#arcane meta
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No one's going to talk about how Powder and Viktor share meltdowns down to the most micro expression? Okay
The posing down to the FRAME is almost identical
Both are trying to destroy their respective torments. This hurts.
What's even more devastating is that we have already seen the way Powder met her demise with her bomb... now we just have to see how Viktor meets his with the hexcore...
I love this show but part of loving it is crying over the details like this 😭
#death by parallelism#arcane meta#arcane powder#arcane viktor#images#arcane#when i tell you i yowled when i noticed this in the rewatch… something about that crazed face and raised arms looked familiar…
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Lunari Heritage in Zaun
This is gonna be a reach, but from the little we've seen of Vi and Jinx's mom and younger Silco, I'd guess they were both from the same ethnic group.
In a place like Zaun, where the people are left with scraps, any piece of jewelry sticks out. Vi's mom and Silco are both wearing similar pieces of jewelry. Silco's bracelet could likely be fitted as a necklace since it twice wraps over his wrist. Neither are wearing anything of high quality, but the necklace and bracelet in their respective pictures seem decently maintained if not worn. That's when I thought, these are probably heirlooms.
In fact they looked pretty similar too, but in smaller scale of the princess's own pendants. I wouldn't bring this up if it weren't for the fact that Piltovans prioritize elaborate art-deco aesthetics, the more elaborately geometric the better (Councilor Shoola). So you would assume even the simplest jewelry would be a square pendant or a straight line. But no, big plain circles, and then I remembered we saw that before, on the princess Ambessa killed. Big bronze circles.
And when we look at young Vi , you notice that she's wearing jewelry too. A simple necklace with a green (it looks green) gem. And I realized that the princess's necklace was also adorned green gems.
I'm pulling from scraps, but it's interesting that small things these Zaunites have to adorn themselves (though not for long with the time skips) are similar versions if not simpler version's of the princess's.
At first I thought this meant that many of the cast were actually of Ionian descent. But then in the Princess's scene a thought kept coming back to me, "Why is Mel wearing purple?". Mel, a skilled diplomat from a young age, typically wears the main colors of the nations she hosts and is hosted by. White for Piltover, Black for Noxus (Ambessa), and always with her signature accents of gold. So if Mel followed her mother to Ionia ,where green is a culturally significant color, why purple? It's because Mel and Ambessa weren't in Ionia, they were in Targon fighting the Lunari.
The Lunari are Rakkor tribal people in the Targonian region who worship the moon, and are persecuted for it by the Solari, the religious order that worships the sun. While technically Mt. Targon is influenced by Mt. Olympus and Greek mythology aesthetic, that's more the case for the Solari. Overtime the Lunari aesthetic has been mixed it's originally nomadic culture with East Asian influences. The prominent colors of the Lunari happen to be turquoise, silver, black and purple. It was such a little thing to remember but it made me see connections I hadn't thought about.
Suddenly everything starts to connect. The bronze coins represent the 3 moons that exist in Arcane's Runeterra. How do we know there are 3 moons, because the Valdiani piece Jinx stole was depicting their planet. In the Valdiani there are 3 orbits circling the Earth, meaning 3 moons (or satelites). Now the engraving on the gold of the princess's necklace makes sense, because it's supposed to resemble the gates at the peak of Mt. Targon. The pendant itself is shaped like the mountain with the gates fitted at the top.
Frankly, it works for the Princess to have been Lunari and waves of descendants of the Lunari to arrive in Piltover and end up in Zaun. In Arcane, Piltover was created as a safe haven to escape the Rune Wars 200 years from the start of the show. Even after the Rune Wars ended the shipping port has likely seen waves of migrant labor and refugees from the ongoing crisis that occur in Runeterra (*cough*Noxus*cough*). It's likely that many of the current generation of Zaunites are of mixed heritage of the various fleeing people's.
It creates a whole new dynamic of the ways in which Piltover's laws, their Ethos, strips the people of Zaun from their identity and reducing them to tools for the mines. Magic is inherently a part of religious ceremonies and religion in general in Runeterra, especially for the Lunari. How do you practice your religion in a place that has banned the means by which it's conducted? There must have been more people like the Lunari who didn't have a problem with their magic, their problem was that they were being persecuted.
