Runeterra's Useless Prison Habit

NotaRobot1006·1/8/2019, 9:47:59 PM·24 votes·12,778 views

Runeterra, or at least the parts of Runeterra we know, has an ongoing problem with locking people away only for things to go horribly wrong. In review:

-Syndra did bad magic, the Spirit of Ionia locked her away, she got out and was justifiably enraged. Now she wants to do massive damage.

-The Darkin pretty much ruined whatever parts of the planet they "ruled," the Aspects locked some of them away, they got out. With their minds warped if not outright broken by centuries of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation, they're even more destructive than before.

-Thresh was assigned to guard a vault of evil relics, the relics (shocker!) turned him evil, he got out, and now he's just torturing people willy-nilly. In this case the issue is either that Thresh was unsupervised or that so many dark relics were put in the same spot in the first place with no one knowing that they could apparently turn people evil.

-Xerath murdered Azir and stole Ascension, he got locked in a sarcophagus and then a tomb, got out, and now wants to take over the world. He's a bit of an exception because there really didn't seem to be any other way to stop him, but he still qualifies for the list.

-Urgot would likely have opposed Swain's revolution, so he got sent to the Drudge, got out (noticing a pattern here?) and now wants to bring violent anarchy to the world so that the strong can rise from the ashes. Sure sucks if you're not one of them though.

-And now we have Sylas, who killed people with magic as a CHILD (largely by accident, too), got locked away, got out, and now wants to wreck the Demacian government through the most violent means available.

Now I'm not saying the solution is "kill all the threats" because that'd lead to a NEW list of problems, but we clearly need some serious prison reform, magical or otherwise.

16 Comments

Ralanr1/8/2019, 10:09:07 PM22 votes

I mean, if you compare the overall population, the prison system works fine.

The champion pool is a small fraction of the overall population of Runeterra.

EdgeLady1/8/2019, 9:52:26 PM18 votes

The Locker held Graves for several years. Best prison in Runeterra, wherever it is.

...he still got out though.

4 Step Cadence1/8/2019, 10:47:55 PM16 votes

Jhin is a fucking serial killer that the Cabal essentially turned into a terrorist.

Modl Ryden l1/8/2019, 10:46:27 PM7 votes

I can see it now

"Kayle with the mighty swing of her sword banished her sister Morgana to the necropolis, damning her for all eternity. Morgana as her feathers fleeted from her back reached out and grasped Kayle by her neck using her dark magics to drag her down into the abyss below them."

"And theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen they were reached out and pardoned by the League Institution to fight on the fields of Justice."

Or did the retcon the last part?

Let's do it, 2019 the year of prison break champs and reworks. The rework of the justice system. Reform rewards. If you had honor 0 or had previously banned you'll be awarded Sylas for free upon reach Honor 5. EZ PZ. Sylas was Riots roadmap teaser all along.

JK.

GreenLore1/8/2019, 11:00:13 PM3 votes

Thresh wasn't really locked away himself though.

Also the strongest of the darkin were appearantly unkillable,thus sealing them was the only option(similarly they simply don't have the tools to kill Xerath)

SEKAI1/8/2019, 10:04:50 PM1 votes

Prison/prison-break in LoL is more or less the equivalent of WoW's MANY "corruption" stories. Plot points that are good on their own repeated and abused as an convenient crutch way too many times resulting in the complete loss of their weight and they become the parody of themselves.

The Highest Noon1/8/2019, 11:15:29 PM1 votes

When you consider the small amount of individuals who actually turn out bad from being imprisoned, you could argue that the prison system is actually amazing. The problem is that sometimes it's psychos who get imprisoned.

If it helps, apparently Sylas was actually on death row before breaking out.

wolvius1/9/2019, 9:20:38 PM1 votes

Well from reading it technically he didn't escape from prison he escaped when being transported to the executioners stand which if high society snobs people were present was probably in a public area and going to be a display of what happens to mages.

Honestly it seems to be human stupidity that leads to various prison escapes, weren't some like Jhin released for various reasons. Xerath wasnt a planned imprisonment after many failures at trying to defeat him, trapping him in a tomb was the only option left. And I'm guessing Aatrox and Co were too powerful or smart to fall for the trick they used with the chalicar and comparable obstacle to xerath as well as possessing armies.