tiv.

Episode 9 completely destroys that notion. Jinx explicitly says that it wasn’t Silco who made her this way, it was Vi (while obviously not wholly true, Vi did play a part in it). Silco's death is what pushes Jinx to stop trying to convince her sister (and herself) that she can be Powder again. It’s the moment she fully embraces her Jinx persona, culminating in that horrifying dramatic act in his honor

Now season 2 completely backtracks by suggesting that Silco’s death did fix everything! We’re suddenly back to square one with the Jinx vs. Powder conflict, even though the final episode of Season 1 was supposed to resolve that. Silco’s years of influence, both good and bad, are simply erased from her life. The trauma, emotional manipulation, paranoia, and codependency are just... gone. The time she spent with him is not even mentioned

Except actually he was apparently a pseudo-uncle - if not a third parent - to them when they were little. Which makes sense as to why he'd adopt them, but it feels like too easy of an answer. It feels more striking that Vander would have a change of heart realising the consequences to these two random kids (or even just kids he vaguely knew because Vi might have been a misfit running around Zaun or maybe Powder was brought to one of the revolution meeting, idk) rather than "Well, he KNEW these kids, that's why it affected him." Like, imagine if that kid Jayce killed in S1 was actually Viktor's nephew.

This also changes Powder's 'meeting' (if it is still that) with Silco. It speaks far more to her devastation and state of apparent abandonment if she's jumping into the embrace of a stranger with whom she has no positive prior interactions - and thus no reason to feel fondly of - than someone who might've doted on her or been her parents' friend in the past.

what if instead of colored powder a toxic gas was released into Piltover. what if those were bombs and not just some sort of fireworks.

man, I miss season 1. Jinx acted on her impulses. she kidnapped people and shot things. she threw bombs. S1!Jinx simply got things DONE.

Let's imagine a scenario where Powder didn't go to the cannery. A scenario where she didn't set off her monkey bomb, where her adoptive family didn't die, where Vi, Vander, Mylo, and Claggor all made it back to The Last Drop to find her there, heartbroken but waiting for their return.

Even in this scenario, where the deaths of her adoptive family didn't happen by her hand, Vi was never taken to Stillwater, and Silco didn't adopt her -- even in this scenario, she still would have matured into the terrorist who sought to murder as many enforcers with her bombs and guns as possible.

Look at who Powder was, as a child. Look at the drawings she made, of bombs, guns, explosions, and herself holding dynamite:

Look at the bombs she tried to make, filled with nails and other harmful objects, that her older sister encouraged her to keep making because "they will [work]."

Look at the way she mimed shooting enforcers as they passed her and her siblings.

Silco didn't implant the idea of killing enforcers with bombs and guns into Powder's mind. That was always there. If anything, Vi was the one who put it there, as much as she berated Powder for getting them searched by the enforcers that Powder pretended to shoot. Vi encouraged her to make her bombs. She told Powder that they would work someday. And this nurtured who Powder already was: someone who hated the enforcers with every fiber of her being, who wanted to kill them herself, who practiced and worked on making weapons not only to help her family (but that, too), but also to kill the enforcers that made their lives hell.

As a child, Powder was already making weapons, even if they didn't work at first. As a child, Powder already wanted to kill enforcers. This is the path she was on long before the incident at the cannery. This is who she was always going to be.

So had the Last Drop family had survived, think about how she would have progressed. She would have continued working on her bombs, this time with the grief of rejection and roots of insecurity in the back of her mind that not only did Vi not allow her to come on the mission to save Vander, but that they truly didn't need her there to save him. She still had the hex crystals; it's entirely possible that she would have experimented with the monkey bomb later, in a different location, blowing something up when no one was around.

Perhaps then Silco would have taken notice of her, perhaps he would have started secretly feeding her parts so that she could continue to make weapons.

Or maybe not; maybe she would have just continued to build bombs and guns that would grow increasingly more successful, until she could start using them against the enforcers instead of always having to flee when she and her siblings got chased.

But there is one certainty we have, and that is this: Powder loved making bombs and wanted to fight the enforcers. Jinx loves making bombs and wants to kill the enforcers. She is the same girl. This is who she has always been. It's who she was always going to be, even if the night at the cannery had taken a different trajectory. Vander would have strongly disapproved of her killing enforcers, but she would have tried to do it anyway. She had fantasies that she play-acted out about doing just that, that she and her sister got manhandled by enforcers for.

Yeah you could argue this parallels Silco but it doesn’t really. Silco didn’t want to give up jinx because she’s his daughter. Sevika doesn’t want to give up jinx because she’s a zaunite

And you know who that reminds me of so fucking much?

That’s Vander’s ideology right there. Vander could have done like Grayson suggested, picked any rando off the streets to take the fall for the apartment explosion, but he wouldn’t, because those are his people.

Vander was weak and Vander was a coward but Sevika followed him once, and there was a reason for that