The Psychology of Jinx (Arcane): The Crazy Gothic Nightmare Girl (and Daddy Issues)

No one expected Arcane to be good. Video game adaptations tend to usually be an empty spectacle at best or a dull and obvious cash grab at worst. But Arcane wasn’t that, in fact Arcane might be one of the best animated shows to come out in the past decade.

With flawless animation, a uniquely interesting world and fleshed out characters that you actually can relate to, Arcane is one of the few shows to capture my attention for an all-night Binge watch in a while.

Arcane does that rare thing where there isn’t one main character per say, but somehow makes it feel like each of the characters in the show is the main character of their own story, which is a testament to the writing. But even among all these beautifully interconnected stories, one character’s story arc still sticks out as a cut above the rest, and that is the story of Jinx

Now I never played LOL before watching Arcane (and still haven’t) but Jinx was still a character that I had come across on multiple platforms, mostly in the form of rather over-sexualized fan art. And you know what I get it, even without knowing anything about the character you are able to tell the archetype: the bat-shit-crazy bad girl that some people drool over and was popularized by the likes of Harley Quinn.

While not probably up to my personal taste it is easy to understand why this archetype exists and appeals to horny teenagers (and even hornier men). I always see these characters as the evil twin versions of another very common female character trope:

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which would make these characters

The Crazy Gothic Nightmare Girl if you will.   

I mean I get it

The Crazy Gothic Nightmare Girl

Now the appeal of these characters in understandable. We live in a very restrictive society, one in which actions have consequences. While many of us may dream of punching our boss in the face or burning down that pretentious coffee shop that laughed at you for saying that you didn’t understand half their menu, we don’t actually do these things because you’ll be fired and be send to jail for arson respectively for these action.

So what characters like Jinx and Harley do is fulfill that fantasy of people who can do these things without consequences or fulfilling the fantasy of dating such people. The idea of being truly untamable by society and giving into ones most hedonistic desires comes with its own appeal.

And till Arcane came out this is what Jinx was, a sexualized cardboard archetype for young dumb men to drool over. The violent untamable hottie that is so unpredictable that life will never be dull around her.

I mean I reeeeally get it! 

But what Arcane does is add depth to that character and shows exactly the kind of damage one goes through to turn into such an unhinged person, without shying away from the real silent moments of insanity they face or the consequences of their actions.

And one of the best ways in which the show does this is by starting at the very beginning, that is to show what Jinx was before she became the deranged assassin, back when she was still Powder.

POWDER: Innocence and Incompetence

Arcane can broadly be split into two halves, and that has to do with the 7 year time skip. And for the first half of the story, Jinx does not exist. Who we have instead is Powder.

Was she already hallucinating hearts at this age?

Powder’s story starts were a lot of main character stories do, that is by her being an Orphan (see also Batman, Spiderman etc.) But in Powder’s case she at least has an older sister Vi.

The first half of the show is heavily focused on these sisters with Vi being the capable and strong 14 year old badass and Powder being the fumbling kid who still hasn’t found her footing or place in their friend group, but has the upmost admiration for her older sister.

Already we can see some classic traits for childhood trauma forming here. We have the obvious loss of her parent’s motif but also the added issues of being stuck in under the large shadow cast by an older sibling, one she admires no less.

We also at this point have the two girl’s relationship with Vander, their surrogate father figure. Now I’d say Vander brings an even more interesting comparison between the two girls. While Vander in every regard treats both the girls and the other kids under his care with love and care, it is easy to see he has a special bond with Vi, more than with any of the others.

Which brings us to the big difference between Vi and Powder. While both were orphaned by war, both are very different Orphans. Due to her competence and attitude, Vi manages to make friends and even have a more genuine connection and thus a real father figure in Vander.

This is not the case with little Powder. Powder on the other hand is a little strange and clumsy, not to mention not great at controlling her emotions. This leads to her having a difficult time fitting in, and her only real connection being that with Vi.

Vi in turn understands this, and is therefore overprotective of Powder, with the very reasonable justification that she will learn to find her footing better with Age.

Also maybe don’t let kids play with bombs

And if things kept going down this path Powder would have grown up to be a capable young women. While not a great leader like her sister she still had her own merits and while there was friction with the other members of their little group, both Mylo and Clogger were still her friends. And a young echo seemed to value her friendship the most as well, both being around the same age and younger than the others.

So what went wrong?

Well as The Joker says in the Killing Joke : “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy”. Just one Bad day.    

But she does make bad look good!

One Bad Day

We all know the day I’m talking about. The Cliff-notes: Powder sets of a bomb she made on her own to try and free a captured Vander. But what it does instead is, heavily injure Vander and kill both Mylo and Clogger in the process.

And can I just say this scene is brilliant, we live in a society that often believes in the notion that it’s the thought that counts. That if something is done with good intent, even if the actions back-fire that it is forgivable.

A notion that I strongly disagree with.

What this scene alone shows is just how dangerous incompetence can be. What Powder wanted to do was help, but what she ended up doing was cause more damage and chaos than anything the villains had done thus far. And kudos to Arcane from not shying away from this.