• 24 Jan, 2026 *

“Why is peace always the justification for violence?” That’s the question that Caitlyn Kiramman asks her self-appointed military advisor, the Noxian Ambessa, as she “recommends” her to order mass arrests to capture Jinx on grounds of bringing back Piltover’s peace and prosperity. The Arcane universe is lucky they have a puppet leader who at least in private displays some signs of having a conscience, despite being otherwise blinded by hate, as she’s tweaking the unjust liberal status quo to become a fascist one. We in our universe are not even afforded as much. Looking back, every war in the post-war era—that was dominated by “relative peace”—used “peace” and/or “prosperity” as one of its top justifications for intervention. The entirety of the War on Terror and Israeli Apartheid used “peace” and designated entities endangering the (Emperor’s) peace as the number one justification to invade and slaughter collaterals in the face of progress. Whereas Russia, before invading Ukraine, used “peace” as justification to invade, China accuses its Uyghur minority of disrupting the peace giving cause for sending them to Chinese concentration camps.

However, “peace and prosperity” are not always effective justifications for violence. Sometimes it’s necessary to designate a weaker subgroup that is dominated or endangered by a stronger subgroup first, then unleash unimaginable terror on the latter (or sometimes even everyone). In cases like that one, paying attention to the subtleties is key to understanding the underlying tactic in employ. The UK’s Online Safety Act and similar across many countries designate “kids” as the weaker subgroup that is being dominated by “pedophiles” as the stronger subgroup. The legitimacy this problem provides and the near panic that (rightfully) erupts in many people’s hearts is abused to pass legislation that never intended to protect said kids. Protection (à la “Ministry of Defense”) is a thin veil for domination (where “Ministry of War” would be the more appropriate name). Likewise, ICE crackdowns on people of color, assuming the justification holds on paper which it doesn’t, are not protecting law-abiding citizens from drug dealing “illegal aliens.” This is another pretext that identifies a real problem correctly (rampant drug abuse) and addresses it with a measure that is totally unrelated to the problem.

Do you see the contradiction? There is no peace in war, meaning war can never achieve peace as war disrupts the peace, however just or unjust, to begin with. Every pretext for war or war-like conditions leads to a “guilty until proven otherwise” modus operandi.

To bring it back to Arcane, Jinx—who is the official reason for the fascist makeover of Piltover’s government, constant surveillance and violence—is unaffected by the lot of it. Her business moves on as usual, the targeting happening on grounds of easily identifiable characteristics that she can evade anyway if she needed to (she doesn’t). Among the undercity residents who have been systematically oppressed and othered for generations in the “city of progress, equality and freedom,” Jinx becomes a symbol of resistance. In their eyes, she’s at least giving their oppressors a hard time, even if she was part of a violent gang that made hundreds of desperate individuals addicted to drugs in the name of nationalist separatism. All that matters to them is what’s now as they’re living on the edge, counting the days, and just hoping they don’t land in a gulag themselves. In comparison, even days under a violent mafia’s rule were better for them.

So how can we in good conscience blame (some) Palestinians for still somewhat celebrating Hamas’ terror attacks? In their eyes, while Hamas is not contributing to the advancement of the Palestinian cause, its actions provide some vengeance for suffering Palestinians as they see their plight meaning nothing to all these supposedly free and democratic governments that support and fund their oppression. Their oppressors are hurting a little more this way. Even if naive and desperate, when you have nothing to lose and maybe something to gain, you throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Desperate times call for desperate measures. When those desperate times are artificially constructed—like how Hamas’ existence provides a convenient pretext for Israel to invade at will—the desperate measures appear all the more bizarre.

Why dismantle Hamas or Hezbollah with Israel’s incomprehensibly more superior military power when they make clearing the way of Palestinians for lucrative summer resorts so easy by killing a hundred times more in Israel’s invasion than in Hamas’ attack and thus ethnically cleansing Palestinian lands without creating as many refugees? Why would Trump dismantle the Democratic Party when, like Hamas and Hezbollah, keeping it intact occupies all the space that an actual resistance/opposition might take up? Dismantling either of them would be foolish for any actors in control of state power. These entities are problematized in the public sphere not because of being a thorn in the superior power’s eye, but because of how convenient they make it to weaponize peace and prosperity for another war or war-like conditions at will. These institutions are too big and indispensable for delegitimizing any other, actual opposition—by accusing them of fragmenting “the” opposition (Hezbollah, Hamas) or being a psychological operation (Democrats) among other things—for any meaningful attack on them. Thus, they are as integral to maintaining an oppressive order of static battles as the oppressors themselves.