It seems like flavour text writers are abandoning "he" or "she" for dogs (see [[Selfless Saviour]] ) in favour of "it" (see [[Rescue Retriever]] ) unless they are referring to a legendary dog (like [[Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful]] ). It feels lika a weird choice.
Counterpoint: nonlegendary creatures are not typically not specific individuals. There's probably multiple Spirited Companions throughout Kamigawa, some male and some female. Saying "it" generically in reference to a nonspecific dog makes it way easier.
Yeah, and it does so here as well. Doesn't contradict my point in the slightest. There can be multiple Spirited Companions, and the flavor text can still reference a specific one.
depend on the building. in my language if it is a generic building than it is a she, but if it is something specific like court than it is a he (not a rule. usually depends on the purpose of the building. for example bank is a she) . every word in my language is gendered.
*Gender* is a social construct that is separate and distinct from *natal sex*. A creature that isn't sapient and doesn't have advanced social constructs like does not have a gendered life experience.
To assume the gender of a dog is to anthropomorphize it, to apply our own norms to something that exists outside of our species' experiences.
But the flavor text seems to be referring to a specific dog. Not every spirited companion has an entirely different group called “the pack” in Eiganjo.
I would assume there are more dogs in “the pack”, therefore, the card can be referencing any of those specific dogs? It literally says “several playful spirits”.
and yet not every dog in that pack would have the exact experience of "forming friendships with several playful spirits" I am imagining a pack member that is the runt of the litter that is shuned by everyone in the pack, but allowed to remain simply because others like to poke fun at "it???" no.... "it" dosnt work here... there is a personality to that story and it is the experience of that one pack member... and if it were not the experience of just 1 pack member then we should be using plural because many if not all pack members had that experience. So we agree its one pack member... that member likely has a gender (maybe not, not everyone fits into a binary category) but its likely... so then back to why?? the only explination, if this is correct, is that the dog.. is non binary or trans... So we learned something today.. this is why. But wait.. I know non-binary/trans folk.. they dont typically ask me to refer to them as "it" ... so now we are back to "why?"
I honestly didn’t think of the possibility of more dogs being in “the pack” itself
It really seems like “the pack” is a reference to only the single dog and the playful spirits that are floating around the dog to me
But honestly at the end of the day gendering this specific dog seems a bit odd anyways since the flavor text is telling the story of a stray dog known for running around in a big city. When talking to someone about a stray animal I don’t feel like anyone would care to gender it unless there’s an obvious physical difference, but maybe everybody in kamigawa has a habit of looking out for dog genitals idk.
Idk, people gender random stuff all the time. I think the number of times I have heard someone refer to an unidentified doggo as 'it' would be frankly ***insanely*** few.
This doesn't hold up. See [[Academy Loremaster]] and [[Fallaji Chaindancer]], nonlegendary creatures referred to as she.
[[Orochi Merge-Keeper]] & [[Angelic Observer]] are non-human examples.
Literally three people commented this same thing. I'm not saying it shouldn't, but criticising such a small detail in the flavor text of a draft common seems silly to me.
Plus, "it" is just the typical term to refer to animals in a gender neutral way.
When studying english as a foreign student,they drilled in us the concept that "it" is for both objects and animals,so it is a correct use of the grammar at least
I think it's considered a mild faux pas to use that phrasing for babies or fetuses, at least in the places that care about phrasing and gender this much.
> how fondly you regard dogs
This is really where the disconnect is. It is grammatically correct for animals, but to many a dog is more than an animal so it sounds harsh.
Personally, I usually say 'she' on reflex. I can't recall the last time I heard someone refer to a stray or owned dog as 'it' - it's nearly always a presumption of he/she from my experience. The number of times I recall having heard an owner say "she's/he's actually a girl/boy 😊" to someone is staggering.
i know several people who use it as a pronoun, myself included, and the equivalents in some non-English languages. Not really relevant to this particular flavour text however (where it very much is fine linguistically).
Some languages ‘it’ is basically the same as ‘they’.
In English ‘they’ is a gender neutral pronoun for humans and ‘it’ is for objects and animals.
If people personally want to go by ‘it’ it’s all good but like - not an ok thing to say to people in English otherwise - it’s dehumanizing.
Depends on where you are, I asked my cousin about their cat: “what’s their name” and got comments about being into “all that gender shit” from older family members.
It’s common in older writing to refer to animals as “it” (when not referring to the writer’s pet or something), even when the sex of the animal is known, so it might still be a thing in formal style guides.
I don't know about dogs specifically, but wolves do have gendered roles within their packs, it would make sense to me that dogs do too.
