*U.I.C.S. stands for: Unnecessarily Intensive Character Study*

(I KNOW THAT THIS IS UNCOMMON FOR THIS BLOG, BUT I AM GOING TO PREFACE THIS ARTICLE WITH A MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING. ARCANE IS SIMPLY TOO NEW AND TOO IMPORTANT TO ME TO NOT MENTION THAT THIS ARTICLE WILL REVEAL HUGE CHARACTER AND PLOT ELEMENTS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)

Arcane’s nine episode runtime is rife with fleshed-out, well-rounded, flawed, and intricately developed characters. The impeccable cast is one of just many highlights of this phenomenal show, after all. Still, there is one character who stands out above all of the others. A character who it could genuinely be argued that the entire theme of the show is built around.

That character is Powder, who grows up to become Jinx, and shapes the fate of Arcane’s world forever.

POWDER’S BEGINNINGS (Act One)

Powder is the first character that viewers are presented with in the opening seconds of Arcane. She’s singing a children’s tune, which is horrifically juxtaposed with the gilded city of Piltover’s enforcers brutally gunning down the underground city of Zaun’s attempted revolution. As bullets spray, bodies fall, and fire and smoke spread, little Powder (presumably no older than four or 5) sings her song while walking with her eyes closed.

Her hand clutches tightly to the hand of her older sister Vi, who is acting as Powder’s guide and caretaker amidst the carnage. As Powder sings, Vi searches fruitlessly for their parents, who had joined the revolution. Eventually, the sisters do discover their parents…or what is left of them. Vi struggles to retain her composure, but breaks down quickly into choked sobs.

Powder, too young to truly understand what is going on, turns to Vi. It isn’t until Vi begins breaking down into tears that Powder begins crying as well. She is, in essence (and as so many young children do) mimicking the actions and emotions of those around her. The singing kept her blind to the violence and bloodshed for a fleeting moment, but as soon as her older sister loses composure, the terrible truth of the events around them become as clear as crystal to Powder.

She and her sister are now orphans.

The story then jumps ahead a few years. Vi and Powder have been adopted by the man who formerly spearheaded the Zaun revolution, Vander. Along with two other close friends, Mylo and Claggor, Powder and Vi live their days scrounging for scraps to sell and trying to maintain some semblance of optimism in a skewed, unbalanced world.

While the city of Piltover shines and glitters with beauty and prestige, the city of Zaun falls further and further into debauchery and destitution. To make matters worse, the Piltover enforcers make it a habit to beat down and suppress Zaun and its citizens, instead of using their wealth and resources to life up the impoverished. Vi is visibly bitter and agitated over this mistreatment, and Powder (if mostly vicariously) is as well.

It quickly becomes apparent just how much Powder attaches herself to her older sister. Powder hangs on Vi’s every word, looks to her for guidance and support at any and all junctures, and is desperate to appeal to, impress, and imitate her. Powder’s love for her sister borders on unhealthy dependency, but for as long as the sisters maintain their troubled but content lives, the relationship refrains from slipping further into tragedy.

So, of course, things go south very quickly, and the sister’s relationship begins to deteriorate.

After a botched break-in at a fancy Piltover apartment, Powder and the gang are ambushed by petty thugs and attacked. In the chaos, Powder is trusted with the bag of loot, but panics and throws it into the river, losing everything. Her friends are annoyed and exhausted, and Powder is despondent. Mylo laments Powder’s habit of being a ‘jinx‘ and ruining every job, an insult that Powder despairingly internalizes.

“Powder’s love for her sister borders on unhealthy dependency…”

Vi, in an effort to cheer her sister up, comforts her up on the roof of the rundown shack they call a home. She regales Powder with tales of her and her friends’ own failures in the past, and tries to bestow onto Powder the idea that people make mistakes and the important thing is to learn and grow from them. This pep talk reinvigorates Powder, who is over the moon that her sister, the most important person in the world, still believes in her.

This newfound confidence quickly manifests itself. Powder, though not without her own shortcomings (mainly due to her young age and relative inexperience) is a genius, inspired inventor, and an excellent shot. Put a gun into her hands, and she won’t miss. She also constructs cutesy animal shaped bombs that explode into bursts of noxious gas and sprays of nails. Her creations don’t often work, but Powder is determined to perfect her craft so she can finally feel like she is useful to her big sister.

