@@bigWordsHurt47 The story about Warwick messing his face up specifies that it "reopened old wounds". It's most likely that the burning was always part of his story.
I think that Jinx knows that Ekko is the leader of the firelights. They seem to have a history that we haven't seen. When Ekko talks about Jinx he describes her as unchangeable. It's as though he tried to save her himself, maybe more than once. Also, Jinx calls Ekko "The boy saviour", reinforcing the idea that he tried to help her before. I imagine that the two of them have fought several skirmishes over the years. Perhaps, once Ekko finally gave up hope for Powder, that's when he added her likeness to his Murial of departed friends.
So glad you watched "Enemy" before watching this episode. It really adds a lot to the fight between Jinx and Ekko. You GET why Ekko is so adamant that Powder is gone, and why he can't bring himself to finish her off. They were good friends. He loved her.
Now you know why I said to watch the Enemy video before this episode. It really adds some context to the relationship between Powder and Ekko before... what happens. Also, when you're done with the season, if you haven't fully gotten your Arcane fix, there's an entire "making of" style video series on RUclips called Bridging the Rift. And it's provides so much more context for how amazing this entire project was.
Regarding Jinx "killing herself" with the grenade. It wasn't Jinx but Powder. The animations for their faces change depending on which personality is active basically. You could see it as her being able to recognize what has become of her when faced with ekko in the final moment and deciding to end it as powder as this isn't what she truly wants deep down. Gives this moment an entirely different and far sadder meaning IMO. Many see it as "No Ekko don't fall for it => He got outplayed" which is not what is happening really. Regarding the Face Changes you can look at the behind the scenes content after you are done, there they covered how they did it etc. as well. :)
I think the symbolism of the hour glass on Ekko's face is that he has a pocket watch in the games he can use to turn time back for several seconds or minutes, not sure how long as I've never actually played the games. It is a multi-player online game, and I don't play well with others. 11:01, Yes, and that's part of the problem with Heimerdinger when he sat on the council all of those years. He secluded himself in the luxury of Piltover and had a "blind eye" to what was going on outside. When first developed by Singed, Shimmer was extremely addictive. Over time Singed kept modifying it into different variants, so, in very tiny doses, as was given to Vi after she was stabbed and as Silco uses in his eye, can have medicinal value.
"Build a weapon so frightening that no one would dare tempt you to use it" is such a Mel thing to suggest She's so desperate to be perceived as powerful and worthy of respect, but does she really have what it takes to use the weapons she has at her disposal?
Two interesting details I like in this episode; one is the way she looks at Caitlyn while she talks to Ekko, and you see the change, or realisation in her expressions; second is the freezeframe moment of when Jinz shoots at her and Caitlyn (and its funny how people don't talk about that more, which is understandable given what happens next but is still a big deal!), you can see Caitlyn trying to shield Vi with her arms while Vi actively tries to push her out of danger. Small details that speak volumes, and are oh so important for Vi and Jinxs relationship as can be seen by the way Jinx reacts to Vi being with another blue haired person. "Sevika was right, you're with an enforcer?"
she didn't make firelights, you see the little butterfly/moth toys during progress day (as little ornamental toys that float around during the opening festival scenes), you also see them on her desk throughout the episodes, not sure how she got them, but maybe she grabbed some while she was topside stealing the hextech gem and then did what she did with a lot of her toys... weaponized them. Also, I love the fact that arcane is mirrors within mirrors. Jinx is a mirror of Silco, while Vi mirrors Vander, both sister's caught in the past, in reliving and trying to grab back what is gone now. Then their brother mirrors topside with Jayce and Viktor, being slowly torn apart as Jayce is pulled farther away from being a simple scientist and Viktor is pulled deeper into science (but maybe not the good science anymore) but focused way too much on the Future. A lot of red/blue dynamics. Then you have a mirror of Jinx in Ekko. A traumatized kid who lost everything and was left to fend for himself at likely the same rough age as Jinx, and yet managed to build a tiny paradise and save what he could save, and offer help to who he could offer help. In direct contrast to all the blue/red dynamics, we have Ekko coming in with the green. Ekko, who is wholly and completely focused on the present, in opposition to 'the ends justifies the means' and 'progress for progress sake'. In what people need -right now-, in what can be done -right now-, in accepting the past and that people have made the choices they have made and you cannot force them to change. And then the one moment he allowed himself to lapse from that present mentality, the one moment he allowed the past to overwhelm him. KABOOM.
And still, he is at the begining of everything who gone wrong. The burglary? He instigated it. The explosion? He lead Powder there. The reunification between the sisters? He crushed it himself....
While Silco manipulates Jinx, I do think he believes everything he says due to his own experience with Vander. He thinks they're alike so he is not 100% manipulating if that makes sense
IMO he isn't manipulating for the sake of manipulating. He probably genuinely believes his advice is sound and what is best for her. But from everyone else's perspective, its manipulation. (I think that is kinda what you were saying as well)
Silco is not "manipulating" Powder/Jinx any more than Vi is. Vi wants Powder and Silco wants Jinx, but both genuinely believe that Powder/Jinx would be better off with him/her. So many people think that because Silco is the antagonist of the story that everything he does must be somehow evil or awful. That's not the case, certainly not where Powder/Jinx is concerned.
I love that three-way conversation between Jayce, Viktor and Mel. Mel is worried that Piltover is looking weak, internationally, so she wants Jayce to make weapons to make them look strong again. Jayce is scared that the Undercity will make weapons and attack Piltover, and Jayce is in charge both of Piltover and of Hextech security - it would be his fault if something bad happened. Viktor, meanwhile, has been caught up in his personal work and suddenly his partner has become someone he doesn't recognise, and worse, is seriously considering betraying everything they worked for - they'd both said they wanted to help people in the Undercity, and now Jayce is talking about making weapons to use against them. Singed was the scientist working with Silco on shimmer in episodes 1-3. His face is presumably a result of the fire Powder unleashed in the lab when she used the crystals as a bomb.
I think Viktor wasn't sure about using shimmer, but when Jayce took a jab at the undercity people and later did not object to the weapons, it cemented his decision to try whatever he could, first to save his failing health, but also to be there to oversee Hextech's use Ekko is the proof that Silco, despite his claims to want the best for the Undercity, is not the solution, and that when there is a will, there is a way, and one that is not full on war or flooding the people with shimmer, he is a fantastic character Jinx is one of the best written character i've ever watched. I do not condone or excuse her actions, but the writers do explain perfectly how she got to be how and who she is, and it's fascinating.
Continuing to enjoy your reaction! Two quick points: (1) We saw the mechanical firelights twice in Ep. 4, both at the Progress Day Fair in Piltover and then again in Powder/Jinx's "lab" where she was working on them. (2) Silco is not "manipulating" Powder/Jinx. He's trying to persuade her from his perspective. (Vi is not "manipulating" Powder/Jinx by trying to get her to come with her and leave Silco.) Why does Silco believe that Vi abandoned Powder/Jinx? Because Powder/Jinx told him that's what Vi did. (Ep. 3) Why does Silco think it is important for them to stick together? Because Silco is big on loyalty. Silco's hallmarks (i.e. themes) are (1) loyalty/betrayal and (2) fear and how it affects people. Silco is EXTREMELY loyal to those who are with him, and he also reacts very strongly to disloyalty (as we saw with the Chem-Barons in this episode). He tries to instill the importance of loyalty in his daughter, Jinx. This is what he's getting at when he says, "I am your family. Everyone else betrays us." And this stems backs to Silco's defining moment: when he was almost drowned by Vander in a betrayal. Note that Vander basically admitted his betrayal in the same way that Vi admits that she abandoned Powder. Silco is the antagonist of the story, so many are quick to ascribe "villain" motives to anything he does. But that's just not the case where Powder/Jinx is concerned.
Yes and no. Silco is definitely being manipulative, but his reasons for doing so are complex. It's not entirely obvious yet at this point why, though, so SPOILER WARNING for anyone not caught up on the series... . . . . . . . . . In a sense, he's also manipulating himself. Silco and Jinx are highly codependent, due to both having serious abandonment issues. This becomes very clear in the next episode when the doctor asks him if he is prepared to lose Jinx. "She won't die, doctor She can't." When he wakes and thinks the doctor has hurt her, he immediately lashes out. Silco is normally calm and collected, but when it comes to anything that threatens to come between him and Jinx (like Vi), he loses it. It's never fully clear whether he actually believes that "everyone else betrays us" is a foregone conclusion, but he clearly wants to believe it. The emotional consequences of losing Jinx are too high for him not to.
Ekko is my favorite character in the show. He's not about politics or wealth, he's about protecting those who are in need. And yeah... it was easy for him to talk a big game about Jinx having nothing of Powder left in her, but when he had to look her in the eye as he had her dead to rights... even he couldn't believe that anymore. It's just a... microcosm of the core tragedy of Arcane... and like you say, sometimes, you just have to accept that there is no going back to the way things once were, as painful as that might be. In any event, I strongly recommend looking into some of Schnee's analysis videos about Arcane. Really great stuff there.
You know its funny that you said, Mel wants war, because it really does look like it, doesn't it? It is so ironic that weapon production can sometimes be a really twisted peace strategy. Next episode will clear some things up about Mel.
I really really like the scene with Viktor and Jinx's bomb, you can see that he considers letting the bomb go off, killing the only two people who can weponize hextech, but he CHOSES otherwise. Just like he said: there is always a choice
"What happened up to his face?" Ah ya know, blown up by a fellow Zaunite terrorist and slashed by a corpse he was turning into a Shimmer crazed werewolf, no big deal.
Ekko has some ability to manipulate time. That's why he's able to defeat Jinx and I suspect why the first part of their fight is surreal and styled differently. That's in addition to the subtle symbolism of him being able to get jinx to think back on the past in a way to can't, even if just for a moment
Ekko does not have the ability to do that yet, that was just a homage to his character in game. He was able to beat her because he knows her moves he played against them as a child.
@@kalichinn4377 do we know that from some source or is that just an assumption? Genuine question. I don't religiously follow the lore/story status. My interpretation from the scene was that echo played through the fight once (portrayed in the surreal style), then rewound and used that knowledge to dodge everything Jinx was going to do, but I don't have an authoritative source for that so if you've got one I cede.
It’s just a way to represent his in game power. In the game he can rewind himself several seconds, like Tracer in Overwatch. Instead of opening up the mechanics of time travel in the show, they just have him “run the fight in his head” first and see what goes wrong, then do it again but fix it. Lore wise it’s explained that he grew up training with her and knew how she always beat him, remembers how it went, and knew to anticipate and avoid the shot. That’s why it’s animated differently - it’s just in his head. Also I’ve been told that the time it lasts on the show is the same as the length of time his power can rewind in the game.
Singed's face is like that because it got burned off during the fire caused by Powder in ep 3.
Also because he was in a scrap with Warwick when he was developing him, depending on how far you think the cannon world translates to arcane
@@bigWordsHurt47 The story about Warwick messing his face up specifies that it "reopened old wounds". It's most likely that the burning was always part of his story.
I think that Jinx knows that Ekko is the leader of the firelights. They seem to have a history that we haven't seen. When Ekko talks about Jinx he describes her as unchangeable. It's as though he tried to save her himself, maybe more than once. Also, Jinx calls Ekko "The boy saviour", reinforcing the idea that he tried to help her before. I imagine that the two of them have fought several skirmishes over the years. Perhaps, once Ekko finally gave up hope for Powder, that's when he added her likeness to his Murial of departed friends.
So glad you watched "Enemy" before watching this episode. It really adds a lot to the fight between Jinx and Ekko. You GET why Ekko is so adamant that Powder is gone, and why he can't bring himself to finish her off. They were good friends. He loved her.
