Vi: Why Audiences Loved Arcane's Strong Female Lead

What amazing lady in film or TV should be next on my breakdown list?

If you have to TELL your audience that your character is 'brave, independent and strong' than that character is none of that.

Vi’s nurturing and motherly tenderness towards her sister MELTS MY HEART

Vi is literally one of my favorite characters in modern media. She's so inspiring and strong willed, yet grounded, extremely relatable, and earns each and every one of her victories. Not to mention having an awesome design and multifaceted dynamics with a host of other character (which, in my opinion, is the the hallmark of a fantastic character).

"You still block with your face..." That one Tough Woman sentence from Ekho tells you yes, Vi is a strong woman. But she is very far from perfect and flawless.

I love that you use the Hawkeye show to demonstrate "tell, don't show" when the actress for Kate Bishop also does the voice for both Vi and Spider Gwen.

I love how in her first fight, Vi was on the receiving end of the “slo-mo punch” face. You know the one, where the character’s face gets punched, and it’s unflattering, and sometimes there’s saliva flying out of their mouth. And Vi gets up and keeps on fighting, and eventually wins through superior technique. I’ve found that quite a few modern female action leads tend to win their fights right off the bat, and if they do get hurt then it’s not nearly as visible. Their hair and makeup are perfect, or at least presentable, they’re not bruised or scraped or even sweaty, particularly on the face. And if such a character ever suffers a facial injury, it’s always a strategically placed cut that makes her look pretty. Her injuries are literally used as makeup. I’m a woman who’s practiced MMA, and Vi is one of my favorite characters of all time. Her determination, her leadership, her pragmatism, her genuine love and protectiveness for her family, the way she cares for Powder but still encourages her to push herself and live up to her potential. Vi is amazing. Arcane is amazing.

I also believed the monster comment Vi was talking about herself. That her striking her sister out of anger has forever tainted her image of herself. The line reads “Then a real monster came along, and I ran away” Silco showed up after Vi ran away. She was the monster

I don't think it can be overstated how crucial Vi's relationship with Vander is when it comes to establishing her as a likeable character who we want to root for. In my opinion, the single main problem with the typical Hollywood girlboss is that they never have a mentor, someone who they learned from before they were capable enough to fight their own battles. Because...for these characters, there never WAS a "before". They were ALWAYS strong, always capable, always had the power within themselves and the only obstacle that's ever been in front of them is the doubt and persecution heaped on them by others. That's the whole point of the flashbacks to young Carol Danvers, or the character of young Leia in whatever garbage Disney+ show that was. But none of this is true of Vi, and we see that through her interaction with Vander. Sure, when she's out on the street with her ragtag band of kids, she's scrappy, tough, and resourceful. She's in charge. But then we see her with Vander, and the roles are reversed. She's not in charge any more, because she's a kid, and he is for all intents and purposes her father. She has conflict with him, but when push comes to shove she trusts him with her whole heart to protect her and their family. She learns from him, because that's what parents are for. It's implied beyond any doubt (without ever needing to be said outright, bravo writers) that Vander taught Vi how to fight, but more importantly than this, he mentors her in more nuanced ways. One conversation between them establishes their entire relationship, that at one point in the past he must have recognized something of himself in her and has taught her how to be like him because that's the kind of person she wanted to be. (Side note: the fact that they allowed a male character to have this level of positive importance in the development of a female lead is actually like...borderline revolutionary these days.) And the audience NEEDED that. We needed to watch Vi learn from and rely on someone to see that, yes, she is actually human. She didn't come into the world having all the power and all the answers from the moment of birth. She was shaped in both positive and negative ways by her environment and by the people around her, especially her father. That story has truth to it, it resonates with all of us, so we love it and we love her. Hollywood, take notes.

I understand the love for Jinx. She's a great character. But to me, Vi was absolutely the heart of the show. And I definitely related to her character and story arc the most.

I remember being so hesitant to watch this, and now I can't stop recommending it to my friends to watch lol

One thing I love about Vi is her relationship with Cait. Initially, it's purely transactional, but it grows into something so beautiful. Two people, who come from two completely different lives, finding love in one another is just the best.

Youtube has just been slaughtering video essays recently. This is the third reupload I've seen in the past week.

The best part of Arcane's writing is subtly and the willingness to show, not tell. Characters should be strong, but not flawless. And emotions like empathy shouldn't be considered a weakness. I rewatched Arcane recently and I swear that I notice something new that I didn't notice before every time I do so. It still blows my mind that a show this good even exists, especially in this era of generally shoddy storytelling and lazy writing.

Empathy in tough female characters pretty much sums it up. People tend to look up to empathetic characters. Like yeah they can kick a** but that doesn’t mean they can’t show love and compassion towards others ya know. Definitely what Hollywood gets wrong, Hollywood is like let’s bash others and claim to be tough, when really those characters are weak minded, would actually make great writing for villainous character 😂 because of how unlikeable the traits are.

In Legends of Runeterra (League of Legends card game) one character from Zaun says phrase, that in my opinion perfectly explains Vi's character: "Tough places bring tough people".Vi is strong and tough because she has to be in order to survive. She is the product of environment, she grew up in. In different circumstances she would probably be much softer. But you have to be tough to survive in the Undercity, and that's why Powder constantly gets berated by Mylo - she is not tough enough.

I doubt this would even be considered a "Hot Take" but here is the disclaimer anyways. The characters in Arcane are written so well that even if they didn't come from a famous or popular IP the world would still have loved the show. Yeah it helped that the IP got a large portion of the initial audience but I think this show would have blown up in popularity on the basis of it being a good story alone.

The way you point out everything that is great in this show, and wrong in most of modern stuff made with less care is just incredibly insightfull. Enjoyed it a lot, keep itt up mate

I agree with almost everything you said, but I can’t agree that Vi and Jinx wouldn't be as close if they didn’t share a gender because that's just not the case. I know a lot of people who have a brother and a sister and are equality close to both of them, me included.

that last part about the politics, Arcane is very political and has tons of paralles to real life politics, but its because its exploring our politics indirectly and not just taking politics from our world and just dumping it unaltered into the story.