I'm hoping that won't be the case as that'll become repetitive. Not that grim-dark is bad, but using it too much gets stagnant. Either that or it makes Runeterra feel like a Crapsack World.
GreenLore22 votesI doubt that everyone will be grim dark.
might be violent,but his lore actually had a pretty light tone to it,
was also far from dark and 
s for example was not "grim-dark" as well.
And then there is 
who has most likely the funniest lore out of all the updated lores.
Marshbouy11 votesRammus' entire lore in about 20 seconds Rammus was there. He did some heroic shit without really trying to. He said "ok" and kept rolling.
Blue Moon Wolf3 votesDon't forget people practically worshiping him for said heroic shit that he likely wasn't even meaning to do in the first place.
Marshbouy2 votesentire nations hailing him as some magical savior "ok"
PhantomGG17 votesTo be fair Runeterra isn't exactly a happy place
We have a kingdom that went from perfect sanctuary to hell on earth, so any champion who comes from that place will have some darkness to the pass. 
We have another kingdom which is basically a more dark and sinister sparta with some secret spy mage order, aka noxus, so you can expect them to be war hungry, or dark edge lords 
We have another kingdom that was completely ruined by said kingdom, with citizens whose lives were forever changed by war. 
THAN WE HAVE ONE KINGDOM WITH A TRIBE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE ONTOP OF A FREAKEN MOUTNAIN DEDICATED TO WAR which was also filled with racist biggots who kill you if you don't worship the sun 
So what is the league world? it's a planet consumed with war and destruction, so is it really such a surprise that most the champions have sad pasts?
Hell, what are they called? Champions, not heroes, CHAMPIONS
Champions are people who were tested with hardship and saddening pasts but were able to over come it to become a inspiration to those around them, a champion.
Succubús GF1 votesDont forget a city where people try to live in harmony but it always gets ruined 
A forest 
(
?) 
And just flat out psychoes 
PokladnicaZla1 votesNot to forget the Void and also,how could the place be happy when they have Teemo?!
OurLestrade8 votesThe lore rework's generally trying to be edgy for the most part, which I've found to be more silly than anything else. When people are dying 24/7 it loses its impact, you know?
darkdill2 votesYeah. Reminds me of Berserk. No light at the end of a tunnel that you don't suspect is another Apostle trying to eat you.
Ralanr1 votesIdk man, they've been pretty happy with finally reaching the island.
It'll probably burn down. But whateves.
crippler381 votesthey'll prolly at least get caska to think properly since she was such a good character, then probably have her hate guts or sumtin.
Ralanr1 votesProbably gonna delve into the whole, "Does she want to remember?" aspect.
crippler381 votesmy money's closer to the 'restore her sanity but block those bad memories' bit, elves should be able to do that.
Then later on she remembers and gets guts levels of pissed.
Veltox13 votesYou can't expect people to live long on a realm where Undead,mutants and death himself walk free.
Blue Moon Wolf1 votesdeath themselves
Lord Boltrix1 votesNo, death HIMself.
Death is the best CC.
Beyond Legends6 votesWhats is grim dark exactly? That term gets thrown around so much it lost it's meaning at this point.
I'm curious as what is not grim dark at this point? Is dark and sadness grimdark? Or the lack of the hero good guy figure grimdark? Or is it that the world itself doesn't have this hopeful future that makes it grimdark? Really can some one explain to me what grim dark is at this point.
darkdill3 votesThe bit of "world doesn't have a hopeful future".
Beyond Legends8 votesSo realism is grim dark? I mean if you pay attention on how our world works then by your logic that is consider grim dark? Wouldn't just be more acurate if you say you want your fantasy to not be realistic?
Ralanr3 votesWell shit you got a point.
Beyond Legends6 votesOf course I got a point, I'm pointy because I'm a toxic syringe.
Jokes aside, I find it bizzare how people seem to confuse dark and edgy with realism. Maybe the over abundance of unrealistic media has messed with people perseption of things. I think people are not use to stories without a clear hero or good side. People inject their idea of perfect morals so much into characters that they would immediately bash anything that challenged it.