Now you know why I said to watch the Enemy video before this episode. It really adds some context to the relationship between Powder and Ekko before... what happens.
Also, when you're done with the season, if you haven't fully gotten your Arcane fix, there's an entire "making of" style video series on RUclips called Bridging the Rift. And it's provides so much more context for how amazing this entire project was.
Regarding Jinx "killing herself" with the grenade.
It wasn't Jinx but Powder. The animations for their faces change depending on which personality is active basically.
You could see it as her being able to recognize what has become of her when faced with ekko in the final moment and deciding to end it as powder as this isn't what she truly wants deep down. Gives this moment an entirely different and far sadder meaning IMO. Many see it as "No Ekko don't fall for it => He got outplayed" which is not what is happening really.
Regarding the Face Changes you can look at the behind the scenes content after you are done, there they covered how they did it etc. as well. :)
"has this guy ever had a carb in his life?" aight, that got me lol
I think the symbolism of the hour glass on Ekko's face is that he has a pocket watch in the games he can use to turn time back for several seconds or minutes, not sure how long as I've never actually played the games. It is a multi-player online game, and I don't play well with others.
11:01, Yes, and that's part of the problem with Heimerdinger when he sat on the council all of those years. He secluded himself in the luxury of Piltover and had a "blind eye" to what was going on outside.
When first developed by Singed, Shimmer was extremely addictive. Over time Singed kept modifying it into different variants, so, in very tiny doses, as was given to Vi after she was stabbed and as Silco uses in his eye, can have medicinal value.
"Build a weapon so frightening that no one would dare tempt you to use it" is such a Mel thing to suggest
She's so desperate to be perceived as powerful and worthy of respect, but does she really have what it takes to use the weapons she has at her disposal?
Two interesting details I like in this episode; one is the way she looks at Caitlyn while she talks to Ekko, and you see the change, or realisation in her expressions; second is the freezeframe moment of when Jinz shoots at her and Caitlyn (and its funny how people don't talk about that more, which is understandable given what happens next but is still a big deal!), you can see Caitlyn trying to shield Vi with her arms while Vi actively tries to push her out of danger.
Small details that speak volumes, and are oh so important for Vi and Jinxs relationship as can be seen by the way Jinx reacts to Vi being with another blue haired person.
"Sevika was right, you're with an enforcer?"
Cait tries to protect Vi by pulling them closer together, and Vi tries to protect Cait by pushing them further apart. Fitting
Remember, in ep4 Jinx is examining the mechanical firelights. Later in ep7 they are on her desk as she staples her wound.
@12:31 “come on give it to him! he learned his lesson!”
😂 this will not age well 🫡
she didn't make firelights, you see the little butterfly/moth toys during progress day (as little ornamental toys that float around during the opening festival scenes), you also see them on her desk throughout the episodes, not sure how she got them, but maybe she grabbed some while she was topside stealing the hextech gem and then did what she did with a lot of her toys... weaponized them.
Also, I love the fact that arcane is mirrors within mirrors. Jinx is a mirror of Silco, while Vi mirrors Vander, both sister's caught in the past, in reliving and trying to grab back what is gone now. Then their brother mirrors topside with Jayce and Viktor, being slowly torn apart as Jayce is pulled farther away from being a simple scientist and Viktor is pulled deeper into science (but maybe not the good science anymore) but focused way too much on the Future. A lot of red/blue dynamics.
Then you have a mirror of Jinx in Ekko. A traumatized kid who lost everything and was left to fend for himself at likely the same rough age as Jinx, and yet managed to build a tiny paradise and save what he could save, and offer help to who he could offer help.
In direct contrast to all the blue/red dynamics, we have Ekko coming in with the green. Ekko, who is wholly and completely focused on the present, in opposition to 'the ends justifies the means' and 'progress for progress sake'. In what people need -right now-, in what can be done -right now-, in accepting the past and that people have made the choices they have made and you cannot force them to change. And then the one moment he allowed himself to lapse from that present mentality, the one moment he allowed the past to overwhelm him. KABOOM.
