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jinx and vi feel so....out of character this season. Both feel like they have been stripped from their s1 characterization and both feel...ambition less. like vi just moves along with the plot and jinx is out of nowhere rational and is hanging out with a kid even though after the events of the last season she should be a MESS. Both of them lack motives ambitions plans literally ANYTHING.

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again its not the same thing. Noxus does not have a big central part in the conflict of Piltover and Zaun the way they do with other regions like Ionia and Demacia. Progress Day short story is just one instance. Most Piltover/Zaun champions, their backstories and conflicts have NOTHING to do with Noxus. Piltover and Zaun are a category on their own.

i wil be honest. I think tje addition of noxus as the stereotypical big bad is horrible and a cope out of actually developing the conflict of piltover and zaun. not only that, the black rose sublot is useless and takes away screen time from characters that NEED more development. Ambessa is a great character when she is there for Mel's development and then becomes a big bad tyrannical villain. Canonically in lore Noxus dgaf about Piltover. Idk why they thought it was a good idea to make it the main villlain. The conflict should remain between Piltover and Zaun.

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Among my mounting bad/unsure feelings about Arcane season two is a feeling of... I don't know, weirded outness over how Jinx is being handled. Just the way they seem to almost be trying to pretend like she wasn't depicted in season one as basically a sadistic, bloodthirsty, would-be school shooter who did shit like shooting animals for fun or blowing up buildings to try and impress her dad.

Like, the narrative of this season seems to be going out of it's way to handle her with kids gloves in a way that season one didn't, treating her as if she's just a "lol so quirky" kind of character or even a genuine revolutionary hero to be idolized as Zaun's leader compared to season one's "oh this lady is genuinely dangerously unstable and a threat to everyone around her". She's not treated as a villain - albeit a tragic one - she's treated like she's a flawed hero at worst.

Hell, I mean, you see it with the whole plot of Zaun following Jinx as a symbol of revolt. Because all throughout season one, Jinx's relationship with Zaun in even the most charitable light amounted to everyone except Silco being fucking TERRIFIED of her or outright hating her guts, and with good reason as she did nothing but make everyone's situations worse by being a mood-swinging killer who attacks anyone and anything around her at the slightest provocation and constantly goes into violent, hallucinatory fugue states at even the most mild of stresses. But than she blows up the council and suddenly everyone is literally equating her with a god worshiped in Zaun? Imagine if you saw people claiming the Unabomber was the Second Coming and you get an idea of how bizarre that is.

Everyone regarded Jinx as a walking bomb in season one. Even a lot of Silco's allies - from Sevika to Marcus - spent said first season saying Jinx was out-of-control and that killing her would be doing Silco a favor, and that was objectively true, especially considering Jinx ends up directly murdering Silco in yet another fit of blind rage and panic. Now we get season two and anyone who seriously opposes Jinx seems to be treated like either a jerk or a burgeoning extremist for not liking a terrorist who kills people because the voices in her head say to do it, and some people who despised Jinx in season like Sevika now act like they're just mildly annoyed by her childishness and weird behavior (something else that was played in a very creepy light in s1, but now seems treated like it's harmless).

Her crimes from season one and even this season are kinda brushed over; there's tepid acknowledgment that she killed Caitlyn's mom and two other councilors, but that's it and nobody really dwells on the fact that she basically did fantasy 9/11. And likewise, Caitlyn is treated as if she's becoming a violent zealot for shooting at Jinx while Isha is near, but nobody so much as comments on Jinx outright murdering numerous children through Grey-bombing Piltover or literally shooting a teenage Firelight in the back in season one just because she looked like Vi.

Speaking of Isha, I hate to say it, but she really does feel like she has no reason for existing beyond making Jinx look better. No themes of Jinx perpetuating the kind of abuse Silco inflicted on her by raising to be the monster she is, no acknowledgment of how dangerous somebody like Jinx would be as a mother, no questioning of the ethics of Jinx's actions, and Isha watching Jinx murder people is framed in a silly, comedic light compared to season one's blunt depiction of how Powder being exposed to violence from a young age warps her. Isha throws straight KILLS HERSELF via suicide bombing and it's framed as a heroic, beautiful act and not a horrific sight of a child being so radicalized by the terrorist that raised her that she thinks killing others and eve herself "for the cause" is good. The series dangles her and Jinx being friendly with each other in front of you like a parent jangling car keys at an infant. "Oooh look at Jinx and Isha dancing and dying their hair haha it's so cute don't think about bad things, Jinx is nice now!".

I just honestly am not a fan of this "Harley Quinnification" of Jinx after season one went out of it's way to tear down that kind of character. Such a big part of Jinx's portrayal there was ripping apart the idea of this manic pixie terrorist who is Totes Awesomes and only hurts bad guys as part of it's larger themes of the ugliness of violence and the dangers of valorizing it. And I really feel like we're losing that. Not even just with Jinx, but with Zaun as a whole, this season feels like it's going full "everything is Piltover's fault, Zaun didn't do nothing wrong, those Piltover babies should just shut up and let themselves be attacked for being big stupid oppressor doodoo heads!!!!" which feels very counterproductive to the series' messages and like frankly shit writing.

