Ahri lore and Quotes

Luxxum·Dec 1, 2014·27 votes·11,524 views

They contradict each other.

"Mercy is a human luxury... and responsibility." vs. "They're mine now." "It's too late for mercy." "No one will stand in my way." "They've exhausted
their use"

Am I missing something?

34 Comments

WhitakkerDec 1, 20147 votes

This always bothered me about her. She was supposed to have gained a conscience about her actions, and came to the IoW to learn to reign in her more primal/carnal/soul-sucking instincts. But the bulk of her lines seem to paint her as a remorseless minx who sees any warm body as a plaything for her desires.

Perhaps @GreenLore was right; they made the VO before they completed fleshing out her backstory. Without that excuse, it just sounds like someone wasn't paying attention in the office that day when they wrote the VO lines.

Insanity 101Dec 2, 20144 votes

Hmmm... Yes, Ahris VO is a bit weird and outdated.

Perhaps she could be the first champ with a voice over update?

DwarvenGiantDec 2, 20141 votes

Hmmm... Yes, Ahris VO is a bit weird and outdated.

Perhaps she could be the first champ with a voice over update?

She could use a voiceover update. Although this won't be the first. Remember the Shurima event recently? Xerath, Renekton, Cassiopeia and Sivir got their voice over updated then. :)

Maple CrusaderDec 1, 20143 votes

Now that you've mentioned it, Ahri does seem to be schizophrenic. Bloodthirsty on the battlefield, yet remorseful when outside of it.

Pika310Dec 4, 20141 votes

Considering the kind of battlefield it is, there's nothing wrong with that. Minions are soulless constructs following a simple programming. Enemy champions are protected by summoning magic, their form on the rift is more transient, just a spiritual projection of their actual self. As for the jungle monsters, they're slain for a purpose. We kill countless chickens and beasts every day for a purpose. Hell, we exterminate insects and other pests simply because we want them to stop existing.

She can't do any real harm and with it being a battlefield on top of that fact, there's no reason for her morals to hold her back. She's free to forget about them during and cut loose.

Personally, I see nothing contradictory, these concerns feel completely unfounded. Else we'd be asking why other peace-seekers are part of the League as well: Ashe, Anivia, Braum, Leona, Soraka, etc. These League matches are held as an alternative to real war or bloodshed. A proxy.

LuxxumDec 5, 20141 votes

Except you don't hear them saying things like what ahri does. Their VOs still match their personalities. You don't see ashe or soraka saying things bloodthirsty. Ashe still says "don't confuse mercy for weakness" and soraka still says "for peace of mind".

Pika310Dec 5, 20141 votes

Braum "Ah! We are about to begin the fighting!" "Sometimes, shield becomes smashing board." Ashe "Right between the eyes!" "No one escapes my aim." "Faster than my arrow? I think not." "I only need one shot!" "Take a good look; it's the last you'll get." Soraka "They will go no further." "I will not save you."

Seems to me Ashe is actually quite bloodthirsty out on the Rift. The most so out of all the examples I gave.

If anything, Ahri's quotes combined with her tone are more sensual and portray her far more in a seductive manner than "bloodthirsty." Matter-of-factly, Ahri's voice actor does play villains in other games, Arfoire from Neptunia for example. Ahri is far from actual evil.

A Superb VillainDec 1, 20143 votes

Her whole "becoming human" along with acquiring the morality such a goal would entail, is still very much a work in progress.

LuxxumDec 1, 20144 votes

yes, but she has far greater morality in her lore than she shows in game.

QantèsDec 2, 20143 votes

I've read her lore again and there's the resume for the people that don't remember it so well:

Ahri always felt she was born in the wrong body and her dream/goal was become human.
One day, in a human battle, she felt draw to a wounded mage, after come near him, something inside of her triggered and, incredibly, she started to transform into a human.
The transformation was incomplete and seems like (it isn't specified) the only way she could complete it was consuming people life essences.
Becoming more human, she started to have new types of emotions like mercy, and this conflicted with the "methods" that she was using before to reach her dream.
Now, with this new morality, she doesn't know how to complete it without cause further harm, so she tries to find a solution.
Joins League to attain it. (Hello retcon :DD)

So yeah, the in-game quotes are a little inconsistent, because they don't represent the personality she has now well, and like @GreenLore said, maybe the VO was finished before the lore or it was done like that to make it sound more cool.

Still, because of the retcon, League doesn't exist anymore so I think it's better to wait for the new lore pieces (if they will ever arrive) and see what happens :P

GreenLoreDec 2, 20142 votes

Well they said they plan to simply remove the parts that mention the league in most storys,so it is quite likely that the points 1-5 remain the same and 6 will be simply deleted.

Earl EulrichDec 2, 20143 votes

If you think that´s what likely will happen with the rewrites you probably didn´t follow Trundles and Xeraths Transformations...It´s actually more likely they just go and copy Naruto now, binding the 9tailed fox to a girl or sth. along those lines.

GreenLoreDec 2, 20142 votes

they explicitly said they would do that. Sure some champs will be changed a bit more,but that doesn't mean everyone will be rewritten.

Earl EulrichDec 2, 20142 votes

they explicitly said they would do that.

Yea, they did the same thing on Trundle and Xerath aswell. And then they broke their promisses and intorduced new Characters with the same name to the game.

GreenLoreDec 2, 20142 votes

uhm no,back then they promised to keep the core of the character(which they did after the trundle rework) and they did that with xerath to some extent(keeping the moment where he actually wanted to stop the ritual,but was unable to do so). That is not the same as saying "we will go through old lore entries and remove those mentions of the league"

Earl EulrichDec 3, 20142 votes

(keeping the moment where he actually wanted to stop the ritual,but was unable to do so).