Yeah! Ekko and Jinx are parallels, just as Vi and Sevika are.
And still, he is at the begining of everything who gone wrong. The burglary? He instigated it. The explosion? He lead Powder there. The reunification between the sisters? He crushed it himself....
While Silco manipulates Jinx, I do think he believes everything he says due to his own experience with Vander. He thinks they're alike so he is not 100% manipulating if that makes sense
IMO he isn't manipulating for the sake of manipulating. He probably genuinely believes his advice is sound and what is best for her. But from everyone else's perspective, its manipulation. (I think that is kinda what you were saying as well)
Silco is not "manipulating" Powder/Jinx any more than Vi is. Vi wants Powder and Silco wants Jinx, but both genuinely believe that Powder/Jinx would be better off with him/her. So many people think that because Silco is the antagonist of the story that everything he does must be somehow evil or awful. That's not the case, certainly not where Powder/Jinx is concerned.
@@Lorrin81 They are just people. They don't know how to share their loved ones. They don't know how to accept their loved ones as they are.
@@ovento7438 Yes, I think that's exactly right. But Silco gets hate for it and Vi doesn't.
@@Lorrin81 And I would say that on the contrary, all adore Silko too much and no one spares Vi :)
I love that three-way conversation between Jayce, Viktor and Mel. Mel is worried that Piltover is looking weak, internationally, so she wants Jayce to make weapons to make them look strong again. Jayce is scared that the Undercity will make weapons and attack Piltover, and Jayce is in charge both of Piltover and of Hextech security - it would be his fault if something bad happened. Viktor, meanwhile, has been caught up in his personal work and suddenly his partner has become someone he doesn't recognise, and worse, is seriously considering betraying everything they worked for - they'd both said they wanted to help people in the Undercity, and now Jayce is talking about making weapons to use against them.
Singed was the scientist working with Silco on shimmer in episodes 1-3. His face is presumably a result of the fire Powder unleashed in the lab when she used the crystals as a bomb.
Yes, Singed's face is probably mixed somewhere with Sevica's arm, Mylo's and Clagor's body... 😅
I think Viktor wasn't sure about using shimmer, but when Jayce took a jab at the undercity people and later did not object to the weapons, it cemented his decision to try whatever he could, first to save his failing health, but also to be there to oversee Hextech's use
Ekko is the proof that Silco, despite his claims to want the best for the Undercity, is not the solution, and that when there is a will, there is a way, and one that is not full on war or flooding the people with shimmer, he is a fantastic character
Jinx is one of the best written character i've ever watched. I do not condone or excuse her actions, but the writers do explain perfectly how she got to be how and who she is, and it's fascinating.
Continuing to enjoy your reaction! Two quick points: (1) We saw the mechanical firelights twice in Ep. 4, both at the Progress Day Fair in Piltover and then again in Powder/Jinx's "lab" where she was working on them. (2) Silco is not "manipulating" Powder/Jinx. He's trying to persuade her from his perspective. (Vi is not "manipulating" Powder/Jinx by trying to get her to come with her and leave Silco.) Why does Silco believe that Vi abandoned Powder/Jinx? Because Powder/Jinx told him that's what Vi did. (Ep. 3) Why does Silco think it is important for them to stick together? Because Silco is big on loyalty. Silco's hallmarks (i.e. themes) are (1) loyalty/betrayal and (2) fear and how it affects people. Silco is EXTREMELY loyal to those who are with him, and he also reacts very strongly to disloyalty (as we saw with the Chem-Barons in this episode). He tries to instill the importance of loyalty in his daughter, Jinx. This is what he's getting at when he says, "I am your family. Everyone else betrays us." And this stems backs to Silco's defining moment: when he was almost drowned by Vander in a betrayal. Note that Vander basically admitted his betrayal in the same way that Vi admits that she abandoned Powder. Silco is the antagonist of the story, so many are quick to ascribe "villain" motives to anything he does. But that's just not the case where Powder/Jinx is concerned.
