Love that quote. Also love "in the pursuit of great, we failed to do good." and "It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live"
Silco was mad at Vander for giving up on their dream for his daughters. In the end he did the same thing, willing to give it all up for his daughter. Now he understands Vander. What a fucking phenomenal show
And my thought then and every viewing since has been "you know, you'd probably have a much more rewarding conversation with him about this, if you hadn't murdered him"
@@TheDragonsRose You don't have to be an altruist to see that forgiveness is worthwhile, thus everyone should be entitled to it. Personally, I endeavor to avoid *gatekeeping morality* to "horrible, manipulating liars" .
@@sandercohen5543 Forgiveness doesn't change anything other than asking someone to forget the harm done to others. He did not make amends, Silco only learned that he could care about a child and wanted to protect her. This does not suddenly eliminate all the egregious choices he made to enforce her poor mental state, or the murders that he caused. There's nothing "gatekeeping" it. They killed him off because even the writers know full well that it was necessary for his development. The end of it, moreso.
Someone pointed out to me that Jinx's blue tattoos are not clouds.. they are the flare that Vi gave her to light up and be found.. She literally tattooed "Find me", ie cries for help, all over her body.. and that broke my heart all over again
or they are the blue clouds she saw from the explosion when she ruined everything and killed Mylo and Glaggor, game jinx also has pink bullet tattoos, which I would assume will be there in season 2 in remembrence of the time she ruined everything and killed Silco
Dude... I've been maining Jinx since she came out, I've watched Arcane over 20 times and probably saw all the reactions I was able to find on TH-cam and I've learned tons of thing I didn't know or wasn't sure about but your comment is the greatest I've seen and totally makes sense... Never realized she doesen't have the bullets tatooed in the show... Thanks for pointing that out!!!@@jez1688
14:43 I just realized that in Viktor's backstory he couldn't out walk his little boat and now he's out running a real boat. The parallels in this show man.. So Good
Also watch that and the Rocky running montage back to back. I'm not sure what they're trying to say with it, but the visual similarities are too close of a match to be coincidence.
One of my favorite callbacks: Ekko says when Jayce came into Benzo's he paid full price and didn't even haggle. When Silco is talking to Vander's statue he says, " The boy didn't even haggle."
Yeah. It's one of my favorite lines from the show. I think you could characterize Jayce's entire arc as a struggle with haggling, with compromising his principles in an attempt to achieve his goals. Or, as Viktor put it, failing to do good in his pursuit of greatness. In the first 3 episodes, he doesn't even know how to haggle. In the middle 3, he gains power and learns to haggle. In the final 3, he recognizes the cost of compromising on his principles, and he refuses to haggle any longer.
The "I made her a snack" scene put us all on the edge of our seats. Even those of us who have known the game for years and know that Cait is a playable character. It shows the level of mastery the screenwriters have to build such a solid story.
Yeah saw that too, but then i thought about Senna, Sion, Pyke etc. cuz they’re all undead as well, and Senna still looks pretty humane. Tho still, indeed that outer edge of the seat got everyone sitting on it hahahaha
That is because it's a scene stolen / hommage to the Batman's Joker, in which one ocasion tied up the Bat family at a table with all of them with their faces blinded and put in front of them several plates covered, revealing his own in which it was his own face cut off. I mean... being Jinx an hommage to Harley Quinn from the start, it checks out.
“Powder killed Silco to protect her sister. Jinx killed Powder to avenge her father.” Idk where I saw this from. Someone said it in a reaction video but, every time I watch episode 9 again, this just like… rings in my head. I’m willing to wait as long as it takes if season 2 is just as well done as season 1. The characters were all riveting and interesting, the season ended on such a cliff hanger and I NEED to see how the relationship between Vi and Caitlyn develops now.
It's a nice poetic gloss....Jinx/Powder was having a psychotic episode and Silco was definitely trying to shoot Vi, but Jinx/Powder thought he was aiming at HER and reflexively fired first in self-defense....she didn't mean to kill Silco, it was pure adrenaline and reflex...and when she comes to she's utterly devastated at losing Silco. The writing in this show is so brilliant I actually shed a tear for Silco. For the VILLAIN. Damn!
No, Jinx reacted on trigger, the sound of the gun shoot. If Vi had shoot then she would have kill her. It wasn't intentional, that's why she asked Silco to forgive her.
To highlight Skye’s death with Viktor, he ran out of Shimmer to use as a catalyst in the experiments, so he risked doing another one without it, but Skye clung on and the thing used her instead.
"Don't cry, you're perfect." Such a meaningful quote. He knows that she is not perfect. But he isn't either und nobody and nothing in this world is. So for him, she is everything and he does love her. And on the other hand, everybody hearing that quote is crying. :D Arcane on the other hand as a show is almost perfect. Animation, characters, world building, music... just brilliant!
I mean from our perspective she isn't. But iirc, the Voice Actor for Silco had an interview where he talked about why Silco said You're perfect, which really resonates with me. He said that “the perfect embodiment of what Zaun is” in the eyes of Silco. She's everything that makes Zaun good and bad, chaotic, insane, yet scrappy, smart, and inventive.
I disagree. One of Silco's flaws as a father is that he does see Jinx as perfect. He doesn't help her with her flaws, he enables them because he can't see anything about her as a flaw.
I read somewhere that she is what the idea of zaun is, if you took zaun and made it into a real person it would be jinx, chaotic and violent, that’s why he created all the monsters to bring topside to heel, she is the perfect monster
i like the way vi keeps trying to "change her" like ekko said in the bridge, she keeps trying to get jinx to go back to powder, but she can't. And silco knows that, he knows that no matter what she does, or anybody else does, she's never going to be powder again because she's not that person anymore. I think that's why it's so meaningful for him to say "you're perfect" to her various times. Because while everybody else is trying to change her, he's trying to get her to fully embrace who she is now. Without any judgment.
I think part of Jayce's character is that he is so good at everything, yet when it comes down to it, he can make bad and impulsive decisions like the rest of us. I don't know if the show writers intended it like that, but it does show that you can be good at everything you do but that does not mean you know better than anyone else.
Yeah, I love that about him in the show. It makes so much sense that he allways believes thet his way is right! He aalways was/is good at stuff, he can build amazing tools/weapons/etc. so he truely things his designes will totally fulfill his visions, because they allways do. He imagined his decissions in politics to be good, too, because he allways wants the best for people and can convince people easy with his charisma. But then there is the amazing twist in the story HIS ideas bring problems he never even thought about, because he propably never had the perspective to. If his laboratory hadn't been broken in, he would have presented a working hex-tech-mashine to the council in 1-2 years time, but since the raw gems were not safe frome something liek that a building blew up. His blockade of the brdiges made tensions worse. His want to do the right thing, by attacking Silcos factories lead to him doing harm to a child, something he would never accept as a cost. And it all leads to him seeing and accepting that he has to grow and not think his first impulse idea is the perfect solution. Which can be seen in his WAY more practical offer to Silco and his harshness in the last council meeting.
@@derkrischa3720 I agree with you, and also I love that when he does the good thing, try to make peace with Silco, even then it ends wrong, because it was to late. At first I didn’t like Jace but then I started to see all this details and now I love his character.
Schnee did a great analysis of the male characters (also the females in a seperate video) and he details how each character embodies a certain male trait and how those traits are examined for their positives and negatives.
@@Jorlaxe she didn't choose. She just stopped her sister from killing Cate. Also, "well done Vi"? As if they all wanted to be there. It was Jinx mad tea party, her idea, and it backfired. If anything, a 'well done Jinx' is more apt, no?
@@Jorlaxe oh, I'm sorry. Where are you from? See, plain language doesn't always mean literal. Jinx handed her sister a gun and told her to make Cait "go away" it means Jinx wanted her sister to, at least, shoot the Enforcer. It doesn't mean untie her and make her 'go away' as in leaving the building. If anything, Vi chose Jinx, by saying they could run away together and leave everything behind.
The whole show people tell Vi she sucks at defense. Ekko’s “you block with your face” and Vander’s “your guard needs work”. The one time she finally thinks to block a hit, it wins her the fight. Perfect pay off.
I really didn't see the final scene with Silco as him emotionally manipulating her, nor at any other point. I truly think that he believes it's them against the world. He was betrayed in the deepest way possible by the closest person to him in his life and I think that really fucked him up and made it basically impossible for him to trust anyone, Powder excluded, because he sees her as having gone through that same betrayal. I think he's simply doing exactly what Vi was, no malice behind it, but because he's our villain we perceive it in a negative way (at least initially). Yeah it's still a bad thing that he projected a lot of his issues onto her but what matters to me is that I don't think the intent was really there.
@@agamr7151 Of course Silco cares about Jinx-which makes him want to manipulate and control her even more, do anything he can to murder Vi before Jinx can have the truth and weigh her options and obtain her identity more freely. I'm sure Kony, Stalin, Zulu, Gotti, and Capone had stuff they cared about. Point is he's still an evil violent sociopathic villain that vocal fans of the show keep romanticizing over and over again. It's pretty disturbing, especially when they repeat stuff that goes against what the show spelled out for us 22 times.
This show really has a way telling things about the characters when you look closely. Like Mel for instants. Every time she’s appear the angles always appear like that she is looking down at someone. However, when her mother arrives the angle switch, making her the one that’s looked down upon. Shows how intimidating her mother can be. When she steps out of the bath naked, Jayce feel so embarrassed that it makes you feel like he’s the one that’s naked.
I think it's important to point out that Heimerdinger only went down to the undercity and was able to realize how bad things are, after he was voted out of the council. Before that, he was content preserving the status quo.
@@gamerbear84for yordles, 10 years are nothing. They live up to 1200 years so they kinda view humans the same way we look at dogs or how elves see humans in LOTR lore.
Arcane has some of the best character development I've seen in a "TV show" in some time. What brilliant writing and beautiful animation. I appreciate the show not shying away from a darker story, but at the same time making it totally understandable why these characters walked these paths they're on right now
@@JayIngemar Yes, but the writers could have written Vi as always being "heroic" and Jinx always being "crazy". But, instead, they wrote them having a very close relationship. Seeing the loss of that relationship makes it that much more heartbreaking as we slowly watch it unravel; and ultimately become irreconcilable (likely).
The reason the finale is such a tragedy is that Vi does genuinely love her sister as both Powder *and* Jinx, but she just genuinely can't connect the Powder that barely kept up with Vi, Claggor and Mylo on their runs with the person that laughs while killing people. It's understandable why that shakes Jinx and makes her traumatized brain perceive that as Vi *not loving* her, but it's jarring to see actual audience members believe Vi doesn't love her sister when she just can't immediately get used to her sister being a murderer after only having that last memory of her while being locked up in jail for years.
What I hope will happen in Season 2 is to see Vi struggle with her mental health and focus on the damage done to her after her traumatic experience like they did with Jinx. Because it feels weird seeing people focus on Jinx only, forgetting that Vi was also young and had seen horrible things.
@@Taj_SAS I *really* hope season 2 delves deeper into Vi's trauma and that we get a flashback of her early time in prison, and that we see a lot of how Jinx's actions in the finale affect her and her relationship with Caitlyn. I definitely wouldn't classify this as a flaw, but seeing more of Vi's trauma is something that we lacked just a bit in season 1.
@@Marta-uv4id I agree with you that when they see Vi's trauma and her impact on her it will be helpful to her story as well as we understand her character more or at least some of the people who blame Vi for everything will understand her character.
she doesnt love jinx, she loves powder and wants her little sister back. mostly because shes her family but partially because of redemption. she left powder alone, hit her and cursed her with her name, jinx. she left nothing but bad memories for her little sister and she can never fix them again. its too late for powder so she better get used to jinx.
I thought the doctor's marks may had been aftermath of making Shimmer (as people who make meth get affected too). But actually, the doctor we see working on Shimmer (who gave a vile of it to Vitkor), is the same doctor we see in the first three episodes working with Silco on making the Shimmer, and feeding it to the rat as the first experiment in the first episode. The marks he has on his body are burn marks and scars from the explosion caused by young Powder in episode three.
yeh, singed has been burned by the shimmer explosion at the beginning when vander died, BUT by lore he is disfigured by warwick, who we also get a glimpse of, or so at least many ppl think. so it might not have been the fire.
@@danii7584 Singed's face will be more scarred later in the story. At this point in Arcane he didn't create Warwick (during the rocket scene we see him starting his work on Warwick).
the thing that i found most surprising and moving was VI's and Caitlyn's romance. it grew so spontaneously and dynamically you knew they were opposites attract long before they did; and in such an ugly and divisive world you cheered for them to find a bit of peace with each other. i hope they do in season 2. i also loved that Vi called her cupcake cuz she's so sweet, cuz she's not sweet at all outwardly; yet her core self practically overflows with love.
The Ekko x Jinx fight was one of the best sequences I've seen in 2022. Bold stylistic choices, amazing animation, sound design, overall writing quality. Simply outstanding.
And the story-telling with the tic-tocing flashbacks to then squaring up as kids and the innocence of that playfight juxtaposed with actual life and death they were in. This his better storytelling that most liveaction. Best art direction in anything I have seen as well. I didn't give a shit about LoL until this show and now it is all I want. I really hope the MMO Riot is working on is based off of the lore they expanded upon here. I will no life a game based on this show.
Agreed, such a fucking cool concept for a fight scene. Considering how little time we spent with ekko, and particularly with young ekko, it’s crazy how well they were able to sell the tragedy of that confrontation.
Viktor running for the first time definitely made me tear up the first time around. Something about him being able to express a part of him he'd never been able to before is really heartwarming and heartbreaking to see. Also, i love that he runs faster than the boat he let flow in the river when he was a child. This show is brilliant
It's worth noting that Caitlyn had actually already lost her job as an enforcer the day after she survived Jinx's explosion where she stole the gem. Her mother went to the sheriff and told him to fire her because the job was too dangerous. She lied about still being an enforcer to get into Stillwater and to see VI and then forged Jayce's signature to get her out. Jayce was caught off guard when Marcus mentioned it but didn't say anything to cover for her. Victor was also in the council room when Jinx fired the missile. He was the one that announced that Jayce had made the deal with Silco. That whole situation is a mess for the main characters. Jayce, Victor, and Mel were in that room. Caitlyn's mother was in that room and she was also close friends with Jayce. And it was all done by Vi's sister.
Silco was much more loyal to Jinx than anyone else in her life. He accepted her with all her flaws and mental issues. Most of us can only dream of a person to love us like this.
