply... appearing from all directions. Like a fish observing a finger breaking the water's surface, I could not comprehend how something could simply step into the fabric of my reality, but my brain tried anyway
As much as I love the concept, I wish Wizards was more consistent with their interpretation. There are many examples of planes being describes as if they took up space, Dominaria being “in the center”, Kamigawa being “far away”
Maybe those distances are just to describe the ease with which you can planeswalk from those plane to others, or how much they are planeswalked to and from. Dominaria is a crossroads to which almost everyone has gone at least once, whereas as Kamigawa may be a bit more isolated and unknown.
To continue the apartment complex metaphor, maybe the walls are a bit thicker in some places. Maybe some rooms are so tiny that you can easily miss them, while others are so big and full of activity that you simply can't miss them
@@Le_Codex Or to put it even more simply, it's convention. Dominaria is in the center because that's where all the important early characters are from and interact with. Think of it like the model of geocentrism vs heliocentrism. It's the MTG version of geocentrism.
Why are your videos always the best thing I’ve ever seen, every time I see one? You need to stop making me cry.
Come for the Magic content, stay for the questioning the nature of your own reality. That's the full RhysticStudies experience.
Great video Sam!
This is a masterpiece. Not only are you explaining a facet of a beloved card game, you're breaking down the correlations between truly deep cuts into consciousness, perception and reality. The Blind Eternities. Thank you for your efforts, this is truly appreciated.
Wake up babe, new Rhystic Studies just dropped
Outstanding work as always, Sam. Abstract thought is always a wild thought experiment. Have you ever pondered words, like "why do we call the color orange 'orange' and not something else?" Or considered the concept of nothingness and non-existence? It's like you can feel you brain trying to fold itself over like a blanket or a towel in an attempt to comprehend it.
Idk. Non existence is pretty easy to grasp. Just take what you have now and subtract everything. Maybe other people can't understand that, but it's easy for me. I've never felt my brain fold up or get exhausted thinking about this stuff. Lots of people apparently do when doing abstract thinking. That, I don't think I can comprehend. Sorry if this came off as like, pretentious or whatever. I just find other people struggling to comprehend such simple things fascinating. Perhaps they are thinking visually or in ways that are otherwise not completely void of all but logic? That would make sense. I wonder if its because people normally can't grasp what they haven't experienced, and nothingness is a lack of experience.
Oh BTW the answer to that orange question is just that that's the name everyone decided on in the English language. Its entirely arbitrary. But it was going to be something. And its not like its gibberish. Its named after the fruit. Sure other orange objects exist, but that's a pretty common always orange one, so it makes sense we chose that. Even if other names might have also made sense, if it was one of those instead, we would be asking the same question for that one, and why it isn't called orange. In other words, its called orange because of the many options we have, that's the one that it became. And all that's ignoring that it was likely a natural cultural development. Given how language works. No one really put much thought into it then either, so my explanation, which basically just boils down to "it is because we said it is, and if we had arbitrarily decided something else, we'd be asking the same question about that choice anyways", is sufficient. Its like asking, how are humans alive if its so unlikely for life to form. I don't know, but if we weren't, we wouldn't be able to ask that question, so really we just happen to be the one version of reality where we are, and we are that one because we couldn't be a different one and still exist to ponder such a thing. I realize that probably just made it more confusing but whatever. Was just a fun parallel I noticed.
Once again, apologies if I'm being annoying. I literally can't help it. I'm neurodivergent. I'm not even really writing this for the person I'm responding to, but rather for no one in particular. I'm just writing this because I can.
Uhhhh. Idk how to end this.
@@--CHARLIE-- just be honest with yourself. you wrote it to demonstrate value in yourself as being very clever. you clicked post so others would see and validate that desire. the problem is that when its filtered through the lens of anothers perspective, it comes off vulnerable and condescending.
That one painting you showed, *In Absentia* by Tanner Ortery, is beautiful.
I found his site and am heavily considering purchasing a print of it. Thank you.
yeah his work is so cool. i'm glad you dig it too.
