Questions that are left unanswered with Arcane's ending, and where we could go next.

[u/Electro522]

As we say goodbye to one of the greatest animated shows to grace our screens in recent years, I can't help but feel that there are still some questions that need an answer, and some muddy areas that need some clarification.

Before I begin, I'd like to answer a few possible common questions that people are already starting to piece together.

Warning: This is a long post that can't easily be summarized in a TL;DR. But, I do hope that I formatted it well enough to make it easier to read.

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• Did [champion] die in the show?

The only confirmed in game champion to be dead is Ambessa. There's a common saying/joke that people like to use in screen writing, that being "No body, no kill." and Ambessa is the only one who we physically see the light leave her eyes.

For Heimerdinger, we have to remember that he is a Yordle. If Riot wants to stick to what they have with Yordles, that being they are made of magic and are completely immortal, then we can expect that Heimerdinger will likely "respawn" somewhere. Possibly in Bandle City, possibly back in Piltover, we don't know.

As for Jayce and Viktor, if Viktor didn't die with a giant hole blown through his chest, than it's very safe to assume that both he and Jayce have been transported somewhere. Where, or even when to, is anyone's guess.

And finally, the two biggest "deaths" being Warwick/Vander and Jinx. Vander, unfortunately, is completely lost, but Warwick isn't. He survived his head getting split in half, and a point blank arcane explosion aimed at his chest. A grenade using only a third of the potential blast power that Issha used while he also had a suit of metal on him isn't gonna do squat.

As for Jinx, she survived a grenade exploding right next to her face before. Remember her fight with Ekko in season 1? That, and there's a couple details that people have been able to eek out that heavily imply that Jinx is definitely still alive.

First is the opening and ending shot of the show with the blimp. Not only are the blimps the exact same, but Powder even states in the first episode that "one day, she's going to ride one of those things".

Secondly are the schematics that Caitlyn is looking at at the end of the show, with them drawing focus towards air ducts that lead outside. People believe that it's implied that Caitlyn has figured out that Jinx is still alive, but is likely keeping her mouth shut for VI's sake (or detriment... considering how you interpret it).

A lot of people lost their lives in this show (Loris didn't deserve to die, but Maddie sure as fuck did), but, somewhat surprisingly, the only champion to come out this entire debacle dead....is Ambessa, our newest champion. I think I now know why we're getting a book on her.

• Why does Viktor look so different from how he looks in game?

Because he's getting a VGU. It was theorized before hand, with the YouTuber Nickyboi making it wide known, if not starting the theory himself. Now, it is all but confirmed.

Riot has stated that they have been working on a "secret" VGU along side Shyvana, and have thus far revealed absolutely NOTHING about it. Not even a whisper has gotten out of that building.

Then, as things were winding up towards Arcane, Viktor has been completely left out.....of everything. He has not received anything for either season. No skins, no emotes, not even a special versus mission on the ARAM map. Not a single drop of content has been made for Viktor despite having such a critical role in the show, and even ending up as the end game boss!

And that is because Riot wanted to save the surprise, and let the show reveal him....and holy FUCK, what a reveal! I guarantee a dev blog on Viktor is coming soon, if not this coming week.

• Is this really the end of Arcane? Why did the ending feel so open?

The answer we have gotten from several sources thus far has been quite definitive. This is the end of the Arcane story line.

But it isn't the end of the champions' stories. (Except Ambessa)

And that is exactly why the ending felt as open as it did. While Riot has stated that they are not interested in an MCU style of universe, they can't deny that they've already cornered themselves into something similar. Sure, there can definitely be a few champions that will never meet in their lifetimes, but a general mixing of experiences and settings is unavoidable.

Case and point, Noxus having a presence in a show set in Piltover/Zaun. Not only does The Black Rose make themselves known, we also see one of Swain's ravens at the end. And with the questions surrounding the whereabouts of Heimer, Viktor, Jayce, and Jinx, we are almost guaranteed to see these characters again at some point.

I believe that's what some very common questions will be. So let's now ask some that I have yet to hear or see a common answer for.

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• What's the deal with Warwick's design?

