Also Silco carries around a knife as his weapon of choice. A knife that belongs to Vander. It's a neat way of displaying how he's weaponized his trauma from the betrayal, and is now wielding it against his brother for his misdeeds against him.
Also worth mention that Jayce’s hammer isn’t something originally meant for fighting(a hammer is a tool for building things), just as Jayce is an inventor who never wished to hurt anyone and Silco always fights with borrowed/stolen weapons(Vander’s knife, Jinx’s gun) because he’s a mastermind and a usurper
He should've stuck to "BUILDING THINGS." That was the part of him I liked from the beginning. The child, the dreamer, the fucking rebel with an impossible dream and ambition. To actually contribute and do changes to their world! But his ambition got way ahead of him. I actually saw myself in him. That and my fears.
One detail I feel worth mentioning is that being a sharp shooter works for Caitlyn, not only because she's direct and precise like you said, but also being so focused she often misses the bigger picture and doesn't realize the state of her city, in the same way a scope would abstract you from your surroundings. It's quite cool how she sacrificed her gun around the time she really started being confronted about the bigger picture. She wants to help, she wants to learn, so she knows she must be willing to use methods other than her own. Putting down the gun and accepting the shimmer.
Great point, that's likely another deliberate aspect to her weapon. Being precise and direct works with many other weapons. But the hyperfocus on one singular target even when looking from a large distance is _precisely_ what works for losing sight of the bigger picture.
I might be over-analyzing it but speaking of Caitlyn using other weapons/methods, during the “Tea Party” scene, she briefly uses Pow-pow (and briefly acts reckless, nearly hitting Jinx or Silco)
@@AngelArcher17 who knows. Maybe we're giving the writers more credit than their due. We can't know for sure since they didn't mention this kind of stuff in their documentary series, but it definitely makes the scene richer, rather it was by accident or not and whether that matters or not when it comes to art it's subjective. But thanks, that is for sure a neat detail I wouldn't have thought of.
I've also noticed that Jinx's clarity of mind can be connected to the way she's aimimg when shooting. When she was younger and prove Milo she can shoot she shot everything perfectly. Then she becomes Jinx and we can see her almost blindly shooting around, showing accumulated violence and anger.
I think you nailed it. Especially about Jinx choosing the big guns when she's overwhelmed (because we do see for contrast her using the smaller gun in moments of relative clarity).
The weapon design in the show is one of my favorite things about it I think it's cool that they're all so unique, like, Jinx doesn't use just a gun or bombs, she uses those crazy looking creature bombs, or her Fishbones weapon (rocket launcher?). Plus, it's cool that you can tell the difference between weapons that are from Zaun vs Piltover. Vi uses the homemade gauntlets in the beginning, which look homemade. When she uses gauntlets later on, they're full of gears and rivets and powered by the Hex crystal, making them much more powerful and sleek in design.
The weapons came from the game, not from the show. Any connections that make the weapon fit the character are either unintended or the original thought of the character in the game. Arcane had no say in that
@@oz459 he addressed this in the video lol idk how you missed it. the show still was able to "match" their characters' personalities with the weapons they had been given in the game years prior. arcane had no say in the weapons themselves, but they created characters that matched those weapons.
@@moyashh No, the lore surrounding their personalities is pretty much ripped straight out of the existing champ descriptions given by riot for the base game. Caitlin, Vi, Viktor, Ekko, and Jinx's personalities in relation to their weapons are 1 to 1 to their game counterparts by season end. The video is giving a lot of credit to the show runners when it should be given to the design and lore team at Riot, at least for the majority of the stuff brought up.
@@gatfatf i understand that, but what about characters that aren't champions, like sevika or vander? you need to realize that a couple short stories in the league of legends lore website is nowhere near as complex as an entire tv show in terms of character development. league of legends created the characters, sure, but arcane took the next step and expanded their personalities even further than they were before.
Unrelated to Arcane, I remember seeing art in Twitter of an ice swordsgirl whose swords came in the shape of a two-stick popsicle. She would break it in half before battle. Sometimes it would split perfectly giving her two equally sized swords. Sometimes one would break weird giving her something more like a mace and a big knife. To this day, I still haven't seen a more creative weapon design.
Now imagine if this ice girl had a sword that is basically one of those multicolor clicky pens but every color is a different element. I'm sure that there's never been a character like that before...
