The Truth Behind the Allegations of Zeus “Mocking” Kanavi
Recently, the League of Legends community, especially HLE fans, was surprised by the content of HLE’s vlog. The story revolves around the team’s outing, but the focus fell on a short conversation between the players about the new Jungler – Kanavi.
The incident began when staff were explaining safety rules, and Kanavi was absent due to being in the restroom. At this point, Delight jokingly remarked: “Mr. Jin-hyeok (Kanavi) doesn’t need to listen, right?” Immediately, Zeus responded: “His Korean isn’t that good anyway, so it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t hear, after all, he’s Chinese, we can explain it again.”
This comment from Zeus quickly became the center of criticism. Many fans felt that Zeus was being insensitive by bringing up issues of nationality and language proficiency to mock a teammate. Particularly, this joke hit a sore spot regarding Kanavi’s identity, as he is often teased as “the LCK player in China” while playing in the LPL, and now being called “the LPL player” when returning to the LCK.
But it seems that Zeus may not have had any negative intentions and Kanavi didn’t mind
However, if we calmly reconsider the incident from a positive perspective, this seems to just be an over-the-top joke among close teammates, with no malicious intent whatsoever.
In fact, the relationship between Zeus and Kanavi is quite good. They are not strangers but were teammates who stood shoulder to shoulder to bring home the Gold Medal in the ASIAD League of Legends event for South Korea last year. Furthermore, Kanavi himself mentioned in an interview that the main reason he chose to join HLE was largely because of Zeus. After talking, both felt that they would create great “chemistry” if they played together.
In conclusion, the fans’ concerns are valid, but this is an internal matter among the players, and the audience does not see the full picture when HLE members interact with each other. This could be seen as a factor for HLE to enforce stricter content moderation, but it is not evidence that the internal dynamics of HLE are fracturing.
According to Newsqq