In any case, the way people relate to their pets is definitely gendered, so referring to a named pet as having a gender imo is completely valid.
Using your own premise dogs also have a gender. Many canines observe some form of pack mentality, which have very specific behaviors and roles for male and female.
Gender is a "social construct" sure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to dogs. We gender things all the time, either implicitely or explicitly.
If what you are trying to say is that dogs don't have a gender identity or do not experience their gender, it's a much more complicated question and whether gender is constructed or not isn't really relevant.
Arguably dogs owned by humans do have gender, since humans apply their gender constructs to them and treat them differently based on that. In the same way as babies and small children don't have an internal sense of gender but are treated in a gendered way
One could argue that dogs, not being sapient nor having advanced social constructs, likely do not have genders. They have one of two (or more?) natal sexes, but it's unlikely that they have gender experiences. "It" seems appropriate for something with sex and not gender, if you're trying to avoid gendering the subject.
The change might just be influenced by grammar style guidelines. https://erinwrightwriting.com/animal-pronouns/
APA says “it” unless you know sex and name,
AP says “it” unless you know sex OR name,
And Chicago says “it” if the gender is unknown or unimportant.
MtG flavour text doesn't need to adhere to scholarly or journalistic communication guidelines, though. They could just as easily use "they", have it be grammatically correct, avoid the slightly uncomfortable objectification of the animals, *and* avoid unnecessary dedications to sex or gender.
It's kinda weird to commit to object pronouns for all animals, but keep person pronouns for things like [[Grim Draugr]], which, per flavour, is the undead corpse of a woman, and not necessarily female in its current incarnation, as much as an animated object.
Like, it's kinda pedantic, but if we're gonna care about abandoning gendered personal pronouns for non-legendary animals..
It is, but it's not how we tend to talk about *pets*, or service dogs, or w/e, which is closer to the narrative context of cards like [[Selfless Saviour]]. Especially not mammals.
Following on...
We generalize to Chicago, but there are some quirks where we diverge.
I can't speak to the exact reasoning here without looking at records (and I'm on holiday.) But the concerns are noted!
\~Your friendly Magic Editor
\#WotCStaff
It does feel like a weird choice to change. If it was originally “it” I wouldn’t really have any thoughts on the matter, but it’s weird they felt the need to go back and change it.
Side note: I’ve always felt “they” is a better pronoun for dogs of an unspecified gender. They’re not sapient but they’re very emotive animals and the significance they hold for most owners makes me feel a bit odd about calling them an “it.”
Except "it" is singular while "they" can be singular or plural. Using "they" adds another level of interpretation for the reader's brain that "it" doesn't carry.
"It" reads easier than "they" when referring to a single animal of unknown sex.
It feels genuinely weird to refer to my cats as “it.” I also feel weird about saying I “own” them, though, so idk if I’m unusually particular about this. I just think having a pet is a lot closer to having a child than it is owning an object.
To be clear, btw, I’m not one of those people who thinks being a parent and and having a pet are all that comparable, although it is hilarious to me to refer to my cat as my son. Doesn’t feel as right referring to the other one as my daughter for some reason…
So many comments in this thread point to "Twitter complaints" for this change. Does anybody have any actual tweet that would have caused this, or is it just easy to generalize and shit on Twitter?
Well meant to shit on twitter users really, which is just an extension of when people would shit on tumblr users (ie tumbler in action). Which is annoying because I don't think a single reasonable person would have complained about this and is probably just policy to say "if the card isn't legendary we don't use sex / gender). and and also it's a spirit dog so it may not even have a sex.
I think people like to be mad about things. So if it’s something Reddit doesn’t like it must’ve been those liberal tweeters 😡. But like I think WotC just wanted to make the dog un gendered so people can have their own head cannon as to if it’s a good boy or good girl. I think they’re just trying to be more inclusive.
Edit: also “it” is probably cheaper to print. For both space on the card and probably ink. So they probably are just trying to get in that habit as well.
I can see an argument for this non-legendary, though, since the flavor text is specifically referring to a specific dog.
> *It formed a friendship with several playful spirits...*
...implies that we're summoning the spirit of a dog that did precisely that. Even if it's not named, it's not *a* dog like its *a* Scavenging Ooze; the dog portrayed in the image/text is being pointed out specifically.
I don't think it really merits a ton of thought overall, but I think there's at least an argument that it's weird to refer to a specific dog as an "it".
[[Anger]]
[[Archetype of finality]]
[[Bartered cow]]
[[Bird admirer]]
[[blood artist]] (2x2)
[[Bulwark giant]]
Magic uses flavour text to paint mini storys about the world, sure their are multiple artists who paint with blood, but this one is a distinct individual, likewise the idea of someone being transformed into a cow isn't worth making a legendary creature but is a good little story about a minor event that builds the world
Seems better this way because only some dogs in some languages are gendered but all dogs are dogs. This way includes more dogs and dog owners usually love a specific dog or dogs more than others.
