So, Jace-hate discourse is piling up all over my feed again, filled a lot with takes implying Jace stans can't take a joke and if Jace is a good character it's only due to recent lore. Let's take a look at the situation… (1/?)

Many may think fans are blowing the most recent wave a Jace-hate out of proportion. If you can spare the time to read this thread, I'd like to provide some context as to why it is causing disrest. Of note, please do not @ any mentioned authors. (2/?)

I'm open to them being notified of this post and opting into the possible madness that may follow, but I don't want to clog up their inboxes uninvited. (3/?)

It's been popular to make fun of Jace Beleren since the early days. Many read him as a nerd's wish fulfilment character, impeccably snappy with one liners and having a Hot Girl™ fawn over him, all while possessing very strong and rare magic. (4/?)

This ignores his lore's beginnings. Even in Agents of Artifice—his first novel appearance back in 2009—he was a conflicted character who had been used for his magic several times, resulting in a lot of trauma. (5/?)

He was tempted with power into being villainous, and is grieving in much of his lore from the choices he made and how they affect more than just himself. (6/?)

But none of us really care if you like the character or not. Really, taste in character is the last thing on our minds. If someone doesn't read the lore and finds the flavor text insufferable, that's honestly fine. Even loud voices saying "I don't like X character" is fine. (7/?)

The problem lies in framing it as "real players don't like X character" or "it's cool and normal to hate this character and people who like them", and the behavior it emboldens. (8/?)

I have been a fan of Jace Beleren since late 2012, when I attended my first prerelease and was curious about the blue guy popping up in the art. I asked and was told that there was lore, and that I could read all about what was happening in the zany world of Ravnica. (9/?)

Loving steampunk and the guild intrigue, I was sold instantly by the Izzet scientists I built a deck around (though my wincon was mill because I pulled 5 Chronic Flooding cards ). (10/?)

I returned home and read ALL I could about Jace Beleren, the character I recognized from the keyart, which amounted to the webcomics and some articles about the role Jace would be playing in upcoming lore given his past history with a dark org named the Infinite Consortium (11/?)

A week later, The Secretist: Part I comes out and I love it. The obsessed blue mage lost to his encompassing research, but weighed down by his own mistakes and how he let the Consortium use him, fascinates me. It led me to immediately hunt down a copy of Agents of Artifice (12/?)

I could wax on about how I love the character and his hidden depths, and I might in another thread sometime soon, but this is about how the particular brand of hating the character directly leads to abusive behavior in the community. (13/?)

RtR prerelease was one of the only prerelease weekends I ever got through without being harassed by complete strangers for liking Jace. (14/?)

I'm generally an easy target of bullying at an LGS just by virtue of existing. I have a high pitched voice and slight frame, and people don't take me seriously, often cutting me off while I combo off and explain it—citing basic rules while I'm walking them thru the stack. (15/?)

I'm misgendered frequently and asked all of the cringe-worthy questions that being a woman in gaming comes with, despite not being a woman. (16/?)

To top it all off, I like Jace Beleren and I don't make an attempt to hide it, often drawing scenes from the current story between rounds of tournaments and having buttons of some of the Gatewatch members on my backpack. (17/?)

With referencing transphobia and misogyny, it must seem weird that I now say the worst bullying I've received in LGS environments is over something so innocuous as liking a fictional character of the franchise I'm there to support. (18/?)

I've been a big Jace fan for years, and while sitting through Jacetice League commentary is annoying, I'd been enjoying the renaissance of Magic Fandom online and reading all the Gatewatch stories excitedly. (19/?)

I'd been participating in prereleases and drafts and other small tournaments even though I'd get a fair amount of harassment here and there. Things were looking good in my favorite hobby though, and I was having a great time. Cue Ixalan prerelease. (20/?)

Jace is my favorite character, and I've been following along the few weeks of updates with his (mis)adventures on Ixalan. With the hype around the story, a love for tribal, and how much I played Kaladesh and Amonkhet, I'm absolutely stoked. (21/?)

People at this LGS call out when they get something they'd been hoping to pull. I make the mistake of happily commenting that I pulled three Jace lands, and they're even in the colors I plan on running. (22/?)

The person across from me laughs at this and comments that no one actually likes that guy. Another person pipes up and says how he wished that Bolas had succeeded in killing Jace in Hour of Devastation, and the first guy eagerly agrees. (23/?)

As I try to stop this very unwanted conversation, they interrupt me and parrot what I've heard popular mtg personalities gripe about—how unlikely it is that a mere human could survive Bolas's famous mind ripping and complaining about the Gatewatch. (24/?)

This is an inconvenience. I'm used to people replying like this if Magic Story is brought up and I even mention Jace, let alone that I like him. I try to shrug it off and say Jace survived his first encounter with Bolas just fine, (25/?)

that the dragon probably had reasons for not finishing the job or something, and think that will be the end of it. (26/?)

