So I started re-watching One Piece this year (if ya’ll couldn’t tell) and I started a thread on Twitter where Luffy got a smooch every time a new crew member joined

I swapped to the Manga after Alabasta and am now officially caught up- so here’s the whole gang!!

Arcane Analysis / Sevika and Loyalty to Zaun's survival

Sevika the best left hand girl any leader could imagine, she'll call you out on your bullshit and is first one to notice the leader of undercity is loosing the grip on reality towards wishful thinking.

She is the embodiment of state of the undercity and what it needs to do to survive. Not live - that's Ekko, survive. Ekko is her idealist counterpart in the narrative - which is good since he represents hope for better future at least in Season 1. Alas we're stuck in now. And now for Zaun starts in botttomless heap of crap.

I'm sorry it starts okay, but then the enforcers on specific directions from the council go to find 4 children to lock them up for an accident , that didn't hurt anyone, for life. Spoiler - they only get their hands on one, Vi.

And with that the tentative peace Vander had through Greyson is broken, the two not being able to influence Piltover's council to change their mind.

Because Vander was an excellent leader until being afraid of more fighting, he chooses for Zaun to bleed out slowly. And she is right - in that scene - there is fighting for violence sake and there is fighting in self-defence. Undercity at this point needs to fight in self-defence or it'll die drop by drop. That guy behind her - it's the man enforcers threw through arcade window in previous scene, she came to Vander speaking on behalf of people that were already collateral damage of Piltover's use of force in the latest conflict.

Vander is slipping not because he is a bad man, immoral or something. No. His rule of no fighting back becomes detrimental to survival of even his own kids. It's because he can't protect people of the undercity without a fight at this point. He can't give himself up for each and every person when Piltover comes knocking.

Why do I think that? The show told me so?

Sevika is not an idealist, she's a realist - she'll do what needs to be done to keep undercity in one piece. She'll do her shit, and even shovel yours. She'll pay that price herself.

I don't even think she ever fights anyone without that person not coming to her for a fight - Vi certainly did both times. She doesn't fight Jinx or Ekko. Or Vander.

And then comes Silco, next to be leader of the undeground - someone who offers marginally better chance of undercity's survival. This is the moment Sevika looses her left arm - and it will evolve as the needs of the undercity's survival evolve.

Also this is the moment imo. she starts to really embody Silco's idea of:

This is not power to be poweful, it's the power to enact one's vision. And that requiers personal sacrifices towards your goal in line with morality like idk. loyalty, not sacrifice of other people towards own goal - Marcus took that road and well how it ended:

'coz corruption is bad actually. I can't believe this needs to be explicitly stated in the show, but here we are. Gj Marcus that you sacrificed your morals over and over again to uphold your good name and position, only for your crime cover-up to be known less than 24 hours after your death. You had possibility to opt out of it until you shot Ekko btw. , your last chance to make things right - gifted to you on silver platter by Caitlyn and Ekko, hexgem included. But no...

So back to Zaun's best girl Sevika and her having to wipe shit after the next leader of the underground, broken-dreamer turned mob-dad Silco and his not less traumatised daughter Jinx. Which she never even fights, because she doesn't fight if she doesn't have to.

Sevika has no room for your bullshit explanations, if only Silco faced the reality and used it to constructively change his relationship with his daughter. Oh, how good that'd be for him and Jinx.

And if someone doesn't believe this woman has undercity's best interest at heart in a selfless manner look at the two consecutive scenes:

This is how Jinx leave's her - and this is her next scene talking about Jinx. This is also the moment she shows the most personal side, instead of being less understanding - she shows more empathy towards the two. And then they go to frighten the chembarons into not rebelling against Silco because they're dissatisfied about the disturbance Jinx's actions caused in Piltover.

There's also a little interlude which makes clear that her loyalty isn't to Silco, it's to the undercity. For now Silco is the best option.

Or, let's rephrase the question: does she think the undercity should be run as an enterprise. Would that be better than Silco?

I guess no, chembarons and their enterprises are a no.

Ahh, Finn... you were soo dumb and cute, why would you think a nation would want to be run as a business?

And then there's shimmer. The only economic product of Zaun that is profitable and wanted enough to export under Piltover's rule, aside of course people's labour. Something that is a necessity for Sevika to operate her new arm, but is she happy with what Shimmer does too other people - that don't use it out of necessity? (ie. Caitlyn used shimmer infused potion to heal Vi - and that was good use of shimmer, it was a necessity. Shimmer can save lives or destroy them.)

(this is just from before her and Vi's last fight in Last Drop)

Oh the painful necessity of survival... she doesn't seem happy about shimmer and what's it doing to people around her, does she :

Anyway her new left arm - the arm she has under Silco. A necessity for her to function but the shimmer part is slowly poisoning her. Just like shimmer is slowly poisoning Zaun. If she used it more for violence - when it's not necessity - it would poison her more btw.

After first fight with Vi - she adapts it, since now undercity is reaching the boiling point. Again. And you know, Sevika does her own work - this is also when Finn goes to her to propose his power move. Haha, it's not about her ego Finn - it's about what's best for the undercity.

