#ambessa

I think the reason why Ambessa is underrated as a villain by the audience is that she is a side character in a side story. We see her mostly do horrible things most notably

- Kill a girl (probably a teenager) in cold blood with no remorse (Silco threatens children but never succeeds in going through with it on-screen, Powder and Jayce kill children but are obviously remorseful)

- do it in front of her daughter in a traumatizing way

- sent her daughter away for dubious reasons and kept her daughter in the dark about those reasons

- advocates pro weaponizing hextech in the Piltover debate on it

Plus with her position as presumably a Noxian general she likely has a higher body count than almost anybody on screen, plus her position of privilege probably puts her in a similar position as the leaders of Piltover in regards to her own people.

Despite all that, when people rank the worst people on the show, I wouldn’t be surprised if many didn’t just forget to include her. Based on the simple human nature that the actual acts/body counts of a person often don’t matter that much, they only matter if they are in conflict with the main characters/the characters we care about.

Ambessa does bad things but she isn’t really in conflict with most characters. At the most you can argue the is somewhat in conflict with Viktor and Jayce’s “say no to weaponized hextech” stance but she doesn’t really argue for it too fervently, so it can’t really be said that she opposes them.

Meanwhile, Marcus stood in the way of Vi and Jinx’s desire to have a happy sister relationship. As does Silco. Just like Vi stands in the way of Silco’s desire to just have a happy crime father/daughter relationship with Jinx. Just like Heimerdinger stands in the way of what Jayce and Viktor want to do.

So it’s often human nature to have more antagonism towards characters who have done comparatively mild things on screen simply because they are a hassle for whatever character we root for and prevent them from achieving their goals.

For any Arcane Fans out there, which characters would you pair up with lyrics from Silence by Marshmello? I’m not making an edit, but I thought the song would pair really well with the show. I also feel like some characters would fit really well with multiple lyrics. This is my personal opinion on who would be paired with which lyrics:

Rather be a lover than a fighter: Heimerdinger, also Sky?

Love only left me alone - Jinx

Never had someone to call my own- Viktor

Cause all my life, I’ve been fighting - Vi, or Jinx

So I sit here in the silence- Rio (cause why not), Vander, or Silco

Never had a feeling of comfort- this could be applied to so many

All this time, I’ve been hiding- Singed

I found peace in your violence- Ambessa, or Sevika

I’m so used to being in the wrong- Marcus (gut feeling, literally no other reason)

Can’t tell me there’s no point in trying- Ekko, Caitlyn

I think too much and I hate it- Jayce? (I feel like that he acts like a good politician, but eventually overthinks everything, and makes the wrong decision)

I know there’s more, but I do know who would pair well with who else. But tell what do you think? Feel free to add anything!