The voice actor for the newest League of Legends hero has confirmed that he is a member of the LGBT+ community.
K’Sante, LoL’s newest champion, was revealed in a short trailer that has been just released online and has already caused quite a stir (see: LoL: K’Sante is a new hero coming to League of Legends. Here is his trailer). The opinions of players were really different. Some admitted that the appearance of the new character somewhat disappointed them. Others joked that Riot wanted to add “Phoenix on steroids” (an agent from Valorant) to LoL. However, it wasn’t the man’s appearance that proved most controversial.
Rumors that the new League of Legends character would be homosexual had been around for some time. Some of the creators piqued the curiosity of the community, but few spoke directly about the orientation of the upcoming hero. One Rioter, when asked if K’Sante might belong to the LGBT+ community, replied that “what you’re asking may be closer than you think”.
After the release of the champion’s trailer, the voice actor who lent his voice spoke out. Finally, it was directly confirmed that the character belongs to a sexual minority.
Voice actor about K’Sante’s orientation
The actor’s statement proved extremely controversial, as it touched on K’Sante’s orientation. DeObia Oparei wrote:
League of Legends’ newest hero, of course, will not be the first character to represent sexual minorities. Over the past few years, LoL has changed strongly in this regard. In addition to the release of Neeko, who was portrayed from the very beginning as a character who prefers girls, the creators also confirmed the relationship of Leona and Diana or Twisted Fate and Graves.
The Arcane series also touched on Vi and Caitlyn’s romantic relationship. On top of that, from the statements of champions in Legends of Runeterra, among others, it is safe to say that there are many more examples of other orientations. Miss Fortune, known to all, makes no secret that she is interested in both men and women.
So why is the revelation that K’Sante is LGBT+ so shocking? According to some, Riot is paying too much attention to the new characters’ orientations, instead of focusing on their personality. There were also comments in which players wrote that the emphasis on the fact that the new champion is a black gay man seems strongly pushy.
One player wrote on Reddit:
Back in the day riot didn’t need to explain their sexuality and just released champions with their story+kit not saying if they’re straight or not cause it didn’t matter.
These days champions come with a twitter bio
Does this mean that the League of Legends community is generally unhappy by the fact that K’Sante is not heterosexual? Of course not. There are people who are happy that Riot is trying to issue diverse champions, not only in terms of origin or skin color but also in terms of orientation. These people say that there are few representatives of minorities anyway, so it can’t be said that the developers are exaggerating with releases of this type.
There are also those players who openly say that who K’Sante is doesn’t matter much, because the most important thing for them is the character’s skill set and whether it will be enjoyable to play.