New Demacian Short Story on Universe

Demacia's hate towards magic is so unreasonable that it's becoming comical. Honest to god, I can't take these stories seriously anymore. They're all the same: "Oh, look at how misguided and narrow-minded Demacians are! You see how magic can be used for good? Well, their fanatism is so overbearing that they can't, so they try to eradicate it despite all the negative consequences deriving from that course of action! Isn't that an interesting story?". No, it no longer isn't. It just makes me want to laugh at their stupidity now. Is this what the writers want?

It's not a badly written story. I'm not a fan of the story itself though. he story repeats several themes I've noticed in the overwhelming vast majority of League's short stories.

(1) Someone dies tragically - I'm not really a fan of this because it happens too much. People die left and right in many of these short stories. It doesn't raise the stakes for me.

(2) They speak in an old-time-y vernacular

This line stood out to me:

“These are hillfolk. They’ll put a spear in you before you get within twenty paces of their door.”

I get what they're trying to do but it doesn't work for me. I think one of the reasons GoT (TV series) is that GRRM's dialogue in his books were really excessively over-the-top. This writing reminds me of it where it's this very medieval-Shakespeare-like kind of snark but it still feels rigid and formal. Hell, given we have champion VOs where the bulk of the Demacia champions talk pretty normally makes dialogue like this seem even more out of place. I'm not a fan of it.

In a lot of ways, this is similar to that Freljord story... Eye of the Abyss? 3 People go on a quest and one of them dies due to magic infection. Then one returns and realizes something something about the world. Oh, they're also told from the POV of the youngest member of the 3-person band. They're also working for effectively a cult organization doing a routine but dangerous mission that goes wrong... the one that dies happens to be the one with the closest/friendliest relationship to the protagonist...

I thought the world building was cool. Demacia being a society of basically state-sanctioned witch hunters. I liked seeing Demacia as a very lawful society that follows their rules to the letter. It's a lot more tangible than Ionia (BALANCE! HARMONY!) and less hypocritical than Noxus (they're a meritocracy but they have noble houses...? Is this some kind of Napoleonic blood and merit thing?). It's also cool to see Demacia doesn't have a third amendment and common folk are forced to billet/quarter troops in their homes. That's really neat to me that the institutions exist and shows how they affect the daily lives of citizens outside of "we're here to FUCK YOUR SHIT UP!"

Huh. I really like Sylas' character.

Even if he has matured since the happenings of this story, I'd still be very interested to see him as our next new champion, and more importantly as the locked-away character (that is the new champ), over any other theory I've seen or thought of so far following the Roadmap.

-_-

ANYWAYS, to add to the excitement, the writer of Demacian Heart, Phillip Vargas, teased on Twitter that he also worked on an upcoming cinematic of sort!

Source:

https://twitter.com/phillip_vargas/status/1078766154968031232

Considering he worked on Demacian Heart and his previous works include many champion teasers (cinematics and short stories alike), and IF Demacian Heart is teasing our next new champion, then it's a safe guess that they're also getting a cinematic teaser/promotional material!

I'm excited! :D

Is it another story about mage oppression?

We're back to Demacia? Thank you so much, Rito!

What exactly is the boy's power? I know he can see auras, but he can channel someone else's magic?