That poster is so often referenced. Amazing piece.
As someone who was really only interested in the story and art of Mageseeker, I was pleasantly surprised. It's not perfect (where the hell is Xin Zhao during all this, Riot) but it addresses a lot of the Too Bleak, Stopped Caring of the Demacia arc as a whole and gives out some good Character Development.
My ship is also 100% confirmed canon now so I'm sure not complaining, yay
Oissu!My biggest foundational worry about the whole concept of the Mageseeker game is that modern Media tends to have a lot of problems with revolutions and both-sidsing and issue.
I'm kinda afraid that they'll point out Demacia's flaws, but then go "But Sylas is just as bad" or some nonsense.
Honestly, it's astounding the number of times I've watched a movie or played a game and went "Hey, this rebel is speaking some truth... they're gonna start executing people for no reason in about 60 mins, aren't they?". And I am usually wrong... they'll start the executions in 30 mins.
Funny, I had the opposite problem (so far) — that in adding Sylas as a character meant to showcase the dark side of the until then spotless Demacia, they went way overboard and made Demacia an almost straw-level dystopia under the gilt and glitter to the point where it was hard to givr a shit about the conflict in the first place. Not helped by mixing the straightforward X-Men-esque Fantastic Racism slash Dont Fear The Superman plot of the mage uprising with an explicit class warfare proletariat-versus-nobility angle. Hopefully Mageseeker helps fix that.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.![]()
Having seen the story, Sylas is not the villain and the game is not about villainizing him. The game presents the Mageseekers (and the Black Rose, which has infiltrated them) as the real enemy. Jarvan IV is being manipulated by them and when the story focuses on him, it presents him as suffering from The Chains of Commanding. And (ending spoilers) in the end he realizes he has done a horrible thing in cracking down on the populace and enacts the decree his father was going to, ordering the Mageseekers to disband entirely and becoming The Atoner. Sylas does not forgive him, saying that he doesn't trust in any king and he isn't going to stop until Jarvan is dethroned.
It's neutral on whether Sylas' stance is wrong or right, but he is chosen by a god.
I'm 99% sure that exact reason is why The Black Rose is really behind everything, because the writers realized "oops, our 'good' kingdom is looking pretty damn irredeemable right now." That and it also tied back nicely to old lore where Le Blanc was manipulating Jarvan and often impersonating him.
Edited by PhiSat on Apr 20th 2023 at 10:32:33 AM
Oissu!"I'm kinda afraid that they'll point out Demacia's flaws, but then go "But Sylas is just as bad" or some nonsense."
They had some of that in the Lux comics, but by the sound of
they've done a good job of correcting up from that.
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Yeah, for me personally the whole mageseeker thing turned Demacia into a complete dystopia. (Attempts at turning Noxus up to moral grayness didn't work either.) They didn't get to Grey-and-Gray Morality, they both planted down into Black.
Edited by Adannor on Apr 20th 2023 at 9:56:24 PM
Funny thing about Noxus is that it never really got any worse. It was always a brutal, expansionist empire that takes what they want and kicks down those who can't repel it - and in which you can soar on your merits alone, if you're tough and ruthless enough for it.
It's Demacia that suddenly turned into a fascist dystopia; or Piltover turning into a classist dystopia with Zaun as their ruthless underclass; or how Freljord still has that civil war going on between omnicidal maniacs, merciless raiders, and Ashe (who is implied to have some skeletons in her closet too); or how Bandle City turned into some Eldritch Location full of malicious faeries etc etc.
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Depends on how it's executed; I mean, if any real life political leader went "Ah, yes, just disband the group that did bad things up to an including gross dehumanizing torture and imprisonment under my leadership and command. But I am a good leader and should remain in charge" well... yeah, I don't think Sylas is wrong to really go "You're a fucking terrible leader and don't deserve to be on the throne. You burned your chance at being 'the good king' here. That reputation is irredeemable at this point".
Granted, execution is everything here, but I'd still be on Sylas' side at that point.
Edited by InkDagger on Apr 21st 2023 at 1:45:50 AM
"Funny thing about Noxus is that it never really got any worse. "
Yeah, but the whole trailer of them "liberating" people reads like an in-universe propaganda of a totalitarian regime except without any acknowledgement of that meta context. The slaves they liberate don't get to actually be free, they just get shuffled into different bonds by getting drafted and sent off to kill more people while Noxian leadership keeps the plunder from their lands just like the king did.
Basically my point is they tried to elevate Noxus morals but it reads like bullshit, and they tried to downgrade Demacia's morals a bit but overshot massively.
Yeah, it's not "Sylas is wrong to do violence in response to what Demacia does", it's at worst just some cycle of violence stuff. Huge step up from the comics.
