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it makes me so insane that even though the undeniably most relevant moment in his character arc was being betrayed by someone, silco still fundamentally trusts people on principle. the system he's built relies entirely on other people doing their part, he relies entirely on other people's loyalty to him. he lets jinx, someone everyone else says is a liability and unpredictable, inject his eye with shimmer, an insanely vulnerable position for him to be putting himself in willingly. he trusts sevika, someone who could easily overpower him physically (much like vander did), to remain loyal to him.

the trust silco places in other people is also indicative of his past role as an activist and a revolutionary, i think. communities are built on trust. movements are dependent on trust. when an entire people work as one, trust is the thing that keeps them together. and even though vander, in silco's mind, betrayed that trust, he still believes in the inherent power of it.

Underrated JayVik moments/lines (18/∞)

"I was supposed to die."

(I can NOT get over how absolutely livid he looks.)

I always did wonder what precisely Viktor meant by that.

Because although we are led to believe that the main reason for his ire is that Jayce broke his promise to destroy the HexCore, not only would this line be entirely unnecessary for that, but this is the line that sees the focus fully on Viktor's delivery and expression (whereas his comment on Jayce's broken promise is instead "shot" from behind, with the focus falling squarely on Jayce's reaction).

All this - and adding to it how inherently striking a statement it is to tell someone you were supposed to die in the first place - goes to put a much heavier emphasis on this line over the other one, really. But why?

I believe it is because (though their parting was likely already inevitable at this point due to additional factors such as the HexTech weapons) it is in fact a crucial part of what informs Viktor and Jayce's disconnect in this scene. As I see it, one of the various ways Jayce goes wrong here is in dwelling on the HexCore and interpreting Viktor's disapproval as solely targeting Jayce's failure to "cling to principle", when the scene direction already told us he was supposed to have paid closer attention to the line above instead.

So, since the show insists - let's unpack this, I guess.

To me, the key to understanding is the question I posed in the very beginning; the question of which of Viktor's two possible deaths this line is actually referring to - his prognosed death by disease or his de facto death in the explosion (neither of which Jayce was "supposed to" avert by using the HexCore). And after some consideration, I think the answer is this:

It makes precious little difference to Viktor - and a world of difference to Jayce.

Let's take a look at the situation from their respective points of view:

"Promise. Me."

When Viktor made Jayce promise to destroy the HexCore, it's not like he wanted to die (even his suicide attempt was more of a bid to escape his guilt and despair than a death wish), but he was coming to terms with the inevitability of it. He may not know that he has only hours left to live here, but at this point, what's the difference really?

And then, something extraordinary happens:

While we don't get to see it, it is heavily implied - both by the way Viktor saying "We have to make it right" is played over the image of Silco reading Jayce's request for parley, and of course, by how he and Jayce end up presenting it to the council together - that this negotiation for peace with Zaun is a joint endeavour.

After all of the lonely struggles Viktor fought over the course of acts 2 and 3, he spends his final day working united with Jayce the way they used to be, and his final moments seeing his people be granted independence through his and Jayce's own efforts.

With him dying - or at least being knocked unconscious - instantly in the explosion, this was the "roll credits" moment of Viktor's life, and he would never have to learn how everything went to shit.

If your death was inescapable anyway - what moment could have been more beautiful to leave the stage?

...Only to wake up in a body horror nightmare, standing less than human before the person you needed to trust more than anything having broken his promise to let you die on your own terms.

"I was supposed to die." - Why did you put me back here just because you could?

"Okay... Okay. I promise."

When Jayce promises to destroy the HexCore, he doesn't want to, but he would hate to deny Viktor's plea even more. And I do genuinely believe he would have gone through with it, too.

However, imagine how exactly Jayce is interpreting what is being asked of him in this moment. To a staunch optimist like Jayce, while a devastating blow, this is not the end of all hope. This is not a DNR.

In a way, it is merely a "back to square one" - the prospect of spending however many months remain working urgently to find a different solution, perhaps. But more importantly:

It is the solace of still having those months.

(If nothing else, then just to prepare emotionally. As someone who lost her father to illness young, believe you me when I say that having the time to prepare for what's coming is invaluable.)

Jayce is not imagining the death he is unwittingly promising Viktor here to be a sudden, frantic thing. Bloodied and dirt-streaked amidst rubble and smoke, his body cast aside and broken against stone like another piece of furniture that happened to stand in the way of the blast.

Jayce is not imagining ever looking at Viktor's corpse in a state that suggests he never mattered at all.

And Jayce - no matter what Viktor thinks his promise should entail - did most definitely not promise to be able to keep his head cool and his heart detached in a situation so far removed from anything he was ever expecting to handle when he gave it.

"I never asked for this!" - It was never fair of you to ask me for this!

Speaking of fair: that's another thing I want to touch on real quick.

Because even though Viktor acts like it should have been a matter of course for Jayce to accept Viktor's death, I have often wondered what Viktor wouldn't have been willing to do if their roles were reversed; if it was Jayce caught in the blast instead. (After all, Viktor knows he is a doomed man, but not Jayce. That's not how it's supposed to go.)

Now, I don't know that he would have gone full Singed, but luckily, we don't have to know. The show tells us exactly what Viktor would do to save Jayce's life, over and over again if need be.

