Why the Darkin is Named Varus

So a lot of people have been complaining for various reasons about the new Varus short form lore. The biggest complaint I’ve seen is that Riot has somehow “killed” old Varus. This is an exaggeration.

Riot clearly wanted Varus’ corruption to be of Darkin influence, but Varus isn’t Kayn so the Darkin power has to be the one in the driver’s seat. This means that the player is controlling a Darkin, and it would be really fucking weird if the Darkin, the character itself, was named something else while the champion continued to be named Varus.

So what I believe Riot did is change the name. Varus is no longer the name of the man being corrupted, but the corruption itself. And since the Darkin is in control, it doesn’t really make a ton of sense for the name of the champion to correspond only with some inner conscience of some kind.

So we know going forward that two Ionian hunters are involved in the creation of Varus, what we do not know is if these hunters acted at the same time.

Think about it, if the first hunter, say his name was Pallas, took up the Darkin bow, saw his looming corruption, and sacrificied himself. Only the Darkin are some tough stuff so he couldn’t completely destroy the Darkin (Varus) or himself. Rather they both became trapped in the bow or whatever.

Now along comes a chap formerly named Varus, the new lore can play out on the exact same beats as the old one, only now Varus the Darkin has completed his corruption, albeit with two Ionians inside of him telling him what he’s doing is wrong.