Beloved If You Could Tell Me More About How Arcane Is A Tragic Romance Staged As A Geopolitical Collapse

i'm losing my mind thinking about how everything from jayce’s visit to the commune in act 2 to the battle of piltover in act 3 was always a rescue mission.

this man said, “send me back. i won’t fail.” jayce returned from the alternate timeline with ONE task. get to viktor. talk to him. TOUCH HIM. try again. and hope that it's different this time.

the expression on his face as he kneels isn’t hopelessness or him gearing up to try some last ditch effort to save tomorrow. jayce was NOT laying down arms in surrender and this is NOT the look of despair or defeat.

its the look of realisation. that THIS is the moment he he’s been waiting for — the moment he has been fighting his way to since he came back from the alternate timeline. it’s him rooting himself with utmost trust in viktor. in the two of them. in his love for viktor. in their love.

jayce didn’t even know much else beyond the fact that viktor has cycled through different timelines and different runestones, hoping to find salvation. and that he needs to reach this exact moment in time — where he kneels in submission before viktor on top of the hexgate. the penultimate point at which he can show viktor he cares; that he’s here and that he wants to see; that he understands — as he always has; that he still loves him and always will.

because at the end of it all, that’s what mattered. their unconditional love for and understanding of one another is what tore the seams of the cosmos and ultimately stitched them back together. it had to be them. it was always them. in every timeline and in every possibility.

it was here that he realised this is it. right here. this is the moment.

Etho said he watches arcane so, have etho in arcane's style

He’s yearning

the Jayce struggle..

«Come, visit me.»

☆ 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕕 ☆

have a quick jayvik while I test my new drawing equipment

If the ep 6 reunion went differently...

YESSS. YOU GET IT

When we are introduced to viktor, we are first led on to believe that he has a confident, almost flippant personality— from how he relished in his power as that of the dean’s assistant and practically talked down to jayce. And yet this confidence only stems from his position in piltover, and this also leads into another really fascinating point I noticed between jayce and viktor: what they value about themselves is what society values about them.

Viktor cannot see value in his personality or his character in the slightest. What he sees as worthy is what the good he can do for society. This also ties back to what Viktor said in the finally to Jayce once he achieved godhood: “I was more than I ever was.”

He only truly values himself because he has made an effort to society, because he has done great. The ONLY reason he said that line was because he finally decided that he had reached his goal of helping others through his commune. He had made himself a legacy.

Another really great example of this is his line to jayce during act 2: “Come. Visit me. See what I’ve accomplished.”

He wants to show Jayce his inventions, he wants to show Jayce that he’s worthy. He literally can’t imagine any other reason why Jayce would be interested in him other than his work.

Now onto Jayce: my point might be a little bit of a stretch but I still think it’s an interesting thing to highlight about his character, and it also traces back to your post. In his journal, there’s a page where he disparages the inventions he sees at the parlors for Progress Day, claiming they’re nothing but child’s play and wondering how the world would react to such a revolutionary idea like Hextech.

He, as well as Viktor, both plainly crave society’s validation. You can see it when Jayce steps on stage— he plays along with the crowd, cherishing and indulging in the applause. He very clearly wanted to achieve personal glory for himself, to be congratulated for his efforts, as well as the desire to help the public and give hextech to the people.

Society holds him at high regard, and hence, he does too.

Except, this changes in the finale of s1, where we see Jayce forgoing this sort of attitude and saying to the council: “With respect, I don’t give a shit about what any of you think about me anymore.”

This also bleeds into s2, act 1, with “My place was always in the lab, with you”, and from this point on Jayce just doesnt care about society’s approval.

And here we see that when his consideration for the council and society’s input has completely dissipated, the only thing he cares about is his partner, and his loyalties have always led back to Viktor.

And then we go to the finale, and we go back to Jayce’s line: “I thought I wanted us to give magic to the world. Now, all I want is my partner back.”

Jayce and Viktor before season 1 act 2 had been a tango with society. Attempt to appease the council, avoid being expelled, dont let society find out about your morally dubious lab experiments, etc. etc. but with this line, Jayce has just said “Fuck society’s judgement. Fuck the rest of their opinions. You are my dream. You are the one I value the most. You are the one I want.”

