The following contains potential spoilers for Arcane’s second season. Consider yourself warned.
“There’s a monster inside all of us,” says the villainous Silco to one of his underlings in Arcane’s first season. His words provided an early hint as to where the series planned on going. Amidst the breathtaking animated style that would come to define Netflix’s original series, Arcane’s first season showcased a variety of sympathetic characters making a variety of significant mistakes that deeply harmed those around them. Humans, after all, make for very poor saviors.
Perhaps none of Arcane’s protagonists fall quite so far, though, as Caitlyn Kiramann does in Arcane’s second and final season. Her quest to hunt down her mother’s murderer leads Caitlyn to become a fascist general part-way through the season. This turn to the dark side, combined with Caitlyn’s later efforts to redeem herself, raises an ethical question. What does true repentance look like for someone who has acted in such an oppressive manner? And how should we view her by the time the series concludes?
Even though Christians certainly ought to celebrate the ability of sinners to change, we also ought to beware the danger of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer labeled “cheap grace.” “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring baptism, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession,” Bonhoeffer writes in The Cost of Discipleship. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
The online debate surrounding Caitlyn’s morality intrigues me because it represents so many of the moral truths that both our culture and our churches struggle with.
As a secular series, Arcane isn’t interested in bringing Christ into the equation. But even secular series can demonstrate the difference between characters who display genuine repentance and characters who change their actions without undergoing any transformation of their heart. So, does Caitlyn Kiramann truly change over the course of Arcane’s second season? Or is all her posturing merely regret, and nothing more?
Caitlyn emerged from season one as one of Arcane’s unexpected heroes. Though initially prejudiced against the oppressed people of Zaun, she grows to accept and even trust some of them, thanks in large part to her relationship with Vi. But when Vi’s estranged sister Jinx assassinates her mother, as revealed in the opening moments of season two, Caitlyn begins to give into her worst impulses.
First, she uses her family’s blueprints for Zaun’s air filtration system to instead spread toxic gas as part of her manhunt. Then she tries to murder a young child when the child stands between her and Jinx. Her dark turn culminates when she accepts a fascist generalship, happy to oppress and subjugate the people of Zaun as long as she can find her mother’s murderer.
Some of Caitlyn’s online defenders have sought to acquit her of the guilt of tyranny by pointing out that she was manipulated into the aforementioned generalship by chief antagonist Ambessa. Without Ambessa stirring up Piltover’s citizenry to ask for a harsh general to save them, Caitlyn would not have taken the position. Furthermore, Ambessa clearly knew where Caitlyn’s grief and anger would take her if she was given broad power alongside a directive to “meet wrath with wrath.” Given how Caitlyn was used and manipulated, is she just a puppet of Arcane’s primary villain? Or as another defender on social media argued, do Caitlyn’s critics just not understand how much pressure she was under following her mother’s recent death?
Caitlyn’s descent into tyranny is certainly realistic and told in a way that’s meant to garner our empathy. One of Arcane’s strengths has always been its understanding that growth doesn’t fall into neat categories. Someone can truly strive to be a better person one day, and then dramatically fail in such pursuits the next. Given Caitlyn’s vulnerable position, Ambessa would bear the greater guilt in the situation.
Our empathy for Caitlyn’s plight, however, can’t lead us to absolve her of the real moral responsibility she bears. Wrong actions reveal character, not just trauma. Caitlyn’s flaws were set up in the first season with her prejudiced view of Zaun’s people. When she loses her mother at the beginning of season two, that trauma doesn’t abruptly change her moral character. It just reveals a part of herself that hadn’t fully changed in season one and thus becomes an excuse she uses to justify falling back into her previous mindset.
Nor is manipulation a biblical excuse for moral absolution. Ahab may have been manipulated by Jezebel to murder Naboth, but Elijah still lays the bloodguilt on his head. Eve may have been lied to by the serpent, but God doesn’t absolve her from guilt despite the serpent bearing the greater penalty. Ambessa was able to manipulate Caitlyn because she already had a dangerous thirst for vengeance. Remember, Caitlyn had chosen to use toxic gas before Ambessa entered the picture. Ambessa’s elevation gives her more power, but the strings the puppet master pulled only enabled Caitlyn to do what she already wanted to do.
