Main Character Index > Arcane
Main Characters (Vi | Jinx | Caitlyn Kiramman | Silco) | Zaun | Piltover | Other Characters
All spoilers for season one have been left unmarked! You Have Been Warned.
Vi (Violet)
"I choose wrong every time. And because of it, I've lost everyone."
Click here to see her as a teenager
Voiced by: Hailee SteinfeldOther Languages
Portrayed by: Jamie Hughes (Arcane: Enter the Undercity)
"What makes you different makes you strong. Always remember that, okay?"
The future Piltover Enforcer, a rough-and-tumble young lady just trying to get by and look out for the people she loves.For tropes related to her game counterpart, see here.
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- Act of True Love: She utterly hates Enforcers for what they've done to her people throughout her entire life, but she joins them anyway to support Caitlyn and help her stop Jinx. Speaks volumes.
- Action Girl: Trained by Vander from an early age, Vi is a strong, skilled boxer, who was able to knock grown men twice her size as a teenager in Act I. Come Act III, she gains the Hex-Tech powered Atlas gauntlets from Jayce, which makes her punches even more powerful.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Vi's story now involves watching most of her family die more than once and spending several years locked in a supermax prison, rather than saving miners from the gang she ran with after they got a little too rough for her liking. She also gets her heart broken by Caitlyn after she hits her in the stomach with her rifle and abandons her, while there were no indications beforehand that Vi and Caitlyn had any disagreements in League that led to violence from one party.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In the game, Vi is an amnesiac orphan who spent her childhood in a Zaunite orphanage called House Hope, while here she and Jinx were raised by Vander after their parents were killed in the civil war he helped start. She also teamed up with a gang called the Factorywood Fiends for a while, until they caused a mining accident where Vi saved the trapped miners from with her signature gauntlets, none of which happens in the show.
- Adaptational Curves: Vi in League had a thin waist, a bigger bust and was more of a Waif-Fu. Here in Arcane, she's much more muscular after her time spent in jail and while she's still got a big chest, it's proportionate to the rest of her body.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Downplayed. While Vi can still be pretty recklessly impulsive, she's also much more intelligent (in a street-smart kind of way) than she's normally written in League.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Her hair here is much darker than her game counterpart's bubblegum-pink locks, both as a teen and (especially) as an adult, where they're closer to a red shade.
- Adaptation Personality Change: While the core of her "Punch First, Ask Questions While Punching" personality from the original games is still there, this version of Vi is a lot less playful, more somber, and exponentially more angry. It should also be noted that a lot of Vi's characterization in the early lore was basically jokes about police brutality, something that in the years of the show airing are considered a lot less funny, Vi's violence is now almost exclusively aimed at villains who attack her first and she doesn't joke about beating confessions out of bystanders.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: While Vi and Jinx were only rumored to be adoptive sisters in the old League lorenote , Arcane confirms them to be biological sisters. It was also previously established that it was Jinx who was the older sister, who tried to get the attention of her amnesiac younger sister by committing crimes as part of a "game". Arcane retcons this, making Vi the older sister and Jinx the youngest.
- The Alcoholic: By Season 2, Vi has been severely affected by what she's been through in the previous season and following her falling out with Caitlyn, and copes with it with booze. During a Time Skip montage, alcohol bottles pile up in her apartment and she can barely walk back home by herself when intoxicated.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She dyes her hair black in Act 2 of Season 2, and all of her trauma mixed with her alcoholism made her emotionally numb.
- Always Someone Better: How Jinx views her. Even when giving her all her strength (and cheating using a few kicks), Jinx finds herself unable to beat Vi's teenage score on the arcade boxing machine, with only a few points of difference.
- Amazonian Beauty: As an adult, she's become quite attractive despite spending several years in prison, and has the muscular arms to show for it. After Caitlyn gets her out of Stillwater, she quickly gets noticed by two Zaunite thugs — one of whom flirtatiously touches her shoulder and flicks her hair — before she knocks them both out and steals their clothes.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Drops one on Caitlyn in "Finally Got The Name Right", after Caitlyn was ready to hurt Isha, a child, if it meant killing Jinx. Caitlyn can't answer Vi, and hits her in the stomach with her rifle in retaliation.Caitlyn: I keep telling myself you're different. But you're not. It's [Jinx's] blood in your veins!
- The Atoner: Vi immediately deeply regretted blaming Powder for their adoptive family's deaths and abandoning her sister after slapping her. When she gets out of Stillwater, all she cares about is finding her and "saving" her from Silco's clutches.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Vi is a ferocious boxer, but that's about it. She's got a tendency to jump into a fight without thinking things through, and while she's able to overpower her opponents, it's not without taking one hell of a beating on her side as well.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- A tragic version with Mylo: As much as his attitude and his picking on Powder annoys her, she immediately comes to his aid when one of Deckard's men overpowers him and is completely inconsolable when he dies, enough that she slaps Powder and yells at her that "(he) was right" to call her a jinx.
- Although her relationship with Powder/Jinx suffered throughout both seasons, it's clear that both sisters still care about eachother deep down. When Warwick was about to attack her and Isha, Vi didn't hesitate a single second to take on the beast protect them.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: With Jinx against the attacking Firelights, and later with Jayce when they bust a Shimmer plant.
- Badass Adorable: In Act I, she's a pretty cute teen who can box with the best of them. As an adult, she grew up quite beautiful, is very easy on the eyes, and could probably literally kill you with her fists in seconds.
