What's the best ship?

Aside from Garen x Katarina, because Katarina x Garen is best ship.

Don't you respond with your personal thoughts and WoG, I'm right, you're wrong, end of story, here's my totally unbiased and 100% right reason why Garen/Katarina is objectively the best ship: Because SHUT THE HELL UP 'FORE I FEED YE TO THE INVISIBLE BADGERS

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Okay, but more seriously... what's your favorite pairing for this game, and why? I've been thinking about a lot of pairings and romances hinted at in the game's lore at different points, and was interested in hearing others' thoughts.

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Tried typing up some ramblings on why I like Garen x Kat.

What's interesting to me about these two is tied to what each represents for their respective nation. Garen's the obvious one; he's the Might of Demacia, basically designed from the ground up to be the ideal his people strive for. He is noble, just, strong, dutiful, has never wavered in his loyalty and commitment to King and country etc etc etc. This is what people think of when they think 'Demacian military'. I'm not saying this is all his character is or ever should be, or that it's necessarily all true 100% of the time, just that this is the perception his people have of him.

Katarina is exactly the same thing for Noxus.

No, really. Think about what Noxus is, and what its system is meant to encourage (ignore what it creates in practice for a moment). Noxus is a system where all that matters is individual drive and passion. As Kled says: "This is Noxus, son. Winner take all!" However, like any nation, Noxus needs a degree of unity to survive. It's not enough to just take whatever you want, or you're gonna spend all your time fighting other Noxians over the same scraps of land (again, see Kled's lore). You need to be committed to the nation as a whole.

To address the elephant in the room: One could argue that Darius is what represents Noxus in this case, given that his immediate reaction to an order he didn't like was to go guillotine on his superior's ass (Er, neck), then slaughter the incompetents within the chain of command and promote someone smarter than him to lead. However, this strikes me as very... pragmatic. "This is what we must do" more than "Yes, this is what we should be like!". Darius represents what Noxus needs to do now, more than what Noxus is meant to be (which is kind of ironic given how similar Darius and Garen are in a lot of ways).

Consider Katarina. She's a Noxian assassin who craves glory and battle. It's stated outright in her lore that her fervor can lead her astray, but also that she seeks to elevate her family and serve Noxus. Her first assignment was disgustingly simple, and she rejected it in favor of killing someone who would give her greater prestige and glory. (I'm not gonna deny that a Demacian general is a higher value target than a low ranking officer, I'm just saying she did it because the first assignment was dull and boring). She gets the target she wanted, but the target she was supposed to get led a retaliatory strike that did serious damage to Noxus. Katarina was furious with her own mistake, went back in and nearly died completing her original task, and since then has has sworn to "never let passion interfere with duty."

This paints a picture of a warrior who is driven by passion and zeal to do what she does, but tempers that with an eye for what Noxus needs to be strong as a whole. She's also arguably the face of Noxus. Not its leader, but its main representative both in and out of lore. (That part is debatable given the decentralized nature of League's narrative but you get the idea) Garen is much the same way, but his lore paints it in reverse: he became a warrior out of duty to his people, and found passion in it by fighting a warrior that was his equal. They are the ideal warriors of two nations at war, and they are in love.

That is immediately interesting, imo, in large part because of the fact that 'Demacia vs Noxus' was/is such a centerpiece for the lore as I learned of it. Kat and Garen are loyal to their nations, there's no question of it, but they're also infatuated with the enemy. Both of them have personal codes/principles/whatever-ya-wanna-call-em against it, but they can't keep away. This sort of thing demands resolution, and sooner or later it'll come to a head.

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Of course that's all assuming that Garen x Kat is actually a thing and not something Riot just likes to tease us with. I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed for a Demacia/Noxus lore update after the Yordle one that's apparently coming next. (I consider Piltover/Zaun to be one event, ftr. Had that crop up before).