Hi! You can call me Lime. A blog dedicated to my art plus all the things I like to squeal about | Arcane, Avatar, RWBY, Tolkien, and other stuff | Jinx is my favorite disney princess | permanently in Arkos hell | Korra and Kuvira are soulmates no one can convince me otherwise
Arcane's Dissonance: Writing in Season One vs Season Two.
I've been stewing on this one a while but I'm not going to exorcise it until I write it out so, ugh, here we go.
This may be a dead horse topic by now with the show almost a year in the rear view mirror. I know I'm pretty sick of it myself. But I still can't let go of the need to scratch at it, not to be negative or to bitch about my issues with the show, but to dissect, analyze and learn from the mechanical differences in the writing between seasons, as objectively as possible, to look at what it is that hits different. Maybe just to prove once and for all to myself that there actually is something of value to extract here in terms of learning, for myself as a writer as well.
What was different, structurally, thematically, and in terms of technique and style? Love it or hate it, the S2 writing was different. "Why" is a different rant, right now I'm interested in "how", so I'll bullet point out my thoughts here. A lot of what I've come down to seeing are fundamental differences in structure, in philosophy and in technique.
....So I tried to write this post and ended up with a salty 4000+ word essay. OBJECTIVITY: not achieved š¢
Anyway, though, into the breach we go: below the cut, my summarized version, using the main headings and cutting out almost all of the specific examples.
SEASON ONE:
Every major character and almost every minor one is morally complex and deeply flawed.
Character decisions come deeply from that complexity and those flaws. Even when the audience is screaming "no you idiot don't do it!" at the character, we've been given enough connection to the character to understand exactly why they're doing that.
While characters on both sides of the conflict are treated as whole human beings and with empathy and intelligence, the Piltover vs Zaun conflict is established from the very opening shot of the show as very evidently lopsided.
The stark power imbalance between the haves-and-have-nots, the extreme poverty and suffering in Zaun, the indifference and corruption of wealthy Piltovan society and the brutality of the Enforcers are all expertly painted.
Violence is handled in an extremely interesting way, especially for a show based on a 'run around the same map killing the same people with your cool powers' game like League of Legends. In Season One, there are no fights or violent situations that don't have ugly consequences.
Ā Every single instance of violence leads to escalating problems for the character, sometimes devastating ones. Characters take serious injuries, hurt or kill people they didn't mean to, draw unwanted attention, lose plot-important items, lose chances to reunite with loved ones, or trigger escalating, unintended conflict that spirals far out of their control.
Ā While the action is incredibly well choreographed and animated and feels weighty, punchy, painful and gritty, there's not a single fight in Arcane Season One where the participants aren't all human beings desperately struggling for their lives, nor that solely exists to make a character look awesome.
Emotional connections between the characters are built beat-by-beat, and onscreen, like the developing bond of trust between Caitlyn and Vi, Vi's reunion with Ekko, and Jinx's surrogate parental bond with Silco.
Non-diagetic music video elements are used sparingly and to enhance the story, not to speed run through it (with the exception of the Ekko and Jinx fight painting a childhood backstory we didn't see at all elsewhere, but it's a rare exception that works very well).
The story of Arcane as a whole moves at a breakneck, breathless pace, being one of the few flaws with the storytelling already present in Season One, but in Season One, it at least flows seamlessly from one plot point to the next with few exceptions.
The Magical MacGuffins are tools to reveal character and move the plot forward; it almost doesn't matter how Hextech works or what Shimmer does, it's more important that they represent the danger and potential of technology both to advance human society and to create and escalate violent conflict.
And probably most importantly, this is pivotal: almost everything that happens in Arcane Season One is the direct consequence of a character's actions or decisions.
Character arcs intertwine tightly, and have direct consequences for each other, forming a complex narrative synergy that feels organic and natural, adding both to a sense of narrative momentum and a sense of Piltover and Zaun as living, breathing cities conjoined by a painful, complex symbiosis of history, economy and society, and the way that shaped all of the people born into them.
This is Consequential Storytelling, it's the core storytelling technique of Arcane Season one and I believe it is this, beyond even the incredible animation, beautiful design and excellent voice acting, that is the show's greatest strength.
Season One is Confident in its storytelling; it is setting out to tell the story it wants to tell, and it's not going to shy away from honestly depicting its sometimes dark and tragic story and characters.
SEASON TWO:...oookay then.
Characters' values, wants and goals are often superficial and painted in broad strokes; they're also prone to turning 180 from their Season One arcs or even from arcs established within season 2 itself with little explanation or preamble
Character decisions and character arcs are largely arbitrary and often in contradiction to their established needs, wants, bonds and drives.
