Jayce is an ELITIST SELLOUT (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Readers, if you haven’t watched season 1 of Arcane yet... (pause and shrugs) Why?

The animation is beautiful, the story is amazing and the voice talent is absolutely top-notch

And get this: You don’t have to have played ANY of League of Legends in order to understand what’s going on

I know this, because just like the DOTA anime, I am one of said individuals who jumped into Arcane, having no idea about ANYTHING League of Legends related.

Not the location, not the lore, not the characters, NOTHING.

If anything, I just compared the setting of Piltover to like...the Eberron setting from Dungeons & Dragons as a point of reference and just called it a day

That’s not to say I wasn’t curious about the lore, characters, etcetera after I finished watching Act 1, mind you.

I actually hit up my LoL friends after finishing it to see if it was something I should get into. And surprisingly enough, a lot of them gave very similar answers.

Answers like, “No,” “Don’t do it,” “Don’t do it; it’s a trap,” and “Learn from my mistakes.” It’s so weird; I can’t imagine why they’d say stuff like that...

And Readers. Readers. Yes. Vi. Trust me. I agree

And Ekko. My boy. My son. My son, the revolutionist.

But the character that ACTUALLY caused me to want to make a video on Arcane is one that I have come to love to hate. Jayce

One who while -- like Vi, Jynx, Caitlyn, Ekko and Viktor -- can’t die in the show because they’re playable characters...

/Nevertheless plays a very important role in Arcane, because of how realistic his experience, development, and corruption is reflected when compared to our own way of life./

Now before I continue, I have to remind you that this video WILL contain spoilers of Arcane season 1. So if you haven’t seen it yet and you want to avoid spoilers, I suggest you give the nine episodes a watch on Netflix first before you continue on with this video. Cool? Cool.

So, I think its safe to say that as far as allegories are concerned, Squid Game is to Capitalism as Arcane is to Elitism-slash-Classism

And it wasn’t just Jayce that I noticed being hit hard from how it’s displayed in season 1, either; the show does a VERY good job at setting up the divide between the citizens of Piltover and what would eventually become Zaun. As early as episode 1, actually

/The classism commentary began to make itself known to me the moment Vi first said this (they have plenty), but I didn’t really start feeling the angle until then-deputy Marcus started instigating the citizens of the underground looking for Vi’s gang, treating and talking about them as if they were nothing./

Jayce on the other hand shows another angle of how fantasy settings showcase classism, though still similar to that of how it's handled in reality.

After a mage saved himself and his mother, he’s been looking for a way to control magic through the means of science and technology.

/So through the merit of his family name, he found a way to enter the upper city’s academy, have himself and his mother sponsored by a noble family assigned a seat on the council and worked on his research in secret until his crystals were stolen and one blew up his apartment./

Within a day or two, his life came crumbling down.

We learn that while his family name holds merit due to its association with building the city, people like Jayce who find their way to the upper class through similar means are usually looked down upon by the rest of the denizens there, and that the heads of his patron family were no different.

/Both before (we’re his patrons) and especially AFTER his trial/ (haven’t you done enough).

As far as Jayce was concerned, he might as well have been in the Undercity.

/Because during the time that followed him being stripped of his status at the academy by the city council, he saw the upper city’s true colors regarding how its citizens feel about how the likes of him find their way among their ranks/

But then, once again, the moment he was able to prove that Hextech worked and was beneficial to the people of the upper city via trade and transportation, everything changed.

Jayce became the talk of the town. The previous talks regarding his status and how he initially got to were he was ceased as if they never even happened.

/Hell, we didn’t even learn about his family’s status until AFTER the initial time skip between the first two acts./

This roller coaster of escalation Jayce experiences highlights the overall fickleness classism creates in people, and in my opinion, it’s properly reflected in the show.

Yes, there will always be individuals of higher status, wealth and privilege who will question why and perish the thought that they share a space with you.

There will be those who will take every opportunity to use anything against you to display why you don’t belong, and they will easily try and get back into your good graces or at least pretend that there was no beef to begin with.

/However, another thing I enjoy about Arcane -- and more specifically, Jayce’s progression in Arcane -- is that it shows that while it’s possible to climb the capitalistic ladder that is classism, it will always change people with every ascending step. And Jayce was no different./

Jayce received his first taste of elitiist superiority when he was made a council member of Piltover and was forced to make deals with the other members after acting on his concerns regarding the city’s safety.

/Ever since then, thanks to the combination of Mel’s molding and his own limited understanding of the undercity’s happenings, he’s been painting a picture of Zaun’s inhabitants that’s just as broad as Mel’s paintings.

/So much so, that not only did Viktor have to shatter that depiction right quick/

/But it took Jayce accidentally killing a child during the raid and seeing that Silco had children under his quote-unquote employ to create shimmer that he immediately realized things were a lot less black and white than he hoped they would be; that the disconnect between the higher and lower and desperation due to the council ignoring the undercity for so long has brought them to this./

Yet despite going into his ventures -- both before and during his partnership with Viktor -- aiming to help the ENTIRETY of the city, while also knowing that Silco is the cause for a lot of the antagonism and disrest...

/He decided it would be best to disconnect Zaun from Piltover and leave Silco in charge, rather than use the power and status he obtained in his ladder climb to seek the change he initially sought to accomplish when Hextech was just a dream./

Readers, the fact that Jayce encapsulates both what it feels like to experience the prejudice surrounding classism and the moral corruption it causes when you climb the social ladder of classism honestly makes him one of the most important characters in all of Arcane.

Because in order to understand how one is part of the problem, they must see how they have been both affected and molded by it, and Jayce’s character harnesses that PERFECTLY.

Here is someone who nearly lost everything and was about to END everything because of how the Piltover’s society is structured.

And upon receiving his second chance, decides to not use his ability and status to help better the lives of everyone like he initially sought out to do, but to turn over the keys of the kingdom to their oppressor just because he doesn’t want blood on his hands.

/Because Jayce is so clearly and blatantly part of the problem in Arcane, that thanks to the show’s rightfully deserved popularity -- fan of the video game or not -- others watching the show can see just how both his corruption and the corruption of others who live north of the bridge thanks to classism and elitism, properly mirrors that of how it affects us/

But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of Arcane season 1 if you’ve seen it.

Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, what you’re hoping is the next bit of League of Legends lore to be adapted.

I can’t contribute because I’ve never played the games, but y’all have fun in the comment section. I’ll read what y’all post and nod supportively.

Whichever you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.