This is a great video and really gets to what the show missed out on but still captures how masterful this show still manages to be. I hope we get more vids discussing this show on this channel.
I can understand your points and wanting the show to further develop underdeveloped aspects. But you talk so much about the audience having to infer, and isn’t this what we’ve wanted from shows for so long? For them to trust their audience instead of beating them over the head with point by point explanations, so the slightest bit of subtlety is erased?
@@samadams8533 At some point "trusting your audience to fill in the blanks" leads to publishing a book with a single page that says "imagine that a cool story happens, the end." There's a balance to be walked, between showing and telling, and I think Arcane loses that balance at times.
There are so many refrences to literature and other works in Arcane. Like, the raven that follows Jinx (The Raven by Poe), the eye sign that falls in the Undercity (The Great Gatsby), and the Judas gold and the "dark" baptisms (the bible).
I thought you'd touch on the fact that in the end jinx was to hesitantant and ruined the peace proposal. Was out of line and thus is lost. Sounds like something you predicted.
The point of Skye was that we never got to know her, Viktor didn't care about her, he didn't notice her. So when she dies, it's sad because he realizes how little he knew her, how he hurt those around him in his obsession, simply through apathy.
Oh, that's a great point. And I say this as a former therapist. If we, the audience and/or Viktor, knew Skye better, we'd expect him to lash out, and lash out at the hextech "cube" specifically. He doesn't, because he's wracked with guilt about how little he knew her, not how much. We know his obsession with hextech will go on, in part because he blames himself, not the hextech (at least not on an immediate visceral, emotional level)
The thing is... the way to make that even more impactful is to actually flesh out her character, show the audience what she was working on and how she was overlooked and ignored, and THEN have the death scene.
Not to mention that her death comes at a time where every other main character is spending time with a loved one, making a foil for Viktor to show just how much he's pushing everyone away due to his work.
Tbh I read the Sky/Viktor scene in a completely different way! Viktor's reaction to Sky's death, to me, is not so much a "I'm so sad because I really cared about her so the viewer must too", but a "holy shit I've just committed homicide". It's him finally seeing Sky, only in the moment of her death, and realizing what his work may eventually turn him into
So, disclaimer: Yeah, Sky's death is absolutely full-on fridging, and it's not really the sole "meh" aspect of her character, but I don't really think that the show is actually asking us to backfill that they were close just because he's sad when she dies? He just watched someone die a fairly gruesome death because of something he's done, he doesn't need to have been especially close to her to be horrified. In fact I'd argue that everything we're shown or told suggest that they were *not* close: in the scene where they briefly interact as kids, they're clearly set apart, and he rejects her advances (or doesn't even notice them); in fact I'm pretty sure her notes mention that she's never really talked to him that much. His reaction upon reading her notes I read more as being horrified that he didn't actually know this person that much, and now he'll never get to.
They weren't even close. Viktor even says "I don't know where you would've prefered" as he is disposing of her ashes. He never* really gave a crap about her before what happened, their relationship was always one-sided.
That is exactly how I read the scene. Not every death needs to be from a developed, emotionally connected character in order to be significant. Viktor has stated and argued time and time again that Hextech to him is to save lives, not to take them, making it clear that it's a big personality element of his character. And in his obsession with the Hexcore ended up killing another person, pretty horribly. We can see Sky sometimes in the lab with Viktor, and it helps establish that she wasn't some nobody from the street. That doesn't mean she needs to be his girlfriend or love interest. The fact remains that someone Viktor knew had their life unceremonoiusly cut short because of his actions, the actions of a man who wanted most to not use his technology for killing. Crossing that line is a massive event for him, and her notes make him see just how grave that loss is. A person with dreams, hopes, aspirations and feelings, never to dream, hope, or feel again. Entirely because of him. The audience realizes at the same time as Viktor that those things existed within Sky. Like you said, a person he will never get to know, because his inventions took her life. It's soul crushing for him.
exactly. i see it as: the viewer is realizes that she is a character that has their own story basically at the same time victor is. that feeling that we didn't get to know her, is parallel to what victor is feeling.
Yes. Why do people even assume that characters must have feeling for one another to feel sympathy or empathy? Would you not be horrified if someone saved your life by giving their own and you barely even knew the person? Just to find out they had strong feelings for you and you just didn't notice. Not to mention how much Viktor cares for other people, so being the cause of someone's death should affect him deeply.
i personally really liked the animation of the scene where jinx is having a meltdown in her room. it is a horrifyingly accurate depiction of a child having a panic attack, which sometimes does happen without any previous history of them. it's about the buildup that leads to it.. like after so long, jinx finally snapped and couldn't keep it to herself anymore. i remember having such an attack when i was 16, these things happen very unexpectedly and i truthfully never thought it would happen to me.
yeah, I was "sad moody powder" for a moment to get into "the angry agressive break my stuff and hit my head" when I was stressed out but I also get why people might find it out of nowhere
this is, it does seem implied that she's had them before or at least vi knew her fragility and mental health problems and that's why vi coddles her. she, powder, has severe abandonment issues, for good reason, and technically this IS the first time vi has left her making her feel alone and useless. it breaks her. she reminds me so much of my cousin. my cousin was neglected but she seemed like a "normal" kid up until about 13 when the dam broke and she's since been diagnosed with CPTSD, BPD, and probably a slew of other things that have been missed cuz she's poor and can't afford mental health treatment
I've also heard many people complain about how unexpected Powder's reaction seemed but I agree with you, those who've experienced these kind of "attacks" know that this is exactly how they happen - behind closed doors, with no one around to see or hear, that's when the "monster" comes out and only as a result of really intense triggers. Also it's unfortunately often the quiet, careful, shy, nice kids that hide these traumas deep inside them until they explode, because that's how abuse shapes us. To me this reaction made perfect sense.
So this is really a minor thing but when me and my friends were rewatching arcane, I mentioned how there wasn't enough Powder and Claggor interactions. We can see that on top of Vi being her older sister, Claggor is her older brother. The very few times they interact, it's him helping her around, its a good contrast to Vi's more brash or extreme approach. Where Vi would encourage Powder go beyond her comfort zone, Claggor seemed ready to wait for her to actually be prepared. Again, very minor thing but as someone who was immediately attached to Claggor, it stuck.
This may have been intentional as the voices she hears are primarily from Mylo and Mylo's shrine takes up the biggest space I'm her home and at the table
Adding on to what the guy above me said, we could take Claggor's lack of interaction with Powder in the show as an intentional choice made by the director (or whoever else would influence that). If we assume that Claggor's lack of interaction with Powder is an implication that she didn't notice his kindness towards her because of her focusing on Mylo and his disdain for her because it fed into her own narrative of hating herself and believing she is not good enough. Most people gloss over a lot of kindness shown to them in this world and focus on the negatives, I think Powder suffered from that a lot. The only person she ever recognized kindness from was Vi, even though others (Claggor, Vander, Ekko) also showed her kindness. Everyone else's kindness didn't register in her head, only Vi.
Claggor never berated Powder for her shortcomings, he hyped her up in front of everyone and tried to get shit kid little Milo (bless) to back off a little. He offered to go get her off the roof instead of complaining about it. He's a good brother to all of them, Ekko included. Given more time they could have developed into a brilliant team. I really appreciated him, they are what I strive to be. As a side note I appreciated his physicality; a bigger person doesn't mean non-athletic. And in brawling it means more protection and more weight to throw around, especially if you've got the muscle to back it up. Reminds me of my little brother actually, he's a tank. He could break bones with his bare hands. He also a huge nerd who likes to bake.
Honestly the Sky incident I saw less about "feel bad for these characters" and instead "be worried for Viktor as his advancements is going to harm the very people he wants to help"
Yeah, still feels like a waste of potential and I didn't enjoy seeing such an upbeat background character receive such a gruesome death. That said, I think the purpose is to give Viktor a taste of his glorious evolution. He was willing to continue his transformation whatever the risk, and that ended up destroying someone. Now he has to either live with the horror of the experience...or as his game counterpart, remove that part of his psyche entirely.
@@jaywingate187 exactly. Its precisely that second half that to me doesnt make it feel like wasted potential. Yes it could have been another C or D subplot to cram into it but the writers very much didn't want that. I see this as just a drive to Viktor. It mattered to only Viktor and we only have to understand that. Masterpieces of fiction have similar lines and 'empty' characters that serve just for justification of a characters turn.
idk I feel like if the intent wasn’t for us to feel bad about the character, they wouldn’t have, you know, spent most of the aftermath of her death describing her aspirations, how much Victor meant to her, how her death specifically effects him emotionally, how he tried to find somewhere to spread her ashes, etc.
@@supermutantsam1160 Yeah, its not great regardless, imo the weakest character beat on a show with otherwise very strong character writing. I give it a bit of a pass as I suspect its partially a symptom of Viktor arc being incomplete as of now, but that would still make it a recreation of a frustrating cliche.
I definitely agree with you on Ekko and Powder. Especially after seeing the Enemy music video, they showed them to be very close friends and then in act 1 they literally have no interaction.
I was actually fine with this because I felt the fight scene was new and interesting way to tell us that they were close instead of it just being shown to us before hand. The scene itself was slightly confusing to alot of people though I guess, but my instant reaction was that this was a game they played as kids and it made sense they would have been friends purely due to how close Benzo and Vander were, along with Vi and Ekko too so by extension it wasn't a big leap of logic or anything. Sure, it's always nice to see more, but we're going to want more regardless of what we got.
They made Arcane as efficient as possible, but they also made much more, music video, web game, in client experience, and of course there is whole LoL lore. If you want to see Ekko and Powder play toghether you can, but it would not bring anything to the story.
The purpose of the scene seemed to want to establish that old connection while contrasting what it is now, rather than being a callback to a previous shown instance. Which that's a lot of heavy lifting for a scene, I'm sure it would have only been boosted further if they had made it a callback parallel like they did so much through the show. But ya know, your mileage may vary. I enjoy this kinda conversation about story-telling and talking about what worked and didn't with others, it's good fun.
@@cyrkielnetwork It would bring evidence for the idea that Ekko and Powder are fans. Most people aren’t going to seek out all that alternative media for something that should have been in the show.
Shows tend to tell and show us everything that happens to every important character, so Arcane NOT doing that *would* feel odd. Arcane may “rush”, but it also has no filler, which a lot of people would complain about too if it did. It’s definitely my favorite piece of modern media right now. It’s beautiful, treats you like an adult, and pulls no punches when trying to convey the tragedy and pain that these characters go through.
definitely true, I think by not spelling out every little thing, the series shows that it takes its audience serious and has confidence in us that we can figure out these things
"It’s definitely my favorite piece of modern media right now. It’s beautiful, treats you like an adult, and pulls no punches when trying to convey the tragedy and pain that these characters go through." That's a REALLY low bar for something you say is "your favourite piece of modern media". These aspects could be ascribed by every 5th competently written piece of fiction, to be honest. The show I like the most I do based on aspects that have a way heavier tie to my personality than whatever this IGN review is supposed to be.
@@hexcodeff6624 you mad? you mad that I like something? I can enjoy Arcane and have it be my favorite show without having to explain EVERY reason I love it as much as I do.
@@phykoha Bro, Arcane fans NEED to stop being so defensive about their taste. No I don't care what you like, I care why you like it, and the way you describe your passion for Arcane is pretty weak. Half of the shows I watch I could describe the way you described "your favourite show"
Ironically the rant about Skye reinforced my observation that it was an incredibly effective and powerful execution of the character and its role. The show itself has Victor state his sadness about how little he knew about her and, as this video alone my prove, many viewers had a similar experience. This is hightened through her exeptionally couragious action during her last scene, that shrouds her in a tragic heroism that does seem to hit Victor hard, as he probably, if not fully contious, had embraced this role himself but with a layer of self interest that fuel his shame over the whole incident. The minimalist characters are also in the sense strong that i have a emotional connection with Claggor, cause his intovert come along attitude while still happily engage in talk if approached makes him somewhat of a spirit animal to me.
I think you're right about Sky's role. Her death matters because it's the manifestation of Heimerdinger's warnings and the consequence of Viktor ignoring them. The same can be said of the kid Jayce killed in Silco's factory. It's not like we needed to be emotionally invested in that kid for that scene to land.
I couldn’t agree more about Skye, especially since I didn’t even know the girl by the pools in the flashback was her lol. Really does cement her role in the story as we and Viktor overlooked her. Really tragic stuff, and it does tell you a lot about her character when she dives in to try and help him in the end.
I think your comment is on point. You analyzed it diligently and I am certain this is exactly what the creators intended. Because of all the other well-written side characters in the story, my first knee-jerk reaction to Sky's death was "Wait, what?! Don't kill her off now! She sounds interesting! Like, I was hoping you would explore her!". And then Viktor reads her notes, and I was like: "And now you are trying to tell me how interesting of a character she is? I wanted to see that! Now I feel even more pissed that we squandered that opportunity and will never be able to get more of Sky!" ... And then it hit me. Yes. That is exactly it. That is exactly what has happened in the show. That is exactly what Viktor is experiencing. The show has teased us just enough with her, so we would notice, has taken her from us, and then told us "what could have been". That's depressing. And kind of genious
@@user-yr8ge3fz8o it’s also a manifestation of Singed’s warnings, that love and legacy are lost in the pursuit of progress. Him ignoring their warnings is what got Sky killed, and he knows that.
You can literally take your hand and cover the character's mouths and you still can figure out their emotions during the scenes. The animation work on their eyes is fucking insane
Yeah, I was about to comment how they used so much body and facial expressions to inform us on the personality's behind the characters in the show, or to communicate the feeling's the character's were feeling at momentous parts of the story. My favorite scene was when Powder revealed to Vi that she accidentally caused the explosions. Her facial expressions were fucking painful.
This is exactly why I think the backfilling isn’t bad because you’re able to sympathize with the characters emotions in a scene and through those emotions you’re able to infer things about them. No show I’ve seen has been able to do this so wonderfully.
I agree with a number of the comments that point out that a lot of the weight of skys death is that Victor doesn't know her. He never listened to her ideas, he never found out about what she was like as a person, and *that* is the tragedy of sky. She represents a massive amount of potential that in his persuit of progress, gets turned to dust.
The only thing I would have wanted from skye was a line we’re she tries to present an idea, but is cut off, by jayce or viktor because they are currently to invested in their work
Which is the thing Viktor fears the most. With his fragile life, Viktor could barely work or even finish half of his experiments and ideas and in the pursuit of getting that extra time, that additional seconds just to see his works finished, he destroyed another one's time on this world that could've complete her own dreams.
I think this is probably the first time I really disagree with you. I can't remember when was the last time I enjoyed a show so much. Your analysis of Powder being an unstable child was the thing that surprised me the most, since I remember throwing tantrums just like that for the silliest things when I was her age. Also I agree with the comments I've been reading about Skye, it's clearly a cheap argumental strategy (You're absolutely right about that) but developing her character would've been pointless in this story, in wich we already have a lot of primary and secondary characters to follow. I don't believe Viktor and her were close, I think he's so upset because he just want to make the world a better place, but instead of that, he just killed a very kind and smart girl who he overlooked while being fixated on his dream. In that moment he realizes he's not trying to help anymore, but pursuing his selfish desires.
100% agree with you. Especially for powder, i could see my kid self in her so much in the first act. Her being quiet and keeping her emotions bottled up leading to a sudden and violent meltdown when faced with her sister telling her that she is "not ready" and her family all leaving her without certainty that they'll come back... To me it makes perfect sense
Yeah that's how I took it too. It's really easy to kill a side character for shock value, or off a main female cast member and really milk it for the tragedy after putting work into their development only to throw it away, but Arcane has several moments where we as the audience just- sit with Viktor and realise that we didn't even know her, and neither did he, and we never will. That she could very well be the first of a thousand nameless casualties should he continue doing this. I thought as fridgings go, this one was handled pretty well. And 6eah, I know when I was a 9 (?) year old girl, I would have breakdowns like that over much less than the stress she was experiencing. Her voice actress really killed it too, her emotional moments were SO believable and raw.
"Your analysis of Powder being an unstable child was the thing that surprised me the most, since I remember throwing tantrums just like that for the silliest things when I was her age. His whole point is that we're never introduced to these moments until episode 3 and it doesn't feel earned. Quite the opposite actually in that until then Powder has actually demonstrated herself to be quite resilient and emotionally mature for someone who has experienced what she has. Then the first "crack" in her personality comes after she's comforted by her sister and told to stay behind and be safe?! I don't buy it. Personally I would have replaced the emotion in that monkey-toy scene altogether. Make her frustrated and determined to be a valuable member of the family and then let the final trauma be the switch as she agonises over what she had done and how she perceives Vi's reaction. It wouldn't be perfect but it's way easier to digest that then what they attempted to convince us with.
@@Lipidman0 I suppose that really depends on your childhood experiences. If you see yourself represented there, it is a perfectly natural reaction. Even as a child you can learn to silently cope without showing much of it to some degree. Resilience and maturity can become a role that is played not just for others, but for yourself. Again and again Milo questioned Powders worth, again and again her tricks, the only thing she had going all for herself, failed, and she knew Vi was covering for these weaknesses. They did show some signs of anger at that, but they may go unnoticed or seem small at first. I saw and felt them, so her outbreak of anger seemed "earned". But that is a weird way of talking about it, emotions are not earned. They are felt and mirrored, subjective to one's experience.
I have a daughter right now in 4th grade who has had trouble with anger, depression and other issues since as long as we can remember. She has never been abused, she's part of a healthy family, she's received more medical and psychiatric treatment then anyone her age should ever have to go through. And despite improving she still has emotional issues. So I can say with absolute certainty that Powder's personality development is realistic and believable. Kids can be perfectly normal 95% of the time and completely insane the other 5%
eh... I don't fly by that. I DO fly by the idea that the lower your expectations, the kinder you will RESPOND to a lesser production.... but I consider it mildly disingenuous to mark it ''back down' to the point you put it BELOW something that obviously isn't as good just because you've found a nitpick or two. Nitpicks are just nitpicks, the SHITTY thing had nitpicks too, you just forgave them for no really GOOD reason because you had no expectations to begin with.
Also Skyen, leaving this to you, Powder mental instability is a very common aspect in young kids cuz I was one of them. The quietest ones are the most mysterious ones. I’ve been bullied during all my childhood to the point that I would lock my door at home and have a silent tantrum (tears and alone) whenever bad days happened to me. At school, I take the bully, stay silent, go back home, lock door and the process unfolds again.
I'll also say, Powder really reminds me of someone with autism. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but it made me empathize and relate to her more.
@@jazzwell Absolutely. I'm neurodivergent/on the spectrum, and I found the scene of her breaking down in her room to be VERY similar to how I've always tended to act whenever I feel especially frustrated and angry, even as an adult. Screaming, breaking (or wanting to break) things... As it turns out, constantly bottling up your emotions (or just, being UNABLE to express them -- in a neurotypical way -- most of the time) doesn't lend itself to developing healthy outlets for those emotions when they finally boil over. And when you're normally a very quiet, introverted person... Yeah, I can see how it might seem like it came out of nowhere. But whether or not that was an intentional characterization choice, I'm not gonna fault someone for not reading it that way, especially if they aren't neurodivergent themselves.
@@lausavisur 100%. powders scenes felt very real, especially considering her upbringing. it reminded me of me as a kid with untreated depression anxiety and adhd. i can definitely see why someone would think that her breakdown was unreasonable or out of nowhere, because they dont have the same heightened sensitivity or the same neurotype to be able to relate to it or know someone who could relate to it. it seems out of nowhere because it kind of is. when i was younger the little stresses would build up and it would take one trigger that may seem small to others to make me break down. it was unpredictable to others because i would either supress my feelings in order to not annoy others and have them tell me it isnt that bad or to just deal with it, or i would just not be able to explain that i was feeling bad and need a break.
The thing that would happen to me was i would lash out at everyone and everything, i would scream and cry uncontrollably consumed by this controlling rage screaming into my brain but the worst part was the aftermath, the being told you’ll kill people when you’re older, the sudden realization that youve destroyed a family heirloom, i feel like powder actually *killing* her significant people and turning into a deranged lunatic lost in this unending void of torment is horrifying and it makes me wonder what the fuck happened to these writers.
Honestly, there were many signs of Powder’s anxiety leading up to this uncontrollable attack scene shown here. The lead up to the bullying, her being upset… her consistently NEEDING Vi and her having really big issues about abandonment or feeling left behind or rejected… it’s written all over her… their signs are just… so subtle… many just animation. I as a neudivergent and having struggled with severe mental health issues and sensitivity myself could see it clearly with what they put… but i can see how you could miss it.
Why didn't you mention Renni's son getting "fridged?" Sky actually gets more screen time than the boy did (I couldn't even find his name anywhere and don't recall it in the show), and both of them serve the same point in the story: So that both Jayce and Viktor are responsible for someone's death by the next time that they meet up.
I've had a pretty diffrent read on Skye, to be hoenst. While yes, I agree, she was pretty much fridged, I... don't think Victor knew her or caerd about her at all. "I don't know where you would have preffered, so..." He saw an acquiantance die trying to save him, probably not fully aware what was hapening. He read her notes, realised what a mind he was just. overlooking, not paying attention to, all this time, perhaps he was hit by a feeling of having missed out. He carries her notes partly to honor her memory, maybe partly to help himself, maybe partly to try and have that "relationship" with her. I don't think he ever knew or cared about her, but maybe he realised she was a person and that he could have, should have given her the time of day - and now felt a sense of loss for what he wasted or what could have been. Similar to what we, the audience, felt when she was fridged! (Not that any of this excuses using a character in this tropy way which, at the end of the day, remains pretty shit)
I think the thing is, it's left so widely to our own interpretation than it diverts from the rest of the story wich not only is communicated through actions and dialogue but art, music and everyhing imaginable, it's all very clearly narrated except for that part, so it stands out. (my problems with the series are others so even tho I don't think it's great i didn't have a big problem with that scene), that way you can see how the fact that's its such a good show makes the weaker parts more visible to Skyen
Yeah we wanted more Sky but also this is how I read it, so to me I genuinely don’t mind Sky being “fridged” or maybe as I’d love to term it: Pushed out. It almost added to the story that she was so absent, because yeah Vik didn’t care or barely even knew her until shit went whack. And that works. Instead of having the same build-up and pay-off deaths we get with many other characters, we’re slapped in the face with “wait shit she died and we didn’t even know her! Fuck! And we or at least I, resonated so hard with that horrible fomo validation that hits Viktor really hard. Viktor and the audience is meant to end up feeling the same. I’m not saying this excuses at least giving her A BIT more time to help us know her a bit, I think they salvaged the whole thing really well and I cried when Viktor three her ashes out.
@@planetaoruga That's the thing, I tought my version was communicated very clearly, so Skyen's interpretation was a bit of a shock - I did not realise how difrently you could look at this scene. Especially the line about her ashes, I think that was meant to indicate he did not know her at all, but maybe I'm reaching, here. For sure this highlights that the show is imperfect tho. I am incredibly biasted, I consider this to be the single best work of animation in the whole of western canon, superior bar none, so I am inclined to gloss over the missing details, so this should be taken with a grain of salt (or a whole salt mine worth of salt, really) but I do think at least some of the gaps make the story better, more focused and give it higher impact - this is... probably not one of them tho
Of all the people I saw talking about it, Skyen was pretty much the only one that got stuck on Skye as if she were a big deal for Viktor. I don't understand, that character was not important for the story, not in a way that demands more development. Maybe he felt that way because their names are similar?
@@shent1059 I 100% agree with you - in a show so carefully and lovingly crafted - I truly believe she was left vague and undefined because that's precisely how tangential she was to Viktor's drive for making progress. She was background noise to him, and only AFTER she dies, does he notice anything about her (via her journal). Developing her more would have done nothing for the story, or the show as a whole, she is not an important character; her character is there _only_ to highlight Viktor's unflinching focus on his goal - the show even shows you it, when she tries to get him to walk her home, and he dismisses her, in favour of his work, not even turning and looking back when talking to her. I would not be surprised if, when looking down at her while she's consumed by the HexCore, is the first time Viktor _actually_ looks at her face, like for real *LOOKS* at her.
My single biggest disagreement with you on this so far is, amusingly, about Skye and her role in the story, the thing you saw as the biggest flaw in this show, and it's because I genuinely don't think we saw the same series of events when it came to her. Skye being a literal nobody to us, who we only learn about the work and effort and aspirations of after she is dead, ELEVATES her role in this story, as opposed to cheapening it. Skye could have been literally anyone, it doesn't *matter* that Viktor knew her before or not, it doesn't *matter* that she was somewhat romantically interested in him. What matters is that she was a person with dreams and hopes of her own, that should have been inspired by Viktor's work, and instead is now dead because of it. She can't be "fridged" because Viktor was never meant to have a relationship with her anyway, and it didn't have to be *specifically* her for the impact on Viktor's story to exist. All that matters about her is that she was another person that Viktor is now responsible for the death of. Everything else could be changed about her, from her race to her gender to her profession, and it still would be the same effect on Viktor. He killed another person, extinguished their dreams in reckless pursuit of his own, and now he has to deal with it. Everything else you have said I have largely agreed on, albeit sometimes a little nitpicky imo but I recognize I'm typically more forgiving of things and analysis is literally your job. Still super love your work, and love all the care you've put into it, and can't wait to see what else lies in store for us all in the future.
Agree 100%. Skye is just like the zaunite kid Jayce shot. A nobody character meant to show how the main characters deviated from their original intentions are now causing the hurt of people, things they never intended to happen.
@@Horde1Blades But I think the term fridging is more cogent for female characters BECAUSE of that whole "nobody" aspect. It kinda implies that looking back at every other scene prior she was in was just giving enough to be used as a catalyst for Viktor's insanity. It's dehumanizing or something idk I don't usually care about representation in media, but I hear those arguments.
@@Horde1Blades I think it would still be interesting to show more of Sky and Viktor one sided relationship, haven't read the lore but I find it interesting so that I could feel more on Sky's death and Victor's cries
I think the fact she knew him and he *could* have known her is necessary actually. Mostly because it shows how detached from the rest of his peers he is. Yes, he's not on Singed's level, but he's also not emotionally connected to anyone. Sky knew him, he should know her, they grew up in the same place, playing next to each other. But he doesn't see her, maybe doesn't even compute it's her. The fact she's so keen on him allows us to see how detached he's grown and how self centered (which is perfectly human and understandable, given his situation). If it were a true nobody, we would have a sense that it was "just an accident", but as it is it's more of a tragedy. If he hadn't been so aloof and remote, even from people keen to be close to him and actively trying... well, he'd have talked to her sooner and maybe learnt from her notes before this entire debacle. Otherwise I fully agree! :3
“All that matters about her is that she is another person whose death viktor is responsible for”… right. But she was given too much screen time to be some rando. We are supposed to care about her feelings for viktor and we are supposed to connect those feelings to a history between them, as per the flashback and the only other scene where she has lines. So, with your words above in mind, not only is this fridging, it’s TEXTBOOK fridging
Interesting. I completely disagree with that "rushing" / "cutting" is a bad thing here. It was a breath of fresh air that the show did not painfully explain everything (multiple times). It felt like it does not waste the time of the viewers.
I felt like it was a unique way of telling us aspects of the characters without needing to outright have them say or show exactly those details. You extrapolate the details by the way they interact with one another, kind of the like Ekko vs Jinx fight, it gave us insight into them without needing a proper flashback or even having shown us that interaction in an earlier episode, but you got the idea that they were playing a game that was a big part of their friendship growing up.
It doesn't have to explain them, like the Caitlyn scene they can show it. We can see Sky talking with Jayce about Viktor, she is still interested in him but now she is a character that exists outside of Viktor.
Yeah, it's just shorter show, so it works differently. There is short stories that told in one minute for example. Will somebody say they are rushed? Just set your expectations according to the episode and time count. For me Arcane was exactly what i was expecting in terms of pacing.
Agreed. I would rather have a solid core story told and not waste time over explaining every single little minute character or thing that appears on screen. Better to have it closer to Avatar TLAB, than Game of Thrones.
i feel like all of the points you have trouble with are easy fixes, really. Maybe just adding a few lines of dialogue here and there would have improved the relationship between powder and ekko, jayce and his mother, viktor and skye. I 100% agree with you on this one. 20 seconds of Skye talking to Heimmer how Viktor has no time left "But professor! Please think about him" "My decission is final" etc. would have done so much for Skye as a character. Tiny dialogue of Ekko and Power, even just shy looks or stares? anything would have worked. Maybe just give Jayce's mother a scene with Caitlyn or her family, anything really. Anyways. I think my only problem with Arcane is how it feels like it doesn't give you time to breathe. Like there's missing a 10th episode. But besides that... yeah. I'm waiting for season 2. I don't mind the lack of conclussion for most of the story lines cause I eagerly want to watch the next season. I feel like this show is great at setting cliff hangers and keeping you at the edge of your seat wanting more. 9.3/10 for me giving the benefit of the doubt for upcoming seasons!
@@spooky_glados8448 Viktor didn't try to commit suicide because of Sky. His motivation was way deeper than that, you're missing the whole point. He contemplated suicide there because of the context he found himself on. He wanted to secure his own legacy more than anything in the world because he was dying, he wished to leave as much of a positive impact as possible, for people to remember and honor him even tho he came from the undercity. His convictions were strong and he trusted the hexcore to be that for him, his last and greatest contribution. Now imagine how soul crushing it would be to see that same hexcore, that stood for everything he belived, to turn out to be exactly the danger that Heimerdinger warned him about. Sky's death was in Viktor's hands, this was the moment he realized his recklesness in pursuit of his dreams would cost lives and that his legacy would fail. All that while being at deaths door already. Not to mention the fact that his best friend was more distant than ever... Viktor was in a dark place, it could be anyone there, would have a similar result.