I seen this way too many characters and it's almost scary how much they resemble hadcore religious people.
Valaran Nara1 votes[{quoted}](name=Beyond Legends,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=EXoHsvEt,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2016-09-22T22:03:04.648+0000)
So realism is grim dark? I mean if you pay attention on how our world works then by your logic that is consider grim dark? Wouldn't just be more acurate if you say you want your fantasy to not be realistic?
I use to Roleplay a lot on a different site. When people make their characters, they tend to go for the "tragedy". A character's past is usually sad, and you won't believe how many orphans roam the streets in these RPs. (No, really. When you have a bunch of teenagers making characters and writing stories, the parents are usually dead or the character ran off and they never saw their folks again.)
So, dark or tragic. Okay, your parents died in a car accident. Sad.
Your parents died right before your eyes as a monster ripped them to shreds (grim-dark).
Dark is when it's sad or tragic. Grim-dark is when it gets SUPER dark and the tragedy is at the point where that moment honestly is what dictates their entire lives.
Example, Batman has a grim-dark backstory. Superman lost his parents and planet, but the thing is, it's not AS bad because that wasn't the decided factor on how he lives. His earth family is. What would make that planet explosion grim-dark is how in-depth with the tragedy that it is being written. If you look at it loosely, it's sad. If you go into detail about the cracks of the planet's crust, the collapse of the building, actually EXPLAIN THE SHEER NUMBER OF DEATHS, tha'ts when it gets grimdark.
It's mostly a "bloodshed and violence" for the sake of bloodshed and violence.
Ralanr1 votesYou know, I like having tragic backstories, but only if the conclusion of the character is satisfying. Like how I imagine the best ending for Sion is if he finally dies and stays dead.
Valaran Nara1 votesYou know, I like having tragic backstories, but only if the conclusion of the character is satisfying. Like how I imagine the best ending for Sion is if he finally dies and stays dead.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the example I gave you was "tragic for the sake of tragic." I was in one RP where all characters but save 2 had dead parents. The simple fact that the parents were dead wasn't relevent to the main story. Just individual backgrounds. Dead parents are used to
1.) Give them something sad 2.) Give them a reason why they're 15 and not at home with mom and/or dad.
If my character has dead parents, it's either because they outlived them (unnatural human lifespan) or the character is on their way to death as well (being hunted down to get slaughtered). Otherwise, ma and pa are alive and well.
Succubús GF1 votesGrim dark is being built out of remorse for a dead daughter.
Grim dark is being cast out by a whole society for proving them wrong and then being forced to slaughter the majority of them
Grim dark is losing both her parents (brutally, i might add )
Shall i continue?
Beyond Legends1 votes...isn't that isn't just tragic? I thought grim dark is suppose to be darker. I mean if “that” is your definition of grim dark I don't even want to show you some my reading list.
Succubús GF1 votesI mean im definitely not squeamish and it could definitely be worse, but i mean, imagine your parents slowly dying away before your eyes, that seems more than "tragic"
Beyond Legends1 votesDark maybe but grim dark not even close. I'm mean unless you literally watch your family get tear open with a butterfly knife, totured then have their corpse decimated, I don't think it deserve the title of grim dark. As an edgelord people here are offending me with their missuse of the term.
Ethereal3112 voteshttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkerAndEdgier?from=Main.GrimDark Grimdark is on the farthest point of the Darker and Edgier Spectrum. Furthermore, it's a tone shift, so as soon as the shift halts, the work(s) are squared up on the scale between light and total darkness in tone. LoL lore is definitely dark, but horribly written as soon as you present it to anyone with a writing degree.
NightmareAmazoX4 votes
has the most Grim-Dark aspect to it. Kappa
GreenLore2 votesI'm sorry but no.
Her backstory is tragic,but there are some others who are far darker than hers.
I mean 
flayed a guy alive in his lore(multiple times) and that was when he was still human.