Meanwhile, tensions between Piltover and Zaun boil over, and a contingent of enforcers visit the underground city in search of the perpetrators of the botched break-in. At the same time, the notorious crimelord Silco makes his move, slaughtering the enforcers and kidnapping Vander. Vi and the other kids are stricken by the abduction of their foster father, and Vi scrambles to mount a rescue plan…

…a rescue plan that Powder is excluded from, much to the young girl’s shock.

Vi orders Powder to stay behind, begging her little sister to stay safe and away from the danger that could very well claim her life. She even gives Powder a smoke flare, promising that if Powder lights that flare, Vi will come running without hesitation. Vi has lost her parents and now might lose her adopted father, and the last thing she wants is to lose Powder too. She wants Powder to know that she loves her too much to get her involved in this rescue mission.

Unfortunately, Powder is simply unable to understand the point that her big sister is trying to make. Instead of realizing that Vi is acting out of love, Powder’s insecurity interprets her sister’s warning as a disappointed admonishment. She thinks that Vi believes she is incapable and useless, and that the reason she can’t go along for the rescue is because she’ll be unable to help…or worse, screw everything up. Powder believes that Vi is unconvinced of Powder’s own worth.

What follows is uncomfortable and difficult to watch, as Powder experiences a nearly complete mental breakdown once her sister, Mylo, and Claggor leave. Aggressively sobbing, Powder screams, pulls at her hair, and throws her belongings across the room. Her dependency issues and fear of abandonment are growing, and the viewer is given a glimpse of the pent-up emotional trauma roiling inside of this little girl for the first time.

In a brief moment of inspiration, Powder stumbles upon an idea. The reason that that earlier Piltover break-in failed was because of an explosion caused by a magical crystal. Even though Powder lost the bag of loot from that theft, she snuck a few magic crystals into her pocket, and still has them. Realizing that the magic might be just what she needs to power her homebrewed bombs, Powder rushes out of the safety of home, desperate to help her sister and prove herself.

Powder tails her sister and friends all the way to the decrepit warehouse that Vander is being held at. Scrambling up the ratty old building, Powder peeks through the window and spots her older sister being beaten in a fist-fight with a drug-fueled juggernaut. Everything else is blocked from her vision (including Silco standing smugly to the side, and Vander and the kids almost breaking free from their restraints).

Of course, it hardly matters what else is happening, because Powder is both literally and figuratively thrust into tunnel vision. Vi is in danger, and that’s all that matters. Powder stuffs one of her childish monkey bombs with magical crystals, throws it into the room at the enemy, and prays for a miracle.

“Her dependency issues and fear of abandonment are growing, and the viewer is given a glimpse of the pent-up emotional trauma roiling inside of this little girl for the first time.”

The bomb detonates in a humongous fireball of magic…and the course of Powder’s life is changed forever.

The knockback of the explosion blows her from the window sill down to the river below. Though she may have been scared of such a mishap in the past, Powder is too overcome with joy that her monkey bomb finally worked. As the blue electricity of the magic sparks around her, and she falls weightlessly into the water, Powder is overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. It’s one thing that her inventions finally worked. It’s another that the result is so breathtaking.

However, inside of the warehouse, the result of the explosion is nowhere near as amazing. The blast sends Vi crashing into a door, breaking at least a few bones. Several magical fragments stab into Claggor’s face, killing him. Mylo is punctured through the chest by a pipe, and crushed under debris. Vander is also seriously wounded, and with Vi out of the fight, he is forced to take a final stand against Silco, and dies in the process. His final moments are getting Vi out of the burning warehouse.

The greatest success of Powder’s life has now become her greatest failure. Her friends and family were seconds away from escaping before her bomb went off, and now all but one of them have died.

Powder recovers from her fall and catches up to Vi as quickly as she’s able to, breathlessly excited about her invention’s resounding success. Cheerfully, she bounds up to Vi, exclaiming about her bomb’s potency. She doesn’t even notice that the charred, bloody body Vi is cradling is Vander’s. All she sees is her sister. All she wants is her sister, and her sister’s recognition, acceptance, and love.