Tbf, Vi's actions are a reaction Silco's actions, the very source that made Vi reject Jinx in the first place. I think it's important to note that both character's form of love are very different. While Vi wanted her sister to go through a different path, she still very much loved her and is struggling with the idea that her sister changed, not all for the better. You can still love someone while not agreeing with their choices. It's like still loving someone by steering them to rehabilitation away from their traumas or destructive impulses. Silco's love comes in the form of exposure therapy, wanting Powder to become Jinx, his ideal form of a strong survivor, which is not exactly a well adjusted individual but one who is willing to make the necessary choices and sacrifices in order to thrive. While supportive, it does steer Jinx away from a healthier, more stabler path as Vi desired. He was also very much projecting his traumas onto Jinx. I think it's important to note that.
Honestly, 100% my favorite character in all of this is Silco. Not that I was ever rooting for him to win, but just the transformation he goes through is so deep. And even though his relationship with Powder/Jinx is so messed up I don't think he ever has lied to her. He really does see in her the same thing that drives him, and that they both share the feeling that the world has abandoned them. And I think the only reason Sevika is afraid when Jinx confronts her is that she knows if she hurts Jinx Silco won't forgive her. Because you know Sevika is ruthless enough otherwise not to care. Like, I think he truly loves her in the only twisted way he knows to love Jinx, and his motivations, and actions are some of the most well-defined, deepest depictions of a villain I've seen in any show. Now, who did I want to win? Of course, Vi, Ekko, and Caitlyn. I think at least Caitlyn and Ekko were the only "good" guys in the whole show trying to keep the power source away from Jinx and Silco. Anyway, I am looking forward to season 2 to see how the story advances. I don't think Jace and Viktor are dead, they've got to somehow make it through. But yeah I don't hold high hopes for any pf the councilors.
That split second where Jinx is pinned and helpless and Echo looks down into the face of....Powder....that whole slow-mo scene leading up to that moment is so beautifully crafted...
Heimerdinger wasn't definitely in the right. He was incredibly out of touch. He told them to wait ten years to safeguard their tech, but Victor won't even live 10 years. He thought Ekkos hover board was built wrong, but it wasn't, it was designed for the fissures, which Heimerdinger didn't know because he never goes down there. And he was surprised at Ekkos progress despite his "short" lifespan. Heimerdinger literally founded the city and he's been there that whole 200 years it existed. And yet he didn't even know what the air was like in the undercity. At best, he was ridiculously negligent. And don't forget that Heimerdinger was the one so against magic. He told Jayce not to mention it during that trial thing, but after Jayce started talking, the counselors were listening until Heimerdinger interrupted him and out his foot down. It was HIS fear of magic. Heimerdinger keeps telling people not to do things but never presents an alternative. If I could describe him in three words I'd say paranoid, stagnant, and neglectful.
It reminds me of that Count Dooku quote about Yoda in one of the novelizations “The Jedi Order’s problem is Yoda. No being can wield that kind of power for centuries without becoming complacent at best or corrupt at worst. He has no idea that it’s overtaken him; he no longer sees all the little cumulative evils that the Republic tolerates and fosters, from slavery to endless wars, and he never asks, “Why are we not acting to stop this?” Live alongside corruption for too long, and you no longer notice the stench. The Jedi cannot help the slaves of Tatooine, but they can help the slavemasters.” Just switch some of the words and it’s exactly the same
To be fair on Jayce, he just didn't think of the consequences. Vi actively justified that kid's death- which isn't exactly/entirely her fault, because she's been exposed to so much violence and suffering that she's been numbed to it.
To be fair, that kid had no business being anywhere near that warzone. The child intentionally went to an area that HE KNEW was dangerous. His death is largely his own fault. Jayce didn't "shoot a kid", He shot a shimmer monster and the kid was stupid enough to walk into the line of fire EVEN WHEN HE KNEW that the battle was happening and that it wasn't safe. It makes sense for Jayce to feel guilty in some capacity, but Vi is also correct that it isn't a logical reason to stop.
@@kingofbudokai bruh the kid was working there and I assume he froze in fear and didn't run away like others. you can't blame him for that, he was like 10. But it wasn't solely Jaice's fault either. That's the beauty of Arcane, everything's relative and everyone are to blame
What Vi said to Jayce was technically correct: if he does nothing, more children are going to die, either to the violence or the living conditions in the undercity. He has the power to change those conditions and bring an eventual end to that violence, but only by getting his hands dirty. The only thing she may have gotten wrong is that she assumes he wants to stop out of fear and not out of guilt. Jayce doesn't really want to ignore the problem, he simply blames himself more for suffering he actively causes than for suffering he passivly allows to occur.It just comes down to where you land on the classic trolley problem. Is Jayce worse for hurting people to stop Silco, or letting people get hurt because he chose not to stop Silco.
@@kingofbudokai I think he was the boss or at least a ranking person on the site being a chem baron's son. Also he shows more initiative than the others when he triggers the alarm.
Not calling her Jinx is kinda whole problem with Vi. She just couldn't accept changes in her sister, new name and new everything, she was trying to reverse it, like it never happened. Of course it didn't work well
You can actually trace Jinx's (and therefore the season's) entire arc through Vi's well-intentioned but tragic inability to accept Powder/Jinx for who she is. Vi is great at trying to give Jinx what *Vi* thinks Jinx needs, but that image of who Powder can/should be continually gets in the way of Vi understanding what her sister *actually* needs.
Yeah maybe cause she couldn't be there and Jinx just won't let her talk to her to know better no matter how Vi tries. Accepting your sister as the mass murderer she is doesn't seem to me like something a good sister should do anyway. What Jinx was trying to do here just doesn't work like that and it was game over for Vi as soon as game started. People will keep holding Vi fully responsible for not accepting the beautiful murderer angel her sister is... Calling someone by a different name is not going to reverse someone's past like having someone killing someone else isn't going to do it, but it's actually Vi giving space for forgiveness and acceptance over and over and Jinx denying it and you talk like it's the other way around.
@@kaijingarou6526 well Vi is more responsible just because she's in the right mind. Jinx 100% crazy and doesn't make any sense at all, that goes without saying. And of course it was game over before game even started, that's the beauty of this story. Not a single character in Arcane was capable to change something and make another decision, and this is really good writing imo
@@aske2455 Vi is taking responsibility for what she's done and even for what she hasn't. Being mentally unstable doesn't get you out of responsibility. I've had my deal of mental issues myself and haven't held other people responsible for my mistakes. And Arcane's writing is not good, is brilliant but I feel like Jinx's fandom idealize her too much even if she is a great character, letting slip her huge mistakes where they won't other characters' smaller mistakes.
An important thing that passes over some peoples head is Silco isn't being manipulative when he tells Jinx how its only them, everyone betrays them, Manipulation requires intent to deceive, Silco is so traumatized and hardened from life in the undercity and form all his experiences he truly believes they're alone, they can't trust anyone, and that if they let anyone close all they will do is hurt them, and it says so much for his love for Jinx that even with all his distrust and trauma he infinitely trusts Jinx to let her inject his medicine into his eye and to say that its only them, letting her into his life and directly saying he's the only one in his life he trusts will never betray him. And ironically in the end, she's they one who kills him, betraying him in a mental breakdown caused by Silco once again being unable to let her go and let her die and doing anything to save her.
Bit late, but Silco doesnt cause her mental breakdown at the end, Caitlyn starts it and Vi makes it much worse. We see over the course of the series that her biggest trigger for her breakdowns is memories of the past, especially accidentally killing her friends and Vander. Vi doesnt realize this, so she is shouting at her to remember them hoping to reach her and only making the situation infinitely worse. Meanwhile, Silco is aware of what causes Jinx’s breakdowns, so he is trying to calm her down, telling her not to listen to Vi, who is making it worse.
@@SatanicWrenthe thing he is also commanding her and yelling And that doesn't help the confusion And him pulling the weapon is what makes her instinctively shoot, not even knowing what is she shooting at, she "wakes up" from this dark place to find out she killed him And he does his best to tell her it's okay That's what really broke me They are both so imperfect they cannot help each other but the love was very much there But he can absolutely be manipulative Because he wants to protect her so bad and the only way he knows is to isolate her Thats why he lies saying that Vi doesn't care about her He knows she's looking for her But he thinks the way to protect her is to keep her only to himself Because he genuinely believes he's the only person that won't hurt her Even tho he does
There's a rift too between Vi and Caitlyn now too, Caitlyn had a chance to kill Jinx but stopped at Vi's insistence, which then ultimately lead to her mother on the council getting nuked
Such a perfect 1st Season. 👏🏾. Love this show. Love your reaction PS. Heimerdinger had his faults also I think. He waited WAY too long to act. Failed to see the importance of the situation. Took things for granted and never even set foot down there until after he was expelled from the council. He’s also culpable.
Yeah Heimerdinger’s perception on Time is his biggest fault because he cannot empathize with humans that way. When he said in a decade or two this might be ready it’s like dude there are kids in the underground who won’t live a decade. Which is the biggest tragedy. A lot of people hate how Silco was using kids in the shimmer factory, but I bet most of those kids are orphans and would be dead if it weren’t for Silco. They work for a living and are young because the government as Keirmann says “doesn’t give a shit about any of them”. I bet that was the first time Heimerdinger set foot in the underground in probably over a decade. And he wouldn’t have if he was still a counselor
Gunning for Heimerdinger out of everybody makes no sense. People who blame him act like he’s supposed to be clairvoyant. And even though he’s one of the few characters that actually makes an effort to see the other side’s perspective, it’s somehow a bad because he _didn’t do it sooner_ . Like calm down. Let’s talk about Jayce and Mel snowballing the arms race or Silco literally employing child labour before trying to put Heimerdinger under fire. He’d only recently even found out there was a problem, Silco had been keeping the brewing unrest a secret. Jinx jumping the gun was the only reason Piltover knew something was seriously wrong. As soon as he knew how bad it really was he tried to steer the council on the right path, and THEY BOOTED HIM OFF FOR IT. From the very beginning he said magic was dangerous. The city accepts it anyway. He told Jayce to keep their new technology a secret, but Jayce still gave away _something_ was in development, which is how Jinx knew there was something to steal. He told Viktor to destroy the core, but he didn’t and it got Sky killed. Nobody ever listen to Heimerdinger, and they suffer for it. And now you want to blame him?? Like what’s he supposed to do??? It’s just like he said to Ekko, nobody wants his help. So no, he’s not culpable.
The exploding mechanical firelights are Jinx's (painted with her colors/monkey face). You see her making them in several episodes. They are tuned to land on metal things, so armor and weapons. That's how Marcus' arm was entirely blown off. If Cait hadn't traded in her gun for the potion to save Vi, she likely would have been blown up as well. The doctor doesn't have a skin disease. He's the same doctor who made shimmer for Silco. Powder literally blew him up in episode 3. He's a burn victim. Curious why you blame only Jayce for the hit on Silco's facility, considering the entire thing was Vi's idea, Vi's instigation, and Vi's info used for it. The shield came from Vi's gauntlets. They're for mining, so it's natural to have some form of protection for the wearer in case there is a cave collapse. It didn't trigger until Sevika came at her from above when she leapt off the bar.
Caitlyn should have biten the dust with that many fire lights exploding so close to her and the only thing she got was a leg injury. I don't call it great story telling, I call it plot armor. lol
@@samy29987 She wasn't holding anything metal so no firelight exploded next to her, she just got hit by a piece of shrapnel rather than concussive force. The OP literally explained it and you still call it plot armour, haha.
@@pickledidiot4569 Lame was the writing that placed her in that situation only for only her to come out of it unharmed. For stories to be great there needs to be consequences to all events. The show was fantastic in that regard, except that one.
@@krashd Marcus was aiming a gun at her face from like two feet away and a firelight exploded at the of the rifle. Like come on. I would have been fine with all the set piece if she lost a leg or something.
Her name is Vi, which is pronounced "VIE" like "DIE". It's short for Vi-olet and one of her voice lines in the game is "Vi is short for violence." Easy to remember in that context. Just think of her as Violet and shorten the name to Vi.
Now that you've finished the show, and gone through it again on edits, I'm sure you also noticed how well each character's decisions relate directly to a conversation they had immediately prior. One can almost watch the show backwards, and see the chain of cause and effect that led the characters from where they started, to where they ended up. Mel plays a pivotal role in shaping events in the story, and her motivations at the start are a relative mystery. At the end, after the interactions with her mother, you see what her goals actually were, and so much clicks into place. Such tight writing.
I like the character development of Silco. You can see how he talks to Vander’s statue because now Silco’s put in the same situation where he doesn’t want to give up his daughter, just like Vander. “Oh, it all makes sense now brother, Is there anything so undoing, as a daughter?” Shows how much he got attached to Powder and now he’s not willing to give it up for the dream he was trying to achieve his whole lifetime
I've watched that scene so many times and seen almost every reaction to it on TH-cam, but I've never noticed Jinx's boots during the fight with Sevika. Thank you for that and for sharing your reaction!
Arcane was super dark, and hit me way harder than I ever thought. I had known a small bit about Jinx and her story from LoL, and upon watching the music videos for “Enemy”, I knew I had to watch this show. The music video made me tear up, but Arcane made me sob and ugly cry, snot and all. I have no clue why it hit harder than even Pixar movies, but this show was perfect in every way I can think of. The animation department doesn’t get the credit they deserve, coming up with such a beautiful and sometimes really dark art style that is SO hard to replicate. The voice acting was phenomenal and my god the writers were genius. I’m not sure if they’ll make a season 2, but I would stop everything just to watch the whole thing.
This is definitely my all time favourite show. The depth and complexity to each and every detail, from items in the background of a shot, to characters, to the story itself is just astounding and it's created a completely new metric for what a show can be. The way the characters are written is beautiful, and it takes literally a single scene with each of them to become invested in them. I also love how the creators don't treat the viewer as idiots, and they don't spoonfeed us the solutions and answers. The ONLY thing I think could have been slightly more obvious was Jinx working on the mechanical firelights. Most reactors I've watched have not caught that until it was explained to them in the comments. My favourite character -by far- is Vi. She's such a badass, and the number of sad and hurtful experiences she's had makes me empathise with her so much. You could say the same about Jinx, but she was too young when the worst of it happened, so it scarred her so deeply that she's basically irredeemable. I CAN'T wait for the second season.
Ecko's power in the game and lore is that he's able to rewind time, allowing him to always be where he needed to be in the nick of time, which is where his nickname 'Boy Savior' came from.
I think they did an amazing job with this series, especially with Powder/Jinx. Years ago when she first showed up she was kind of “what if Harley Quinn but different colors”, and here they REALLY dig into her characterization.
I was so surprised at the erong end of the show. I binged this entire series in two days and I loved everything of it. I'm glad you love this series, Jinx is one of my favorite characters!!
I was astonished by how good this show was. I went into pretty much expecting nothing, barely even knowing it was a based on League of Legends, and now it's a top 3 favorite show ever. It's perfection.