The remnants of family keepsakes brought over as communities fled were clung to as best as possible especially as they had to let go of part their spiritual identity. But even that doesn't seem to have lasted either. Vi doesn't keep her necklace, her mother is dead, so lost is her necklace, and we never see Silco wear his bracelet. They could have been stolen, or at best, hidden for safe keeping, maybe Enforcers get suspicious at the hint of mysticism and suddenly they want to talk.
Finally, maybe a little less related, it is interesting how prominent Piltovans and Zaunites take on day and night aspects. The sun shines over Piltover at their best, begins to set at times of uncertainty. While in the cover of night with moon above, the strongest Zaunites strike hardest. One more thing, it is interesting how Arcane's Jinx has taken on darker tones of purple rather than stick with neon pink. I always have to go back and look at a reference to remember that her pants are purple-er than I recall.
Update: I wanted to include that the large doodle Jinx made on her cup actually looks similar to the Lunari's sigil. And the sigil remains on the cup into the timeskip, also the center moon is made smaller within the crescent like in the necklace. I also noticed Jinx's cup later has more violent bomb imagery around it.
#arcane#lunari#zaun#silco#vi arcane#jinx arcane#mel medarda#there's a lot to think about#for everyone including mel#piltover#arcane theory#arcane meta#arcane speculation
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Le Rite sacré de l'amour magique - The Sacred Ritual of Magical Love.
Mild NSFW
I feel so sad whenever I read about how this scene was 'cringe' and 'unnecessary' and 'awkward' - given it's visually and narratively a feast of subtext, and full of delicious tidbits about the essential nature of Hex-tech as a magical system.
It also wonderfully highlights the fusion of a pure source powered by the crystallization of celestial bodies with the viscerality of blood as a sacrificial link to esoteric knowledge - but at the cost of forfeiting one's 'tether' to humanity.
We have Viktor literally having a brush with death and nearly transcending the physical plane, while the Hex-gem takes away his life force and infuses it into its internal matrix - a literal melding between man and magic that, sadly, also requires the forfeiture of his fundamental humanity.
All while simultaneously, Jayce and Mel are making love, in a gorgeously animated sequence which is allllll about prioritizing female pleasure (and showing a female orgasm onscreen in a PG-13 kids' show - like, y'all, that takes balls, given if it were a mainstream Hollywood film, it'd earn an NC-17 rating or get slapped with a big ol' R for its trouble.)
And there's so many wonderful interpretive lenses we can apply to the juxtaposition between Viktor and Jayce - all while sex, death and magic are happening onscreen. On one level it represents Jayce's seduction, and by proxy corruption, at the hands of Mel - all while the Hex-core is corrupted by human blood that belongs to a man who has grown up in toxic environs and carries their lived legacy in his body to the point it's killing him from the inside out.
And on the other hand, we can see it as a divergence between the two routes of magical power as a means to channel transcendent knowledge - one through the brutal solitude of Viktor's path, which will ultimately set him in Machine Herald territory, and have him casting off his 'earthly ties' - right down to everything that makes him human. For him, the Hex-core is knowledge to be penetrated and absorbed, and its secrets require a sacrifice of the highest order. And on the other hand, we have Mel and Jayce literally melding together with astral imagery in the background, to show a different route that magic allows one to take, namely where two life-forces come together and engender something sublime between them (or possibly even make a baby? It's a popular fan theory and I can certainly see the potential.)
Magic, for Arcane, seems to be a means of interconnecting different facets into a unified whole (not unlike the way the series mirrors and makes parallels between a host of characters and circumstances, almost like they're different faces of a Hex-gem). And this scene sums up so powerfully what that system of science and magic is about - and the extreme highs and lows it can take you to.
And of course, right at the heels of this intense interplay between sex and death, two different types of la petite mort, we have the ultimate confluence between the two:
Rebirth.
And who better to embody it than two characters who carry their dead selves behind them like corpses shackled to their heels, in different ways?
