As a woman I loved seeing Vi get beat up so much, usually even "fighter" women don't get decked in the face like that. It was weirdly refreshing. And Vi constantly getting the shit kicked out of her is a strong contrast to Jinx almost never getting touched in fights. The one or two times Jinx gets physically hurt, it's a big deal.
Its cause Jinx is cunning while Vi tries to brute force her way through fights i like how they show that both have ups and downs in combat especially cause there bodies are more frail compared to most of the people they fought so they use their combat knowledge and strengths to win fights or for some characters to completely avoid one like Singed not getting murdered by Silco (lol) it's really nice to me.
Something kinda specific-but I love, LOVE that women in the show *scream*, They *cry* they sob & panic in such a human way & it’s never played in a ‘pretty’, fetishized way. They also get the snot beat out of them, they fucking fight like humans fight, not in a ‘sexy’, voyeuristic way
@@JJokerMoreau you sound like you're responding to what you want that comment to say and not it actually says. Is this the response you want: Typically men grow up seeing fights in a romanticized way and so they only throw "clean punches" and the men that use "underhanded tactics" are called weak even if they win and women aren't socialized to see fighting like that so women typically "fight dirty," but "fighting dirty" is such a dumb term when used in reference to a street fight because it's a funking street fight, rules are for the ring. Anyways none of that matters because gendered fighting DOES NOT apply to the world of Arcane, as the video explained. ALSO, there is no pretty way to get punched in the gut, much less anywhere else.
Arcane just makes you forget that there is a gender issue in the first place. It comes so natural that you forget to think about the whole thing. It’s phenomenal.
Yeah. I love that so much thought was put into the story that they considered how to dismantle all the dumb gender norms. It's like, fuck man Piltover is the kind of place you wish we all lived in.
I love the fact that they decided to put Mel, a black woman, in the intelligent fem role. Usually the black female character in shows is always the stereotypical loud mouth or is always put into a more masculine role, so it’s so refreshing to see a black female character who’s absolutely stunning(and not over-sexualized), but is also one of the most intelligent and well spoken characters in the show, while also getting to use her skills in a high status role. Mel is QUEEN
She’s definitely one of my more favorite characters! I’m sure some people were worried that something would go wrong with the way she was portrayed in the show but I’m so glad that it turned out to be the exact opposite. She isn’t just stereotyped left and right, she actually is her own person/character. She has flaws, she has her strengths, and we get to see every part of that and watch how she handles certain situations (sorry if none of this is phrased right lol, I struggled with it a little)
Omg I was SO nervous and excited seeing Mel for the first time. She’s so beautiful and I didn’t want her to fall in the stereotypes BW are usually in also. Especially when they are just to help and won’t allow them to have ambition or want power. She’s my favorite 😊
This just demonstrates the public doesn’t really care about the nationality, gender, even the sexuality of a character, as long as said character is well written, well contextualised in the overall plot and in the reality the story takes place in. All it takes is to write a realistic, complex and compelling character, not in the sense that every character needs to have huge problems, but they need to be nuanced, because every person realistically is nuanced.
Idk if someone's mentioned this, but I also really like Cait's shower scene because of the way it frames her. She is not shown scrubbing at her shoulders sensually, and there's no long shots of her legs in motion- she is braced against the wall, thinking about her fight with Vi and the camera focuses on the blood from her leg mixing with the water. The focus in this scene is not on her (evident) sex appeal, but on her contemplation and consternation over her relationship with her friend (cough future lover cough). I just really enjoyed that, and also how the only time someone is really framed all that sexually is Jace's money shots. Ambessa's nudity is a show of power, Cait's a show of vulnerability, and Jayce's is to frame how Mel sees him- sssmokin'
This may seem strange but I also really appreciated that the women looked very different! They had different body types owing to their different experiences/jobs (you know, like everyone does). They also had different faces!!! Which is extremely basic but shockingly hard to come across in animation for women regardless of style. While male characters often can have different nose shapes and body types, in designing female characters, most studios will just change hair and eye color (and maybe breast size) on the same attractive but bland frame. I think Arcane's approach really helped visualize the diversity within the female cast and made them actually feel like their own characters and not variations on each other.
I think in a lot of movies, the beauty of a woman comes from the apparent perfection of them, whereas in Arcane people's beauty is in their uniqueness, so it doesn't disappear when they have imperfect moments, allowing for much more story depth than with a 'glass vase' type of beautiful character.
Agreed, one of the things that really stands out is how liberally they represent multiple ethnicities on screen. Cait has eastern traits she inherited from her father, there are plenty of black people with different skin tones and traits, and (crucially) none of that is ever pointed out with a flag saying "diversity quota".
You are right! I love that the characters did not look like what a girl or a guy is expected to be according to the then body trends. I especially loved that the size of the character was not correlated to the strength(physical and mental) of that character. I major selling point for me was Jinx. She was the reason, I transitioned from liking the show to loving it. She's small and at first sight, people don't expect much from her. People that knew her on the surface expected her to be clumsy and not in control. But people that actually knew her, like Vi or Silco, understood how much potential she had which we see with the number of gadgets she creates with minimal education and the runes thing that she understands solely on the basis of Jayce's research and no additional data. She's clearly a genius.
Arcane does a thing that I wish more media would. It doesn't write women. It writes characters who are women. It's a facet of who they are, but it isn't their identity. And they don't focus on that part more than they focus on the core traits. And I love it.
Ambessa Medarda is the perfect example for this I think. She is a great example on how to portray strong women. She is strong, has a presence and authority, but she has her weaknesses. Most shows tend to show strong female characters as perfect in body and character, because you can't show a woman losing.
I came here to say just this. Women are human beings, we have a lot of the same character traits men do and our own agency. Seeing women portrayed as human first and female second is how you develop a strong female character.
yeah, and i think that’s what they did super well with vi and cait’s romance too. they weren’t “the gay ones”, but the ones who also happened to be in a same-gender romance.
8:19 also notice how neither claggor or milo had any reaction to vi approaching the kid who has a knife as she is unarmed, even when her opponent has a lethal weapon her MALE siblings didnt doubt their SISTER'S resolve or strength for a moment. P E A K
Also, I like how Mel is a very skilled and somewhat antagonistic manipulator, who, if you think about it, never RELIES on her physical beauty to manipulate others. It’s definitely there, but in the background. It’s an auxiliary skill that she uses as an extra layer of insurance while relying on her conversational skills and political pull to get what she wants. And even then, she isn’t promiscuous, she didn’t “sleep her way to the top” she uses her beauty in the way most traditionally attractive MEN use their looks. People just sort of, trust her, assume she knows best without any real reason.
Absolutely. She never actually weaponises her femininity with the other council members. Just her wit/persuasive skills or bribing them with gifts/favours. She's only ever seductive towards Jayce, whom she actually starts a relationship with.
@@hawkins347 and the guard, but it's a minor plot point, she could easily have convince him because she is a counselor but as the comment says is an extra layer of insurance
One thing I'd like to add to you point about Mel's agency is that furthermore she never once actually takes away Jayce's agency either. He's still free to and makes his own decisions along the way, for better or worse, which is another neat subversion of the archetype she's introduced as - women of her position and persuasion tend to be controlling, but she is not. He's her partner and not her puppet. And I just love that so much.
@@schnee1 Another note about the "man fixes woman" thing you mentioned. There are undeniably ways in which Jayce sort of "fixes" her in that he provides a safe space for her to become more vulnerable and emotionally expressive, basically steadily undoing Ambessa's mental conditioning that Mel grew up with, and showing her healthy ways of expressing her affection (like touch and emotional intimacy... as opposed to "gifting" people with political positions that they didn't ask for 😂), but she still has agency in this. She chooses to make these changes, and she's arguably already on this path before they get in the relationship and he speeds up the process a little. And it goes both ways, because she "fixes" him in turn. He becomes more decisive and asserts himself and his needs more as result of her influence, whereas before he was always prioritising others first and seeking their validation. Interestingly, this emotional distance is traditionally portrayed as a masculine quality and prioritising others over self a feminine one. So it's an interesting reversal of gender dynamics here.
Her mother is a good example of using personal agency against those under her though, which is *really cool* to see in terms of well presented contrast. Ambessa was a good demonstration of the ‘typical’ use of that character type
@@sinnamonchai Yes! This makes for a such a great contrast especially when you consider Mel's relationship with Jayce. If Ambessa was in Mel's position, she would totally not hesitate to exploit his attraction to her for her gain. But Mel waits until they're societal and political equals, and thus have equal amount of agency, before she initiates the relationship because she's actively trying to not be like her mother. Which imo just further nails in the point that seducing him is an action of Mel the Woman, who is attracted to Jayce, and not Mel the Politician.
As a woman who isn’t feminine it was super refreshing to see multiple, well-written masculine women on screen. And masculine in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re just a re-skinned male character. So good.
Not gonna Lie as a bi sexual guy VI is super hot. Lmao she’s pretty and a badass. Edit: also I’m really glad arcane made women powerful with out excluding the men or always making the men lose, I think it’s really beautiful when both genders are Portrayed as equal and not more or less because of stereotypes.
Making Vi a big sister character that her siblings look up to as a leader and protector rather than a nurturing psuedo mother figure like many other forms of media do was huge for me. Im the oldest of 5 and always tried to be strong for my siblings and be there for them, in a very different way than my mom was. When we first watched Arcane it was uncanny how much i related to Vi and my sister related to Powder, its still one of my favorite shows for how it handles sisterhood.
Problem with that, its more fanfiction then writing, considering they only made them for only fans, knowing its easier to take the portrayal down a "sexy" path, just enough to have it semi defendable. Considering you can tell they were going to make them more human but ended up copy pasting the same story from most templates. It drives me crazy because ITS STILL THERE without the negative connotations of Vi having a short temper with powder which details the break, only for them to rewrite it as if she's always been the loving, caring sister who'd accidentally tell her scary stories as the furthest extent of any negative influence. As opposed to her breaking at the end
Something you missed: Caitlyn is of upper class who have the luxury of being soft on people. She has the option of showing mercy on an enemy who would possibly come back and try to kill her. Vi does not. Caitlyn has the luxury of long range weapon tech, while Vi must slug it out with bits of metal strapped to her fist. Caitlyn has the luxury of honing accuracy, while Vi has to beat through by sheer brute force. It is not a matter of feminine VS masculine, but rather haves VS have nots. They highlighted this in the show.
While I agree with the contrast between Caitlyn and Vi in terms of their privileges and resources and not their masculinity /femininity . (Caitlyn, as a member of the upper class, has access to long-range weapons and can rely on accuracy and strategy. On the other hand, Vi, who comes from the undercity, has to rely on her physical strength and brute force due to the lack of resources.) I feel like Caitlyn’s “softness” isn’t a trait derived from her class. One of the main themes of the show is precisely about class difference and how the upper class can completely dismiss and even stomp on the needs of the lower class for their own comfort. If anything it showed how she was naive to certain realities of the undercity. I think Caitlyn is just a more naturally more empathic person. Which is a gem in the topside, and what Vi sees soon after she gets her out of prison.
@@cyrusjameskhan Caitlyn could afford empathy thanks to her class. Vi is empathetic as well but she didn't have a choice to be if she wanted to survive down there. A kid died and Vi told Jayce to get over it, which led them to fight. Vi was disgusted by the fact that Jayce, some privileged topsider, mourned the life of a single Zaun child who he killed by accident and tried to call off the whole mission that would save Zaun, while Vi was forced to become numb to it since she'd seen way too much of it already thanks to blissfully ignorant topsiders like him. She already knew from the start what it would take to bring down Silco, and although it lacked in empathy, she knew it was necessary to stop more kids like Powder from falling into his hands. So I would argue that although both Cait and Jayce's capacity for empathy is inherently a part of their own personalities, their class is a big reason why they can afford to be "soft" while someone like Vi can't. We as viewers empathize with both sides and Arcane did a really good job at showing that even your class can dictate whether or not you're allowed to mourn the death of an innocent child.
@@cyrusjameskhan I loved as well how much more sympathetic and empathetic Caitlyn has become with the people of Zaun throughout the show after she saw first handed what they had to endure each day, it made for brilliant character development. Arcane is just so fucking good in every aspect, it has to be one of the best shows ever made. If season 2 is at least as good season 1 was, it will be up there with the very best (BCS, Peaky Blinders etc.).
@@2F098I totally agree with you and I just wanted to add that I love how Cait does not lose any of her empathy while being down in the Under city. If anything, we see her being more empathetic down there than in the topside (though that may just be amount of opportunities they had to show it).
I know Marcus is a throw away character for the most part but my favorite line of his is how when asked about Greyson he simply describes her as “A good woman.” It surprised me when I heard it because I’ve heard “he’s a good man” a million times in film. I had honestly never heard it the other way and was surprised by how refreshing something so small could feel.
SAME! Greyson is such a great character and she's dead for 90% of the story. The comment is not an empty respect the dead moment, its true. Greyson has made a serious impact on those around her. And the subtle implication that the corrupt guard (cant remember his name) is her widow and their daughter is the one Silco uses to manipulate him is intense when you notice it. The whole series is such a great example of the phrase we use in photography. Everything in the shot must have a purpose. And everything, in this series has just that. If it gets screen time it's because it should. Hell, we need more!
Exactly, the only time I would’ve ever heard “she’s a good woman” anywhere else would’ve been in a perverted way. Which I don’t doubt anime has done several times because of the incel mindset that’s practically embedded in it, it’s rare to find an anime that has this same level of REAL equality. Edit: or housewife and motherly way, that too
A really small detail that I absolutely loved, loved, loved to see: Jinx has painted nails. Whenever I saw them, they made me remember, in that moment, that she is more than a chaotic mess: she is just a girl. At some point, she just sat down and painted her nails like many of us do. It added so much dimension to her character.
@Katie Cramton Yes! They were so intentional about every detail, right? And I feel like that intentionality is the only reason why Jinx's nails can even mean something: Arcane doesn't throw in random design elements just to "prettify" their woman characters. If Jinx has painted nails, we can safely assume she paints her nails.
@Katie Cramton i also noticed that polish on some of her nails had came off (?sry idk how to say it properly). And it's adding that extra thing - Jinx might paint her nails but she's not so concerned about their conditions
@@feathery_machine you said it right, i just wanna add that a good word to describe what you mean is that her nails are "chipping" or "chipped." and i agree with what you said as well
I remember being so surprised and so pleased from a writing and art standpoint to see Vi get the ugly punch scene, followed by the boys getting their own ugly punches, and Powder break down with snot and tears, it shows the vulnerability of people, not held back or determined by gender.
Holding women accountable for actions you’d condemn or dismiss in a man is important thematically, character wise, and avoiding favoritism. Obviously bias is an unavoidable factor, but pausing to ask yourself “How would I feel about this if a character of another gender was doing it?” is a great way to avoid pitfalls, and examine personal bias.
but the thing is, there is a bias in the real world, so there could be(focus on could, not should) one in this fantasy world Like, could you right a movie where every single person from every gender is treated absolutely equally? sure But, for example, in the real world women get less time for the same crime(or none at all) than a man Women are usually innocent until proven guilty while men are usually guilty until proven innocent(unless he's pretty) So, in order to create a sense of similarity to the real world, you could add biases some of the bias present in the real world. But to get a sense of novel, you could also add some not present and remove some of the present too.
@@99temporal Excellent point! I meant bias from the standpoint of the writer, or plot UNINTENTIONALLY favoring specific characters where it wouldn't favor others. But adding fantasy bias adds plenty of depth.
That is true, you know a series wrote their charecters well when you dont even think about their gender, when the charecters and their actions make you forget their gender. That is why when we write a charecter we shuld'nt think about their gender at all. Women are basically men so the writing process sould'nt be any diffrent. In general a character should'nt be defined by one trait (like gender in this case)
Yeah, one of my biggest frustrations with media the last decade or so is all the people who looked at “can we have more strong female characters please?” and went “ah, you’re saying you want a cardboard-cutout waif who can kick a man through a brick wall? Say no more!” Like, no. Strong Female Character meant we wanted to see women with the same agency, motivation, characterisation, and flaws that men get, rather than just being Bitchy Wife, Sexy Lamp, or Helpless Ingenue. But yeah, fine, throw another Mary Sue on the pile, just remember to have everyone in-universe keep talking about how strong and amazing she is, because fuck knows she’ll never demonstrate any of it on screen, other than maybe punching a few people before getting captured.
One of the things I adore about Kate is that she can't do parkour. And it makes sense because while she actually does seem plenty strong enough for it, she has never had a reason to practice those skills before. It's that under city vs over city culture piece. She's intimidated by the heights, doesn't have the dexterity or skills to do what Vi does BUT then she tries it anyway!!! And it continues to be sloppy and painful to watch, but she gets there in the end!. And we know it's a skill cuz when Vi gets hurt, she literally does not have the strength and presence of mind to gauge her mannovers accurately. Another thing I love is getting hurt has consequences in this world. Every fight wears Vi down, injuries kept Echo from getting home and they don't magically disappear overnight! And characters constantly push too hard! The women were allows to get hurt and have it physically effect them. No magic healing without consequences, no hard sidelining a character when she got hurt. They were treated as people first and that was so cool!!!!! Finally, as a only child in a single father household, I can't say how refreshing it was for the dad's to NOT shy away from their daughters! They didn't say "I can't rase this child because of gender!" They were willing and able to step into a parental role, they nurtured and protected their children, and if they were worried about their child, they asked for help. They did it in a way that was true to them! And just seeing those parent relationships were wonderful!!!!
I actually hate when certain (jrpg as I prime example) stories Ignore the existence of healing magic/powers, is just sloppy and lazy. Of course, in Arcane their still don't have ample access to that. But most forget, that word where supernatural healing exist, there would also be supernatural harming.
Cait is willing to put in the effort necessary to do what's right! Not because someone told her to or because she has something to win or lose, but because is the right thing to do.
@@indulgencerofindulgence5970 i love that arcane doesnt shy away from supernatural healing, but doesnt use it every time either. there are two instances (that i can think of) where supernatural healing was used, with vi after sevika stabbed her and with jinx after the bombing. both of them got gravely injured and magically healed, but their healing also had consequences with giving trauma flashbacks and affecting their mental states. But arcane also doesnt use it everytime, other injuries like ekkos ankle and vi's scraped knuckles are tended to with traditional healing methods or whatever the characters could access. the use of magical healing is shown to only be used when desperation and absolutely necessity calls for it, not whenever its convienient for the plot or characters.
I love the way arcane writes its sexually tense scenes as well because it IS NOT FOR THE VIEWER. You are watching these two women fall in love, you are not PART OF IT. I love it.
The genius thing about Caitlyn's shower scene was that it's different from most shower scenes in that it just wasn't... sexy? There are no objectifying angles, every time we see her in the scene she's weirdly (yet believably) hunched over, we're basically shown only three parts of her body: extremely tense shoulders, her bleeding wound, her exasperated face. The point of the scene isn't to show us she's attractive of objectify her, it's to a) show that she's extremely tense and frustrated and b) create a parallel between her, in water, and Vi, under the rain. As you said, the center isn't her body, it's her as a character. The viewer is forced to feel what she feels to the point where you don't even think about her naked boobs or whatever
I observed that as well. When the shower scene showed up I was pleasantly surprised by how non-objectifying it was. It showcased Caitlyn's mental turmoil and her leg wound rather than using angles to emphasize her sexuality.
We must remember that nudity still has a symbolic meaning. A naked body directly and figuratively shows someone's defenselessness. In this scene Caityn recalls her last conversation with Vi and her frustration is evident. Mo doubt she's thinking over and over again about what she should say then to keep Vi from going away. It's possible that she's angry with herself too for not knowing how to forget and that the few days spent with Vi made her completely vulnerable to recurring memories. So yeah, naked shower scene can have hidden meaning.
It's because they 'shot' the scene exactly how they would for a male character. This is what people mean by 'the male gaze.' Everything that they didn't put in this scene.
I also love that you can clearly see the fighters having muscles. I hated seeing women fighters who looked fragile and thin like a stick. It was always hard to believe they are actually strong. That´s one aspect I really love about Vi, aswell as her nose looking like it has been broken at some point. THAT´S how a fighter like her looks like!
That's so trope true! It's so refreshing to see women with real muscles. Most of the in "tough girls" are just women who are beautiful measured by the standards of the norm and know martial arts, which itself could be fine but only when it isn't the only representation of strong women.
@@notwwwansik *I have seen. I understand there are probably better ones out there but since my main genre of filmmedia isn’t typically animated- she’s been the best and most realistic in my opinion💕
I think she was very well-portrayed as an oligarchic leader of a nation, especially holding the vast amount of influence and power under her belt. All of her behavior, actions and words were believable as a character because she NEVER broke my immersion; no references to modern-day tropes, or moral grandstanding or whatnot, she just LIVED in her world. Honestly, it's such a criminally underrated and S-tier show.
her character LITERALLY had nothing to do with her being black, she could have been Poison green like an alien and it wouldnt matter, so why are u making it about races and colors now? wtf
I’m writing an essay for my University Portfolio titled ‘How Netflix’s ‘Arcane’ succeeds in writing strong female characters: An analysis on how to write women.’ This has been absolutely brilliant in highlighting writing tropes and really deep-diving into the female character’s of Arcane. All your analysis videos in general have been an inspiration but this one in particular has been so helpful, can’t wait to see what you do for Season 2!
I do have a comment on the fridging of Sky. The scene where Victor spreads her ashes over the Undercity adds a different element to her death that we don't see with most other examples of fridging (and I do absolutely think that Sky was fridged). Victor says that he doesn't know where she would have wanted her ashes spread, and that changes things. Sky wasn't just killed without character development to further Victor's character development from the audience's perspective; Sky died without character development to further Victor's character development from *Victor's perspective* too. Victor feels the same injustice for Sky that we do; he's torn up that he never really got to know her, and she still sacrificed herself for him - so much so that he is willing to attempt suicide presumably out of some sense of giving Sky her due. Most fridgings are purely non-diagetic - we, as the audience know that the character died only to advance another character's story, but the characters in-universe treat the dead character as if there was much more to them. This fidging is both non-diagetic, *and* diagetic. Sky's death isn't just needless and tragic because we as the audience didn't get to see her as a person in her own right, it's needless and tragic because Victor didn't get to see her as a person in her own right either... and he's devastated by that fact. Yes, Sky was fridged, but Victor, the man she was fridged for, *KNOWS* that this is the case, and his actions for the rest of his arc are coloured by this knowledge. Victor spends the rest of the show basing his decisions on the fact that a woman he barely knew died so that he could continue living and become a "better?" person. This meta-fridging gives a very different reading to the event. In that way, even Benzo is a clearer example of straight fridging than Sky is.
Excellent points!! I definitely felt like there was more to her death that I was missing and you nailed it. Would you mind if I made a short out of your comment? (crediting you ofc, and I'll happily shout out a place to follow you if you want)
@@schnee1 Go right ahead! I'd love to see it! I'm not really a creator of any sort, so I don't have much of anything for people to follow. Maybe some day. ;)
@@prophetisaiah08 Thanks so much! I'll def shout out the "prophet isaiah" but people may mistake you for the other one :/ I'm sure you're used to it XD
@@schnee1 Not a big deal. I'm not on a lot of social media anyway, and I'm pretty sure no one outside of my immediate family follows me where I am, lol!
What I found really interesting about Mel's relationship with Jace was that she also doesn't totally take away his agency - which is another trope of female characters. She manipulates many of the other characters in the story, but she only asks Jace to help her, and ultimately the decision is totally up to him.
And the way his face lights up when she decides to support him in suing for peace instead of pushing for war. She isn't doing it for him. But his opinion does matter and is part of her decision. What is so amazing about that relationship is that it is a relationship between two powerful people who truly care and with their actions and words enchance each other's agency, instead of one having to be torn down for other to rise.
Mel influences Jayce but he's still the one making decisions in his life. Just because Mel wants something doesn't mean Jayce will agree immediately. When Mel brings the subject of hextech weapons on the table, Jayce isn't immediately building his hammer. He discusses the subject with Viktor, he has a moment with his mother where he shares his doubts. During the council meeting with Vi, Mel talks about peace and Jayce isn't enthusiast about the idea. He builds his hammer when war seems inevitable and he's even ready to trigger it when he launches the attach on the shimmer factory with Vi. Killing the kid and experiencing first hand what war means is ultimately what makes him realize Mel was right. Mel shows him the way because she has more experience in politics but Jayce always follows that path after he experiences something himself.
this is a problem with alot of the fandom taking their relationship as manipulation, sure she has more leverage than him sometimes but it's completely up to both of them
The underlying reason why Arcane can get all these female characters right is that the story has a lot of them. Female characters make up half the cast, almost as if half the population of humanity is female or something. It allows them to do so many things without overloading any single character. No one character has to be the "science one" and the "caring one" and the "fighting one" and "crazy one" all in a single package.