Notice how it's always Mylo that talks to her in her head being negative? That's because he was always the negative one towards her when he was alive. I love the detail this show has.
Jayce's arc is so tragic to me. He genuinely believes he has the answers to all the world's problems, and he believes he can fix them. But after killing his first kid, he turns around and sees all those hungry kids down in the undercity, and he realizes for the first time that the socioeconomic problems are so much more complicated than he ever noticed before. The fact that children can go hungry if they don't work is something that never even occurred to him before, because for him he always felt like he was low class as he didn't belong to the 1% of Piltover. And what does he do with this new information? He runs away from the problem. He decides to make it Silco's problem instead.
Idk if the conclusion was that he ran away, but the realization that the upper city just doesnt know anything about the undercity is what contributed to him being open in them being their own nation of Zaun instead of continual control.
Warning for this essay I have written here. I just want to try and explain why I find Silco so enthralling as a character. Silco is my favourite character in this series. He is not only a fantastic villain, but he is a villain with a wonderful amount of depth. You can understand why he does what he does, despite how terrible it may be. Flooding the underground with drugs, dealing with the enforcers, children working in factories - it is horrendous to watch these play out, but in the end he did create unity in suffering and was offered the independence the underground needed. The Kingdom of Zaun. You cringe away, but also watch with this sick sense of understanding. He is ruthless, he is manipulative. You forget sometimes, but you never do for long! The scene with the other mob bosses was absolutely freaking brutal, and this channel is brilliant at pointing out each one of his manipulations through speech. Silco is more than just brutality though. His fear when he discovers Vi is alive: he completely lost control, kicking and screaming, Yes he was afraid he would lose control of Jinx, but I also do honestly believe he was worried for Jinx herself too. Ultimately he was right - Vi would never accept her as she is now. He did. "You're perfect." His fear of abandonment and betrayal is another great aspect of his character. Was he right in how he raised Jinx? No. Was he projecting? Yes. Was he doing it just to use Jinx however? Definitely not. He is jaded and hurting. His fear to trust, to believe in another comes through in all he does. Silco rules with fear. He trusts Jinx because she was betrayed too. Whether Vi was going to come back or not, in the end she was unable to. For all intents and purposes, it certainly seemed like she did indeed abandon Jinx at the time to both Jinx and Silco. I see these speeches as moments of instability and vulnerability, a twisted way to try and connect with his surrogate daughter. I could go into the fantastic scene he shared with Sevika this episode on the topic of loyalty, but I won't. This is long enough already! The way he develops through Jinx however is my favourite thing about him. I could write an essay on this, but I'll just mention one comparison for the sake of this verrry long comment. At the start of the series when Jinx presents Silco with the gemstone, not once does he look at Jinx despite her desperation for approval. Even when she hugs him, he remains staring enthralled at the power she just placed in his hand. Now contrast this with the scene on the bridge. Damn is it amazing!! He rushes to his daughter in fear, her name leaving his mouth in a panic. He cradles her in his arms, bringing her head to his, cataloguing all her injuries. It is with this action that the gemstone Jinx retrieves is revealed. He only glances at it once, and then returns to cradling her gently! He has all the power in the world once more, but he only has eyes for Jinx. That's not even going into the way he stares in Vi's direction as she once again watches from afar as her sister is taken away. She could have gone to her this time, but she didn't. Whether Silco could see her or not, the symbology is unrivalled. His anger at the topsiders, at betrayal; everything comes through in the way he picks Jinx up like a child and stalks away. His desperation as he goes to get her healed is heart-wrenching. It all culminates in his conversation with Vander's statue. Vander abandoned Zaun for the girls and Silco hated him for it. Now he is prepared to do the same. "Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?" It is so poetic. I knew he would never betray Jinx. His end was fitting, and I cried for both him and Jinx in his final moments. By the end, he truly did love her. Silco went from a jaded individual who would do anything for independence to exactly the same thing, but a father on top of it. It was a development that I truly loved watching!! I suppose I love Silco because he is so human. Villains like this are rare nowadays. He is magnetic because of it. Thank you for reacting to Arcane. It was great to watch with you. It's nice to finally watch with someone who cries just as much as me! I connect with characters in media waaay too quickly too. ❤
Fun fact: Sky and Victor come from the same area. You see her as a young girl on top of the rock looking over young Victor at the start of his backstory.
Her name is VI (V-I for Violet), NOT VEE. And, that's Vi's problem as well, she's obsessed with taking down Silco that she doesn't think about the consequences. Vander tried to make her realize that way back in episode 1 and 2.
Arcane was a perfect show, top to bottom; the writing, pacing, the design, the animation, the acting, the story, the way it approached mental illness, good and evil! God damn it's been an absolute pleasuring rewatching the show with you :D
Just to note something you seemed to have missed. Singed, the scientist guy who helped Viktor and Jinx, is the same scientist from the first three episodes in the underground/underwater lab that exploded. That's why his face is all messed up. He's also the one who created shimmer to begin with.
Theres a lot for shadowing in act 1 with each characters path, vi being a boxer when she's young, powder playing shooting games, and if you notice the firelights masks were also seen in benzo shop in episode 2 and 3.
I’m really glad you watched this show. It definitely came out of nowhere for me but absolutely loved it. It’s just so well done. Can’t wait for season 2, hopefully late this year or early next year 🤞
@@daurydavis3983 at least half of the 6 years was approval, rewrites, building Fortiche from a tiny studio of 5-20 people (heard different numbers) and able to do music videos a few minutes long to 250 personnel able to do a TV season. Also because there's a sequence from writing > storyboarding > animation > etc, writing was wrapping up on S2 around the time S1 was released. So two years and late this year is probably pretty achievable.
One of the most underrated lines in the whole series was in the first episode when Vander is talking to Vi, and he gestures at the scrapes on her hand and says, "That path, this? It won't solve your problems. It just makes more of them". At the beginning of the show, you had Vander as this voice for peace, moderation, and supporting your family. He used to be a violent revolutionary, but he changed. Vi wanted to fight back against the unjust system as a violent revolutionary, but was held back in part because she loved Powder, who just wanted a family. And in the shadows, Silco was a mirror to Vi, plotting a violent revolution, his dark ambition powered by his feeling of being betrayed by Vander. When Silco took Powder and killed Vander, Vi changed just like Vander did. She felt like she betrayed her sister, like Vander did his brother. And Silco used Powders anger at feeling abandoned by her sister to turn her into a weapon for a violent revolution. Just like he is. Just like Vi was. Just like Vander was once upon a time. Just as Silco learned that what he wanted was the love of his family, and rejected violent revolution, Powder killed him and started Silcos revolution. The seeds planted by Silco and Vander, and the violence that made Vi and Powder orphans in the first place, and pulled into the endless wheel of destruction. No one is good. No one is bad. They are all just people caught in a cycle of violence and generational trauma. Just like Vander said, violence only creates more problems. But when were they given any other choice?
@@matman730 I think that's it. She's hearing Vye but reading Vee and her brain just has to pick one. Often, she was saying both because she couldn't remember which was correct. For a streamer, it makes sense. 👍🏾
Most of the hate Jayce gets is totally unjustified. A lot of people miss what the show it trying to tell them, and when criticizing Jayce they often are showing their own hypocrisy without realizing it. Jayce raids the shimmer factory (which let's not forget is Vi's idea), kills the kid, and everyone calls him an idiot. Jayce realizes his fuck up and changes his mind again, then Vi argues with him. In that moment it's Jayce that has chosen peace, and it's Vi who wants to continue the violence. But because we all like Vi so much people don't want to see that she's totally wrong, and it's Jayce that right.
To be fair to her, Vi has been seeing this kind of thing her entire life, and topsiders never did anything to make it better. She finally gets a powerful councilor to actually DO something and he chickens out as soon as he kills a kid with his own hands, rather than through the inaction and wilful ignorance that the rest of the politicians have been hiding behind. To Vi, having a bit of blood on your knuckles is quite literally just the way you survive, she probably sees it as totally disrespectful to everyone suffering in the undercity for him to give up trying to change things (in the only way she's ever had access to: violence) at that point. He didn't communicate at all that he was planning to take a different course of action, she just saw him getting his hands a little dirty and then leaving to go back to his literal golden tower.
I love Medarda. I think she's the most realistic depiction of a politician I have ever seen. And I'm a fan of both The West Wing and Battlestar Galactica but although they're good I never felt either Bartlet or Roslin had as much nuance as Medarda has. Every action she takes she's three steps ahead, like any real politician should be. She's shown to run circles around normal really clever people like Heimerdinger or Jayce. She's up there with Alexei Karenin for me as a thinker but she's also able to act unlike him, best politician ever.
"(Caitlyn) Kiramman is going to get fired/released from being an enforcer." Nono, that absolutely won't happen. Because it already did in episode 4. She WAS fired. She's not an Enforcer now. She's a vigilante. And she KNOWS this. She also forged a councilman's signature. She should pretty much be in jail, but of course, being the heir to a prominent house of nobles, for all intents and purposes, there's no risk of that ever happening. *about Singed working on Jinx* "This is not who he should have brought her to" Then pray tell, who? Who else had even a shot of saving her, and was within anything even optimistically reminiscent of reach? "It's not fair, how do you get to be good at everything?" That's Jayce's essential quality. He's a prodigy to whom EVERYTHING comes easily. Tech stuff? Solves stuff nobody has even imagined at 24 years old. Politics? Is told he's making mistakes, takes one look at the swamp, and swims it like a consummate professional. Being able to master ANYTHING at a glance, and being stupendously easy to manipulate, are his only defining characteristics. I agree with you on this, however. There is no being good at combat, certainly not close-quarters combat, without practice and experience, and we have seen him practice exactly never, nor any indication that he takes martial arts or combat training of any kind. The one thing that could bridge that gap is an utterly impenetrable armor of one kind or another, which it is clear he doesn't have. Jayce not being cut to ribbons in fractions of a second and bleeding out within ten seconds is the least believable single thing in this show, and I include in that the teleportation magic that whisks airships across continents. There is nothing his hammer can do that would save him from that unless it somehow renders him invulnerable, which it clearly doesn't since he gets cut. "He's just such a hothead." No he isn't, he's an easily led chump. Sure, he had an idea of what was wrong - which he got from Mel Medarda, Abessa Medarda and others, internalised without thinking it over, and acted on. Then Vi browbeat him into attacking, effortlessly, even though he should easily have been able to realise that one, she was talking bull and manipulating him, and two, it was a terrible idea. That's the key thing. The only action Jayce ever takes without someone pushing him to do it is "study blue crystals". Everything else, mediocre manipulators trick him into internalising as "his own idea". "I don't know if killing Silco helps." Oh, oh, I know! It's worse than doing nothing. The problem of Zaun isn't Silco. Silco is a symptom of the problem, which is that people have been left to die to sickness and deprivation in a toxic death slum in what can only be labelled a genocide. Until THAT is solved, revolutionaries will emerge with frightening regularity and hostility will fester into blood feuds and hatred, which Heimerdinger has already presided over for decades if not centuries. The only saving grace imaginable right now is that Finn died first, as he would have been IMMEASURABLY worse for absolutely everyone than Silco ever was. "Jinx and Caitlyn face off and you really don't know what's going to happen" Well... it's pretty obviuos. Jinx had her pistol trained on Caitlyn in less than the blink of an eye. Caitlyn STARTED FIRING, it took a pretty long time, and she never hit. If Jinx was FIGHTING at that moment, Caitlyn would be very, very dead. "Heimerdinger, the most empathetic and logical politicians" Nonono. Heimerdinger was THE WORST. He was a FOUNDING member of Piltover, and he's quite clearly been on the council all that time. As Viktor pointed out in episode 2, he was the HEAD of the council at the time of the events in the first 3 episodes. He is presented with ways in which the lives of those who live in the Undercity can be improved, and his eyes unfocus, and he sees the hovering mage over a burning city, he's afraid, and he refuses to deal with it, and we all nod and go "oh, he's seen this before, he's so wise, yupyup" and understand why he's so afraid. But then, when he sees the hex core, he sees an alien landscape of spiraling structures and the SAME FLYING MAGE and he's afraid, and he refuses to deal with it, and I go "wait a minute... Heimerdinger's just traumatised by something involving that flying wizard, so now he superimposes the image of the flying wizard over ANYTHING THAT SCARES HIM EVEN A LITTLE, and runs away from it, he's NOT wise, he's JUST traumatised". That's the thing. Heimerdinger is obsessed with safety that can't exist, and his refusal to embrace any kind of meaningful progress is the reason the people in Zaun live starved, poisoned lives. He's a monster. A well-meaning one, but a monster nonetheless. Negligence, complacency and a refusal to tackle the issues are understandable in a person, but UTTERLY UNFORGIVABLE in a ruler. Heimerdinger is a ruler, so this is something he cannot be forgiven for. Removing him from the council was justified and necessary. Favorite character? I like Jinx. I like Silco. I like Vi, I like Viktor, I like a whole bunch of characters. Favorite though? Sevika. She's solid, knows who she is. She's brave, bold, tough, and she treats the world with and appropriate degree of seriousness. She's well fleshed out, consistent and profoundly interesting. She shares that with a lot of people, but I just enjoy her more. She's also, probably, one of the most upstanding, honorable PEOPLE in the entire show. I mean I like Vi, but she's not a great PERSON in a lot of ways. She's a bully and a hustler, and while certainly enthusiastic she's about as good for achieving objectives as Jinx is... which is to say, not very. Throughout the show, I don't think she EVER achieves anything that helps her get to somewhere she wants to be, and as much stuff as she DOES, that's pretty impressive, and something she would judge herself harshly for, if she was the slightest bit introspective. That said, every bit of that rings true and makes her feel believable as a character. Still, when she and Sevika fought in episode 9, I was rooting for Sevika all the way, while fairly certain she wouldn't win, of course :/
4:18 Actually, nothing Silco said to Jinx in that scene is a lie, He may be wrong, but he believes what he tells her. Silco doesn't have access to the complete information that you as the viewer have. (Generally 80% reactors forget this and project all the evil and evil onto Silco. But he only says what he believes.) From his perspective (and remember, Ekko thought similar), Vi just showed up one day out of the blue, with an enforcer, right after Jinx stole the crystal. Also what Violet said to Ekko: "echo she believes what she's saying okay she she's not your enemy" Likewise, Silco tells Powder what he believes to be true. He called Vi "Vander's prodigy" - Vander who collaborated with the enforcers. It fits right into his world view that Vander's prodigy would do the same. This isn't helped by the fact that to him, he's the one fighting for freedom from the oppressor and Vi bursts in saying she's going to tear it all down. Silco projects his experience with Vander onto Vi. He may draw the wrong conclusion, but between the optics of her return with an enforcer, plus his past with Vander, the conclusion that Vi is working with the Enforcers is reasonable. Silco may be wrong, but from his perspective, he isn't lying. And from his perspective, he's protecting Jinx from a bad influence (Vi). Being wrong but believing what you say is not the same as lying. Every single character in this series is in shades of gray, no black and white. All of them have the characteristics of real-life people. Each character is the hero of their own story from their own perspective. All of them have features that can be understood, hated and empathized. When you watch the series again, you will realize that no character is completely good, angelic or legal. Including Caitlyn, Ekko and Vander.
