Idle Worship — untangling the mythos of Runaway

Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses. It merely marches forward.
Bojack Horseman

When I was in high school, I was a filmmaker. Some people are surprised to hear that, but the truth is, I loved making films. I think it was a natural outlet for my predisposition to see the world in terms of stories to be told. During my foray into the world of film, as an introduction to screenwriting, my teacher taught us about constructing narratives through various dramatic structures. Most of them have long since been purged from my memory, but the one that’s stuck with me was called Freytag’s Pyramid.

Freytag’s Pyramid is maybe the most commonly used dramatic structure there is, intentional or not. It can be found in everything from poetry to movies to advertisements. There are a few different variations, but the one that I know has five key steps: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement (which is a fancy word for “resolution”).

It’s simple, but it’s nice to be able to think of every story in those terms. There’s something comforting about knowing that no matter what, somehow, there will be a resolution in the end. Or, if not a resolution, a new equilibrium, at least. Some new state of being that gives purpose to everything that happened before it. Why else would it have happened, if not for a purpose?

While I was reading up on the various ways that Freytag’s Pyramid is used, I learned that it’s a technique frequently used in marketing. Showing people a story makes them sympathetic to the characters in it and persuades them to believe in something bigger than themselves — which, of course, then makes them easier to sell to.

If you look past the nonchalantly dystopian way some of these corporate shills describe the exploitation of people’s sympathies in order to sell products, there’s some truth to what they say. In esports, fans are the consumers. We do often look for the stories that entice us in order to decide where our loyalties should lie. We look for characters we can root for, larger ideas we can believe in, some reason to feel like our support is important and necessary.

For that to happen, the story needs a good beginning. It needs to establish its characters and the world that they inhabit. And for all intents and purposes, despite the date of the team’s creation, Runaway’s story began in 2017.

Being a fan of any team comes with its fair share of frustrations. Being a fan of Runaway through 2017, it seemed like frustration was all there was. There was never a second to take a breath. There was always some new challenge, some problem that had to be solved. The worst part of watching the team stumble along and grapple with each new hardship was knowing that almost none of it was their fault. They were doing so well with the little they had. In a perfect world, they would’ve had all the funding and resources they needed in order to succeed right from the start.

They could be so much more, I often found myself thinking, consumed with rage at how unfair it all was. They have so much potential. They could be the best team in the world, if only they were given the chance.

God, I truly believed that. I just knew that if all the pieces came together, they could do anything, beat anyone.

Runaway was barely a factor in APEX Season 1, but after some roster retooling, they returned to Season 2 reinvigorated and ready to make their mark. Though they were achieving better and better results, Runaway was always hilariously incongruous with the image APEX was putting forth, their oversized pink sweaters totally out of place among the sleek booths and flashing lights.

Runner soon found that the team couldn’t function properly without his shotcalling. They were all young players who needed strong in-game leadership to keep them from spiraling. They didn’t live together in a team house like many of the other teams, so developing their synergy was difficult. Their main tank, Kaiser, scrimmed from a PC bang so as not to disturb his mother. They were, in every sense, an amateur team.

Still, Runaway managed to qualify for playoffs, where they faced off against Lunatic-Hai, the favorites to win the season. Analysts gave Runaway a 15% chance to win.

They won, 3 to 2. As overtime ticked down on the final map, Runner threw down his headset and leaped out of his chair, yelling and throwing his hands up in jubilation. This exuberant celebration, unfortunately, came at the cost of a ceiling panel, which collapsed above him as his fist slammed into it.

It was one of those turning points, a moment that you knew people would always remember. It doesn’t seem like too much of an exaggeration to call it the ceiling punch heard around the world. That burst of property-damaging joy from Runner as the finishing touch to an improbable upset victory was all it took for many people to take notice of Runaway. Just like that, this amateur team without a team house, org, or even a sponsor suddenly became the most exciting prospect in the tournament.

