Once more our dear Ionian duchess has gotten herself into a spot of bother with the newest Lore update, so I figured I might as well chime in to take a more holistic view on where Karma has been, and where she seems to be going in the upcoming future. For the purposes of this, I'll be examining Karma across all Three incarnations, and taking a stab at some of the more interesting aspects that her updated lore might be leading to.

(As a disclaimer, I'm going to just be taking the Bios into account, and this examination is before any flavor stories. I'm hoping to reconcile my ideas about Karma with this post, and hopefully we'll all get a better idea of this character and what we think works and what doesn't in regards to her state in the story )

#Prework Karma

Before we can talk about how Karma's lore reflects her now, we should probably take a moment to see the paths' that she's walked before. To put things into perspective, Karma was originally released on February 1st, 2011, as an Ionian champion to the Institute of War, overseen by the summoners. During this period of time, the actual setup for the League of Legends was far more literal, which meant that each champion who came to the game needed some sort of justification as to why they were part of the League. Here we start to see some of the core aspects of Karma's character start to arise.

Starting off, Karma is characterized here as a Diplomat who was forced into action by the invading Noxian forces. Some of the more notable emphasis in this variant of Karma focused on her ability to settle issues peacefully but also her willingness to fight on the front-lines with her allies, ultimately becoming a figurehead of the Ionian resistance. She was a poised woman with an unshakable demeanor whose calmness in the face of crisis earned the respect of her allies and the fear of her opponents. In the minds of her mentors, Karma was someone who could not only weather a storm, but calm it.

Rework Karma

On March 29th, 2013, after having been in a muddled state of balance for a long time, Karma finally received her rework, and with it the eternal ire of an incredibly vocal number of old-school Karma players. Her kit became much more stream-lined and overall she received a much more overtly aggressive kit, trading some of the more thematic elements of Karma's kit with one more in-tune with the idea of Karma as a battle hardened leader attempting to find a new path after the national tragedy of the invasion of Ionia.

Once more, Karma is torn between traditionalist pacifism and retributive resistance in the face of the Ionia's invasion. However, in this version of her lore we see something more specific, and that's a distinct failure of pure pacifism. When Karma's village elders attempt to peaceably solve their issued by contacting the Noxian generals, they are killed, as their attempts at passive resolution are seen as weakness by the Noxians they're appealing to. Understanding that a pure traditional approach will not work, Karma chooses to find a middle road, becoming a powerful leader among the resistance as her Prework self had, but this time not burdened with the story connections to the Institute of war. Without needing an arbitrary reason to fight, Karma was instead brought to a state where she not only had a part to play in the invasion itself, but in the aftermath of her nation's tragedy. She attempts to find a way to create a lasting peace for her nation by combining the strength that she and her fellow Ionians learned in the gauntlet of war, with the wisdom and precaution of Ionia's religious tradition. to Rework Karma, the ideals you espouse are only as effective as your resolve to see them to fruition.

Avatar Karma

Now we come to Karma's newest iteration. There are definitely aspects of the old lore that's persisted here, notably the clash of idealism with the reality of war, as well as Karma's confrontation with a Noxian general, both of which end in his death. Similar to her Prework lore where she was the daughter of antique sellers, Darha is a commoner in the beginning, but this time instead of being a potent speaker or diplomat, Darha is essentially possessed by the spirit of an Ionian spiritual leader, by the title of Karma. What's particularly interesting in this variant is that Karma's ascension is beset by a loss of identity, as the reincarnating spirit of the Karma begins to crowd out the voice of Darha's host body.

Intriguingly enough, in line with what we've gone over before, the spirit of the Karma, much like the Ionian Monks from her previous lore variants, espouses traditional notions of pacifism, but does notably have a little wiggle room as Darha manages to convince her collective to a single kill, even if she ends up going overboard, and thus earning the scorn of her collective consciousness. Unfortunately, while we are told in this lore that Darha is headstrong and independent, beyond managing to convince the collective to a kill, we see very little of Darha's actual personality in the bio. Because of that, determining Karma's rationality is next to impossible beyond the obvious allusions to Karma and Dharma at the beginning, at least until the Flavor story comes out.

My Thoughts

Overall I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the direction that they've taken Karma, but I do see some really interesting concepts that could be explored in the Flavor story. Starting off, I think one of my biggest issues with this new lore is the more passive nature of Darha as a character, and subsequently the de-emphasis of Karma as being a strong-willed woman and more of being a passive instrument of her new collective consciousness.

