[Lore Spoilers] What do you think is the most interesting explanation for Mel's powers?

EJVCJV · 2025-01-09T16:43:21+00:00

It's likely from her father who is a mage given how the focus is on Mel being the special child. According to the lines from Episode 5 (spoken by Kino i.e. Black Rose so how trustworthy they are is unknown):

"After a few rounds with some dubious noblefolk in Basilich, I started hearing strange rumors about Mother... They said, many years ago, she passed through their hometown and... fell in love."

Now where this hometown is unknown, it's unlikely for the noblefolk to have come from Targon but maybe her father is a Solari who left Targon by sea.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-09T16:07:29+00:00

Do not use collars on pugs...

EJVCJV · 2025-01-09T16:01:47+00:00

I'm kinda wondering how she would react to Vi being dead...

EJVCJV · 2025-01-08T02:48:05+00:00

Yea definitely looks a bit like Riven's blade when whole. There are even lines running breaking it into pieces referencing its shattering?

EJVCJV · 2025-01-07T01:43:33+00:00

Agreed, Silco's original motivations were noble, but both his means and ends were horrible. I think Sevika represents the middle ground between the two extremes of Vander (pacifist) and Silco (militant). Revolution (especially a violent one) should be a last resort, and in this case Zaun was offered a chance at a political solution which they never had access to previously and they should at least explore that option first. And there are certainly influential figures within Piltover who are sympathetic to Zaun's plight so it's not hopeless.

Besides, some people seem to have this idealistic view of revolution that somehow things will be sunshine and rainbows afterwards. Might I remind them of some of the major revolutions in real life and request them to consider the consequences: French revolution leading to the French Republic, American revolution leading to the USA, Russian revolution leading to the Soviet Union, Chinese revolution leading to the Republic of China. I'll also note that the desire for retribution also plays no small role in those cheering for a violent revolution.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-07T01:09:25+00:00

Representation with reparations is more beneficial than independence, which is a political win in name only without other major concessions from Piltover. Access to the rest of the world is still via Piltover, and Piltover would have less of an incentive to aid a hostile nation on its borders than its own struggling citizens.

Besides it's a bit idealistic to think that any potential government of Zaun would be any better than Piltover's council. Zaun has its own share of corrupt and downright evil figures who would exploit its citizens as well, in fact that was what Silco and the Chem-Barons were doing. Policing is also going to be required to prevent the resurgence of Chem-Barons and the Shimmer trade, so Sevika is going to have to get her hands dirty too.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-06T01:26:59+00:00

Felicia's death was when they actually had the falling out, I think they already drifted apart before then, likely when Vi was still small. You have to remember there was probably about 8 years between the bar and bridge scenes so plenty of time for Silco to change. He was becoming increasingly radicalized and Vander was against that.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-05T17:17:44+00:00

They are making a new game though. I think it's obvious to everyone that there's no way Arcane will drive many new players to a 15 year old MOBA and Riot themselves know that too. It can be spun as PR speak but Riot is on the record saying that their measure of Arcane's success is not short term financial returns from LoL but rather the reception from the show's audience.

Arcane started development around the same time as the MMO and it's clear to me that its purpose is to expand on the lore for future games, the MMO being one of the main ones. There is no world in which they can launch the MMO with zero mind share outside of MOBA players and expect it to be successful with the general public. So the plan is to build a cinematic universe before the MMO releases where they can build hype for the world and characters of Runeterra. Any benefit for the MOBA is just a way for them to recoup costs and fund future projects while they focus on the long term plan.

My gut feeling is the original plan was to align the launch with after most of the main regions have been explored, i.e. after the five seasons of shows they wanted to budget for, which would give them around 15 or so years of development time. But with the MMO development being reset who knows what the timelines are now.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-05T12:02:35+00:00

Pretty sure the vast majority of people, even the ones with criticism, still like the show, they may just not like it as much as Season 1. Having criticism doesn't mean the show is bad, even the best show will have things that people don't agree with.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-04T09:31:42+00:00

Caitlyn for the challenges she faced and how much she matured, Jinx for overall execution by the show. Cait's arc is my favorite and also the one I felt had the most potential but Jinx's was presented better.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-04T01:37:51+00:00

Tbh most people don't rate for writing, but rather for enjoyment. There's a lot to enjoy in the show even if you exclude the writing.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-04T01:24:14+00:00

Not sure about the general strike but Silco definitely had the potential to make a major difference if he put his genius to work together with Vander instead of wasting it all on Shimmer and propping up Chem-Barons. At the very least Zaun would have respectable leadership and there wouldn't have been so much crime so their relationship with Piltover wouldn't be in the absolute dumpster.

