Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

My problems with new! Taric

Talos of Altmora·4/7/2016, 12:34:01 PM·12 votes·11,226 views
My problems with Targon

This is an expansion of my arguments on that link on everyone's favorite, outrageously beautiful man named Taric. Let me be absolutely clear that I hate new Targon, so that may or may not cloud my judgements on him, but I will try to be fair here.

So, Taric was once a high-ranking Demacian who viewed himself as a protector, but he viewed the protection of all life as his duty. Now, I can admire him for that, but then the his lore says that this trait made him abandon military drills and such for things like a magical beasts and a bard's song. While in my original post I accidently read it as he literally abandoned his comrades, ( my mistake, I will be sure to correct that) but that still shows a rather remarkable laxity for a Demaican (For those not in the know, Demacia used to require mandatory military service and used to indoctrinate it's warriors in it's moral superiority, but if Taric can goof off like that, then they're standards must of dropped.) Now, given that Taric has proven himself to have some form of ADD you'd think he'd never get that high a rank that he was implied to have. Turns out that Garen was one of his friends that kept him in a high position, and because of Taric's screwed priorities, even Garen couldn't save him from being demoted.

So, he was sent with a bunch of new recruits to an out-of-the-way fortress. After a few days, Taric decided that everything was fine, he went off to look at the ruins for a day. He sent all of his men to rest (they never give us a number, so we have to assume there was enough of them to properly defend the fort without being a drain on resources, so I'd wager around 10-20men? I'm not exactly an expert on this) When he gets back, he finds them slaughtered to the last man. What really annoys me was that they say the void creatures did his to them while they slept. (This raises many questions on it's own, but my biggest problem is that the void creatures we know of tend to be very big and very loud, so unless Khazix or another member of his species was responsible, they should have noticed something instead of continuing to sleep.)

So it's here when he was sent to Mount Targon as a punishment (apparently Targon s a dumping ground for those who fail Demacia) he climbs and is faced with Illusions of the world of Runeterra and all sorts of horrible fates that could befall the world and the things he loves. After he faces these trials, he meets the Aspect of the Protector, apparently he was responsible for bringing him to this point. (And by implication, the death of everyone at the fort Taric was garrisoned at.) He aspects and he is given the power of the Power of the protector. Now, he fights the void! (as I've said in my original post, Kassadin who?)

So, If we cut to the meat of it, Taric's backstory is Galio's with more details. A noble stalwart protector (although in Taric's case, he abandons his duty to goof off while Galio would never do that,) who failed once and seeks atonement. (See Headbiter's post there for the finer problems) So, while I like this new Taric, I feel that the aspect he has in him is possibly the stupidest person in the entire League of legends universe. One, he picked possibly the worst person for the job, a man who has proven himself to be very incompetent in his duty. While he certainly is strong, he's lacking in the brains department. Two, to groom him into his Flesh Coat avatar, he is implied to have ruined Taric's life and is implied to have killed his men. (And given that the aspects have done this before, he's probably done this hundreds of times, meaning he was a pretty high body count on him.) Some protector!

So, there is my thoughts on New Taric's lore. Please tell me your thoughts and upvote. if you don't like either of my post, feel free to down vote and post your problems in the comments. I look forward in seeing what you have to say.

92 Comments

Lovely Pants4/7/2016, 2:11:01 PM9 votes

Working back more from the end of the post first to discuss the wider lore issues:

-Similarities to Galio's original lore begin and end with "Demacian protector who has failed their mission"

I would just as soon complain that Zilean, or heck, even Urgot share similar plot points of grief/restoring honor. It's not like it's a common enough thread for me to bat an eye at personally and there's plenty of room to work around that single similarity. The events leading up to and following that point and the way each character contributed and reacts to them are completely different. Galio's story there is that of a loyal soldier who falls into despair at his own powerlessness. Taric's is that of a rebellious outcast whose friction with the system eventually causes him to make a grave error.

-I agree it is awkward now that Targon is the prominent gate between this plane and the void and mention of long-standing void related folks like Kassadin and Shurima in general has fallen to the wayside.

This might be made less of a neck-wrenching change if we're simply looking at the Targon/void conflict as another frontier of a global war with the void that seems to be creeping more prominently into rewritten lore, but it seems to shave away from the importance of Shurima as THE major location of void conflict and that whole section of lore continues to be left in the lurch.

-Reading and rereading what little is given to us about "The Protector," I have to judge that you have a lot of misconceptions.

There's nothing that implies he actually guided Taric to the mountain itself. It could be guessed that the aspects of Targon supply whatever trials await those once they come to the mountain, though this is also speculation on my part. I think a greater theme of Targon is that it tends to confront those who have already displayed their willpower and character instead of necessarily grooming the host.

As for the worthiness of Taric to wear the mantle of the protector, I don't think the majority of his lore highlights his incompetence in that role. His dereliction of duty at his final outpost with Demacia represents Taric at the lowest point in his life, I would say. He gets by with his actions in Demacian service previously precisely because he is something of a battle prodigy who is in fact better serving his goals as a protector by playing loose with the rules of Demacia, and as long as he continues to serve them well it's a waste to throw away that talent completely. His final mistake might be seen as a result of growing resentment and arrogance in him after years that cause him to lose sight of his most important duty, swiftly tempered by the consequences. It's not as though his actions in that case were completely unreasonable, as neither his superiors or Taric could have expected the Void Inquisition, but the fact that he was basically tasked with guarding the helpless and gave anything less than complete diligence to this task would be the sticking point for Taric's own code.