The Star Guardians

Lux is no longer alone as the League’s Star Guardian with the addition of Jinx, Poppy, Janna, and Lulu to the series. LoS wrote about Lux’s Star Guardian skin back when it was first released and also briefly explored the magical girl trope itself. And while that entry left much of the interpretation of the trope up to the reader (and readers had many opinions on the subject) the addition of 4 new guardians has added to many of the pros and cons mentioned in there.

Once again, it feels useful to discuss the magical girl genre itself before moving forward. For all its failings, namely in the stagnation of magical girl costuming, the popular genre has made enormous leaps in character development and narrative. Shows like Magical Girl Lyrical Girl Nanoha did an immense amount of work pushing the former forward, introducing a wide array of young girls and following them into young adulthood -- even going so far as to depict two them as lovers who later adopt a daughter. In terms of narrative, Puella Magi Madoka Magica used the magical girl trope almost as a smoke screen for a deeply serious plot that explored existentialism, tragedy and grief, and redemption, proving that any genre can be used as a vehicle to explore difficult and complex themes. This isn’t to say that other magical girl shows never got dark or complicated, they very often did, but never with the purpose and drive that Madoka brought to the table.

The magical girl genre as a whole has been undergoing vast change -- especially in the past few years -- in order to progress. Looking at the Star Guardian series one has to wonder: did Riot recognize this progress, this deepening of the genre and what that means for female characters, and keep pace in its homage to the genre?

Superficially, it seems that the answer seems to be “yes”. The tone of the promotional artwork is absolutely gorgeous and very reminiscent of Madoka’s visual aesthetic in particular. Vibrant colors that explore both bright and dark palettes hint at the possible moral ambiguity in the mini-universe Riot has created for their Star Guardians series, suggesting the kind of complexity viewers have come to expect now that Madoka has blazed the trail. Overall, it’s thoroughly excellent and well-executed. From up here everything seems to be in order.

Dig deeper, however, and it’s clear that things begin to fall apart fast. The splash art of the new guardians does not reflect the tone of promotional art whatsoever, with backgrounds and posing that nod only to the magical girl visual aesthetic -- the one aspect of the genre that has yet to truly evolve -- and devoid of the interesting atmosphere. This blog will ignore the obvious flaws in the costuming for this post, with things like unnecessarily bared skin (of which there is plenty) and wild hair and ribbons escaping LoS’s usual scrutiny in the spirit of magical girl-ness.

Jinx’s posing is probably the most bizarre among them. She appears to be falling yet her spine is bent inward, muddying up the line of action in a nonsensical way just to ensure that her chest is thrust outward. The leading lines are a lot of fun, though, reflecting Jinx’s usual chaotic presence by radiating this way and that. And because Jinx is Riot’s signature violent psychotic she’s also allowed to express herself a little in the face. Easily the most fun out of the series despite her oddly curved spine.

Poppy is solid, if a little uninspired. Her posing is very plain and, without her wielding her giant hammer, would completely lack a sense of strength. She could have cranked a lot further, kneeling down a little lower, her hammer cocked back a little more, but the result is the kind of pose someone might strike for a camera with only seconds to react. The armored bits on the shoulders and forearms are very welcome additions, though. A tanky magical girl? This blog with take it!

Janna is about as bland as Riot has ever made in a splash art. She floats aimlessly, a disinterested look on her face, and just sort of... exists in this piece. The likely idea here is to reflect that Janna is the wizened older magical girl or that she is aloof and mysterious but the execution falls flat. Her breasts are quite a lot bigger than in her base splash, and the fabric of her top seems to be folded underneath them for some reason. At least the leading lines aren’t pointing at them, though, There isn’t a lot to say here since Janna just looks so lifeless.

Lulu is a lot of fun, as usual, and is as expressive as ever. Very little to complain about here since we’re excusing the usual magical girl motifs.

Overall, the Star Guardian series is a big let down for LoS. The posing in particular leaves a lot to be desired and the rendering makes our Yordles look kind of like dolls. This blog will file the series under Missed Opportunity and move on.

