Arcane uses Viktor to tell a classic sci-fi story in a very unique way

Science fiction and fantasy stories are full of characters with seemingly infinite power who seek to evolve or erase the human race because of its imperfections. It isn’t quite fair to call this type of character, usually a villain, tired, but it probably is fair to say that it takes a pretty special version of this story to feel unique. Which is exactly what makes it so surprising that Arcane finds such an original narrative in the way it handles Viktor.

What makes Arcane’s vision of this kind of story so effective is how carefully tailored it is to its characters and their perspective. Viktor’s version of omnipotence and visionary power may feel limitless, particularly when we’re presented with his cosmic new vision of the world. But in truth, as Jayce explains, it’s deeply rooted in the struggles of his own human experience. He views the imperfections of humanity as damning because his own physical imperfections proved so limiting, but it blinded him to the wider possibilities, both for humanity and for himself.

This is an exceptionally clever storytelling trick, and a brilliant way of rooting Viktor definitively in an understandable emotional world for viewers, even as he’s ascending into Arcane-based godhood. Viktor mistakes knowledge for perspective, but contrary to the belief of many people in both fictional worlds and the real one, no amount of knowledge can truly let us escape the limits of our pasts and experiences.

This kind of characterization does more than give us a tangible, recognizable connection to Viktor, though; it also provides Arcane’s creative team a more interesting way to solve the finale’s central conflict than other stories of this type. While many of these stories rely on pleas from the loved ones of the super-powerful character, calling out to the humanity still left inside them, Arcane simply lets Jayce point out to Viktor why he’s mistaken, and the limits of his perspective. This argument seems momentarily interesting to Viktor, but wholly unconvincing, which is when Arcane brings in its narrative secret weapon: a multiverse.

We’re past the point of multiverse fatigue in popular culture at this point, from superhero blockbusters to Best Picture-winning films. But Arcane’s version of the multiverse is nearly unrecognizable from the visions we’ve seen over the last few years, due in large part to the fact that it avoids falling prey to the concept’s siren song of excess. It’s easy to imagine a version of Arcane where Ekko’s brief trip into the alternate dimensions of the multiverse show him (and us) all manner of wild visions. It could have been a quick montaged sequence of Ekko flying through the Arcane, with countless cameos, Easter eggs, and references, packing in all corners of the League of Legends universe. It could have included brief stops in alternate worlds that give us stealthy teaser trailers for Arcane’s replacement shows. It could have shown us any number of different worlds and realities. The whole sequence would have been beautifully animated, as all of Fortiche’s work on the show has been; the studio would have been impressively delicate in dipping its toe into different animation styles or dropping in champions from other regions, or even previewing the look of its future shows. It would have been jaw-dropping. It would have entirely ruined the series, too.

Instead, the Arcane team’s voyage into the multiverse is far more elegant. Rather than succumb to the temptation of infinite possibilities, the show simply gives us a vision of a world where one single thing changes: the outcome of the heist that started the show. The seventh episode of Arcane season 2 is stunning, and perhaps the best and most beautiful of the entire show: a perfect encapsulation of the way that an entire universe can live inside the random chance of one moment. Arcane avoids the gluttony of other multiverse narratives, letting the concept provide depth to its characters instead. Ekko doesn’t need to see the infinite possibilities and complications of all the universes because he sees the things he really needs to: that no one is ever too far gone, that Jinx is still the Powder he loves no matter what she’s done, and that fighting for that side of her is still worthwhile.

But all of that is only Ekko’s side of the multiverse; so where do we tie Viktor back into this story? Viktor doesn’t experience the multiverse directly, but rather through seeing Ekko’s alternate-reality Hexcore. The realization of its existence instantly forces Viktor into the realization that Jayce is right. Not necessarily in the simple terms of Viktor’s own experiences clouding his judgment, but in the more complex terms of Viktor suddenly realizing that there are infinite worlds of existence that he knows nothing of. It’s a blunt-force impact to the confidence he has in his own decision making, and instant cause to reassess.

We don’t see any of this, of course, because we don’t need to; we only need to see that the realization leads him to journey in these different realities, and the fabric of time itself, to unite himself with Jayce in every possible reality, and to lead Jayce back to a world where he has to save Viktor from himself.

Arcane introduces the vastness of the multiverse in order to make Viktor feel small, and grants him this vision while withholding it from the audience in order to communicate the sheer overwhelming weight of it; we may be able to see the world through Viktor’s cosmological eyes through Fortiche’s beautiful animation. But this vision, whatever Viktor truly sees, is a bridge too far, a void that communicates with absence.

It’s one thing to have a vastly powerful villain be defeated by a story’s heroes, but that never would have fit for Arcane, a story that doesn’t really have a true villain, and certainly wouldn’t fit to have Viktor, a tragic character virtually lost inside his own mind and knowledge, be defeated in any traditional sense. But learning a piece of knowledge that makes Viktor feel small and insignificant, like he too is simply a cog in a cosmic machine with a tiny but integral role to play, is a perfect way of closing the book on his story.

The problem with so many of these stories is that in creating a godlike figure with limitless power, they lose track of the traits that make them interesting. But in its finale, Arcane makes it clear that even a god has to stay true to their character.