But all Vi can see is the monster who just killed everyone she loves.

In disbelief that quickly rises to blistering anger, Vi confronts Powder, demanding to know why she’s caused so much death. Shocked, Powder finally takes note of Vander’s body, as well as the remains of Mylo and Claggor. Realization dawns on her face, and she hastily struggles to defend her actions as ‘only trying to help’. She can hardly speak, as the tears start to flow and her choked sobs render her a blubbering mess.

“All she wants is her sister, and her sister’s recognition, acceptance, and love.”

Vi begins to yell louder, and Powder frantically tries to explain that all she wanted to do was save them. Unfortunately, Powder’s intents clash so strongly with her results that all Vi can see is a menace who ignored her order to stay home. Shaking with rage, Vi lashes out and strikes Powder across the face so hard the young girl’s nose begins to bleed.

Powder falls into the mud, screeching about how sorry she is and how much she hated being left behind. Unrelenting, Vi grabs Powder’s face and yells at her about how everyone was right, and that she is a ‘jinx’. A ‘jinx’ who always ruins everything.

Nearly an inconsolable mess by this point, Powder cries and cries, muttering over and over about how sorry she is and how much she only wanted to help. In the face of her abject remorse and apologetic tears, Vi snaps out of her anger and is horrified to realize she just hit her own sister. Needing to cool off and work through her own trauma, Vi stomps off down the corner to catch her breath.

And by doing so, makes the worst mistake of her life.

She leaves without explanation, too furiously emotional for words. However, this has the adverse effect of looking, from Powder’s perspective, that she is simply leaving her behind. Powder screams in terror at seeing her sister seemingly abandon her, but is so wracked by sobs and guilt that she is unable to get up to chase after her. Powder’s screams echo through the night, and it’s extremely heartbreaking and difficult to listen to.

Powder’s biggest fear in life has come true. She’s been abandoned once more, and by her most cherished of family members. All she wanted from Vi was love and the confirmation that she was strong, brave, and resourceful like her. Instead, she was yelled at, slapped across the face, and called a ‘jinx’. Instead of compassion and understanding she found hatred and abandonment.

The betrayal stings deep, and Powder’s depressed horror soon morphs to anger.

It is cruelly ironic, then, that the next person to show up is Silco, who survived the warehouse explosion. Confused by the sight of Powder, he approaches the young girl, and is startled when she lunges at him not out of aggression, but out of desperation for affection. Powder has no idea who Silco is, or that he is the one primarily responsible for the tragic events of the past hour. She just desperately needs someone to latch onto. Her highly dependent heart has been shattered by Vi, and craves someone new to fill the void.

Seeing a lot of himself in the girl, Silco decides to spare Powder’s life. Though he’d planned to kill everyone associated with Vander and Vi, seeing Powder alone, scared, and angry leads him to believe that the others are all dead and that Powder is all that’s left.

Meanwhile, Vi returns from her quick exile to find Silco having cornered Powder. Shocked and scared, she tries to run to the rescue, only to be dragged away by the enforcers. This ends up saving her life from Silco’s inevitable revenge, but results in her being unable to reach out to Powder one last time before the fates of these two sister’s irrevocable break.

Silco embraces Powder, promising her that he will help her show those who have wronged them what they are truly capable of. Powder glares angrily out at the world around her…

and Jinx is born.

GET JINXED (Act Two)

Roughly seven years pass. Piltover has ascended to even greater heights, thanks to the invention of Hexgates that allow for instant teleportation across the world. The city is celebrating Progress Day, as well as the bicentennial of its founding. On the flipside, Zaun has flourished from a monetary perspective, but fallen into even more disrepair on a moral level. Silco’s business acumen has the money flowing (he’s essentially taken over as Zaun’s de-facto leader), but crime and violence is rampant, and drugs flood the streets.

And in the midst of all the chaos is Jinx, the girl who was once Powder.

For all these years, she’s been raised as Silco’s daughter. Though the crimelord puts up a tough, no-nonsense exterior, the ways in which Jinx’s upbringing mirror his own resulted in him showing her true love and compassion. He doesn’t talk down to her, insult her, or blame her for her failures. He doesn’t push her away. He shows her acceptance, encourages her inventing and growing love for violence, and imparts upon her the idea that she is perfect just the way she is.