Many of the emotional beats and developments between characters are inferred, left up to fan assumptions, or left completely offscreen rather than actually depicted.
the plot is driven by random happenstances, like Isha falling on Jinx's head, or the Wild Rune schlorping Jayce, Heimerdinger and Ekko, or Ambessa and Caitlyn's army showing up at the commune at the same time as Vi and Jinx, rather than natural cause-and-effect of characters' actions.
It's Plot by Coincidence rather than Plot by Consequence.
Plot twists feel more like retcons than revelations. Both the Wizard Viktor and Blisters and Bedrock revelations tick this box in story-breaking ways, though there are others.
Non-diagetic music and music videos are used as shortcuts and speedruns. The best example is the contrast between "Sucker" and "Hellfire" in Act One. Both are amazingly animated and banger songs, but: One does expert scene-setting to establish and set up the post-Silco Zaun politics and where we are picking up with Jinx, the other speedruns through at least an episode if not a whole act's worth of current time plot, abruptly mops up the entire Chembaron/Shimmer/Hunt for Jinx subplot in the space of a montage, and handwaves Caitlyn and Vi's alarming escalation of police violence into a cool comic book action sequence.
Violence is cool and stylish and consequence free. This doesn't apply to every instance in Season Two, of course and there are big fights with big emotional stakes and permanent scars for characters. But far more of the action scenes are just cool violence against nameless goons with zero negative consequences for our heroes, the obvious ones being the Hellfire sequence, Jinx saving Isha and the Sevika/Smeech fight.
Brand new, poorly explained and largely arbitrary fantasy elements are suddenly introduced. The Black Rose and the Wild Rune being the major examples. Unlike Shimmer and Hextech, which were deeply ingrained into the storytelling and represented core themes of the two cities and their conflict, these are ultimately hollow plot devices used to schlorp Jayce, Ekko, Heimerdinger and Mel out of the main plot entirely until the last act.
Yes, some of these are references to larger Runeterra lore, but they don't connect to it within the context of Arcane, so they feel much like the worst of the MCU's 'expanded universe' cameos and sequel baits.
This is a good chunk of why the second season feels so disjointed. Because the character arcs of Season One were so tightly interwoven by that Consequential Storytelling I mentioned before. Actions by Jayce, Viktor and Mel in Piltover would come in reaction to Jinx or Silcoās actions in the Undercity, which would tip more dominos for all the Undercity cast, there was a real sense of synergy and symbiosis between all of the different characters and their stories.
If you just yoink half of the cast of the story out into Another Dimension (and the multiverse stuff was not even remotely foreshadowed by season one) not one but three separate magical dimensions, you instantly destroy that symbiosis and sever those characters from the rest of the story.
It's like trying to drive a car after you've pulled half the gears out.
The AU episode I have so many mixed feelings about because while it was beautifully realized and clearly had a lot of love put into it, and it was a Good Thing to spotlight a character as under-served by the rest of the narrative as Ekko...
...it also sucked upā¦soā¦muchā¦screen time for Alternate Timeline versions of characters we'll never see again, instead of confronting the baggage with the people we know and care about, and its quiet, intimate character interactions and careful pacing only painfully highlighted how slapdash the rest of the season was in comparison.
Itās essentially a very pretty cheat button, like the music videos, to speedrun Ekko's character development, and give Timebomb fans their Timebomb, without actually doing the work to face the burned bridges between Ekko and our Jinx.
The show also basically does this to CaitVi with their big reconciliation and that famous/infamous jail sex scene, without allowing Caitlyn to face any real consequences or do any real work to redeem what she did to Zaun.
Interviews and comments from the showrunners elsewhere clarify a lot of what their mindset was creating these kinds of moments. The execution is so muddled at times that some of these pivotal moments seem bafflingly random when they happen. And sometimes thereās a gigantic disconnect between what my media literacy is telling me, and many others, is happening on screen and what the authors are saying on Twitter is happening.
I wonder if they really understood the subtext of their own show.
Which is kind of a problem. And definitely a ādeath of the author in the social media ageā problem. But the Consequential Storytelling methods from Season one wouldāve largely avoided this.
Season One presents much of its story with enough space to let you develop your own feelings; itās not telling you what to think, or who is right or wrong, it presents each characterās case and lets you make up your own mind.
Season Two is trying desperately to tell you what it thinks you should feel, but itās not communicating that intent coherently, so in the end, youāre often left unsure of what youāre āsupposedā to feel.
And while you could argue those two mental and emotional spaces are the same, they are really, really not.
And sometimes, Season Two is telling you what it wants you to feel in the most unsubtle, ham-fisted way possible, including using characters as essentially shallow plot devices.
