Characters / Arcane: Main Characters

League of Legends
Main Character Index > Arcane
Main Characters (Jinx) | Supporting Cast

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Main Characters

Zaun

Vi

Vi (Violet)

"What makes you different makes you strong. Always remember that, okay?"

^{Click here to see her as a teenager}

Voiced by: Hailee Steinfeld

Portrayed by: Jamie Hughes (Arcane: Enter the Undercity)

"You're stronger than you think. And one day... This city's gonna respect us."

The future Piltover Enforcer, a rough-and-tumble young lady just trying to get by and look out for the people she loves.

For tropes related to her game counterpart, see here.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Vi's story now involves watching most of her family die more than once and spending several years locked in a supermax prison, rather than saving miners from the gang she ran with after they got a little too rough for her liking.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the game, Vi is an amnesiac orphan who spent her childhood in a Zaunite orphanage called House Hope, while here she and Jinx were raised by Vander after their parents were killed in the civil war he helped start. She also teamed up with a gang called the Factorywood Fiends for a while, until they caused a mining accident Vi saved the trapped miners from with her signature gauntlets, none of which happens in the show.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Downplayed. While Vi can still be pretty recklessly impulsive, she's also much more intelligent (in a street-smart kind of way) than she's normally written in League.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her hair here is much darker than her game counterpart's bubblegum-pink locks, both as a teen and (especially) as an adult.
• Adaptation Personality Change: While the core of her "Punch First, Ask Questions Eventually" personality from the original games is still there, this version of Vi is a lot less playful, more somber, and exponentially more angry.
• Amazonian Beauty: As an adult, she's become quite attractive despite spending several years in prison, and has the muscular arms to show for it. After Caitlyn gets her out of Stillwater, she quickly gets noticed by two Zaunite thugs — one of whom flirtatiously touches her shoulder and flicks her hair — before she knocks them both out and steals their clothes.
• The Atoner: Vi immediately deeply regretted blaming her sister for their adoptive family's deaths and abandoning her. When she gets out of Stillwater, all she cares about is finding her and "saving" her from Silco.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: A tragic version with Mylo: As much as his attitude and his picking on Powder annoys her, she immediately comes to his aid when one of Deckard's men overpowers him and is completely inconsolable when he dies, enough that she punches Powder and yells at her that "(he) was right" to call her a jinx.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: With Jinx against the attacking Firelights, and later with Jayce when they bust a Shimmer plant.
• Badass Adorable: In act 1, she's a pretty cute teen who can box with the best of them. As an adult, she's very easy on the eyes and could probably literally kill you with her fists.
• Badass Normal: She's able to best Sevika in a one-on-one brawl, despite the latter being amped up on Shimmer and using an artificial limb. She would've won decisively if not for the shock of hearing that Powder now happily works for Silco.
• Battle Trophy: One entry in her Council Archives file mentions that during a search of her cell after yet another of her "incidents", the guards found a collection of contraband weaponry that had all been used against Vi by other prisoners.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Zig-zagged: She does get bruised and bloody in most fights, but it's never severe and seems to clear up very quickly. Furthermore, she was said to get into a Brutal Brawl every day during her imprisonment, and the Warden sent to "discipline" her for it claimed he never bothered to keep count of how many times he did so, yet she looks impossibly well-off for it when Caitlyn springs her — No healing cuts or bruises, no visible damage to any of her fingers, no broken or missing teeth, not even some indication that her nose had been broken at some point, just a small scar over her eyebrow she didn't have in Act I .
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Vi is dead-set on reuniting with Powder in Act 2, but while they're initially over the moon at seeing each other again, it goes all the way sideways in about two minutes. After about five, Vi gets to witness up close and personal how absolutely savage little "Pow-pow" has become.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Vi is initially very dismissive of and rude to Caitlyn due to the latter both being a Piltovan noblewoman and working as an Enforcer, both groups she despises for how they've negatively impacted her life directly and otherwise. Their time working together during the investigation makes Vi warm up to her for a number of positive reasons: Rescuing her when Sevika has her on the ropes, trading away her rifle to get her medicine, not treating her like less than a person just because she's from Zaun, proving she genuinely wants to help the Undercity and its people, etc.
• Bigot with a Crush: Vi has nothing but contempt for Piltover and its people due to how badly and often they've failed and mistreated the Zaunites, and is extremely hostile to Caitlyn when they first meet. However, Caitlyn's genuine kindness and heroism make Vi warm up to her considerably, possibly even into romantic attraction.
• Big "NO!": When Vander seemingly dies in her arms, Vi just makes this noise of pure anguish into the night sky.
• Big Sister Bully:
  • Vi loves her sister, but when Powder reveals she caused the explosion that got the rest of their family killed, Vi hits her hard enough to draw blood and screams at her that Mylo was right to call her a jinx. Unfortunately, while it doesn't take her long to realize how bad she screwed up, it's enough to completely shatter Powder's image of her. She can also be seen shoving Powder during an argument in the "Enemy" music video.
  • She also treats Mylo more like an underling than a little brother, constantly telling him to shut up and even kicking him down a sewage pipe during an escape. She does genuinely care about him, though.
• Big Sister Instinct:
  • To most people she cares about, but especially her biological sister Powder. She always does whatever she can to ensure that Powder is never in serious danger, which is why she feels as guilty as she does for hitting her and blaming her for Vander, Mylo, and Claggor's deaths. When she gets out of prison, her first priority is to find her.
  • Vi has a protective attitude towards her adoptive brothers, Mylo and Claggor, as much as the former gets on her nerves. She immediately checks that they're okay after Powder blows up Jayce's appartment and defends them (again, along with Powder) when Vander scolds them for their break-in.
  • Even though they were raised by different "fathers", Vi shows a similar protectiveness toward Ekko. She immediately comforts the young boy after he witnesses Benzo's murder.
• Birds of a Feather: With Caitlyn. At first glance they look like a textbook case of Opposites Attract given their contrasting backgrounds, dissimilar temperaments, and surface level opposing differences — even they don't think they'll have anything in common when they first meet. However, as they spend more time together and their relationship grows, it becomes increasingly clear how similar they are: Both are noble, brave, loyal, selfless, protective, and ultimately good-hearted individuals; have suffered different types of isolation (Vi was wrongfully imprisoned as a teen while Caitlyn has been ostracized by her peers and kept in a Gilded Cage to the best of her parents', especially her mother's, ability); highly value trust in their relationships; are highly skilled in their preferred form of combat (boxing in Vi's case, shooting in Caitlyn's); are often unfairly judged by others for their backgrounds (Vi is looked down on by many for being a Zaunite and Caitlyn is thought to be an entitled Rich Bitch); and are whole-heartedly determined to fix what the likes of Silco, Sevika and Piltover's corrupt government have done to Zaun.
• Boxing Battler: She's a skilled boxer, able to take down multiple goons in quick succession (with gauntleted fists). In episode 2, she gets the high score against an arcade boxing robot (and the 10 highest after it), and the music video for Imagine Dragons' "Enemy" (the show's theme) has a few shots of her shadowboxing.
• Boyish Short Hair: She's had short hair throughout her life, visually indicating her tough, tomboyish personality. While she grows it out a bit more as an adult, it's still pretty short.
• Break the Badass: During the "dinner party" scene in episode 9, Jinx presents Vi with a covered serving plate while mentioning that she "paid (Caitlyn) a visit" and "made her a snack", heavily playing up the implication that she's about to reveal Caitlyn's severed head. A horrified Vi spends a good few seconds too scared to open her eyes, but it turns out to just be a cupcake on the platter, albeit one topped with a Hex gem.
• Broken Pedestal: How Powder comes to view Vi after she hits and then seemingly abandons her for getting Vander, Mylo and Claggor killed.
  Powder: (sniffling) She left me... (more angrily) She is not my sister anymore.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: She's a tough, tomboyish brawler who prefers to fight with her fists and can be abrasive, but she also has a much kinder and warmer side that she has no trouble showing her loved ones.
• Character Tics: She has a habit of rolling her right shoulder before or during a fight.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Vi has the kind of reactions, strength and durability that an MMA world champion could only dream of, able to keep up (for a while) with outright superhuman foes while armed with nothing but her bare fists.
• Color Motif: Red. Vi is a tempramental but ultimately noble-hearted young woman who has reddish-pink hair, wore a vest with a dark red hood as a teenager and dons a red jacket as an adult.
• Cool Big Sis: Mostly to Powder, but Vander notes that Claggor, Mylo and even Ekko look up to her in a similar way for a number of reasons — Her fighting prowess, her loving heart, her courage, her protectiveness, etc.
• Cop Hater: Enforcers killed her parents and have pushed her around her whole life even before she was falsely imprisoned and separated from Powder for years, so she understandably holds them in contempt. Caitlyn is the only real exception due to freeing her and helping her search for Powder, even if Vi does enjoy poking fun at her.
• Create Your Own Villain: She turns out to be the primary catalyst for Powder becoming Jinx: Her striking a guilt-stricken Powder and calling her a jinx when she accidentally gets their family killed, then walking away from her in shame, makes Powder believe that Vi abandoned her and drives her into Silco's gang. And then Vi accidentally cements Powder's fall by setting off her Trauma Button when they reunite years later.
• Cute Bruiser: She was a damned good fist-fighter even as a young teen.
• Daddy's Girl: She was apparently the closest to Vander out of all his adopted kids. Her Boxing Battler fighting style is clearly based on Vander's own, and when she's briefly down for the count during her fight with Sevika in "The Monster You Created", she hallucinates him sitting at the bar encouraging her to get back up and keep fighting.
  Vision!Vander: That's my girl.
• Death Faked for You: A guilt-stricken Marcus chooses to secretly arrest and imprison Vi rather than let Silco kill her. He tells Silco she's dead, and he spends the better part of a decade none the wiser.
• Delinquent Hair: She has short hair with a visible undercut as a teenager and young adult, roughly equivalent to tattooing "anti-authority" on her forehead.
• Designated Victim: Somewhat hilariously, Vi gets kidnapped at the end of every single Act. She really needs to learn to watch her six.
• Domestic Abuse: Played for Drama. At the end of episode 3, she hits Powder hard enough to knock her down and make her nose bleed, then grabs her face roughly and blames her for their family's deaths. It's understandable, considering that they had just been killed directly because of Powder's actions, but it's still intensely traumatic for Powder herself, who A) knows it's her fault they're all dead, and B) has never seen Vi this mad before, and certainly not at her.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Ekko and Caitlyn both try to warn Vi that Powder is way too psychologically broken to reconcile with, but Vi will not hear it. Not until the end of episode nine does it finally click for her (and as brutally as possible) that the Powder she knew and loved is gone.
• Dramatic Irony: Vi often criticizes the Enforcers to Caitlyn's face, but any League fans watching know that she becomes an Enforcer herself in the future.
• The Dreaded: Prisoner #516 gained a reputation amongst the guards and inmates of Stillwater Hold alike as someone to avoid crossing at all costs — She regularly beat other inmates, especially Silco's thugs, so badly that it gave the guards nightmares
  Stillwater Records: Despite frequent stays in solitary, the prisoner continues to seek out conflict. This would not normally be a serious issue, but I–and several other guards—have noted decreased morale amongst the ranks... I see her when I close my eyes. I'm not the only one. I saw a flash of Prisoner #227's face beaten to a bloody pulp. That right eye was barely hanging in the socket.
• Eating the Eye Candy: In episode 5, Vi takes a good long look at Caitlyn's chest and butt before telling her outright that "You're hot, Cupcake" and pinning her to a nearby wall.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Vi's a strong and tough girl whose fighting instincts serve her well most of the time, but she finds herself outclassed by Silco's Shimmered-up thugs. This changes when she makes a deal with Jayce and gets herself a pair of Hextech-powered Atlas Gauntlets, increasing her strength and versatility by leaps and bounds. Armed with her new weapons, Vi can easily handle herself against any opponent.
• Establishing Character Moment: The show's first scene — which heavily features Vi as a young child — showcases many of the character traits that define her: She tries to sneak Powder past their dead parents by making her sing a song while covering her eyes but she ends up seeing them anyway, showing that despite her best efforts and good intentions she can still cause Powder serious harm. Vi visibly tries to hold it together but ultimately breaks down crying, confirming that despite her tough personality she's just as emotionally vulnerable as anyone her age. Finally, as Vander carries her and Powder back to Zaun she clenches her fist while Death Glaring at the Enforcers, hinting at how she'll always tend to solve problems with violence.
• Everyone Has Standards: As a teenager, she was always very understanding of Powder's many mistakes, even after she lost the valuable cargo that they stole early in Act 1. However, when she accidentally got both Mylo and Claggor brutally killed with her monkey bomb, Vi lost it and punched her in the face before directly calling her a jinx, to the point that she had to briefly get away from her to avoid hurting her any further. She's regretted this brief lapse in judgement ever since.
• Face of a Thug: Downplayed. By Part 2, the numerous tattoos, body piercings and (admittedly small) facial scars she's picked up during her time in prison make her look like someone you really don't want to mess with — And to be quite blunt, she is — But multiple characters agree that she has a good heart and she proves several times over how deeply and selflessly she cares for her loved ones.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Vi tends to be impulsive and short-tempered, too often charging into the fray without a plan. In Act 1, she leads the kids on a big heist without telling Vander what they're up to, setting the events of the series in motion. In Act 2, Vi picks a fight with Sevika the second she sees her — She almost wins, but the shock of learning what's happened to her sister gets her stabbed and requires Caitlyn to save her. When Vi complains that letting Sevika escape will reveal them to Silco, Caitlyn just bluntly points out that she's the one who exposed herself in the first place. In Act 3, she pushes Caitlyn away and ignores Jayce's warning that she can't take on Silco's entire guard alone, charges into The Last Drop and barely survives fighting Sevika again, resulting in both her and Caitlyn's kidnapping and directly leading to the season's Downer Ending.
  • Rather tragically, Vi is adamant about snapping Powder out of being 'Jinx.' She thinks she's giving her sister unwavering love and support, but all it does is further alienate her. At the end of episode 9, Jinx invokes the That Man Is Dead in no uncertain terms.
• Fearless Fool: Playing into some of her Fatal Flaws, Vi has a tendency to just jump into action and start punching people. She never shows any hesitation about starting a fight, even when she knows she's outmanned and outgunned. On the flip side, Vi is only fearless when it comes to herself — When it comes to other people, especially those she cares about, she can easily be overwhelmed by fear of them coming to harm.
  • It's extremely subtle, but one notable aversion to this is her own sister. Brave and reckless as she might be, after witnessing Jinx set off a cloud of firelight bombs against the Enforcers, Ekko, and Caitlyn, Vi's motivation subtly shifts from wanting to reunite with her sister to confronting Silco and bringing Caitlyn and the stolen Hex gem back to Piltover, to the point that she lets Ekko deal with Jinx on the bridge. It's implied that this uncharacteristic avoidance of her sister from then on may stem from fear of confronting — and thus having to accept — what Powder's become in the years since their separation (and/or her role in it). Further reinforced by the fact that Vi's first move after leaving Caitlyn in Piltover is to track down Sevika for a rematch, rather than looking for Jinx again.
• Fiery Redhead: Vi is a hot-headed, impulsive brawler with darkish, red-pink hair.
• First Rule of the Yard: Vi's Council Archives indicate that she was picking fights from almost the second she arrived at Stillwater Hold, starting by strangling a guard almost to death with her shackles. When she was still a teenager she'd already caused so many fights that the guards had stopped keeping count, and by her early 20s she was well-know by inmates and Enforcers alike to be given the widest of berths.
• Foil: To Caitlyn, almost ridiculously so:
  • Vi is introduced stealing from someone we later find out is Jayce, while Caitlyn is introduced as his friend.
  • Vi is a boxer while Caitlyn's a sharpshooter.
  • Vi's parents died when she was a child, while Caitlyn's still interfere with her life as an adult.
  • Vi usually interacts with her adoptive father Vander as a teen, while Caitlyn mostly interacts with her biological mother.
  • Vi grew up in the slums of Zaun while Caitlyn was born into one of the richest noble families in Piltover.
  • Vi has a younger sister and is looked up to as an authority figure by her family while Caitlyn is an only child who clearly respects and admires Jayce.
  • Vi was imprisoned under false pretenses while Caitlyn chooses to work as an Enforcer.
  • Vi's decision to work together is intensely personal while Caitlyn is mostly driven by professional interest in catching a criminal.
• Flipping the Bird: In Episode 6, while Vi and Caitlyn run from Silco after Vi punches a support beam loose and causes an entire building to collapse, she shoves a random bystander and flips him off when he calls her out on it.
• The Gadfly: To Caitlyn, at several points throughout Acts 2 and 3. She and Caitlyn do genuinely bond quickly despite the latter's Enforcer status — mostly because Caitlyn frees her from her 6-or-7-year-long wrongful imprisonment, tries to help her find her sister, and even saves her life at one point — but that doesn't stop her from messing with Caitlyn's head just because she can.
• Generation Xerox: As of Episode 3, Vi and Powder seem to be turning out exactly like Vander and Silco: The "younger" sibling idolized their "older" sibling until they experienced what they feel was a betrayal and abandonment — which the older sibling deeply regrets — thus ending up on opposite sides of the conflict between Piltover and Zaun. Even better, the older sibling is a physically powerful hand-to-hand fighter while the younger needs to rely more on weapons and pragmatism to come out on top.
• Good Is Not Soft: Vi has little-to-no interest in the rules of engagement — If it'll give her the upper hand, she'll gladly kick her opponent's face into a crate or shatter their jaw with a lunch tray before they see her coming.
• Hallucinations: After being critically wounded by Sevika, Vi hallucinates young Powder at several points as she's bleeding out, still laden with guilt over what she did to her.
