I may have to go back and re-watch that bit. I thought it was just his benefactors vouching for him and that his parents both died in the flashback. I'll fully admit though that I was not very invested early on, as I said in the video, so I wouldn't be surprised if I missed that.
@@FEEonline I get that, those first couple episodes weren't that gripping. Jayce's mother also makes an appearance at some point before he gets his hammer. There's actually a crayon drawing of him with a hammer very similar to the one he wields in the room he talks to her in, which I thought was a neat bit of foreshadowing. I'm also pretty sure his dad is dead, not his mom, but I don't think he's mentioned at all.
@@MadWolf6280 I think I assumed they were all dead because he was being supported by patrons and living alone in Piltover. Didn't seem like he had anyone else.
This series has SO much outstanding dialogue. Not only is the technical aspect and acting out of this world, they managed to make such an incredible story with so much world building.... Arcane is a masterpeice.
I think it was Walter Benjamin who invented the term "politically correct" to describe art that had socialist sensibilities he liked but needed to be distinguished from art that was "artistically correct" (i.e., socialist art that was actually good).
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Allegorical stories like Animal Farm are still quite good, despite being opinions with characters. It doesn't often work, but it definitely can.
Each character felt like what they've been told to be through in-game lore. That was what made it good for me, no perversion of the originals or raceswapped for the sake of diversity. Just people doing what they do, nothing forced or changed to reach a "wider audience"
more importantly, it's not preachy and no one is "right" or "wrong" For example in the Vander vs Silco case: Vander plays safe with piltover, and as a result things are stale and do not improve Under Silco, things are much worse, but he obtains political leverage and is on the verge of achieving long-term improvments for Zaun. Vander may seem like he is "better" on the surface, but on the long run, Silco would probably be. Both are right on some points, and wrong on others.
It's probably kinda childish, but I really liked how Arcane shows how hatred just ruins everything. It shows a distinction between being against some group, and flat out hating that group, too. Really makes me think about whether or not some of my negative feelings towards some people are just a healthy dislike born from a decent reason, or an unhealthy hatred born from some festering wound in my subconscious.
It's not childish. I have been on that "unhealthy hatred against a certain group" during a certain period of my life. Sometimes, I feel I still am. This is actually a very mature take of yours, since this seems to drive a lot of social and political relationships nowadays.
This isn’t childish at all! And if you’re interested, you should look up some social experiments done on something called “unconscious bias” - every human on the planet has it. 🙂
@@TheElementalPerson I disagree. I don't think unconscious biases exist. We are rational beings, we mean what we think and say. In fact, is a shield used to demonize people that complain about liberal thinking no matter how depraved and evil it may be. Is a form of gaslighting.
Arcane is diversity done right. It's not shoving it down our throats. It's fits naturally into the story. A certain skin tone isn't hailed as good or evil but the individual is good or evil.
Most instances of "diversity done wrong" are the same thing. The "forced diversity" crowd retroactively decide whether its forced or not based on whether the show as a whole becomes good or not. You only say that Arcane was diversity done right because it's amazing-if it wasn't, you would blame it on the show's diversity.
@@Cecilia-ky3uw But that doesn't happen nearly as often as yall say it does. You just automatically shit on any story that happens to have minorities, and if it turns out to be less than a masterpiece, then you say its terrible because "they forced diversity". If it turns out to be great, then you gaslight everyone and pretend you never shit on it and use it as proof as “We’re not racist, we’re just against forced diversity!”
I ain’t gonna lie tho where tf did the money come from to make 9 episodes, each with the budget of a full animated movie (like $90 million I think) because ummm I didn’t know we had anyone who could invest that kind of money into an animated spin off of a video game that didn’t hold back in telling a compelling story
Nobody is forgetting that. It’s just been parroted so much that it doesn’t need repeating. There’s literally 1000+ videos that mention it. 1 video that decides to focus on something else isn’t an omission of admiration.
So, obviously, Powder (Jinx) and Vi have obvious juxtaposition. However, I think the most brilliant set of character differences comes between Powder and Ekko. Both Powder and Ekko lost everything, but they both became incredibly different people. Powder embraced terrorism, hatred, and violence whereas Ekko and his crew became essentially vigilantes who virtuously protected their fellow citizens and sought to try and clean up their home. They took responsibility when the people of Piltover refused to actually help. They built a home for those suffering instead of scrambling for power through violence and drug trafficking.
You especially start to see their relationship in the Enemy MV . They’re both the youngest out of the group so it makes sense they hang out with each other, not being demeaned by the older kids.
One of the best things about Arcane is that it respects the viewers intelligence and it does not pander to the viewers stupidity. Every character has motivations, reasons, and logic that are not spelled out, but are there. If a character is talked about in glowing terms they show you that they are not worthy of such praise. If a character is talked about as being evil and despicable, they show that they are never seen doing any of the truly horrible things people say they do. It is almost as if what people say about other people is mostly wrong and is used by society to hide or distort the truth about the person being gossiped about. The council is full of people that are every bit as disgusting as the Chem Barons in the Undercity, they just wear nicer clothes, perfume, and makeup, but do all the same terrible things. The law of Conservation of Corruption - Corruption can neither be created nor destroyed, but through governmental regulation, it will become concentrated at the top of society and its effect will be multiplied as it blocks out the light down through every layer of society. Better to keep corruption dispersed throughout society, where it is smaller and more manageable, and not some unstoppable titan. Corruption is like a canopy blocking the light for everything below it, if it is dispersed throughout society, it will not be able to choke all the life out of the system, some light will always be able to shine through, but if it is concentrated at the top, it will kill everything below it, and they will never feel the light upon their skin.
Well, I don't entirely buy what your selling. Look, perhaps the characters respects the intelligence of the audience, but not the setting. It seems awfully convenient to me you have this poor "undercity" and this rich Piltover city living right next to each other, yet they seem like they hardly interact with each other. Maybe I just didn't understand, but were people in the undercity forbidden from going to Piltover? Just why were they so poor in the first place? In reality, you should see a much greater mixing of the two dynamics. As for corruption, what really matters is power. When an individual is corrupt, they could be said to be a criminal, but when a government is corrupt, you have a tyranny. Putting aside the corruption that lives within all of us....the corruption from government is only as terribly as the power they wield. As they say, power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. The key to reducing corruption is reducing power. In arcane, you could argue most of the problems arose when those in power gained new technologies such as hextech or the chems. That in fact, instigated much of the conflict. Though, that is more of a physical power, and not the political power typically associated with states.
@@Jimraynor45 Have you ever noticed the industrial parks around cities and the surrounding area... This twin city dynamic was not formed in a vacuum. Every city that has an industrial base is like this, the clean pretty part and the grim dirty part. And since in this story this is a city-state it is the entire country. "Why are they poor?" Because they do not get to dictate the prices for their goods, they are forced to sell only to Piltover at market prices, the Barons get their fat share, but the people get only the barest living wage. Piltover either continues manufacturing once all the dirty work has been done down below and sells the finished goods, or they directly sell the materials produced in the Undercity for a markup. The Undercity doesn't have a choice, nor do they have a seat on the Council. This is the American Colonies all over again. Just a source for cheap raw materials that Britain can then manufacture finished goods and sell, even right back to those how first produced the materials. Not because they were incapable of doing so, but rather because they were not allowed. Two halves, ruled by one body, and that body was made up entirely of representatives of only one half. None of the Coincilors made more than a passing comment about those citizens, and that was more to keep another bridge incident from happening. They were doing the barest of minimums, while extracting the highest of prices for that privilege.
@@Jimraynor45 1. It's a fantasy story. 2. They served up some fat slices of Realism within the fantasy. You don't agree because the parasitic relationship between the two castes isn't explored to your pleasure. Well I hope season 2 visits this.
@@isaacsanford6340 1. Fantasy and unbelievable are two different things. A fantasy world should still try to make sense and have some basis for which it does things. 2. That's what I'm against. I don't think it's very realistic. It is just fantasy, and not a mirror of reality. Now, you could say its just an exaggerated form, perhaps. But I would be wary of looking at the world in such a pessimistic way. You may look at a fantasy battle between Satan and an angel, and say, "that's how the world works." But, you would be over-simplifying and deeply distorting things. I warn against this. The world is rarely so easily divided into good or evil, or rich and poor for that matter.
@@Jimraynor45 Wow. I can't even... You are not using logic. Reality doesn't care about pessimism nor optimism, first of all. Stupid crap ya spouting. And please. Please say that last part to a homeless man's face. Record it. Do it I dare ya.
Great storytelling is what’s important. The Stories that aren’t political and are based on good writing, good characters and entertainment as well as the stories that do have political elements but are more focused on an engaging story,a well thought out lesson or idea behind it and interesting characters are the stories that make great entertainment. As my film teacher taught me Art before politics, always. The story & characters comes first whether the politics are subtle, secondary or completely non existent.
True. 99% of the time TV, literature, movies or other media try to get polticial it's by taking heavy handed metaphors and beating people over the head with it through clean black and white arguments with their side being 100% pure and whatever ideology they oppose being 100% evil, often by just straight up making the opposition thinly veiled nazis
@@tockidy4283 Even if I disagree with the politics or any kind of message/deeper meaning being subtly put into the work of art or not subtly but secondary to the story I can still enjoy it based on the quality. Love Alan Moore’s work as an artist but his anarchist perspective on everything isn’t apart of my core beliefs. Great Artist/Storytellers that are creative and not just people screaming at the audience to agree with them are people who are able to entertain their audiences with a great story and if they do have a message/point behind their story whether Philosophical, Mythological, Psychological, Spiritual, Metaphorical , Moral , Sociological , with or without any Political elements they can successfully inform, convince , persuade and especially ask their audiences to think about something deeper, otherwise it will fail. Not all Art has a message behind it, there is a lot of art out there just meant to entertain, but the many pieces of art that does have a deep message out there has to balance its creativity, entertainment and deeper meaning or no one will be interested and engaged. All the artists back then especially in the 60’s-80’s knew they’re work had to be entertaining if they truly wanted to make any point about anything. They also knew not every work of art was meant to do that. They were also very civil and celebrated diversity of opinion and thought, they weren’t the mindless drones today who are not as creative as they were , hate the fact that anyone could disagree with them and believe the lie that “everything is political.” “Still others picked up on Lucas's Vietnam allegory, though Lucas, wary of politics, publicly disavowed any and all sociopolitical theories and quashed any speculation on the deeper meaning of his film. For Lucas, it was enough that Star Wars could be merely entertaining-and entirely the point.” STARLOG: We all noticed the lack of women in the Star Wars trilogy. Are you go- ing to bring more women in for future Star Wars films? LUCAS: Well, what of Princess Leia? When you're making a war film, how are you going to put women in it? Think of other war films, think of The Longest Day, those films. Well, it's your galaxy; I have to go with the rest of the world. And still make it believable. I'm not sure how many women will be in the rest of the films; that's the kind of thing that plots dictate. What would Star Wars have been like if Han Solo had been a woman? "So social issues I try to get in in the background, or underlying a plot, but never to the point of letting interfere with a story or hitting the reader over the head.” - Stan Lee GROTH: How did you feel about the Senate Subcommittee Hearings? Did you think that was a witch-hunt, or did you think there was any validity to the public's concern? KIRBY: I didn't feel one way or another about it. I was only hoping that it would come out well enough to continue comics, that it wouldn't damage comics in anyway, so I could continue Working. I was a young man. I was still growing out of the East Side. The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I'd beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it. GROTH: Were you very political? KIRBY:I wasn't then. I was very concerned with comics. I'm political now. I knew this much - that everybody voted Democrat down my way. If you were poor, you voted Democrat and if you were rich you voted Republican. “I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again. I’m a comics fan, you’re a comics fan, but let’s face it these characters were created to entertain children. They were never meant to be political. They were never meant to be literature. They were never meant to be meaningful. They were just meant to be good solid American red-blooded entertainment. And putting politics into it, ruins it. It ruins anything.” - Chuck Dixon ROSE: Could I show you a list of the 100 best films (LAUGH) and how many of 'em are made by George Lucas? LUCAS: Yeah, but they're not made to -- they -- yes, they have a political undertone. I mean, especially "Star Wars" has got a very, very elaborate social, emotional, political context that it rests in. But of course, nobody was aware of that. Nobody says, "Oh my gosh." But if you actually watch the movies, it's there. And you subliminally get the fact of what happens to you if you've got a dysfunctional government that's corrupt and doesn't work. Undertone - a subdued or muted tone of sound or color. Basically Subtext. "Star Wars deals with the essential problem: Is the machine going to control humanity, or is the machine going to serve humanity? Darth Vader is a man taken over by a machine, he becomes a machine, and the state itself is a machine. There is no humanity in the state. What runs the world is economics and politics, and they have nothing to do with the spiritual life." - Joseph Campbel From "PW Interviews Joseph Campbell, by Chris Goodrich" Publisher's Weekly (August 23, 1985, p.74-75) Putting politics before Art is what is killing films now especially in the industry. There are two types of great stories when it comes to this method: stories that are apolitical with great characters, writing & moral lessons or none, and then there are stories that have political elements but put the quality of the writing and characters, & moral lessons first. Whether either type of story is apolitical or has political elements deep philosophy, morality, & mythology can often play a role in sharpening the story, once you form your morals for a story into ideas over just using them for government or social policy statements you can grab anyone within an audience no matter who they are or what they believe that is the gift of good storytelling Modern SJW’s unfortunately don’t have that gift because for them there is nothing deeper then the physical realm they see and often hate so instead of forming deep intelligent universal themes or ideas through the magic of storytelling they try to bend those themes or ideas to their will ,thoughts and beliefs. They can’t form their morals into ideas so often they come off as just government or policy statements without the feeling of anything deeper to an audience turning most people off whether they do or don’t agree with them or are indifferent to begin with.
One of the things I found refreshing, was how purposeful everything was. Nothing was flippant, or a throw away. Each little detail pushed the characters further onto the paths they have chosen.
Didnt expect Arcane to be used for libertarian propaganda lmao. The mental gymnastics to make Arcane ab "freedom from the government" and not the clear social inequality is amazing
"Even the worst characters have moments of humanity, and the best still frequently make serious mistakes." You put into words what I felt a lot of shows are missing. Thank you.
I enjoyed Arcane immensely having never played the game. The characters were complex. Had triumphs & setbacks that impacted them. Their actions & motivations all made sense. All things you rarely see in modern media.
I'm almost 52 and half the time I don't really know what I want to do with my life. There's no way someone else could possibly know what should be done with it. Jayce comes to realize that he doesn't know what each person should do, either.
