The Psychology of Jinx || ART + Commentary

I will be a useful teammate to whichever team I am playing on.
What is going on in Jinx's head? Is there a diagnosis that fits her symptoms? How and why did she get like this? Is Silco actually a bad dad? In this video, part 2 of my "A Look Into Jinx" series based on the characters of Arcane, I answer those questions.
Part 1: • Arcane: A Look Into Jinx
Thanks for watching my video, I know it was in the works for a long time but I'm happy to have it out and already excited for my next video :)
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[@selfsabotagingbanana0451]

If I had to diagnose her with something, it would be borderline personality disorder with comorbid PTSD. BPD because of: - Fear of abandonment and rejection - Intense mood swings - unstable sense of self (am I a Jinx or not?) - difficulty controlling anger - impulsivity (acting without considering consequences) - dissociation and psychotic-like episodes under stress (paranoid delusions, hallucinations) - splitting (black and white thinking, either idealizing or demonizing loved ones) and PTSD because of: - Flashbacks - Hypervigilance (very noticable in the scene where she reunites with Vi and hears the firelights long before they attack) - a couple of other symptoms that are already listed under BPD since there is a lot of overlap due to the fact that both are connected to trauma

[@robloxluvva542]

i cant wait till part 2 of arcane 😭

[@p0ssxm_t33th3]

I relate to jinx to an extreme extent so I really loved your breakdown of her psychology

[@VIIKZ]

Haha, same here. Thanks for watching

[@Code_Ax0]

Loved the breakdown of the series and Jinx. I absolutely love her, always have since the "Get Jinxed" music video but now with this series that MV has a whole different vibe. 😭 I still love her though, lol. Can't wait to see what other videos you may have. :)

[@kot_w_shlopkack]

2:17 I should mention, that it wasn't miracle! It really hard to notice, but Jinx saw Vi and Caitlin when they were under the last drop. In the episode it was shown by showing that Caitlin noticed Jinx! So, Jinx knew, that Vi is somewhere around, and just light up that thing)

[@ashanti8026]

Good video I genuinely loved arcane and especially jinx

[@VIIKZ]

thank you!

[@ashanti8026]

@@VIIKZ will there be more parts?

[@bzzzzzzzzzz2075]

Ok you're analysis is great and your art is phenomenal

[@bzzzzzzzzzz2075]

Oh yeah also, important thing to mention in relation to her psychology, Jinx is like- the most festering ball of of self hatred that ever hated lmao. This shows in her self destructive behavior. You see that she has 0 regard for her own life, not actively suicidal or anything(except ep7, on the bridge), but she doesn't really care if she dies or not. From the first moment you first see her in ep4, she's standing in shimmer flames while having a ptsd episode, not really paying attention to the active harm being done to herself. From then on we see that her reliance on others validation for her self worth has carried over entirely, and if she can't justify the affection she receives she's weak and useless. It's like her purpose revolves around serving Silco. Then, we see her playing with bombs, throwing them off at the very last possible second, which shows total trust in her engineering and total disregard for her safety. Then ep5, when she's looking through Jayce's book, the scene opens with her HOVERING HALFWAY OVER THE EDGE OF THE FAN BLADE in a position that gives her NO LEVERAGE if she falls with only her core strength to keep her upright, and AGAIN it's impressive how much she trusts her core strength but like, girl. Some more examples, stapling her pants to her leg in ep7, setting off point blank grenade ep7, her admission to Vi that she wouldve given up if not for her both imagining and hallucinating VI's encouragement ep9, the whole sequence ep 9 where Caitlyn is threatening her(I only caught it on a rewatch, but Jinx seems to decide not to kill Caitlyn, taking her finger off the trigger after Vi pleads with her, then she hears a voice that says 'it's time to leave them', which is subtitled btw, then she sort of screams, raises her gun, and flinches back. We know Jinx is HIGHLY efficient and effective with her gun, as we see with the crystal bomb in the ep 6 fight, so there is no way she simply failed to fire the gun before Caitlyn could shoot her, and she definitely wouldn't scream while she did so. Then Jinx looks out from behind her arm looking like- disgusted that Caitlyn didn't actually shoot.) Then when she sits in the Jinx chair, she's resigned and ashamed of herself because she doesn't want to be a jinx, she wants to be helpful and good, but she doesn't think she's capable of that. The line 'even though I'm... different' always hits hard because she doesn't like herself, Jinx doesn't want to be cruel or ruthless, and she never did. She was a sweet kid who wanted to prove herself, that accidentally killed her family, then got groomed into a gang, and then decided 'fuck it, ig I'm already a jinx, I'm already inherently bad, I'm already a monster, and at least if I keep being bad in this way I can get some affection too.' She's so clearly ashamed of herself, and she's not too far gone because very few people ever are and she still has that empathy buried deep down, but she thinks she's inherently bad, so she gives up on being good. Ok im probably done for real now on the comments lol. Again, I love the video and your art is really nice, and that's coming from me, who's been frustrated with their own jinx drawing for two days now. Have a good time