• Handwraps of Awesome: Usually seen with her fists taped up. Not a bad idea, considering how quick she is to jump into the fray.
• Heroic Ambidexterity: Vi is consistently portrayed as left-handed in League of Legends. In the show she fights with an orthodox^note Right-hand dominant stance as a teenager and uses both against Sevika in episode 5.
• Hidden Depths: According to supplementary materials, all of Vi's intricately-detailed tattoos are self-inked — That's some impressive artistic skill for someone most would probably just write off as an angry street-brawler.
• I Got Bigger: "Stronger", at least. Vi may have grown a few inches while imprisoned, but you can see how much bigger her muscles have gotten from a mile out.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Suffers a nasty gut wound fighting Sevika, so much so that it almost kills her.
• Informed Flaw: Downplayed. Vi is noted to have poor defense when fighting a couple times in In Act 3, which is framed as a serious weakness. Her defensive technique is actually very good, and we've seen that even as a teenager her guard was always at least on-par with her opponents'. However, due to her aggressive fighting style she does have a tendency to drop said guard for certain attacks^note usually a wide right hook, which can leave her open to retaliation from a more skilled opponent.
• Interclass Friendship: Despite initial difficulties, she — a penniless Zaunite "criminal" — forms a close friendship (and possibly romance) with Caitlyn, the only daughter of one of the richest families in Piltover.
• Ironic Echo: Vi warning Caitlyn about investigating the Undercity alone in Act 2 gets thrown back at her by Jayce in Act 3.
• I Will Find You: The first thing she does after Caitlyn gets her out of prison is head to Zaun to look for Powder.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Vi may have been rash and even selfish in her Piltover robbery, but her reasoning is understandable — The people of Zaun are barely getting by even before having to deal with the constant Police Brutality of corrupt Enforcers while the citizens of Piltover meanwhile are practically living in paradise.
  • While Mylo may have a had point about Powder messing things up on missions, Vi can very easily point out all the trouble he caused them, and not just by openly bragging about it.
  • While she almost immediately regretted slapping Powder and calling her a jinx, her anger is almost completely justified: Her entire family is dead again — her dearly-beloved father died in her freaking arms — and none of it would have happened if Powder had just stayed out of it like she told her to.
  • Vi bluntly tells Caitlyn that the Undercity will chew her up and spit her out. Her statement is very accurate, given that Caitlyn had never even been down there and would've had no idea where to start looking for information; Cait's visible reaction proves she knows Vi's right.
  • While she's mostly doing it to mess with Caitlyn, Vi isn't wrong that she can't just expect everyone to do/give her what she wants (especially in the Undercity) and that she has to use what she has at her disposal to convince them (in this case, her good looks).
  • Vi icily calls Jayce out for ignoring Caitlyn's request to go after Silco, claiming that she'd trusted him to do something. Jayce can't even say anything to defend himself, he just looks away from her in shame.
  • She's completely unsympathetic to Jayce's remorse after he accidentally kills a child during a battle. It's easily one of Vi's harshest moments, but she did warn Jayce beforehand about what it was going to be like down there, and that the kids in the Undercity in or out of Silco's chem labs are likely doomed to short, bleak, violent lives, regularly exposed to the same toxins as Viktor, because nobody in power over in Piltover ever thought or cared about what life is actually like in Zaun. Even before Silco took over, they wouldn't have had many other options in life besides crime or the mines.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. Life has not been kind to Vi, and it shows, but she's rarely outright mean. She loves her sister more than anything, genuinely loved her adoptive family, and clearly becomes attached to Caitlyn quickly.
  Caitlyn: Despite it all, I can tell. You've got a good heart.
• Kick the Morality Pet: When completely overwhelmed by grief, she slaps Powder hard enough to send her sprawling and calls her a jinx after Powder's bomb accidentally kills Mylo, Claggor and Vander.
  Powder: WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!!
  Vi: Because you're a JINX! Do you hear me?! Mylo was right!
• Le Parkour: Vi was already skilled at running across rooftops as a teen, and as an adult she can effortlessly leap across Zaun's architecture. She implies this may be a necessary survival skill in Zaun.
  Caitlyn: (after almost falling off several roofs) You almost got me killed!
  Vi: (completely unfazed) My little sister could do that when she was seven. All us fissure-folk can.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Vi turned out to be a lot like Vander — Both are tall, muscular Boxing Battlers, admired as leaders among their respective groups, fiercely protective of the people they love, and even commit an act against one of their siblings that they never forgive themselves for.
• Little Miss Badass: Even as a child, she was capable of wiping the floor with much larger opponents.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Powder, as she's the only person besides (maybe) Vander who believes in her and consistently treats her right despite her inadequacies and mistakes. Without Vi around, Powder's emotional instability bubbles to the surface almost immediately, and her mental state pretty much crumbles altogether when Vi hits and seemingly abandons her at the end of Act 1.
• Loving a Shadow: Jinx fully embraces being Jinx when she finally realizes that Vi loves who she used to be, not who she currently is, and she decides that Vi as she is can't love "Jinx" unless she goes back to being "Powder", which she never can.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Violet flowers represent love, loyalty and balance^note between heaven and earth in Christian tradition and the earth and sky in Native American tradition, and are used to ward off evil spirits. Love is obviously what drives her to protect Powder, and Vi's burgeoning love for Caitlyn more tragically makes Powder jealous and brings out the worst in her. Vi is unfailingly loyal to her hometown, friends and family. The "balance" bit comes from Vi being a Zaunite who will later work as an Enforcer in Piltover, and Vi is also trying to personally balance her love for both Caitlyn and Jinx. As for protection from evil spirits, Vi used to tell Powder stories about chasing away imaginary monsters to make her feel better, and as of this writing is Jinx's only relative who's managed to survive her "help".
  • The flowers are also used as a popular symbolon for lesbian and bisexual women, tying into Vi's potential preferences.
  • There's only one letter of difference between "violet" and "violent".
• Memento MacGuffin: Vi had a stuffed rabbit that she loved dearly as a child before bullies threw it over a power line. When she retrieves it and gives it to Powder, it clues Vander in that she plans to give herself up to the Enforcers to protect the rest of the group.
• Moment of Weakness: She goes through one at the end of Act 1, with terrible consequences: After watching Mylo, Claggor and Vander all die, Vi completely snaps when Powder shows up bragging about how her bomb finally worked. Overwhelmed by the realization that it was Powder's bomb that killed their family, she hits Powder hard enough to draw blood and screams into her face that she's a "jinx"; while she quickly realizes what she's done and leaves before she can hurt Powder further, this only makes Powder think Vi has cut all ties with her. When Vi sees Silco approaching Powder and tries to run in to protect her, Marcus drugs her unconscious and drags her away before she can. Her actions were only human, but they still cause major trauma for Powder, and it starts her down the path that leads to "Jinx".
• Morality Chain: To Jinx after the time skip. Even though Jinx mostly blames Vi for what she's become, she still hoped that her sister could love her even after seeing how much she'd changed. Unfortunately, when Jinx realizes that Vi as she is can't love her as she is, she stops trying to be anything other than "Jinx."
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Downplayed:
  • While she's certainly an athletic, muscular teen, Vi really doesn't look like she can effectively wield a pair of cast-iron gauntlets — each about the size of her torso — and thrash a horde of thugs about twice her size with them, but boy does she.
  • Vi puts on more muscle as an adult, though still isn't huge, and yet she continues to display nigh-impossible feats of strength, like laying into the walls of her prison cell hard enough to crack the stone with her bare hands.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • She's immediately remorseful when she realizes how much she's hurt Powder by hitting her and blaming her for their family's deaths, staring at her sister's blood on her hand in horror for a few seconds before running off to calm down and avoid hurting her more.
  • When the Firelights attack during their reunion, Vi is openly horrified to see just how vicious her little sister has become while she mows them down, fully aware that Powder would never have become so bloodthirsty if she hadn't left her after the explosion.
• My Greatest Failure: She deeply regrets her grief-induced outburst at Powder and leaving her after the explosion, and even though Marcus had her imprisoned for years and thus made it impossible for her to go back, Vi nonetheless feels that she completely abandoned Powder and is fully at fault for their separation. When Caitlyn gets her out of prison, she immediately goes back to Zaun to look for Powder, and emphatically tells her she won't leave again when she finds her.
• Nervous Tics: She tends to compulsively bounce her leg when she gets nervous.
• The Nicknamer: She's quick to bestow Affectionate Nicknames on people she's fond of: She refers to Caitlyn as "Cupcake", Powder as "Pow-Pow", and Ekko as "Little Man", and jokingly calls Jayce "Pretty Boy" at one point.
• Not Quite the Right Thing:
  • After violently lashing out at Powder and blaming her for the death of their family, Vi leaves to cool off and avoid hurting her further. However, Powder is deeply traumatized by both her own actions and Vi's outburst, and screams desperately for Vi to come back out of fear that her sister is completely abandoning her. Worse still is that Vi leaving results in Silco finding Powder himself and Marcus drugging and arresting Vi, confirming Powder's belief that Vi burned all bridges with her and destroying their relationship.
  • During the confrontation with Jinx at the "dinner party", both Vi and Silco are shouting over each other trying to convince her to either go back to being Powder or remain Jinx. However, Vi's efforts to remind Jinx of her family as Powder backfire horribly, since it unintentionally triggers a complete mental breakdown over the trauma of seeing her biological parents dead, accidentally killing her foster father and brothers, and finally Vi herself leaving her. When Silco grabs her pistol to kill Vi, Jinx reflexively shoots him in a panic, but he assures her she's perfect the way she is before dying. This ultimately makes Jinx decide that Vi can't love who she currently is and she embraces her "Jinx" identity completely.
• Odd Friendship: Caitlyn is everything Vi is supposed to hate, and the two could not possibly be more different in terms of personality or circumstances, but they quickly develop a close bond with a possible romantic bend.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Her full given name is Violet, but she's almost exclusively referred to as "Vi" by everyone who knows her. The only person who ever calls her "Violet" is Powder, and that's only in desperation after Vi hits and yells at her following the explosion in Episode 3.
  • In the Stillwater warden's files from the Council Archives, she's only referred to as "Prisoner #516" or "Pink".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Vi is always quick to reassure Powder whenever she makes a mistake, and never tolerates Mylo calling her a "jinx" (even if Powder herself doesn't always see or hear it). When Powder accidentally kills their adoptive family, Vi is so shattered by her grief that she slaps Powder hard enough to draw blood and says that "Mylo was right" about her.
• Parting-Words Regret:
  • She immediately regretted snapping at Powder that she was a jinx and blaming her for their family's deaths, but was drugged and arrested by Marcus before she could apologize and keep Powder out of Silco's clutches.
  • Powder calling herself "Jinx" when they finally reunite is another painful blow for Vi, and she berates herself for ever calling her that.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: When she notices Lock — one of Silco's henchmen who tried to kill her as a teenager — in Stillwater, she damn near caves his head in with a lunch tray.
• Play-Along Prisoner: During Ekko's interrogation, as she reveals when she hugs him.
  Ekko: How long have you had those (handcuffs) off?
  Vi: How long have you been whining?
  Ekko: *tearfully returns the hug*
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Like most Zaunites, Vi has nothing but contempt for Piltovans — especially Enforcers — for how much they've done wrong by Zaun. When she first meets Caitlyn she's extremely hostile towards her, and unfairly blames all of Piltover's failings on her personally. Their time together sees Vi warm up to Caitlyn considerably, and makes her wonder if maybe Piltovans aren't just "the enemy".
• Post-Victory Collapse: After only just winning her second fight with Sevika, Vi sinks to her knees and roars in triumph through her tears.
• Precision F-Strike: The first season has three — surprising for a TV-14 animated series based off a T-Rated video game — all of which come from Vi:
  • The first in episode 6 while talking to Silco.
    Vi: I'm going to find her and erase whatever fucked-up delusions you put in her head. But first, I'm going to bring your bullshit empire down all around you.
  • When Ekko accuses her of working for Silco, Vi has only "Fuck. You" to say.
  • In response to being told that the Council will not act against Silco:
    Vi: Fuck the Council.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Implied. Aside from Caitlyn finding her punching her wall, Vi isn't shown exercising while in Stillwater Hold, but she's significantly more buff than she was when she went in. Of course, she has been picking fights from pretty much minute one...
• The Protagonist: The first season of Arcane focuses about as much on Vi as it does on Jinx.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Caitlyn recruits Vi out of Stillwater Prison as a potential lead on Silco's criminal organization.
• Red Hot Masculinity: A female version. She's a violent, brawling Tomboy whose appearance incorporates a lot of red.
• Red Is Heroic: After she’s freed from Stillwater, she starts wearing a red jacket she got from beating up a pair of thugs. She may not be perfect, but she's definitely heroic.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Played with in regards to her sister. Before the time skip, she was mostly the Red to Powder's Blue: Her color scheme is reddish, her personality is more aggressive, and she fights with her fists rather than gadgets, but as the older of the two she's also more mature and not quite as reckless.
  • She’s also the red to Caitlyn’s blue, initially treating her with dismissal and and hostility while Caitlyn is polite and patient with her. On top of that, they both wear the right colors and even have the right-colored hair.
• Rugged Scar: She starts with one on the left side of her upper lip, and in adulthood gets another over her left eyebrow.
• Self-Serving Memory: Once they get to the Undercity by Le Parkour, Vi taunts a breathless Caitlyn by saying her sister could do stunts like that when she was seven. However, the first episode clearly shows an 11-ish year old Powder nearly falling to her death before Vi caught her. Then again, Vi could just be trying to put "the Piltie" down.
• Ship Tease: Her interactions with Caitlyn at the brothel are absolutely dripping with subtext: Calling her hot to her face, appreciatively checking her out, pinning her to the wall and asking her outright if she prefers men or women. She even looks genuinely pleased when she notices her smoothly chatting up a brothel "jane", as if glad for the confirmation that she has a chance with her. Jinx becomes very jealous of how close they are, and even calls Caitlyn Vi's "girlfriend" at one point. They share a very tender moment in Caitlyn's room in "Oil and Water", and the way Caitlyn pleads with Vi not to leave after she storms out of the council building, including referring to them as "us," implies that something may have happened between them off-screen.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A same-sex example with Caitlyn; They start off mostly at each other's throats — mostly on Vi's end, due to Caitlyn's nobility and job — but her opinion improves greatly as Caitlyn continues to treat her with patience and kindness. She's clearly moved through her surprise at Caitlyn's heartfelt speech to Ekko about wanting to heal Zaun, and she looks rather touched when Caitlyn sings her praises when they meet with the Council.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: She's very liberal with the curses, as noted under Precision F-Strike.
• Tattooed Crook: After being sent to prison, she gets an elaborate set of tattoos across the back of her torso, arms, and neck, as well as her iconic "VI" tattoo on her left cheek. According to her Council Archives entry, these tattoos are all self-inked.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy to Caitlyn's, and to a lesser extent her sister's, girly girl.
• Tomboyish Name: "Vi" sounds more masculine than "Violet," and she's usually addressed as the former.
• Too Hungry to Be Polite: Eating with her hands, loud slurping, talking with her mouth full — It's hard to find a table manner she doesn't violate while eating next to Caitlyn. She's got the excuse of being fresh out of prison, but the incredibly brief shot of her eating during the "Enemy" music video implies that this is just the norm down in Zaun.
• Trauma Conga Line: For pretty much all of episode 3: She watches Benzo get mauled to death and Vander get kidnapped, then when she and her brothers go to rescue him she walks right into Silco's trap and has to fight through several of his goons, and then her sister causes an explosion that gets Vander, Mylo, and Claggor all killed anyway. It ends with her being sedated and thrown in prison.
• Unkempt Beauty: Vi is younger than her game counterpart and with limited access to conventional grooming, but she's still very good-looking. Downplayed, since she's usually dirty and/or beaten up.
• Vague Age: According to Word of God, she's 14-16 in Act 1 and in her early twenties at the start of Act 2.
• Waif-Fu: Averted. The show puts a lot more emphasis on her muscles than League of Legends normally does, and she prefers to settle things with brutal fisticuffs and the odd knee to the face.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Fitting for her boxer fighting style, Vi tends to approach problems by finding something or someone to hit and then hitting them hard. She's disappointed with the Piltover council's passivity even after she and Caitlyn spell the situation out for them, so she opts to go find Jayce — the only one who sounded interested in action at the meeting — and convinces him to join her in hitting Silco's Shimmer supply directly, arming herself with the Atlas Gauntlets to do so. Even when Jayce decides to stop, Vi sticks with her idea and barges into the Last Drop to handle Silco personally. Unfortunately, this mindset tends to cause more problems for her than it solves in the long run: Even with the Gauntlets, Vi only wins after taking a hard beating from Sevika, allowing Jinx to easily knock her out. Hell, part of the the reason the sisters' relationship fell apart in the first place is because Vi lashed out at Powder after learning she set off the bomb that killed their surrogate family and walked away out of fear that she'd keep hitting her.
• Would Hurt a Child: Downplayed. After Jayce accidentally kills a young boy in the Shimmer factory, Vi coldly states that he knew what he was getting into and wants to keep pressing the offense against Jayce's wishes, seeming not to care whether anyone else gets caught in the crossfire. That said, she's clearly saddened by the boy's death and warns Jayce that there will only be more deaths if they do nothing.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Vi takes to referring to Caitlyn as "Cupcake" pretty quick — Initially it's to mess with her, but it quickly becomes affectionate. That said, if Caitlyn is ever in serious danger, she switches back to using her name.
• Youthful Freckles: Vi has a few across her nose and cheeks.