Tbh I read these scenes as a trilogy for explaining Arcane's magic system - with Jinx being that final spark - literally the Powder - that blasts Hex-tech in all its destructive and yet empowering potential wide open.
Also a separate aside, I find this scene way more uncomfortable than the earlier two, simply because the interactions between Silco and Jinx are so fraught and charged. The first time you watch it, there's that almost-kiss Gotcha! that makes you spit-take, like: Wait are they...? And then the whiplash is so extreme because in a blink it goes from uncomfortably full of romantic undercurrents to strangely tender, verging on reverent. A moment of perfect and pure trust between two monsters whose entire conception of trust has been trampled into shards that they now use to cut others with.
But for me the pinnacle is this scene.
Other fan theories have also stated that they see Jinx as sort of the unwitting embodiment of the Hex-crystal's power paired with the dark potency of Shimmer, and for me this is one of the biggest visual metaphors. This girl, caught in a blissful gyre of fulfillment and serene frenzy, unmade and then remade, as she deciphers the codes of the Hex-gem and feels, for the first time, at one with herself and with her potential to unlock secrets and usher in miracles.
And madness, too, but that's a whole 'nother analysis.
tl;dr - Please Fortiche. Release an art book. I will shell out the big bucks<3
#arcane#arcane league of legends#arcane silco#silco#arcane jinx#jinx#silco and jinx#arcane jayce#arcane mel#mel medarda#meljay#mel x jayce#jayvik#arcane viktor#viktor#jayce arcane#jayce talis#viktor arcane#arcane meta#arcane headcanon#arcane headcanons
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Thinking again about the mastery of Silco's "Don't cry—you're perfect," because it is both Don't cry for the likes of me and In my eyes, you are perfection, as you have always been—
But it is also both Now is not the time to cry; reserve this pain, this anger, for when it is needed and You are perfect, for all your flaws; never let them tell you otherwise—
And it's If the Kindreds will grant me any final wish, let it be not to see you in pain and Hear me now, please hear me, if you have never heard me before: that there is nothing wrong with you—
And it's even I will never forsake you, even in this and Your future is still paved for you, child; still worthy of you, if you will only take it.
But above all, it's I am here. I am here with you. And I see you—as I have always seen you. Do not let your light fade in vain, not now. If there is any soul you wish to avenge, child, do it not for my sake—my lovely girl, avenge all they've denied from you; all they've taken from us. And never—never—let them take it from us, again.
And yet, at its simplest, it is the smallest reassurance he can give.
You're alright. Don't cry, and You are not the monster they've made of you. You're perfect.
#y'know?#y'know???#rolls on the floor#ugh#crime dad daughter duo#silco & jinx#arcane#arcane meta#also#arcane headcanon#s2 flashbacks my beloved where you AT#like please#chewing through the bars of my enclosure in the meantime
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Ok so maybe kind of an unpopular opinion here: I've seen many fics, and it's a common hc, that the Piltovian elites dislike Viktor because he is a ~ zaunite ~ but I'm like... no, piltovian elites would LOVE Viktor precisely because he is the perfect fairy tail for meritocracy advocates, a pacifier for the ruling class consciousness. "See? This young man was SO POOR and he FOUGHT his way to the top! He must be so inspiring for the undercity youth!" (Nevermind that the system they imposed is the reason he had to fight in the first place, that he had to cheat to get there, otherwise it would have been impossible). He represents the idealized version of the "hard working, honest, intelligent man who is different from his peers and therefore triumphs over them", it's the proof that the system works (ignoring of course that he is the exception that proves the rule). In a way like Golden Boy Talis, he is also an accessory to flaunter during investor's galas and maybe another way for him and Jayce to find a connection
Oh I think you’re absolutely right, he is a poster boy that the bureaucrats can hold up and say, “see? There is no war in ba sing se no barrier keeping Zaunites from achieving greatness in Piltover, he did it!”
It’s the same old talking point the far right in America uses. “There are no barriers, you’re all just lazy!” But they like the idea of him more than they like him. Because he’s just a thing they can laud to show off how benevolent they are, “we’re not xenophobic, see??”
