Encanto's Director Jared Bush Answered More Questions About The Movie On Twitter! (part 2)

Look, I think it’s pretty clear that the border-crossing people secretly really like Héctor. Evidence for this includes:

• How happy the border guard looked when he finally got through. • The fact that when his Frida Kahlo disguise fails he admits that “actually I am Héctor”, not giving any last name. Clearly he’s gained enough of a reputation with these people that he knows they’re not going to confuse him with the  twelve thousand other  'Héctor’s that they’ve met doing this job. • The other border guard not locking him up, despite Héctor begging him and trying to bribe him and just generally pushing his luck (I remember sitting in the cinema thinking that I would have locked this guy up by now. But it makes sense if they’ve known him for ages and are all slightly amused by/sorry for the guy).

Probably they loved him for providing some much-needed entertainment every year. The border guarding gig on Dìa de los Muertos can’t be the best job in the world, since it mainly involves standing around, watching other people head off to their own families while counting down the hours until you can see yours.

The knowledge that, at some point during the night, Héctor will show up in some crazy disguise or with some convoluted plan to get through (I suspect that the year he met Miguel was the first time he dared to just make a dash for it, since that’s the only reason I can come up with for why he wasn’t better  prepared to stop himself from sinking into the bridge. Probably he was just desperate with the knowledge that this could very well be his last chance), which would then cause some excitement and give you and your coworkers something to talk about, was probably the one thing that kept them from dying (again) of boredom.

And of course, once he got through, this all stopped, since there was obviously no need for it anymore. Sure, Héctor still regularly got butterflies moments before the crossing, convinced that this was the year that they somehow forgot him again and he had to stay behind (one time he freaked out so badly  that Imelda had to physically push him in the way of the scanner), but even he never thinks of sneaking through.

And the border guards, weirdly, kind of miss it— the Dìa de los Muertos night shift is just so boring now— and somehow, word of this reaches the Riveras.

And that’s how The Game begins. The ‘try and get Héctor through border control without them realising it’s him’ game. Thought up to amuse the border guards and, though nobody mentions this to Héctor, to distract him and keep him from getting too nervous before a crossing.

Héctor absolutely loves it— though a large reason for this is  that it’s an excuse to spend more time with his family. Felipe and Òscar in particular get really into it and have been known to spend weeks before the crossing plotting their next attempt. Coco — who most definitely takes after her father in this respect— joins in.

Rosita helps out as well, but less with the inventive side and more with the practical side (where are they going to get the stuff for the disguises? Who’s going to play what part? When are they going to carry it out?), while Victoria makes it clear that she disapproves but then joins in anyway because somebody has to be there to point out the obvious flaws in their plans. Rosita and Coco together then persuade Julio to get involved, though he mainly just sits there offering only the occasional suggestion, and doesn’t have much to do with the overall planning.

Imelda, for her part, thinks that its stupid and childish and will have no part in it whatsoever, thank you very much. Oh, except for providing any materials that they need, and coming up with ideas, and helping them pull it off… other than that, she’s not going to have anything to do with it. (Wisely, her family avoid commenting on the fact that, for somebody who isn’t involved, it’s strange how often she ends up taking over the whole thing.)

Elena, when she dies, takes the same line as Imelda. “This is idiotic and I’m not going to do it— but here are some detailed instructions on how to do it and woe betide you if you do anything else without consulting me first!”  Miguel’s father is happy to help out and his mother, to everybody’s surprise, throws herself headlong into it and has great fun working on all the details and coming uo with zanier ideas each year.

When Miguel himself dies, he finds the whole thing hilarious (him being the only one of the younger Riveras who ever witnessed one of Héctor’s original, more madcap escapes) and insists on sneaking across the border with Héctor. He even manages to convince them to try Héctor’s old idea (apparently mentioned in the novelisation) of dividing himself up into baskets and getting carried across that way.

That’s the one year they call it a draw, since their skeletons start to reassemble at the point of crossing but, technically, both Miguel and Héctor had gotten through before that happened (or, rather, Miguel’s forearm and foot and Héctor’s hand, ribcage and straw hat got through in Imelda’s basket).