As someone whose childhood trauma almost broke her, I loved that Jinx’s gun was three times her size and difficult to aim, and her other weapon of choice is bombs. Emotional pain is larger than life, and even when you think you can handle it you can end up causing a ton of damage to the people around you. There’s no way to “aim” that either.
Very precise analysis. "Emotional pain is larger than life" I agree! You have all my empathy. I'm not saying i know how you feel/felt. But you saying that your trauma "almost", and not "in fact" broke you gives me hope, thanks.
Nothing to praise the show for. They had no say in their weapons. That’s like praising the show for giving jinx blue hair and vi pink hair and making Ekko black and Viktor “Russian.
@@oz459 I agree to some extent. LoL built their characters to be eye-catching stereotypes for teenage boys, especially Jinx being a poor knockoff of Harley Quinn’s “sexy/crazy” vibe. I praise Arcane because it validates every character’s design by giving them backstory. Also, I don’t know what Vi’s pink hair has to do with Ekko’s race or Viktor’s (canonically Slavic-adjacent) accent?
@@eileensnow6153 the connection between that is that the show had no say in it. Just like their weapons. Jayce can’t have any other weapon than his hammer. Jinx can’t have any other hair color than blue. And so on. I agree that arcane did an amazing job of making these character actual characters. But 0 thought went into the type of weapon they’d use, you can praise the weapon design but any connections between the type of weapon and the character are arbitrary
@@oz459 We’re in agreement on most of this. I’m saying their characters were created for funsies-including hair color, weaponsc, everything-but Arcane actually wove a story around those, admittedly clumsy, preexisting characters/weapons. I admire their ability to take a shallow concept and make me understand where the characters are coming from. Also sorry if I come across as argumentative, I keep trying and failing to articulate what I’m trying to say 😬
I also like how Vi's gauntlets foreshadow her eventual move to (probably, according to what league stuff i know) being a police officer. She used to use a homemade, Zaunite style weapon; now, she uses one made by a councilor, a government body.
Yeah, she's Caitlyn's partner in LoL,an enforcer, and both of them lead investigations and fight crime. Cait is the cool, calm and collected cop (who gets a little bit mad at Vi occasionally but never for long) and Vi is the hotheaded, punch first talk later kind of cop. She is only an enforcer because Caitlyn is and in LoR, she gets pretty whiny when Caitlyn gets frustrated with her. Nice pick up!!
@@gracetaylor2767 she’s not caitlynns partner and that entire speech shows how little you’ve looked into the lore lol. She’s still a criminal, but works with Caitlynn with a very loose respect towards authority figures. Her being an “enforcer” is more of a “DONT lock people up who shouldn’t be” and “don’t go around piltover making zaun look bad” role. She isn’t, and hasn’t (in canon) been in any law enforcement role, nor been Caitlynns “partner”
@@TheBiggestSword Oh, I'm sorry, I'm still very new to LoL and haven't looked into it very closely. Thank you for correcting me, I shouldn't have assumed.
Silco's knife also perfectly embodies his character; he strikes from behind or when least expected, symbolising his cunning intelligence and looming menace. And Singed's constant portrayal with syringes and vials is indicative of his ominous nature - while manifesting as enigmatic and sinister
iirc ekko's weapon in the game is a clock hand. He also had a watch during the bridge battle. In the game, he will have the zero-drive that allows him to time travel. Ekko's design may revolve around time and clocks maybe because he has so many regrets from the past (like giving the tip to Jayce's lab caused Vi and the gang to be wanted criminals and telling Vi where Vander was taken made him lose all his friends).
This is definitely an interesting case in which this process was done backward. They started with the characters weapons and abilities, and reverse engineered personalities to fit.
Ill say most of the personality of the characters was already in the game as well. The game has character design that gave chars weapons based on the feel of their chars
@@boserboser6870no. Cait had zero personality besides "cop" until after arcane where she got an aesthetics rework with a new design, voice lines, and animations to better reflect how she is in arcane.
@@SurferSingedBut the rework came a little earlier than Arcane and all about C, her mother, the reason to fight, Urgot (that I expect to appear in second season)... In general champions don't have that many story but I think Caitlyn had one before Arcane and even before the story rework at 2015.
yeah and like youve said before jinx finally using the hextech powered rocket launcher to potentially kill a bunch of the leaders fully transitions her into jinx
I loooveeee Caitlyn with her rifle. She's honest, the most honest of the characters in my opinion, and very open with what she believes is right. She's a character who seems to instinctively follow her moral compass to a tee. She doesn't work with hidden motives, just straight to the point. Her actions are reactions to the environment based on her empathy and beliefs but the rifle has a much more honourable demeanour in comparison to other sharp and precise weapons like Silco's knife. THE IMAGERY IS SOOOO GOOD AND SO FITTING
Thats whats so interesting about basically all the League champions, the whole of their designs are made to tell their story. I cant wait for more seasons to draw on more champions and watch Schnee breakdown their designs too
Doesn't break from what he has in game as well. He throws wrenches as his basic attacks, and bares no weapons at all time, only summoning them from who knows where. The only weapon he seems to have on him at all time is a grenade, which could fit as a purely defensive weapon further in Arcane.
