Fiora's Long Lore has Arrived!

God_damn_, Demacia just throws those capital punishments out left and right.

It's actually a clever tactic that she offers them an out. When they refuse, it's basically signing a verbal contract that she can kill them with impunity.

I have to say, I have mixed feelings about this.

It's very well written imo, and it gives her a reason to be a bitch, as most of us see her.

But at the same time, her in game lines no longer seem to reflect how she is in this new lore, she seems more honorable/noble and less rude(snobby?), I guess you could say.

But I like it, though, I really do.

Ugh, honestly, I don't like this. I much preferred her old personality to this one; plus, of course, 'tough young woman refuses to let her parents pick her husband' is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It's not badly written, but I just don't like the changes made.

I dislike what the setting does to Demcia's image. I'm aware stories like to draw parallels to real-life issues so that readers can empathize - but Demacia has never shown any what-would-be-considered-by-contemporary-standards-to-be-oppressive behavior toward females in the past. In fact, females make-up the majority of Demacia's representatives in the League (back when the Institute existed, although it's still true). Demacia has it's glaring social issues - but both men and women have always had equal opportunities to be monsters.

Before making her first strike, Fiora said the same phrase that she had said at the start of every duel, hundreds and hundreds of times now.

“Good sir, I am Fiora of House Laurent,” she said.

Jax grunted, but made no other response. Fiora waited, but Jax said nothing. She continued.

“It has come to my attention that House DeVone did injure the good name of House Laurent in an unjust and dishonorable manner by the indulgence and spreading of insults in regards to my right of ownership of House Laurent, and the good name of my house. Therefore it is my right meet his champion in a duel and restore the honor of-"

"Lady." Jax interrupted. "I dont care. I didn't come all the way from the other side of the contienent to back down from some tart with a sewing needle."

Fiora's eyes narrowed. Jax fell silent again. His weight shifted from foot to foot, as if bored. Very well. His lamp post was made of thick iron, large and unweildy. No need to draw it out. Swift stabs to the throat and stomach. She lunged, the point of her rapier flashing towards his-

WHUMF

Fiora staggered back with a wheeze, clutching her chest. The butt of Jax's lamp post had slammed into her diaphram with the force of a blacksmith's hammer, knocking the wind out of her. Gasping for breath, Fiora raised her rapier between them to deflect the follow-up attack that was surely coming.

But Jax didn't attack. His lamp post was now slung over his broad shoulders, hands limply resting on either end. He seemed utterly at ease.

Fiora was stunned. She hadn't even seen him move. He had leaned out of the way of her lightning-fast lunge and replied with a single powerful strike right to her abdomen. He could have dismboweled her in an instant if he had been using a sword instead of his lamp post. A small trickle of fear went through her. Ammdar had been right. This Grandmaster was far better than he looked.

"Pretty fast, huh?" Jax said. He spun the lamp post off his shoulders and began swinging it back and forth in front of him, almost lazily. "No one ever expects that first hit. But let me tell ya, it's the third hit you've gotta watch out for."

Fiora straightened up, breathing hard. Alright, he's faster than he looks. You've fought fast fighters before. They all make the same mistakes. Speed is only an advantage if you have the skills to use it. Hit him as fast as possible until he slips up.

"That wont work." Jax said. Fiora stared at him. "What you were just thinking. About the speed thing. I've been in enough fights to know that look on your face. You're thinking of attacking as fast as possible and hoping you get a lucky hit. Seen it hundreds of times. Wont work." His lamp post spun again and came to a rest over his shoulders once more. "But dont let me convince you otherwise. Have at it, lady."

Fiora hesitated. He's expecting me to try it. But his lamp post is heavier than my sword. If I can force him to block far enough apart, he wont be able to stop it's momentum fast enough. He'll have to shift his weight before a swing. I just need to watch how he plants his feet.

Jax sighed impatiently. One hand came off the lamp post and scratched his belly lazily. Now! Fiora lunged again, her sword leading the way. Almost faster than her eyes could follow, the lamp post swumg down from Jax's shoulders, brushing aside her lunge. But the first strike had only been a feint, a ruse with no real force behind it. The lamp post's momentum carried it past Jax's chest, while Fiora's sword remained pointed at him. She jabbed out at his stomach, putting her weight behind the blow.

Jax gave a snort, spinning to the side. The tip of Fiora's rapier brushed past Jax's navel, missing by millimeters. The lamp post's momentum carried around with Jax's twirl, both his hands gripping it midway up the shaft. Fiora jumped backward, sucking in her stomach, the tip of the lamp missing her by inches. She lunged again, this time at his face, then twice more at his neck and chest. Her blade stuck over and over, her arm a blur.

None of the lunges found their targets. Jax rolled and twisted in response to each of her attacks, flowing out of the way of each strike as if he knew exactly where each one was going to land before Fiora had even begun it. The lamp post twirled again, the Grandmaster planting his feet for a strike. Dodge!

The lamp post swung toward her legs. Fiora jumped, bringing her rapier down in a savage downward thrust at Jax's head as the lamp post swept underneath her. At the last second, Jax twisted his body out of the way of her strike, bringing the lamp post up between Fiora's shins and tangling it between her legs.

Fiora fell heavily, rolling to the side to avoid Jax's next attack, which hammered into the marble floor like a cannonball, causing chips of stone to fly into Fiora's face. She scrambled to her feet in time to stagger out of the way of Jax's next blindingly fast swing, desperately stabbing her rapier out at his eyes in order to gains some distance from the Grandmaster's rapid attack.

Jax tilted his head to the side, Fiora's rapier catching only air. The shaft of the lamp post slammed into Fiora's stomach, causing her to gasp in pain and fall to her knees. Fiora slashed upwards blindly, hoping to force Jax backwards and gain time to repond-

WHAM

Stars exploded in front of her eyes as the lamp post came crashing down on the top of her head. She tasted blood, and felt the rapier slide from her fingers to the marble floor. Fiora collapsed, groaning in pain. She was dimly aware that she had bitten her tongue.

This is how I die? No... Father... I'm sorry...

Fiora's cheek rested on the cold stone floor. She head Ammdar shouting her name, the crowd around the dueling square screaming and jostling for a better view. She closed her eyes, waiting for the deathblow.

She head the sound of heavy footsteps, and a large three-fingered hand grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head up. She forced her eyes open, struggling to focus on the six glowing blue eyes a foot away from her.

"Not bad, lady. In a couple years you might become a real contender." Jax said quietly.

"You... You won. Finish it." Fiora gasped. A trickle of blood ran down from her scalp and into her eye. Jax ignored her and continued as if she hadnt said anything.

"If you want my advice, you should probably get a longer rapier. Relying on lunges with a short sword puts you too close to the guy you're trying to kill. Of course, that also makes it hard to fight back when they guy gets right up next to you, like I did." Although Fiora couldnt see his face, she had the impression that Jax was grinning at her.

"F-finish it." Fiora whispered. Her vision was growing darker. Jax ignored her again.

"You also have this stupid tendancy of fighting like you've got something to prove. Stop that. That worm DeVone insulted you, so what? You could cut him to ribbons any day of the week. Stop worrying so much what the crowd thinks of you. The fight is all that matters."

"Stop... talking." Fiora rasped. "The rules of the duel... It is to the death."

"Yeah, about that." Jax said. "I'm not big on rules. You gave me a pretty good go, lady. Would be a shame to kill you before your prime." His hand released her hair. Fiora fell to the floor again with a groan. Jax straightened up.

"Far as I'm concerned, I'm done here." Jax said to her prone form. He paused, then kicked Fiora's rapier away from her scrabbling hand. "I dont think I need to kill you to show you who the champ is." He turned and began to walk away.

Fiora opened her eyes and gave his back a venomous glare. "If you refuse... to kill me... I will find you... I will bury my blade in your heart for this dishonor."

Jax stopped and turned. He gazed down at her, then laughed. "Lady, you dont get it. There's nothing I like more than a rematch. I want to see you try it." He turned away again, slinging the lamp post over his shoulder.

