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Concerning Kai'Sa and Character Design

A Superb Villain·2/20/2018, 6:39:31 PM·51 votes·8,225 views

I'll start by putting my opinion out there; she's boring. Conceptually, she is cool in a similar manner to Malzahar and Kassadin. These are humans who experienced contact with The Void and regardless of how brief their connection, were irrevocably changed into something new and frightening. There are other examples of Void corruption in lore, such as our dear scuttle crab, and whole ecosystems transformed by its presence. What separates Kai'Sa from previous examples is that she was immersed in The Void for an extended period of time.

To survive among predators, Kai’Sa became one. Stranded for years with no hope of rescue, Kai’Sa endured through sheer will and a symbiotic second skin adapted from a living Void creature. Now the Daughter of the Void emerges an apex hunter torn between two worlds: the one that birthed her, and the one that made her.

Kai'Sa didn't just embrace The Void, she came to embody it, body and mind. She behaves as a Voidborn does, hunting, killing, and conquering, a paragon of otherworldly virtues. She should barely be recognizable as human and yet she hardly appears changed.

https://lolstatic-a.akamaihd.net/frontpage/apps/prod/kaisa-reveal/en_US/825493e12db0f1a326872f7529ac4e30c197a01a/assets/downloads/wallpapers/kaisa-1920x1080.jpg This is Kai'Sa. I thought it was Ahri cosplaing Witchblade.

This doesn't look like Void corruption to me, especially not protracted contact with an extremely unstable reality. The design is safe, sexy, and somewhat consistent with previous examples of Void-corrupted champions, but it is not interesting.

If someone spends a great deal of time in The Void, I don't expect them to come out looking human, let alone pretty. I would expect them to emerge as a vaguely humanoid abomination, like so: https://i.imgur.com/56uMm.jpg

These designs are monstrous, maybe even disturbing to some, but they are humanoid. They make it plain to any casual observer this thing was human, but not anymore.

The Void is one of League's most straightforward sources of horror. Every Voidborn champion is a walking nightmare, and every Void-corrupted character is a twisted evolution. Kai'Sa does not reflect The Void, and I find that disappointing.

116 Comments

Ralanr2/20/2018, 7:53:50 PM39 votes

I do feel that the design just kind of ignores the danger of void exposure. Honestly she doesn’t look corrupted or even battling it within. Rather she’s taken complete control with no real downside.

Imo she should have at least been shooting spikes from her arm instead of making void pistols.

KoKoboto2/20/2018, 6:46:40 PM20 votes

Honestly the visual designs of her are so damn generic... 0/10... She's designed like this just because it looks good :T

Hopefully her actual character is more like a monstrous void thing. Like she has a human face but is actually just straight up not human at all. No human condition, none of that. Just simple kill or be killed void classics. If she ends up being a Vayne of the Void I'm gonna be even more disappointed.

On the other hand she does look cool for being so generic, can't go wrong there. Her gameplay also looks really fun and I love her symbiotic suit mechanic. I wish it also applied to her ultimate like... "if you have more AD, AP, or A/S, get this, this, or this bonus effect on ultimate"

Overall visuals are 0/10 if we're being scholarly. Cool factor is 8/10 because it's the generic cool and her ability effects vfx are quite snazzy. Can't judge gameplay too hard without trying but it looks pretty fun.

ModThe Djinn2/20/2018, 6:42:58 PM17 votes

There isn't an implication she's especially corrupted, in my eyes. In fact, she's still decidedly human -- she didn't give in to Void corruption but rather, through will and her suit, resisted it and learned to fight it physically and mentally. While I agree the corrupted Void human angle could be interesting, it's decidedly not what she is meant to be.

Beacon Academy2/21/2018, 11:45:37 AM12 votes

Malzahar had his mind corrupted by the Void just from looking at it and Kassadin was corrupted from the inside and became "something more than human"

She is apparently wearing a naturally born creature of the Void as a suit.

She literally has the Void-spawn in direct contact with her skin... as a suit.

And it didn't mutate her body. Why? Cause female.

There is nothing worse a world builder can do than to create general rules and then break them.

An example of this is Shikabane Hime (Corpse Princess) where essentially humans form a bond with the dead to fight monsters.

When the bond is broken because the human partner dies, the corpse/spirit/etc goes berserk and attacks everything near it.

There was an example of this in the series when one of the humans partners died, and a likable female corpse partner went berserk and had to be put down.

The villain of the series successfully completes his plot of destroying the bonds of all the partners in the association to make them kill each other...

But they don't go berserk. Why? Cause the Powah of Fwendshit

Phildlesticks2/20/2018, 8:37:08 PM12 votes

This champ really didn't need any sexualization in her design, like fair enough if she still has humanistic qualities but stop with this fan service stuff, you have plenty of champs that fill that role, it just seems dumb we have come from a cool looking void female of Rek'sai to this. Are your quarterly profits down or something? I feel like she doesn't fit in with the rest of the void :/ my two cents on the issue

Rebonack2/20/2018, 7:26:44 PM10 votes

One of her concepts has black eyes with glowing purple irises.

I wish Riot had stuck with that. Would have made it clear that she's otherworldly even if she doesn't have tentacles sprouting from her face.

OurLestrade2/20/2018, 7:04:26 PM10 votes

Standard LOL girl face, honestly looks like a Vayne skin to the point that I've already seen memes of it. I never used to notice just how similar a lot of the women look in LOL until now, here's to hoping we get some monsters again for uniqueness.

N Jenkins2/20/2018, 7:43:48 PM10 votes

I definetly have to agree. Maybe she is not suppoused to look corrupted, but It just looks like a suit! You also what doesn't make me think of a void hunter, or a symbiotic creature, or Horrific fusion of costume and human? Cleavage. Seriously, if her goal was to survive, why would she cut the creature she wears so she could show off ANY skin?

PalPlays2/20/2018, 7:48:39 PM3 votes

I think you should give her announcement another read. She has not been corrupted by the void at all. Instead she jumped inside of the skin of a Voidborn to ESCAPE corruption. Hence why her theme is one of becoming one with her suit and becoming stronger because of it.

I think that your expectations are something completely different which is why this champion reveal disappoints you.