#sevika analysis

[dykeasaurwrites]

Ten Places Arcane Went Wrong With Sevika and How to Fix It!

Recent events on twitter have been very validating, SO who wants a ten-point rant (by no means an exhaustive list on where the arcane writing team could've prevented looking weirdly racist/misogynistic to Sevika?)

Just me? Well, too bad!

HUGE credit for this goes to @saga-ordsmed, without whom I don't think I would've been able to make even half this list. Most of these issues (including me seeing Jinx as abusive to Sevika) directly came from her blog. If you love arcane critical analysis, including Sevika x OC content, please visit her blog! Secondly, I'd love to shout out my amazing mutuals who have also helped me flesh out Sevika in the (just over) month I've interacted with them! @xxlreader, @melmunchmedarda, @crunchycerealisgood, @roseamongroses, AND @/thatonequeen on twitter (whose thread brought this discussion to that side of the fandom and prompted this post!)

Okay, let's get into the list! 

1. Stop Destroying Sevika's Mobility Aid As A Joke. Sevika's prosthetic is the butt of three cruel jokes in season one and once more in season two. There's a levity/comedic atmosphere that the writers love attaching to damaging/destroying her literal mobility aid. Once was enough; get new material or have her almost bite the dust a different way. Getting stabbed/knocked out without the arm being violently removed by Caitlyn, Jinx, and Vi would still result in a loss that doesn't target her disability for cheap laughs.

2. Don't let Jinx treat Sevika like shit. Sevika is subject to a level of disempowered physical and verbal degradation from both Jinx and Silco. She is called ugly, has her capabilities and intelligence denigrated, and is gassed/slapped/strung up/knocked out/shame marked. She doesn't flinch when she resignedly asks Jinx, “Are you here to finish me off?” That, as Saga points out, is a survivor's response. I already made a post going over how Sevika's work environment is hostile at best, and outright abusive at worst. If the show wished to fix this, or you want to rectify this in your own fix-it fic, do something that implies Jinx being coddled without Sevika being actual collateral to it. Either have Jinx be reprimanded, or make it so her mistreatment stops at the verbal/childish rather than physically and psychologically damaging. She might be an asshole, but writing it to prevent it from dipping into routine/prolonged abuse would go a long way in maintaining Sevika's agency 

(2.1). Alternatively, give Sevika a friend, friends, lover, or SOMEBODY she's allowed to vent to/heal from something like that. Let her have someone to whinge about Silco to, or someone to shit talk Jinx to who doesn't shut her down. Give her some form of catharsis from that hellish work environment. Especially after dealing with the rigging scene, have us see how she deals with the fallout, through her own eyes, not anyone else's. Have someone care for her. Haze, an OC written by Saga, and Quill, an OC written by Venus @xxlreader, both accomplish this in amazing ways. This is the appeal of most Sevika x Zaunite OCs from what I've observed, and I've even started making one of my own (she's still cooking, so that's all I'll say for now).

3. Show us exactly why Sevika believes in Silco. We're shown his incompetence and Sevika holding things together. This dips into misogynistic territory of a capable woman's best narrative place being in service to an incompetent man. While this dynamic is often romantic in most media, played between straight couples as cute or the natural order of things, and Sevika is decidedly a lesbian, this is still misogynistic. Credit for this epiphany again goes to Saga. Show us he actually deserves her support. A plan of his pays off, a neighborhood once overpoliced thrives. A business previously suffering succeeds. The shimmer trade establishes diplomatic ties with Bilgewater. Literally any tangible benefit that shows he is a leader who deserves her support. (3.1) Alternatively, show us a Sevika who can make a gang/organize the goons on her own. Show us a Sevika who strikes out on her own, or better yet, show us why she feels there's no other option. Shows us a Sevika who pulls a faction together by herself when Silco fails her again. After all, Silco couldn't do a thing himself. But Sevika could. So show us.

