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We have an unreliable narrator

Rebonack·1/28/2017, 4:28:49 AM·4 votes·1,016 views

The account in Jayce's bio of his confrontation with Viktor is quite different from Viktor's own. In the former, he came in peacefully and tried to talk Viktor down. In the latter, he came in smashing stuff and Viktor ordered the automita to kill him to prevent him from destroying the lab (and the lives said lab was saving).

Now, on the surface that might not seem like a big deal. Sure, okay, it's just the two sides of the story, right?

Nope.

They say truth is a three-edged sword. Their side, your side, and the truth. We had the opposing sides given, but not the truth. We have an unreliable narrator, a biased observer. We can't take the narration we find in these two bios as wholly accurate.

And beyond that, it may be that we can't take the narration in any of the bios as wholly true. In much the same fashion, these are just someone's story. Someone's take on what happened. What someone wants to believe. Jinx' bio goes out of its way to describe how harmless Jinx is to everything except the pride and pocketbooks of Piltover. Perhaps, as with Jayce and Victor, this is just her side of the story? Or maybe the side of those who look up to her? People idolized Robin Hood after all, despite the guy just being a brigand.

What about Mundo's bio? It seems absolutely abhorrent that the medical staff of a mental institution would visit such torments on someone. Could it be, perhaps, that what we read was merely Mundo's misunderstanding of the purpose behind well-meaning medical attempts that have little if anything to do with face-eating mites? It would make for a salient mirror of Mundo's own well-meaning medical attempts on others.

If this is what's going on, that adds a whole new layer to League's Lore.

And one that I whole-heartedly welcome. Because a bio that's biased in the favor of the champ it's about? That gives you a very personal look into how they see themselves.

4 Comments

HalfTangible1/28/2017, 6:54:48 AM2 votes

Could it be, perhaps, that what we read was merely Mundo's misunderstanding of the purpose behind well-meaning medical attempts that have little if anything to do with face-eating mites?

This one definitely not, because misunderstanding the torture was the major point of that entire story.

Eternal7911/28/2017, 4:53:41 AM1 votes

Hmm. Never thought of it this way. Though just because Jinx's bio had two of her antics with no one getting hurt, doesn't mean it was trying to convince us Jinx is totally harmless to the people them selves. It didn't go into detail about all the other things she's done. But you're point is interesting anyway. Though I don't think all the bios are biased by the champion they're for. Jayce's and Victors are totally biased and it works, but some like Jinx's, Dr. Mundos and plenty of other champs don't seem to have very biased bios, though I guess we don't have one to compare them too for most of them.

GreenLore1/28/2017, 10:39:29 AM1 votes

I'd say it is more likely that we get parts of the whole picture from both champs and thanks to the fact that we get both,we can get a rather complete image of the whole thing.

I mean in the end a story piece can't always cover every detail of information. In Jayces lore it left out the smashing before Viktor tried to kill him,because it was pretty irrelevant to the story of Jayce(though we can imagine that he smashed through doors or something like that). In Viktors lore we don't get the part where Jayce is trying to argue with Viktor,because in the end that didn't change Viktors opinion anyway.

And overall I am pretty sure that Viktors lore was written in a way that it already assumed that we have read the Jayce lore already,so it makes sense that it doesn't repeat everything.