Window in Time - A Framing Case Study from The Brothers' War
Welcome, all. Thank you for joining me today.
In February, we’ll begin reviewing the Artifacts Cycle, one of the many series of tie-in novels written for the Magic: the Gathering (MTG) franchise. I’ll hold off on the full story of how I decided to pick these books up for the first time in two decades until we review the first book, The Brother’s War. For now, I just want to discuss one particular element of that first book that fascinated me.
This book is formatting so that the Acknowledgements section comes before the actual text. After the author, Jeff Grubb, said the usual thanks that authors say, he decided to insert the book’s framing device into the acknowledgements. This seems like a rather odd choice to me, as it makes it more likely the readers will skip right past said framing device. My speculation is that Grubb did this because the editors at Wizards of the Coast wouldn’t approve a separate section for the framing device, so Grubb decided to cram it into a pre-approved free writing space. However, this idea seems flimsy to me. Would the editors not then have the authority to push back against him adding at least a full page of additional text onto his Acknowledgements that have nothing to do with him acknowledging the people who supported him?
Regardless of book formatting decisions, the reason we are here is to talk about this framing device. It’s not the first of its kind that we’ve seen or referenced on this site. However, whereas other framing devices were frivolous and ill-considered set dressing or a integral component of the conceit of the fictional narrative, this one serves a utilitarian purpose for the audience.
This framing device is split into two parts.
“A word about sources and accuracy” (hereafter referred to as “Sources & Accuracy”)
A word about time (hereafter referred to as “Time”)
We’re going to go over Time first, as it’s shorter and has less to be discussed.
TIME
Dates, when provided in the text, are given in Argivian Reckoning (AR), recognized throughout Dominaria as a standard calendric system. The calendar dates from the birth year of Urza and his brother, and only came into common use many years after their passing. The most complete dating record of the time was used by the Argivians, who dated their years from the founding of Penregon, their capital. At the time of Urza’s and Mishra’s birth the year was 912 PF.
This aspect of the framing device is pretty straightforward.
The audience doesn’t need to understand the nuances of Argivian Reckoning or the calendar system that the Argivians actually used. Even in terms of understanding the wider MTG timeline, it’s enough to understand that the events of The Brothers’ War occurred millennia before the “present” (which, at the time of publication, would have been the events of the multi-year Weatherlight Saga). I suppose it’s also important to know that this story is happening millennia after the fall of the Thran and Yawgmoth’s ascendency to Father of the Machines, but even then, the only thing that really matters is that those events likewise happened millennia before The Brothers’ War.
However, understanding the relative passage of time within the book is important. The events of this book span 54 years, from 10 AR to 64 AR. What this part of the framing device does is lend context to the dates that Grubb sticks at the start of various sections of the book, giving us an understanding of how many years are passing between events.
Overall, actually explaining Argivian Reckoning isn’t necessary. Audiences can look at the gradually increasing numbers with initials after them and realize for themselves that they reflect the passage of years. Still, it’s a nice touch to help immerse us deeper within the setting.
SOURCES & ACCURACY
The story of Mishra and Urza is the best-known tale in Terisiare and has been carried to all corners of Dominaria. That is not to say that it is a complete or entirely coherent narrative, as there have been several versions of the tale over the years, each reflecting the tenor of its age. During the time known as The Dark, Urza and Mishra were presented as blackhearted villains, responsible for the fallen state of the world they left in their passing. During the long Ice Age, they were reinvented as potential saviors, patron saints of a long-dead technology that could yet save the world. In the present age they have been alternately presented as heroes and villains, savants and fools, exulted to the heavens or condemned to the flaming pits of Phyrexia. This version attempts to portray them as they were, people of their times, both affecting and affected by the world around them.
The version you hold in your hands, like almost all recognized versions, takes as its primary source The Antiquity Wars, an epic poem-cycle by Kayla bin-Kroog. It is one of the few complete records to survive from the age of the Brothers’ War. In addition, the author has been scrupulous in tracking down what few primary sources exist from that period, and has painstakingly pored through later editions of the tale, removing those parts that were either patently untrue or shaped by the desires and wishes of later scribes.
