#this is why jarvan has his opinions and ideas on arranged marriage

[lightshielded]

meta / on jarvan’s family

king jarvan lightshield iii is the current reigning monarch of demacia and is the third of his family to be elected to the position of demacia’s ruler. jarvan iv stands a striking resemblance to his father, sharing many structural similarities and those of his complexion, eye colour and hair colour. jarvan iii, like his son, was an only child and was deeply pressured to continue the succession by his own parents. so, when he ascended to king, only just in his twenties, and after an appropriate period of private courtship, he declared his intent to marry his then betrothed -- lady catherine spiritmight, a tall, proud woman with light auburn hair, well - defined features and a renown political and militaristic lineage and personal history which made her much loved amongst the people. 

jarvan iii’s marriage was born of both a strong political need and a deep affection, him seeing that he could not rule alone and that his love would make a fine queen the people would rally behind.  their ‘ private ’ courtship and affections towards each other had been rumoured about the court for some time, however were only open about it after jarvan iii took to the throne. very early into their union ( after just one year ) they conceived their one and only child, prince jarvan iv. however, tragedy befell the couple as complications during the birth of their son took catherine’s life, ending her rule as queen shy of two years. now widowed for over twenty - five years, jarvan iii still remains exceedingly faithful to his wife -- choosing not to remarry -- and continues to ignore the courtships of other members of the court. 

despite the mix of sorrow around his son’s birth, jarvan iii cares very deeply about his son, though his busy schedules and work requirements do not always permit him the time to show it. in the wake of his loss, he decided the best thing for jarvan iv was to be prepared for the life he would inevitably have, to protect him from any dangers which might befall him with ruthless efficiency, and to raise him to be the king he himself had lost the drive to be, though this decision had its own draw back and faults through the amount of pressure it would put on the prince and the isolation for those his own age he experienced in his early years. in memory of his wide, he also decided that he would give their son a chance to court a partner of his own volition before broaching the topic of an arranged marriage -- a reason for his unusually mature age for an unmarried noble -- and that he would still provide him the chance of the final say for if he was happy or displeased with any possible suggested spouses. 

jarvan dearly loves his father, though, due to being raise more by his tutors and minders, his relationship with him is not as close as either of them would wish. also, as result of never having met his mother, his emotions to her are mixed. he loves her undoubtedly, but he knows that truly he can only love the memories people speak of than her herself. so, while he cares for both his parents, his next strongest emotions towards them are that of loyalty and anxiety, in equal amounts. for just as much as he loves them, he feels a strong duty towards his family and a great fear that he might fail in those duties, and thus to his country. the thought of disappointing his father, or dirtying the memory of his mother by his short comings, often drives his streak of over perfectionism and zealot - like dedication to his work.

however, one such tutor would become family. at five summers old, the young prince would watch his father proclaim a stranger from a foreign land as to be a defender of their house. and if would be that same year that he would proclaim xin zhao his uncle. while he dearly loved and respected his father, if he had to admit it then he would say xin raised him most. from the ways of weapons to stories about the world beyond, xin was jarvan’s favourite tutor and he thought of him like a second father. now with his father and mother both gone, jarvan finds the only familial support he truly has in xin and sees him as someone he can be open with as well as vulnrable -- something he has largely trained not to be so those under his direction have a strong figure to rely on. 

in addition to his immediate family, he has a somewhat larger expanded family. jarvan’s uncle, and elder - brother to his mother catherine, is lord henry spiritmight. henry is a tall, athletic man with dark auburn hair and fair complexion. like his younger - sister, henry is exceedingly politically minded and has an extensive educational background in business, politics and weapons - mastery and military strategy. during his own military career, he numbered among the ranks of the elite ranger - knights and is well known for the great draw strength of his favoured bow. while ever - loyal and always prepared to don his armour again should demacia need it, his long - bow is now mostly only drawn for hunting.   

