The Arcane fandom hurts my soul. Firstly, they completely misunderstand the context of class divides in arcane and glorify every single Zaunite regardless of their actions and hate every rich person which pisses me off.
Jinx is the biggest example of this, she is NOT a revolutionary or an advocate against Piltover she is the furthest thing from it.
Silco too.
Silco exploited the position Zaun was put in by Piltover, Shimmer is the only medicine we're aware is available in Zaun. He produced Shimmer factories and literally forced children to work under him,in those factories and exploited the poor to work for him and get their families involved for shimmer or safety in hopes he'd free Zaun. And who was right there behind him, producing weapons for him without question? jinx.
Jinx didn't blow up the council as an act of revolution, she did it out of her own anger. She didn't steal the hex gem out of revolution or kill enforcers. Is it because they abused her under classist rule? Yes. But is it for a cause? No. Personal hatred.
She blew up the council which cause Piltover to become more aggressive to Zaun and cause problems for Zaunites as they saw her as their savior Silco was meant to be and they wanted her to help them SO bad yet she NEVER showed once. She stayed in her lair and didn't show up for own people. That's the whole point, she was turned into a symbol she wasn't and didn't want to be. And also she didn't break out Zaunites from stillwater cause she wanted to, it was for Isha and they happened to be freed coincidentally. Honestly the whole plotline felt rushed and dumb to me.
Yet people swear Jinx is this amazing revolutionist symbol for Zaun when she didn't show up for her people and exploited them for years, or at least aided Silco in his exploitation, and was a terrorist.
But let's take a look at Piltover. Mel, Jayce and Caitlyn.
I think Mels spot on the council doesn't get discussed nearly as much as it should. I adore Mel but she stood for prosperity for Piltover, not Zaun, who are her people. She neglected them for years despite her being a valuable councillor who is incredibly intelligent and manipulative and persuasive. But she negelected their issues and she was not held responsible for that in the fandom or in the show which annoys me. I love her but she never saw what her neglect caused.
Jayce and Caitlyn hate is rooted in lies ngl. A moment in arcane that annoyed me was when Vi told Jayce he never had to look Zaunites suffering in the eye. But what needs to be understood is that Jayce was a SCIENTIST, not a politician. He had no authority on how Hextech would be used and his opinion on its use was a mere suggestion to the council. And the moment he became a councillor he started killing himself trying to ease relations with Piltover and Zaun, and negotiated a peace with Silco, something that none of the councillors, including Mel and Cassandra, did. He made ONE classist comment to Vitkor and immediately apologised, and everything else was him genuinely caring. He took down a shimmer factory that was used to exploit Zaunites and the MOMENT he harmed a child he pulled back.
Now, Caitlyn. Personally, I believe there are valid reasons to hate her, but people love lying about her. Cait had been a sheltered, privileged rich girl and in S1 we see she has incredible compassion and empathy for Zaunites when she sees their suffering first hand. I believe her anger was completely justified. Jinx hated Caitlyn because of her own delusions which of course, aren't her fault since her mental illness was fed into by Silco but nonetheless it was all in her head. Cait was kidnapped by Jinx, we have NO clue what Jinx did to her while she was captured, and then she watched helplessly as a bomb gets launched at her mother. That's horrifying. And to her, it happened because she held back on Jinx.
So, lets see why most people hate Caitlyn.
1. She's classist and called Zaunites animals
2. She gassed Zaun
These aren't entirely true. Caitlyn did release the grey but it was only in specific areas where Silco's goons would reside or more specifically, Jinx. While it was definitely extreme and horrible she did not gas all of Zaun and did not harm citizens. She was actively against that when speaking with Ambessa.
She did not call all Zaunites animals. She called Silco's henchmen animals for trashing a memorial.
"What kind of animals" as in "What kind of animals would attack a funeral?" Which, in my opinion, is understandable. She was NOT calling Zaunites animals. And also her attacks weren't rooted in classism or classist ideals, she doesn't hate Zaun or Zaunites, it was Jinx she despised. And are we forgetting that Jinx hung a guy over the gas and Caitlyn helped him off of it???
However I do think it is fair to be angry that after S1 she didn't try to help Zaun at all as she was hunting Jinx so angerily even though she witnessed the suffering first hand.
Of course none of this is blaming Jinx or Mel and completely excusing Jayce and Caitlyn. They all have understandable reasons for their faults, grief, ignorance, manipulation, trauma, mental illness, but I'm saying the arcane fandom can't see past that.
