‘Y’all could barely handle her’: Fan fury over ‘Arcane’ season 2 character arc proves we can’t have nice things anymore

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Arcane season 2.

Do you ever find yourself wondering why great stories are in such short supply these days? The fan reaction to a particular main character in Arcane season 2 might finally give you the answer you were looking for all along.

The second season of Arcane finally premiered after a three-year gap. This second and final run will consist of the established three arcs, each containing three episodes, the first of which is now available for streaming on Netflix. These new chapters reintroduced fans to iconic characters like Vi, Caitlyn, Viktor, Jayce, and Jinx, and showed that the prospects of Piltover and Zaun and any conceivable peace between the two are as treacherous and tumultuous as ever.

One of the casualties of Jinx’s assault on the council was Caitlyn’s mother, Cassandra Kiramman, who perished in the blast along with two other council members, Irius Bolbok and Torman Hoskel. Since that moment, our cupcake detective Cait has been in the trenches fighting all sorts of inner demons, resisting compulsions about invading Zaun, and refraining from taking mindless revenge on Jinx for what she did. While she and Vi finally sealed the deal by becoming official in episode 2, their strained dynamic took a powerful blow when Vi stopped her from killing Jinx to spare a child who had been following the latter around for a few days.

Now, Cait is finding herself entangled in a deceitful plot orchestrated by the Noxian warlord Ambessa Medarda, leading the soldiers of Piltover in a full-scale invasion of Zaun in the upcoming second arc.

Suffice it to say that our girl is in her villain era, but it seems that not everyone on the internet appreciates the subtle nuances of a complex character arc. A protagonist driven over the edge with grief and anger over a deeply scarring and traumatic event receiving hate on social media isn’t something we haven’t seen before, but it does make me wonder if this is why Hollywood tends to play it safe with a lot of projects; because you can bet on that vocal minority to be there screaming at the top of their lungs the moment things get a little too uncomfortable to bear.

As one person pointed out, there are still 6 more episodes to go, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves and think the curtain has fallen. Cait is as much a victim of Medarda’s manipulation as everybody else.

Caitlyn’s behavior may not be justifiable, but it’s entirely human and understandable. Vi might see her as the most perfect thing to ever come out of Riot Games’ fictional universe (though I’m obviously assuming here) but it’s okay for fictional characters to have flaws or even get up to foolish stuff when they’re in the thick of it.

I don’t want to get overly nitpicky over how the internet is perceiving a particular character. Whoever can tell these days what ridiculous thing social media will decide to do next? The weathervane swings as the wind blows, or some such saying. What’s concerning is that if creators decide to cater to opinions that go every which way on random factors — and they have no choice but to do that from time to time — then I’m not even surprised to see no more daring movies or television shows in our decaying industry.