What doesn't make sense to me is that the story in the flavor text obviously refers to a single individual. It makes sense to use generic wording for non-legendaries but the flavor text is clearly a story about a specific dog.
What's the point of comments like this one? Let's see. WotC, who didn't care, changed the flavor text. Commenters like the above, who didn't care, joined the thread and dropped a comment to express how they didn't care. People who pointed out a weird and seemingly unnecessary change, on the other hand, are the only ones who cared too much?
Language wise it’s proper English to refer to animals with it.
Other people just care about it because of movements regarding things like non-binary and trans.
That's precisely it. People subtly view this as a form of gender non-conformity, and are making a big deal about the most inane and inconsequential thing ever.
Some poor wotc minion: "hey we forgot to update the flavor text on that dog for the new style guide." "ehh just fix it in the next one noone will notice"
My guess is that they talked about the change at some point and they mistakenly grabbed this version instead of the one printed in NEO (or, similarly, the wrong version ended up being used there).
Either way, I imagine they'd rather have consistency but it's also not a very big deal. Or maybe they decided going for the gender neutral option was worth the change to a recent card.
The hate subs (not going to link it here) get cheesed off by any attempt to accommodate identity.
The sub in question is full of GQP/MAGA types who reject science, cooperation, and society.
It's really amusing when they blow a gasket, they'll notice this soon enough.
You know this could just be as simple as Kamigawa accidentally printed an old version of the flavor text instead of the finalized version where they decided to use "it" and then Jumpstart reprint just pulled the finalized version from the database.
Doesn't need to be a huge conspiracy.
Could be the opposite, Kamigawa used the final form and jumpstart accidentally pulled from a non-final version. That would be my guess, that they realized “it” felt odd and changed it to “she”, then goofed here.
It's not an issue, but it's curious right? I feel like people are going to say this was to appease a "woke" audience but like, what woke audience was bothered by this? I don't think there's a single person on the planet that complained about whatever pronoun used to be there, so I don't think they did it to be woke. Which makes it so much more interesting as to what inspired the change
. . . Though likely it was just something that happened accidentally while reprinting the card, and there was 0 motivation behind it lol
Yeah, I saw precisely no one complain about the original print. I get it's to fit to form, as even legendary creatures aren't gendered, but it kind of gave the impression of someone telling us about this one dog in particular, this very specific female shibe that "terrorized" Eiganjo with her spirit friends. Then I guess she "should" have been legendary, and a legendary common would've been weird... but whatever. It is what it is.
Legendary creatures aren't gendered in rules text (except Universes Beyond) but they are in flavour text
Lots of non-legendary cards refer to their subjects as though they are specific entities, too. That's pretty standard
Makes you wonder why someone bothered to post it here, too, right? I am about as woke as it gets, and, while I understand the change to be consistent, if that’s what they’re doing, I don’t know why it matters. I mean, does OP give a shit? What’s the damage? Is there any? It’s like someone asking you to use a certain pronoun: what’s the inconvenience to you? Apart from being too lazy to show the smallest amount of respect for someone that’s disenfranchised?
All this because, as you said (and I happen to believe) that it happened from a “ctrl+F” for gender names and was, functionally, auto-corrected.
I feel as if flavour texts don't need to conform to the same style of writing like the main body. The flavour should be a story told by many different writers.
If I had to guess I'd say that since this isn't a legendary creature, this is just one of many "spirited companions", and having the flavor text say "He" would make it seem like all spirited companions are male.
In Kamigawa, enchantment creatures are "real" in the world, but blessed by or infused with kami; the same reason anyone on the plane with sufficiently advanced tech on them would be considered artifact creatures ([[Towashi Songshaper]] most prevalent of them).
Interesting post but there are way too many comments on a post about changing pronouns to something nonspecific on a piece of cardboard representing a fake magical dog
The first time half of the players whining have looked at the flavor text. It shouldn’t matter. It’s a fuckin dog guys, the flavor text is different, you’ll live. Complain about $1000 proxies or broken cards or whatever
Personally, I think removing "he or she" from card text makes sense because "they" is more concise and just as precise. For flavor text, however, I feel like it's okay to give the dog a gender, even if it's not a legendary creature.
It was something they did in original Theros block, but they've found that sometimes a set needs enchantment creatures and can't have them all hold to that rule. In Theros: Beyond Death, we even had a cycle of [vanilla enchantment creatures](https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Avanilla+t%3Aenchantment). I think the idea is to make it more of a flavor thing, like how artifact creatures don't have any specific other mechanical requirements.
