But what is LoL?

At its core, League of Legends is a team-based strategy game where two squads of five players battle to destroy the opposing team’s Nexus – a structure at the heart of their base. Players choose from a vast roster of champions, each with unique abilities and roles such as damage-dealing, tanking, or supporting allies. Matches unfold on a map known as Summoner’s Rift, divided into three main lanes and a jungle teeming with neutral monsters. Success relies on communication, strategy, and adapting to ever-changing dynamics as players outmaneuver and outplay their opponents.

Since its release in 2009, League has evolved into more than just a game. It’s a cultural phenomenon with an unparalleled eSports presence, boasting global tournaments like the World Championship that draw millions of viewers annually. Beyond its competitive appeal, the game’s rich lore and iconic characters – ranging from the mischievous Jinx to the honorable Garen – have helped it transcend the gaming sphere, inspiring spin-offs, novels, and even this animated series.

The duality between League of Legends and Arcane

League of Legends (“LoL”) and Arcane are two sides of the same coin. They are united by a shared narrative universe but separated by medium, objectives, and expressive language. Despite their intrinsic connection, LoL and Arcane stand at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of audience experience, inviting reflection on their duality.

Image Courtesy of Riot Games

At the heart of both products is Runeterra, a complex and layered imaginary world. In LoL, Runeterra is the battleground for champions—playable characters with unique abilities and backstories. While the game offers fragments of lore through text, events, and cinematics, its primary focus remains on strategic and competitive action.

Arcane, on the other hand, expands and deepens this universe. The series focuses on the cities of Piltover and Zaun, exploring the origins and conflicts of its iconic characters. Long story short, Arcane translates the mythology of League into an emotional and accessible story, even for those unfamiliar with the game.

Gameplay vs. Narrative

The duality between LoL and Arcane lies in how each engages its audience and evokes emotions. In LoL, players act actively, shaping the game’s flow through their strategies and decisions. Each match is a unique battlefield where skill and teamwork define success. The champions players control, from Jinx’s chaotic explosions to Vi’s powerful punches, serve as conduits for action, with their backstories often discovered outside the game through lore or cinematic trailers. This fragmented narrative leaves room for interpretation, making the universe feel vast yet elusive.

Image Courtesy of Riot Games

In contrast, Arcane immerses its audience in a deeply curated narrative. Watching Jinx and Vi navigate the turmoil of their fractured sisterhood is an emotionally charged experience. The series brings players out of the fast-paced, competitive arena and into the streets of Piltover and Zaun, where every scene is steeped in visual storytelling.

For instance, Jinx’s descent into madness is painted through dialogue, as well as her chaotic, graffiti-laden environment and erratic behavior. At the same time, Vi’s struggles are reflected in her moments of quiet vulnerability amid the tension of her fights. Arcane provides clarity and depth, drawing viewers into the characters’ journeys in ways the game cannot.

Arcane Season 2. Hailee Steinfeld as Vi in Arcane Season 2. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2024

Where League prioritizes gameplay over aesthetics, often simplifying visual elements to enhance clarity during chaotic team fights, Arcane revels in its artistry. The series’ animation blends traditional and digital techniques to create a textured world where Piltover’s gleaming spires contrast sharply with Zaun’s industrial shadows. This meticulous attention to detail helps viewers feel the weight of the character’s struggles and triumphs, immersing them in a world that feels alive.

Social vs Personal

League thrives on its social aspect. It is a shared experience where players connect, compete, and cooperate in real-time. The game’s community – its greatest strength and challenge – creates a dynamic ecosystem where every match fosters camaraderie or rivalry.

This social element extends beyond casual gaming; it is fundamental to professional teams in the League of Legends eSports scene. Like in traditional sports, these teams rely on tight-knit bonds to achieve success, both in the game and during tournaments. Players spend countless hours training together, forging friendships that fuel their coordination on the battlefield. Fans, too, contribute to this ecosystem, rallying behind their favorite teams and players, creating a sense of belonging akin to supporting a football club. In LoL, sociality is everything for amateur players and professional teams.