He has filled her heart’s void, satiated its hunger for family and belonging. As such, Jinx has redoubled her crippling dependency issues, as she hangs off of Silco’s every word, wishes to spend as much time with him as possible, and does everything out of a desire to impress him and make him happy. The last thing she wants is to be abandoned yet again, and so she eagerly throws herself into the role of his top agent.

Jinx is now infamous throughout all of Zaun, and rightfully feared. Her explosives are as colorful as they are deadly, and almost no one can match her skill with a gun. She leads most of Silco’s drug runs, mercilessly gunning down anyone who stands in her way. Her introductory scene post time skip shows her effortlessly and brutalizing killing five members of a rival gang, all without breaking a sweat.

At least, until one of the thieves bears a passing resemblance to her long-lost sister. Though it isn’t actually Vi, Jinx freezes upon seeing her, and completely loses her composure. She kills the girl, then turns her gun on her surroundings and fellow criminals, screaming in confused anger. Much destruction is left in her wake when her gatling gun finally runs out of bullets and she gives herself a second to breathe.

It quickly becomes apparent to the viewer that Jinx is far from a healthy state of mind. Unexpected outbursts and disconcerting mood shifts aside, Jinx is also frequently plagued by voices. Voices only she can hear. The voices of Mylo, Claggor, and even Vander, taunting Jinx and telling her how everything is always her fault. These voices often manifest as visual hallucinations, and Jinx frequently argues and yells at herself to get the voices to be quiet.

The truth is that, somewhere deep inside of herself, Powder is still there. Crying out for help into a black hole of nothingness. No one can hear her, and no one is helping her. Silco might be the perfect father for Jinx, but he isn’t the right person for Powder. A shred of hopeful soul remains inside of her, begging her to take responsibility for what she did all those years ago and move on from that past. Silco wants her to move on from that past too, but in a much more violent, hatred-fueled way.

Jinx revisits an old childhood stomping ground to let out her aggression, but the flood of repressed memories only further traumatizes her. Seven years on from the day Vi abandoned her, and Jinx still cannot bring herself to hate her sister. She still compares herself to Vi, still tries to be as strong and as capable as Vi, and still craves that old, loving relationship she used to have so long ago.

Silco’s advice is to let Powder die and embrace Jinx with all her heart. With no one around to steer her in any other direction, Jinx does just that.

“The truth is that, somewhere deep inside of herself, Powder is still there.”

Jinx sabotages Piltover’s bicentennial celebration, blowing up a public building, setting fire to the fairground, killing a squad of enforcers, and stealing a priceless Hextech gemstone. With the gemstone in hand, she begins retrofitting one of her own bombastic cannons with the gemstone, intent on using the weapon to show Piltover once and for all that Zaun will not stand for its mistreatment any longer.

However, there are astronomical consequences to this course of action. Piltover doubles down on the presence of enforcers, while ex-enforcer Caitlyn sneaks away from her controlling family to pursue the culprit of the attack. Forging government papers, she is able to free a prisoner from jail that can act as her tour guide of Zaun as they hunt for the stolen gemstone.

That prisoner happens to be Vi, who has been in prison ever since the fateful day seven years ago.

Together, Vi and Caitlyn slip into the undercity and begin sleuthing. While Caitlyn seeks justice and the gemstone, Vi desires revenge and Silco. Regardless of their particular motives, the girls form an uneasy alliance as they decisively make their impact known on the underground city. They successfully assault several of Silco’s goons, and evade capture, while also determining the whereabouts of the gemstone.

The news doesn’t take long to make its way to Silco, and he is shocked to find that Vi lived through her childhood ordeal.

The news also doesn’t take long to reach Jinx, and she is overwhelmed by emotion at the knowledge that her sister is still alive.

Vi, in turn, has managed to piece together that her sister is alive, and seemingly in service to Silco. As Vi last saw her baby sister being cornered by the corrupt man, Vi wonders if perhaps she has been coerced or forced into furthering the crimelord’s schemes. With Caitlyn’s reluctant agreement, the two leave the safety of their hideout in search of Jinx…or rather, from Vi’s perspective, Powder.

