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Many Arcane fic writers have never played League of Legends (LoL), and might be curious or confused about the universe and characters involved in the show, so I put together this primer. I thought this may be helpful for fic writers who want to write canon-compliant stories, but please take it with a grain of salt, as Arcane contains discrepancies with established LoL lore that the writers have acknowledged themselves.
Arcane as a series is well-written and provides enough context and backstory to nicely establish the universe in which the characters live in, this is for the writers like me who want to know things inside-and-out. For transparency, this all started because I wanted to know Silco’s age. That’s a good segue, as Silco does not exist presently in the established LoL cast of characters; he’s an Arcane-exclusive with no in-game appearances or interactions.
Via the Wikipedia article: “League of Legends is a multiplayer online video game in which two teams of five players battle in player-versus-player combat, each team occupying and defending their half of the map. Each of the ten players controls a character, known as a "champion", with unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match, champions become more powerful by collecting experience points, earning gold, and purchasing items to defeat the opposing team.”
If you’re not a video game person, no worries, the only thing that’s important here are the so-called champions. Unlike other video games, the player does not create their own character, but instead chooses from a roster of characters that LoL supplies, each with their own backstories, personalities, and titles. Silco is not currently a champion, but many of the show’s characters are:
Vi - The Piltover Enforcer
Jinx - The Loose Cannon
Jayce - The Defender of Tomorrow
Caitlyn - The Sheriff of Piltover
Viktor - The Machine Herald
Ekko - The Boy Who Shattered Time
Heimerdinger - The Revered Inventor
Singed - The Mad Chemist
Ryze - The Rune Mage (This is the man thought to have saved Jayce and his mother as a child with magic--this has not been confirmed yet.)
Additionally, Vander is believed by some to be the precursor to his current identity as:
Warwick - The Uncaged Wrath of Zaun
I’ll expand on the champions later, and their Arcane and LoL discrepancies. Their identities in the game may not be relevant to some writers, as they are written well enough in the show to have enough substance to work with, but some characters’ in-game appearances may help shed light on their Arcane iterations.
One thing that show does not make clear is the characters’ ages and exact timeline; this is particularly of interest to fic writers concerning Jinx and her relationships to other characters, i.e. is she underaged or not. Again, it may not be relevant to some writers who are not concerned about this; I understand and do not judge. Her age is important in establishing the show’s timeline however, as her LoL biography has an exact date, unlike most others.
The characters with existing LoL biographies and given birthdates are:
Vi - 970-973 AN
Jinx - 975 AN
Jayce - 963-966 AN
Caitlyn - 970-973 AN
Viktor - 961-968 AN
Ekko - 979 AN
Heimerdinger - pre-680 AN
Singed - 876-916 AN
Ryze - 75-50 BN
Three non-champion characters have a LoL biography, as well, as they are main characters in Arcane:
Silco - 956-961 AN
Mel Medarda - 963-966 AN
Vander - 951-956 AN
To put these birthdates into perspective, and by extension the show’s timeline, the present year in LoL lore is 997 AN, and the show is purported to have taken place a few years or so before current events. Using the current year and their birthdates, these characters’ current ages (in present-day LoL) are:
Vi - 24-27
Jinx - 22
Jayce - 31-34
Caitlyn - 24-27
Viktor - 29-36
Ekko - 18
Heimerdinger - over 317
Singed - 81-121
Ryze - 1047-1072
Silco - 36-41 (If he didn’t, well...)
Mel Medarda - 31-34
Vander - 41-46 (Again, if...unless?)
You may be surprised by some of these ages, as I was. Silco and Vander are not as old as they seemed on the show, and Vi’s and Jinx’s age gap is not that large. It should be noted, however, that these biographies were recently changed with the show’s release: Jinx used to be older than Vi, and they were never described as sisters. More on these discrepancies later.
Coming back to Jinx, her birthdate can be used to create a timeline for the show’s events (as I’m treating it as a concrete fact) alongside a comment that her voice actor, Ella Purnell, made in an interview. Purnell stated (I’m paraphrasing here), “Jinx is childish, stuck at the age of 9 when she was traumatized.” This trauma could be one of two: the death of her and Vi’s parents, or when Vi “abandoned” her.
This we can use in conjunction with Vi’s birthdate, and information about her imprisonment, to determine the years of the show’s events. LoL has an in-game archive, called the Council Archives, whose entries serve as flavor text for the game, providing context and lore backstory.
