Tear Jerker / Arcane

"We will show them all."

General

• The absolutely unfair and horrendous treatment of Zaun and its citizens by Piltover and its corrupt government. They are forced to live in a nearly uninhabitable place, in poverty and crime. Many of the citizens, even the nobler ones, are forced to resort to crime in order to survive. They are frequently abused and harassed by dirty and violent Enforcers, who don't even treat them with basic decency. And many Piltovans, even the genuinely good-hearted ones, only think of the worst when it comes to the Zaunites.
• The coming disintegration of the sisterly bond between Vi and Powder/Jinx. In the League of Legends lore, they are mortal enemies but they are also sisters. And this series is the prequel series that will explain how once loving and very tight sisters became toxic and bitter towards one another. And boy, the how and why parts are nothing sort of painful to watch.
• The general dismissiveness Caitlyn is given by virutally everyone she comes across with. She is a highly intelligent, kind-hearted woman with strong morals who wants to do better for the world. However, many people see her as nothing more than presumbably ditzy, spoiled, entitled rich girl who gets whatever she wants (which isn't true). Her parents, espeically her mother, aren't supportive of her aspirations as an Enforcer. Her boss (Marcus) doesn't even hide his contempt of her. Her fellow colleagues make fun of her attempts to be friendly. During Act 1, she briefly mentions how she's a misfit like Jayce, implying she was something of an outcast in her youth as well. And while Jayce is a surrogate Cool Big Bro to her, even he doesn't take her seriously at some points.

Episode 1 - Welcome to the Playground

• The very opening three minutes set a bleak and emotional tone for the series, as a young Vi and Powder walk through the aftermath of a violent conflict on the bridge with Powder softly singing to herself whilst covering her eyes^note presumably at Vi's request to shield Powder's innocence. It's only upon finding the bodies of her parents that Vi completely crumbles.
  • Even worse is that Vi is seen visibly trying to keep her composure for her sister's sake but is only able to keep the facade up for a few breaths—the girl is barely a pre-teen and her first thought is to put on a brave face, but she breaks down completely once she sees their parents' dead bodies. Powder, in turn, hugs Vi close once she lets her guard down, with tears streaming down her own face.
• The context of the slaughter around them is deeply tragic as well. Their parents died pushing back against the exploitation of Zaun by Piltover. But it's clear through all the dead bodies littering the bridge that the fight was not in Zaun's favor at all. ^note It's driven home by the song Powder is singing, "The Bridge", a beggar's tune highlighting the power imbalance between Zaun and Piltover.
• While the scene is Played for Laughs, Powder's joy over eating one of Jayce's sandwiches speaks about how much worse the quality and nutrition of food from the undercity must be.

Episode 2 - Some Mysteries Are Better Left Unsolved

• Jayce's ordeals throughout the episode nearly drive him to commit suicide. Through little fault of his own, his life's work on Hextech is taken away from him, he gets expelled from the Academy, his own mother won't believe in him, and the Kirammans cut him off and forbid Caitlyn from seeing him. When seeing Caitlyn, he tries to joke about how he could join his family's hammer business, but when she immediately tells him he can't, Jayce fully realizes that there's no way he'd be able to move on with his life. Jayce then tries to jump off the ledge of his destroyed lab, leaving behind a suicide note and his cherished bracelet. It's hard watching Jayce hit rock bottom so hard when his ambitious research with magic and Hextech was solely to try improving people's lives.

Episode 3 - The Base Violence Necessary For Change

• In a matter of moments, both Grayson and Benzo are both brutally slaughtered by Deckard. Two decent people just trying to keep the peace are bloodily massacred, and Ekko watched the entire thing. The poor kid has a Thousand-Yard Stare as he unlocks the basement door and runs into Vi's arms in tears.
  • Vi pounding on the door to no avail. Screaming in utter anguish over witnessing Benzo's brutal death and Vander being taken away. The haunting music that plays throughout her howls make the scene even sadder. And similar to how she tried to stay strong for Powder when they found their parents' dead bodies, Vi pushes away her grief to console a traumatised Ekko.
• Powder's dependence on Vi and desire/need for her older sister's approval was shown in the previous episodes. However, after being left behind by Vi (and Mylo and Claggor) to save Vander, she has a full-on meltdown. It's uncomfortably realistic, with snot and saliva dripping down her face as she screams and whimpers. She knows that Vi didn't abandon her, but it still feels like she did.
• A failed rescue attempt results in the deaths of Claggor and Mylo, as well as inadvertently causing Vander to sacrifice himself. As Powder breaks down in horror, guilt, and anguish upon learning that her bomb killed the rest of her family, Vi lashes out at her, hitting her, and calling her a Jinx, leaving the poor girl an absolute wreck. Before Vi can return to apologize, Silco shows up, and Vi is sedated and taken away by Marcus, who justifies it by saying that Silco would kill her if she tried to go back for her sister. Powder is left wracked with guilt and, believing her sister has abandoned her, seeks comfort from the only person she can find it: Silco.
  • Even worse is that, given what she'd seen, Powder genuinely thought that she'd saved the day.
    Powder: (Breaking into tears as she sees Claggor's blood-stained goggles) I only wanted to help. I only wanted to help. I only wanted to help! I only wanted to-
    Vi: I told you to stay away.
    Powder: Please. Please. Please-
    Vi: I told you to stay away!! (slaps Powder across the face)
  • What makes it especially awful is that, based on what we saw, Vi and the others were about to escape before Powder became a Spanner in the Works. Mylo had successfully picked Vander's locks, Claggor had broken a hole in the wall big enough for them to escape through, and Vi had dealt with most of Silco's gang sans Deckard, was successfully being held behind the door — Powder's genuine desire to help turned what likely would've been a successful, if messy and near-miss, rescue into a massacre of her and Vi's entire family. A Jinx indeed...
  • While Claggor is killed instantly in the explosion, Mylo isn't so lucky. He first gets impaled by a pipe, and after feebly trying to pull it out, has just enough time to look at his surrogate brother's corpse and then at the debris that crushes them a few moments later.
  • During the explosion, it cuts to Marcus looking forlornly at a bloody coin that had fallen into the blood from Deckard's killings, before the explosion catches his attention. Despite being generally unpleasant and a Dirty Cop who inadvertently got his fellow Enforcers killed through his deal with Silco, it's obvious that he's badly regretting it, especially when considering his horrified outburst after the attack and how he angrily thew the bag of money to the ground. This regret is what probably drove him to head to the scene and "save" Vi.
  • As the leader of the group, Vi has proven time and again that she takes on the most responsibility among her and her siblings, and always keeps a level head and good patience. Though she's understandably horrified when Vander is taken and Benzo is killed, she gets it together fast enough to lead the rescue mission. Once Vander dies, however, she lets out an anguished Skyward Scream.
    • Prior to this was her spotting the toy monkey's head and tearing up because she thought Powder was killed in the explosion. Alternatively, just seeing the toy monkey's head reminded Vi of Powder, with Vi anguished by the thought of dying and leaving Powder alone.
  • After Vi angrily reminded Powder that she told her to stay home, Powder screams "Why did you LEAVE ME?!" at Vi. Vi is more than aware that Powder not only strives for her approval but wholly depends on her—hence why, despite Powder's previous failings, she was always patient and understandable. This time, however, she's so overcome with grief and anger that she not only confirms that yes, she did leave Powder, but that it was Powder's fault for being a "jinx." Powder is so ruined by this and Vi hitting her that she can only blubber and plead for forgiveness.
  • And when Vi herself becomes horrified at having struck Powder, she walks away to prevent herself from hurting her more, but all it does is destroy her psyche even further. Though Vi immediately tries to return to Powder when she sees Silco approach her, it's too late by then and Marcus captures her.
    • In what is probably the most tragic Freeze-Frame Bonus of all time, if you watch closely as Vi stands up, Powder flinches and puts her arm in front of her face. If even for a moment, Powder is so afraid of Vi that she instinctively thinks she is going to get hit again.
  • A script-to-screen video released by the official Arcane Twitter account hammers what happens after Vi struck Powder even further.
  • One comment on Youtube heartbreakingly describes Powder herself:
    Youtube comment: "I...I didn't...I was saving you..." That line has hurt me more than I ever expected. It's the last vestiges of Powder's optimism, her hopefulness that she'd actually done something right...even seeing Vander lying dead behind Vi, she has to hold onto that, has to believe that her success in finally getting her bomb to work was a good thing. Then she sees Claggor's goggles, spattered with his own blood. And she realizes that no, this wasn't a good thing. This was a TERRIBLE thing. In her efforts to save her family, she had killed them. And she finally breaks down. This girl is NINE years old according to Jinx's Arcane VA. Shit hurts, man.
• After Powder hugs him, Silco looks up and seems to really process that Vander’s corpse is in front of him. Despite the hatred between them, the look on Silco’s face isn’t one of triumph. If anything it borders on mourning.
• Vi was willing to go to jail to protect her family. She ends the episode being forcibly kidnapped by Marcus and thrown in jail, with most of her family dead and not fully knowing what became of her little sister.

