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    A-D 
  • 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. In Season 2, the alternate timeline showing a still-alive Mylo who actually does have a loving relationship with Powder drives this point home even more — while Mylo might not have meant the things he said or could have grown out of his old behavior towards her as he became older, the fact he couldn't fix things between him and Powder before his death in the main timeline meant there was really no chance for her to not become seriously affected by his bullying as she became Jinx.
    • 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.
    • Science Is Bad, as new technologies will inevitably ruin their inventors and everyone else's lives. In spite of Jayce's good intentions, not only does Hextech end up worsening the social and economic divide between Zaun and Piltover, but it also indirectly turns Viktor into a supervillain, almost causing the destruction of the world. At the same time, Jinx's fascination with building bombs and other gadgets is presented as a clear sign of her madness, especially after one of her inventions ends up killing a good chunk of her family. Fittingly, in season two we are introduced to an alternate version of Zaun that is both less technologically developed and far richer thanks to Hextech never being invented. This universe's Powder is also far happier and more mentally stable than her canon counterpart, while also lacking her interest for technology (though notably, basically nobody other than her is enthused by this).
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
  • Allegedly Optimistic Ending: The series ends with Zaun and Piltover finally ending their hostilities and coming together to mourn after teaming up against Ambessa's invasion, with Sevika even becoming part of the new ruling council. While it was supposed to be a Bittersweet Ending, quite a few fans and critics took issue over how none of the problems shown in the previous episodes - Zaun being a toxic dump dominated by Piltover's economic interest and the Enforcers, the previous council's lack of concern for Zaun's people outside of a willingness to oppress and murder them if judged necessary, the general anti-Zaunite prejudice within Piltover - were actually seen being addressed. Coupled with the fact that with the exception of Ekko (and possibly the Firelights), Zaun lost its few protectors like Vander, Silco and Jinx, it can feel to some like absolutely nothing changed, making all the characters' previous attempts at improving the city utterly pointless. The most that can be said is that Caitlyn is presumably still in command of the Enforcers, and has given up on her desire for vengeance against Jinx and Zaun while reconciling with Vi, thus raising the possibility that she'll try and bring about much needed reform in Piltover and positive changes for Zaun. But given the circumstances, it's uncertain at best whether or not she'll succeed.
  • Angst? What Angst?:
    • Despite Vi having been arrested and imprisoned for seven years without just trial and constantly beaten and tortured while in custody all by Enforcers, not to mention Vi's parents were murdered by Enforcers, aside from some comments, she displays almost no trauma related to the Enforcers, shows comfort around them (or at least Cait) and even becomes one of them for a short time.
    • 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 controversy surrounding League's lackluster Sentinels of Light event and Hollywood's general aversion to video game adaptations, there were doubts from it's 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 1, Arcane sat comfortably at the No. 1 TV show spot in 38 countries, according to Flix Patrol's rankings.
  • Award Snub: A number of fans expressed displeasure over the show losing Best Adaptation to Fallout (2024) during the 2024 Game Awards.
  • 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.
  • Broken Aesop: Jayce telling Viktor that there was nothing wrong with him to fix, and the depiction of his magical transhumanism as making people "perfect" in return for taking away everything that makes them human seems to be in favour of a message about accepting yourself and not destroying yourself in pursuit of removing your flaws. While a good message in theory, many fans felt that it fell short considering that the "flaw" Viktor was trying to fix about himself was a deadly and rapidly worsening disability that was not something he was born with but rather caused by the mistreatment of the lower city by Piltover, which most people would agree is absolutely a problem that should be fixed.
  • Can't Un-Hear It:
    • Thanks to her incredibly brutal vocal performance, nobody has ever imagined Jinx's character without hearing the voice of Ella Purnell.
    • Also, it can be really hard to not hear Vi and Caitlyn's voices when it comes to Hailee Steinfeld and Katie Leung.
  • 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.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • In the first season finale. Silco getting threatened by Finn and Renni? Tense. Sevika slicing Finn's throat in a moment of uncertain loyalty? Dramatic. Silco coldly stating he would usually have had Renni's son killed for her betrayal? Dark. Adding "I suppose we're ahead on that account"? Hilarious.
    • In the second season finale. Jinx trying to kill herself with one of her bombs? Tragic and horrifying. Ekko saving her with his Z-drive? Amazing. Jinx doing so repeatedly and Ekko getting more and more visibly exhausted every time? Kinda funny.
    • Also in the second season finale Maddie betraying Caitlyn and being revealed as The Mole for Ambessa? Shocking. Maddie telling Caitlyn she "appreciated her warmth" before shooting her in the head? Ice cold. Mel making the bullet bounce multiple times so it hits Maddie in the head instead? Hilarious.
  • 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. Season 2 showing an Alternate Timeline where he and Vander were able to cast aside their differences and Silco forgave Vander's attempted murder in the river, creating the idyllic Zaun they always dreamed of, just pours more salt in the wound.
