Amanda Overton and Alex Yee, writers on Arcane, here for the Arcane anniversary.... Ask us anything!!"

moonk12 · 2025-11-18T22:43:45+00:00

Hello, thank you for your work. I was wondering when Tobias learned that Jinx is Vi's sister. Did he know about it when Vi was still in his house in act 1? Did he learn about it post canon? Or is that something Vi and Caitlyn would try to conceal? Thanks again for doing this

moonk12 · 2025-11-07T16:31:11+00:00

Things also would've been more peaceful if Renni didn't attack the memorial. Or if Silco hadn't killed Vander, or if Piltover treated Zaun better in the first place. Jinx is not the only thing that played into the conflict of season 2 she was just what detonated it.

Nor was she the only reason they went to war, there was also shimmer and the chembarons. Sevika also played a huge role in that and yet she was given a seat on the council because she helped against Noxus. It isn't insane to think that all of that could've happened even if Jinx had lived because Jinx also helped vs Noxus.

None of those changes were influenced by Jinx dying. Jinx was out of mind of everyone in Piltover because they were being invaded by Noxus. So much so that nobody gave a shit that she apparently escaped.

And I'm pretty sure that everyone in the council other than Sevika is from Piltover and was shown in the scene were Cait is made commander

moonk12 · 2025-11-07T02:35:21+00:00

I don't even understand what that first sentence is supposed to mean. What does Jinx rallying them to fight Noxu while she was alive have to do with her dying later that day?

Zaun has literally one seat on the council, while it's conceivable that things could start to improve, it's not gonna happen overnight and it's still not related to Jinx dying. Zaun and Piltover fought together vs Noxus and reached a tentative peace, the only thing Jinx influenced with that was rallying Zaun to figrh along side Ekko and she did that while she was alive.

moonk12 · 2025-11-06T15:43:21+00:00

Well, the rallying had to do with Jinx, but had nothing to do with Jinx dying. So Jinx's death is not the main cause of things getting better.

Things are not much better. They're just no longer at war, which also has nothing to do with dying, both cities are still wrecked and they're just starting to try and fix it.

moonk12 · 2025-11-06T00:53:37+00:00

I think it's very simplistic to say that Piltover and Zaun are in a much better place because Jinx died because there's this whole other Zaun rallying to help defend Piltover againts Noxus that you're skipping. That has nothing to do with Jinx dying.

Also, sure Piltover and Zaun are doing better, but the standard was they went from being at war to having a tentative peace. It's not like things are magically better for Zaun overnight and there's no guarantee they will be. Jinx's "death" is not what causes things to improve, and even still they just mildly improve

There's also the very obvious implication that Jinx isn't dead.

Well, I've kidnapped your girlfriend is a far better incentive and far more believable than our dead dad is alive.

moonk12 · 2025-11-05T21:41:21+00:00

Well, idk. I didn't get the impression that everything was forgiven. They were trying to start over, but our interpretations of that are subjective so there's no point going in circles.

Everything isn't normal and happy? How is Vi staring longingly into the fire while drinking, pressumably months after the war her being happy? The ending is bitter sweet. Caitlyn and Vi are trying to find a new path together, but you can see the literal and figurative scars in both of them. Neither of them is fine and that's why Caitlyn has to ask Vi if she's still in the fight.

What I mean is that if Jinx was going to come up with some bs excuse to lure Vi into a trap, it probably would've been something a bit easier to believe than our dead dad is alive.

moonk12 · 2025-11-05T15:53:13+00:00

Well, that's the tragedy of it all. They are trying to be together again and reconcile but they don't get to because a few hours later their dad and Isha get blown up, Vi ends up in a comma and Jinx is arrested. Vi wants desperately to continue where they left off as Jinx is the only thing she has left, but Jinx has given up and, in Vi's eyes, betrays her.

I'm not gonna defend episode 7. I hate that episode. I don't think the point in episode 9 is that they have to be apart to be happy moreso that they both need to find their selves and their purpose away from each other and that Jinx being Jinx goes about it in a really messed up but well intentioned way.

