#noxus

To those watching at home, Piltover in the pre-arcane lore always had an under-the-table hostile position toward Noxus from the get-go. This wasn't because of some specific event (because relying on specific events for state-v-state antagonism is over simplistic) but because of actual geopolitical logic. Piltover wasn't hit with the stupid bat like they were in Arcane. Noxus is a rapacious, murderous empire that is extremely open and explicit about their desires to conquer everything (most empires are usually not so obvious). Noxus has already conquered much of the territory surrounding Piltover, and Piltover itself is an incredibly important strategic location that is the only link between the Eastern and Western oceans. Even ignoring Hextech and general wealth they've accrued, Piltover would always know that they are very close to being on the chopping block.

So what does Piltover do? It actually had half a brain unlike in Arcane and had sought to bilk Noxus for everything it can and placate them where possible while distracting Noxus with irrelevant issues using economic influence, espionage, and misdirection. It knew that it cannot fight an existentialist total war with them (although Pilt's navy was considered a fearsome one), so it sought to keep itself out of Noxus' gaze while getting it entangled in irrelevant theaters of war and internal rebellions/court intrigue that ensure that it can never bring a strong, collective response against Piltover.

This takes many forms and some are more morally dubious than others. The most morally dubious one is that Piltover does facilitate some Noxian expansionism. Sea passage through the Sun Gates has allowed Noxus to expand westward at a significantly faster pace than before (Swain's conquests in Shurima would not have been possible), although Piltover does charge exorbitant fees for their military passages to the point of bankrupting the previous Noxian regime.

At the same time on the more incidentally morally upstanding end Piltover actively provides and sells arms and material to anti-Noxian resistance movements in Shurima (like the Suns of Bel'Zhun) and to independent powers like Stonewall and various Ionian factions resisting Noxian incursions.

Piltover had interesting things going on in the wider world and the institutions that were a wealth of storytelling potential that add good conflicts and depth to the region. Things like the Inteligencers of the major Piltovan Clans like Camille offered interesting subterfuge and and espionage activities in games of tit-for-tat against Noxian Warmasons and Black Rose incursions. But we can't have those because for Arcane they needed Piltover to be bunch of dumb-as-rocks morons. All to make Noxus look "cooler".

It's also not even an unheard of situation that a smaller power can deter a significantly larger one by being a porcupine. People often fall into imperialist propaganda and assume that an empire that desires to destroy something can *always* do so. Athens was a hornets nest that the Persians for centuries preferred to never outright provoke it because the cost of doing so was so prohibitive. Theoretically Athens could be crushed by Persian size, but locally Athens had too heavy a naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean for them to want to bother and so they had to find proxies and indirect means to weaken them (this ended up being Sparta). Where Athens and Piltover differ is that the former was desiring to be an imperial power while the latter is not so more diffuse methods of deterrence are politically palatable and available to Piltover.

There's much more avenues for storytelling by leaning into conflict between Piltover and Noxus than in making them buddy-buddies.

Ironically, pre-Arcane it had been Zaunites who have provided the most explicit material support for Noxian imperialism in the form of chemtech expertise, weapons sales, and direct assistance in several genocides during the Ionian invasion (don't worry though, Rito always ensures that there's a "good" Noxian to make a sad face at it though so we know they don't approve...). This was an interesting situation as we can understand and even empathize with the reasons why they'd do this. Gotta get that cheddar as one might say when the avenues for opportunity in Zaun itself are so limited. But nuance like the sympathetic Zaunites doing bad things to people because they benefit from the suffering of people that don't affect them is apparently too much for the writers (or the fandom, probably) to handle.

Oftentimes there's this idea that Demacia/Demacians need to "confront the hypocrisies of the country" and "pursue radical change to the system and institutions" all focused around magism, and no, Demacia/Demacians really don't actually need to do that at all. Usually this comes up with people saying that Sylas is #alwaysright or that Lux "can't see her complicity within The System" or that she's a "centrist" who is unwilling to "truly confront" the toxic foundations of Demacia because of her "privilege". Recently it takes the form of people saying that until Demacia overthrows the Monarchy (as if Democracies/councils are better at protecting civil rights lmao) that Demacia will never stop being evil, and all this talk really just paints a picture that is not at all supported by anything in the lore.

Unlike a certain other region, it is pretty consistently portrayed that magism is a fairly recent and limited aberration within Demacian society. The country is not "foundationally" built on magism to any discernible degree. Not socially nor in any kind of physical resource/extraction kind of way. The only institution that is actually, explicitly built on and relies on magism of any kind are the mageseekers themselves who are portrayed and just outright stated to be a rather isolated and independent group. There's some vague allusions that some noble houses support them to get ahead in politics but just as often there are outright statements and prominent examples that most noble houses are in fact underneath their scrutiny and don't like them.

Point I'm making here is that if magism didn't exist then remarkably little about Demacia would change or require "revolutionary"/radical changes. It's really just not a major aspect of their society despite what people and riot keep pushing. Lux doesn't need to question her or her family's role in magism because... it's literally just her in-law uncle that no one likes and is also dead and no one else (her entire family has basically nothing to do with mages. They derive their position in society from the state military which doesn't exist to hunt mages). The royal family doesn't exist because of magism nor does any noble houses that I can tell derive their power from being anti-magic. In fact it's rather the opposite by basically all examples (Buvelles, Demosier, Laurent, etc.) as they all do things unrelated to any kind of magism stuff.