  • Death of the Author: Despite confirmation via Word of God that the series is canon to League of Legends, a very large portion of fans prefer to think of the series as being in its own continuity, or at the very least Loose Canon, with many bringing up moments that don't make sense if the series really is supposed to be a prequel to the game. Taken to new heights after the finale, which makes things majorly complicated in regards to canon, to say the least. Not helping matters is how some statements regarding the canonicity of the series can contradict each other.
  • 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.
    • In terms of a more physical disability, Isha is speculated by fans to not just be merely quiet, but possibly deaf-mute. In addition to not speaking and communicating primarily with sign language and gesture, she's visibly non-responsive to speech when her back is turned, often directs her gaze towards peoples' mouths as they speak to her (implying she's trying to read their lips), and seems to prioritize eye contact for communication even in situations where it would be counterintuitive (when she forces herself in between Vi and Jinx during their battle, despite pointing her gun at Vi, she instead locks eyes with Jinx, seemingly waiting for her permission to fire). She also doesn't appear to pick up on certain noises that others respond to, from Sevika's boombox arm playing "Get Jinxed" (notice how as Jinx is dancing to it, Isha just looks at her confused), to the sound of hot metal being quenched at a blacksmith shop that causes Warwick/Vander to freak out.
    • Powder from the Hextech-less timeline is speculated to show signs of depression, especially in the wake of multiple characters commenting on her lack of ambition or motivation beyond helping others.
  • Die for Our Ship: Maddie Nolen from Season 2 has gotten a lot of hate from Caitlyn/Vi shippers due to having a sexual relationship with Caitlyn. These shippers like to portray Maddie as a homewrecker despite Caitlyn and Vi not being together then. They also try to make her seem evil for supporting Caitlyn's Martial Law, even though she is a Token Good Teammate. This actually becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when it turns out Maddie is Evil All Along and was actually a Noxian infiltrator working for Ambessa the whole time.
  • 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.

    E-H 
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: For someone who doesn't make it out of Act 1 of the first season 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.
    • Steb has a surprising amount of fan content, especially considering he only has a single, barely-audible line that is easily missed. While he definitely makes the most of his limited screentime with some very brave actions... it probably also helps that he has a passing resemblance to the popular Amphibian Man from The Shape of Water.
    • Lest immediately won over several fans for her intriguing dynamic with Mel and playing a small but crucial role in developing the story in Act 1 and 2 of Season 2. Her popularity was also boosted by her status as a feline vastaya, combined with her glamorous design and sultry voice courtesy of Eve Lindley.
  • 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. Season 2 confirms this to be the case, as Singed is revealed to be Dr. Corin Reveck, Orianna's father.
    • 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. The reveal that the Black Rose, whom Swain is known for being in a long-game political war with, is involved through Ambessa's conflict in Season 2 added fuel to the fire, as well as a brief cameo of Raum, the raven-looking Demon of Secrets that accompanies Swain, in the Season 2 finale.
      Fiddlesticks: "Jinx! All your 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 turned out to be true in Season 2.
  • 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.
    • Viktor, upon fully embracing his transformation into the Machine Herald, becomes the Final Boss of the series. With an amazing design for his One-Winged Angel form, perfect control over his Hive Mind puppets and being utterly unstoppable through conventional means, Viktor perfectly embodies the dangers of the titular Arcane and is responsible for an unforgettable Series Finale.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Ever since Claggor made a cameo appearance in a Star Guardians event Another Sky where he is Spared By The Adaption, this opens up the possibility for fans creating scenarios where characters who died in the show such as Mylo, Silco, Viktor, and Isha possibly have alternate versions of themselves appearing in other skin-based universes (primarily the ones involving Jinx, Ekko, Vi and Caitlyn) alive as well.
    • In season 2 Vi and Jinx find Vander's letter, in which he admits his fault and begs Silco's forgiveness, that never reached him. Jinx believes if it did, it would make them reconcile. It seems almost tailor made for "what if?" fan fiction.
    • Season 2 also has Ekko briefly stranded in an alternate timeline, where Hextech was never invented and thanks to Vi dying during the initial robbery of Jayce's workshop, things have turned out far differently. We see some of the differences that already feel like they're lifted right out of a what-if fanfic (such as Powder never becoming Jinx and instead, her and Ekko being a couple), but how this different trajectory could have affected others, like Caitlyn, Viktor, Mel, and more is left unexplored.
    • Orianna's "resurrection" leaves many questions unanswered, especially among longtime fans of the character who are familiar with her lore in the games and how she tends to Come Back Wrong. While many see Singed reviving his daughter, unfair and bittersweet as it may be, a genuine victory, many also speculate the possibilities of Ori not being as "real" as Singed may have wanted, in turn casting doubt on their fate being as optimistic compared to everyone else's.
  • 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.
    • A lot of fanfics play with the idea of Vi and Caitlyn meeting each other much earlier than they did in the show. Mainly as kids/teenagers as they were in Act 1.
