[{quoted}](name=Don Noat Amu,realm=EUW,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=aPVukaEF,comment-id=00050001,timestamp=2015-07-13T21:36:58.933+0000)
Yes ok. But because the League limited what they could create. As you can see those characters I mentioned, plus others, don't fit in such lore.
The League was what tied together the various champions of the game. The only limitations it it imposed were that champions had to be weaker than the entirety of the Institute of War and anyone that supported it (which was an intentionally unknown power level— we were led to believe that it would be possible to fight the Institute by some champion lores, such as Swain's and Xerath's, but at the "current" time the Institute is/was the greatest power on Runeterra), and the champions had to actually have some sort of tie to the League of Legends to make sense of why they were being summoned to the Fields of Justice (which could be as loose a tie as the writers desired— Karthus' old lore stated that no one had any idea why he was in the League and would become irritated when questioned about it. He was effectively still an independent entity.)
Malzahar is "evil", but he is not pure evil. Different types of evil in a sense that, Malzahar has motivation and beliefs, after seing what he saw, that he should enable the void to enter -- Whereas pure evil have no reasoning, they simply are the core evil that do what they do for its own sake, not out of revenge, not for riches.
You don't think that Malzahar is pure evil? Your definition of that term would hardly cover any champions at all because nearly all of them have reasoning and motivation rather than mindlessness and an appetite for destruction. Even Rek'sai has motivation and reasoning, and she's effectively an animal that rips apart anything that sets foot in her territory, no questions asked.
Malzahar is trying to invite an endless tide of horrific monsters that want to eat everything. Literally no one on Runeterra stands to benefit from that besides himself (and even that is debatable— he might be eaten as soon as his job is done) and the other Void-aligned champions. That's pretty evil.
How being confined to the League and being summoned help his cause? He can just as well travel around spread the word and actively try to open the gates of the void, without having an 8 hour job of fighting pointlessly in the League -- Wouldn't we love a few episodes of an temporarily successful attempt? Malzahar and his followers out there, manage to open a portal for only a few minutes before Demacians collapse it, cutting the 500m creature that was coming out of it in half xD something like that
Being confined to the League allows a champion to reach far more ears than he/she would be able to by slowly travelling around. The League of Legends was Runeterra's main spectator sport in addition to its replacement for open warfare. Without the League, a temporarily successful attempt to open a portal to the Void by Malzahar would likely end in his death or permanent injury because he'd attract the attention of all the city-states of Valoran. The League was created in order to stop the Rune Wars, which were ripping the entire world apart through sheer destructive magical power— Malzahar might have difficulty surviving the magical equivalent of several countries throwing magical equivalents of nuclear bombs at him. In fact, without the League, there might not even be a Runeterra at this point; there would be a sort of apocalyptic wasteland.
Even if we throw out that part of the old lore (the Rune Wars), champion interaction is extremely iffy because if no one gets hurt or killed (without an explanatory mechanism for the lack of injury— ex: the League of Legends), the interaction seems pointless and cartoony due to there being no consequences for a champion's actions.
We could still enjoy small, awesome tales like your example without the League being retconned. In fact, the League would allow that situation to occur, story-wise, without the loss of any important characters— Malzahar would be spared because he retains value as a summonable champion, so the Institute of War would prevent him from being killed after that episode (after shutting down his operations).
Tahm kinda could make use of it, but there's no point because he already can do it outside of League. And preying people on real situations like the Gambler's one is way better then feeding on the misery (if there is any) of the Fields.
Tahm could potentially make deals with other champions in the League. Imagine how tasty Amumu would be to Tahm— the mummy would be an easy target for a deal, and Amumu would be one delectable source of misery if Tahm took everything away from him after helping him.
The Gambler was one petty gambler; the League would allow Tahm to make deals with some of the most important and powerful (and some of the most miserable and desperate) characters in Runeterra.
Yes he could. But he's evil. He doesn't care about the League reason of existence. From what we all know from Aatrox he likes to take the weaker side and help them comeback, constantly. So he would probably just help Noxeans somehow in destroying League. In the current lore there are less wars or even none, which is bad for Aatrox line of business.
