Arcane — One of the Most Intricate Cases of Retcon

There’s a reason it’s called “League of Legends”

This show on Netflix recently came out, Arcane, and this one is special since it’s based in the world of League of Legends. And holy shit did it exceed my expectations! They said, “it will have mature content,” and I thought it was a tongue-in-cheek statement, but damn I was proven wrong! I mean, it’s not edgy, but it is darker than the somewhat family-friendly depiction of the game itself, where the characters just run around a giant map. Anyway, Arcane is surprisingly great in how I didn’t think that Riot Games had it in them, but they nailed it with this one, and I’m really enjoying it!

Arcane tells the story of several of LoL’s characters, who have varying degrees of popularity in the fandom. Anyway, it’s the story of Vi and her sister Powder (whom fans will recognise as Jinx) and how they eventually became enemies, as in the game. There’s also the story of Jayce and Viktor and their attempt to bring society to recognise the potential of technology infused with magic — even though society is a bit sceptical. It is a prequel to the current events in the game, as known all these years. But see, Arcane is set in a world called “Runeterra”, which is the world in which League of Legends happen, but there are two versions of Runeterra, and the original one is vastly different from what is known today.

I don’t know how much the current generation of fans knows this. But Runeterra, as it was originally, was nothing more than a means to explain how the game works. In other words, Runeterra, as it is today, is a completely retconned version of what it was when League of Legends came out because, in the original world, nations used a system called the “League of Legends” to decide the outcome of battles. Of course, that’s just a simplification of the story back then, but that’s the game’s namesake. But the “League of Legends”, the council in the game’s lore that gave it its name, have been wholly retconned out of Runeterra. Why? Good question…

Indecisiveness…

This isn’t a language problem so much as it is a communication problem since it talks more about Riot Games’ relationship with their fans. As a fan, I don’t have a lot of criticism regarding their recent methodology. I’m mostly satisfied as it does show that they’re trying to better the game, whether they succeed at it or not. You can blame them all you want for buffing “that OP champion”, but they do care about their intellectual property, and it kinda shows with Arcane. But about that, I was saying that Runeterra was totally something else in the beginning.

League of Legends came out in 2009, before the MOBA craze of the early 2010s. It is the main reason LoL is such a popular MOBA because it came out when “MOBA” was a relatively new concept (although DotA has been around for a while, it wasn’t until LoL that the genre became mainstream). But like I said, the original world was only ever meant to explain why the characters do what they do in the game. So I already said that there’s a council/system, the “League of Legends”, which decided that everything should be decided by fighting. Still, every character’s lore was based on why they participated in the system. There was even a journal that documented events surrounding the league, which even included interviews with the characters themselves as to what they expected from all the battles. All of those things don’t exist anymore. Since then, Runeterra has been repurposed into a more pragmatic representation of what it used to be, with the world not being based around a game mechanic. So yes, Riot Games completely flipped their IP upside down to find an answer to its success, but it was growing fast.

But if anything, it just goes to show that they were never really sure what they wanted to do with LoL instead of “make a MOBA”. I’m not saying that it’s inherently wrong to retcon the core details of the lore, because frankly, that was kinda wacky, and it got in the way. This retcon is on a different scale, and it’s not just “Princess Leia is my sister” retcon, but scrapping an entire world and replacing it with a more appealing copy. And in that regard, it makes them seem indecisive about the direction they wanted to go, almost as if they made the game with a “whatever happens” attitude. Is that good to completely overhaul a franchise even when it has already launched? Even Marvel and DC don’t retcon their material on this level.

Worldbuilding is a serious issue

I know a thing or two about worldbuilding since I released a novel a few years back. I knew well what I wanted from the world in the book and what I expected from the book itself. So coming from me, worldbuilders should always establish a world when they are sure about most of the details, if not all. It’s ok to retcon here and there, but retconning an entire world is writing a new story (it’s funny how they kept the name, though). Anyway, never set sail until you have a proper world in place.

But that’s just my way of doing things. Frankly, since this is a creative issue, I don’t think any other solution fits.

This leads to the next section…

What is your say on world-level retcon?

Yes, I know the previous section was a little too short, but it sometimes happens. Anyway, tell me what you think about this kind of retcon and how it translates to an existing fanbase. Alternatively, you can also talk about how awesome Arcane is. Both would be cool.

In Conclusion…

Arcane is such a great show that it appeals to fans of the game and people who don’t know jack about it, and with Netflix, this couldn’t be any more true. It is an authentic representation of Riot Games’ capabilities to propel its franchise to greater heights, and they do so successfully despite the criticism. Simply put: Watch Arcane.

I have mixed feelings about changing the world entirely since it’s virtually a different story. But I suppose it’s for the better. Not that it matters since that decision is not for me to make, a notion I repeat too often.

Right now, I’m just wondering when the next miniseries will come… because I want more of this.