Jinx herself takes to the highest point of the undercity, gemstone in one hand, and the blue smoke flare Vi gifted her years ago in the other. Putting the gemstone aside, and symbolically rejecting her foster father’s plan for revenge against Piltover, Jinx lights the flare instead. The sight of the fire triggers her PTSD, and her hallucinations worsen, but she stands her ground, trusting in her sister’s promise from so long ago that she would always be there for her.

Sure enough, Vi sees the flare and instantly recognizes it. Ascending the tall tower breathlessly, Vi approaches her baby sister with all of the delicate heart and compassion one could imagine. Vi can hardly believe that she’s been given the chance to see Powder again, and as Jinx turns to face her, a mirrored expression of awe and disbelief grows on her face.

Vi wastes no time throwing her arms around her sister in a tight embrace, but Jinx is more hesitant. At first, she struggles to process whether or not Vi is even real, or just another hallucination. Once Vi assures her that it’s really her, Jinx questions how Vi is here now when she’d been led to believe Vi was dead. Vi stumbles through an explanation about her imprisonment, before brushing it aside and proudly declaring that what matters most is that she’s here now, and that she’s sorry for ever leaving.

It is after that admission that Jinx’s barriers finally begin to weaken, and she starts to cry.

Her once broken hopes and dreams have now been brought back to her, and in the span of a single heartbeat, Jinx is ready to throw herself back at her sister. At the same time, her fear of abandonment manifests as a fear of disappointment, and she tries to explain to Vi about how much she’s changed as a person. Changes that, on some level, she is able to recognize as unhealthy and destructive. Vi assures her it doesn’t matter. The sisters are on the verge of reconciliation.

And then Caitlyn, who had been lagging behind, shows up, and everything spirals out of control.

Jinx instantly jumps on the offensive, brandishing her gun and accusing Vi of trying to set her up. She demands to know whether Vi is actually here to see her, or just after the lost gemstone. Vi truthfully explains that she doesn’t even know what the gemstone is, but her gentle, soft-spoken treatment upsets Jinx further. Vi also keeps referring to Jinx as ‘Powder’, and as the hallucinatory voices yell louder and louder, Jinx snaps, insisting that Powder is dead.

Vi regrets ever uttering that word, and she places her hand on Jinx’s arm, promising that she’s only here to see her, and that she’s not going to abandon her again. Jinx’s expression softens, her grip on her gun weakens, and the softness of her eyes indicates her genuine desire to accept Vi’s words, even as the voices in her head scream at her not to.

And then the rival gang Jinx brutalized earlier return, seemingly for revenge. A full-scale fight breaks out.

Without even needing to confer with each other, Vi and Jinx instinctively fight back-to-back, and easily beat down the outclassed opponents. It’s just like old times…until Vi looks a bit closer. Whereas she incapacitates and knocks out the attackers, Jinx goes for the kill. With an unhinged glee she guns down the gang members, and brutally attacks them when they’re down. Vi calls out for Jinx to stop, but she can’t hear her. She’s in her own world, caught up in her own rhythm.

Vi is forced to eat her own words as she looks upon her sister and sees that she truly has changed. And Vi’s scared.

Distracted, Vi and Caitlyn are knocked unconscious, and the gang members grab the two of them alongside the gemstone, and escape into the night. Though she is the winner of the brawl, Jinx is left with a horrible gash on her leg, and all alone.

The loneliness is crushing, and for a brief moment, Jinx is a little kid again, curled into herself in terror. That terror then becomes anger.

Jinx screams. She’s lost Vi again.

THE MONSTER YOU CREATED (Act Three)

At this point, Jinx feels an all-consuming anger unlike any sensation that has ever seized control of her before. Even more anger than when Vi first seemingly abandoned her, or when her parents were gunned down by Piltover enforcers so many years ago.

Her smallest and most secret hope (that Vi would still be alive and would still love her) has come true, only to be immediately taken away upon Vi’s kidnapping. What’s worse, Vi is seemingly friends with an enforcer, the same cruel military force that has caused so much death and loss in her life. Jinx’s position as Vi’s one and only loved one is threatened, and that dependent nature rears its ugly head once again.

Jinx won’t…or rather, can’t stand for anything getting between her and Vi. Not ever again. Jinx prepares to mount an offensive to get Vi back.

Meanwhile, Vi finds out that the rival gang is actually a ragtag group of freedom fighters scrambling for some semblance of peace for Zaun. The group is led by an old childhood friend, Ekko. Ekko treats Vi and Caitlyn’s wounds, and then goes with them on their mission to return the gemstone to Piltover and seek a truce between the two cities. On the way, they are unaware that they are being followed.

The trio of hopeful idealists meet with enforcer resistance on the bridge between Piltover and Zaun. Tensions flare, and as Caitlyn and Ekko argue with the military, Vi turns to head back to Zaun and reunite with her sister. Jinx spies on the proceedings from a safe perch, all while the ghosts of her victims continue to haunt her. As precariously as she teeters on the ledge she sits on, Jinx’s mind walks a fine line that is quickly fraying.

But, when Ekko is shot and a gun is pressed to Caitlyn’s face, Vi turns and runs back to help. She doesn’t want to lose her friends, not when an end to the twin cities’ conflict is so close. Vi is acting out of a good, strong heart, and her intentions of helping those around her is a solid personality trait. Unfortunately, one of Vi’s biggest flaws is failing to realize the immediate consequences of her actions.

From high above, Jinx only sees the sister who promised to never leave again break that promise to pieces as she turns and runs. She’s abandoned Powder once more.

With an ear-splitting scream, Jinx unleashes a horde of flying explosives onto the bridge, detonating them all in a cataclysmic eruption. Well over a dozen enforcers perish, and Caitlyn is badly wounded. Only Vi, safe from the detonation range, emerges unscathed. As Jinx almost casually approaches the carnage, Vi rushes in headfirst, pulling Caitlyn to her feet and making sure she’s holding it together.

Jinx emerges from the smoke just in time to see Vi and Caitlyn, arm-in-arm. She hallucinates smug, sadistic facial expressions on Caitlyn, mocking Jinx for her inability to receive her sister’s love and attention. As the voices of her dead friends yell louder than ever before, Jinx’s heart breaks in two. In an outburst of rage, she opens fire on her sister and Caitlyn.

Ekko, wounded from the gunshot but still standing, intercepts Jinx and engages her in a fight, buying time for Vi to take Caitlyn to safety. Vi takes one more look at Jinx, but there isn’t a hint of the sweet sister she used to know. There is only the cold, unflinchingly terrifying expression of Jinx. Sad, scared, and unable to understand how to help her sister, Vi does all she can think to do and puts her effort into helping Caitlyn, carrying her away.

Jinx and Ekko fight, and in turn relieve the memories of friendly childhood paintball matches they used to have. Now, though, cries of anger and pain resound where once there was laughter and smiles. Ekko manages to pin Jinx down, but relents upon seeing her bloodied face. He can’t bring himself to finish a friend, no matter how far gone she may be.

Jinx, her spirit crushed at what she considers another betrayal, has all but given up on the will to live. In Ekko’s moment of hesitation, she detonates one more explosive that engulfs them both.

Minutes later, Silco arrives, having been tipped off about the showdown. He is horrified to see how mutilated his daughter is, and that she is barely clinging to life. He scoops her up into his arms, and also discovers that she stole back the gemstone in the chaos. With both his prized possessions in tow, he retreats from the bridge as a wave of enforcer reinforcements arrive.

Meanwhile, Vi has laid Caitlyn down and tried to get back to Jinx, only for the mass enforcer presence deterring her from getting involved. Yet again she can only look on as her sister disappears, desperate to help but wholly unable to. And this time, she surely realizes how much it must have looked like she abandoned Jinx yet again.

Silco takes Jinx to an underground doctor, who promises to save Jinx’s life even if the process is excruciating. Silco is confident in Jinx’s strength and will to survive, and he comforts her best he can as she floats into and out of consciousness.

True to his word in both ways, the doctor saves Jinx, but the infusion of chemicals into her body is like no pain anyone should ever have to experience. Jinx writhes and screams on the table as her blood is pumped full of drugs, and all around her are hallucinations of her sister and Caitlyn. Mocking her. Insulting her. Abusing her. Jinx can barely take it…but at the end of the procedure, she does survive.

