There should be a better way than just "throwing them all away", Rito.

Athenes Lulu·Sep 25, 2014·20 votes·1,604 views

Specifically, the lore. The summoners and the Institute that had led the game and created the framework of the general lore of the story. There HAS to be a better way to work that around. And yet ya'll decide to "ragequit" and destroy the Institute altogether. At least find a way for SOMEONE to do so.

So I guess Nocturne now just appears into people's dreams from out of the blue? Not spooky at all.

Even the silliest idea of me and Veigar blowing the building up is a better excuse than "just throwing it away".

Thoughts? And we need a Bandle City related lore event... Yordles need story love too.

27 Comments

Captain DangerSep 25, 20145 votes

So, there's three alternatives here in dealing with the Institute of War from a Lore perspective:

Continue the Institute as-is. For a whole host of reasons, this just isn't sustainable. It constricts the frame around which the lore team can tell an evolving, complex story.
Have a canon send-off of the IoW. The problem with this is now the lore team has to deal with all the ramifications of the League and the IoW disbanding. What's more, what do you do with all the champions whose concepts are tightly coupled to the IoW? What about Runeterra itself? The IoW was the solve for war on Runeterra. No IoW... does the world just destroy itself? While mass war sounds like a fantastic story, it's still a limited device. You're trading one set of story problems for a different set of story problems.
Completely remove the IoW. Decouple the concept from the lore entirely. This is what Rito chose to do, and it's the most pragmatic of the options available. This gives them time to naturally update the lore for individual champions and create a world that can continue to expand.

Remlap1223Sep 25, 20149 votes

I'm sorry that's bull. DC didn't retcon their universe twice cuz "they coulnd't make it work" they retconned it because there were canonical issues. I don't see any problem with champion's stories overwriting each other, or not making sense. The real reason is simply that Riot does't care about lore, only eSports. They tried taking what they thought was the easiest way out, and it turned out to bite them in the butt from both the fans, and themselves when they realized "oh gee, we sure do have a lot of champions that are directly related to the IOW."

John BerserkSep 25, 20141 votes

I dont know about you but "canonical issues" sounds like a "couldn't make it work" problem to me. It's not entirely different.

DG AshabelSep 25, 201413 votes

DC didn't retcon their universe because of canonical issues either. They retconned because their sales were drying up, so they fired up a loudly advertised event and reset everything to a kind of sort of square one in order to advertise it as "LOOK GUYS THIS IS A BRAND-NEW STORY YOU DON'T HAVE TO CATCH UP TO THOSE 20 YEARS OF CONTINUITY ANYMORE".

It was a soulless cash grab designed to bring new readers into the fold, nothing more.

But then again, what Riot is doing right now is exactly the same. In order to deliver the old lore to new players, they would need to put a lot of effort into compiling all of it, deciding which parts are jokes and which should be canon, and create a lore compendium that all players could easily use. As we can see by the trashy 3-sentence lore and the laughably bad, self-contradictory writing of the Shurima videos, the narrative team is allergic to such amounts of effort.

They rebooted everything because they were too lazy to actually compile the lore and make it easily available, so they threw it out and went "LOOK GUYS THIS IS A BRAND-NEW STORY YOU DON'T HAVE TO CATCH UP TO THOSE 5 YEARS OF CONTINUITY ANYMORE". You can argue about how it affects the story all you want, but it still won't change the fact that the retcon is merely a soulless cash grab.

Captain DangerSep 25, 20144 votes

How is it a cash grab? How are they making money off of the new lore? It seems like the vast majority of LoL's player base doesn't care about the lore at all.

DG AshabelSep 25, 20143 votes

How are they not making money off the new lore? Have you somehow missed the million discounts they put in on skins and champions during the Shurima event? Yes, the discounts were small and a lot of veteran players already own those chars, but that's not who they're for. They're for rookie players who will see the champions for the first time thanks to that promo, go "OHHH!!!" and grab them.

The whole thing was basically a huge advertisement for champions associated with the event, for Azir especially. The same thing goes for Reborn. While it's much better written than the Shurima nonsense, it's pretty obviously designed to attract new players to a very old champion who is largely considered defunct right now.

Nestor 10Sep 26, 20142 votes

What I'm wondering is how anyone imagines that the lore is meant to be some soulful artistic work made purely for the player's enjoyment. It's a medium for highlighting champs and game modes. It's not art; it's advertising. I seriously doubt if anyone at Riot cares at all whether their lore is canonically consistent or not. Why would they?

The important thing to remember here is that this is a game. If you want stories, buy a book.

