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I Don't Understand Cassiopeia's Lore

Gixia·10/10/2014, 11:12:22 PM·6 votes·1,890 views

So, the more I think about it, the more Cassiopeia's lore doesn't really seem to make any sense ever since it got switched to happening in Shurima, and it's starting to drive me nuts.

With her old lore, the origin of the curse was a Freljordian that she seduced into giving her secrets, and then betrayed. Her curse didn't really suit a Freljordian origin at all, but it made sense at least. Though the curse gave her power, whether it strengthened or weakened her didn't seem to be the point so much as it made her a monster on the outside that matched the treacherous worm on the inside. It was pretty much a petty revenge curse, and it worked for that, even if the origin was questionable.

With her new lore though, no matter how I look at it, the curse just does not make any sense at all. She received it from a trap that was protecting the Emperor's Tomb in Shurima, except that by any degree of logic, that is an incredibly shitty trap.

First, the fact that it didn't trigger on Nasus and Renekton when they stuffed Xerath in the tomb means the trap likely has to have been set up after Xerath was imprisoned. This means that, ideally, the purpose of the trap should be to prevent intruders from releasing Xerath and keep him imprisoned. Except that the trap doesn't even trigger until the tomb's been opened already, meaning it can not possibly succeed at this goal.

Second, since the curse now originates from an arbitrary snake-themed booby trap, it no longer functions as a punishment to specifically strip Cassiopeia of her beauty. Especially since her role as a seductress and her vanity played no role in that story. In fact, considering what we've seen of Shurima so far indicates that gaining animal traits is a high honour reserved for those who ascend, by the standards of the Shurimans who set up the trap, being aesthetically transformed into a half-human/half-snake probably wouldn't even be considered a disgrace. But then on top of that, the curse grants her all those poison-magic powers and... literally, how is she 'cursed'? How is that a punishment? By all standards, what's intended to be a trap seems to be nothing more than a free Ascension without the immortality bonus.

So, yeah, Cassiopeia's lore doesn't make sense to me anymore. Rito, explain please.

9 Comments

Grand Viper10/12/2014, 5:26:03 AM3 votes

Also why can't we have different archetypes applied to different locations? Is it really that bad that we have a Medusa Archetype stuck in an Egypt-themed setting? I'm sure stranger things have happened.

It is that bad because it's an improper mixture. It's completely backhanding the Medusa archetype. I'm going to go into indepth detail in a bit, but before I do, let's look at a successful mixing of archetypes:

The Rakkor.

They were originally Stanpar with Pantheon and he was just "some Spartan ripoff", but the rewrite into Rakkor with Leona being their avatar showed a lot more about them. It's a take on the Spartan culture while doing something much more creative and more interesting with the Sun and the Moon and can easily borrow themes and ideas from other cultures while maintaining its own identity.

As I said to SecretLore, you can't make a half-animal a monster in something that borrows so heavily from Egyptian mythology to the point that the connotation of all anthropomorphic beings is that of ascended status, aka beyond human and then be told that Cassiopeia's is different and is a punishment when:

A) It goes against the established culture of your own race/people and is a huge oversight

B) She utterly revels in it and wants more power. She also is allied with Xerath and Renekton but has quotes to Azir meaning she wants more power, she wants to become "fully" ascended and wants to become something so much greater.

((Out of context posts I made in regards to the trap in the old Lore forum))

Also who's to say that the Tomb Guardian was even made to stop people getting in the tomb? Looks to me that by poisoning Cass, it gave her poison powers, a snake appearance, and some stoney properties akin to its own (She stonifies when she dies, and stonifies people with a glare) as a means to make her a Tomb Guardian like itself, with the intention that they would delay Xerath coming out of the tomb enough for Nasus to come and rectify ****. We don't know what happened immediately after Xerath and Renekton broke out, so the guardian could've been fighting the two, Xerath might've stopped Cass's transformation for some reason, hell maybe she reminds him of that lass he digged that time, and it kinda struck at the last vestiges of his humanity. I dunno, we don't have that perspective.

That is an awful plan. I mean no offense, but I will be blunt:

You mean to tell me that the people decided to construct a trap that would transform the "Intruder" into an ascended being with the hope that they would try to delay Xerath even though it was probably a 50/50 chance that they had little to no regard whether or not that they cared to stop Xerath or could even ally with him or do something else other than stop him? What was the guarantee that whoever they ascended would in turn actually use it for "good"? Or if it was meant to kill them, they would be able to in their final pained moments against Xerath, when the creators of this trap could have spent the same amount of time constructing a guardian, or hired Skarner, who could have fought Xerath and Renekton, delaying them so Nasus can sprint back to the temple from his secret Dogman-Cave to fight them or something to that degree?

That is quite literally one of the dumbest traps I have ever heard to exist. If you spend that much time, why not punish them and try to stop the inmates from escaping? Were they so depressed that they were unable to think that they spent so much time making a trap to punish the person who would open the door that they shouldn't at least attempt something for Renekton or Xerath? Maybe they were just like, "Man our Emperor is dead, we can't stop Xerath. Let's just make this trap in case someone opens the tomb so we can punish them by using a historically and culturally inappropriate ideal here."

