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On the New Targon Lore...

Tyvani·3/6/2016, 1:33:06 AM·17 votes·2,584 views

I suppose this will be one of the last posts on the changes I'm referencing. I tried to muse on the whole thing for a while and really digest it all, which is why this one comes somewhat late, but it’s still something that’s bothering me and I needed to lay it out, especially concerning one thing in particular. While it is fairly opinionated, I tried to make sure it was still at least referencing things already laid out as canon. But, for those of you who still might not get where I'm coming from, here you go:

Since the moment it was said that Targon was going to get lore updates, I had a bad feeling about it. I absolutely knew in my head that, somehow, the writers were going to mess it up. I thought they’d add more, progress the story, pick a direction they wanted to take with the existing lore and kill off either Leona or Diana. But what they actually did is something I never expected. And I don’t like it any better.

If you were like me, you might have seen Diana and her abilities and immediately wanted to know more. You read her lore, you tried to play her in-game, you listened to her theme, sought out the teaser image, and gobbled up every single bit of information given in her AMA. You were enthralled by the story of this angry, hurt, vengeful character who demanded the blood of all Solari and an end to those who would deny the power of the moon, now so plain before them as that very power coursed through her. She was harsh, she was cruel, everything in her life had pushed her to be bitter, cold, and unforgiving, and she’d decided that it was enough. And, now, all of that is gone.

As Diana is now, she no longer owns her own anger. Any hint of abuse she once had is gone in favor of something watered down and harmless: sweeping the library as punishment for arguing with the Elders. With how much they improved the depth of the lore, they failed to leave any sort of conflict that would inspire Diana to want to kill the Elders and destroy the Solari. And once it finally came down to it, she was appalled, she was shocked, she couldn’t believe what she did, and she ran away. And that is not the mark of a merciless killer. That is not a person who is pushed to kill. The only thing that could have made her do such a thing was the entity now sharing her body, which is now the only thing that inspires the hint of the anger and vengeance she had in her previous lore. As I see it, the only way they found to maintain the Diana/Solari rivalry was to force it.

In fact, the character that now seems the most vengeful is Leona, which is completely backwards from how it used to be. Leona was clearly a very good-willed person in the previous lore. Though her in-game abilities show her as someone who’s potentially a brutal fighter, or one who won’t let you escape so easily, that doesn’t mean it’s necessary to water this trait down. Though she staunchly avoided unnecessary killing, she was always a defender of those who needed it and, if Diana was seeking to kill all Solari, then death would be necessary for her. But now there’s only a singular hint that she still shares these previous, positive character traits: Guiding the strange boy to safety. Where the writers could have hinted at Leona’s protective nature in Pantheon’s lore where he was being bullied, they left her out. Where they could have emphasized this in her own lore amongst her tribemates, they chose not to. Instead, they ensured more references of her warrior nature, of her zealousness to the Solari, and her anger at hearing Diana describe this new society. Worse yet, they emphasized how fury sustained her on her hunt for Diana, where it simply could have been duty. Though her anger is seemingly quelled at the end of the story, it is no less dampened as a new, defining trait of Leona’s, and the blindly trusting faith Leona had now only seems to be further weaponized.

As for the story, itself, I’m equally disappointed thus far. The timelines were altered, the ways the two of them ascended were changed entirely, and the true sense of conspiracy filling the story is gone. Though Diana’s lore mentions that she suspected information was willfully left out, there’s minimal effort to prevent her from questioning the Solari. Instead, there are only harmless punishments up until the final confrontation between her and the Elders, something that leaps to retain the same severity. Where distinct parallels existed between Leona and Diana’s ascensions, both of which saved their lives but where only Leona was rewarded for defying her peers and traditions, it was decided to remove these entirely. And equally disappointing is that the character development and progress they could have made has been removed, as well. While I always desperately wanted to see Diana and Leona make peace, to see them no longer seek to fight and kill each other, and to understand what actually happened to Diana and the Lunari, it trivializes it all to erase the struggle. As it stands in this reset lore, peace between them is readily available and it’s now Leona who needs the most character development.

As I originally feared, this event has already gone wrong. Leona and Diana never needed redefining and neither did the overarching story of Targon. Everything that I previously loved about both of the characters is now gone, and everything that entranced me about the original story is gone with it. The major attributes of the characters are now either non-existent or barely hinted at, the sense of conspiracy filling the Solari and the collective Elders is missing, and Leona and Diana are no longer the same foils they were to each other.

As someone who deeply invested themselves into the original story and characters, who took likely far too much of their own time filling in the lore spaces themselves, and who was head-over-heels in love with them as they were and as I hoped they could've been in the previous lore, I implore the writers to reconsider the stark changes they’ve made in this new, default state. There’s other people who were just as in love with the story as I was, and we’ve tried to make it clear how unhappy we are with the magnitude of these changes.

I can’t claim to know what they intend to do with the story and where they intend to take the characters now and I can’t claim yet how much of the peripheral information they’ve retconned from the teasers, the song, and the AMA, but I can see plainly, in this moment, that these are not the same characters and that this is not the same story. And if they won’t return the previous character traits, then please at least have enough honesty to avoid telling us that these changes match up with Diana’s “merciless in-game persona” or anything similar. Seeking unity and running away has nothing to do with bringing down the sun and being merciless.