- Badass Normal: She's able to best Sevika in a one-on-one brawl, despite the latter being amped up on Shimmer and using an artificial limb. She would've won decisively if not for the shock of hearing that Powder now happily works for Silco.
- Battle Trophy: One entry in her Council Archives file mentions that during a search of her cell after yet another of her "incidents", the guards found a collection of contraband weaponry that had all been used against Vi by other prisoners.
- Barrier Warrior: In Episode 9, Vi discovers her Atlas Gauntlet's ability to create a force field, which she uses to defy Sevika's attack and rip her arm to defeat her.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Zig-zagged: She does get bruised and bloody in most fights, but it's never severe and seems to clear up very quickly. Furthermore, she was said to get into a Brutal Brawl every day during her imprisonment, and the Warden sent to "discipline" her for it claimed he never bothered to keep count of how many times he did so, yet she looks impossibly well-off for it when Caitlyn springs her — No healing cuts or bruises, no visible damage to any of her fingers, no broken or missing teeth, not even some indication that her nose had been broken at some point, just a small scar over her eyebrow she didn't have in Act I .
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Vi encourages Powder to keep working on her bombs, and assures her they will work eventually. When Powder's bomb actually works for once, it kills Mylo and Claggor and breaks Vi's arm.
- Vi is dead-set on reuniting with Powder in Act 2, but while they're initially over the moon at seeing each other again, it goes all the way sideways in about two minutes. After about five, Vi gets to witness up close and personal how absolutely savage little "Pow-pow" has become.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Vi is initially very dismissive of and rude to Caitlyn due to the latter both being a Piltovan noblewoman and working as an Enforcer, both groups she despises for how they've negatively impacted her life directly and otherwise. Their time working together during the investigation makes Vi warm up to her for a number of positive reasons: Rescuing her when Sevika has her on the ropes, trading away her rifle to get her medicine, not treating her like less than a person just because she's from Zaun, proving she genuinely wants to help the Undercity and its people, etc.
- Big Damn Heroes: Punches a Chem-Tank across the factory when Jayce finds himself cornered.
- Big Damn Kiss: With Caitlyn in Episode 3 of Season 2.
- Bigot with a Crush: Vi has nothing but contempt for Piltover and its people due to how badly and often they've failed and mistreated the Zaunites, and is extremely hostile to Caitlyn when they first meet. However, Caitlyn's genuine kindness and heroism make Vi warm up to her considerably, to the point they fall in love and share a kiss.
- Big Sister Bully:
- Vi loves her sister, but when Powder reveals she caused the explosion that got the rest of their family killed, Vi hits her hard enough to draw blood and screams at her that Mylo was right to call her a jinx. Unfortunately, while it doesn't take her long to realize how bad she screwed up, it's enough to completely shatter Powder's image of her. She can also be seen shoving Powder to the ground during an argument in the "Enemy" music video, though it's implied to be due to Anger Born of Worry.
- After the two end up accepting each other as mortal enemies in Season 2, Vi becomes far more hostile to Jinx by the time they have their fateful battle against each other, as Vi has decided Jinx truly is Beyond Redemption. She doesn't treat her much better when Jinx seeks her out for her help with Vander-turned-Warwick, as she nearly strangles her sister to death upon seeing her again and continues to treat her poorly afterwards. That said, Vi and Jinx do manage to broker at least some measure of peace between them as they work together to help their father, to the point Vi starts honestly asking Jinx for her input and even proposes that they could both try staying in Viktor's village together.
- She also treats Mylo more like an underling than a little brother, constantly telling him to shut up and even kicking him down a sewage pipe during an escape. She does genuinely care about him, though.
- Big Sister Instinct:
- To most people she cares about, but especially her biological sister Powder. She always does whatever she can to ensure that Powder is never in serious danger, which is why she feels as guilty as she does for hitting her and blaming her for Vander, Mylo, and Claggor's deaths. When she gets out of prison, her first priority is to find her.
- Vi has a protective attitude towards her adoptive brothers, Mylo and Claggor, as much as the former gets on her nerves. She immediately checks that they're okay after Powder blows up Jayce's apartment and defends them (again, along with Powder) when Vander scolds them for their break-in.
- Even though they were raised by different "fathers", Vi shows a similar protectiveness toward Ekko. She immediately comforts the young boy after he witnesses Benzo's murder.
- In the second season, Vi develops this for Isha, the little girl Jinx took under her wing. When both are about to be attacked by Warwick, Vi immediately jumps to protect them from his wrath.
- Birds of a Feather: With Caitlyn. At first glance they look like a textbook case of Opposites Attract given their contrasting backgrounds, dissimilar temperaments, and surface level opposing differences — even they don't think they'll have anything in common when they first meet. However, as they spend more time together and their relationship grows, it becomes increasingly clear how similar they are: Both are noble, brave, loyal, selfless, protective, and ultimately good-hearted individuals; have suffered different types of isolation (Vi was wrongfully imprisoned as a teen while Caitlyn has been ostracized by her peers and kept in a Gilded Cage to the best of her parents', especially her mother's, ability); highly value trust in their relationships; are highly skilled in their preferred form of combat (boxing in Vi's case, shooting in Caitlyn's); are often unfairly judged by others for their backgrounds (Vi is looked down on by many for being a Zaunite and Caitlyn is thought to be an entitled Rich Bitch); and are whole-heartedly determined to fix what the likes of Silco, Sevika and Piltover's corrupt government have done to Zaun.
- Blood from the Mouth: Happens to her more than once due to always finding herself in the middle of fistfights.
