Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Does anyone else not really like Kayn as a character?

Zombie Slayer··6 votes·2,206 views

Kayn doesn't really look that interesting to me. Sure hes a cool jungler assassin but his lore and personality seem really boring or bland for me. Like I understand he has to be a tough person to be able to wield Rhaast for full potential but the edgy attitude doesn't really go well with it imo. They could've given him alot more depth as a person by giving him something else to make him a lot more likable. I think Rhaast shows what I mean fully Rhaast has more depth in his character compared to Kayn. Rhaast has his dark edgy side talking about killing and what not but he also has a humorous side to himself when its just him as well as confidence in corrupting Kayn. The way I would make Kayn have a better personality is by giving him either make it so he use Rhaast unwillingly as in the corrupting parts of himself sort of force him to wield Rhaast giving him a sort of reluctant personality to picking up Rhaast or give him chronic pain from the corruption giving him alot more of a "do I really want to try to overcome Rhaast or just let him end my pain?" and have Rhaast try to make Kayn give up maybe making him a older man on the verge of breaking maybe the order of the shadows true leader and have Zed be his student. I don't know these are just my ideas that would make me want to actually like Kayns character like think less Sasuke and more Logan/Wolverine.

24 Comments

Warlord Dienekes6 votes

I don't particularly care about him, myself. But, not all champions are designed around you (or me). And I think that's a good thing, having a large mix.

For guys who like history (me) there's characters like Pantheon, Olaf, and Xin Zhao (though I will point out there hasn't been a good historical champion in quite some time, Riot. Maybe get on that)

For guys who like unbridled magic there's characters like Xerath, Syndra, and Lux

For guys who like anime there's characters like Lee Sin, Wukong, and the Star Guardian line

And now there's Kayn and Rhaast for guys who are interested in super edgy demon reapers.

Not my speed, but more power to them.

Tormentula1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Dienekes,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=pjE3tXoP,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-07-11T00:43:39.000+0000)

For guys who like anime there's characters like Lee Sin, Wukong, and the Star Guardian line

You mean Camille Yasuo Ahri Zed

I can't see lee and wu being liked because of anime, lee is more of a monk you either can or can't relate to as his past blinds him, and wu feels more cultural with "either you like kung fu sorta material, or you like monkies, or you like both", although I could be viewing them wrong.

Wrathof3001 votes

Then by putting Yasuo and Zed here, you are disregarding the people who just honest to God, love samurais and ninjas, not just because they like anime. Also imo Camille doesn't feel anime inspired at all, she was inspired by an asian character, but thats the problem with the community and anime, anything asian/ japanese inspired = anime for ppl these days.

Tormentula1 votes

I see where you're coming from, but that's not what I implied. I was just saying "you're more likely to idolize champions like ahri or camille in relation to anime" then lee, unless you want to relate lee to one punch man despite no major unique simularities. Never said "zed can't be liked as a ninja" but more rather "a lot of people would like zed for an anime character incomparison to lee", but that doesn't rule out just liking his ninja characteristic.

As for camille, a lot of people associate her with attack on titan due to her waistline duel hookshot well also using melee blades (with the difference being normal blades vs. leg blades).

Wrathof3001 votes

You are right, probably almost anyone that likes ninjas and samurai, probably came to like them through anime for video games and nothing is wrong with that imo However, what has happened is that ppl view anything asian as anime Kayn is a prime example, if his hair was blonde and he wore a full suit of armor, you think ppl would have called him anime? I disagree the Camille should be called anime, just because of inspiration, but it is somewhat of a vague step in the right direction I suppose.

Tormentula1 votes

Yea people associate a lot with anime even when they're not based off of it.

With kayn, I think its less about how he looks and more about how similar his character his is to another anime character who I can't for the life of me remember the name of.

Also Gordeau from UNDER NIGHT in-birth, an anime inspired fighting game:

https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/in-birth/images/b/b5/Profile-gordeau.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/270?cb=20140823160811

If you never seen this guy before, the scythe, color, and the eye would probably make you think this was a kayn skin concept.

Wrathof3001 votes

Hmm, I see what you mean by the concept art thing, didn't know Kayn already had his own anime, lol. But I think a lot of the people that called Kayn anime, are people unfamiliar with anime themselves, but have no basis on which to make that claim, and it was even confirmed that Sasuke was used as his inspiration (though as I mentioned b4 I disagree that something = anime, based on its inspiration, but that's my opinion) so I see your point of view.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Fairness here. Yasuo and Zed don't look like a samurai or a ninja. Ok, Yasuo is a bit better, other than that thing on his arm, and his pretty impractical clothes, he seems to be at least loosely inspired by some samurai artwork.

