Sylas is oddly healthy for a long-imprisoned... villain? || design hot take  

I like that a tyrant and an anarchist are next to each other. Swain and Sylas, I mean.

My grade is the scene from avatar where uncle Iroh is working out in imprisonment

Demacia be committing Genocide and Riot still want us to believe that Sylas is the villain here

Pretty sure Sylas is buff and hot so that Lux could thirst over him instead of, oh, I don't know, _saving the oppressed mages with all the power that she has_ 😑

Ah, Ezreal's greatest rival.

Sylas: "I was born a mage. Demacia made me a criminal. After fifteen years in the dark, I was illuminated. I see a world without lords or peasants, where every Demacian is a king. See the remnants of my bondage, and know you can be free ! Rise up, brothers and sisters ! Whatever they bring, we will match it ! We will rip the power from their cold, dead fists ! You have nothing to lose but your chains ! Time to take what's ours ! The great mage rebellion starts now !"

It seems Riot, in order to make things “morally complex”, often push their rebellious characters to extremes and try to focus on their character than on their actual motivations and philosophies. They make Xerath and Sylas into extremists who do bad things and are portrayed as caring more about their own personal freedom rather than the cause they champion. It’s trying to make it a character study while ignoring the political commentary they brought up. To a lesser degree it’s the same with Urgot; Part of the reason he gains followers is because things are so bad in Zaun people are willing to look to anyone to help them get out of their horrible position, even if it’s a half-robo spider crazy man. And what do Caitlyn and Vi say when the obvious question of how to deal with said inequalities comes up? “Oh we would love change but revolution would hurt people and since we are the police and meant to preserve the status quo there is nothing we can do. Shame though.”

Actually, his physique is not uncommon amongst prisoners. A strong, muscular top half with thinner legs, which is called a prison muscle. Since he's carrying around heavy and solid shackles all the time, his upper body would naturally be very strong, whereas his lower half is not as defined.

He's actually a rare case, in which a champion, who should have scars, has them.

Apparently Sylas is supposed to passively channel part of his magic into his muscles, which is why he is so huge, but that little tidbit got lost somewhere between his development and official release. I'd be ok with muscle wizard Sylas tbh.

remember Uncle Iroh managed to get ripped while in prison. Then again, he had a friendly guard sneak him extra food.

Imagine if Rell met Sylas in the story. Would it be chaotic or are they gonna have a wholesome good time?

Demacia rats 🐀make sylas so buff in prison . A rich protein diet💪

Demacia, the land of lies and murder. The higher ups of Demacia all have magic abilities, sylas found out about it so the imprisoned him, so they'll keep being safe while the rest of the mages die.

I think part of the story with him can be how oppressive systems breed the extreme "burn it all down" types and how they essentially make their own enemies.

I'm so dumb. Who else only just realized he's doing his champion reviews on this channel alphabetically.

One of my favourite villains. I like what Riot did with his character. He's a product of his environment, a good person that became evil because he was treated as being born evil. At the same time he's a necessary evil in order to start the flames of rebellion and finally make the Mageseeker organization lose their political power.

If Rell can be seen as a good guy by rebelling against Noxus then I really don’t see why Sylas is seen as a villain even though he is pretty much right. Edit: I mayyyyyyy have started a war here so I suggest to not look at the replies haha. It’s alright if you disagree with me, no bad blood here. 👍

Yeah of course he’s the villain🤦🏾‍♀️ but not Azir tho, he wanted the best for his slaves😌

Come think of it, what could have been a good way to redeem Sylas is having him return for the Ruination after the fall of Demacia. Think about it, if he was actually the unexpected "hero" of Demacia's commoners that helped them survive the Mist while every noble turned their back and hid it would actually give the lore of Demacia proper tension and Sylas a proper redemption and development as a character. It would also be fascinating to see a power struggle within Demacia where the common folk believes Sylas was actually good for Demacia and now answer to his authority while the ruling class who are suppressing the truth there are mages and they use magic in the first place. But then I am giving Riot way too much credit if that happens. They can't fucking write nuance

uncle iroh taught us how to stay fit in prison

Good ol' Riot Games and vilifying the victims in its stories, see: Sylas, Xerath, Syndra..

They really went the Anders route with him, with all the "oppressed people fighting back bad". But really, doesn't most of mainstream media love doing that? Pretty easy to make a movement sound bad by making their leader Kind Of A Bad Dude.

