galapagas

[galapagas]

I 99% agree with you. The only thing I'd nuance is that I think the animators actually did their best to enhance and add credibility to an awfully written story, and s2 would be even worse if they were not so talented. From what I've gathered, and my personal experience, I would not blame the art direction but rather the writers who left them nothing worthwhile to work with. Add that to the interviews, and it's clear that the questionable artistic choices would not have been made if the writers had actually done their job (and not left the animation team to propose ideas).

But yes, other than that I agree with you. And if s2 was not as beautiful as it is, people would see how terrible the story is.

Also, I cannot exactly put my finger on why, but in s2 the universe feels empty. This time I'm not talking about the characters (although s2 characters are cardboards without personalities), I'm talking about the general feeling of the show. The environment, the worldbuilding. In s1, Piltover and Zaun feel like real places, filled with actual people living in it. They mean something. In s2, they do not, and I'm still not sure why.

[galapagas]

Also, I cannot exactly put my finger on why, but in s2 the universe feels empty. This time I'm not talking about the characters (although s2 characters are cardboards without personalities), I'm talking about the general feeling of the show. The environment, the worldbuilding. In s1, Piltover and Zaun feel like real places, filled with actual people living in it. They mean something. In s2, they do not, and I'm still not sure why.

[galapagas]

This is a relatively minor complaint (compared to the rest of s2), but...

Remember that scene in ep 3 in which Jayce, Ekko and Heimerdinger visit the Hextech undergound, and Ekko points out that if the Hextech failsafe blows up, water-pipes and ventilation for Zaun will be busted ?

I'm pretty sure S1 Jayce would have thought this through, and would not have been this negligent. And I'm 100% sure that Viktor would have NEVER agreed with this location if their invention could pose a risk for Zaun. No, seriously : can you imagine Viktor validating a project in which the failsafe malfunctionning would poison Zaun's water and air ?

It is weird that, in a rare scene in which the Piltover power imbalance is acknowledged by Ekko/s2, they have to invent this artificial problem, instead of using the actual s1 elements.

[galapagas]

I'm starting to see a rise in "shows that are good not because of but in spite of the showrunner, and it shows in later seasons when the showrunner gets free reins", and I'm not liking it...

[galapagas]

Oh, thank you very much for this info.

(Damn, some people in that post's notes are a bit too hellbent on defending s2's writing...)

At this point I would pay actual money to get the s1 team together to write s2 the way it was supposed to be. Obviously we're never getting the real s2 animated, but I desperately need to know how the true story goes when it is written by talented people. Just write a book. Please.

EDIT : also : do we have the opinion of anyone from the s1 team, regarding the s2 debacle ? Have they said anything about their departure ? The low quality of s2 ?

[galapagas]

At this point I would pay actual money to get the s1 team together to write s2 the way it was supposed to be. Obviously we're never getting the real s2 animated, but I desperately need to know how the true story goes when it is written by talented people. Just write a book. Please.

EDIT : also : do we have the opinion of anyone from the s1 team, regarding the s2 debacle ? Have they said anything about their departure ? The low quality of s2 ?

[galapagas]

read Amanda's new interview. It's insane and it explains the thrash going on in season two. They listened to the “animators' vision” and then wrote the script to fit the scenes they already had. So they literally shifted responsibility for the script to people who generally can't write. It's just not their profession. No wonder s2 has no dialog at all or it's completely dumb. Of course the animators thought "well we can convey that emotion through Caitlyn's 0.5 sec micro gaze".

You shouldn't have been thinking “what the animators wanted to see” at all, YOU SHOULD have been thinking about how to continue the plot of the FIRST SEASON. Jesus Christ, don't they have any brains?

You can 100% say that Arcane s2 didn't get any writing awards because there was no writing.

[galapagas]

S2 had none of the S1 emotionally devastating moments.

Jinx activating the flare Vi gave her ? Vi, chased by Silco, desperately running towards her while "Guns for hire" plays ?

Viktor running for the first time, letting go of his cane, yelling as he finally gets past "the boat" ? Only to fall seconds later ?

Jayce, Mel and Viktor smiling at each other during the "yes" vote, full of hope, juxtaposed with the rocket coming towards them, Vi crying in despair while "What could have been" plays ?

All of these are moments that I will never forget. S2, for all it tries to be dark and flashy, had none of that.

[galapagas]

Ooh, this sheds light on so many things ! Thank you for this post OP, I was frustrated to not have a proper answer as to why people allowed s2 to be this awful. (I personally think that, on top of that, the good s1 writers saw that corporate decisions were going to sink Arcane, and decided to leave once they realized their efforts to write a proper scenario would fail.)

I am extremely surprised, though, to learn that AO was the one who brought the good writers to the s1 team, considering some of the egregious comments she made, and that every new interview by her is a nightmare for anyone who cares about good writing. (if that's not too much of a bother, could you maybe give a source for this info ?)