Image Courtesy of Riot Games

Arcane, on the other hand, feels personal. Its focus on themes like inequality, family, and personal identity resonates on an individual level, offering a humanized perspective on champions who, in the game, are primarily vehicles for competitive play.

Both products demonstrate how a single narrative universe can be adapted differently to meet varied audiences and needs. League is the realm of strategy and competition, while Arcane is the beating heart of emotions and storytelling.

Certainly, in the creation of the TV show, elements of literature have been taken as references. But the creators of Arcane have subtly made it explicit, for example in the opening titles, especially regarding some specific characters and their internal conflicts.

But let’s go in order.

Jinx is associated with the revolutionary flag-wavers of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. The young people on the barricades, a symbol of hope and sacrifice, reflect the torment of Jinx, who fights against a world that neither understands nor accepts her pain.

Like Hugo’s rebels, in the opening, her solitary figure, with a flag waving among the ruins, embodies the rebellion against her psychological fractures, an aspiration towards an unattainable ideal. The rebels of Les Misérables represent the conflict between idealism and the cruel reality of failure. They live the tension between the hope of a better world and the awareness of the tragic consequences of their fight. This dualism is reflected in Jinx’s personality, as well torn between her desire to belong and her constant self-destructive impulse.

Ambessa and Mel represent a visual reinterpretation of William Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar. Like Caesar, Ambessa embodies absolute power and the awareness of its transience, while Mel, like Brutus, is torn between her love for her mother and the political need to fight her. The opening depicts Ambessa in a posture that exudes authority and control, with Mel in a more hesitant position, symbolizing the weight of her moral decisions. As in tragedy, power corrupts and destroys the deepest bonds.

Caitlyn is instead associated with Macbeth, the tragic figure at the center of Shakespeare’s play of the same name. In the opening, Caitlyn is depicted with her hands on her face, while a shadow cast behind her looks like that of a person with a pointed crown. This visual detail recalls Macbeth’s obsessions with power and its destructive consequences. Caitlyn, like the Shakespearean character, faces a conflict between the desire to act with justice rather than, instead, doing what is right – two concepts that are not always equivalent – with the risk that the search for justice can mix with the search for revenge and dominance, making her lose focus on who she really is and what the things – and the people – truly important in her life are.

Finally, Viktor represents the torment of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Both are tragic and visionary figures, torn between the desire for love and acceptance and the anger for social rejection. His physical and spiritual transformation distances him from society, making him a character who challenges the boundaries between hero and anti-hero, genius and monster.

The opening of Arcane is, therefore, not only a visual celebration of some literary works but a commentary on the contradictions of the human experience.

The Soundtrack of Season One

Arcane’s first season stands out for its layered soundtrack, emphasizing the emotions and the setting. Composed of original and licensed tracks, it includes collaborations with world-renowned artists such as Imagine Dragons and Bea Miller. The single Enemy, a global hit, embodies the theme of internal duality, mirroring the main characters’ conflicts. The tracks range from electronica to emotional ballads, capturing the dynamism of Piltover and the melancholy of Zaun, with each song amplifying the most crucial moments of the show thanks to a soundtrack that combines industrial and orchestral sounds.

Enemy

Enemy, created by Imagine Dragons in collaboration with JID, is a song that, when used in the opening credits sequence, immediately sets the tone for the show. It embodies the show’s central themes, including the internal struggle, duality, and personal conflict of the characters, particularly Jinx.

The song’s rhythm evokes tension and anxiety, with the arrangement using percussion with atmospheric synthesizers. Instead, The chorus emphasizes the feeling of isolation and paranoia, key themes in Jinx’s psyche, representing her ambivalent relationship with her sister Vi and the world.

