Disney wants more workers back in the office under CEO Josh D'Amaro.
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Disney is asking more employees to return to the office, Business Insider has learned.
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The Mouse House told some remote product and tech employees on Monday that they'll have to work from an office four days a week, a person familiar with the change said.
Many Disney employees already work in person four days a week, though there have been exceptions for staffers on certain tech teams. That's changing with this new mandate.
Employees who don't follow Disney's in-person work policy can be fired. In practice, the RTO policy hasn't always been uniformly enforced, staffers have told Business Insider. Some say their managers strictly monitor the four-day rule, while others say their bosses are more lax.
Disney's new RTO push is a way to reinforce its current in-person work policy, rather than a major shift in strategy, the person familiar with the change said.
Several other major tech and media companies have tightened their in-office work requirements.
NBCUniversal expects most staffers to work in person four days a week, while Paramount Skydance has a general five-day requirement with exceptions. Paramount's Phase 2 RTO push, which applies to US workers assigned to offices outside New York City or Los Angeles, went into effect on Monday.
Disney's renewed focus on RTO comes as CEO Josh D'Amaro nears the six-month mark in the top job.
D'Amaro has invested in Disney+ by integrating Hulu features and is seeking to make the flagship service a streaming super app with games and merchandise.
Under D'Amaro, the media giant is also leaning into its "One Disney" vision by unifying workflows and teams. As part of that process, Disney did a major round of layoffs in April and let go of more staffers in July as part of a shake-up at ESPN.
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James Faris
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Like many good things in life for Aaron Ryder and Andrew Swett, their Onslaught journey began over cocktails with a cool filmmaker.
In this case, it was margaritas at Casa Vega in Sherman Oaks, where they met director Adam Wingard and his writing partner Simon Barrett. Wingard was coming off a pair of big budget Godzilla movies, and he wanted to go back to his scrappy roots. He had dreams of making a throwback movie akin to John Carpenter films like Assault on Precinct 13 or The Fog.
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Ryder and Swett knew this was something they could embrace — a down and dirty movie that would ultimately shoot in the freezing cold nights of New Mexico.
They had the type of conversations they always have with a filmmaker early on. “What are your non-starters? Is it a price point? Is it shooting on film? Is it the amount of days that you think that you need?,’” recalls Swett.
The package ended at A24, and afforded Wingard the power of final cut for the first time in his career.
Onslaught is just one of multiple director-driven projects they’ve had this year, including Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters for Neon and Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood for A24 (that meeting was whiskey and cigars), as well as Ol Parker’s Netflix rom-com Office Romance, starring Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein.
It’s an eclectic mix for the duo, who run Ryder Picture Company together. In an era of chaos in the marketplace, they believe they can operate within the cracks, finding opportunities to get things made.
“We’re agnostic as it comes to genre. We’re agnostic as it comes to platform, whether it be studio or streamer or independent. It truly is trying to discern what would be the best version of the film and who would look after it the best,” says Ryder.
Ryder formed Ryder Picture Company in 2021, with Swett joining as his partner not long after. But now they are renaming the company to acknowledge it has evolved beyond a founder-led banner. It took a year and a half of brainstorming to find a name that would both clear legal and fit the philosophy for the company, which has a half dozen employees.
Then, inspiration struck — with an assist from a drink, naturally.
“We were having dinner with somebody. A martini was given to me,” recalls Ryder. He wasn’t sure if another martini was a good idea, but recalls thinking, “I will embrace it.” Embrace had a nice ring to it. And the name cleared legal. “It kind meets the philosophy of what we are. We can embrace the chaos and we can embrace the process,” says Ryder.
Before Embrace, Ryder was best known as the veteran producer and founding member of FilmNation Entertainment who worked on early Christopher Nolan movies Memento and The Prestige, and who earned a best picture Oscar nomination for Denis Vellineuve’s Arrival.
Swett fell into Ryder’s orbit as his assistant during the Arrival era, helping him on that movie as well as The Founder, about McDonald’s magnate Ray Krok. He quickly moved onward, working as an exec for Lord Miller during the highs of The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the craziness of Solo: A Star Wars Story, then at Mythos Studios, the venture that was then run by Marvel Studios founder David Maisel and super manager Scooter Braun. All along, Ryder kept in touch, transitioning from mentor to friend, until he asked the younger producer to join his company.
