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Name every cliché in the new lore

James Stone·2/13/2015, 12:20:02 AM·12 votes·1,987 views

Continuing my year-long rageboner against this abomination of writing they call the New Lore (As usual, Sion's work is immune to the trashtalk, kudos to that and... I think that's that), today we express our hate/dissapointment/frustration/resignation for the new lore with a game. Name ALL the clichés they somehow managed to cram in a narrative which, for better or worse, was relatively free of clichés and heavy on subversions!

1 - stabbing in the back for no reason whatsoever

Seriously. She was a mercenary under contract. How hard would it be to say: "Hey let me borrow your weapon, I think it's a key". (It probably has a good explanation which we weren't given because the motivations and character of Cassiopeia are still a mystery. Good work on that followup, guys!)

2 - Azir has a Lazarus Pit/Pooly Pool of Life that heals people from the brink of death that was never mentioned before and indeed never is mentioned again.

If there is a better example of Deus Ex Machina in recent times, I'd love to know

26 Comments

CupcakeTrap2/13/2015, 1:21:48 AM10 votes

Cliches

Here are my favorites:

"now, s/he wanders Valoran"
"quest for vengeance"
Needlessly unanswered questions

To combine all three:

Where is Pingu from? What happened to his people? Where did he acquire his Penguin-Blade? None can say. For now, he wanders Valoran in search of vengeance.

For the full effect, garnish with a flat restatement of the character's visual concept, e.g., "Pingu is a penguin."

Not so much cliches as…yeah

Then, there are these.

Nasus reading the scene descriptions off a storyboard in the voice of Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple, including:

THE ANCIENT WEAPON IS A KEY!
SHE…BETRAYS SIVIR!

I just imagined Nasus standing in a sound booth with a big poster showing the scenes of the cinematic with labels written in Sharpie.

Kalista's lore

It wasn't that it was badly written, as such; just that it was…completely unsurprising. I feel like we already knew this story as soon as we saw her concept. That, and…

"Behind the spirit’s anger, she sensed her empathy — recognition of their shared pain of betrayal."

http://memecrunch.com/meme/75OC/you-can-t-just-have-your-characters-announce-how-they-feel/image.png

That said, her gameplay mechanics did provide some material for more critical assessments of her character.

Lovecraft

Okay, I really like a lot of the Narrative team members, but can they please stop referring to Lovecraft? We get it. You've read Lovecraft. Yes, I think Lovecraft is great. Yes, I think the Cthulhu Mythos contains a lot of really mind-bendingly original concepts, including the remarkably modern innovation called "cosmic horror", a sort of post-scientific brand of horror built around incomprehensibly alien monstrosities that have no concept of human morality.

Still, it's become a really awkward cliche for them to randomly allude to Lovecraft when discussing the Void and spooky Champions. I have a few problems with this. First, it comes off as vaguely smug. Second, it's inappropriately so—this is League of Legends, an eminently cartoony and broad-strokes universe with a fairly bright aesthetic. Lovecraft's writing is like Samurai Jack's cartooning style—it works great in its intended context, but fares very poorly when transplanted. Lovecraft is all about humanity being overwhelmed by the infinite terrors of the cosmos. It's what you get when you take a normal person and collide them with a monster beyond human imagining.

In League, the typical character (that we focus on) is not a bookish gentleman with a bad case of the nerves sweating inside an overstarched suit. The typical Champion is basically a superhero. You can't throw Cthulhu into a Superman story. That gives you severe dissonance in the form of "Did you just punch out Cthluhu?".

I mean, sure, the Void can absorb some Lovecraft flavor. I think it's a great way to avoid turning the Void into basically "the Zerg dimension". Like in Lovecraft, you can have a lot of shambling half-human hybrid-horrors who've been contaminated by the Void, or eerie creatures crawling through from beyond our plane of existence.

But I feel like Lovecraft references are becoming a really awkward cliche.

If you can't say anything nice

I hasten to add that there has been some very good material as well. Sion's new lore was great, even though I'll miss Ahhhhhnuld Sion. I also enjoyed Rek'Sai's lore immensely.

GreenLore2/13/2015, 12:36:25 AM6 votes

About your points: 1.Sivir agreed to protect cassiopeia,but putting her weapon into any weird keyholes belongs not to the contract,cassiopeia had not really much fighting ability,so that was her only chance.If sivir refused to put the weapon in there it would have been over(what if sivir was actually told by the ones who gave her the weapon to not use it as a key?What if sivir thought the tomb was sealed for a good reason?What if she simply didn't want to risk loosing her weapon?),not to mention that sivir was probably on the noxian "to-kill"-list anyway,so that was a good chance of getting rid of her and not needing to pay her too.

2.While the oasis was conveniently placed there it makes sense that if such a thing exists in shurima,then they'd built their capital on top of it.And of course it was never mentioned before,since we had almost no shurima lore before and didn't get anything about the capital of shurima after the event was over.

Overall I am not saying that they aren't cliches,but they are a lot more justified than you make them out to be.

Also its not like the lore didn't have cliches before,I mean varus is the guy who basically sold his life for vengance,there was this omnious group of wizards who have influence everywhere and are implied to be secretly evil all along,Champs who are ripped from their home worlds against their will,who will probably never see their friends and familiy and who adapt to this new world almost instantly,etc.

Dotintheparadox2/13/2015, 2:48:40 PM5 votes

How about the weapon being a key? May not be clichéd, but there is no appropriate answer as to why a key would be a giant glaive.

Also, who in their right mind, WOULD PUT AN OPENABLE DOOR ON XERATH'S PRISON? The old lore provided a much better answer, his prison just finally broke down.

Kalista is just another Bloody Mary in my opinion, just more Greek-looking.

Azir has little actual personality described in his story, instead relying on the game to give us any hints to it, and even then, there isn't much.

They like reworking our favorite characters into wandering murder-hoboes, because they're already kind of that, or they have a connection to the institute which the new "team" was too lazy to think of ideas for, here's a list of who: Aatrox Annie Chogath Fiddlesticks Fizz Gnar Gragas Janna Jax Jinx Kassadin Khazix Kayle KogMaw Leona Diana Malphite Maokai Morgana Nami Nautilus Nocturne Nidalee Nunu Rammus Renekton Rengar Syndra TwistedFate Udyr Varus Vayne Xerath Yasuo Zac Zilean Zyra

Seth Lightheart2/13/2015, 12:37:40 AM2 votes

Tristana : I'm small but i'm tough! (I'm totally not G.I. Jane by the way)

sealust2/13/2015, 10:46:06 AM1 votes

Dude, the new Shurima lore is so messed, well, mainly what happens in the whole temple thing, mostly Cassiopea. ...Yeah, I really don't like Cass's new lore.

The Anagram King2/13/2015, 7:54:52 PM1 votes

My favourite/most hated?

Sivir : "I'm a strong, badass chick who comes across as a real pro in my in-game dialogue."

Sivir : "PS, I have a secret destiny and I'm a princess now!"

UGHHHHHH.