Remember when he was a daring magus who sought to master the arcane? Remember his Judgement? Remember what he lost to attain his power?
Yeah, screw that. Let's make him a bitter nobody to shoehorn Azir into the story. When your champion releases retcon compelling characters into this kind of crap it's really time to reevaluate your writing decisions. This isn't as bad as the Jayce/Viktor thing but it's pretty close.
Doing things for 'power' is pretty common. The ability to change things comes with power to do so. For us money often equals power. Be you politician, manager or king. In a fantasy setting "magic" being power shouldn't be that hard of a jump.
Most people can fathom a terrible accident as the result of their own mistake or decision as a result of misguided hubris.
Plotting the genocide of your own people is an act that if you can identify with says much more about YOU than Xerath.
It's the difference between 'stock' bad guy and 'tragic' figure.
If anything he should have some empathy or sympathy for his fellow slaves. Making it so "he done goofed" because Azir freed everyone is lame cop-out to make Azir seem more 'good'.
I don't have an issue with Riot making a change to the champion but to pretend they attempted to keep his core motivations is completely inane.
Accusing me of being to unable to appreciate change is a lame attempt to deflect the point of my post and by proxy the thread and the opinions of those who are unhappy with it. I'm sorry you can't handle discourse or that you are personally bored by it. So far Riot's ability to keep the core has a terrible track record. Ask Trundle, Karma and Cass fans. Riot should just own up to flat fiat changes of the characters and everyone can go home ;P
Have you read the new short story that pretty much aims to restore that by giving him reasons to do what he did? Because it's stickied. Right above you. And it's pretty good.
What? "I blew up the whole F'in empire full of innocents because this guy is a dick and I'm bitter" vs. "I exploded the town because I didn't realize the effects of what I was doing til too late."
Clearly we have differing opinions on what makes him easier to identify with.
That's true LordHippoman, but should narrative really be shooting for Lowest Common Denominator, when they have 114+ champs to do stories for? It's bad enough some of the champs have kits that aren't hugely different. We've already got LoL tropes beginning... ADC ladies are all secretly princesses and the men are somehow tragic gunslingers.
Before I address the change itself, I want to respond to how some people's attitudes towards 
's motivations, which I think is oversimplifying - whatever you may think of the ret-con - best characterized by OP:
a bitter nobody.
He's a slave - it means he doesn't even belong to himself, whatever else he has. Consider that for a moment. No amount of comfort, friendship, elevation or education will change the fact that he is someone's property. I doubt that any of us would be happy with the knowledge that people would view our lives as inherently worth less than that of others, and whatever value we did have was ascribed to us by someone else.
From both stories, we can see that in 's case, 
valued him a great deal - which is great. However, there's a difference between being someone's trusted friend and confidant and being a trusted friend and confidant that they own. After a while, Xerath would begin to see Azir as either powerless to change what was a deeply engrained institution or viewing Xerath like any other slave, albeit one who he cared about a great deal - someone who's place was and always would be, at his master's beck and call. From what we can see of Xerath's character, he clearly moved towards the second conclusion - that Azir was more unwilling than unable to free him. Realizing that someone you considered your brother for most of your life doesn't believe you're worth the effort to help become your own person would likely feel like an immense betrayal.
Sure, he's the emperor's best bud which counts for a lot but that is essentially all he has. Whatever status he has comes from being the emperor's slave - as far as society is concerned he will never be a real person or the equal of a free man in his own right. Clearly, this argument can be flipped around to say that he only had all the advantages he did because he belonged to - education, comfort, etc - which he more than likely wouldn't have had if he had been a free, but presumably common, man.
That brings us to the second point though. We can see from his story that he had begun to question the stratified nature of his society - an elite few at the top given all the opportunities while the rest of the population is stuck on square one until they die. He was in a unique position, being raised among the nobles but certainly not one of them, and able to see both ends of the spectrum. This perspective on the system would (and did) lead him to wonder why the system was the way it was, which would in turn lead him to seek not just his own freedom, but to topple the entire social order and put himself in a position to rebuild it how he believed it should be.
Yes, what he did was morally wrong - causing massive collateral damage and killing likely thousands of people. That's a given. However, my point is he had fairly good reason for being extremely bitter, and that is bound to eat away at a person in general, let alone their moral framework.
And that was a bigger post than I planned - I'll have to come back later to explain my thoughts on the ret-con proper.
