Late to Arcane Fandom & Have Some Thoughts
Mar. 9th, 2025 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiI am late to party for Arcane fandom, which means I probably won’t find anyone to talk to about, but I think I want to talk anyway. Honestly, I feel a bit silly, like I shouldn’t be “wasting my time” on fan essays? Not a waste; it’s just, wow, my view of engagement online and with art has really changed since 2005. It feels scarier and lonelier. Okay, general Arcane thoughts (and self-analysis and comparisons to other stories) beneath the cut. I’ll get into more specific character stuff in another post Possible spoilers through S2.
Why It Grabbed Me (and Some Comparisons)
Arcane has grabbed me. I’m hooked and reading fan fic and all of that. The last fandom I felt that way for has been Andor, before that Foundation. It doesn’t happen to me often anymore. And of the aforementioned, Arcane might be the one that hits me hardest.
It's interesting to compare it to Andor, which I adore. Funny thing, though, going back to rewatch Andor, it grabbed me less than the first time. This is not a criticism, but I think it says something about what kind of storytelling it is. One thing that worked phenomenally well for me with S1 of Andor was its pacing; it moved at the speed of thought. I could track Cassian’s thought process in my own mind while he had to make a decision, and I would come to the decision he did in almost exactly the same amount of time—ultra-realistic. But that only works once. The second time, well, you know what’s coming, so your thoughts move at a different pace, and it doesn’t give the same adrenaline rush. Andor is driven by the characters’ needs to make tense decisions; it’s great at that. But that also means it relies on presenting the viewer with new situations because decisions are made in response to new situations. (And each one is new, even if similar to what’s come before.)
Arcane’s storytelling is different. It’s not about tense decisions; it’s about relationships. (Both shows do both well, but I’m talking about the dominant feel.) Arcane’s action scenes feel like less being in a real situation than watching performance art. It’s pretty, but it’s not why I’m there. I’m there because the relationships are compelling. Though I’ve only seen it once so far, I know that rewatching it I’d appreciate it more because I’d catch more of the nuances, the way interactions are born out of years of prior life experience and relationship, things you only really get when you start to know the characters well.
In this way, Arcane reminds me of nothing so much as the anime, Gungrave. Though their stories are different, they are written similarly. Both are dialogic: they start from the premise that every character is a person who is at the center of their own story. Character takes priority over structural role. When this is done skillfully, as it is in both these series, structural role grows out of character. “Action” and “character” are aligned, which as Aristotle noted, is the sweet spot. Both stories are also deeply embedded in time. Characters exist less in the present moment than across the history that determines how they’ll behave in the present moment. Because the characters exist across time, their world exists across time; you can feel them build it, and it feels very real.
Relationship Orientations
Arcane is fundamentally a story about family. In that respect, it reminds me a lot of The X-Men, another franchise I’m quite fond of. Our media, in general, has a predisposition toward idolizing romantic love and trivializing all other relationships. This is getting better though! Newer stories tend to be more aware of the importance of an array of relationships and, in fact, rather desexualized. (Not saying the latter part is inherently good; it’s just an observation.) Arcane is definitely in that “new” orbit; the explicit romances it has are taken seriously but no more central than other relationships.
When a story focuses on romantic/sexual relationships, any relationship that is emotionally close tends to be read as romantic/sexual. This leads to all sorts of Freudian annoyingness where family members get read as incestuous or any close same-sex relationship is read as gay, regardless of any sexual text or subtext. Or So-and-So must be secretly in love with So-and-So because that’s the only reason they could possibly have tension or conflict.
In contrast, when a story has a more expansive view of relationships, it often finds analogs among various kinds of relationships. Old-school example: in the Buffy episode, “Once More with Feeling,” Giles and Tara sing in parallel about breaking away from Buffy and Willow, respectively. Giles and Buffy have a loosely father-daughter relationship; Tara and Willow are romantic partners. But for the substance of that song, it doesn’t matter. The grief each feels at having to separate themselves from someone they love is similar.
Arcane is very much in this camp. For example, Jinx is jealous of Caitlyn’s romance with Vi, not because Jinx is in love with her sister but because she loves her sister, feels abandoned by her, and sees Caitlyn as replacing her, not as a lover but as someone to be loved. Similarly, Silco is jealous of Jinx’s attachment to Vi not because he wants to be her sister but because he doesn’t want to lose her to Vi. This is all obvious, but it’s actually fairly rare in our popular storytelling, rare enough it really stood out to me in Arcane: that awareness that love is love. It has different flavors but it also has a lot of underlying commonality. Arcane gets that, and it makes it feel immediately and pervasively emotionally real (except for some rushed parts in S2).
I think I’m going to somewhat abruptly stop there, because this post got long, and I’d like to start a new one to delve into some more specific character, relationship, and arc stuff.