similarly to his sister, henry was also arranged to marry for political advancements. his wife, now lady yvette spiritmight, was the youngest daughter of a wealthy mercantile and artisan family. her slighter frame, shorter stature and innate elegance makes for quite a stark difference between the pair. despite their courtship being arranged, the pair found themselves to be a rather well - suited couple; she taken by his rugged charm and quick wit, and he by her endless compassion and keen - insight. the two make a very strong business minded couple and find they compliment each other well, balancing each others short coming and bolstering each others strengths.

as part of his extended family and henry and yvette’s union, jarvan has two cousins, madeleine spiritmight and frederick spiritmight. like their royal cousin and, as required by their family and positions, both frederick and madeleine have studied deeply into the fields of politics, economics and weapons - mastery, as well as both the arts and trades. at present, madeleine is bethrothed to be married and frederick is noticeably unreceptive to courtship. due to distance in family and his continually busy schedule, jarvan is not especially close to either of his extended family members and generally only sees them at formal or family events, but he does have a few fond memories with them from when he was younger. though, he finds talking with frederick especially hard for he is an exceedingly reserved man, even for jarvan’s standards.

[lightshielded]

today i would like to talk a little about the late queen catherine lightshield, the late - king jarvan lightshield iii and the little riot shone for a brief moment in the slight development of their characters and how this light needed to be smothered to continue the story they wished. this is not a post to condemn riot for this decision, for the reason for doing so is understandable and they are not champions so less important, but a post to talk more about what i personally theorise why these decisions came about during maybe character development and what would have happened in lore had riot not made these decisions ( in short, lore would be nice but more boring as the champions would be doing nothing ) and my reasoning behind this. -- also i know it is entirely possible that they did this purely for drama and i know that jarv is my muse and thats basically all he is used for by this point but look this was fun and interesting and i just like the two characters a lot -- so this is just a little brain storming “what if” if you will, so i hope you enjoy if you continue to read along. part one is my rambling explanation, part two is a what if at the end.

MY RAMBLING

in previous lore ( meaning lore with new lore demacia but prior to recent changes with new champions ), the crown royals of demacia were never quite developed, there was ultimately no need. their ambitious and scarce mentions in their son’s lore gave way to reasonable assumptions of their character and we can assume they were very generic demacias. would could also imagine them both as characters which actually opposed their son in ideology based on the state of this demacia ( the laws were closer to the ones instated by most recent lore jarv with the hardest line mage suppression ).

however, with the newer lores for demacia, riot ultimately wanted to provide xin.zhao with a backstory to fit into the new lore and this is the first large change. now while this lore was not released first, we can assume they were worked on in development together due to the closeness of their update times and this proves a crux to my point. prior, jarv ii was the one who had rescued him from noxus but with the new lore this is jarv iii. now we can assume this is for age reasons as well as making more things relevant in lore ( tho jarv ii does get a nod to in the story and i do like this fact ) by having all active characters closely tied to each other. now we know OLDEST lore demacia raided noxus to free some of their slaves, this is not possible with new lore demacia as they don’t raid nor are they close enough that they can just grab their army and take it to the heart of noxus casually. so noxus had to be the aggressor for it to work, hence xin.zhao’s position as a slave soldier in this story.

but, this inspires a first change in the character of jarv iii - to accept a stranger, a noxian soldier, into demacia he had to be significantly compassionate. so by establishing the king as someone kind enough to release noxian slaves, prisoners of war, and entrust himself to one, to call one friend. BUT this essentially sets up a very kind man who is enforcing harsh, prejudice based laws on a population of his people. obviously, this is a paradox and riot also noticed it and changed it. and with the newer bits of lore we find out multiple new things: 

one) this newer lore jarv iii didn’t teach his son to be suspicious of magical beings. this was mentioned before in his old lore that jarv iv was like most demacians on this and this part was removed on revision, even then enforced that this was not true by his uncle remarking on that is was very unlike him to be so during aftermath. so we can assume he was at least not vocal about his opinions or was genuinely trying not to be prejudiced. two) the laws of stone were introduced and presented us with a not much better but step in the right direction set of laws for demacia which is implied to be done by jarv iii. through they were subsequently slowly undone by the council of nobles as seen in a couple mentions in lore of how the laws were tightening in ways the lightshields disliked and how the king had been giving the council more power. three) the king welcomes shyv when it was open that she was a dragon and the nobles questioned his wisdom in it which meant he openly supported the idea of his son having a dragon guard. (old lore had her hiding it and people just thought she looked weird and were super sus of her). four) all the extra lore we got with the royal family publicly helping mage exiles and meeting with them on conference and other things and all.

