Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Jhin has been shoehorned into being Ionian.

turkeyBACON·2/6/2016, 5:41:27 AM·9 votes·11,999 views

...and it's pretty obvious he was meant to be a Piltover champ instead.

For one his visuals don't match Ionia at all. There aren't any hints of visual symbolism of eastern influences or mysticism. Or the physical threat of martial prowess either. A Red during the Q&A insists that his limbs aren't prosthetic but rather a body suit and armor plates on his extremely lithe body. Despite this another Red claims they were designed as mechanical and his base model and splash clearly shows this. http://i.imgur.com/IJK2WGK.jpg https://i.gyazo.com/71381f9388edd6ee1c147e2c35943115.jpg Up until now Ionia had no hints of Hextechnology whatsoever but with Jhin's bio lore a throwaway line about an armory appears to explain it away.

Yeah, I don't buy it.

What Jhin instead has is the hallmarks a Piltover champ. The white enamel, gold metals, and accent color schemes. The classic masqueraded mask that echos the same style borrowed for the steampunk/hextech aesthetic of piltover. The scroll designs all over Jhin that can be found on both Caitlyn's gun and Orianna's metalwork. Look at all three and tell me that they don't come from the same place. http://news.cdn.leagueoflegends.com/public/images/pages/2016/january/jhin/img/jhin-wallpaper.jpg https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Caitlyn_0.jpg https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Orianna_0.jpg

Their stories were obviously meant to be related. And I know it's been brought up on Reddit before but Jhin would have/should have been Orianna's father and maker, Corin Revick. Jhin's fixation on death and art is mirrored in Orianna being a killing machine through dance. Jhin/Corin would be the perfect rival as Caitlyn's, "C". A twisted mirror of Caityln as a hextech enhanced sniper to challenge her own prodigious skills. Leading Caitlyn in the perfect performance piece as revenge for her failing to protect his daughter. Corin taking up the mantle of artist to finish the performance his daughter never can.

The only reason I can come up with why they hamfisted Jhin as Ionian is to give Shen a lore update/progression with his visual and gameplay update. Red's have said in the past that they'll bundle content "packages/products" when they can. If I had to guess I'd say that manager somewhere noticed that the next champion update would arrive very close to the same time a the new champion release and wouldn't it be great if they could fudge the content to fit in so they could prop up each others' releases and recreate the brilliance of the Burningtides Update! Cross promotion and product synergy and all that corporate BS. I'd stake money that they sacrificed thematic cohesion and lore quality to make it happen. I mean they haven't even released either Shen's or Jhin's full new lores despite both of them being officially released to the public. What's the hold up? Unless the lore team is trying to cobble together something that was never meant to be together in the first place.

I feel bad for Lore team, I really do. You can see that they had a plan and sparks of brilliance are allover Jhin's design and theme. But they had to scrap a lot of that for something else that just isn't up to the quality and creative standards they they just set and now dipping back below. Its a shame really; I would have loved to seen and experienced the original story instead.

41 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer2/6/2016, 5:57:18 AM10 votes

The point is that he represents a different side to Ionia, one from after the war with Noxus

Umbral Regent2/6/2016, 7:47:12 AM6 votes

Jhin is meant to be from Ionia - even though he doesn't display martial arts skill or mystical influence like other champions (Lee Sin, Karma, Shen, and Irelia all undoubtedly come to mind), he is from Ionia. He's an example of what can happen when a person understands the tools at hand (powerful magical energies) and has a purpose to use them (beautifying murder). As for the Kashuri armories (Might've misspelled that.), Ionian leaders realized after the Noxus-Ionian war that they're going to have to ramp up their technology game from swords, bows and arrows to guns if they're going to be able to stay strong. It's not too far-off to assume that Ionians would start developing hextech weapons to compete. While I do agree that he does carry the look of a Piltovian (or in some cases, as people have exclaimed when his splashart was teased, Demacian), I still have to stick with Riot's statements that he's from Ionia. Riot has been doing really good in their lore development process, and I think they took a really good opportunity to show a lot of things about some other champions, as well as the country of Ionia itself; that Shen and Zed, the two prodigies of the Kinkou order, once avidly worked together, that Zed was simply young and hot-tempered before boiling into his feud with Shen and Master Kusho, and that, ironically, the incarceration of Jhin was the first domino down Zed's path of darkness. Even Ionia is shown to be more than just "honor and grace, martial artists every third of a foot and poetscribes for every noble house" (Hope I'm not offending anyone in the far east with that imagery, just felt like the original territory Ionia had and largely still has), and turned it into "beautiful place abundant with magic, and nobody here is perfect; even the political leaders have dark intent". Another thing about Jhin being from Ionia is that it does what they set out to do with the Burning Tides and Shadows and Fortune stories/events; to show that League of Legends, and more specifically, the entire world of Runeterra, is progressing and evolving. Time's not standing perfectly still, and we're getting to see that this stands true for what would originally seem to be a more lost-in-time locale.

Ebonmaw Dragon2/6/2016, 5:43:27 AM4 votes

Nah, he was meant to be a champion from Bilgewater, a Cowboy Cyborg from Bilgewater... But after 2 Bilgewater champs, and a rework, they decided to make him from a different island.

turkeyBACON2/6/2016, 5:46:21 AM3 votes

As an aside... Even the Jhin teaser cinematic would have made more sense. Perhaps Jhin attacks those that betrayed those they've loved and cared for. Zed betrayed his master, Vi turns on her Zaunite street family, Garen against his true love Katerina, and Sona uses the beautiful music she was taught to make by her adopted mother to instead kill. Perhaps Jhin sees killing these types as they remind him of his own betrayal for his inability to save his daughter and then his inability to recreate her. OR another theory maybe that he kills those that are "lying" to themselves. Zed isn't really Zed but instead Shen's father and master. Vi deep down knows that she shouldn't be a cop. Garen is a traitor to his nation for his forbidden love. Sona isn't mute at all (Sona again is the weakest link but she has barely any lore to work off). Jhin sees through their masks and falsehoods and gives their lives meaning and beauty through death. Something his daughter never had and something Caitlyn still deserves.

Tesla Effect2/6/2016, 11:59:27 AM2 votes

It feels like a lot of you have not read the Q&A for Jhin, sigh.

Valderis Vandala2/6/2016, 6:07:24 AM1 votes

That makes a surprising amount of sense. XD Nice theory anyway.

Brenticus122/6/2016, 9:09:49 AM1 votes

It just...feels weird. I like that they made him Ionian to represent Ionia's dark side, but I also want him to be Piltoverian because of his design.

GreenLore2/6/2016, 10:47:45 AM1 votes

While I agree that he would have fit into piltover quite well,I wouldn't say that he has nothing ionian about him.

The poncho for example doesn't really fit piltover and with its white design,I would actually say it fits ionia quite well. And his weapon does look a bit like one of those old caligraphy pens(or whatever they are named,might have used the wrong name here).

The Soulforged2/8/2016, 4:30:25 AM1 votes

Woah. Him being a counterpart to cait really had me going.