This might be my favorite video from this channel, holy crap
Every video you make is perfect. You make people think about Magic’s lore that they otherwise may not have thought of in that way
The thing about how planeswalkers summon creatures as concepts and not the actually being itself is such good writing I love it.
oooooh a video that weaves together some of my favorite things. I am a bit shocked at how deep this goes in my interests outside of mtg, thank you so so much.
OMG WOTC give this man a job, pay for Rhystic Studies. Like I want full booklet art analysis of every set ever to be printed. or no stay free i'll pay for Rhystic Studies. You are so good for this community.
Since I'm comment-banned on the account I'm watching this on: I had to stop watching and switch accounts to tell you this video was an immediate sub.
I don't even care what the other content is about, I'll watch it all.
Dude this is not just a Video Essay, this is Cardboard Poetry, i haven't played Magic in years and yet you stay one of my favorite channels ever.
I've always been a bit dissatisfied with the fact that every creature is canonically just an aether replica. It feels like another case of flavor folding in the face of function (I guess in this case one form of flavor folding to a different sort of flavor). That's probably always going to bug me, but the idea that _everything_ in the Multiverse is nothing more than a construct of aether puts an interesting spin on the concept.
Every *summoned* creature, not every living thing.
@@brunopereira6789 I know, that's what I mean. I think it's kinda lame that when I play a Niv-Mizzet card, within the game's fiction it's just a facsimile of the real thing.
But if even the "real" thing is himself a facsimile of some planotic ideal and is also built of aether, in a way, that I find more interesting.
Well aren't we all but stash of molecules, mainly Hydrogen, Carbon and Nitrogen?
We can even dare say that, putting faith in some theories, we are all but local fluctuations of quantum fields!
In Arena, Garth One-Eye describes summoning as LITERALLY pulling the creature across planes into your plane.
I think magic and aether and metaphysics is just as open to interpretation in magic lore as it is irl. Of course a blue mage would make copies, and a red mage would forcefully summon the original entity...
@@nathanl8622 honestly I prefer it that way, makes more sense to me than literally ripping Niv from Ravnica
Renewal is a fantastic chapter of writing. Between Pia's admission to Chandra and Nissa's parting secret to Yahenni, I can't decide which moved me more. One lays bare the complicated emotions of a mother who, despite being caught up in a revolution, had been processing her emotions at the realization that the daughter she had buried had grown into an angry and vengeful woman. The other marks a moment of growth for a character who had once been prejudiced, and had developed the empathy needed to be able to gift a person of a short-lived species a final comfort.
I'm always a little bummed that most people didn't get why Pia's Revolution was an enchantment whilst Chandra's Revolution was a sorcery. It's cos Pia's Revolution was built on wanting to change things and actually make a permanent impact. Chandra's was just for the sake of her venting her feelings.
"Like Langoliers, they devour planes"
I see what you did there
omg. i didn't even see what i did there.
So happy to be amongst the five or so people who watched The Langoliers when it was on ABC.
INVISIBLE CITIES QUOTE!!! It’s my favorite book of all time, I have reread it twice and still find new details in every vignette. Instant like on the video from me!
Right?!?!? Its such a small book but it has so much to be found. Its my favorite too!
@@franciscopetrucci Absolutely. Calvino is a master writer. I’m glad that there are others who appreciate it as much as I do 🙂
@@joshuajohnston4825 Calvino wrote the phrase 'rectilinear penetration', for which I can never forgive him
The eldrazi are like 3d objects in a 2d world. We can only see a slice of them and they have a complex perspective we can’t imagine. Much like flatlands
Man your videos always leave me with more questions, in a good way! Your storytelling is infectious and keeps the mind wanting more. Please continue these and I hope Wizards does more with you in the future. Great work!
Excellent work making this video unnerving and unsettling. The prevalent existential questions and subtle editing choices had me spooked.
I felt awkward posting that this video brings me comfort when I'm feeling down in the dumps, and then I scrolled down and a bunch of other people posted the same thing and I don't feel so down in the dumps anymore. Thank you so much for gifting us this video.
