#jayce finally realizes that his dream of making the underground better with magic was a pipedream

[feifiefofum]

arcane: a study in letting go

and how the mains failed to, leading to destruction.

there’s been a bit discussed on here about vi and jinx but i don’t think anyone’s talked about how the two sisters have both failed to let go properly in the buddhist sense until the very end- and in the incorrect way at that.

there are a lot of strings of attachment everywhere, it’s kinda glaring. i could run down every character and pick apart attachments left and right, there are cobwebs of it everywhere once you go looking. piltover is overrun with illusions of choice when they’re all actually puppeteer-ed by their own delusions and beliefs.

the two who are front and center is vi and jinx. they’re so obvious it’s painful.

vi is bound up with her guilt from her mistake from years ago, when she struck powder in anger and is unable to accept that the powder she knew no longer exists. there may be a fragment of her buried in jinx, but vi refuses to let go of the ghost of powder and confront the real danger her sister poses.

on some level vi knows that powder might be a little too far gone. she’s all too ready to believe that she was about to be confronted with caitlyn’s head on a platter. she believes, hopes, that all of jinx is silco’s fault, which is bound up in her guilt (which both alleviates (it’s silco’s doing that created jinx) and exacerbates by it (vi sent jinx to silco when vi hit powder)). because of this, vi is dogmatic in foiling silco’s plans. she’s a little too okay with collateral damage that ends up with a dead kid. she’s blinded by her guilt, jinx is a literal blind spot for her- vi doesn’t see her own sister coming for her.

and that blindness comes from her love and attachment to powder. she’ll confront every ill in the underground except jinx. kinda like silco.

jinx’s attachment to vi is even more blatant. her attachment jumps out of the screen to strangle you- she’s possessive (vi can not have any other affiliates (caitlyn, ekko)) and her trauma (accidentally killing her extended family when trying to help) does not help. her trauma pushes her to be even more fixated on vi than ever, and silco, who tries to move into the spot where vi once occupied (stalwart defender and confidante) so that he can utilize that big brain of hers, she’s not exactly stable. no one can have vi except jinx, and she’s idealized her past, elevating vi to some perfect enabler of hers. which, sadly, silco does to her detriment.

silco pretty much grooms jinx to be his perfect tool for revenge for the injustices perpetrated on the underground by piltover. frankly, he’s the worst at letting go of anything, his grudge against piltover, his grudge against vander, which were planted when he couldn’t let go of his grudge against piltover. the man is so bound up in his hate hard on for piltover that he drove everyone away.

vander looked around at the culmination of their war against piltover and couldn’t stomach the cost. silco was all about doubling down even harder, to the detriment of everyone. when silco said he wasn’t going to turn over jinx, part of me believed him, because i think he’s just spiteful enough to choose an unwinnable war with piltover over bartering for a brighter future that he claims to want.

for the rwby fans, this is adam. vindictive, hateful, grudge oriented. like, neither character is wrong to be mad, but they are wrong to sacrifice the dream (equality) for vengeance(spite). silco would rather it all burn over letting piltover have any kind of ‘victory’ over him (losing jinx). he was about to get his own fucking nation- everything he ever wanted, maybe even build something better than whatever piltover has in their bougie ass white marbled wonder (doubtful, but a possibility). he’s got options but he chooses his hate-on.

jinx chose the grooming, the strings that silco tied to her because why wouldn’t she? confronted with the reality of the sister who in the past both built her up and confronted her on her shortcomings, why would she not choose the sweet poison of silco’s enabling intoxication? jinx is confronted with choosing an enabler and someone who calls her on her shit (being a violent homicidal narcissist, unable to confront her trauma). of course she’d rather not take the bitterness of reality when the illusion is so much sweeter.

toxic, but sweet.

and living in the squalid conditions of the underground, why wouldn’t she?

in the end, vi is forced to let go of powder, or the illusion of powder that she had. confronted with the reality of jinx starting a war with piltover, and caitlyn’s devastation, she’s forced to confront the reality of jinx maybe not having all of her marbles.

jinx let’s go of the illusion of vi that she held onto. that big sister that would support her without ever saying no, with no boundaries. basically, big sister vilco. but she’s not getting that, ever, so she let’s it go by firing a big honking rocket at piltover to start a war that her enabler wanted.