- Boxing Battler: She's a skilled boxer, able to take down multiple goons in quick succession (with gauntleted fists). In episode 2, she gets the high score against an arcade boxing robot (and the 10 highest after it), and the music video for Imagine Dragons' "Enemy" (the show's theme) has a few shots of her shadowboxing.
- Boyish Short Hair: She's had short hair throughout her life, visually indicating her tough, tomboyish personality. While she grows it out a bit more as an adult, it's still pretty short.
- Break the Badass: Vi goes through the emotional wringer at the end of Act I, in both seasons.
- In "The Base Violence Necessary for Change", she witnesses Deckhard brutally maul Enforcers and Benzo, and later kidnaps Vander, all while Vi screams from the basement she's been locked in, powerless to do anything. She later survives an explosion caused by Powder which kills Mylo and Claggor, and later Vander performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save her. When she learns Powder was responsible for the explosion, she gets overcome by grief which causes her to slap her sister in rage and calls her a "jinx". When she realizes what she's done, she steps away from a crying Powder to cool down, but is taken by Marcus before she can go back to her, which will separate the sisters for years.
- In "Finally Got The Name Right", Vi stops Caitlyn from shooting Jinx when Isha gets in the way, which causes them to lose Jinx yet again when Sevika breaks the Gray and blows them away. Caitlyn calls out Vi for stopping her and having "Jinx's blood in her veins", to which Vi retorts that Caitlyn is the one acting exactly like Jinx at the moment. Caitlyn remains silent, her lip quivering... before knocking Vi in the stomach with the butt of her rifle. Vi can only fall on her knees and cry, while Caitlyn gives her one last cold look and leaves her behind.
- And finally, in "The Dirt Under Your Nails", she is forced to watch as sister (seemingly) sacrifices herself to save her from Warwick's wrath since all traces of Vander's personality have been destroyed, meaning she lost her younger sister and surrogate father a second time.
- Bring It: Does this gesture as an Ironic Echo to mimic Sevika during their brawl in Episode 5.
- Broken Pedestal: How Powder comes to view Vi after she hits and then seemingly abandons her for getting Vander, Mylo and Claggor killed.Powder: (sniffling) She left me... (angrily) She is not my sister anymore!
- Broken Tears:
- When Caitlyn strikes her with her rifle and leaves her behind, Vi can only sob on the ground over losing the woman she loves.
- After Jinx pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and takes Warwick down alongside her, Vi cries harder than she ever did over losing her family one more time, complete with a Skyward Scream.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: She's a tough, tomboyish brawler who prefers to fight with her fists and can be abrasive, but she also has a much kinder and warmer side that she has no trouble showing her loved ones.
- Butch Lesbian: She's a short-haired, tattooed brawler who prefers to wear masculine clothing and, as implied in Season 1 and confirmed in Season 2, likes the ladies.
- Character Development: As discussed below under Fatal Flaw, Vi's refusal to accept change in the the people she cares about repeatedly causes her problem after problem. This flaw results in her alienating her sister Jinx and ultimately cementing her downfall into villainy, and not long after, her inability to help Caitlyn during her Roaring Rampage of Revenge causes her to abandon Vi even after the two make their feelings for each other clear. This also starts to happen again when Vi encounters Warwick, who is none other than Vander after he was driven mad by his bloodlust and pain as Singed's experiment, immediately seeing him as a beast who absolutely can't be the same person she remembers. However, she finally manages to understand she's making the wrong choice when Jinx makes an earnest plea to trust her when she says it really is Vander she's seeing, opting to do so and drop her gauntlets to give him a hug and help him remember who he really is. As a result of accepting Vander's change into Warwick, Vi successfully manages to bring him back to his senses and even repair her relationship with Jinx somewhat after making the decision to trust her.
- Character Tics: She has a habit of rolling her right shoulder before or during a fight, which is explained by having her arm broken by Powder's explosion in Episode 3.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Vi has the kind of reactions, strength and durability that an MMA world champion could only dream of, able to keep up (for a while) with outright superhuman foes while armed with nothing but her bare fists. Add her Hex-Tech gauntlets? That power gets multiplied tenfold.
- Color Motif: Red. Vi is a temperamental but ultimately noble-hearted young woman who has reddish-pink hair, wore a vest with a dark red hood as a teenager and dons a red jacket as an adult. She's also often seen bleeding from the nose and mouth, due to always finding herself in brawls, which adds more red to the mix.
- Cool Big Sis: Mostly to Powder, but Vander notes that Claggor, Mylo and even Ekko look up to her in a similar way for a number of reasons — her fighting prowess, her loving heart, her courage, her protectiveness, etc.
- Cop Hater: Enforcers killed her parents and have pushed her around her whole life even before she was falsely imprisoned and separated from Powder for years, so she understandably holds them in contempt. Caitlyn is the only real exception due to freeing her and helping her search for Powder, even if Vi does enjoy poking fun at her.
- Cracking Up: She cracks her neck before going into her rematch against Sevika in Episode 9.
- Create Your Own Villain: She turns out to be the primary catalyst for Powder becoming Jinx: Her striking a guilt-stricken Powder and calling her a jinx when she accidentally gets their family killed, then walking away from her in shame, makes Powder believe that Vi abandoned her and drives her into Silco's gang. And then Vi accidentally cements Powder's fall by setting off her Trauma Button when they reunite years later.
- Cute Bruiser: She was a damned good fist-fighter as a young teen, even more so as an adult.