Compare that to say Noxus where if they were to stop their imperialist expansion, quite literally, the entire society would come crashing down around them within a decade at most. Resource-wise they are stuck in a trap where they need infinite conquests to feed their unsustainable war machine, almost every major institution from engineers to sculptors to noble houses is completely dependent on imperialism for their entire existences (e.g. the assassin guilds which make up 1/3rd of the government would find themselves completely without a job if the wars stopped. So the wars can never stop), and even socially Noxus is completely dependent on the meat grinder of war and conquest to socialize its people until they all achieve victory over themselves and love nothing but Noxus because otherwise everyone rebels. Not to mention that all their culture of conquest have their root from the Black Rose who have done their job so well that Noxians themselves think that it's a privilege to crank the handle on the meatgrinder without needing any prodding.

thought it was funny

Webtoon Talon is a travesty wow did they really mess up anything interesting he could have been (also directly gazumped cassiopeia who was the D sibling most directly associated with the Rose. Now she's even more redundant than ever).

Talon is so heavily defined/shaped by the dehumanization that goes on in Noxus. He doesn't see the value in people in any way outside of their pure utility, and specifically their utility in murder and violence. This fits with his backstory growing up in the gutter seeing the dregs who were too “weak” to live including his brother who he killed at a moment's notice in order to better himself like a crab in a barrel. Extending along into his relationship and loyalty to Marcus as he is only kept around because Marcus sees him as useful and as a replacement for the last child that failed his expectations in Katarina. Talon at this early stage is totally fine with this and in fact valorizes/rationalizes it. Conditional “love” and or support is a good thing as it is only those who are willing to do what’s needed who don’t end up in the gutter like his brother. This need to maintain his usefulness as a weapon could be a large motivator for his continued loyalty to Marcus and desire to find out what happened to him.

But like there was a good potential dichotomy to explore with Talon being so utterly devoted to Marcus. Not only is that a queer thing for a noxian to be so devoted to anyone like that as Noxus is deeply impersonal, which in and of itself would be intriguing, but also in a way he is reliving his relationship to his brother who had so much faith in Talon and was so utterly devoted to him but in the end Talon threw him away like a piece of garbage. Now with Marcus he's had the dichotomy flipped without really knowing it playing the role of his brother and being devoted to someone who is not likewise devoted to him and will treat him the same way: disposing of him like a piece of garbage the moment it is advantageous.

And either he doubles down on this cycle of devotion and betrayal or comes to some kind of realization of his role in it.

Imo the ideal overall narrative for ducuteau children in general including Cass eventually should have been them slowly building up a fucked up family together as each gets betrayed and left alone and fucked up by the forces of "greater noxus" that they each respectively find themselves enmeshed in (Kat with Swain, Cass with the BR, and Talon with Marcus). They're all so messed up and trapped in the dynamics of people that raised them to inherit their fucked up legacies but also trapped in the Noxian culture which rejects the family, tells people to only think of themselves and their own ambitions, and extols the virtue of stepping on those around you to make yourself better off.

Talon, weirdly enough, had the easiest pathway to becoming aware of his own entrapment. Marcus' death/disappearance created an odd situation where he could remain devoted to someone forever without getting backstabbed as a detached form of love but also never able to backstab in turn. Endlessly seeking the vengeance for his fallen master that will never have the chance to throw him away but he is also deprived of any specific desire or ability to overthrow him either. He can only watch from within and without as a unwanted intruder on the DuCuteau house in a frozen stasis that Marcus' disappearance had left the House in, but somehow more devoted to said house than the either two siblings by sheer virtue that Marcus never got the chance to kill him or be killed before disappearing.

Obvious to us now the Marcus disappearance plot was just a hook with no planned endgame but in a better world Talon could easily have found this odd position between the siblings that could build bonds that fall outside the paradigm of living life for yourself at all costs no matter who you step on. Inadvertently, obviously, at first as they simply find that they have mutual connections they can work with. Over time growing into something closed off but familial as the forces of Noxus itself try to strip them down. Kat being used by Swain for the "greater good" of the empire (and in becoming Swain's "messenger" she has also become inexorably tied to being Swain's fall-guy), Cass being roped along by Leblanc and the Rose, and Talon stuck all the while in this un-cycle between himself and Marcus that seems to have no end. But unlike the other two he is the most trapped by his own self. He is still in that gutter in the system that destroys you but forgotten and ignored by it.

He's the only one of the three that can escape because Noxus can't even see him, and in turn he might be able to help the others escape as well. Best exemplified with Katarina as she cannot ever continue to live within Noxus as long as she was Swain's direct representative. Once Swain slips she will find that all that bravado and purposefully showy antics she so enjoyed to keep attention on herself will mean that all the knives will be pointed at her just as much Swain. But Talon can choose to not be one of those knives. He can choose to not be that same boy in the gutter that killed his only sibling for a fake-love that promised ascension to the top of Noxus. Helping Katarina escape, and even faking her murder by his hand to help keep her safe, on the outside he is acting like the perfect Noxian. Bringing down the failed sibling to seize all power to himself, but in actuality saving that sibling for what comes closest to selflessness that Noxus can ever have.