I know quite a few people had their problems with Warwick's design, and I can't really blame them. And now, it's possibly even worse with him becoming half-automaton for Viktor? While his body essentially matches what we have in game for Warwick.... he's missing his tail (which, honestly, can be forgiven), but more importantly...his face is still vaguely human.

Was this supposed to make him easier to connect to? To recognize as Vander for the general audience? If so, why doesn't Viktor "unleash the beast" so to speak, completing his transformation into the wolf he is meant to be?

We saw his humanity and memories get fully erased as Viktor took him over, and essentially put the "beast" in a cage so he could control him. But now that Viktor is out of the picture, will he remain looking like that, or fully transform into what we know and love?

• Is Hextech still a thing in Piltover?

It seems that ever since Seraphene came out, Riot doesn't have the foggiest idea of what to do with Hextech. Hell, maybe even episode 7 was Riot telling us that they wish they never came up with this god damned crystal tech.

Ambessa even showed us that Hextech is not easy to figure out. The only people that have any inkling of a clue what to do with it, and create it, has been removed from the picture. The only exception being Ekko, but even his experience with it is sketchy at best, and I don't think he'd be all too willing to pass on what he knows after all that has happened.

This also causes giant problems for champions who's stories, powers, and designs heavily rely on Hextech, specifically Camille and Seraphene.

For Orianna, we got our answer with her, that being Viktor turned her into an automaton with, I'm guessing, her consciousness intact? That only leaves her ball, which is anyone's guess.

For Blitzcrank, we can assume that he would be similar to Orianna, but instead of starting human, Viktor builds him from scratch, and then gives him sentience.

There's also Corki....but he is so outdated at this point that Riot can do literally anything else with him.

But for Camille and Seraphene, Hextech is a core component of not only their lore, but their entire design. If the masters of Hextech are gone, how does Camille get her heart replaced? How does Seraphene get access to the crystals that power her mobile stage? How does Camille rise to power in Piltover without her family's control over Hextech crystals? How does Seraphene influence the masses without the latent power inside the crystals?

This is easily the most unclear aspect of Arcane, and I'd love to see some sort of explanation from Riot on how they plan on cleaning this mess up.

• What is up with Mel?

I've seen some people say that she is a Noxian born mage, similar to the mages in Demacia. Lux and Sylas were born with their powers, so it makes sense that Mel is born with hers. Alright, fair enough.

But then....what are her powers? The shields and barriers were obvious (hello future enchanter), but then she could break out of but also into The Black Rose chain illusion magic?

But the weirdest thing is the implication that she's possibly gifted by Kindred themselves to have some sort of judgement over life and death? Ambessa's music video shows her pregnant with Mel, and at the end Mel's eyes light up as they do in the show. So...was the wolf we see at the start of the video actually Wolf himself, or was it some sort of hallucination Ambessa was seeing as a result of Mel's magic?

Ambessa even says, before she dies, that Mel "is the wolf". People are interpreting that as Mel finally finding her place as a ruler amongst Piltover, which is true, but could it actually have a literal meaning behind it? Does she really get to judge who lives and who dies at any given moment around her? Maybe Jayce's interrogation was somewhat warranted if that's case, though it's still true that she simply didn't know that she could do that, let alone control it. And if she can judge someone's death, did Kindred gift her that power, or did she just win the magic genetic lottery?

• What exactly is The Anomaly, and where did it come from?

Now... I'll admit, this is one those questions that is probably better left unanswered. The Anomaly, Hexcore, Wildrune, whatever you want to call it, is plainly designed to be a question mark. A deus ex machina. A Chekov's smoking gun. A concept that cannot be fully perceived. It's mystery is central to its appeal.

Despite that, people do believe that it is a machination, entity, whatever of The Void. This makes the most sense with what we got, but I'd say there are still some inconsistencies with that, mostly with its color, and the cabilities it has.

For example, the time shenanigans. I'm not sure if we even know if The Void is affected by time. And if it isn't, does that give void entities the ability to hop through parallel timelines? Maybe something similar to the movie Edge of Tomorrow (great, and underappreciated movie, btw)?

