Full spoilers for Arcane season 1.

Hello, everyone. You stumbled upon one of my wordy texts, thoughts I put down instead of letting them run around endlessly in my head. Everything here is subjective, interpretation and lengthy discussion that may go beyond the explicit scope of the source material. Enjoy reading and please share your thoughts afterward. Cheers.

Today's topic is Vi's character in Arcane, particularly in regard to violence.

Foreword

It's been a while since I wrote about Arcane, but there is still much to talk about. I already wrote at length about Jinx, and consequently evoked Vi several times, without going too deep in describing her. I really want to focus on Vi as her own character beside Jinx, another traumatized kid and a violent adult, the result to a cruel world and a mess of circumstances. I will look mostly into her dealing with and dispensing violence, which is a major aspect to Vi as a character, perhaps even overwhelmingly so, as well as how her violence affects those around her.

There are other themes and notions in Arcane that are very relevant with Vi: family, trust, choice, consequences, among others. Beyond what is here, I invite you to look at my older article about Powder and Jinx, which notably talks about how Vi was of major importance to Powder, and what their sister bond meant.

Strength

Vi values strength, and understands the power of violence. She likely would rank it as being above words, more potent and more decisive. In particular with Vi, it is about physical and mental strength, more than abstract ideas of might or power. It is saddening, and perhaps strange, to mark this as the primary characteristic for Vi, because she is also a caring person, trying to do some good, yet she is almost always depicted using violence, witnessing violence and suffering from violence. Vi drives her points and makes herself victorious through strength rather than eloquence or compassion.

Vi works tirelessly to become stronger. From the first two episodes, with the brawl against Deckard's gang and with her training at the boxing machine, we see her enjoying violence to an extent, not backing down from it and even expecting to have to use it. From her having all the high scores on the boxing machine and her general attitude, notably toward fighting back the enforcers, it seems like she puts importance on training one's strength, improving it and putting it to use whenever.

Vi's role model, and her known parental figure for the recent years, has been Vander. It is someone who has taken a step back from using violence, but still is heavily defined by his strength, through his constitution, his reputation and his leadership. There's little doubt that Vander may have used a good bit more strength than diplomacy to build the underground, especially in how Sevika specifically calls him weak when deciding to leave.

During the time skip, Vi's main change is to have grown tremendously in physical strength, apparently through punching her cellmates and the walls into dust.

There is an important distinction to make here, and you may have noticed I am trying to insist more on strength than on violence. Because strength, but violence too in truth, can be used to defend or to assault. And Vi does both. She has a lot of resentment toward the enforcers and topside, and wants to fight them, to get vengeance for her parents and to get freedom for the undercity. She also wants to become strong to lead and to protect her family and friends, most of all Powder.

Looking for a fight

Even if you argue that Vi believes she trains and uses her strength foremost to defend her loved ones and her freedom, she displays time and time again an appetite for fighting. In the brawl in episode 1, Vi is quick to start it, even though that puts Powder in danger and even with Claggor trying to calm things down. Vi looks satisfied with herself by the end, as does Mylo, notably when she can scare Deckard out of using his knife with only intimidation, showing strength and confidence.

Arguing with Vander, Vi twice looks very eager to get into a fight with the enforcers, and Vander struggles to make her back down and see reason. When Vander highlights the cost of fighting, on the bridge, he also fails to offer solutions and to foresee what is going down. This would have been the turning point for Vi to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and to give herself up rather than further endanger her family. Yet, this path gets quickly halted by Silco's intervention, with his own desire for a fight and to prove Zaun strong enough to defy topside.

Vi gets forced into a fight with Silco's goons, no matter what Vander wishes, and what herself could be thinking about at this point. What ensues is a quick escalation of violence, with Vi beating off her opponents one after the other, with her fists, facing men armed with various weapons, and then having to stand against a monster in shimmered up Deckard. When Powder tries to help, she makes everything worse by aborting their flight and making the place into an inferno. Silco, wounded and pushed further into his resolve, snarls for Deckard to kill Vander and the kids. This forces Vander to finally resort to violence himself, almost strangling Silco to death, before turning himself into a monster with shimmer, and mercilessly killing Deckard, a kid. In this moment, many are dead and the place is burning down. Vander uses his last bit of strength to save Vi.

From this point on, for Vi, it is like violence is the only way forward, first as she cannot stop herself from violently punching a distraught Powder, and later as she gets captured and imprisoned. In jail, Vi fights regularly, earning her cellmates trips to the infirmary and herself time in solitary confinement. These long hours could have helped Vi meditate and find herself some peace, but it only serves in making her strength and resentment grow, as well as her despair as she spends long years away from Powder, unable to mourn her family and to know much of what is happening outside.

As soon as Vi is out of prison, she rushes into more fights, stumbling upon Sevika and doing a number on her, then finding herself cornered against Silco again. At least, this time, she can opt into fleeing rather than fighting, through collapsing a building but still.

