Remember, ninjas aren't assasins. Their main role was to be spies. Assasinating was part of the numerous jobs they had to do. So they probably did wear armor if they had to blend in.
I actually love shem basicness and simplicity. It make us see what akali and zed could have become, and is more or less the foundation from which they deviated. Also, always hilarious how the most traditional ninja is the one that actually doesn't fight like one
I wonder after it was revealed in the Zed comic that Shen never *wanted* to be the eye of the twilight and was actually the rebellious son, if his fighting style is like the last shred of individuality and genuine “Shen” he holds on to while conforming the rest of his character to be more the “eye of the twilight” than the individual “Shen”
Honestly the first time i saw him in-game i found his design so edgy with the ninja aesthetic, the pose, the glowy eyes, the dramatic backstory; that i just found him really, really cute. I have a soft spot for such an obvious design that becomes funny in a way to me. 10/10 would hug him
"Shen still struggles with his role, and *_definitely heterosexual feelings about Zed_* but remains steadfastly" Im going to tattoo this on the backs of my eyelids
Idk why but I really like Shen. I think there's a lot of charm in being the reliable, grounded, not over the top and underappreciated guy. He is dealing with so much stuff and all of them are dramas that other people started, but ended up on his shoulders. I'm glad he has Kennen at least
@@mineias9672 Well for one thing, Shen and Zed are basically brothers. Adoptive brothers, yes, but you can perhaps see the issues of trying to extrapolate that into "they're totally gay for each other." Of course if Skyen IS just trolling then I suppose that would make me the butt of the joke for taking him too seriously.
I just love the contradiction in a tank ninja. The ultimate really sells it, when an enemy is caught by surprise thinking they've ambushed you. Then Shen appears out of literally *fucking* nowhere to counter ambush em?? That's pretty flippin ninja
Can't blame him for being blind when people did stuffs behind his back and no one other than those guys involved in the schemes know about it. Only Zed, Kusho, Jhin and the other shady Ionian big shots knows the truth about what had transpired.
Well even the quote describing him says "he's blind to love, fear, to everything that is not the equilibrium", something like that, so I think that could be the reason why
I find Shen fascinating because he’s so… reserved. If you look into his lore even a bit you notice that he’s a rather damaged and honestly sad individual that really needs a hug but he hides all of that between layers and layers of emotionless behavior and reservedness. Id honestly love to see Shen opening up to someone someday
Just like in Star Wars, the Kinkou Order is the hierarchy that is portrayed as the good guy to the reader but is actually your boomer uncle at thanksgiving.
Peopl underestimate the skill needed to master Shen. Anyone can play Shen, but mastering Shen is something else. Keep in mind 95% of your dmg is your auto attacks. Positioning movement, awareness and timings make the difference on a experienced good Shen player.
I find it so annoying that Shen and Zed have no interactions with either of their students or their arch nemesis. While all three of them have like five lines per each
I love Shen as a bulky tanky ninja. I just wish he got to do things aside from maybe hunting Jihn once and being the face of traditional ninja values. Give him a quirk and he'd be great.
I sometimes feel like Shen is the guy who all his attention in canon gets from association. With either Akali, Zed or Jhin, rarely Shen himself is the star
In his lore, he's more of the witcher of the League of Legends universe. He uses a steel blade to cut flesh and a spirit blade to cut, well, spirits. He's also good at math since he literally calculates how many mortals and/or spirits he needs to retire from living in order to restore balance.
I've been really looking forward to this, Shen is my main and i love his chunky dual-wielding ninja design and his role as the Eye of Twilight. Nice to hear your opinions too!
My first game of Shen was when I rolled him in a game of ARAM and I had no idea what he did. But he looked like a ninja and he had AP scaling on his abilities. So I built him as an AP assassin. My team flamed me. And I just remembered being so confused and asking myself, "Isn't he supposed to be an assassin? He looks like one"
@@desuordie4856 a throw-y poke-y blade that deals ap-scaling damage and marks the target so that you and your friends heal whenever they hit the mark, a self-targeted shield that scales with ap, a dash that deals ap-scaling damage and taunts enemies it passes through and restores energy for each, and an ultimate that lets you put an ap-scaling shield on an ally from global range and teleport to them if they survive for a while seems pretty fair to look at that and assume that he's some quirky ap fighter that's somewhere between an assassin and a supportive tank, imo, especially when you're still learning a good chunk of the champions
@@hi-i-am-atan my god that shit used to make shen fucking immortal, the glory days... I dont mind his new q but I never felt like he needed to deal a billion damage in 3 autos.
