Why is Nicol Bolas gold now?
Lore forum
Posted on July 5, 2017, 11:57 a.m. by zephramtripp
As someone may have pointed out previously, in the original card Nicol Bolas , Bolas is pretty green in skin color. However, in later incarnations he's very much gold. When did this change come about?
landofMordor says... #4
Here's option 6: Elder Dragon Bolas was using some green light therapy along with nighttime reading to regain his pre-Mending sleeping habits, and he's been gold the whole time.
July 5, 2017 5:19 p.m.
Option number 7: Green skin tans were in season then in Dragon society.
July 5, 2017 5:38 p.m.
As I recall, premending planeswalkers had the ability to manipulate their forms to a degree. This allowed Bolas to change from a full blown Elder Dragon into a more humanoid shape - reasons unbeknownst to me. However, Nicol Bolas was printed premending, and every art after has been postmending. Would I be safe presuming, I would guess that he also changed the tint of his scales along with his bone structure to better suit his needs. If Amonkhet was under his rule for quite some time, he may have changed his scales to match the plane as green is quite out of place. Gold is often indicative of rule and position as well.
July 5, 2017 5:40 p.m.
Nicol Bolas is frequently described as gold scales, and he has gold armor and horns, but if you look at any of his arts, original to Amonkhet, his scales are clearly green, although a bit faded now compared to 25000 years ago. I think we're meant to assume that either he looks more gold in person, or the people who see him think his golden armor is his scales.
Tl;dr: his art is still green, but he's referred to as being gold.
July 5, 2017 7:26 p.m.
From an art perspective, since the border is gold, the art needs to be more gold as well. However, as kanokarob says, his scales are still green.
July 6, 2017 11:08 a.m.
zephramtripp says... #9
In recent times, I think the best exhibition of the green is on the Archenemy scheme Behold My Grandeur.
July 6, 2017 11:19 a.m.
Has anyone noticed that in all of his art Bolas never seems to be flapping his wings?
They just kinda stretch out behind him all the time. Like he could fly but keeps himself aloft with just magic to show he's better than all those pleb dragons or something.
July 11, 2017 6:58 p.m.
I think that's cause Bolas just doesn't wanna do the physical work of flapping his wings, and he thinks it makes him look huge and terrifying, like a frilled lizard does.
July 11, 2017 8:43 p.m.
jon_hill987 says... #13
Dragons can't fly by flapping their wings, something that big would need much larger wings to stay aloft thanks to the square-cube law. For this reason all dragons fly using magic, even if they also flap their wings.
As for the green/gold question. Dragons are iridescent, the colour of their scales is not only dependent on the colour of their pigment but also heavily changed by the colour of the ambient light as surroundings. There is a lot of yellow sand in Amonkhet.
July 13, 2017 9:50 a.m.
I'm pretty sure the laws of physics don't fully apply in a world with magic. So they might be able to fly by flapping their wings still.
July 13, 2017 3:05 p.m.
The magic of MTG is just physics that we don't have.
July 13, 2017 3:11 p.m.
jon_hill987 says... #16
Bah, you can't just disregard all physics in a fantasy world. Air resistance and gravity need to exit, and with similar values, to give us a frame of reference for the story*. You can add magic, but you need something real for the starting point. For this reason it makes sense that Dragons are inherently magical creatures and use their magic to enable flight (and fire breathing).
*sometimes you might want to write a truly alien world in which case fine, you can disregard anything, but if you want humans in your story it is best to keep things relatable.
July 13, 2017 3:30 p.m.
I said fully apply; for example, we have gravity but gravity also depends on the size of the planet your on. Therefore, it could be possible that dragons fly because he planes are relatively small compared to earth. Or they have ultra brittle bones and light weight bodies.
Also, I'm not saying it isn't impossible that the only way Dragons can fly is via magic, but there's still possible explanations of how they can fly without using their wings.
July 13, 2017 3:50 p.m.
Also piemanDW
I taught my friend who's an Astro-physics member how to play and I'm going to use that on her lmao
July 13, 2017 3:52 p.m.
If you're all going to argue about the flying capabilities of dragons, at least do it properly.
Bees.
That is all.
July 13, 2017 6:50 p.m.
zephramtripp says... #20
@kanokarob Are you claiming he flies by flapping extremely quickly, perhaps so fast it appears still to us?
July 13, 2017 10:53 p.m.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way Nicol Bolas should be able to fly. His wings are too small to get his fat little body off the ground. Nicol Bolas, of course, flies anyway because Nicol Bolas doesn't care what the Gatewatch think is impossible.
July 13, 2017 11:56 p.m.
jon_hill987 says... #23
kanokarob, no one ever thought bees could not fly, it was just the the quick calculations done by an aviation engineer used rigid body physics and were never going to work.
http://www.snopes.com/science/bumblebees.asp
That does not make it possible for something as large as a dragon to fly, there is a reason birds only get as big as they do, the largest (flying) birds have to rely on updrafts. As did the largest Pterosaurs.
July 14, 2017 4:53 a.m.
Adhdmagicman says... #24
to add to what Eiti3 said, it could've just been that they didnt like his OG art and changed it when he later appeared, cause just look at his horns in the old art. (and his skin tone of course.)
April 29, 2018 1:08 a.m.
Hexaflexagon says... #25
Look at the art of Behold My Grandeur. You can see a green neck and I think the skin is still green, but the gold is armor.
May 2, 2018 4:49 a.m.
KorandAngels says... #26
For that matter, were did that gem thing that floats between his distinctive horns come from?
April 21, 2020 2:06 a.m.
It's the Gem of Becoming. The implication is that he found it with, or made it specifically for, the Elder Spell, which he found in the plane he came to call the Meditation Realm.
dbpunk says... #2
Pick an option
July 5, 2017 12:59 p.m.