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Why I feel "Child of Zaun" missed the mark. [Spoilers]

ModCaptainMårvelous·12/11/2019, 2:05:12 AM·14 votes·2,955 views
https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/story/child-of-zaun/

I'd like to preface this in the sense that I'm somewhat biased in these stories because I'm so heavily invested in Piltover and Zaun. I'd also like to say that this story is by no means "awful". If you came to this thread expecting me to dunk on the writer for a good 10 paragraphs, you won't find that here. That being said...

#Child of Zaun misses the mark.

The crux of this story was to help us develop three characters (Mostly Vi) who don't have a lot of supplementary material outside of singular color stories and some animation fluff. This was Riot's attempt to flesh out these characters and establish some lore progression with Piltover and Zaun. Urgot is in jail, Vi and Caitlyn are successful but there's lingering doubts about him being sad/upset at being imprisoned. Instead, this story comes up short at the apex of the story and when the story matters most.

Barring Caitlyn's poor characterization (She could literally be replaced with anyone and I doubt you'd notice save for 1-2 lines where she speaks directly to Vi), the major flaw of this story centers around the Climax. Or lack thereof. Near the end, Urgot is making his big play to poison the promenade. Vi is racing to stop him. Caitlyn is ready to fight and rearms Vi. The battle is set to explode AND....

“I’m tired of listening to you talk.” My rage finally slips. “I’m tired of doing anything other than beating you to death for what you did.”

I can’t tell if the fight lasts seconds or hours. I only remember it in flashes. Crushing metal. Ribcages wrapping around my knuckles. Thunder from Urgot’s cannon-arm, stitching explosions. The sound of blood, fizzing and popping as it cooks on my gauntlets.

Between Cait and me, we whittle down Urgot’s followers, until it’s only him left standing, a metal monster of fire and bullets and slashing chains. It’s unclear who will leave the broken dome alive, until Cait sees an opening with her bola net.

Urgot roars as it envelops him, pinning his arms to his sides and distracting him just long enough for my charge. I put everything into the blow, sending him teetering off the edge of the dome. But I won’t let him fall, not yet.

That's it.

That's the climax.

Thousands of words, a clear battle between two of Zaun's children and those caught in the crossfire, is cut down to about a single paragraph. Now, maybe the author just isn't the best at fight scenes. Maybe they just didn't want to expand. Maybe they have a sick fight scene on the cutting room floor due to having to trim down for time...but why cut this out?

#Why the Fight Scene Matters

League and Runeterra, at their core, are centered around conflict. Fighting. Wars. The fragile peace brought about by decades of war. These champions are completely dictated by their magical or physical power and how they can change the world through enacting their will with this power. Fighting is core to who league champions are. By removing this fight scene, we are deprived of some of the most important characterization of our protagonists/antagonists and how they interact with each other. For example:

  • Imagine a scene where Urgot, to hit Vi, shotgun-blasts through one of his own men. That man, even when shot, claws for Vi. The depth of Urgot's control over these people is displayed in full force without saying a word.
  • Imagine a scene where Vi is plowing through troops recklessly while anytime she would be endangered, she's assisted by a sniper shot from Caitlyn. We see how these two are so in-sync in their partnership that they have complete trust in one another to the point of fighting freely.
  • Imagine a scene where Vi doubles-back to help Caitlyn who is being overrun, ignoring Urgot. Again, simple, but it shows the depth of care Vi has and how important Caitlyn is to her.
  • Imagine Urgot overpowering them when they face one-on-one but through coordination, they're able to take him down. Not only does it empower Urgot as someone who can take on two of the best champions Piltover has, it shows that Caitlyn and Vi work best when as a pair, deepening the relationship the two have.

So much can go into this fight to characterize who these three are, the influence they have on each other and even subtle nuances such as their preferred fighting styles. Instead we're given something of a jumpcut to the end of a fight. It...sucks. It just plain sucks.

#Improving for the future.

If I had to give some core criticisms for improvement that I feel the writer could expound upon:

  • Give Caitlyn a more distinct voice. She could be so much more. Instead she feels like a prop to Vi's story, a name thrown out to go "See look it's your fave champ"
  • Add more depth to fight scenes, even if it's just an extra paragraph. Cutting out a small portion of Vi at Urgot's camp in favor of a little bit of fighting can tell us so much more about everyone.
  • If you're going to write a story like this, give more agency to all champions involved. Part of why the Lux comic was so amazing is that every major champion in the comic had a huge part to play. Even J4, who shows up for a fraction of the time, has so much weight given to him and deepening his connection to the major characters. Caitlyn feels like a quest giver, not a champion.