    • Popular topic in fanfic and fanart about Viktor is what would his life look like if he stayed in Zaun, usually with him as older brother/mentor figure to Powder and Ekko.
  • 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. note 
    • In season 2 fans took on to give nicknames to Caitlyn's outfits. Those include "the Dyketator" for her combat uniform with white beret, which she puts on at the end of episode 1, "Count Fagula" or "Darth Mathilda" for the cape with high-collar she wears with her hair down as de facto dictator of Piltover in Act II, and "Fire Nation Caitlyn" for her outfit while sparring with Ambessa in episode 6. The look she has in the epilogue is called "Captain Strapeye"
    • Fans tend to refer to Caitlyn's notable rack as "Kirammountains" or "Kirammounds".
    • Isha gains the moniker "Lil Sha" due to fans joking about her being a gangster.
    • Maddie is referred to by some - especially Caitvi shippers - as "Rebound", following the reveal in "Paint the Town Blue" of her and Caitlyn sleeping together. The nickname is also a pun regarding how Maddie dies (by a ricochet, a specific type of rebound).
  • Fanon:
    • Many fans have concluded that Silco braids Jinx's extremely long hair for her.
    • One common element in fan works featuring the Alternate Universe from "Pretend Like It's The First Time" is that Caitlyn died in the same explosion that killed Vi, partially because the positioning of the explosion means her and Jayce could've potentially been caught in it as well when they tried to enter Jayce's lab, but primarily because her and Vi's status as the One True Pairing means many would prefer them to be Together in Death even if they would've never met. Note, this isn't out of the question of canon, as Caitlyn is never seen or mentioned in said universe, but there's no direct support in the show or from Word of God either.
    • Season 2 ends with an airship flying off to unknown horizons that is strongly hinted to contain Jinx, having left Piltover and Zaun after seemingly dying in a Heroic Sacrifice, finally learning to walk away like her hallucination of Silco said. A very common headcanon emerged in the aftermath of the finale that said airship's destination is Demacia, so that Jinx can finally meet Lux, a character she's known to have very friendly interactions with in both non-canon promotional materials and the Star Guardians alternate universe within League of Legends, particularly among shippers.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Following the reunion of Vi and Jinx with Vander, now Warwick, and the two sisters starting to repair their relationship, fans have started calling the scene in Season 2 episode 6 "The Message Hidden Within The Pattern" where Vander embraces his daughters and Isha as "the true ending" not acknowledging anything afterwards as canon. While some only do so jokingly, others are genuine because everything after that doesn't so much as go straight to hell, but straight up purgatory with Isha dying in a Heroic Sacrifice, Jinx going beyond her Despair Event Horizon because of the former, Vander transforming into Warwick, and what transpires, among other things. More figuratively speaking, it got so bad that people have begun writing fanfics on how the episode should go on from there.
  • 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.
  • Fans Prefer the New Her: Vi's pitfighter look in Act II of the second season (featuring darker dyed hair, grungy face paint, a leather jacket with a large two-headed dog patch on the back, and more of an emphasis on her muscular build) was received very warmly by the fandom as soon as it was revealed, even launching speculative fanart before it became more widely known.note  Within the show, however, this change is portrayed negatively and clearly shown to be a result of Vi spiraling toward rock bottom after the events of Act I. Caitlyn also directly insults Vi over this, saying that her new appearance "look[s] like an angry oil slick."
  • 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 like each other when Ekko hesitates to kill Jinx when he notices her grey eyes and how Powder is still in there. Season 2 does not dissuade it, with them being a couple in an alternate timeline, and knowledge of this inspires Ekko to save Jinx from a suicide attempt and recruit her to help stop the Noxian attack on Piltover.
  • Franchise Original Sin: The second season of the show was a lot less well received than the previous one for, among other things, sidelining the Zaun/Piltover conflict in favor of Viktor's Glorious Evolution and the sudden focus on the romance between Powder and Ekko. However, some of these plot points or at least similar elements had already been introduced in season one:
    • Sci-fi and magic elements were introduced in the first episode of the show, with the creation of Hextech being a fundamental plot point. However, the most outlandish fantasy parts from the games were either absent or significantly downplayed, with the plot relating to them mostly focusing on how Jayce's work influenced both Zaun and Piltover's economy and society, as well as Viktor and his illness. Season 2, however, went through a Serial Escalation, introducing new storylines -such as time travel, alternate universes and Viktor's Assimilation Plot- that were incompatible with the previous plot points about the Zaun/Piltover conflict. Thanks to this, Season 2 had to sideline the previous main plotline in favor of the more divisive end of the world scenario, resulting in far too many plot-lines either being left unresolved or haphazardly finished and the pacing being noticeably rushed when compared to the first season.
    • Similarly to the Powder and Ekko romance in season 2, the first season of Arcane heavily focused on the growing relationship between Vi and Caitlin. However, the first season actually took its time to show the development of the Cait-Vi romance, focusing on their shared Character Development especially as Vi is forced to choose between her sister and the woman she loves. On the contrary, Jinx and Ekko almost never interact on screen in both seasons, as they have completely different storylines. As such, their romantic feelings almost come out of nowhere, and derail the pacing and plot of the second season. In particular, some detractors have argued that the narrative shift in favor of Ekko's love life stopped the show from actually exploring Jinx's grief regarding Isha's death, and the following aftermath for the rest of the characters.
  • 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 and some of the best video game adaptations to date.
    • With Fallout (2024), another critically acclaimed video game TV adaptation starring Ella Purnell in a lead role. Fans joke about what would happen if Jinx were to meet Lucy while at the same time applauding the show runners for doing their adaptations and lore justice and sticking to both works' heavy anti-capitalist themes.
  • 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: In season 2 episode 6, Isha, Jinx's surrogate little sister, sacrifices herself to save everyone. The fandom immediately exploded trying to justify her survival, to the point that Archive of Our Own promptly made a tag for it. In addition to never explicitly seeing her death, characters have survived seemingly worse situations in the series.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The Undercity woman Vi warning Caitlyn that the Undercity would eat her alive during their first conversation. This comment is what convinces Caitlyn to break her out of prison. Come episode 8 of season 2, Vi and Caitlyn's sex scene concludes with the former going down on the latter, a.k.a. eating her out.
    • Jinx mocks Ekko as the Boy Savior when they fight on the bridge for trying to save her when they were kids. Next season, Ekko really does save both Jinx's life and the whole damn city from Viktor's Glorious Evolution, with the fandom declaring him one of the MVPs of the season.
    • This incredibly popular fanfiction on Archive of Our Own had correctly predicted the redesign for the alternate universe's Powder (in which her hair is tied into space buns with a bit of pink to symbolize her bond with Vi) on Chapter 28. According to the author, the redesign was suggested by a friend of his, and when somebody told him in the comments section that he had unknowingly predicted the AU Powder's haircut, he humorously responded with "Yes! Wasn't on my bingo card!"
  • 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. Their dynamic in Season 2 only exacerbated this, with many reading the two's behavior in the final Act especially as romantic. Then there's the fact that Jayce and Viktor constantly refer to each other as their "partner". It's also revealed that the mage who saved Jayce as a child, was Viktor of another timeline. He keeps going back and giving Jayce a different stone in hopes it will be the one to stop his "glorious evolution", even though he could just as easily have left Jayce and his mother to die in the blizzard. He tells current Jayce that no matter what timeline he went to, only Jayce could show Viktor his humanity. By the end of the season, Mel and Jayce have seemingly ended their relationship, and whatever's left of Sky is gone, leaving Jayce and Viktor as each other's strongest connection. Even when Viktor tries to send Jayce away in the finale so he'll survive, Jayce chooses to stay and likely die with Viktor.
      Jayce: All I want... is my partner back.
    • Silco and Vander had some people interested due to their history together and clear admiration they had for one another. Season 2 shows the two were closer friends in the past, and even worked together in the mines, with Silco's jacket being hung inside Vander's in their secret base. In the alternate universe that Ekko travels to, Vander and Silco forgave one another and are running the Last Drop together. The artbook has a photo of the two of them and Powder posing almost like a family, with Vander and Silco coming off as Powder's two dads.

    I-R 
  • 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.
  • I Knew It!: Some eagle-eyed League fans were able to predict early on the surprise presence of LeBlanc — a champion who has nothing to do with Piltover and Zaun in the game's lore — due to Ambessa's Universe profilenote  originally listing them as one of the "Related Champions" alongside Caitlyn and Jayce, being quietly removed once people started noticing. While she isn't explicitly referred to by name and sports a much different appearance, LeBlanc is very clearly supposed to be the Black Rose sorceress that Mel encounters in season 2 (as well as the person who killed Kino, Mel's brother and Ambessa's son).
  • Incest Yay Shipping: Given how much of the show centers around Vi and Jinx's deeply messy, codependent, and unhealthy relationship, and how it's explicitly framed as Vi being torn between her sister and her romantic interest, it's hardly surprising that there's a solid fanbase for Vi/Jinx.
  • 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:
  • 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 Zaun. 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:
    • Chem-Baron 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 in the finale. Many question why Fortiche went out of their way to give such a badass design to such a character, feeling it was wasted.
    • Vi and Jayce, but only as a team. After their team-up in Season 1 ended in the accidental murder of a child and the one in first episode of Season 2 was upstaged by Ambessa's Noxian regiment, fans began to joke that every time these two are working together, they end up either accomplishing nothing, or make things worse. Season 2 Act 3 showing an alternate universe that is better than the main one in every way specifically because Vi dies and Jayce never invents Hextech needless to say didn't slow this perception down, and the mockery only continued when Vi immediately slips up in the final battle just because Jayce came close to her. The joke eventually went as far as to recontextualize the apartment heist going awry all the way in the first episode of the series was just because Vi and Jayce were in close proximity of each other.