The fact that I feel like I both gain knowledge and also gained nothing I think is the point. We are blind to what we can't see, but that's just one of the senses. It may not be tangible, but there are other ways to experience or witness the blindness
I love this video. It's a masterpiece. I can't describe how or why very well, but it's the weaving of magic and real life that you have become a master of. Gods, I love your content
To those who like exploring this concept, I recommend checking out Jacob Geller's video "Fear of Depths" as well as checking out the anime Made in Abyss.
This comment made me go watch several of Geller's videos, and on one of those videos Rhystic Studies commented about how much they loved it.
Time is a flat circle.
Man. I remember signing up for a channel about art. This was incredible. Sam, we don't deserve you. The enlightenment you provide is transformational.
Cozied up for another awesome one. Thanks as always Sam, I love the content
I like to describe the blind eternities similar how dream was described in the sandman comics:
The infinite planes of the multiverse represent everything that is possible. And even in a word filled with reallity changing magic, all it's potencial is just a drop of the ocean of unprobabilities of the blindceternities.
"The eldrazi are the rats", those are some fucking scary rats tho.
Let's go! This channel is a jem in the community
gem
Its a great mox for sure
Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
This is the most profound video you've made. The way you take a video about Magic and make it into so much more is phenomenal.
There's the whole Universe and its mysteries- The Blind Eternities, there's our world which we live in, and then there's the worlds we create within our world- like Magic. The firmament of Magic is the cards themselves, leave the frame and you enter our world, which in a way is the Blind Eternities for the game.
You know, I have had an on going existential crisis ever since I was about 7 and someone explained to me that some people can't see certain colors or see colors differently then me. I quickly realized that I could never see the world through their eyes, smell it with their nose, hear it with their ears. In that moment I realized that I am trapped in my brain. More extreme thoughts followed such as, where was my mind before it was born. As an adult I spend a lot of time thinking and pushing back those thoughts. So thank you for bringing them to the front in a way that doesn't trigger a panic attack. Thank you for putting them so powerfully and poetically. I'm really glad I found your channel a few years back.
Your videos are so contained it dont even need Mtg as a stilt. Even so, I love to watch how you weave them together. Neat work!
11:32 Hey that's me! Glad you found my comment useful.
oh men. I wish this video was an hour longer. ❤️❤️
This has to be one of my favorite videos ever at all.
I absolutely adore your perspective and inquisitive mind. It's amazing to see it unfold.
Oh THIS is what you meant by weird. Yeah. This qualifies. Can't wait!
The only channel about trading cards that reminds me I need to read more Italo Calvino! Thanks for all the hard work, I love your videos.
Jacob geller called, he wants the deep existential well of ideas back
I juste can't find the words on how interesting you are to listen to, I never played magic, never watched someone played, I'm not an artist of any kind and everythime I find myself watching one of your video I just can't help being immersed in a world I don't know nor understand and I love it so much
You are truly one of the best videomaker thanks a lot my friend
13:05 I love the parallel conotations of religous interpretation that comes through in your examples of the different planar denizens.
Excellent use of reiteration to bring the viewer back to the main point after leading them down different tangents. Another wonderful video.
This is my new favorite Studies video, I don't even have words for how profound this is. This video took me into the blind eternities itself, and asked me what I saw. Excellent as always.
The blind eternities present the same truth described in mathematics as Gödel’s incompleteness theorem - there are truths which exist outside and beyond us which we can approach, but never truly know. Many infinite realms of knowledge, none of which we can see. Dune has a lot of elements of this too, actually. It’s one of my favorite ideas in fiction
14:01 "Matter certainly likes to show off" bro I came here for magic stuff, not to question the nature of reality as we perceive it, taking into account the stance that we are just matter trying to quantify our existence as particles. Excellent work as always
The best part of my day is a new Rhystic Studies video. Keep up the great work.
This is the most comprehensive and interesting video on such an incomprehensible topic. Thank you for these 15 minutes filled with thoughts that are far beyond mtg alone and excellent examples from art, science and philosophy. As a big fan of Eldrazi, I just bow down
I found the use of modern and surrealist art in discussion of this topic thoroughly enriching for me. I never thought much of Dali's "Los Elefantes" (9:54) prior to this video, for example, but now I see how art, especially surrealist art, can illustrate concepts yet unknown to us. There are many of Dali's paintings that don't make sense, or maybe aren't meant to make sense, but will become more and more understandable the more we understand about ourselves and our universe.
