The complaints about Taliyah's appearnce are fascinating

RowanEnd·5/5/2016, 10:42:31 PM·5 votes·1,741 views

I've noticed mostly that literally everyone complaining about her has been saying:

"Why isn't she hot? Screw riot for making and ugly champ!" "Taliyah shouldn't be ugly!11!1! Theres no problem with all female champs having giant tits and giant asses and unnatural spine positions!1111! Riot is just pandering to those lesbian satanic FEMINISTS by making diverse body types!!11111!!!!" "She's so unnecessary. Its been YEARS since we've gotten a sexy champ.... plz rito..... we are suffering....."

Interesting how ya'll don't do this for male champs???????? Lets be serious, the large majority of male champs are ugly. Blobs, lanky teenagers, monsters, old guys, etc. there are few male champions that fit the "super attractive" label. Meanwhile, you can apply "super attractive" to a larger % of female champions. Do I think sexuality is wrong? No. I embrace sexy female characters. Sex is fine in doses. Sex is even better when theres an interesting reason behind it, EX. Miss Fortune using it to her advantage. THAT makes sense. But its pointless when the cornerstone of a champion is their sexuality and nothing else. The key here is that females in video games have historically not been given as diverse appearances/backstories as male champs get, or are only relevant to the story of the game to be jackoff material for the players, whilst the large majority of male characters have enjoyed a high degree of diversity in their appearance and their stories/personalities.

"Wait, could this be because male gamers make 51% of the gaming population and therefore companies want to make money?"

Maybe, but thats not the point here. The point is that female characters have every right to be as ugly -- or attractive, as male characters, and just because you're pissed riot decided to make an average looking 16 year old girl instead of a busty seductress is straight up ridiculous and inherently problematic.

8 Comments

FrogPharaoh 5/6/2016, 1:20:33 AM3 votes

Have you considered the fact that maybe Taliyah's face just genuinely doesn't look right? Her splash barely looks like it belongs to League. The stylization of her eyebrows and nose don't even match any current human in the game. And don't give me that "male champs are ugly" nonsense. The only male champs who are legitimately undesirable are the monster/barely human ones such as Sion or Urgot. Need I remind you of Taric's recent update, particularly his famous pink skin? Here's a great story: players initially complained on the PBE that the the V on his top didn't go down far enough... so Riot actually changed it and made the V go down right to the edge of his crotch, making his costume more revealing for the sole sake of sexualization. Now, if a female champ was similarly asked to reveal more skin or to show more cleavage, there would almost certainly be an outcry... but where was the outcry for Taric? There was none. And I guess that's fine actually. What's not fine, however, are the blatant double standards. Whenever it comes to female character criticism, there always seem to be a group whiteknights defending the character and claiming that the ones criticizing are nothing but perverted boys who just want more boobs and that's the ONLY explanation possible. Right? Well, no...Here's the thing. No one is asking Taliyah to be a super model. No one is asking Taliyah to have large breasts. People just want her face to mesh with the established League art style that has been there for years.

CrimsonCobra35/5/2016, 11:35:14 PM2 votes

Sona. ): Janna DX

Why are they so sexualized? It actually makes 0 sense. (I don't mind too much anymore, but it still makes me cringe at what I consider to be poor character design.)

Englais5/6/2016, 1:26:32 AM1 votes

I only thought her eyebrows were rather bushy...

stealthfox945/6/2016, 1:39:34 AM1 votes

I fully agree with what you're saying but to be fair it has been ages since we got a sexualized female champ.

Trolosaurus5/6/2016, 2:36:49 AM1 votes

It's less a complaint and more a taste preference, but she looks rather average in comparison to many of the recent champion designs. It's the first time in a while I've seen a new champion and went "eh". I don't dislike her but I'm not excited either.

Star Guardían5/6/2016, 5:52:56 AM1 votes

I don't really understand why people care how a champions faces look. As long as they have the general characteristics of the character (hair, tattoo, facial hair, skin tone etc.) it shouldn't really matter. I only have a specific vision for a character if they're played by real person who embodies the character really well. Ex: In my mind Tony Stark looks like Robert Downey Jr, Wolverine looks like Hugh Jackman etc. So until Riot has live action movies/shows of their property, all I'll ever need to be satisfied with the look of Taliyah is a vaguely middle eastern girl.