Mel’s weapons were sleek and looked like gold jewelry, but she even slept with them on. Stylish and luxurious to save face, but always on because Mel never lets her guard down all the way?
This could be titled "tips for building your D&D character". Really, though, this analysis is really good for people looking to make characters for whatever reason. I have a story in a fantasy setting I'm trying to write, and one of the main characters is a small person who is really smart, and specialized previously in the medical field. They're thoughtful, honest, and they feel terrible when they need to be protected because it makes them feel like a burden, so they make it a point to be as helpful as possible as often as possible, getting into the thick of things when feasible, up close and personal to the action, even if they're just playing medic where a medic is needed most, and trying to accomplish their goals with as near surgical precision as they can possibly manage (but sometimes going too far with what they try to do, and ending up in a situation where they need to be protected again which can create a vicious cycle of emotional conflict). When they finally do decide to pick up a weapon and fight, they pick up a spear, for a multitude of reasons, but to these points, a spear I think fits thematically in the same way a lot of Arcane's weapons fit their characters.
Okay, can I have an odd question? I know I'm late from the party but I've been wondering about what the weapons of a character I've created tell about him. He's actually the protagonist of my novel which I'll write and not a DnD character, but that's one more reason why I should give him weapons that hold a hidden meaning. So if possible, please tell me what you think of him based on the list, about his personality, worldview, and skills. The setting is in the slums of the late Victorian London, and here are the things he uses: 1) two short sabers, which he has stolen from the collections of some noblemen. The one he holds in his right hand is a bit longer, and he prefers to use both in combat symultaniously with an acrobatic style. These are definitely his favourites. 2) a cat o' nine tails, probably stolen it from an old battleship. He rarely uses it, it's rather a safety net in case he can't fight with the other weapons somewhy. 3) throwing knives, their number is uncertain but there's quite a lot. They are small but his aiming is very accurate, these and the sabers are usually plan A. He has stolen some, bought others and of course took some from defeated opponents. 4) I'm uncertain about this bur maybe a small crossbow (again, most likely stolen). I don't know how logical it would be for him to have it, but if he does then it's the favourite one. Sorry for my bad English, I'm not a native English speaker. :) I appreciate any thoughts on the character.
@@hungariangiraffe6361 Hello, tiny dreamer here! If I had to imagine the character out of the weapons you told and the information you gave I would say: 1) First of all, he seems like he is somewhat a criminal, or a man without much honor, having taken most of his weaponry and options from other people. 2) To resume between his 3 weapons (to go later in the option of the crossbow) he seems to be someone taught by the streets, (and if you ask me, I could imagine him coming from a circus, mostly because of the acrobatic fight style and the throwing knives) as he seems to never run out of options, being capable of taking out the opponents by afar with the knives and them being kind of an infinite stash with him getting them anyway he can; the sabers for the tough opponents, (or to not waste knives) fighting in his own style; and last but not least the cat o' nine tails just in case he ran out of the main options. I imagine him as a thief (and that's clear) and as someone thoughtful and prepared, having always an ace under his sleeve, aaaaaand then if it goes like this, I think the crossbow could fit, making him a better fighter from afar than with the knives (but he can keep them anyway) and adding to the fighting opportunities he has; that again, if he is the kind of person to put thought into the fight, it can fit. Last thing I say about the crossbow is that you can add it at your own risk, you can play with options, you know? Because carrying so many weapons would make him slower and less agile.
@@Windy_Artist-Dev thank you so much for replying, it means a lot to me! Everything you wrote (apart from the circus origins) is accurate about him. He was born into a rich family but his parents died in a housefire when he was a child so he grew up on the streets. He earned money by stealing, and although he doesn't like to use violence he had to protect himself. Then, he went a bit further, and he learned acrobatic fighting, mainly to intimidate the opponents and scare them off before anyone would be hurt. His main strenght is intelligence, he always likes to have everything figured out, including a plan B and C (his MBTI type is INTJ, just like mine). I think if he does have a crossbow then it's definitely a smaller one, a crossbow pistol which he can even hide at a secret spot instead of carrying it constantly when he thinks he won't need it.