The border guards claim to find it a bit annoying— though, last time they brought him in for it, Héctor noticed a large scoreboard hanging on the wall (so far the border guards are winning, but the family’s help has finally allowed Héctor to score a few points of his own). A similar scoreboard hangs on one of the walls of the villa (oh yes, guess who ended up with Ernesto’s villa?) in the room where, once a year, the whole family gather to make their plans.

Look, I know we in the Snapedom always talked about Severus as this genius prodigy and all that. We take a hollow comfort in his mastery of potions. He might be a lonely spy. He might not be able to have friends that he didn’t lie to half the time. But maybe he could be at peace while brewing some potions for the medical wing.

But this is sad Snape AU o’clock, so think about this:

As an overworked professor swamped with the mundane work of grading essays and supervising classes, does Severus still have the time to be a genius? To study, research, and innovate?

And if what some have theorised is true, and Severus for one reason or another didn’t publicise his research, imagine his feelings as his school-day discoveries were slowly found out by others and publicised by them.

Imagine him finding out the Ravenclaw that ranked just a bit under him in potion was now in Alaska, working with an international potion organisation to study the property of a rare magical herb in there.

Imagine him having to make the nth batch of headache potion. Gritting his teeth because he knew he could've done better than this.

Imagine him being so tired, stressed, and uninspired that even when he's on break he couldn't maintain any productivity.

Severus who tried to brew a high level potion or write a paper, but failed again and again.

Imagine a burnt out Severus.

Severus who wanted to be a DADA teacher because he couldn't even care about potion anymore.

Severus who lost his passion.

God I absolutely love your analysis on Sasha, it’s perfectly in character while also bringing in more complexities and details that fit justtt right and it’s just so good. I love seeing people digging into his backstory bc although his memory vault was played off as a joke it’s? Pretty peculiar? And it makes you wonder what happened afterwards too- there’s so many questions left unanswered with so much potential there. Also your work is stunning! I love your use of color and shading, it makes your work so beautiful while also making the emotions feel so vivid and lively in your pieces, you also nail the expressions! I love the lineless painting look as well, it adds a unique flare! Keep up the good work :)

Thank you...!! I've been thinking about sasha passively for years and it was about time he came around to be the focus of my attention again... overall this is the magical beauty of characters who are a bit two dimensional in their source material. If they're interesting enough as a concept, you can sorta run with it and do whatever you want. Not always, but sometimes. And he's always been fascinating to me.

Regarding what happened directly after he ran away from home, the youth welfare offices (Jugendämter) of the time we're essentially in charge of where homeless youth went after being found; this was a pretty big problem following WWII due to many children being left parentless + DPs + the massive wave of expellees coming in who got separated from their parents.

Here's a general overview of the youth welfare system from a paper published in 1948 ((3) on page 43 aligns, essentially, with the concept of the Kinderheim) (x):

It should be said that even though this article describes some criticisms of the youth welfare setup at the time, overall it's quite rose-tinted in regards to how thing actually were in institutions. These places were not known for being good to the kids there. Physical/sexual/emotional abuse were extremely common, so common in fact that Germany recently held a roundtable to seek reparations for people who grew up in one due to many of them now being incredibly disabled due to what they went through (x) (x). From first link:

I don't really think he'd end up in a facility with "correctional" education, what I've noticed in my reading is that children condemned to those places were a little ODD/stereotypical juvenile delinquent and I don't think that sasha has ever really possessed the disposition to act like that... not that kids who act like this deserve to be put in horrible institutions but I'm pretty sure that goes without saying. The condition in these institutions were markedly worse than general Kinderheime (somehow), sometimes neglecting to offer basic educational services to their charges. (x)

If anything, I think he'd ask for placement himself... I've always pictured him as someone who would've been pretty respectful and obedient as a kid (neglected child not wanting to cause issues), so it kind of makes sense that he'd go by the books so to speak... find the office himself, wouldn't really steal, etc. I don't really think he'd enjoy living on the streets at ALL... the vagrant Halbstarke lifestyle is absolutely not for him. there would've been no community or sense of belonging, for him, to be found in this subculture... interesting book detailing this called Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich by Martin Kalb btw. Check it out if you so will.