In the last moments of the finale, Viktor finally, finally fucking learns that he didn’t need to change the world, or revolutionize piltover, or have his name to be embossed into history in order to feel fulfilled, but that maybe to be loved was enough.

Underrated JayVik moments/lines (16/∞)

"I suppose your legacy has been well-secured."

How is this a JayVik line? At first and even second glance it isn't, but bear with me for a moment.

What this line does do initially - seeing as it's said in response to Heimerdinger stating he never contemplates his own death - is tell us how important the idea of "legacy", of leaving something good behind to be remembered by, is to Viktor.

This is not a novel idea; I've seen multiple posts talking about the tragedy that is Viktor, in the end, leaving no legacy at all (if he's lucky, that is - otherwise there would only be the tale of that one time a metal maniac threatened to end all of humanity) because all of his accomplishments and good intentions vanish with him and Jayce.

And yes, that sure is one - very bleak - way to look at it.

However, fortunately that's not all there is to his story.

Because if you think about it for a moment - think about Viktor's motivations throughout the show -, there are two additional driving forces that contribute to this desire to leave a legacy, apart from his desire to help and his strong moral compass:

Loneliness and a damaged self-image.

People suffering from both often end up believing they will only ever be as good, as desirable, as lovable as the good they do for others. They wish to be remembered in death because they can't imagine feeling treasured in life.

I think for someone like Viktor - having placed all of his capacity to make a difference in the world on his "gifted mind" rather than his value as a person -, to be loved unconditionally for who he is may have been so grand an idea that changing the world honestly seemed more attainable to him.

Yet as I pointed out in part 4, even after ostensibly achieving what he thought he wanted in the commune ("an immaculate physique, community, the ability to help people and 'make the world a better place' - a perfect legacy"), from the way he speaks to Jayce and goes on to think and act after facing rejection by him, you absolutely get the sense that there is something vital missing from the picture here.

And it's scarcely even new information at that point, really, as we already learned this a lot earlier by how - when faced with the loss of both love and legacy - it wasn't the threat of losing legacy which Viktor's mind got stuck on:

"Jayce will understand."

It's almost as if... oh I don't know, as if Viktor had thought what he wanted was to bring magic to the world, but ultimately...

Oh.

"I thought I wanted us to give magic to the world... Now, all I want is my partner back."

Jayce, same as Viktor, had big dreams of making a difference in the world since childhood, which - while definitely also driven by a strong desire to help people - is proven here to be equally rooted in the very elementary human desire to connect with someone. For someone to understand him and share his dreams ("our HexTech dream").

He found, and was found by, that someone in Viktor. The fact that the very catalyst of Jayce's dreams - the mage - turns out to literally have been Viktor all along only serves to emphasise this point.

And here, at the end of everything they've endured, Jayce concludes that maybe, to love and to be loved in kind can be enough. Can be everything. Can be all he wants.

I like to believe that Viktor came to that same realisation about himself in those final moments of perfect connection they shared.

Part 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16

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im pretty late loll, but for the funsies:

Favorite girl: jinx / mel

Favorite boy: viktor / jayce

Least favorite character: salo

Favorite pairing: jayvik— timebomb & melvik close second

Least favorite ship: I’d like to keep my head, thank you very much.

Favorite side character: isha (honorable mention: singed— don’t necessarily like him, but I do think his story had a lot of substance)

Favorite song: OOF, probably the line / snakes

Favorite episode: the finales of s1 + s2 / ep 7 s2

Least favorite episode: ep 6 s2

Favorite duo: if this counts— jinx, viktor & jayce (if not, then just jinx & viktor)

Favorite design: commune viktor / ep 9 jinx

Least favorite design: ep 9 mel (black jumpsuit)

Favorite scene: jayce & viktors scene / jinx & ekkos surprise attack (both in s2)

Least favorite scene: felicia’s flashback

On tiktok there was this arcane trend that was just about stating some basic arcane opinions of yours and I thought it would be fun to do something similar here! You can tag others and make it a tagging game or you can just answer the questions do what you want :)

Favorite girl:

Favorite boy:

Least favorite character:

Favorite ship:

Least favorite ship:

Favorite side character:

Favorite song:

Favorite episode:

Least favorite episode:

Favorite duo:

Favorite design:

Least favorite design:

Favorite scene:

Least favorite scene: