X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
I think it's probably because as an eldest sibling who grew up taking a psuedo-parental role to watch over my younger sibling who was emotionally compromised because of trauma at a young age – I have a particular lens to assess Vi as a character in an extremely specific way. While I initially liked her quite a bit despite her colder exterior post-prison personality quirks that rub me the wrong way in Season 1, I just flat-out don't like her at all in Season 2 because of the writing choices missing the mark on how to execute what they're trying to do with her.
(Also, I've been in both short & long-term romantic relationships with lesbians, so I HIGHLY doubt that plays any factor here.
)The tough detachment, the "goth bi Vi" phase, as well as all the prison cell scene chemistry, etc are all VERY overwhelmingly familiar to me as much as their moments in Season 1. That's not at all why it doesn't work – as all of that's VERY on-point & instantly relatable, even if I don't always vibe with Violet's more world-worn tough outer shell reflex. The portrayal of all of those things was utterly spectacular, and I'd've been wholly emotionally taken by them otherwise BECAUSE they're just so good at nailing exactly how those things feel and capturing those moments in the animation & acting. Absolutely zero notes there.
The writing choices are what make the circumstances that the scene is entangled with as it relates to Vi's character are why it not only doesn't do anything for me at all in making that feel romantic – but because of the wider details that are rushed over in Season 2, it ends up making ALL the emotional elements of that scene inextricably intertwined with things that utterly gut it of any possible positive impact for me and make it VERY much the opposite to watch in a sort of sickeningly uncomfortable way – because it's watching trauma repeat rather than heal).
I've also been rewatching Season 2, albeit mostly in the form of checking out other peoples' reactions while watching it. I always like getting a number of varied perspectives to help appreciate details that I've missed & get more nuance from certain people's expertise, and it also helps me narrow down if there's ways around things that might not've worked for me or ways to appreciate something even more. (On that note: There's one for Arcane Season 1 with a Therapist that's SUPER good at breaking down a lot of the specific and minute clinical details about Jinx's trauma responses – but she had a kid recently IRL, so not sure if/when she'll get around to Season 2, as I was hoping to check out her thoughts about Jinx's developments).
While Season 2 is still good for the vast majority, and there's a LOT that I just love to bits, those two things in particular are still VERY much ones that don't escape the feeling of being rushed really having a negative impact on them in ways that just... feel more & more frustrating.
As the symbolic leader everyone looks to, one of the key things that Vander does is that he prioritizes the well-being of the community first & foremost over his individual hang-ups with anyone because that's where the core of his promise sits. It's why he's got the deal with the Enforcers in Season 1, and why everyone respects him – as he cares deeply about the means by which ends are achieved. That's also what means that the progress towards the nation of Zaun actually becoming a reality is stagnating into a different normal that's a progress that isn't offsetting the negatives that are growing, and why he's seen as weak by those who are driven for change the most. That being said, Season 2 establishes a bit more about why he has an internal conflict about Vi objectively making the right choice to give herself up for the mistake that she made, which ultimately leads to all of the events in the series caused by that instability from losing him.
In contrast to that, Silco cares about the ends and will use any means to reach that ultimate outcome, rather than being stuck in limbo forever like Vander becomes after his failed attempt at crossing the bridge (which is what the schism & tension in the undercity is being caused by in their shared history). This once again eventually presents itself into the identical conundrum of being asked to sacrifice Jinx for that stability which (as Season 2 establishes) has an additional weight from the exact same place as Vander's does which necessarily complicates that. They both promised Violet's / Powder's mom that they'd make sure to get everything with the undercity & the nation of Zaun figured out – so that her kids would have a future.
For both Vander & Silco, sacrificing her child's life in order to achieve the end of bringing about the nation of Zaun for the collective is ultimately morally entangled in a self-sabotaging end-goal for them as individuals. They're inverse mirrors of one another as neither of them can truly give up that bond to the person they care about most just to make a world that's safe for everyone else. This is essentially THE classic division that leaders have where they have to sacrifice their humanity for their position or sacrifice their position for their humanity – and there is no right answer here, because both choices cause an irreversible pain to lose something that you can't ever get back and the circumstances make that a binary option that forces you into one path or the other. (It's the source of the Arthur / Guinevere / Lancelot love triangle & permanent schism in Camelot for Arthurian fiction, or the Griffith / Casca / Guts mirror in BERSERK). It's also the same existential paradox that often gets used in revenge stories where getting revenge or making choices that you don't have the perspective to see understand the wider consequences of will destabilize & create the EXACT same trauma that brought it about in the first place to happen again.
THIS IS A KEY STORYTELLING DEVICE TO REMEMBER, BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE WRITING IN SEASON 2 MISSES ITS MARK.
The "conflict" of both of those things in Arcane are that they're protectors who aren't allowing the person they're protecting OR the person looking out for them to actually have the agency of being informed to their choice. It's always taking action behind someone's back that's leading to problems, because the person is operating from a perspective where they don't have the whole picture, and can't act with complete information. Thus they unknowingly make a choice with that level of irreversible finality, and they react to it emotionally since our brain doesn't have time to process that wave of painful information contextually, so it turns into trauma that repeats in cyclical behaviours & reactions to those stimuli.
This is one of those things that is MASSIVELY exacerbated in the emotional codependency from younger siblings who struggle with those things the way Powder does after her & Vi's parents die. It's also shown that VIOLET KNOWS THIS – both in general AND about her sister specifically.
