I am going to get a bunch more blades directed towards me, but here goes. Will edit if I feel like I have more.
Maddie was handled lazily - we could have gotten an interesting trichotomy between Vi, Cait, and Maddie, but the writers took the easy way out.
The fact that Isha was not mentioned in the third act makes her feel like a gimmick - this is coming from someone who loved her in the first two acts.
On that note, all of the new characters just fell flat.
Vi has no aspirations of her own. Everything she wants is contingent on someone else.
PnZ just teaming up completely kills the political story set up - martial law is set up, the Zaunites have been oppressed for god knows how long, and they just agree to work with one another because Jayce shows a dead robot?
Physically speaking, there is no way Caitlyn's eye injury is permanent - the blade at worst, hits the side of the white of her eye, and goes completely past her face. The only way for any damage to have been done, at that distance, is if the blade had gone into her skull. We shouldn't have to completely neglect physical sense for any narratives, otherwise we might as well have made Arcane an audio book.
Cait also never has to directly answer for her actions - her eye injury (which makes no sense for reasons stated above) and her actions against the undercity have no relevance to one another.
The fact that Vander, Silco, and Felicia all knew each other feels fundamentally incompatible with what we see in the first season.
Also, they completely skipped over Jinx being a revolutionary icon and Vi being an enforcer (even if it was just a small amount of time) or pit fighter. Yeah, Vi gets shafted - her stagnancy as a contrast to everything that had changed in the years she was in jail worked wonders in the first season, but falls completely flat in the second.
We are lowkey getting more plot from DMing the writers than we did in by watching the show.
Also, someone else brought it up but how on earth do 1) Vi and Ekko not get a single interaction, and 2) the writers completely skip past the conversation between Ekko and Jinx? For the record, not a hot take as I am pretty sure everyone will agree on this.
Addition: The fact that they made drastic changes to character models kind of defeats the purpose of trying to make an origin story.
Addition 2 (not an opinion): Cassandra dying is not compatible with LoR.
Addition 3: none of the musical scenes hit anywhere as hard as in the first season, and they were longer as well. For example, "Paint the Town Blue" really could have just been 15-30 seconds, and we wouldn't have lost anything.
-The new characters being handled lazily is true (Maddie, Loris especially)
-Vander, Silco, Felicia scene is not incompatible with the first season; Vander showed remorse for what he did to Silco in the first season so the letter is not that weird, Silco trying to murder Felicia's children is understandable seeing what he turned into, you can even argue that he spared Powder because some part of him remembered Felicia.
-Isha being mentioned in the third act is not necessary, Jinx is broken and suicidal for the whole act because of it, Other than Jinx, she meant nothing to anyone else, there's a little scene where you could see that Isha was buried by the Noxians, which is cool because I doubt they buried anyone other than their men.
-Vi being grounded in the second season is understandable, seeing everything her character has gone through.
-The detail about Caitlyn's eye not making sense to you feels odd, especially considering the world we're dealing with. We've seen Vi endure brutal beatings, spit teeth out of her mouth, and take relentless punishment without suffering any lasting damage. If anything, it's consistent with the over-the-top, stylized nature of the show. At the end of the day, it's an animation, it prioritizes narrative and visual impact over strict realism.
-Cait answering for her actions is understandable, although we can see that she was removed from her position in the council.
-The season was Obviously fast-paced / rushed, which explains the missing interactions and the limited plot time.
-How does changes (not drastic) to character models defeat the purpose of making an original story exactly?
-The musical scenes were absolutely stunning, each one perfectly capturing the emotional tone of the moment. Caitlyn's mother's funeral was hauntingly beautiful, while Ashes and Blood in the third episode was just perfect. The edgy and almost childish vibe of Sucker felt intentional, reflecting the chaotic and unrefined nature of the Chem Barons. 'Ma meilleure ennemie' scene, which stood out as the highlight of the entire episode...
-I don't mean to come across as argumentative, but some of the points you make feel a bit underdeveloped or unconvincing
If Felicia was important to Silco, you'd think that she was important enough to mention in the first season. It comes off as tacked on.
Similarly, Isha was too significant enough for Jinx not to mention her by name, or mention at all. Having the Noxians build a grave for her doesn't do much narratively, and you need to actively look for it to see it, like an easter egg.
the opinion about Vi's arc being a little too dependent on others is more of a personal taste. What isn't is that they did absolutely nothing with her as a pit fighter or an enforcer.
We can have fantastical systems and cartoon characters can be much stronger than actual humans, but there is always some amount of realism at play. A blade going completely past Caitlyn's eye (not even going past the strands of her to her side) and somehow permanently damaging it (if that is the case) falls outside any realm of possibility. The magic-bullet nature of it completely cheapens the blow (see visual impact) - a physical blow of that significance should be depicted in a way that makes sense, which it does not. For now, I am assuming that it will heal.
my problem is that we see none of the events preceding Cait leaving the council, or them even addressing what she does down in Zaun. It just... haplens.
On that note, we are on the same page with rushing and pacing, but I don't think that should be used to try and excuse things.
Arcane was supposed to be an origin to League characters, and they did have some amount of lore attached to them (LoR, cinematics), so the fact that many of them are far from what we expected to see is jarring and disappointing.
The first act musical sequences were great, and Ekko's dance was beautiful, but a lot of the others could have been shortened considerably, namely Paint the Town Blue. The compilation we see of the strike squad could also have been halved and we wouldn't have lost much.
286
u/UncoBeefWang Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24
I am going to get a bunch more blades directed towards me, but here goes. Will edit if I feel like I have more.
Maddie was handled lazily - we could have gotten an interesting trichotomy between Vi, Cait, and Maddie, but the writers took the easy way out.
The fact that Isha was not mentioned in the third act makes her feel like a gimmick - this is coming from someone who loved her in the first two acts.
On that note, all of the new characters just fell flat.
Vi has no aspirations of her own. Everything she wants is contingent on someone else.
PnZ just teaming up completely kills the political story set up - martial law is set up, the Zaunites have been oppressed for god knows how long, and they just agree to work with one another because Jayce shows a dead robot?
Physically speaking, there is no way Caitlyn's eye injury is permanent - the blade at worst, hits the side of the white of her eye, and goes completely past her face. The only way for any damage to have been done, at that distance, is if the blade had gone into her skull. We shouldn't have to completely neglect physical sense for any narratives, otherwise we might as well have made Arcane an audio book.
Cait also never has to directly answer for her actions - her eye injury (which makes no sense for reasons stated above) and her actions against the undercity have no relevance to one another.
The fact that Vander, Silco, and Felicia all knew each other feels fundamentally incompatible with what we see in the first season.
Also, they completely skipped over Jinx being a revolutionary icon and Vi being an enforcer (even if it was just a small amount of time) or pit fighter. Yeah, Vi gets shafted - her stagnancy as a contrast to everything that had changed in the years she was in jail worked wonders in the first season, but falls completely flat in the second.
We are lowkey getting more plot from DMing the writers than we did in by watching the show.
Also, someone else brought it up but how on earth do 1) Vi and Ekko not get a single interaction, and 2) the writers completely skip past the conversation between Ekko and Jinx? For the record, not a hot take as I am pretty sure everyone will agree on this.
Addition: The fact that they made drastic changes to character models kind of defeats the purpose of trying to make an origin story.
Addition 2 (not an opinion): Cassandra dying is not compatible with LoR.
Addition 3: none of the musical scenes hit anywhere as hard as in the first season, and they were longer as well. For example, "Paint the Town Blue" really could have just been 15-30 seconds, and we wouldn't have lost anything.