Nightraven & Royal Guard Fiora Splash Reworks

Fiora stands as one of the best examples of a no-nonsense, driven women in the League who, despite no hint whatsoever in her character biography that she would be so inclinded, is forced by her creators to wear revealing and just plain odd attire for the benefit of the male gaze. 

For her Nightraven skin, she’s wearing a tight suit with a few heavy plates of armor with an oddly generous amount of cleavage on full display (which was probably not a great idea for leaping through windows and such). She is expressionless, of course, and her pose belies the intensity of the movement she’s just undertaken. She seems completely still yet the background suggests that she has just landed after leaping through that window behind her, suggesting that her pose has less to do with communicating speed or movement and more to do with keeping all those lines pointing to her chest.

Designs choices like this are very common with Riot and other game development studios, using leading lines not to direct the eye to something important about the character setting that they occupy. But Riot, and many companies all throughout media for that matter, very often use it to lead the eyes straight to a woman’s chest. This is a technique taught in art courses everywhere, and this blog finds it difficult to believe that this keeps happening by accident.

Next we have Royal Guard Fiora which, like many female skins before it, teeters on the edge of greatness. Her pose is confident, powerful, and hints at the gravely serious woman striking it. She holds her sword, a mark of immense pride and a symbol of her skill, high above her head and walks with a fierceness and determination that undercuts the worried looks on the other guards around her. While they appear concerned -- almost fearful -- of escorting a dignitary she appears stoic and uncaring of any dangers that may lie ahead. It’s a piece that utilizes its background incredibly well, telling us a lot about Fiora and who she is with a few concerned glances that make her stand out even more. Indeed, this is one of the very few times that Riot’s propensity to give women in the League expressionless faces works to their benefit.

The drawback of the piece is, of course, her attire. And not the costume itself, because it is stunning and more fully realized than most female attire in League of Legends, but the chest and waist. Having her top almost adhere to her breasts is bizarre and there is a needless effort to emphasize her petite waist. It looks more like a corset than the kind of armor worn by a proper guard in any time period. and notice that like above all the leading lines draw your eye to her chest and waist. Because when it comes to women in the League Riot consistently feels the need to remind that viewer that yes, she has breasts and a tiny, tiny waist.

Arcade Ahri

Riot’s artistic portrayal of Ahri has always been a sticking point for this blog. A lot of that has to do with her strange (and varied) character history versus the choices made in her visual depictions over the years (in fact, Ahri’s history versus her visual depiction is a whole other article). It all never quite seems to come together to create a cohesive and believable character, and that’s mostly due to Riot’s continued insistence of sexualizing Ahri at every turn.

That said, Arcade Ahri is likely her least objectifying skin to date, so that’s something. But that mostly has to do with her attire, and any favorable outlook on the splash art begins to fall apart when examining her pose and facial expression. The pose’s dullness is particularly interesting because, all things considered, there’s a lot going on here and it should be a lot more exciting than it is. She’s dashing through a video game level and stomping on a lane minion yet there is no sense of speed or weight, and even though she’s stretched out the sense of directionality is very weak. This looks less like a high energy drawing and more of a stagnant model shoot. The rendering is lovely, as always, but the banality of it all sucks all the energy right out of the piece.

Compare that to Ahri’s male counterparts in this skin series, including two of which who were released right alongside her:

Note how much more pushed and exaggerated they are in order to achieve a sense of movement and weight. Ezreal feels the most static of the three examples above but even he feels like he’s really moving through his environment thanks to the camera angle, his pose, and the use of stretching and blurring on his right leg. He’s also got roughly twice the facial expression going on compared to Ahri. Corki’s splash art is full of directionality and a sense of speed, while Hecarim has been bent and contorted in order to communicate both speed and power. They all look like they’re in the middle of doing something incredibly impressive, yet Ahri, who is literally crushing an enemy minion in the moment the artist was tasked with drawing, looks weightless, still, and perfectly boring by comparison.

The difference, of course, is where Riot’s priorities lie between their male and female characters. In Ahri’s (or any female Arcade skin participant’s) case that priority isn’t communicating movement, speed, or power; it's lovingly rendering the female form and focusing the viewer’s attention on that.

