Vi frowned. Everyone in Stillwater had heard of the famous Talis guy and the huge tower he was building. It was supposed to be powered by magic. There were supposed to be some tests soon—whatever that meant. That had been the talk of most rec times for months. But that didn't add up.
In her dull, hungry state, her memory was fuzzy. She remembered in bits and pieces a conversation she had had with Ymi, a while ago. Ymi had said something about... the start of spring... When was the last time she had left her cell again?
"... shit."
"What?"
"I've been here for at least two months."
I really disagree with the idea that Vi is "bad at accepting change" or that her arc is about "learning to accept change” or "learning to love people despite the fact that they changed”. I keep seeing people say this about her, but in my opinion, this idea that Vi is bad at accepting change is not really supported by the evidence in the show. I've talked a little bit about this in the past, but I want to expand on it and talk about how Vi deals with Jinx and Caitlyn changing.
Before talking about Jinx and Caitlyn, I want to talk about Vi and change in general. Vi in act 2 of season 1 has just left prison after 7 years. Season 1 happens in the span of 4-5 days, so saying that Vi is "bad at accepting change” because she is shocked by how things changed is very unfair. She just left prison after 7 years, it has barely been a few days, of course she will be shocked. She barely had any time to adjust to anything, any person in her situation would struggle.
Now, let's talk specifically about how Vi deals with her loved ones changing.
First, let's talk about Vi and Jinx. Let me first get the “Vi refuses to call Jinx by her new name” out the way. She doesn’t call her sister Jinx in their first reunion for obvious reasons: up until this point, she had no idea that her sister was calling herself Jinx, other than Sevika calling her that. And for all she knows, Jinx could be just a gang name or one of Sevika's lies. It makes no sense to expect Vi to be already calling her Jinx in their very first meeting, or to claim that she is bad at accepting change because of that. Later, the next time they speak again is only at the tea party, and again, it makes no sense for Vi to already be calling her Jinx: first, because this is only the second time she is meeting Jinx; second, because Vi only called her that as an insult, and this is her greatest regret. Vi knows that her sister started calling herself Jinx out of spite for what Vi said, so in Vi’s mind, calling her sister Jinx would be just insulting her all over again, and Vi obviously doesn’t want that. At the tea party, expecting Vi to already be perfectly adapted to the new name after only one meeting of less than 5 minutes with Jinx is just unrealistic and unfair, and hardly an indication that Vi is “bad at dealing with change”, especially considering that after the tea party, she does end up calling her by the new name.
The name thing out of the way, let’s talk about the idea that Vi supposedly "doesn’t accept that her sister has changed” or that she wants Jinx to be the “innocent defenseless little girl” she was before. This is not true at all. In their very first reunion, this is what Vi tells Jinx:
Jinx: Things changed when you left. I changed.
Vi: I know, Pow Pow, I know. You did what you had to do to survive. Me too. It's ok. What matters is that we're together.
Vi very explicitly says that she is ok with her sister having changed, with her sister having done bad things to survive. At the tea party, once again, Vi is still ready to accept her sister back into her life, despite everything she has seen Jinx do: by this point, Vi has seen the mural of the Firelights (many of them having likely been killed by Jinx), Jinx has shot at her at the bridge, Jinx has kidnapped her and Caitlyn, and yet Vi is still willing to put all that behind her and just leave to be with her sister. If this isn’t accepting Jinx despite her flaws and changes, I don’t know what it is. Vi also makes no mention of wanting Jinx to be "defenseless”, nor does she disapproves of the fact that Jinx is now a skilled fighter.
But the thing is: Vi never accepts and shouldn't be expected to accept Jinx murdering, torturing and kidnapping people and being unwilling to change that behavior. Vi rejecting her for these things isn't Vi "being bad at accepting change" or “refusing to accept Jinx’s changes”, it's Vi having a moral compass, a sense of justice. And at the end of the show, their relationship isn't fixed by Vi "finally accepting Jinx as she is” or “finally accepting Jinx’s changes”, their relationship is fixed by Jinx changing into a person Vi can accept: someone who stops killing, who shows empathy towards a child, and who comes back to help save the world. The conclusion of their story wasn't that Vi had to accept Jinx as she was, it was that Jinx had to grow into a better person and recognize how hurtful she had been to Vi.
With Caitlyn, the argument from a lot of people is that Vi is "bad at accepting change” because she asked Caitlyn to promise that she wouldn’t change. But again, Vi asking that doesn’t mean she is bad at accepting change. She is not asking Caitlyn to not change at all, she is not asking Caitlyn to stop being angry or stop grieving: she is asking Caitlyn to not become a monster, to not forget her moral compass in her hunt for Jinx. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that! It doesn’t mean Vi is bad at accepting change, it just means Vi has a moral compass.
And Vi’s actions with Caitlyn show that Vi IS able of accepting Caitlyn changing. She keeps supporting Caitlyn despite the fact that Caitlyn becomes more and more aggressive in her grief. Even after Vi sees Caitlyn threatening an unarmed man who had surrendered with a gun and putting Isha’s life at risk, Vi makes no mention of leaving Caitlyn: she questions Caitlyn, asks what’s wrong with her, but makes no mention of leaving her until Caitlyn hits her. Even after their fight with Jinx, Vi is supportive: when Caitlyn says “you stopped me", Vi answers in a very soft tone: “I shouldn't have had to". Her tone when saying this line makes it very clear that Vi is not mad at Caitlyn and has no intention of leaving her. She understands Caitlyn did something bad in the heat of the moment, but is willing to accept it, only lightly reproaching her. Then, when Caitlyn doubles down by saying “I keep telling myself that you're different. But you're not. it's her blood in her veins”, Vi lashes out saying "then why are you the one acting like her?” and grabbing her arm, but then, again she immediately softens her face (which, again, shows that she is not mad at Caitlyn and has no intention of leaving her).
Twice, Caitlyn lashes out at her, and twice, Vi shows that she is not mad and has no intention of leaving Caitlyn, despite the fact that Caitlyn is changing in a bad way and acting in a way that Vi disagrees with. She sees Caitlyn changing, and is still willing to remain by Caitlyn's side, so long as Caitlyn can still recognize when she is making a mistake. But when Caitlyn doubles down once again by hitting her, Vi can no longer stay with her. And Vi also can't go back to her either when Caitlyn is allied with Ambessa.
Questioning Caitlyn’s aggressive and reckless behavior isn’t a sign that Vi is bad at accepting change, it just shows that Vi has a moral compass and that she cares about Caitlyn and doesn’t want her to go down a horrible path. Not staying with someone that physically assaulted her also isn’t a sign that Vi is bad at accepting change. And again, their relationship isn't fixed by Vi "learning to accept all of Caitlyn's changes”. Their relationship is fixed by Caitlyn redeeming herself, showing that she is willing to betray Ambessa and that she is willing to let go of her consuming desire for revenge.
Both with Jinx and with Caitlyn, we see that Vi is willing to accept that they changed and that they've done bad things. She is willing to forgive them and keep supporting them despite the fact that they did bad things. In fact, I'd argue that Vi is actually willing to accept change a little too much: she is willing to forgive Jinx and run away with Jinx at the tea party, despite having already witnessed Jinx commit a bunch of murders. She is willing to keep following Caitlyn even after Caitlyn grows more and more aggressive, despite the fact that Vi has dealt with police brutality her entire life, so seeing Caitlyn act like that wouldn't have been easy for her at all, and yet she still stays with Caitlyn up until the point that Caitlyn hits her. But Vi also has a strong moral compass, and if you cross a line, she won't accept you (and she is right. there are limits to how much you can “accept” people, there are lines that shouldn't be crossed). She can't accept Jinx after the tea party, when Jinx refuses her attempts at reconciliation and her offer to run away and doubles down on committing more murders. She can't accept Caitlyn after Caitlyn hits her and shows that she is not willing to listen to her anymore, that she is blinded by her anger.
In both of these instances, the message of the show isn't that Vi needs to learn to accept all of her loved ones' wrongdoings. It's her loved ones that need to show that they changed for the better. That's what fixes their relationships, not "Vi learning to accept change”. So I don't really agree that Vi's arc is about accepting change, because Vi is the most forgiving person in this story, and she is willing to accept a lot of change from Jinx and Caitlyn before she decides she can't accept anymore.
However:
There is one specific change that I do think Vi needs to learn to accept and that I do think is part of her arc: accepting that her sister is an adult and is responsible for her own actions. That is indeed a big point of struggle for Vi in season 1: Vi leaves prison thinking that her sister is a prisoner of Silco. When Sevika tells her that Jinx is like a daughter to Silco, Vi tries to rationalize it as Powder "doing what she needed to survive". Then, Vi witnesses Jinx shooting with glee at the Firelights, and then Ekko tells her that Jinx does what she does because she wants, not because she needs to. Still, Vi refuses to accept it:
She tells Ekko “you're wrong, I know my sister, I can reach her, she's still in there”;
She decides to leave Ekko and Caitlyn at the bridge to go after her sister;
She goes on a reckless rampage against the shimmer factory, the guards at the Last Drop and Sevika in the hopes of getting to Silco, hoping that taking down Silco will save her sister.
The entirety of season 1, Vi struggles with the idea that Jinx is an adult who is responsible for her own bad decisions and mistakes. She thinks that she is the one that has to save Jinx, release her from Silco's influence, and so on.
But the thing is: even with this one change that Vi does struggle to accept (her sister having grown up), Vi doesn’t really struggle for that long. After a few days of getting out of prison and after the wake up call that was the tea party, Vi starts to grow out of that mindset. This character growth already starts in the very first episode of season 2 (which is very soon after Vi left prison. People tend to forget that the entirety of acts 2 and 3 of season 1 happen in the span of a few days. Vi accepts that her sister is an adult responsible for her own actions and who needs to be stopped in the span of one week, at most. That shows that Vi is very quick to accept change, not the opposite).
Already by act 1 of season 2, she rejects Jinx as her sister, accepts that she must be stopped and tells her that she is tired of blaming herself for Jinx mistakes. After her break up with Caitlyn, she doesn't try to go after Jinx for months, and when Jinx comes to get her, Vi recognizes that Jinx hasn't needed her for a long time. So from the very beginning, season 2 is about Vi accepting her sister as an adult, and as an adult, Jinx is the one responsible for her own fuck ups, not Vi. Which is not to say that Vi's growth in this regard is perfect and completely linear. She accepts rationally that she is not responsible for her sister's mistakes ("I'm done blaming myself for your mistakes" - 2x03) but deep down still feel responsible for them ("I'm the one who created the monster" - 2x01). She accepts that her sister is an adult, but then desperately tries to save her and redeem her when she learns her sister was arrested.
So yes, Vi has an arc about learning to accept a certain specific change, the fact that her sister has grown up and is responsible for her mistakes. But it's not about change in general or about “accepting her loved ones no matter how they change or how bad their actions are". It's about accepting that sometimes people change for the worse, that she is not responsible for their actions, and that by that point, she needs to cut them out of her life unless they change for the better.
And the changes Vi does refuse to accept aren’t normal changes like people growing up, changing their name, growing apart or making some mistakes. They aren’t the “my best friend decided to hang out with other people and I can’t accept that” kind of changes. Vi accepts changes like these. The ones Vi refuses to accept are the very grave and very serious ones: Jinx murdering, kidnapping and torturing people, or Caitlyn putting innocent people’s lives at risk because she was blinded by anger. These are not changes that anyone should “accept”: they should be rejected, and Vi should only accept them back in her life if they change for the better (which is what happens). And actually Vi is pretty quick to forgive both Jinx and Caitlyn at the slightest hint that they changed for the better, so Vi is actually more accepting of those grave and serious changes than the average person would be (most people would hold onto resentment for far longer). So I would argue that Vi is actually BETTER at dealing with change than most people in this story.
So in conclusion: While Vi's arc is partially about dealing with change, that doesn't mean she is bad at it. Vi doesn’t have difficulty dealing with changes, in fact she accepts them quite fast. It’s just that she spent 7 years in prison, so when she gets out she has to deal with really drastic changes in a very short period of time. Also, because people don’t really remember how short of a period season 1 is, they think that dealing with change is something she struggled for a long time, when in reality, she accepted everything quite fast. Finally, some people fail to recognize that some of the changes Vi has to deal with ARE unacceptable, and that she is right in not accepting them.
PS. Related to the “Vi can’t accept change" discourse is the “Vi can’t let go” discourse, and I think the arguments against it are similar: Vi is able to let go, she lets go of her relationship with Jinx for several months in season 2 and never goes back to her even after breaking up with Caitlyn; she also doesn't go after Jinx and decides to have sex with Caitlyn in the prison cell. People argue that Vi is unable to let go in the end because she refuses to let Jinx fall to her death, but I think not wanting to let someone you love fall to their death isn't the same as "not being able to let go”; you don't let someone you love fall to their death, no matter how detached you learned to be. And her not listening to Jinx about Warwick in that scene is more about Vi having a PTSD episode due to a lot of trauma she wasn’t able to deal with yet, not a sign that she can’t let go or that she can’t move on.
Yeah, I've never really understood this weird view either. It's more useful to me to look at Vi's whole arc from the POV of "she's bad at dealing with some really traumatic stuff that would give anyone PTSD for life, and she's got some bad coping mechanisms that she needs to unlearn". The way she's stuck in that role of being Powder's protector, the way she defaults to violence to solve her problems, those aspects of hers were present before prison but after her release, and throughout the show, they get cranked up to the max. When they combine, that's when she's at her worst (the raid with Jayce, the strike team era). When she can't be Powder's protector anymore, and she can't distract herself by focusing on someone else (Caitlyn)'s pain, things get ugly (the pitfighter era, probably her prison days too). It's her (terrible) way of dealing with her grief, and we see a version of her in the finale that has started to loose those reflexes, and that's when we see her crumble. It's not about Jinx, it's about seven years of trauma crashing down on her all at once.
"Vi can't accept change" doesn't even begin to cover this and doesn't really make any sense with what we see on the show.
Completely agree with your points about Jinx and Caitlyn too, beautifully said!
Hi everyone, so I finally got the chance to watch the whole part of the Trevor Project video with Amanda's appearance, and I thought it would be interesting to share some tidbits that I haven't seen talked about yet, because there was some really good stuff about the story and especially Vi's arc in there, but also about Maddie, and Jinx.
I've made a list of the questions asked and wrote down some of the answers (not all of them, sorry) on the ones that I found interesting, or that haven't been answered in other interviews, or that haven't been already posted (most of the CaitVi parts were already shared). What she says is in quotes, the rest is me paraphrasing. Enjoy!
Video: youtube link
59 Amanda arrives
1:00 Q: why was the storyboard changed and would you consider restoring it someday?
Amanda is unsure of which scene (probably the sex scene, IMO), talks a bit about the storyboarding process (interesting part, maybe I'll try to go back to transcribe it later).
1:05:56 Q: why did no one call Jinx by her name (Jinx) in the last episode, is there a symbolic reason for that
Great question, but Amanda didn't write the episode and isn't sure about the answer. It might have been a happy accident.
1:07:48 Q: what happened between Jinx and Ekko in last episode
"We brainstormed a lot about what that moment could be (...), we had just shown an entire episode of Powder and Ekko, we really took the time to develop Ekko's feelings in that, and any kind of version that we rewrote for the final episode ended up being something people had already seen, or felt emotionally. And what we decided was that it would be wonderful if each individual audience member could fill that gap in for themselves. Because between, like you said, all the details and art and stuff that was put into their reunion moment and everything we showed in that first scene, and the entire episode we spent developing... we felt like people could connect the pieces together and connect those dots on their own and it made the story much more personal to the audience, if we allowed them to do that"
1:09:48 Q: if Vi were to write a letter to Caitlyn how much time would she spend on the first sentence
1:10:51 Q: could Amanda write a snippet for Cait and Vi after the end of the show
"We tried to leave up to the audience imagination. (...) To me, I felt like we sort of completed their coming of age arc in the show, then I would have to, in order to think about where they go next, think of a new arc and a new story for them. And potentially I might want to jump forward in time a little bit, and give them all new wants and am new sort of problems. I've mentioned this before, but we told the story about how they became adults, I think, in this coming of age, but we haven't told the story of, now that they're adults, what do they do? What does Vi fights for when she doesn't have to protect her family all the time? That was her whole mission from the time when she was a child, to protect her family. She didn't even get any... She didn't get to ask herself what do I want? Who is Vi when she's not protecting someone else. So, I tried to get her to a point where she could start asking that question. And so, that would kind of be.. I would start asking, what does it mean that she's still in Piltover, that she's chosen to be in Piltover when she used to be from Zaun and all that. Does she have a new mission to bring the cities together? Who is she protecting now, does she even want to keep protecting people, does she want to find something else for herself? Those are a lot of things she would have to wrestles with. And you know, we obviously put Caitlyn through a huge ringer, does she take up the Kiramman mantle or does she become something different? And so, we always thought that she might choose to be the Sheriff of Piltover which is her endgame point instead of following her mother's footsteps. But then again, who is she fighting for, because I think she has a lot to atone for, personally. And she started by giving her eye, so that's one step in the right direction. So you know, I think I would have to ask myself what is their whole new arc, what is their whole new story now that they're adults? I think I've changed more than anything between the time in 20 to the time I'm 40. So there's a lot of potential for story there"
1:13:50 comment about Vi getting solo time (like Zuko Alone and Korra Alone in ATLA/LoK)
"About episode 5 (...) We always tried to clear as much runway for her as possible in that episode because it was always about getting the sisters back together. And for us that episode 5 was... Vi has to see her sister as an adult who can make her own choices and kind of respect (...) in order to respect Jinx for who she is she has to accept her boundaries even if they're not ones she agrees with, you know, which she has to do later in the season. So she has to start seeing her sister as an adult, and not a child anymore, which is very hard for family members to do. You know, I've been with my family for the last week here in Maine and there's just some times where you're like "I feel like a 16 years old girl again" around my dad or something, 'cause you revert back to familiar dynamics. And so I think that was an important thing for her to at least try and see in that episode (..) and try to imagine Silco and Vander being different from the Silco and Vander that they both knew. So, we always knew this story would be "will the daughters repeat the sins of the fathers", that was a very early on mantra for us. So that episode was kind of highlighting that shift once they saw the sins of their fathers and what they used to do, would they make the same mistakes they did?"
"So I think we got a lot in there for Vi through that window I think. But you always wish you had more time, more space, more time to just sit and breathe with your characters. Especially like I lived with them for 3 years, I spoke about them with my therapist like they were real people, which I've mentioned before, so..."
1:16:42 "Let's see, if there's one thing I would like to see Vi wrestle with more. I think she's always always fighting, and I wanted to look for a way, you know... everyone was very keen on her fighting in her darkest moments too and fighting to work through her problems and it always made sense that that would be her go-to. But, you know, is there a version of Vi who could not fight and not just drink away and numb away her problems, who could actually tackle them head on or who could just be present with them for a moment. You know, what if she did walk through the lanes, sober and without her gauntlets, and talk to people, like the fish market man, or the (?) or anything like that. What would she say to them? Could she ask about how they see her sister. And the image the Jinx, kind of, we had the mural in the background of Jinx with Vander because, that was sort of our way of hinting at that. You know, kind of seeing, what if the person you thought was a villain was actually the symbol you thought you would become. She always thought she'd follow in Vander's footsteps and suddenly it became Jinx who was doing that. I think that would have been wonderful to have more conversations like that with those people. Who knows, maybe there's future stories where she could have a version of that story come to light, where she has to reconcile with who she is now that she's an adult."
1:18:40 Q: did you ever publish any caitvi fanfic on ao3 (she tried!)
Apparently the snippet Amanda shared on twitter a long time ago was a cut snippet from s1. It was supposed to be a 1 season story. Ep 8 was the firing of the rocket and that triggered immediately the war between Piltover and Zaun in Ep 9. What used to happen: Caitlyn had a shot on Silco / Jinx but Vi told her not to. They went back to Caitlyn's house, Cassandra didn't die. Caitlyn was kind of crying on the steps like "I could have prevented this" and Vi held her and absorbed her tears. And that was gonna be the first moment where they kissed. "Then we expanded in two seasons and there was a huge conversation about whether they should kiss on the bed"
Also the Undercity was supposed to attack Piltover, led by Viktor.
1:23:27 sing the chorus of fantastic
1:26:35 "Christelle", the director of S2E3, apparently thought that kiss wasn't caitvi first kiss lol
"(.....) when lesbians kiss, you know, (..) I see a lot of straight women playing lesbians and they're very gentle and delicate and they like, face touch or whatever, and I'm like, "no no no, she's got to grab her and pull her towards her, that's what Vi would do" and so, it was Christelle's idea that she would drop the gauntlets and yank her and when I saw that, I was like, (whooping)"
1:30:41 about Maddie:
"So about the Maddie character... you know I think a lot of people are like "oh I wish we knew more about Maddie or I wish we could see sort of behind the veil". And we, you know, we thought about flipping her card over sooner or showing her talking with Ambessa. And ultimately, we felt like (..) this was all from Caitlyn's perspective. So as long as Caitlyn trusted her we wanted the audience to trust her. So that's kind of why we pull the rug out at the last minute like that. In our mind, she was always Noxian and she came from Noxus, and had been with Ambessa. You know, we kind of showed there were spies and stuff in episode 3 with the Amara character, laid into the fabric of Piltover always. So we felt like we had kind of laid in a little bit that Ambessa might have done something like that, or planted something like that. But again, we wanted the audience to be as blindsided as Caitlyn was, which kind of meant you didn't get to really dive into that character and her true motives very much"
1:32:54 Q: if you could change one thing about an episode you wrote for arcane, what would it be
"Wish we had spend more time with Viktor going through the lanes." Scene with his parents: he was working out the Grey, but his parents went, "you should go topside", they got him a academy uniform, and he impersonated a real student but was found by Heimerdinger.
1:36:05 you must Google caitvi hex strap and give your honest reaction
1:37:51 audience reaction to the sex scene
1:42:18 Q: what would Vi say when she saw Cait right after the battle
1:43:24 Q: what is your biggest red flag
1:44:04 Q: if there's one decision that you could have done differently, what would it have been (... pay less money for grad school)
1:46:08 write a short scene describing jealous possessive Caitlyn when someone flirts with Vi
1:47:40 Q: what made you decide to make Caitlyn and Vi a couple
that was already decided before she arrived on the show
1:49:59 Q: as a writer who worked on true blood what is your overall favorite episode
1:51:33 Q: would you consider changing Maddie role now that you've seen fan reaction affect the voice actress
1:52:32 about Maddie and Noxus: "we made the choice we did to show it from Caitlyn's perspective. I hope that, we get to understand more about Noxus in the future, if you know, any future projects get to dive into Noxus, because it's really sort of complicated and interesting culture. One of my shows I worked on was Marco Polo, which was about the Mongol Empire. So I learned a lot about the Mongol Empire and like, wow, they were the first sort of... the Silk Road they maintained and made it peaceful so they could communicate from all the way from the east to the west, and that was the first sort of hint at a global communication that we ever had. 'Cause they had like the way stations where the horses could sprint between and they sort of policed that road and kept it safe and made trade happen and all of that, you know, and so it was like a really rapid expansion for the human race, but also they murdered 40 million people, so (chuckles) which was a third of the population at the time. So it really is... if you're telling a story about that, it's very complicated. The amount of rape and murder and stuff. So the Noxians aren't as bad as the Mongols in terms of how warmongering they are but you do try to show two sides of everything. You know, what does the stability of an empire give you? What sort of peace... again, it's also modeled after the Roman Empire which was a huge force in history, everyone knows about the Roman Empire at this point. But also the Roman Empire is incredibly complicated in how many people they murdered and cultures they took over as well. So, trying to show the pros and cons of the Noxian Empire would be an interesting yet hard story to tell. But you know, to us that's the way she (Maddie) was raised and she was a good spy to the end and she did her job to the end. If Mel hadn't succeeded, the hero of the story, and we were telling it from the Noxians' point of view, the hero of the story would have been Maddie."
1:55:15 Q: what if Isha survived
"I think the reason Isha didn't survive the story was because that was a big part of Jinx's arc in the sense that... her arc is about healing her past trauma and realizing that the accident that took her family was an accident and not her fault. And a lot of S2 was about, do I get a do-over, if I didn't kill my dad, if I could bring my dad back, if I could save him, maybe we could... I would get a second chance because the one mistake that made me wouldn't have happened. But that would be... if that were true, she would be erasing her past rather than embracing it. So, the fact that, with the 3 crystals in the gun was very similar to the 3 crystals in the bomb that killed her father. When Isha did that, it was actually her choice, so she had the agency that Powder never had. So I think, even though it was very tragic and sad, it was different enough from what Jinx went through that when she realized that, that it was her choice and her agency and the thing that never had, then it allowed Jinx to realize that she could have her own agency, that she could also make a choice for herself that embraces her past and gives her a new future. So, you know, we tried to make it a meaningful death for her character, and make it Isha's choice, so it wasn't another tragic accident dictating everyone's future."
(This was originally written as a comment on reddit about the imbalance of Jinx's and Vi's arcs so it's a little rough. But I figured I could post it here, especially since I've complained a lot on this blog and have really changed my mind on a lot of things)
Vi and Jinx's stories were written pretty equally, IMO. (On paper. On screen, they were executed in such different ways that you've got a part of the audience convinced Vi didn't have an arc at all, which is just… huh. Simply not true).
But you can't separate Vi's arc from Jinx's. They're the reverse of each other.
Vi's about a letting go of the feelings of responsibility placed on her as a child, Jinx's is about taking that mantle and owning up for her actions. Vi needs to overcome her trauma by learning to think about herself and her own needs for once, Jinx needs to overcome hers by (re)learning empathy for others. Vi needs to unlearn Vander's lessons, Jinx needs to unlearn Silco's. Both have an arc of learning who they are without each other and taking control of their lives. Both feel like they've terribly messed up their own lives, for wildly different reasons, and it affects them in opposite ways. Vi turns the blame inward. Jinx turns the blame outward. Both need to break out of that big sister / little sister dynamic they're trapped in. Vi gets to see Jinx as an adult, Jinx gets to see Vi be broken and vulnerable. Etc. etc.
Episode 8 is where it all comes together. Vi has already come to see Jinx as someone who can take care of herself, she's relied on her before in act II and is no longer thinking of her as just Powder, but she can't let her go to prison, because she loves her and wants the best for her, and believes in her potential. Vi still won't think of herself first - she makes the decision to free Jinx thinking she's stabbing Caitlyn in the back and will lose her love for it (or rather, she's not thinking at all, she's acting on pure instinct and is completely unraveling). It's the wrong decision for the right reason: she is right not to give up on Jinx! But she needs to slow tf down and think of her own needs too.
Jinx decides she needs to get out of Vi's life and let her be happy - a decision coming from a place of empathy for what Vi had been through and a way to make up for her previous actions (you know, that time when she actively and cruelly tried to sabotage Vi and Caitlyn's relationship? Caitlyn's not the only one who apologizes through actions this episode). It's the right decision for the wrong reason: at this point Jinx also thinks there's no good version of her and that she needs to dip out of life permanently, but she's obviously very wrong in that.
