Every hero needs a good villain, how can we flesh out League's?

SpecterVonBaren·3/27/2019, 2:00:31 AM·4 votes·6,585 views

While I love many of League's champions, I feel that perhaps the lore team has been going too hard on giving everyone a sympathetic angle to them. I feel like the picture may be getting too smudged with shades of gray, to the point that the scene is losing definition. While things like the differences between Noxus and Demacia are good to go over and show that neither side is a clear evil or good, I would like some characters to have their antagonistic or evil natures more fleshed out and have some suggestions for four of them. These are just my own ideas and interpretations of the characters and I wrote these as a stream of consciousness so I may contradict already established lore unintentionally.

Kog'Maw KogMaw

Dr. Mundo's new lore is one of the most beautiful weddings of the original lore with the perception of him that the players have. I believe Kog should have a similar treatment. Merge together the fact that he is a walking stomach always feeding and doing so through the horrifying process of melting other creatures into sludge for him to suck up with the view of the players with him being almost like a puppy or child looking at the world with wonder and making childish pratfalls and assumptions.

Perhaps have a a story where some animal herder finds his trash is being eaten by something during the night for a couple of days and he then decides to watch his trash and catch whatever creature is doing this. On that night he finds Kog but he is in a sort of larva stage that is even less developed than his current form. He's squishy, round and kind of cute. The herder interacts with Kog, getting him to do simple tricks like chasing his tail in exchange for food. This continues for a couple weeks until one night he wakes up to hear his herd bleating in terror and pain and goes out to deal with whatever is attacking them. He finds piles of mush in their pen on one side and on the other the rest of his flock cowering in fear before a creature, with one of them melting in horrible agony. The creature is Kog'Maw as he looks now after having gone through another stage in his metamorphosis to becoming an adult and he is now hungry for larger amount of food. Kog looks at the herder and walks up to him and does some of the tricks he was taught, expecting to get food from him, but the herder just stares in fear. Kog gets frustrated and returns to the still half liquefied animal to continue melting it and the herder attempts to attack Kog, Kog screams in fear and the man finds himself getting the blast of acid and our story ends with the man dying in agonized pain.

Cho'Gath Chogath

I'm copying and pasting my comment from another thread (Cho'Gath: Why is he important, and how can we make him matter? https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/2HsTEYXQ-chogath-why-is-he-important-and-how-can-we-make-him-matter?comment=0003 ) It was that thread that inspired me to make this one to try and flesh out these villains.

I like to think of Cho as basically being the Void's equivalent of Darius, Garen or Irelia. To me he is the lead of the Void's invasion, their iconic "warrior". He is viscous, monstrous and apathetic to the pleas of those he kills but he is also incredibly intelligent. He doesn't seem like a Void creature that just operates on a one track instinct like KogMaw and Khazix do but instead is like Velkoz he still follows what he was designed for but he does it willingly because he actually loathes and hates the creatures and beings of the non Void world.

The most I could see is perhaps going into WHY he hates and detests non Void beings. We don't need to know when he started feeling that way or anything but maybe have an entire short story purely from his perspective and have it written completely in his own alien understanding of things. How something with a disgusting sack of flesh hanging from a weak inner frame of bone is vile to him, how the hypocritical "love" and "affection" is given to someone but can just as easily be taken away for the most inane reasons (To him). Give him an AM speech basically.

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE."

THAT, is the kind of thing we should see from a story about Cho. He should be the one Void creature not driven by some kind of baser practical desire like food, dominance, knowledge or improvement, but instead driven by an emotion and we should see just how much that emotion drives him but without being something that causes him to just be a raging monster with no thoughts. He's like the one Graboid from Tremors with the missing tongue, he can rip you apart viciously but he learns, he knows, he's smart.