Episode 4 - Happy Progress Day

• Jayce is asked to give a speech at the Progress Day celebration, as the face of Hextech. He offers Viktor to join him, since he's the co-creator of their Hextech technology. Though he turns it down, Viktor looks pleased to be remembered... until he sees that Jayce already wrote out the speech, meaning that the offer to share the spotlight was more of an afterthought on Jayce's part. It's saddening to watch Viktor's accomplishments be ignored, especially after previously voicing how he's often dismissed as a cripple from the Undercity. That his closest friend and business partner is now unknowingly doing the same thing is just a twist of the knife.
  • Though Jayce does leave Viktor behind in this instance, it seems to be the one and only time that the fame gets to his head. Even after being asked to give the speech and talk to excited crowds, it's clear that it's the possibilities of Hextech and the good that it can bring that he really cares about. Mel (and the excited masses) does encourage him to go ahead and announce Hextech's next projects, and he and Viktor already wanted to do so, but he's ultimately swayed by Heimerdinger's warning against it. Jayce is still ultimately a good man, but this is just the first instance of his life's work reaping horrible consequences.
• Powder is reintroduced as Jinx, a manic, trigger-happy Mad Bomber that casually kills several Firelights without a second thought, and it's bad enough seeing how a sweet and innocent young girl became warped into a remorseless killer after that night at the cannery. However, when she knocks off a Firelight's mask, her Trauma Button gets slammed HARD when seeing her pink hair and hallucinates her as Vi before reflexively shooting her in a daze. She then devolves into a state of madness as she wildly fires her minigun, even injuring her own allies and not even caring that she did in the aftermath. It makes it hurt even more that despite having become a remorseless killer after the Time Skip, she's still just that deeply traumatized little girl who feels immense guilt for killing her family, and she went down the path of villainy due to the only person who cared for her in this vulnerable time turned out to be Silco.
• In a case of tragic Rewatch Bonus, knowing that Ekko is the Firelight leader makes his Big "NO!" following the death of the pink-haired Firelight hit a lot harder. He didn't have this reaction to Jinx killing two of his other comrades, and he furthermore willingly jeopardizes his own plan to attack Jinx in a fit of rage. When you consider that this girl had pink hair, it's likely she served as a Replacement Goldfish of sorts for Vi, meaning after several years, Ekko still hasn't completely gotten over the pain of losing his dearest friends at the cannery, and in a sense, he's just lost Vi all over again.
• At Jinx's lair, it's revealed she has effigies of Mylo and Claggor that she talks to, showing just how much she still bears the burden of their deaths. And throughout the rest of the series, Jinx suffers from Hallucinations of her brothers, especially Mylo, preying on her fears and insecurities as voices in her head, displaying in full the weight of her trauma and mental instability by the present.
  • Mylo appears in Jinx's hallucinations much more than Claggor. Considering Mylo and Powder's interactions were limited solely to him insulting or complaining about her, this can be interpreted in two ways: either Powder looked up to Mylo and wanted to prove him wrong about her (and is now haunted by the fact that she never will, because she killed him), or Mylo's constant criticisms hurt her so badly that she can't escape them even years later... Or a mix of both.
  • Mylo's prevalence over Claggor is doubly saddening considering Claggor was always shown to be on good terms with Powder. In the first episode, he offers to go get her when she lags behind the group, and he gives her a fond look when she's playing around in the "Enemy" music video. But it's the brother who always thought so little of her that Jinx hears the most.
• The state of The Last Drop counts as this. What was once a symbol of stability and peace for the Lanes and home to Vander and his kids has been transformed into a den of crime and a symbol of Silco's dark reign over the Undercity.
• A subtle moment when Caitlyn interacts with the other Enforcers. She attempts to engage in a conversation with her knowledge of a vehicle, being genuinely polite and tactful. They respond by being condescending and making fun of her perceived nepotism in getting an Enforcer job. Caitlyn's response is a restrained smile, which implies she has heard this sort of talk before. It's quite disheartening to see one of the most heroic and genuinely compassionate people in the series be treated with such disdain because of her rich background.

