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This Varus thing makes riot seem super scary. . ..

WarWork·12/1/2017, 9:35:13 AM·156 votes·4,753 views

Basically shows they can change something that a lot of people love for a weak reason knowing all the while and admitting that people won't like it and basically just say "Sorry but, so what?" From the leaked short bio to now riot had made it clear they were aware of how polarising this change would be. But yet still go through with it anyway is just so jarring it feels like the big guy throwing their weight around. And it feels like a change for the sake of change.

They said they changed Varus to make him more up to-date with the current league, but they could have done that with just the Darkin change tbh. On many comments by rioters when ask how this updated him the main points basically are a. Darkin and b. Not motivated by vengeance. But he still is motivated by vengeance, the Darkin (named Varus) main goal is still revenge and now against a larger group of people, being all people.

Also when I saw that a music video for varus' lore update came out, I just laughed. I laughed because I knew that meant unless their was a unanimous hate, it mattered not what is said or how we feel, this change is permanent. That feels reaaally sneaky.

And I think a really dirty thing was Val and Kai being gay angle. I don't think, hope they didn't do it for this reason, but then being gay basically meant no matter the backlash of killing old Varus, that a lot of people would be congratulating riot on just simply making a gay character. I really wonder what the reaction would have been if they changed everything they did and left his/their sexuality ambiguous. It just feels like no matter how unnecessary, unwanted or even bad the change they would still get compliments.

EDIT; sorry if this is cancerous to read, wrote this like 4:30 am while extremely tired, might make changes later

101 Comments

Chembaron Yamada12/1/2017, 10:03:20 AM37 votes

I discussed this in an own thread: letting Varus lore as was and just adding that the pit inhabited a Darkin wouldn't separate him from the other Darkin.

The current version has a new dynamic which the other Darkin don't have. Let's assume that Varus lost wife and child and goes into the pit.

There are 2 possible outcomes: Varus gets overwhelmed by the Darkin or he is strong enough to fight him on his own.

These 2 dynamics exist already. First case is the same like Aatrox, the second one is exactly like Kayn.

The current version has a new dynamic: 2 individuals, who are too weak to fight the Darkin on their own, are able to resist him together.

0racle091212/1/2017, 1:40:34 PM14 votes

Reading this gave me a stroke, but ye I agree with you. His old lore was a lot more meaningful, now it just seems like a joke to me.

Galactic Mayhem12/1/2017, 1:46:24 PM10 votes

I cant really see what people liked about his old lore,it was so generic

GhaelWinds12/1/2017, 6:00:04 PM6 votes

I think you touched on one of the problems I've had with this whole thing. By changing Varus' complete character (an already controversial idea) And combining that with LGBTQ (an also controversial idea) now a lot of the feedback about it just gets confused for each other. Adding in the gay aspect to this already issue just seemed like Riot was sweeping it under the rug and not giving BOTH issues the attention they need.

ModCaptainMårvelous12/2/2017, 7:09:16 AM2 votes

I think one thing you're not touching on is that part of the reason they can't outright cancel it is due to a lot of the work Riot puts into their music videos, art, animation, lore etc.

The basic jist is that for all these teams to come together and make something like Varus is both a huge time and monetary investment. I'm not saying you can't be mad but to demand Riot throw away everything they've made using an amount of money I doubt any of us will personally have in our lifetime is kind of...well, it probably isn't something they want to do. I do agree, however, that Riot's lore team can be a bit too self-congratulatory for their work.