essentially made him a king trying to be good for mages. in addition to these changes they wanted to make him a likeable person as well. they worked this into jarv iv’s lore by him being genuinely happy for his sons return rather than emotionless, mentioning how his father genuinely cared for him for one and basically having him present. but in the development of his father they also wished to develop his mother. previously it had be a loveless arranged marriage which tied them together but i guess they figured that wasn’t the route they wanted to go now with this new kinder and more emotional jarv iii so they had them romantically inclined with court whispers, gossip and all. so given this opportunity they went to develop her a little bit, giving catherine strong leadership traits and they likely decided they wanted to show these as plainly and briefly as possible, which apparently in demacian lore is how quickly you can shut down a arms race. which she did instantaneously essentially. she basically kisses the king and said stop and the entire nation was like oh shit we need to stop. no arms race civil war for a good spot near the king’s ear. so, yeah, a queen who can shut down civil war and convince nobles to her side every easily that is much beloved by the nation.

in short, they fixed the paradox of a nice king being cruel to a nice king trying to be good. and then added a powerful queen ruler who stands at his side who is greatly loved and just as influential. HOW LOVELY! however, this causes the issue of why could the good of a now markedly feudal kingdom ( they were constitution monarchy in old lore and still kinda are cause the council and they elect the king but we aren’t here to talk about that ) not just make the decisions they wish? i believe this was their point of realisation of their mistake. the realisation that these two would just do what they want, and that the entire lore of demacia for the 26 years prior would be altered. you have an idealistic king and a queen whom the entire nation adores and bends knee to? they SHOULD be able to do everything they want. and likely did some as it is mentioned the king wants his son to finish what they started and achieve his dreams. have to start something to finish it.

alas, by wanting to develop these characters for the sake of champions like jarv and xin, the essentially wrote themselves into a space of, if they continue to exist we can’t have the story we want. so they basically stopped them existing. first they killed of catherine, in all previous lores as far as we know she was alive just wasn’t romantically interested in her husband. but they did royal stuff together, watched her son get almost killed with a poison crossbow once. good ol days. i imagine they were like good business partners. but for the first time in all lores they had her killed, removed her ( they also removed jarv’s capture by noxus too which has existed just as long but thats a discussion for another day ). now this one move is easy since they put fault on the time period, its olden days in terms of technology in demacia, and unfortunately deaths in childbirth were common. so a very easy disposal which not only removed the civil war ending queen but also injures the motivation of the king by making him emotionally worn out ( in an already emotionally taxing job )

essentially, in one fell swoop they pushed back the pro mage changes to be completed by jarv iv based on his lore as had been written. which is then removed from him and he is given the role of the villain with the comic. funny that if they had just left them both ambiguous they could have just easily had the king the villain cause there wouldn’t have been paradoxes. though i’m not sure how xin.zhao would have gotten in... maybe he escapes and they find him fighting noxians. seems alright? oh well at least we get the cute uncle/nephew relationship in this version of lore. this gives me strength. but ye, so it gets interesting from here because you can sit and just think, what would have happened if she didn’t die?

WHAT IF?

for one, the power couple would have been able to do so much more. i like to think they would have been slowly working down the laws for the betterment of their people and since jarv is not emotionally weakened and lady catherine has the entire council at her beck and call, there would be little resistance amongst the nobility. slowly the laws would lower from mageseekers having to register all emergent mages and ensuring they don’t slip up or they’re out to all emergent mages having to attend classes with members of the lightbringers to learn how to have basic control of their magic -- something they are all too happy to do for they have been doing their best without aid until now -- this would then evolve to allowing more experienced mages to take these classes as an assistant and then a teacher, the lightbringers allowing their secret inner circle to take these places and serve in the open for the first time in so long.