Episode 5 - Everybody Wants To Be My Enemy

• A small one with the flashback at the beginning of the episode. Caitlyn wins the duel against Grayson but doesn't hold her trophy out of happiness or pride. She then goes to Grayson and demands to know if her parents paid her to lose. In other words, Caitlyn is so used to parents' nepotistic acts, that she goes to question her opponent if she even won fairly. Kudos for Caitlyn having such principles but kind of bad that this is a recurring thing with her.
• Marcus had Vi locked up in prison for the entire time skip to hide her from Silco and stop her from getting in his way, and the prison warden heavily implies he has brutalised Vi so many times he never cared to count, and Vi assumes Caitlyn is the same. Later he implicitly offers to torture Vi for information, but Caitlyn refuses in disgust.
  Vi: (to Caitlyn) You Enforcers are all the same. Just asshole criminals in fancy uniforms.
• Despite being a slimy Dirty Cop through and through and actively colluding with Silco, it's hard not to feel somewhat sorry for Marcus's current lot in life, as it's made blatantly obvious that he loathes working with Silco and is ashamed of himself for doing so.
  • On an overcast day, Marcus is presiding over a funeral for the Enforcers that Jinx had murdered during her theft of the Gemstone. Despite working together with Silco, who was in charge of the very person responsible for their deaths, he is evidently mournful for them. In his grief, he heads to Grayson's grave accompanied by his daughter, who asks who she was. He can only soberly reply "A good woman." Even after several years, Marcus deeply respects his deceased mentor and is still weighed down by the guilt of accidentally getting her killed through his dealings with Silco, as well as by the shame of still working together what that same man. Her tombstone even has the bloodstained chamber of her old revolver hanging from it, and Marcus still carries the bloodstained coin from the night she died.
  • When he later confronts Silco over Jinx's actions, Silco casually blows him off and condescendingly sends him off with a bag of money for the families of Jinx's victims. Later, when Silco proposes his plan to pin the bombing on the Firelights with a grenade, Marcus considers putting an end to everything by pulling the pin and killing himself and Silco, but ultimately can't, even with Silco's goading to become "the martyr [he's] always seen [him]self as". Both incidents only frustrate him with his own impotence.
  • Later, Marcus can be seen drinking alone in his office, glaring at the grenade on his table, and looks at a framed drawing by his daughter of him standing with her. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, he flings his cup in anger and frustration.
• After running across Zaun's rooftops, Vi stands above what The Last Drop has been turned into, and she stares at her old home, now warped beyond recognition, with a mixture of sorrow and anger. Afterwards, Vi gets closer to it along with Caitlyn, who makes an Innocently Insensitive remark about how shady the place looks while unaware of Vi's connection to it. Vi can only give an angered sigh as she squeezes a railing, before telling Caitlyn she doesn't know anything and storming off.
• Back in her lair, Jinx's experiments with the Hextech Gemstone results in a small explosion of blue light, giving her a Flashback Echo to the night her Hex Crystal bomb resulted in the deaths of her brothers, causing her to run away in horror and despair. Even sadder is that a small box gets knocked over and its contents spill onto the ground - which are Powder's old stuffed rabbit and the flare she'd received from Vi on the night of the last time Jinx saw her.
  Jinx: (Between sobs) No... No! It was a mistake! It was a mistake.
  • Jinx, reminded of her family, heads back to the old arcade that she would play at together with Vi and their brothers, which is now old and derelict. While wandering through it, she steps on the plate of the boxing machine Vi was using back in Episode 2, and finds herself setting the machine back up and starting it. Jinx then starts the challenge in a sudden fit of rage, being assailed by her old memories of her sister as she furiously throws punches and kicks at the machine. When the timer stops, an exhausted Jinx looks up at the scoreboard - and finds herself second place to Vi, as if being told she still doesn't measure up to her sister, causing Jinx to angrily pull out her pistol and shoot the machine. Later, she sadly tells Silco she can't keep working with the Gemstone due to still hurting from the events of that fateful night at the cannery.
• At Babette's brothel, after Vi gets caught up on Zaun's current state and gets help about where to find Sevika, Babette sorrowfully says "It's nothing" after Vi leaves. It's clear that Babette isn't happy about how things are now that Vander is gone, but as she explains to Vi, she and many other Zaunites don't have a choice in playing along with Silco, and she's ashamed of herself for it.
  • Look closely at Babette's reaction when Vi asks about Powder — Babette goes from initial shock to a sad expression. Given how she was a close supporter of Vander and knew his kids to some extent, it must've been doubly painful for her to see the once innocent Powder become the ruthless Jinx.
• After their brawl, Vi interrogates Sevika about what Silco has done with Powder. Sevika first asks if she means Jinx, which elicits an expression of confusion from Vi. She then tells her Powder now works for Silco, and Vi's reaction is one of utter horror and heartbreak, unable to believe what she's just heard. Worse still, the news makes her drop her guard, and Sevika takes the chance to stab Vi with her Absurdly Sharp Claws, before cruelly leaning in and saying Powder is like his daughter.

