âI feel like this was never meant to be foreshadowing for anything the show was setting up. âWe canât have a conversation if youâre not going to be honest.
O.k I will admit fault on my part. I should worded this better. Instead of "I feel like this was never meant to be foreshadowing for anything the show was setting up". And more like just based on what the show has presented, it feels more like we were suppose to take the opposite from this statement. In that this was the tragedy of Arcane that the city that born on unity is eroded due to city not actually adhering to this principle. To simply say "Magic is bad and Jayce should of never of messed with it" feels so narrow minded compared to how the first season sets itself up.
Nothing in the show is canon that wasnât explicitly stated as such, particularly details that would significantly impact the theme or plot. To make the understanding of your show reliant on materials outside of the general knowledge of your audience (which for Arcane was largely people that have not and will not further explore the lore of Runeterra) would be absolutely terrible storytelling at least.
I mean things like the old origins of Piltover beginning as a place that worshiped a wind-spirit and how she was reused as a spirit of fresh-air due to Zaun's pollution are still canon as seen in S2 Act 1.
And even then Arcane was very much prone to just introducing things like "The Black Rose" even though they have nothing to do with anything.
Because that's the thing if your meant to create a story that uses characters and narrative events from the OG LoL lore then people are going to correlate it the lore of League to it.
However even if we want to disregard the large world of Runeterra when examining Arcane. The idea of "Standing tall against the Rune-wars" aren't the words of unity there the words of propaganda, the idea of "Building a wall to our enemies" is meant to
Going back to Ekkoâs statement, the whole point of âcoming together to fight a common enemyâ is that the two sides have to initially be apart. Him re-establishing the division just emphasizes the initial conflict the story is addressingânot making claims as to its resolution. Zaun and Piltover having diverged in purpose over two hundred years also has nothing to do with them initially joining forces against a common enemy. If they had continued to be friends or even just allies, the story of them fighting an enemy off together wouldnât exactly be compelling.
The thing about Ekko's statement is that what he is saying that there was "never" any unity to begin with, it was just a lie created by the elite.The emphasis of "the divergence" doesn't feel like its meant to highlight the inevitable unity of both cities. Rather highlight the division of the cities.
Because intentional or not Arcane was a story about the inevitable division due to differences.
Thereâs a reason why so many trilogies have a dark second installment (Star Wars, A:TLA.) Itâs generally solid storytelling to have your audience wondering how things will ever resolve and wondering if all is lost. Itâs the classic âhow will they get out of this one?â
Here's the issue with this read,the difference between Arcane and stuff like (Star Wars and A:TLA) is that those stories were black and white to begin with. There was an obvious big-bad. Meanwhile Arcane was written as story about "Two opposing forces that are neither good or bad" and the conflict between the two groups. On top of that the antagonist of both of there stories were built up to and were a part of the central conflict. Meanwhile Ambessa is character whose motivation has nothing to do with anything with the central conflict. The darker moment wasn't driven by Ambessa it was driven by the two cities themselves.
And a lot of the more "darker moments" aren't meant to be the low-point in which the "Good guys" walk out of. Rather the dark signifies a broke relationship that can't be fixed. Hence the song "What could of been" a song that signifies "The happy unity that can no longer be". That path is broken and we can no longer try to have what we once had.
Ambessa was introduced murdering an unarmed child and immediately starts pushing to escalate the conflict so she can manipulate it to gain resources. This is classic imperialism.
And Jinx committed acts of terrorism that killed so many people. And left many children either orphaned or serve lung damage.
And Mel tried her best to build up Piltover at the expense of the undercity. And "also" manipulates to gain resources as well.
Jayce put up an Embargo as well as place a lot of enforcers on the bridge between the cities.
Heck Silco entire operation with Shimmer.
Nothing about what Ambessa is that different from what the rest of the cast has done. That's the point of morally complex stories, things like slicing peoples necks isn't meant to signify "Their the bad guy" rather it just meant to signify the norm of the world.
The world Arcane established is one in where you either have to be strong and powerful or manipulative and cunning. Or as Ambessa said "You either a Wolf or a Fox". Because that is just how the show established itself as. The Dualism between opposites not the two opposites facing a new opponent.
And that is the tragic angle of the show. The characters are forced into roles due to the way society is structured. And so to just look at Ambessa as just "A warmonger" and not someone who was forced into this role due to society just like everyone feels narrow minded.
Want to argue that the intention of the show was that Ambessa is the "Big bad" fine. However what the show has presented thus far is a contradiction to this very notion. Due to presenting a story that emphasizes that "You either need to be strong or smart to survive" and in turn making Ambessa appear no different to anyone else.
Thereâs also the fact that she was introduced at the moment when a future antagonist would likely be introduced so you donât have to spend time establishing them in the next season.
I mean not really because the show was focused squarely on the two cities. I'm not arguing she came in with good intentions (or just solely good intentions) rather that how she was presented didn't seem like she would be the villain that everyone rally's against.
While I disagree with your statement that Viktor is the main antagonist in the end, that also has no bearing on whether or not the show was building toward the two sides working together to defeat a common enemy. They joined forces to get rid of Ambessa, who had been terrorizing Zaun prior to turning her army on Piltover, and to stop Viktor. Both were threats to both cities, which is why they joined forces.
The reason why I brought up Viktor as the big-bad, is to tie back to your statement about the difference between Xenophobia and Imperialism. In that Viktor's usage of the Arcane "is" the Xenophobia towards magic and Hex-tech. My argument isn't the story this wasn't was the original direction, rather that wasn't what they wrote in the end just states that "You should fear the unknown, and trying to go against things is wrong".
Arcane has interesting, nuanced characters, but still uses a lot of fundamentally basic story tropes, themes, and structures. And thatâs fine.
I'm not arguing that this wasn't the intention to end on the note of uniting. However I'm just arguing that intentionally or not, the show didn't write a narrative about "coming together" they wrote a story about falling a part.
The tropes, structure and theme they use tell a story about about "Two sides of a relationship falling a part" in where the "Tragedy" of the story is how due to societal norms that forced us into specific roles in turn pushes us to hurt the people we love.