Beyond this, thank you for taking the time to read this.

26 Comments

A Sneaky Snek3/6/2016, 6:10:29 AM7 votes

Diana is by far my favourite character lore-wise, and i’m going to have to disagree with you. Her old lore while interesting, can be summed up with: Diana likes moon, Solari likes sun. Diana tells Solari about moon, she gets mad when they don’t listen and kills them all. I find that this new lore has so much depth and makes her seem really well-rounded. She still kills the elders out of her rage, but now we have more depth into how she got her powers (Aspects). I actually like that now she now wants to unite the cultures of the moon and sun, as she can still be the righteous killer, but has a clear goal and purpose apart from murdering everyone who doubts the moon.

The Last Ballad3/6/2016, 2:57:35 AM5 votes

You have some decent points there. I do love it when someone puts their thoughts out in a way that forces me to actually think in order to argue against it.

However, you claim that Leona's rage sustaining her is not the mark of a good person, but what kind of person hoping to have even the slightest chance of being called such would be able hunt down the killer of what became their family, on only a sense of duty? Especially a person depicted as a defender. Leona strikes me as a person that defends her people not out of duty, but out of love for them. I liked(and still do) because her personality kind of reflects mine. And I know that if anyone even tried to hurt someone I love, I would beat the ever loving crap out of them. So I can see Leona striding up a mountain focused on nothing but the death of the person who dared to kill her loved ones. She does not wish to kill unnecessarily, but will do with great prejudice if anyone threatens her people, for that was what she was raised to do.

Pyrophilia3/6/2016, 6:24:35 AM4 votes

I'm signing my name beside every fucking word of this. I have been in love with Diana's story, character, appearance, voice-over, quotes, weapon, kit, base skin and splash art, theme song and everything else related to her ever since I started playing League. She was the first non-450 IP champion I bought, the third champion I bought overall, and I saved up for her for weeks.

She is by far my favourite champion and I have been feeling so sad that she's no longer perfect. This new lore has diminished her. They took out almost all of the tragic depth out of her story, diminished the transformative aspects of her character development and made her very diluted. Her character development now feels like a jagged line, full of random leaps and jumps, whereas before it was more like a nice, gradual curve.

They took away her trauma. They took away her scar, that she was strong enough to transform into a symbol of power, they took away almost all the narrative elements that make you -understand- why she is treading the edge of evil. They decided to get rid of the burden of trauma that led Diana to become Diana but still decided to keep the scene where she kills the Elders. This is even worse than if they had just gotten rid of all of that altogether and simply changed her into a scared girl who doesn't want to fight and just wants acceptance.

I cannot believe that we will witness her VO becoming defunct and non-canon before we ever finally managed to find out who did the unequivocally brilliant job of portraying her in it. 'They could NOT break me.' Such bitterness and resolve. And now? Of course they couldn't break you, sweet Moonmaiden. They made you sweep floors.

I get so sad when I think about it. I really, really hope they add so much more to the whole story that will round it out and make everything make sense. Even so, she is no longer truly Diana. item 3070

Doctor Dyment3/6/2016, 4:00:22 AM3 votes

Personally, Diana seems more reasonable to me now. Generally a normal person would feel grief and horror at the fact that they just slaughtered a group of old and wizened individuals who raised them. Leona now strikes me as kind of a knight from the Crusades. A powerful religious zealot. People'll kill for their beliefs, and I believe that that is what Leona is now. A woman who will kill for her beliefs and protect what she deems as worth protecting, not all those who need protecting. She seems more of what would come out of an insane cult that lives on top of a mountain who worship the sun more than Dark Souls players. And yeah, it makes sense that rage would be the most powerful fuel that one would have when hunting down people you considered close to you, not a sense of duty. You bring up well thought out and written points, but I still feel differently after reading.

GreenLore3/6/2016, 11:28:38 AM3 votes

While I think that Diana came of as a bit too soft in the new lore,I always felt like her old lore kind of too extreme.

I mean she went from "maybe the moon should also be worshipped" to "kill/convert all solari,the sun is bad". Yes her being hurt about what has been done to her was understandable,but her reaction wasn't,it was irrational and seemed more like an excuse to make her the villain of the story(heck I even thought that said personality change might have come from the moon powers,which seems to be the case in the new lore)

Also you say her punishments are now harmless compared to the old lore,but her old lore never explained what kind of punishments she got,so it might have been pretty much the same stuff that happened.

