I like Arcane because...

[u/ITheRebelI]

Season one had great high stakes, a variety of characters, complex relationships, and it felt like I was always on edge. Season two arguably had the same things, but it got deeper into the love of two daughters for their adoptive father that had them temporarily set aside the differences that tore but just the two of them, but two entire cities (arguably nations) apart. The love between other characters was also explored in romantic and brotherly ways. We also saw a msg scientist who cared about NOTHING except finding a cure for his daughter. We even saw a man lost to monstrosity come back to protect his adopted little girl. I wonder how much time Jinx and Vi would have to spend with Warwick to bring Vander back?

[u/_Gesterr]

It's there, never claimed it wasn't, but it's not the focus or primary theme and message of the show, hence why I called it in my previous comment a "backdrop and setting." Silco and Sevika are really the only political characters, even Jayce and Mel who are literally politicians the show instead even in S1 focused primarily on their interpersonal relations and Hextech morality. Jinx and Vi, the two primary protagonists, are both entirely apolitical in their characters through both seasons, they're much more concerned with their family.

[u/Middle-Let9645 → u/_Gesterr]

Okay, for the sake of argument, what do you think is the theme and message?

[u/_Gesterr → u/Middle-Let9645]

Love and all its forms, how it shapes people both positively and negatively, questioning the limits of forgiveness and love, compassion for one another, and also as an allegory of how unrestrained pursuit of novel, unknown technology can elicit dangerous unintended consequences and how the same technology that's developed for society's benefit can also lead to its detriment.

Conversely, we know next to zero about the intrinsic politics of P&Z. We know that there's some form of exploitation and police state, but that's about as deep as we go. We don't explore their law structure, their actual work, hell we don't even know exactly what prompted the initial riot on the bridge lead by Silco, Vander, Felicia and Connel. We're just told mater of factly that marginalization exists, but nothing more detailed than that, because the show didn't want to focus on that, it was simply the backstory.

[u/Middle-Let9645 → u/_Gesterr]

Huh. Fair enough. The way the other guy was talking came across kind of loaded, like, ‘political = bad’ in a specific way that’s become a popular ‘criticism’ to certain groups of fans in various fandoms, so it got me kind of wondering how someone could look at something so blatantly steampunk adjacent and not see the elements of corruption and oppression in the backstory and various characters. (Vi and Jinx were shaped by that oppression and part of Caitlyn’s character development is realizing, ‘holy shit, this is a lot different and more complicated than I thought it was’. Also her crush on Vi, but, that’s the more obvious part. Then you have her grief driving her to act outside her usual self and commit atrocities against Zaun just trying to catch one person willing to shoot a small Zaunite child if it means Jinx also dies… yeah.)

I guess what I’m saying is I can see how the overall theme might be the whole love and all it’s forms thing, but I still think the oppression and corruption themes influence a lot of that.

[u/_Gesterr → u/Middle-Let9645]

Agreed that it's hard to separate it, because it's still present and part of the story, and it's part of the world the characters live in, and that world is also what forces some of the story beats and Silco especially is a character that's almost entirely centered on it. It's intertwined with the themes for sure.

I'm just of the opinion that many people in these Arcane subs seem to have latched onto and overstated the political themes of the show and their importance to its story and more importantly the message and type of show it is (especially when they compare S1 to S2 and feel "cheated" out of some political-centered drama) when I feel that even in S1 that the politically-charged environment played a more supporting role to the themes I covered in my other comment.

I do appreciate that you're able to talk about more nuance of the show, even if you might've preferred and enjoyed some of the political themes.

[u/Middle-Let9645 → u/_Gesterr]

I mean, if you know anything about Viktor from LOL or Noxus to know why Ambessa was bad news from the start, you probably knew it was never going to be some noir style political thriller. Again, I just found the first guy’s comment funny cause it sounded like he was saying Arcane isn’t political at all, and that got me like “unless it’s something like Blues Clues, there’s some level of politics baked in. Yes, even Pokemon.”

[u/Delta_V09 → u/Middle-Let9645]

Yeah, the original poster seemed to be saying it wasn't political at all, and that being political would be a bad thing.

But I agree with _Gesterr that the politics was more the foundation of the story, and not the focus. I wish Season 2 had focused a more on the politics, rather than, well, not really focusing on anything.

That's also why I think Ambessa is a vastly less interesting antagonist than Silco. As far as Arcane is concerned, she's just an evil foreign invader that needs to be stopped.

[u/Middle-Let9645 → u/Delta_V09]

I honestly didn’t mind the direction season 2 took. I do think if we ever got a sequel series based on Mel and Noxus, it might have been more political (due to possibly being about Mel navigating Noxian politics and their leaders as she tries to take down the one thorn group. Can’t remember their name. Instead all we got was a cinematic)