Malzahar is best Void

Blood Magicks·2/4/2019, 9:54:21 PM·25 votes·14,012 views

I know there's a Kha'Zix thread around here somewhere, but can we talk about the potential behind this champion?

He is the true, intellectual, patrician choice for any Void lover. He has the deepest Lovecraftian undertones, and the true glory of Lovecraft doesn't lie in tentacles, slime and even more tentacles. This is just the imagery he uses to convey a feeling of alienness.

No, what makes Lovecraft the king of horror is the depressingly resonant and truthful philosophy that shines through his grand prose. His stories start somewhat grounded in the ordinary, following an unfortunately curious character on their journey of discovery. Discovery here leads to madness, as both character and reader come to glimpse, fragment by fragment, the terrifying nature of their reality. And while Lovecraft's lonesome leads find escape in death or insanity, the reader is left contemplating the implications of each story - the futility of humanity's pursuits, and its inevitable doom.

Lovecraft himself put it well:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

There's nothing quite like feeling one's mind shatter under the burden of knowledge, and the terrifying vastness of the cosmos. No other League champion captures that philosophical Lovecraftianism better than Malzahar, I think, who sough out the Void by his own will, who came to know and understand, and was forever altered by it. Hell, he's even named after Lovecraft's most iconic human character.

I want to read more about this guy to experience that distilled cosmic horror that will bring League's already stellar Void writing record to even greater levels of excellence.

10 Comments

Lady Faceless2/4/2019, 10:15:54 PM12 votes

Gonna agree with you, Malzahar is the best Void Champ. The actually thing I love most about him how he also got broken by the true nature of humanity. We are trapped in an endless circle of pain and misery and there is no way to break free from it. So he embraced oblivion instead.

I only wish he would get a Color Story...

d00mface2/4/2019, 10:09:31 PM4 votes

Yes! Can't go wrong with more cosmic horror :D

Pale Mask2/5/2019, 12:30:44 AM3 votes

I will say that proper cosmic horror is a difficult thing to do. Being incomprehensible is the defining characteristic of the genre. Not everyone gets or enjoys the "fear of the unknown"; it's quite nebulous and relies on imagination more than anything else to elicit an emotional response. Some people would just prefer gore or monsters to it.

Despite this, I do think Malzahar has the potential to become a complex and very human character. I believe he could be something closer to an anti-hero than a villain, in a way. Any development of him in general I would like to see.

Whyte Lyon2/5/2019, 2:08:14 AM3 votes

Sorry, long rant ahead.

In terms of Malzahar's lore, I love the Lovecraftian influence it has as much as the next Joe. Yet I have a really big problem with his character, despite being updated already, it has left an impression of unfulfilled potential. Obviously, that is because the only lore Malz has is his biography, giving us very brief (dear I say shallow) comprehensions of what were his motives; why and where do they come from? Among other elements that bio's simply can't delve into.

I love your fluff about cosmic horror but from my perspective, it's just that- fluff being projected onto the character. Yet very little of these elements you've discussed have been sufficiently incorporated/represented in Malzahar's lore.

Take Brand for example, a character that the writers actually fleshed out his origins with extensive detail and they presented us with why such a (fairly common archetype) villain became what he is. Kegan had a pretty rough upbringing, his motives to obtain magical artifacts is a desire to become powerful and do what he could not when a child; to no longer be vulnerable. He hated being seen as inferior and certainly didn't want to be insignificant. This was all presented through stories outside the brief information his biography gave us, which had fleshed him out enough at least, to make for a sensible villainous being.

ZaFishbone2/5/2019, 1:02:28 PM1 votes

Have you bought the new game on Steam, Malzahar Simulator?