Deadpool director Tim Miller is a longtime associate of both men, and once tried to hire Swett for his own company. He says one of Ryder’s superpowers is connecting people. Case in point: Miller wanted Rebecca Ferguson for Best Served Cold, a movie they once developed at MGM. Ryder picked up the phone and called her, and she ultimately signed on.
“Aaron just knows everybody, and everybody likes him. So, when he brings something to them, they take it seriously,” says Miller, who adds, “I just saw the value of the relationships, and of having a producer that people actually wanted to pick up the phone when he called.”
They are now in post on Miller’s big budget time loop movie Shiver, starring Keanu Reeves and which Warner Bros. will release next year. The filmmaker has been honing it with friends and family screenings recently, and credits Ryder and Swett with helping handle the Hollywood politics of the production so he can focus on the filmmaking.
When Ryder and Swett read a script like Shiver, they dissect the different versions that could be made of the movie, and break it down for the filmmaker.
“Here’s the studio version, here’s the streaming version, here’s the pre-sales version,” says Swett. “You can tell any story for any price. You can The Odyssey for $1 million, or you can make The Odyssey for $150 million.”
Shiver presented a number of challenges, including the logistics of shooting 45 days in a massive water tank in the Dominican Republic. (The mysterious film involves Keanu Reeves vs. sharks, hence all the water.)
Miller self-notes he did not direct his first movie until he was 50, so he appreciates producers who have worked with a lot of directors. “Aaron could go, ‘Well, Chris Nolan did it this way, or ‘Denis Villeneuve did it that way,'” says Miller.
Coming up, they are also in post on Mother’s Helper, an erotic thriller starring Shailene Woodley and directed by Bridget Moloney.
Says Ryder of juggling their stable of filmmakers: “It’s not always the same. You’re a different partner to the directors, you’re a different partner to the studios. That’s kind of cool. Because there’s no one set way of doing these things, especially now.” %!s()
New-ish Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has had a busy first six months on the job, including killing the divisive "This is Xbox" marketing campaign, slashing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's subscription price, and unfortunately also overseeing mass layoffs and development studio spin-outs. But as Sharma has gotten settled in her job, she's also been spending time understanding Xbox's products and customers in another way: by fielding customer support tickets.
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In a new profile on her personal and business background in The Wall Street Journal (with a hat tip to TweakTown), the paper learned a lot about Xbox's new CEO – including how, "To better understand players, she spends a few hours each month responding to customer support tickets, during which she’s learned how complex it can be to fix a single player’s problem." So there's a nonzero chance that if you've filed a customer support ticket with Xbox over the past six months, the CEO herself has personally addressed it.
Sharma recently told her studios to focus on Xbox's underserved core franchises, which has included one move most fans seem united in their delight about: Fallout New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment has begun work on a new Fallout RPG, to be directed by New Vegas creative boss and decorated RPG developer Josh Sawyer. I wrote about what the company's franchise-first future might look like.
Just last week, meanwhile, Sharma landed a huge free agent, signing revered game director Hideo Kojima to a multi-project deal that expands the existing agreement to do the horror game OD to now also include the Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor Physint, which was originally a PlayStation exclusive but that planned to cancel earlier this summer.
Ryan McCaffrey
Executive Editor
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
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15 unforgettable Bob Mackie designs, from Cher to Taylor Swift
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Gabbi Shaw
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…
Bob Mackie and Cher were collaborators and friends for decades.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images
"We're all born naked, and the rest is Bob Mackie," RuPaul once said of Bob Mackie, one of the most iconic costume and fashion designers of the last 60 years.
Mackie, who died on September 14 at 87, created some of the most recognizable and timeless pieces in fashion history, dressing stars including Cher, Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, and Britney Spears.
He also managed to stay relevant in seven different decades, from drawing the first sketch for Marilyn Monroe's iconic "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress to providing one of the cornerstones for the aesthetic of Taylor Swift's latest album, "The Life of a Showgirl."
To commemorate his immeasurable impact on fashion over the years, we've compiled a list of just some of Mackie's iconic and best-known looks, from the '60s to now.
To talk about Bob Mackie is to talk about Cher. She wore this creation to the 1986 Academy Awards.
Cher backstage at the 1986 Academy Awards.