Never mind that he has to bend over backward to meet standards that are set higher for him than any average Piltovian. Never mind that he has to traverse a city that is focused on form over function, a city that is inaccessible in almost every way. So as long as he maintains their status quo as the perfect “success story” they can swing in their favor, then they “like” him.
But the second he makes a misstep, the second he breaks that status quo, they will turn on him. We’ve seen how they don’t even show mercy to one of their own (Jayce) when he fucks up, I can only imagine the mindset when it’s a Zaunite, the backpedaling and lies—“I knew we shouldn’t have let him in, didn’t I say it? I was suspicious from the beginning, but I kept my mouth shut because I am a philanthropist!!”
The only one who truly saw him for who he is… was Jayce. From the very beginning, Viktor wasn’t some charity case, a trophy of the good work of the Piltover Council. He was Jayce’s partner, his equal in every way. Jayce saw only Viktor’s genius, his brazen determination to do good, even in the face of real consequences.
Which is why the Divorce is gunna hurt Viktor so bad. The entire city of Piltover turning on him… not shocking in the slightest, and honestly he knew it was just a matter of time. None of them actually liked him, they just used him. But not Jayce. Jayce was the one person he thought he’d never lose, the one person he trusted to actually protect and stand by him. And I don’t know how the falling out will go down in Arcane, but one thing is for certain, Jayce will not understand.
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IMPATIENTLY waiting for when vi and jinx parallel the silco and vander “I knew you still had it in you” scene, cause oh it is happening. it is coming at us as we speak
#will violet hit her again#the stab in the back…#god not the same traumatic experience AGAIN#poor jinx already killed two adoptive fathers now she about to relive her worst trauma ever#im so hyped#guys im so not normal about this#arcane#arcane meta#arcane theory#kinda
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Back on my Arcane/LoL bullshit, thinking about how the show makes Viktor’s eventual shift into being the Machine Herald kinda more tragic by making the Hexclaw something both Jayce and Viktor worked on.
I mean in general, Arcane is making him more sympathetic than the game lore does. It’s augmentation out of necessity rather than him being a mad scientist trope of robot=better. But specifically in the fact that Viktor’s signature weapon is no longer something he makes for fighting Jayce and others. It’s something that presumably him and Jayce made together, specifically for the purpose of helping out working citizens. The Hexclaw has a whole different connotation around it now in show. Of course it’s there for the cheeky wink to the gaming audience. But they also establish that it’s a project that Jayce and Viktor did together. So when we get the fall, the divorce arc as it’s been coined, it’s going to hit different when Viktor uses the Hexclaw as a weapon, against Jayce, against people. If they have another timeskip to establish the now enemies arc of Jayce and Viktor, seeing him wearing the product of their partnership is gonna hit different.
It’s not “oh shit Viktor made a fucking sick weapon.” It’s now symbolic of them taking their once shared dream into two very different directions. Even Jayce making the Mercury Hammer is the start of that and also the contrast in that it’s something Jayce makes on his own. And breaks the unspoken rule that they established together: hextech is not for weapons. Jayce is the one who breaks that moral line first. Viktor is the one who is going to take that and twist the knife deeper by taking something already made to help and using it to hurt. In a way that’s also quite a parallel in their dynamic in the show. The push and pull of Jayce starting the path down the slippery slope, but it’s always Viktor who is the one to go down it.
Jayce pulls back on safety and security due to political pressure. And then in the very next scene, Viktor’s fully disregarding safety and doing uncertain experiments on the Hexcore. Jayce gets Heimerdinger booted off the council, Viktor’s out here taking Shimmer and yoloing the Hexcore augments. Jayce starts them down the road, Viktor fucking hits the gas full throttle.
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So, the pic of Machine Herald Viktor from Bridging the Rift has been sitting in my brain for past couple of days and simply refusing to leave. Therefore, as an attempt to appease my very much obsessed brain and make him to shut up, I went and tried to figure out just how tall he actually will be (give or take cca 10 cm/4 inches, the picture is really blurry and hard to determine where the top of his head is). So, to anyone as obsessed as me with this man or anyone that would be simply interested, I present to you my little moment of analysis fuelled by insanity, lack of sleep and my never ending obsession. Enjoy!
