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Am I the only one who doesn't enjoy the Targon lore?

Auryiel·3/11/2016, 6:58:43 PM·18 votes·1,668 views

Not gonna lie, this storyline makes me really sad.

I feel like this Targon story just does not belong in Runeterra. It doesn't connect to anything at all in the world, despite the fact that it has the potential to completely destroy Runeterra has a whole. I mean wtf are Demacia and Noxus going to do against cosmic entities that wield the power to destroy stars and endless armies of voidborn? Nothing. They'll just get crushed.

**Everything else in the lore right now feels so god damn inconsequential. **

The Frozen Watchers? Bah, who cares, Aurelion would just blast those fuckers away in half a second. There goes Lissandra's plans of world domination. The Black Mist? Wait, why do we care about Bilgewater again? It's just a small island. It doesn't compare to this epic space opera that's between going on for millennia. The eventual cataclysmic confrontation between Azir and Xerath? Those Ascended beings are nothing more than candles to Aurelion's super nova. Bard? A minor player in the grand scheme of things. Demacia versus Noxus? The petty squabble of two mortal empires, destined to be forgotten in time. The Darkin? Merely natives to Runeterra who have achieved some form of immortality. Ultimately, they do not matter.

This story makes me feel like it's all about Targon now.

Nothing else matters nearly as much as THAT. Nothing CAN matter as much as that because the stakes are so high, the power level of all the entities involved is so out of this world. I mean, hell, it's not even Runeterra that's at stake. It's a whole freakin' SPACE EMPIRE. The Aspects, beings of great power, are merely infused with a sliver of power from mysterious individuals (or collectives, we don't even know that much) that are far, far away and barely give a fuck about Runeterra. Targon wages a war against the Void, who are now clearly the ultimate enemy, the only threat we should REALLY care about.

Reading the Targon storyline, I feel so disconnected from everything else. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but am I really the only one who feels like it doesn't belong in Runeterra? Everything about it just trumps every other damn story that's ever been told :\

Before that, I felt like there were many forces at work within the world of Runeterra, forces that could challenge each other. The main human factions could have a shot at dealing with the Shadow Isles should they ever grow out of control, but that would be an epic fight. Or... imagine a showdown between the Shadow Isles and Lissandra's victorious Frostborn army! Imagine the reaction of the major human factions as the ancient empire of Shurima rises from the sands of the desert, led by a divine emperor bent on forcing others to bask in his glory. What if the Void (whose actual threat level had never been clearly established before) invaded Runeterra. Imagine the glorious chaos, the devastating wars, the uneasy alliances, the betrayals... Now, we know that if the Void does invade, there is only one faction, Targon, who can deal with them. Everyone else is just canon fodder.

I dunno, maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion but I feel like Star Wars universe just collided with Warcraft's. Why the fuck do I care about the Lich King when there's thousands of worlds at war at the same time?

22 Comments

LordHippoman3/11/2016, 9:51:47 PM9 votes

It's a layers thing.

Aurelion Sol has kinda been perceived as this whole "Champions are on a whole new level of powerful now" thing, which is fair, but Cho'gath has been, canonically, pretty much able to destroy Runeterra by himself if he feels like it ("The Terror of the Void knows what fate it would choose for Runeterra, given half the chance. Woe betides the day when Cho'Gath grows weary of the League.), but he's just not done it, since Season 0. Aurelion is really in the same spot, but his Lore is more fleshed out and his design more imposing that he just seems like so much of a step up on the strength scale.

And that's not even mentioning that a recent champ is literally Death Itself.

So there are these top deck champs like Aurelion, Aatrox, Kindred, Bard, who are basically deities. But that doesn't stop the story from being interesting on levels below that. What makes Demacia versus Noxus interesting? The characters. Nobody gives a damn about Generic Noxian Goons #20-#302 fighting Generic Demacian Guys #35-#79. We care about Jarvan VS Swain, and Garen VS Kat, and Galio VS Sion. Do any of those people hold all the power in that plot? No, but it's interesting because we like the characters, and want to know how things turn out for them.

Honestly, I've always thought League's lore works best on the lower level stuff. Like, IMO, Aatrox is boring as hell because he has no real relationships or personality. He's just a military "I Win" button who broods a lot and maybe he's a sword or whatever. I'm way more interested in stuff like Bilgewater because Miss Fortune, Gangplank, and Illaoi are characters who interact, they have relationships, they work toward a story. There was way more personality in Rafen, Miss Fortune's buddy from Shadow and Fortune than most champs.