I mean, they’re writing a script based off a somewhat loose series of connected stories based off a videogame. Weapons are predetermined. Writers are just making these predetermined weapons matter.
This is something i had incorporated into my own show I'm writing even before arcane came out and when i realized they did this as well it made me love it even more
That’s actually what League of Legends does in the video game. They have so many characters using guns, swords, axes, spears, etc that they have to make and shape the weapons to compliment the character and to tell their story. Darius and Garen for example are the same archetype of character - big beefy paladin warrior type. But Darius is given a double edged war axe to work with his strength and brutality. It’s also Black to reflect the black iron his nation Noxus uses. Garen uses a large two handed double edged sword to also reflect his strength but in a more refined nature. It is white to reflect the pure elitism his nation is known for due to Demacia’s xenophobia against magic users. I also want to add that I did my own video on how Arcane’s weapons tell the story of Zaun vs the story of Piltover. We see Piltover is more comfortable with ranged weapons that keep violence at a distance and oppresses the people of Zaun. Meanwhile Zaun is more comfortable with violence in their face and the violence actually expresses their characters. They are almost always fighting in close quarters and using melee weapons like knives or fists. Even Shimmer enhances their melee combat power while hextech is used to shoot ranged projectiles. Jinx is something of a perversion of both Piltover and Zaun. So she is a Zaun child who is good at shooting -> making her an outcast in the Zaun community and a psychopath in the Piltover community because even though she uses guns, she doesn’t use guns to keep violence away, she actually welcomes the gun violence.
I honestly never thought about that, but weapons can really represent what kind of character someone is. My preferred weapon in any game is usually a sword as I am bad at aim and I love to be in the middle. I also like hammers so uh...I think that says something about me. Bombs are also another fav.
I think the duality of Jinx having a handgun and a mini gun is cool. Powder practiced with the handgun and Jinx being chaotic and having monsters talk to her makes sense to have a big unwieldy gun. The choice at the end of the show is a choice between Jinx and Powder.
Thats part of the benefit of having a show based on something which already had such fleshed out lore and characters. Arcane captured it perfectly and brought it all to life
The fact is their personalities are constructed after their instrument/weapon assignments which means that the writers really fucking thought the shit out of these characters to make their personalities this nuanced to the characteristics of the champions nrnejsjjfr every day I grow more and more to love this series
@@mrmusicknowledge6354 he only mentioned that the League designers deserved the credit sonce the designs came before the show, but I'm sure that was random chance...
Love how all of this weren't them theory crafting in a room, but all pf these characters had their weapon before hand, and then thw writers wrote each of their personality to match it
i think ekko's pipe also works a lot better because how scrappy him and the firelights are, using anything they get their hands on to build their sanctuary. also it's a clock hand
What you said about Jayce's hammer could apply to any weapon you put in his hands, a better line of thought would be to say something like "when you wield a hammer like his, everything looks like a hextech nail." From the perspective of this being Jayce and all the lived experience that comes with of course he uses a hammer, it's his birthright. But his family could have easily just have been written to make all the city's salad tongs and it would've worked exactly the same for all the stuff he needed to do to hit the same story beats. The extra flavor you get is that hammer's are as much tools to build up or tear down, or weapons to shatter bodies and boundaries. THAT'S the secret sauce you get for looking at Jayce's weapon.
i may not word this quite how i want to, but let's not forget about jinx's final weapon as well, which is not only the culmination of everything that has led to zaun's creation (being a complex grenade launcher with multiple steps to the launch, much like zaun itself), but also being fashioned and designed after silco himself, jinx using silco's death as the final step in a way to her fully becoming the future of zaun.
A neat thing I see, is that while Silco only ever uses another persons weapon, he also uses people as weapons, and using shimmer, he makes his own weapons. We see Jinx use Hextech as her weapons, whilst Violet also does the same, only ever using another persons weapon. Hextech fists and Vanders fists. But jinx uses Hextech and explosives differently, making her own as well as using Hextech to make hers better instead of just directly using it or only having her own.