The one thing that makes Sylas a villain is the fact he's a egomaniac that kinda sorta values revenge over the morals of his goal. It's more about him than the cause.

sylas is going to steal darius ult n use that guillotine against every demacian aristocRAT n i will support him

Demacia commits literal genocide. I guess not being ok with genocide makes you the villain.

I am surprised by the amount of people who see Sylas as a villain because he wants to kill Jarvan and those in power, since when do people defend the life of tyrants guilty of the death of thousands? someone please explain it to me because i am having a hard time understanding it.

The guy literally is the definition of freedom and revolution for league of legends. Especially with all the war, death, violences an literally every single character that isn't a God being a puppet. I dont care if he's a villian or a hero he's still a badass in a character origin

They really had to be like "but he murders!" to make him the villain.

i think the best way of putting it is that hes a bad man doing a good thing. demacia is in drastic need of social upheaval and if it has to be violent so be it. but sylas himself based of his voice lines seems more like hes using his revolution as a vehicle for revenge rather than genuinely caring about the suffering of his fellow mages.

my friend's friend was playing with us and when I said he was based she got real mad at me. first time I'd met her. I don't care. Sylas is based. no amount of short stories where they make him eat babies for no reason will change that

Nice to know Sylas was at least given Gilette while imprisoned 😇

plot twist: sylas is hot and fit because his only plan of escape was seducing lux with his abs that's it the revolution is ours

Sylas being a villain is like if anne frank found a gun in the attic and is now considered an "anti-hero"

In my head canon, Sylas learned to stay fit with the rations he was given in prison and trained on his physique with a routine designed with minimal equipment and isolation. If he was planning on escaping one day, he knew it was wise to keep his body and mind sharp until the opportunity showed itself

I think his design could be justified by his lore. If he had been malnourished the first time he met Lux, but then, each time she visits him, he's bulkier than before by slowly absorbing Lux's magic and using it to get muscular and strong.

Slyas might be an anti-hero. Not exactly the villain but not also a kind hearted hero. A man who wanted freedom and revenge.

SMH Don't you understand the reason Sylas is hot is because he's stealing whatever magic makes 97% of all other League characters hot?

Riot failed Sylas similar to how RWBY screwed their antagonists. "This Rebel is a little *too* wild, therefore they can be an easy villain!" Whilst all the based people know that they could be way way worse, and still be seen as heroes in certain lights

I don't think Sylas is portrayed as a villain like you indicate. He is an antagonist because he manipulates Lux and his rebellion eventually turns its violence on the average citizens, but he is presented as being justified. When he storms the palace, he is angry to find out the king has been assassinated; he wants justice, not just revenge

I dont know what kinda prison he was in, but irl prisoners often come out really buffed. So, questionmark?

after a bit of thinking and now coming back I thought I might add a bit of my own thoughts to this threat, as someone from iran a country in quite a bad state, I just wanted to say that an oppressed group's revolutionary leader can in fact be villainous in a different cultural context, I know that in the cultural context of europe and america this is extremely harsh to say since the opression of people of color in america and the whole genocide going on in world war 2 happened. but looking at it from the point of view of a country that its revolution didnt go that well for it there are other parallels that one might see. now of course an oppressed group has every right to fight against its oppressor, even within the context of revolution that did happen in real life here I agree with that, the monarchy that was ruling was bad, it was both generally oppressing general political speach and specifically going after muslims. so people as a general group had every right to protest and riot against it, but when we inspect the indivisuals of that group, specifically the leaders spearheading the movement thats where moral ambiguity sets in. the question of what each person did with the power they got after they won the revolution, the question of what people they saw as part of the group oppressing them, how far would they go in punishing those. and there were people with extremely harsh answers to those, some of them thought every non-muslim was part of the oppressors and they thought execution would be appropriate punishment, there were indivisuals who went after other revolutionaries to push themselves higher on the power ladder, there were people who thought every person working in a government facility had something to do with their oppressors even if they were just a janitor, and again some of them thought execution appropriate. now obviously not everything I said is something that directly co-relates to sylas , im just pointing out that evil/anti-hero revolutionary can be a thing without giving the message that oppressed groups should never stand up. I also wanted to mention that I understand that iran and most other places with a bad ending to their revolution arent really the audience and culture that the game is being made for so technically these viewpoints should be lower on the priority list if we are talking about the influence that they have. I just wanted to give an opinion from somewhere that is uncommon but can count as kinda related.

