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I feel bad for the writers at Riot sometimes

SaltyToplaneGoat··3 votes·1,340 views

League of Legends has some amazing characters with totally awesome backstories that are connected and so on and so on.

And then there are characters that are more walking stereotpyes back from an era when the writing was done by Dota-enthusiastic amateurs more than half a decade ago. The worst part is when they also are the only champion assigned to a faction or an area. Demacian champions can be defined by their connection to other Demacian champions. But what about those that kinda "stand alone"? Sure sometimes they manage to fit them right into the world with great success, as the stories of Rammus, Amumu or Skarner (especially skarner here) have proven.

But I can totally see the current writers coming together being like: "Just what the hell are we going to do with THOSE? What were they thinking when they came up with these champs? HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO WORK WITH THAT?!"

Alistar Fizz Fiddlesticks Annie Tryndamere MonkeyKing Shaco Nocturne Evelynn Jax (list not complete, just my personal faves in this regard)

Coming up with a new story or character isn't that hard. However, fixing the mistakes of another writer without actively retconing stuff ... that's a whole new level here. <_<'

24 Comments

Igotlazy3 votes

Tryndamere isn't too bad. He's the ruler of the Avarosan tribe along with Ashe. He's gonna get caught up in all the crazy Frozen Watcher nonsense.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

I agree he's not the worst offender here but... he still feels so extremly flat and one dimensional to me. Back in the day when I did fanfics I really tried to get into a champion's head. Ya know, so you can write something that feels authentic. I got more character and personality out of DRAVEN then I got out of Trynd...

He's a slightly lamer version of Olaf tbh, a very angry man who is so angry he never dies, just with a sword instead of two axes...

Well, let's see what they are going to do with the Freljord lore. But I think his character will give the writers a lot of trouble...

Igotlazy1 votes

I agree. Some champs do feel like they overlap just a bit but in Tryndamere's case it may be we have so little on him that we just condense his entire character into "angry man". We know nothing yet to differentiate him from other "angry men". At least he's in a good position to be expanded upon (being the King and all).

GreenLore1 votes

Honestly I think that tryndamere feels kinda out of place among the avarosans,I mean he is a barbarian who is filled with rage,yet he married ashe,the one freljord princess who wants to unite the freljord peacefully.

Warlord Dienekes3 votes

It made sense when Tryn was the leader of a tribe. A political marriage to a raving lunatic is not unheard of, and his entire tribe could tip the military balance of the Freljord in Ashe's favor. They may not even like each other but politics are most important.

Now, he's a sole survivor archetype. So, there's no reason for Ashe to marry him. He's just a random warrior.

That said, nigh unkillable rage filled barbarian warrior is basically how I would describe Logan Ninefingers, the Bloody Nine from Joe Ambercrombie's The First Law series. And he was a great character because of how the writer played with the expectations of what that kind of character would be.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Logan Ninefinger was a character with quite some backstory and personality tho. He was not JUST the angry barbarian warrior...

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

That's true. But he was an angry barbarian warrior. My point was that Logan shows that archetype can have quite a lot of depth if the writers choose to develop the character.

Right now all Tryn has is 4 paragraphs. It is possible to develop him further I hope they do a good job, and don't play him as a joke or make him completely one note.

Or I hope they don't turn him into an angry mystic spirit or space alien or something. I hope neither of those things most of all.

Decrit1 votes

As far as i know he is still a leader of a tribe, only that in addition to that he is the sole survivor that got anger problems from Aatrox. Then he managed to get the hold on another tribe because he is fucking powerful.

But yeah. Things are weirdly unexplained.

GreenLore1 votes

I know that it made sense from a political standpoint,but it just doesn't fit from a personal one,especially since the 2 were implied to be happily married and to be a perfect match for each other.

It feels a bit,like he is a champ who became a member of the avarosans,simply because the winters claw hadn't been established yet.

And well his lore is still at its very beginning,so maybe he'll unite the barbarian tribes later in his lore.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

I was unaware the writers have commented on him being happily married. It is nowhere in his current lore so I assumed it was scrapped because as you say it doesn't seem to make sense.

GreenLore1 votes

I mean in the old lore they were said to be the perfect match for each other and that they'd get well along.

Not sure how he'll turn out in the new one.

Decrit2 votes

Add to that Irelia. The cringyest lore ever.

Her lore is all "BLADES BLADES FATHER BLADES DEADBUTNOPESORAKAHI BLADES BLADES" And her champion insight during the IoW era was "BLADES BLADES FIGHT FATHER FATHER BLADES FIGHT BLADES"

Like "how we let a champion to use blades? let her have a death experience that gets addressed by a champion that has no correlation to a place that is just passing by so she can gain telekinesys and use them as a weapon. What Phylactery or neardeath trauma? SKATEBOARDSSSS"

EDIT: i know it should be surfboards but...

https://youtu.be/olit-B5Yldc?t=1m34s

GreenLore1 votes

I think Janna is rather bad as well. Her whole character is "wind is awesome" and her lore was described as "oh she goes out to make the world a better place",but they never established what she does anyway,not to mention that to me it came off as kinda mean that she helped piltover win the zeppelin race against zaun.