- Daddy's Girl: She was apparently the closest to Vander out of all his adopted kids. Her Boxing Battler fighting style is clearly based on Vander's own, and when she's briefly down for the count during her fight with Sevika in "The Monster You Created", she hallucinates him sitting at the bar encouraging her to get back up and keep fighting.Vision!Vander: That's my girl.
- Deadpan Snarker: Part of being a Street Urchin. As of Act II, it's clearly become a coping mechanism considering all she's been through.Caitlyn: I took a look at your file. There's no record of you or your crimes. What are you here for?
- Death Faked for You: A guilt-stricken Marcus chooses to secretly arrest and imprison Vi rather than let Silco kill her. He tells Silco she's dead, and he spends the better part of a decade none the wiser.
- Death Glare: Her default expression most of the time, come Act II, to showcase how angry and embittered she became post-Time Skip.
- Delinquent Hair: She has short hair with a visible undercut as a teenager and young adult, roughly equivalent to tattooing "anti-authority" on her forehead. In Season 2, she dyes her hair black during the Time Skip, which makes her look more punk combined with her leather jacket.
- Designated Victim: Vi gets kidnapped at the end of every single Act in the first season. She really needs to learn to watch her six.
- Despair Event Horizon: After their attempted reconciliation in "The Monster You Created" fails and Jinx blows up the Piltover council members' tower, Vi gives up on trying to get her back and sets out to put her down like a rabid dog. When she finds herself unable to go through with it, Caitlyn breaks up with her. Now completely alone, Vi becomes a pit fighter and drowns her sorrows in a combination of violence and alcohol. She starts to snap out of it when she finds out from Jinx that their father is actually alive as Warwick, giving her new hope that what's left of their family can be put back together, however broken it is.
- Didn't Think This Through: Happens on more than one occasion: Vi is so angry, short-tempered and impulsive, that she often jumps into risky situations and doesn't consider the consequences of her actions. In Act 1, it was the Piltover heist, but any other situation after that involves blindly jumping into brawls she thought having won in advance.
- Disowned Sibling: While Vi was kidnapped by Marcus before she could go back to Powder, Powder thinks Vi deliberately abandoned her and disowns her as her sister from that moment forward.Silco: Hello, little girl. Where's your sister?Powder: She left me. She is not my sister anymore!
- The Dog Bites Back: When she notices Gustove (one of Silco's henchmen who tried to kill her as a teenager) in Stillwater, she damn near caves his head in with a lunch tray.
- Domestic Abuse: Played for Drama. At the end of episode 3, she hits Powder hard enough to knock her down and make her nose bleed, then grabs her face roughly and blames her for their family's deaths. It's understandable, considering that they had just been killed directly because of Powder's actions, but it's still intensely traumatic for Powder herself, who A) knows it's her fault they're all dead, and B) has never seen Vi this mad before, and certainly not at her.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Hinted at when she rebukes Caitlyn's attempts to treat her injuries after her fight with Sevika, with a mix of Hates Being Touched.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Ekko and Caitlyn both try to warn Vi that Powder is way too psychologically broken to reconcile with, but Vi will not hear it. Not until the end of Episode 9 does it finally click for her (and as brutally as possible) that the Powder she knew and loved is gone.
- Dramatic Irony: Vi often criticizes the Enforcers to Caitlyn's face, but any League fans watching know that she becomes an Enforcer herself as of the second season. And not any Enforcer: THE Piltover Enforcer. You Are What You Hate, after all.
- The Dreaded: Prisoner #516 gained a reputation amongst the guards and inmates of Stillwater Hold alike as someone to avoid crossing at all costs — She regularly beat other inmates, especially Silco's thugs, so badly that it gave the guards nightmaresStillwater Records: Despite frequent stays in solitary, the prisoner continues to seek out conflict. This would not normally be a serious issue, but I–and several other guards—have noted decreased morale amongst the ranks... I see her when I close my eyes. I'm not the only one. I saw a flash of Prisoner #227's face beaten to a bloody pulp. That right eye was barely hanging in the socket.
- Drowning My Sorrows: The Season 2 clip "Nothing To Lose" shows Vi at her lowest point, spending all her tournament money on alcohol to cope with all the trauma she's been through since the first season.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Bittersweet Ending, but still. After losing her family for a second time and nearly dying to stop Viktor's plan, Vi finally manages to settle down and enjoy some rest alongside Caitlyn, reassuring her love and promising to be by her side.
- Eating the Eye Candy:
- In episode 5, Vi takes a good long look at Caitlyn's chest and butt before telling her outright that "You're hot, Cupcake" and pinning her to a nearby wall.
- In Season 2 episode 8 as her and Caitlyn's roles were reversed, Vi was awestruck when Caitlyn removes her shirt and wasn't afraid of doing such a thing in front of her.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Vi's a strong and tough girl whose fighting instincts serve her well most of the time, but she finds herself outclassed by Silco's Shimmered-up thugs. This changes when she makes a deal with Jayce and gets herself a pair of Hextech-powered Atlas Gauntlets, increasing her strength and versatility by leaps and bounds. Armed with her new weapons, Vi can easily handle herself against any opponent.
- Endearingly Dorky: Downplayed, since she's not exactly a dork by any stretch of the word, but her fumbling attempts to undo Caitlyn's belt during Their First Time in Season 2 Act 3 can't help but make the other woman giggle.
- Establishing Character Moment: The show's first scene — which heavily features Vi as a young child — showcases many of the character traits that define her: She tries to sneak Powder past their dead parents by making her sing a song while covering her eyes but she ends up seeing them anyway, showing that despite her best efforts and good intentions she can still cause Powder serious harm. Vi visibly tries to hold it together but ultimately breaks down crying, confirming that despite her tough personality she's just as emotionally vulnerable as anyone her age. Finally, as Vander carries her and Powder back to Zaun she clenches her fist while Death Glaring at the Enforcers, hinting at how she'll always tend to solve problems with violence.