It also helps having rich characters. There is no ' one.' Pretty much every character trait is shared by multiple characters who express it in different ways. Simply being forced to go a second step deeper in character development makes many of these tropes a lot harder to fall into.
I was going to say the same thing - Arcane's writing team made their job SO much easier by having a large and diverse cast of female characters - not just background crowd characters, but ones that matter. So each one could be different and uniquely interesting. You didn't have the 'one woman in an otherwise male cast' who has to be all things to all people (and so often is nothing but a shell of a character) like you do in other shows and movies. (Btw, same goes with POC - having multiple POC in this show removed a lot of the pressure to keep a single token POC character from being typecast as the villain, or the magical shaman/wise old advisor, or reduced to being the sidekick, etc. I definitely look for this in most movies I watch these days, and sadly more often than not I am disappointed)
@@hopeofdawnI couldn't agree more. Finding good representation and actual quality writing like this is trying to find clothing that isn't mass-produced, factory made polyester. It really does feel rare but having little crumbs are better than none, I suppose.
@@wcookiv Yup. I mean we have 3/4 main "scientist/inventor" types but they all range in everything else. Viktor is closest to the traditional nerd type.
you know what is funny, watching this as a woman doesn't even feel like i am watching something "different". All these masculine stuff, nuanced personalities etc. feels just natural. Because it is how it is, we are all those things...
people not stereotypes or the hushed murmurs and such of "we can't say this or we have to acept women are this type of toxic and pretend its okay" hollywood bs
Most women don't behave like in Arcane, it's fiction. In fact, the majority women in general are very docile and frail. Sure, women that behave like Vi exist, but they are nowhere near that level. Real life women who try to act like Vi come across as flaunty and/or tryhard.
@@thevigilant6884 hmm yes this is indeed fiction but it would be nice not to hear a woman scream I'm a sexist for smiling and not looking her way as if she's entitled to my attention
@@jackhhun2698 Whatever issue you have with women has nothing to do with my comment. The other reply seems to be missing but in response to their comment, women are people too with personalities that vary as much as men. Just because assertive personalities don't fit how you think women should act, doesn't make those women "try-hards". You thinking most women are docile just tells me you don't know many women on a personal level. And yes, I'm sure women scream at you for "not looking their way", that's definitely a common complaint women have. Definitely not the copious amount of unsolicited attention. Every single women I know definitely screams and throws a fit when strangers don't look and smile at them. Think about how you sound. My comment was about how it was nice to see women portrayed in such a varied, human, way. Please take whatever this is elsewhere, saying that women are people shouldn't be a controversial statement that strikes up discourse and sexism in the replies.
@@emn2375 You seem to be projecting. I'm merely talking about the Amber Herds out there those who happily push false accusations for their entitlement. and the vast amount of basic wahmen stereotypes. If it helps I am also a woman but I took this male name for people to A) Take me seriously B) this situation right Here
The thing is one: Arcane is TRUE. It doesn't talk about "men", "women", "children", "adults", it talks about PEOPLE. They made a great, great job in these. I hope every future serie script (not only videogames inspired) will take notes from now on.
Technically there is talk about Children and Adults. There are themes of Lost of Innocence and Coming of Age for most characters. There's a reason why there were episodes of younger years as well as little flashbacks to younger days. But they weren't really the focus. The characterizations in those time lapses were all individually for the character's context.
YES. It's people, their not out their going "oh look we bent the norms for femininity or masculinity" It's more then that, it's realistic. I'm so fuckin bored and pissed off about the usual women troupe. Like that girl in the Witcher series , I thought there was going to be potential when she entered the screen but god was I disappointed. Atp it's not only refreshing but remarkable how beautifully arcane not only represents but highlights women. As a woman who's pissed off with classic woke shows all I can say abt arcane is...wow....❤
@@sullainvictus"people" can containe anyone. "Women" can only containe women, "children" can only containe children. Woman is cool because she is "woman" is bad writing. If you fill character with substance character stops being just "woman" or "man" or a "child" and becomes "person". Multiple "persons" become "people". Modern inclusive filmmaking forgets it. They film "women" who are just "women" and who has no "person" in that body with XX chromosome.
This might sound kind of strange but I love the way they do the noses for all of the characters in Arcane, like not all the women have those dainty noses and not all the men have those sharp larger noses. It’s really nice and super refreshing to have a show where they have that type of diversity and are willing to throw out a lot of the social norms we see all the time
I mean fair. The facial designs of these characters are pretty great. It's a shame Hollywood doesn't seem to be as invested in... 'noses' as Arcane is, there's so much more to diversity. (This wasn't sarcastic or anything)
Everything about the faces are so good. They're even asymmetrical. Look at the lips. One part of the lips is often higher than the other. The nostrils are usually inconsistent. They'll sometimes have a loose hair stuck to their face on one side... and so much more
Exactly! I have a very similar nose to the one Vi has and I really hate it but seeing an objectively pretty character that looks like me made me feel a lot better about my nose. (I know I’m late to this comment, I finally decided to watch arcane this week and now I’m obsessed with it)
Love rewatching these now that we have season 2 airing. Small addition to Jinx's bit - I absolutely love that, in their efforts to separate Jinx from the "sexy manic girl" trope, they gave clothing a redesign that makes sense while still holding on to that original style Jinx debuted with. It's just a refreshing change. I feel like the artists use nudity/suggestive appearances very sparingly, and it's to great effect. Also, would love to see you revisit this after the last episodes air, especially in regards to Caitlyn.
Tbh, there is a big difference with Vi showing strength. It's the fact she LOOKS STRONG, and LOOKS like she can take on someone twice her size. Compared to "strong woman" in other media, that are as thin as a twig, and could be snapped in two, but somehow bench press people.
Or those female characters that are portrayed with bulk bodies and muscles in their muscles while having the typical "punch first, questions later" attitude that completely downgrades any attempt at character depth. It's not the fact that the character who's playing the role is a woman, it's the fact that the representation of strong women are either downplayed to the dumb, one-dimensional, stale, or overly-masculine character tropes. It's almost like they just casted a man with a wig and gives up on any attempt to improve the writing of said character.
@@vismattress5760 Thing is, Vi isn't masculine, Vi is muscular. Media often portrays muscular women with an art-design they'd use for male characters or are more representative of male physiques in real life. For example Luisa in Encanto or even SSJ Kale in DBS. However Vi looks like a woman, a lean woman who works out for size, but undoubtedly a woman.
The fact that they made the most badass fight scenes in the entire show (and in any show, personally) be between two badass women, and not get too hung up on their gender, is really telling in how well they handled their female characters. It blows my mind that this show isn't being talked about more...
it's because league of legends sucks ass but the show was actually really good but because the game sucks, a lot of people are hesitant to watch the show
It is hyped quite a freaking lot, except it wasn't actually advertised that much. Anyway, it spread around quite much and so far around people liking animation considered as masterpiece must have to watch. What else we need here?
@@antonzhdanov9653 not sure what you are on about...It doesn't get talked about in casual settings as much as it deserves, in my experience/opinion. I've never heard anyone IRL mention it, I rarely see it talked about on social media outside of places that are dedicated to it or similar topics. Receiving awards and praise in the animation world doesn't make it "hyped" in the context that I was referring to. What else we need? You already said it...more advertising. But feel free to keep arguing for no reason.
I swear, if I have to watch another fight between two women being sexualized I'm gonna lose my shit. It was so satisfying to see two female characters have a heavy fight scene
I haven't seen anyone mention this, but I love how the show didn't shy away from showing Vi eating in episode 5. They didn't make it dainty or cute, but let her be sloppy, which I don't believe I've ever seen portrayed in a woman definitely refreshing.
I’ve only really seen it in children’s movies where obviously they don’t know manners or something and in pirates of the Caribbean the black pearl where that one girl who I forget the name of is like “I don’t have any nobles watching” and digs in
If it continues on the trajectory it currently is, Arcane is going to end up being one of those generation/era defining pieces of media. I have yet to find where it fails to hold up to even micro-fine scrutiny from a writing perspective. _This_ is the representation and empowerment we want to see.
@Ila_Aras As far as animation, representation are concerned, pretty much the same. The writing in S2 wasn't as infallibly air tight as it was in S1, there were a couple character arcs that fell flat for me. However, I feel that drop off is overly exaggerated by a lot of people. It's a difference of like a 10/10 vs a 9/10 for me. I think Arcane's legacy is fairly secure. Even if all the subsequent LoL projects are dog water, you still have two seasons of excellent television, and it's a fully completed story.
Arcane makes me feel like I'm seeing a world where sexism simply doesn't exist. And that's so relieving when you are used to it all around you. I'm glad you pointed that all out
Why does it make it any better? People in Arcane treat each other well for a variety of reasons and treat each other like shit for a variety of reasons? Does it matter if you are treated like shit because of your gender versus because someone just wants to be cruel to you? Did it make the cruelty better because it didn't have to do with your body? Or was it still just as brutal?
@@terrys.2342 Why does their reasoning matter? How does it affect you? Are you asking genuinely or just criticizing their point of view with questions? Maybe they have personal reasons they like gender isn't a focus of insults in this universe, is all.
@@terrys.2342 Because sexism is everywhere in real life and in almost every piece of literature or show out there. Arcane's world is a far cry from any kind of utopia, but it helps us imagine a different kind of world that we are so tired of. Hope that makes sense? I don't think anyone is saying Arcane's reality is better than ours as a whole. But it is *different*, it frees our minds in some ways, and it can make us hopeful.
@@terrys.2342 But also to answer your second set of questions, yes there is a difference between people being brutal to you because of your gender vs people just being brutal to you. Sexism is almost something you are born into, because it's something society decided before you were even born. So it follows you every step of your life. This makes sexism really heavy and oppressive even if the severity is "relatively minor", and it affects you differently than say, a group of criminals being brutal to you for some other reason. (Not saying which is worse - every case is different. I find that comparing who suffers more is really toxic and unproductive anyway).
As a straight white male, Vi was my favorite and most relatable character - regardless of gender and sexual orientation, she was also the biggest sibling in a group of 4 kids. Having grown in the same position - the oldest of 4 - I could feel this part of her character was so well written and represented that I sympathised with her every step of the way. I hope modern Hollywood takes note and realise that we could connect with characters on a deeper level regardless of their gender or sexuality.
As a Black woman, I think it's also really important to get that one of the reasons Mel is so revolutionary is that we rarely get this type of representation, ever. A Black woman, a beautiful woman with power and who wields her power with cunning, who gets to be soft and feminine, and to have agency, whose choices impact the narrative in important ways, who is complex, sexy and falls in reciprocated love and is *not punished for it or any of these factors in the story*. My first watch of this show was filled with anxiety for her because I was so used to being disappointed by shows but Arcane surprised me at every turn. Amazing analysis. Thanks for this!
One of the biggest thing you should also note is, EVERY character here can get race swapped to a black women. Or men, and they would still work. Mel can also be swapped to a white woman....and IT WORKS!!! That is the biggest point. They wrote an incredible character, not that they wrote a black character, that just so happened to turn out well.
Mel is like an avatar of agency that's so refreshing to see on so many levels. Even at the very end, she's really the freest of all of the characters to both choose and enact her own choice, after Jinx. Everyone else is pretty much forced by the systems and circumstances around them but she gets to make a decision for herself. I feel like I'm still just missing what I mean to say but I hope it came across.
Right? I feel like IF there ever is a beautiful black women there's almost always a beautiful white woman with more screentime/more power/more whatever. Mel's beauty AND influence are pretty much unmatched and that's something that i don't feel like we see too often. arcane won an Annie award for best character design for Mel :)
@@BexMcInulty Or they pair her almost everytime with another black dude. Like white men doesn't find these gorgeous black women beautiful too. But my fear is there's a possibility that Mel's going to die for Jayce story to move forward and I'm scared.
Your video needs to be presented in all writing classes. You just, put everything in such a succinct, beautiful way and omg please continue making videos like this. I agree with everything you've brought up, ESPECIALLY 13:00 to 17:00 ish. When I first watched that scene with Jinx sitting on Silco, I verbalized my disgust, and the people watching it with me said I was weird for seeing it that way. It WAS supposed to be weird, but the writers (thank God) didn't take it a step further. Hearing you explain how, while technically "okay," seeing Jinx and Silco like that made the audience want to see her with Vi instead was so refreshing. Of course it's weird. It's supposed to be. It wasn't sexualized to a horrible point, but there was an edge to it. The writers did such an amazing job.
So so late to this video/discussion, but as a woman, I think they also used these uncomfortable scenes to accentuate the manipulation going on in that relationship. Yeah, Silco relates to Jinx being betrayed, and it is a father daughter relationship… but it ALSO is manipulative. Silco finds Jinx when she is a broken, hurt, lost and vulnerable young girl and he gives her attention, love, and a gun to get her to do his bidding. I think the weird gross interactions are definitely intentional, because the relationship is a metaphor to what happens to someone who is groomed and taken advantage of!! She’s lost, alone, and Silco feeds into these feelings, furthur alienating/isolating her from anyone else in her life. He convinces her that she indeed has been betrayed, that people like him and her have nobody BUT eachother, and they can’t trust anybody else. He lies to her to get her to not go after her sister (convincing her that her sister is working against her) and when she confronts him about the lies, he makes it seem like he did it out of caring for her- when REALLY it was because he knew her sister was a threat to their relationship. As a girl, seeing something dark like this portrayed was a shock, because it is an incredibly sensitive topic. It was interesting to see that the one character who was somewhat governed by a man’s actions, was in that situation because the man had evil motivations and took advantage of her vulnerability. It shows something really sad and dark. It’s why I always sort of cringed when people painted their relationship in an good light- because she has a father figure… YEAH she does… but it’s certainly not a healthy one 😭 Another interesting scene people don’t get, is the one where Jinx confronts Vi at the table. She says “it wasn’t Silco who made Jinx, it was you.” The video creator think this is proof that Jinx has complete agency over herself, but I think it shows a very different message. People have criticized this scene because it doesn’t make sense to them- Her sister was always supportive and loving, and only got mad because people died. But SILCO manipulated Jinx into genuinely believing that Vi’s betrayal is the reason she is the way she is, and encouraged her to be violent. Silco believes that Vander is the cause of his turnout as well, despite it clearly being his own motives!! It shows how DEEPLY this man manipulated her into believing her family was her enemy, like Vander was to Silco. Sorry that that was so long!! I thinks it’s a really crazy and deep struggle that isn’t talked about enough. It’s the only part of the video where I disagree with the creator. He states that “Silco supported her like any good dad would, and gave her the love and affirmation that she needed.” That was NOT affirmation, that was manipulation 😭
@@mintyplantmint I very recently watched Arcane for the first time and the amount of people who seem to think that Silco would do anything for Jinx, that he treats her well and feels nothing but sincere love for her is crazy, so I'm glad to see this comment. His relationship with Jinx does her more harm than good.
That moment when diverse cast is made so you have wide range of characters and not just so you can pat yourself on shoulders for being socialy conscious while also easy cut for foreing markets.
Personally, I think the archer woman trope is less a trope and more a device to negate the obvious (and suspension of disbelief breaking) muscle mass discrepancy in combat, allowing women to realistically take part in an action adventure setting in the same way a rapier or a gun might. It isn't because they need to be "protected", it's because they need a weapon based in dexterity rather than strength. And there are lots of bow designs that mitigate the heavy pull requirement, not just crossbows.
One loved is that arcane had a black female character, who was in a position of power, but wasn’t viewed by others as a try hard,bossy, or “angry”. And we got to see her relationship with her mother, a rather complicated one(with a few toxic traits), a type of relationship that many females have with their mother(especially with mother-daughter relationships of black and brown women). While watching her scenes I could really relate with them.
@@Heatwave9000 What are you even asking me exactly? Why should black women be shown as being multifaceted? I love seeing that because humans ARE equal. Which means they should be shown in the light that every other woman is shown
1:51 aight ik im a two years late and a dollar short, but Arwen literally gave her life up for love which is literally the coolest sacrifice of all time, and no she was not manipulated by a man to do so, but rather defied her own father, and CHOSE to love Aragorn herself. Don't do her like that
As a man, the idea of making this video to say "I loved how these women taught me about great characters" is amazing. Part of why I hesitate to write female characters is because I don't understand them as well and don’t want to make a big mistake. Arcane changed the game and you have made points that even I missed about great character work. Keep this series up!!
the most important part of writing people is to write them as individuals. I don’t tend to think about the genders of my characters when I’m initially writing them, because a large portion of my characters aren’t particularly affected by their genders (this is somewhat related to the settings I’ve written). I’ve had a lot of times where I’ve designed a character and have a lot of their story down, but haven’t even decided their gender/name yet. when I start writing a character and their gender pops out to me as something that’s important to their story, the character ends up more gendered. maybe the level of gender each individual character ends up with is based on which point I give them a gender. something I try to avoid falling into is the cultural norm of masculine = neutral and neutral = masculine. it’s unfortunately common, neutral words like “buddy” or “kid” are made implicitly masculine while masculine words like “man” or “guys” become implicitly neutral. a child is assumed to be a boy, people usually specifically say girl when talking about children who are girls. you can’t avoid it entirely, unless you wanna create a whole new language, but it’s good to be aware of it while writing. the most annoying thing about it is that it’s a very old norm. actor is neutral and masculine (probably because only men were actors before), while actress is explicitly feminine (oh geez there’s girl actors now, what do we call them? they can’t just be normal actors). there’s god and goddess, a bunch of them. there’s also the interesting case of seamster and seamstress. sometimes I think I should use the explicitly feminine words as a celebration of femininity, sometimes I think I should use the neutral/masculine words to avoid treating femininity and womanhood as foreign/alien, or as something added onto the “neutral” person. there’s some interesting video essays on femininity as performance, and that’s a topic that could be explored in a story, but I’m not sure that’s really my story to tell. oh! something fascinating I’ve seen with the de-gendering of words vs gendering of words. words that become feminine or turn neutral from feminine are usually insults, less so for the masculine side. for example: the words for dogs used for breeding, stud and b!tch. when made words for humans, they were initially gendered, stud being a man who gets with lots of women (positive), b!tch being a woman who gets with lots of men (negative). these words have changed since then, becoming more neutral (stud has retained more of a gendered connotation though). b!tch is less of a gendered insult nowadays, but remains an insult. it sucks, how you talk influences how you think, so what do you do when there are harmful thought processes built into your language? jesus christ, this got long, guess I had a lot of thoughts.
That fact that you think this way, knowing that understanding and respecting how characters work is essential for every character makes me so happy, I can’t wait to see what you’ll make. That’s a lot more effort than most 😂
@@justanotheranimationchanne5725 This is so much stuff that is so true, and you don't really realise it until you sit down and just think about this stuff. Bruh, after reading your paragraph I am having a Jaden Smith existential moment, I swear.
As a woman, write women like you write men. It doesn't really matter. Irl my personality has both typically masculine and feminine traits. I like looking cute with skirts and stuff and being all soft snd polite, but at the same time I have many moments where I sit down to listen to heavy drift phonk and use heavy language while opening up and messing with my laptop
@@spaghetti5914 definitely agree now, having watched Arcane and realizing that it's not that different. There is a measurable difference between men and women characters but there's important similarities too
Just as men are different from each other, so are women. Arcane went through various nuances of femininity and masculinity with both men and women, and that's how they got this astonishing result. By the way, I loved that sexuality isn't a thing there. Caitlyn's mother wasn't surprised to see a girl in her room, and Jinx talked about Caitlyn being Vi's girlfriend as if it was no big deal. Some LGBT characters don't have a personality at all, so it's nice to see a show that didn't put LGBT people just to claim it representative.
yes for the love of god yes in Hollywood they just turn men into women they give them every toxic male stereotypical behavior and call it empowering or get a lesbo stereotype and call it empowering. Its all the same mary sue bs and its gross and very sexist misandrist and plain unappealing to most women and especially men who are like "Hey I know that ashole how he get tits?" subconsciously but get em drunk I bet you'd hear it
Exactly! There is a trope similar to 'defined by gender' in LGBTQIA+ characters in modern times: the 'defined by sexuality' or 'defined by not being cis' (sorry I suck at naming things). A lot of times LGBTQIA+ characters exist to check off the box, but in Arcane it is super different. It is not the real focus of the character-- the real purpose of the character to be trans or gay or whatever, it is just something they happen to be. Like schnee said, they thought character first and not trait first. Many writers seem to go "okay we will create a gay character" rather than "what if this existing character happened to be gay?" The way Caitlyn's mom and Jinx are shown to be indifferent proves this. It is not a big deal. I think that is what a lot of us (LGBTQIA+ people) want in representation. We do not need a character going around announcing they're trans or pansexual or even ace-- we just want a good character who HAPPENS to be nonbinary or something.
@@ohhmangos YES! Just like real people! I freaking love Arcane and every single frame of it. It's incredible and I hope next season will be just as good. I thought things were going too slow at first, but by the third episode, I could only beg for more. The women were well written, the men too. But I gotta say I love watching the conflicts around the lack of equality. It represents the real world so well. Seeing our beloved characters fight for a better life gives us a feeling I can't describe.
i love so much this characters, lgb+ or not. Most commons show today are like "oh yeah, and don't forget to add the lg+ /black character on the side to make it modern" kind of like. Like when they put one of them, you better know that they've done it, because if u don't, they're gonna tell you that he's not like you. you don't need to be found of lgb+ ideology/feminism but just have to love good screenwriting to love this characters.
The ability to "show don't tell" is perfect. Take Captain Marvel for instance: Were constantly told she's "smart and funny and strong" and how she needs to "control her emotions" but we don't see ANY of that. Arcane shows all of it by the tiniest things like small expressions that show more than any narration could. Also, I think Jinx used her tiny attractive "little girl" traits as a manipulation. When Silco was mad at her for killing enforcers, when he was mad at her for allowing the shipment to be destroyed, and when Kaitlyn had a gun on her....she disarmed them by turning on the "I'm just a cute innocent little girl" to take them off guard. It was brilliant.
God, the Captain Marvel movie has been stuck in my craw ever since it came out as one of the most frustrating attempts at creating a strong female character I have ever seen. I love how arcane just writes good female characters by just writing compelling arcs and plots. So many people have written hour long video essays on how complicated Jinx, Vi, and Caitlin are. Their relationships and actions form the narrative heart and backbone of the plot yet "being a woman" is never a character trait or the first thing that comes to mind when describing their personality or actions. I absolutely love it.
Jinx definitely did. I wouldn’t say that jinx is a 9 year old in a 16 year old body, she is still just as smart and mature kind of. She portrays traits of both and may at times feel like a child or still show childlike behavior because of her trauma, but she still portrays a scary unpredictable Psychotic villain in a way that you don’t want to kill her because of her “innocence” and I think she acknowledges this idea towards the end of arcane and throughout the story.
@@griphn1460 you're hurt by the villain, but you hurt the one you loved. Both are the same, but oh so different. I've got similar issues- obviously not anywhere close to the degree that Powder/Jinx has but still pretty intense at times, but my point is- for anyone else that likes to lurk through replies, the person I'm responding to is very much pointing out a huge trait of Powder that happens very often in the real world, and that's cool :)
@@softhebig♥️ I’m really sorry that you have those problems and that they can be intense. I just wanna say that no matter how intense those “issues” can be everyone wether they think it or not is capable of overcoming that. You just have to believe it. Sorry for the cheesy ness I just wanted to let you know that. =)
20:36 ... if you don't want to be called a certain way, you don't need a reason! If it makes you feel uncomfortable ... or simple if you don't want it ... that IS REASON ENOUGH.
what’s cool is how usually, in any show or movie that has a lot of women, it focuses on that fact - but arcane doesn’t. it just has the regular balance of women to men that most societies do, and doesn’t make a point that “we included women so we’re cool” or anything. i just love how casual they are about it
No Arcane just tries to fool you into thinking that there is a balance between male and female characters actually there's not because even tho they've built female characters with debt and make them likeable the male characters in that show are lacking comparatively and fall under certain tropes that exist on a lot of mediums. Like think about it the male character with the most depth was probably Silco and that made him the most memorable from any other male lead in this show. It's like the show was written to only have good female leads not male ones
@@pocketsoup8338 it's supposed to be two stories on different fronts vi and jinx vs viktor and jayce those 2 stories are the main focus of the show but character development is lacking in the male part. Arcane yes is a really good show but it's not perfect not by a long shot
@@panosa7x416 Don't you dare diss my boys Victor, Jayce, Silco, Vander, and Ekko like that. I love all of them. And I love how this show empowers women without disempowering men
One of the main characters, Vi, could've been the stereotypical masculine woman who fights and has explossions of rage and is emotionally inmature. But what what we see is a fighter and a caring, assertive, and mature person cohabiting in the same body. It's just a masterpiece of art.