4. Stop calling Sevika “ugly”. Like in the artbook too? Are we fucking serious? Just stop it, abeg. It's a shit look having your only south asian/Desi-coded character be called an “ogre,” a “funny-looking rat," (bird w/o wings comment referring to her missing arm), and literally “ugly” in the show and accompanying material. At a certain point, this fails to reflect each character's (possibly racialized) assessment of her and calls into question the writing team's opinions of their only butch, disabled Desi character. Even white disabled characters like Viktor and Jinx aren't made fun of over their disabilities to that degree, nor denigrated for their looks. This decision adds nothing to the show and shouldn't belong there. 

5. Let Jinx actually apologize to Sevika. We got a whole spin-off game (Jinx Fixes Everything) where she never tells this woman "I'm sorry" or "I hurt you and that was wrong" or even a damn "I'm trying," but are expected to love the dynamic of Sevika immediately running to help her? The found family dynamic of season two is weak for that reason. They “saved” each other's lives, but Jinx materially harmed and continued to harm Sevika for (implied) years at Silco's enabling. She's traumatized that woman in ways that demand genuine restitution. (5.1) Or, let Sevika not be involved in whatever Isha & Jinx got going on. Jinx hurt her in awful ways, and Sevika isn't obligated to help her. Keep the ethos of "we don't hand over our people," but allow her to fuck off and do her own thing. Coalition building, rallying the other goons, organizing another form of resistance, hiding out/resting with a friend/lover, and generally healing are all ideas for Sevika that could be done without centering or helping Jinx. This, as Saga pointed out, subverts abuser logic in storytelling, which often centers “reconciliation” over a victim's actual needs.

6. Have Jinx ask Sevika what arm she wants/needs. Chomper is a horrible arm, heavy, unwieldy, shit in close range, and if Sevika wasn't freakishly strong, she wouldn't be able to use it at all. Even then (despite the “friendlier” harness style), it causes unnecessary shoulder/neck/back strain. It also can't help her perform daily tasks, is stated in the artbook to be Jinx's art project, and gets removed just as violently. It wasn't designed by the team or Jinx with Sevika in mind, but rather as an expression/absolution of someone else's identity on her body. The backpack design was much better, and changing Jinx's response from "It was something I could fix" to "What do you need/want" would've sold the whole "turning a new leaf/I'm sorry" thing.

7. Let Sevika voice her actual displeasure with the council summoning her. That last scene is so fucking bleak, with no explanation for how she got a seat where she'll likely be spoken over and outvoted. Being summoned by Jayce and leaving, only to then show up to help, diminishes the point. Though subjective, it would've been better for Sevika to have made demands of Piltover (since Zaun would be in that position) and then decide to fight or not. Piltover doesn't get to just ask the undercity for help after locking them down, brutalizing, and gassing them for an assumed six months. Is Sevika angry in that scene? Good. Let her voice that, or if she walks away, don't have all of Zaun show up anyway. If you still want to show Zaunites fending off Noxians, show the invasion encroaching on the Undercity. Show them defending their turf on their soil for their sake, rather than coming at Piltover's behest. They're independent, and Piltover had its chance.  

8. LET SEVIKA EITHER KILL MORE PEOPLE OR WIN MORE FIGHTS. This is a little fan-service-y, and I don't care. Sevika has a total of four individual fights and only kills one person during them. She only kills Smeech with Jinx's assistance. She kills Finch outside of a fight, and while this demonstrates her ruthlessness, it doesn't show off her martial ability in a “fair” situation. She gets jumped twice, has two fair fights, and the narrative only lets her win one of them. Give us a reason why the undercity is scared of her. Show her killing other goons while she's outnumbered. Show her intimidating other chembarons with her own might. Show her killing multiple enforcers, for god's sake. Is she “Zaun's Scary Lady”? Then, show us why. (8.1) Additionally, show her either regret or internal rationalizations at having terrorized her own community in service to the cause (as held hostage by Silco). A good scene that showed why people reasonably hate/fear her would've gone a long way in having onscreen justification for Zaun to mistrust/dislike her.