[@candycryptid2832]

Hmmm is it schizoaffective? Cos that’s schizophrenic symptoms with mania and depressive episodes, which have to last a lot longer the BPD episodes to constitute mania and stuff. BPD emotions are the same intensity, but a lot shorter. Although those disorders are often comorbid, she doesn’t really display mania or depression like that. I don’t think it’s the same to say that schizoaffective is schizophrenic symptoms with BPS symptoms, schizophrenic symptoms with bipolar symptoms seems more accurate. Is this right????

[@bzzzzzzzzzz2075]

@@candycryptid2832 some people I know with borderline personality disorder really strongly identify with her and would definitely make the claim that she has schizoaffective bpd. She meets the dsm5 criteria for bpd on its own, anyway She doesn't rly have the manic/depressive cycles of bipolar from what we've seen, just mood swings. but also we haven't seen her for much time, so I mean, she could I have no idea what I wrote in the comment you're replying to btw but ye you have a fair assessment

[@candycryptid2832]

@@bzzzzzzzzzz2075 oh yeah I definitely strongly identify with her, analysing her character actually helped me pinpoint my own trauma lol. She definitely doesn’t seem to show any signs of mania or depression, but I’m also not schizoaffective, so I can’t really say much about it.

[@candycryptid2832]

@@bzzzzzzzzzz2075 ALSO YOU’RE SO RIGHT ABOUT THIS MFJDJKDMFD the self hatred is real with BPD. Like inherently viewing yourself as a bad person and simultaneously victimising yourself

[@candycryptid2832]

It’s likely borderline personality disorder. Some experts say that it should be classified as a type of PTSD rather than a personality disorder, and it’s very similar to C-PTSD, except for a couple symptoms including self harm and recurrent suicidal ideation. hallucinations and psychotic symptoms are also very common with BPD, especially when someone is under extreme stress. They tend to feel, hear, smell, and lastly see things that aren’t there. Shadow people are a pretty common visual hallucination, although I’m pretty sure that visual hallucinations are less common in general. It could be schizophrenia, but I’m pretty sure it’s severe BPD :DDD

[@leoartist8019]

I hope you do one on the sister

[@zeeee104]

came here cuz of a tik tok on my fyp 😋

[@sydthecat1333]

Do you think she feels remorse at all for the amount of harm she causes

[@VIIKZ]

Absolutely! The immense remorse and guilt she feels is what makes her a conflict with *herself*. She plays it off like she's fine with being clinically insane but I think she's in a lot of pain :(

[@sydthecat1333]

@@VIIKZ got it :) thanks for responding

[@sydthecat1333]

do you think she lacks the ability to feel empathy?

