LORE SUCKS NOW

Noro·Mar 5, 2015·4 votes·1,865 views

THAT VID WAS NONSENSICAL.

THANKS OBAMA.

AND BY OBAMA I MEAN RIOT AND BY RIOT I MEAN OBAMA.

10 Comments

DG AshabelMar 5, 20155 votes

I dunno, it made perfect sense to me. An army was planning to misuse a mystical artifact, so Bard intervened in order to protect its power.

You could argue the lore has a fault because Bard seems to be very selective about what he considers to be misuse of mystical artifacts, since he apparently didn't give a damn about that time Cassiopeia used an ancient sacred weapon to unleash an evil mage and a homicidal crocodile or about the time Zed used an ancient secret box to murder a whole lot of people. The latest champions' lore does have a problem where it looks good when taken on its own but collapses like a balloon the second it's exposed to outside logic.

Still, the video itself seemed to be vaguely self-explanatory in that "villains try to steal ancient magical orb and Bard protects it". The only really open question about it is whether Bard actually helped the people or if he simply abandoned them to save the orb.

A Superb VillainMar 5, 20155 votes

I would like to defend the coherency of Bard's purpose by pointing out none of the instances you brought up were nearly so dangerous.

Cassiopeia unleashed two madmen from their prison. Xerath and Renekton are powerful, yes, but are a greater threat to Shurima, not the world. Zed destroyed the Kinkou order. Dangerous, perhaps, but he bears no ill will to the greater whole of Ionia so long as they follow his teachings.

The Stone accidentally cut a mountain in half. The power it displayed was not even intended, since the old man was just trying to dissuade his pursuer. Barely scrapping the surface of its potential, without comprehending how, nearly annihilated a massive landmark as collateral to its intended use.

I think the stone is on far greater scale than Shurima's hooligans or a wayward ninja.

DG AshabelMar 5, 20155 votes

I think you're right in that this time seemed more immediately dangerous than the others, as both occurrences I listed are more hazardous in the long term than in the immediate one.

However, I also firmly believe when you create a character with a concept as clear-cut as "divine caretaker who stops the misuse of mystical artifacts," the moment when you need to start splitting straws in order to explain why that particular mystical artifact is more mystical than the other one is the moment when your concept proves to not be holding itself together very well.

I'm not saying that the concept is bad, only that the lore team keeps misfiring in that they've been making these unnecessarily huge and all-important characters who keep clashing with the rest of the story to a degree that one needs to sit down and argue semantics and circumstances over multiple existing cases. That simply doesn't feel like very good narrative design to me.

ValentenMar 5, 20153 votes

its ok we came from a game where the lore was all interconnected in Dawngate... Riot doesnt have as good of a lore team that can build lore like that sadly :/

Also to defend WHY Bard didnt take action in the 2 instances you mentioned with Cass and Zed is that those arent REALLY mythical objects. Sivirs weapon isnt a mythical object it holds no special power now the device used to create Ascended beings could be classified as such but Bard didnt have to intervene there because Renekton and Nasus had already taken care of Xerath when he made his grab for power by locking him up. Releasing an already Ascended being doesnt classify as misuse of a mythical object so Bard doesnt care tbh.

Now as far as Zed that wouldnt really be a mythical object because that is specific to the order itself and holds no real power other than something deemed to dangerous to the order to be used. Zed only learned an old technique that had been used before but was later deemed to dangerous for the clan. So its not really on mythical object level sadly.

I would think a Mythical object is something that ISNT man made. That stone looked like it was made by something far surpassing human capability so Bard would indeed intervene when it gets misused. What Riot needs to do is more clearly classify what is and what isnt a mythical object that Bard would be concerned about.

DG AshabelMar 5, 20154 votes

Again, a major reason that bothers me is that you, me and A Superb Villain have to come up with these explanations for Bard's involvement at all.

I think a good story is like a puzzle box. Not every piece has to be immediately connected to each other, but they all work within the space of a single mechanism. Their interaction makes the entire box move, which in turn causes some sort of impressive effect or simply opens the box and gives us access to some secret.

My problem with situations like these, where we need to come up with these elaborate explanations for poorly stacking events, is that it feels like we were given a puzzle box where one piece doesn't fit into its place within the clockwork very well. The original creator should have filed it into the proper shape, but they didn't and instead ditched us to do that. It feels bad to have situations like those.

As a side note, I actually played League first, then moved to Dawngate because that lore was amazing and came back to League after DG shut down; I renamed myself into Ashabel to honor the memory of what I considered to be an incredible game.

Also, the old League lore wasn't nearly such a contradictory mess as it is these days. :/

A Superb VillainMar 5, 20153 votes

I agree with and understand your concern; consistency is important to every story. It is frustrating when determining the details within lore is left to us, the players, to discuss without conclusive evidence. If Riot were to dispense with vague descriptions I am positive facets of lore would appear much more coherent.

For example, you are upset that Bard's lore states he intervenes to prevent the abuse of mystical artifact because there are examples of similar misuse throughout League's lore. However, if Riot were to specify that Bard intervenes to prevent humans from abusing celestial artifacts, his inaction in regards to other instances becomes more understandable. Would it make sense that Bard is a caretaker only for celestial objects, as an entity of celestial origin? The Stone belongs to the Celestials, and a such it falls under Bard's responsibility to protect it from the world and the world from it.

Edit:

Also, I like your name. Ashabel had an admirable elegance to her character, play-style, and animation.

Necrolegion89Mar 6, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=DG Ashabel,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=ogHEhwZd,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-03-05T21:24:09.131+0000)

I dunno, it made perfect sense to me. An army was planning to misuse a mystical artifact, so Bard intervened in order to protect its power.

You could argue the lore has a fault because Bard seems to be very selective about what he considers to be misuse of mystical artifacts, since he apparently didn't give a damn about that time Cassiopeia used an ancient sacred weapon to unleash an evil mage and a homicidal crocodile or about the time Zed used an ancient secret box to murder a whole lot of people. The latest champions' lore does have a problem where it looks good when taken on its own but collapses like a balloon the second it's exposed to outside logic.

Still, the video itself seemed to be vaguely self-explanatory in that "villains try to steal ancient magical orb and Bard protects it". The only really open question about it is whether Bard actually helped the people or if he simply abandoned them to save the orb.

To answer that.. read my thread.

Bard is a thief. He only has one damaging ability. How would he take the box from Zed if Zed would just ult him and combo him to death? Cassiopia would just turn him into stone and pour poison on him. NOPE! He looks for artifacts he can take. Notice how he only went in after the old man was near death and only after the stone left his hands. He probably knew that if he tried to take it from the old man, the old man would just fry his ass, so Bard said "eff that bruh!" and let the Noxians put arrows into him first.

DG AshabelMar 6, 20151 votes

You didn't read my thread, so I'm not sure why you would expect me to read yours.

The fact that you need to come up with these explanations is precisely the problem in League's modern narrative quality.