Does Ashe know about Lissandra being all bwahahaha evil?
I was under the impression that, as far as anyone knew, Lissandra was the leader of the Frostguard, which is known as a scholarly order that protects the Freljord's arcane secrets. I would think that Ashe would be quite respectful to Lissandra, who would presumably be publicly making efforts to mediate between her and Sejuani, and would hold a lot of cachet as one of the Freljord's most venerable figures—and one who's never torched a village in recent memory.
Then, I noticed that Ashe's taunt to Lissandra has a bunch of crazy stuff about "piercing her black heart". That seemed very surprising to me.
So, does Ashe suspect that Lissandra is up to no good? Enough that she'd call the most respected mage in the Freljord a black-hearted villain?
It just seemed really weird to me. And it'd be a shame if this wasn't simply an oversight on their part: I like the idea that Lissandra is still "suggesting at first with heavenly shows" and (aside from a few nutjob conspiracy theorists) nobody believes she's anything more than a mysterious mage.
Update: I try to read through Lissandra's lore; there are troubling implications
EDIT: Okay, thanks to people commenting on this thread, I think I've been able to figure out her backstory, sorta. Riot, I am disappoint. I liked the idea of her being a nefarious villain with that most Saturday morning cartoon of schemes, to destroy the world, hiding behind an ice-librarian/ice-pope cover identity. I think the backstory actually does get you there, but only with needless contortions, which appear to be as follows:
- Long ago, there were "evil creatures" called Watchers.
- Lissandra betrayed her tribe to them, whatever that means ("strike at night! in the poor light, our sticks and sharp rocks will truly be no match for your superhuman power! or strike in the day, when our sticks and sharp rocks will also truly be no match for your superhuman power!") and became Iceborn. So she has superpowers.
- The Watchers lost to "ancient heroes".
- Lissandra :(
- The people of the Freljord forgot about the Watchers as anything but a myth.
- Lissandra decided she needed an army for some reason. She decided that the way to get an army would be to get a tribe. She decided to pick a "noble and peaceful" tribe called the Frostguard to become her army. Okay.
- She killed their leader and stole her identity. She replaced this person and posed as her to her family, friends, colleagues, rivals, allies, hairdressers, everyone. It worked flawlessly. (Whoa, what kind of ice powers did she pick up, exactly, that let her do this?)
- She aged her human appearance and faked her death, then showed up and killed/replaced her successor. She did this dozens of times and nobody caught on. (You picked real winners here, Lissandra. This is going to be a great army you're building. As long as the enemy doesn't have fake glasses or a false mustache kit, or confusing hats.)
- So now Lissandra is the leader of the Frostguard tribe.
Things I don't see in her lore, to my considerable dismay:
- That the Frostguard is known as a book-learnin' sagely tribe. (Perhaps this can be teased out of her remark that the Frostguard is known for protecting the Freljord's "ancient secrets".) I like the idea that her cover identity is a bookish, sagely type, who probably seems much less threatening than Ashe or Sejuani.
- That she goes by the name Lissandra. But surely it's not too hard to say that she decided to go full circle and pick that name up. Maybe it's a common name.
- That she looks like she actually does. (Surely not too much of a stretch. It's not like there are "WANTED: ICE WITCH" posters going around.)
Why do I want these things to be so?
- Because I think it's nice that, in a region torn by warfare and ruled by warlords of various degrees of malevolence, the real bad guy is the mage lady who helps Elsa and her friends unlock their magical ice powers and teaches them life lessons through character-building conversations.
- Because it'd be annoying to come up with a separate name ("Olga the Freljord Tribe Leader Who Might Be Up To Something") and refer to her as Olga in 99% of material.
- Because you can obviously look pretty awesome in the League universe and not be burned as a witch. Shyvana can morph into a dragon. Why should it be a problem if she wants to have her stealth bomber hat look and throw ice crystals around? "Oh, they'll recognize her as the Ice Witch." Well, so make the myths a little less specific. It's not obvious to me that people should be able to recognize her as an ancient monster by sight. And surely after all her generations of trickery, she doesn't have to resort to personally killing people. It's not like people in the Freljord turn on their Zaunite TVs and see eyewitness accounts of a "mysterious Ice Witch who looks like Lissandra" stealing cattle from ol' farmer Gaukur. No. It should be that if you sketch out a lady with a stealth bomber hat and long fingernails, folk from the Freljord say, "oh, that's Lissandra, she's great, she taught my niece how to make snowflakes with magic, got her a great job with the Avarosan."
