YMMV / Arcane

YMMV tropes for the Arcane series

A-H

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Don't be a Big Sibling Bully. Most of Jinx's least-stable moments are born from reminders of what Mylo used to say to/about Powder, proving how deeply it all cut. She generally tends to fixate on him more than any other member of her family (besides Vi), and her hallucinations usually manifest as him criticizing and insulting her, which in turn drive her to commit her most dangerous and cruel actions. While accidentally killing her family when trying to help rescue Vander was obviously a big part of how her mind broke, it's evident that Mylo's regular bullying caused her a great deal of trauma on its own, particularly because Vi ended up finally, firmly taking his side when she hit her and called her a jinx for the accidental killing of their family.
  • You can't take back anything you say or do in the heat of the moment. After learning that Powder was responsible for the explosion that killed their family, Vi slaps her so hard her nose starts bleeding and agrees with Mylo that Powder's a "jinx" during a Moment of Weakness, which turns out to be the last things she says to her before getting arrested and dumped in Stillwater Hold. When she finally gets out and is able to reconnect with Powder, she's long since become Silco's right-hand woman "Jinx".
  • Listen when somebody tells you to stay out of a fight — Not just for your safety but also for theirs, especially when you've repeatedly proven that you're not able to actually help yet. How many lives could have been spared — and how much of her own trauma could have been avoided? — had Jinx just stayed out of Vander's rescue mission like Vi told her to?
  • Be honest when someone isn't ready for something. While he was too harsh in how he said it, Mylo was ultimately right when he pointed out how Powder keeps making mistakes, but Vi always brushed it off and built-up Powder's confidence way too high, to the point where the first time Vi tells her that it's too dangerous and that she isn't ready, Powder is so emotionally devastated that she is in the middle of a complete emotional breakdown by the time we next see her. The only way she finds to snap out of it is finding a way that she can prove herself to Vi again, and we know how that went.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
• Angst? What Angst?: Despite Jinx subjecting Sevika to a round of Cold-Blooded Torture, by the next episode, she's completely fine mentally and physically.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: With the recent controversy surrounding League's lackluster Sentinels of Light event and Hollywood's general aversion to video game adaptations, there were doubts from both fans and non-fans alike that Arcane would be able to succeed. However, since the premiere of Act 1, both League fans and non-fans agree that Riot knocked it out of the park, with some even calling it Riot Games' magnum opus. After the release of act, Arcane sat comfortably at the No. 1 TV show spot in 38 countries, according to Flix Patrol's rankings.
• Awesome Art: Not only are individual frames absolutely gorgeous, but the animation also adds small touches to body language that helps add even more depth to characterization.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The show makes use of modern music to generally good effect, but in the second episode of the second arc, the show's theme song by Imagine Dragons starts to play. This wouldn't be a big deal, except the band members also appears in the show playing the song in-universe for brief moments. It's generally agreed that this sticks out like a sore thumb since the characters don't actually do anything else in the brief time, they are onscreen.
• Crazy Is Cool: Jinx is practically a study into this. Since her introductory MV, she's been portrayed as crazy in a fun and awesome way. In contrast, Arcane delves into her childhood, showing a fairly normal girl called Powder's traumatic experiences that created Jinx. Even when she does identify as Jinx, her unstable mental state is sometimes played for tragedy or horror. Jinx's destructive antics, rather than just damaging property or non-sentient robots, has an actual body count, complete with funeral. Yet when Jinx spins up her mini-gun and starts shooting, the fandom still loves it.
• Cry for the Devil: Despite his horrific actions, it's hard not to feel sympathy for Silco during his trauma flashbacks in episode 3. Watching him desperately fend off a brutal murder attempt from the much stronger Vander, the man he trusted like a brother, is gut-wrenching. Its even more gut-wrenching when he dies, as he says he's willing to throw away his dream for a nation of Zaun just so that Jinx doesn't pay for her crimes, stating his undying love for his adopted daughter before passing away.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Jinx suffers from multiple delusions, is immensely traumatized by what she went through as a child and has extreme attachments to both Vi when she was young and Silco in the present, among various other things. There is immense discussion from fans and actual psychologists alike over Jinx's issues, with many pegging her as having schizophrenia, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder from what she displays over the course of the series.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Silco, especially after Episode 9. Focusing just on his last scene in that episode, a number of fans have taken it and rewritten him in their heads as a Tsundere Jerkass Woobie who did everything to provide for Jinx, putting his Dying Declaration of Love on a plinth while the whole reason he was shot in the first place was because he tried to shoot Vi and rob Powder/Jinx of her ability to choose a life other than with him is virtually ignored.
