jaggedwolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jaggedwolf) wrote2021-12-03 10:46 pm
jaggedwolf) wrote2021-12-03 10:46 pm
Entry tags:
Talking Meme Day 3: Arcane
Full list here
an arcane opinion that u have not yet shared (via nano)
Firstly, I love the idea that someone with no context might read this and think you are just asking me to share my most esoteric opinion. But no, it turns out I have plenty of thoughts about this show set in the League of Legends universe.
Opinions I have already shared: Good show, excellent fight scenes, pretty animation, I am a 100% here for Vi and Caitlyn individually and also as a ship, Viktor is The Poor Little Meow Meow, all the characters are great, when am I getting S2 after that cliffhanger, hope Mel’s ok
So, instead, let’s talk about Vander (and Vi ofc).
To a certain degree these formidable fighters are at their least effective alone. It’s a contrast to Jinx who excels as a solo operator, in stealing and killing whatever and whoever she wants. The times she works directly with others...well, friendly fire’s on.
But Vander and Vi? Vander shines in his tavern, in dealing with Grayson, in teaming up with his kids to escape. Alone, he has no recourse against Silco. Vi has baller fight scenes overall, but she’s so much more alive with an ally in the mix (literally and figuratively). Alone in Stillwater, she brutalizes prisoners associated with Silco with nothing to show for it.
It’s that chat they have in the first episode. When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish. And maybe, if you’re these two, you forget how to be. When to be.
There’s a lot of disagreements between various characters about what they would risk to dramatically change the world. There’s the smallest scope: would you risk how others perceive you?
There’s a few levels up: would you risk your own life?
Then there’s the next level, the level that haunts Vander about the last time the Undercity fought topside: would you risk the lives of others?
To be able to ask that question, not because you have objective power over those lives. Not because you’re coercing them. Not because they’re under your command. But because of the simple fact that they trust you. You speak, they listen. When they could as easily not.
He saw the possibility of his own mistakes in Vi, the way the other kids looked at her. (I hope he saw his own success too. Consider a different universe where a decades older, more mellowed out Vi could have taken up his role in the Lanes.)
Act I’s Vander stuff is understandably focused on Vi and Silco, but I liked him getting a small moment with each of the other kids - getting the full story of the job from Claggor, comforting Powder with a drink, talking Mylo through picking his shackles free.
I need to rewatch, but do we know what Vander betrayed Silco over? Was it over fighting topside? If so, what a dual betrayal to have borne. To have betrayed your people by leading them to a fight impossible to win, and then have betrayed your closest friend in mitigating that mistake.
Finally, I’d love to know how Grayson and Vander met. The undercity-topside fight can’t have been more than eight years before Act I, so the odds are that Grayson was already an enforcer even then, which adds a whole different complication to that relationship.
an arcane opinion that u have not yet shared (via nano)
Firstly, I love the idea that someone with no context might read this and think you are just asking me to share my most esoteric opinion. But no, it turns out I have plenty of thoughts about this show set in the League of Legends universe.
Opinions I have already shared: Good show, excellent fight scenes, pretty animation, I am a 100% here for Vi and Caitlyn individually and also as a ship, Viktor is The Poor Little Meow Meow, all the characters are great, when am I getting S2 after that cliffhanger, hope Mel’s ok
So, instead, let’s talk about Vander (and Vi ofc).
To a certain degree these formidable fighters are at their least effective alone. It’s a contrast to Jinx who excels as a solo operator, in stealing and killing whatever and whoever she wants. The times she works directly with others...well, friendly fire’s on.
But Vander and Vi? Vander shines in his tavern, in dealing with Grayson, in teaming up with his kids to escape. Alone, he has no recourse against Silco. Vi has baller fight scenes overall, but she’s so much more alive with an ally in the mix (literally and figuratively). Alone in Stillwater, she brutalizes prisoners associated with Silco with nothing to show for it.
It’s that chat they have in the first episode. When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish. And maybe, if you’re these two, you forget how to be. When to be.
There’s a lot of disagreements between various characters about what they would risk to dramatically change the world. There’s the smallest scope: would you risk how others perceive you?
There’s a few levels up: would you risk your own life?
Then there’s the next level, the level that haunts Vander about the last time the Undercity fought topside: would you risk the lives of others?
To be able to ask that question, not because you have objective power over those lives. Not because you’re coercing them. Not because they’re under your command. But because of the simple fact that they trust you. You speak, they listen. When they could as easily not.
He saw the possibility of his own mistakes in Vi, the way the other kids looked at her. (I hope he saw his own success too. Consider a different universe where a decades older, more mellowed out Vi could have taken up his role in the Lanes.)
Act I’s Vander stuff is understandably focused on Vi and Silco, but I liked him getting a small moment with each of the other kids - getting the full story of the job from Claggor, comforting Powder with a drink, talking Mylo through picking his shackles free.
I need to rewatch, but do we know what Vander betrayed Silco over? Was it over fighting topside? If so, what a dual betrayal to have borne. To have betrayed your people by leading them to a fight impossible to win, and then have betrayed your closest friend in mitigating that mistake.
Finally, I’d love to know how Grayson and Vander met. The undercity-topside fight can’t have been more than eight years before Act I, so the odds are that Grayson was already an enforcer even then, which adds a whole different complication to that relationship.