- Even Bad Women Love Their Mamas: She may be rude, stubborn and incredibly violent, she has fond memories of her mother, as seen when she hallucinates her when Caitlyn heals her.
- Everyone Has Standards: Though Vi isn't scared to get her hands dirty, she Wouldn't Hurt a Child. Before she can deliver the final blow to Jinx when she overpowers her, Isha (the little girl Jinx had previously saved) grabs her handgun and puts herself between the sisters, aiming the gun in Vi's face and shielding Jinx with her body. Vi immediately stands down, and tries to reason with a vengeful Caitlyn who is hellbent on killing Jinx at all costs, even if it puts the safety of an innocent child in jeopardy, which horrifies Vi.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Vi lets her hair grow and dyes them black in the second act of Season 2, to show time passing and her mentally health deteriorating.
- Extremity Extremist: She mostly fights using her fists, though she can and will use kicks when the situation calls for it.
- Face of a Thug: Downplayed. By Act II, the numerous tattoos, body piercings and (admittedly small) facial scars she's picked up during her time in prison make her look like someone you really don't want to mess with — and to be quite blunt, she is — but multiple characters agree that she has a good heart and she proves several times over how deeply and selflessly she cares for her loved ones.
- Fan Disservice: Vi spends most of her time during the beginning of Season 2 Act 2 wearing nothing but sarashi straps to cover her torso when she is working as a cage fighter, which gives everyone a good look at her muscled tone body and her cleavage. Unfortunately it becomes difficult to enjoy the eye candy as she is spiralling out in a self-destructive Sanity Slippage after the traumatic events of the previous act.
- Fatal Flaw:
- Wrath. Vi tends to be impulsive and short-tempered, too often charging into the fray without a plan. In Act 1, she leads the kids on a big heist without telling Vander what they're up to, setting the events of the series in motion. In Act 2, Vi picks a fight with Sevika the second she sees her — She almost wins, but the shock of learning what's happened to her sister gets her stabbed and requires Caitlyn to save her. When Vi complains that letting Sevika escape will reveal them to Silco, Caitlyn just bluntly points out that she's the one who exposed herself in the first place. In Act 3, she pushes Caitlyn away and ignores Jayce's warning that she can't take on Silco's entire guard alone, charges into The Last Drop and barely survives fighting Sevika again, resulting in both her and Caitlyn's kidnapping and directly leading to the season's Downer Ending.
- Her inability to accept that people can change. After the Time Skip in Season 1, Vi is tragically adamant about snapping Powder out of being "Jinx." She thinks she's giving her sister unwavering love and support by trying to help her become the sweet and innocent person she used to be, but all this does is end up alienating Jinx, who's become a far cry from Powder as a result of the years of trauma, violence, and mental instability she's had to live with after Vi unintentionally abandoned her in their childhood. Vi ultimately fails to get through to her, culminating in Jinx invoking That Man Is Dead in no uncertain terms as she realizes that it is impossible for Vi to love the person she ended up becoming. This sadly ends up biting her again shortly into Season 2, as despite her efforts to stop Caitlyn from Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and outright begging her to not change the way everyone else in her life has, she isn't able to help the girl she loves as she becomes consumed by her hatred and thirst for vengeance, and this time, she's the one who ends up getting abandoned when Caitlyn coldly leaves her. This also comes up in the series finale as she continues trying to save Warwick even after he has become a robotic shell with none of Vander's memories, forcing Jinx to intervene by throwing herself and Warwick into an explosion. While Jinx's fate is ultimately left ambiguous this marks the end of any relationship between the sisters.
- Guilt. Vi tends to view everything bad that happens to those around her as her responsibility and her duty to fix, which fuels her other flaws, as the guilt turns into desperate desire to brute-force a way to fix the problem, and when that fails, turns outright self-destructive. Her downward spiral, after Caitlyn leaves her and before Jinx drags her into saving Warwick, could be seen as Vi trying to punish herself for failing both Jinx and Caitlyn. In the penultimate episode of Season 2, Jinx flat out tells her to stop feeling guilty about allowing herself any happiness in life.
- Fearless Fool:
- Playing into some of her Fatal Flaws, Vi has a tendency to just jump into action and start punching people. She never shows any hesitation about starting a fight, even when she knows she's outmanned and outgunned. On the flip side, Vi is only fearless when it comes to herself — When it comes to other people, especially those she cares about, she can easily be overwhelmed by fear of them coming to harm.
- It's extremely subtle, but one notable aversion to this is her own sister. Brave and reckless as she might be, after witnessing Jinx set off a cloud of firelight bombs against the Enforcers, Ekko, and Caitlyn, Vi's motivation subtly shifts from wanting to reunite with her sister to confronting Silco and bringing Caitlyn and the stolen Hex gem back to Piltover, to the point that she lets Ekko deal with Jinx on the bridge. It's implied that this uncharacteristic avoidance of her sister from then on may stem from fear of confronting — and thus having to accept — what Powder's become in the years since their separation (and/or her role in it). Further reinforced by the fact that Vi's first move after leaving Caitlyn in Piltover is to track down Sevika for a rematch, rather than looking for Jinx again.
- Fiery Redhead: Vi is a hot-headed, impulsive brawler with darkish, red-pink hair.