But, no ninja ever wore Lord Zedd's face as a helmet.

Wrathof3001 votes

In Yasuo's origin story, they talk about him being inspired by a Ronin, so i supposed he probably discarded the rest of his armor, in Zed's case they probably just added the armor to make him look unique.

Warlord Dienekes2 votes

Why would a Ronin discard his armor? He would make his living off of essentially mercenary work. Armor is exactly what you would want to bring with you if you were a ronin.

Ok, more seriously, it's pretty clear that Yasuo is loosely inspired by Miyamoto Musashi, who is regularly depicted wearing little to no armor, because he was an honor duelist. And in feudal Japan it was common for honor dueling to be done without armor (katana's can't really cut through armor, so wearing it kind of makes the main honor dueling weapon pointless). With a dash of Mitsurugi for that uneven silhouette and weird armor on one arm thing he has going on.

Zed is just nothing though. There is nothing about Zed's design that is remotely like a ninja, or like that fantasy thing that commonly gets called a ninja we think of today. He's just... weird looking.

Wrathof3001 votes

Well unless Yasuo, never had anymore armor aside from what's on his arm, the only reason I could see why he doesn't have it today is if he threw it away. But based on what you're saying that wouldn't make sense, so i guess the arm thing is possible just a design fancy. Unless we want to go down the route, that, the arm thing is part of someone else's armor he stole to use for himself, since he is a ronin afterall, and armor is valuable like you said. But what's important, is that the main reason, he isn't fully clad in armor, is because he was based of ronin and likely Miymoto Musashi, as you said.

GiveMeUrMilk1 votes

Actually, samurai would potentially wear something sinilar to yasuo. Provided they are ronin. Which is the trope he is based off of. He jas lost his honor and his only master is himself now. Many ronin went around shirtless or with shawls/rags due to various reasons such as a lack of money.

Zed's base skin is a trope from popular media to have the armored ninja. It looks cool yeah. But shockblade zed is a much more accurate portrayal of a "ninja" costume.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Ok, as I explained up thread. Ronin going into battle wore armor. Some of the best they could afford, because armor is amazing. Losing your lord doesn't mean losing your armor. And going by the historical record, we can read about bands of armored ronin pillaging the countryside when they were not being employed as mercenaries. Armor is great. Nearly no one sold it when they were already armed and out of money. They would get more just by going out to terrorize a few villages between jobs.

The guys who don't wear armor when they fight were "honor duelists" these guys could be ronin or landed samurai. It didn't matter. The most famous one was a ronin, Miyamoto Musashi. Who, by the way, had armor, several sets actually. He was even buried in one. But you don't wear those in honor duels. He was most commonly known as an honor duelist, so we picture him (mostly) in his honor duel attire.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Wukong is based off of Sun Wukong from Journey to the West. The inspiration for Goku from Dragon Ball. And Lee Sin is a martial artist that shoots fireballs.

So that screams anime to me. But I admit, I am not really up to date on anime stuff. Not really a fan, though I enjoyed the two Miyazaki movies I've watched. Anyway, if you say those 4 are more anime, I'll take your word for it.

Beyond Legends1 votes

What? Since when did Lee Sin shoot fire balls. Lee Sin inspiration is literally every shaolin monk in a kung movie, except he has this wierd pony tails sort of thing.

That's hardly anime at all...beside anime is such a broad topic to group things under.

Literally anything could be consider anime so using anime as sub catergory for character type is insane.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

Ahh, apparently the bright sparkling thing he shoots out is supposed to be sound or something.

Honestly, thought it was a energy ball or something. I don't play Lee Sin. Apologies.

LordHippoman3 votes

I don't really like Kayn, but Rhaast is pretty entertaining. Still, League's got a wide variety of champ releases and styles, so maybe the next one will hook me.

I do love what they've done with my old pal Urgot, though.

Ralanr2 votes

Yeah, he's rather bland. Him and Rhaast, and Rhaast is only fun playing off him.

Tormentula1 votes

He's overall bland imo. The fact either one kills the other makes you naturally have no care or concern for either of them; either because you're numb to the fact they're even characters or you didn't get attached because, lets be honest, if your main died you'd feel bad and since you have to pick between either liking kayn or rhaast, being forced to kill either one would feel depressing.

It would be if kindred had to hunt each other, we like both lamb and wolf as this bond, but the bond between kayn and rhaast doesn't exist and just makes their individual existences more meaningless.

