In Viktor and Jayce's first encounter and the subsequent Hextech discovery was motivated by a desire to use science as a tool to put the power back in the people's hands (understanding the people as the proletariat, mostly in Zaun), and there is clearly a class component that stands out in a narrative that, for all of that first season, leaned really hard into both-sides-ism. Part of the appeal of the conflict for me was that it was specifically them that were working on it. We are shown science and a common goal as an equalizer and an excellent tool for "progress" (a vague keyword that we frequently use in the real world as well in relation to science at the service of capital, but that's a post for another day). But it soon becomes apparent that science is ideologically neutral and that their personal backgrounds are at odds, with Jayce being from a piltovan petit bourgeois background (while still existing in a plutocratic industrial metropolis) and Viktor being a disabled zaunite whose presumed working class background is nevertheless light years away from those of other zaunites who are in the same circumstances as him but still living in the Undercity. And of course, the industrial use of the arcane soon becomes tied to the economic interests of said industry, namely weapon manufacturing and international trade (led by the plutocrats governing the city.)
The Arcane as a corrupting power (someone playing god and being punished for taking what isn't rightfully theirs) is a theme that is being hinted at throughout this season. While I do think it makes for a very good background for a tragedy, we love the Greeks, etc., I'm not sure it's a narrative I find all that compelling in the context of a story where the main point of conflict is class war. If taking what is not rightfully yours results in punishment, the underlying thesis is that the Undercity was punished for trying to take something that wasn't rightfully theirs ("welfare state" would be the more clout-friendly term I could use, but I won't: They were trying to seize the means of production that were hinging on the use of exploited labour of Zaunites and all the social and physical consequences that are born from this oppression).
I am hoping that the depiction of imperialist endeavors as something negative (at times cheesy in its obvious visual signifiers) through Caitlyn and Ambessa, as an aristocrat on the police force veering right in a moment of political turbulence and a general in an expansionist empire's army with a material interest in Hextech weaponry, is treated not as a "they also flew too close to the sun" but as people whose economical interests need that there is an oppressed class (be it Zaunites, Ionians, or whomever) whose labor sustains them. But my hopes about this also tie into Jayce and Viktor and their shared plotline.
I think it's a delightful, painful irony that the Zaunite guy who has been working in Piltover for over a decade comes back to Zaun all full of magical wisdom and cures the disabled addicts who inevitably turn to worship him for ending their plight. There is a side of horror to this when you consider Viktor's personal relationship with disability and professional goals in the Hextech investigation, and I'm very worried about the implications of both "the disabled guy gets punished for curing his disability with magic" and "using magic to improve human lives is playing god and one must die to restore the balance of the universe" which right now, one day before act 2 of season 2 airs, seem increasingly possible takes. I hope I'm wrong. Jayce, on the other hand, is facing the consequences of having understood their investigation and invention of Hextech devices as an isolated endeavor when he realizes all the industrial detritus has been an active component of mass death in Zaun. And the soundtrack and his horror at the anomaly put the audience in a spot of thinking that once more the horror lies in trying to control the Arcane, in human hubris and ambition, and not in the class horror of killing poor people by the hundreds in the name of an abstract value of progress that clearly only benefits the proverbial patron.
The Act 2 posters for Viktor and Jayce have been released, I've written extensively about how I think making Viktor's narrative about bodily autonomy and agency is a possibility and also what I think the character deserves, but I am wondering about the design choices for Jayce hinting at the fact that he embodies some of Viktor's pre-cocoon traits. I understand the appeal of Jayce also getting "infected" by the hexcore, sustaining matching injuries to Viktor as he heals him (the leg brace, the bracelet's gem embedded in his forearm, the glove, the glow of hextech in his chest and pauldron). But I dislike the thought that this whole exchange once again exists in the premise that the Arcane is punishing human hubris and demands.
The Arcane is nothing, it has no essential properties, it's not sentient. The Hexcore heals because Viktor spent months teaching it how to heal. The Hexgates transport ships because that's the input they have been given. I would maybe like to consider the environmental aspects of Hex crystal harvesting as more of a "hubristic endeavour" rather than an "angering the gods" story (I miss you, old Skarner). I want to focus on the social structures the discovery has supported, on how Viktor's and Jayce's current predicament is a product of socioeconomic neglect because they believed in the certainty of science as the objective truth, as politically neutral, as inherently good, and now they are trapped, injured, losing themselves and their very mortal and human bodies because they were cogs in a bigger machine convinced of their importance.
This story is at the same spot it began: With Zaun crushed under Piltover's boot for demanding dignity and freedom. Will this anomaly trip change the stakes at all? Can we understand the literal, physical transfer of Hextech-induced sickness onto Jayce through Viktor as a narrative of accepting the demands of the oppressed as one's own to finally work for liberation? To become a class traitor as an act of love?
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