- First Rule of the Yard: Vi's Council Archives indicate that she was picking fights from almost the second she arrived at Stillwater Hold, starting by strangling a guard almost to death with her shackles. When she was still a teenager she'd already caused so many fights that the guards had stopped keeping count, and by her early 20s she was well-known by inmates and Enforcers alike to be given the widest of berths.
- Foil: To Caitlyn, almost ridiculously so:
- Vi is introduced stealing from someone we later find out is Jayce, while Caitlyn is introduced as his friend.
- Vi is a boxer while Caitlyn's a sharpshooter.
- Vi's parents died when she was a child, while Caitlyn's parents still interfere with her life as an adult.
- Vi usually interacts with her adoptive father Vander as a teen, while Caitlyn mostly interacts with her biological mother.
- Vi grew up in the slums of Zaun while Caitlyn was born into one of the richest noble families in Piltover.
- Vi has a younger sister and is looked up to as an authority figure by her family while Caitlyn is an only child who clearly respects and admires Jayce.
- Vi was imprisoned under false pretenses while Caitlyn chooses to work as an Enforcer.
- Vi's decision to work together is intensely personal while Caitlyn is mostly driven by professional interest in catching a criminal and proving her worth as a detective.
- Flipping the Bird: In Episode 6, while Vi and Caitlyn run from Silco after Vi punches a support beam loose and causes an entire building to collapse]], she shoves a random bystander and flips him off when he calls her out on it. She does it again during the intro musical montage in "Blisters and Bedrock", after punching one of Silco's goons who tried to kiss her without her consent.
- Futile Hand Reach: Does this in the series finale, as Jinx performs her Heroic Sacrifice and plummets down the Hex Gates with Warwick.
- The Gadfly: To Caitlyn, at several points throughout Acts 2 and 3. She and Caitlyn do genuinely bond quickly despite the latter's Enforcer status — mostly because Caitlyn frees her from her 6-or-7-year-long wrongful imprisonment, tries to help her find her sister, and even saves her life at one point — but that doesn't stop her from messing with Caitlyn's head just because she can.
- Generation Xerox: As of Episode 3, Vi and Powder seem to be turning out exactly like Vander and Silco: The "younger" sibling idolized their "older" sibling until they experienced what they feel was a betrayal and abandonment — which the older sibling deeply regrets — thus ending up on opposite sides of the conflict between Piltover and Zaun. Even better, the older sibling is a physically powerful hand-to-hand fighter while the younger needs to rely more on weapons and pragmatism to come out on top.
- Good Is Not Soft: Vi has little-to-no interest in the rules of engagement — If it'll give her the upper hand, she'll gladly kick her opponent's face into a crate or shatter their jaw with a lunch tray before they see her coming.
- Hallucinations: After being critically wounded by Sevika, Vi hallucinates young Powder at several points as she's bleeding out, still laden with guilt over what she did to her. She also hallucinates Caitlyn as her mother, and later sees an apparition of Vander encouraging her not to give up and that her sister needs her after she's been knocked to the ground by Sevika. In the next season, a severely drunk Vi hallucinates Caitlyn at multiple points, mostly in the streets or dancing in the club (while it's actually one of Silco's goons, who Vi ends up punching when he tries to kiss her).
- Hair-Trigger Temper: She's got a short fuse, to say the least, with her anger stemming from the injustice she's been living her entire life. Vi's rage tends to not think things through and bring more harm than good, since she's quick to get herself into fights.
- Handwraps of Awesome: Usually seen with her fists taped up. Not a bad idea, considering how quick she is to jump into the fray.
- Harmful to Minors: Witnessed a brutal massacre of her people by Enforcers on the bridge at a young age, and even sees the corpse of her mother among the casualties.
- Hates Being Touched: When Caitlyn tries to treat her injuries in Episode 6, Vi blocks her with her arm, which shows she doesn't take kindly to anyone trying to touch her. Letting Caitlyn gently touch her face in Episode 8 shows how much Vi trusts her now.
- Heel Realization: After joining the Enforcers and being complicit in their brutal tactics to hunt down Jinx, whom she has now decided is Beyond Redemption, she wordlessly has this after seeing Isha, a small child not unlike how she remembered Powder, hold her at gunpoint to protect Jinx. She realizes that she's become no different than the people who had made the lives of herself and those she cared about a living hell for years, and that Jinx might not be as far gone as she'd thought if a little kid was willing to risk her life to try and protect her.
- Heroic Ambidexterity: Vi is consistently portrayed as left-handed in League of Legends. In the show she fights with an orthodoxnote stance as a teenager and uses both against Sevika in episode 5.
- Heroic Build: She gained a lot of muscles in Act II, which contrasts her design with her sister's, who's Lean and Mean.
- Hidden Depths: According to supplementary materials, all of Vi's intricately-detailed tattoos are self-inked — That's some impressive artistic skill for someone most would probably just write off as an angry street-brawler.
- Her Own Worst Enemy: Her temper and habit of pushing people away from her causes a lot of her issues, like Powder becoming Jinx, or Loris leaving during her time in the boxing ring as she picks fights outside of it.
- History Repeats: "The Base Violence Necessary For Change" ends with Vi leaving a broken and sobbing Powder alone in the rain after hitting her before she is forcefully separated from her sister and sent to prison. Years later, in "Finally Got the Name Right", she finds out how her sister felt when after frustrating her attempt to kill Jinx, Caitlyn hits Vi with her rifle and leaves her hurt and crying. The biggest and most painful difference is that Caitlyn is leaving her on purpose, treating Vi like she is the enemy for trying to keep Caitlyn from losing herself to revenge and getting others hurt.
