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Demacia, Noxus, and Manicheism in the Lore (with a touch of Mordekaiser and Rabelais) (cc @Jaredan )

DeathBurst·2/18/2016, 3:08:53 PM·4 votes·3,594 views

So, I was reading the Between Two Turrets Q&A with Jaredan, late to the party as usual. And I stumbled upon this very interesting quote: > Noxus isn't the place where Nosferatu lives, it isn't all dark and brutal. It has its positive points and we want to show them while avoiding thin 'bad guy' representations to sum Noxus up.

And, well, I'm really happy to read that, because when you have truly bad villains vs nice good guys, stories are often bland. But on the other hand, I think the current and past lores (I extensively read the old lore from before I started playing on the wikia) do/did a bad job with that. Even recently, and ironically with Jaredan's Quote, we learned that Noxus was literally the place where Nosfe... hum, Mordekaiser, sorry, lived, and that Mordekaiser is the True Big Bad Guy, boss of all undeads on the Shadow Isles. Not many shades of grey here...

The old lore was slightly better, with stuff like Quinn and Talon cooperating, or showing Katarina as a very family-minded person, and not just a deadly assassin with knives and boobs, but it still wasn't great, even then, Noxus were still the bad guys, the ones who had invaded Ionia, etc.

And I find that relatively strange, because at the same time, I feel like the writers made a wonderful job of NOT painting Demacia as the perfectly nice guys. They are shown to be stubborn to the point of being stupid, to be hypocritical and to give a great amount of importance to appearances and respectability instead of true honor and kindness. I mean, personally, I wouldn't like to live in Demacia! Go read the old Lux Judgement if you haven't already, it's heart-breaking: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Lux/Background

So yeah, I'm surprised that the Narrative at Riot managed so well to avoid manicheism on the Demacian side and didn't really succeed as far as Noxus is concerned, but I'm glad to see that this wasn't intentional. It gives me hopes for the other pair of rivals that are Zaun and Piltover, because until now, it really seemed like Piltover was a perfect "Science for Progress" city (despite discreet hints in Ekko backstory that it wasn't as perfect as it seemed) versus Zaun's mad scientists as a very black illustration of "science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme" (literally "science without conscience is the ruin of soul"; see I didn't lie, there was a Rabelais reference in this post ;p)

What do you think, guys?

29 Comments

RiotRiotJaredan2/18/2016, 7:52:21 PM5 votes

Mordekaiser's past is a very small facet of Noxus and its great history. We need to show more of the other sides of Noxian society, that's true. We just don't want to have 'and then they were killed be a Noxian assassin' as our default inciting incident as it was at times in the past. In Valoran, the top causes of death were 1) Noxian assassin 2) Death by need of orphaning 3) Dysentery.

We want to make Noxus a real place with shades of good and bad. Like any place or culture.

Crowe Stalker2/22/2016, 4:30:32 AM3 votes

The way most roleplayers of Noxus have seen it, from what I've read, is that either people suffer what I will refer to as 'Noxian OC Syndrome' or or they believe it literally exists to compare morality.

'Noxian OC Syndrome' is that most OCs belonging to Noxus (and a surprising amount of Rivens) will defend Noxus as a nation, downplaying just what Noxus is (survival of the strongest, with the Elite almost completely exempt) They won't really acknowledge that much about Noxus is actually pretty brutal, and blame Singed or Swain (Singed I get, Swain I dont) for it's fall.

The other side of the fence would see it as a way to compare evils, with Noxus being the greater. Say Jarvan killed a town full of innocents and framed it on Noxus, Swain would applaud Jarvan and say 'We're not so different after all!'

I don't believe either is appropriate.

Noxus is brutal by it's very definition. Our city-state was built on the home of a bunch of Liches and The Lich King The Lord of Death. After we kicked him out, we then proceeded to start using Necromancy ourselves and eventually started butting heads with Demacia. Now, the Poor live in the Capital's Sewers and are expected to fend for themselves, Disabled people are looked down upon, and we've fucked up a LOT of nations and people (Tryndamere and Ashe married, in a sense, to kick out Noxus, Ionia had to fight a war just to push Noxus back, the whole reason item 3158 even exists is because they were able to dig in their heels and Ionia had to all but beg for a rematch, and the Minotaur race (Alistar) were all but wiped out)

So how do you make light of something like that? Show off the people whom rose through the chain, give us people who worked hard, fought hard, and were rewarded. Don't make Noxus a Good Samaritan (unless Noxus gets something out of it long-term, Swain's a very long-term kind of thinker, that's what a Strategist is in a sense) have Noxus make Deals, Agreements, make Noxus hold up their end of the bargain (unless the bargain is unreasonable, in which case, we backstab) Noxians are a strong and proud people. You other nations would never have survived in the conditions we got up through! If you do right by us, we'll remember it, but get in our way, we'll schedule a you meeting withKindred or one of our many Necromancers who could put you through a fate worse than Death, or maybe we'll sell you to Singed. Don't cross Noxus, or our blades will cross your ribs.

GreenLore2/18/2016, 5:05:55 PM2 votes

Quinn and Talon never cooperated.

Also I'd say the old lore was even worse about it since noxus was pretty much the bad guys all the time,I mean they tried to kill the barbarians,they tried to invade ionia and while the kalamanda conflict was seemingly created by the IoW it looks like the black rose was a major reason for it,thus making noxus the bad guys again. Not to mention that they've been responsible for even more tragic backstories back then(specifically Tryndamere and Poppy had noxus as the bad guys). Meanwhile other nations almost never had anything negative about them,with the possible exception of Zaun(who was barely its own thing back then,I mean Warwick DrMundo Singed were all associated with noxus as well)

Buut anyway,I think the reason why noxus is still depicted as rather evil,is because in the end,they are supposed to be a dark shade of grey(or even a light shade of black) in terms of morality,which means that yes they are still rather evil,its just not everything and everyone who is like that.

Sincarnation2/19/2016, 12:03:08 AM2 votes

Noxus being the former home of the THE big bad doesn't necessarily represent what they are now. It honestly sounds rather fitting that noxus the pinnacle of social darwinism, built upon the remains of the great king's throne. Like one era overthrowing another.

Xulsigae2/18/2016, 8:30:15 PM1 votes

I'd still like to live in Demacia over Noxus. I strongly reject the Randian view of life that Noxian leaders seem to use. More needs to be done to make Noxus look appealing to commoners. So far, Demacia might be strict, but it's safe for most of the population. For most of the accusations of Demacia being tyrannical and brutal in its legal code and the praise of Noxus being a place where anyone can succeed, we don't have much evidence. What little we do is usually told rather than shown.

Stars Shaper2/19/2016, 7:37:11 AM1 votes

Just to clarify... Mordekaiser empire included most (if not all) actual Demacia too.