Discover Top Posts Tagged with #atakhan

Noxus:Dogs & Masters,

sometimes Wives & Husbands, sometimes Faux-Comrades

I think the most I've ever elaborated on the parallels of these three pairs(Darius-Swain, Vlad-LeBlanc, Sahn-Uzal-Katash-Li) is by joking about an apparent husband-wife dichotomy, but well, here it is, an analysis, from the interpersonal to the culture to the narrative.

The husband-wife joke works as it expresses the expected submission from one of the parties, I must point out that I mean it more symbolically than anything, because it is also relevant for the narrative that these people don't share any meaningful intimacy, then it becomes a sour marriage-like dynamic present to different degrees of both subservience and honesty:

1. The Blueprint

Sahn-Uzal and Katash-Li's relationship serves as the base in the sense both of the other two ultimately drawing back to it and that it is the most base. The most honest on this expected submission, there is no illusion of equality between them, Sahn-Uzal is Katash-Li's master, and that's that. And yet there is hope for more. There is longing for real camaraderie, but that camaraderie requires them to be on equal terms which they never were, even in Katash-Li's hope that they were indeed friends. So what does this make Katash-Li, a man so desperately trying to gain the warmth of his master, but a dog.

2. The Reluctant

Then enters the man of the hour, LeBlanc, and trailing behind her in her shadow, Vladimir. The two founders of the Black Rose are stated repeatedly to have formed their alliance based of a mutual sentiment of finally finding an equal for the first time. And yet it appears LeBlanc plays the Sahn-Uzal role, unknowingly, unwittingly living up to his tyranny. The souring of LeBlanc and Vladimir's relationship overtime is due to a clash on interests and approaches (ex: Vladimir loves a public appearance, LeBlanc prefers working from the shadows) but if that were the end of it then it wouldn't manifest in the way it does, the rot of the problem is that LeBlanc doesn't respect this initial sentiment of camaraderie. She is constantly making a point of asserting herself as the one in power and thus of asserting Vladimir as her inferior:

She's extremely condescending towards him, she's not subtle in the fact she can't stand the fact he's stubborn enough to reject her authority and settle himself as her equal. She has to remind herself to NOT underestimate him because it is her first instinct to do so, he's Cute, he's Outliving His Usefulness and yet she monitors him like Big Brother 1984 at the faintest hint of Suspicious Behavior (look at his pink cheeks, think about all the useless frivolous hedonistic activities he must have engaged in last night...thess are normal thoughts to have about my second in command) because to her he's like a dog she has to keep on a leash, ergo she must affirm herself as the master.

3. The (more or less) Unaware

And finally our last pair, Swain and Darius. Now, these two seem to share a undeceptively equal relationship, there's a tenderness and familiarity towards Darius in Swain's voicelines that is not found towards any other. But I think about this one Legends of Runeterra card interaction a lot, the one where Swain calls Darius his "favourite kind of soldier" and the other one where he tells him very sternly not do disappoint him...there's definitely a power dynamic here that is not present in their more personal, dare I say, intimate lines in the main game. That, along with the fact that while Swain deeply admires and respects Darius he's quick to speak over him in order to appease a fellow aristocrat of his coarse,commoner way of speaking, so to say the least, there is a clear class distinction between them due to their respective backgrounds even if they hold equal political power. In his in-game voicelines towards Darius, Urgot taunts him and in such refers to Swain as his "master", in a similar manner to Katash-Li being referred as Sahn-Uzal's dog.

The masters here being Sahn-Uzal(Mordekaiser, onwards), LeBlanc and Swain. Sahn-Uzal being the blueprint of these honestly tarnishing and eventually self-tarnishing behaviors has no need to conceal them, LeBlanc as much as she's able to recognize the pattern that repeats in history is surprisingly lacking in self-awareness (what exactly do you think is going to happen when you keep condescendingly poking at a man with a record of betrayals towards anyone who dares force him into subservience behind him?).

Then comes Swain, who is trickier, as we know rather little of his inner thoughts; Swain is by all means, a sadist, as much as he poses himself as a pragmatic man, he enjoys getting his hands dirty("I have killed more men with words than by my own hand. Not for lack of trying"), he's a lot more playful than LeBlanc, who is rather indifferent to the deed (In spite of how terminally constipated he looks in his splash, he smiles quite a lot in canon, and never for a good reason!). Swain relishes in his enemy's failure, in their agony and dare I to go as far as to say their pain, he doesn't need to be righteous to be in the right. Then it is also relevant to point out that even in her stone-faced machinations, anyone with half a brain is able to see how needlessly cruel and psychological, personally torturous many of her methods to the point of questioning if she actually enjoys herself when she does this, even if it just a minuscule part of her buried deep.

The Dogs, being Katash-Li, Vladimir and Darius, are all very aware of the power structures that permeate their standing to various degrees: The most keenly aware here would be Vladimir who is very staunchly against any power being exerted over him so he finds himself in a constant push and pull with the one he refuses to be his master. Katash-Li, on the contrary is completely resigned to this position, is not that he likes being called a dog behind his back, is just something that is inevitable. Then there's Darius, who is aware there are settled social dynamics at play but is also set-on on "overcoming them.", just as Swain is. While LeBlanc ignores, willingly or not the patterns she repeats, Swain wants Change.

But he fails, or rather, refuses to realise that there is no possible Change for Noxus, because there is no future for Noxus. It's meant, like every other Empire to ever be, to collapse from within. A inherently destructive culture has no choice but to eat itself away and then implode.

There is a certain cultural, social determinism Swain and Darius' dynamic is more or less doomed to fall into. Sahn-Uzal constitutes the greatest cultural influence in Noxian culture, the heart of the Empire which manifest itself not only in the form of edifications like the Immortal Bastion or traditions like the Reckoners Arena but in social practices too.For the domination Noxus preaches about to exist there needs to be subjugation, and this subjugation doesn't just exists at large in their conquest of foreign land, it is expected to manifest at an individual level as well, within a Noxian's interpersonal relationships they must assert themselves as the dominant one or obey the dominance of those above him. There is no ground for an equal relationship, why? Because a man millennia ago was incapable of making a real friend.

That's who Noxus has always built their so-called virtues and values around and for that reason all human relationships within the paradigm of Noxian culture must always orbit around Use, around Control, Ownership and nothing else. There is no room for tenderness, it isn't Useful, it isn't Resourceful, if anything, it is a weakness that must be purged from existence along with anything akin to it in order to only leave behind pure, unadulterated pragmatism, pure, unadulterated subjugation.

#avellana rants #league of legends #leblanc lol #jericho swain #leblanc #darius #atakhan #vladimir lol #mordekaiser #WOULD SOMEBODY THINK OF THE META??#lol meta #also im sorry to disappoint anyone who was expecting something sexed-up and kinky #you can imagine them in dog collars if you please im not against it #welcome to noxus #is this a ship post?#up to you

Unpopular opinion:Atakhan has a great design, but this should have been the Nocturne rework. I mean, just look at it and don't tell me it's not literally Nocturne on steroids. The poor nightmare demon barely had his appearance modified for his arrival in Wild Rift, but it's still clear that he needs more love for his character design. Atakhan Concept art by Alessandro Pizzi - Artstation