In Vi’s records, there are notes from Stillwater Prison in various folders: the first states that she “appears to be 17” and that she has no assigned cell yet, which suggests that this is her intake form. The additional mention that she looks like one of the suspects for the explosion that happened “a week ago” (the explosion at Silco’s headquarters caused by Powder) suggests that she was 17 when she was arrested.
There are other prison notes in the following folders, and the last folder (the most recent one) contains a prisoner’s description that reads, “Prisoner is muscular, lean. Early 20s. Multiple tattoos. Short, pink hair.” It also notes her reputation and aggression towards “undercity criminals”. This aligns with her appearance at the end of Episode 4. Vi also states to Caitlyn that she was in prison for about 7 years, and that she was thrown in without cause right after Vander died.
Okay. That’s a lot of exposition, but now we have all the information that we need to put (fairly) exact dates to the show’s events and timeline. First, let’s organize them into three distinct time periods:
- The opening cinematic of the aftermath of a massacre, when Vander takes Vi and Powder in after they see their slain parents. (The beginning of Episode 1.)
- The period of time when they’ve lived with Vander for a while, now joined by Mylo and Claggor, up until Vander’s death, Vi’s abduction by Marcus, and Silco’s acquisition of Powder. (The middle of Episode 1 to the end of Episode 3.)
- The period of time that follows Piltover’s celebration of their 200th Progress Day, the Firelight attack on Silco’s Shimmer shipment, and Vi’s release from prison and her pursuit of Powder. (Episode 4 onwards.)
There are two distinct timeskips between these time periods: the first minor one between Vi and Powder’s adoption by Vander up until Jayce’s magical equipment was stolen in the heist led by Vi, and the second major one between Vander’s death, Vi’s imprisonment, and Silco’s acquisition of Powder up until the celebration of Progress Day. Neither of these periods are shown extensively on-screen, barring brief flashbacks. (I may be missing some scenes, as I have only watched the show until Episode 4, but I have read the synopsis and episode summaries.)
With the information already gathered, we can assign years to these time periods:
- If Powder was 9 when their parents were killed, the failed Zaun uprising against Piltover took place in 984. This is also when Vander gave up being a rebel and started peacekeeping. (Episode 1 starts in 984.)
- If Vi was 17 when she was arrested, Vander was killed between 987 and 990, depending on what year Vi was born. This is also the start of Powder’s life with Silco. (Episodes 1-3 take place between 984 and 987-990.)
- If Vi was imprisoned for 7 years, she was released between 994 and 997. This means that Powder/Jinx has been living with Silco for 7 years, as well. (Episodes 4-9 take place between 994-997 and present day in LoL.)
With these years now established (for the most part), we can now assign character ages to show events:
When their parents were killed, Powder was 9, Vi was 11-14, and Vander was 28-33. Additionally, the show insinuates (to me) that Vander and Silco’s falling out was related to the failed Zaun uprising against Piltover. I believe that Vander’s attempt on Silco’s life was a result of Silco’s rejection of his deal with Piltover’s enforcers in exchange for cessation of hostilities. I assume that this happened shortly after the massacre that killed Vi and Powder’s parents, so Silco was 23-28 when he was scarred and almost drowned by Vander.
When Vander was killed, he was 31-39, Vi was 17, Powder was 12-15, and Silco was 26-34.
Vi was imprisoned from 17 to 24. Powder/Jinx lived with Silco from 12-15 to 17-20; during this time he was 33-41.
When Vi was released from prison, she was 24, Caitlyn was 21-27, Powder/Jinx was 19-22.
The year that Jayce’s magical equipment was stolen could’ve taken place is anywhere from 984 to 990, depending on when Mylo and Claggor were picked up by Vander and how long the investigation took; Jayce states that he was 24, meaning that Caitlyn could've been 11-20, and Viktor 16-29. In this case I would err on the latter end, as Viktor and Jayce share similar possible ages, and I strongly doubt that Vi was up and running heists the same year that Vander took her in.
The further down you go in the timeline, the wider the potential ages of characters get, as Vi’s possible birthdate is a range of three years, which causes the event years and character ages depending on how old she is to vary exponentially. I’ll stop here, since it’s a lot of math and the numbers are starting to vary too much to be useful. I’ve mostly included only the relevant character ages per event, but writers can do their own math using the years I’ve provided for the characters that I’ve left out.