A Dissection of the Piltover/Zaun Relationship in the Updated Lore

http://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/region/zaun

#Who Am I?

I'm CaptainMarvelous. You might recognize me as a writer and aficionado of League Lore. Primarily, my work is in the region of Piltover and Zaun. I've written extensively about both cities from a fan fiction standpoint as well as more nuanced discussions between the two. I don't want to present myself as some sort of know-it-all but, as you can understand, I'm extremely passionate about these two areas of League lore.

And I can't say I'm particularly happy with how Riot has handled the update of these two cities.

#Piltover https://puu.sh/skzIo/5738cb18a6.jpg

Piltover has become less about the scientific aspects of Piltover and more about the sheer luck of it being a portside city:

Trade is the lifeblood of Piltover, and its command of the main sea-route between east and west has seen its coffers swell with gold. A consequence of this has been the rapid expansion of the Noxian empire, whose armies and supplies can now travel the length and breadth of Valoran with relative ease. It has also allowed Bilgewater to prosper as a haven for pirates and reavers who prey on ships traveling to and from Piltover. The climate around Piltover is generally balmy, but when the temperature changes rapidly, sea fogs often envelop the docks and warehouses. The quaysides of Piltover are always busy, and anyone with a strong back and the will to work can easily find employment. A hundred accents are heard on the wharfside streets at any given time, and scores of ships from every port pass through the Sun Gates every day.

Yes, the city is still a hub for the techmaturgy and hextechnology that gave rise to it but the sheer fact of the matter is that these aspects have been downplayed. Piltover gets to be a city of progress because of the money flowing in. Not because of it being a place where inventors and others conspired to group up. It feels like Piltover isn't a city of technology and advancement but the city that just had the fortune of getting a really good hexagon on the Civilization board.

Along with this, Piltover seems to have become less of a haughty and inclusive city and more of early 1900's America. People flock to the city to make it big rather than going there in pursuit of technology. It's a city where technology is just one of the many paths you can take...which kind of disappoints me. Piltover was THE tech city and now it feels like it's been stripped of that title.

#Zaun https://puu.sh/skA8K/1960008931.jpg

But good god did Piltover get the giant end of THAT stick. I'm incredibly disappointed with how the lore team has stripped Zaun's place as a sister independent city and made it Piltover's backwash.

Zaun is a large, undercity district, lying in the deep canyons and valleys threading Piltover. What light reaches below is filtered through fumes leaking from the tangles of corroded pipework and reflected from the stained glass of its industrial architecture. Zaun and Piltover were once united, but are now separate, yet symbiotic societies. Though it exists in perpetual smogged twilight, Zaun thrives, its people vibrant and its culture rich. Piltover’s wealth has allowed Zaun to develop in tandem; a dark mirror of the city above. Many of the goods coming to Piltover find their way into Zaun’s black markets, and hextech inventors who find the restrictions placed upon them in the city above too restrictive often find their dangerous researches welcomed in Zaun. Unfettered development of volatile technologies and reckless industry has rendered whole swathes of Zaun polluted and dangerous. Streams of toxic runoff stagnate in the city’s lower reaches, but even here people find a way to exist and prosper.

In one fell swoop, Riot destroys several key aspects of Zaun and Piltover:

• The powerful rivalry that mirrored Demacia and Noxus but on a technological scale, even if it never progressed to all-out war as those cities do.
• Taking Zaun's identity as a "sister city" and making it a subsect of Piltover. If Piltover is New York, Zaun is the Bronx.
• Placing Zaun closer to Piltover is fine. Putting them right next to each other is kind of awful.
• Painting Piltover and Zaun as once-united...rather than being the mirror "Uptight and proper" city vs. "Grimy but free" city.

It disappoints me because you might as well not even call it Zaun anymore. Call it lower-Piltover. Part of the charm of Ekko's detest is that Caitlyn represents the complete opposite of Zaun and that she shouldn't be welcome here (among others). Yet now, she might as well be Sheriff of Piltover and Zaun. Vi's story was much deeper when you realize she fled across what is essentially a country to live as a thug in Piltover. Now she's just someone who came from elsewhere. The fine lines from Piltover to Zaun are not there anymore. It's blurry, it's confusing and in general it leaves Zaun as the weaker of the two. Zaun doesn't feel like a rival to Piltover anymore, it feels like a pissy younger brother who still has to get along with his older brother.

