“I’m Still Processing”: Arcane Showrunner On Taking Risks And Disappointing Fans
Season 2 was divisive. No one knows this more than showrunner Christian Linke.
Warning: Spoilers on Arcane’s Season 2 ahead!
A spray of bullets. An enormous, bloodthirsty werewolf. Precious characters, lives snuffed out. So ends Season 2 of the League of Legends game-turned-animation Arcane — in a blaze of heated action. Fans have already been complaining of the show’s frenetic speed and accused it of having a rushed ending, discarding its characters’ lives too easily.
Arcane showrunner and co-creator Christian Linke tells Inverse that he’s still taking it all in and listening to the feedback.
“We did approach things a little differently,” Linke says, of the more experimental approach the team took to Season 2 compared to the first. He mentions how Season 1 was focused on more human problems, such as the sibling ties between Vi and Jinx, while Season 2 became more conceptual.
“We wanted to do something different in Season 2,” he says, “And I think not everybody’s happy with that. I do want to listen to that. I do want to learn from that and understand what worked for people, what didn’t work.”
Arcane wanted Season 2 to be more conceptual.
“I’m getting a range of impressions. A lot of people like it the way it is,” he notes. “Some people there, they think it’s maybe rushed. There’s too much going on.”
Linke looks apologetic in a video call, days after the show’s finale aired on Netflix. “I’m still processing honestly, but it’s fair, you know? I don’t want to dismiss any of the audience’s feelings.”
“I’m still processing ... I don’t want to dismiss any of the audience’s feelings.”
When I last spoke to Linke, the year was 2021, and he was promoting Arcane’s first season. I asked him to reflect on how far the show has come since then, spawning multiple spin-offs set in distant lands and winning a few Emmys.
“An audience is not going to care about this, but this is the first time we’ve done this,” Linke says, returning back to the subject of fan feedback without my prompting. “There’s this good old saying, ‘Art is never finished, only abandoned.’ I think it’s true. We want to get better and keep doing this and hopefully all improve our craft.”
“I think it’ll take some time for people to process everything that’s going on in the show,” Linke says.
In my conversations with Linke along with Arcane writer and Severance producer Amanda Overton, I began to realize there was far more detail to Arcane than meets the eye, and tons of tiny things to glean on a second watch. Perhaps Arcane will be one of those shows that people keep revisiting over time — at least, that’s their hope.
“I think it’ll take some time for people to process everything that’s going on in the show,” Linke says, while adding that he doesn’t want to prioritize the writers’ carefully crafted story structure over fans’ opinions and reactions. “Right now, we’re all just in listening mode.”
Next games on the to-adapt list?
“There’s this good old saying, ‘Art is never finished, only abandoned.’ I think it’s true. We want to get better and keep doing this and hopefully all improve our craft.”
If Linke could adapt another series besides Arcane, the longtime gamer says he’d consider Quake, Starcraft, and Warcraft.
“Everyone has the games they grew up with that really defined them. For me, the biggest games that I played back in the day, I really loved Quake,” Linke says, “Some dark kind of take on the Quake IP would be interesting.”
“I’m still waiting for the proper translation of Starcraft and Warcraft.”
He also believes there’s untapped potential in some of the Blizzard games.
“I’m still waiting for the proper translation of Starcraft and Warcraft. Those were probably the biggest games that I played when I was young,” Linke says, adding that if those series were able to occupy an original space and tell unique stories, that would be a sight to see.
