Everything wrong with – Syndra, Kayle, Morgana

Hi everyone! Today I’d like to do something a bit different – as you can see from the title, I want to talk about everything that is wrong with Kayle, Morgana and Syndra lores. I often get complaints about these 3’s lores, that they are ‘trash’, and as they are my three favourite characters… Well I thought it’d be nice to discuss that.

As a quick disclaimer, this isn’t a complaint thread. More like a… Analysis thread?

Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into it!

EDIT - Feel free to discuss any of my points. I'm more than willing to discuss those, whether you agree or disagree!

######Syndra

Lack of personality and qualities

One of my main complaints about Syndra’s lore is that she has little to no personality beyond being angry… Which in itself isn’t a personality. I know there’s only so much you can fit in a biography, and that The Dreaming Pool being told from an outside perspective doesn’t help. The fact that her VO is old and short doesn’t help either. But the problem remains – It feels like Syndra’s only trait is being angry.

In the same vein, Syndra seemingly has no positive trait. Her whole biography is her either being a victim of her family or overreacting and destroying/killing everything. One could argue she’s a rather strong-willed individual because she’s still standing after everything she’s been through, but she falls to anger too easily, so I wouldn’t be too sure about that one?

Again, The Dreaming Pool being from the perspective of someone who wants to kill her doesn’t help either since she’s depicted as a monster and an abomination, which is fine, but it’s all we have.

Lack of goal

Another problem of Syndra’s narrative is her lack of goal. She has no agenda beyond “No one will ever control me again”, which in theory is fine, but it does feel lacking. I know this can be fixed easily, she’d just need a story with an inside perspective. It could actually fix issue 1 as well.

Generally speaking this isn’t as bad because goals come and go, they can change, etc. I would expect her to have a more solid goal later (should she get a story)… Other than “Destroying Ionia because I’m angry” because that would be the worst thing that could happen but that’s another matter entirely.

Syndra exists in a vacuum

I feel like this is one of the bigger issues. Syndra lived in a different time, at the edge of Ionia. Basically all the elements to completely take her out of any narrative, and to completely take away any importance she could have. No one knows she exists (apart from a few people) and she kind of doesn’t know anyone or anything about current Ionia. Which, again, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but she feels so detached from everything else, which is a rather annoying thing.

Part of the problem is because she was taken out by the Spirit of Ionia eons ago. Some say it’s a problem in itself because it acts as a Deus Ex Machina – I will disagree with that in that it makes sense, and the pool adds to the narrative.

I imagine the reason why Riot put her to sleep, from a narrative perspective, is because they didn’t want her to be a part of the Noxian invasion. That’s understandable given she’s a massive powerhouse and could have influenced the war too easily. But it does leave us with Syndra existing in a state where she has no impact on anything, and her lack of agenda make it hard to know whatever’s gonna be next for her.

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#####Kayle and Morgana

Kayle’s lack of positive portrayal

So that’s the biggest complaint I’ve seen when Kayle is mentioned. I don’t disagree with that. I think her lore is fine as it is. I personally don’t have a problem with her almost burning a city out of rage as it makes her realize her emotions are a problem.

My issue is that she has very little positive portrayal. Similarly to Syndra earlier, she does lack some positive traits. Well, in her lore anyway. Thanks to the AMA, we know a bit more about Kayle’s positive traits. But it would have been nice to have more of those in her bio, where she’s always depicted as an extremist, even though she did fight to protect Demacia.

Morgana’s missing archetype

This one is more of a personal thing but I think it deserves a mention.

Morgana, in the old lore anyway, was a powerful witch who had dabbled in dark stuff in order to get more power to fight her sister. I understand that Morgana isn’t as extreme as Oldgana, so the dark art stuff being gone is fine-ish.

However, Morgana doesn’t feel like she’s a witch anymore. She has innate Celestial powers, but she resents those. And while you could argue she may have dabbled in Spiritual and Elemental magics (and trust me I hope that’s the case), we have no idea whether or not she has. As far as I am concerned, she went from powerful witch to rejecting magic.

And again, this would be fine if she had not been a witch in the first place. But I feel like it’s a part of her that is missing. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like resenting your powers and being a witch (as in, learning magic and casting curses and hexes) are incompatible. I really hope I’ll be proven wrong, tho!

A lack of appearance

This is a rather common complaint. Kayle and Morgana’s release brought us three stories. The Canticle of the Winged Sister, which is good, Prayer to a Crumbling Shrine, which is good, and In the Fires of Justice, which is good. The problem? These three stories together don’t give us anything about Kayle and Morgana themselves.

The Canticle is really cool (Doom and Iceborn, I’m watching you :)), it has a really eloquent use of words and overall is good to read. But it’s a major retelling of K&M’s bios.

Prayer to a Crumbling Shrine and In the Fires of Justice are also cool legends. But that’s the whole problem. They are legends. We haven’t seen Kayle and Morgana’s actual selves at all. They are good stories, but I’m unsure if they are good as color stories. We know how Demacians view K&M, but we don’t get a taste of the actual K&M. Which leads to the last issue…

What have Kayle and Morgana been doing?

Now that’s a problem that is general to immortal characters. For the last millenia, Kayle and Morgana have been absent from Demacia (Morgana’s there but she hasn’t showed up).

Presumably, Kayle has been training in the Celestial Realm to fulfil her legacy to the Aspect of Justice. She’s not the one I’m worried about for this. She has a solid agenda, so it’s not too hard to imagine what she’s been up to.

Morgana, on the other hand… Her sole purpose, I feel, is Kayle. More specifically, being angry at Kayle. Whether she’s been preparing for her return by learning magic rito pls, or just crying in her forest is a big question mark.

Overall, the lack of info regarding what they’ve been up to and what they are doing is mildly annoying. Especially since I doubt they’ll make any appearance any time soon. But hey, who knows, I might be wrong!

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Phew! So that’s it! Feels good to put all this on paper (screen?). I surprisingly wrote less things than I thought, which is good… I think? Well anyway! Let me know what you think about these three’s lores!

Ah, and of course, silly poll down there!