I appreciate that the video length is exactly og emrakuls power and toughness
As always. Amazing and thought provoking. Thank you so much
As a student of the cosmos and cosmic horror I must say this video is anything but blind. Excellent.
Beautifully esoteric, perfecrly composed and weird. That early Plato's Cave mention set the tone so succinctly. I love this one
This video sent me into a still-ongoing existential crisis. At time of writing I'm onboard the "nothing any person thinks or does matters because we're all just atoms" train.
A small detail that I adore is that you said that the aether is “no longer useful” as a concept in physics. It is a subtle difference to saying Einstein’s theory “disproved the existence of the aether”, which is an easy mistake to make. It represents physics as a science of models and predictions, not of explicit true and false statements. A theory no longer being useful feels like a more damning statement than a theory being proven false.
Wow I don’t know if this was the best video from Rhystic Studies but what I will say is watching this felt like no time had passed at all and then it was done.
You have reminded me why I love magic. The lore that is connected to our world through art and story telling is why I got into magic in the first place.
Each time I think you cannot do better, and each time I'm closer to cry
The Blind Eternities sound like the Void Which Binds from the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.
I had just reread the Revelation at the Eye of Ugin story a couple days ago. What luck to stumble onto this video!
I like how the story depicts the Eldrazi and how Ugin uses metaphors to compensate for the limitations in mortal perception. This video is a perfect follow up to that. 😊
Before I was born, there was an eternal nothing I can only approximate it’s unnameable color as a Black deeper than that of VantaBlack. It was unlike anything I remember after becoming aware of my own memory, it’s location forever just behind my vision wherever I look
👀
You are one of my favorite "content creators", because you like to ponder on the in betweens of life and reality itself. I love MTG, but I like to hear your thoughts a lot more. Two other channels that are similar to yours are TheNerdwritter and ThePassionoftheNerd. They are a deep look into other types of media, also questioning in a philosophical/psychological way the information presented and how it relates with "our reality". Thank you for existing and doing what you like, it makes me happy to interact with you even in a virtual way.
This is one of your best videos, you keep proving me that, despite being just a card game and a marketing product, Magic the Gathering is a vehicule for legit artistic and philosophical discussion. I no longer play but i have total respect for what Richard Garfield created.
Pd: i love how you used the art for Dandan and Fear to convey existential dread, those are some of my favorite magic cards
I'd extend it beyond Richard Garfield, honestly. He (and the design team he worked alongside) laid the foundation but countless hands have helped build and shape Magic.
@@nathanl8622 you are absolutely right, the people who worked in MtG through the years have put a lot of love into creating the lore and the feeling of the game.
@Random Username thats one of the reasons i no longer play, Hasbro is burning MtG to the ground.
edit: hasbro and wotc as well.
Top notch video, Rhystic. I love me some existencial dread mixed with the awe of being sentient matter. Keep up the amazing videos.
The blind eternities - that region between the graveyard and the library outside of the battlefield.
This is what my simple mind can wrap itself around :)
But seriously, thanks again for another compelling dissection.
Will be waiting for the next one.
Love your work, Sam. Teaches me to always think critically and appreciate things for what they represent as well as what they are. Thank you for the content.
Opening with an Italo Calvino quote means this is instantly amazing
Man, this might be my favorite Rhystic Studies content I've seen. Great job.
This is one of the best pieces of media I have experienced
ive never played a single game of magic and yet i watch every video of yours as soon as it drops
absolutely love this channel x
Your passion and poetry in describing the words and art of MTG always increase my appreciation of this game Sam, and that's really remarkable. Thank you.
Your best work yet, Sam.
I say it on every video but we are all incredibly lucky to have someone like this creating for our game.
thank you, Sam. not only did i need this today, this might be my favorite video of yours. I say this about every video you upload.
Just came to this from your Phyrexia video. Please, for the love of GOD do a video on the Eldrazi!
I love the idea of the eldrazi being a part of a natural cycle. Ulamog strips away the world, while kozilek reshapes it, and emrakul deals with living organisms. Wether it be for distruction or creation .