Even Blitz, whose literally not even moving, is made to look more interesting through a clever use of scale and perspective that emphasizes his Arcade persona and not the curves of his chassis (though they certainly are appealing).

This isn’t to say that Arcade Ahri isn’t a marked improvement over her previous skin entries, this blog would contend that it is. But it’s still pretty obvious that Riot’s priorities for female designs are still markedly different from their male counterparts and their work suffers for it.

LoS Returns, Plans For The Future

After a lengthy hiatus this blog is ready to return. Thank you for your patience, dear readers.

A lot has happened since the last content review on this blog. Sadly, it seems that the vast majority of Riot’s activity of late has been more or less the same as when LoS took a break. Suffice it so say, the optimism this blog used to have back when Illaoi or even Taliyah was announced has all but dried up as Riot has returned to its comfort zone of objectifying and needlessly sexualizing its female cast with each successive content reveal.

It hasn’t been all bad, of course. Who in their right mind could hate the this incredible cooking splash art?

That is, if you can overlook Leona’s very recent and downright worrying breast expansion (is she smuggling food out of that kitchen in her chef jacket?).

With all that’s happened and will happen, it begs the question of how LoS should proceed. Obviously new content will be analyzed and reviewed but is there any interest in this blog going back and reviewing content that was missed during the break? Much of it, like Nidalee’s new splash art, speaks for itself and LoS wouldn’t have much to add to what has already likely been said about them. Would this blog’s contributions be valued by regular readers?

There is also the matter of this blog’s format and approach to reviewing Riot’s output. This could be a good opportunity to try something new with future reviews and discussions. Has LoS’s methods been satisfactory? Should this blog try something new, or perhaps even alter its traditional format?

Please make your preference on these matters known in an Ask here on Tumblr, a Tweet on Twitter, or a simple email. Your response is highly valued and appreciated.

Thank you. 

Evelynn Splash Update

Back in April Evelynn’s default skin splash art was updated with fairly predictable results.

As the League’s quintessential “succubus” character (though, according to her limited lore she’s more a femme fatal), League has by and large completely forgotten about her in terms of story, character, and development. Her background pegs her as an expensive assassin who doesn’t look completely human, that she might be from the Shadow Isle, and that’s about it. It’s heavily implied that she tends to target men (her title is The Widowmaker afterall), and that she is not above seduction to get the job done. It’s quite clear that she was a design first and a character second, which would not be an issue had the character part come in later. It has not.

Her new splash art adds very little to the imagination and is disappointingly exactly what this blog might expect. She straddles some hapless man, her arm raised before she delivers the killing blow. All lines lead to her spine-bending pose and her nonsensical, lingerie-style attire. Her body is important here, not much else.

Riot’s continued use of tropes like the femme fatal fuel the sexist notion that women who are confident in their looks and sexuality are not to be trusted, that they are liars and manipulators. And there are many such women in the League alone, including Evlynn, Ahri, Elise, LeBlanc, Katarina, Cassiopeia, and to a lessor extend Morgana and Zyra. The roster seems to disproportionately represent beautiful, scheming women who use their looks to deceive men for their own gain, a fact that is no doubt quite unhealthy for female representation in this community.

More of the same, unfortunately.

The Unholy Trinity Skin Series

Kayle, one of this blog’s old favorites, has returned along with Nocturne and Singed to form a rather dark skin series that seems to draw inspiration from one of the worst catastrophes in human history, the Black Death. Titled The Unholy Trinity Set, the three skins are centered around the gloomy theme of betrayal, death, and judgment.

The skins are appropriately more 14th century than previous entries to the League’s alternative artwork, with Riot’s typical vibrant colors and replaced with desaturated earth tones to give it that parchment feel. Overall, the theme works rather well together, with Singed borrowing from the unnerving masks worn by some during the Black Death and Nocturne looking like a medieval version of himself a la Todd McMarflane.

Kayle’s design is interesting to this blog for two main reasons.

First, she is quite obviously well designed, lovingly rendered, and even as she assumed a form that executes apparently brutal punishment, is not a far departure from her regular character. She fits the theme of judgment perfectly, and fills the role with the appropriate aesthetic, complete with plenty of the visual language used in her base design (her wings and blade give her a very Biblical feel, which matches nicely with the whole judgment thing, couples nicely with her downright regal and authoritative posture). In a very big way, this is a strong skin for a strong woman in the League; the shoe fits.