Jinx

Powder/Jinx

"It's Jinx now! "Powder" fell down a well!"

^{Click here to see her as Powder}

Voiced by: Ella Purnell, Mia Sinclair Jenness (young)

Portrayed by: Kit Meyering, Aubree Bouche, Raquel Cosmic (Arcane: Enter the Undercity)

"Nothing ever stays dead."

The future Loose Cannon, the youngest of a group of Zaunite street kids who desperately wants to be useful to her family, especially her big sister. By Act 2 she's become Silco's most dangerous enforcer, and she grows increasingly more destructive and unstable as she sinks deeper into her "Jinx" persona over the season.

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See her page for more information.

Silco

Silco

"We'll show them. We will show them all."

Voiced by: Jason Spisak

Portrayed by: Nick Molari (Arcane: Enter the Undercity)

"You see, power — real power — doesn't come to those who were born strongest or fastest or smartest. No. It comes to those who will do anything to achieve it."

A severely scarred Zaunite crime boss with a grudge against Vander. He functions as the Arc Villain of season 1.

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• Abusive Parents: It's never indicated in any way, shape or form that he ever even considered raising a hand against Jinx, but he's definitely emotionally manipulative towards her — Isolating her from others, lying to her to drive her & Vi further apart, and generally just trying to foster a dependency on him in her, to say nothing of how he openly uses his approval to keep her in line. He may be sincere in his love for Jinx, but that doesn't make it healthy.
• Act of True Love: Jayce agrees that the Council will acknowledge Zaun as an independent nation so long as Silco permanently halts the production of Shimmer, returns the stolen Hex Gem and — most importantly — surrenders Jinx to answer for her crimes. He assures her with his dying breath that he would never have done it, even at the cost of his life's dream.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: He shows no reaction to the toxic mine air he uses to strongarm the disgruntled chembarons back into line, only donning a breather mask briefly to taunt Finn. It's implied that he suffered much worse in said mines than them in his youth.
• Admiring the Abomination: His first office features a glass wall looking out into the river, giving him uninterrupted views of the huge aquatic beasts living there, and he admits in conversation with Deckard that he thinks they're beautiful. He also has a habit of staring almost fondly at vials of Shimmer when he holds them.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The show makes no attempt to sugarcoat the fact that he's a merciless crime lord, but he also gets plenty of opportunities to show off his careful, calculating nature and his genuine fatherly love for Jinx. He uses his last words to assure Jinx that he loves her and is proud of her^note "I never would have given you to them. Not for anything. Don't cry. You're perfect.", which is made all the more poignant by the fact that he's dying from gunshot wounds she inflicted. This makes him the only person to immediately and unconditionally absolve her of her mistakes as soon as she makes them — Mylo berated her for her screw-ups constantly, and even Vi lashed out at her when she accidentally killed the rest of their family.
• Ambition Is Evil: As Vander laments, Silco once had the respect of the entire Undercity, but it still wasn't enough for him. In an interesting twist, his ambition isn't self-serving, he's just convinced that his is the only way to win Zaun the independence it deserves. The events of the season prove him right.
• Animal Motifs: Predatory fish. He openly admits how fond he is of the giant aquatic predators lurking in the waters between Piltover and Zaun, similar to the way he plots against them unseen. He also has a fairly strong association with water from that time Vander tried to drown him. It carries over into Jinx's rocket launcher Fishbones — the hextech weapon she develops to further his goals — which she paints to look like a skeletal shark.
• Anti-Villain: Of the Well-Intentioned Extremist variety. Every heinous thing he does is meant to secure Zaun's independence and avenge all the wrongs Piltover has committed against them. His methods obviously do little but worsen Zaun's criminal element and undermine the solidarity Vander was attempting to foster, but he never wavers from his vision until he's caught in the rather sympathetic dilemma of having to choose between an independent Zaun and his daughter, Jinx.
• Arch-Enemy: To Vi. Vi hates Silco more than anyone else alive for what he did to her family, especially the way he's groomed Powder into Jinx over the years. It's not quite as personal on his end, but he still clearly recognizes the threat Vi poses to his relationship with Jinx.
  • He was also this to Vander before and during Act 1, having sworn revenge after Vander's betrayal and attempted drowning.
• Arc Villain: Of the first season. His goals not only threaten the razor-thin ceasefire between Topside and Zaun, but he also plays a key part in separating Powder and Vi. He dies in the finale before he can evolve into a series-wide Big Bad, but his actions cement Jinx's personality into the psychotic anarchist she is now.
• Badass Longcoat: Sometimes dons a high-collared black-and-red coat to look more intimidating.
• Bad Boss: Downplayed. Silco is not a kind man, and he's quick to berate and/or threaten his underlings for incompetence, but he's also often willing to give them a second chance or put them to use in some other capacity — Even the ones who openly attempt to overthrow him, something a real-world crime lord would never allow.
  Silco: Everyone makes mistakes, right? What’s important is that we don’t repeat them.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In a sense. All of the major heroes are alive by the end of the first season, but have ended their character arcs in miserable failure. Silco dies, but in the process ensures Powder's turn to Jinx is complete, with her going on to successfully carry out his will.
• Bad Liar: He assures Renni that "(they) all mourn" her son's death as she's crying over his body. No one buys it even before he storms out with an order for someone to clean up the "mess".
• Bad People Abuse Animals: He allows Singed to lock his cat in a cage with a rat during "feeding time" to test out the latest batch of Shimmer. They spike the rat's water, watch it writhe and shriek in agony as it mutates, and flinch only at the impact against the glass when the cat is literally torn apart.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: In Act 1 Silco believes that Vander has gone soft, cutting deals with Sheriff Grayson and "hiding behind" his attachment to his adopted sons and daughters rather than continue fighting. When he becomes Zaun's de facto leader following Vander's death, he ends up in pretty much the exact same position: Based out of the Last Drop, uses his ties to the Sheriff to keep the situation between Zaun and Piltover relatively stable, derided by his various allies for not coming down on Topside as hard as they'd like, an extremely close relationship with his adopted daughter that threatens to plunge the two cities into war. His monologue at Vander's statue in episode 9 makes it clear that he's noticed, and he admits that he finally understands why Vander did what he did.
• Benevolent Boss: To Jinx. He's well aware of how big a liability she is, and he lashes out at her once for the chaos she causes, but he also genuinely adores her and never holds her mistakes against her. It only fosters resentment in the other chem-barons, to whom he's just a straight-up Mean Boss at best.
• Berserk Button: Vi becomes his in acts 2 and 3, as she threatens his bond with Jinx just by existing. The only times we ever see Silco devolve into slavering, unbridled rage is when Vi starts getting further into Powder/Jinx's head than him.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He's undeniably the most dangerous crime lord in the Undercity, but is weighed down by his attachment to Jinx. His favoritism alienates Sevika, who only sides with him during the chembarons' attempted coup because ringleader Finn is a "worm"; Jayce only gives in to his demands for independence because he knows his Hextech will massacre even the Zaunites hopped up on Shimmer, which Silco ultimately isn't even able to follow through on since it would require sacrificing his beloved Jinx; and Jinx herself proves impossible for him to control, upstaging him as the main threat through her unrestrained rampages before finally going rogue, taking him hostage, and accidentally killing him in the first season's finale.
• Broken Pedestal: To the chembarons, and to a lesser extent Sevika. As Finn spells out in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech, they threw in with Silco because they thought he was a visionary, only to watch him apparently lose sight of his goals. Sevika ultimately stands by Silco, but she warns him that it was only because Finn was a "worm" and that her loyalty may indeed waver if and when a better offer comes along.
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to Vander's Abel, who wants his "brother" dealt with for stonewalling his plan to start a revolution against Piltover... And for trying to drown him that one time.
• Canon Foreigner: Silco didn't exist in League of Legends canon before Arcane, though he has since been retroactively inserted into the game as a champion unit in Teamfight Tactics. Rioters did consider making him a fully playable champion, but ultimately decided against it, though his characterization would go on to greatly inspire that of Renata Glasc.
• The Chains of Commanding: In yet another parallel with Vander, Silco's rise to power involves him grappling with the responsibility that it entails. Running an empire requires a lot of his attention, and he has to deal with both Jinx's unpredictability and the dubious loyalty from his inner circle on top of it. His ideal of a free and independent Zaun clashes with the profit-minded Chem-barons, and he finally stumbles when the path to his dream requires sacrificing his daughter.
• Character Development: In the first and second episodes Silco is a cruel, bitter wretch who despises his brother Vander and seeks to usurp his position as leader of Zaun. When he gets his wish following the Time Skip, the immense responsibility that comes with the position forces him to become much more thoughtful and meticulous. Furthermore, his relationship with Jinx eventually makes him more sympathetic and even forgiving, without ever taking the edge off his villainy. Essentially, he grows from a Big Bad Wannabe into a Noble Demon.
• Commonality Connection: When Powder tackle-hugs him and says that Vi is no longer her sister now that she's abandoned her, it reminds him of his own betrayal by Vander years ago. He decides then to spare Powder, returns the hug and takes her under his wing and into his gang.
• The Corruptor: Granted, Powder wasn't exactly all there in the head in the first place after her Dark and Troubled Past, and Silco did genuinely care about her and tried his best to keep her safe and under control, but he still plays a major role in twisting her into his enforcer Jinx and encouraging her to "let Powder die".
• Creepy Souvenir: His knife, which he got by pulling it off Vander and turning it on him when he tried to drown him when they were younger. Also doubles as a Tragic Keepsake, as it serves as a constant reminder of their "brotherhood" falling apart.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He grew up in a time when Piltover actively and brutally persecuted the Undercity before Vander made peace. Through dialogue and flashbacks, the audience learns that he was forced to live in a mine with many other Zaunites, where the air was so toxic it often killed the weakest among them, and this was implied to not even be the worst torture they suffered. It's also highly likely that Silco helped to liberate these mines, which earned him the respect of everyone in the Lanes. However, his and Vander's friendship eventually fell apart, culminating in Vander near-successfully attempting to drown Silco, who barely escaped with his life and was reduced to an outcast.
• Death by Irony: Not until he grows to genuinely love Jinx does he realize why Vander did everything he did. He was prepared to abandon his lifelong dream of an independent Zaun altogether to protect her... Only to die at Jinx's own hand when she accidentally shoots him during a mental breakdown.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: He dies in Jinx's arms after she riddles him with bullets.
• The Don: Of Zaun after the Time Skip. He has multiple legal fronts to cover for him, but he's still recognized as the top Chem-baron of the Underground.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: His good eye is almost always half-shut to show his indifference to any life besides his and Jinx's.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Delivers a rather heart-wrenching one to Jinx, who fatally shot him in the heat of the moment.
  Silco: I never would have given you to them. Not for anything. Don’t cry. You’re perfect.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Considers Vander a traitor for abandoning their once-shared dream of a united, independent Zaun and for trying to drown him at one point.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's a brutal crime lord who exploits and terrorizes everyone around him, but he proves throughout the series that he genuinely loves and cares for Jinx even with all the trouble she causes him, up to and including shooting him to death.
  • He evidently still considered Vander his brother even after the latter betrayed him. He allowed a statue of Vander to be built in his honor after he dies, and at one point pours some liquor from a flask into its fountain as he admits he finally understands the burden of running a city while raising a daughter.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He professes how much he values the concept of loyalty during a tense meeting with a group of treacherous Chem-barons, appalled at the idea that they're turning on him after everything he did to raise them to their current, luxurious positions.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Has a deep and rather chilling voice.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: In addition to said depth, his voice also has a certain gravely quality to it, likely due to all the chemicals in Zaun's air and water.
• Evil Virtues: Loyalty. Quite frankly, he spends most of the first season harping on about his being betrayed and demanding it from his underlings rather than showing it himself, but during the finale he finally puts his money where his mouth is by refusing to sacrifice his daughter for his goals.
• The Extremist Was Right: At the end of the day, he's right about how badly Piltover oppresses the Zaunites and his ruthless methods are what finally convince the Council to agree to his demand for Zaun's sovereignty.
• Eye Scream: Has to regularly inject his damaged left eye with Shimmer after said eye was wounded when Vander tried to drown him. What's more, pollutants in the river infected the wound and caused his present-day scars and eye discoloration. In acts 2 and 3 he usually has Jinx apply it rather than do it himself.
• Face Death with Dignity: He uses his last few seconds alive to tell Jinx he doesn't blame her for shooting him and to affirm her love for her.
• Fatal Flaw: His love for Jinx is both his (arguably) greatest virtue and the source of most of his problems. When Silco takes control of the Undercity from Vander, the world is pretty much his oyster. He then finds young Powder and, instead of getting rid of her as he'd planned, sympathizes with her situation and takes her in as his own. She grows up into the entirely capable "Jinx", but her various traumas make her completely unstable and impossible to control, causing numerous setbacks to Silco's efforts. He fully realizes this, but his love for and faith in her always makes him side with her when someone complains. In the end, when Silco is offered everything he's ever wanted on a platter, he's unable to accept it if it means having to sacrifice Jinx. He ends up dying trying to protect his daughter from Vi, who's causing Jinx's mental breakdown, and Jinx accidently shoots him in a frenzy. Even then, Silco refuses to blame her for it.
  Silco: Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?
  • He's also got a serious problem with projection. Silco may truly love Jinx and do his best to help with her issues, but he's also fundamentally incapable of truly understanding her because of his inability to not project his own baggage with Vander onto her relationship with Vi. This as much as anything leads directly to his death, as he assumed that since he had no trouble killing Vander, Jinx would be willing to let Vi die the same way.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: A rather subdued example. Silco typically wears symmetrical, Piltovan-looking outfits, so his "Zaunite" asymmetry comes from his scars and infected eye.
• Faux Affably Evil: He knows how to turn on the charm when he needs something from someone, but he's a violent criminal at heart with little empathy for others. Averted with Jinx.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: At the end of the season, Jayce offers him everything he wants in exchange for an end to Shimmer production and surrendering Jinx to face justice for her crimes. Silco refuses to betray his daughter even then.
• Functional Addict: He regularly injects a small dose of Shimmer into his left eye to treat its infection. However, unlike many other users, he doesn't seek it out for recreational use and even seems to dread having to use it at all (likely due to its painful application), given how he usually has Jinx apply it instead.
• Good Parents: To Jinx, surprisingly enough. He took her in when she was completely alone out of genuine sympathy for her betrayal and abandonment. He is shown to be very patient, understanding and caring with her while still knowing the boundaries with spoiling her. The finale confirms that he's willing to sacrifice the easy route to his dreams to protect Jinx from arrest and likely execution.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The left side of his face is covered in black scar tissue from when Vander tried to drown him, as his wounded eye was infected by the toxins in the water.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He's often seen with a fine cigar on hand.
• Heel Realization: Played with. In the final act of season one, he develops great sympathy for Vander, when he's offered everything he's ever wanted from Piltover on the condition that Jinx is given to the Council to be tried and probably executed for her crimes. Just like Vander, he refuses the opportunity for the sake of his daughter, but while Vander chose to stop fighting for Vi and Powder's sake, Silco chooses war and violence for Jinx's.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his genuinely monstrous nature, he is still capable of compassion and empathy, sparing Powder's life and taking her in after learning she was also betrayed and abandoned by an elder sibling she had trusted. At present, he shows genuine care for her and understands how her childhood trauma still affects her.
• High Collar of Doom: Wears his coat with the collar turned up.
• Hypocrite:
  • At one point we see him advise Jinx to "let Powder die" and not let her history with Vi influence her. That's downright hilarious coming from a guy whose entire motivation is avenging the wrongs committed against either him personally or Zaun as a whole.
  • He hates Piltover and its people for how they make the Zaunites' lives worse, yet he profits off "his people's" suffering by selling Shimmer as a rec drug, which has reduced many of them to shambling wrecks.
  • Despite fancying himself a revolutionary railing against Piltover's unfair privilege that comes at Zaun's expense, Silco's criminal empire creates an even more exploitative upper class amongst the Zaunites in the form of the Chem Barons, who live privileged lives at the common Zaunite's expense. If anything life in Zaun under Silco only becomes more oppressive and violent.
  • He offers disingenuous comfort to Renni over her son's death by saying that he "sacrificed for the cause". She immediately calls him on the fact that he's entirely unwilling to sacrifice anything himself, which is later proven true when he refuses to accept Piltover's offer for independence, however much it might improve the lives of Zaunites, if it means giving up his own adopted daughter.
  • Silco himself acknowledges that despite thinking Vander's love for his children had made him weak and that he was a fool for giving up his dreams for them, he finds himself willing to give up everything he's ever wanted if he would have to sacrifice his daughter to get it.
• Icy Blue Eyes: His natural eye color, though one of them was turned orange-and-black due to an infection.
• Jerkass: To pretty much everyone who isn't Jinx.
• Kick the Dog: After playing a children's game with Marcus' daughter — a threat that would go over her head but Marcus would get right away — Silco makes sure to knock down the tower they built before leaving. Even more than that, holding that vial of Shimmer out to the addicts and then yanking it away when they reach for it was completely uncalled for.
• Kubrick Stare: Apparently his favorite way of looking at people. His red-and-black left eye further adds to the intimidation factor.
• Lack of Empathy: When Sevika drags herself into his office with her arm mangled and leaking Shimmer, his only response is to chastise her for making a mess of his office. However, he's not completely devoid of empathy, as his warm and affectionate interactions with Jinx and his reaction to her near-fatal injury show.
• Lean and Mean: In contrast to the beefy, well-meaning Vander, Silco's thin build indicates his more cruel and cunning nature.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Becomes Jinx's after she loses touch with Vi. In nearly every scene they share Silco assures Jinx that she's strong and that he trusts and loves her, both because he knows it's what she wants to hear and because he means it.
• Makeup Is Evil: After the Time Skip he starts wearing concealer over his scar and draws on an eyebrow, likely to keep up with his "Industrialist" persona.
• Manipulative Bastard: He knows exactly how to play into people's desires or emotions to get them to do what he wants.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: A sophisticated chembaron who's always impeccably dressed and holds court in a well-furnished solar, usually complete with fine alcohol and/or cigar.
• Motive Decay: Downplayed. He does still use Shimmer primarily to create and train Chemtanks even after the time skip, but he also began selling it as a recreational drug to line his pockets, with terrible consequences for Zaun's populace.
• Nerves of Steel: Averted. Despite his usually coming across as cool-headed and in control, he's noticeably shaking during the Chem-barons' attempted coup before Sevika decides to stay loyal to him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A variant — His goals of improving Zaun and giving it sovereignty from Piltover were noble, but sparing Powder and enabling her violent tendencies leads her to blow up the Piltover Council just when they voted to agree to his demands.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He doesn't do much in the way of fighting and instead sends his goons, Sevika, and/or Jinx out to enforce his will.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: For all his talk of wanting Zaun free of Piltover for its abuses, he's perfectly fine with flooding his side of the river with drugs, and preying on the desperate for unethical experiments while letting his thugs run amok, especially Jinx, to stay in power. In fact when he finally has a way of getting Zaun's independence he ultimately refuses it, because it would mean giving up his surrogate daughter.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: He does his best to help Jinx with her trauma, but because he himself isn't all that stable and this world has no concept of mental health, his efforts sometimes do more harm than good. He encourages her to cast off her old identity as Powder since that was what made him strong, and tries to keep Vi away from her due to his belief that Vi would betray and hurt her again like Vander did to him. However, her attempts to distance herself from Powder ultimately worsen her psychosis and give her identity issues, and Silco telling her that Vi doesn't truly love her just makes her more confused and unstable when Vi treats her with genuine affection. It culminates in the finale, when he sees she's having a mental breakdown and tries to stop it by shooting Vi, who is unwittingly causing it... Unfortunately, this just causes Jinx to accidently kill him trying to protect her sister, which breaks her entirely.
• Not So Above It All: Despite being a ruthless criminal who outwardly only presents himself as deathly serious, his office desk is strewn with various object, particularly an ashtray and coffee mug, with Jinx's doodles on them. It's a subtle way of showing that for all his ruthlessness and her... Tendency to cause him trouble, Silco's developed a genuine soft spot for his adopted daughter.
• "Not So Different" Remark: He admits to Vander's statue that despite finally having everything he's ever wanted within reach, he also can't make a sacrifice of his daughter, and he finally understands why Vander did what he did.
• Not So Stoic: Immediately after Sevika kills Finn, his eyes are still wide and it's clear that he wasn't sure if she was going to side with or against him. He quickly recovers and returns to his menacing persona.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • He knows exactly how screwed he is when that Vander-looking thing demolishes his bodyguard and makes a noise that sounds like his name at him.
  • He's absolutely gobsmacked when Sevika reveals that Vi is back.
  • He's utterly horrified upon finding Sevika hanging above his table with "LIAR" graffitied all over her, since now Jinx knows that Vi has been alive all these years.
  • He completely panics when he finds Jinx injured by her grenade on the bridge.
• Older Than They Look: Finn derisively refers to him as "old man" more than once, and Vander refers to his gang as "kids" he's corrupted. While Silco doesn't look that young (barring the scarred side of his face), he also doesn't look as old as Vander or Benzo, who appear to be in their 40s or 50s.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Jason Spisak toes the line between a dignified Tidewater accent and something vaguely British when voicing Silco.
• Papa Wolf: Singed injects Silco with a powerful sedative before operating on Jinx to save her life, knowing from his own experience as a father that Silco wouldn't be able to handle seeing her in so much pain. When Silco comes to and finds Jinx gone and the operating table smeared with blood, he shoves Singed against the wall with a scalpel at his throat, demanding to know what he's done with her. He also refuses to give Jinx up to Piltover even for Zaun's independence.
• Parental Substitute: Ironically, considering his role as Vander's Arch-Enemy, Silco becomes a father figure to Powder after his death. Their bond also serves as a dark contrast to Vander and Vi's.
• Parents as People: He may be a cold-hearted crime boss driven by resentment and ambition — which makes it difficult for him to think like a normal man would — and Jinx is a far cry from a normal teenaged girl, but the series makes it clear that they genuinely love each other as father and daughter. He admits during his conversation with Vander's fountain that he finally understands Vander's actions and what it's like being a parent, and how you do whatever you have to for your kid even when they're a liability.
• Pet the Dog: He shows a surprising amount of empathy with a distraught Powder. He's also very understanding and accepting of her flaws and mistakes in acts 2 and 3.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He captures Vander with the intention of killing him, but not out of hatred or for revenge — He tells Vander outright that his hatred faded over the years, and that even after his betrayal Silco still respected him. He just has to kill him so that he can't keep being an obstacle in Zaun's path to independence.
• Properly Paranoid: In a conversation with an anxious Jinx about weaponizing the gem she stole, she suggests he give it to Singed but he immediately rebuffs the idea, insisting that Jinx is the only one he can trust to do the job. Letting Jinx handle the gem may be a bad idea, but letting Singed handle it would undoubtedly be a worse one.
• Psychological Projection: He does truly love Jinx, but he has a very warped view of her situation. Namely, he sees her falling out with Vi as completely identical to his betrayal by Vander. The situations may be similar, but they are absolutely not the same: [[spoiler:Silco used his near-death experience to cast off his old weakness and rise stronger than ever by hardening his heart against for Vander, and the two ultimately became bitter enemies with only token respect and affection from either side. Therefore, he encourages Jinx to completely sever her ties with Vi, failing to realize that Vi never meant to "betray" Powder at all.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Silco is very fond of the knife he pulled off Vander during their initial deathmatch. He is often shown brandishing it in and out of combat.
• Red Right Hand: Most of the left side of his face is black scarring, and his left eye has a blackened sclera with a distorted, bright orange iris. He got this from Vander's attempt to drown him, whereupon his eye was injured and the river's pollutants and toxins infected it.
• Shadow Archetype: At first glance, Silco differs from Vander in every way: A thin, pale man with a misshapen red eye that dresses in fine-tailored clothing compared to Vander's heavy build and simple style of dress. However, they both believe in doing what's best for Zaun — Silco is simply far more willing to cross moral lines than Vander is. And there's one more trait they share: They're genuinely loving adoptive fathers that encourage their girls to look at the world as they do. Ultimately, Vi and Jinx both prove more important to Vander and Silco, respectively, than their perceived duties to their home.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Usually wears a tailored shirt and vest, and occasionally a stylish pea coat. It sets him apart from his more shabbily-dressed fellow Zaunites and reflects his obsession with lifting his home to the same level of affluence as Piltover.
• Skewed Priorities: Played for Drama. As the Undercity and Piltover descend further into chaos, Silco's primary concern is Jinx's safety and he allots most of his time to looking for her. The Chem-barons take this as a sign he is losing his way and plot to oust him from his position.
• Symbolic Baptism: Silco describes his attempted drowning by Vander as one in hindsight, resulting in the death of his old self and his rebirth. He then gives Jinx her own much gentler baptism while explaining that she needs to let her old "Powder" persona go.
• Symbolic Serene Submersion: Invoked in the opening narration of the third episode. Silco believes the time Vander betrayed and tried to drown him was the most important moment in his life, claiming he was spiritually reborn after reemerging from the rivers. He even regularly baptizes himself in the same place to remind himself of his conviction, and takes Jinx to do the same hoping she would learn to leave the memories of her old life behind.
• Take Me Instead: When Jayce demands that Jinx pay for her crimes before Zaun gets its sovereignty, he lies that Jinx was acting on his behalf, so he should be the one punished.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: A tall, lanky, dark-haired man who has no trouble doling out the quips, sometimes in not-so-appropriate situations. For example, after he calls Jayce's bluff about Zaun's forces not standing a chance against Piltover:
  Silco: Well, well. Not the fresh-faced academy pledge, are you?
• Thin Chin of Sin: In contrast to the square-jawed and fatherly Vander, crime lord Silco has a very narrow jawline.
• This Cannot Be!: He's completely incredulous when the wounded Sevika tells him that Vi is back in Zaun, having written her off as long dead.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Is desperate for Jinx to leave discard her past as "Powder" altogether. When he learns that Vi is still alive, he's willing to head out into the field himself to kill her so they don't meet.
• Two-Faced: Downplayed, but his scarring sometimes invokes this effect, as multiple shots emphasize.
• The Unblinking: His damaged left eye seems incapable of closing. Odds are the lids have rotted away.
• The Unfettered: Believes in doing whatever he has to to create an independent Zaun, no matter how ugly or brutal. He's unpleasantly surprised at himself when he realizes that there finally is a line he won't cross: Sacrificing Jinx.
  Silco: Power, real power, doesn't come to those who were born strongest or fastest or smartest. No, it comes to those who will do anything to achieve it.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Despite the competence and loyalty Sevika shows him, including sacrificing as arm to save his life, Silco treats her terribly in favor of Jinx. This fact isn't lost upon his disgruntled allies, or Sevika herself. It's downplayed, however, since Sevika makes no secret of how much she despises Jinx, which makes Silco push back in his daughter's defense.
  Sevika: She's a problem and we all know it.
  Silco: We? Who's we?
• Villain Has a Point: He may resort to some horrific extremes in trying to start war with Piltover, but he's not wrong about how Piltover needlessly antagonizes and oppresses the people living in Zaun.
• Villainous Breakdown: He completely comes apart at the seams in Episode 6 when Vi manages to escape him, beating the bodies of the mutated Shimmer addicts below Zaun in rage.
• Villainous Parental Instinct: In spades. He tolerates Jinx's mistakes in a way he would never dream of for anyone else, and he's even willing to abandon everything he's spent his whole life working for to keep her safe.
• Villain Respect: He may be disgusted with Vander for apparently betraying his youthful ideals of revolution, not to mention trying to drown him, but he still has a lot of respect for the guy — Especially after Vander beats someone hulked-out on Shimmer and nearly manages to choke him to death after being stabbed. It gets to the point where he allows a statue to be built in Vander's honor after he takes over, and sits there during the season finale to commiserate over The Chains of Commanding and family.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Evidently this in Piltover, as Caitlyn is taken aback to learn from Vi that he's anything more than "the industrialist". Averted in Zaun, where everyone knows exactly who he is an what he does.
• Visionary Villain: He dreams of uplifting Zaun and giving it independence from Piltover, and he'll go to (almost) any length to get it.
• Waistcoat of Style: His intricately-designed black-and-purple waistcoat sets him apart from the much more roughly-dressed Zaunite masses and helps convey his ambition for the Undercity.
• We Can Rule Together: He extensively tries to convince Vander to join him after his capture, rationalizing they now have the strength to topple Piltover. However, after Powder blows up his HQ, he angrily orders Deckard to kill Vander.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: Diabolical Mastermind Silco can hold his own with a dagger, but mostly leaves the fighting to his minions more often than not because, aside from his hideous facial scarring, he's not particularly imposing. As such, his minions include the two most dangerous women in the Undercity —Mad Bomber Jinx and The Brute Sevika—, as well as other muscular grunts. Later, he starts enhancing his enforcers with Shimmer, an addictive substance that causes physical mutations and gives the user a massive boost to their strength, reflexes, and speed.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He dreams for Zaun to break away from Piltover and achieve independence as a nation, even if it means war to get there. This put him at odds with Vander, who previously tried to murder him to prevent him starting said war.
• We Used to Be Friends: He and Vander called each other brothers when they we younger, but nowadays they both believe the other needs to die for the good of Zaun. Implied to also be the case with Benzo, who clearly recognizes him but calls him an "animal" on sight.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • He has no qualms about ordering his men to kill Vi, Mylo and Claggor, all of whom are teenagers. He was also poised to kill Powder himself before hearing her situation.
  • He waltzes into Marcus' home and makes it clear to him that he'll kill his daughter if he doesn't get rid of Vi.
  • After Renni and Finn's coup fails, he tells Renni that he would've killed her son for it if he were still alive, but he's willing to call them even since Jayce already killed him.
• You Have Failed Me: Subverted. He gravely threatens Deckard on being a loose end for the trouble he caused on the surface, but changes his mind when Deckard reveals valuable information. Silco later persuades him into testing the latest batch of Shimmer on himself so he can be more useful to his needs.

