#just wasn’t expecting any sort of meaningful deconstruction from this incredibly tropey show

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

one episode from finishing arcane s1, and I’m frankly surprised that it’s had compelling things to say about deconstructing found family tropes, and how trauma shapes the characters’ relationship with and expression of familial bonds. this also has an interesting intersection with queerness

for a show that’s explicitly been billed and marketed as a queer story, with front and center queer romances, the actual writing for these romances (caitvi, jayceviktor) is leaning more on implications. where in any other show you might think the tension and jealousies aren’t intentional, or are just queer bait, which is very patently not the case here. they even go out of their way to establish a couple potential het dynamics for these characters, where again, in most other stories, you might expect those to be the real endgame relationships. (caitlyn and jayce’s initial friendship is introduced a lot like an opposite sides of the tracks style romance) the character writing isn’t particularly deft imo, but it’s always pretty deliberate. and thats further elevated by the animated medium, where you know that even the smallest gesture and glance on the characters' part was put there on purpose. the result is a show that's very aware of its own subtext

the juxtaposition of silco and vander referring to each other as (former ig) brothers, so early in the show, with the most intense homoerotic subtext in their dynamic. the tie that has to the long history of queer coded relationships in fiction using similar sibling specific terms as a euphemism, but also to the implication that neither of them seem to have had any real family anyway

vander seems to be the least flawed parental figure in the entire series, but it’s still pretty explicit that he failed those kids, and even if things didn’t go so poorly, the sort of family and safety he could provide for them in a street gang just wasn’t going to necessarily result in any of them being particularly well adjusted. meanwhile silco has been pretty much overtly grooming jinx. everyone calls her his daughter but I highly doubt they have ever had a single normal interaction. meanwhile during the scene where jinx is being… operated on ig… she hallucinates that vi has replaced her with caitlyn, and is clearly jealous meanwhile caitlyn is vi’s love interest. I don’t even think there’s been any real incestuous subtext between jinx and vi (edit: nvm I watched the s1 finale lol) but it makes sense that jinx wouldn’t have the emotional context to really differentiate relationship types, considering all she really knows is her dynamic with silco

most of the characters don’t seem able to really process familial bonds, or have a real idea of where the boundaries should be. how to categorize any of their relationships. and it dovetails well with the theme of queerness in a heteronormative society (not even necessarily homophobic— I have no concept of how accepted it is for people to be gay in this world. could be pretty inconsequential) resulting in romantic feelings being misidentified. and how all of those messy feelings and confusion would realistically be very present in your average trauma riddled found family dynamic