Shen is one of my favorite champs, gameplay and concept wise. Dude is a stereotypical ninja in appearance, but has bright neon effects and is a TANK. Such a mess, he's like the platypus of champion design. I love it.
Well Shen is basically based off of both Subzero and Scorpion, being the buff, ninja-like fighters or whatever the hell they are. That's why he has both the Frozen and Yellowjacket skins which is basically homage to Subzero and Scorpion. What's the connection? If you have subzero temperature, you're already at freezing point, hence Frozen. YellowJackets are a species of wasp and Scorpions are close to Insects (coz scorpions are Arachnids, not Arthropods).
Fun fact shen being a tank is actually historically accurate to the origins of no has as they were bodyguards and wore armor. League wanted to make the anti-stereotype of "the tank ninja" when designing him since you don't see that very often.
I mean. Ninjas, broadly speaking, aren't historically real. Spies, murderers, assassins, infiltrators, saboteurs, subversives, double-crossers, undercover scouts, guerilla fighters and so on, those are all real - and plenty of samurai specialized in these things, but the idea of the "ninja" as a specific class of warrior or storied traditional component of feudal Japan's societies and power politics is not accurate.
@@TBSkyenShorts actually, historical records of sengoku era shinobi _do_ exist, including the famous iga and koga clans. a lot of what a ninja is and could do _is_ straight-up fiction, but their existence isn't
@@hi-i-am-atan Yeah, but that's a bit like saying "actually the US has sent soldiers into space and established a Space Force, so StarCraft Space Marines are kind of real" - the ninja as a concept are a fictionalized, highly romanticized amalgamation of real thing. They were not real.
@@TBSkyenShorts i'm not sure if what you're missing is the fact that ninja and shinobi are literally the same word, or the fact that 忍者 is straight-up used in documents from the sengoku era and shimabara rebellion either that, or western movies have thoroughly convinced that cowboys were never real, either
@@hi-i-am-atan I mean that's a good comparison, because the "cowboy" as it exists in the vast majority of the western genre is also an entirely fictionalized version of a real group of people. For one thing, most cowboys likely weren't white, which you would quite literally never know from Hollywood. Anyway, let me quote from Clements here: "However, despite the claims of ninja apologists, it is difficult to find any concrete discussion of them long before the novels of Yamada Futaro (1922-2001) and the comics of Shirato Sanpei (b.1932). Any attempts to make a scholarly study of ninja lead down a series of false trails, with modern sources that end up only citing each other, and credulous populist works that claim any reference in an old account to _shinobi_ (stealth, spies, assassins) was in fact in reference to one of several secret _ninja_ societies that stayed in the shadows." I'll quote also from Stephen Turnbull, who used to be one of the major proponents of historicized ninja mythology, but who has since changed his views: "The popularity of the tradition is centered on the neighboring areas of Iga and Kōka where ninja are a profitable tourist attraction. [...] It is shown that they were no different from several other places in their geography or their politics and that only one reliable account of secret warfare can be identified before 1581, the year when Iga Province ceased to exist as an independent self-governing entity. Secret warfare was practiced throughout Japan but this tiny area of Japan claimed a particular expertise in it and thereby invented a tradition that is still resonant today and now has all the hallmarks of a cult. [...] If the presence of shinobi in an account indicates that secret warfare is taking place, then Iga and Kōka are remarkable not for how many references there are to them but for how few. The ninja of Iga and Kōka therefore present a classic example of an invented tradition in terms of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s definition. There is a deliberate “attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past” whereby ancient records have been re-interpreted and exaggerated to reinforce a highly localized understanding of a military phenomenon." You can read his full paper examining the sources here: digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?redir=1&article=1161&context=jgi Which, again, concludes that yes, spies, sappers, assassins, guerilla warfare and all the rest of it existed, but there is not a particular historical basis for thus inventing a specialized social class primarily responsible for its development and execution.
Shen's design works so well specifically because he acts as the point of contrast for everyone else connected to him. I actually hope when they redesign Kennen one day they also keep him in a more traditional appearance, maybe even an older traditional outfit with just a few yodel bits to make it unique.
It kinda works with the "uphold the peace" lore he has. He's tank that protects his team and can slow down enemies. Which is what a protector/ peacekeeper does best.
I hope they make him into an invisible body guard with a lore update. His abilities fit perfectly with it. Imagine an assassin sneaking up on Irelia and just before they strike, there is Shen. It also makes sense that only the most senior of the ninjas is assigned to protect royalty. It just gives a bit more substance to why he's a tank ninja who peels and duels. And I hope they cover him up more. The logical reason why the assassin wouldn't have spotted Shen is because he's invisible against the dark shadows so he only seems to come out of nowhere.