  • Jinx also gets this treatment from some of the fanbase, excusing her more heinous actions in favor of playing up her tragic backstory. Sure, Jinx started out as a traumatized young girl who fell in with the wrong crowd, but she's still responsible for a number of Enforcer and Firelight gang deaths. She never shows remorse or a guilty conscience for the people she kills (Mylo and Claggor aside), willingly chooses to follow Silco's orders and goes out of her way to terrorize innocent civilians and makes the highly unreasonable demand of wanting Vi to shoot Caitlyn to get Powder back, putting the already scared and distressed Vi in an impossible position.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: For someone who doesn't make it out of Act 1 alive, Grayson gets a lot of love for being a Cool Old Lady and having a respectful professional dynamic with Vander. Being voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo certainly doesn't hurt.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • There is a widespread theory that Singed's dead daughter is actually Orianna, given the portrait of his daughter bears a great resemblance.
  • Thanks to all the Creepy Crows that follow Jinx, especially whenever something goes horribly wrong for her mental state, fans have speculated that Fiddlesticks will become involved. Others believe that the birds are ravens, and therefore belong to Swain. Considering both have unique interactions with Jinx that directly reference Arcane, before it aired, there may be some merit to these speculations.
  Fiddlesticks: "Jinx! All you fault, all your fault!"
  Swain: "Faces... fading in the flames... It was all her fault."
  • Whether or not one of the unnamed or bit characters is actually one of Zaun or Piltover's Champions before they became them is a common theory. A couple of examples are the Giant Mook that Vi beats up is Urgot or Dr. Mundo, and either the mouse exposed to Shimmer or Huck is Twitch.
  • A popular theory is that Vander is Warwick. This one may have more to work with than most - one of Warwick’s alt skins does look similiar to Vander, his dialogues in the game suggest he remembers Vander's adopted daughters, Vi and Jinx, teaser of season two does use a part of Warwick’s theme and a shot of what looks to be Vander's corpse in Singed's lab at the end of episode 9 lines up well with Warwick’s backstory - but for now it remains unconfirmed.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Jinx is a murderous, shattered reflection of a broken little girl... but she's such a daring, charismatic, and overall compelling character that many fans would admit to liking her most as a badass Villain Protagonist, and even being glad she takes the final plunge into evil, even if the circumstances are a complete Tear Jerker.
  • Silco has proven to be quite the enthralling villain to watch. His suave demeanor, intimidating nature and high level of intelligence have gained him a pretty decent following.
  • Sevika has also become pretty popular on account of her design (especially her Shimmer-enhanced mechanical arm), the physical challenge she poses to Vi, and having a fair amount of villainous swagger and character depth. Many fans have called for her to become a Champion in League of Legends, even suspecting she might be the new support character planned for 2022 (that turned out to be Renata Glasc instead, who does take a few cues from Sevika's design).
  • Ambessa Medarda quickly became popular for her charismatic leadership skills and utter ruthlessness, combined with her muscular design and unabashed wit.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: A few fanfics change the ending to the "family dinner", usually with Silco or (accidentally) Jinx shooting Vi. This usually ends up at least partially restoring Jinx back to Powder.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The prostitute Yordle Babette is referred to as "Whoredle" by the fans.
  • The infamous sequence of Jayce and Mel having sex whilst Viktor fruitlessly tries to get the Hexcore going has aptly been named the "Sextech" scene.
  • Ambessa Medarda's nameless Piltovian escort during her visit is variously known as "Local Cuisine" (referring to Ambessa's remark about going to "sample the local cuisine" before leaving with him) and "Howl's Moving Coochie" (due to his resemblance to the Wizard Howl) by fans.
  • Absent an apparent official name, the redheaded gang member with a habit of licking things (be it his own knife or other people) is known as "Dustin" by some fans.
• Fanon: Many fans have concluded that Silco braids Jinx's extremely long hair for her.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The Jayce/Viktor ship is much more popular with the fandom than the canonical ship of Jayce/Mel, with the amount of fanart and fanfiction for the former far outnumbering the latter.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Finn. With extensive tattoos, a metal jaw augmentation, a bright yellow jacket with shoulder pads and covered in studs, and a hairstyle that would make Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg jealous, he looks like he would fit in better in a cyberpunk setting than within the general steampunk aesthetic of Arcane.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Jinx/Ekko, or "Timebomb". Despite having little scenes together in Act I, their fight scene in Act III showcases the two were close as children, and despite growing up into mortal enemies, are still shown to love eachother when Ekko hesitates to kill Jinx when he notices her grey eyes and how Powder is still in there.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • A number of DC Comics fans, particularly those of Batman and other Gothamites, have picked up on favorable similarities between those characters and ones from Arcane. Common comparisons include Jinx to Harley Quinn (general aesthetics and demeanor), Vi and Jinx to Kate and Beth Kane (a redheaded, kindhearted fighter and her Ax-Crazy sister who were separated after a tragedy at a young age), and Caitlyn to Renee Montoya (the aforementioned redhead's strongest Love Interest who is a cop/detective and is generally color-coded blue). The Undercity draws comparisons to Gotham itself, both of them being Wretched Hives with a general Gothic aesthetic.
    • The realistic depiction of Jinx/Powder as not a maniac who commits crimes simply because she's crazy and wants to have fun at the expense of everyone else, but as a genuinely troubled young woman who was good natured at one point but had her mental health issues made worse and worse by a Wretched Hive underneath an extremely corrupt upper class leading to Then Let Me Be Evil is eerily similar to what Joker (2019) did for Joker/Arthur Fleck, as well as what Stjepan Šejić did in Harleen.
