Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

What does RIven believe? Why did she go into exile?

HudnofskiBleh·5/28/2017, 5:54:11 PM·10 votes·1,385 views

What are Riven's ideals? Reading her bio, it seems like she holds up the Noxian ideals of "anybody can make it, as long as you have the strength to get there." But what about the invasion of Ionia went against those ideals? If she truly believes that only the strong matter and should move forward, why was she upset that the "weak" Ionians were being exterminated? Why did she care? And why would it be a big enough deal to exile herself?

Or was she more upset about the chemical bombardment by Singed? If that's the case, wouldn't it make more sense to go back to Noxus, show that she is alive, and use her influence to stop Singed's manslaughter of her fellow countrymen? Why did she exile herself?

And finally, what is she trying to achieve in this self exile? It says in her bio that she seeks to achieve atonement and to save the pure Noxian ideal she believes in. What does she seek atonement for? By Noxian standards, she hasn't really done anything wrong, and the "pure Noxian ideal" that she has hasn't really been tainted.

Can anyone explain?

20 Comments

XIII Vanitas5/28/2017, 7:38:48 PM20 votes

It's not really that hard to understand.

In Noxus, any citizen may rise to power regardless of race, gender, or social standing - strength is all that matters.

Riven believes in meritocracy and personal betterment. She thought that the Noxian ideals reflected her own, until the invasion of Ionia.

What began as war quickly became extermination. Noxian soldiers followed the terrifying Zaunite war machines across fields of death. It wasn't the glorious combat for which Riven trained. [...] As the invasion continued, it became clear that Ionian society would not be reformed, merely eliminated.

Riven realizes that war is far from her idealization of a fair battle: there is no exhaltation of the winner, only death and destruction for the loser.

During one bitter engagement, Riven's unit became surrounded by Ionian forces. They called for support as the enemy closed in around them. What they received instead was a barrage of biochemical terror launched by Singed Singed. Riven watched as around her Ionian and Noxian alike fell victim to an unspeakably gruesome fate.

This is the last straw that breaks Riven: for Noxus, there is no difference between its soldiers and the enemy Ionians, because they're both equally expendable; winning the war comes before anything else, no matter the cost.

Counted dead by Noxus, she saw an opportunity to start anew. She shattered her Runic Blade.png sword, severing ties with the past, and wandered in self-imposed exile - on a quest to seek atonement and a way to save the pure Noxian vision in which she believed.

Once she understands that she's not fighting for herself anymore, but she's just merely following orders to achieve someone else's objective, she decides to break the ties with her past and follow her own path, which is, according to Kled(1), the true Noxian way.

(1) This is one of the lines that can be triggered by killing an enemy Riven as Kled: "Pure Noxian girl. Almost liked her. Almost."

Arcus Diabolus5/28/2017, 6:09:47 PM9 votes

She believes that the strong should lead the weak and all are entitled to die in glorious combat.

The Ionian invasion was more like a extermination, less to reform Ionia with Noxian ideals and more to just kill them all. This clashed with Riven's ideal that she is doing something honorable or noble in Ionia for Noxus.

Essentially, Riven once saw Noxus as something more noble than it is, and once Riven saw that Noxus deviated from that path to needless bloodshed and evil, or perhaps what Noxus has been the whole time, it broke Riven's spirit. She intends to save the honorable values she once believed in, but how she intends to do that has yet to be seen. The most likely answer is by somehow changing Noxus.

She's basically a war veteran with PTSD.

HalfTangible5/28/2017, 6:55:08 PM8 votes

Riven is, oddly enough, an idealist of sorts. She believed that Noxus was fighting its wars fairly and evenly, and conquering through proper application of strength against strength. Noxus was winning its wars because its way was the best, and she thought so too. When she went to Ionia, she wasn't engaging in a war as she understood it. The Noxian invasion of Ionia was a mass slaughter, intent on nothing but extermination of the locals. It's one thing to invade a nation and replace their ideals with yours or to beat an enemy to show how strong you are; It's another to just kill indiscriminately. (From her bio: "As the invasion continued, it became clear that the Ionian society would not be reformed, merely eliminated." and "What began as war quickly became extermination.") Such an act doesn't show strength; it's just showing you know how to kill.

(In Noxus' defense, Ionia had a lot of fighters but iirc it didn't have a formal military as we/Noxus think of it, so there was no way to tell civilian from soldier and Ionia was never really 'defeated')

Something important to keep in mind is that Riven's Noxian ideal sees strength as the proper way to rule, implying that war is (in her mind) a way to show your strength. Which further implies that war should be waged in ways that show how strong your side is, which then subsequently implies that there are both acceptable and unacceptable tactics in war.

I doubt Singed will still feature in her backstory when she gets updated, but in its current form his chemical weapons were her breaking point. Such a weapon doesn't show the strength of its maker nor the army that made it, it just kills. It's arguable that such a weapon shows your side's ingenuity and intelligence, but given that it also slaughtered Noxian troops (Riven among them), she likely didn't see it that way.

Hovering Hentai5/28/2017, 10:30:06 PM2 votes

Rivens problem seems to be that bullying the weak does not constitute striving for strength which is what Noxus is mainly influenced by now.

Kled states he seems Riven ad a "True Noxian" implying she stands for everything Noxus used to be

Dextix LT5/28/2017, 8:17:00 PM2 votes

I would say it is quite simple.

She believes in the core ideal of Noxus, the complete meritocracy. No matter who you are, no matter how you look, who your parents are, as long as you can rise above all, you are a noxian and you will go far. There is noone to keep you down, besides yourself.