Episode 6 - When These Walls Come Tumbling Down

• The episode opens on a group of children playing by a waterfall, but then the camera slowly pans to reveal a much younger Viktor, who's sitting alone while building a mechanical toy boat. A younger Sky shows up and at first seems intrigued by what Viktor is making, and Viktor gives her a look that clearly shows how much he hopes she'll be interested enough in what he's doing to become friends with him. Unfortunately, Sky is called away by another child, leaving Viktor alone again. Later, Singed asks Viktor why he isn't playing with the other children, and Viktor only responds by showing how he walks with a cane; his physical disabilities have kept him from making any friends his own age.
• As a child, Viktor stumbled upon Singed's secluded hideout. He became intrigued by Singed's large lizard-like pet, Rio. Rio harbored a unique mutation (implied to be crucial to the production of Shimmer), but she was slowly dying and Singed was struggling to preserve the mutation. Viktor volunteered to assist. But one day when Viktor arrived, he found Rio screaming in pain. Life-support tubes have been crudely grafted into her body, which was corrupted by Shimmer. Singed explained that Rio would now survive, and was surprised that Viktor does not understand the necessity of preserving the mutation at any cost. Horrified and disgusted, Viktor left and never returned. Back in the present, after receiving a terminal prognosis, Viktor attempts to use the Hexcore to alter organic matter, but the process invariably ends up being fatal to the test plants. Desperate for a solution and spurred by Heimerdinger's threat to destroy it, he returns to Singed's laboratory and admits that he understands what Singed had done all those years ago, where Rio now floats in a glass tank, apparently still being kept alive after at least a few decades.
  Viktor: I understand, now.
• Vi, gravely injured from Sevika's stab wound, makes her way back to her childhood home with Caitlyn's help. Once inside, she begins suffering Hallucinations of Powder as a child. On death's door, Vi's only thoughts are about her sister, and how she utterly failed her.
  Vi: I never should have left you...
  • There's a horrifying and sad implication for the reason why Vi returned to her childhood home: She has some possible knowledge on where some of Zaun's resident doctors could still be but chooses to guide Caitlyn to her home. She has been severely wounded by Sevika. She has just learned her baby sister is working for Silco and goes by the insult she called her at the end of Act 1. And by this point, Vi still fully thinks of Caitlyn as an enemy, possibly thinking the latter will abandom at any point. In all likelihood, Vi's decision to return to her first home might've been mainly to die there.
• A conversation between Viktor and Heimerdinger about Viktor's sickness reveals both Viktor's fear of his quickly approaching death and Heimerdinger's long life being something he wishes he could share.

  Viktor: Do you contemplate death, Professor?
  Heimerdinger: Only that of friends.

• The Shimmer addicts whose misuse of the drug has turned them close to feral and caused painful-looking growths to develop across their bodies. This would be sad enough to see for complete strangers, but one of them is Huck, the man we saw in the first episode being helped out by Vander (he even helps out Vi because her dad helped him once), who tells Caitlyn that he took the drug because he's always been a bit of a weakling and wanted to see what it was like to be big and strong.
• After getting Vi on her feet again, Caitlyn gets back to business, asking Vi what name Sevika gave her and confirming it as Jinx. The look of remorse on Vi's face is heartbreaking as she says "Right. Jinx. How could I forget?" She's never forgiven herself for the last thing she said to her sister.
• Caitlyn questioning why Vi doesn't know whether Powder is alive.
  Caitlyn: What? You don't have parents?
  Vi: No. They were killed by Enforcers.
  • To expand on Caitlyn's question, she doesn't say it with a mocking tone or anything of the sort but out of genuine curiosity.
  • And Caitlyn's reaction is another painful eye opener for her about some of the horrible acts committed by Pitlover to the people of Zaun. Not to mention, she wanted to be an Enforcer because she genuinely believed it was a job that was meant to help those in need. Now, she knows that there are some Enforcers who have caused harm to others.
• It's not touched on but Vi using what's left of her childhood home to literally drop on Silco and his goons so she and Caitlyn can escape. In the last episode, she saw The Last Drop become a cesspool of crime because of the said crime boss. Now, she was forced to use her very first home as a weapon of sorts to get away from him. She's only been released from prison and has had to watch both her homes be truly gone.
• Jinx, in turmoil over Sevika's words and the chance her sister might come back, ignites the flare Vi gave her years ago. Her mind places the dead Mylo and Claggor behind her, seeming to cry out for Vi just as she is deep down inside.
• Jinx's brief reunion with Vi becomes imperiled when she sees Caitlyn, and assumes they came to take back the Hextech Gem. Vi tries to assure her that she has no idea what that is and she only wants her sister, and Jinx actually seems to take her seriously - but the Firelights attack at that very moment. In the ensuing fight, Vi and Caitlyn are kidnapped and never get the chance to finish resolving things, and Jinx lets out a Big "NO!".
  • Shortly after they reunite, while Vi has Jinx in a long hug. One simple line underscores the gulf that now stands between the sisters - Vi would take it as Powder's disbelief that she's finally come back, while Jinx means it in a decidedly different context.
    Jinx: Are you real?
  • What really hurts about this is the sense that Vi had a very real chance to get through to her sister even after Caitlyn complicates the matter. Vi almost succeeds in talking Jinx down, to the point where she actively tries to clear her head just to sort things out. And she's clearly distraught to see Vi taken away, lunging to stop the Firelights from kidnapping her and breaking down when she realizes that she's gone. It really feels like an understanding could have been reached if not for the Firelights' intervention. And now that chance is gone.
  • After Jinx encounters Caitlyn with Vi, during the next instance Vi refers to Jinx as Powder, Jinx immediately rebuffs her and angrily tells her that the Powder she knows is gone now, illustrating how Vi's outburst back in episode 3 destroyed her already-fragile mind. Vi understands this and tries to take back her words, but Jinx insists on having none of it.
    Vi: Powder, it's okay.
    Jinx: STOP calling me that. It's Jinx now. Powder fell down a well.
    Vi: You're not a jinx. God, I never should have-
    Jinx: STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE I'M A CHILD!
• Jayce forcing Heimerdinger into mandatory retirement. While they both make valid arguments, neither is truly in the right here. Jayce finds out Viktor is dying and wants to help save him by any means necessary, but the two are tinkering with a power they don't completely understand. Heimerdinger has lived long enough to see exactly what that power can do in the wrong hands and has continuously urged Jayce and Viktor to exercise caution and patience, but he fails to understand that unlike yordles, humans don't live forever, and is now ordering them to destroy the one thing that could potentially cure Viktor. At the end of the day, though, it's Jayce who has earned the loyalty of the council, and he reluctantly leads them to vote Heimerdinger out, an act that clearly breaks his heart as much as the old yorlde's.