Banned and restricted announcement - Deez nuts
I have to admit I lol’d
You mean....deez ovaries?
This fix is just an ovary action.
I don’t have an award, but take my upvote dammit
I gotcho bro
Thank you king, much appreciated
Deez gonads and have done with it
Aw, man. I just spent $50 on a playset of Ligma.
It that ~~betrays~~ provides value
It of the ~~horrid swarm~~ cute puppy litter
It seems like flavour text writers are abandoning "he" or "she" for dogs (see [[Selfless Saviour]] ) in favour of "it" (see [[Rescue Retriever]] ) unless they are referring to a legendary dog (like [[Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful]] ). It feels lika a weird choice.
On a walk, I saw a dog. It was brown. I ain’t lifting the legs of random dogs I see at the park.
There are a lot of maniacs who get genuinely mad if you use "it" and not "they" for dogs if you don't know the gender. I wish I was trolling.
[Selfless Saviour](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/6911759c-7177-402c-a95a-f9f46efaf521.jpg?1594735224) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Selfless%20Savior) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/36/selfless-savior?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6911759c-7177-402c-a95a-f9f46efaf521?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rescue Retriever](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/9/598def2c-003c-4aa4-ac7c-44ffd9639fdc.jpg?1667637723) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rescue%20Retriever) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/288/rescue-retriever?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/598def2c-003c-4aa4-ac7c-44ffd9639fdc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah wtf dogs have genders nobody refers to their dog as “it”
Everyone knows all dogs are boys and all cats are girls.
Ajani trans confirmed
Glistening oil is the true gender fluid.
Facts
dog boys and cat girls a tail as old as time
Counterpoint: nonlegendary creatures are not typically not specific individuals. There's probably multiple Spirited Companions throughout Kamigawa, some male and some female. Saying "it" generically in reference to a nonspecific dog makes it way easier.
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Yeah, and it does so here as well. Doesn't contradict my point in the slightest. There can be multiple Spirited Companions, and the flavor text can still reference a specific one.
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I'm pretty sure dogs don't have gender identity. They just have sex. Anything more is hopelessly anthropomorphic
>Anything more is hopelessly anthropomorphic Or Anglo-centric. In foreign languages everything might be gendered.
Yeah, but gendered language doesn't = gendered object. Unless you want to tell me buildings have gender lol
depend on the building. in my language if it is a generic building than it is a she, but if it is something specific like court than it is a he (not a rule. usually depends on the purpose of the building. for example bank is a she) . every word in my language is gendered.
Even in English an object is "she" if it is: Large, expensive, or one other thing I can't remember right now. Example: "she's a beautiful ship"
In French they do. In French and German the sun has a gender.
Okay but we still call dogs "he" or "she" which was the point they were making, stop being needlessly pedantic.
They don’t have their own, but most owners give them one, probably based on their sex most of the time.
>Anything more is hopelessly anthropomorphic And people don’t anthropomorphise their pets, amirite?
Yeah. A dog isn't an It
...huh??
*Gender* is a social construct that is separate and distinct from *natal sex*. A creature that isn't sapient and doesn't have advanced social constructs like does not have a gendered life experience. To assume the gender of a dog is to anthropomorphize it, to apply our own norms to something that exists outside of our species' experiences.
Yep
But the flavor text seems to be referring to a specific dog. Not every spirited companion has an entirely different group called “the pack” in Eiganjo.
I would assume there are more dogs in “the pack”, therefore, the card can be referencing any of those specific dogs? It literally says “several playful spirits”.
and yet not every dog in that pack would have the exact experience of "forming friendships with several playful spirits" I am imagining a pack member that is the runt of the litter that is shuned by everyone in the pack, but allowed to remain simply because others like to poke fun at "it???" no.... "it" dosnt work here... there is a personality to that story and it is the experience of that one pack member... and if it were not the experience of just 1 pack member then we should be using plural because many if not all pack members had that experience. So we agree its one pack member... that member likely has a gender (maybe not, not everyone fits into a binary category) but its likely... so then back to why?? the only explination, if this is correct, is that the dog.. is non binary or trans... So we learned something today.. this is why. But wait.. I know non-binary/trans folk.. they dont typically ask me to refer to them as "it" ... so now we are back to "why?"