    • Vi herself is also this on her own among a section of the fanbase. Said fans often point out that she loses almost every fight she's in, almost all the people she sets out to save end up dying, she's too reliant on her Hextech gauntlets to fight (something Jinx lampshaded), and most damning, an alternate timeline when the initial heist ended up in her death resulted in a near-utopic Piltover where everybody else was much better off than in the main timeline.
    • Maddie also got this in both a physical and sexual sense by the end of Season 2, partially due to her rather karmic death via having her own bullet reflected back at her by Mel, but also because Vi and Caitlyn's reunion and later sex scene made many joke that she was so bad in bed that all it took was seeing Vi again for Caitlyn to completely abandon her relationship with someone who was apparently a specific Honey Trap.
  • 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. The fact that the very first thing he did when he arrived in Viktor's commune in Season 2 Act 2, after undergoing a big case of Sanity Slippage from witnessing a Bad Future, is to aim his hammer at yet another child only made the jokes more popular, prompting some to wonder if he has some sort of child-seeking targeting mechanism installed into his weapon.
    • Due to her use of the Grey, some bigoted remarks about the Zaunites as well as her stint as a military dictator, some of Caitlyn's detractors, especially on Twitter / X, have started to portray her as a ruthless, genocidal supremacist, calling her "Ku Klux Caitlyn" or "Ku Klux Kiramman" and playing up her position as a military dictator - despite the show barely showing daily life under her reign as a commander ("dictator" being more attributed to Ambessa, as she ranks above Caitlyn and is perfectly fine with strongarm tactics) or doing anything especially bad against the Zaunites they weren't subjected to before (in fact, she even protested against Ambessa imprisoning Zaunites without just cause), much less anything that could suggest her desiring to wipe them out. Not to mention that the ones she usurped, the council, weren't exactly good people (especially to the Zaunites) either.
  • Memetic Troll: Singed had already had this reputation in League of Legends, but his time on the show further cemented his status. He spends the series setting its events into motion, such as creating Shimmer, turning Jinx into her purple-eyed state, turning Vander into Warwick, and working with Noxian forces. He runs circles around the other characters, with the worst he gets is being scarred by Powder's monkey bomb, and ends up not only escaping consequences for his crimes, but being the only one who gets a clear happy ending. For this, he became memed as the most brilliant troll alive.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Because the Point of Divergence for the nigh-utopian alternate timeline seen in episode 7 of season 2 is Vi's death, some fans have taken this to mean that the entire conflict of the show is Vi's fault. While the exact course of events is never made clear, the show makes sure to point out that Hextech was never invented in this timeline, making it much more likely that the actual change that made this timeline better is that Hextech never caused an increase in class disparity between Zaun and Piltover, and thus Chemtech was never invented in response, making it easier for the class conflict to reach a peaceful resolution. Vi's death may have been the impetus for Hextech never being invented since no way the council would approve of research that killed a child, but it would have been the same if it was Powder, Mylo, or Claggor that died.
  • Moe: Powder, both as a child and alternate adult self, and Isha conquers this trope.
  • Moral Event Horizon: 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.
  • 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.
    • Jayce ends up getting an open wound on his leg during his time in a Bad Future in Season 2. The wound is very visibly infected and drawn in grisly detail.
  • 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.note 
  • Older Than They Think: The teaser for season 2 reveals Vi joining Piltover's Enforcers, something that came off as shocking to fans original to the series due to how the first season portrayed the Enforcers besides Caitlyn as both corrupt and brutal, which Vi was victim to both sides of pretty much her entire life, making the idea of her joining them seem out of character or difficult to believe. In the original game, Vi has been an enforcer since her introduction (her official in-game sobriquet is even "The Piltover Enforcer"), and in fact, is depicted as comically embracing Police Brutality as a sort of Black Comedy, so this wasn't surprising to older fans, even if they agree that the Vi we see in Arcane doesn't strike them as someone who'd easily be swayed into becoming a cop.
  • 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.
    • Ekko/Jinx (aka Timebomb) saw a significant resurgence after the debut of "Pretend Like it's The First Time", which was largely a character-driven exploration of Ekko's complicated relationship with the Loose Cannon after being shunted into an Alternate Universe where Powder never became Jinx and is romantically involved with him. The palpable chemistry between the duo during this sequence and how the experience would inspire Ekko to sacrifice this one chance at happiness so he can save "his" Powder at her lowest point was lauded by numerous critics and audiences alike, spawned a whole new slew of fanart, while the original song associated with their romance, "Ma Meilleure Ennemie" by Stromae & Pomme, broke the record for most-streamed French song on Spotify upon its first day of release.
  • Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Silco and Vander's relationship is repeatedly stated to being "like brothers" and is meant to also parallel Vi and Powder/Jinx in certain ways. It doesn't stop people from seeing their interactions in a less familial light and joking that their fallout is akin to a divorce. In the alternate timeline Ekko and Heimerdinger end up in, Silco and Vander are in a much better place and their closeness can easily be seen as romantic as it can platonic.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • Along with Piltover's Finest, a lot of shippers refer to Caitlyn/Vi as "Caitvi" or less commonly "Violyn".