She is now fueled by the same enhancing drugs ruining the streets of Zaun. Her very blood is that of the chemical substance. She is now incredibly strong, incomprehensibly fast, and her traumatic psychosis has worsened considerable. Her speech floats along in a confusing cadence, her eyes flicking frantically about. At the same time, her mind is clear on one thing: a purpose. A purpose so unavoidable it becomes all she can think of.

So, she crafts an ultimatum.

Jinx breaks into Caitlyn’s house and captures the girl. She then overhears Silco talking about a deal he’d been offered by Piltover. If he hands Jinx and the gemstone over to Piltover, they’ll relent their control over the city and grant Zaun independence. Silco mutters about how obvious the choice he’s going to make is. Intrepreting this as Silco admitting to betraying Jinx, Jinx captures him as well. Then, she merely waits for Vi to walk out into the open before grabbing her too.

She takes her hostages, under the dark cover of night, to the very same warehouse where all of their lives were changed forever.

Vi awakens first, and Jinx confronts her sister one-on-one. In this intimate, controlled environment, Jinx is uncharacteristically open about her emotionally vulnerability. She tells Vi that it’s her fault Jinx was created, but that it is also because of her voice that Jinx is still alive. Unlike the shouting angry voices of the rest of the dead, Jinx is not haunted by Vi’s voice. Vi’s voice is what lifted her up when she fell down, what brightened the world when everything else was dark.

Jinx asks if the two of them are still sisters. Vi, without hesitation, answers that nothing will ever change that.

Jinx then brightens the room, revealing a crude, horrific dining table. Mechanical facsimiles of Mylo, Claggor, and Vander sit along the table, and a groggy Silco is at the opposite end. Beside Vi is an empty chair decorated with children’s toys and labeled ‘Powder’. Beside Silco is another empty chair, barren and destitute, with the name ‘Jinx’ scribbled on it. After a moment, Jinx pushes Caitlyn into her own seat, the terrified girl bruised and disheveled.

Vi can already see what is happening before the question comes out of Jinx’s mouth.

“So…where should I sit? That’s really up to you, sis.”

Vi clearly wishes to point to the ‘Powder’ chair, but before she can, Jinx drops a gun into Vi’s hands and begs her to kill Caitlyn. She offers the cruel, final ultimatum, by telling her sister that if she kills Caitlyn, then she can have Powder back. It’s a mean, unfair, selfish, and impossible ultimatum, and Vi is unable to meet it. She refuses to kill an innocent person to satiate Jinx’s twisted desire for dependency.

However, she IS willing to sacrifice herself to bring Powder back. When Jinx tries to end Caitlyn herself, Vi shouts out that she’ll never leave again, and that the two of them can just leave the twin cities forever, staying side by side. Jinx almost buys it, but her inner demons taunt her about Vi’s backstabbing nature, and that she must still be lying.

Silco finally wakes up enough to speak out, and he chastises Vi for lying, confirming Jinx’s own twisted thoughts. He argues that Vi is incapable of loving and understanding Jinx because she’s changed so much, and that Vi still wants Jinx to be the little innocent Powder even though she’s not. This is an interesting argument, because he’s absolutely right. Vi loves Powder, but she’s scared of Jinx, and she can’t see that the two are one and the same now.

He then lays out his ultimate argument. He tells Jinx that she misunderstood his musings earlier about the deal with Piltover. Though his lifelong dream as been to one-up Piltover and establish independence for Zaun, Silco is willing to throw it all away for Jinx. He can’t accept a world where his dream came true at the cost of his daughter. Silco insists that he is the only one who knows and loves Jinx, and that he would never forsake her for anything.

His words touch Jinx deeply, but before Vi can start a counterargument, Caitlyn breaks free from her restraints. She tries to shoot Jinx, but Vi begs her not to. In that moment of hesitation, Jinx lunges at Caitlyn, grabbing the gatling gun from her and knocking the girl unconscious. She turns the gun on Caitlyn’s prone body and prepares to fire.

Silco yells at her to do it, and finally put her past to rest.

Vi yells at her not to, and to think instead of the girl she used to be. The girl who would never do this. To think of those who are lost. The family and friends who she used to have.

Sadly, in that single declaration, Vi makes it abundantly clear that she will never be able to understand what her sister has gone through. The gap between them is inconceivably wide.