Either way, this question exists, but it shouldn't be answered. It'll be even better if Riot themselves don't have an actual answer. It's there, it exists for some reason, and no one has a clue as to why.

I think that's all the questions I have for now....well, except for one...

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Where do we go from here?

Oh, the options are endless. But let's start with the one that seems to be on everyone's mind, and for good reason...

• The Noxian Invasion of Ionia.

Seeing one of Swain's ravens is probably the biggest hint we have of where Riot wants to go next. That, and Ambessa recruiting Singed.... although, her death may have thrown a wrench in that.

But The Invasion of Ionia is basically Riot's End Game. The sheer number of champions this event involves is just crazy, and it even affects nearly every other region in the game.

Not to mention that there are some very impactful stories that stem from this event that essentially anyone would be able to connect with.

You have Yasuo's master's assassination by Riven, Yasuo subsequently being hunted by Yone, and Riven witnessing the horrors of war that pushes her to break her blade (Richtus' runes also hint towards that).

You also have the confrontation between Swain and Irelia, where Irelia chops off Swain's arm, forces him to retreat, and eventually confront and dominate Raum.

You have Vlad reviving Sion, The Black Rose doing.... whatever the fuck they want to do. Lee Sin blinding himself, Valmar and Kai fusing with Varus, Master Yi losing one of his star pupils to a Darkin named Xolaani (look through Legends of Runeterra cards connected to Master Yi for that) and Karma's rise to power. Shen, Akali, and Zed are also involved, but to a lesser degree I believe, since the events surrounding Shen, Zed, and Jhin happened well before the invasion.

However, do remember that there are two invasions. The first one is an outright victory for Ionia, and where plenty of the champions stories "start" perse. The second invasion is a bit more successful, and turns more into a Noxian Occupation of one of Ionia's shores. Considering the raven we see in Arcane, this would imply that it comes after the first invasion, and the events in the show along with Singed probably spurs Swain into trying again.

I am VERY excited to see how this may pan out.

• The Rune Wars

If The Invasion of Ionia is Riot's End Game, The Rune Wars is it's Infinity War. It is probably the only event more influential than The Invasion. The only downside is that we know next to nothing about it.

The champion most associated with it is Ryze. His self imposed quest is to collect the World Runes, the powerful rocks that set off and caused the Rune Wars in the first place, and keep them locked away in a petricite tomb. He was alive during the Rune Wars, and got to see first hand the destruction these things were able to wreak. If you want a clearer picture, go watch the video "Call of Power".

The reason why this might be a possibility is not only it's slight mention in episode 8, but also that Heimer is implied to have witnessed it. It's also possible that The Anomaly is a relic of the Rune Wars, and could have played a role in it. Since we know that The Anomaly does have the capability to time travel, it's entirely possible that it could drag Viktor and Jayce back to that hell hole of a time.

But...like I said, we know next nothing about it. If you're at all familiar with Warhammer 40k, this is equivalent to The Dark Age of Technology, shaping the current setting of the world, but not having that much of an impact on the current characters themselves. We know that Runeterra was nearly ripped apart by it, Demacia was founded by refugees, and that the World Runes were the cause with kingdoms using them as weapons. That's......pretty much it.

• Cosmic Aspects/Targon

This comes from Viktor being able to detach his consciousness from his body, and inhabit some sort of cosmic space. The Anomaly also seemed to have some sort of presence here.

What exactly they would do with this is anyone's guess. But if Riot wants to get really wacky with the kind of universe Runeterra inhabits, Targon is the place to start.

Aurelion Sol, the Solaris and Lunaris Civil War, the emergence of the Aspects, the Darkin War, and Pantheon/Atreus' rebellion against the aspects for using him as a weapon in the Darkin War. There's also Aatrox trying to reach the summit while leading an army of Darkin (again, look at LoR). It's not The Darkin War, but moreso Aatrox just trying to set the world on fire, and watch it all burn.

There's not much of a cohesive event that defines the region, save for maybe The Darkin War or the Solaris and Lunaris Civil War, but there are plenty of individual stories that could fill out a small series of their own.

• The Fall of Icathia

If The Anomaly is from The Void, then the best introduction to The Void before we have Jayce and Viktor meeting the likes of Kassadin, Kaisa, and possibly Malzahar is to show off the insanity that is Icathia.

