Blue

“Those
who fling spells too quickly should have reason to regret it.”

“Knowledge
is no more expensive than ignorance, and at least as satisfying.”
—Barrin,
master wizard

“Me,
angry? Of course not. Thanks to my research, I'm above such petty
emotions now.”

“The
treasure in my mind is greater than any worldly glory.”

“Knowledge
is cruel. It will test your heart and break your allegiances. Are you
certain you want this curse?”

Blue
is the second color on the color wheel. In
the mechanics of Magic: the Gathering, it is most closely associated
with the Island land type, and its mana symbol is indicated by a drop
of water.

Blue
looks out at the world and sees ubiquitous untapped potential. Blue
sees every person as a blank slate. It sees that the world is teeming
with the resources to allow each individual the power to transform
into whatever they desire, if they are willing to pursue the
knowledge of how to do so. Blue believes that the purpose of life is
to learn what one wants to be and how to achieve that goal.

In
order to do this, blue needs to learn that its most important
resource is information. Blue needs to collect as much knowledge as
it can to find its place in the world. With this tool at its
disposal, blue will find the answer to any and every problem. For
this reason, blue's ultimate desire is omniscience. Blue wants to
know everything; it believes that the person who knows all has no
weakness.

In
order to gain knowledge, blue has to understand the importance of
intellect. It wins its battles by out-thinking its opponent and
through a fundamental understanding of how magic works. Blue is the
master of countering its enemies' spells, and it has some proficiency
in reworking the rules of magic to suit its needs. Blue does not take
issue with winning through confusion, and utilizes illusions and
other tricky methods (theft, disguise, etc.) to influence its
opponents' magic to work in unexpected ways. Blue tends not to be the
fairest of colors, but it has no qualms with exploiting the system if
it finds an opening.

Blue
is a scientist. It wants to gain as much knowledge as possible, and
then learn and find novel ways to apply that knowledge. To this end,
blue is most represented by the concepts of creativity and
intelligence. Blue also believes in construction and artifice; it
fully supports creating the things you need either from scratch or by
modifying their original designs. Blue fully supports the use of
technology, more so than any other color.

However,
blue's thirst for intelligence tends to be a double-edged sword. It
lives for intellect, such that it views those who cannot (or worse,
will
not)
take time to think things through in a harshly negative light. Blue
is slow, methodical, and passive; those that rush headlong into
action without appropriate forethought gnaw away at blue's very core.
Blue's response to such behavior is to assert control and force the
person exhibiting such rash decision-making skills to act in a way
that blue knows they should.

As
mentioned in the previous chapter, blue and white get along
remarkably well. In white, blue sees a color that understands the
importance of thinking and planning. It appreciates that white has
the capacity to step back and consider the consequences of its
actions. White also has an earnestness geared toward improving the
world around it; blue admires this way of thinking. Though each color
defines authority differently, both blue and white have a respect
for it.

Blue
sees in black, its other ally, a color that does not back down from
the occasional ugly truth. Black has no time to make excuses or
shield itself in a cloak of ignorance or self-delusion; rather than
hide from the world, black immediately sets upon the task of
determining how to make the best of the situation in which it has
found itself. Blue loves this line of thinking. Blue and black also
share the view of self-determination; the two colors strongly believe
that a person forges their own destiny.

Blue's
view on green is not as positive. Blue sees green as a color stuck in
the past, comfortable in its own little rut. Green stands for
upholding the status quo and wants nothing more than for things to
remain as they are. Green believes the world is perfect and resists
any amount of change blue tries effect. Blue can't stand green's
point of view. and sees it as an obstacle to the necessity of change
and invention.

Blue
also holds a negative viewpoint on red, which it sees as an emotional
force of destruction that lays waste to all in its path. Blue
believes that red cannot be reasoned with, and that its shortsighted
nature and demand to do everything now,
now, now
will only serve to tear down anything and everything blue tries to
construct. Blue thinks that it needs to rein red in before red can
topple its precious plans.

Blue's
greatest strength lies in its ability to out-think and outsmart its
opponent. It is able to conjure up any answer to any problem, thanks
to its unlimited stores of information. Unfortunately, though it is a
powerful strength, it also tends to be blue's Achilles' heel. It
takes a considerable amount of time for blue to plumb its stores,
making it more of a passive force when it should be active. This
makes blue prone to defeat if its opponent is able to outpace it.

An
example (perhaps the Ur-example) of a blue character from fiction is
the wizard, Merlin. Merlin is the source of the stereotype of the
detached yet intelligent wizard locked away from the world in his own
private tower; these attributes positively reek of blue. In the same
vein, Spock is very blue due to his cold, emotionless, and logical
nature and his goal of “seeking out new worlds and new
civilizations.” And as each member of the Simpson family is
associated with a particular color, it goes without saying that Lisa
is the blue Simpson. She defines herself by her intelligence, and it
is essential to her that she knows more than anyone else.

Reed
Richards, better known as Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, is a
strongly blue character. Though he fights foes such as the tyrannical
iron-masked madman Dr. Doom and the planet-swallowing Galactus,
Richards really wants nothing more than to explore the nature of the
universe. Richards is guided by a thirst for knowledge, perhaps more
so than any other character in the Marvel universe.

Like
any other color, however, blue is not without its villains. An
example of a blue villain from real life is Josef Mengele, the Nazi
scientist who experimented on concentration camp prisoners during the
Holocaust. Though knowledge was his goal, the methods by which he
attempted to attain knowledge lacked any sort of moral and ethical
codes. His actions were seen as barbaric and needlessly cruel, not
only by historians but by some of his associates as well.

A
blue villain within the lore of Magic comes from the plane of New
Phyrexia, which used to be known as “Mirrodin” before being
compleated by the Phyrexian orthodoxy; that is, before all organic
life on the plane was systematically replaced by machinery and
artifice. The expansion and governance of New Phyrexia is carried out
by five praetors, each corresponding to one of the five colors of
magic. Blue's praetor is a being known as Jin-Gitaxias.

Jin-Gitaxias
is a firm proponent of his own beliefs, dubbed the “Great
Synthesis,” which modifies some doctrines in core Phyrexian
religious philosophy in order to better facilitate the progress of
Phyrexia as a whole. He discards the term “evolution” as it
applies to Phyrexia because he feels it is not appropriate enough to
describe the changes being wrought by the machine orthodoxy. He also
refuses to use the term because his views on evolution differ greatly
from those of Vorinclex, the Voice of Hunger—the
green-aligned praetor of New Phyrexia—who
believes in the concept of “survival of the fittest.”

Jin-Gitaxias
exemplifies blue because of his thirst for knowledge and his desire
to improve upon not only himself, but his surroundings. He expertly
displays blue's attitude of disregarding those who cannot (or will
not) understand his ideas of perfection, and blue's tendency to be
slow and methodical is reflected in Jin-Gitaxias' card's mana cost
(of all the praetors of New Phyrexia, Jin-Gitaxias costs the most to
cast, at a whopping ten mana.) Finally, Jin-Gitaxias believes in
using artifice (usually his own modifications on existing designs) to
accomplish his many goals, whether they be espionage on the other
praetors, gathering of resources, or the construction and expansion
of New Phyrexia.