This AI narrated video (if it isn't AI narrated, it sure sounds like one with its clickbait content) discusses the multiple iterations of Jayce seen in Episode 3, when he touches the anomaly. In it, it says that there were 'hundreds' of Jayces. 5 made it to the commune, 4 succeeded in killing Viktor. Of the 4 that killed Viktor, 2 saw the end of the GE - Mage Viktor's Jayce, the living statue, and the show's Jayce, who only managed to talk to Viktor via Ekko.
This was also posted on Twitter and tumblr (I haven't seen the posts yet, but I can imagine what their takes are). Going off of the 'Viktor couldn't save Jayce as he had and all iterations failed' post above, this means that
95 iterations of Jayce either failed to make it out of that pit or died in the GE anyways. Of the 5 that reach the commune, that coincides with the 5 runes Viktor hands Jayce - unless he was handing out rune combos, which could have multiplied the universal instance. 2 made it to the end, so what happened to the other three? We don't know. If 95 iterations of Jayce died in that pit, Mage Viktor, t
he only iteration that survived in Universe 1 who started the whole damn cycle, watched him die and did nothing because...the iterations? The implications? The GE still happens, because Viktor would still need to be revived by the Hexcore. This means that Mage Viktor, who still has his flesh for some reason, was able to reverse its effects...yet couldn't do it anymore because he was bored or some shit.
The more you think about this paradox, the worse it gets. You know its bad when Bioshock Infinite, which was also based on paradox, was done better with a simpler premise: whenever Booker enters a new dimension, the butterfly effect unfolds, and every decision causes a new reality because his alternate self made a different choice. It is SAID it happens in Arcane, yet every universe ends the same way because the Glorious Evolution is a universal constant. Despite this constant, things still end the same way, and the rune changes don't do jack shit until Ekko and Heimerdinger get involved
Which begs the question: if there were 100 iterations of Jayce, why weren't there 100 iterations of Ekko or Heimerdinger? If the Anomaly ONLY affected Jayce uniquely, was that because of Mage Viktor or the Arcane itself? Someone did mention that in one scene you do see Jinx's crashed airship, which means the fight in Ep 9 did happen, but everyone was assimilated. This means Ekko never had a chance to yeet the Z-drive at Viktor. The universe were Vi dies was truly a fluke, and the only peaceful one, and the ONLY one where Ekko was able to recreate the Anomaly and divide by zero, ending the cycle...or did he? It was only in that universe. What about the other Jayces?
In Episode 7, you see a drawing where two men are posed on either size of the infinity loop. I remember seeing this on 4chan and someone made a joke about it being Jayce and Viktor, as they are 'forever trapped in the Arcane', though it may be a 'splitting' of someone due to the Anomaly. In any case, where the Anomaly came from is never fully explained. We ASSUME it's a wild rune created from the sheer energy from the Hexgates; in another, Mage Viktor created it as a means to avoid the destruction he caused - by causing more destruction in a neverending loop he created. The fact his and Jayce's relationship is seen as romantic when, the more you think on it, it keeps unfolding into the most sadistic, manipulative, grooming shit I've ever read.
It basically took the time travel loop of Attack on Titan, made it worse, and the more you think about it, the worse it gets.
Now, Leblanc gets her VSU and it sickens me how she manages to keep her lore and basic personality while Viktor had his changed. But there's something else that needs to be brought up: Toks, Mel's VA, was asked what happened when Mel was trapped in that Black Rose dimension. Turns out LeBlanc was trying to erase and reprogram her memories and Mel
still sides with her in the end despite her being an empath mage who would be able to tell she's being deceived. She should have never considered Leblanc as an ally. As for why she never intervened with Viktor's plot despite her saying 'the Arcane is waking up' and DISTINCTLY SAYING IT WAS GOING TO BE THE RUNE WARS 2.0, she does jack shit.
Mel's plot should have ended with her going to Noxus to FIGHT Leblanc, not ally with her. Hell, keep the Black Rose plot until the end of S2 to lead us into Noxus. It was clear the writers were burned out - they said as much in Bridging the Rift - and want to move on to Noxus because that's where all the cool characters are.