Powder’s outburst was one of the scenes I absolutely loved. I was that same kind of kid, who was moody at times but not aggressive or violent. But then when something like that would happen to me and I was alone, I’d flip out in almost the same way. It felt very realistic to me.
I feel like I'm probably the odd one out for this but to me the first season could easily stand on its own as a a self contained story. The only loose end would be Ekko and Heimerdinger but everything else works in an open-ended way. I was left completely satisfied with the ending in a way that I usually never am.
Honestly, I don't feel that Arcane needs a second season The open-ended was perfect and I could easily and happily sit back and imagine what would happen next without feeling the need for more I'm not saying it shouldn't have a second season at all But, in my opinion, the first season is a complete story, could have ended there and would connect with the canon lore But, of course those who haven't read the lore would have to go read it and so I understand why the second season is in production It still have something to tell
Are people actually dissatisfied? I've not seen anyone really DISLIKE the ending, I get the agony of a cliffhanger, but that's cliffhangers and most people understand that's the point of them. They're good for a reason, just because everything wasn't neatly tied off with a bow doesn't mean it's a bad ending by any means, especially when this is the first real exploration into Runeterra and these characters. The ending completed peoples character arcs that were introduced, for the most part, whilst also showing the potential for their futures with some of them and leaving it on a cliffhanger for a second season.
The FRIDGING of Skye (didnt even know the word beforhand). I dont think this death was done this way, because they dont bother/or didnt have time to develop her character. I think the way Skye died was intended. The only things we know about the Skye are the things Victor know. This includes the one time they saw each other as kids. And every time Skye comes into Victor Labs. Victor didnt bother or thought about learning more about this character. He didnt see her love, he didnt see her life and only saw her as background noise. Not because he is full of himself or anything like that. He is just really invested into his work. And only after his work kills Skye, then He started to realise, that his action can have consequences. And in her moment of death was the only moment he ACTUALLY Looked at her. In a way this was really similar to Jayce. He has a breakthorugh with his work (the same way Jayce won his place at the counsil). And then makes a rushed choice of morph his body without shimmer (the same way Jayce decided in like 1 minute to close the bridges.) Both have blood visibly at their hands. Can it still be fridging? (Do I even use this word the right way? I'm german and this word is really weird to me). Yes.... but this is how I interpret this at least. But in the way this proofs Sykens Critism. Because things need to be interpreted, because they are rushed. The interpretation can be vastly differnt.
Your explanation of how you understood Skye's "purpose" in the story is exactly what "fridging" is, and there's no such thing as "good fridging". "Fridging" originated from a Green Lantern storyline in the 70s/80s where a romantic partner of the current Green Lantern, was brutally murdered and then shoved inside the Green Lantern apartment refrigerator. Aka "Fridging". You're saying that they've created Skye only to progress Viktor's story forward. Imagine if someone decided you would just also be a disposable dime-and-a-dozen generic character in someone's life, is that good?
I really liked the parallels (perhaps yet another interpretation that would be clarified if this season was longer) between Viktor and Jayce, and i think specially looking to Mel and Skye. How Jayce got much more invested in the relationship and Viktor, as you said, saw Skye more as background noise most of the time. Jayce had even a friendship with Caitlyn and talked to her from time to time while Viktor had Jayce and Heimer that later was "replaced" by his former master, Singed. Jayce was always portraited as the extrovert pretty boy, and Viktor the introvert, shy, reserved zaunite. And for me that can be seen in a explicit and steriotypical way during Jayce sex scene with Mel while at the same time Viktor pushed away Skye, that told him that there is always another day but... didn't And i understand you, i am Brazilian and fridging was 100% new to me. Felt really strange the first time he said
Imo, fridging is such a bland and overused trope that it is harder to go beyond just that the trope is used and to see in what way, how and why it was used here.
it is still a fridging, but I think it did its job pretty well as far as the trope goes. She allowed us to put a face behind the possible thousands of nameless casualties their tech could cause to die. He didn't know her, and neither did we, and it's sad. It reminds me of the episode "midnight" in doctor who, where a woman sacrifices herself for everyone and afterwards theyre just sitting there realising that she died for them, and they didn't even know her name. Its tragic not just because she died, but because she WAS a full person who had the opportunity to be more in this universe stolen from her. The quiet kind of tragic. We sit with Viktor while he realises what a smart, kind person sky was, who he didnt even bother to know. I think personally I would have been more upset if they had gone and developed Sky as a female character we know well and then just offed her for shock value and thrown it all away. I do see how soneone else could see it differently though, as it is definitely overused.
@@RsigmaGS_G Question what make Skye “frigiding” vs Milo and Clagger or even Vander’s friend that all also died for emotional beats and don’t get much of a backstory? Is it just a male/female thing? Also sorry but you seem like you know what you’re saying.
I suppose this a matter of perspective. To me, it feels that while the Sky plotpoint could feel like “fridging”, I never particularly saw it that way. Yes, she had feelings for Viktor, but it’s safe to assume that the man himself was too absorbed in his own world to notice. As far as I know, “fridging” has been applied solely to couples who were already together, or at the very least had mutual undisclosed feelings for one another. For that reason, it doesn’t feel to me that Viktor is mourning the loss of a loved one, but that his efforts had cost a human life in the first place. He said so himself, Hextech was meant to improve lives, not take them. I honestly feel like it could have been anyone dying in place of Sky, and Viktor would feel almost the same way. And while that diminishes Sky as an actual character, it also doesn’t put too many expectations for her, so maybe that’s why I wasn’t that disappointed with that, especially if it progresses Victor’s character. Anyway, great video as always Skyen. If I had to apply an arbitrary number to my feelings on Arcane, it would be an 8.5/10. Any issues that I had were pacing-related, and can hopefully be remedied in season 2 ❤️
Actually while concept of fridging originated from that Green Lantern issue and in general is used mostly for love interests, it does not need to be exclusively. Killing of a parent(s)/a mentor figure/innocent people etc. is also a example of fridging, where death of character(s) exists solely to force reaction from MC and influence their decision/advance their story. What's important isn't actual character(s)'s dead and they're often barely characterized/matter and it's all about emotional impact it had on the main character. That being said I do agree with take that Viktor not paying attention to Sky before her death was the point, but it doesn't really change the fact that she as character existed solely for Viktor and had no agency of her own.
@@Nevri. "she has no agency" Wtf are you talking about, she willingly chose to risk her life to save Viktor, how is it not agency? It was her choice, her whole character was about her own decisions. Heck, I guess no characters should ever die in any story because either they are "dead ends with wasted potential" or "fridged". Sure. Maybe Vander is also fridged, huh. He died from an accident caused by a loved one and it heavily impacted the person who caused his death. Unlike Sky, Vander had no agency in his death.
@@Nevri. Fridging as I understand it was always a critique of industry pumping out edgy brooding men at the expense of women characters, so I can see why Skyen sees it as the case here. For move to qualify for fridging, heros SO has to have no agency in anything, serve only to characterise a man before his turn, only to be killed for cheap shock value and turn hero into an asshole antihero or tragic hero despite all trauma type character. Now, last bit is largely unimportant to the point, but agency, characterisation and cheap shock value is. So does Sky fill any of the boxes? She has agency in choosing to sacrifice herself, she is influenced by Victor in a meaningful way (for how little time she has in the story), but change comes from her deciding to be more like him rather than dying a simple admirer, so its not the case of having no agency. When it comes to characterisation, neither she solely defines Victor, nor he solely defines her. In fact, the relationship is interesting because Sky as a person has no sway over Viktor at all, and her death impacts him all the same. So in characterisaton its a maybe, she is used as a turning point for Viktor to reevaluate his goals and not much else, but its not like she has no character besides it. Was she killed for cheap shock value? No! It was shock value alright, but she sacrificed her life to fix Viktors mistake. It impacts him not because he cared for her, did no wrong, and unfair circumstances took her. It impacts him because his and only his actions led to this tragedy. It could have been that hall monitor dude Mel diverted in 3rd episode, and drama would still be the same. Fridging as of late suffers from evolving into being a catch all term for "underdeveloped female character dies". Yes. Sometimes people die in stories, and we dont get to know them at all. Woman or a man, doesnt matter. It happens. We cant follow every story of every stranger on the street. Not to mention we have so many compelling stories of women in Arcane, is it THAT big a deal if 1 out of 6 has turned out to be more like Caits mom who might be killed in the S1 finale rather than being another focal point?
As a learning 3d modler, I can’t be objective about this show, I just get caught by the pictures, and I- I- I mean, I just die. I’m dead. It’s too visually good, I am a visual person, and the story is decent enough for me to be satisfied, it’s good enough for me. Very nice video, you had very good points and it managed to give me a new outlook on the flaws of this show. Anyway, I rate it 10/10 don’t fight me I’m too weak.
Arcane is very good and I gushed on every visual aspect of this show. I honestly think this review is a good kind of criticism too! This also gives me a new perspective on the show, and how much my prior readings of League Lore, and I made A LOT of assumptions because the show want you to do that. With hindsight a few more sentences would help with the standalone show without music videos and more.
In defense of Viktor's reaction to Sky, I'm pretty sure you'd be absolutely wrecked when you accidentally kill an acquaintance by the very thing you do to make the world a better place and help other people.
Personally? I didn't really mind "Filling in the details" The show is great, and the pacing is great. This show is genuinely perfect, For once there's no damn filler, I actually give a shit about all the side characters. Also with Sky, I don't think victor was sad about the girl dying SPECIFICALLY, I think Sky was done perfectly, bc even victor didn't care about her before hand. Victor only saw that his colleague get fucking obliterated, and he saw that someone die for him, and he realized shit went too far. There never needed to be a relationship with Sky and victor beyond just colleagues.
Viktor/Sky scene and how it was delivered to viewer was in itself a good reflection on how the situation could've looked like from Viktor's perspective - someone that was around him, but barely noticeable over focus on research, suddenly becomes important and delivers emotional blow through the action. I don't think it could've been done better without making it feel off that point - what was shown before about their relationship as coworkers was enough to build a good enough impression on how their relation looks like, which - especially quite long buildup - also gave time for viewer to build expectations (mostly likely wrong ones) about what's about to happen, before show pulled the twist.
@@asmonull Something that would put that little extra oomph into Sky's character without adding much runtime would be if after Victor falls, she has been sitting with Victor all night, and when Jayce arrives he sends her to bed because she's exhausted from worrying, just for Victor to finally wake up moments after she left. This would preserve what I felt was an intentional lack of connection from Victor's perspective, while giving us more investment on her side, since the previous scenes with her look like a casual attraction more than the near idolization that her journal reveals.
I have never understood the "this media did not have this so it is worse for it" critique. I can not think of a story that would not benefit of giving a character just that bit more time or a relationship just those few more moments to shine. Would the death of Sky have hit harder if we spent as much time with her as with Vander? Of course! Would the fall of Huck to a shimmer addict be more impactful if we spent more time on it? Of course! Would the story of Ekko building his haven for people in Zaun be awesome to see and add to the story of him and Heimerdinger? Of course! It is very easy to find something that is missing and also to argue as to why it should be there, but since this is not only a piece of art but also a product, it has to have a finite runtime. The points you make are very valid, but in the face of having to make choices as to what to put in and what not, I think they did a great job.
Also we read the world by contrast... If Sky death had hitted harder... Than the emocional value of it would be closer to Vander's "death" (with the boys), and probably their moment would have being ruinned a little bit (I am struggling with English to explaing myself kkk I Hope i was clear enough kk). In my opinion a show could always be longer but this was the time they had and the writters and artists had to maje choices... And I am Very happy with the focal points they chosed to show .... Also they left curso in other not so developed moments, helping to guide our imagination (and not just assuming we have NO imagination and then showing me EVERYTHING. I think I prefere it like that)
@Tesla-Effect Heimerdinger´s character portrayal is one of them. Imagine a 300 year old being who founded Piltover and the Council not understanding political game and nuance, how humanity acts and so on? Its simple logic, he was one of the founders and a Original council member...He HAD to know political game to stay there a lot of time. What does the show do? Makes him the typical scientist who is clueless about nuance and human factors. It sucked and the show could have done a lot more with him in terms of lore, worldbuilding instead of vague tiny flashbacks or "MaGiK BaD, DeStRoY" without an actual established reason why he defended that, Jayce is a Gary Stu. In the course of a dialogue with Mel he became an expert in diplomacy and a corrupt council member... It doesn´t even make sense how his ideals of justice are molded easily with just one conversation. Wouldn´t it be better if the actual threat against him for leading the security of the hextech was showed? Like someone wounding him? It´s shallow and silly. Then there´s the shimmer factory fight. All of a sudden Jayce can fight on par with Vi, a character, like Caitlin or Jinx, we actually SAW training and the show ESTABLISHED was a fighter? The last scene with the Council too makes no sense at all. One moment all of them were arguing against the Undercity becoming the nation of Zaun and all of the sudden, they all agree with no explanation whatsoever. It was rushed. The stuff with Viktor and Skye was also bad for another reason...Viktor says to Singed he understands...He understands that he needs to be detached from humanity in order to achieve a greater scientific progress. What happens next? Skye dies and he acts weirdly very attached to her when the show went out of its way to show him denying her advances and not giving a shit about her. Yes it was fridging and it was badly executed. Ekko and Jinx fight has no emotional value, there is no clash of ideals, no emotions conveyed in their blows, nothing...Their friendship is not well exposed even in the game archives special for the show and if you look deeper beyond the great visuals of the fight you´ll understand what I mean. Silco´s character as a villain is a bit too generic. His character development is a bit bland and his introduction was the most cliche thing in the show. It was like a Bond villain. He needed a backstory...Its kinda mindboggling how Mel, a secondary character, gets a backstory, but Silco, the antagonist only gets one small scene of his past. Not only that, but his actions as the Undercity Chemtech kingpin and mob boss doesn´t align well with his ideal for the birth of the nation of Zaun...Think: he wants a new nation. Method? By exploiting and addicting the people of that new nation who were already opressed by Piltover. Why? Because fuck reasons, that´s why. It´s a 7/10 and it´s the fairest score for it. I could go on and put a lot more bullet points why Arcane is good...But not a masterpiece or a 10/10. I think the show deserved at least 3 or 4 more episodes to not seem so rushed and establish things
@@nunobettencourt1429 Silco makes the disparate undercity population dependent on him for protection and feeding the addiction he stuck them with. Dependancy means he can control them. Those he can control, he can unify. Give them a name to unify under, Zaun, and make their oppressors (himself included) recognize that name and its sovereignty. Boom. Now he has his nation. He wanted Zaun to be independent, yes, but that doesn't mean he necessarily cares THAT deeply for the people he has to exploit along the way to get there. That and he has to think of some way to compete with the vastly superior resources of Piltover, he seems ready to compromise on ethics a lot. Fighting dirty, making horrendous inventions. All too try and compete with a, on paper, superior power. SPOILERS: He couldn't abandon his closest allies in the end though. His family if you will. Jinx being the obvious exception on that last point. Sevika being the less obvious one. For me that turned him away from moustache twirling evil into being a more real character. Cliche and tropey? Hell yes. No doubt. But that didn't really bother me. He was ruthless to most everyone. Jinx and Sevika though. He trusted them with his life in a big way. I liked how the character was written. Also, it was cool how when he threatened to the other mob lords by cutting the ventilation , he didn't seem to need the breathing mask. He seemed unfazed by the filthy, dense undercity air the other mobsters chose to filter/ventilate out. Neat component to that scene. Makes him quite intimidating. Yeah I'm done gushing. TLDR: Silco is tropey/cliche as heck but it doesn't really bother me. He has enough charisma and real human emotion to be compelling as a character to me.
@@jon9828 I understand what you mean. Sure as a villlain he does his job and serves the purpose in the story...But well, this is just me but I feel if he indeed had a backstory where for example his relationship with Singed or Zenika was highlighted, his motives for his method of controlling the population of Zaun were exposed and why trying to corrupt Pitover enforcers would make him way less of a tropey or cliche character. I mean, he was in the shadow of Vander after his death...Vander accomplished leadership, unity and respect by using none of that. To me the lack of a backstory on Silco takes value from Vander´s death and makes him a one dimensional character. He acted linearly, his reactions were linear. What me or you said about him is pure interpertation and backfilling and the main antagonist of a narrative is one of those special cases where its more detrimental than beneficial to have backfilling. A bit of show don´t tell its fine for most part of the story, but closure is also needed specially on important characters like that. The moment he became two dimensional was the dialogue with Vander´s statue about daughters, it gave him some personal development, but not redemption, he was and will always be too far gone for that. The lack of a backstory doesn´t explain what he gained from Singed besides the Shimmer and what Singed gained from him. Since there´s just a small scene of Vander almost drawning him, his past is unclear and thus he is not a three dimensional character like a secondary character (Mel) is. Its mind boggling and it goes in line with what I said, if the show had more episodes it WOULD be a masterpiece, but since it didn´t and its pacing created many issues in the narrative and some of the character portrayals and key events in the story, its just a 7/10 imho.
Since I've watched this show about 4 times now and done quite a lot of analysis on it, I wanted to shed light on one of my favourite moments. It's very subtle and goes completely unnoticed if you don't pay attention to it: (Long post incoming) Caitlyn and Vi's relationship is arguably one of the most fleshed out dynamics and a lot of it happens purely through visual storytelling. In episode 4 they are both introduced to us from cages; Vi a literal one and Caitlyn the one built for her by her overprotective parents. (What tips her off the edge is when Jayce, her one established friend, sides with her parents, quoting safety and disregarding Caitlyn's wishes as a person. The scene is phenomenal. By the end her frustration peaks and she heads to Still water hold.) Episode 5 is all about freedom and change. The city has literally changed on Vi, whereas Caitlyn is forced to adapt herself to fit Zaun. What's important for their dynamic is that when Vi tells what Caitlyn is doing wrong (the glorious flirting scene) Caitlyn takes the advice. It's why she ultimately responds to Caitlyn's aid with gratitude. Now episode 6 is the important bit here. As Vi's growing weaker from the wound, she has to rely more on Caitlyn to get by. It's also increasing her animosity because she feels vulnerable. Caitlyn in turn takes everything in stride, responding with empathy and compassion (because that's her emphasized characteristic, despite the naivete). It culminates in her prioritising Vi's survival over her own safety. (Exchanging the gun.) Now, this scene is important set-up. Vi in act 1 is a teen burdened by responsibility. She takes care of Powder, she wants for something better for her family - and the lanes as a whole - but her attempt fails. In the end it's the precursor to everything getting fucked. Finally her guardian gets killed and she aliantes her only family. The point is that she is usually the caretaker, not the one being taken care of. But in this scene, Caitlyn takes care of her. She's quite literally overlapped with the memory of her mom caring for her as a small child. And for a person who's been locked in a box for who knows how many years, who's had to fend for herself, that's not insignificant. In a world that's literally alien to her now, Caitlyn has become her rock. So, (I wish I could say more about the confrontation with Jinx, but this is long as is) episode 7 opens with them having a spat. Some doubt is creeping into the bond, but we're still reassured that Cait cares. Vi still vouches for her when Ekko has (justified) animosity towards her. But the tension of unsaid words is still there. Then Caitlyn gives her speech about the gemstone. And this is where the important moment happens. Vi is visibly upset for most of Caitlyn's speech but when Caitlyn says "This city needs healing. Much more than I ever realised." the camera focuses on Vi's face and we see her gaze softening. Caitlyn's empathy for human life is obviously important, but Vi's refocusing on the moment where Caitlyn healed her. It's why later on when Jinx confronts them on the bridge, despite just saying that she need to go back to her sister, she listens to Ekko and takes Caitlyn to safety. Not from some sense of debt, but because they've formed a connection. They've momentarily freed each other from the cages they were pushed into. Also, yes. It is explicitly romantic in nature. The coding is so thick it's impossible to deny, despite the obvious need to still keep that edge of plausible deniability. Hopefully this wasn't painfully obvious to everyone and I've ended up recounting known facts here. The show might have its slight flaws, but I'm a little biased in its favour since so rarely do I get this nuanced queer storytelling in shows I like between women. Also I tip my hat to anyone who actually read this hunk of text to the end. (Edits for grammar.)
Ain’t gonna lie, at first, despite all chemistry, I felt like their relationships were a bit rushed, but upon rewatching and further analysis - yeah, I see where it’s coming from) Although complex and semi-toxic relationships like between Jinx and Silco or Vi fascinate me more, I’m not gonna deny violyn is one of the most wholesome and established romantic-coded relationships I’ve seen in a while. Also I definitely agree that rushing is a bit of a problem for the whole show, but arcane actually manages details and “feel this up by yourself”-scenes pretty good. Compared to most, at least)
@@sharmelfattakhov5041 Personally I didn't find the show rushed, but I can see why that would be the case for many others. It's definitely a double edged sword to make a show as dense in symbolism as this one. On one hand it creates strong rewatchability and the artistic intent is exhilarating, but it teeters on the edge of alienating those who didn't resonate with the story first time around and weren't compelled to dig deeper. You could even argue that making such important moments of character writing so fleeting is bad storytelling. After all, you risk the audience missing them. That said, this storytelling pushed all of my buttons, so obviously I loved it. I'm not even bothered by the idea of Cait and Vi's relationship evolving as quickly as it does because the brevity works for me thematically. The situations bring forth strong, volatile emotions, both for good and bad and they respond in kind. It's also why I think it wouldn't work as anything but a romance. (The cinematography might as well be screaming gay from the hills.) In my reading for the ending to have emotional resonance, Vi and Cait have to be queer. Unfortunately that also means that I can see a plotline for season 2 that undercuts their relationship by playing into it being such an roller coaster of emotions and oh no, they just weren't in their right minds. Hopefully my cynisism doesn't bare fruit, but I won't dare hope too much knowing how corporations go about these things usually.
For me, Vi following Ekko and Cait to the bridge before doing a 180 to go look for Powder, then when she sees Jinx on the bridge she....listens to Ekko and 180s again to go leave Ekko to fight Jinx, it just seems like not logical action for the character. I could see Vi trying to talk to Powder still, or trying to get in the way of the two fighting. It's difficult for me to believe in that moment, her connection to Cait is so strong that she would walk away and leave her sister and childhood friend to basically fight to the death. Why? Because she saw Jinx kill a bunch of enforcers that she for many years thought were enemies too? And that had imprisoned her for "no official reason"?
Fantastic, I'd love to read more deep analysis like this for other characters and relationships. Also I'd argue that the romance isn't just coded but literally part of the text, you'd have to be really naive to read them as anything less than that lol
I get a feeling that resolving the other plot points was never the intention behind Arcane. I think it was inteded to show the transformation of Powder into Jinx, and to do that, they showed what was happening around the Piltover and Zaun. But after Jinx shot her bomb, they told all they had about her, and the show ended. Everything after is consequences, but not reasons for her change
Honestly, this show does such a good job of setting the audience up to infer things that it improves my opinion of it that I could entirely not notice things like Powder and Ekko not interacting. And if the only other notable mark against it I can see is one very egregious case of fridging, that's not enough to tarnish my overall view.
Honestly I think 12 episodes would be the right amount, allowing for things to not be so rushed while still being pretty packed full of awesomeness. Personally in Act 3, I would have liked a little more of Jinx, particularly once she gets the purple eyes, and a four episode arc could have granted that.
@JMK I don't think that'd be a interesting topic. Vi story in prison would be boring and tiring bc of it's repetition (there's not much to do in that place, other than a couple fights here and there, maybe trials? or just training), Jinx would be in the same place (dealing with losing her family, her issues with Vi, Silco as a new father figure, there's not much to do as a child like Powder). I agree that it would've been awesome to see Ekko's evolution, how he managed to gather so many people, the Firelights, how did he get the boards, his situation in Zaun when Silco "took over". That would be far more interesting than Jinx or Vi, at that moment specifically. Piltover, and all champs related, would be on the same place as Vi or Jinx, but with just a few interesting things. Overall, I think that Riot did an amazing job between Act 1 and 2, I wish we got more info from Ekko, even though he's not a "main character".
The numbers of episodes of a show is not exactly something you can just tweak by snaping your fingers. But I guess the internet is the internet and we're going to complain about everything we can because it wasn't perfectly fit to what we wanted. Fun right?
Saying Skye got “fridged” completely misses the original context of why fridging became a term. It was mostly to highlight that female characters were relegated to side characters and that female side characters were disproportionately used as plot devices for these male main characters. Neither of these apply for Arcane at all, which is female led and has male side characters also be used as tragic plot devices. Using side characters as a plot device to move along characters’ story by itself is not a bad trope. Not every minor character needs a MCU level of backstory. The trope is almost necessary in many writing genres and styles like war stories or unreliable narrator for example. The fact that Skye’s character managed to get such an emotional impact from a lot of the audience in such few lines would even be traditionally considered a sign of good writing by short story writers.
Yeah, like you can technically see it as a fridging, but we saw just as much of Benzo and he was also offed to move other characters stories. Not to mention Mylo and Claggor, who would also count
@@ijornhribrudkrvir but with benzo we saw him with a lot of personality and being a different thing for each of the charactwrs he interacted witj (ekko-tutor, vander-lifelong friend, claggor-mydads weird friend, vi-Good dude) With mylo and claggor we got a LOT of stuff, with her... just not. So yap, it basically feels worst because all other side charactwrs that have influence are so good.
@@ijornhribrudkrvir and to add to what Felipe said, Benzo feels like a part of the under city. His establishment, his sense of a past with Vander and the 'old guard'. He felt like a rich presence in the story. He didn't exist FOR THE SAKE OF another character. He existed in my opinion to be a purely interesting character who adds another face to the older generation on the 'vander side' of the conflict.
Skye was a female character that existed solely for the purpose of making a male character sad, and had no place in the plot beyond that. That's a fridging.
I acctually like the rush in Arcane. It was set to "high" for the whole time and you don't have time to think, it was just ~30min of "wow!". I also like incompleteness. It's arcanes, it's reconstruction of the story from the past based on scraped informations, notes, few items, maybe stories that circulates among people who heard something. For me what is great is that they show us only what is important. and necessary. They don't waste our time, and they didn't waste thier time and money for fillers. They don't need to show me Ekko and Powder play together, they don't need to show me Vi had hard time in prison, what happen in Zaun after Vander died, etc. I can figure out it myself. I much prefer 6h of awsome show than 24h of quite good show with great moments, and tons of fillers and explanations. Usually I don't like TV series becouse how many staff is puted just to show and explain everything, rather than telling actual story and I love how efficient is Arcane. We wanted story how Jinx become Jinx and we totally get it.
I'd mostly agree, but the teamup of Vi and Jayce into their attack as well as Viktor's second "improvement" happened in such a short time that it was difficult to suspend my disbelief. Maybe one more episode was all that was needed to smoothe some of these things out, but not more than that. Apart from that, the sentiment of not showing us things we can easily understand by seeing the results is one I agree with.
@@lockekappa500 I mean then again, as he said, your experience may not be the same as others. Its objectively a good show but skyen may just prefer shows that take a bit longer. Its preference in the end.
There were obviously limitations to the budget allotted and the release, from what I read there was quite a bit of a push by the creators to even get it made, let alone be given the funds needed to make it as good as it is. I think the brisk pace was necessary as they wanted to pack as much story and action as they could in the 9 episodes they were given. It would be great if there was a bit more time to explore more characters, but as the start of a brand new franchise this was incredibly well done.
I completely agree. I’ve compared it to game of thrones, which has a much slower pace, and found that I like this style so much more. More happened in 9 40 minutes episodes of arcane than in probably four ten episode seasons of GOT, and the events had pretty much the same amount of impact.
Jayce was a young man who was humiliated, banned from school, turned away by his patrons, and his life’s work was seized. People have killed themselves over much less. His contemplating taking that jump is certainly believable. Re: Sky. We don’t really mourn Benzo like Vander, do we? Secondary characters are secondary. But we even see mourning for nameless enforcers. Her death actually hurt Viktor. Victor poured the ashes of Sky into the polluted River Pilt. They were both from the Lower City and managed to climb their way into Piltover. But she ends up down there again. Then he almost followed her in. He’s losing everyone “close” to him. He’s losing his ties to humanity as he becomes more machine. His actions burned the Sky to ash. The sky fell. He can’t kill himself, and he can’t destroy the machine…the machine that he is part of, the machine that is taking him over. I’ve watched this show about 4-5 times now. The gripes I have are similar to some of what’s said here. 1. The pacing of Jayce’s storyline in Act 2 felt a bit strange. Some of the timeline felt like it played out over a few days when it had to have been much longer. 2. Imagine Dragons didn’t need to be actually in the show. 3. Some inconsistency in wounding/damage. Some injuries require Arcane potions and shimmer to heal; other stuff vaporizes/maims/de-limbs some characters but not others. Recency bias might be in play, but I don’t remember the last time I was this engaged with a show. I am obsessed w it and can’t shut up about it. I hate the word “masterpiece” but it’s the first word that comes to mind.