If he was super skinny and boney, not only would it fit his story better, but a borderline skeletal guy still being strong screams "magic"

He does look malnourished though, but less "prisoner locked up" and more "unhealthy beauty standards"

Ah yes the morally ambiguous of “Magicians are being murdered and imprisoned but the leader who has watched all this happen is a bit wacky so it’s just two sides” Like it would make sense if I Demacia had a horrible time with mages constantly where a bunch of them attempted to genocide everyone in Demacia for generations.

They really ought to make more champions that are rallying behind Sylas or at least champions who were harmed by Demacia’s anti-mage rhetoric. Maybe a champion who was a mage but had their magic taken away and then got super good at non-magic fighting and is helping Sylas

Riot so scared of upsetting literally anyone they won’t even take sides in their own fictional universe

i think his "villain?" status is kinda ambiguous due to his lack of like-minded-but-contrasting character for him to bounce off of. like, if you shift through his quotes, it's pretty clear that he's outright bloodthristy and doesn't actually have compassion for mages that aren't useful to him, which makes it even more blatant that the way he treats lux is purely manipulative. which, granted, "kinda an asshole after an unholy amount of trauma" is small beans compared to everything going on in demacia, but he's clearly not to meant to be an unambiguously good freedom fighter. if anything, it feels like the mage rebellion story is _missing its protagonist,_ as sylas feels like he's supposed to be the anti-hero lancer to someone else. someone who retains enough compassion to keep the rebellion focused and to not abandon the mages that are too afraid to fight, and perhaps allow sylas to start healing and shed those bits of ambiguity. hell, that wouldn't even necessarily toss sylas to the sidelines, since when push comes to shove and the rebellion needs to get its hands dirty, such a person would probably struggle with the pragmatic brutality he brings to the table and, hell. he says "we," but who is there that really stands beside him?

Down with Demacia!

Sylas did nothing wrong.

If I remember the lore, which i probably don't, Demacia was founded by the survivors of a magical cataclysm, so they fear magic because they've heard the stories of what magic did, and almost did again. They founded their city out of a stone they crafted that can protect them from magic, so they basically have PTSD for magic.

No mention of how he's literally league of legends' communist guerrilla trope, huh? Just check out his voice lines and visual symbolism! Still, always love the vids

To be fair, it may not make sense for him to still be strong enough to whip around those chains if he was completely gaunt and malnourished looking.

Demacia: WE HATE "MAGIC" PEOPLE AND WE WILL COMMIT WAR CRIMES TO ERASE THEM FROM THE FACE OF RUNETERRA!! (literal racism/discrimination) Sylas: Hey, that's wrong, every other nation accepts magic people and it's not like we'll harm you if you're kind to us. Demacia: KYS!!! LOCK HIM UP!!! Sylas: Oh nooooo.. 😢😢 Riot: SYLAS VILLAIN OMGG

His voice lines make him seem like the 14 Yr old who can't decide if he's an Anarchist or not.

So, he saved a child from being murdered, and HE is the bad guy? No. Rebeling against a government that enslaved people to use as tools, murdered innocent people just for being born a certain way and frames people for crimes they didn't commit sounds about right to me. I'm all with this guy.

Sylas' body is actually proportional properly to the weight of the chains in his arms and neck, his legs meanwhile are tiny and he has a bit of a hunched back. This is all part of his design being in captivity for decades, chained to floor barely holding yourself up. The mans upper half is ripped properly and his lower half is well, ya. Spaghetti. Not saying he shouldnt be more decrepit but this still thematically works for him.

Sylas did nothing wrong

The build is fine given his weapons but I wish they gave him longer hair with some wild facial hair. kind of a handsome untamed bad boy vibe going on to him, feels way too clean.

but like.. why wouldn't he be jacked? why not? doesnt he always have them big ass chains on him? he gotta be strong!

Hâte villains who are like ‘what if minority rebellion but *too much??!?*’

Dude looks weirdly healthy? His spine when he’s breathing be like: / ( / (

My #1 favorite character in the game alongside Bard.

sylas could have just looked at someone who was a mage and as long as it’s not obvious he could of just said “nah that person is definitely not a mage and since I’m the only person that can confirm they aren’t a mage you have to believe me “ and saved like 14 people

It would've been cool if they gave him some lore like he sucked the magic out of people to keep alive and healthy, but this made them suffer. Therefore would've made his desperation to escape all the more desirable

Hey TBSkyen just so you know, there are missing subtitles in the part about Sylas look, right before the ragged pants.

