im going bonkers.
this scene in the beginning of episode 2 makes me AAHHGGGHA HAHAHH.
caitlyn is one of those characters many might end up misreading, someone swallowed entirely by guilt, loss and grief that it's all translated into anger.
caitlyn had always wanted to help zaun and its people in season one, she was a giving and kind character. this was evident in scenes where she sold her gun and helped vi's injuries, hugged one of the characters in zaun that was affected majorly by shimmer, she was KIND and wanted CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
this in season two was flipped on its head, everything she tried to accomplish was shattered, and she lost those dear to her and suffers from intense amounts of stress and anger. her mother died at the hands of jinx, whenever she sees something go wrong; for her it always leads back to jinx. she blew her mother up, she killed enforcers and attacked piltover.
all of these things lead to her being blown over that point of reason. she wanted retribution, peace, and to fight for the "good of everyone", but her ideals have been completely blinded through grief. she sees the oppressed now as the oppressors, the people who were hurt being the source of her own pain. as a woman with power, influence and privilege she turns the people of zaun into victims of her grief.
something that really hurt me throughout this episode was that Caitlyns mother, Cassandra Kiramman, was someone who also always saw for peace with zaun. she saw them as the people they are, the oppressed, and wanted genuine change. why else would she dedicate herself to ventilating their air? saving hundreds of zaunites from disease and death? this act from Cassandra did so much good for them, but Caitlyn overlooked it as she immediately saw it as a way to gain some sort of upper hand. Cassandra obviously isn't a great person, the council is full of aristocratic snobs who have no care for those "below them", but what she believed was that "The Undercity deserves to breathe." that's enough to make her different from the rest.
By poisoning the "enemy," she could find the one who devastated her. She did not see this as the horrible act it was and only saw it as "I can use this to get to Jinx."
this change, from someone kindhearted and filled with starry dreams of change, desperate to make a difference to the oppressed and to take action against the chem barons; to someone weaponising her own mother's creation as a weapon of war. using her privilege to do the wrongs she was so fond of criticizing.
she is completely blinded, i will never agree with her actions as she progresses, but the caitlyn we all know and love is still there somewhere, I know it, and she will come to wraps with that as this next act unfolds. she will no doubt be manipulated by ambessa to do what she will believe is right, but soon she will be able to see through the blindfold ambessa has wrapped around her head and see the pain that is around her. how she is making the world suffer, because of her grief.
The person she was is still within her. The only people she has surrounded herself with now are those who are confident that what she is being manipulated to do is the right choice. But she's thrown away her only good conscious, vi.
I love her. She is so complicated and troubled, and she needs to see the light behind the clouds. I need her, too. To you, Caitlyn! and to the wreck, you'll do to my heart in this season.
