Bilgewater: Hooray for backwards-compatible lore

CupcakeTrap··10 votes·1,867 views

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100917001001/leagueoflegends/images/thumb/6/6f/Bilgewater.jpg/2000px-Bilgewater.jpg

I rather enjoyed the new Bilgewater lore, not least because (unless I've missed something) it's largely backwards-compatible with the established lore, and for that matter with the League of Legends.

At least on my first read, nothing stood out as incompatible with prior lore. The closest it came was the uber-dark "torturing people for kicks" Gangplank, but GP was always supposed to have a scary side. (I do wish the writers would have gone with something a little more original than a torture scene for their kick-the-dog moment. But hey, it's quick and effective. We see a character torturing somebody, that's a clear signal that this character is scary.) It didn't turn TF into a lizard-man or make MF Ionian.

And hey, there was a suit of Demacian armor! It's almost as though someone from Bilgewater might have had contact with Demacia! That's a nice break from the "ahhh, legends do tell of a strange place known as _______, but perhaps they are only stories!" approach.

8 Comments

sp4416 votes

If you paid attention, you'd notice that Gangplank wasn't torturing that guy for kicks, he was teaching him a lesson. Either for stealing from him or for questioning his authority. As he said to the boy, you are what people make out of you, and in order to keep cutthroats and pirates under your rule, you gotta show that there are consequences for disobeying you.

Plus, the fact that he gave the kid a silver serpent and a warm meal shows that he does have a sense of fairness. His terms seem to be "Obey me and I will treat you well, go against me at your own peril".

Legacy of Xion3 votes

I was waiting for this CupcakeTrap.

Thank you so much. None of the current lore would break anything, since everything done is not against IoW policies. Except Graves trying to kill T F but I doubt Graves would give a fuck about that.

CupcakeTrap3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Legacy of Xion,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=rI1PN9Ms,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-07-22T04:15:09.395+0000)

I was waiting for this CupcakeTrap.

Thank you so much. None of the current lore would break anything, since everything done is not against IoW policies. Except Graves trying to kill T F but I doubt Graves would give a fuck about that.

I honestly have no problem at all with that scene from a League perspective. They're not on Institute grounds, and they're not doing anything that endangers the planet. The mission of the League is to keep Valoran's states from blowing Runeterra apart with another Rune War. Sure, there are probably some idealists in the ranks of the Summoner corps who believe that one day the League might grow influential enough to secure lasting peace, but realistically, the best they can do is try to keep the fighting small-scale and mediate peace talks.

Noxus and Demacia, two nations with lots of Summoners and rune mages in their employ, starting a full-scale war on top of a freaking nexus? Alright. The Council will step in and make a desperate bid to prevent apocalypse, hoping that the two superpowers won't just tear right through them and start the next Rune War over their broken bodies.

Noxus invades Ionia, which at the time was not a member-state, and tries to carve out some territory? The League will hem and haw about technicalities while Demacia yells at them to do something. Eventually, after many, many people have died, someone like Karma might manage to get enough support from the other nations of Valoran and the League's powers-that-be to make something happen.

Civil war in Noxus? Ehhhh. Have fun, guys. Let us know when you're done.

A pair of Champions with a score to settle taking shots at each other in Bilgewater? Not exactly grounds for a League intervention. Some Leslie Knope of a Summoner tries to get them sanctioned for reckless conduct? Kolminye tells her to stop wasting her damn time, and points out that the League's member-states throw hissy-fits at the League often enough without wrist-slapping their Champions over domestic disputes.

Narasimha1 votes

Just to jump in

A pair of Champions with a score to settle taking shots at each other in Bilgewater? Not exactly grounds for a League intervention.

It's actually forbidden. This IS their jurisdiction. I think it was during the Kass vs Malz incident, where they outright said "Fighting off the Fields of Justice is a big no-no".

CupcakeTrap1 votes

{quoted}

Just to jump in

It's actually forbidden. This IS their jurisdiction. I think it was during the Kass vs Malz incident, where they outright said "Fighting off the Fields of Justice is a big no-no".

Props to you for recalling that episode. It did give me pause as I wrote the above.