  • The setting, character design, and dark atmosphere have been positively compared to the Dishonored games by their fans.
  • With RWBY, especially due to Volumes 7 and 8 focusing on the divisions and tensions between the technologically advanced kingdom of Atlas which exploits neighboring Mantle, similar to Piltover and Zaun. There are also many comparisons between the series' characters, two standouts being Vi with Yang for their similar fighting styles including use of high-tech gauntlets, and Jayce with General Ironwood for similar character designs and roles as increasingly powerful authorities in their cities who institute embargoes and alienate their allies. An extremely prominent RWBY fanartist, AG Nonsuch, also draws a lot of Arcane fanart, to the point where her social media is practically half and half between the two shows.
  • With Cyberpunk: Edgerunners due to both shows having similar themes of family and mental illness, as well as sharing similar settings of Cyberpunk and Bio Punk. Both shows are also considered to be visually excellent.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Legends of Runeterra, the whole concept of Jinx (a Champion that levels up when she sees your hand empty) and her Get Excited! signature card (discard a card from your hand to deal 3 to anything) become this after Arcane, considering that Powder had to literally discard all her friends and family to fully become Jinx.
  • Similarly, Jinx's aforementioned introductory music video - upon release, it just showcased her Cute and Psycho personality, but Arcane reveals why - namely, her accidentally killing her closest friends, her adoptive father, and prompting her own sister to disown her, driving her into the arms of an Evil Mentor. Even the scenes where she's bouncing from one position to another in a Smash Cut is shown to be her mind's desperate way of trying to deal with the trauma.
    • Even the lyrics are far more sinister than the Bomb Throwing Anarchist she'd started out as.
      Let's blow this city to ashes//And see what Pow-Pow thinks//It's such pathetic neatness//But not for long 'cause you'll get jinxed
    • The opening of the music video seems cool when you first watch it, showing Jinx riding a missile while leading a vanguard of missiles towards some unknown building. Then you watch the final scene of the first season, showing Jinx using a rocket on the main council chamber building, which has a similar design to the one from the video, and starts off a war. Now, those missiles and her riding on one isn't as cool, because it can be seen as her starting a war.
• He's Just Hiding: At the end of the series Jinx fires a massive rocket at the Council; we know Viktor and Jayce survive this but some fans think Mel could have survived this as well, mainly because the gold on her dress glows similarly to the glow on activating Zhonya's Hourglass or the Locket of the Iron Solari.
• Ho Yay: Jayce and Viktor's dynamic sometimes comes off more like a married couple than two visionary scientists working together. Viktor's lame excuse for when they're caught sneaking around late at night is that they were trying to find his bedroom. Viktor also ignores his female assistant Sky's obvious crush on him, and even after Jayce and Mel have sex, Mel wakes up alone the next morning since Jayce had immediately rushed to the hospital as soon as he heard about Viktor's health getting worse.

I-W

• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
  • As with League of Legends itself, if you're looking for Caitlyn/Vi fanart, it'll usually be under Piltover's Finest.
  • And if you wish to find Jinx/Ekko fanart, then you will often have to check under Timebomb.
• Iron Woobie: Vi was a street urchin who always had a hard life, starting with her birth parents being killed by Enforcers. Throughout the series she gets into fights that cause her painful and severe injuries, but she often wins them, or at the very least recovers to fight again. Sometime after the heist that caused destruction in Piltover, Vi decides to spare her siblings from being sent to prison by enforcers and take all the blame for herself, but is stopped by Vander. Then she witnesses the gory slaughter of Vander's friend Benzo and Vander getting kidnapped. When she tries to rescue him, her sister Jinx causes an explosion that murders their entire family. Shortly after, Vi is sent to a prison where she faces corporal punishment, with the only thing keeping her going was the thought of seeing her sister again. And when she finally meets her sister, she has become an Ax-Crazy Mad Bomber who is devoted to the man who put their family in danger, and blames Vi for everything. Despite all the changes Jinx went through, Vi tries to reach out to Powder even after she's kidnapped by Jinx and cruelly goaded to kill her new friend, Caitlyn, in order to get Powder back. At the end of Act 3, she hopelessly watches Jinx choose her destructive path despite all her attempts at reaching her.
• Jerkass Woobie
  • Deckard is a street thug who is introduced trying to ruff up Vi's gang but gets his ass handed to him. His battered body is then taken by Silco, who threatens him and later manipulated to drink Shimmer. Deckard felt desperate enough to gain some power, even if it meant damaging his body, and his transformations are quite painful, and he vomits every time he transforms. He eventually becomes an addict who can barely function without Shimmer.
  • Marcus is a Rabid Cop and Politically Incorrect Villain who looks down on the people of Zaun, but he is tricked by Silco who kills his boss and compatriots in front of him and feels disgusted with himself for letting Grayson die. While he is subsequently complicit in a conspiracy with Silco for mutual benefits, he's shown to be deeply miserable, regretful, and evidently Trapped in Villainy due to having gone too far deep in their partnership. After the time skip, he's also become a single father with a daughter who he loves very much despite his faults, and he's clearly terrified when Silco subtly threatens her life.