Vander

Vander

"You've got a good heart. Don't ever lose it."

Voiced by: JB Blanc

"When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish. You say run, they run. You say swim, they dive in. You say light a fire, they show up with oil. But whatever happens, it's on you."

A Zaunite bartender who took Vi and Powder in after their parents died.

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• Advertised Extra: Despite being billed as a main character, Vander is killed off in the third episode and makes no physical appearance again. However, the shot during the closing scenes of the first season, specifically in Singed's lab, implies that he will return as Warwick.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Hits Vi with one when she tries to convince him to take the fight to Piltover:
  Vander: What are you willing to lose? Mylo? Claggor? Powder?
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Though he's long since hung up his gauntlets in retirement, Sevika's complaining about his inaction against the Enforcers implies that he didn't become Zaun's unofficial leader by being unwilling or unable to fight.
• Badass Normal: He has no powers or special technology at his disposal, but he's the only character to match the Shimmer-enhanced Deckard with raw strength, the skill of experience and a makeshift pair of knuckledusters.
• The Bartender: Owns and tends The Last Drop, a popular Zaunite bar.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Vander's a decent, reasonable guy who's just trying to keep the peace in the Lanes, but it's often implied that he was much more ferocious as a younger man, and when Vi's life is on the line he fights evenly with an opponent who's pumped full of Shimmer. There was also that time he tried to drown Silco.
  Vander: A bit of advice: Don't threaten the guy who pours the drinks.
• Big Good: Of Vi and Powder's childhood, as their father figure and the unofficial leader of Zaun. Most people in the Lanes defer to his judgement, and part of why Grayson refuses to arrest him is because his presence there keeps some semblance of order between the two cities.
• Body Horror:
  • While Shimmer already does this to Deckard by making the scrawny thug unnaturally muscular, Vander — who's already very tall and broad — becomes so freakishly huge that his skin looks like it can barely hold him together.
  • Episode 9 briefly shows his mangled body halfway transformed into Warwick.
• Boxing Battler: He's an incredibly skilled boxer, which he passed down to Vi.
• Bring It: He makes this gesture at the mutated Deckard in the middle of their fight.
• Cain and Abel: Vander and Silco considered each other brothers in their youth, but in Act 1 Silco decides to kill him after failing to sway him to his cause. Ironically, Vander was the one who tried to kill Silco first to prevent him from pushing the Undercity any further into war with Piltover.
• Canon Character All Along: There's a lot of foreshadowing that he will eventually become Warwick. Episode 9 removes the ambiguity altogether by showing his body hanging from Singed's ceiling, well on his way to becoming The Howler.
• The Chains of Commanding: Following the kids' botched robbery and the Enforcers cracking down on them, more people implore Vander to fight back. Vi is especially vocal about it, so he sits her down and explains exactly what it means to be a leader.
  Vander: Those kids look up to you.
  Vi: Yeah, I know.
  Vander: You know, but you don't know. When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish.
  Vi: I'm not-
  Vander: You say run, they run. You say swim, they dive in. You say light a fire, they show up with oil. But whatever happens, it's on you. Just like it's on me what happens to us down here.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Once Vander crosses the Godzilla Threshold and takes a dose of Shimmer to save Vi, Deckard stands absolutely no chance against him.
• Determinator: Even after getting the crap beaten out of him by the Shimmer-infused Deckard — and having part of a building dropped on his back — he still manages to get back up and fight Deckard almost to a standstill before being stabbed and thrown from a catwalk by Silco. Even at death's door, he has enough in him to down a vial of Shimmer, finish off Deckard and fight off the mind-altering effects of the drug. And all to protect Vi.
• Doomed by Canon: Things were never going to end well for any parental figure of Jinx and Vi's. Made even worse by the heavy-handed foreshadowing that he's become Warwick after years of Singed's torture and experimentation completely broke his mind.
• Easily Forgiven: Despite having previously attempted to horrifically drown and murder Silco, the latter claims that his hatred eventually subsided and that he was willing to forgive Vander on the grounds that he joins him in battle again, even still referring to him as his brother years after his "death".
• Empowered Badass Normal: In a Godzilla Threshold moment, Vander ingests a vial of Shimmer to save Vi from Deckard. Not to mention the reveal that he becomes Warwick in the final episode of the first season, which means he'll only get even stronger in the future.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance after the prologue: He intervenes when Huck is being swindled, when the merchants try to threaten him he points out to them that the entire bar has stopped to watch the confrontation, and he threatens them into paying the full price. It shows how he looks out for everyone in the Undercity, how highly he's respected among them, and that he prefers nonviolence but is still willing to use the threat of it to get things done. More symbolically, when he forces the merchants to honor the deal he cements it by offering a pull on his pipe. The woman chokes on it and calls it vile, but Vander just blithely says she'll learn to like it. It sums up his attitude toward the situation with Piltover pretty well: Swallowing down the everyday unpleasantness of life in Zaun to make sure things don't get worse and making his peace with that.
• Eye Lights Out: Maybe not exactly "eyes", but when he finally succumbs to his wounds in Vi's arms, the Shimmer in his veins goes dark.
• Fatal Flaw: His desire to maintain the status quo. Vander's failed rebellion convinced him that the price of revolution was too high, so he stopped trying to make life better for the Undercity and settled for maintaining a deeply-unfair-to-Zaun "peace". This leads him to oppose any attempt at drastic action in the present, and what causes Silco to finally act directly against him: He may have hated Vander for his betrayal (for a while, at least), but what truly infuriated him was that Vander had just given up.
  Silco: You'd die for the cause, but you won't fight for one!
• Gentle Giant: A huge, intimidating-looking guy who's very high-ranking in the Lanes, but he clearly prefers to keep Zaun peaceful and look after the four kids in his care now — Though he's still liable to openly throw his weight around to do so.
• Godzilla Threshold: Having seen what Shimmer's done to Deckard personally, but with Vi still in danger while he's bleeding to death, he chokes some down to get back in the fight.
• Good Parents: He can be a little stern, but Vander is fiercely protective and proud of his kids and he does his best to steer them down the right path. He even allows himself to be arrested by the Enforcers rather than let Vi sacrifice herself.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Smokes from a gentleman's pipe lit by a simple match. It adds to his humble, fatherly look, and his comment about learning to love the "vile" taste is a surprisingly accurate metaphor for his status as Undercity peacekeeper.
• Heroic Willpower: In sharp contrast to Deckard, he's able to keep enough of a hold on himself after taking a dose of Shimmer to stop himself from hurting Vi, and prioritizes saving her from the exploding cannery over taking down Silco.
• Made of Iron: Even after getting clobbered by Deckard, stabbed in his front and back by Silco, and falling off a bridge into a batch of Shimmer, he manages to stay conscious long enough to get an unbroken vial and down it himself.
• Must Make Amends: The look on his face when he finds young Vi and Powder sobbing over their dead parents makes it clear that he considers himself responsible for their becoming orphans. He abandons his uprising then and chooses to take them to safety instead, and it's implied that he initially adopted them out of guilt.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Even without speaking, it's clear that he blames himself for the death of Vi and Jinx's parents.
• My Greatest Failure: Several.
  • The first time the people of Zaun really fought back against the topsiders, Vander apparently played a leading role. It ended in an absolute bloodbath for the Zaunites, including Vi and Powder's parents. The incident caused him to adopt the two and pursue peace between both cities, and it's why he currently wants them to stay out of trouble.
  • In the past, he brutally strangled and attempted to drown his "brother" Silco over his dream of uniting Piltover and Zaun. When he confronts Silco again years later, he somberly claims that he never forgave himself for that, and that he understands his animosity towards him.
• Not Quite Dead: Episode 9 shows him chained to Singed's ceiling, mostly transformed into Warwick.
• Papa Wolf: Vander will stop at nothing to protect his adopted children, even if it means turning himself over to the Enforcers or using Silco's Shimmer to turn himself into a monster.
• Parental Substitute: He adopts Vi and Powder after their parents are killed in conflict between the Zaunites and Enforcers. He also serves as a father figure to Mylo and Claggor.
• Parents as People: Downplayed, since he cares a great deal for his adopted children and does everything he can to raise them right, but Vander has one major flaw as a parent: He's completely given up hope of life actually improving for his children or his people, and devotes all of his energy to simply making sure things don't get any worse. His failed rebellion made him believe that the price of change is too steep — a belief he now tries to instill in his kids — making him something of a well-intentioned yet tragic Fantasy-Forbidding Father. It honestly makes him pretty similar to Heimerdinger, who for all of his words of caution never offers any actionable solutions on how to improve things.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: Vander tells Silco that he's willing to die at his hands if it means sparing the Lanes going to war, still regretful over trying to kill him years ago.
• Power Fist: His old weapons were a pair of heavy cast-iron gauntlets. It's pretty obvious where Vi got her taste.
• Red Baron: He's known as "the Hound of the Underground" in Zaun.
• Retired Badass: Several characters mention that Vander was a much more brutal and efficient fighter in the past before he mellowed out and turned to bartending. His initial unenhanced fight with the Shimmer-amped Deckard with little more than improvised knuckledusters show his previous credentials, and he holds his own pretty well until Silco takes the opportunity to stab him in the back.
• Rule of Symbolism: His pipe symbolizes his desire for peace. He lights up and offers a pull when offering a nonviolent resolution to the merchants swindling Huck, lights up again before rejecting Sevika's calls for retaliation against Piltover, obliquely threatens to kill Marcus when he messes with his pipe while antagonizing him, and asks for one final smoke before letting the Enforcers arrest him so his kids can walk.
• Spirit Advisor: When Vi is just barely clinging to consciousness during one of her most important fights, she sees and hears Vander reminding her to keep fighting for the people who still need her.
• Take Care of the Kids: His last words to Vi.
  Vander: Take care of Powder. *dies*^note Turns out, he should've been so lucky.
• Taking the Heat: Attempts to do this by offering himself up as "Piltover's pound of flesh" to Marcus and Grayson so that Vi, Powder, Mylo and Claggor will go free. It might've worked if Silco didn't attack them and kidnap him immediately afterwards.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: His first interaction with Benzo shows them trading insults and then laughing it off.
• Would Hurt a Child: After being infused with shimmer, he kills the teenage Deckard (who was also infused with the chemical) to defend Vi.

Ekko (Unmarked Spoilers)

Ekko

^{Click here to see him younger}

Voiced by: Miles Brown (Young), Reed Shannon (Older)

"It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live."