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The Vander/Silco Shitshow - generic, juvenile, and gimmicky slop

So, I think that Vander/Silco flashback was terrible. Tropey, careless, juvenile, clichéd bullshit that stripped away everything that made their season 1 story nuanced and poignant, while simultaneously ripping open a fat plot hole because the team got careless and did not catch the discrepancy between the story they'd written in their heads and the visuals that ended up on screen in season 1. This is just going to be a long rant post detailing the reasons I absolutely despised this flashback. Obligatory disclaimer that this is just my (strongly held) opinion.

1) The timeline plot hole

No, I'm not misusing the term. So a plot hole is an inconsistency in a fictional narrative that cannot be explained away by any plausible in-universe justifications. There are many moments of weak writing in Arcane that may be contrived, rushed, weird, convenient, etc. but aren't plot holes.

This Vander/Silco situation however. Oh boy. If you all remember, Season 1 opened with the bridge massacre, also known as the Day of Ash. Vander is shown cracking enforcers' skulls. He looks like this.

The sisters, seemingly recognizing him, ask him where their parents are. He gestures to their corpses, the sisters cry, Vander has his "violence is not the answer" epiphany, drops the gauntlets very dramatically to underscore this massive turning point of character development for him, then picks the girls up and leaves the bridge.

In episode 3, we are shown a flashback. Vander is trying to kill Silco in the river. He looks like this.

Let's compare this to how he looked like on the Day of Ash.

Yeah. According to the visuals shown in Season 1, the falling out of Vander and Silco seems to have occured in the past before the Day of Ash, evidenced by how much younger Vander looks. Unless Silco is a time traveller who jumped forward to the future to throw a molotov at the riot because he just loves violent extremism that much, or Vander took the time to shave his beard and apply heavy duty anti-aging lotion on his face before hunting Silco down, there are no plausible in-universe explanations for this inconsistency. Not to mention, if Silco and Vander were really as close as brothers and the sisters knew Vander, then it's impossible they wouldn't have known who Silco was.

Yet, in Season 1, that's exactly what we see - not a single sliver of recognition between Silco and the girls, nothing to imply they knew of his existence before episode 3. Not a single conversation between Jinx and Silco implied that he knew, let alone was close to, her mother. Nothing from Vi throughout the entire first season indicated that she knew of his past friendships with her mother and Vander. They acted like total strangers to each other.

Many fans already caught this inconsistency during the three-year gap after writers' comments online implied Silco was involved in the Day of Ash. We had hoped the writers would catch on to this discrepancy too and either iron out the timeline if they want to do serious flashbacks, or just avoid calling attention to it completely by not doing flashbacks of their falling out. Alas.

2) Leonardo Dicaprio pointing meme

Death to the everybody-knows-everyone trope and lines that only exist to invoke the "Leonardo Dicaprio pointing" meme. Throw them into a fucking fire. Boring, mind-numbing, clichéd, overdone garbage. Not every character needs to have some kind of half-baked relation with each other. Not every major incident needs to be tied back to the main characters. Not every single detail needs to be overexplained and justified and again, somehow tied to a main character. They are unnecessary, and make the world feel so much more claustrophobic and smaller than it should be.

"The enforcers actually commited the Day of Ash massacre because SILCO threw a molotov. Vander actually tried to kill Silco because of VI AND JINX'S mother. She knew both Silco and Vander personally and TOLD THEM to help her raise her kids. VANDER named Vi."

Bullshit like this really fucks with immersion, because it becomes clear very quickly that the world is only occupied by a small handful of real characters while the thousands of other people in it are nothing more than inconsequential set dressing and wallpaper. The story and world no longer feel real, vast, and immersive. And these forced "connections" between main characters are so obviously manufactured to generate "OUGHHH" and Dicaprio pointing reactions. Idk about anyone else, but it takes me completely out of the story when I can obviously tell the writing is trying too hard to blow my mind.

The girls' mom waltzing up to Vander and Silco and just. Fucking telling them to help her with her kids lmfaoooooooo. (OUGHH and they both really ended up raising her kids WOAGH😱🤯). Jinx's mom saying choosing a name is stressful because her child will feel stuck with it (GASP and Powder ended up changing her name WOOOOWW😱). Vander coming up with Vi's fucking name. (OUGHHHH HE REALLY WAS MEANT TO BE FATHER ALL ALONG WOADGHHGHDHDH🤯🤯🤯).

Fucking kill me. Arcane Season 1 was surprisingly good precisely because they DIDN'T, for the most part, resort to tropey bullshit like this. It had, for the most part, originality. Uniqueness. In fact all the strongest aspects of Season 1, aspects I loved, were deliberate subversions of overdone clichés. For Season 2 to resort to this kind of writing reminiscent of Disney slop is insanely disappointing.

