One of the latest League of Legends devlogs explain why it’s imperative to Briar’s character that you can see her toes.

League of Legends’ new champions is Briar, a feral vampire who is bound by magic shackles and escapes a Noxian prison to unleash mayhem in Summoner’s Rift.

She has been the target of some controversy as of late, due to the character having a somewhat child-like design but her in-game model featuring very prominent hips and thighs. Weirdly enough, the latest controversy comes from the developers justifying their decision to have her feet exposed.

You can view the devlog snippet below:

While Briar might come from slightly gruesome origins, she is by no means a dark, sad champion. And this is immediately recognizable when you look at her.

“Because she’s a very complex character,” Kindlejack adds, “the way that I wanted to visually communicate her personality is thus: Her face and expressions show a lot of her eagerness and excitement. But her feet and stance communicate her hesitance and trepidation on entering the human world. And then her hands—restrained at the wrists—show her inner hunger.”

At first glance, these details might not be something that you pick up on consciously. But on further study it becomes clear that the position of her claw-like hands, pigeon-toed feet, and eccentric face are all working together to communicate the main beats of her character.

See? plenty of lore and design reasons to go around, definitely nothing weird going on. Briar is coming to League of Legends September 13, 2023, on patch 13.18.

League of Legends is available on Microsoft Windows (through Riot Games).