I actually disagree about the wounds. It seems that almost ever fight especially the Vi ones REALLY take their role and are able to show the brutality and gross side of fighting. And if it’s something like a gashed leg like jinx obviously staples isn’t enough but we can assume she had something else done while we weren’t looking especially because we know how smart she and she’s been doing crazy shit for awhile so she prob know how to patch herself up. And ekko is a good example of wounds taking their toll he is still injured when he and hiemerdinger come back and we see the pain that happens when the vastaya helps put the leg back in place. I think the show was able to handle this extremely well
Agree heavily with the point of benzo. While I don’t like fridging it’s the use of a minimal character to enhance an established character which is done really well with viktor. The one thing he wanted to do with hextech is help people now he’s straight up killed someone. Reminds me of what he told jayce about being scientists not soldiers
The problem is that you don’t NEED any of the things you claim to be missing. You only WANT to see those things. You pretty much agree with that by admitting that you can backfill. The fact that you backfill so easily is exactly why it’s not necessary to show any of those things. It would impact the perfect pacing. None of this makes anything shallow. You feel everything the show wants you to feel at the depth you’re supposed to feel them. Everything important is there. That’s why it’s still a 10/10. I respect your opinion though. I guess you’re just built different. But I think the problem here is more about WANT than NEED.
I agree with nearly everything Skyen said in the video apart from his points on Skye and Viktor. A lot of people do too, and a lot of people don't. And that's how it's supposed to be :) I do think though, that some of the stuff he mentioned (especially the relationship between Ekko and Powder) could've been fleshed out more without hurting the pacing.
I disagree. We don't need to know everything, and yes the story by itself is efficient. But is it bad to want more than just efficient? All I felt at the end was Wow, Stuff Happened but I'm not really feeling any of it. Except at the end of Act 1, which I think is the strongest story told. The show just sort of fizzles out for me, not saying anything and not really doing anything. The art to me is carrying this show and it is doing that job well, it definitely keeps it up in the 8/10 range.
@@robinchirps1775 I agree with your disagreeing, or I disagree with agreeing. 😵💫Season 2 takes a bit of a turn, as it looks, at first, like it will turn into a redemption story re-uniting Vi and Powder, and as someone completely unaware of the League of Legends, it was a real surprise to me that didn't happen. The entirety of the first season became a set-up, but for the better. You feel this in the end of Season 1, that so much is left untold, but I quickly forgave it as the payoffs, and frankly unexpected payoffs, hit home in the second.
@@squirlmy I think you mean the second act, not season? I didn't think about how different this show probably is for people not aware of these characters in the first place, definitely something to think about. Like I said, I think everything set-up is paid off but I don't think stories are just about set-up and payoff, that's just one area of successful storytelling. As Act 2 ended, I felt like they were less characters and more pawns that the authors were using to get to the next stage in the show, which is whatever is planned for Season 2.
@@robinchirps1775 interesting. So is it the dialogues or the script or the writing or something else that makes you feel like this? Genuine asking because one of the first people to have a different perspective on arcade and it makes me wonder
Very interesting video. I would add Voice acting in the "why Arcane is a 10/10 show" . The Voice actors actually gave so much life and uniqueness to the characters and the show. Silco's voice and lines...
I don‘t think skys death would have worked, if Viktor got to know her better before, because then they would have shared notes, derailing the entire story
While I understand your point about Sky, I think it was intentional that we didn't know her. This scene parallels Jayce killing Renni's kid. This is what leads to both of them meeting and realizing that their dream of using technology to save people has caused both of them to take lives. We know just as much about Sky as Viktor does and that's the point. This technology will kill innocent people not involved in all this madness if they aren't careful. In regards to Ekko and Jinx, I agree 100%. I was actually excited to see Ekko and Jinx as friends when they were kids. It would have made their fight so much more impactful. I immediately noticed this was the FIRST time they ever spoke because I was waiting for it all season. That could be my own fault for knowing the lore, but as you said that's what makes it not a 10/10 for everyone. For me it's a solid 8. The rushing hurt the story.
You've pointed out most of the flaws about the show I had. My only difference is that its not that Viktor cared for her, but rather that he didn't. He didn't know anything about her or her feelings about him until she died. That made it all the more tragic as he forgot about the very people he was trying to help.
I completely disagree with a lot of the ideas you've brought up here. The idea that the show simply treating you like an adult and that you dont need to be spoon fed about every character trait is a good thing, not a bad thing. I don't need scenes explaining to me that powder has abandonment issues or how much jayce values his dream, I would much rather simply have the show show me this. Like show not tell is a good thing no? The ekko jinx thing i kinda agree with, but it is implied that powder used to hang about with ekko when she says she got the tip from him and the enemy video had a lot of them hanging out, so it hit home like a truck for me anyway, but a scene or two of them and their dynamic would of been nice. The skye thing, i dunno wt to tell you, but I got everything about her character before her final scene and didn't feel like I needed anymore on her. And there not really that close, other people have shown this but yh, viktor was just upset because thats what viktor is like, he wants to help people and his actions lead to someones death. The issues are honestly tiny for me, especially when I think about how much it does amazing, it actually has the opposite effect for me to you, it makes me care less about flaws.
Well from skyens perspective he’s interested in the plot, these well wound characters crafted with various plot strings throughout the show, and his complaint wasn’t that we arent being spoon fed character development it’s that the show speeds so fast it’s hard to get a bearing.
i don't think TB Skyen is arguing that the show should 'explain things to you instead of showing', i think his point is that a lot of the time the series doesn't even show you at all, just expects you to imagine depth where it's not. I agree with you on the Skye thing that they didn't need to be close for Viktor to feel that way so that i disagree with that on the video. However it did let me down sometimes during the series where i would expect to see how something went down but never did - it was only implied. For me the worst one is with Vi, who is my favourite character in the show so I paid more attention to her - i wanted to see what all of her trauma after episode 3 would do to her and how she would deal with it. Instead, all of that was handled off-screen, & all that was left to deal with was powder's issues. Like I felt like i expected more for her and maybe that's why i was let down, but even so older Vi feels underdeveloped for such an important character :/
The "show don't tell" thing doesn't really work when the Arcane sometimes neither shows or tells. It just sometimes expect the audience to assume things. Jynx freak out reallye needed some build up or something. It just kinda happens. Specially since previous freak outs where calm and subtle. Like not even much. Just show her hand twitching or something to telegraph the big one. If I wasn't already vaguley familiar with LOL ans the concept of Jynx's character I woulda been more confused than I already was.
Hmmm.. I think the Skye part where arcane doesn't show you anything about skye up until the moment she dies works well.. It goes well with the fact that viktor only cares about the work and about making himself well or more machine oblivious to what happens around him. I don't feel like it's the same kind of fridging you talked before where the death of some character creates the whole motive of the main character, her death is a concequence of his path and the choices he's made, that's exactly the thing singed warned him of. He didn't pay atention to her and when his bad choices killed her he realised his work hurted someone who cared for him but he was too occupied to notice.
i quite like that everything's been left open ended at the end of the season? resolving the transformation of powder into jinx but leaving everything else unfinished with frayed edges? it gives me that....lost feeling that the characters feel and i think that its important that we don't always feel satisfied with how things end at the end of a season, that sense of unease and excitement lead into how you'll feel when picking up season 2 ya know? anyway, for me arcane is a 8.9/10 i think everything they have done has been great (except for randomly killing off sky i agree with that point) but also that maybe a 12 episode run for the first season might have given them the time they needed to put in the extra punch and make everything feel a little less rushed, or develop some more on some of the relationships so we get a solid feeling of how the characters interacted in the past, interact in the present and how they will potentially play off each other in the future.
Demanding everything to be closed in a season is like saying killing off Ned Stark at the end of Game of Thrones and leaving his children in an unresolved situation is bad writing. Ridiculous point.
Gotta hard disagree about killing off Skye. I think it was a beautifully done death scene and comparing it to actual fridging (looking at you Marvel) is a disservice to the writers.
Yeah I don't mind when a series doesn't conclude most things, it's so much more preferable than a rushed finale trying desperately to tie up as many loose ends as possible
@@MrDrewwills oh the death scene itself was amazing! and the emotional impact it had on Viktor was great, but we had seen Skye maybe 3 times before that and a couple of short glimpses extra, it just feels like she was introduced, given the bare minimum amount of character, then killed off in a way that only furthers the story of one character who, tbh already had enough turmoil, motivation and also hesitation without her death. i don't think it's 100% bad i just think it needed an extra 10 minutes or so focusing on the two of them before her death in order to make it feel like it meant something ? because as it stands, to me personally, it feels like if they had never introduced Skye, nothing about the plot would've changed. and i don't wanna feel like that because for the short glimpses we got of her she was a great character
@@danieldrage9714 She was used to bring Victor back from the brink. He was losing control almost like and addiction/obsession. The death of Skye a co-worker (to him) brought him back to reality and made him re-evaluate what he is doing.
16:30 I get what you're saying about Powder's mental state...but I need to say that scene has been the most accurate depiction of my own mental health I have ever seen. Yes, Powder is quiet and moody and seemingly not capable of such outbursts... It's because she's bottling up every scrap of criticism she ever receives. She's holding it in, and it's painting over her personality until she's hollow. She's so desperately trying to live up to what Vi wants her to be but fails time and time again so when Vi finally leaves her behind...the emotions finally come out. All at once, all the raging self hatred and fear just pour out in one big explosion. I'm not saying you're wrong with your criticism, but I'm not sure how else you can portray that kind of meltdown in cinema. In my life, no one has any idea what I struggle with. I hide it from them, I even hide it from myself. The only sign anything is wrong is the explosion, all other times I'm just wearing the mask I've woven to trick the world. As for what I didn't like about the show: I really didn't like how extraneous the Viktor/Jayce plotline turned out to be. Beyond Jayce making stuff and Jinx stealing it, Jayce, Viktor, and Mel all really weren't hugely influential on the main plotline: Jinx's development. I personally think the show's climax was perfect...for the plotlines at play. But I really wish they had more closely intertwined the stories of Jayce and Co with Jinx and Co.
To me one of the greatest strong points of the series is how grounded in reality it feels. How every decision, every development feels so real. You just get every character and why they do and say what they do when they do it. So what bugs me the most personally is the way vi turned out to be after spending what 6 to 8 years or how ever long that time skip was in prison. And not just any prison. She is literally in a dark, cold stone box, doesnt have anybody to talk to or sympathize with AND gets regularly tortured all right after losing literally all of her family and having to fear for her sister. I dont care how mentally fortified a person might be, that shit would wreck you. I feel like Vi should at that point be more messed up than Powder tbh. But I also don't know how you couldve avoided that. Because don't get me wrong, Vi is my personal favourite character of the show and I love the way she turned out to be. You could also not have had her only been in that prison for a part of the time because it is vital to Jinx's arc that Vi could never make an attempt at finding her again. Interested in what you think how this couldve been fixed or if you disagree with me entirely.
I disagree: She was not in her dark, cold stone box (her cell) all the time, she has been working out, getting tattoos and piercings and we see her beating the guy in the dining hall. Also, she didn't come from the nicest of places to begin with and was probably respected by the other prisoners because she was a good fighter, so it wasn't that difficult to adapt to prison. Yes, she lost most of her family, but the objective of seeing Powder again gave her hope to endure the beatings and she was always strong willed anyway. I'm not saying it happened that way, but it's entirely possible it did.
Arcane does not necessarily need all that exposition that you're asking for if it is able to express character relationships through wordless, expressive sequences that allow the viewer to understand what is being communicated without the need for extensive dialogue. You can, if you like, be pedantic about this if you're really into narrow and traditional storytelling frameworks; but Arcane succeeds primarily through its mastery of artistry. I think the most salient criticism is that viewers wish there were more to watch given the quality of what is presented. In my opinion, less is more.
But he's not talking about more exposition. He specifically praised the scene with Caitlyn observing the crime scene for not relying so heavily on exposition in order to understand her thought process. Instead, the issue he has is that there's not enough emotional tension built up for certain scenes to have a satisfying payoff. Jayce's suicide attempt wasn't really that emotional, at least for me, because we didn't have enough time exploring the depths of his despair for use to really feel the emotions he was feeling. Exposition isn't necessary for something like that. As Skyen suggested, we could have been shown him desperately attempting to seek help from multiple different people over time, for that to then result in him giving up hope and then attempting to end his own life. That tension building is important for something to be more emotionally impactful.
@@Alex_Johnson_ More emotional than it already was? No, thank you, i needed to breath sometimes, those few moments that draw your attention but doesn't hit you as hard emotionally are fine.
but that's the thing he does not enjoy that but as he said it is because he perceives this art differently, the things he said are not exactly flaws with the show but it's things that he does not enjoy about it
I think I have to disagree with Sky's story being rushed. I never got the impression that Viktor is supposed to care deeply about Sky on a personal level. The fact that she's basically a stranger to him, but he still reacts so strongly to her death was a major moment for me in Viktor's character arc; it emphasizes that he's an idealist who genuinely cares about the "average person", just as much as those close to him. That's especially important as the main thing Jayce and Vi are dealing with that episode is that same question of protecting all the people vs the ones they personally care about. So, I think that the story would lose something crucial if Sky was a more developed, major character, since that would put the focus on the personal tragedy of losing her in particular, rather than the ideological challenge of Victor failing in his commitment to help people, and hurting them instead. Viktor's character arc in the game is all about the tension between human connection and the greater ideological good, so him dealing with an ideological failure while everyone else is going through their deeply personal trauma fits well. You do have a point that the scenes showing how Sky likes Viktor indicate that Sky's death was supposed to be understood in the personal context, but given how one-sided the relationship clearly was, I think it's more likely that Sky liking Victor is just a way to justify Sky being willing to risk her life for Viktor in the first place. That justification could have been handled better, maybe even by just having Sky be completely unrelated to him, and having the Hexcore suck her in against her will, rather than her rushing in to try and save him. In general, her role in the story is closer to the kid Jayce kills in Zaun; they're not supposed to be developed characters, because they represent the faceless casualties of progress, who will inevitably continue to pile up if Jayce and Viktor continue down the paths they're going down. For that reason, it's especially important that Sky isn't special to Viktor, and by extension, special to the audience. You can only kill Viktor's girlfriend so many times, but there's no limit to the number of unrelated people who could be hurt by the dangers of uncontrolled magic, which is what her death is supposed to thematically represent.
I also think that by killing of Sky as they did, it makes Viktor realize what he could have had. He could have realized even just a little bit that this person deeply cared for him (through her notes) and just like people in real life, me who had done so before, can imagine what it would’ve been like if he just had paid more attention to her instead of his research. I interpret it as Viktor realizing the what could have beens but facing the reality he is in, not knowing who she actually was, what her personality was like personally or any personal details for that matter. The line where he says he doesn’t know where she would have liked to be while tossing her ashes into the water shows that he felt the loss and realized what was right in front of him before it was too late. He cares now but she’s already dead. Her death can lead to him being more obsessed with his work because Sky had left her notes which tell that she wanted to help Viktor progress forward. And albeit he realized he doesn’t form connections with people, he could only realized how impactful it was with Sky but not others. Therefore with his obsession further supported he continues his research and remains ignorant to others who he could bond with and instead research for the better of everyone while not actually connecting to others. It also links to the kid story he has in the lore where he takes in a kid to help him by augmentation, he has the empathy and thinks of how augmenting the boy will make him better but doesn’t go farther than that. Never forming a connection outside his research and tech. This is all also my interpretation of Sky’s story. I think both of these interpretations work well together. Sky is closer a what could have been but didn’t and really helps give Viktor that development but we don’t know how he actually gets to his current point in the lore after Sky’s death yet and I would love to see that, can’t wait for season 2
I think I'm the opposite. I give it more of a pass on its mistakes due to how close to perfection it is. Maybe that's due to how much crap there is out there these days... I do see you point, though. I was quite disappointed in the lack of development and fridging of Sky. I do think this show deserved and needed more than 9 episodes. It's one of my great annoyances these days with stream platforms, particularly Netflix. I'm not sure if each episodes could have been made shorter without losing quite a bit. I can only imagine how much this show cost to make. I think even just 3 more episodes could have done wonders for this show. Hopefully the success gives them the ok to do just a lil bit more
I don't think more episodes would've been better. Just more minutes in 1 episode. Make it 50-55 minutes instead of 40-45. Its more than enough. Show Jayce's descent into despair with 1 scene where he asks for funding from some people and everyone rejects him. Show moment of Viktor with Skye and 1 moment with Skye alone(flashback?) for 3-5 minutes each. It would be enough to get us invested in her character. Show us a bit more interactions between kids in 1 act, give Ekko a bit more time with Powder, ~5 minutes is enough. And for the last part, give more moments for Jinx with Silco, and of Silco with goons, show us how he leads. Show is almost perfect, its just been a mistake to make each episode not 50-55 minutes. BUT. They still can erase most of the errors in second season. In Viktor's case they can show us how he uses Skye's research to help heal and change himself. This will be a great way to put some flashbacks for Skye. Jinx in second season can have couple flashbacks related to Silco as she mourns him. Same with Ekko, 1-2 flashbacks to their time as kids with Powder. Another way is to make Directors Cut and sell it. Add more minutes to each episode this way.
Yeah, sure its got its problems, as does everything, but for the most part it was so good I'm willing to forgive them for the few little things that didn't come out so good. And I agree that it could have used 3 more episodes, making it four episode acts, which would allow for more development for certain characters, making certain events more meaningful. For me honestly, the show is like a 9/10. The issues that it had weren't big enough to bump down any further, cause the show as it is, is still significantly better than a lot of shows out there.
I see your point, but I see nothing wrong with having characters that are just brief, timewise, depthwise and "emotionwise". You can tell IRL that there are some people around us, that we only get that little exposition in all of those senses.
I don't agree on the Powder not being shown to be volatile before being a flaw, to me adding more scenes to set up would have that scene better, sure, but it would have incredibly boring, and would not add anything to the show as a whole. If you can cut a scene and not have the story worse off, you should. With Sky it's even more important, the whole point of that death is that we feel what Victor feels: that we missed out, that we didn't know her and here she has her own life and goals and values.
The best thing about a series is that you fill in the odds yourself because you just get it. The story is in a way so clever told, that you just get the character and their backstory. I think every scene which arcane had was interesting and necessary. Every additional scene would have been unnessesary and i think sky for example just had nothing to say in arcane then making viktor aware how far he developed from the ones he tried to make life better for. She wasn't ment to have much screentime so we would eventually forget aabout her as well and then realise the people in zhaun who should profit from hextech weren't thought about in the end. I think this lead viktor to his amazing sentence "in the pursuit of acchieving great we failed doing good.
I had no problem with sky. I thought finding out and seeing her through Victor's eyes was interesting I didn't feel like she needed anymore. Also with the echo and powder dialogue I think it's necessary to watch The enemy music video that came before the show as it actually shows scenes that I feel are vital to act one. It does show echo and powder hanging out and doing mischief together and shows more backstory for them as kids which I think was needed.
As fas as sky’s scene goes… I had a completely different read on it. It didn’t give me the impression we were meant to care for sky or even that victor cared for her, but simply to feel understand how dangerous the hexcore is. I feel like, sky was not only secondary and barely there for us, but also for victor who was so obsessed with his work and Jayce that he barely even noticed her until his mistake turned her to dust. And killing somebody involuntarily is already a hide deal, he didn’t need to have a prior emotional connection to her other than knowing her name. He only really saw her when he killed her, and so did we. (Not to say that that’s definitely what the writers intended, but it is how I initially interpreted it)
I believe you're simply describing the paradoxically huge difference btween "almost perfect" and "perfect". Quality is worth more the more there is. As to the specific points you've mentioned. I believe that firstly Powder's breakdown didn't really need background cause it was the background. I think it was the first major sign of her insanity. Like she said Silco didn't make Jinx. I almost completely give you the point about Jayce's suicide but the way he acts before that with his mother is completely understandable. She influenced the council's decision that we may view as good but Jayce didn't cause he truly believed in his work unlike what she claimed. Ekko and Powder interacting wouldn't make a difference. There was obviously plently more backsory regarding all of the kids but we knew they knew eachother and their fight doesn't really leave room for misinterperting their relationship, the one they have or the one they used to have. And honestly I think it all just added to the scene. As for Sky I think it's important to notice that even though there are many main characters we usually see things solely from their perspective. And to Victor she really wasn't all that present. He acknowledged her but he didn't really have a connection with her. Her death was only that devastating because it was caused by him. And we didn't have to assume she was a scientist nor was it a surprise, it's why she was their assistant. Just like Victor used to be. Finaly about the finale I'm pretty sure that was full on purpose. No time issue or anything. Arcane is all about clifhangers wether we like it or not. However it wasn't only Jinx's resolution, it was Piltrover-Zaun's aswell along with most charcaters affiliated with their connection. The ending solidifies the civil war between them and the many efforts of characters to prevent it go to waste.
I am slightly obsessed with this show and totally can relate to desire to see more of it, but the truth is if they did show you what happened during those missing moments, you would not be that engaged. Considering how much thought they've put into all kinds of details in writing and design of every frame, I'm pretty sure those gaps exist on purpose. It is actually a hallmark of a brilliant writing. Our minds build for puzzle solving, and our perception of art is very subjective. When we hear (or watch or read) perfectly explained story, out brain have no puzzle to solve, so it goes right over our head into abyss. But, when we have characters and situations compelling enough to be believable, yet providing gaps and factual ambiguities, our brain takes it as incomplete model and starts explaining away all those juicy inconsistencies. This way 'head canons' are born, so characters stop being independent drawings with sound effects, they in a way become extension of you. For example, you see conversation between Silco and Vander, and you feel all kinds of emotions, because you've invented and lived with them entire story of their friendship in your imagination, and what coming next hits you that much harder. Level of engagement may vary from bit to bit depending on your personal interests or experiences, but this how it works in general.
My biggest grievance was that they were setting up this whole "class war" vibe between Piltover and Zaun, but didn't bother to connect Piltover's wealth with specifically the exploitation of Zaun. IRL these disparities are *causal,* not merely coincidental: Piltover would have been wealthy because it can coerce Zaunites into extracting wealth on their behalf, or because they can dump waste in Zaun (implied but not shown). In fact the only labour exploitation explicitly on screen is that of Zaunites being exploited by Silco's industries - this would justify why Zaun's residents could be resentful of Silco taking control, but they never bother connecting Piltover's wealth to Silco's industry either. It could have been Pilties purchasing shimmer for recreation and that would have been enough. They even have the hex crystals as an incredibly hazardous and important material that could have been harvested by Zaunites for Piltover, and at least in season 1, the source is never explained. So the whole class war thing between the two cities struck me as shallow "oh you hate us because we're prettier than you." It's even lampshaded in early Cait and Vi interactions. It's just not a believable depiction of class disparity.
Exactly, they have one moment of Jayce mentioning "undercity" workers. But they don't show any of the exploitation that would justify the hatred. they also show all attempts to resist or change the system as bad because it's violent but they don't show nonviolent resistance. Then never attempts to show the show's "right" version of resistance.
I thought it was already kind of implied that they were being explored. Even if that wasnt as clear, the show did a good job in establishing the opressive manner that piltover treats zaun, i mean the first scene in the show is how piltover gaurds kiled vi and jinx parents.
I think the actual analogy is to the French/American revolutions. There are *no* people on the Council that are even remotely associated with the Undercity. The closest is Jayce after... 200 years? That's messed up. And there doesn't seem to be a way to petition the government *at all*. Also... they live in a place where they literally die of horrifying diseases because of the air they are forced to breath constantly and the obvious unavailability of breathing apparatus. Merely by being forced to live there, they are *literally*, not figuratively being slowly murdered. Each and every person there. This is highlighted in the show. A lot. Silco literally just brings some gas out of the mines and nearly kills people with it because they haven't been acclimated to it for *at most* 7 years. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. In fact *in that scene* Silco says "the mines they had us in". Bruh.
I mostly agree with the points made, as I kept feeling that while everything we got was so well done it would have been nice to see more of the in-between steps at certain points. I do want to add that I didn't really think Jayce was being a jerk to his mother after his trial in episode 2, as she had just publicly testified at trial that he wasn't in his right mind, specifically for his attempt to follow a long held dream. I can understand why his mother did as she did, but I think it is perfectly understandable for Jayce to feel betrayed at that moment.
I’ve rewatched the Ekko vs Jinx fight like 15 times at this point and it is amazing. But at the same time I’m very aware that most of the buildup for the fight is carried by the ENEMY music video, the only time we really see the kids (specifically Jinx and Ekko but all of them too) just hangout and goof off. The first act isn’t entirely doom and gloom, but the entire time the kids have some sort of goal or are hiding from enforcers. We don’t get to see the any of the kids genuinely happy without a care in the show until the Ekko v Jinx flashback, so it relies on the music video and viewers filling in the gaps to figure out their relationship.
Tbh as someone who never watched the music video....the whole fight scene in the moment felt jarringly hamfisted just to show off "animation". As I did not recall any real previous interaction between the two characters I unfortunately did not feel any emotional connection to the scene other than.."O that's cool"
@@hugofung4734 I watched the music video but forgot all of it by the time I saw that scene. Unlike you apparently though, I was easily able to infer their history and likely friendship during their childhood from watching the first 4 episodes of the show and what they showed in the flashback. So I got all the bang out of the scene I needed.
Looking back. I think the Enemy music video is meant to fill in some of the gaps in the narrative as a way of communicating new information about the characters. It introduced Ekko and Powder as having a friendship. They didn't reuse anything from the series in the video so I think we're supposed to extrapolate meaning of relationships from the Enemy music video and project that information forward as we watch Arcane. It feels like Riot establishing new information for the things they won't be able to touch on in the series proper.
A show shouldn't have to rely on external media to tell its story. Arcane shouldn't have to rely on a promotional music video to explain its character relationships. Just going off of things happening in the show, we see that Ekko has excellent reasons to want to clean Jinx's clock (her on-screen body count includes Ekko's gang-mates and presumed friends.) So his hesitation at the end of the fight doesn't feel as earmed as it might've, had the show bothered to give Ekko and Powder some meaningful interaction in the first act. Some reason for us, the audience, to believe he'd hesitate.
I haven't really seen Arcane, but something I feel so strongly about is how they use colors a little to perfectly. I don't mean they use colors to show the mood of things, what I mean is: They're able to show the passage of time and explain things in depth using colors. Powder's hair is a nice light blue, but when she turns into the chaotic person that is Jynx, her hair is still blue but you can tell it's as if she's letting everything inside go. I feel like Powder was kept as light colors to really make the transformation dramatic but also to show that Powder was keeping quiet and keeping the good girl act behind because she felt like she needed to in order to keep Vi, but when she becomes Jynx she's let herself go in more ways than onez and they show it by using colors. Her skin is paler because she stays in hiding, she even has that look of 'something is off' as Powder which only becomes more apparent in Jynx.
From what I can tell, the high quality character storytelling in arcane proves that even if a character doesn't get the screen time deserved, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Arcane managed to immerse me. The world feels like it exists outside of the characters, with its own turnings and thousands of individual stories. It is because of the quality that Arcane did show us that I am able to forgive characters like Sky getting virtually no set up. in a lesser show, I would not be so forgiving. I really liked a lot of your points, but there we differ.
Ordinarily I greatly agree with a lot of Skyen’s takes and I don’t even disagree with some stuff here like how they couldn’t resolve all the storylines. However, I don’t agree about the criticism of back filling details. I think thats just respecting modern viewer’s intelligence. I am really sick of media that spoon feeds everything you are supposed to think and feel and know. I like that Arcane respects the viewers time enough not to waste it. Skye is the only character I agree where they could have spent more time on.
idk when I watch a show about characters and how they relate to each other and their world, I would like... to see them relate to each other and their worlds. Arcane speedruns its way through SO MUCH relationship building between characters in so many places (Powder never has a scene with Vander, either), that at points it starts to feel thin. I don't sit down to watch a TV show to imagine cool stories happening in my head, I sit down to have a good story TOLD to me, and at some point if the narrator keeps going "okay so just imagine that a bunch of cool stuff happens here, and then we'll skip ahead to the next bit" I am going to feel like I'm missing out on a lot of things that would be cool to get to actually _experience._
@@TBSkyen there is the scene where Vander pours Powder the drink and notices Vi gave her the stuffed animal but I agree they could have used a scene that focuses on their relationship specifically more. I don’t think a lot of those were “cool stories” though I didn’t need Ekko and Powder playing together in a scene to know it happened etc. Big fan of your work btw!
@@asant1986 And if kid Ekko and Powder is something that you are desperately missing then you can find it in the Enemy music video, I know it is not really a valid argument since that something you should find in the episodes but on the other hand the one of the shows big objective is that it wants to left you with unsatisfiable hunger for more and so you will look for more and get more.
For my money, spending more time on Skye would be a huge waste of everybody's time. She was never relevant, not to Viktor, not for the story. She died to show Viktor and us the dangers of the hexcore that Heimerdinger wanerd about. And thats fine the way it is.
@@asant1986 I can buy the argument that Vander and Powder dynamic doesn't need to be fleshed out more, but how is better fleshing out Powder and Ekko not a 'cool story'??? It let's the payoff during their fight scene hit so much harder.
You know that scene when the kids were hiding from the enforcers in their little arcade/hideout and we got to see powder's marksmanship as she shoots all the targets and beats Milo? I feel like that would've been a great moment to establish the game that Ekko and Jinx were "playing" on the bridge. Instead of the targets, it would've been Ekko, Milo, and Claggor armed up against Powder alone. Powder clears Milo first and easily, then Claggor, and while she was busy trying to get those two, we see Ekko sneaking around, avoiding her, and just when he thinks he's got a shot, Powder hits him right on his chest plate. I feel like this would establish Powder as a competent marksman, Ekko as a sneaky and stealthy spy, and most importantly, their friendship. It's such an easy fix! It wouldn't take anything from the story, it'll only add to it.