Episode 7 - The Boy Savior

• The Fireflies' hideout has a giant mural of all the people they had lost over the years, either to the Enforcers or to Silco. While there are clear examples that are no less heartrending, such as Benzo, Mylo, Claggor and Vander, there are also Vi and Powder. Ekko had truly believed Vi was dead for the longest time, but Powder is the really notable case, being seen as "dead" now that she's become Jinx and one of their greatest enemies.
  • It even includes the unnamed pink-haired girl Jinx mistook for Vi and killed in Episode 4.
• Ekko stating that Powder's dead and Vi cannot bring her out again. The thing is though, Vi was getting through to her sister, but Caitlyn and the Firelights unintentionally ruined that.
• When Singed warns Viktor that people will hate him if he uses Shimmer to save himself, Viktor responds by saying that Jayce will understand. However, when the two meet, Jayce is furious that Viktor went to Zaun and goes on a rant about how the people from the Undercity are dangerous, forgetting Viktor is from there as well. While Jayce does quickly apologize, Viktor loses trust in him and doesn't tell him about his plan.
• Marcus is fatally wounded when Jinx blows up the bridge, and his last words are trying to ask a shocked Caitlyn to tell his daughter he loved her, but he's unable to finish speaking before he dies.
• Ekko and Jinx's duel. While Ekko visualizes his plan of attack, there are constant cuts to the two pretend-fighting as children. Ekko would try to reach Powder and hit her with a wooden sword before she could shoot him with a paintball, which is mirrored in their current fight where Ekko has to reach Jinx and attack her with his club before she could shoot him with her pistol. The two are even aware of how similar their current situation is to their old game, with Ekko chuckling and starting his pocket watch like he used to, and Jinx picking up on this and laughing too as she assumes her old stance. But instead of still being a pair of laughing kids having fun together, when both of them finally make their move there is nothing but pure wrath on each's face as they try to kill each other. It's an extremely sad reminder of how close the two used to be before becoming bitter enemies by the present.
  • When Ekko successfully avoids her attacks and starts ruthlessly beating her after closing in, he gets a good look at Jinx's bloodied and terrified face and stops attacking out of pure remorse, realizing that no matter how Beyond Redemption he thought Jinx was, it didn't change that she was still his old friend Powder and that he still cares about her. Even the blood from Jinx's nose flows over her front teeth to make a visual allusion to Powder's Childish Tooth Gap for good measure.
  • Worse still is just the despair in Jinx's eyes as Ekko is pummeling her. She just seems ready for Ekko to kill her, offering a sad smile when he hesitates, and then pulls the pin on a grenade in an attempt to blow them both up. It just sells how completely broken the poor girl is.
    YouTube Comment: He was ready to kill Jinx, he wasn't ready to kill Powder...
• Ekko's change from a once happy and energetic kid to an older and noticeably jaded young man. It's no wonder when you think about all he went through the last time he was seen in Act 1 - he was forced to witness Benzo's murder at the hands of Silco's shimmer-enhanced goons. He later found out about Mylo, Claggor, and Vander's deaths. Vi, his Cool Big Sis figure who comforted him after his mentor's death, mysteriously went missing and was presumed dead. And his childhood friend, Powder, becomes Silco's top brute, despite what he did (directly and indirectly) to their respective families. It's a showcase of Ekko's emotional strength to save the citizens of Zaun from the corruption, but you just want to give the poor guy a hug for going through so much, at such a young age, with initially no one else to turn to.
  • His cynicism could be best demonstrated in his face-to-face reunion with Vi. He doesn't go to hug her in relief or even cry Tears of Joy. His first reaction is an angry scowl. Ekko has had such a rough and violent life since the end of Act 1, that he initially has trouble trusting the person he deeply admired as a Cool Big Sis.
  • One of Ekko's interrogation questions to Vi is if she works for Silco. Vi gives an understandably shocked and disgusted reaction before telling Ekko "Fuck you". Vi hasn't seen her "little man" in years and the first thing he asks if she's now an underling of the man who ruined her family.
• Caitlyn's brief but noticeable disbelief when Ekko reveals that Enforcers are on Silco's payroll. It's clear she became an Enforcer because she wanted to be a force for good. Now, she is forced to come to grips with a sad truth — Just because someone is in high authority doesn't mean they are morally good.

Episode 8 - Oil and Water

• Silco's reaction to Jinx's emergency Meatgrinder Surgery is a mix of this and Nightmare Fuel: Coming out of sedation to realize your child has been Strapped to an Operating Table while alone with a Mad Scientist for God knows how long, it's no wonder he puts a knife to Singed's throat.
• There's a very tender scene where Vi opens up to Caitlyn about her childhood with Powder. Vi tells Caitlyn about a game she and Powder would play where they would pretend to be monsters and each try to make their monsters bigger and scarier, but sometimes Vi would get too into her role and frighten her sister, so she'd then pretend to chase her own monsters away so Powder wouldn't be afraid anymore. Then...
  Vi: I'd say... "No monster's gonna get you when I'm here." Then a real monster showed up. And I just ran away.
  • Worse still is that the monster Vi is referring to is implied to not be Silco, but in fact herself during her rage-filled outburst against Powder way back in episode 3 (since Vi didn't run away when she saw Silco approach Powder, so the theory that Silco's the monster in question is thrown out the window), and that instead of remaining with her traumatized and remorseful sister, she instead ran away out of fear of hurting Powder further and disgust over hitting and insulting her. Even after several years, Vi never forgave herself for leaving her. As an adult, she really doesn't want to hold it against Powder for killing Vander, Mylo, and Claggor; after all, she was a kid, and as a leader, Vi felt that she had a responsibility over looking after her sister and that this wouldn't have happened if she acknowledged her. However, Vi also seems to forget that she was just a kid as well, and given way too many responsibilities by her well-intentioned father figure, Vander. Poor Vi.
• After failing to convince the council to do something about Silco, Vi storms off into the rain and Caitlyn chases after her, trying and failing to convince her to stay.
  Caitlyn: Vi, wait! Wait! Where are you going?
  Vi: I dunno, back where I came from? Seems that's what everyone up here wants.
  Caitlyn: I can fix this—
  Vi: You can't! This is how things are, how they've always been. I was so stupid to think it could change.
  Caitlyn: There must be something else we can do. Some other way. We'll make a new plan. We have to try.
  Vi: We tried, okay? It wasn't enough. Topside and bottom, oil and water. That's all there is.
  Caitlyn: What about us?
  Vi: [hesitates] ...oil and water. Wasn't meant to be.
  Caitlyn: You're just saying that.
  Vi: Do yourself a favor, cupcake. Go back to that big, shiny house of yours and just... forget me, okay? [pulls her hood up and walks away]
  • And right after Caitlyn's question about them, Vi stops looking directly at Caitlyn's face. It's obvious Vi has grown to quickly care for Caitlyn. And despite her next words, she can't bare to look at Caitlyn, knowing she'll emotionally break.
  • What makes this scene much more sad is the fact that Vi has seen that Caitlyn is a heroic and noble woman, traits the former initially thought couldn't be attributed with Piltovan Enforcers. They developed into having a protective and selfless bond. And their previous scene in Caitlyn's bed and Caitlyn's line about them, indicates they realize the romantic tension between them. Despite all this, Vi still believes they're too different to work out. And Caitlyn is near in tears from Vi's declaration and correctly states Vi doesn't mean what she's saying but her voice still sounds hurt at the latter's words.
• Caitlyn's Shower of Angst, with her wishing Vi would come back to her in a flashback of the above scene playing in reverse, while her injured leg is still bleeding into the shower.
• The death of Sky, Viktor's lab assistant. While she had only been introduced recently, and she had only had a few lines, the leadup to her death shows that she was a genuinely good young woman who deeply admired and harbored a crush on Viktor, and she is seen psyching herself up to present some of her work for him to review. When she enters the room and sees Viktor performing a hextech experiment that is clearly going wrong, she tries to intervene and pull him away, only for the Hexcore to react violently, disintegrating her completely while she screams Viktor's name in terror. When Viktor comes to, he's absolutely horrified as he finds Sky's remains.
• Jayce accidentally kills a child during his raid on Silco's Shimmer facility. His misdeed shakes him to his core, and he takes a moment to really take in what's happening at the facility, realizing that a great deal of workers are just frightened children.
• It's a small moment, but when Ambessa tells Mel that her brother is gone, Mel automatically stops walking and has an absolutely shocked expression, looking like she is about to burst into tears.
  • Ambessa herself is clearly not over the death of her son either, being unusually solemn and quiet as she talks about it, especially when we get this line.
    He crossed the wrong man. I was distracted; that's a mistake I can't take back.
• When Vi goes to make an alliance with Jayce, his first instinct is to threaten her with imprisonment. Vi responds with a mild "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards him and how quickly those of the upper Piltovan elite are quick to jail people without a second thought. Not thinking of the kind of emotional damage and physical trauma the one being jailed goes through. While her time in Stillwater isn't fully elaborated on, it's clear from this line that the prison gave Vi psychological scars as well as physical ones.