Fiora watched him go, then her head slumped back to the floor. Her last sight of Jax was his back as he strode away. Then darkness took her.

I was…really displeased with this, for two main reasons.

First, the introduction of medieval sexism into Valoran is a major step backward, IMO. It makes the setting much less novel. We're so tired of reading the same "omg such oppression" story. We've had our GoT dark-and-gritty fix. And it doesn't even make sense in the setting. Demacia needs every warrior it can get. Perhaps IRL, differences in strength or whatever make women less useful as melee combatants. But this is Valoran. Human potential doesn't work the same way here. There is clearly nothing stopping women from being badass melee fighters—just like there's nothing stopping knights and vikings from holding their own against steampunk soldiers with rifles, or for that matter against robots with death rays. That being the case, for Demacia to consign half its population to noncombatant roles seems like an absurd waste.

Second, the politics here don't make sense to me. Fiora's wedding outburst comes across as House Laurent imploding on itself. Nobody's going to look down on House Crownguard for that. It invited House Laurent to the cool kids' table, and House Laurent's weird duelist kid flipped out and refused. Sympathies are already with House Crownguard, which is in a good position to demand that House Laurent make an apology, and banish Fiora or whatever. If House Laurent refuses, and escalates it from "our daughter went nuts at the wedding, we're so sorry, she must be demon-possessed" to "actually, no, she's right, you guys SUCK!", then House Laurent has just turned its embarrassment into a call for civil war. That's when the Crown intervenes and tells House Laurent to back the hell down. It's probably the last straw for a house that's already in bad shape, the sort of thing that convinces the King to say, "Yeah, it really is time to get some new leadership over there." Fiora and her dad get royal commands to go serve Demacia on the Noxian front, or to help the Frostguard hunt down monsters in the Freljord, or (in a certain scandalous alternate reality) Fiora gets sent to the League and told to stay there.

I mean, yes. Perhaps if House Laurent is desperate enough, it might concoct some acceptable story for Fiora's refusal. Maybe it might accuse the Crownguard guy of some infamous crime, or perhaps of having done something really sketchy vis-a-vis Fiora just before the wedding, or being caught in bed with a maidservant, or having nude photos of Katarina in his drawer. At that point, though, where House Laurent chooses to back Fiora and justify her outburst, it becomes a clash between Houses, not an honor duel between individuals. And I cannot imagine Demacia—you know, LAWFUL GOOD land, where the individual doesn't really matter—allowing that to proceed. They are breaching the King's peace because they both feel like the other is embarrassing them. House Laurent is being ridiculous because it's picking a fight with another Great House rather than dealing with its brat of a daughter. House Crownguard is debasing itself by getting into a scrap with a much weaker House. They are both disrupting Demacian society and interfering with the operations of the Demacian war machine. That matters much, much more than any personal spat about honor or prestige. The King is going to have words with them and put a stop to this. He's certainly not going to exile an entire Great House, a significant piece of Demacia's military assets and its agricultural/industrial infrastructure. Any concern House Crownguard might have about saving face is amply dealt with by means of a royal command: nobody's going to fault them for declining to pursue a vendetta after the King has ordered them to back off. That's a bulletproof excuse.

Furthermore, even if we accept that somehow this duel happened, the story about Fiora murdering 30+ Demacian nobles in duels doesn't make any sense, either. If Riot wants to get historical here, fine. Look at what happened historically in such situations. The bloodthirsty duelist did not become renowned as an honorable person: they became ostracized, and sooner or later something was done about them. The King cannot afford to have Fiora killing all those valuable aristocrats. Nor is this going to help House Laurent: it's going to give every other House a good reason to hate them. It's not even going to make Fiora look brave, because at that point, it's obvious that's she's a super badass duelist, issuing private death sentences to people who upset her.

So no, I really can't say I liked this piece.

She's not duelist. She's a psychopath..

Well, it kinda explains why Lux is her Rival

So what does any of her story have to do with Jax? Riot acts like there's this mystery around her about redemption.