The future Boy Who Shattered Time, a young mechanic who is friends with Vi and her group.

For tropes related to his game counterpart, see here.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • In the established game lore, Ekko's parents are both still alive and love him deeply, while here it's implied he was an orphan before watching his mentor — and possible father figure — Benzo get brutally murdered.
  • In the game, his and Jinx's friendship fizzled out because of her Sanity Slippage — specifically when she started talking to her guns — but here it's because she joined up with Silco and killed at least five of his friends.
• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • The game confirms that Ekko's parents are extremely poor but otherwise stand-up people who raised him into the upstanding guy who looks out for his fellow Zaunites he is. The show doesn't mention Ekko's parents one way or another, implying he may be an orphan like Vi, Powder & co. and framing his behavior as looking out for people who don't have anyone else, like him.
  • The game's Ekko leads a gang called "The Lost Children of Zaun". Here, they're called "The Firelights".
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Ekko has an interaction with Jinx in the game stating he had a crush on Powder when they were younger until she started talking to her guns. The show leaves it vague as to whether he did or does have feelings for Jinx and instead frames them as tragic former childhood friends.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Already a Gadgeteer Genius despite his youth and eager to show off the "moves"^note A series of wild punches and kicks he learned from Vi to Claggor. The way he brags about ripping off Jayce is also kind of adorable in its smugness.
• Affectionate Nickname: Vi and her siblings call him "Little man".
• Age Lift: Ekko is around 16 or 17 in the game, yet the show writers aged him up to around 19 or 20 after the time skip in Act 2 to make him roughly a year older than Jinx.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Firelights, essentially a green firefly. As leader of the Firelights he gets around on a hoverboard that has multiple glowing green lights on it, and his battle with Jinx uses a firelight to represent him both in the present and during the flashback to their childhood game.
  • Owls. Ekko spies on Benzo's pawn shop though a lens hidden in an owl mask on the wall, and his mask as the Firelights' leader resembles a stylized owl. Owls are associated with the passage of time, which fits Ekko's Clock King tendencies and the Time Master abilities he'll eventually develop after building his Z-Drive.
• Arch-Enemy: To Jinx. Unlike Vi, Ekko is adamant Powder is gone and only Jinx cannot be redeemed. The terror his Firelights show her and her sarcastically calling him "the boy savior" all allude to there being a long enmity between the two, though we only see the tail end.
• Badass Normal: In a world full of Hextech weapons, magic and Shimmered-up brutes, Ekko proves to be one of the toughest customers around armed with nothing but his hover board, fighting skills and downright superhuman reflexes. In his short fight with Jinx, he manages to dodge every single bullet she fires at him while he's running toward her and completely owns the battle from the second he gets a hold of her. The only reason it ended in a draw and with both of them injured was because he hesitated. That last punch he was setting up for might very well have killed her.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Ekko is initially deeply suspicious and downright hostile to Caitlyn for her being an Enforcer, who have done little for his home than cause suffering since he was a boy even before Silco started adding the most corrupt of them to his payroll. However, he decides to trust her after she makes a genuine heartfelt plea for his help to heal the Undercity, and doesn't dismiss his concerns or abuse her power to get her way.
  • His burgeoning friendship with Heimerdinger starts when the latter asks about Ekko's broken leg with genuine concern and then helps him back to his hideout. And similar to Caitlyn, Heimerdinger doesn't act haughty or uncaring towards him just because he's a Zaunite.
• Benevolent Boss: Of the Firelights, both the fighters and non-combatants. He clearly takes their safety with the utmost seriousness, and when he returns to their hideout with Heimerdinger at the end of the season they all cheer in celebration. They obviously all deeply appreciate his giving them a place where they can actually live.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ekko is a reasonable and friendly young man... So long as you don't threaten him or his home. If you do, he's probably got at least half a dozen ways to destroy you lined up.
• Big "NO!": When Jinx shoots the Firelight who looks like Vi.
• Big Sister Worship: To Vi, even if he wasn't raised by Vander himself. He's quick to assume Vi trounced the people who attacked her and her siblings, and very proudly shows off the fighting moves she taught him.
• Call-Forward: The first thing Ekko says in the series is "Give me a few seconds" as he fixes a clock, an obvious nod to his future Time Master abilities with the Z-Drive.
• Child Prodigy: Ekko's had a knack for complex and intricate systems since he was a kid.
• Clock King: Befitting his future Time Master abilities, Ekko's plans rely on exploiting the windows of time between his enemies' actions down to the second, carrying a stopwatch that helps him coordinate the Firelights' raids. Exemplified in his duel with Jinx, where he predicts her pattern of attacks based on a game they would play as children, and plans accordingly to defeat her.
• Combat Parkour: Whether on his dropboard or on foot, Ekko focuses on acrobatic agility in combat. His duel with Jinx exemplifies this, as he's only armed with a melee weapon while Jinx has her pistol yet he knows exactly when to duck her shots to reach her and attack.
• Cool Mask: His Firelight mask resembles a sleek, stylized owl skull.
• Fighting Your Friend: To buy Vi and Caitlyn time to escape with the Hex Gem, he hangs back on the bridge to fight Jinx — who he's convinced is Beyond Redemption after years of working for Silco — alone. Once he has her pinned, though, he doesn't quite have it in him to kill her.
• Foil: To Jinx, after the Time Skip. Befitting a pair of former Childhood Friends, the two share many parallels.
  • Design-wise, Ekko is a short-haired black man typically dressed in baggy clothing, whereas Jinx is a long-haired white woman in Stripperific garb. They both have a distinctively Zaunite aesthetic about them, however, and they both wear tank tops.
  • In combat, both liberally utilize modern technology of their own design. However, Ekko is a highly meticulous and innovative Clock King who uses non-lethal weaponry like crystal-forming grenades that immobilize targets and fights acrobatically at melee range alongside his fellow Firelights. Jinx, on the other hand, is a wild and reckless Mad Bomber who works terribly with others (in and out of combat), tends to fight at range from a fixed position, and carries about twice her weight in grenades, bombs, her minigun and her pistol.
  • Both are young and gifted Zaunite inventors, but Ekko uses his talents to fight Silco's hold on the Undercity — even building a settlement safe from his influence — while Jinx serves as one of Silco's deadliest enforcers.
  • Both live in secret hideouts they created themselves, but their respective residence are like night and day. Ekko lives near Zaun's lowest levels in a massive Treehouse of Fun, a bright place filled with life and surrounded by people he loves and who love him. Jinx lives near Piltover on a giant broken-down ventilation fan over a mining chasm, a dreary and dark place with only the dolls of her dead brothers and visits from Silco for company. Their living situations are also symbolic of their upbringings: Ekko was able to thrive in the Undercity with the help of those around him, and as such he used his gifts for a good cause; Nobody saw anything but the worst in Jinx, causing her to squander her gifts and leaving her no friends to her name but Silco.
  • Ekko is initially greatly distrustful of Vi, even accusing her of working for Silco, but they manage to reconcile within minutes. Jinx starts off crying at seeing her again, and they look like they're about to become sisters again, but outside influences ruin the moment and destroy Jinx's trust in Vi.
  • Both are extremely suspicious and hostile to Caitlyn for being a Piltovan Enforcer, but Ekko decides to trust Caitlyn both because Vi vouched for her and because she treats him with kindness and respect; Jinx's unease grows into outright hatred over the season, and she comes to see her as the primary threat to her and Vi's relationship.
  • By the end of the season, Ekko seems in a much brighter place and seemingly finds a new friend and mentor in Heimerdinger. Jinx ends up a broken shell of a woman who has resigned herself to a life of evil after killing her beloved adoptive father Silco.
• Future Badass: Eventually he will create the Z-Drive, a device that can rewind time, and become a champion of the Zaunites, stealing from and fighting anyone who would do Zaun harm.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Works as a mechanic in Benzo's pawn shop and tinkers with what's inside — He's already got an impressive surveillance system hooked up there at the beginning of the series. He also designed the Firelights' hoverboards between Acts 1 and 2, and he briefly talks shop with Heimerdinger about one's design in the finale.
• Harmful to Minors: He witnesses a mutated Deckard kill Benzo, and is clearly traumatized by the brutal sight.
• Hero of Another Story: With Vander dead, Vi in prison, and the Piltovans blind to the situation in the Undercity, Ekko became the primary source of resistance against Silco during the Time Skip. The reactions of Silco's gang to the Firelights' appearance at the docks indicate they are well used to being attacked by Ekko and his crew.
• I Got Bigger: "Little man" isn't quite so short and skinny by Act 2.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Him, a relatively young human, with Heimerdinger, the Yordle. When encountering the now-ousted Heimerdinger following his duel with Jinx, they quickly hit it off discussing the design of Ekko's hoverboard and finding common ground in how the other's city didn't want their help, and Ekko trusts Heimerdinger enough to let him help him back to the Firelights' secret hideout. The shot of them talking shop and/or shooting the breeze during the final scene of the episode is the one bright spot in an otherwise straight-up Downer Ending.
• The Leader: Of the Firelights, and clearly a beloved one given the way they cheer when they hear he's returned safely.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While beating Jinx to a pulp after gaining the upper hand in their duel, he looks down at her bloodied face and remembers that Jinx was once his friend Powder, and stops attacking out of remorse. Unfortunately, his hesitation only gives Jinx the chance to try and blow them both up with a grenade.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Played Straight during his friendly fight with Powder as kids, as he only had a wooden sword and was unable to dodge Powder's paint shots. When he meets her again as an adult, he subverts this with a vengeance.
• Nice Guy: He may have become slightly paranoid during the Time Skip, but he's still a genuinely caring and helpful young man. If you can prove you're not a threat to him, the Firelights or Zaun, he's perfectly happy to strike up a friendship.
• No One Could Survive That!: After Ekko briefly drops his guard after pummeling Jinx, she pulls the pin on a grenade to try blowing them both up. This same explosion that leaves Jinx at death's door with severe burns somehow only leaves Ekko with a broken leg, although he presumably managed to jump off the bridge before the explosion.
• Properly Paranoid: After several years of believing she was dead, he doesn't immediately think he can trust Vi when she turns up alive and brings Caitlyn — an Enforcer — into Zaun, and meets up with Jinx, one of the Firelights' most dangerous enemies.
• The Reveal: He unmasks himself as the leader of the Firelights to Vi in episode 7.
• Sixth Ranger: He isn't one of Vander's kids himself, but he's obviously very close with them. He also helps Caitlyn and Vi in episode 7. Furthermore, he became billed as a main character after the release of Act 3.
• Small Role, Big Impact: His simple tip to Vi about Jayce's apartment sets the entire series in motion.
• Sore Loser: As a kid, he once angrily broke his stopwatch after losing his and Powder's game.
• Super-Reflexes: He's fast enough to dodge bullets fired meters away from him.
• Sword over Head: The second Ekko succeeds in closing the distance between himself and Jinx, he strikes this pose mid-air before near-effortlessly disarming and tackling her to the ground for a serious No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Taking a Third Option: While pre-time skip Ekko was more or less the same character as Powder, post-time skip Ekko seems to embody this trope, and the Firelights as a group literally exist as a third party standing between Zaun and Piltover. Seemingly everyone question asked about Ekko's character must be answered with a third option. Zaun or Piltover? Neither. Shimmer or Hextech? Neither. Nature and (eventually) time manipulation. War or peace? Neither. Blunt force (Vi) or sneaky underhandedness (Silco)? Neither. Hit-and-Run Tactics. Stuck in the past (Vi and Jinx) or obsessed with the future (Jayce and Mel)? Neither. Live in the present. This works symbolically, because an echo is a sound uttered in the past coming back to you now.
• Teen Genius: Downplayed. He's been aged up to be about a year older than Jinx, making him roughly 19 or 20 after the timeskip. He's still the same inventive genius he was in Act 1, though.
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: He challenges Jinx by swinging his stop watch at his side — a gesture the two would use for a particular childhood game — in front of her. Not only does Jinx instantly understand the significance, she gleefully assumes the old firing position she would take while playing the game without so much as another word.
• Took a Level in Badass: Ekko is first shown as a little kid helping Benzo in his shop who tends to avoid fights. Following the Time Skip, he's become the leader of the Firelights and an excellent fighter. This change is highlighted in his showdown with Jinx: The two reenact an old game they used to play where Ekko would run towards Powder while she tries to shoot him before he reaches her. As kids, Powder wins; As teens, Ekko successfully evades all of her shots and tackles her to the ground.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Ekko's a lot more bitter and distrustful of Vi when they meet again in Act 2. In his defense, he's spent years thinking she was dead and now she's walking around alive and well with an Enforcer, of all things. Not to mention between their last meetings, Silco's taken over Zaun and flooded it with Shimmer, Powder's become his Psycho for Hire Jinx, and it's implied that Ekko harbors some guilt over his part in how everything fell apart.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His tip about Jayce triggers to the events of the series and all the misfortune that befalls Vi and Powder.
• Walking Spoiler: Due to becoming the leader of the Firelights after act 1.
• We Used to Be Friends: Ekko was pretty close to Powder when they were younger. Nowadays Ekko calls Jinx a lost cause, and they're initially both out for blood when they face off on the bridge. Ultimately, though, he doesn't have it in him to kill her when he has the chance.
• Would Hit a Girl: He has no qualms about attacking Jinx when their paths cross, and is fully set on killing her when they face each other in episode 7. While he does beat her to a bloody pulp when he gets a hold of her on the bridge, he can't ultimately bring himself to kill her.

Piltover

Jayce

Jayce Talis

"We are the City of Progress, and our future is bright!"

^{Click here to see him as a child}

Voiced by: Kevin Alejandro

"Surely, we, the pioneers of science, can use (magic) for good. We're the champions of discovery. Why fear it when we can master it?"

The future Defender of Tomorrow, an inventor determined to prove that science can give anyone the power of magic.

For tropes related to his game counterpart, see here.