They really could’ve established the relationship with Elmo and jinx berry effectiveley, sort of as the underdogs, the little ones the ones that aren’t invited to everything because they are simply not strong enough, and we could’ve seen this relationship play out more towards the end and I hope that season 2 is another act longer like 12 episodes, because zany and pullover is such a big story and their is so much more to come
It's funny because honestly what you're calling a weakness, the need for the audience to fill gaps in the story where they could've been explained, I actually think is a big strength. A lot of the time we're treated like we're stupid and studios feel the need to fill in every gap so that we can follow along which usually slows a show or movie down to a point where I feel like a lot of the charm can be lost. Arcane is a charming show, I don't need them to tell me why Jayce was so defeated I can see it, I might have reacted differently but that doesn't mean I don't understand why Jayce is where he is at the end of ep 2. I do agree that the weakest part of the story was viktor's entire story line and honestly I was really disappointed by that, UNTIL I heard that we were getting a second season. I feel like a lot of the criticism (sans your sky comments which I absolutely agree with) that you level here is remidied by the fact that we now know that this will be a seasonal show with more story to come. They had so little runway to get to the point that we're at now, and I think they used every single inch of it to a perfect point. This show could've been 20 episodes but in all honesty I think it would've lost a lot of it's charm in that run time. I do think all of the points in this critique are valid and honest but I also just don't really agree with them. A more perfect show doesn't make the mistakes worse for me it makes them more acceptable.
I would love if they gave Viktor more backstory. The existence of the giant clockwork contraption we see behind the portal by the river where Viktor has scenes with Jace and Heimerdinger is really compelling. I think the show implies that Viktor built this, possibly even before he was invited to the science academy. And honestly, what bothers me about how the show handled the Sky situation wasn’t them fridging her. It’s how Viktor doesn’t confess to his culpability in her death and possibly didn’t even tell anyone she is dead. I mean he says he doesn’t know where she would have preferred her remains to be left. But you know who might have been able to tell him? Her friends and family. You know who should be told that she is dead and deserves to know how it happened? All those people. I guess death is a lot more common in Piltover. Maybe covering up your murders is more morally acceptable in that universe.
hmm why is backfilling bad in contexts of Jayce and Jinx, but good in scenes like Cait doing detective work? I wish the ekko/jinx character/relationship work done in the enemy MV was present in the video. it seems like all the metatext(?) also feeds into the show, the docs in the client, the MV, etc. and while i agree that the show relies on intertextuality(just learnt the word), I dont consider it a flaw from my own POV since I've consumed those other texts. i also dont really feel as strongly about Sky, I saw her as Grayson or Benzo. they are characters that exist to be part of of another characters story. I do wish there was more screen time for her, but thats something I feel for everyone in the show like Mel's assistant. its a bit too over efficient.
Because the scene with Caitlyn isn't supposed to be emotional. Jayce's suicide attempt wasn't really that emotional of a scene, as we hadn't really seen much of it or were able to feel what he felt at that moment. Similarly with Jinx and Ekko, we never really see their relationship when they were younger, so this moment with them coming head-to-head and trying to kill each other wasn't as impactful as it could have been because we never had a chance to get attached to their relationship as children.
I respect your honest opinion, though I have to disagree. To me, the more well-executed a show is, the more I'm willing to overlook its flaws, rather than the other way around. I suppose different people respond to media differently.
15:21 'the closer you approach perfection, the more painfully present and distracting the imperfections become' Yeah no, disagree, completely. When something is great you're far more willing to overlook the imperfections and brush them aside. That's why when something is really popular and someone says "yeah but..", even if the observations have some merit there's a lot of pushback on how those things don't really matter. It's when something fails that you start picking out the imperfections to explain away why you think it's a failure - the inconsistencies, the wild coincidences, insufficient or too much exposition, out of character moments and muddy motivations.. and when you share that with people they nod and agree, yeah! that's what's wrong with this thing!
agreed. He did this title for clickbait, and his argument isn't very strong. The show was 10/10, simple as that. Really looking forward to seeing more in season two (╯▽╰ )
I guess that varies between people, but the majority of times it is as you say. I do think what Skyen talks about isn't as rare as implied though - it's easily seen with series that have strong points and go downhill; the hype trains that crash and burn once the second half of the season comes out or etc.
A weird complaint I have is how the time line works. Somehow Jayce becomes a councilor, starts making rules on the council, starts bribing the council, kicks Heim off the councilor in a four day period. The reason this happens is because Caitlyn, Powder and Vi's story is a fast paced gotta stop the bomb from exploding story and we're supposed to be seeing these stories running side by side. Anyways in order to make media you need to hurt yourself in one category in order to make another category better and I think this is one of those cases where you have no other option that it ends up being worth it to do.
Also, having two sections labeled “Why Arcane is a 10/10 show” and “Why Arcane is a 7/10 show” perfectly embodies my feelings about the show overall It has such unbelievable highs that the lows are just that much harder to ignore.
So your overall complaints really took 3 heavy points off Arcane. Even though I agree with some of the “flaws” you’ve stated, it still doesn’t warrant the 7/10 mainly because those are some very very very minor flaws that can easily be understood on your own or overlooked with the insane production this show has delivered. You basically wanted Riot to animate another Act just to explain those lesser details that neither wouldn’t have mattered. I would’ve loved an additional Arc but I’m pretty sure it would inevitably take a hit on the quality of each episode. Those lesser details in an extent would’ve only taken one episode of 20 minute or less if you Skyen would’ve liked. Totally unnecessary. I think you’re very annoyed that Skye wasn’t explored furthered, like other comments said, she wasn’t important to the overall plot. For the longest time I’ve only watched anime and disregarded Western animations cuz most of them are either Disney child cartoon or bad animations series. To the exception of ATLA, up until this point I thought ATLA was the best Western animation this World has given us. Arcane is the pinnacle of story telling and art animation. I’ve always believed fast pace story telling was never good for a show without omitting crucial details but Arcane have shown us, they’ve shown us all. Minor “flaws” like yours Skyen, can easily be omitted and have no significant change to the overall story and that’s why Arcane is a masterpiece. But, heck, I would’ve loved another episode.
Yeah this video to me just sounded like nitpicking stuff that shouldn't even matter in the first place. Even in the most greatest of shows, when you nitpick about something, you're obviously gonna see some imperfections because nothing is perfect and that's guaranteed that you would see something that is bad or rushed in a show. But that shouldn't detract from how amazing a show is. That's just being too harsh on it because that's just looking for anything that can be said that is bad about it. If anything the highs of the show make the lows and bad unnoticeable because of how good it is.
dude I get that you like the show, but it isn’t literally flawless Also numbered ratings mean nothing, this is probably the first time Skyen’s used a numbered rating in months and he gave it *two* ratings. It means nothing
The best way to recommend Arcane is how i recommended it to a friend: "Honestly, as someone who has a Lore encyclopedia on his brain, the only thing know LoL lore does for Arcane is spotting little details they spread throughout the episodes and recognize certain iconography that some background characters have"
"Filling in the details" was one of the most engaging and interesting parts of watching Arcane as it released (for me). Arcane was released in 3 parts, 3 episodes each, and I was given so much time to theorize, imagine, and complete the story with my own experiences and thoughts between each part. Arcane's denseness lets the story live beyond its episodes. That said, the experience of filling in the details can be distracting to some people (Skyen) or one of the best things ever (for me). Some people don't fill in the details and are confused (one of my friends). And some parts of the show truly were rushed and I use fan fiction to fill in the holes.
I think there's kind of a Catch-22 at play here. The production quality leads one to expect that the show is a completely uncompromising, auteur-esque masterpiece, which it doesn't completely deliver on. At the same time, the production quality probably couldn't have been so high had it relegated time to tell the more underdeveloped stories. I think what we're left with is the closest thing to perfection possible given the medium and story, and I completely get how annoying the potential of that closeness is.
Indeed, T B Skyen's version of things could've been a masterpiece. Heck a 12-13 episode season would've been more than fine in removing the most egregious moments of "please fill in the blanks with your imagination". But as pointed out by him and others on twitter, the only reason why Arcane is such a visual storytelling and a painting at every frame is due to the longer than normal storyboarding and animating schedule allowed. Riot did give an absurdly large budget and manhour to this compared to most animation projets on the planet , but I don't think there's a world in which they give them THAT much time and money. There's an obvious reason why the story was told at this frenetic pace, everyone is aware and yet... Our boi went all Kylo Ren MORE.gif and tbh I can't blame him, we all want the nicest things and it's a bummer when we have to settle for anything than the best. What Could Have Been, amirite?
@@xavierarial24 Once again we have arrived at the contradiction between artistic achievement and capitalism. If you where to actually throw enough money at this show to make it literally perfect in every conceivable way there isn't a chance in hell you would ever be able to make a profit from it, therefore compromises will always have to be made. Edit: Removed unnecessary remark.
@@alexwynters600 I don't think he's blamed the showrunners for this. Quite the contrary, in fact he's given a 10/10 on all that is THERE because he recognize the pure artistry in action. He's only bemoaning the fact that much had to be cut or expedited to get to the finish line. People who have followed Skyen for some amount of time are keenly aware that he's fully understood the relationship between art being produced and how it intersects with Capitalism to know who's to blame for this "7/10" feeling. Artists working on animation and/or games would be the first one to tell how much it haunts them to not be able to put more time into XYZ. They'd understand this feeling very well, because it happens literally every project they work on.
@@xavierarial24 Disagree here. Sounds like at the end of this hypothetical Arcane we'd all be saddled with something that tells instead of shows. I think part of what makes the show so great is that it gives the audience the agency and opportunity to think for themselves.
I agree with the Ekko scene. I disagree with Skye scene. Yeah it was fridging, but here the point was, I feel, to emphasize that she was, for both Viktor and the audience, a background character. Both the character and we acknowledged her as a, lets say, secondary person who we dont really need to think all that much about. And only when she dies (we had seen it a moment earlier) we realize "hey that background extra had a dream and hopes and entire life. It was a person." I also find it odd to assume that for Viktor to be deeply traumatized after killing someone it had to be a deep friendship, not just an acquaintance. Personally I feel I would be traumatized after murdering the lady from bakery, even if I bought the sweet roll from her for the first time.
The lack of time used to build relationships and show our characters reaching critical points is unfortunate and everyone wishes that they had another twelve hours to tell the same story but with more detail (the biggest for me is Ekko and Jinx's relation only being explored in the music video is disappointing), but a great number of people say that all the character arcs end unresolved and unsatisfying (except for Jinx - which is what T B Skyen said). This is something I disagree with. The character arcs that season Act 3 sets out for are finished, however, our characters reach lifechanging conclusions. Jayce pushes for peace, Mel forsakes Noxus at the very end, Viktor has chosen to destroy the hexcore by getting Jayce to do it, etc. And then the show plays what could have been. It's so easy to follow what could have been, where these characters would have gone next, and the general flow of the future. But our main-most character for season 1, Jinx, concludes her character arc by exploding what could have been. Jinx takes these finished character arcs and their clear trajectories towards the future (some of which take them away from the future of their league champion version, especially Viktor) in season one ending so good it's hard to imagine writing anything better, the resolutions of Piltover and Zaun overthrown by the tragic resolution of our main character. As for Sky, I never really felt I was supposed to care about her or that there was hidden depth. Maybe I was supposed to but I didn't feel the show was trying to prop her up as someone Viktor cared intensely for, I felt that we were seeing her from his perspective and that he largely ignored her. To me this wasn't a great part of the show but neither was it something that was heavily flawed. And the fact that she was a scientist and inventor I don't think is supposed to spark a hint of a lot of backstory or relation between her and Viktor (which was always shown to be onesided) but how do you become an assistant to the most important project in the city if you aren't a scientist and inventor.
Sky was a symbol for the other option Victor had in life. She was the “other playing kid”, looking at him from an elevation where he could not (easily) go. But when his machine is going into the cave, the path was steep and rocky, too. Singed identifies his excuse of disability for the reason why he is not playing with the other kids: “Loneliness is often the by-product of a gifted mind.” Although Sky was always there, I think Viktor, did not see her, or care about her. He chose his path. She just becomes meaningful to him, when she dies. Viktor never wanted to invent Hextech weapons, yet his Hexcore kills her, just at the same moment Jayce kills the boy with a Hextech weapon. So killing Sky in the way they did you may call cheap, or fridged, or bad writing. I do not.
21:20 -> You say we never see Powder and Ekko interacting in act 1. Check out Episode 2 at 25min47sec We can see them playing together I still agree with your point though, a full 30-60 sec scene of them playing and talking to each other might have been good.
I just rewatched the Imagine dragon - Enemy music video, there are actually a lot of scenes of Ekko and Powder playing together in it, too bad they didn’t put those in the actual show
I agree that the score number is a pointless gimmick created to increase viewer engagement so I don't care about that 7/10. However I disagree that the show would be better if we explored everything in more depth. 1) We can't expect this level of visual and thematic quality for 30 episodes. 2) I love it when series expect the viewer to think about the series and to infer backgrounds from hints. I don't need to love Sky to feel emotional about Viktor losing her. I don't need Arcane to show me 5 scenes of an unstable Powder to understand that she is traumatized by losing her family once and fears losing her again. In My opinion this makes Arcane better, not worse. But this is obviously subjective so have a nice day and thanks for the video :)
I gently disagree about Viktor's assistant, for me, hers death also plays in the new born inhuman Viktor's nature. Like a motivation or crazy self unconscious sacrifice.
Imo, the numbers are really redundant here. They've set a new high standard for animation (which has a million subparts to it) and bundled it with authentic style (steampunk w/ cyberpunk), great storytelling and powerful music. And while there are tiny issues with each one of the above mentioned parts, the product as a whole is something of a new level, something I haven't seen before. And I truly enjoyed watching it.
I 100% agree about Jayce's scene. His attempted suicide actually got me to go: "Really dude? Overdramatic much?" And like him just being overdramatic would be fine if it actually was a character trait of his but it isn't, it was just a hastily done scene which made it look like he was willing to kill himself after just hitting the wall twice. Didn't even spare a thought for leaving his mother. Powder's scene, I'd be lying if I said I didn't raise a bemused eyebrow at it BUT I also appreciated the scene for that because it managed to be extra jarring. Sometimes people just snap seemingly out of nowhere and therefore I took it more like "Ok I guess nobody really realized how deep her issues actually are". If they had made it more clear beforehand then wouldn't we start questioning everyone around her being blind idiots? With Viktor... I actually agree with other people who pointed out that his guilt and grief was primarily caused because of the tragedy of his own apathy, how he didn't even get to know her, and because it was a rather gruesome death which HE caused. Though they definitely could have made a better job establishing Sky for the *audience*. I actually didn't even realize that little girl was supposed to be her and felt absolutely nothing when she perished. Though I could still sympathize with Viktor. I guess in that sense the scene actually works. It's like it's, through Viktor's reaction, admonishing you for only caring about the life of those characters that have been well established. Kind of a wake up call for being apathetic.
In my interpretation, the situation with Sky was made as a conscious choice. It is actually true that Victor is not that close to her(similar to the viewer) and Victor reading her notes is truly the moment he realizes that she also had a lot of ideas and similar goals as him that she now will never be able to fulfill. The grief he feels is not of losing someone important, it is instead the grief of realizing what could have been that is now impossible to achieve.
All these points are pretty accurate, it's also definitely a thing that when a piece of art is so well crafted that the smallest of details can seem like bigger issues. However, I have to disagree that that feeling of disappointment that that those minute flaws make should really be considered as heavily as suggested here (No I'm not suggesting Skyen can't have an opinion, this is mine). I think that the issue here is that when a piece of art is THIS good, we all just want more. We all, ALWAYS, want more of the things we love. But I think it speaks volumes that the show was crafted so well that despite those 'shortcuts' and details, it never felt rushed while you're experiencing it. This feels much more like "We want more!" which is always the case, than it feels like something worth criticizing what we did get over, otherwise we make situations for ourselves (Not unlike the situation the MCU has started to reach) where we can no longer wholly enjoy media because there always could have been something done slightly different, said slightly differently, etc. People are entitled to their own opinions of what they want and yes, scoring media is immensely vague simply because people hold different things at higher value than others. Believe me, I WANT MORE. I need more Arcane, in my veins right now. But all of these points feel simply more like "If only!" which is something that can be applied to any and every piece of media on the planet and I think should be measured VERY carefully when it comes to considering the impact of those missing pieces, or whether they should be really considered 'missing' pieces even as opposed to 'extra'. Again, don't attack myself or Skyen, art is subjective, your opinion isn't better or worse than anyone else's, just try to consider why something is made the way it is as well as temper expectations or you'll simply make it difficult for yourself to revel in even the highest 'quality' art.
I loved your review. In my case, the only part that I felt (besides Sky) really needed a little bit more development, was in fact Caitlyn and Vi relationship. As you said, the problem is the show is too good. I feel like I didn't want a single more second spent on "exposition", because I just adored the fast passed the show was moving. It really felt that the first act was the roller coaster rising, second act was it going faster and faster, so that the third act felt like it was doing loops. And I actually loved it, BECAUSE it felt like I was loosing the grasp on how complicated the situation was just as the characters were.
My biggest fear when arcane came out was the depiction of powder/jinx as a manic pixie dream girl, as a very bad and inaccurate cliché of mental illness and distress. Even worse, I was afraid the show would sexualise her in some way, but in my opinion, Jinx is somewhat realistic and definitely relatable, in her I saw myself and having that third person perspective on her struggles, emotions and decisions really helped me. She is the character I relate to the most and that feeling is priceless. I'll forever be grateful for arcane.
After watching Enemy music clip and saw how close jinx and ekko when they were child i was excited to see their relationship in arcene. When i see nothing in act 1 i was genuinely sad. After seeing the fight scene between them i said FINALLY. I think they were very late to show us jinx and ekko relationship. Cause jinx has a big part in ekko's lore. And i am still sad that we only see their interaction once in the show. (Except the fight in air ship which i didn't count because we and probably jinx didn't know the guy was him.)
Another thing that I wished you had mention is that when Jayce is about to commit suicide, Viktor comes in and asks "Am I interrupting something?" And the same thing happens with Viktor when he's about to commit suicide, except the roles are reversed. It's such an impact full moment (to me) that felt shallow because the reasons for them wanting to commit suicide aren't developed like they should be. As someone who has previously been suicidal I felt a lot of impact from both of these scenes, but that is what the show relies on. Impact. The show is full of impact. Whether it's shock, emotion, or even just fun, it all just hits like a train. Sky's death made me feel emotional, but I didn't like it when I thought about it later on. The shock value on the show is insane, but it does rely on it an awful lot.
In my opinion I think they way they did the suicidal scenes of Jayce and Viktor work well. They just hit a rock bottom and while yes you can argue they would try to grasp for an opportunity or anything to come back (Jayce could ask a connection to come back to the Academy or Viktor using that incident to push himself forward or whatnot), they could also just look at the situation they are in as completely hopeless and negative. Seeing no hope in that moment and a fast clear way to end it right there tempting them they would be tempted and that is shown. For me and my past experience with being suicidal, I didn’t try to find an opportunity or a way out. I only saw the quick and easy way out that these scenes show. It feels relatable and understandable to me. With each other stopping the other’s attempt, it gives each an opportunity and hope to keep going and do more. It’s way too convenient but it works and shows to me very realistic suicidal tendencies and how actual help can bring someone back up.
I agree with Jayce's scene feeling shallow, but I don't agree that Viktor's did. Viktor, who's only goal is to save people with Hextech, just killed a vibrant, innocent person due to his admittedly selfish desires. He was experimenting with the Hextech core in that scene to try and completely fix his body, and I'm not saying he was selfish in a negative way, he was just doing something that would really only benefit him, and Sky died because of it. I could kinda see why Jayce would commit suicide, but I fully understood the anguish Viktor was going to and couldn't imagine how I would feel in that situation. Killed Sky, knowingly under the influence of the Hexcore, at deaths door with illness, has just been told that you won't live long enough to see all of your scientific work that you worked so hard for, there's a lot of emotion and motivation behind it imo.
Not sure if this is just me, but one thing about arcane that annoyed me was in the final episode where ALL the council members ended up voting to give zaun its independence. Given how all of them reacted to the mere thought of zaun being free governing earlier, I find it incredibly hard to believe that the new pretty boy jayce was able to convince these rampant capitalists, who at the very least look the other way to child labor, that they should simply give up the undercity to prevent further violence. I also feels like it plays into that BS narrative of "Just believe in the leaders that haven't done anything before, they'll do something now!" which is very tiring by now, especially as an American. I asked some friends what they thought, and they said that the council members recognized they would end up losing more money if things stayed the way they were, which I can see how people could see it that way, but I still can't personally
They voted for the deal brokered by Jayce. Not for the Independence of Zaun. The deal would not have pushed through IF Silco didnt hold up his end of the bargain. This is something a lot of people miss. In the final analysis, the upper class band together for self-preservation. Independence is not some rainbows and unicorns pity party thrown by the topsiders - the peace deal is the only way they see themselves keeping power in the long term.
To me, actually scoring the show feels like a dilemma. On one hand, I see most of the flaws you brought up here, so knowing that... it can't be a 10/10. On the other hand though... I have never watched a movie or show this good and moving (subjectively speaking ofcourse) in my life and I watch a lot of stuff. Which kinda makes it a 10/10. So where does that leave me? Fuck scoring it and just... call it what it is: a masterpiece. ^^
Its not a dilema, is just a personal thing. I don't understand how someone can watch the same show as I did and come out with a "meh, it was a 7/10" impression. But hey, I guess thats the beauty of personal opinions, everyone is allowed to have one. To me, Arcane is an absolute 9,6/10, briliant in every aspect.
This is why I never like perfect scores. Even the best art any human can produce will have weaknesses and flaws. That’s why at best something can be a 9.9. I actually don’t think Arcane is that, for me personally there are a few shows I rank higher. But 9.9 is the highest any piece of art can achieve imo.
This takes me back when IGN gave The Witcher 10/10 and calling it a masterpiece, but in that same review the author mentioned several points that slightly bothered them. People would see that as a contradiction and IGN being...paid media like always, but reading that review I didn't get that sense. The author said that while it wasn't "perfect", the experience and journey were so overwhelmingly positive that all the minor issues felt like a distant afterthought and insignificant nitpicking. It's sorta the same with other highly rated media like Arcane. People love the characters, story, art, animation, etc and are more than happy to overlook all the nitpicky problems. If they consider them problems in the first place.
@@joaoteodororeis2051 Hugo Fung 0 seconds ago I think a lot of ppl freak out about the numbers. When I think 7, I it's def not a "meh". 7/10 is still a very high score. When I rate anime/shows, I go with the following: 10 = masterpiece, very few shows should be a 10, however it should be easy to mark it a 10 after watching it. It is something I would recommend to ppl who wouldn't even watch this genre or cartoons or anime normally OR the show had a profound personal impact on me. 9 is pretty much perfect to me as a fan, a few small obvious nickpicks here and there that could be better but I am willing to overlook, but would recommend in general to anyone, fans of the genre for sure. 8 = great show in general, probably more enjoyable to a niche group/to that particular genre though. Def wouldn't recommend to say...my uncle lol 7 = a key noticeable drop in quality now for me. Usually has one glaring issue that bugs me but still overall enjoyable. might re-watch like key scenes here and there on youtube but not the whole thing/episodes again. At this point, I am hesitant to recommend to someone unless I know the person well and for sure they will like it 6 = Better than average 5 = average or as you say, "meh"
Did you ever notice how Powder rushes to get close to Vi whenever she had the opportunity as a kid? And then when she thought Vi abandoned her she lunged into Silco's arms? Powder's got serious abandonment issues. Every time Vi says something that makes it sound like she might leave or that one of her inventions fails she's worried she'll be left alone. Powder's freak out when being left alone is jarring, but it's her being worried she's not good enough for her family. That she's dead weight and would be left alone. It wasn't until that scene that it was clear that it wasn't just a self-esteem issue: it's a full-blown anxiety disorder, likely originating from the death of her parents and having to rely on Vi. When Vi walks away to cool off she screams and cries how she needs her.
i think the show wanted us to be aware of sky as much as viktor was,the times that we see sky on screen ,we (or at least i) don’t care that much about her, because simply thats not the arcanes intention , the show wants us to feel skys presence just like viktor.we see him ignore sky like she isn’t even there, but after she dies because of viktor,he gets so angry and disappointed in himself because sky had feelings for him but he always ignored her, that makes viktor remember how far he has gone because of hextech, as he said, he lost his dream of doing good. arcane didn’t want us to feel for sky, it wanted us to see how ignorant and ambitious viktor was.it wanted us to feel his failure and shame. he was so desperate that he was willing to sacrifice anything for progress , but sky’s death remindes him of what he has become. this is how i describe it at least.
I don't think we are suposed to care about sky at all. We see the deaths of Mylo, Clagor and Vander, but we never see the others characters griefing for them. We don't need to. The loss of those characters hit us directly. When Sky dies, however, the focus is not about a life being lost, but instead, is Victor's grief and regret. I agree that the show has problems with pacing, but Sky is not one of those. And btw, you're welcome for the engagement, good sir.
22:23 Although I agree I wished we get to see more of Sky Young I think the entire point of her is that we are in the perspective of Viktor who is blind to Sky because he is so obsessed with his newly made hexcore that he never reacts to the people around him even if Sky is obviously flirting with him and the flash back scene to show that both of them were once from the undercity are now scientists working in Piltover we never get shown how Viktor and Sky rose from the undercity but I think that's fine It would be an entire story on it's own and would take way too long because the Viktor flashback was meant to connect Viktor and singed
Speaking of the rush, there was one thing that that felt like a pity when the first act came out. That was Vander's relationship with the children, because he is supposed to be like their father, but he just felt like he was Vi's father. Vander had all the emotional bonding moments with Vi, but he never had a moment like that with the other kids, just a few small scenes. And even in those scenes, it didn't seem like Vander cares like a father about children, but like he is Vi's father who takes care of her group of friends who visit her often to hang out. Except for this moment when the kids are rescuing Vander, and Milo is nervous, so Vander calms him down. I wish there were more scenes like this that don't take the spotlight away from Vi's and Vander's relationship but shows that Vander thinks of all this children like his own kids. And spoiler, I also think is a pity that this single scene happens just moments before Milo's death, if they were more scenes like this before I think the tragedy of losing this found family would feel greater. Another aspect that is affected and seems more noticeable to me is Powder. She is one of the leads of the series, but she doesn't interact much with Vander and this makes it seem like they didn't have much of a relationship to begin with.
I mean to me is clear the show is showing us Vander is not a father but a father-like figure, which is almost the same but not the same. The kids never call him father, he is just Vander. Only when he is kidnapped they talk about him as a father, in a moment of desperation and fear of losing him. Based on that and the way he treats them he doesn't seem to tell them "hey I will adopt you now as my child" but more like "I know your parents are dead, I will protect you kid don't worry". He is a fatherly figure, someone that wants to protect the people of Zaun in general and happened to protect certain children he found along his way. That's why we are shown how he interacts a lot with Vi, Vi is the one gradually taking the protector role from Vander. Vander is teaching her to care for the family, the community. Because the shows races towards the season finale we don't get to see a lot more to stablish much more but the hints it gaves us seems to point that way.
I agree with so much of what you've said. In a show with writing less stellar than this, how fast the story was told could have been a fatal blow... But Arcane implies and suggests what isn't actually shown with such near supernatural perfection, that I have to forgive it. Due to how rare such tight writing is, if for nothing else. In fact I doubt they could have maintained this level of quality over many more episodes than this, because imagining how much effort these 9 episodes alone took is exhausting by itself.
Cyber Month Deal! Go to nordvpn.com/skyen to get a 2-year plan plus 1 additional month with a huge discount.
This is a great video and really gets to what the show missed out on but still captures how masterful this show still manages to be. I hope we get more vids discussing this show on this channel.
I can understand your points and wanting the show to further develop underdeveloped aspects. But you talk so much about the audience having to infer, and isn’t this what we’ve wanted from shows for so long? For them to trust their audience instead of beating them over the head with point by point explanations, so the slightest bit of subtlety is erased?
@@samadams8533 At some point "trusting your audience to fill in the blanks" leads to publishing a book with a single page that says "imagine that a cool story happens, the end."
There's a balance to be walked, between showing and telling, and I think Arcane loses that balance at times.
There are so many refrences to literature and other works in Arcane. Like, the raven that follows Jinx (The Raven by Poe), the eye sign that falls in the Undercity (The Great Gatsby), and the Judas gold and the "dark" baptisms (the bible).
I thought you'd touch on the fact that in the end jinx was to hesitantant and ruined the peace proposal. Was out of line and thus is lost. Sounds like something you predicted.
The point of Skye was that we never got to know her, Viktor didn't care about her, he didn't notice her. So when she dies, it's sad because he realizes how little he knew her, how he hurt those around him in his obsession, simply through apathy.
Oh, that's a great point. And I say this as a former therapist. If we, the audience and/or Viktor, knew Skye better, we'd expect him to lash out, and lash out at the hextech "cube" specifically. He doesn't, because he's wracked with guilt about how little he knew her, not how much. We know his obsession with hextech will go on, in part because he blames himself, not the hextech (at least not on an immediate visceral, emotional level)
The thing is... the way to make that even more impactful is to actually flesh out her character, show the audience what she was working on and how she was overlooked and ignored, and THEN have the death scene.
@@vaporcobra Exactly, while this works it's still not the best...
Not to mention that her death comes at a time where every other main character is spending time with a loved one, making a foil for Viktor to show just how much he's pushing everyone away due to his work.
@@vaporcobra then it wouldn't put us in Viktor's shoes, which is kinda he point.
Tbh I read the Sky/Viktor scene in a completely different way!
