Riven's concept reveals a deeper issue

Riot's lore has some problems, which I've touched on elsewhere on the boards, but I've been dissecting this new Riven lore and it led me to a realization.

Badassery is handed out cheaply.

Riven is a good example of this, because we've long been told what a ruthless badass she was during the war. When she believed in Noxus, she cut a bloody swath with the best of them. But we're just... Told that. Fed it. I believe badass isn't an assigned trait, but a derived trait. For badass to truly be felt and appreciated as a character trait, the writers need to let us draw the conclusion of badassery ourselves.

People believe Riven is a badass, as a character, largely because of her ruthless actions as a Noxian, and later turning that cold blade against them when she sees their true colors (which still baffles me, based on how they executed that bit of writing, but that's another topic). But I've never seen her that way. I've always seen her as a character with a lot of potential who ended up a little... bland. Despite her prevalence in actual play, Riven often falls off my radar the same way Jinx and Graves do.

Take a character like MGS's Big Boss. Spoilers ahead, if someone here for some reason has only just started getting into Metal Gear games. That's a man with gravitas. No one disputes that he's a badass, but the game never paints him that way or tells us he's a badass. It paints him as a man, largely, who wears an expensive overcoat. The reason we believe he's a badass is because of what we've seen. We've seen him survive capture and torture. We've seen him experience the loss of people he loves, and we've seen what he's done about it.

It's not as simple as just "kill the guy who did this", oh no. The writers of the Metal Gear series make it much bigger. It's a matter of changing the way the entire world operates, because Big Boss believes it was a flaw in the entire paradigm of humanity that caused that pain. And we see him shoulder all the pain of those losses, all the uncertainty of the changes he's about to make, without flinching. We know he's human, and we know these things affect him, so what makes him a badass is that he presses on without a sign of hesitation despite those things. His humanity in essence makes him a badass.

Or say, Ezio Auditore. Again, spoilers, if for some reason you only recently discovered the sub-story that is the Assassin's Creed 2 games. Ezio isn't a badass because he can walk through legions of armed Templars. Ezio is a badass because we watch him go from an enraged boy hell-bent on avenging his family, to a wise man tempered by his experiences and knowledge. That tempering hardens him like steel, and allows him to move through an uncertain world with conviction and purpose, cutting through to his goals despite the most overwhelming powers in his setting being turned against him. Despite the whole world turning on its head, Ezio can see the things that must be done. He has the steadiness of hand and force of will to do them against the odds. That's why Ezio is a badass.

Too often, League of Legends writing "designs" badass. It "assigns" the quality to characters, often before they're even released. Big Boss isn't usually displayed to us covered in blood with a smirk on his face, reveling in the fall of his enemies. We see him as a stately figure with a firm military bearing. One might almost say an orderly, regimented bearing. The opposite of chaos. Ezio's first reveal arts displayed him with his hood up and hands to his sides. Not a volatile figure, wreaking havoc, but a mysterious and serene sort.

Now ask yourself the League characters you find to be most badass, the ones Riot wants you to believe are badasses, and see what their base skin arts look like. This is proof of my statement. Graves, Draven, Darius, Jinx, Trynadamere... The majority of League's most badass figures are sold as such before we even get a chance to hear their voice lines. Taking a more macro approach to lore is a great chance for Riot's writers to make badass characters, yet they so often continue to just plop them down. "Here's another badass, money plz."

And they're certainly capable. Miss Fortune's semi-recent history reveal proves this. It's a bit of a cliche'd story as far as high seas drama goes, but it works for her. It shows us that she's had hints of a fiery personality since she was a child. It shows us where that came from, with her father being a blacksmith. The forge tends to purify wills of steel as much as billets of steel. It shows us that she didn't always know her place, and it shows us how she started to find it. It shows us the tale of a woman who suffered a moment of helplessness as a child that would have traumatized many, which led her to become a fearless leader of men who held to a sense of dignity and honor in a world full of thoughtless thieves.

They just... don't, too often, and that's deeply unfortunate. Help spread the word. Upvote this thread to the hot section, and make Riot's writers take notice. Make them take stock of their habits, and hope it drives them to find the best of their skillset rather than the simplest. Or downvote this thread enough that a Riot employee steps in to see if it needs result in a ban, and hopefully spreads its message across the office. Either or.

I just hope the lore improves, because I know Riot's writers are capable of even more than this Riven / Yasuo tale shows us.