In season 1, Vi tells Powder before she goes to turn herself in, as even though we don't see their conversation – Powder suddenly has Vi's favourite toy which was stuck somewhere unreachable. Especially after Vander was the one who gave her the lecture about what happens when people look to you as the leader, Vi knows that she can choose to make that sacrifice and make Vander understand. It's the right call given what's happened as a result of her actions, and she's shown that she's proactively thought about what Powder is going to deal with without her. Ultimately that choice is not really any different from how we get the world where Ekko & Powder are together, and everyone is objectively happier & better off, and it's proof that this sort of thing CAN work when you are intentional about it and communicate (because that forces your brain to engage in ways that disconnect it from those traumatic responses).
Vander feels the guilt over failing when they attempted to cross the bridge and ALSO losing Silco from their schism. He explains that context to Vi directly when reinforcing just how much a choice that seems or FEELS like the right thing can hurt other people that last for a really long time. Case-in-point, Powder's codependency on her because their parents died. Most of Vander's conversations early on are things that are SUPER important to understand about being the eldest and/or being someone who's looked up to by a large community of people who are going to follow you. This is why her not having that same conversation with Vander (since she's only considering needing to talk to the people BELOW her and not ABOVE her) turns into a problem of him rushing out to save her, since she lacks the context to why he didn't give her up. What Vi gets shown here in Season 1 is that every time she DOESN'T get to ensure to communicate her choices – things fall to pieces.
She lashes out at Powder after her sister doesn't listen to her (a reflection of this where Powder is making an uninformed decision that changes the choices that Vi can make as a leader). This lapse from Vi's emotional reaction to Vander's death makes Powder have a mental breakdown and then (again through forces that Vi doesn't control) she ends up not being able to correct that, and thus Jinx is created. She spends all of Season 1 trying to figure out whether or not some part of her sister is still in there or if the traumatic coping mechanisms have erased her completely, because she's trying to see if her sister is someone that her protective pseudo-parental reflex can still be extended to, or if she HAS to let her go because that person's gone... or is at least unreachable to HER (which is actually the case).
There are plenty of times where that bond can't be repaired by the original person who was responsible for safeguarding it, but it doesn't mean that the individual is permanently lost. It just means that there's a very limited agency over their ability to help them, specifically because the traumatic triggers act on both parties in ways that don't heal things, but often just amplify that spiral – which is precisely what happens with Jinx in Season 1.
That's the whole reason that Jinx doesn't really have any ability to reconcile with Vi until AFTER Jinx winds up in a psuedo-parental role of watching over Isha. That's how she learns what it's like to have to be a symbol to other people who all collectively act on every tiny thing that you do – which is something that she fundamentally couldn't understand in her codependent relationships because no one ever followed her before. That understanding necessarily creates a lot of existential pain for Jinx, because she realizes that she WAS a liability that caused a lot of irreversible problems, but also in losing Isha to her mimicking Jinx fighing it leaves her with the sort of emptiness that exists when you lose that person you're doing your best to protect – because they're copying you without understanding what that means...
While in children or people with various levels of trauma or arrested development, it's because they don't have the lived experience to know something, for adults it's because it hasn't been explained yet, or there's information that would alter those choices if they had it. Hence the Season 1 cliffhanger being Jinx firing on the council that approved the independence for the Undercity even BEFORE she was apprehended and given over. The trauma here ALL stems from people making decisions that impact others without taking them into consideration. That's the core of why Vi having a good heart is core to her character remaining steadfast through escalatingly hopeless adversity, and refusing to allow that trauma to turn her into something else... but that's also where the flaw in delivery breaks that stoicism down into its dark mirror of stagnation.
The thing that undercuts this with Vi is that in Season 2, is Vi's first objection to taking a badge & teaming up with the Enforcers has literally nothing to do with the Undercity, it's because she's hung up about her parent's deaths when Cait's mom just died as an extension & reflection of that same conflict in a way that's INSTANTLY relatable to her. Of ALL of the lessons that Vi was supposed to have managed to internalize & come to terms with in losing Powder to Jinx being THE destabilizing catalyst it's that her sister chose sides that means that she HAS to act as the united front together with Caitlyn to resolve things and maintain peace with the undercity – which is EXACTLY how Cait phrases the invitation. Especially after Vi already hit the Shimmer facility side-by-side with Jayce, which is the equivalent of going on a spec-ops mission with the President, she's THE front-and-center person who has to step into that position, because she chose to put herself there and use that earned trust with everyone else to bolster alliance before it fractures... only to immediately develop a hang-up that doesn't serve to help anyone, and only complicates everyone else's lives. Vi knows that inaction is still a choice, because her not choosing the false ultimatum is why Powder went off. Even so, that's where her character gets tossed by the writing all season.
It's why immediately at the start of Season 2, Vi went from being a character I really liked to being a character I couldn't care less about, because as soon as she actually has the agency of choice AND a path of clear & open communication from both sides that's been missing in those situations that she's been chasing after since Season 1 – she turns on it and leaves, effectively disintegrating everything that established the core motive for her character's actions. As a result of that self-sabotaging, she regresses her into reactive self-centered wallowing all goddamn season long, which she functionally never stops doing. Maddie gives her the motivation to join up with the Enforcers by showing her how much they look up to her and see her as a beacon of positive influence from the Undercity... but when she drops that – Jinx is the one who becomes the icon of the undercity while Caitlyn becomes the icon of the Martial Law Enforcers. Rather than being a meaningful character, Vi's complete lack of meaningful development is what forces the other two to do what they do all season long.