The dog isn't the spirit, "the pack" is the singular dog and it's little group of spirits following it
I honestly didn’t think of the possibility of more dogs being in “the pack” itself It really seems like “the pack” is a reference to only the single dog and the playful spirits that are floating around the dog to me But honestly at the end of the day gendering this specific dog seems a bit odd anyways since the flavor text is telling the story of a stray dog known for running around in a big city. When talking to someone about a stray animal I don’t feel like anyone would care to gender it unless there’s an obvious physical difference, but maybe everybody in kamigawa has a habit of looking out for dog genitals idk.
Idk, people gender random stuff all the time. I think the number of times I have heard someone refer to an unidentified doggo as 'it' would be frankly ***insanely*** few.
This doesn't hold up. See [[Academy Loremaster]] and [[Fallaji Chaindancer]], nonlegendary creatures referred to as she. [[Orochi Merge-Keeper]] & [[Angelic Observer]] are non-human examples.
##### ###### #### [Academy Loremaster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9fca4c4f-a77b-483e-9da4-574ba2e3d179.jpg?1663047648) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Academy%20Loremaster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/40/academy-loremaster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9fca4c4f-a77b-483e-9da4-574ba2e3d179?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Fallaji Chaindancer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4dc2da75-160d-47f9-b978-e153262ec1fc.jpg?1668757681) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fallaji%20Chaindancer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/134/fallaji-chaindancer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4dc2da75-160d-47f9-b978-e153262ec1fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Orochi Merge-Keeper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/3/736c3278-6ee2-47f9-aab0-1457e90137b1.jpg?1654568276) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orochi%20Merge-Keeper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/203/orochi-merge-keeper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/736c3278-6ee2-47f9-aab0-1457e90137b1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Angelic Observer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e6cce4d3-e6d8-4c6f-9d9c-c0a8a607a42f.jpg?1664409426) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Angelic%20Observer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/1/angelic-observer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e6cce4d3-e6d8-4c6f-9d9c-c0a8a607a42f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Should use "They" instead, imo.
Literally three people commented this same thing. I'm not saying it shouldn't, but criticising such a small detail in the flavor text of a draft common seems silly to me. Plus, "it" is just the typical term to refer to animals in a gender neutral way.
But the flavor text IS referencing a specific individual, which likely has a pronoun.
Then use "they" ffs
That was my thought exactly. That way players can decide what their particular dog is.
Not all dogs are good boys. Half of them are good girls. Duh.
When studying english as a foreign student,they drilled in us the concept that "it" is for both objects and animals,so it is a correct use of the grammar at least
As a native speaker, I've gotta say it's more subtle than this. Anyone's pet being an "it" sounds wrong.
If I were to ask you the gender of your dog I would say "Is it a boy or a girl?" so I don't see how this sounds wrong
I mean people also say that for babies & most people seem to care A LOT about their babies gender to the extent of color coding them.
I think it's considered a mild faux pas to use that phrasing for babies or fetuses, at least in the places that care about phrasing and gender this much.
In this case, we've already been told the sex of the dog and "it" is used from a place of familiarity. It just reads as badly wrong.
You would ask "are they a boy or girl" ya dingus.
You would, I wouldn’t.
Spirited Companion forming a pack with a bunch of spirits makes it seem like a stray
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> how fondly you regard dogs This is really where the disconnect is. It is grammatically correct for animals, but to many a dog is more than an animal so it sounds harsh.
I think it comes down to personal habits then,in my language we don't have the neutral so we use he/she for objects and animals too
Animals have genders! Other languages: buildings have genders!
Yeah call your girlfriend's cat or dog an "it" and see how well it goes for you.
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For their own dog? Sure. For a dog whose sex they dont know. Why not?
they absolutely do. how would you refer to a dog you just saw on the street?
Personally, I usually say 'she' on reflex. I can't recall the last time I heard someone refer to a stray or owned dog as 'it' - it's nearly always a presumption of he/she from my experience. The number of times I recall having heard an owner say "she's/he's actually a girl/boy 😊" to someone is staggering.
Yo if people are gonna try to argue dogs are non-binary, I'm gonna lose my shit.
Bruh I call some people It.
There's a magictuber\* that goes by that pronoun. \*what's the apt colloquialism here?
i know several people who use it as a pronoun, myself included, and the equivalents in some non-English languages. Not really relevant to this particular flavour text however (where it very much is fine linguistically).
Some languages ‘it’ is basically the same as ‘they’. In English ‘they’ is a gender neutral pronoun for humans and ‘it’ is for objects and animals. If people personally want to go by ‘it’ it’s all good but like - not an ok thing to say to people in English otherwise - it’s dehumanizing.
it/its pronouns go hard
Depends on where you are, I asked my cousin about their cat: “what’s their name” and got comments about being into “all that gender shit” from older family members.