CasterGilgamesh2 votesI hope you know he was joking
GreenLore1 votesNah the joke went over my head(hate to admit it,but I'm not familiar with the whole kappa-meme)
Beyond Legends1 voteskappa
GreenLore1 votesExactly!
LordHippoman4 votesI think there's a place where it works (I didn't mind it in the Burning Tides/Shadow And Fortune stories, because Bilgewater is sort of that type of setting), but I hope they don't try to use it on champs like, say, Corki.
The League world is one that houses both a reanimated corpse propped up and stitched together on mechanical bits, in constant agony and torment (Urgot), and also a hamster man in a helicopter.
Tone is a thing that sorta fluctuates a lot around League, and I think that so long as characters maintain consistent with their individual tones, it works to create a more varied and entertaining universe.
Oleandervine2 votesI do have to admit, Ivern's personality put him in line with the lunacy that everyone loves about Discord and Pinkie Pie from My Lil Pony and the out of touch with reality we get from Lulu. I am a bit disappointed that they started off Ivern as some marauding asshole that has a come-to-Jesus with a tree. It broke the whimsy that had been built up just from his appearance and vocals and made him yet another former human saving the world.
SaltyToplaneGoat1 votesWell no one just starts off as a Jesus. That'd be lame.
He's not exactly trying to "save the world". He has had an enlightening experience, saw the errors in his ways, and only because he once was human too he can emphasise with the other humans and even have an desire to help them.
Beyond Legends1 votesIvern seem more budda than jesus. He saw the truth of the world and he seeks to both enlighten himself and others.
SaltyToplaneGoat1 votesI think the entire point is that he was human before. A very, very flawed human. So if even he can become "good", then by his logic there is hope for everybody (although.... not exactly everybody. Some people doesn't exactly give a shit about nature or collateral damage, like: 
)
Beyond Legends1 votesI agree Ivern has a very optimistic and hopeful tone to him.
Talking about Singed though I'm not exactly sure how they will do the immortality part on his new lore. I like their not making him a evil of the sake of evil character but I'm kinda worry if it will be done well.
SaltyToplaneGoat1 votesIt will still be canon that Singed was the dude to dump a load of experimental toxic waste on friend and foe alike... if this was non canon then Riven would have no lore ^^
Angry Monster2 votesSo you want a champ that has 0 struggles and just exists. Darkness is what people over come to become a legend.
maybe you should play candyland. Its random events with 0 meaning and everyone is happy...
Life can only be interesting cause of the darkness. If the darkness goes way you get the boring happily ever after.
darkdill3 votesSo Braum somehow requires something super-dark in his past? I don't see where super-dark fits into his lore.
And I don't mean zero struggles; I just don't want all said struggles to be super-dark and emo.
Angry Monster1 votesAnd I don't mean zero struggles; I just don't want all said struggles to be super-dark and emo.
All real struggles are dark. I am not sure what privileged life you lead but it has blinded you to how things are. The darkness and overcoming it defines a person real or not.
Superficial or shallow struggles make for shallow characters.
Also Emo mean EMOTIONAL which is core to being human. Emotions are what drive people to go beyond and or break us. They are what makes things interesting.
What you want is shallow characters.
Evenstar6 votesThis is utterly stupid.
"Real struggles are dark" my ass.
Get a life and realize this isn't your lore. It's the community's lore. And it's true that the fact that Riot creating every champion with a dark past is getting old. And I don't know how you came to the conclusion that the OP leads a privileged life just based on his thoughts that each subsequent league lore is getting stagnant for the fact it has a dark, twisted past.
Honestly, tell me if you expected someone like Karma to start out as some spiritual leader who consumed evil and became a malevolent figure, then she eventually found peace and became who she is now. That's silly, cheesy and just makes zero sense. Or maybe Annie should be some child who witnessed her parents' death by fire, or that she's secretly some adult stuck in a child's body plans to murder her parents, you want that kind of fucked up lore?