Which makes me wonder... How awful was CL's first script, if even a terrible writer such as AO could see that it was bad ? How can this man be the showrunner ?

This is less of a Deep Cut and more of a case of schadenfreude, but I love when various members of a creative team are messy in public about their high budget group project. Reality TV for nerds. It speaks to a profound lack of media training or fucks given. You guys realize that future employers can Google you, right? Unintentionally hilarious.

Linke and Yee were told in no uncertain terms that their season 1 storyboard was shit, so they hired Overton, who hired half a dozen actual writers, and they did basically a full overhaul. The script was objectively much better. But this was Linke's baby, and several years later you still see signs that he is Big Mad that he didn't get his way, and that he doesn't know or care about what actually became season 1 canon. I'm sorry that your Jewish stereotype villain didn't get to be a pedophile, I guess? Idk. Yes, yes, I am sure your version of Svengali is really innovative. Maybe someday, buddy.

Meanwhile they start writing season 2 in early 2020, while the season 1 air date isn't until November of 2021. So, they don't have public feedback on the script yet, just, yanno, actual writing professionals. Anyway, according to Overton, they needed to fire the non-management part of the writing team because of the pandemic?! Lmao babygirl you do your best and I respect commitment to the official PR excuse but nobody sensible believes this. Netflix writers average 110k/year, and you needed six or so from season 1. That is not a big part of the overall budget. Also, y'all could have saved money with Zoom meetings.

So the very thing that saved the season 1 script got line-itemed "because of the pandemic". That sounds like an extremely convenient excuse for Linke to be like, no, fuck you all, we are going back to Plan A, the rough draft of season 2 based on his shitty version of season 1. Honey. That ship has sailed. You already lost this argument.

So presumably some combination of Linke/Yee/Riot/Netflix was like, it's important that we have at least one actual grown adult writer on staff. So Overton gets to keep her job.

Now, I want to preface this by saying that season 2 would have been even worse without Overton. That being said, there is a reason they needed a deeper bench of writing staff. Overton and Linke over-connect with the characters Caitlyn and Jayce respectively, to a degree that they frequently forgot to evaluate how other characters would likely behave in certain situations. It led to contrivances, plot holes, etc. There is a lot I could add here but tbh go read any of the meta already out there.

In addition to the Mary Sue type behavior, Overton thought it would be Neat to make the writing more like Avengers, like multiverse time travel fuckery is a shiny beach pebble and not narrative napalm. What in the ADHD was she thinking? Even if they had the run time to world build enough for this, there was nothing in season 1 to even suggest this as an option. And let's be fucking honest, multiverse a lot of why Marvel is on a downward spiral. If Viktor can go to Build-A-Bear Workshop and 3-D print a million Jayces, why should I give a shit about his kill count? He can just be kind, rewind, and try again. Actions are decoupled from consequences.

Anyway, moving back to the topic at hand of the Arcane team. Apparently, Overton, Linke and Yee only half-wrote season 2?! Linke said something about how they "extensively collaborated with Fortiche on the story"? Which, it's not inherently a bad idea to get creative feedback from your art team, but ummm, maybe the writers and Fortiche should have worked to a point of agreement on basic story beats. Based on a lot of what Fortiche has said, the art for season 2 passive aggressively advances what they wanted the writing to be against Linke's wishes. They literally have just been straight up disagreeing with Linke and getting paid for it. Which, to be fair, I respect the sheer pettiness! Linke can't write his own damn show but wants to slow down the very expensive art team? When the actual writers that got fired "because of the pandemic" would have caught a lot of the season 2 issues?

So post airing of season 2, Overton is all about that girlboss copaganda, Linke is having multiple public meltdowns and getting fired by Riot(?), and multiple voice actors and artists at Fortiche are being like "yeah, we actually wanted something else so there are now multiple competing narratives for season 2". Which is hilarious. The way in which the show is messy is the same way in which the creators are messy. These bitches are a cautionary tale about hubris and the need to engage in team-building.

(EDIT MARCH 11: the fired rumors seem to be old/inaccurate, see comments for details)

[galapagas]

It genuinely feels like the writers want to get a reward for making JayVik canon... without having actually done the work

CL now trying to keep JayVik vaguely possible, despite having previously been very clearly against it... just feels disingenuous. He does not care about JayVik, he just feels forced to change his discourse because it's popular (not even because the fans ask him to. Just because it's popular. Which is a stupid reason, I don't need a ship to be canon to enjoy it).

And to be clear : the problem is not Jayvik, nor the shippers, it is the writers.

If they wanted to pat themselves on the back, they should have earned it and actually gone through with JayVik. Which would not have been impossible : JayVik had a strong subtext in S1. It was all there. MelJay was about Jayce's political arc. JayVik was about reminding him of his dreams and the importance to use Hextech responsibly. You could write a proper JayVik arc, without it feeling like bad fanservice.

