#and the black rose plot was obviously shoved in so they could make mel and ambessa champs in the game and wasn't supposed to be there at al

[tvckerwash]

I reblogged this already but I'm reblogging it again because during my rewatch yesterday I realized jayce being the leader of piltover was in fact a plan mel set in motion starting all the way back in episode 4 of season one:

2/3rds of season one was spent on this plot line, that's not something that happens only for it to go nowhere. it was painfully clear that it was always the plan for jayce to be piltover’s figure head. he IS the golden boy, the man of progress, the defender of tomorrow, as you say, but the writers of season two decided to ignore that for whatever reason—which really sucks! his role as piltover’s hero/propagandic figure who just so happened to be a scientist was always a very underutilized aspect of his league lore imo, which does unfortunately make sense because iirc he was designed to be a foil to viktor first—who existed as a standalone character before jayce was around—and everything else was second. season one worked so hard to build him up as a character outside of that relationship, and season two threw him straight back into the hole they had dug him out of. to fuck something that practically writes itself up so badly is just....ugh. the cognitive disconnect from the story as it was written necessary to achieve that is sort of impressive in way.

re: jayce's recklessness, I would like to point out that most of his really reckless actions are things he's talked into doing by someone else. mel is the one who made him blurt out the truth of his work at his trial, viktor is the one who talked him into breaking into heimerdinger's office, marcus (unintentionally) gave him the idea to set up the barricade on the bridge, ambessa and mel are the ones who (highkey and lowkey respectively) fear mongered him into making hextech weapons, vi is the one who talked him into the shimmer raid, etc.

caitlyn's story in season one was about finding out the truth: the truth about silco, the truth about zaun, the truth about piltover. she was your average sheltered rich girl whose parents wanted to keep her from seeing the real world in order to protect her. she despises the power her family name holds, she despises that she has to question whether any of her achievements are due to her own merit or her parents buying them for her, and yet she still constantly uses the name she hates to get her way and do whatever she wants (and jayce’s name! she used his new position as a councilor to get vi released from prison without his knowledge! and she used it to convince ekko to let her take gemstone back to piltover!)

her arc in season two should've been about her having to confront her name and legacy as the new head of house kiramman, and her recognizing that she's been doing the exact same thing her parents did. her doing so was probably going to be portrayed as though it was justified because she's using it for good because that's what riot set up—which I'm fine with because I never expected them to address her privilege much more than they already did in season one because that's just how they treat their lore.

but making someone as kind as cait, a dictator who gassed people was totally unnecessary and insultingly out of character, for her AND jayce. even if they were blinded by rage, I refuse to accept that these two characters—who are fundamentally good people that care very deeply about doing the right thing and making things better—would go to such lengths:

+

side note: I kind of doubt jayce would've made caitlyn sheriff at the beginning of season two considering his reaction to her being caught in jinx’s attack in act two, and especially not after she was kidnapped in act three. it's not impossible of course, but I think it'd make sense for it to happen later in the season after things have calmed down some, or it could've made a really good finale for her too ngl.

The thing that bugs me most about Caitlyn's arc is how obviously she was forced into the position Jayce had been set up to fill.

Jayce was the de facto head of the council that Sheriff Marcus (keep that in mind) reported directly to for city security.

He was the Golden Boy, Man of Progress, beloved by everyone in Piltover for the invention of Hextech! Charismatic! Handsome!

They didn't NEED martial law. After Jayce emerged unscathed from the terrorist attack, most of the council dead, Piltover would have been falling over itself to give him sole authority regardless of him wanting to quit the council right before the attack.

And Jayce should have been beside himself with rage! Jinx turned his invention, his dream, into a weapon that nearly killed him and the two people he loves most! Mel and Viktor, at the same time! She ruined his peace deal! (And killed Silco, but for some reason Cait and Vi never tell anyone about that)

But nope. He's just sad, and tries to talk Caitlyn down from wanting to kill Jinx.... Like wtf!! Where did his passion go?? His recklessness? Caitlyn got it all.

Let's say he's still reeling after killing the kid in his shimmer raid and fearing the consequences of violent intervention. Fine. But then there is the attack at the memorial. Now it's bigger than Jinx, and his entire city is threatened.

Picture the end of episode 1, with the council gathering in the basement after the memorial attack and it is JAYCE marching in to announce the strike team, with Caitlyn and Vi beside him, with their shiny Hextech weapons.

They didn't need to give Caitlyn political power. She could have become Sheriff under Jayce! She would have had nearly the EXACT same scenes. She doesn't get a single moment where she acts like a political leader in Act 2 anyway!

