Who is Vander in Netflix's Arcane? Is he a character from the League of Legends games?

The highly anticipated new Netflix animated series Arcane has finally dropped on the platform. League of Legends fans are getting to learn the origin stories of some of their favorite champions and along the way meeting new ones.

The new faces have fans rushing to discover how the characters tie in with League of Legends lore. One that has caught a fair amount of attention is Vander, the fatherly figure for two of the iconic League champions, Violet (Vi) and Powder (Jinx).

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Who is Vander in Arcane?

For those unfamiliar with the League of Legends, the animated series Arcane takes place in Piltover and Zaun, two cities that exist in symbiosis. Piltover is a wealthy utopia that perched high up, while Zaun is the poor seedy underbelly built below in its shadow. The two were once one tribe but have be split apart as Piltover creates ever more spectacular inventions.

Arcane introduces Vander at the start of the first episode as Vi and Jinx run through the streets of Zaun strew with dead bodies and buildings in ruin and on fire. They come to a bridge where Vander is fighting a group of enforcers from Piltover. Upon thrashing the enforcers he sees the girls in the street, and directs their attention to a cloud of smoke.

As the smoke clears, a body laying on the ground becomes visible. From the girls reaction, it is clearly their mother. Vander takes the girls in his arms and as he carries them away from the scene, the enforcers allow him to go in peace.

What character is Vander in League of Legends lore?

The speculation is that Vander is Warwick, the Uncaged Wrath of Zaun or the Howler, a monstrous canine character who haunts the gray alleys of Zaun. There are some clues from the first episode that would lend creed to this theory.

He is referred to as “The Hound of the Underground” in one of the scenes. Furthermore, according to League of Legend lore, before Warwick became a monster he had been “a gangster who put down his blade and took up a new name to live a better life.”

There is also his physical aspect, brawny and bearded, a bit of a wolfman even before the transmutation. Again, from League of Legend lore “Warwick struggled to recall a single memory from his past... glimpses of his past began to haunt him. He saw a bearded man reflected in the eyes of a beggar as he tore out his throat.”

Finally, there are the girls. As Warwick struggles to recall who he was before Singed, we assume its Silco in Arcane, performed his ethically questionable experiments on the man who would become Warwick, he recalls a girl. “He heard a little girl screaming. Screaming something he couldn't understand. It sounded like a name.” Perhaps in reference to when he took Vi and Jinx into his custody as they cried over their dead mother.