"Arcane empowers women, but not at the expense of men." BOOM. And there you have it... THE best summation in a single short sentence of how women are written in this show and should always be. Well said...
actually it does. every situation where women win was a zero sum game for a man . every powerful leader is a woman "convincing" a man to do her bidding. doesnt matter if she does it using her painting skills or the way rocky would've done it. which, by the way, what makes rocky amazing isn't the fact that he's a brawler. in fact, he lost his match at the end of rocky. he was humbled. this show is dumb. the fights have no tension because you know the main characters won't lose to a male characters or be injured permanently. by the way, a character eating shit isnt the same as a character being humbled. especially if it has no negative repercussions. even less so if its in a world where eating shit is the norm. and if men are also eating shit, then women eating shit doesn't mean it's not some woke crap or plot armor, even more so if she avoided being killed when male characters are systematically killed for much less. this video was nothing but red herrings, straw men and rationalizing. also, you cant analyze a work of art by using the work to justify itself. that's like how christians use the bible verses to "prove" the existence of god. this "review" never once analyzes the creative process. this reviewer telling me how great it is that jinx is underaged so people won't jack off to her (hint: they will because viewers are also underaged and the not underaged viewers also will because jynx, from the start, was designed to appeal to a subgroup of degenerates, the same group that this show appeals to) is akin to a weeb telling me the great thing about his loli gf is that she's actually a 2000 year old dragon. i fail to see how that proves the show's good but okay. thats called stanning.
writing unconventional female character doesn't make your show good. giving a backstory behind every of jynx tattoos is like giving meaning behind the dice hanging in the millenium falcon's cockpit; it's unnecessary. not everything about a character needs to have deeper meaning. people who get tattoos get tattoos because thye like the process, they like they look and they appreciate the art. people who have dozens of tattoos didn't all lose dozens of people, nor would you get a tattoo of your grandma's favorite sewing needles after she dies. also, unconventional women in a world where every person, society and object is unconventional makes them.... well, conventional. what makes leia unconventional is that she's a strong woman in a world where women aren't like that. being strong also doesnt stop her from needing rescuing from, oh lord help us, A FUCKING STRAIGHT WHILE MALE. Oh my me im about to faint that a woman needs a man to save her in a male-driven fantasy story. this 100% proves that women are oppressed in real life. men risking their lives to save women means thye dont love and respect them. what???
Watching this video, I could've cried because you summed up PERFECTLY how this show is so unlike pretty much every other show I've watched. It has the most amazing cast of women characters in a show that is not JUST targeted towards girls to watch, boys can watch it too and think "man, I want to be as badass as Vi one day". THAT is the beauty of Arcane. The characters in this show felt like actual, whole and entirely complete characters with their own complex series of events that shaped them to who they are today instead of just flat portrayals that don't explain the why behind their actions. It's absolutely incredible.
I LOVE the “lack of stigma in fantasy world” in any type of media. It is my absolute favourite. I think it does more for representation than having a minority character’s only struggle be bigotry. Visualizing a world where there isn’t a standard for femininity or masculinity, and where sexuality isn’t so heavily defined is so fun and it demonstrates a world I hope we get to eventually
Good comment but,,,,,, there literally is stigma? 😭 Even ones that can be seen IRL? Class struggle, the Undercity being that name as a literal result of Piltover trying to brush it under the rug. Piltover still refusing to just give them their independance despite seeing them as an eyesore they have literally tried to hide away: out of sight, out of mind. Using addiction to enslave people in a way, make them incapable of working so they don't have the money to buy the drugs so they have to sell even their morals to get it. Also showing the stigma against addicts as nearly not being human anymore, when they are sick and need help more than ever. Caitlyn wasn't looked down upon by the other guard members due to her gender but due to another reason she had no control over, even though she had actively proven herself capable people still closed their eyes to it. Most negatively affected by her own parents no less, they were the ones making that stigma against her worse than it ever would've been otherwise. Point being there is so much stigma but it feels like people have completely forgotten that things other than gender, sexuality and race exist... Leading to stuff like this, or claiming stuff like Dark Souls are apolitical despite being far from it... Just because they don't like having certain things brought up, most of the time being because they don't like that they could be held accountable for something, or that they should make changes to their lives. This is coming from someone who is "woke" and an "sjw", I'm sick of people ignoring intersectionality in these things
It is SO FRUSTRATING when it's a fantasy world and it carries over our real world concepts of race and gender. Like, your world can have systemic problems but don't have it be 1:1 from our world and stop making minorities their only personality trait being a minority.
@@xenosbreed It is immersion breaking to have like 10 sapient races that all have different ideals and yet you somehow have someone racist (as in hating a subset of your own race for some artificial reason).
Yeah there's no standard coz it's fantasy. Reality has limitations, fantasy doesn't have it. That's why feminazism can thrive in fantasy world, esp in animes coz even in love action fantasies the inability to do the stunts blatantly prove the limitations and reality which the radicals won't acknowledge. Ashoka's terrible stunts, a case in point. You either have to dial down the men or risk exposing the contrast. The same goes for men in expressions, reason why no male actor can ever out express an actress unless the script contributes to him. But radicals don't want different but equal. Fools.
I am so happy that Mel is _allowed_ to show her sexuality. Not only is she the one that initiates with Jayce, it is immensly clear that she is the only one who _can_ initiate. I always got the deep seated feeling that if Jayce had initiated, she would have rejected him, just on principal. Hell, we kind of see that in the "don't loose your Nuts" scene. She makes advances and Jayce makes a small move to initiate - and she puts a very firm, but not unkind stop to it. Not an "I don't want you" but "I'm not doing this _right now_ " And what is even more refreshening: _Mel doesn't get punished for having Sex_ . So often female Characters are directly or inderictly punished by the story after having sex, _especially_ if they enjoyed or initiated said it. The most aggregious is of course horror or slasher movies where it is usually the virtious virgin that is last girl standing, while everyone who has even thought about sex for an instance gets killed, but it happens in other media too. But Mel is allowed her sexual agency, which she does indeed use to at least push Jayce into certain directions. I hesitate to say manipulate, because this implies that her goal was something that benefited her while harming him and I never get that feeling. She does want an outcome that benefits her, but not really at the cost of someone elses happiness or success.
Yes! I completely agree with this. I always had my own agency to initiate relationships with other people and sometimes I was shut down because it wasn’t the norm for women to be so forward. It was stupid. Women shouldn’t be punished for wanting to have sex. It’s such a normal thing, and that’s why it was so cool to see a character like Mel.
In fairness, she does manipulate him. And the show does criticise her for this through subtext and metacomentary, at least from my viewing angle. She's shown to feel guilt for using her charisma that should have been used for good for self gain, and we can see that she lumps sleeping with Jayce in that category. She loved him, but she used him for far too long to where she (and I personally as well) felt she crossed the line into manipulating him. Sex was almost used as a reward for agreeing with her. While she enjoyed it, it's clear she wanted him to see her as a prize, because that meant she could set the rules of the game.
@@bye1551 when it comes to Mel and Jayce’s relationship I consider 2 scenes as the most important: 1)the lap pillow scene, until that point Mel had initiated every physical contact between them, always with a sexual subtext, but this time Jayce has a sudden heart-to-heart and it catches her off guard, I think it’s that moment where she truly starts to love him(everything before being a mix of interest, sexual attraction and social manipulation), his sincerity forces her to open herself too 2)the “slapping away the chalice” scene, her mother manipulated Jayce through his inexperience in politics and flustered him with her sex appeal, encouraging him to be reckless, JUST LIKE MEL DID, she sees how her tactics look like from the outside and it deeply disgusted her we don’t really see her manipulate Jayce after that
@@victormagoco9752 exactly, thank you for explaining my point much better than I could. She does manipulate him, and then feels remorse for it. Just because she corrects her actions doesn't make those actions disappear (which is what a lot of Mel stans like to do) TL;DR thank you for being smarter than me XD
I really do hate when storytellers use the story to punish behavior, let alone stuff that isn't even wrong. You can see a lot of the writers bias in what they write. Arcane showed me that the writers if they have any such issues are able to keep them to themselves.
As a lesbian I always see lesbian relationships being inserted into shows for “inclusion” that feel super unnatural and only used for “representation”. I also see lesbian relationships having one woman have the “man role” and the other woman having the “female role” in a relationship. But with arcane the relationship between Vi and Caitlyn is not just an after thought. The relationship is not heteronormative or unnatural. It’s important to the plot and it feels real. It is so refreshing as a queer person to get a deep queer relationship that isn’t just dropped in for “diversity”.
It's so refreshing to finally see us be represented well, I just love this show so much because of it. I never thought I'd see the day lol, most of us are just background characters for inclusion most of the time and it's annoying.
"Write women as people." vs "Write your characters as nuanced people, and acknowledge that things like gender, race, class, age, etc. are all going to influence their development and thus them."
I broadly agree, although I'll say that also depends heavily on things like the setting. Arcane, for example, features some pretty brutal class warfare, but gender inequality in their world doesn't really seem to be a thing. Which of course doesn't mean a character's gender can't still have any bearing on them in-universe, but it does mean you have to consider those things very differently than if you were writing, say, a story set in a realistic depiction of the Medieval Europe.
As a woman I was honestly astounded with the fact that I loved EVERY SINGLE female character in this show. Every single one. That NEVER happens. It's so frustrating seeing women constantly fall under these tropes you spoke about so succinctly. The fact is, you can't take any of these women from the show without ruining it. They are all integral to the plot and I love that so much. The variety of women as well was fantastic. The only thing that did make me hesitate was Mel's story. I love the whole "really smart woman using her brains and beauty to manipulate the hell out of people" but that almost always ends with the woman falling in love with a dude and then getting stupid. I'm concerned that could happen here. But so far she hasn't fallen into that trap. Hopefully it stays that way. Also, even though Cait got a shower scene, the way it was depicted was tasteful and didn't give off creepy vibes. All in all, I am so pleased with this show and I really hope other writers take note. This is how you do it, people!
I honestly think it shows that emotions aren't weakness. People do make stupid decisions for people they care about; but that doesn't mean all logic from that character is gone. For Mel, she only sees Jayce as a tool, until Jayce becomes open with Mel about Viktor's sickness. He vents to her and she listens. I also feel their relationship strays away from the empowering women by using men trope because of this. Mel knows that peace is important to Jayce, and therefore uses her power to dictate that in the voting scene. For example, Mel allowing the use of hextech could be seen as a dumb decision, since it ends up leading into war, but at the same time she knows that it means a lot to Jayce, and simply wants to support him. Jayce and Mel through vulnerability end up becoming equals instead of one using the other. I'm really interested in how the situation will turn on Mel and Jayce once Jinx's rocket explodes. Will Mel go back to war despite Jayce's wishes? Will Jayce keep arguing for peace until Zaun does something unspeakable that needs retaliation? How will their relationship grow or perish under the political pressure and their own moral compasses? Mel obviously hates war and death as seen from her flashbacks, but will she follow in her mothers footsteps and decide to stop playing politics? I'm desperately excited for season 2. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the writing in this show is a prime example of what to do for characters.
I just watched the second season! I watched this video just now, and as a woman, your analysis was perfect. I love Arcane's female characters and how they were constructed. It shows both maturity and sensitivity. It's hard to watch anything that still falls into the old archetypes. My cinematic life will never be the same
"Get hurt" is SO important, I've thought a lot about why Rey and Captain Marvel just didn't appeal despite being me, as a woman, being really excited to have strong female protagonists. They never seem to actually get injured. Some of that is action design that doesn't sell the impacts of fight, but it also comes across as hand-wavy "oh they're just too strong to get hurt" without actually convincing the audience of that. This is broadly a Protagonist problem, regardless of gender; they've got Plot Armor so we can't break them too much. But it's so satisfying to watch someone get back up again after being seriously beaten down; they aren't just strong, they're truly determined, and that's what makes us invested in their victory.
Funnily enough marvel dropped the ball the one time they did explore this. Thor, previously basically untouchable, then his world, his brother, and his people die at the hands of Thanos... And what do they do? Throw a trope in, fat depressed gamer guy living in his own filth. Hated that.
@@joshsmith5752 so my main beef with how female "strong" characters are written has always been that their strength is physical backed up by oh well I guess that's also mental. And I think the way the mcu writes male characters is the same thing. I really enjoy a lot of the mcu stories, but being physically able to be strong even with characters like iron man and Dr strange is the point. Not that any of the movies are terribly nuanced but I think it leaves the characters feeling flat. And that more than anything is why I think fat Thor failed to work for many people. It's hard to feel that kind of depression in a character when their only real personality trait is written backwards from physical strength. Arcane was one of the few tv shows that I think really worked hard not to fall for this in any of its characters. When a character is strong or weak... It is a product of the things that happen to them and it manifest physically.
That's why I think as far as the mcu is concerned, Wanda Maximoff was so much more well received as a character than captain marvel after her show because even though she's stupidly powerful, the core of it all is her hurt and journey of working with her trauma as a _character_, not a woman. She's strong but she's not defined by her physical strength which ends up being more of a double edged sword than anything
Exactly. I think hollywood feels a certain amount of pressure to write strong female characters that they forget that women are human too and have flaws, have emotions, etc. Strong female characters that are "perfect" like Rey, Captain Marvel, etc, are really poor representations of women, because they basically are teaching the audience that growth isn't necessary, and strong women are only women that are perfect. There are ways to write "woman are just as strong and capable as men" that aren't "oh these women are also perfect and never experience any life changing hardships ever and never have to grow as a person because they are a strong woman and if you disagree your sexist." My favorite examples of strong female characters are the women in avatar the last airbender. They are strong and very capable yet they have many flaws, and we see them grow and have arcs, both in their bending and in their personalities.
Yes, because sometimes it does work and fits, but I often find a lot of that depends on casting. Brienne for instance is mostly Gwendoline being an absolute boss.
@@shrike6243 this feels so important. it's becoming harder and harder to be truly original--sometimes redoing a classic take on something with fresh nuances is the best way to be original
As a woman, I love your analysis here. You essentially summed up all the issues writers have with portraying women and explored it perfectly on the example of Arcane characters. Chef's kiss. I love your videos btw man, of all the video essays I watch yours may be one of my absolute favourites. I feel like watching your videos teaches me how to analyze movies and tv shows on my own to take everything I can from them, as well as flesh out my own characters and world in my writing. Great work, dude, keep it up!
I am a 50 year old woman who has spent most of my life raging against the fact that I was, am, and always will be seen as a "female" and anything else about me, judged relative to that label. When I saw Arcane for the first time, I almost broke down crying. I knew it was because of the depth and quality of the women's characters but I couldn't put it into words for myself. I think I have been buried for so deeply and thoroughly in a woman's reality that I don't even know what the right way for a woman to be portrayed is anymore. I just knew I hadn't seen it yet. Thank you for putting it into words for me. You hit the nail on the head. I hope the folks who write Arcane will continue to be true to these fabulous women.
I felt the same. I hate how the only thing women seem to be able to do is fall in love with a man. Arcane did a great job in being diverse and I LOVE the characters. All of them. But especially Vi :D
One of the aspects about the "You're HOT, Cupcake!" scene that makes it more than just 'Hot all along' is that for Cait "I'm an outsider too" it's also the first explicit praise and acceptance from the culture she sees as inherently sincere. Obviously this would be an idealised view of Zaun but for our Enforcer it's the perceptions she has that matters. It's not "Oh, I'm actually pretty!?" it's "The people who don't always lie to get what they want say I'm hot!"
I like it! We see all she gets from Piltover is mockery from her coworkers, reprimands from her boss, condescension from her mom. FINALLY someone just sees her for her and says a kind word. Deceptively big moment for the character.
right? and actually i think it fits both interpretations i just saw, im sure it’s a combination, this and the comment of the reminder that she can use it as a strength.
@@schnee1 Exactly. I should add, it's obviously not just the "They think I'm hot" aspect but it's the first explicit sign of acceptance she sees. It's the door being opened.
i would actually argue it isn't "hot all along", because vi says the "your hot cupcake" line to caitlyn to make her uncomfortable and it works, caytlin gets uncomfortable and i think thats not because caitlyn doesn't know shes beautiful, but more this sexualisation and aggressive flirting is something she is not used to.
i think this interpretation is interesting and want to add that i like how they contrasted cait’s reaction to this complement vs her later reaction to vi complementing her shooting, correcting her by saying she’s not an alright shot, she’s an excellent shot. it highlights what cait values and takes pride of in herself. so instead of it being this “hot all along” thing it’s more like bc she was raised with wealthy parents and a position of privilege and doesn’t like the aspect of being handed things bc of her parents, she takes a lot of pride in the things she herself has trained and worked for instead of things she was born having (like beauty). not to say you can’t take pride in your beauty, but it makes sense that cait wouldn’t based on her desire to be respected through what she does, not who she is or looks like. so vi telling her she’s hot not only serves as a glimpse of acceptance, it shows her that instead of fighting against the things she was born with, they can actually be used in a way she hadn’t thought of (and thus also shows why they’re a good match for each other as they both have things to teach one another)
I see Cait's shower scene as both a relatable moment such as brooding in the shower - because you know she spent an hour in that shower - and also to amplify terror. Getting kidnapped by Jinx is terrifying already, but now you're butt naked too? Jeez.
Interesting to note that she's dressed, and in what looks like her actual clothes, in the next scene. Which implies that Jinx actively let her get her clothes back on.
Also Mel has so much depth ya know? She has an arc, she learns to remember mercy. Most women in this role pretty much end up like her embessa. They are treated as scary and heartless in the story, and I think this plays into the fear of women being in power. Women in power aren't hard workers who you should respect, they are scary, and must be heartless. But they gave Mel a heart. Also I kind of have what you might call a hot take when it comes to the strong girl archetype, I think people are mad because it's a woman who is strong and they think it's all about feminism and therefore and has no depth, when in reality I think there are just as many men characters like that. It doesn't mean they're good characters, but it's not bad cos its a woman, its just bad, but that's nit a feminism problem, thats a trope problem. So yeah.
Agree with both your points. Too many attempts to depict women in power head straight to that extreme for some reason. I think probably because they're too eager to get away from the weak/meek stereotype. With Mel they found a truly impressive balance over the course of the arc. And yeah, I think even broader than the action girl archetype, there just way too many poorly male and female characters. But since we fixate on how women are written, we tend to ignore all the simplistic, one dimensional, stereotyped, unnuanced men who fail in the same ways.
agree with u, with vi, I've heard people say that she is strong just because she's like a tool for the feminism movement, but she is strong cos her story has made her like she is. An I think that's what happens to all of us. we are something not because of what is between our legs, but for the actions we have taken in our life that had lead us to what we are today. it's like with jinx, she is all childish not because she needs to be this child stereotype woman, but because throughout her life she has gotten a lot of traumas that had left her stuck to that childish personality. and this happens with all of us. we are what we've been through, and that's not preconceived with our sex. but it is decided by us and the stuff that went through us.
I also like how they didn't treat Mel like an infallible hero for realising mercy. She's criticsed and called out for how heartless she was (though I'd like her to be held to more accountability on screen and not just through subtext and metacomentary) and she's supposed to learn and grow. But it also doesn't treat her as weak and foolish for choosing mercy, she's criticised, and her mother brings up some good points, even if I disagree with them personally. But the audience is left to decide: Is she evil for straying from mercy? Or is she weak and foolish for ever having chosen in at all?
Ngl, when i was first introduced to mel in her throne i was pretty terrified of her. Then she show kindness masked with "necessity" and delivered with her tough persona. It made me crush on her a bit ngl
What I love about Arcane is that nothing from what I can remember felt forced. It all felt natural, you could see why the outcome was heading where it is. One example of this being Vi and Caitlyn's romance, which I will compare to what I felt was a forced romance from the movie Divergent. In Divergent when they were building the romantic bond the only focus on screen at that moment was the romance itself. When the two characters eventually got into a relationship it felt like you as a viewer was just dragged into it because you were just being told that these two love eachother rather than events in the story naturally making you feel like there is a love between these two. Now if we look at Vi and Caitlyn in Arcane we're never actually directly told that these two love eachother, it is up to the viewer to see it through wording and gestures that could be confused with a friendly or sibling-like relationship rather than a romantic one. However despite all this when Caitlyn says "what about us?" you immediately know what she means and it feels like the characters are finally confronting you the viewer that what you saw hints of happening behind the scenes is exactly what was going on. Their body language, their choices of words and how they choose to protect eachother all hint at something, but unlike Divergent which needs a ton of sugestive up close moments to build the romance or having the two love interests kiss multiple times to remind you they are in love just so you don't forget, in Arcane it just feels like it happens all on it's own because of tiny signs of romance in actions not intended for romance originally. Examples being the scene at the motel which could be taken as Vi just doing what she needs to get the job done, or when Caitlyn helps Vi when she gets injured it could also just be natural compassion from Caitlyns side. Then eventually we have one big sign when they lie in the bed together and yet it is still not a 100% direct confirmation but the signs are strong enough to make you feel like there is romance between these two. And now after all that Despite Vi and Caitlyn not having shared a single kiss their romance still feels much more real and natural compared to the more fabricated and tell-not-show romance in Divergent exactly because their romance was build behind the scenes and not the focus. Writing love is not about actually writing love into the story, it's about allowing the love to happen naturally through acts of kindness and compassion that characters express which then naturally makes the bond between two characters tighter. That last sentence there really applies to much more than love and also to all characters in Arcane. Rather than telling us a bond is tight between certain characters and just forcing us to feel it, Arcane naturally builds tight bonds for all it's characters through devestating events or heavy emotions which then tells us how tight the bond is between characters. I don't remember a single time watching the show where I felt "Oh yeah they just wrote this to allow said thing to happen in the story" except maybe that one time Caitlyn is kept alive rather than killed. Except that one thing every time something major happened I felt "oh yeah of course this character would do this after what has happened". You could follow the characters every single step of the way, seeing how they evolve and understanding their actions regardless of their morality because most characters got beat up in so many different ways emotionally that it destroyed parts of their morality. What truly makes Arcane special is that it doesn't try to justify it's characters but rather allows you to feel the weight of the characters through their immoral actions caused by their past. Thank you for making this video that showcases just how brilliantly these characters were written, loved it! 😁👍
Cait's. Shower. Scene. Flitted with memories of Vi leaving and saying the brutal 'oil and water'. Much like the saying 'blood is thicker than water'. But here we see masterful symbolism as Cait bleeds into the water and her blood is diluted into it. It becomes one with it. Showing Cait's ability to understand and break down that barrrier becoming one with Vi and her people.
I would add that Arcane writes it's male characters just as well, and they compliment eachother a TON. The characters gender isn't emphasized unless it makes sense, and I LOOOVE that so much.
Yes but it feels more special to actually see well written female characters get written like a lot of other male characters I see in movies and tv shows. Instead of them being eye candy, acting very cliche and being cUtE wAiFu MaTeRiAL while the show mostly focuses on the “cool(maybe serious) guy” stuff.
@@quota3734 I think the male characters are also written in a way that isn't stereotypical macho manliness or just to overshadow the other characters. I would like to add that i appreciate that the men arent stomped on for no reason other than to let the female characters look good
@@quota3734 I would agree historically, ahem edgar wright's baby driver (a fantastic movie with a lobotomized female character. She still get's to be competent and badass but her motivations and reasoning makes 0 sense) however pretty much every show I've tried to watch released in the past 5 years seems to have an aversion to allowing male characters to be competent and a fetish for making female characters commanding and extremely competent. Idk why, but being a man it annoys me. Why can't men be competent. Men are competent, right? This is why I LOOOOVE Arcane. We get to have Vander and Hammer Guy, AND we get to have Vi, Jynx, gun police girl (she's my favorite character but I have a terrible memory) and the relationships between the characters inform who they are. Vi would be a different person without Vander or gun girl or jinx. She is defined by her relation to them + innate characterism. And that's such a rare way to write characters in media in general. It is kinda awesome how Arcane writes it's characters as action heroes while giving them perfect reasons to be action heroes, rather than just saying "action heroine, cause girl powerrrr" idk if that makes sense it's 11:11PM
This is a big thing. Arcane writes the characters first, and they are rounded, believable characters. In addition to writing good female characters, it also treats the male characters well. It's not just Caitlyn's father who gets to be a soft boy who expresses what are considered feminine traits. Jayce and Viktor are also often emotional messes, allowing them a full range of emotion and not just being nerdy loners or action stars. Two of the most important people we see in Jayce's life are his mother and Mel. Both Vander's and Silco's relationships with their children... Ironic being that Powder/Jinx is a child to both of them, give them depth and vulnerability as well as a drive. Arcane's greatest strength is in writing fully realized, believable characters and not cookie-cutter stereotypes and tropes. I think it's more easily seen in the women of Arcane because first of all there are a lot more of them and get more screen time than the men, which in itself is an inversion of expectations. And we're used to seeing women pushed to secondary roles with limited dimensions that seeing a show featuring women in many main roles, but not being reduced to simple archetypes or 'girl's show' tropes. Arcane puts all of it's characters front and center, with a wide variety of agency and emotional range.
