In the League of Legends last week a new champion arrived: Gwen. LoL fans had dreamed of a killer doll, but got a rather attractive human champion instead. And somehow, they are not satisfied with that. The new champion is just too pretty and not monstrous enough.
This is the new champion: The new champion Gwen is a doll, who fights with a pair of gigantic scissors. She is at home on the top lane in LoL.
Her backstory is: Originally, the doll was sewn together by Isolde, a queen who perished in an assassination attempt. Isolde’s husband, Viego, tried to bring his wife back to life. But that went wrong: The spirit of Isolde transferred into the body of the doll Gwen.
Fans expected a doll that was brought to life
This is the discussion around Gwen: After Gwen’s reveal, some LoL players imagined getting a champ that really looks like a doll brought to life. They hoped for Gwen to have an unnatural, monstrous look with buttons for eyes and visible “I have just been sewn together” features.
Gwen was supposed to look like an “unnatural person,” like a doll thing. On Twitch, users share their images of how they envision Gwen as a “doll.”
But what they got in the game was a pretty anime figure that has very few characteristics of a doll. Gwen actually looks like a human.
This is particularly noticeable as many attractive champions have joined League of Legends lately, as the US site Polygon notes:
- Viego wears an open top and shows off his abs
- the redesigned Swain now has great cheekbones and an impressive chin
- Rell is also extremely attractive
Riot had actually promised more variety in champions back in 2014 and fewer “classically attractive champions.”
Riot says: Monstrous characters are coming, but it will take until 2022
This is what Riot says: The discussion on Reddit about Gwen looking “too normal, too human, too sexy, and not enough like a doll” prompts character designer Ryan Mireles, the lead champion producer, to respond.
He says there has been a lot of internal discussion about Gwen. Originally, the plan was for her to look like a doll brought to life. But it was found that in that version, Gwen looked too similar to Shaco and Orianna. Therefore, they had the idea of making her a transformed doll like Pinocchio.
So Gwen now does not look like a doll that has come to life but like a doll that has been turned into a human.
Mireles says: Riot Games knows that fans want more monstrous champs, but that will take a while. They are currently transitioning to making fewer “normal people” and more champions like Renekton, Aatrox, or Lillia. But LoL fans will not notice this change until 2022.
And that does not mean that they will only build “creatures,” but simply fewer “pure humans.”
The interesting part is how the discussion in LoL has shifted. In 2016, fans criticized a new champion for “not being sexy enough,” 5 years later they wish for less “classically pretty women” and rather the unusual:
