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WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
| “ | He isn't a monster. He was once a man. Well respected, at that. Victim of great tragedy. He had a ferocious will to live. An incredible tolerance for pain. With him, I was able to make strides impossible with any other specimen. But the mind... The mind I could not recover. The man forever lost in the bowels of the beast, compelled only by the scent of blood. Or so I thought. It now seems I had yet to uncover the right catalyst. | „ |
| ~ Singed explaining how he transformed Vander into Warwick. |
| “ | Blood runs... they all run. | „ |
| ~ Warwick's quote when selected. |
| “ | Don't... touch... my daughter. | „ |
| ~ Warwick protecting Jinx from Rictus. |
Vander, better known as Warwick and also known as The Uncaged Wrath of Zaun, is an anti-heroic playable champion in the 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends and one of the two overarching protagonists (alongside Cecil B. Heimerdinger) in Netflix's 2021 animated series Arcane.
He is a mutant werewolf who was created by Singed and spends his days slaughtering the criminals he encounters on his hunts through the underground city of Zaun. He is the archenemy of Singed, the former best friend-turned-archenemy of Silco, and the adoptive father of Vi, Jinx, Mylo, and Claggor.
Originally a Zaunite freedom fighter who wanted to escape from the sins of his past, Vander was heavily mutated and left for dead after a bloody confrontation with Silco, with his body secretly taken and experimented on for years by Singed. Due to Vander's ferocious will to live, Singed was able to transform him into a lycanthrope and bring him back to life as the bestial monstrosity known as Warwick. In the present day, he prowls through the depths of Zaun in search of criminals who plague the underground, guided by his insatiable thirst for blood and the fractured memories of his adoptive daughters.
Portrayals[]
- He was previously voiced by Brian Sommer (who also voiced Danny St. John in Telltale's The Walking Dead). Since his rework, he is voiced by Dave B. Mitchell (who also voiced Shocker in Marvel's Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: Edge of Time, Geras and Sektor in Mortal Kombat 11, Kintaro in Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms, Gerard Valkyrie in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, Bazuso in Berserk: The Golden Age Arc, Clayface and Hush in Batman Unlimited, and Ash in Alien: Isolation).
- In Arcane, he is voiced by Jean-Benoît "J.B." Blanc, who also voiced Kano in Mortal Kombat 11, Bane in Batman: Arkham Origins and The Enemy Within, Diablo in Diablo III, Enrico Maxwell in Hellsing, Zinyak in Saints Row IV, Romeo in Minecraft: Story Mode, the Tower of Sauron in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Alighiero Alighieri in Dante's Inferno, Silat in Berserk: The Golden Age Arc, Deacon Frost in Marvel Anime: Blade, and Ryker Grimborn in Dragons: Race to the Edge.
Biography[]
Origins[]
Warwick was once a man known as Vander, a Zaunite revolutionary who lost his resolve to keep fighting for freedom after leading a failed uprising against Piltover. This uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds of his own people, including his close friend Felicia and her husband Connol, and after witnessing Felicia's daughters Vi and Powder crying in grief at the sight of their dead parents, Vander discarded his gauntlets and adopted them as his children, vowing to live a more peaceful existence for their sake. He also came to blows with Silco, his brother-in-arms and partner in leading the rebellion against Piltover, over their shared responsibility in Felicia's death and attempted to drown him in Zaun's polluted rivers out of grief. However, he ultimately failed when Silco fought him off with a knife and managed to escape to safety before Vander could stop him.
Vander's decision to turn on Silco came back to bite him several years later when Silco kidnapped him, revealed his intention to lead a second uprising against Piltover with a chemical serum called Shimmer, and used him as bait to trap in his adoptive children (Vi, Mylo, and Claggor) when they eventually came to rescue him from Silco's hideout. Although the three of them nearly succeeded in breaking Vander out, everything went horribly wrong when Powder, who had disobeyed Vi's orders to stay behind with Ekko, set off a makeshift bomb that destroyed most of the building, killing Mylo and Claggor, and injuring Vander and Vi. With Vi partially trapped under a chunk of fallen rubble, Vander fought against Silco's surviving henchmen in order to defend her, but was ultimately overpowered by Deckard, one of Silco's lackeys who had empowered himself with Shimmer, and stabbed in the gut by Silco himself, who then tossed him into a pile of Shimmer vials.