Arcade honestly a breath of fresh air, from the monotonous woke garbage we been get in lately. It doesn’t simplify political Messaging with biases or demonize you for disagreed with it, it shows both sides The good and bad.
Buddy, I like Arcades too, but this isn't 80s and they're far old to be called "breath of fresh". Also, what kind of Arcade is teaching lessons about morality? The only lesson, Arcades ever taught me was that, "you should squeeze out any joy or fun as fast, you can till lasts. MAKE. EVERY. PENNY. COUNT."
I agree, but unfortunately I think everyone just ends up projecting their own politics onto things these days. Still worth everyone having a watch though :P
@@Nightmartlet well I'm a bit conservative and a lil bit liberal but never woke but I absolutely love the characters because they all seem so sweet, I mean only some of them.
@@janinebelleestrada7096 being balanced is the best mindset! I used to be a bit woke in college, now lean a bit conservative since I started thinking about issues in more realistic terms, but I also wouldn't really label myself either way. I'm glad you liked the show :)
You know what game did politics really really well? Fallout: New Vegas. Democracy Vs. Facism Vs. Autocracy. It explained both the pros and cons of each without pushing any agendas.
@@silverhawkscape2677 Almighty Loli has probably the single best obliteration of that motte and Bailey in his Cowboy Bepop review. Basically the politics are just one part of a greater whole and there's an entire canyon of divide between politics with nuance and with deeper themes about humanity underlying the exploration and outright propaganda and 1 to 1 allegory. Tolkien also has a great takedown of allegory just in general, 9 times out of 10 allegory is just a demonstrably worse version of metaphor in storytelling. Edit: used the wrong version of there's, fixed now.
@Bożydar Grabowski House is more of a monarchist than anything. Fascism is just used as a shorthand for militaristic or authoritarianism especially right wing authoritarianism these days, even otherwise intelligent people misuse the term often, because the abuse of the word has become that commonplace, thanks to a long protracted propaganda campaign by communists.
I was hoping you were going to come back to the praise it's getting from the anti-Woke crowd, because it almost 100% proves the point many of them have repeatedly made. It's NOT about the diversity, it's about how AWFUL these other shows/movies are. Captain Marvel was trash, not because Captain Marvel is a woman, but because the movie is poorly constructed and badly executed. Same with Ghosbusters 2016, same with the Star Wars sequels, same with Star Trek Discovery, same with all this other garbage that's come out recently. As Drinker says, "Isn't it funny how all my complaints about forced diversity, clumsy social messaging and overpowered female characters go right out the f--ing window when identity politics takes a back seat to just telling a good f--ing story? It's almost like that's the very thing I've been advocating for since my channel took off. And now that's it's happening, I couldn't be happier!" FWIW, I do hope Season 2 is a little brighter. Man, Viktor after the accident, "I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do" almost broke me haha. I know his story doesn't get happier but ... man I hope Ekko and Heimerdinger offer a slightly brighter storyline haha.
Definitely not an easy watch! I loved every bit of it, but man, it is hard to watch grim and depressing stuff nonstop. So I hope it is a bit brighter in season 2 as well. I know it's not a happy go lucky story, but some more positive moments would be a well received break from the darkness of the story.
To be completely honest, as someone who's been called "woke", we don't like those shows either. Admittedly, some people like them, and then the divide between people who do and people who don't is mainly based on whether or not they agree in essence with the message. But for a lot of these shows, we do NOT like them either, the stories can be bad, characters flat, and we often also feel judged and stereotyped (just, on the other end). The producers do this not because they believe in the message they portray (they very clearly don't care that much), but to appeal to lobbies and to look progressive (but not enough as to still be able to export it to China)
@@lewisgibson228 No doubt. Being pandered to usually doesn't feel good, but a lot of reviewers will ignore egregious flaws for the sake of THE MESSAGE. (As Critical Drinker always puts it haha) Unfortunately, it's both profitable and fashionable to accuse people who disagree with THE MESSAGE of being racist and the like. They're trying to use the tribalism to sell an otherwise garbage product. Sometimes it works because generally people want to support things they agree with. But it'll never work as well as something like Arcane, which clearly puts the story first, and therefore doesn't need to pander. I think a source of this is just straight ignorance on the producer's part, especially of the sci-fi/fantasy space. These producers think they need to switch men to women, when sci-fi/fantasy have a long history of awesome female characters. Ellen Ripley doesn't need pandering bullshit to be an awesome character. Vasquez doesn't need pandering to kick alien ass. Sarah Connor was most definitely NOT just a vessel for John Connor, no matter what Tim Miller might think. Her arc in T2 was phenomenal. Whedon may have been a monster, but half the cast of Firefly were awesome female characters. Princess Leia walks right up to a man controlling a moon-sized weapon called THE DEATH STAR and tells him to piss off, and under tremendous duress, TRICKS him. Despite her imprisonment, she is not a damsel in distress. I'm convinced that the source of so much of this bullshit is because the only things these people have actually read are "Great Literary Works™." They're ignorant of the fact that we don't NEED their stupid BS just because none of their English lit teachers showed them that sci-fi and fantasy authors have had amazing female characters for the last 60 years.
@@apollyonbob I completely agree with you on a lot of what you're saying, you're really hitting the nail in a lot of ways. I think the reason for this though is the weird disconnect there is between what companies and "moderates" want to look like and where they actually stand politically. They try pushing a lot of libleft stuff without understanding the message itself, because if they did they could really write great stories, but the disconnect between where their mouth is at and where their money is at is too large for them to effectively write good stuff
The correct way is easy: stay with the story and the universe. Reduce the allegory to a minimun, dont force stuff over the worldbuilding effort, keep the inner coherent development of the world and their characters, be mature and do not reduce stuff to simplistic interpretation. Basically, keep it tied with the worldbuilding and with inner sense and all would be ok. Of course, nothing of current day stuff forced upon the fiction.
@@ricardobautista-garcia8492 I refer to any element that is not justified but the writer want there, either because he wanted it, personally, to have it there, without being able to justify it, or because of political or ideological reasons. I refer to anything, like a patriotic movie were the good guys are awfully good, and the bads are very bad, any nuance to the conflict just evaporated because of that, but I specially refer to progressive stuff. For example, i once watched a spanish series, they started doing something very Ok, secuences were a character is recruited by another one, the interaction being the initial introduction to each character characteristics, personality and abilities, both the recruited and the recluiter. But, in one scene, a recluiter character, a 40 years old woman, after having a little conversation with the other character she is recluiting, a 20 years old woman, about how insecure the young one is with men, she assumes rapidly she is lesbian and tries to kiss her. The young one is not even officially recruited yet, and her future superior is already sexually harassing her after a short conversation, and the series act as if normal. This is all out of desperation for having the "strong sexually liberated female character" in the series. I am sure they though that scene told us that. But a cold observation of the scene just tell you that the older woman is not only a whore, searching for an excuse to fuck with anyone at any moment, but also an incompetent, not even able to restrain her base instincs for professionalism. Only because the scripts said the younger woman accepts the job proposal is becuase the plot keep going, the younger woman, by her own characteristics and description, should have being weird out of the recruitment attemp after that. An this incompetent character is technically the second in command of the organization she is in. I dont believe it. Someone so untruswordy, just doesnt fix. If at least the series were self concesious and the problems of the character were treated as problems in the story, but thats the point, it is the not even considered consecuences of forced stuff. They wanted a lesbian, they literally took the first scene of the character to say, loudly, she is a lesbian, becuase it is the only purpose of the character, and just destroyed the credibility of anything related with her as a result. Because they "forced stuff over the worldbuilding effort". In comparison, the series referenced in this video, Arcane, just doesnt do that. Vi, one of the protagonist, is lesbian, but the series doesnt stop the motion of the plot to say it, doesnt force a situation to leave it clear, as soon as possible, that she is a "minority", as if it was something important to be said about her by itself, when it is not. The series doesnt reduce the value of the character reducing her to "what she likes to fuck?", but just awaits until the plot, and the story, reach a point were they need that element to come in, and they do that then, more naturally. The value that element hold is the one the plot gives to it, dont breaking the worldbuilding, as it should be. Until that point, they dedicated their time to explain to me why should i care about the character, telling me her story. Again, as it should be. Tell me about the character, not about what "victim collective" they belong to, except it is important to the story or the worldbuilding.
I just finished Arcane a couple days ago and while I agree with most everything you say here the message I gathered from Arcane was entirely different. To me it was a story revolving around the decay of societies which fail to be truly human in their interactions with each other. In the affluent Topside it is important to note just how rarely we see background characters and minor roles that are not nameless and often faceless enforcers. In this we see how topside cares little for those they don't directly interact with on a regular basis. These people barely interact with those who live in the same part of the city as them, and many never interact with those who live in Zaun, knowing nothing of their culture. In the underground, or Zaun, you see countless people interacting with each other in very human ways in the background but you see them divided by tribe, group, or allegiance. These divisions and inhuman treatment of their fellow sapients (as it is not limited to other humans) leads to the further degradation of their society and living conditions. The willingness to allow destructive forces hold power and prosper is a symptom of their willingness to accept evil within their tribe/group while being willing to commit evil in defense of where they believe they belong. Only a few characters seem to fall outside of these molds and each one is compelling in their own right. Vi, Cait, Heimerdinger (especially near the end), Viktor, and some others to a lesser extent, spend much of their time trying to treat those they meet as individuals. Seeing actions and intentions matter but also being willing to look deeper and past the surface and preconceptions many have regarding others. Cait and Heimerdinger both show great capacity for reaching out beyond their status and searching for more in their fellow sapient beings. Ultimately for me it is a story about those who are willing to reach past preconceived notions of how things are, how they should work, and working to do better.
Counter point on a couple of things. The dichotomy isn't really the selling point of the Two towns, The Have/Have not setting is pretty much a staple of political storytelling, The political stories of Arcane literally do not exist without that power hierarchy. And, like. Really there is nothing special about it as a story telling setting. The Status Quo is just what it is, there is no deep inspection of why society specifically formed this way, and Arcane defiantly doesn't make any grand effort to demonstrate the superiority of one over the other. The Cities of Piltover and Zaun are both steeped in Humanity and Horror. Piltover isn't a bastion for humanity, It was a depersonalized inhuman autocracy, Their near religious belief in regulating science, magic, and the power of order, left alot of people to suffer all across runeterra, Human life is less valuable to them than structures of power and control. As exemplified by Jayce's low family birth vs Caitlyn's position of wealth. Large parts of the city are just Middle lower class worker families. Those who directly contribute to socioty and thus get to live top side because they pose no threat to its institutions. Zaun isn't a powder keg at the beginning of the Show, is setting is mostly stable. There is leadership that the city respects, and while the enforcers are seen as trouble by zaunites, its very very clearly outlined that they do have a very human relationship with each other. the Capitan of the guard maintains an extremely polite business/social relationship with Vander. Both cities are aware of each other, both treating the other with a level of disgust; but also with a level of political respect. What changes ALL of this, Is the Chain of Deaths before the time skip. The Death Greyson (the enforcer capitan), The Death of Vander, The Seperation of Vi and Powder, The Death of Ekkos Mentor, thus leaving him orphand. All set the City down a dark path, because Power Vacuums opened. Greyson's Death = Caused a highly corruptible Man to take her place, allowed the Drug Trade to take over Zaun. She is Also the Reason Caitlin became an Enforcer. Vander's Death = Zaun became destablized, allowing for Silco to take control. It also left Vi and Powder to be left without a guardian, Turning Powder into Jinx. Vi and Powder = Their family ties broke. Again, causing Jinx to immerge. Death of Ekkos Mentor = The Mentor was vanders Right hand, he was a major information merchant and allowed for the stability of Zauns black market. Ekko witnessing the death of the man who taught him how to gather information, and how to tell bad people from good people. Caused Ekko to become a Vigilantly. Ultimately, I think the story is about understanding that problems cannot be ignored. And that society isn't a robotic thing, that if you let small problems go unchecked, pain ungreived, and Injustices unprosecuted. A Stable world will very VERY quickly descend into chaos.
@@AGayTwitterArtist Two cities are not in that good relation as you mentioned. Vi says that Zaun suffer hunger. Viktor's illness is caused by toxines that go from Piltover to Zaun. And all that is because Zaun (just as Silco mentioned) is its own nation and Piltoverians are very nationalistic and predjudiced. Problems had started to arise long time ago.
@@karolinakuc4783 I never said their relationship was good, I only said that it was stable. Zaun only became its own nation after the events of Arcane, it predates the Lore of league of legends as you understand it in the Moba. In Arcane, Zaun is literally just the underbelly of Piltover, as the same Nation of two cities. That's the entire reason Vi and Powders parents are dead, they died in a Failed rebellion against Piltover, in an attempt to make Zaun a sovereign nation. Before the Death of Vander and the Guard Capitan, the relationship between Zaun and Piltover was Stable. Piltover over looked resources being siphoned to Zaun to take care of it's people, while Vander provided a black market to obtain restricted technology.
@@AGayTwitterArtist I wouldn’t call relations of these two cities “stable” when they are depending on two people,and a single break in almost led to another war.
I once again agree with everything spoken here, except that one of the problems is not that the right people aren't in power. Certain people are far more capable at leading, guiding, and instructing, as well as resisting the temptation power brings to give freedom to the individual. Those types of people are the right people. The trouble comes with identifying them from the deceivers.
I think he explained it here, it's not that who's wrong or right person in charge of power it's how much the government takes control of one's lives. If the government keeps controlling your decisions and choices then you know there's something wrong. Jayce realizes this and asked the members of council of giving Zaun their independency because he realize they can never truly fix Zaun, only Zaun can fix themselves. Zaun as already reached it's rock bottom (literally) and the council of Piltover can never understand that. That is until Jinx declared war against Piltover
I agree completely. Freedom is a responsibility, not just a right. Exercising personal liberty comes with a duty to exercise it responsibly and ethically. Choices made by individuals are only as good as the information those choices are based on, and must take into account the impact of those choices on the community the individuals live in. When individuals can't be counted on the do that, then sometimes the government, as an expression of the will of the community at large, must step in so as to protect the community as a whole. Of course, we hope that the people we elected into power actually act in good faith to lead with compassion, honor, dignity, and open-mindedness. The fact that such leaders are not only hard to come by, but impossible to keep safe from corruption (safe from having to "play ball" as the video puts it) is the real problem in modern politics.