So yeah, Aurelion Sol's whole thing with "Surprise, the Targonians are from SPACE" is a little out there (Although not something old timey Lore fans aren't used to, there were a whopping SIX champions who were just "from space" (Taric, Morgana, Kayle, Renekton, Nasus, Malphite)), but as long as it just forms another layer and isn't completely taking over the plot, I'm fine with it. And I doubt it will, because these events tend to go by. Sure, we had a few weeks of pure Freljord, pure Shurima, pure Bilgewater, etc., but now that's passed and those locations are just better fleshed out parts of the main world.

So I mean TL;DR because holy shit I'm long winded:

I definitely get your concern here, but I don't think it's anything too drastically different from what we have with Lore Mode Cho'Gath and Kindred running around, and as long as the story doesn't entirely focus on it, I think the rest of it will be just fine. It's more adding a new layer to things than rebuilding from the ground up.

Valaran Nara3/11/2016, 7:12:31 PM3 votes

While everything could connect into a bigger plot, not everybody is equipped to handle everything else.

You do not defeat the Harrowing. You survive it. There was only one person who was shown to defeat the Harrowing, and that was Illaoi who is a priestess (therefore specializes in dealing with undead) and also had the power of her idol to help her channel energy. Even then it took a lot of prep work and a very long time to get that thing rolling to save everyone.

There are multiple tiers of power and levels. Even in the DC and Marvel universes there are heroes and villains who, at their power class can rival and darn near put each other out if things work right. Then you have the other power tier of heros and villains who could potentially squash them but don't.

Remember, there is a Galactus, a Doomsday, and a plethora of other world and galaxy destroyers, yet only a select few supers could potentially 1 v 1. And even then, if others show up, they bring an entire team or army to fight the enemy off.

I mean, if you want to go ahead and say Targon trumps everyone purely because of the power tier that this whole debacle is based on, by all means go ahead; however, that doesn't make any other story lesser. After all, there was an issue of Batman where Bats caught Dick Grayson (Robin I) doing drugs.

http://cdn.hexjam.com/editorial_service/bases/images/000/004/184/xlarge/batmanslapsrobinfeature.png.jpg

And yes. That was the one that started the slapper meme. Glorious, really.

OurLestrade3/11/2016, 10:02:38 PM3 votes

I'm not enjoying it too much so far, but the full thing isn't out yet so we can still hope. Pantheon's story feels like something out of a generic hack and slash, not fond of the direction they're taking Diana (I've always seen her as someone who was pushed too far by her society, but now she's just Batman), Leona is... Leona... And yeah. Also, is it me or is the new lore in general going WAY overboard with death everywhere? There's like a fifty death quota for every story! I loved the Bilgewater event, but it was the same there :O

RookPusher3/11/2016, 7:02:52 PM2 votes

Well, I'll be honest, I read to AS blasting away the watchers and then I stopped. I think these creatures coming out who are world-destroyers, or god-wielding juggernauts its pretty dumb. If that champ eats worlds, why can Heimerdingers turret annihilate him?

AlwaysByMySide3/12/2016, 6:57:18 AM2 votes

Also, OP, you're exactly right.

There is no reason to be invested in MF's story, or in any story but Targon's. It so utterly dwarfs everything else in scale that it's absurd.

JackMcSnipeyz3/12/2016, 2:26:59 PM2 votes

Thats like saying that our lives dont matter because there is a possible god that is all powerfull and unmatched (if you're religious, i myself not)

There are layers to stories, not everything has to be the center, and taragon isnt the center. Does grave's and TF's stories not matter because of the shadow isles story? No doubt the shadow isles are much stronger. No, its a different story, a different layer, not everything is gonna be equal and fair, thats what makes runterra a much more identifiable world, it's a living place, some stories have bigger impact on the world, some not.

Besides, im sure that even if aurelion sol would be set free he wouldnt care about runterra anymore than he cares about other planets, so runterra center'd conflicts do still have meanings and weight, just not on ALL the characters.

Cetri3/13/2016, 7:42:37 PM1 votes

I never really understood how just because one thing is on a grander scale than another, the other thing is somehow not worth caring about? By that logic all we as a society should care about is politics and the economy.