Considering that I've placed his childhood in Bavaria, a historically catholic state, it's likely that the kinderheim he would've ended up in was of Catholic denomination... HUGE amount of Kinderheime were Catholic. Don't have precise percentages but you can peruse a registry here that lists the religious denomination of every Kinderheim in Bavaria ("kath." or "ev."; on p. 78 and onward) at the time it was compiled (1948) which is a few years before I think Sasha would've ended up in one.

There's also this:

“Charitable and evangelical educational homes“ (Catholic vs. Evangelical facilities organized by year, column contents are “Heime Plätze/Betten”; home places/beds, and “Mitarbeiter”; # of staff) (x)

Some of these institutions didn't allow the children to go to school, but that wasn't very common (x). Sometimes the education was either built directly into the institution and was heavily understaffed. As an example:

Station spokesman: From a letter from the Evangelical Lutheran Deanery in Regensburg to the National Association for Inner Mission in January 1950

"There are currently 75 children in the Castle Windsor children's home, including 70 school-age children. These 70 children are still being taught by just one teacher in the elementary school connected to the home. Such a mismatch places a disproportionately high strain on the teacher, who has to teach in two sections, morning and afternoon. Despite this, the children in the middle and upper grades receive too little instruction. Each department only has 3-4 hours of instruction per day. " (deu)

I should reiterate that Bavaria is extremely catholic and loved beating children. In fact, when corporal punishment at elementary schools was banned in 1946, Bavarian parents were outraged because what if they wanted teachers to beat their children. Did you ever think of that? And then when they overturned the ban a year later 61% of the population was glad about it. Just to give you some historical context. And also to help you think about sasha's Volksschule experiences. I don't think he would've been doing anything egregious to solicit physical abuse (e.g., being disrespectful toward teachers or not paying attention/never doing his work), but I do think the absolutely was the "weird" kid who had visible tics and was harassed a lot by his classmates so it's possible they would've set something up to facilitate this happening. Not picturing this as a common occurrence.

Additionally, most children had to perform some form of manual labor for (essentially) free, since these institutions were so egregiously underfunded that the Kinderheime would just loan them as farmhands/quarry workers/etc., often even before the age of 14, though this point is not quite relevant to Sasha because I think he was ~15 when he ran away. (x)

One other potential outcome for Sasha is that he could've ended up in an apprentice home (Lehrlingsheim), but sources on these places are quite difficult to find... the main information I saw was that "In the state of Bavaria there are 66 homes for uprooted youth, which are mainly apprentice homes" (x). This article (from 1949) like the first one I sourced reiterates the "vagrant youth" placement system (might as well share link of relevant passages plugged into a translator for those curious). Looking at the first sourced document it seems they were mostly for older children (16+). Can't imagine the circumstances would've been much better here than a Kinderheim, but if anyone has information about these I'd love to see.

I could continue to go on but I won't because this is already quite long, but before I go I want to share this transcription from the US Senate committee on foreign relations in 1950 because... I enjoyed reading it I thought it was interesting and I want to share. sue me!

(source)

It's quite hard to find sources on this in english, but here's several articles for you to peruse with google translate. I looked at countless more but those are kind of lost to the ether of my web history + these are the only ones I saved. Easy enough to find if you key in some combination of "kinderheim 1950er nachkriegszeit" and jump around.

https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.kinderheime-in-der-nachkriegszeit-pruegel-bis-die-seele-bricht.c3d5ed02-68bf-42e3-a6a1-84bb7b586e14.html

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waz.de%2Fstaedte%2Fessen%2Ffrueheres-heimkind-dort-hat-man-uns-die-jugend-geraubt-id214824101.html%3Fservice%3Damp

https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/zeit-fuer-bayern/bayerische-heimkinder-nachkriegszeit-100.html

https://amp.focus.de/familie/erziehung/albtraum-kinderverschickung-wie-kinder-in-erholungsheimen-gequaelt-wurden_id_11460755.html

https://amp.dw.com/de/das-verdr%C3%A4ngte-leid/a-6323736

https://www.wkgo.de/cms/article/print/164

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article5239904/Die-Gewaltherrschaft-in-deutschen-Kinderheimen.html

https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article2795104/Die-unbarmherzigen-Erzieher-der-Nachkriegszeit.html

https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/150261/25-06-2018/die-evangelische-kirche-ekhn-hat-die-geschichte-der-heimkinder-der-nachkriegszeit-aufgearbeitet

they are totally arguing and bickering from the two opposite lines of the war because it's the funniest thing ever like there is a mess of droids and clone fighting up on the ground and then you have two sith/jedi masters howling at each other through the force to cover the noise "you had at least FIVE BILLIONS OCCASIONS to introduce me to your padawan and you tell me YOU FORGOT" "excuse me i would have said something if i wasnt distracted by how horrid your tea and cookies are" "QUI GON"