Bettman/Getty Images
Some would describe this as Cher's "revenge dress," since she was snubbed by the Academy for her role in "Mask."
Mackie told The New Yorker in 2018, "There were a lot of people who said, 'That's not fashion!' And I said, 'Of course it's not fashion. It's a crazy getup for attention.' And it did get attention — people talk about it still."
Two years later, she won an Academy Award of her own in a Mackie design.
Cher held her best actress in a leading role Oscar for "Moonstruck" at the Academy Awards on April 11, 1988.
John Barr/Liaison/Getty Images
Cher was slightly more covered up when she won best actress for her performance in "Moonstruck."
"She wanted to wear one of those sheer dresses that covered just what you needed to cover, and the rest was up for grabs," Mackie told The New Yorker. "Of course, getting all dressed up and winning — you can't beat that. She just wanted to look like Cher."
Another of Cher's iconic Oscars looks was this yellow two-piece set in 1973.
Cher and Sonny Bono and Cher at the Academy Awards ceremony in March 1973.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Mackie and Cher met in the '60s when she appeared on "The Carol Burnett Show" and immediately connected. She wore this bejeweled two-piece to the 1973 Oscars, baring her abs, setting the tone for their decades of work together.
"It wasn't until a little later, when we started showing a little midriff, that people started getting excited," Mackie told The New Yorker. "It never occurred to her to wear anything ordinary."
Wearing one of his designs, Cher attended the Met Gala in 1974 with Mackie.
Cher and Bob Mackie at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala Exhibition "Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design" on November 20, 1974.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images
"I've never seen so many photographers just come out of the shadows at the Met and take her picture. And, of course, she was in every newspaper the next day, and they've been printing it in the last 50 years, over and over again," Mackie said of this look in 2025, per People.
"People were horrified, they thought, that's not fashion, she's just naked at the Metropolitan," he added. "But it was just amazing."
She rewore the dress to appear on the cover of Time in 1975.
One of the most iconic looks from "The Carol Burnett Show," the curtain dress worn in 1976, was designed by Mackie.
In a scene from "The Carol Burnett Show," Carol Burnett descended a staircase, dressed in a dress made from a window curtain during a parody of "Gone with the Wind," in 1976.
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
If you've seen "Gone with the Wind," you know what Burnett was spoofing, but if you haven't: Famously, Scarlett O'Hara fashions a dress out of her home's velvet green drapes to appear wealthy.
Burnett, ever the jokester, worked with Mackie to create her own curtain dress, this one complete with a curtain rod across her shoulders.
An editor on the show, Tucker Wiard, told the Television Academy Foundation in 2011 that the laughter from the studio audience went on for so long upon seeing the dress that it had to be cut down for broadcast, and it ended up being the longest in-studio reaction in the show's 11 seasons.
"Over the course of eleven years, Bob created over 17,000 works of art for 'The Carol Burnett Show' — a prolific genius," Burnett told the Paley Center. "Bob means the world to me."
Mackie also worked a lot with Tina Turner for her stage costumes.
Tina Turner performing onstage in the late 1970s.
Gai Terrell/Redferns/Getty Images
"She was born to be on stage. She just couldn't help herself," Mackie told People in 2025, after Turner's death in 2023.
The two met after Turner split from her husband, Ike Turner, and she was looking to reinvent herself. "She would buy cheap evening gowns in Paris in these little shops," he said. "And we would redo these funny inexpensive evening dresses into Tina Turner outfits."
So much so that Beyoncé wore a Mackie piece to pay tribute to Turner in 2005.
Tina Turner was celebrated by Beyoncé, who performed Creedence Clearwater's "Proud Mary," which Turner famously covered.
Tony Esparza/CBS/Getty Images
The flame dress, as it was called, was first worn by Turner in 1978. Twenty-seven years later, Beyoncé wore the dress at the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors and performed "Proud Mary."
Besides Cher, the other person most associated with Mackie's early career is Mitzi Gaynor, who wore this transparent dress for her NBC special in 1969.
Mitzi Gaynor in "Mitzi's 2nd Special."
NBC
Gaynor, an iconic actor, singer, and dancer from Hollywood's Golden Age, was one of the first celebrities to work with Mackie, starting in 1966.
