Yet another discussion on Evelynn

LunSeiSleidee·9/24/2017, 12:37:42 PM·5 votes·1,268 views

First off, I am glad that they actually tried to give a bit of variety to her face. She no longer looks identical and indistinguishable to Elise. I can see the little differences - they are there even if small.

I am not a fan of the trope of the evil temptress. It associates female sexuality with evil and treachery and permeates the stereotype that sexually open women are evil while "pure" girls are good. They even called her Eve just to drive the point across. In light of this, one may even welcome Ms Fortune's design because she is still a femme fatale but at least she is not evil or using her sexuality to manipulate men.

Besides, this is the second evil temptress trope as we already had Elise before. I wish Elise had a motherhood theme instead, but sadly her spiderlings are a random gameplay mechanic and her theme is the evil seductress, just like Evelynn.

With that out of the way: I can actually have fun playing an evil sexy woman. I am a straight woman, so I would not appreciate Evelynn because she is hot, but I could appreciate Evelynn because her dominating sexuality can be seen as empowering in some ways.

If future female Champions keep the variety League has been having in recent years, I do not mind a sexy babe every once in a while.

37 Comments

Fasmodey9/24/2017, 1:01:11 PM5 votes

MF actually uses/used her sexuality to manipulate men and reach her goals. :p

AbiwonKenabi9/24/2017, 7:38:17 PM4 votes

Let me set the record straight: Evelynn was the evil seductress long before Elise even existed. Seeing as this is a rework and not a new champion it would be incorrect to rework Evelynn into anything other than what she already was.

Second, Elise is not an evil seductress. She lures people to offer to the Spider God, but she doesn't use her looks or charms, rather she gets them to willingly come through their dedication to the Black Rose (in the old lore, I think she had a cult, which I think is cooler, but the statement still stands, she does NOT seduce people sexually).

Third, while I think League is over saturated with femme fatales, very few of them openly use sexuality, and the ones that do are all very different. I already mentioned Elise and how she near worships and serves a Spider God. MF seduces men, but it's usually a means to an end, she's more interested in her political goals; she's not actually a flirt, she actually seems rather serious in her recent lore, but she's not going to waste a good resource(how she would see it) like her sex appeal. Evelynn is the closest to a traditional "seductress" trope. And Ahri has a morality issue: she seduces men and sucks up their life essence to become human, but the more human she becomes, the more she feels bad about it, making her much less evil than initially thought. Of the 4 ladies I mentioned, only really two of them are considered truly evil, and one of those two has a somewhat sympathetic backstory, the other I don't think is human. I would consider all of them powerful in their own way.

Sexuality is actually not explored that much in League of Legends. There are a bunch of female Champions that could easily fall under "femme fatale" but for most of them, sexuality is basically non-existent. Katarina looks hot but does NOT use sexuality, only her skill with knives and her primary motivation revolves around her father and her family in general. Fiora is hot, but actively refuses to marry and duels everyone she can to prove her power, again only caring about the family status. Vayne is attractive, but she studied dark creatures and how to put an end to them, becoming a vigilante, all motivated by her parents' deaths. Zyra is a plant that has taken a human form for survival, not even technically a woman. These and more are women in the game that are very voluptuous and good-looking but sexuality plays zero role in their lives. This may just have been Riot's early design patterns, where most women were pretty conventionally attractive no matter their background, but there are Champs like Lissandra, Jinx, Illaoi, arguably Irelia and Lux, none of which are strictly conventionally attractive, so I think the variety in appearance is increasing and that's good.

Discussions like this are fine to have, but honestly female champs in League are becoming less of an issue. They're getting better about providing face and body variety and for the most part aren't giving in to iffy tropes like the "femme fatale" or any other variety of sexualizing or damseling. The women in League have always been powerful in their own right, and less emphasis is being put on their appearance. Tropes are tools not rules, and I think Riot is getting that with this new Evelynn re-imagining. It's ok to make a character based around an archetype, it's not ok to make a character who is nothing BUT an archetype, and Riot is doing a good job avoiding those pitfalls as far as female Champs are concerned.

As I finish writing this, I realized we JUST got Xayah not that long ago, probably the most sexually open Champ since ole Evelynn herself. If you play her by herself, she's not very sexual, she's only sexually open with her partner, Rakan, which makes perfect sense. And while I don't personally like Xayah as a character (not that she's a bad character, just that I disagree with her mentality as a person) her relationship with Rakan is something I think we can all admire, and Riot presents it as something desirable. If that's not a solid example of "good female sexuality" I don't know what is.

Heck, even Illaoi is open about how she had a fling with Gangplank. I don't think there's anything on Runeterra that could shame that woman.

Felaze9/24/2017, 4:45:48 PM3 votes

I have no clue as to why you have so many downvotes- but I do know that I agree with you on basically every aspect of this post. As an artist, I think the direction they’ve taken Evelynn is MUCH more in line with what she should have been from the beginning. I think a lot about her can be seen as empowering, but leave it to straight men to try to mansplain why some other character is more empowering. She’s sexy, and she’s dangerous, and, unlike Widowmaker from Overwatch, her design totally makes sense! I think that Riot really nailed her on the head.

Umbral Regent9/24/2017, 1:28:07 PM2 votes

but I could appreciate Evelynn because her dominating sexuality can be seen as empowering in some ways.

If you feel empowered by getting off on murdering people, you might want to get a psychological evaluation IMO.

If you want a good example of a female Champion with empowering sexuality, I recommend you look at Illaoi. She's a hedonist, and much to the pleasure of her god Nagakabouros, she enjoys life (including love), completely ignorant to anyone else's viewpoints. She is openly sexual, not an evil temptress, and is really, really just living empowerment on all fronts.


As an aside, in my personal opinion, I can't really imagine Elise (or any similar Champions) having a "motherhood" theme, though if there were to be any Champions with such a theme, they'd either be a Support, or more a "force of nature" theme than "motherhood".

S92nB9/24/2017, 12:46:27 PM1 votes

Geez. MF and Janna are also openly sexual. Ahri too and she isnt even evil. Sorry that there are evil girls in this game.

Toppien9/25/2017, 2:41:17 PM1 votes

have you seen lux? lux is pure evil but acts like a pure goodie goodie girl

Blood Magicks9/24/2017, 12:55:57 PM1 votes

Riot has long given up on toning down female fanservice champs because it's a bad marketing strategy to do so.

There are actually three, maybe more female dangerous/evil seductress champions and they provide a consistent frow of revenue and get a consistent flow of content and updates.

If I know recent Riot well, they will attempt to even the scales not by neglecting fanservice for male nerds, but upping fanservice for female ones.

Craft Zeppelin9/24/2017, 1:14:59 PM1 votes

Syndra could HARDLY be in contact with anyone with her flying castle. Yet she has that outrageous outfit.

Cavemantero9/24/2017, 2:40:03 PM1 votes

Who cares really..they're getting rid of Evelynn the 'Mystique' champ and replacing her with a Succubus they're calling 'Evelynn'. There's no reason not to make a new champion and keep Evelynn and actually giver her a rework rather than a replacement. They did the same thing with Galio...completely changed the kit, playstyle, and identity...and they're basically doing it again. I'm sorry...keeping hate spike is not good enough to warrant this as a rework. I don't even play Evelynn...I just know Rito's taking a poor direction here.