In-game quote Ekko to Jinx: "I had a crush until you started talking to the gun" Which makes the mind blowing bridge fight between the two all the more heartbreaking. Masterpiece
@@thedawd yes, talking about the mural, you're right, Ekko considers her a center piece still. And the thing with the mural is, if you read between the lines, the fact that both Vi and Powder are there, even though both of them are alive, makes plenty of sense, since the old "version" of them "died", the Powder and Vi that Ekko knew back then, are no more. It's pretty clear and self explanatory throughout the show why that's the case for Powder, but the same also goes for Vi, since she met Cait, she changed, further proof is what Jinx tells her in the ending sequence: "I thought, maybe you could love me like you used to, even though I'm... Different. BUT YOU CHANGED TOO" Again, calling this show a masterpiece is a HEAVY understatement
Can’t wait till they do the live action movie with Ekko being played by Kevin Hart, and Jayce being played by The Rock. The Hierarchy of Power in The Arcane universe is about to change.
@@YourBishMariaTeresa technically ekko put vi “dying” on the wall cus he and tons of others literally thought she died since she was literally in prison without anyone knowing So it makes more sense But the reason of powder’s old self is in there is because powder died and is now jinx.
Honestly, Jayce being good at everything is kind of his thing, and also creates his weakness. He's brilliant and driven enough to disregard rules, and because of that his lab gets blown up; he's charming, likable, and attractive, which gets him deep into political/popular arenas he doesn't really want to be in; he's idealistic and easily swayed by his emotions, leading to being manipulated easily by Mel, who does believe she's doing the right thing, but is much more emotionally guarded and has had her idealism tempered by grim reality; later also easily manipulated by Vi simply because her powerful emotions drive her right through the objections he knew should have been there. In-game, he can switch between close-range and long-range fighting, so that's mirrored in his character. He *could* do almost anything really, really well, but because of this, he doesn't really have the focus any of the others do (Vi - boxing, Cait - marksmanship/detective work, Mel - political maneuvering), he even needs *Viktor's* determination in order to stick to Hextech long enough to make it work. He's very capable, but because of that, he's frequently out of his depth and doesn't realize it or respect the work it takes to truly master something.
When Vi was calling out to Jinx, she was actually making it worse, she asked her to remember her Friends, but Powder is the one who killed them and she never was able to overcome that guilt and trauma. Thats why the Girl Vi knew, ceased to exist a long time ago and she was chasing the girl she knew, but was not ready to accept the women she's become, something that Silco has done wholeheartedly. So ironicly, Silco was an better influence on Jinx than Vi could've been... Also the idiom "Hell is paved with Good intentions" really suits this show, everyone of them wanna do things for the Good, but their ways of doing it is not good. Like Viktor said "In our Pursuit of Being Great, we forgot to do Good, and now we need to make it Right" The character arcs are amazing, and thats why this show is beloved by nearly everyone watching it. This and CP 2077 Edgerunners where the best surprises of recent years.
That hammer is Jayce's hammer in game. There is a lot to unpack with this show and with this ending, and it only gets better with repeat viewings. I'll put a couple of things here for you to think on. Episode 2, Vi: "What makes you different makes you strong." Episode 9, Jinx: "I thought, maybe you could love me like you use to. Even though I'm.. different.." Heimerdinger was part of the problem, and all the things you mentioned about the issue, was only exaserbated by Heimerdinger as he never went down into the Undercity till he was kicked out. Silco wasn't manipulating Jinx, those were his true thoughts and he did indeed love her, even if he was toxic overall and not good for her.
For Heimmerdinger I thought of it he was empathetic but like distanced. When he talked to Victor about dying he has no idea what it's like to be human. Lost perspective is best way to say it.
In a way, not having played League of Legends actually made this series better for me. Knowing who is and isn't a playable character in the game would make it much easier to figure out who would and wouldn't die. Like, when Jinx had the covered dish I wasn't sure if Caitlyn's head was going to be in there or not. If I was familiar with the game, her status as a playable character would have made me strongly doubt she could have been dead.
Some of my thoughts and analysis: After Jinx shoots Silco, she's shown clearly in that triggered mindless instinctual state like in episode 4 on the ship. Then after a couple breaths you see the exact moment her brain kicks in to full awareness again and... instant regret. Jinx didn't chose to kill Silco, but in a triggered state she instinctually shot at the threat of the sound of the pin drop in Silco's gun. That's entirely the reason she then chooses the Jinx chair, yet again, she was a Jinx to her family. There is no Powder, Jinx situation there, nor is it a conscious decision. It's just tragedy. Once again, Powder unwittingly killed her family. But this time she killed someone who loved her perfectly. This is probably Jinx's breaking point. This comment, which many people misunderstood and shared as a comment under each video since this series came out: "Powder killed Silco, so Jinx killed Powder" is actually a wrong analysis. Jinx is Powder's evolution that grows over time. Powder and Jinx are not different people or split personalities, they are the same person. Silco's line: "don't cry you're perfect" = not Jinx, not Powder, you're perfect. I Like the post I saw in someone's comment earlier: Here is that comment: Jinx breaks my heart, more than usual, in her final scenes. There's such a sense of resignation and sadness to her; it's in her eyes, her expression, and her body language. I imagine that she's thinking that Mylo was right, all those years ago: She's a jinx. And if she's a jinx, she's going to be the worst bad luck Piltover has ever experienced. No truce. No negotiations. No peace. Jinx will show them all. Let it all burn, and chaos reign. War is coming...
I laughed at this title because, I’m currently reading through berserk right now… IF THERE WAS EVER ANY PIECE OF MEDIA YOU COULD LABEL AS TOO DARK ITS THAT. Conviction arc was great, looking forward to what comes next!
It's really weird how everyone keeps going "oh no Viktor's putting shimmer in his body" - you know, the thing that a lot of people have done and survived with minimal ill effects, including Vi - not "oh no Viktor is using the thing that makes plants grow huge, mutated forms then wither away into nothing immediately, on himself, trusting only this substance to keep himself alive". I mean, seriously... out of the things he's doing in that scene, it's absolutely insane to consider SHIMMER to be the scary one.
The Powder character arc is hands down one of the greatest character arcs I have ever seen, not sure this show can ever top season 1, but I'll be watching and hoping they can. A month after I finished watching it, I'm still in awe over this show and in shock at that one episode, y'all know the episode I'm talking about, the one that changes everything for everyone. Loved this show and loved your reactions Nat as I usually do.
One of my favorite theories that I saw somewhere: Caitlin giving up her gun to pay for the shimmer to cure Vi's injury saved Caitlin's life on the bridge, because Jinx's firelights were programmed to land on the guns, because they needed to ignite the gun powder to make the explosion big enough to injure/kill people.
I'm really curious to know how you would like 'the legend of korra' (if you're looking for a very different kind of animated show from Arcane)! I personally love this follow-up series about Aangs successor, with a bit more heavy themes (especially in the later seasons), yet still it is a very lighthearted show. I know there are people who didn't like it as much (mostly because it is often compared to 'avatar the last airbender', and it just is a different show, made for a differently aged audience), but there are way more people who do like it. Although the show does have some flaws, I would love to see your reactions (just as I really liked your 'avatar the last airbender' reaction-video's) to 'The legend of Korra'!
Caitlyn is a monster in Powders head, that's why she asked Vi to make her go away, the same way she did when they were kids. She has major trust issues, she doesn't know who really cares about her or who is just trying to use her so that final scene is basically her trying to find out if either of them really care, she's looking for a grand gesture and Vi isn't able to prove her love to her. Then when she kills Silco accidently he immediately forgives and comforts her, which is something Vi wasn't able to do when she accidently killed her family before, this is proof to her that he truly loves her for who she is and that's the reason she sits in the Jinx chair.
You guys should also react to the "Bridging the Rift" series on the making of "Arcane." It's really engaging and shows a lot of the drama behind making the show.
I binged this whole thing when I was sick last summer. It’s a solid series and the animation is impressive. It successfully builds a whole elaborate word with government, criminal organizations, a drug epidemic, etc. so quickly and vividly.
This show has a seemingly infinite amount of depth to it. They made the absolute 1000% most out of the story, the medium and the characters. Even in a 9 episode series it is still an insanely impressive use of pacing with the sheer amount of content they squeeze in, while giving it room to breath. Also, it's of course an artistic masterpiece and so creative and looks so pleasing! I watched this in the midst of a lot of mediocre movies and shows. Arcane will forever be hard to top, and this was probably the show I was most anticipated to see you experience. Let it inspire you!
10:50 He was burned in the explosion from ep.03. he is the "scientist" who has been developing Shimmer for Silco. He was also there when Silco was introduced in ep.01.
Habit. She's watching a lot of content, and needing to talk during much of it to keep up audience engagement. I imagine it's easy to miss details like that. I honestly took a minute to understand who she was talking about, but I do understand someone falling into that habit
Excellent reaction, Nat. Really wanted to see you react to Vander pumping up Vi when she got knocked down in the Sevika fight. I feel there's a deeper story between the two like Sevika helped train Vi to fight and when Sevika left Vander's side, the betrayal cuts deep for her. I have my theory of what we could see in season 2 and I hope it can meet my expectations. Maybe that's too much to hope for. Mel is actually one of my favorite characters in the show and it's like you said, it's these past few episodes. But all the characters are excellent and have depth. Can't wait! I think you keep missing that the Doctor is the same one that created Shimmer in the first episode and all his scars were from the explosion in episode 3. So my theory for season 2 is that we stay in Piltover and it's chaos with the undercity rising up and pilaging. Most of the council is dead except for our three main, Jayce, Viktor and Mel by some Hextech shenannigans that protected Victor. With the city in chaos, Mama Medarda and Noxus forces roll in to take over the city and control of the Hextech. Mel and Jayce run off to the Undercity but Viktor is caught by Noxus. Down there they form an alliance with Sevika, Ekko, Heimerdinger, Vi and Caitlyn to form a resistance to fight Noxus. Jinx is off being chaotic on her own in fighting Noxus forces, but I see her giving her life for Caitlyn in the end as some sort of atonement. Just as Noxus's forces begin to fall, the enemy who killed Mel's bro arrives on scene with his forces. End season 2.
"In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good." I can't get over that line. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.
This quote is ingrained into my lexicon.
@@juantwotree5710 Same here.
I love that quote, so so so much
Love that quote. Also love "in the pursuit of great, we failed to do good." and "It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live"
That quote was one of the most impactful moments of the show for me. The way Victor's voice actor delivered it was tragic.
Silco was mad at Vander for giving up on their dream for his daughters. In the end he did the same thing, willing to give it all up for his daughter. Now he understands Vander.
What a fucking phenomenal show
"is there anything so undoing as a daughter"
And my thought then and every viewing since has been "you know, you'd probably have a much more rewarding conversation with him about this, if you hadn't murdered him"
Too bad Silco was a horrible human, manipulator and liar and didn't take care of Jinx.
@@TheDragonsRose You don't have to be an altruist to see that forgiveness is worthwhile, thus everyone should be entitled to it.
Personally, I endeavor to avoid *gatekeeping morality* to "horrible, manipulating liars" .
@@sandercohen5543 Forgiveness doesn't change anything other than asking someone to forget the harm done to others. He did not make amends, Silco only learned that he could care about a child and wanted to protect her. This does not suddenly eliminate all the egregious choices he made to enforce her poor mental state, or the murders that he caused. There's nothing "gatekeeping" it. They killed him off because even the writers know full well that it was necessary for his development. The end of it, moreso.
Someone pointed out to me that Jinx's blue tattoos are not clouds.. they are the flare that Vi gave her to light up and be found.. She literally tattooed "Find me", ie cries for help, all over her body.. and that broke my heart all over again
omg i audibly gasped that's heartbreaking
or they are the blue clouds she saw from the explosion when she ruined everything and killed Mylo and Glaggor, game jinx also has pink bullet tattoos, which I would assume will be there in season 2 in remembrence of the time she ruined everything and killed Silco
here i go crying again
SAME@@luciuscabralzenardo2897
Dude... I've been maining Jinx since she came out, I've watched Arcane over 20 times and probably saw all the reactions I was able to find on TH-cam and I've learned tons of thing I didn't know or wasn't sure about but your comment is the greatest I've seen and totally makes sense... Never realized she doesen't have the bullets tatooed in the show... Thanks for pointing that out!!!@@jez1688
Nat in the last video: “I bet Jinx will redeem herself and do the right thing.”
Arcane: “Well yes but actually no.”
Jinx: ha ha Fishbones go brrr
@@MrDarkSidius And let's see what Pow-Pow thinks …
And eventually, waaaay down the line, yes.
my guess is that Jinx gonna sacrifice herself to save VI in the last episode of Season 2.
@@Pilek01 never, they will never kill a champ that is still in the game. if you want to know who can die, just look who is NOT in the game ^^
14:43 I just realized that in Viktor's backstory he couldn't out walk his little boat and now he's out running a real boat. The parallels in this show man.. So Good
That's an insane callback, good catch!
@@Dill5005 It really is! My jaw dropped to the floor and I caught it 😂
Also watch that and the Rocky running montage back to back. I'm not sure what they're trying to say with it, but the visual similarities are too close of a match to be coincidence.
One of my favorite callbacks: Ekko says when Jayce came into Benzo's he paid full price and didn't even haggle. When Silco is talking to Vander's statue he says, " The boy didn't even haggle."
I like that callback. Jayce is a very straightforward dude.
GREAT grab. Seen the show 4 times and never made that connection!
Yeah. It's one of my favorite lines from the show. I think you could characterize Jayce's entire arc as a struggle with haggling, with compromising his principles in an attempt to achieve his goals. Or, as Viktor put it, failing to do good in his pursuit of greatness.
In the first 3 episodes, he doesn't even know how to haggle. In the middle 3, he gains power and learns to haggle. In the final 3, he recognizes the cost of compromising on his principles, and he refuses to haggle any longer.
you can almost say it rhymes.... like poetry.
I’m glad someone else noticed that too!
The "I made her a snack" scene put us all on the edge of our seats. Even those of us who have known the game for years and know that Cait is a playable character.
It shows the level of mastery the screenwriters have to build such a solid story.
