Image: Netflix
Season 2 is around the corner and many fans have questions... plenty of questions.
The second and final season of Arcane, the League of Legends animated Netflix series is close to release. Plenty of teasers and a few trailers have been released and yet, the more viewers see from the upcoming season, the more questions seem to arise.
Before the second season debuts, let’s take a look at some questions we want answers to just from watching these teasers, and from events in season 1.
Spoiler alert: some scenes from Season 1 will be discussed below. If you haven’t finished watching the first season, proceed with caution.
1: Who survived the attack from Season 1?
During the final episode of the first season, "The Monster You Created," Jinx used Fishbones, her famous rocket launcher to launch a rocket that hit the Piltover Tower, where the Piltover Council had just voted for the freedom of Zaun. The credits rolled, but we never found out what happened to those in the tower. That includes Caitlyn’s parents, Jayce, Viktor, and Mel. Mel in particular, as her back mysteriously glowed before the rocket hit the tower.
There could be significance to the golden symbol glowing on Mel’s back before the rocket hit Piltover. Mel, who was shown to have some links to the Solari in her childhood, had a gold symbol embedded on her back, but it was not part of her clothing. There have been many fan theories about the symbol adorning Mel’s back, one of which pointed to it being the Locket of the Iron Solari, which when used in the game (LoL), provides a shield to the wearer and their nearby teammates.
We examined the scene more closely, and it appears to be unrelated to the locket in question. However, if Mel is Solari, the golden symbol could possess comparable abilities, and thus may have protected Jayce, Viktor and anyone else in the vicinity. It should be noted that Mel did not appear in any of the Season 2 teasers and trailers however, except for a flashback teaser released last month. So we still do not know what has happened to her, or to Jayce and Viktor.
Is Mel’s back what’s called the “Locket of the Iron Solari”, and did it protect some of these other characters?
2: Will Noxus invade Piltover and Zaun?
The war scenes shown in Season 2 trailers have all been chaotic. Many assumed that this was the war between Piltover and Zaun, with Noxus helping Piltover.
After all, as shown in the trailers, Jinx’s attack seemed to have sparked a revolution in Zaun by becoming its mascot. Throughout the trailers, Jinx was depicted to be the season’s hugest villain—ready to spill colorful chaos wherever she went.
However, eagle-eyed fans noticed Noxus erecting its own tower in Piltover, and some previewed scenes seem to show the people of Piltover and Zaun united against Noxus. Will Ambessa’s martial order and connections to Noxus lead to an attempt to take over both the City of Progress and the Undercity? What is the role of Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, Ekko, and Heimerdinger in all of this?
3: Is that… LeBlanc?
The silhouette may be very vague and unglamorous unlike LeBlanc’s default skin in LoL, but it might be one of her canon silhouettes found in more than one of the Season 2 trailers: a shadowy, undead-looking silhouette with glowing gold eyes and the quintessential, clown-like marking between each eye.
In League of Legends lore, LeBlanc is a mysterious and powerful sorceress who leads the secretive Black Rose cabal in Noxus. Known for her mastery of illusion and manipulation, she has the ability to appear in multiple forms, disguise herself, and even impersonate others. She’s also known to create dark, shadowy duplicates and illusions of herself to mislead and control others, feeding rumours that she’s more than human—or even undead herself.
Her true motives and age remain unknown, as she has influenced events and leaders in Noxus for centuries, often working from the shadows to shape the nation’s fate to her own hidden agenda. These leaders may include the leaders of Noxus in the world of Arcane. If she is truly present in Arcane—what is her motive for manipulating Noxus to attempt to invade the City of Progress and the Undercity?
Are her motives connected to her attempts to prepare for the return of Mordekaiser (another LoL champion), an ancient warlord and powerful necromancer whom she and the Black Rose once helped banish?
4: What will happen to Jinx, Vi, and Caitlyn?
When the trailers and teasers for Season 2 dropped, it was clear that Jinx, Vi, and Caitlyn were going to go through a lot of character development.
The most obvious one was Jinx—who was mostly painted as the main villain of the entire second season. Although a wanted criminal, judging by the teaser “Enemy of my Enemy”, Jinx may have sparked hope and a revolution in Zaun, to the point where she was even painted by its people as a symbol of hope alongside Vander on the walls of Zaun. How will Jinx use this influence, aside from being the terrorist that most people who watched the series already know her to be?
Then there's Caitlyn. From being a rookie who investigated the ins and outs of Zaun in Season 1, it's obvious from the trailers that Cait had become hardened from tragedy. Leading the ranks of enforcers in Piltover, Caitlyn had an angry resolve in her. Will her hunger for vendetta blind her decision-making? How will this affect her relationship with Vi?
Speaking of Vi, what everyone saw from the teasers and trailers may have been the most confusing. In some, she was the Zaunite who switched sides and joined the forces of Piltover, much like her current state in the game. But then there were plenty of clips of Vi entering her rebellious phase, complete with the dyed black hair, spiky metal jacket, and corpse paint, fighting as a champion in the arena. This was immediately followed by clips of her acting like a broke drunkard, slumped in a corner with a makeshift bed. However, the last few clips of Vi depicted her with both red and black hair, hitching a ride with Ekko on his hoverboard. What's behind all the shifts in her direction? Why did she have a rebellious phase, and how did she snap out of it?
5: Will the series end in tragedy and will all the champions survive?
In an exclusive interview with Tech Radar, Jinx’s voice actor, Ella Purnell told the fans to prepare tons of tissues for the final season. "I cried. So, I think other people will cry, too,” she admitted in the interview. “It's devastating, and nobody will feel good after watching it."
Does this mean there will be champions who might die in the season finale? Will Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, and all the others survive—or will a favourite character or two lose their lives amidst the chaos of the entire season? There are many more questions we can ask, but all will revealed in a few days and a couple of weeks. Are you excited for Arcane Season 2?
Arcane Season 2 will be split into three acts, with Act I premiering on 9 November at 4:00 PM Singapore Time. This will be followed by Acts II and III, which will be released on 16 & 23 November, respectively.