Jinx's departure is the last straw for Vi who is left alone for hours and comes to terms with the fact that she "chose wrong", and losing Caitlyn wasn't worth it. This is where the dialogue is sparse and a little more would have really really helped, but Vi would have never, ever thrown herself at Caitlyn with such an uncharacteristic lack of restraint if she hadn't made the decision to 1) go for it all the way 2) stop making Jinx come first and 3) there's no turning back after this. Scene direction, framing and body language, y'all. This is the right decision for the right reason, at last.
Then we get to episode 9 and Jinx comes out of her suicidal bout ready to move on and kick ass. She, too, has finally made the right decision for the right reason: to build a new life for herself, on her terms. All season people have wanted her to be the hero of Zaun, the perfect revolutionary leader. But she's no revolutionary leader. Not who she is, not what she wants. She's an inventor, a free spirit, someone whose ideas "change the world" but not someone who will busy herself with leading others. So she decides to use this image that has been pushed on her, in order to honor the wishes of both Vi and Ekko, who ironically have both strong reasons to wish for peace rather than revolution now. And then she plans to dip out of that particular conflict, so she can go explore the world and discover herself without the burden of that image. By doing this, she is taking back control of her own life, all the while knowing Vi will always love her no matter what.
And remember when she says "even when we're worlds apart"? Vi has a reaction to that. Up to interpretation, but I think she understands Jinx's implied goodbye here. They're finally understanding each other! They're ready to say goodbye…
But this is the part where it gets tricky: unlike Jinx, Vi has been looking like she's getting panic attacks left and right during the whole battle. Gert's death is reminiscent of Felicia's, and I think (need to check) Loris' death is reminiscent of Mylo's or Claggor's. Then we get to Vander and it's no longer implied, we are shown that flashback, that scene from S1E3. Vi is having a PTSD episode and can't do anything about it. Why now? It's her trauma coming out, coming out now because she can't hide it behind her guilt and need to play the protector anymore. She's not focusing on Jinx anymore. Jinx tries to talk to her but she doesn't listen. Jinx fades in the background. The lid is off.
For the first time, Vi's walls are not just down, they're shattered and scattered on the floor, leaving her with raw, pure, agonizing pain. And for the first time, Jinx is in a position to protect her. It's her turn to take care of her sister, to catch her at the most vulnerable moment of her life. And she does.
Vi has been everyone's support system her whole life (Vander was hers before he died, which makes his death all the more significant). In act 3, it's Caitlyn and Jinx's turn. And it's about time.
Skip to the ending and you've got Caitlyn casually checking on Jinx's odds while Vi is humming a song from her past, thinking of her mother and holding Vander's glass in her hand - that glass! Remember episode 5? That scene in the mines, before they read the letter, where Jinx was having a #moment with Vander's jacket and Vi was just standing there closed off like none of it meant anything? That glass was just something for Vi to move aside then. But now it has become an object worth keeping.
There is no plausible interpretation of this scene where Vi and Caitlyn haven't talked about Jinx already. Plenty of reasons, and I've yapped about it enough, but the simplest one boils down to: Caitlyn wouldn't hide something like that from Vi, it would be a terrible place for them to end as a couple if she did, and we know wasn't the writers' intentions. If we can read between the lines regarding Jinx's true fate, we can read between the lines about Caitlyn and Vi's unseen conversation.
So Vi isn't wearing any protection, no jacket, no wraps, she's just sitting there and remembering. For the first time she's not trying to be strong for someone else's sake. She knows Jinx is out there starting a new life and she knows she can finally start doing the same. But she's got something like seven years of trauma to heal from. It'll be hard, but she'll get there.
Meanwhile, Jinx probably expected her to go look for her body and figure it out. Jinx gets to go out with a bang. She gets to build something new for herself, knows how much she is loved, and is free realize her true potential and become the best version of herself. The one both Vi and Ekko believe she can be.
That's truly the best and most meaningful ending they both could possibly get.
Great analysis! But I disagree with you on some key points, if I may, like the fact that Vi chooses Jinx first when she plans to free her, or that Vi was ready to give up on Caitlyn's love here.
Here's how I see the whole thing.
The prison scene proves once again that Vi is incapable of choosing between her sister and Caitlyn. She doesn't want to LOSE either of them, or more precisely, she wants BOTH of them by her side.
When Vi goes to see her sister in prison, we already know two things: she says, "If you come, help..." -> meaning "If you come, help (us during the battle), this proves that:
1) Vi doesn't intend to leave here; she intends to STAY and fight on Piltover's (and therefore Caitlyn's) side against Ambessa. Otherwise, she would never have asked her sister to come (join her).
2) Vi ASKS her sister to come and fight by her side on the battlefield. We see here that Vi finds the right key to open the cell, but she ONLY opens it when Jinx confirms her presence and the fact that she will help them in the impending war (and so that she agree to Vi’s plan). To put it simply, Vi is negotiating with her sister here ; she makes a compromise with her -> "I'll release you on the condition that you come and help us." Vi didn't give it a second thought, she simply trusted her sister to make the right decision.
If Vi had wanted to choose Jinx over Caitlyn first, she wouldn't have bothered with all this; she would have just opened the cell and asked her sister to get the hell out of here as far away as possible and as fast as possible. But that's not what happened here; if you just watch the scene again. So why is Vi doing all this?
Because, she wants Jinx and Caitlyn; she wants them BOTH. And in Vi's hopeful and desperate mind, the only scenario where she can have both is if Caitlyn decides to give Jinx a second chance. Vi failed to talk sense into Caitlyn's mind by trying to convince her that Jinx has changed with WORDS ("Cait, she's changed"), so she's trying to show Caitlyn with ACTIONS (Caitlyn's love language: acts of service) that Jinx has changed. That's why Vi tells Jinx something like this: "If you do good, you can change the way Piltover (and, by extension, Caitlyn) looks at you." Vi wants her sister to prove to Piltover (and, by extension, Caitlyn) that she's changed; because Vi doesn't want her sister to be executed or imprisoned and that way, Piltover won't chase her anymore. Caitlyn won't chase her anymore and Vi can have both. Vi wants to recreate the conditions that led them to fight together in the commune; she wants Caitlyn and Jinx to cooperate and fight together again.
But then what happened? Jinx agreed to Vi's rainbow-filled plan (lol), except Jinx lied, took the opportunity to stop Vi from chasing her by locking Vi up, and ran away. And now Vi is screaming and crying. Because she realized she went from someone who wanted both of them, to someone who just lost both of them at the same time.
1) She lost Jinx because, well, Jinx lied about coming to help them and ran away. Vi felt deeply betrayed by Jinx.
2) She lost Caitlyn (in her mind). Because how exactly do you explain to Caitlyn that she's directly responsible for her mother's killer escaping? Hence her very first words to Caitlyn when she opens the door: "I really believe she would have help." Vi thus realized that, since her bet with Jinx failed, she betrayed Caitlyn, who will never forgive her.
That's why Vi was in such a state. (and I take this opportunity to say that I completely agree that it deserved a lot more dialogue and more explanations. They really made the wrong choice by favoring other things and taking shortcuts with the 3 MAIN CHARACTERS due to lack of time)
And to touch on the ending and the fact that they both know Jinx survived. For me, the fact that Caitlyn is holding the monkey head that Jinx used to prime her last bomb proves that they went to the "scene of the crime." After all, Caitlyn didn't find this monkey head in some dark alley. And the fact that Caitlyn is searching for the various exits/ventilation tunnels at the Hexgade proves that they didn't find a body at the scene. So meaning that someone probably survived.
An interesting detail here: only Caitlyn is looking for HOW Jinx could have escaped. After all, Caitlyn is a bit like Sherlock Holmes; she wants to solve the mystery, but here, Vi isn't helping her, Vi isn't watching her over her shoulder. Vi just sits across the room, humming a song. It's almost as if she doesn't need to know how her sister ran away or even where her sister went...
That's just my thoughts. I hope I didn't bother you too much. 😊
Not a bother at all, don't worry! Thanks for the comment!
So I oversimplified things a bit here, it was supposed to be a simple comment and it got way too long x)
I definitely agree with you on 1) and 2) — she wasn't planning on going anywhere, she wanted to stay.
What I was trying to get at is that Vi's conflict isn't about Jinx and Caitlyn as people, but what they represent to her.
Jinx represents the past. She is the responsibility that was pushed on Vi as a child, the life she never chose but accepted out of love.
Caitlyn represents the future, a new love that isn't tainted by her sense of familial obligation, one that's hers to choose, entirely for herself. Being with her is the life Vi actually wants, but hasn't allowed herself to have yet.
So I was really trying to frame her decision in terms of "Vi isn't thinking about herself" rather than "she's choosing Jinx over Caitlyn" but I could have worded it better. As you say, she can't choose between them as people because she loves them both! Love the way you put it.
She thought she was caught between them again and had to make a decision, and her decision came from a place of desperation (we can see that when she arrives in Jinx's cell, she is panicking and not thinking straight at all). She has already forgiven Caitlyn. But she says herself she expected Caitlyn to be angry with her. She was trying to salvage a hopeless situation and was expecting to lose something in the process, as she's always done before. Except this time, it's not hopeless.
And by the way,
"it's almost as if she doesn't need to know how her sister ran away"
That's the feeling I get as well! She doesn't need to know how, she just knows Jinx's out there, getting a fresh start, and that's enough for her.
I realized I focused on these specific points, but once again, your analysis is superb and full of truth. I agree with everything you just said.
What I think is so interesting about this prison scene is that Vi starts from someone who can't make a choice between two people and then chooses herself, and Jinx and Caitlyn both let go of their need for Vi to choose one of them. Vi "choosing wrong" is Vi realizing she shouldn't have trusted Jinx (yet again).
And yes, as you say, the situation was desperate. Vi knew the bunker solution was temporary and that Jinx would soon be judged for her crimes. Piltover is probably still under martial law (as Caitlyn tells her : "there will be no trial"), so considering the magnitude of Jinx's crimes, her punishment wasn't going to be lenient; At best, it was Stillwater for life, and at worst (most likely), she was going to be executed. As for Vi, I don't know which is worse, considering she lived through hell in Stillwater for seven years. Vi wanted to rectify the situation by imagining a miracle scenario in her despair where Jinx and Piltover (represented by Caitlyn here) could cooperate.
I insisted that it was Vi's intention to stay and fight because many people in this fandom think that Vi would have fled with Jinx if Jinx hadn't imprisoned her, even though that was clearly not what was shown.
But again, I find (and it's a real shame) that all the scenes involving the main trio in episode 8 were rushed; it's really frustrating.
It also makes me think... at the end, both Vi and Caitlyn are holding an object in their hands; For Vi, it's Vander's glass, and for Caitlyn, it's Jinx's monkey head.
So why do you think Gert's death is reminiscent of Felicia's? For me, Vi got scared when she saw Gert's hair and thought it was Jinx.
(This was originally written as a comment on reddit about the imbalance of Jinx's and Vi's arcs so it's a little rough. But I figured I could post it here, especially since I've complained a lot on this blog and have really changed my mind on a lot of things)
Vi and Jinx's stories were written pretty equally, IMO. (On paper. On screen, they were executed in such different ways that you've got a part of the audience convinced Vi didn't have an arc at all, which is just… huh. Simply not true).
But you can't separate Vi's arc from Jinx's. They're the reverse of each other.
Vi's about a letting go of the feelings of responsibility placed on her as a child, Jinx's is about taking that mantle and owning up for her actions. Vi needs to overcome her trauma by learning to think about herself and her own needs for once, Jinx needs to overcome hers by (re)learning empathy for others. Vi needs to unlearn Vander's lessons, Jinx needs to unlearn Silco's. Both have an arc of learning who they are without each other and taking control of their lives. Both feel like they've terribly messed up their own lives, for wildly different reasons, and it affects them in opposite ways. Vi turns the blame inward. Jinx turns the blame outward. Both need to break out of that big sister / little sister dynamic they're trapped in. Vi gets to see Jinx as an adult, Jinx gets to see Vi be broken and vulnerable. Etc. etc.
Episode 8 is where it all comes together. Vi has already come to see Jinx as someone who can take care of herself, she's relied on her before in act II and is no longer thinking of her as just Powder, but she can't let her go to prison, because she loves her and wants the best for her, and believes in her potential. Vi still won't think of herself first - she makes the decision to free Jinx thinking she's stabbing Caitlyn in the back and will lose her love for it (or rather, she's not thinking at all, she's acting on pure instinct and is completely unraveling). It's the wrong decision for the right reason: she is right not to give up on Jinx! But she needs to slow tf down and think of her own needs too.
Jinx decides she needs to get out of Vi's life and let her be happy - a decision coming from a place of empathy for what Vi had been through and a way to make up for her previous actions (you know, that time when she actively and cruelly tried to sabotage Vi and Caitlyn's relationship? Caitlyn's not the only one who apologizes through actions this episode). It's the right decision for the wrong reason: at this point Jinx also thinks there's no good version of her and that she needs to dip out of life permanently, but she's obviously very wrong in that.
Jinx's departure is the last straw for Vi who is left alone for hours and comes to terms with the fact that she "chose wrong", and losing Caitlyn wasn't worth it. This is where the dialogue is sparse and a little more would have really really helped, but Vi would have never, ever thrown herself at Caitlyn with such an uncharacteristic lack of restraint if she hadn't made the decision to 1) go for it all the way 2) stop making Jinx come first and 3) there's no turning back after this. Scene direction, framing and body language, y'all. This is the right decision for the right reason, at last.
Then we get to episode 9 and Jinx comes out of her suicidal bout ready to move on and kick ass. She, too, has finally made the right decision for the right reason: to build a new life for herself, on her terms. All season people have wanted her to be the hero of Zaun, the perfect revolutionary leader. But she's no revolutionary leader. Not who she is, not what she wants. She's an inventor, a free spirit, someone whose ideas "change the world" but not someone who will busy herself with leading others. So she decides to use this image that has been pushed on her, in order to honor the wishes of both Vi and Ekko, who ironically have both strong reasons to wish for peace rather than revolution now. And then she plans to dip out of that particular conflict, so she can go explore the world and discover herself without the burden of that image. By doing this, she is taking back control of her own life, all the while knowing Vi will always love her no matter what.
And remember when she says "even when we're worlds apart"? Vi has a reaction to that. Up to interpretation, but I think she understands Jinx's implied goodbye here. They're finally understanding each other! They're ready to say goodbye…
But this is the part where it gets tricky: unlike Jinx, Vi has been looking like she's getting panic attacks left and right during the whole battle. Gert's death is reminiscent of Felicia's, and I think (need to check) Loris' death is reminiscent of Mylo's or Claggor's. Then we get to Vander and it's no longer implied, we are shown that flashback, that scene from S1E3. Vi is having a PTSD episode and can't do anything about it. Why now? It's her trauma coming out, coming out now because she can't hide it behind her guilt and need to play the protector anymore. She's not focusing on Jinx anymore. Jinx tries to talk to her but she doesn't listen. Jinx fades in the background. The lid is off.
For the first time, Vi's walls are not just down, they're shattered and scattered on the floor, leaving her with raw, pure, agonizing pain. And for the first time, Jinx is in a position to protect her. It's her turn to take care of her sister, to catch her at the most vulnerable moment of her life. And she does.
Vi has been everyone's support system her whole life (Vander was hers before he died, which makes his death all the more significant). In act 3, it's Caitlyn and Jinx's turn. And it's about time.
Skip to the ending and you've got Caitlyn casually checking on Jinx's odds while Vi is humming a song from her past, thinking of her mother and holding Vander's glass in her hand - that glass! Remember episode 5? That scene in the mines, before they read the letter, where Jinx was having a #moment with Vander's jacket and Vi was just standing there closed off like none of it meant anything? That glass was just something for Vi to move aside then. But now it has become an object worth keeping.
There is no plausible interpretation of this scene where Vi and Caitlyn haven't talked about Jinx already. Plenty of reasons, and I've yapped about it enough, but the simplest one boils down to: Caitlyn wouldn't hide something like that from Vi, it would be a terrible place for them to end as a couple if she did, and we know wasn't the writers' intentions. If we can read between the lines regarding Jinx's true fate, we can read between the lines about Caitlyn and Vi's unseen conversation.
So Vi isn't wearing any protection, no jacket, no wraps, she's just sitting there and remembering. For the first time she's not trying to be strong for someone else's sake. She knows Jinx is out there starting a new life and she knows she can finally start doing the same. But she's got something like seven years of trauma to heal from. It'll be hard, but she'll get there.
Meanwhile, Jinx probably expected her to go look for her body and figure it out. Jinx gets to go out with a bang. She gets to build something new for herself, knows how much she is loved, and is free realize her true potential and become the best version of herself. The one both Vi and Ekko believe she can be.
That's truly the best and most meaningful ending they both could possibly get.
Great analysis! But I disagree with you on some key points, if I may, like the fact that Vi chooses Jinx first when she plans to free her, or that Vi was ready to give up on Caitlyn's love here.
Here's how I see the whole thing.
The prison scene proves once again that Vi is incapable of choosing between her sister and Caitlyn. She doesn't want to LOSE either of them, or more precisely, she wants BOTH of them by her side.
When Vi goes to see her sister in prison, we already know two things: she says, "If you come, help..." -> meaning "If you come, help (us during the battle), this proves that:
1) Vi doesn't intend to leave here; she intends to STAY and fight on Piltover's (and therefore Caitlyn's) side against Ambessa. Otherwise, she would never have asked her sister to come (join her).
2) Vi ASKS her sister to come and fight by her side on the battlefield. We see here that Vi finds the right key to open the cell, but she ONLY opens it when Jinx confirms her presence and the fact that she will help them in the impending war (and so that she agree to Vi’s plan). To put it simply, Vi is negotiating with her sister here ; she makes a compromise with her -> "I'll release you on the condition that you come and help us." Vi didn't give it a second thought, she simply trusted her sister to make the right decision.
If Vi had wanted to choose Jinx over Caitlyn first, she wouldn't have bothered with all this; she would have just opened the cell and asked her sister to get the hell out of here as far away as possible and as fast as possible. But that's not what happened here; if you just watch the scene again. So why is Vi doing all this?
Because, she wants Jinx and Caitlyn; she wants them BOTH. And in Vi's hopeful and desperate mind, the only scenario where she can have both is if Caitlyn decides to give Jinx a second chance. Vi failed to talk sense into Caitlyn's mind by trying to convince her that Jinx has changed with WORDS ("Cait, she's changed"), so she's trying to show Caitlyn with ACTIONS (Caitlyn's love language: acts of service) that Jinx has changed. That's why Vi tells Jinx something like this: "If you do good, you can change the way Piltover (and, by extension, Caitlyn) looks at you." Vi wants her sister to prove to Piltover (and, by extension, Caitlyn) that she's changed; because Vi doesn't want her sister to be executed or imprisoned and that way, Piltover won't chase her anymore. Caitlyn won't chase her anymore and Vi can have both. Vi wants to recreate the conditions that led them to fight together in the commune; she wants Caitlyn and Jinx to cooperate and fight together again.
But then what happened? Jinx agreed to Vi's rainbow-filled plan (lol), except Jinx lied, took the opportunity to stop Vi from chasing her by locking Vi up, and ran away. And now Vi is screaming and crying. Because she realized she went from someone who wanted both of them, to someone who just lost both of them at the same time.
1) She lost Jinx because, well, Jinx lied about coming to help them and ran away. Vi felt deeply betrayed by Jinx.
2) She lost Caitlyn (in her mind). Because how exactly do you explain to Caitlyn that she's directly responsible for her mother's killer escaping? Hence her very first words to Caitlyn when she opens the door: "I really believe she would have help." Vi thus realized that, since her bet with Jinx failed, she betrayed Caitlyn, who will never forgive her.
That's why Vi was in such a state. (and I take this opportunity to say that I completely agree that it deserved a lot more dialogue and more explanations. They really made the wrong choice by favoring other things and taking shortcuts with the 3 MAIN CHARACTERS due to lack of time)
And to touch on the ending and the fact that they both know Jinx survived. For me, the fact that Caitlyn is holding the monkey head that Jinx used to prime her last bomb proves that they went to the "scene of the crime." After all, Caitlyn didn't find this monkey head in some dark alley. And the fact that Caitlyn is searching for the various exits/ventilation tunnels at the Hexgade proves that they didn't find a body at the scene. So meaning that someone probably survived.
An interesting detail here: only Caitlyn is looking for HOW Jinx could have escaped. After all, Caitlyn is a bit like Sherlock Holmes; she wants to solve the mystery, but here, Vi isn't helping her, Vi isn't watching her over her shoulder. Vi just sits across the room, humming a song. It's almost as if she doesn't need to know how her sister ran away or even where her sister went...
That's just my thoughts. I hope I didn't bother you too much. 😊
Not a bother at all, don't worry! Thanks for the comment!
So I oversimplified things a bit here, it was supposed to be a simple comment and it got way too long x)
I definitely agree with you on 1) and 2) — she wasn't planning on going anywhere, she wanted to stay.
What I was trying to get at is that Vi's conflict isn't about Jinx and Caitlyn as people, but what they represent to her.
Jinx represents the past. She is the responsibility that was pushed on Vi as a child, the life she never chose but accepted out of love.
Caitlyn represents the future, a new love that isn't tainted by her sense of familial obligation, one that's hers to choose, entirely for herself. Being with her is the life Vi actually wants, but hasn't allowed herself to have yet.
So I was really trying to frame her decision in terms of "Vi isn't thinking about herself" rather than "she's choosing Jinx over Caitlyn" but I could have worded it better. As you say, she can't choose between them as people because she loves them both! Love the way you put it.
She thought she was caught between them again and had to make a decision, and her decision came from a place of desperation (we can see that when she arrives in Jinx's cell, she is panicking and not thinking straight at all). She has already forgiven Caitlyn. But she says herself she expected Caitlyn to be angry with her. She was trying to salvage a hopeless situation and was expecting to lose something in the process, as she's always done before. Except this time, it's not hopeless.
And by the way,
"it's almost as if she doesn't need to know how her sister ran away"
That's the feeling I get as well! She doesn't need to know how, she just knows Jinx's out there, getting a fresh start, and that's enough for her.
(This was originally written as a comment on reddit about the imbalance of Jinx's and Vi's arcs so it's a little rough. But I figured I could post it here, especially since I've complained a lot on this blog and have really changed my mind on a lot of things)
Vi and Jinx's stories were written pretty equally, IMO. (On paper. On screen, they were executed in such different ways that you've got a part of the audience convinced Vi didn't have an arc at all, which is just… huh. Simply not true).
But you can't separate Vi's arc from Jinx's. They're the reverse of each other.
Vi's about a letting go of the feelings of responsibility placed on her as a child, Jinx's is about taking that mantle and owning up for her actions. Vi needs to overcome her trauma by learning to think about herself and her own needs for once, Jinx needs to overcome hers by (re)learning empathy for others. Vi needs to unlearn Vander's lessons, Jinx needs to unlearn Silco's. Both have an arc of learning who they are without each other and taking control of their lives. Both feel like they've terribly messed up their own lives, for wildly different reasons, and it affects them in opposite ways. Vi turns the blame inward. Jinx turns the blame outward. Both need to break out of that big sister / little sister dynamic they're trapped in. Vi gets to see Jinx as an adult, Jinx gets to see Vi be broken and vulnerable. Etc. etc.
Episode 8 is where it all comes together. Vi has already come to see Jinx as someone who can take care of herself, she's relied on her before in act II and is no longer thinking of her as just Powder, but she can't let her go to prison, because she loves her and wants the best for her, and believes in her potential. Vi still won't think of herself first - she makes the decision to free Jinx thinking she's stabbing Caitlyn in the back and will lose her love for it (or rather, she's not thinking at all, she's acting on pure instinct and is completely unraveling). It's the wrong decision for the right reason: she is right not to give up on Jinx! But she needs to slow tf down and think of her own needs too.
Jinx decides she needs to get out of Vi's life and let her be happy - a decision coming from a place of empathy for what Vi had been through and a way to make up for her previous actions (you know, that time when she actively and cruelly tried to sabotage Vi and Caitlyn's relationship? Caitlyn's not the only one who apologizes through actions this episode). It's the right decision for the wrong reason: at this point Jinx also thinks there's no good version of her and that she needs to dip out of life permanently, but she's obviously very wrong in that.
Jinx's departure is the last straw for Vi who is left alone for hours and comes to terms with the fact that she "chose wrong", and losing Caitlyn wasn't worth it. This is where the dialogue is sparse and a little more would have really really helped, but Vi would have never, ever thrown herself at Caitlyn with such an uncharacteristic lack of restraint if she hadn't made the decision to 1) go for it all the way 2) stop making Jinx come first and 3) there's no turning back after this. Scene direction, framing and body language, y'all. This is the right decision for the right reason, at last.
Then we get to episode 9 and Jinx comes out of her suicidal bout ready to move on and kick ass. She, too, has finally made the right decision for the right reason: to build a new life for herself, on her terms. All season people have wanted her to be the hero of Zaun, the perfect revolutionary leader. But she's no revolutionary leader. Not who she is, not what she wants. She's an inventor, a free spirit, someone whose ideas "change the world" but not someone who will busy herself with leading others. So she decides to use this image that has been pushed on her, in order to honor the wishes of both Vi and Ekko, who ironically have both strong reasons to wish for peace rather than revolution now. And then she plans to dip out of that particular conflict, so she can go explore the world and discover herself without the burden of that image. By doing this, she is taking back control of her own life, all the while knowing Vi will always love her no matter what.
And remember when she says "even when we're worlds apart"? Vi has a reaction to that. Up to interpretation, but I think she understands Jinx's implied goodbye here. They're finally understanding each other! They're ready to say goodbye…
But this is the part where it gets tricky: unlike Jinx, Vi has been looking like she's getting panic attacks left and right during the whole battle. Gert's death is reminiscent of Felicia's, and I think (need to check) Loris' death is reminiscent of Mylo's or Claggor's. Then we get to Vander and it's no longer implied, we are shown that flashback, that scene from S1E3. Vi is having a PTSD episode and can't do anything about it. Why now? It's her trauma coming out, coming out now because she can't hide it behind her guilt and need to play the protector anymore. She's not focusing on Jinx anymore. Jinx tries to talk to her but she doesn't listen. Jinx fades in the background. The lid is off.
For the first time, Vi's walls are not just down, they're shattered and scattered on the floor, leaving her with raw, pure, agonizing pain. And for the first time, Jinx is in a position to protect her. It's her turn to take care of her sister, to catch her at the most vulnerable moment of her life. And she does.
Vi has been everyone's support system her whole life (Vander was hers before he died, which makes his death all the more significant). In act 3, it's Caitlyn and Jinx's turn. And it's about time.
Skip to the ending and you've got Caitlyn casually checking on Jinx's odds while Vi is humming a song from her past, thinking of her mother and holding Vander's glass in her hand - that glass! Remember episode 5? That scene in the mines, before they read the letter, where Jinx was having a #moment with Vander's jacket and Vi was just standing there closed off like none of it meant anything? That glass was just something for Vi to move aside then. But now it has become an object worth keeping.