Silco carries a knife, and unlike what the other comments say about him being a usurper and what not, I say silco’s side knife expresses him as a character perfectly because, he’s been betrayed. And he learned from it, and he’s always ready to be betrayed with his knife strapped to his side constantly. On top of it being the knife of his betrayer, I think this adds to the irony and meaning. And also jinx’s rocket launcher is based off of silco’s favorite animal, and it really displays her desire for external approval. Proof that she’s not a jinx.
Another interesting detail about Vi's weapon is that she can't exactly hurt someone nor use it for it's intended purpose without getting up close and personal to someone, which shows that if she doesn't get closer to Jinx, not Powder, and see her for who she truly is, than she'll be doing nothing but throwing them at her sister and making herself weak and vulnerable to attack, which we see during the last few episodes. It's also a sign of her character's personality, preferring to fight head on rather than stay behind and shoot.
Every time i think Schnee has convinced me this show is perfect he goes and doubles down, always impressed with the effort and care put into these videos. Looking forward to more arcane content! :D
Also I’d like to note that they mention multiple times how House Talis was originally made up of inventors that built tools for the people, particularly hammers. Jayce weaponizes this tool of creation and uses it for destruction.
Another couple details is the attachments characters have to their weapons. Jayce's family makes hammers, Vander used Gauntlets and so Vi does too, and Jinx uses various types of bombs, including a giant fuck off shark missile at the end, all of it tying back to her monkey bomb.
To be completely fair, these character weapons were designed for the game, not the show. Now the character writers and game designers did an amazing job at this AND the writers for the show certainly did an amazing job at adapting the weapons to the personality of each character. But still, all the weapons were made before the show was even a thought.
regardless, it doesn't take away from how perfectly the weapons tie into representing who they are as characters. even right now, before even having the Z-Drive, Ekko's the greatest example of this.
What is cool about this instance is that it wasn't the weapons that was made to support the character's personality but actually the other way around. The writers of Arcane used the weaponry of these LoL characters as a starting point for how they should write the characters. Very smart 🙂
Jinx is chaos which cant be controlled so i feel the minigun n the explosives relate to all the crazyness n wild thoughts she has. Like when she just started firing her minigun everywhere because she was panicking from being reminded of her sis
Don't forget that Jinx also has bombs. Explosive, dangerous, fast, and with childish drawings on them. Seen how she still always paints those happy monkey faces. They're also pretty small but deal mad damage. Very similar to her personality.
OMG THAT'S RIGHT! Ekko fights with a sort of hammer! The only sort of weapon good for defence since it causes more pain (incapacitating) than wounds (that most likely will kill)! (that's why Polish lords used hammers, not swords for self-defense)
That's because the weapons were designed before the characters. Most of them are character archetypes from the video game And the designers made sure that every champion had a unique silhouette that would make them instantly recognisable even if they wore different clothes
I usually try to give my characters weapons different from the usual sword, this has made some of my characters use spears, fans, scythes, and some who do a combo of thin sword and fan (usually those who are on the more elegant and refined side)
Can you explain why Heimerdinger is so proud of Jayce at the beginning of episode 4 when in episode 3 he was against magic? Why a sudden character change? Would love to see your take on this.
Does the cut between episode 3 and episode 4 correspond to the ellipse of years with the hextech technology raising and Vi in prison ? If that's so, then its completely normal as Jayce had years to show and prove Heimerdinger that what he's proposing is safe and without risks of miss-use. He only used it to create airships accelerators and made the city floorish. The moment he starts proposing new tools that could be used as weapons (gauntlet, hammer, etc.), Heimerdinger directly imposes its veto against it again. => in short : that's not a "sudden" character change, but a change that took many years. :)
You know what’s actually more impressive about this, is that it’s actually done in reverse. The game characters had these weapons, and the personalities were expertly built off those existing abilities. Real interesting.
One thing with ekko that we will see in a season 2 most likely is his weapons get a bit more advanced once he learns how to build his time rewind gauntlet. Which the show alluded to with the stop watch.
One of the most important aspects of learning to master any weapon, or really any tool, is that it should become an extension of yourself. Most often throughout history, a soldier's choice of spear, sword, axe, pitchfork, torch, shield, etc. reflected their physical strength as well as their station, and often their mentality, if fighting was pretty much all they did(soldiers and mercenaries). Arcane, being steampunk fantasy and also something created with symbolism in mind, is able to beautifully expand on that philosophy by giving its characters these custom weapons that fit their characters so well. Yes they're from the game but I think those same aspects of the characters are probably what Riot was thinking of to start with.