We never see her do anything the sheriff wouldn't do, which tells me this was a late change to cram all the remaining story into one season, to every character's detriment. If Caitlyn had just been following Jayce's orders until running into Vi, her flip would not have felt so jarring.

She loves Jayce as an older brother, she's grieving her mother, she and Jayce could have BOTH been manipulated by Ambessa. Let Caitlyn be at the forefront of all the awful shit she's ORDERED to do, instead of ordering it HERSELF.

By giving her ultimate authority instead, the few clipped scenes of her redemption, her "I know" and letting Jinx go free are nowhere near enough to get the audience back on her side. As evidenced by how many people hated her arc this season.

[clonerightsagenda]

Kat's "I could fix her" Arcane season 2 post Part 1:

Yeah we're skipping straight past the recap/reflections on what this show actually was into my 'just let me into the writers room' post because I'm currently tormented by, ironically, what could have been

What's funny is the characters didn't even end up doomed by the narrative because of their League of Legends fates!! They killed a whole bunch of champions! They just Did All That anyway.

As I was saying in previous posts, the season was overstuffed. I genuinely liked some of the music video portions lol, but there was just so much going on.

I still would put Mel in a Magic Coma for the entire season and spin out her Black Rose plot for a third season or new spinoff (it seems like there will be one anyway). Her storyline as is felt like an afterthought and wasn't fully explained. Am I supposed to know the Black Rose lady? I don't. Being crammed in does her a disservice; I'd rather give her room to breathe. This would create a stronger absent mother/absent daughter bond between Ambessa and Caitlyn, and Caitlyn could see Ambessa claiming to do things for her daughter's sake even though it's obviously stuff Mel would never approve of, and that could force Caitlyn to reflect on how her mother wouldn't approve of the actions she's taking allegedly for her sake. That could sell Caitlyn's immediately re-siding with Vi better.

This may be a very hot take, but I didn't really like the werewolf Vander plotline. My understanding is he's a LoL champion, but he felt particularly cartoonish even in an increasingly cartoonish season, and just kept retreading the same ground. Vander's dead. :( He's alive! :) He's dead again. :( Obviously the cycles are part of the point, and he represents how Vander's death is this monstrous always dying never at rest force between the sisters tying them together and strangling them at the same time, but I'd cut it. Have Vi seek Jinx out after the prison break because she can't believe her sister did that, have Jinx admit she only did it to save one girl, and they reflect on how Vander also did stuff just for kids versus ideals. Make Vi reflect on how her little jaunt with Jayce killed a kid, and here Jinx is saving one, and people are complicated. Still not clear on how Jinx has no negative effects from Shimmer, so give her a few and that can be their new reason for going to Viktor's commune. Ambessa can hear about his new weird magitech without needing a werewolf to pique her interest.

Obviously this raises of the question of what Vi and Jinx are doing in the finale, and while I don't think every character needs a big damn fight scene, they can back up Caitlyn versus Ambessa since Mel won't be there, which also forces them to deal with the Vi-Caitlyn-Jinx tension. IDK if there's a way to have Jinx ambiguously blow herself up in that scenario but here's a thought, maybe the most prominently disabled characters don't all need to die and/or commit suicide? More on that later. Ambessa is subdued, not dead, though, so she and Mel can talk later.

Finally (for this post) I already expressed my frustration that the key class conflict so present in the first season and first half of the second gets mostly shoved under the rug because there's a new enemy to fight. Yes, that's often used as a distraction irl, but that's not a *good* thing. Sevika's sitting at the councilor's table at the end of the show. Who negotiated that? Caitlyn? If we absolutely must go the direction of a big damn final battle, I want to see that conversation and all of the pain and distrust that must've come up during it.

That's the kid gloves version. If I was being aggressive - and I would be - I'd have the fighting totally destroy Piltover with arcane corruption, and now everyone from Piltover has to live in the Undercity/Zaun as refugees. Forget Sevika sitting down at the Piltover table as the new councilors glare at her. Now the Piltover councilors are having to sit awkwardly down at a table with Sevika and Ekko's number 2. (Or Ekko. What is he doing besides sitting sadly on that roof. Is he involved in governance. Is his tree ok.) Piltover suffocated Zaun for years with their industrial runoff. Now they're choking to death on their own magical industrial waste, and they're going to have to learn to live like everybody else.

I am still parsing the whole Viktor, Jayce, and disability thing since as you know that's one of the elements that fascinates me most about this show (the new improved crunchy ableism even as they genuinely try to explore something interesting) so I will be typing a separate post about that, probably thinking through it as I write. Stay tuned.