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klorophile · 6 months

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Arcane and food

There is a subject that’s been turning and turning around my head for quite some time now and that I really wanted to analyze because it’s just a detail and yet it gives me Feels Of Beautiful *o*, and it is: food in Arcane. But bear with me because we’re going to take detours that might be unexpected? (I want to mention air jails and pomegranates)

So, I’m not gonna teach you anything when I say: food is important. In real life obviously, but in fiction too. What I have in mind here: in real life you can’t survive without food, so it’s something that you do everyday, so it is a very mundane and daily thing… which is precisely why, in fiction, it can be very absent (the heroes have to save the world/prove themselves/find their identity/solve a big mystery/… = better things to do than what we do in our daily lives because it is a story to get us out of our everyday lives) or on the contrary very meaningful (ex: In The Lion King, Simba is a carnivorous lion but he accepts to get used to eating bugs when he meets Timon and Pumbaa and decides to live with them, it’s a symbol of him leaving his lion life behind).

Also, in the classical tragedies, there is the rule of grandeur: the main characters have to be princesses and kings and never your common citizen. And princesses and kings will not be shown doing stuff like peeing or eating in this genre, because it is too down to earth for the beauty that’s being displayed.

So, eating = down to earth, concerns your everyday living people ; not eating = what people that are more akin to queens and deities will do, celestial. And that’s a distinction that I really feel in Arcane…

Vi eats (like a pig) when she gets out of prison, and she very much says it: « we’re here because I’m hungry ». When she eats, she eats. She puts fuel into her stomach and that’s it, it’s a very earthy and mundane thing, it’s not a metaphor like tobacco can be (tobacco = power in the Undercity). Vi just eats like we all do and that’s it.

…Or is it? Well, at least that’s what she says to Caitlyn. Caitlyn was following Vi in hope of being led to important clues, and she gets pissed when she sees Vi stopping for food, because that is definitely not what Caitlyn got into the Undercity for… Because Caitlyn, as a Topsider, is not hungry. She had breakfast this morning, she will have dinner tonight, it’s whatever, her needs are met and she doesn’t need to think about it, and the viewer doesn’t have to think about it. But Vi is the opposite: As a prisoner, her needs depended on the decisions of the people in charge of her prison. She most probably didn’t get to choose what when or how, and most probably got the minimum and a look of disdain with it. In my head, I really like to make this cute comparison: you know how pet owners take their animals, like a dog for exemple, and they lift them above the ground when they have been naughty, and it’s « no, you’re in air jail now ‘cause you’ve been a bad dog so as a consequence you’re not allowed to dog anymore for a fitting amount of time » and it’s not a slap and not a hug and not a game, and the dog is just up confused with her legs dangling straight like IIII° <oh no what now? and they can’t do anything because air is not their element, the ground is, proven by the fact that they have all of four legs which is a lot of legs when you think about it and all of them want to touch the earth, so quadrupeds are like very ground dependent I guess. So the idea of air jail is that the pet can’t do anything and all that’s left is thinking about their existence and the choices they made and how it led them into not being able to choose anything anymore, and to be at the total mercy of their air jailer who happen to have only two legs that need to touch the ground, and two damned other that can remove you from your daily fulfilling life. And I might put a little too much thoughts into what’s basically cute a meme, but I think that is what is behind the air jail, and that is why it is so funny and cute when you do that to your pet (I’ve only seen it done with love), but yeah here is the thing: that is exactly what Stillwater is, but without the funny and loving part.

All of that detour to say that when Vi was in prison, she was basically in air jail. She wasn’t ‘just imprisoned’, she was removed from existence, and that aspect is accentuated by the fact that a) the prison is called “still water”, as in ‘you’re not allowed to move anymore’, b) it’s on an island that’s removed from both Piltover and the Undercity, and also: c) the time-skip.

The time-skip is very meaningful, because it makes us feel like everything was stopped and stuck from the moment Marcus took Vi away to the moment Caitlyn found an interested reason to get Vi out. We don’t get to see Vi in prison because it is literally a time out. It’s not her life she’s living during this time skip, it’s just her being removed for years and having no control over it.