There is no plausible interpretation of this scene where Vi and Caitlyn haven't talked about Jinx already. Plenty of reasons, and I've yapped about it enough, but the simplest one boils down to: Caitlyn wouldn't hide something like that from Vi, it would be a terrible place for them to end as a couple if she did, and we know wasn't the writers' intentions. If we can read between the lines regarding Jinx's true fate, we can read between the lines about Caitlyn and Vi's unseen conversation.
So Vi isn't wearing any protection, no jacket, no wraps, she's just sitting there and remembering. For the first time she's not trying to be strong for someone else's sake. She knows Jinx is out there starting a new life and she knows she can finally start doing the same. But she's got something like seven years of trauma to heal from. It'll be hard, but she'll get there.
Meanwhile, Jinx probably expected her to go look for her body and figure it out. Jinx gets to go out with a bang. She gets to build something new for herself, knows how much she is loved, and is free realize her true potential and become the best version of herself. The one both Vi and Ekko believe she can be.
That's truly the best and most meaningful ending they both could possibly get.
So I’ve been rewatching this video and I may have judged Overton a little too harshly. I think it’s bc the fans that hate Mel and call her a cold hearted manipulator uses Amanda’s statement to prove their point.
Similar to the way homophobic fans that didn’t want Jayce and Viktor to be shipped by using Linke’s talk on JayVik causing fans to call him homophobic even tho he never said you can’t ship them.
So I’m going to disect what Amanda Overton says and why I don’t think it aligns with what the Mel-haters pov.
(TLDR is at the bottom)
1. “She’s seducing Jayce to become her sort of political tool. It ends with an actual seduction at the end of the episode”
Her saying this and Jayce and Mel’s sextech scene in the background does make it look like she’s saying that the sex scene was Mel seducing Jayce to be her political tool. But I don’t think so.
Amanda, right before the quote, says she wrote episode 5. So that means EVERYTHING in episode 5 and the sex scene isn’t the only thing that happens during that ep.
I don’t think “Mel seduces Jayce to become her political tool” is referring to the sex scene but rather to the corruption scene. My reason:
1. The definition of “seducing someone” can mean:
This aligns well with the corruption scene bc Jayce was against it. He wouldn’t usually consider risking the safety of the hexgates for deals as he says. But Mel “seduces Jayce” to do this by making the idea of the corruption “attractive and difficult to refuse”. She says doing this will allow him to shape his own destiny, which he wanted.
He even vents to Viktor about not being able to decide what they wanna do with hextech: “it’s time we decide the future of hextech” in ep 4.
He was a “sort of” political tool for Mel bc Mel wanted piltover to be great, to earn her families name, and Hextech was a tool to do that. And who makes hextech? Jayce (and Viktor but Jayce is the one making deals).
Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing bc tutors can be used as academic tools. You get tutored, and the tutor gets paid. Mel makes piltover rich and earns the Medarda name, and Jayce gets more control over hextech. Transactional.
2. “Ends with seduction at the end”
Notice the order of what Amanda says. She says she seduces him to be her political tool “sort of”. AND THEN it becomes seduction AT THE END.
Mel and Jayce engage in the corruption of the hexgates and council before, and they have sex at the end.
When Amanda says “seduction”, I was under the impression that it’s deception she’s doing. But that may not be the case.
This is from an article that explains the difference between seduction and coercion.
This is what Mel does. They are already attracted to each other and Mel touches his hand, they’re in his house, and she kisses him. This is all to get him to have sex with her. Not for a motive, but bc he’s hot and she’s attracted.
Amanda does say: “it ends with an actual seduction at the end of the episode. Mel is doing all of that with an agenda.”
Now this could still mean that the sex was also for an agenda. She had sex with Jayce as a way to gain more power.
But it doesn’t make sense bc 1. Mel and Jayce are already attracted to each other. 2. Mel was upset when Jayce leaves her. 3. where do we see that? She didn’t need sex to make him engage in corruption and after the sex, Jayce shocks her twice from his impulsive decisions.
So I think she’s referring to the corruption, making him a councilor. but this doesn’t make her bad. Everything she does is with the agenda to earn her family name. But this doesn’t mean she plays Jayce like a puppet tho. Or she’s deceiving Jayce.
2. “My favorite thing about Mel is she defies expectations”
Our expectations
Amanda says she was “kind of” set up to be a “femme fatale” trope. “And that’s what you think you’re gonna get with Mel…This politician…presented one way but is another. Kind of lies to get what she wants.”
The femme fatale trope is basically a “beautiful and enigmatic female character who uses her charms and attractiveness as means to her nefarious ends.”
Important characteristics of this are “conventionally attractive” and “sneakily seductive”.
Mel is introduced like this. Beautiful, deceptive (by the birthday gift for the councilor), using her looks to get what she wants (example: distracting the guards so Jayce and Viktor can break in the lab), introduced as an ally (siding with Jayce and helping Jayce and Viktor break in), charms the protagonist (Jayce is impressed when she distracts the guard, stares at her when they discover hextech).
The corruption scene as well. Seducing him to engage in corruption which fits the “prod him into compromising situations for her own benefit.”
So, we the audience thinks she’s the character that ends up bringing a demise to Jayce. Jayce is in trouble. He should run. She’s out to get him. He’s just a stepping stone to something greater bc that’s how femme fatale usually work.
Defying expectations
“And then you realize she’s actually just as vulnerable as everyone else”
Mel feels bad for Viktor dying, explains she’s an exile from her family and comforts Jayce in his time of mourning the episode after. This isn’t what the usually femme fatales do.
She’s against the idea to vote out Heimerdinger but does. She seeks jayce, asks if he’s ok and comforts Jayce on his shame of voting out Heimerdinger.
You learn that she seeks diplomatic solutions, What her mother prides in, Her pragmatic pacifism, and her compassion for ppl.
“She gets to be a more complicated more nuanced version of that trope”
So that’s what I think. Sorry for the long read.
TLDR: Amanda is not saying that Mel is a the cold hearted manipulator that uses Jayce and plays him like a cheap kazoo like Mel-haters think. She’s not saying their romantic relationship was nothing but a means to an end or that it was just a guise to get Jayce to do what she wants.
This link was rly good in defining the femme fatal and different twists to add to it and it looks like arcane used this article lol:
Here are the telltale traits of the classic character archetype.
Hey, I hope you don't mind me responding to this, because while I agree with you on the whole - that Mel isn't a cold hearted manipulator, and that it's not what Amanda is saying at all - I kinda disagree with some of the finer points, because I see Mel and Jayce's scenes a bit differently (I hope this doesn't come across as rude, I'm just here for a good discussion about Mel!)
Because... Mel was initially seducing Jayce with an agenda. And I do think that includes the sex scene! The twist is that, like you, I don't think this reduces Mel to an evil archetype.
BTW, this reminds me of an old tweet from Amanda, where she was responding to a question about the MelJay sex scene and saying it was supposed to feel "boring" (!! I don't remember the actual word used, but it was something similar) on purpose. Some people thought they were vindicated about JayVik, others said she was being dismissive of Mel, it got really heated, but honestly… I always disagreed with both side. I never thought she was saying anything particularly controversial, and never thought she was saying anything bad about Mel. She was just stating something that we could already infer from the show itself.
First things first, the central conflict in Mel's arc is her conflict with her mother. She thinks her mother has rejected her because she's too soft to be a true Noxian and Medarda (well, we know there's more to that, but there's truth in it - Ambessa does think that way). Her very first scene tells us that she wants to gain more power for Piltover, so she won't be the "poorest Medarda" anymore. She is scheming! And she is collecting allegiances that can useful to her, to gain more power and status. It's her own thing, what she perceives as her main strength, and she wants to show it off.
The one thing (Ambessa thinks) she lacks is ruthlessness, the ability to sacrifice. When the show starts, Mel has spent years resenting her mother for that - she wants to prove her wrong, she wants to prove that she can be a true Medarda and useful to her family in her own way, without the senseless killing part. That's her character motivation - at the start.
Back to the MelJay sex scene, now. Despite the title of its soundtrack, that scene is not a romantic scene. We are not seeing two people fall in love, being emotional, having romantic chemistry. We are seeing two adults, and I say this, genuinely, in the least judgmental way possible, letting themselves act out of a physical, and perhaps superficial, attraction. I really mean this, I don't think any less of Mel and Jayce, and I don't believe the show is asking us to think they are vain or bad people for it either. What Mel wants is to secure Jayce's loyalty to her, while indulging in her attraction to him, and Jayce is letting himself fall into her, partly because she is objectively a gorgeous woman, but also because she represents power, wealth and fame to him, which he is attracted to, even if he's not willing to admit it.
But that's not where it stops. Next time we see them, in the painting scene, we get to see more facets of them. Jayce isn't vain, he isn't the kind to leave the bed without a word without a good reason, he has an emotional side that he's comfortable showing to Mel, and whether or not he has romantic feelings for her, we know for sure he does admire her. And it turns out, despite what she may have told herself, Mel can't use people as tools and never catch feelings! She can't discard them! She's annoyed / hurt that he left - perhaps she's even annoyed / hurt at herself for her own reaction. It turns out, she feels affection for him and cannot reject him when he opens up to her. You can see her surprise - at his attitude, but at herself too. She listens to him, and offers a confession of her own, a moment of genuine bonding. She didn't expect it. But she can't help it, because that's who she is, a compassionate person at her core. Also a literal empath.
All of that was always present in S1. It's a shame a lot of fandom discussions about her have been revolving around MelJay vs JayVik discourse for so long (and by shame I mean f*** annoying) because her actual story arc is so much more interesting than that. You can acknowledge that she's actually being manipulative and scheming without falling into... whatever it is that the fandom likes to do, insert something about Viktor and shipping here.
So 1. Thank you so much for reading my post lol!!! I’d didn’t expect anyone to actually read it 😭😭
2. I agree with most of what you’re saying.
3. To clear up my thoughts about the sex at the end, I don’t see it as a deep love connection either. I see it as two adults that at physically attracted to each other and has been attracted to each other for 7 yrs. Kind of like a hook up id say. Even a fling but then turns to something deeper the next episode. Since she doesn’t even know about Viktor saving Jayce’s life and he doesn’t know her deeper family conflicts.
And yeah I heard Amanda say that. I think she was responding to someone. Someone said “is it just me, or was MelJay boring” or something like that and Amanda said “as it was meant to be”.
4. I also see the sex scene as a symbolic rep of Jayce being seduced by power via politics in the same way Viktor is being seduced by the power by the hexcore in the same scene. Linke talks about how both are seduced by power, and I think the scene also serves that. With a part of Viktor entering the hexcore matching with a part of Jayce entering Mel’s hexcore lol.
5. Where I disagree is why Mel has sex with Jayce. To me, saying “Mel has sex with Jayce to secure his loyalty” makes sense on the surface, but is something I don’t see in the show.
Pre-sex scene she’s unsuccessful in convincing him to present the hexgem but is successful in convincing him to make deals and engage in corruption. Post-sex scene, he blind sides Heimerdinger and she seems to not be aware of his plan at all. He also attacks the undercity without her consent either. And this is after they slept together again.
I totally see Mel trying to secure his loyalty, but I don’t see where she struggles with it and how it’s fixed after sex. But maybe I’m thinking of it too simply.
Ig I also disagree bc to me it also lowkey implies that she’s slept with other ppl to secure their loyalty and I just don’t see Mel kinda sleeping her way to the top yk.
Yes sex can 100% be used as a tactic to influence someone and has been. But Mel coming from a royal clan in noxus and rising up the ranks and securing loyalties not solely by knowing them and manipulating them and situations around them, but possibly also by sleeping with ppl? Ehh idk
But I understand ppl can see things differently. This is just my personal view.
But yes Ty also for acknowledging the over hate she gets. It’s hard to have these conversations with ppl whose ships depend on her being a cunning, cold-hearted, manipulative snake that never cared for Jayce
Ig I also disagree bc to me it also lowkey implies that she’s slept with other ppl to secure their loyalty and I just don’t see Mel kinda sleeping her way to the top yk.
I agree with you there, I don't see Mel making it a general pattern of sleeping her way to the top at all. I do think she sleeps with Jayce because she wants to - she's attracted to him and likes him. I just think "but also because she sees an interest in getting closer to him long term" is not a contradictory statement - she can have multiple reasons to do this at the same time. Perhaps part of the reason she's attracted to him comes from that. Then she wakes up the next day and oh - damn, I really liked him and I'm mad he's gone!
BTW - most of what I said in my first post mostly applies to the first time they sleep together. I agree it's more genuine after, since they do start a relationship.
Pre-sex scene she’s unsuccessful in convincing him to present the hexgem but is successful in convincing him to make deals and engage in corruption. Post-sex scene, he blind sides Heimerdinger and she seems to not be aware of his plan at all. He also attacks the undercity without her consent either. And this is after they slept together again.
Fair point, but there I think it partly comes down to Jayce just having agency of his own - he's not a puppet nor an idiot (contrary to popular fandom depictions...) and wouldn't have just "obeyed" Mel even if she was actively trying to manipulate him more aggressively.
And I wouldn't say Mel really struggles with it after the painting scene? Or at least we don't see it. In my personal headcanon, I think she's just accepted to see where this relationship is going, accepted she likes him. It's not like she's blindly fallen in love, she's still keeping an eye on her own goals, but she's taking her new personal relationship with him into account. We only have one episode after they sleep together, e6, where Jayce is busy having his own arc, before Ambessa arrives and throws a wrench in everything (I love how we immediately see the "hurt teenager" side of Mel come out in Ambessa's introduction). After that point I think Mel is just more troubled by the emotions her mother's arrival stir in her than her relationship with Jayce.
So I’ve been rewatching this video and I may have judged Overton a little too harshly. I think it’s bc the fans that hate Mel and call her a cold hearted manipulator uses Amanda’s statement to prove their point.
Similar to the way homophobic fans that didn’t want Jayce and Viktor to be shipped by using Linke’s talk on JayVik causing fans to call him homophobic even tho he never said you can’t ship them.
So I’m going to disect what Amanda Overton says and why I don’t think it aligns with what the Mel-haters pov.
(TLDR is at the bottom)
1. “She’s seducing Jayce to become her sort of political tool. It ends with an actual seduction at the end of the episode”
Her saying this and Jayce and Mel’s sextech scene in the background does make it look like she’s saying that the sex scene was Mel seducing Jayce to be her political tool. But I don’t think so.
Amanda, right before the quote, says she wrote episode 5. So that means EVERYTHING in episode 5 and the sex scene isn’t the only thing that happens during that ep.
I don’t think “Mel seduces Jayce to become her political tool” is referring to the sex scene but rather to the corruption scene. My reason:
1. The definition of “seducing someone” can mean:
This aligns well with the corruption scene bc Jayce was against it. He wouldn’t usually consider risking the safety of the hexgates for deals as he says. But Mel “seduces Jayce” to do this by making the idea of the corruption “attractive and difficult to refuse”. She says doing this will allow him to shape his own destiny, which he wanted.
He even vents to Viktor about not being able to decide what they wanna do with hextech: “it’s time we decide the future of hextech” in ep 4.
He was a “sort of” political tool for Mel bc Mel wanted piltover to be great, to earn her families name, and Hextech was a tool to do that. And who makes hextech? Jayce (and Viktor but Jayce is the one making deals).
Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing bc tutors can be used as academic tools. You get tutored, and the tutor gets paid. Mel makes piltover rich and earns the Medarda name, and Jayce gets more control over hextech. Transactional.
2. “Ends with seduction at the end”
Notice the order of what Amanda says. She says she seduces him to be her political tool “sort of”. AND THEN it becomes seduction AT THE END.
Mel and Jayce engage in the corruption of the hexgates and council before, and they have sex at the end.
When Amanda says “seduction”, I was under the impression that it’s deception she’s doing. But that may not be the case.
This is from an article that explains the difference between seduction and coercion.
This is what Mel does. They are already attracted to each other and Mel touches his hand, they’re in his house, and she kisses him. This is all to get him to have sex with her. Not for a motive, but bc he’s hot and she’s attracted.
Amanda does say: “it ends with an actual seduction at the end of the episode. Mel is doing all of that with an agenda.”
Now this could still mean that the sex was also for an agenda. She had sex with Jayce as a way to gain more power.
But it doesn’t make sense bc 1. Mel and Jayce are already attracted to each other. 2. Mel was upset when Jayce leaves her. 3. where do we see that? She didn’t need sex to make him engage in corruption and after the sex, Jayce shocks her twice from his impulsive decisions.
So I think she’s referring to the corruption, making him a councilor. but this doesn’t make her bad. Everything she does is with the agenda to earn her family name. But this doesn’t mean she plays Jayce like a puppet tho. Or she’s deceiving Jayce.
2. “My favorite thing about Mel is she defies expectations”
Our expectations
Amanda says she was “kind of” set up to be a “femme fatale” trope. “And that’s what you think you’re gonna get with Mel…This politician…presented one way but is another. Kind of lies to get what she wants.”
The femme fatale trope is basically a “beautiful and enigmatic female character who uses her charms and attractiveness as means to her nefarious ends.”
Important characteristics of this are “conventionally attractive” and “sneakily seductive”.
Mel is introduced like this. Beautiful, deceptive (by the birthday gift for the councilor), using her looks to get what she wants (example: distracting the guards so Jayce and Viktor can break in the lab), introduced as an ally (siding with Jayce and helping Jayce and Viktor break in), charms the protagonist (Jayce is impressed when she distracts the guard, stares at her when they discover hextech).
The corruption scene as well. Seducing him to engage in corruption which fits the “prod him into compromising situations for her own benefit.”
So, we the audience thinks she’s the character that ends up bringing a demise to Jayce. Jayce is in trouble. He should run. She’s out to get him. He’s just a stepping stone to something greater bc that’s how femme fatale usually work.
Defying expectations
“And then you realize she’s actually just as vulnerable as everyone else”
Mel feels bad for Viktor dying, explains she’s an exile from her family and comforts Jayce in his time of mourning the episode after. This isn’t what the usually femme fatales do.
She’s against the idea to vote out Heimerdinger but does. She seeks jayce, asks if he’s ok and comforts Jayce on his shame of voting out Heimerdinger.
You learn that she seeks diplomatic solutions, What her mother prides in, Her pragmatic pacifism, and her compassion for ppl.
“She gets to be a more complicated more nuanced version of that trope”
So that’s what I think. Sorry for the long read.
TLDR: Amanda is not saying that Mel is a the cold hearted manipulator that uses Jayce and plays him like a cheap kazoo like Mel-haters think. She’s not saying their romantic relationship was nothing but a means to an end or that it was just a guise to get Jayce to do what she wants.
This link was rly good in defining the femme fatal and different twists to add to it and it looks like arcane used this article lol:
Here are the telltale traits of the classic character archetype.
Hey, I hope you don't mind me responding to this, because while I agree with you on the whole - that Mel isn't a cold hearted manipulator, and that it's not what Amanda is saying at all - I kinda disagree with some of the finer points, because I see Mel and Jayce's scenes a bit differently (I hope this doesn't come across as rude, I'm just here for a good discussion about Mel!)
Because... Mel was initially seducing Jayce with an agenda. And I do think that includes the sex scene! The twist is that, like you, I don't think this reduces Mel to an evil archetype.
BTW, this reminds me of an old tweet from Amanda, where she was responding to a question about the MelJay sex scene and saying it was supposed to feel "boring" (!! I don't remember the actual word used, but it was something similar) on purpose. Some people thought they were vindicated about JayVik, others said she was being dismissive of Mel, it got really heated, but honestly… I always disagreed with both side. I never thought she was saying anything particularly controversial, and never thought she was saying anything bad about Mel. She was just stating something that we could already infer from the show itself.
First things first, the central conflict in Mel's arc is her conflict with her mother. She thinks her mother has rejected her because she's too soft to be a true Noxian and Medarda (well, we know there's more to that, but there's truth in it - Ambessa does think that way). Her very first scene tells us that she wants to gain more power for Piltover, so she won't be the "poorest Medarda" anymore. She is scheming! And she is collecting allegiances that can useful to her, to gain more power and status. It's her own thing, what she perceives as her main strength, and she wants to show it off.
The one thing (Ambessa thinks) she lacks is ruthlessness, the ability to sacrifice. When the show starts, Mel has spent years resenting her mother for that - she wants to prove her wrong, she wants to prove that she can be a true Medarda and useful to her family in her own way, without the senseless killing part. That's her character motivation - at the start.
Back to the MelJay sex scene, now. Despite the title of its soundtrack, that scene is not a romantic scene. We are not seeing two people fall in love, being emotional, having romantic chemistry. We are seeing two adults, and I say this, genuinely, in the least judgmental way possible, letting themselves act out of a physical, and perhaps superficial, attraction. I really mean this, I don't think any less of Mel and Jayce, and I don't believe the show is asking us to think they are vain or bad people for it either. What Mel wants is to secure Jayce's loyalty to her, while indulging in her attraction to him, and Jayce is letting himself fall into her, partly because she is objectively a gorgeous woman, but also because she represents power, wealth and fame to him, which he is attracted to, even if he's not willing to admit it.
But that's not where it stops. Next time we see them, in the painting scene, we get to see more facets of them. Jayce isn't vain, he isn't the kind to leave the bed without a word without a good reason, he has an emotional side that he's comfortable showing to Mel, and whether or not he has romantic feelings for her, we know for sure he does admire her. And it turns out, despite what she may have told herself, Mel can't use people as tools and never catch feelings! She can't discard them! She's annoyed / hurt that he left - perhaps she's even annoyed / hurt at herself for her own reaction. It turns out, she feels affection for him and cannot reject him when he opens up to her. You can see her surprise - at his attitude, but at herself too. She listens to him, and offers a confession of her own, a moment of genuine bonding. She didn't expect it. But she can't help it, because that's who she is, a compassionate person at her core. Also a literal empath.
All of that was always present in S1. It's a shame a lot of fandom discussions about her have been revolving around MelJay vs JayVik discourse for so long (and by shame I mean f*** annoying) because her actual story arc is so much more interesting than that. You can acknowledge that she's actually being manipulative and scheming without falling into... whatever it is that the fandom likes to do, insert something about Viktor and shipping here.
Arcane: morals, challenges and Vi's role in season 2
This is an offshoot of a discussion with @animexam09 where I went off topic/down my own line of thinking in a way that didn't have that much to do with the original post (I think the questions in that discussion are a lot more about the Watsonian/internal way the characters perceive their situation and I want full on Doylist/meta).
I want to clarify what I mean when I say Arcane is not About morals.
To me it feels like morality is fundamentally not a topic or a theme in Arcane. I often stumble across discussions wherein people are upset about “character X did the right thing, why didn’t she get the cookie?” or “character Y did the wrong thing, why didn’t she get punished?” (often with the implication: that must mean the show thinks that Y did is good and it is promoting bad values)
I often feel like this is the wrong angle to watch the show from. Because imo Arcane is not a morality tale. And I think this mostly comes from the elements of tragedy that it has.
People are good or do good, but bad things happen to them. Because tragedy.
1.) I think structurally Arcane as a show is more interested in a concept of cause and effect. In characters and what happens to them.
This is the whole blueprint of the show. Characters do something and it starts a cascade of effects that are often unintended and vastly disproportionate.
You can still tell a moral story from that. Like “and that dear kids is why you should think about the consequences before you do something” or “now you see that you cannot control the world, but only your reaction, the correct way to deal with it is to accept change and go with the flow”.
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
There is this interview with Alex Ye where he says that for season 1 they had a blueprint for every arc about how every character should have a want (ie Vander wants to protect Vi, Powder wants to prove herself, Silco wants revenge on Vander) and by the end of the arc they get what they want but in a horrifically “not how I wanted it” way. This logic applies equally to “good” and “bad” characters, violent or innocent ones. Being “good” or “doing the right thing” doesn’t protect you, because the writers think things going wrong is more dramatically interesting. They are interested in setting up characters with interesting parameters (“This is Vi, she is protective”, “this is Caitlyn, she is smart but sheltered”, “this is Silco, he thinks he would do anything to achieve independence”, “this is Powder, she’s smart, but insecure”) and seeing them challenged.
They want to see challenge, they want to see characters bouncing against problems and other characters and they want to see fireworks. (and I think that is intensely fitting if you consider the source material is a video game that specializes in trying to set up interesting duels/small scale fights and interesting mechanics, ie counterplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g )
(I actually wonder if this might have been what accidentally attracted some more leftist leaning people. That the fact that so blatantly unfair and disproportionate things happen to people maybe makes it feel like it’s a story that emphasizes systems over individual personal choices. And people are shocked that the show neither followed the pattern of “the positive personal choices pay off in the end” nor “we are setting up those systems and rules the world works on to criticize them and smash them” instead of “they just thought these rules and systems were a cool biotope to create crazy experiments in, to facilitate interesting looking explosions”. One of the biggest underlying topics in left versus right discourse is about systems versus individuals. Can you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do your choices matter or is the system stacked against you. To portray a system where individual well meaning choices don’t matter because “the system” (the writers) screws them over anyway could ring back to this fundamental conflict)
(In regards to the writers, I think it also helps there to remember that Arcane in a lot of ways is structurally a fanfiction, that those characters existed and had a feel and a look and a vibe before Arcane came about. That could contribute to this feelings of “I pick this pre-existing elements and watch them go”)
2.) The writers still have morals and values
Of course the eternal topic is that even if you didn’t set up to write a morality play, writers still inherently bring in their morals. People’s worldviews still influence what they think make an interesting or logical setup or what they think is a realistic cause and effect.
Like for example if you as a person think that acting aggressive with people with make them most likely hate you or impress them or make them fall in line. Or whether you think “Rich people are smart and resourceful” or “rich people are greedy and mean” or “rich people are dumb and lazy” is a realistic portrayal. Even “life is complex/there’s variety everywhere” or “all people think they are the heroes of their own story” are again people taking some sort of stance on the world.
So the writers values are always going to seep in and affect which “laws of the universe” they choose (even though they probably think they are just picking generally recognized, universal laws of reality or of fiction writing).
3.) The characters themselves still have morals
Various characters in the setting still have morals. But I think the writers are more interested in things like showing different moral systems and letting them clash and challenging them in different ways. By setting up characters with different character traits and feeling out with how they handle the challenge to their world views and morals.
And again, these writers are more interested in how characters deal with their own failures. That’s why almost all characters who have a moral system (and are important enough to have screen time) stumble and have to recover from their stumble.
For what it’s worth, when somebody like schnee seeks a consistent theme across all stories, I don’t think they are necessarily obsessed with a “X did the right thing, so X gets the cookie” point of view. Themes an be both intentional (like Arcane’s obsession with parallels) and unintentional (because the interests and values of the writers can bleed into the text by accident). Just because I think “these writers care about challenge and explosions” is the better consistent theme of their writing doesn’t mean you can’t gleam other themes. Or that themes can’t be derived from that (ie if you are fundamentally believe that characters being challenged is interesting then characters who handle change and challenge might be advantaged over characters who struggle with their values being tested or fall apart when that happesn).