Yes and no. Silco is definitely being manipulative, but his reasons for doing so are complex. It's not entirely obvious yet at this point why, though, so SPOILER WARNING for anyone not caught up on the series...
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In a sense, he's also manipulating himself. Silco and Jinx are highly codependent, due to both having serious abandonment issues. This becomes very clear in the next episode when the doctor asks him if he is prepared to lose Jinx. "She won't die, doctor She can't." When he wakes and thinks the doctor has hurt her, he immediately lashes out. Silco is normally calm and collected, but when it comes to anything that threatens to come between him and Jinx (like Vi), he loses it. It's never fully clear whether he actually believes that "everyone else betrays us" is a foregone conclusion, but he clearly wants to believe it. The emotional consequences of losing Jinx are too high for him not to.
Ekko is my favorite character in the show. He's not about politics or wealth, he's about protecting those who are in need. And yeah... it was easy for him to talk a big game about Jinx having nothing of Powder left in her, but when he had to look her in the eye as he had her dead to rights... even he couldn't believe that anymore. It's just a... microcosm of the core tragedy of Arcane... and like you say, sometimes, you just have to accept that there is no going back to the way things once were, as painful as that might be. In any event, I strongly recommend looking into some of Schnee's analysis videos about Arcane. Really great stuff there.
Commenting on the firelights: "I wish we had them, imagine how crazy or nice would if we had those in the field"
***Fireflies exit the room***
You know its funny that you said, Mel wants war, because it really does look like it, doesn't it? It is so ironic that weapon production can sometimes be a really twisted peace strategy. Next episode will clear some things up about Mel.
I really really like the scene with Viktor and Jinx's bomb, you can see that he considers letting the bomb go off, killing the only two people who can weponize hextech, but he CHOSES otherwise. Just like he said: there is always a choice
You can hear Ekko hit the grenade with his metal rod a split second before it goes off btw
Love your reactions and editing!
Only 2 episodes left, cant wait to see your wrapup over the series!
Jynx humming the song if the begining, casually killing an enfoncer the same way an enfoncer killed her parents...
We saw earlier that a bit of Shimmer could heal Vi. I just assume Silco uses Shimmer to keep his eye under control. Like a messed up eye drop.
Great reaction, top-tier analysis!
"What happened up to his face?" Ah ya know, blown up by a fellow Zaunite terrorist and slashed by a corpse he was turning into a Shimmer crazed werewolf, no big deal.
Ekko has some ability to manipulate time. That's why he's able to defeat Jinx and I suspect why the first part of their fight is surreal and styled differently. That's in addition to the subtle symbolism of him being able to get jinx to think back on the past in a way to can't, even if just for a moment
Ekko does not have the ability to do that yet, that was just a homage to his character in game. He was able to beat her because he knows her moves he played against them as a child.
@@kalichinn4377 do we know that from some source or is that just an assumption? Genuine question. I don't religiously follow the lore/story status.
My interpretation from the scene was that echo played through the fight once (portrayed in the surreal style), then rewound and used that knowledge to dodge everything Jinx was going to do, but I don't have an authoritative source for that so if you've got one I cede.
It’s just a way to represent his in game power. In the game he can rewind himself several seconds, like Tracer in Overwatch. Instead of opening up the mechanics of time travel in the show, they just have him “run the fight in his head” first and see what goes wrong, then do it again but fix it. Lore wise it’s explained that he grew up training with her and knew how she always beat him, remembers how it went, and knew to anticipate and avoid the shot. That’s why it’s animated differently - it’s just in his head. Also I’ve been told that the time it lasts on the show is the same as the length of time his power can rewind in the game.
Love the energy man.Keep going
17:47 ...But we have...fireflies...
At this time Piltover is nothing compared to other regions like Noxus (where Mel is from), Demacia, Freljord and Ionia.