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• 100% Heroism Rating: By Act 2, his achievements with Hextech have made him extremely popular in Piltover. Mel leverages his status as the city's "Golden Boy" to get him a seat on the Council.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: While he's still the most upstanding member of the Council after getting a seat, his issues with going along with their corruption and the stress of dealing with Zaun's growing belligerence make him a lot more sour and callous.
• Action Politician: Jayce is an inventor and nascent politician, but when Vi convinces him to hit Silco's Shimmer manufacturing plant he personally leads the Enforcers with his freshly built hammer, and he handles himself pretty damn well for his first fight.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: There are a few discrepancies between Jayce's lore in the game and show:
  • In the game, Jayce was sponsored by Clan Giopara. In the show, it was Caitlyn's family, the Kirammans.
  • The game says he first met Viktor at a Progress Day party, while in the show it's shortly after his apartment blows up.
  • The game never says anything about him inventing hextech, even implying it was already a part of everyday life in Piltover by the time he made a name for himself. Him and Viktor revolutionizing it is a major plot point in the show.
  • There's also Jayce's in-game mentor, Stanwick Piddidly. In the show he's some kind of historical figure associated with the founding of Piltover, not part of Jayce's life in any meaningful way — The show's Jayce can't even really remember anything about him off the top of his head.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Jayce can still be pretty self-centered, but he's a lot more pleasant and well-meaning here than in the game. He's also pretty idealistic and even naïve at the beginning.
• Bad Mood as an Excuse: He claims he's "had a lot on (his) plate" when he apologizes for accidentally insulting Viktor by calling Zaunites "dangerous". It doesn't work — Viktor stays mad.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Befitting his status as the older half of their Like Brother and Sister relationship, he's understandably worried for Caitlyn's safety after she gets caught in Jinx's explosion on Progress Day. Still, he's much more supportive of her decision to become an Enforcer than her parents, and offers her command of his security force after they convince the Sheriff to fire her.
    • When Marcus brings up that Caitlyn used his name to release an inmate, despite all the trouble he is going through at the time Jayce barely hesitates for a second before covering for her.
  • He explicitly tells Mel that Viktor is like a brother to him, and his deteriorating health drives Jayce to force Heimerdinger off the Council when he refuses to help with a potential cure.
• Birds of a Feather: He and Viktor bond quickly over feeling overlooked despite their intelligence and capability.
• Braving the Blizzard: For unknown reasons, he and his mother were lost in a blizzard when he was a child. When she collapsed from frostbite and/or exhaustion, his screaming for help caught the attention of a mysterious mage who teleported them to safety and sparked his life-long fascination with magic.
• Broken Pedestal: Jayce greatly looked up to and respected his mentor Heimerdinger, especially given his status as a Reasonable Authority Figure among the decadent Councilors. But time and again, Heimerdinger's fear of magic and inability to recognize that humans don't freaking live as long as Yordles gets in the way of Jayce and Viktor's Hextech progress. The final straw for Jayce comes when his mentor orders them to destroy the Hexcore, which at that point looks their last chance to keep Viktor alive. Using his new political clout, Jayce has Heimerdinger voted off the Council and forced into retirement as a Failure Hero. It not only breaks Heimerdinger's heart, but also clearly breaks Jayce's.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As a child, he and his mother nearly died in a snowstorm before a passing mage used magic to warp them to safety. He's been obsessed with the arcane ever since.
• Determinator: Even with the whole world telling him to quit, Jayce will never give up on trying to prove that science can let anyone harness and control magic.
• Disappeared Dad: We never see or hear from Talis Sr. himself, other than a photo Jayce has of the two of them smiling at the camera and holding a hammer together.
• Eating the Eye Candy: To Mel during a fundraiser in episode 4.
• Fatal Flaw: His hot head. We first see it on display when, after agreeing with Heimerdinger to keep his mouth shut about magic during his trial to get off easy, he snaps after about two minutes of the Council denigrating his work and emphatically argues in its favor — He nearly gets himself banished right there before his mother convinces them to downgrade it to expulsion (namely by claiming he's not right in the head). Most of his later mistakes as a Councilor can likewise be traced back to him either deciding on his own or being convinced that he has to take immediate, drastic action.
• Foil: To Viktor.
  • Neither comes from Piltover's elite: Jayce is technically minor nobility whose only claim to being lower-class is that he knows how to work a forge, but he starts the series as a disgraced academic who nearly gets banished from the city while Viktor was born and raised in Zaun but earned a position as Heimerdinger's personal aide. Their roles later reverse again, when Jayce becomes the face of Hextech and the prosperity it brings while Viktor languishes in his shadow.
  • Regarding their views on Hextech: Jayce is a lot more cautious about experimenting with Hextech but much more flexible about its potential applications, while Viktor plays extremely fast-and-loose with experimental safety (to the point that it eventually gets someone killed) but has an equally rigid idea of how the end result should be used. Jayce's work with Hextech stalled at the beginning because his first instinct was to stifle the crystals' power, while Viktor got the idea to finally work by amplifying their energies to stabilize them. At the end of Season One, when Viktor urges Jayce to "destroy it", Jayce initially thinks he means the Mercury Hammer until he specifies that he means the Hexcore — The result of his own unfettered experimentation.
• Genius Bruiser: Besides being an acclaimed scientist and inventor, managing to also get his family again wealth and prestige and getting for himself also a position on the Council of Piltover thanks to his abilities, he also got an impressive muscular physique, best shown during his Shirtless Scene while working at his forge. Despite lacking any real fighting experience, Jayce not only lasts longer than the Enforcers at the raid of Silco's Shimmer plant, but manages to take down multiple Shimmer-empowered goons with his hammer.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Starts the series with one across his right eyebrow and gets two more on his right cheek over the season: The first when a piece of a shattered window nicks him during his and Viktor's experiment in Episode 3, and the other from a Chemtank during the raid on Silco's Shimmer facility in Episode 8.
• Heel Realization: Killing a young boy during the Shimmer factory raid is a huge wake-up call for Jayce. It finally clicks for him how far he's fallen from the idealistic scientist he used to be, and he commits to finding a peaceful resolution with Zaun.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Viktor. Jayce has deeply trusted and cared about him ever since Viktor saved his life and became his partner, explicitly stating that he's like a brother to him. It drives him to run out on Mel when he learns that Viktor is in the hospital, and to force Heimerdinger off the council when he pushes back against Viktor's work with the Hex Core, which might be the only thing that can save his friend anymore.
• Hot-Blooded: His agreement with Heimerdinger to not bring up magic at his trial to get off with a warning goes out the window when the other Councilors question his research, causing him to openly admit he was working with magic and fervently defend his work — He gets himself expelled for it, and only avoids exile by the skin of his teeth. He's also the only Councilor ready to take combative action against Zaun after Silco's villainy comes to light, and agrees to raid one of his Shimmer plants with Vi's help.
• Impoverished Patrician: His mother confirms that their family is technically nobility, but still doesn't have much in the way of influence or power.
• Interrupted Suicide: He was prepared to jump off the ledge of his destroyed lab after suffering a Trauma Conga Line, but Viktor shows up and talks him out of it.
• Light Is Good: Starts wearing a white tailcoat with his family's crest on the shoulders in act 2.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Caitlyn. They've known each other for years and they clearly enjoy each other's company, though they never show any romantic interest in each other. The show even introduces them together, when Caitlyn helps Jayce carry his contraband research materials back from Zaun and curiously asks about his trip, and neither are happy when she's forbidden to see him following his expulsion from the Academy. This relationship continues into the present, where they happily exchange banter and Jayce supports her decision to become an Enforcer even as her parents disapprove.
• Martial Pacifist: Zigzagged and ultimately inverted. He balks at the idea of attacking the Undercity, but ultimately relents when Vi presents a plan to hit only the hardest targets: the Shimmer refineries. Jayce gleefully embraces this plan until he realizes that the refineries are mostly worked by children, and are still much softer targets than he wants anything to do with. He gives in to Silco's demands for independence because he decides it would be horrifyingly easy to wipe Zaun out.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • Just when he's about to step off the ledge of his destroyed lab, Viktor asks, "Am I interrupting?" behind him, startling him out of the attempt. Years later, when Viktor is poised to step off the edge of a drainpipe Jayce asks him the same question, finally returning the favor.
  • A nonverbal version: Silco, thinking he has Jayce completely over a barrel, arrogantly presses his list of demands into Jayce's chest. When Jayce turns the tables on him and demands that Jinx be surrendered to Piltover as the price of concession, he passes the list back to Silco the same way.
• Memento Macguffin: He wears a bracelet with a small blue runestone set into it. He got said stone from the mage who saved him and his mother when they were lost in a snowstorm when he was a boy, an event which resulted in his lifelong dream of harnessing magical power through science.
• Mr. Fanservice: Gets a fairly long Shirtless Scene while working in the forge, showing off his impressive build.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has a major one in episode 8 when he accidentally kills a boy working in Silco's Shimmer plant during the raid, and that's before discovering that most of the workers there are children. It shocks him into realizing what the true cost of war between Piltover and Zaun would be, and convinces him to negotiate with Silco to avoid further casualties.
• Narcissist: Heavily downplayed, but still present. Jayce apparently signs every single page of every single research paper he's ever written. Viktor lampshades how egotistical this is, but it doesn't really affect his day-to-day behavior.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Despite saying he wants his technology to help the Undercity, Jinx's attacks and the Shimmer smuggled from Zaun greatly sours his view of the Zaunites after he becomes a Councilor, enough so that he blockades the border between the cities. When Viktor is detained trying to return to Piltover, Jayce lays into him for not telling him that his acquaintance (Singed) is from the Undercity, and insensitively claims that Zaunites are dangerous and want to destroy Piltover. Viktor has words.
• Pretty Boy: While his Shirtless Scene confirms that he is indeed shredded, he's also much more svelte than his game counterpart. Vi even calls him "pretty boy" at one point as a joke.
• Properly Paranoid: Due to a suspicious lack of progress in the investigation into Jinx, Jayce is extremely wary of Sheriff Marcus. He's also angry with Viktor for going to seek help in the Undercity, describing the people there as "dangerous"; while this greatly offends Viktor, who himself is from Zaun, when you consider that Viktor was talking to Singed...
• Race Lift: Subtle, but Jayce is more olive-skinned here than the game usually depicts him. Additionally, he's voiced by a Hispanic actor and his mother Ximena has a pretty noticeable Latin accent.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When negotiating with Silco, Jayce demands that he hand Jinx over to be tried — and probably executed — for her crimes. Silco lies that her crimes were committed on his orders, so he should be the one punished. Jayce buys it, — and fully agrees with the sentiment — but he realizes that he can't cut a deal with Zaun's leader and then toss him in Stillwater, so he insists on making Jinx a scapegoat either way.
• Sleeping with the Boss: He and Mel, who's both his superior on the Piltover council and primary benefactor, become a couple in episode 5. It's initially mostly business on Mel's end, but she ends up genuinely falling for him.
• Stress Vomit: Seeing what's left of the Enforcers caught in Jinx's firelight minefield makes him vomit over the bridge in horror.
• Technicolor Eyes: Gold ones, sometimes called hazel.
• Thunder Hammer: Even without knowing his future main, Jayce is mentioned to come from a long line of toolmakers, he pounds a Hex Gem with a hammer to prove its stability to Heimerdinger during his and Viktor's presentation, and he finally builds his signature Mercury Hammer in "Oil and Water" and takes it for a very successful field test attacking the Shimmer plant with Vi. Said hammer can deliver Hextech-enhanced strikes and generate energy blasts.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He's willing to negotiate with Silco to avoid war between Zaun and Piltover, but he's clearly disgusted by the man himself and outraged that he's making demands.
• Trade Your Passion for Glory: The main symptom of his Acquired Situational Narcissism. Becoming a Councilor forces him to play along with his colleagues' casual corruption, and the rising tensions with Zaun drive him to break his vow to never weaponize Hextech so they can retaliate against the Undercity's recent transgressions. He and Viktor concur at the end of the season that they've lost sight of their dream.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Played for Drama. Jayce starts the series as a bone-deep idealist, if admittedly slightly vain... But after being abruptly made a Councilor, a combination of stress from frustrations over Piltover's tensions with Zaun, being persuaded to play ball with the corrupt Council, Viktor's health deteriorating and Heimerdinger's stubborn refusal to aid in saving his life due of his fear of magic deeply embitters Jayce as a person, almost into the Jerkass he is in-game.
• Trauma Conga Line: When Vi's crew accidentally blow up his apartment during their break-in, his life's research is confiscated and marked for disposal, he gets expelled from the Science Academy for trying to use magic, his own mother tells him to give up on everything he's worked for and dreamed of, the Kirammans cut him off financially and forbid Caitlyn from speaking to him, and Caitlyn herself makes him realize that he can't just walk away from it all and move on with his life. Maybe it's not really surprising he almost jumps to his death.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Jayce lacks the same front-line experience as Vi or Jinx, but he easily makes up for it with his invention's raw firepower and versatility at both close-quarter and ranged combat. The Mercury Hammer proves to be a devastating weapon in its first field test, so much so that it frightens Jayce into considering destroying it.
• Unstoppable Rage: Deconstructed. Having never been in a fight before, and thus overwhelmed by the adrenaline and endorphins, Jayce murders a child in blind fury during his and Vi's rampage through Silco's Shimmer factory, which immediately snaps him out of his rage and sends him reeling in horror.
• Working-Class Hero: His Progress Day speech tries to portray himself as one, despite the fact that he comes from factory-owning minor nobility. In fairness, he actually does know how to work in a forge and personally crafts his inventions, but he's still rather painfully blind to just how privileged even an Impoverished Patrician like him is compared to the genuine underclass.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Jayce is so consumed by the rush of combat that he accidentally kills a young boy during his and Vi's rampage through Silco's Shimmer factories. He's so horrified by this that he decides to parley with Silco rather than continue fighting alongside Vi.

Viktor

Viktor

"When you're going to change the world, don't ask for permission."

^{Click here to see him as a child}

Voiced by: Harry Lloyd

"Nobody's ever believed in me. A poor cripple from the Undercity. I was an outsider the moment I stepped foot in Piltover. I didn't have the benefits of a patron or a name. I simply believed in myself."

The future Machine Herald, a research assistant who decides to throw his lot in with Jayce and Hextech. Growing up in Zaun's toxic atmosphere has left him chronically ill.

For tropes related to his game counterpart, see here.

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• Adaptational Superpower Change: Game lore says Viktor simply replaced his organic parts with mechanical ones over time, eventually going as far as to operate on his own brain. His change in the show is more magical, brought on by a combination of the hex core, Shimmer, and runes cut into his skin mutating parts of him into some kind of organically-moving metal. The core itself has also morphed into something still metallic but increasingly organic-looking. Aside from allowing him to walk without his cane for a while, we haven't really seen how it will benefit him overall.
• Bad Liar: When Mel catches them breaking into Heimerdinger's lab after hours, Viktor's first instinct is apparently to lie that he was trying to sneak Jayce into his bedroom for the night. When Heimerdinger notices and questions him about what the Hexcore's done to him, he visibly stammers and has trouble looking the yordle in the eye while playing dumb.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: According to the writers, Viktor was never actually admitted to the Academy — His parents cobbled together enough money to buy him a uniform and he just showed up pretending to be a student. The bluff worked so well that Professor Heimerdinger had already hired him as his assistant before he was caught.
• Birds of a Feather: He quickly forms a connection with Jayce over feeling overlooked despite their qualifications. On a darker note, his intellect and illness as a child left him isolated from his peers and lonely, which Singed cites as a reason they get along.
• Blood from the Mouth: By Act II, Viktor's health has deteriorated to the point that he's started coughing up blood. Noticing said blood reacting with a Hex Gem makes him realize that hextech can affect biological matter, leading to the development of his present-day Hex Core.
• Body Horror: The parts of his body the Hex Core augments change to metal that looks like strands of flayed purple muscle, and apparently fuse his leg brace into his leg. On a slightly-lesser note (maybe), that back brace he wears is pretty obviously bolted into his spine.
• Call-Forward: One of the new inventions Jayce and Viktor show off to Heimerdinger in episode 4 is the "Hex Claw", a mechanical arm Viktor controls with his own arm movements capable of projecting a focused cutting laser. LoL players immediately recognized the third arm Viktor will attach to his shoulder as the Machine Herald to project his Death Ray.
• Childish Tooth Gap: Has one in the flashback where he meets Singed, to show how he hasn't yet been exposed to the dark side of science.
• Delicate and Sickly: His health has never been great, and he's apparently always needed a cane to get around. At present he Looks Like Cesare, has increasingly frequent and severe coughing fits, and by approximately his early thirties he's explicitly dying. The doctors in Piltover blame it on toxic fumes he may have been exposed to as a child in Zaun.
• Didn't Think This Through: He evidently fails to consider how easily the construction equipment he and Jayce design^note a gauntlet that can let anyone crush a boulder in one hand and a huge MotionCaptureMecha arm that fires a laser that can cut through metal could be weaponized, which is exactly what Vi and Jayce end up doing.
• Disabled Snarker: He may not be able to walk unaided, but Viktor can still snark with the best of them. Heck, it's how the show introduces him:
  Jayce: (noticing an Enforcer pick something up) Hey, hey! Be careful with that, please.
  Viktor: I believe someone should have said that earlier.
• Endearingly Dorky: Sky is attracted to him for his dedication to making the world better through science.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Viktor suffers a violent coughing fit in Act II while experimenting with Hextech late one night and ends up passing out. When he finally returns to the lab, he notices first that the Gemstone he was working with has changed color, and then that his blood on the table has apparently moved toward it. This helps Viktor realize that it can affect organic matter.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • As a child, he runs out of Singed's lab in horror after finding him forcing Rio alive by pumping her full of chemicals, even though she's obviously in agony. However, after he runs out of options trying to save himself as an adult, he returns to Singed and claims that he finally understands his reasons for it.
  • Viktor has no problem with the general public having access to Hextech, but only for constructive purposes. He immediately and vehemently refuses when Mel suggests weaponizing it, and scolds Jayce for even considering it after she leaves.
• Fatal Flaw: Viktor's tendency to leap without looking is both his greatest flaw and asset. He has so much leveled against him as "a poor cripple from the Undercity" that he has to keep taking bigger and bigger risks to get ahead, be it breaking into his boss' lab after hours to prove Jayce's theory or conducting lab experiments with little-to-no regard for safety protocols. When he gets his diagnosis, his desperation to find a cure drives this to even greater heights and his experiments (somehow) become increasingly dangerous. Had he taken the most basic precautions and locked the door before his second round with the Hex Core, Sky might still be alive^note She did have a key of her own..
• Friendless Background: He didn't have any friends his own age when he was a boy, since his physical disabilities and poor health made it impossible for him to play with them. He was able to form an Intergenerational Friendship of sorts with Singed, but it didn't end well.
• Geek Physique: Viktor is highly intelligent and has always been on the gangly side. By the end of season 1 he's pretty much Nothing but Skin and Bones.
• Genius Cripple: Walks with a cane and is clearly very bright. He built a working mechanical boat when he was a child, and as an adult he provides the break Jayce needs to successfully develop Hextech.
• Incurable Cough of Death: By act II, Viktor is much more obviously sick and weak than he was at the beginning, only able to walk with the support of a crutch and leg brace and prone to coughing fits that sometimes result in Blood from the Mouth. He eventually learns that he doesn't have much longer to live after collapsing during an experiment one night.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He formed one with the much older Singed as a child, when he was intrigued by Singed's creation Rio and wanted to help save her. It fell apart when he found Singed forcing Rio alive even though she was clearly suffering, which caused him to run away in terror.
• Looks Like Cesare: Has dark-ish brown hair, visible bags under his eyes and is very thin and pale due to his illness.
• Mundane Luxury: After presumably never being able to walk unaided, just getting to run at top speed under his own power is a massive deal to him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Viktor's attempt to enhance himself further with the Hex core disintegrates Sky when she tries to intervene. He's horrified when this happens, and further heartbroken when he learns from her notes how much she admired and even loved him. He very nearly commits suicide over it when he isn't able to destroy the Hex Core, but is stopped at the last second by Jayce.
• Nice Guy: He's a generally pleasant guy who just wants to make life better for the masses.
• Oblivious to Love: We the audience might notice Sky's crush on him, but Viktor himself is way too buried in his work to do so.
• Painful Transformation: With or without Shimmer, Hex Core augmentation doesn't look or sound all that pleasant to undergo.
• Sanity Slippage: As his disease worsens and Jayce is led further astray by the Council's politics, Viktor becomes worryingly obsessed with Hextech, specifically over how it might be able to prolong life after learning how little time he has left. After finally losing his patience with Heimerdinger's resistance to progress, including that which could save him and others, he goes back to Singed and acknowledges that he finally understands his resorting to the extremes he did to sustain life.
• Self-Made Man: By his own admission, Viktor never had a patron or family fortune to fall back on but nonetheless managed to work his way up to being Heimerdinger's assistant.
• Skyward Scream: Roars in triumph when the hex core's augmentation lets him run unaided for the first time in his life.
• Stage Fright: He immediately declines when Jayce suggests he join him on stage during his Progress Day speech, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of speaking in front of a crowd.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Successfully talks Jayce out of his suicide attempt by offering to help him finish his work. It comes back around after he accidentally kills Sky and contemplates suicide after scattering her ashes. Cue Jayce popping up with the same "Am I interrupting?" Viktor asked him.
• Technicolor Eyes: Gold ones, similar to Jayce.
• Throwing Off the Disability: Subverted. His hextech augmentation lets him run without his cane for a bit, but we still see him using it to get around normally — Much like how many disabled people in Real Life are able to go without mobility devices for a time.
• Tranquil Fury: He lets it go pretty quickly, but when Jayce calls Zaunites dangerous Viktor shoots him a serious Death Glare, pointedly reminds him that he is originally from the Undercity and swats his hand away when he tries to help him stand.
• Unexplained Accent: Much like in League of Legends, Viktor is so far the only character we've met from Zaun or elsewhere who speaks with his particular Russian/German?/Eastern European-ish accent^note Harry Lloyd says he based it on a Czech character he played once, and we still don't really know why.
• Younger Than They Look: He and Jayce are about the same age, but you could easily mistake him for older due to his gaunt features. He looks increasingly more haggard as his disease gets worse.
• Your Days Are Numbered: It quickly becomes apparent that he's not long for this world after he collapses in his lab one night. He and Jayce end up resorting to increasingly drastic measures to find a cure.

Caitlyn

Caitlyn Kiramman

"Despite it all, I can tell, you've got a good heart."

^{Click here to see her as a teenager}

Voiced by: Katie Leung, Molly Harris (young)

"This city needs healing. More than I ever realized."

The future Sheriff Of Piltover, Jayce's childhood friend and the daughter of one of the councilors. She becomes an enforcer in Act 2 and starts her own investigation into Zaun's criminal underworld.

For tropes related to her game counterpart, see here.