Determined to protect Vi, Vander injected himself with a vial, drastically mutating his body and making him strong enough to easily strangle Deckard before he could get to Vi. He then moved to kill Silco, but ultimately spared him in order to save Vi. Unfortunately, it was at that point that the two-story fall that Vander took in order to get her to safety, along with the severe wounds that he took from Silco, finally started to take their toll and he only had enough strength left to tell Vi to take care of Powder before losing consciousness and seemingly dying.
Becoming Warwick[]
After his confrontation with Silco, Vander was presumed dead by the people of the undercity, and his death would drive Vi and Powder apart for the rest of their childhoods. Despite his passive approach towards Piltover, he was remembered in a good light by many and a statue of him was eventually built in the Lanes to honor his memory.
However, as Singed later discovered when he collected Vander's body, the latter's extraordinary will to live had allowed him to narrowly survive his battle with Silco and made him an ideal test subject for his experiments to find a way to cure his daughter Orianna of her terminal illness. As a result, shortly after Silco's death, Singed started the process of fusing Vander's blood with wolf DNA and saturating his body with potent chemicals, ultimately transforming him into Warwick, a feral and bloodthirsty beast with only faint remnants of his human self buried deep underneath his animalistic instincts.
Reuniting His Family[]
Almost a year after Silco's death, Singed was arrested by Piltovan Enforcers during a rebel rally being held in Zaun by Sevika. However, right before they captured him, he intentionally cut his hand with a scalpel to create a trail of blood. This act triggered Warwick, who then escaped from Singed's lab and relentlessly hunted him down by the scent of his blood, leaving immense destruction and carnage in his wake.
Warwick's rampage eventually led him to Stillwater Hold. After arriving at the prison, he easily overwhelmed Ambessa and her Noxian battalion, and brutally slaughtered all the Enforcers who were guarding the place. Upon descending further into the prison in his hunt for Singed, he encountered Jinx and Sevika, who had arrived at the prison earlier to rescue Isha, and clashed with Jinx when she used herself as a distraction so that Sevika could take Isha to safety. Although Jinx shot at Warwick numerous times with her Hextech pistol and dodged many of his attacks due to having been physically enhanced with an advanced version of Shimmer, none of her shots were able to deal any lasting damage to him, and Warwick finally cornered her just when she was about to try to kill him with one of her grenades.
However, just as Warwick was about to finish Jinx off, he caught sight of her grenade and its unique design, triggering a flood of memories in his mind and causing him to halt his assault against her, with his eyes changing color from red to green. At that moment, he recognized Jinx as his adoptive daughter Powder and even spoke her name, leading her to recognize him as Vander and realize that he had been alive this whole time.
Following his confrontation with Jinx, Warwick retreated back to Zaun and went into hiding in a remote mine shaft. Determined to help the man they once knew, Jinx convinced Vi to help her track him down, with Isha accompanying them. While searching for Warwick in the mines, Vi accidentally gave Isha a nosebleed and the scent of her blood came to Warwick's attention. Overwhelmed by his innate bloodlust, Warwick hunted them down soon enough and attempted to kill Isha, but was interpreted by Vi, who stepped in to protect her.
Due to Vi’s altered appearance, with her dyed black hair and punk makeup, Warwick failed to recognize her and viciously attacked her without hesitation. Although Vi fared better against Warwick than Jinx did due to her Atlas Gauntlets, he still easily shrugged off most of her attacks due to his regenerative blood and eventually overpowered her. He then turned towards Jinx, who was shielding Isha behind her, and momentarily recognized her as Powder, causing his eyes to flicker back to green, but then went berserk once more when Vi spit out a wad of blood onto the floor.
Now in a savage rage, Warwick moved to attack Vi again, only for Vi to call out his name as “Vander.” This sparked a memory of a conversation he had decades ago with Silco and Felicia-Vi and Jinx’s mother-about the future of Zaun and the revelation that Felicia was pregnant with her first child, which was enough for Warwick to finally recognize Vi and for his humanity to completely resurface. Vander’s consciousness then fully emerged, allowing him to embrace Vi, Jinx, and Isha in a heartfelt family reunion.
Capture[]
With Vander now in control of himself, the girls took him to Viktor’s sanctuary, hoping that he could use his powers to reverse Warwick's transformation and turn him back into a human. Despite his advanced Hextech powers, Viktor quickly realized that Singed’s experiments had buried Vander’s consciousness deep inside Warwick’s mind, making the process of curing him far more complex than he’d initially anticipated. Nevertheless, due to his earnest desire to help Vander, Viktor committed himself to the challenge on the condition that Warwick was to be restrained at night and spent the next few days working tirelessly to restore his humanity.
