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babelrevived · 12 days ago

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"Oh, you think having a wealth gap makes a couple inherently toxic? Sounds like YOU'RE the classist!"

That's a sentiment I see Caitvi superfans use a lot. It dulls down the discussion surrounding what makes Caitvi so unhealthy by the time the show's reached its end. But that's not where the criticism inherently comes from, so I kinda wanted to make a post about it to untangle the webs of what I believe makes Caitvi's "happy" ending ring hollow from a narrative standpoint, as well as why so many in the critical tags see it to be upholding an unhealthy power dynamic rooted in classism.

Arc 1: The Buildup

(I'm not gonna harp on the whole Grey thing, because while we could argue all day about the political and ethical implications of Caitlyn weaponizing the Grey, it's ultimately not directly important to talking about the relationship between Caitlyn and Vi.)

Vi helped Caitlyn gas the factories and streets without arguing. While she was uncomfortable doing so, as we can see from the visuals we get off her throughout their hunting for Jinx in arc 1, she can't bring herself to argue. This opens by speaking on a level of discomfort Vi has with voicing issues she has with Caitlyn's behavior, and honest communication of boundaries is a core component of a healthy relationship. But, at this point in time, she believes that the ends justify the means, and believes Caitlyn's goal to kill Jinx is necessary.

Later, when they actually find Jinx, Vi realizes that she was wrong. Jinx is still Powder, just very, very broken, and that she's someone who matters. And not just to her. So she blocks Caitlyn's shot. She blocks her because Isha is far too close for it to be a safe shot. And while Caitlyn is a skilled marksman, there is a child blocking the shot now, a child that invokes memories of Powder. Though Caitlyn doesn't want to hurt Isha, there's much too high of a chance of her getting caught in the crossfire, and Isha is the agent for Jinx's potential redemption, something that Vi is able to see in that moment.

Caitlyn's response to her girlfriend not letting her take the shot is to call her blood tainted and hit her in a healing wound. When she looks back, there's not regret on her face, but resolution. Vi has failed her. So she doesn't say anything, because like Caitlyn knows, actions speak louder than words, and she walks away and leaves her crying. The way her eyebrows furrow and her eyes slightly squint, the position of her standing above Vi and looking down at her, and the gritting of her jaw all convey determination. Resolve. As far as she's concerned, she's entirely justified in what she said and did, or at the most generous, is lying to herself.

This is, quite frankly, not a healthy response to failure in any way, shape, or form. And while being angry is understandable, calling your partner's blood inherently dirty for her family ties and attacking her is absolutely unacceptable. Calling it a "one-time" thing implies that if abuse happens once, then it wasn't real abuse. But that is abusive behavior, and worse than that, it's a response that Vi believes is her fault.

Arc 2: The Damage

Arc 2 shows us how both Caitlyn and Vi have changed over the span of several months, and that both of them are unhappy in their respective positions. However, the positions in question are wildly different, and speak on how they respond to grief, pain, and perceived betrayal.

Whenever we see Caitlyn, we see her attempting to control every aspect of her position to the best of her ability. She's accepted her role to lead Zaun into an enforced martial law, and is given imagery that intentionally invokes the idea of a dictator. Those that protest her, the Jinxers, her enemies that revere her most hated foe, are given shots and an MV that calls as many parallels and references to the real-world BLM movement and the riot gear the police use. All of this calls attention to the audience that Caitlyn has become the worst kind of enforcer. And while Ambessa was whispering into her ear, she still made the conscious choice to order these things.

She listened to Ambessa because Ambessa catered to what an angry and vengeful Caitlyn wanted, which was to be justified in the situation. Caitlyn has gone from a naive fresh-faced enforcer that believed she was doing good, to a would-be dictator that can go above even the Council that takes a young cadet to bed in an effort to fill the void. And while this might not be the direction a lot of people wanted to see from her character, it makes sense. Caitlyn's greatest struggle growing up was being babied due to her status. She felt as though no one would ever take her seriously and was pushed by the need to prove herself and enact a change. It's a tale as old as time, characteristic of a young, wealthy, fresh-faced adult who initially goes in with dreams to make positive change, only for any tragedy to befall them. She leans heavy and hard on the ideals, the status, and the resources she gets from said background and uses them in her attempt to feel in control of her life. It's complex, human, but devastating to anyone who stands in her path to control.

Vi has done the opposite. Due to her extensive trauma from growing up in a dangerous neighborhood and 7 years falsely imprisoned and abused by her jailers, Vi processes her negative feelings through action, and in an effort to stay afloat in Zaun, becomes an underground pit fighter. While we only get an MV of this time, we can see just how much worse her mental health has become, with her pushing herself to her physical limits constantly, living in a dingy apartment, and diving headfirst into an alcoholic lifestyle. When Jinx does show up, despite having saved her at the end of arc 1, she's decidedly unhappy seeing her, because Caitlyn's outburst has made her feel like she was the one in the wrong that day. But she wasn't.

