Is riot's lore design philosophy toxic?
A clickbait title, I know, but the point I'd like to make is pretty important. Riot's new lore team has been at work for a while, and though we certainly haven't seen as much as we were hoping since the big announcement (you know the one) I think we have seen enough to form an opinion of their methodology. I don't like it. I know that's quite aggressive, but I'm better off not mincing words and simply explaining my point as clearly as I can
So far Riot's lore team has approached handling existing characters in a very consistent way, tear down everything currently there and start over from scratch. Major pre-existing plot points may be worked in again, but will generally have little to do with the original. The results will be a character that seems superficially similar, but has a fundamentally different persona. This is most troubling because at the outset of THAT announcement (you know the one) riot stated that the new lore would be approached with respect to the old, that it would be essentially the same, simple without the league. This has unfortunately proven false, as a great deal of new characters have been changed quite considerably. I'd like to give a quick rundown of some of the reworked characters and how they've been changed.
Gangplank- previously, tough, dangerous and resourceful. He took his father's ship and served as the prototypical bilgewater man, who succeeded with force as much as guile and charisma. Although originally ruthless enough to execute his own men for perceived incompetence, gangplank's dealings with miss fortune had softened him up, giving him a less brutal disposition. This is something that actually happened in game and in lore, something the new lore team either ignored or simply didn't know about. New gangplank is essentially a completely different person. A haggard old sea dog who rules bilgewater with an iron fist and who has no compunctions with executing anyone who displeases him.
Miss Fortune- previously miss fortune served as a counter point to Gangplank. An elaine marley to GP's lechuck. She was a diplomatic character who wanted to steer bilgewater in a more cosmopolitan direction. Her parents had been killed by a mad dog pirate who was almost explicitly stated to NOT be gangplank. Sarah was well known for successfully completing just as many bounties with charm as force and had the air of someone who was level headed and always in control. The new miss fortune, although superficially similar, stands in much poorer light. Unlike the old, who had bilgewater's best interests in mind, the new sarah is willing to burn the islands to the ground and murder who knows how many to settle a grudge against a single person. Where the old miss fortune resolved problems with a wink and a smile because she saw the elegance of the high road, the new one is duplicitous and simply puts on a persona to hide from those she's too weak to confront. Perhaps most damning about the new miss fortune is that she spends years, it's implied roughly a decade, maybe more, planning and plotting against gangplank. Her grand scheme? A bomb. A bomb that doesn't even kill him. Her great character moment is a crowning moment of incompetence. Gone is the cool and in control bounty hunter, instead we get a skulking mad dog killer.
Fiora- previously Fiora was hot headed and determined to prove that she was indeed the greatest to wield a sword in all of runeterra. Her father's scandal infuriated her because it made everyone question the legitimacy of her skills. The new fiora seems to be little more than a politician, navigating her family to higher standing by dispassionately murdering people. Gone is any desire for a worthy opponent.
That's just a few of the characters with new long lores. So much can be said about characters like renekton, nasus, skarner, and even the world of runeterra on the whole, which have had their fundamental tenets torn away with nothing to build them back up with.
Once again returning to the title of this post, riot's lore team, like any other, follows a design philosophy. It's been mentioned before, and though we don't actually know what it is, we can presume everything they've done so far has been within the parameters or at least guided by it. I'd like to state firmly that it is the wrong design philosophy to use when handling the existing story and characters of an established franchise. When you "reset" the story of something, you not only devalue the investment that the fans put into the franchise, but you devalue any future investment. Your story means less when it's been established that it can at any time be replaced. I think it's well past time that riot stopped pretending they're a small indie company with a game that's still under construction. League of legends is a multi million dollar property, and they can't take such a slipshod tact with it. You can undo a bad kit rework, you can't undo a bad character background.
