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Why, that's my specialty!
This is a deep characterization discussion of a xianxia quest character 0.o
I like your MTG analysis of Ling Qi, works particularly well with White/Blue CRX
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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
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This is a deep characterization discussion of a xianxia quest character 0.o
I like your MTG analysis of Ling Qi, works particularly well with White/Blue CRX
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Something something, Ling Qi is a blue/black.
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- United States of America
I've always found that a Blue/Black playstyle fits how Ling Qi approaches combat better. Deny the enemy resources through removal and counters and discards and mills while acquiring more resources through draw.
Naw, Green, rather than White. She is willing to make use of structures, but does not adhere to any by choice. Tribal bonds are both Green and White strategies.
LingQi is not an idealist like CRX, but she does strive for being more idealist. She tries to improves, and the later showing of this was by trying to work for more than her close circle. She is somewhere between, and trying to get more idealistic.
Oh, Ling Qi's playstyle is absolutely Dimir through and through, maybe with some green or red splashes depending on matchup, but she doesn't behave like a Blue/Black character would. Which is why I posted the article I did, it's all about what the colors represent thematically rather than mechanically, and she's not a Blue character the way MTG writes Blue characters, Suyin is more Blue (though it's not and never been her primary color).
Other notable characters would be White/Red Gan Guangli (not even just White Red, the man is Boros through and through), Black/Red Su Ling (for amusingly many of the same reasons Batman would be Black/Red) and White/Black Cai Shenhua.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
I do think she behaves like a blue character though? Like, people are putting an emphasis on her current job, but I don't think we should forget that Ling Qi very much is a trickster and manipulator at heart. Her approach to problems and desires are very much driven by blue type of thinking. Not the same blue type as Suyin is, but definitely blue type.
That shows up in any Magic color that can have Rogue tribal, though.
Which is to say, all but White.
The way in which Ling Qi is a manipulator and trickster, though? Not Blue.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
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- France
I think it is very much blue? Maybe I am missing newer mtg lore as it's really been twenty years since I last read mtg books and almost that long since I played the game, but iirc being a trickster/manipulator/schemer/worker behind the scenes were all very much blue above any other colors.
Blue does it more than any of the other colors, and frequently is forced into it due to not having the tools for anything else.
What I'm telling you is "uses trickery and manipulation at any point" is woefully insufficient to claim it as someone's color. It is not exclusive to Blue.
And so we look at Ling Qi's other traits to narrow things down, and those say "not Blue."
She'd probably have a lot more Blue to her if we'd taken the other Zeqing Art.
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
What I am saying is that Ling Qi is first a trickster and schemer, and the 'other traits' have since been tacked on for presentation. Black is big enough that it should be counted as a full fledged colour, but red or green are imo at best a stretch, and at worse wishful thinking because they are 'nicer' colours.
I'd say Ling Qi is first and foremost a driven survivor who wants to be more than that, which is Black.
She invests lots of herself into her family and friends, which is Green.
She uses tricks occasionally, which could be any color but White.
When has she schemed?
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Meizhen did yell at us that one time because our dumb ass made a vicious enemy and then left him alive and powerful with a clear shot at our back. That whole arc basically reads as "remedial lessons in scheming."
Ling Qi does a lot of stuff that reads to me as Red, yeah.
I'd like to see more Blue - artificery and research and careful planning rather than sneaking in and winging it, which is a very Red form of trickery. I'm not arguing Ling Qi shouldn't be Blue.
I'm arguing that she currently isn't. Not as a major element of her character.
Maybe, but in the same way you object to people emphasizing her job, I think you're falling into the same kind of thinking, in that you are focusing on what she does, not who she is and what she cares about. Through the color wheel as personality metaphor, everyone has all five colors, figuring out which colors people are best represented by requires looking at what they prioritize, and one of the thematic elements of Blue is knowledge and the seeking thereof, something emblematic of one of her lunar patrons, and knowledge is something Ling Qi does care about, but not enough to say it defines her like her desire for freedom, her ambition to never be weak again, or her bonds to her family and friends, things that are Red, Black, and Green respectively. In fact lets just look at Ling Qi's Insights:
These are all White, Green, Black, or some mix of White/Green and Green/Black, but no one would argue that Ling Qi would be best described as White, because she doesn't embody the order and discipline of White in MTG the way Renxiang or Guangli do. And while yeah, trickery is part of the Blue philosophy, it's not exclusive to it, Red also embraces trickery, and is arguably the better known color for it since trickery is also part of the Goblin wheelhouse and Goblins are pretty iconic Red creatures.
Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
Hm. What was the last scheme she instigated? Getting close to the Wang guy? But before that the only thing I remember is the well incident during Zhou's trial. Maybe I'm missing something, but schemer is not something I'd consider Ling Qi to be.
On the other hand, green is very firm on accepting your place in the universal law and being closer to natural order. Ling Qi is neither of those. Plus I don't think it's fair to say that green has a privilege on friends or family, anyone can have those. It's more about how she deals with them, and that is very not-green imo.
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- Location
- Staring into the void
The Black Noise plan wins
Not really, depends on your interpretation of Green.
Monogreen is big on the natural order, but the Blue/Green Simic hardly accepts the universal law as anything but something to learn about and exploit, the Green/White Selesnya bend the natural order to fit the needs of society and vice versa.
We got a couple of major elements to draw from:
-Social(White/Green) - Ling Qi focuses on the interpersonal elements of this, she largely only cares about the broader society so far as it affects her and hers. So that's Green tribal more than White tribal, but the relationship being defined in a Protects/Protected By is more White tribal than Green tribal.
-Trickery(Blue/Red/Black) - Her use of trickery is intense in the moment, yet she defines herself by honesty. What we actually get out of her trickery is sidewise problem solving and avoidance/deferral of consequences, which is mainly a Red thing.
-Ambition(Red/Black/Green) - She's Ambitious, that much is clear, but its not at particular cost, though she'd not hesitate much if it cost someone else. She just wants to Grow. That's a Green-type ambition.
-Music/Art(Red/Blue) - Artistry is usually in the intersection of red and blue. Not very strongly defined yet though, she identifies as a musician and wishes to pursue knowledge. The reason is not well defined, whether she's expressing her emotion, or as an avenue of mastery.
So I'd say she has Green/White motivations, a Red personality, Blue/Black instincts and Blue/Green methodology, Buffing your big Green tonky beast while debuffing enemies.
Not always.
I think the biggest problem for Ling Qi in developing Blue is her background as a street rat. A lone street rat, at that.
Blue is to a large extent the color of control. And Ling Qi grew up in a world she could barely even influence.
... She's also got issues with curiosity and knowledge. There's a reason it's become a joke in the thread that Ling Qi forgets people's names - if knowledge isn't immediately useful to her or her interests, she has a distressing tendency to discard it.
One might suggest a lot of that came from living in a world where, if she couldn't figure something out in the moment, she wasn't ever going to.
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This is all the more reason for blue, she wants, needs, control, and all her cultivation is in large part about being able to have that control.
This is all the more reason for her to acquire Blue.
But seeking control is often Black, which I've repeatedly called out as her primary color.