The raw, explosive passion with which Runner decimated a ceiling panel was what defined Runaway’s playstyle, and people are always, inexplicably, drawn to passion. The word that gets thrown around most when people talk about Runaway is “family.” From the perspective of the fans, they weren’t just a team. Their unwavering trust in Runner and one another was what made them special. Here was a team that cared, really cared, about each other.

Runner wasn’t just a father figure to the players, though. He was also an actual father. He and his wife, Flowervin, had a young daughter. In an interview with Inven Global, he voiced his guilt over being so devoted to the team, to the point where he felt he was neglecting his family.

People are inclined to romanticize the work that goes into esports and all the sacrifices that are necessary to get ahead in the industry, but to me, this was the biggest sign that what Runaway was doing was unsustainable. The team could put everything they had into the game to compensate for the other things they lacked, but that could only get them so far. They couldn’t keep it up forever. It infuriated me. It just wasn’t fair that this team who cared so much, about the game and about each other, should be barred from reaching their full potential by something so arbitrary as money.

Everyone knows how the story goes from there. Runaway made APEX Season 2 finals, then lost. They bombed out of Season 3 in groups before returning to form in Season 4 and losing in finals once again. They earned the reputation of being the eternal bridesmaids of the Overwatch scene. In lieu of covering Runaway’s dismal Season 3 and subsequent resurgence, I’m going to link my friend Rally’s article for ESPN on the matter, which contains a lot more detail.

After the disaster of Season 3, I thought they might disband. After the tragic loss in Season 4, I thought they might disband. After Runner left to do his military service, I thought they might disband. They came close so many times. At the end of 2017, Stitch even considered retiring. And yet, every single time, they held on. They held on to each other. By the time 2018 rolled around, none of the players even went to the Overwatch League, despite some of them having received offers that Runner and Flowervin urged them to take. They were adamant about staying together.

That willingness to sacrifice individual success for the sake of succeeding together isn’t the kind of thing you often see in a competitive environment, but that loyalty had always been the beating heart of Runaway. The players were all great individually, but something about playing together made them exceptional. Some kind of mutual understanding made the team work where it shouldn’t. Sometimes the way they played together was so seamless that it seemed like they didn’t even need to communicate. People who watched them knew it was something special. They themselves must have recognized that, too.

One of my favorite moments of the APEX era is from a post-match interview with Haksal, conducted by Akshon Esports. When they ask him which non-Runaway player he’d choose to start a team with, he just looks back, a little bemused, and says, “I like my team the way it is. I don’t want players from other teams.”

Did he misunderstand the question? Most likely, but something about what he said touches me. How plainly he answered, how confused he seemed. Like he couldn’t even imagine a world where he wasn’t playing with this group of people. He was 16 at the time.

Freytag’s Pyramid isn’t just a description of a narrative. It’s a structure. It’s not primarily concerned with the contents of the story— rather, it dictates the story’s pace and emotional beats. It maps out the way the story builds upon itself and rushes to its peak before slowing down to ease its subjects into their denouement, whatever that may be.

This past week, the Vancouver Titans parted ways with all of their players and coaches. Seven — JJanu, Haksal, Seominsoo, Slime, Stitch, Twilight, and Yangwon — came from Runaway. It’s unclear where they’ll go after this. The announcement hasn’t come as a surprise, exactly, but for someone who’s watched this group of players let every other opportunity pass them by just for a chance to stay together, it feels a little like being punched in the gut (by a freight train).

The story of Runaway found its peak in the golden age that began with winning Contenders Korea. After so many failed attempts, they finally received their prize. It was a moment of beautiful catharsis. It felt like a collective exhalation after years of bated breath. It felt like everything, even the worst parts, had been worth it.

From then on, none of the obstacles that had held them back before mattered anymore. The team snagged yet another championship before all of them were signed to the Vancouver Titans. For many of the players, it was the first time they’d ever played anywhere that wasn’t Runaway. They left behind the only team they’d ever known, but still, they had each other. It felt like such a relief, to know that it hadn’t all been for nothing. They had fought their hardest to stay together, and actually succeeded.