TzQGRUST393/6/2016, 10:31:40 AM2 votes

Diana is fine, she actually has gradual character development now. Before, she went from a good knowledge seeking person to a decidedly evil person in a single moment. She very knowingly slaughters them all and then destroys the temple to put the icing on the cake. Now she goes around trying to convince those to join the Lunari, killing anyone who doesn't. What is bothersome is that she does this for no reason other than, "My team is better then yours, heheh." The funniest part about it is that the new iteration of Diana would actually make the actions her old versions make sense. Her motivation now is that the sun and the moon together are "essential for universal harmony", so going around accruing Lunari while "diminishing" Solari would actually make sense. Her cold blooded slaughter of the Solari elders would also make more sense because she is straight half moon deity. Old Diana lore is like that of the new Pantheon lore. You take a character that is semi-interesting and relatable and you turn them into a one note copy and paste character with a single sentence, except in the new Pantheon lore it was intentional. When old Diana comes out of that temple, she isn't Diana anymore, she is the moon, which is Ironic seeing that the new Diana would have an excuse for that. When new Diana comes out of the temple she is still Diana, but an altered version. She is haunted by what she has done. When she was young, her parents died shielding her from the perilous cold of Targon and the Solari brought her in and raised her like their own. These people are her life, everyone she's ever known or cared about are in that temple. When she arrives at the temple with proof of the Lunari, it isn't about, "I'm right, you're wrong, moon = bestest, sun = worstest". It is about what she believes to be the well being of the entire world she believes all of those years of being an outcast and mocked have destined her for this moment; she can change the world for the better, she can be the hero now, she can be believed now, she can be accepted now. And so she stands in-front of the elders, ecstatic, this is the turning point of her life. She tells them what she has discovered with great enthusiasm, that same enthusiasm fades slowly, and slowly, and slowly with every passing word. Every syllable becoming more desperate than the last as Diana realizes that her life is collapsing around her, her greatest moment has become her ruin. She comes to a comprehension of what will occur as she stares into the hatred of the elders's eyes... she is going to die here. That is when she snaps. Even with how traumatic experience that is, she still comes out the temple Diana. She sought knowledge while living with the Solari, her hunger for it was the drive of her life and true enough to her character, she still seeks knowledge, but she knows what she must find. She has a very specific goal in mind for the future, piece together the memories of the Lunari and unite them with the Solari.

As for Leona, it is hard to argue that she hasn't been vastly improved from her old iteration. While I ragged on old Diana to get a point across, Leona is just a straight Mary Sue. She runs around Targon being incredibly kind and protecting everyone while refusing to kill in a society built around killing. New Leona actually has a fraction of depth, she actually kills, it's like she was raised from birth to be a cold blooded killer or something. What makes new Leona better than her piers is that she isn't for mindless blood shed. She protects her people and those she views as helpless. Why is every one so salty about Leona being angry at Diana for killing the elders? I want everyone who is bothered by this to say this exact line in their head, "Why is Leona angry at Diana for killing her people?" and hopefully it would become apparent after digesting that for a second or two.

One more thing, "Leona felt her anger build with every word Diana spoke, and when the elders rejected her words and named her a blasphemer, Leona knew it would be her blade that ended the heretic’s life." Everyone seems to interpret this line as Leona being so filled with rage that she is going to leap at Diana and take her head, I'm pretty sure that was not the intention. To me it seemed obvious that it was meant to say that Leona knew that Diana would be put to death and as the leader of the Ra-Horak it would be her duty to kill her. That was my interpretation at least.

Hopefully I have convinced someone, sorry if somethings I wrote came off rude, I'm just getting tired of writing the same things over and over again. If you have made it this far and haven't been convinced, please go back and read the Old Diana and New Pantheon comparison, I think that is a pretty good example.

LANWhale3/6/2016, 3:55:39 AM1 votes

Sorry if this question was already answered. I was enjoying a nice bowl of soup while reading this so forgive me for my mind was on the matter of taste.

But are you saying Leona and Diana, these new renditions of them,are bad?

Ethereal3113/6/2016, 11:16:52 AM1 votes

I have one criticism with your post and that comes down to the stories I write. I'm writing the old Diana as someone who was abused heavily by the Solari because of her questioning and so on until her exile. She wandered, scarred by her abuse, until she came across the Lunari temple with her now signature cuirass and blade. The magic inside the cuirass manifested her anger and hatred, causing her to commit genocide of the Solari. Witnessing the horror she had sown, she fled to the Institute and tried to be of some help to her scientist friends (namely Xerath, Heimer and Viktor who form a research group) since they were all Heretics to some degree. She's still running and the arc I'm going to write will work on developing her character in that scenario. I just find Diana easier to write that way.

Apart from that I completely agree with your sentiments and it's nice to know that people have the sense to find out how their favorite champion functions.

Warlord Dienekes3/22/2016, 8:20:44 PM1 votes

What is interesting, the Leona problem could be fixed by changing only a couple of sentences. Well, part of the Leona problem. She still is infested by a space parasite, but I don't think Riot is going to budge on that one.

Really the only thing that would need to change is Leona escorts Diana to the elders, then, the elder's order her to leave when Diana says her piece. She hears a commotion, and sees Diana surrounded by corpses. Then she can get angry. Her religious leaders were just murdered, getting angry there would be completely acceptable, even for a normally compassionate person. Done. The rest of her lore actually does show her being compassionate to a monster, and, if you want, have her behave friendly to Diana before she brings her to the elders.

She's still angry during the chase (which makes sense, and personally I can live with just that), and she's still infested by a space parasite (which I'm not happy about but Riot's not going to change that), but that's the best change I think we're going to get. If Riot decides to bother.