Trundle Trundle

What is a troll? Trolls are one of League's oldest (in terms of how long they've been in the lore) races and yet we have so little of this old lore about them. We don't know how they live and act outside of Trundle and he's supposed to not be like other trolls because he is smart (if also book dumb). From what we have on them, they admire and believe in strength and the right of power (A very Noxian philophy) and are either not all that bright or just don't care enough to think deeply about things.

I'm reminded of barbarian tribes, and vikings and the Mongols in the time of Genghis Khan, peoples that had an innate toughness to them to survive in their environment but could also harness this toughness and be turned into formidable armies when placed under a charismatic and intelligent leader. Have Trundle be the Genghis Khan of the trolls, the uniter of these strewn about warbands that have no direction beyond their next meal. Show that now under his leadership the trolls that were once fierce and dangerous to humans but managable because of their lack of unity and laziness now have a lightning rod to follow for a purpose. Have Trundle wear his lack of book learning on his sleeve with him not always being able to follow the exact words people use when they try to be clever or smart but also show that he isn't stupid and can cut through the fluff and get to the point of something as it actually is.

Maybe have a story where it starts out with him remembering orders given to him by Lissandra to take X area of land for their side and while he doesn't understand all of the sophisticated words Lissandra uses he gets what she means with her words. Then come back to the present with Trundle and his army about to go to battle with a coalition of fighters from several villages and show him talking with some other trolls, show us what other trolls are like and what they think of Trundle's new approach to war. Then give a moderately detailed summary of the ensuing battle where the trolls win because of a trap lain out by Trundle.

Then show him doing something different from what was once the fate of humans that lost to trolls. The humans, defeated, fear they will be killed or worse, eaten alive by the trolls, but Trundle says that they will not be killed so long as they cowtow to his rule and offer annual tributes of food and materials to the trolls. He explains later to his fellow trolls that the humans are far more valuable for manual and menial labor than they are as a quick meal. Have him truly be the barbarian king leading a formally wild group into a new age of dominance over the Freljord.

Singed Singed

Something I've always loved about Singed is how his gameplay and story mesh so well together. Singed always keeps his eyes on his own goals and plans, you can be his enemy or his ally, it doesn't matter because Singed will still do what he does and he doesn't care how you feel about it. While his joke "Shaken not stirred" is just meant to be a joke based on his chemicals, James Bond is kind of what I think Singed's character is like. I don't mean the whole playboy aspect, I mean the old style Bond being completely cool and calm under pressure, never getting frazzled even in a dangerous situation.

I see Singed as being fully capable of looking completely in place in the slums of Zaun or in the high society of Piltover. While he looks deranged in his splash art, I think he'd be able to wear his look well if he were in nice clothes and talking with nobles and the well to do.

Have his story showing how unaffected Singed is by the things he does. Start with him at some kind of gathering of well to do or intellectual people in Zaun and being perfectly suave and articulate, discussing politics and research with a calm demeanor. Have him be dressed well and look dignified even with his physical imperfections. Maybe show the point of view of some of the guests at the party that see him as a charming, if large and physically imperfect. Then switch to the next half of the story with Singed in his lab getting ready for an experiment on some hapless person.

The important thing is to not break stride. Singed doesn't see any difference between how he acts in public and how he acts in private, he knows not to mix them together but everything to him is just furthering his desire to experiment and see what is possible. Similarly to the Warwick color story, show him calmly going about his tests without any feeling of remorse, the perfect clinical academic.

All of the champions I've talked about are interesting antagonists for their own reasons and without having to be completely relatable or sympathetic, there may be tinges of it here and there but you can still clearly see them as forces doing something bad, even if it is unintentional. Traditional villains don't have to be twirling their mustaches, but they can still be villains and be interesting.

Also, please notice me Superb Villain senpai

6 Comments

NotaRobot10063/27/2019, 5:35:04 AM3 votes

I love your take on Singed. It'd be super cool to see Singed interacting with fancy folk with the same detached ease as turning people into wolf-monsters or manufacturing chemical weapons. For a guy whose inventions played such a huge role in the Ionian fiasco, I'd love to see more on him.

