Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Do you know how to fix the Lore?

Ironclad Dragon·3/8/2015, 8:09:38 AM·5 votes·1,729 views

http://www.troll.me/images/good-guy-tyson/really-come-tell-me-more.jpg

Seriously. I want to know how people would "fix" the lore. I am not trolling right now. Before the ret-con, League was sitting on... what, exactly? It was a world in stasis:

  • Nations couldn't wage war because the League would intervene. Noxus and Demacia, say hello (though they still wage cold war, despite having it been dropped a while back).
  • Champions couldn't pursue their rivalries and hatreds because the League wouldn't allow champions to kill one another off the field. People like Graves and Twisted Fate, Kassadin and Malzahar, Thresh and Lucian, Shen and Zed... their relationships would be moot, so what'd be the point of having them?
  • Every champion needed a reason to participate in a national, trial-by-champion, settlement of dispute system... despite the growing pool of champions who aren't mortal, don't care for humanity and or don't represent anyone in particular.
  • That said, if the League were to settle national disputes, why would it allow independents? What stake do they have, other than sheer strength? Seeing how the League fulfills a sort of UN-esque peacekeeping role (by which I mean, it's a coalition of nations trying to uphold world peace and prevent a nuclear Rune War), I doubt anyone could just walk in and stake their claim. That sort of thing doesn't fly in the UN, I think.
  • No one apparently had a problem against the island of undead? Even in a fantasy, most people are in right enough mind to find fault with that! Why would the undead attempt to parley with the living? Better yet, why would the living even listen to their proposals? Fear? The League is supposed to have immense power, enough power to enforce their rules, right?
  • Events that did happen outside of the fields, ala Journal of Justice, were played down. For instance, Malzahar sacrificed Kassadin's daughter to the Void. That's pretty freaking intense on a character standpoint. Yet Kassadin couldn't do a thing. Why? League.
  • Political leaders risked their necks in a neutral zone in gladiatorial combat on the assurance that they won't be injured and or killed. I don't think too many national leaders would risk that chance, no matter how strong they are individually. And if they were fighting, which I think would be common, how would they lead their respective nations then?
  • Why did the League allow Eldritch Abominations to participate in battle? They couldn't be fighting for their freedom. And how assurances would the Summoners have over monsters like Cho'Gath? They haven't any insurance policies over them, unlike actual representative fighters from Noxus or Demacia. The monsters are accountable to no one. So why not incarcerate them permanently or execute them? Even if the Summoners can't do either, why let the monsters fight?

The Pre-Retcon Lore had some interesting possibilities, but suffered from the "They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot" trope. The League could've easily been a force not of mortal life. That would explain why they can bind whomever they wish or enforce whatever laws they deemed just; they're not human, and have the complimentary power. A lot of people, thought they'd have to go along with the League's demands, could've seen them as awfully shady. Doesn't a sudden faction that springs out of nowhere and orders a worldwide ceasefire (and possessing enough power to enforce it), then commands every nation to send their best and brightest to areas they designate and fight.

Doesn't a sudden faction that springs out of nowhere and orders a worldwide ceasefire (and possessing enough power to** enforce** it), then commands every nation to send their best to fight on turf they designate... sound the least bit shady? In a situation like that, I think people from every nation would try to learn the League's true motives. They would try to infiltrate their places, learn their plans, study and exploit their weapons, etc. That stuff, taken seriously, would have been killer in my book.

Or we could just all think of Current League Lore as Smash Brothers, modern Halo multiplayer, or Heroes of Dragon Age. The battles we play don't happen in the story itself, but that doesn't mean the characters aren't real. We're just playing simulations; mucking about in a sandbox of characters and environments that don't have as a restricting structure now. The barriers have been broken; the path we were using may be closed off now, and thus all of its rewards, but is it really a loss when now we can walk the Earth however we wish, see what we wish, do what we wish? Is that really unforgivable?

16 Comments

Impetual3/8/2015, 10:06:12 AM5 votes

Sorry OP, your post is really really good, but there's a lot of nuances about the old lore that you just don't seem to get.

"Every champion needed a reason to participate in a national, trial-by-champion, settlement of dispute system... despite the growing pool of champions who aren't mortal, don't care for humanity and or don't represent anyone in particular." - OP

Sorry, but I believe that every champion in this game should have a reason to fight. If they don't have a reason to fight, then they shouldn't be in this game based entirely around battles. Lore wise, It just so happens the most effective way to fight requires that characters become members of the League of Legends. I'm cool with that.

In the old Lore, nations were allowed to wage war. Here's a quote about the Institute of War:

"While all major political conflicts were being funneled through the League of Legends, physical conflicts between warring political entities were not completely eliminated. For example – the strategic choice of the League to build the Institute of War directly between the constantly warring city-states of Demacia and Noxus stopped almost all direct confrontation between them, though military skirmishes continue to break out."

For most of the other points you raise in your thread, you seem to be forgetting something very important about the League of Legends and the Institute of War....they are both corrupt.

Individuals were manipulating these institutions for political/material gain. That was part of what made the lore so interesting. That was part of what made it so easy for champions to have a reason to join.

Being a champion of the League of Legends gave you power, that power could be used for a variety of things....

Champions and Summoners didn't have to necessarily play by the rules...

DG Ashabel3/8/2015, 9:46:56 AM4 votes

As sad as it is, I'll just have to say that 90% of your questions and counter-arguments against the old lore could be solved by actually reading the old lore, seeing as all of them were already answered.

Doesn't a sudden faction that springs out of nowhere and orders a worldwide ceasefire (and possessing enough power to enforce it), then commands every nation to send their best to fight on turf they designate... sound the least bit shady? In a situation like that, I think people from every nation would try to learn the League's true motives. They would try to infiltrate their places, learn their plans, study and exploit their weapons, etc. That stuff, taken seriously, would have been killer in my book.

Would you also say that our society made a grave mistake when it didn't assume that the United Nations are run by the Illuminati?

Matezoide3/8/2015, 8:30:21 AM3 votes

>Revert the retcon and pretend it never happened

Damn! That sure as hell was hard! Riot i am waiting for that check.

Summoners are so invencible that Fiddlesticks literally stole a room and said "Yo, i own this shit now" while the League couldnt do a damn thing about it.

TheHobbits3/8/2015, 9:03:45 AM3 votes

Honestly, the only thing wrong with the change is the, well, "change". People are always scared of change. Personally, I like the direction Riot is taking the lore. Shurima is now an actual place where people are linked to. Cass actually had a valid reason to why she became what she is. I dont even know what Renecton was doing before the change, but it sure as hell seems like the Summoners just plucked him from out of space and said "You dont like Nasus".