Can you give Zed some allies?

Ulriah·7/16/2017, 4:59:12 PM·1 votes·1,292 views

Or at least stop giving him every enemy possible?

Looking at the most recently released champions, what do we see? Jhin, a trigger happy psychopath who headshots Zed because he hates him for some reason. Xayah & Rakan, two Ionian bird-like creatures who just out of nowhere manage to destroy the whole Order of the Shadow on their own. And (hopefully) the last one, Kayn, a former student of Zed who is lucky enough to be able to wield a powerful weapon, and now wants to take Zed's place as the leader of the Order of the Shadow, even though the two birds apparently destroyed it.

In addition, all members of the Kinkou order are also Zed's enemies, especially Akali who really wants to kill him (even though he could be her brother, but I guess that storyline is too difficult to write).

In conclusion, the game's lore is getting as stale as John Cena's storyline, no wonder there's only a few people who care enough to read it. Get creative Rito.

22 Comments

Umbral Regent7/16/2017, 8:13:10 PM5 votes

Let's see; Jhin is an antagonist (both direct and indirect) that triggered Zed's spiral into demented power-grabbing. He's a very flavorfully unique enemy in that he both sets the stage (heh) for Zed's power trip and his breaking off from the Kinkou Order, but also becomes a huge event in and of himself that requires two otherwise hostile, disparate ninja warriors to work together to bring him down.

He puts Zed in both a sympathetic light (reasoning that equilibrium has its problems), and also a vaguely noble one (type 2 antihero; bad things done for good cause 'cause no-one else will do it). Also, Jhin has yet to actually shoot Zed - though he damn well plans to.

Then, there's the Lovebirds; Xayah and Rakan have good reason to hate Zed, and their presence brings a little more friction to what Zed's doing. Where Jhin's stories painted Zed in a more sympathetic light, Xayah and Rakan's return Zed to his roots; evil power-grabbing. But, it's not all objectively Zed being evil, bluh bluh, forget Jhin - it's Zed being evil with purpose, while being undermined by a pair of narrow-minded revolutionaries.

And the crazy part? To those same revolutionaries, Zed's actions paint a picture for all of humankind, even though he's really the only one breaking the accord (that we know of). Which, not only creates interesting story for Zed and his Order of Shadow, but it also creates the perfect lighting for the Lovebirds; naive, short-sighted, and youthfully stupid.

Also, where exactly was it ever stated that Xayah and Rakan "destroyed the whole Order of Shadows" on their own? Because, that didn't happen. If you're talking about the Cinematic, Wild Magic, that wasn't the "whole Order of Shadows". That was one Nexus. Which, honestly, makes me wonder how much attention you even bothered to pay before writing this.

Then, we get to Shieda Kayn; Zed's most powerful apprentice. He is not Zed's enemy, and that you could misconstrue that from his desire to take the helm of the Order is beyond me. Yes, Kayn would kill Zed if that's what it took to demonstrate his prowess, but he and Zed have the undeniable bond of master and student. They are allies, and they know the cost of success, and are more than willing to face it for each other.

And, again. What you saw was the Lovebirds destroying a Nexus, not the entire Order of Shadows.

As for the Kinkou Order - if you killed the esteemed leader of a group of warriors of equilibrium in cold blood only to steal off with forbidden arts of Shadow Magic, also throwing the Decapitated head of said leader to the feet of HIS OWN SON, would you not expect to garner some enemies?

And, I'm not 100% sure, but you mention Akali wanting to kill Zed really hard - but if I'm not mistaken (someone do correct me if I'm wrong), but that was actually a story where Shen and Akali were investigating recent murder scenes fitting the MO of the Golden Demon (Jhin), and Akali was really, really pissed by the grotesque scene, wanting to hunt down and kill Jhin, not Zed. I also recall from that story that Shen saw through Akali's naivete and saw that same violent desperation that Zed had (again, don't quote me, but do correct me), though he knew she was nowhere near prepared for him.

In conclusion; Zed walks a path that makes him enemies, League's stories are anything but bland, you're probably one of those many people who don't care to read the lore, aaaaaand...

Get creative Rito.

You've pretty much invalidated a lot of the crap you said with three words. Let's see you do better, then?

Núll7/16/2017, 5:14:38 PM2 votes

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Oleandervine7/16/2017, 5:00:59 PM2 votes

Where is it implied that Zed may be her brother? Akali is so old that her lore is almost irrelevant.

Cetri7/16/2017, 5:15:45 PM2 votes

Jhin hates Zed because Zed is a dirty killstealer and no one likes KSers.

Where was it ever shown that Xayah and Rakan wiped out the entire Order? They may have destroyed one of their bases/hideouts, but something as major as that would probably have been given more fanfare.

Wrathof3007/16/2017, 7:03:03 PM1 votes

Kayn is still his apprentice, and he wants to succeed Zed as the leader, not replace him, whether or not he has to kill him to do so is still up in the air, but he has no current intention of backstabbing Zed.

Lady Faceless7/16/2017, 5:08:23 PM1 votes

While I love being salty about the league of legends lore, we actually have pretty great stuff. We have well-written lores x x and color-texts x x and big spectrum of different character, that will surely find someone you enjoy. Sure, they are awful ones as (I look at you Mount Targon), but Burning Tides and Shadow and Fortune have been amazing, also the recent short-stories like The weakest heart and For Demacia shows that Riot is moving in the right direction.

About Zed: Kayn doesn't hate Zed, he is just too ambitious and basically everything about Kayn screams "History repeats itself". Kayn is still clearly an ally to Zed. Syndra could become an ally as welll, since they do share similiar mind sets, but Riot has no idea that to do with her. Xayah hates a lot of humans, not only Zed. But agree, that was a little bit over the top.

Tryficic Reborn7/17/2017, 11:39:50 AM1 votes

I don't see Lissandra having a lot of friends either.