  • Jinx moves from The Woobie to this after act two after becoming a Mad Bomber, but she still has the same backstory and abandonment issues, while her mental state is deteriorating. She is constantly haunted by hallucinations of her dead family.
  • Silco is a brutal crime lord who's unhesitant to kill men, women and children alike to achieve his high-minded goal of freeing Zaun from the shackles of Piltover. However, he's also explicitly traumatized by his perceived betrayal from Vander over their differing goals, having been left to suffer in squalor until he and his "brother" stood up in revolution. As the show goes on, Silco gradually begins to be put under more pressure as he's torn between his mission to free Zaun and keep his mentally ailing daughter, Jinx, safe and always by his side due to his Psychological Projection and genuine love for her. By the end of the show, Silco is a broken man who's willingly traded the dream he's fought for and his people's liberty for his daughter, and even when Jinx drags him away, binds him, and accidentally kills him, Silco can't bring himself to hold any malice toward her and even tells her that she's perfect.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • The whole fake out Decapitation Presentation scene is only slightly marred by the fact that Caitlyn’s status as Champion in the game ensures that there is no way she dies here. Doesn’t stop that scene from being incredibly tense and disturbing, though, and many non-LoL-playing viewers (a significant number) unaware of this were genuinely afraid that Caitlyn was dead during this scene.
  • The cliffhanger ending of the series itself is a Downplayed example; with the entire Piltover Council as well as Viktor in the council chambers when Jinx's Super Mega Death Rocket strikes the glass, we're left wondering who, if anyone, is going to survive... well, except for Jayce and Viktor, they're fine. Jayce's lover Mel and Caitlyn's mother Cassandra, on the other hand...
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Silco is a ruthless, complex crime lord and revolutionary, hellbent on securing the future of Zaun no matter the cost. Betrayed and scarred by his old partner Vander long ago when Silco's attempted uprising against Piltover grew violent, Silco bided his time for years as he secured himself a position in Zaun's criminal underworld, mass producing the drug Shimmer and swaying the chembarons under his banner. Ascending to further power as the unofficial leader of Zaun after he eliminates Vander, Silco keeps the ambitious chembarons under his thumb, earns the loyalty of his right-hand Sevika, and sows unrest through Piltover. Having adopted young Powder and molded her into Jinx as his surrogate daughter, Silco keeps the unhinged girl under his control despite her growing psychosis, and even when he has all bargaining power to cow Piltover to his demands, Silco gives it all up to secure Jinx's safety, maintaining his love for her as his child even when she unintentionally kills him. Charismatic, dangerously savvy, and possessing far more humanity and vulnerability than expected, Silco was defined by his love for Zaun and Jinx, determined to ensure empowerment of them both no matter the cost.
  • Sevika, the intelligent right hand of Silco, is a crafty and dangerous woman with claim to be one of the finest in Zhaun. Frequently advising Silco of Jinx's instability, Sevika is put in charge of Silco's operations, which she handles with intelligent maneuvering. When one underboss attempts to get her to betray Silco, Sevika kills him and uses the death to push the others in line. Upon Silco's death, Sevika is left looking at the now empty throne with her own ascent seemingly assured.
• Memetic Loser: The chembaron Finn has received this from the fanbase. When teased in trailers for Act 3, his highly elaborate and menacing design made fans intensely speculate his role, namely if he was going to be among the new Zaunite champions announced for 2022. This was quickly disproven, however, when Finn thoroughly reveals himself to be a smug Big Bad Wannabe that is utterly humiliated by Silco and unceremoniously killed off by Sevika one episode later. Many question why Fortiche went out of their way to give such a badass design to such a character, feeling it was wasted.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "MAH MOTHER NAMED ME MAHTIHLDER." ^Explanation.An amusing line said by Caitlyn in a heavy southern accent in the brothel Vi took her to.
  • Homophobic Jinx ^Explanation.Fans have jokingly interpreted Jinx's jealousy over Vi becoming very close with Caitlyn as evidence that she is homophobic.
  • Viewers pointing out that the entire timeline of the show was set the second Powder discovered Jayce's Hextech-gemstones-in-progress ^ExplanationThe enforcers tracking down Vi and the group, Viktor meeting Jayce and helping his research, Powder accidentally killing her family with a Hex bomb, etc., so the entire show wouldn't have happened if Powder had just kept eating the sandwich.
  • Hex Before Sex ^ExplanationA sex scene between Jayce and Mel intercut with Viktor working on the Hex Core is frequently interpreted as Viktor disregarding such pursuits while there's science to be done
  • Thanks to the series introducing a large surge of new fans to the League of Legends universe, it's become a common joke (especially on Twitch streams) to spot champions in their original source material as "[X] FROM ARCANE".
  • Like Catra before her, jokes that Jinx needs therapy to help her deal with all the toxic shit in her life are fairly common. It helps that an actual therapist reacts to the show. To a lesser extent, all of the main characters need therapy.