I think the writing cares more about these moments of challenge. Silco didn’t really “win”, but he seemed like he died happy because he had reached a moment of personal realization. Ekko mostly stayed true to himself and can gleam satisfaction from that, because he seems like the kind of character who would gleam satisfaction from that. Caitlyn stumbled in her morals, but withdrew and overall seems to handle her own faltering with comparable stoicism (again comparable). Viktor mostly fucked up his big plans to improve the world, but didn’t handle it well at all, but was to some extent salvaged by the person who cares about him. IMO Arcane is more satisfying if you can get into the moments where the characters get personal satisfaction with something that fits their personality, even if it’s temporary or internal.
Challenge, Explosions and what that means for Vi
IMO finishing the series meant that they had to marry their “set up characters and watch them get challenged” with a traditional ending of some sort.
Season 2’s structure was already faltering imo because I think the writers wanted to get in a lot of challenges and moments for their faves because they knew it wouldn’t keep going. And at the same time, in act 3 they were trying to bring the big explosions. Jayce having to fight his best friend Viktor to them is a challenge and and explosion. Caitlyn and Vi finally sleeping together is an explosion. Rigid, violent Noxus fighting chaotic Zaun is an interesting explosion. Caitlyn and Mel facing down Ambessa is an explosion both physical and emotional.
Various people have pointed out that if one of Arcane’s themes is change and Vi doesn’t like or do well with change, that makes her the natural enemy of the story and might put her in a losing position.
I also wonder if on some level the writers already felt “done” with Vi. That they had already challenged her in all the ways they were interested in.
The season 1 finale was the emotional and philosophical confrontation of Vi and Jinx. Followed by the physical confrontation in Act 1 of season 2. Vi is then challenged once more to trust Jinx and lower her weapons in front of Warwick. I think for many people it feels like things fizzle out for her after that.
Which doesn’t mean that Vi isn’t still challenged (trusting Caitlyn/handing herself over to Ambessa is another challenge). And the writers might think of her sleeping with Caitlyn as the final “challenge”.
I do think that there weren’t a ton of ways for the writers to top the emotional and physical confrontations she already had with Jinx. And I don’t doubt that every Vi fan will at this moment cry out that they could think of 20 more scenarios of how Vi could have been challenged (and thusly maintained her position as the lead chararacter). And I agree.
Top of my head, there’s obviously the emotional challenges. Ie, going back to her prison time, her parents, being morally challenged by Ekko.
If they wanted a more physical challenge, it’s hard, arguably impossible to beat Jinx versus Vi. The only candidates of even coming close would have been a more visceral, physical confrontation with Caitlyn or Warwick. And we get small versions of that, but I think most people would agree that those don’t go all out. They don’t have the emotional weight they could have had and they don’t feel like they go all out like Jayce versus Viktor in 2x08 or Caitlyn versus Ambessa in 2x09.
IMO that was probably intentional. They could have gone there, but they didn’t want to, because they didn’t want these relationships to go that way or didn’t want to handle the fallout/the recovery.
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
I love this bit and totally agree with you there. I really like your points about challenges and morals, that's a really interesting way of looking at the show I hadn't thought about.
But I'd like to respond specifically to the Vi parts if you don't mind!
Because I disagree in some ways, and I think this has to do with the way we look at what was supposed to be the "leading line", the main point, of Vi's arc.
First, I guess I don't really agree with the notion that her character is fundamentally opposed to change in the first place, or that it was the main point of her arc. To me, with both Jinx and Caitlyn, her fears are less about change and more about seeing the people she cares become monsters (coincidentally... or not..., Vander is the first one she sees literally become a monster with his shimmer transformation, before seemingly dying in her arms) due to what she perceives as her failures, and being left alone.
But more importantly, I think the real leading line of her arc is in her struggle with the sense of responsibility placed on her as a kid, which makes it hard to see Jinx as a grown up, even after she has started seeing the humanity in her again => to me it's less about seeing Jinx changing, and more that she just can't help but feel responsible for her, because that's her burden to bear, due to her being parentified at an early age. This is ultimately the "conflict" within herself that she starts resolving by choosing Caitlyn in ep8.
So to me, her arc was more ultimately about "letting go of the burdens of the past one by one"
So, with that in mind, regarding the finale...
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
I'm definitely among the number of fans who were pissed about that. But I'm starting to sort of make peace with it.
I definitively agree with you that the "explosive" character moment for her was in ep 8, with Caitlyn. But I'm not sure I agree the writers were just "done", because I see her moment with Vander as the true ending for her. She hadn't faced her biggest trauma yet, the last bit of her past that was still burdening her. But she does, at the end of the episode.
And she breaks down, badly: because his death is the wound that never truly healed, and also (inadvertently) the root cause of it all (the "it's on you" speech and let's not forget his last words: and his last words - "protect powder").
And you know, I may be in a minority here but I actually see it as a liberating moment in a way. Because she kept bottling it before and now that it's out, she can only face it and move forward.
So if I had to put a more positive spin on it, I'd say that the whole battle just wasn't "her time". Her having a more heroic saving-the-day moment would have been nice, sure, but it wouldn't have been coherent (? for lack of a better word) with her arc and where she was mentally. Hopefully, it means that in the writers' mind, this wasn't meant to be the end of her journey. And if not... welp, that sucks.
Very on point, what you said about Wander. But that's actually the problem. Vi is one of the most protagonist here. I don't think she'll get another story where she will become one again. Normally, for her to move on, she should have been able to let go at that point. Instead, Jinx had to sacrifice herself so that she was forced to let go. Forced, but she never did it on her own. So there is little or no development in the end. This is the whole problem and the reason why her entire arc becomes passive in season 2.
"she should have been able to let go at that point"
Hmm I don't really see it that way. To me there is no amount of character development that would have ever made Vi let go in that specific moment.
Because there are two distinct moments to talk about here. The one where Vi doesn't listen to Jinx and breaks down, and the one where Vi is holding Jinx by the arm and Jinx forces her to let go.
The first one is what I was talking about. Vi is having ptsd, she's having a major breaking down. This is the one part of her trauma she has buried so deep, she has never confronted it, and here she is, face to face with it. IMO this isn't a regression, it doesn't contradict her character moment in ep8, where she got to chose what she wants for the future. Character progression is not always linear, though, and here is the past showing up unexpectedly and kicking her down one last(?) time. Fortunately, she can fall down, because this time someone has her back, and that brings us to the second moment...
... which is the culmination of Jinx's arc. She's grown, she's stepping up and, for the first time, is in a position to protect Vi. But it's also the culmination of both sisters relationship. After all the hurt, the separation, they still love each other. Jinx loves her sister so much she's willing to risk her life for her. And Vi loves her too! Of course she does not want to watch her sister die! It would not make any sense for her to let go now! So Jinx has to do it, just like Vi would if the roles were reversed. But to me, it doesn't mean that Vi couldn't "move on" from their relationship in the general sense. It doesn't mean that Vi wouldn't have respected Jinx's decision to leave if they had parted ways in other circumstances, and it definitely doesn't mean Vi would have just kept chasing Jinx around if she hadn't faked her death - I don't really understand why it's such a strong belief in some parts of this fandom when that's not what the show says, and it would contradict her decision to commit to Caitlyn if it was.
So no, I don't really think there was little development for her in the end. I still don't think her arc was particularly well executed, mind you, but that's a different topic.
Oh sorry I think I expressed myself badly. I didn't mean that Vi literally had to let go of Jinx to show that Vi had a development, Vi would of course never be able to do that just as she wouldn't be able to let go of Ekko here for example if something had happened to him.
I was only talking about the moment when she had an attack with Vander.
Even if it is a post-traumatic episode, I always personally saw this moment as Vi unable in the literary sense to move on, I would have preferred that Vi find the strength to say goodbye to him and move away rather than stay looking at him and being unable to move. I don't know if it's clear with my explanations.
I thought for a long time that the writers had decided on such a moment to show that Vi is unable to "move on". And in this sense, I started to like the end of the story less and less in view of my rewatches.
Anyway I am happy to exchange with other people to understand other points of view.
Oh, guess I misunderstood your post then! I had seen this argument before so I just assumed it was the same thing here (and sorry for the late reply!)
Then let me offer an alternative point of view: sometimes, it's only when you start overcoming some problems in your life that you start uncovering deeper, more hidden ones. I think that's what happens to Vi: in episode 8 she finally starts choosing herself, her own happiness with Caitlyn. She chooses not to go after Jinx. She's getting there, she has started accepting Jinx as an adult and stopped seeing her as her burden / responsabilty. But it's precisely because she has that she reacts the way she does to Vander in episode 9. Because she has always avoided thinking about his death and facing this trauma by focusing on her sister before. I don't think it's a coincidence that in that final scene, when Vi initially stares at him, and Jinx yells at her to get away, Vi doesn't hear her, it's the first time they're in the same scene and Vi doesn't pay attention to her at all. With (seemingly) tragic consequences because of course, it's Arcane and the writers do love their irony. That's why I don't see it as character regression, or a static arc. Rather, it was always the next logical step for her before she could start moving on for good. As an ending, I do think it's sad / a bit frustrating, but it is what it is.
This is really interesting, I've never seen it that way before!
I've read a lot of posts about this moment with Vander saying it meant Vi couldn't move on. They were all posts that had interesting points of view as well. There are also posts I've seen that say the writers used this moment as a plot device for Jinx to sacrifice herself for Vi. In a way, maybe too.. I don't know. I really like your analysis of this moment and it definitely makes sense, it's the first time I've seen it that way actually!
But to be honest I was expecting a bit more from Vi. I find that her story arc doesn't have the same sort of closure as other characters like Jinx or Caitlyn, as for them it feels more complete (at least this is what I think), if Vi was a secondary character I would have been fully satisfied but that's not really the case here, Vi being one of the protagonists. I really wish there was a final conversation with Jinx where Vi clearly SAYS goodbye to her sister, or that it was shown to us.
I think if that moment had been written and animated, it would have also helped to ensure there weren't as many misunderstandings within the fandom given the relationship between the two sisters. But again, that's just my feeling. Thanks for answering me! I don't remember if it was you who said it (really, I don't remember anymore) but I also think that Vi suspects at the end that her sister is still alive.
Well I'm definitely in the Vi-already-knows camp so it's possible that it was me :) Thanks for your answer.
I'd really like to make a break down of Vi's character arc one of these days because my views on it have changed a lot since the finale. If I'm not too lazy. Whoops.
But to be honest I was expecting a bit more from Vi. I find that her story arc doesn't have the same sort of closure as other characters like Jinx or Caitlyn, as for them it feels more complete (at least this is what I think), if Vi was a secondary character I would have been fully satisfied but that's not really the case here, Vi being one of the protagonists.
Yeah, that's a part where I sorta agree, but I also sorta see what they were going for. I think ultimately, a little more dialogue there and there - or little less in Jinx's case - would have really really helped, especially in the crucial moment before the sex scene. We have a lot to interpret and make headcanons for, so the whole things feels a little... clunky, I guess. Like they cut too many corners in the rush to get to the finale. Oh well.
Something I find really interesting about Caitlyn and Vi is the way that they're the only members of the main cast who aren't really connected to the "Arcane" part of the show in any major way.
Like, Jayce and Viktor are at the centre of the hextech plot, Mel is a mage (and was also significant to the S1 hextech plot), and Jinx and Ekko both have storylines in which hextech and the arcane play a major role. But Caitlyn and Vi? They're pretty separated from that part of the show. And I think that might actually say something about their characters (rather than simply just being the way the story shook out).
IMO Caitlyn and Vi's separation from the arcane is an indication that they're supposed to be more...grounded, in a way. More interested in the practical and concrete, rather than the abstract and theoretical (hence why neither displays any particular interest in or affinity for e.g. science and academia). They're hands-on and action-oriented. Do-ers rather than thinkers. You can see it in their characterizations—for example, the fact that so much of their communication is physical and nonverbal. But there's more to it than just that.
See, I came across this twitter post the other day that talked about how, like Jayce and Viktor, Jinx and Ekko were also "born to be scientists, forced to be soldiers". And of course Mel is a politician/diplomat who is forced to be a soldier. (And Mel, Jinx and Ekko are also all artists forced to be soldiers.) But you can't /quite/ say the same about Caitlyn and Vi.
Even as children, Vi and Caitlyn were already shown to be boxing/shooting. And not only were they good at it, they also clearly enjoyed it! (Vi is forced to rely on violence by terrible circumstances, yes, but I don't think it's inaccurate to say that she also genuinely LIKES fighting—and it's a tragedy that something she enjoys so much is tainted in this way.) They seem to find less joy in it in adulthood, but they almost certainly still consider these skills to be a significant part of their identities. (Just think about how Vi is still boxing even when she's lost everything else, and how the narrative has Caitlyn lose her eye specifically because it's uniquely devastating for her as a sniper.) Thus, unlike with the others, you could almost kind of argue that CaitVi were "born soldiers". Their natural instinct is to FIGHT (like, physically) for their causes/people.
There's more to it too. For example: the fact that the one notable connection to the arcane that they DO have is their /weapons/. Another example: at the end of the show, even when they're at relative peace, they still fall back on the language of combat ("Are you still in this fight, Violet?"). They're fighters at their core in a way that the rest of the main cast isn't.
I personally think this is a really interesting aspect of not only their individual characters but also their dynamic with each other. One of the things I love about CaitVi is how, despite having pretty opposite personalities, they're fundamentally very similar people. That sort of "kinship" is what draws them to each other, what helps them understand each other in a way they never quite experience with others, and what ultimately makes their relationship work and why they get along. It's a kind of soulmatism.
(I also wonder if maybe this shared "fighting spirit" is how they managed to achieve a...not happy, exactly, but happiER ending than everyone else. Like, maybe everyone else could have only properly thrived in a more peaceful reality, but in the bad timeline the only ones who could have really managed are Caitlyn and Vi. Idk, this particular idea isn't fully formed, I'm really just throwing stuff at the wall here.)
i noticed it too, particularly after act 2 (which is consider to be pretty disastrous writing-wise) cause viktor's storyline was a jumbled mess, and then episode 7 didn't make it better (not a fan of time travel as a plot point) and all i could think of was "thank god caitvi are tying us back to what arcane USED to be" cause thats what i loved about s1- the groundness, the reality of the 2 cities, the way their people react to political events- it felt realistic to me. and caitvi were always super tied to those plots- including ACTUALLY being the physical manifestations of the 2 cities, their bond being a metaphor for peace between the cities. the time travel and magic stuff really took me out of s2, and i think im not alone in this. luckily, caitvi were always the furthest away from that so i can still say i liked their storylines this season.
about them being fighters, i think that's why i find the current fandom a little bizarre. caitvi were created as a cop duo, working together in law enforcement. thats one of the most hands-on, feet-on-the-ground jobs there are, regardless of you think it's good or bad. and it's reflected in both their characters in the show, including the very last line, which seem to imply that they're gonna be stepping into their original LoL counterparts roles post canon. i know arcane is not league, but this is the CORE of their characters. and like you said, it's reflected in arcane perfectly, with their involvement in anything piltover\zaun related being very hands on and physical.
and YET. people in this fandom refuse to acknowledge it, because of personal political biases. believe whatever you want, but this is an integral part of their characters and their dynamic- theyre meant to fight alongside each other. reading any post canon material with them always feels like theyve been neutered- like a huge chunk of their dynamic is missing- because most people dont want vi to work with the enforcers, or be one, and they dont want caitlyn as an on the ground sheriff who gets physically involved in cases- she's always doing some undefined paperwork in an office, while vi spends her days... working out. who are these characters??? if you don't like cops, and are unwilling to engage with any media that even depicts them (despite arcane's representation of them being FAR from favorable) why are you liking the cop duo? why aren't you willing to explore that side of them? i'm just baffled.
Arcane: morals, challenges and Vi's role in season 2
This is an offshoot of a discussion with @animexam09 where I went off topic/down my own line of thinking in a way that didn't have that much to do with the original post (I think the questions in that discussion are a lot more about the Watsonian/internal way the characters perceive their situation and I want full on Doylist/meta).
I want to clarify what I mean when I say Arcane is not About morals.
To me it feels like morality is fundamentally not a topic or a theme in Arcane. I often stumble across discussions wherein people are upset about “character X did the right thing, why didn’t she get the cookie?” or “character Y did the wrong thing, why didn’t she get punished?” (often with the implication: that must mean the show thinks that Y did is good and it is promoting bad values)
I often feel like this is the wrong angle to watch the show from. Because imo Arcane is not a morality tale. And I think this mostly comes from the elements of tragedy that it has.
People are good or do good, but bad things happen to them. Because tragedy.
1.) I think structurally Arcane as a show is more interested in a concept of cause and effect. In characters and what happens to them.
This is the whole blueprint of the show. Characters do something and it starts a cascade of effects that are often unintended and vastly disproportionate.
You can still tell a moral story from that. Like “and that dear kids is why you should think about the consequences before you do something” or “now you see that you cannot control the world, but only your reaction, the correct way to deal with it is to accept change and go with the flow”.
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
There is this interview with Alex Ye where he says that for season 1 they had a blueprint for every arc about how every character should have a want (ie Vander wants to protect Vi, Powder wants to prove herself, Silco wants revenge on Vander) and by the end of the arc they get what they want but in a horrifically “not how I wanted it” way. This logic applies equally to “good” and “bad” characters, violent or innocent ones. Being “good” or “doing the right thing” doesn’t protect you, because the writers think things going wrong is more dramatically interesting. They are interested in setting up characters with interesting parameters (“This is Vi, she is protective”, “this is Caitlyn, she is smart but sheltered”, “this is Silco, he thinks he would do anything to achieve independence”, “this is Powder, she’s smart, but insecure”) and seeing them challenged.
They want to see challenge, they want to see characters bouncing against problems and other characters and they want to see fireworks. (and I think that is intensely fitting if you consider the source material is a video game that specializes in trying to set up interesting duels/small scale fights and interesting mechanics, ie counterplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g )
(I actually wonder if this might have been what accidentally attracted some more leftist leaning people. That the fact that so blatantly unfair and disproportionate things happen to people maybe makes it feel like it’s a story that emphasizes systems over individual personal choices. And people are shocked that the show neither followed the pattern of “the positive personal choices pay off in the end” nor “we are setting up those systems and rules the world works on to criticize them and smash them” instead of “they just thought these rules and systems were a cool biotope to create crazy experiments in, to facilitate interesting looking explosions”. One of the biggest underlying topics in left versus right discourse is about systems versus individuals. Can you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do your choices matter or is the system stacked against you. To portray a system where individual well meaning choices don’t matter because “the system” (the writers) screws them over anyway could ring back to this fundamental conflict)
(In regards to the writers, I think it also helps there to remember that Arcane in a lot of ways is structurally a fanfiction, that those characters existed and had a feel and a look and a vibe before Arcane came about. That could contribute to this feelings of “I pick this pre-existing elements and watch them go”)
2.) The writers still have morals and values
Of course the eternal topic is that even if you didn’t set up to write a morality play, writers still inherently bring in their morals. People’s worldviews still influence what they think make an interesting or logical setup or what they think is a realistic cause and effect.
Like for example if you as a person think that acting aggressive with people with make them most likely hate you or impress them or make them fall in line. Or whether you think “Rich people are smart and resourceful” or “rich people are greedy and mean” or “rich people are dumb and lazy” is a realistic portrayal. Even “life is complex/there’s variety everywhere” or “all people think they are the heroes of their own story” are again people taking some sort of stance on the world.
So the writers values are always going to seep in and affect which “laws of the universe” they choose (even though they probably think they are just picking generally recognized, universal laws of reality or of fiction writing).
3.) The characters themselves still have morals
Various characters in the setting still have morals. But I think the writers are more interested in things like showing different moral systems and letting them clash and challenging them in different ways. By setting up characters with different character traits and feeling out with how they handle the challenge to their world views and morals.
And again, these writers are more interested in how characters deal with their own failures. That’s why almost all characters who have a moral system (and are important enough to have screen time) stumble and have to recover from their stumble.
For what it’s worth, when somebody like schnee seeks a consistent theme across all stories, I don’t think they are necessarily obsessed with a “X did the right thing, so X gets the cookie” point of view. Themes an be both intentional (like Arcane’s obsession with parallels) and unintentional (because the interests and values of the writers can bleed into the text by accident). Just because I think “these writers care about challenge and explosions” is the better consistent theme of their writing doesn’t mean you can’t gleam other themes. Or that themes can’t be derived from that (ie if you are fundamentally believe that characters being challenged is interesting then characters who handle change and challenge might be advantaged over characters who struggle with their values being tested or fall apart when that happesn).
I think the writing cares more about these moments of challenge. Silco didn’t really “win”, but he seemed like he died happy because he had reached a moment of personal realization. Ekko mostly stayed true to himself and can gleam satisfaction from that, because he seems like the kind of character who would gleam satisfaction from that. Caitlyn stumbled in her morals, but withdrew and overall seems to handle her own faltering with comparable stoicism (again comparable). Viktor mostly fucked up his big plans to improve the world, but didn’t handle it well at all, but was to some extent salvaged by the person who cares about him. IMO Arcane is more satisfying if you can get into the moments where the characters get personal satisfaction with something that fits their personality, even if it’s temporary or internal.
Challenge, Explosions and what that means for Vi
IMO finishing the series meant that they had to marry their “set up characters and watch them get challenged” with a traditional ending of some sort.
Season 2’s structure was already faltering imo because I think the writers wanted to get in a lot of challenges and moments for their faves because they knew it wouldn’t keep going. And at the same time, in act 3 they were trying to bring the big explosions. Jayce having to fight his best friend Viktor to them is a challenge and and explosion. Caitlyn and Vi finally sleeping together is an explosion. Rigid, violent Noxus fighting chaotic Zaun is an interesting explosion. Caitlyn and Mel facing down Ambessa is an explosion both physical and emotional.
Various people have pointed out that if one of Arcane’s themes is change and Vi doesn’t like or do well with change, that makes her the natural enemy of the story and might put her in a losing position.
I also wonder if on some level the writers already felt “done” with Vi. That they had already challenged her in all the ways they were interested in.
The season 1 finale was the emotional and philosophical confrontation of Vi and Jinx. Followed by the physical confrontation in Act 1 of season 2. Vi is then challenged once more to trust Jinx and lower her weapons in front of Warwick. I think for many people it feels like things fizzle out for her after that.
Which doesn’t mean that Vi isn’t still challenged (trusting Caitlyn/handing herself over to Ambessa is another challenge). And the writers might think of her sleeping with Caitlyn as the final “challenge”.
I do think that there weren’t a ton of ways for the writers to top the emotional and physical confrontations she already had with Jinx. And I don’t doubt that every Vi fan will at this moment cry out that they could think of 20 more scenarios of how Vi could have been challenged (and thusly maintained her position as the lead chararacter). And I agree.
Top of my head, there’s obviously the emotional challenges. Ie, going back to her prison time, her parents, being morally challenged by Ekko.
If they wanted a more physical challenge, it’s hard, arguably impossible to beat Jinx versus Vi. The only candidates of even coming close would have been a more visceral, physical confrontation with Caitlyn or Warwick. And we get small versions of that, but I think most people would agree that those don’t go all out. They don’t have the emotional weight they could have had and they don’t feel like they go all out like Jayce versus Viktor in 2x08 or Caitlyn versus Ambessa in 2x09.
IMO that was probably intentional. They could have gone there, but they didn’t want to, because they didn’t want these relationships to go that way or didn’t want to handle the fallout/the recovery.
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
I love this bit and totally agree with you there. I really like your points about challenges and morals, that's a really interesting way of looking at the show I hadn't thought about.
But I'd like to respond specifically to the Vi parts if you don't mind!
Because I disagree in some ways, and I think this has to do with the way we look at what was supposed to be the "leading line", the main point, of Vi's arc.
First, I guess I don't really agree with the notion that her character is fundamentally opposed to change in the first place, or that it was the main point of her arc. To me, with both Jinx and Caitlyn, her fears are less about change and more about seeing the people she cares become monsters (coincidentally... or not..., Vander is the first one she sees literally become a monster with his shimmer transformation, before seemingly dying in her arms) due to what she perceives as her failures, and being left alone.
But more importantly, I think the real leading line of her arc is in her struggle with the sense of responsibility placed on her as a kid, which makes it hard to see Jinx as a grown up, even after she has started seeing the humanity in her again => to me it's less about seeing Jinx changing, and more that she just can't help but feel responsible for her, because that's her burden to bear, due to her being parentified at an early age. This is ultimately the "conflict" within herself that she starts resolving by choosing Caitlyn in ep8.
So to me, her arc was more ultimately about "letting go of the burdens of the past one by one"
So, with that in mind, regarding the finale...
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
I'm definitely among the number of fans who were pissed about that. But I'm starting to sort of make peace with it.
I definitively agree with you that the "explosive" character moment for her was in ep 8, with Caitlyn. But I'm not sure I agree the writers were just "done", because I see her moment with Vander as the true ending for her. She hadn't faced her biggest trauma yet, the last bit of her past that was still burdening her. But she does, at the end of the episode.
And she breaks down, badly: because his death is the wound that never truly healed, and also (inadvertently) the root cause of it all (the "it's on you" speech and let's not forget his last words: and his last words - "protect powder").
And you know, I may be in a minority here but I actually see it as a liberating moment in a way. Because she kept bottling it before and now that it's out, she can only face it and move forward.
So if I had to put a more positive spin on it, I'd say that the whole battle just wasn't "her time". Her having a more heroic saving-the-day moment would have been nice, sure, but it wouldn't have been coherent (? for lack of a better word) with her arc and where she was mentally. Hopefully, it means that in the writers' mind, this wasn't meant to be the end of her journey. And if not... welp, that sucks.
Very on point, what you said about Wander. But that's actually the problem. Vi is one of the most protagonist here. I don't think she'll get another story where she will become one again. Normally, for her to move on, she should have been able to let go at that point. Instead, Jinx had to sacrifice herself so that she was forced to let go. Forced, but she never did it on her own. So there is little or no development in the end. This is the whole problem and the reason why her entire arc becomes passive in season 2.
"she should have been able to let go at that point"
Hmm I don't really see it that way. To me there is no amount of character development that would have ever made Vi let go in that specific moment.
Because there are two distinct moments to talk about here. The one where Vi doesn't listen to Jinx and breaks down, and the one where Vi is holding Jinx by the arm and Jinx forces her to let go.
The first one is what I was talking about. Vi is having ptsd, she's having a major breaking down. This is the one part of her trauma she has buried so deep, she has never confronted it, and here she is, face to face with it. IMO this isn't a regression, it doesn't contradict her character moment in ep8, where she got to chose what she wants for the future. Character progression is not always linear, though, and here is the past showing up unexpectedly and kicking her down one last(?) time. Fortunately, she can fall down, because this time someone has her back, and that brings us to the second moment...
