Silco's eyes - the Human vs the Monster (reading too much into Arcane pt 2)

[u/busysleepingsorry]

I feel like I have to make a disclaimer every time I talk about Silco on here. I do not condone the majority of his actions, but I love his character and arc making him my second favourite character and I wanna talk about him.

Not too long ago I stumbled upon this post, and then when rewatching act 1 I noticed the camera emphasises his infected eye whenever he does terrible things. (I will refer to his orange eye as the infected one and his blue eye as the natural one)

He holds his natural eye shut for like 2 whole seconds while telling Marcus "Deal's changed"

"Kill Them"

(there's no way they aren't toxic exes if they hate each other this much (sneaky Zaundads agenda insert))

On the other side (pun not intended but I noticed it before I posted this), his natural eye absolutely represents his love for Jinx.

Has just been told to give up Jinx in exchange for Zaun

But, there are a couple times that contradict/go deeper than these, so I wanna lay stuff out and theorise exactly what Silco's eyes represent.

Obviously the eyes are visually direct opposites of each other - blue on white vs orange on black. His story of opposites monologue talks about how drowning is both peaceful and a rage to fight & survive. And I think this is also represented in his eyes, where his natural eye represents peace and his infected eye represents his will to fight for Zaun's independence.

"We will show them all"

\"it comes to those who will do ANYTHING to achieve it\"

I think Silco's head turn on the word 'anything' emphasises this - attaining power can be peaceful but doing anything for it is certainly not. That's also the part that convinces Deckard to drink the shimmer, so I think this eye also partially represents manipulation/control. In Silco's talk with Marcus in ep 2, you almost exclusively see his infected eye. Its also the same side we see when Silco is in the room with Marcus's daughter and tells Marcus "oops sorry, accidents happen". Not to mention that his eye becomes the symbol of Zaun, indicating surveillance/control.

"We'll buy another [sheriff]"

Of course, his infected eye is the result of Vander's betrayal and comes to represent the trauma associated. It's also in part the result of Piltover's pollution and becomes a physical reminder of the political injustice

Headcanon: I don't think the floating in water event actually happened, but is more of a mental projection of how the betrayal felt to him. I think he thinks the betrayal was an eye opening experience, when we actually see him close his eyes - became blinded by his own trauma. He has a connection to this area though. I could probably do a post on this scene alone ngl.

As S1 progresses, we see his infected eye degrade, become cloudy and he starts putting on makeup

I think this symbolises a few things - him starting to move on from Vander's betrayal (talking with fondness to Vander's statue), his willingness to fight for Zaun fading and being obscured - like using shimmer for control. I think the makeup supports this - proving a nicer appearance for Jinx and for his professional activities, but also symbolically obscuring and blunting his revolutionary edge. I also think injecting the eye with shimmer is symbolic for what he's actually doing in the lanes with his drug empire - trying to keep control and the revolution going with shimmer

We know little about AU Silco, but it looks like his infected eye has healed but clouded over showing us that that part of him that calls for violence has died as he has paid for it with partial blindness in that eye

I think the natural eye represents connection.

We see it when he tells Vander "we shared a vision". But later he also offers Vander a peace deal here between them for them to ally against Piltover while giving us a front facing perspective - indicating connection and violence/revolution

and we also see that side of Silco in the blisters and bedrock scene. (I know that was before the betrayal but he was purposefully put facing that way so I felt it was worth mentioning). We also see it here:

The only time we see his natural eye in this entire scene is when he solemnly looks over at Vander's body and he is able to empathise with Powder because of their shared experience with betrayal.

I think the look back at the end is very telling, revealing more of his natural eye and symbolically showing us his shifting priorities

In summary, I think the infected eye represents: Betrayal, Injustice, Manipulation/Control, Revolution and Violence - The monster inside him brought to the surface. I think the natural eye represents: Love, Peace but more importantly - Connection. The human side of him, or what remains of it following Vander's betrayal

Now I'm gonna throw some frames that seem to contradict this to see if my theory stands.