Episode 9 - The Monster You Created

• The very first scene of the episode is a shot of the corpse of the boy Jayce accidentally killed. The boy's eyes are still open before Jayce, who's still distraught over what he's done, closes them for him.
• Viktor, still mourning Sky's death, picks up her notes and begins reading them, and sinks even further into despair due to not seeing just how much she had admired him and that he had been taking her for granted all this time. The next time we see him, he's gathered up Sky's ashes and is spreading them at the place where they first met as children, saying he's sorry for not really knowing where she would prefer. He then nearly throws himself off the ledge out of sheer guilt, but is stopped by Jayce.
  • Jayce and Viktor's whole talk after is this. The two men sadly reminisce over simpler times, before Viktor makes Jayce promise him that he will destroy the Hexcore, as he can't do it himself. Jayce understandably has his misgivings due to Viktor's disease, but Viktor implores him again, and Jayce hesitantly accepts. Viktor then mournfully states that they have lost their way, and that their shared dream of using Hextech to improve lives is now gone due to the lives their work claimed. Worse still is that Heimerdinger's words ultimately rang true, with Jayce using a Hextech Gemstone to create a weapon and accidentally killing a child, and Viktor's work with the Hexcore accidentally causing Sky's death.
    Viktor: We lost ourselves. Lost our dream. In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good. We have to make it right.
  • The scene is a parallel to when Viktor stopped Jayce from committing suicide after his work was taken away, only with their positions switched. Before, Viktor was Heimerdinger's assistant, an incredibly intelligent but dissatisfied thinker who saw potential in the work of a single student and took a chance on him. Now Jayce is a celebrity for his work on Hextech, but Viktor has been broken by what that chance he took cost him. Both of them are equally overwhelmed by the consequences of what they've done, but especially in light of Jayce being the one asked to give the Progress Day speech while Viktor waited in the shadows, it furthers the idea that Jayce has somewhat left Viktor behind.
• As he's walking through the city to try and reconnect with its people, Heimerdinger innocently makes a trinket out of scrap to amuse a young child, only for their parent to drag them away from him, clearly suspecting only the worst from the stranger, leaving the inventor melancholy as he realizes how little trust is left in the city.
• Every single thing during the "family dinner".
  • When Vi wakes up, she is confronted by Jinx at the ruins of the old cannery where their family died and Vi had left Powder at the hands of Silco. Jinx, almost cruelly, states that Silco, with his years of villainous teachings, was never the one that made her who she was today, and that Vi was the one truly responsible, and Vi once again apologizes for leaving her.
    Jinx: Wanna know a secret? Silco thinks he made Jinx, with all his rants and his hard-won lessons. "Excise their doubts, Jinx. Be what they fear, Jinx." Like everything was the same as when Vander left him. But he didn't make Jinx. You did.
    Vi: I'm sorry, Powder. I never meant to leave you.
    • Jinx then elaborates that she doesn't mean it in an accusatory way - Vi's voice in the back of her head was the only thing that kept her safe, or "picking me up when all the colors were black." It doesn't give Vi much comfort, though.
    • Jinx's whole speech to Vi is not only heartwrenching but cruel. Despite knowing her older sister didn't intentionally abandon her but was actually forcibly taken from her and how much regret she felt for her actions in Part 1, Jinx seems to take some sort of pleasure in emotionally guilting and torturing her older, and just as traumatized, sister for things beyond the latter's control. Seems like Jinx took more after Silco than what was first thought.
  • The two sisters then state that following their separation, the only thing keeping each of them going and effectively giving them reason to live outright was their thoughts of the other, with Jinx having to live with her trauma and Vi having to endure her imprisonment.
  • Despite Vi pushing Caitlyn away prior, Caitlyn was not safe in her "big, shiny house" and was kidnapped by Jinx as well. After Vi was thoroughly terrorized thinking Jinx is going to present Caitlyn's severed head, Jinx reveals Caitlyn is still alive - only to offer a Sadistic Choice for Vi to kill Caitlyn to get Powder back. Vi can't do it, of course. Jinx then points the gun at Caitlyn herself, prompting Vi to frantically offer to leave with Jinx and never come back. All the while punctuated by Caitlyn fearfully whimpering through her gag.
    • During the fake-out of the presentation of Caitlyn's death, if you watch Jinx's face very carefully when Vi ask her what she had done, you can see a hurt expression on her face for a split second, as in that moment Jinx realizes that Vi thinks the worst of her.
    • Vi's terrified demeanor, brief flashback to Caitlyn in the latter's bed, and looking away in horror is all so hard to watch. For agonizing seconds, Vi believed that her once innocent sister turned Ax-Crazy psycho brutally murdered Caitlyn; Caitlyn, the woman who set Vi free and showed her kindness for the first time in a long time. And the same woman Vi pushed away after being angry with the Council. With her (thought to be) last words to Caitlyn was that they "weren't meant to be".
  • Silco outright calls Jinx his daughter while trying to sway her. His voice sounds so desperate, and it's likely not because he fears for his own life.
    • When is the moment that Silco stops passively listening and starts fighting to speak and be heard? After Vi proposes that both her and Jinx leave and never come back. Even when Jinx berated him and even when Jinx offered Vi to go back to her side, he didn't react. But the thought of never again seeing Jinx? That was the moment when he couldn't just remain silent anymore.
  • After Caitlyn Slipped the Ropes and points Jinx's minigun at her, Vi desperately pleads for her to not kill Jinx, and then begging for Jinx to remember who she was after she knocks out Caitlyn. This whole scene is just a Break the Badass rollercoaster for poor Vi.
  • Vi and Silco begin yelling over each other for Jinx to take their side, and Vi desperately tries to make Jinx remember who she was by reminding her of their family. Unfortunately, this backfires horribly as Vi unintentionally dredges up the worst moments of Jinx's life and all their associated trauma, from accidentally killing their adoptive family, to seeing the dead bodies of her parents as a child, and finally Vi leaving her. Poor Jinx's fracturing mental state is depicted as her curling up into a ball while monstrous caricatures of Mylo, Claggor, and Vander loom over her.
  • Notably before they’re distorted, they all are looking at her in the way she thinks they must have really felt about her. Mylo’s face is twisted in feral rage, Claggor coldly sneers at her, and Vander? Vander looks so disappointed in her.
  • Silco's death, despite his villainy and antagonistic role, is purely played for tragedy. In the midst of their shouting match and Jinx's mental breakdown, Silco manages to break free from his ropes and grabs Jinx's pistol to try killing Vi... and Jinx shoots him in a panic. With his final breath, Silco professes that he never would have sacrificed her for her own ends, and that for all of Jinx's flaws and actions, he loves her and says she is perfect.
    Silco: I never would have given you to them. Not for anything. Don't cry. You're perfect.
  • The official twitter released a script-to-screen video that hammers this in even further:
    Jinx, with the affirmation of love she's always wanted ringing in her ears, holds Silco's dead body.
  • From Jinx's side, she had misinterpreted his earlier lament to Vander's memorial that Silco planned to hand her over, leading her to kidnap and tie him up just like Vi. Only Silco has a gag in his mouth because she doesn't trust his words. But the moment she realizes that she shot him, Jinx immediately drops her gun and rushes to his side, cupping his chin with tears in her eyes and a Rapid-Fire "No!" mixed with an apology. Jinx truly loved Silco as a father, even after all their arguments and her belief that he'd throw her to Piltover.