... which is the culmination of Jinx's arc. She's grown, she's stepping up and, for the first time, is in a position to protect Vi. But it's also the culmination of both sisters relationship. After all the hurt, the separation, they still love each other. Jinx loves her sister so much she's willing to risk her life for her. And Vi loves her too! Of course she does not want to watch her sister die! It would not make any sense for her to let go now! So Jinx has to do it, just like Vi would if the roles were reversed. But to me, it doesn't mean that Vi couldn't "move on" from their relationship in the general sense. It doesn't mean that Vi wouldn't have respected Jinx's decision to leave if they had parted ways in other circumstances, and it definitely doesn't mean Vi would have just kept chasing Jinx around if she hadn't faked her death - I don't really understand why it's such a strong belief in some parts of this fandom when that's not what the show says, and it would contradict her decision to commit to Caitlyn if it was.
So no, I don't really think there was little development for her in the end. I still don't think her arc was particularly well executed, mind you, but that's a different topic.
Oh sorry I think I expressed myself badly. I didn't mean that Vi literally had to let go of Jinx to show that Vi had a development, Vi would of course never be able to do that just as she wouldn't be able to let go of Ekko here for example if something had happened to him.
I was only talking about the moment when she had an attack with Vander.
Even if it is a post-traumatic episode, I always personally saw this moment as Vi unable in the literary sense to move on, I would have preferred that Vi find the strength to say goodbye to him and move away rather than stay looking at him and being unable to move. I don't know if it's clear with my explanations.
I thought for a long time that the writers had decided on such a moment to show that Vi is unable to "move on". And in this sense, I started to like the end of the story less and less in view of my rewatches.
Anyway I am happy to exchange with other people to understand other points of view.
Oh, guess I misunderstood your post then! I had seen this argument before so I just assumed it was the same thing here (and sorry for the late reply!)
Then let me offer an alternative point of view: sometimes, it's only when you start overcoming some problems in your life that you start uncovering deeper, more hidden ones. I think that's what happens to Vi: in episode 8 she finally starts choosing herself, her own happiness with Caitlyn. She chooses not to go after Jinx. She's getting there, she has started accepting Jinx as an adult and stopped seeing her as her burden / responsabilty. But it's precisely because she has that she reacts the way she does to Vander in episode 9. Because she has always avoided thinking about his death and facing this trauma by focusing on her sister before. I don't think it's a coincidence that in that final scene, when Vi initially stares at him, and Jinx yells at her to get away, Vi doesn't hear her, it's the first time they're in the same scene and Vi doesn't pay attention to her at all. With (seemingly) tragic consequences because of course, it's Arcane and the writers do love their irony. That's why I don't see it as character regression, or a static arc. Rather, it was always the next logical step for her before she could start moving on for good. As an ending, I do think it's sad / a bit frustrating, but it is what it is.
You know, I really disagree with the prevalent notion in the fandom that one of Vi's flaws is that "she doesn't accept Jinx for who she is" or that "she wants Jinx to be Powder". I also don't think that they reconciled because "Vi finally accepted Jinx for who she is".
The very first time Vi and Jinx reunite, one of the first things Vi says to Jinx, after Jinx says that she changed, is to tell Jinx "It's ok. You did what you had to do to survive. Me too". To me, this clearly seems to indicate that she is willing to accept that her sister has changed. She is willing to accept that has sister has done bad things, that has sister has imperfections. And later, after Vi learns all that her sister has been doing for Silco, and after everything Jinx does in season 1, Vi is still willing to accept her! She is still willing to turn the page and build a life with Jinx, even offers to run away with her during the tea party scene.
But I think there's a limit to how much you can "accept people for who they are". Vi can't accept Jinx as a person who not only was spreading shimmer, kidnapping and killing people and making terrorist attacks, but was also unwilling to change. This isn't because Vi doesn't accept that Powder has changed, it's because Vi is a decent human being with a sense of morality that can't really accept the stuff her sister is doing. Vi is entirely in the right not to accept that. She is right to reject her sister in this situation. And after Jinx turns down Vi's offer to leave and start over, and commits yet another terrorist attack, Vi really has no other choice but to reject her. (And even though Vi rejected her sister from this moment on, Vi never really stopped loving her)
When Jinx and Vi start to reconcile, it isn't because Vi has "finally accepted Jinx for who she is". It's because Jinx is the one who has changed into a person that Vi can accept. Because Vi sees Jinx showing empathy towards someone, because Jinx is no longer killing like she was before. And you can see this in the scene Vi argues with Caitlyn. She doesn't tell Caitlyn to give Jinx a chance because she finally accepted her sister exactly as she was, she tells Caitlyn to give Jinx a chance by arguing "Cait, she's changed". So clearly, Vi never accepted Jinx as she was in season 1. Vi only accepted Jinx because Jinx is the one that changed into someone Vi could accept, it was not Vi that accepted Jinx exactly as she was before.
I also know some people might argue that Vi didn't accept Jinx for who she was because 1) Vi initially refused to call her Jinx, or 2) because Vi says things like "Powder is gone" and "My sister is gone, all that's left is Jinx". But I think that interpretation is really unfair, because:
1) the reason Vi doesn't call her Jinx initially is because this used to be the biggest insult that her sister used to hate, and it's also the word that Vi spent 7 years feeling guilty for saying to her sister. Of course she's not going to instantly call her sister that. Of course she's going to take some time to adjust. This has nothing to do with not accepting that her sister has changed or wanting Powder back exactly as she was before.
2) Vi saying things like "Powder is gone" and "My sister is gone, all that's left is Jinx" isn't about Vi actually believing that Powder and Jinx are different people or about Vi wanting her to be exactly as she was when she was Powder. Vi saying these things is the equivalent of Powder saying "she is not my sister anymore" at the end of Act 1 of Season 1. Powder is not saying this because she actually believes that Vi is no longer her sister, she is saying that as a rejection of her sisterhood because she felt hurt and abandoned by Vi. Vi saying "Powder is gone" and "My sister is gone, all that's left is Jinx" is the same thing: Vi is rejecting her sisterhood, she is rejecting Jinx, and she has all the right to do so, because Jinx has indeed crossed all the lines, and Vi will only accept her back as her sister if her sister changes into someone that she can accept (which is exactly what ends up happening in the end).
Now that a lot of the dumbass discourse cloud has died down - or maybe I've just blocked the right people - I just want to articulate a bugbear of mine about a lot of S2 Caitlyn takes more specifically:
Caitlyn does not lose sight of her protective impulses, or impulses towards fairness and justice, for Zaun, during her peak cape era. Nor does she, having taken her first hit this painful, simply disregard or forget her compassion for Zaunites. These traits are as strong or maybe stronger than they were in S1.
That's the whole point.
She still believes she is acting in everyone's best interest. She believes the end justifies these means for everyone. She believes doing this is better for Zaun and Piltover.
This is a really important distinction. She isn't lashing out in a Hulk Rage at Jinx's hometown; she is doing this stuff because she thinks these means are justified by the ends. For everyone.
The reason the difference matters is because this is a really confrontational and difficult thing to grapple with as a viewer, but it's an important thing exactly for that reason.
Caitlyn is complicit in bad things that hurt people because she believes they're for their own good.
This is a completely human, relatable thing to do - but it makes people really uncomfortable to see it play out, to the point they're not even quite able to look it in the eye.
They want her to be a pettily angry Disney villain because it is simple and clean. We all understand what it's like to lash out in anger, and would recognize it in ourselves again, even if we did it anyway. We can recognize the impulse to be cruel or vengeful for the sake of it whether we are inclined to indulge it or not.
And we can choose not to quite easily - it is after all one of the most important lessons we spend our childhoods learning.
But it is a far more unsettling thing to be told "You can do something terrible even though it feels right, you can do something terrible even though you mean well" - because the natural implication of that is "...You could even be doing it right now".
That doesn't absolve her. There were ways for her to know better than this. She doesn't have any good choices when it comes to the Strike Team stuff, sure - but she does have choices after that point, when the trolley tracks aren't so few, and that's where she falls down.
Her failure then is in not thinking to continuously evaluate her decisions in their own terms, as she goes. In not continuously confronting herself with each individual step and its necessity; in letting herself be led out to sea just because her feet were already wet.
And it is in not being ready to see and hear somebody who can see her trajectory much more clearly from their vantage point than she can from hers.
What she did wrong wasn't losing sight of Zaun's own humanity or simply disregarding it, nothing as easy as that; it was losing sight of the fact she doesn't always have the tools to recognize what actually Serves and Protects that very thing, now, this time, today.
This is a far more valuable story, imho, than the "Oh she stubbed her toe and turned mean :( ".
What are you doing right now just because it was right last time? Because it feels right? Because you're sure it's for their own good?
Great post! I hope you don't mind me going slightly off tangent, but it helped me sort my thoughts on something I've been wondering about, which is "what was Caitlyn gonna do if the Noxians and her hadn't tracked Warwick down at the commune? Would she have betrayed Ambessa on her own?"
I've done a lot of back and forth on this, but ultimately I don't think Caitlyn was concretely planning to betray Ambessa before meeting Vi. She might have, eventually, probably too late. Because as you say, "Caitlyn is complicit in bad things that hurt people because she believes they're for their own good"
That's the breadcrumb of her arc. She thinks, genuinely, not without reason, that catching Jinx will ultimately save lives, that it will benefit everyone. She's convinced she's in the right. And she believes it will make everything else worth it.
Just like her scenes in ep4, with Maddie, then Ambessa, tell us. She knows things are going too far in Zaun. She makes it clear she regrets it, then outright tells Ambessa she doesn't like it, but she still doesn't quit. She can't, "not without Jinx".
And there's the scene of her and Ambessa training in Noxian outfits before that (that's... not the character design of someone who has gotten their shit back together yet). I know some people have pointed out that Caitlyn attacking Ambessa from behind was a sign that she intended to betray her, but... I think what this scene tells us is that at that point, Caitlyn was still learning from Ambessa. She didn't trust Ambessa, never did, but she thought their relationship could be of use to her. There's a bit of arrogance in that thinking - she thought she was in control, that she could get out whenever she chose. She lost sight of the bigger picture there - that the damage caused to Zaun wasn't - yet - the reason to stop.
So why is the meeting with Vi around the commune the breaking point? I mean, sure, it's Vi, and here's a family member that hasn't killed her mom that she can help, but I think, more simply, that it's because it's about an innocent man.
The beast Ambessa wants is a man undergoing a healing process to restore his consciousness, to have a second chance at life with his family... and Caitlyn knows it wouldn't stop Ambessa. She would ruin this man's life without a second thought, she would sabotage his healing, burn the commune if she had to, to get what she wants.
And Caitlyn can't justify that to herself with "it's for the greater good". She never could have, because that's just not the sort of person she is, at her core. And she can't look Vi in the eye and believe it even for a second. She was getting there before, but I think this is really the moment where she starts feeling like herself again. That's what kicks Caitlyn into action, and why she decides to help Vi (... besides being a simp).
It's the first step toward "redemption" (for lack of a better word), but she doesn't really have time to think about ~~ everything else she's done ~~ until it hits her in the head, when she sees Jinx and Vi reunite, and when she sees Vi nearly die for her. That's probably a profound shock to her, and it leaves her reckoning with everything all at once.
Arcane: morals, challenges and Vi's role in season 2
This is an offshoot of a discussion with @animexam09 where I went off topic/down my own line of thinking in a way that didn't have that much to do with the original post (I think the questions in that discussion are a lot more about the Watsonian/internal way the characters perceive their situation and I want full on Doylist/meta).
I want to clarify what I mean when I say Arcane is not About morals.
To me it feels like morality is fundamentally not a topic or a theme in Arcane. I often stumble across discussions wherein people are upset about “character X did the right thing, why didn’t she get the cookie?” or “character Y did the wrong thing, why didn’t she get punished?” (often with the implication: that must mean the show thinks that Y did is good and it is promoting bad values)
I often feel like this is the wrong angle to watch the show from. Because imo Arcane is not a morality tale. And I think this mostly comes from the elements of tragedy that it has.
People are good or do good, but bad things happen to them. Because tragedy.
1.) I think structurally Arcane as a show is more interested in a concept of cause and effect. In characters and what happens to them.
This is the whole blueprint of the show. Characters do something and it starts a cascade of effects that are often unintended and vastly disproportionate.
You can still tell a moral story from that. Like “and that dear kids is why you should think about the consequences before you do something” or “now you see that you cannot control the world, but only your reaction, the correct way to deal with it is to accept change and go with the flow”.
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
There is this interview with Alex Ye where he says that for season 1 they had a blueprint for every arc about how every character should have a want (ie Vander wants to protect Vi, Powder wants to prove herself, Silco wants revenge on Vander) and by the end of the arc they get what they want but in a horrifically “not how I wanted it” way. This logic applies equally to “good” and “bad” characters, violent or innocent ones. Being “good” or “doing the right thing” doesn’t protect you, because the writers think things going wrong is more dramatically interesting. They are interested in setting up characters with interesting parameters (“This is Vi, she is protective”, “this is Caitlyn, she is smart but sheltered”, “this is Silco, he thinks he would do anything to achieve independence”, “this is Powder, she’s smart, but insecure”) and seeing them challenged.
They want to see challenge, they want to see characters bouncing against problems and other characters and they want to see fireworks. (and I think that is intensely fitting if you consider the source material is a video game that specializes in trying to set up interesting duels/small scale fights and interesting mechanics, ie counterplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g )
(I actually wonder if this might have been what accidentally attracted some more leftist leaning people. That the fact that so blatantly unfair and disproportionate things happen to people maybe makes it feel like it’s a story that emphasizes systems over individual personal choices. And people are shocked that the show neither followed the pattern of “the positive personal choices pay off in the end” nor “we are setting up those systems and rules the world works on to criticize them and smash them” instead of “they just thought these rules and systems were a cool biotope to create crazy experiments in, to facilitate interesting looking explosions”. One of the biggest underlying topics in left versus right discourse is about systems versus individuals. Can you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do your choices matter or is the system stacked against you. To portray a system where individual well meaning choices don’t matter because “the system” (the writers) screws them over anyway could ring back to this fundamental conflict)
(In regards to the writers, I think it also helps there to remember that Arcane in a lot of ways is structurally a fanfiction, that those characters existed and had a feel and a look and a vibe before Arcane came about. That could contribute to this feelings of “I pick this pre-existing elements and watch them go”)
2.) The writers still have morals and values
Of course the eternal topic is that even if you didn’t set up to write a morality play, writers still inherently bring in their morals. People’s worldviews still influence what they think make an interesting or logical setup or what they think is a realistic cause and effect.
Like for example if you as a person think that acting aggressive with people with make them most likely hate you or impress them or make them fall in line. Or whether you think “Rich people are smart and resourceful” or “rich people are greedy and mean” or “rich people are dumb and lazy” is a realistic portrayal. Even “life is complex/there’s variety everywhere” or “all people think they are the heroes of their own story” are again people taking some sort of stance on the world.
So the writers values are always going to seep in and affect which “laws of the universe” they choose (even though they probably think they are just picking generally recognized, universal laws of reality or of fiction writing).
3.) The characters themselves still have morals
Various characters in the setting still have morals. But I think the writers are more interested in things like showing different moral systems and letting them clash and challenging them in different ways. By setting up characters with different character traits and feeling out with how they handle the challenge to their world views and morals.
And again, these writers are more interested in how characters deal with their own failures. That’s why almost all characters who have a moral system (and are important enough to have screen time) stumble and have to recover from their stumble.
For what it’s worth, when somebody like schnee seeks a consistent theme across all stories, I don’t think they are necessarily obsessed with a “X did the right thing, so X gets the cookie” point of view. Themes an be both intentional (like Arcane’s obsession with parallels) and unintentional (because the interests and values of the writers can bleed into the text by accident). Just because I think “these writers care about challenge and explosions” is the better consistent theme of their writing doesn’t mean you can’t gleam other themes. Or that themes can’t be derived from that (ie if you are fundamentally believe that characters being challenged is interesting then characters who handle change and challenge might be advantaged over characters who struggle with their values being tested or fall apart when that happesn).
I think the writing cares more about these moments of challenge. Silco didn’t really “win”, but he seemed like he died happy because he had reached a moment of personal realization. Ekko mostly stayed true to himself and can gleam satisfaction from that, because he seems like the kind of character who would gleam satisfaction from that. Caitlyn stumbled in her morals, but withdrew and overall seems to handle her own faltering with comparable stoicism (again comparable). Viktor mostly fucked up his big plans to improve the world, but didn’t handle it well at all, but was to some extent salvaged by the person who cares about him. IMO Arcane is more satisfying if you can get into the moments where the characters get personal satisfaction with something that fits their personality, even if it’s temporary or internal.
Challenge, Explosions and what that means for Vi
IMO finishing the series meant that they had to marry their “set up characters and watch them get challenged” with a traditional ending of some sort.
Season 2’s structure was already faltering imo because I think the writers wanted to get in a lot of challenges and moments for their faves because they knew it wouldn’t keep going. And at the same time, in act 3 they were trying to bring the big explosions. Jayce having to fight his best friend Viktor to them is a challenge and and explosion. Caitlyn and Vi finally sleeping together is an explosion. Rigid, violent Noxus fighting chaotic Zaun is an interesting explosion. Caitlyn and Mel facing down Ambessa is an explosion both physical and emotional.
Various people have pointed out that if one of Arcane’s themes is change and Vi doesn’t like or do well with change, that makes her the natural enemy of the story and might put her in a losing position.
I also wonder if on some level the writers already felt “done” with Vi. That they had already challenged her in all the ways they were interested in.
The season 1 finale was the emotional and philosophical confrontation of Vi and Jinx. Followed by the physical confrontation in Act 1 of season 2. Vi is then challenged once more to trust Jinx and lower her weapons in front of Warwick. I think for many people it feels like things fizzle out for her after that.
Which doesn’t mean that Vi isn’t still challenged (trusting Caitlyn/handing herself over to Ambessa is another challenge). And the writers might think of her sleeping with Caitlyn as the final “challenge”.
I do think that there weren’t a ton of ways for the writers to top the emotional and physical confrontations she already had with Jinx. And I don’t doubt that every Vi fan will at this moment cry out that they could think of 20 more scenarios of how Vi could have been challenged (and thusly maintained her position as the lead chararacter). And I agree.
Top of my head, there’s obviously the emotional challenges. Ie, going back to her prison time, her parents, being morally challenged by Ekko.
If they wanted a more physical challenge, it’s hard, arguably impossible to beat Jinx versus Vi. The only candidates of even coming close would have been a more visceral, physical confrontation with Caitlyn or Warwick. And we get small versions of that, but I think most people would agree that those don’t go all out. They don’t have the emotional weight they could have had and they don’t feel like they go all out like Jayce versus Viktor in 2x08 or Caitlyn versus Ambessa in 2x09.
IMO that was probably intentional. They could have gone there, but they didn’t want to, because they didn’t want these relationships to go that way or didn’t want to handle the fallout/the recovery.
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
I love this bit and totally agree with you there. I really like your points about challenges and morals, that's a really interesting way of looking at the show I hadn't thought about.
But I'd like to respond specifically to the Vi parts if you don't mind!
Because I disagree in some ways, and I think this has to do with the way we look at what was supposed to be the "leading line", the main point, of Vi's arc.
First, I guess I don't really agree with the notion that her character is fundamentally opposed to change in the first place, or that it was the main point of her arc. To me, with both Jinx and Caitlyn, her fears are less about change and more about seeing the people she cares become monsters (coincidentally... or not..., Vander is the first one she sees literally become a monster with his shimmer transformation, before seemingly dying in her arms) due to what she perceives as her failures, and being left alone.
But more importantly, I think the real leading line of her arc is in her struggle with the sense of responsibility placed on her as a kid, which makes it hard to see Jinx as a grown up, even after she has started seeing the humanity in her again => to me it's less about seeing Jinx changing, and more that she just can't help but feel responsible for her, because that's her burden to bear, due to her being parentified at an early age. This is ultimately the "conflict" within herself that she starts resolving by choosing Caitlyn in ep8.
So to me, her arc was more ultimately about "letting go of the burdens of the past one by one"
So, with that in mind, regarding the finale...
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
I'm definitely among the number of fans who were pissed about that. But I'm starting to sort of make peace with it.
I definitively agree with you that the "explosive" character moment for her was in ep 8, with Caitlyn. But I'm not sure I agree the writers were just "done", because I see her moment with Vander as the true ending for her. She hadn't faced her biggest trauma yet, the last bit of her past that was still burdening her. But she does, at the end of the episode.
And she breaks down, badly: because his death is the wound that never truly healed, and also (inadvertently) the root cause of it all (the "it's on you" speech and let's not forget his last words: and his last words - "protect powder").
And you know, I may be in a minority here but I actually see it as a liberating moment in a way. Because she kept bottling it before and now that it's out, she can only face it and move forward.
So if I had to put a more positive spin on it, I'd say that the whole battle just wasn't "her time". Her having a more heroic saving-the-day moment would have been nice, sure, but it wouldn't have been coherent (? for lack of a better word) with her arc and where she was mentally. Hopefully, it means that in the writers' mind, this wasn't meant to be the end of her journey. And if not... welp, that sucks.
Very on point, what you said about Wander. But that's actually the problem. Vi is one of the most protagonist here. I don't think she'll get another story where she will become one again. Normally, for her to move on, she should have been able to let go at that point. Instead, Jinx had to sacrifice herself so that she was forced to let go. Forced, but she never did it on her own. So there is little or no development in the end. This is the whole problem and the reason why her entire arc becomes passive in season 2.
"she should have been able to let go at that point"
Hmm I don't really see it that way. To me there is no amount of character development that would have ever made Vi let go in that specific moment.
Because there are two distinct moments to talk about here. The one where Vi doesn't listen to Jinx and breaks down, and the one where Vi is holding Jinx by the arm and Jinx forces her to let go.
The first one is what I was talking about. Vi is having ptsd, she's having a major breaking down. This is the one part of her trauma she has buried so deep, she has never confronted it, and here she is, face to face with it. IMO this isn't a regression, it doesn't contradict her character moment in ep8, where she got to chose what she wants for the future. Character progression is not always linear, though, and here is the past showing up unexpectedly and kicking her down one last(?) time. Fortunately, she can fall down, because this time someone has her back, and that brings us to the second moment...
... which is the culmination of Jinx's arc. She's grown, she's stepping up and, for the first time, is in a position to protect Vi. But it's also the culmination of both sisters relationship. After all the hurt, the separation, they still love each other. Jinx loves her sister so much she's willing to risk her life for her. And Vi loves her too! Of course she does not want to watch her sister die! It would not make any sense for her to let go now! So Jinx has to do it, just like Vi would if the roles were reversed. But to me, it doesn't mean that Vi couldn't "move on" from their relationship in the general sense. It doesn't mean that Vi wouldn't have respected Jinx's decision to leave if they had parted ways in other circumstances, and it definitely doesn't mean Vi would have just kept chasing Jinx around if she hadn't faked her death - I don't really understand why it's such a strong belief in some parts of this fandom when that's not what the show says, and it would contradict her decision to commit to Caitlyn if it was.
So no, I don't really think there was little development for her in the end. I still don't think her arc was particularly well executed, mind you, but that's a different topic.
Heavy is the crown - a Caitlyn Kiramman character analysis.
(Tumblr really messed the formatting up on this, and it’s like 15k so there’s no way I’m editing it again - check my Twitter RubiksGaming12 to read it in it’s correctly formatted form)
I’ll preface this by saying that I have no prior knowledge of LoL lore, but I’m a big fan of angsty, nuanced characters, and that’s why I want to talk about Caitlyn Kiramman.
I’m sure this has all been talked to death in the fandom, but from my brief time in it, I can see a lot of varying - although mostly negative - views on Caitlyn. Especially in season 2. Caitlyn, however, is a character who has swiftly made her way onto my favourites list and I feel the overwhelming need to wax poetically about her.
I love a character that’s been consumed by darkness in some way and attempts to find their way back; from Darth Vader, to Xena, to Villanelle. I love all the shades of grey these characters bring; that not every act of good is seen in absolute glowing white and every negative in pure darkness. To me this teetering on the line in between is what makes for such rich characters to experience, explore, and devour.
I’ll start by saying that one of my favourite things about Arcane is how it doesn’t hold your hand the entire time. It’s not always direct, slammed in your face, explanation. It asks you to pay attention; to look, and listen, and think. It wants you to make the connections, to see the use of lighting, of revisiting environments, of the connection to the music/score. It wants you to question.
Would we all have liked more episodes? Hell yes. However, I think the show does a wonderful job with Cait’s character arc within time/ep restraints it had.
With that said, if you hold negative views on Caitlyn, my thoughts on this definitely won’t interest you in the slightest. You’ll keep your opinion, and I’ll keep mine. Art is subjective after all. But if you want to share thoughts and opinions and discuss openly, then please do. I love hearing and delving into all theories.
So with that said, let’s break my thoughts down —
Caitlyn is a Kiramman; a member of an influential house in Piltover. Her family's reputation precedes them, especially with her mother on the council. I think it’s safe to say that with such a privileged upbringing, when we meet Caitlyn in Season 1, it’s obvious that she has been sheltered from the depth and reality of the systemic divide between Piltover and Zaun, and just how oppressed the Zaunites really are.
But there’s more to Caitlyn than her just being another mere, blindly accepting member of the Piltover elite. In fact the show hints that it's a direct result of her elite heritage, that Caitlyn grows into such an ambitious, confident, woman who has an unwavering, determined, drive to prove herself on her own merits rather than just on the coattails of her family name.
We see her kindness shown in her friendship with Jayce, a man older than her and sponsored by her parents, a person considered below her on the social ladder, and yet he’s her one true friend. She’s interested in his ideas, has concern and fondness for him. It presents Caitlyn as someone who goes against the grain of what’s expected of her, her curiosity of wanting to know and understand more than just the high society she’s part of is evident. It’s something that we see that sets her apart from the majority of her peers who are content with their lives and have no desire to question it.
I believe it’s her ambitious drive and her natural, kind curiosity that sets up the basis for her arc in Season 1.
We see her commitment to her marksmanship in the flashback, she’s damn good at the skill she’s worked hard to hone, and yet we see Cait questioning her own merit when Grayson appears to let her win. Her first thought is ‘did my parents pay you to let me win?’ which is such a sombre reality. Has this happened before? It appears that even from a young age the weight of the name Kiramman is something that’s been weighing Cait down. A burden of expectation and equally a privileged advantage, even when it’s perhaps not deserved or wanted.
When Grayson says she let Cait win not because her parents paid her, but because she thought Cait deserved it, it validates Caitlyn in a way not many people do. Especially when Grayson is more skilled and less privileged than her. She tells Caitlyn that she doesn’t need to win, that protecting the people is the reward in itself. I think this interaction further unlocks and propels Caitlyn’s desire to earn respect rather than have it given to her because of her name.
So when Grayson asks her ‘what are you shooting for?’ I think Caitlyn is finally able to give herself the luxury and agency to decide to want more for herself than what is simply expected, and to go after that, no matter what people think. Her parents included.
That scene with Grayson, I felt, was vital in seeing, at least partly, why Caitlyn becomes an enforcer. It gives her a sense of purpose outside of the family ties. Something that’s just hers. Something she can achieve and be proud of, and something she can outwardly present amongst the community she lives in. She holds firm in her resolve and assurance that she’s made the right choice for herself even when her mother tries to keep her safe by limiting her work, and when her peers snigger mockingly at her that she should be at the cocktail party rather than guarding it.
