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:( Why did you do that to him, Riot?

Sett Fangirl·9/8/2014, 9:22:03 PM·24 votes·1,918 views

Why? Xerath's backstory was one of the best pieces of lore you had. A man with ambition beyond his body, torn between knowledge and love, was retconned into a cliche cookie cutter villain reminiscent of Jafar from Alladin.

One of the things that go me into the game were the interesting things behind each and every character - Xerath's loss and following suicide/ascension into a being of almighty power, Graves and Twisted Fate's little feud, Diana's exile... The list could go on. It gave each of these characters a relatable and human element, and you took that away. Part of the reason I played Xerath (who was, coincidentally, the first champion I remember purchasing a skin for) was because I was just fascinated by him, and I'm sure there are others there out there like me. That's not to say that I don't like the other tidbits of lore included with these changes, however - the Nasus and Renekton changes are things I welcome, as their past 'aliens from a different universe woooo' didn't really fit in with the rest of the game. Renekton being retconned to a hero gone mad after years of solitude caused by his brother? That's decent storytelling. However, unlike those two, Xerath did NOT need this. He was perfectly fine before, and now his lore is just absolutely... well, let's just say it's not good. At all.

Now, we haven't read the full story - perhaps his ambitions for becoming Ascended have something to do with the love of his life, and we're just jumping the gun? But, right now, it doesn't seem that way, and I'm not the only one who is sorely disappointed.

25 Comments

ChaosThief9/8/2014, 10:21:32 PM15 votes

I quote:

"RiotRunaan Hey, look! Stuff I wrote! :O Blast from the past. Xerath was actually the first character I wrote for entirely (Talon's judgment >was my first), so this is a fun flashback. :)

So, no spoilers, but look at it this way: the Shurima event is largely going to be Azir's story, from Azir's point of view. Events will be colored in a way that may paint Xerath as the "villain" in this scenario, but that doesn't necessarily tell you the whole side of his story.

Imagine what the mages who imprisoned Xerath in his original lore thought of him: a guy who more or less betrayed his people, nuked their civilization, all for what? For power? They didn't have all the information that you guys have from his Judgment, for example. To them, he was also a very clear-cut "villain."

We always wanted Xerath to have a sympathetic backstory, even if he does cross a moral event horizon at some point. Remember when you hated Severus Snape for most of the Harry Potter series, only to have "his side" revealed much, much later, and how game-changing that was? Keep in mind that a story isn't always told with 100% of the information front loaded. Just because it's not immediately there, spelled out, doesn't mean it doesn't exist within the character, or we've forgotten about it."

Unquote.

Sett Fangirl9/8/2014, 10:29:16 PM8 votes

As usual, Runaan's shares some information that actually makes sense that I cannot find by myself. Thanks a ton, this makes me feel SLIGHTLY better about the whole thing, but not much.

Thanotos Omega9/8/2014, 10:03:50 PM3 votes

To be fair, This mostly just takes his old story and makes him a clever son of a gun who played Azir, he was always at least indifferent to everyone but his own interests, Also this is a huge step up in quality for Renekton's background,

Elmekius9/10/2014, 9:23:36 AM2 votes

I love Xerath story, now its simply stupid...

where is Tabia!!!!!!! Xerath's love

BroteinSupreme9/9/2014, 4:58:03 AM2 votes

They fucked over my main champion too many times to count, first with the rework, then with the nerfs, and why not fuck him up more with the lore.

Yeah, Riot. That's a great idea.

dialMARK4acti0n9/9/2014, 2:18:54 PM2 votes

Dude. How did they change his old lore in any way? Man that wants power. Check. Uses questionable means to pursue that goal. Check. Loses humanity and becomes a being of pure arcane energy. Check. Locked away because he's dangerous. Check.

SecretLore9/10/2014, 11:13:19 AM1 votes

Overall they said that Xeraths character will get more exploration later on.This lore piece merely describes Shurimas downfall.

For now I'd actually consider Xerath to be basically the same except for these changes: 1.He was Azirs underling(his old lore never mentioned what kind of job he had,so that could actually count as an expansion of his old lore) 2.He needed to trick azir in order to pull of his ascension ritual,because he needed the sun disc(again his old lore never talked much about his ritual,so this might be as well another addition to it) 3.He wasn't imprisoned by random mages,but by nasus and renekton and Renekton was sealed together with Xerath(this is basically the only part that got really retconned by this new lore piece) 4.Obviously everything summoner-related(not because of this lore piece,but because the IoW gets removed)

2000boxes9/9/2014, 5:16:39 AM1 votes

i dont see how people are getting sneak peeks at the new loer