http://i.imgur.com/XYLLcE0.png

So I finally got around to watching the Bard: Mountain trailer. It was pretty much exactly what I was expecting. There were two things that surprised me:

1. I knew they were going kind of Ghibli, but the Mononoke references were much stronger than I expected, with the little dancing spirit dudes. This isn't a gripe; as I've said before, I think League is all about references. Actually, I liked that they were straightforward about it.
2. The Noxians seemed a little too mundane for Runeterra. They seemed like dudes in armor with swords and axes, and there was a distinct lack of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" This actually is a gripe; I think League does better with a more "larger than life" aesthetic. I feel like Noxians should be much more awe-inspiring.

Overall, though, I rather liked it. It gave me a nice introduction to Bard, it had a nice style to it, and I enjoyed the "flavor" of the cosmic magic that was revealed.

So about those Noxians

My main gripe, as noted above, would be the portrayal of Noxians. I feel like, if one were to continue in this vein, a battle between Demacia and Noxus would end up looking like a medieval European battle, maybe with a few dragons or spells thrown in. It might even be pretty hard to tell the two factions apart. In contrast, my intuition is that a battle between Demacia and Noxus should be a lot more "paladins versus death knights": paladins in radiant silver armor wielding holy swords blazing with white fire (and standing over a bunch of terrified peasants) on one side, hulking warriors in black armor on the other side, wielding axes etched with burning blood-runes. I feel that a random European knight should look distinctly dull next to either of them. (I should clarify: I think both factions have greater moral complexity than "Good" and "Evil". But I think their aesthetics should contrast heavily, and I think both should be absolutely awesome in their own way.) My view, and this might not be shared by Narrative, is that Runeterra is a "high-magic" setting, where magic is not limited to mages: a certain ethereal nature permeates each faction, and empowers even non-mages. This would explain why Demacia and Noxus haven't moved on to Piltovian rifles, or for that matter Zaunite death rays: a Noxian legion is not just "a bunch of angry humans with axes", but a representation of the spirit of Noxus, in a setting where destiny and emotion can quite directly alter the material world. (This also helps explain Champions: they're people who get an extra dose of this ambient magic, enabling them to perform superhuman feats worthy of "legendary" status.) IRL, it would be ridiculous to wield a sword rather than a gun; in Runeterra, while a laser gun is pretty awesome, there's also something awesome about a Noxian legion or a squadron of Demacian knights charging into battle. IRL, a gunpowder weapon will make plate armor look ridiculous and fragile; in Runeterra, both have a potent "reality", and it's not clear which will prevail. To use a somewhat extreme example, I'm pretty sure Lee Sin is not just some guy who does MMA; I see him as an embodiment of all those fantasies about "iron body training" and "chi flow". In reality, jump-kicks are pretty useless against someone wearing steel armor; in Runeterra, I don't think that's necessarily true.

To elaborate a bit further: I don't think it's necessarily all about "magic weapons and armor" as such, though those probably do exist, and I imagine that even a perfectly generic Noxian axe has some kind of magic worked into it. (There are probably mages working in those forges.) I don't think it's even just about magical banners that cast ethereal auras or whatever. My intuition would be that "Noxus" exists not only as a political abstraction but as something ethereal. (The same would go for every other faction.) This might sound out there, but again, this is a universe where magic is real, and there seems to be an awful lot of it about. One of the basic principles of magic in fantasy literature is the translation of human thought and feeling into physical phenomena: you wish there to be a fireball, and FWOOOSH! there is a fireball; you desperately want someone to live, and the tears you cry over them actually do (or might) cure their sickness. In such a universe, it's quite natural that a Demacian soldier's determination to defend the innocent, and a Noxian warrior's thirst for power and glory, should imbue each of them with power above and beyond what their physiological or technological status would "objectively" indicate. In our world, righteousness does not actually make a shield any stronger; in Runeterra, I think it does. Though it would be shocking IRL, I imagine that a Runeterran scientist would not find anything particularly surprising about a ballistics test that shows an empty suit of armor failing to block a gunshot, while the same armor worn by a heroic knight deflects it harmlessly aside. That Runeterran scientist might need to consult with a mage friend to really understand what's going on there, but then again, most Runeterran technology is in fact hextech (or "techmaturgy") in the first place.

This video, though, looks a bit more like a perfectly mundane depiction of humans smacking each other with pieces of metal, with some magical elements (Bard, the artifact) slipped in. I feel like the spirit of Runeterra calls for a much more generous application of fantasy and magic.

So, I'd have preferred the Noxians to be a bit more badass, but it's not the worst thing in the world. Maybe these guys were a ragtag band of unblooded recruits, sent to go hassle some Ionians. At first, I thought they'd surely be sending the elites in to capture such a potent artifact, but then I remembered that you can't throw a rock in Ionia without hitting three mystical temples, a mysterious monk who's been meditating in silence for six centuries, and a half a dozen wondrous artifacts. "Hey, Groxarius, we heard something about another magic rock out in the sticks near your camp. Why don't you take those auxiliaries out and grab it? It'll give them some practice for when this gets serious."

And, okay, it's a bit "obvious"

If I were to make another critique, it might be that it was so deeply unsurprising. I had a similar feeling about the Kalista short story: if you put a hundred authors in separate rooms and asked them to write a really basic Kalista story, I feel like you'd get at least eighty copies of that story. However, I'm much happier with Mountain; perhaps I just feel that it's more appropriate for video to be straightforward, whereas when you write something out, I expect more nuance and complexity. As it is, I actually thought the clarity of Mountain was a strength: here's Bard, here's him swiping an artifact to restore cosmic balance, apparently indifferent to the mortal struggle going on around him.

Still, overall, I liked it. At no point did Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple declare, "THE ANCIENT WEAPON IS A KEY!" or "SHE…BETRAYS!…SIVIR!" It was not accompanied by a post from Narrative clarifying that as part of their new artistic vision they've retconned chairs from the League of Legends universe. I enjoyed the Rek'Sai material more, but this was pretty decent. I'm pleased to see it added to the League of Legends canon.