  • The chorus of the opening song "Enemy" has been used in memes about roasts and "savage moments" similar to "Turn Down for What".
  • The fandom has latched onto the idea that Silco would be a Doting Parent while Vander was a Bumbling Dad. Silco would often be depicted doing things such as tucking Jinx in bed at night, making her kids' meals and partaking in any silly activity while Vander would be portrayed as a comically irresponsible and incompetent yet well meaning father.
• Memetic Psychopath: While Jayce immediately regrets his accidental murder of a child worker during his and Vi's attack on a Shimmer lab, many jokes were made about Jayce hating children or devolving into wanting to kill all Zaunites, with edits made of him in place of Anakin Skywalker when he murders the Younglings.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Jinx crosses it when she kidnaps Vi and Caitlyn, and twistedly asks Vi to pick between killing Caitlyn or losing Powder as a sister. Vi isn't willing to go through with murdering her new friend, and then through mishaps Jinx accidentally kills Silco who tells her that she is perfect the way she is, cementing her as being Jinx for good. She tops off the ending by firing a rocket at the Piltover Council. Despite Vi trying to reach out to her in parts 2 and 3, the way she looks at Jinx in the end of Act 3 shows she concedes that Ekko and Caitlyn were right and Jinx is far too gone.
  • To Mel, her mother, Ambessa, crossed it long ago when she killed a young girl the same age as her just to teach Mel a lesson about death.
• Narm:
  • The sex scene with Jayce and Mel can come off like this to viewers with its over-the-top visuals and the same scene contrasting Viktor's anguish over dying.
  • The aforementioned Imagine Dragons cameo which for many came across as awkward and distracting, rather than awesome.
  • After Sevika's fight with Vi, Episode 5 ends with the wounded enforcer staggering into Silco's office with the words, "The sister... She's back." Rather than end it on this classic cliffhanger, Silco instead spins round in his chair to ask, "From the dead!?" Cut to credits. No, you absolute spoon, from the Bahamas.
  • Viktor has a terrifying and tragic scene where he is using Hextech to make parts of his body artificial, seemingly in part by carving runes onto his mostly unclothed body, but his substantial crotch bulge can be distracting once you get around to noticing it.
• Nausea Fuel: The aftermath of Jinx's slaughter of Enforcers using clockwork butterfly bombs. Their corpses are littered all over the streets, full of gaping wounds with flesh and blood pouring out. The sight of it made Jayce puke.
• Newer Than They Think: Silco is probably the most prominent character who isn't drawn from League's champion pool or background lore, which can be surprising for viewers who only got into the game after watching Arcane. Silco proving as popular as he did led to many an outcry to amend this, despite the character displaying little in the way of personal fighting ability.
• One True Pairing: Caitlyn/Vi (aka Piltover's Finest or Caitvi) is easily the most popular and well-received pairing from the show, due to their well developed Ship Tease and the chemistry between the two voice actresses. It's rare to find any fan shipping them with anyone else.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Along with Piltover's Finest, a lot of shippers refer to Caitlyn/Vi as "Caitvi" or less commonly "Violyn".
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: In League itself, Jayce has been a very controversial character due to his relationships with others (especially his present-day rival, Viktor) being fraught with Unintentionally Unsympathetic undertones. The recurring issue was his designation as Piltover's champion being built on a foundation of antagonizing Viktor, a morally grey, but generally sympathetic and (at least theoretically) altruistic character, all while he soaks up the glory. Combined with being a Tony Stark-esque Insufferable Genius to boot, he's had a reputation of being a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk whose "hero" reputation made no sense (and if this was the point, the game's lack of resolute storytelling meant there was no payoff to it). Arcane, in part thanks to being a prequel with some room to fudge around with Jayce's background, rectifies a ton of these issues by fleshing out his early, mutually supportive rapport with Viktor, delving into the philosophical motivations he acts on in the name of science and society, but also better illustrating the factors that led him to begin compromising his goals. He's still played as a character with deep flaws, but they're seen as more natural, sympathetic, and narratively acceptable as part of the tragedy, and with how this version of Jayce is played as much less of a bully, he's won over a lot more fans.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • A more subdued example, but Vi's relationship with Jinx, especially compared to Silco, has elicited this kind of reaction. The idea that she doesn't love Jinx for who she is and only loves the Powder she used to know is a common opinion among certain fans. This despite the fact that "not loving Jinx" in this case primarily refers to her taking issue with Jinx's violent tendencies, which is a pretty reasonable habit to want someone to kick, especially considering that this crescendos in Jinx giving her an ultimatum of "kill an innocent person or lose me." And even after knowing how bad Jinx's killing spree has gotten, she's still hell-bent on making amends with her, even despite the protests of her friends. Similarly, some fans ascribe most if not all of the blame for Powder's transformation into Jinx onto Vi, either downplaying or even ignoring Silco's involvement. Vi is also sometimes unfairly blamed for lashing out at Powder when they were kids, completely ignoring that Vi isn’t much older than Powder and had just had to watch her friends and father figure die horribly, in addition to breaking her own arm and almost dying herself, when they were just about to make a successful escape, all because Powder had what amounts to a tantrum over not being included in a dangerous rescue mission.
