The subreddit got 50k users within two weeks, it is most watched in some Netflix regions and contains a lot of "steampunk"(?) elements, but remains lib in a lot of places.
If we are the first to condense a critique of it, it might get some traction.
Picture exemplifies part of the userbase.
In the end BIG SPOILER and CW:
The trope evil dissociative identity disorder antihero does an 9/11 against a "liberal" company council that just voted for peace and giving away half their land to 'The Nation of Zuon' - links to the nation of Ziom are completely random.
Link to a wiki with short episode description
Yeah, I was shocked by how good this show was in general, I knew It was going to be animated brilliantly and sound good, but it was actually written well on top of that.
The good and fun of the show made the ideology more painful to me. Pitlover is the liberal techbros dream of a rational society guided by ideas and good speeches (if a charismatic strong independent leader who wants the good pushes for them at least).
There were quite a few good scenes, arches and teary eyes for me, though it isn't materialist or Marxist in the end.
Imagine how amazing shows could be with that budget if it wasn't bound so much to a profit oriented company.
Also the fact that the MAIN character is a queer person is really cool honestly, Cait and Vi's relationship doesnt feel queer baity to me, it just feels queer, even though we don't have any explicit sex scenes or anything, the show males it very clear what is going on there, so much so that even my boomer dad picked up on it almost immediately.
Yes, like in Ghost in the Shell and Matrix.
I think it is important to understand that Riot's brainworms tend towards the liberal "NUANCE" variety, rather than the idealization of any given faction. Runeterra isn't really supposed to have "good" factions who are purely thus from my reading. Rather, the appearance of good is generally a strong indicator of the presence of evil, whether well-intended or not (we find the standard-issue liberal "road to hell" dialog here, at least implicitly).
Demacia is a deeply authoritarian state that persecutes magic users and maintains an autocracy on par with the supposedly "barbaric" brutality of fascist Noxus (and for all Noxus' flaws, unlike Demacia, there is at least some class mobility in Noxus). P/Z are supposed to be a bit of a dialectic (not that you'd ever find that term in their faction details) about progress, control, and liberalism. It isn't an accident that Zaun takes on both some of the worst elements of libertarianism and an unavoidable form of "class" consciousness (sublimated into nationalism, of course, because liberal ideology cannot tolerate a class formation that is purely thus) and resistance to the progressive technocracy of Piltover. The understanding of that dialectic is, because it is infected with liberalism, fundamentally flawed. Idealism is elevated above an understanding of the material interests of the contending classes, but it doesn't ignore the reality that progressive technocracy leaves a fuckload of people behind in building its "utopia". It just both-sides it to the point of inscrutability.
I haven't seen Arcane (too poor to pay for Netflix in order to watch the three or four shows I'd ever want to watch on it), but what I've read in terms of plot-summaries indicates to me that the audience is exposed to Piltover through some of its most sympathetic faces (Jayce, Caitlin - Vi, to an extent) and their personal stories mean that they elide the darker elements of Piltover. It is worth remembering that Piltover also employs monsters like Camille to "maintain the balance".
I leech Netflix, too. But in time there will be high quality files available.
it was alright. the ideology is pretty brainfucked. also did a small racism by making ekko 'the poc more in touch with nature' trope
what really took it away was that buff noxus lady's effeminate servant lmao. show can be trash that shit made me happy