The TLDR here is that when Caitlyn feels betrayed, she lashes out physically and tries to take total control. When she's wronged, she hurts others. But when Vi feels betrayed and hurt, she takes it out on herself, destroying herself from guilt and pushing people away. When she's wronged, she hurts herself. The ways they both lash out are a recipe for what can quickly become a very, very toxic relationship, because regardless of who's right or wrong when the couple argues, or if a tragedy strikes the both of them, it is the same character who'll consistently receive the consequences.

That doesn't make them inherently unable to have a healthy relationship. But in order for it to be healthy and stable, both characters have to be willing to put active work into the relationship and themselves to get there. We've already seen once that they aren't able to do that when push comes to shove, but that was in the immediate aftermath of a great tragedy.

When they meet again at the end of arc 2, they form a shaky re-alliance to try and stop Ambessa. But the underlying context of why this happens isn't fantastic, at least not for Caitlyn. Vi is still angry, but she's also someone who's willing to forgive. She's dealt with loss since childhood- her parents, her brothers, her adoptive father and sister, and then Caitlyn. She's just gotten her father and sister back, and did so because she accepted that their being changed didn't mean they were different people. She's extending that same possibility to Caitlyn.

Caitlyn, on the other hand, has become increasingly more frustrated because she's realized that she was manipulated by Ambessa- IE, she wasn't in control. Even after her pain, and her abandonment of Vi, she was still manipulated. Now Vi was next to her again, and Caitlyn does still want her. She likes Vi's fire, her sexiness, her toughness, and her loyalty. Even when burned, Vi is always open to giving another chance. She did so with Jinx. She will do so with her. And that means Caitlyn can't lose her.

Arc 3: Happy Couple =/= Healthy Couple

When Vi and Caitlyn are together again in Piltover, Vi argues to free Jinx. Caitlyn won't do it, and when Vi won't listen to why she believes that's a bad idea, she lashes out both verbally and physically. Again. She throws the boat in her hand out towards Vi. It's a kneejerk reaction, yes, and it doesn't do any physical damage. But the fact of the matter is that when she was angry, Caitlyn's instinct was to lash out at Vi, because Vi was calling her out for half a year of being complicit in systemic violence. This immediately makes it clear that what Caitlyn did to Vi with her rifle in Act 1 cannot be referred to as a "one-time thing", that she was too full of grief for her mother to think clearly, that she was never violent again. She was. This, too, is violence.

This may not be common knowledge, but abusing the environment around you is a known warning sign of abusers. Slamming doors when angry, breaking things, throwing things, so on and so forth, are all signs of a lack of ability to regulate your emotions, and emerge by taking it out on the environment around you. Caitlyn has now exhibited this behavior as a pattern, and has directed said behavior at the person she loves twice. This is wrong, this is a pattern, and perhaps most importantly, this is not called out as such.

Caitlyn and Vi both feel as though they're drifting. We know that Vi just wants stability from the people she loves, and wants those people to stay what she believes them to be. She's extended forgiveness to Jinx out of faith. She's now done so for Caitlyn, but Caitlyn is pushing her away again. Caitlyn, meanwhile, wants control. She needs to have people in her life that trust her to do what she believes is right, regardless of whether or not she actually is. So she confronts Jinx, the person most important to Vi, the person that's consistently at the crux of their arguments. And she tries to convince herself that they are equals. She committed crimes for power, but so did Jinx, so that gives her some justification. But she's wrong, as she learns, because Jinx doesn't try to justify herself. She owns her wrongs, and doesn't want forgiveness for them. At every step of her and Vi's reconciliation, Jinx was acting for Vi's sake. Caitlyn is not. And now Jinx believes that acting in Vi's sake is to go away.

The sex scene is the culmination of Caitvi's relationship, and is extremely effective at demonstrating exactly how Caitlyn is the one in control and how Vi has been broken. And astoundingly, it seems to do so by complete accident. When Vi is trying to let out her feelings and be vulnerable, expressing how her worst fears for Jinx running and leaving her again have come to pass, Caitlyn flirts.

"Did you really think I needed all the guards at the hexgates? Sorry to say; you've grown a bit predictable."

Caitlyn doesn't try to empathize, or listen, or actually be any kind of emotional support for Vi. Her voice drops lower, she leans in a bit, and she almost brags about being the reason why Vi was able to free Jinx in the first place. 'Wow, look at me, I used my position at the top of the enforcers to move the guards for you. Isn't that sexy? Your freeing Jinx was because I let you.' But for Vi, someone desperate and abandoned and alone, it just reads as- 'I helped you. That means you're not alone.'

