Navigating the Magic: The Gathering (Magic) community as a queer person (both in the act and the political sense, along with my personal identity) is a labyrinth of simultaneous solidarity and isolation, bigotry and belonging. The community has a reputation of being an unwelcoming place to those who are not white men. It is decidedly ironic, then, that there is such fruitful material for a queer reading of Magic’s lore, despite previous errors in this area.
So, what does ‘queer’ actually mean? Nikki Sullivan, in A Critical Introduction into Queer Theory (2003) examines how queer is used in ways which are often contradictory, and points out that defining the word ‘queer’ would be “a decidedly un-queer thing to do”. Sullivan points out a juxtaposition between the act of being queer and performing queerness, and how simply designating queer identity to certain individuals often oversimplifies the issue. Ironically enough, simply assigning particular individuals (those who are not cisgender/heterosexual) “narrow and homogenised political identities… inhibit the radical potential of queer politics”, as Cathy J. Cohen explains in her 1997 work Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens.
Queering is the act of taking a work and viewing it through the lens of Queer Theory. This approach includes considering queerness as an act, as well as an identity. One’s sexual orientation being of the non-heterosexual variety does not necessitate their actions being queer.
Nissa Revane is a character who fascinates me. She checks the boxes of a lot of typical fantasy tropes as an elven woman with long, flowing hair and a deep reverence for nature and her homeland, Zendikar. But a recent change of direction in her story has provided a fascinating subversion.
Nissa is also a planeswalker, meaning she possesses the ability to teleport across the multiverse. Though she uses this ability to help fight interplanar threats, her heart belongs with her home.
She Who Breaks the World by Grace P. Fong (2023) is a short story about
Nissa in the aftermath of a traumatic event. The title is an inversion of one of her most iconic cards, “Nissa, Who Shakes the World”, and explores her ever present grief and guilt.
“Nissa Revane is digging her grave. Under the cover of night, she drives her shovel into Zhalfir's ground and wipes sweat from her brow. The task should come easily to her. It's just dirt, after all. Once, she could bend nature with a whim, but now her heart pounds, her limbs shiver. She concludes she must have overexerted her recovering body and decides she will take a well deserved rest upon completing this task. But she cannot ignore the question that claws at her heart: is this what happens when a Planeswalker loses her spark?” (Fong, 2023)
When considering a queer reading of a text, one must understand that queering isn’t always literal. A character doesn’t have to be queer in order to be queered. Nissa Revane isn’t dead, but she has let her old self die.
An integral part of the transgender experience is the mourning and acceptance of the loss of one’s former self, the self that could have been. Nissa buries the metal that once trapped her, and with it, she leaves behind the person that she once was.
Nissa is an animist, gifted with the ability to speak to the land. Her relationship with her homeworld is so deep that she once considered it to be her best friend. She was once known by her nickname, Shaya. Someone else had given her that name, a gift from their native tongue, which translates to worldwaker. But that name is one that Nissa determines that she must leave behind, much like how she must bury the metal carapace once used to control her.
“Finally, the hole is deep enough. Next to it, her Phyrexian carapace awaits burial. … Its copper skeleton is covered in mangled spikes, and those spikes are covered in the dried blood of her friends. She rubs one, and dark residue flakes off on her fingertips. She wonders whose blood it was. Maybe Koth?
Maybe Wrenn? Maybe Chandra?
Chandra.
She had hurt Chandra, almost killed her.” (Fong, 2023)
In the turmoil of having undergone phyresis, a simultaneously surgical and metaphysical process, Nissa suffered a conversion in the theft of her own body, mind and autonomy. Phyresis is, in many ways, analogous to conversion ‘therapy’ practices, the corruption and distortion of one’s being, or forcible reassignment surgeries performed on intersex individuals.
When Nissa was freed from her prison, both physical and psychological, her long time love interest and closest friend, Chandra Nalaar, affirmed her love for her, and Nissa reciprocated. But in the wake of trauma, love does not conquer all. It does not erase the traumatic revelation that Chandra faced when stumbling upon a corrupted Nissa, or the guilt Nissa feels for the part she played in this, despite not consenting in the matter.
Chandra is also a planeswalker, and there is an inherent queerness in that experience. Planeswalking was once a secret, something which would either garner looks of disbelief from non-walkers, or weaponised by its wielders to cause interplanar destruction. Planeswalking as a concept is dangerous in its defiance of the boundaries of what is thought to be possible.
Planeswalkers form bonds with each other across Magic’s wider story. Solidarity is found in their shared experiences and traumas, and Chandra and Nissa both understand the pain in leaving behind places once known as home.
A central conflict in the story is the differing ways in which Chandra and Nissa communicate with one another, and experience and express love. Nissa’s demeanour is described as soft-spoken and gentle. She struggles with loud noises and speaking with others (though she loves music), which
juxtaposes Chandra’s loud and brash nature.
When Chandra promises Nissa that she won’t go anywhere once Nissa is cleansed of her prior corruption, Nissa interprets this statement in its most literal form.
“I'm right here. Chandra had said. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere.
Nissa wants to say something, to remind Chandra of her own words. But before she can protest, Chandra's voice spills out to fill the quiet she can't stand. "Tomorrow, I'm leaving to find Ajani."
Nissa opens her mouth to reply, but she doesn't know how to respond to a broken promise.” (Fong, 2023)
Nissa begins to realise that Chandra’s love contains multitudes that she cannot understand. Chandra loves and feels more freely than Nissa; to Nissa, love is straightforward, simple and constant, yet Chandra is more fluid in her emotions, instead experiencing extreme highs and lows.
An ongoing thread of their relationship is how Nissa has taught Chandra to ground herself, and how Chandra has taught Nissa to open her heart. A few years prior to the events of She Who Breaks the World in a moment of desperation, Nissa helps Chandra ground herself using a visualisation exercise based on a childhood memory of Chandra’s.
“You're a lantern on the water," Nissa says, as she rocks (Chandra) side to side, rolling (her) shoulders like spring tide. "But just a little one. A tiny flame, flickering in the night. Can you feel it? You're drifting. A precious light on endless water. And the stars are waiting for you.”
Chris L’Etoile, Burn (2017)
This practice of theirs continues, even two years after the events of “She Who Breaks the World”. After all, there are still tears. Chandra still cries in her sleep, haunted by nightmares of what once was. Nissa still sees the past as though it were happening in this very moment. Queerness is often curtailed by the horrifying echoes of the past. But the lantern is still lit.
It's an old exercise for the two of them. If they focused on their breathing falling into time, they could calm one another. Whether it was Chandra's nightmares or Nissa's flashbacks, breath had become a touchstone for the two of them. In the quiet of their room, they find the familiar rhythm once more, Nissa's steadiness picking up a little of Chandra's eagerness, and Chandra finding true stability in turn.
K. Arsenault Rivera, The Bloodless Revolution (2025)
At the resolution of the story, Chandra explains that she now understands that “love leaves room for the other person to be who they are.”
Perhaps that is what queerness is. Allowing people to just exist. There is
room outside of the boundaries our society has built for us.
“One by one, fat droplets from the sky coalesce together into a torrent. A torrent becomes a flood. Water fills the crevasse they are trapped in, buoying them up. Soon, they are floating together, watching the cloud move away to reveal a clear, night sky. Chandra, hair still on fire, looks every bit like a lantern on the water.” (Fong, 2023)
A pact is formed as rain pours. One to commit a leap of faith, to leave space for each other’s hearts. Perhaps that’s all we need. A willingness to exist as we are.
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