Writing Green

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Magic: The Gathering is pretty unique in that its game mechanics produced an exceptionally useful writing tool.

The color pie essentially breaks down the core components of character motivations and methods and explicitly frames these features as not necessarily good or evil. For example an antagonist can be motivated by peace or use order; this would make them White aligned whereas other fantasy works would just make the “light” faction/whatever always good. A Blue character can be a nerd or a jock; perfection is in the eye of the beholder, after all. And Black and Red characters can be benevolent beyond an anti-hero kind of way, even if most stick to the villain lane.

Of the five colors, Green is undeniably the one that gets the short end of the stick (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) and is the most misunderstood of the Barney bunch. This is not helped by Wizards of the Coast really not having any idea of how to handle it across +20 years of Magic‘s existence. In fact, Mark Rosewater’s own articles on the color contradict each other quite bafflingly, and its not really helped by his default excuse that “most Magic sets are western fantasy and other cultures have more value for Green values” (yikes) or some variation thereof. Still, in spite of these hurdles I think Creative is finally getting a hold on how to actually work with the color, and even in the earliest of times there has been a flavor cohesion to how Green is supposed to be.

So much so, in fact, that I think Green is the most interesting color right now.

Green Thumb, Green Heart

At its core, Green wants acceptance/growth through harmony.

Of all the colors, Green is the one that accepts things are how they are, inside and out. It is why it is the enemy of Blue, the color that wants to maximize the potential of the self and of the world, and of Black, the color that wants the world to bend to its knees. Even its disagreements with its ally colors reflect this: Green is okay with White’s community but its not a big fan of its social revolution sheningans, and is okay with Red’s hedonism but not its willingness to disrupt things out of control.

This makes it sound like Green is the boring one of the bunch, and it sometimes can be. However, the means through which it understands why its okay to accept things as they are, through harmony, is where things pick up. Essentially, Green desires and works through the concept of connection; whereas that will be connecting to the land, to one’s family, to spirituality itself. That desire for connection, as well as to protect it, is what motivates Green to do something.

This is most often manifested through nature. It is simple and straightforward: Green accepts the world as it is, thus it embraces the natural, and reacts violently against the unnatural (whereas that’d be Blue’s A.I. rebellions or Black’s demonic horrors). Most fantasy works portray the “nature faction” as obsessed with connecting be it with animals and plants or Mother Earth or whatever, so its extremely easy to slot this into Green. Many modern spiritualities put themselves in contrast against the modernized and technological world, feeding it further into the association of Green with nature.

And, of course, the very color itself goes without mention.

But like all of the five colors there’s more to Green than this. Nature is easily the most unambiguous way of accepting the world, but it’s not the only one.

• Fate and destiny are extremely unavoidable byproducts of accepting the world as it is, and in fact relate to Green’s antagonism of Blue and Black; both of these colors fully believe in free will, which Green believes to be a joke. In recent years, this has become a pivottal point of discussion when talking about the color pie: Black, once just in opposition to Green due to the vague notion of “parasitism” versus “not-parasitism”, is now framed as the color that most informs individuals that their lives and theirs to command as they see fit, whereas Greens just tells you to shut up and eat your waffles.
• Acceptance extends to the self, to just embrace everything you truly are. This can in turn be played in one of two ways: either as a fully positive thing, or as a negative since this means a reluctance against social mobility or personal improvement. Magic admitely doesn’t have much in the way of guts to explore these existential themes, but they are there: they are the core of Green’s antagonism with its enemy colors, which have their own ideas on what is best for the individual. Should you embrace yourself, or become “better”? Should you roll with the punches, or gain control over your own life? Should you give in to your basest impulses, or think on the long term?
• Harmony means a connection to a variety of concepts is within Green’s ballpark. Sometimes connection is to family or community; this is where Green and White find agreement, with the additional caveat that Green respects connection for its own sake while White is dogmatic. Sometimes connection can even be to those “unnatural” things; are they not part of the world at any rate?
• Green’s straightforwardness also means an emphasis on praticality. This is another point against Blue and its mental esoterism, but can actually put it in a similar level with Black, which is defined by pragmatism. What works works, after all.
• Sometimes acceptance can give way to full blossomed (geddit) “truthism”. White is still described as the color most interested in actual truth (even if like 90% of all canonical White-aligned characters are comfortable with white lies…), but Green shares with Red a penchant for openness and honesty. No tricks, no deceits, again unlike its enemy colors but interestingly also against White’s own enforcement of systems, and ironically sometimes against Green’s own desires. This is the “to be lawful or good” for Green: to what extent does “acceptance” actually go? Can you go against a fake system if it is the status quo?

Wonderful Implementations

While Magic hasn’t always delivered on its full narrative potential, none of the above are hypotheticals. In the last five years or so, all of these questions have been explored with Green, producing a myriad of scenarios almost completely divorced from “nature”:

• Theros Beyond Death addresses Green’s fatalism. Though it lacks an actual proper story, one of the main antagonists of the set is Klothys, the god of fate. Though the main protagonist, Elspeth, is actually White aligned, she nonetheless feels like she shouldn’t stay dead. This plays right into Green’s conflict with Black, and Klothys represents the unfair fatalism of existence. She creates Calix to essentially kill Elspeth again, and should there had been an actual story to go along with this I’m pretty sure you could work an existentialist masterpiece.
• This has been explored in Vraska’s character development in Ixalan; she feels like she is inherently a killing machine due to being a gorgon, but an (amnesiac) Jace convinces her otherwise, and this invitably leads her to join the side of good. This is also explored in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, in the conflict between Arlinn Kord and Tovolar on the nature of being a werewolf and whereas it is wise to give in to such murderous impulses. Intermingled with the first is Niko’s story in Kaldheim, where they defy Klothys’ fate for their own agency. And also in Kaldheim we see the return of the praetor Vorinclex, which fully embraces the decidedly monstruous phyrexian existence.
• New Capenna is a mafia set, and the Green-aligned faction, the Cabaretti, are connected not to nature but to each other. This plays into a frankly unexpected side of Green, that of social connections in a crime world. The Cabaretti’s own history also shows a change from rituals meant to emphasise connection turning into hedonism, playing with the former as well.
• Strixhaven and Eldraine paint Green as rather pratical. The Quandrix college is both Green and Blue: the former is more concerned with the pratical application of mathematics while the latter is more concerned with theory. The Court of Garenbrig is the only one not truly boasting a philosophical explanation for its virtue: strength is good, and that’s all. The Quandrix Green side gets extra points for being visually more tied to mathematical constructs than anything natural.
• A variety of Green aligned villains have been portrayed as revolutionary madmen obsessed with tearing down the existing system. Xenagos grew disilusioned with the Theros pantheon and sought to become a god just to prove how unnatural the plane’s deities actually are, while Oko is violently opposed to all manner of social etiquette which he views as “hypocrisy”. There is admitely some missed potential with Nissa: she has the front row seat on how the Eldrazi are a natural aprt of the Multiverse, yet not once does this contrast with her naturalist beliefs. Like what the hell?

Further Growth

All of the colors are still tied to fantasy archetypes. Red will forever be violent chaos no matter how much its artistic and loving side is explored while Blue will always be knowledge nerdry no matter how other forms of perfection are displayed, but Green has grown very fast lately. These are wonderful additions to the color that show its full potential.

Gone are the days where Green is only druids and hippies. Those still exist, alongside downright machiavellian characters, doubting weapons and enforcers of what-should-be. And my homework to you is finding Green aligned characters in media that you find engaging.