"Bob created me. He saw facets of me that I didn't even know existed and brought them to life in our work together. He could make me look more glamorous than I've ever felt or looked at one moment and then make me a clown or a fabulous gypsy with a rubber chicken in the next. He's a genius," Gaynor said of her friendship with the designer.
According to Gaynor, this was the "first nude dress that Bob Mackie ever did." It sold at auction in 2019.
The bedazzled Los Angeles Dodgers uniform, perhaps Elton John's most iconic look, was designed by Mackie.
Elton John performed at Dodger Stadium in 1975.
Chris Walter/WireImage/Getty Images
The custom piece was encrusted in Swarovski crystals and has lived on in the decades since John first wore it. Harry Styles wore his own version in 2018 for Halloween, and John himself wore an updated robe version at his farewell tour in 2022.
"I did not expect this — I was creating lots of different things for him at the time, and it was just another quick gag," Mackie told Vogue in 2022. "But I am delighted it has become so very famous, and an important moment in Elton's career."
Madonna channeled Marilyn Monroe in this Mackie design at the 1991 Academy Awards.
Madonna and Michael Jackson at the 1991 Oscars.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images
Madonna wore the dress to perform at the ceremony — she sang "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" written by Stephen Sondheim — and later rewore it in her 1992 book, "Sex."
In September 2024, the dress was spotted again, this time on the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards, worn by Sabrina Carpenter. Carpenter has since worn multiple vintage Mackie looks.
If you think it looks like Marilyn Monroe's iconic "Happy birthday, Mr. President" dress, you'd be right. Mackie was the one who first sketched the dress at the behest of designer Jean Louis, per ET.
RuPaul stretched her wings at the 1995 VH1 Fashion & Music Awards in a Mackie creation.
RuPaul stands in costume at the 1995 VH1 Fashion and Music Awards in December 1995.
Evan Agostini/Liaison/Getty Images
RuPaul and Mackie had a long-standing friendship and working relationship; Mackie was even the first guest judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race" back in 2009.
"We're all born naked, and the rest is Bob Mackie," the drag star told the Paley Center in 2024. "No one has brought more glamour, beauty, and excitement to the stage and screen."
Britney Spears closed out her iconic 2001 Dream Within a Dream tour wearing a crystalline bra designed by Mackie.
Britney Spears during her 2001 tour.
HBO
This look was originally designed in 1981, but it didn't become truly iconic until 20 years later, when Spears wore it during the encore of her Dream Within a Dream tour, immortalized in an HBO special.
"When someone knew just how to style me, I was always grateful," Spears wrote of this tour in her memoir, "The Woman in Me." "They are shrewd about how they presented me as a star, and I know that I owe them. They captured me as an artist. The minds behind that tour were brilliant. It was by far my best tour."
In 2025, the bra set sold at auction for $78,000, per People.
A new generation of women has pulled from Mackie's archives, like Zendaya, for the 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Zendaya at the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
To honor Cher, a 2024 inductee, Zendaya and her stylist, Law Roach, pulled this daring dress from Mackie's archives. This look is from Mackie's 2001 collection, Elle reported.
Following news of Mackie's death, Roach posted on Instagram to honor him, calling Mackie his "fashion father and one of the greatest designers in the history of American fashion."
For her showstopping performance at the 2024 Grammys, Miley Cyrus channeled Turner in a silver Mackie design.
Miley Cyrus onstage during the 66th Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024.
John Shearer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
This dress, part of Mackie's 2002 collection, was loaned to her for the Grammys performance, during which she joyfully shouted out that she'd just won her first Grammy.
To commemorate the occasion, she purchased the dress when it went on auction that December. "This dress represents more than a performance — it's a celebration of the relationship between music, artistry, and glamour," Cyrus said. "This performance was a pivotal moment in my life, and to have Bob Mackie's support in securing it means the world to me."
"As the designer of this dress, I couldn't imagine it on anyone else. That girl was born to perform," Mackie said.
One of the looks Taylor Swift wore during her "The Life of a Showgirl" era was designed by Mackie.
Fans posed with Taylor Swift's new album "The Life of a Showgirl."
Maya Dehlin Spach/Getty Images
Swift's most recent album, "The Life of a Showgirl," perhaps had her most defined aesthetic ever, as seen in the multiple album cover variations, the lyric videos, and the music video for lead single "The Fate of Ophelia."