The invsaion of Ionia was a shitshow however. She did not see the noxial ideal of meritocracy, she saw genocide commited by machines. I think to her that goes against all of her ideals, that is not war, that is not fighting, there is nothing to be earned.

As an example, there is a character in a gamebook "Mecha Ace", that basically holds this ideal. Her side has a superweapon, (Lets say a death star simply), she defects to the other side and helps to destroy the weapon, and then she turns on them AGAIN. The question is why. And she asnwers it.

She wants war, she wants people to be shaped by it, molded by it, made better than who they were. She expresses this sentiment with the MC, saying that HE/SHE is what that character wants to see from war. Not slaughter or one sided engagements, but a brutal war where people transcend their humanity to become something more. Using machines and not being involved in an actual war is an antithesis to this goal.

The individuality and meritocracy is replaced by what i can simply call the Runettera version of collectivism. Noxus claims that they are for individuality and mritocracy, while in reality they only care about noxus itself, rather than its ideas.

All of these (+ Singed almost killing her, and succesfully killing her entire unit) made her want to seek her own path, to rebuild herself anew, as an individual following the noxian dream, the true noxian dream.

Nylisa5/28/2017, 6:39:59 PM2 votes

she believed in something , believed to be part of it , an ideal . a cause , a fair fight that only strongest would survive. she thought there are lines that her country and its military wouldn't cross. turned out she and rest of their soldiers were just expandable and her cause wasn't as noble as she thought it was , using innocent people as bait! sacrificing their own people.

what appeared to be a war was merely an extermination. this wasn't ideals she had from war. and she thought Noxus shares the same ideals as hers.

even if that was not enough to break her just the images of the soldiers who were fighting side by side you moments ago, melting down in horrific ways is enough for to break someone. and they left her there to die not only thats enough reason for her to leave, she probably might look for revenge as well.

i highly doubt singed done this by his own will and their leaders didn't approve of it. her judgement explains this further...if its still cannon.you should read it if you haven't already.

this is sort of an action i would expect to see from Demacia not noxus...victory at any cost.

CasterGilgamesh5/29/2017, 12:15:14 AM1 votes

Well its the means in which they did it...riven lost fair and square when the Ionians ambushed her so they were cheated out of the win by being gassed and both sides getting killed by the gass or at least thats how i see it

LostFr0st5/28/2017, 5:57:12 PM1 votes

By Noxian standards Singed hasn't done anything wrong either. That's a big part of the turmoil within her.

Eternal7915/29/2017, 2:18:58 AM1 votes

Seeing as Riven's lore might be updated in the Noxus event, I wonder if Urgot will be the one who gassed Riven's unit, leading to them being rivals. Urgot being essentially a chemtech tank (probably made by Singed in his rework) I could see him taking part in the invasion of Ionia.

KoKoboto5/28/2017, 9:08:21 PM1 votes

She has the same or similar vision of Noxus to that of Darius. Noxus became corrupted by high class noble people who sit around and use Noxus as a tool for their personal gain. Although it is never stated I think the Ionian invasion is an example of this or at least part of the reason why Noxus invaded.

woodvsmurph5/28/2017, 10:16:56 PM1 votes

They may have updated her lore - it's been over a year since I read it. But last I checked, she basically was struggling vs superior numbers and instead of being allowed to make a tactical withdrawal or overcome the odds, Noxus decides to bombard her and her group with toxic artillery created by singed. Her people and the enemies she was fighting die; she survives and decides that Noxus doesn't deserve her help if they care nothing for their own troops' lives. Her blade was broken either from the fighting or toxic corrosive artillery. Believed dead, she leaves the Noxian army to seek redemption. She can't go back to Noxus or they will ignore her since her superiors "won" that battle and disagreed with her about using the artillery. She would make too many enemies and just get assassinated, demoted, imprisoned, or kicked out of the military for making a big issue out of it. Her conscience won't let her do nothing about it. Perhaps also, she gained some respect for the Ionians after her ordeal and perhaps hearing tales of others like Irelia or the sacrifice made by Varus. Whatever all contributed to it, I think it is safe to say she is closer in ideals to the Ionians or perhaps the Demacians after she leaves Noxus. Noxus is hardly the only place you can climb to greatness by your works and is definitely not the only source of valiant strong fighters. Besides, she'd probably get annoyed with the self indulgent antics of draven and find someone more mature or less obsessed with the idea that they are the best fighter/lover/poet/mage/musician/basketweaver/everything in another nation than Noxus.

Nightshade Rose5/28/2017, 10:35:20 PM1 votes

You know i feel Riven pulled Goku (during Freeza saga) in her bio. She was soo powerful(Goku SSJ) and just got boored stomping the weak(Freeza Final form) so she just left, because she seeks chalange, thus by overcoming it, she could become stronger.

GreenLore5/28/2017, 11:35:58 PM1 votes

The thing is that while Singed provided the weapons that were used to bombard Rivens squad,he wasn't the one who fired them. The noxian high command were the ones who gave the order to bomb rivens unit and its likely that they used this kind of tactic(just bomb everyone to death,since we have more soldiers) multiple times. And Swain(who wasn't the grand general during the ionia invasion) would likely use similar tactics if necessary,so riven going back and trying to use her influence to stop these tactics would likely fall on deaf ears.

Though I agree that Rivens goals feel vague and honestly they come off as the result of bad writing.

JustARivenMain5/28/2017, 11:44:52 PM1 votes

Well Riven was Originially planned as a Demacian, explains the honorable-war thoughts, she was rushed to be Noxian because little Noxian champions at her time of release wayyy back in 2011.