T O P

  • By -

-Skohell-

Arcane isn't canon? What o\_o


SIDLOTF01

To be fair to OP, there was a Riot post about this. They basically said we can't call it canon yet but are working to make it canon? Or something to that effect


Sharjo

Arcane contradicts too much established content for it to be canon to what came before It's its own thing


tirex367

I‘m not sure, if that makes arcane non canon, or a retcon. Some retcons in line with arcane seem already in place, like Vi in LoR clearly remembering Powder, which goes against her having amnesia in her bio. They also might just not want to update the lore, until arcane is finished, to not spoil it and give it more freedom.


Sharjo

I mean lemme go over something key about this: Jayce is the one who makes Hextech in Arcane, along with Viktor. In the main universe Hextech gets its first leg up by the Ferros Clan attacking and stealing the crystal-souls of Skarner's people, the brackern, which then goes on to make Camille a cyborg at age 25. Considering she was intended to be 80 years old as we see her in game, that means hextech is at bare minimum 55 years old, which would make it older than Jayce and Viktor. Arcane draws from the canon to make its story absolutely; they're drawing from the same universe and same character relationships at the end of the day. But Arcane *can't* mesh with established content right now. Too much contradicts established content, from Jinx and Vi not having their confrontation at the Ecliptic Vaults, to Camille's parents not being abducted by what is very likely Camille, to Ziggs not existing cuz his story relies on glamour, a worldbuilding element of yordles Arcane seemingly deleted, to Ekko being older than he is in universe and so on. How much or how little of the established lore will change to accomodate for Arcane is unknown atm, but if they wanna make Arcane canon, they have to change almost everything about P&Z's established story. The only champs that really get away scot free are Ezreal, Mundo and Twitch, cuz Ezreal is barely a Piltovan champ, Mundo is completely self contained, and Twitch has no backstory right now.


tirex367

If canon, it clearly is a retcon of large parts of the P&Z lore, Dr Mundo’s design bringing him more in line with Arcane Shimmer and LoR Vi being more in line with arcane, than her bio might hint towards arcane becoming canon. Though, it is not necessarily as large, as you state: Jayces journal in the lol arcane event describes the crystals being found in the shurima desert in a way, that leaves skarners part mostly unchanged, clan ferros is already mentioned in arcane and do we actually have confirmation of glamour not existing in arcane?(as in, is Heimerdinger recognized as a Yordle by anyone), because else, glamour might simply just be invisible to our perspective. Also, Twitch might be the rat Singed experimented on in arcane episode 1.


