Jinx is Innocent

 

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

 Genesis 3:7

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This is my review of Arcane: League of Legends, Season 2. It will follow one thematic throughline, which does not nearly encompass everything in the show, though I think it is the most important part (aside from the quality of animation.) You can read my Season 1 review here, though they are on entirely different perspectives. And obviously, this is gonna have spoilers through the end of the season. If you haven't yet, please stop reading this and go watch Arcane - it is worth going in unspoiled.

When I watched the first 6 episodes of season 2, I thought I was watching a fun show with a lot of fan service and exciting moments, but no thematic consistency or way it was going to resolve all its plot and character threads, a pale shadow of the perfect first season. When I first finished season 2, I thought "wow that was actually good. I'd say this season was almost as good as the first season, which is much higher than I expected it would be." Three weeks of thinking about it later, I've settled on s2 being as good as s1. It's that type of show.

I was at first very worried about s2. Season 1 had such a perfect ending, with it's final episode focusing intensely on the emotional core of the show. I just felt it didn't need a sequel and there was nothing more to say, that wouldn't be needlessly expanding the "mythology" for the sake of wikis and reddit fans. And the first advertisements focused on the upcoming Jinx vs Vi/Caitlin battle, with voice clips from that fight. I was intensely uninterested in how that would go, and why would anyone want a whole season about that? The trailers leading up to release also seemed to highlight that conflict, which again, I didn't care about.

I was wrong, and I should have trusted the writers more. Jinx and Vi have a faceoff that is a quality scene (the best fight of the season) -- in episode 3. We hear all the advertised lines there. The rest of the season is just over and done with that conflict, as everyone movies on. As the showrunner Christian Linke said afterwards "there's not much left to say after everything that was said and done in 203. they had their opportunity to vomit. at this point, they either team up or they don't." I love this clarity of vision.

So what was the season about instead? Well there was Piltover's descent into (and redemption from) fascism combined with Ambessa's villanous arc and how that is connected to Mel. Ambessa was always a delight on screen, but really that whole tangle of plotlines was a mess and uninteresting. Chasing one macguffin after another. There was Warwick, ugh. I can hardly say that saved s2.

But there was Viktor, and Jayce, and Ekko. And that was more than enough to make up for it.

One of the things I really like about these writers is how they drop breadcrumbs for the future. They don't try to hide them as such (anti-example, like the frequent hints at Warwick). They make a show of them, drop them ENTIRELY, like they forgot them and had bad writing, and then BAM, pick them up and drop a nuke with them once you've forgotten the breadcrumb entirely.

The power gem is s1 is a perfect example. It's a really big deal in 1.4. And for a few episodes characters focus on chasing it. But it doesn't do anything, and going into the psychodrama of 1.9 it really seems irrelevant. And then a traumatized Jinx loads it into her modified rocket launcher, and shoots a secretly upgraded missile into the Piltover council chamber.

The very title of the show did this. Why was it called Arcane? Well some mage saved Jayce as a child and gave him a rune, leading to a fascination with magic. But who was this mage, why did they do this? Eh no one even thinks of that, and it's weird that this crime/political/psychodrama is named after an quasi-scientific name for magic. Only for the mage to return 14 episodes later and be central to the climactic finale. That is an impressive slow burn game.

Which is to say I really like even just the setup for Ekko's arc. He's very cool in season 1, but doesn't get a whole lot of screen time and plot relevance. He has a very cool fight scene with Jinx that highlights his past connection to her, but also his cold antagonism with her as a serial killer who has killed many of his comrades. That all is pretty cool, but not really going anywhere. In Season 2 Act I he barely appears, until a cool music/psychedelic scene where he and two others disappear into an anomaly. He then is completely absent for 3 episodes, and no one asks or thinks about him. He is so extremely irrelevant and forgotten.

Then episode 2.7 opens, replacing the opening animation of a record with Vi and Jinx on it... with Ekko and Powder. What a way to pick up the forgotten ball again. And at the very height of action for most of the characters, we get a whole episode that pauses on that, and gives us a very emotionally intimate and quotidian story, along with a solitary journey through nightmare. This is a POWERFUL structural choice, and frankly takes so much time that others arcs never get the time they need to develop, but the fact that it works so well makes the boldness really pay off. Why does it work so well?

And that's the thing. Powder never grew up. Even as she became much more lethal, she still had childlike innocence of the results of her actions. She doesn't understand it as young Powder. The consequences at the end of 1.3 utterly devastate her, and she represses that. As Jinx later she's just a wind up toy for Silco that blows other toys up. And she likes it that way. She is entirely action, and no reflection. When she kills someone directly, her eyes are hollow and disassociated. 

That's why the climax of 1.9 breaks her so much. Not only has she killed her father figure for the second time, but it was a split second reflex and she has to deal with the consequences of her actions, emotionally. So she does something else destructive, that is so big she cannot even think about it. Her mind will kill any number of people to maintain its innocence.