    • The Jayce/Viktor fan pairing is often referred to by shippers as "Jayvik".
  • Realism-Induced Horror: Lest is a trans woman who works intimately with clients in a dubiously legal business, which in real life is one of the most vulnerable demographics you can possibly be a part of in the western world. Knowing this, her reaction to Salo grabbing her arm is less surprise and discomfort and more Oh, Crap! because she knows that if he decides to extort her for sex or something else, there is nothing she can do against him since he has the power to completely ruin her life with just a word to the enforcers.
  • Refrain from Assuming: The lullaby that Powder sings at the beginning of the first episode is called “The Bridge”, not “Dear Friend Across the River”.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • Vi:
      • A more subdued example, but her 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.
      • This continued after Episode 8 of the second season, when Vi's next course of action following her release from the prison cell Jinx had put her in was to make out and have sex with Caitlyn as opposed to immediately going after Jinx again. Many fans were angry at Vi supposedly not caring about her sister, with the worst of them acting like she knew Jinx was planning to commit suicide - some even claiming Jinx told her such - and did nothing to try and stop her. Nevermind that Jinx herself had encouraged Vi to let go of her and seek happiness with Caitlyn, and all she had said regarding her intentions was that she planned to "break the cycle",* with there being nothing that indicates Vi figured out exactly what her sister meant. Similarly, people who complain about her being "selfish" here seemingly forget that Vi has spent much of her screentime selflessly protecting and putting herself through hardship for the sake of others,* with her advance on Caitlyn being one of the few exceptions to this, as well as a largely spur of the moment decision that followed from her discovering that Caitlyn had effectively let go of her hatred of Jinx and given Vi her blessing to save her sister, becoming the woman Vi fell for once again.
    • 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 – indeed, she indicates to Caitlyn in the second season that while knowing it likely wouldn't have stopped her, she had no idea the council were gathered there. Nevertheless, Jinx is often seen as nothing more than a Terrorist Without A Cause and 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).
    • Caitlyn became the recipient of such treatment over the course of the second season:
      • Many watchers - particularly those who like Jinx and/or dislike police - accused her of indiscriminately using the Grey against Zaunites, and compared her later imposition of martial law against Zaun to fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany. While Caitlyn weaponizing a source of dread for Zaunites is treated as a dark moment by the narrative - and would arguably constitute a war crime if used against civilians - she's only ever indicated to have used the Grey to clear streets and make it easier for her strike team to take out Jinx, other Zaunite rebels and the Chem-Barons' operations, and there's nothing to suggest she used it with deliberate intent to harm innocents.note  Plus, it's implied that if she hadn't gone with the strike team/Grey idea, Ambessa and the Piltover Council would've simply packed Zaun with Hextech-wielding Enforcers and caused even more trouble for innocent Zaunites. For her use of martial law, while she is unquestionably in charge of the Enforcers imposing such, she's framed as the lesser of the two evils in her partnership with Ambessa and the Noxians; she insists that no-one should be arrested without cause while talking to Ambessa, and calls her out for allowing her Dragon Rictus to cause trouble at a checkpoint in the same scene.
      • Some time after the season finale, certain fans vocally took issue with the scene of her being Inappropriately Close Comrades with one of her subordinates in the Enforcers (Maddie, to be precise.) as a coping mechanism, choosing to interpret it as Caitlyn forcing Maddie to sleep with her by pulling rank on her, and thus committing sexual assault. While such a thing would rightly be considered eyebrow-raising if it happened in real life, there's absolutely nothing that suggests a lack of consent on Maddie's part; the idea of using her various privileges to get her way is something Caitlyn abhors, and when she and Maddie are shown in bed together, the latter is indicated to be far more at ease than Caitlyn. Worth noting is the fact that Ambessa gets far less flak (if any) than Caitlyn does over the relationship, despite Maddie secretly being her spy and Ambessa being aware of the two of them sleeping together, meaning that if the relationship was nonconsensual, Ambessa bears at least as much responsibility for it as Caitlyn due to ordering Maddie to initiate it and/or not using her position as Caitlyn's confidant to try and put a stop to it.
  • 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.

    S-W 
  • Ship Mates:
    • The canon pairing Caitlyn/Vi gets along very well with Jayce/Viktor and Ekko/Jinx, due to the very strong amount Ho Yay for the former and Ship Tease in the latter's case.
    • Jayce/Mel shippers tend to get along with Sky/Viktor shippers.
  • 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 gamenote . 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. It's likely the popularity of this ship, alongside the two often being presented with wholesome interactions in other media or alternate timelines, is why the fandom overwhelmingly decided the mysterious destination of Jinx's airship in the finale is none other than Demacia, Lux's homeland.