Hello, Isha.
This is something Season One just didn't do. Even the most minor character felt like they had a place within the world and a life outside of their role in the story.
Season two is Self-Conscious in its storytelling. It is trying to tick all the boxes, to be everything to everyone, and to live up to the fandom's (and the showrunners') wish fulfillment fantasies and shipping preferences.
As a result, though, every fandom faction was given what they wanted, but in generally backhanded and unsatisfying ways, so it's no small wonder the Arcane fandom has more or less lost its mind.
It's the biggest case of fandom blue balls I've seen in a very long time, leaving the fandom with nowhere to turn but against each other.
So many of the plotlines here - Vi's pit fighter arc, Caitlyn's dictator arc, Jinx's revolutionary arc most of all - feel like they were thrown at the wall as a Cool Concept but the writers got too scared to follow through with them and chickened out halfway.
They were mood boards, at best; they ultimately didn't matter.
The loss of focus on the central Piltover vs Zaun story in favor of Save The World fantasy action tropes robbed the central class conflict of its power.
And the abrupt change from Character-Driven Storytelling to Plot-Point Driven Storytelling or from Consequential to Coincidental storytelling was the biggest and most jarring change at the heart of the dissonance between Season One and Two.
In summary of a summary:
S1: Characters Drive Plot vs S2: Plot Points Drive Characters.
S1: Consequences Create Story S2: Coincidences Create Story
S1: Fantasy Elements Integrated and Thematic vs S2 Fantasy Elements Arbitrary Plot Devices.
S1: Consistent Character Choices vs S2: Superficial Character Choices.
S1 Characters and Plotlines Symbiotic and Tightly Meshed vs S2 Characters Abruptly Severed From Story (into literal other universes)
S1 Violence Has Ugly Consequences Always vs S2 Violence Sometimes Just Cool And Consequence Free
S1 Self Confident vs S2 Self (and Fandom) Conscious.
S1: Revelations vs S2: Retcons
S1: Music Videos Highlight Key Moments vs S2: Music Videos Replace or Speedrun Key Moments.
and ultimately:
S1 Character and Plot Arcs Matter vs S2 Character and Plot Arcs Don't Matter.
Don't get me wrong. I did not absolutely hate it. The music, the animation, the creative visuals and the voice acting were all still astonishing achievements.
But the writing let it down. It simply didn't have the maturity or emotional intelligence to follow through on Season One's promises. It fell too deep into itself, and into the traps of fan-baiting, crowd-pleasing, middle-of-the-road mass media storytelling.
There's certainly an alternate universe out there in which Season Two was much worse. It certainly flirted with, and then ran away from, many possibilities I had myself foreseen and had deep anxieties about after the ending of Season One. In the end it did everything I desperately hoped it wouldn't, but in halfhearted ways that left me feeling more irritated than heartbroken.
And that in itself might be the clue.
In the end, it just didn't have the courage to follow through on its potential, for better or worse. It got too distracted by its own hype, and did not have the discipline or perhaps the right people still involved to recognize that it was not just changing the aspects that had been its greatest writing strengths in Seaon One, it was choosing to run with the complete opposite in almost every case.
This is ultimately why Season Two, in comparison to Season One, felt to me so "this is the thing I love, but it's also not the thing." It was a different story in Arcane cosplay, a middling fanfiction of itself.
Why the Jail Cell Scene With Vi & Jinx in the Season 2 Finale Doesn't Work
It's been nearly a year and I still don't like this scene.
I've thought about this a lot, and I've just come to the conclusion that Vi's characterization in this scene is so off and that's the major problem with it.
When you think about Vi as a character you might think about her strength, courage, compassion, etc...but she's also been shown to be keenly observant and smart. She might not hit books like Jayce and Viktor, but she does not lack in terms of intelligence, and that also goes for emotional intelligence. Vi is able to pick up on and understands other's emotions, and this is a trait of hers that is shown in the first episode of the first season. Is she always 100% right with this? No. As seen in S1E9, however this is far from that same situation and Vi, as she's been shown, would not have acted the way she did in the S2E9 scene.
Vi enters the jail, and she starts talking to Jinx about how she needs to join Piltover in order to "re-write" her story. It goes without saying that Jinx is not someone who would ever care about what Piltover thinks of her, nor does she owe Piltover anything, and this is not me saying that she's 100% innocent, just that in the bigger picture, Piltover is not in any position to make demands to any Zaunite.