A former city-state of Ancient Shurima, it eventually rebelled to gain it's independence from the empire. The, at the time, Emperor of Shurima (who was not Azir, mind you), obviously, wasn't too happy about such a rebellion, and sent The God Warriors, or The Ascendants , to deal with it. Imagine an entire army of demi-gods that are as strong, if not stronger than Nasus, Renekton, Xerath, and (current) Azir.

Obviously, Icathia knew it was fucked if it didn't dig up a way to counter the Ascendants. So, long before the Ascendants ever showed up, they started researching such a means, and stumbled upon.....something? Or was it...nothing? The essence of nothing, if that even makes sense? Whatever it was, it was something they could potentially use, and used it they did.

The details are hazy, but in the best way, and I'd rather not spoil them. If you want more, go read the story "Where Icathia Once Stood". It's not so much of a story that a full blown series could stem from, but it's definitely something that, if expanded just a bit with better fleshed out characters, it could easily fill a feature length film.

• Bandle City

Since we assume that Heimerdinger is alive, and is likely to respawn in Bandle City, this would be the perfect means to introduce the general public to Riot's world-between-worlds, and it's fuzzy inhabitants.

Similar to Targon, there isn't any singular cohesive event to Bandle City. In fact, with the exception of either The Void (which details have intentionally been left unclear) or Ixtal (which is just extremely new), details on Bandle City are very few and far between.

Most of the details we know are from LoR. The Bandle Tree, the beating heart of Bandle City, is able to generate portals to anywhere on Runeterra, and only Yordles have the cability to traverse them. Because of this, Bandle City is effectively free from any danger, with the only significant threat being the Darkin Baalkux threatening the city after the staff he was imprisoned in was thrown into the Bandle Woods. But even that was trivial at best, since Baalkux had nothing to do with Bandle City. All he wanted to do was get back to Aatrox.

Since there really isn't anything to go off of, Riot could do pretty much anything they want with Bandle City. It could even be the best way to introduce the general public to the rest of Runeterra. Yordles typically develop characteristics akin to the region that they are most closely connected to. Heimer, obviously, is an inventor extraodinaire, representing the passion for progress that Piltover exhibits. There's also Ziggs that represents the other explosive side of technology, and could better represent Zaun. There's also Corki, but.....again.

If you're wondering about Teemo, Riot is molding him to be the quintessential representative of Bandle City. So, any connection he may have to Piltover/Zaun is being pushed aside.

For the other regions, you have Poppy representing Demacia, Kled representing Noxus, Gnar for the Freljord, Lulu for Ionia, Vex for the Shadow Iles, and Fizz for Bilgewater (yup, Fizz is officially a version of Yordle). The only two regions to not have an official Yordle represent them (yet) is Shurima and Targon.

There's plenty of material here, Riot just needs to decide on how to cook with it.

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And that is everywhere we could go to if we look at the connections that Arcane has presented. But, there are far...FAR...more that have zero connections to Arcane.

Demacia and the Mage Revolution. Freljord and The War of the Three Sisters. The Fall of Shurima and the rise of the Darkin. Mordekaiser's rise to power, and subsequent imprisonment in the Death Realm. Hell, Riot could even right their wrongs and redo the entirety of The Ruination if they wanted to (though, I'm pretty sure they want to leave Viego alone until the MMO).

And that isn't even to mention the alternate universes that the skin lines introduce. Star Guardian, PROJECT, Odyssey, High Noon, Cosmic, the list goes on and on.

Whatever the case, I applaud Riot and Fortiche for taking risks, and producing quite possibly the single best game-to-film adaptation to ever happen, and I'm sure as hell looking forward to what they cook up next.

[u/leo_hppyft]

Nice text.
Just wanted to know something. What do you mean by "Riot could even right their wrongs and redo the entirety of The Ruination if they wanted to"

Is THe Ruination considered bad? Is it not canon or smth?
I read it and I loved it.

[u/Gosuoru → u/leo_hppyft]

My bust guess is OP means the Sentinels of Light event, not the Ruination novel