Brushworm Speaks! - The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Amonkhet

Brushworm Speaks!

The Art of Magic: The Gathering 

Amonkhet

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Acquired: Amazon.com

Series: Magic the Gathering (Book 4)

Hardcover: 240 pages

Publisher: Perfect Square (July 4, 2017)

Language: English

Subject: Fantasy

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The Story: The Second Sun creeps across the sky, growing ever closer to the horns of the God-Pharaoh. These pages, lavishly illustrated with the award-winning art of Magic: The Gathering®, will introduce you to the people of Amonkhet, whose life is a series of trials meant to prepare them for the great God-Pharaoh’s return. Join the heroic Planeswalkers of the Gatewatch as they come here to face the evil dragon Nicol Bolas, whose schemes span the planes of the Multiverse. The glorious hope and desolate despair of Amonkhet await you as the final hours draw near!

The Review: Kaladesh was the expansion that caught Brushworm’s attention to Magic: The Gathering but when Amonkhet came along, Brushworm was blown away. For some people, all that really matters is the eponymous card game and the playing of it. Which is fine, but it also enables people to tragically overlook the superb artwork and the rich lore and storytelling that goes into the creation of the cards and their expansion sets. This book, along with the rest of the  Art of Magic: The Gathering books, solve this problem and allow those who have never played the game to dive right in to this almost literally, infinite world. 

This expansion is Brushworm’s favorite. 

It could be said that this expansion was what solidified the love for Wizard’s of the Coasts gaming franchise. 

There are plentiful examples of ancient Egyptian culture that have in almost every branch of popular culture, even the hospitality industry. Amonkhet takes it further though and does much more than merely replicate the Giza pyramids and the sphinx. 

Something that is interesting to consider in spite of the very fantastical setting, Amonkhet actually does have a few points towards historical accuracy. Popular culture as well as modern day geography have cemented the view that ancient Egypt was always the desert wasteland it is today. This actually wasn’t so. The Nile River Vile was once a lush and green land that slowly dried up over the millennia. That is the reason such a wealthy and developed civilization came to be. Amonkhet acknowledges this and Amonkhet is a gorgeous, green, lush city. This is particularly the realm of Rhonas the God of Strength and Willpower, whose temple is a jungle teeming with wildlife that is richly described in the artwork and text of this book. 

Brushworm acknowledges that a fantasy settings filled with walking mummies and people with crane heads, is what is being discussed here but popular culture is an important front in progressive social movements. As a result, this art book and by extension, this expansion, deserves not a small amount of credit for deftly avoiding whitewashing. The “ancient egyptian” proxies in Amonkhet are correctly depicted as having dark skin. For almost as long as Ancient Egypt has appeared in popular culture, there has also been the tragic tendency to cast caucasian actors as the pharaohs or other figures from mythology or history. Needless to to say that is a very backward view such a rich culture, not to mention racially insensitive. Thankfully, this artwork is a very significant step in the right direction towards more racial and cultural inclusivity in popular media. 

Another point in favor of Amonkhet is the overall atmosphere of the world itself. The veneration of death is something that was quite a facet of ancient Egyptian culture. The reason ancient cultures made such a big deal out of the afterlife and gods of death was the fact that life back then tended to be a very short life. Death was much more common than life in theses times. Amonkhet takes this theme and manages to skillfully integrate it into weave of this world to quite the affect. The constant use of mummies in the city, called Naktamun, as well as the hope towards a better afterlife is a unique take not always found in works of fiction. 

Remember, this is Magic: The Gathering. No expansion would be complete without sinister undertones, and this one seems to have the most sinister undertone of them all. 

Naktamun is part farm, part factory. All solely dedicated to a single purpose: to create corpses. Think about it, all the menial work, the farming, the training, the construction and cleaning, is all done by the mummies. The preserved undead created from the bodies of failed initiates. All the living people need to do is train and sharp eyed readers may notice the one thing missing from this world: the elderly. 

Brushworm will not give away the ultimate ending to this whole escapade but when the ending comes, the whole picture crystallizes in a terrifying realization. It really is a gut punch. One can’t help but wonder how the next expansion will turn out after such a grand event.

There is very little in the way of flaws here. The biggest one honestly is the way the story told by the artwork is conveyed. This is not a novel, the story of the realm as well as that of the Planeswalkers when they arrive, is told in avery flat manner. It is reading a detailed Wikipedia article about a story, rather than the story itself. 

Brushworm cannot stress enough that any interested reader should further explore this world and in order to do that, they need to consult the Magic: The Gathering website. 

Final Verdict: The Art of Magic the Gathering - Amonkhet is gorgeous. The art is breathtaking. The setting is one of the most iconic ones Brushworm has encountered in quite some time. This story does not feel like it is quite finished yet. The day we return to Amonkhet will be a glorious one indeed!

Ranking: Five Amonkhet Icons out of Five

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