Given the album's showgirl-inspired aesthetic, Swift had to wear a Mackie design. This was another look designed for the Vegas show "Jubilee" (just like the sequined bra worn by Spears).
"They all want to look like that showgirl," Mackie told The New York Times in 2025 of the new generation of young stars flocking to his looks.
"I always think of her as a little fairy-tale princess," Mackie said of Swift. "That young, young girl. But she's a grown-up now."
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Gabbi Shaw
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Gabbi Shaw is a reporter on Business Insider's editorial partnerships team. She covers entertainment, travel, food, and lifestyle for Business Insider, and Insider Inc.'s partners, including MSN, Apple News, and Yahoo.She graduated from Tulane University in 2017 with a degree in public health and now lives in New York City. She can be reached on X or LinkedIn.Please send all inquiries, comments, or tips to [email protected].Selected stories:
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The Planeswalker Jace Beleren has spent nearly two decades at the center of Magic: The Gathering. As the most powerful mind mage in the Multiverse and a member of Gatewatch, Jace spent much of his life fighting to protect many worlds from all sorts of threats alongside fellow Planeswalkers like Chandra Nalaar and Liliana Vess. Together, these characters essentially function like the mascots of the trading card game, recognizable heroes at the forefront of the ongoing narrative.
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Yet Jace emerged as the villain in Magic’s upcoming Reality Fracture set. And, already, Wizards of the Coast has established Jace’s replacement as part of Reality Fracture’s series of short stories detailing the set’s storyline.
Warning: Spoilers for the plot of Reality Fracture follow.
Let's wind back the clock for a minute. During the sixth short story covering the events of 2025’s Tarkir: Dragonstorm set, Jace realizes the Meditation Realm itself was a "substrate to all reality" that is "moldable by sheer force of will." By leveraging the magical power of the dragon Ugin’s Spirit Gem, Jace attempted to rewrite reality to avert various disasters and deaths that have occurred over the years. Wouldn’t the Multiverse be better without the Eldrazi or Nicol Bolas? What if Vraska never had to become a Phyrexian? Yet once he cast the spell, Jace "shattered like glass" and apparently died.
In the new Reality Fracture storyline, however, we learn that Jace’s psyche fractured, and those pieces were able to create a new body for him to inhabit. One of those pieces, the Theorist, seized complete control and began removing various other aspects of his personality until there was only one left. Ruthless and calculating, the Theorist created an alternate reality called the Echoverse and planned to replace the core Multiverse with it, erasing events like the War of the Spark and the Invasion of New Phyrexia from existence.
Within that Echoverse, Jace also created a magical school called Hexhaven that functions as a dark mirror to Strixhaven and filled it with Echoverse variants of characters like Liliana. But Jace also created an authentic person using pieces of himself. Her name is Tamira, or Tam for short, and she was always Jace’s backup plan to live on after his eventual death — in some sense at least.
Image: Wizards of the Coast
Introduced in the Lorwyn Eclipsed storyline as a gifted but reserved first-year at Strixhaven, Tam initially seemed like just another levelheaded student making new friends. As a student of Quandrix College, she could bend probability and solve problems quickly with her reality-warping magic, but her emphasis on cold logic over compassion alienated her friends. All along, that was because she was essentially a part of Jace and trained under the Theorist for quite some time.
Then there was the major heel turn in episode 6 of the Secrets of Strixhaven short stories when Tam pushed Oracle Jadzi through a magical portal, betraying and abandoning her friends. "I was made to do this," she admitted before stepping through the portal herself. "The days we spent together were the happiest of my life." On the other side, she reunited with the Theorist.
Tam pushing Jadzi through the portal.Image: Wizards of the Coast
Reality Fracture picks up soon after that, with the Theorist eager to kill Jadzi so he can perceive the creation of the Multiverse since the soul of every oracle is tied to creation. With that knowledge, Jace can successfully overwrite the Multiverse with his Echoverse, but as Liliana explains to Tam in episode 2, doing so would “smother the souls of everyone in the original.” She also notes that the “doubles” in the Echoverse “don’t quite have full spirits.” Tam begins to see all of it as "fake, fake, fake."
