#jayce meta

Maybe he stopped trying to be attached to things too, fearing they'd just get destroyed or taken anyways too. If you include the headcanon that he moved to Piltover during the snowstorm too, instead of being born there, then he may have already lost all his possessions once before. In that storm, in the move.

It makes me wonder what his place looks like after he moves out of his mom's house again. Would he bother to try buying anything for a while? It's interesting to think that for a long time, maybe even a few years, there's a chance he might not have bought anything other than the bare essentials. Very few dishes, maybe just two of each. No decorations. He has a couch, maybe a coffee table he eats at instead of a proper table and chairs. Nothing much more than a desk and a bed in his room. Any research he does at home gets locked in a safe in his closet, and everything else he keeps in the lab.

Maybe after a while, and some encouraging from Viktor (who's a hypocrite, and also has minimal things in his house because he has Grew Up Poor As Fuck Syndrome), he buys some things. He has more money than before, he CAN do it now, he's just afraid to. He gets more comfortable. Buys an actual table and chairs. More dishes. A comfier couch. Decorations for his room. Comfier bed too.

And then, years later, Jinx robs his lab. His safe space with Viktor. And honestly, I'm not sure he would really ever have had time to recover from that one. He's paranoid about locking everything down in the lab, along with dealing with being a councilor. He wants to give Zaun sovereignty despite how violating it felt to have his safe areas stolen from and destroyed again. He tries to.

And then Jinx blows up the council chambers. Kills Viktor. Jayce revives him in their lab, watches over him. Brings his blanket there with him, an object to feel safe with again, even in this room that had been tainted with a feeling of just. General unsafety. From Jinx robbing him, killing his partner. From learning that Sky died in this room too, and Viktor almost did as well.

He gives Viktor that safe object when he wakes up. And then, Viktor leaves. Further just destroying the safety this lab room brings him. He still sleeps there, still clings to that feeling it brought him, but its not the same. He doesn't have anything that makes him feel safe anymore.

Then he's thrown in a ravine. That's his home for months. It's the opposite of safe. Not only does he not have a safe shelter, but he's in his own city that's been twisted beyond what he can recognize. There is NOWHERE that is safe here

He doesn't have time to recover at all when he gets back. It's genuinely been likely over a year since he really called any place a truly safe home since Jinx robbed the lab.

Ever since S2 ended, no one has ever provided a justifiable reason or one that makes sense as to why Mage Viktor stood by and let Jayce suffer in that ravine, drinking dirty water, eating bugs with an infected, broken leg for half a year.

Is seeing the destruction caused by Hextech, the damage to the environment, and his family and friends being turned into mindless robot husks not enough to convince Jayce that he needed to destroy it?

Ekko telling him about the tree, and Jayce seeing how Zaun was negatively impacted by Hextech, would've been enough if the writers had chosen to explore it further.

Not only that, but Mage Viktor placed the rune in Jayce's arm. The rune that slowly kills him from the inside. Why? What was the reason? He doesn't even try to help heal some of his injuries; he just adds to whatever health problems Jayce is already dealing with from his time spent down there.

The writers, VAs, and Jayce "fans" all frame it as this romantic, loving thing and I feel like I'm being gaslit for thinking it's crazy and fucked up.

Would people have seen it differently if Jayce had been a woman?

Sometimes, I think the writers wrote that entire sequence of his suffering to punish Jayce. Not for his actions that required accountability in the story (killing the child, building a bomb in Zaun, aiding in environmental damage and pollution, etc.), but for being obsessed with magic, something Viktor kick-started.

I also think the writers and a lot of fans have a fixation with Jayce suffering and being tortured physically and mentally, especially for how he "treated" Viktor, which to many fans is him having a life and relationships outside of Viktor.

Jayce became a victim and a passenger, and the fans gave a round of applause for his shit writing.

He was able to create magic. His idea was revolutionary. He was able to harness the arcane and fuse it with scientific principles to create amazing things. Somewhere along the way he reached his life's goal of giving magic to the world, and he still had so much more left to offer. He had the praise and the accolades and the funding and his face on the goddamn mugs.

And it wasn't enough. Not where it mattered most. Not for who it mattered most.

(Do you think Jayce felt sick, cleaning the dirt and blood from his pristine white coat, waiting? Do you think the memories kept it off, despite the chill in the lab air, with him only re-donning his Man of Progress suit when Viktor leaves for good? Do you think upon his return from the anomaly that he cradles his old mug — the one Viktor bought for him as a joke — suddenly and fiercely glad for his grown out hair and beard because he is not that man anymore. He hasn't been for a long time. Maybe he never really was.

When I think about what I would like to see in Season 2 of Arcane when it comes to the dynamics of Jayce, Mel and Viktor, regardless of the obvious (that Viktor will leave and become The Machine Herald and Jayce will get more involved in the war between Piltover and Zaun and will most likely deal more with the aftermath of Jinx' actions), I wish for a more Jayvik centric plot but not in the romantic way (even tho I would love that) but more in a way that Jayce will struggle with Viktor leaving, his actions will revolve more around the current threat coming from Zaun and what that means for his dying relationship with Viktor.

And I say that because I do believe (and I will just throw this into the room now) that Mel and Jayce's shared plot is close to being resolved. They started out as pushing and pulling forces for each other. Jayce being her ticket to putting Piltover on the map, bringing innovation and glory to her city while for Jayce Mel is this inspiring icon of power. Schnee said in his last video about why Caitvi didn't get a kissing scene, that Mel seduced Jayce with power and I would agree to that. To a degree. She gave him the means and freedom to realize his dreams and pushed him to become stronger and more independant.

