Feelings abt Champs as characters. W.I.P. Patch 12.4
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My darlings
These characters are my favorites, full stop
I like you
They don't invoke the same lvl of passion as my faves but I do, nevertheless, like them quite a bit.
It's Complicated...
Most of these ones I kinda like but there is some aspect of them not and my feelings abt them to elevate them to the higher tiers. As is, they certainly do not sit below "Has Potential" as they do have that, it's more do I like what has been done with them enough to put them in "I like them" or do they still feel like they have too much squandered promise that I feel dissatisfied.
Has potential
These I like but more for all the fun stuff I could/would do with them meanwhile the current execution is still somewhat lacking.
this is fine
There is some sort of lvl of charm to them. Tho they lack the pull that those in "Has Potential" that really make me turn them around in my head & consider their character & lore. They too are not entirely w/o potential but I don't crave that potential being explored nearly as much.
Neutral
I just lack feelings most feelings.
Bored
I am not found of these. It goes slightly beyond "Neutral"l but mostly in terms of the fact I don't want to learn more about them & would rather spend my time with characters I prefer.
shitty dudes
These are just the kinds of dudes I do not like
Who?
Opinion pending, there are 150+ characters & I can't know them all.
Cop Tier
ACAB, **********er.
otherwise rell, taliyah and neeko are beyond amazing ingame and in lore XD
only thing i will add is , xayah doesnt really belong to good politics, she means well but shes basicly a radical terrorist who wants to wipe out and hates humans of noxus or ionia as they steal vastayan homes and lifeessences... so more of a yikes.
Yeah, Rell & Taliyah were 2 I knew I was going to love from the get-go & well, I already noted the delightfully surprising fondness I have for Neeko. That sweet lil' Oovi-Kat has totally stolen my heart!
As for the politics thing & Xayah, well I suppose I more mean that she's more got a point than not & appreciate where she's coming from. In so far as her prejudice against humans, while not something I endorse, is rather understandable given the negative repercussions for both the world @ large & her community in specific. I mean given my understanding of the stealing of vastayan homes & the way Noxus & the Order of Shadow as having some heavy colonialism parallels, I can't help but see a lot of her fighting as to some degree justified. Now I also want to warn you that I don't have crazy extensive knowledge abt everything to do with LoL so there could be stuff out there that portrays Xayah as just blood-thirsty & taking things way too far but I think she has earned the lvl of bitterness & aggression I have seen of her given the context I know. Like, if she went out of her way to kill when it was clearly unnecessary, went out of her way to attack those not directly contributing to the perpetuation of her kind's oppression/systems exploiting the environment, I would readily call her out for that being objectionable.
There is also to be considered the way characters beliefs are treated by world & thru their depiction by their writers. I firmly believe that Xayah's disdain towards humans(& to a lesser extent yordles for that matter) are clearly to be a flaw of hers in the fiction, something she struggles with. Because of this, I am more readily able to appreciate it as complexity that she has as nuanced character. I also would say that of the characters that I praise for their politics/beliefs she is listed third very much intentionally, Zeri & Ekko are definitely the 2 champs who really I find my sort of world view respected in & there are several other characters who feel less overtly "political" who in a lot of ways I similarly respect like Riven, Rell, & Taliyah. The things abt Xayah I most appreciate are those she shares with them: a dedication to community, a proactive approach to facing injustices, & standing in opposition to forces interested in exploiting the natural resources.
I hope I was able to convey my points well, I understand how my appreciation of Xayah is a bit of a... spicy take. It was delight to read your comment!
Noxus seems to be colonialism, Order of shadows seem to be more extremist fighters as they do work for ionias people but use dark methods.
anyway still great opinion and u may be interrested reading and watching up Pantheon, while hes more male centric in his story, he has a true noble heart, great story and is a very very strong character. summarized he was a normal man from leonas tribe ( solari) until he climbed the mountain and claimed the ultimate reward to become an aspect, yet the aspect decided to posses him and wage a war against the darkin in which aartox killed the aspect, but left the man who now harbours a hate towards how the gods use humans as tools.
he feels sorta like a big supportive uncle.
Pyke is also an interresting one, both a good horror / spirit character aswell as sort of reasonable , he died on a ship to hunt a JHaulfish but the line was cut , but something deep in the abyss ( either the jhaulfisch or the void/ smth even more eldritch horror vibey) revived him with a list to kill his former crew, yet no matter how many he kills theres always just one more name on the list. hes reasonable in the sense he has no control over this new him, he just knows killing and he feels nothing doing it.
As for your recommendations of looking into Pantheon & Pyke next, I think I'll take you up on that offer, especially because I always love characters grappling w/ fate or roles imposed on them by higher powers or forces outside of their control(something I have certainly highlighted in other characters I enjoy like Diana & Leona) . I think it really taps into a relatable conflict many people go thru of feeling burdened with what is expected of them or what becomes a matter of necessity & how people deal with that. I think something abt seeing other characters go thru it is cathartic or something? I certainly have noticed hints of what you are referring to w/ Pantheon having a good uncle energy w/ him being protective of his people & find Pyke's whole thing w/ his list to definitely be the first thing I really took note of abt him.
very glad you like the recommendations XD, i personally love me some eldritch horror when i can get my fingers on it, fiddlesticks , rek sai and vel koz while nowhere perfect and not "characters" make excellent tools of dread and horror for other peoples story while being fun to see, makes me wish arcane wasnt the only series we get since while a masterpiece, zaun and piltover are quite separated from the rest of this massive world
I'll mention this abt Arcane, I hope it is the start of more works like it, seeing as it's been such a massive hit it's hard to imagine Riot would not respond by looking into doing more. I think it was actually kinda ingenious to chose Zaun & Piltover for the focus of Arcane because the show is already kinda bursting at the seams w/ too much it's trying to do & feels like we are only getting the most condensed version of they could manage to do with all the balls they decided to juggle at once. Meaning that attempting to start a narrative in say, well really any other region, would require so much more world building to contextualize things. W/ the twin cities thought, they have a lot in common with our modern day as they are industrial capitalist societies which the viewer would already be familiar with. Basically, Zaun & Piltover being a steampunk setting a la Final Fantasy VII that doesn't need to explain a **** ton of Runeterra lore to be even remotely comprehensible to a non-lore junkie makes it a good way for shows set in the LoL Universe to be able to get their foot in the door. Would be a total waste if Arcane was all we got of this sort of thing though, that's for sure.
And maybe it's just me & this isn't really common but I feel like that it helped that Jinx was a big part of the show. I know there are other female Champs that are apparently considered as popular as Jinx but to my mind, she was the only Champ I knew I had seen & heard of before watching Arcane & she certainly made an impression on me as a quirky character that was visually grabbing enough that like when I heard she was in Arcane I was like "Oh yeah... I've seen that girl... oh wow she's even more hot topic goth than I thought she was, I kinda love it & wanna see what's going on?" Well aside from that K/DA vid that blew up but that never got me much interested in LoL overall.
how cool would a silent miniseries be about taliyah and her friends ( Zaifa,Kadira,Samir) being followed and hunted by xer xai, silent 3 to 5 minute episodes of maybe 8 ( 4 from taliyahs perspective 4 from rek sais until collision) , the lack of voiceacting would help here first of all to make it unique, emphasise animation and facial emotion and give rek sai a better chance to shine since she cant voiceact but we might still get some " feel " by seing it from this creatures point of view.
might even help connect some lore as iit could lead to taliyah meets kaisa ( outside of the ministory) and rek sais connection to pyke
since they team up in the cardgame why not in the lore, both regognising they have an endless duty to kill.