This damage is what creates the emotional vacuum in Caitlyn that Maddie steps up to tend to. Yes, Maddie's actions are being influenced by Ambessa – but so are those of absolutely everyone else the whole season. This is why the fact that we have ZERO context on the nature of what that influence was makes everything connected to it impossible to definitively take a stance on, but ESPECIALLY with the way that Vi comes back and Caitlyn detaches from Maddie in a way that gives all the signs of shunned betrayal are enormous red flags. Maddie not trusting to close the door and leave Vi & Cait alone together – despite being established as a character who MASSIVELY looks up to both of them is just as likely to be Caitlyn treating Maddie with an increasingly inappropriate power dynamic that she displays from being in her position of authority & influenced under Ambessa's stewardship for so long as it is to be Maddie spying on Caitlyn for Ambessa. Given that Maddie is the one attempting to get Caitlyn to give up that authority when they're intimately together, it's not really justified that she's ONLY Ambessa's spy, but rather that her genuine emotions are being manipulated for Ambessa's goals. No matter what the distribution, both things are likely directly interconnected, and again this comes back to the importance of subtle nuance necessitating clear communication because of the effects that choices have on other people & what their reactions to them will be.
There's nothing that establishes that Caitlyn overtly calls things off with Maddie BEFORE she decides to wander in and fuck Vi in Jinx's prison cell. That makes the situation monumentally problematic because it's not JUST intimacy any more – now it's ALSO a knowing betrayal of someone that is in a vulnerable position to an authority figure they're in a relationship with where it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for Caitlyn to be the victim, because she has absolute military authority over Maddie. She can order her to do anything at any time, and she HAS to comply. Pair that together with Maddie being established as looking up to Vi, and you've got a situation where Maddie's incentivized against voicing any acts of mistreatment because of an imbalanced power dynamic. This is why it's the absolute responsibility of BOTH Vi AND Caitlyn to establish that communication channel, otherwise the results of their choice over what feels good to them is creating traumatic harm for Maddie.
So, after Caitlyn cheats on Maddie with Vi, take the final words that Maddie says in anger to her about just being a warm body while she's suddenly displaying absolute loyalty to Ambessa – and recognize that this is EXACTLY what happened when Vi reactively made an emotional decision where she slapped Powder, called her a jinx, and abandoned her in an act of betrayal – which is what caused her sister to say, "I have no sister." and develop absolute loyalty to Silco.
Once again – the situation with Maddie's emotional involvement & fissure with Caitlyn is something VIOLET CAUSED.
Ambessa calls out explicitly in the tent when she thanks Vi for leaving that there's a power imbalance there to be concerned about, and in the follow-up Prison Cell scene, Caitlyn even comes to her senses after things start getting physical for a moment and tries to explain that she started seeing someone. Vi literally says that she doesn't care and pushes into it anyway. Once again, Violet is creating problems where the solution is honest communication with the vulnerable party, and the lack of that communication creates a MASSIVE backlash of emotional betrayal that traumatizes the vulnerable party – which Vi should know because she's literally inside the prison cell that her little sister only ended up in because of her because of that EXACT type of short-sighted choice preventing her from taking the fall with Vander, and then again for turning Powder from a nice, happy, cheerful little girl... and made her into Jinx, who was instantly turned against everything that she used to be – because that's what a traumatic response does to the person who isn't in a position of power when they're betrayed and someone else swoops in to offer them the stability that the person they trusted ripped away.
Maddie has no authority in her military rank NOR any seniority in emotional connection with Caitlyn AND she explicitly looks up to Vi. Unless the show makes it OVERTLY clear that she's been a day-one, complete double agent from the very first moment she shows up, there's no justification for this. Given that her as a total traitor doesn't add up for how she's placed in danger during the initial attack, how she talks to Cait in private, or multiple other details – Maddie's 100% a victim here no matter which way you slice it, and it even reinforces that in visual parallels
From the writing, Maddie responds EXACTLY like how the series has showed us that victims who are removed from any operational authority act when they're being destabilized. That vulnerability in their relationship having an inherent inescapable power dynamic is explicitly what Ambessa calls out the first time Maddie gets coldly dismissed from the room based on military rank in a way that also reflects on the emotional trust dynamic of Caitlyn's relationship to her being shaken (the authority position vs. personal split). Powder's shown spying through a cracked door to watch Vi & Mylo talking because they won't have honest conversations about how they feel about her when she's there – Maddie does the same thing when Vi shows up & Cait tells her to leave the room with that same cold authority that ignores their personal relationship, despite this not being a military matter. When Vi & Cait have to go face Jinx, they make Maddie & the others leave & go it alone... exactly the same way Powder got left behind from missions. They've written in the echoes of how that trauma forms in ways that match what EXACTLY the series has established... but they rush past the important details of following through on them for Maddie – so that what SHOULD be a hugely romantic reconciliation of Vi & Caitlyn FINALLY getting together is now watching two people ACTIVELY betray & emotionally discard someone vulnerable who looks up to both of them – because she doesn't matter enough for them to have that same empathy for her.
That is just so UNBELIEVABLY fucked up that there's no way that the Prison Cell scene could retain even the most miniscule spark of romance for me when I was watching it. The writing also showed that this wasn't an accidental moment, because there was an active choice made by Cait on where her guards were & weren't. They both decided that she wasn't worth enough to EITHER of them to be treated with the emotional protection she should be able to expect. (For me, it's just watching someone getting cheated on – and having been cheated on twice, that feeling of betrayal by someone who you're emotionally vulnerable with in that intimate way instantly plants a sickeningly inextricable knot in my stomach for that moment – and it's context that I literally can't remove from feeling in that scene, because the writing doesn't take the necessary steps to ensure that wasn't a part of what happened).