Excellent points here in the replies! Haven’t seen the video yet, but I think it’s important to realize that the way power is distributed in the undercity v Piltover is totally uneven, with the council being unable to serve the interests of those they view as a nuisance at best, unworthy of saving, yet necessary to keep under control. They dehumanize the population within their political discussions-Zaun is merely a pawn lol
Gonna disagree some. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The nature of power is that it corrupts whoever holds it, especially when the power they hold is rarely contested. The longer they're in power, the more they lose touch with the common people, and the more they start believing they're better than everyone else. Then when their "better educated" decision don't yield the result they expected, they start to get frustrated and try to force reality to bend to their will. This is when tyranny always starts. The road to hell is paved by good intentions.
@@stefanyuwono1909 Would you say every U.S. president was corrupt? I know some were, but several were also very good, and gave up their power for people's sake.
My favourite scene in the entire show (as of before season 2) is the scene where Jayce and Viktor are on the now closed off bridge. Viktor is from Zaun and he told Jayce he was from Zaun so it feels like a huge betrayal when Jayce, blinded by politics, says “They’re dangerous” only for Viktor to harshly say “I’m from the undercity.” We are upset with Jayce because we know this idea is not 100% true, but it makes sense why he begins to think this way. He surrounded himself with people who all felt this exact same way, that people from the undercity or Zaun were dangerous so it was only natural that Jayce began to pick up this mindset himself. Excellent storytelling, I can’t wait for season 2.
Yep, it’s an actually good show. Not perfect, but a rare show that’s actually decently written. It’s sad how few shows and comics and books, etc. are written well. I’m “antiwoke” but enjoy this show. I like the show. There’s actually characters who are morally decent people or want to do what’s right, and they do. Most of the characters are likable. I don’t know exactly why but Heimerdinger is one of the characters I liked almost immediately and throughout the series so far. I guess maybe because he just is a good guy-you can tell. Even though he’s not always correct in his decisions either. Despite having hundreds of years of knowledge-still doesn’t always have the answer. And I find that so truthful to real life as well. There’s no person out there who has all the answers to every problem. Ultimately it does come down to each individual. That’s my politics, what I think.
well, this is actually a poor example of this. the game had background lore already, and quite a bit was changed for the show. like in the game, "Vi" is an amnesiac who doesn't even know her real name, so identifies with the tattoo on her face, while Victor and Jayce were class room rivals, not friends and partners.
It's why the last frames of the council seem so right but make me so sad. They are given the choice to make things right. To start the process of healing. To finally do what they were put there to do. Help ALL the people of Piltover. Even if it means stepping off and letting them sort it out themselves. To solve the problem they had since frame one of the show. And what do they do? They tangle themselves in bureaucracy and cling to power. They refuse to relinquish even a sliver of power to Zaun, even if it would make things better in the long haul and could heal the undercity, making them a powerful ally and trade partner in the future. My only complaint here is ironically lack of depth, even if I agree with the message "Powerful people will want to hang onto power, no matter what" and the outcome "Piltover does not recognize Zaun". I wish there had been a more legitimate focus on concerns from council members over this move. Basically what I wanted was that the council tries a bit harder to justify their dominion over Zaun a bit more aside from Bureuchracy and Power. Throw in a few "And who will govern them? Silco?" or "We can't leave them to their fate." Power justifies itself to hold onto power and I just wish that was shown more. Good show otherwise. Really solid character work and plot. Definitely one of the better shows of the time.
By far my favorite part was that I never really felt as if there was a vilian. Even Silco kind of won me over with the father/daugher dynamic with Jinx.
Beautiful. Think locally, act locally. Sweep your own back porch before you worry about anyone else's business. It warms my heart whenever I see anyone talking about decentralization and localism.
I'm glad you pointed it out. I hate hero orphans coz they usually have no background *cough* Harry Potter. Too much writters miss how important family is for a child developement.
When an election result is the difference between your world being right side up or toppled into the gutter then there's no wonder why we fight tooth and nail to make sure it goes our way. Government needs to be severely limited. Let's get back to the days where we argued over the particulars of a tax code or esoteric points of trade imbalance as the most important political topics of the day. We can disagree and still go get a beer afterwards. But when the result means that either my way of life or yours stands a good chance of being outlawed? No, that's a blood sport.
Thank you for pointing it out. They have to first divide society severely that two parallel universes exist in the same nation that people inhabit. With that, it makes it easy to where you can pit both sides in a blood sport to defend their now separate ways of life.
@@silverhawkscape2677 exactly, it's no longer about Right vs Left at this point. It's Elites vs everybody else. Elites are using the Right-Left argument to divide and conquer
@@no2party No….. the elites are not creating the divide….. they are just exploiting it. They are taking advantage of fundamental differences that already existed. Yes the elites suck, but this is a critical difference.
@@TK63636 it’s like the difference between a jelly and fish sandwich, and a jellyfish sandwich. You wouldn’t eat either, but if you had to, it pays to note the distinction between the two.
I know that you’re coming from a good place, or rather I choose to believe that you’re arguing in good faith. My main issue is that… the “this is my way of life” excuse can easily be used to defend and justify exploitation and extremely problematic situations. For example that’s a great way to defend the institution of slavery. Of course that’s not the case for most, at least generally. But the issue is that, at some point, we have to accept that some “ways of life” are actively detrimental and harmful to others, potentially violating their human rights in the extreme case. Because of this, can we really say that someone’s way of life must be protected at all costs? If we do then we easily fall into the paradox of tolerance. If we don’t then we could risk being contradictory in an ideological sense. Of course at some point if we accept that there are unacceptable ways of life then we have to decide which ones are unacceptable, and that quickly becomes problematic…
I'm grateful for both this and your recent Arcane "short". Though I agree strongly with the ideas in this one and disagree strongly with the ideas in the short, I've enjoyed the thinking that you've prompted in my brain part. Thank you!
Minor gripe is that you list Viktor among the "elite" of Piltover early on in the video, whereas really he is a resident of the Undercity who has had to claw his way up and is in no way unaware of his home's troubles.
Don't forget him calling council members: "experts", even though, there are like two members, who seemed to be expert of anything. And also, him calling Jayce a "orphan", even though, he has a alive and well mother.
Piltover blocked the Undercitiy's access to free trade with external parties, they wanted all trade to flow through Piltover. Like in Colonial America, produce the beaver pelts, but you can't make hats, you have to send them to Britain where they will make the hats then sell them back to you at a huge markup, and no, you can't sell to anyone else who might give you a better deal. The Undercity had the industry, but not a way to dispose of the waste of that industry, and almost all of the profit of that industry went to Piltover or the Chem Barons. It is the renter dilemma. You won't care for something you don't own. Piltover was renting the Undercity, the citizens of the Undercity weren't left with enough to improve their lives after covering the cost to survive. Piltover didn't want the heavy stinky gasses vented to the surface where they had to smell it. They didn't want their beautiful waters polluted with the toxins and filth that washed down into the Undercity, but heaven forbid that the factories stop producing the materials that Piltover needs to be so clean and shiny and progressive, and investing in cleaning it up would cut into their profits. The Chem Barons found it more expedient and economical to just bribe the Pilties to ignore the plight of the people down there. Humanity will always take the easiest path unless it is blocked or made more expensive. It IS an economical problem, but not a lack of industry, it is a problem of authority without responsibility. Those two should never be decoupled.
But industry only comes when there’s money to be made, only comes when there’s a way to justify it in the eyes of investors. As soon as it’s unprofitable, they’ll leave
@@badbeardbill9956 Well, the Chem mines make it such that this is pretty much the best and possibly only place to fabricate these high tech chemicals, (more than just Shimmer). These chemicals are a desired commodity all over the world. With the exception of Shimmer, Chem tech is the most advanced non-magical based technology. Someone is going to be doing it, either as slaves, or as a profitable enterprise. It does look like the Arcane storyline takes place AFTER Piltover decides to cut the channel so PIltover ships can sail between the continents. So that means Half of the undercity was flooded and downed.
Piltover didn't start treating Zaunites like crap after their failed revolt, the revolt was in direct response to that treatment, seen in Silco reminding Vander that they fought for opportunity and respect, and later telling Finn(or whatever his name is spelled like) that they fight because there was never enough to go around. Funnily enough, in this sense Silco is the least corrupt character, because his motivations and means are clear, whereas the corruption comes from Piltover, which is drowning in bureaucracy and competing interests, because like Jayce said they've been talking about talking for weeks, because the political process inherently waters down anything good that is to be achieved through this corruptive force, despite the majority of people demanding it. This isn't a problem with corrupt or bad people, it's a mechanical requirement of exploitative systems. I'm gonna chime in with my own political interpretation, and instead of it being a big government issue, I posit that Piltover represents the opulent West, where arts and science flourishes at the expense of Zaun, the global South, where all the misery necessary for the aforementioned pursuits to flourish is exported, which is exemplified in Jayce's comment about helping the working people of the undercity, and later when he addresses the crowd in his speech where he stated that whether they're a royal scion of Piltover or honest worker in the undercity, hextech is going to revolutionize their lives. Ofcourse, we later see that this is only the case for Piltover, which has established a monopoly on hextech, and dreads the prospect of the undercity gaining access to it in fear of them being on equal terms to demand for their competing interests. That's why Silco created shimmer, so Zaun will be capable of dishing out violence too, since that's all Piltover has shown them. Needless to say, this is the scarier reality that our divided west exists upon, one which is not sustainable and will, like in Arcane, one day be challenged by the seeds we've been sowing. Unlike the show, let us act before the opportunity for good deeds has passed, before we are met with the same violence that we've been upholding our self serving order with.
Benevolent but out of touch leaders? Yeah no, they are a bunch of unelected autocrats that exploited the undercity and built a city upon it to not have to deal with the damage they have done. Piltover and Zaun are no longer in the "talking" phase, that time was over way before Jinx even shot that rocket to the council. It's interesting that you try to link real-life politics to Arcane, but the situation is way different, for instance most of us we live in a democracy and are not forced to live in subhuman conditions where even the air is poison.
Two things, you are right about the incompetence but the show never shows any sort of exploitation. The Undercity looks to have formed originally as a refugee community or people who simply couldn't afford to live in Piltover. Most of their issues seem to stem from their own criminality, rather than exploitation by the Upper City. Their indifference and heavy handed police enforcement is partly to blame, but if the intent was to show exploitation they did it poorly.
@@shadowofhawk55 Check the lore, Zaun is a way older city than Piltover and it reflects with having art Novoue prevalent in their architecture while the upper city is Deco, rich trading clans just built over it after causing a major disaster which formed the trench. The game lore goes deeper into the sick relationship between the two cities and the ruling elite, but the show just focused on a personal drama between the two sisters instead of an info dump, which is way better but I hope they explore more of it in season 2.
@@bgm8663 Okay. I haven't dug into the lore, I just thought that the damaged buildings were either from that revolt or ruins from some war, cause they did mention a war. I think they could've touched on the exploitation like have someone yell at Vander "We work in their factories yet we can't walk on their streets," or something along those lines and you'd get that reveal of exploitation but it wouldn't feel forced. I don't know, I just don't like media that expects you to have read some outside source to understand what is going on.
@@shadowofhawk55 Yeah, the show didn't made a great job in that regard, it just assumes people already know or comments that allude to it. Like Piltover not being a democracy, but a system of clans, the richer they are the more influence they can have in the government, this is why Jayce's family is "elevated" for him to become a councilor, poor people don't have representation there, this is why they got ignored for so long. Or Viktor's illness caused for the toxic waste he was exposed to as a child in Zaun, during a transition you can see a sign for "fresh air" which is a luxury there. I like Arcane storytelling, but it can lead to some misconceptions.
@@bgm8663 To be fair, I and people in my circle did pick up on the Oligarchy stuff. I did have to explain the clan part to them, but we all knew it wasn't a democracy. But I can see how people who aren't constantly trying to argue about which form of government is worse can't pick up on it. And for the record, the worst is a true democracy cause that is just oppression of the minority waiting to happen.
Starship Troopers... the original... this was supposed to be a spoof, but they captured the best political ideas really well. Its a movie that was so bad, it overshot bad and landed back at good.
I remember the video you made saying you didn’t like the characters. Glad to hear you give a contextual review of the entire series. Shows you to be genuine and trustworthy. I just might watch it!
Ok well I don’t know where you heard where jayce is a orphan but he isn’t at all the main reason he even wasn’t even fully expelled from piltover was because his mother gave a heartfelt testimony allowing Mel to feel sympathy and let’s him stay in Piltover
2:17 LoL has story. As a gamer who played LoL 7 years I can tell lore of the game is a lot of big: chatacters bonds, Runterras world building. You can check it on official page. ps. sorry for bad English. It's not my first language
If you liked "The Expanse" -well, the first two or three seasons anyway -because of character development, then you're going to *LOVE* "Arcane." No hero one hundred percent virtuous, and no villain one hundred percent immoral. One of the most well-written animated series I've EVER seen. Yes, easily as good as AITA or "Gargoyles" or B:TAS or Bebop.
I would like to add some more perspective, the ousting of Heimerdinger was by no means, gross abuse of power, that is exxagerating, what does a few hundred year old person have to worry, he can wait hundreds, if not thousands of years, but a human only has a century, or half, one could also view this as a more mixed and nuanced action, not just outright abuse of power, in the scene Jayce lashes at Heimerdinger, who was explaining about accountability, and Jayce asks him, who holds him accountable?
Have you noticed that scene of book with a big explosion. Plus we saw Sky being sucked up by hexcore. Heimer was right there. It was good though he was dismissed his detached from reality attitude caused all this trouble.
Found this video on my feed and had to stop halfway because of wrong info. Jace is not an orphan. His mom's alive. They're not poor per se. They own a hammer factory, hence the house sigil. He probably needed a patron for entrance in the Academy. Victor is not from Piltover so he wouldn't be "ignorant" of the plight of the Undercity.
Yes, that's pretty true. Also, he said that "Jayce was making the hextech in order to help those in need, like his friend Viktor," which... Wasn't technically *untrue,* but... Still felt a little bit like overlooking the fact that it's mostly just Viktor who cares about those who are in need and about Viktor, because the system allows everyone else to look the other way, and he's the only person who have experienced this marginalization of his suffering so he cannot ignore these problems, while still having enough power to do something about it.
I am fine with a story having political themes and messages, even messages I disagree with. I am not fine with a story being hijacked by people who don't care about the story's quality in order to use it as a shallow propaganda vehicle.
I find Netflix series are either remarkably good at producing content with the qualities you were praising or alternatively violating the guidelines you were cautioning. They can either hit it out of the park with deep complexity or foul out with hardcore cringe. If you want to see another series that really does complex storytelling right, I would recommend The Dragon Prince.