Comments
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MIKAHELL
jinx is to zaun what luigi mangione is for us :{
4times4u
The amount of mischaraztion in the arcane fandom is crazyyy.i know you didn't like bring this up but it reminds of something I saw someone saw online that like 100% agree with, that making most of its oppressed white and most of the "oppressors" poc was setting the fandom up for more racism at some point. But back to mischaraztion I deff think there something.. Iffy about why and who they choose to most mischarize. Lowkey miss the 2021 fandom even though it was still iffy like most fandoms it was never like this bad with most of the stuff
I deadass saw someone say that Jinx isn't white and that's shes a Zaunite... Baby I'm gonna hold your hand when I say this.
by Cassidy; ; Report
Robyn
you've made so many points i agree with in this textpost, i especially love what you said about jinx! if fans want a revolutionary symbol for zaun they should turn to vander. he fought for zaun's independence in a less exploitative way than silco and was obviously loved by the zaunites (see the statue...)
and thank you for defending jayce i actually can't bear to see hatemail for him... he's my everything :,) his intentions are always so kindhearted and the poor guy was put into a spot he has no experience with, just to be used as a puppet... bah you get it
your point about caitlyn though... i do agree that in S1 she is defendable but her character development in S2 makes her irredeemable in my eyes... she DID gas zaun and i don't think your justification necessarily holds. on top of that she was complicit in ambessa's actions. in S2, she was a grown woman, she could have backed out- but she caved in to pressure. i think that you can really see her character become more and more classist overtime through her relationship with vi. one comment that stays in my mind is how she said that vi has jinx's blood still in her, which she say imply she's inferior... it could be interpreted as saying their family is bad but as caitlyn never made many comments about family but MANY about zaun, i interpret it as her saying that 'zaunite blood' is inferior. i'd love to hear what you think about her development in S2 though.
I'm not necessarily defending Caitlyn or calling her completely innocent but I do believe her mindset needs to be understood.
Firstly, Caitlyn was raised as sheltered and believing Zaun was Violent and dangerous. In s1 her arc is realising that they aren't like that and that they're suffering. And we see that Caitlyn has immense empathy for the Zaunites as she embraces Huck without hesitation and yelled st her Mother "A kingpin who exploits them, and a government that doesn't give a shit!"
She has her view of them destigmatised first hand.
Of course this changes in S2, because of Jinx.
I don't agree that she was complicit in Ambessas actions as there's a scene where Ambessa tells Cait to be more violent and Caitlyn says "Why is revenge always the justification for violence?", diagreeing with Ambessas manner.
(Correct me if my quoting is incorrect, I haven't seen arcane in a while!)
Also, the council wanted to take intensely violent action against Zaun for the bombing and Caitlyn managed to narrow it down to a controlled strike team led by her to reduce the citizen casualties, showing that while Caitlyn is blinded by anger to Jinx, parts of her kindness remain. She knew action was going to be taken against Zaun so she minimised it.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I don't agree with her gassing parts of Zaun at ALL, I understand she tried to keep the damage minimal but it is GAS and can easily spread so she was definitely wrong there even if she was trying to do it in a justly manner and there's no defending that.
But I do believe her intentions and mindset make it the very least, an explanation. Not an excuse, not at ALL, but we can see where her head was at.
And Jinx also misused the gas as did Silco, so Caitlyn isn't the only character to do this so I feel like the way she's flamed by the fandom for this, while justified, needs to be distributed fairly among the characters.
I think her arc in s2 is quite interesting. The way she lost her mother was brutal and painful, being helpless as she watched the bomb rocket to her. Grief really changes a person and I find it so interesting to see this empathetic girl become filled with rage and numbness to the point of hurting her own partner and becoming part of the problem she was so disgusted against.
On the comment of Vi sharing Jinx's blood, I do not think it was meant to be in a classist manner, but in a more or less "You're her sister, how can I trust that you will stand by me in trying to kill her?" But if you think it's in a classist manner I'd love to hear why you think so!
Overall I like Caitlyns character as she tries so hard to do good but ultimately her anger takes over her, making her doing things she used to never dream of, liking opening fire on Jinx while she has a CHILD on her. (Never forgiving her for that.) And I think that's such an interesting character beat! As well as seeing a woman who is normally kind and open minded letting her internalised classism she was raised with peak through, it's quite interesting how one moment she's sweet to a Zaunite and the next she's calling them an animal.
But I feel like in the end her actions were more rooted toward hatred for Jinx with classist undertones from her upbringing, if that makes sense?
by Cassidy; ; Report