Thankfully Vi separates her from arm that was slowly polluting her - at detriment of Vi's own fate.

Why I think so? - because when Vi is lying on the floor listening to her fantasies of Vander saying she's doing good solving problems with her fists, Sevika doesn't finish her off even when she has perfect opportunity. She shows mercy, then Vi in the heat of her spree doesn't and rips her arm out. And that's also the moment the Last Drop's lights go out.

Or eh, I want to be so smart to figure it out for myself - in reality I just looked at the lyrics of the song that's playing:

This doesn't sound like the viktory lap song for Vi. But she does win the fight.

Well now Sevika can start Season 2 without an arm, so conspiracy theory time - take it with the grain of salt the size tungusk event meteorite. - 'if only, if only there was a character who could give a new arm to Zaun's best girl, that doesn't pollute her by solely being attached to her body. That could offer a better path forward than shimmer for the undercity.'.. like lore character that is known for prostetics (ekhm, Viktor)

So the logic of the cards imo is - white card border - event in Piltover, black card border - event in Zaun. The red in cards symbolises power of change btw. or revolution.

First 2 cards in the enemy song are act 2 and act 3. These are loosing cards - or cards that are on Piltover side. Because just in case - I assume the sides are Piltover and Zaun of the conflict, not personal conflict of Sevika's. So she is playing against Piltover and these are not her cards.

We start with (wikipedia and the like for cards):

7 of spades - or in tarot - reversed 7 of swords (tarot and playing cards are interchangeable) - and the card of inner-deceit, secrets and bad advice. And also looming death of a close friend. A little bit on the nose but hey - act 2 wasn't subtle. The border is white so it's Piltover events.

So act 2 is the thing that starts this fiasco or steps towards Sevika's best case scenario.

Then there's card for act 3 - an event in Zaun. I can't for the love of god pin what card is it in tarot - I assume it's the result of the previous card. It's imo. Caitlyn with one of her valkyrie wings being vaguely reminiscent of the trajectory of the rocket. (edit: I think the card txt is SPHINX - it's a fortunetelling card but not in tarot)

We're at midpoint of the story if it's 2 seasons, so the rocket is an event of no return in traditional 3act storytelling. The dice have been cast - and whatever side you chose - you will need to stick to it even if you want to change. Didn't commit to a side perfectly - or one side over the other - too bad.

And then there are Sevika's winning cards or her 'goal' for Zaun's survival winning cards: (Also just as aside does anyone else notice that the cards are marked (the edges are uneven - that's typical way to mark cards) so her opponents are cheating at the game (the person dealing the cards is one of the men) and she still wins? Lol, the details of the visual storytelling are amazing, you go Queen!)

Death - whose border is top white - bottom black. And imo. it's Silco and Jinx. I think it's Jinx because the red is her eyes, the shimmer eyes and the polluting Silco's vision toxins of river Pilt swarm up top towards Piltover. The death card in tarot - "Endings, Failure, Letting go of attachments, Mortality, Profound change". This is what will be severed both for Jinx - since now she's starting her life as Jinx for herself not Vi or Silco, after she did Silcos last 'fuck you' gesture to Pilover, and for Sevika and the undercity's survival - since now there's no Silco and Jinx. and probably for everyone else btw. Also "End of a cycle and beginning of another or inevitable change" which idk, also would fit Viktor's circumstance - because if he doesn't change ie. health wise, his story is definitely over. OR just inevitable change between Zaun and Piltover relationship.

And the final card for Sevika is in Zaun - The Machine Herald, I mean the The Magician.

This is one of the best 'actualisation' of vision cards one can get in tarot btw. I wonder what that means for Viktor, and Jayce, and everyone else. Especially Jinx and Ekko - can they go back to being kids?

It will for sure be good for Zaun and Sevika and her now missing arm but eh, what else does it entail? Peace with Piltover not through Jayce's best case option for Piltover? (I mean it was best case option for Zaun too at that time - since Piltover can't be trusted with wellbeing of it's undercity, so it doesn't deserve to have one.) So what would be be better than peace that would be granted to Silco? Start of clean up of the undercity of everything she's not happy about like shimmer? Curtailing chembarons that want to run undercity like an enterprise? Talis hammer business going by Ekko's in game jokes? Evil hexcore changing people into automatons - lol?

Anyway that was fun, I love Sevika's character - she continually surprised me. Yes, the girl has her vices like booze, smoking and being Babbett's regular - but overall she's so level headed. She's been attached to the shimmer arm for years and yet it didn't corrupt her. Not enough to even hit Jinx or kill Vi.

I really want her and Viktor to be bffs, these two could at least start to liberate Zaun from under Piltover. I hope, I have high expectations for these two in Season 2. And hexcore - my beloved evil automation-AI symbol. You go hexcore, destroy the nation of Piltover.

ps. She is also the hottest woman I've ever seen, so maybe that's why she gets the longest essay I wrote for this show. Priorities. Other posts by me - Arcane meta analysis posts - mostly politics, tech and character parallels

good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