Originally Posted by Eserine

Indeed, it acts as a social commentary on holiday overconsumption while simultaneously showing off the comic pedigree of the developers.

Many popular animated series in America (and many other countries) have had episodes where one of the main character gains weight

Homer gains lots of weight in an episode of The Simpsons
Lois gains a lot of weight in an episode of Family Guy
Stan gains a lot of weight in an episode of American Dad
Jake and Finn both gain a lot of weight in an episode of Adventure Time
... and Futurama
... and Aqua Teen Hunger Force
... and Metalocalypse
... and Sealab 2021
... and Southpark
... and this list could go on for several threadpages...
... and live-action shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...
... and hundreds of webcomics...
... and comic games like Sushi Cat or Fat Princess...

In fact I am confused about the entire premise of your challenge to this idea. This is a very well-established character modification with an enormous degree of precedence.

Notably in several examples I've mentioned pole dancing is also used in episodes, but only in the context of classlessness, self-destructive moves towards oblivion, and loneliness edging toward total despair (unlike Riot's Kat stripper)- preferred by only the worst characters and inevitably leading to horrific consequences. (ATHF Alien abduction of Carl the slob- Metalocalypse, the awful bachelor party of the brother of Pickles- ASIF, antiheroes pretending to be handicapped and being doomed to continue life in Philidelphia, etc.). In the context of female empowerment I agree with some writers in this thread that poledancing can be a cute and fun personal practice, but if one studies the animation more closely put into the game it doesn't seem as though Katarina is having fun at all, she seems to be joylessly working, which more closely follows the concerns by players writing about lionizing the sexual exploitation of poor people...

Originally Posted by Morello

Whoa whoa - relax champ. We're saying "santa-style lady" skins, not sexy skins.

Originally Posted by Ishaboo

I bet the designers just felt a little too perverted when they made the animation in the first place.

Originally Posted by Ephringael

You guys realize you are arguing with Morello.

Freaking MORELLO.

This guy NERFED DEATH.

Death!

In the words of Arkady Ourumov: "You can't win."

Originally Posted by Morello

I need to be clear about something here: the reason we're removing it (and make no mistake, we are) is because there's a lot of places where we're happy to do that, as you guys have noticed, but this skin was not the right place for this sort of thing.

Nidalee has a spear, easily a pole. She's also generally closely related to "hot night elf chick" and has some innate *** appeal to her - pole dance is awesome here.

Katarina in Reindeer ears with a pole dance is just off. It's not about right and wrong, it's not about sensitivity, it's about "what makes sense with this content?"

If you want to think there's some PC police that guide our hand, I can't stop you, but do a quick search on our thoughts to the contrary of this (go look in the spider queen or Nami threads) you'll find that we normally go forward with it when we believe it's the right choice for the champ or skin. In this case, it's just not.

EDIT: Included more complete reasoning from later in the thread:

Let me slow down and give you a more nuanced explanation herd (I tend to get caught up in the rapid-fire of volume posts coming in and post too quickly to fully communicate the intended thought):