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Amumu's Lore is a great example of compromise between a Company & its Community.

DarkSoul1994·12/26/2017, 3:43:25 PM·6 votes·1,124 views

For context, Amumu's Lore used to be a vague clusterf*ck. Nobody could agree on what Amumu was. Was he a Child, or was he a Yordle? People who liked Yordles tended to like to bundle him in. On the other hand, there were quite a few people that liked the idea of him simply being a Mummy Boy.

At one point a few Rioters were going to change his lore to specifically state that he was in fact a Mummy Boy (I think this was Season 3/4?) much to the displeasure of the pro-Yordle Amumu portion of players.

Riot's solution was actually quite genius. His current lore, to settle the argument, is to take the argument out of our hands. Amumu's story is now a myth within Runeterra itself - so ancient that not even the Runeterrans themselves can agree on his true origin.

What does this mean for us, the players? We get to believe what we want and nobody can tell us otherwise. We can throw him in with the likes of Azir and Renekton. We can included him in an A-Z Yordle-only Marathon. We could even speculate his spot on the timeline in relation to Gnar.

Thank you Riot for this, largely unnoticed, underrated and often underappreciated change.

12 Comments

Darrosh Jewfist12/26/2017, 5:27:03 PM7 votes

Riot's solution was actually quite genius. His current lore, to settle the argument, is to take the argument out of our hands. Amumu's story is now a myth within Runeterra itself - so ancient that not even the Runeterrans themselves can agree on his true origin.

What does this mean for us, the players? We get to believe what we want and nobody can tell us otherwise. We can throw him in with the likes of Azir and Renekton.

This is actually pretty clever, when used moderately. The problem is, this is how most of the new champions are now. Most are so mythological, they literally cannot be understood of comprehended (official Riot opinion on Bard specifically). So you end up with a bunch of mythological/god beings like Evelyn, Tahm Kench, Kalista, Kindred, Aurelion Sol who have really distinct personalities, 'meh-out-of-nowhere origins' behind them because they're all essentially "hurr hurr, godlike being here"

This is like, a modification of the "dark and mysterious" past people joke about.

Like, even Jinx, a decidedly human character isn't safe from this whole 'myths and rumors/dark mysterious past' sheningans.

No one knows for sure exactly where Jinx came from, but many urban legends and folktales have sprung up around her. Some have her as a young gang member who fell in with the wrong crowd and was either traumatized by one too many killings, suffered too much at the hands of an enemy or was simply driven insane by sump fumes. A few of the old timers in Zaun remember a young girl who might fit Jinx’s description, but the girl they speak of is a far cry from the one who became Piltover’s bane. This girl was sweet and innocent, a tinkerer with big ideas, who never quite fit in and came to a bad end. Some even whisper that Jinx isn’t even human, that she is some kind of avenging spirit of mayhem, come to wreak havoc upon Piltover in revenge for the thousands who died when Zaun sank into the earth.

Ebonmaw Dragon12/26/2017, 4:59:26 PM1 votes

I know that this may get downvotes from the ones that think that Amumu is a human but... I think that its pretty clear that Amumu is a Yordle Boy considering the magic that the yordles have: They are seen as humans by humans, due that it makes sense that people from Runeterra thinks that he is a human, because most of them see Amumu as a human being even if he is actually a yordle.

Just look at the lore of Poppy, Tristana, Kled and the comic of Ziggs and Jinx... In all of those stories they are seen as humans at first, but in the end they are seen as yordles, just like the lore of Amumu does.

... and the fact that he has 4 fingers like all the yordles is hard to ignore.

Tesla Effect12/26/2017, 5:58:16 PM1 votes

Amumu is now a Yordle, same for Fizz.

TerraRising12/27/2017, 2:47:11 AM1 votes

From what I was told, the story itself was a compromise between Yordle & Child factions within Riot's Narrative Department and had nothing to do with the community.

It was also written and released in 2014.

MF is my Waifu12/27/2017, 3:38:11 AM1 votes

One thing's for sure.

He still has one of the best ultimates in the fucking game.