Dota 2 Hero Lore - Anti-Mage and the Tyler
Estate
Whats popping, gamers?
Magina, the Anti-Mage, is a human, and as
the name suggests, is set out to end all magic.
His hate for anything unnatural and associated
with the arcane arts, stems from when he in
his youth witnessed the slaughter brought
on by the dead gods legion. Anti-Mage was
a pilgrim who had been an acolyte at the montain
monastery of turstarkuri, where he had served
the meditating monks tea. So dedicated were
they to their meditation, that they didnt
budge as the undead army invaded the lower
kingdoms. The few who did stop to open their
eyes, ignored the assault, since they thought
they were just hallucinating. Magina watched
as they were all slewn where they sat, and
then rose again to the dirgesong as new members
of the dead gods army. Anti-mage was the only
survivor, and escaped with only a few scrolls
and a burning hatred for the dead god and
all magic users. He still has haunting visions
of the monks, because of his shame that he
was the single survivor. He vowed to not rest
until magic users were all obliterated, and
thus the anti-mage was born.
The dead god, for those who dont know, is
one of the many deities in the dota universe.
He raises the dead with his dirgesong, and
they mindlessly fight for him in huge, endless
hordes. Basically, imagine the night king
and the white walkers from game of thrones.
The chains of abscession, which you may recognize
from pudges arcana, is a weapon so powerful
its basically sentient. It has been corrupted
by the dead god and fallen into pudges hands,
and has a desire to take down Anti-Mage.
From the turstarkuri monks’ scrolls, Magina
has learned techniques that makes him resistant
to magic, by literally hardening his skin.
He has also gathered some passages from the
Tael’am, which is a text that Anti-mages
identity seems very inspired by. Both his
actions, and way of spekaing. This COULD be
the very texts he brought from turstarkuri.
He has since the incident went on adventures
to many places. He has joined the highsand
nomads; a tribe in the desert, and helped
the kingdom yoskreth with getting rid of a
sorcerer called sahsk. Other evil magicians
he has dealt with is Hroth the anvil magus,
who was possessed by an iron shell, and throsho,
a shapeshifter. Throsho took the form of a
demon so terrifying that anyone who looked
upon him had their minds shattered, which
he used to intimidate poeple into worshipping
him. Anti-mage covered his eyes and slew Throsho,
which could also be a reference to anti-mages
dota 1 model which was blind. He has also
joined the Tyler estate, which is an institution
that hunts down and punishes dark magic abusers.
Anti-mage seems incredibly vain, which is
ironic considering how otherwise ascetic he
is. He often wears eccentric clothing and
hairstyles, and lets be honest his way of
speaking is a little pretentious. Thy and
thee and thou and all that.
Lastly before we move on, Anti-Mage is featured
in the comic “a dark purpose served”,
which is quite infamous. You pretty much either
LOVE it or HATE it. Its about antimage and
windranger who fight the dead god. But im
pretty sure it has been retconned - correct
me if im wrong. I of course is in the camp
that LOVES it, and the bad aspects of it only
imrpoves it in my opinion. The artstyle is
cool, and the use of voice lines as their
dialogue is funny.
Behind the hero
In artifact, anti-mage is not a hero of his
own, but he is featured in the story and on
some of the cards artwork. Most of this is
about the tyler estate and weeping rose. He
is seen kicking rubick, and we know he is
hunting down lion. In underlords, we know
that he is also tracking down Turath, one
of the new characters. We dont know much about
Turath yet, other than that he is a magic
abuser who has escaped from the tyler estate.
In dota 1, Magina the Anti-mage and terrorblade
were twin brothers gifted with each their
special power. But terrorblade chose the dark
side, and so antimage is trying to save him.
They both used the model of illidan stormrage,
who in warcraft 3 was blind. Thats why antimage
was also blind in dota 1. Also fun-fact: while
anti mage and terrorblade are certainly not
brothers in dota 2 now, valve probably originally
intended them to be. But for some reaosn they
decided to move away from this at terrorblades
release, and the voicelines between them is
now unused.