Jinx does think about who she used to be and who she used to know, and those memories crush her down. As her physical grip on the gun shakes and wavers, she mentally cries out and curls into a ball to hide from the distorted, nightmarish visions of Mylo, Claggor, Vander, her parents, and Vi herself. The trauma she’s internalized all of these years erupts, and it’s impossible for her to contain it.

Whereas Vi thinks of her fallen friends and family as a source of courage and motivation to keep fighting, Jinx is terrified of the guilt of knowing she’s the reason they’re dead. There are no positive connotations to associate with those memories and those voices. All they do is haunt Jinx’s every waking second. Vi does not, and may never, understand that.

Blinded by emotion, Jinx opens fire on the entire room. Her bullets whizz through the air, snapping wood and shattering glass. When the dust settles, the room is a mess. The bullets just barely missed Vi’s head…but they didn’t miss Silco. He’s been fatally wounded.

Instantly regretful, Jinx throws the gun away and rushes to her adopted father’s side, cradling him in his final moments. As she openly weeps, he reiterates that he never would have forsaken her for anything, and that she should wipe away her tears. In his own words:

“Don’t cry. You’re perfect.”

Silco then passes away, and after a moment longer of crying, a shadow falls of Jinx’s eyes. A bloodcurdlingly emotionless pall.

“Don’t cry. You’re perfect.”

She stands up, and completely ignoring the hasty, tentative pleas from Vi, pulls back and sits into the ‘Jinx’ chair. She makes her choice, completely independent of Vi. In essence, she abandons Vi, along with any possible hope of reconciliation. The gulf is too wide. Too irreparable. Powder is forever dead, and Jinx is here to stay. In her own words:

“I thought maybe you could love me like you used to…even though I’m different. But you’ve changed too. So, here’s to the new us.”

Standing up, Jinx walks past the unconscious Caitlyn and the remorseful, crying Vi. She picks up a weapon hidden in the shadows, the very same she’d managed to construct on Silco’s orders. The key to the revenge against Piltover. Inserting the gemstone into the core of the weapon, she walks up a flight of stairs until the grand Piltover council is in view.

Hoisting the weapon onto her shoulders, she recalls Silco’s words of admiration and encouragement, that granting of all she’d ever wanted. That love and acceptance she’d so desperately craved, and that she’d never experience again. Tears streaking down her face, Jinx unleashes a guttural cry and pulls the trigger, launching the equivalent of a magic missile from her weapon. A missile aimed straight at the heart of Piltover.

“The gulf is too wide. Too irreparable. Powder is forever dead, and Jinx is here to stay.”

In a supremely upsetting final nail in the coffin of this tragedy, the Piltover council was convened at this exact moment, deciding on the legitimacy of the deal with Silco. Putting their mistrust of the undercity aside, the council had just finished unanimously agreeing to a peace with Zaun and the granting of independence. An end to the conflict was literally seconds away.

Streaking through the night sky, the missile flies unobstructed. Vi and a recovered Caitlyn can only look on in horror.

It connects with the council room right as the vote for peace passes.

There is an explosion heard around the world.

Roll credits.

At its core, Arcane is a story about family and trauma. Birth families and found families. The indomitable importance of strong familial bonds, and the desire to do anything to protect loved ones. The effects of trauma on children, and the effects of untreated, festering trauma. Healthy love and unhealthy relationships. The right and wrong ways to help loved ones and to express emotion. The consequences of reckless behavior, and the cost of tragic mistakes.

Jinx’s descent is one steeped in tragedy and loss, and it’s oftentimes painful to watch unfold. However, the most depressing thing of all has to be in how many opportunities there were for the situation to be averted, or salvaged, or saved. Over and over again, Jinx was let down by others when she needed them the most, and she ruined her own chances through paranoia and troubled psychosis when the strength to push on eluded her.

Arcane’s writing is on a level that most storywriters only wish they could achieve, and the cast in this show in unbelievably fantastic. At the end of the day, though, I feel that Jinx stands tall above the rest as one of the most heartbreaking and arresting character portrayals in all of fiction. She is so inherently sympathetic, immensely terrifying, impeccably heartbreaking, and unfathomably…real.

But hey, that’s just my opinion!