[{quoted}](name=Monado II,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=RaPzu11l,comment-id=000000000000000100000001,timestamp=2016-04-23T20:12:40.479+0000)
I'd say Leona was a bit plain before, didn't seem like her character had any progress to make.
and I'd also say Pantheon was as boring as can possibly be, like rammus level boring, setting up the story of atreus' struggle as the pantheon entity is a lot more interesting imo. Don't forget that Atreus, who was a pretty well received character, was created for that lore
Well, I'm not going to go searching through my old posts. But I will just say my thoughts on Leona, and what it means to be a fully fleshed out character. In my eyes. Just so you know, I'm a historian, not a literary critic. So, of course take everything I say on this subject with copious amounts of salt.
We all know what a 1 dimensional character is, it's just a walking prop that doesn't add anything other than existing to the story (see, the Solari that stops the fight in new!Leona lore). A 2 dimensional character is a character that has a bit more substance to their role in the story, but still no real depth. Old!Pantheon (and honestly, New!Pantheon) fits this perfectly well. We know a bit about Pantheon, we know what his motivation is, we know some fluff details like where he's from, and his general goal. But there's no real meat with Old!Pantheon as a character. He is just a warrior. Now, we can look into his dialogue to get some hints that flesh him out a little, but it's not much.
Now 3 dimensional characters are actually interesting. They have the bigger roles, but they also have competing character traits, differing motivations, and are in general complex. Here I would put Old!Leona, but I would add the caveat only if we read her League Judgment. Her base lore is 2 paragraphs. In it, we get these traits: she is a warrior, but she focuses on protection rather than having a lust for the killing work of a normal Rakkor soldier. She was willing to die instead of killing. She was chosen by the Sun and likely has some allegiance to it for that to happen. That's already a bit more than Old!Pantheon, admittedly, it's still not a lot.
But when you read her League Judgment a lot more about her character comes into focus. She didn't just not want to kill, she actively defend those who were bad at training. She felt inner-conflict and even guilt over doing this as her protection may have led to them losing their lives in the (admittedly stupid) Rite of Kor. Even before that, the first emotion we get of Leona's walk into the IoW is reluctance over doing her duty, but overcoming that because she desires to be a role-model on a new way of fighting that doesn't leave the children of the Rakkor dead. She wants to make up for her failures. She also, seems to even fear her power as gifted by the sun, and worries that she's growing dependent upon it.
All of this builds depth to her character. The whys, the hows, the motivations, even her earliest responses. Despite being the great protector she is plagued by self-doubt and guilt, yet still tries to push on, maybe even making a change of how her people do things. Freeing them from their barbaric traditions.
That is, in my opinion, a 3 dimensional character. Now, she just needs a story, and they gave her that when they introduced Diana. Here we see a former friend (if we go by IronStylus's post as canon) that rejects the very reason Leona has power in the first place. Not only that but slays the people that trained her and saved her life all those years ago. There are a lot of ways to develop her from this. How does she deal with her former friend, does she still show compassion where it was due? Does she falter against the Sun's tests? Does she overcome her guilt and grow in confidence or does she look at the loss of the elders as more people she should have saved? Does she ever fix her old home of Rakkor? How does she handle learning her religion was a lie? There was plenty there to play with, and many places for her to go.
Now, look at new Leona. Her base lore is much longer than her previous 2 paragraphs. And to be fair, I do think the character they create is 3 dimensional, it's just in kind of a weird way. But just reading it we get that she is a protector at heart. She is still willing to defy the custom she was raised with to save an innocent. But instead of suffering from self-doubt, fear of growing dependent on the sun, and a lot of guilt. The second half of her lore focuses on her interaction with Diana and she just comes off as very aggressive, hateful, and as the Solari's executioner. It doesn't really seem like the Leona from the first half, or the Old!Leona. But it definitely is a competing character trait. Then, suddenly, this character is possessed by the space parasite and her desire to kill Diana is gone. Which, just reads poorly to me. We go through this whole angry executioner section only for it to disappear by an outside alien force changing her opinions with magic. She is still supposedly Leona, but why would the Leona that was willing to kill Diana for simply talking no longer want to kill the one that slaughtered her mentors and leaders? She just changed too fast without the audience seeing any of the steps to get her from point A to point B. As I said, it just reads poorly, to me.
