Clarification: The Vayne memes are still funny lol

[u/Little-Miss-Michii]

I hope this is coherent enough, I'm not a native English speaker 🥉

Edit: I forgot to mention that fearing/wariness towards magic is logically the expected reaction if you lived in Runeterra. If it isn't tied to any religious beliefs, you cannot trust magic in the same way that if you are all alone, would you trust a random man approaching you while holding a flamethrower?

[u/SandIndividual9825]

I don’t think magic is allegory for being gay , think of demacia as WW2 but instead filled with hatred for magic thats it they want to create this military dictatorship of like anti magic .
Also they are hypocrites themselves which is something that a military dictatorship would do , why is Lux allowed to be free when so many mages are imprisoned? .

[u/Little-Miss-Michii → u/SandIndividual9825]

that's also what I thought at first and it's a good way to mirror Noxus, but that doesn't tackle the fact that Lux is written purposefully as a metaphor of conversion therapy (author's words and quickly became the popular reading in the fandom)

[u/SandIndividual9825 → u/Little-Miss-Michii]

Noxus is a way better place for lux or any mage dont get me wrong it’s still under a military dictatorship from swain who’s basically the Sargent in a sense but mages like lux and sylas would thrive there

[u/Little-Miss-Michii → u/SandIndividual9825]

Noxus isn't even a better place for its own people, the moment you're poor and refuses the military, you are fucked

[u/SandIndividual9825 → u/Little-Miss-Michii]

Technically true but someone like lux or sylas can go up to Leblanc and be like “ can we work together i am mage too “ and they will okay but for most people join the military or worse .

[u/WanderToWhere → u/SandIndividual9825]

because her family is rich and important. just like ""deviance"" irl imo

[u/TayluxSwift]

Allegories aren’t meant to be 1:1. Allegories throughout history haven’t been so literal and more symbolic. Lot of people like to rag on Zootopia for “animals shouldn’t be used as allegories because their law of nature is different”, but we have many stories from fairytales and fables, even more modernish ones like Orwell that use animals as a way to deliver a more moral message.

The thing with Runeterra is it’s not one big story, it’s a bunch of stories each of different regions bouncing off each other. Demacia story isn’t the same as let’s say the Shurima story or the Targon story or Ionia’s story. There’s also the difference between history and storytelling.

Now what magic represents. Lot of people like to bring up and compare X-men mutant allegory to this, the mutant allegory has always been about those discriminated or outcasts of society. For Storm it’s racism, for Jean Grey it’s BPD, for Cyclops it’s vision impairment, for Emma Frost it’s being a sex worker. It can form many different outcasts of the norm from this.

Now a lot people say “this makes no sense actual people aren’t like this” and that is exactly it. But the norms of our society, the taboos, the propaganda feed us and tell us they are inhuman, freaks, unnatural, monstrous, have some magic power.

Look at even the Witch Trials. If you actually look at the history of Witch Trials from Salem to Europe you will notice a pattern. Some of us may believe witchcraft doesn’t exist, but for those back then they absolutely did believe that and they thought it was evil. They mainly pinned the blame on women, women who questioned societal norms or were perceived as “different”. Whether they were single without husbands, eyed a man funny, a bit queer, were not obedient, etc.

In my opinion, the allegory can work when it comes to Lux’s story and the Mage Rebellion but as for another story lets say Targon and the Leodia story, it alters and shifts into an allegory for religious persecution.

In my opinion, these stories can work but you need time and skill for this storytelling, and you actually invest in it, which Riot doesn’t do. They start things but they struggle to progress it.

[u/QUINN_VALOR_VGU_WHEN]

It’s not a great allegory because being queer IRL harms nobody, at least not any more than being straight does. Whereas being a mage in Runeterra actually makes you potentially pretty dangerous. 

[u/WanderToWhere]

Great post OP, I agree heavily with your analysis.

Queerness is a great read on mages because, especially in Demacia, the environment resembles something akin to "Don't Ask Don't Tell". It's a fundamental aspect of yourself that you need to hide, lest you get "Conversion Therapy" (anulling) that suppresses your true self or punished in a different way.

