Discussing Caitlyn Kiramman

Caitlyn, especially in the second season, reminds me of Macbeth in all the worst and most concerning ways.

At the start of Macbeth, Macdonwald is a character who had committed treason and was killed by Macbeth, as at that point he still had his morality.

This is similar to how at the start of Arcane, Caitlyn was an enforcer who did her job, and did it well without engaging in any of the corruption that seemed pretty rampant at this point.

Later, Macbeth's wife Lady Macbeth, in a self serving manner, manipulates Macbeth into committing regicide by killing the king. He's obviously hesitant to do this as it goes against his morals, but with the encouragement, he does go through with it on his own accord. Despite having the power of being the Thane of Cawdor and Glamis, he still does this in attempt to get more power. After this, he successfully becomes king.

Now, I don't think Caitlyn is acting how she is in attempt of power, however thats definitely one of the outcomes of her actions. Ambessa, who is who I see in Lady Macbeth's role in this analogy, is also manipulating Caitlyn in order to gain personally, and to encourage war so that hextech weapons are made and she can use them to fight her own battles. Caitlyn has a moral code, yet despite this she does do bad things. She uses the grey as a tool to clear out the streets, when that is a literal war crime. She knows this is wrong, emphasised by her mothers words that go starkly against her actions playing right before the scene. She also takes the position of power Ambessa presents her with despite her in earlier episodes likely being against Ambessa's whole cause, and the war that she's about to start.

Macbeth, before this, has a friend called Banquo, who suspects that he killed Duncan for the throne and power. Macbeth then gets him assassinated.

This is, albeit less so, reminiscent of Vi, and how after being called out on her actions, Caitlyn hits her and leaves.

Considering we only have 3 episodes of season 2, I cant be sure whether this continues progressing, but if it does, there are a few things I am assuming will happen in arc 2 and 3.

I think Caitlyn is going to start hallucinating more. The hallucinations might be of Vi, as Macbeth hallucinates seeing Banquo after causing his death, but they could also be of her mother, Jinx or even Isha, as she could've easily killed either of them had Vi not stopped her.

Now if you have read Macbeth, you'll realize i haven't mentioned one of the main reasons Macbeth turns into a usurper. The witches and their prophecy. And this is honestly because I'm not sure.

I think its entirely possible that the witches could be symbolised through the hextech, as we know the hextech weapons act up sometimes, as shown in episode 3. Its possible they may lead to hallucinations, similar to that of Victor, if they're used repeatedly while acting up, which I can imagine Caitlyn doing.

Otherwise, I think the witches could be symbolised through Jinx, and possibly Sevika and Isha to maintain the symbolism of threes. This is because the 3 of them represent the power Caitlyn wishes she has- the power to avenge her mother.

Either way, I'm hoping that Caitlyn doesn't stay on this path, as Macbeth is a tragedy for a reason.

Another thing I just remembered. Macbeth's enemy, Macduff. Macbeth kills Macduff's wife and child.

I'd say the closest Caitlyn could get to that is by killing Isha and Sevika.

The scene in the opening credits with Caitlyn also furthers this parallel.

She has blood on her hands, which is likely a reference to everything she does against Zaun in the later episodes of season 2, and the pain she causes Vi. Shes clearly distressed and feels guilty here. However this is again similar to Macbeth in the sense that he believes his actions and guilt can never be forgiven, hence the "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?" quote.

Furthermore, her hands here are creating a shadow resembling a crown, showing how the blood on her hands is what's leading to her power, which is again similar to how Macbeth gets the blood of Duncan on his hands to become king.

Also, the shadow here could be representing how her position of power entirely overshadows her guilt and pain to those shes hurt, but also overshadows the literal and metaphorical blood on her hands to those who support her.

The parallels are staring me in the face.