  • Mel is portrayed as rather ambiguous throughout the season, and her motivations take a long while to spell out. You could probably most charitably say that she acts out of Enlightened Self-Interest... Unless you only listen to a sizable chunk of the fandom (many of whom would much prefer to see Jayce get with Viktor), then you'd think she was a purely evil harpy stringing poor, innocent Jayce along with her vagina until she can literally seduce control of Hextech out from under him.
  • Jinx’s cruelty and mental instability are often exaggerated by those who didn’t like her Darker and Edgier character development. While she is certainly a killer and has some disturbing sadistic vibes, Jinx isn’t completely devoid of empathy and is more of a horribly misguided, spoiled and traumatized Psychopathic Womanchild rather than the gleefully violent mass murderer she’s sometimes described as. Her list of on-screen kills includes mostly Enforcers (whom she hates with a passion for the deaths of her parents) and Firelights (who are at war with the closest thing she's had to a friendly face for years), and while her jokes are dark and cruel, she never physically hurts her prank victims. Even when firing at the Council’s tower in the end, she apparently is driven by the desire to destroy Piltover’s most prominent landmark as a gesture of “showing them” rather than specifically kill people inside – in fact, she probably had no idea the Council would even gather in the middle of a night. Nevertheless, Jinx is often seen as a Terrorist Without A Cause and Practically Joker, a creatively sadistic insane murderer with an appetite for carnage (which is sometimes seen as awesome by her fans, too, making this overlap with Misaimed Fandom).
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • The Piltover council is run by politicians that are either corrupt or outright stupid (with the exception of Heimerdinger, who instead is oblivious to all of this and out of touch with real human problems), the Piltover police routinely harass the residents of Zaun, and the city dumps all their garbage there. It's not hard for fans to think Silco's ruthlessness is justified given how Piltover treats Zaun, especially when taking his tragic backstory into account. His methods end up working, and Jayce also tries to push for Zaun independence and Silco's other demands.
  • Just as with Silco, the combination of Rule of Cool, the tragic circumstances, and the corruption of Piltover means there's no shortage of people cheering as Jinx finally leaps headfirst into true evil and fires her rocket to obliterate the Council Chamber.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: After the show's first season, Jinx/Lux gained an oddly strong following despite the fact they have never met in the show or canon lore of the game^note Though they are a rather close leader/lancer duo in the non-canon Star Guardian alternate universe. They are in a couple of promotional ads together where Jinx kidnaps and forces Lux to be on her team, but that's very much not canon. The main draw is that they are two young women who are scorned by their respective societies for being who they are. It also has a similar Opposites Attract feel to Vi/Caitlyn given that Jinx is an (almost) unrepentant murderer and Lux is something of a Token Good Teammate for Demacia's ruling class.
• Signature Line: Each act has a least one said at its culmination.
  • When Vi learns that her sister set off the bomb that killed their family.
  Vi: I told you to STAY AWAY! '(slap)
  • Viktor summing up his and Jayce's shortcomings after both see someone die as a result of their research.
  Viktor: In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
  • Silco's last line to Jinx as he dies.
  Silco: Don't cry, you're perfect.
• Sliding Scale of Social Satisfaction: Categorized as "Technology/Magic Compensates For Life Quality". The city is divided into the poor, polluted bottom, Zaun, and the rich, idyllic topside, Piltover. The economical disparity between the two is abysmal — the former's economy revolves around highly toxic chemical substances produced by gang bosses (the Chembarons). Meanwhile, the latter's economy is far more diversified, priding itself on its inventing capacity. Technology and, to a lesser extent, magic are present on both sides, providing solutions impossible to a real-life, average person.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • As has been noted by many fans, Arcane takes a page out of Dishonored’s book. An Anachronism Stew drawing elements primarily from Dickensian London but also from medieval and modern-day settings, complete with heavy Urban Segregation, an abundance of Police Brutality, Grey-and-Grey Morality, Applied Phlebotinum-powered technology and even some Cosmic Horror Story vibes, it’s instantly recognizable, although Arcane is arguably Lighter and Softer despite bringing up some grim themes as well. The series’ aesthetics also seem to be inspired by this franchise, especially with some characters’ designs and costumes.
  • Arcane’s setting somewhat resembles Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and Infinite at the same time. Piltover has certain similarities to Infinite’s Columbia: a gilded, incredibly pompous steampunk city amidst the clouds, whose inhabitants enjoy privileged wealthy lives and look down upon the lower class, unaware of the city’s problems and ignoring the fact that their utopia is more of a Crapsaccharine World. Zaun, on the other hand, is not unlike Rapture, being an ultra-capitalist dystopia (set technically underwater!) where the poor are left to their fates as local elites thrive on corruption and abuse of power, child labor is acceptable, and immoral scientists are free to carry out inhumane experiments. Even Shimmer, a mutation-causing Fantastic Drug, has more than a few similarities to Plasmids. Besides, Arcane’s Art-Style Dissonance combining cartoony, innocent-looking Disney/Pixar styled characters and dark, mature themes is also heavily reminiscent of Bioshock Infinite.