Dooku being more outraged by Qui-gon’s comments about his tastes than the actual battle is 👌🏻👌🏻

Commission for my friend @nikodavisartwork !

Jinx :  😠

Silco : you’re my daughter 🥺 , I’ll never forsake you

Jinx :  🥺

I am reading Pratchett again and realised that Discworld probably has many characters who could become avatars of the Entities and never even noticing because That's How Life Has Always Been. namely I can think of Bloody Stupid Johnson for the Spiral and Rincewind for the Hunt but I'm sure there are others

Rincewind as a Hunt avatar is GALAXY-BRAINED, my friend. Rincewind isn’t a Hunt avatar who makes you feel hunted - not in the usual way. Not with eyes too sharp and teeth sharper yet, the sense that he could lunge at any moment - ha! No. No, Rincewind is just so terrified of being hunted himself that it bleeds out of him; you make eye contact and suddenly you can hear the hiss of arrows in the air, see the flicker of threats in the corner of your eyes, feel the hunters at your heels. Rincewind is the Herne the Hunted of people.

Thinking of a decidedly non-fixit Arcane AU where Silco and Vander both live, but now have to navigate negotiations with Piltover for the nation of Zaun, and the fallout in their families.

Eight years ago, when Marcus spirited Vi away to rot in prison, unbeknownst to anyone he managed to take a just-barely-alive Vander, too. Vander remains Marcus’ best-kept secret, but after Silco and Jinx are arrested, he’s yanked from the bowels of Stillwater and reinstalled as leader of the newly declared nation of Zaun.

Reeling from his change of circumstance and the paths his family has taken during his imprisonment, Vander must now navigate the aftermath of the very different plans Vi and Silco have laid for an independent Zaun. 

But after five months of negotiations, all Zaunite prisoners are released from Piltovan prisons, and Vander and Vi must confront their siblings, and grapple with the base violence necessary for change. Takes place at the end of an alternate Act III.

Vander survived like Vi did, but Vi does not realize this at the time. She spends her entire time in Stillwater believing he died of his injuries.

Shimmer did allow him to survive, but he remains Vander rather than Warwick the robot-zombie-werewolf/living embodiment of the Hound of the Underground he will almost certainly be in canon.

The plot of Arcane proceeds pretty much normally. Caitlyn does not initially learn of Vander, as he wasn’t involved in the incident with Silco’s henchman. Few Piltovans know about Vander, and prior to Jayce and Mel’s initiative, even fewer care enough about Zaun to bother with him. After Caitlyn and Vi address the Council, Marcus’ dealings are discovered, and the idea of Zaunite independence is floated, some rusty gears start turning, but Jayce isn’t privy to this and still attempts to negotiate with Silco.

Silco still spirals when offered independence at the price of his daughter, and still monologues to Vander[‘s statue] about it. However, word of the terms, and Silco’s refusal of them, somehow gets out to the other Chembarons, and then to Zaun at large.

Fortunately, this manages to head off Jinx’s tea party of horrors.

Unfortunately, this leads to a (very understandably) enraged mob of Zaunites willing to drag both father and daughter to the bridge of Piltover for the price of one, and/or stone them in the streets.

Silco has precious few moments to assure Jinx he’d never forsake her. When the mob comes for them, he tells her to go and tries to cover her escape, but Jinx refuses to be separated from him. The mob washes over them.

Jinx, as she always does, fights like a woman possessed. Silco may be rusty, but he is and will always be a son of Zaun, and he is scrappy. When a man cuts off one of Jinx’s braids and starts tearing at her clothes, Silco stabs him to death with his own knife. But when the first stone is thrown, at the foot of the Bridge, all he can do is throw his scrawny body over hers in a desperate attempt to shield her.