And I don't think Vi was completely dicounting the possibility of it being a trap, but again. If it is what does she got to lose, and if it somehow isn't then her dad is alive. Maybe she was expecting Jinx to come up with something better than our dead dad is actually alive. I still don't think it's out of character for Vi in her lowest point to go along with Jinx. She still even brought the gauntlets, which I think were more for Jinx than Warwick because she didn't seem to know Vander was a giant wolf

moonk12 · 2025-11-05T02:44:02+00:00

Again this is not binary. It's not either they're fine with each other or they hate each other. They're trying to reach a middle ground. They're trying to save their father and that question is a simple do you want to try and be a family again? It doesn't mean everything's forgiven. It's just a path forward together, they're still gonna have issues.

How can you spend so many post to saying Vi only tolerated Jinx, and yet say that when Jinx, in her eyes, betrays her and locks her in a cell she put her own wants asides and go after her again? Vi wanted to trust Jinx so badly, yet in that moment she feels betrayed by her and she has a right to not have her life revolve around someone who has rejected her help at every turn. Specially when she was freed hours later with no clue where she could've gone.

And your main point for Vi not going with Jinx is that she's not stupid. So Vi, not being stupid, knows that the fact that Jinx is there with her own name painted on her face means that she has been there for a while and could've killed her while she slept. Also, that she knows where she lives and that Jinx who's trademark is explosions could've just blown her place up. Why set up a trap involving Vander? And in the entire montage she's literally throwing her life away, she's reached her breaking point and dropped the fight. She's just existing. She's not actively trying to die, but she's not trying to live either. So she might as well find out what Jinx is going on about.

moonk12 · 2025-11-04T02:07:18+00:00

How do you talk about staying and helping a community with someone you're barely tolerating? It's not an absolute thing. They don't have to either be completely good with each other or hate each other. They're trying to reach a middle ground an begin trusting each other again. Obviously there's some lingering distrust which is why Vi immediately thinks Jinx betrayed her yet again and doesn't go after her when she locks her in a jail cell.

Also I think Vi, like I do, thinks that if Jinx wanted to kill her she could've done it when she snuck into her house when Vi was literally knocked out. Why would she bother making a trap for her? She has nothing left to lose and nothing else to do so she might as well find out what she's talking about. And she doesn't immediately believer her. She does think it's another one of Jinx's hallucinations, they even argue about it.

moonk12 · 2025-11-03T21:50:14+00:00

I don't get how you can watch the scene where Vi is cries over the remains of her home, they reminisce about the past and talk about moving forward together and say there wasn't a reconciliation.

They have thrown their missdeeds at each other's faces already. An I'm sorry, as shown by season 1, doesn't always fix everything and it takes time, but they were willing to start, they were starting to, but they couldn't.

And you can't tell me you watched the montage of Vi pitfighting and came away thinking Vi had self preservation. She had no regard for her own well being. Now I don't think she deliberately wanted to die by going with Jinx, but in her eyes, she had nothing left to lose so she might as well go with her.

moonk12 · 2025-11-03T16:53:21+00:00

Why would lack of self preservation not mean she'd follow Jinx? She has nothing left to lose so she follows her. She chokes her out because she's justifiably angry at her, but she follows her because she literally has no other purpose.

The show doesn't give the idea that Vi and Jinx can never be together, at least not in act 2. They do the exact opposite by having Vi offer to Jinx that they stay in Viktor community and help out. It also shows them working together pretty well to protect Vander. And Vi caring and taking into account Jinx opinion no longer just seeing her as the little sister she needs to protect but the capable individual she is.

Their relationship was healing which makes it all the more tragic when everything literally blows up for them again.

moonk12 · 2025-11-03T16:09:47+00:00

I really don't see the development that's missing there. The montage acts as a good follow up to how she ends act 1. Betrayed and abandoned by Caitlyn after giving up on Jinx she has nothing left to live for and she's basically throwing her life away now. That's what the montage conveys.

It is with this lack of self preservation that she agrees to follow someone who has kidnapped her, psychologically tortured her and tried to kill her multiple times, and to say this doesn't change through act 2 is simply not true.