Viktor's reaction to Sky's death, to me, is not so much a "I'm so sad because I really cared about her so the viewer must too", but a "holy shit I've just committed homicide". It's him finally seeing Sky, only in the moment of her death, and realizing what his work may eventually turn him into
Same.
So, disclaimer: Yeah, Sky's death is absolutely full-on fridging, and it's not really the sole "meh" aspect of her character, but I don't really think that the show is actually asking us to backfill that they were close just because he's sad when she dies? He just watched someone die a fairly gruesome death because of something he's done, he doesn't need to have been especially close to her to be horrified.
In fact I'd argue that everything we're shown or told suggest that they were *not* close: in the scene where they briefly interact as kids, they're clearly set apart, and he rejects her advances (or doesn't even notice them); in fact I'm pretty sure her notes mention that she's never really talked to him that much. His reaction upon reading her notes I read more as being horrified that he didn't actually know this person that much, and now he'll never get to.
They weren't even close. Viktor even says "I don't know where you would've prefered" as he is disposing of her ashes. He never* really gave a crap about her before what happened, their relationship was always one-sided.
Yeah absolutely.
That is exactly how I read the scene. Not every death needs to be from a developed, emotionally connected character in order to be significant. Viktor has stated and argued time and time again that Hextech to him is to save lives, not to take them, making it clear that it's a big personality element of his character. And in his obsession with the Hexcore ended up killing another person, pretty horribly.
We can see Sky sometimes in the lab with Viktor, and it helps establish that she wasn't some nobody from the street. That doesn't mean she needs to be his girlfriend or love interest. The fact remains that someone Viktor knew had their life unceremonoiusly cut short because of his actions, the actions of a man who wanted most to not use his technology for killing. Crossing that line is a massive event for him, and her notes make him see just how grave that loss is. A person with dreams, hopes, aspirations and feelings, never to dream, hope, or feel again. Entirely because of him.
The audience realizes at the same time as Viktor that those things existed within Sky. Like you said, a person he will never get to know, because his inventions took her life. It's soul crushing for him.
exactly. i see it as: the viewer is realizes that she is a character that has their own story basically at the same time victor is. that feeling that we didn't get to know her, is parallel to what victor is feeling.
Yes. Why do people even assume that characters must have feeling for one another to feel sympathy or empathy? Would you not be horrified if someone saved your life by giving their own and you barely even knew the person? Just to find out they had strong feelings for you and you just didn't notice. Not to mention how much Viktor cares for other people, so being the cause of someone's death should affect him deeply.
i personally really liked the animation of the scene where jinx is having a meltdown in her room. it is a horrifyingly accurate depiction of a child having a panic attack, which sometimes does happen without any previous history of them. it's about the buildup that leads to it.. like after so long, jinx finally snapped and couldn't keep it to herself anymore. i remember having such an attack when i was 16, these things happen very unexpectedly and i truthfully never thought it would happen to me.
yeah, I was "sad moody powder" for a moment to get into "the angry agressive break my stuff and hit my head" when I was stressed out
but I also get why people might find it out of nowhere
this is, it does seem implied that she's had them before or at least vi knew her fragility and mental health problems and that's why vi coddles her. she, powder, has severe abandonment issues, for good reason, and technically this IS the first time vi has left her making her feel alone and useless. it breaks her. she reminds me so much of my cousin. my cousin was neglected but she seemed like a "normal" kid up until about 13 when the dam broke and she's since been diagnosed with CPTSD, BPD, and probably a slew of other things that have been missed cuz she's poor and can't afford mental health treatment
I've also heard many people complain about how unexpected Powder's reaction seemed but I agree with you, those who've experienced these kind of "attacks" know that this is exactly how they happen - behind closed doors, with no one around to see or hear, that's when the "monster" comes out and only as a result of really intense triggers. Also it's unfortunately often the quiet, careful, shy, nice kids that hide these traumas deep inside them until they explode, because that's how abuse shapes us. To me this reaction made perfect sense.
yeah it's sudden but also kinda relatable
Not to mention autistic people like me can have a sudden violent breakdown after being quiet and all.
So this is really a minor thing but when me and my friends were rewatching arcane, I mentioned how there wasn't enough Powder and Claggor interactions. We can see that on top of Vi being her older sister, Claggor is her older brother. The very few times they interact, it's him helping her around, its a good contrast to Vi's more brash or extreme approach. Where Vi would encourage Powder go beyond her comfort zone, Claggor seemed ready to wait for her to actually be prepared. Again, very minor thing but as someone who was immediately attached to Claggor, it stuck.
Completely agreed. I love Claggor a lot.
Claggor is underrated af
This may have been intentional as the voices she hears are primarily from Mylo and Mylo's shrine takes up the biggest space I'm her home and at the table
Adding on to what the guy above me said, we could take Claggor's lack of interaction with Powder in the show as an intentional choice made by the director (or whoever else would influence that). If we assume that Claggor's lack of interaction with Powder is an implication that she didn't notice his kindness towards her because of her focusing on Mylo and his disdain for her because it fed into her own narrative of hating herself and believing she is not good enough. Most people gloss over a lot of kindness shown to them in this world and focus on the negatives, I think Powder suffered from that a lot. The only person she ever recognized kindness from was Vi, even though others (Claggor, Vander, Ekko) also showed her kindness. Everyone else's kindness didn't register in her head, only Vi.
Claggor never berated Powder for her shortcomings, he hyped her up in front of everyone and tried to get shit kid little Milo (bless) to back off a little. He offered to go get her off the roof instead of complaining about it. He's a good brother to all of them, Ekko included. Given more time they could have developed into a brilliant team. I really appreciated him, they are what I strive to be.
As a side note I appreciated his physicality; a bigger person doesn't mean non-athletic. And in brawling it means more protection and more weight to throw around, especially if you've got the muscle to back it up. Reminds me of my little brother actually, he's a tank. He could break bones with his bare hands. He also a huge nerd who likes to bake.
Honestly the Sky incident I saw less about "feel bad for these characters" and instead "be worried for Viktor as his advancements is going to harm the very people he wants to help"
Yeah, still feels like a waste of potential and I didn't enjoy seeing such an upbeat background character receive such a gruesome death. That said, I think the purpose is to give Viktor a taste of his glorious evolution. He was willing to continue his transformation whatever the risk, and that ended up destroying someone. Now he has to either live with the horror of the experience...or as his game counterpart, remove that part of his psyche entirely.
@@jaywingate187 exactly. Its precisely that second half that to me doesnt make it feel like wasted potential. Yes it could have been another C or D subplot to cram into it but the writers very much didn't want that. I see this as just a drive to Viktor. It mattered to only Viktor and we only have to understand that. Masterpieces of fiction have similar lines and 'empty' characters that serve just for justification of a characters turn.
idk I feel like if the intent wasn’t for us to feel bad about the character, they wouldn’t have, you know, spent most of the aftermath of her death describing her aspirations, how much Victor meant to her, how her death specifically effects him emotionally, how he tried to find somewhere to spread her ashes, etc.
@@supermutantsam1160 Yeah, its not great regardless, imo the weakest character beat on a show with otherwise very strong character writing. I give it a bit of a pass as I suspect its partially a symptom of Viktor arc being incomplete as of now, but that would still make it a recreation of a frustrating cliche.
I definitely agree with you on Ekko and Powder. Especially after seeing the Enemy music video, they showed them to be very close friends and then in act 1 they literally have no interaction.
this. they already had it animated for the music video, why not put it in the episode 2?
I was actually fine with this because I felt the fight scene was new and interesting way to tell us that they were close instead of it just being shown to us before hand. The scene itself was slightly confusing to alot of people though I guess, but my instant reaction was that this was a game they played as kids and it made sense they would have been friends purely due to how close Benzo and Vander were, along with Vi and Ekko too so by extension it wasn't a big leap of logic or anything.
Sure, it's always nice to see more, but we're going to want more regardless of what we got.
They made Arcane as efficient as possible, but they also made much more, music video, web game, in client experience, and of course there is whole LoL lore. If you want to see Ekko and Powder play toghether you can, but it would not bring anything to the story.
The purpose of the scene seemed to want to establish that old connection while contrasting what it is now, rather than being a callback to a previous shown instance. Which that's a lot of heavy lifting for a scene, I'm sure it would have only been boosted further if they had made it a callback parallel like they did so much through the show.
But ya know, your mileage may vary. I enjoy this kinda conversation about story-telling and talking about what worked and didn't with others, it's good fun.
@@cyrkielnetwork It would bring evidence for the idea that Ekko and Powder are fans. Most people aren’t going to seek out all that alternative media for something that should have been in the show.
Shows tend to tell and show us everything that happens to every important character, so Arcane NOT doing that *would* feel odd. Arcane may “rush”, but it also has no filler, which a lot of people would complain about too if it did.
It’s definitely my favorite piece of modern media right now. It’s beautiful, treats you like an adult, and pulls no punches when trying to convey the tragedy and pain that these characters go through.
I agree. I actually on some aspects like they don't show everything. It shows that the small interactions suggests more, lets us think more then said.
definitely true, I think by not spelling out every little thing, the series shows that it takes its audience serious and has confidence in us that we can figure out these things
"It’s definitely my favorite piece of modern media right now. It’s beautiful, treats you like an adult, and pulls no punches when trying to convey the tragedy and pain that these characters go through."
That's a REALLY low bar for something you say is "your favourite piece of modern media". These aspects could be ascribed by every 5th competently written piece of fiction, to be honest. The show I like the most I do based on aspects that have a way heavier tie to my personality than whatever this IGN review is supposed to be.
@@hexcodeff6624 you mad? you mad that I like something? I can enjoy Arcane and have it be my favorite show without having to explain EVERY reason I love it as much as I do.
@@phykoha Bro, Arcane fans NEED to stop being so defensive about their taste.
No I don't care what you like, I care why you like it, and the way you describe your passion for Arcane is pretty weak. Half of the shows I watch I could describe the way you described "your favourite show"
Ironically the rant about Skye reinforced my observation that it was an incredibly effective and powerful execution of the character and its role.
The show itself has Victor state his sadness about how little he knew about her and, as this video alone my prove, many viewers had a similar experience.
This is hightened through her exeptionally couragious action during her last scene, that shrouds her in a tragic heroism that does seem to hit Victor hard, as he probably, if not fully contious, had embraced this role himself but with a layer of self interest that fuel his shame over the whole incident.
The minimalist characters are also in the sense strong that i have a emotional connection with Claggor, cause his intovert come along attitude while still happily engage in talk if approached makes him somewhat of a spirit animal to me.
I think you're right about Sky's role. Her death matters because it's the manifestation of Heimerdinger's warnings and the consequence of Viktor ignoring them. The same can be said of the kid Jayce killed in Silco's factory. It's not like we needed to be emotionally invested in that kid for that scene to land.
IK RIGHT I LOVED CLAGGOR AND IM SO SAD THAT HE DIED
I couldn’t agree more about Skye, especially since I didn’t even know the girl by the pools in the flashback was her lol. Really does cement her role in the story as we and Viktor overlooked her. Really tragic stuff, and it does tell you a lot about her character when she dives in to try and help him in the end.
I think your comment is on point. You analyzed it diligently and I am certain this is exactly what the creators intended.
Because of all the other well-written side characters in the story, my first knee-jerk reaction to Sky's death was "Wait, what?! Don't kill her off now! She sounds interesting! Like, I was hoping you would explore her!".
And then Viktor reads her notes, and I was like: "And now you are trying to tell me how interesting of a character she is? I wanted to see that! Now I feel even more pissed that we squandered that opportunity and will never be able to get more of Sky!"
... And then it hit me. Yes. That is exactly it. That is exactly what has happened in the show. That is exactly what Viktor is experiencing. The show has teased us just enough with her, so we would notice, has taken her from us, and then told us "what could have been".
That's depressing. And kind of genious
@@user-yr8ge3fz8o it’s also a manifestation of Singed’s warnings, that love and legacy are lost in the pursuit of progress. Him ignoring their warnings is what got Sky killed, and he knows that.
You can literally take your hand and cover the character's mouths and you still can figure out their emotions during the scenes. The animation work on their eyes is fucking insane
Yeah, I was about to comment how they used so much body and facial expressions to inform us on the personality's behind the characters in the show, or to communicate the feeling's the character's were feeling at momentous parts of the story. My favorite scene was when Powder revealed to Vi that she accidentally caused the explosions. Her facial expressions were fucking painful.
@@ramonandrajo6348 Don't need to, shows's already successful
This is exactly why I think the backfilling isn’t bad because you’re able to sympathize with the characters emotions in a scene and through those emotions you’re able to infer things about them. No show I’ve seen has been able to do this so wonderfully.
I agree with a number of the comments that point out that a lot of the weight of skys death is that Victor doesn't know her. He never listened to her ideas, he never found out about what she was like as a person, and *that* is the tragedy of sky. She represents a massive amount of potential that in his persuit of progress, gets turned to dust.
The only thing I would have wanted from skye was a line we’re she tries to present an idea, but is cut off, by jayce or viktor because they are currently to invested in their work
Which is the thing Viktor fears the most. With his fragile life, Viktor could barely work or even finish half of his experiments and ideas and in the pursuit of getting that extra time, that additional seconds just to see his works finished, he destroyed another one's time on this world that could've complete her own dreams.
I think this is probably the first time I really disagree with you. I can't remember when was the last time I enjoyed a show so much. Your analysis of Powder being an unstable child was the thing that surprised me the most, since I remember throwing tantrums just like that for the silliest things when I was her age. Also I agree with the comments I've been reading about Skye, it's clearly a cheap argumental strategy (You're absolutely right about that) but developing her character would've been pointless in this story, in wich we already have a lot of primary and secondary characters to follow. I don't believe Viktor and her were close, I think he's so upset because he just want to make the world a better place, but instead of that, he just killed a very kind and smart girl who he overlooked while being fixated on his dream. In that moment he realizes he's not trying to help anymore, but pursuing his selfish desires.
100% agree with you. Especially for powder, i could see my kid self in her so much in the first act. Her being quiet and keeping her emotions bottled up leading to a sudden and violent meltdown when faced with her sister telling her that she is "not ready" and her family all leaving her without certainty that they'll come back... To me it makes perfect sense
Yeah that's how I took it too. It's really easy to kill a side character for shock value, or off a main female cast member and really milk it for the tragedy after putting work into their development only to throw it away, but Arcane has several moments where we as the audience just- sit with Viktor and realise that we didn't even know her, and neither did he, and we never will. That she could very well be the first of a thousand nameless casualties should he continue doing this. I thought as fridgings go, this one was handled pretty well.
And 6eah, I know when I was a 9 (?) year old girl, I would have breakdowns like that over much less than the stress she was experiencing. Her voice actress really killed it too, her emotional moments were SO believable and raw.
"Your analysis of Powder being an unstable child was the thing that surprised me the most, since I remember throwing tantrums just like that for the silliest things when I was her age.
His whole point is that we're never introduced to these moments until episode 3 and it doesn't feel earned. Quite the opposite actually in that until then Powder has actually demonstrated herself to be quite resilient and emotionally mature for someone who has experienced what she has. Then the first "crack" in her personality comes after she's comforted by her sister and told to stay behind and be safe?! I don't buy it. Personally I would have replaced the emotion in that monkey-toy scene altogether. Make her frustrated and determined to be a valuable member of the family and then let the final trauma be the switch as she agonises over what she had done and how she perceives Vi's reaction. It wouldn't be perfect but it's way easier to digest that then what they attempted to convince us with.
@@Lipidman0 I suppose that really depends on your childhood experiences. If you see yourself represented there, it is a perfectly natural reaction. Even as a child you can learn to silently cope without showing much of it to some degree. Resilience and maturity can become a role that is played not just for others, but for yourself. Again and again Milo questioned Powders worth, again and again her tricks, the only thing she had going all for herself, failed, and she knew Vi was covering for these weaknesses. They did show some signs of anger at that, but they may go unnoticed or seem small at first. I saw and felt them, so her outbreak of anger seemed "earned". But that is a weird way of talking about it, emotions are not earned. They are felt and mirrored, subjective to one's experience.
I have a daughter right now in 4th grade who has had trouble with anger, depression and other issues since as long as we can remember. She has never been abused, she's part of a healthy family, she's received more medical and psychiatric treatment then anyone her age should ever have to go through. And despite improving she still has emotional issues. So I can say with absolute certainty that Powder's personality development is realistic and believable. Kids can be perfectly normal 95% of the time and completely insane the other 5%
Skyen really said “once it reaches a 10 it can’t go to 11 so it starts going back down.”
why does this hit hard
There's some truth in that
eh... I don't fly by that. I DO fly by the idea that the lower your expectations, the kinder you will RESPOND to a lesser production.... but I consider it mildly disingenuous to mark it ''back down' to the point you put it BELOW something that obviously isn't as good just because you've found a nitpick or two. Nitpicks are just nitpicks, the SHITTY thing had nitpicks too, you just forgave them for no really GOOD reason because you had no expectations to begin with.
Also Skyen, leaving this to you, Powder mental instability is a very common aspect in young kids cuz I was one of them. The quietest ones are the most mysterious ones. I’ve been bullied during all my childhood to the point that I would lock my door at home and have a silent tantrum (tears and alone) whenever bad days happened to me.
At school, I take the bully, stay silent, go back home, lock door and the process unfolds again.
I'll also say, Powder really reminds me of someone with autism. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but it made me empathize and relate to her more.
@@jazzwell Absolutely. I'm neurodivergent/on the spectrum, and I found the scene of her breaking down in her room to be VERY similar to how I've always tended to act whenever I feel especially frustrated and angry, even as an adult. Screaming, breaking (or wanting to break) things... As it turns out, constantly bottling up your emotions (or just, being UNABLE to express them -- in a neurotypical way -- most of the time) doesn't lend itself to developing healthy outlets for those emotions when they finally boil over.
And when you're normally a very quiet, introverted person... Yeah, I can see how it might seem like it came out of nowhere.
But whether or not that was an intentional characterization choice, I'm not gonna fault someone for not reading it that way, especially if they aren't neurodivergent themselves.
@@lausavisur 100%. powders scenes felt very real, especially considering her upbringing. it reminded me of me as a kid with untreated depression anxiety and adhd. i can definitely see why someone would think that her breakdown was unreasonable or out of nowhere, because they dont have the same heightened sensitivity or the same neurotype to be able to relate to it or know someone who could relate to it. it seems out of nowhere because it kind of is. when i was younger the little stresses would build up and it would take one trigger that may seem small to others to make me break down. it was unpredictable to others because i would either supress my feelings in order to not annoy others and have them tell me it isnt that bad or to just deal with it, or i would just not be able to explain that i was feeling bad and need a break.
The thing that would happen to me was i would lash out at everyone and everything, i would scream and cry uncontrollably consumed by this controlling rage screaming into my brain but the worst part was the aftermath, the being told you’ll kill people when you’re older, the sudden realization that youve destroyed a family heirloom, i feel like powder actually *killing* her significant people and turning into a deranged lunatic lost in this unending void of torment is horrifying and it makes me wonder what the fuck happened to these writers.
Honestly, there were many signs of Powder’s anxiety leading up to this uncontrollable attack scene shown here. The lead up to the bullying, her being upset… her consistently NEEDING Vi and her having really big issues about abandonment or feeling left behind or rejected… it’s written all over her… their signs are just… so subtle… many just animation. I as a neudivergent and having struggled with severe mental health issues and sensitivity myself could see it clearly with what they put… but i can see how you could miss it.
Why didn't you mention Renni's son getting "fridged?" Sky actually gets more screen time than the boy did (I couldn't even find his name anywhere and don't recall it in the show), and both of them serve the same point in the story: So that both Jayce and Viktor are responsible for someone's death by the next time that they meet up.
I've had a pretty diffrent read on Skye, to be hoenst.
While yes, I agree, she was pretty much fridged, I... don't think Victor knew her or caerd about her at all.
"I don't know where you would have preffered, so..."
He saw an acquiantance die trying to save him, probably not fully aware what was hapening. He read her notes, realised what a mind he was just. overlooking, not paying attention to, all this time, perhaps he was hit by a feeling of having missed out.
He carries her notes partly to honor her memory, maybe partly to help himself, maybe partly to try and have that "relationship" with her.
I don't think he ever knew or cared about her, but maybe he realised she was a person and that he could have, should have given her the time of day - and now felt a sense of loss for what he wasted or what could have been.
Similar to what we, the audience, felt when she was fridged!
(Not that any of this excuses using a character in this tropy way which, at the end of the day, remains pretty shit)
I think the thing is, it's left so widely to our own interpretation than it diverts from the rest of the story wich not only is communicated through actions and dialogue but art, music and everyhing imaginable, it's all very clearly narrated except for that part, so it stands out. (my problems with the series are others so even tho I don't think it's great i didn't have a big problem with that scene), that way you can see how the fact that's its such a good show makes the weaker parts more visible to Skyen
Yeah we wanted more Sky but also this is how I read it, so to me I genuinely don’t mind Sky being “fridged” or maybe as I’d love to term it: Pushed out. It almost added to the story that she was so absent, because yeah Vik didn’t care or barely even knew her until shit went whack. And that works. Instead of having the same build-up and pay-off deaths we get with many other characters, we’re slapped in the face with “wait shit she died and we didn’t even know her! Fuck! And we or at least I, resonated so hard with that horrible fomo validation that hits Viktor really hard. Viktor and the audience is meant to end up feeling the same. I’m not saying this excuses at least giving her A BIT more time to help us know her a bit, I think they salvaged the whole thing really well and I cried when Viktor three her ashes out.
@@planetaoruga That's the thing, I tought my version was communicated very clearly, so Skyen's interpretation was a bit of a shock - I did not realise how difrently you could look at this scene.
Especially the line about her ashes, I think that was meant to indicate he did not know her at all, but maybe I'm reaching, here.
For sure this highlights that the show is imperfect tho.
I am incredibly biasted, I consider this to be the single best work of animation in the whole of western canon, superior bar none, so I am inclined to gloss over the missing details, so this should be taken with a grain of salt (or a whole salt mine worth of salt, really) but I do think at least some of the gaps make the story better, more focused and give it higher impact - this is... probably not one of them tho
Of all the people I saw talking about it, Skyen was pretty much the only one that got stuck on Skye as if she were a big deal for Viktor. I don't understand, that character was not important for the story, not in a way that demands more development. Maybe he felt that way because their names are similar?
@@shent1059 I 100% agree with you - in a show so carefully and lovingly crafted - I truly believe she was left vague and undefined because that's precisely how tangential she was to Viktor's drive for making progress. She was background noise to him, and only AFTER she dies, does he notice anything about her (via her journal). Developing her more would have done nothing for the story, or the show as a whole, she is not an important character; her character is there _only_ to highlight Viktor's unflinching focus on his goal - the show even shows you it, when she tries to get him to walk her home, and he dismisses her, in favour of his work, not even turning and looking back when talking to her. I would not be surprised if, when looking down at her while she's consumed by the HexCore, is the first time Viktor _actually_ looks at her face, like for real *LOOKS* at her.
My single biggest disagreement with you on this so far is, amusingly, about Skye and her role in the story, the thing you saw as the biggest flaw in this show, and it's because I genuinely don't think we saw the same series of events when it came to her. Skye being a literal nobody to us, who we only learn about the work and effort and aspirations of after she is dead, ELEVATES her role in this story, as opposed to cheapening it. Skye could have been literally anyone, it doesn't *matter* that Viktor knew her before or not, it doesn't *matter* that she was somewhat romantically interested in him. What matters is that she was a person with dreams and hopes of her own, that should have been inspired by Viktor's work, and instead is now dead because of it.
She can't be "fridged" because Viktor was never meant to have a relationship with her anyway, and it didn't have to be *specifically* her for the impact on Viktor's story to exist. All that matters about her is that she was another person that Viktor is now responsible for the death of. Everything else could be changed about her, from her race to her gender to her profession, and it still would be the same effect on Viktor. He killed another person, extinguished their dreams in reckless pursuit of his own, and now he has to deal with it.
Everything else you have said I have largely agreed on, albeit sometimes a little nitpicky imo but I recognize I'm typically more forgiving of things and analysis is literally your job. Still super love your work, and love all the care you've put into it, and can't wait to see what else lies in store for us all in the future.
Agree 100%. Skye is just like the zaunite kid Jayce shot. A nobody character meant to show how the main characters deviated from their original intentions are now causing the hurt of people, things they never intended to happen.
@@Horde1Blades But I think the term fridging is more cogent for female characters BECAUSE of that whole "nobody" aspect. It kinda implies that looking back at every other scene prior she was in was just giving enough to be used as a catalyst for Viktor's insanity. It's dehumanizing or something idk I don't usually care about representation in media, but I hear those arguments.
@@Horde1Blades I think it would still be interesting to show more of Sky and Viktor one sided relationship, haven't read the lore but I find it interesting so that I could feel more on Sky's death and Victor's cries
I think the fact she knew him and he *could* have known her is necessary actually. Mostly because it shows how detached from the rest of his peers he is. Yes, he's not on Singed's level, but he's also not emotionally connected to anyone. Sky knew him, he should know her, they grew up in the same place, playing next to each other. But he doesn't see her, maybe doesn't even compute it's her. The fact she's so keen on him allows us to see how detached he's grown and how self centered (which is perfectly human and understandable, given his situation).
If it were a true nobody, we would have a sense that it was "just an accident", but as it is it's more of a tragedy. If he hadn't been so aloof and remote, even from people keen to be close to him and actively trying... well, he'd have talked to her sooner and maybe learnt from her notes before this entire debacle.
Otherwise I fully agree! :3
“All that matters about her is that she is another person whose death viktor is responsible for”… right. But she was given too much screen time to be some rando. We are supposed to care about her feelings for viktor and we are supposed to connect those feelings to a history between them, as per the flashback and the only other scene where she has lines. So, with your words above in mind, not only is this fridging, it’s TEXTBOOK fridging
Interesting. I completely disagree with that "rushing" / "cutting" is a bad thing here. It was a breath of fresh air that the show did not painfully explain everything (multiple times). It felt like it does not waste the time of the viewers.
I felt like it was a unique way of telling us aspects of the characters without needing to outright have them say or show exactly those details. You extrapolate the details by the way they interact with one another, kind of the like Ekko vs Jinx fight, it gave us insight into them without needing a proper flashback or even having shown us that interaction in an earlier episode, but you got the idea that they were playing a game that was a big part of their friendship growing up.
It doesn't have to explain them, like the Caitlyn scene they can show it. We can see Sky talking with Jayce about Viktor, she is still interested in him but now she is a character that exists outside of Viktor.
I think it kinda worked as weekly show as you did alot of backfilling during the wait time.
Yeah, it's just shorter show, so it works differently. There is short stories that told in one minute for example. Will somebody say they are rushed? Just set your expectations according to the episode and time count. For me Arcane was exactly what i was expecting in terms of pacing.
Agreed. I would rather have a solid core story told and not waste time over explaining every single little minute character or thing that appears on screen.
Better to have it closer to Avatar TLAB, than Game of Thrones.
i feel like all of the points you have trouble with are easy fixes, really. Maybe just adding a few lines of dialogue here and there would have improved the relationship between powder and ekko, jayce and his mother, viktor and skye. I 100% agree with you on this one.
20 seconds of Skye talking to Heimmer how Viktor has no time left "But professor! Please think about him" "My decission is final" etc. would have done so much for Skye as a character.
Tiny dialogue of Ekko and Power, even just shy looks or stares? anything would have worked.
Maybe just give Jayce's mother a scene with Caitlyn or her family, anything really.
Anyways. I think my only problem with Arcane is how it feels like it doesn't give you time to breathe. Like there's missing a 10th episode.
But besides that... yeah. I'm waiting for season 2. I don't mind the lack of conclussion for most of the story lines cause I eagerly want to watch the next season. I feel like this show is great at setting cliff hangers and keeping you at the edge of your seat wanting more.
9.3/10 for me giving the benefit of the doubt for upcoming seasons!
Literally no one cared about Sky, not even Viktor.
@@DarkSharingan21 Viktor tried to commit suicide because Sky died. I think he cared, just not as much as his work.
@@spooky_glados8448 not because sky died specifically, but because someone died
@@spooky_glados8448 Viktor didn't try to commit suicide because of Sky. His motivation was way deeper than that, you're missing the whole point. He contemplated suicide there because of the context he found himself on. He wanted to secure his own legacy more than anything in the world because he was dying, he wished to leave as much of a positive impact as possible, for people to remember and honor him even tho he came from the undercity. His convictions were strong and he trusted the hexcore to be that for him, his last and greatest contribution. Now imagine how soul crushing it would be to see that same hexcore, that stood for everything he belived, to turn out to be exactly the danger that Heimerdinger warned him about. Sky's death was in Viktor's hands, this was the moment he realized his recklesness in pursuit of his dreams would cost lives and that his legacy would fail. All that while being at deaths door already. Not to mention the fact that his best friend was more distant than ever... Viktor was in a dark place, it could be anyone there, would have a similar result.
@@joaoteodororeis2051 oooh. Yeah that makes a lot more sense. 😅
Powder’s outburst was one of the scenes I absolutely loved. I was that same kind of kid, who was moody at times but not aggressive or violent. But then when something like that would happen to me and I was alone, I’d flip out in almost the same way. It felt very realistic to me.
I feel like I'm probably the odd one out for this but to me the first season could easily stand on its own as a a self contained story. The only loose end would be Ekko and Heimerdinger but everything else works in an open-ended way. I was left completely satisfied with the ending in a way that I usually never am.
Good to know you skipped past the last scene
@@muddy3074 What do you mean?
I was pretty satisfied too, actually. But for me main thing was to see how Vi and Jinx part ways, so i got that.
