Arcane 1x04 Edited & Full

At this point I stopped to try and predict what will happen. The last episode and this one derailed all expectations...😅 According to the writers the time jump was around 7 years. If you watch closely you can see the subtle aging of Jayce in the beginning: He is bulkier, his face is not as soft anymore and he has a noticable five o'clock shadow. To add a little context: Since Jayce said in episode 2 that he is 24, he is now 31 years old, Mel is in her early thirties, too. Vi and Caitlyn are in their early twenties, probably 22 or 23 years old. Jinx/Powder is 18 or 19. 🙂 So Vi was in prison the whole time. Seven years without daylight and under this conditions - in her own way she must be as traumatized as Jinx...😢 As you've said, Powders bombs finally work ... to perfection...😢🙈 Yes, one could say Powder (or better Jinx - as she likes to call herself now - since even Vi called her that) is not okay. She was always mentally fragile (you can see these scratchy glitches already in ep. 1, when she and Vi walk onto the battlefield), and the events from that fateful night broke her beyond repair...😭💔 She is still the clingy insecure eleven years old girl that wants to belong to someone and constantly tries to prove her worth. (And still something goes wrong everytime she tries - The great tragedy of her life.💔) What makes it weird is that this little girl is trapped inside the body of an eighteen or nineteen years old teenager. Behaviour and biological age don't match. And she also detached herself from Powder and what she had done by giving herself a new name, a new home and she stopped caring about life. Not only about hers (just look how she plays with her grenades and always sits on the brink of an abyss) and not those of others (all the unnecessary killings - the pink haired girl Jinx shot in the back while she was trying to run away from her, the enforcers she didn't need to kill to distract them from guarding the Academy entrance)...😨 Yes, Silco manipulated Powder, but he also truly loves his adoptive daughter. He lets her paint all over his stuff and you saw how angry he got with Sevika, when she blamed Jinx for the botched smuggle operation. Jinx' links to her past as Powder are a small cuddly Claggor puppet, a life-size Mylo mannequin, several toys, Vis bunny and the flare Vi gave her on that faithful night 😭💔 Mylos ghost lingers over her shoulder like a devil. He represents all her insecurities and self-hate, since he was the one always bickering, criticising and belitteling her and constantly complaining about her. That's why Jinx has written "bla, bla, bla" all over Mylos mannequin. This is the second time Powder breaks into Jayces lab and steals a blue crystal...🤔😅 I loved Silcos confusion wether or not to be mad at Jinx after she gave him the hextech gemstone. He was mad at Jinx because the (unnecessary) killing of the enforcers puts too much attention on him when he doesn't need it and brings his plans in jeopardy, but the gemstone is an extremely powerful item that could be of great use for him. Mel Medarda is the most beautiful animated character I've ever seen...😍 She sees Jayce as her tool that she manipulates and uses to achieve her own goals. She has a model of the hexgate on her desk, which means he is not only her protegé (when something doesn't go the way he wants, he always goes straight to Mel looking for help or advice), but she financed the building of the gates and profits from the income. Which makes sense since she is the richest person in Piltover. The control over the hexgates also increases her influence and makes her the probably most powerful person in Piltover. Vi broke the buff guys jaw twice - First in the fight in the old cannery and now in prison for the second time...😅🙈 I love, love, love the attention for details in this show. For example, look at Vis face tattoo - It shows her name, VI, but also the roman numerals V and I, 5 and 1. Added up it is 6. And now look at the prisoner number on her back - it is 516. Or look at Jinx' fingernails, they're painted blue and pink for Vi and Powder and are splintered. Or Sevikas facial scars, that shine in the same blue as the hextech crystals, as one of the crystals exploded close to her face, when she lost her arm while saving Silco. Or, or, or ...😍

Meet Jinx, formerly Powder. Jinx is a character from the game. Since the game does not have a narrative, Arcane is original. So, the people who play the game (as I understand it) also did not know what was going to happen but suspected Powder would turn out to be Jinx, given the blue hair and that they called her a Jinx when she was younger. I think Jinx is so complex and so interesting. You both fear her and fear for her. She is obviously disturbed but captivating in that you do not know what she is going to do next at any given point. You understand though how she got here, she lost both her biological parents, then her adoptive dad in Vander, which she has some responsibility for. Then she feels abandoned by her big sister, only to be further adopted by an underground crimelord. You see signs of Powder, especially in her drawings and gadgets, but is that because you want to see her as Powder or is that sweet little girl gone? I hope you are enjoying the ride. These story tellers are not afraid to pull the rug out from under you and subvert your expectations, which is one of the things that make it so fascinating.