Such a good show. Not enough Elves and Dragons being butchered horribly for me to buy the "humanity evil" hype train the show seems to have at times but it's pretty good.
@@shadowofhawk55 You must not be paying attention, because that is bot the case at all. This one of the few fantasy shows that doesn’t demonize humanity. The shows makes it clear that the elves and dragons are assholes, for thinking like that. Don’t confuse how the characters see humans, vs how the narrative sees humans.
@@PrincessLioness I get that is what they TRYING to show, but personally it feels hollow. Like going "oh, these two characters had one eye lock and a conversation. They are in love by the end of the movie," it doesn't feel at all done right. Cause, the show only has one moment of Bad Xadians, and its a dude that even the Xadians seem to think was an extremist. The "humans that are good" are just the ones siding with the Xadians, as if the only good ideology is one that agrees with the elves and dragons, which isn't necessarily true.
Your point about "we need more talk" is also very tragic shown at the end of the season. Silco and Jayce are both willing to talk, to make a deal, that allows free trade and respect. Heck. Silco is even willing to give up his achieved power (Shimmerdrugs) for this. Peace was possible, until Jayce wanted the only other thing from Silco that he cared about. And from there it all broke apart. Oh and also. Viktor is from Zaun. He lives in Piltover but comes from the Slums.
An example I use as far as "political-based entertainment" done right is Costa-Gavras, especially his films Z, The Confession and Missing (at least those are the ones I have seen of his). While there is a clear viewpoint being shown - Z is loosely based on the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis and hints at the then-current Greek military junta, The Confession is based on the show trials in Czechoslovakia before Stalin's death, Missing on the "disappearance" of Charles Horman during the Pinochet coup in Chile - it tells a good story, never insults its audience and could even "change some minds" because of its effective storytelling. For starters, you are at a disadvantage if your work insults half of your potential audience. But you also end up affirming the divide if you have only the loyal side viewing it.
"We need what Piltover needs." A rocket? Too soon? Don't worry, some of the characters in that room have plot armor, maybe even literally. While League of Legends doesn't tell a story, its characters have plenty of lore which is better represented in Legends of Runeterra. Arcane is less based of the game, more so it's based on the lore. While the show keeps a lot of the world building untouched, it takes a lot of freedom when it comes to the actual characters. Which I think is a good thing since I think every character in this show is more interesting than their game counterpart. I love Arcane if it wasn't obvious already, and I am also a fan of the world of Runeterra even if not of Riot's games in particular. MOBAs and Card Games just aren't my preferred style. Ruined King is a good singleplayer game though and I am very much looking forward to Riot's fighting game which is even taking inspiration from Arcane.
It is not plot armour. I think Piltover council has hextech electromagnetic shield like the one we saw in Vi vs Sevika fight that would save them from that bomb.
You know what's interesting. DC managed to put together a good ideology vs ideology movie called "Injustice". I highly recommend taking a look at it if you haven't
Thanks for covering Arcane. It's one of the best video game adaptations and shows on Netflix. Liked how it was diverse without being woke. Vi and Powder were some of my favourite characters.
You did a great job explaining the politics of this show, but also connecting them to the real world examples that plague our societies today. Unfortunately like you said often enough people are too rooted in their own idealism to see the reality of the world. Often enough we try to see this world as a "black and white" where there is good or evil, but this is false. You cannot have a world of free will, and have simple groupings of "good and evil", because what is considered "good" to some could be considered "evil" to others. A better way to examine it is that was we live in a world of "grey" where the good and bad mesh together and make it very difficult to determine what truly is right or wrong.
On the other hand, to insist that black and white is actually gray is just being wrong about both. Seeing nuance is a categorically different thing than finding where something falls on a spectrum. Nuance sees things as they are and treats them as such, but being on a spectrum is comparative. Things are defined relative to some reference or references, real or idealized. They are nothing more than projections onto a model that may not even reflect reality all that well. Unfortunately, projections and models are all we have. No one (except God if you believe in Him) can truly see the all the nuance that our eyes just want to assign colors to. All this to say, there can be such thing as a right and wrong choice. It just won't always be apparent, and we may very well be just mistaken, but that's also not to say we can't be correct either nor have any degree of certainty about it. As the saying goes, a broken clock is right twice a day, but even as a clock off by 5 mins is never right, it sure is a lot more useful.
I finished watching the series mere hours before this upload. Crazy case of cosmic coincidence that is, huh? I love the series, great world and characters.
Wow. I learned so much from your video! A lot of people always hated Jayce for some reason. Of course, he's not absolved from doing wrong and letting himself be used, but I can absolutely say he did not do anything solely for power. If anything, the fact you even hated what he had to do means you agree with him. "He let power get to his head." is such a gross misunderstanding of his character just because he's got a pretty face and has it all. I wonder if people have ever heard of compromising. It's not pretty, but it's how he dealt with balancing Piltover (mostly the Council) and Zaun's interests. You put into words what I couldn't, and I am thankful.
I think the fandom tends to have very skewed opinions of Jayce and Mel because the media and our own lives have conditioned us to always root for the underdog. But Arcane is not simple as that. Both Jayce and Mel are trying to help. Jayce through his inventions. Mel by ensuring that the city economy flourishes, and later by trying to ensure that the city has military might to resist foreign threats that might try to seize it from them in the light of the brewing civil war. Neither of them has an ideal solution because they don't know the reality of the underclass. But the harsh lessons they're taught along their journey open them up to dialogue. Mel starts seeing how her focus on the upper city's wealth blinded her to the corruption beneath and brought a war on their doorstep. Jayce sees that his one-size fits all solutions can backfire spectacularly and only exacerbated the issue. It's harsh, but now they know that they don't know everything, that they need to centre the voices of the affected, and can become better leaders for it. But it's still gonna be a bumpy ride, that's for sure.
LoL would surprise you. Every champion has a fully fleshed out backstory, and there's actually a fully explained reason for the main game's battle arena. No one who plays the games was surprised by the depth of the story.
There is? I thought the battle arena was a non-cannon thing that can’t possibly exist because Aurelion Sol would just annihilate everyone? You can’t just have “girl with gun” believably fight “star dragon who is also basically god” in-universe. It just facilitates gameplay and nothing more. In fact, I think that League lore and League are basically two separate things.
We need to start making a parallel society as eastern europe did; the state, corpos, woke, and globalist are too powerful to fight, so we must show a better future.
I'm not sure what example you mean to follow here, given that Eastern Europe, minus the countries that are members of the EU (and therefore globalist), are run by corrupted oligarchs, dictators or the church. Freedom of speech is pretty much non-existent and average citizen is way poorer, less educated and has nigh non-existent access to decent healthcare than in the countries following the western model? Sincerely, an Eastern European
So i searched for analysis of Arcane politics and this was the first video suggested. I have to say that your political biasas are amazingly shown here. Not saying that it is bad, on the contrary, I think you should embrace it and say you are a right liberterian when tryint to analyze media. (Just so you know, it was obivous before you qouted T. Sowel). I would point out a small problem with your analysis. You forgot to realized that the council rules the town thanks to their economical power. They are not exactly voted in. This is a case of plutocracy or oligarchy. It is not completely as they have an academical representetive, because their inovations are one of their main exports. This should be taken in to an account. The problem is power in a broad sense! The political part only manifests after they get enough actual econmic power through which they can gain the political power (changing laws, working with police, etc)
in my Orientation to Political Science my teacher made us give a example of an idealist and realist viewpoint and i used Arcane to provide the example.
Perhaps one little correction into that last line: I think your point was more along the lines of "We need what Zaun needs", with Jayce surrendering power over to Zaun away from Piltover
1) I didn't say political opinions are bad. I said that there's a way to embed politics in narrative fiction without making the audience feel like they're the object of contempt or being scolded by some obnoxious writer. Literally the title of this video is how there's a "right way" to get political in TV/movies. 2) A video essay is, inherently, an opinion based medium. The whole purpose of these videos is to express my ideas and support my opinion, hopefully persuasively. That's different than the purpose of a fictional story.
Jayce didn't have anywhere to do, he could've built hammers in the company his dad made. And his mom is still alive. I like the local govt take from Arcane
You are so wrong it hurts. The show was neoliberal, not political in a good way. The struggle of the opressed was really ignored and framed in a very bad light, with no way to change their bad situation.
What a magnificent video essae. I have watched many videoes analyzing arcane but I never saw such unique point of view on this show. I am very glad that I got recommended your short about arcane's characters.
A lot of the strength this show has comes from the fact it's based off of a MOBA. The histories of the characters are already there, they just need to be expounded upon. There's not a lot of room for the woke people to fuck it up
i think the reason why both sides of the political spectrum can kind of see their own ideals in the show ?? i don’t know if thay makes sense but i hope it does. i’m very far left leaning personally but i do understand why a lot of left leaning people HATE woke television and i’d agree with it, it’s good that shows want to be inclusive but they’re going about it the wrong. anyway i’m glad that both sides are loving this show, i wish that we could be less divided as a country though lol.
@@miraseum It's a flippen amazing show and easily one of the best animated tv series (trying to exclude movies here) to date. Who can't love it!? Yeah, less divide in general would be welcome in life.
@@miraseum I think it's because the show's politics is not one-sided, dare I say not even the center of the plot. It does not have any political theme circulating around it. In Piltover or Zaun, there is a distinct societal and economical struggle. When the two worlds collide, it becomes an entirely big mess in its own, and the way they introduce the issue is with the help of each of the characters, not because the writers feel the need to add some form of politics. The politics feels natural. You don't see characters fight because "we have to fight because we're women or black", to put it bluntly. Every conflict Arcane shows is not always "defeat the evil person" but more "we're rooting for you to win" because opposite sides are not as simple as black and white. I think everyone who has watched Arcane knows that majority of the cast are morally gray and I believe this is what appeals the "woke" and "anti-woke". People can side with Zaun because they can agree and relate with its ideals, same as with Piltover, without feeling glorified or discouraged.
in my personal opinion you kind of need to take a page out of Arcane’s book man 🥴 This could’ve been a cool neutral analysis video but you yourself kept discussing it in reference to how it appeals to your political views as well
I think the best part about this is that the people who recommended this show the most to me (I haven't watched it yet) are my left leaning (woke) friends. Which means that the politics you discuss aren't slapping you in the face like most modern tv.
I know this is probably WAY out of your line of work, and you probably won't see this. But I'd love to implore you to read and analyze the original IDW run of the Transformers. There are some politics of the Cybertron homeworld that are fascinating and I'd love to hear a video on your thoughts. On the off chance you see this, message me and I'd be happy to help you learn more
Anti-Woke crowd, he says, while showing thumbnails of videos from AngryJoe and Gigguk. Sure man. Get ready for AngryJoe to lambast you if he finds out about this video.
League actually has a collection of great stories, but you really have to dig to find them. I miss the old school days where they released new lore daily.
The problem with Hollywood not writing good stories seems to at least largely in part be due to them hiring writers based on "diversity" quotas, and kicking out many of the good writers due to their skin color and/or gender
Minor correction: at 7:36 you say Jayce is an orphan, but is mother is still alive. She pleads for leniency at his trial before the Council.
I may have to go back and re-watch that bit. I thought it was just his benefactors vouching for him and that his parents both died in the flashback. I'll fully admit though that I was not very invested early on, as I said in the video, so I wouldn't be surprised if I missed that.
@@FEEonline I get that, those first couple episodes weren't that gripping. Jayce's mother also makes an appearance at some point before he gets his hammer. There's actually a crayon drawing of him with a hammer very similar to the one he wields in the room he talks to her in, which I thought was a neat bit of foreshadowing. I'm also pretty sure his dad is dead, not his mom, but I don't think he's mentioned at all.
@@MadWolf6280 I think I assumed they were all dead because he was being supported by patrons and living alone in Piltover. Didn't seem like he had anyone else.
@@FEEonline Ah. Gotcha, that makes sense.
His own mother also told the council he was basically crazy for using hextech. I think that did NOT help his mental state
I think Viktor said it best: “In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.”
THIS
"Perfect is the enemy of good."
This series has SO much outstanding dialogue. Not only is the technical aspect and acting out of this world, they managed to make such an incredible story with so much world building.... Arcane is a masterpeice.
Viktor our dark hiccup.
I think it was Walter Benjamin who invented the term "politically correct" to describe art that had socialist sensibilities he liked but needed to be distinguished from art that was "artistically correct" (i.e., socialist art that was actually good).
Characters with opinions make good stories. Opinions with characters make bad stories.
Agreed. 'The play is the thing', and anything that distracts from the play at hand makes the experience that much less enjoyable.
I will quote this, well said. You are a scholar and a gentleman!
Damn, that’s profound
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Allegorical stories like Animal Farm are still quite good, despite being opinions with characters. It doesn't often work, but it definitely can.
This quote blew my mind 🤯
Even if political or not, this really felt like a story driven by its characters and not the author's agenda
Each character felt like what they've been told to be through in-game lore. That was what made it good for me, no perversion of the originals or raceswapped for the sake of diversity. Just people doing what they do, nothing forced or changed to reach a "wider audience"
more importantly, it's not preachy and no one is "right" or "wrong"
For example in the Vander vs Silco case:
Vander plays safe with piltover, and as a result things are stale and do not improve
Under Silco, things are much worse, but he obtains political leverage and is on the verge of achieving long-term improvments for Zaun.
Vander may seem like he is "better" on the surface, but on the long run, Silco would probably be. Both are right on some points, and wrong on others.
Given that this is the showrunners' first show, they may have been extra motivated to not screw things up. Their future shows could end up either way.
There is definitely an agenda, it just takes class consciousness to be able to see it.
It's probably kinda childish, but I really liked how Arcane shows how hatred just ruins everything. It shows a distinction between being against some group, and flat out hating that group, too. Really makes me think about whether or not some of my negative feelings towards some people are just a healthy dislike born from a decent reason, or an unhealthy hatred born from some festering wound in my subconscious.
It's not childish. I have been on that "unhealthy hatred against a certain group" during a certain period of my life. Sometimes, I feel I still am. This is actually a very mature take of yours, since this seems to drive a lot of social and political relationships nowadays.
Some call it childish, but the reason we teach it to children is because it’s true.
This isn’t childish at all! And if you’re interested, you should look up some social experiments done on something called “unconscious bias” - every human on the planet has it. 🙂
Is ok to hate evil. But it's also important to show compassion for those who truly repent.