When she gets out, she eats because it’s an earthy thing, and she was in the air all this time. She reclaims, not even her life, but just a life. This is why it is very important that we see her eat, because it shows us how she feels like she can finally move around and have an impact on the world. She is back.

At first she says to Caitlyn that she brought them here simply so that she could eat, basically to express to her that she is not going to just be used yet again by a Piltie, no, she’s here to reclaim something too and Caitlyn doesn’t have a choice in letting her have that or not, because Vi, as someone who grew up in the Undercity, is more adequate for this quest.

And then she gets the tip from Jericho.

Food is connection, both to the place and the people. Vi eats because that’s what you do when you get home.

And she does it like a pig because she knows that’s not what a Piltie does, and she’s definitely not here to please Pilties.

Silco

Silco does not eat. He is a “kingpin”, he is very close to a classical tragedy figure (I mean… Agamemnon and Iphigenia… That’s his conflict). But he also has a mug painted by Jinx on his desk, with a lid and all, for coffee and stuff. But we don’t see him use it (sadly). He only drinks alcohol, which is akin to tobacco: not necessary to live, on the contrary, especially for tobacco which feels the lungs with noxious smoke when there is already so much suffocating people in the Undercity; when a character takes to it, it’s a symbol of being rich and/or powerful in the Undercity.

So, with the painted by Jinx mug, the earthy thing is here, but Silco decides to not be seen using it. It’s here and not here. And that’s because it’s precisely Silco’s story: It’s him trying to be all but a deity, the founder of Zaun, and fatherhood creeping up on him whether he wants it or not, to the point of him choosing to be a dad with a child instead of a divinity at the head of a city. He doesn’t want to be earthy, because to bring a city towards its independence you probably need to be more than human, but he is earthy and human in the end.

Jayce (and Powder)

In episode 1, Jayce had left two sandwiches on his desk next to his dangerous forbidden work. It has tomatoes and lettuce, it's fresh. It’s a sign of how easy he has it at this time, because he can just leave food around his work, food is not precious, he doesn’t need to eat it right away. Then Powder comes into the room, and she’s starving, so her eyes light up to what is a random sandwich to Jayce, but an out of ordinary meal for her.

And Powder eats, because at this time of the story she is just a child playing around. She is being earthy. She is not concerned by all the stakes yet, she lives the life of a human (we can't exactly say the same about Jinx, who is more akin to a spirit).

There is also very much a thing to say about how Jayce puts his stuff on his desk, and then Powder/Jinx takes it for herself. She did the same with Hextech. (Though, I note that Powder took a bite from the sandwich and didn’t say anything to the others, she didn’t share. While we can argue that her stealing Hextech is helping Zaun, she’s kind of sharing the power with her community. And I’m just here wondering…: Why didn’t Powder share the food? What does this mean about her? Was this done intentionally to say that she’s always been on the selfish side?)

Caitlyn

Caitlyn is nicknamed “Cupcake”. We don’t see her eat, but we see her being called the food. I see it as a way to make us feel how rich and privileged she is, and how Vi feels that and tries to make Caitlyn feels that too. I mean, of course “Cupcake” is a sweet nickname, and the most important meaning is that Vi likes Caitlyn (and also that it can be a reference to one of Caitlyn’s abilities in LoL), but still, a cupcake is a cupcake: a frivolous pastry. A cupcake is not food you get to survive, it’s something you can go without but you get it because it’s yummy. It’s superfluous, but someone from Piltover can afford them regularly. And Caitlyn is beyond that, she is the cupcake. She is a symbol of being rich. And people in the Undercity would want to eat her, but also Vi wants her for other reasons now…

Powder 2

In the « Enemy » clip, Powder plays with her food but does not eat it. She is distracted, and to me it feels like another sign of her being meant to turn into Jinx, a character straight from a tragedy. Something more akin to a deity or spirit of rebellion rather than a little sister. (The clip is all about the seeds of Jinx in Powder, which is why I feel like it is relevant to analyze that scene as one too.)