9.  Empathize with Sevika's Betrayal. While Vi is our tag-along character for most of season one, a scene demonstrating how Sevika's "betrayal" was calculus done under duress with the Lanes in mind would've gone leaps and bounds further to rectify/humanize her. "Vander had his chance," when all we really know from Vi's POV is "woman who tried to kill my sister and me when we were literally teenagers" isn't gonna cut it. I say this as someone who didn't pay Sevika much attention back when season one dropped. Maybe a personal rationalization or line about how much better she feels Zaun is doing under Silco could help this. A tangible economic difference between appeasement with Piltover and blackmailing the enforcers to allow for commerce would demonstrate what benefit she saw in following Silco.

10. Give. Sevika. A. Fucking. Flashback. Literally everyone gets one. But Sevika only gets a throwaway line about her father, and even then, it's to help Jinx and Silco reconcile. I like Saga's idea, but it doesn't have to be this. Literally anything conceptualizing the daily cruelty of life under Piltover and how she saw weak leaders rise and do nothing, or get killed, could help us understand why she might follow someone who does heinous things but gets results. Not only that, it would demonstrate the love and loyalty she has for the undercity. In my mind, that's a scene of either her or other kids in the mines, an enforcer harassing/raiding a club, her mother dying due to lack of access to medicine, or her former union captain selling out some other miners. JUST GIVE US SOMETHING OF HER LIFE BEFORE FOLLOWING/HELPING/SERVING THE WHITE PEOPLE, PLEASE.

OKAY FIN! That was by no means an exhaustive rant on everything Arcane could have (and should have) fixed in their treatment of Sevika as a character. Like I stressed before, most of these issues I became aware of after interacting heavily with @saga-ordsmed's blog! Please give her a read-through and leave something nice because without her labor/analysis, y'all would not have this post.

[iminmywritersdungeon]

Thinking about how to be silcos right hand Sevika has to hold it with her left, her arm made of brass and shimmer. Thinking about how she tied herself to zaun through her flesh and blood. Thinking about how she ties herself to jinx in season two with a new arm

[dykeasaurwrites]

Sevika is a villain by any normal standards in season 1 and she is the right hand person of the main villain. How about all the undercity people she mistreated and made to feel like shit, nobody comforted them or helped them with their disabilities. Having a disability doesn’t excuse you from working in the mob and for a mobster . She got what she deserved and even less because season 2 forgot all her wrongdoings and gave her a pass for everything. Oh you worked for a villain that had children killed like how he said he would have killed rennis child and children worked in the mines under silco. Child murder torture and labor . And average murder. Started a drug crisis and is in the literal mob . But poor sevika got her disability aid removed with which she 9/10 killed children for silco. Poor grown woman baby. Gimmie a break and bring back shit people getting shit for being shit people. Vi should have punched her more

Okay and? I don't disagree, the Sevika mini fandom does tend to de-fang her. Our first introduction to her is instigating war, her first smile with teeth that we see is her beating the shit out of someone, and she is standing by a certified horrible person as his underboss.

Sevika is a villain. And I really love her for it.

Lemme explain.

Sevika, as a character under Silco's employ, commits pretty horrible actions, all of which she internally justifies as a means to liberating the undercity. There's a reason she's booed and given the cold shoulder in season two. Despite all of these actions being internally rationalized for "the greater good" in her mind, they irreparably damage her home and her people. She is not a "good person" by any stretch of the imagination. Her very function in the narrative of season one is as a mini-boss, not just an underboss in a mob, but in a video game progression sense.

So why do I maintain that she does, in fact, deserve better? Because her internal rationalizations and the actions that align with them are so layered and provide ample material to analyze her character. She is objectively loyal to her ideal of a free Zaun and uses sordid means to secure it. She was willing to instigate a war to achieve this, flood her community with drugs, knowing their healthcare is nonexistent, and cut down opposition. One of my recommendations for improving her writing was to show her killing more and/or winning more fights, as that would've solidified why she's feared, what she's capable of, and would have gone a long way in showing how far she's alienated herself from her community in pursuit of that ideal. No one here is interested in shielding her from criticism of her actions. You must have me confused with someone else.