As a woman who loves Arcane and wants to become a better writer, you really hit it on the nail with this video. Arcane is such a breath of fresh air and I hope that it can inspire more writing like it
As a woman I absolutely loved how arcane did characters. No character was defined by their gender or race they just were. No moment made me groan harder than that scene in avengers endgame when they did the "women power" moment at the end.
This. I've seen this moment as a contractual check on a political list. As a man myself, I felt bad for the women because I felt like if this is a best marvel can do in a movie that concludes 10 years of exposition and story building, interesting female roles aren't for tomorow. Felt the same with the lesbian kiss in post generic scene in SW ep 9 : give us a good homosexual couple that makes sens, I'd rather watch finn and poe making out in the last scene than that checklist mark (that is convieniently placed there so that it's easely removable from the screen when tackling chinese or muslim ruled countries markets).
@@Vario69 Well it probably ends up on the destination. Disney's goal seems to be selling worldwide. In the US (as far as I understand), communities are a key structure to society. To sell there, disney needs to include a good variety of people to please everyone. In europe I can't tell, since I'm too biased anyways. Pretty sure they don't care all that much since europe follows the trend born in the us for the most part. If you want to sell in china or in muslim countries, expectations are different. interracial couples for instance, or gays are kind of taboo. This type of variable geometry regarding morals and public expectations leads to situation in which nothing feels natural and usefull to the plot in the final media that is originally designed to please everyone.
The issue was not the scene, I would argue. There have been multiple scenes in which a bunch of men stand in a power pose together. The issue is that it clashed and contradicted the story so far, it looked unearned and forced.
The moment I knew Arcane got it right was when Marcus was paying respects to Grayson's grave. I almost NEVER get to see a male character look up to a woman. Literally the only other example I know is Steven Universe where Steven looks up to the Crystal Gems.
@Tom Ford lol. No he's good. They make him antagonist but with dimensions. The only reason he became antagonist is he don't want to left his daughter. You can see when he's young he despise "bad people", then he got a daugther it changes his perspective of becoming a police.
I think it was more showing that Marcus can feel guilt and shame for his corruption and deep inside wish he had the morality and virtues of Grayson. Marcus also might have felt that he's tarnished Grayson's legacy. I don't think Arcane included that scene just to show that Marcus respected Grayson.
@@flyatnight-1812 He's a really good representation of going to far into the deep end. Deeply regrets his mistakes, wants to change, has tried fixing some of his mistakes, but ultimately couldn't fix all his mistakes because he fears what would happen if he did. Really good choice to show him never being able to redeem himself too.
Great video! I really appreciated how you gave examples of each trope, and times they have been executed to a stories detriment (making a character/story lack dimension and depth) and then ALSO gave examples of when those tropes have been executed WELL to benefit a character/story. Showing examples of positive representation is so important!! Bravo in that.
Not even only women, Arcane nails representation in general. They have a diverse cast and it's all done organically in a way that makes sense in the world and story. There was not a single moment where I felt like a character was there for the sake of ticking off the diversity box. They're written to be nuanced characters and they exist to portray humanity. Whatever "woke" type of trait they have is just part of the many facets within themselves rather than being the sole purpose of their existence/personality, whether it be for race, sexual orientation or social class. Amazing job they did!
@@zipzzo Yeah its like you say they ticked boxes which overall is a good thing for many people but they also wrote a good story with good characters. That's all people have been asking for all along
@@zipzzo Some people seem to not get there is always a decision , anything can be a tick off and not just be a diversity thing, just bad writing no matter what
I'm so glad you talked about Jinx in relation to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope and said you don't see her being portrayed that way. I *still* see a lot of young guys say that Arcane's "unhinged"Jinx is hot and that they want to date her and it creeps me out so much. In my opinion the show really shows her to be still very much a child, to have a stunted Psyche and severe mental illness and even the thought of dating someone like her seems so predatory and wrong. She needs help, not your wiener...
@@russiandoggo4336 Mental illness requires respect and care. Horniness in this context is a huge red flag because of the vulnerability of mental illness.
Just saw arcane over the weekend and i was blown away. This is what I've wanted to see as a little girl growing up instead of being spoon fed Disney princess stories. Holy cow. I don't think I've ever come across such amazing story telling and world building. As a writer this is what I want to aim for. Characters that you want to root for and can relate to.
@@erickmoya1401 little kids watch many movies about violence and death, adults just doesn't bother to turn them away and let them watch. I watched Transformers as a young elementary girl, my dad doesn't bother to put me away from the screen. I liked robots, I also liked smashing lego builds and feeling the destruction I bring. Bro I wish I had the guts to punch someone when I was that age
@@erickmoya1401 Children are people, treat them like they are. They arent living in a fairy tale, they are living with us. They are just inexperienced. A child wont be scarred for life after seeing blood on the TV, just like adults. They arent any different than you. Instead of trying to "protect" them let them grow and not be scared of everything.
I just finished season 1 about 32 minutes ago, and your video really helped me put together the emotions I felt while watching. Thank you for your diligent textual exploration, and for sparking such interesting discussions in the comments. I cried watching this vid as much as I did watching the show!!
@@NonnerieYTByeah but shit don't you get that so many big film companies, huge director's spend millions to billions makes shows and movies but do you ever see women written even nearly as good as arcane? Hell no. But arcane, a video game company made better progress from an adaptation of a fuckin game than any of those billion dollar director's and companies. The game is so shit but they spit out this masterpiece of a show. And you just hv to go...What the actual fuck? 😂
I must have missed the "Wow, she's a great fighter...as a woman." "Wow, she's a great politician...for a woman." They don't do that in Arcane, not that I can remember. I think that's a very important thing that often gets overlooked. I loved your analysis. Thanks!
No one does that in reality unless you live in the 50s. Not just because we all know it's a good way to get screaming harpies on your back but more importantly it sounds cringe-inducing as hell
@@blunderingfool wow, how incredibly rude to call women screeching harpies. I heard this “she’s a fantastic real estate agent, for a woman” literally 2 days ago so…just because you’ve never heard it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
@@heather_nott_ever816 No no no. Screeching harpies are not women. They are annoying and exude a very negative energy. Also I like how you immediately jumped to assume I was calling all women screeching harpies even though it's plain to see I didn't do that, you're somehow reading my sentence ass-backwards. Work on that reading comprehension instead of being angry all the time.
@@blunderingfool I've heard the "for a woman" line a LOT, be it in various shows/movies/books, or online, or in person. People have told me I'm strong "for a girl" (I'm really not... so idk), or that I'm good at X "for a woman" dozens of times, I've been told I should go back in the kitchen to make a sandwich by men a few times, or that I feel emotional due to being a woman. Maybe I secretly live in the 50s, who knows, but afaik I live in the present and hear these comments at least monthly
@@cassou124 Various books and shows... Like it's the set up for the clapback you intend to give, almost like it's a deliberate insert to service a desired outrage. Also I highly question what kind of weirdo place you'd have to live to hear those terms sincerely... Pakistan or California maybe, I don't know.
I feel like Caitlin was the only one who really sort of embodied the 'girl in a man's world' trope because her parents were always pulling strings for her and people didn't take her seriously, but that was also neutralized because it wasn't because she was a women, it was because she was from a high-up family.
Caitlyn was such a good character, but I genuinely dislike that she was used for the love interest roll. I get that the story was pretty much already written, but it doesn’t feel natural to me.
@@DrFouFouWhy? Why can’t a character just fall in love? There doesn’t always have to be a trope-defying clever little writer’s trick. Love often happens suddenly, randomly, and unexpectedly. It can also happen as a result of stressful situations or big changes in one’s life. It just happens sometimes, even if it doesn’t “seem natural.” (When you consider it, how often does love really seem natural when you’re not involved in it? The Shakespearean idea of love being foolishness or madness or whatever is a thing for a reason, yknow.) The way you’re saying that makes me think that you view these tropes as automatically invalid (probably because they’re done poorly and in an unnecessarily gender-coded way by immature writers), but that’s not fair imo. There are many stories where these tropes are done well; in fact part of the reason why they are tropes is because they’re effective storytelling mechanisms in some way.
@@j.prt.979 Your thinking too much into it. I wasn’t a fan of it because it felt forced. It didn’t feel natural to me. It felt like writers pushing them together in a way.
@@DrFouFou You’re right, I came on too strongly. I think I just didn’t like the way that you phrased your comment. My point was simply this: There doesn’t have to be a reason for someone to fall in love. It can just happen. And so it follows that if a writer just wants two characters to fall in love, that is just as good a reason as any other. The issue is when they don’t then put in sufficient details to support the relationship in-story (and I don’t think Arcane can be faulted in that regard).
@@j.prt.979 I agree that it can just happen, but I prefer when the characters have a strong reason to feel how they do. I don't think they had a very strong reason. But then again, they did go through a lot together, even if it was for just a short time, so maybe that's why. Plus Caitlyn DID get Vi out of prison, so... I guess there's some gratitude at play there.
I just like how it makes these characters feel like they are just human beings. Not eye candy, not dumbed down…..just real people who have to deal with real issues in their own way no matter what gender they are
I like how Arcane handled sexuality and race. The world isn't predudice in the same way ours is and I like that, I don't think they should really introduce the predudice of our world, it's kinda nice to watch something where that doesn't exist and you can focus on the characters relationships
Indeed, but just as Lachlan M mentioned, their prejudices are more inclined towards calssism than mere appearance. To that society you have value because of what you HAVE, not what you ARE or how you LOOK.
@@emilia935 Your response is technically correct, but the comment you responded to never said there is no prejudice and didn't actually mention gender xD
An important thing to note is that Arcane can "get away" with more than a lot of other stories can in regards to its female characters simply because it has so many. What I mean by that is, if your story only has one or two prominent female characters, then whatever traits you give them or tropes you employ, you risk confounding your female character with representation of women at large.
Yeah, it reminds me of how the show Switched at Birth avoids a lot of negative stereotypes of disabled/Deaf characters in media simply because half the cast is Deaf, so they can show Deaf characters in all sorts of roles and embodying all sorts of tropes. Eg they have the stereotypical "Deaf girl who's amazing at lipreading and speaking" but contrast that with Deaf female characters who aren't good at lipreading and speaking. And they deal with many of the contentious, controversial topics for the Deaf community by including a variety of characters with varying responses to those issues and not clearly siding with any one character.
as a woman: i would like for male characters stories to follow your last 10 rules as well. there is a reason i like zuko most in atla. zuko rages, zuko is manic, zuko is weak, zuko cries, zuko fails, zuko feels remorse and empathy. zuko grows more than any other character in that show. because zuko is more than just a male character antagonist, zuko is a human being and a person. zuko and his relationship with iroh and his relationship with ozai redfines what it means to be a man and what it means to be a father. it redefines what it means to be a strong man, not through cold callousness but through strength of good will and humility. iroh is not a pacifist by any means, but iroh fights when he NEEDS to, when he believes he must fight and he does so to stand up for what he believes in. i think we as a world and a society would do better if the stories we told focuesd those last 10 rules and represent our written characters in a real and believable light. good timeless character writing is intrinsically tied to how real, believable, and empathizable the character is. looking at a lot of those old james bond/indiana jones movies it encapsulated the "mythos" of what men "want to be" instead of the reality of what they are: complex humans with highs, lows, and stasis. sure (regardless of gender) you can desire yourself to be the 2 dimensional never cries never caves ubermensch/ubermadchen, but you will never be that. there is no one man or women on earth who hasnt been left bereft by the loss of those they loved, those closest to them. and punching a tree isnt going to make that sadness go away. bulking up in a workout montage wont fix that. there is a reason that the societal "perfection" of men (un-erring strength) and women (timeless beauty) do not exist. they simply do not exist in the real world. they are paper thin motivational posters without depth or nuance that do not exist and are akin to a "highlight" captured in "photographs" and not a real reflection of the ever changing self both physicallyand mentally. its as arrogant as saying "i will never feel sadness, fear or failure" buddy... sooner or later your gonna feel it. a characters believability is intrinsically tied to how time, aging, highs and lows affect them (male or female). you can macho man it up and "ill never cry" but eventually youre going to bury your mom, dad, and everyone older than you who was close to you. one day you kids will have to bury you. and i know. i as a woman i have been chasing that same "immortal unflinching man" trope, its not sustainable because it doesnt exist. no matter how many muscles you stack or rage fuel you put into yourself or skull shirts you wear, your dog and best friends are still going to die and no ammount of muscles, money, or vengance is going to prevent that or bring them back. its time for the ubermensch/ubermadchen to die off, like every other unsustainable myth that gets buried by time, truth and innovation.
When u said about burying your parents it reminded me of a moment recently when one of my friends (who was 20) passed away and his parents had to comprehend loosing their son
Really cool to hear the perspective of a writer on this show's characters! As someone who just finished watching the 2nd season, and with no writing skills, hearing you breakdown the nuances that wrote these characters into existence, felt like acquiring a whole new perspective on them, one with a different way with which to see and understand the gem that this show is. Thank you, great content!
I think you nailed it with Caitlyn in that she always knew she was hot, but Vi reminded her it can be used as a strength. My take was that it had less to do with the fact that beauty was linked to Piltover and more to do with the fact that Caitlyn is hyper focused on merit. We see this when she is worried that she didn’t win the shooting competition as a kid on merit alone, but because her parents paid Greyson. She wants to be taken seriously as an enforcer and works hard to put the pieces together to solve the case. Jayce and Vi are both surprised by how much work her research shows. And my guess is she feels her beauty detracts from that. Because people sometimes attribute her success to nepotism, wealth, and probably being pretty. So it has left a sour taste in her mouth. But Vi reminds her that she can and should use it as a strength. I LOVED that scene because as a female software engineer myself, I could relate. When I got into a FAANG company, I went to celebrate with friends and some of them said “Of course you got in. You’re a girl. They need more of those.” But when people said I got in because I was a hard worker it meant the world to me. As you said, leading with character first instead of characteristics is so important to do in both television and in the real world and I love that Arcane did just that. Thank you so much for all your amazing videos. They’re so insightful and so powerful and I cannot wait for the next one.
I love this video. Something I noticed that I would like to share: While watching Arcana I never noticed how revealing Jinx's outfit actually was until I saw her original outfit, but it's because they never frame her in a way to show off her body. I like her Arcane outfit a lot, it looks comfortable and fits her really well, and it's refreshing to see a female character wearing something revealing and not having the camera taking every chance it gets to show off her body.
Yes!!! There's a lot to be said about the framing of the "camera" because nudity/showing off skin doesn't have to be objectifying or inherently sexual! Like, in film, men can be shirtless without the camera lingering on their body (or it can, in fact, do that and make the decision to sexualize them) but with women it's often thoughtless and seen as obligatory that the camera linger on their body and frame it in a sexualized way.
I can’t thank you enough for this deep dive. I love the show like so many other people, but I couldn’t understand why it was so damn good. This is exactly the information I’ve been hunting for, the show was an absolute masterpiece, but I couldn’t get over how it existed in the first place, and you just made it clear. This raises my already sky high respect for the the whole team, what a utopia they created here. Thank you for making this make sense intellectually, now I’ll get back to letting it make my heart happy. Thank you!
Also I really liked that the most overtly sexualized relationship was the het one. It feels like they mockingly took the 'lets sexualize the sapphic pairing for our audience's entertainment' thing and turned it on its head by putting a beautiful woman and 'pretty boy' on that role, leaving Vi and Cait space to show us their slow developement of intimacy. Loved the video! Thanks for your work :)
Yeah I definitely agree. A lot of times in media, they DO tend to sexualize heterosexual relationships (I’m looking at you American romance tv shows) BUT oversexualize homosexual relationships. Prob because they think it’s ‘hot’ without any romantic buildup which is why slowburn is my favorite. Vi x Caitlyn’s relationship HAS time for them to get closer without having a sex scene while on the other hand *(SPOILERS)* Jayce and Mel, the hets, had a sex scene
I love that the sex scene appealed to me as being bland af, because it was used to represent a very dark contrast in how we approach each others as human beings. Some tend to look on the outside for connection, others within, and some just do what they can to find some meaning to life.
Yes AND the fact that their relationship actually had something to do with the plot. Their relationship was beneficial for both of them and actually made sense
I hope Arcane isn't an anomaly. We need more shows like Arcane! Deep thought on how to neutralize prejudice and preconceptions to make better stories and characers.
So true, writing multidimensional characters is hard. I try using real people as models, but still, conveying all that in words is a struggle, but we love it ❤
My tip is that unless you want to include the character's gender as an important part of their character, just write the personality and story and THEN pick a gender based on whatever you end up 'feeling' after they're written. Something will come to you naturally and it will make the character feel HUMAN, not feel WOMAN. The feeling that the character is human first is what makes a well written man or woman. If you want you can also add the nuances associated with their gender after you've picked it. Like if they live in a society that just has some SLIGHT biases that might be relevant in the story, you can easily add in something as simple as them complaining how annoying it is. If their society is hugely oppressive of them or the opposite sex, though, then you will probably have to rewrite a lot about them.
I am sometimes shocked when I used to read my Epic Fantasy novels and it turns out the writer was a woman, normally I don't vibe with the first book and I am like "oh, so this was written by a woman" and think that it is just a natural difference in the method of communication. The world building and character building were typically good, was just a vibe check thing. Stopped reading Epic Fantasy because of how depressing they tend to get in the later books. It is like YEP it is realistic and the same personality types still excel in the fields they excel at in the real world do the same in this world. By that I mean insecure people obsessing over having and basing their self-worth on being superior to others.
As a woman who grew up as the oldest sibling/ cousin (my cousins and I are close) it was great to see someone like Vi. She’s strong and takes no crap from anyone, but she still has a heart, still just wants to protect the people she cares about. I related a ton to her. I’d go through hell and back to protect the people I love and seeing someone like me mindset wise was amazing
i am genuinely so in love with how arcane wrote each and every character. “deep, nuanced, etc.” all the words you mentioned fit so freaking well. i am especially in love with caitlyn and vi, i may just be lesbian but experiencing these two had such a huge impact on me. my heart was filled with so much content seeing how much their actions were influenced by their environment, and everything that has ever happened. la la la all of that… i am not a writer, i’m just a teenage girl who doesn’t know much about story and character building, but i was still able to feel a huge impact arcane characters had on my heart. i could cry with how much i appreciate you and this video, i wasn’t able to place my feelings into words but you did it perfectly and much more. you couldn’t have explained it any more perfectly as you did, thank you!! ❤ i love caitlyn’s character the most, i love my wife for real!!!
As a woman I loved seeing Vi get beat up so much, usually even "fighter" women don't get decked in the face like that. It was weirdly refreshing. And Vi constantly getting the shit kicked out of her is a strong contrast to Jinx almost never getting touched in fights. The one or two times Jinx gets physically hurt, it's a big deal.
Same for this as another woman. It shows her as a realistic person. Every character needs to be shown as taking a hit no matter the gender.
Its cause Jinx is cunning while Vi tries to brute force her way through fights i like how they show that both have ups and downs in combat especially cause there bodies are more frail compared to most of the people they fought so they use their combat knowledge and strengths to win fights or for some characters to completely avoid one like Singed not getting murdered by Silco (lol) it's really nice to me.
Weirdo
@@Spacecrytids lolwut
@@ratboygirl "Lolwut" 🤪 I said what I fucking said.
Something kinda specific-but I love, LOVE that women in the show *scream*, They *cry* they sob & panic in such a human way & it’s never played in a ‘pretty’, fetishized way. They also get the snot beat out of them, they fucking fight like humans fight, not in a ‘sexy’, voyeuristic way
But let's be honest. Women and men fight differently, and all it takes is watching Cop Shows or googling Walmart fights.
@@JJokerMoreau you sound like you're responding to what you want that comment to say and not it actually says.
Is this the response you want:
Typically men grow up seeing fights in a romanticized way and so they only throw "clean punches" and the men that use "underhanded tactics" are called weak even if they win and women aren't socialized to see fighting like that so women typically "fight dirty," but "fighting dirty" is such a dumb term when used in reference to a street fight because it's a funking street fight, rules are for the ring.
Anyways none of that matters because gendered fighting DOES NOT apply to the world of Arcane, as the video explained. ALSO, there is no pretty way to get punched in the gut, much less anywhere else.
The scene were Powder cried after Vi left her hit really hard, because she screamed and sobbed in such a realistic and painful way.
@@Aria-666 thank you for responding so I didn’t have to 💀
@@JJokerMoreau sure, as we all want anime fights to look realistic, which is why the males in arcane fight like men do irl 🤣 oh, wait… they dont
Arcane just makes you forget that there is a gender issue in the first place. It comes so natural that you forget to think about the whole thing. It’s phenomenal.
Yeah. I love that so much thought was put into the story that they considered how to dismantle all the dumb gender norms. It's like, fuck man Piltover is the kind of place you wish we all lived in.
Couldn't be more unnatural and removed from reality
In my opinion, it is the only way to actually fix it
Exactly this. I couldn't find the right words for it lol. Arcane is insane man.
There is no gender issue
I love the fact that they decided to put Mel, a black woman, in the intelligent fem role. Usually the black female character in shows is always the stereotypical loud mouth or is always put into a more masculine role, so it’s so refreshing to see a black female character who’s absolutely stunning(and not over-sexualized), but is also one of the most intelligent and well spoken characters in the show, while also getting to use her skills in a high status role. Mel is QUEEN
She’s definitely one of my more favorite characters!
I’m sure some people were worried that something would go wrong with the way she was portrayed in the show but I’m so glad that it turned out to be the exact opposite. She isn’t just stereotyped left and right, she actually is her own person/character. She has flaws, she has her strengths, and we get to see every part of that and watch how she handles certain situations (sorry if none of this is phrased right lol, I struggled with it a little)
mel is actually so breathtaking. her design is magnificent.
And I am hoping she is still alive, since killing of characters like her is a trope I wish would die.
Omg I was SO nervous and excited seeing Mel for the first time. She’s so beautiful and I didn’t want her to fall in the stereotypes BW are usually in also. Especially when they are just to help and won’t allow them to have ambition or want power.
She’s my favorite 😊
This just demonstrates the public doesn’t really care about the nationality, gender, even the sexuality of a character, as long as said character is well written, well contextualised in the overall plot and in the reality the story takes place in.
All it takes is to write a realistic, complex and compelling character, not in the sense that every character needs to have huge problems, but they need to be nuanced, because every person realistically is nuanced.
Idk if someone's mentioned this, but I also really like Cait's shower scene because of the way it frames her. She is not shown scrubbing at her shoulders sensually, and there's no long shots of her legs in motion- she is braced against the wall, thinking about her fight with Vi and the camera focuses on the blood from her leg mixing with the water. The focus in this scene is not on her (evident) sex appeal, but on her contemplation and consternation over her relationship with her friend (cough future lover cough). I just really enjoyed that, and also how the only time someone is really framed all that sexually is Jace's money shots. Ambessa's nudity is a show of power, Cait's a show of vulnerability, and Jayce's is to frame how Mel sees him- sssmokin'
sssmokin i died
sssmokin' indeed
"Sssmokin'" I'M WHEEZING-
The end part 💀💀💀💀
ok but ambessas scene was just chefs kiss
This may seem strange but I also really appreciated that the women looked very different! They had different body types owing to their different experiences/jobs (you know, like everyone does). They also had different faces!!! Which is extremely basic but shockingly hard to come across in animation for women regardless of style. While male characters often can have different nose shapes and body types, in designing female characters, most studios will just change hair and eye color (and maybe breast size) on the same attractive but bland frame. I think Arcane's approach really helped visualize the diversity within the female cast and made them actually feel like their own characters and not variations on each other.
I think in a lot of movies, the beauty of a woman comes from the apparent perfection of them, whereas in Arcane people's beauty is in their uniqueness, so it doesn't disappear when they have imperfect moments, allowing for much more story depth than with a 'glass vase' type of beautiful character.
@@No-ue5pi with darker skin slapped on them part made me laugh out loud am I racist lmao
agreed! that was actually one of the first things i noticed about arcane that really drew me to it and made me realize that it was different.
Agreed, one of the things that really stands out is how liberally they represent multiple ethnicities on screen. Cait has eastern traits she inherited from her father, there are plenty of black people with different skin tones and traits, and (crucially) none of that is ever pointed out with a flag saying "diversity quota".