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• Actually Pretty Funny:
  Caitlyn: Stop calling me ("Cupcake"). My name's Caitlyn.
  Vi: But you're so sweet! Like a cupcake...
  Caitlyn: *chuckle* Shut up.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Though Vi initially calls her "Cupcake" to mock her and Caitlyn tells her to stop, the nickname quickly becomes affectionate as they spend more time together.
  • Jayce is so far the only character we've seen call her "Cait", a testament to their sibling-style closeness.
• Alliterative Name: Caitlyn Kiramman. Downplayed, as the letters are different, but phonetically they sound the same.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Caitlyn's upbringing is especially privileged among the Enforcers and she tends to engage in Cowboy Cop behavior. As a result, her superiors accuse her of entitlement while her peers mock her for nepotism. Even back in Act 1 she describes herself as a "misfit" in conversation with Jayce, implying she may have been unpopular growing up.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Befitting the future Sheriff, Caitlyn can very capably investigate a crime scene even as a rookie: Gathering various pieces of evidence, visualizing Jinx's rampage, even finding one of Silco's abandoned goons.
• Badass Adorable: A flashback shows her dominating a shooting tournament long before she grew into the ass-kicking heartthrob she is now.
• Bad "Bad Acting": When she goes undercover as "Matilda" at the brothel at Vi's suggestion she's a stilted, tongue-tied mess. Note that this is only the case when she's speaking to a male patron, as Vi sees her chatting much more comfortably with a woman a few minutes later.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Caitlyn's always wanted to see what life is really like, outside of her parents' (especially her mother's) control. Once she meets Vi and ventures into the Undercity, she gets a brutal wake-up call about how desperate the situation really is down there, and is disgusted by how much harm Piltover and its government have directly and indirectly caused.
• Big Damn Heroes: When Sevika (almost literally) has her boot on Vi's throat, Caitlyn shoots off the Shimmer ampules that power her mechanical arm.
• Birds of a Feather: With Vi. At first glance they look like a textbook case of Opposites Attract given their contrasting backgrounds, dissimilar temperaments, and surface level opposing differences — even they don't think they'll have anything in common when they first meet. However, as they spend more time together and their relationship grows, it becomes increasingly clear how similar they are: Both are noble, brave, loyal, selfless, protective, and ultimately good-hearted individuals; have suffered different types of isolation (Vi was wrongfully imprisoned as a teen while Caitlyn has been ostracized by her peers and kept in a Gilded Cage to the best of her parents', especially her mother's, ability); highly value trust in their relationships; are highly skilled in their preferred form of combat (boxing in Vi's case, shooting in Caitlyn's); are often unfairly judged by others for their backgrounds (Vi is looked down on by many for being a Zaunite and Caitlyn is thought to be an entitled Rich Bitch); and are whole-heartedly determined to fix what the likes of Silco, Sevika and Piltover's corrupt government have done to Zaun.
• Blue Blood: Comes from the noble Kiramman family, bound to the traditions exemplified by her mother and the city council. Fittingly, she even has blue hair and eyes.
• Blue Is Heroic: She wears a blue vest as a teen and the standard blue Enforcer uniform as an adult, has both blue hair and eyes, and she proves to be one of the most morally upright and heroic characters in the show.
• British Teeth: Downplayed, since Caitlyn only has a slight gap in her front teeth, but it's worth mentioning that the British-accented aristocrat has a dental imperfection while American-accented fellow (if impoverished) nobleman Jayce — or even Vi, who both grew up in the slums and spent at least six years starting borderline prison riots — does not.
• By-the-Book Cop: Downplayed. Caitlyn maybe doesn't always follow the rules to the letter, but she also firmly believes that the law should apply equally to everyone, and is horrified by the kind of corruption and brutality many Enforcers engage in.
• Call-Forward: The Kirammans' family portrait shows a young Caitlyn posing with a small hunting rifle, and she's "an excellent shot" in adulthood.
• Childish Tooth Gap: A variant — Caitlyn isn't a Womanchild by any stretch, but she starts out almost totally clueless about the Undercity's troubles or the Council and Enforcers' corruption and, as mentioned above, has a noticeable gap in her teeth.
• Cold Sniper: Downplayed. Caitlyn is a rather stern-face professional but also a genuinely warm-hearted Nice Girl.
• Color Motifs: Blue. She's always worn at least one piece of blue clothing, has Innocent Blue Eyes and (much darker) blue hair, she comes from one of the oldest, richest families in Piltover, and she proves to be one of the series' the most rational and moral characters.
• Covert Pervert: Caitlyn's about as prim-and-proper as you'd expect from a rich Piltie, but she can't help but look back into one of the brothel's rooms with a quizzically tilted head.
• Cowboy Cop: Caitlyn isn't outright rebellious, but she does tend to do things her own way, like investigating a smuggling operation gone wrong when she should be guarding her family's tent at the fair, or when she arranges for Vi's release from prison despite technically having been fired.
• Cuddle Bug: Downplayed. Cait's normally a model professional, but she's quick to dole out the reassuring hugs to people she cares about and/or thinks need it.
• Curtains Match the Window: They may not be the same shade, but her eyes and hair are both blue.
• Damsel in Distress: Spends a lot of time being shot at, kidnapped or knocked out in acts 2 and 3, partly due to losing her rifle in episode 6 and being injured in episode 7.
• Damsel out of Distress: At the end of act 3 she gets kidnapped by Jinx and tied to a wheelchair so Jinx can force Vi to choose between them. Caitlyn cuts herself loose with a piece of broken glass shortly after and points Jinx's own gatling gun at her.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • While she's obviously out of her element while walking through Babette's brothel, she can't help but pause at the sight of something involving bubbles happening behind a curtain off-screen. She recomposes herself, starts to follow Vi again... And ducks back for one last look.
  • Vi later notices her talking rather flirtatiously with a female brothel patron, all but ignoring her previous mission.
• Entitled Bitch: Downplayed, but as Vi points out in the brothel, Caitlyn — whether due to her status as a noblewoman or her job as an Enforcer — expects people to listen to her and give her what she wants, despite her uptight and slightly disgusted attitude toward the Undercity and its people.
• Fair Cop: Vi calls her hot to her face in Episode 5, and the brothel patron she's with while undercover definitely seems to be enjoying herself.
• Friendly Sniper: Caitlyn is a bona fide Nice Girl and "an excellent shot."
• Glass Cannon: Plot Armor aside, Caitlyn's a crack shot with a rifle but proves easy to knock out in close combat.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: As both a child and adult, Caitlyn wears purple garb that emphasizes her composure, elegance, and noble lineage. While the purple outfit she wears while investigating the Undercity with Vi was stolen from a thug, it still fits the motif.
• Great Detective: She doesn't quite have the real-world experience necessary to truly qualify yet, but she's obviously got the makings of one: She does a silent but impressive Sherlock Scan of an attacked airship, and without ever even having set foot in the Undercity she's able to pretty accurately put together the criminal conspiracy running it. But what else would you expect from the future Sheriff?
• Head-Turning Beauty: As Vi puts it, "You're hot, Cupcake." It takes very little effort on her part to draw attention from anyone even slightly interested in women, which proves extremely useful when they need to investigate a brothel.
• I Got Bigger: She went through quite the growth spurt between acts 1 and 2. And while not as obvious as either Vi or Ekko, she also has more muscular arms.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Caitlyn's been an excellent shot since at least her teens, as the shooting contest flashback shows, and at present she's good enough to take out only the Shimmer ampoules that power Sevika's artificial left arm.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Caitlyn's blue eyes mark her as both a Nice Girl and a Sheltered Aristocrat.
• Innocently Insensitive: After coincidentally winding up in Vi's childhood home and learning about Powder, she's completely dumbfounded to learn that Vi didn't know if her sister was alive or dead even through her parents, both of which are sore spots for Vi given that said parents were killed by Enforcers and she was wrongfully imprisoned, which effectively forced her to abandon Powder. Earlier, upon seeing what Silco's done to The Last Drop, she makes an offhand comment about how it's obviously shady, not knowing its history or Vi's connection to it.
• Interclass Friendship: Caitlyn comes from an obviously well-off family while Jayce is an Impoverished Patrician. After he becomes one of Piltover's most beloved scientists, she then develops this relationship with Vi, a Zaunite "criminal".
• Irony: Despite canonically being easy to take out with a hard punch, Caitlyn has proven to be Made of Iron in the face of Jinx's explosions here.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Jayce, who's several years older than her but clearly cares about her well-being, particularly when she's injured by Jinx's bomb on Progress Day. They're obviously very close, but they never show any attraction to each other.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse:
  • While badly injured, Vi briefly hallucinates that Caitlyn is her mother, who also had dark blue hair. It makes all her flirting with Caitlyn rather... Freudian.
  • She also has some pretty important things in common with Vi's adopted father Vander: Both want to help Zaun and establish peace between the two cities, though Caitlyn is much more proactive in her approach, and her comment about Vi having "a good heart" clearly brought Vander to Vi's mind, as he told her the exact same thing at least once. They even both have noticeable British accents.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Implied: She doesn't have any brothers or sisters, flashbacks only ever show her with her parents or Jayce, and her fellow Enforcers shun her due to the misconception that she's just some bored rich brat.
• Made of Iron: Jinx's explosion kills the six Enforcers with Caitlyn, but she gets away with only minor scratches after being engulfed by the fireball. Even that cut on her forehead is gone by the next episode. In episode 7 this happens again, when another explosion kills everyone around her but she gets away with just a leg injury. In episode 9, Jinx knocks her out by smashing her face in with her minigun, but even that minor bleeding is gone by the next scene. Impressive, considering her in-game fragility.
• Ms. Fanservice: She wears a rather revealing nightgown during a visit from Jayce after the time skip. She later gets a dedicated Shower Scene, and a character close-up video on Twitter lingers on her chest for several seconds.
• Multi-Ranged Master: Implied. She obviously prefers long guns, but we also see her fiddling with a pistol while recovering in her room after the explosion on Progress Day, and during the "dinner party" scene in episode 9 she seems relatively comfortable handling Jinx's minigun.
• Named by the Adaptation: She was only known as "Sheriff Caitlyn" before the show gave her the surname "Kiramman".
• Nice Girl: Caitlyn never shows any class bias and genuinely wants to help people, which is part of why she became an Enforcer. She's friends with the similarly easygoing Jayce, and Vi quickly takes a liking to her despite her general dislike of both Pilties and Enforcers.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While she had no way of knowing Powder would react poorly, her running in completely upended the reunion between Jinx and Vi, "confirming" Sevika's claim that Vi was only looking for Jinx to lead the Enforcers to her.
• Nightmare Face: Jinx hallucinates Caitlyn shooting these at her whenever she sees her with Vi, and it's part of what makes Jinx hate her so much despite Caitlyn herself being pretty much innocent in the matter.
• Non-Idle Rich: Caitlyn is the only child of the rich and powerful Kiramman family and could've gotten her pick of any safe, easy job she wanted (something her parents, especially her mother, would've preferred). Instead, Caitlyn chose to do something productive and became an Enforcer. This trait only increases when she learns how corrupt the Enforcers and Council are, and how dangerous Zaun's leaders have made life for the general populace there.
• Odd Friendship: She and Vi become very close very quickly, despite their stark differences. This eventually grows into more.
• Precision F-Strike: In Act 3, after seeing the terrible conditions in Zaun for herself and having the realization that her fellow Enforcers were and are corrupt shoved in her face, a furious Caitlyn snaps one of these at her mother (a Councilor) when trying to get herself and Vi an audience with the Council.
  Mrs. Kiramman: You're a Councilor's daughter! Your actions reflect on the entire body.
  Caitlyn: My actions?! You know what else reflects on the Council? Its citizens living on the streets! Being poisoned! Having to choose between a kingpin who wants to exploit them and a government that doesn't give a shit!
• Race Lift: Caitlyn is biracial in this series — Her mother is "white" and her father is (probably) Ionian^note Runeterra's answer to East Asia, and she's depicted with slightly more Oriental features here than her fully Caucasian-looking game counterpart^note Her parents did feature in her pre-Arcane backstory, but their ethnicity was never specified. This is likely due to how her primary English voice actor is ethnically Chinese, though this aspect has since found its way back into League with her 2021 art and sustainability update released around the same window as Arcane^note Though there's some inconsistency about which assets were updated how — Her new splash art (edited from her previous one) doesn't reflect the change, but her in-game model (made from scratch) does.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Vi's red. Caitlyn is polite and patient, is a (downplayed) Cold Sniper, wears a blue Enforcer uniform and even has dark blue hair. Vi meanwhile is extremely short-tempered, fights with her fists, wears a red jacket, and has reddish-pink hair as an adult.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Despite coming from one of Piltover's ruling families, she never abuses her position and clearly cares about being a productive member of society, becoming an Enforcer out of her genuine desire to help others. She even turns down a cushy desk job Jayce offers her because it wouldn't let her do any meaningful work.
  Caitlyn: (Head of security)'s a ceremonial position — I'd live behind a desk.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: While Caitlyn is one of maybe two genuinely ethical Enforcers out there, she has no problem bending or even breaking the rules to find the truth or help those in need.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Much to her own displeasure. She wants to see the world for what it really is and becomes an Enforcer to do so, but her parents don't approve and consistently hinder her efforts by pulling strings with the Sheriff. While she does have her strengths as an investigator and sharpshooter, she's completely out of her element during her adventure with Vi and shocked by every grisly element of the Zaunites' quality of life.
• Sherlock Scan: An unusually silent one. Her investigating the crime scene doesn't have a Watson to talk at, but the show still clearly conveys Caitlyn's deductions as she makes them.
• Ship Tease: Her interactions with Vi in Zaun practically skip over subtext into actual text: Her obvious fluster when Vi pins her to the wall, the way she cradles Vi's face while trying to settle her down after giving her a hit of diluted Shimmer to heal her stab wound, begging the Firelights to spare Vi when they get captured (though she quickly realizes it wasn't necessary), etc. Jinx becomes very jealous of how close she and Vi are, and even calls Caitlyn Vi's "girlfriend" at one point. They share a very tender moment in Caitlyn's room in "Oil and Water", during which Caitlyn strokes Vi's cheek in an effort to console her, and the way Caitlyn pleads with Vi not to leave after she storms out of the council building — including referring to them as "us" — implies that something may have happened between them off-screen.
• Shower of Angst: After the Council meeting in Act 3. She runs Vi's farewell back in her head, refusing to just "go back to that big, shiny house of (hers) and forget about (Vi)".
• Signature Headgear: When her mother discusses Jayce's upcoming trial with her family in episode 2, we can see Caitlyn fiddling with her signature League top hat, so she's had it since she was at least a teen.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A same-sex example. While Caitlyn can barely stand Vi at the beginning, largely because of the latter's belligerence toward her, she comes to understand her better as they spend more time together and realizes she's mostly just traumatized by the Piltovan government's mistreating her for most of her life. She assures Vi that in spite of earlier actions, she can still tell she has a good heart — And Vi goes on to demonstrate her bravery, nobility, protectiveness, and loyalty. She even starts her speech asking for the Council's help by praising Vi's heroism in helping her despite everything Piltover has done her wrong.
• Skilled, but Naive: As an Enforcer, Caitlyn accurately claims that she is "an excellent shot" and she does a solid job of gathering evidence at a crime scene and turning it into a working theory, but she doesn't know much about the criminal underworld or how justice really works in Zaun.
• Slasher Smile: Shoots Jinx a nasty one when she sees Vi helping her limp to safety. At least, that's what Jinx hallucinates.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Caitlyn barely features in Act I, but her presence there ripples out profoundly: Her accidentally dropping a piece of equipment in the hallway outside Jayce's apartment alerts Vi and co. and gives them enough time to get away without a confrontation. After Jayce is expelled and cut off from the Kirammans, he half-jokes that he can join his family's business but Caitlyn immediately shoots the idea down, which makes him realize that he can't simply give up on his dream and move on. He nearly jumps to his death from his destroyed lab that night, but Viktor stops him, they figure out how to stabilize the crystals together and become partners.
• Spoiled Sweet: Caitlyn grew up in one of the richest families in Piltover and never wanted for anything, to the point that she legitimately had to ask if her parents had paid off her sharpshooting competitor to let her win. All that and she chooses to work as a lowly Enforcer, something her parents greatly disapprove of, though mostly because of the danger. Throughout the show, we see time and again that what Caitlyn most wants is to help people, and unlike other characters with the same motivation, she never has to compromise her morals to do so.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's considered very pretty and is noticeably taller than Vi^note Who's 5'9" according to concept art — She's nearly as tall as Jayce, so she must be at least 6 feet^note An interesting inversion from her game counterpart, who's official height is 5'7". Word of God is that Caitlyn was intended to be taller than Vi, but the animators cheated their heights in a few shots to fit them both in frame.
• String Theory: The floor of her room is covered in a map of the Zaun criminal underworld she's puzzling together, with red strings indicating connections. Before talking to Vi, all she's missing is the centerpiece that ties it all together: Silco. Vi is impressed by how closely she had it all figured out without ever even having been to the Undercity.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She's clearly her mother's daughter, but she has her father's hair and some of his eye shape.
• Take Me Instead: Begs this of Ekko after hearing the Firelights drag Vi off. She's kind of annoyed by Vi's flippancy when it turns out to have been unnecessary.
  Caitlyn: (Death Glaring at Ekko) What have you done with Vi? (deflates) Listen, let her go. I brought her here, it's me you want.
  Vi: *walks in, totally fine* My hero.
  Caitlyn: You're-? But I thought you — I thought they were hurting you!
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Caitlyn seems to do whatever she can to avoid killing: Her shots at Sevika prove she could have very easily popped her between the eyes at any time, but she purposefully chose to only disable her mechanical arm. She later threatens Jinx with her own minigun but never actually opens fire on her (due in part to Vi's begging), and in the season two teaser she agonizes over the likelihood that she or Jinx will kill the other in a fight.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl to Vi's tomboy. Downplayed, since Caitlyn is just as capable in combat as Vi, but she's got more of a Lady of War vibe going for her. It's even reflected in their choice of weapons.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Downplayed. Caitlyn's relatively cheery as a teen but much more stern-faced and emotionally distant as an adult, likely due to her parents' disapproval of her becoming an Enforcer. However, as much as she wants to see the "real world" she's still firmly an idealist and completely unprepared for how wretched a hive the Undercity really is.
• Too Proud for Lowly Work: Not Caitlyn specifically but she comes from an upper-crust family who disapprove of her decision to become an Enforcer and so use their influence to keep her from actually getting her hands dirty, not that it deters her.
• True Blue Femininity: Downplayed. She's a kind and feminine girl with blue eyes and hair and wears a primarily blue outfit. However, she works as a markswoman and her "outfit" is the same uniform as every other Enforcer's, including the men. Played straighter with the blue vest she wore as a teen.
• Turn in Your Badge: After narrowly surviving Jinx's attack, her parents convince the Sheriff to kick her off the force to keep her safe, much to Caitlyn's displeasure. Though it does jack to actually get her off the case, as before she can be formally dismissed she heads off to Stillwater to spring Vi, and when she's eventually forced to meet with the Sheriff again he dies a few minutes later.
• Unkempt Beauty: Caitlyn's still definitely "hot," as Vi puts it, but she's younger than her game counterpart and bare-faced for most of the story.
• Unknown Rival: Jinx is convinced that Caitlyn has replaced her in Vi's heart and tends to view her as her Arch-Enemy, while Caitlyn just thinks Jinx is a crazy anarchist.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Downplayed: Caitlyn isn't particularly stiff, but she was raised to be a Proper Lady and usually comports herself with the utmost professionalism. Similarly, Vi isn't exactly "wild", but she is often reckless and temperamental. Yet despite these differences (and some early friction), they quickly form a friendship and possible romance.
• Uptown Girl: As heir to the wealthy and politically powerful House Kiramman, it doesn't get more uptown than Caitlyn. Her Implied Love Interest Vi is a penniless woman from the Undercity who Caitlyn recruited out of prison.
• Vague Age: Similar to Vi, she's 14-16 in Act 1 and in her early twenties at the start of Act 2.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Caitlyn joined the Enforcers out of a genuine desire to do good. Thanks to her sheltered upbringing, she doesn't realize how corrupt the Enforcers are, and it takes her a trip to the Undercity with Vi to see the abuses that they — and Piltover in general — have inflicted on the city's underclass.

