In 2024, my Apple Music Replay featured the Arcane: League of Legends soundtracks for Seasons 1 and 2 as my third and fourth most played albums.  Which I consider to be perfectly respectable.  Except when you realize that Arcane Season 2 came out in November.  And I listened to it for 484 minutes.  In one month. My love for Arcane and its music is obviously boundless, which is a bit embarrassing considering the fact it features an animated version of Imagine Dragons.  But as much as we love to joke about the League of Legends show, it’s genuinely groundbreaking.  With a mix of 2D and 3D animation, the entire 18-episode run of Arcane cost about $250 million dollars, making it the most expensive animated series ever made—and it's easy to see why.  With nine Annie Awards, awarding excellence in animated film and television,  and four Emmy Awards, Arcane ’s Season 1 was a critical and popular success.  And its explosive second and final season in November only reaffirmed its use of imaginative visual language to create compelling storytelling.  The medley of multimedia animation, including montages made up entirely of hand-drawn charcoal and watercolor illustrations, highlights the versatility of French animation studio Fortiche.  Arcane’s versatility also shines in its unique soundtrack, which, along with its beautiful visual storytelling, proves to be an essential part of the series’   efficiency and emotional impact.    Arcane’s approach to producing its soundtrack is just as unique as its use of animation.  Christian Linke, the executive producer and showrunner, has a background  in music and envisioned a show with music central to the story from the very beginning.  Unlike most series and films where soundtracks are developed in post-production, Arcane’s soundtrack was written to screen, as is typically done with scores.  Produced by Alex “Mako” Seaver, the soundtrack was written early in the process so that storyboarding and writing could be changed in response to the music.  Unlike Season 1, in which the music team completed the songwriting themselves and then recruited artists to sing or add their own spin, Season Two’s  music production started even earlier so that individual artists could have even more of an influence—and to accommodate an album double the length.  Featuring twenty-two songs, the album spans genres from folk to punk rock and includes artists like Linkin Park, STRAY KIDS, Twenty One Pilots, and King Princess.  Such varied music might feel out of place in a science fiction Netflix series based on a video game with themes of class inequality and scientific progress, but Arcane handles it gracefully, proving that music can change the way we interact with a story.     Arcane Season Two shoots forward at a breakneck pace, a speed necessary to cover the material of its jam-packed final season.  While some, myself included, believe that the show would have benefited from more time to develop and explore character arcs and plotlines, the genius of the story is impossible to deny.  In the end, the speed feels appropriate to the tone and story as Arcane  weaves in music to advance the plot and highlight character moments throughout the season.   Image Credits: Netflix Beginning Season Two’s third episode, “Finally Got the Name Right,” with a bang, “Hellfire” by FEVER333 accompanies a stylistic animated sequence depicting Caitlyn Kirraman’s strike team.  A member of a wealthy and powerful family, Caitlyn rises to power as Commander of Pilotover’s corrupt police force in the political turmoil following  the terrorist attack that killed her mother and most of Piltover’s government .  Featuring neon pops against a shadowy background and comic-style onomatopoeia spliced with illustrations of biochemical weapons, the montage quickly establishes that Caitlyn’s team is less than heroic.  In their distinctly insect-like uniforms, the strike team brutalizes the citizens of Zaun as they search for Jinx, the criminal responsible for the death of Caitlyn’s mother.  Caitlyn has fundamentally transformed her character  in between seasons, going from an idealist young detective to a hardened commander willing to do whatever it takes.  Instead of defending the Zaunite civilians, she now sees them as acceptable collateral, as is reflected in “Hellfire’s” lyrics: “And I ain’t afraid to lose a life or ten / If it means that I get to win in the end.”  “Hellfire” is loud, disruptive, and with the burning image of Caitlyn facing her enemies, a perfect way to establish her internal struggle between idealism and vengeance together with her ideological betrayal of the mother she is avenging by using her inventions for violence.  Instead of direct exposition, Arcane uses music and stylistic animation to efficiently convey the plot in a single clean minute.  Lyrically, tonally, and visually, “Hellfire” allows us to understand Caitlyn and the lengths she is willing to go to avenge her mother. The music is an essential part of keeping the pacing feeling fresh and efficient.  But music also continues to give us the beautiful character-centric moments that make us love Arcane .  