What If...The Institute of War was a Faction?
So I'm no expert on lore, probably as evidenced by what I'm about to say, but a thought just occurred to me. Riot and a part of the community are pulling one way, large parts of the community are pulling in another; trying to make a compromise here, bear with me.
When I first heard of the Institute of War, I figured it was Runeterra's local university. Ryze is there as a post-doc, and participates in League matches as like, a club sport. Jax was some random highschool kid who suddenly became a huge jock when he came to the institute. Sure, there are some characters that are very tied to the institute, but there are some (like Jinx), who really don't seem like they'd attend. It seems to me why those characters are there is because they are forced to be, by the League of Legends.
From what I do know, and from what I've been reading around Boards, dev blogs, etc. it seems what Riot sees as very restrictive is The League of Legends, not the institute itself. Either a character has to have explicit ties to the Institute or the League, or at the very least have some reason or motive for being there (like, they're lobbying to their government for a change. But their government puts them in death matches to test their claims. Totally normal stuff), or the character doesn't seem to have any mention as to why they're in the game (I don't recall anything in Jinx's lore connecting her to the institute or the league. She might have come to blow stuff up, but why would she participate in league matches, why not just blow up the institute?).
From what I understand, The League of Legends was created to resolve political disputes. Basically they're like the UN, but unlike the UN, they actually have ridiculous amounts of power. So the governments of various factions in Runeterra opt into having the League resolve their problems, sounds good so far, but what does this have to do with the champions? Sure, nations like Demacia or Noxus would probably send champions to fight to solve disputes, but what about, say, Zaun? I really don't see Jinx or Twitch being sent as ambassadors on behalf of Zaun. Even if Zaun wanted them there, why would they go? They could be forced, of course, but as seen by Jinx's escapades in Piltover, she seems pretty good at evading police.
I think this is more or less the position that Riot is taking; every story they tell about their characters seems forced to have something to do with the League of Legends; otherwise, no matter how awesome it is, it seems out of place in the grand scheme of things. I don't get to hear about how Braum's goats are doing, because what does that have to do with the League? What happened to Riven during her time in self-exile? Who cares, she's at the League now (on that note; Riven is a champion without any ties to any nation anymore, why does she care about resolving their disputes?). Lissandra is this crazy powerful ice queen bent on taking over the world....so now she has to go through the political process and lobby at the League of Legends. The new champion, Azir, is the EMPEROR of Shurima. I want to feel powerful when I'm playing him, like I'm some sort of demi-god come to rule over my empire, but oh, I'm still subject to the rule of the League.
A change of pace. I like the Institute. There are a lot of champions that have really strong ties to the Institute, and that, to me, is really cool. I like imagining that Ryze and Jax go play cricket on the cut with a lamp post and balls of arcane magic on weekends. The League of Legends is just this model UN that's housed in the basement or something, the Institute itself can be considered differently. A game that comes to mind is Skyrim, and their guilds, which weren't all-powerful beings in the universe, but still a significant portion of the game with very key characters. You didn't have to join the guild, however, and there are plenty of characters and stories that operated independently of the guilds, and the guild had stories that operated separately from other parts of the world. Which brings me back to the title of this post: what if the Institute of War just remained this neutral faction, sort of like Demacia or Noxus, with their own associated champions, but with no League to rule them all?