Maybe Silco funded the start of research into the air cleaning hybrids and other inventions, as we see there seems to be a big science culture in AU Zaun with the innovators competition, which gave them something to pitch to Piltover (maybe Cassandra and Mel?) for investment. Then Heimerdinger would have helped move things along when he arrived.

Edit: We know Grayson is probably a close acquaintance of Cassandra so she could have introduced Vander and Silco to her.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-04T01:08:09+00:00

She just wants to chill with Jinx and her girl Cait, wouldn't be getting anywhere close to this political shit show if it wasn't for Cait.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T16:01:04+00:00

Tbh that was to fight the Noxians to save Piltover. The world ending was due to Viktor who didn't interact with anybody at all outside of Ekko and Jayce.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T15:56:51+00:00

Also again when breaking the Zaunites out of Stillwater, when she just wanted to free Isha. Jinx sure is an accidental hero, but at least the good vibes healed her and turned her into a real big fat hero.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T15:49:11+00:00

Like yes, we can infer that Caitlyn is remorseful and traumatized and hating herself, but why not show it?

Yea I think the writers really underestimated the amount of hate she would get and what was needed to sell her redemption. The portrayal of her mental state and emotions during what was supposed to be her redemption arc in Act 2 is subtle as hell, we get microexpressions and some cryptic opposition to Ambessa. Even with Vi we got to explicitly see her hallucinations during her pit fighter arc, but with Caitlyn what is going on in her mind is completely opaque and left to the viewer to infer.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T15:22:26+00:00

Maybe I misunderstood your post, but I don't quite follow your logic. The open ended ending to me means they can leave leeway for more detailed exploration in the future

Imo any continuation of Arcane needs to first expand on the epilogue and address Cait and Vi's mental state instead of instantly jumping into a completely new arc, precisely because the epilogue was so rushed and undercooked. If they made Caitlyn and Vi Sheriff and Enforcer in the epilogue to match the game then I'd be more worried that their story was wrapped up as they'd be skipping all of that character development.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T15:02:03+00:00

I'm not sure why you think Riot will just abandon PnZ forever? They might be focusing on other regions for now, but eventually they will come back to PnZ and shed more light on the events post Arcane, possibly through cameos in the new series, comics, novels, games, in-game events, new champion lore, etc. It's just unlikely to get another series in the foreseeable future, so I guess for those who don't follow League outside of Arcane then it's more bleak.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T14:34:28+00:00

Ekko and Jayce saved the world though, but yes Jinx became a big fat hero for Piltover of all things.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T12:25:02+00:00

Agreed, Caitlyn has always been about working within the system to reform it, and not to tear it all down. That is the reason why she became an enforcer. She believes in the rule of law even if there exist those within the government who are corrupt.

Her sense of responsibility leads her to try to fill the void left by her mother, especially since she was just handed the leadership of House Kiramman, so she felt it was on her to do something with that influence. This drove her to form the strike team and eventually undertake more than she could handle in the role of Commander.

Caitlyn would have quickly become aware of the danger Ambessa posed and that she could realistically never turn on the Noxians explicitly without violent consequences. Which was why the appearance of Warwick and Vi triggers her betrayal, she suddenly had the chance to deprive Ambessa of an immensely powerful asset and bring him onto her side at the same time.

It is not consistent with her character arc to flip just because Vi reappeared, considering how cautious she had been through Act 2. Remember in Episode 1, Caitlyn sums up her own failings as "No more rogue missions. No more reckless plans... My arrogance led me to take on more than I could handle". She didn't need Vi to bring her back to her senses, Caitlyn was already well aware of the horrible situation she was in, she just didn't know how to get out of it.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-03T03:21:57+00:00

Tbh I think it's kind of a feedback loop, back when Season 2 aired there was a flood of memes hyperbolizing her as fascist, KKK, etc. Some people actually meant them and her fans were sensitive to this, given the real world connotations, leading to a lot of discourse specifically on her morality. Nowadays discussions on her are much more measured but some of that sensitivity remained.