Her relationships with other antagonistic characters are fascinating for that reason. The dynamic between her, Jinx, and Silco is fucked up and should be analyzed. Simply going "they're all villains, and all suck, so who cares" is not only extremely media illiterate, it's also fucking boring.

I'm sorry anon, you're fucking boring.

Her turn in season two doesn't come out of "nowhere" nor is it unearned, because all of that actual foundation is present in who she is. And it's part of why she's garnered such a fandom. She does evil shit, looks hot doing it, and it's fun to pick apart why she does it.

Onto my point about the arm, which you were ridiculously gross about for no reason.

None of this conflicts with the fact that she, as a disabled, brown, and masculine-presenting woman, is subject to an amount of degradation that white disabled characters simply are not. It isn't "shit people getting the shit end of the stick," it's that this show is particularly careless in some of its handling and messaging about disability. This was the crux of my post on the writing pitfalls of her character, in addition to the few I've made, crowing about her dismemberment being treated like a running gag.

My arm post isn't saying she isn't saying Sevika should never get touched or physically harmed, for honestly, the consequences of her own actions. I love the second Vi fight up until the arm point and the first fight as well. My qualm is how they allow their alignment of disability to repeatedly stand in for villainy.

Viktor, Jinx, Sevika, Salo, Chross, Silco, and Renni (if we count her nose, etc.) are all visibly and chronically disabled in one way or another and overwhelmingly serve antagonistic functions in the story, often to be defeated by able-bodied and/or able-minded members of the cast. Their disabilities and the tact with which they're handled vary, and Sevika's recurring dismemberment, aligned with triumph over evil or a humorous gag, is a glaring blind spot in that regard.

To summarize, Sevika is a multi-faceted, sympathetic, and compelling villain with a redemption arc. She's poorly handled in some parts and extremely well-written in others, which makes the former stand out. And you can still like that about her while accepting that yes, she is objectively a terrible person.

And I love her for it.

[dykeasaurwrites]

Discussed this more in the server but I think the insensitivity writing wise regarding Sevika’s arm is because they don’t functionally see her arm as an equal part of her body.

If that was her flesh arm it would engender more empathy or pain to see it be removed like that. Because that’s deadass gore. That’s literally gore of my comfort character, I’m not joking.

Like ignore that it’s made of metal and powered by fantasy leanroids for a second. That’s her arm getting shot, impaled, stabbed, and ripped off her body. She’s deadass getting mutilated multiple times a season. But it isn’t handled as exceptionally grotesque or cruel because it’s not her “real” or “human” arm.

Yeah lwk fuck that writing team I can’t.

[dykeasaurwrites]

How do you find balance between Sevika's personality and potential insecurity she may experience? Insecurity could be about hextech scars, her position in life etc- i mostly mean "insecurity" as a feeling so it could be anything.

I don't like when she's written as completely cold and unfeeling like obviously it'd take a lot for her to trust someone but I've been thinking about how vulnerability should be approached without being OOC.

In S2 her vulnerability is quiet and seen through her glassy eyes but i believe it was done by animators rather than by her main writer.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic?

From her name to her class to her chosen struggle and occupation, Sevika is a character defined by service to a liberated Zaun. The most efficient vehicle of that change may vary, but she's steadfast in that goal. This also means that she doesn't really display a concept of self outside of the revolution she yearns to bring about.

I don't think this is entirely her fault; it's hard to dream or even think about self-realization when one's material circumstances are so mired in oppression and inequality (like hers). Very much "for me to write about the birds, the warplanes must be silent". I don't bring this up as a throwaway but to encourage interaction with works of real revolutionaries who explore themes of identity in the face of uprising/oppression, such as Marwan Makhoul and Frantz Fanon.

Back to Sevika, though, this doesn't mean that she lacks depth or identity outside of it, but rather that we aren't shown it, and I would argue that she has difficulty conceiving of it.