Like seriously,she wants to help others,so she leaves her home(which seems to have lots of slums and lots of people in need) and helps piltover(which seems to be among the wealthiest city states of all) instead?

Decrit1 votes

I agree that her lore is bad. I think it' s not Irelia level of bad because Irelia' s is so cringe and so bad that it is almost offensive, but that is probably just me.

But yeah, "helping" people by aiding a town to win a zeppelin race... wow.

This is why i don' t miss old lore. People dating with Nidalee and Veigar being a bottle-high drama that gets only blown up as ridicolous is not something i look forward to.

Better if i end my rant here >_>

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Janna is pretty much a blank slate. You can work with that. There is not much known anyways, but the little you have leaves more than enough room to work with due to it being so vague.

Irelia however is just an archetype forced into the noxian/ionian conflict somehow - and a really bad executed one as well, as she is actually a zombie. However, her lore is not as vague as Janna's is, and a lot more restraining...

Automatis1 votes

The new VOs have quite a few bad lines too though, which doesn't make me look forward to VO reworks. Also getting the old actors or finding new ones (Old Nasus VO > New)

But they can't all be good when every new champ has 30 minutes of them. But even a few bad lines can be jarring.

Xulsigae1 votes

They could have not gotten rid of something that helped bring the champions together and decided to keep the stories going rather than retconing...

SaltyToplaneGoat2 votes

Well, the IoW was a kind of cheap excuse to bring champions together. This is like one of these shitty fantasy/sci-fi animes that NEED a school-setting for some reason. In the end it feels like a generic excuse and not really authentic.

Also, we have several characters that can easily be moved towards others without troubles. Several are wandering around, some are connected politically, and if all fails, you could still pull "they accidentally walked into a Bard-Tunnel".

Seriously, Bard is the best excuse for that. You want Sejuani to appear in Bilgewater? Bard tunnel. You want Darius to suddenly find himself in Shurima? Bard Tunnel. You want Gragas to suddenly appear in the demacian throne room? Bard Tunnel.

Sure, if they use it too often it gets boring, but only used sometimes it has some great potential ^^

Xulsigae1 votes

Cheap? It certainly was not generic, as I have yet to see another moba that went with a sort of gladiatorial UN for the game setting. I strongly disagree it was not authentic. I liked the idea of a moba with a plot that gave reasons for the champions fighting, why enemies could fight on the same side and such. If anything getting rid of the IoW has made the game much more generic than it was before.

Isn't that a cheap reason for them to be together itself though? Why get rid of the IoW just to have Bard fulfill the same function? The IoW didn't rely on chance for the champions being there and had stories itself, with internal politics and machinations. I'd much rather have a story where a champion comes to the IoW for assistance or fun than a story where someone falls into a portal by accident.

Also, I just find Bard boring. His aesthetic is neato, but his lore...meh. I tend to not like champions who can't tell their own stories.

The problem with the previous lore was lack of progression, not the IoW. The writers didn't write more lore, which wasn't the IoW's fault. It is wrong to say that the IoW was the reason for lack of lore. It's okay to like the new lore sans the IoW, but it is wrong to blame the IoW for any faults. Enjoy the new lore, but for the right reasons.

A huge problem I have with the new lore is that it's based on incompetence by the writers who decided to retcon the IoW. They didn't know their own lore and told us reasons for taking out the IoW that were patently false and easily disproven. If they had said 'We just don't like the IoW' I'd be upset, but couldn't really say they were wrong. But they didn't, they told us it stopped story progression, was too controlling in champions lives and all sorts of rubbish. A simple read of the JoJ and other lore showed that to be wrong. Much of the new lore is perfectly fine, but it comes at a cost of the IoW, a cost that didn't have to be paid. Much, if not all of the new lore fits just fine into a world with the IoW. But without it, the lore has become generic in my opinion. I don't feel like it's doing anything I can't get from a myriad of other games or books or movies.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

The problem with the IOW was that it made the rest of the world feel irrelevant. Why should you care about something like the Harrowing that's endangering Bilgewater, when a bunch of op-mages and all champs together could just stop it? Why should you care about the relationships of states and nations outside of the IoW when it all boils down to this single one institution?

With the IoW still intact, the rise of ancient Shurima wouldn't be a big deal. "Oh, a new nation? Whatever, just sign up here. It's not like you will cause any relevant changes in the world unless we as an institution tolerate it".