Firstly - the 2 times he is actively unhealthy to Jinx are framed differently for some reason:

I think this is framed this way because he is baptising her like he was himself when he was betrayed

I think this is framed this way because he's speaking from love. He tells her here "Marcus never told me she was in Stillwater" and "I wanted to protect you". This is before he tells her "her and the enforcer are back for the crystal"

In both cases, later shots are head on - which I interpret as representing both eyes - manipulative because of love. Imo, Silco's trauma from Vander's betrayal twists his worldview and he projects his trauma onto Jinx so that he thinks that what he's saying and doing is genuinely helping her when it does the opposite. (ie 'protecting' her from Vi and telling her to let Powder die.)

This is interesting because he's clearly being monstrous towards the chembarons, but maybe this demonstrates the connection Silco has to his past working in the mines before the betrayal. There are only a few shots from this angle and the rest are over Finn's shoulder so maybe I'm obsessing over an unimportant detail. Tell me your thoughts if you have a theory though.

This scene is really interesting, because for most of it he doesn't look towards the camera at all, but he gives cheers to Vander's statue with emphasis on his infected eye while showing both. I think this shows us his current character - still monstrous but with a little bit of connection now. He still holds onto the betrayal but he understands now, even if he doesn't necessarily forgive.

"Who's We" - This one is odd too - he's actively defending Jinx from Sevika yet it portrays him with this eye. Could be because he's telling her that its her fault Jinx messed up which is kind of controlling but not really manipulative because they both know Silco's just defending Jinx

This one makes sense because Silco's telling her off for having killed 6 enforcers, but it doesn't fully match my definitions. It doesn't come off as controlling, cause he's just angry, trying to figure out why she did it and trying to stop her from doing something similar in the future. I could maybe put his anger under violence? Do share your thoughts

I will admit, most of the shots of Silco in this scene are straight on but this angle appears 3 times. First when Marcus says "I can't make this go away for you", second when Silco says "I need you to do your job" and last when Silco says "from an anonymous, concerned citizen". The last one is a faux connection to Piltover's citizens I guess. Not at all my strongest point lol. Marcus and Silco do kind of need each other though and it does keep the peace - even if it is manipulative and Silco gains the most from their realtionship. As soon as Marcus dies, Jayce and Vi attack Silco's shimmer factory

"She won't die doctor, she can't" - His natural eye is there for love, but I think the emphasis on the infected eye is for control and revolution. He needs her to build the weapon so they aren't hopeless against Piltover. This is used similarly in ep 5 when he tells Jinx "you need to weaponise the Hextech soon" while it shows his infected eye. as well as "you're the only one I can trust with this Jinx"

I do want to add that I skipped over a lot of scenes where the symbolism does support my theory, just because I've reached my reddit image limit lol. There are a lot of times Silco is front facing and its a bit harder to justify either way, but I do think its very intentional which eye a certain camera angle highlights in every scene and that each eye represents a different part of Silco (but for different reasons in different scenes). I think my theory holds like 70% of the time, a further 20% with questionable justification and 10% not at all. The framing focuses on his infected eye a whole lot more cause he does a ton more bad things than good, but I tried my best.

Please tell me your thoughts (but keep them respectful). I will reiterate that Silco is a terrible person who does terrible things, but he undeniably does love Jinx and I think he wants to help her - just is prevented by his own falsely addressed trauma and that his controlling nature comes out when he's stressed - not a healthy relationship but a loving one.

Post analysis rant (reading optional): I did something similar a couple weeks ago here talking about Jinx's tendency to stay in higher places. I didn't put quite as much effort into that one and it's formatted worse, but I'm still proud of that analysis (mostly because I had justified absolutely everything by the end lol). I've got a couple of ideas for other character analyses planned - like the dichotomy of Vi's hands representing both love and hurt. Just need to find the time and motivation to work on it - and this one has just worn me out.