Your mother will have justice, I swear it.

anyone can be a girlboss but it takes a real woman to be a deadbeat dad

⸻ MEL & AMBESSA MEDARDA, Arcane S2

The Medarda Family and the True Goal of Shimmer

Nature has made us intolerant to change, but fortunately, we have the capacity to change our nature. -Singed

For most of s1 the only versions of magic the audience really gets familiar with are visualized through hextech blue and shimmer pink, but we can't trust it to represent what actual magic is like on Runeterra. People from PnZ are incredibly unfamiliar with magic, it was banned for centuries, and they're mostly retracing steps and doing guess work. The best metric to understand how magic works is to look at characters and regions that are actually inclined to magic, and the Medardas may be the best example yet.

When Ambessa accepts the Wolf totem from Lamb one half of dual aspects of death, her body is enveloped in a bright purple transformation before being reforged into a red that resembles the kind her ancestors and the Lamb wear.

It's the same bright purple that consumes Sky in Viktor's last experiment with the hexcore in s1.

I think this purple represents magic at its most malleable state, where it can be refined or change others into final products with a proper catalysts. By s1's final scene, we know that Mel possesses magic and likely uses it through her golden armor. We also know it's possible for magic to be a hereditary trait that can be passed down (not perfectly) through family lines, which is prized in Noxus (and Ixtal?).

So if Mel has magic that likely means the Medardas family in general has latent magic that flows through them naturally., but qhat does this have to do with shimmer or PnZ in general?

The Medardas are relevant to PnZ because Zaun leading minds, Silco and Singed, have spent their capital trying to replicate what the Medardas can do!Shimmer doesn't exist purely as a bioweapon, that's frankly secondary to it's point. Shimmer exists as a means to artificially make the users capable of performing magic, or at least shift the user's biology into something that can tolerate magic. Hextech as a solution to the mystery of maguc completely sidesteps the relationship between magic and the user by using machinery as middleman, while shimmer takes a more direct route.

Singed can't literally biohack nonmagical people into mages all by himself. Singed instead developed what's essentially a hormone therapy to give users temporary magic abilities by synthesizing shimmer from these mysterious plants that resembles the color of the magic within Ambessa before her deal with the Lamb.

Why didn't Singed and Silco just give people the magic purple plants directly if it's capable turning them into mages? Sky and Rio might be the best examples for why you don't do that. When young Viktor feeds Rio the purple plants we see Rio immediately lose vigor, as an audience most of us assumed that was simply Rio's pre-existing condition acting up, but the relationship is more simple. When Singed said Rio was dying, he said it with surety because Singed KNEW the exposure to magic was killing Rio. And Sky was DISINTEGRATED upon being exposed to the hexcore's magic.

In that vein, Singed used Rio as a work around. From what we see non-mage humans absolutely cannot tolerate exposure to even base magic, but Rio was able to last longer. Instead Singed and Silco exposed Zaun to a version of those magic flowers that was broken down by Rio's metabolism into a more version that non-magical humans can tolerate.

The wild thing is that all this effort is to get non-mage users to Ambessa's UNREALISED state, the purple is just the base magic that exists in mages. Even still, Singed seems to have developed the kind of strain of shimmer that's the closest he's ever come to real magic, and Viktor and Jinx used it.

Viktor's own magical transformation has been facilitated by the hexcore in the same way the Lamb facilitated Ambessa's transformation. Do i think Viktor has essentially created his own Aspect through the hexcore? NO.

But in the same way shimmer is facsimilie of magical ability, so too is the hexcore a subsitute for living magic. And by living magic I don't mean unicorns or mermaids, I mean magic that is given consciousness and shape by being tethered to human concepts. And the hexcore's basic purpose is supposed to be magic that thinks and Viktor has tethered it to the human plane with his blood.

This all begs the question about what could exposure to the hexcore do to long term shimmer users? What WILL it do to Jinx? We all know that's inevitable next season.

You see, power, real power doesn't come to those who were born strongest or fastest or smartest. No. It comes to those who will do anything to achieve it. -Silco

Tldr: Shimmer is a large-scale project to turn the population of Zaun into mages, or magically tolerant, by essentially microdosing the population with magic through shimmer.

Arcane Season 2 Teaser Trailer is out now