  • Silco's final moments make Vi's actions at the end of Act 1 much worse, as we're reminded why Jinx fell to the dark side in the first place. As lovable Vi is as a character, as much we feel her grief and know that she was just a teenager, and as much remorse she has over leaving her sister, she failed at giving her sister what she needed most at the time: forgiveness over her mistakes - which is something Silco succeeded at. Compared to Vi, who in a fit of rage, slapped her sister and called her a "Jinx" for killing their family by accident, Silco instead forgives Jinx and and assuring her that she was perfect even after she fatally wounds him, also by accident. If Jinx was raised by somebody with Vi's strong moral code and Silco's patience and empathy, she might have turned out fine.
  • Part of Jinx's game is setting up two seats at the table, one next to Vi and labeled "Powder," the other by Silco's side and labeled "Jinx." Vi is given the power to decide where her sister gets to sit (translation: kill Caitlyn, and she'll be Powder again). Following Silco's death, Jinx picks up her gun and stands up even as Vi tries to assure her it's okay. Her sister just walks over to the "Jinx" seat and slumps into it with a cold stare. The way it's framed and from what she says next, she seems to have given up any chance of her and Vi being the sisters they used to be.
    Jinx: I thought... maybe you could love me like you used to. Even though I'm... different. But you changed too. So... here's to the new us.
  • Like their first reunion, what truly makes this hurt is just how much Jinx has tried to make things go back to normal. Even when she's gone off the deep end, she still desperately tried to rationalize Vi's actions despite how bad they look from her perspective.^note  Not unreasonably, as she seems to know she doesn’t have the proper context for any of Vi’s actions. From being abandoned, to Vi being with Caitlyn in the first place, to hugging her on the bridge, she's desperately trying to avoid messing up. It's clear that Jinx wants more than anything to go back to the way things were just as much as Vi does, maybe even more. And in this moment she just... gives up. Silco's reassurances that she is perfect in contrast to Vi's desperation that she do the impossible by becoming Powder again make her conclude that despite Vi unconditionally loving her in the past despite all her flaws and shortcomings, the Vi of the present can only love Powder and will never love the person she has become. The saddest implication being that even with some kind of understanding between them, Jinx and Vi are too different to ever make things right.
• The final sequence of the season is nothing short of a Downer Ending.
  • Jinx, finally and fully settled into her new identity, uses the Hextech Gemstone to launch a rocket at the Piltover Council chamber, silently shedding Shimmer-infused tears - the same way Silco would after an injection, from the same eye, no less - with a grim expression. Worse still is that Fishbones's design appears to be done with Silco in mind, being modelled as a shark due to Silco's love for the monsters in the waters beneath the cities, representing his now-surfaced retribution against the city that has wronged him and his people for so long, and even bearing a scar-like design over its left eye to mirror Silco's own scar.
    • On that note, Jinx isn't laughing or grinning wickedly like she would in the game. Her expression while collecting Fishbones, inserting the Gemstone into its proper place, and taking aim at the Council chamber, is... somber. Then as her weapon powers up, Jinx glares at the sky as Silco's words, the ones he said to comfort her long ago (when Jinx was born), echo inside her head and a Shimmer-laced tear trickles down her cheek. It's both frightening and painful to watch the usually excitable, manic Jinx act with such coldness.
      Silco: We'll show them. We will show them all.
  • Vi helps the injured Caitlyn outside, where they see Jinx's rocket streaking across the sky. Vi stares at it in horror as she realizes what her sister has just done, and Caitlyn lets out a helpless wail of despair (or possibly screaming "MOM!"). Worse still is that Caitlyn probably knows it's headed straight towards the building her mother is in, and that she could have prevented all of this by shooting Jinx instead of hesitating when Vi begged her not to. And in the season 2 announcement voiceover, Caitlyn asserts that if she goes after Jinx alone and without Vi's help, their confrontation will result in one of them killing the other.
  • At Jayce's urging, the Piltover Council has just unanimously agreed to vote for peace, allowing Zaun to become a sovereign nation and fulfilling Silco's lifelong dream... right when Jinx's rocket strikes their chamber, leaving the councillors (save Jayce and Viktor) to an Uncertain Doom. In an incredibly tragic Book Ends with the end of Act 1, Jinx has once again jinxed a tense situation that was just on the cusp of turning out alright.
    • Even more ironic, they are having that vote in the first place because of Silco's determination to push the issue of Zaun independence whatever the cost, and the rocket is also headed right for them because Silco encouraged Jinx's ruthlessness on the basis of the brutal history that shaped him. Causally, it's like Piltover's decades of unrepentant negligence and exploitation of their sister city is reaching through time and sabotaging even their attempt to finally do the honorable thing, through the dysfunction and self-destruction and suffering they gave rise to themselves.
    • And to top it off, considering that even though the Council agreed to a peace, there was no way Silco was going to give up Jinx to them (it being the sole requirement by Jayce, as he wanted her to pay for her crimes). Even if the "Family Dinner" didn't occur, there was no way there was going to be a peace between Piltover and Zaun. Either way you look at it, it was All for Nothing.
  • Despite how evil and ruthless they can be, seeing Sevika gravely injured after her fight with Vi desperately trying to light a cigarette with her an arm while waiting for the return of their now deceased leader Silco (to whom I swear for years his loyalty) and Singed depressed while looking at a photo of his deceased daughter in his lab can be quite sad.
  • The song that plays during this sequence, ''What Could Have Been'', is a sad and somber piece that represents Jinx's feelings towards Vi. The lyrics feature her claiming Vi has turned her into the monster she is by the present, and that she now wants to hurt Vi the way she hurt her by abandoning her at the end of Act 1. Worst of all is the line asking why Vi can't love her for who she currently is, as if it wasn't clear-cut enough already that Vi really only loves who she used to be, and Jinx is well aware of it.
    I want you to hurt like you hurt me today
    I want you to lose like I lose when I play
    What could have been
• Subtle but Vi's Victorious Roar after winning against Sevika in their second round can also be taken as this in a different context. While she did win, there's something heartbreaking about Vi's aforemtioned scream; it can even be described as a scream of sorrow. Think about all she's been through - Never able to properly grieve the deaths of her second family, which included seeing her brothers' dead bodies and her adoptive father dying in her arms; while she was grief-strickened and was rightfully angry at Powder's interference, Vi immediaetely felt immense guilt for slapping and calling her younger sister a "jinx";falsely imprisoned in an abusive environment, a prison, ran by corrupt officials with no one she could trust or be close to; during her time in prison, her guilt grew not only from her last interaction with Powder but possibly also hating herself for doing the robbery that started the whole mess; when released, she saw her childhood home, The Last Drop, turned into a cesspool of crime; nearly fatally stabbed by Sevika while also simultaenously learning from the woman what became of her sister; witnessed firsthand how brutal and violent Powder/Jinx has become in her absence; had an (initially) rocky reunion with Ekko, with the latter going so far as to ask if she's working for Silco, which understandably offended her; despite hoping things would change, the Council chooses to do nothing to stop Silco's reign, leaving her angry and even more jaded; sadly breaking up with Caitlyn, who was the first person to treat her with gentleness and kindness in years, believeing that they weren't meant to be together because of the two different worlds they were each born into; and given her body language and Caitlyn's accurate assessment, Vi only said that to Caitlyn out of frustrations and is most likely now regretting ending their relationship. She has gone through so much and her scream seems to be a way for her to express it.

