Is it just me, or does Young Royals really love to scare us, lull us into a false sense of security, and then pull the rug out from underneath us (in a way that's much worse than the original threat)?
For example, you see August clocking Wille leaving the movie before Simon in episode 2.
You (if you weren't too distracted by the scene itself) might have worried that he might show up when they were having their first kiss there. But he didn't. The show consciously created that tension and then relieved it as a foreshadowing of the much worse version of that to come later.
That tension is recreated at the end of episode 4 when August is shown outside a window at Forest Ridge.
There's a brief moment of relief--he's at Alex's window, not Wille's. While you know deep down where this has to be going, you still have a kernel of hope. And then even when he does make it to Wille's room, you can't tell it's a boy (let alone Simon) for five full seconds. Hope tries to stay alive. We all know how it ends, though--that tension snaps right back into our faces when August spots Wille and Simon moments later.
This happens on a different scale with Wille and Simon's planned weekend together in episode 3. When Wilhelm tells Simon that August will be staying at Forest Ridge, that introduces a tension of "will they get their weekend together?"
That tension of "will they get their weekend together" is relieved when Wille asks if he can come to Simon's in Bjarstad, only to AGAIN snap right back into our faces when a much bigger problem surfaces--Erik dies. So, they don't get their weekend anyways.
Hell, there's even a hint of this in episode 2 when August walks in on Wilhelm looking at Simon's Instagram before rowing practice. He doesn't actually see what Wille was doing, though--so it's okay--and he ends up taking a call from Erik.
In another way, this happens with Wilhelm and Felice's relationship from season 1 to season 2. She initially kisses him in episode 3, and we worry that he might just go with it. He doesn't, though. What a relief. In the next episode, though, once he's crown prince, Wilhelm is publicly flirting with Felice (despite her relationship with August) over how "cute" she looks in a video. But our worries about this fade with the release of the video and Felice's support into season 2...
Until they actually almost hook up in the third episode, that is.
And it's definitely not limited to Simon and Wille and their relationships. It comes up with Sara and August too. When he initially kisses her in episode 4 of season 1, you might worry that maybe Sara will respond in a less-than-healthy manner, or that she'll keep what happened to herself instead of telling Felice. Sara rebuffs him, though, and tells Felice about what happened in the stables later that episode.
Tension introduced and relieved, so we move on. But then in the final episode of season 1, Sara goes to August's room to confront him about the video. And she ends up kissing him. In season 2, they end up being in AN ENTIRE SECRET RELATIONSHIP that Sara keeps from Felice. The original fear that you might have had about August twisting his way into Sara's heart was well-founded, it seems.
There are also smaller examples. Like when you see Erik driving incredibly fast in episode 1, or when you see Wilhelm riding on the scooters with Simon, Rosh, and Ayub in episode 2, some people worried there might be some kind of accident. (He was going hands-free, for fuck's sake.)
Well, in both of those instances, everything turned out okay, while Erik's actual offscreen accident in episode 3 obviously did not.
The anxiety about Marcus catching Wilhelm and Simon kissing at the Valentine's party is momentarily alleviated when it looks like him and Simon are going inside, but then Marcus turns around and sees Wille (not to mention he sees Simon eyeing Wille throughout the entire song and during the applause).
Let's not even get started on the drugs. We thought that storyline was resolved, gone, done away with after Alexander was seemingly expelled during season 1.
But then he's back in season 2, and the question of whether anyone will tell Alex that Wilhelm was the one to pin the blame on him arises. It seems a minor issue--given that Alexander wasn't actually expelled, and he seems to like Wille, we don't necessarily expect it to matter all too much. In episode 6, though, the "drug thing" is back at the top of our list of problems. We thought that this had been dealt with! That we'd gotten past it!
But it's worse than before--there's a pill bottle with Simon's father's name on it, and August has it! August has a potential witness behind him (Alex) and is threatening to tell not just the school, but the cops!
Don't worry, though, the tension is relieved when Simon tells Wille he's not going to report August to the police... for approximately six seconds until we see that Sara is reporting August instead.
Anyways, following this pattern, you can draw some really interesting potential conclusions about season 3 based on some of the big tension reliefs that have occurred over the past two seasons. Not saying that any of these will happen, but I'm preparing myself for anything:
Wilhelm has some sort of drug OD—like Simon (and some of the audience, probably) worried on the night of the Society party. This is one I'm really hoping doesn't come up.
