The following contains spoilers for Arcane season 2 Act 2, now streaming on NetflixOne of League of Legends characters and lore, Arcane's creatives have fashioned the world in a compelling, romantic, and dark story about humanity and power.

One of the best ways Arcane has done this is by focusing on the characters before they became Champions. In League of Legends, there are 168 playable Champions at the time of writing, each with their own unique design and backstory. By leaning heavily into the latter, Arcane's focus on characters has found an ideal way to explore these avatars from a human perspective. The result is a show that feels inspired and influenced by the source material without being beholden to it. The tragic arcs of two characters in particular, Vander and Viktor, highlights how this focus makes the show so good.

Vander's True Fate As Warwick Is More Than Just A Confirmed Fan Theory

How A Good Man Becomes A Brutal Monster

Before being transformed into the wolf-man Warwick, Vander was established in Arcane season 1 as a major figure for good in Zaun. His harsher edges may still be under the surface, but he quickly proves to be a dependable and resourceful adopted father to Vi and Powder. It's that humanity that gives his return in season 2 as Warwick a greater edge of sadness, as all that humanity has been reduced to a brutal animal. In his first full episode and League of Legends, Warwick is a fearsome killer with a limited vocabulary.

Fan theories have long suspected it could be Vander underneath all those fangs and claws, but it's proven to be an emotionally rich story. "Blisters and Bedrock" doesn't just highlight the tragedy of Vander's lost humanity, but underscores it by revealing his failed efforts to make peace with Silco in the first lace. He never wanted to be a killer, even when he was still just a human. Efforts to restore Vander's humanity are key to Vi and Jinx's storyline in Act 2, and their failure due to outside circumstances makes Warwick's ferocious attacks as tragic as they are horrifying.

Viktor's Somber Fate Makes His Game Character More Interesting

The Machine Herald Is Way More Interesting If He Started Out As A Well-Meaning Man

When Viktor is introduced in Arcane, as he's one of the few who believes in Jayce and keeps him from falling into despair. Viktor's friendship with Jayce is key to both of their survival, with both relying on one another even as their paths diverge. However, their fates were always doomed by their connection to League of Legends, whose lore established that the two as bitter enemies. With outlets like PC Gamer highlighting how Arcane is effectively becoming the accepted lore of League of Legends, the focus on their friendship in season 1 took on a far more bittersweet aspect.

This became even more pronounced in season 2, when Viktor's embrace of the Hexcore and Jayce's mission to destroy led the latter to murder the former in cold blood. It's a harsh moment that sets the stage for Viktor to become more like his videogame counterpart, a cold and unfeeling figure determined to "fix" humanity by convincing them to give up the emotions that once connected him to people like Jayce. The Machine Herald's new tragic edge brings a harsh aspect to his in-game comments and feud with Jayce.

Arcane's Tragic Edge Helps Make It Such A Good Adaptation

The Human Cost Of Creating Legends

One of the things that makes Arcane such a well-constructed adaptation is how it tells its own human tragedies that build on the characters and concepts from the source material. League of Legends is full of great characters, but an adaptation could easily become overcrowded and unmoored from genuine personality. Instead, Arcane focuses on the unseen origins of characters like Warwick and Viktor, taking cues from the older lore and using it to tell painfully human stories. Even if Warwick is a muted wolfman and Viktor is a laser-spouting mechanical being, both of them good men corrupted by circumstance.

[Arcane has] discovered that the key is finding human stories amid the outlandish settings and fantastical battles.

The show embraces the aesthetic and lore of the original universe, but never loses sight of the human element that makes the show so compelling. Arcane, along with other recent videogame adaptations like The Last of Us, Fallout, Castlevania, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, have discovered that the key is finding human stories amid the outlandish settings and fantastical battles. Arcane understands the potential depth of Warwick and Viktor's transformations, and the show's success highlights how important that human element is to a good adaptation.

Source: PC Gamer