Magic the Gathering's newest set, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, takes us back to the Gothic horror world of Innistrad to attend the biggest vampire wedding in the multiverse - Olivia Voldaren and Edgar Markov are getting hitched, and every bloodsucker is invited.
Despite being a set focused entirely around the wedding of the Voldaren Matriarch and the grandfather of all of Innistrad's Vampires, there's something very queer about Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Between its characters, tone, and art direction, it's safe to say this is potentially the most deliciously gay set Wizards of the Coast has ever released.
On a serious note, this year has been good for queer characters like the nonbinary Niko Aris in Kaldheim and the gay Vadrik in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, but Crimson Vow is noteworthy for having multiple canonically queer characters who actually get to do queer things.
Halana and Alena, Partners is only the second time in the game’s history where a queer couple has appeared on a single card, following Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis from Commander 2016. Going from a flavour text mention in 2012's Dark Ascension to getting their own individual cards in Commander Legends, to finally appearing together on the same card in Crimson Vow is a massive win for the set, and the characters who we were introduced to years ago.
They're not the only queer characters to show up, either. At the time of writing, we haven't seen the entirety of the Innistrad: Crimson Vow story, but there has been a delightful amount of chemistry between the planeswalker Chandra and the Innistrad Cathar Adeline. Simply read this passage from the first chapter and tell me they aren't in love:
"Light finds her no sooner than the vampire hits the ground and Chandra's fires swallow the body whole. In the orange glow, Adeline's eyes find her companion's.
Adeline can put on the brave face for everyone else—but only Chandra can see her now.
She lets her shoulders slump. She lets exhaustion reach her eyes. In the dark of the night, Chandra's flames are brighter than the moon.
The pyromancer doesn't ask if Adeline's okay. They both know that would be a pointless question. Instead, she squeezes Adeline's shoulder."
Chandra's queerness in this story is particularly important because she was at the center of a controversy surrounding Greg Weissman's novel War of the Spark: Forsaken. Before Forsaken, there had been a long-developing romance between Chandra and her fellow planeswalker Nissa Revane… until Forsaken came along, retconned it, and said Chandra was straight and only had eyes for the hot, bulging manly man Gideon.
Everybody hated it, and, in response, Wizards put out a statement saying it would "explore her relationships with fire and passion as she adventures across the multiverse", "regardless of gender". Crimson Vow makes it apparent this wasn't just lip service, and we can hopefully expect more Queer Chandra Adventures in the future.
The thing about Magic is that you can completely ignore the story and still love it, and many people do. With that in mind, Crimson Vow is still the gayest set in history, and all the proof you need is in the art of the cards themselves, particularly in the vampires.
Look at cards Bloodvial Purveyor, Falkenrath Celebrants, Laurine the Diversion and Kamber, the Plunderer, Sorin the Mirthless, and particularly Crossway Troublemakers and tell me you're only picking up the straightest of straight vibes. This set is fit to burst with camp, decadent, over-the-top Gothic horror theatrics and salacious poses by ridiculously attractive people. Not to mention the new Vampiric look they've given daddy Odric is very attractive in a weirdly sexy Guy Fieri kind of way. The ponytail shouldn't work, and yet…
It gets even better when you look at the alternate art. It really hammers home how Falkenrath Celebrants is as gay as gay can be, and how obviously Drag-inspired Olivia, Crimson Bride's gown is. It's got a dress made of deep red spirits, for goodness sake. It's even got lots of women looking powerful in full plate armour, which multiple of my queer women-loving friends have told me is apparently very hot.
It's also worth mentioning the way the set frames the so-called 'straight' relationships is notably different to everything else on display here. Voldaren's marriage to Markov is seen as nothing but a power play completely devoid of love (with even, grossly, suggestions of coercion from Voldaren), and the one other presumably straight couple I can find in the whole set are the image-conscious pair found in Wedding Announcement//Wedding Festivity. Everything straight in Crimson Vow is artificial feeling, like the couples are just going through motions with an ulterior motive. The true bits of life and emotion at the wedding seem to come more from its queer-coded guests.
While you could have discussions about whether it was okay of Wizards to use so much heavily queer imagery to represent its blood-sucking monsters, I think doing so would be slightly failing to see the wood for the trees. Every canonically queer character in this story is human, and their stories are handled in a (so far) respectful and meaningful way. Having that only adds to the big, camp Vampire Orgy going on.
Is this going to be a trend we see more of going forward? Probably not, as not every set is based around a big event like the Voldaren wedding. We'll likely see more of the tender queer stories like that of Chandra and Adeline, and more incidental references like those made of Vadrik in the Midnight Hunt story. But as we move on into Kamigawa or New Capenna next year, remember to cherish Crimson Vow as the set where things got really, really gay.