  • Let’s see, we have a Layered Metropolis crowned by a magnificent upper city where wealthy noble houses plot and scheme, protected by legions of Gas Mask Mooks. Below sprawls a polluted industrial Wretched Hive whose inhabitants are treated as second-class citizens and harassed by oppressive lawmen and local crime bosses alike… and the bottom of this miles-tall Skyscraper City is a deadly, toxic sump level infested with horribly disfigured mutants who are barely even human anymore. Add some power fists and energy blades, Apunkalypse styled street gangs and prejudice against magic, and what we got is a very faithful adaptation of Warhammer 40,000 with its Hive Cities and Necromunda in particular. It should be noted that outside Arcane proper, Runeterra’s Zaun has even stronger Warhammer 40,000 vibes, with many denizens having Artificial Limbs worthy of Adeptus Mechanicus, and Chemtech rifles resembling lasguns with chainsword bayonets. This likely reflects that a significant amount of in-game lore for Arcane's characters were written by authors that have worked in the 40K universe; the biographies and color stories for Vi and Jinx were written by Graham McNeill.
  • The world presented in the show is a fantasy setting with many unique races, going through a rapid industrial revolution that combines steampunk and magitech, with characters personal struggles interwoven with larger political schemes and even bigger, cosmic-scale lore. It is no surprise that many Dungeons & Dragons fans (allegedly including even Keith Baker himself) called Arcane the closest we will ever get to an Eberron show. In particular Piltover and Zaun invoke a lot of the same themes and atmosphere of Eberron's iconic city, Sharn, with biggest difference being Zaun is across the river from Piltover, not underground beneath it, like the Cogs beneath Sharn^note this is actually one of the more significant examples of Adaptation Deviation in the series, since in LoL canon, Zaun is actually beneath Piltover, and one story ("Child of Zaun") actually features Zaunite terrorists assaulting Piltover by ascending the towers that connect the two cities.
• Squick: Bloodier and Gorier aside, Arcane also doesn't shy away from showcasing some nastiness on-screen:
  • Episode one features a ratty-looking Yordle hooker. She returns in episode 5, having apparently taken over an entire brothel, and there's a Yordle in a gimp suit working for her.^note It's far from uncommon for members of the League of Legends fanbase to find some of the yordles in the game sexually attractive, particularly Tristana and Poppy, but they're deliberately much cuter than Babette, and the game itself never sexualises them.
  • Any of the scenes with Deckard ingesting the Shimmer serum turns rather unpleasant, as his hulked-out form tends to vomit the stuff as he's transforming.
  • Silco and Jinx have a father-daughter relationship but a few scenes in Act 2 have them be affectionate to an uncomfortable level, such as Jinx gently caressing his face and the "baptism scene" has Silco hold her face almost like he's about to kiss her. The Baptism scene happening right after the infamous sextech scene didn't help matters. There are significant Joker/Harley vibes here, who are explicitly lovers.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Viktor's assistant Sky appears to be a somewhat important character, even appearing in Viktor's flashback. However, she is killed rather unceremoniously only to fuel Viktor's angst. While part of the tragedy is that Viktor never took the opportunity to know her to focus on his work instead, many fans feel like she should have been developed as a character in her own right.
  • Ekko in the original lore is established as formerly being close friends with Vi and Powder during their childhood, even implied to have had Unresolved Sexual Tension with the latter. While he does play a minor supporting role in the first act, the series opts to make him into something of an 11th-Hour Ranger instead.
  • Though the show revolves around the relationship between Powder/Jinx and Vi, it puts almost all emphasis of emphasis on Powder/Jinx' psyche, how it was shattered by her accidental killing of her adoptive family and her apparent abandonment by her sister followed by years of Silco nurturing and rebuilding it in the worst possible way, with almost no attention given to Vi's mental state. Keep in mind this girl was still a teenager when she saw her adoptive family get killed, watched helplessly as her little sister was claimed by her father's enemy to an unknown but likely very dark fate while being dragged off to a hellhole prison herself, where she had to endure wasting the remainder of her teenage years and a significant portion of her adult life in a filthy concrete box as a political prisoner with no formal sentence, no possibility of appeal, and no indication when she would be released, if ever. With only the worries about her sister's fate and the dread realization there was nothing she could do about it to accompany her. And if she ever railed against this injustice, she would only get a brutal beating for her efforts. Punching the walls and other inmates must have been quite an outlet for her because such circumstances would be reason enough to go even more crazy than Jinx did.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Ekko and Powder barely interact during act 1, with Ekko mostly interacting with Claggor. This is especially egregious because when they meet up again it's treated as childhood friends becoming enemies. There is only a flashback to them playing, but it arguably would have been more impactful if they were already shown to be close before the Time Skip. While they are shown to be close in the ''Enemy'' music video, this has the unintended side effect of making a tangentially related video required watching to fully grasp the pair's closeness. It would later be confirmed that there were plans for a scene depicting Ekko and Jinx encountering each other and becoming adversaries in the middle of the Time Skip, which was unfortunately scrapped due to time constraints for each episode.
