Arcane Needs More Than Two Seasons To Tell Its Story

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Arcane’s second season is a little rushed. As the first act released this past weekend, this is a sentiment I’ve heard from across the community. Well, when they aren’t thirsting over the Vi and Caitlyn kiss scene or wishing Jayce and Viktor weren’t hurtling toward the most tragic yaoi arc we’ve seen in decades. Aside from its rushed narrative, this season is incredible.

But its storytelling shortcomings are hard to ignore, especially when massive decisions by pivotal characters are made at the drop of a hat with so much of the development unfurling either off-screen or left up to interpretation. On the one hand, I love how Arcane is able to put so much depth and sophistication into its character writing that levity is frequently one of the show’s greatest strengths, but on the other, it makes me wish we could spend way more time in their shoes.

Recent reports claimed that Arcane was originally planned to have five seasons, but this was scaled back during development. However, showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee quashed this rumour in a recent interview, telling Techradar that this was never the plan. The five-season rumour began, they said, after Riot showed immense interest and support in Arcane and wanted to give Fortiche and the creative team as much time as possible to tell its story.

But animation has an incredibly long development pipeline, with work on Arcane beginning over eight years ago to this day. That much time for nine episodes of television and telling what is ultimately an isolated story in the League of Legends universe. Stretching this out another three seasons would have seen Fortiche working on Arcane for decades.

It isn’t fair to lock hundreds of creatives into a single project simply to satiate our need for a more substantial narrative, but that doesn’t take away the disappointment that comes from seeing characters make decisions that, without appropriate development, feel bizarre. In the first act alone, there are a handful of these I want to explore.

If a hot girl asked me to become a cop with the promise of hugs and kisses, I would have a hard time saying no. Unfortunately for Vi, she jumped headfirst into that proposition in mere minutes. One thing that progressive fans of the Arcane were worried about after seeing both footage from the new season and where Vi ends up in the wider lore is that she would grow to become an Enforcer with no thematic weight or nuance being factored into the decision.

In a way, this is sort of what happened. Vi initially puts up a brave front and says that if it was not for the Enforcers, her parents might still be alive, but after a brief conversation with Caitlyn, it turns out she is willing to throw those ethics aside. When you break it down, the reasoning behind Vi’s decision is quietly heartbreaking. She has spent her entire teenage and adult life forced to watch the people she loves either die or leave her behind, and right now Caitlyn is one of the only constants in her life offering care and stability.

As co-director Pascal told me: “Without Caitlyn, nobody is there to bring Vi down or give her love, and she needs love.”

Vi is throwing her integrity aside because it’s the only guarantee she has right now that she won’t grow up to be depressed and alone, even if Caitlyn remains on a warpath to fight Jinx and bring Zaun to its knees. Vi becomes an Enforcer as a means to tackle grief and prevent her own loneliness, even if it’s being done for all the wrong reasons. Unfortunately for the viewers of Arcane, I don’t think this arc is appropriately fleshed out enough to have the right impact. At least not for those who aren’t obsessed with theories and fanfics like I am.

When the second season begins, Jinx has retreated to the shadows as Piltover and Zaun are attempting to rebuild. After the death of Silco, we have seen a power vacuum emerge in Zaun which criminal syndicates are trying to fill. This place was once united under a leader, and now everyone is battling for scraps without any sense of societal vision. Sevika believes that Jinx could bring power to the people, a blue beacon of light capable of being not only an object of chaos, but a cause for organisation and rebellion against Piltover as it prepares to destroy them.

The latter acts are bound to expand on the coming revolution, but as the season starts, we are already seeing Jinx graffiti littering the city, while entire gangs are dying their hair blue or taking after the young woman’s aesthetic and mannerisms. Isha is a child, and even she has no qualms about being taken under Jinx’s wing as a surrogate little sister. There is a deeper tale about the role Jinx plays in society here that isn’t being told because, sadly, there isn’t enough time, and the viewer is left to fill in the gaps themselves. I admire this approach to building a world and giving its characters tangible stakes, but it feels like something is missing.

I’d watch Arcane for the next several decades of my life without question, but I also know it’s important to recognise the importance of stories that are ultimately fleeting. Sometimes I love it when a story refuses to give me all the answers, or it’s abundantly clear that characters are flawed and don’t owe me an explanation for their actions. The world wouldn’t be so head over heels for Arcane if it didn't do something right, and it’s fascinating to see the first act of the second season be received with more critical acclaim and narrative dissection.

Arcane definitely needed more than two seasons to tell its story to the fullest, but I will never begrudge what we’ve been given so far, and how it takes the League of Legends universe to places I never could have imagined.

Set in the League of Legends universe, Arcane focuses on sisters Violet and Powder (later Jinx) as they end up on opposite sides of a growing conflict between the wealthy utopia of Piltover and its dark undercity whose citizens wish to break away from their oppressors. Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, and Kevin Alejandro star in this animated adventure.

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