Jayce had his character built upon his weapon. His weapon came first same for the majority of this series characters. Not a bad thing because it works perfectly
It always bothered me that Powder was a great shooter but she had no combat abilities as a kid. While Vi, Mylo and Claggor were usually the ones engaging in street scraps. But I don’t expect that they were gonna need Powder to use a paintball gun to win fights. Also, it always confused me as to why only Jinx and Caitlyn used guns. But someone on Reddit suggested that Caitlyn had a rifle that was ornate and made for her cause she was from a wealthy family, and Jinx built her guns cause she was engineer savvy. Which makes sense, cause Jinx’s guns have that art-deco, mechanical, steampunk look to them.
For one of my DnD settings a very powerful guard (to keep things brief) found that the common folk and children were scared or him at first with his halberd. So he switched it out for a staff with a lantern attached to it. Simultaneously making him easier seen and less intimidating.
His edgeless weapon just smeared you across seventeen conflicting timelines, and now paradox is tearing your soul apart as the panicked shards of cognition go dark one by one.
Actually the weapon design came from the game, it is decided by what kind of weapon type the game needs, short range high damage type, or long range high shoot rate type, etc. So at first there is the weapon, then they imagine a character from it, and then they imagine a plot from it. So it is the other way around.
Not to mention the endless amount of lore that Riot came out with detailing these characters personalities over the last decade. The show is really good, but there’s way much credit being given to arcane here
well considering a lot of these characters are pretty old (Ekko I believe is the youngest character as he released in 2015 which was after the major Lore rework) and at the time the only way to characterize the characters was through their deign, their weapons, and their extremely limited voice acting So Vi was the "bad cop" in the archetypal buddy cop so she was extremely violent (hence the name Vi), had a rough "lower class" voice and would solve all her problems by punching it Caitlyn was the "good cop" so she had a proper British accent, used a precision sniper as a lethal option (limits collateral damage), but also nets and traps for non-lethal takedowns. Jinx was a Harley Quinn, crazy terrorist chick so she had a large assortment of oversized weapons with a minigun, a rocket launcher, a giant rocket, a laser gun, and bombs. All weapons to cause mayhem Viktor was a mad scientist trying to bring the next evolution of humanity so his primary weapon was a third robot limb her created. Jayce was golden boy inventor so he had a hammer, a tool primarily used to creating/inventing rather than killing Heimerdinger throws wrenches, creates turrets, and also launches rockets and tossed grenades so he is a eccentric inventor Ekko uses time powers to reverse time with his main weapon being the second hand of the Piltover clock tower because to him every second counts
Yo this short was a god send. I'm writting a story, and my characters all have powers, and so do their parents. I wanted the characters' powers to be a combination of the two parents, but then molded to fit that character's unique personality. I never really knew I was doing this, until I watched this short and it all clicked. Now it'll be easier to form the personalities, so thanks b. Now I gotta watch Arcane lol shit seems to dope, and the writting seems to be something I can learn from.
A sword or axe can also be used, look at the different ways like how a character hides their sword, or how they place their axes on the wall if they do. Its not just making the weapon specific to the person. But how to tie their mannerisms to their weapons, because those are piece of their character and body
The surface levels thing for Jayce is he's someone who makes and builds and fixes and as a fighter he moves from a tool hammer to a a weapon hammer larger and destructive, and then there's this, a part of his personality, brute force, destructive, brash kinda
To be fair, a generic sword can work if you pair it with some tecnic. For exemple, I play DnD and one of my favorite character a player of my came up with was this knight veteran that fighted with a sword and shield, but what made his battle tatics part of his character was the fact that he had a lot of battle manuvers that debuffed the enemy. He was a strategist, but also a very pratical person, so it was fitting for him to that the most generic weapon and enhanced with his cunning and tecnic
Another good use for a hammer is that the hammer, unlike the sword, makes no false promises of Glory. Someone pulls out a hammer for a melee, there is no mistaking their intention. This will not be a duel. No glorious are graceful death. Is the promise that your brains and your skull deleted. As a side character tree to the Hammer though, a hammer can also build as well as teardown. So it's not always negative.
While you gave some Arcane specific exemples, I would also like to point out that this connection with your weapon is also related to why these characters work in League League champions are all about living out a fantasy. Thus, the way they fight is supposed to englobe the fantasy of their character so you can live through them. Caitlyn is a precise sniper character, her personality and her gun are reflective of that. Jayce is an annoying bruiser top laner with…Creative moves. Jinx is explosive and has tons on weapons, Vi charges into battle, so on and so forth.