You are right! I love that the characters did not look like what a girl or a guy is expected to be according to the then body trends. I especially loved that the size of the character was not correlated to the strength(physical and mental) of that character. I major selling point for me was Jinx. She was the reason, I transitioned from liking the show to loving it. She's small and at first sight, people don't expect much from her. People that knew her on the surface expected her to be clumsy and not in control. But people that actually knew her, like Vi or Silco, understood how much potential she had which we see with the number of gadgets she creates with minimal education and the runes thing that she understands solely on the basis of Jayce's research and no additional data. She's clearly a genius.
Arcane does a thing that I wish more media would. It doesn't write women. It writes characters who are women. It's a facet of who they are, but it isn't their identity. And they don't focus on that part more than they focus on the core traits. And I love it.
Ambessa Medarda is the perfect example for this I think. She is a great example on how to portray strong women. She is strong, has a presence and authority, but she has her weaknesses. Most shows tend to show strong female characters as perfect in body and character, because you can't show a woman losing.
I came here to say just this. Women are human beings, we have a lot of the same character traits men do and our own agency. Seeing women portrayed as human first and female second is how you develop a strong female character.
this
yeah, and i think that’s what they did super well with vi and cait’s romance too. they weren’t “the gay ones”, but the ones who also happened to be in a same-gender romance.
I’ve heard a writing tip where you just write characters first and decide their gender later
8:19 also notice how neither claggor or milo had any reaction to vi approaching the kid who has a knife as she is unarmed, even when her opponent has a lethal weapon her MALE siblings didnt doubt their SISTER'S resolve or strength for a moment. P E A K
Also, I like how Mel is a very skilled and somewhat antagonistic manipulator, who, if you think about it, never RELIES on her physical beauty to manipulate others. It’s definitely there, but in the background. It’s an auxiliary skill that she uses as an extra layer of insurance while relying on her conversational skills and political pull to get what she wants. And even then, she isn’t promiscuous, she didn’t “sleep her way to the top” she uses her beauty in the way most traditionally attractive MEN use their looks. People just sort of, trust her, assume she knows best without any real reason.
Absolutely. She never actually weaponises her femininity with the other council members. Just her wit/persuasive skills or bribing them with gifts/favours. She's only ever seductive towards Jayce, whom she actually starts a relationship with.
The black rose would be proud...if they existed, which they DONT! 😰😰
Dont tell them I'm here.
@@tonydanatop4912 Le Blanc wants to know your location.
Is that an aurora pfp!? Nice!
@@hawkins347 and the guard, but it's a minor plot point, she could easily have convince him because she is a counselor but as the comment says is an extra layer of insurance
One thing I'd like to add to you point about Mel's agency is that furthermore she never once actually takes away Jayce's agency either. He's still free to and makes his own decisions along the way, for better or worse, which is another neat subversion of the archetype she's introduced as - women of her position and persuasion tend to be controlling, but she is not. He's her partner and not her puppet. And I just love that so much.
Very true, important that they had that balance
@@schnee1 Another note about the "man fixes woman" thing you mentioned. There are undeniably ways in which Jayce sort of "fixes" her in that he provides a safe space for her to become more vulnerable and emotionally expressive, basically steadily undoing Ambessa's mental conditioning that Mel grew up with, and showing her healthy ways of expressing her affection (like touch and emotional intimacy... as opposed to "gifting" people with political positions that they didn't ask for 😂), but she still has agency in this. She chooses to make these changes, and she's arguably already on this path before they get in the relationship and he speeds up the process a little. And it goes both ways, because she "fixes" him in turn. He becomes more decisive and asserts himself and his needs more as result of her influence, whereas before he was always prioritising others first and seeking their validation. Interestingly, this emotional distance is traditionally portrayed as a masculine quality and prioritising others over self a feminine one. So it's an interesting reversal of gender dynamics here.
@@hawkins347 yes
Her mother is a good example of using personal agency against those under her though, which is *really cool* to see in terms of well presented contrast. Ambessa was a good demonstration of the ‘typical’ use of that character type
@@sinnamonchai Yes! This makes for a such a great contrast especially when you consider Mel's relationship with Jayce. If Ambessa was in Mel's position, she would totally not hesitate to exploit his attraction to her for her gain. But Mel waits until they're societal and political equals, and thus have equal amount of agency, before she initiates the relationship because she's actively trying to not be like her mother. Which imo just further nails in the point that seducing him is an action of Mel the Woman, who is attracted to Jayce, and not Mel the Politician.
As a woman who isn’t feminine it was super refreshing to see multiple, well-written masculine women on screen. And masculine in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re just a re-skinned male character. So good.
yep, I feel really identified with vi and jinx but not cos I'm a woman, I'm a man, it's because of their character.
@@fidboi2715 that's not even true? We don't tell anyone what they are and aren't, that's more common among cis people
@@fidboi2715 I love and support the trans community. They do nothing of the sort. Take your ignorance elsewhere.
Not gonna Lie as a bi sexual guy VI is super hot. Lmao she’s pretty and a badass. Edit: also I’m really glad arcane made women powerful with out excluding the men or always making the men lose, I think it’s really beautiful when both genders are Portrayed as equal and not more or less because of stereotypes.
Yess
Making Vi a big sister character that her siblings look up to as a leader and protector rather than a nurturing psuedo mother figure like many other forms of media do was huge for me. Im the oldest of 5 and always tried to be strong for my siblings and be there for them, in a very different way than my mom was. When we first watched Arcane it was uncanny how much i related to Vi and my sister related to Powder, its still one of my favorite shows for how it handles sisterhood.
Problem with that, its more fanfiction then writing, considering they only made them for only fans, knowing its easier to take the portrayal down a "sexy" path, just enough to have it semi defendable. Considering you can tell they were going to make them more human but ended up copy pasting the same story from most templates. It drives me crazy because ITS STILL THERE without the negative connotations of Vi having a short temper with powder which details the break, only for them to rewrite it as if she's always been the loving, caring sister who'd accidentally tell her scary stories as the furthest extent of any negative influence. As opposed to her breaking at the end
Something you missed: Caitlyn is of upper class who have the luxury of being soft on people. She has the option of showing mercy on an enemy who would possibly come back and try to kill her. Vi does not. Caitlyn has the luxury of long range weapon tech, while Vi must slug it out with bits of metal strapped to her fist. Caitlyn has the luxury of honing accuracy, while Vi has to beat through by sheer brute force.
It is not a matter of feminine VS masculine, but rather haves VS have nots. They highlighted this in the show.
While I agree with the contrast between Caitlyn and Vi in terms of their privileges and resources and not their masculinity /femininity . (Caitlyn, as a member of the upper class, has access to long-range weapons and can rely on accuracy and strategy. On the other hand, Vi, who comes from the undercity, has to rely on her physical strength and brute force due to the lack of resources.)
I feel like Caitlyn’s “softness” isn’t a trait derived from her class. One of the main themes of the show is precisely about class difference and how the upper class can completely dismiss and even stomp on the needs of the lower class for their own comfort. If anything it showed how she was naive to certain realities of the undercity.
I think Caitlyn is just a more naturally more empathic person. Which is a gem in the topside, and what Vi sees soon after she gets her out of prison.
@@cyrusjameskhan Caitlyn could afford empathy thanks to her class. Vi is empathetic as well but she didn't have a choice to be if she wanted to survive down there. A kid died and Vi told Jayce to get over it, which led them to fight. Vi was disgusted by the fact that Jayce, some privileged topsider, mourned the life of a single Zaun child who he killed by accident and tried to call off the whole mission that would save Zaun, while Vi was forced to become numb to it since she'd seen way too much of it already thanks to blissfully ignorant topsiders like him. She already knew from the start what it would take to bring down Silco, and although it lacked in empathy, she knew it was necessary to stop more kids like Powder from falling into his hands.
So I would argue that although both Cait and Jayce's capacity for empathy is inherently a part of their own personalities, their class is a big reason why they can afford to be "soft" while someone like Vi can't.
We as viewers empathize with both sides and Arcane did a really good job at showing that even your class can dictate whether or not you're allowed to mourn the death of an innocent child.
@@cyrusjameskhan I loved as well how much more sympathetic and empathetic Caitlyn has become with the people of Zaun throughout the show after she saw first handed what they had to endure each day, it made for brilliant character development. Arcane is just so fucking good in every aspect, it has to be one of the best shows ever made. If season 2 is at least as good season 1 was, it will be up there with the very best (BCS, Peaky Blinders etc.).
@@2F098I totally agree with you and I just wanted to add that I love how Cait does not lose any of her empathy while being down in the Under city. If anything, we see her being more empathetic down there than in the topside (though that may just be amount of opportunities they had to show it).
YES, the characters make decisions based on socioeconomic factors and personality but NEVER is it patriarchy or misogyny based or gender norms based!
I know Marcus is a throw away character for the most part but my favorite line of his is how when asked about Greyson he simply describes her as “A good woman.” It surprised me when I heard it because I’ve heard “he’s a good man” a million times in film. I had honestly never heard it the other way and was surprised by how refreshing something so small could feel.
SAME! Greyson is such a great character and she's dead for 90% of the story. The comment is not an empty respect the dead moment, its true. Greyson has made a serious impact on those around her. And the subtle implication that the corrupt guard (cant remember his name) is her widow and their daughter is the one Silco uses to manipulate him is intense when you notice it.
The whole series is such a great example of the phrase we use in photography. Everything in the shot must have a purpose. And everything, in this series has just that. If it gets screen time it's because it should. Hell, we need more!
Exactly, the only time I would’ve ever heard “she’s a good woman” anywhere else would’ve been in a perverted way. Which I don’t doubt anime has done several times because of the incel mindset that’s practically embedded in it, it’s rare to find an anime that has this same level of REAL equality.
Edit: or housewife and motherly way, that too
Wow, I'd never thought about this
@@quota3734there's a reason why I never watch anime
Yes! Plus how he made the connection in the video from Vander to Greyson. It really shows you the two figures have such an influence.
A really small detail that I absolutely loved, loved, loved to see: Jinx has painted nails. Whenever I saw them, they made me remember, in that moment, that she is more than a chaotic mess: she is just a girl. At some point, she just sat down and painted her nails like many of us do. It added so much dimension to her character.
@Katie Cramton Yes! They were so intentional about every detail, right? And I feel like that intentionality is the only reason why Jinx's nails can even mean something: Arcane doesn't throw in random design elements just to "prettify" their woman characters. If Jinx has painted nails, we can safely assume she paints her nails.
the small detail that i love is vi's eye make up
@Katie Cramton i also noticed that polish on some of her nails had came off (?sry idk how to say it properly). And it's adding that extra thing - Jinx might paint her nails but she's not so concerned about their conditions
@@feathery_machine you said it right, i just wanna add that a good word to describe what you mean is that her nails are "chipping" or "chipped." and i agree with what you said as well
@@rayna7055 thanks!
I remember being so surprised and so pleased from a writing and art standpoint to see Vi get the ugly punch scene, followed by the boys getting their own ugly punches, and Powder break down with snot and tears, it shows the vulnerability of people, not held back or determined by gender.
Holding women accountable for actions you’d condemn or dismiss in a man is important thematically, character wise, and avoiding favoritism.
Obviously bias is an unavoidable factor, but pausing to ask yourself “How would I feel about this if a character of another gender was doing it?” is a great way to avoid pitfalls, and examine personal bias.
but the thing is, there is a bias in the real world, so there could be(focus on could, not should) one in this fantasy world
Like, could you right a movie where every single person from every gender is treated absolutely equally? sure
But, for example, in the real world women get less time for the same crime(or none at all) than a man
Women are usually innocent until proven guilty while men are usually guilty until proven innocent(unless he's pretty)
So, in order to create a sense of similarity to the real world, you could add biases some of the bias present in the real world.
But to get a sense of novel, you could also add some not present and remove some of the present too.
@@99temporal Excellent point!
I meant bias from the standpoint of the writer, or plot UNINTENTIONALLY favoring specific characters where it wouldn't favor others.
But adding fantasy bias adds plenty of depth.
Really fantastic advice. This need to be practiced especially by managers 😂
Me wanting to bitch slap Jinx.
That is true, you know a series wrote their charecters well when you dont even think about their gender, when the charecters and their actions make you forget their gender. That is why when we write a charecter we shuld'nt think about their gender at all. Women are basically men so the writing process sould'nt be any diffrent. In general a character should'nt be defined by one trait (like gender in this case)
As a wise man once said
“Don’t write FEMALE characters,
Write female CHARACTERS.”
👍👍
Yes
100%!
Yesssssss
Yeah, one of my biggest frustrations with media the last decade or so is all the people who looked at “can we have more strong female characters please?” and went “ah, you’re saying you want a cardboard-cutout waif who can kick a man through a brick wall? Say no more!”
Like, no. Strong Female Character meant we wanted to see women with the same agency, motivation, characterisation, and flaws that men get, rather than just being Bitchy Wife, Sexy Lamp, or Helpless Ingenue. But yeah, fine, throw another Mary Sue on the pile, just remember to have everyone in-universe keep talking about how strong and amazing she is, because fuck knows she’ll never demonstrate any of it on screen, other than maybe punching a few people before getting captured.
One of the things I adore about Kate is that she can't do parkour. And it makes sense because while she actually does seem plenty strong enough for it, she has never had a reason to practice those skills before. It's that under city vs over city culture piece. She's intimidated by the heights, doesn't have the dexterity or skills to do what Vi does BUT then she tries it anyway!!! And it continues to be sloppy and painful to watch, but she gets there in the end!. And we know it's a skill cuz when Vi gets hurt, she literally does not have the strength and presence of mind to gauge her mannovers accurately.
Another thing I love is getting hurt has consequences in this world. Every fight wears Vi down, injuries kept Echo from getting home and they don't magically disappear overnight! And characters constantly push too hard! The women were allows to get hurt and have it physically effect them. No magic healing without consequences, no hard sidelining a character when she got hurt. They were treated as people first and that was so cool!!!!!
Finally, as a only child in a single father household, I can't say how refreshing it was for the dad's to NOT shy away from their daughters! They didn't say "I can't rase this child because of gender!" They were willing and able to step into a parental role, they nurtured and protected their children, and if they were worried about their child, they asked for help. They did it in a way that was true to them! And just seeing those parent relationships were wonderful!!!!
I actually hate when certain (jrpg as I prime example) stories Ignore the existence of healing magic/powers, is just sloppy and lazy. Of course, in Arcane their still don't have ample access to that.
But most forget, that word where supernatural healing exist, there would also be supernatural harming.
Cait is willing to put in the effort necessary to do what's right! Not because someone told her to or because she has something to win or lose, but because is the right thing to do.
Its Cait from Caitlyn, and Ekko but yea!
@@indulgencerofindulgence5970 i love that arcane doesnt shy away from supernatural healing, but doesnt use it every time either. there are two instances (that i can think of) where supernatural healing was used, with vi after sevika stabbed her and with jinx after the bombing. both of them got gravely injured and magically healed, but their healing also had consequences with giving trauma flashbacks and affecting their mental states. But arcane also doesnt use it everytime, other injuries like ekkos ankle and vi's scraped knuckles are tended to with traditional healing methods or whatever the characters could access. the use of magical healing is shown to only be used when desperation and absolutely necessity calls for it, not whenever its convienient for the plot or characters.
Is it so hard to spell their names correctly??
I love the way arcane writes its sexually tense scenes as well because it IS NOT FOR THE VIEWER. You are watching these two women fall in love, you are not PART OF IT. I love it.
The genius thing about Caitlyn's shower scene was that it's different from most shower scenes in that it just wasn't... sexy? There are no objectifying angles, every time we see her in the scene she's weirdly (yet believably) hunched over, we're basically shown only three parts of her body: extremely tense shoulders, her bleeding wound, her exasperated face. The point of the scene isn't to show us she's attractive of objectify her, it's to a) show that she's extremely tense and frustrated and b) create a parallel between her, in water, and Vi, under the rain. As you said, the center isn't her body, it's her as a character. The viewer is forced to feel what she feels to the point where you don't even think about her naked boobs or whatever
I observed that as well. When the shower scene showed up I was pleasantly surprised by how non-objectifying it was. It showcased Caitlyn's mental turmoil and her leg wound rather than using angles to emphasize her sexuality.
Thats exactly what i was thinking, im so glad they didnt objectify her in the shower scene.
We must remember that nudity still has a symbolic meaning. A naked body directly and figuratively shows someone's defenselessness. In this scene Caityn recalls her last conversation with Vi and her frustration is evident. Mo doubt she's thinking over and over again about what she should say then to keep Vi from going away. It's possible that she's angry with herself too for not knowing how to forget and that the few days spent with Vi made her completely vulnerable to recurring memories. So yeah, naked shower scene can have hidden meaning.
@@Ferytowa Nudity in different contexts has a LOT of meaning. I mean Mel's Mom showed us a completely different kind of nudity earlier in the show.
It's because they 'shot' the scene exactly how they would for a male character.
This is what people mean by 'the male gaze.' Everything that they didn't put in this scene.
I also love that you can clearly see the fighters having muscles. I hated seeing women fighters who looked fragile and thin like a stick. It was always hard to believe they are actually strong. That´s one aspect I really love about Vi, aswell as her nose looking like it has been broken at some point. THAT´S how a fighter like her looks like!
That's so trope true! It's so refreshing to see women with real muscles. Most of the in "tough girls" are just women who are beautiful measured by the standards of the norm and know martial arts, which itself could be fine but only when it isn't the only representation of strong women.
Yes!
So you want women to be portrayed as men. Why not remove them all together and just have men instead?
@@elhaymvanhouten7963 Well what differs a woman amd a man as a fighter?Overall nothing.
@@noonelooksatusers You don't think there's any differences between a man and a woman? Ok, cool story, but even infants can tell there's a difference.
As a black girl- Mel was quite literally the best animated black woman I have seen so far.
Well, she's not really the best.
@@notwwwansik *I have seen. I understand there are probably better ones out there but since my main genre of filmmedia isn’t typically animated- she’s been the best and most realistic in my opinion💕
I think she was very well-portrayed as an oligarchic leader of a nation, especially holding the vast amount of influence and power under her belt. All of her behavior, actions and words were believable as a character because she NEVER broke my immersion; no references to modern-day tropes, or moral grandstanding or whatnot, she just LIVED in her world. Honestly, it's such a criminally underrated and S-tier show.
@@anauthor3330 💯💯💯
her character LITERALLY had nothing to do with her being black, she could have been Poison green like an alien and it wouldnt matter, so why are u making it about races and colors now? wtf
I’m writing an essay for my University Portfolio titled ‘How Netflix’s ‘Arcane’ succeeds in writing strong female characters: An analysis on how to write women.’ This has been absolutely brilliant in highlighting writing tropes and really deep-diving into the female character’s of Arcane. All your analysis videos in general have been an inspiration but this one in particular has been so helpful, can’t wait to see what you do for Season 2!
Good luck with that, that sounds really interesting!!
Hi!
As an aspiring writer, I really want to read your essay, and I would appreciate it a lot if you could send me a link or something
I do have a comment on the fridging of Sky. The scene where Victor spreads her ashes over the Undercity adds a different element to her death that we don't see with most other examples of fridging (and I do absolutely think that Sky was fridged). Victor says that he doesn't know where she would have wanted her ashes spread, and that changes things. Sky wasn't just killed without character development to further Victor's character development from the audience's perspective; Sky died without character development to further Victor's character development from *Victor's perspective* too. Victor feels the same injustice for Sky that we do; he's torn up that he never really got to know her, and she still sacrificed herself for him - so much so that he is willing to attempt suicide presumably out of some sense of giving Sky her due. Most fridgings are purely non-diagetic - we, as the audience know that the character died only to advance another character's story, but the characters in-universe treat the dead character as if there was much more to them. This fidging is both non-diagetic, *and* diagetic. Sky's death isn't just needless and tragic because we as the audience didn't get to see her as a person in her own right, it's needless and tragic because Victor didn't get to see her as a person in her own right either... and he's devastated by that fact. Yes, Sky was fridged, but Victor, the man she was fridged for, *KNOWS* that this is the case, and his actions for the rest of his arc are coloured by this knowledge. Victor spends the rest of the show basing his decisions on the fact that a woman he barely knew died so that he could continue living and become a "better?" person. This meta-fridging gives a very different reading to the event.
In that way, even Benzo is a clearer example of straight fridging than Sky is.
Excellent points!! I definitely felt like there was more to her death that I was missing and you nailed it. Would you mind if I made a short out of your comment? (crediting you ofc, and I'll happily shout out a place to follow you if you want)
@@schnee1 Go right ahead! I'd love to see it! I'm not really a creator of any sort, so I don't have much of anything for people to follow. Maybe some day. ;)
@@prophetisaiah08 Thanks so much! I'll def shout out the "prophet isaiah" but people may mistake you for the other one :/ I'm sure you're used to it XD
@@schnee1 Not a big deal. I'm not on a lot of social media anyway, and I'm pretty sure no one outside of my immediate family follows me where I am, lol!
@@prophetisaiah08 I'm gonna sub to you just in case you ever post anything! You seem like a chill person lol
What I found really interesting about Mel's relationship with Jace was that she also doesn't totally take away his agency - which is another trope of female characters. She manipulates many of the other characters in the story, but she only asks Jace to help her, and ultimately the decision is totally up to him.
And the way his face lights up when she decides to support him in suing for peace instead of pushing for war. She isn't doing it for him. But his opinion does matter and is part of her decision. What is so amazing about that relationship is that it is a relationship between two powerful people who truly care and with their actions and words enchance each other's agency, instead of one having to be torn down for other to rise.
Because other characters are clowns
Mel influences Jayce but he's still the one making decisions in his life. Just because Mel wants something doesn't mean Jayce will agree immediately.
When Mel brings the subject of hextech weapons on the table, Jayce isn't immediately building his hammer. He discusses the subject with Viktor, he has a moment with his mother where he shares his doubts. During the council meeting with Vi, Mel talks about peace and Jayce isn't enthusiast about the idea. He builds his hammer when war seems inevitable and he's even ready to trigger it when he launches the attach on the shimmer factory with Vi. Killing the kid and experiencing first hand what war means is ultimately what makes him realize Mel was right.
Mel shows him the way because she has more experience in politics but Jayce always follows that path after he experiences something himself.
They are a power couple which one doesn't see often.
this is a problem with alot of the fandom taking their relationship as manipulation, sure she has more leverage than him sometimes but it's completely up to both of them
The underlying reason why Arcane can get all these female characters right is that the story has a lot of them. Female characters make up half the cast, almost as if half the population of humanity is female or something. It allows them to do so many things without overloading any single character. No one character has to be the "science one" and the "caring one" and the "fighting one" and "crazy one" all in a single package.
huh what a weird coincidence XD
It also helps having rich characters. There is no ' one.' Pretty much every character trait is shared by multiple characters who express it in different ways. Simply being forced to go a second step deeper in character development makes many of these tropes a lot harder to fall into.
I was going to say the same thing - Arcane's writing team made their job SO much easier by having a large and diverse cast of female characters - not just background crowd characters, but ones that matter. So each one could be different and uniquely interesting. You didn't have the 'one woman in an otherwise male cast' who has to be all things to all people (and so often is nothing but a shell of a character) like you do in other shows and movies. (Btw, same goes with POC - having multiple POC in this show removed a lot of the pressure to keep a single token POC character from being typecast as the villain, or the magical shaman/wise old advisor, or reduced to being the sidekick, etc. I definitely look for this in most movies I watch these days, and sadly more often than not I am disappointed)
@@hopeofdawnI couldn't agree more. Finding good representation and actual quality writing like this is trying to find clothing that isn't mass-produced, factory made polyester. It really does feel rare but having little crumbs are better than none, I suppose.
@@wcookiv Yup.
I mean we have 3/4 main "scientist/inventor" types but they all range in everything else.
Viktor is closest to the traditional nerd type.
you know what is funny, watching this as a woman doesn't even feel like i am watching something "different". All these masculine stuff, nuanced personalities etc. feels just natural. Because it is how it is, we are all those things...
FOR REALLL
Arcane's portrayal of women felt like a breath of fresh air to me, the women felt like people. Thank you for making this video!
people not stereotypes or the hushed murmurs and such of "we can't say this or we have to acept women are this type of toxic and pretend its okay" hollywood bs
Most women don't behave like in Arcane, it's fiction. In fact, the majority women in general are very docile and frail. Sure, women that behave like Vi exist, but they are nowhere near that level. Real life women who try to act like Vi come across as flaunty and/or tryhard.
@@thevigilant6884 hmm yes this is indeed fiction but it would be nice not to hear a woman scream I'm a sexist for smiling and not looking her way as if she's entitled to my attention
@@jackhhun2698 Whatever issue you have with women has nothing to do with my comment.
