Sion's New Bio and the Disconnect Between Community Identity and Author's Intent of Characterization

Sion is a man ripped from the grave without consent, and thrust back into a life of endless battle. Considering who he was in life, that should be fine, but he lost who he was in the process, and now struggles to feel much of anything beyond endless bloodlust and the urge for violence. This part of Sion's character was kept in his new Bio, and given some much needed expansion even! It is an important aspect of the character, and thus the addition of more information is perfectly welcome. However, there's more to Sion's character than just this, and it can be found in two places, his in-game VO and his color story.

"Boram? Is that you?" This line, from Sion's old color story, is, at least to me, one of the most important aspects of Sion as a character. There's a reason why it's stuck with me for so long, despite the story being so old by this point. It is thus also key to understanding Sion's (old) lore. Sion was friends with Boram Darkwill. His sacrifice, while ultimately a necessity, left Boram Darkwill ruined, both politically, and personally. Boram lost his closest friend, and now was surrounded by enemies within on all sides. He sunk to whatever depths were necessary to bring him back, and while self-preservation was a motivation, there was also the honest desire to have one of the only people he felt that he could truly trust back at his side. However, what came back wasn't his friend. Instead he brought back a monster that wore his friend's flesh and blood and screamed with his voice. He didn't know that the thing that was brought back, however, was still his friend, deep down. Sion is trapped, unable to fully comprehend the situation he's been left in. In order to feel alive, and for his mind to properly function, Sion has to be in the thick of a fight. He needs to be killing and maiming, otherwise he feels cold and empty, as if he were dead. But eventually he runs out of enemies to hack apart, and thus he sinks back down into the depths of madness.

Sion's VO, which I'd like to state is my personal favorite out of every champion, although I am fairly biased in this matter (ty Scott McNeil) is another important aspect of his character. Sion has different quotes for when he is in combat, and out of combat. In-combat, he is much more active and alive, being all too willing to engage in bloodshed and slaughter as he once did long ago. However, out of combat, most especially in his movement lines, is where Sion's character truly shines. Sion is, on some level, at least somewhat aware of his current situation. It bothers him greatly, not even knowing what he has become, as the lack of sensation beyond a hunger for more violence gnaws away at his very being on a constant basis. The only way for him to so much as feel anything is for him to feed this endless hunger, and kill whatever is front of him. This is shown in his in-combat movement quotes, where he displays behavior more typical of a Noxian with a mixture of supreme confidence and near endless bravado. While he's fighting, he feels alive again, he feels almost like he did before he died, so much so that he struggles to tell it apart. However, he always eventually sinks back down once the fighting ends. If you look at his unused quotes, there are lines that even reference this, where Sion struggles in preventing himself from slipping away into mindless violence once more.

As a quick, minor side note, I feel somewhat personally offended that this line was never used, but that's really just a side note. Seriously, give it a listen and tell me the delivery isn't near perfect. Props to Scott McNeil for this voice work.

Back on topic, in what little is left of Sion's mind, he is still fighting for his friend and ally Boram, because Sion, even now, remains loyal to Boram. He was always willing to give his life for Noxus without hesitation, so even though he doesn't really get what is happening, he is still perfectly willing to fight for his home and his friend. He's not able to truly understand that Boram himself is dead, and that there is somebody else in power now. How could he? Sion sees the Grand General, and he thinks it's his old friend Boram, because while Boram was in power, Noxus was a nation worth fighting for. In Sion's eyes, there's no possibility that Boram could ever fall out of power, and so he continues his service. For someone like Swain, why would he have him think otherwise? Sion is an effective tool, and there's no reason to break such a thing even further.

I'd like to return to the color story once again, as I feel it's incredibly important to understanding Sion as a character. It begins with Sion, who has been locked away for quite some time, finally being released to slaughter a group of enemy soldiers. At first, he is only able to think in short bursts of thought, usually one or two words long. However, after he's finished killing them, he begins to think in longer sentences, and after another fight, he even seems to reclaim a scrap of the man who he used to once be. During this time, Sion interacts with (old) Swain, and confuses him for Boram, despite them not being very similar in appearance, showing just how far gone he truly is. To him, Grand General simply means Boram Darkwill, and in his current state, he's not even able to figure out that it isn't him in front of him. After he's been sealed back away, Sion even comes close to realizing the situation he's currently in, as he realizes he doesn't recall ever losing his leg. Despite this, it does nothing to stop his consciousness from slipping away from him as he's locked away in his tomb, eventually reverting back to his initial state of near mindless violence.

