What we Know About the Void at the Moment, and how it Shows the new Thematic Direction for the World

Now by this point any boards frequenter would have to be keeping their head in the sand to not know about the most recent thing that's been latched onto by both complainers and defenders alike: Kai'sa, and how she isn't "void" enough. However, from looking at the universe page for the Void and the limited artwork we've gotten on it so far, I believe people are incorrect as to her proper level of voidness because they are looking at the old void. Let's take a look at what we know so far.

Keep in mind that this is based off the small amount we have, and it has not been expanded on enough for me to make definitive statements. I simply wish to bring to people's attention some changes the faction is going through.

A Dead World full of Unnatural Life

I love the Void, both old and new based on what we know. That being said, if you love something you point out its flaws, and there's nothing I love doing more than pointing out flaws. The old void was uninspired. It was Lovecraft Land. It was a place beyond comprehension that drove people mad yet spat out new creatures that had no negative mental effects on people around them (negative physical effects, yes, but not so much mental ones). For all the talk about Void corruption, Malzahar is basically a human with a third eye who floats, while Kassadin is certainly changed substantially but now seems to have brought the corruption on himself by mixing ancient artifacts and Void power. In the old lore he just changed when he was in the Void. The only unique theme the void had was that Voidborn seemed to be really into eating things, and even that was dropped with the release of Vel'koz and Rek'sai.

Now we only have two paragraphs and a few images of the new Void so far, but they paint a very different image, one not of madness but of chaos and death, yet at the same time infinite creation. It's an infinite world where machinery and organic matter are merged together, where ancient flesh-forges tower above its inhabitants (I'm not making that up, that's really on the universe page). It negatively effects people, yes, but it does so not through mental manipulation but by fusing the man with the machine. Kai'sa went through that process, as did her father. She just made it through because of her second skin.

All Stories Have a Grain of Truth

The next big difference is the Void's position in Runeterran beliefs. In the old lore it was just a wacky cult that that weirdo Malzahar, who floats and summons creatures from another dimension, is totally making up. It was an immediate threat that no one cared about because the league was summoning stuff from other worlds constantly. In the new lore, the Void is integral to Runeterran history. There seems to have been a Void war, and the Void itself is the results of a war waged using living weapons (although that may be the Void war from Runeterra for all we know). It appears in the legends of almost every culture on Runeterra. It's a big deal, basically. People may not believe in it, but they know of it, and that makes all the difference. That turns the void from an immediate threat that people don't care about to an ancient force that has faded into obscurity but is returning to Runeterra. This also means that Runeterra has an actual history with the void rather than just being the next target on an endless planetary buffet.

Toned Down for Better Storytelling

That the void used to be a presence on Runeterra also changes how battle against it could go: it makes the Void beatable. In the old lore, even with Kassadin fighting the Void the whole situation seemed pretty unwinnable unless the IoW got involved. They came from a world that drove you insane just by being in your general vicinity, you could only defend and it's an infinite world filled with creatures like Cho'gath and Kog'maw who became stronger by killing your allies. You can't fight cthulhu, and you couldn't fight the Void. The new one seems like a more balanced situation. The Void is infinite and horrible, but it doesn't necessarily drive you insane, it just warps you. People can survive inside of it, despite the danger. It might be dialing back the sheer power of the Void, but it will make for better storytelling as they won't be forced to pull a Deus Ex Machina out of their ass to solve the situation if the Void can already be defeated. The Void is still a threat, it's just not the unstoppable wave of death that there's really no point in fighting that it used to be. Some people have said it's boring, but I think proper storytelling sometimes requires dialing back overwhelming power. We already have power creep in game, we don't need to bring out bigger and more impressive ways to handle problems in arcs that it doesn't make sense for. It makes sense that Targon's plot involves Aurelion Sol, Zoe, and the like. It's a space fantasy about a cosmic race and the things they do, it's grand scale. They'll likely deal with the biggest and baddest of the Void stuff, but by dialing back the overall strength of the Void it allows it to be involved in other faction's plots too without every country needing its own space dragon

A New, Probably Better Direction

So we can see that the Void is very different. It now has a cohesive idea behind it, a more unified color scheme (using grays, purples, and blues, whereas old void still had the purple but little else in terms of colors except on Kog), a new visual design, and a scope more easily usable in the overall plot. I recommend going to its universe page so that you can actually see the pictures, and also so you can see that the Void really is different than it used to be. Please, give it a chance. It genuinely seems more interesting from two paragraphs that are going to be expanded upon than the Old Void did with all the lore it used to have. It's unique, it's visually compelling, and it's almost guaranteed to give interesting storylines to League as a whole.

Thank you for reading through my text wall. [vlad-salute]