Forget breaking a promise - how about breaking the very fabric of time and space itself? I know we often talk about Viktor as being the one "doomed by the narrative", and while that is true, make no mistake:

For whatever it's worth, Jayce was "supposed to die" too.

If not in the snow storm, then perhaps by his own hand, or through the Glorious Evolution. All of which Viktor simply... refuses to let happen, cosmic integrity be damned.

Long story short: In Jayce's defence, your Honour - Viktor is equally unwell about him.

Additional thoughts I didn't know how to include:

The idea for this entry is very closely tied to this video edit I made (although in a classic "chicken or egg" situation, I wouldn't be able to say which inspired which first), so if for some reason you'd like to see these themes put in a music video format - there you go.

For more on "Jayce is the one doomed by the narrative", please do read this meta by @zecroswe. While I don't agree on every detail, I absolutely see the vision and highly recommend giving it a read.

I've been wanting to expand on Jayce's POV on the necromancy thing ever since part 2 (where I said Viktor "knows that Jayce broke his promise to destroy the HexCore, but not of the wide-eyed desparation with which he scrambled for any way at all to save Viktor"). On that post, @luciansuir made a comment that I really want to include here because they kinda nailed some of my thoughts all the way back then:

Jayce fumbled so bad that he pulled excuses like “maybe the HexCore wasn’t so bad, maybe Heimer was wrong” Man how was that ever about the features of HexCore? Of course Viktor was convinced that you experimented with his death and treated him as a sample. Just tell the truth that you were so desperate and couldn’t bear the thought of losing him

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A nice little detail I noticed tonight.

They bar the door with Viktor’s cane, so when the Enforcers break in, the cane breaks too.

And then the next thing we see is Viktor floating, with his amazed smile, his childlike wonder.

There’s this sweet, almost bittersweet implication that he’s transcended his body, just for a moment.

He won’t feel so free in his body again for years, until he drops his crutch and runs on the docks.

The ways that their partnership is imprinted on his body, and the stages of it reflected through his body—how he finds freedom and joy that first night; how he’s wasting away during the period when Jayce’s attention was elsewhere; how Jayce reconstructs him through love and it’s too much for him to take; how Jayce’s body comes to mirror his; how they’re both bodiless in the end, and free, like it’s taken them years of suffering to reach the purity of that first free moment again—will always be so moving to me.

Arcane is a story written on Viktor’s body.

Hallo! Regarding your latest arcane scene analysis: did you see the post (i think it was on x originally) where someone theorised that the split images you can see of jayce in that scene are actually the jayces from alternate timelines? It just makes so much sense and goes with my personal headcanon that we only get to see a fraction of his conversation with the mage (for the purpose of heightened tension) because in their full convo he tells Jayce about what the other versions of him did/didn't do and how it led to the same bad ending. So mage viktor, by observing countless timelines has figured out that it is necessary for jayce to kill viktor then, because he needs to reach the point where his mind gets absorbed and try to break through to him in that moment.

Anyway, sorry for ranting & i love your scene analyses 🙌

(This ask came in response to part 17 of the "Underrated JayVik moments" series.)

I did see that! (...If this is what you're referring to, that is 😅)

I thought it was an interesting catch, definitely - but I gotta be honest, your additions here are far more compelling to me.

I agree that it makes the most sense that what we see is not the full conversation (after all, that would mean their dialogue went straight from "Only you can show me this." to "Send me back!" which would be... very weird). However, somehow I never considered that the omitted parts may have included a line to the effect of "You will want to explain things to him. Don't."

Is it a fully satisfactory explanation, given that we don't get to see or hear any of this? No, not really. But yours is still a better working theory than anything the show gives us, so... what the hell, sure. 😂

(Hm, now that I think about it, while I don't know that I am fully on board with the idea that Jayce's "splitting" is simply him being haunted by literal tethers to alternate timelines, I could definitely see it as symbolic: Haunted, instead, by everything he would rather do than what he knows he is about to do.)

I'm also intrigued by the implication that the timeline mage!Viktor shows Jayce is the one that, in fact, almost succeeded (since everything, down to the position of Jayce's corpse, is more or less the same as it would have been) - with the difference being only that without also sending Ekko to the other timeline, the time rewinder wouldn't be invented and used to buy Jayce another chance to break through to Viktor.

It makes me think that perhaps, the timeline mage!Viktor shows Jayce is not actually his own, original one (which would also explain his vastly different appearance to the Arcane Herald), but instead the latest one. Again - the one that almost succeeded.

Every single time Jayce allows himself to yearn out loud or even think of longing feelings for Viktor, he feels the painful pull from AU Mage Viktor. Reminding him of his mission. How he can’t fail… again. As much as he wants to give in… as much as he wants to fall to his knees just like AU Jayce. To hold his partner… he has to remember.

Be right back… *lets out muffled sob*

caleb widogast icons!

Becoming a Nightingale

Karliah: We need new Nightingales

Karliah: Please come to Nightingale Hall

Karliah: Take this Nightingale armour

Karliah: Okay so now you're becoming a Nightingale-

Brynjolf: What, I'm becoming a Nightingale?? This came out of NOWHERE!