Rhaast is probably the most relatable of the two because you can clearly understand the reasoning being rhaast's motives (domination, destruction, corruption) but Kayn.... what's this kids purpose? To go out of his way, potentially throwing his life away, just to have a cool looking scythe when he could've just took lessons from zed or made a scythe of his own? And for what, just the pleasure of killing? Who really relates to this aside from maybe just his personality and edgyness, at least xayah you can relate and understand where she's coming from. It'd be different if maybe Kayn's motive was "to try and stop Rhaast from destroying runeterra" with the edge part of his personality being "he's willing to throw himself away to attempt something that some body else would give in to".

It also feels weird thinking about the fact that neither shadow assassin or rhaast's form exist canonically outside of what happens on the rift (which there is a lot of canonical bends), like in the login themes, I have to have this constant image that canonically shadow assassin kayn is the death of ashe in the future, and alternatively Rhaast is the reason noxus falls which throws a lot of character stories and intentions out the window.

Eternal7911 votes

Kayn, no, not really. Rhaast on the other hand...

However right now they're both being overshadowed by the Urgod for me.

SAIZOxRYOMA1 votes

i think the way he talks to zed is cute

Valaran Nara1 votes

I like how, based on everything around him, I'm perfectly okay with Kayn being as "Edgy" as he is. While it would usually be bad for having edge for the sake of edge and "whoa is me super tragic backstory," he's the only champ I know who is super edgy BECAUSE of his backstory.

Most other champs aren't even edgy or act anywhere along that because they are usually at the age where they would typically "prefer peace" instead of drama. Kayne is probably in the range of 17-24. While he isn't "I'm so emo, let me cut myself" that's still a good age to act out and do a bunch of things we, in a few years, would see as excess.

As a man whose purpose for existing was to die as a suicidal child soldier, I'd be damned miffed if he's someone who acts grizzled, world wary, and downright, "Listen kid. The world is cruel," if he's anything less than 30. He still has his youth, and he went from being a weapon for noxus to being a weapon for the order of shadow. His purpose and designation as a LIVING WEAPON has yet to change, despite who his new wielder is. Before, it was the Noxian general, who unsheathed the sword. Now it is Zed who owns the blade.

But now the weapon has came across another just like him. A weapon that is alive in and of itself. The only thing is, instead of being friendly with Rhaast, he takes out his frustration on him. He loves the power, but hates the existence. Why? Because what you hate about others sometimes reflects the negative qualities that you see in yourself. When he curses or speaks ill of Rhaast, it is because it is how he perceives himself. Rhaast isn't a human or a darkin or whatever. It's just a weapon. Act like it. The same way Kayne does. Kayne was used as a weapon to slaughter the villagers. Kayne is just a weapon, and he acts like it.

Karn Bishop1 votes

I quite like his attitude and "edginess" i mean you need to be massively and supremely arrogant to believe that you can bend a literal ancient evil to your will and take complete control of it instead of losing yourself to it.

Kayn also reminds me of what naruto would have been had he kept his unassailable pride and arrogance to eventually be the best while enjoying death and murder on a level that would make orochimaru fearful.

La Bello1 votes

Kayne is Edgy in a Sasuke the anime anti-hero kind of way Rhaast is Edgy in a over the top Metal Album art Cover kind of way(I mean just look at his Login screen).

personally I prefer the latter to the former but thats just me.

More from Story, Art, & Sound

Petition to keep the Bilgewater ARAM map in circulation
Story, Art, & Sound154 comments
1,161
votes
[SUPER IMPORTANT PETITION] Change Sion's ban quote...
Story, Art, & Sound54 comments
597
votes
Can we get an Honor animation?! 4 ways to insult an opponent but none to congratulate them.
Story, Art, & Sound202 comments
578
votes
Petition to make Rengar wiggle his butt when there's a pounce-able target near his bush
Story, Art, & Sound140 comments
476
votes
About this years harrowing...
Story, Art, & Sound357 comments
459
votes
RIOT, please postpone Blood Moon Diana and make it into a Legendary skin.
Story, Art, & Sound236 comments
423
votes

More by Zombie Slayer

My problem with Vastayas
Story, Art, & Sound76 comments
40
votes
Nasus buffs were too much
Gameplay56 comments
29
votes
Honor Level 4 and Still Haven't Had a Capsule
Player Behavior45 comments
29
votes
Champion reworks should get icons similar to champion releases.
Story, Art, & Sound6 comments
26
votes
Kayn is what duo champs should be (Kayn and Kindred talk)
Gameplay13 comments
13
votes
Who do you think is going to be put into the upcoming rework vote?
Story, Art, & Sound34 comments
11
votes