The other reply seems to be missing but in response to their comment, women are people too with personalities that vary as much as men. Just because assertive personalities don't fit how you think women should act, doesn't make those women "try-hards". You thinking most women are docile just tells me you don't know many women on a personal level.
And yes, I'm sure women scream at you for "not looking their way", that's definitely a common complaint women have. Definitely not the copious amount of unsolicited attention. Every single women I know definitely screams and throws a fit when strangers don't look and smile at them. Think about how you sound.
My comment was about how it was nice to see women portrayed in such a varied, human, way. Please take whatever this is elsewhere, saying that women are people shouldn't be a controversial statement that strikes up discourse and sexism in the replies.
@@emn2375 You seem to be projecting. I'm merely talking about the Amber Herds out there those who happily push false accusations for their entitlement. and the vast amount of basic wahmen stereotypes. If it helps I am also a woman but I took this male name for people to A) Take me seriously B) this situation right Here
The thing is one: Arcane is TRUE. It doesn't talk about "men", "women", "children", "adults", it talks about PEOPLE. They made a great, great job in these. I hope every future serie script (not only videogames inspired) will take notes from now on.
Technically there is talk about Children and Adults. There are themes of Lost of Innocence and Coming of Age for most characters. There's a reason why there were episodes of younger years as well as little flashbacks to younger days. But they weren't really the focus. The characterizations in those time lapses were all individually for the character's context.
It talks about the gaps between the privileged and the poor, which is the main plot of the story
YES. It's people, their not out their going "oh look we bent the norms for femininity or masculinity"
It's more then that, it's realistic. I'm so fuckin bored and pissed off about the usual women troupe. Like that girl in the Witcher series , I thought there was going to be potential when she entered the screen but god was I disappointed. Atp it's not only refreshing but remarkable how beautifully arcane not only represents but highlights women. As a woman who's pissed off with classic woke shows all I can say abt arcane is...wow....❤
"It doesn't talk about "men", "women", "children", "adults", it talks about PEOPLE."
Sounds like horrible writing.
@@sullainvictus"people" can containe anyone. "Women" can only containe women, "children" can only containe children.
Woman is cool because she is "woman" is bad writing. If you fill character with substance character stops being just "woman" or "man" or a "child" and becomes "person". Multiple "persons" become "people".
Modern inclusive filmmaking forgets it. They film "women" who are just "women" and who has no "person" in that body with XX chromosome.
This might sound kind of strange but I love the way they do the noses for all of the characters in Arcane, like not all the women have those dainty noses and not all the men have those sharp larger noses. It’s really nice and super refreshing to have a show where they have that type of diversity and are willing to throw out a lot of the social norms we see all the time
I mean fair. The facial designs of these characters are pretty great.
It's a shame Hollywood doesn't seem to be as invested in... 'noses' as Arcane is, there's so much more to diversity.
(This wasn't sarcastic or anything)
😂 ok thought it was just me ..I appreciate they all have realistic noses couldn't stop staring
Everything about the faces are so good. They're even asymmetrical. Look at the lips. One part of the lips is often higher than the other. The nostrils are usually inconsistent. They'll sometimes have a loose hair stuck to their face on one side... and so much more
Nasal diversity: 100%
Exactly! I have a very similar nose to the one Vi has and I really hate it but seeing an objectively pretty character that looks like me made me feel a lot better about my nose.
(I know I’m late to this comment, I finally decided to watch arcane this week and now I’m obsessed with it)
Love rewatching these now that we have season 2 airing.
Small addition to Jinx's bit - I absolutely love that, in their efforts to separate Jinx from the "sexy manic girl" trope, they gave clothing a redesign that makes sense while still holding on to that original style Jinx debuted with. It's just a refreshing change. I feel like the artists use nudity/suggestive appearances very sparingly, and it's to great effect.
Also, would love to see you revisit this after the last episodes air, especially in regards to Caitlyn.
Tbh, there is a big difference with Vi showing strength.
It's the fact she LOOKS STRONG, and LOOKS like she can take on someone twice her size.
Compared to "strong woman" in other media, that are as thin as a twig, and could be snapped in two, but somehow bench press people.
Or those female characters that are portrayed with bulk bodies and muscles in their muscles while having the typical "punch first, questions later" attitude that completely downgrades any attempt at character depth. It's not the fact that the character who's playing the role is a woman, it's the fact that the representation of strong women are either downplayed to the dumb, one-dimensional, stale, or overly-masculine character tropes. It's almost like they just casted a man with a wig and gives up on any attempt to improve the writing of said character.
@@ThatChester interestingly enough, in the game (League of Legends) one of Vi's main line is "Punch first, ask question while punching"
@@ThatChester there’s really nothing wrong with a masculine woman though. That’s what makes Vi so good. She’s the masc girl done perfect.
and the fact that she actually trains
@@vismattress5760 Thing is, Vi isn't masculine, Vi is muscular. Media often portrays muscular women with an art-design they'd use for male characters or are more representative of male physiques in real life. For example Luisa in Encanto or even SSJ Kale in DBS. However Vi looks like a woman, a lean woman who works out for size, but undoubtedly a woman.
The fact that they made the most badass fight scenes in the entire show (and in any show, personally) be between two badass women, and not get too hung up on their gender, is really telling in how well they handled their female characters. It blows my mind that this show isn't being talked about more...
it's because league of legends sucks ass but the show was actually really good but because the game sucks, a lot of people are hesitant to watch the show
@@arcticspetsnaz3094 that show is talked about enough and it was so good and so popular they said they immediately announced season 2
It is hyped quite a freaking lot, except it wasn't actually advertised that much. Anyway, it spread around quite much and so far around people liking animation considered as masterpiece must have to watch. What else we need here?
@@antonzhdanov9653 not sure what you are on about...It doesn't get talked about in casual settings as much as it deserves, in my experience/opinion. I've never heard anyone IRL mention it, I rarely see it talked about on social media outside of places that are dedicated to it or similar topics. Receiving awards and praise in the animation world doesn't make it "hyped" in the context that I was referring to. What else we need? You already said it...more advertising. But feel free to keep arguing for no reason.
I swear, if I have to watch another fight between two women being sexualized I'm gonna lose my shit. It was so satisfying to see two female characters have a heavy fight scene
I haven't seen anyone mention this, but I love how the show didn't shy away from showing Vi eating in episode 5. They didn't make it dainty or cute, but let her be sloppy, which I don't believe I've ever seen portrayed in a woman definitely refreshing.
Fck, that shit looked delicious af lol
Yeah she made that look good ngl. Kinda wanna try it now 👀
Avatar does that as well, with the girl Zuko dates in Ba Sing Se. Didn't try to discredit your point just wanted to add to that
That scene was great, vi altogether is just amazing
I’ve only really seen it in children’s movies where obviously they don’t know manners or something and in pirates of the Caribbean the black pearl where that one girl who I forget the name of is like “I don’t have any nobles watching” and digs in
If it continues on the trajectory it currently is, Arcane is going to end up being one of those generation/era defining pieces of media. I have yet to find where it fails to hold up to even micro-fine scrutiny from a writing perspective.
_This_ is the representation and empowerment we want to see.
thoughts after S2?
@Ila_Aras As far as animation, representation are concerned, pretty much the same. The writing in S2 wasn't as infallibly air tight as it was in S1, there were a couple character arcs that fell flat for me. However, I feel that drop off is overly exaggerated by a lot of people. It's a difference of like a 10/10 vs a 9/10 for me. I think Arcane's legacy is fairly secure. Even if all the subsequent LoL projects are dog water, you still have two seasons of excellent television, and it's a fully completed story.
Arcane makes me feel like I'm seeing a world where sexism simply doesn't exist. And that's so relieving when you are used to it all around you. I'm glad you pointed that all out
guess it's the same world where biology doesn't exist 💊
Why does it make it any better? People in Arcane treat each other well for a variety of reasons and treat each other like shit for a variety of reasons? Does it matter if you are treated like shit because of your gender versus because someone just wants to be cruel to you? Did it make the cruelty better because it didn't have to do with your body? Or was it still just as brutal?
@@terrys.2342 Why does their reasoning matter? How does it affect you? Are you asking genuinely or just criticizing their point of view with questions? Maybe they have personal reasons they like gender isn't a focus of insults in this universe, is all.
@@terrys.2342 Because sexism is everywhere in real life and in almost every piece of literature or show out there. Arcane's world is a far cry from any kind of utopia, but it helps us imagine a different kind of world that we are so tired of.
Hope that makes sense? I don't think anyone is saying Arcane's reality is better than ours as a whole. But it is *different*, it frees our minds in some ways, and it can make us hopeful.
@@terrys.2342 But also to answer your second set of questions, yes there is a difference between people being brutal to you because of your gender vs people just being brutal to you. Sexism is almost something you are born into, because it's something society decided before you were even born. So it follows you every step of your life. This makes sexism really heavy and oppressive even if the severity is "relatively minor", and it affects you differently than say, a group of criminals being brutal to you for some other reason. (Not saying which is worse - every case is different. I find that comparing who suffers more is really toxic and unproductive anyway).
As a straight white male, Vi was my favorite and most relatable character - regardless of gender and sexual orientation, she was also the biggest sibling in a group of 4 kids. Having grown in the same position - the oldest of 4 - I could feel this part of her character was so well written and represented that I sympathised with her every step of the way. I hope modern Hollywood takes note and realise that we could connect with characters on a deeper level regardless of their gender or sexuality.
This right here ^^
@@sokol5805 bro what
@@foleneju Can't you read?.
@@sokol5805 mental illness has nothing to do with the comment, and it’s never been rationalized in Arcane
@@sokol5805 oh, you’re one of those, ew
As a Black woman, I think it's also really important to get that one of the reasons Mel is so revolutionary is that we rarely get this type of representation, ever. A Black woman, a beautiful woman with power and who wields her power with cunning, who gets to be soft and feminine, and to have agency, whose choices impact the narrative in important ways, who is complex, sexy and falls in reciprocated love and is *not punished for it or any of these factors in the story*. My first watch of this show was filled with anxiety for her because I was so used to being disappointed by shows but Arcane surprised me at every turn.
Amazing analysis. Thanks for this!
One of the biggest thing you should also note is, EVERY character here can get race swapped to a black women. Or men, and they would still work. Mel can also be swapped to a white woman....and IT WORKS!!! That is the biggest point. They wrote an incredible character, not that they wrote a black character, that just so happened to turn out well.
Mel is like an avatar of agency that's so refreshing to see on so many levels. Even at the very end, she's really the freest of all of the characters to both choose and enact her own choice, after Jinx. Everyone else is pretty much forced by the systems and circumstances around them but she gets to make a decision for herself. I feel like I'm still just missing what I mean to say but I hope it came across.
Right? I feel like IF there ever is a beautiful black women there's almost always a beautiful white woman with more screentime/more power/more whatever. Mel's beauty AND influence are pretty much unmatched and that's something that i don't feel like we see too often. arcane won an Annie award for best character design for Mel :)
@@admiralomega shut up
@@BexMcInulty Or they pair her almost everytime with another black dude. Like white men doesn't find these gorgeous black women beautiful too. But my fear is there's a possibility that Mel's going to die for Jayce story to move forward and I'm scared.
Your video needs to be presented in all writing classes. You just, put everything in such a succinct, beautiful way and omg please continue making videos like this. I agree with everything you've brought up, ESPECIALLY 13:00 to 17:00 ish. When I first watched that scene with Jinx sitting on Silco, I verbalized my disgust, and the people watching it with me said I was weird for seeing it that way. It WAS supposed to be weird, but the writers (thank God) didn't take it a step further. Hearing you explain how, while technically "okay," seeing Jinx and Silco like that made the audience want to see her with Vi instead was so refreshing. Of course it's weird. It's supposed to be. It wasn't sexualized to a horrible point, but there was an edge to it. The writers did such an amazing job.
So so late to this video/discussion, but as a woman, I think they also used these uncomfortable scenes to accentuate the manipulation going on in that relationship. Yeah, Silco relates to Jinx being betrayed, and it is a father daughter relationship… but it ALSO is manipulative. Silco finds Jinx when she is a broken, hurt, lost and vulnerable young girl and he gives her attention, love, and a gun to get her to do his bidding. I think the weird gross interactions are definitely intentional, because the relationship is a metaphor to what happens to someone who is groomed and taken advantage of!!
She’s lost, alone, and Silco feeds into these feelings, furthur alienating/isolating her from anyone else in her life. He convinces her that she indeed has been betrayed, that people like him and her have nobody BUT eachother, and they can’t trust anybody else. He lies to her to get her to not go after her sister (convincing her that her sister is working against her) and when she confronts him about the lies, he makes it seem like he did it out of caring for her- when REALLY it was because he knew her sister was a threat to their relationship. As a girl, seeing something dark like this portrayed was a shock, because it is an incredibly sensitive topic. It was interesting to see that the one character who was somewhat governed by a man’s actions, was in that situation because the man had evil motivations and took advantage of her vulnerability. It shows something really sad and dark. It’s why I always sort of cringed when people painted their relationship in an good light- because she has a father figure… YEAH she does… but it’s certainly not a healthy one 😭
Another interesting scene people don’t get, is the one where Jinx confronts Vi at the table. She says “it wasn’t Silco who made Jinx, it was you.” The video creator think this is proof that Jinx has complete agency over herself, but I think it shows a very different message. People have criticized this scene because it doesn’t make sense to them- Her sister was always supportive and loving, and only got mad because people died. But SILCO manipulated Jinx into genuinely believing that Vi’s betrayal is the reason she is the way she is, and encouraged her to be violent. Silco believes that Vander is the cause of his turnout as well, despite it clearly being his own motives!! It shows how DEEPLY this man manipulated her into believing her family was her enemy, like Vander was to Silco.
Sorry that that was so long!! I thinks it’s a really crazy and deep struggle that isn’t talked about enough. It’s the only part of the video where I disagree with the creator. He states that “Silco supported her like any good dad would, and gave her the love and affirmation that she needed.” That was NOT affirmation, that was manipulation 😭
@@mintyplantmint I very recently watched Arcane for the first time and the amount of people who seem to think that Silco would do anything for Jinx, that he treats her well and feels nothing but sincere love for her is crazy, so I'm glad to see this comment. His relationship with Jinx does her more harm than good.
Mel; a strong, black, complex, nuanced female ORIGINAL character.
Can't be Disney.
That moment when diverse cast is made so you have wide range of characters and not just so you can pat yourself on shoulders for being socialy conscious while also easy cut for foreing markets.
Mel isn`t a character in LOL?
Yeah even if she wasn’t racist will still find a way
@@portul566nope
Best thing about her is that "black" and "female" aren't character traits
The funniest part about the “archer woman” trope is that a war bow requires a huge amount of body strength to be used
Lol not to mention skill and practice it take in order to hit moving targets from a distance
I've always thought this was ironic too. Be kind of funny if somebody acknowledged this trope by having the archer girl use a crossbow instead.
@@leyrua Crossbows aren't that easy to load too. Especially the bigger ones.
@@kormaclodgin5121 I'm imagining one of the ones that had a crank you could turn to pull back the string.
Personally, I think the archer woman trope is less a trope and more a device to negate the obvious (and suspension of disbelief breaking) muscle mass discrepancy in combat, allowing women to realistically take part in an action adventure setting in the same way a rapier or a gun might.
It isn't because they need to be "protected", it's because they need a weapon based in dexterity rather than strength. And there are lots of bow designs that mitigate the heavy pull requirement, not just crossbows.
One loved is that arcane had a black female character, who was in a position of power, but wasn’t viewed by others as a try hard,bossy, or “angry”. And we got to see her relationship with her mother, a rather complicated one(with a few toxic traits), a type of relationship that many females have with their mother(especially with mother-daughter relationships of black and brown women). While watching her scenes I could really relate with them.
Also she was allowed to be feminine and desirable. You don’t see that a lot for black women in media and i’m living for it
Why does this matter if humans are equal?
@@Heatwave9000 What are you even asking me exactly? Why should black women be shown as being multifaceted? I love seeing that because humans ARE equal. Which means they should be shown in the light that every other woman is shown
Isn't it nice when the race of characters isn't what is most important about them?
@@DeathBecomesH3r I wasn't asking you. Mind your own business.
1:51 aight ik im a two years late and a dollar short, but Arwen literally gave her life up for love which is literally the coolest sacrifice of all time, and no she was not manipulated by a man to do so, but rather defied her own father, and CHOSE to love Aragorn herself. Don't do her like that
All of this! Also, she helped save the Hobbits and has proved she's a total badass.
I was ABOUT to say... but you said it for me. Don't diss my main girl Arwen like that 🐎🌊
As a man, the idea of making this video to say "I loved how these women taught me about great characters" is amazing. Part of why I hesitate to write female characters is because I don't understand them as well and don’t want to make a big mistake. Arcane changed the game and you have made points that even I missed about great character work. Keep this series up!!
the most important part of writing people is to write them as individuals. I don’t tend to think about the genders of my characters when I’m initially writing them, because a large portion of my characters aren’t particularly affected by their genders (this is somewhat related to the settings I’ve written). I’ve had a lot of times where I’ve designed a character and have a lot of their story down, but haven’t even decided their gender/name yet.
when I start writing a character and their gender pops out to me as something that’s important to their story, the character ends up more gendered. maybe the level of gender each individual character ends up with is based on which point I give them a gender.
something I try to avoid falling into is the cultural norm of masculine = neutral and neutral = masculine. it’s unfortunately common, neutral words like “buddy” or “kid” are made implicitly masculine while masculine words like “man” or “guys” become implicitly neutral. a child is assumed to be a boy, people usually specifically say girl when talking about children who are girls. you can’t avoid it entirely, unless you wanna create a whole new language, but it’s good to be aware of it while writing.
the most annoying thing about it is that it’s a very old norm. actor is neutral and masculine (probably because only men were actors before), while actress is explicitly feminine (oh geez there’s girl actors now, what do we call them? they can’t just be normal actors). there’s god and goddess, a bunch of them. there’s also the interesting case of seamster and seamstress. sometimes I think I should use the explicitly feminine words as a celebration of femininity, sometimes I think I should use the neutral/masculine words to avoid treating femininity and womanhood as foreign/alien, or as something added onto the “neutral” person. there’s some interesting video essays on femininity as performance, and that’s a topic that could be explored in a story, but I’m not sure that’s really my story to tell.
oh! something fascinating I’ve seen with the de-gendering of words vs gendering of words. words that become feminine or turn neutral from feminine are usually insults, less so for the masculine side.
for example: the words for dogs used for breeding, stud and b!tch. when made words for humans, they were initially gendered, stud being a man who gets with lots of women (positive), b!tch being a woman who gets with lots of men (negative). these words have changed since then, becoming more neutral (stud has retained more of a gendered connotation though). b!tch is less of a gendered insult nowadays, but remains an insult.
it sucks, how you talk influences how you think, so what do you do when there are harmful thought processes built into your language?
jesus christ, this got long, guess I had a lot of thoughts.
That fact that you think this way, knowing that understanding and respecting how characters work is essential for every character makes me so happy, I can’t wait to see what you’ll make. That’s a lot more effort than most 😂
@@justanotheranimationchanne5725 This is so much stuff that is so true, and you don't really realise it until you sit down and just think about this stuff. Bruh, after reading your paragraph I am having a Jaden Smith existential moment, I swear.
As a woman, write women like you write men. It doesn't really matter. Irl my personality has both typically masculine and feminine traits. I like looking cute with skirts and stuff and being all soft snd polite, but at the same time I have many moments where I sit down to listen to heavy drift phonk and use heavy language while opening up and messing with my laptop
@@spaghetti5914 definitely agree now, having watched Arcane and realizing that it's not that different. There is a measurable difference between men and women characters but there's important similarities too
Just as men are different from each other, so are women. Arcane went through various nuances of femininity and masculinity with both men and women, and that's how they got this astonishing result. By the way, I loved that sexuality isn't a thing there. Caitlyn's mother wasn't surprised to see a girl in her room, and Jinx talked about Caitlyn being Vi's girlfriend as if it was no big deal. Some LGBT characters don't have a personality at all, so it's nice to see a show that didn't put LGBT people just to claim it representative.
yes for the love of god yes in Hollywood they just turn men into women they give them every toxic male stereotypical behavior and call it empowering or get a lesbo stereotype and call it empowering. Its all the same mary sue bs and its gross and very sexist misandrist and plain unappealing to most women and especially men who are like "Hey I know that ashole how he get tits?" subconsciously but get em drunk I bet you'd hear it
Exactly! There is a trope similar to 'defined by gender' in LGBTQIA+ characters in modern times: the 'defined by sexuality' or 'defined by not being cis' (sorry I suck at naming things). A lot of times LGBTQIA+ characters exist to check off the box, but in Arcane it is super different. It is not the real focus of the character-- the real purpose of the character to be trans or gay or whatever, it is just something they happen to be. Like schnee said, they thought character first and not trait first. Many writers seem to go "okay we will create a gay character" rather than "what if this existing character happened to be gay?"
The way Caitlyn's mom and Jinx are shown to be indifferent proves this. It is not a big deal.
I think that is what a lot of us (LGBTQIA+ people) want in representation. We do not need a character going around announcing they're trans or pansexual or even ace-- we just want a good character who HAPPENS to be nonbinary or something.
@@ohhmangos YES! Just like real people!
I freaking love Arcane and every single frame of it. It's incredible and I hope next season will be just as good. I thought things were going too slow at first, but by the third episode, I could only beg for more. The women were well written, the men too. But I gotta say I love watching the conflicts around the lack of equality. It represents the real world so well. Seeing our beloved characters fight for a better life gives us a feeling I can't describe.
i love so much this characters, lgb+ or not. Most commons show today are like "oh yeah, and don't forget to add the lg+ /black character on the side to make it modern" kind of like. Like when they put one of them, you better know that they've done it, because if u don't, they're gonna tell you that he's not like you. you don't need to be found of lgb+ ideology/feminism but just have to love good screenwriting to love this characters.
Yeah, she was only surprised to see A GIRL in her daughters room
The ability to "show don't tell" is perfect.
Take Captain Marvel for instance:
Were constantly told she's "smart and funny and strong" and how she needs to "control her emotions" but we don't see ANY of that.
Arcane shows all of it by the tiniest things like small expressions that show more than any narration could.
Also, I think Jinx used her tiny attractive "little girl" traits as a manipulation. When Silco was mad at her for killing enforcers, when he was mad at her for allowing the shipment to be destroyed, and when Kaitlyn had a gun on her....she disarmed them by turning on the "I'm just a cute innocent little girl" to take them off guard. It was brilliant.
"I'm a helpless little girl.... and I set the building on fire" perfectly encapsulates why Jinx's writing and character are so good
God, the Captain Marvel movie has been stuck in my craw ever since it came out as one of the most frustrating attempts at creating a strong female character I have ever seen.
I love how arcane just writes good female characters by just writing compelling arcs and plots. So many people have written hour long video essays on how complicated Jinx, Vi, and Caitlin are. Their relationships and actions form the narrative heart and backbone of the plot yet "being a woman" is never a character trait or the first thing that comes to mind when describing their personality or actions. I absolutely love it.
Jinx definitely did. I wouldn’t say that jinx is a 9 year old in a 16 year old body, she is still just as smart and mature kind of. She portrays traits of both and may at times feel like a child or still show childlike behavior because of her trauma, but she still portrays a scary unpredictable Psychotic villain in a way that you don’t want to kill her because of her “innocence” and I think she acknowledges this idea towards the end of arcane and throughout the story.
@@griphn1460 you're hurt by the villain, but you hurt the one you loved. Both are the same, but oh so different.
I've got similar issues- obviously not anywhere close to the degree that Powder/Jinx has but still pretty intense at times, but my point is- for anyone else that likes to lurk through replies, the person I'm responding to is very much pointing out a huge trait of Powder that happens very often in the real world, and that's cool :)
@@softhebig♥️ I’m really sorry that you have those problems and that they can be intense. I just wanna say that no matter how intense those “issues” can be everyone wether they think it or not is capable of overcoming that. You just have to believe it. Sorry for the cheesy ness I just wanted to let you know that. =)
20:36 ... if you don't want to be called a certain way, you don't need a reason! If it makes you feel uncomfortable ... or simple if you don't want it ... that IS REASON ENOUGH.
i thought he meant that there was no reason for her to be called that
I think he meant that Caitlyn secretly liked it and it was proved later, considering that Vi and Cait are together
what’s cool is how usually, in any show or movie that has a lot of women, it focuses on that fact - but arcane doesn’t. it just has the regular balance of women to men that most societies do, and doesn’t make a point that “we included women so we’re cool” or anything. i just love how casual they are about it
No Arcane just tries to fool you into thinking that there is a balance between male and female characters actually there's not because even tho they've built female characters with debt and make them likeable the male characters in that show are lacking comparatively and fall under certain tropes that exist on a lot of mediums. Like think about it the male character with the most depth was probably Silco and that made him the most memorable from any other male lead in this show. It's like the show was written to only have good female leads not male ones
@@panosa7x416 cringe
Also vi and jinx are the MAIN main characters of course they're gonna have more depth than anyone else
@@pocketsoup8338 it's supposed to be two stories on different fronts vi and jinx vs viktor and jayce those 2 stories are the main focus of the show but character development is lacking in the male part. Arcane yes is a really good show but it's not perfect not by a long shot
Exactly, I feel that way about all of the diversity in this show
@@panosa7x416 Don't you dare diss my boys Victor, Jayce, Silco, Vander, and Ekko like that. I love all of them. And I love how this show empowers women without disempowering men
One of the main characters, Vi, could've been the stereotypical masculine woman who fights and has explossions of rage and is emotionally inmature. But what what we see is a fighter and a caring, assertive, and mature person cohabiting in the same body. It's just a masterpiece of art.