But, even more interesting than that is how she's completely dismissive of what is right in front of her. Jinx is the most depressed we've ever seen her. She's just lost Isha, someone who she came out of hiding in order to rescue. Jinx is a mess, self-harming, and above all, unresponsive. She barely reacts when she sees Vi, barely reacts to the hug, and in general her personality has been turned all the way down to 0.5. Vi is not someone who would be ignorant to these blatant suicidal changes in her sister, especially given that Vi has had suicidal tendencies in the past. Vi in pretty much any other episode of the show, would've instantly picked up on something being wrong with Jinx, but in this scene all of those traits are thrown out of the window. This isn't asking Vi to be a therapist and use a bunch of internet psychoanalytical buzz words to give Jinx a pep-talk, this is recognizing that this is inconsistent of what we've seen from Vi thus far.
But, that's not even the worst of it. Far from it. Sure, this was a bit weird. However, there's an argument to be made that Vi was simply ignoring these signs, hoping that the life raft she just threw Jinx would be enough to get her out of her slump. I could buy that... it's not impossible.
But then we get the next scene with her, and I'm not talking about her having sex with Caitlyn.
Vi's reaction to this is the worst aspect of this exchange. Next time we see her, she says "I was an idiot to trust her...I choose wrong every time." Essentially, she's stating that what she gathered from that exchange is that Jinx has not changed and is going to go back to wreaking havoc across Piltover and Zaun.
Ok.
Let's rewind back to what Jinx said as she was leaving the cell: "You don't have to worry about anymore. You don't need to feel guilty about being happy. You deserve to be with her. There's no good version of me." Again, aside from the fact that Jinx has clearly been fundamentally changed by the events of the last few episodes, which included losing Isha and Vander (for a second time) this would not be said by someone who's intent was to go back to being a gleeful menace. Yet for some reason (writing convenience) all of Vi's emotional intelligence and comprehension skills fly out of the window in favor of this soapy nonsense.
And that's what's wrong with this scene and why people are pissed: core aspects of Vi's personality were tossed aside for the sake of creating more drama.
And again, this isn't a demand for Vi to be Captain-Save-a-Sis. She could've fully understood Jinx's intentions and still not pursued her. For one, she was literally trapped in a jail cell. Presumably for hours, so she'd definitely think it would be too late, and two, she herself could've been too wrapped up in her own emotions over it to be able to do anything due to panic or shock. Or, maybe she does pursue her, when she gets out, but can't find her (she wouldn't know where Jinx's secret lair is), and gives up because she believes it's too late, and decides to go back to prepare for the Noxians. There were better ways to handle this.
remember when the sisters were The Main Characters and their relationship was at the center of everythingā¦.. that was nice. what happened to that. how did we get here
So much for their REALLY well stablished sibling bonding from season 1.
Season 2 really said FUCK familial bonds with our main characters! All we care about now is the ships!!!
Fuck Vi & Ekko.
Fuck Vander & Vi, Vander & Powder, and Silco & Jinx. These four are ACTUALLY tied to the dads's weird ass relationship with their moms instead.
Fuck Mylo & Claggor & Jinx. Silco dies and she suddenly no hunted by their deaths anymore.
And Fuck and Vi & Jinx.
Lets throw a bunch of shit at these characters to distract them and the audience from having a proper conversation or development in their individuals arcs and with each other.
What Isha???
Who you talking about?
The redundant plot device walking with a giant death flag disguised as a cute little girl?
Well fuck her too, Vi doesn't give a damn actually.
the pacing was sooo rushed they couldnt do anything impactful with either sister. you can see the authors pulling the strings, dragging the characters from plot point to plot point, summarizing the development they had in stupid fucking music montages.
the vi enforcer music montage was so egregious. how does a woman who was a prisoner in piltover like a month ago jump into terrorizing the streets she came from? we barely see her have any conflict with it onscreen. why?? because we have to go to the next epic plot point now, sweetie
and isha somehow fixing jinx's mental problems in a cute music montage. okay.
and then their sibling conflict just.. ending... with vander's return. all of that s1 buildup for nothing. the zaun v piltover buildup gone.
and cait becoming fascist but um not really surprise vi converted her back. it would have been nice to see that conversation and see that relationship development but nah we have to keep it a sHoCkInG twist!
and then do the same with Jayce's bullshit killing viktor and his followers. jayce could have just talked to him/shown him the memories like jesusprime viktor told him to but nooo he has to kill him to make the plot happen instead. and so we can have an EpIc PlOt TwIsT in the finale!
im a viktor stan, he was my fav in s1 but they completely ruined him in s2. the heavyhanded jesus symbolism/arc was so antithetical to his league character. the league viktor is an actually well-intentioned extremist who helps people in zaun by giving them cyborg enhancements. his whole goal is to help his country resist its oppressors. s1 set up a viktor who could learn that the only way to stop piltover from exploiting his people is to fight for independence. his changes in arcane make him soo much more of a generic "cosmic threat"-type of villain. and his (b)romance ending with jayce was fucking cringe, sorry. disney level talk no jutsu ending.