Meanwhile, Cassandra Kirammen has just seen fit to reveal Vander’s survival to Caitlyn, who races to tell Vi (who is in Zaun hunting Sevika).

Vi is nearly overcome with joy at his survival and the prospect of rebuilding Zaun with a stable adult, and almost as pleased when they hear an angry mob has come for Silco. However, her joy turns to horror when she realizes Powder is with him, and Jinx is just as much a target of the mob as Silco is.

Vi races over the rooftops in the mob’s wake trying to reach her sister. She’s horrified to see a dead man, stabbed and trampled and still clutching a bright blue braid.

The mob surrounds Silco and Jinx at the Bridge, hurling stones. They are dispersed by a warning shot from Cassandra Kiramman, backed by a squad of Enforcers. The first thing Silco sees, when he’s able to lift his head, is a Piltovan gun pointed at him and his daughter.

Vi arrives at the rooftops overlooking the scene to hear Cassandra Kiramman tell them that Violet was right, their own people did turn on them. The anguish in Jinx’s cry as she buries her face in Silco’s chest and he tries to comfort her will haunt Vi for years. For a moment, Silco sees Vi above them, and the accusation and rage on his face as he holds his battered, traumatized daughter is chilling.

Cassandra then drops the bombshell than not only has Vander survived, he’s now poised to become the new leader of Zaun (provided cooperation with the Council). Cue Silco breakdown.

Vi watches the Enforcers arrest Silco and Jinx as Zaun processes this news. Having all but traded places with her sister after all these years, her reunion with Vander takes a bittersweet cast as she, Vander, and Ekko set about rebuilding Zaun and dismantling Silco’s Shimmer empire.

The chembarons put up a fight, but not as much as they might’ve, at least openly. Sevika managed to avoid the mob and she quickly emerges as one of the voices Vander knows he’ll have to negotiate with. Ekko and especially Vi are not happy with this, but the fact remains that Zaun is sorely lacking in any remaining competent leadership who’s been in the Lanes for the past 8 years and is even remotely trusted by the people.

Meanwhile, Silco and Jinx have had near-simultaneous breakdowns with the reveal that Vander is alive, Vi “betrayed” them to Piltover, and both of them are now working with Topside for the independence Silco’s (allegedly) been working for for the past 8 years. Convinced more than ever that everyone else betrays them, they become, if possible, even more codependent.

They are separated during intake (Jinx’s other braid is cut so she's not lopsided), and their frantic reunion in the canteen attracts attention, and some crude suggestions that Jinx should find herself a younger man. Silco, disgusted, says she’s his daughter.

Silco has failed to stand up to Piltover, failed to keep power in Zaun, and now apparently failed to kill Vander. His single-minded devotion to Jinx is all that stands between him and a complete breakdown, but his power to protect his child is severely limited in prison; in Zaun he was a king, here he’s just a sump-rat. And he’s fading.

Like the mutant fish that prowl the waters, Silco is adapted to the chemicals and pollutants in Zaun, and when cut off from the Shimmer, like a fish out of water, he gets very sick, very quickly.

Silco and Jinx see each other at meals and outdoor hour (no effort is made to separate men and women), but otherwise prisoners are left to rot. Neither engage with any other prisoners, even their henchmen. But Silco gets weaker, and as the months turn colder, he becomes too sick to leave his cell. When he doesn’t show at the canteen, Jinx takes it upon herself to go to him. She locates his cell and sneaks in at night (with some lockpicking help from Mylo’s ghost?). She can evade the guards, but she tells Silco they’re more concerned about keeping prisoners in Stillwater than what they do in there. Silco is more concerned about the implications of who might be able to get into his teenage daughter’s cell.

Silco is not doing well. Guards bring food to his cell, but don’t bother to see if he eats it. He can’t keep it down, and he’s becoming too weak to try. He tries to give it to Jinx, telling her not to waste it. It’s the only thing he can do for her.

He’s dying, and despite his attempts to reassure Jinx she’ll be alright, he’s terrified at the thought leaving her alone. Jinx is determined to keep him alive though.

