Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Thoughts on Wukong's new lore

Blue Moon Wolf·5/20/2017, 9:52:13 PM·5 votes·1,016 views

http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b430/bluemoonwolf8/ThinkingKongSmall_zpstwf6xo1l.png

(TL;DR- Wukong's new lore is a great start, but didn't really answer everything I was hoping it would)

Now that his lore has had some time to really sink in after it's initial release, I feel like now is a good time to bring up some thoughts I've had on Wukong's new lore. To start I am happy with the new lore and what it means for Wukong to feel more like he belongs in the world of Runeterra. That said there were a few things I wish I would have seen and a few questions that his new lore brings up that I kind of wish it wouldn't have. To try and stay as constructive as possible, I wrote a list of pros and cons from my perspective of his lore.

-- Pros --

  • Wukong really fits in the world now Wukong's old lore felt very much like someone took the early story of Sun Wukong and filtered in names and words relevant to league. Because of that, it reminded me of the Soul Calibur games where they would take a character from another franchise and work around their lore to give them a reason for being there.

  • He has a sense of purpose/personality he didn't really have before Although it's not much, there is a part that tells of what Wukong's goals are aside from becoming the strongest fighter.

  • "Armed with an enchanted staff, Wukong seeks to prevent Ionia from falling to ruin."
  • "Kong had come from a people who chose to stay out of the world’s fights, but all that did was leave those who might be less equipped to face those threats alone. Kong admired that, whatever the outcome, Yi had fought to protect others. Kong realized he wished to do the same."

From that, we learned that Wukong wishes to protect Ionia from those who wish to destroy it, rather then just to become the strongest fighter. Something else that the lore brings out better now is Wukong's personality. Through it you learn how Wukong likes to joke around and prank people, something we could assume before, but now is very apparent. He's also very cocky, but still understands that he has a long way to go before he can back up his talk.

  • Much of his old lore is still intact in some form One of the biggest worries I saw from people about his new lore was that he would lose his connection to master Yi and I was very happy to see that I was right to believe otherwise. Aside from his origins being born from a runestone, pretty much every part of his old lore exists in the new one in some form. even the part about him being stone still exists in some degree with his tribes belief that they turn to stone when they die. To some extent a lot of it has even been enhanced to explain more.

  • Sense of Growth Wukong's new lore gives a sense of him growing stronger overtime. Instead of Wukong just initially being able to defeat everything around him, it bring up how he has taken his fair share of bumps and bruises, shaping him into a better fighter. Even in the short time between his Bio and short story, he's already managing to beat Master Yi more often and making better judgement calls. It makes me really look forward to seeing what he is capable of once he masters Wuju style.

--Cons --

  • He feels a bit weaker then he did before It's not so much that his lore brings up a lot of times that he's gotten his butt handed to him by someone (honestly I feel like that brought a level of humility to him that he needed) but more about the extent of his abilities. In the old lore, there was a part in the journal of justice where he used an actual magical clone in combat and it was assumed that he could make as he wanted. but in the new lore, the decoy Wukong uses is made of straw and he uses poppies (lol, Poppys :^) ) as smoke bombs. This has raised a bunch of questions for me. Can Wukong make real magical decoys? Is this just early on and Wukong will learn how to make actual decoys (likely abilities his tribe long forgot about but he's slowly unlocking through training or something)? Are the straw decoys and smoke poppies a hint to possible kit changes down the line?

  • He still feels like he hypes up Master Yi A gripe I had with his old lore was how much it involved Master Yi and how a lot of Wukong's lore centered around him. Wukong's new lore still has this issue to some degree. Wukong's bio still has a lot of it devoted to him meeting Master Yi which is understandable to be fair since Master Yi IS such a big part of his lore, but Wukong's short story seemed to have a bad habit of hyping up master Yi.

  • ** Six years and we STILL have no clue why he's friends with Ahri** This is something that has bothered me as much as I've seen it's bothered other people. They have been listed as friends for a long time with no real rhyme or reason to it aside from "giving them more character depth". With the possibility of their lores getting updated, I had hopes of this getting answered or at the very least, their relation getting removed to finally close the book on that mystery. But then their lores got updated and, like their old lores, they had no mention of each other but still have each other under their "related champions" lists. If that wasn't still a thing, there would be no reason not to remove that relation with the lore updates, so it seems that there are still plans for that. Unfortunately the only information about that has been very vague and cryptic.

  • The Monkey King? This was something that has really already been answered, ( https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/KyVwiLUU-wukongs-title-monkey-king?comment=0001 ) But I feel like it's still something important to bring up (since it could be YEARS before Wukong makes his way to a champ-up team >_> ). I don't see a reason his title couldn't have been changed to better reflect his lore (maybe there is one that I don't know about. possibly cause there would be a lot of in game stuff that would have to be adjusted to change it, I don't know). At the same time, his lore could have added something about him being the "self-proclaimed king" and still have it make sense with his personality/ new lore. Again, it's something that's already been settled, but I felt it's something still worth bringing up.

In closing, Wukong's new lore is great and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes, but it was a bit disheartening to not get major answers I was hoping to get answered and for him to come out of the update feeling like he has less power then he did before. It wasn't EVERYTHING I was hoping for it to be, but it was still a good read that added to Wukong, and in the grand scheme of things that's really the best you can hope for when a champ gets their lore updated.

5 Comments

Znoxyboy5/20/2017, 10:13:42 PM3 votes

I really liked the way his personality shined through in his story. To the point that Master Yi has too big a part in the lore, i don't think so. Yi really helped Wukong hone his talent and must be sort of a father figure but also a great friend and just a huge part of his life, so he should definitely be a big part of the story imo

Wrathof3005/21/2017, 2:15:11 PM3 votes

I like to think that his title 'The monkey King' will come into play in a future update where something happens to Yi, an Wukong goes back to rally his people, becoming the new Chief and teaching his people the way of Wuju, to fight for Ionia.

GreenLore5/21/2017, 12:54:06 AM2 votes

Yeah he does feel weaker and hypes master yi a bit,but I think that is kinda understandable since Wukong is Yis disciple and it'd make sense that the disciple would be weaker than the master.

I mean in the old lore,yi was unable to hit wukong,yet Wukong was impressed by Yis style that he wanted to learn it?That honestly feels rather forced(though then again I think it'd be interesting to see a student-master relationship where the student is the more powerful one)