and SO MUCH TIME was wasted on the noxian bullshit. it was marvel tier sequel bait that could have easily been cut. ambessa was built up as the big bad but she was barely a miniboss. she got killed by cait flailing around and her daughter who learned magic like, yesterday. lol!
surprise, surprise, i'm not done complaining about arcane s2
much has been spoken about isha and the role she plays in the declining quality of s2. i agree with most of what i've seen. she is a plot device, she is there for us and jinx to project powder onto her, she is a blank slate of a character, she is there to keep jinx occupied and away from any revolutionary work bc god forbid we let any of the characters who were central to the class conflict plot of s1 actually engage with the theme again, and yes, the fact that jinx's mental illness is magically cured when she acquires a child is quite frankly, offensive.
but something i haven't really seen anyone else talk about is how the focus on her makes the whole season feel so much more juvenile. let me explain:
here on tumblr dot com, the home of taking media too seriously, we have a big tendency to fixate on kids shows. now, when you have a bunch of adults hyperfixating on a show with child protagonists, what tends to happen is that said adults kind of forget that this is a show intended for child audiences, and they discuss it with nuance and complexity that's often not present in the source material itself (which isn't a fault of the source material--it's a kids show!) (it's not the fault of the adult audience either--i love seeing the effort and love and nuance people put into these stories. i am, after all, on tumblr dot com.)
what tends to happen here, though, is that the adult audiences, looking at the story from an adult's perspective, will take a look at these children and their adventures and ask the question any semi-responsible adult would ask when seeing kids in mortal danger--but what about the adults? why aren't the adults in this story the ones doing all this? why has the burden fallen to the children?
(see--uncle iroh. back from my days in the atla trenches i remember discussions about this man that mostly revolved around why was zuko the one who had to do all this, why was he the one to become firelord at the end at the ripe age of sixteen, when iroh was around?)
(and, from a watsonian perspective we can come up with a hundred different sensical explanations, but ultimately the answer is simply that atla is a kids show, and when a show is made for kids then obviously it's children who are the focus, children who carry the plot, etc ...)
to the child audiences, seeing child protagonists is empowering. to us, adults, it's a sign that something has gone very, very wrong in this world.
arcane s1 was very, very good at this. the bait and switch of act one left me (and many others) gagged. for almost three episodes you think you're getting the former, what with the plucky child protagonists making their way in this cruel, cruel world.
and then two of them are brutally murdered. because this isn't a show for child audiences, and ep3 makes sure we understand it, and understand it very well.
for the rest of the season, jinx and ekko at eighteen are the youngest of the main cast, and even though they're technically adults, their involvement in the events of acts 2 & 3 is treated like the latter--something is very, very wrong with this world.
isha is also treated this way at first. she's chased by three of chross's underlings for some reason, she's saved by jinx who points a gun at her right after (and i honestly thought she was going to shoot).
(also, if anyone would like to share their theory on why chross's thugs felt the need to chase a kid though half of zaun, i'm all ears.)
that changes during the temple fight, when she jumps in between jinx and vi. it's absolutely insane to me that the character we met an episode prior, who has had two scenes so far, whose name we don't even know at this point, ends up inserting herself into the face-off between our two main characters--even ignoring everything that was disappointing about the temple fight itself, this is certainly ,,, a choice. the emotional weight of the scene is shifted from the relationship between jinx and vi, to the (underdeveloped esp at this point, detrimental to jinx's character and role in the story in the long run) relationship between jinx and isha. during the fight that should have been the emotional climax of the whole season had s2 not shifted focus so violently.
but that's not even what i'm talking about here. with this act, isha is put in the position of the "hero" of the scene, the saviour whose intervention stopped the sisters' fight. she's the protagonist.
what i'm trying to say may become more clear in the next moment from the show that i want to examine, and that's the rally. again, barring that jinxers may be the stupidest word i've ever heard (even though i'm not opposed to people dyeing their hair or rallying behind jinx--i just wish, desperately in fact, that it had been earned, that jinx had actually taken on the mantle of the face of the revolution, not out of altruism but because of a cocktail of personal, ultimately selfish reasons ... instead of playing house with isha) i'm not opposed to the idea of the scene.
the thing that gets me is obviously what they had isha do. she's the one to appear in her jinx cosplay (i saw someone describe her as morality pet scrappy do, and boiiii do i feel that's accurate) and inspire the people at the rally.