@@TheElementalPerson I disagree. I don't think unconscious biases exist. We are rational beings, we mean what we think and say. In fact, is a shield used to demonize people that complain about liberal thinking no matter how depraved and evil it may be. Is a form of gaslighting.
Arcane is diversity done right. It's not shoving it down our throats. It's fits naturally into the story. A certain skin tone isn't hailed as good or evil but the individual is good or evil.
When you watch it, you arent seeing, black guy, white guy, grey guy, that you see when people do propagandist shit
Especially since it realizes people are individuals first and foremost and builds actual characters with depth.
Most instances of "diversity done wrong" are the same thing. The "forced diversity" crowd retroactively decide whether its forced or not based on whether the show as a whole becomes good or not. You only say that Arcane was diversity done right because it's amazing-if it wasn't, you would blame it on the show's diversity.
@@zedudedaniel daniel mikhalchuk, because they took priority on dibersity over the damned story, of course wed be mad.
@@Cecilia-ky3uw But that doesn't happen nearly as often as yall say it does. You just automatically shit on any story that happens to have minorities, and if it turns out to be less than a masterpiece, then you say its terrible because "they forced diversity". If it turns out to be great, then you gaslight everyone and pretend you never shit on it and use it as proof as “We’re not racist, we’re just against forced diversity!”
Can we not forget the astonishing animation quality of this series? Like, whoa, I forgot that we had the capability to make feature-quality animation.
I ain’t gonna lie tho where tf did the money come from to make 9 episodes, each with the budget of a full animated movie (like $90 million I think) because ummm I didn’t know we had anyone who could invest that kind of money into an animated spin off of a video game that didn’t hold back in telling a compelling story
@@hellofriend545 Uh, Riot Games? That's pretty obvious
Nobody is forgetting that. It’s just been parroted so much that it doesn’t need repeating. There’s literally 1000+ videos that mention it. 1 video that decides to focus on something else isn’t an omission of admiration.
Is it quality? It looks like they tried to ape Into The Spider-Verse's shtick.
@@SirBlackReeds Wow, does Into the Spider-Verse suddenly own 2D and 3D animation? I wasn't aware of that.
So, obviously, Powder (Jinx) and Vi have obvious juxtaposition. However, I think the most brilliant set of character differences comes between Powder and Ekko. Both Powder and Ekko lost everything, but they both became incredibly different people. Powder embraced terrorism, hatred, and violence whereas Ekko and his crew became essentially vigilantes who virtuously protected their fellow citizens and sought to try and clean up their home. They took responsibility when the people of Piltover refused to actually help. They built a home for those suffering instead of scrambling for power through violence and drug trafficking.
cant agree more loved how every character was treated and bounced off each other
FEE said the characters were bad though, so *shrug*
@@ArukiTsukaru stealing isn't good, but we can honestly start feeling ourselves excuse it when we see their situations
You especially start to see their relationship in the Enemy MV . They’re both the youngest out of the group so it makes sense they hang out with each other, not being demeaned by the older kids.
Ekko isn't an orphan , he just lost his employer to the quemohulk.
One of the best things about Arcane is that it respects the viewers intelligence and it does not pander to the viewers stupidity. Every character has motivations, reasons, and logic that are not spelled out, but are there. If a character is talked about in glowing terms they show you that they are not worthy of such praise. If a character is talked about as being evil and despicable, they show that they are never seen doing any of the truly horrible things people say they do. It is almost as if what people say about other people is mostly wrong and is used by society to hide or distort the truth about the person being gossiped about. The council is full of people that are every bit as disgusting as the Chem Barons in the Undercity, they just wear nicer clothes, perfume, and makeup, but do all the same terrible things.
The law of Conservation of Corruption - Corruption can neither be created nor destroyed, but through governmental regulation, it will become concentrated at the top of society and its effect will be multiplied as it blocks out the light down through every layer of society. Better to keep corruption dispersed throughout society, where it is smaller and more manageable, and not some unstoppable titan.
Corruption is like a canopy blocking the light for everything below it, if it is dispersed throughout society, it will not be able to choke all the life out of the system, some light will always be able to shine through, but if it is concentrated at the top, it will kill everything below it, and they will never feel the light upon their skin.
Well, I don't entirely buy what your selling. Look, perhaps the characters respects the intelligence of the audience, but not the setting. It seems awfully convenient to me you have this poor "undercity" and this rich Piltover city living right next to each other, yet they seem like they hardly interact with each other. Maybe I just didn't understand, but were people in the undercity forbidden from going to Piltover? Just why were they so poor in the first place? In reality, you should see a much greater mixing of the two dynamics.
As for corruption, what really matters is power. When an individual is corrupt, they could be said to be a criminal, but when a government is corrupt, you have a tyranny. Putting aside the corruption that lives within all of us....the corruption from government is only as terribly as the power they wield. As they say, power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. The key to reducing corruption is reducing power. In arcane, you could argue most of the problems arose when those in power gained new technologies such as hextech or the chems. That in fact, instigated much of the conflict. Though, that is more of a physical power, and not the political power typically associated with states.
@@Jimraynor45 Have you ever noticed the industrial parks around cities and the surrounding area... This twin city dynamic was not formed in a vacuum. Every city that has an industrial base is like this, the clean pretty part and the grim dirty part. And since in this story this is a city-state it is the entire country. "Why are they poor?" Because they do not get to dictate the prices for their goods, they are forced to sell only to Piltover at market prices, the Barons get their fat share, but the people get only the barest living wage. Piltover either continues manufacturing once all the dirty work has been done down below and sells the finished goods, or they directly sell the materials produced in the Undercity for a markup. The Undercity doesn't have a choice, nor do they have a seat on the Council. This is the American Colonies all over again. Just a source for cheap raw materials that Britain can then manufacture finished goods and sell, even right back to those how first produced the materials. Not because they were incapable of doing so, but rather because they were not allowed. Two halves, ruled by one body, and that body was made up entirely of representatives of only one half. None of the Coincilors made more than a passing comment about those citizens, and that was more to keep another bridge incident from happening. They were doing the barest of minimums, while extracting the highest of prices for that privilege.
@@Jimraynor45
1. It's a fantasy story.
2. They served up some fat slices of Realism within the fantasy.
You don't agree because the parasitic relationship between the two castes isn't explored to your pleasure.
Well I hope season 2 visits this.
@@isaacsanford6340 1. Fantasy and unbelievable are two different things. A fantasy world should still try to make sense and have some basis for which it does things.
2. That's what I'm against. I don't think it's very realistic. It is just fantasy, and not a mirror of reality. Now, you could say its just an exaggerated form, perhaps. But I would be wary of looking at the world in such a pessimistic way. You may look at a fantasy battle between Satan and an angel, and say, "that's how the world works." But, you would be over-simplifying and deeply distorting things. I warn against this. The world is rarely so easily divided into good or evil, or rich and poor for that matter.
@@Jimraynor45 Wow. I can't even...
You are not using logic. Reality doesn't care about pessimism nor optimism, first of all.
Stupid crap ya spouting.
And please.
Please say that last part to a homeless man's face. Record it.
Do it I dare ya.
Great storytelling is what’s important. The Stories that aren’t political and are based on good writing, good characters and entertainment as well as the stories that do have political elements but are more focused on an engaging story,a well thought out lesson or idea behind it and interesting characters are the stories that make great entertainment. As my film teacher taught me Art before politics, always. The story & characters comes first whether the politics are subtle, secondary or completely non existent.
True. 99% of the time TV, literature, movies or other media try to get polticial it's by taking heavy handed metaphors and beating people over the head with it through clean black and white arguments with their side being 100% pure and whatever ideology they oppose being 100% evil, often by just straight up making the opposition thinly veiled nazis
@@arthas640 yep.
And what if you happen to disagree with the politics being subtle placed
All stories are political.
The question is how well you mask/interweave it, and how engaged the listener is.
@@tockidy4283 Even if I disagree with the politics or any kind of message/deeper meaning being subtly put into the work of art or not subtly but secondary to the story I can still enjoy it based on the quality. Love Alan Moore’s work as an artist but his anarchist perspective on everything isn’t apart of my core beliefs. Great Artist/Storytellers that are creative and not just people screaming at the audience to agree with them are people who are able to entertain their audiences with a great story and if they do have a message/point behind their story whether Philosophical, Mythological, Psychological, Spiritual, Metaphorical , Moral , Sociological , with or without any Political elements they can successfully inform, convince , persuade and especially ask their audiences to think about something deeper, otherwise it will fail.
Not all Art has a message behind it, there is a lot of art out there just meant to entertain, but the many pieces of art that does have a deep message out there has to balance its creativity, entertainment and deeper meaning or no one will be interested and engaged.
All the artists back then especially in the 60’s-80’s knew they’re work had to be entertaining if they truly wanted to make any point about anything. They also knew not every work of art was meant to do that. They were also very civil and celebrated diversity of opinion and thought, they weren’t the mindless drones today who are not as creative as they were , hate the fact that anyone could disagree with them and believe the lie that “everything is political.”
“Still others picked up on Lucas's
Vietnam allegory, though Lucas, wary of politics, publicly disavowed any and all sociopolitical theories and quashed any speculation on the deeper meaning of his film. For Lucas, it was enough that Star Wars could be merely entertaining-and entirely the point.”
STARLOG: We all noticed the lack of
women in the Star Wars trilogy. Are you go-
ing to bring more women in for future Star
Wars films?
LUCAS: Well, what of Princess Leia?
When you're making a war film, how are
you going to put women in it? Think of
other war films, think of The Longest Day,
those films. Well, it's your galaxy; I have to
go with the rest of the world. And still make
it believable. I'm not sure how many women
will be in the rest of the films; that's the kind
of thing that plots dictate. What would Star
Wars have been like if Han Solo had been a
woman?
"So social issues I try to get
in in the background, or
underlying a plot, but never to
the point of letting interfere
with a story or hitting the
reader over the head.”
- Stan Lee
GROTH: How did you feel about the Senate
Subcommittee Hearings? Did you think that
was a witch-hunt, or did you think there was
any validity to the public's concern?
KIRBY: I didn't feel one way or another about it. I was only hoping that it would come out well enough to continue comics, that it wouldn't damage comics in anyway, so I could continue Working. I was a young man. I was still growing out of the East Side. The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I'd beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it.
GROTH: Were you very political?
KIRBY:I wasn't then. I was very concerned with comics. I'm political now. I knew this much - that everybody voted Democrat down my way. If you were poor, you voted Democrat and if you were rich you voted Republican.
“I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again. I’m a comics fan, you’re a comics fan, but let’s face it these characters were created to entertain children. They were never meant to be political. They were never meant to be literature. They were never meant to be meaningful. They were just meant to be good solid American red-blooded entertainment. And putting politics into it, ruins it. It ruins anything.” - Chuck Dixon
ROSE: Could I show you a list of the 100
best films (LAUGH) and how many of 'em
are made by George Lucas?
LUCAS: Yeah, but they're not made to --
they -- yes, they have a political
undertone. I mean, especially "Star
Wars" has got a very, very elaborate
social, emotional, political context that it
rests in. But of course, nobody was
aware of that. Nobody says, "Oh my
gosh." But if you actually watch the
movies, it's there. And you subliminally
get the fact of what happens to you if
you've got a dysfunctional government
that's corrupt and doesn't work.
Undertone - a subdued or muted tone of sound or color. Basically Subtext.
"Star Wars deals with the essential
problem: Is the machine going to
control humanity, or is the machine
going to serve humanity? Darth Vader
is a man taken over by a machine, he
becomes a machine, and the state
itself is a machine. There is no
humanity in the state. What runs the
world is economics and politics, and
they have nothing to do with
the spiritual life."
- Joseph Campbel
From "PW Interviews Joseph Campbell, by Chris Goodrich"
Publisher's Weekly (August 23, 1985, p.74-75)
Putting politics before Art is what is killing films now especially in the industry.
There are two types of great stories when it comes to this method: stories that are apolitical with great characters, writing & moral lessons or none, and then there are stories that have political elements but put the quality of the writing and characters, & moral lessons first. Whether either type of story is apolitical or has political elements deep philosophy, morality, & mythology can often play a role in sharpening the story, once you form your morals for a story into ideas over just using them for government or social policy statements you can grab anyone within an audience no matter who they are or what they believe that is the gift of good storytelling Modern SJW’s unfortunately don’t have that gift because for them there is nothing deeper then the physical realm they see and often hate so instead of forming deep intelligent universal themes or ideas through the magic of storytelling they try to bend those themes or ideas to their will ,thoughts and beliefs. They can’t form their morals into ideas so often they come off as just government or policy statements without the feeling of anything deeper to an audience turning most people off whether they do or don’t agree with them or are indifferent to begin with.
One of the things I found refreshing, was how purposeful everything was. Nothing was flippant, or a throw away. Each little detail pushed the characters further onto the paths they have chosen.
Didnt expect Arcane to be used for libertarian propaganda lmao. The mental gymnastics to make Arcane ab "freedom from the government" and not the clear social inequality is amazing
"Even the worst characters have moments of humanity, and the best still frequently make serious mistakes." You put into words what I felt a lot of shows are missing. Thank you.
I enjoyed Arcane immensely having never played the game. The characters were complex. Had triumphs & setbacks that impacted them. Their actions & motivations all made sense. All things you rarely see in modern media.
I'm almost 52 and half the time I don't really know what I want to do with my life. There's no way someone else could possibly know what should be done with it. Jayce comes to realize that he doesn't know what each person should do, either.
Arcade honestly a breath of fresh air, from the monotonous woke garbage we been get in lately. It doesn’t simplify political Messaging with biases or demonize you for disagreed with it, it shows both sides The good and bad.
1st rule of writing: Never let your politics poison your plot
Buddy, I like Arcades too,
but this isn't 80s
and they're far old to be called "breath of fresh".
Also, what kind of Arcade is teaching lessons about morality?
The only lesson, Arcades ever taught me was that, "you should squeeze out any joy or fun as fast, you can till lasts. MAKE. EVERY. PENNY. COUNT."
@@nnnnmhughuuhhjiijj9457 for starters it’s Arcane not Arcade.
@@DrawingsagespazHahahahahahaha, I should be one, telling you that🤣🤣
@@nnnnmhughuuhhjiijj9457 why Should you!? When I’m the one that corrected you, either way I’ll fix it later.
I love how a video praising Arcane for avoiding preachy political sermons very quickly devolves into a preachy political sermon.
“Politics is when the message doesn’t fit in with my worldview 😡😡😡😡”
Arcane is an amazing show that I feel people on both sides of American politics need to watch.