(As a side note, since I’m accustomed to using metric units and imperial units are little bit foreign to me, I used Google to convert them. So if there are any mistakes my converting please tell me so I can correct it. Also, if I’m wrong in my maths anywhere or anywhere else actually, please correct on that too.)
Alright, first we need to determine where the top of MH head is. This was a bit tricky since like I said the image is very blurry, so I had to guess a little bit. But with the help of this picture
we can approximately trace the silhouette of MH. Albeit bit crude and with the Hexclaw missing a joint (there should be 3 [if he is using the model we saw in ep 4], but I couldn’t make the last one out, maybe it’s even folded behind his back, honestly I don’t know) we can make out his hand and shoulders, staff, Hexclaw and shoulder pauldron and his head.
With approximate location of his head known, we now can compare MH’s and Vik’s height. So how tall is human Viktor? Well, looking at the height chart posted by Arcane’s twitter the answer seems to be strait forward.
But it’s actually not. Vik and Mel are written to be 172 cm (5 feet 8 inches), but looking at them, they are not the same height on this picture. First the line which symbolizes 172 cm (5 feet 8 inches) is touching the top of Mel’s head but coming through Viktor’s (I get that he has a fluffy hair, but still, it’s a bit too low). Second his forehead, chin, mouth and eyes are higher too. So, he is a little bit taller. But how much? 2 cm (0.79 inches) if we account for his fluffy hair or 4 cm (1.57 inches) if we don’t.
(Dark red lines symbolize 170 cm [5 feet 7 inches], 180 cm [5 feet 11] and 190 cm [6 feet 3 inches] respectively. I had to add them since they weren't marked, only the nubers were written, but they didn't correspond to any red or white lines. And blue line is 174 cm [5 feet 8 and ½ inches]).
So, Viktor is 174 cm (5 feet 8 and ½ inches) to 176 cm tall (5 feet 9 inches). With this information in mind, we can now compare Vik and MH and calculate MH’s height.
If Viktor is 174 cm tall:
174 cm = 10 units
1 unit = 17.4 cm
their difference is 2 units = 34.8 cm
174 + 34.8 = 208.8 cm rounded to 209 cm
Machine Herald would be then 209 cm (6 feet 10 inches).
If Viktor is 176 cm tall:
2 units = 35.2 cm
176 + 35.2 = 211.2 cm rounded to 211 cm.
Machine Herald would be then 211 cm (6 feet 11 inches).
In other words, absolute unit. Giant even. He is hiding some huge platforms/stilettos in the suit of his. Viktor in his girl boss era. Bless him. I’m jealous honestly. He looked at Jayce and rest of Piltover and went: “Taller than me? Absolutely not. Over my dead body!” I love him so much.
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One of my favorite little understated illustrations of the pains Viktor takes to keep others at a distance when he's struggling is his way of addressing Sky Young.
He says her name on only two occasions over the course of the season: the first when he bids her good night in the lab, and the second when he calls out to her in a panic as he realizes that she's been consumed by the Hexcore. The first time we hear him say her name, it's polite but impersonal -- 'Miss Young'. The second time though, it's an instinctive, hysterical 'Sky!'
And it only becomes clear that 'Sky' is probably how he usually addresses her, as opposed to 'Miss Young', when we see him default to it in this moment of tragedy and scrambled emotion. Which in turn retroactively suggests that his earlier use of 'Miss Young' was a more purposeful snub than might have been evident at first glance.
It's easy to handwave, "Well, 'Sky' is shorter and less formal, so it makes sense that in a panic he'd just blurt out whatever name was faster to say!"........except for the fact that that doesn't really make sense. Or rather, that's simply not how stressed, disoriented brains tend to work. If you're accustomed to calling someone "A" in your usual dealings, it's unlikely that you'll spontaneously be compelled to switch to the less familiar "B" in a moment of extreme emotion, precisely because that's the kind of finnicky little decision that our brains really suck at making under duress. Instead, the brain (and subsequently the mouth) is much more likely to leap to the name that's the most familiar and natural.