Why It Grabbed Me (and Some Comparisons)
Arcane has grabbed me. I’m hooked and reading fan fic and all of that. The last fandom I felt that way for has been Andor, before that Foundation. It doesn’t happen to me often anymore. And of the aforementioned, Arcane might be the one that hits me hardest.
It's interesting to compare it to Andor, which I adore. Funny thing, though, going back to rewatch Andor, it grabbed me less than the first time. This is not a criticism, but I think it says something about what kind of storytelling it is. One thing that worked phenomenally well for me with S1 of Andor was its pacing; it moved at the speed of thought. I could track Cassian’s thought process in my own mind while he had to make a decision, and I would come to the decision he did in almost exactly the same amount of time—ultra-realistic. But that only works once. The second time, well, you know what’s coming, so your thoughts move at a different pace, and it doesn’t give the same adrenaline rush. Andor is driven by the characters’ needs to make tense decisions; it’s great at that. But that also means it relies on presenting the viewer with new situations because decisions are made in response to new situations. (And each one is new, even if similar to what’s come before.)
Arcane’s storytelling is different. It’s not about tense decisions; it’s about relationships. (Both shows do both well, but I’m talking about the dominant feel.) Arcane’s action scenes feel like less being in a real situation than watching performance art. It’s pretty, but it’s not why I’m there. I’m there because the relationships are compelling. Though I’ve only seen it once so far, I know that rewatching it I’d appreciate it more because I’d catch more of the nuances, the way interactions are born out of years of prior life experience and relationship, things you only really get when you start to know the characters well.
In this way, Arcane reminds me of nothing so much as the anime, Gungrave. Though their stories are different, they are written similarly. Both are dialogic: they start from the premise that every character is a person who is at the center of their own story. Character takes priority over structural role. When this is done skillfully, as it is in both these series, structural role grows out of character. “Action” and “character” are aligned, which as Aristotle noted, is the sweet spot. Both stories are also deeply embedded in time. Characters exist less in the present moment than across the history that determines how they’ll behave in the present moment. Because the characters exist across time, their world exists across time; you can feel them build it, and it feels very real.
Relationship Orientations
Arcane is fundamentally a story about family. In that respect, it reminds me a lot of The X-Men, another franchise I’m quite fond of. Our media, in general, has a predisposition toward idolizing romantic love and trivializing all other relationships. This is getting better though! Newer stories tend to be more aware of the importance of an array of relationships and, in fact, rather desexualized. (Not saying the latter part is inherently good; it’s just an observation.) Arcane is definitely in that “new” orbit; the explicit romances it has are taken seriously but no more central than other relationships.
When a story focuses on romantic/sexual relationships, any relationship that is emotionally close tends to be read as romantic/sexual. This leads to all sorts of Freudian annoyingness where family members get read as incestuous or any close same-sex relationship is read as gay, regardless of any sexual text or subtext. Or So-and-So must be secretly in love with So-and-So because that’s the only reason they could possibly have tension or conflict.
In contrast, when a story has a more expansive view of relationships, it often finds analogs among various kinds of relationships. Old-school example: in the Buffy episode, “Once More with Feeling,” Giles and Tara sing in parallel about breaking away from Buffy and Willow, respectively. Giles and Buffy have a loosely father-daughter relationship; Tara and Willow are romantic partners. But for the substance of that song, it doesn’t matter. The grief each feels at having to separate themselves from someone they love is similar.
Arcane is very much in this camp. For example, Jinx is jealous of Caitlyn’s romance with Vi, not because Jinx is in love with her sister but because she loves her sister, feels abandoned by her, and sees Caitlyn as replacing her, not as a lover but as someone to be loved. Similarly, Silco is jealous of Jinx’s attachment to Vi not because he wants to be her sister but because he doesn’t want to lose her to Vi. This is all obvious, but it’s actually fairly rare in our popular storytelling, rare enough it really stood out to me in Arcane: that awareness that love is love. It has different flavors but it also has a lot of underlying commonality. Arcane gets that, and it makes it feel immediately and pervasively emotionally real (except for some rushed parts in S2).
I think I’m going to somewhat abruptly stop there, because this post got long, and I’d like to start a new one to delve into some more specific character, relationship, and arc stuff.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-10 12:47 pm (UTC)(I haven't seen most of the things you compare to it, except X-men and Buffy, so I have no opinion here :D )
no subject
Date: 2025-03-11 01:33 pm (UTC)If you like Arcane and you like anime, I think you might like Gungrave. Its animation looks primitive in comparison, but it has a somewhat similar vibe--except, fair warning, the women are written pretty dumb, or not exactly dumb, but very dumbed down by the expectations of their patriarchal universe. (I actually think they make sense in universe.) Anyway, I have several posts about it on DW if you're interested in learning more. :)