Yeah saw that too, but then i thought about Senna, Sion, Pyke etc. cuz they’re all undead as well, and Senna still looks pretty humane. Tho still, indeed that outer edge of the seat got everyone sitting on it hahahaha
That is because it's a scene stolen / hommage to the Batman's Joker, in which one ocasion tied up the Bat family at a table with all of them with their faces blinded and put in front of them several plates covered, revealing his own in which it was his own face cut off.
I mean... being Jinx an hommage to Harley Quinn from the start, it checks out.
“Powder killed Silco to protect her sister. Jinx killed Powder to avenge her father.” Idk where I saw this from. Someone said it in a reaction video but, every time I watch episode 9 again, this just like… rings in my head.
I’m willing to wait as long as it takes if season 2 is just as well done as season 1. The characters were all riveting and interesting, the season ended on such a cliff hanger and I NEED to see how the relationship between Vi and Caitlyn develops now.
Ooo I like that
It's a nice poetic gloss....Jinx/Powder was having a psychotic episode and Silco was definitely trying to shoot Vi, but Jinx/Powder thought he was aiming at HER and reflexively fired first in self-defense....she didn't mean to kill Silco, it was pure adrenaline and reflex...and when she comes to she's utterly devastated at losing Silco. The writing in this show is so brilliant I actually shed a tear for Silco. For the VILLAIN. Damn!
No, Jinx reacted on trigger, the sound of the gun shoot. If Vi had shoot then she would have kill her. It wasn't intentional, that's why she asked Silco to forgive her.
Gotta love the lesbians
@@vivienwinter9220 yeah I like my theory better.
To highlight Skye’s death with Viktor, he ran out of Shimmer to use as a catalyst in the experiments, so he risked doing another one without it, but Skye clung on and the thing used her instead.
"Don't cry, you're perfect."
Such a meaningful quote. He knows that she is not perfect. But he isn't either und nobody and nothing in this world is. So for him, she is everything and he does love her.
And on the other hand, everybody hearing that quote is crying. :D
Arcane on the other hand as a show is almost perfect. Animation, characters, world building, music... just brilliant!
check out the miracle of sound song "perfect", based mostly on that scene. you won't regret it
I mean from our perspective she isn't. But iirc, the Voice Actor for Silco had an interview where he talked about why Silco said You're perfect, which really resonates with me. He said that “the perfect embodiment of what Zaun is” in the eyes of Silco. She's everything that makes Zaun good and bad, chaotic, insane, yet scrappy, smart, and inventive.
I disagree. One of Silco's flaws as a father is that he does see Jinx as perfect. He doesn't help her with her flaws, he enables them because he can't see anything about her as a flaw.
I read somewhere that she is what the idea of zaun is, if you took zaun and made it into a real person it would be jinx, chaotic and violent, that’s why he created all the monsters to bring topside to heel, she is the perfect monster
i like the way vi keeps trying to "change her" like ekko said in the bridge, she keeps trying to get jinx to go back to powder, but she can't. And silco knows that, he knows that no matter what she does, or anybody else does, she's never going to be powder again because she's not that person anymore. I think that's why it's so meaningful for him to say "you're perfect" to her various times. Because while everybody else is trying to change her, he's trying to get her to fully embrace who she is now. Without any judgment.
"She's gonna get fired from the Enforcers"
Caitlin got fired back in episode 4 lol, everything she's done since meeting Vi is illegal
Got fired by a corrupt chief of police.
@@crimsonghoul8983 his corruption unfortunately did not make it illegal, so, she's still already not an Enforcer by this point
I think part of Jayce's character is that he is so good at everything, yet when it comes down to it, he can make bad and impulsive decisions like the rest of us. I don't know if the show writers intended it like that, but it does show that you can be good at everything you do but that does not mean you know better than anyone else.
Yeah in the game he’s also good at everything but not great at any one thing though
Yeah, I love that about him in the show. It makes so much sense that he allways believes thet his way is right! He aalways was/is good at stuff, he can build amazing tools/weapons/etc. so he truely things his designes will totally fulfill his visions, because they allways do. He imagined his decissions in politics to be good, too, because he allways wants the best for people and can convince people easy with his charisma.
But then there is the amazing twist in the story HIS ideas bring problems he never even thought about, because he propably never had the perspective to. If his laboratory hadn't been broken in, he would have presented a working hex-tech-mashine to the council in 1-2 years time, but since the raw gems were not safe frome something liek that a building blew up. His blockade of the brdiges made tensions worse. His want to do the right thing, by attacking Silcos factories lead to him doing harm to a child, something he would never accept as a cost. And it all leads to him seeing and accepting that he has to grow and not think his first impulse idea is the perfect solution. Which can be seen in his WAY more practical offer to Silco and his harshness in the last council meeting.
It's a good example of ability and intelligence ungoverned by wisdom. The sad thing is, it's an all too common combination of traits in reality.
@@derkrischa3720 I agree with you, and also I love that when he does the good thing, try to make peace with Silco, even then it ends wrong, because it was to late. At first I didn’t like Jace but then I started to see all this details and now I love his character.
Schnee did a great analysis of the male characters (also the females in a seperate video) and he details how each character embodies a certain male trait and how those traits are examined for their positives and negatives.
The ironic thing is Jinx wanted Vi to choose between her loved ones. It totally backfired and she ended up having to choose. Poetic, but tragic too.
Yeah she chose a gal she’s known for two days over her sister. Bravo VI.
@@Jorlaxe she did? Or did she offer to run away with Jinx? I must've misremembered from 20mins ago.
@@Jorlaxe she didn't choose. She just stopped her sister from killing Cate. Also, "well done Vi"? As if they all wanted to be there. It was Jinx mad tea party, her idea, and it backfired. If anything, a 'well done Jinx' is more apt, no?
@@fishleaf1093 she asked Vi to make her go away. Not kill her. she didn't.
@@Jorlaxe oh, I'm sorry. Where are you from?
See, plain language doesn't always mean literal. Jinx handed her sister a gun and told her to make Cait "go away" it means Jinx wanted her sister to, at least, shoot the Enforcer.
It doesn't mean untie her and make her 'go away' as in leaving the building.
If anything, Vi chose Jinx, by saying they could run away together and leave everything behind.
The gloves gave her a little shield bubble because they're intended for miners, if the mine shaft were to collapse, they could protect themselves.
The whole show people tell Vi she sucks at defense. Ekko’s “you block with your face” and Vander’s “your guard needs work”.
The one time she finally thinks to block a hit, it wins her the fight. Perfect pay off.
I really didn't see the final scene with Silco as him emotionally manipulating her, nor at any other point. I truly think that he believes it's them against the world. He was betrayed in the deepest way possible by the closest person to him in his life and I think that really fucked him up and made it basically impossible for him to trust anyone, Powder excluded, because he sees her as having gone through that same betrayal. I think he's simply doing exactly what Vi was, no malice behind it, but because he's our villain we perceive it in a negative way (at least initially). Yeah it's still a bad thing that he projected a lot of his issues onto her but what matters to me is that I don't think the intent was really there.
Yeah basically no reactor I’ve seen ever actually understands silco
@@jackgomez5894 The one reactor that I've seen that really understood him is TheFlamingShark
He didn't intend to manipulate Jinx? Bro I love Arcane but fans of this show are something else.
@@agamr7151 Of course Silco cares about Jinx-which makes him want to manipulate and control her even more, do anything he can to murder Vi before Jinx can have the truth and weigh her options and obtain her identity more freely. I'm sure Kony, Stalin, Zulu, Gotti, and Capone had stuff they cared about. Point is he's still an evil violent sociopathic villain that vocal fans of the show keep romanticizing over and over again. It's pretty disturbing, especially when they repeat stuff that goes against what the show spelled out for us 22 times.
This show really has a way telling things about the characters when you look closely. Like Mel for instants. Every time she’s appear the angles always appear like that she is looking down at someone. However, when her mother arrives the angle switch, making her the one that’s looked down upon. Shows how intimidating her mother can be. When she steps out of the bath naked, Jayce feel so embarrassed that it makes you feel like he’s the one that’s naked.
That's a great detail.
I think it's important to point out that Heimerdinger only went down to the undercity and was able to realize how bad things are, after he was voted out of the council. Before that, he was content preserving the status quo.
Yup, he was explicitly happy to wait another decade before anything got better down there, by his own words.
@@gamerbear84for yordles, 10 years are nothing. They live up to 1200 years so they kinda view humans the same way we look at dogs or how elves see humans in LOTR lore.
Viktor in Arcane: nooo don't fight
Viktor in game: JOIN THE GLORIOUS EVOLUTION
Don't worry, this will happen in the season 2
*evolution, man has to evolve into machine you see.
His voice lines still reflect his old lore, he's much closer to the Arcane version after the retcon. At least his motives are.
It's evolution not revolution, if you think about it his in-game ideas are still not that different
The explosion is gonna change him, both physically and mentally
Arcane has some of the best character development I've seen in a "TV show" in some time. What brilliant writing and beautiful animation. I appreciate the show not shying away from a darker story, but at the same time making it totally understandable why these characters walked these paths they're on right now
The lore is much darker than what the game portrays so I don't think there was ever a risk of them shying away from a darker story.
@@JayIngemar Yes, but the writers could have written Vi as always being "heroic" and Jinx always being "crazy".
But, instead, they wrote them having a very close relationship. Seeing the loss of that relationship makes it that much more heartbreaking as we slowly watch it unravel; and ultimately become irreconcilable (likely).
The reason the finale is such a tragedy is that Vi does genuinely love her sister as both Powder *and* Jinx, but she just genuinely can't connect the Powder that barely kept up with Vi, Claggor and Mylo on their runs with the person that laughs while killing people. It's understandable why that shakes Jinx and makes her traumatized brain perceive that as Vi *not loving* her, but it's jarring to see actual audience members believe Vi doesn't love her sister when she just can't immediately get used to her sister being a murderer after only having that last memory of her while being locked up in jail for years.
I agree with you my friend.
What I hope will happen in Season 2 is to see Vi struggle with her mental health and focus on the damage done to her after her traumatic experience like they did with Jinx. Because it feels weird seeing people focus on Jinx only, forgetting that Vi was also young and had seen horrible things.
@@Taj_SAS I *really* hope season 2 delves deeper into Vi's trauma and that we get a flashback of her early time in prison, and that we see a lot of how Jinx's actions in the finale affect her and her relationship with Caitlyn. I definitely wouldn't classify this as a flaw, but seeing more of Vi's trauma is something that we lacked just a bit in season 1.
@@Marta-uv4id I agree with you that when they see Vi's trauma and her impact on her it will be helpful to her story as well as we understand her character more or at least some of the people who blame Vi for everything will understand her character.
she doesnt love jinx, she loves powder and wants her little sister back. mostly because shes her family but partially because of redemption. she left powder alone, hit her and cursed her with her name, jinx. she left nothing but bad memories for her little sister and she can never fix them again. its too late for powder so she better get used to jinx.
I thought the doctor's marks may had been aftermath of making Shimmer (as people who make meth get affected too). But actually, the doctor we see working on Shimmer (who gave a vile of it to Vitkor), is the same doctor we see in the first three episodes working with Silco on making the Shimmer, and feeding it to the rat as the first experiment in the first episode. The marks he has on his body are burn marks and scars from the explosion caused by young Powder in episode three.
That's why they call him "Singed".
@@matman730 Exactly
the marks on meth addicts are also from explosions, it's very volatile...but that's a good comparison I hadn't thought of
yeh, singed has been burned by the shimmer explosion at the beginning when vander died, BUT by lore he is disfigured by warwick, who we also get a glimpse of, or so at least many ppl think. so it might not have been the fire.
@@danii7584 Singed's face will be more scarred later in the story. At this point in Arcane he didn't create Warwick (during the rocket scene we see him starting his work on Warwick).
I'm so happy that you noticed the cupcake showing how much Jinx was listening. A lot of people seem to miss that.
the thing that i found most surprising and moving was VI's and Caitlyn's romance. it grew so spontaneously and dynamically you knew they were opposites attract long before they did; and in such an ugly and divisive world you cheered for them to find a bit of peace with each other. i hope they do in season 2. i also loved that Vi called her cupcake cuz she's so sweet, cuz she's not sweet at all outwardly; yet her core self practically overflows with love.
The Ekko x Jinx fight was one of the best sequences I've seen in 2022. Bold stylistic choices, amazing animation, sound design, overall writing quality. Simply outstanding.
And the story-telling with the tic-tocing flashbacks to then squaring up as kids and the innocence of that playfight juxtaposed with actual life and death they were in. This his better storytelling that most liveaction. Best art direction in anything I have seen as well. I didn't give a shit about LoL until this show and now it is all I want. I really hope the MMO Riot is working on is based off of the lore they expanded upon here. I will no life a game based on this show.
Agreed, such a fucking cool concept for a fight scene. Considering how little time we spent with ekko, and particularly with young ekko, it’s crazy how well they were able to sell the tragedy of that confrontation.
It's even better that Ekko's whole thing in League of Legends is travelling back in time
Viktor running for the first time definitely made me tear up the first time around. Something about him being able to express a part of him he'd never been able to before is really heartwarming and heartbreaking to see.
Also, i love that he runs faster than the boat he let flow in the river when he was a child.
This show is brilliant
It's worth noting that Caitlyn had actually already lost her job as an enforcer the day after she survived Jinx's explosion where she stole the gem. Her mother went to the sheriff and told him to fire her because the job was too dangerous. She lied about still being an enforcer to get into Stillwater and to see VI and then forged Jayce's signature to get her out. Jayce was caught off guard when Marcus mentioned it but didn't say anything to cover for her.
Victor was also in the council room when Jinx fired the missile. He was the one that announced that Jayce had made the deal with Silco. That whole situation is a mess for the main characters. Jayce, Victor, and Mel were in that room. Caitlyn's mother was in that room and she was also close friends with Jayce. And it was all done by Vi's sister.
Silco was much more loyal to Jinx than anyone else in her life. He accepted her with all her flaws and mental issues. Most of us can only dream of a person to love us like this.
Tbf, Vi's actions are a reaction Silco's actions, the very source that made Vi reject Jinx in the first place. I think it's important to note that both character's form of love are very different. While Vi wanted her sister to go through a different path, she still very much loved her and is struggling with the idea that her sister changed, not all for the better. You can still love someone while not agreeing with their choices. It's like still loving someone by steering them to rehabilitation away from their traumas or destructive impulses.
Silco's love comes in the form of exposure therapy, wanting Powder to become Jinx, his ideal form of a strong survivor, which is not exactly a well adjusted individual but one who is willing to make the necessary choices and sacrifices in order to thrive. While supportive, it does steer Jinx away from a healthier, more stabler path as Vi desired. He was also very much projecting his traumas onto Jinx. I think it's important to note that.
