Netflix’s Arcane Writer Talks Queer Representation
Arcane‘s second and final season has not only meant a lot to its fans and League of Legends-maker, Riot Games, it’s also meant a lot to the people behind the scenes who brought the Emmy award-winning animated series to light. Moreover, the show, which is widely regarded as one of the best video game adaptations ever, also has the added benefit of centering its epic narrative around a queer couple, Vi and Caitlyn Kiramman.
To gain insights into the intimacy, love, and conflict in Arcane‘s final season (and get juicy details about the CaitVi ship straight from the source), we spoke with lead writer Amanda Overton and asked her how she, Riot Games, and Fortiche worked together to bring the show’s most resonant moments to life.
The interview has been edited for brevity.
Isaiah Colbert, io9: Video game adaptations often walk the line for fans with how well they follow their source material and whether or not they go to the beat of their own drum. What was your guiding principle for writing Arcane’s second and final season?
Amanda Overton: The guiding principle was always to make the best TV show possible. We were really fortunate that Riot was behind us in saying, “We know this is a TV show, not a game. You do you when it comes to making the best TV show you can.”
Christian [Linke] and Alex [Yee] had been at Riot Games since there were only 40 people at that company. Alex actually helped create a lot of the champions that everybody loved. And they really loved the game, really loved the fans. We always wanted to be inspired by the game, and there was an element of how much of the game and the lore we could draw from so that fans would recognize things that they loved in the show as well.
One of the funniest examples for me is creating the Z-Drive for Ekko in episode seven. He had this lore of having crafted the Z-Drive, the magic from these different shards of magic crystals, and we were like, “Oh, we have shards of magic crystals that might be left in the wall of that exciting event in our series.” We thought it would be fun if it was something that ended up in that alternate reality killing Vi, one of our favorite characters, then it would take Powder overcoming her emotional trauma in order to help him with that. It was a way to be inspired by the lore and add that emotional dimension we had crafted in the television series.
io9: Arguably, one of Arcane’s most gratifying moments was the canonization of Caitlyn and Vi. In a medium that’s often been accused of queerbating, fetishizing, burying its gays, or outright censoring them, as was the case with The Legend of Korra’s Korrasami, queer animation fans have gotten used to getting the short end of the stick with their romances either being heavily implied or flatly denied. Online, you’ve become known as a soothsayer with your credits on shows like Monarch and Severance, with their queer representation. What went into your mind when writing an explicitly queer representation in one of the most prominent video game-adapted television shows between Caitlyn and Vi?
Overton: In the very first week of the writer room, I was like, “OK, where’s the romance in the show?” And [Linke and Yee] were like, “It’s going to be Cait and Vi. They’ve been hinted at in the game, but they’ve never been made canon. So we want our show to make them canon.” And I was like, “I can help you with that” because I always loved video games my whole life. I loved these big, massive IP shows and stories. And I think the first time I saw [The Last of Us:] Left Behind, I sobbed. I sobbed for like 24 hours straight because it felt like a queer relationship in a space that I had loved so much for so long. It’s really hard to recognize the absence of a thing, but then when you finally see it for the first time, that makes a huge difference to me to see and feel that.
For me, it was just a huge responsibility to tell an epic series-long romance. We were going to make them endgame. So we had to make, for me, the most satisfying things are the journeys that are most difficult to come by. I was like, “Well, we’ve got to make this as hard as possible. If Caitlyn’s an enforcer, what if enforcers killed Vi’s parents?” That was something we invented in the first week of the room so they would have the hardest possible journey to come together.
But we also needed to understand how they could fall in love. That needs to be based on mutual respect. The first hurdle we had was Caitlyn. She’s an enforcer [with] a life of privilege. She didn’t have to fight, but she chose to fight. Whereas Vi, for her whole life, felt like to get anything, she always had to fight. So, she could look at someone who didn’t have to fight and chose to fight anyway. That was the kernel of, “Oh, she could respect that in Caitlyn.” If we could find some reason that these two very opposite people could respect each other, then we could find a way to make them fall in love.
queen of queens pic.twitter.com/E4IJpcM5FU
— mey (@cupc444it) December 4, 2024
io9: Can you describe what it was like seeing the giant CaitVi mural in Brazil?