I agree, but unfortunately I think everyone just ends up projecting their own politics onto things these days.
Still worth everyone having a watch though :P
@@Nightmartlet agreed
@@Nightmartlet well I'm a bit conservative and a lil bit liberal but never woke but I absolutely love the characters because they all seem so sweet, I mean only some of them.
@@janinebelleestrada7096 being balanced is the best mindset! I used to be a bit woke in college, now lean a bit conservative since I started thinking about issues in more realistic terms, but I also wouldn't really label myself either way. I'm glad you liked the show :)
You know what game did politics really really well? Fallout: New Vegas. Democracy Vs. Facism Vs. Autocracy. It explained both the pros and cons of each without pushing any agendas.
Would've been better if the Legion stuff wasn't cut.
Too bad they use Vegas as Proof that games were always political without understanding how Vegas did it right.
@@silverhawkscape2677 Almighty Loli has probably the single best obliteration of that motte and Bailey in his Cowboy Bepop review. Basically the politics are just one part of a greater whole and there's an entire canyon of divide between politics with nuance and with deeper themes about humanity underlying the exploration and outright propaganda and 1 to 1 allegory. Tolkien also has a great takedown of allegory just in general, 9 times out of 10 allegory is just a demonstrably worse version of metaphor in storytelling. Edit: used the wrong version of there's, fixed now.
@Bożydar Grabowski House is more of a monarchist than anything. Fascism is just used as a shorthand for militaristic or authoritarianism especially right wing authoritarianism these days, even otherwise intelligent people misuse the term often, because the abuse of the word has become that commonplace, thanks to a long protracted propaganda campaign by communists.
@Bożydar Grabowski Caesar's Legion, by pure definition, it's Facism.
I was hoping you were going to come back to the praise it's getting from the anti-Woke crowd, because it almost 100% proves the point many of them have repeatedly made. It's NOT about the diversity, it's about how AWFUL these other shows/movies are. Captain Marvel was trash, not because Captain Marvel is a woman, but because the movie is poorly constructed and badly executed. Same with Ghosbusters 2016, same with the Star Wars sequels, same with Star Trek Discovery, same with all this other garbage that's come out recently.
As Drinker says, "Isn't it funny how all my complaints about forced diversity, clumsy social messaging and overpowered female characters go right out the f--ing window when identity politics takes a back seat to just telling a good f--ing story? It's almost like that's the very thing I've been advocating for since my channel took off. And now that's it's happening, I couldn't be happier!"
FWIW, I do hope Season 2 is a little brighter. Man, Viktor after the accident, "I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do" almost broke me haha. I know his story doesn't get happier but ... man I hope Ekko and Heimerdinger offer a slightly brighter storyline haha.
i kinda love how dark it gets, definitely should have some levity between characters. jynx has got that in spades though XD
Definitely not an easy watch! I loved every bit of it, but man, it is hard to watch grim and depressing stuff nonstop. So I hope it is a bit brighter in season 2 as well. I know it's not a happy go lucky story, but some more positive moments would be a well received break from the darkness of the story.
To be completely honest, as someone who's been called "woke", we don't like those shows either. Admittedly, some people like them, and then the divide between people who do and people who don't is mainly based on whether or not they agree in essence with the message. But for a lot of these shows, we do NOT like them either, the stories can be bad, characters flat, and we often also feel judged and stereotyped (just, on the other end). The producers do this not because they believe in the message they portray (they very clearly don't care that much), but to appeal to lobbies and to look progressive (but not enough as to still be able to export it to China)
@@lewisgibson228 No doubt. Being pandered to usually doesn't feel good, but a lot of reviewers will ignore egregious flaws for the sake of THE MESSAGE. (As Critical Drinker always puts it haha)
Unfortunately, it's both profitable and fashionable to accuse people who disagree with THE MESSAGE of being racist and the like. They're trying to use the tribalism to sell an otherwise garbage product. Sometimes it works because generally people want to support things they agree with.
But it'll never work as well as something like Arcane, which clearly puts the story first, and therefore doesn't need to pander.
I think a source of this is just straight ignorance on the producer's part, especially of the sci-fi/fantasy space. These producers think they need to switch men to women, when sci-fi/fantasy have a long history of awesome female characters.
Ellen Ripley doesn't need pandering bullshit to be an awesome character. Vasquez doesn't need pandering to kick alien ass. Sarah Connor was most definitely NOT just a vessel for John Connor, no matter what Tim Miller might think. Her arc in T2 was phenomenal. Whedon may have been a monster, but half the cast of Firefly were awesome female characters. Princess Leia walks right up to a man controlling a moon-sized weapon called THE DEATH STAR and tells him to piss off, and under tremendous duress, TRICKS him. Despite her imprisonment, she is not a damsel in distress.
I'm convinced that the source of so much of this bullshit is because the only things these people have actually read are "Great Literary Works™." They're ignorant of the fact that we don't NEED their stupid BS just because none of their English lit teachers showed them that sci-fi and fantasy authors have had amazing female characters for the last 60 years.
@@apollyonbob I completely agree with you on a lot of what you're saying, you're really hitting the nail in a lot of ways.
I think the reason for this though is the weird disconnect there is between what companies and "moderates" want to look like and where they actually stand politically. They try pushing a lot of libleft stuff without understanding the message itself, because if they did they could really write great stories, but the disconnect between where their mouth is at and where their money is at is too large for them to effectively write good stuff
The correct way is easy: stay with the story and the universe. Reduce the allegory to a minimun, dont force stuff over the worldbuilding effort, keep the inner coherent development of the world and their characters, be mature and do not reduce stuff to simplistic interpretation. Basically, keep it tied with the worldbuilding and with inner sense and all would be ok. Of course, nothing of current day stuff forced upon the fiction.
I am curious what you mean by "force stuff over the world building effort"?
@@ricardobautista-garcia8492 I refer to any element that is not justified but the writer want there, either because he wanted it, personally, to have it there, without being able to justify it, or because of political or ideological reasons. I refer to anything, like a patriotic movie were the good guys are awfully good, and the bads are very bad, any nuance to the conflict just evaporated because of that, but I specially refer to progressive stuff. For example, i once watched a spanish series, they started doing something very Ok, secuences were a character is recruited by another one, the interaction being the initial introduction to each character characteristics, personality and abilities, both the recruited and the recluiter. But, in one scene, a recluiter character, a 40 years old woman, after having a little conversation with the other character she is recluiting, a 20 years old woman, about how insecure the young one is with men, she assumes rapidly she is lesbian and tries to kiss her. The young one is not even officially recruited yet, and her future superior is already sexually harassing her after a short conversation, and the series act as if normal. This is all out of desperation for having the "strong sexually liberated female character" in the series. I am sure they though that scene told us that. But a cold observation of the scene just tell you that the older woman is not only a whore, searching for an excuse to fuck with anyone at any moment, but also an incompetent, not even able to restrain her base instincs for professionalism. Only because the scripts said the younger woman accepts the job proposal is becuase the plot keep going, the younger woman, by her own characteristics and description, should have being weird out of the recruitment attemp after that. An this incompetent character is technically the second in command of the organization she is in. I dont believe it. Someone so untruswordy, just doesnt fix. If at least the series were self concesious and the problems of the character were treated as problems in the story, but thats the point, it is the not even considered consecuences of forced stuff. They wanted a lesbian, they literally took the first scene of the character to say, loudly, she is a lesbian, becuase it is the only purpose of the character, and just destroyed the credibility of anything related with her as a result. Because they "forced stuff over the worldbuilding effort".
In comparison, the series referenced in this video, Arcane, just doesnt do that. Vi, one of the protagonist, is lesbian, but the series doesnt stop the motion of the plot to say it, doesnt force a situation to leave it clear, as soon as possible, that she is a "minority", as if it was something important to be said about her by itself, when it is not. The series doesnt reduce the value of the character reducing her to "what she likes to fuck?", but just awaits until the plot, and the story, reach a point were they need that element to come in, and they do that then, more naturally. The value that element hold is the one the plot gives to it, dont breaking the worldbuilding, as it should be. Until that point, they dedicated their time to explain to me why should i care about the character, telling me her story. Again, as it should be. Tell me about the character, not about what "victim collective" they belong to, except it is important to the story or the worldbuilding.
I just finished Arcane a couple days ago and while I agree with most everything you say here the message I gathered from Arcane was entirely different. To me it was a story revolving around the decay of societies which fail to be truly human in their interactions with each other.
In the affluent Topside it is important to note just how rarely we see background characters and minor roles that are not nameless and often faceless enforcers. In this we see how topside cares little for those they don't directly interact with on a regular basis. These people barely interact with those who live in the same part of the city as them, and many never interact with those who live in Zaun, knowing nothing of their culture.
In the underground, or Zaun, you see countless people interacting with each other in very human ways in the background but you see them divided by tribe, group, or allegiance. These divisions and inhuman treatment of their fellow sapients (as it is not limited to other humans) leads to the further degradation of their society and living conditions. The willingness to allow destructive forces hold power and prosper is a symptom of their willingness to accept evil within their tribe/group while being willing to commit evil in defense of where they believe they belong.
Only a few characters seem to fall outside of these molds and each one is compelling in their own right. Vi, Cait, Heimerdinger (especially near the end), Viktor, and some others to a lesser extent, spend much of their time trying to treat those they meet as individuals. Seeing actions and intentions matter but also being willing to look deeper and past the surface and preconceptions many have regarding others. Cait and Heimerdinger both show great capacity for reaching out beyond their status and searching for more in their fellow sapient beings.
Ultimately for me it is a story about those who are willing to reach past preconceived notions of how things are, how they should work, and working to do better.
Counter point on a couple of things.
The dichotomy isn't really the selling point of the Two towns,
The Have/Have not setting is pretty much a staple of political storytelling, The political stories of Arcane literally do not exist without that power hierarchy.
And, like.
Really there is nothing special about it as a story telling setting.
The Status Quo is just what it is, there is no deep inspection of why society specifically formed this way, and Arcane defiantly doesn't make any grand effort to demonstrate the superiority of one over the other.
The Cities of Piltover and Zaun are both steeped in Humanity and Horror.
Piltover isn't a bastion for humanity,
It was a depersonalized inhuman autocracy,
Their near religious belief in regulating science, magic, and the power of order, left alot of people to suffer all across runeterra,
Human life is less valuable to them than structures of power and control. As exemplified by Jayce's low family birth vs Caitlyn's position of wealth.
Large parts of the city are just Middle lower class worker families.
Those who directly contribute to socioty and thus get to live top side because they pose no threat to its institutions.
Zaun isn't a powder keg at the beginning of the Show, is setting is mostly stable.
There is leadership that the city respects, and while the enforcers are seen as trouble by zaunites, its very very clearly outlined that they do have a very human relationship with each other. the Capitan of the guard maintains an extremely polite business/social relationship with Vander.
Both cities are aware of each other, both treating the other with a level of disgust; but also with a level of political respect.
What changes ALL of this,
Is the Chain of Deaths before the time skip.
The Death Greyson (the enforcer capitan), The Death of Vander, The Seperation of Vi and Powder, The Death of Ekkos Mentor, thus leaving him orphand.
All set the City down a dark path, because Power Vacuums opened.
Greyson's Death = Caused a highly corruptible Man to take her place, allowed the Drug Trade to take over Zaun. She is Also the Reason Caitlin became an Enforcer.
Vander's Death = Zaun became destablized, allowing for Silco to take control. It also left Vi and Powder to be left without a guardian, Turning Powder into Jinx.
Vi and Powder = Their family ties broke. Again, causing Jinx to immerge.
Death of Ekkos Mentor = The Mentor was vanders Right hand, he was a major information merchant and allowed for the stability of Zauns black market. Ekko witnessing the death of the man who taught him how to gather information, and how to tell bad people from good people. Caused Ekko to become a Vigilantly.
Ultimately, I think the story is about understanding that problems cannot be ignored.
And that society isn't a robotic thing, that if you let small problems go unchecked, pain ungreived, and Injustices unprosecuted.
A Stable world will very VERY quickly descend into chaos.
@@AGayTwitterArtist Two cities are not in that good relation as you mentioned. Vi says that Zaun suffer hunger. Viktor's illness is caused by toxines that go from Piltover to Zaun. And all that is because Zaun (just as Silco mentioned) is its own nation and Piltoverians are very nationalistic and predjudiced. Problems had started to arise long time ago.
@@karolinakuc4783 I never said their relationship was good, I only said that it was stable.
Zaun only became its own nation after the events of Arcane, it predates the Lore of league of legends as you understand it in the Moba. In Arcane, Zaun is literally just the underbelly of Piltover, as the same Nation of two cities.
That's the entire reason Vi and Powders parents are dead, they died in a Failed rebellion against Piltover, in an attempt to make Zaun a sovereign nation.
Before the Death of Vander and the Guard Capitan, the relationship between Zaun and Piltover was Stable. Piltover over looked resources being siphoned to Zaun to take care of it's people, while Vander provided a black market to obtain restricted technology.
@@AGayTwitterArtist I wouldn’t call relations of these two cities “stable” when they are depending on two people,and a single break in almost led to another war.
What of Ekko?
This went from chill video essay, to political brainwashing, in a seconds.
Ah, so the right way to get political is to just have YOUR politics, gotcha
I once again agree with everything spoken here, except that one of the problems is not that the right people aren't in power.
Certain people are far more capable at leading, guiding, and instructing, as well as resisting the temptation power brings to give freedom to the individual. Those types of people are the right people. The trouble comes with identifying them from the deceivers.
I think he explained it here, it's not that who's wrong or right person in charge of power it's how much the government takes control of one's lives. If the government keeps controlling your decisions and choices then you know there's something wrong. Jayce realizes this and asked the members of council of giving Zaun their independency because he realize they can never truly fix Zaun, only Zaun can fix themselves. Zaun as already reached it's rock bottom (literally) and the council of Piltover can never understand that. That is until Jinx declared war against Piltover
I agree completely. Freedom is a responsibility, not just a right. Exercising personal liberty comes with a duty to exercise it responsibly and ethically. Choices made by individuals are only as good as the information those choices are based on, and must take into account the impact of those choices on the community the individuals live in. When individuals can't be counted on the do that, then sometimes the government, as an expression of the will of the community at large, must step in so as to protect the community as a whole. Of course, we hope that the people we elected into power actually act in good faith to lead with compassion, honor, dignity, and open-mindedness. The fact that such leaders are not only hard to come by, but impossible to keep safe from corruption (safe from having to "play ball" as the video puts it) is the real problem in modern politics.
