Remember when Vi openly critiqued her fellow zaunites for allowing Silco to take over and she called Sevika a traitor because she chose Silco over Vander in season one?
....now remember how Vi became an enforcer in season two? 💀
Season two gets a lot of criticism for painting piltover in a very positive light as well as for abandoning the seriousness of the piltover/zaun conflict, but it's important to look back at season one and recognize that the seeds for season two's shittinest were planted right here. Because although season one highlights the victimhood of the under city, it also goes out of its way to show nothing good really comes out of Zaun. Season one shows that the people of Zaun are forced to unfairly wrestle with oppression on a daily basis, but they're still "bad people".
Let's start by examining those who Vi has pointed out. Sevika has always been a zaun loyalist, a person who has wants and desires for the future of her city and she's willing to walk the walk and talk the talk to get there. Despite this, she's labeled and depicted as a traitor- not only for abandoning Vander for the sake of joining Silco, but later on for potentially being swayed by Finn and Renni to betray Silco.
Babette, a zaunite business owner as well as a figure in the community is portrayed as weak for not being able to stand up against Silco and letting him run the town. Vi sneakily tells her that it seems like no one stopped Silco from taking over after Vander died. Babette gives legitimate reasons as to why it happened, but she doesn't meet Vi's gaze during this conversation and her body language plus tone clearly tells us that the audience is supposed to view her and others as cowards.
Huck, who was once a meek yet humble man who was helped by Vander becomes a foe to Vi. He later in life becomes a homeless drug addict who turns Vi in just for a fix of his drug of choice. We're clearly supposed to believe him to be a pathetic rat with no morals.
Now as you probably noticed, all three of these examples of the narrative directly/indirectly tell the audience to look down upon zaunites that can be linked back to Vi/are related to Vi, but the evidence doesn't end here. Most obviously, Jinx and Silco are portrayed to an extent as evil monsters who seek chaos and the downfall of others at any cost. Jinx is a homicidal maniac who doesn't care who she hurts and who's only redeeming quality is that she's a victim of violence and abandonment and Silco is so willing to achieve his goal by any means necessary that the writers ensure that the audience forget about the goal, which in itself is a noble and reasonable goal, and only ever focus on how he's willing to use unethical and harmful ways to achieve his desires. Even the chembarons, who are supposed to be the direct mirrors to Piltover's council, are unrespectable. They're petty, foolish, and genuinely have no good qualities. Compare this to the way top side's council is treated. Mel, Heimerdinger, and Cassandra are all given moments in season one that highlight their humanity and good attributes. The chembarons of the underground are not rewarded with such luxury.
Zaun, in season one, is a sad, gross city where the only good things that have come out of it are Vi, Viktor, and Ekko. These are the only zaunite characters who are associated with being good within the context of the show. Viktor, who's so far removed from the city itself that his storyline has no association with the zaunite storyline of s1, Vi, who spends so much time with Caitlyn her loyalties change, and Ekko, who gets so little screentime he's basically an irrevalvet character.
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