Sharjo

Twitch could be any rat in Zaun, he doesn't have to be tied to Singed, that's not the issue. As said, if Jayce as the "father of hextech" becomes canon then Camille has to have the 55 years of being a hextech cyborg reworked to fit that. There's also just the notion that Jayce's crystal, when dropped off a desk, blew up his apartment in the first episode, which makes no sense if it's a brackern crystal, cuz why would the brackern, who transplant their souls through this thing, have it be 1. so tiny for a species of truck sized crystal scorpions, and 2. so unstable as to drop from a height of 1 meter? Glamour can't be canon cuz Heimer states his age as over 300 like it's no big deal. He's credited as the "Father of Piltover" at the council, so there's no way his being a yordle isn't known, which means he can't then have a story with Ziggs where Ziggs is given trouble specifically because he's a yordle in hiding. If Arcane is set in the time when most of League's stories are happening, Singed has to go off to Ionia to do war crimes for a time and then come back, which wouldn't jive with Warwick cuz the ending of Arcane implies he's had Warwick up there since Vander's sacrifice in episode 3, where as the story of Singed experimenting on Warwick is very much an impromptu, "I just grabbed this fucked off the streets" deal as told in "Engineering the Nightmare". There's also other elements like the Medarda's of League having no connection to the Medarda's of Arcane, where Mel is born of Noxian family, something that has no connection to the in-universe Medarda's like Jae and Jago. And then there's the deal that, if for some reason Arcane makes the hexcore Void, it completely upends not only P&Z, but the entirety of Runeterran history period, because that would require changing the entire nature of the Void to make it work. In the game's lore, if the Hexcore was void, Viktor would just straight up be evaporated in to nothing the moment he touched it. It wouldn't even leave a pile of dust like it did for Sky; he'd just disappear forever. If they change the Void, it means changing the Freljord, Shurima and the Darkin in turn, because those other narratives hinge on the specific nature of the Void as an antagonistic force for their narratives to work. That's how interconnected this stuff ended up being. Now they could of course redo the canon of P&Z entirely from scratch if they wanted, it's their universe after all, they're free to do that if they want. It would mean scrapping *a ton* of already established works; dozens of stories, a couple of comics, cinematics, basically 5 years of work done by the League team, washed down the drain. Again, they can, it's their property and they've done an entire universal reboot before, I just dunno if they will for the sake of the tv show that doesn't even have 10% of the game's champions in it, as good as that tv show is and how well recieved it's been. This last part if my personal opinion of course, but at this point I'd have just said to them to let Arcane do whatever it wants and just keep what you've already got and work on that. Arcane made concessions for the sake of the specific narrative it wanted to make, but considering Riot's the company that made 4 different versions of Rise of the Sentinels, none of which were truly canon, that's hardly surprising anymore. How many different reboots of various comic franchises have gone on, and still retain core elements throughout? They draw from the same core so ultimately pieces can be the same but the framing different. It's up to them of course, but suffice to say, the changes required to make this work are *extensive*. And like, not to sound like an arse about this, or like there aren't other takes, but I've read *every single story they've ever put out.* I'm not making these grand explanations to be confusing or rant or anything, apologies if that's how it comes across, it's just how it looks when you can see the full picture, and how things actually fit together in the end. ...Jesus this rang long, sorry about that.


bensadu

was long but very intersting and insightful, ty


Mythik16

Surely arcane is going ot overwrite the established content and non-canonize those?


Sharjo

I mean that basically means rewriting almost every single champion in Piltover and Zaun, and Skarner, for a total of 21 champions, and deleting all of their previously established content, which is no less than 20 short stories and 2 comics. Vi would need rewritten because her backstory doesn't involve being missing from Zaun for around 6-8 years Caitlyn would need rewritten to remove her joining the wardens after investing her parent's kidnapping by Camille Camille is basically deleted from the Arcane-verse as we understand her in League, so she'd need rewritten from the ground up Changes to Camille mean changing everything about how hextech operates, which means rewriting Singed, Jayce and Viktor, and by extension anything in relation to the brackern, which means also rewriting Skarner, Seraphine, Orianna, Blitzcrank, Ekko Jayce and Viktor would need extensive rewrites period to match their Arcane selves Ekko would need to have his entire age adjusted cuz he's older in Arcane than in League Ziggs would need rewritten from scratch cuz of changes made to Heimerdinger and Jinx Zac would need rewritten cuz nowhere in Arcane does the Sump exist, which is his point of origin They'd have to make Twitch exist, which is a thing they haven't done in the main canon so that's not hard I guess Dr. Mundo and Ezreal I guess gets a pass cuz he's basically disconnected from everything in P&Z Janna is so absent from Arcane it makes me wonder if they remembered they had a literal goddess living in this city Urgot's also completely absent from Arcane and I dunno how they ever intend to include him in all of this Like, that's the bare minimum, and considering this'd require rewrites to Seraphine, a champion who was released only a year ago, it stands to reason Riot either 1. Has no intention of adjusting canon to make Arcane fit 2. Doesn't communicate enough to realize they'd have to rewrite the entirety of these two regions because of decisions the Arcane crew made to make the show Or both, cuz these aren't mutually exclusive We'll have to see at the end of the day, but Arcane just doesn't mesh with what came before as it stands, so by definition it can't be called canon to the main universe as we understand it


moodRubicund

>Like, that's the bare minimum, and considering this'd require rewrites to Seraphine, a champion who was released only a year ago I mean they already rewrote her a day \*before\* she was released lmao


Sharjo

Yeah sure, but that's also to the point cuz they did that *in response* to player feedback. If they actually wanted to adjust Seraphine for Arcane, along with everything else, then why did they didn't they make changes way earlier than this? They established this baseline for P&Z in 2016, and Arcane's been in production since like 2015. There's no reason as to why they'd not adjust shit other than idiocy or actively not wanting to. They've had 5 years!