DG AshabelSep 26, 20141 votes

If you really think that video games aren't a storytelling medium, then you should hop into your time machine and travel back to the 1980s from which you came. The current state of the game industry might blow your mind beyond all repair otherwise.

Captain DangerSep 25, 20141 votes

If they didn't care about lore, how do you explain the Shurima event or the Sion relaunch? Or the long indepth article called "Exploring Runeterra"? I think they completely understand the scope of removing the IOW (and how the champions and the world intersects). That doesn't mean that making hard, difficult choices isn't the right thing to do for the game and lore as a whole.

DG AshabelSep 25, 20146 votes

If they did actually care about the lore, they wouldn't have replaced lore with 3-sentence blurbs and the Rise of the Ascended videos wouldn't be so badly written and self-contradictory.

"Meet Sivir, the legendary mercenary who wets herself at the sight of people dying. Cassiopeia, a gorgeous and wily seductress who has all the expressive capacity of a rock. A trap that protects an ancient tomb by giving intruders super-powers! And Nasus, the guardian of an ancient tomb who somehow was anywhere but the tomb while it was invaded."

Truly a literary masterpiece.

AbiwonKenabiSep 25, 20147 votes

Why only 3? Why isn't an option:

Retcon the Institute of War so that it is less omniscient, and make it a viable story element that can be followed, worked around and sometimes not involved at all.

Heck, thus far, I have yet to see anything lore related that the Institute could not exist alongside these events. Shurima was an event that wouldn't have involved the League at all, other than dealing with the consequences of Azir trying to rebuild his empire. Even still, that would have happened after what the videos covered, and it could have made interesting conflict to boot.

Same goes for the Sion teasing. So far, all of this happened before the formation of the League. Why could this event not co-exist with the Institute's eventual establishment?

kDrakariSep 25, 20141 votes

I've been thinking the same way. Unless there was more information than the original announcement, what I got was: "We feel that we've gotten ourselves into a hole with a lot of our past decisions, so we're basically going to change anything that we feel needs changing and try to let the lore expand more outside of the Institute." I didn't see anything that said that the Institute or the League was no longer part of the lore.

Chromatic EagleSep 25, 20142 votes

It was in the comments section when someone asked what will happen to the League. Then it was further confirmed by other Reds.

AbiwonKenabiSep 27, 20141 votes

I honestly wouldn't mind if they had just said that, but unfortunately, a Red explicit says in the comments sections:

No, Summoners, the Fields of Justice and the Institute are not canon within the fictional world of Runeterra. In-game, players are still referred to as summoners - but summoners won't be part of the story.

Several other Rioters confirm this, so its pretty much stated in no uncertain terms that this is a retcon. I mean I guess that's something they "felt needed to be changed" but so far there's really been no reason to change that. The Shurima event and the Sion reveal could have happened outside of the Institute without their involvement (Shurima was a small personal skirmish, Sion's stuff happened before the Institute would have existed, etc)

PryotraSep 26, 20141 votes

um, I noticed a problem with the logic in #2.

I mean, there are a lot of reasons the IoW disbands cough corruption exposed cough.

Even if the IoW disbands, there is no reason a ceasefire could not be established. It would be the city states tip toeing around, not wanting to cause the next rune war because the next one would end the planet. Similar to the cold war irl.

Honestly, all the summoners becoming preoccupied with the blockade of the void indefinitely would even be a better way to do it, essentially using the entirety of their force to continuously hold back the void while leaving the city states to fend for themselves. Then the other city states could do their thing, but not want to jump to war because if they let the void through by distracting the summoners, the whole world would be in trouble.

Simply saying "We are too lazy to do it right, so lets just say forget it and start over," is what they did. They caused more work for themselves, but they don't really seem like they even tried to look at alternatives.

Serpents EmbraceSep 26, 20141 votes

Everything in the Rift canonically was a replica, if I remember from some ancient JoJ, and if it didn't extend to the champions - why not? How is it restricting when that's not actually Jinx, just the replica a Zaunite Summoner made in her honor? She's still out there, terrorizing Piltover and running from Caitlyn and Vi. She can continue to blow shit up. Frostguard Summoners using Lissandra and Trundle replicas as a way to "honor the stories of their heritage" when the Avarosans ask but really to pay homage to their Queen. You could do this for any region, any champion, for basically any reason - because I don't think I need to remind you Summoners are supposed to be very powerful mages. Powerful enough to stop the two main political machines of the world to stop a conflict from time immemorial. They can basically do whatever you'd need them to.