By consistently centering the emotional journeys of Arcane’s characters, the music becomes ingrained into the story—not just a flashy layer on top.  While “Hellfire” accompanies an action sequence, embodying a character's rage and determination, much of the music is more subdued, allowing individual characters to shine without the need to advance plot. Stromae and Pomme’s “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” provide that moment of stillness that Season Two so desperately needs.  Instead of furthering the plot, we slow down and finally absorb the beauty of what might have been.  Trapped in a seemingly perfect alternate timeline, Ekko faces the possibility of peace for the longstanding conflict between Piltover and Zaun—and for the conflict’s past victims .  In Arcane’s timeline, Powder’s trauma leads her to develop hallucinations and a drastically different personality, going by the name Jinx.  But in a world where Hextech, a revolutionary fusion of science and magic, is never invented, Powder doesn’t turn towards violence.  Piltover doesn’t technologically outstrip Zaun, and Zaun doesn’t develop the addictive drug Shimmer in response.  Even former enemies like Silco, a drug kingpin, reconcile with Ekko’s respected and beloved mentors.  The dichotomy between Powder and Jinx forces Ekko, and the audience, to recognize the humanity still present in Jinx.   Both Ekko and the audience finally see who Powder could have been—if disaster had not led her to embrace her unstable tendencies as Jinx.  The music begins with a shaker beat that feels almost inconsistent, emphasizing the ethereal quality of the scene as Ekko and Powder begin to dance.  As the lyrics begin, the details fade away; the animation softening and slowing to a rate of four frames per second—a reminder of the limit on Ekko’s time travel ability.  Translating roughly to “keep your friends close but your enemies closer,” “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” is a stark contrast to Ekko’s last violent encounter with Jinx, defined by the rowdy rap “Dynasties and Dystopia” and ending with an explosion.  Powder and Ekko dance, enjoying the same music we are—proving “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” diegetic, occurring within the story itself, and drawing the viewer ever more immersed into the world of Arcane . As Arcane reaches its final, glorious evolution in its finale, so does its music with Twenty One Pilots’ “The Line.”  Accompanying the final minutes of penultimate episode, “Killing Is A Cycle,” “The Line” is a haunting theme of ambition, disappointment, and humanity.  As Viktor, a scientist seduced by the corrupting power of magic, transforms into something distinctly unhuman to prolong his life and power, a quiet string line steadily grows.  As the music crescendos, it propels forward continuously with the repeating string motif, emphasizing the inevitability of Viktor’s transformation.  The watercolors that so beautifully defined the mournful “Remember Me” in a previous episode bleed away as Viktor is fully consumed by the force of his own corrupt invention, the Hexcore.  The lyrics emphasize the tragedy of this transformation and ensuing inhumanity, a result of unchecked scientific ambition: “Take a seat / But I’d rather you not be here for / What could be my final form.”  What began as something quiet and unassuming has transcended into a beautiful, haunting melody—just as Viktor, and his cult, have ascended into something beautiful yet terrifying.  Viktor has consistently embodied a theme of progress, lamenting that “In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.”  Similarly, “The Line” asks if he has gone too far: “Did I disappoint you? / Will they still let me over / If I cross the line?”  “The Line” very clearly shows that Viktor has finally reached the final stage of his own glorious evolution.  While the audience mourns the character that they have so loved, he is reborn, betraying his long-held ideals of scientific progress working for good. “The Line” defines Viktor’s character in Season 2, and the incorporation of the music into the scene provides an invaluable aspect of his story.  Without the music, perfectly timed to the stunning animation, the scene would still be beautiful—but not nearly as impactful.  Instead, we feel Viktor’s sorrow: we too wonder what will happen after he crosses “The Line”—just as we wonder about Ekko and Jinx, or Caitlyn and Vi.  By drawing us ever closer to the characters and setting, Arcane’s soundtrack acts as an essential storytelling device.  It drives the plot forward, increases the tension, and illuminates climactic character moments.  Arcane’s early integration of the soundtrack ensures that it is defined by precision and purpose.  The curation of an original soundtrack written to screen is something extremely unique—and just one of the reasons that make Arcane so impactful.   Molly Meehan is a sophomore in the College studying Biology and English.  Fantasy/sci fi is her bread and butter and she is proud to be known as a “genre reader.”