Overton: No (laughs)! It was so overwhelming. I couldn’t even find words for it. It really was. The mural at the finale event when the scene of them getting together finally happens—the sex scene—the fan reaction was the loudest of the entire end of the series. It was as loud as a jet engine, the sound guy told me.
To see people cheering so much for two queer characters to get together, that’s never happened to me before. You see a giant mural of two women in love in the center of a giant city. That’s never happened to me before. My 16-year-old self, who felt awkward and weird and loved video games and Star Wars, and never felt like she belonged. If she saw this, she would feel like she belonged. That’s the reason I write stories now, so it means the world to me.
io9: One point of contention fans have had with the season is its pacing in the second act. Many fans were hoping Caitlyn’s turn to fascism would last longer and be challenged in a big way—likely by Ekko (though he’s noticeably absent). Caitlyn does come to grips with her fall from grace by saying “I know” rather than “I’m sorry” when Vi holds her feet to the fire in their confrontation in act three. What does Caitlyn’s “I know” signify to you?
Overton: I think we always try to show with actions—I think actions are far more powerful than words. So we always knew that Caitlyn’s apology to Vi would take place in the way she was able to forgive Jinx. She had Jinx in custody. She could have gotten the justice that she always wanted. Instead, she chooses Vi. In letting Vi escape and have the key, there’s a world where Vi and Jinx disappear, and she never sees either of them again. So she very selflessly gave up anything she wanted at that moment to try and take an action that would be doing the right thing—that would be atoning for those mistakes.
Like she says, you can never take back the mistakes. You can only try to make up for them. And so, I think that “I know” is her acknowledging to everyone that “I made mistakes, and I can’t take them back, but I can certainly take action to try and fix that.” And in the end, she gives her eye. She’s willing to die and give her eye to try again, to try and keep making up for those mistakes.
io9: Maddie was a character Arcane fans loved to hate this season because she served as Caitlyn’s rebound from Vi. From a writer’s perspective, was Maddie’s purpose in the show—to give fans something to hate, or was there an added layer of reasoning to put her as a foil to Caitlyn and Vi’s romance?
Overton: The biggest romances need obstacles. One of the things that Caitlyn was struggling with this season was, “Who am I now that my mom’s gone and I’m the head of the Kiramman family? Do I have to do what my mom wanted me to do? Do I have to live the Kiramman name like my mom did, or can I make it my own?” And so, in the beginning, she leans into the council and the leadership that her mom did. I didn’t just want it to be professional, I wanted it to also be personal. What would it look like if she dated someone her mom might’ve approved of? And so, I think for her, she’s trying on things to see if they fit and realizes they don’t. And that helps her understand what she really wants.
io9: Obviously, this interview has become the CaitVi interview, so I’ve got you cornered here to ask some of those questions. It goes without saying that Caitlyn and Vi always dug each other in the first season, whether it be through visual tells like their many microexpressions, stolen glances at each other, match-frame shots. This season ramped things up in a big way in a scene where Caitlyn held Vi prisoner and—instead of whipping Vi’s spit away from her mouth like a normal person—Caitlyn wiped it across her lips. It behooves me to ask, did you have a hand in concocting that scene? And if so, what was going through either person’s mind at that moment?
Overton: The spit scene or the sex scene?
io9: The spit scene. We’ll get to the other one.
Overton: I think a storyboard artist or an animator did that. That’s not something that I had a hand in. The whole team knew from the beginning that this couple was gonna be the endgame. There were 400 people working on the show, pitching ideas and figuring out ways to make them together from the length of time they embrace to which direction they move their hands. Every single person was in on this together. That’s another reason there are so many special little moments between them: because it was such a team effort to bring this to life.
io9: Now we’ve arrived at the sex talk! Arcane’s eighth episode sees Caitlyn and Vi finally culminating their romance. Were there any hard lines or notes you had as deal breakers for how the intimacy of the love scene would be depicted, and what it absolutely needed to have incorporated into it? If so, what and why?
Overton: Another person that really helped bring that to life was the storyboard artist, Silvia [Martelossi]. She, like everybody, put all of their ideas of what they wanted to see in there. Our guiding light was that this was the culmination of love and a romantic relationship in our series, so it had to be better than that Jayce and Mel sex scene. It had to show more. It had to bring to life everything that these characters were and had done.
