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Your Honor Put On Some Goddamn Clothes This Is A Place Of Judgement Not Homoerotic Doomerism - Blog Posts
here she is
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I guess why the ending of arcane still doesn’t feel real to me and why jayvik moves me so much is because it defies so much of what I was taught to expect by conventional male-dominated, heteronormative narratives. Because at the end of the story, Jayce had everything he should have wanted. Saved the world. Both Piltover and Zaun respected him. He had strength and charisma and the cool magic hammer he’d fantasized about wielding since he was a kid, and his battle scars only made him hotter somehow. And he had a goddess of a woman expressing trust and care for him, and who probably would’ve liked to get back together with him, at least in some capacity. Meanwhile, characters like Viktor are supposed to die at the end. No matter how sympathetic of a villain he is, the gay disabled guy who irreversibly gave up his humanity to be an evil robot is supposed to self-implode. That character archetype is supposed to redeem himself by taking himself out of the narrative so that the hero can get the happy ending. Someone made a great comparison to the Phantom of the Opera, but this pattern is true for pretty much every mainstream story I can think of. Hell, even Jinx sort of did that, literally ejecting herself from the narrative so that Vi can live in Piltover and get together with Cait. Viktor seemed self-aware of this trope at the end. He had closed his eyes, deciding to accept his own lonely demise if it meant Jayce would live.
But Jayce rejects all of that. The story rejects all of that. And it doesn’t even blink twice to do it. Jayce says all I want is my partner back, and he chooses to die holding hands with Viktor instead. And the story says of course Jayce will choose this, because he always loved Viktor and wanted to be with Viktor more than he wanted any of those other things men are supposed to want. More than power, or respect, or sex, or legacy. Just Viktor. Always Viktor. And in the end, Viktor finally embraces that love, accepts and reciprocates it, in allowing Jayce to be with him in his final moments.
It’s so beautiful and it’s so, so queer. Do not come at me with platonic/romantic discourse because I do not care, I genuinely do not care. The story practically sings with queer love. It’s undooming him from the ableist patriarchal narrative so you can exchange magic wedding rings and hold each others’ souls forever in the astral plane. It’s everything I was afraid to ask for from a story because I never thought I would get it. I still can’t quite believe it’s real, and canon, and carved into the very bones of the story. I love it so much.
The not so fun facts of the first scene of Episode 1 (and on Jayce and Singed)
- You can see that Viktor's spine shattered on impact (Hexcore x-ray). He died in the council room (hence Jayce later telling Viktor, "my partner died in this room")
- Despite the fact other people died, including Mrs Kiramman whom Jayce was very close to (she was his patron and he owed her a lot), he only starts crying when he sees Viktor. It's also the moment he starts dissociating (as proven by the back and forth of the action, where we the viewers see events in the present in the council room and in the future in the lab)
- Viktor doesn't have clothes on the top half of his body in the lab because Jayce attempted to revive him on scene, and failed
- The lab is five blocks away. Jayce RAN five entire blocks while carrying dead weight (which is an insane physical feat)
- Jayce didn't save Viktor's life. Jayce literally brought him back from the dead by using the Hexcore.
- Jayce broke Viktor's promise because he would rather have Viktor be alive with him (paraphrasing, "I'm going to leave the council, my place is in the lab, with you") than to respect Viktor's last wish, destroying the Hexcore.
- Jayce studied all of Viktor's research. He doesn't care about the outcome and the toll on Viktor's body (which was literally so changed that Viktor himself replied, "What am I?") as long as it means Viktor is "alive"
That scene illustrates perfectly Singed's character motivations.
"Why would anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? For love."
At that point in time both Heimerdinger and Viktor had warned Jayce about the Hexcore. One was Jayce's mentor and the other his partner.
And yet Jayce rejects their opinions each time if it means saving Viktor. (He continues research on Hextech in the hopes of saving Viktor's life. He refuses to destroy the Hexcore because he wants to bring Viktor back to life.)
I find it super interesting that both of the brilliant Piltover scientists in the show are the ones to reject scientific ethos. And this leads to unspeakable horrors, with the creation of Warwick and the Herald.
Yet funnily enough, both Jayce and Singed get their happy endings. The only thing they wanted was to be reunited with the person they lost. And they did. We see that Orianna is alive at the end of the episode just like Viktor. Viktor's theme only plays when Jayce tells him that "(they are going to) finish this together" indicating that at the very end, the original Viktor came back. It is also indicated visually by his appearance which is that of Viktor from Act 1, Season 1.
(We know that regardless of the existence of Hextech, of whether Jinx bombed the council room or not, Viktor would have died by succumbing to his disease. Much like Orianna. I can't help but think of the very, very dark timeline where a grief-stricken, brilliant Jayce meets Singed.)
What a beautiful, beautiful show.