I was not prepared for Arcane when I started. I’ll admit it: I don’t play League, but some of my friends do, and man, do they love the lore. It’s an epic sci-fi adventure about family, love, duty, and of course, being queer – and liberation, which I was not expecting. I didn’t have much expectations coming into Arcane, and being a non-League of Legends player ended up being quite more enjoyable to me – although, throughout the end, I wish I knew a bit more lore.
With that being said, we’ll be tackling Arcane, its premise, and characters – and, of course, its queerness and storytelling, which makes it such a compelling watch.
About Arcane
Arcana takes place in the steampunk city of Piltover and the underground city of Zaun. The first season primarily focuses on sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfield) and Jinx (Ella Purnell), who are separated after a series of personal tragedies that set them into different courses in life.
Arcane’s Season 2 focuses more on the relationship between Vi and Caitlyn Kiramman (Katie Leung), an Enforcer who seeks to bring justice to Piltover.
When it comes to storytelling, Arcane masterfully uses animation, enforcing montages, and colorful visual art that can put live action to great shame.
The Lack of Stigma
Arcane does have such beautiful writing – and in weaving the story, one beautiful thing that Arcane does in its story is the lack of stigma in queerness. In Season 1, Vi and Caitlyn infiltrate Zaun through a pleasure house; Vi asks Caitlyn if she has a preference, and when she asks about it, it’s normal. What’s later funny to see is when Vi realizes that Caitlyn’s preference is girls when she checks on Caitlyn herself – and how relieved she looks.
The Vi of Arcane is all about survival; even if it means playing baccarat all night to protect the people she loves, she’ll do it. It’s also pretty ostentatious in her body type. Compared to the original game, the Vi design for Arcane is closer to butch and has more muscle, given her boxing expertise.
On Writing Queerness
Arcane is one of the notable series where the media doesn’t focus on how queer the character is and focuses on portraying their queer characters more like people. This is so notable with Vi and Caitlyn, who are the main characters and the main queer couple in the series.
Caitlyn and Vi
A lot of Vi’s worries in the storyline of Arcane revolves around her sister, Jinx (formerly named Powder), Vi is definitely queer – and it becomes clearer, especially as she and Caitlyn, an enforcer from Piltover, cross paths. When Vi starts calling Caitlyn “Cupcake,” it becomes more evident she’s into women – and Caitlyn, to be more specific.
The ride of Caitlyn and Vi’s journeys were wonderful to watch, especially for queer women. It’s incredibly validating. It is also doubly more wonderful because they are fully fleshed-out characters who are flawed and yet fight hard to do what they think is right.
There’s a lot of joy and agony watching Vi and Caitlyn struggle as people and as a couple.
The iconic “You’re hot, cupcake” line was almost cut out due to how Vi was characterized, but when women who love women (wlw) fall in love, many of their feelings translate into yearning and are buried in subtext.
It was very cathartic when the floodgates finally burst to King Princess’ Fantastic.
Jayce and Viktor
Although Jayce and Viktor’s relationship is not considered “canon,” it is very much queer-coded. In Season 1, they became a team to produce Hextech for a world that would make the world better, but through the years, they made mistakes, and there were wedges in their relationship. Viktor embarked on a darker journey, bringing about the cosmic ruin of the world – and much like Naruto and Sasuke from Naruto, the only one who could stop him was Jayce.
A lot of people read their bond as platonic, but come on, it’s not straight to turn into a rainbow-ethereal space ghost just to tell someone your real feelings! And also: confirmation that in every universe, you’re partners with that person!
The more queerness of it all is that Jayce and Viktor even hold hands and have foreheads touching before they take the arcane magic with them. A lot of the color choices and body language are so queer-coded.
Wrapping Up
Arcane will be one for the books. While the ending has a lot of explosive twists and turns, this will be unforgettable. For a lot of queer people, Arcane has a legacy to uphold and left behind with Caitvi and Jayvik.