Bultz3/11/2016, 7:57:54 PM1 votes

You're whining a bit much. I mean consider yourself. Your one tiny person, on one spec of a planet, in a barely out of diaper solar system, in a tiny galaxy in a universe filled with millions of galaxies maybe trillions of billions who knows. How important do you think you are in the grand scheme? Someone always has to be stronger, bigger, higher up. It's just how things are. Yes there are powerful creatures, but look at what the aspects did to Aurelion Sol, they, tiny beings compared to him, control him now. Yes things are going on a bigger scale, but how much do you think about lore when you play? You don't you focus on playing. Enjoy what riot did for us. An amazing unique champion. It's really cool. No, the people of the planet might not be anything compared to AS, but so what? He doesn't care about them, he just wants his freedom.

MasqureMan3/11/2016, 7:28:54 PM1 votes

{quoted}

Not gonna lie, this storyline makes me really sad.

I feel like this Targon story just does not belong in Runeterra. It doesn't connect to anything at all in the world, despite the fact that it has the potential to completely destroy Runeterra has a whole. I mean wtf are Demacia and Noxus going to do against cosmic entities that wield the power to destroy stars and endless armies of voidborn? Nothing. They'll just get crushed.

**Everything else in the lore right now feels so god damn inconsequential. **

The Frozen Watchers? Bah, who cares, Aurelion would just blast those fuckers away in half a second. There goes Lissandra's plans of world domination. The Black Mist? Wait, why do we care about Bilgewater again? It's just a small island. It doesn't compare to this epic space opera that's between going on for millennia. The eventual cataclysmic confrontation between Azir and Xerath? Those Ascended beings are nothing more than candles to Aurelion's super nova. Bard? A minor player in the grand scheme of things. Demacia versus Noxus? The petty squabble of two mortal empires, destined to be forgotten in time. The Darkin? Merely natives to Runeterra who have achieved some form of immortality. Ultimately, they do not matter.

This story makes me feel like it's all about Targon now.

Nothing else matters nearly as much as THAT. Nothing CAN matter as much as that because the stakes are so high, the power level of all the entities involved is so out of this world. I mean, hell, it's not even Runeterra that's at stake. It's a whole freakin' SPACE EMPIRE. The Aspects, beings of great power, are merely infused with a sliver of power from mysterious individuals (or collectives, we don't even know that much) that are far, far away and barely give a fuck about Runeterra. Targon wages a war against the Void, who are now clearly the ultimate enemy, the only threat we should REALLY care about.

Reading the Targon storyline, I feel so disconnected from everything else. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but am I really the only one who feels like it doesn't belong in Runeterra? Everything about it just trumps every other damn story that's ever been told :\

Before that, I felt like there were many forces at work within the world of Runeterra, forces that could challenge each other. The main human factions could have a shot at dealing with the Shadow Isles should they ever grow out of control, but that would be an epic fight. Or... imagine a showdown between the Shadow Isles and Lissandra's victorious Frostborn army! Imagine the reaction of the major human factions as the ancient empire of Shurima rises from the sands of the desert, led by a divine emperor bent on forcing others to bask in his glory. What if the Void (whose actual threat level had never been clearly established before) invaded Runeterra. Imagine the glorious chaos, the devastating wars, the uneasy alliances, the betrayals... Now, we know that if the Void does invade, there is only one faction, Targon, who can deal with them. Everyone else is just canon fodder.

I dunno, maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion but I feel like Star Wars universe just collided with Warcraft's. Why the fuck do I care about the Lich King when there's thousands of worlds at war at the same time?

Why do we live life at all when when nukes could blow everything up? Did you know China is creating their own mini sun as we speak? Doesn't that make your life inconsequential?

Just like we have to deal with larger than life things and their potential consequences, so would people on Runeterra. They'll keep living their lives and they will continue to be interesting because its their life and that's all they can do. Runeterra is clearly important to many forces and a lot of powers collide there. You have the Shadow Isles, and what would they think of the void? How would the two interact? We don't know. Would Aurelion or Targonians have a problem with the Shadow Isles?

What you're saying of the void is untrue. Many forces could deal with those voidlings, though we don't know how many could close the rifts, and even the Targonians couldn't do that (they needed Sol to do it). You're taking this too seriously, but who can blame you, you just witnessed the might of Aurelion Sol.