arcane spends the first season highlighting how brutal and unforgiving the piltover occupation of zaun is its objectively and cartoonishly evil there are almost no redeeming qualties for it but it all shifts when jinx does the piltover equivalent of 9/11 and the messaging shifts from brutal occupation and conflict to the characters not being able to cope with trauma so they now commit facism
jinx and zaun are constantly shunned by the show while caitlyn and piltover are so quick to be forgiven
but in the end its okay because they find a common enemy and obviously the biggest enemy is collectivisim
the show is so hilariously amercian and lib it is not even funny
caitlyn gets to win the girl but jinx gets so guilty that she tries killing herself multiple times and ends up faking her own death and escaping her only family
i am genuinely so fucking pissed
There's a moment when Jinx is grappling with her revolutionary impact and Ekko is struggling to salvage his eco-socialist collective and Jayce is facing the consequences of his vulgar materialism when you get the sense they might have something to say.
But then it crumbles into Monster of the Week, in the race to set up the next round of action scenes.
The dilemma of Piltover and Zaun is fundamentally the dilemma of waste management. Piltover dumps it's exhaust into Zaun, poisoning the citizens. Then Silco uses the desperate Zaun residents as canon fodder for his own play to the top.
But the idea that Piltover going away solves the problems is as misplaced as the Vander-esque submission to overwhelming power. The problem is, at its heart, the pollution and its consequences. Shimmer presents all the same hazards as the Hextech of Piltover and produces all the same negative externalities. Silco longs to sit on the council, not abolish it. Jinx longs to get even, not lead a revolution. Ekko is the only real decent person in this story, and he's perpetually sidelined by the plot.