Point being: 'Sky' is likely the form of address that Viktor is most accustomed to using with her, since that's where his mouth immediately defaults when the chips are down.
Follow-up point being: if the above is true and 'Sky' is his typical way of referring to her, then that also suggests that it was a wholly conscious decision on his part to instead address her like this--
--in the earlier scene where she encouraged him to step away from his work for the night and spend a little bit of friendly, low-stakes time with her. The dismissal here is two-fold, emphasizing both physical distance (declining her invitation to walk home together) and emotional distance (referring to her in a polite but decidedly less personal way than is suggested to be his usual). If we assume that he indeed usually addresses her simply as 'Sky', then his choice to revert to 'Miss Young' at this particular moment would have been all the more marked to her, and would probably have had about the same effect as if he'd literally closed a door directly in her face.
(Which would also explain why her eyes immediately go distinctly tearful in response to this line. She isn't merely disappointed that the man she admires and cares about is choosing to keep working rather than walk home with her. She's hurt because, in just a couple of pointedly polite words, Viktor has essentially drawn a boundary around himself and let her know, 'I'm not interested in getting personal in the way that you're asking me to do. Back up. Stay behind the line, please.')
Regardless of whether you believe that Viktor is aware of Sky's romantic feelings for him or not, he's absolutely aware of the fact that she's inviting him to spend a little time with her not simply as a coworker, but as a companion. She's inviting him to make a human connection -- and he refuses it by rejecting both the invitation itself as well as the basic intimacy of even using her name. Not just ignoring the figurative outstretched hand, but actively pushing it away from him; and doing so not because he's cruel, lacking empathy, or dismissive of her, but because the walls are closing in on him, and 'alone' is what he knows when it comes to dealing with his own problems.
#Arcane#Viktor#Sky Young#Arcane meta#there's a conversation to be had too about how visible disability and chronic illness could play into his need for a sense of control#not only over his own body but over how others perceive him and bear witness to his vulnerable parts; literally and figuratively#so used to needing to PROVE himself and not show 'weakness' that it's hard for him to accept ANY help or kindness even when it's NOT pity#but that's a whole other thing for a whole other time
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vi is so fucking fascinating i want to stick her under a microscope. the love and the anger like that quote from frankenstein. protection by the decimation of others. withstanding it all with her shoulders squared and her head down. tightening her dads gauntlets on with her teeth impossibly teenage and ready to be covered in blood and bruises. rather die than lay down. there’s no staying still just endless pacing in metal cells. indifferent to the worst happening because she’s survived the worst already. no fear left in her body for men in alleyways with nice jackets. terror and steeled glares. bloody cast iron and a baby face still melting away. silver looking piercings that all must’ve gotten infected. tattoos that healed painfully but left her even in death identifiable. her on the bridge and her at the cannery watching fires burn in tears. an arm permanently fucked up after debris nearly buried her with her brothers. broken bones that never healed right and cuts scarring that didn’t need to. lost it all and it’s never coming back. crying in pain until her father saves her just to watch helpless as he dies protecting her. all fucking over breathing in a white rag. staring at her childhood alarm of a wind-up monkey and hearing the screams. or whatever. i don’t know.
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I'm so glad there are people discussing the politics of Arcane! It's something that bothered me too while watching. One thing I wish they had portrayed more fairly was Silco's time in power. I mean, we only get one montage of the more advanced industrialized Zaun with clean air stations, and only one mention of "Silco the Industrialist." Meanwhile his Shimmer business got episode upon episode of "look at how evil this is".
It even seems to be common for watchers to think he was ONLY doing Shimmer. So many people didn't pick up on the industrialization of Zaun, the cars and new machinery, nor the clean air stations. To the point that it's common to say he only destroyed Zaun and did nothing to improve it. I'm just like.... why did the show not put in more effort to portray both sides of the coin of Silco's operations, especially when his faction is the ONLY one specifically fighting for independence from their oppressors. Just seems like an odd choice.
I feel like Silco has more implied time in the way he talks to the chembarons. He makes it quite clear that HE brought them up here, and they're now corrupted by their time in the sun. And it's set in a gorgeous cultivair... So I think Silco making the Lanes wealthy is really undeniable. It's just that making crimelords wealthy is dodgy in itself, even if we assume that everyone got richer and better.