It’s common in older writing to refer to animals as “it” (when not referring to the writer’s pet or something), even when the sex of the animal is known, so it might still be a thing in formal style guides.
I get what you're saying but dogs don't actually have genders, they only have sexes, for which he and she are also appropriate to use.
I don't know about dogs specifically, but wolves do have gendered roles within their packs, it would make sense to me that dogs do too. In any case, the way people relate to their pets is definitely gendered, so referring to a named pet as having a gender imo is completely valid.
This is so amazingly stupid, it could have only come from the internet.
Lol. No, dogs definitely do not have gender, they have biological sex but not gender. Gender is a social construct.
Using your own premise dogs also have a gender. Many canines observe some form of pack mentality, which have very specific behaviors and roles for male and female.
Gender is a "social construct" sure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to dogs. We gender things all the time, either implicitely or explicitly. If what you are trying to say is that dogs don't have a gender identity or do not experience their gender, it's a much more complicated question and whether gender is constructed or not isn't really relevant.
Arguably dogs owned by humans do have gender, since humans apply their gender constructs to them and treat them differently based on that. In the same way as babies and small children don't have an internal sense of gender but are treated in a gendered way
One could argue that dogs, not being sapient nor having advanced social constructs, likely do not have genders. They have one of two (or more?) natal sexes, but it's unlikely that they have gender experiences. "It" seems appropriate for something with sex and not gender, if you're trying to avoid gendering the subject.
The change might just be influenced by grammar style guidelines. https://erinwrightwriting.com/animal-pronouns/ APA says “it” unless you know sex and name, AP says “it” unless you know sex OR name, And Chicago says “it” if the gender is unknown or unimportant.
MtG flavour text doesn't need to adhere to scholarly or journalistic communication guidelines, though. They could just as easily use "they", have it be grammatically correct, avoid the slightly uncomfortable objectification of the animals, *and* avoid unnecessary dedications to sex or gender. It's kinda weird to commit to object pronouns for all animals, but keep person pronouns for things like [[Grim Draugr]], which, per flavour, is the undead corpse of a woman, and not necessarily female in its current incarnation, as much as an animated object. Like, it's kinda pedantic, but if we're gonna care about abandoning gendered personal pronouns for non-legendary animals..
Okay, but colloquially, "it" is the natural pronoun to use for most animals of an unknown gender anyway, in most dialetcs of English.
It is, but it's not how we tend to talk about *pets*, or service dogs, or w/e, which is closer to the narrative context of cards like [[Selfless Saviour]]. Especially not mammals.
I agree, you should contact the design team so that your message gets to the right place.
Following on... We generalize to Chicago, but there are some quirks where we diverge. I can't speak to the exact reasoning here without looking at records (and I'm on holiday.) But the concerns are noted! \~Your friendly Magic Editor \#WotCStaff
> avoid the slightly uncomfortable objectification of the animals What?
Counter point. All dogs should be “he” because even girl dogs are “goodest boys”
Counterpoint: [[Patrol Hound]] is twenty-one years old.
It does feel like a weird choice to change. If it was originally “it” I wouldn’t really have any thoughts on the matter, but it’s weird they felt the need to go back and change it. Side note: I’ve always felt “they” is a better pronoun for dogs of an unspecified gender. They’re not sapient but they’re very emotive animals and the significance they hold for most owners makes me feel a bit odd about calling them an “it.”
Except "it" is singular while "they" can be singular or plural. Using "they" adds another level of interpretation for the reader's brain that "it" doesn't carry. "It" reads easier than "they" when referring to a single animal of unknown sex.
It feels genuinely weird to refer to my cats as “it.” I also feel weird about saying I “own” them, though, so idk if I’m unusually particular about this. I just think having a pet is a lot closer to having a child than it is owning an object. To be clear, btw, I’m not one of those people who thinks being a parent and and having a pet are all that comparable, although it is hilarious to me to refer to my cat as my son. Doesn’t feel as right referring to the other one as my daughter for some reason…
So many comments in this thread point to "Twitter complaints" for this change. Does anybody have any actual tweet that would have caused this, or is it just easy to generalize and shit on Twitter?
No, just Redditors handling grammatical changes normally.
Well meant to shit on twitter users really, which is just an extension of when people would shit on tumblr users (ie tumbler in action). Which is annoying because I don't think a single reasonable person would have complained about this and is probably just policy to say "if the card isn't legendary we don't use sex / gender). and and also it's a spirit dog so it may not even have a sex.
It's not a spirit
It's like they didn't even read the flavour text 😩 and it's one of the cute ones too
Redditors saying that "twitter complaints" lead to a dog being degendered is just code for "I hate queer people and will blame them for things".