    • On Bluesky there is quite bit of fanarts shipping Scar and Steb, two characters who never interacted and are only in the same area in the final episode, when Scar and Sevika lead the charge against Noxians that allows Steb and his Enforcers to regroup and attack Noxians from other side.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Since the conclusion of Season 2, Timebomb shippers and Lightcannon shippers have been at each other's throats regarding who is Jinx's best romantic interest between Ekko and Lux. The former affirm that Jinx and Ekko have very interesting dynamics as former childhood friends turned enemies and that the writers clearly agree with them as seen in episode 7 and 8 of Season 2. The latter have argued that after interacting mostly with an alternate version of Powder, Ekko is in love with an idealised version of Jinx rather than the real one. On the contrary, Lux is perfect as Jinx's Love Interest because the two of them have similar backstories but completely different personalities. While Timebomb shippers have pointed out that Lux and Jinx have never met in canon outside some AU works, Lightcanon shippers have also joked that Ekko and Jinx have the same amount of shared screentime of your average crack ship. There is a third group that dislike both ships, arguing that Jinx doesn't need a love interest, and that the writers should focus on her mental health rather than her love life.
  • Signature Line: Each act in Season 1 has at 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.
  • Signature Scene: There are several contenders from both seasons for the most famous moment of the show.
    • From Season 1:
      • Silco adopting Powder after Marcus kidnaps Vi, effectively cementing Powder’s path into becoming Jinx.
      • The dinner scene, where Jinx kidnaps Vi and Cait in an effort to make Vi return to her, and which ends in Jinx accidentally killing Silco.
    • From Season 2:
      • The very first scene, the music-backed montage of the funeral for Cait’s mother in which Cait, Vi, and Cait’s mom are the only ones in regular colors.
      • From the episode where Ekko finds himself in an alternate reality, the scene where he dances one last time with that universe’s Powder, who grew up and never became Jinx and Ekko’s counterpart entered a relationship with, before he returned to his own reality for good.
      • The sex scene between Vi and Cait in the jail cell, where they finally consummate and confirm their love and loyalty to each other. It also served as the ultimate climax to the copious amount of character development and Ho Yay between them since they first met in season one, and also confirms that Arcane has two complex and amazingly-written lesbian leads with zero shame.
      • The final fight between Jayce and Viktor, which ends in them giving their lives to save the world.
  • 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 Sharnnote .
  • 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 
    • 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.
  • Strangled by the Red String: A controversial case for Timebomb, aka the Jinx/Ekko ship. In the games it is established Ekko used to have a crush on her when they were kids, while in the series proper his arc is mostly focused on his tragic and neverending love for Jinx. Detractors of the ship have pointed out that the two of them rarely interact on screen, to the point Jinx often seems to barely remember Ekko exists in general. In the second season, Ekko temporarily ends up in an alternate timeline where he is together with a more sane and happier version of Powder, helping viewers further understand his feelings for the girl. However this didn't explain why or how Jinx in the canon universe suddenly went back to care about Ekko to the point of giving up on her suicidal plans thanks to him, as this was only her second meeting with the boy after the first Time Skip in the previous season.
  • Starboarding: Some believe Jinx' obsessive behaviour towards Vi and jealousy towards Caitlyn stems from far more than simple Big Sister Worship.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: Spin the Wheel, Heimerdinger's song from season 2, sounds a lot like Bob Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin'.
  • 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. Season 2 did end up featuring her slightly more, now seemingly sharing a Mind Hive with Viktor after his fusion with the Hexcore.
    • 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 and has him Put on a Bus for most of Season 2. This is fortunately mitigated somewhat when he gets a Day in the Limelight which explores his evolution into a Time Master and his relationship with Powder/Jinx, and in the end its largely due to his efforts that Viktor's Assimilation Plot is foiled.
    • Smeech the cyborg yordle Chem-Baron only has a small role in Season 2, but is well liked due to his unique fighting style with Abnormal Limb Rotation Range and snarky attitude, making many think Sevika brutally killing him was a waste.
    • Sevika, despite being set up by the first half of season 2 as a major character and turning from her previously antagonistic role to a more heroic figure and leader of the Undercity, with the show spending much time showing her and Jinx relate to each other and both developing an almost Found Family relationship to Isha, almost completely disappears from relevance after episode 4, which many fans felt was a missed opportunity. While her role as a leader culminates in her becoming a councilor, she has almost no dialogue in the third act, and her feelings about Isha and Jinx's deaths (even if Jinx is alive, Sevika would have no way of knowing) aren't brought up at all.
    • Maddie Nolen doesn't do much in any of the Season 2's three acts despite having some form of setup in each. In Act 1 she is established to have an idolization towards Vi, and a becomes a member of Caitlyn's strike team, but Maddie shares no scenes with Vi outside of her introduction, and the strike team in general only has a handful of scenes in Act 1 before being dismantled. Then Act 2 opens by revealing she and Caitlyn have become a couple, but then she only has two scenes in the episode 4 before not appearing for the rest of the Act. Finally it is revealed that Maddie is The Mole for Ambessa. However this reveal happens in the series finale, and outside of her sabotaging Piltover's bomb (that wouldn't have negatively impacted Ambessa's forces anyways), there is no reveal of what she actually did during her time as a spy. She is then killed off in the same scene the twist is revealed, without time for any explanation of her motives, or how much of her personality was real. To many, it felt like she served no purpose before being killed off for the sake of Caitvi.