Second, even with all of the above being in her favor, she comes loaded with additional (and this blog would argue, burdensome) visual language, namely the need for the artist to spell out in no uncertain terms that she is, in fact female by way of using her body. The outfit given to a judge of souls? A tight, body conforming suit with her face exposed and her breasts pushed outward. This is the visual language that pop culture has assigned to women, and this is how even a great design can be hindered by a poisonous cultural norm.

Kayle’s base skin is the perfect answer to all of this, of course. Indeed, her original design was great exactly because, this one time, all the usual visual language used to described a woman in modern media was ignored in favor of portraying her character. For this one instance, displaying Kayle’s body was deemed unimportant, and priorities shifted to portraying her contemplative stoicism, her idealistic sense of honor, and her silent inner turmoil.

This isn’t to say that a woman’s body can’t be part of her character -- of her very identity -- or that it is always a distraction from that character. It’s just that in our current culture showing a female character’s body is always expected regardless of who she is or what she stands for. Proof of this lies in the fact that when an exception comes along it’s a rare, and for some a very confusing, event (“Is this a man or a woman -- I must know because reasons!”) To be visually feminine can be important, but sometimes, like in the case of Kayle, it’s a moot point.

Bikini Armor Battle Damage

Last night this blog couldn’t help but notice a sharp uptick of activity in likes, reblogs, and additional followers. It turns out the good people at @bikiniarmorbattledamage had discovered LoS and gave this blog a hearty recommendation. Thank you, BABD!

For those who somehow do not know, BABD is a generalist media critic blog concerned with the representation of women in games, comics, film, television, and other mediums. They were also one of the inspirations that lead to the creation of this blog, so gaining their recognition is quite nice. Please check them out if you haven’t already.

To our new readers: welcome! And apologies; this blog is not as funny as BABD.

Taliyah

It’s been a rough year thus far where female representation in the League is concerned.

It started out promisingly enough with the release of Illaoi, Riot’s most divergent human female design since ever, but quickly sloped downhill as each subsequent release either followed the playbook (boob armor, needlessly revealing flesh, poor posing, etc) or found ways to somehow sexualize women in the League even further than before (like the baffling case of Lunar Caitlyn and Morgana). All evidence that Riot was trying to break the mold had essentially disappeared, the status quo seemingly in track to push well into the summer.

With the release of Taliyah, however, things have taken a turn for the better.

Taliyah is a young woman from Shurima on a quest to learn how to harness her innate power to command stone, terrified of what she might do without learning proper control of her unique powers. She’s far from a gloomy character, though, and seems elated to learn and grow. One part Toph Beifong, one part Disney’s Elsa, and one part Wukong, Taliyah very convincingly captures youthful energy coupled with a deep sense of responsibility. She’s quite a wonderful character, and her artwork works in tandem with that character, not against it like so many women Riot has designed before her.

Her costuming is a little on the unpractical side, with the long wavy bits flowing behind her arms and whatnot. But where other designs would breach that same practicality for the sake of showing cleavage, Taliyah’s flowing cloth serves the animators instead, giving them the perfect tool to create long, flowing arcs as she spins and whirls with youthful energy. It’s this kind of unified thinking that leads to solid design, even if it’s not the safest thing to wear in a fight (check out those boots, though!).

She also shatters Riot’s long tradition of utilizing the ubiquitous character design trope of sameface. She’s not much more expressive than most in her base splash art but she more than makes up for it in the animated teaser.

Given this blog’s long record, It’s easy to see why LoS likes Taliyah so much. Everything about her design, from the visual to the auditory, is designed to serve her character and not compromise it for the sake of titillation. It’s a welcome change after months of relative disappointment, and a fine indicator that Riot is seriously exploring a wider array of design choices for their growing cast. Unfortunately, this large step forward for the game has been met with mixed reactions, and even some marked hostility as Riot dares to deviate from the status quo.