But they start calling me names, misgendering me, and openly joking that I probably don't actually know how to play the game—that I'm just someone's girlfriend opening packs to get an extra set of new cards—and when I stand up for myself, (27/?)

one of them ends up taking a Jace land they pulled and ripping it up in front of me, clearly striving to get a rise out of me. These were adults with a couple years on me, banding together to mock me loudly and persistently. (28/?)

It was humiliating and frustrating, and entirely commonplace. It's not about the 15 cent basic land, though that was a vividly tangible and memorable representation of how people love to show they can destroy what brings someone else joy. (29/?)

It's about how this community focuses on othering to make an in-group of "real players". It's gatekeeping, making an unwelcome space for new and returning players. (30/?)

Jace draws an unreasonably high volume of hate, and it's so openly encouraged, that it emboldens fans to the point of having no qualms in harassing complete strangers. I can't even follow the tag for Jace on twitter because it will sporadically be filled with such vitriol, (31/?)

and people belittling Jace fans for being in the position to be laughed at. (32/?)

tw// Adam Koebel

People get caught up on the ridiculousness of it all—a group of people being laughed at for liking a fictional character seems inane—but that helps the harassment seem like no big deal, and with a foot in the door, leads to more serious harm. (33/?)

What they make fun of him for is also worrying. Jace can come off as rather two dimensional if you only read flavor text with witty banter and blue mage superiority shining through, especially early on. (34/?)

Early depictions of the Lorwyn Five are all fairly intense characterizations without the same blowback. For example, Chandra seems like a thoughtless, angry pyromaniac from the early days, but is now noted as the most popular character. (35/?)

Flavor text needs to be snappy and inform the audience of the style of magic the character wields, all while also explaining the scenario of the card. (36/?)

At times, it can line up with a story highlight and quote the story directly, but frequently it will be closer to a stream of consciousness or video game-esque stock line.

This is a flimsy defense to hate a character anyways, like hating Darth Vader for some iconic lines (37/?)

without ever actually having watched the original trilogy. People who wouldn't remotely consider themself vorthos however have strong opinions about Jace, while completely missing the point of his character because they haven't actually read his story. (38/?)

Many people like to chip in that Jace was insufferable until Ixalan, that he suddenly became a character worth being considered a person, only as of that block. This comes off as "I don't like depressed people showing depression symptoms". (39/?)

As mentioned in the beginning, Jace is weighed by his past choices that got those close to him hurt or worse.

People say he doesn't learn anything from story to story, that he carries no scars from one misadventure to the next, but this entirely misses obvious story beats (40/?)

Ixalan's Jace is only so satisfying because it is the culmination of his arc. It builds off of Oath of the Gatewatch, which builds off of the Secretist, which builds off of Agents of Artifice. (41/?)

Jace went from an aimless boy with few ties, to being scouted for his magic and folded into an interplanar cabal. He finds direction in that he knows he never wants to be the kind of man that Tezzeret is, (42/?)

but direction leads to seeking new puzzles to divert himself from the trauma he's sustained.

This unfocused puzzle solving winds up wrapping him up in the guild intrigue of the Implicit Maze, which saddles him with backbreaking responsibility. (43/?)

Now taking responsibility, he comes to terms with the responsibility he owes to try and fix his past mistakes when Gideon reveals his tampering with Zendikar has led to an interplanar threat. (44/?)

He finds camaraderie with the Gatewatch, and his ties with Liliana lead to her deciding to tag along with the Gatewatch, making the difference against Emrakul. The Gatewatch, increasingly confident, fail in their combat with Bolas—however, (45/?)

where the Jace of 4 in-game years ago would have beat himself up for this upon remembering, Jace has now forged the bonds and worked on himself long enough to self-actualize and realize that a good person is someone who chooses to do good in the moment and keeps on going. (46/?)

Jace resonates with many neurodivergent fans, and his brand of masculinity is a welcome sight for much of the queer audience. Below is a link to a thread on Jace and masculinity that I found very well researched. (47/?) https://twitter.com/robot_rad/status/1293373582425243649?s=20

He has suffered physical and emotional abuse, and still bears the scars of both, while showing that recovery is painful but achievable. (48/?)

I am not the first person to bring attention to the bizarre glee the Magic community gets out of hating on Jace, and the way this hate bleeds over to encouraging people to actually harass people in real life. (49/?)

Content creators end up being an echo chamber for negative takes on Jace, normalizing hating the character and reinforcing gatekeeping behavior (50/?)

Please share this thread and consider when participating in polls and public forums, is the hate and frustration expressed towards the card, the character, or is it being (unintentionally even) redirected at people who play the game? (51/51)

Some interesting links to check out on people discussing Jace Beleren:

The Boogeyman (a look at his infamy, leaning on confirmation bias)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Myi-jxhxOnM

A more in depth explanation of Jace's arc, as recommended by author of Catching Up: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/b8hzcx/esper_anxiety_jace_beleren_preixalan/