Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

New Xerath Lore (Opinion Thread Incoming):

Daedalus871·10/26/2014, 10:12:25 AM·5 votes·1,257 views

I will admit, that the new Xerath lore has exceeded my expectations by a large margin. Part of me never expected the lore team to deal with Shurima after the event ended, much like they did with Freljord. I would congratulate Riot for a job well done, but rising above the ankle high bar that past experiences set isn't much of an accomplishment.

For those of you who haven't read the new Lore, it can be found here. In it, Xerath was a young child who saved a future emperor and was promised freedom. Freedom never came, so Xerath plotted against the emperor (Azir). On Azir's big day however, Xerath was granted his freedom, but it was too late to stop his plans.

It's a fine story, without a doubt, and it is one of the best stories Riot has put out since I joined early Season 2. But before we break out the confetti, we should look at the story it replaced., his old judgement.

In this story, Xerath is an intellectual, who is obsessed with power. At first it appears to be merely an intellectual fascination, but it soon burns into a possessive force. As he started a dangerous ritual, he found the strength to break free of his obsession, only to lose everything he cared about moments later. He then realized that the only course of action he could take was continue forward to become power.

Now this is purely personal opinion, but the old judgement is vastly better than the new stuff. If you did everything about the new Shurima, you could probably get a decent movie out of it, and Xerath would be an important character. With the old Xerath lore though, I feel like you would be able to get a decent trilogy if done right. That's the loss of the story telling potential by this new lore.

I would also like to point out that being power obsessed doesn't really seem to fit the new Xerath. Old Xerath was all about power, but new Xerath is about freedom. The retcon makes it so he no longer feels the same.

9 Comments

Ethereal31110/26/2014, 5:40:28 PM3 votes

I've been working on a Xerath fanfic for quite a while now, so I am quite biased on the matter. But I think Riot was wrong to not put Tabia into the new lore. She was kind of this one person worthy of notice for Xerath when he was developing these ideas of Ascension, and she was the one thing that Xerath truly lost. It really gave him a bit more depth because it was not always about the power and the might, as well as hinting at a small amount of remorse that he carried with him through the ages.

GreenLore10/26/2014, 8:26:38 PM1 votes

It was said that there will be multiple lore pieces for the champions and that not every part of a character will flow into every piece of lore. For Xerath they said that his fascination with magic will be brought up in another lore piece,that they'll release in the future(dunno when this is going to happen though,I mean this lore piece was mainly to give him any kind of lore,after he was stuck with the short lore,so the next one might not come that fast)

DrCyanide10/27/2014, 9:24:59 PM1 votes

The new Xerath isn't even a mage!

Look at the facts. In his own lore, Xerath never once describes himself as a mage, or describes his use of magic. The closest we get is him talking about magic is him talking about the Ascension:

A life spent in servitude, first for a mad emperor and now a vain one, endless manipulations for and against the throne, a near-damning quest for barely remembered knowledge that almost consumed him—all of it led to this grotesque masquerade of Ascension.

Seeking to find knowledge about a magic ritual doesn't make you a mage any more than seeking for the owners manual on your car makes you a mechanic.

Interestingly enough, it's this same "vain emperor", "this spoiled, self-obsessed boy", who wants to claim Xerath as a Magus. Not just a magus, but as his right hand slave/friend/brother magus.

But DrCyanide! In Azir's lore there's a statement about him uttering a single word and Azir exploding!

The only mentions we get to this Xerath being a mage are contained in Azir's lore. But even then, how sure are you that what Azir sees isn't what Xerath wants him to see? Here's Xerath's own account of his real skillset:

The singular moment that had cost him so much, that had taken a lifetime of planning. [...] Xerath had planned for every contingency. He had bribed, killed, out-maneuvered, and plotted for decades—he even tricked the monstrous brothers Nasus and Renekton into staying away from the event

This is what the new Xerath is. He isn't a mage. He's a planner and a deceiver. It's far more likely that Xerath either bought some magical trinket to kill Azir or he had a mage waiting in the wings to kill Azir on his command. Him making the attack himself isn't in this Xerath's style.

Additionally, there's the quote where Xerath mentions that the killing blow would come:

Could he know? How could he possibly know? [...]Even if he did, there was no staying the killing blow that was already in motion.

This seems to imply that there is another mage around who would do the actual killing, whether or not Xerath had a change of heart at the last minute. There was no way to signal to the other mage to call off the attack, only a handful of signals for it to go forward.

The new Xerath lore is very well written, but it's not about the character we had before and it's not about the character we have in the game.