Honestly, I don't feel that Arcane needs a second season
The open-ended was perfect and I could easily and happily sit back and imagine what would happen next without feeling the need for more
I'm not saying it shouldn't have a second season at all
But, in my opinion, the first season is a complete story, could have ended there and would connect with the canon lore
But, of course those who haven't read the lore would have to go read it and so I understand why the second season is in production
It still have something to tell
Are people actually dissatisfied? I've not seen anyone really DISLIKE the ending, I get the agony of a cliffhanger, but that's cliffhangers and most people understand that's the point of them. They're good for a reason, just because everything wasn't neatly tied off with a bow doesn't mean it's a bad ending by any means, especially when this is the first real exploration into Runeterra and these characters. The ending completed peoples character arcs that were introduced, for the most part, whilst also showing the potential for their futures with some of them and leaving it on a cliffhanger for a second season.
The FRIDGING of Skye (didnt even know the word beforhand).
I dont think this death was done this way, because they dont bother/or didnt have time to develop her character.
I think the way Skye died was intended.
The only things we know about the Skye are the things Victor know.
This includes the one time they saw each other as kids.
And every time Skye comes into Victor Labs.
Victor didnt bother or thought about learning more about this character. He didnt see her love, he didnt see her life and only saw her as background noise.
Not because he is full of himself or anything like that. He is just really invested into his work. And only after his work kills Skye, then He started to realise, that his action can have consequences. And in her moment of death was the only moment he ACTUALLY Looked at her.
In a way this was really similar to Jayce. He has a breakthorugh with his work (the same way Jayce won his place at the counsil). And then makes a rushed choice of morph his body without shimmer (the same way Jayce decided in like 1 minute to close the bridges.) Both have blood visibly at their hands.
Can it still be fridging? (Do I even use this word the right way? I'm german and this word is really weird to me).
Yes.... but this is how I interpret this at least.
But in the way this proofs Sykens Critism. Because things need to be interpreted, because they are rushed. The interpretation can be vastly differnt.
Your explanation of how you understood Skye's "purpose" in the story is exactly what "fridging" is, and there's no such thing as "good fridging".
"Fridging" originated from a Green Lantern storyline in the 70s/80s where a romantic partner of the current Green Lantern, was brutally murdered and then shoved inside the Green Lantern apartment refrigerator. Aka "Fridging".
You're saying that they've created Skye only to progress Viktor's story forward. Imagine if someone decided you would just also be a disposable dime-and-a-dozen generic character in someone's life, is that good?
I really liked the parallels (perhaps yet another interpretation that would be clarified if this season was longer) between Viktor and Jayce, and i think specially looking to Mel and Skye.
How Jayce got much more invested in the relationship and Viktor, as you said, saw Skye more as background noise most of the time. Jayce had even a friendship with Caitlyn and talked to her from time to time while Viktor had Jayce and Heimer that later was "replaced" by his former master, Singed. Jayce was always portraited as the extrovert pretty boy, and Viktor the introvert, shy, reserved zaunite. And for me that can be seen in a explicit and steriotypical way during Jayce sex scene with Mel while at the same time Viktor pushed away Skye, that told him that there is always another day but... didn't
And i understand you, i am Brazilian and fridging was 100% new to me. Felt really strange the first time he said
Imo, fridging is such a bland and overused trope that it is harder to go beyond just that the trope is used and to see in what way, how and why it was used here.
it is still a fridging, but I think it did its job pretty well as far as the trope goes. She allowed us to put a face behind the possible thousands of nameless casualties their tech could cause to die. He didn't know her, and neither did we, and it's sad. It reminds me of the episode "midnight" in doctor who, where a woman sacrifices herself for everyone and afterwards theyre just sitting there realising that she died for them, and they didn't even know her name. Its tragic not just because she died, but because she WAS a full person who had the opportunity to be more in this universe stolen from her. The quiet kind of tragic. We sit with Viktor while he realises what a smart, kind person sky was, who he didnt even bother to know. I think personally I would have been more upset if they had gone and developed Sky as a female character we know well and then just offed her for shock value and thrown it all away. I do see how soneone else could see it differently though, as it is definitely overused.
@@RsigmaGS_G Question what make Skye “frigiding” vs Milo and Clagger or even Vander’s friend that all also died for emotional beats and don’t get much of a backstory?
Is it just a male/female thing?
Also sorry but you seem like you know what you’re saying.
I suppose this a matter of perspective. To me, it feels that while the Sky plotpoint could feel like “fridging”, I never particularly saw it that way. Yes, she had feelings for Viktor, but it’s safe to assume that the man himself was too absorbed in his own world to notice.
As far as I know, “fridging” has been applied solely to couples who were already together, or at the very least had mutual undisclosed feelings for one another. For that reason, it doesn’t feel to me that Viktor is mourning the loss of a loved one, but that his efforts had cost a human life in the first place. He said so himself, Hextech was meant to improve lives, not take them. I honestly feel like it could have been anyone dying in place of Sky, and Viktor would feel almost the same way. And while that diminishes Sky as an actual character, it also doesn’t put too many expectations for her, so maybe that’s why I wasn’t that disappointed with that, especially if it progresses Victor’s character.
Anyway, great video as always Skyen. If I had to apply an arbitrary number to my feelings on Arcane, it would be an 8.5/10. Any issues that I had were pacing-related, and can hopefully be remedied in season 2 ❤️
Also, I'm pretty sure "fridging" happens when an outside force does it. This situation is a combination of accidental murder and taking the bullet.
Actually while concept of fridging originated from that Green Lantern issue and in general is used mostly for love interests, it does not need to be exclusively. Killing of a parent(s)/a mentor figure/innocent people etc. is also a example of fridging, where death of character(s) exists solely to force reaction from MC and influence their decision/advance their story. What's important isn't actual character(s)'s dead and they're often barely characterized/matter and it's all about emotional impact it had on the main character.
That being said I do agree with take that Viktor not paying attention to Sky before her death was the point, but it doesn't really change the fact that she as character existed solely for Viktor and had no agency of her own.
@@Nevri. Kind of like the boy that Jayce killed, was he fridged?
@@Nevri. "she has no agency"
Wtf are you talking about, she willingly chose to risk her life to save Viktor, how is it not agency? It was her choice, her whole character was about her own decisions. Heck, I guess no characters should ever die in any story because either they are "dead ends with wasted potential" or "fridged". Sure. Maybe Vander is also fridged, huh. He died from an accident caused by a loved one and it heavily impacted the person who caused his death. Unlike Sky, Vander had no agency in his death.
@@Nevri. Fridging as I understand it was always a critique of industry pumping out edgy brooding men at the expense of women characters, so I can see why Skyen sees it as the case here. For move to qualify for fridging, heros SO has to have no agency in anything, serve only to characterise a man before his turn, only to be killed for cheap shock value and turn hero into an asshole antihero or tragic hero despite all trauma type character.
Now, last bit is largely unimportant to the point, but agency, characterisation and cheap shock value is. So does Sky fill any of the boxes? She has agency in choosing to sacrifice herself, she is influenced by Victor in a meaningful way (for how little time she has in the story), but change comes from her deciding to be more like him rather than dying a simple admirer, so its not the case of having no agency. When it comes to characterisation, neither she solely defines Victor, nor he solely defines her. In fact, the relationship is interesting because Sky as a person has no sway over Viktor at all, and her death impacts him all the same. So in characterisaton its a maybe, she is used as a turning point for Viktor to reevaluate his goals and not much else, but its not like she has no character besides it. Was she killed for cheap shock value? No! It was shock value alright, but she sacrificed her life to fix Viktors mistake. It impacts him not because he cared for her, did no wrong, and unfair circumstances took her. It impacts him because his and only his actions led to this tragedy. It could have been that hall monitor dude Mel diverted in 3rd episode, and drama would still be the same.
Fridging as of late suffers from evolving into being a catch all term for "underdeveloped female character dies". Yes. Sometimes people die in stories, and we dont get to know them at all. Woman or a man, doesnt matter. It happens. We cant follow every story of every stranger on the street. Not to mention we have so many compelling stories of women in Arcane, is it THAT big a deal if 1 out of 6 has turned out to be more like Caits mom who might be killed in the S1 finale rather than being another focal point?
As a learning 3d modler, I can’t be objective about this show, I just get caught by the pictures, and I- I- I mean, I just die.
I’m dead. It’s too visually good, I am a visual person, and the story is decent enough for me to be satisfied, it’s good enough for me.
Very nice video, you had very good points and it managed to give me a new outlook on the flaws of this show.
Anyway, I rate it 10/10 don’t fight me I’m too weak.
Ok I’m gonna fight you
It deserves 11/10
Arcane is very good and I gushed on every visual aspect of this show. I honestly think this review is a good kind of criticism too! This also gives me a new perspective on the show, and how much my prior readings of League Lore, and I made A LOT of assumptions because the show want you to do that.
With hindsight a few more sentences would help with the standalone show without music videos and more.
In defense of Viktor's reaction to Sky, I'm pretty sure you'd be absolutely wrecked when you accidentally kill an acquaintance by the very thing you do to make the world a better place and help other people.
Personally? I didn't really mind "Filling in the details" The show is great, and the pacing is great. This show is genuinely perfect, For once there's no damn filler, I actually give a shit about all the side characters.
Also with Sky, I don't think victor was sad about the girl dying SPECIFICALLY, I think Sky was done perfectly, bc even victor didn't care about her before hand. Victor only saw that his colleague get fucking obliterated, and he saw that someone die for him, and he realized shit went too far. There never needed to be a relationship with Sky and victor beyond just colleagues.
Viktor/Sky scene and how it was delivered to viewer was in itself a good reflection on how the situation could've looked like from Viktor's perspective - someone that was around him, but barely noticeable over focus on research, suddenly becomes important and delivers emotional blow through the action. I don't think it could've been done better without making it feel off that point - what was shown before about their relationship as coworkers was enough to build a good enough impression on how their relation looks like, which - especially quite long buildup - also gave time for viewer to build expectations (mostly likely wrong ones) about what's about to happen, before show pulled the twist.
@@asmonull Something that would put that little extra oomph into Sky's character without adding much runtime would be if after Victor falls, she has been sitting with Victor all night, and when Jayce arrives he sends her to bed because she's exhausted from worrying, just for Victor to finally wake up moments after she left.
This would preserve what I felt was an intentional lack of connection from Victor's perspective, while giving us more investment on her side, since the previous scenes with her look like a casual attraction more than the near idolization that her journal reveals.
@@ramonandrajo6348 it’s perfect to me. especially compared to other shit on tv
I have never understood the "this media did not have this so it is worse for it" critique. I can not think of a story that would not benefit of giving a character just that bit more time or a relationship just those few more moments to shine. Would the death of Sky have hit harder if we spent as much time with her as with Vander? Of course! Would the fall of Huck to a shimmer addict be more impactful if we spent more time on it? Of course! Would the story of Ekko building his haven for people in Zaun be awesome to see and add to the story of him and Heimerdinger? Of course!
It is very easy to find something that is missing and also to argue as to why it should be there, but since this is not only a piece of art but also a product, it has to have a finite runtime.
The points you make are very valid, but in the face of having to make choices as to what to put in and what not, I think they did a great job.
Also we read the world by contrast... If Sky death had hitted harder... Than the emocional value of it would be closer to Vander's "death" (with the boys), and probably their moment would have being ruinned a little bit (I am struggling with English to explaing myself kkk I Hope i was clear enough kk). In my opinion a show could always be longer but this was the time they had and the writters and artists had to maje choices... And I am Very happy with the focal points they chosed to show .... Also they left curso in other not so developed moments, helping to guide our imagination (and not just assuming we have NO imagination and then showing me EVERYTHING. I think I prefere it like that)
@Tesla-Effect I’m not disagreeing with you, but could you give some examples?
@Tesla-Effect Heimerdinger´s character portrayal is one of them. Imagine a 300 year old being who founded Piltover and the Council not understanding political game and nuance, how humanity acts and so on? Its simple logic, he was one of the founders and a Original council member...He HAD to know political game to stay there a lot of time. What does the show do? Makes him the typical scientist who is clueless about nuance and human factors. It sucked and the show could have done a lot more with him in terms of lore, worldbuilding instead of vague tiny flashbacks or "MaGiK BaD, DeStRoY" without an actual established reason why he defended that,
Jayce is a Gary Stu. In the course of a dialogue with Mel he became an expert in diplomacy and a corrupt council member... It doesn´t even make sense how his ideals of justice are molded easily with just one conversation. Wouldn´t it be better if the actual threat against him for leading the security of the hextech was showed? Like someone wounding him? It´s shallow and silly. Then there´s the shimmer factory fight. All of a sudden Jayce can fight on par with Vi, a character, like Caitlin or Jinx, we actually SAW training and the show ESTABLISHED was a fighter?
The last scene with the Council too makes no sense at all. One moment all of them were arguing against the Undercity becoming the nation of Zaun and all of the sudden, they all agree with no explanation whatsoever. It was rushed.
The stuff with Viktor and Skye was also bad for another reason...Viktor says to Singed he understands...He understands that he needs to be detached from humanity in order to achieve a greater scientific progress. What happens next? Skye dies and he acts weirdly very attached to her when the show went out of its way to show him denying her advances and not giving a shit about her. Yes it was fridging and it was badly executed.
Ekko and Jinx fight has no emotional value, there is no clash of ideals, no emotions conveyed in their blows, nothing...Their friendship is not well exposed even in the game archives special for the show and if you look deeper beyond the great visuals of the fight you´ll understand what I mean.
Silco´s character as a villain is a bit too generic. His character development is a bit bland and his introduction was the most cliche thing in the show. It was like a Bond villain. He needed a backstory...Its kinda mindboggling how Mel, a secondary character, gets a backstory, but Silco, the antagonist only gets one small scene of his past. Not only that, but his actions as the Undercity Chemtech kingpin and mob boss doesn´t align well with his ideal for the birth of the nation of Zaun...Think: he wants a new nation. Method? By exploiting and addicting the people of that new nation who were already opressed by Piltover. Why? Because fuck reasons, that´s why. It´s a 7/10 and it´s the fairest score for it. I could go on and put a lot more bullet points why Arcane is good...But not a masterpiece or a 10/10. I think the show deserved at least 3 or 4 more episodes to not seem so rushed and establish things
@@nunobettencourt1429 Silco makes the disparate undercity population dependent on him for protection and feeding the addiction he stuck them with. Dependancy means he can control them. Those he can control, he can unify. Give them a name to unify under, Zaun, and make their oppressors (himself included) recognize that name and its sovereignty. Boom. Now he has his nation.
He wanted Zaun to be independent, yes, but that doesn't mean he necessarily cares THAT deeply for the people he has to exploit along the way to get there. That and he has to think of some way to compete with the vastly superior resources of Piltover, he seems ready to compromise on ethics a lot. Fighting dirty, making horrendous inventions. All too try and compete with a, on paper, superior power.
SPOILERS:
He couldn't abandon his closest allies in the end though. His family if you will.
Jinx being the obvious exception on that last point. Sevika being the less obvious one. For me that turned him away from moustache twirling evil into being a more real character. Cliche and tropey? Hell yes. No doubt. But that didn't really bother me. He was ruthless to most everyone. Jinx and Sevika though. He trusted them with his life in a big way. I liked how the character was written.
Also, it was cool how when he threatened to the other mob lords by cutting the ventilation , he didn't seem to need the breathing mask. He seemed unfazed by the filthy, dense undercity air the other mobsters chose to filter/ventilate out. Neat component to that scene. Makes him quite intimidating.
Yeah I'm done gushing.
TLDR: Silco is tropey/cliche as heck but it doesn't really bother me. He has enough charisma and real human emotion to be compelling as a character to me.
@@jon9828 I understand what you mean. Sure as a villlain he does his job and serves the purpose in the story...But well, this is just me but I feel if he indeed had a backstory where for example his relationship with Singed or Zenika was highlighted, his motives for his method of controlling the population of Zaun were exposed and why trying to corrupt Pitover enforcers would make him way less of a tropey or cliche character. I mean, he was in the shadow of Vander after his death...Vander accomplished leadership, unity and respect by using none of that. To me the lack of a backstory on Silco takes value from Vander´s death and makes him a one dimensional character. He acted linearly, his reactions were linear.
What me or you said about him is pure interpertation and backfilling and the main antagonist of a narrative is one of those special cases where its more detrimental than beneficial to have backfilling. A bit of show don´t tell its fine for most part of the story, but closure is also needed specially on important characters like that.
The moment he became two dimensional was the dialogue with Vander´s statue about daughters, it gave him some personal development, but not redemption, he was and will always be too far gone for that. The lack of a backstory doesn´t explain what he gained from Singed besides the Shimmer and what Singed gained from him. Since there´s just a small scene of Vander almost drawning him, his past is unclear and thus he is not a three dimensional character like a secondary character (Mel) is. Its mind boggling and it goes in line with what I said, if the show had more episodes it WOULD be a masterpiece, but since it didn´t and its pacing created many issues in the narrative and some of the character portrayals and key events in the story, its just a 7/10 imho.
Since I've watched this show about 4 times now and done quite a lot of analysis on it, I wanted to shed light on one of my favourite moments. It's very subtle and goes completely unnoticed if you don't pay attention to it: (Long post incoming)
Caitlyn and Vi's relationship is arguably one of the most fleshed out dynamics and a lot of it happens purely through visual storytelling. In episode 4 they are both introduced to us from cages; Vi a literal one and Caitlyn the one built for her by her overprotective parents. (What tips her off the edge is when Jayce, her one established friend, sides with her parents, quoting safety and disregarding Caitlyn's wishes as a person. The scene is phenomenal. By the end her frustration peaks and she heads to Still water hold.)
Episode 5 is all about freedom and change. The city has literally changed on Vi, whereas Caitlyn is forced to adapt herself to fit Zaun. What's important for their dynamic is that when Vi tells what Caitlyn is doing wrong (the glorious flirting scene) Caitlyn takes the advice. It's why she ultimately responds to Caitlyn's aid with gratitude.
Now episode 6 is the important bit here. As Vi's growing weaker from the wound, she has to rely more on Caitlyn to get by. It's also increasing her animosity because she feels vulnerable. Caitlyn in turn takes everything in stride, responding with empathy and compassion (because that's her emphasized characteristic, despite the naivete). It culminates in her prioritising Vi's survival over her own safety. (Exchanging the gun.)
Now, this scene is important set-up. Vi in act 1 is a teen burdened by responsibility. She takes care of Powder, she wants for something better for her family - and the lanes as a whole - but her attempt fails. In the end it's the precursor to everything getting fucked. Finally her guardian gets killed and she aliantes her only family.
The point is that she is usually the caretaker, not the one being taken care of. But in this scene, Caitlyn takes care of her. She's quite literally overlapped with the memory of her mom caring for her as a small child. And for a person who's been locked in a box for who knows how many years, who's had to fend for herself, that's not insignificant. In a world that's literally alien to her now, Caitlyn has become her rock.
So, (I wish I could say more about the confrontation with Jinx, but this is long as is) episode 7 opens with them having a spat. Some doubt is creeping into the bond, but we're still reassured that Cait cares. Vi still vouches for her when Ekko has (justified) animosity towards her. But the tension of unsaid words is still there.
Then Caitlyn gives her speech about the gemstone. And this is where the important moment happens. Vi is visibly upset for most of Caitlyn's speech but when Caitlyn says "This city needs healing. Much more than I ever realised." the camera focuses on Vi's face and we see her gaze softening. Caitlyn's empathy for human life is obviously important, but Vi's refocusing on the moment where Caitlyn healed her. It's why later on when Jinx confronts them on the bridge, despite just saying that she need to go back to her sister, she listens to Ekko and takes Caitlyn to safety. Not from some sense of debt, but because they've formed a connection. They've momentarily freed each other from the cages they were pushed into.
Also, yes. It is explicitly romantic in nature. The coding is so thick it's impossible to deny, despite the obvious need to still keep that edge of plausible deniability.
Hopefully this wasn't painfully obvious to everyone and I've ended up recounting known facts here. The show might have its slight flaws, but I'm a little biased in its favour since so rarely do I get this nuanced queer storytelling in shows I like between women. Also I tip my hat to anyone who actually read this hunk of text to the end. (Edits for grammar.)
Read it, agree with all of it.
Out of all the relationships. Vi and Caitlyn’s is easily the most developed and defined.
Ain’t gonna lie, at first, despite all chemistry, I felt like their relationships were a bit rushed, but upon rewatching and further analysis - yeah, I see where it’s coming from)
Although complex and semi-toxic relationships like between Jinx and Silco or Vi fascinate me more, I’m not gonna deny violyn is one of the most wholesome and established romantic-coded relationships I’ve seen in a while.
Also I definitely agree that rushing is a bit of a problem for the whole show, but arcane actually manages details and “feel this up by yourself”-scenes pretty good. Compared to most, at least)
@@sharmelfattakhov5041 Personally I didn't find the show rushed, but I can see why that would be the case for many others. It's definitely a double edged sword to make a show as dense in symbolism as this one. On one hand it creates strong rewatchability and the artistic intent is exhilarating, but it teeters on the edge of alienating those who didn't resonate with the story first time around and weren't compelled to dig deeper. You could even argue that making such important moments of character writing so fleeting is bad storytelling. After all, you risk the audience missing them.
That said, this storytelling pushed all of my buttons, so obviously I loved it. I'm not even bothered by the idea of Cait and Vi's relationship evolving as quickly as it does because the brevity works for me thematically. The situations bring forth strong, volatile emotions, both for good and bad and they respond in kind. It's also why I think it wouldn't work as anything but a romance. (The cinematography might as well be screaming gay from the hills.) In my reading for the ending to have emotional resonance, Vi and Cait have to be queer.
Unfortunately that also means that I can see a plotline for season 2 that undercuts their relationship by playing into it being such an roller coaster of emotions and oh no, they just weren't in their right minds. Hopefully my cynisism doesn't bare fruit, but I won't dare hope too much knowing how corporations go about these things usually.
For me, Vi following Ekko and Cait to the bridge before doing a 180 to go look for Powder, then when she sees Jinx on the bridge she....listens to Ekko and 180s again to go leave Ekko to fight Jinx, it just seems like not logical action for the character. I could see Vi trying to talk to Powder still, or trying to get in the way of the two fighting. It's difficult for me to believe in that moment, her connection to Cait is so strong that she would walk away and leave her sister and childhood friend to basically fight to the death. Why? Because she saw Jinx kill a bunch of enforcers that she for many years thought were enemies too? And that had imprisoned her for "no official reason"?
Fantastic, I'd love to read more deep analysis like this for other characters and relationships. Also I'd argue that the romance isn't just coded but literally part of the text, you'd have to be really naive to read them as anything less than that lol
I get a feeling that resolving the other plot points was never the intention behind Arcane. I think it was inteded to show the transformation of Powder into Jinx, and to do that, they showed what was happening around the Piltover and Zaun. But after Jinx shot her bomb, they told all they had about her, and the show ended. Everything after is consequences, but not reasons for her change
Thank you! I thought I was the only feeling 😕 I thought genuinely I was not okay lol. I mean the story is great, but it could have been better
Honestly, this show does such a good job of setting the audience up to infer things that it improves my opinion of it that I could entirely not notice things like Powder and Ekko not interacting. And if the only other notable mark against it I can see is one very egregious case of fridging, that's not enough to tarnish my overall view.
Honestly I think 12 episodes would be the right amount, allowing for things to not be so rushed while still being pretty packed full of awesomeness. Personally in Act 3, I would have liked a little more of Jinx, particularly once she gets the purple eyes, and a four episode arc could have granted that.
@JMK I don't think that'd be a interesting topic. Vi story in prison would be boring and tiring bc of it's repetition (there's not much to do in that place, other than a couple fights here and there, maybe trials? or just training), Jinx would be in the same place (dealing with losing her family, her issues with Vi, Silco as a new father figure, there's not much to do as a child like Powder). I agree that it would've been awesome to see Ekko's evolution, how he managed to gather so many people, the Firelights, how did he get the boards, his situation in Zaun when Silco "took over". That would be far more interesting than Jinx or Vi, at that moment specifically. Piltover, and all champs related, would be on the same place as Vi or Jinx, but with just a few interesting things. Overall, I think that Riot did an amazing job between Act 1 and 2, I wish we got more info from Ekko, even though he's not a "main character".
true, that’s what i was expecting after watching the first arc, hopefully we get a number like that or higher for the next season
Last episode was weird
Not even more episodes, just more minutes per episode, like 10-20 mins more to let the show breathe
The numbers of episodes of a show is not exactly something you can just tweak by snaping your fingers. But I guess the internet is the internet and we're going to complain about everything we can because it wasn't perfectly fit to what we wanted. Fun right?
Saying Skye got “fridged” completely misses the original context of why fridging became a term. It was mostly to highlight that female characters were relegated to side characters and that female side characters were disproportionately used as plot devices for these male main characters. Neither of these apply for Arcane at all, which is female led and has male side characters also be used as tragic plot devices.
Using side characters as a plot device to move along characters’ story by itself is not a bad trope. Not every minor character needs a MCU level of backstory. The trope is almost necessary in many writing genres and styles like war stories or unreliable narrator for example. The fact that Skye’s character managed to get such an emotional impact from a lot of the audience in such few lines would even be traditionally considered a sign of good writing by short story writers.
Yeah, like you can technically see it as a fridging, but we saw just as much of Benzo and he was also offed to move other characters stories. Not to mention Mylo and Claggor, who would also count
@@ijornhribrudkrvir but with benzo we saw him with a lot of personality and being a different thing for each of the charactwrs he interacted witj (ekko-tutor, vander-lifelong friend, claggor-mydads weird friend, vi-Good dude)
With mylo and claggor we got a LOT of stuff, with her... just not. So yap, it basically feels worst because all other side charactwrs that have influence are so good.
@@ijornhribrudkrvir and to add to what Felipe said, Benzo feels like a part of the under city. His establishment, his sense of a past with Vander and the 'old guard'. He felt like a rich presence in the story. He didn't exist FOR THE SAKE OF another character. He existed in my opinion to be a purely interesting character who adds another face to the older generation on the 'vander side' of the conflict.
Thank you for summing this up perfectly.
Skye was a female character that existed solely for the purpose of making a male character sad, and had no place in the plot beyond that.
That's a fridging.
I acctually like the rush in Arcane. It was set to "high" for the whole time and you don't have time to think, it was just ~30min of "wow!".
I also like incompleteness. It's arcanes, it's reconstruction of the story from the past based on scraped informations, notes, few items, maybe stories that circulates among people who heard something. For me what is great is that they show us only what is important. and necessary. They don't waste our time, and they didn't waste thier time and money for fillers. They don't need to show me Ekko and Powder play together, they don't need to show me Vi had hard time in prison, what happen in Zaun after Vander died, etc. I can figure out it myself. I much prefer 6h of awsome show than 24h of quite good show with great moments, and tons of fillers and explanations. Usually I don't like TV series becouse how many staff is puted just to show and explain everything, rather than telling actual story and I love how efficient is Arcane. We wanted story how Jinx become Jinx and we totally get it.
I'd mostly agree, but the teamup of Vi and Jayce into their attack as well as Viktor's second "improvement" happened in such a short time that it was difficult to suspend my disbelief. Maybe one more episode was all that was needed to smoothe some of these things out, but not more than that. Apart from that, the sentiment of not showing us things we can easily understand by seeing the results is one I agree with.
@@lockekappa500 I mean then again, as he said, your experience may not be the same as others. Its objectively a good show but skyen may just prefer shows that take a bit longer. Its preference in the end.
There were obviously limitations to the budget allotted and the release, from what I read there was quite a bit of a push by the creators to even get it made, let alone be given the funds needed to make it as good as it is. I think the brisk pace was necessary as they wanted to pack as much story and action as they could in the 9 episodes they were given. It would be great if there was a bit more time to explore more characters, but as the start of a brand new franchise this was incredibly well done.
I completely agree. I’ve compared it to game of thrones, which has a much slower pace, and found that I like this style so much more. More happened in 9 40 minutes episodes of arcane than in probably four ten episode seasons of GOT, and the events had pretty much the same amount of impact.
Jayce was a young man who was humiliated, banned from school, turned away by his patrons, and his life’s work was seized. People have killed themselves over much less. His contemplating taking that jump is certainly believable.
Re: Sky. We don’t really mourn Benzo like Vander, do we? Secondary characters are secondary. But we even see mourning for nameless enforcers.
Her death actually hurt Viktor. Victor poured the ashes of Sky into the polluted River Pilt. They were both from the Lower City and managed to climb their way into Piltover. But she ends up down there again.
Then he almost followed her in.
He’s losing everyone “close” to him. He’s losing his ties to humanity as he becomes more machine. His actions burned the Sky to ash. The sky fell. He can’t kill himself, and he can’t destroy the machine…the machine that he is part of, the machine that is taking him over.
I’ve watched this show about 4-5 times now.
The gripes I have are similar to some of what’s said here.
1. The pacing of Jayce’s storyline in Act 2 felt a bit strange. Some of the timeline felt like it played out over a few days when it had to have been much longer.
2. Imagine Dragons didn’t need to be actually in the show.
3. Some inconsistency in wounding/damage. Some injuries require Arcane potions and shimmer to heal; other stuff vaporizes/maims/de-limbs some characters but not others.
Recency bias might be in play, but I don’t remember the last time I was this engaged with a show. I am obsessed w it and can’t shut up about it.
I hate the word “masterpiece” but it’s the first word that comes to mind.