But after 1.9, she clearly has more knowledge of evil than before. So she goes into hiding and denial. She just wants to sulk, but if anyone gets in her way it will be another dead-eyed killing.

Two things happen for Jinx in 2.2. One, she builds an arm for Sevika, because she wanted to help anyone in some way. This is the first mention of a frequent theme in the season - that Jinx could build things as much as she is good at destroying them, if she chose to. (We'll get it again in 2.6 with Viktor's offhand comment, all of 2.7, and the start of 2.9)

The other thing, is she meets Isha. Isha (besides being a lovable, fridgable moppet we all bleed for) is a great temptation for innocence. Isha herself is innocent, like she had never left the Garden of Eden, and "protecting and mothering Isha" is a good and pure goal for Jinx to lose herself in.

The land of episode 2.4 where Jinx just slumber parties eternally with Isha, running bug fights and dying hair is not a healthy world. It is one of denial and escapism. So much of the world wants Jinx to standup and take on responsibilities, and Jinx is unwilling too so long as she can hide in her own world.

(Ironically we get some really good one-off episodes that explore a particular aspect of Jinx's mind, then doesn't mention it again. 1.4 really dives into the idea of the hero - a symbol the people can rally around. What does it feel like to be made into a hero, especially without your consent? It is sometimes upsetting, but other times in this episode it is sublime.)

And then the end of 2.6 hits us. A literal fairy tale commune of peace is destroyed, and more importantly, Isha dies because she is trying to both save and emulate Jinx. This is too much. Jinx can not ignore her responsibility in the death of the girl she had basing her entire world around. Her innocence is now fully gone, and with that, the guilty for everything else she has done in her life rushes in. This is why she has that exchange with Caitlin: when she nuked the council she did not know the humans and their relationships that would be affected. Now that she knows, she can't say what she would have done. Except turn herself in now, of course, and bear the weight of her past sins until it crushes her.

It's a beautiful and well done arc, but it leaves us with problems. One, it's at an incredibly low point and not very much a satisfying ending. But two - we can't explore Jinx's mind because she's catatonic. There's nothing she can say, no one she can interact with, while being this spiritually dead. How can we push on while not trivializing Isha's recent death?

And THAT is the brilliance of 2.7. We can continue to explore Jinx's psychology in an alternate universe where Powder grew up instead. Powder is not a psychopathic killer, nor a perfectly accomplished angel. But she has responsibilities and she takes them seriously. She has knowledge of herself and world around her. This Powder is good, but not innocent. (In a more blunt metaphor, note that AU Powder has a romantic and physical relationship, while Jinx never touches that possibility, so much that creeps have to ship her into a daddy/daughter incestu-ship.)

It was obvious that the 3 anomaly travelers would go on their own journey that would be shown in a future episode, especially as we see broken-hearted Jayce and need to know what set him on that path. That's the type of storytelling we already knew Fortiche does. But what was much less obvious was how it would compare to the characters in the main world and create new emotional connections for them too. That we would care.

And then we add in the way 2.7 parallels 1.7, with such craftsmanship. Each of the 7's episodes have the giant mural tree, a vision of the undercity as a joyous place, a focus on Ekko and themes of time, and end with a music/scene (each of which are iconic songs.) One is one of the best fight scenes in history - between Ekko and Jinx, and the other is the most romantic scene in the series in a dance with Ekko and Powder. Not to mention the parallel "boots entering" shots, or the flashback AU Ekko has to the bridge in 1.7. It's hard for me to believe that 1.7 was not purposefully set up to be paralleled later, but probably a lot of it was luck and backsolving.

(It is very, very hard for me to say that episode 2.7 is better than the reigning champ 1.9. But I could say that combined, the 7's episodes are better than the combined 9's episodes.)

After that, the rest of Jinx's arc is so predictable it might even be considered a letdown. Ekko now has a small smidgen of understanding of Jinx (plus a literal AND metaphorical time machine), and stops her from suicide. And it is a fantastic montage/scene, pulling all the threads brought together in 2.7 into a tight knot now. He gets her to be productive and save Piltover in her ridiculous style. 

Most importantly her hero-shot now lacks innocence. It is the look of a master criminal condescending the world around them. Which isn't.... great really, but it is removed from all innocence. No wide eyes anymore.

Like any villain who has committed great sins, taken ownership for them, and is trying to be good now, she has to die or go into exile. She can't go around pretending everyone is okay with them, and her presence would always be too morally complicated. She can do one suicidal gesture, or leave the world behind.

There's a lot of plot clues that Jinx escaped. That purple flash as she fell. Caitlin examining the vent exits in the tower. The symbolic white airship that young Powder promised she would ride one day.

But what really nails it is when the ghost of Silco talks to her in prison. He ends with saying the greatest power is to walk away. That's a very loaded statement, actually kind of out of nowhere. It makes no sense, unless of course, Jinx walks away.

I think Jinx's arc is over now for good. She might cameo in some future show that takes place elsewhere in Runeterra. But we've completed the story of her.

But I said that after season 1, so who knows.