After Jinx’s attack and her removal from the enforcers at her mother’s request, we see Caitlyn become even more solidified in her self belief. While she may be a little idealistic and naive to the wider workings of the world, Caitlyn proves she’s an intelligent, kind, empathetic person, and has a fire in her for seeking justice and protecting people. She genuinely seems to want to make a difference, and I think that’s why she fixates on the investigation of corruption in Piltover and how deeply connected that is to Zaun and its underworld. It’s another chance to prove herself to those that don’t truly see her as more than the Kiramman name.
This is obviously driven further when she meets Vi and has her released to help facilitate her investigation. Having Vi be her guide through the Undercity allows Cait to have her eyes opened to a different perspective than her own, and challenges Topside’s preconceptions about bottom. It’s seeing through Vi’s eyes that enlightens Cait to Zaun’s true struggles and drives her desire to want to help and advocate for Zaun further. While realising at the same time that the Piltover Caitlyn thinks she knows is equally corrupt in parts (Marcus’ betrayal highlighting this).
It’s through Vi’s eyes, through her struggles, through their developing trust and connection that we the viewer can recognise that Caitlyn is meant to represent the moral compass of the show in S1 — She’s the one that gets us, the audience, to also question what Cait thinks she knows, versus the reality of what she’s now learnt (Silco, shimmer, Marcus, Jinx, Ekko and the firelights); that there is no good and bad, only shades of grey between the twin cities.
In understanding Caitlyn as the character we get introduced to in season 1, I think it’s really important to understand that it’s Caitlyn’s privilege that gives her the knowledge and position to try to drive a change forward. But it’s her character outside of her privilege; her kindness, her empathy, her risk taking and her willingness to challenge rules and ideals that makes her the right choice to help. Vi and Ekko aren’t trusting just any Piltie to help them, they’re trusting Caitlyn because of all that she exudes and stands for. It's unknown to Vi and Ekko at that time that Caitlyn is a Kiramman, or the weight that name holds. Caitlyn never divulges that about herself, instead she mentions Jayce, her friends being on the council. But we the audience know that it’s her family name that gives Caitlyn immediate access to her mother and the council where others - like Vi, Ekko, and the other Zaunites - would not have such a chance.
We see, through her relationship with Vi, that Caitlyn doesn’t use her privilege to overshadow Vi and the Zaunties' struggles. She moves the pieces into place because she has the entitlement to do so. She lets Violet be the mouthpiece for herself and the Undercity’s struggles when addressing the council, showing that she sees Vi and the Zaunites as equals.
When Caitlyn’s mother is introduced to us, we understand that she’s not a big fan of Caitlyn essentially lowering the family name by becoming an enforcer, and that she purposely interfered in Caitlyn’s work to protect her; moving her to stand guard at her tent, and having Cait dismissed from the enforcers after the initial Jinx attack. However, Cassandra Kiramman clearly loves her daughter and after hearing how passionate she is, listening to Caitlyn outline the failings of the council she sits on, she schedules the councillors for Cait and Vi to talk with.
‘You’re a councillor’s daughter, your actions reflect on the entire body,’
‘You know what else reflects on the council? Its citizens living on the streets, being poisoned, having to choose between a kingpin who wants to exploit them and a government that doesn’t give a shit.’
We can see in this exchange just how much Caitlyn has grown from episode 1-8, and I could talk so much more about her growing relationship with Vi in season 1, but I think we all can agree that Vi grounds Caitlyn. She shows Caitlyn a world she hadn’t ever truly seen or understood. Vi challenges her in ways Caitlyn has never been challenged before, and she sees Caitlyn as she is; as simply Cait. Something that nobody else does. The fact that Caitlyn is a Kiramman is an afterthought, something Vi only learns later on when Caitlyn insists she can help with Zaun’s plight.
Even when Caitlyn fails to achieve what they want from the council she remains determined to try again, but it’s Vi that walks away. It’s Vi that can only see how to do things one way and knows that she has to leave Caitlyn behind to do it. Vi, I feel, is essentially protecting Caitlyn from something she knows Caitlyn doesn’t fully understand and never can simply because of their separate birthrights. She will never really be able to understand that oppression, and Vi is too afraid/guilty to relinquish what little control she has left when it comes to Jinx.
Caitlyn acts in the council meeting according to the hierarchy she grew up in, something that Vi doesn’t have the luxury to indulge in. That’s why she walks away and goes to Jayce. Vi needs to take things into her own hands to try and save her sister and deal with Silco, she chooses the undercity way and leaves Caitlyn to mull over the topside approach. Vi’s own guilt gives her a heavy burden of responsibility that she can’t let go of.
We see after their separation that Caitlyn isn’t content with Topside’s action, or inaction, she’s frustrated with the lack of doing nothing but not doing enough. We see this when she’s in the shower thinking of Vi; her image represents what Caitlyn wants to fight for, what she can’t let go of now. A better life for them all. I truly believe that Caitlyn, with her dogged determination, would have tried again and again and again to help Vi with Jinx and Silco, and would have found a way to persuade the council to help the Undercity heal. It’s the first real indication we get that Vi has become one of Caitlyn’s biggest strengths, but will also become one of Caitlyn’s biggest weaknesses, as we see at the end of Season 1.
This all pieces together when Jinx foils Caitlyn’s plans to try and help and kidnaps her. Instead of Caitlyn working towards finding a balanced, diplomatic, solution that will benefit Piltover/Zaun and bridge the divide, we get Caitlyn receiving a nice dose of trauma; Jinx threatening her life and blowing up the council tower. Topped with the crushing burden of conflict and guilt; having the shot on Jinx but not being able to take it due to her loyalty and affection for Vi.
It’s this event and every moment that happens during it that shapes the foundation of Caitlyn’s arc for season 2.
——
We start season 2 with the consequences of the actions of season 1. Jinx is free and Caitlyn’s mother was killed along with some of the other councillors thanks to Jinx’s attack. This is already an intolerable pill for Caitlyn to swallow, knowing that not only did she have the shot on Jinx that could have prevented her mother’s death, but I’m sure Mel makes it known to her that she and the council were voting in favour of Zaun having independence.
As such Season 2 is rich with character development for Caitlyn, and I think the best way I can share my thoughts on it is to break it down into her development journey per act.
Alongside looking at the events/effects of each act on Caitlyn’s character I want to focus on the three faces Cait claims to haunt her in S2E1; her mother (whose memory is manipulated by Ambessa), Jinx, and Vi. I believe that individually these three characters are the driving force behind Caitlyn’s descent to darkness and also her light back to the good woman we know Caitlyn Kiramman is at her core.
Let’s start with Ambessa since I feel like her role is critical to Caitlyn’s moral downfall. However, in order to fully understand Caitlyn’s descent into darkness in season 2 I believe it’s vital to understand Ambessa, her motives, and her role in manipulating Caitlyn for her own gain.
So let’s jump back a second and look at Ambessa before we dissect season 2:
In season 1 Ambessa arrives in Piltover under the false pretense of visiting her estranged daughter Mel - who we all know is a wealthy and powerful
Councillor in the city - and confides in Mel about her brother, Kino’s death. It seems Ambessa feels responsible for her son's death, and that she’s certain those responsible for his death will continue to seek revenge upon the Medarda’s and Noxus.
This brings us to the real reason for Ambessa’s visit. Having grown aware of Piltover’s progress with Hextech, Ambessa sees the opportunity to create and use Hextech weaponry to protect her family and thwart any threat to her people. Essentially, Ambessa begins her game of manipulation early in season 1 by hoping to convince Mel to engage in war with the Undercity using the weaponised Hextech to squash the conflict. Ambessa sees these two cities and the tensions between them as a testing ground for Hextech weapons, and a chance to grab power, which luckily Mel sees through and prevents.
With Mel not being so easily manipulated, aware of her mother’s warmongering ways, Ambessa quickly changes strategies and attempts to manoeuvre Hextech’s creator, Jayce, into weaponizing the technology. While Jayce refuses at first, Vi tempts him further, and together they take Hextech weapons into the Undercity with the goal of attacking Silco’s shimmer factories, only for Jayce to end up accidentally killing a child working in one. This immediately stops Jayce and ruins Ambessa’s second attempt at manipulation to mass weaponise Hextech.
With promises of allowing Mel to return home to Noxus with her if Mel will simply allow the war between Piltover and Zaun to happen, Ambessa makes her final move of season 1. Luckily Mel stays true to herself, and right before Jinx blows up the council building, Mel sides with Jayce in offering Zaun independence, and encourages the other councillors to do the same.
It’s as we head into season 2, in the wake of Jinx’s attack on Piltover, that we see Ambessa use the chaos to reestablish her footing and create another angle of manipulation to work with.
She first tries to speak through Councilor Salo, which Mel catches immediately, knowing that her mother is determined to gain power. Mel agrees to invade the Undercity to capture Jinx but without Hextech weapons, once again stopping Ambessa’s push to put Hextech into weaponised action.
With Ambessa’s plot mapped, let’s move back to Season 2 and Caitlyn’s development:
Act 1:
Ep1 -
It’s important to note that even at this point in her grief Caitlyn is still fighting for the people of Zaun and trying to prevent a war; she stands by Jinx being solely responsible for the attack and doesn’t want Piltover to flood the Undercity with enforcers.
Because Ambessa failed to use Salo to get the councillors to invade Zaun with Hextech we see her next power play. She’s the one responsible for the memorial attack, she allows it to happen only to set herself up as the saviour with her Noxian troops. This act pushes her agenda forward, the next time the council meet they feel taken off guard, fearful and desperate to find a way to fight back and protect themselves. But before Ambessa can speak up, Caitlyn arrives with her strike team armed with Hextech weapons and does the task for her.
Caitlyn’s goal is obviously to minimise damage, which is a stark contrast to what Ambessa wants overall, however it’s the perfect way for Ambessa to test her goal. I believe it’s at this point that we witness Ambessa noticing Caitlyn for the first time and understanding her influence. Something Ambessa definitely notes for later on.
/
Next we have Caitlyn’s relationship with Vi to consider.
It complicates Caitlyn’s grief. What should be a simple anger becomes a layered torment. How do you openly and intensely hate the sister of someone you care about? How does Caitlyn move past understanding Vi’s care for Jinx and refusal to give up on her at the end of season 1? Especially when that reality caused Caitlyn to hold back, go against her gut instinct, not shoot, and ultimately allow Jinx to kill her mother and further divide Piltover and Zaun.
The scene with her dad expands this conflict. Her guilt and self blame are evident when she admits she had the shot on Jinx. We see it manifesting in her refusal to willingly accept the Kiramman key. From someone so confident and self assured in season 1, we quickly see Caitlyn displaced and unsure. She’s gone from knowing the safety of her place in the Piltover hierarchy chain, to suddenly having to step up and fill that role her mother held. It’s a big responsibility and one Caitlyn doesn’t feel deserving or sure of.
(Adding to this quickly that I love that it pans to Vi overhearing Caitlyn’s confessions, I think it perfectly foreshadows that Vi is going to have to witness someone else she loves descending down a path that’s a product of her actions. What a heavy cross to bear (maybe I’ll do a deep dive on Vi next)).
I also think it’s important that we talk about how Caitlyn is someone who keeps her emotions close to her chest, whereas Vi wears hers on her sleeve. Caitlyn’s grief is all over her face but it isn’t necessarily spoken aloud, she isn’t a blubbering mess. She only cries when she has the safety of Vi to be vulnerable with, and even then she only allows herself a brief moment. In true Caitlyn fashion, she then throws herself back into her way of dealing with her grief through action. I guess it makes sense that she feels inaction is what caused her pain, so of course going with the enforcers to find Jinx in the Undercity is a good idea.
What perhaps isn’t her best idea is asking Vi to put on an enforcer badge and join her. I think Caitlyn is super clouded by her own grief here to even consider whether this is a good idea or not, especially given what she knows about Vi’s past. However, I would say that I truly believe that Caitlyn believes she’s asking Vi to join her for the right reasons. We witnessed Cait try and dissuade the council to invade Zaun already, so to think that Caitlyn believes that Vi’s presence on the enforcers side would help bridge a divide between Piltover and Zaun isn’t out of the realm of possibility. It makes sense for Cait to think that showing unity against Jinx would send a good message to the people of both cities. It also acts to ease Caitlyn’s own fears about Vi’s feelings towards her and Jinx. Where does Vi’s allegiance lie now? Can Vi see that Jinx is too far gone now and trust Cait to make the right decision? It’s a risk but a reassurance I think Cait desperately needs from Vi to anchor herself.
Even though Vi initially rejects her offer to join the enforcers, after the memorial attack, when we see Caitlyn at her most unbalanced, Vi is there once again to provide comfort to Caitlyn at her most vulnerable. Vi understands what Caitlyn needs from her. I think at this point Vi is consumed by her own pain and guilt, and that while she clearly can’t mend Jinx’s heart, perhaps she can protect Cait’s. It’s why I believe Vi ultimately joins the strike team Caitlyn sets up. She feels a sense of responsibility to put things right too. It’s a tentative balance between the two of them; it’s the promise of action without overzealous violence hinged on an achievable goal of apprehending Jinx.
/
We see Caitlyn, for the most part, admirably hiding her pain, grief, and self blame for her mother’s death (as Mel tells Jayce) but we also see glimpses of her strong facade cracking with anger at Jinx.
Her anguish and guilt begin to manifest into hatred, and we see this evidently in Caitlyn’s visualisation of taking the shot at Jinx. This externalised hatred of Jinx is understandable in the wake of her mother’s death, and has left Caitlyn’s family with a gaping hole that she herself now has to quickly navigate to fill.
While Jinx isn’t part of the memorial attack it triggers a reaction in Caitlyn; her pain and anger breaking free and making her lash out. We see her in her grief going from defending Zaun; ‘there’s good people down there’ to ‘they’re animals’. While that thought doesn’t grow further yet (thanks to Vi’s grounding presence) it does seed and begin to take root inside Caitlyn, waiting to blossom later in the season.
/
Ep 2 & 3:
Episodes 2 & 3 take a closer look at Caitlyn’s invasion of the Undercity with her strike team. So I’m going to combine my thoughts for them.
We see at the end of episode 1 that Caitlyn discovers the creation of the ventilation system the Kiramman’s created to provide clean air to the Undercity. Now this next part seems to be where I witness a lot of hatred and negativity of Caitlyn’s character journey this season coming from.
While I completely agree that her use of the gas in the Undercity is a bold and controversial choice, I think there’s a misunderstanding of how Caitlyn was using the gas. I get the sense that people think she was just gassing the whole of the Undercity when in reality she states what she plans to do with the gas in her mission outline; locate Jinx, dismantle shimmer and neutralise any agents still loyal to Silco.
Remember Vi is part of this strike team, I doubt she’s letting Caitlyn murderously gas her people. Instead, she’s probably guided Caitlyn into where the shimmer factories and the gangs are located. It’s these areas that the gas is being used. Does this justify her use of the gas? I’m not sure. I think it’s a moral grey area. Does violence of any kind, from any side, justify a violent retaliation? I think this is sadly a case of human nature. It shows the cycle of hatred, of violence being used to justify peace. It’s a tale as old as time; everybody is the bad guy in somebody else’s story. It’s a cycle that keeps repeating until somebody breaks it.
And that’s the theme the show wants to explore in season 2. Caitlyn’s actions are unsettling. Rightfully so. It’s a breakdown of what happens to people’s morals when they’re challenged by outside forces they can’t control. I think Arcane takes these issues and presents them cleverly throughout the show, and to write a character off as simply bad or good is a disservice to the depth they’ve been given.
The show forces the audience to step into each characters shoes and ask:
‘how far are you willing to go for the people you love?’
‘How far is too far?’
‘How do you know when you’re crossed that line and can you stop yourself going further?’
‘Can you come back from that?’
‘What can you do to break the cycle?’
We see these questions starting to get asked as we move into the tail end of Act 1.
The montage at the start of episode 3 is super heavy with explanations of what exactly the strike team does in Zaun. Sadly, I do think if you’re casually watching some of the depth of this montage is lost which I’m assuming is a time restraint/stylistic choice that had to be made for S2.
That said, let’s look at it carefully:
I feel like the bright colours are really menacing here, especially when you see Caitlyn and co fully suited up with the green gas behind them. It makes the image of the gangs running away look small and weak in comparison. When in reality we know these guys have helped Silco flood the lanes with Shimmer and are definitely part of the violence in the Undercity. It then flickers through scenes of the team fighting against the gangs, of them achieving their objective to dismantle shimmer and neutralise anyone still loyal to Silco. But it also makes a point to show Caitlyn apprehending these criminals in a non-lethal way; it seems she fires the same net-type bullets the enforcers fired at Vi and Powder way back in the opening episodes as they escaped from Jayce’s apartment. Most importantly it shows them holding Jinx’s wanted poster, inquiring for her whereabouts. This, we know, is the driving force behind all of Cait’s actions. A venture that is clearly proving fruitless so far. It’s clear that Jinx’s continued allusion only heightens Caitlyn’s grief and anger.
While searching the Undercity for Jinx, we see Caitlyn, Vi and the others looking for Jinx in the old arcade where Vi and Jinx played as children. The use of the gas and seeing Vi playing enforcer enrages Jinx and she taunts Caitlyn by switching on the moving targets and momentarily appearing behind one before disappearing once more. While Maddie confirms the place is all clear, Caitlyn appears to begin to hyperventilate, her frustration with not apprehending Jinx clearly agitating her and teetering her closer and closer to the edge of her grief and control. She shoots where she was certain she saw Jinx standing, showing her ability to follow through with her shot now, and once more it’s Vi that has to approach her and ground her, bringing Caitlyn back from the Jinx demon plaguing her.
I want to make a point of noting that Vi is involved in the entirety of the strike team invasion into Zaun. This doesn’t make the use of the gas a right, but it does draw a line under what even Vi thinks is acceptable for Silco’s goons to suffer in their quest to get Jinx. When Jinx confronts Vi about this later, Vi even says they were using the gas to minimise damage (note - Cait hasn’t lost all morals) - ‘We used the grey to clear the streets. To keep people safe.’
We see Jinx using one of the Chembarons’s minions to lure Caitlyn and Vi further down into the pipeworks. While questioning the guy, Caitlyn continues off the back of her agitation from ep2, her frustration at not having found Jinx already making her snappy and twitchy. When Caitlyn demands an answer on how Heenot got there, she looks far too trigger happy, and Vi immediately notices the unsettled shift in Caitlyn, moving to kneel in front of Heenot. This serves to put her in Cait’s eyeline in an attempt to ground her once more. Vi gets the answer Caitlyn was seeking without violence but instead of calming Caitlyn, the knowledge that Jinx is close by only seems to amplify Cait’s vehement determination for vengeance.
Vi can see Caitlyn is becoming increasingly consumed by her hatred and asks to speak to her for a moment and then— well, let’s go ahead and talk about the kiss. That first kiss…
I personally think that Vi’s voice actor Hailee Steinfeld and writer Amanda Overton give voice to my feelings on this far more coherently than I ever could:
‘The dialogue before [the kiss] says it all. Vi's in a place where she's lost everything. She's lost anything and everything she's ever felt seen by or close to," Steinfeld continued. "The only way she has any of it left is through Caitlyn, and she's now asking a lot of her, asking her not to change given what she's now going through. I think it unlocks a newfound vulnerability.’
While Amanda adds to this:
“To me, that kiss, because it comes so early in their arc, was always meant to be the right thing for the wrong reasons. You want to feel really good because they’re finally kissing, but the promise that Vi asks her in her desperation is an impossible ask. Caitlyn responds in a way where she wants this to be true, Vi wants this to be true. Both of them want this to be true, so kissing was their way of covering that up.”
I think the kiss acts as a balm to both of their insecurities and guilt about their roles in the losses they’ve faced and may face again. Do either of them believe the promise, I’m not convinced, but it’s an important moment for Caitlyn to feel reassured by Vi’s loyalty. It feels like Vi has her back as they now approach Jinx, and that if Caitlyn can make the shot, she has Vi’s blessing to do so. Vi is her strength and Caitlyn needs that before she comes face to face with Jinx once again.
The only problem with the kiss and the faux promise is that it’s fine in theory but not in practice. I think Vi was trying to convince herself she could let Jinx go for Cait’s sake, but once she sees her, especially with Isha, Vi can’t commit to it.
This is the driving wedge between her and Caitlyn, because that kiss promise they just made, well in Caitlyn’s eyes, Vi didn’t keep it. It feels like betrayal. Vi has prevented her from taking the shot against Jinx twice now.
This is the pivotal moment that ultimately leads to Caitlyn being unable to untangle Vi from Jinx in her mind. Her feelings are too clouded by her grief, and her anger finally shifts from Jinx to Vi. Vi, who in Cait’s eyes, let her down. It’s heartbreaking but in the next moment Vi pays the price for Caitlyn’s transferred anger by taking Caitlyn’s rifle to her gut. And just like that, Caitlyn breaks her promise too.
Has she really changed or is Caitlyn merely lost in her own self hatred, grief, insecurity and guilt? Whatever the answer is, without Vi, Caitlyn no longer has an anchor to stop herself spiralling completely. It leaves her vulnerable and open to manipulation as we see.
/
We see Ambessa growing impatient after Amara attacks her and reveals the Black Rose are aware that Ambessa isn’t relenting in their feud, instead she’s in Piltover looking for an advantage by gaining access to Hextech weapons. As a result Ambessa returns to manipulate Salo, wanting to use the councillor to once again to push her agenda and gain more control. But Salo is equally frustrated by his use in Ambessa’s plan. It’s during Ambessa’s exchange with Salo that Caitlyn comes up again.
We know Ambessa has taken note of Caitlyn when she stormed the council with her strike team idea and thwarted her attempt to use Salo to urge the council into a full invasion of Zaun, but in this next exchange with Salo we see Ambessa once again grasping exactly why Caitlyn could be the key to her power play.
‘It’s enough work propping you up without you dulling what few wits are left rattling around in there.’
‘If you propped as well as you prod, maybe I’d have better uses for my time than sitting around waiting for an update on Princess Kiramman’s underground escapades. She’s gotten no closer to Jinx. But that doesn’t seem to steal the stars from anyone’s eyes.’
‘Perhaps if you hadn’t let the child overpower you in your own chamber.’
‘It’s not the girl. It’s the name. It bewitches people.’
Ambessa, at this point, still intends to use Salo as her puppet by gathering the elite of Piltover, so she can essentially speak through Salo, and urge for further action to be taken against Zaun. However, the knowledge she’s gained about Caitlyn from Salo comes in very useful when Ambessa actually makes her play for power at the end of episode 3.
Mel even notes how clever and strategic Ambessa is when talking with Lest, ‘everything with my mother is a calculated risk’ showing that Ambessa will do whatever is necessary to achieve what she wants. This becomes even easier for Ambessa to do with Mel and Jayce out of the picture, leaving Piltover wide open to her manipulation.
Ambessa takes advantage of the Jinx/Zaunite attacks on Piltover and Amara’s disappearance (or shall I say, her own cover up) to create a new narrative. She starts by using Salo as her mouthpiece, here he lays the foundation that Ambessa is a trusted and worthy ally for Piltover. Whose experience Piltover should take advantage of. Ambessa continues this narrative, painting herself as a kind ally who was simply going to help Amara rebuild Piltover before the Zaunties attacked again.
Ambessa uses the continued and growing fear of the Piltover elite to encourage the conflict - ‘wrath must be met with wrath.’ - setting up the idea of martial law as a necessary move to protect the people and return Piltover to safety once more. We see Salo thinking he’s finally going to be rewarded for being Ambessa’s puppet, only for Ambessa to manoeuvre past him. She takes the knowledge he’s given her about Caitlyn Kiramman and the worth of her name and chooses her to command instead.
Ambessa knows of Caitlyn’s grief and her unwavering desire to bring Jinx to justice in vengeance for her mother’s death, and now Ambessa can take Caitlyn Kiramman and twist her focus to encompass more. Caitlyn Kiramman can be the pawn Ambessa uses to start the conflict between Piltover and Zaun. Caitlyn Kiramman will get the elite to listen. Caitlyn Kiramman will use Hextech weaponry to do so, and in doing so, Caitlyn Kiramman will give Ambessa the power she needs to confront the Black Rose.
At first Caitlyn is shocked by Ambessa’s decision to choose her for command but once Ambessa and the Noxian’s begin their chest salute, Caitlyn becomes overwhelmed with the pressure of the Kiramman name. She told her dad she didn’t feel worthy or ready, and here is Ambessa, someone the Piltover elite now trust, someone with experience, who is saying she believes Caitlyn is the right person to protect the people. It forces Caitlyn to step up and fill that hole her mother left; to represent Piltover as a Kiramman. Ambessa achieves this cleverly by taking advantage of Caitlyn at her lowest. Ambessa plays into the combination of Caitlyn’s own guilt, grief and self loathing and peer pressure, and buckles Caitlyn to her will, molding her into a Commander who will carry out unspeakable things to grasp power.
Let’s talk about the persuasion of the peer pressure - it’s peer pressure that comes not only from the Noxian army but also from Caitlyn’s own enforcers - Maddie being the one to chest salute from Piltover’s side first. It’s not surprising given we know she’s a spy - but before this knowledge is gained Maddie is seen as a good hearted, kind enforcer wanting to do the right thing. Without Vi there to question and anchor Caitlyn, Maddie is a familiar and reassuring face Cait can turn to. So when Maddie joins the Noxians supporting Caitlyn for commander, so too does everybody else. Now it’s Piltover looking at Caitlyn to make this right.
What do you do when someone you think you trust encourages you to step up? When everyone who relies on the Kiramman name wants to believe in you? It feels like a task Caitlyn cannot fail in… not like she failed her mother.
Ambessa, seeing Caitlyn beginning to cave to the responsibility, uses the rawness of Caitlyn’s grief to manipulate her again, just as Caitlyn might possibly be starting to question it all. Before the doubts can fully form in her head, Ambessa is there, oinking her poison into Caitlyn’s ear - ‘your mother will have justice. I swear it’.
There’s that question for Caitlyn and the audience again - how far are you willing to go for those you love?
It’s Ambessa’s manipulation at its finest, a final, powerful shove in the direction Ambessa wants, and Caitlyn, in her broken state, falls for it.
It’s these events of the entirety of Act 1 that I believe sways Cait into taking the position of commander. By giving Caitlyn the power of command over the enforcers and her Noxian army, Ambessa enables Caitlyn to descend into an even darker spiral of moral ambiguity.
/
Act 2 -
Ep 4 -
In the opening montage we see Caitlyn’s martial law in effect. Under her visage, the enforcers and Noxians flood the Undercity, hunting Jinx, and arresting those they see as a threat. We can all agree here that Caitlyn’s morals have tumbled; she allows a (necessary - Cait’s opinion, not mine) increased amount of violence in order to maintain control, and this is obviously met with resistance from the Zaunties. It’s the cycle of violence churning, and Caitlyn, under Ambessa’s guidance allows it to happen fuelled by her hyper-fixation on capturing Jinx.
