I'm disappointed with Riot's portayal of LGBT+ characters.

When I heard the announcement today about Varus's lore change, I was excited. Finally, after eight years of hardly any minority representation whatsoever, Riot had announced a gay character. When I began to study the actual material, however, my excitement shifted to disillusioned disappointment. Not only was Varus not gay, but his lore reflected the stereotypical tragedy and horror tropes which have plagued the LGBT+ community for as long as queer people have appeared in modern media. Instead of being gay, the in-game character was born out of the desperate attempts of one gay man to save his dying lover only to be met with bodily destruction and possession by a Darkin spirit. Varus was not only born from the deaths of two gay men, but also made to embody a nefarious entity with the souls of the lovers within him. In one move, Riot killed their first canonically gay characters and turned them into a villain.

This kind of portrayal is a systemic issue with which many queer people have struggled. Individuals often look to media for representations of individuals who are like them. For the LGBT+ community, this representation is too often either victims or villains. Though I'm sure it's not intentional, the message being conveyed through this character is one which is harmful. Much like the way the portrayal of scantily-clad women with impossible figures contributes to eating disorders and self-image issues in women, inaccurate stereotypes of queer individuals damages their perceptions of themselves.

I've been following the lore of League of Legends for a long time. For years, there have been whispers and rumors of allegedly non-heterosexual or cisgender characters. From Taric and Ezreal to the queer-baiting of Star Guardian Lux and Jinx, I've held my breath. Even when I read Zoe's lore, I was excited—she was checking out both boys and girls. Once I got to play her in game, though, I felt confused. She had lines which were ambiguously bisexual when interacting with women yet explicitly heterosexual when discussing men. Perhaps I was reading too much into it, though, so despite my disappointment, I continued my wait only to be greeted with dead gay men who were possessed and turned into a villain.

I hope Riot makes wiser choices in the future when designing characters who are potentially LGBT+. Such decisions have a greater impact than is perhaps realized. From someone who has spent an extensive amount of time working on behalf of and with the LGBT+ community, please put more consideration into your character design.