Arcane is simply a masterpiece. It REALLY has raised the bar for animated media.
Honestly, 100% my favorite character in all of this is Silco. Not that I was ever rooting for him to win, but just the transformation he goes through is so deep. And even though his relationship with Powder/Jinx is so messed up I don't think he ever has lied to her. He really does see in her the same thing that drives him, and that they both share the feeling that the world has abandoned them. And I think the only reason Sevika is afraid when Jinx confronts her is that she knows if she hurts Jinx Silco won't forgive her. Because you know Sevika is ruthless enough otherwise not to care. Like, I think he truly loves her in the only twisted way he knows to love Jinx, and his motivations, and actions are some of the most well-defined, deepest depictions of a villain I've seen in any show.
Now, who did I want to win? Of course, Vi, Ekko, and Caitlyn. I think at least Caitlyn and Ekko were the only "good" guys in the whole show trying to keep the power source away from Jinx and Silco.
Anyway, I am looking forward to season 2 to see how the story advances. I don't think Jace and Viktor are dead, they've got to somehow make it through. But yeah I don't hold high hopes for any pf the councilors.
That split second where Jinx is pinned and helpless and Echo looks down into the face of....Powder....that whole slow-mo scene leading up to that moment is so beautifully crafted...
Heimerdinger wasn't definitely in the right. He was incredibly out of touch. He told them to wait ten years to safeguard their tech, but Victor won't even live 10 years. He thought Ekkos hover board was built wrong, but it wasn't, it was designed for the fissures, which Heimerdinger didn't know because he never goes down there. And he was surprised at Ekkos progress despite his "short" lifespan. Heimerdinger literally founded the city and he's been there that whole 200 years it existed. And yet he didn't even know what the air was like in the undercity. At best, he was ridiculously negligent. And don't forget that Heimerdinger was the one so against magic. He told Jayce not to mention it during that trial thing, but after Jayce started talking, the counselors were listening until Heimerdinger interrupted him and out his foot down. It was HIS fear of magic. Heimerdinger keeps telling people not to do things but never presents an alternative. If I could describe him in three words I'd say paranoid, stagnant, and neglectful.
It reminds me of that Count Dooku quote about Yoda in one of the novelizations
“The Jedi Order’s problem is Yoda. No being can wield that kind of power for centuries without becoming complacent at best or corrupt at worst. He has no idea that it’s overtaken him; he no longer sees all the little cumulative evils that the Republic tolerates and fosters, from slavery to endless wars, and he never asks, “Why are we not acting to stop this?” Live alongside corruption for too long, and you no longer notice the stench. The Jedi cannot help the slaves of Tatooine, but they can help the slavemasters.”
Just switch some of the words and it’s exactly the same
To be fair on Jayce, he just didn't think of the consequences. Vi actively justified that kid's death- which isn't exactly/entirely her fault, because she's been exposed to so much violence and suffering that she's been numbed to it.
To be fair, that kid had no business being anywhere near that warzone. The child intentionally went to an area that HE KNEW was dangerous. His death is largely his own fault. Jayce didn't "shoot a kid", He shot a shimmer monster and the kid was stupid enough to walk into the line of fire EVEN WHEN HE KNEW that the battle was happening and that it wasn't safe. It makes sense for Jayce to feel guilty in some capacity, but Vi is also correct that it isn't a logical reason to stop.
@@kingofbudokai bruh the kid was working there and I assume he froze in fear and didn't run away like others. you can't blame him for that, he was like 10. But it wasn't solely Jaice's fault either. That's the beauty of Arcane, everything's relative and everyone are to blame
What Vi said to Jayce was technically correct: if he does nothing, more children are going to die, either to the violence or the living conditions in the undercity. He has the power to change those conditions and bring an eventual end to that violence, but only by getting his hands dirty. The only thing she may have gotten wrong is that she assumes he wants to stop out of fear and not out of guilt. Jayce doesn't really want to ignore the problem, he simply blames himself more for suffering he actively causes than for suffering he passivly allows to occur.It just comes down to where you land on the classic trolley problem. Is Jayce worse for hurting people to stop Silco, or letting people get hurt because he chose not to stop Silco.
@@kingofbudokai I think he was the boss or at least a ranking person on the site being a chem baron's son. Also he shows more initiative than the others when he triggers the alarm.
@@j.f.fisher5318 true, but we don’t really know why he was there in the first place. For all we know, his mother could have made him go there.
Not calling her Jinx is kinda whole problem with Vi. She just couldn't accept changes in her sister, new name and new everything, she was trying to reverse it, like it never happened. Of course it didn't work well
You can actually trace Jinx's (and therefore the season's) entire arc through Vi's well-intentioned but tragic inability to accept Powder/Jinx for who she is.
Vi is great at trying to give Jinx what *Vi* thinks Jinx needs, but that image of who Powder can/should be continually gets in the way of Vi understanding what her sister *actually* needs.
Yeah maybe cause she couldn't be there and Jinx just won't let her talk to her to know better no matter how Vi tries. Accepting your sister as the mass murderer she is doesn't seem to me like something a good sister should do anyway. What Jinx was trying to do here just doesn't work like that and it was game over for Vi as soon as game started. People will keep holding Vi fully responsible for not accepting the beautiful murderer angel her sister is...
Calling someone by a different name is not going to reverse someone's past like having someone killing someone else isn't going to do it, but it's actually Vi giving space for forgiveness and acceptance over and over and Jinx denying it and you talk like it's the other way around.
@@kaijingarou6526 well Vi is more responsible just because she's in the right mind. Jinx 100% crazy and doesn't make any sense at all, that goes without saying. And of course it was game over before game even started, that's the beauty of this story. Not a single character in Arcane was capable to change something and make another decision, and this is really good writing imo
@@aske2455 Vi is taking responsibility for what she's done and even for what she hasn't. Being mentally unstable doesn't get you out of responsibility. I've had my deal of mental issues myself and haven't held other people responsible for my mistakes. And Arcane's writing is not good, is brilliant but I feel like Jinx's fandom idealize her too much even if she is a great character, letting slip her huge mistakes where they won't other characters' smaller mistakes.
@@kaijingarou6526 Jinx's fandom idealize her too much for sure! That's what fandoms do though
An important thing that passes over some peoples head is Silco isn't being manipulative when he tells Jinx how its only them, everyone betrays them, Manipulation requires intent to deceive, Silco is so traumatized and hardened from life in the undercity and form all his experiences he truly believes they're alone, they can't trust anyone, and that if they let anyone close all they will do is hurt them, and it says so much for his love for Jinx that even with all his distrust and trauma he infinitely trusts Jinx to let her inject his medicine into his eye and to say that its only them, letting her into his life and directly saying he's the only one in his life he trusts will never betray him. And ironically in the end, she's they one who kills him, betraying him in a mental breakdown caused by Silco once again being unable to let her go and let her die and doing anything to save her.
Bit late, but Silco doesnt cause her mental breakdown at the end, Caitlyn starts it and Vi makes it much worse. We see over the course of the series that her biggest trigger for her breakdowns is memories of the past, especially accidentally killing her friends and Vander. Vi doesnt realize this, so she is shouting at her to remember them hoping to reach her and only making the situation infinitely worse. Meanwhile, Silco is aware of what causes Jinx’s breakdowns, so he is trying to calm her down, telling her not to listen to Vi, who is making it worse.
@@SatanicWrenthe thing he is also commanding her and yelling
And that doesn't help the confusion
And him pulling the weapon is what makes her instinctively shoot, not even knowing what is she shooting at, she "wakes up" from this dark place to find out she killed him
And he does his best to tell her it's okay
That's what really broke me
They are both so imperfect they cannot help each other but the love was very much there
But he can absolutely be manipulative
Because he wants to protect her so bad and the only way he knows is to isolate her
Thats why he lies saying that Vi doesn't care about her
He knows she's looking for her
But he thinks the way to protect her is to keep her only to himself
Because he genuinely believes he's the only person that won't hurt her
Even tho he does
I totally love the fact, that Natalie kept on calling Caitlyn „Kirraman“. Like it’s not inaccurate, but not accurate either😂
Its getting annoying for me not gonna lie lmao and she keeps mispronouncing vi's name lol. "Vee"
Vee and Kirraman a match made in heaven
I thought it was a little weird that Gold kept doing that.
@@blueberryoatmeal4009 🤣
@@blueberryoatmeal4009 lmao exactly 🤣
There's a rift too between Vi and Caitlyn now too, Caitlyn had a chance to kill Jinx but stopped at Vi's insistence, which then ultimately lead to her mother on the council getting nuked
The music in Arcane is so beautifully done. I can't believe they even managed to get Sting to do the final song (What could have been)
Such a perfect 1st Season. 👏🏾. Love this show. Love your reaction
PS. Heimerdinger had his faults also I think. He waited WAY too long to act. Failed to see the importance of the situation. Took things for granted and never even set foot down there until after he was expelled from the council. He’s also culpable.
I agree with you, but to be fair time runs EXTREMELY differently for him. Like, a day feels like a second, that kind of thing
Yeah Heimerdinger’s perception on Time is his biggest fault because he cannot empathize with humans that way. When he said in a decade or two this might be ready it’s like dude there are kids in the underground who won’t live a decade. Which is the biggest tragedy.
A lot of people hate how Silco was using kids in the shimmer factory, but I bet most of those kids are orphans and would be dead if it weren’t for Silco. They work for a living and are young because the government as Keirmann says “doesn’t give a shit about any of them”. I bet that was the first time Heimerdinger set foot in the underground in probably over a decade. And he wouldn’t have if he was still a counselor
@@coltonpiper6156 silco could have secured them different jobs.
Everyone is culpable. The reward is in deciphering how each character contributes to the problem and the solution, as you just did. 😊
Gunning for Heimerdinger out of everybody makes no sense. People who blame him act like he’s supposed to be clairvoyant. And even though he’s one of the few characters that actually makes an effort to see the other side’s perspective, it’s somehow a bad because he _didn’t do it sooner_ . Like calm down. Let’s talk about Jayce and Mel snowballing the arms race or Silco literally employing child labour before trying to put Heimerdinger under fire. He’d only recently even found out there was a problem, Silco had been keeping the brewing unrest a secret. Jinx jumping the gun was the only reason Piltover knew something was seriously wrong. As soon as he knew how bad it really was he tried to steer the council on the right path, and THEY BOOTED HIM OFF FOR IT.
From the very beginning he said magic was dangerous. The city accepts it anyway. He told Jayce to keep their new technology a secret, but Jayce still gave away _something_ was in development, which is how Jinx knew there was something to steal. He told Viktor to destroy the core, but he didn’t and it got Sky killed. Nobody ever listen to Heimerdinger, and they suffer for it. And now you want to blame him?? Like what’s he supposed to do??? It’s just like he said to Ekko, nobody wants his help. So no, he’s not culpable.
The exploding mechanical firelights are Jinx's (painted with her colors/monkey face). You see her making them in several episodes. They are tuned to land on metal things, so armor and weapons. That's how Marcus' arm was entirely blown off. If Cait hadn't traded in her gun for the potion to save Vi, she likely would have been blown up as well. The doctor doesn't have a skin disease. He's the same doctor who made shimmer for Silco. Powder literally blew him up in episode 3. He's a burn victim. Curious why you blame only Jayce for the hit on Silco's facility, considering the entire thing was Vi's idea, Vi's instigation, and Vi's info used for it. The shield came from Vi's gauntlets. They're for mining, so it's natural to have some form of protection for the wearer in case there is a cave collapse. It didn't trigger until Sevika came at her from above when she leapt off the bar.
Caitlyn should have biten the dust with that many fire lights exploding so close to her and the only thing she got was a leg injury. I don't call it great story telling, I call it plot armor. lol
@@samy29987yeah but sometimes you need plot armour, would’ve been pretty lame if caitlin had been blown up in that scene and that was the end of her
@@samy29987 She wasn't holding anything metal so no firelight exploded next to her, she just got hit by a piece of shrapnel rather than concussive force. The OP literally explained it and you still call it plot armour, haha.
@@pickledidiot4569 Lame was the writing that placed her in that situation only for only her to come out of it unharmed. For stories to be great there needs to be consequences to all events. The show was fantastic in that regard, except that one.
@@krashd Marcus was aiming a gun at her face from like two feet away and a firelight exploded at the of the rifle. Like come on. I would have been fine with all the set piece if she lost a leg or something.
the showdown between Jinx and Ekko on the bridge has to be one of the most beatiul and creative scenes i've ever seen!
Her name is Vi, which is pronounced "VIE" like "DIE". It's short for Vi-olet and one of her voice lines in the game is "Vi is short for violence." Easy to remember in that context. Just think of her as Violet and shorten the name to Vi.
Yeah shes done the whole season and still cant get it right lol.
Seriously. Everyone in the show calls her Vi. Never once is she called "Vee". I don't understand how she keeps screwing up her name.
@@warningdeadinside2537 NEITHER DOES SHE!
@@mastervodo6840 I think at this point she should just call her by her full name. No way can she screw up Violet. At least I hope not.
@@warningdeadinside2537 she’s gonna call her pilot💀
"Jayce is good at everything."
Except for decision-making.
Now that you've finished the show, and gone through it again on edits, I'm sure you also noticed how well each character's decisions relate directly to a conversation they had immediately prior. One can almost watch the show backwards, and see the chain of cause and effect that led the characters from where they started, to where they ended up.
Mel plays a pivotal role in shaping events in the story, and her motivations at the start are a relative mystery. At the end, after the interactions with her mother, you see what her goals actually were, and so much clicks into place.
Such tight writing.
I like the character development of Silco. You can see how he talks to Vander’s statue because now Silco’s put in the same situation where he doesn’t want to give up his daughter, just like Vander. “Oh, it all makes sense now brother, Is there anything so undoing, as a daughter?” Shows how much he got attached to Powder and now he’s not willing to give it up for the dream he was trying to achieve his whole lifetime
18:03 dude the way Nat's eyes shifted to see Jinx hiding in the corner with her pink eye had me CACKLING I DID THE SAME THING
I've watched that scene so many times and seen almost every reaction to it on TH-cam, but I've never noticed Jinx's boots during the fight with Sevika. Thank you for that and for sharing your reaction!
Arcane was super dark, and hit me way harder than I ever thought. I had known a small bit about Jinx and her story from LoL, and upon watching the music videos for “Enemy”, I knew I had to watch this show.
The music video made me tear up, but Arcane made me sob and ugly cry, snot and all. I have no clue why it hit harder than even Pixar movies, but this show was perfect in every way I can think of. The animation department doesn’t get the credit they deserve, coming up with such a beautiful and sometimes really dark art style that is SO hard to replicate. The voice acting was phenomenal and my god the writers were genius. I’m not sure if they’ll make a season 2, but I would stop everything just to watch the whole thing.