 slowly mages are given voices in positions of leadership and exiles from “slip ups” are lowered as mages are not repressed and know how to control their magic. this would change to not fearing slip ups as use of magic is less restricted for people are less likely to fear what they understand, magic usage becomes legal on school grounds then ever growing territories, eventually towns would have mage quarters where all manor of magic is permitted. although greater usage of magic would likely not be permitted in older parts of cities as it is known to discolour walls and there is only so much you can replace in instance of greying and flaking. got to keep it simple around the grander structures. but maybe over time the mortar can be replaced to not contain petricite, or maybe the bold amongst them might design builds intended to be saturated so their ceilings flake free and reveal the magic like opals within.

slowly magic is phased into the way of life, a smithy apprentice might be permitted to light his own flame without a flint or builder help ease the load of stone. and then ( as jarv seems to have been doing with shyv prior to the comics ) mages might be permitted to don the blue if they so wished, integrating magic into what demacia sees as their pride and joy. their heroes. the mageseekers would become more a force for protecting against mages in war rather than at home, a battalion rather than a power hungry force governed by a few. or maybe they would remain a police force, part of the city guard like any other just they possess protection from magic so are called for a mage criminal while the non magic protected are called for a person swinging a sword. right armour against the right weapon. also as likely, they will lose their name, and their tools simply be another weapon to the people that wear the blue. the tainted history of the name remembered but not allowed to continue on.

slowly, it becomes a nation that embraces magic rather than shuns it out of century old fears. together it is a country that could have healed its wounds both given and inflicted on each other. and our beloved champions could have grown up in a much brighter demacia. frankly, i imagine that within the 20 years from finding xin to the “now” of this universe, much of this could have been accomplished given what we know of them. i do hope, once all the pain and suffering if through in our version of the lore that maybe these steps could be walked by the true of our champions.

[lightshielded]

Since you’re J4 roleplay blog and the only one active plus you seem to be into J4 a lot. I have a question for your character: doesn’t it make more sense for Jarvan to be polygamous as Demacia is based on medieval Europe and a lot warrior princes (such as Jarvan) had a wife and two mistresses? Also a lot of people see J4 as a Gary Sue and this would give him fault because modern society views as taboo. Maybe like marry Lux or some Demacian noblewoman and have Quinn and Shyavana as side girls?

yeah, i really love his character ( and yeah i’m the only active jarvan it’s kind of sad. i wish i had some more active duplicate blogs to chat with ! ) before i get into this might i say i never knew that people saw jarvan as a gary sue? can i have some follow up on that from anyone who reads this, i am deeply curious as to why and how wide spread the thought is. NOTE: i will be taking this to mean infidelity and not polyamory as you referred to side girls and it being taboo to modern society. neither things i would equate to polyamory.

the issue with this thought is that by assuming demacia to have a 100% correlation with medieval europe ( which it doesn’t ) and that it also suggests women will have an inherently lower role in demacian society. this however is not really ever shown to be true. women are shown in high political roles ( beyond that of queen ), high religious roles as both worship and warrior, to be able to be the heads of their own noble houses to great success and even trained for the role, they number among top generals as seen in jarvan’s lore as well as royal guards, the elite ranger knights and even the dauntless vanguard aka the most respected and revered soldiers in demacia. 

though some demacian upper nobility are said to believe women shouldn’t lead the older noble houses in rather hushed whispers ( and then get the shit beaten out of them ), which shows that it was likely an opinion at one point of time but is gradually dying out. such sentiment is more similar to the state of our current world than with medieval europe, where women were generally ALWAYS on unequal terms with men and only had chance to be otherwise as a widow, a queen or a nun. but of course the use of arranged marriage between the political houses remains very true to older times, so there is that.

more closer to truth, because this is also its lore in the world too, demacia takes influence from MANY different cultures and has formulated its own as a result. after all, demacia was founded by refugees of multiple nations who came together in the wake of the rune wars seeking safety AND then those that sure the secure fledgeling nation and travelled to be apart of it. demacia’s army structure is very similar to the roman century structure with generals commanding armies of 100 soldiers. their armour is a mixture of medieval european armour in its full plate and maille but it is highly styled like to be greeco - roman with corinthian helmets and other design elements reminiscent of these groups, such as the prince’s pteruges and crested helm which along with his lance style him to look a bit like a hoplite. but of course it does not have the expansionist ideals and so is not truly greek or roman.

