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mel being a mage was a weird choice, and while I'm not inherently opposed to the idea as much as I'm opposed to how it recontextualizes and devalues her intelligence and political know how from being various skills she had been taught and/or learned to utilize from an early age to instead being an innate talent born of unknown magic powers, I think it would've been more fitting to have the armor be a magical item given to her by ambessa (or more likely, forced upon her prior to mel's exile) for the specific purpose of keeping her safe in her absence.

piltover and zaun's entire thing is magic as science and technology, so it's more thematically relevant for mel—whose arc ends with her removing her family ring as a way to showcase her choosing to abandon the warmongering medarda legacy in favor of maintaining peace through diplomacy, embracing her identity as one of piltover’s 'soft spined idealists'—to have a form of magic technology augmenting her body that allows her to overcome the ~fragility of the flesh~ to survive an otherwise potentially deadly event.

doing the above would also continue to draw parallels between mel and viktor, as viktor’s entire thing is augmenting the body with science and steel to overcome the fragility of flesh and blood and the fallible nature of emotions in order to empower people (not that they did that in the show but we're going to pretend s2 viktor doesn't exist because I hate what they did to my revolutionary coded messed up cyborg guy, and no I don't care that he's "biomechanical" in arcane because NOTHING about his design reads as mechanical. even in s1 the only reason you can tell it's metal is the sound effects so GET that mf out of my house /j)

tvckerwash

arcane s2 thought of the day: jinx losing her middle finger during her fight against vi and cait serves no narrative purpose and is literally just there for the aesthetic, but imagine the symbolism if they had cait shoot off her trigger finger instead. ignoring how her entire s2 arc goes against her s1 arc, if they wanted her to have a redemption arc and become the big fat hero would it not be more fitting for her to lose the ability to pull the trigger of her weapons, forcing her to end her destructive reign and "kill" jinx? and iirc she doesn't actually make herself a new finger until isha needs to be rescued, so it would add another layer of symbolism of jinx choosing to pick up her weapons, as she's no longer shooting to kill, but shooting to save.

naw-naw-honeyimgood

poking my head out of the arcane fandom to see my dash filled with hunger games stuff now that SOTR is out makes looking back at the arcane fandom... bewildering lol

Piltover being rich and privileged with clean streets and air. Multiple noble houses, their ruling powers having total say over both them and the Undercity. The Undercity having no representation, being exploited for its product(s). The justice system fully controlled by Topside and used to oppress the Undercity. Discrimination.

Then I look back at Panem and just think "Christ alive thank god Suzanne Collins never wrote about Snow's granddaughter being a Peacekeeper and having a girl from the districts as her girlfriend. Otherwise people might have thought the Districts went too far with their rebellion and other fun things."

omg don't mind that person arguing abt wherever mel's arc makes sense or not. they go from "uhm it's not shown in arcane", to "actually runes probably work like this", to "oh they don't ? according to what ? the lore, yeah no it's not in arcane so it's not true" although they did try to use the lore before (abt hextech i think) ...

i don’t like mel’s arc in season 2 narratively speaking. not just because ... lore.

whatever they say, even ignoring the lore, mel’s arc is just bad writing. i think i already made a post about this, but it’s rushed and narratively unsatisfying. she just happens to arrive at the battle at the perfect time and magically figures out her powers with no real struggle. like, how do you turn a sly politician into a heroic magical girl and expect it to feel earned? they distracted the audience so much that somehow i’m the bad guy for pointing out that this whole thing needed at least way more explanation (especially after the book, which only makes arcane’s version of mel even more confusing.)

also, the mel we saw in s1, the one who saw zaun as a mere stepping stone to power, not as a place with real people worth fighting for, is still the same mel we get in s2. she doesn’t gain new insight, she doesn’t struggle with her past actions, and she doesn’t engage meaningfully with the oppression she benefited from. so her arc in s2 is just a dramatic spectacle that shifts the focus away from the uncomfortable questions about her political role.

so narratively? it’s not just rushed - it’s a complete cop-out.

and anyway, yeah, i can criticize arcane for not making sense according to the lore - and i did. not just with old lore either, but with the book, which was released after arcane. it doesn’t change how magic works in general, just some black rose and rell backstory. it even reaffirms already established mages like ryze and his runes.

spoilers ahead ...

#arcane critical

The same person saying to forget league of legends lore was not that long ago using league of legends lore to argue with someone else who was criticizing how the Hextech plotline was handled in Arcane.

Every argument they use is just an excuse that apparently only applies when it's convenient for them.

this is crazy

#arcane critical

this-user-is-new

another thing that’s frustrating about arcane season two is that whenever i try to make sense of an event that involves magic, the explanation just creates another incoherent plotline, especially with the case of mel medarda.

how does she break free from leblanc’s black rose domain, something controlled by a vastly more powerful and experienced mage?

mel was born super powerful. because the show says so. yeah, she went from a nonviolent, politically driven aristocrat to a full-on superpowered mage because ... well, she obviously trained off-screen, with leblanc, maybe? the show doesn’t say. but you know what the show says? that she was born super powerful, and that’s enough.

okay ... then, if she’s always had this immense power, why has she never experienced even the slightest manifestation of it in her ~30 years of life? why was she so oblivious about her nature? it's hard to believe.

well, according to external league lore, her father secretly put runes in her tattoos to suppress her magic. so, it makes total sense.

sapphiresaphics

1. Because Mel’s particular brand of magic is specifically designed to twist other magic to her will. Leblanc literally spells this out to us in the scene where she breaks free. It’s why Leblanc and the Red Rose in particular were so scared of her, and why Ambessa hid her away to use against them.

2. She wasn’t born super powerful because the show just says so. She was deliberately “designed” this way by Ambessa. Ambessa had an affair with a powerful mage to ensure that her new child would be powerful enough to take on the black rose.

3. She’s a Merdada. If you don’t think she was trained as a child to fight, I don’t know what to tell you.

4. Additionally, she’s not immediately good with her powers. Jayce chastises her for this when they meet up again because if she was this powerful all along why didn’t she save everyone in the counsel? And we get an answer. She wasn’t fully aware of her magical abilities until very recently. Even in her fight with Viktor in the same scene she struggles to keep up.

5. Leblanc says “drink it in Mel Merdada, there’s no time like your first” indicating that the full realization of one’s magical abilities happens in one big powerful emotional burst and isn’t something people born with magic truly understand they have until it comes out like that. This is why the Red Rose was putting Mel’s brother through these tests, designed to see if her latent abilities ever manifest. If they hadn’t manifested then Mel would’ve died and the black rose would’ve just moved on to their next suspect. That’s literally what happened to her brother and how the black rose was able to figure out that Mel is the one they were seeking.

6. I’ve not seen the lore saying her father put magic sucking runes on her body in the form of tattoos. If that’s external information then that’s not something the show ever presented and can be discarded. Everything the show suggests is that magic is a latent ability that you slowly become aware you have until it comes out in a big burst. Since Mel’s specific brand of magic is empathetic and bending people to her will, go back and re-watch season 1 and specifically all of the moments where Mel interacts with other people. A lot of the “master manipulation” people think of Mel as being is really her just being empathetic and understanding people’s intentions intuitively.

7. Again, we do not see Mel being able to break free of rune suppressing magic at all in the show. On the contrary. In the show the fact that her mother wears rune suppressing magic during the final battle is a plot point they need to deal with and that Mel can’t break through. It takes Caitlyn cutting the runes off for Mel to be able to take her mother out.

But if this is still such an important point of contention for you, and you NEED for the rune suppressing magic to make sense on how she could break free if she’s tattooed all over with runes, then I have one final offering.

Runes need to be CHARGED. We see this happen multiple times in the show. The rune stones are charged up before battle multiple times. So even IF Mel was tattooed with runes suppressing her magic, it’s very possible that these runes needed to be charged up periodically. How that works, I have no idea, again the show itself does not even entertain the notion that Mel has these runes on her body, but there you go. A plausible reason for why all this works.

this-user-is-new

"mel's magic lets her twist other magic, so she could break free from leblanc's control."

yk leblanc isn't just some random sorcerer, right? she's a master of illusions and deception, someone who has tricked swain who literally bargains with demons, outmaneuvered jarvan iii, and she's part of a centuries-old cabal that has been manipulating noxian politics from the shadows.

yet mel, who has zero experience, casually overcomes leblanc because that's what her magic does, right?

but even champions with strong anti-magic abilities struggle against other magic users. i mean, morgana, a literal being of dark magic specialized in breaking magical bindings never truly defeated kayle. but mel, a complete novice, somehow breaks free from leblanc, who was not only aware of mel's magic but supposedly a master of her craft?

but hey, why bother respecting the power scaling of league's magic when you can just hand mel a win because the plot needs it?

"mel wasn't born super powerful randomly, she was designed by ambessa to take on the black rose."

her father is probably a powerful mage, so what? that still means she was born powerful. never said it was random? and that doesn't erase the fact that her magic had zero signs of manifesting before which is weird.

in league's lore, magic doesn't just sit dormant for decades without a single sign:

lux tried to suppress her magic, but it still flared up multiple times in childhood.

ahri didn't know she was vastayan, but her magic still affected people, so there were signs.

ryze, a literal centuries-old sorcerer and one of the most disciplined mages constantly struggles to contain the magic he carries.

but mel? she somehow goes her entire life without even suspecting she has magic, has zero accidents, and then out of nowhere she's powerful enough to override leblanc? yeah no, that's not how magic in this universe works.

"mel was probably trained as a child. she's a medarda, after all." "mel isn't immediately good with her powers. jayce even calls her out for it."

"probably"? that's pure assumption. but yeah, noxians often train their children to fight, but mel was exiled anyway. also, for a show like arcane to never hint that she can fight when she can (according to you) is pretty … wow.

but sure, let's pretend she had combat training. still, how does that explain how she fights like an experienced mage the second she unlocks her power?

meanwhile you have:

viego, a literal ascended being, still struggled to use his power effectively until he was fully consumed by the ruination.

sylas who trained for years and even he couldn't master magic instantly.

so why does mel, who had no history of training or even knowing she had magic, fight like she's been doing it for years? suddenly, she can fight a literal warlord (ambessa), who also had anti-magic runes?

a couple of minor setbacks don't change the fact that she's too good, too fast, for no reason. yes, she faints briefly at the beginning but is otherwise fine. it never puts her in any real danger.

"magic manifests in a big emotional burst, not gradually."

since you're using how they wrote mel as a standard for mages in general, let me tell you this: that directly contradicts league lore. magic isn't some anime-style "power-up through emotions", it’s something that develops over time:

lux didn’t suddenly explode with power, she had small incidents over the years.

ahri didn't just wake up one day and realize she could steal essence, her power grew gradually as she fed on people.

arcane needed to justify mel's sudden power boost and they didn't. this isn't some shonen.

"mel's rune suppression tattoos aren't confirmed in the show, so we can ignore them." "mel couldn't break through her mother's rune suppression magic, so she's not breaking any rules."

then why are you interacting with my post? if you don't want to acknowledge league's lore, it's fine, but stop trying to argue with people who talks about it wtf.

anyway, in league runes are magic. they have rules and restrictions:

ryze uses runes, but he can't override them.

morgana's magic is bound by a rune inscription on her body.

ornn's forging magic is dependent on specific rune-infused materials.

runes aren't just random magic that can be shrugged off. if mel had suppression runes and they just stopped working, that directly contradicts how runes function everywhere else in league.

and yet, you just proved my point.

if rune suppression magic works on mel later in the show, then it should have worked before. you can't have it both ways. either suppression magic works, or it doesn't.

"runes need to be charged, so maybe mel's suppression runes just ran out of power."

nothing in the show or the lore (yet?) suggests that ambessa's runes were the same as the ones supposedly on mel's tattoos. and rune magic in league doesn't just randomly run out of charge anyway.

ryze's scrolls and sigils don't need recharging they work because they are bound to magical laws.

morgana's shackles don't just fade away, they are permanent until removed.

ornn's forging runes don't randomly run out of charge.

also, mel's father specifically put suppression runes on her to hide her from black rose. why would he bother doing that if they just "ran out of charge"?

sapphiresaphics

1. Leblanc thinks she tricked Mel into siding with her. She knew she couldn’t defeat her with her magic because Mel’s magic is so dangerous to them. That’s WHY she tries to manipulate Mel into agreeing to take out her mother with the Black Rose amulet. You’re right, Leblanc is a manipulator. And in that moment when she’s being manipulated, Mel was able to see her true intentions and outwit her. That’s why Leblanc says “clever girl” as Mel frees Ambessa from their clutches.

I’m really not sure how you don’t grasp this concept? I felt it was pretty obvious from the start that both of them were playing mind games with each other. Why on earth would Mel trust the people who killed her brother?

2. “Sits dormant her entire life without signs” uh.. her entire life is like… 26-33? And there were signs? Mel’s empathy was a sign. It’s the reason Ambessa sent her away, because her unabashed empathy was “weakening” her resolve. The Jijx attack on the counsel was another sign. She even admits later in the show that in that moment she started to suspect she was magical in some way. It wasn’t a conscious thing, more of a reflex. And from that moment on the signs keep coming more and more.

Your league lore doesn’t really disprove any of this? The fact that so many people have different times they learn they’re magical kinda endorses the idea that it might take her longer than others to figure it out. Especially if she’s being repressed as you suggest? Like I don’t see this as a big plot hole or something. It seems pretty self explanatory to me.

3. I see you’re pulling the Rey accusations out. She’s “too good too fast!” I mean, I don’t see it that way st all. She didn’t know she could use magic. And when she does she’s not proficient with it until the end of the show. She had to walk back to Piltover from wherever she was being held captive, you don’t think she might’ve tried to understand her newfound power? She just walked in a straight line from the prison she was in to Piltover, never stopping, never resting, never once thinking about what happened to her and what is going on in her own body? For days/weeks on end or however long it took for her to get there?

