I'm not forgiving the lore team because of one good event. You shouldn't either.

I've been playing a long time. A very long time. Since Xin Zhao was released long time. I was here when the JoJ was at its prime. I remember the variety of stories told in the JoJ ranging from actual lore building to comedic little blurbs. I remember when champions didn't just get their own lore on release, but they got long judgments that further delved into their character and motivations (often revealing conflicts both within the champion and between champions). I remember the mysteries that were crafted over weeks about who certain champions really were, and where certain people had really gone. Of particular interest (on a larger scale) was the dichotomy between Demacia and Noxus (LE v CE in many ways) and how that conflict was impacting all the rest of the regions with constant posturing.

And I remember when this stopped. When lore went silent for months upon months. When there was no new information other than champion bios and as time went on those felt more and more disconnected from the rest of the lore without any context, rhyme, or reason. Part of my enjoyment of the game was connecting with champions and their stories, and that had suddenly vanished. I haven't really loved a champion since Jarvan IV for this exact reason. I loved his kit and how he played, and I loved the idea of a "righteous" prince fighting for his country, especially with the little details related to Shyvana, Garen, and his father that made him a rather simple character on the surface and a rather complex one underneath.

All of those things that had hooked me, garnered my interest, and made me want more of those stories vanished.

And then there was Freljord. My god, the butchering of this event was massive. Champions who people knew and loved, champions with some depth, were turned into more or less comedic caricatures. Trundle went from a jerk who was also the savior of his race into "The Troll King". Everyone in Freljord suddenly didn't just have to associate with that region, but also with a specific one of the princesses, who were somehow related, but also somehow from different tribes (that part was never really explained). To cap off the ridiculousness of all that garbage, they didn't even give any real conclusion to the event. We don't know who won even now, or, lacking a victory for one side or another, we don't know where things stand. Nothing. Just an event, a massive serious of retcons of various sizes, and then nothing. (I'm not including what was done with Udry, which to this day is the second sourest feeling I've had towards Riot Lore. Even with the changes they made to honor the fact Udyr was from Ionia, they shoe-horned him into Freljord and the event anyway.)

That travesty was followed by another long series of months of more or less complete silence.

And then came the apocalyptic end to all of the things that I had read before. Shurima. The end of Summoners. The end of the Institute of War. The end, as it were, of the League of Legends. The game's name, its flagship map, EVERYTHING were completely and totally divorced from the lore in one single, brutal fell swoop. Shurima represented the death of basically everything before this point in time. Even some parts of the Freljord event can be viewed with a grain of salt. Since this event, the overwhelming majority of champions have existed in creative limbo. All of the events of their past open to A LOT of creative interpretation at this point because we don't even know if they will remain the same. I can't even rightly claim to know that Jarvan IV is Crown Prince of Demacia or not because they haven't done a Demacia event since this great retconning. He could be king, or a second son, or adopted, or god only knows what at this point. Shurima essentially showed that everything before was drawn in sand and that they were willing to wipe it away to tell the story that they wanted to tell.

Once again, we were greeted with months of silence before yet another single event...

Finally, we arrive at the Bilgewater event. Once again, characters were retconned (or completely left out)... Or included when they aren't even native to the city. (Graves and Twisted Fate? Really? They're not from Bilgewater. Including them over Fizz, Nautilus, etc makes about as much sense as doing a Demacia event and making Karma/Irelia main characters there.) Gangplank went from plunder-y (but largely good natured) pirate to some sort of tyrannical overlord that was a pirate in appearance, but really just a frightening dictator, and Miss Fortune went from a generally good-natured bounty hunter with a desire for revenge on ONE person, to a brutal, bloodthirsty monster. Perhaps the saddest part of this was that while the writing was good, the story was about as believable as an eagle the size of a mountain flying down to me and declaring me god. Graves hates TF and has been pursuing him for years and gets over his grudge in less than a day's time? Really? Okay, sure. Gangplank, the brutal overlord of the city with power over ALL of the gangs is caught 100% off-guard by the most ridiculously obvious plot? Really? GP is dead! Except, he's not! Surprise...? That didn't surprise anyone..? Whoopsy. Swung and missed again. (Not to mention how wounded I am by the complete loss of his glorious chest hair. Talk about losing one of the most visually unique aspects of a champion.)

I want to like the lore, but since Freljord very little has actually changed other than the quality of the writing and something resembling an attempt at a conclusion (although very little was concluded or resolved with this lore event outside of the hasty, and sloppy, resolution of conflict between TF/Graves). Retcons are used to make telling whatever story the lore department thinks is good at the moment easier, regardless of how annoying that is to someone like me who's been here for so long and has literal years of attachment to a lot of these characters. The lore and the game are intentionally divorced by the removal of summoners, but then they aren't for an event because its so unique and edgy but doesn't make any sense with past statements by the same team. The lore is almost entirely based on one big event a year with occasional, VERY small events related to other things that are often so easy to miss the effort put into making them could easily be called wasted or misguided.

I want to like the lore, I really do. But if you want someone like me to like the lore so many parts of the basic philosophy of the lore team would need to change that I doubt I will ever hold the same love for the lore of this game as I did the day before the Freljord event. Yearly events aren't enough to build the lore. Retcons don't build the lore. (It'd be like watching all the first Spiderman movies of the past 15 years. I feel so awesome watching the origin story so many times... Oh, wait... Once was enough.) Lacking a central conflict does a lot to prevent the lore from feeling bigger. For all the flak the lore team gave it, at least the IoW gave Runeterra a reason for large scale conflict instead of each city state/region being more or less separate from each other.

TL;DR: I was here since Xin Zhao, and remember the old, more consistent lore. Then I remember the pattern of Freljord/silence/Shurima/silence/Bilgewater. That pattern does NOTHING to create confidence in me, especially when two of those events were objectively terrible and the third was... passable. Lore team needs more consistency and to STOP RETCONNING if they want an old timer like me to appreciate the lore of the game again.