She makes it to his cell every night, rumors be damned. When be becomes too weak to eat, she feeds him, doing everything she can to keep him fed, keep him warm, keep him breathing through the night. Fluid fills his lungs, leaving him in a state of constant drowning. He lapses into delirium, raving about Marcus and Vander and Vi, about Piltover and Shimmer and the nation of Zaun. Eventually, he can barely keep down water, and all Jinx can do for him is draw sharks on the walls and ceiling of his cell, to guard him when he’s trapped in nightmares he can’t wake from (she gets it.)

After five months of negotiations (~December?), Vander and Vi secure the release of all Zaunite prisoners from Piltovan prisons. What to do with them presents a challenge, as Zaun has no criminal justice system and next-to-no legitimate economy. Many of the prisoners are petty criminals by Piltovan standards, but ordinary citizens caught by Topside in Zaun. Then there are prisoners like Silco and Jinx, considered personae non gratae even (or especially) in Zaun. No one knows what to do with them, but it’s agreed they should face Zaunite justice.

Piltover knows that “Zaunite justice” could involve another mob, but they don’t care enough to object. Vi and Vander also know this, and care very much.

Vi is still in denial that Powder/Jinx is hated as much or more than Silco.

The prisoner transfer comes with little warning in the bowels of Stillwater, as the guards round up all the “sump-rat” prisoners one morning and send them to the Bridge, where the leaders of Zaun have assembled.

Vi is overcome with relief when she sees Powder among the released prisoners, but Jinx can’t find Silco.

He’s at the end of the crowd. As per the agreement, Piltover will release prisoners at the bridge, but he must cross it himself, and he’s barely able to walk. When he tries he immediately slips on the icy ground and doesn’t get up. Guards are laughing, Jinx is becoming frantic, and Sevika senses danger. 

Lying face-up on the bridge, Silco looks up at the flag of the new nation of Zaun and almost gives in. And then he hears Jinx screaming his name.

Silco can’t walk and Jinx can’t carry him. But she won’t allow anyone near, and Vander and Vi just agitate her more. Sevika finally steps forward to carry him to a van that will take him and Jinx back to Zaun.

Sevika takes a moment to assess their condition before making the executive decision to drug Jinx unconscious and carry Silco into the Last Drop

 Vander takes one look at him and calls for a doctor. When it becomes clear that Singed expects him to die and is a little too enthusiastic at the prospect of dissecting his eye, Caitlyn offers her father’s services as a doctor and escorts him to Zaun.

Vi stays at Powder’s bedside. When Jinx wakes asking for Silco, Vi tries to assure her she’ll never have to see him again, only for Jinx to punch her in the face and rush to Silco’s bedside calling for her father.

The first thing she sees is Vander standing over him, and she wrenches him away with strength that shouldn’t be possible. When Vander comes face to face with his youngest daughter after 8 years he can’t help but flinch.

Powder was his kindest of his children, the sweetest, gentlest, always trying to please. Jinx looks at him with rage and fear and accusation and betrayal and hate. She looks at him with Silco’s eyes, the last time he saw him.

Then she has him on the ground, too fast for him to react, going for his knife as Vi and Sevika try to separate them. Jinx and Vi briefly square off to defend their fathers, before Silco stirs.

Tobias Kiramman arrives to find the leader of Zaun battered and brooding, Caitlyn comforting a tearful Vi (who’s sporting a black eye), and Silco and Jinx reuniting for the first time in an independent Zaun. Both are weeping. It would be touching, if they weren’t who they were.

He recognizes Singed as a disgraced former doctor turned serial killer, and is concerned by the Zaunites’ unsurprised reactions. He’s the only doctor in Zaun, and the good ones wouldn’t come to the Undercity if they had any choice.

He’s also disturbed by the condition Silco’s in. It should have been obvious he was ill, but it’s clear he received no medical care in prison.

When Vander slashed his face open, chemicals in the water leached into the wound, formed crystals in his flesh, in the back of his eye. His eye’s turned black, the flesh of his cheek underneath caved in and rotted away. What was in that water? Singed would love to find out! Some phenol maybe. Shimmer kept its spread at bay, but now…

He’s so weak Tobias warns Vander he may not live, but Vander tells him he will, because Silco’s a survivor, for better or worse.