    • Loris is a seasoned enforcer from Piltover with a passing resemblance to Vander (which the show is not subtle about in the slightest) who eventually ends up joining Caitlyn's strike group. One would think he'd take Vi under his wing and mentor her during her role as an enforcer, or even just act as a Parental Substitute, but besides some brief scenes during the "Pit Fighter Vi" montage, they barely interact. He disappears for the rest of the season, only showing up again during the final episode to fight Ambessa and Viktor's army, and even then he doesn't do much before getting killed in the conflict.
  • 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. Thankfully, episode 7 of season 2 mitigates this somewhat, being nearly entirely focused on Powder and Ekko's relationship, albeit in an alternate timeline.
    • For whatever reasons, Arcane heavily downplays Zaun's pollution problem described in many short stories in the game's lore. While it's largely implied to be around (in particular appearing to be the cause of Viktor's health issues), the lack of clean air and water in Zaun was a very prominent element of the worldbuilding and culture of Zaun in the original game, with the Gray (thick, poisonous smog) being a disaster taking away many Zaunite lives, so feared its name is used in Piltover as a curse word. Including this in Arcane could 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, but 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. It took until season 2 for the pollution — in particular, The Gray — to become a major plot element, albeit in a substantially different implementation.
    • Vi becoming a pit fighter in season 2 was highly anticipated as soon as preview material revealed it was happening. Many fans speculated it would be Vi's lowest point of the season and her arc for the second act; if nothing else, it would at least give her another full fight scene to showcase her boxing skills in an organized setting. Instead, almost the entirety of this time is shown in a montage that's only a few minutes long; this montage was also officially released as a preview months earlier, fully spoiling this development.
    • In season 2, the Zaun/Piltover struggle was strangely pushed to the background in favor of the Hextech storyline despite it being so important throughout season 1. While in the end, Zaun does get a seat in the council, none of the Piltovians actually get over their prejudice despite Zaunites also risking their lives during the war as well as a slew of implications that follow which is addressed in the Allegedly Optimistic Ending above.
    • Part 1 of Season 2 ends with Caitlyn giving in to her hatred of Jinx, abandoning Vi, and pulling a Face–Heel Turn. Part 2 largely skips over Cait's actions as a Fallen Hero and Ambessa's Dragon, and when Vi and Caitlyn inevitably cross paths again, Caitlyn immediately abandons her alliance with Noxus and becomes The Atoner. Even encountering Jinx again only seems to irritate Caitlyn, despite her thirst for revenge being the driving force behind her actions in Part 1.
  • 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. An even bigger surprise was the revelation in season 2 that he's also Corrin Reveck, revealing that he has a daughter who is none other than Orianna, their existence to the show being just as unexpected.
    • LeBlanc, while recognized as a Greater-Scope Villain of Runeterran lore in their own right, is rarely involved with the goings-ons of Piltover and Zaun, and even when Mel ended up seized by the Black Rose, not many expected that its leader would appear in the flesh (so to speak). In a similar vein, the last-minute presence in the final episode of a three-eyed crow — a very deliberate symbol tied to Swain and/or Raum, the demon of secrets that Swain has ensorcelled also caught many off-guard, both being major allusions towards the Outside-Context Problem that is the Enemy Civil War within Noxus.
  • Viewers in Mourning: The conclusion of the second season left many viewers in a state of profound sadness and grief, as they grappled with the heart-wrenching fates of beloved characters.
  • 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?: Hooray, an animated League of Legends series! That means it's got to be just as cartoonishly cute and silly as the original game, right? WRONG. Despite the show stemming from a rated teen IP, the series itself is rated 16+ (TV-14 in the US) for violence and some particularly brutal sequences.
  • Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Many viewers found it confusing that Vi would ever want anything to do with Cait after Act 1, given that she insituted martial law, used a chemical agent against civilians, risked murdering a child, shot at her directly, and hit her in the stomach with the butt of her rifle (in other words, used an oppressor's tactic to commit domestic violence against someone who she knows has Enforcer trauma).
  • 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. His later healing at the hands of a Hexcore-empowered Viktor is a flat-out miracle for a man who was at rock bottom... which is sadly short-lived, as Jayce murdering Viktor seemingly causes Huck and the rest of their community to die with him.
  • 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.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: Viktor and Warwick's final designs in Act 3 of Season 2 were seen as extremely weak compared to their in-game appearances. While Viktor had some people defending his eldritch and magic-heavy redesign, almost no-one was defending Warwick, who lacks his game counterpart's canine features and appears more sleek and magical rather than the feral Chemtech design that he's known for.

Alternative Title(s): Arcane League Of Legends

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