None of this means that Caitlyn doesn’t deserve empathy. But it does mean she can’t be let off the hook for her actions. For Caitlyn’s redemption to ring true, that has to involve owning up to the choices she willfully made.
While some online defenders may try to excuse Caitlyn’s actions, it’s relevant to note that Arcane never does. Over the course of the series, Caitlyn becomes more and more uncomfortable with where her tyranny has led her. And when she comes to regret her actions, she calls them what they are. Vi attacks her at one point for what she did, asking “How long were you sidled up with that shifty, self-serving war pig? She oinked poison in your ear and you just ate it!” Caitlyn responds with a forceful “I know!,” acknowledging her own moral complicity.
Caitlyn’s remorse not only leads her to take ownership of the wrongness of her actions. It also enables her to forgive Vi’s sister for murdering her mother. In a moving confrontation with Jinx, Caitlyn tells her that she realizes how both of them had been motivated by similar emotions. Hatred had consumed them both. And now that she sees their similarities, Caitlyn decides not to seek vengeance anymore. Repentance has led Caitlyn to a changed life.
Some viewers of the series have cast shade on Caitlyn’s character arc, nicknaming her “Ku Klux Kiramann” for her descent into fascism and arguing she shouldn’t have received a happy ending. Yet such critics fail to recognize the very real steps that Caitlyn takes in owning up to her sins, risking her life (and losing an eye) by opposing Ambessa and ultimately turning away from her tyrannical actions. By the series’ end, she’s no longer on the council, though it’s unclear if that was her choice or not. While it’s popular in certain spheres to view some people as immutably evil, that’s hardly a biblical view. And Caitlyn displays many true steps of repentance.
Yet Caitlyn’s critics do have one point going for them that mars Caitlyn’s attempt at repentance: she never seeks to make restitution. A biblical understanding of repentance includes attempts to remedy what’s been marred. That’s what led Zacchaeus to repay the money he’d stolen with interest. We don’t, however, see similar actions from Caitlyn toward the Zaunites and the families she harmed. Based on one scene set in the council, there’s an argument to be made that she gave her council seat to a Zaunite. But even that feels like a paltry remedy for her previous actions.
One could argue that Arcane simply didn’t have the time to show restitution. (In truth, much of the series’ second season felt rushed and disjointed.) But whatever the showrunners’ decisions were, the lack of a clear picture is a significant loss. Repentance isn’t just regretting actions and doing things differently in the future. We’re called to do what we can to restore what we’ve broken.
“There is no amount of good deeds that can undo our crimes,” Caitlyn tells Jinx at one point, revealing a rather biblical understanding of our inability to absolve what we’ve done. But even if good deeds can’t undo our crimes, they can help to remedy the ongoing damages caused by our crimes. One wishes that Arcane would have been a bit more interested in this aspect of Caitlyn’s arc.
Caitlyn Kiramann isn’t a misunderstood villain, nor is she an irredeemable fascist. She’s human. Which means she’s capable of great sin as well as great repentance, even if the latter’s depiction falls short of what it could’ve been.
The online debate surrounding Caitlyn’s morality intrigues me because it represents so many of the moral truths that both our culture and our churches struggle with. Both are full of those who sin greatly against others, be it murder, rape, theft, lying, or generally abusive behavior. When that sin comes to light, do we excuse the behavior or take it seriously? And when the offender claims to repent, how do we distinguish between crocodile tears and genuine contrition?
Such moral complexity is precisely why this debate can become so hotly contested in online circles. And it’s also why we need to think through such matters deeply and carefully. Arcane’s second season gives us space to consider moral complexity apart from the pressures of real-life situations, and not only with the character of Caitlyn, but with a variety of other characters including Jinx, Jayce, and Victor. Arcane handles some of those characters’ arcs thoughtfully while others are more rushed, calling into question whether the grace extended was real or cheap. But regardless of whether we agree with the depiction or not, we emerge stronger for engaging with series like Arcane that wrestle with such critical and weighty issues.
“We can’t erase our mistakes,” Caitlyn confesses in the penultimate episode.
But we can learn from them.
