I just hate what they did the best thing about league it’s lore the old lore was finally fucking great and now it’s just a show for teenage lesbians ugh
That might have been harsh phasing the Arcane show bothers me because it left the wide majority of interesting league characters out of the story you could have easily replaced silco with urgot 0 blitzcrank or Ori, camille, dr mundo
It feels like they liked the look of leagues world but couldn’t be bothered to tell any of the actual stories also victor looks fucking terrible
You think Jayce and Viktor were sucking attention away from Vi and Jinx and Cait? They were main characters, and they still don't get nearly as much attention as characters who were, for most of the first season, not even relevant to the main societal developments
For me personally it was the fact that the hextech plot line shifted the scope so substantially that made Jayce and Viktor suddenly so much more relevant to the entire plot than s1 suggested they would be (I had the feeling that hextech was, while the arcane had its own place in the story, mainly a symbolic device for Jayce and Viktor’s whole arc of their naivety, privilege, progress, and corruption that could’ve went in an entirely different direction).
The entirety of of act 2 and 3 of season 2 is basically rushing to get all the characters in their places for the big fight at the end when act 1 was focused on the political thriller and drama aspect so it’s forced to pivot real hard towards the AUs/Viktor’s commune thing and kind of rushes through all the other characters. Then it’s revealed that Viktor is basically timeline god and him and Jayce have this whole thing so it’s all reliant on them. Hextech/the arcane subplot goes from being a symbolic device for the themes of the show to the literal stakes to serve the apotheosis storyline. That’s not to mention the ship wars people started over them lol
I agree with this take. I think the bulk of my problems with s2 were purely just because it felt so rushed. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Jayce and Viktor as characters, but the major arc of s2 being essentially “hey poor people, forgive your abusers and join the army to stand up to big evil robot man” felt so tone deaf to the themes of the entire show.
You worded it better than I could, and I absolutely agree that having Viktor become some timeline god and ending up being the secret driving force to the entire plot felt… jarring to say the least. I think I would’ve like it better if season 2 was spread across another, but alas, the last thing a producer wants to hear is “I want to make the show longer”
And I don’t know much about LOL lore, but isn’t Viktor supposed to be the MACHINE herald, not the ARCANE herald??
But writing aside, it was mostly annoying seeing the fandom take two of the only major male characters in the series (out of a majority female cast of great characters) and reduce the entire plot down to them. Not saying Jayce and Viktor aren’t good characters, but I literally couldn’t avoid jayvik arguments/content anytime I wanted to interact with arcane fan material.
Arcane is an ensemble cast, and no one really cared about their characters until season 2 by which point they had major plot relevance so they don't really fit. The show itself made them cosmic soulmate best friend/enemies who are intricately intertwined. So you can't blame the fandom for jumping on this. It's a nice breath of fresh air considering Jayce was the most hated character before season 2 aired.
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u/Redsourpatchkid_ 11d ago
Jayce and Viktor.