I always approach writing a sex scene the same way I approach writing an action scene [and] a dialogue scene. There have to be dramatic twists and turns that happen in that action that reveals something about the characters, from how playful they are, how vulnerable they are, and the way they look at each other. Every single moment of that, you had to learn something new about their relationship. It says a lot about the action of the apology, the action of Cait having regret for having hit Vi at the end of episode three. All of that is in there. That’s why I’m really proud of how much that scene says about them, the climax of their arcs, and the forgiveness that they’re both willing to have for each other in that moment. To me, that the most important thing to do.
And again, that whole team came together. Our storyboard artist, Silvia, really worked hard. She crafted a lot of wonderful beats, [and gave them] a lot of texture there. The episode’s directors also helped. Christian, Alex, everybody had a say. They also really listened to me. They’re like, “Amanda, what do you think?” And I was like, “Well, as the lesbian in the room, what about this?” And they respected, helped, empowered, and rallied around me to make it feel as authentic as it could. I know everyone has a different perspective, but to me, it felt like something the world hadn’t seen before in a story like a big video game IP. They just didn’t exist. I think we were able to put every single thing into that scene that we wanted to put into it.
io9: What is the significance of their first time being in a jail cell?
Overton: Honestly, the first time that was pitched to me—it wasn’t my original idea—I was like, “Really, the jail cell?” Whenever you strongly react to something, I think that’s an indication that you need to lean into it and explore. That’s what storytelling is: having strong emotional reactions to something and then figuring out why. And I was like, “Oh, well, this could be a way for Vi to reclaim that space for herself and use that to work through some of her past trauma or to reframe things that had been negative in her life to something positive.” I was like, “We’re gonna have to work really hard, you guys, to make this the right place for this moment.” I think with the lighting, the framing, and the way that the directors orchestrated everything felt beautiful.
When we got to see her tattoo for the first time—everyone wanted to see her whole tattoo— I was like, “Well, that’s gonna happen in that scene.” The way we reveal that got to be really beautiful and special for both of them—Cait’s reaction to seeing my tattoo [and] Cait’s reaction to everything in that moment. Everybody worked really hard to make that location work and I think everyone has a visceral reaction to that. That’s what you want as a writer. You want your audience to feel something visceral when they see something. So I was really proud of the team for making that work.
io9: Aside from CaitVi, Arcane season two has also done stellar work with other dynamics—with confirmed ships like Jinx and Ekko or an implied alt-universe romance between Silco and Vander. But one of the biggest ships to come out of Arcane outside of CaitVi is a ship between Jayce and Viktor, thanks in major part to the intimacy of their writing throughout the show and how they go out, as the fans say, in a “cosmic yaoi” style. Was the writing of Jayce and Viktor’s relationship intended to be strictly platonic, or are fans justified in reading it as romantic?
Overton: Fans are always justified in reading things the way they want to because that’s part of making art. When you do a thing for it based on you, it doesn’t actually have meaning until other people give it their own meaning. My backstory is very different from your backstory and my experiences are very different from yours so I can only speak from my experience. When I put a thing that I’ve written out in the world, then everyone brings their own different experiences to it.
We were writing them as a loving, brotherly relationship that unambiguously [had] love between them. When it got to that final moment, it was so romantic and beautiful to me when I saw it for the first time—the way Fortiche put it together—I was like, “Oh, well maybe there is hope [for] these guys to have some future beyond what the show intended.” That was really cool for me to see. If people want to imagine that, I think they can, and that’s wonderful. Now that the show is over, if there’s the potential for that out there, then that’s potential that our fans can realize for themselves.
io9: On Twitter, you mentioned that episode seven, “Pretend Like It’s the First Time,” was your favorite episode. Going by the outpouring of fan art and Stormae’s song topping the global charts, it’s safe to say the feeling is mutual. What makes the episode such a standout for you as a writer?
Overton: What makes it such a standout is that you really can only do a standalone or an episode that exists outside the structure of a show when you successfully establish the structure of a show. We were able to come up with a very consistent version of how Arcane feels, how Arcane is paced, and the stories that we’re telling. Then we were able to step outside of that for one episode and make something a little bit different than what Arcane is: something more hopeful, something more colorful, and something kind of more of a rom-com. It still has all the seeds of Arcane, but I always called it the ’90s romance episode of Arcane. I was like, “Yes, that’s something I can totally do. Teen romance, I love it.”