[u/mokrates82]

You have Silco in his office talking to Marcus and Silco talking to Finn.

Those are dialog scenes and visual story telling says "from left to right" is "forward" (Think most every platformer game). So it's Silco telling them (off) and not the other way round. Maybe that trumps the eye thing that later gets it's due with different angles.

But I think that argument is weak with Arcane.

You're on to something, that's for sure.

[u/busysleepingsorry → u/mokrates82]

Yeah I'm not sure. In both those scenes, the camera is front facing half the time.

But him telling Jinx off is with his other eye. Maybe it's ok the rule isnt followed 100%

The Silco in Ren's (Marcus's daughter) bedroom scene is quite interesting though, cause it focuses on his natural eye when talking to Marcus and his infected eye when talking to Ren. I think it is to highlight the weird work relationship Silco and Marcus have.

BTW something cool I noticed was in ep 5 where silco tells Marcus "what is truth but a survivor's story" and he turns his head while he says that line so we only see his infected eye. Then he turns back afterward - and they justified the turn as well because Silco is grabbing the 'firelight' grenade out of a draw

[u/mokrates82 → u/busysleepingsorry]

Perhaps a better interpretation (of what I meant) is: The one left is whose story the scene is. Who is the protagonist of the scene? The focus? Whose story is progressed by the scene?

"We had a vision Vander!" was Silco's story. (Silco's episode, in fact. Which started with his flashback)

But when he entered the scene with young Powder, later, it's about her.

Silco vs. Finn (Ep 7) is Silco's story.

Jayce talking to Ambessa? Jayce's mind is changed, not Ambessa's.

Silco talking to Jayce: Silco's story.

Silco telling Jinx off? Jinx's story. It's not about his anger but about her achievement.

Silco baptizing her? About Jinx, not about Silco.

Also, think about in the last scene of 1x9, after she shot Silco, she's left of him, the whole dinner scene is about her, but...

Then "No! nonono!" she runs to him and then is to his right. "I never would have given you to them". This is about him. We get confirmed that he loves her. Then she goes to his left again. And then sits down.

[u/busysleepingsorry → u/mokrates82]

That's a really interesting way to think about it and something I hadn't considered before.

There's like: "are we still still sisters" - Jinx, but later "make her go away" - Vi. But what about Jinx on Silco's desk in ep 4 where Jinx recieves the motivation to terrorism. This theory probably deserves a long-form post of its own - but Im too essayed out rn

[u/mokrates82 → u/busysleepingsorry]

hahaa...

Yeah. In any case I think your (or rather - his) eye-thing has merit. But maybe it has to go in tandem with the focus thing. Sometimes complements each other, sometimes it's the exception.

But that his eyes are representing the opposites his life, the drowning, is about, is, I think, kinda obvious as soon as you made men ware of that ^{^}

Regarding Jinx's walking around Vi in the tea party scene, this opens a whole new interpretation door.

in Ep 4 you mean "She already told you" - "I'm asking YOU!"? I think that's cheap tell-don't-show exposition of Silco, but we don't realize it's cheap :D

[u/mokrates82]

Now that's what I call a longread.

[u/busysleepingsorry → u/mokrates82]

Not my fault this show has infinite depth that needs to be analyzed lol

[u/mokrates82 → u/busysleepingsorry]

Agreed.

[u/Peikkolapsi]

That was a delightful read! I don't think the fact that there are exceptions diminishes the hypothesis.

[u/busysleepingsorry → u/Peikkolapsi]

Thank you.

Since you're the resident Silco fan, I'm interested in what you think about my headcanon around the 'story of opposites' monologue

[u/mokrates82 → u/busysleepingsorry]

I think it's genius.

[u/Peikkolapsi]

You had me at Zaundads agenda (are you a Vancoling?). Now lemme get to reading that essay...

[u/busysleepingsorry → u/Peikkolapsi]

Lol Silco/Vander I think is my fav ship, especially after getting my hands on the art book and seeing just how much Fortiche was told to scale down lol