Yet he awakened the softness and this caring side of her, she had burried under the pain of being cast out years ago.

His soft spirit and need for closure and quite shared moments reestablished the empathy that made her so different from her family, from everyone but her brother Kino.

And as Schnee already predicted, her plot of Season 2 will most likely revolve around Kino and her trying to fight for her old strong believes, against the war Piltover starts with Zaun. This is where she looses this connection with Jayce, I predict, since she would become this kind woman again. She doesn't need his soft side anymore to remind her. Their shared plot is resolved there.

Now out of totally analytic reasons I was wondering if Viktor could also be secuded by the concept of power. And my thought is: No.

Viktor does not seek power, he never wished to be seen as better, stronger or smarter than anyone. Yes, part of his plot in Season 1 is that he fears to be forgotten but I believe this doesn't come from the need to be somone great but by the experiences he made since he is disabled and was always a cast-out.

He wants to be recognized for what he is: A smart, humble man that is ready to change the conditions he himself had to grow up in.

But what would or did seduce Viktor is the question. And I say, it's innovation. He was seduced by what Jayce said at the trial, the sheer possibilities he himself had not been able to think of. This solution that is so different from anything anyone has ever dared to think of. Jayce thinking out of the box. It intrigued him as he said himself and it's also what seduced Mel in the first place (if we don't count her hungry look when Jayce simply walks in, that woman didn't know sht about his research lmao)

Both seeked his innovative mind, but for totally different reasons.

Mel saw the opportunities of her own growth in it while Viktor saw hope for himself and his people in it. And while Viktor helped Jayce to complete his research and bring him closer to his dream of helping people like he was being helped as a kid, Mel gave Jayce the opportunity to grow himself, gave him a glimps of what it meant to be in a ruling position.

But now you maybe wonder: Is Jayce power-hungry?

Was he so easily seduced by power because he seeked it, because this is who he is and that is why Mel became a part of him in Season 1?

And my answer is: No.

At no point did Jayce ask to be in power or a leader, he himself said it in Episode 5 and you see him struggling with his decisions and feel the anxiety and stress he goes through because of this responsibility that was pushed on him.

I would argue that yes, he was more easily intigued by the idea of being in a position of power than Viktor would ever be but that is because he only and exclusively seeked self determination and the freedom to realize his dreams without any barriers or restrictions. Mel offered him that and that's what secuded him into a relationship. And that is also what made Viktor so appealing. This risktaker, fearless and eager to break any rule the academy and the council had set for Jayce, inspired him. I think, "If you're going to change the world, don't ask for permission." was the line that threw him over the edge, made Jayce not only trust and get him inspired by Viktor, it was the moment he devoted himself to the man.

Now to the part of where Jayce's plot revolving around Mel resolves in Season 1 and why they won't depend on each other anymore so much in the next Season. With Mel giving him all the means to realize his dreams and visions, pushing him to think of his peoples' needs first and protect his city, she not only spoil and overwhelm him but also made him believe that whatever decision he made was going to help as long as it was for his people, right? Pushing him into building HexTech weapons when all he wanted was to build helpful tools. Row back with her demands when she realized war was no option but forgetting that Jayce by all means was no capable leader. She manipulated him enough to be able to know that others could do the same and they did. So he build his own weapons, feeling that high of power in the factory fight scene but also feeling the desperation of guilt when his pretention cost a child its life.

Here, there is a moment of branching off. On the one hand, Jayce feels more seperated from anyone that had him make these decisions that led him to this low point, drawing him closer to Viktor.

And on the other hand it made him understand why after all Mel did choose peace over war. It all collapses in the moment his own invention, that was supposed to help people and make the world a better place, is used to harm and maybe even kill his loved ones in a big final explosion that will bring his arc revolding around Mel in Season 1 to an end.

It's a symbol for the chaotic path his trust in Mel has taken him down to and we will only be able to know where it takes him in Season 2 when it finally airs.

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Thank you very much for reading!

If you have any thoughts or opinions on this topic, please let me know. This is just my sponatanious rambling, so if you disagree with anything or have any additions, I'm eager to learn. This is just a thesis and I respect any view you have on the characters and ships.

What just occured to me while writing, is that whenever he stood up for his believes in his younger years, he ran against a wall, people called him out, ridiculed him, even arrested him. If it wasn't for Viktor believing in him and saving his life, he might not have gotten anywhere with his Hextech dream on his own.

And speaking of the life saving part: Another user pointed out that just like Viktor, Jayce cares very little about his own life but a lot about those of others, in my opinion at this point of the show even more than Viktor does, he just doesn't know how to properly help short term. But the important part is, that boy is so full of dedication to the lifes of the ones around him, it just makes sense that he wants to protect them at any cost. And since being stubborn and stand-alone didn't get him anywhere, he listens to the "wise" people around him. Yes, also because he believes they have the best in mind like he does, what can be very naive in politics.

Nevertheless, the scene that brought me here, that might show best, what Jayce's problem is, is when Mel suggests to build weapons fueled by Gemstones. Two very strong opinions collide in this scene with Viktor being strictly against it, since it will harm his people and Mel being realistic, just considering the possibility, not making any active plans on attacking.

(Feel free to ignore, this kinda ruins the mood, I'm just having a lot of thoughts right now)

I love Jayce like no other but when you try to put a finger on who was to be blamed most for Jinx' attack on the council, I would actually say: Him.