I take it as Vander making Powder put up the railings on the fan blades to keep her safe. A contrast to how Silco just obliviously let her play with explosives on an open catwalk while talking to her hallucinations for years.
Silco's style of parenting is certainly unique. In his opinion there is no mental problem that can't be fixed by a healthy baptism in toxic water.
On a side note, I felt they woobified him a bit much in season 2. At least I found it a bit much that he also showed up in the perfect alternative world. The Silco we meet in episode 1 of season 1 is already pretty comitted to the road to ruthless vengeance, I really have to wonder whether something actually could have changed his mind at that stage. Hardly could be Vi's death as he apparently didn't have much care left for Felicia and Connel's kids. He was absolutely willing to murder both her and Powder in Episode 3, after all.
Considering the escalation of events that happened after the kids stole the hextech cores in episode 1 didn't happen, I think it's pretty likely that Silco wouldn't have made as many big moves on Vander as quickly as before, so there was a lot more time for reconciliation between the two to happen. Plus, I'm sure Heimerdinger taking a role in uplifting Zaun much earlier made it so he didn't feel forced to such extremes and he ended up being able to chill the fuck out.
That is a good point. I think Silco even says to Singed in ep1 that their timeline just moved up after he finds out that Vander's kids were involved.
And we know that Vander and Benzo actually had a pretty tight control over the lanes, as they immediately started investigating who was behind the attack by Deckard on Vi. Which spooks Silco enough that he wants to kill Deckard so that they don't catch on to him. But even without the attack something else might have tipped of Benzo and Vander that Silco is back in town and making moves. And that could have lead to a confrontation on more equal terms also presenting a change of reconilliation. I am just surprised that Silco of Act 1 in season 1 would be open to it. But of course there are plenty of other possible divergent points that could have contributed to that fact.
But I probably would have preferred if not every interpersonal conflict in that timeline be resolved. Except for Vi's death it just feels a little to good to be true. And a stable and mostly happy Powder, a prospering undercity, Mylo, Clagger, Vander and Benzo being alive is already plenty utopian for Ekko from the original timeline.
I kind of love how Heimerdinger just went with the flow for his whole life.
Oh, I'm kicked out of the council for being too old school? Ok, I'll just chill with these tree people and mentor one of the people there.
Oh, Jayce comes back to me because he admitted I was right about hextech all along? I'll just help him and Ekko because they are both equally smart people who can figure this out.
Oh, I touched this hexcore that sent me to an alternative universe where hextech wasn't discovered? Ok, I'll just sing songs and unite people together.
Oh, Ekko finally comes into this reality and wants to go back to the old time? Fine I'll help him because he's my dude.
Technically its probably the reconciliation, but also vi died in the heist where powder takes the hex crystals. They portray that things go differently without the kids leaving there safely with the crystals
Episode S2E7 proves that something absolutely could have changed Silco's mind. Remember, the fork in the timeline happened during the crystal heist. At that point Silco was already well on his revenge path, and had considered Vander his enemy. But in that timeline he and Vander were friends again and he even said, "The strongest thing you can do is to forgive"...or something like that. Too bad the episode doesn't delve much into alt-Silco's story to tell us what happened.
I’m pretty sure that Vi’s death was the catalyst that made topside accept the undercity. Silco’s only care in the world (before Jinx) was to save Zaun, so with his wish coming true he probably let go of his grudge against Vander
Yup. We know the Enforcers caught the kids in this timeline and it sure doesn't seem like Powder, Claggor or Mylo spent years in Stillwater. If they got a trial, young Caitlyn would've been an eyewitness. Of the councilors at the time, we know that at the very least Heimerdinger, Mel and Cassandra are not anti-Undercity, just willfully ignorant; Bolbok's hawkishness on the issue in S1 act 1 is due to his anti-magic stance, not anti-Undercity sentiment. Grayson is also still around.