It would be a serious impediment to story if the League had the power, authority, and inclination to arrest Champions for any fighting off the Fields whatsoever. That would basically play right into the caricature of the League as "preventing all conflict". Fortunately, I think there are a number of ways to deal with that JoJ article:

  • The simplest explanation is that the ban on fighting applies only within League territory. (This is actually a nice element story-wise, because it creates a zone where Champions and Summoners can interact without going straight to "i kill u now".) The fighting in question here took place "in the mountains outside the Institute of War." Those mountains might well be League territory, or at least covered by the same proclamation that forbids fighting on League grounds. Note that Malzahar and Kassadin had previously fought in Zaun around that January, and despite causing a lot of collateral damage, it doesn't seem that Kassadin was "arrested" or "disqualified".
  • Speaking of that prior incident, Kassadin and Malzahar have a violent history, and they both wield dangerous, reality-breaking Void magic. It's not hard to imagine the League taking jurisdiction over this particular clash pursuant to its authority to address threats to Runeterra as a whole.
  • They weren't exactly locked away forever. They were arrested. By League adjudicators. It seemed that these League agents were the first on the scene, and they didn't mention any other government's agents being on site. This sounds like the League exercised its authority to deal with nearby threats, as a sort of police action: very different from dispatching Summoners all the way to Bilgewater to burst onto the scene and arrest two outlaws for snark-brawling.
  • The closest the article comes to stating that all violence between League Champions is forbidden is High Councilor Heywan saying "violence between League Champions off the Fields of Justice is unacceptable." A politician saying something is "unacceptable" is not really the same thing as a clear statement of law that can or will be enforced.
  • Even if we did interpret the former High Councilor's statement that, "violence between League champions off the Fields of Justice is unacceptable." as meaning that it was not just "unacceptable" but also actionably illegal for two League Champions to fight anywhere that was not on the Fields, whether the mountains outside the Institute or the Freljordian permafrost, that only tells us about the law at that particular time in 21 CLE. (See: Star Trek and the legality vel non of Romulan ale.) Maybe the law changed after this incident, but before TF and Graves threw down.
  • And there's always the backup option of brushing it aside as a largely comedic piece, or just an aberration of the lore. If Riot gets to retcon the entirety of the League, it seems only fair that the community that has worked so hard to develop the League setting should give itself the authority to make some modifications to all this early written-on-napkins-during-lunch lore to keep things non-stupid.

To go through the text in more detail:

In JoJ I.14, Malzahar and Kassadin got in a fight that did a ton of collateral damage.

League Champion Kassadin is on the run after a failed attempt to prevent a sacrificial ritual, resulting in a major blackout within Zaun. According to witnesses, he discharged Void energy in an attempt to save a young woman from being sacrificed at the hands of fellow League Champion Malzahar. The energy was sucked into a hexvein conduit feeding into the nexus powering the southern district, causing extensive damage that will take Zaunite techmaturgical crews several days to repair.

That sounds more like something the League might care about, especially seeing as it mentions Kassadin appearing "in full League regalia". There's also the Void cult aspect to consider: the Void is pretty scary, and could be the sort of planetary threat that the League would have some authority to deal with.

Then, in the issue you're referencing, JoJ I.21, describes them being arrested for getting in a fight in the mountains bordering the Institute:

Kassadin and Malzahar were arrested by League Adjudicators yesterday evening when they were discovered battling in the mountains outside the Institute of War. The Deathsinger, Karthus, was found “dead” at the scene, although League mages were able to revive him, since he was not technically alive to begin with. League officials have stated that the situation is completely under control, and while they will not be removing any champions from their roster, “[the offending champions] will be punished accordingly.”

Feel free to add your own wacky side effects to go with those jokes. And I think it's important to note that this is a fairly silly piece, complete with goofy mugshots.

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110516072647/leagueoflegends/images/thumb/e/e0/Joj_21b.jpg/400px-Joj_21b.jpg This is a serious, serious piece of lore right here.

Then there's High Councilor Heywan's comment:

“Rest assured, we are not taking this matter lightly. These two have a history of disagreement, which is not unusual for League champions, but violence between League champions off the Fields of Justice is unacceptable. I am well-aware that the decision to retain them as champions is controversial and confusing, but we have very good, very confidential reasons for proceeding this way and our decision is final.” Heywan did not disclose any further information.

Now that sounds a bit more like the League: "we have reasons, you don't get to hear any of them, go away." It's all smoke-filled rooms with the leaders of Valoran, and ambiguous laws that need to get resolved through trial by combat.

I agree that his statement here does imply that the usual response would be to kick them both out of the League. I don't think that necessarily says much about TF and Graves, though. Kassadin and Malzahar waging a private war across Valoran, with Void magic and cultists aplenty, is the sort of thing that I can see the League caring about. And note that they weren't arrested in Zaun when they did all that collateral damage: it only turned into a League matter when something similar happened right outside the Institute, possibly on League territory.

tl;dr: This did give me pause, but it doesn't keep me up at night.

OuttaControl563 votes

Are you kidding me about the torture? Of all of the ways Gangplank could torture someone, bone carving is definitely not one I'd expect! You gotta give props for originality in that!

The Demacian armor was a stroke of genius. Keeps the Runeterran universe alive, and that is always good to have!

rinsujo2 votes

I'm too jaded at this point to really enjoy it anymore, but that could also just be me being tired and irritated about a loss too. But I'll take what I can get, at this point.

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