Other sites have covered it better, but the response to Taliyah’s look (and specifically her face) hasn’t all been good. Players used to being catered to detected that their interests may not have been paramount in this champion’s visual design and flooded comments sections everywhere to voice their distaste. Taliyah’s designer, Daniel “ZenonTheStoic” Klein, eventually took to Twitter to make the case for why she is the way she is, despite not having any final say in how she ended up looking (he designed her kit, not her visuals). This blog has received a few misguided messages from players as well, upset that things are changing.

It would seem that even though LoS hasn’t been all that impressed with Riot’s progression thus far the shift in design choices has been obvious enough that those who are used to being pandered to are beginning to take notice, and beginning to feel threatened. It’s unfortunate that this subject leads to such vitriol, especially since traditionally “sexy” female designs aren’t going anywhere and will still find a comfortable place in media for generations to come (Miss Fortune, for example, is pretty great even with her distinct lack of agency in most of her skins). But it does makes one wonder how someone could look at Taliyah’s face and find only ugliness, and how popular culture has warped our perception of beauty so much that it could make someone angry enough to email ZenonTheStoic and force their way into his personal life over avideo game design dispute when things aren’t going exactly their way. There’s a lot at stake to be sure, but not enough to ruin someone’s life over it.

Happily, through all the negativity, Taliyah seems to be warming the hearts of many, even as she takes to the slopes in her (excellent) alternate skin. Yes, she’s also very punny. Phreak would be proud.

Infernal Diana

The League’s Scorn of the Moon is one of the League’s more tragic figures, both in her origin story and her needless sexualization. She’s a compelling and sympathetic character, full of determination and heroic stoicism. And yet, despite an incredible base skin that remains one of LoS’s most revered pieces, has suffered through designs that prioritize showing off her body more than her character. After Lunar Goddess Diana, this blog hoped that she would return to form and retake her place as one of the League’s first stand-out female designs. It looks like this will only be partly true, unfortunately.

Infernal Diana does a lot right. The rendering for her splash art this time around is exceptionally gorgeous, with warm colors splashes atop of a gray matte to make it glow all the hotter. At first blush her armor doesn’t seem all that unreasonable either, especially since the focus is squarely on her face rather than anywhere else on her body. Her pose is explosive and full of strength and confidence as she dashes forward, which both adds to the dynamism of her pose and hints at her in-game mechanics. She’s pretty expressionless, though, which feels like a missed opportunity since she could be looking a lot more, uh, fiery? Riot really dislikes putting expression on their female characters, though -- always have -- so it’s not all that surprising.

Diana’s new animations and visual effects also come out strong. Her performance emphasizes quickness and power and are completely free of compromising poses (her animations have always been among the best in the game in this category), and her fiery visual effects radiate with power. If one were to stop scrutinizing here all would appear to be going very well for Di and for female representation in the game, especially considering the quality of skins we’ve been getting lately, but all is not well with this entry.

The primary issue here is her costuming, which is pretty standard fare as far as Riot’s continued objectification of its female cast is concerned.

Largely unseen in the splash art is Diana’s exposed shoulders, clavicle, ribs, and... inner thighs? Her chest covering, which doesn’t seem to do much in terms of protecting anything, looks more like adventurous bedroom attire with its emphasis on her chest than something an elemental warrior might wear. This speaks to the continued emphasis designers have on a woman’s body that pervades Riot -- and the game industry, indeed media itself -- to the detriment of their content or character. The female body is the most highly valued part of any artwork, with great design, high quality rendering, solid animation, and impressive effects relegated to the back seat.

It’s not as if the entire skin is ruined by the unimaginative costuming, it’s still gorgeous and well-made, but it certainly suffers when there’s really no need for it.

Rework - Taric, the Shield of Valoran

It’s been a long while, but Taric’s complete rework is finally upon us.

Taric is one of the League’s oldest champions and sported some of Riot’s most embarrassing artistic signatures for that time of development (like the gigantic feet that dominated the visual style of the game at the time). He was also an issue mechanically, with most players finding his gameplay underwhelming and pros largely ignoring his existence. On top of that, he carried with him an issue that Riot had become very self-conscious about: tired and dated stereotypes.