I'm waiting for a character to unironically say, "What are we, some kind of League of Legends?" in Act 3 now.

3) "Ohhhhh so THAT'S why he did that!!!!!!!!!"

Also death to overexplanations and giving justifications for things that never needed justifications. You know what I was never confused by while watching Season 1 of Arcane? Why Vander adopted the girls. Why Silco adopted Jinx. Why both came to care for their girls so much, they were willing to sacrifice so much for them. I thought the reasons for those things were very clear and poignant in the first season. I never needed an extra on-the-nose justification for the adoptions in the form of, "they wuved yo mama". It's not only redundant, it's also one of the most tired ass tropes in fiction. To me, Vander taking in the girls and Silco taking in Jinx are so much more powerful if they really were just random guys with no real connection to the girls' parents.

But I've already seen some positive reactions to this flashback with "Ohhhhh so THAT's why Silco/Vander cared for the girls so much, now I understand😯🤯😓" mf what exactly did you not understand before??

4) Character motivations

The motivations of both Vander and Silco are made downright bizarre by this flashback. So Silco was hellbent on murdering Vi last season, despite being close friends with her mom whose death he may feel guilty for? Literally despised her and wanted to kill her the entire time with no hesitation lol. So Vander had that aforementioned dramatic moment of character development, dropped the gauntlets, realized violence wasn't the answer, and carried the kids to safety... then doubled back to violently hunt down and murder Silco? But not before shaving his beard and applying youthful lotion of course. Can't kill your bro while looking crusty. Then he failed to kill Silco so he just... went back to the kids and pretended like nothing happened? Lol.

Silco being close to, let alone loving, the girls' parents makes no fucking sense for his character. Vander knowing them at least makes sense, but casual friends would have sufficed. "I was lowkey crushing (?????) on your mom and also named you" just cheapened the entire Vander/Vi and Silco/Jinx surrogate father dynamic. Vander's motivation for killing Silco being yet another fridged woman is also weak as fuck. First Viktor with Sky, and now Vander/Silco. They really should have left this one up to our imaginations if this was the boring tripe they came up with.

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Why is no one talking about how when Mel figured out that wasn't really her brother she just full out no hesitation bashed its skull in (or tried to). Girl realized the problem and hit the puppet with so much strength she split the magical wall. Mel Medarda queen that you are what is happening to you

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the best part of this season was definitely the exploration of vander and jinx's relationship. A lot of people had made criticisms in the past season about how it felt like vander never really cared about jinx , how he played favourites with vi and how silco was a better father figure for her. Glad they proved you people wrong.

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i wil be honest. I think tje addition of noxus as the stereotypical big bad is horrible and a cope out of actually developing the conflict of piltover and zaun. not only that, the black rose sublot is useless and takes away screen time from characters that NEED more development. Ambessa is a great character when she is there for Mel's development and then becomes a big bad tyrannical villain. Canonically in lore Noxus dgaf about Piltover. Idk why they thought it was a good idea to make it the main villlain. The conflict should remain between Piltover and Zaun.

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i just don't get it. It was so easy to make a biblically accurate machine herald viktor. What the hell was the point of making him jesus christ. In fact, LoL Viktor is against being treated pike a religious figure. Viktor was a great character in lore i don't know how why there was a need to change so drastically his arc

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once again thinking about how in the prison archives it states that the guards believe Vi is an addict because every night she cry’s and talks to herself about “powder”

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silco being there when vi's mother was pregnant with her and he still paid someone to imprison her is genuinely insane....glad he is bones and rotting 50 feet under!

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the showrunners said that this season was mostly vi focused but we barely see scenes of her , her thoughts and feelings about anything and she is used mostly for either a) exposition or b) to develop other characters mainly jinx and caitlyn. i am confused

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Janna’s statue in #Arcane

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look i get characters have to have conflict and i know they are setting up a redemption arc but Caitlyn's turn towards to become more authoritarian happens so quick and especially the scene when she hits vi is....love me some toxic yuri though

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the first part overall feels extremely rushed, interesting characters arcs from LoL are disregarded for very boring and cliche ones, introducing random noxus characters while theres countless more zaunite and piltovian characters that have yet to be introduced ,there's not a really grey area anymore and Caitlyn feels CARTOONISHLY evil but at least i got my caitvi make out scene and thats all that matters!

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caitvi having both their first kiss and divorce in the span of thirty minutes is kinda CRAZYYY

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i don't like at all what they are doing with Viktor this season. I thought season 1 set up his arc and the machine herald pretty well. The show is taking away one of the most fascinating character arcs for what exactly ???! A Jesus Christ variant? Victor's hatred for human emotions and faults makes him a LOT more compelling than acting like a biblical figure. Introduce Janna if you want a god or something.