My Interpretation of the Ryze login screen.

Hi Everyone!

With the Ryze rework just hitting the live servers, alongside his backstroy being also recently published, he's certainly living up to the badass archmage that he was made up to be! But today, I'd like to analyze something not many people give much thought to, yet might have much more meaning to Ryze story than many might think; His login screen.

First of all, let's look at Ryze's position. He's clearly trying to reach some light of some sort, which clearly seems to be just barely out of his reach, while holding an orange, glowing object in his hand, which I assume is the world rune mentioned in his story, "An Old Friend"

He removed the World Rune, its otherworldly pulse beating with a** warm orange glow. **

But something is restraining from entering the light, tendrills that seem to be made out of Void energy are holding him back, as he desperatley uses his powers (heh) to get rid of the tentacles and run into the light, but to no avail. This might be interpreted as Ryze simply trying to safely store another world rune. But I think there's more to it.

First of all, I do believe that the light he's trying to get to is representing civilisation, alongside the warmth and compassion of friendship. But, he cannot. The rune he holds in his hand alongside the scroll he carries are too much of a burden of knowledge to him, for as long as he dedicates himself to locking away the world runes, he cannot join humanity. I also speculate that the scroll he read prophesizes the upcoming void invasion that's been hinted at, in very great detail. Hence his ingame quote:

"They want to read my scroll, it'll be the last thing they read"

I believe this is why the "burden of knowledge" is symbolized as void energy tentacles holding him back.

http://i.imgur.com/tDmp4oh.png

Notice how the tendrills are always striking his tatoos? Yeah. This also might be symbolically hinting at there being a connection between the world runes and the void, and maybe during the upcoming Void Invaison, the creatures might be trying to use the world runes to destroy and consume Runeterra. There are many beings in the void intellegent enough to correctly and precisely utilize the world runes, such as

Anyway, that's all for my theory/interpretation. What did you think of it and what is your own interpretation?

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]