Singed later came to visit Viktor and proposed the idea of using Warwick’s regenerative blood to enhance Viktor’s own evolution. However, as Viktor was unwilling to sacrifice Vander for his own gain, he firmly rejected Singed’s offer, prompting the latter to leave. Viktor’s efforts later appeared to be working when Vander protected Jinx from Rictus, snarled at him to “stay away from his daughter,” and then threw Rictus out of a nearby window with tremendous force, severely wounding him.
However, this victory proved to be short-lived when Jayce suddenly arrived at the sanctuary and seemingly killed Viktor, causing the residents of the settlement to collapse and perish. As the girls inspected the chaos around them, Singed took the opportunity to inject Warwick with another serum, which caused his blood to turn into a lava-like fluid and turned him uncontrollably savage. Stripped of all reason, Warwick then brutally eviscerated Rictus and turned his attention towards his daughters, Isha, and Caitlyn, whom he no longer recognized.
Before Warwick could move to attack them, Ambessa and her soldiers launched an assault on the sanctuary in hopes of capturing him to use as a weapon under their command. Although Warwick easily slaughtered many of the soldiers who attempted to take him down, he was severely wounded in the process, leaving his daughters, Isha, and Caitlyn with no viable means of escape. In a desperate bid to protect her new family, Isha grabbed Jinx’s Hextech pistol before Jinx could stop her and overloaded it with three Hextech gemstones. Much to Jinx’s despair, Isha then sacrificed herself by taking a point-blank shot at Warwick, creating an explosion of arcane energy that engulfed the entire area and seemingly killed them both. Unfortunately, her sacrifice turned out to be partially in vain, as Warwick survived the explosion and was re-captured by Singed in the aftermath of her death.
Evolution[]
With Viktor having barely survived the chest wound that he took from Jayce, Singed chose to heal him with Warwick’s blood, even though Viktor had previously been against sacrificing Warwick for his own evolution. Although the blood infusion process didn’t kill Warwick, it did wipe most of his memories and lead him to forget his past as a human. Viktor then took the situation with Warwick a step further by possessing him through his powers and turning him into one of his mindless slaves as part of his so-called “glorious evolution.”
During Viktor’s battle with the Piltover-Zaun alliance, Warwick ambushed Vi and Jinx, and used his strength to cause Jinx's hot air balloon to crash through the side of a nearby tower. Due to the fact that neither Vi and Jinx had the proper weapons to kill Warwick or the will to fight against their own father, he easily overpowered them both and attempted to have Viktor use his powers on them to achieve his final evolution. Fortunately, it was at that point that Ekko and Jayce successfully broke through Viktor’s defenses, which caused Warwick to release his daughters, with the three of them falling down onto various iron platforms around the tower.
Defeat[]
Although Jinx insisted that Vander was unreachable inside Warwick’s mind, Vi refused to give up on their father and remained determined to save him. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Warwick woke up and immediately attacked her, having reverted back to his mindlessly savage state now that Viktor was no longer controlling him. Realizing that Warwick would get both Vi and himself killed if he kept attacking her, as the platform they were standing on was wobbly and unstable, Jinx body-slammed Warwick off of her, causing the two of them to fall over the edge of the platform towards the core below. While Vi managed to grab onto Jinx’s right arm in the nick of time to prevent her from falling to her death, Warwick managed to grab onto one of Jinx’s legs at the same time and started using her to slowly climb back up onto the platform.
Knowing that all three of them would die if Vi didn’t let go of her hand, Jinx realized that it was time for her to do for Vi what Isha had done for her and forced Vi to release her by disabling her right gauntlet. As Jinx fell with Warwick towards the core, she turned back towards him and cupped his face in her hands, sparking a memory of him tucking her and Vi into bed when they were kids. With a sad and faint smile, Jinx then sacrificed herself by activating her monkey bomb before Warwick could move to stop her, creating an explosion of arcane energy that presumably killed them both and putting an end to the Uncaged Wrath of Zaun once and for all.