Tam has growing concerns about the nature of the Theorist’s plans. Meanwhile, she also questions whether the people at Hexhaven and throughout the Echoverse are even capable of something like friendship. Based on Liliana’s assessment, they’re essentially soulless husks that will consume and replace everyone and everything in the real Multiverse.
Image: Wizards of the Coast
This tension simmers through episode 6 when Tam confronts the Theorist and ultimately decides he needs to be stopped. She was made for the explicit purpose of helping him succeed, but choosing to oppose him instead is really the first choice Tam has ever made that’s entirely hers.
That makes Tam one of Magic’s most interesting new characters in years. She entered the story as just another student, then had this crucial villainous turn, but as she begins to grow into a genuine person, she makes difficult and brave choices to do the right thing. Reality Fracture lets her sit with her sins rather than wiping the slate clean with one heroic gesture. When Tam reunites with her former classmate Kirol as the two Multiverses begin to collide, she admits, “You trusted me, and I failed you. So it’s my job to fix it.” Kirol does not immediately trust her again, but Tam still acts even without that reassurance.
Meanwhile, Vraska, Chandra, Ajani, and Garruk spend much of these short stories gathering the pieces of Jace’s mind that the Theorist trapped in mind prisons. Vraska stabs the Theorist as those fragments rush back inside. Together, they sever his connection to the spell merging the Multiverse with the Echoverse and take control of his body, fusing all the disconnected pieces of Jace back together. For a brief moment, Jace is whole again. He understands that the spell is tied to his life, and he dies in Vraska’s arms.
The spell stops, but the Echoverse is still intertwined with the original Multiverse. In the grand finale, Jace’s Planeswalker spark rises out of his body and enters Tam. “Energy pummels her, as if she's standing at the base of a waterfall,” reads the story. “Tam cries out in response, falls to her knees, the pressure and potency of magic overwhelming her, filling her. Her heart feels like it's burst open, and all her insides are a modest cup doused with the water of a vast lake.”
Tam uses the newfound power boost to call the Eldrazi titan Emrakul, asking her to emerge from the moon of Innistrad to devour the Echoverse. Emrakul agrees, carefully separating the artificial reality from the original Multiverse before consuming it.
This spark was me, and now, it is you.
When Kirol asks who she really is, Tam does not invoke Jace, the Theorist, or the purpose for which she was created. “I can’t wait to find out,” she says. Then, after Kirol offers to begin their relationship again with a new introduction, she supplies a name of her own: “I’m Tam. Just Tam.”
As the Echoverse collapses, Jace — not the Theorist or another isolated fragment, but a final impression carried within the spark — speaks to Tam and calls her his “fail-safe.” Since the Desparking, Planeswalker sparks have become extraordinarily rare. Jace created Tam so she could inherit his spark upon his death. “This spark was me, and now, it is you,” he tells her. “I only ask that you continue our work. Make things better.”
Image: Wizards of the Coast
The rest of Jace’s various qualities then seem to crystallize within her. Tam gains his curiosity, diplomacy, survival instincts, and capacity to begin again. The story declares that “she is him” and that “they are one,” but this does not amount to Jace returning as a separate consciousness inside her head. Tam is described simultaneously as “a beginning,” “a continuation,” and a “clean slate.” She was made from Jace and now possesses his spark and various aspects of his psyche, but she has the freedom to choose what all of that means.
That distinction is what makes Tam more than a convenient substitute for a dead mascot. She is powerful enough to reach Emrakul across the Multiverse, save reality, and planeswalk home to Strixhaven, but she is not simply Jace Beleren in a new body. She inherits his abilities and bits of his personality but is not bound to repeat his choices.
The closing scene makes the succession explicit. After Jace’s funeral on Vryn, Tam finds Vraska. She arrives in a blue cloak, carrying Jace’s spark and mannerisms in a gorgon body that reflects the woman he loved. Vraska feels as though she is looking at a ghost, but Tam introduces herself as someone new and promises, “I’m here to help make things better.”
Jace Beleren is dead. His replacement is not a resurrection or an exact copy, but something far more interesting: a person born from the pieces of his identity who now has the power to decide which parts of his legacy are worth carrying forward. That feels like a meaningful way to end one era for Magic and begin another. %!s()
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Image: Wizards of the Coast
Image: Wizards of the Coast
Image: Wizards of the Coast