The lyrics explore the perception of being surrounded by enemies, even when these are projections of one’s insecurity. Lines such as “Everybody wants to be my enemy” underscore Jinx’s sense of alienation, which is amplified by her traumatic past and her choices.

An Acoustic Evolution: Season Two

With the second season, the soundtrack reaches new heights. Co-creator and music supervisor Christian Linke collaborated with emerging and established artists to create tracks that range from intensely emotional songs like Freya Ridings’ I Can’t Hear It Now to dynamic explosions like Mike Shinoda’s Heavy Is The Crown featuring Linkin Park.

Season two takes a more thematic approach, using music to represent the characters and the evolution of the cities and their inhabitants as a cohesive group and population. Genres range from indie to hip-hop to electronic, reflecting the fragmentation of the political and social dynamics themselves—as well as the main characteristics of the characters, when a song is exclusively dedicated to one of them.

Ma Meilleure Ennemie

Ma Meilleure Ennemie, composed by Stromae and Pomme for the second season of Arcane, explores the complex intersection of love and conflict. It is a way of dealing with certain dualities in human relationships: sometimes, the ones we love the most can also be the source of pain, whether the other wants it or not.

The song is dedicated explicitly to Ekko and Powder. The theme is already explained at the beginning when the track begins with a declaration: “T’es la meilleure chose qui m’est arrivée / Mais aussi la pire chose qui m’est arrivée” (“You are the best thing that ever happened to me, but also the worst”).

The melody blends elements of electronica and melancholic ballads, with Stromae’s unmistakable style and Pomme’s emotional timbre adding a sense of vulnerability. The musical choice emphasizes the tension between sweetness and restlessness, and the rhythm gradually increases to emphasize the emotional turmoil of the lyrics.

The line “Plutôt qu’être seul, mieux vaut être mal accompagné” (“Better to be in bad company than alone”) reflects a deep need for human connection, even at the cost of one’s serenity.

The number 4 is recurring and deeply symbolic in the Arcane series. It manifests in design and narrative and embodies themes of resilience, balance, and cyclicality, particularly for Ekko, one of the show’s most emblematic characters.

Within Arcane, Ekko is known as the Boy Who Shattered Time. He symbolizes the resilience of Zaun’s underclass, fighting for survival in a world divided by oppression and injustice. He is perhaps the character most closely associated with the number 4, represented visually and thematically in several key scenes involving him.

One of the most memorable moments involving Ekko occurs during his duel with Jinx. Using his Z-Drive, he segments the battle into four distinct phases: confrontation, attack, retreat, and recovery. This approach underscores his mastery over time, which is constantly measured and deliberate.

The design of Ekko’s pendulum further enhances its symbolism. Its symmetrical and cyclic structure reflects the orderly nature of time and its inevitable flow. Ekko’s LoL power lies in his ability to manipulate time’s dimensions: past, present, future, and what he calls the “right moment.”

An intriguing detail from the second season’s production enhances this symbolism: in the scene where Ekko and Jinx dance together, the animation is deliberately rendered at four frames per second. This stylistic choice makes the moment visually unique and underscores its central themes of temporal fragmentation and resilience.

The number 4 carries deep cultural meanings that enrich its presence in Arcane.

In many Asian traditions, the number 4 is associated with death and rebirth because its pronunciation (“shi”) resembles the word for “death.” This symbolism resonates with the cycles of destruction and renewal that define the lives of Zaun and Piltover’s inhabitants. From Ekko’s temporal rewinds to the broader conflicts shaping the two cities, the themes of endings and new beginnings recur throughout the series.

Arcane Season 2. Reed Shannon as Ekko in Arcane Season 2. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2024

In Western contexts, four often signifies stability and completeness, as seen in the four seasons or the four elements. Arcane, however, subverts this idea, showing that the quest for balance often leads to conflict and transformation. Through its characters, the show demonstrates how stability is not a fixed state but a dynamic process, achieved and lost through cycles of struggle and growth.