I’d like to point out that the use of the Jinx wanted posters throughout this episode is huge. For Caitlyn and Piltover, Jinx is justification for what they’re doing. And for Zaun, Jinx becomes the one thing they can all start to unite behind despite their differences; in the most ironic turn around, Jinx becomes a symbol of hope and rebellion for Zaun against their oppressors.
Despite Caitlyn being in command of the martial law taking place, I think the scene with Maddie highlights that she hasn’t disowned her morals entirely, they haven’t changed, they’ve just become clouded by her grief and Ambessa’s manipulating encouragement. We get a hint of this as it appears that Caitlyn isn’t sleeping well, the tensions between the two cities clearly playing heavily on her mind. We see further hints of this when Caitlyn confesses to Maddie that she didn’t think the invasion would go on so long.
‘I never expected this to go on so long. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Just… it wasn’t this.’- this shows that Caitlyn didn’t know what exactly she was taking on when she took command. How could she? Before any of this happened she was an enforcer with restricted responsibility thanks to the protection of her mother, and now she’s not only in charge of her house and its legacy, but she’s taken control of Piltover’s safety. It’s a big burden to bear and it’s clear the direction she’s taken has left her uncertain about her choices.
Maddie in return seems to act as both the angel and devil on Cait’s shoulders, in one breath she’s endorsing the Noxian’s increasing violence by reassuring Cait that it’s for Piltover’s safety, and the next she’s telling Caitlyn she could withdraw from the Undercity. Without Vi there now to ground Caitlyn in the harsh realities of her choices, Maddie’s angel/devil act further serves as part of Ambessa’s manipulation, isolating Caitlyn in Ambessa’s ideals alone, and keeps Caitlyn spiraling even when her morals begin to creep back in and make her conviction wobble slightly.
When Maddie teasingly calls Caitlyn ‘Ambessa’ it snaps Caitlyn out of her disillusionment, and keeps her focused on her unfulfilled goal of getting Jinx, citing that Ambessa’s methods do work. She’s delivering what she promised Piltover and Caitlyn she would deliver, and all Caitlyn has to do is stay on the path Ambessa has set out before her.
Maddie also uses this opportunity to try and make Caitlyn feel in control. While Caitlyn’s doubts about the marital law materialise, Maddie forces Caitlyn to look at herself in the mirror and reminds her that Caitlyn is the leader they follow. It catapults Caitlyn back to the weight of responsibility she feels in the wake of losing her mother. Piltover chose her because she’s a Kiramman and Caitlyn cannot let them down, she has a hole to fill. This pushes her to ignore any niggling doubts and press forward with her efforts to secure Jinx.
Another scene where we can see that Caitlyn isn’t completely lost in her darkness is during her exchange with Ambessa. Ambessa rightfully notes that Jinx’s return will further ignite Zaun’s resistance to the martial law, but that it also finally gives them a lead on Jinx. When Caitlyn doesn’t seem elated at the news, Ambessa questions why Caitlyn isn’t more encouraged.
It’s here that Caitlyn’s core morals and doubts of Ambessa begin to shine through again. Caitlyn questions why Ambessa has urged the Noxians to become more violent, and Ambessa is clear in her response; someone in Zaun knows where Jinx is and she will use whatever force is necessary to get the answer.
Caitlyn is relentless though, and her core morals once again challenge Ambessa’s approach - ‘arrests require cause’ - showing that Caitlyn is still trying to stay within a somewhat structured justice system. She might be ruthless and unyielding in her quest for Jinx but she’s not trying to be unnecessarily cruel.
Ambessa is always one step ahead though and we see her try to pacify Caitlyn’s doubts by reminding her of her duty to Piltover - ‘what greater cause is there than returning peace to this city?’
But Caitlyn isn’t entirely pacified by Ambessa’s remarks and we see her challenge her back with an important question; ‘why is peace always the justification for violence?’
This is a question not only for Ambessa and Caitlyn but also the audience. It asks the audience to think about this statement in regards to the whole show; to every character. How far is too far? When do you stop yourself from becoming something other than yourself in the name of protecting/saving those you love?
Ambessa responds by saying she understands how tiring vengeance can be, but she knows Caitlyn won’t be able to rest while she knows Jinx is out there. I believe this is one of the only honest moments Ambessa gives us. We know she too cannot rest while the Black Rose is out there threatening her family, it’s what drives her to achieve power and will keep driving her no matter the cost. But despite this brief moment of honesty, as per her character, Ambessa seizes the moment to manipulate Caitlyn again by questioning her conviction - ‘maybe I underestimated you. Maybe you have the strength I do not. To forgive and trust in tomorrow.’
By leaving the choice in Caitlyn’s hands Ambessa triggers Caitlyn to remember what her inaction caused her before; her mother’s death. It’s why we next see a guilt ridden Caitlyn at her mother’s statue and why, I believe, Cait can’t escape the darkness still clutching at her ankles yet. Having fallen victim to Ambessa manipulation once again we see her allowing the Noxian soldiers to carry out more violence and mass arresting of the Zaunties.
Last thought for episode 4 - Caitlyn’s face overlapping with Jinx’s wanted poster shows the monsters they’ve both become as a result of their traumas. Jinx is a product of her abandonment that festered (under Silco) into a chaotic resentment and anger towards Vi that fundamentally changed who she was/is. The same can be said for Caitlyn in Act 1-2. As a result of Jinx killing her mother, Caitlyn becomes a product of her trauma; her grief and guilt twist her empathy and understanding into that of unbridled anger (fuelled by Ambessa). Now Cait is left desperately seeking justice to soothe her wounds, and it causes her to commit horrible acts in her quest.
Even when Caitlyn does make attempts to remind herself of her true morals, she’s met with Jinx’s taunts, Vi’s betrayal (in her eyes) and Ambessa’s manipulation, just as Jinx always had Silco whispering in her ear.
It’s a cycle of anger and self destruction that Caitlyn and Jinx cannot break… not yet anyway.
/
Ep 5 -
We begin this episode with Caitlyn arriving at Stillwater in the wake of Warwick’s attack. She has to pass through the blood and bodies of her comrades and see first hand the destruction that’s taken place. While she and Ambessa question Singed over the attack, we see just how fractured Caitlyn’s mind is becoming the longer Jinx evades her. It seems here, that Caitlyn thought her dismantling of shimmer earlier on would slow/stop Zaun from producing chemically advanced weapons created from experiments. But the Warwick attack proves her wrong. Singed has created something far worse, and Caitlyn’s immediate response is to discover how it’s connected to Jinx.
It’s quite an ironic scene because Singed is almost mocking Caitlyn for being so single-minded. Zaun is more than just Jinx - something Caitlyn used to be able to comprehend before her grief - and he can see that Caitlyn is blinded to that, blaming her impatience and youth.
We also get to see here how Caitlyn has made use of Stillwater for those that she’s arrested during the period of martial law - ‘there are cells buried deep within this prison so devoid of light and fresh air and all basic human considerations that up till now, I have forbidden their use.’
Has Caitlyn wrongly arrested Zaunties? I have no doubt that she has. But has she tried not to go so far into the darkness that she forgets all her morals and becomes a complete monster? I think so. She remembers the torment and suffering Vi suffered in Stillwater (even when they’re apart Vi is the grounding force that tries to creep in and pull Caitlyn back from the worst of herself). I don’t think Caitlyn is cruel by nature. She does have a good heart. It's just buried so deep beneath her guilt and grief that she’s committed acts she never thought she would, and she can’t seem to stop committing them while she feels Jinx is still a threat to Piltover.
The last we see of Caitlyn in that scene she threatens Signed with spending the rest of his days in Stillwater. A promise she will keep if he doesn’t cooperate to help them destroy the beast.
When we next see Singed however, he’s with Ambessa. Ambessa who has quickly and strategically concluded that if Hextech is unreachable due to Jayce’s absence, the beast that Signed has created is the next best weapon she could have in her arsenal. Warwick might in fact be more powerful. Here Ambessa cuts a deal with Singed; his loyalty and the beast for her cause, in exchange for his freedom and allowance to keep experimenting. It’s clearly not something Ambessa informs Caitlyn of, who I’m assuming she keeps in the dark. Ambessa allows Caitlyn to keep believing that Singed is only being freed so that they can find the beast and destroy it before it attacks Piltover.
We get to see in this episode that the doubts we see Caitlyn beginning to have about Ambessa and the disillusionment we see Caitlyn facing about her role in the invasion of Zaun continue to gnaw at her, especially after Singed’s poignant remark that ‘no one in power is innocent.’ I think this is a statement that makes Caitlyn pause and look at herself. If Signed isn’t innocent for his creation, is she innocent for the violence she’s allowed?
When we next see Ambessa, Signed and Caitlyn share a scene together, it’s with Signed conducting an experiment that will hopefully allow them to locate the beast.
Caitlyn, who looks less than thrilled with the arrangement of his freedom, makes it known that she understood Signed’s barbed statement last time, and as a result she’s used her position as a Kiramman to look into him to discover how deep his crimes go. It also highlights that she distrusts the reasoning Ambessa has given her for Signed’s release. We know after all that during the previous episode Ambessa made it clear she couldn’t forgive and forget. That she would always fight and do whatever was necessary to win with no regrets.
What Caitlyn has discovered is that the Piltover academy once had a revered alchemist who was banished as a result of his work. The results of which were never recorded. We know from S1 that Jayce’s creation of Hextech was considered so dangerous that it almost got him banished until he stabilised it. But what does the Undercity have that’s equally as dangerous as Hextech and yet entirely unstable and uncontrollable; shimmer.
Caitlyn’s headstrong intellect makes a delightful return here when we see her work out that Singed was the banished alchemist Dr Reveck. She recoils in disgust at his creation of shimmer, which has always been a threat, not only to Piltover, but to Zaun. The damage of which Caitlyn saw firsthand in season 1 when she was in Zaun with Vi.
She calls Signed a monster and demands to know why he created shimmer and why he continues to experiment so dangerously that he creates these violent abominations.
For Singed the answer is easy - ‘Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? For love.’
At the sight of Signed’s daughter, kept alive by these unthinkable, grotesque experiments, Caitlyn is then forced to face an ugly truth, something which she and Singed both share. They have both committed horrible deeds to alleviate the harrowing pain of loss that only comes from losing someone you love.
It holds a mirror up to Caitlyn and her actions in such a raw way that I don’t think any other moment has done yet. Is this the wake up call Caitlyn needs to finally break the chains of Ambessa’s manipulation and away from the darkness pulling her further and further away from her true self?
I guess we’ll see.
——
Ep 6 -
While the previous episode gives us our first proper glimmer of hope that Caitlyn is slowly waking up from her darkness and may start breaking away from Ambessa soon, this episode gives us the culmination of events that actually drive Cait to that very point of disentangling herself from Ambessa’s web of manipulation.
But let’s rewind a second to see how exactly Caitlyn gets there.
Episode 6 starts off with a very clever and insightful fight sequence. Here we see Ambessa sparring with Caitlyn and training her in the Noxian ways.
Here are the key principles Ambessa teaches Caitlyn:
‘Noxus prizes strength above all else, defining it by three core principles. Vision. The top of the triangle, charting a course and having the wisdom to navigate it. This form is your base, child. Your eyes see what others don't. Might. Bending your environment to your will. Your speed is improving. But eventually you need force.’
‘Too much force exposes you to risk.’
‘Indeed. The last is guile. Phantoms. Tricksters. Mages. Absent honour. Absent accountability. Remember this, Caitlyn. Tunnels in your eyes. Lava in your veins. Shadows in your heart. This is the truth of combat.’
But oh no, that’s not all. Ambessa enlightens Caitlyn to her final, most important lesson:
‘I’ve discovered a fourth principle. One that heightens all others. Sacrifice. The temper born of suffering. We understand it as others cannot. We are kin.’
Now, this may just seem like Ambessa being Ambessa but it provides Caitlyn with two things:
1) her combat skill set has definitely approved under Ambessa and continues to do so
2) Caitlyn has the inner-knowledge of how Ambessa’s mind works.
This becomes vital later on in the remaining episodes.
Some people might be confused by Caitlyn’s participation here given that she was starting to doubt Ambessa in the previous episode. However, the beast is still at large and a threat to both Piltover and Zaun. Caitlyn needs to aid Ambessa in putting him down.
Singed leads Ambessa, Caitlyn and the Noxian army through Zaun to the commune Viktor has established. Here is where Signed has tracked his beast. While Ambessa seems hell bent on attacking the commune without a second thought in order to capture the beast, we see Caitlyn looking unsure. Her suspicions that Ambessa is up to something heighten when she allows Singed to enter the commune to talk to Viktor.
Up until this point Caitlyn believes their goal is to eliminate the beast since it’s such a threat to Piltover and Zaun, but when she witnesses Ambessa and Signed plotting together, I believe she starts questioning their true intent regarding the beast.
The next time we see Caitlyn she appears to be creeping around the outskirts of her and Ambessa’s makeshift camp. Why would she be doing that if she wasn’t doubting Ambessa and Singed? Caitlyn isn’t stupid, she knows Ambessa is highly driven by power, but power at the expense of a peaceful commune? I’m not sure even Caitlyn is willing to cross that line. Her morals have gotten lost but they haven’t gone completely. Caitlyn has always tried to hold onto them. We see that here again. These morals come rushing back when Caitlyn’s natural detective skills lead her to piece together that Ambessa and Signed are planning a way to capture the beast, not destroy it.
This to me is Caitlyn’s turning point, as she realises that Ambessa and Signed with the beast at their disposal will be a much bigger threat to Piltover and Zaun than Jinx ever could have been.
Caitlyn has already reached this conclusion before she spots someone creeping about and puts their ass on the ground. Before she realises it’s Vi creeping around.
The fact that it is Vi following Singed, and the fact that Vi is at the commune at all gives Caitlyn even greater reason to question Ambessa. These two may not have spoken in months but they see each other. They always have.
When Caitlyn says ‘you can’t be here’ it’s not because she doesn’t want to see Vi, or because she’s dismissing her, but because she knows Ambessa is dangerous. Because despite everything that’s happened Caitlyn wants to protect Vi. Plus, Caitlyn knows that Vi being there is a weakness for her, she won’t be able to do what she needs to do to stop Ambessa if she’s worrying about Vi in the crossfire.
It’s Vi, however, questioning Caitlyn in return that falters Caitlyn’s cold focus. Why is Caitlyn there on the job? And is she still acting like an unhinged mongoose?
Caitlyn mimics the insult of ‘mongoose’ but I think it’s the word ‘unhinged’ that cracks her steely veneer. Her grief and guilt did make her unhinged. The last time they were together she hit Vi in the stomach with her rifle in the wake of what she perceived as Vi’s betrayal of her. In the months since I’m sure that act has haunted Caitlyn. Vi disappeared from her life without another word and it’s because of Caitlyn’s actions.
(Was Maddie the perfect distraction to the heartbreak she caused herself? I think so. Maddie allowed Caitlyn not to think about Vi, and Caitlyn needed that in order to reassure herself that her actions were necessary and justified. A perfect example of ‘the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves’).
Without Vi around, Caitlyn was able to really access those darker parts of herself, and while Caitlyn felt like she needed to do that in order to keep herself focused on Jinx, we can see the cost of it. We see it in Caitlyn’s uncertainty in her actions, in her doubts of Ambessa, in the threat of the beast, and in Vi’s appearance.
When Vi pushes Caitlyn off her in response, Caitlyn moves back limply, a little bit of the fight knocked out of her. Did Vi’s insult hold a mirror up to Caitlyn? I think so. It’s an uncomfortable pill to swallow, and we see that manifest in the way Caitlyn shifts her focus onto Vi’s hair.
‘Your hair. You look like an angry oil slick.’
‘Don’t sugarcoat it, cupcake.’
Vi doesn’t trade insults with Caitlyn. She doesn’t berate her further than getting Caitlyn to back off so she can sit up. Instead she takes Caitlyn’s comment and gives Caitlyn warmth in return. The use of the ‘cupcake’ nickname is familiar, affectionate. In that single moment it breaks the tension between them. Is there anger between them? Yes. Unresolved issues? Yes. But there’s also an innate trust. So when Vi asks what Caitlyn is doing at the commune, Caitlyn tells the truth. And when Caitlyn asks Vi why she’s there in return, Vi tells the truth.
‘We tracked some sort of new chemweapon down here. A bloodthirsty, murderous, beast. What are you doing here?’
‘Trying to save… my dad.’
We don’t see Vi reveal to Caitlyn the true extent of what happened to Vander, and Vi purposely omits Jinx’s involvement, but what she tells Caitlyn is enough for Caitlyn to make her decision to betray Ambessa.
We’ve seen time and time again that Vi fights because she’s always had to, but Caitlyn fights because she wants to. It’s what made Vi trust Caitlyn in the first place. And although she knows Caitlyn still hates/resents Jinx, she trusts Caitlyn enough in that moment to fight for what’s right like she always has before. Vi completely kills Caitlyn’s idea that Warwick is just a beast. The second Vi confides in her that this beast is actually Vander, her dad, Caitlyn starts seeing him as human. And not just any human; a human hugely important to Vi. Those doubts Caitlyn had about Ambessa and Singed? They’re cemented here. She trusts Vi and believes Vi, and that headstrong Caitlyn from S1 who wants to do the right thing and protect the people she loves? She shows up for Vi now.
Grayson once asked Caitlyn what she was shooting for, and we see the answer here clearly; Caitlyn will shoot to protect those she loves. Vi needs her help and her protection and Caitlyn is going to do just that because despite everything that's happened to them and between them, Caitlyn loves Vi. It’s that simple.
They’ve always worked better together, and we see that here. Their balance slowly returns as they plot to infiltrate Ambessa’s camp with Vi as Caitlyn’s prisoner. It creates a perfect distraction and takes Ambessa out of play, while Caitlyn stops Singed and saves Vander. If anybody could bring Caitlyn back out of her darkness and ground her, redirect her focus, and free her from Ambessa’s manipulation, it’s Vi.
The following scene between Ambessa, Vi and Caitlyn is amazing at showing just how much trust and understanding is still between Cait and Vi despite their bond not being fully healed. Caitlyn’s (fake) delivery of Vi into Ambessa’s hands cements Caitlyn as a worthy ally in Ambessa’s eyes. Remember, Ambessa sent a young Mel away because she considered Mel her weakness, and here we see Caitlyn handing over Vi, someone who Ambessa knows has Caitlyn’s heart (is her weakness). It’s such a powerplay from Caitlyn; she takes what she knows about how Ambessa’s mind works and uses that to her advantage to stage her betrayal.
Ambessa’s biggest mistake in this scene is her arrogance. She doesn’t consider for a second that Caitlyn will betray her. While she understands that Vi must be disposed of before she becomes a distraction for Caitlyn and ruins all of Ambessa’s manipulations, she fails to comprehend just how easily Vi could have gotten through to Caitlyn.
In fact, Ambessa even gloats about how Vi’s absence provided a vacuum she was able to fill in Caitlyn; with manipulation, with Maddie, with fuelled hatred. Without Vi to ground her, Caitlyn, in Ambessa’s eyes, was easily shaped into her cold, ruthless commander. She can’t have Vi ruining that now. It’s why she knows she has to kill her if she wants to keep Caitlyn as her puppet.
The problem with Ambessa putting all of her money on Caitlyn’s hate for Jinx being stronger than any of her past feelings for Vi, is that Ambessa completely fails to recognise that Vi has already saved Caitlyn. All it took was for their eyes to lock again and Vi shattered the hard shell Ambessa worked hard to build around Caitlyn.
Don’t get me wrong, Caitlyn was starting to save herself (unbeknown to Ambessa, thanks to her ego) but Vi showed up at the right time, in the right place and offered Caitlyn a hand. A hand that Caitlyn took without a second of doubt.
Ambessa overlooks the importance of Vi’s duality to Caitlyn, that’s she’s Caitlyn’s biggest weakness but she’s also her biggest strength, until it’s too late. Caitlyn is already distracted, she’s already made her choice; it’s Vi.
I think this shows major growth for Caitlyn, because even though she doesn’t know about Jinx’s involvement at this stage, she still chooses Vi over Ambessa. She chooses Vi over her mission. She chooses Vi over her grief. It doesn’t take back her mistakes but it sets Caitlyn back on the right path, the path where she will protect people, especially those she loves.
Caitlyn follows Vi’s plan to subdue Signed and attempts to help Vander but Rictus stops her. It seems that while Ambessa trusted Caitlyn, Rictus wasn’t convinced. Just as it looks like he will kill Caitlyn, Jinx fires a shot and saves her.
Does Jinx do it because she cares about Caitlyn? No. Jinx saves Caitlyn to save Vander. Does Jinx know deep down that killing Caitlyn would affect the bridges she’s building with Vi? I absolutely think so.
As Vander saves Jinx from Rictus we see Vi rush in and embrace her family. Caitlyn, while betrayed by Jinx’s unexpected involvement, and who is still knocked down on the floor, briefly locks eyes with Vi only to witness Vi smiling and happy with her family.
This is the first time Caitlyn gets to see Vi freely happy with the people she loves. All she’s ever witnessed from Vi before is pain. Pain at losing her parents, pain at losing Vander, pain at being locked away for years, pain for leaving Powder and having to accept Jinx. Pain from Caitlyn. And Jinx is right there too, looking happy and holding Vander and Vi in return. Has Vi forgiven Jinx? Can Vi forgive her? Can Caitlyn forgive any of it?
It’s a lot for Caitlyn to process and she doesn’t really get a chance to before Jayce hammers Viktor to death and sends the place into chaos.
Instead we see Caitlyn following behind Vi and Jinx as they run outside to see what’s going on. Warwick is back to being bloodthirsty now that Viktor is dead, and Ambessa has arrived with the Noxian army seeking revenge. Her eyes piercing Caitlyn glaringly for her betrayal before she attacks.
It’s important to note that not once during the fight sequence with Vander and the Noxians do we see Caitlyn try and take a shot at Jinx. She easily could have, at multiple points, but she doesn’t.
Why?
Because when she freed Vi from Stillwater in S1 she decided to trust her. She trusted her because beneath Vi’s tough exterior Caitlyn could see her pain. Since that moment all Caitlyn has wanted to do is soothe Vi’s wounded heart. It’s why she didn’t shoot Jinx in the season 1 finale, it’s why she lets Vi stop her shooting Jinx in Ep3, and it’s why she doesn’t try to shoot Jinx now.
Caitlyn has been devastated by the loss of her mother at Jinx’s hands. It’s a pain she will never fully heal from, and in these moments Caitlyn has to decide if she wants to be responsible for adding to Vi’s pain. Can she kill Vi’s sister? Can she cause more suffering to the woman she loves? More than she already has? The answer is a resounding no.
Because despite everything, Caitlyn is a good person with a good heart. She was just swept away and lost in her grief. But now she’s anchored again thanks to Vi. She may never forgive Jinx, she may always hate her for what she did but she will always love Vi more.
We see Caitlyn protecting Vi during the fight, and we even see her letting Vi go in order to save Jinx when she gallantly rushes in to try and save Isha.
By the end of Act 2 we stop seeing Commander Caitlyn Kiramman here and simply see Cait again. She’s definitely more bruised and hardened by her trauma and experiences but she’s there, fighting her way back to the surface.
This takes us into Act 3 and Caitlyn’s reconciliation with her true self and her steps towards atonement.
/
Act 3:
Ep 8 -
This episode starts with an unconscious Vi awakening after her near death experience in ep6. Loris is there when she wakes and he tries to calm her down by answering her burning questions about the locations of Jinx and Cait.
Let’s just take a second to note that Vi isn’t just anywhere in Piltover, oh no, she’s tucked safely in Caitlyn’s bed in the Kiramman house. And Loris openly tells her that Caitlyn rounded up a squad of doctors to patch her back together. There’s a bunch of pillows piled on the side next to Vi - did Caitlyn watch over her while she healed? The show doesn’t explicitly state it, but Loris implies that Caitlyn wanted to be there when Vi woke, suggesting that Caitlyn hasn’t left her side often, and the reason for her absence must be important.
We get to see why Caitlyn isn’t at Vi’s side when she wakes just seconds later. Caitlyn is with Maddie, contemplating Ambessa’s inevitable attack on Piltover. She knows it’s coming, especially now that Ambessa knows of her betrayal. Considering Caitlyn has been the commander of the invasion into Zaun for months at this point, here we see her approach to be a little more cautious. No longer is she so warped by Ambessa’s reckless ways, or her hate fuelled mission for revenge against Jinx, now Caitlyn is trying to find her feet as commander in her own way; listening to her own morals and trying to make the right choices. Caitlyn knows there won’t be any negotiations with Ambessa thanks to her betrayal, and so careful, clever strategy is what she’s going to need to come up with, and fast, if she’s to save Piltover.
Maddie tries to offer comfort but Caitlyn straight up rejects her. Why? Because there was never any true affection between them. Maddie was just a distraction, a warm body to keep Caitlyn’s focus away from Vi and stuck in the darkness she was drowning in. But now that Vi's back in her orbit, Caitlyn is even less interested in Maddie, and the second Vi storms in demanding answers about Jinx, Caitlyn dismisses Maddie without a second thought.
Here we see some of the tension between Caitlyn and Vi boil to the surface. Their reunion in the previous episode was quick, it was based on innate trust and convenience, but there was no time for a proper resolution to the issues between them. Vi demands answers for why Jinx is locked away, accusing Caitlyn of still being on her blinding revenge quest against Jinx. When Caitlyn’s initial attempt to calm Vi falls on deaf ears, she retorts with anger at Vi’s lack of trust in her to do the right thing.
‘Arrested?’
‘Vi…’
‘She saved your life.’
‘If you will just calm down for one—’
‘Even knowing you’d never have done the same for her.’
‘We’ll never know, will we? You didn’t let me in on that part of your plan.’
‘Clearly the right call, since you can’t trust her enough not to shove her in a box.’
‘Trust? You believe I’m so daft I can’t recognise a contingency? She wasn’t there for my benefit. You didn’t trust me to follow through.’
‘Can you blame me? How long were you sidled up with that shifty, self-serving war pig? She oinked poison in your ear, and you just ate it!’
I think Vi’s defence here is fair, given that Vi not only witnessed Caitlyn’s hatred for Jinx morph into an obsession, but that she also got a taste of Caitlyn’s spiral into darkness herself when Caitlyn was cruel to her in ep3. She was in Zaun the entire time Caitlyn was enforcing Ambessa’s martial law too. Vi has seen the violence and the damage done at Caitlyn’s hands with her own eyes. So it’s not a surprise that Vi didn’t trust her fully when they reunited in ep6. Caitlyn has been under Ambessa’s thumb for far too long for Vi to assess just how much lasting damage has been done to Caitlyn in ep6.
When Vi confronts Caitlyn with this harsh reality, Caitlyn cracks in shame and anger - ‘I know!’