I'll tell you something, league has champions of different personalities and factions. You've got the good ones like Lux, Garen, to the neutral ones like Ahri, Ivern, Lulu, Kalista right down to the dead evil & twisted ones like Zed, Jhin, Syndra. There's a balance of everything, and a lore can be exciting and equally interesting to read without the need for a dark, grim past.
Beyond Legends1 votesGaren good? Hardly the case. Garen is as much of murder as Darius is.
Also in all of your disccussion you didn't specify what “dark” is. Like I'm general confuse what you considered dark anymore. I mean the term is so misused on this board so much it's offending my edgylord status.
Regaedless I don't think League is “dark” a bit more realistic and gray but no where as dark. I mean if you think League is dark than you don't even want to know my reading material. Honestly league is just slightly more realistic than Warcraft and I don't think Warcraft is dark at all.
So before downvoting like crazy plz define your terms or you end up yelling about apple and oranges.
Evenstar2 votesI'm going to assume we're not on the same page, or you're not on the same page as OP. It's pretty obvious that what the OP defines as dark & twisted is something that tends to gravitate towards change for the bad. There's really no need to define specifically. If you follow the recent lore, you'd realize that half of the new cast have some sort of conflict or inner turmoil and it's always been that way for newcomers to the point where it feels bland.
Being realistic doesn't necessarily translate to having story elements that completely changes the character's personality or outlook, nor does it mean you have to throw some life changing events that scars the character completely. Quite frankly, the only thing the lore team has going on at the moment is ridiculously long chapters of lore without a specific direction. If we look back at the old style of lore, right when summoners were still an integral part of the game, one shortly written paragraph is enough to give players a glimpse of each champions' background.
Ironically, Riot has been trying to push for the imaginative, fantasy element among players, meaning its entirely up to you to interpret whether a champion is related to another, or that a champion is secretly from some other universe. Yet, right now, we've got the narrative team trying to make champions seem much more realistic.
Whether League's lore is getting much more realistic is not my concern, but the OP has a valid point in that every subsequent introduction to the newcomers have carried a grim, dark past. The tone in which most stories were written carry that same dark, solemn tone. Once in awhile you want characters like Braum or Lux whose story is on the lighter side, Braum is really just your jovial mid age guy who became the protector of his village, and Lux is your average girl with the brains of a prodigy who happens to wield light magic.
Garen is your standard hero who met his match on the battlefield, and is still heralded as Demacia's royal guard. Whether you think Garen is the true evil or that Darius is just another Noxian fighting to defend his country isn't the focal point. However you interpret that character is entirely up to you. If you wanna dig up some silly conspiracy that Garen is plotting to take over Demacia and rage war against the rest of Valoran for world conquest is perfectly fine too. The purpose of the OP is to point out that each subsequent lore carries the same tone, and it is frankly getting very very stagnant pretty soon. In fact, none of the lore since S3 were well written imo. The flow in the use of words isn't there and it almost feels like I'm just reading a story without enjoying it. And the narrative team has equated long written stories to a quality one, which isn't quite true.
A brief, succinctly written lore in a paragraph can give you just as much insights to a character than a couple pages of stories would. And the current stories are much better off as an expansion of their lore, replacing League Judgments as an insight towards a player's champion.
So yes, not all champions have to go through the same, dark, almost monotonous narration to get to where they are. If Riot one day decides to change up Lulu's backstory by somehow changing her in to this regular teenage girl who was bullied for being outcast and one day she discovers the fae magic and got turned in to a yordle sorceress, that would be so weird and unfitting. Some characters just don't have to go through that phase of narration to be realistic. You could start off Ivern as a non-bloodthirsty individual and you'd still have a good way of introducing him to the player base.
crippler381 votesI'll have you know that braum is a mama's boy who just so happens to have been raised to be real strong, and he's the lovable idiot which makes him like a huge hulking child of friendship who wants to just help people.
He's clearly naive since even his taunts sound like he's just trying to be genuinely questioning of people or showing off his strength, clearly not good at insulting people. Plus I bet he doesn't even know how thirsty illaoi is.