I-Z
- I Choose to Stay: At the end of the series, Vi decides to live with Caitlyn in Piltover, finally being able to be with the girl she loves. As she puts it, "nothing is going to clean [her] out."
- Icy Blue Eyes: Has blue-grey eyes, which emphasizes her angry glare.
- I Got Bigger: "Stronger", at least. Vi may have grown a few inches while imprisoned, but you can see how much bigger her muscles have gotten from a mile out.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Suffers a nasty gut wound from Sevika's claws, so much so that it almost kills her.
- Informed Flaw: Downplayed. Vi is noted to have poor defense when fighting a couple times in In Act 3, which is framed as a serious weakness. Her defensive technique is actually very good, and we've seen that even as a teenager her guard was always at least on-par with her opponents'. However, due to her aggressive fighting style she does have a tendency to drop said guard for certain attacksnote , which can leave her open to retaliation from a more skilled opponent.
- Interclass Friendship: Despite initial difficulties, she — a penniless Zaunite "criminal" — forms a close friendship and eventually romance with Caitlyn, the only daughter of one of the richest families in Piltover.
- Ironic Echo:
- Vi warning Caitlyn about investigating the Undercity alone in Act 2 gets thrown back at her by Jayce in Act 3.
- Vi told Caitlyn early on "the undercity's gonna eat you alive. You topsiders always find a way to screw us". She happily goes down on Caitlyn and is screwed by her in episode 8 of season 2.
- I Will Find You: The first thing she does after Caitlyn gets her out of prison is head to Zaun to look for Powder.
- It's All My Fault: She clearly feels responsible for Powder becoming Jinx, all because of a Moment of Weakness when she was a teenager. She spends the beginning of Season 2 deep in guilt after Jinx blows up the city council, even getting wasted in the street with a stranger.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Vi may have been rash and even selfish in her Piltover robbery, but her reasoning is understandable — The people of Zaun are barely getting by even before having to deal with the constant Police Brutality of corrupt Enforcers while the citizens of Piltover meanwhile are practically living in paradise.
- While Mylo may have a had point about Powder messing things up on missions, Vi can very easily point out all the trouble he caused them, and not just by openly bragging about it.
- While she almost immediately regretted slapping Powder and calling her a jinx, her anger is almost completely justified: Her entire family is dead again — her dearly-beloved father died in her freaking arms — and none of it would have happened if Powder had just stayed out of it like she told her to.
- Vi bluntly tells Caitlyn that the Undercity will chew her up and spit her out. Her statement is very accurate, given that Caitlyn had never even been down there and would've had no idea where to start looking for information; Cait's visible reaction proves she knows Vi's right.
- While she's mostly doing it to mess with Caitlyn, Vi isn't wrong that she can't just expect everyone to do/give her what she wants (especially in the Undercity) and that she has to use what she has at her disposal to convince them (in this case, her good looks).
- Vi icily calls Jayce out for ignoring Caitlyn's request to go after Silco, claiming that she'd trusted him to do something. Jayce can't even say anything to defend himself, he just looks away from her in shame.
- She's completely unsympathetic to Jayce's remorse after he accidentally kills a child during a battle. It's easily one of Vi's harshest moments, but she did warn Jayce beforehand about what it was going to be like down there, and that the kids in the Undercity in or out of Silco's chem labs are likely doomed to short, bleak, violent lives, regularly exposed to the same toxins as Viktor, because nobody in power over in Piltover ever thought or cared about what life is actually like in Zaun. Even before Silco took over, they wouldn't have had many other options in life besides crime or the mines.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. Life has not been kind to Vi, and it shows, but she's rarely outright mean. She loves her sister more than anything, genuinely loved her adoptive family, and clearly becomes attached to Caitlyn quickly.Caitlyn: Despite it all, I can tell. You've got a good heart.
- Kick the Morality Pet: When completely overwhelmed by grief, she slaps Powder hard enough to send her sprawling and calls her a jinx after Powder's bomb accidentally kills Mylo, Claggor and Vander.Powder: WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!!Vi: [harshly grabs her face] Because you're a JINX! Do you hear me?! Mylo was right!
- The Lad-ette: A brawny boxer who's always picking fights, has Jabba Table Manners and can been seen jugging down a glass of beer during her brawl with Sevika in Episode 9.
- Lady Swears-a-Lot: Not much of a lady, but she's very liberal with the curses, as noted under Precision F-Strike. She's noticeably the only character who says the F-word in the entire first season.
- Le Parkour: Vi was already skilled at running across rooftops as a teen, and as an adult she can effortlessly leap across Zaun's architecture. She implies this may be a necessary survival skill in Zaun.Caitlyn: (after almost falling off several roofs) You almost got me killed!Vi: (completely unfazed) My little sister could do that when she was seven. All us fissure-folk can.
- Like Parent, Like Child: Vi turned out to be a lot like Vander — Both are tall, muscular BoxingBattlers, admired as leaders among their respective groups, fiercely protective of the people they love, and even commit an act against one of their siblings that they never forgive themselves for.
- Little Miss Badass: Even as a child, she was capable of wiping the floor with much larger opponents.
- Living Emotional Crutch:
- To Powder, as she's the only person besides (maybe) Vander who believes in her and consistently treats her right despite her inadequacies and mistakes. Without Vi around, Powder's emotional instability bubbles to the surface almost immediately, and her mental state pretty much crumbles altogether when Vi hits and seemingly abandons her at the end of Act 1.
