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This cartoon is about the recent controversy surrounding Varus and the arid story of League of Legends.
As most people may know, League of Legends’ lore is not concrete. There are certain regions that champions come from with a hint of a worldwide existence. Although there are relationships and connections between champions, there are significant amount of ‘holes’ that are void in the huge League of Legends Universe. Alongside the voids, there are a lot of loopholes regarding to a champion’s lore. Moreover, the lore of the new champions are getting shorter and shorter.
However in the midst of all these champion lores, Varus, a Marksman, has received a lot of fans' affection for his lore. This goes hand in hand with his, lack of a better word, awesome looks and outstanding backstory. A dark hero who has taken on the powers to avenge the death of his family. By only looking at the basis of his lore, we can already sense the ‘awesome’ backstory of Varus. Surprisingly, Riot has completely changed Varus’ lore. Pushing his new lore with comics and a music video alongside it. They have a whole new characteristic to Varus. Varus is now a homosexual.
The gender code, commonly referred to as LGBTQ, has recently gained its attention and has been incorporated into the configuration of multiple games as a trend. Of course, this leads to a positive result in humanitarian sense of respecting human rights of gender minority and stereoscopic character. But at the same time, it is a sensitive issue that solely depends on the culture and thoughts of people around the world. Because of this, it is a part that needs to be carefully approached. In the game, a solid story, a natural blend of character/world view, and a moderate 'carelessness' will all be an essential to attract the positive acceptance of the many.
However, League of Legends, which has been often pointed out for it’s "poor worldview and story" from time to time, often fails to grasp this concept. While spitting out a new spooky stories from Riot, many people wonder if it is truly necessarily to force a character with the LGBTQ gender code. It would not be a problem if another minor character was added or another character was given a different story in order to upgrade from the poor one from before. However in this case, Varus had an amazing lore. There were a lot of fans that expressed their disappointment towards Riot in changing Varus’ lore recklessly.
Apart from humanitarian trends and meanings, if the LGBTQ code is naturally assigned to a character, it is an attempt to enrich the nuances of the whole world view by creating various relationships with the character's new personality. However, several years have passed but there has not been a concrete lore created as of yet. It can not be helped but to think of the current unconfirmed state of the League of Legends lore. Looking at the fresh direction League of Legends lore is taking... I think there is a more urgent problem that needs to be resolved before all this.
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Comments :11
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level 1 N0rthWind
Dec 3, 2017
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A thinly veiled libel from writers who sound like there would be no acceptable major LGBT implementation they wouldn't describe as "forced" unless it was a minor character.
The lore of League has been solidifying over the course of these past two years significantly. It's not fluid or unstable, and there are only a few outliers, remnants of the "old" lore, that rapidly get retconned and unified with the modern standards. Evenlynn used to be one of them. Varus as well. Up next should be Brand and Nocturne.
The lore involving Varus was neither touching or original. Nobody cared about Varus' token family nor his vow to avenge them. I have been playing LoL long before Varus was released, and I've been reading the lore since the Beta.
His "hero made a mistake he will never forgive himself for" backstory was as generic and unpopular as Annie's or Rammus'. I have literally NEVER heard anybody even discuss it, let alone find it inspiring.
His new story, on the other hand, is extremely original, involves two characters that feel way more real than old Varus ever did, and has actually been exceptionally well-received by fans (the YouTube video has 2.5M views, 101K likes and 5K dislikes at the time of writing).
The new League of Legends lore is neither unconfirmed nor has an "urgent problem" because a very openly LGBT champion was finally added. If anything, the new lore stabilizes the story, tying the completely random dude named Varus to both the overarching Darkin heritage and the lore and customs of Ionia.
Even Lucian's scarcely mentioned wife, Senna, is more loved by the fans than old Varus' nameless loved ones, and the new story conveys an infinitely more powerful message about love than "I let my family die so now I'm mad" could ever hope to.
Complete with false conflicts ("urgent problem", "had an outstanding backstory") and outright lies ("often pointed out for its poor worldview and story" - literally nobody is saying that, "lots of fans that expressed their disappointment" - only 4% disagreement sounds like a MASSIVELY successful fan reception to me).
