Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Arcane Season 2 Act 3.
Arcane co-creator and showrunner Christian Linke has responded to fans up in arms over Season 2’s storytelling, defending his team’s creative choices without downplaying viewers’ complaints.
Linke addressed criticisms of the Netflix animated series’ second and final season – specifically, that it covers too much, too quickly – in a recent interview with GamesRadar+. “When people watch Season 1, there’s an aspect to the pacing… Season 2 is a bit different in that regard,” he said. “I respect that people express that [opinion]. You’re right – the vast majority of the audience seems to be happy. But there are people who say, ‘It’s rushed. What’s going on?'”
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Linke went on to say that Season 2’s detractors aren’t wrong when the describe it as covering more story than Season 1 in roughly the same amount of screen time. According to the showrunner, Riot Games and animation studio Fortiche intentionally structured Arcane‘s narrative “a little bit differently” the second time around. Linke chalked this up to the team’s creative impulse to “take these bets [and] take these swings.”
He added that this resulted in a narrative that felt distinctly different pacing-wise from Arcane Season 1. “There’s some people who specifically wanted to see the continuation of Season 1 in that regard and are disappointed,” Linke acknowledged. “I’m not happy that they feel that way, but I respect that.” At the same time, Linke also observed that some Arcane devotees had the opposite problem with Season 2, insisting it should’ve squeezed in even more characters and subplots!
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“There’s also the flip side,” he said. “I see like, ‘Where’s Camille? She’s part of Piltover. Where’s Blitzcrank? Where’s Twitch? Why didn’t you include them?’ On one side, you have people saying it’s too much. On the other, you have people saying we didn’t do enough and we did our best… It’s hard. We’re doing our best to include the right amount of story.”
Arcane Season 2 Acts 1-3 are currently streaming on Netflix.
Published: Nov 26, 2024 11:37 am