[@bzzzzzzzzzz2075]

TLDR: She feels empathy, but she tries her hardest not to because it'd hurt to confront her guilt ---- Jinx absolutely feels empathy, no doubt about it in my mind. She stifles it, sure, but it's always there, eating away at her. When she was little on the bridge, she didn't understand the gravity of death but when she saw her sister crying she immediately understood those emotions and started crying too. Then throughout a lot of her life as Powder, she fed off of everyone around hers emotions, whenever her siblings were gloomy, she became gloomy, when she saw people fighting she was worried for them etc. and she never showed any signs of actual sociopathic behavior. There can be an argument made about her bombs, but she was also encouraged to make them by Vi, and she was desensitized to violence, using them as a matter of survival. She was also devastated by the loss of her family, and she did everything in her power to help them. When she yells at vi 'why did you leave me' in e3, it's not because her priority in that moment was that Vi left her instead of her dead family, it's that it was what hurt the least to confront. Then as a teenager, she only kills in gang fights and kills enforcers. She doesn't even kill Caitlyn in the end because it'd hurt Vi, and she feels remorse for killing Silco and her brothers. I think you can come to the conclusion that she feels horribly guilty all the time just from the show, with the constant shame and self hatred she expresses, not even mentioning the casual suicidality. And not just for her dead family. She seems to dissociate a lot of the time she's fighting, not paying attention to the pain she's causing, just the base instinct and the thrill. Plus she doesn't ever go after anyone she thinks didn't wrong her, even the crow she shot had made her feel vulnerable and stupid. Not that it justifies anything lol It's also canon to arcane via her diary in the council archives that Jinx has independently developed a sort-of religious belief that when people die they go live with their loved ones forever to cope, and that she constantly is haunted by everyone she 'took care of'. She basically just does Silcos dirty work and stifles her empathy as a survival mechanism, because she'd 100% fall apart if she ever confronted her actions. Even in the LOL and legends of Runeterra cannon, where she's far more sadistic in her violence, she still gives friendly advice to random urchins and beggars and delays or dampens explosions to limit deaths(see: Runeterra voice lines and wedding crasher short story) She only goes after perceived wrongdoers, whether that be topsiders or personal squabbles in the undercity, but she doesn't stop hurting people because she's in so deep that it would destroy her to confront her conscience. Not to mention she's got something to prove in all her incarnations. Irl a lot of people are groomed into gangs like Jinx was (and let's not fool ourselves, she was groomed into a gang, that was not a fully willing and rational decision she made to join his gang, it was spur of the moment when she'd lost all hope, and it was manipulative thereafter, Silco was 100% made her into what she is, even if he cared about her. If you read the council archives, you see he's asking a 12 year old to 'take care of' people, and frankly, Jinx thinks she's a bad person already and doesn't have much of a choice in the matter anyways considering Silco was her new caretaker) and they can be the most empathetic kids, but for survival, people can shut down empathy to a scary degree. I recommend the end of Schnee's video on Ekko for an example of how people like that can still be redeemed btw. But yes, she's empathetic but she shuts it down so that she doesn't have to face it Also, side note, Jinx is a little sadistic, but never cruelly so. She doesn't take pleasure in peoples pain as much as she finds amusement in momentary fear. She thinks it's funny to pull some horrible pranks on people(bartender paint bomb ep 6, head on the platter ep 9), but she doesn't prolong anyone's suffering for the hell of it. She would never actually have killed that bartender and never would've had Caitlyn's head on the platter(though she would've killed Caitlyn) because she hurts people out of retribution or obligation, hurting enforcers and rival gangs, but not random bystanders. If you're ever doubting Jinx's ability to feel empathy, I recommend reading the Jinx council archives(you can find them on the league of legends wiki) where you can read her childhood diary following the events of ep3. She 100% feels empathy and I will defend that to the end of the earth. This is ramble-y and I'm sick while writing this so I hope this made sense and clarified it for you. Have a very good day/night/whatever

[@candycryptid2832]

Affective empathy is a natural body response, and is uncontrollable. Cognitive empathy is actively putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and taking time to understand how they feel. Sympathy is concern and worry for other people’s well-being. Compassion is warmth and care for another person. Jinx definitely experienced affective empathy, and likely a lot. The other three, however, are things completely in one’s control, and also make ignoring affective empathy responses much easier. Jinx definitely ignores it, and isn’t well practiced at processing or handling it, either.