No Growth

Titan øf Stone·Jul 24, 2015·4 votes·1,001 views

Latest champ lore updates have me agitated again. I am far from the first to be vexed by all the retcons, heck I may not even be the first to post these thoughts (too many pages to sift through to be sure), and Riot has valid points about the League making it difficult to introduce new champions, but I'd like to put in my two cents on the matter / vent a little.

My problem with the retcons is established upon two main points. 1.) When a champions lore is changed, it changes the champion. A rioter said, in response to a comment saying changing a character was like taking them out of the game: > {quoted} > > But we aren't taking any champion out of the game? I don't feel like that's a fair analogy. I'm not in charge of lore, so you're all set there!

This is technically true; When playing a match champions have the same abilities, graphics, and voice overs (usually) as they did before a retcon. However the core of what a champion is based on, their inner machinations and motivations, are fundamentally different. This leaves us with a facsimile of the champion from before the retcon, so while the champion is not actually taken out of the game they are replaced with a stranger that leaves invested players missing an old buddy. Admittedly the majority of players don't care, but it is deeply disturbing to have and idolized character suddenly be something else. Like if DC suddenly made Superman an earthling who got hit with a piece of kryptonite and obtained superpowers. Same look, same powers, different person.

2.)The other problem with retcons is that they hobble story growth.

The Freljord, Shurima, and Bilgewater events were/are fantastic, but they all **ADD **very little to the story. The reason I say they add little is because they all replace what already existed, leading to minimal net gain. *_New Freljord lore added a bunch of background, replaced old with Trundle changing the most. No growth. ---*Shurmia added new lore for several more champions, the stories for Nasus,Renketon, and especially Skarner were completely new. Majority of this new lore replaced the old, some radically changing champions character, nominal growth. --Bilgewater is adding new story as I type, so I wont judge yet. However it has already added new lore to Champions like TF, by replacing the old. I think I established the point.

The most substantial problem from so much retconning is that it stagnates characters and stories. Almost everything added lore wise in the past year has been accomplished by throwing something out, leaving us right where we metaphorically started at the games launch; with a bunch of really cool characters that don't actually do or accomplish anything.

However the reason the retconning perturbs me, and I believe a fair portion of those who care about lore, most is that it would be so easy for Riots writers to add to the established lore. While I know not the true challenges they face I have read all their works and find it to be truly inspired, and am left certain that if they wanted to they could pen marvelous additions to the current world state.

For example: If they had written that the League had been dissolved due to all three members of the High Council of Equity (the ones whose power was the threat keeping the nations from fighting elsewhere) where gone, (leaving the Institute toothless and letting everyone else do whatever the hell they want) instead of just saying it never existed, I bet my left foot far fewer people would be so livid.

To put this whole argument into a sentence. ~_ If all you do is retell the past differently, then no matter how much changes nothing actually grows._

9 Comments

Titan øf StoneAug 3, 20152 votes

Bilgewater event done excellently. While I still don't like them changing champ lore I like how they played things out.

GreenLoreAug 3, 20151 votes

About the first point: Yeah retconning characters can go bad,but sometimes it actually improves the character Sion is a good example of this. So I think it depends on the character.

The second point: The thing is that these events usually add more than they take. For the freljord we got new lores for Gragas Anivia Tryndamere Udyr Olaf & Volibear Trundle to replace the lost lores,but we also got Lissandra ,got a lot of info about the freljords history,a new map of the freljord(yeah they retconned the old map,but the new freljord map was also more detailed)and the nation itself was much more established than before(with Sejuanis tribe finally being a thing) Shurima event was kind of a mess,because of the missing main lores,so there was no replacement for the lost ones(I hope we'll see the shurima lores after the bilgewater event).But this event also gave us Azir,more insight into Shurimas history and changed Shurima entirely(before it was just a desert with some smaller villages in between,now it is a rising empire)

Bilgewater event didn't change that many lores(GP,MF and Graves all have more or less the same background+the new lore,only TFs lore got changed and even then just a bit) and we get the event-lore as well,which resulted in Bilgewater being in a gang war,character development for MF,TF and Graves and in Gangplank loosing his position.

