I see so much hate toward Caitlyn everywhere, and itโs almost always justified through the most superficial reading imaginable, like people watched the show through their asses, I kid you not ๐ญ
Hereโs what I thinkโฆ
Caitlynโs entire character arc is empathy constantly fighting against conditioning, privilege, duty, love, rage, power, and finally griefโฆ and some of yโall still analyze her with the emotional intelligence of a fucking TikTok comment section.
Half the fandom treats her like sheโs just Viโs pretty plus-one. A soft little submissive trophy girlfriend with no reason to exist outside of validating Viโs pain, embodying her desires, and looking hot while doing it. Like she only exists to fulfill some lesbian fantasy and smile lovingly in the background. Yeah, season 1 Caitlyn is fucking perfect. She is hot and nice and empathetic and sweetโฆ
But then she is confronted with trauma, in multiple forms: abuse, violence, griefโฆ and most of all guilt. She blames herself because โshe had the shotโ to prevent her motherโs death. And I genuinely think itโs that guilt that completely blurs her perception of everything that unravels afterward and makes her feel justified in acting with such harshness.
And the SECOND she stops being emotionally convenient, the second she spirals, fucks up, acts out of grief, anger, pressure, inherited ideology, trauma, and responsibility, suddenly sheโs fantasy Hitler personally committing war crimes for fun ๐ญ
People either want Caitlyn to be harmless, innocent, and submissive or completely monstrous. Thereโs apparently no space in between.
Itโs like they completely missed her constantly trying to challenge her own status and prove that she deserved her place beyond her name and legacy. Caitlyn never saw her privilege as freedom. If anything, she saw it as something suffocating, something that kept her disconnected from the real world and the people suffering in it.
She desperately wanted to understand how things truly worked outside of Piltoverโs bubble and genuinely wanted to help the less fortunate. She always had that rebellious streak in her, which is exactly why Vi was destined to fall in love with her in the first place.
Reducing Caitlyn to anything less than that is honestly insulting to Vi too ๐ญ because Vi could never fall in love with someone ordinary โค๏ธ
And what annoys me the most is that people constantly dismiss her trauma because sheโs privileged. As if privilege magically makes grief hurt less. As if being kidnapped, abused by a crazy lunatic who ultimately caused her motherโs death, being manipulated politically, carrying impossible responsibility, and slowly realizing the system she believed in is rotten somehow shouldnโt affect her psychologically because she grew up rich.
Like sorry, but Caitlyn is one of the most nuanced characters in Arcane, and reducing her to either โperfect girlfriendโ or โevil cop bitchโ is such a painfully shallow reading of her character.
Yโall are pissing me off.
