Community: "Who is Jax now?" / Riot: "DELETED!"
This seems to be the approach Riot is taking now to Jax lore questions... T_T
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Well it looks like they don't have concrete plans for all those champs who were tied to the IoW
There was an interesting thread about this a while ago. During that discussion,RedniwediS made an interesting suggestion:
I don't know how a Noxian army would react to someone beating the crap out of them with a lamp post, but I could picture Jax fighting them off over and over in an attempt to humiliate them, not injure them.
which led me to start thinking along these lines:
You know, that's an interesting angle. I had assumed that the invasion would be a "character-break" for Jax that revealed another side to him. But that's really pretty generic. I like the idea of him maintaining his friendly, gruff demeanor even on the battlefield.
The Ionians are demoralized. They're losing the will to fight. They've seen unspeakable death. It seems like all the world contains anymore is sadness and misery. They turned to anger, but anger only lasts so long.
Then, Jax comes strutting in. Everyone expects to now see Jax, their lovable friend, turn into a cold-blooded killer in a desperate attempt to defend Ionia, just like every other Ionian has had to become a soldier to survive. But no. He stays Jax. A veritable Jackie Chan movie plays out in front of their eyes as he humiliates the Noxians and drives them into retreat: all with his trusty lamppost. The city is saved, and the story spreads throughout Ionia, restoring hope and giving a few laughs to people who haven't had cause to laugh in a very long time.
I rather enjoy this idea, and I combined it with some of the community speculation about Jax's mysterious past (e.g. "is he a Darkin?") in this lore update for Factions ("Not Your Hero").
As for what Narrative will do with him, I don't know. I have a feeling they'll go with something disappointingly safe and bland.
Here are my thoughts, in brief.
Jax fights with a lamppost.
The current lore has this as a sort of self-nerf. I think that's quirky and interesting. A little derpy? Yes. But I think LoL lore thrives on a bit of quirkiness. So, what are the options for dealing with the lamppost?
Delete it. Give him a real weapon.
I think this would be by far the least interesting option. It might happen. I'd be disappointed.
Make the lamppost a super-awesome magical lamppost.
I would find this also pretty bland, though I think it's probably where they're headed. Make up some story about, e.g., the lamppost being the last remaining piece of an ancient temple destroyed by Noxians or whatever, and have it imbued with amazing magical powers.
I dislike this option, because it comes off as a cop-out. It's easy, it's safe, it's simple, it's … bland. I think a lot of good stuff arises from writing around constraints. It forces you to get creative. The challenge the lamppost poses is: why would this dude nerf himself?
He only uses it on the Fields
Okay, after the Great Retcon, they don't believe in a League of Legends in their League of Legends lore, or the Fields of Justice, or Summoners, and probably a bunch of other things that they find "constraining". But from a community perspective, one could say that Jax uses real weapons off the Fields, and only uses the lamppost when fighting in the League.
I think this is still a partial cop-out. It was the direction I was leaning until RedniwediS gave me that idea.
He nerfs himself to remain himself
This is the approach I took. Whether he's a Darkin or something else, he holds a great deal of power, but invoking that power would cost him the person he's become: a gruff but friendly "coach" who uses the fighting arts as a means of personal development and expression rather than a means to kill and destroy. The lamppost is a symbol of that.
While leaving myself a little flex-room in case we have to do a bunch of retconning, I went pretty strongly in this direction in Not Your Hero. I think it's interesting to view him as a complement to Aatrox, who refuses to let that define his destiny but still possesses an eerie "battle-sense" and an awareness of the currents of destiny that flow through the world. He sees Nami start to fall under that spell, and snaps her out of it, telling her that he refuses to be her hero, and that she should be careful what she wishes for.
Yes, of course. It's so obvious they don't want people talking about his lore, which is why they made a post about a fan new-lore theory about Jax the post of the day.
Well considering Jax is a "character" in the single loosest sense, not exactly surprising.
Jax is the "mysterious badass" archetype, not an independent character.
I know this is something different but, wasn't jax's voice someone who died a year ago or so? and they added more quotes as a tribute?
i thought nasus was the guy that died