If you think that this alone has anything to do with Xeraths Character you´re deeply mistaken. And for many Champions removing the League is a really big deal, so they have to rewrite most of them...and as it is currently they donßt seem to be able to preserver the old Characters when they do that.

GreenLoreDec 3, 20142 votes

Yes there are champs who are greatly affected by the removal of the league( Kayle Morgana Jax Fiddlesticks Nocturne Chogath )and these will get full retcons.

But in what way does the league affect champs like Ahri , Nami or Lulu ?Right in almost no way at all. The only thing that changes is that the champ now has to solve their problem on their own instead of joining the league. You can literally just go to their lore and remove any part that mentions the league(which is what they plan to do with champs like this) and we would have the same characters.

And in Xeraths case it is an important part of his character,it was basically the only thing that prevented his old character from being a flat "I like power"-guy. I am not saying that everything of Xerath was kept(which is why I said that they only did this to some EXTENT),but then again they did say that they want to adress his fascination with magic in a later piece of lore,so they did not simply forget that part of his character.

GreenLoreDec 1, 20142 votes

Well Ahri was an amoral killer who sucked out the life essence out of men for her own use,it sounds like her VO was made before they added the "remorse"-part of her story.

But one could make an arguement,that even though she became a better person,she did retained aspects from the time when she was amoral,meaning that she wouldn't be such a good person.

LuxxumDec 1, 20147 votes

Perhaps, but it seems pretty silly that they would leave "It's too late for mercy." in there as it directly contradicts the quote at the end of her lore.

ValyrianBladeDec 1, 201413 votes

If I remember her whole lore, it was something along the lines that she couldn't stop herself feeding off of the men she seduced (and killing them), although doing so made her More human and thus aware of the immorality of her actions. So she joined the league of legends as a way to continue feeding off of her prey without actually harming anyone?

This seems to fit with her in game quotes. She can feed free of moral concerns because the morality only really came after she realized the damage she caused, which in the league of legends there is really none.

LuxxumDec 1, 20146 votes

Except she talks of morality as a human necessity, and ignoring it would probably set her back on trying to become human.

MEMEME670Dec 2, 20146 votes

She can completely be saying "It's too late for mercy" and still be moral, though.

Like, if your enemy starts to really fight you to the death, it might to be too late for mercy, no?

And that is what happens in League...

Xano501Dec 2, 20142 votes

[deleted]

WhitakkerDec 2, 20143 votes

Xano! You're alive! Good to see you, buddy. I missed your posts.

Poldy ScarecrowDec 3, 20141 votes

I don't ship them but would be glad if the new lore connected them as best friends/allies like their champ pages. They're my 2 mains/ favourite champs in the game.

CriomhthannDec 4, 20142 votes

You are missing something. Her lore isn't her lore. She is one of the champions whose original lore was tied to the IoW. When it was retconned, so was her lore.

Aside from that, her in game quotes and out of game lore were probably done by separate people who weren't communicating very well.

And the people commenting in this thread are getting it wrong. It goes:

1: Ahri is a fox, desires to be human. 2: Touched by magics of dying mage, made partially human. Still desires to be fully human. 3: Uses her looks to seduce targets, magics to drain their life essences. Essence draws make her more human. 4: The more she feeds, the more human she becomes. 5: The more human she becomes, the more a human sense of morality grows. 6: The more a human sense of morality grows, the more deplorable feeding seems. 7: Therefore, the more she feeds, the more she feels, the more she feels guilt. 8: Guilt from growing morality overcomes desire to become human, can no longer bear feeding. 9: Ahri approaches IoW, makes a deal. 10: Ahri fights in league matches and in return the leagues looks for a way to make her totally human without her having to feed.

Thematically, this is actually fairly interesting. We have plenty of stories of none humans doing immoral things to become human. We don't have so many where the physical change to a human state also causes an intellectual/emotional change to a human state as well. In most cases that I am aware of, the change is purely physical; if they become human they become human in form but not in essence. There is an interesting aspect of this that few that I am aware of explore. If becoming human entails giving up one's own humanity, then in what sense can any change be considered complete?

I digress. If Riot ever does an over-haul on Ahri, some of the Parrot's comments on the old forums implied that they are likely to expand everything around Ahri on her in game presentation rather than her ret conned lore. Meaning a potentially more erotic design and her (current) in game quotes and out of game lore will no longer contradict.

LuxxumDec 4, 20142 votes

Last time I checked, any lore which is hit by the retcon will just have the IoW removed.

CriomhthannDec 4, 20143 votes

You can't remove a core foundation of a story and have it remain cogent without re-writing the story entirely. Story telling simply doesn't work that way. Imagine trying to have Batman remain Batman without killing his parent or substituting in an equally traumatic event.

You get a similar effect from removing the IoW for a lot of Champions. Ahri is one example, Jax and Lee Sin suffer from this heavily.

Riot is learning this the hard way:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/story-art/AWVxdqHa-will-we-see-story-arc-conclusions-in-the-future

Second red post.

LuxxumDec 5, 20142 votes

But the IoW isn't really a core part of her story, just the means to find a way to keep becoming human without having to kill innocents. Other than that, removing the IoW changes nothing about her as a character. If needed, the IoW could easily be replaced with something else.

MindspeakerDec 2, 20141 votes

well one could say that she is remorseful for killing non combatants but has no issues in battle with the people who are attacking her or her allies at the time.

Which would be a logical reason why she would have joined as well. If it is the latter I see nothing wrong with that to use another franchise she would simply have the attitude of a Klingon.