The writers could have actually given proper character arcs to Jayce, Mel and Viktor, could have made JayVik endgame after another timeskip following a proper war between Piltover and Zaun.

But no. Both Jayce and Viktor were terribly written in s2, their interactions are ridiculous, their "reconciliation" feels unearned.

This is not the writing the fans deserved, and I hope that, if it gets confirmed as canon, this will not be the kind of JayVik that gets the writers praise....

[galapagas]

Tbh S2 feels like a first draft, written by people who have only read a wikipedia resume of S1.

[galapagas]

I am still baffled by AO proudly declaring that she wrote the story "economically", and that she "didn't feel the need to say something again" if it was already implied somewhere.

No. A story is not supposed to be "economical". That's literally the opposite : a good story is supposed to be efficient, and say as much as possible in a short amount of time.

Imagine S1 if Vi had only said once that she missed Powder, and if her pain had never been shown on-screen again. Imagine if, in S1, Viktor's illness had been shown once by him coughing up blood, and then never evoked again, never playing its part in the story.

What point is there to your story if you never actually bother to show the multiple ways it impacts your characters ? Do people think a writer can just say something and then boom, the job is done ? How can you properly develop a story in these conditions ? How can people be happy with a story where the writers constantly disregard entire parts of it by saying "it's okay, it's implied, it was said once several episodes ago !" How can people defend this ?

EDIT : This is why I strongly disagree with the "but it was explained, you just didn't pay attention !" crowd. We did pay attention, but how can you consider it good writing when the story is not even fully written ? You cannot add a blink-and-you'll-miss it information and consider that it is equivalent to a full arc, or even a proper justification. That's lazy, and terrible writing.

[galapagas]

TLDR : s1 was a bit rushed too, but since it was narratively coherent, it didn't produce a mess like s2

Example: Romance in s1 is kind of rushed, I must admit.

Mel goes from "I'm bored of being the richest person in Piltover, I need a new toy, like that Man of Progress" to "I actually care about Jayce" way too fast. Same with Jayce returning her feelings. But you know what ? It can be forgiven, because it still makes perfect sense from a narrative perspective : Mel embodies Jayce's political corruption. Jayce gives Mel the strength to oppose her mother. So, despite being rushed, it does not ruin the story, because the plot knows where it wants to go, and perfectly drives forward their character arcs.

Same with S1 CaitVi. It happened way too fast, but it was still coherent with what the writer wanted to tell : Caitlyn had to learn that her privileged life blinded her to the realities of Zaun. Her relationship with Vi was supposed to embody the hope for reconciliation between Piltover and Zaun, as S1 CaitVi was about the possibility of reconciliation through acknowledgment of the wrongs of Piltover and conscious decision by the younger generation to not generalize entire groups of people.

On the other hand, S2 is rushed, but it is in no way comparable to S1 because there is no proper plot nor character development nor narrative coherence.

[galapagas]

In three minutes, the Enemy music video said more about Jinx, Vi, Ekko, Zaun, their relationships, etc. than the entirety of S2.

(I did not see this video when it came out, so discovering it now, after S2, feels like a stinging reminder of what Arcane could have been.)

[galapagas]

I genuinely need people to understand that not all of S2's flaws are equal.

Yes, some problems could have been fixed with a better pacing (ex: Vi joining the Enforcers could have been a great psychological arc, with her being torn between her repulsion at joining them and her desire to stop Jinx's rampage, if it had been well written. Vi should have been devastated to choose to wear the uniform.)

But there are too many fundamental problems in S2 (giving up on the character arcs, on the themes of S1, avoiding scenaristic conflict and always choosing the cheapest options, lazy use of magic,...) to the point that it is just unsalvagable.

What I mean is, even if some criticism can be considered "nitpicking" (I don't believe that, but let's say it's true), it doesn't make S2 good. It doesn't delete the other, much bigger issues of S2.

[galapagas]

The blackrose subplot is hilariously bad because part of its conclusion is basically "ooh, plot twist ! Mel's father is not this character that we never see and has 0 influence on the story, it's another character that we never see and has 0 influence on the story!"

[galapagas]

What was the specific moment that made you lose hope and realise that "oh no, this is not a phase, S2 is terrible ?"

For me it was in act one when we get that ridiculous flashback of Ambessa revealing that she is behind the attack at the memorial. Not only was it a stupid plan, it was so badly written that I thought "nope, S1 would have never done that".

It's cheap, makes no sense when you think about it for more than 2 seconds, it disrupts the flow of the story, the dialogue is bad, it has 0 subtelty, and just felt like a poor attempt by the writers to justify bad narrative choices.

(Strong contender was Caitlyn walking into the room and declaring that she is a decorated officer.)

(Also, retrospectively I can see that S2 was cursed in the first second, since Jayce fusing Viktor and the Hexcore was the beginning of the writers' efforts to delete conflicts and replace them with magic.)