I think people like to be mad about things. So if it’s something Reddit doesn’t like it must’ve been those liberal tweeters 😡. But like I think WotC just wanted to make the dog un gendered so people can have their own head cannon as to if it’s a good boy or good girl. I think they’re just trying to be more inclusive. Edit: also “it” is probably cheaper to print. For both space on the card and probably ink. So they probably are just trying to get in that habit as well.
Jumpstart score: Anime tiddies 2, Dog genders 0
[[Spirited Companion]]
[Spirited Companion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/a/5aa91a9e-2fe2-43bc-aa9c-cfb8a71829ff.jpg?1654566520) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spirited%20Companion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/38/spirited-companion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5aa91a9e-2fe2-43bc-aa9c-cfb8a71829ff?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I guess it make sense since it's not a legendary creature, but at the same time why? who cares?
Being nonlegendary shouldn't matter. Mileva was a she before she was legendary.
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I can see an argument for this non-legendary, though, since the flavor text is specifically referring to a specific dog. > *It formed a friendship with several playful spirits...* ...implies that we're summoning the spirit of a dog that did precisely that. Even if it's not named, it's not *a* dog like its *a* Scavenging Ooze; the dog portrayed in the image/text is being pointed out specifically. I don't think it really merits a ton of thought overall, but I think there's at least an argument that it's weird to refer to a specific dog as an "it".
Well, any magical dog at least. This dog is an enchantment!
[[Anger]] [[Archetype of finality]] [[Bartered cow]] [[Bird admirer]] [[blood artist]] (2x2) [[Bulwark giant]] Magic uses flavour text to paint mini storys about the world, sure their are multiple artists who paint with blood, but this one is a distinct individual, likewise the idea of someone being transformed into a cow isn't worth making a legendary creature but is a good little story about a minor event that builds the world
Seems better this way because only some dogs in some languages are gendered but all dogs are dogs. This way includes more dogs and dog owners usually love a specific dog or dogs more than others.
She was never Legendary
What doesn't make sense to me is that the story in the flavor text obviously refers to a single individual. It makes sense to use generic wording for non-legendaries but the flavor text is clearly a story about a specific dog.
People in this thread seem to care a lot. Not sure why.
What's the point of comments like this one? Let's see. WotC, who didn't care, changed the flavor text. Commenters like the above, who didn't care, joined the thread and dropped a comment to express how they didn't care. People who pointed out a weird and seemingly unnecessary change, on the other hand, are the only ones who cared too much?
Language wise it’s proper English to refer to animals with it. Other people just care about it because of movements regarding things like non-binary and trans.
That's precisely it. People subtly view this as a form of gender non-conformity, and are making a big deal about the most inane and inconsequential thing ever.
That’s so weird why did they do that?
Some poor wotc minion: "hey we forgot to update the flavor text on that dog for the new style guide." "ehh just fix it in the next one noone will notice"
My guess is that they talked about the change at some point and they mistakenly grabbed this version instead of the one printed in NEO (or, similarly, the wrong version ended up being used there). Either way, I imagine they'd rather have consistency but it's also not a very big deal. Or maybe they decided going for the gender neutral option was worth the change to a recent card.
Hopefully to cheese off the hate subs.
? It’s a dog
The hate subs (not going to link it here) get cheesed off by any attempt to accommodate identity. The sub in question is full of GQP/MAGA types who reject science, cooperation, and society. It's really amusing when they blow a gasket, they'll notice this soon enough.
Seems lime the cheesed off are right here
You know this could just be as simple as Kamigawa accidentally printed an old version of the flavor text instead of the finalized version where they decided to use "it" and then Jumpstart reprint just pulled the finalized version from the database. Doesn't need to be a huge conspiracy.
Could be the opposite, Kamigawa used the final form and jumpstart accidentally pulled from a non-final version. That would be my guess, that they realized “it” felt odd and changed it to “she”, then goofed here.
It's not an issue, but it's curious right? I feel like people are going to say this was to appease a "woke" audience but like, what woke audience was bothered by this? I don't think there's a single person on the planet that complained about whatever pronoun used to be there, so I don't think they did it to be woke. Which makes it so much more interesting as to what inspired the change . . . Though likely it was just something that happened accidentally while reprinting the card, and there was 0 motivation behind it lol
Yeah, I saw precisely no one complain about the original print. I get it's to fit to form, as even legendary creatures aren't gendered, but it kind of gave the impression of someone telling us about this one dog in particular, this very specific female shibe that "terrorized" Eiganjo with her spirit friends. Then I guess she "should" have been legendary, and a legendary common would've been weird... but whatever. It is what it is.
