#heimer going down to the Undercity and just giving up to head back up was such a yordle fail

[cherrybomb107]

Hi guys! I wanna make(yet another lmaoo) post about why I think ppl feel the way they do about Heimerdinger. In my children’s rights class the other day, we talked about the water crisis in my city. (Technically the city where my school is, but I live in the dorms, so let’s just call it my city for simplicity’s sake). Okay, so, the water in my city is unsafe. The pipes aren’t well kept, and there’s a lot of lead in our water that leads people to experience medical complications and get really sick later down the road.

My city’s population is 40% Black, and 15% Hispanic. It’s pretty clear that environmental racism plays a part. But, let’s put a pin in this for a second and come back to it. After talking about the water crisis, we talked about the idea of “slow violence” and “neglect vs. harm” and which one is “worse” between the two. “Slow violence” is violence that occurs slowly and gradually and doesn’t become obvious until it escalates. Perfect example is climate change. We’ve known how bad things would be if we didn’t make changes for decades now. But politicians, corporations and media outlets spent time and money spreading misinformation and downplaying the truly horrible effects of climate change, only now can we see how harmful that was because of the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

The act of spreading mis/disinformation and downplaying how horrible something is is bad, for sure. But the true severity of just how bad isn’t easy to see until later, which is why I think it fits the criteria of “slow violence”. Now onto “neglect vs. harm”. The dictionary definition of “neglect” is: fail to care for properly. The definition of “harm”: physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted. Now, when we were talking in class about if we thought that neglect and harm could be put on the same level, I was surprised by one of my classmate’s answers. False consensus effect beat my ass for a second lol. Because I don’t think they’re on the same level. I think neglect is leagues worse than harm. I think there is no greater evil than having the power to step in and stop something and choosing not to. My classmate disagreed.

He thinks that while neglect is awful, it’s not on the same level as actively harming someone. And to my genuine surprise(I am a bit of a know it all, so I was actually shook) he, and I’m sure many other people, feel that way. Which brings me back to how people feel about Heimerdinger, and his neglect of the Undercity. A lot of people don’t like Heimer because of how he failed Zaun. And even among his fans, it’s pretty universally accepted that he neglected the Undercity. But, because of the idea of “slow violence”, and the fact that many people don’t see neglect on the same level as active harm, Heimerdinger gets let off the hook.

Because at a certain point, ignorance becomes willful imo. Heimerdinger had 200 years to pull his head out of the sand and actually pass some policies that would help EVERYBODY, not just the folks in upper Piltover. But he chose not to. He actively made the choice, over, and over and over again to ignore the Undercity. He didn’t even THINK to go down there until Jayce kicked him off the Council!!! Imagine if Jayce hadn’t been there to give Heimer that much needed reality check! How many more centuries would’ve passed before he finally woke up and decided to do better??? I don’t even wanna think about it tbh. The “slow violence” that he was responsible for imo, is his negligence. Because in the face of arrogant, materialistic, self serving, condescending politicians as members of his Council, Heimerdinger did…nothing. He did nothing to stop all the horrible policies/laws these corrupt Councilors were most likely responsible for passing that only served them and the citizens of upper Piltover. He did nothing when the Enforcers were brutalizing folks and throwing them in prison. He didn’t even care to open his eyes to see what was going on in the first place! Jayce had to force him to!

He. Did. Absolutely. Nothing. And that’s the problem! People like Silco and the Chembarons are much more active in the forms of harm they carry out. Having kids work in factories, flooding the community with drugs, grooming a child into becoming the worst version of themselves etc, are all obviously violent. But being a politician who can afford to have all the power and all the ignorance in the world and allowing people like Silco to thrive in the first place is the ultimate act of violence imo. Being a politician who can kick back and wax poetic about “progress” and “scientific innovation” while Enforcers like Marcus are able to kidnap kids like Vi and throw them in prison without a fair trial is violent to me. So yeah😭😭😭