Later, when arguing with the council, Vi exhorts them to fight Silco rather than negotiate with him. Turned down, she finds Jayce and convinces him to act by himself, leading them both into a fight which Jayce quickly regrets. Yet, even with a dead kid on the ground, Vi simply calls it one of many and wants more fighting, until Jayce chooses to back down himself and leaves Vi to stand by herself. At which point, she again goes to fight Sevika, and wants to go end Silco, just as she gets captured by Jinx.

Hot temper

Beyond an appetite for brawling, and although she is first very confident in herself, Vi simply has quite the hot temper. She is prone to getting angry, furious even, and does not back down easily. Her personality and fits of rage are easily understandable given the life she had and the circumstances she faces. Yet, it creates her more problems than it solves, and is twice mentioned by Vander as an issue, first to Benzo, then to Vi herself.

Vi lashes out repeatedly over the series, at Deckard, at Vander, at Mylo, at Powder, at Caitlyn, at Sevika, at Silco, at the Council, at Jayce. Several are basically fruitless, others are effectively counter-productive to her objectives. The most damning moment is, of course, Vi hitting Powder, which she regrets instantly but cannot even apologize for, and has to move away from Powder to calm down. This proves to be her most costly mistake, as she gets captured and loses Powder, possibly forever.

Vi's temper and determination drive her to become stronger, but also hold her back. It is her anger which makes her draw up stupid and simplistic plans, and to execute them, not any lack of intelligence. It is her lack of help and support which drives her to violence, just like it does for Jinx. And for the both of them, it is anger and trauma which make this violence appear as necessary and unavoidable. This even gets as far as poisoning their relationship as sisters, first with Vi hitting Powder, then later with Jinx capturing and restraining Vi. Backed into a corner, Vi becomes verbally violent with Jinx and, unknowingly, pushes her further from sanity rather than helping her.

Temper might even be a particularity of Vi, strangely. Most prominent characters are just as violent as her but usually more in control, even when Vi is the model for self-confidence and fighting skill. Silco is coldly calculating, Vander is wary. Powder starts as an innocent child, incapable of dealing with violence, and, later, Jinx acts from fear and trauma, more than from anger or resentment. Jayce follows an unrefined sense of duty and what little he understands of the larger game. Ekko fights with the simple desire for the survival of his people and the wish to end this tragedy once and for all. Everyone gets angry, everyone gets violent, but Vi lets herself be defined by it way more than the others. She does not carefully analyses a situation, she looks for an enemy to punch at. Presumably, she would have been like that since the very first scene, on the bridge, as she looks back at the enforcers with eyes filled by fury.

Caitlyn's guidance

The one good thing that happened to Vi is her meeting Caitlyn. While chronically lacking guidance and always surrounded by violence and enemies, Vi finally stumbles upon a compassionate soul, someone who talks with her, helps her, rather than fights her or threatens her. Caitlyn is no saint either, she is an enforcer and wields a gun without too much thought, even though she clearly stops herself from harming others, Sevika notably. Yet, she shows an innocence, a compassion and a goodwill which Vi may have found for the very first time, especially in someone she would consider an enemy.

The problem here is that Caitlyn arrives quite late, after everything is already fucked, and unknowingly makes matters worse by, as an enforcer, walking into the undercity and intervening in issues she is unfamiliar with. Caitlyn acts with sincerity and benevolence anyway, to which Vi seems to react positively, as her face betrays the surprise and love that her words and gestures lack. We catch it as Vi gets released from jail, as Vi sees Caitlyn enjoying herself at the brothel, as Vi gets healed with the potion, as Vi listens to Caitlyn convincing Ekko, and as Vi rests with Caitlyn on her bed.

Caitlyn appears as a particular entity in how Vi would build a relationship with. So far, Vi has dealt with parents, guardians, younger siblings, friends, rivals, adversaries, enemies. Caitlyn should fit in the category for enemies, with all other enforcers and people from topside. Yet, beyond her first few words, Caitlyn behaves in a very unassuming and respectful way with Vi, trusting her and following her. Vi is unaware of the circumstances that make Caitlyn act like this, but mostly she is just being benevolent and courteous, as well as just naïve.

As far as we know, Vi has been taught by her late parents, then by Vander, and in large part by the cruel world around her. Vi is seduced by the hand extended by Caitlyn, and the two women interact to discover their not so dissimilar natures, confident misfits with a heart of gold, too much energy and an appetite for justice. Someone like Vander, or even Heimerdinger or Silco as they would be for Jayce and Jinx, would be a guardian, a figure of authority enabled more by their age than by any objective rightness, but Caitlyn is an equal to Vi, if still from a completely different background, and they can exchange quite easily, rather than struggle through a dialogue between parent and child, between right and wrong. Caitlyn discovers the larger world through Vi, and Vi discovers the goodness in people through Caitlyn. Vi is receptive simply for a lack of knowing how to deal with Caitlyn.