Excellent points here in the replies! Haven’t seen the video yet, but I think it’s important to realize that the way power is distributed in the undercity v Piltover is totally uneven, with the council being unable to serve the interests of those they view as a nuisance at best, unworthy of saving, yet necessary to keep under control. They dehumanize the population within their political discussions-Zaun is merely a pawn lol
Gonna disagree some. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The nature of power is that it corrupts whoever holds it, especially when the power they hold is rarely contested. The longer they're in power, the more they lose touch with the common people, and the more they start believing they're better than everyone else. Then when their "better educated" decision don't yield the result they expected, they start to get frustrated and try to force reality to bend to their will. This is when tyranny always starts. The road to hell is paved by good intentions.
@@stefanyuwono1909 Would you say every U.S. president was corrupt?
I know some were, but several were also very good, and gave up their power for people's sake.
My favourite scene in the entire show (as of before season 2) is the scene where Jayce and Viktor are on the now closed off bridge. Viktor is from Zaun and he told Jayce he was from Zaun so it feels like a huge betrayal when Jayce, blinded by politics, says “They’re dangerous” only for Viktor to harshly say “I’m from the undercity.” We are upset with Jayce because we know this idea is not 100% true, but it makes sense why he begins to think this way. He surrounded himself with people who all felt this exact same way, that people from the undercity or Zaun were dangerous so it was only natural that Jayce began to pick up this mindset himself. Excellent storytelling, I can’t wait for season 2.
Yep, it’s an actually good show. Not perfect, but a rare show that’s actually decently written. It’s sad how few shows and comics and books, etc. are written well.
I’m “antiwoke” but enjoy this show. I like the show.
There’s actually characters who are morally decent people or want to do what’s right, and they do.
Most of the characters are likable.
I don’t know exactly why but Heimerdinger is one of the characters I liked almost immediately and throughout the series so far. I guess maybe because he just is a good guy-you can tell. Even though he’s not always correct in his decisions either. Despite having hundreds of years of knowledge-still doesn’t always have the answer. And I find that so truthful to real life as well. There’s no person out there who has all the answers to every problem. Ultimately it does come down to each individual. That’s my politics, what I think.
7:38 Jayce isn't an orphan. He just doesn't see a way forward after losing what he considers his life's work.
For starters, don't change the stories that already exist. Write your own.
well, this is actually a poor example of this. the game had background lore already, and quite a bit was changed for the show. like in the game, "Vi" is an amnesiac who doesn't even know her real name, so identifies with the tattoo on her face, while Victor and Jayce were class room rivals, not friends and partners.
@@marvalice3455 But it's a story he didn't know beforehand so he doesn't give a shit about this standard he's set until it affects him.
@@marvalice3455 It wasn't this particular story I was talking about, but, a first step for the original question asked.
@@fearthehoneybadger fair enough. I'm just a bit of a stickler
@BattleAngelFan it could. not sure it would bethe best option, but it could for sure.
It's why the last frames of the council seem so right but make me so sad. They are given the choice to make things right. To start the process of healing. To finally do what they were put there to do. Help ALL the people of Piltover. Even if it means stepping off and letting them sort it out themselves. To solve the problem they had since frame one of the show. And what do they do? They tangle themselves in bureaucracy and cling to power. They refuse to relinquish even a sliver of power to Zaun, even if it would make things better in the long haul and could heal the undercity, making them a powerful ally and trade partner in the future. My only complaint here is ironically lack of depth, even if I agree with the message "Powerful people will want to hang onto power, no matter what" and the outcome "Piltover does not recognize Zaun". I wish there had been a more legitimate focus on concerns from council members over this move. Basically what I wanted was that the council tries a bit harder to justify their dominion over Zaun a bit more aside from Bureuchracy and Power. Throw in a few "And who will govern them? Silco?" or "We can't leave them to their fate."
Power justifies itself to hold onto power and I just wish that was shown more. Good show otherwise. Really solid character work and plot. Definitely one of the better shows of the time.
By far my favorite part was that I never really felt as if there was a vilian. Even Silco kind of won me over with the father/daugher dynamic with Jinx.
Even Silco realized in the end what his former friend was actually protecting.
Beautiful. Think locally, act locally. Sweep your own back porch before you worry about anyone else's business. It warms my heart whenever I see anyone talking about decentralization and localism.
Dude Jayce isn’t an orphan he has a mother who pleads for his life in the show. Facts.
I'm glad you pointed it out. I hate hero orphans coz they usually have no background *cough* Harry Potter. Too much writters miss how important family is for a child developement.
A good story makes you make questions, which it will propose answers to. A bad story will give you the answers to questions you didn't ask.
Your video essays are always thought provoking. Thank you.
When an election result is the difference between your world being right side up or toppled into the gutter then there's no wonder why we fight tooth and nail to make sure it goes our way. Government needs to be severely limited. Let's get back to the days where we argued over the particulars of a tax code or esoteric points of trade imbalance as the most important political topics of the day. We can disagree and still go get a beer afterwards. But when the result means that either my way of life or yours stands a good chance of being outlawed? No, that's a blood sport.
Thank you for pointing it out. They have to first divide society severely that two parallel universes exist in the same nation that people inhabit.
With that, it makes it easy to where you can pit both sides in a blood sport to defend their now separate ways of life.
@@silverhawkscape2677 exactly, it's no longer about Right vs Left at this point. It's Elites vs everybody else. Elites are using the Right-Left argument to divide and conquer
@@no2party No….. the elites are not creating the divide….. they are just exploiting it. They are taking advantage of fundamental differences that already existed. Yes the elites suck, but this is a critical difference.
@@TK63636 it’s like the difference between a jelly and fish sandwich, and a jellyfish sandwich. You wouldn’t eat either, but if you had to, it pays to note the distinction between the two.
I know that you’re coming from a good place, or rather I choose to believe that you’re arguing in good faith.
My main issue is that… the “this is my way of life” excuse can easily be used to defend and justify exploitation and extremely problematic situations. For example that’s a great way to defend the institution of slavery. Of course that’s not the case for most, at least generally. But the issue is that, at some point, we have to accept that some “ways of life” are actively detrimental and harmful to others, potentially violating their human rights in the extreme case. Because of this, can we really say that someone’s way of life must be protected at all costs? If we do then we easily fall into the paradox of tolerance. If we don’t then we could risk being contradictory in an ideological sense. Of course at some point if we accept that there are unacceptable ways of life then we have to decide which ones are unacceptable, and that quickly becomes problematic…
Politics is done right when its politics i agree with, and its done wrong when its politics i disagree with.
Let's go! I've been excited to hear this one since that short a few days ago.
I'm grateful for both this and your recent Arcane "short". Though I agree strongly with the ideas in this one and disagree strongly with the ideas in the short, I've enjoyed the thinking that you've prompted in my brain part. Thank you!
Minor gripe is that you list Viktor among the "elite" of Piltover early on in the video, whereas really he is a resident of the Undercity who has had to claw his way up and is in no way unaware of his home's troubles.
Don't forget him calling council members: "experts", even though, there are like two members, who seemed to be expert of anything.
And also, him calling Jayce a "orphan", even though, he has a alive and well mother.
@@nnnnmhughuuhhjiijj9457 Yeah there's a few slips of the tongue here but still, better than most video essays I see these days.
@@factfraud9437 Agreed.
The problem with the undercity is their economy. Technology wouldn't solve it, they needed industry, like trade ports and factories
Piltover blocked the Undercitiy's access to free trade with external parties, they wanted all trade to flow through Piltover. Like in Colonial America, produce the beaver pelts, but you can't make hats, you have to send them to Britain where they will make the hats then sell them back to you at a huge markup, and no, you can't sell to anyone else who might give you a better deal. The Undercity had the industry, but not a way to dispose of the waste of that industry, and almost all of the profit of that industry went to Piltover or the Chem Barons. It is the renter dilemma. You won't care for something you don't own. Piltover was renting the Undercity, the citizens of the Undercity weren't left with enough to improve their lives after covering the cost to survive. Piltover didn't want the heavy stinky gasses vented to the surface where they had to smell it. They didn't want their beautiful waters polluted with the toxins and filth that washed down into the Undercity, but heaven forbid that the factories stop producing the materials that Piltover needs to be so clean and shiny and progressive, and investing in cleaning it up would cut into their profits. The Chem Barons found it more expedient and economical to just bribe the Pilties to ignore the plight of the people down there. Humanity will always take the easiest path unless it is blocked or made more expensive. It IS an economical problem, but not a lack of industry, it is a problem of authority without responsibility. Those two should never be decoupled.
But industry only comes when there’s money to be made, only comes when there’s a way to justify it in the eyes of investors. As soon as it’s unprofitable, they’ll leave
@@badbeardbill9956 Well, the Chem mines make it such that this is pretty much the best and possibly only place to fabricate these high tech chemicals, (more than just Shimmer). These chemicals are a desired commodity all over the world. With the exception of Shimmer, Chem tech is the most advanced non-magical based technology. Someone is going to be doing it, either as slaves, or as a profitable enterprise. It does look like the Arcane storyline takes place AFTER Piltover decides to cut the channel so PIltover ships can sail between the continents. So that means Half of the undercity was flooded and downed.
Piltover didn't start treating Zaunites like crap after their failed revolt, the revolt was in direct response to that treatment, seen in Silco reminding Vander that they fought for opportunity and respect, and later telling Finn(or whatever his name is spelled like) that they fight because there was never enough to go around. Funnily enough, in this sense Silco is the least corrupt character, because his motivations and means are clear, whereas the corruption comes from Piltover, which is drowning in bureaucracy and competing interests, because like Jayce said they've been talking about talking for weeks, because the political process inherently waters down anything good that is to be achieved through this corruptive force, despite the majority of people demanding it. This isn't a problem with corrupt or bad people, it's a mechanical requirement of exploitative systems. I'm gonna chime in with my own political interpretation, and instead of it being a big government issue, I posit that Piltover represents the opulent West, where arts and science flourishes at the expense of Zaun, the global South, where all the misery necessary for the aforementioned pursuits to flourish is exported, which is exemplified in Jayce's comment about helping the working people of the undercity, and later when he addresses the crowd in his speech where he stated that whether they're a royal scion of Piltover or honest worker in the undercity, hextech is going to revolutionize their lives. Ofcourse, we later see that this is only the case for Piltover, which has established a monopoly on hextech, and dreads the prospect of the undercity gaining access to it in fear of them being on equal terms to demand for their competing interests. That's why Silco created shimmer, so Zaun will be capable of dishing out violence too, since that's all Piltover has shown them. Needless to say, this is the scarier reality that our divided west exists upon, one which is not sustainable and will, like in Arcane, one day be challenged by the seeds we've been sowing. Unlike the show, let us act before the opportunity for good deeds has passed, before we are met with the same violence that we've been upholding our self serving order with.
Benevolent but out of touch leaders? Yeah no, they are a bunch of unelected autocrats that exploited the undercity and built a city upon it to not have to deal with the damage they have done. Piltover and Zaun are no longer in the "talking" phase, that time was over way before Jinx even shot that rocket to the council. It's interesting that you try to link real-life politics to Arcane, but the situation is way different, for instance most of us we live in a democracy and are not forced to live in subhuman conditions where even the air is poison.
Two things, you are right about the incompetence but the show never shows any sort of exploitation. The Undercity looks to have formed originally as a refugee community or people who simply couldn't afford to live in Piltover. Most of their issues seem to stem from their own criminality, rather than exploitation by the Upper City. Their indifference and heavy handed police enforcement is partly to blame, but if the intent was to show exploitation they did it poorly.
@@shadowofhawk55 Check the lore, Zaun is a way older city than Piltover and it reflects with having art Novoue prevalent in their architecture while the upper city is Deco, rich trading clans just built over it after causing a major disaster which formed the trench. The game lore goes deeper into the sick relationship between the two cities and the ruling elite, but the show just focused on a personal drama between the two sisters instead of an info dump, which is way better but I hope they explore more of it in season 2.
@@bgm8663 Okay. I haven't dug into the lore, I just thought that the damaged buildings were either from that revolt or ruins from some war, cause they did mention a war. I think they could've touched on the exploitation like have someone yell at Vander "We work in their factories yet we can't walk on their streets," or something along those lines and you'd get that reveal of exploitation but it wouldn't feel forced. I don't know, I just don't like media that expects you to have read some outside source to understand what is going on.
@@shadowofhawk55 Yeah, the show didn't made a great job in that regard, it just assumes people already know or comments that allude to it. Like Piltover not being a democracy, but a system of clans, the richer they are the more influence they can have in the government, this is why Jayce's family is "elevated" for him to become a councilor, poor people don't have representation there, this is why they got ignored for so long. Or Viktor's illness caused for the toxic waste he was exposed to as a child in Zaun, during a transition you can see a sign for "fresh air" which is a luxury there. I like Arcane storytelling, but it can lead to some misconceptions.
@@bgm8663 To be fair, I and people in my circle did pick up on the Oligarchy stuff. I did have to explain the clan part to them, but we all knew it wasn't a democracy. But I can see how people who aren't constantly trying to argue about which form of government is worse can't pick up on it. And for the record, the worst is a true democracy cause that is just oppression of the minority waiting to happen.
Starship Troopers... the original... this was supposed to be a spoof, but they captured the best political ideas really well. Its a movie that was so bad, it overshot bad and landed back at good.
I remember the video you made saying you didn’t like the characters. Glad to hear you give a contextual review of the entire series. Shows you to be genuine and trustworthy. I just might watch it!
I want him to talk about Attack on Titan. Might have something good in there especially with the last season
I’ll go give it a binge. BRB.
I thought much the same of that show. Thank you for putting it in better words than I could.
Ok well I don’t know where you heard where jayce is a orphan but he isn’t at all the main reason he even wasn’t even fully expelled from piltover was because his mother gave a heartfelt testimony allowing Mel to feel sympathy and let’s him stay in Piltover
Dude, awesome content! I love waking up to find you've done a new video. The quality is getting better and better.
2:17 LoL has story. As a gamer who played LoL 7 years I can tell lore of the game is a lot of big: chatacters bonds, Runterras world building. You can check it on official page.
ps. sorry for bad English. It's not my first language
If you liked "The Expanse" -well, the first two or three seasons anyway -because of character development, then you're going to *LOVE* "Arcane."
No hero one hundred percent virtuous, and no villain one hundred percent immoral.
One of the most well-written animated series I've EVER seen. Yes, easily as good as AITA or "Gargoyles" or B:TAS or Bebop.