Edited by Adannor on Apr 21st 2023 at 11:56:26 AM
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Its a bit more than a disbanding considering by that point the major leaders of the Mageseekers are dead, one of which Jarvan helped Sylas to put down. Its just Sylas is so blinded by his quest that he doesn't release he's slipping into He Who Fights Monsters territory. The entire thing is meant to recontexulize the cinematic from 2020 showing one of his attacks and Lux fighting against him. At the time it looked like this was just the same "He's fighting facist Demacia" story we'd been fed up until then. Now though it takes place after this game and shows him attacking a peaceful Demacia, free of the Mageseekers, because he's seeing red still.
Edited by Silentedge89 on Apr 21st 2023 at 4:27:05 AM
Gotta agree on Noxus. In the attempt to make the nations less csrtoony and more grey they played up its multiculturality, meritocratic nature and technological progress... but it's still a warmongering empire that routinely subjugates other nations and forcibly incorporates them into its "melting pot". "We're only using our military to liberate these other countries from their oppressive rulers and uplift them from their backwards traditions, honest" is like, imperialism 101. Lots of modern Noxus lore read like unironic propaganda.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.So since we're done with shadow isles (unfortunately with ruined king ), Piltover and zaun (Arcane), and Demacia (Mageseeker). Which do you think we'll get next ? Shurima ? Ionia? Bilgewater?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."We got a lot of Shurima, but only in Legends of Runeterra as a What If? story. It ended with the whole world falling to the Darkin once Aatrox picked his war back up against Xolaani.
I think they are setting up for a reprisal of the Noxian-Ionian wars.
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To be fair, Sylas is the best Morgana's got. I liked the part where he asked her why she didn't lead the people herself in seeking justice, or at least share Demacia's history with them. Morgana basically admitted her hands are tied because if she made a public appearance, Kayle would follow and smite Demacia to the ground.
Edited by PhiSat on Apr 21st 2023 at 2:04:57 AM
Oissu!Idk. Granted, again, don't know the execution and framing of this. But just because J4 helped put down the Mageseekers doesn't redeem him. Least not politically. J4's blindness to this occuring at all isn't something you can just "oopsie, my b" your way out of even if you do clean it up a little. The fact that it occured on your watch is a blackspot and demonstrates why J4 shouldn't be king; look at how easily he was blinded by hatred and madness. What happens when he becomes equally blinded against some other group or even a country? J4 has demonstrated where his leadership leads.
If it were me as a writer, I think it's a compelling story for J4 to hold desperately to the throne of his father and trying to be all "I can do better. Look, I fixed it!" and Sylas being "You can do better by giving up the thing you cherish the most". A situation like this can only be corrected by policy and structure changes and... well, in a feudal system, that is the leaders who are on thrones. The master's house cannot be dismantled with the master's tools.
The issue with that is Sylas doesn't care about that kind of nuance. He cares about tearing down institutions and leaving a bloody mess behind him. It's a self-admitted character flaw that he doesn't see peaceful solutions. He fully expects to die in battle one day and can't see himself being a part of anything else. Part of Mageseeker was him learning to at least put aside indiscriminate violence when it would get his own people killed, but I don't think he'll ever be an advocate for peacefully stepping down.
I see Lux potentially making that argument, but Lux is also part of the nobility and has known Jarvan since childhood, so she's probably not going to make demands about J4 stepping down.
That being said, J4 is 100% still vulnerable to manipulation. His biggest character flaw is jumping into action without thinking through the consequences, then having those consequences bite him in the ass. The main reason he rescinded the order in the end was that Shyvana called him out on breaking his promise that Demacia would be a safe place for her and left his ass (she comes back in the end, those two are really each others' biggest simps) and Garen freaked out over Lux being in the line of fire. His motivations are not exactly selfless, even if the outcome was good.
Oissu!The game was basically a way to make Demacia the token heroic city again and to further explain why Sylas is kinda sorta meant to be taken as a villain in the current story of Lo L.
To me it brought the Sylas vs Demacia struggle back to Grey-and-Gray Morality. The real evil is LeBlanc.
Though amusingly the Katarina comic brought another potential wrinkle of conflict into the Demacian struggle; how the hell is Garen going to react when he learns Katarina murdered J3? I don't expect J4 to take it well that his best friend is dating his father's murderer either.
Oissu!It is also interesting that they effectively got rid of Kat's dad as a plot point
seeing back in the olden days, They kept his status ambiguous... seems like since they Broke Swain and Le Blanc up, They don't want Three factions in Noxus. That and I get the feeling Katarina's relationship with her Mother is the thing they want to play with. so marcus just ends up reduced to a pawn in Leblanc's game
This is an outrage against Luminara!

So, Mageseeker released
Why does this look like AKIRA
I've never even watched AKIRA