They kept winning. They won a stage final on their first attempt. They’d earned it, but it felt like more than that. It felt deserved. After so many struggles, so many heartbreaks, surely they were owed this long string of victories.

If Runaway’s peak was their record-breaking win streak, the past few months have been the torturously drawn out downward spiral that comes afterwards. Following the Titans’ swift defeat in the grand finals, rumors began to circulate about the discipline issues and unresolved conflict between players and management that had hindered their playoff run. In November, the team announced four different departures— including Bumper, who’d been on Runaway since almost the very beginning.

There were some early signs of trouble, of course. For the first two stages of the 2019 season, Western media was usually unable to conduct interviews with the team because they didn’t have a translator. It was comical, in a sad sort of way. Here was one of the most beloved and anticipated rosters in Overwatch history, and they had almost no media coverage. As Runaway, they had fulfilled the role of the ragtag group of misfits, a team whose charm came from their tight-knit bond and colorful individual personalities. Now, all of a sudden, they were titans, fearsome and faceless. They weren’t the heroes of their own story anymore.

*Stewart Volland, Blizzard Entertainment*

For years, I had held on to the idea that if they were only given the chance, if they were given the tools to succeed, Runaway could be the best in the world. And for a while, they were. They really, really were. It was incredible to watch them at their very best. I’ll always be grateful we had that.

But maybe the real tragedy of Runaway is that things would never really be perfect for them. The circumstances would never be just right. As the Titans, they never had to worry about their team house or funding or equipment. But now what they lacked was management that really cared about them the same way they had always been cared for, the way they needed to be cared for. There was a glaring lack of mutual understanding, exacerbated by a language barrier. All the money in the world can’t make up for that.

On the surface, this situation isn’t especially unique. It’s the same story that always plays out whenever a Western org buys a team of Korean players and vastly underestimates the amount of work that goes into operating a team through a language barrier. But this was a team that genuinely cared about one another. For years, they were willing to endure numerous failures and missed opportunities just to stay together. Things must have been dire if not even staying together was worth it anymore.

But, okay. The team’s management, while negligent to a now irreversible degree, was not responsible for everything that went wrong. I won’t go so far as to say the players themselves had nothing to do with it. A lack of mutual understanding implies an unwillingness to reach out from both sides, after all (even if one is a lot more responsible for reaching out than the other).

After Runaway lost in that excruciating APEX Season 4 final, the team traipsed half-heartedly onto the stage to receive their second place prize and face the audience, which was heavily skewed in their favor. As they stood on that stage, knowing they’d failed once again, the crowd cheered together: “Runaway, you worked hard!”

Haksal had been doing a good job stoically bearing the loss until then, but something about that sudden swell of support opened the floodgates. He lowered his head and started to cry.

It broke my heart then, and it breaks my heart now. It makes me think about how much younger all these players were when they started out, and how stubbornly they’ve held on to their identity as a team even as they’ve grown together over the years. Haksal has cried twice more onstage since then: once when Runaway won Contenders, and once when they won Stage 1 finals as the Titans. He’s 19 now, but despite it all, a big part of him is still that 16-year-old kid. Arrogant, emotional, impulsive.

Being together for so long, the players never had to change much. The team was insular and inseparable. That was what gave them their unmatched synergy, but it also made them stubborn.

I’ve been following Runaway for a very long time. As the years go by, you always have to face some hard truths about the team you love. The truth I’ve had to face is that it’s possible that the ties that bound them had been fraying at the ends before they even became the Titans. That long-held image of Runaway as a group of people who all cared for and trusted one another unconditionally — a family, in other words — was probably a lot more complicated than that. Most things are. After a while, it’s clear to see the kinds of players who are attracted to Runaway: reckless and eager, and so sure of themselves that they don’t think they can fail. Put together, those personalities are capable of working together just as powerfully as they are capable of falling apart.

Runaway wasn’t meant to last forever. No team is. But they deserved a kinder ending than this.

In 2017, every member of Runaway agreed that they could never do this without Runner. If he were to ever leave the team, they would have to disband.