This Chanel has been consistently awesome, it's a gem
I would like to add some more perspective, the ousting of Heimerdinger was by no means, gross abuse of power, that is exxagerating, what does a few hundred year old person have to worry, he can wait hundreds, if not thousands of years, but a human only has a century, or half, one could also view this as a more mixed and nuanced action, not just outright abuse of power, in the scene Jayce lashes at Heimerdinger, who was explaining about accountability, and Jayce asks him, who holds him accountable?
Have you noticed that scene of book with a big explosion. Plus we saw Sky being sucked up by hexcore. Heimer was right there. It was good though he was dismissed his detached from reality attitude caused all this trouble.
Beyond hilarious that a right wing think tank is using a clearly left wing show as an example "of the right way to get political"
This video was an ad for me. Immediately subscribed.
this particular series of video ended a couple week ago lol
I love almost every "out of frame" episode but this is by far my favorite.
Found this video on my feed and had to stop halfway because of wrong info.
Jace is not an orphan. His mom's alive. They're not poor per se. They own a hammer factory, hence the house sigil. He probably needed a patron for entrance in the Academy.
Victor is not from Piltover so he wouldn't be "ignorant" of the plight of the Undercity.
Yes, that's pretty true.
Also, he said that "Jayce was making the hextech in order to help those in need, like his friend Viktor," which... Wasn't technically *untrue,* but... Still felt a little bit like overlooking the fact that it's mostly just Viktor who cares about those who are in need and about Viktor, because the system allows everyone else to look the other way, and he's the only person who have experienced this marginalization of his suffering so he cannot ignore these problems, while still having enough power to do something about it.
I am fine with a story having political themes and messages, even messages I disagree with. I am not fine with a story being hijacked by people who don't care about the story's quality in order to use it as a shallow propaganda vehicle.
I find Netflix series are either remarkably good at producing content with the qualities you were praising or alternatively violating the guidelines you were cautioning. They can either hit it out of the park with deep complexity or foul out with hardcore cringe. If you want to see another series that really does complex storytelling right, I would recommend The Dragon Prince.
Such a good show. Not enough Elves and Dragons being butchered horribly for me to buy the "humanity evil" hype train the show seems to have at times but it's pretty good.
@@shadowofhawk55 You must not be paying attention, because that is bot the case at all. This one of the few fantasy shows that doesn’t demonize humanity. The shows makes it clear that the elves and dragons are assholes, for thinking like that. Don’t confuse how the characters see humans, vs how the narrative sees humans.
@@PrincessLioness I get that is what they TRYING to show, but personally it feels hollow. Like going "oh, these two characters had one eye lock and a conversation. They are in love by the end of the movie," it doesn't feel at all done right. Cause, the show only has one moment of Bad Xadians, and its a dude that even the Xadians seem to think was an extremist. The "humans that are good" are just the ones siding with the Xadians, as if the only good ideology is one that agrees with the elves and dragons, which isn't necessarily true.
Seriously, I love your content and analyses. Thank you for the quality of discussion you engender
I hadn't even heard of this show but now I can't watch the video because I want to go watch it.
You will not regret it. It’s the most amazing show I have seen.
It was surprisingly really good, give it a shot!
I just LOVE the background music you use in your videos. love love love.
TLDR: The only right way to get political is only when I agree.
this was the best show i’ve seen in a veeeery long time
Your point about "we need more talk" is also very tragic shown at the end of the season. Silco and Jayce are both willing to talk, to make a deal, that allows free trade and respect. Heck. Silco is even willing to give up his achieved power (Shimmerdrugs) for this. Peace was possible, until Jayce wanted the only other thing from Silco that he cared about. And from there it all broke apart.
Oh and also. Viktor is from Zaun. He lives in Piltover but comes from the Slums.
An example I use as far as "political-based entertainment" done right is Costa-Gavras, especially his films Z, The Confession and Missing (at least those are the ones I have seen of his). While there is a clear viewpoint being shown - Z is loosely based on the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis and hints at the then-current Greek military junta, The Confession is based on the show trials in Czechoslovakia before Stalin's death, Missing on the "disappearance" of Charles Horman during the Pinochet coup in Chile - it tells a good story, never insults its audience and could even "change some minds" because of its effective storytelling. For starters, you are at a disadvantage if your work insults half of your potential audience. But you also end up affirming the divide if you have only the loyal side viewing it.
Love your videos man. You are the best spotlight on authoritarian methods and you have the RUclips battle scars to show it.
"We need what Piltover needs." A rocket? Too soon?
Don't worry, some of the characters in that room have plot armor, maybe even literally.
While League of Legends doesn't tell a story, its characters have plenty of lore which is better represented in Legends of Runeterra.
Arcane is less based of the game, more so it's based on the lore. While the show keeps a lot of the world building untouched, it takes a lot of freedom when it comes to the actual characters.
Which I think is a good thing since I think every character in this show is more interesting than their game counterpart.
I love Arcane if it wasn't obvious already, and I am also a fan of the world of Runeterra even if not of Riot's games in particular. MOBAs and Card Games just aren't my preferred style.
Ruined King is a good singleplayer game though and I am very much looking forward to Riot's fighting game which is even taking inspiration from Arcane.
It is not plot armour. I think Piltover council has hextech electromagnetic shield like the one we saw in Vi vs Sevika fight that would save them from that bomb.
You know what's interesting. DC managed to put together a good ideology vs ideology movie called "Injustice". I highly recommend taking a look at it if you haven't
Thanks for covering Arcane. It's one of the best video game adaptations and shows on Netflix. Liked how it was diverse without being woke. Vi and Powder were some of my favourite characters.
You did a great job explaining the politics of this show, but also connecting them to the real world examples that plague our societies today.
Unfortunately like you said often enough people are too rooted in their own idealism to see the reality of the world. Often enough we try to see this world as a "black and white" where there is good or evil, but this is false. You cannot have a world of free will, and have simple groupings of "good and evil", because what is considered "good" to some could be considered "evil" to others. A better way to examine it is that was we live in a world of "grey" where the good and bad mesh together and make it very difficult to determine what truly is right or wrong.
On the other hand, to insist that black and white is actually gray is just being wrong about both. Seeing nuance is a categorically different thing than finding where something falls on a spectrum. Nuance sees things as they are and treats them as such, but being on a spectrum is comparative. Things are defined relative to some reference or references, real or idealized. They are nothing more than projections onto a model that may not even reflect reality all that well. Unfortunately, projections and models are all we have. No one (except God if you believe in Him) can truly see the all the nuance that our eyes just want to assign colors to. All this to say, there can be such thing as a right and wrong choice. It just won't always be apparent, and we may very well be just mistaken, but that's also not to say we can't be correct either nor have any degree of certainty about it. As the saying goes, a broken clock is right twice a day, but even as a clock off by 5 mins is never right, it sure is a lot more useful.
I finished watching the series mere hours before this upload. Crazy case of cosmic coincidence that is, huh?
I love the series, great world and characters.
Wow. I learned so much from your video! A lot of people always hated Jayce for some reason. Of course, he's not absolved from doing wrong and letting himself be used, but I can absolutely say he did not do anything solely for power. If anything, the fact you even hated what he had to do means you agree with him.
"He let power get to his head." is such a gross misunderstanding of his character just because he's got a pretty face and has it all. I wonder if people have ever heard of compromising. It's not pretty, but it's how he dealt with balancing Piltover (mostly the Council) and Zaun's interests. You put into words what I couldn't, and I am thankful.
I think the fandom tends to have very skewed opinions of Jayce and Mel because the media and our own lives have conditioned us to always root for the underdog. But Arcane is not simple as that. Both Jayce and Mel are trying to help. Jayce through his inventions. Mel by ensuring that the city economy flourishes, and later by trying to ensure that the city has military might to resist foreign threats that might try to seize it from them in the light of the brewing civil war. Neither of them has an ideal solution because they don't know the reality of the underclass. But the harsh lessons they're taught along their journey open them up to dialogue. Mel starts seeing how her focus on the upper city's wealth blinded her to the corruption beneath and brought a war on their doorstep. Jayce sees that his one-size fits all solutions can backfire spectacularly and only exacerbated the issue. It's harsh, but now they know that they don't know everything, that they need to centre the voices of the affected, and can become better leaders for it. But it's still gonna be a bumpy ride, that's for sure.
>”The force is female”
>some of the shirts are black
The Son: “Am I a joke to you?”
LoL would surprise you. Every champion has a fully fleshed out backstory, and there's actually a fully explained reason for the main game's battle arena. No one who plays the games was surprised by the depth of the story.
There is? I thought the battle arena was a non-cannon thing that can’t possibly exist because Aurelion Sol would just annihilate everyone? You can’t just have “girl with gun” believably fight “star dragon who is also basically god” in-universe. It just facilitates gameplay and nothing more. In fact, I think that League lore and League are basically two separate things.
We need to start making a parallel society as eastern europe did; the state, corpos, woke, and globalist are too powerful to fight, so we must show a better future.
I'm not sure what example you mean to follow here, given that Eastern Europe, minus the countries that are members of the EU (and therefore globalist), are run by corrupted oligarchs, dictators or the church. Freedom of speech is pretty much non-existent and average citizen is way poorer, less educated and has nigh non-existent access to decent healthcare than in the countries following the western model? Sincerely, an Eastern European
So i searched for analysis of Arcane politics and this was the first video suggested. I have to say that your political biasas are amazingly shown here. Not saying that it is bad, on the contrary, I think you should embrace it and say you are a right liberterian when tryint to analyze media. (Just so you know, it was obivous before you qouted T. Sowel). I would point out a small problem with your analysis. You forgot to realized that the council rules the town thanks to their economical power. They are not exactly voted in. This is a case of plutocracy or oligarchy. It is not completely as they have an academical representetive, because their inovations are one of their main exports. This should be taken in to an account. The problem is power in a broad sense! The political part only manifests after they get enough actual econmic power through which they can gain the political power (changing laws, working with police, etc)
in my Orientation to Political Science my teacher made us give a example of an idealist and realist viewpoint and i used Arcane to provide the example.
Perhaps one little correction into that last line: I think your point was more along the lines of "We need what Zaun needs", with Jayce surrendering power over to Zaun away from Piltover
probably my favorite show that came out last year
I love how the video is all political opinion, while he is speaking of how bad political opinions are. Having said that, it's a good video
1) I didn't say political opinions are bad. I said that there's a way to embed politics in narrative fiction without making the audience feel like they're the object of contempt or being scolded by some obnoxious writer.
Literally the title of this video is how there's a "right way" to get political in TV/movies.
2) A video essay is, inherently, an opinion based medium. The whole purpose of these videos is to express my ideas and support my opinion, hopefully persuasively.
That's different than the purpose of a fictional story.
Jayce didn't have anywhere to do, he could've built hammers in the company his dad made. And his mom is still alive.
I like the local govt take from Arcane
You are so wrong it hurts. The show was neoliberal, not political in a good way. The struggle of the opressed was really ignored and framed in a very bad light, with no way to change their bad situation.
I'm glad you explored this show because I'm interested but couldn't find time to watch it all.
What a magnificent video essae. I have watched many videoes analyzing arcane but I never saw such unique point of view on this show. I am very glad that I got recommended your short about arcane's characters.
So is Piltover a technocracy?
Great vid, great message, thank you.
fee: "the right way to get political is when its politics I agree with"
This is literally the opposite of what I said.
I also don't agree with an several of the political messages embedded in Arcane.
A lot of the strength this show has comes from the fact it's based off of a MOBA. The histories of the characters are already there, they just need to be expounded upon. There's not a lot of room for the woke people to fuck it up
I mean, it’s still impressive because woke… uh, finds a way
I see plenty of love for Arcane on tumblr, so I think the woke crowd is just as happy with the show.
i think the reason why both sides of the political spectrum can kind of see their own ideals in the show ?? i don’t know if thay makes sense but i hope it does. i’m very far left leaning personally but i do understand why a lot of left leaning people HATE woke television and i’d agree with it, it’s good that shows want to be inclusive but they’re going about it the wrong. anyway i’m glad that both sides are loving this show, i wish that we could be less divided as a country though lol.
@@miraseum It's a flippen amazing show and easily one of the best animated tv series (trying to exclude movies here) to date. Who can't love it!? Yeah, less divide in general would be welcome in life.
@@miraseum I think it's because the show's politics is not one-sided, dare I say not even the center of the plot. It does not have any political theme circulating around it. In Piltover or Zaun, there is a distinct societal and economical struggle. When the two worlds collide, it becomes an entirely big mess in its own, and the way they introduce the issue is with the help of each of the characters, not because the writers feel the need to add some form of politics. The politics feels natural.
You don't see characters fight because "we have to fight because we're women or black", to put it bluntly. Every conflict Arcane shows is not always "defeat the evil person" but more "we're rooting for you to win" because opposite sides are not as simple as black and white.
I think everyone who has watched Arcane knows that majority of the cast are morally gray and I believe this is what appeals the "woke" and "anti-woke". People can side with Zaun because they can agree and relate with its ideals, same as with Piltover, without feeling glorified or discouraged.
“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”
Name that author.
in my personal opinion you kind of need to take a page out of Arcane’s book man 🥴 This could’ve been a cool neutral analysis video but you yourself kept discussing it in reference to how it appeals to your political views as well
Sure, we need more conversations, but we need fewer people in elite positions of powers dictating us to have a conversation.
I think the best part about this is that the people who recommended this show the most to me (I haven't watched it yet) are my left leaning (woke) friends. Which means that the politics you discuss aren't slapping you in the face like most modern tv.
I know this is probably WAY out of your line of work, and you probably won't see this. But I'd love to implore you to read and analyze the original IDW run of the Transformers. There are some politics of the Cybertron homeworld that are fascinating and I'd love to hear a video on your thoughts. On the off chance you see this, message me and I'd be happy to help you learn more
Anti-Woke crowd, he says, while showing thumbnails of videos from AngryJoe and Gigguk. Sure man. Get ready for AngryJoe to lambast you if he finds out about this video.
Yeah, i was a bit confused about the Giugguk, haven't watched to me many of his videos to know his views but i didn't think he was anti woke.
League actually has a collection of great stories, but you really have to dig to find them. I miss the old school days where they released new lore daily.
Nowadays, I really like that they just took their time to write the lore that's connected and makes actual sense.
The problem with Hollywood not writing good stories seems to at least largely in part be due to them hiring writers based on "diversity" quotas, and kicking out many of the good writers due to their skin color and/or gender