This is definitely my all time favourite show. The depth and complexity to each and every detail, from items in the background of a shot, to characters, to the story itself is just astounding and it's created a completely new metric for what a show can be. The way the characters are written is beautiful, and it takes literally a single scene with each of them to become invested in them.
I also love how the creators don't treat the viewer as idiots, and they don't spoonfeed us the solutions and answers. The ONLY thing I think could have been slightly more obvious was Jinx working on the mechanical firelights. Most reactors I've watched have not caught that until it was explained to them in the comments.
My favourite character -by far- is Vi. She's such a badass, and the number of sad and hurtful experiences she's had makes me empathise with her so much. You could say the same about Jinx, but she was too young when the worst of it happened, so it scarred her so deeply that she's basically irredeemable.
I CAN'T wait for the second season.
_Arcane_ is one of the most perfectly constructed tragedies of the last 400 years and I am *so here for it*
Ecko's power in the game and lore is that he's able to rewind time, allowing him to always be where he needed to be in the nick of time, which is where his nickname 'Boy Savior' came from.
I think they did an amazing job with this series, especially with Powder/Jinx. Years ago when she first showed up she was kind of “what if Harley Quinn but different colors”, and here they REALLY dig into her characterization.
I was so surprised at the erong end of the show. I binged this entire series in two days and I loved everything of it. I'm glad you love this series, Jinx is one of my favorite characters!!
I was astonished by how good this show was. I went into pretty much expecting nothing, barely even knowing it was a based on League of Legends, and now it's a top 3 favorite show ever. It's perfection.
Notice how it's always Mylo that talks to her in her head being negative? That's because he was always the negative one towards her when he was alive. I love the detail this show has.
Jayce's arc is so tragic to me. He genuinely believes he has the answers to all the world's problems, and he believes he can fix them. But after killing his first kid, he turns around and sees all those hungry kids down in the undercity, and he realizes for the first time that the socioeconomic problems are so much more complicated than he ever noticed before. The fact that children can go hungry if they don't work is something that never even occurred to him before, because for him he always felt like he was low class as he didn't belong to the 1% of Piltover. And what does he do with this new information? He runs away from the problem. He decides to make it Silco's problem instead.
Idk if the conclusion was that he ran away, but the realization that the upper city just doesnt know anything about the undercity is what contributed to him being open in them being their own nation of Zaun instead of continual control.
Slico is responsible for the children not Jayce. Get it right
The young ekko/jinx flashback combined with the music and animation in that scene is just so incredible.
Warning for this essay I have written here. I just want to try and explain why I find Silco so enthralling as a character.
Silco is my favourite character in this series. He is not only a fantastic villain, but he is a villain with a wonderful amount of depth. You can understand why he does what he does, despite how terrible it may be. Flooding the underground with drugs, dealing with the enforcers, children working in factories - it is horrendous to watch these play out, but in the end he did create unity in suffering and was offered the independence the underground needed. The Kingdom of Zaun. You cringe away, but also watch with this sick sense of understanding.
He is ruthless, he is manipulative. You forget sometimes, but you never do for long! The scene with the other mob bosses was absolutely freaking brutal, and this channel is brilliant at pointing out each one of his manipulations through speech.
Silco is more than just brutality though. His fear when he discovers Vi is alive: he completely lost control, kicking and screaming, Yes he was afraid he would lose control of Jinx, but I also do honestly believe he was worried for Jinx herself too. Ultimately he was right - Vi would never accept her as she is now. He did. "You're perfect."
His fear of abandonment and betrayal is another great aspect of his character. Was he right in how he raised Jinx? No. Was he projecting? Yes. Was he doing it just to use Jinx however? Definitely not. He is jaded and hurting. His fear to trust, to believe in another comes through in all he does. Silco rules with fear. He trusts Jinx because she was betrayed too. Whether Vi was going to come back or not, in the end she was unable to. For all intents and purposes, it certainly seemed like she did indeed abandon Jinx at the time to both Jinx and Silco. I see these speeches as moments of instability and vulnerability, a twisted way to try and connect with his surrogate daughter. I could go into the fantastic scene he shared with Sevika this episode on the topic of loyalty, but I won't. This is long enough already!
The way he develops through Jinx however is my favourite thing about him. I could write an essay on this, but I'll just mention one comparison for the sake of this verrry long comment. At the start of the series when Jinx presents Silco with the gemstone, not once does he look at Jinx despite her desperation for approval. Even when she hugs him, he remains staring enthralled at the power she just placed in his hand.
Now contrast this with the scene on the bridge. Damn is it amazing!! He rushes to his daughter in fear, her name leaving his mouth in a panic. He cradles her in his arms, bringing her head to his, cataloguing all her injuries. It is with this action that the gemstone Jinx retrieves is revealed. He only glances at it once, and then returns to cradling her gently! He has all the power in the world once more, but he only has eyes for Jinx. That's not even going into the way he stares in Vi's direction as she once again watches from afar as her sister is taken away. She could have gone to her this time, but she didn't. Whether Silco could see her or not, the symbology is unrivalled. His anger at the topsiders, at betrayal; everything comes through in the way he picks Jinx up like a child and stalks away. His desperation as he goes to get her healed is heart-wrenching.
It all culminates in his conversation with Vander's statue. Vander abandoned Zaun for the girls and Silco hated him for it. Now he is prepared to do the same. "Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?" It is so poetic. I knew he would never betray Jinx. His end was fitting, and I cried for both him and Jinx in his final moments. By the end, he truly did love her.
Silco went from a jaded individual who would do anything for independence to exactly the same thing, but a father on top of it. It was a development that I truly loved watching!!
I suppose I love Silco because he is so human. Villains like this are rare nowadays. He is magnetic because of it.
Thank you for reacting to Arcane. It was great to watch with you. It's nice to finally watch with someone who cries just as much as me! I connect with characters in media waaay too quickly too.
❤
This series came out on 2021 and become one of the greatest shows of all time...a truly masterpiece
Fun fact: Sky and Victor come from the same area. You see her as a young girl on top of the rock looking over young Victor at the start of his backstory.
Her name is VI (V-I for Violet), NOT VEE. And, that's Vi's problem as well, she's obsessed with taking down Silco that she doesn't think about the consequences. Vander tried to make her realize that way back in episode 1 and 2.
Arcane was a perfect show, top to bottom; the writing, pacing, the design, the animation, the acting, the story, the way it approached mental illness, good and evil! God damn it's been an absolute pleasuring rewatching the show with you :D
Absolutely. One of the best things I've ever watched!
"I can't imagine punching him he is adorable" - *cutscene to Katarina slaying Heimer LMAO
Just to note something you seemed to have missed. Singed, the scientist guy who helped Viktor and Jinx, is the same scientist from the first three episodes in the underground/underwater lab that exploded. That's why his face is all messed up. He's also the one who created shimmer to begin with.
That edit of Katarina killing Heimerdinger just as you said you couldn't imagine anyone punching him had me laughing out loud 😂
Same, I had to rewind to make sure I didn't imagine that lol. Kudos to the editor there 😝
The scene where Silco is talking to Vander's statue and pours one out for him, gets me everytime.
"Jayce, you really signed up for all of this without thinking it through."
The story of Jayce's character arc.
How far can a single person plan ahead? How far does the person's plan actually work?
Theres a lot for shadowing in act 1 with each characters path, vi being a boxer when she's young, powder playing shooting games, and if you notice the firelights masks were also seen in benzo shop in episode 2 and 3.
I’m really glad you watched this show. It definitely came out of nowhere for me but absolutely loved it. It’s just so well done. Can’t wait for season 2, hopefully late this year or early next year 🤞
I heard it took six years to make season 1, hopefully it won't take long to make season 2
@@daurydavis3983 at least half of the 6 years was approval, rewrites, building Fortiche from a tiny studio of 5-20 people (heard different numbers) and able to do music videos a few minutes long to 250 personnel able to do a TV season. Also because there's a sequence from writing > storyboarding > animation > etc, writing was wrapping up on S2 around the time S1 was released. So two years and late this year is probably pretty achievable.
One of the most underrated lines in the whole series was in the first episode when Vander is talking to Vi, and he gestures at the scrapes on her hand and says, "That path, this? It won't solve your problems. It just makes more of them".
At the beginning of the show, you had Vander as this voice for peace, moderation, and supporting your family. He used to be a violent revolutionary, but he changed. Vi wanted to fight back against the unjust system as a violent revolutionary, but was held back in part because she loved Powder, who just wanted a family. And in the shadows, Silco was a mirror to Vi, plotting a violent revolution, his dark ambition powered by his feeling of being betrayed by Vander.
When Silco took Powder and killed Vander, Vi changed just like Vander did. She felt like she betrayed her sister, like Vander did his brother. And Silco used Powders anger at feeling abandoned by her sister to turn her into a weapon for a violent revolution. Just like he is. Just like Vi was. Just like Vander was once upon a time.
Just as Silco learned that what he wanted was the love of his family, and rejected violent revolution, Powder killed him and started Silcos revolution. The seeds planted by Silco and Vander, and the violence that made Vi and Powder orphans in the first place, and pulled into the endless wheel of destruction.
No one is good. No one is bad. They are all just people caught in a cycle of violence and generational trauma. Just like Vander said, violence only creates more problems. But when were they given any other choice?
It’s hilarious how she randomly starts calling Vi “V”
Annoying lol
It's because she's watching with subtitles. That seems to throw everyone off.
@@matman730 I think that's it. She's hearing Vye but reading Vee and her brain just has to pick one. Often, she was saying both because she couldn't remember which was correct. For a streamer, it makes sense. 👍🏾
Most of the hate Jayce gets is totally unjustified. A lot of people miss what the show it trying to tell them, and when criticizing Jayce they often are showing their own hypocrisy without realizing it.
Jayce raids the shimmer factory (which let's not forget is Vi's idea), kills the kid, and everyone calls him an idiot.
Jayce realizes his fuck up and changes his mind again, then Vi argues with him. In that moment it's Jayce that has chosen peace, and it's Vi who wants to continue the violence. But because we all like Vi so much people don't want to see that she's totally wrong, and it's Jayce that right.
To be fair to her, Vi has been seeing this kind of thing her entire life, and topsiders never did anything to make it better. She finally gets a powerful councilor to actually DO something and he chickens out as soon as he kills a kid with his own hands, rather than through the inaction and wilful ignorance that the rest of the politicians have been hiding behind. To Vi, having a bit of blood on your knuckles is quite literally just the way you survive, she probably sees it as totally disrespectful to everyone suffering in the undercity for him to give up trying to change things (in the only way she's ever had access to: violence) at that point. He didn't communicate at all that he was planning to take a different course of action, she just saw him getting his hands a little dirty and then leaving to go back to his literal golden tower.
@@DarthRayj No one's saying Vi's a bad person, the comment just wants to say that people give stupid criticism of Jayce
9 episodes in and she still calls her "Vee", bless her heart. 😆
And she's calling Caitlyn 'Caramin' for some reason :P
“I thought… maybe you could love me like you used to” makes me tear up every time
I love Medarda. I think she's the most realistic depiction of a politician I have ever seen. And I'm a fan of both The West Wing and Battlestar Galactica but although they're good I never felt either Bartlet or Roslin had as much nuance as Medarda has. Every action she takes she's three steps ahead, like any real politician should be. She's shown to run circles around normal really clever people like Heimerdinger or Jayce. She's up there with Alexei Karenin for me as a thinker but she's also able to act unlike him, best politician ever.
"(Caitlyn) Kiramman is going to get fired/released from being an enforcer." Nono, that absolutely won't happen. Because it already did in episode 4. She WAS fired. She's not an Enforcer now. She's a vigilante. And she KNOWS this. She also forged a councilman's signature. She should pretty much be in jail, but of course, being the heir to a prominent house of nobles, for all intents and purposes, there's no risk of that ever happening.
*about Singed working on Jinx* "This is not who he should have brought her to" Then pray tell, who? Who else had even a shot of saving her, and was within anything even optimistically reminiscent of reach?
"It's not fair, how do you get to be good at everything?" That's Jayce's essential quality. He's a prodigy to whom EVERYTHING comes easily. Tech stuff? Solves stuff nobody has even imagined at 24 years old. Politics? Is told he's making mistakes, takes one look at the swamp, and swims it like a consummate professional. Being able to master ANYTHING at a glance, and being stupendously easy to manipulate, are his only defining characteristics. I agree with you on this, however. There is no being good at combat, certainly not close-quarters combat, without practice and experience, and we have seen him practice exactly never, nor any indication that he takes martial arts or combat training of any kind. The one thing that could bridge that gap is an utterly impenetrable armor of one kind or another, which it is clear he doesn't have. Jayce not being cut to ribbons in fractions of a second and bleeding out within ten seconds is the least believable single thing in this show, and I include in that the teleportation magic that whisks airships across continents. There is nothing his hammer can do that would save him from that unless it somehow renders him invulnerable, which it clearly doesn't since he gets cut.
"He's just such a hothead." No he isn't, he's an easily led chump. Sure, he had an idea of what was wrong - which he got from Mel Medarda, Abessa Medarda and others, internalised without thinking it over, and acted on. Then Vi browbeat him into attacking, effortlessly, even though he should easily have been able to realise that one, she was talking bull and manipulating him, and two, it was a terrible idea. That's the key thing. The only action Jayce ever takes without someone pushing him to do it is "study blue crystals". Everything else, mediocre manipulators trick him into internalising as "his own idea".
"I don't know if killing Silco helps." Oh, oh, I know! It's worse than doing nothing. The problem of Zaun isn't Silco. Silco is a symptom of the problem, which is that people have been left to die to sickness and deprivation in a toxic death slum in what can only be labelled a genocide. Until THAT is solved, revolutionaries will emerge with frightening regularity and hostility will fester into blood feuds and hatred, which Heimerdinger has already presided over for decades if not centuries. The only saving grace imaginable right now is that Finn died first, as he would have been IMMEASURABLY worse for absolutely everyone than Silco ever was.
"Jinx and Caitlyn face off and you really don't know what's going to happen" Well... it's pretty obviuos. Jinx had her pistol trained on Caitlyn in less than the blink of an eye. Caitlyn STARTED FIRING, it took a pretty long time, and she never hit. If Jinx was FIGHTING at that moment, Caitlyn would be very, very dead.