We’ve seen a lot of alternate universes now and how string theory has percolated with the Marvel infinite universe television shows doing that. We said, “Let’s take that and do our version.” Because everyone’s so familiar with this right now, we don’t have to spend much time explaining the multiverse. People will just instantly get “multiverse,” which means we can lean into what the potential of this relationship could be.
Ekko gets to see Benzo again; he gets to see Vander again, and he gets to see Milo and Clagger if they grew up. And most importantly, he gets to see a version of Powder who grew up not becoming Jinx. I think [that’s] what was great about that episode. We got to see and imagine a future for all these characters that didn’t have one in our series. For Powder in particular, we got to show that there’s always some Jinx in Powder. Which is important because in the other timeline we got to show that there’s always gonna be some Powder in Jinx.
That was exciting for us, to be able to give more depth to both of those characters and give Ekko everything he needs in the other timeline to kind of complete his arc. He got disillusioned with the darkness of Zaun and from having to fight so long. We were able to use the romance and love in that episode to bring hope back into Ekko’s life so that he would be fighting from a place of hope again.
io9: Endings are hard, though it’s a testament to the show and your writing that the major complaint from a majority of fans is that they wish they had more time with the show. If you could expand anything from the show, what element of the show would you have liked to have had more time exploring and why?
Overton: The second season took four years for us to write and produce. So, we combed over and spent a lot of time putting in every scene we thought was important, tracking every arc [and] storyline that we could. We’re very proud of how much all of those stories landed for people and how people felt emotional connection and understanding of the arcs that we chose to tell. It’s wonderful to hear that people’s biggest complaint is they wish they had more time with these characters. That’s a very flattering, humbling thing for a writer to feel like we’ve crafted characters and stories that people resonate with so much and so deeply.
If I could just write a novel or write something else outside of the context of Arcane, I really loved Viktor’s character. He had one of the biggest arcs in the whole series. I would want to dive into his mindset a little bit more and his past. We had a lot of ideas about who he was when he lived in Zaun, who his parents were, [and] how that shaped who he was. So, maybe the Viktor backstory novel would be something that would be interesting.
io9: What does Caitlyn’s question about Vi “still being in the fight” mean to you?
Overton: I think the best endings have always left things unsaid and open to interpretation. Those are the endings where I’m like, “But what did they mean by that?” I was like, “Ooh, we nailed that final line.” So many people think one thing, but other people can think another thing about Jinx’s fate and things like that, and why they made the choices they made. But I think what Caitlyn [said], what I took away from that was, the things that they have to do are just beginning rather than being over.
The characters are quite young in our series. They’re like in their early 20s or 20 years old. And me being in my 40s, I’m like, “That’s a whole ‘nother lifetime with things that you guys have to do together.” And the things that I’ve learned in the past 20 years, I’d say that’s most of what I’ve learned in my whole life. So we wanted to say that their stories are just beginning together and what they’re going to do next is—it’s kind of now up to the audience to decide and imagine.
io9: You’re set to develope Fortiche’s upcoming sci-fi Greek mythology story, Penelope of Sparta. What should fans expect out of the series given what you’ve accomplished with Arcane?
Overton: We’re trying to use that the signature Fortiche style to develop a new IP that they do on their own. This was an idea that Fortiche had that they came to me and pitched. They wanted to do a prequel to The Odyssey. They wanted to do something set in a Greek mythology-inspired world, but with the Fortiche twist on it.
We’ve been working on that project now for a year, developing what’s the story that we like in a different world that isn’t the Runeterra and League of Legends universe. I think you can expect romance, you can expect trauma, and tragedy. Like all good Greek epics, it is about how a personal family story affects the political on a big scale. You can expect a lot of tragedy with a little bit of hope.
io9: With Arcane bookended, what are your hopes moving forward for future writing projects? Are there any dream projects in the wings?
Overton: Obviously, Arcane was a dream project for me, to get to work on a video game adaptation being such a big video game fan. [Arcane is] such a huge expansive massive world-building show. Those are things I love to bring to life. Getting to have that canon queer couple as at the center of the show, those are all my boxes checked off in one project. But I think moving forward, I would like opportunities to tell more stories in spaces like that. There’s been a lot of really great adaptations of video games coming out recently. I’m really excited by the potential future storytelling for those adaptations and I hope that Arcane can kind of pave the way and open the door to get to do more stories like that.
All episodes of Arcane are streaming on Netflix.
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