Maybe cause another bar to reinforce it? Maybe have Skarner be the continually aware guardian that they had to overcome? Who knows. It seems to be a bad idea overall.

Part 3/3

Durmeth the Vile10/11/2014, 4:17:34 AM2 votes

Uhhhh yeah. Welcome to the new "lore" we will be getting for League. Say goodbye to making sense.

Grand Viper10/12/2014, 5:10:48 AM2 votes

Gonna have to disagree on how it doesn't make sense that Cassie's curse was in the Freljords. I agree that it shouldn't be a gorgon's curse from the Freljords, but it should have been a Lindwurm's curse.

I'm going to divide this post up into 3 parts.

Part 1 & 2 - Why the Freljords made sense, how it tied into Cassie's themes, and a possible path that could have been used

Part 3 - More inquiries and attempts at justifications for the trap to turn her into a snake as a punishment which makes no sense because of the context she was transformed in: She was not punished, she was rewarded.

To be perfectly frank, I hate how she’s a gorgon (or lamia) because it’s the most easily identifiable form of cursed snake person. I will even say that I think it’s utter bullshit because of the context of who cursed her. If the Rakkor cursed her, I wouldn’t make a peep, but if she was cursed by the Freljordian or if she gets cursed due to Shurima, then it’s fairly silly. “Oh but the diplomat could have gotten the blade from the Rakkor or region that a gorgon makes-“

The matter of fact is that none of Cassiopeia’s skills even revolve around what Medusa did except for the ultimate of petrification which is just sort of there to act as AoE CC, and it doesn’t really visually mesh with her kit except to be able to create a stun opportunity for dps. It feels tacked on and uncreative. Cassiopeia’s face isn’t even the least attractive part of her.

My headcanon for Cassiopeia is simple: The curse is not complete yet.

She’s still in the throes of transformation, but she’s fighting against it. Cassiopeia’s curse to me is not that of Medusa, because it invokes the absolutely most wrong connotation to me and I cannot make my way around it.

To me, Cassiopeia is a lindwurm.

A lindwurm is a Nordic dragon, best exemplified by the legendary Fafnir in Siegfried’s tragedy. A lindwurm is a legless dragon with only arms, sometimes wings, and is only the result of a curse.

The curse of the lindwurm can only afflict those who are greedy, treacherous and/or conniving. Since snakes are almost always associated with dragons and the fact that the lindwurm is meant to be an aberration of the true noble dragon, the correlation makes sense. What the curse then does is that it transforms you from a human into a dragon-like being, and it trades your reasoning and your weakness into the power of a dragon with the mind of a rabid beast. You will slaughter your loved ones as the treacherous beast you are, consume them, and you will hoard what is most precious to you. You will be overwhelmed by rage at your condition, at what you have lost and you will find solace only in what you hoard, which is why in my writings and headcanon I have Cassie hoarding beauty products and attire she can never use/wear because it is a compulsion, it’s something she needs to fight against constantly.

And Cassiopeia, if she cannot overcome the curse, will become a mindless beast, and will kill everyone she loves. That, to me, is a much more horrible curse to be inflicted on her. To remove her beauty, to force her to kill her family and to make her a writhing monument of her crimes for as long as a dragon can possibly live. I’d imagine Cassiopeia to be lopsided, to have an arm larger than the other, a shoulder dislocated because of its sheer weight, the loss of one of or both of her breasts because reptiles don’t have mammary glands, part of her face elongated, all in the effort to make her look “uncanny”.

Or as the Princess Bride puts it...

Part 1/3

Grand Viper10/12/2014, 5:11:34 AM2 votes

Or as Princess Bride puts it…

Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death.

Westley: No. To the pain.

Prince Humperdinck: I don’t think I’m quite familiar with that phrase.

Westley: I’ll explain and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.

Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.

Westley: It won’t be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.

Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don’t mean to duplicate tonight.

Westley: I wasn’t finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.

Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let’s get on with it.

Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, “Dear God! What is that thing,” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.

This is how I would want Cassiopeia to feel. This is what her appearance to me should prompt in people because all she feels like at the moment is a woman in costume rather than a monstrosity.

Part 2/3

C9 Scott Free 10/13/2014, 3:44:44 AM1 votes

They won't. If you really look at the lore methods and writing style it only is going to get worse. I freely encourage any and all Rioters to prove me wrong though.

Solideus10/13/2014, 9:50:56 PM1 votes

The way I see it, it is not fully explained how Cassio came out on top with the curse; maybe Xerath got involved and turned the curse on it's head, saving her life. There's room for Riot to make a save for the plot-hole, at least.

Also, some people are annoyed that her medusa-theme isn't Egyptian. Her name *is *from Ancient Greece, of course, but Egypt had a history with Ancient Greece anyway. Snake-mythology is a global phenomenon; Egypt has Wadjet, a snake-headed woman. The snake sits in the centre of the pharao's headdress for protection.

Maybe this was the reasoning; Cassiopeia was cursed to become the Tombs guardian because she tried to enter. That would explain a transformation rather than instant death.