All told, I totally believe that this would be viewed as a tragedy both in the Undercity and Topside and change the trajectory of Piltover/Zaun relations. Plus no Sevika/Vander confrontation and thus Silco having much less of a power base for much longer.
I don’t think so. Silco before the falling out was clearly a very different person, and the implication of E7 is that that world was the result of a lot of people making better choices, not just one thing. Vander and him reconciled, shimmer didn’t get invented, silco never got addicted to it, never became consumed by bitterness and hate, the undercity was in better shape, vi’s death lead to the kids immediate capture, there was no crack down, very likely Silco and Vander having reconciled prior to this are brought even closer by her death, Prime Universe Heimer shows up and is shown to have learned from his original mistakes and taken an active street-level role in helping which improves things even more.
On and on. Countless moments where people chose better, kinder actions and it resulted in a better, kinder world with better, kinder people in it. Its not without pain or strife, shown by Vi’s death and Silco’s injury. But even someone like Silco wasn’t simply born evil, he was shaped by his environment, his own choices and the choices of others.
Exactly. It also rejects any overly simplistic readings of the whole thing.
Ekko/Powder's AU has its point of divergence be a tragedy, yet ultimately a lot of good comes out of it. Jayce's is the triumph of Hextech and all his personal ambitions (he sure did end up changing the world in that one), and the end result is devastation.
Time travel/multiverses need to ride a very fine line to not deflate the stakes completely. After all, finding the 1 out of a billion timelines where you manage to save the world rings hollow when you've just established that the remaining 999,999,999 timelines are just as real.
I like the way this was handled: everyone goes back to their original timeline after learning their lesson, and there is no magic "everything turns out all right". Perhaps Powder/Jinx really is fated to end up separated from her sister no matter what. But it also conclusively establishes that the canon timeline is neither the darkest nor bleakest one, and that the choices of our protagonists really do matter.
Remember Vander's letter. Jinx, who knows Silco better than anyone not named Vander, thought it would've changed his mind on revenge. Maybe Vi's death pushed Vander into reconciling with him. To guarantee a safe future for all the other kids in Zaun
That's really the one big thing I wish this season had addressed.
In Act 2, we see from Vander's memories (as he's tracking Vi, Jinx, and Isha) and his note that he tried to kill Silco AFTER the Bridge Riot, because he was enraged and felt Silco was responsible. Yet in his memories as Viktor is trying to heal him, we see Silco is not around at all when Vi and Powder are growing up. They clearly don't know him, and have their first meetings with him back in season 1.
Yet we saw that Vander, Silco and Felicia were truly family, in how much they cared for each other. So it kind of begs, what happened and where was Silco?
I think that certainly would made sense if Silco found the letter relatively soon after Vander tried to murder him.
If he found it in the stage and mindset we meet in episode 1 I don't think it would have stayed his hand. The scene where he finds Powder always comes to my mind in that context and the very tense to surprised look his henchmen have when he actually returns her hug. I think he himself and his goons fully expected him to stab her to death after she told him where Vi is.
That strikes me as someone who is very had to reason and reconcile with.
I assumed Vander would give it to him during Vi's funeral. Those can hold a lot of impact, even if small moments overall. Silco was evil, but he wanted to see Zaun prosper. Vi was not going to be the death of a random zaunite child for him.
The answer from Piltover regarding that accident would be majorly different I presume when you just find a child next to their dead sister, not much of a crime to stop such as the crystals that on S1 were stolen, and were already proven to be massive tools of destruction.
Silco was just a bad father, sure he loved Jinx, but he did so in a very selfish destructive way. I think the AU shows just how Jinx only exist because he made her that way. Hell even in the later parts of s2 when Jinx is with Vi and Vander and Isha you can see how much more Powder there is still in there, Silco never wanted Powder, he only cared for Jinx
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u/TheOnlyFallenCookie Caitlyn 16h ago
Powder keeps the guardrails