I will forever stay true to the belief that the main problem with what the writers did to Caitlyns character is try an portray her in a good and just light.
I can enjoy morally egregious and objectively wrong characters, but there is one thing that needs to come along with them. The narrative must not shy away from the severity of their atrocities. I cannot stand when a character is doing something so obviously bad and the writers try to push that they are justified. The things Caitlyn did in S2 were objectively evil. She became a warlord and gassed the exploited class (a literal warcrime), yet somehow faced zero repercussions! On top of this, she was portrayed as the victim. A supposedly manipulated woman who was absorbed with the grief of losing her mother.
While Caitlyns dictator-like storyline is definitely not what I would have wanted in S2, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if the writers weren’t so afraid to portray her as in the wrong. Compared to characters like Ambessa and Jinx, Caitlyn’s harmful actions are so vague and glossed over. We don’t see the true brutality and violence she caused, but instead the apparently just reasons of why she inflicted that violence.
The cherry on top of this is that she didn’t even get a redemption. Hell, she didn’t even apologise. There was no acknowledgment of her wrongdoings, we’re just supposed to blindly forgive and understand why she was using fascist methods against the Zaunites.
I really liked Caitlyn is s1, and before s2 came out, I truly believed her character would be a representation of the unintentionally harmful ignorance held by many people born into the upper class. I remember watching season one and thinking that she would join with the Zaunites in overthrowing the corruption which plagues Piltover. Instead, the literal opposite happened. Arcane s2 I still mourn what you could have been.