I actually disagree about the wounds. It seems that almost ever fight especially the Vi ones REALLY take their role and are able to show the brutality and gross side of fighting. And if it’s something like a gashed leg like jinx obviously staples isn’t enough but we can assume she had something else done while we weren’t looking especially because we know how smart she and she’s been doing crazy shit for awhile so she prob know how to patch herself up. And ekko is a good example of wounds taking their toll he is still injured when he and hiemerdinger come back and we see the pain that happens when the vastaya helps put the leg back in place. I think the show was able to handle this extremely well
Agree heavily with the point of benzo. While I don’t like fridging it’s the use of a minimal character to enhance an established character which is done really well with viktor. The one thing he wanted to do with hextech is help people now he’s straight up killed someone. Reminds me of what he told jayce about being scientists not soldiers
Why do you hate the word masterpiece ? /gen
@@fae567 just cuz it’s so overused and feels like the easy thing to say (even though it absolutely applies to Arcane)
The problem is that you don’t NEED any of the things you claim to be missing. You only WANT to see those things. You pretty much agree with that by admitting that you can backfill. The fact that you backfill so easily is exactly why it’s not necessary to show any of those things. It would impact the perfect pacing. None of this makes anything shallow. You feel everything the show wants you to feel at the depth you’re supposed to feel them. Everything important is there. That’s why it’s still a 10/10. I respect your opinion though. I guess you’re just built different. But I think the problem here is more about WANT than NEED.
I agree with nearly everything Skyen said in the video apart from his points on Skye and Viktor. A lot of people do too, and a lot of people don't. And that's how it's supposed to be :)
I do think though, that some of the stuff he mentioned (especially the relationship between Ekko and Powder) could've been fleshed out more without hurting the pacing.
I disagree. We don't need to know everything, and yes the story by itself is efficient. But is it bad to want more than just efficient? All I felt at the end was Wow, Stuff Happened but I'm not really feeling any of it. Except at the end of Act 1, which I think is the strongest story told. The show just sort of fizzles out for me, not saying anything and not really doing anything. The art to me is carrying this show and it is doing that job well, it definitely keeps it up in the 8/10 range.
@@robinchirps1775 I agree with your disagreeing, or I disagree with agreeing. 😵💫Season 2 takes a bit of a turn, as it looks, at first, like it will turn into a redemption story re-uniting Vi and Powder, and as someone completely unaware of the League of Legends, it was a real surprise to me that didn't happen. The entirety of the first season became a set-up, but for the better. You feel this in the end of Season 1, that so much is left untold, but I quickly forgave it as the payoffs, and frankly unexpected payoffs, hit home in the second.
@@squirlmy I think you mean the second act, not season? I didn't think about how different this show probably is for people not aware of these characters in the first place, definitely something to think about.
Like I said, I think everything set-up is paid off but I don't think stories are just about set-up and payoff, that's just one area of successful storytelling. As Act 2 ended, I felt like they were less characters and more pawns that the authors were using to get to the next stage in the show, which is whatever is planned for Season 2.
@@robinchirps1775 interesting. So is it the dialogues or the script or the writing or something else that makes you feel like this? Genuine asking because one of the first people to have a different perspective on arcade and it makes me wonder
Very interesting video. I would add Voice acting in the "why Arcane is a 10/10 show" . The Voice actors actually gave so much life and uniqueness to the characters and the show. Silco's voice and lines...
I don‘t think skys death would have worked, if Viktor got to know her better before, because then they would have shared notes, derailing the entire story
I don't think so. He didn't even share them with jayce
@@46raulfull because Jayce was all caught up playing politics. He wasnt there for Viktor, therefor Viktor couldnt even share them if he wanted to
I don't think Viktor needs to know her better but tbf I don't really see a good way for us to get to know her without derailing the story...
While I understand your point about Sky, I think it was intentional that we didn't know her. This scene parallels Jayce killing Renni's kid. This is what leads to both of them meeting and realizing that their dream of using technology to save people has caused both of them to take lives. We know just as much about Sky as Viktor does and that's the point. This technology will kill innocent people not involved in all this madness if they aren't careful.
In regards to Ekko and Jinx, I agree 100%. I was actually excited to see Ekko and Jinx as friends when they were kids. It would have made their fight so much more impactful. I immediately noticed this was the FIRST time they ever spoke because I was waiting for it all season. That could be my own fault for knowing the lore, but as you said that's what makes it not a 10/10 for everyone. For me it's a solid 8. The rushing hurt the story.
You've pointed out most of the flaws about the show I had. My only difference is that its not that Viktor cared for her, but rather that he didn't. He didn't know anything about her or her feelings about him until she died. That made it all the more tragic as he forgot about the very people he was trying to help.
I completely disagree with a lot of the ideas you've brought up here. The idea that the show simply treating you like an adult and that you dont need to be spoon fed about every character trait is a good thing, not a bad thing. I don't need scenes explaining to me that powder has abandonment issues or how much jayce values his dream, I would much rather simply have the show show me this. Like show not tell is a good thing no? The ekko jinx thing i kinda agree with, but it is implied that powder used to hang about with ekko when she says she got the tip from him and the enemy video had a lot of them hanging out, so it hit home like a truck for me anyway, but a scene or two of them and their dynamic would of been nice. The skye thing, i dunno wt to tell you, but I got everything about her character before her final scene and didn't feel like I needed anymore on her. And there not really that close, other people have shown this but yh, viktor was just upset because thats what viktor is like, he wants to help people and his actions lead to someones death. The issues are honestly tiny for me, especially when I think about how much it does amazing, it actually has the opposite effect for me to you, it makes me care less about flaws.
Well from skyens perspective he’s interested in the plot, these well wound characters crafted with various plot strings throughout the show, and his complaint wasn’t that we arent being spoon fed character development it’s that the show speeds so fast it’s hard to get a bearing.
i don't think TB Skyen is arguing that the show should 'explain things to you instead of showing', i think his point is that a lot of the time the series doesn't even show you at all, just expects you to imagine depth where it's not. I agree with you on the Skye thing that they didn't need to be close for Viktor to feel that way so that i disagree with that on the video. However it did let me down sometimes during the series where i would expect to see how something went down but never did - it was only implied. For me the worst one is with Vi, who is my favourite character in the show so I paid more attention to her - i wanted to see what all of her trauma after episode 3 would do to her and how she would deal with it. Instead, all of that was handled off-screen, & all that was left to deal with was powder's issues. Like I felt like i expected more for her and maybe that's why i was let down, but even so older Vi feels underdeveloped for such an important character :/
Right there with you
The "show don't tell" thing doesn't really work when the Arcane sometimes neither shows or tells.
It just sometimes expect the audience to assume things.
Jynx freak out reallye needed some build up or something. It just kinda happens. Specially since previous freak outs where calm and subtle. Like not even much. Just show her hand twitching or something to telegraph the big one.
If I wasn't already vaguley familiar with LOL ans the concept of Jynx's character I woulda been more confused than I already was.
Hmmm.. I think the Skye part where arcane doesn't show you anything about skye up until the moment she dies works well.. It goes well with the fact that viktor only cares about the work and about making himself well or more machine oblivious to what happens around him. I don't feel like it's the same kind of fridging you talked before where the death of some character creates the whole motive of the main character, her death is a concequence of his path and the choices he's made, that's exactly the thing singed warned him of. He didn't pay atention to her and when his bad choices killed her he realised his work hurted someone who cared for him but he was too occupied to notice.
i quite like that everything's been left open ended at the end of the season? resolving the transformation of powder into jinx but leaving everything else unfinished with frayed edges? it gives me that....lost feeling that the characters feel and i think that its important that we don't always feel satisfied with how things end at the end of a season, that sense of unease and excitement lead into how you'll feel when picking up season 2 ya know?
anyway, for me arcane is a 8.9/10 i think everything they have done has been great (except for randomly killing off sky i agree with that point) but also that maybe a 12 episode run for the first season might have given them the time they needed to put in the extra punch and make everything feel a little less rushed, or develop some more on some of the relationships so we get a solid feeling of how the characters interacted in the past, interact in the present and how they will potentially play off each other in the future.
Demanding everything to be closed in a season is like saying killing off Ned Stark at the end of Game of Thrones and leaving his children in an unresolved situation is bad writing. Ridiculous point.
Gotta hard disagree about killing off Skye. I think it was a beautifully done death scene and comparing it to actual fridging (looking at you Marvel) is a disservice to the writers.
Yeah I don't mind when a series doesn't conclude most things, it's so much more preferable than a rushed finale trying desperately to tie up as many loose ends as possible
@@MrDrewwills oh the death scene itself was amazing! and the emotional impact it had on Viktor was great, but we had seen Skye maybe 3 times before that and a couple of short glimpses extra, it just feels like she was introduced, given the bare minimum amount of character, then killed off in a way that only furthers the story of one character who, tbh already had enough turmoil, motivation and also hesitation without her death.
i don't think it's 100% bad i just think it needed an extra 10 minutes or so focusing on the two of them before her death in order to make it feel like it meant something ? because as it stands, to me personally, it feels like if they had never introduced Skye, nothing about the plot would've changed. and i don't wanna feel like that because for the short glimpses we got of her she was a great character
@@danieldrage9714 She was used to bring Victor back from the brink. He was losing control almost like and addiction/obsession. The death of Skye a co-worker (to him) brought him back to reality and made him re-evaluate what he is doing.
16:30 I get what you're saying about Powder's mental state...but I need to say that scene has been the most accurate depiction of my own mental health I have ever seen. Yes, Powder is quiet and moody and seemingly not capable of such outbursts... It's because she's bottling up every scrap of criticism she ever receives. She's holding it in, and it's painting over her personality until she's hollow. She's so desperately trying to live up to what Vi wants her to be but fails time and time again so when Vi finally leaves her behind...the emotions finally come out. All at once, all the raging self hatred and fear just pour out in one big explosion.
I'm not saying you're wrong with your criticism, but I'm not sure how else you can portray that kind of meltdown in cinema. In my life, no one has any idea what I struggle with. I hide it from them, I even hide it from myself. The only sign anything is wrong is the explosion, all other times I'm just wearing the mask I've woven to trick the world.
As for what I didn't like about the show: I really didn't like how extraneous the Viktor/Jayce plotline turned out to be. Beyond Jayce making stuff and Jinx stealing it, Jayce, Viktor, and Mel all really weren't hugely influential on the main plotline: Jinx's development. I personally think the show's climax was perfect...for the plotlines at play. But I really wish they had more closely intertwined the stories of Jayce and Co with Jinx and Co.
I completely agree with you on the Powder meltdown scene. Like for real i've never related to her as much as during that scene
To me one of the greatest strong points of the series is how grounded in reality it feels. How every decision, every development feels so real. You just get every character and why they do and say what they do when they do it.
So what bugs me the most personally is the way vi turned out to be after spending what 6 to 8 years or how ever long that time skip was in prison. And not just any prison. She is literally in a dark, cold stone box, doesnt have anybody to talk to or sympathize with AND gets regularly tortured all right after losing literally all of her family and having to fear for her sister. I dont care how mentally fortified a person might be, that shit would wreck you. I feel like Vi should at that point be more messed up than Powder tbh.
But I also don't know how you couldve avoided that. Because don't get me wrong, Vi is my personal favourite character of the show and I love the way she turned out to be. You could also not have had her only been in that prison for a part of the time because it is vital to Jinx's arc that Vi could never make an attempt at finding her again.
Interested in what you think how this couldve been fixed or if you disagree with me entirely.
I disagree:
She was not in her dark, cold stone box (her cell) all the time, she has been working out, getting tattoos and piercings and we see her beating the guy in the dining hall. Also, she didn't come from the nicest of places to begin with and was probably respected by the other prisoners because she was a good fighter, so it wasn't that difficult to adapt to prison. Yes, she lost most of her family, but the objective of seeing Powder again gave her hope to endure the beatings and she was always strong willed anyway.
I'm not saying it happened that way, but it's entirely possible it did.
Arcane does not necessarily need all that exposition that you're asking for if it is able to express character relationships through wordless, expressive sequences that allow the viewer to understand what is being communicated without the need for extensive dialogue. You can, if you like, be pedantic about this if you're really into narrow and traditional storytelling frameworks; but Arcane succeeds primarily through its mastery of artistry. I think the most salient criticism is that viewers wish there were more to watch given the quality of what is presented. In my opinion, less is more.
But he's not talking about more exposition. He specifically praised the scene with Caitlyn observing the crime scene for not relying so heavily on exposition in order to understand her thought process. Instead, the issue he has is that there's not enough emotional tension built up for certain scenes to have a satisfying payoff. Jayce's suicide attempt wasn't really that emotional, at least for me, because we didn't have enough time exploring the depths of his despair for use to really feel the emotions he was feeling. Exposition isn't necessary for something like that. As Skyen suggested, we could have been shown him desperately attempting to seek help from multiple different people over time, for that to then result in him giving up hope and then attempting to end his own life. That tension building is important for something to be more emotionally impactful.
@@Alex_Johnson_ More emotional than it already was? No, thank you, i needed to breath sometimes, those few moments that draw your attention but doesn't hit you as hard emotionally are fine.
@@xenomdrac4114 It's a subjective thing, I suppose. I wanted more hard hitting moments.
but that's the thing he does not enjoy that but as he said it is because he perceives this art differently, the things he said are not exactly flaws with the show but it's things that he does not enjoy about it
I think I have to disagree with Sky's story being rushed. I never got the impression that Viktor is supposed to care deeply about Sky on a personal level. The fact that she's basically a stranger to him, but he still reacts so strongly to her death was a major moment for me in Viktor's character arc; it emphasizes that he's an idealist who genuinely cares about the "average person", just as much as those close to him. That's especially important as the main thing Jayce and Vi are dealing with that episode is that same question of protecting all the people vs the ones they personally care about.
So, I think that the story would lose something crucial if Sky was a more developed, major character, since that would put the focus on the personal tragedy of losing her in particular, rather than the ideological challenge of Victor failing in his commitment to help people, and hurting them instead. Viktor's character arc in the game is all about the tension between human connection and the greater ideological good, so him dealing with an ideological failure while everyone else is going through their deeply personal trauma fits well.
You do have a point that the scenes showing how Sky likes Viktor indicate that Sky's death was supposed to be understood in the personal context, but given how one-sided the relationship clearly was, I think it's more likely that Sky liking Victor is just a way to justify Sky being willing to risk her life for Viktor in the first place. That justification could have been handled better, maybe even by just having Sky be completely unrelated to him, and having the Hexcore suck her in against her will, rather than her rushing in to try and save him.
In general, her role in the story is closer to the kid Jayce kills in Zaun; they're not supposed to be developed characters, because they represent the faceless casualties of progress, who will inevitably continue to pile up if Jayce and Viktor continue down the paths they're going down. For that reason, it's especially important that Sky isn't special to Viktor, and by extension, special to the audience. You can only kill Viktor's girlfriend so many times, but there's no limit to the number of unrelated people who could be hurt by the dangers of uncontrolled magic, which is what her death is supposed to thematically represent.
I also think that by killing of Sky as they did, it makes Viktor realize what he could have had. He could have realized even just a little bit that this person deeply cared for him (through her notes) and just like people in real life, me who had done so before, can imagine what it would’ve been like if he just had paid more attention to her instead of his research. I interpret it as Viktor realizing the what could have beens but facing the reality he is in, not knowing who she actually was, what her personality was like personally or any personal details for that matter. The line where he says he doesn’t know where she would have liked to be while tossing her ashes into the water shows that he felt the loss and realized what was right in front of him before it was too late. He cares now but she’s already dead. Her death can lead to him being more obsessed with his work because Sky had left her notes which tell that she wanted to help Viktor progress forward. And albeit he realized he doesn’t form connections with people, he could only realized how impactful it was with Sky but not others. Therefore with his obsession further supported he continues his research and remains ignorant to others who he could bond with and instead research for the better of everyone while not actually connecting to others. It also links to the kid story he has in the lore where he takes in a kid to help him by augmentation, he has the empathy and thinks of how augmenting the boy will make him better but doesn’t go farther than that. Never forming a connection outside his research and tech. This is all also my interpretation of Sky’s story. I think both of these interpretations work well together. Sky is closer a what could have been but didn’t and really helps give Viktor that development but we don’t know how he actually gets to his current point in the lore after Sky’s death yet and I would love to see that, can’t wait for season 2
I think I'm the opposite. I give it more of a pass on its mistakes due to how close to perfection it is. Maybe that's due to how much crap there is out there these days... I do see you point, though. I was quite disappointed in the lack of development and fridging of Sky. I do think this show deserved and needed more than 9 episodes. It's one of my great annoyances these days with stream platforms, particularly Netflix. I'm not sure if each episodes could have been made shorter without losing quite a bit. I can only imagine how much this show cost to make. I think even just 3 more episodes could have done wonders for this show. Hopefully the success gives them the ok to do just a lil bit more
I agree with this as well. Sky was somewhat :( but a lot of the other mistakes can be forgiven due to how good it is.
There is a second season confirmed, so there will be more.
9 episodes + a movie :)
I don't think more episodes would've been better. Just more minutes in 1 episode. Make it 50-55 minutes instead of 40-45. Its more than enough. Show Jayce's descent into despair with 1 scene where he asks for funding from some people and everyone rejects him. Show moment of Viktor with Skye and 1 moment with Skye alone(flashback?) for 3-5 minutes each. It would be enough to get us invested in her character. Show us a bit more interactions between kids in 1 act, give Ekko a bit more time with Powder, ~5 minutes is enough. And for the last part, give more moments for Jinx with Silco, and of Silco with goons, show us how he leads. Show is almost perfect, its just been a mistake to make each episode not 50-55 minutes.
BUT. They still can erase most of the errors in second season. In Viktor's case they can show us how he uses Skye's research to help heal and change himself. This will be a great way to put some flashbacks for Skye. Jinx in second season can have couple flashbacks related to Silco as she mourns him. Same with Ekko, 1-2 flashbacks to their time as kids with Powder.
Another way is to make Directors Cut and sell it. Add more minutes to each episode this way.
Yeah, sure its got its problems, as does everything, but for the most part it was so good I'm willing to forgive them for the few little things that didn't come out so good. And I agree that it could have used 3 more episodes, making it four episode acts, which would allow for more development for certain characters, making certain events more meaningful. For me honestly, the show is like a 9/10. The issues that it had weren't big enough to bump down any further, cause the show as it is, is still significantly better than a lot of shows out there.
I see your point, but I see nothing wrong with having characters that are just brief, timewise, depthwise and "emotionwise". You can tell IRL that there are some people around us, that we only get that little exposition in all of those senses.
I don't agree on the Powder not being shown to be volatile before being a flaw, to me adding more scenes to set up would have that scene better, sure, but it would have incredibly boring, and would not add anything to the show as a whole. If you can cut a scene and not have the story worse off, you should.
With Sky it's even more important, the whole point of that death is that we feel what Victor feels: that we missed out, that we didn't know her and here she has her own life and goals and values.
The best thing about a series is that you fill in the odds yourself because you just get it. The story is in a way so clever told, that you just get the character and their backstory.
I think every scene which arcane had was interesting and necessary. Every additional scene would have been unnessesary and i think sky for example just had nothing to say in arcane then making viktor aware how far he developed from the ones he tried to make life better for.
She wasn't ment to have much screentime so we would eventually forget aabout her as well and then realise the people in zhaun who should profit from hextech weren't thought about in the end. I think this lead viktor to his amazing sentence "in the pursuit of acchieving great we failed doing good.
I had no problem with sky. I thought finding out and seeing her through Victor's eyes was interesting I didn't feel like she needed anymore. Also with the echo and powder dialogue I think it's necessary to watch The enemy music video that came before the show as it actually shows scenes that I feel are vital to act one. It does show echo and powder hanging out and doing mischief together and shows more backstory for them as kids which I think was needed.
As fas as sky’s scene goes… I had a completely different read on it. It didn’t give me the impression we were meant to care for sky or even that victor cared for her, but simply to feel understand how dangerous the hexcore is. I feel like, sky was not only secondary and barely there for us, but also for victor who was so obsessed with his work and Jayce that he barely even noticed her until his mistake turned her to dust. And killing somebody involuntarily is already a hide deal, he didn’t need to have a prior emotional connection to her other than knowing her name. He only really saw her when he killed her, and so did we. (Not to say that that’s definitely what the writers intended, but it is how I initially interpreted it)
I believe you're simply describing the paradoxically huge difference btween "almost perfect" and "perfect". Quality is worth more the more there is. As to the specific points you've mentioned.
I believe that firstly Powder's breakdown didn't really need background cause it was the background. I think it was the first major sign of her insanity. Like she said Silco didn't make Jinx.
I almost completely give you the point about Jayce's suicide but the way he acts before that with his mother is completely understandable. She influenced the council's decision that we may view as good but Jayce didn't cause he truly believed in his work unlike what she claimed.
Ekko and Powder interacting wouldn't make a difference. There was obviously plently more backsory regarding all of the kids but we knew they knew eachother and their fight doesn't really leave room for misinterperting their relationship, the one they have or the one they used to have. And honestly I think it all just added to the scene.
As for Sky I think it's important to notice that even though there are many main characters we usually see things solely from their perspective. And to Victor she really wasn't all that present. He acknowledged her but he didn't really have a connection with her. Her death was only that devastating because it was caused by him. And we didn't have to assume she was a scientist nor was it a surprise, it's why she was their assistant. Just like Victor used to be.
Finaly about the finale I'm pretty sure that was full on purpose. No time issue or anything. Arcane is all about clifhangers wether we like it or not. However it wasn't only Jinx's resolution, it was Piltrover-Zaun's aswell along with most charcaters affiliated with their connection. The ending solidifies the civil war between them and the many efforts of characters to prevent it go to waste.
I am slightly obsessed with this show and totally can relate to desire to see more of it, but the truth is if they did show you what happened during those missing moments, you would not be that engaged. Considering how much thought they've put into all kinds of details in writing and design of every frame, I'm pretty sure those gaps exist on purpose. It is actually a hallmark of a brilliant writing. Our minds build for puzzle solving, and our perception of art is very subjective. When we hear (or watch or read) perfectly explained story, out brain have no puzzle to solve, so it goes right over our head into abyss. But, when we have characters and situations compelling enough to be believable, yet providing gaps and factual ambiguities, our brain takes it as incomplete model and starts explaining away all those juicy inconsistencies. This way 'head canons' are born, so characters stop being independent drawings with sound effects, they in a way become extension of you. For example, you see conversation between Silco and Vander, and you feel all kinds of emotions, because you've invented and lived with them entire story of their friendship in your imagination, and what coming next hits you that much harder. Level of engagement may vary from bit to bit depending on your personal interests or experiences, but this how it works in general.
My biggest grievance was that they were setting up this whole "class war" vibe between Piltover and Zaun, but didn't bother to connect Piltover's wealth with specifically the exploitation of Zaun. IRL these disparities are *causal,* not merely coincidental: Piltover would have been wealthy because it can coerce Zaunites into extracting wealth on their behalf, or because they can dump waste in Zaun (implied but not shown). In fact the only labour exploitation explicitly on screen is that of Zaunites being exploited by Silco's industries - this would justify why Zaun's residents could be resentful of Silco taking control, but they never bother connecting Piltover's wealth to Silco's industry either. It could have been Pilties purchasing shimmer for recreation and that would have been enough. They even have the hex crystals as an incredibly hazardous and important material that could have been harvested by Zaunites for Piltover, and at least in season 1, the source is never explained. So the whole class war thing between the two cities struck me as shallow "oh you hate us because we're prettier than you." It's even lampshaded in early Cait and Vi interactions. It's just not a believable depiction of class disparity.
Exactly, they have one moment of Jayce mentioning "undercity" workers. But they don't show any of the exploitation that would justify the hatred.
they also show all attempts to resist or change the system as bad because it's violent but they don't show nonviolent resistance. Then never attempts to show the show's "right" version of resistance.
I thought it was already kind of implied that they were being explored. Even if that wasnt as clear, the show did a good job in establishing the opressive manner that piltover treats zaun, i mean the first scene in the show is how piltover gaurds kiled vi and jinx parents.
I think the actual analogy is to the French/American revolutions. There are *no* people on the Council that are even remotely associated with the Undercity. The closest is Jayce after... 200 years? That's messed up. And there doesn't seem to be a way to petition the government *at all*.
Also... they live in a place where they literally die of horrifying diseases because of the air they are forced to breath constantly and the obvious unavailability of breathing apparatus. Merely by being forced to live there, they are *literally*, not figuratively being slowly murdered. Each and every person there. This is highlighted in the show. A lot. Silco literally just brings some gas out of the mines and nearly kills people with it because they haven't been acclimated to it for *at most* 7 years. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. In fact *in that scene* Silco says "the mines they had us in". Bruh.
I mostly agree with the points made, as I kept feeling that while everything we got was so well done it would have been nice to see more of the in-between steps at certain points.
I do want to add that I didn't really think Jayce was being a jerk to his mother after his trial in episode 2, as she had just publicly testified at trial that he wasn't in his right mind, specifically for his attempt to follow a long held dream. I can understand why his mother did as she did, but I think it is perfectly understandable for Jayce to feel betrayed at that moment.
I’ve rewatched the Ekko vs Jinx fight like 15 times at this point and it is amazing. But at the same time I’m very aware that most of the buildup for the fight is carried by the ENEMY music video, the only time we really see the kids (specifically Jinx and Ekko but all of them too) just hangout and goof off. The first act isn’t entirely doom and gloom, but the entire time the kids have some sort of goal or are hiding from enforcers. We don’t get to see the any of the kids genuinely happy without a care in the show until the Ekko v Jinx flashback, so it relies on the music video and viewers filling in the gaps to figure out their relationship.
Tbh as someone who never watched the music video....the whole fight scene in the moment felt jarringly hamfisted just to show off "animation". As I did not recall any real previous interaction between the two characters I unfortunately did not feel any emotional connection to the scene other than.."O that's cool"
@@hugofung4734 I watched the music video but forgot all of it by the time I saw that scene. Unlike you apparently though, I was easily able to infer their history and likely friendship during their childhood from watching the first 4 episodes of the show and what they showed in the flashback. So I got all the bang out of the scene I needed.
Well if the biggest flaw the show has is "its too short", its a good issue to have.
Looking back. I think the Enemy music video is meant to fill in some of the gaps in the narrative as a way of communicating new information about the characters. It introduced Ekko and Powder as having a friendship. They didn't reuse anything from the series in the video so I think we're supposed to extrapolate meaning of relationships from the Enemy music video and project that information forward as we watch Arcane. It feels like Riot establishing new information for the things they won't be able to touch on in the series proper.
A show shouldn't have to rely on external media to tell its story. Arcane shouldn't have to rely on a promotional music video to explain its character relationships. Just going off of things happening in the show, we see that Ekko has excellent reasons to want to clean Jinx's clock (her on-screen body count includes Ekko's gang-mates and presumed friends.) So his hesitation at the end of the fight doesn't feel as earmed as it might've, had the show bothered to give Ekko and Powder some meaningful interaction in the first act. Some reason for us, the audience, to believe he'd hesitate.
I haven't really seen Arcane, but something I feel so strongly about is how they use colors a little to perfectly. I don't mean they use colors to show the mood of things, what I mean is: They're able to show the passage of time and explain things in depth using colors. Powder's hair is a nice light blue, but when she turns into the chaotic person that is Jynx, her hair is still blue but you can tell it's as if she's letting everything inside go. I feel like Powder was kept as light colors to really make the transformation dramatic but also to show that Powder was keeping quiet and keeping the good girl act behind because she felt like she needed to in order to keep Vi, but when she becomes Jynx she's let herself go in more ways than onez and they show it by using colors. Her skin is paler because she stays in hiding, she even has that look of 'something is off' as Powder which only becomes more apparent in Jynx.
To be fair, the imagination can tell those in between stories way better in your head than it ever would have on screen.
From what I can tell, the high quality character storytelling in arcane proves that even if a character doesn't get the screen time deserved, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Arcane managed to immerse me. The world feels like it exists outside of the characters, with its own turnings and thousands of individual stories.
It is because of the quality that Arcane did show us that I am able to forgive characters like Sky getting virtually no set up. in a lesser show, I would not be so forgiving.
I really liked a lot of your points, but there we differ.
Ordinarily I greatly agree with a lot of Skyen’s takes and I don’t even disagree with some stuff here like how they couldn’t resolve all the storylines. However, I don’t agree about the criticism of back filling details. I think thats just respecting modern viewer’s intelligence. I am really sick of media that spoon feeds everything you are supposed to think and feel and know. I like that Arcane respects the viewers time enough not to waste it. Skye is the only character I agree where they could have spent more time on.
idk when I watch a show about characters and how they relate to each other and their world, I would like... to see them relate to each other and their worlds. Arcane speedruns its way through SO MUCH relationship building between characters in so many places (Powder never has a scene with Vander, either), that at points it starts to feel thin.
I don't sit down to watch a TV show to imagine cool stories happening in my head, I sit down to have a good story TOLD to me, and at some point if the narrator keeps going "okay so just imagine that a bunch of cool stuff happens here, and then we'll skip ahead to the next bit" I am going to feel like I'm missing out on a lot of things that would be cool to get to actually _experience._
@@TBSkyen there is the scene where Vander pours Powder the drink and notices Vi gave her the stuffed animal but I agree they could have used a scene that focuses on their relationship specifically more. I don’t think a lot of those were “cool stories” though I didn’t need Ekko and Powder playing together in a scene to know it happened etc. Big fan of your work btw!
@@asant1986 And if kid Ekko and Powder is something that you are desperately missing then you can find it in the Enemy music video, I know it is not really a valid argument since that something you should find in the episodes but on the other hand the one of the shows big objective is that it wants to left you with unsatisfiable hunger for more and so you will look for more and get more.