While Sion still was revived by Boram, there no longer is any connection between the two. Rather than it being Boram reviving his own personal friend who gave his life to allow him to stay in power, it's just an evil dictator making a zombie soldier, and Sion is the best option to do so. This loss of depth in motivation really hurts the character as a whole, and additionally leaves Sion unconnected with modern Noxus as a whole. Now rather than being a key member of the early Darkwill regime, which only recently lost control of Noxus, he is just some barbarian warlord who was really good at killing dudes. Now rather than being a general who used strategy, he just kind of ran at things angrily. These older aspects of Sion's character are left by the wayside with the modernization, and it leaves Sion as a character weaker for it. That doesn't mean the new content has to be discarded, but rather that as it is, it's lacking much of what made Sion who he is as a character.

This is another big issue with Sion's character that many Sion players were hoping to see expanded. We understand the idea that Sion is an amazing warrior, and we can see his combat prowess in game well enough. But what we don't know is WHO Sion was when he was alive. How did he present himself? How did he interact with others? Did he have family? At least before, we had his friendship with Boram Darkwill, which was close enough that Boram was willing to discard any sense of morality to try and bring him back, to at least imply that he was an actual person, with wants and needs and feelings. Now, however, we don't even have that. Instead, who Sion was as a person is left completely blank, even more so than before, which is saying something as we had almost nothing before this. All we really get is "big angry strong man" which is one of the most boring and bland characters there is. That by itself isn't necessarily a problem, but when we're going from a character who has such depth, and reverting to something so bland and uninspired, it's honestly a near tragedy in terms of wasted potential.

So what does this all mean? It may mean that the way Riot sees Sion as a character simply differs from how the community, or at least his playerbase, sees him as one. It's not the first time something like this has happened (Ask Graham McNeil about the 40k fanbase's opinion on The Emperor. I imagine he'll either burst out in laughter or in tears, and I honestly wouldn't blame him for either) and it won't be the last. However, when events like this have happened in the past, Riot has shown themselves to be willing to interact with the community in order to resolve them. They did this with Mordekaiser and his title change. They did this when Nautilus got his lore updated. Both times ended up with both sides being pleased with the end result. I simply hope that the same can happen here.

To end this off, I'd like to leave a quote taken from the redditor Jstin8 that I feel sums up Sion's old character aptly. "Imagine if you are gazing at some great ornamental mirror that's broken. It's got gold decorations with diamonds and emeralds emblazoned on the crest. A truly magnificent piece of artwork. But at the end of the day, it's broken. And nothing can fix it."

Sion will never be whole again, this is true. But that doesn't mean that who he was when he had yet to shatter isn't just as important to his character.

Thank you for reading, and my apologies for how much I probably ended up repeating the same thing over and over.

Edit: As a clarification, as I wrote this well past midnight so I was rambling pretty hard, I just wanted to make what I was trying to say more clear: Sion being connected to Boram Darkwill is not what is important. Rather, what is important is the connection to SOMEBODY. Sion being brought back to be used as a weapon was a mistake that was never intended. He was a general who was capable of both strategy and brute force. He was a hero among the Noxians for his bravery and willingness to give his life for his nation. He was considered to be both a trustworthy ally, and a good enough friend for somebody to sink to the darkest depths, and have them throw out all senses of morality in order to bring him back, whatever the cost may have been. To have him brought back as a near mindless brute was an insult, a mistake that was meant to be locked away for the good of all. Whether it was Boram who did this, or somebody else is irrelevant, what matters much more is that this aspect of the character is kept in some way. Boram being the one who found him in this state would be perfectly acceptable, much like how Swain discovered him in the old lore. It isn't the connection with Boram that matters, it is just having Sion be connected to somebody else that does.