While I didn't really care about Vi this season because of the first episode turning her into a developmentally stagnated mess of a character (which is fair & makes for interesting side-effects in the narrative), this brought everything full circle to make me absolutely abhor her as a character completely not because of anything about her character in and of itself, but because the rushed writing choices make the important parts of her character vapid & anathema to her core characterization. It makes it so that this specific scene manages to be literally indistinguishable from being antithetical to the core emotional trauma of the ENTIRE SERIES and even more explicitly the damage that motivates Vi as a character being the eldest role model who NEEDS to be able to be held accountable for the choices that she makes when telling other people what to do.
Once again – the problem isn't that they're making a choice to become romantically entangled. It's that they're making a choice FOR another party (Maddie) by not giving her the necessary information to be involved in the decision OR to be considered with the care & consideration that her vulnerable position necessitates. This means that choice is knowingly made in a way which is GUARANTEED to create emotional trauma from that betrayal of trust... the EXACT same issue that's the root cause of why Vi attempting to give herself up without telling Vander, or do ANY of the other things without full conveyance ALL fail over & over again. It's why those choices cause problems to bleed into everyone else close to her, because Vi literally doesn't change AT ALL, which reshapes everyone around her into a reflection of that damage, rather than healing.
Season 2's portrayal of Vi is meant to be purposeful in not letting her change, as it's looking for be portraying Violet not losing her good heart in an admirably stoic way which mirrors when the "ghost" of Vander helps her get back up when she's bleeding on the floor of The Last Drop, and she's gotta just keep going despite everything. It's exactly what you'd expect from the post-prison unbroken butch with a heart of gold fighting against the systemic injustices with her fists & healing the pain & damage that's been caused by her absence needing a genuine moment's honest reprieve with that slightly shy but overly capable femme fatale who's just as clean & organized as she is tough & unstoppable, where they've been unable to fully connect out of fear over what happens to everything that she cares about – and finally giving in to let that kind heart embrace someone with the unchanged love she had back before the world put her in a box, taking place inside that very box that made her that cold & defensive in the first place. That's exceedingly touching, romantic, and creates a dynamic of those different types of sheltered vs. unsheltered upbringings often represented between different class dynamics that also match how a lot of lesbian couples have a very particularly balanced dynamic that this series represents spectacularly with those two, even before the heavy reinforcement of the specific sorts of traumatic reinforcements get added in to dial everything up to 11 to really make those trauma-bonding emotional connections DEEPLY important to individuals who are going through it, and who feel reflections of those things themselves.
Instead, the writing misses that mark.
It's not taken the necessary time to make sure those elements are preserved with Vi in a way where she's just getting shielded from her own arrested development, which is also what ultimately leads to why Jinx blows herself up to remove the rest of those damaged consequences from Vi needing to experience accountability for them – because Vi's ALWAYS functionally incapable of handling anything that Vander taught her how to be responsible for this ENTIRE season. This flaw is predicated on her being overly self-protective of that kind heart of hers, and not wanting to just keep putting it out there over and over again – which is necessary, even knowing that there IS no perfect way to do everything – because as soon as you find yourself thrust into a position of significant influence, there are people who WILL get hurt because of you, and you have to own that. You have to be tough enough to take those hits and stand back up, which means that you need that other person who ACTUALLY cares about that kind heart of yours to keep it from taking more hits than it can recover from... but that CANNOT shield you from being held accountable for your own mistakes. Accountability feels like an attack when you don't understand the impact that your actions have on others – and that's why the writing obfuscating the impact of Violet's & Caitlyn's choice to make the seal of their compassion for one another an act of infidelity that motivates traumatized betrayal feel sickening. The fact that because it's a love scene that the consequences aren't actually felt by either of them in any meaningful way just rings SO hollow.
It's just beyond infuriating – because I WANT to like those things as they're OVERLY stacked with things that are just absurdly coded for me to be WAY into them. They're all JUST at the cusp of being GREAT and unabashedly lovable despite their rough edges... but that VERY specific ambiguity makes that totally impossible, especially since the whole of the series places SO much repeated emphasis on the importance of different points of view... but then manipulates those moments emotionally so that the audience has a gut reaction to Maddie's betrayal from a forced perspective that obfuscates just how fucked up everything leading up that is from any other point of view that prioritizes her as much as any of the other characters. That limited perspective is forced into place by Mel just Deus Ex Machina blocking the bullet to richochet back into Maddie's brain, so that Maddie has to pay the price for being the victim of the cycle of Vi's & Cait's trauma repeating – so that they can make their myopically passionate choices free from the actual consequences of being held accountable for doing so... exactly the way Jinx has to do the same by blowing herself up, so that her sister can have that relationship with Caitlyn – as Jinx has consistently been the schism that's been preventing them from getting together, and Maddie is just that exact same reflection of rushed writing taking a shortcut without looking at the bigger picture.
It's just the worst, and I wish it wasn't – because the ONLY thing that could fix this is – writing that just literally... isn't there to.