His cause is right, they way they want to achieve freedom is right (Violence to escape such opression and purge mages is right), the only that make Sylas a villain is that he tricked Lux and somehow nobody can trick the lazer snowflake of Demacia and the feeling that Sylas more that Freedom only wants to get back at the demacians (The whole "Rat feeding" incident seems like petty revenge) I would have loved to see Sylas walking to Jarvan III followed by the mages and be like "Accept us or let my people go" and the whole conflict were that the Death of Jarvan III was framed to the mages instead of pushing Lux's perspective. Sylas get's forced to fight for survival and the true villain of the story would have been the Black Rose and the mage hatred of Demacia...

I love that his grade is 'horseshoe' theory, the grades on these videos are pretty hilarious

The referece to the "Horseshoe Theory" in the grade was pure genius. In my country, there is a saying against it: "Horseshoes are made for dunkeys".

Honestly just give the man more scruff like Graves level, and longer hair. He shouldn't just have a 4 o Clock shadow.

In novels, usually as long as the character gets their mana back, they kinda instantly rejuvenate to their best physical self

Anti-villain from Demacia, to mages, his a Hero

Nobody is going to talk about how Sylas is literally Magneto from X-Men? "Let's kill all the regular people, as we are the next step on the evolution"

Sylas is your typical fantasy revolutionary : he is rightfull but only want to make a coup, no plan for there after, no intersection with other things like class struggle of racism

Sylas is awesome, one of the best champ designs in my opinion

This is basically The Circle vs The Paladins from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2.

The only halfway decent argument Demacia has is that mages are objectively dangerous, doesn’t make them right, but it’s different from its parallels in real life because there’s actually something to be wary of....except that they are massive hypocrites about it and many places in Runeterra are fine even with mages running around

He is not a villain, but he is not a hero either. An anti-hero maybe? Idk, not used to those terms

Syals' abdomen should not move as violently as that.

It drives me up the fucking wall when I see Sylas being represented as a bad guy. There's this loading screen tip that says "Lux trusted Sylas. Demacians died." and I'm like YEAH, GOOD, FUCK THOSE GUYS

I accidentally came up with his design with a friend a year or two before his release. A guy who fights with chains and what not.

It's hard calling Sylas a villain when Demancia is out there committing genocide.

Hate playing against this guy and his stupid amount of healing

He kinda looks like keanu reeves

I dunno... I always thought that his character model is what Sylas would look like after his rebellion... Like the events of the lore happened and now he's becoming toned in his like "underground training" between demacian skirmishes... Regardless, I think for Sylas specifically the "prizon made me hard" look works for him rather well. Plus those chains are made of metal, right? It totally makes sense that he's going to have a muscular upper body if he's flailing them around as a primary form of attack which I thought to be a neat touch in spite of the tropes.

Ok the grading on this one is just on point, couldn't think of something better

Sylas pulled an uncle Iroh, went to prison, gets swoll

1. You see them chains? No way is he gonna be a stick when he has to lift them to eat. 2. He is a prisoner of the "good guys" which mean he probably has healthy meals to to keep him alive until execution day 3. Sylas was a HUNK before that cell

This guys alright when do we get him in lor

My dude cannot grasp that good people can be on both sides of a conflict. You must be a joy at family functions…

I always wondered how sylas kept his body in check while chained to a pillar, though I guess there are different ways to exercise. Time in prison did not improve his dance skills.

Oddly fitting time for this to pop up in my feed given the mageseeker game. I am pretty apprehensive about how they're gonna handle the whole scenario. Like, ok sure maybe sylas can be not literally a good guy even if he is on the right side of things, but if they're gonna do that they gotta handle it more like it's Demacia taking advantage of a "violent figurehead" to try and oppress mages even more. Demacia is literally genocidal, and if that isn't a theme of the game then I'm gonna be pretty disappointed :p

Someone hasn't seen ATLA and seen Iroh get absolutely JACKED while imprisoned

WHY IS THE HOMELESS MAN HOT

Hey now, there maybe alot of rat in Demacia prison yall known? Joke aside, maybe Lux have something to do with how sylas look like that.

I mean Uncle Iroh from ATLA got that body when he escaped prison

I just realized he’s literally Sirius black from Harry Potter. Even looks similar

I like how his trap muscles are huge, which fits cuz those are the muscles that you would use to lift those heavy cuffs and chains.

Pretty sure Lux has been sneaking food for him based on the comic.

Sylas literally eats rats in the prison and he's still buff af