#he switches to black when he doesn’t care anymore and also he’s in mourning obvs

[avelera]

Contrary to how he initially comes across, Jayce is actually the archetypical blacksmith character who is tall and broad shouldered and always doing his best to not take up too much space or be too intimidating. His way of moving is a lot like bigger guys I know IRL who are aware of how much bigger stronger they are than others, how easy it would be to hurt someone by accident, and how easily he could scare someone by getting up in their space. (Another example of this archetype is Perrin Aybara from Wheel of Time.)

The reason people don’t see it as much in the story or in the fandom is because Jayce is actually pretty good at toning down things that could intimidate people. He’s clean cut, clean shaven, unfailingly polite, and he’s careful while moving around people. (There’s a great moment in 1.04 that demonstrates this when he skirts by the little girl to go pester Caitlyn.)

He always inclines his head to speak with people on their level and he sits when he’s around Viktor to not loom over him and to make it less awkward for Viktor to sit as well if he needs to without it hurting his pride. He might actually be one of the tallest characters in the series but you wouldn’t know it by how rarely he leans into that advantage.

Part of the reason people begin to warm to him in S2, I think, is because once he grows the beard and lets his hair grow out, he actually begins to LOOK like the archetype of the gentle blacksmith that he’s actually been the whole time.

It’s also, rather fittingly, when Jayce begins to stand up for himself and not care what others think of him. It’s when he cuts through the bullshit in the Council chamber because he doesn’t have time to coddle everyone’s egos. He’s grown up, and he doesn’t care if he’s clean cut and clean shaven anymore because there’s more important things than worrying about if he’s intimidating people, or socially acceptable in his mannerisms and speech. I think this just highlights how careful he was being up to that point to present the fresh-faced, unintimidating appearance in the first place.

Jayce is a big guy and he is strong and he could easily break things or scare people but he constantly chooses to make himself smaller and bring himself down to other people’s levels so he doesn’t loom over them and he’s scrupulously polite, except in those rare instances where he is trying to push back or intimidate someone into backing down (like with Heimerdinger when he threatens the Hexcore and this Viktor’s hope for a cure). People just didn’t acknowledge it before he grew the beard and Jayce began to look like the sort of character that trope is associated with.

Edit: Guys, Jayce is not 6'7" that's a fan edit, the internal documents for Fortiche say he's 6'2"