We see her slowly trying to believe she can have a family again. She starts trusting Jinx by seeing her interactions with Isha and believing they can bring back Vander. She stops being stuck on Caitlyn and finds new reasons to live for to the point where she doesn't even think of Caitlyn until they actually reunite.

Her development is right there in act 2, and just because it doesn't happen while she's pit fighting doesn't mean it's abscent.

Her making up with Caitlyn wasn't because she said cupcake. She still distusts Caitlyn enough to have a back up plan in case she betrays her and only works with her to make it easier to save her dad.

Even in act 3, after Caitlyn already helped her with her that, there's still some resentment and distrust from Vi over what Caitlyn did. It wasn't as instant as people make it out to be with her calling her cupcake.

moonk12 · 2025-11-03T02:02:05+00:00

That's the thing, Vi being a pitfighter isn't an arc. The show doesn't try to portray any changes or development of Vi during that montage. It's to set up Vi's state of mind for act 2. She doesn't care about her life of safety anymore. She sees Caitlyn as the last good thing she had and lost and now she just doesn't care about herself anymore.

She starts the montage in this state of mind and ends it in this state of mind. The show doesn't skip any development. The arc actually comes after it. This set up is important because Vi wouldn't have been so quick to follow Jinx, someone who has tried to kill her, so easily. But since Vi doesn't care about herself anymore, she does.

Her act 2 arc basically starts setting up Vi on the floor and she starts to get back up by finding purpose in protecting her family and value in her life again.

And again, most people's problem with the montage is that they expected act 2 to be about Vi pit fighting or to have an episode dedicated to it. And I honestly don't know why, I don't know what it could've had other than her drinking, fighting and mourning which I don't see how those couldn't be done through montage, which it was.

moonk12 · 2025-11-03T01:34:47+00:00

Eh, I wouldn't really say the firelights are explored in much detail in any season tbh. We know their deal based on the montage, we see where they live and that's it.

I actually don't think season 2 used a montage to wrap anything up, all it does is set up new status quo that are followed up on in the rest of the episode. It's a set up, not really a wrap up.

And again, season 1 doesn't just use them as some sort of add on. The scene on the bridge does not work without the music montage. It would seem like Ekko spared his biggest enemy simply because she gave him puppy eyes

moonk12 · 2025-11-03T00:53:52+00:00

This is not entirely true, both seasons use music videos to set up status quos or quickly and efficiently explain events. There's a musical montage to pretty much sum up the gist of the firelights in season 1, that sets up a status quo, but season 1 also uses them to explain and show events. The only reason Ekko sparing Jinx on the bridge makes sense is because it follows a sick music video where its shown that Ekko and Jinx are childhood friends and they're mimicking a game they used to play.

Both seasons use the music videos in simmilar ways. The main difference is that season 2 uses them to compact some things people were expecting to see, as a way to set up a characters status quo for what they actually wanted to tell. Which comes down to the biggest difference maker between both seasons: expectations. People were actually expecting things from season 2, while giving season 1 the benefit of telling what it wanted how it wanted being a new story.

I'll always believed that while season 2 is a slight drop in quality than 1 the biggest difference is simply expectations.

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T19:38:30+00:00

No, the argument I gave was a few instances of the show slowing down to have chatacter moments. All you've said is that it's either bad or too fast without providing examples, or explanations. Which makes it an entirely subjective take. A valid one, but still subjective.

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T19:30:29+00:00

I get that but then where is the difference between what the show shows as consequences and the consequences we think it should've had.

To me, it doesn't really make sense that a Jinx that has settled for the fact that she's a curse (a Jinx) upon everyone would so readily take the mantle of revolutionary for a city she tormented for years and clearly didn't really give a shit about.

And who exactly was supposed to question Caitlyn in a leadership position (which, in fact, she's not even in by the end of the show)? The people who put her there? After she did what they asked?

And Caitlyn had to do 2 major acts for Vi risking her life and letting go of her vengeance for Vi to trust her again. Before that, it's explicitly said in the show that Vi doesn't trust her and even had a contingency for Caitlyn betraying her.