Titan øf StoneAug 4, 20151 votes

A response :D. However I think we're not quite poking at the same issue here.

Rebuttal to point 2: Yes they have expanded the background in many areas, but those additions do not grow anything because growth requires working off of previously existing things.

When they "reset" each lore bit for an event or rework they are wiping out the previous base point and putting things back at square one. So no matter how big or how many times you do a '+1' to something, it doesn't actually grow if you also do a '-1'.

Now, if they revisited the Freljord or Shurima and did another event or character progression THAT would be growth, because they're building upon something that has been established.

Rebuttal to first point: My problem with retcons isn't their quality, I agree that Sions new lore is much more interesting than his old. My problem is that they're replacing the old champion with a new one instead of growing that champions story. The new Sion is an undead juggernaut who was hero of Noxus for killing a Jarvan, fantastic; but this new Sion is left where they remade him. Unless they do a Noxus event his character stagnates, his past has changed but he does nothing in the present.

And some character changes are quite massive, even if they seem small.

You may say TFs lore is changed a little, but it's actually quite massive. They went from him having no magic for most of his life to him having it. This massively changes his motivations throughout all his life. For petes sake his whole story for some odd years was that he DELIBERATELY betrayed Graves in order to GET MAGIC. He was the unquestionable bad guy in their story, while the may of kept the part about Graves being locked up they changed it to no longer be TFs fault. That kind of change is huge, and that's why I dislike that retcon.

Lastly, even if they do all the retcons well, I still think it would be just as easy, and more satisfying, to expand on the people and places in Runeterra.

Wanting to know more about your favorite characters and places, character growth, is what brings people back when sequels to books and movies and games come out, you want to see what happens to them. If in each sequel they say the main character has always been something that they clearly weren't in the previous edition, without explaining why/how, it would make people livid, which is why I am frustrated with how they handle lore in league.

GreenLoreAug 5, 20151 votes

About the retcons: The thing is that sometimes the old characterisation also brings some problems. Sion for example brought up the question,why Noxus simply doesn't raise each and everyone of their soldiers. They were able to bring Sion back,so there wouldn't be a problem for them to do it with others.(back then when the league was still a thing,necromancy was simply forbidden,but now nothing would stop them).New Sion makes it clear why they aren't doing this,because their necromancy skills are quite limited and end up doing more harm than help.

In some cases it is also like a missed opportunity.I mean TF was the bad guy in the TF-Graves rivalry.....but thats not really unique isn't it?We also have Soraka-WW,Cassio-sivir(ok that one is new),etc. there are plenty of rivalries where one champ is definetly the bad guy. Tfs new motivations are new,but they are also a bit more unique.

Though overall I can understand that it can suck if someone gets changed,thats true,I just wanted to make clear why they are doing this sometimes.

About the 2.point. Well there is the big difference though that the events don't just add the new bios for the characters. Freljord event retconned the lores of several champions and replaced them with new ones,ok you could say that this is a +/-0 for them.But it also established the Freljord,gave more insight into the different tribes and explained some of the history of the freljord,which would be a +3 or something like that to the base(based on how high you rank these things) Shurima kinda failed in that,since it didn't give the full lores,so it subtracted a lot of things without adding something,but it too gave a lot of insight into shurima as a nation and continued sivirs story. Bilgewater now,did something similar.We've got new full lores for MF,Graves,TF&Gp,that replaced their old ones,so thats +/-0,but we've also got the bilgewater event,which adds easily a +10,since it not only expands the storys of these champs right away,but also adds a lot of world building.(and aside from GP looking different and Tfs motivations having changed,these characters actually didn't change at all).

Overall they are still in the midst of the retcon,so they are actually still busy building the base for their world,which is most likely why the events only focus on one nation.Expansions of stories will most likely increase once they finished the remaining retcons.

Titan øf StoneAug 11, 20151 votes

Sorry for takin so long to get back to ya, was working on other stuff >_>

In regards to the first point, any problem that arises from keeping current characterizations can easily be solved with a sentence or two. They could come up with any number of solutions to the problem. For example:

       Q:Why doesn't Noxus just raise all of it's fallen soldiers?