then, demacia’s general architectural appearance aligns more closely with ancient greeco - roman – THEY ALSO HAVE A COLOSSUS, y’know, like the greek colossus, the fabled colossus of rhodes – and the renaissance era. demacia also has many french, english, german and other names as well as aesthetic elements, again this is due to the fact that demacia is a highly mixed culture at its core. not just that, but even the essence of the culture is different to medieval europe and is of a feudal system where the king or queen is elected based on political influence and military merit and not by divine right. so you can see, demacia isn’t a true representation of any one real world country, especially medieval europe ( unless you mean knights and kings automatically equal medieval europe ).

but beyond the culture of demacia being a far cry from traditional medieval europe, there is still jarvan’s own personality which we need to take into account. in his lore, jarvan is referred to as ‘ a paragon of [demacia’s] greatest virtues ’ and to be a rather idealistic character ( granted they are the ideals of one nation and not necessarily ideals for another ). now, demacia values community, caring about others and strength in working together and jarvan values this along with a deep sense of equality to bring this community together. also taking into account the fact that we know jarvan’s parents were married for reasons other than love and so was arranged for political gain. 

now jarvan is both the result of and has grown up expecting a political marriage, a subject on which i’ve written extensively on here, and so has some rather long held opinions on the fact. he deeply respects the truth that he is not the only one forced into this position, as his arranged spouse would have just as little say, and he could never disrespect them ( or rather any lover, arranged or not ) in such a way. for him, who is so community minded and deeply caring for his people, this would be such a horrific thought to him. and, from a political standpoint, it could easily damage public opinion of him should it come to public light and might greatly affect his chances of being elected king.

also, by character way, quinn even notes that jarvan acts in ways she didn’t expect. likely that jarvan canonly resents getting special treatment for his position and that he isn’t a stuck up nobel who thinks he can flaunt his power and control. in her old lore ( idk if its still considered canon but it might ) she even goes to him with her concerns in incorrect judgement of the official orders, likely because she feels comfortable enough to do so even when speaking against a higher ranking officer ( especially orders from the king ) would be deeply frowned upon. so, maybe just, he doesn’t act like a medieval warrior prince might be expected to act. 

furthermore, do you think he would sincerely have shyvana and quinn as ‘ side girls ’ or that they would let themselves be? cause let alone the great love and respect he has for both of them, they would beat his ass if he even dared to, just saying. not to mention, lux wouldn’t stand for that either, and neither would her brother, whom jarvan is very close with as well. i think it would just alienate like his only friends? AND, a very little known fact is that, in old lore jarvan actually had a girlfriend, he doesn’t like to talk about it but seems to be still quite devoted to her after a long time of her not being around. he’s just very loyal.

but this is not to say he doesn’t have flaws, just that i don’t see jarvan as the kind of character to practise infidelity. before he met shyvana he held similar ideas about magic and mages as the rest of demacia. he is horrifically prejudiced against noxus and those that would dare harm demacia such as the winter’s claw. it doesn’t come up often, as they did not torture him, but their constant raids on demacia borders have him GREATLY dislike them. he actively enjoys fighting those he dislikes. he is also largely ruled by his emotions at times which, while he is known to be rather smart, causes him to think rashly and leads to his greatest defeat, mistake and regret. and, due to a life raised as more political pawn than person, he isn’t the best in personal situations.

so in conclusion, demacia isn’t an accurate representation of medieval europe or any real world nation and should not be treated as such. and neither should the characters in it. demacia does however share design similarities with a range of real world nations. furthermore, jarvan is a deeply flawed character who has made mistakes with terrible consequences and canonly lives with that guilt constantly. but he is also a character who is driven by the love he has for his people and the strong ideals he has for his kingdoms future. as way of his own raising and personality, while i do see it as incredibly likely that he will end up in an arranged marriage, i see it that the action of infidelity is in no way in his nature regardless of if he is married out of his own love or the will of his nation.