*big sigh*... Jinx

In the last episode, Jinx brings a cupcake to the table, with the gemstone she stole on top of it. And omg does it bear meanings.

First of all, there is the fact that there is only one cupcake when she invited 3 guests (Vi, Caitlyn, Silco), along with her two brothers who are always with her, maybe we can even count Vander since she did put a plate for him, and herself. With seven people and only one cupcake, we have to wonder: who is going to have the cake? This brings so much tension to the scene: all the people around the table, and only one prize that they have to fight over… And the twist is that no one wants the same thing (Vi wants Powder, Silco wants Jinx, Caitlyn wants the gemstone), and yet they can’t share anything.

Second, the fact that it is a cupcake. Of course it’s a cupcake. Because Vi calls Caitlyn "Cupcake", and it’s all about Jinx wanting Vi to choose her, her zaunite little sister, over her shining new topsider enforcer of a girlfriend. To Jinx, Caitlyn “Cupcake” is a big problem, and that is why she is going to put it on the table.

Third, she put the gemstone on top of the icing. And, visually, that’s what immediately tells us that the stakes are very high, and that we’re very much talking about both the past (the gemstone that killed Jinx and Vi's family) and the future (the key to 'progress' stolen on Progress Day), what we can keep from before and what’s going to have to happen next from that. Also, it feels very irreverent that Jinx puts the symbol of progress on a cute pastry. She is not scared of dirtying what is both a treasure, leverage, power, a weapon, … The gemstone is so much, and Jinx puts it into cream because she can. Because she wants to question it. Because she wants to be the one who decides what is going to happen with the gem. She makes a display of how this moment is a turning point, and how she is the one who is going to decide where we’re going from here. Basically, what is so scary about that episode is how much power Jinx has into her hands, next to how emotional and affected she is by every single word and eye twitch she gets from her guests.

Also, I might be seeing too much into it, maybe, but I still think that the reference is relevant: the cupcake with a gemstone on it is a pomegranate.

It does look like it: the gemstone is visually akin to a blue pomegranate berry, and it is on a cupcake that serves as the husk of an actual pomegranate that holds its berries. With the differences that in Jinx’s tea party the cupcake is the less important because it’s edible while the stakes are less about who is going to get food and more about who is going to leave with the gem of power, while in the pomegranate mythology it’s straight about whether you eat it or not, so the berries are the most important because they are edible (Persephone).

Also, in ancient Greek mythology, the pomegranate is related to death. It’s “the fruit of the dead”. And for Jinx, those magical stones are definitely all about death, since that is what she killed all her family with, whole family that she invited at her table. There is just this vibe around her gemstone crowned cupcake that I feel is the same around the pomegranates in mythology. It’s all about death, choosing to eat, staying underground (Persephone spending time in the underworld, Jinx shooting to make the Undercity an independent Zaun, Vi choosing Topside if we refer to her LoL affiliation). It's all very much about choosing underground/aboveground, and staying with the dead or not.

And the gemstone is only one berry while there are always several in the pomegranate, but I would say that that’s precisely because what is at stake with the tea party is choosing a person over another (Vi choosing between Jinx and Caitlyn, Jinx choosing between Silco and Vi, Jinx choosing to be Jinx or Powder) in a case where one choice has to exclude the other. So it’s a pomegranate with only one grain, and that is what makes us go even more « oh no… », because it's all about choosing, and we know that the ending cannot not be a tragedy for at least one character (joke’s on us, it ends up being a tragedy for absolutely everyone ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ).

TLDR: Arcane is a tragedy, Vi tries to get out of it by eating greasy food with her fingers while Silco says he’d never do that while doing that, and then Jinx puts one single pomegranate cupcake on a table with seven people around it and waits for them to fight for it, but they all bicker about other stuff than the food she baked herself, so she judges that no one is deserving of it and she destroys the world as a logic consequence. Arcane is all about how easy yet complicated it is to eat.

#Arcane #meta #analysis #That's my type #I am trying #food #cupcake #Jinx #Silco #Vi #Caitlyn Kiramman #Jayce Talis #Powder #Zaun #Piltover #character analysis

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