#What I would do

Let me be clear that I'm not demanding RIot change things or that I'm putting my own vision above theirs. I do, however, want to add some constructive criticism so that I'm not just throwing a fit that things are different now. Here are some basic ideas I have that I feel could make both Zaun and Piltover stronger:

• Reinforce the Demacia/Noxus Partnerships.

As it is now, Noxus might as well be BFFs with Piltover. Instead, we could have the cities have more dynamic relationships. While Noxus trades with Piltover, they're far more willing to work and trade with Zaun due to laxer taxes and less questions asked. In turn, Noxus approaches Zaun first with their work. Conversely, Demacia NEVER sends trade to Zaun and only consults Piltover. It would drive a further wedge between the two cities and make rivalry between the two spill over more, even if it's never so bad that it leads to outright war.

• Place Zaun further away from Piltover...just not too far.

Give Zaunites their citizenship back! Maybe Zaunites were originally part of Piltover but decided they'd go and make their own city. You don't have to put it so far that they might as well be separate continents, mind you. Place Zaun an hour or three away from Piltover by car. Make the space between the two cities more of a hodgepodge of mixing ideologies like Zaun is to Piltover now. Make this the mecca of tech where you can either move toward Piltover for more lawful good stuff or push toward Zaun for the chaotic neutral goods.

• Further invigorate the dissonance between creativity and business.

Zaun champions are more rough, tumble and about getting results. As stated on the loading screen: "Zaun is run by a loose alliance of Chem-barons". Roll with that. Make Zaun more about the business aspects. Piltover can still be the hub but money and results will talk far more than any sort of scientific paper or art project. Conversely, make Piltover the city where elitism thrives. People don't care about your money or results, they want to see your work. They value homogeneity and being a part of Piltover more than whatever story you have. Your story begins in Piltover, not continues from there. As they are now, Piltover is the "Good business" while Zaun is the "Questionable business". There is much divide between them.

• Make a zaunite crossing over (or vice versa) a bigger deal.

From Ekko's short story, it feels like Zaunites moving to Piltover isn't a big deal. It's uncommon, yes, but it's more of an afterthought of relocating. In the original lore, Vi moving to Piltover and being part of their police force was a HUGE deal. She represented the complete opposite of Piltover and she didn't do anything like Caitlyn did. It made Vi (and Blitzcrank) all the more special and important. Same deal with Jinx or Ekko causing problems in Piltover. Now? They're little more than vandals from lower Zaun causing some ruckus. It takes away a lot of the sting of these cities and the rivalry between them when anyone can do it.

#Conclusion

As I said before, I don't expect unanimous agreement or sudden adoption of my ideas into official lore. If I wanted that, I would have applied for the Riot lore team. I will, however, point out my problems and disappointments with these changes because of my passion for Piltover and my zealoutry for Zaun. Not all the changes are bad! I like Piltover being the ultimate hub city. I like that Zaun sometimes trades with Piltover rather than it being outright despising. I enjoy that there's deeper lore, art and more for both cities that I can use in my writings. But, all that said, there's a lot I disagree with and I hope Riot at least notes my criticism as a devoted fan.

Thank you for reading this. And if you didn't:

TL;DR

• Piltover is now more business than tech imo.
• Zaun got neutered and is now Piltover's leftovers.
• I have some ideas/criticisms that I hope Riot looks at.
• Not all the changes are bad. I just don't like some of what they did and think it takes away from the original spirit of the two rival cities.
• Vi > Jinx

#EDIT

Dinopaws had a response to this on reddit!

That's an interesting, well-thought out essay (and kudos for getting it written so quickly!). I think the things you miss aren't gone, they're still there and now have, I feel, a greater degree of subtlety to them - as opposed to the simple good city/bad city vibe they had in technology. We took long hard looks at how two cities with such vast arrays of technology could exist in a fantasy world with magic, and expanded on ideas as to how that could work and still feel real and fantastical too.

Zaun is so much more than just a backwater, it has its own thriving culture and exists as a sister city to Piltover. It certainly not a subservient city and I think you'll get a greater appreciation of that the more we dig into these cities in the future...

Thanks for taking the time to dig in so deeply!