But honestly I want to say... People have a tendency of forgetting that Silco is a private individual. It's not his job to make people richer or to modernise the Undercity. It's not his responsibility to keep the streets clean or control crime.
That's the Council's.
The scene where Jayce looks in wonder/disgust at all the children in the shimmer factory always strikes me as a great moment for him. I've seen a lot of bad takes on it, making Silco EVIL for having kids working there and Jayce GOOD for feeling bad. Like, flashnews, Silco is providing them with stable income! Kids in his factories don't need to steal or prostitute themselves.
Wouldn't it be great though if they didn't have to work at all? No shit. Shall we ask the Council why there is ZERO social wellfare programs for such poor kids in Zaun?
Well, probably because when they don't work at Silco's, they work at Piltovan factories and mines for scraps. Because Piltovans don't have a normal relationship with Zaunites.
Silco is basically the head of a mafia, and he operates in a power vacuum left by Piltover. If the council took an active interest in the well being of Zaunites, if they weren't starved and beaten and killed point blank for wanting rights, there would be no need for Silco's dream, and no show.
I think even if the show made a greater effort to portray both sides, people would still vilify Silco, because "drugs" have such a demonic reputation. What bums me out more is that they made no effort to make separate chemicals, and ended up making shimmer into the philosopher's stone. WHY wouldn't you make shimmer??? It powers crazy cool engines, saves people from imminent death with no visible bad side effects, gives people a strength boost, and is a cool party drug?
Those are all things we're shown as well. It's so weird.
It really bums me out how Ekko talks about the horrors of shimmer, what it did to Zaun as it flooded the streets, and yet what we're shown is a camp of a dozen people, and a couple homeless people begging in the street when Heimer visits. As well as a violent fight.
Like... Yes? Zaun apparently has been the pits for generations. Is that truly the worst you have? A few addicts and 1 homeless beggar? As well as being "told" it affected families?
I totally get this is horrible, but we are shown a lot more screen time of shimmer being super OP when well used, and used for years without bad effects at that, via Sevika. It makes the criticism sort of moot, especially after one drop of shimmer saves Vi from a horrendous gut wound.
I highly doubt Silco invented poverty or addiction. The show makes it seem like those are his responsibility in equal measure because he commercializes shimmer (which is true) and because they need him as a villain. If shimmer is too good, then he'll become a straight up hero, instead of an anti-hero in villain clothing.
The show just wouldn't commit to have the third act fully go with 'the council are the villains, Silco is in the right', and I genuinely think it's because Riot is an American Company owned by a Chinese one, and that nobody up the foodchain really wants a story in which an underdog character is morally justified in exacting violence on the powerful.
It's my tinfoil hat theory. The hopeful tinfoil says that the writers did their best to give us that story but couldn't realise it fully. The dark tinfoil says that everyone involved is too far deep the neoliberal hellhole to escape centrist narratives (in which Ekko and his useless, powerless artsy rebels are the true heroes).
I'm happy to take the show as it is though, and fill in the blanks my way. I don't have to bend the canon's arm too much to tell a politically charged story that fits my desires!
#so sorry for taking so long to answer#arcane#arcane meta#silco#arcane silco#anon ask#arcane ask#arcane politics
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on today's episode of doing a materialist analysis of Arcane
okay so in that chembaron meeting, Renni says that trade is stopped at the bridge. what do people from Zaun sell the most when they go topside? what jobs do they do when they go across the river? I imagine it's kinda like a sundown town situation. how do the enforcers interact with these people? how tightly is the bridge usually controlled? is there more bribery going on (like probably lol)? what's life like if you're a regular guy from Zaun who does, say, janitorial work in Piltover?
#i'm back with the questions#the sundown town situation would be bad but also wouldn't surprise me ya know#arcane#arcane meta#how do these cities work#someone explain plz#as always i hope my questions inspire fanfic lol
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This is Chadd, he's from the Inx in Conv/rgence, he loves Jinx, and he organizes elaborate acts of terrorism/performance art against Piltover in Jinx's name. And I NEED this strain of Jinx stan to make it into season 2 of Arcane.