Quinn saves the day, mostly (Valor helped, too)
EDIT2: Good news, everyone! Sort of. I dug through the Journey into the Freljord stuff, and found that apparently Lissandra's cover identity is also called Lissandra, and looks a LOT like she does in-game. She does in fact have a very good reputation as leader of the Frostguard, and Ashe is all for her. Annoyingly, the journals seemed to imply that there was also a spoooooooooky Ice Witch monster who tried to go kill Quinn, and who is implied (but not stated!) to look like Lissandra in-game. (It mentions her riding on black ice, which sounds like Lissandra.) All in all, it doesn't seem like a stretch to say that when Lissandra shows up in the League, she puts her name down as Lissandra, not "hello i am a mysterious ice witch". Ashe looks at her and says "oh, hi Lissandra, nice battle gear, you look kinda scary! Haha. Anyway, thanks again. What's that? Oh, of course we'll send you those books we found in the cave. Maybe you can make something out of them! One of our Summoners went crazy trying, poor guy. What's with that creepy eye on the cover, anyway?"
I think fanon'ing the story a bit so that Lissandra entered the League as Lissandra, not as "spooky ice witch who definitely isn't Lissandra even though I look like her and have lots of ice magic", is within the community's provenance: that's ultimately about how she would present herself to the League, which Narrative refuses to write about except for the occasional spiteful order to strip voicework of Summoner references.
As for Ashe's taunt? Well. Isn't this nice. We get to strip some voicework ourselves! Yay!
"Oh no, CupcakeTrap," you exclaim, "but won't they identify her as THE EVIL ICE WITCH?" About that.
It's ridiculous that a scheming mastermind who has spent many centuries moving from one identity to the next would jeopardize everything by chasing a Demacian scout and her pet bird around the tundra. She has thugs for that! She can probably summon wampas, or trolls, or just look into her crystal ball and make the ice collapse, almost drowning Quinn before Valor heroically lifts her up out of the freezing water. What kind of chump do you think she is? You know, there's another problem with going out personally to chase Quinn: she might put an arrow through your head. You're powerful, but she's a Champion; it's not like it's inconceivable that she'd just kill you. Maybe she's got a nasty incendiary bomb in her pack because she figured she might need it in Snow Land.
Speaking of Quinn, I don't see why (other than as a narrative expedient to provide a "spooooky Lissandra" moment) Lissandra would really care enough to have Quinn killed, with all the risks that entails, in the first place. Quinn saw some spooky rituals, but so what?
My liege! The Frostguard are evil! They are REALLY REALLY evil!
I sent you there to draw maps, not to make moral judgments about their social structure.
No, I mean, REALLY evil! Let me read from my journal. Valor, journal!
That's a cookie, Valor. No snackies! Book first! Don't you talk back to me in front of the Prince.
Okay, here we go. So, this is right after I met that 'nice' lady Lissandra, who was very cultured and helpful. But then, I decided to sneak around their city at night! So here's what happened: "We came upon a group of Frostguard deep in the city. They knelt in a circle around a giant stone eye and spoke in a strange tongue, venerating it. The Frostguard are hiding something—something that's clearly more important to them than an alliance with the Avarosan. What are they planning?"
And then what?
And then what? Sir! It was a strange tongue!
Walk around Demacia's temples at night and you'll see priests speaking in strange tongues and venerating things.
I felt an evil presence. Like I was being watched!
So, are you a member of the Inquisition?
Well, no.
But you're a cleric or mage of some kind, aren't you? Or you had a Summoner with you who could confirm that the magical presence was "evil"?
Well, no. To all of those.
Is it not the case that your arcane prowess essentially ends with knowing to tell your Summoner to pick up a Quicksilver Sash for you if the enemy team has lots of CC?
Oh, hey, that's a good idea.
Valor! Write that down! "CC", then a little arrow, then "QSS".
Thank you for risking your life in the Freljord. Thank you for these maps and illustrations, and these detailed journal entries. But I'm not about to send out the army because you think you saw something spooky. We've got a good thing going with Ashe; we're not going to tell her that her nice old auntie leads a tribe of Void-worshippers or whatever you think that was.
There was a big eye! They were venerating a big eye.
Being a fan of Vel'koz isn't a crime, Quinn. Yes, he's a vile demon from the Void who must be purged from Runeterra, but I saw him go 20/0/19 in a match last night. You have to respect that.
I have to insist one more time, my prince: something was wrong there! It was really weird. And spooky.
That's hardly proof. Vayne is weird and spooky, but we're virtually certain she's not a vampire. Despite that thing with the mirror. Which we all agree was really weird. But she literally brushes her teeth with holy water. Which is also really weird, actually, but not in the vampire way. That's the opposite kind of weird, is what I'm saying.
cries invisibly