The reason that this stands out so much, is specifically because that's the necessary perspective that you HAVE to prioritize as the leader that Vander tells Vi she has to always prioritize. Given my own background it's the perspective that I always approach these stories from, and why I love to do really deep character analysis like this, but also why little contextual shifts can totally shift something touching to be antithetical to what it represents. Additionally, because this dynamic involves a very specific traumatic feedback loop that a LOT of my favourite stories use, it's one where I'm always looking for those outside elements that slip by being considered like Maddie's character – because the stories about this that I like most... basically always have conclusions that are messy because they follow through on things like that, so it's the rushed writing that really irks me here.
It's not that stories like this can't have happy endings – they can, but it's very often a lot more complicated to get there in a way that doesn't hamstring its own core message and might not be exactly what you'd expect from a happy ending. (An immediate example that I'd give is an early 2000s sci-fi time travel film called Returner by the director who recently did Godzilla Minus One. While both films have a focus on the risk of lacking information, and the far-reach of those consequences, and the potential trauma that comes from decisions and how they're made, Returner goes about addressing the complexity of tiny choices & those impacts that has permanently stuck with me when looking at what to expect from writing that's tackling those issues).
As before – I do REALLY like this show despite being strongly critical of its weaknesses.
In contrast to that, Silco cares about the ends and will use any means to reach that ultimate outcome, rather than being stuck in limbo forever like Vander becomes after his failed attempt at crossing the bridge (which is what the schism & tension in the undercity is being caused by in their shared history). This once again eventually presents itself into the identical conundrum of being asked to sacrifice Jinx for that stability which (as Season 2 establishes) has an additional weight from the exact same place as Vander's does which necessarily complicates that. They both promised Violet's / Powder's mom that they'd make sure to get everything with the undercity & the nation of Zaun figured out – so that her kids would have a future.
For both Vander & Silco, sacrificing her child's life in order to achieve the end of bringing about the nation of Zaun for the collective is ultimately morally entangled in a self-sabotaging end-goal for them as individuals. They're inverse mirrors of one another as neither of them can truly give up that bond to the person they care about most just to make a world that's safe for everyone else. This is essentially THE classic division that leaders have where they have to sacrifice their humanity for their position or sacrifice their position for their humanity – and there is no right answer here, because both choices cause an irreversible pain to lose something that you can't ever get back and the circumstances make that a binary option that forces you into one path or the other. (It's the source of the Arthur / Guinevere / Lancelot love triangle & permanent schism in Camelot for Arthurian fiction, or the Griffith / Casca / Guts mirror in BERSERK). It's also the same existential paradox that often gets used in revenge stories where getting revenge or making choices that you don't have the perspective to see understand the wider consequences of will destabilize & create the EXACT same trauma that brought it about in the first place to happen again.
THIS IS A KEY STORYTELLING DEVICE TO REMEMBER, BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THE WRITING IN SEASON 2 MISSES ITS MARK.
The "conflict" of both of those things in Arcane are that they're protectors who aren't allowing the person they're protecting OR the person looking out for them to actually have the agency of being informed to their choice. It's always taking action behind someone's back that's leading to problems, because the person is operating from a perspective where they don't have the whole picture, and can't act with complete information. Thus they unknowingly make a choice with that level of irreversible finality, and they react to it emotionally since our brain doesn't have time to process that wave of painful information contextually, so it turns into trauma that repeats in cyclical behaviours & reactions to those stimuli.
This is one of those things that is MASSIVELY exacerbated in the emotional codependency from younger siblings who struggle with those things the way Powder does after her & Vi's parents die. It's also shown that VIOLET KNOWS THIS – both in general AND about her sister specifically.
In season 1, Vi tells Powder before she goes to turn herself in, as even though we don't see their conversation – Powder suddenly has Vi's favourite toy which was stuck somewhere unreachable. Especially after Vander was the one who gave her the lecture about what happens when people look to you as the leader, Vi knows that she can choose to make that sacrifice and make Vander understand. It's the right call given what's happened as a result of her actions, and she's shown that she's proactively thought about what Powder is going to deal with without her. Ultimately that choice is not really any different from how we get the world where Ekko & Powder are together, and everyone is objectively happier & better off, and it's proof that this sort of thing CAN work when you are intentional about it and communicate (because that forces your brain to engage in ways that disconnect it from those traumatic responses).
Vander feels the guilt over failing when they attempted to cross the bridge and ALSO losing Silco from their schism. He explains that context to Vi directly when reinforcing just how much a choice that seems or FEELS like the right thing can hurt other people that last for a really long time. Case-in-point, Powder's codependency on her because their parents died. Most of Vander's conversations early on are things that are SUPER important to understand about being the eldest and/or being someone who's looked up to by a large community of people who are going to follow you. This is why her not having that same conversation with Vander (since she's only considering needing to talk to the people BELOW her and not ABOVE her) turns into a problem of him rushing out to save her, since she lacks the context to why he didn't give her up. What Vi gets shown here in Season 1 is that every time she DOESN'T get to ensure to communicate her choices – things fall to pieces.
She lashes out at Powder after her sister doesn't listen to her (a reflection of this where Powder is making an uninformed decision that changes the choices that Vi can make as a leader). This lapse from Vi's emotional reaction to Vander's death makes Powder have a mental breakdown and then (again through forces that Vi doesn't control) she ends up not being able to correct that, and thus Jinx is created. She spends all of Season 1 trying to figure out whether or not some part of her sister is still in there or if the traumatic coping mechanisms have erased her completely, because she's trying to see if her sister is someone that her protective pseudo-parental reflex can still be extended to, or if she HAS to let her go because that person's gone... or is at least unreachable to HER (which is actually the case).