Wilhelm actually kills August—when Wilhelm puts that gun down, it's a massive relief for most of us (also the characters present). This would just be... wild. And would explain Omar's tweets about how crazy the season is, I guess.
Sara outs Stella's crush on Fredricka, like she was threatening to do when Felice was moving out of their room at the Manor House. Istg if she does this I might lose it.
Wilhelm's mother dies. This was definitely one idea on some people's minds when Wilhelm takes that call that turns out to be about Erik in episode 3.
Wilhelm actually abdicates. This is definitely a threat made in season 2 that was later assuaged. I'm pulling for Wilhelm taking the throne only to abolish the monarchy. That might be a bit too optimistic on my part, though.
ALTERNATIVELY, August gets the throne. They teased us with this when Wilhelm almost didn't give the speech. August was literally walking up to the podium when Wille leapt up to take his place and momentarily rescued us from the notion that August was going to be ascending the throne.
Wilhelm and/or Simon and/or Sara get pulled from Hillerska. After the video, both Simon and Sara were potentially not going to return to the school. Simon was even late for the first day back, when he missed the choir performance. And Wille was almost physically removed from the school in episode 2 of season 2. Given the statement in the trailer about the school potentially shutting down... this one doesn't seem like too much of a long shot.
It's hard to say what any of this could mean for Simon/Wilhelm's relationship—I mean, in season 1, we had about six instances where we thought we'd get Simon and Wilhelm together and originally didn't (the first music room scene, the conversation after Erik's memorial, the second music room scene/drug situation, the video leak, Wilhelm LYING about the video leak).... the reasons kept getting worse and worse, until there's a release of tension when Wille says he won't deny the video—only for it to be far more crushing when he does deny it having promised otherwise. It seems like there's a new, bigger problem every time they turn around. So far, they've overcome all of the obstacles they've faced (honestly, I don't know how)... but I can't imagine that they're about to be facing an easy course based on that trailer.
Anyways, these are my meandering thoughts about some ways that we can try to guess at what we might have coming based on the show's patterns and its use of foreshadowing. Like I said, I'm just trying to mentally prepare myself for some of the wild-ass shit that might go down. So these are some crazy scenarios based on a few fake-outs that we've had so far. I'm still hoping that they don't take the smallest, most hopeful bits of seasons 1 and 2 and crush them in season 3....
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Mel 🔆, Viktor 🌌, and Jayce 🔥 symbolism
SUN 🔆
Mel's association with the sun is self-evident and still mostly shrouded in mystery, though her love scene with Jayce is notable, which is overlaid with starry imagery, where her silhouette and her freckled face are compared to the cosmos. The sun is also a star. It's just the star that's closest to Runeterra and has the most influence over the world.
Mel and the Hexcore are the POVs of the scene.
Hexcore and starry imagery is more strongly and consistently associated with someone else, though!
STARS 🌟 / THE COSMOS 🌌
Viktor's blue to purple pipeline is real
But seriously, the starry/swirly shapes point toward distant stars, the cosmos, a galaxy. There is no moon in Viktor's night scenes throughout the season, only stars.
Viktor's character regresses as the season goes on (blue to purple, ready to fall into Shimmer-like magenta as his corruption nears its peak).
His hubris opens him up to some kind of corruption by the Hexcore, or by whatever - or whoever - is using the Hexcore as a gateway, like what Jinx points out. Singed as his mentor plants and encourages the lie that Viktor believes, that he's better off alone and that the ends justify the means.
These perfectly ruinous circumstances lead to him getting Sky killed (Sky like sky blue, like Inspiration, lost as Viktor has lost sight of good in his pursuit of great).
In his running scene, Viktor runs not from left to right, filmspeak for progression - he runs from right to left, as though backstepping.
(And also for the Rocky Balboa reference called out in this brilliant post, but hey, I think it all works)
It's also worth laying the foundation that Viktor is a fantasy interpretation of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor who was fascinated with electricity, radio signals, the cosmos, and [REDACTED for another post probably lol]
If you've fallen down the rabbit hole of League lore like I have, you might have picked up that peoples and warriors who are sun-worshipers are (at least anciently) tasked with hunting down and destroying Void beings, who are eldritch beings associated with the distant stars, or are Runeterrans constructed by the Void Watchers trapped between realms. The sun fights against interlopers from other dimensions or celestial bodies.
