Why care about the lore anymore?

What's the point of caring about the lore anymore? With the new Darkin update, Riot literally undid all the lore they established last year that built on the Darkin as being foreign invaders to the world of Runterra. They took a unique, monstrous enemy of the world that wasn't the Void, and completely made them more mundane god-beings of the world, now corrupted by the Void. They retconned lore that wasn't even a year old, and rewrote stories their team worked on last year when pitching the Darkin to us. This is further compounded by the fact that Pyke brought to light how willing Riot was to eradicate an old lore story (Nautilus) in order to cannibalize it for Pyke - granted, they back pedaled on that due to backlash, but the fact that that was even on the table is a huge red flag for anyone who was enjoying the narrative.

So what I'm asking - why care about the lore anymore? Riot clearly doesn't have a plan, because they can't even keep consistent with content they've developed last year long enough to flesh it out and fully establish it. They're writing like their lead narrative has ADHD, and simply makes stuff up as he goes, and rewrites everything to fit around it, instead of writing content that connects with already established content. How can you possibly find any connection to the stories you're being told if you don't have the security of knowing that those stories will even exist the next time the narrative team has an epiphany while taking a shower? The lore is becoming more and more meaningless the more and more they keep rapidly retconning everything to fit the exact moment they release it, instead of fitting the story already in place.

I don't know about you, but as someone who consumes stories in many different avenues, that's not how you approach any kind of narrative development - EVER. You create a world, you establish that world, and then you build within it. You don't create the world, then decide you don't like the world, erase it, and start over, especially not when people have already been engrossed in that world for a deal of time. It's bad, and it causes your audience to lose confidence and hope with the author - there's nothing to keep you attached to the story if there's no stability or confidence that what you're reading won't remain consistent. It reflects very poorly on the author or authors when this happens, because it starts to show a lack of direction and planning at the upper levels.

To be frank, for 4 years, I've been on board with the direction the narrative team has been going. But with this lore drop today, my confidence in the competency and the consistency of the lore has evaporated. For many, this has already happened, with reworks and new champions up-ending things constantly - but I always held out because I saw how the lore preserved the narrative of the world at large. Not anymore. The new Darkin lore has shattered that illusion, because the stories they had developed, that showed so much potential to open different avenues for the lore and the game has been erased for something as overdone and as trite as Void corrupted gods. The lore is now getting stale, as they are falling into the same patterns, the same stories, and the same enemies. This is not how you keep your audience engaged. Superman doesn't always fight Lex Luthor to keep Metropolis safe. He fights Brainiac, Atomic Skull, Doomsday, and eventually rotates back around to Lex Luthor when he's been out of the spotlight enough. League was at that point, when presenting us with a new enemy, the alien Darkin from another world - but they've now irreverently shoved everything back to the Void. There's only so many ways you can tell the story of the random corrupting evil that consumes the world. There's only so many ways you can tell us that the gods of the world can fight back against it. Right now, I'm at that point where I don't fucking care about the Void. It's been done. You've been doing it for YEARS. We needed something new to keep us engaged, to believe that this is a world that's always under threat and always in need of protection. But you failed. You had presented us with the Darkin, teased us with lore for almost a year, only to strip it away and have it fall back to the same old stories you've been beating to death for the past 4 years.

My dedication, hope, and even naivite regarding the lore has died today. For the first time, you've shown me how pointless it is to like the lore, because you've presented a clear case that nothing matters when you can simply change it based on the current whims of your authors. I really hate that, because I love this game, and I don't want to hate any aspect of it.