Every single conflict would boil down to "When will the super-mage-organisation step in and end this?", just how it happened with the Kalamandra incident. And that's just so, so, so boring.

Xulsigae1 votes

The IoW was not all powerful- that is a common misconception. It was not the center of this world either. Many of the stories told more about the rest of the world than the IoW. Read the JoJ and other lore for that.

THe IoW only had power that was granted to it by other nations, mostly Demacia and Noxus. If the nations did not support the IoW, then the IoW had little power.

The IoW was not all powerful. The rise of Shurima woud be enormously changing to the power balance of the world. The IoW would not require that Shurima join the IoW. Ionia joined the League to petition for help against Noxus. The IoW did not stop the war between Noxus and Ionia just because there were fights happening.

The IoW's main mission was to prevent wars on the scale of the Rune Wars that had devastated Runeterra. It is wrong to say that they interfered in any conflict whatsoever. It wasn't a nanny organization rushing in and keeping everything frozen. It wasn't a 'Big Brother' organization that knew everything everywhere at all times.

The Kalamanda Incident was a demonstration of how fragile peace actually was. The time freeze was only achieved at enormous cost, not something the IoW could do on a regular basis or over a huge area. Demacia and Noxus came to the brink of war. If they had decided to continue their war, the IoW could not have stopped them.

If the IoW felt like the center of the world, whose fault was that? Not the IoW's, but the writers. Removing the IoW hasn't really changed the status quo. I never felt Bilgewater was under any threat from the Harrowing. It was driven off by people, as I expected. I see little difference between 'IoW helps Bilgewater fight off the Harrowing' and 'Bilgewater fights off the Harrowing.' Either way, the Harrowing is defeated and Bilgewater saved and the status quo remains.

In the lore before, the Harrowing was not driven of by the IoW, but Gangplank and Miss Fortune leading a fleet against it. This was with the IoW around.

For the sake of argument, let's grant the IoW was too powerful. Does that mean it should be reconned out entirely? No. There are spaces between 'Too powerful' and 'Does not exist.' If the IoW was too powerful, it could be changed. Less power given to it by the writers (keep your focus on the writers, for they are the truly all powerful ones). It is lazy thinking to remove things 100% rather than give more nuanced thought to them.

Another thing the writers did that I deplore- getting rid of the IoW without fanfare. When DC rebooted/retconned their universe, they had a huge crossover event with 'Crisis on Infinite Earths.' It was a huge sendoff to the old universe, one that respected the old one and gave us canonical reasons why the old universe was now going to be different. It was not just 'Hey guys we didn't like the old universe, so we got rid of it and here's a new one.'

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

And now, let me add the biggest problem with the IoW to it: it was just SO EXTREMLY BORING.

Sure, for people who's entire knowneldge of fantasy comes from having watched the LotR movies once it might seem cool and all, but the IoW was nothing more than an overglorified mage guild that you find in every generic fantasy universe. Why should all these characters and stories be constrained by an generic organziation that is either all-powerful and limiting everything or totally weak and it might as well not even exist because it only feels like an excuse to involve the player? And no, there is barely a space in between that. Either this organisation is powerfull enough to stand up against one of its members misbehaving, or it's a teethless paper-tiger. Either it was the center of the world or it was not. Everything between that was not possible. Either the machine is working or it is not, very simple.

Without the IoW the events in the actual nations and fractions suddenly MATTER. Everything has direct inflence without constantly having to keep the IoW and it's leading personal in the back of one's mind. So, and did the Ionia/Noxus war matter in old lore? Not really, because in the end everything came down to an league-match.

However, the war does matter now. There is no league match that could suddenly just make Noxus retreat, no summoners that could take influence. Suddenly it's quite important how the war goes and how it ends, right? Every tiny event that could lead up to the final decision suddenly gains weight - and that's what makes writing authentic.

DC's event was not exactly good, but that might be the marvel fanboy in me speaking. Secret Wars might be done better tho, judging from what I have read. However, Riot did not retcon the IoW for the reasons Marvel and DC did. They did it to reduce complexity mostly, to clean up on all the loose threads and ever increasing side characters (all these X-men and inhumans... and then all the parralell universes... I can see why they did it.)

Riot simply had to admit that the IoW was a narratolgical mistake. A huge on on top of it.

Also, now we actually HAVE the possibility of a new rune-war breaking out. Every interaction of Demacia and Noxus will be under that thought. Every single time things seem to ge arwry fans and readers will be like "OH SHIT" - and that's a good sign if you can make your readers feel like that ^^

Xulsigae1 votes

There is plenty of room between all powerful and non existent. It is limited thinking by the writers that constrained lore, not the IoW. Focus on the writers, for they are the ones with power.

If you say so. I can see this will go nowhere.

Xano5011 votes

Need Blizzard Ent to write lore instead.

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