Then they fuck in the cell Caitlyn has command over, in the building Vi was forcefully held in for seven years. And worse, it's Vi who's pleasuring Caitlyn throughout. Vi, a former prisoner, pleasures the jailer inside the cell she commands. Supposedly, this is meant to be framed as Vi 'reclaiming her trauma', and I don't doubt that that was the intention, judging by the choice of music and Caitvi's final scene, but that isn't how it appears, even if Caitlyn herself wasn't the one jailing Vi specifically.

Now, there is nuance to be had here. While decidedly not a good partner, Caitlyn does still have genuine love for Vi. She makes a point to interrupt and tell her about Maddie first, and even shows visible regret at having attacked Vi with the gun in the past. These were both things she did to push Vi away and try to force her out of her life, and while they were both choices she made, they're choices that, months later, she's come to regret.

And that's realistic, because abusing someone doesn't mean you don't love them. Abusers are entirely capable of feeling love for their victims, and can sometimes even delude themselves into believing that their abuse is what's best for said victims, so that they'll stay together. That's something that's easy to forget, but it's true. Abusers aren't one dimensional, but that doesn't absolve them of their actions.

After all is said and done, we see Caitlyn examining the ventilation system once more, and finding the route by which Jinx could have lived. She smiles to herself, and then she keeps it to herself. Vi, who was absolutely devastated at the supposed sacrifice of her sister and father again in one fell swoop, who's already lost so many people, who never stops fighting for the people she loves if there's a chance they're out there, is kept in the dark. Caitlyn knows her girlfriend. If Vi catches wind of Jinx even just potentially being alive, she will go after her. Because her sister will always come first. Caitlyn knows that. And she doesn't say anything.

You can argue that this is Caitlyn respecting Jinx's wish to disappear. You can argue that this is Caitlyn giving up on revenge, and, well, it is. But it's more than just that. This is her allowing Jinx to kill herself. This is her allowing Vi's only other connection to fade into obscurity. And this is Caitlyn keeping Vi to herself. When she asks Vi what song she's humming, Vi shrugs it off as unimportant, even though that song is the one Powder sang when they searched for their parents all that time ago. She's singing her sister away to their family, and doesn't give this context to Caitlyn because it'll mean nothing to her. Even now, Vi's accepted that Jinx and Caitlyn would never be able to both be in her life. But she doesn't have to choose if Jinx is dead. If Caitlyn was solely letting it go to let go of revenge, she could have left the map for Vi to see on her own, let her go to find her sister the way she let her free Jinx.

This is the power dynamic. This is where the classism seeps in. Caitlyn has resources and power and control. Caitlyn can control the flow of information. Caitlyn has the power. Vi, meanwhile, has nothing but Caitlyn. She has no connections(her relationship with Ekko is straight up ignored in season 2), no family, no resources of her own. Even when she was on her own, trying to start fresh with literally nothing due to her prison time, she had to resort to underground fighting rings to scrape by. She's in a position of financial need, but Vi is happy anyways, because all that control relinquished to Caitlyn means Vi is stable. She has someone that'll come back to her the same way she comes back to them, and that's what she wanted, for someone to fight as much as she did. Never mind how ugly it gets when the going gets tough. Never mind that part of her torso is still wrapped. She's not alone, and so she's happy. They both are. But they are not healthy, and this conclusion being treated as the light at the end of the tunnel is horrific to anyone who's been in VI's position before.

Conclusion

So, no, your average Caitvi anti saying there's a power dynamic aren't wrong, nor are they making shit up just because they don't like Caitlyn. Not everyone may have the time or energy or words to articulate exactly why, but that doesn't mean it isn't there outright. That said, I can't really blame your average Caitvi enjoyer for being upset at this kind of accusation, and that's mainly because though the show portrays abuse, it takes the stance that if the love is there, it doesn't really matter in the long-term. The divide lies between those who take the show for what it's trying to say, and the people who see the show's biases and call them out.

The choice of music and focus on Caitlyn's perspective across the season as opposed to Vi being shoehorned into montages over and over makes it exceedingly clear that despite all of her crimes and actions, they want Caitlyn to appear sympathetic to the audience, and they want the audience to root for her to get Vi back while not caring about Vi's own stagnation. The show has the two of them happy at the end as part of their grand conclusion intentionally; you're supposed to like that they're together. The show wants you to think that it's a good thing, and a large chunk of the Arcane fandom prefers to take Arcane for what it was trying to be, instead of what it ended up being. And until people can stop harassing each other over what is at the end of the day a sloppily written work of fiction, there'll never really be a constructive conversation about it.

I actually quite like Caitlyn in that I think her fall from grace and corruption arc is really interesting, and I'm never opposed to toxic yuri in an intentional "bad ending." But Arcane and the creators have made it so clear over and over again that that's not what Caitvi was meant to be, so I can't not criticize it, especially not when there are some Caitvi diehards making a point to harass and attack anyone that says otherwise, making fucked up art mocking the George Floyd protests, bullying Ekko's VA out of the fandom, sending anonymous death threats to critical tag users, etc. Obviously I'm aware it's a vocal minority, but it's still happening.

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