"Arcane empowers women, but not at the expense of men." BOOM. And there you have it... THE best summation in a single short sentence of how women are written in this show and should always be. Well said...
well said...
actually it does. every situation where women win was a zero sum game for a man . every powerful leader is a woman "convincing" a man to do her bidding. doesnt matter if she does it using her painting skills or the way rocky would've done it. which, by the way, what makes rocky amazing isn't the fact that he's a brawler. in fact, he lost his match at the end of rocky. he was humbled.
this show is dumb. the fights have no tension because you know the main characters won't lose to a male characters or be injured permanently.
by the way, a character eating shit isnt the same as a character being humbled. especially if it has no negative repercussions. even less so if its in a world where eating shit is the norm. and if men are also eating shit, then women eating shit doesn't mean it's not some woke crap or plot armor, even more so if she avoided being killed when male characters are systematically killed for much less.
this video was nothing but red herrings, straw men and rationalizing. also, you cant analyze a work of art by using the work to justify itself. that's like how christians use the bible verses to "prove" the existence of god. this "review" never once analyzes the creative process.
this reviewer telling me how great it is that jinx is underaged so people won't jack off to her (hint: they will because viewers are also underaged and the not underaged viewers also will because jynx, from the start, was designed to appeal to a subgroup of degenerates, the same group that this show appeals to) is akin to a weeb telling me the great thing about his loli gf is that she's actually a 2000 year old dragon. i fail to see how that proves the show's good but okay. thats called stanning.
writing unconventional female character doesn't make your show good. giving a backstory behind every of jynx tattoos is like giving meaning behind the dice hanging in the millenium falcon's cockpit; it's unnecessary. not everything about a character needs to have deeper meaning. people who get tattoos get tattoos because thye like the process, they like they look and they appreciate the art. people who have dozens of tattoos didn't all lose dozens of people, nor would you get a tattoo of your grandma's favorite sewing needles after she dies.
also, unconventional women in a world where every person, society and object is unconventional makes them.... well, conventional. what makes leia unconventional is that she's a strong woman in a world where women aren't like that. being strong also doesnt stop her from needing rescuing from, oh lord help us, A FUCKING STRAIGHT WHILE MALE. Oh my me im about to faint that a woman needs a man to save her in a male-driven fantasy story. this 100% proves that women are oppressed in real life. men risking their lives to save women means thye dont love and respect them. what???
in our world where 97% of couples are heterosexual, it's somehow become a crime to display a heterosexual relationship on screen.
@@jsmith434w is the little straggot mad??
Watching this video, I could've cried because you summed up PERFECTLY how this show is so unlike pretty much every other show I've watched. It has the most amazing cast of women characters in a show that is not JUST targeted towards girls to watch, boys can watch it too and think "man, I want to be as badass as Vi one day". THAT is the beauty of Arcane. The characters in this show felt like actual, whole and entirely complete characters with their own complex series of events that shaped them to who they are today instead of just flat portrayals that don't explain the why behind their actions. It's absolutely incredible.
I LOVE the “lack of stigma in fantasy world” in any type of media. It is my absolute favourite. I think it does more for representation than having a minority character’s only struggle be bigotry. Visualizing a world where there isn’t a standard for femininity or masculinity, and where sexuality isn’t so heavily defined is so fun and it demonstrates a world I hope we get to eventually
Good comment but,,,,,, there literally is stigma? 😭 Even ones that can be seen IRL?
Class struggle, the Undercity being that name as a literal result of Piltover trying to brush it under the rug. Piltover still refusing to just give them their independance despite seeing them as an eyesore they have literally tried to hide away: out of sight, out of mind.
Using addiction to enslave people in a way, make them incapable of working so they don't have the money to buy the drugs so they have to sell even their morals to get it. Also showing the stigma against addicts as nearly not being human anymore, when they are sick and need help more than ever.
Caitlyn wasn't looked down upon by the other guard members due to her gender but due to another reason she had no control over, even though she had actively proven herself capable people still closed their eyes to it. Most negatively affected by her own parents no less, they were the ones making that stigma against her worse than it ever would've been otherwise.
Point being there is so much stigma but it feels like people have completely forgotten that things other than gender, sexuality and race exist... Leading to stuff like this, or claiming stuff like Dark Souls are apolitical despite being far from it... Just because they don't like having certain things brought up, most of the time being because they don't like that they could be held accountable for something, or that they should make changes to their lives. This is coming from someone who is "woke" and an "sjw", I'm sick of people ignoring intersectionality in these things
It is SO FRUSTRATING when it's a fantasy world and it carries over our real world concepts of race and gender. Like, your world can have systemic problems but don't have it be 1:1 from our world and stop making minorities their only personality trait being a minority.
@@xenosbreed It is immersion breaking to have like 10 sapient races that all have different ideals and yet you somehow have someone racist (as in hating a subset of your own race for some artificial reason).
YESS 100% agree, Shadow and Bone is also like this and I loved that aspect in it as well
Yeah there's no standard coz it's fantasy. Reality has limitations, fantasy doesn't have it. That's why feminazism can thrive in fantasy world, esp in animes coz even in love action fantasies the inability to do the stunts blatantly prove the limitations and reality which the radicals won't acknowledge. Ashoka's terrible stunts, a case in point. You either have to dial down the men or risk exposing the contrast.
The same goes for men in expressions, reason why no male actor can ever out express an actress unless the script contributes to him. But radicals don't want different but equal. Fools.
I am so happy that Mel is _allowed_ to show her sexuality. Not only is she the one that initiates with Jayce, it is immensly clear that she is the only one who _can_ initiate. I always got the deep seated feeling that if Jayce had initiated, she would have rejected him, just on principal. Hell, we kind of see that in the "don't loose your Nuts" scene. She makes advances and Jayce makes a small move to initiate - and she puts a very firm, but not unkind stop to it. Not an "I don't want you" but "I'm not doing this _right now_ "
And what is even more refreshening: _Mel doesn't get punished for having Sex_ . So often female Characters are directly or inderictly punished by the story after having sex, _especially_ if they enjoyed or initiated said it. The most aggregious is of course horror or slasher movies where it is usually the virtious virgin that is last girl standing, while everyone who has even thought about sex for an instance gets killed, but it happens in other media too. But Mel is allowed her sexual agency, which she does indeed use to at least push Jayce into certain directions. I hesitate to say manipulate, because this implies that her goal was something that benefited her while harming him and I never get that feeling. She does want an outcome that benefits her, but not really at the cost of someone elses happiness or success.
Yes! I completely agree with this. I always had my own agency to initiate relationships with other people and sometimes I was shut down because it wasn’t the norm for women to be so forward. It was stupid. Women shouldn’t be punished for wanting to have sex. It’s such a normal thing, and that’s why it was so cool to see a character like Mel.
In fairness, she does manipulate him. And the show does criticise her for this through subtext and metacomentary, at least from my viewing angle. She's shown to feel guilt for using her charisma that should have been used for good for self gain, and we can see that she lumps sleeping with Jayce in that category. She loved him, but she used him for far too long to where she (and I personally as well) felt she crossed the line into manipulating him. Sex was almost used as a reward for agreeing with her. While she enjoyed it, it's clear she wanted him to see her as a prize, because that meant she could set the rules of the game.
@@bye1551 when it comes to Mel and Jayce’s relationship I consider 2 scenes as the most important:
1)the lap pillow scene, until that point Mel had initiated every physical contact between them, always with a sexual subtext, but this time Jayce has a sudden heart-to-heart and it catches her off guard, I think it’s that moment where she truly starts to love him(everything before being a mix of interest, sexual attraction and social manipulation), his sincerity forces her to open herself too
2)the “slapping away the chalice” scene, her mother manipulated Jayce through his inexperience in politics and flustered him with her sex appeal, encouraging him to be reckless, JUST LIKE MEL DID, she sees how her tactics look like from the outside and it deeply disgusted her we don’t really see her manipulate Jayce after that
@@victormagoco9752 exactly, thank you for explaining my point much better than I could. She does manipulate him, and then feels remorse for it. Just because she corrects her actions doesn't make those actions disappear (which is what a lot of Mel stans like to do)
TL;DR thank you for being smarter than me XD
I really do hate when storytellers use the story to punish behavior, let alone stuff that isn't even wrong. You can see a lot of the writers bias in what they write. Arcane showed me that the writers if they have any such issues are able to keep them to themselves.
It's so rare to see written women as human beings who have thoughts and personalities of their own
because it rarely happens irl either
if you know you know💊
@@DTreatz 😐
Feminism caused this
That's deep
This, right here. People first. People, period.
I can't believe this masterpiece of a video essay is 2 years old now
As a lesbian I always see lesbian relationships being inserted into shows for “inclusion” that feel super unnatural and only used for “representation”. I also see lesbian relationships having one woman have the “man role” and the other woman having the “female role” in a relationship. But with arcane the relationship between Vi and Caitlyn is not just an after thought. The relationship is not heteronormative or unnatural. It’s important to the plot and it feels real. It is so refreshing as a queer person to get a deep queer relationship that isn’t just dropped in for “diversity”.
Yes!
THIS.
YESSS
agreed
It's so refreshing to finally see us be represented well, I just love this show so much because of it. I never thought I'd see the day lol, most of us are just background characters for inclusion most of the time and it's annoying.
"Write women as people."
vs
"Write your characters as nuanced people, and acknowledge that things like gender, race, class, age, etc. are all going to influence their development and thus them."
I broadly agree, although I'll say that also depends heavily on things like the setting. Arcane, for example, features some pretty brutal class warfare, but gender inequality in their world doesn't really seem to be a thing. Which of course doesn't mean a character's gender can't still have any bearing on them in-universe, but it does mean you have to consider those things very differently than if you were writing, say, a story set in a realistic depiction of the Medieval Europe.
As a woman I was honestly astounded with the fact that I loved EVERY SINGLE female character in this show. Every single one. That NEVER happens. It's so frustrating seeing women constantly fall under these tropes you spoke about so succinctly. The fact is, you can't take any of these women from the show without ruining it. They are all integral to the plot and I love that so much. The variety of women as well was fantastic. The only thing that did make me hesitate was Mel's story. I love the whole "really smart woman using her brains and beauty to manipulate the hell out of people" but that almost always ends with the woman falling in love with a dude and then getting stupid. I'm concerned that could happen here. But so far she hasn't fallen into that trap. Hopefully it stays that way. Also, even though Cait got a shower scene, the way it was depicted was tasteful and didn't give off creepy vibes. All in all, I am so pleased with this show and I really hope other writers take note. This is how you do it, people!
Nah Mel isn’t falling into that. Funnily enough the one getting stupid is Jayce
I agree, I roll my eyes at the "strong female" character every now and then because most of them are done wrong haha.
I honestly think it shows that emotions aren't weakness. People do make stupid decisions for people they care about; but that doesn't mean all logic from that character is gone. For Mel, she only sees Jayce as a tool, until Jayce becomes open with Mel about Viktor's sickness. He vents to her and she listens. I also feel their relationship strays away from the empowering women by using men trope because of this. Mel knows that peace is important to Jayce, and therefore uses her power to dictate that in the voting scene. For example, Mel allowing the use of hextech could be seen as a dumb decision, since it ends up leading into war, but at the same time she knows that it means a lot to Jayce, and simply wants to support him. Jayce and Mel through vulnerability end up becoming equals instead of one using the other. I'm really interested in how the situation will turn on Mel and Jayce once Jinx's rocket explodes. Will Mel go back to war despite Jayce's wishes? Will Jayce keep arguing for peace until Zaun does something unspeakable that needs retaliation? How will their relationship grow or perish under the political pressure and their own moral compasses? Mel obviously hates war and death as seen from her flashbacks, but will she follow in her mothers footsteps and decide to stop playing politics? I'm desperately excited for season 2. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the writing in this show is a prime example of what to do for characters.
also i loved that there was no other female girlboss competition
yeah the shower scene felt like a "character taking a shower", not a "*female* character taking a shower"
I just watched the second season! I watched this video just now, and as a woman, your analysis was perfect. I love Arcane's female characters and how they were constructed. It shows both maturity and sensitivity. It's hard to watch anything that still falls into the old archetypes. My cinematic life will never be the same
"Get hurt" is SO important, I've thought a lot about why Rey and Captain Marvel just didn't appeal despite being me, as a woman, being really excited to have strong female protagonists.
They never seem to actually get injured. Some of that is action design that doesn't sell the impacts of fight, but it also comes across as hand-wavy "oh they're just too strong to get hurt" without actually convincing the audience of that.
This is broadly a Protagonist problem, regardless of gender; they've got Plot Armor so we can't break them too much. But it's so satisfying to watch someone get back up again after being seriously beaten down; they aren't just strong, they're truly determined, and that's what makes us invested in their victory.
Funnily enough marvel dropped the ball the one time they did explore this. Thor, previously basically untouchable, then his world, his brother, and his people die at the hands of Thanos... And what do they do? Throw a trope in, fat depressed gamer guy living in his own filth. Hated that.
@@joshsmith5752 so my main beef with how female "strong" characters are written has always been that their strength is physical backed up by oh well I guess that's also mental. And I think the way the mcu writes male characters is the same thing. I really enjoy a lot of the mcu stories, but being physically able to be strong even with characters like iron man and Dr strange is the point. Not that any of the movies are terribly nuanced but I think it leaves the characters feeling flat. And that more than anything is why I think fat Thor failed to work for many people. It's hard to feel that kind of depression in a character when their only real personality trait is written backwards from physical strength.
Arcane was one of the few tv shows that I think really worked hard not to fall for this in any of its characters. When a character is strong or weak... It is a product of the things that happen to them and it manifest physically.
That's why I think as far as the mcu is concerned, Wanda Maximoff was so much more well received as a character than captain marvel after her show because even though she's stupidly powerful, the core of it all is her hurt and journey of working with her trauma as a _character_, not a woman. She's strong but she's not defined by her physical strength which ends up being more of a double edged sword than anything
Exactly. I think hollywood feels a certain amount of pressure to write strong female characters that they forget that women are human too and have flaws, have emotions, etc. Strong female characters that are "perfect" like Rey, Captain Marvel, etc, are really poor representations of women, because they basically are teaching the audience that growth isn't necessary, and strong women are only women that are perfect. There are ways to write "woman are just as strong and capable as men" that aren't "oh these women are also perfect and never experience any life changing hardships ever and never have to grow as a person because they are a strong woman and if you disagree your sexist." My favorite examples of strong female characters are the women in avatar the last airbender. They are strong and very capable yet they have many flaws, and we see them grow and have arcs, both in their bending and in their personalities.
W lol x
really appreciate the "here's this trope executed well" for every single trope you mentioned
Yes, because sometimes it does work and fits, but I often find a lot of that depends on casting. Brienne for instance is mostly Gwendoline being an absolute boss.
@@Ailieorz yes. But also the world around brienne is built in a way that her character functions
Originality isn't nearly as important as execution. A tired trope written exceptionally well is wonderful.
@@shrike6243 this feels so important. it's becoming harder and harder to be truly original--sometimes redoing a classic take on something with fresh nuances is the best way to be original
As a woman, I love your analysis here. You essentially summed up all the issues writers have with portraying women and explored it perfectly on the example of Arcane characters. Chef's kiss. I love your videos btw man, of all the video essays I watch yours may be one of my absolute favourites. I feel like watching your videos teaches me how to analyze movies and tv shows on my own to take everything I can from them, as well as flesh out my own characters and world in my writing. Great work, dude, keep it up!
much appreciated!! :D
my girl
This is really interesting, thanks for writing/posting (it's quite intense without any gaps in your voice over though!)
I am a 50 year old woman who has spent most of my life raging against the fact that I was, am, and always will be seen as a "female" and anything else about me, judged relative to that label. When I saw Arcane for the first time, I almost broke down crying. I knew it was because of the depth and quality of the women's characters but I couldn't put it into words for myself. I think I have been buried for so deeply and thoroughly in a woman's reality that I don't even know what the right way for a woman to be portrayed is anymore. I just knew I hadn't seen it yet. Thank you for putting it into words for me. You hit the nail on the head. I hope the folks who write Arcane will continue to be true to these fabulous women.
I felt the same. I hate how the only thing women seem to be able to do is fall in love with a man.
Arcane did a great job in being diverse and I LOVE the characters. All of them. But especially Vi :D
Why u mad about it?
I felt the same way. Everyone was just... people. Why is such a simple concept so difficult
@@Heatwave9000 they said why. don't be rude about it. they don't have to justify more than what they already said.
@@Heatwave9000 She stated her reasons very clearly, why are you confused?
One of the aspects about the "You're HOT, Cupcake!" scene that makes it more than just 'Hot all along' is that for Cait "I'm an outsider too" it's also the first explicit praise and acceptance from the culture she sees as inherently sincere. Obviously this would be an idealised view of Zaun but for our Enforcer it's the perceptions she has that matters. It's not "Oh, I'm actually pretty!?" it's "The people who don't always lie to get what they want say I'm hot!"
I like it! We see all she gets from Piltover is mockery from her coworkers, reprimands from her boss, condescension from her mom. FINALLY someone just sees her for her and says a kind word. Deceptively big moment for the character.
right? and actually i think it fits both interpretations i just saw, im sure it’s a combination, this and the comment of the reminder that she can use it as a strength.
@@schnee1 Exactly. I should add, it's obviously not just the "They think I'm hot" aspect but it's the first explicit sign of acceptance she sees. It's the door being opened.
i would actually argue it isn't "hot all along", because vi says the "your hot cupcake" line to caitlyn to make her uncomfortable and it works, caytlin gets uncomfortable and i think thats not because caitlyn doesn't know shes beautiful, but more this sexualisation and aggressive flirting is something she is not used to.
i think this interpretation is interesting and want to add that i like how they contrasted cait’s reaction to this complement vs her later reaction to vi complementing her shooting, correcting her by saying she’s not an alright shot, she’s an excellent shot. it highlights what cait values and takes pride of in herself. so instead of it being this “hot all along” thing it’s more like bc she was raised with wealthy parents and a position of privilege and doesn’t like the aspect of being handed things bc of her parents, she takes a lot of pride in the things she herself has trained and worked for instead of things she was born having (like beauty). not to say you can’t take pride in your beauty, but it makes sense that cait wouldn’t based on her desire to be respected through what she does, not who she is or looks like. so vi telling her she’s hot not only serves as a glimpse of acceptance, it shows her that instead of fighting against the things she was born with, they can actually be used in a way she hadn’t thought of (and thus also shows why they’re a good match for each other as they both have things to teach one another)
"She's a character with an amazing story, so who cares about the trope." Nailed it right there.
This whole analysis is just absolutely perfect there's no better way to put it and you capture everything arcane watchers subconsciously feel!
I see Cait's shower scene as both a relatable moment such as brooding in the shower - because you know she spent an hour in that shower - and also to amplify terror. Getting kidnapped by Jinx is terrifying already, but now you're butt naked too? Jeez.
Interesting to note that she's dressed, and in what looks like her actual clothes, in the next scene. Which implies that Jinx actively let her get her clothes back on.
Also a nod to pycho
@@ettinakitten5047 jinx said it herself, “I’m not THAT crazy…”
@@ettinakitten5047 Or clothed her herself after she knocked her out. o_O
@@nickllama5296 yo?!?
Also Mel has so much depth ya know? She has an arc, she learns to remember mercy. Most women in this role pretty much end up like her embessa. They are treated as scary and heartless in the story, and I think this plays into the fear of women being in power. Women in power aren't hard workers who you should respect, they are scary, and must be heartless. But they gave Mel a heart.
Also I kind of have what you might call a hot take when it comes to the strong girl archetype, I think people are mad because it's a woman who is strong and they think it's all about feminism and therefore and has no depth, when in reality I think there are just as many men characters like that. It doesn't mean they're good characters, but it's not bad cos its a woman, its just bad, but that's nit a feminism problem, thats a trope problem. So yeah.
Agree with both your points. Too many attempts to depict women in power head straight to that extreme for some reason. I think probably because they're too eager to get away from the weak/meek stereotype. With Mel they found a truly impressive balance over the course of the arc.
And yeah, I think even broader than the action girl archetype, there just way too many poorly male and female characters. But since we fixate on how women are written, we tend to ignore all the simplistic, one dimensional, stereotyped, unnuanced men who fail in the same ways.
agree with u, with vi, I've heard people say that she is strong just because she's like a tool for the feminism movement, but she is strong cos her story has made her like she is. An I think that's what happens to all of us. we are something not because of what is between our legs, but for the actions we have taken in our life that had lead us to what we are today.
it's like with jinx, she is all childish not because she needs to be this child stereotype woman, but because throughout her life she has gotten a lot of traumas that had left her stuck to that childish personality.
and this happens with all of us. we are what we've been through, and that's not preconceived with our sex. but it is decided by us and the stuff that went through us.
I also like how they didn't treat Mel like an infallible hero for realising mercy. She's criticsed and called out for how heartless she was (though I'd like her to be held to more accountability on screen and not just through subtext and metacomentary) and she's supposed to learn and grow. But it also doesn't treat her as weak and foolish for choosing mercy, she's criticised, and her mother brings up some good points, even if I disagree with them personally. But the audience is left to decide: Is she evil for straying from mercy? Or is she weak and foolish for ever having chosen in at all?
@@schnee1 dude u got a very based take on the topic.
Ngl, when i was first introduced to mel in her throne i was pretty terrified of her. Then she show kindness masked with "necessity" and delivered with her tough persona. It made me crush on her a bit ngl
Vi being Vi *shows her throwing a table* I love this
Love it too
What I love about Arcane is that nothing from what I can remember felt forced. It all felt natural, you could see why the outcome was heading where it is. One example of this being Vi and Caitlyn's romance, which I will compare to what I felt was a forced romance from the movie Divergent. In Divergent when they were building the romantic bond the only focus on screen at that moment was the romance itself. When the two characters eventually got into a relationship it felt like you as a viewer was just dragged into it because you were just being told that these two love eachother rather than events in the story naturally making you feel like there is a love between these two. Now if we look at Vi and Caitlyn in Arcane we're never actually directly told that these two love eachother, it is up to the viewer to see it through wording and gestures that could be confused with a friendly or sibling-like
relationship rather than a romantic one. However despite all this when Caitlyn says "what about us?" you immediately know what she means and it feels like the characters are finally confronting you the viewer that what you saw hints of happening behind the scenes is exactly what was going on. Their body language, their choices of words and how they choose to protect eachother all hint at something, but unlike Divergent which needs a ton of sugestive up close moments to build the romance or having the two love interests kiss multiple times to remind you they are in love just so you don't forget, in Arcane it just feels like it happens all on it's own because of tiny signs of romance in actions not intended for romance originally. Examples being the scene at the motel which could be taken as Vi just doing what she needs to get the job done, or when Caitlyn helps Vi when she gets injured it could also just be natural compassion from Caitlyns side. Then eventually we have one big sign when they lie in the bed together and yet it is still not a 100% direct confirmation but the signs are strong enough to make you feel like there is romance between these two. And now after all that Despite Vi and Caitlyn not having shared a single kiss their romance still feels much more real and natural compared to the more fabricated and tell-not-show romance in Divergent exactly because their romance was build behind the scenes and not the focus. Writing love is not about actually writing love into the story, it's about allowing the love to happen naturally through acts of kindness and compassion that characters express which then naturally makes the bond between two characters tighter. That last sentence there really applies to much more than love and also to all characters in Arcane. Rather than telling us a bond is tight between certain characters and just forcing us to feel it, Arcane naturally builds tight bonds for all it's characters through devestating events or heavy emotions which then tells us how tight the bond is between characters. I don't remember a single time watching the show where I felt "Oh yeah they just wrote this to allow said thing to happen in the story" except maybe that one time Caitlyn is kept alive rather than killed. Except that one thing every time something major happened I felt "oh yeah of course this character would do this after what has happened". You could follow the characters every single step of the way, seeing how they evolve and understanding their actions regardless of their morality because most characters got beat up in so many different ways emotionally that it destroyed parts of their morality. What truly makes Arcane special is that it doesn't try to justify it's characters but rather allows you to feel the weight of the characters through their immoral actions caused by their past.