#Closing Thoughts

Again, I want to reiterate that overall, I really enjoyed this story. I love seeing champs I adore expanded upon. But I also feel upset that I couldn't see them doing things I know them for. That some of the best moments of character building are denied from us due to word counts and having to condense the story. I'm eager to see Ian's next story and I sincerely hope for more great Piltover content.

#TL;DR

**Story good. Lack of fight scene makes the story substantially worse. Caitlyn didn't have a character. **

9 Comments

Chembaron Yamada12/11/2019, 9:13:10 AM4 votes

Yeah, I can agree that leaving out the fighting was a bummer. Was actually excited to read about these 3 brawling it out in Piltover, just to notice that it boils down to "they fought, Cait and Vi won". This could have been way better, that's for sure.

I still wouldn't say that the story missed the mark, tho. It had many great aspects. It delivered perfectly on Urgot's identity, how he represents his ideal. And Vi also got fleshed out well, in my opinion. It seems unlikely, but I hope that this is actually not the end of her relationship with Roe.

I would like Roe to have survived and Vi simply didn't notice it. That Roe can augment herself with chemtech and becomes a leader of a crew which wants to free the Dreadnought. The Roe Vi knew died that day, no longer the shy girl who loved to read. She got replaced by a cruel follower of Urgot.

Caitlyn I think was actually interesting. You felt that these 2 care for each other, but Caitlyn has her duty as a Sheriff. That she has to keep things secret from Vi, even if she doesn't want to. I felt that conflict in her and compared to J4 in the comic, she felt more deep and having an impact than him, but this might just be me.

AbiwonKenabi12/11/2019, 4:29:47 PM4 votes

Apparently bots are going around bombing posts with upvotes/downvotes...? I would never downvote a post like this, just serving to start discussion and I don't know why so many other people would either so, have an upvote I guess.

I overall enjoyed Child of Zaun, but I agree the climax in particular was weak. It wouldn't have taken much to fix it, a few of your suggestions and it would be fine. If they were afraid of too many people to keep track of, just cut down the fight to four or five mooks and Urgot. Have the others lag behind because of the toxins or something. The fight scene towards the beginning when Vi first arrives in the Sump is fine. Why short on action now?

Also no real mention of how Urgot and Vi's stories could relate to each other. The story is called "Child of Zaun" and one of the "philosophical questions" posed is how Vi "has to choose between Zaun and Piltover" how "she's from one place but is working for another". There is no real mention of...oh gee, idk, how URGOT is not from Zaun? He chose Zaun (kind of, I think he's on a bit of a revenge scheme as well as an idealistic rampage) over Noxus. Feel like that bit of story could have been relevant here and serve to really pit Vi's ideals versus Urgot's through their similar backstories.

I don't know, it was going well and you're right, the one thing that felt lack luster was the climax. There was no real change other than acknowledgement that Urgot is a possible threat. It felt like set up for Vi's character, but I felt they could have dove a bit deeper with little effort. Just an extra paragraph or two could have helped establish Vi's current position on the matter, or even her confusion on what is right. Why is she a Warden, why does she feel that's the best way to help Zaun and Piltover? How was her fight with Urgot; was it tough because she's confused, or did she find resolve in her current line of thinking and fight even harder?

I liked plenty of things, Roe in particular was a nice addition to help us (and Vi) see how she might be viewed by her old friends. We had sort of got hints of it like from some of Ekko's quotes, but this was much more visceral. Makes me look forward to Arcane and I hope to see Roe there, too.

NotaRobot100612/11/2019, 2:19:57 AM3 votes

Those were some rad fight scene suggestions. I enjoyed the story we got, but something like that would have improved it.

Good point on Caitlyn, too. She did a cool thing in the final battle but I didn't really get a "partners in crimebusting" vibe from her and Vi.

Vartius12/11/2019, 2:32:27 AM3 votes

Now, while I do agree it's disappointing that the fight is so skimmed over, there are two things that I feel are worth pointing out:

  1. This is clearly not a one-shot story. it's the act I of a series that will likely span several short stories like that - with Urgot breaking out and causing some shit in Piltover. In that context, it would make sense to keep the climax for a later story, near the end. Have there be a big deciding battle between Urgot and some other folk - don't blow your load near the start of your plot, cause a later fight scene might just feel like a boring repeat.
  2. The fight is skimmed over to the point where it feels very much intentional - maybe some detail would spoil something that appears later in the plotline or perhaps they just didn't want to set the arsenal of Urgot in stone to be more free later on.
mrmeddyman12/11/2019, 7:20:13 AM2 votes

Must be a rad as hell story if you're getting disliked this hard. Can't wait to read it.