Miscellaneous

• In League of Legends, some champions have interactions with Jinx which allude to her unintentionally killing her foster family, meaning that even after going completely insane, she's still plagued with the guilt of her well-meaning explosion as Powder.
  Swain: Faces fading in the flames. It was all her fault.
• Ekko, while cheerful enough in Legends of Runeterra, will sound extremely sad when with his Childhood Friends Jinx and Vi, soberly commenting on the good old days when they were all together and how much he misses Powder after she descended into madness and became Jinx, especially when considering his line in League of Legends where he states that he used to crush on her before she went insane. And when considering how cynical and angry he is here, it's easy to imagine that as time went on, he was able to let go of his anger, but now only has his sorrow.
  • If Ekko's card is destroyed, he'll call out for Benzo, still remembering the loss of his mentor.
• In Jinx's Image Song from way back in 2013, Get Jinxed, her line "Let's blow this city to ashes, and see what Pow-Pow thinks" is wondering what her minigun, named Pow-Pow, would think about destroying Piltover. Come Arcane, where it's revealed that Vi's Affectionate Nickname for Jinx when she was still Powder was "Pow-Pow", makes it much Harsher in Hindsight, with the implication that it's now questioning what the innocent and sweet Powder would think after she's been warped and broken beyond recognition.
• The implication that Vander, the same man who kept order in the Lanes and loved his family so much he was willing to be taken away by the Enforcers just to protect his kids, ends up forcibly transformed into Warwick makes his situation even worse than if he'd just died saving Vi. The man who tried to leave violence behind for the sake of others ultimately ends up being transmuted into a horrific biomechanical creature who is forced to go into bloody rampages at the slightest provocation, and to make matters worse, Warwick outright says he does remember some parts of who he used to be, including Jinx and Vi... but not enough to recognize who he was and what the two of them meant to him.
• Even the accompanying music video for "Enemy" by Imagine Dragons has sobering moments alongside the bright colors and catchy music.
  • A young Powder, looking into the camera with a look of anger, resignation, or both, mouthing along to the lyrics: Everybody wants to be my enemy.
    • Shortly after, Powder is seen pounding on a wall with Jinx's face displayed, seemingly trying to break free from what she'll become.
  • Another tearjerking moment that stands out occurs when Powder gets herself and Vi in trouble with some Enforcers, with Vi angrily shouting at Powder back home. Not only is this intercut with a younger Vi and Powder having a pillow fight, but Powder falls onto the floor with the implication that Vi pushed her.
  • Look at Powder's body language when she is being shouted at by Vi — she's scared, apologetic, and slowly backing away from her angry sister.
  • While their argument isn't heard in full, given Vi's fierce protectiveness over Powder, it's highly likely that she's angry because she was scared Powder could've gotten hurt.
• The audience knows where Jinx ends up, but seeing what she was like and what she meant to Vi just makes the whole experience have this undercurrent of dread and sorrow.