Thank you for making this video that showcases just how brilliantly these characters were written, loved it! 😁👍
Cait's. Shower. Scene. Flitted with memories of Vi leaving and saying the brutal 'oil and water'. Much like the saying 'blood is thicker than water'. But here we see masterful symbolism as Cait bleeds into the water and her blood is diluted into it. It becomes one with it. Showing Cait's ability to understand and break down that barrrier becoming one with Vi and her people.
yup
Writing women characters well, doesn't require making poor male characters. Arcane avoided that trap. They did a GREAT job writing this series.
I would add that Arcane writes it's male characters just as well, and they compliment eachother a TON. The characters gender isn't emphasized unless it makes sense, and I LOOOVE that so much.
yesss
Yes but it feels more special to actually see well written female characters get written like a lot of other male characters I see in movies and tv shows. Instead of them being eye candy, acting very cliche and being cUtE wAiFu MaTeRiAL while the show mostly focuses on the “cool(maybe serious) guy” stuff.
@@quota3734 I think the male characters are also written in a way that isn't stereotypical macho manliness or just to overshadow the other characters.
I would like to add that i appreciate that the men arent stomped on for no reason other than to let the female characters look good
@@quota3734 I would agree historically, ahem edgar wright's baby driver (a fantastic movie with a lobotomized female character. She still get's to be competent and badass but her motivations and reasoning makes 0 sense) however pretty much every show I've tried to watch released in the past 5 years seems to have an aversion to allowing male characters to be competent and a fetish for making female characters commanding and extremely competent. Idk why, but being a man it annoys me. Why can't men be competent. Men are competent, right? This is why I LOOOOVE Arcane. We get to have Vander and Hammer Guy, AND we get to have Vi, Jynx, gun police girl (she's my favorite character but I have a terrible memory) and the relationships between the characters inform who they are. Vi would be a different person without Vander or gun girl or jinx. She is defined by her relation to them + innate characterism. And that's such a rare way to write characters in media in general. It is kinda awesome how Arcane writes it's characters as action heroes while giving them perfect reasons to be action heroes, rather than just saying "action heroine, cause girl powerrrr" idk if that makes sense it's 11:11PM
This is a big thing. Arcane writes the characters first, and they are rounded, believable characters. In addition to writing good female characters, it also treats the male characters well. It's not just Caitlyn's father who gets to be a soft boy who expresses what are considered feminine traits. Jayce and Viktor are also often emotional messes, allowing them a full range of emotion and not just being nerdy loners or action stars. Two of the most important people we see in Jayce's life are his mother and Mel. Both Vander's and Silco's relationships with their children... Ironic being that Powder/Jinx is a child to both of them, give them depth and vulnerability as well as a drive.
Arcane's greatest strength is in writing fully realized, believable characters and not cookie-cutter stereotypes and tropes. I think it's more easily seen in the women of Arcane because first of all there are a lot more of them and get more screen time than the men, which in itself is an inversion of expectations. And we're used to seeing women pushed to secondary roles with limited dimensions that seeing a show featuring women in many main roles, but not being reduced to simple archetypes or 'girl's show' tropes. Arcane puts all of it's characters front and center, with a wide variety of agency and emotional range.
As a woman who loves Arcane and wants to become a better writer, you really hit it on the nail with this video. Arcane is such a breath of fresh air and I hope that it can inspire more writing like it
I am a teenage girl and arcane is one of my favorite shows ever. I loved how the writers didn't write women, they wrote characters who are women.
Nailed it.
As a woman I absolutely loved how arcane did characters. No character was defined by their gender or race they just were. No moment made me groan harder than that scene in avengers endgame when they did the "women power" moment at the end.
This. I've seen this moment as a contractual check on a political list. As a man myself, I felt bad for the women because I felt like if this is a best marvel can do in a movie that concludes 10 years of exposition and story building, interesting female roles aren't for tomorow. Felt the same with the lesbian kiss in post generic scene in SW ep 9 : give us a good homosexual couple that makes sens, I'd rather watch finn and poe making out in the last scene than that checklist mark (that is convieniently placed there so that it's easely removable from the screen when tackling chinese or muslim ruled countries markets).
I still don't get it how can Disney be so tone deaf. THIS is what progressive storytelling looks like.
"Girls get it done!" :D
@@Vario69 Well it probably ends up on the destination. Disney's goal seems to be selling worldwide. In the US (as far as I understand), communities are a key structure to society. To sell there, disney needs to include a good variety of people to please everyone. In europe I can't tell, since I'm too biased anyways. Pretty sure they don't care all that much since europe follows the trend born in the us for the most part.
If you want to sell in china or in muslim countries, expectations are different. interracial couples for instance, or gays are kind of taboo.
This type of variable geometry regarding morals and public expectations leads to situation in which nothing feels natural and usefull to the plot in the final media that is originally designed to please everyone.
The issue was not the scene, I would argue. There have been multiple scenes in which a bunch of men stand in a power pose together. The issue is that it clashed and contradicted the story so far, it looked unearned and forced.
The moment I knew Arcane got it right was when Marcus was paying respects to Grayson's grave. I almost NEVER get to see a male character look up to a woman. Literally the only other example I know is Steven Universe where Steven looks up to the Crystal Gems.
@Tom Ford what? Bc he’s one of the antogonists of the story?
@Tom Ford lol. No he's good. They make him antagonist but with dimensions. The only reason he became antagonist is he don't want to left his daughter. You can see when he's young he despise "bad people", then he got a daugther it changes his perspective of becoming a police.
metal gear solid
I think it was more showing that Marcus can feel guilt and shame for his corruption and deep inside wish he had the morality and virtues of Grayson. Marcus also might have felt that he's tarnished Grayson's legacy.
I don't think Arcane included that scene just to show that Marcus respected Grayson.
@@flyatnight-1812 He's a really good representation of going to far into the deep end. Deeply regrets his mistakes, wants to change, has tried fixing some of his mistakes, but ultimately couldn't fix all his mistakes because he fears what would happen if he did.
Really good choice to show him never being able to redeem himself too.
Great video! I really appreciated how you gave examples of each trope, and times they have been executed to a stories detriment (making a character/story lack dimension and depth) and then ALSO gave examples of when those tropes have been executed WELL to benefit a character/story. Showing examples of positive representation is so important!! Bravo in that.
Not even only women, Arcane nails representation in general. They have a diverse cast and it's all done organically in a way that makes sense in the world and story. There was not a single moment where I felt like a character was there for the sake of ticking off the diversity box. They're written to be nuanced characters and they exist to portray humanity.
Whatever "woke" type of trait they have is just part of the many facets within themselves rather than being the sole purpose of their existence/personality, whether it be for race, sexual orientation or social class. Amazing job they did!
I mean...they *did* do it to tick boxes, let's be real, but Arcane did a pretty good job of keeping it as natural feeling as possible.
@@zipzzo Yeah its like you say they ticked boxes which overall is a good thing for many people but they also wrote a good story with good characters. That's all people have been asking for all along
@@zipzzo Some people seem to not get there is always a decision , anything can be a tick off and not just be a diversity thing, just bad writing no matter what
@@zipzzo Or maybe they didn't.
And disability representation as well! Viktor is one of the only well-rounded characters with a physical disability that I can think of.
I'm so glad you talked about Jinx in relation to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope and said you don't see her being portrayed that way. I *still* see a lot of young guys say that Arcane's "unhinged"Jinx is hot and that they want to date her and it creeps me out so much. In my opinion the show really shows her to be still very much a child, to have a stunted Psyche and severe mental illness and even the thought of dating someone like her seems so predatory and wrong. She needs help, not your wiener...
Hey... don't kinkshame
@@russiandoggo4336 Mental illness requires respect and care. Horniness in this context is a huge red flag because of the vulnerability of mental illness.
@@stephenleskowat4482 idk people fetishize crazy ppl all the time
@@russiandoggo4336 even so, that doesn't make fetishization okay in any context.
@@aokoi I say you can fantasize about whatever you want.
Just saw arcane over the weekend and i was blown away. This is what I've wanted to see as a little girl growing up instead of being spoon fed Disney princess stories. Holy cow. I don't think I've ever come across such amazing story telling and world building. As a writer this is what I want to aim for. Characters that you want to root for and can relate to.
As a little girl watching people shoot, kill, die and a lot of blood. You would have truly bad parents to do that
I wish you best luck in crafting and selling your own stories!
@@erickmoya1401 little kids watch many movies about violence and death, adults just doesn't bother to turn them away and let them watch.
I watched Transformers as a young elementary girl, my dad doesn't bother to put me away from the screen. I liked robots, I also liked smashing lego builds and feeling the destruction I bring. Bro I wish I had the guts to punch someone when I was that age
@@avourrito1819 Still bad parenting to make kids get close to violence when they cannot distinguish reality from fantasy
@@erickmoya1401 Children are people, treat them like they are. They arent living in a fairy tale, they are living with us. They are just inexperienced. A child wont be scarred for life after seeing blood on the TV, just like adults. They arent any different than you. Instead of trying to "protect" them let them grow and not be scared of everything.
I just finished season 1 about 32 minutes ago, and your video really helped me put together the emotions I felt while watching. Thank you for your diligent textual exploration, and for sparking such interesting discussions in the comments. I cried watching this vid as much as I did watching the show!!
Have you started Season 2?
@@giygas9305 not yet, I actually want to rewatch season 1 first! I feel like there's so much I missed
@@mollycallison2759 Yes. I binged the whole show in about a week, the first season was so good.
A video game adaptation has no right being as nuanced and well written as Arcane was.
except when you actually have an vague idea of their background with League lore and quotes in game
@@NonnerieYTByeah but shit don't you get that so many big film companies, huge director's spend millions to billions makes shows and movies but do you ever see women written even nearly as good as arcane? Hell no. But arcane, a video game company made better progress from an adaptation of a fuckin game than any of those billion dollar director's and companies.
The game is so shit but they spit out this masterpiece of a show. And you just hv to go...What the actual fuck? 😂
Especially not when it’s League😭😭
@@sand_eater101 literally.. if LoL can do it, there are really no excuses for other companies
Tbf the Lol lore is pretty interesting, besides de fandom and everything else
I must have missed the "Wow, she's a great fighter...as a woman." "Wow, she's a great politician...for a woman." They don't do that in Arcane, not that I can remember. I think that's a very important thing that often gets overlooked. I loved your analysis. Thanks!
No one does that in reality unless you live in the 50s. Not just because we all know it's a good way to get screaming harpies on your back but more importantly it sounds cringe-inducing as hell
@@blunderingfool wow, how incredibly rude to call women screeching harpies. I heard this “she’s a fantastic real estate agent, for a woman” literally 2 days ago so…just because you’ve never heard it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
@@heather_nott_ever816 No no no. Screeching harpies are not women. They are annoying and exude a very negative energy. Also I like how you immediately jumped to assume I was calling all women screeching harpies even though it's plain to see I didn't do that, you're somehow reading my sentence ass-backwards. Work on that reading comprehension instead of being angry all the time.
@@blunderingfool I've heard the "for a woman" line a LOT, be it in various shows/movies/books, or online, or in person. People have told me I'm strong "for a girl" (I'm really not... so idk), or that I'm good at X "for a woman" dozens of times, I've been told I should go back in the kitchen to make a sandwich by men a few times, or that I feel emotional due to being a woman. Maybe I secretly live in the 50s, who knows, but afaik I live in the present and hear these comments at least monthly
@@cassou124 Various books and shows... Like it's the set up for the clapback you intend to give, almost like it's a deliberate insert to service a desired outrage.
Also I highly question what kind of weirdo place you'd have to live to hear those terms sincerely... Pakistan or California maybe, I don't know.
I feel like Caitlin was the only one who really sort of embodied the 'girl in a man's world' trope because her parents were always pulling strings for her and people didn't take her seriously, but that was also neutralized because it wasn't because she was a women, it was because she was from a high-up family.
Caitlyn was such a good character, but I genuinely dislike that she was used for the love interest roll. I get that the story was pretty much already written, but it doesn’t feel natural to me.
@@DrFouFouWhy? Why can’t a character just fall in love? There doesn’t always have to be a trope-defying clever little writer’s trick.
Love often happens suddenly, randomly, and unexpectedly. It can also happen as a result of stressful situations or big changes in one’s life. It just happens sometimes, even if it doesn’t “seem natural.” (When you consider it, how often does love really seem natural when you’re not involved in it? The Shakespearean idea of love being foolishness or madness or whatever is a thing for a reason, yknow.)
The way you’re saying that makes me think that you view these tropes as automatically invalid (probably because they’re done poorly and in an unnecessarily gender-coded way by immature writers), but that’s not fair imo. There are many stories where these tropes are done well; in fact part of the reason why they are tropes is because they’re effective storytelling mechanisms in some way.
@@j.prt.979 Your thinking too much into it. I wasn’t a fan of it because it felt forced. It didn’t feel natural to me. It felt like writers pushing them together in a way.
@@DrFouFou You’re right, I came on too strongly. I think I just didn’t like the way that you phrased your comment.
My point was simply this: There doesn’t have to be a reason for someone to fall in love. It can just happen. And so it follows that if a writer just wants two characters to fall in love, that is just as good a reason as any other. The issue is when they don’t then put in sufficient details to support the relationship in-story (and I don’t think Arcane can be faulted in that regard).
@@j.prt.979 I agree that it can just happen, but I prefer when the characters have a strong reason to feel how they do. I don't think they had a very strong reason. But then again, they did go through a lot together, even if it was for just a short time, so maybe that's why. Plus Caitlyn DID get Vi out of prison, so... I guess there's some gratitude at play there.
I just like how it makes these characters feel like they are just human beings. Not eye candy, not dumbed down…..just real people who have to deal with real issues in their own way no matter what gender they are
I like how Arcane handled sexuality and race. The world isn't predudice in the same way ours is and I like that, I don't think they should really introduce the predudice of our world, it's kinda nice to watch something where that doesn't exist and you can focus on the characters relationships
Indeed, but just as Lachlan M mentioned, their prejudices are more inclined towards calssism than mere appearance. To that society you have value because of what you HAVE, not what you ARE or how you LOOK.
@@emilia935 Your response is technically correct, but the comment you responded to never said there is no prejudice and didn't actually mention gender xD
@@Emma-Maze Fair point. I don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote this, but I clearly misread the comment. I deleted the original.
Well it still involves prejudice because the rich look down on the poor. Its about elitism more than anything.
@@Heatwave9000 I only meant sexuality/racism in my post, I know the story focuses on the class system, sorry for the confusion 😅
An important thing to note is that Arcane can "get away" with more than a lot of other stories can in regards to its female characters simply because it has so many. What I mean by that is, if your story only has one or two prominent female characters, then whatever traits you give them or tropes you employ, you risk confounding your female character with representation of women at large.
yes strength in numbers for sure
Yeah, it reminds me of how the show Switched at Birth avoids a lot of negative stereotypes of disabled/Deaf characters in media simply because half the cast is Deaf, so they can show Deaf characters in all sorts of roles and embodying all sorts of tropes. Eg they have the stereotypical "Deaf girl who's amazing at lipreading and speaking" but contrast that with Deaf female characters who aren't good at lipreading and speaking. And they deal with many of the contentious, controversial topics for the Deaf community by including a variety of characters with varying responses to those issues and not clearly siding with any one character.
as a woman: i would like for male characters stories to follow your last 10 rules as well. there is a reason i like zuko most in atla. zuko rages, zuko is manic, zuko is weak, zuko cries, zuko fails, zuko feels remorse and empathy. zuko grows more than any other character in that show. because zuko is more than just a male character antagonist, zuko is a human being and a person. zuko and his relationship with iroh and his relationship with ozai redfines what it means to be a man and what it means to be a father. it redefines what it means to be a strong man, not through cold callousness but through strength of good will and humility.
iroh is not a pacifist by any means, but iroh fights when he NEEDS to, when he believes he must fight and he does so to stand up for what he believes in. i think we as a world and a society would do better if the stories we told focuesd those last 10 rules and represent our written characters in a real and believable light. good timeless character writing is intrinsically tied to how real, believable, and empathizable the character is. looking at a lot of those old james bond/indiana jones movies it encapsulated the "mythos" of what men "want to be" instead of the reality of what they are: complex humans with highs, lows, and stasis.
sure (regardless of gender) you can desire yourself to be the 2 dimensional never cries never caves ubermensch/ubermadchen, but you will never be that. there is no one man or women on earth who hasnt been left bereft by the loss of those they loved, those closest to them. and punching a tree isnt going to make that sadness go away. bulking up in a workout montage wont fix that. there is a reason that the societal "perfection" of men (un-erring strength) and women (timeless beauty) do not exist. they simply do not exist in the real world. they are paper thin motivational posters without depth or nuance that do not exist and are akin to a "highlight" captured in "photographs" and not a real reflection of the ever changing self both physicallyand mentally. its as arrogant as saying "i will never feel sadness, fear or failure" buddy... sooner or later your gonna feel it.
a characters believability is intrinsically tied to how time, aging, highs and lows affect them (male or female). you can macho man it up and "ill never cry" but eventually youre going to bury your mom, dad, and everyone older than you who was close to you. one day you kids will have to bury you. and i know. i as a woman i have been chasing that same "immortal unflinching man" trope, its not sustainable because it doesnt exist. no matter how many muscles you stack or rage fuel you put into yourself or skull shirts you wear, your dog and best friends are still going to die and no ammount of muscles, money, or vengance is going to prevent that or bring them back. its time for the ubermensch/ubermadchen to die off, like every other unsustainable myth that gets buried by time, truth and innovation.
mm yes
May I respectfully suggest paragraph breaks, and double spacing after sentences. Thank you.
@@phillipayriss3608 understandable but youtube mobiles editing/copy/paste features are dogsh*t
@@kaiyote7924 yeah, tbh it should be like reddit considering how popular it is
When u said about burying your parents it reminded me of a moment recently when one of my friends (who was 20) passed away and his parents had to comprehend loosing their son
Really cool to hear the perspective of a writer on this show's characters! As someone who just finished watching the 2nd season, and with no writing skills, hearing you breakdown the nuances that wrote these characters into existence, felt like acquiring a whole new perspective on them, one with a different way with which to see and understand the gem that this show is. Thank you, great content!
Even as a female writer, I find this analysis and advise very eye opening. Just a lot of ideas i hadn't even considered previously.
@@user-kt1oq9oq6b *utterly defenestrated*
Same!
I think you nailed it with Caitlyn in that she always knew she was hot, but Vi reminded her it can be used as a strength. My take was that it had less to do with the fact that beauty was linked to Piltover and more to do with the fact that Caitlyn is hyper focused on merit. We see this when she is worried that she didn’t win the shooting competition as a kid on merit alone, but because her parents paid Greyson. She wants to be taken seriously as an enforcer and works hard to put the pieces together to solve the case. Jayce and Vi are both surprised by how much work her research shows. And my guess is she feels her beauty detracts from that. Because people sometimes attribute her success to nepotism, wealth, and probably being pretty. So it has left a sour taste in her mouth. But Vi reminds her that she can and should use it as a strength. I LOVED that scene because as a female software engineer myself, I could relate. When I got into a FAANG company, I went to celebrate with friends and some of them said “Of course you got in. You’re a girl. They need more of those.” But when people said I got in because I was a hard worker it meant the world to me. As you said, leading with character first instead of characteristics is so important to do in both television and in the real world and I love that Arcane did just that. Thank you so much for all your amazing videos. They’re so insightful and so powerful and I cannot wait for the next one.
thissss
as a female cs kid i felt that ;_;
I love this video. Something I noticed that I would like to share: While watching Arcana I never noticed how revealing Jinx's outfit actually was until I saw her original outfit, but it's because they never frame her in a way to show off her body. I like her Arcane outfit a lot, it looks comfortable and fits her really well, and it's refreshing to see a female character wearing something revealing and not having the camera taking every chance it gets to show off her body.
Yes!!!!! Excellent point!
Yes!!! There's a lot to be said about the framing of the "camera" because nudity/showing off skin doesn't have to be objectifying or inherently sexual! Like, in film, men can be shirtless without the camera lingering on their body (or it can, in fact, do that and make the decision to sexualize them) but with women it's often thoughtless and seen as obligatory that the camera linger on their body and frame it in a sexualized way.
Lol I rewatched the show with my mom and she pretty quickly commented on both Jinx and Cait’s outfits.
I can’t thank you enough for this deep dive. I love the show like so many other people, but I couldn’t understand why it was so damn good. This is exactly the information I’ve been hunting for, the show was an absolute masterpiece, but I couldn’t get over how it existed in the first place, and you just made it clear. This raises my already sky high respect for the the whole team, what a utopia they created here. Thank you for making this make sense intellectually, now I’ll get back to letting it make my heart happy. Thank you!
Also I really liked that the most overtly sexualized relationship was the het one. It feels like they mockingly took the 'lets sexualize the sapphic pairing for our audience's entertainment' thing and turned it on its head by putting a beautiful woman and 'pretty boy' on that role, leaving Vi and Cait space to show us their slow developement of intimacy.
Loved the video! Thanks for your work :)
Yeah I definitely agree. A lot of times in media, they DO tend to sexualize heterosexual relationships (I’m looking at you American romance tv shows) BUT oversexualize homosexual relationships. Prob because they think it’s ‘hot’ without any romantic buildup which is why slowburn is my favorite. Vi x Caitlyn’s relationship HAS time for them to get closer without having a sex scene while on the other hand
*(SPOILERS)*
Jayce and Mel, the hets, had a sex scene
I love that the sex scene appealed to me as being bland af, because it was used to represent a very dark contrast in how we approach each others as human beings. Some tend to look on the outside for connection, others within, and some just do what they can to find some meaning to life.
Yeah... good thing there were Mel and Jayce. ^^;
Jesus🤣
Yes AND the fact that their relationship actually had something to do with the plot. Their relationship was beneficial for both of them and actually made sense
As a women who is planning a novel, I literally took notes watching this, because even I struggle writing women characters
I hope Arcane isn't an anomaly. We need more shows like Arcane! Deep thought on how to neutralize prejudice and preconceptions to make better stories and characers.
So true, writing multidimensional characters is hard. I try using real people as models, but still, conveying all that in words is a struggle, but we love it ❤
@@pax6833 Cyberpunk Edgerunners also does a masterful job of character writing but they do seem to be anomalies at least among modern shows.
My tip is that unless you want to include the character's gender as an important part of their character, just write the personality and story and THEN pick a gender based on whatever you end up 'feeling' after they're written. Something will come to you naturally and it will make the character feel HUMAN, not feel WOMAN. The feeling that the character is human first is what makes a well written man or woman.
If you want you can also add the nuances associated with their gender after you've picked it. Like if they live in a society that just has some SLIGHT biases that might be relevant in the story, you can easily add in something as simple as them complaining how annoying it is. If their society is hugely oppressive of them or the opposite sex, though, then you will probably have to rewrite a lot about them.
I am sometimes shocked when I used to read my Epic Fantasy novels and it turns out the writer was a woman, normally I don't vibe with the first book and I am like "oh, so this was written by a woman" and think that it is just a natural difference in the method of communication. The world building and character building were typically good, was just a vibe check thing.
Stopped reading Epic Fantasy because of how depressing they tend to get in the later books. It is like YEP it is realistic and the same personality types still excel in the fields they excel at in the real world do the same in this world. By that I mean insecure people obsessing over having and basing their self-worth on being superior to others.
As a woman who grew up as the oldest sibling/ cousin (my cousins and I are close) it was great to see someone like Vi. She’s strong and takes no crap from anyone, but she still has a heart, still just wants to protect the people she cares about. I related a ton to her. I’d go through hell and back to protect the people I love and seeing someone like me mindset wise was amazing
Same same and same
Absolutely same
SAME
i am genuinely so in love with how arcane wrote each and every character. “deep, nuanced, etc.” all the words you mentioned fit so freaking well. i am especially in love with caitlyn and vi, i may just be lesbian but experiencing these two had such a huge impact on me. my heart was filled with so much content seeing how much their actions were influenced by their environment, and everything that has ever happened. la la la all of that… i am not a writer, i’m just a teenage girl who doesn’t know much about story and character building, but i was still able to feel a huge impact arcane characters had on my heart.
i could cry with how much i appreciate you and this video, i wasn’t able to place my feelings into words but you did it perfectly and much more. you couldn’t have explained it any more perfectly as you did, thank you!! ❤
i love caitlyn’s character the most, i love my wife for real!!!