One of the biggest moments for me in this bio is where Karma loses control and destroys the whole ship with the Noxian general. It's a show of power from Karma, but more importantly following this, the "punishment" that Karma gets is the loss of the voices who've been crowding out Darha's voice since she was inhabited. For me this was a great moment, because it seemed to allude to a greater issue of self for Darha as a host to the Karma spirit, but instead of Darha using this loss as a way of choosing her own destiny, we instead see her immediately go into atonement mode, understanding she did something wrong and working to regain the voices that used to torment her when she was younger.

The early aspects of the story show how the Karma spirit was breaking Darha's mind, and that if she hadn't been able to get in contact with the Monks, that she would have been consigned to spend her days in treatment. The voices are benevolent in intent, but swallow their host whole as it seems, and Darha finally getting sole custody of her body to me should have felt at least somewhat empowering, even if less than desirable. Instead of being a bittersweet moment for her though, the bio makes it explicit that this was bad, and Darha should feel bad about regaining her sense of self. She is not a person, she is a title, and for me that really takes away from the beautiful badass she used to be.

My second primary issue comes in the delivery of the Karma's pacifist philosophy. Early on, it's explicitly stated that the Karma understands that those who do bad will receive bad in kind, your standard Karmic flare, but what makes this more questionable is the emphasis that because this is something that will happen, that there is no need to respond, and moreso that this is an undeniable truth. What immediately becomes an issue though is that while the bio has told us that the Karma's beliefs are right, we've seen no proof as to how it is right, and no persuasion that this ideal is correct. It's presented as right, and that's it, and that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, because the bio does not give evidence for the Karma spirit's understanding of karmic retribution.

The example scenario is of Darha losing control of her power, creating a net gain for her people by killing a host of invaders, and subsequently being lauded by her fellow Ionians. The only force that is shown to disapprove of this resolution is the Karma, and by extension Darha herself, who has been taught the ways of the Karma. Because the Karma is the only force which provides the cost of Darha's outburst here, the cost of shedding pacifist idealism is entirely brought about by the one extolling its virtues. Had Darha inadvertently escalated the tensions and caused more trouble for her poor handling of the situation and brought more trouble to her people because of it, the Karma may have had a point, as you could make the argument that the Karma's pacifist ideals serve as a sort of floodgate for escalating emotional recoil by hindering your opponent's moral justifications for fighting you. Darha's ability to convince the Karma to specific action would then be reminiscent of Karma's prior iterations, being a pacifist at heart who takes action where she believes it is needed. However, since Darha's punishments were all internal, we see no reason as to why she shouldn't exercise her power to help her nation and be a resistance leader like she has in both of her prior forms.

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Finally, to be less dramatic and negative I want to talk about some of the aspects of Avatar Karma that I think are really interesting. While I don't like the fact that Karma has become a living spirit embodying the very traditionalist notions that all her previous incarnations fought against, the potential to explore Darha's sense of self and identity in the wake of a greater collective being revered by others is one that I really do want to be explored, especially since I don't see riot getting rid of this setup. Since Darha wasn't born with this spirit but rather possessed as the previous Karma had died months before Darha had her visions, the balancing of trying to keep your own individuality as the world clamors for a version of yourself you never asked to be, there's a lot of room for her to butt heads with her spiritual responsibilities, as well as to establish herself as her own individual Karma. Because Darha has some swing over the Karma spirit, there's still potential for her to make that third path she's been working to achieve in her prior incarnations.

Conclusion

Overall I think doing this post has helped put Karma's character into perspective for me, and if you happened to make it this far down my wall of text, hopefully you have a better idea of who she is and maybe even have found some additional aspects about her incarnations that inform your opinions of this lore update. While I don't think I have a more positive outlook for Avatar Karma, I think I've come to understand what the character means to me. Either way, let me know what you think, is Karma's new lore as bad as people are saying, or do you like the new direction? What aspects of Karma do you think are most important? And finally, which iteration of Karma's lore do you think is your favorite? I put the link to Karma's history wiki page in so you can go read all her previous lore entries yourself. That said, thanks for reading and I look forward to potentially getting my teeth smashed in from people who either think I'm glorifying Prework Karma too much or not being harsh enough on Avatar Karma.