Idk just thought I’d open a thread about it now that the show is finished
Did you watch it ? Did you like it ? Did your favourite champion die ?
Thank you for making a thread!
Personally, I felt quite disappointed by the way they developed the story. To me, the first season was about the relationships between Jinx, Vi, Vander and Silco against the backdrop of this bombastic world. However, in the second season those relationships are moved to the background in favor of a huge apocalyptic (and ultimately somewhat nonsensical) conflict. We see people do things, but there is barely any room left for their emotions. This is also reflected in the dialogue, which devolves into oneliners, nonsequiturs and tell-don’t-show.
Vi changes loyalty depending on where the plot needs her to be. There might be a perfectly good explanation for this (like her being so damaged she’ll cling to anyone who shows her affection), but that isn’t explored, it just happens.
Jinx’s emotional development gets barely any more screen time. I did think it was a good way to develop the character (straddling the balance between being finally at peace and suicidally depressive), but after Isha dies, there’s barely any time left for her.
We never get to see what Jinx and VI think of Vander being turned into a beast man.
The same goes for supporting characters. Why does Jayce go from trying to kill Viktor to trying the save him through the power of friendship? Why does Ekko just start cooperating with topsiders? Does Heimerdinger actually have feelings about the whole thing?
I think Cait and Ambessa are the only characters who are properly developed. Viktor also gets a lot of screen time, but his power arc isn’t really explained (somehow going from healing himself to remotely controlling everyone), and his emotional arc descends into a standard villain trope (fix everything --> oh noes, boring!).
The obvious exception being the relationship between Ekko and Jinx in episode 7. Personally, I think that was the only episode which really added something to the first season. Otherwise, you might as well just pretend the story ends right before Jinx shoots the rocket at the council.
Also, many things just happen without any explanation. Why does Heimerdinger disappear? It isn’t foreshadowed nor explained. The final battle was clearly style over substance. Why does Viktor let the Noxians attack when he can clearly win it all by himself, without bloodshed? Why do Jinx and the Zaunites join the battle after walking away, and why are they late? (The former can be inferred to be Ekko’s work, but that would have been a great thing to actually show.) Why does Mel only start using magic after the main battle?
Finally I felt the Enforcer squad, the chem barons, and the whole Black Rose subplot where included because of planned tie-ins with the games, instead of actually adding to the story. Loris didn’t get enough screentime to make an impact, Maddie was just a foil for Vi, and Steb isn’t even named onscreen. The chem barons all but disappear after a few episodes. The Black Rose could have been completely left out without messing up the story and Mel could have discovered her magic in another way, while also not completely severing her relationship with Jayce. I’m guessing this is a matter of Riot telling Fortiche what to do and the product suffering from it.
There’s lots to love about season 2: the visuals and music were great, and it’s a good thing that they wrapped up the story. It’s certainly a fun watch, but I feel it could have been more.
Well articulated, I agree with a lot of it. The season 2 scenario does feel like a fairly good balancing act between many constrains and not so much like the writers had enough freedom and screen time to tell exactly what they wanted to.
I agree with some of your points, I do think Fortiche shot themselves in the foot by deliberately choosing to run this in three acts of three episodes, with a time skip in between. It’s an opportunity for beautiful storytelling character wise, but they also forced themselves into a narrative style that is prone to plot holes for the overarching story.
Yeah, I feel like they mainly tried to prevent plot holes by just not filling out the details instead of making sure everything is constistent.
As far as we know only Ambessa died. We don’t know where Heimerdinger actually went, same for Viktor and Jayce. Jinx escaped and Warwick is basically impossible to kill, though I suppose his Vander side is finally dead.
Maddie and Loris too. Not main characters. Maybe Leblanc too
How could jinx have escaped that?
Here’s the frame
She has shimmer speed now whenever she needs it. Everytime she uses it it leaves a pink streak of light from her eyes. You can see it before the explosion streaking off to the side of the hexgate chamber. A few seconds later, Cait holds the monkeybomb head, which means they searched for bodies and evidence after the blast. She realizes the hexgates had a cooling / ventilation shaft, which she zooms in on and smirks as she realizes Jinx used that vent to escape.
It’s Jinx :P
I feel like there may be some Riot conditions to not clearly kill playable characters so it doesn’t conflict with the game.
I liked the show, im glad they actually ended a show. (Good job netflix for not killing it early). Still searching for the Chekhov’s gun for the Officer Nora twist (im missing something).
Im very hopefull they continue making shows in the setting. I dont play LoL anymore but I love the lore. It doesn’t yet have all the baggage that large fantasy usually settings do.
Officer Nora
Maddie Nomen the young redhead? I feel like it was part of the author’s checklist on how she wanted to see a lesbian romance properly potraited, including not idealizing it: more than one relationship, jealousy (if she turns against her by jealousy) or absence of it (VI doesn’t care), betrayal or malevolent seduction (if she was a Noxus agent from the beginning).
I just found the following on TVTropes:
A rumour arose that Arcane’s showrunners originally planned to have five seasons, engendering disappointment and anger from fans when it was announced in 2024 that Season 2 would be the final. However, showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee and RIOT’s CEO Marc Merrill have all stated that two seasons was always the plan, and that the five seasons rumour originated as a misinterpretation of a joking comment made by RIOT’s former CEO Nicolo Laurent.
So at least we know that any pacing issues were Fortiche’s own doing :P
Good find, that’s interesting!
Loved every frame of it. Now I will go cry for the rest of the year
S2E7 best episode btw
Arcane SE01 was fabulous but SE02 terribly failed. It turns into a woke soup without consistency, a poor story and weird artistic episodes. Total deception.
what does “woke soup” mean ?
Vi is woke. Everything turns woke in SE02. And artistically it is an inconsistent mix, a soup.
What’s woke about Vi ? I’d say Viktor is the one that was awoken to a higher dimension and he was only stopped because of Jayce