What i love about shen being a huge ninja is the fact he can still be stealthy because he can travel through the spirit realm when he needs to be stealthy
Considering his role, I don't think Shen is even allowed to have feelings. Although... the Shen/Zed ship is my second favorite gay ship in league, right next to TF/Graves.
I've noticed I've been criticizing your criticism a lot more than encouraging it lol. So here's my view on this episode: The analysis was great. Much like you said, Shen's design isn't anything special, but it suffices what he is supposed to be. The simplicity and traditionalism represent what is supposed to be represented, and it feels great at that. Although I personally kind of wish he was slightly more ethereal, dissapearing and reappearing between steps, just like he does in the lore and comics. About the heterossexuality part, I don't quite get if it was a joke or not. If it was, it was kinda funny lol. If it wasn't... well, others have already written essays on why that may not make sense. Anyways, good job on that episode!
Ninjas as tanks has been a concept in games since Final Fantasy 1 and putting the thief in slot 2, but it’s always been about dodging and not about taking the hit head on.
Nah man Shen is Thanos, he's cool as hell. Remember that story where a village calls him cause spirit monsters are killing people but then he discovers that people killed more spirit monsters than visa versa so he balances it out like the Thanos he is. He's cool as hell.
this is one of the best grades of all the ones you did by now, although it was kinda predictable still, had to laugh loud and made me forget the terrible weather here for a moment
@@OfDaSouth he can Block alot on dmg on engage, he pack a serious punch of runes are ready and he just walks out afterwards. He got burst for atleast 40% of enemy health after lvl 4 to 14
I personally love that Riot has defined their own style of ninjas, in this case pulling from the strength of the spirit realm, which is very clearly reflected in Shen's design as he pulls his spirit blade through the material plane. I find his simplicity a great defining point for this archetype, and likewise a very effective way to communicate; "this guy knows his shit", being the very peak of what is expected of his character. I suppose two sides of the same coin, simply a matter of whether you personally like the design choice or not
My main :D To be honest I only want new voicelines for him he has less than 2 minutes of total dialogue and he is voiced by the same guy that voiced Nazeem in Skyrim so I can't really take him seriously, the guy who voiced him in the cinematic with akali would be cool tho
Shen could use some lore updates to reflect his appearance better. He looks like a traditionalist but they never portray him as such. He’s always just some guy that doesn’t understand the reason for trying to change, rather than being someone that knows, yet STILL CHOOSES to stick to tradition because he believes that is the right way to do things.
one aspect of shen lore that I hope is not forgotten is that he IS evil. in the old lore he was a radical centrist, focused on keeping Ionia as it is, killing wannabe dictators and progressivist alike. he embodies tradition and conservativism, with his actions and with his design. and it's very telling that in the land of balance and armony everyone is unique and thus imbalance in game wile shen has a more simple kit but with extremely deep macro play, resulting in maybe the most balance Ionia champ (even too much balances recently) I know that many want shen to be master splinter and with the lesson animation this seems even rito direction, but I still hope to see shen as a villain, using his basic design (more reminiscent of shredder than zed in a lot of aspects) and radical centrism to embody tradition and acting as an evil mentor, kinda like Slade from teen titans
ninja magic. draw the enemy's attacks to you, instead of your high value teammates who will surely die, and use your mastery of the spirit realm, ninja agility, and heavy armor to simply take less damage than you should. ninjutsu.
I really like the design of Shen, he gives the vibes of "the person makes the tank and not the equipment" and I love it, because a lot of tanks are showed as big muscular guys with big armors, thats for example why I love Kog'Maw design, hes an adc but his model is big in represent of what he is, a predator that can eat anything
They better make shen and zed cannon. And make them have a tragic backstory of an off and on again relationship that I tails their opposing view points. Or imma throw some han- *...claws!*
I'd rather TF X Graves coming first. It's already annoying that Leona and Diana are separated by their views, at least the next gay couple could be together.
I saw what you tweeted about your joke. I am a digital artist, and ship to shen and zed. Once, Riot from my region shared a drawing I made of both of them, and since then I have received insults and death threats, so don't be surprised by those things haha. New subscriber by the way.
I kinda wish we’d get a story where it’s revealed he has a huge tattoo on his chest or something to Akali and that maybe he’s not quite as steadfast to his core in the Kinkou principles as she thinks and they can come to an understanding. Also pls Zed x Shen