The Ruined King, His Maggot Ridden Wife, and Some Thoughts on the Shadow Isles
In this post, I want to share some of my thoughts on who the Ruined King is at the moment, and talk about some other random theories about the Shadow Isles. This post will be pretty long, so please bare with me.
A king from a long forgotten time was almost assassinated by a man with a poisoned blade. But Kalista, alive at this time, deflected the blade and saved the king. Unfortunately the blade peirced the king's wife and she ended up being poisoned and fell ill. Nothing could help her, not even the king's own magic. Overcome by grief and unable to find a cure for the poison, the king tasked Kalista with finding a cure for his dying wife. Kalista searched far and wide and found the Blessed Isles, which were said to hold the secret to immortal life. The inhabitants of that island told Kalista that they would cure the queen, but they warned her against sharing the secret of how to get to the island. So, Kalista set back off to her homeland to bring the news.
Sadly, she was too late. The king's wife was dead. The king had been driven mad with grief and demanded that Kalista tell him what she had found. She refused, as she remembered the warning of the inhabitants of the Blessed Isles. After a while though, Hecarim convinced Kalista to let the king bring the queen to the Isles. So Kalista guided them there.
Once they arrived on the Isles, the king ordered the inhabitants to bring his wife back from the dead. They refused. The king then ordered Kalista to kill the inhabitants, but she would not. She spoke of how great the king had once been, but the king would not listen. Kalista asked Hecarim to stand with her in defending the islands inabitants, but Hecarim had a different idea. He saw a chance to earn favor with the king, so he pretended to stand beside Kalista. But in a brutal act of betrayal, he and his knights drove their spears into Kalista's back. Her last breaths were used to swear vengeance on those who had betrayed her.
Hecarim and his order slaughtered the inhabitants of the island until they found a "lantern baring wretch" who led the king to what he sought-- the secret of resurrecting the dead. The king bathed his wife in the healing waters of life and succeeded in bringing her to life, but the queen returned as a half-rotten mound of flesh who begged for death. The king, disgusted by what he had done to his wife, used a spell to end their lives and bind them together for eternity. The spell was successful, but with the power of all of the artifacts on the island, "its power was increased a hundredfold." The island was transformed into a place of undeath. Kalista became the Spear of Vengeance, the lantern baring wretch became Thresh, and Hecarim became the Shadow of War. Thus the Shadow Isles were born.
This brings up a lot of questions and one of these questions is this: Who is the Ruined King? There are bits and pieces from the lore that can help us answer this question.
We already know that he was a great king by what Kalista says to him before Hecarim kills her. But it seems that he was also a great magic user. In Kalista's lore, it says "Even the king's magic could only slow its process", it referring to the poison that affected the queen. His magic was more effective than the magic of the best sorcerers in his kingdom. He also managed to single handedly contort the Shadow Isles into the wretched place that it is now. Even if there were many magical artifacts on the Isles, I would assume it would take great ability to not only draw on that power, but channel it into a spell. With this information in mind, we can assume that he was a sorcerer king (who was handy with swords, if his item is anything to go by.)
It seems that the Ruination turned everyone into the undead. These undead have very intense desires based on what the darkest parts of them were before they died (at least, that's how it is for important characters in the lore. Kappa.) For example, Hecarim was a man who loved to kill and longed for glory. This has been completely amplified from how he was when he was alive. Same deal with Kalista. She wanted revenge so badly, that she is now literally the spirit of vengeance. Keep this stuff in mind. It'll be important later on.
For this part, my own intuition plays a big part rather than purely using facts and observations. Bare with me. In Hecarim's lore, it says, "Repulsed by what he had done, the king enacted a spell to end their lives and bind them (the king and his wife) together for all eternity." One could assume this to mean one of four things. One, and what I believe to be the least likely given the evidence, they both successfully died and moved on. Two, they physically merged into one being and became a new creature. Three, they both are now close together as undead beings. Or, the fourth option, and the one I think is the most likely, he is now alone with a broken thing that used to be his wife.
If it's number one, then this post doesn't matter as the Ruined King is no more.
I don't think that they are physically merged together, but if they are, then they could be a beast like Hecarim.
If it's the case that number 3 is correct, and the king and his wife are two seperate beings, the wife could still be alive. I doubt she exists as a completely independent being though, as the king's curse was meant to end their lives and bind them together. So she could be in close proximity to the king somehow. I think the wife would be more like Yorick's Maiden of the MIst, constantly whispering to him, bound to him by the magic of his own curse. This could be the way in which they were bound together.
But if it is number four, he could now just be a ball of angerness and sadness with a thing that used to be his wife. If I am correct in assuming that the Ruination turns people into undead with very simple desires based on who they were before they became undead, then he simply wanted to stay with his wife for eternity. Everything he did was because he loved his wife. He searched all over for a way to heal his queen. He killed many people and destroyed the Isles simply because he loved her to much. And now he is alone. He is hated. His is Ruined. Ces't la vie, I guess.
If we go by this logic, then the Ruined King is an undead sorcerer king, who lost everything in the Ruination of the Blessed Isles. He is now somewhere on the Isles with his malformed wife, broken and alone, cursed to bare witness to the destruction he has wrought for all eternity.
P.S. In Yorick's lore, we learn that his main goal is to find the Ruined King. "Yorick wished to find this 'Ruined King' and undo the curse he had unleashed. " This makes me wonder why the Ruined King would keep the curse on the Shadow Isles, or whether him simply being "alive" keeps the curse from being undone. I have no idea as of now what that could be about.
If anybody has anything to say about my theory, or thinks I said anything incorrectly, fucking 1v1 Yasuo mirror match no items. I'll teach you to try to correct me. In all seriousness, I hope someone has any thoughts on this, as I've been thinking about this topic for awhile now. I hope Riot gives us some more information on the Ruined King soon.
