More world building and politics (with a dash of magic suppression!) loving all this.
Man I am really enjoying the lore and characters of Arcane. I like this new guy Jayce, someone who grew up poor and was trekking through a snowy blizzard with her near-dead mother, untill a cloaked mage showed up and teleoported the two to a sunny, grassy land across the globe, saving the two, and the mange gave Jayce the gem he used to do that magic. After that experience, Jayce had seemed to dedicate his life to researching how to harness magic with technology w/ a rich family sponsering his work, as Jayce research about creating an artifical form of magic, because he's seen the potential of magic to help others and Jayce believes that, if succesful, he could change the world for the better. Though, and seemingly for good reason, people think its too risky to be tampering with magic in Poltir, especially the 300yr old profresser whose seen what could happen when the power of magic falls into the wrong hands. And sadly for Jayyce, he was punished at a court hearing, after being put on trial for experimenting with illegal and dangerous technology to try and create artifical magic, with him beign expelled from his academy and sent back home, w/ even his own mother, who has firsthand experience of how magic can help others, trying to get Jayce to stop. Man luckily Viktor came in time before Jayce tried to kill himself after he has been completelty stripped of the oppurtunity to continue his research, and looks like Viktor, some academic at the university who also judged Jayce, is intrigued in Jayce's research and luckily saved Jayce's book and gem thing. Looks like Viktor and Jayce are going to be working together now to complete the research. Also, not to tangent of anything, but it really feels like Jayce is going to become a villan, the whole air Jayce gives off just makes me worried about him and what he'll do, to accomplish his research or after he succeeds in his research. Also, man the enforcers really are pillaging through the underground slums in search of the 4 kids who blew up the builidng in Poltir, Vancer wasnt lying about the kids needing to stay low. Also, poor Powder, hhaving to deal with everyone in the crew, besides Vi, thinking she's a failure, and Powder herselrf also internalizing these feelings because she cant be a fighter like her older sister. Also man, im glad we got moore of an explanantion about what happened iin the openeing scene of episode 1, it seems like Vancer lead his accross the brdige connecting the underground slums to Poltir to fight against the Enforcers, who were lviing it rich up in Poltir while the people of the underground are poor, starving, and sick, and it seems liek that war ended with a brutal massacre of the underground people, and even lead to Vi and Powder's parents being killed. The war clearly taught Vancer that war is never a good solution, it just leads to death and destruction, and now, even as the Enforcers are brutally searching for the 4 kids, Vancer knows fighting back will just lead to all the underground people being killed, and as such he has no real solution to this issue (other then poteintlly callign that enforcer ally and sending in one of the underground ppl to accept punishemnet for the building assault). And even worse, all of the underground people are wanting to fight back and start a war with the Enforcers (especially Vi), Vancer is completely stuck and needs to do something otherwise theyll all be fucked one way or another. Although, after pressuring Echo to spill about Vancer's ally within the Enforcers, and the ultimatum she gave Vancer, Vi chose to steal Vancer's contact device and turn herself in to save everyone in the slums from the constant brutality the Enforcers are treating them with to film the underground criminals, and to prvent another war as the undergroudn people get more fed up woith being complacent. Man im really enjoying Vi's character, after her life was destroyed thanks to the Enforcers, with her being parentless and stuck in the slums, Vi started to view herself as lesser than the people of Portir, and Vi just wants to do all she can to make sure Powder doesnt go through thtat and instead has a bright future. Vi knows its unfair how the Enforcers treat them, and how society's structured so that only the people of Portir live lavishly while the ppl of the underground starve and live in poverty, and Vi wants to change this with fighting back against them, starting a war. But luckily, thanks to Vancer opening up about how in war there are no winners, and saying how the death of her parents is Vancers fault for going into war, Vi seems less war hungry. Also damn, Silco is one terryfying man, using the beast-fluid on a human to see the poteiintall of the fluid. Also, more on the counicl hearing, that black woman seemed interesting, I can't wait to see more of her.
Nice, it's getting quite interesting.
"Nobody wins in war, Vi." - That's such an important quote! <3 Hopefully we'll all learn that truth at some point.
I like the creative Netflix intro and the intro of this show somehow reminds me of the Daredevil (Marvel) intro (I guess due to the figures - just with stone instead of wax in this case; it also reminds me a bit of the Westworld intro).
What is concerning is that it looks like Vi's fighting Jinx in the intro. I hope that won't happen.
Jayce is a cool character. I like him. Heimerdinger is also very cool and I still immediately recognized him by his unique look. I like the whole scientific part. And Caitlin is also a promising character.
I'm glad that I still remember many characters from LOL (but I'm not sure if I'd recognize most of them without their names being mentioned).
Powder really can handle those guns :) Very impressive!
That hole magic/arcane stuff was very cool. I hope we'll see much more of it :)
"Pioneers of science", "champions of discovery", and "city of progress" sounds very promising. However, that punishment seems wrong! They should've known better... Instead of basically completely destroying his life (he almost killed himself!) they should've "offered" him guidance and supervision.
I doubt that working in secret with Viktor will end well... :o
And what a cliffhanger at the end!
PS: That fancy woman at the council somehow reminds me of the name "Syrah". I guess from the Overwatch character but I'm not sure if they really look that similar.
I love the rising tensions in both the topside and the playground especially against Vander and Grayson. I also liked the world-building here especially with the council, academe and research, and magic being outlawed.
7/10
This was an interesting episode as more characters are introduced here. I feel like there are too many characters at the moment, but maybe I won’t mind this as the show goes on.
Mylo: "Maybe just don't take Powder next time."
Enforcer: "Give me a name."
[Guy opens mouth and drops spit on shoe.]
Powder: "Hey, guys? You should see this—"
Ekko: [Whistles.] "Over here!"
Vi: "You need to hide those crystals."
Powder: "Yeah, no shit."
Heimerdinger: "It corrupts, consumes, lays waste to civilisations."
Vander: "Cast iron's, well, it's hard to clean."
Vander: "Nobody wins in war, Vi."
[Vi leans head against his arm.]
Vi: "What are we gonna do?"
Viktor: "I simply believed in myself. Which is why I'm here because I think you're on to something. I want to help you complete your research."
Vi is my favorite character by far
I am a bit on the fence about the episode, I still love the animation but I am not convinced by the new characters from the posh district, their adventures seem to be a bit boring in comparison to the sisters from the underground. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger for non-player viewers as it seems that Vander decided to give the sisters up to the enforcers to protect the peace between districts?
Nice episode. The story in the upper city is in my opinion more interesting than the one of the two kids
Loved the animation in this episode (the mage at the start and Heimdinger's closeups).
Shout by alexnaderBlockedParent2021-11-07T21:45:47Z
They need to add in the "Season regulars" the inspector woman, voiced by that Iranian actress from The Expanse (Shohreh Aghdashloo).
Very distinctive voice.
Also the art style of the show reminds me a lot of the MCU's What if...?, but done way better.