Possible Answers:

Something on the Shadow Isles has gone bizarre, drawing in all "Necromagic" from elsewhere, preventing zombie raising. We know the Shadow Isles are getting more powerful so it could happen.
Raising soldiers is challenging and/or expensive, so it's not worth raising every solider, just the really powerful ones.
Noxus just decided not to do it anymore.

Those three were just off the top of my head, and while the last one is ridiculous I included it to make my point clear. That the RIOT writers could come up with nearly anything to explain away inconstancies or problems and it would be fine, or better than fine, because it works off existing lore.

As for the second point I have to completely disagree with you. You can't just change the past because you feel it's boring or frustrating or you feel you could of done it better/missed opportunity.

It's the same as how you can't rewrite real history. An example for the sake of ease:

Wouldn't it make the US appear better as a nation if we had never owned slaves or taken land from the natives? Yes it would, however we can't/shouldn't rewrite history to make it look like we didn't do those things, we have to accept them as the past and move on from it in a better direction.

And I get why their doing it, it's easy, I just don't' feel it's appropriate. Believe it or not I'm actually barely chafed that the characters appear different. Looks are superficial, relatively easy to ignore/explain away, it is personality/character that matters

I agree that the Bilgewater event was the best, by far. I thoroughly enjoyed most of it. There was very little on BIlgewater previously, so I don't even count this as a reboot of it, I count it as legitimate growth. Aside from the TF retcon all the characters started pretty much the same, and we got some actual authentic character growth for Gangplank, Graves/TF, and MF a bit. XD

However I repeat that what I'm after is the growth of something, not how in-depth it is at its inception.

The Freljord did go much more in depth then the previous lore, however it replaced it rather than adding to it so there was no growth. If they did another Frejlord or Shrumia event, where they replaced the new lore with 'newer' lore that was 5 times more encompassing, it would still be a reestablishing, and therefore wouldn't count as growth.

I give it to them though, it sucks that their retconing is piecemeal instead of whole-sale, it draws out the pain and they have to know that.

To be honest I'm obsessed with the characters in this game, so I'm bothered more than most. But it's been fun debating with you =D

GreenLoreAug 11, 20151 votes

About the answers as for why Noxus doesn't raise any more people: 1.That would imply that the curse of the shadow isles affects runeterra as a whole,it really sounds like an excuse... 2.It would still be something they'd do with their most powerful soldiers and Noxus is a nation that is known for its powerful soldiers,so it'd be weird for sion to be the only one. 3.As if they'd let such a huge advantage slip,they even bombard their own soldiers if it benefits them.

About the second point: Well it is up to you if you agree with retconning in general or not.

I'd say the bilgewater event was really tame when it comes to retcons,the only thing that was really changed was TFs betrayal(we really didn't know much about who ruled bilgewater,so GP being the boss could be considered simply new information than retcon),since GP was always a rather dark character in the lore.

And yeah,I agree that the retcon takes far too long.

Titan øf StoneAug 11, 20151 votes

The possible answers I came up with where just examples, the third one in particular being more of an exercise in hyperbole than anything. All I'm trying to say is that they could come with anything and people would be more likely to accept it because it's moving forward.

We know from this that the harrowing is getting stronger every year. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume it has subtler effects on a larger scale.

Sion isn't they only one, they also raised :D His lore says they need the champions corpse, in good condition, to reanimate it; and those conditions would slim down potential applicants a bit, seeing as most probably fell in battle.

Like I said, it's tameness with retcons is why the Bilgewater event is my favorite.

GreenLoreAug 11, 20151 votes

Yeah but in Urgots case they also used technology from zaun and the result is rather flawed(I think it was even said that its only thanks to urgots strong will that he managed to remain alive),so its natural that they don't mass produce him.

Titan øf StoneAug 12, 20151 votes

That was my point. They had to go to extreme lengths to raise Urgot, meaning that unless they get a corpse in good condition it's too difficult to resurrect. My thinking is that most champions good enough to bring into undeath would probably be in the thick of battle when they died, making it unlikely their corpse would be useable.