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Serious Question (Slightly Beating A Dead Horse)

Xonra·2/11/2016, 4:32:21 PM·3 votes·625 views

While the dead horse of the lore retcon has been resurrected and beaten again many times over, I'm just wondering now, what the actual point of the retcon was, but hear me out before downvoting.

The entire purpose of the lore Retcon was to make the lore more flexible for the "lore team" since having summoner's rift, summoners and the whole "League" was constraining, and hindered writing possibilities. My question is then:

  • What exactly has been done in the past two years that proves that to be true?
  • What has Riot given us that they couldn't have with the old lore fully intact?
  • What about any of the lore events or changed backstories couldn't have been done with the old lore?

Looking over all of the lore we have received a short time before and ever since, I have seen nothing that couldn't have been added or changed with what we already had. I can't see one thing that leads me to believe the lore needed to be retconned after two years now. Very few plots have been moved forward, and nothing has been changed drastically with the new lore (outside of the old lore leaving a big hole in it that still hasn't been fully explained outside of a Riot hand wave and "this isn't the lore you are looking for")

I'm not here to throw a hissy fit because that isn't the point, but I'm just curious what the point of the retcon was now, given time to see the new lore that was added, because none of it shows a need to remove the old lore in the way they did, with the explanations given. I'm lead to believe now that either they were lying about the reason (as in they didn't have one) or plans changed drastically since then, and they just thought they were in too deep to turn back.

10 Comments

Sharjo2/11/2016, 4:51:14 PM6 votes

So these are just my thoughts and people will likely disagree but whatever. Here's how I view some individual cases:

  • Rek'Sai couldn't exist as she does now in the old setting. She'd have been imprisoned by the IoW.
  • Renekton's in the same position as Rek'Sai considering he was imprisoned by the IoW.
  • Xerath roaming around unchecked where as before the Summoner's had a close eye on him to keep him from doing anything.
  • Vel'Koz roaming around and being a general danger to everyone and anything. I doubt he'd be all that intrigued by the League considering there's very little he could gain from being summoned in to the same simulation to constantly re-examine.
  • Mordekaiser ruling the Shadow Isles and just Harrowings in general. That doesn't seem like something the League would have ignored.
  • Tahm Kench would have gained nothing from the League because even if he found more notoriety from being a champion he also ran the risk of his true nature being revealed and him being imprisoned and denied his way of life.
  • The ever burning question of why Aatrox would want to be involved in the League remains. He works in ways that alter the course of human history through large scale warfare. Based on that what does he have to gain from working in the controlled League environment? If anything it'd inhibit him, at least as far as I see it.

Just some thoughts of mine. Could they have worked with the old lore? Yeah potentially. Would it require a big contrivance? Yep. Huge in some cases. I personally find it better that these things can exist without what essentially would amount to the divine intervention of the League because at the end of the day that's what they served the purpose of; deus ex machina to fix problems. The League would've come to stop Morde's reign on the Shadow Isles and stop the Harrowings. They would've immediately locked up Renekton, Rek'Sai and Vel'Koz. Yes that still means the lore was workable, but that way of solving the problem is not compelling to me personally. Hell I feel like some champions just work better without the League, like Varus. Now he can just go kill Noxians as he pleases without an institution to revenge block him.

All in all I really don't care to compare old to new in any capacity. It only leads to headaches. I like the new stuff, I'm gonna keep liking the new stuff until I stop liking it, whenever that might be if ever. The old stuff is dead and buried to me at this point and serves only to reference what changes may come in the future.

GreenLore2/12/2016, 12:23:20 AM2 votes

How could have GP faked his death with the IoW intact? I mean everyone would see him in the league,so why would anyone still assume he is dead?

Nato Boram2/11/2016, 8:38:42 PM1 votes

Amumu wouldn't make you cry because of a song with the old lore.

FloRaider422/11/2016, 9:34:54 PM1 votes

Harrowing in Bilgewater, GPs "death", Illaoi, Bard, Kindred, Azir, Rek'Sai... Basically if there are summoners nothing is ever at stake, because they can just magically fix everything