There are plenty of times where that bond can't be repaired by the original person who was responsible for safeguarding it, but it doesn't mean that the individual is permanently lost. It just means that there's a very limited agency over their ability to help them, specifically because the traumatic triggers act on both parties in ways that don't heal things, but often just amplify that spiral – which is precisely what happens with Jinx in Season 1.
That's the whole reason that Jinx doesn't really have any ability to reconcile with Vi until AFTER Jinx winds up in a psuedo-parental role of watching over Isha. That's how she learns what it's like to have to be a symbol to other people who all collectively act on every tiny thing that you do – which is something that she fundamentally couldn't understand in her codependent relationships because no one ever followed her before. That understanding necessarily creates a lot of existential pain for Jinx, because she realizes that she WAS a liability that caused a lot of irreversible problems, but also in losing Isha to her mimicking Jinx fighing it leaves her with the sort of emptiness that exists when you lose that person you're doing your best to protect – because they're copying you without understanding what that means...
While in children or people with various levels of trauma or arrested development, it's because they don't have the lived experience to know something, for adults it's because it hasn't been explained yet, or there's information that would alter those choices if they had it. Hence the Season 1 cliffhanger being Jinx firing on the council that approved the independence for the Undercity even BEFORE she was apprehended and given over. The trauma here ALL stems from people making decisions that impact others without taking them into consideration. That's the core of why Vi having a good heart is core to her character remaining steadfast through escalatingly hopeless adversity, and refusing to allow that trauma to turn her into something else... but that's also where the flaw in delivery breaks that stoicism down into its dark mirror of stagnation.
The thing that undercuts this with Vi is that in Season 2, is Vi's first objection to taking a badge & teaming up with the Enforcers has literally nothing to do with the Undercity, it's because she's hung up about her parent's deaths when Cait's mom just died as an extension & reflection of that same conflict in a way that's INSTANTLY relatable to her. Of ALL of the lessons that Vi was supposed to have managed to internalize & come to terms with in losing Powder to Jinx being THE destabilizing catalyst it's that her sister chose sides that means that she HAS to act as the united front together with Caitlyn to resolve things and maintain peace with the undercity – which is EXACTLY how Cait phrases the invitation. Especially after Vi already hit the Shimmer facility side-by-side with Jayce, which is the equivalent of going on a spec-ops mission with the President, she's THE front-and-center person who has to step into that position, because she chose to put herself there and use that earned trust with everyone else to bolster alliance before it fractures... only to immediately develop a hang-up that doesn't serve to help anyone, and only complicates everyone else's lives. Vi knows that inaction is still a choice, because her not choosing the false ultimatum is why Powder went off. Even so, that's where her character gets tossed by the writing all season.
It's why immediately at the start of Season 2, Vi went from being a character I really liked to being a character I couldn't care less about, because as soon as she actually has the agency of choice AND a path of clear & open communication from both sides that's been missing in those situations that she's been chasing after since Season 1 – she turns on it and leaves, effectively disintegrating everything that established the core motive for her character's actions. As a result of that self-sabotaging, she regresses her into reactive self-centered wallowing all goddamn season long, which she functionally never stops doing. Maddie gives her the motivation to join up with the Enforcers by showing her how much they look up to her and see her as a beacon of positive influence from the Undercity... but when she drops that – Jinx is the one who becomes the icon of the undercity while Caitlyn becomes the icon of the Martial Law Enforcers. Rather than being a meaningful character, Vi's complete lack of meaningful development is what forces the other two to do what they do all season long.
This damage is what creates the emotional vacuum in Caitlyn that Maddie steps up to tend to. Yes, Maddie's actions are being influenced by Ambessa – but so are those of absolutely everyone else the whole season. This is why the fact that we have ZERO context on the nature of what that influence was makes everything connected to it impossible to definitively take a stance on, but ESPECIALLY with the way that Vi comes back and Caitlyn detaches from Maddie in a way that gives all the signs of shunned betrayal are enormous red flags. Maddie not trusting to close the door and leave Vi & Cait alone together – despite being established as a character who MASSIVELY looks up to both of them is just as likely to be Caitlyn treating Maddie with an increasingly inappropriate power dynamic that she displays from being in her position of authority & influenced under Ambessa's stewardship for so long as it is to be Maddie spying on Caitlyn for Ambessa. Given that Maddie is the one attempting to get Caitlyn to give up that authority when they're intimately together, it's not really justified that she's ONLY Ambessa's spy, but rather that her genuine emotions are being manipulated for Ambessa's goals. No matter what the distribution, both things are likely directly interconnected, and again this comes back to the importance of subtle nuance necessitating clear communication because of the effects that choices have on other people & what their reactions to them will be.
There's nothing that establishes that Caitlyn overtly calls things off with Maddie BEFORE she decides to wander in and fuck Vi in Jinx's prison cell. That makes the situation monumentally problematic because it's not JUST intimacy any more – now it's ALSO a knowing betrayal of someone that is in a vulnerable position to an authority figure they're in a relationship with where it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for Caitlyn to be the victim, because she has absolute military authority over Maddie. She can order her to do anything at any time, and she HAS to comply. Pair that together with Maddie being established as looking up to Vi, and you've got a situation where Maddie's incentivized against voicing any acts of mistreatment because of an imbalanced power dynamic. This is why it's the absolute responsibility of BOTH Vi AND Caitlyn to establish that communication channel, otherwise the results of their choice over what feels good to them is creating traumatic harm for Maddie.