she's what? powder's age, i'm guessing, so 11-12? the scene is dramatic and played completely seriously. isha is the protagonist. she's the hero. she's the one who steps in and acts because the adults, for convoluted reasons, cannot or will not.
that's something you expect to see in a show intended for children, where the children want to see protagonists their age. that's why responsible adults in these stories are often dead or incapable or incompetent or actively hostile. it's a trope you see again and again, in children's stories. that's at the crux of the chosen one trope in kids stories, isn't it? it has to be aang, or percy, or tris, or harry (obligatory disclaimer that jkr can fuck herself and let's all please stop supporting her and her hateful crusade, tyvm), or whoever. they're the only one who can, the prophecy said so, they have some ability that nobody else has.
with the focus on isha as the protagonist (without actually subverting the trope as was done in s1) the show feels so much more juvenile than it realistically is. even in her death scene, she gets an epic soundtrack and slow motion. it's treated as a necessary heroic sacrifice, rather than the death of a child that never should have been here in the first place.
something could have been done with it, even after act 2. with the fact that her death was ultimately pointless, because vanderwick was revived within two episodes. with the idea that her lack of regard for her own life is a consequence of her idolising of jinx. but isha is practically never mentioned again, and never acknowledged by anyone other than jinx, so these discussions are never had.
it's all well and good to have these in the fandom, but pretending that they're something the show itself has posited is ludicrous. besties, don't let these writers take credit for your hard work.
mylo and claggor's deaths in s1 were a sobering moment in which this show tells us exactly what kind of story it's gonna be, and it's not one where plucky child heroes save the world with the power of their innocence and friendship. but hey, s2 put forth the power of friendship as a solution to all other conflicts that have been raised over the course of the show, so why not?
SUCH good points here and things I had never thought about. The whole of s2 feels more juvenile to me than s1 and this is a GREAT example of that...
Just thinking about how Powder was set up to look like this kind of heroic trope to the unsuspecting audience. We've all seen it a million times; struggling with her self confidence but encouraged by a loved one. So of course we all knew that when it mattered most this little kid with a big heart would succeed and save everyone! ......right?
Alas no this world doesn't work this way and things ARE very wrong when the kids have to try and be the heroes.
This is why it feels so insulting when the show compares Isha to Powder...so much suffering for one brave little girl when she realistically fails, only for this other kid to just waltz in and effortlessly save the day. Isha seems a little younger than Powder to me, so I guess you could say she's twice the person at half Powder's age. x_x
I will never stop thinking about the Caitlyn Kiramman that, for all her life of refinery and privilege, hugged Huck tightly in her arms-- a diseased, mutated, twitchy Shimmer addict-- because he helped her and Vi, he showed her kindness, and it meant so much to her. It's one of my favorite moments in Season 1, it is so tender, powerful and tragic and shows how big her heart was.
I will never forget how they turned that sweet person into a fascist who used nerve gas on those same struggling addicts and ceased to see them as human altogether. How they turned her from someone who was genuinely kind albeit misguided into someone who genuinely had zero regard for any human being besides herself, least of all her own partner, and how we never, ever see the person who hugged Huck again. Not before her "redemption arc" (as if she even had one), not after.
Not one character in Arcane changed this much for the worse in such a short amount of time, not even Viktor in my opinion. At least in his mind, fucked up and misguided as it was, he thought he was somehow helping people. Caitlyn had no desire to help anyone or do the right thing, she only wanted revenge and to subjugate the people of Zaun. And you want me to look at her and see the girl who hugged Huck?
I wanted to see Caitlyn's STRUGGLE. I wanted to see this naturally kind person who hasn't faced much adversity in her life suddenly dealing with trauma and reasons to question all her character growth in season 1. To see her be forced to look the people of Zaun in the eye and be torn between sympathy and hate, to be forced to choose mercy or violence.
Instead her core personality traits just get deleted which doesn't make sense to me even in the event of trauma (especially since she's a grown adult). She just flips between "good Cait" and "bad Cait" with no tension between those sides of her.
There's a few bits of dialog that try to explore that grey area but no scenarios, no REAL scenes with character actions and choices, no situations where she actually has to grapple with herself.
My first honest reaction to this statement of Jinx's during the mad tea party was: "Uh, no she didn't."
While at a surface level Jinx often seems like an unreliable narrator, I've found more and more that there are deep undercurrents of truth to her statements that reveal something surprising; that she is at her core a profoundly perceptive individual, perhaps more so than any other character.Ā
Now, if that statement of Jinx's is correct, how exactly did Vi change?Ā
Teenage Vi is a far healthier and in many ways far stronger person than adult Vi. She is more confident while also being more calculated and careful, she's less impulsive and aggressive, and more emotionally open. These changes are subtle, but they're there. Her staredown with Deckard has much more calculation and purpose behind it than her rematch with Sevika, for example. Her interactions with Powder leave room for her sister's healthy growth into someone who is also strong (if different from her sister). Vi seems to be saying to Powder "I'll protect you as long as you need while you figure out who you are."