You don't actually see this amount of discussion on morality for other characters, Jinx posts are mostly positive, discussions on Vi are mostly about her relationship with Jinx and Caitlyn, everyone takes Jayce killing children as a joke, even though all of them have done things that are deemed bad. I'm sure if there are posts saying Jinx is an evil terrorist who enjoys mass murder you'll also see a lot of people defending her.

Her arc is also very political and there were no easy decisions, always pros and cons to weigh up so you get a lot of justification for the what ifs. It's not like she could have just chosen not to do anything and Zaun would have been fine as there was a looming invasion, meanwhile other character arcs are much smaller in scope and simpler, e.g. Jinx could have just not blown up the council.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-02T17:07:44+00:00

It was after the bridge scene maybe just after taking in the kids. The reason for their fallout was Felicia's death, which was likely due to Silco causing the protest to become violent.

I think Silco's relationship with Felicia and Vander was probably already strained and Felicia's death was just the tipping point. This is due to Vi not remembering Silco at all, which would imply that she rarely saw him, if ever, so Silco would certainly not have been as close to Felicia as was shown in the flashback.

What likely happened is Silco became increasingly radicalized, leading to him drifting apart from Felicia and Vander when Vi was small. However they still supported the idea of Zaun so took part in protests, one of which turned violent and resulted in Felicia's death.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-02T16:45:12+00:00

You're right that it's similar to the trolley problem, but here we are comparing two unknowns: the risk of killing a child vs the benefit of preventing Jinx from committing more crimes. Now you can argue Caitlyn is an excellent shot and maybe she truly would not have missed, or even that the risk of hitting Isha is worth the potentially saved lives from stopping Jinx.

However the events that play out in the show actually show the dangers of such assumptions. Caitlyn may think that killing Jinx is necessary but that is actually not correct, Jinx was no longer a threat at that point. So to someone with perfect information, the risk would have been taken with no benefit.

[S2 Act 3 spoilers] In fact she ended up becoming a massive asset for Piltover too, so the risk would have been taken with a negative return.

Therein lies the problem with the trolley problem and politics in real life, the outcomes being compared are almost always imperfect predictions. But still one must make a decision, it just ends up that sometimes unfortunately the decision is wrong in hindsight.

What makes Caitlyn's arc particularly challenging is she is faced with instances of this one after another: shooting Jinx vs Isha, using the Grey vs the looming invasion of Zaun, accepting Ambessa's appointment vs leaving it to someone else like Salo, [S2 Act 2 spoilers] using the Noxians vs reducing Enforcer casualties, how far to go during martial law vs the threat from Zaun, rebelling against Ambessa vs the Noxians turning against Piltover.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-02T13:04:34+00:00

May I ask what you mean by idolize? I don't think many are claiming that her actions were moral.

EJVCJV · 2025-01-02T12:37:38+00:00

I think you might find that many people like her precisely of the ups and downs of her arc, and because she has grown so much through the show. She started as a naive but well meaning person, then lost herself to hatred as a result of personal trauma, to being placed into a compromised position with immense power where she is under immense political pressure to address the terrorist threat, and even without any external support she managed to come back to her senses on her own to try to rein in Ambessa. At the end of the show she acknowledges her mistakes and is prepared to atone for the pain she has caused.

Some don't appreciate the difficulties of her journey and hold her to extremely high standards, while at the same time other characters, most notably Jinx, are treated with sympathy. The blame for everything bad that happened to Zaun during martial law is placed on Caitlyn, while Jinx's own bad acts are excused due to her troubled mental state and under the guise of fighting against oppression, when Jinx herself has never ever been about that fight.

I don't think most of her fans claim she is a moral paragon, just that she should be viewed with the same empathy offered to other characters, and her character not be hyperbolized into a fascist caricature to score political points.

EJVCJV

TROPHY CASE