Riot was keenly aware of how Taric hasn’t held up all that well and, after a time, wanted to make it right. With a thriving eSports beast to feed new and exciting champions into and a commitment to making their entire cast a worthy choice for everyone in general, it was finally decided to not just update Taric’s mechanics but to give him a complete visual overhaul as well.

In a game filled with hyper masculine, violent, emotionally repressed men, Taric was and continues to be radically different from the norm in the League. In terms of his lore, he is a peace-loving defender of the weak who happens to excel at hand-to-hand combat, using his skills to attempt to stop fights rather than start them. And it is perhaps this pacifism first, violence second attitude that earned him the characteristics of a stereotypical gay man.

Whether because of his pacifism or because he was designed to be a support (a primarily female role at the time) or because Riot thought it was funny, Taric’s main point of fame was how fabulous he was. While not canonically gay, his mannerisms and silky smooth voice convinced the League community that he was intended to be a joke first and a character second.

Then, about a year ago, Riot’s senior concept artist Michael “IronStylus” Maurino announced that Taric was getting an update, and in the following months began asking the community what should be done with him.

The result?  A slight improvement with a hefty amount of caveats.

Taric’s new look continues his characteristic departure from Riot’s usual depiction of masculinity, attempting to move away from the hurtful stereotypes he embodied and opting instead for something akin to a cover of a romance novel. Phreak, Riot’s titular pun enthusiast and often the voice of the game’s Champion Spotlights, actually refers to Taric as the League’s “Fabio” during his official reveal. This is a reference to Fabio Lanzoni, a multi-talented man who is most well-known for his appearance on the cover of romance novels aimed at women during the 80′s and 90′s. His combination of traditionally masculine qualities with non-masculine features like long hair and feelings made him quite threatening to men for over a decade, and his name is still commonly used as a pejorative for men who are just a bit too feminine.

Couple all of the above with Taric’s new, highly flamboyant animations and you’ve got an interesting case of a character who used to be considered something of a throwaway gag at the expense of gay men retooled into the essence of a man who many men quite openly despised over a decade ago. It’s an odd combination.

Is Taric better than before? Absolutely. Doing worse would have been quite an accomplishment. But Taric’s design is not without it’s issues, issues bestowed upon him by a design team that still can’t quite get passed the old joke he used to be.

Correction, April 12th

This blog needs to make a correction regarding its latest post, “Program Lissandra, Soraka”.

In the article, LoS mistakenly lumped the Program skin series together with the Mecha series. The Mecha series has thus far established that it is the go-to rigid, hard-edged robotic skin series of the game and this partly explains why Mecha Zero Sion looks the way he does as opposed to Lissandra and Soraka.

Also, as many have pointed out, Program Lissandra and Soraka share a visual aesthetic with iBlitzcrank. And while iBlitzcrank does not technically belong into the Program series he is an example that runs counter to this blog’s reasoning that so far only female characters have received the soft, smooth metal plating treatment.

Now, some adjustments.

This blog would like to point out that the sharp-edged and intimidating Mecha skin series so far has zero female characters in it. This could change in the future (Mecha Kayle please!), but this blog suspects that even if it does that any female candidates chosen for it will be “smoothed” out. Time will tell.

LoS also expects that if a male champion is chosen for the Program series that their design will priorities will be drastically different from that of a female character. Even with iBlitzcrank, who isn’t really a person to begin with, has better posing and more sensible design choices than Program Lissandra and Soraka. Again, though, this blog hopes that it is proven drastically wrong when the time comes.

Thank you, dear readers, for your input and continued support. LoS apologizes and will endeavor to improve.

Program Lissandra, Soraka

This is an interesting case study, as making such a drastic change to a character’s design while retaining their essence really shows what Riot considers to important to their character. So, what parts of Lissandra and Soraka were deemed to be the most important to carry over?

Carefully formed metallic breasts, a thin waist (with less protection than the rest of the body, as if often the case with the League’s more fleshy women), wide hips, and a feminine face all appear to be of the highest priority. It would appear that even when there is no functional purpose putting female anatomy on display is of the utmost importance. Both are also covered in a smooth, iPod-like covering to make them appear soft and sleek, which would make sense for someone like Soraka. But for Lissandra? Where are the sharp edges? The jagged metal? She’s a villain and she really doesn’t look the part.

