What do you think about all the people calling Silco a antihero and a good father?
I hate doing this to villains I actually enjoy, but I think this needs to be said:
No, Silco is not a good person, he's not an antihero, and he's not a good father. He's a complex, beautifully-written villain, but a villain nonetheless.
First of all, he destroyed half of Zaun with shimmer, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds (possibly thousands) and the addictions of many more. He distributed the drug as a cure-all to people who live in an impoverished city that has no hope or opportunities. I quote Ekko, "He flooded the lanes. Didn't care who got hurt." He never had Zaun's best interest at heart, despite manipulatively claiming otherwise. He only cared about his personal enterprise and eventual dictatorship. It was all about power and revenge for him, and he didn't care who got caught in the crossfire. His drug labs were even run by children, all of whom he considered expendable.
On that note, he isn't above killing children either. When Marcus began to defy him, he threatened to kill his daughter and make it look like an accident. When he kidnapped Vander, he purposely let Claggor, Mylo, and Vi break into his base with the full intention of killing them, painfully. Never mind the fact that Vander’s “betrayal” was his own doing because he wanted to rile Piltover with acts of war that would result in Zaun’s annihilation. Vander simply tried to stop him. Not to mention he had zero remorse for the boy Jayce accidentally killed and even taunted his grieving mother. You'd think he'd be able to sympathise with the loss of a child, but no. He's a towering hypocrite, only caring if the loss impacts him directly.
Though I think the biggest aspect most people are overlooking is the fact that he caused Jinx's trauma. Remember, he killed her dad, her brothers, and he tried to kill her sister. Technically Jinx caused the explosion, but why were they there in the first place? Silco. He then lied, knowing full well that Marcus took Vi. He didn't know she was still alive, but that doesn't matter. He let Jinx go on believing her sister abandoned her, which he knew caused her deep-seated issues. When Vi returned, he continued to lie about why she was there, saying she only wanted the crystal, even though Sevika told him otherwise. It wasn't to "protect" Jinx, it was because he was afraid of losing her. It was selfishness.
In the end, Silco became so reliant on Jinx that he wasn't willing to let her go. Not for anything. Not even for her own sanity and wellbeing. In the final showdown, instead of letting Jinx reconnect with her sister--which he knew she wanted--he tried to kill Vi yet again because he realised Powder was clawing to the surface. So many people think Silco was a good father, but he didn't help that child, he destroyed her. Mutated her. He let Jinx feel the pain of abandonment because he was desperate for someone to share his misery. These are not the actions of a "good father". He certainly loved her, nothing he did to her was intentionally malicious, from his perspective, but he's also the reason her mind is so jumbled. Not all love is inherently good.
Moreover, he had no right to get so attached to Jinx in the first place. He stole her. I find it kind of disturbing how many people blame Vi for “abandoning” Powder, when the reality is she didn’t. She was fifteen, she saw her family die (for the second time), and she found out that her own sister, who wasn’t even supposed to be there, was inadvertently responsible. After she punched Powder, she was overcome with guilt and sorrow and walked away to take a break. Powder mistook Vi’s actions as abandonment, but Vi never intended to leave her. The true tragedy is that both Powder and Vi’s reactions are understandable. They were both children and they were both suffering, but there’s only one person to blame for that and it’s Silco.
People like to glorify the "you're perfect" line, but the reason Silco said that is because he molded Jinx into his own personal sense of perfection. He erased Powder's entire identity to create an unstable soldier who would follow his every order, construct deadly weapons, and kill without empathy or reflection. He even convinced her to kill her friends. Jinx wrongfully places her psychosis on Vi's shoulders because of that night in the alley, but what that poor, broken girl doesn't understand is that it's Silco who put her in that situation, Silco who impressed his own trauma onto her, and Silco who encouraged her delusions. Eventually he realised he was wrong, but not until it was too late. Not until she was wanted for his mistakes.
Just like his eye, his love was toxic.