What happened?
The night of the tragedy ViĀ broke Powder's perception of herself, but she also broke her own. Instead of the caring and protective older sister she saw herself as, she became a monster, fulfilling the worst nightmares of the little sister she loves.Ā
In prison Vi attached herself to the idea of redemption as a means of survival. The idea of getting back to her sister to reverse the wrong she did becomes her only lifeline as she endured horrific abuse from the prison guards. While I think the writers gloss over her trauma too much, we as the audience can understand how broken she must realistically be.Ā
Two deep needs become the only reality for Vi, the need to prove she's not a monster, and the need for love and care.Ā
This is the core of her change. These two needs come to define her completely.
In Caitlyn Vi finds someone who she can protect AND receive care and protection from. While Vi's desire to get back to Powder is too deeply ingrained to simply be erased, this creates an undeniable draw towards Caitlyn, who, it's worth noting is the focus of the camera as Jinx declares that Vi has changed.
Powder/Jinx on the other hand is no longer able to give Vi the thing she wants most, a redemption by being her little sister's savior. We can see that where Vi used to be the biggest supporter of her sister's growth, she is now incapable of accepting the growth and changes that happened in (and because of) her absence. Jinx cannot give Vi the thing she so desperately wants, only Powder can do that.
And Jinx recognizes this. In her moment of clarity after killing Silco she can see the truth. Underneath her warped perception of Caitlyn as a demon lies the truth that Vi is drawn to Caitlyn, because Cait can fulfill Vi's needs in ways that Jinx cannot.
Vi has changed. Before she was always the one making things ok, giving protection and care. But now she's the one in need, and her desperate desire to fight for Powder (an impossible fight in itself) must contend with her desperate desire for affection and love.
***
Thank you for reading, I've got two more essays on Vi in the works so I guess this is becoming a series! These essays are meant to analyze the character of Vi as she presented to us by the end of Arcane season 1. A big part of the reason I'm doing this is for my own rewrite of season 2 since I believe the story went awry of the themes and arcs set up in season 1.
Here's the first essay if you missed it: Vi and the Final Nail in the Coffin of her Sisterhood with Jinx
It deals more with Vi's perspective on how the tea party scene means the end of her relationship with Jinx, while this one is more about the Caitlyn factor.
Just thinking about how in all of the times Vi calls Caitlyn āCupcakeā, she does it as a way to distance herself physically and/or emotionally along with it in some instances being a way to try to piss Caitlyn off and reverse psychology her ass when it comes to the distancing so the fact the last time she says it in the final scene they have together is really sad considering everything that happened throughout the course of that whole year. She isnāt happy, she believes she has no purpose, the tremendous amount of self guilt and self sabotage continues to consume her from the inside out. The state of her and Caitās relationship is still unstable as the threatening possibility of facing further abuse from Caitlyn, as well as homelessness, still lingers, she gives up, gives in, settles and gives unconditional, faulted loyalty to Cait as a means of security and she feels thereās nothing else out there for her (this is the Fawn trauma response btw - link here). She still uses alcohol to numb emotional pain and turmoil (and possibly even chronic physical pain). She no longer has the will to fight and self-advocate.
The spark is gone, the fire has been put out.
The ending is not happy at all and the nickname is not a term of endearment, itās a deflection and avoidance tactic.
Season 2's attempts to parallel Caitlyn and Silco with surface-level imagery were so funny, because there is an actual parallel between them that makes sense, that the writing fumbles. Caitlyn and Silco play a similar role in the narrative as the "rival" in the love story of Vi and Jinx. In season 1, the sisters are embroiled in two unconventional "love triangles". There is the Vi-Jinx-Silco triangle, with Vi and Silco fighting over influence on Jinx, who is stuck in the middle. And there is the Jinx-Vi-Caitlyn triangle, with Jinx and Caitlyn fighting over influence on Vi, who is stuck in the middle. Silco is who Vi sees as the Enemy. Silco represents the embodiment of the undercity's violence to Vi, the Chembaron who killed Vander. And Caitlyn is who Jinx sees as the Enemy. Caitlyn represents the embodiment of Piltover's violence to Jinx, the enforcers who killed her parents. Silco and Caitlyn are the Boogeymen to the sisters. Both sisters project all their fears and hatred onto Silco and Caitlyn respectively, and even go overboard to the point that their views are not necessarily true - after all, Silco wasn't mind-controlling Jinx and Caitlyn wasn't purposely trying to steal Vi.