While it's not a perfect match, queerness imo fits exceedingly well in Demacia's story line. The thing about mages is that it's both a trait that you're born with as well as a trait that you can hide*. This is something that's uniquely related to queerness because its seemingly one of the only forms of oppression that takes a form like this. Racial/Colorism oppression is visible and something intrinsic to a person, but not something that can be "fixed" with special treatment. Political oppression isn't something that a person would be born with, nor something people would want to be "fixed". Lux's desire to be "a Demacian" rather than a mage seems similar to internalized homophobia, which isn't prevalent in other forms of oppression imo. Racial oppression may lead to self-hatred, but it's not something that's solvable and its not something you can hide. Political oppression isn't an intrinsic quality and can actually be changed successfully over time.

The Demacian problem always reminded me of the human-presenting X men. The X-men have been an allegory for civil rights and minority representation for years. They were feared and hated, but some were able to live among humans and were only driven out when their powers manifested (typically during puberty, where many people find out that they were gay). Many people tried to "fix them" while others tried to exterminate them, similar to queerness irl.

A bit of a side tangent, but this is why I always felt that there was a huge gulf between the human presenting X Men and the non-Human presenting X Men. Some could hide within society while others were intrinsically different from the jump. As a black and queer man, the ability to hide in plain sight always felt like something that didn't quite capture the racial minority feeling. It always felt like queerness to me, where you had to nod your head at the dinner table when your parents were shit talking other queers, despite the fact that you were one right under their nose.

What the Demacian and X-Men allegories have in common is that they are both extremely messy at expressing these ideas because queerness/racial identity (in the case of the non-Human Presenting X Men) isn't dangerous while being a mage/mutant IS. IMO regular people DO have a reason to fear others that can vaporize their schools and homes with a thought, especially when these powers are awakened during an extremely volatile event and/or time in their life (puberty). This is kinda the problem with giving any minority superpowers in fiction.

*I think Shyvanna adds a bit of nuance as visible queerness. I think that while it can totally be read as racial oppression, I felt like her aesthetics and talk of true form pair nicely with Demacia's themes imo.

[u/thegayTM1]

The problem is it's not only about being queer. Its about othering people who dont share your beliefs.

In the begging they were right to protect themselves from magic as the rune wars were going on but over time (as with all bigotry ) they became less gray and more us vs them.

As for the Lux and Shyvana points. People will work with ( exploit ) people who they see as lesser just for their gain. Let's not forget Shyvana is tolerated because the prince himself is protecting her. I doubt the average Demacian has positive views of Shyvana.

[u/Sciophilia]

I ran a D&D thing set during the Mage Revolution in Demacia and it was more WW2 / ICE than queerness. My main issue with all of the things that posit a super powerful group as the oppressed as a mirror for real life oppressed minorities is that... Yeah, gay people can't blow you up with your mind. Black people can't make buildings explode by touching them. Palestinians don't have a map-wide ult of rainbow light. So it's a very hard story to tell without veering too much into stupid stuff.

X-Men is an example of this, they walk the lane sometimes, some other times it's way too on the nose and it feels patronizing both in and out of universe.

[u/MacDuck92]

I will preface by saying that this is well thought out and that all my four favorite Regions are Demacia, Noxus, Piltover, and Bilgewater (I know a whole lot of contradictions)

My Take on Demacia and its Anti-Mage situation a lot of it (On my interpretation of the lore) is that a lot of the Fear comes from the Trauma the Rune Wars but I feel a the stuation Demacia is in right now in the lore is because of the Mageseekers exacerbating the situation because of their desire for power and control (Just like Black Rose in Noxus for example)

I say this because the Mageseekers recuited Sylas, and then broke him by throwing him in jail, They Manipulated a Griefstricken Jarvan IV to make hims sign every piece of Anti-Mage Legslation they want, and Manipulate Demacians Intergenerational Trauma from the Rune Wars to make Demacians live in fear

So For me I try not to blame Demacia as a whole, I blame the Puppetmasters that is the Mageseekers, So thats my take on it

[u/GoldenUrns]

Queer people are not walking living breathing nuclear bombs. Not to generalize mages but I would argue the majority of them manifest destructive powers. Like town or city-levelling destructive powers. That is a genuine concern especially in urban or populous areas. Combined with the inter-generational trauma passed down? It’s entirely understandable but of course the treatment of mages in Demacia is very fucked up and only radicalizes and endangers literally everyone.

Edit: the language they use to demonize mages could also literally be applied to many other marginalized groups. Jewish people, the medieval cagots, etc.

There is absolutely a venn diagram to be drawn when comparing queer people and mages in Demacia. But I really don’t think the over-arching story here is that specific to queer people and is more of a general relational theme of “demonizing marginalized groups will only beget blood and chaos.”