#that how they view themselves thing is part of why I don't like Ekko/Jinx

[impossiblyatomictiger-blog]

I thought for like two seconds: the politics of Arcane suck, don't they?

Like, it's all about the cycle of violence, which is fair when it comes to the personal relationships, but becomes fucked with Jinx and Caitlyn in particular, as it is a microcosm of the Zaun-Piltover thing.

Like, Piltover has economic power over Zaun, what with its control of international trade, explicit ownership of Zaun's resources and many of its factories, and enforces that power through the Enforcers. While I do think that while Jinx's political strategy is non-existant, this oppression and exploitation needs to end, and non-violent reform will only perpetuate the system. While a peaceable revolution would be nice, the only real independance would seperate Piltover's richest from a lot of their wealth.

A similar thing is shown in how Jinx treats Caitlyn vs. how Caitlyn responds to Jinx. Jinx is a personal scale villain, kidnapping her and killing her mom; she resembles the stereotypical anarchist terrorist, but she chooses her targets much more carefully than that (or, at least, Silco does).

Caitlyn's response: take advantage of her status to restart the explicit subjugation of Zaun with the enforcers, and to gas them. Y'know, fascist stuff. Not a long walk from reformist to fascist, since being a reformist doesn't require you to think too hard about the system and how it doesn't work, and thus your biases remain unexamined.

The cycle of violence in the context of Jinx vs Caitlyn, and Zaun vs Piltover, suggests somehow that the relationships are even, that Zaun hurts Piltover, Piltover hurts Zaun, back and forth forever. Wonder what real world conflicts resemble this narrative, that they hit first, so we have the right to self defense even though we have all the power in this situation.

I really like Jinx as a character, I just want a fic that gives her coherent and actionable politics instead of the terrorist framing.

[theoddest1]

funny how time bomb managed to have better dynamic and than the main ship

I'm happy for my Timebomb homies, they were some of the major winners here, if not THEE winners cause they got damn near everything along with a huge supply of content to work with.

CaitVi....man, this sure is something. Started off realitively strong only to dwindle the more their dynamic was shown on screen in season 2 thanks to what happened to Cait. Does she even apologize ONCE for what she did!? I don't think she has. Like, I'm glad that Vi called her out, but where was the real accountability!? Acknowledging is the first step. Where are the other parts of the stairs!?!? That was CRAZY. Also, look I get it, Vi can only drive herself to save her sister so much, but after seeing Jinx CLEARLY showing huge growth, she would NOT have fucking sex the moment her cop gf enters the cell, like bitch that is NOT fucking Vi. Why couldn't we just get a sex scene by the end of the war after time has passed!? WHY IN THE CELL JINX WAS JUST IN!?!?

Hell, JayVik was weird af too. Jayce gets pissed at Mel for investing in he and Viktor's success as if it wasn't for the betterment of the country. I won't sit here and act as though she is allowed to be dishonest, but the way she did things was nit with malicious intent. She even gave him pointers so that he wouldn't get an unneeded target on his back. Where did he even LEARN of this? Did I miss something? And yes, Jayce DOES acknowledge Viktor's new vision was of his own volition, but him choosing to stay with his brother who is MOST DEFINITELY IN THE WRONG over his GF who has done nothing but support him is INSANE.

And yes, I am calling him his brother cause that's literally what Jayce calls him back in S1. I view their dynamic with the same lens as Vander and Silco. Bro, both the twinks go rouge in hopes for a better future while the buffer men stay true to themselves while also going through huge trials that change them majorly, if that isn't a fucking parallel idk what is, BUT that is how I view it. I am leaning further into this, though, after how shitty some Jayvik fans have been to not only Meljay/GoldenForge but to Mel and Jayce separately as characters [especially Mel]. Like Jesus CHRIST, some of y'all are just straight-up racist and misogynistic, and I don't fling those terms around lightly. I don't mindle in fandom spaces often, but JayVik fans genuinely put a sour taste in my mouth.

So yeah, TimeBomb slapped in a good and productive way. Various ways. Ekko, Mel, and Jinx carried this season HARD. Honorable mentions being Sevika and Singed cause, tbh they stayed interesting a good portion of the time.

[arcane-ish]

It's a personal thing but I just never bought that Silco intentionally planned to trap the kids. To me that doesn't make sense with the setup. The kids showing up relied on Ekko tracking Silco, Ekko freeing Vi (rather than running away and abandoning Vi), Vi deciding to go after Vander herself (rather than telling other Zaunite adults or enforcers) and grabbing her brothers (rather than going in alone because she's the oldest).