Maybe something with him testing an early stage of chemweapon before sending it to Noxus and glossing over the atrocities it'll be used for in favor of being impressed at how effective it is.

GreenLore3/27/2019, 9:41:05 AM3 votes

To be fair I feel like Kog'maw could actually provide an opportunity for a less villainous voidborn(though obviously he should at least start out as a menace similar to what you describe). So while I do think that most of the void creatures should clearly remain as villains, I'd say that Kog'maw is the one were it'd be ok to make an exception and position him eventually in a more neutral role or at least make him a bit more sympathetic while still keeping him on the bad side.

Oleandervine3/28/2019, 9:20:38 PM2 votes

I whole heartedly agree with your assessment on the lack of proper good and evil in the lore of the game. It makes everything a not-so-delicious shade of gray mediocrity.

A few notes though: The Void creatures, like Kog'Maw and Cho'Gath, aren't particularly the flavor of evil the game is in need of, because there's actually plenty of it. The Void is more mindless than anything, kind of operating on a hive mentality. Sure, some may have a little more intelligence than others, but their flavor is more along the lines of just mindless destruction and consumption, and less about premeditated evil deeds. There really isn't any depth to their evilness, because they're about as evil as termites or black mold - they just want to consume what they can, not caring who or what gets in their way.

Singed, on the other hand, is EXACTLY the type of evil the game needs more of. We got a large taste of Singed's personality in the stories leading up to Warwick's VGU. In his logs documenting his attempts at transmuting a criminal into a mutant, he very much is cold and indifferent to other people and his subjects. However, the is nothing in those stories that indicates that Singed is interested or capable of operating in social setting. He's not charming at all. He's focused obsessively on his work, he's a shut in, and he is disinterested in anything except whether or not his experiments worked. He abducted the man who became Warwick from the alleyways, not some elite social party, so I don't think Singed is someone who's accepted or partaking in higher society in Zaun. He's very much like Dr. Frankenstein in that regard - he'd rather isolate himself in his labs with his research than bother with trying to socialize.

Trundle - he's not really evil. He's stupid and easily manipulated. He's not clever enough to do any kind of premeditated evil and acts mostly based on desires and instant gratification.

A good example of a really well done villain was Lissandra before they butchered her lore. She planned everything, and conducted everything according to her plans of domination when her Watchers returned. She was evil to the core, unredeemable, and I know I personally relished how collected and focused she was on subjugating the world under her control. She killed for a higher purpose, she disregarded pretty much everyone and everything that didn't fall within her plan, and removed anyone that got in her way or was a threat to what she was doing. I love it. I relished how wicked and focused she was. Then they "updated" her lore and butchered her. She's no longer in control like she once was, she shows direct fear of the Watchers, and they attempted to give her a sympathetic side. None of it works, because they took a villain who was truly evil with her own plans that she had plotted over the centuries, and turned her into a terrified witch who's hoarding ice to stop the boogeyman she invited in from coming inside.

Anyhoo, personal upsets about Lissandra aside, there still are a few true villains and evil people they can expand on (and hopefully not ruin with trying to make us feel sympathy for them): Leblanc Mordekaiser Malzahar Pantheon Shaco

Vordo3/27/2019, 3:51:06 AM1 votes

No no no, that would be negativity. Bad people are bad so why should they talk about them in lore or develop evil characters? No no, just warm, fuzzy, cute, kawaii champions please. Like Zoe, neeko and more feminist characters like Kai'sa. We don't support negativity. Just positivity. I read 'villain' in op's title and didn't read anything in the post but i know I am right. More positivity. MORE POSITIVITY! BAD IS NOT REAL! I am not biased.

~ Riot Games

Warwick Main3/28/2019, 8:50:46 PM1 votes

I just want Singed evil character to stay evil.