Personality[]
| “ | I became the monster I always was! | „ |
| ~ Warwick |
In his younger years, Vander was a brutal and violent man, with Silco describing him as a “beast” when they fought together on the same side in the past. However, after leading a failed uprising against Piltover that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of their own people and led him to adopt Vi and Powder, who were orphaned by the uprising, as his daughters, Vander abandoned his dream of liberating the undercity from Piltover’s control out of remorse and become pacifist, discarding his gauntlets and carrying the two girls away to raise them as their father.
As the leader of the Lanes, Vander was a selfless and compassionate man who was always willing to protect those who needed his help. He was seen as a protector by many and was well-respected by his fellow Zaunites. He primarily governed the Lanes through a paternal authority, and relied on people's gratitude and genuine respect for him to maintain order. Although he turned pacifist after the failed uprising he led against Piltover, he defied his dogma during his final confrontation with Silco, viciously strangling Deckard with one hand and sacrificing himself to ensure that Vi would survive.
After being transformed into Warwick through Singed’s experiments, the violent tendencies that Vander demonstrated during his youth were revived and brought to the forefront of his personality. He also became extremely brutal, aggressive, and bloodthirsty, to the point where he would go berserk every time he smelled blood. However, despite appearing to be mindlessly feral, he possessed a sense of intelligence that aided him in battle, as shown when he grabbed Jinx’s hand before she could activate one of her grenades and spared the Zaunite prisoners that he encountered during his rampage through Stillwater.
Due to his extraordinary will to live, Warwick retained many of his memories of his human life, which enabled him to recognize Vi and Jinx, and remember his role as their father. With Viktor’s help, his buried humanity also eventually started to return, as shown when he protected Jinx from Rictus and violently chucked him out of a nearby window as retaliation for trying to kill her. Unfortunately, all of Viktor’s efforts were ultimately undone when Singed injected Warwick with another serum, causing him to give into his primal instincts, lose his ability to recognize his daughters, and become uncontrollably savage. The blood infusion process that Singed later conducted between Warwick and Viktor to heal the latter's wounds also wiped Warwick's mind, causing him to lose most of his memories of his past life and become an empty shell to be used by Viktor as part of his glorious evolution.
However, after Viktor gave up on his evolution and released the people that he had enslaved with his powers, Warwick reverted back to his mindlessly savage state, causing him to ferociously attack Vi upon waking up. It wasn’t until Jinx rammed him off of Vi and the two of them started to fall was when Warwick’s humanity seemed to resurface and he started to recall some of his memories of his daughters. This would presumably give Warwick a sense of peace and solace when Jinx activated her monkey bomb while he was holding her in his arms, with the two of them seemingly perishing together in the ensuing explosion.
Gallery[]
Images[]
.png "Warwick (Arcane).png (257 KB)")
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Throughout League of Legends history, Warwick's lore changed many times before becoming reworked into the Uncaged Wrath of Zaun.
- In his first lore, he was a mercenary who turned into his wolf form by drinking a serum to combat an army, becoming an even more skilled mercenary than before.
- In his second lore, Warwick was an alchemist who was known as "The Deathmaker" by the Ionians. Soraka sacrificed her divinity to transform him into his wolf form to punish him for his war crimes.
- His third incarnation was an infamous apothecary and the master of Singed, who was characterized as being Warwick's apprentice at the time. His infamy caused Soraka to transform him into his wolf form, causing Singed to look on in shock and wonder.
- His fourth incarnation was an experimenter and human trafficker who was best friends with Singed, whose transformation was influenced by a magic potion. In order to complete his transformation, he required Soraka's heart as one of the potion's components. He was intolerant of failure and refused to listen to Singed's warnings that the incomplete potion was unstable. After becoming a mutated beast, he spent his life trying to hunt down Soraka to get her heart.
- Even though Soraka is no longer involved in Warwick's lore since his rework, his taunt quote towards her is "Eat your heart out", referencing her being involved in his old lore.
- His joke animation involves him acting like a dog. One of his quotes, "I'll do a trick for a Warwick snack!" is a reference to Scooby-Doo and his love of Scooby Snacks.
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 Villains
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Empire of Noxus Black Rose House Du Couteau House Medarda The Immortal Bastion Others Piltover & Zaun Silco’s Crew Glorious Evolved Enforcers House Medarda Sons of Ur Others Original Lore Demacia Mageseekers Ionia Order of Shadow Bilgewater The Freljord The Winter’s Claw Shurima Ixtal The Shadow Isles Others The Void Voidborn Servants of Bel'Veth Bandle City Demons Others Darkin Others | ||