I see so much hate toward Caitlyn everywhere, and itās almost always justified through the most superficial reading imaginable, like people watched the show through their asses, I kid you not š
Caitlynās entire character arc is empathy constantly fighting against conditioning, privilege, duty, love, rage, power, and finally grief⦠and some of yāall still analyze her with the emotional intelligence of a fucking TikTok comment section.
Half the fandom treats her like sheās just Viās pretty plus-one. A soft little submissive trophy girlfriend with no reason to exist outside of validating Viās pain, embodying her desires, and looking hot while doing it. Like she only exists to fulfill some lesbian fantasy and smile lovingly in the background. Yeah, season 1 Caitlyn is fucking perfect. She is hot and nice and empathetic and sweetā¦
But then she is confronted with trauma, in multiple forms: abuse, violence, grief⦠and most of all guilt. She blames herself because āshe had the shotā to prevent her motherās death. And I genuinely think itās that guilt that completely blurs her perception of everything that unravels afterward and makes her feel justified in acting with such harshness.
And the SECOND she stops being emotionally convenient, the second she spirals, fucks up, acts out of grief, anger, pressure, inherited ideology, trauma, and responsibility, suddenly sheās fantasy Hitler personally committing war crimes for fun š
People either want Caitlyn to be harmless, innocent, and submissive or completely monstrous. Thereās apparently no space in between.
Itās like they completely missed her constantly trying to challenge her own status and prove that she deserved her place beyond her name and legacy. Caitlyn never saw her privilege as freedom. If anything, she saw it as something suffocating, something that kept her disconnected from the real world and the people suffering in it.
She desperately wanted to understand how things truly worked outside of Piltoverās bubble and genuinely wanted to help the less fortunate. She always had that rebellious streak in her, which is exactly why Vi was destined to fall in love with her in the first place.
Reducing Caitlyn to anything less than that is honestly insulting to Vi too š because Vi could never fall in love with someone ordinary ā¤ļø
And what annoys me the most is that people constantly dismiss her trauma because sheās privileged. As if privilege magically makes grief hurt less. As if being kidnapped, abused by a crazy lunatic who ultimately caused her motherās death, being manipulated politically, carrying impossible responsibility, and slowly realizing the system she believed in is rotten somehow shouldnāt affect her psychologically because she grew up rich.
Like sorry, but Caitlyn is one of the most nuanced characters in Arcane, and reducing her to either āperfect girlfriendā or āevil cop bitchā is such a painfully shallow reading of her character.
Yāall are pissing me off.