Given the above, I will take the liberty to characterize this article as pure butthurt. If Rakan and Xayah were gay men, you would've said the same thing, unstable lore, reckless moves etc.
Varus was an excellent opportunity for a complete retcon, his old lore was completely unremarkable and he has gained tons of depth while he's lost nothing (unless you would actually claim that you loved SO much his old nameless family, much more than the fleshed-out story of Kai and Val).
Lore is stabilized and progressed, representation is diversified, the champion became much more interesting, the new story in itself is extremely moving and the vast majority of fans strongly resonated with it, regardless of sexuality.
You didn't write an angry article when Kayn was revealed to be an ongoing struggle between Rhaast, the Darkin Weapon, and Kayn the assassin, similarly to Varus. Oh, no, that was totally fine even if it's the same exact theme of weapon-taking-over-user. Well. Varus is now comprised of an awesome Darkin Weapon and a touching gay couple.
Deal with it.
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level 1 N0rthWind
Dec 4, 2017
@BlopprAh, what a compelling argument! I take it that I'm right then, since you obviously can't address my actual points
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level 1 EkkoThruTime
Dec 24, 2017
@N0rthWindAside from Lucian, Varus was literally one of the worst characters to make gay in LoL considering he had a wife and child who were a major part of his backstory. Idk Riot make the first openly gay champion one of the champions people already ship as gay such as TF/Graves, Diana/Leona or Caitlyn/Vi.
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level 1 mychllr
Dec 3, 2017
2
Okay this is completely wrong.
Varus is the Darkin that Val and Kai released, VARUS IS NOT GAY VAL AND KAI ARE.
Also: this is not a game trying to force homosexual acdeptance onto people: that was never the point of Varus's lore. The people making the lore were thinking that it should be two people that were bound together by the strongest form of love, and one of the people making this lore was like does the gender matter? And the answer was no so they made them both men. Making Val and Kai gay wasn't something they set out to do, it just happened to fit the story.
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level 1 Daniel_Horlings
Dec 4, 2017
@mychllr you're 100% right. thank you for clarifying this. some people just dont read the actual lore
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level 1 N0rthWind
Dec 5, 2017
@Daniel_HorlingsThe actual lore doesn't say that the "triple" entity known as Varus is not gay; only that the Darkin archer that bears the name is not necessarily gay (he's not necessarily straight either, we don't even know if Darkin can feel things such as love).
His full, corporeal form, however, is apparently controlled by whoever has the greatest willpower and it obeys their emotions and actions. Therefore, since at the end of the comic Val actually realized vengeance is not what he wants and they overpowered the Darkin soul for the most part, the body they control in tandem is by definition gay as they are, just like it still loves Val's mother as they do.
There's no need to go to such lengths to theorize why Varus isn't "really" gay, especially when his story really leaves no doubts about it, if you've read the "actual" lore. Even when the Darkin was in control by manipulating Val's desire for revenge, he clearly acknowledged their love as the most powerful thing that body knew ("together we will avenge your heartlight") and that despite their different goals, they actually ARE the same person as long as they're sharing the body ("We are three in one", said first by the Darkin, and "We Are Varus" said by the two slayers). It's more than clear enough.
LoL has a character who's gay and also a Darkin. There's not much more to it, as the point of the story is the sheer strength of their love and determination and not their gender. They just happened to be men.
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level 1 chhopsky
Dec 4, 2017
gay people exist. sometimes they're in stories
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level 1 Daniel_Horlings
Dec 4, 2017
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http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Varus/Background. Varus, is an entity not a person... the people he happens to embody currently are gay lovers. that doesnt mean varus himself (The Darkin) is a person who identifies as LGBT. the two souls that are currentlyy trapped inside varus that unleashed him are gay. but varus isnt
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level 1 N0rthWind
Dec 5, 2017
@Daniel_HorlingsVarus, the Darkin, is not necessarily gay. Varus, the corporeal entity, is mostly controlled by Val and Kai, so he is for the most part.
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level 1 Trender
Dec 21, 2017
Just like rest of Lore overhauls in the latest years since they said, are, and will continue to CHANGE EVERY SINGLE OLD LORE as it isn't cannon anymore, I bet if they were straight you wouldnt be complaining like this ffs
