So I wanted to talk about Vi and Jinx...
I think one of the most beautiful things in Arcane re: the sisters is how reconnecting is, for both of them, only possible when they break out of their pre-conceived notions of each other that they've been dragging since childhood.
To reconnect with Jinx, S2 Vi has to acknowledge her as an independent adult and let go of the perception of a small vulnerable child that she needed to protect at all times. S2 Jinx, to reconnect with Vi, has to see her sister as someone vulnerable, both physically and emotionally, and not as this sort of always-strong, idealised protector.
Only when they break their childhood dynamic they are able to see each other as equal and find a common ground.
And I love their dynamic in season 2 because despite all the bagage they have you can see how they are getting to see each other as their own persons, while also being silly af like only two siblings can be. It's very little time, but you can tell they are maturing together.
I think many 'arcane critical' Vi takes fail to understand this. They are trapped in S1 Vi's and Jinx's minds. They are still expecting them to conform to the unhealthy dynamic of protector and protected; and fail to see what Vi and Jinx see of each other in S2. Vi is no ideal protector nor a hero of the vulnerable: she's a flawed, young woman with tons of emotional bagage. Jinx is not an uwu baby who needs protection and is unable to do things for herself: she can very much protect herself, she's independent, a survivor, as well as deeply traumatised too.
And this is not subtext at all. Vi points out in the mines that Jinx hasn't needed her in a long time -she's realised her sister is more than capable of fending for herself. Jinx makes teasing observations of Vi's soft spots throughout S2: telling her she knows she's soft on Caitlyn during Act I finale, calling her a "sentimental excon" in act II... And she's seen her become an alcoholic due to all her unprocessed trauma and the situation after act I (and also makes a comment about that).
Their whole journey in S2 is about how they cannot, and do not, conform to the dynamic they acquired when they were children. They are two different persons now, and they are also mature enough to understand each other as multi-dimensional, as oppossed to their one-dimensional perceptions of each other as protector and protected that they had in S1 Act I and that dragged on S1 as a whole.
Criticising Vi's character for not going after Jinx after their last encounter is failing to understand many things, but mainly, it is a symtom of being trapped in the dynamic they had in episode 1, when most of the story of their relationship in the series is guided to tell us how this is not who they are, and these perceptions frozen in time are hurting both of them.
"Everyone in my life has changed" says Vi in S2 Act I finale. It is true: she's been locked in a jail cell, where all of the Lanes, her family, her friends... remained frozen in memory, and now she doesn't know who this people are. She's struggling with years and years of emptyness in which everyone she knows has grown and changed and she's been stuck -she's changed, too, but that's harder for her to see. She doesn't know who Jinx is, and until S1 finale she is unable to see this fact. Her behaviour in S2 Act I is, among other things, a backlash reaction to this realization, also a mistaken, unidimensional perception of her sister -not a perfect victim now, but a perfect perpetrator. Jinx also takes her time to get to see Vi for who she is now, but she's finally able to in S2. That doesn't mean they understand each other -quite far from it actually- but they are able to see and accept each other as complex people, with deep rooted bagage, part the same they were as children, part completely different.
Then it comes S2 ep8. Vi's fight with Caitlyn about Jinx demonstrates how Vi is now able to understand Jinx as a multidimensional character, see her complexity, her humanity, and argue she's different than they (both Caitlyn and Vi) thought she was. Jinx's conversation with Vi underscores how much Jinx recognises their dynamic has been hurting them both ("You're never going to give up on me") and how Vi has wishes and feelings of her own, even if she's repressing them to play her part as the big protector sis. These observations fuel Jinx's suicidal ideation, and Vi's incapability to give up her protector role, despite knowing Jinx doesn't need it anymore, gets her to have a breakdown. Neither know what this moment did to the other, because they still don't know each other that much. But they cannot save themselves without having had this conversation.
It's a perfect tragedy where a childish dynamic is entertwined with guilt, pain, and tons of trauma. It is a barbed wire that traps them both - it hurts when they are still, and it hurts more when they try to break free. Only with help they can disentangle themselves and one another; and that's where Cait and Ekko come in, too (and for Jinx, Isha and Sevika also did a part).
Anyway, I love me some doomed sisters dynamic.
