WhenArcanecame to Netflix last year, it took audiences by storm, with its incredible animation style and fantastic character development it managed to appeal even to those withlittle knowledge of theLeague of Legendsvideo gameon which it is based.
The worldFortiche and Riot Gamesbrought to life was incredibly detailed and rich with socio-political problems, a perfect divide between the two parallels of Piltover and Zaun, one affluent governing body and the other a dark and polluted under city of slums, drug abuse, and a constant scrambling for power. While binary opposites in many ways there are some beautiful parallels between the two states, similarities that show how they are not so different after all.
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What makesArcaneinteresting is its manipulation of the common narrative trope of the Hero Villain Triangle, an idea that in a story there are three main cornerstones: the good, the evil, and the other. The good is often the hero of the story, the protagonist audiences follow closely and root for the entire time, where the evil is not necessarily the main antagonist, rather the bad character who the good character fears they might become.
These ‘evil’ characters are often understandable figures who audiences can empathize with, or at least see how they got themselves into the mess they have found themselves in, and there is often a glimmer of hope for their story arc. The other however is often cast as the main villain, the being that the good character is unable to relate to, sharing no recognizable parallels and being a figure of pure otherness, and thus someone to fear.
The best examples of these three are Harry Potter being the good,Malfoy being the Evil, and Voldemort being the other, or perhaps more famously Gandalf being the good, Saruman being the evil (so similar to Gandalf in many ways) and Sauron being the other.Arcanehowever gets rid of this triad, but keeps the turbulent relationship between the good and evil and makes it more complicated by introducing the idea that these positions are not fixed, but rather on a sliding scale to the point they are often flipped, empathy and understanding being given to the ‘Evil’ Zaun characters, and disdain and distrust of the ‘good’ guys in Piltover. The lines are often blurred, but the relationship between the two parallels stay true to the triad.
The most obvious of these is perhaps the parallels of Jayce and Jinx, both scientific protégé, for their respective city. Jayce is suggested to be the good, the hero of Piltover who uses science to greater the development of his city and improve the lives of those around him, and Jinx the bad, often carrying outthe nefarious deeds of main villain Silco, murdering and hurting many people.
While it’s not fair to say she is ‘evil’, her character being incredibly complex, she does do bad things, and as the series continues it shows how Jayce himself is capable of doing evil (accidentally killing the Zaun child) all in the pursuit of the greater good. He sees this, realizing how easy it would be for him to cross the line between the two, and decides to stop, afraid of where this road might lead him, seeing a lot of Jinx in his own actions and fearing the evil within himself.
There are also the parallels between veteran scientists Heimerdinger and Singed, both older figures with incredible scientific skill and knowledge. Heimerdinger is shown to be the good figure, and Singed the evil with his creation of shimmer, but unlike Jayce, Heimerdinger is at a different point in his self-discovery. He has already come to realize the evil he could be capable of, fearing the use of magic and trying to shut down Jayce’s research, because he understands too well how easy it is for him to succumb, and become exactly like Singed who repeatedly does evil things all in the pursuit of what he believes to be good.
The next clearest parallel is that of the misfit characters ofthe newly popular Viand Caitlyn, both outsiders to the society they come from, and finding comfort somewhere in the middle. They are a great example of howArcanemesses with the formulae, neither of them being evil characters despite them coming from opposite worlds of Piltover and Zaun. They come together and find a happy medium, Caitlyn never fully being accepted by the family and fighting a losing battle against the corrupt law enforcement in Piltover, and Vi being ostracized by the now Silo run Zaun, hunted by her own people.
While normally characters fear becoming more like their opposite, here the two embrace it despite everything inside them telling them they are succumbing to the evil parallel,Vi basically becoming an Enforcer(the people who have suppressed her people and murdered her parents), and Caitlyn joining forces with a criminal and fighting for the rights of those she has been taught her entire life to suppress.
Rather than looking at each other and fearing the ‘evil’ they see, they chose to embrace it and become better. Their relationship also represents the parallels between the law enforcer roles of Piltover and Zaun. Vander and Grayson play these parts during the first act, keeping order in their respective places and respecting one another. They have an agreement together, neither of them being evil, rather two good people on opposite sides, and they recognizable this.
WhatArcanehas managed to do is create two vastly different worlds, that seem to run as opposites of one another, even with their own distinctive alternative versions of the same character, but at the same time blur the lines between good and evil to the point where audiences are totally emphatic to both. What they present as a fairly typical vision of the hero-villain trope, is actually a muchmore exciting and new‘other-other’ variation, both sides fearing the other because they are different, but both being good and evil in their own distinctive ways.