Her vulnerability in season two has been interpreted in a variety of ways, and I'm still untangling it for myself. I will say that she's been put in a spot where she has to look the damage Silco's reign has done in the eye and put herself out there to serve her community. She strikes me as a character that's been held apart from it for so long that reintegration is painful and messy. But if it's gonna work, she has to push through. So if one wanted to write a vulnerable and emotionally raw Sevika, in addition to untangling her disability, prosthetic, and self-image, they would have to start from there. She may be insecure about her ability to reach out to others without relying on force and a reputation of fear to help her.

I think examining Arcane's general themes of "unbreakable bonds of love" (competently handled in season one, and grossly mismanaged in season two) also yields inspiration for writing a vulnerable Sevika. Showing the revolutionary in love/community with others under oppression's boot not only explores their vulnerability/insecurity, but also humanizes them (Sevika sorely needed this, if not in terms of a Zaunite lover, then in terms of a Zaunite friend/comrade who respected and cared for her). My two favorite Sevika x OC blogs, @xxlreader and @saga-ordsmed, explore this through Quill and Haze, respectively.

I hope this gave you some great ideas to start with! As always, my interpretation of this character is totally subjective, and I can definitely misread or overlook core elements of her. If you agree or even disagree, feel free to let me know in my reblogs!

[loyaltyearned]

@bomsplode @a-fallen-demon

POST 12. What would you say the most unique trait about your character is?

There's quite a few traits I think could be considered her "most" unique trait.

1. (Her loyalty.) Canon makes it seem as though she's loyal to Vander, and then Silco. When that's truly not the case. His loyalty is tied to the Undercity, Zaun, but mostly the people. She wants the fisherfolk to thrive and will make it happen by any means nesscary. She'd sacrifice herself to know that Zaun would survive.

2. This brings me to (his morals). Now her loyalty is to the people right? Then killing, hurting, and lying, that all should be only done to Pilties. But that isn't the case. She will happily kill anyone who stands in her way, in Zauns way. He had doubts about Jinx for a while but didn't do anything about it. This isn't out of loyalty for Silco. Her personal feelings (respect/admiration) for him stopped her from her goal of Freeing Zaun

3. Despite her loyalty being a big player in his character and story. She's actually shown to be quite self centered and egotistical which leads to what happened in the second fight with Vi. Selfishness, Arrogance and Greed being her downfall. The selfishness within her makes loyalty/morals lowkey irrelevant.

So I think her Unique trait is idealism

(Or more accurately her perception of the world)

I know what you're thinking, she's a cynic, broody, mean, a realist and cruel how can she be an idealist!? Many Zaunites are Cynics, Some are Realists. There are a couple idealists moreso in Piltover, but for someone like Sevika idealism is well... unique.

Her perception seems a bit skewed: For example;

She's a Cynic when it comes to people; Expecting the worst from them. Expecting them to be greedy, selfish and useless.

Cynicism: inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; skepticism

She's a realist when it comes to daily things; Poker, fights, missions, conversation, other people's problems (like jinx for silco/vanders family/etc)

Realism: the attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly.

Hes an idealist when it comes to personal goals; Sevika had to have known the effects of shimmer before the trench was filled with mutants, yet she still thought it was good for Zaun, He kept Jinx alive thinking that it would be okay, She jumped infront of Silco knowing she could be killed, but it was okay because Silco would save Zaun. He fought Vi, despite Vi wearing giant magical gauntlets (she's seen and has fought Vi, almost dying and watching other people die) foolishly thinking 'I can kill this person and then Zaun can live happy ever after.'

Idealism; the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically.

Her physical most unique trait isn't the arm, despite it making her able to handle much higher doses of shimmer than normal, and giving near super strength. It's the magic that destroyed her arm. (the blue scars) The scars themselves are incredibly vulnerable and sensitive, but they're also a part of her, traces of magic inside her veins, part of her skin, connected to his heart beat.

Please do not reblog unless you are an rp partner or a mutual!