But let's look at your option number three. Pragmatic, you say? It's the sensible, realistic way of dealing with the perceived issues - yeah? Let's see what they've done with it - since this Shurima event is our horrid, foul little starting point on our adventure in to this free to expand world. First, we got some "cute" little three sentence blurbs for all the involved champions. At least two personality wipes to turn champions in to generic villains (Bye, Xerath and Cass), where champions do things that would have been wildly out of character - but that's okay because that version of them doesn't exist anymore. It's realistic to do it this way because there's no fan base, right? No one will miss these established characters, yeah? It's the best way to do it because it's definitely not an abuse of artistic freedom in any way. And oh, expand this story they did, our hero protagonist gets royal lineage because who doesn't love that old trope?. In practice, your option three is the equivalent of a toddler bursting through a sandcastle contest winner to put a bucket shaped pile of sand at the top. They ripped down a lot of admired work to add some vague and dissatisfying.

Watch9Sep 25, 20145 votes

Yordles need story love, but they don't need love Teemo

AbiwonKenabiSep 25, 20146 votes

Teemo is one individual. Don't damn an entire race for his sins. item 3070 Lulu Gnar Tristana Ziggs Poppy Veigar Heimerdinger

acepil0tSep 25, 20141 votes

His crimes are worth it tho.

CupcakeTrapSep 25, 20145 votes

Destroying the League could be interesting as a plot turn, if Riot really wants to explore the Leagueless version of Valoran for a while. (We might do something like that in Factions, actually.) I'd point out, though, that physically destroying the Institute would not accomplish this goal. If the powers-that-be still want a League, they'll just rebuild it. The League is an idea, not a physical thing. The League's fall would have to be political.

It's pretty easy to have the League collapse. Imagine if the US, China, and Russia all withdrew from the WTO. There wouldn't be a WTO anymore. Imagine if France and Germany left the EU. The EU would probably fall apart. Similarly, all it would take would be Demacia or Noxus getting pissed off and leaving the League.

In a non-stupid conception of the League, it doesn't have authority to rule on international matters because it's just so powerful that it can control everyone — it has authority because the nations of Valoran realized they were headed for total destruction if the Rune Wars went on any longer, and from that simple starting point it became an institution for resolving all kinds of conflicts, from trade disputes to wars.

Now, destroying the League poses problems. For example, Azir and Shurima? It's a cool setup, but from a cold-hearted realist perspective, without a League to defend its rights to self-determination Shurima would be instantly steamrolled by Noxus or Demacia, or would have to make itself a client-state of one of these superpowers. And, you know, it does involve removing the League of Legends from League of Legends, which is pretty stupid. Still, you could handwave something about how the Fields are still open for combat practice: it's just that the League has lost its authority to oversee disputes.

DotintheparadoxSep 25, 20143 votes

Thank you for pointing this out, without resorting to my variety of stupidity, the forums deserve more people like this.

All I can do is insult them for their unprofessional approach so far, I'm much better at being a self-deprecating jack-ass than an effective debater.

Athenes LuluSep 26, 20143 votes

Good point, Cupcake.

Something to add: Interesting how they had a hard time just to make up a reason for champs to join the League. For example...

Azir probably needed the Institute to help him rebuild his kingdom.
Gnar could beheld captive, just because, well, he's a prehistoric yordle and (probably yordle) scientists took him in for research purposes. Then one day, Gnar broke away and found his new home.
Jinx thought following Fathands into the league sounds like a "fun" idea. After all, we will never know what are her true intentions of... anything.
Vel'Koz joined for the sake of knowledge. What a hungry guy.
Braum. Because helping others for the sake of good. (I know this is a bad excuse, but still better than none.)

Looks like there's no one to monitor and oversee the League anymore, now that the Institute is gone and blown up. So how are the disputes handled? How are the nations going to defend themselves and preventing the next Rune War, especially when there's obvious rivalries among the nations? Who's going to protect Valoran from the upcoming Void powers? Some questions to consider.

SephithDarknesseSep 25, 20141 votes

destroy the Institute altogether. At least find a way for SOMEONE to do so.

It makes a lot more sense for the IoW to have never existed in the first place, if its to not be included than destroyed.

acepil0tSep 25, 20141 votes

When I saw the title I immediately thought you meant silences, not lore. :|

Athenes LuluSep 26, 20143 votes

Because silences are actually part of the lore. Totally legit.

rtbf209142555Sep 26, 20141 votes

Honestly what if they just made it an arena where you can go to gain the favors of poweful summoners and gain fame/solve political problems but just make it more voluntary and you can leave when done.