Chadd is the best example of the kind Zaunite that takes their admiration of Jinx seriously and let's it influence their own violence and art, because yes, he plays guitar and sings with the Inx's band. Chadd's an obnoxious, in your face, musically-talented (but borderline nerdy), organized weirdo that gathers all the other stans to plan aerial concerts/bombing events on Piltover.
He's such a dedicated stan (in the concept art) that he dresses up like Jinx too, shorts, fishnets, collar and all. Chadd even has his Jinx tattoo drawn in the same placement aswhere Jinx has her own.
Please Arcane, let obsessive freaks like Chadd overwhelm the chembarons next season as Jinx's stans believe the chembarons don't pay her enough proper tribute. Let Jinx be mildly amused at their antics and keep them around for logistics and grunt work.
#arcane#jinx arcane#chadd convergence#the inx#this guy has got to exist#conv/rgence#if only convergence was a better written story then interesting bits like chadd would be more obvious#hold me like a fermata#he makes makes weapons and music related puns#the concept art is almost uniformly more interesting for all the characters in the final product unfortunately#arcane meta#does this count as meta?#the jacket ties the while thing together#it acts like a shawl/boa to cinch the diva personality#zaun
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Yoooooo
These two scenes have eerie parallels that I only just noticed upon rewatch.
De facto 'leader' of Zaun/Piltover is trying to take off and find a family member. Meanwhile the border shutdown has his entire city agitated. Said leader's partner/right hand reminds him that there's work in need of doing. A family anecdote is shared to stiffen his resolve and make him reconsider the big picture.
Meanwhile, Jinx haunts the narrative of both cities, as a reminder that she'll be the one calling the shots by the show's end.
Just-
fhgfsss
The art direction of this show stuns me nearly two years later<3
#arcane#arcane league of legends#arcane jayce#arcane silco#arcane sevika#arcane mel#silco#jayce#jayce talis#mel medarda#sevika#arcane jinx#jinx#arcane meta#arcane headcanons#arcane headcanon
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arcane discourse is so weird because people will share their interpretation of something and eventually I’ll think “hmm…maybe they have a point” and go watch the scene they were talking about. and then I see that their version of events literally did not happen. they are delusional. it was not there. I am constantly being gaslit by arcane fans.
#arcane#arcane meta#jinx arcane#vi arcane#caitlyn arcane#arcane jayce#arcane viktor#silco#silco and jinx
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If Viktor's parents are alive during Arcane, I don't he would let them keep living in the Undercity. I think he would have brought them up to Piltover's clean air as soon as his first paycheck arrived
Imagine, if you are feeling particularly cruel, that his last close family member dies merely a week before he starts to work for Heimer. Imagine if the treatment was readily available, but out of reach due to their poverty. How sick would you feel knowing that, if the money had arrived just a montj or so before, your mom or dad or sibling would be alive? Imagine Viktor keeping awake at night , thinking about all the things he should have done differently to get the money faster
Because the alternative is facing the reality that the problem isn't himself, it's Piltover, and he is not ready for that... yet
Yeah, I think for the longest time, Viktor had hope… hope that if he could go to Piltover, if he could graduate from the Academy and land himself a good-paying job, that he could turn around and help them.
Cuz we don’t know how he was able to make it into the Academy, how he paid for that. Even Jayce had to have a Sponsor. I’m guessing his parents put every cent into it, and his plan was always to pay it forward. But just like for many Zaunites, time runs out. I can only imagine the guilt Viktor would feel if he wasn’t able to help them before he lost them. And perhaps that would light a fire in him—to help others, since he couldn’t help those that mattered most. To save some other child from suffering the loss he did. Kinda makes sense how angry he starts to get when Hextech gets co-opted by the rich.
And it’s subtle, more subtext than anything, but I think we watch over the course of the season as his rose colored glasses shatter—as he starts to accept that yes, it is a societal problem. Just because I found opportunity here doesn’t mean Piltover will ever take their boot heel off Zaun’s throat. And that means it’s up to me to force them.
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