Pride Month Picks: Dear Magic: The Gathering, Make Ajani Gay Already
This article is part of Pride Month Picks, a collection of pieces that aim to highlight queer representation across games, television, film, books, and more throughout June.
The debut of Ajani Goldmane marked a turning point for Magic: The Gathering. His launch in 2007’s Lorwyn, alongside Chandra, Garruk, Liliana, and Jace, was something of a reboot for its lore – gone were the Planeswalkers of old, who were near-omnipotent and immortal, and now we had a new, weaker class of mages who played much more direct parts in the story.
Over time, ‘The Lorwyn Five’ would go on to have 15 years’ worth of character development. Jace went from edgelord loner to key member of the Gatewatch, Garruk found human allies for the first time in the Kenrith twins, and even Liliana went from selfish necromancer to a prolific teacher at the Strixhaven school. Ajani has gone through a lot too, learning to control his rage and move on from the murder of his brother Jazal. And yet there’s one thing Magic hasn’t done with everyone’s favourite catboy: it has not fulfilled his destiny and made him gay as fuck.
RELATED: Bearscape Shows That Magic: The Gathering Needs To Respect Fat Characters
Born on the Alaran shard of Naya, Ajani is a Leonin – anthropomorphic lion people who regularly pop up across worlds in Magic’s multiverse. Unlike the rest of his tribe, Ajani was born with albinism, and being seen as a bad omen, was often rejected by his pridemates. Only his brother Jazal supported him, and so Jazal’s murder at the hands of the shaman Zaliki was enough to trigger Ajani’s ‘spark’ and transform him into the reality-hopping mage known as a Planeswalker.
From there, much of Ajani’s early story was focused on him learning to contain and channel his
Read more on thegamer.com