(edit: iBlitzcrank, though not part of the Program series, shares the iPod style design and could be considered a counter-argument.)

Soraka’s pose doesn’t even make much sense, really.

Compare this to the male champion that Lissandra and Soraka share this series with, Mecha Zero Sion.

(correction: The Program and Mecha series are different series entirely.)

This is a re-imagining through and through, with plenty of tiny details hidden away beneath Sion’s metal plating. The difference in priorities is immediately apparent: Sion is a violent, brutal, and imposing figure, and his design here conveys all of that while also exploring vastly different shapes from his organic base skin. Lissandra, too, is violent, brutal, and imposing, but using the same sort of visual language used to realize Sion’s robot form would distract from her feminine figure, and clearly that would not do.

Riot’s poor decisions regarding their female designs only become more obvious when male characters occupy the same series, showing how a proper redesign ought to look if one weren’t concerned with objectification first and foremost. 

LoS Mentioned In Nature Article

Late last year, LoS was approached for an interview by a fellow named Brendan Maher writing for Nature’s website about toxicity in League of Legends. This blog declined the interview but did answer questions via email, and some of those words are shared in the article (which you can find here).

Much of it covers information many of you have likely heard already if you’ve followed the discussion on toxicity with Riot Lyte and other Riot employees with more than a passing interest. But there are some interesting tidbits in there from academia that you may not have known. Interesting stuff, give it a read if you have time.

The League of (Mostly) Unfunny Women

April Fool’s will quickly be upon us, and with it a slew of great new skins to celebrate the playful pseudo-holiday. This blog is particularly fond of Draven Draven this time around.

Riot has a long history of coming up with comical skins for its champions that elicit a smile with nearly sighting while playing on the Rift. Who can keep a straight face after seeing Definitely Not Blitzcrank the first dozen times, or not stifle a guilty laugh at Re-Gifted Amumu? And things like Dunkmaster Darious were just plain inevitable. Riot, as company, has a pretty great sense of humor about the world it has built and goes out of it’s way to present these skins with a knowing wink, proving that they’re in on any joke the community comes up with that they didn’t themselves.

But in the wake of all that good, sometimes very dark humor (remember when Warwick skinned Urf and wore him as a grisly costume?), this blog cannot help but notice how relatively humorless Riot has kept its female cast for all these years. So far, nearly every light-hearted or outright joke female skin has been used more as an opportunity to sexualize or outright fetishize women in the League. Many of their “jokes” for female skins look more like deviant fan art than the official work of a multi-million dollar company. Like poor Katarina here:

And, of course, who can forget...

Moreover, women in the League are almost never permitted to be outright parodies the same way that men are such as with the Brolof skin. And when they are given that opportunity it comes with a heaping scoop of sexualization, like when Janna become a weather girl, a job that is routinely fetishized in our culture for some reason.

Most of the best female joke skins are played straight, like Poro Rider Sejuani, with grimly seriously characters wearing absurd attire and not really seeming to notice or care. Or having a great time!

But even in the rare event that a woman in the League receives a skin that is full-on, 100% intended to draw a giggle, Riot finds a way to guide your eyes to what’s really important (breasts).

Riot can stand to do a lot more when it comes to letting it’s female cast be funny while not putting their bodies on display. What’s encouraging is that they’ve done basically just that at least once, with one of the funniest long-running gags in the game to date: Sinfully Succulent Morgana.

Even with the (unintentionally) humorous way that Riot depicts women’s chests, everything about this image is thoroughly hilarious. And it just gets better with the accompanying entry from the now-defunct Journal of Justice. Especially the quote from Morgana herself:

"While I may be focused on freeing my people from the tyranny wrought by the likes of my [expletive] sister, Kayle... there's always room for pie,"

Amazing.

A sense of humor is not in short supply at Riot Games, that much is obvious. What’s at issue is where and how that humor is used because it is often to the detriment of their female cast rather to enrich them. It would be nice to have more things like baker Morgana in the future, and sooner rather than later.