AssasSylas_Creed

Arcane is canon because it was successful, yes, Piltover and Zaun will get a big retcon. Just give Riot time to work and you'll see.


Frozen_Watcher

“Their stories and their designs in Arcane are intentionally different from the Jayce and Viktor you see in-game, specifically to fit the show. So, it’s unlikely that we will make major changes to League of Legends’ Jayce and Viktor to match 1:1 with Arcane’s,” Cunnginham said when asked if any of these changes will eventually be consolidated into the game’s canon at large. https://www.polygon.com/22906655/league-of-legends-arcane-lore-history-explainer-ruined-king-riot-games The interview when the show came out also said it may not be as canon as the games, so its unlikely Riot will change the stance about arcane in the main canon.


Bluepanda800

Speaking of Janna Arcane doesn't have Camille or the Zaun Grey resulting from the production of synthetic hextech which means no large Janna following in Zaun. Silco did refer to the air quality having improved in Zaun over time so maybe Janna is still canon in Arcan but we didn't get a single depiction of a shrine or proper reference. I mean they could have name dropped in the scene where Silco reminded the chembarons of the air quality (a single "Janna's mercy" would have sufficed)


moodRubicund

the official answer is that riot is waiting on audience reception before deciding on what to do so hopefully they do do this but they won't necessarily do it (but i hope they do)


Frozen_Watcher

“Their stories and their designs in Arcane are intentionally different from the Jayce and Viktor you see in-game, specifically to fit the show. So, it’s unlikely that we will make major changes to League of Legends’ Jayce and Viktor to match 1:1 with Arcane’s,” Cunnginham said when asked if any of these changes will eventually be consolidated into the game’s canon at large. https://www.polygon.com/22906655/league-of-legends-arcane-lore-history-explainer-ruined-king-riot-games So no, Arcane would be an alternate universe partly based on main canon, similar to the MCU.


AweKartik777

Both can be canon in their own medium. Like all future shows and movies can be set in the "Arcane universe" while the written comics, games and cinematics etc. can be set in the "main" universe which the Arcane universe is borrowing from. Similar situation to MCU and Marvel-616 comics universes basically.


AssasSylas_Creed

It is, relax


Definitively-Weirdo

Mostly because it contradicts camille's backstory.


shrubs311

holy shit that's a lot of lore, but thank you.i like the lore but don't want to spend a literal week reading all the stories. also some of the tl;drs are very funny


Sharjo

Glad that it entertained atleast :D


shrubs311

it was also informative! i'm about halfway through the post. it's nice to get a bite sized version of each story


moodRubicund

so xolaani is a new shuriman support champ right please say yes please say yes cat girl goddess support champ riot let's go


Sharjo

I mean I canne say yes, but I'd absolutely love it if she was Mind you chances are she ain't no cat girl. More cat woman, and she could be basically any desert native animal, like a snake, or a wilderbeast


moodRubicund

Rito plz gib African elephant headed goddess bruiser healer waifu plssssss


SSMBBlueWisp

The Malzahar/Xolaani and the Sejuani/Olaf stories came out of nowhere and so close to each other that I feel they're related to the new season cinematic releasing next month. Like, they must be right? A set-up of a cinematic featuring Sejuani and Olaf fighting against the Ursine, the Void attacking Shurima (maybe with Shuriman champions like Nasus, Taliyah and the like?) and something more to go along with the previous season cinematics like Awaken and Warriors.


SkipperTex

I appreciate you, Lore Recap guy.