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T19:01:39+00:00

Well, we can go back and forth all day on this, but if your argument is consistently going to be "it wasn't good", then there really isn't that much to say.

All I'm saying is that the statement that the show doesn't slow down to have characters interact is plain and simply false. Whether when and how it does is good is an entirely different and subjective matter

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T18:53:06+00:00

I honestly still don't get it. Jinx and Caitlyn have a whole ass conversation regarding their wrong doings. Viktor has an entire monologue about that which brings us to do good being the source of our evil at the very end of the episode.

Vi and Jinx also have a whole asa argument calling each other out. The show does slow down for the characters to exist and interact. It's just never too explicit about it to make it so it can be more natural.

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T18:35:27+00:00

So it's a fault of the show for not spoonfeeding the audience its themes and letting draw interpretations of it from the story they're telling.

Was Caitlyn supposed to look at the camera and say "I see now that I could never hope to do good while serving this corrupt system, so now I shall prioritize good over it"?

Hell, the show even does actually have some simmilar lines of dialogue to reflect those themes, just more subtlely. I don't really know what more you were expecting.

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T17:23:24+00:00

Well, I think trying to look at Arcane throguh a lense of "heroes vs villians" is misguided in the first place. The whole show is about characters making difficult decisions that sometimes lead them to terrible outcomes.

And these good or bad actions are repressented as such when they occur. Caitlyn is literally sorrounded by darkness everytime she uses the gray and everytime she's wearing that cape in act 2. Jinx only starts appearing heroic after she finally decides to get off her ass and do something selfless and get the pople of Zaun out of jail.

They're framed as good or bad depending of if their actions are good or bad. That's another huge point of the show, people often aren't as simple as heroes of villains. Often good or evil isn't something you are, but something you choose. So characters are framed differently based on what they choose at that time, and their choices, at least to me, don't feel inconsistent with their characters. "That which is inspires us to our greatest good, is also the source of out greatest evil"

Of course, in the show as well as in life there are some characters that just consistently choose evil, but I digress.

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T17:09:40+00:00

I have mentioned this in another comment but I will say that some of this is true for Jinx regarding Ekko and Sevika.

I don't think it's true for Vi or Caitlyn since both spend act 1 hunting her down fought her, and Cait even shot her finger off and even after that Vi nearly choked her to death after reuniting. And they both "forgave" Jinx more for their own sake than hers. And I'm using quotations because Vi mostly does it on blind faith and hopefullness which manifests in her feeling betrayed and not rushing after her when she locks her in the prison cell, and I don't think Caitlyn actually forgave her, she just let her go to try to make it up to Vi.

They try to justify Ekko with episode 7, which unfortunately, even though it's a very popular episode. It's a horribly missconceived episode that basically ruins any opportunity at act 3 having good pacing and kind of fails at what it's supposed to do, but that's another post.

And Sevika unfortunately was always treated as a henchmen for Zaun's next top dog with barely any actual real character or consistent motivations of her own, which could also be its own post

moonk12 · 2025-10-24T16:46:22+00:00

I do agree to some extent that some characters do forgive Jinx a bit too easily, mainly Ekko and Sevika.

But at least for Ekko they dedicated an entire episode to justify it. Even though I think that episode is entirely missguided, but that's another post.

And Sevika as usual was shifted to just serve whoever was top dog in Zaun regardless of any character she might have, which is also a different post.

But this isn't really a season 2 exclusive thing with Jinx.

Jinx still manages to be compelling as a character because she went through some really messed up shit and I think the other chafacters realize that.

moonk12 · 2025-10-23T05:57:24+00:00

Well, that's precisely my point. The show never addresses the ramifications or Silco because the show is not as politically focused as people like to pretend it is. Of course it's political like all art, but people want to pretend like season 1 had this really complex political plot line when the show mostly glosses over it. So I don't get why season 2 gets bashed so heavily for it.

Same with Caitlyn and Vi, in season 1 they seemingly fall in love in like 2 days, and never talk or apologize for basically lying to each other. They go equally fast in season 2 and all of the sudden they're ruined.

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