The result is the most complete and modern account of Urza and Mishra and the conflict that swallowed them and their world. It is a rendition of the classic tale set for the present age. The reader should trust this version and no other.
This part is the entire reason for this post.
Why Is It Here?
The Watsonian Perspective
In-universe, this book is meant to be a historical account. The author is acknowledging that other versions of the story exist and that this version of the story will likely clash with them, both in terms of the facts presented and the way the key players are characterized. He (my headcanon is that the in-world author is Commodore Guff from the Invasion Cycle) even takes the extra step to give nods to those other perspectives.
The Doylist Perspective
Out-of-universe, this framing device is a get-out-of-jail card.
For those not familiar with MTG: it is a card game. It’s a deckbuilding card game with a great deal of lore behind it, meant to provide an experience that one simply couldn’t get with a standard deck of playing cards, but still just a card game. Unless people go out of their way to read tie-in novels of lore snippets shared by the game developers, they experience this world through card names, art, the names and functions of certain game mechanics, and - perhaps most importantly - the flavor text squeezed into the bottom margins of cards. This last is both rich in information, but it is almost always biased, either being quoted by unreliable narrators or clearly written to put vibe over fact.
All this is to say that someone who only knows the lore of Urza and Mishra from the small number of cards that he or she has personally handled will likely be coming into this story with a very different understanding of who these characters are. Providing this explanation right out the gate addresses the discrepancies.
Does It Work?
Now that we’ve covered why this framing device is here, does it actually make sense for the story being told? Does it fit with that story? Are there any contradictions, plot holes, or oddities that only exist because Grubb spelled out the framing device for the audience before the story could even start? Does having this in the story enhance the overall quality and experience provided by the narrative?
Yes, yes, nothing significant, yes.
Does it Make Sense? / Does It Fit the Story?
The book is written in Past Tense POV. There’s no wonkiness from a supposedly historical document being written like everything is happening in the moment.
The narrative is has multiple time skips and is split into chronological sections covering certain years of Urza’s and Mishra’s lives. Framing this story as a historical account makes more sense than framing it as someone’s personal experience of the drama before and during the titular war.
While Urza and Mishra are the main characters, most scenes are not in either of their POVs. For the most part, it’s easy to rationalize the scenes as accounts originally provided by the POV character(s) of those scenes.
Does it cause issues?
There are a couple of scenes in this story that ARE from the POVs of the two brothers. While it’s not impossible to rationalize these as things that Urza and Mishra told to others after the fact, this does feel like a bit of a stretch. Both brothers are characterized as people who keep things close to the chest, so telling other people about dreams or moments of vulnerability doesn’t feel true to who they are.
We also get a couple of scenes where the POV characters explicitly die at the end. They obviously aren’t in any position to be sharing their version of events with history.
With that being said, the framing device provides an out. The conceit is that this account was at least partially assembled from sources that weren’t primary sources and that were shaped with people with their own biases. These moments of odd POV can be rationalized as the products of past authors filling in gaps.
Does this enhance the narrative?
I would say yes because the framing device compensates for certain weak points in the narrative. The pacing of the narrative and the size of the time skips picks up rapidly in the back half, with significant events being Told rather than Shown and with major character developments occurring in the background. While I’m not going to give the book a significant amount of leeway for this when the time comes for the full review, I do feel that this Telling is easier to swallow in light of the conceit that the author is working with the limited information available to him.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I don’t believe that a framing device needs to be spelled out for every story, yet it was an effective inclusion in this one. This framing device isn’t a piece of fluff slapped onto the book with zero thought as to the implications. It meshes with the narrative in a manner that feels natural to the story being told.
CLASH OF TITANS
The full review for The Brother’s War is scheduled for February 14th. At that time, we’ll dive deeper into the book’s history as well as its place within the wider setting and chronology that this so-called historical account is set within. My currently feeling is that this book deserves a 7 / 10, though my final score may go up or down by as much as a point once I’ve had more time to think things over.
Whatever you’re all here for, thanks for stopping by. Please remember to sign up for the newsletter if you’d like weekly e-mails with links to the latest posts, and please share the link to this commentary if you liked what you read. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