So, after Caitlyn cheats on Maddie with Vi, take the final words that Maddie says in anger to her about just being a warm body while she's suddenly displaying absolute loyalty to Ambessa – and recognize that this is EXACTLY what happened when Vi reactively made an emotional decision where she slapped Powder, called her a jinx, and abandoned her in an act of betrayal – which is what caused her sister to say, "I have no sister." and develop absolute loyalty to Silco.
Once again – the situation with Maddie's emotional involvement & fissure with Caitlyn is something VIOLET CAUSED.
Ambessa calls out explicitly in the tent when she thanks Vi for leaving that there's a power imbalance there to be concerned about, and in the follow-up Prison Cell scene, Caitlyn even comes to her senses after things start getting physical for a moment and tries to explain that she started seeing someone. Vi literally says that she doesn't care and pushes into it anyway. Once again, Violet is creating problems where the solution is honest communication with the vulnerable party, and the lack of that communication creates a MASSIVE backlash of emotional betrayal that traumatizes the vulnerable party – which Vi should know because she's literally inside the prison cell that her little sister only ended up in because of her because of that EXACT type of short-sighted choice preventing her from taking the fall with Vander, and then again for turning Powder from a nice, happy, cheerful little girl... and made her into Jinx, who was instantly turned against everything that she used to be – because that's what a traumatic response does to the person who isn't in a position of power when they're betrayed and someone else swoops in to offer them the stability that the person they trusted ripped away.
Maddie has no authority in her military rank NOR any seniority in emotional connection with Caitlyn AND she explicitly looks up to Vi. Unless the show makes it OVERTLY clear that she's been a day-one, complete double agent from the very first moment she shows up, there's no justification for this. Given that her as a total traitor doesn't add up for how she's placed in danger during the initial attack, how she talks to Cait in private, or multiple other details – Maddie's 100% a victim here no matter which way you slice it, and it even reinforces that in visual parallels
From the writing, Maddie responds EXACTLY like how the series has showed us that victims who are removed from any operational authority act when they're being destabilized. That vulnerability in their relationship having an inherent inescapable power dynamic is explicitly what Ambessa calls out the first time Maddie gets coldly dismissed from the room based on military rank in a way that also reflects on the emotional trust dynamic of Caitlyn's relationship to her being shaken (the authority position vs. personal split). Powder's shown spying through a cracked door to watch Vi & Mylo talking because they won't have honest conversations about how they feel about her when she's there – Maddie does the same thing when Vi shows up & Cait tells her to leave the room with that same cold authority that ignores their personal relationship, despite this not being a military matter. When Vi & Cait have to go face Jinx, they make Maddie & the others leave & go it alone... exactly the same way Powder got left behind from missions. They've written in the echoes of how that trauma forms in ways that match what EXACTLY the series has established... but they rush past the important details of following through on them for Maddie – so that what SHOULD be a hugely romantic reconciliation of Vi & Caitlyn FINALLY getting together is now watching two people ACTIVELY betray & emotionally discard someone vulnerable who looks up to both of them – because she doesn't matter enough for them to have that same empathy for her.
That is just so UNBELIEVABLY fucked up that there's no way that the Prison Cell scene could retain even the most miniscule spark of romance for me when I was watching it. The writing also showed that this wasn't an accidental moment, because there was an active choice made by Cait on where her guards were & weren't. They both decided that she wasn't worth enough to EITHER of them to be treated with the emotional protection she should be able to expect. (For me, it's just watching someone getting cheated on – and having been cheated on twice, that feeling of betrayal by someone who you're emotionally vulnerable with in that intimate way instantly plants a sickeningly inextricable knot in my stomach for that moment – and it's context that I literally can't remove from feeling in that scene, because the writing doesn't take the necessary steps to ensure that wasn't a part of what happened).
While I didn't really care about Vi this season because of the first episode turning her into a developmentally stagnated mess of a character (which is fair & makes for interesting side-effects in the narrative), this brought everything full circle to make me absolutely abhor her as a character completely not because of anything about her character in and of itself, but because the rushed writing choices make the important parts of her character vapid & anathema to her core characterization. It makes it so that this specific scene manages to be literally indistinguishable from being antithetical to the core emotional trauma of the ENTIRE SERIES and even more explicitly the damage that motivates Vi as a character being the eldest role model who NEEDS to be able to be held accountable for the choices that she makes when telling other people what to do.
Once again – the problem isn't that they're making a choice to become romantically entangled. It's that they're making a choice FOR another party (Maddie) by not giving her the necessary information to be involved in the decision OR to be considered with the care & consideration that her vulnerable position necessitates. This means that choice is knowingly made in a way which is GUARANTEED to create emotional trauma from that betrayal of trust... the EXACT same issue that's the root cause of why Vi attempting to give herself up without telling Vander, or do ANY of the other things without full conveyance ALL fail over & over again. It's why those choices cause problems to bleed into everyone else close to her, because Vi literally doesn't change AT ALL, which reshapes everyone around her into a reflection of that damage, rather than healing.