Then Runner did leave, for his military service, and the team didn’t disband. With the help of Flowervin, they kept going. They achieved their first championship. After another year they went to the Overwatch League together, leaving behind Runner and Flowervin and the crowds of devoted fans. They made it to the top of the league. They did it without Runner. They learned how to stand on their own. It felt like they had won.

And yet. Here we are.

It’s tempting to see this as a cruel trick of fate, as proof that the team really was doomed to fail without Runner’s constant steady guidance. But despite the trainwreck-esque way it ended, it wasn’t really a failure. Not if you look at everything they did together. “Denouement” doesn’t always mean “ending”, after all. It just means “resolution”.

I think this is their denouement, this new state of being that they now have to navigate. This is the last thing there is left for them to learn from Runaway, no matter where they end up.

Without Runner, they learned to stand on their own, as a team. Now they have to learn to do it without each other.

This piece began as a confusing, amorphous blob of feelings, and developed into something more structured and accessible. As such, I know that a lot of this piece skews more somberly accepting and warmly nostalgic. Don’t let that fool you. To be selfish for a second, I’m very sad, and very angry. None of the players deserved this. The impact of losing the most successful and beloved amateur team in Overwatch through such unfortunate circumstances will be keenly felt in this community.

It’s not uncommon to see people on Reddit or Twitter questioning the culture that surrounds Runaway nowadays. I imagine it must be difficult for a relative outsider to understand why this group of players has attracted such a following. There are legions of people who, even if they don’t outright support them, have a deep respect for them and what they’ve created.

I think, to many, Runaway represents what we all want to see from an esports team: a group of young and restless players somehow managing to overcome every obstacle that comes their way and make it to the top together. At their best, they were living proof that anyone could make it, so long as they had the drive and the talent. They were the ideal.

Nowadays, we instinctively compare the trajectories of amateur and underdog teams to that of Runaway. We look for echoes of their story in everything, for the same bright and brilliant spark that made them so special. I’m not sure what they did will ever be replicated, though. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. They can remain, in our memories, what they always were. Untouchable.

I know that Runaway wasn’t always what we envisioned them to be. They might not ever have been. I know that they had conflict and controversies and near-retirements. I know they had long nights and arguments and the clashing of egos. I know they were far from perfect. But sometimes, what we want something to be is more important than what it actually is. For me, believing in Runaway was always an opportunity for me to discard my skepticism and disillusionment. I needed there to be a story that made sense, for there to be a real hero, a team that didn’t just want to win but deserved to win. They were that for me, and I’ll miss them like hell.

More than anything, the mythos of Runaway represents our collective desire to believe in something real. Family. Loyalty. Togetherness. A kind of magic that was bigger than just them, some ineffable quality that touched the hearts and minds of every person it came across. We wanted to believe that there was something that could just be good, without an asterisk, without complication. Something so good that it was infallible. We wanted to believe in the fairytale so much that sometimes it almost seemed real. The hardest part isn’t going to be letting go of Runaway. The hardest part is going to be watching them let go of each other.

There’s this impossible scene that lives wholly in my imagination, a self-indulgent product of my fixation with the idea of legacies. Here’s what it looks like: every player who’s ever passed through Runaway, all together someplace, like a big suburban family in some idyllic children’s novel. It’s not important where they are, and it’s not important what they’re doing. They’re just together. Three generations of players and lineups, all so different, yet forever linked in the way that being a part of this team has imbued them with the same resilience of spirit.

When I think of that imagined scene, I like to think the players all get along. (I think Leejaegon and Bumper would be good friends.) There are none of the discipline issues or interpersonal conflicts that have bogged them down in recent times. For now, at least, they’re happy. For now, at least, they really are everything we wanted them to be.

I imagine Runner and Flowervin are there, too. Maybe Runner turns to Flowervin, smiling that proud smile of his.

Look at what we did, he might say. Look at what we made.

Idle Worship — untangling the mythos of Runaway

Why the illusion of choice isn't always a bad thing

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