Additionally, yeah I’m going by what the show has presented because as you say, THAT’S the new lore. So if you’re comparing it to old lore, you’re kinda doing yourself a disservice? Old lore is dead. New lore is in. You can’t say “it doesn’t work this way in old lore” when you’re referring to the new lore. Arcane presents it a different way. Until their next show contradicts it or expands on it in any way, I have no reason to dismiss what Arcane shows us is how mages wake up their powers.

And again… it doesn’t seem like it’s a fast and steady rule. Seems like there’s a lot of variations even WITH the old lore. So maybe treat this as Mel’s personal experience and not a universal experience? Not all black people experience racism the same way. Not all gay people come out of the closet the same way. Maybe don’t treat all mages in Arcane as all having to experience their powers the same?

4. I’m interacting with your post because you have questions about the show and I think I can answer them to the best of my ability given what the show has presented. It’s not my fault you don’t want to grapple with the idea that the lore you love so much might be null and void.

5. Again… nothing in the show suggests runes were put on Mel’s body to suppress her magic. So I’m not going to entertain this is an idea until the show or a spin-off explains it. I’m not gonna take the word of the old lore of this is the new lore going forward.

And again again… we have seen rune magic run out. Those little crystals Viktor gave to young Jayce ran out of rune magic. The runes Ambessa wears need to be charged up. The hextech itself can’t use the runes unless the hextech gemstone is there to power the runes. The show itself goes to great lengths to show that these runes require some form of magical channeling somehow. That tunes need magical energy to flow through them to function. If that’s not the case then the show hasn’t presented that as a fact yet.

So here’s a question. Are you trying to engage with what the show presents, or are you trying to engage with show based on old league lore when you KNOW that Arcane is intentionally fleshing things out and changing things? I’m trying to grasp where you’re coming from because it feels like you just don’t like the way Arcane chose to take things rather than trying to grasp what happened in the show.

If you give me a scenario you are confused by, I can explain it. But I’m going to explain it in the context of the show based on what the show presented to the audience.

I don’t want to fight tbh. I would like for you and I to come to some sort of agreement or compromise. But it doesn’t seem like that’s what YOU want. You seem to want to just be angry.

this-user-is-new

the idea that mel could outwit someone as experienced as leblanc just feels cheap, and saying it’s all "mind games" doesn’t fix that.

just because mel’s magic might have been hinted at with her empathy doesn’t change the fact that she went her whole life without any noticeable magic signs. and wtf, having some empathy or a brief feeling of suspicion doesn’t count as "magic signs." if we’re talking about actual league lore, that’s just not how magic works. you can't just pull out a random ability when it’s convenient to the plot.

who tf is rey? and you’re telling me she magically starts controlling her powers with no real struggle, no training, and barely any explanation? how does that make sense? just walking from the prison doesn’t make her some sort of magically gifted prodigy. it’s lazy writing to have her suddenly know how to control her powers like she’s been doing it for years.

also, they don’t even know wtf they were doing with hextech and the arcane, don’t pretend that the new lore should outwrite the old one when it’s not even better.

if you want to take arcane as gospel, that’s fine, but don’t expect me to just throw out everything i know about the universe because the show decided to take creative liberties. and wtf does that mean for other champions? are their stories just on hold until they get their own show? and every other mage is fucking useless and weak because mel medarda changed the rules? wtf?

sapphiresaphics

You should throw out everything you know. Arcane is SEPARATE from the league lore you grew up knowing. Being able to differentiate between them would be absolutely beneficial to your mental well being.

And I know this because I’ve been there. Multiple times. I’ve been in MANY fandoms where they suddenly change the lore or do stuff that isn’t part of established canon. I had to accept that the 2009 Star Trek movie was a completely separate alternate universe for almost 20 years. Every new TMNT series and movie completely reboots the lore of the TMNT universe. Marvel and Dc comics regularly reboot their lore every few decades.

The sooner you learn to separate these things the better.

this-user-is-new

nah, no one who actually cares about the game or lore is gonna just forget it because of arcane. arcane’s about the least popular characters in league (aside from jinx, maybe). there are so many other champions with actual lore, especially mages. i don’t care that mel breaks every rule, but don’t act like i should just throw out everything for this new show. you’ve read my posts, s2 was mostly crap to me, so it’s ridiculous for you to expect me to ditch the old lore anyway. and don’t talk abt mental well being wtf, you sound like a total geek who thinks they’re a retired geek.