I absolutely hated how Season 2 addressed oppression/systemic violence

The first season of Arcane did a solid job telling a story about systemic oppression. In real life, great wealth does exist in close proximity to great poverty and it's due to the fact said wealth is CREATED by subjecting others to said poverty through exploitation and state sanctioned violence. Piltover has been exploiting, brutalizing and oppressing Zaun for...centuries, I'd assume, at the very least.

We see how Zaun absolutely has good people, geniuses, hard workers, etc. but they aren't ALLOWED to thrive because Piltover requires Zaun's exploitation and subjugation to maintain their own economic supremacy.

We see how the Piltovans justify that to themselves with some social darwinist, myth of meritocracy rationalizations ("the undercity is ~Just Like That~ because they're inherently dumber, lazier, less ethical, more violent little scumbag guys who won't take personal responsibility and put in the work to succeed, like us")

We see how using systemic violence to maintain that paradigm inevitably results in the rage and rebellion of the exploited underclass.

Tbf, I'm not crazy about the first season framing Vander's POV as good and Silco's as evil; Silco is 100% right about the base violence required for change. Its not like Piltover was going to grant them equal status through electoral politics or asking nicely, they created a situation where the underclass HAS to resort to violence to obtain freedom.

Moreover, that violence is not the same as the violence perpetrated by Piltover, it's asymmetrical violence. Using violence to stop someone from hurting you is not the same as someone using violence to maintain power over you. You're doing self-defense, they're just being abusive.

But, overall, the first season does a cool job of telling a story about class struggle. Very dope.

THEN...in Season 2...ugh.

It takes this sudden hard turn into: "Actually if Silco had just dropped his vendetta against Piltover, stopped hating Vander and didn't develop Shimmer, the Undercity would be a very nice place to live and everyone would be happy"

Like?? I'm sorry, Silco is personally responsible for the god awful conditions of the Undercity now?? Those god awful conditions didn't exist before him?? They didn't directly contribute to him doing everything he does?? His behavior just blips into existence within a vacuum that's devoid of social context?? Everything would've been fine if he'd just chilled tf out??

Like, suddenly the show acts like Zaun's circumstances ARE just a matter of individual responsibility.

Then he does his little speech about thinking he could free himself by fighting his "so called oppressors" (BRO THEY ARE YOUR OPPRESSORS) and then realizing the only way you can be free is to "walk away". So...when someone oppresses you, its just some low-vibrational unenlightened shit to actually DO SOMETHING about it? Real freedom is just accepting your circumstances? I don't...what are you talking about, Arcane. Are you having a stroke. Blink if you need me to call an ambulance.

Then the show just tries to resolve centuries of systemic oppression by...having the underclass work with their oppressors against a common enemy. So if you help your oppressors and make them realize you're actually pretty nice, they'll stop oppressing you. And by "stop oppressing you", I mean "give a single council seat to a Zaunite". Because surely Sevika can change deeply entrenched institutional issues by voting against like 6 people who have a vested interest in maintaining said institutional issues. Cool.

It was so disappointing. I was disappointed.