  • For whatever reasons, Arcane heavily downplays the theme of Zaun’s pollution problem described in many short stories published on League of Legends’ website. While here it is present in a few scenes, and seems to be the cause of Viktor’s health issues, in the original setting it plays a much more prominent role, as the lack of clean air and water is evident through all of Zaun, and the Grey (thick, poisonous smog) is a disaster taking away many Zaunite lives, so feared its name is used in Piltover as a curse word. Including this in Arcane would have given a lot of depth to Zaun’s rebellion in the first place, providing a much more sympathetic background to people essentially marching against using their homes as a toxic dump. Instead, most Zaunites seem to be perfectly healthy, and not much detail is given about the rebels’ demands, making them look no different from Silco who seemingly wanted independence from Piltover for his own gains.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Not even the maddest of perverts expected a yordle prostitute turned madam to ever exist, not to mention get actual speaking lines.
  • Singed was not at all hinted at in any promotional trailers for the show, so him showing up here is a big surprise for those familiar with League's lore.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The animation is nothing short of breathtaking thanks to the show's ample production time, with one artist revealing in an interview that each episode gets five months of storyboarding time alone (the norm in television animation is around one month for that stage of production). As such, every episode feels as lovingly crafted as a feature film, with its painterly-style reminiscent of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the inclusion of hand-drawn elements popularized by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Special mention deserves to go to the portrayal of Jinx's psychosis/fractured mental state, using an aesthetic that usually lends itself to making insanity look cool or fun and instead making it profoundly terrifying and tragic.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Whoopee, an animated League of Legends series! That means it's got to be just as cartoonishly cute and silly as the original game, right? But as this show reminds you, this is NOT the case. Despite the show stemming from a teen-rated IP, the series itself is rated 16+ (TV-14 in the US) for violence, some strong language (with characters, especially Vi, using "fuck"), some particularly brutal sequences , and even explicit sexual references, including a surprisingly graphic sex scene.
• The Woobie
  • Powder in Act 1 is The Baby of the Bunch who adores her older sister Vi and desperately wants to be useful to her and their adoptive brothers. At the end of episode one, she's accidentally botched a heist by blowing up Jayce's apartment and lost them their prized loot. This causes the other kids to see her as more of an annoying nuisance who 'jinxes' all their plans. Come episode two, she's grappling with insecurities of being inadequate and useless. And then in episode three, in her desperation to help Vi and friends and despair at being left behind before the rescue mission, she winds up causing massive collateral damage through a hex crystal-imbued Cymbal-Banging Monkey toy, leading to the deaths of everyone in the gang except Vi. Which then prompts Vi, in a grief-enduced fit of rage, to punch Powder in the face and call her a jinx.
  • Viktor, while brilliant enough to become Heimerdinger's assistant at Piltover's Academy in spite of his Zaunite background, suffers from a chronic illness that is getting worse over time, which he is desperate to cure. His illness is the result of growing up in a heavily polluted area in Zaun, requiring him to walk with a cane since he was a young child, and his poor health made him unable to play or make friends with other children. When he invents the Hextech Core his mentor, Heimerdinger, demands he destroy it despite the core potentially being the only way Viktor can extend his own life. When he travels back to the Undercity to get help from his former mentor, his best friend Jayce scolds him for meeting up with someone from the undercity, claiming they are all potentially dangerous which greatly hurts Viktor's feelings as he was from the undercity. While Viktor is temporarily able to improve his health using a mix of shimmer and the Hexcore, he accidentally kills Sky and is wracked with guilt. He almost commits suicide before being stopped by Jayce, and he still decides that the Hexcore needs to be destroyed despite knowing full well that doing so would kill him. Poor guy can't catch a break.
  • Huck, the wimpy patron at Vandar's Bar that was screwed out of his money, and needed Vander to stick up for him. Taken even further in the sixth episode where it's revealed that he ended up being a Shimmer addict, taking the drug because he no longer wanted to feel afraid. He lives in the slums of the slums, covered in large fleshy bumps and twitching uncontrollably, unable to let Vi see what he's become. He sells out Vi and Caitlyn's location to Silco for Shimmer, but it was a case of lapsing into weakness and cravings, and he is very visibly ashamed of his weakness.
• Woobie Family: Vi and Jinx's parents are shown dead minutes into the first episode. They get a pretty happy adoptive family by Vander with Milo and Claggor. Act 1 is not kind to them, leaving the family broken with the latter three dead, Vi jailed, and Jinx feeling abandoned. Also Silco, Vander's brother, was betrayed by Vander, who gave him a nasty scar and deformed eye. He eventually adopts Jinx, and while they have a loving relationship it's clearly toxic. In episode 7, Silco sees Jinx almost get killed by a bomb and rushes to save her. The infamous "family dinner" scene really drives home how sad all these people are.