Silco and Jinx’s move back in the Last Drop goes about as well as Sevika expects. They put Jinx in Powder’s old room, leading to disturbing, violent meltdowns that Vi and Vander are unprepared to deal with, while Silco’s health crashes several times in one night.

Vander concedes that it’s unsustainable and, on Sevika’s suggestion, eventually puts Jinx with Silco over Vi’s objections, as he’s the only one who can halfway calm her during meltdowns and she's the only one with experience with his healthcare.

Jinx has become Silco’s sole motivation to go on, and their dynamics subtly reverse. Clinginess and insecurity are traits readily associated with Jinx, but not obviously with Silco. Jinx has always been dependent on Silco, but in Stillwater and after she cared for him. This wasn’t to pump up her feelings of importance, or even a child’s desperation to avoid losing another parental figure; Jinx sincerely cared for her father out of concern. When he tells her she saved his life, she tells him children can take care of parents when they grow up. 

The threat to their relationship was never Vander. Vi is another story, but Silco is Jinx’s father, not him.

Vander is unwilling to ask anyone else to care for Silco, and whatever Jinx can’t do Vander does himself. Silco alternates between vicious cruelty and such obvious physical and mental agony it’s impossible to fake, and he can swing unpredictably from one to another. He doesn’t need to accuse Vander; he knows.

Silco’s necessarily feeling overwhelmed and emotional after learning of Vander’s survival and Zaun gaining independence. He’d finally understood and and even forgiven Vander when he believed him to be dead, but the reality of confronting him alive is very different.

Vander: Sweeps in to gain independence and claim leadership of Zaun after 8 years in solitary confinement 🙌

Silco: half-carried out by his teenage daughter after 5 months in prison

Yeah, Silco doesn’t like that.

On one night, Vander freezes outside Silco’s door, listening to his brother curse Marcus and his deception, writhing and crying in pain from the wounds Vander gave him, as Jinx tries to soothe him by describing how she killed Marcus in graphic detail and offering to kill his 5-year old daughter. He curses Vander too, and Vander flinches when he hears Powder offer to kill him as well, if it would make him feel better. But even wracked with pain, Silco realizes how dangerous this could be and that he needs to be the adult in this situation. He declines, and tells Jinx to be absolutely sure he’s lucid before carrying out any hit jobs he issues. 

On another night, Vander finds Silco passed out covered in vomit and carries him to the bathroom to clean him up; as he puts him in the tub Silco comes to and panics at the combination of Vander and water, struggling violently enough to injure Vander and himself. Vander in frustration finally asks if he would burden Jinx with all of his care, and Silco begrudgingly surrenders. When Vander makes him admit he hasn’t kept any food down all day, he brings him new food for to eat and watch him eat it. Silco tries to tell him not to waste it and give it to Jinx, but Vander snaps at him that it’s not a waste.

They begin to speak, a little, about their children. What to do with Jinx? Redeem her as Powder or prosecute her as Jinx? Silco credits Jinx’s theft of the Hex gem and threat to Piltover for Zaunite independence, the base violence necessary for change. She’s perfect, he tells Vander, a true daughter of Zaun. She’s done what we never could.

Vander’s learned a lot about the things Jinx has done, what Powder’s turned into. He can’t tell if Silco is truly that blind to her faults or if he’s in denial. When he presses Silco about what role he played in making Jinx, Silco riles, but not at the accusation he corrupted her. He genuinely believes that becoming Jinx was the only way to heal Powder from the pain of betrayal, something he knows well.

He tells Vander that after Vander tried to kill him, he returned to the mines, through paths even Vander never knew. He stumbled for days (though he admits that he might have been hallucinating, as there are things in the mines that can make you “see things”) before he came to an underground clearing filled with impossible flowers sustained by a mysterious glowing fluid. He collapsed there, and it was there Singed found him. Singed asked him if he wanted to live, and Silco tells Vander he wanted revenge.

Vander’s heard enough and turns to go, but Silco becomes more agitated, snarling at Vander not to turn away from him, to look at him. But to Vander’s surprise, her doesn’t seem motivated by anger or possessiveness or a disagreement in ideology; he’s terrified for what will happen to Jinx if they try to force her to become Powder again, reduced to begging Vander not to do that to her.