When two persons meet with radically different backgrounds and views about the world, they tend to clash violently, invariably failing to understand each other and to communicate, falling into a logic of hatred and conflict. Otherwise, it can be that one of the persons get forced into accepting partially or fully the other view, usually turning from an antagonist, if not a villain, into a hero. With a subtler interaction, it also happens that a connection gets made somehow, like it does between Caitlyn and Vi. Because Vi desperately lacks affection and company, she latches on to Caitlyn despite herself. And because Caitlyn has little agency, she follows Vi to find out whatever she can.

Vi is quite set in her ways at this point. It is uncertain how much time will be needed for her to change herself, and to change those around her, if she even can or wants to. Especially as she has dragged Caitlyn into her own problems and unknowingly participated in creating another tragic character as Caitlyn's mother is very likely to die at the hand of Vi's sister.

Vi's influence

Vi affects people around her more than she realizes, and in ways she does not really understand. While Vi is only a teenager, then a young adult, she acts as a leader for her family. She trains them, protects them, brings them on missions. Vi is still building herself in these years, still figuring out what she wants to be and to do. Yet, she has had to grow fast and to assume responsibility very early, putting herself in a difficult situation for which she does not even realize she is not ready.

Vi's first course of action is violence, Vi's main characteristic is strength. She is fully aware of that, and bears it by herself, wishing for a better tomorrow, notably for Powder to elude the same fate if possible. Yet, when you look at every young and impressionable person around her, Powder, Ekko and Mylo in particular, we see how they look up to her, how they copy her. They become strong and independent and confident and resourceful, to be like Vi. They also become violent and hateful and prideful and revengeful, to be like Vi.

Vi may consider her focus on strength and her unrestrained usage of violence to be her own problem, something she will taint only herself with and will rid herself of whenever the conflict truly ends. She probably could. Powder and Ekko could not. Young kids looking up to a formidable hero, who relies first and only on violence for resolving issues. Kids who live in a cruel world and get thrown into a tragedy they do not even understand. They grow centered around that all powerful notion of violence and fighting. How could Jinx ever abandon violence when the whole world stands against her? How could Ekko ever consider peace when he has been chased and oppressed his whole life?

Strength and violence are attributes Vi takes for herself, with even a bit of pride. She does not recoil from it or fear it in herself. It is her own burden. That is why, once Vi sees Jinx revel in violence, she gets a little frightened for once, and may be starting to understand the deeper web of consequences to her behavior, her place in the never-ending circle of hatred and violence.

Restrained

Perhaps the greatest argument against Vi choosing violence is how her choices drives her to more tragedies and how she is incapable of affecting the situation positively when it matters most.

It happens, in a way, at the first fight against Silco. Vi holds off her opponents very successfully, but still gets locked into a bad situation. Once Powder has to intervene with her monkey bomb, Vi gets stuck under the wreckage. She sees Mylo and Claggor dead, she probably believes Powder to be dead too, she is seriously wounded herself, and Vander is standing up to fight to the death for her. Shortly after, finding herself using violence against Powder, despite everything she means to Vi, she gets into an even worse predicament.

Most explicitly, Vi spends years in prison, restless and unable to do anything beyond punch a wall repeatedly, while the world continues without her. While we have little details about her stay in jail, and I am far from having an understanding of typical conditions in them, it suffices to say that prisons are first meant to seclude problematic persons, notably violent, from the rest of society. It is unfair but also intriguing that Vi is the only one who spent time in prison.

Finally, the most agonizing part is the tea party scene, when Vi is restrained by Jinx and is powerless in affecting the situation. The scene echoes earlier moments with Jinx, their reunion and the bridge fight with Ekko, where Vi yearns to simply be with Powder but is denied by more violence and herself being more and more powerless. At Jinx's show, Vi must use words to convince her sister, to prove herself worthy of trust. Vi has difficulty finding the right words and looks with horror at what her sister has become and is now doing. Cornered, Vi must yell at Jinx to pull herself together, using verbal violence in the end and pushing Jinx into another tragedy.

Among the many characters in Arcane, Vi may be among the ones with the most confidence, the most inner strength, the most ability to act, in a way free of responsibilities and uncaring of consequences. Yet, she is also a prisoner, knowing nothing except violence, yearning for nothing except vengeance. Vi as a person is far from being only about violence, nor could we even exactly define her with it, but it encroaches on her and on her every single action so much that it feels more like a curse than a power.

Afterword

If season 1 of Arcane was foremost about Jinx, I expect Vi to get more personal development later. Not to mean that she has not been a major character so far, but her journey has been stalled. When we expected her to listen to Vander and temper her anger, she instead gets locked up in jail and feeds her wish for violence and vengeance. While Jinx is ostensibly traumatized and pushed to drastic actions, Vi hides her own trauma and sees her own actions as meaningless or worsening the situation.

What will Vi be next? Will she be continue using violence? Will she embrace or condemn Jinx? Will she embrace or reject Caitlyn? How will she use her strength? Will she even be able to or ready to? Is Vi destined to collapse in a similar fashion to her sister? We shall see!

Thanks for reading, cheers!