For my money, spending more time on Skye would be a huge waste of everybody's time. She was never relevant, not to Viktor, not for the story. She died to show Viktor and us the dangers of the hexcore that Heimerdinger wanerd about. And thats fine the way it is.
@@asant1986 I can buy the argument that Vander and Powder dynamic doesn't need to be fleshed out more, but how is better fleshing out Powder and Ekko not a 'cool story'??? It let's the payoff during their fight scene hit so much harder.
You know that scene when the kids were hiding from the enforcers in their little arcade/hideout and we got to see powder's marksmanship as she shoots all the targets and beats Milo? I feel like that would've been a great moment to establish the game that Ekko and Jinx were "playing" on the bridge. Instead of the targets, it would've been Ekko, Milo, and Claggor armed up against Powder alone. Powder clears Milo first and easily, then Claggor, and while she was busy trying to get those two, we see Ekko sneaking around, avoiding her, and just when he thinks he's got a shot, Powder hits him right on his chest plate. I feel like this would establish Powder as a competent marksman, Ekko as a sneaky and stealthy spy, and most importantly, their friendship. It's such an easy fix! It wouldn't take anything from the story, it'll only add to it.
They really could’ve established the relationship with Elmo and jinx berry effectiveley, sort of as the underdogs, the little ones the ones that aren’t invited to everything because they are simply not strong enough, and we could’ve seen this relationship play out more towards the end and I hope that season 2 is another act longer like 12 episodes, because zany and pullover is such a big story and their is so much more to come
I love what autocorrect did to this comment. I agree with you but seeing Ekko called Elmo is peak comedy for me
It's funny because honestly what you're calling a weakness, the need for the audience to fill gaps in the story where they could've been explained, I actually think is a big strength. A lot of the time we're treated like we're stupid and studios feel the need to fill in every gap so that we can follow along which usually slows a show or movie down to a point where I feel like a lot of the charm can be lost. Arcane is a charming show, I don't need them to tell me why Jayce was so defeated I can see it, I might have reacted differently but that doesn't mean I don't understand why Jayce is where he is at the end of ep 2. I do agree that the weakest part of the story was viktor's entire story line and honestly I was really disappointed by that, UNTIL I heard that we were getting a second season. I feel like a lot of the criticism (sans your sky comments which I absolutely agree with) that you level here is remidied by the fact that we now know that this will be a seasonal show with more story to come. They had so little runway to get to the point that we're at now, and I think they used every single inch of it to a perfect point. This show could've been 20 episodes but in all honesty I think it would've lost a lot of it's charm in that run time. I do think all of the points in this critique are valid and honest but I also just don't really agree with them. A more perfect show doesn't make the mistakes worse for me it makes them more acceptable.
I would love if they gave Viktor more backstory. The existence of the giant clockwork contraption we see behind the portal by the river where Viktor has scenes with Jace and Heimerdinger is really compelling. I think the show implies that Viktor built this, possibly even before he was invited to the science academy.
And honestly, what bothers me about how the show handled the Sky situation wasn’t them fridging her. It’s how Viktor doesn’t confess to his culpability in her death and possibly didn’t even tell anyone she is dead.
I mean he says he doesn’t know where she would have preferred her remains to be left. But you know who might have been able to tell him? Her friends and family. You know who should be told that she is dead and deserves to know how it happened? All those people.
I guess death is a lot more common in Piltover. Maybe covering up your murders is more morally acceptable in that universe.
hmm why is backfilling bad in contexts of Jayce and Jinx, but good in scenes like Cait doing detective work?
I wish the ekko/jinx character/relationship work done in the enemy MV was present in the video. it seems like all the metatext(?) also feeds into the show, the docs in the client, the MV, etc.
and while i agree that the show relies on intertextuality(just learnt the word), I dont consider it a flaw from my own POV since I've consumed those other texts.
i also dont really feel as strongly about Sky, I saw her as Grayson or Benzo. they are characters that exist to be part of of another characters story. I do wish there was more screen time for her, but thats something I feel for everyone in the show like Mel's assistant. its a bit too over efficient.
Because the scene with Caitlyn isn't supposed to be emotional. Jayce's suicide attempt wasn't really that emotional of a scene, as we hadn't really seen much of it or were able to feel what he felt at that moment. Similarly with Jinx and Ekko, we never really see their relationship when they were younger, so this moment with them coming head-to-head and trying to kill each other wasn't as impactful as it could have been because we never had a chance to get attached to their relationship as children.
I respect your honest opinion, though I have to disagree. To me, the more well-executed a show is, the more I'm willing to overlook its flaws, rather than the other way around. I suppose different people respond to media differently.
15:21 'the closer you approach perfection, the more painfully present and distracting the imperfections become'
Yeah no, disagree, completely. When something is great you're far more willing to overlook the imperfections and brush them aside. That's why when something is really popular and someone says "yeah but..", even if the observations have some merit there's a lot of pushback on how those things don't really matter.
It's when something fails that you start picking out the imperfections to explain away why you think it's a failure - the inconsistencies, the wild coincidences, insufficient or too much exposition, out of character moments and muddy motivations.. and when you share that with people they nod and agree, yeah! that's what's wrong with this thing!
agreed. He did this title for clickbait, and his argument isn't very strong. The show was 10/10, simple as that. Really looking forward to seeing more in season two (╯▽╰ )
I guess that varies between people, but the majority of times it is as you say. I do think what Skyen talks about isn't as rare as implied though - it's easily seen with series that have strong points and go downhill; the hype trains that crash and burn once the second half of the season comes out or etc.
A weird complaint I have is how the time line works. Somehow Jayce becomes a councilor, starts making rules on the council, starts bribing the council, kicks Heim off the councilor in a four day period.
The reason this happens is because Caitlyn, Powder and Vi's story is a fast paced gotta stop the bomb from exploding story and we're supposed to be seeing these stories running side by side.
Anyways in order to make media you need to hurt yourself in one category in order to make another category better and I think this is one of those cases where you have no other option that it ends up being worth it to do.
Also, having two sections labeled “Why Arcane is a 10/10 show” and “Why Arcane is a 7/10 show” perfectly embodies my feelings about the show overall
It has such unbelievable highs that the lows are just that much harder to ignore.
So your overall complaints really took 3 heavy points off Arcane. Even though I agree with some of the “flaws” you’ve stated, it still doesn’t warrant the 7/10 mainly because those are some very very very minor flaws that can easily be understood on your own or overlooked with the insane production this show has delivered.
You basically wanted Riot to animate another Act just to explain those lesser details that neither wouldn’t have mattered. I would’ve loved an additional Arc but I’m pretty sure it would inevitably take a hit on the quality of each episode. Those lesser details in an extent would’ve only taken one episode of 20 minute or less if you Skyen would’ve liked. Totally unnecessary. I think you’re very annoyed that Skye wasn’t explored furthered, like other comments said, she wasn’t important to the overall plot.
For the longest time I’ve only watched anime and disregarded Western animations cuz most of them are either Disney child cartoon or bad animations series. To the exception of ATLA, up until this point I thought ATLA was the best Western animation this World has given us. Arcane is the pinnacle of story telling and art animation. I’ve always believed fast pace story telling was never good for a show without omitting crucial details but Arcane have shown us, they’ve shown us all.
Minor “flaws” like yours Skyen, can easily be omitted and have no significant change to the overall story and that’s why Arcane is a masterpiece. But, heck, I would’ve loved another episode.
Yeah this video to me just sounded like nitpicking stuff that shouldn't even matter in the first place. Even in the most greatest of shows, when you nitpick about something, you're obviously gonna see some imperfections because nothing is perfect and that's guaranteed that you would see something that is bad or rushed in a show. But that shouldn't detract from how amazing a show is. That's just being too harsh on it because that's just looking for anything that can be said that is bad about it. If anything the highs of the show make the lows and bad unnoticeable because of how good it is.
The review score literally doesn't matter, it's shorthand for a feeling.
dude I get that you like the show, but it isn’t literally flawless
Also numbered ratings mean nothing, this is probably the first time Skyen’s used a numbered rating in months and he gave it *two* ratings. It means nothing
@@TBSkyen Why review scores suck lol
@@joshberkin5567 yep
The ending of act three was so good it made me come out to my parents
you WHAT
I feel like this show IS good enough that it could inspire someone on this level. 100/10 modern classic 👏✊
The best way to recommend Arcane is how i recommended it to a friend:
"Honestly, as someone who has a Lore encyclopedia on his brain, the only thing know LoL lore does for Arcane is spotting little details they spread throughout the episodes and recognize certain iconography that some background characters have"
"Filling in the details" was one of the most engaging and interesting parts of watching Arcane as it released (for me). Arcane was released in 3 parts, 3 episodes each, and I was given so much time to theorize, imagine, and complete the story with my own experiences and thoughts between each part. Arcane's denseness lets the story live beyond its episodes.
That said, the experience of filling in the details can be distracting to some people (Skyen) or one of the best things ever (for me). Some people don't fill in the details and are confused (one of my friends). And some parts of the show truly were rushed and I use fan fiction to fill in the holes.
I think there's kind of a Catch-22 at play here. The production quality leads one to expect that the show is a completely uncompromising, auteur-esque masterpiece, which it doesn't completely deliver on. At the same time, the production quality probably couldn't have been so high had it relegated time to tell the more underdeveloped stories. I think what we're left with is the closest thing to perfection possible given the medium and story, and I completely get how annoying the potential of that closeness is.
Indeed, T B Skyen's version of things could've been a masterpiece. Heck a 12-13 episode season would've been more than fine in removing the most egregious moments of "please fill in the blanks with your imagination". But as pointed out by him and others on twitter, the only reason why Arcane is such a visual storytelling and a painting at every frame is due to the longer than normal storyboarding and animating schedule allowed. Riot did give an absurdly large budget and manhour to this compared to most animation projets on the planet , but I don't think there's a world in which they give them THAT much time and money. There's an obvious reason why the story was told at this frenetic pace, everyone is aware and yet...
Our boi went all Kylo Ren MORE.gif and tbh I can't blame him, we all want the nicest things and it's a bummer when we have to settle for anything than the best.
What Could Have Been, amirite?
@@xavierarial24 Once again we have arrived at the contradiction between artistic achievement and capitalism. If you where to actually throw enough money at this show to make it literally perfect in every conceivable way there isn't a chance in hell you would ever be able to make a profit from it, therefore compromises will always have to be made.
Edit: Removed unnecessary remark.
@@alexwynters600 I don't think he's blamed the showrunners for this. Quite the contrary, in fact he's given a 10/10 on all that is THERE because he recognize the pure artistry in action. He's only bemoaning the fact that much had to be cut or expedited to get to the finish line.
People who have followed Skyen for some amount of time are keenly aware that he's fully understood the relationship between art being produced and how it intersects with Capitalism to know who's to blame for this "7/10" feeling.
Artists working on animation and/or games would be the first one to tell how much it haunts them to not be able to put more time into XYZ. They'd understand this feeling very well, because it happens literally every project they work on.
@@xavierarial24 You're right. I was iffy about putting that last part in but did anyway. Removed it now.
@@xavierarial24 Disagree here. Sounds like at the end of this hypothetical Arcane we'd all be saddled with something that tells instead of shows. I think part of what makes the show so great is that it gives the audience the agency and opportunity to think for themselves.
I agree with the Ekko scene. I disagree with Skye scene. Yeah it was fridging, but here the point was, I feel, to emphasize that she was, for both Viktor and the audience, a background character. Both the character and we acknowledged her as a, lets say, secondary person who we dont really need to think all that much about. And only when she dies (we had seen it a moment earlier) we realize "hey that background extra had a dream and hopes and entire life. It was a person." I also find it odd to assume that for Viktor to be deeply traumatized after killing someone it had to be a deep friendship, not just an acquaintance. Personally I feel I would be traumatized after murdering the lady from bakery, even if I bought the sweet roll from her for the first time.
The lack of time used to build relationships and show our characters reaching critical points is unfortunate and everyone wishes that they had another twelve hours to tell the same story but with more detail (the biggest for me is Ekko and Jinx's relation only being explored in the music video is disappointing), but a great number of people say that all the character arcs end unresolved and unsatisfying (except for Jinx - which is what T B Skyen said). This is something I disagree with.
The character arcs that season Act 3 sets out for are finished, however, our characters reach lifechanging conclusions. Jayce pushes for peace, Mel forsakes Noxus at the very end, Viktor has chosen to destroy the hexcore by getting Jayce to do it, etc.
And then the show plays what could have been. It's so easy to follow what could have been, where these characters would have gone next, and the general flow of the future. But our main-most character for season 1, Jinx, concludes her character arc by exploding what could have been. Jinx takes these finished character arcs and their clear trajectories towards the future (some of which take them away from the future of their league champion version, especially Viktor) in season one ending so good it's hard to imagine writing anything better, the resolutions of Piltover and Zaun overthrown by the tragic resolution of our main character.
As for Sky, I never really felt I was supposed to care about her or that there was hidden depth. Maybe I was supposed to but I didn't feel the show was trying to prop her up as someone Viktor cared intensely for, I felt that we were seeing her from his perspective and that he largely ignored her. To me this wasn't a great part of the show but neither was it something that was heavily flawed. And the fact that she was a scientist and inventor I don't think is supposed to spark a hint of a lot of backstory or relation between her and Viktor (which was always shown to be onesided) but how do you become an assistant to the most important project in the city if you aren't a scientist and inventor.
Sky was a symbol for the other option Victor had in life.
She was the “other playing kid”, looking at him from an elevation where he could not (easily) go. But when his machine is going into the cave, the path was steep and rocky, too. Singed identifies his excuse of disability for the reason why he is not playing with the other kids: “Loneliness is often the by-product of a gifted mind.”
Although Sky was always there, I think Viktor, did not see her, or care about her. He chose his path. She just becomes meaningful to him, when she dies.
Viktor never wanted to invent Hextech weapons, yet his Hexcore kills her, just at the same moment Jayce kills the boy with a Hextech weapon.
So killing Sky in the way they did you may call cheap, or fridged, or bad writing. I do not.
21:20 -> You say we never see Powder and Ekko interacting in act 1.
Check out Episode 2 at 25min47sec
We can see them playing together
I still agree with your point though, a full 30-60 sec scene of them playing and talking to each other might have been good.
I just rewatched the Imagine dragon - Enemy music video, there are actually a lot of scenes of Ekko and Powder playing together in it, too bad they didn’t put those in the actual show
I agree that the score number is a pointless gimmick created to increase viewer engagement so I don't care about that 7/10.
However I disagree that the show would be better if we explored everything in more depth.
1) We can't expect this level of visual and thematic quality for 30 episodes.
2) I love it when series expect the viewer to think about the series and to infer backgrounds from hints.
I don't need to love Sky to feel emotional about Viktor losing her. I don't need Arcane to show me 5 scenes of an unstable Powder to understand that she is traumatized by losing her family once and fears losing her again.
In My opinion this makes Arcane better, not worse.
But this is obviously subjective so have a nice day and thanks for the video :)
I gently disagree about Viktor's assistant, for me, hers death also plays in the new born inhuman Viktor's nature. Like a motivation or crazy self unconscious sacrifice.
Imo, the numbers are really redundant here. They've set a new high standard for animation (which has a million subparts to it) and bundled it with authentic style (steampunk w/ cyberpunk), great storytelling and powerful music. And while there are tiny issues with each one of the above mentioned parts, the product as a whole is something of a new level, something I haven't seen before. And I truly enjoyed watching it.
I 100% agree about Jayce's scene. His attempted suicide actually got me to go: "Really dude? Overdramatic much?" And like him just being overdramatic would be fine if it actually was a character trait of his but it isn't, it was just a hastily done scene which made it look like he was willing to kill himself after just hitting the wall twice. Didn't even spare a thought for leaving his mother. Powder's scene, I'd be lying if I said I didn't raise a bemused eyebrow at it BUT I also appreciated the scene for that because it managed to be extra jarring. Sometimes people just snap seemingly out of nowhere and therefore I took it more like "Ok I guess nobody really realized how deep her issues actually are". If they had made it more clear beforehand then wouldn't we start questioning everyone around her being blind idiots? With Viktor... I actually agree with other people who pointed out that his guilt and grief was primarily caused because of the tragedy of his own apathy, how he didn't even get to know her, and because it was a rather gruesome death which HE caused. Though they definitely could have made a better job establishing Sky for the *audience*. I actually didn't even realize that little girl was supposed to be her and felt absolutely nothing when she perished. Though I could still sympathize with Viktor. I guess in that sense the scene actually works. It's like it's, through Viktor's reaction, admonishing you for only caring about the life of those characters that have been well established. Kind of a wake up call for being apathetic.
In my interpretation, the situation with Sky was made as a conscious choice. It is actually true that Victor is not that close to her(similar to the viewer) and Victor reading her notes is truly the moment he realizes that she also had a lot of ideas and similar goals as him that she now will never be able to fulfill. The grief he feels is not of losing someone important, it is instead the grief of realizing what could have been that is now impossible to achieve.
All these points are pretty accurate, it's also definitely a thing that when a piece of art is so well crafted that the smallest of details can seem like bigger issues. However, I have to disagree that that feeling of disappointment that that those minute flaws make should really be considered as heavily as suggested here (No I'm not suggesting Skyen can't have an opinion, this is mine).
I think that the issue here is that when a piece of art is THIS good, we all just want more. We all, ALWAYS, want more of the things we love. But I think it speaks volumes that the show was crafted so well that despite those 'shortcuts' and details, it never felt rushed while you're experiencing it. This feels much more like "We want more!" which is always the case, than it feels like something worth criticizing what we did get over, otherwise we make situations for ourselves (Not unlike the situation the MCU has started to reach) where we can no longer wholly enjoy media because there always could have been something done slightly different, said slightly differently, etc.
People are entitled to their own opinions of what they want and yes, scoring media is immensely vague simply because people hold different things at higher value than others. Believe me, I WANT MORE. I need more Arcane, in my veins right now. But all of these points feel simply more like "If only!" which is something that can be applied to any and every piece of media on the planet and I think should be measured VERY carefully when it comes to considering the impact of those missing pieces, or whether they should be really considered 'missing' pieces even as opposed to 'extra'.
Again, don't attack myself or Skyen, art is subjective, your opinion isn't better or worse than anyone else's, just try to consider why something is made the way it is as well as temper expectations or you'll simply make it difficult for yourself to revel in even the highest 'quality' art.
I agree with most of your points but I wouldn't say 7/10 even with the small flaws It is still an amazing show that I have to gave a 9/10
I loved your review.
In my case, the only part that I felt (besides Sky) really needed a little bit more development, was in fact Caitlyn and Vi relationship.
As you said, the problem is the show is too good. I feel like I didn't want a single more second spent on "exposition", because I just adored the fast passed the show was moving. It really felt that the first act was the roller coaster rising, second act was it going faster and faster, so that the third act felt like it was doing loops. And I actually loved it, BECAUSE it felt like I was loosing the grasp on how complicated the situation was just as the characters were.
My biggest fear when arcane came out was the depiction of powder/jinx as a manic pixie dream girl, as a very bad and inaccurate cliché of mental illness and distress. Even worse, I was afraid the show would sexualise her in some way, but in my opinion, Jinx is somewhat realistic and definitely relatable, in her I saw myself and having that third person perspective on her struggles, emotions and decisions really helped me. She is the character I relate to the most and that feeling is priceless. I'll forever be grateful for arcane.
After watching Enemy music clip and saw how close jinx and ekko when they were child i was excited to see their relationship in arcene. When i see nothing in act 1 i was genuinely sad. After seeing the fight scene between them i said FINALLY. I think they were very late to show us jinx and ekko relationship. Cause jinx has a big part in ekko's lore. And i am still sad that we only see their interaction once in the show. (Except the fight in air ship which i didn't count because we and probably jinx didn't know the guy was him.)
Another thing that I wished you had mention is that when Jayce is about to commit suicide, Viktor comes in and asks "Am I interrupting something?" And the same thing happens with Viktor when he's about to commit suicide, except the roles are reversed. It's such an impact full moment (to me) that felt shallow because the reasons for them wanting to commit suicide aren't developed like they should be. As someone who has previously been suicidal I felt a lot of impact from both of these scenes, but that is what the show relies on. Impact. The show is full of impact. Whether it's shock, emotion, or even just fun, it all just hits like a train. Sky's death made me feel emotional, but I didn't like it when I thought about it later on. The shock value on the show is insane, but it does rely on it an awful lot.
In my opinion I think they way they did the suicidal scenes of Jayce and Viktor work well. They just hit a rock bottom and while yes you can argue they would try to grasp for an opportunity or anything to come back (Jayce could ask a connection to come back to the Academy or Viktor using that incident to push himself forward or whatnot), they could also just look at the situation they are in as completely hopeless and negative. Seeing no hope in that moment and a fast clear way to end it right there tempting them they would be tempted and that is shown. For me and my past experience with being suicidal, I didn’t try to find an opportunity or a way out. I only saw the quick and easy way out that these scenes show. It feels relatable and understandable to me. With each other stopping the other’s attempt, it gives each an opportunity and hope to keep going and do more. It’s way too convenient but it works and shows to me very realistic suicidal tendencies and how actual help can bring someone back up.
I agree with Jayce's scene feeling shallow, but I don't agree that Viktor's did. Viktor, who's only goal is to save people with Hextech, just killed a vibrant, innocent person due to his admittedly selfish desires. He was experimenting with the Hextech core in that scene to try and completely fix his body, and I'm not saying he was selfish in a negative way, he was just doing something that would really only benefit him, and Sky died because of it. I could kinda see why Jayce would commit suicide, but I fully understood the anguish Viktor was going to and couldn't imagine how I would feel in that situation. Killed Sky, knowingly under the influence of the Hexcore, at deaths door with illness, has just been told that you won't live long enough to see all of your scientific work that you worked so hard for, there's a lot of emotion and motivation behind it imo.
Not sure if this is just me, but one thing about arcane that annoyed me was in the final episode where ALL the council members ended up voting to give zaun its independence. Given how all of them reacted to the mere thought of zaun being free governing earlier, I find it incredibly hard to believe that the new pretty boy jayce was able to convince these rampant capitalists, who at the very least look the other way to child labor, that they should simply give up the undercity to prevent further violence. I also feels like it plays into that BS narrative of "Just believe in the leaders that haven't done anything before, they'll do something now!" which is very tiring by now, especially as an American. I asked some friends what they thought, and they said that the council members recognized they would end up losing more money if things stayed the way they were, which I can see how people could see it that way, but I still can't personally
They voted for the deal brokered by Jayce. Not for the Independence of Zaun. The deal would not have pushed through IF Silco didnt hold up his end of the bargain.
This is something a lot of people miss. In the final analysis, the upper class band together for self-preservation. Independence is not some rainbows and unicorns pity party thrown by the topsiders - the peace deal is the only way they see themselves keeping power in the long term.
To me, actually scoring the show feels like a dilemma. On one hand, I see most of the flaws you brought up here, so knowing that... it can't be a 10/10. On the other hand though... I have never watched a movie or show this good and moving (subjectively speaking ofcourse) in my life and I watch a lot of stuff. Which kinda makes it a 10/10. So where does that leave me? Fuck scoring it and just... call it what it is: a masterpiece. ^^
Its not a dilema, is just a personal thing. I don't understand how someone can watch the same show as I did and come out with a "meh, it was a 7/10" impression. But hey, I guess thats the beauty of personal opinions, everyone is allowed to have one. To me, Arcane is an absolute 9,6/10, briliant in every aspect.
This is why I never like perfect scores. Even the best art any human can produce will have weaknesses and flaws. That’s why at best something can be a 9.9. I actually don’t think Arcane is that, for me personally there are a few shows I rank higher. But 9.9 is the highest any piece of art can achieve imo.
This takes me back when IGN gave The Witcher 10/10 and calling it a masterpiece, but in that same review the author mentioned several points that slightly bothered them. People would see that as a contradiction and IGN being...paid media like always, but reading that review I didn't get that sense. The author said that while it wasn't "perfect", the experience and journey were so overwhelmingly positive that all the minor issues felt like a distant afterthought and insignificant nitpicking.
It's sorta the same with other highly rated media like Arcane. People love the characters, story, art, animation, etc and are more than happy to overlook all the nitpicky problems. If they consider them problems in the first place.
@@joaoteodororeis2051
Hugo Fung
0 seconds ago
I think a lot of ppl freak out about the numbers. When I think 7, I it's def not a "meh". 7/10 is still a very high score. When I rate anime/shows, I go with the following:
10 = masterpiece, very few shows should be a 10, however it should be easy to mark it a 10 after watching it. It is something I would recommend to ppl who wouldn't even watch this genre or cartoons or anime normally OR the show had a profound personal impact on me.
9 is pretty much perfect to me as a fan, a few small obvious nickpicks here and there that could be better but I am willing to overlook, but would recommend in general to anyone, fans of the genre for sure.
8 = great show in general, probably more enjoyable to a niche group/to that particular genre though. Def wouldn't recommend to say...my uncle lol
7 = a key noticeable drop in quality now for me. Usually has one glaring issue that bugs me but still overall enjoyable. might re-watch like key scenes here and there on youtube but not the whole thing/episodes again. At this point, I am hesitant to recommend to someone unless I know the person well and for sure they will like it
6 = Better than average
5 = average or as you say, "meh"
Did you ever notice how Powder rushes to get close to Vi whenever she had the opportunity as a kid? And then when she thought Vi abandoned her she lunged into Silco's arms? Powder's got serious abandonment issues. Every time Vi says something that makes it sound like she might leave or that one of her inventions fails she's worried she'll be left alone. Powder's freak out when being left alone is jarring, but it's her being worried she's not good enough for her family. That she's dead weight and would be left alone. It wasn't until that scene that it was clear that it wasn't just a self-esteem issue: it's a full-blown anxiety disorder, likely originating from the death of her parents and having to rely on Vi. When Vi walks away to cool off she screams and cries how she needs her.
i think the show wanted us to be aware of sky as much as viktor was,the times that we see sky on screen ,we (or at least i) don’t care that much about her, because simply thats not the arcanes intention , the show wants us to feel skys presence just like viktor.we see him ignore sky like she isn’t even there, but after she dies because of viktor,he gets so angry and disappointed in himself because sky had feelings for him but he always ignored her, that makes viktor remember how far he has gone because of hextech, as he said, he lost his dream of doing good. arcane didn’t want us to feel for sky, it wanted us to see how ignorant and ambitious viktor was.it wanted us to feel his failure and shame.
he was so desperate that he was willing to sacrifice anything for progress , but sky’s death remindes him of what he has become.
this is how i describe it at least.
I don't think we are suposed to care about sky at all. We see the deaths of Mylo, Clagor and Vander, but we never see the others characters griefing for them.
We don't need to. The loss of those characters hit us directly.
When Sky dies, however, the focus is not about a life being lost, but instead, is Victor's grief and regret.
I agree that the show has problems with pacing, but Sky is not one of those.
And btw, you're welcome for the engagement, good sir.
22:23 Although I agree I wished we get to see more of Sky Young I think the entire point of her is that we are in the perspective of Viktor who is blind to Sky because he is so obsessed with his newly made hexcore that he never reacts to the people around him even if Sky is obviously flirting with him and the flash back scene to show that both of them were once from the undercity are now scientists working in Piltover we never get shown how Viktor and Sky rose from the undercity but I think that's fine It would be an entire story on it's own and would take way too long because the Viktor flashback was meant to connect Viktor and singed
Speaking of the rush, there was one thing that that felt like a pity when the first act came out. That was Vander's relationship with the children, because he is supposed to be like their father, but he just felt like he was Vi's father. Vander had all the emotional bonding moments with Vi, but he never had a moment like that with the other kids, just a few small scenes. And even in those scenes, it didn't seem like Vander cares like a father about children, but like he is Vi's father who takes care of her group of friends who visit her often to hang out. Except for this moment when the kids are rescuing Vander, and Milo is nervous, so Vander calms him down. I wish there were more scenes like this that don't take the spotlight away from Vi's and Vander's relationship but shows that Vander thinks of all this children like his own kids. And spoiler, I also think is a pity that this single scene happens just moments before Milo's death, if they were more scenes like this before I think the tragedy of losing this found family would feel greater. Another aspect that is affected and seems more noticeable to me is Powder. She is one of the leads of the series, but she doesn't interact much with Vander and this makes it seem like they didn't have much of a relationship to begin with.
I mean to me is clear the show is showing us Vander is not a father but a father-like figure, which is almost the same but not the same. The kids never call him father, he is just Vander. Only when he is kidnapped they talk about him as a father, in a moment of desperation and fear of losing him. Based on that and the way he treats them he doesn't seem to tell them "hey I will adopt you now as my child" but more like "I know your parents are dead, I will protect you kid don't worry". He is a fatherly figure, someone that wants to protect the people of Zaun in general and happened to protect certain children he found along his way. That's why we are shown how he interacts a lot with Vi, Vi is the one gradually taking the protector role from Vander. Vander is teaching her to care for the family, the community. Because the shows races towards the season finale we don't get to see a lot more to stablish much more but the hints it gaves us seems to point that way.
I agree with so much of what you've said. In a show with writing less stellar than this, how fast the story was told could have been a fatal blow... But Arcane implies and suggests what isn't actually shown with such near supernatural perfection, that I have to forgive it. Due to how rare such tight writing is, if for nothing else. In fact I doubt they could have maintained this level of quality over many more episodes than this, because imagining how much effort these 9 episodes alone took is exhausting by itself.