Well this was an Arcane related rabbit hole...
Added 2025-02-15 18:25:36 +0000 UTCI might not have explained this very well as I did it on the fly....
Comments
Yes, I did! Although I'll probably have to watch it a couple more times because my attention span is in shambles. Thank you for the insight!
Llama Lana
2025-02-18 14:03:34 +0000 UTCNot sure if you saw my video after this where I answered some of your comments regarding the freeze response.
Lenny
2025-02-18 13:55:50 +0000 UTCOut of curiosity, have you taken the time to pause on and examine the Jinx grafitis of episode 2x3? Those are very much clearly Jinx' perspective. One I'd like to point out, is there is this big pink angry face on one of them. It matches scritches we've seen before in Jinx flashbacks. They appear in 1x4 when she sees the pink-haired girl, and again in 1x5 when she goes to the boxing machine game thing. Both times those scritches appear on Vi's face, notably in 1x5 it appears on Vi's face as she is slapping Powder.
Simpelicity
2025-02-16 15:27:58 +0000 UTCYeah, I too have always seen it not as visual hallucinations happening in the present moment, but as distorted memories caused by trauma. Most of the time we've seen these moments mostly in flashbacks
alex lavrenof
2025-02-16 12:21:30 +0000 UTCI love this research dive!! It’s great to read some of the newer ideas and thoughts about these kinds of events, even if it didn’t quite answer the original question
Aaron Hardman
2025-02-16 03:35:46 +0000 UTCI would posit to suggest that maybe the scratches in the bridge scene are how powder remember's the incident rather than the actual experience she had in that time. I would say its plausable and what I always assumed was happening during the first bridge scene
Last Thing
2025-02-16 00:50:47 +0000 UTCFrom the deal Vander and Grayson make (you keep your people off my streets and we stay out of your business), the apparent routine Vi and Powder have when it comes to violence (cover your eyes, sing a song, and hold my hand), and how little they're afraid to walk the bridge considering the massacre that's just ensued, I think it's safe to assume that enforcers were omnipresent in the undercity pre-revolt (probably for decades) and often instigated violence in the name of "imposing order", until the people eventually had enough and pushed back with all they had. Vi and Powder most likely witnessed people close to them being abused by enforcers fairly regularly pre-bridge scene. That being said, Powder supposedly has her eyes covered when the scribbles are popping up. To me, it comes off more as the animators really trying to get across the shock and horror of the situation at hand, especially through the eyes of a young child. The scribbles almost like a visual representation of a young child's brain trying to process and make sense of things the best they can. But, I do also think it's possible Powder's underlying condition is triggered in that moment, even if she can't really see what's going on. One thing I'm wondering about disassociation, because you said it involves your nervous system "freezing" - is that the same for people who normally have overly active nervous systems? Because as someone who belongs to that group, it's very hard for me to imagine my nerves ever relaxing to that point. And I've experienced disassociation before, albeit more on random Tuesdays than during actual traumatic events (as far as I can recall), and it tends to make me nervous. Almost panicked, because I feel like I'm losing control and my grip on reality. It's almost like it feels as if I'm dreaming, although I know I'm awake. But that certainty gradually slips away. I imagine your brain convincing you that you're just dreaming is beneficial in extreme situations in ways it really isn't while trying to cook dinner or drive somewhere, but I really do wonder if my nervous system could ever slow down like that. Even in times where I feel frozen, it's more so because I'm overstimulated and/or so panicked that I just don't know what to do - it feels more like my brain is sifting through options too fast to actually conceptualize one so that I could do something. I do highly suspect that I'm neurodivergent, if that makes any difference, but yeah - do people with more sensitive and very active nervous systems experience disassociation any differently?
Llama Lana
2025-02-16 00:20:39 +0000 UTCoh wow, that research on the freezing part matches up so well with the first Jinx scene with her freezing upon seeing a hallucination of Vi over that girl with the pink hair (the one she shot). for my two cents, it looks like Powder's scratch marks can go either way. if you want to go with the scratch marks being part of her hallucinations, considering there's been a very longstanding tension between Piltover and Zaun, a very young Powder could have been already exposed to some enforcer stuff way before the bridge scene (where she's like 6?). Sevika and Silco mentioned Vander changing, so we could glean the bridge incident was where this kind of violence only stopped and it's been happening more frequently before S1E1. and if you want to go with the scratch marks also not being hallucinations but just artistic markers to show Powder's distress, it also works. we see her visual hallucinations very clearly as Jinx (Milo haunting her, Vi and Cait mocking while the Doctor is working to save her, in her diary mentioning she also sees Vi during the time she thought Vi was dead, etc). the scratch marks look like things she'd like to "scratch out" so she might be doing that in her mind when things get distressing. personally the second one sounds more probable (why we don't see it more often in Season2 could be because of artistic crunch or maybe because the show overall stops focusing on Powder to more on the bigger picture) so we don't get Jinx's internal POV as much anymore, and more like as a regular person looking onto the consequences of what's happening. the theory that she did have an underlying illness that was brought out and exacerbated by all the trauma sounds very plausible, and it might be the most popular one for a lot of fans.
donglordthe3rd
2025-02-15 23:37:26 +0000 UTCI do believe its more of an artistic expression to show how she views enforcers, viewing them as so evil they're no longer human
TaroGhostie
2025-02-15 21:44:51 +0000 UTCto be specific (and also entering a bit rabbit hole mode), I can see two scenarios how the whole of Vi's and Powder's family ended up on the bridge: either it started as a peaceful protest and things got severely out of hand or the parents thought that keeping their children in sight was saver than all the alternatives.
Setec Astronomy
2025-02-15 19:17:56 +0000 UTCRegarding repeated exposure to traumatic experience and what we do not see: This is pure speculation, but is it possible that the bridge incident was not the first brush with traumatizing experiences for Powder? We do not know (in a diagetic sense) how long the struggle and the violence lasted before it culminated in the scenes at the start of S1E1. Whatever prompted the people of Zaun to actually rise up against Piltover was probably not contributing to a save and secure environment for growing up children.
Setec Astronomy
2025-02-15 19:10:06 +0000 UTCIn my interpretation the scratches in the beginning of episode 1 are an artistic representation of the stress Powder feels. I would even argue that this is the case through the entire show, even though she does definitely have moments where it seems clear that she has hallucinations I feel that the scratches are more to show the viewer what is going on in her head. As an example think of Vi coming into the arcade in an enforcer outfit, where in my pov it's to show the audience her mind does go back to the bridge rather than being a hallucination. I agree it get's a bit muddy since the hallucinations and scratches are often present together, but I personally do view them as 2 separate things. Edit: another example of it being related to her internal feelings rather than hallucinations comes in S1E5 when in the arcade she is remembering moments between her and Vi. Where to me it seems that they don't try to portray her as hallucinating that, yet the scratches do appear in a way that conveys her feelings around those memories.
Justnoodlecup
2025-02-15 18:53:37 +0000 UTCI think that something important to notice is that in the bridge scene Powder is even younger, I would say she's probably 4 or 5
Bea
2025-02-15 18:48:25 +0000 UTC