"Heimerdinger, the most empathetic and logical politicians" Nonono. Heimerdinger was THE WORST. He was a FOUNDING member of Piltover, and he's quite clearly been on the council all that time. As Viktor pointed out in episode 2, he was the HEAD of the council at the time of the events in the first 3 episodes. He is presented with ways in which the lives of those who live in the Undercity can be improved, and his eyes unfocus, and he sees the hovering mage over a burning city, he's afraid, and he refuses to deal with it, and we all nod and go "oh, he's seen this before, he's so wise, yupyup" and understand why he's so afraid. But then, when he sees the hex core, he sees an alien landscape of spiraling structures and the SAME FLYING MAGE and he's afraid, and he refuses to deal with it, and I go "wait a minute... Heimerdinger's just traumatised by something involving that flying wizard, so now he superimposes the image of the flying wizard over ANYTHING THAT SCARES HIM EVEN A LITTLE, and runs away from it, he's NOT wise, he's JUST traumatised". That's the thing. Heimerdinger is obsessed with safety that can't exist, and his refusal to embrace any kind of meaningful progress is the reason the people in Zaun live starved, poisoned lives. He's a monster. A well-meaning one, but a monster nonetheless. Negligence, complacency and a refusal to tackle the issues are understandable in a person, but UTTERLY UNFORGIVABLE in a ruler. Heimerdinger is a ruler, so this is something he cannot be forgiven for. Removing him from the council was justified and necessary.
Favorite character? I like Jinx. I like Silco. I like Vi, I like Viktor, I like a whole bunch of characters. Favorite though? Sevika. She's solid, knows who she is. She's brave, bold, tough, and she treats the world with and appropriate degree of seriousness. She's well fleshed out, consistent and profoundly interesting. She shares that with a lot of people, but I just enjoy her more. She's also, probably, one of the most upstanding, honorable PEOPLE in the entire show. I mean I like Vi, but she's not a great PERSON in a lot of ways. She's a bully and a hustler, and while certainly enthusiastic she's about as good for achieving objectives as Jinx is... which is to say, not very. Throughout the show, I don't think she EVER achieves anything that helps her get to somewhere she wants to be, and as much stuff as she DOES, that's pretty impressive, and something she would judge herself harshly for, if she was the slightest bit introspective. That said, every bit of that rings true and makes her feel believable as a character. Still, when she and Sevika fought in episode 9, I was rooting for Sevika all the way, while fairly certain she wouldn't win, of course :/
4:18 Actually, nothing Silco said to Jinx in that scene is a lie, He may be wrong, but he believes what he tells her. Silco doesn't have access to the complete information that you as the viewer have. (Generally 80% reactors forget this and project all the evil and evil onto Silco. But he only says what he believes.)
From his perspective (and remember, Ekko thought similar), Vi just showed up one day out of the blue, with an enforcer, right after Jinx stole the crystal.
Also what Violet said to Ekko:
"echo she believes what she's saying okay she she's not your enemy"
Likewise, Silco tells Powder what he believes to be true.
He called Vi "Vander's prodigy" - Vander who collaborated with the enforcers. It fits right into his world view that Vander's prodigy would do the same. This isn't helped by the fact that to him, he's the one fighting for freedom from the oppressor and Vi bursts in saying she's going to tear it all down. Silco projects his experience with Vander onto Vi. He may draw the wrong conclusion, but between the optics of her return with an enforcer, plus his past with Vander, the conclusion that Vi is working with the Enforcers is reasonable. Silco may be wrong, but from his perspective, he isn't lying. And from his perspective, he's protecting Jinx from a bad influence (Vi). Being wrong but believing what you say is not the same as lying.
Every single character in this series is in shades of gray, no black and white. All of them have the characteristics of real-life people. Each character is the hero of their own story from their own perspective. All of them have features that can be understood, hated and empathized.
When you watch the series again, you will realize that no character is completely good, angelic or legal.
Including Caitlyn, Ekko and Vander.
In-game quote
Ekko to Jinx: "I had a crush until you started talking to the gun"
Which makes the mind blowing bridge fight between the two all the more heartbreaking. Masterpiece
I think it also shows in the mural where powder is in the center.
@@thedawd yes, talking about the mural, you're right, Ekko considers her a center piece still. And the thing with the mural is, if you read between the lines, the fact that both Vi and Powder are there, even though both of them are alive, makes plenty of sense, since the old "version" of them "died", the Powder and Vi that Ekko knew back then, are no more. It's pretty clear and self explanatory throughout the show why that's the case for Powder, but the same also goes for Vi, since she met Cait, she changed, further proof is what Jinx tells her in the ending sequence: "I thought, maybe you could love me like you used to, even though I'm... Different. BUT YOU CHANGED TOO"
Again, calling this show a masterpiece is a HEAVY understatement
Can’t wait till they do the live action movie with Ekko being played by Kevin Hart, and Jayce being played by The Rock. The Hierarchy of Power in The Arcane universe is about to change.
@@jasonmichaels8204 No, just no LMFAOO
@@YourBishMariaTeresa technically ekko put vi “dying” on the wall cus he and tons of others literally thought she died since she was literally in prison without anyone knowing So it makes more sense But the reason of powder’s old self is in there is because powder died and is now jinx.
Honestly, Jayce being good at everything is kind of his thing, and also creates his weakness. He's brilliant and driven enough to disregard rules, and because of that his lab gets blown up; he's charming, likable, and attractive, which gets him deep into political/popular arenas he doesn't really want to be in; he's idealistic and easily swayed by his emotions, leading to being manipulated easily by Mel, who does believe she's doing the right thing, but is much more emotionally guarded and has had her idealism tempered by grim reality; later also easily manipulated by Vi simply because her powerful emotions drive her right through the objections he knew should have been there. In-game, he can switch between close-range and long-range fighting, so that's mirrored in his character. He *could* do almost anything really, really well, but because of this, he doesn't really have the focus any of the others do (Vi - boxing, Cait - marksmanship/detective work, Mel - political maneuvering), he even needs *Viktor's* determination in order to stick to Hextech long enough to make it work. He's very capable, but because of that, he's frequently out of his depth and doesn't realize it or respect the work it takes to truly master something.
When Vi was calling out to Jinx, she was actually making it worse, she asked her to remember her Friends, but Powder is the one who killed them and she never was able to overcome that guilt and trauma.
Thats why the Girl Vi knew, ceased to exist a long time ago and she was chasing the girl she knew, but was not ready to accept the women she's become, something that Silco has done wholeheartedly.
So ironicly, Silco was an better influence on Jinx than Vi could've been...
Also the idiom "Hell is paved with Good intentions" really suits this show, everyone of them wanna do things for the Good, but their ways of doing it is not good.
Like Viktor said "In our Pursuit of Being Great, we forgot to do Good, and now we need to make it Right"
The character arcs are amazing, and thats why this show is beloved by nearly everyone watching it.
This and CP 2077 Edgerunners where the best surprises of recent years.
17:10 Regarding everything being easy for Jayce. I would say there is _ONE_ thing that Jayce isn't good at and it's making good decisions. 😁😁
That hammer is Jayce's hammer in game.
There is a lot to unpack with this show and with this ending, and it only gets better with repeat viewings. I'll put a couple of things here for you to think on.
Episode 2, Vi: "What makes you different makes you strong."
Episode 9, Jinx: "I thought, maybe you could love me like you use to. Even though I'm.. different.."
Heimerdinger was part of the problem, and all the things you mentioned about the issue, was only exaserbated by Heimerdinger as he never went down into the Undercity till he was kicked out.
Silco wasn't manipulating Jinx, those were his true thoughts and he did indeed love her, even if he was toxic overall and not good for her.
For Heimmerdinger I thought of it he was empathetic but like distanced. When he talked to Victor about dying he has no idea what it's like to be human. Lost perspective is best way to say it.
In a way, not having played League of Legends actually made this series better for me. Knowing who is and isn't a playable character in the game would make it much easier to figure out who would and wouldn't die. Like, when Jinx had the covered dish I wasn't sure if Caitlyn's head was going to be in there or not. If I was familiar with the game, her status as a playable character would have made me strongly doubt she could have been dead.
Some of my thoughts and analysis:
After Jinx shoots Silco, she's shown clearly in that triggered mindless instinctual state like in episode 4 on the ship. Then after a couple breaths you see the exact moment her brain kicks in to full awareness again and... instant regret. Jinx didn't chose to kill Silco, but in a triggered state she instinctually shot at the threat of the sound of the pin drop in Silco's gun. That's entirely the reason she then chooses the Jinx chair, yet again, she was a Jinx to her family.
There is no Powder, Jinx situation there, nor is it a conscious decision. It's just tragedy. Once again, Powder unwittingly killed her family. But this time she killed someone who loved her perfectly. This is probably Jinx's breaking point.
This comment, which many people misunderstood and shared as a comment under each video since this series came out: "Powder killed Silco, so Jinx killed Powder" is actually a wrong analysis. Jinx is Powder's evolution that grows over time. Powder and Jinx are not different people or split personalities, they are the same person.
Silco's line:
"don't cry you're perfect" = not Jinx, not Powder, you're perfect.
I Like the post I saw in someone's comment earlier:
Here is that comment:
Jinx breaks my heart, more than usual, in her final scenes. There's such a sense of resignation and sadness to her; it's in her eyes, her expression, and her body language. I imagine that she's thinking that Mylo was right, all those years ago:
She's a jinx.
And if she's a jinx, she's going to be the worst bad luck Piltover has ever experienced.
No truce. No negotiations. No peace.
Jinx will show them all. Let it all burn, and chaos reign.
War is coming...
The ekko stopwatch thing is because of the character in league of legends and his abilities. Though I’m sure they will discuss that in season 2
I laughed at this title because, I’m currently reading through berserk right now… IF THERE WAS EVER ANY PIECE OF MEDIA YOU COULD LABEL AS TOO DARK ITS THAT. Conviction arc was great, looking forward to what comes next!
It's really weird how everyone keeps going "oh no Viktor's putting shimmer in his body" - you know, the thing that a lot of people have done and survived with minimal ill effects, including Vi - not "oh no Viktor is using the thing that makes plants grow huge, mutated forms then wither away into nothing immediately, on himself, trusting only this substance to keep himself alive". I mean, seriously... out of the things he's doing in that scene, it's absolutely insane to consider SHIMMER to be the scary one.
The Powder character arc is hands down one of the greatest character arcs I have ever seen, not sure this show can ever top season 1, but I'll be watching and hoping they can. A month after I finished watching it, I'm still in awe over this show and in shock at that one episode, y'all know the episode I'm talking about, the one that changes everything for everyone. Loved this show and loved your reactions Nat as I usually do.
Best 2021 show. Not a single doubt about it. I remember watching this three time in a row and getting emotional all of them.
One of my favorite theories that I saw somewhere: Caitlin giving up her gun to pay for the shimmer to cure Vi's injury saved Caitlin's life on the bridge, because Jinx's firelights were programmed to land on the guns, because they needed to ignite the gun powder to make the explosion big enough to injure/kill people.
I'm really curious to know how you would like 'the legend of korra' (if you're looking for a very different kind of animated show from Arcane)! I personally love this follow-up series about Aangs successor, with a bit more heavy themes (especially in the later seasons), yet still it is a very lighthearted show. I know there are people who didn't like it as much (mostly because it is often compared to 'avatar the last airbender', and it just is a different show, made for a differently aged audience), but there are way more people who do like it. Although the show does have some flaws, I would love to see your reactions (just as I really liked your 'avatar the last airbender' reaction-video's) to 'The legend of Korra'!
Caitlyn is a monster in Powders head, that's why she asked Vi to make her go away, the same way she did when they were kids. She has major trust issues, she doesn't know who really cares about her or who is just trying to use her so that final scene is basically her trying to find out if either of them really care, she's looking for a grand gesture and Vi isn't able to prove her love to her. Then when she kills Silco accidently he immediately forgives and comforts her, which is something Vi wasn't able to do when she accidently killed her family before, this is proof to her that he truly loves her for who she is and that's the reason she sits in the Jinx chair.
You guys should also react to the "Bridging the Rift" series on the making of "Arcane." It's really engaging and shows a lot of the drama behind making the show.
I binged this whole thing when I was sick last summer. It’s a solid series and the animation is impressive. It successfully builds a whole elaborate word with government, criminal organizations, a drug epidemic, etc. so quickly and vividly.
Her full name is Violet, so maybe that will help with the pronunciation next season.
This show has a seemingly infinite amount of depth to it. They made the absolute 1000% most out of the story, the medium and the characters. Even in a 9 episode series it is still an insanely impressive use of pacing with the sheer amount of content they squeeze in, while giving it room to breath. Also, it's of course an artistic masterpiece and so creative and looks so pleasing! I watched this in the midst of a lot of mediocre movies and shows. Arcane will forever be hard to top, and this was probably the show I was most anticipated to see you experience. Let it inspire you!
When that platter arrives on the table...... Watching that scene for the first time. Yikes. Really enjoyed watching this show with you Nat 😊
10:50 He was burned in the explosion from ep.03. he is the "scientist" who has been developing Shimmer for Silco. He was also there when Silco was introduced in ep.01.
Caitlyn's mom calls her Caitlyn and five seconds later Natalie is still calling her Kiramen. Let's watch more!
Habit. She's watching a lot of content, and needing to talk during much of it to keep up audience engagement. I imagine it's easy to miss details like that.
I honestly took a minute to understand who she was talking about, but I do understand someone falling into that habit
Yeah as a prolific streamer I would think that watching 4 or 5 shows at a time would be difficult as far as remembering details.
Excellent reaction, Nat. Really wanted to see you react to Vander pumping up Vi when she got knocked down in the Sevika fight. I feel there's a deeper story between the two like Sevika helped train Vi to fight and when Sevika left Vander's side, the betrayal cuts deep for her. I have my theory of what we could see in season 2 and I hope it can meet my expectations. Maybe that's too much to hope for.
Mel is actually one of my favorite characters in the show and it's like you said, it's these past few episodes. But all the characters are excellent and have depth. Can't wait!
I think you keep missing that the Doctor is the same one that created Shimmer in the first episode and all his scars were from the explosion in episode 3.
So my theory for season 2 is that we stay in Piltover and it's chaos with the undercity rising up and pilaging. Most of the council is dead except for our three main, Jayce, Viktor and Mel by some Hextech shenannigans that protected Victor. With the city in chaos, Mama Medarda and Noxus forces roll in to take over the city and control of the Hextech. Mel and Jayce run off to the Undercity but Viktor is caught by Noxus. Down there they form an alliance with Sevika, Ekko, Heimerdinger, Vi and Caitlyn to form a resistance to fight Noxus. Jinx is off being chaotic on her own in fighting Noxus forces, but I see her giving her life for Caitlyn in the end as some sort of atonement. Just as Noxus's forces begin to fall, the enemy who killed Mel's bro arrives on scene with his forces. End season 2.