This post is an essay, my bad y’all lmaoo🤭🤭🤭

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

Back again

CAITLYN KIRAMMAN I FREAKING LOVE YOU YOURE SO KIND AND WHOLESOME AND YOURE TRYING YOUR BEST

VI I LOVE YOU TOO SO MUCH SO SO SO MUCH YOURE TOUGH AND STRONG BUT ALSO HURTING SO BAD AND YOURE TRYING YOUR BEST

YOU GUYS ARE SO PERFECT*** AND WONDERFUL AND INTENSE AND SOLID AS INDIVIDUALS AND TOGETHER

*** not literally but like kinda

[space-blue]

I feel like it's doing a disservice to conflate Heimer's attitude to humans with his position on the council. For both Heimer as a character and the Arcane writers.

Replace Heimer with a vampire, if you will. Think back of your teen years devouring the work of Anne Rice, where vampires slowly went out of touch with humans, and lost perspective.

Or think even of Legolas, looking so stricken and a little pikachu-faced when Boromir dies.

I feel like Heimer isn't tone deaf to human death. He's just... *not human* and very, very used to cycling through humans. They're fleeting to him. Of course he doesn't celebrate all deaths equally or try to remember them.

In a way I can really empathise with that, as I have lived in transient spaces a lot over the years. Camp grounds in national parks. Hostels. Fuck, for 3 years I lived in a hostel as "long term" resident. People come and go so much... You can't get attached too much or too often. You'll make terrific friends, open up, hang out a lot, make sweet memories, listen to this person's life stories and then— bam. They're gone. You never hear from them again, and they soon become another puzzling name on facebook or your phone.

This is so emotionally costing after a while! A lot of LTs would start shunning temporary residents. I typically didn't even bother remembering new LT's names their first month, in the end. Many didn't stay that long. We only have so many shits to give.

And that's us as humans. But Heimer... As a basically immortal being, clearly functioning at a much more leisurely pace... We must all seem like mayflies.

I think that's a great way to make him interact with the humans among the cast, always barreling forward at what would look like an alarming pace to him. Humans are alien to him, and he's alien to them. It's good that way. The dissonance is intentional.

It also means he 100% wasn't including himself in the "burn brightest" line. He's above that. An immortal, superior being. It's probably why he never questions the legitimacy of his position as head of the Council. Just the order of things, ya know.

And that, honestly, is whack. Him being a scientific advisor? Sure. A Council of elders advising an elected government? Sure. The lead who languishes in the past and doesn't even clock human suffering because he's too busy running his experiments? Yeah it's wild!

It's crazy people respect him enough (or the system, I guess), to tolerate so much from him. He's clearly enabled and encouraged by the whole Council (they're out for *blood* when they push Grayson to keep pounding the Undercity if she has to)

The humans on the Council have FEWER excuses than Heimer. Don't tell me they never see Zaunites. They know what it's like down there. "They may not be our favourite constituents" is spoken (by Mel, I think?) meaning they're all very well aware of their own bias.

I'm far from a pro-Heimer fan, but at least he crossed the river to go see for himself. The others kept the same circus going, and Jayce went full chauvinistic. Heimer doesn't have a monopoly on tone-deafness.

For suuuure Heimer going and seeing the Undercity sucks ass and immediately giving up because someone refused his gift toupee (is that "HELP"??? Did he think he was helping?) is by far his most insane moment.

Doesn't help the show-runners, aching for time, made Ekko completely ignore this truckload of bullshit and led him back to his secret lair. Say what you will about him respecting Heimer's scientific work, immediately making pals and trusting him is just a mild form of character assassination.

re-watching arcane while at my parents' house and just laughed at this scenario in episode 2 when Jayce is on trial

Heimerdinger: You don't understand what's at stake. That's a burden only I can bear.

Saying this not ten seconds after Robo councilor just said his entire race was almost destroyed by arcane magic

Heimerdinger and his nature of self-importance.