Aatrox isn't necessarily evil— especially not by your definition of "purely evil." Aatrox is attracted to one-sided battles in which he can intervene and turn the tables on the winning side. League would provide plenty of combat for him to engage in, and it would likely be the only place he could find warfare on a scale large enough to interest him (keep in mind that the Fields of Justice simulate a large battlefield with armies of minions in addition to larger-than-life heroes).
Villains and heroes kinda of can reach an agreement and build the League of Legends, for both parties sake of not destroying the the world they all live in. But does Aatrox, Tahm and such others care?
Aatrox would probably care quite a bit, given that the League stopped conventional warfare.
Tahm might not care at all, but he's not stupid. He could see the potential for new deals to be made.
ok =P. I was mentioning that if people wanted such theory, as Noc being Zed to be true, the League lore doesn't support it as it is.
Aham that is acceptable. But unless he rebeled later and escaped, he wouldn't be able to have his revenge if he wanted to.
There would be nothing stopping him from leaving other than the threat of Ionian "retribution." As far as we know, most champions can leave the Institute of War at will. As for Yasuo's revenge against the murderer of the Elder, that really depends on a lot of factors... Obviously he couldn't kill Riven because she's a champion of the League, meaning she'd be protected by the summoners, but he might discover the actual killer's identity and leave to kill said murderer and clear his own name.
And I don't like the idea of champions I care about being puppets (Lucian). Even if you were not a summoner but whenever you played you were actually impersonating the character, I don't like this Gladiator thing, in the end they're confined to the arena.
The only champions that are "puppets" are the ones that allow themselves to be used as such (ex: Shaco probably doesn't care who or what he's fighting for) + the ones that have no choice (Brand). All "free" champions could stand to gain from interacting with the League— Lucian could use it to fight for the eradication of the undead as a cause (rather than going out and trying to exterminate them all by himself). Remember, the League matches are used to decide who wins in diplomatic disputes.
Current lore is sort of an utopy, meaning that people in Runeterra have come to an agreement and invented the League to prevent further destruction. Which is ok.
It's not a utopia. Before Hecarim entered the League, he cut a swathe of death and destruction across Valoran. Before Brand was captured and contained, he did the same.
The League exists because there are various factions (and individuals) that would cause untold destruction if they were to fight conventionally (Rune Wars, demigods like Xerath, etc.). It allows for "diplomatic" solutions to be enacted without making actual combat obsolete. If someone wins a match in League... Someone else loses. If Noxus won a match in which the stakes were whether Ionia remained independent or became Noxus' new colony, I don't think the Ionians would consider the world to be a "utopia" if they lost (and vice versa).
But isn't that blocking the depth of the lore quite a bit? Because, no war, no conflicts, no story. Only history of what once happened. Whenever they introduce a new champion it means it is already inside the League, so whatever actions he had are "meh who cares he's inprisoned now".
There are still conflicts and warfare; they just tend to happen within the League (or are quickly contained by the summoners to prevent widespread destruction). Go read the old Journal of Justice articles and some of the older champion bios.
You have a point in that champions imprisoned for being destructive are a bit limited, but who's to say that they can't escape from time to time? And there are factors that are beyond the reach/control (the understanding, even) of the Institute, such as the Shadow Isles. We could still have the Harrowing every year, and that's obviously a terrifying, destructive event that would probably involve the Shadow Isles champions.
Indeed. I think it would be literally pointless for them to do that (cut lore people are emotionally invested in off to introduce those 3 lines of bio) - just why? No one apparently likes the new "lore" -- so there must be a reason (or not =P) -- So I'm assuming and I'm hoping to be right, that they did that to open up the possibilities, where they were limited before by written lore. The paper sheet whereas before was filled now it is blank, anything can happen. I hope they introduce DEPTH, twists and an actual good plot, comparable to other fantasy novels.
Cont'd; I hit the character limit.