Now about Pantheon. Yes, Old!Panth was a 2 dimensional character. No argument. Part of why I was excited to hear they were doing a Targon lore update was because I wanted to see him get developed. He really had these traits: A Spartan soldier. A childhood friend to Leona. Motivated by "honor" that seemed far closer to the ancient Greek Arete than the more medieval version of the word. Cool. You can do a lot with that, actually. Now, I'm a historian (well working on my phd anyway), and admittedly my focus is medieval history. But I know a lot about Sparta, actually my name is a reference to a semi-famous Spartan. And let me tell you, the Spartans were an amazingly complex and unique culture. Yes, they were all trained at age 8 to be soldiers. But this means they were taken from their homes forced to live through boot camp for 12-13 years and that effects a person. It was, possibly, the first thing remotely similar to a public school in ancient Greece. But not only that this super long boot camp taught them poetry, philosophy, reading, writing, singing, dancing, mathematics. They saw themselves as the defenders of all Greece, despite enslaving some of them. They lived in constant worry about their helot slave-serfs rebelling. They constantly argued among themselves on whether to attack or stay defensive. There was brutal turmoil, betrayal, and fear. Near the end they saw as their culture and way of life was dwindling and the number of Spartans slowly died out. There was a tension between the search for immortality through glory and the defense of the homeland and the defense of all the Hellenes. They were ultimately all still people. If you want to read this done fairly well, there's a book Gates of Fire where about 4 characters each can get recognized as "That awesome Sparta Guy" but each of their personalities are completely different and make sense as having been shaped by their culture.
I would have loved to see a fully developed Spartan soldier as a character. How amazing would that have been? There would be so much to play with to create inner tensions and problems. Does said Rakkorian think of himself as the defender of Valoran but also has slaves? Does he see Targon's dwindling way of life and choose to double down on it, or does he try to push for reforms? How does he handle the wars he revels in? Numerous Spartans seem to have had various cases of PTSD, and still found a way to fight for their city, does Pantheon? How would he react to those who do? Oh, so many possibilities to make an interesting character.
And they almost gave him to us. Atreus is not everything I would have hoped for. But he's decently close. Then came the space parasite. And the Pantheon that's left is just as flat a character as Old!Panth was. Actually somehow, he's even flatter since they took away the odd little friendship with Leona that could have been a hint to something deeper in his character. Now, there are promises that Atreus' story isn't done. So hopefully, we'll see something come from it. But, what could have been a great normal hero focused on his city-state and the inner workings of human life, the state of the world, and all the stuff I find interesting in fiction. He's instead tied to an intergalactic civil war, space gods, and just real weird things that, when read from the Pantheon lore, seem to come right the hell out of nowhere. If all the stuff about space magic was cut, and we instead saw Atreus dealing with the growing invaders on a personal, human level, dealing with human problems, that could have been amazing. Hell, it even has a next step for him built right into it. Diana vs Leona is still happening in the background. The Spartans were deeply religious, and seeing their whole religion being turned upside down leaves so many opportunities for stories about that one normal guy living in this strange time of titans, invasions, and religious upheaval. That's the story I would have loved to read. And they were so close. That's what I think gets me. They were so damn close before they dropped the ball.
And what we got is the space parasites intergalactic empire. It really has nothing to do with the rest of Runeterra. We have no reason to actually care about the space empire since we never see the denizens interact with things as characters. In fact, as a culture they come across as a bunch of assholes who betray their friends, pretend to be gods, and use mortals to fight their battles for them. Why should we care about anything involving them? Why should we not want to see Sol blow their entire damn empire apart?