Caitlyn can see what she’s done, what she’s become, and she takes accountability for it with this simple acknowledgement. She’s not a words girl, we know she’s more emotionally repressed when it comes to expressing herself that way, but as she sinks back onto the arm of the couch we can physically see her deflation. Caitlyn is very much aware of her mistakes. She knows she’s had her grief manipulated and that to an extent, because of her hatred of Jinx, she let it happen. It has cost Caitlyn greatly, and we see how fragile her relationship with Vi is now as a result.
But the best thing about this much needed heated exchange is that Caitlyn gets to show Vi that she’s not completely lost to her, that she has managed to start pulling herself out of her darkness.
‘The only thing Jinx cared about was getting you to safety. Then she just surrendered. I didn’t even have time to think before they hailed her off. She’s being held in the bunker while I decide what to do. I was waiting for you to recover.’
Why did Caitlyn wait?
Well she unfairly pushed the enforcer badge on to Vi back in episode 1 because she selfishly needed reassurance and loyalty during her spiraling grief. She forced Vi to choose between her and Jinx when deep down Cait knew that would be an impossible thing for Vi to do.
Caitlyn waiting for Vi to recover before any decision is made about what happens to Jinx proves that Cait wants to atone. It shows Vi where she’s at, and Vi recognises the gesture immediately. There’s her Cait. It’s not commander Kiramman sitting before her, but the woman she was falling for back before Jinx’s attack at the end of season 1.
It gives Vi all she needs to fight for her family; for Jinx and for Cait.
‘Cait, she’s changed.’
Vi wants Cait to understand what she’s been going through, what she’s witnessed in regards to Jinx and Isha and the bridges they were beginning to build. But even though Cait hears this - Jinx saved her when she easily could have let Rictus kill her - she can’t quite accept it. Not because she doesn’t necessarily believe Vi but because how can anybody accept the unspeakable violence and acts that Jinx has done? That Caitlyn has done? In Caitlyn’s mind they’re inescapable and unforgivable.
‘We can’t erase our mistakes. None of us.’
But Vi is the voice of reason and immediately challenges her response with this soul searching question - ‘who decides who gets a second chance?’
The conflicting expressions that flicker across Caitlyn’s face as Vi leaves her at the end of this scene shows how carefully and heavily this question sits in Cait’s chest.
Who does get to decide who deserves a second chance? Is it the responsibility of someone else to decide if you’re worthy? Or is it up to you to free yourself from the burdens of your mistakes?
It’s a set of questions that Caitlyn takes with her when she visits Jinx in her cell.
We start by seeing Caitlyn taking Jinx a tray of food, a sign of her good heart and the extension of a tentative olive branch before they get into having their first ever, real conversation.
‘Vi thinks that you’ve changed.’
‘She can’t accept what you and I know. There are no happy endings.’
Jinx’s response to Caitlyn’s statement immediately brings us back to Vi’s question for Caitlyn - ‘who decides who gets a second chance?’
Jinx is just as closed off to the idea as Caitlyn (‘We can’t erase our mistakes. None of us.’) and that immediately triggers Caitlyn. Because if they’re right, if they don’t deserve second chances, what’s left of them both?
Caitlyn wants accountability; from Jinx, from herself, and so she presses further:
‘Is that all you have to say for yourself? There won’t be a trial. I’m giving you this one chance to account for your actions, all the pain you’ve caused.’
But Jinx continues to look defeated and doesn’t react, showing a shell of the person Caitlyn knew her to be - the Jinx that Caitlyn despised. Caitlyn grows frustrated and bangs her fist into the cell bars.
‘No amount of good deeds can undo our crimes.’
Here Caitlyn takes accountability by saying ‘our crimes’, she knows they’ve both caused pain, but even that doesn’t get a reaction. Jinx is empty; empty of anger, of hate, of taunts. All the time she’s spent being vengeful hasn’t made her feel better, or changed anything that’s happened, it’s just left her utterly exhausted. There’s no fight left in her and she admits as much to Caitlyn:
‘Do what you came here to do.’
Caitlyn’s lingering anger disappears instantly as she recognises Jinx’s predicament as her own. The cost of their hatred, of their vengeance hasn’t been worth it. It’s cost them both exponentially. They’re both shells of who they were, who they should be.
‘Hating you… I’ve hated myself. I just don’t have the energy for it any longer.’
Caitlyn starts to walk away but before she gets far Jinx gives her the accountability that Caitlyn needs to hear from Jinx in order to free herself of her self hatred:
‘I didn’t know your mom was there. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but… I didn’t know.’
It’s not a sorry. These two will never say sorry to each other. They will never like each other. But this is the moment Caitlyn lets go of her hatred, of her need for justice. Jinx’s confession releases Caitlyn from the burden of her guilt over her mother’s death and breaks their cycle of violence.
In return, we see Caitlyn answer Vi’s question. She doesn’t say sorry, or beg for forgiveness, she acts. She orders all the guards to the Hexgates, leaving Jinx unguarded, and in doing so grants Jinx her second chance. She does it not only for herself and for Jinx, but for Vi.
Caitlyn knows Vi will free Jinx because Vi loves unconditionally. She fights for those she loves and she can’t give up on Jinx because they’re family and Vi feels responsible for her. It’s the essence of who Vi is.
It’s something Caitlyn has come to understand from her grief because she too couldn’t let go; of her mother, of her guilt, of her hatred. It’s because of love that she became the commander and made the mistakes she did, and it’s because of love that Vi will do what she needs to save her sister. But most importantly it's because of love that Caitlyn is willing to let Vi save Jinx, even if that means letting Vi go. Cait’s giving Vi the freedom to make her own choice despite knowing it could cost her what she wants. And what Caitlyn wants more than anything is Vi.
Caitlyn’s atonement for her sins begins in that one beautiful, selfless act of letting go.
When we next see Caitlyn she is freeing Vi from the cell that Jinx locked her in. Vi is punishing herself for what she thinks is her having made the wrong choice again. She really thought Jinx would help, but she didn’t, she left Vi, and now Vi’s worried that by betraying Cait to free Jinx, she’s lost Caitlyn too.
‘Did you really think I needed all the guards at the Hexgates? Sorry to say, you’ve grown a bit predictable.’
We already know that Cait set Jinx’s escape up for Vi. That she prioritized her love for Vi over her hatred for Jinx, and in the one confession, Vi now knows it too. Caitlyn acted for her. Caitlyn sees Vi and accepts her fully.
We’ve already established that Caitlyn knew Vi would try to save her sister, but what we didn’t know for certain, and what Caitlyn most definitely didn’t know for certain, is would Vi still be there and would Vi still want her?
Here we get Vi’s answer when Vi finally takes what she wants and kisses Cait.
Caitlyn can’t quite believe it, but when Vi just keeps on kissing her, it clicks for Cait that Vi does want her just as much as she wants Vi.
I adore the use of lighting in this scene, and I’ve seen a few wonderful posts analysing this in detail, so I won’t overstep. But i just wanted to note how clever it is to see Vi pull Cait out of darkness and back into the light. And while we’re talking about the light I will quickly add on a bit about Maddie. Vi couldn’t give two fucks about her. She didn’t when she met her, she didn’t when she saw her in Cait’s house, and she doesn’t give a fuck if she was in Cait’s bed. Vi knows Cait lost herself, and Maddie was simply something for Cait to lose herself in, as much as fighting and alcohol was for Vi. All that matters is now, and what matters now is her and Cait.
I could talk about their sex scene beat by beat but I think the fandom has analysed it to death beautifully already. What I will say is we see the culmination of both their arcs here. Vi, at Jinx’s behest, finally lets herself be happy and what makes her happy is Caitlyn. And Caitlyn uses every touch to apologise, to show her love and regret to Vi. She gives up the control that has kept her blindly focused on her revenge and hatred. Cait gives herself over completely to Vi’s love and redeems her soul by doing so. It’s beautiful to see Vi finally take what she wants.
The culmination of this episode is heartwarming. We see Cait giving Jinx a second chance, Jinx then in turn gives Vi a second chance by setting her free from the burden of their tormented past, and Vi returns that grace by granting Cait a second chance from her mistakes.
The three of them break the cycle together.
—-
Ep 9 -
A lot happens in this final episode but I’m strictly going to try and focus on Caitlyn and Vi before this analysis grows any longer.
Piltover is preparing for Ambessa’s and Viktor’s attack. We see Caitlyn and Vi in the council bunker with Jayce and Mel. Here Jayce tells Caitlyn, Vi and Mel that he needs them to take the enforcers and buy him as much time against Ambessa’s forces while he shuts down the Hexgates.
When Jayce says this is a fight they’re supposed to lose, Vi’s fist visibly clenches. She doesn’t like losing fights, and definitely doesn’t want to lose this one now that she’s finally letting herself be happy, but you can tell Vi is tired. She’s been fucking through it emotionally and physically these past 2 seasons and Cait catches her anxiety instantly. It’s only a fleeting moment, but we see Cait cover Vi’s hand and squeeze in support and encouragement. Vi doesn’t have to fight alone anymore. They can fight together.
Here we see Caitlyn embodying her role as the commander she was always meant to be when she says they can stop Viktor, and determidly shoves his little model down. I love seeing her so strong and resolved here. She’s got far too much to fight for and to put right to admit defeat so easily.
While Vi is off with her batch of enforcers leading a charge from one of the towers, Caitlyn is down in the front line with her own squad fighting back the Noxian forces who have Ambessa leading the charge.
We see Caitlyn with her trusty rifle and Maddie as her spotter fighting hard, but can only watch in horror as a shimmer fuelled army seems to be relentlessly coming for them. Commander Caitlyn kicks in and keeps her team going even when it seems like they might be losing. She fights with everything she has to put their plan into action, knowing that she has mistakes to atone for.
But something goes wrong and before she knows what’s happening, Caitlyn takes a massive hit to the back of the head. It winds her and leaves her struggling to get up, and when she does it’s to see that her enforcers have been captured by the Noxian troops, and Ambessa is marching straight towards her.
When she glances back to see who has a rifle aimed at the back of her head, Caitlyn comes face to face with Maddie. It’s here that we get the reveal that Maddie is a Noxian spy and has been working for Ambessa the entire time. It’s another mistake for Caitlyn, a failing of her judgment, once again made during her grief and manipulated by Ambessa perfectly.
‘I warned you of the hazards of professional entanglement.’
Ambessa’s gloating is a horrible reminder of how fair Caitlyn let herself fall beneath Ambessa’s influence, and I think it’s this self awareness, this shame, that causes Caitlyn to take her chance. She never really had any true feelings for Maddie, Caitlyn was using her for distraction just as Maddie was using her for information, and now she has an opportunity to atone for her sins by ending this war if she can just get the shot on Ambessa.
Caitlyn smashes the rifle back into Maddie’s face as she grabs it from her and takes her aim at Ambessa. But of course Ambessa anticipates Caitlyn’s reckless attempt, she goaded her into it after all, and Caitlyn once again pays the price for her mistakes when Ambessa thwarts her attack and stab’s Caitlyn in the stomach instead.
When Caitlyn falls to her knees before Ambessa and her mocking ‘desperation is the doorway to oblivion, child’ you can see the sorrow on Cait’s face. In her eyes she has failed. She’s failed Piltover, she’s failed herself, and she’s failed Vi. Filled with regret, I imagine Cait’s life flashes before her eyes as Maddie loads the gun and takes the shot.
There’s the sound of the gun firing, a cracking of gold, and then the wet sound of blood. Maddie’s body slops weightless down against her back before slumping to the ground and Caitlyn is left with the stark realisation that she isn’t dead. Her second chance is truly a second chance.
Enter Mel, in all her glorious magical power. While she faces off with her mother, Jinx joins the battle in her outlandish way, and the symbolism of second choices being worth having comes full circle as the chaos of her arrival grants Piltover and Zaun another chance to fight back.
The enforcers break free during the chaos and continue to fight, and Viktor’s hive mind army starts rushing the Hexgate while Mel and Caitlyn face off with Ambessa.
This fight shows off Caitlyn’s redemption arc beautifully. With renewed strength Caitlyn is back on her feet and circling Ambessa as she exchanges heated words with Mel.
Fuck words though, Caitlyn is a woman made of action, and with determination thrumming through her veins, she punches Ambessa in the face, cutting off her self-serving tirade.
‘Shut up and fight.’
Caitlyn truly becomes the commander she was always meant to be when she challenges Ambessa here. She has a lot to prove, a lot to atone for and a lot left to fight for, and Caitlyn gives every bit of herself over to it, consequences be damned. She’s willing to give her life to save everyone, and if that’s not Caitlyn trying to be redeemed I don’t know what else she could do.
The fight sequence is incredible. Ambessa takes on her daughter duo skillfully. Ambessa is a tank of a woman, a fearless leader and a fierce fighter. But Caitlyn has grown and changed. She’s not the naive child Ambessa manipulated anymore, she’s a wise, hardened warrior with a good heart and an unwavering desire to make amends.
We see Caitlyn’s true, courageous strength in this scene as she uses Ambessa’s own Noxian teachings against her;
Caitlyn fights with all her might; she ignores the blade in her stomach and goes for Ambessa again and again, taking blow after blow but never quitting.
She fights with vision; her intuitiveness effectively analysing Ambessa’s movement, choices and weaknesses. She sees the runic band around her arm deflecting Mel’s attacks, and plans to use it against her.
She fights with guile; when Ambessa has her on her knees, a blade heading towards her eye, and Ambessa’s air of victory about her, Cait uses the blade in her stomach to make her move and slices the band from Ambessa’s arm.
But most importantly Caitlyn sacrifices.
In season 1 she trades her prized rifle, which is essentially an extension of who Caitlyn is at her very core, to get the medicine needed to save Vi. Here, in the fight against Ambessa, Caitlyn gives over even more. She gives her eye - an actual piece of herself - to try and save Piltover and Zaun. Cait is a marksman, her sight is imperative, and yet Caitlyn gives her eye freely. She doesn’t do it for forgiveness but because she needs to try and make amends and put things right. She does it because she was willing to pay the ultimate price of her sins.
Words mean a lot, but so do actions, and Cait is redeemed by hers in these final episodes, in my opinion at least.
After the battle is over and it appears they’ve won we don’t see Cait and Vi again until the very end but we do see Sevika taking a seat at the council. Cait has given her seat to Zaun. She took so much from them during her grief and hatred and now that she’s free from that, she gives them her seat so they can have a voice. Their own voice. I don’t personally see how Caitlyn could ever remain in the council when she was an oppressor to Zaun. She had to step back and give that up in order for the divide between Piltover and Zaun to continue to grow and heal. Her purpose in rebuilding will be found elsewhere.
With that said, we don’t know if Cait is still an enforcer or not, but we do see eye-patch Caitlyn back to her investigative ways. She’s pensively studying the Hexgates blueprint while twirling a piece of shrapnel between her fingers. It’s not just any piece of shrapnel though, it’s the head of one of Jinx’s monkey bombs. Caitlyn zooms in on the vents leading off the Hexgates, and it appears she’s pondering one question; could Jinx have survived and escaped?
The question is why is Caitlyn looking in the first place. Is she looking to simply help Vi with getting closure? Or is Cait looking because second chances and forgiveness become more healing with time? Is there a world where Caitlyn and Jinx can grow and heal enough to both be in Vi’s orbit without hurting her? It’s left open to interpretation. But it’s hopeful after all the pain the three of them have endured.
We see Vi looking emotionally and physically spent as she hums to herself. But she also looks calm and at peace. Humming, enjoying the fire, comfortably sitting like she’s at home in the Kiramman house. It’s heartwarming to see Vi looking safe; like she belongs.
Cait comes through from her investigating, and teases Vi slightly showing a domestic growth in their relationship. We don’t know how long it’s been but we can assume both cities are still in a state of rebuild and change.
Caitlyn is still a Kiramman however. She might not be a commander anymore but she still has a sense of duty and will always want to help, and she checks in with Vi to see if she’s still there with her. Because Vi doesn’t have to fight anymore if she doesn’t want to, and if she doesn’t, Caitlyn won’t ask her too.
‘Are you still in this fight, Violet?’
But the thing about Vi is no matter how emotionally and physically exhausted she is, or how beaten down, Vi will always get up. It’s just who Violet is at her core. Vi fights for what she loves, to protect and help them, and the person Vi loves more than anything is Caitlyn, so of course Vi is right there with her.
‘I am the dirt under your nails, cupcake. Nothing’s gonna clean me out.’
Together they will weep, and laugh, and love, and heal, and work to make things better. Together they will keep moving forwards, always.
——
With all that picked apart, I think Caitlyn is a well rounded, flawed character, and she’ll always be up there as one of my favourites now. We see her go through hell and back and come out the other side with a good heart. She’s not perfect… but just like Vi, I love her.
Arcane: morals, challenges and Vi's role in season 2
This is an offshoot of a discussion with @animexam09 where I went off topic/down my own line of thinking in a way that didn't have that much to do with the original post (I think the questions in that discussion are a lot more about the Watsonian/internal way the characters perceive their situation and I want full on Doylist/meta).
I want to clarify what I mean when I say Arcane is not About morals.
To me it feels like morality is fundamentally not a topic or a theme in Arcane. I often stumble across discussions wherein people are upset about “character X did the right thing, why didn’t she get the cookie?” or “character Y did the wrong thing, why didn’t she get punished?” (often with the implication: that must mean the show thinks that Y did is good and it is promoting bad values)
I often feel like this is the wrong angle to watch the show from. Because imo Arcane is not a morality tale. And I think this mostly comes from the elements of tragedy that it has.
People are good or do good, but bad things happen to them. Because tragedy.
1.) I think structurally Arcane as a show is more interested in a concept of cause and effect. In characters and what happens to them.
This is the whole blueprint of the show. Characters do something and it starts a cascade of effects that are often unintended and vastly disproportionate.
You can still tell a moral story from that. Like “and that dear kids is why you should think about the consequences before you do something” or “now you see that you cannot control the world, but only your reaction, the correct way to deal with it is to accept change and go with the flow”.
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
There is this interview with Alex Ye where he says that for season 1 they had a blueprint for every arc about how every character should have a want (ie Vander wants to protect Vi, Powder wants to prove herself, Silco wants revenge on Vander) and by the end of the arc they get what they want but in a horrifically “not how I wanted it” way. This logic applies equally to “good” and “bad” characters, violent or innocent ones. Being “good” or “doing the right thing” doesn’t protect you, because the writers think things going wrong is more dramatically interesting. They are interested in setting up characters with interesting parameters (“This is Vi, she is protective”, “this is Caitlyn, she is smart but sheltered”, “this is Silco, he thinks he would do anything to achieve independence”, “this is Powder, she’s smart, but insecure”) and seeing them challenged.
They want to see challenge, they want to see characters bouncing against problems and other characters and they want to see fireworks. (and I think that is intensely fitting if you consider the source material is a video game that specializes in trying to set up interesting duels/small scale fights and interesting mechanics, ie counterplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g )
(I actually wonder if this might have been what accidentally attracted some more leftist leaning people. That the fact that so blatantly unfair and disproportionate things happen to people maybe makes it feel like it’s a story that emphasizes systems over individual personal choices. And people are shocked that the show neither followed the pattern of “the positive personal choices pay off in the end” nor “we are setting up those systems and rules the world works on to criticize them and smash them” instead of “they just thought these rules and systems were a cool biotope to create crazy experiments in, to facilitate interesting looking explosions”. One of the biggest underlying topics in left versus right discourse is about systems versus individuals. Can you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do your choices matter or is the system stacked against you. To portray a system where individual well meaning choices don’t matter because “the system” (the writers) screws them over anyway could ring back to this fundamental conflict)
(In regards to the writers, I think it also helps there to remember that Arcane in a lot of ways is structurally a fanfiction, that those characters existed and had a feel and a look and a vibe before Arcane came about. That could contribute to this feelings of “I pick this pre-existing elements and watch them go”)
2.) The writers still have morals and values
Of course the eternal topic is that even if you didn’t set up to write a morality play, writers still inherently bring in their morals. People’s worldviews still influence what they think make an interesting or logical setup or what they think is a realistic cause and effect.
Like for example if you as a person think that acting aggressive with people with make them most likely hate you or impress them or make them fall in line. Or whether you think “Rich people are smart and resourceful” or “rich people are greedy and mean” or “rich people are dumb and lazy” is a realistic portrayal. Even “life is complex/there’s variety everywhere” or “all people think they are the heroes of their own story” are again people taking some sort of stance on the world.
So the writers values are always going to seep in and affect which “laws of the universe” they choose (even though they probably think they are just picking generally recognized, universal laws of reality or of fiction writing).
3.) The characters themselves still have morals
Various characters in the setting still have morals. But I think the writers are more interested in things like showing different moral systems and letting them clash and challenging them in different ways. By setting up characters with different character traits and feeling out with how they handle the challenge to their world views and morals.
And again, these writers are more interested in how characters deal with their own failures. That’s why almost all characters who have a moral system (and are important enough to have screen time) stumble and have to recover from their stumble.
For what it’s worth, when somebody like schnee seeks a consistent theme across all stories, I don’t think they are necessarily obsessed with a “X did the right thing, so X gets the cookie” point of view. Themes an be both intentional (like Arcane’s obsession with parallels) and unintentional (because the interests and values of the writers can bleed into the text by accident). Just because I think “these writers care about challenge and explosions” is the better consistent theme of their writing doesn’t mean you can’t gleam other themes. Or that themes can’t be derived from that (ie if you are fundamentally believe that characters being challenged is interesting then characters who handle change and challenge might be advantaged over characters who struggle with their values being tested or fall apart when that happesn).
I think the writing cares more about these moments of challenge. Silco didn’t really “win”, but he seemed like he died happy because he had reached a moment of personal realization. Ekko mostly stayed true to himself and can gleam satisfaction from that, because he seems like the kind of character who would gleam satisfaction from that. Caitlyn stumbled in her morals, but withdrew and overall seems to handle her own faltering with comparable stoicism (again comparable). Viktor mostly fucked up his big plans to improve the world, but didn’t handle it well at all, but was to some extent salvaged by the person who cares about him. IMO Arcane is more satisfying if you can get into the moments where the characters get personal satisfaction with something that fits their personality, even if it’s temporary or internal.
Challenge, Explosions and what that means for Vi
IMO finishing the series meant that they had to marry their “set up characters and watch them get challenged” with a traditional ending of some sort.
Season 2’s structure was already faltering imo because I think the writers wanted to get in a lot of challenges and moments for their faves because they knew it wouldn’t keep going. And at the same time, in act 3 they were trying to bring the big explosions. Jayce having to fight his best friend Viktor to them is a challenge and and explosion. Caitlyn and Vi finally sleeping together is an explosion. Rigid, violent Noxus fighting chaotic Zaun is an interesting explosion. Caitlyn and Mel facing down Ambessa is an explosion both physical and emotional.
Various people have pointed out that if one of Arcane’s themes is change and Vi doesn’t like or do well with change, that makes her the natural enemy of the story and might put her in a losing position.
I also wonder if on some level the writers already felt “done” with Vi. That they had already challenged her in all the ways they were interested in.
The season 1 finale was the emotional and philosophical confrontation of Vi and Jinx. Followed by the physical confrontation in Act 1 of season 2. Vi is then challenged once more to trust Jinx and lower her weapons in front of Warwick. I think for many people it feels like things fizzle out for her after that.
Which doesn’t mean that Vi isn’t still challenged (trusting Caitlyn/handing herself over to Ambessa is another challenge). And the writers might think of her sleeping with Caitlyn as the final “challenge”.
I do think that there weren’t a ton of ways for the writers to top the emotional and physical confrontations she already had with Jinx. And I don’t doubt that every Vi fan will at this moment cry out that they could think of 20 more scenarios of how Vi could have been challenged (and thusly maintained her position as the lead chararacter). And I agree.
Top of my head, there’s obviously the emotional challenges. Ie, going back to her prison time, her parents, being morally challenged by Ekko.
If they wanted a more physical challenge, it’s hard, arguably impossible to beat Jinx versus Vi. The only candidates of even coming close would have been a more visceral, physical confrontation with Caitlyn or Warwick. And we get small versions of that, but I think most people would agree that those don’t go all out. They don’t have the emotional weight they could have had and they don’t feel like they go all out like Jayce versus Viktor in 2x08 or Caitlyn versus Ambessa in 2x09.
IMO that was probably intentional. They could have gone there, but they didn’t want to, because they didn’t want these relationships to go that way or didn’t want to handle the fallout/the recovery.
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
But I think the writers weren’t interested in that. IMO it makes more sense to picture the Arcane writers as mad scientists who like pouring different reagents together to see what happens. Or who like to set up marbles to roll down a hill and bump into each other.
I love this bit and totally agree with you there. I really like your points about challenges and morals, that's a really interesting way of looking at the show I hadn't thought about.
But I'd like to respond specifically to the Vi parts if you don't mind!
Because I disagree in some ways, and I think this has to do with the way we look at what was supposed to be the "leading line", the main point, of Vi's arc.
First, I guess I don't really agree with the notion that her character is fundamentally opposed to change in the first place, or that it was the main point of her arc. To me, with both Jinx and Caitlyn, her fears are less about change and more about seeing the people she cares become monsters (coincidentally... or not..., Vander is the first one she sees literally become a monster with his shimmer transformation, before seemingly dying in her arms) due to what she perceives as her failures, and being left alone.
But more importantly, I think the real leading line of her arc is in her struggle with the sense of responsibility placed on her as a kid, which makes it hard to see Jinx as a grown up, even after she has started seeing the humanity in her again => to me it's less about seeing Jinx changing, and more that she just can't help but feel responsible for her, because that's her burden to bear, due to her being parentified at an early age. This is ultimately the "conflict" within herself that she starts resolving by choosing Caitlyn in ep8.
So to me, her arc was more ultimately about "letting go of the burdens of the past one by one"
So, with that in mind, regarding the finale...
Overall season 2 to me leaves me with a feeling like maybe they thought they had done the challenges for Vi they were interested in and wanted to “fan out” in the sense that other characters gets the biggest or most interesting challenges and that left Vi feeling a bit lost in the shuffle. (and I think there’s a good chance that in their head the Vi and Caitlyn sex scene felt like the final challenge/the final explosion, so to them there’s one for her in each act)
I'm definitely among the number of fans who were pissed about that. But I'm starting to sort of make peace with it.
I definitively agree with you that the "explosive" character moment for her was in ep 8, with Caitlyn. But I'm not sure I agree the writers were just "done", because I see her moment with Vander as the true ending for her. She hadn't faced her biggest trauma yet, the last bit of her past that was still burdening her. But she does, at the end of the episode.
And she breaks down, badly: because his death is the wound that never truly healed, and also (inadvertently) the root cause of it all (the "it's on you" speech and let's not forget his last words: and his last words - "protect powder").
And you know, I may be in a minority here but I actually see it as a liberating moment in a way. Because she kept bottling it before and now that it's out, she can only face it and move forward.
So if I had to put a more positive spin on it, I'd say that the whole battle just wasn't "her time". Her having a more heroic saving-the-day moment would have been nice, sure, but it wouldn't have been coherent (? for lack of a better word) with her arc and where she was mentally. Hopefully, it means that in the writers' mind, this wasn't meant to be the end of her journey. And if not... welp, that sucks.
