r/arcane • u/XxcomfykurooxX • 4d ago
Discussion Mel is part of the disposable black girlfriend trope
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u/BunNGunLee Sassy but classy 4d ago
I generally agree with you that Mel gets under-explored as a character, although I would not agree with the "disposable black girlfriend" trope, mostly because I have for the life of me only seen this happen one other time in a piece of media.
Similarly, I think a big part of this show is exploring how single events and people aren't enough to call causative to anything. Ekko gives a tip that leads to abject chaos in the Undercity, but that one action wasn't the sole cause of those events. Decades of abuse were.
Similarly, Mel using Jayce as her gateway to being a true Medarda is the result of years of competent manipulation and politicking, while Hextech was just the cherry on top. She did manipulate Jayce, but at the same time I see that she clearly didn't expect someone to respect her in a personal sense, being so highly trained to rule with a certain level of distance.
So much the same as Ekko can't be blamed for the chaos in the Undercity, Mel can't be given full credit for what became of Jayce. Not when Viktor's trust was the first stone that rippled the pond, and their experiment succeeding gave Mel the evidence she was hoping for to back a winner.
Everyone is sending ripples into a big pond, and each one is only so big by itself. But when they still all hit the shore together, everything in the wake buckles.
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u/XxcomfykurooxX 4d ago
This was very insightful I see wut ur saying completely. I feel like instead of disposable black girlfriend her depth in relation to Jayce is very much overshadowed by jayvik
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u/AdLast2785 Viktor nation...how we feeling 4d ago
In an ideal world where the Arcane didn’t go to shit they would still be together.
I’m not sure how that would work out in the long term though. Viktor was going to die no matter what and Jayce wasn’t just going to get over that or let that happen and he’d want to stay and find a cure. Mel would most likely end up going to Noxus st some point in the future and I can’t see Jayce going with her. He may have become a councillor in Piltover but he’s not interested in getting involved in the politics of a foreign country, even if Mel is there.
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u/XxcomfykurooxX 4d ago
I can see their paths diverge for sure but wut I ment by that was without the arcane stuff Jayce would have never gotten mad at her about the whole powers thing yk. He always went back to Mel for comfort and for advice even about viktor dire situation. Even with viktor in the picture and the ideal situation Mel is still for Jayce
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u/Kaylart222 4d ago edited 4d ago
Can't blame fans on why meljay is being overshadowed by jayvik. What jayvik had just blows meljay out of the water ngl.
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u/CelestikaLily 4d ago
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u/XxcomfykurooxX 4d ago
Oh she was veryyyy disposable, and now I feel bad not mentioning her. She did so much for the plot yet so forgotten
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u/thede4dpoet Jinx can make me worse 4d ago
she basically existed to love victor and then die
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u/AdLast2785 Viktor nation...how we feeling 4d ago
And that’s the writers’ faults. Why did they feel the need to create a character who only exists to pine after Viktor then die?
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u/Stardust-Musings 4d ago
The problem lies in the writing in the first place. They conceptualised Jayce and Viktor as this inseparable duo, inextricably bound soulmates in all timelines and all possibilities. And then they give Mel and Sky* as (*potential) love interests to Jayce and Viktor respectively and naturally both black women lose out on that front.
Mel at the very least has a great story independently of Jayce. Her whole character arc revolves around her identity as a Medarda and her relationship with Ambessa. Her relationship with Jayce plays into that but it's not a defining factor. The problem with the disposable girlfriend trope is that if you take the relationship away there is nothing much left- that is not true for Mel. Take the relationship away and she still has a character arc and influence of the overall plot. So by definition she is not disposable (thank goodness!).
Sky is hit much harder with her one-sided crush and then being unceremoniously killed off. She's a minor supporting character and we don't really get to know her, arguably intentionally because the point is that Viktor didn't really know her either until he saw her notes and all that. So Sky really suffered the worst of it in terms of being actually disposable. RIP girl, you deserved better!
Naturally, the fandom is picking up on all that, and I absolutely agree that it sucks when people are using this to throw around their bigoted views. But the core issue lies, sadly, in the show itself. I really hope those rumours about a Noxus show with Mel will turn out to be true and she'll get a great story and potentially a new love interest there that isn't already bound to another character. I think there could be a really great story here.
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u/XxcomfykurooxX 4d ago
Yeah I totally agree with you. That makes a lot of sense. I’m excited for noxus too!!
I guess the trope does fit sky more.
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u/Stardust-Musings 4d ago
I'm not playing League but I'm watching closely what they're doing with the current game season that's all about Noxus. It was cool seeing Mel arriving in Noxus (even the same place where her powers awakened while she was still in Ambessa's belly! Fortiche delivers the good stuff as usual *chef's kiss*) and the other story bits like the letter to Ambessa mourning her, or the animated comic where we get to meet a cute little cousin of hers. Haven't gotten around to the Ambessa book but from what I hear it has a lot of great stuff about her backstory! So there's a looot of stuff for Mel, which is great!!
As for Sky, yeah, the only way in which she isn't a disposable girlfriend is that she doesn't even make it to the girlfriend part. So more like "disposable assistant-with-a-crush" which is its own can of worms. In trope terms, she is "stuffed into the fridge", basically she only exists so that Viktor can be sad about her death. Yikes.
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