Season 2's portrayal of Vi is meant to be purposeful in not letting her change, as it's looking for be portraying Violet not losing her good heart in an admirably stoic way which mirrors when the "ghost" of Vander helps her get back up when she's bleeding on the floor of The Last Drop, and she's gotta just keep going despite everything. It's exactly what you'd expect from the post-prison unbroken butch with a heart of gold fighting against the systemic injustices with her fists & healing the pain & damage that's been caused by her absence needing a genuine moment's honest reprieve with that slightly shy but overly capable femme fatale who's just as clean & organized as she is tough & unstoppable, where they've been unable to fully connect out of fear over what happens to everything that she cares about – and finally giving in to let that kind heart embrace someone with the unchanged love she had back before the world put her in a box, taking place inside that very box that made her that cold & defensive in the first place. That's exceedingly touching, romantic, and creates a dynamic of those different types of sheltered vs. unsheltered upbringings often represented between different class dynamics that also match how a lot of lesbian couples have a very particularly balanced dynamic that this series represents spectacularly with those two, even before the heavy reinforcement of the specific sorts of traumatic reinforcements get added in to dial everything up to 11 to really make those trauma-bonding emotional connections DEEPLY important to individuals who are going through it, and who feel reflections of those things themselves.
Instead, the writing misses that mark.
It's not taken the necessary time to make sure those elements are preserved with Vi in a way where she's just getting shielded from her own arrested development, which is also what ultimately leads to why Jinx blows herself up to remove the rest of those damaged consequences from Vi needing to experience accountability for them – because Vi's ALWAYS functionally incapable of handling anything that Vander taught her how to be responsible for this ENTIRE season. This flaw is predicated on her being overly self-protective of that kind heart of hers, and not wanting to just keep putting it out there over and over again – which is necessary, even knowing that there IS no perfect way to do everything – because as soon as you find yourself thrust into a position of significant influence, there are people who WILL get hurt because of you, and you have to own that. You have to be tough enough to take those hits and stand back up, which means that you need that other person who ACTUALLY cares about that kind heart of yours to keep it from taking more hits than it can recover from... but that CANNOT shield you from being held accountable for your own mistakes. Accountability feels like an attack when you don't understand the impact that your actions have on others – and that's why the writing obfuscating the impact of Violet's & Caitlyn's choice to make the seal of their compassion for one another an act of infidelity that motivates traumatized betrayal feel sickening. The fact that because it's a love scene that the consequences aren't actually felt by either of them in any meaningful way just rings SO hollow.
It's just beyond infuriating – because I WANT to like those things as they're OVERLY stacked with things that are just absurdly coded for me to be WAY into them. They're all JUST at the cusp of being GREAT and unabashedly lovable despite their rough edges... but that VERY specific ambiguity makes that totally impossible, especially since the whole of the series places SO much repeated emphasis on the importance of different points of view... but then manipulates those moments emotionally so that the audience has a gut reaction to Maddie's betrayal from a forced perspective that obfuscates just how fucked up everything leading up that is from any other point of view that prioritizes her as much as any of the other characters. That limited perspective is forced into place by Mel just Deus Ex Machina blocking the bullet to richochet back into Maddie's brain, so that Maddie has to pay the price for being the victim of the cycle of Vi's & Cait's trauma repeating – so that they can make their myopically passionate choices free from the actual consequences of being held accountable for doing so... exactly the way Jinx has to do the same by blowing herself up, so that her sister can have that relationship with Caitlyn – as Jinx has consistently been the schism that's been preventing them from getting together, and Maddie is just that exact same reflection of rushed writing taking a shortcut without looking at the bigger picture.
It's just the worst, and I wish it wasn't – because the ONLY thing that could fix this is – writing that just literally... isn't there to.
The reason that this stands out so much, is specifically because that's the necessary perspective that you HAVE to prioritize as the leader that Vander tells Vi she has to always prioritize. Given my own background it's the perspective that I always approach these stories from, and why I love to do really deep character analysis like this, but also why little contextual shifts can totally shift something touching to be antithetical to what it represents. Additionally, because this dynamic involves a very specific traumatic feedback loop that a LOT of my favourite stories use, it's one where I'm always looking for those outside elements that slip by being considered like Maddie's character – because the stories about this that I like most... basically always have conclusions that are messy because they follow through on things like that, so it's the rushed writing that really irks me here.
It's not that stories like this can't have happy endings – they can, but it's very often a lot more complicated to get there in a way that doesn't hamstring its own core message and might not be exactly what you'd expect from a happy ending. (An immediate example that I'd give is an early 2000s sci-fi time travel film called Returner by the director who recently did Godzilla Minus One. While both films have a focus on the risk of lacking information, and the far-reach of those consequences, and the potential trauma that comes from decisions and how they're made, Returner goes about addressing the complexity of tiny choices & those impacts that has permanently stuck with me when looking at what to expect from writing that's tackling those issues).
As before – I do REALLY like this show despite being strongly critical of its weaknesses.
Fantastic season all around. Can only be described as...
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Looking forward to more, and speaking of which, Riot Games and Fortiche are / have been working on a follow up show to Arcane.
Arcane is only the beginning of Riot and Fortiche’s plans for League of Legends shows
The next show could head to Bandle City or the Shadow Isleswww.polygon.com
I am quite curious whether or not we'll get something that has any sort of established mentions to the things that happened here or if it'll just be another part of somewhere that's the same world, especially since they mention that there's a lot of room for things that're tonally different from how heavy/dark Arcane was.
Hopefully they don't feel the need to push too far the other way, as I think that having some more sombre things to ground this series actually helped to make the whimsical stuff like Heimerdinger feel more elevated in juxtaposition without undercutting him from being an adorable little goofball at times as he'd often have his little goat-dog to sort of punctuate that kind of feel, and I'd be into a series that had a lighter tone, but was still grounded in the same way as this series was early in the first episode.
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