Well first of all
Yeah, I get that. Sorry if I made it seem that way, I was a little heated because this lore was the only Targon lore I have read, and I grew attached to it. Ironically I'm guilty of what I accused you of.
This is one of the most mature and self-reflective ways I've seen to continue a debate on these boards. Kudos, my good man. That said, in response to this:
but don't knock the new lore pls.
and
Those of us who like the new lore don't knock on the old lore after all.
Well, I'm gonna. There are plenty of folk who insult the old lore. And I'll insult anything that I feel deserves to be insulted. Which for the record, includes things I like. I've made no attempt to hide my preference for the old lore. But, it had its fair share of stupidity. Like, The Rite of Kor. Which I think may be the single dumbest thing Riot has ever written. It doesn't make sense on a world building level, on a societal level, and instead of making the Rakkor seem like a badass warrior people makes them look like idiots who can't figure out the basics of agricultural and economic realities. It's bad, so, so bad. It makes me wonder how it ever made it past the idea phase.
She is. She decided to spare the golden boy despite being told to kill all nonhumans on Mount Targon. The extent of what the Aspect of the Sun did was give her some knowledge and give her powers.
Which runs against what Rioters have said. The Aspects and their host bodies are on a scale where on one end the Aspect is in complete control (Pantheon) on the other the Aspect just talked with his host and gave him a power buff (Taric). The other two are somewhere between them. Currently, Leona isn't entirely herself, she's herself with a thing attached to her influencing her actions.
Now, I'm going to go with this bit, about how Leona changes over the course of the work:
Pretty sure the Solari raising her was explanation enough.
I don't think that's a good explanation. And here's why. Leona, since she was born was put in a society that emphasized "Kill all X" "Kill all X" where in this case, X is monsters. Despite this being the only society she has ever been raised by, when tasked with doing just that, she broke the standards of that society and didn't kill the monster. This is the establishing character moment for Leona. It demonstrates that her core personality trait is that she keeps her morals despite the society that she has lived in her entire life.
And, she gets rewarded for that. If anything, this action of disagreeing with the establishment allows her to live with the Solari and to be put in charge of the Ra-Horak. If anything, this should double down on her core character trait of mercy and independent mindedness.
But it doesn't. And then suddenly the next time we see her, she's totally cool with acting as an executioner, because someone was talking. That runs completely against the character she previously was. Now, in a full novel you could probably get away with that because you can take the time to write out how the various interactions shaped her to become this new character. But we're given this dramatic shift of personality after 1 paragraph. It makes her entire character feel disjointed. Which doesn't even get to the end, where she suddenly loops back around because some alien possesses her. To what extent, we're not sure, but it's definitely in there. Which makes the character we liked in the old lore only present, because it's not really her anymore. She required a "deity" to come down and force her to change her mentality. Well, if a person is only good because they're forced to because of a far more powerful entity, they're not really good.
And this isn't even getting into how completely strange her attitude toward Diana is. Here's what Targon was established as: It's a Mecca for a bunch of people seeking power. Including the Demacians and Freljordians, who by no means praise the sun. Does Leona want to execute any of them for talking about their religion? If that was the case then Targon wouldn't be much of a Mecca for long. By logic, Leona should have grown accustomed to a bunch of differing religious beliefs. But now, she's the religious executioner.
Anyway:
Leona felt her anger build with every word Diana spoke, and when the elders rejected her words and named her a blasphemer, Leona knew it would be her blade that ended the heretic’s life.
This doesn't look like daydreaming to me. It looks like she knows that the elders are going to tell her to execute her, and after what she heard she has no problem with it.
Yes, not having a problem with it, is exactly the problem I have with her character change.
Leona saw Diana’s incredulous fury at the elders’ denial, but before she could react, the white-haired girl hurled herself forward.
This here is important. It says react, not act. Meaning that she wasn't going to move on Diana unless the elders told her to explicitly. "React" implies that she would have moved to defend the elders but she wasn't given a chance to.
Yes, but what is she reacting to. Because we get from Diana's lore:
When she had finished her tale, the elders immediately denounced her as a heretic, a blasphemer and peddler of false gods. For such a heinous crime, only one punishment could suffice; death.
Leona was reacting to the denunciation of Diana as a blasphemer and therefore someone to be sentenced to death. Therefore, that's her reaction. Before she could react to what the elders were saying, then Diana did her thing. Or, it could be before she could react to try and stop Diana from lashing out. Neither of which imply that Leona wasn't going to go executioner on her ass. Leona was going to kill Diana and she was totally fine with it. Diana ended up killing the elder's before Leona was given the official order, or before Leona could react to Diana's power. Neither of which really make Leona fit anywhere near a morally good character.
Actually, it just makes her look like she's kind of bad at being a guard. (I'm joking here, I doubt she'd have been able to do anything against an Aspect even if she could react fast enough)
But regardless, that's still setting up a pretty repulsive character.
Now from that point, then her motivations make sense and fit. Wanting to kill Diana after she kills the elders? Fine. That makes total sense. If that was the entirety of her murderous intent I would not have a problem with the way Leona was written in the story.
She would hunt down and destroy the heretic Diana for the murder of the Solari elders.
This was her motivation before the Aspect of the Sun showed her the truth. Otherwise she wouldn't have killed Diana without a direct order to do so.
Yes, but she was totally fine with the order. Thought the order was right and justified, and seemed to be actually looking forward to it. That's where I find her character fails. That's why I think her character flops back an forth depending on what the writer wanted to show at any given moment, without providing adequate justification for it. That's why I think as a whole the Leona new background is kind of crap. Better written then the old one, sure. But still pretty bad.
And you're fine to disagree. You may like it. But to a lot of guys who liked the old Leona this was pretty much a slap in the face and saying she couldn't be moral without a strange alien forcing her to be.
,etc.