Relationships
So like i said - antimage’s relationship
with terrorblade is that they were brothers
in dota 1, and then the idea was scrapped
in dota 2. But otherwise, theres not much
interesting going on in maginas life in the
social department. The regular dark willow,
monkey king and pangolier has some voice lines
with him, but nothing out of the ordinary
for them. Monkey king calls him a hypocrite,
dark willow is basically wagie-shaming him,
and pangolier think hes a bit stuck up. The
only friend he seems to have, is silencer
who i will come back to. His enemies are far
more numerous, and the most noteworthy ones
are qop, rubick, shadow demon and pugna. There
is also a popular romantic shipping of anti-mage
and templar assassin, but this has no evidence
or canonical basis at all. Its just cute.
Oracle says about antimage: I foresee an end
to magic. Your end in particular.
And i honestly dont klnow how to interpret
this. Either that antimage will not succeed,
untill everything is destroyed, OR, that if
he would ever succeed, it would be his end,
as he would lose his purpose. It could also
be because magina being a hypocrite is mentioned
a few times in voice lines, and maybe oracle
is low key critisizing anti-mage for himself
using magic. So anti-mages end, is also an
end to his own magic? Honestly, no clue. Let
me know if you have an idea.
The tyler estate
So for this videos elaboration part, ive decided
to expand upon the tyler estate.
In the dota world as a whole, it is the sapphire
conclave that is the authority when it comes
to magic usage. If you partake in forbidden
sorcery, or commit crime, you will be held
at the sapphire conclaves mercy. Crystal maiden
has worked with them, as she is the guardian
of icewrack. And the sapphire archons are
the absolute authority in all of the magical
world, except for weeping rose.
Weeping rose is a place where all the rules
of the outside dont apply, and they govern
themselves. The government is the Quorum,
a senate of 31 wizards. You find the burnt
hall in weeping rose, where powerful and cursed
artifacts are kept - such as the apotheosis
blade - which is very similar to dooms blade.
Weeping rose seems like the mecca of magic,
as they dont have a lot of rules, and its
always night time so they can utilize the
power of the stars. For example, no kind of
magic is forbidden, even the dark and evil
kind. But while the rules are few, they are
very strict, and if not obeyed you will be
sent to the fright-inducing tyler estate.
It colabborates with the quorum, to ensure
that there is no chaos and order is kept.
if youre irresponsible, you might end up at
the mercy of silencer, anti-mage and votajo,
who are among the employees of the tyler estate.
Silencer is the warden, and he was the one
who sought out and hired anti-mage. He seems
very unsympathetic with the wizards brought
in though, as he doesnt even care to hear
their stories before punishing them without
mercy and individual consideration. Votajo
is a cencor, so probably like a prison guard,
and antimage seems like hes basically a cop
- hunting down the criminals. Being a tyler
estate prisoner seems like no joke, as most
of the time youre there for life, and the
few cases where someone is let out, they are
irrevocably changed.
Lion is hunted by anti-mage, so he is trying
to find the emissary of the quorum, so he
can throuhg her try to get asylum in weeping
rose. This will be difficult as long as hes
on the tyler estates hit list, and hes kind
of in a hurry since basically everyone wants
him dead. Hes negotiating that he can be useful
to silencer, and that he wishes to be a friend
of the tyler estate.
Pugna is not being pursued by the tyler estate
to my knowledge, but he hates the institution
none the less. He wants to burn it down, demonstratively
agianst what he considers them being too tyrannical
in their control of magic users. He truly
is the anti-anti-mage, as he has said in a
voice line to antimage in dota 2.
And lastly, dark willow is in dota 2 concerned
about being taken there. Why, and what she
did to fear this, is unknown. But it might
have to do with theft. Maybe the apotheosis
blade which is kept in the burnt hall in weeping
rose, which dw has talked about stealing.
So long story short, the tyler estate is a
prison within weeping rose for evil wizards,
and antimage hunts down those who the quorum
deem as criminals.
So thats it for this hero lore gamers, there
was unfortunately not a lot to say about anti-mage.
His name pretty much summarizes everything
about him. Dont get me wrong, i love him and
think hes an amazing character, especially
since valve managed to squeeze him into both
the dead god AND weeping rose story, and he
is one of my favourite heroes to play in dota
2. But there just wasnt much to say about
him. The next hero thats up, arc warden, i
DO have a lot to say about though, so i hope
to see you around on thursday. Until then,
keep being epic. PEACEE
