I want to talk about the people who are overlook Caitlyn's trauma and the suffering she went through in two seasons, to the point where it's really annoying and suspicious, honestly.
There are people who unironically believe she deserved the worst in season 1 alone. S1 when she did nothing wrong at all. On the contrary - she's trying to do a lot of good, she's being selfless and compassionate. On the other hand, characters who did commit crimes are being excused.
Like some people see her as privileged and as someone who suffered enough not like Vi and Jinx (she only lost her mom, she had a funeral when Zaunites don't) so she can't be a victim and feel pain and lost. This is so fucking stupid!
rich people can also be in grief and a target for manipulation. They are human beings too, a shock that has nothing to do with social status or job. And here are the reasons I think people so easily villainize Caitlyn:
Before that there is something important I have to talk about there’s also such a problem with people viewing things as either completely right/good or completely wrong/terrible and with people not able/willing to admit when they’re wrong or when someone has changed their mind.
Opinions are mistaken for facts. Differing viewpoints are attacked with ferocity. Hateful things are said about fictional characters who are supposed to bring us joy/comfort. It’s freaking ridiculous and has become such a massive problem in several of my top fandoms and I’m exhausted.
So back again to Caitlyn their reasoning is she comes from a privileged upbringing, is part of the oppressive higher social order and is a member of the police force that frequently harasses the citizens of Zaun. All of these come together to make her appear as someone that we as a progressive and morally just society are meant to frown upon and judge, cause those types of people are often to blame for many of the issues in our society.
With those pieces in place they see her as this inherently morally wrong person who needs to be dragged through the fire in order to redeem herself. They hold her to an almost impossibly high standard and will tear her apart if she even slightly steps over the lines they have laid out for her. That's why they like to paint her as genocidal war criminal for releasing The Grey and choose to ignore the obvious that she used it strategically rather than flood the whole city like Jinx did(who btw will get endless passes and excuses for her actions cause she is the "true victim" of the story). Jinx is not the only victim on the show.
And there is something else I want to talk about it, and it's modern liberal spaces, especially among young people. Most people have become obsessed with putting people in little boxes and making assumptions based on that alone. They are unwilling or incapable of seeing people as PEOPLE instead of just labels. It's like re-inventing the racism wheel all over again. We put labels on people and decide if they're good or bad, we don't look at what they do or listen to what they say because that's harder. It's easier to just discriminate against someone based on how they were born. And then the irony is people will accuse Caitlyn of discriminating against others when actually they're the ones discriminating against her, based on her background. It's just a maddening endless cycle of hate.
They also don't quite realize that not everything in the show is meant to be an allegory for real life political turmoil. The concept of a privileged society oppressing another through force has been done in many stories and while they may have been inspired by real events that doesn't mean they were intentionally sending a politically driven message to the masses.
Caitlyn's haters also brush over her trauma a lot too, not only of her mother's death and wanting to avenge it. But to also wanting to kill the person who kidnapped her and almost killed her twice. She hasn't had the time to really process it all and all those wounds are fresh in early season 2 so of course she ends up going dark for a time.
Caitlyn went through grieving, angered, depressed, vulnerable, and... alone. Not a single voice of reason or support around
• Father? Also grieving and distant.
• Childhood friend? Disappeared.
And that’s the vacuum Ambessa mentioned when talking to Vi. People still didn’t understand that? Wow, I guess not everyone throughly watches the plot of series, I suppose.
So in the end Caitlyn for me has one of the best arcs, if not the best, while not being a clown, like Jinx (I like Jinx tbh, but least be real guys). Some people just hate it. Some envy it. Bc much of Cait's hate is simply irrational. Just ugly whining babys out there.
They are literally make Caitlyn the only villain in Arcane. There's Jinx who committed acts of terrorism and murderer. There's Silco's right hand ( I mean Sevika) happily enforcing his rule through violence. There's Silco himself, who tried to kill an entire family and forced the children to work in the Shimmer factories and he suppressed his people himself so that they would obey him, and there is Ambessa the character who committed the most evil acts in the show. And Viktor, who wanted to kill and control all the people of the two cities of Piltover and Zaun. But no, it's Cait that is the worst 🤡