Mel

Mel Medarda

"I recognize that any worthwhile venture involves risk."

^{Click here to see her as a teenager}

Voiced by: Toks Olagundoye

"We can't change what fate has in store for us, but we don't have to face it alone."

A wealthy and powerful Noxian woman with a seat on the Piltover Council. She's one of the first people to take an interest in Jayce's experiments with magic.

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• Alliterative Name: Mel Medarda is the only character in season 1 to play this trope completely straight.
• The Beautiful Elite: A few of the Councilors qualify, since they're fairly good-looking and have the most money and power out of everyone in Piltover, but Mel is the one we... See the most of.
• Big Brother Worship: She's presumably always admired her older brother Kino's cunning, even using one of his arguments to counter one of her mother's, and is obviously devastated when she learns he's been killed.
• Black Sheep: She thinks her family considers her this due to not living up to their standards. At first it seems like she's not rich enough for them (despite easily being the richest woman in Piltover), but later it's revealed that her family is from Noxus, a warmongering expansionist empire, while Mel preferred to focus more on diplomacy and politics.
• Canon Foreigner: Mel has no presence, or even counterpart, in the original game's champions or lore.
• Creepy Souvenir: Not a souvenir per se, but episode 8 reveals she keeps a painting of the time her mother decapitated a surviving enemy princess in front of her over her bed.
• Cultural Rebel: "Noxian pacifist" is about as much of a contradiction in terms as "vegetarian serpent". Mel seems to have intentionally built her life in Piltover to be the opposite of everything her family stands for. Finally reconnecting with her mother makes her realize valuing diplomacy over battle isn't enough to stop conflict from festering — If Mel truly wants to break from her roots, she must actively strive for peace.
• Cunning Like a Fox: Her flashback shows how much she looked up to her older brother Kino's use of diplomacy to solve his problems without violence, and that she chose to adopt his fox-like qualities.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was born and raised in the deeply warmongering Noxus, and episode 8 shows that she's still traumatized over witnessing her mother execute the princess of a recently-conquered enemy state.
• Establishing Character Moment: In her first scene, she complains about how poor her family thinks she is (despite apparently being the richest person in the city) before choosing a child's puzzle as a birthday gift for someone. She gives it one of her fellow Councilors with the claim that it can only be solved by "the sharpest of minds."
• Fiction 500: Mel comes from the obscenely rich Medarda family. For reference, Mel is said to be the richest woman in all of Piltover(an extremely well-to-do city by any standard), yet she complains that she's still considered the poorest member of her family. Episode 8 reveals that "poor" in this case does not mean monetarily.
• Foreshadowing: Episode 5 reveals that Mel enjoys painting in her spare time. Other than Jayce calling it beautiful her latest work isn't given much note, but viewers familiar with League of Legends and/or Legends of Runeterra will recognize the Immortal Bastion, the capital city of her homeland, Noxus.
• Foxy Vixen: Mel is the most feminine character in Arcane, and she's perfectly happy to use her feminine wiles to get things done, such as distracting Harold the guard when Jayce and Viktor are breaking into Heimerdinger's office.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: The woman is absolutely dripping with gold: Her jewelry, her hair decorations, some of her make-up, the flecks of it on her cheeks possibly meant to invoke Youthful Freckles — Some of it even seems to be implanted into her skin, as even when she's otherwise naked it stays in place.
• Greed: Her introduction establishes her as the wealthiest person in Piltover, and by extension Zaun. Eventually averted — Despite initial appearances her goals have almost nothing to do with personal wealth, and she honestly kind of hates how her family got theirs.
• Head-Turning Beauty: We see how she has this affect on Jayce starting in episode 3, but he's definitely not the only one who's noticed, in-universe or out.
• Hidden Depths: She's an excellent painter, and rather insecure about how she "fell short of the Medarda standards". She even tells Jayce outright that there are many things he doesn't know about her.
• I Choose to Stay: A non-verbal version: When Ambessa comes to her house at the end of episode 9 so they can both return to Noxus, Mel stands her up and leaves the painting of the Immortal Bastion she made earlier — now splashed with large swathes of gold paint — for her to find.
• In Love with the Mark: Mel initially cozies up to Jayce because she sees him and Hextech as a golden goose, but eventually grows fond of his honesty and kindness. She ultimately rejects her mother's suggestion to manipulate him into making Hextech weapons.
• Lap Pillow: When Jayce is sitting next to her and confiding his insecurities regarding his position as councilor and inability to help Viktor's illness to her, he suddenly decides to use her lap as a pillow and holds her hand for comfort. She's a little taken aback, but doesn't protest.
• Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Whereas she's a politician dressed in white and gold who dislikes physical conflict, her mother Ambessa is a warrior queen Covered in Scars who proudly wears Noxian red and grey.
• Manipulative Bitch: Played With. The moment Jayce is given a seat on the Council, she wastes no time in manipulating him socially, professionally, and sexually to get what she wants and broaden her own power and influence. She even displays a certain glee at watching him descend further into political corruption. That being said, she is ultimately benevolent and she truly wants what's best for him, Piltover, and Zaun. Her manipulations are just A) the most efficient way of getting what she and Jayce want, and B) the best way to keep their heads attached to their necks while they get it. She learned long ago that underneath the gold and glitter, Piltover in general demands utter ruthlessness just to survive and often outright villainy to see your goals come to fruition, however righteous said goals may be.
• Morality Chain: She was apparently this to her mother, who claims she sent Mel away because she wouldn't have been able to continue doing what was cruel but necessary to protect her family and country if she had to keep seeing the way Mel would look at her for doing it.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her dresses all feature multiple keyhole cutouts on top of those hip-high slits up both sides, so she always has plenty of skin showing even before we get to watch her and Jayce hook up.
• Mysterious Backer: She's the first member of the Council to take an interest in Jayce's Hextech experiments. We don't really get a straight answer as to why until episode 8.
• Mythology Gag: Fans of Legends of Runeterra will realize that Mel is somehow related to Jae Medarda.
• Old Retainer: It's implied that her assistant Elora followed her into exile from Noxus.
• Sexy Slit Dress: This is apparently the only kind of dress she'll wear — She's seen in no less than five different ones in both the past and present.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Most of season 1 plays her attempts to win Jayce over as extremely shady, but it eventually turns out that she's completely genuine in her efforts to improve Piltover and Zaun. Her manipulative behavior is never intentionally malicious, and her Noxian family even exiled her over her idealism and distaste for warfare. Jayce's dreams and ambitions reminded her of why she originally got into statecraft, and she simply wanted to help make them happen.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Mel is considered "soft" by her family and homeland, but since she was at least a teenager she's shown a keenly intelligent and cunning mind. Her head for politics has seen her rise to the absolute top in Piltover, easily manipulating the other members of the Council. Her influence sees Jayce go from a rogue student facing exile to a member of the Council in less than a decade, and from a member to leading it in less than a year. She rarely needs to raise her voice to accomplish her goals, and even her mother has to recognize the power Hextech has given her on the political stage.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Part of the reason she genuinely falls for Jayce is because he has such a big heart (this time). It becomes clear to her when, after initially assuming he was only interested in sex and then ditched her once he'd gotten what he wanted, he apologizes for it as soon as he can and explains that he only left because his friend Viktor was in the hospital, and then starts pouring said big heart out to her like it's the most natural thing in the world. She's clearly stunned — and very touched — by it all.
• The Social Expert: She is a pivotal voice on the Council and a major deciding vote on many issues. Jayce getting expelled rather than exiled, Hextech being bought before the Council, creating an eighth chair for Jayce — None of this would have happened without her. A flashback in episode 8 shows that she cultivated this aspect of her personality out of admiration for her big brother.
• Socialite: Rich? Glamorous? Frequently throws fundraising parties? Has long-established relationships with the the city's elite? Yep, that's Mel.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Zigzagged. She encourages Jayce to embrace his inner Sleazy Politician when he becomes a councilor, but it does ultimately help him to do well, and she mostly does it to keep him from painting quite so big a target on his back while he's still green.
• Uncertain Doom: The first season ends with Jinx firing a hextech-powered rocket at the Council building. Everyone's survival besides Viktor and Jayce's, including hers, is still up in the air. Further adding to the ambiguity is a prominent shot of the gold on/in her shoulders and back apparently starting to glow just as the rocket is about to hit the window, implying she may have access to some kind of power or technology we haven't yet seen.
• The Unfavorite: Her mother considered her too softhearted for Noxus and sent her to Piltover to be rid of her.
• The Vamp: Inverted. Most of season one makes the audience question her motives due to her cunning and manipulation, especially when it comes to Jayce, but episode 8 finally clarifies her character, first through a flashback that shows her war-related trauma, and later a conversation with her mother where she explicitly states that she sponsored Hextech to protect Piltover.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Certainly aggressively protective, at least — When she finds out her mother has been pressuring Jayce to weaponize hextech, she storms into her apartment, slaps her drink out of her hand and orders her to stay away from him. Ambessa notes with some surprise that Mel must actually care about him.

Heimerdinger

Cecil B. Heimerdinger

Voiced by: Mick Wingert

"No great science should ever put lives in danger."

The Revered Inventor, who serves as both Dean of the Academy and head of Piltover's council.

For tropes related to his game counterpart, see here.

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• Adaptational Deviation: Unlike in the game, Heimerdinger is openly a Yordle, instead of hiding his nature behind a glamour. Though, admittedly, the game has been a bit unclear on this element in recent years.
• All for Nothing: He pushed Jayce to not unveil his latest inventions to the world, saying that it shouldn't be presented to the public until they're sure it can't be abused or weaponized. Jayce follows his advice despite his own misgivings, alienating himself from Heimerdinger, and then Jinx steals it and weaponizes it anyway.
• Authority in Name Only: Despite being officially the head of the Council, his one vote carries the exact same weight as any other member. Combined with his total lack of political acumen, Mel easily has more actual influence on the direction the council goes.
• Big Good: Deconstructed. While he's this for Piltover and ultimately is a good person, his inaction rendered him ineffective in maintaining the peace between Piltover and Zaun. It's not until he takes a trip to Zaun that he realizes the error of his ways.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: He's subjected to this by Jayce without his knowledge. Ironically, this ends up saving his life, as Jayce having him kicked out of the council prevented him from being present in the meeting where the council decides to give Zaun independence, thus saving him from Jinx's Hextech rocket.
• Broken Pedestal: Heimerdinger is deeply respected by many for his many contributions to Piltover, including Jayce and Viktor. Unfortunately, he continues to strain his relationship with them by telling them to take time both with Hextech research and finding a cure for Viktor's illness. Jayce eventually moves to have him removed from the council, a painful act for both of them.
• Cassandra Truth: Heimerdinger urges Jayce and Viktor to practice caution and patience in their development of Hextech, reasoning that the technology needs to go through thorough testing and development to ensure that it does not harm anyone. This rubs Jayce and Viktor the wrong way, as they want their research to help people immediately and can't wait as long as a Yordle to see the outcome of decades of research, but what really pushes them over the edge is when Heimerdinger tells them to destroy the Hexcore. Heimerdinger tries telling them that such magic is dangerous and that they are dealing with forces beyond their comprehension or control, but Jayce and Viktor point out that it might be the only thing that could save Viktor's life. The Council ultimately sides with Jayce, and Heimerdinger is forced into retirement as a result. While Jayce and Viktor had valid points, however, Heimerdinger's fears are ultimately vindicated. Hextech winds up being used to create weapons, leading Jayce to accidentally kill a child and to Jinx firing a Gemstone-powered rocket at the Council. In addition, Viktor's experiments with the Hexcore wind up vaporizing his assistant Sky. Once they realize their mistakes, Vayce and Viktor sadly ponder how far they have deviated from their dream of helping people.
• Does Not Like Magic: Having lived for centuries, he has a very low opinion on magic due to its destructive potential. This seems to be an actual Trauma Button for him, considering how Heimerdinger sometimes inadvertently flashes back to a moment in his past where a mage did something terribly wrong.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance establishes at least three traits of his character. He's first seen by his massive shadow, symbolically showing that his presence looms large over Piltover society despite his small size; his first line in the series is remarking on the idea of imprisonment like he would a scientific conundrum or thought experiment, showing that he has an entirely different view on life and time than mortals; he expresses sympathy for Jayce and assures him if he follows his advice Jayce will only get a slap on the wrist showing his fundamentally kind heart, and finally he warns Jayce that magic is dangerous, establishing that he Does Not Like Magic.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Not a dog but his pet poro clearly is uneasy at Viktor's Hexcore. This is a fitting stance for his pet to take since its owner was about to prove how on edge he was from it.
• The Extremist Was Right: Inverted. Heimerdinger's passivity and over-cautious feelings about Hextech create friction with Jayce and Viktor, and eventually led to Jayce getting him voted off the Council at the end of Act 2. By the end of Act 3, Viktor's experimenting with Hextech in a form he does not understand vaporizes his lab assistant Sky, while Jayce leading a raid on a Shimmer facility with a Hextech-powered hammer ends with him accidentally killing a child - naturally, both come to realize just how dangerous their technology can be after this.
• Fatal Flaw: Due to his Yordle lifespan, he has a hard time relating to the younger races around him, which causes his relationship with Jayce and Viktor to deteriorate and ultimately gets him ousted from the City Council when Jayce argues that his constant "Be patient and everything will work out" attitude has done nothing to help Piltover.
• Friend to All Children: During his trip to Zaun after his forced retirement, he encounters a little girl who gives him some nuts and bolts from the garbage. Heimerdinger uses them to construct a spinning top for the girl to play with.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He has a lot of blonde hair/fur and is the only genuinely good member of the council. He's also innocently unaware of how corrupt things really are within his circle.
• Hypocrite: As sweet and truly kind as he may be, he is not without a series of fatal character flaws of his own, hypocrisy being one of his biggest. As much as he supports Jayce and Victor's efforts, he also curtails them at very nearly every turn on account of his paranoia of magic, pushing for patience and caution without any regard over the fact that they have only a fraction of his own lifespan. When he does put his foot down, he never actually bothers to explain his reasoning other than "I have seen things like this end badly before.", nor does he even offer up any alternative suggestions or even assist them in making Hextech safer. He simply expects everyone to take his word for it, over and over. When a fed-up Jayce (and the rest of the Council) inevitably vote to have him removed, he views this as the ultimate betrayal. However, by the time he meets Ekko and sees just how bad things are in Zaun, he starts realizing that he may have been the one who was betraying everyone else all along, offering moral support but doing nothing to actually help. Unlike most flawed characters though, he actually realizes what his inaction has wrought, and his genuine eagerness to help Ekko and his community may be his way of atoning.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Has blue eyes, and seems to be the most honest of the council. His naivete, however, is also his biggest flaw.
• Innocently Insensitive: He tells Jayce and Viktor that their Hextech technology needs to undergo at least a decade's worth of testing before being unveiled to the public while Viktor likely only has a few years at most left to live and would never have lived to see the day of its unveiling.
• Interclass Friendship: With Ekko, who is the only Zaunite that doesn’t treat him badly despite also being the only Zaunite to recognize him as a (now former) member of the council. They are shown to have become friends in episode 9.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Ekko, being a Long-Lived Yordle compared to the young human. When encountering the injured Ekko during his trip into Zaun after his forced retirement, the two quickly hit it off, discussing the design of Ekko's hoverboard and finding common ground in how the other's city didn't want their help, and Ekko trusts Heimerdinger enough to be helped back to the Firelights' secret hideout by him. During the ending sequence of Episode 9, the two are happily discussing something with each other.
• Irony:
  • His sentiment that magic is dangerous and uncontrollable is pretty rich coming from a Yordle, a race whose uncontrolled use of magic puts every other sentient race to shame. That said, he himself doesn't use magic and instead focuses his efforts purely in the realm of science.
  • Amusingly, despite claiming superiority due to his age and all he has witnessed he is actually one of the younger Yordles, far behind Poppy, Veigar, Kled, and Kennen's millennia-long lifespans. (Although, to be fair, lore events in Arcane have changed from the game, so we can't be sure about other yordles' ages in this story.)
• Long-Lived: Heimerdinger mentions that he's over 300 years old, making him older than his own home, Piltover. To him, a decade of research can pass in a blink of an eye. This also means he's slightly insensitive about this topic around human scientists who naturally have much shorter lifespans.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Justified in that he's a yordle (who are a naturally short species), but between his white bushy mustache and being the oldest member of the Council, he comes across as a little adorable old grandfather figure.
• Must Make Amends: After being forced into retirement by the council, he takes Jayce's criticisms of him neglecting the undercity for centuries to heart and travels to Zaun to see its struggles firsthand.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite being wary of magic and Jayce's attempts at working with it, Heimerdinger is aware of his good intentions and tells him not to bring up magic so he can get off with just a warning at his upcoming trial. When Jayce's work on magic gets exposed, he moves for him to be expelled from the Academy rather than the usual punishment of being banished from Piltover outright. Sadly, in trying to be such a reasonable, compassionate figure, he left himself completely ineffectual and ultimately alienated his pupils over the years, which culminates into a situation—when he tries to put his foot down to protect Jayce and Viktor from completing the Hexcore as to prevent whatever calamity he witnessed years ago that had him wary of magic to begin with even if it means potentially ignoring a solution to saving Viktor's life—results in Jayce forcing him to step down from the council in retaliation because he wasn't doing enough.
• Reluctant Retiree: Sadly, despite his best efforts to unify the council and his city back together, a frustrated and impatient Jayce—who is likewise infuriated with his inflexibility towards progress on Hextech that could potentially save Viktor's life out of fear—calls to have him removed from the council due to his inability to resolve any of the longstanding issues in Piltover; an act that clearly breaks the Yordle's heart in two when everyone unanimously votes him into forced retirement.
• Token Minority: The only Yordle at the city council and only one of two non-humans.
• Uncatty Resemblance: His pet Poro looks like◊ a mini-version of him complete with bushy white mustache.
• Walking the Earth: Or at least Lower Piltover/Zaun. After his "retirement", Heimerdinger is so shaken by Jayce's words to him that he goes to explore the lower part of Piltover that he and his fellow Piltover council members had neglected, seeing what a horrible place it was for himself.
• We Are as Mayflies: Heimerdinger's problem is that he doesn't realize this, and acts as though a decade of research is a blink of an eye. Which to a long-lived Yordle it might be, but his human partners have no such luxury of centuries of living. Jayce uses this to persuade the council into his forced retirement. He is also flabbergasted to see the community, inventions, and haven for the addicted and orphans Ekko has created in only a few short years, from such a young age no less.

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