When news comes that Piltover has officially recognized the nation of Zaun, most of the surviving adults of the rebellion generation are overcome with emotion at the news. Silco breaks down as Jinx comforts him and Vi finds Vander weeping it the Last Drop and goes to him. Caitlyn spies Sevika crying quietly in a back room and slips away before she sees.

Silco and Vander have achieved everything they once wanted with the nation of Zaun, but they cannot share this victory together, not now. The truth they are unwilling to concede is that Zaun’s independence took both Silco and Jinx’s “base violence necessary for change,” and Vander and Vi’s diplomacy and compromise with Piltover. They need to be united, as they once were, as they always planned to be, if they are to move forward. But they won’t. They can’t. Not anymore.

Vander was never meant to be the diplomat. Silco was supposed to be the clever one, the negotiator, who wove his way through a trail of paperwork and legalese, who’d gain the respect of the Pilties once Vander was done cowing them from the Undercity. It takes more than a revolution to build a nation. Vander needs his brother now.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? Silco’s there, he’s right there, down the hall, on the other side of the door! But his brother is gone.

On top of that, wanting Silco dead is one of the few things that unite most in Zaun (and Vi and Ekko aren’t inclined to deny them). Vander insists he will stand trial once he’s strong enough to stand, but many would prefer a quicker end to justice. Fear of Jinx is all that stands between Silco and a very easy death.

Sevika: You’re welcome to try. It’s just a matter of how many of you Jinx will take with her.

Vander is between a rock in a very hard place. One night, Silco wakes to Vander crying silently over him, but gives no indication that he’s awake. Silco and Jinx are monsters, but they are monsters of Vander’s own making. It is not possible for Vander to pursue justice for Zaun without betraying his brother and his daughter, again.

Silco gradually becomes aware that a significant factor in independence negotiations was the return of the Hextech gem to Piltover, and it hasn’t been returned yet, because Vander and Vi can’t find it in the Undercity. When Jinx confides that she hid it before the mob took her and knows its location, for the first time since Stillwater, Silco has some hope.

 For better or worse, Silco is back in the game. He starts to pull himself together. His hair’s grown out, hanging unevenly to his jaw, clipped back with Jinx’s sparkly barrettes. He's lost so much weight his dress shirts no longer fit, so he wears them wrapped around, held in place with a belt that needed a new hole worked into it, and what look like pinstriped pajama bottoms. Tobias Kiramman hears one Zaunite comment that “at least he’s dressing normally now.”

At one point he also watches in horror as Silco, barely strong enough to walk, lights up a cigarette. When Dr. Kiramman protests, citing his lungs, Silco coolly asks Jinx to open a window, allowing a haze of greenish smog to enter. As Tobias chokes and coughs, the two Zaunites remain impassive, and three glowing eyes stare at him through the haze.

Sevika also pays Silco a visit. She denies being a traitor, as she worked for Zaun, not Silco, but tells him she wasn’t the one who exposed his deal with Piltover to the Chembarons and to Zaun (That was Renni, and I honestly can’t blame her). She also tells him he looks like shit, but he looks more like himself than he has in years.

Silco’s plan is to use knowledge of the Hex gem as a bargaining chip. Not to avoid prosecution, he knows that’s impossible, but his goal is to get a sentence that’s survivable rather than being left to rot in Stillwater, with a guard bribable enough to allow Jinx visits (and potentially explore other means of leverage).

He also seeks to shield Jinx from prosecution, taking all blame for her crimes however implausible. Everyone in Zaun knows it’s a lie, but Silco’s hoping that apathy will save them rather than ignorance. 

Ironically enough, his and Vi’s goals are completely aligned, had they ever considered coordinating their assertions that Jinx was blameless and acting solely on Silco’s orders.

However, all his plans fall to nothing when, on trial by the leaders of Piltover and Zaun, Jinx lives up to her name, threatening them with Hextech weaponry in a bid to protect Silco. Sevika later finds him crumpled in a corner, helpless and out of options to save his daughter or himself.

(This family is so doomed by the narrative).

Costume. Chitons.

Stan never really had a guy interested in him the way he was with them, so it was a bit difficult for rick to make his point clear to stan. After their first night, rick left to get some morning donuts, which freaked Stan out. He really thought he messed up.