I don't think that Silco could have magically forseen any of this (especially since acts 2 and 3 show that Silco is actually pretty terrible in predicting what people will do). So I think his trap was just generic "any loyalists who want to free Vander" rather than him targeting Vander's kids specifically.

I think once they were there it makes sense for him to get rid of them as they have seen his operation, I just don't buy he was targeting them primarily. (And I think there are some reactions and statements that maybe he was thinking of taking Vi after she proved herself in battle, ie his line about Vi as the crown jewel)

Yes he was absolutely willing to endanger them by ratting them out to Marcus (they could have been killed in the enforcer raids). But imo I could still easily picture that Silco's best case scenario here was always Vander decides to defend his own and starts a war with Piltover rather than "Silco wanted the kids to go to jail".

Again this is not a "Silco is secretly fluffy" defense. Silco's "willing to do anything" absolutely includes endangering or using kids. (As evidenced by his lack of sympathy for Renni) more a "why in Silco's extreme/more nihilist point of view it makes sense that he would target kids" (ie as loose ends after they chose to insert themselves).

(the other explanation that imo might make sense in his world view that he might think of the kids as the thing that made Vander weak, ie the kids made Vander turn in him so hurting/punishing the kids to hurt and punish Vander or to free Vander of the things that hold him back might make sense, but imo that isn't really carried by the rest of canon. Like his attitude towards kids seems more maybe nuisance rather than threat even before he has his realization about how much he values Jinx.)

(another potential angle could be getting revenge on Vander by stealing his daughters and making them love him instead, just like he takes over Vander's home)

As for not trusting season 2. Imo in the end what happened heavily matches what the writers always said and I would argue that it's not just a single shot of a flashback. All of Warwick's arc is heavily infused with missing Silco/feeling guilty about Silco

It's there in his letter (which was written before he became Warwick and maybe had his memory fucked with), it's in the flashback to the bridge, it's there in him hallucinating a disfigured young Silco toasting him, and better times with Silco being part of his happy memories and of course the AU (where Ekko thinks they have to get over Silco trying to kill Vander but Silco's line about forgiveness is actually about Vander's attack on Silco).

And it tracks with Vander's "Never forgiven myself".

Vander's deep regret which infuses his season 2 story fits better with an outburst rather than him acting intentionally on deep ideological differences or moral objections.

I'm not a big fan of the whole Felicia backstory but in the end the writers decide who these characters are and they have consistently valued personal relationship storytelling over in depth politics and the Felicia backstory fits with that theme, even if I personally think it's a bit trite.

@ravenking1771

I agree that Vander is not a pacifist. And I think Vander absolutely is a protector. But I think the deeper thing with Vander is that he is deeply concerned with consequences with results. His speech to Vi is about “are you prepared..” for the violence and death a fight with Piltover would have etc.

I think that's a really good point and a cool lense to see the show through especially since Arcane is full of people who probably don't think enough about the consequences of their actions (from Benzo attacking Silco, Jayce and Viktor's ... everything, to Vi attacking Silco's operation).

His deal with Grayson was thus a way to get out from Piltover by another means, getting the Enforcers out of Zaun in exchange for keeping Zaun out of Piltover, which was not nothing. This was a big meaningful deal that could have resulted in a Zaun that was more independent and self reliant, possibly even able to win greater rights and/or equality with Piltover.

I think in the end we know too little about "The Deal" and the circumstances of the Deal to say much about it. But I do think people have a point when they say it doesn't seem to be that great if Enforcers still hassle a fairly old Vi in the Enemy music video (and that doesn't look like the kids had crossed into Piltover, though I guess they could be outside the Lanes?).

And it's likely not that great if he made it with an "underling" rather than with the actual council/it's something Grayson has to hide from others.

But at the same time, I read it that the difference is that Vander doesn't care as much about formalities. It's not important to him whether Zaun has freedom on paper or if his protection comes from the council itself.

To me that was always the funny thing about Vander's ideology that he doesn't actually stray that much from Silco's ideology.

When Silco states his goal in Act 1 (scare the enforcers away from entering their territory) it's a very similar output of what Vander apparently wanted to achieve through different means with his deal.

I've always said that the two different ideologies presented in Arcane isn't Silco versus Vander, it's more Silco/Vander versus Caitlyn/Vi.

Silco and Vander disagree about the HOW, but they still propose different versions of segregation (ie Piltover should get out of Zaun's business, Piltover should leave Zaun alone). Cait and Vi seperatedly propose consolidation. Vi is angry that Piltover doesn't help Zaun more, she thinks Piltover should do more Zaun and Caitlyn agrees that Piltover has a responsibility to Zaun that it has lagged on. They both favor MORE intervention from Piltover into Zaun, not less.

But Vander even as he strayed from Silco's path is pretty much part of the idea that Zaun should be left to its own devices. He is part of that segregation. He does his own approach of advocating for and bringing about that segregation. (and peraonally I think he genuinely comes across like asking Piltover for help the way Vi does in season 1 likely never crossed his mind, because again, he's still roughly following Silco's ideology where he doesn't want that much to do with Piltover)

Silco's Act3 goals with economic independence are more complex but in Act1 I think you can seriously question whether what he wanted really would have looked so different in practice. Even if Zaun and Piltover were different countries, it's not like Zaunites could just freely go into Piltover to commit crimes and Piltover would be fine with that just because Zaun is a different country. And it seems that commerce and people always flowed between Piltover and Zaun, regardless of who is in charge. So restrictions on what to do in Piltover was always about doing crime there. (I think we can assume less enforcer presence as Silco wants to achieve in Act 1 is more his step one on the way to economic independence)

And I think you can read the end of Arcane with Sevika on the council and Zaun and Piltover doing funeral rites together as the cities moving closer together, that either the Vi/Cait ideology wins out or it's some middle ground between the two. (and we know at least the writers thought the AU would be "spurred into action by Vi's death Piltover helps Zaun more")

Silco on the other hand I think is remarkably unconcerned with consequences. My personal head cannon is that the split with Vander happened when Vander realized Silco just didn’t care about the deaths about the defeat the orphans etc. Silco just kept pushing for more violence or a bigger March etc.

That was my personal headcanon/this is the most likely explanation after season 1, but IMO season 2 goes against this, because Silco looks like this in Vander's memory

That doesn't look like a guy who is just fine with the violence that happened and eager to do more. (and I think the picture language implies that this is Vander going straight from looking at Silco to his gaze dropping down and seeing Felicia)

Granted, it could be flawed memory, Vander projecting guilt onto Silco. It could be Silco being upset Felicia got killed or it could be Silco just scared of Vander's reaction.

But my read is that the occam's razor explanation of what season 2 presents us is that Silco was shocked/upset too that Felicia was killed that the Vander "lost his head/temper" and it really wasn't proportional to what Silco had done at that time.

I do think that they likely had aready maybe had had disagreements over where and how their project was going. But that in this context it really was mostly personal and Vander regretted it afterwards and hence wanted to reconcile even if he had issues with Silco's goals or priorities. (and I do think that some of the things he says to Silco, like accusing Silco about caring too much about pride are old grievances/fights they had before, Vander just didn't consider that more important than their personal relationship when he wrote that letter)

When Piltover started looking for the thieves he ratted out Vander, rather than ally with Vander against Piltover he killed Vander and tried to kill his entire family, Silco did this in a manner in a way that he would be blamed for Vander’s death aka the most beloved man in Zaun, and guaranteed everyone of Vander’s fiends and allies would hate him forever.

I read Silco's season 1 actions as he ratted out the children because he wanted to provoke Vander into additional action. imo Act 1 can be read as Silco's attempt to get Vander to admit that Silco is right, that Vander is more violent than he wants to admit.

While I do think that Act 1 can be read as Silco getting carried away by emotion rather than just being practical, I think this is more about how he tries at all with Vander in the first place.

Silco whether fairly or not considers Vander an obstacle to his plans. But from his point of view, he has no reason to assume allying with Vander would ever work. He never got the letter, so he doesn't know that Vander ever wanted to reconcile/that for example using Vander's guilt against him was an option. Plus he seems to have heavy paranoia, so from his point of view, Vander already attacked him once, nobody can be trusted, especially not Vander. From this point of view the most "efficient" way would be to just kill Vander quickly without dragging it out and even talking to him or bothering to make it traumatic.

Not caring that it makes people hate him fits with his ideology about how it's a good thing to be feared.

I guess to me it just makes more sense to see it as "Silco's paranoia gets in the way of choosing potentially way more effective options for his revolution" (ie from a strictly revolution point of view killing Vander but blaming it on Piltover so people are upset at Piltover makes more sense than having people fear him and fight against Vander supporters) rather than "Silco knowingly chooses his own feelings over what is good strategy" IMO him choosing Jinx over the deal with Piltover is such a case where he KNOWS he's putting personal sentiment over getting what he wants politically; but many other cases I think that he thinks he's doing totally good strategy (ie trying to be popular with the people is a waste of time, having a small group of people you trust is more efficient than trying to do a broad popular movement, just doing shit rather than asking for permission is better, being feared rather than loved is a good strategy). Silco has a very particularly world view that influences his perception.