Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Why is Atreus the focus of Pantheon's lore?

Wrathof300·1/29/2019, 5:25:15 AM·5 votes·7,354 views

Pantheon's story focuses on the eventual ascent of a young Rakkoran warrior, Atreus, who is motivated by his convictions against the Solari's passive aggressive stance in the defense of the tribes of Mt. Targon, after only he and one other manage to survive a genocide of his entire year group and teachers at the hands of outsiders.

The first thing we see Pantheon do after Atreus' ascension, is put an end to a group of marauders attacking a Solari shrine. Pantheon's short story show him, intercepting a caravan crossing the Shuriman desert, on their way to Mt. Targon, with the intent to attack/ kill a seer, presumably Soraka.

Although Pantheon's bio claims that Atreus' body is now a shell inhabited by the Aspect of War, we see Pantheon essentially, carrying out Atreus' will of defending the people of Mt. Targon, by actively hunting down and slaying their enemies.

What are your thoughts? I think that it is at least evident, that Pantheon is acting based on Atreus' ambitions.

16 Comments

Warlord Dienekes1/29/2019, 2:14:59 PM5 votes

If you go by what Rioters have said outside of the lore it starts to make a bit of sense what they tried to do and where they originally planned for the story to go.

When the Pantheon lore dropped and let's just say there was dissent on the boards over the quality and direct of that lore Rioter Jaredan basically tipped his hand and straight said "Atreus's story is not over."

However, when discussing Targon lore it has been repeatedly said that the Aspects choose how much of the host's individuality to overwrite. With Taric being stated to be the one with next to no influence of the space parasites on his personality, and Atreus being completely taken over. Leona and Diana somewhere in the middle.

So, it's probably more accurate to say that Atreus is now trapped inside his own body, rather than just being dead with his spirit in their version of heaven. This actually follows with a completely different Rioter (Waaarghobo) claims about the afterlife in Runeterra, essentially stating that there is no heaven the souls get reincarnated.

As to why Pantheon is following what Atreus wanted to do originally, well, the boy wanted to go to war and kill things. He's possessed by a spirit that is known for going to war and killing things. There's gonna be some overlap there.

As to a more meta textual reading as to why the lore focuses on Atreus. Well, probably because the writers didn't even know what the space parasites completely were when they wrote the first round of Targon stories. According to Diana they're some group consciousness collective thing. According to Pantheon and Leona's lore they're some part of the beings the human Targonians worship as gods, which is somehow connected to the stars. According to Sol they're not gods they're this magical species of enslaving upstarts that built a space empire off the back of forcing him to do their dirty work and murder his friends and siblings.

It isn't until over a year later with the Darkin rewrite that we get the idea that they're actually all tied to some fundamental function of the human experience. To me this reads like it's just been finalized what they're actually going to be doing with the story. So of course Pantheon's lore couldn't focus on the space parasite itself.

GreenLore1/29/2019, 12:31:25 PM2 votes

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the whole "Atreus is dead"-thing is actually one big lie.

They focused way too much on Atreus in his lore to just throw him out of the window and it wouldn't be the first time that riot gave us false information based on someones elses misconception(the people who see him and instantly "know" that Atreus is dead).

AbiwonKenabi1/30/2019, 4:44:30 PM2 votes

I personally didn't really like the whole "Targonian overwrites his personality" thing (especially since no other Targon Aspect is like this). I think Atreus should BE Pantheon. In his bio we get the most invested in his story and it's the most interesting. I want to root for Atreus, but they get rid of him in the story and the character isn't called Atreus, it's Pantheon. I get that they have plans for him, but I think it was a mistake to have a bio that gets us so invested in a character that ISN'T the character we are playing, so at the moment I find it hard to care about Pantheon.

That's my take on it anyways.

Camille Ferrøs1/29/2019, 2:30:57 PM1 votes

They didn't want to rename panth for his lore rework i guess. But after his rework Atreus might be gone, gone since the name is Pantheon not Pantheons host Atreus

mrmeddyman1/29/2019, 10:41:55 PM1 votes

I disagree mainly on the back that people are assuming that Atreus was the focus of Pantheons' story because he is important and NOT considering that he might only exist so Riot doesn't have to write about Pantheon himself and be forced to reveal details that they may not be ready to reveal about Targon Prime.

I think Atreus is a writing construct intended to obfuscate what Pantheon is really about. Nothing more.

I find the more interesting parts of Pantheon to be about his disdain for individuality and how his methods of preying on the mind puts him in parallel with the Void. They're cut from the same cloth because they use the same methods to spread their influence. Which leads the audience to ask who should we actually be afraid of? Targon or The Void.