Mel and Viktor have the same ideas about risk and the nature of progress, and they are both technically foreigners living in Piltover and pursuing that progress - in two very different (but complementary) ways. They are most likely the two characters whose literal bodies are celestial, imbued with the Arcane. Their bodies are most likely augmented with magical metals.
Yet the arcane imagery that seems to accompany them respectively are diametrically opposed - Sun vs. Void, possibly. (Also, purple and yellow/gold are opposite or complement colors on the color wheel.)
Whether they wind up working together or whether they clash (as Viktor loses himself) or if it's a mix of both, I think Mel and Viktor are destined to collide in season 2.
So where does this leave Jayce?
FIRE 🔥
Fire for Jayce means more than one thing. The first thing that should come to mind is the fire of the forge. Creation and industry. The legacy and hard work of his family.
However, his FIRST imagery with fire occurs when Elora says "Speak of the devil" and Jayce is framed in flames at Mel's fundraising party.
He's similarly framed in the flames of a Molotov cocktail on the bridge between Piltover and the undercity with Viktor, after he's just called the people of the undercity dangerous.
What I think we're being shown here are Jayce's choices. He can use his talents and influence for good - creation and industry - or he can use them for destruction and oppression. A hammer can create.
A hammer can also be a weapon, a tool of destruction:
Fire can quickly burn and spread out of control.
Hey look, blue all the way to magenta in one scene!
And if you know his original League lore, the reason why his rivalry with [REDACTED] crosses the point of no return - fire and destruction. Yeah.
Jayce is interesting because his point position in the Mel-Viktor-Jayce trifecta makes it tempting to assign celestial imagery to him, too. However, adult Jayce is only present with Hexcore, star, and sun imagery when he is sharing a scene with Viktor or Mel respectively.
The show makes it a point that Mel and Viktor are the reasons he is the Man of Progress at all:
Note that Jayce in the center of his Man of Progress posters is backed by a gear (Viktor) and the sun (Mel). If Viktor had not intervened in episode 2, Jayce would be dead or disenfranchised. If Mel had not intervened in episode 3, then Jayce AND Viktor would have been kicked out of the Academy if not imprisoned or exiled, and Hextech with Jayce and Viktor at the helm would not exist.
(This is reaching, but I like to interpret that the circle + notches in the gear shape are like Viktor's star symbolism, but even if that's the big reach that I think it is, Viktor is a machinist, engineer, and techmaturgist with Artificer parents - the gear definitely represents him on a meta level)
The imagery that I believe is Jayce's and Jayce's alone is that of fire. He is terrestrial, using magic contained within tools the way he has always wanted to bring Hextech to every household, while Mel and Viktor are influenced by magic on a whole other level.
Sure would be a shame if Jayce found a reason to choose the path of destruction and be corrupted further, diverging from Mel and Viktor's core values
Sure would be a shame if Viktor's personal choices had consequences that radiated out further than season 1 and he gets put on a disastrous collision course with everything that Jayce and by extension Piltover hates and fears
Sure would be stressful for us if Arcane decided to be a Greek tragedy about it
Though possibly the most important piece of this picture is how Mel - gold like the sun, gold that doesn't tarnish or rust, gold that is an excellent conductor - has already faced the abyss and said NO to her own corruption:
It sure would be something for her to have to watch Jayce and Viktor go down a different path, huh
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I just found out about the news with OFMD. I am deeply upset. Someone console me *puts back of hand on forehead and falls back dramatically*
But I’m all seriousness, this is so devastating to hear. Since I started watching OFMD it has actually changed me. (For the better, I think.)
Our Flag Means Death is such a big show for many people, and it has been there to help others out during rough times, I'm speaking on behalf of myself too when I say this. So, it's actually so upsetting to hear that HBO Max is not interested in a third season.
I love this show to death, and even though me and so many other people are upset, and honestly in my point of view quite angry about it, I'm thankful that it happened, and I was able to watch it and be a part of the fandom.
So, thank you Our Flag Means Death & co. for an amazing show and all your hard work, and thank you fandom for making (and breaking) me.
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