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It seems Riot has a thing for political corruption.

Varalessia·3/16/2016, 12:25:47 AM·10 votes·1,872 views

Something I've noticed is that Riot seems to incorporate political corruption into everything they can, from being fairly unique to Noxus's power ladder, to being heavy establishment in Demacia, to straight out being forced on Ionia through Jhin. Noxus has always been a power struggle, and I believe the change up in Demacia's look made it a deeper country than "Shining beacon to fight off those dirty Noxians!", but it just seems extremely heavy handed in Ionia's lore. I understand that no government can be completely good, but that was one of Ionia's selling points, their clean and open government opposed by people following their own path to enlightenment and their own internal struggle between traditionalism and modernism.

And then Jhin rolls up, suddenly Ionia's ruling council has "Shady elements", whatever that means, and it just seems to make... No sense. It's like they wanted to give Ionia some conflict, which is a good thing, but then just copy pasted "shady government" onto it, which is not so good. Not to mention that somehow, these "Shady elements" in the ruling council managed to slip by Karma, who is in the ruling council, and Irelia, Captain of the Guard.

Honestly, Ionia had plenty of conflict to begin with, I feel like Riot would have done it more justice just by expanding on that.

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

18 Comments

Blood Magicks3/16/2016, 12:43:26 AM4 votes

I would honestly cry from happiness if the "Shady elements" in Ionia's ruling council turn out to be an extension of the Noxian Black Rose. It kind of fits with the fact that Noxus has quite the interest in meddling in foreign affairs and is known to at least attempt to replace JarvanIV with a LeBlanc (since there are several people carrying the title LeBlanc at the minute?) Noxus also kind of wants Ionia under its rule, seeing how they've been at war before.

So it would be one of the coolest things if the shady person messing with Ionian politics is another LeBlanc just doing her thing.

After all, Noxus has quite a bit of Russian influences in it, and this is what Russian foreign politics currently involve: Install shady elements in foreign governments, subdue through massive funding and propaganda wars. Would totally not surprise me if.. if...

Swain has Vladimir Putin influences (but he's smarter, hopefully, IMO Putin is not a genius)??? The Black Rose is like a more secret, shady Kremlin???

Okay, I'll stop now.

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO3/16/2016, 12:43:36 AM1 votes

Well I'd imagine that Ionia was never a totally unified country. It always seemed as more of a collection of villages and provinces with a somewhat weak central government. However, the Noxian invasion totally fucked it all up. War is pretty terrible, and even after it's over, the anarchy it creates lasts a long time.

You could imagine all the different power figures in Ionia each have their own vision in the course of the land. Some (Say Karma) want the land to remain true to their values while others (Jhin, Zed, and whatever shadowy elements exist) see the old ways as a burden on what could be a glorious nation. Finally, you have your kleptomaniacs who seek to take advantage of a nation in disarray. This all results in a chaotic land that one could call a shadow of its former self.

Only Play Darius3/16/2016, 7:42:44 AM1 votes

The war is what allowed the shady elements to rise as they were the ones who could survive the violence forced upon the land while the peaceful elements were killed off.

GreenLore3/16/2016, 9:03:31 AM1 votes

Overall they seem to go for a "balance vs might"-conflict in Ionia.

The war changed not only the regular ionians,but also their government,some Ionians believe their old traditions are only a hindrance,while others still believe in their traditions(and karma kind of wants to create a middleground between these 2 groups). It only makes sense that some members of the council would also be affected by the war and believe that more extreme methods are needed to garentee the safety of ionia.

Potato Doc3/16/2016, 5:20:04 PM1 votes

Well fiction must be based on reality, as such its only fair reflect how our world is in theirs. Name one country without "shady buisness" and then ill dismiss this argument

Kadavik3/17/2016, 5:10:41 AM1 votes

Well on the first chapter of his lore we learn that Jhin is employed by an underdog Cabal that wants to obtain more dominance over Ionia. This leads us to believe that Ionia doesn't have a unified government but a series of Cabals that rule over the land. Thus some of these might be free of corruption but the one that employed and freed Jhin definitely isn't and did so in the hopes of obtaining more power.