Nonetheless, this is the way season 1 paralleled Caitlyn and Silco. It doesn't matter that the relationships are not exactly the same (with Silco and Jinx being paternal and Caitlyn and Vi being romantic). They still occupy a similar role in the story - the competitor, the "other guy", the rival to one sister for the other sister's affection. This is why they were both at the dinner party. And in the end of season 1, Vi and Jinx find that they have grown too far apart, that they are no longer compatible as sisters, because their loyalties and priorities no longer lie in the same place. They "break up" essentially, and the love rivals Caitlyn and Silco have "won". Caitlyn has Vi staying with her, allying with her, and rejecting Jinx. And Silco has posthumously convinced Jinx to keep being Jinx, carry on his wishes to burn Piltover, and reject Vi.
The show then fumbled this in 2 ways: the first is obvious - they just completely reversed and abandoned the effects of the season 1 finale LMFAO. Jinx quits being Jinx 3 episodes in, Vi quits being an enforcer 3 episodes in, then Vi and Jinx are besties again by episode 5. They just threw the 9 episode arc that season 1 built up into the garbage. But that's tied to a larger issue with the season - the abandonment of the Piltover vs Zaun conflict to make way for a cringe Age of Ultron rip off.
The second way that the show fumbles the Silco and Caitlyn parallel, is this: Caitlyn is not a believable enough rival for Vi's affections in the same way that Silco is for Jinx's. Through the cleverly used timeskip in season 1, Silco and Jinx have years of bonding between them. Jinx has spent almost as many years with Silco as she did with Vi. And Silco spoils her. He defends her, protects her, comforts her, and never raises a hand to her. Throughout season 1, I could buy that Jinx was so conflicted between Silco and Vi. And even then, she still chooses Vi a lot! On the other hand, Caitlyn and Vi have just met a few days ago. Vi barely knows this woman. And Caitlyn in season 2 treats her like shit. She insults her, hits her with a gun, abandons her, and ignores her for months. I do NOT buy that Vi is this conflicted over Caitlyn and Jinx, and I don't buy that Vi would choose sex with Caitlyn over going after her clearly grieving and mentally unstable sister.
Seriously, the show pushes the narrative that Vi is stuck in the middle between Caitlyn and Jinx. Caitlyn is supposed to be the person that Vi longs for and this romance is supposed to compete with her sisterhood with Jinx. And yet, I DON'T BUY IT. Caitlyn does nothing for Vi to prove to me that her love can compete with the sisters' bond. Caitlyn is someone that Vi just met, who physically and verbally abuses her. And this is a huge issue. If Silco were to hit Jinx in the stomach, insult her blood, then ditch her for months on end, I wouldn't have bought that Jinx would ever give a shit about him enough to compete with her sister. Funnily enough, Jinx is the one who was violent towards Silco when she was enraged and in pain. But we all know, if Vi had been the one to hit Caitlyn in a fit of rage, there would be way less people willing to forgive her compared to how quickly people forgave Caitlyn lol.
No it actually drives me fucking crazy that this show wasted the "Jinx and Vi as enemies" plot. Cat and mouse game between a brooding cop and a crazed criminal with a strange obsession with each other is already such an iconic classic dynamic. Then you make them SISTERS, women with a tragic past and shared history, and you make this relationship the bedrock of the entire show?? This shit could have been PEAK. Instead you speedrun this plot to its conclusion in the first THREE fucking episodes, then immediately undo what the entire first season set up to make them besties again by episode 5? And that's it. They have no more conflict or rage between each other for the rest of the show. Just perfectly friendly allies on good terms. Jinx runs away to kill herself for a bit but then she comes back and everything is hunky dory again, because "i'm always with yuh sistahšš¤" then Jinx dies but not really. End of show. Ok. We only barely get 3 episodes of them actually being enemies. Vi joining the enforcers and hunting down her criminal sister, Jinx being a terrorist and taunting her cop sister, THE cat and mouse game, THE rivalry, THE arc that the entirety of season 1 built towards, THE years-long dynamic in League lore, the shit that I was led to believe was the main plot of this show - rushed via music montages and wrapped up by the first 1/3 of the season. So we can move on to more pressing matters like uhhhh mass robot army alien invasion avengers assemble fuckass multiverse ultron bullshit. Cool.
And don't even tell me "they did it with Caitlyn and Jinx" that woman has zero history or deeper relationship with Jinx lmfao they don't fucking know each other. It should have been VI as Jinx's main adversary and hunter but Vi's place in the narrative as main character got hijacked by literally everything else
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