#i promise i'm not a jinx apologist

[spiegelgestalt]

Reblogging myself to add some more observations after rewatching arcane again:

the hextech rune tried to stop the fight between the four ladies. it went crazy to stop those weapons from being used. the moment Jayce destroyed (?) it with his hammer the weapons went normal again

there was a short moment were a conversation could have been had when Vi stopped Caitlyn from shooting at Jinx. Sevika once again spend narrative agency to keep the conflict going and gas Piltover. From Jinx' reaction I'm wondering if Jinx never meant to do that and just installed it as a failsave

the song hellfire has to verses. Verse 1 is from Caitlyns perspective, verse 2 from Jinx'

there are now two seperate occasions (and maybe three) were Jinx could have killed Vi and didn't do it. Vi on the other hand would've killed her sister/let her sister be killed in cold blood (which one of them is the more violent again?) the third btw is when Jinx not only announced her presence when appearing behind Vi but jumped down for a close fight against her - something were she was a disadvantage - jinx never planned to win this fight

We have three Piltover/Zaun pairs and all of them are toxic

Cait your and Vis situation isn't the same. If you want to compare it it would be like Vi asking you to join Jinx

Jayces excuse when Viktor asks him why he did everything he promised not to do is that Jayce was feeling really bad. the amount of entitlement Piltovers characters show this season's something to behold

Heimerdingers and Victors descend into Zaun couldn't be more different. Heimerdinger truly wasn't looking to help - he was looking for a new student (after Jayce disappointed him)

I'm pretty convincedJinx believes Vi just wants revenge for Vander. The fact that you could be mad about killing enforcers/council members doesn't even cross her mind - they're monsters for her - and Vi is allying herself with a monster just because she wants revenge

and in that vain i've seen the opinion that Jinx is dangerous to Zaun - no she isn't! show me one instance were Jinx deliberatly attacked/hurt a Zaunite who wasn't attacking her first - mean pranks don't count - she has a very consistent moral compass actually. as with Vi Jinx could've easily be a hero in another story (BTW I think that people make this mistake because Arcane did a really good job with making everyone feel like people/ and the council had his one semi competent moment in season 1. So it feels like she's doing something monstrous when she blows up the council but a) Silco told her they can all burn; he isn't giving her up for independence and b) Jinx sees the council as the root of all evil. dehumanization is a real thing and allows you to do terrible things to your fellow humans

Some stray observations and speculations before the new episodes come out

Vi has yet to win a major victory in the undercity. Also since the time skip someone contemplated/tried to kill her in every battle. She truly doesnt fit into Zaun anymore

Sevika on the other has gotten two victories in the last three episodes. Working together with jinx truly benefits her (and in retrospect: vi lost the bar battle even though she beat sevika because jinx intervened)

Caitlyn has currently a really important story arc and I hope they stick the ending. Caitlyn runs into another savior dilemma: you go into a situation full of good intentions and well meant plans and the fuckers screw you over, hurt you and hurt the people around you. This is an experience a lot of well meaning helpers have. And I still think that while her reaction is understandable it's not correct. I come back to Cassandra's sentence: the people in the undercity deserve to breathe. Because it's such bullshit. It's your industries that caused that, you produced that smog - you should clean it up - it's common sense - but Cassandra frames it as a favor and now that the people on the undercity aren't sufficiently grateful that favor is revoked

Ambessa strokes the cheek of a child who got hurt by the smog. That child looks like a young Viktor. And once again I'm struck by the fact that it piltover expected Zaun to just accept this and how much piltover freaks out over attacks that did just a fraction of the damage piltover did to zaun

Caitlyn got a letter from Ambessa during a grieving process. I really hope that they don't just blame the whole thing on Ambessa/foreign influence and call it a day (currently they are doing pretty well)

If you take the songs into consideration and interpret them as expressions of the two cities you notice that piltover is still not understanding. They think they can get this problem back under control with violence while Zaun is saying: yeah come and kill me I don't even care anymore. But I will hurt you as much as I can in the process

Arcane is in part about generational violence and it's very telling that it's especially the young characters who are all for the violence happening (cute enforcer girl and cute street urchin)

I have to say it somewhere: Caitlyn isn't ready for jinx, piltover isn't ready for jinx I'm not even sure if Ambessa is ready for jinx.

I kinda want to write a meta about Ekko/Viktor as the two people who try to help the undercity within the system and how they are both screwed over. Viktors findings are taken for piltover and used against Zaun and ekko is a) in danger to suffer the same fate (I have thoughts about heimerdinger you all) b) in danger to lose all he has built because of something piltover did

I think I'm one of the few people who didn't think that indepence for Zaun was the solution to everything. I think it was to little to late. also jinx is all about making piltover eat the consequences of their actions. Shes quite literally zauns curse. But I also think that ist sevika who truly wants war. (note the raining metaphor some people noticed. Everytime a person from piltover got rained on it was because of something jinx/powder did)

Heimerdinger is gearing up to repeat his own cycle by plucking another street urchin from the undercity. After Viktor he got Jayce and now he wants Ekko. I can't help but notice that neither Jayce nor Victor benefited from his teachings

One day I will write about arcane relationship to Disney and the little mermaid and the og little mermaid but in short: Viktor is the little mermaid who loses his voice, doesn't get the prince and dies in the end, silco is very heavily Ursula coded (just look at his introduction!! )

If anyone wants me to go deeper into any of this observations feel free to ask me. I'd be happy to.