Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Does Aurelion Sol's character really make sense?

KING OF MASKS·3/15/2016, 7:19:51 PM·54 votes·7,123 views

I've been put off by Aurelion Sol ever since his first teaser.

This guy is supposed to be a cosmic being, like , right? Both are orders of magnitude greater than us mere mortals. But where the Bradster is appropriately alien and inscrutable, Aurelion is characterized relatively normally: he's an imperious, narcissistic dude who has a couple hobbies and a good bit of snark. If you were to cut and paste his character onto a regular (albeit flamboyant) mortal champion, what would you have to adjust for him/her to make sense? As far as I can see... nothing.

There's a little thing in literature called the pathetic fallacy; it describes our tendency to ascribe human traits to the natural world, even when it doesn't make sense. To me, Aurelion is the pathetic fallacy taken to 11: "He is Aurelion Sol, the Star Forger. Creator god, cosmic dragon. You are less than an insect to him; mere dust in the wind. He is completely and totally beyond your ken, impossible for you to comprehe... wait, nevermind. He's actually a pretty recognizable personality archetype. He even speaks English!" What.

tl;dr Aurelion doesn't come across as anything even close to a Star Forger. How can you take him seriously?

138 Comments

Sharjo3/15/2016, 7:25:31 PM24 votes

Well there's some distinct differences between Bard and Aurelion in the nature of one being a spirit and the other being a dragon, and their interaction with mortals; Bard comes and goes with irregularity while Aurelion Sol's been a slave of the space Targonians for thousands of years.

Stars Shaper3/15/2016, 9:59:11 PM10 votes

In the Ellenic and Roman mythology Gods had the same passions and fallacies of human beings, they displayed wrath, envy, love, pride, honor and all the facets of human characters.

It's really up to the narrator to give certain traits to characters. Also, Bard is just a neutral balance "tool" he doesn't need personality, he is the same as Shen without the need of human relationships.

Sailor Miku3/15/2016, 10:20:46 PM7 votes

Aurelion isn't totally narcissistic, though. He genuinely cares about his stars, and he talks about love as a genuine force. "Love is as real a force as gravity. Try it once in a while." "Each star is one of my hearts." "Stars are wonder and love ignited." He also gives a warning: "The depths of space crawl with terrible entities. Pray they ignore this world." He shows wisdom every so often, but the narcissism is because of his age.

I feel that when he was first born, he may have been filled with a child-like wonder as he filled the skies with his creations, though by he time planets formed, he was so impossibly old in age that he has reached the point of external observer in terms of life by the time that planetary life had even come around; that's why he's quite narcissistic and snarky - because these 'primitive' life forms flattered him by their admiration of his creations, and because he had already lived countless lifetimes. He tried to get close to a race once, but that was the Targonians; they fascinated him for a good while, maybe influenced his personality a bit (he did spend a little time in their presence initially, and then millennia under their control), but after fighting Targon's wars for so long he just became indifferent to mortal affairs and only desires his freedom now.

Teslablade3/16/2016, 12:33:27 AM6 votes

And his taunt about cover bands...

Valor Bot3/15/2016, 10:35:17 PM6 votes

This was my first impression of him too. His personality strikes me as VERY similar to Jhin's honestly.

Headbiter3/15/2016, 11:08:02 PM5 votes

One of the many things that feel really off with this character, yes.

I still want to be wrong with this, but from his setup, to what he represents in terms of long-term consequences to this universe I'm afraid Riot took the "Uuuh, shiny"-bait of going for something "grand" and ultimately ended up creating the kind of character that will lead them writing themselves into a corner.

He's too human to work as a "mysterious force"/"force of nature"-character (i.e. Bard, even Kindred) and too powerful in what he can do to work as the "megalomaniac but managable threat" (Syndra, Xerath). This is exactly the kind of character who attracts plot conveniences like a lamp attracts moths.

GhastlyGhoulMan3/22/2016, 1:33:37 PM4 votes

Well he HAS been around for quite a long time. Wouldn't be surprised if he listens to a lot of language learning audio tracks while creating his stars.

"See Annie run. She is running with her bear."

GreenLore3/15/2016, 11:07:32 PM4 votes

Well Bard is a spirit,while Aurelion does seem to be a rather physical life-form.

It is also possible that Aurelion really adjusted himself to the targonians before he was going to meet them(learning their language,etc.),so that he could communicate with them properly.

The Whamboozler3/18/2016, 7:45:02 AM4 votes

Have you played much Aram? Almost every match I'll hear the line "Oh, that's nice. I crush mountains.... Those are bigger, by the way." when a tower is taken. It's not "I am beyond your understanding" it's that douche hipster who insists that the bands he listens to are more "underground". It's a pissing contest. It doesn't seem like an all-powerful being, it seems like the kinda smug crap that you hear from the guy who is on tilt is screaming when a teammate calls him out for being 2/6.

A-Sol isn't a wise and powerful dragon. He's a massive, arrogant douche.

Vistha Kai3/16/2016, 5:25:56 PM3 votes

Sounds a bit like...

_We are eternal. (...) Before us, you are nothing. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it. Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding. _

...not.

Gapybo3/15/2016, 10:34:24 PM3 votes

"Riot doesn't design champions the way I want" Seriously get over yourself. Did you bother reading his lore? Do you seriously think Riot just comes up with such important characteristics on the spot with no actual elaboration? I'm pretty sure they have some highly competent people working on this stuff and have a pretty good reasoning for their design decisions.

Astôlfo3/15/2016, 9:53:30 PM2 votes

Well maybe because if he spoke in Star-Dragon-God-ese we wouldn't be able to understand him? And Bard barely interacts directly with anyone while Aurelion's been interacting with people (sorta?) directly (although not entirely out of his own choice as for the Targons). And I don't really think Aurelion is the way you perceive him as. He considers it to be plainly obvious that he's miles ahead of pretty much any other being. Obviously, being that powerful, there's not many things he can't do, so he'd get bored. So he asks those who are below him to entertain him in whatever way, and if they get killed/die doing so, so be it. It's not like it would matter to him. After all, to him, it's like ants to a person. It's so far below him and insignificant that he has no reason to care.

revliledpembroke3/16/2016, 7:03:57 PM1 votes

For all we know, the "incomprehensible" bit about Aurelion is that we mere mortals cannot comprehend the amount of snark and bitterness invested in the one being.