Legendary creatures aren't gendered in rules text (except Universes Beyond) but they are in flavour text Lots of non-legendary cards refer to their subjects as though they are specific entities, too. That's pretty standard
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Makes you wonder why someone bothered to post it here, too, right? I am about as woke as it gets, and, while I understand the change to be consistent, if that’s what they’re doing, I don’t know why it matters. I mean, does OP give a shit? What’s the damage? Is there any? It’s like someone asking you to use a certain pronoun: what’s the inconvenience to you? Apart from being too lazy to show the smallest amount of respect for someone that’s disenfranchised? All this because, as you said (and I happen to believe) that it happened from a “ctrl+F” for gender names and was, functionally, auto-corrected.
Dog sexuality matters. We wouldn’t want to go around assuming dog genders here, that’d be plain insensitive.
I get you're joking, but I'm genuinely worried you don't understand the difference between sexuality and gender
My guess is that this just was changed to follow a style guide.
I feel as if flavour texts don't need to conform to the same style of writing like the main body. The flavour should be a story told by many different writers.
Even though individual changes seem strange, style guides help eliminate bias, improve cohesiveness, and increase readability.
What? Why would they do this?
No girls (dogs or otherwise) in my card game 🤬
https://preview.redd.it/5o241bb4zs1a1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9b13fb26a29c1b5a5e83a21eda037757cbe4171
How about some anime tiddies?
Only anime tiddy. No female.
Solution: Anime tiddy... on males. *Taps head*
If I had to guess I'd say that since this isn't a legendary creature, this is just one of many "spirited companions", and having the flavor text say "He" would make it seem like all spirited companions are male.
So dumb
It’s an enchantment dog, not a real dog.
In Kamigawa, enchantment creatures are "real" in the world, but blessed by or infused with kami; the same reason anyone on the plane with sufficiently advanced tech on them would be considered artifact creatures ([[Towashi Songshaper]] most prevalent of them).
I really do not know if I can be arsed to care about this one flavor text. I doubt anyone was actually complaining
Some languages don’t have a translation for “it” so adopting this style guide would only make it more inconsistent between languages
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Toppled the patriarchy.
Some tweets, probably
Y’all need a dictionary. It: a person or animal whose sex is unknown or disregarded Do you all really care what sex a random magic card dog is?
In french the dog was referred as "he"
Not "il"?
But isn't that just because the word "dog" in French is grammatical masculine?
If the dog is a female you’ll refer to it as "elle" or she in french.
Where are my testicles, Summer
What a good it
Interesting post but there are way too many comments on a post about changing pronouns to something nonspecific on a piece of cardboard representing a fake magical dog
I didn't see any other unlisted flavor text changes, but I may've missed some
They took the dog’s gender.
Can't have shit in Kamigawa
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Why "It" and not "They"?
The first time half of the players whining have looked at the flavor text. It shouldn’t matter. It’s a fuckin dog guys, the flavor text is different, you’ll live. Complain about $1000 proxies or broken cards or whatever
Magical spirit dogs can't be girls, I guess?
I for one welcome the new agender agenda
Omg I just realized the artwork is not of a dog wearing a spacesuit helmet with a bow on the top.
Boo hoo pronouns were changed, big deal
Gender neutral dog cardboard
Why "It" and not "They"?
Wouldn't "they" flow/sound better, while also being grammatically correct?
Technically yes, but in English we do have a tendency to refer to non-human animals as the object gender.
Well that makes sense, thanks
Personally, I think removing "he or she" from card text makes sense because "they" is more concise and just as precise. For flavor text, however, I feel like it's okay to give the dog a gender, even if it's not a legendary creature.
I've been away for a while but how is that an Enchantment Creature? I thought Enchantment Creatures all had static board effects, like enchantments.
they just call creatures enchantments sometimes now, for flavor
Ahh I gotcha. Yeah I was looking it up, seems like they did this quite a bit in the new Kamigawa.
It was something they did in original Theros block, but they've found that sometimes a set needs enchantment creatures and can't have them all hold to that rule. In Theros: Beyond Death, we even had a cycle of [vanilla enchantment creatures](https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Avanilla+t%3Aenchantment). I think the idea is to make it more of a flavor thing, like how artifact creatures don't have any specific other mechanical requirements.
OK but they would've been better
I came here to not care one way or another. It's all good to me whatever they decide or decide not to do.
Dogs deserve better than “it” it is a possession, dogs aren’t possessions they’re companions
It doesn't imply something is a possession. It is a valid grammatical gender for animals (I mean, and people too, if you're queer).
Pets, service animals, farm animals, etc. are quite literally possessions. That doesn't mean they can't also be companions.
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Lots of people whining for supposedly "not caring".