- Becomes this to Caitlyn in Season 2. It's subtle, but while Caitlyn has no problem showing others that she is sad, she only cries in front of Vi. No longer having Vi by her side, she's slowly consumed in her mission to put Jinx down once and for all, no matter the cost.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Like however many others, she truly believes Jinx is dead, and has no idea she actually faked her death in order to leave Piltover and Zaun. While Caitlyn has caught on to her ruse, she can't bring herself to tell Vi, as she's aware of Jinx's intentions for doing so.
- Love Hurts: Oh boy does it for her in Season 2. Not too long after sharing her first kiss with Caitlyn, with Caitlyn promising she wouldn't change, Vi is forced to witness the girl she loves become so consumed by revenge that she'd be willing to shoot a small child just to kill Jinx. Then, in the ensuing argument, Caitlyn proceeds to knock her down with her rifle (by hitting the spot Sevika had stabbed her in and Caitlyn had helped to mend, no less) and abandon her, leaving Vi to do nothing but cry her eyes out.
- Loving a Shadow: Jinx fully embraces being Jinx when she finally realizes that Vi loves who she used to be, not who she currently is, and she decides that Vi as she is can't love "Jinx" unless she goes back to being "Powder", which she never can.
- Madness Makeover: After parting ways with Caitlyn by the end of Act 1 of Season 2, Vi dyes her hair pitch black and starts to weardark eyeliner. Her mental state also takes a massive nosedive as she becomes increasingly self-destructive.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: She and Cait have their first time together in a jail cell, which Jinx had been occupying not long before.
- Meaningful Name:
- Violet flowers represent love, loyalty and balancenote , and are used to ward off evil spirits. Love is obviously what drives her to protect Powder, and Vi's burgeoning love for Caitlyn more tragically makes Jinx jealous and brings out the worst in her. Vi is unfailingly loyal to her hometown, friends and family. The "balance" bit comes from Vi being a Zaunite who will later work as an Enforcer in Piltover, and Vi is also trying to personally balance her love for both Caitlyn and Jinx. As for protection from evil spirits, Vi used to tell Powder stories about chasing away imaginary monsters to make her feel better, and as of this writing is Jinx's only relative who's managed to survive her "help".
- The flowers are also used as a popular symbolism for lesbian and bisexual women, tying into Vi's potential preferences and Ship Tease with Caitlyn.
- There's only one letter of difference between "Violet" and "violent", and Vi definitely has anger issues.
- Memento MacGuffin: Vi had a stuffed rabbit that she loved dearly as a child before bullies threw it over a power line. When she retrieves it and gives it to Powder, it clues Vander in that she plans to give herself up to the Enforcers to protect the rest of the group.
- Mirror Character: To her own sister Jinx, or rather, who she used to be as Powder come Season 2. She's a Zaunite misfit who's remained topside in the wake of Jinx's terrorist attack on the Council and is decidedly out of place among the Enforcers that compose Caitlyn's strike team, the same way Powder was the runt of the litter among Vander's adopted kids. More tragically though is that she's now the one who ruins the plans of the people she cares about, causing Caitlyn's attempt to kill Jinx to fail, and despite the love they share for each other, Caitlyn derides Vi for being Jinx's sister, hits her, and abandons her as Vi is left in a sobbing wreck — almost the exact same way Powder derailed Vander's rescue attempt and killed everyone but Vi and herself and got slapped, called a "jinx," and seemingly abandoned by her beloved big sister as she tearfully begs her not to leave her. Most ironic of all, however, is that Jinx's character arc in Season 2 seems to have her in a role not unlike her own back when they were both children.
- Miscarriage of Justice: Big time, thanks to Marcus. He chloroforms Vi and has her imprisoned to "save her" from Silco, but it causes the sisters to be separated; with Powder thinking Vi willingly abandoned her and Vi assuming Silco killed her sister. When Caitlyn visits Vi years later in Stillwater, she mentions that the reason of her imprisonment was not specified in her prisoner file, though one can think Marcus used her as a scapegoat for the explosion in Jayce's lab.
- Moment of Weakness: She goes through one at the end of Act 1, with terrible consequences: after watching Mylo, Claggor and Vander all die, Vi completely snaps when Powder shows up bragging about how her bomb finally worked. Overwhelmed by the realization that it was Powder's bomb that killed their family, she hits Powder hard enough to draw blood and screams into her face that she's a "jinx". While she quickly realizes what she's done and leaves before she can hurt Powder further, this only makes Powder think Vi has cut all ties with her. When Vi sees Silco approaching Powder and tries to run in to protect her, Marcus drugs her unconscious and drags her away before she can. Her actions were only human, but they still cause major trauma for Powder, and it starts her down the path that leads to "Jinx".
- Morality Chain:
- To Jinx after the time skip. Even though Jinx mostly blames Vi for what she's become, she still hoped that her sister could love her even after seeing how much she'd changed. Unfortunately, when Jinx realizes that Vi as she is can't love her as she is, she stops trying to be anything other than "Jinx."
- In Season 2, she becomes this to Caitlyn. Following the death of her mother by Jinx's hand, Caitlyn slowly becomes consumed by hatred over her grief and sinks into an unhealthy desire for vengeance in which she ends up going against her own morals. It's only when she is with Vi that Caitlyn shows her vulnerable and caring side from the first season, with the two even sharing their first kiss. Caitlyn abandoning Vi after losing track of Jinx cements Caitlyn's Face–Heel Turn once she becomes commander of a police state, with nothing and no one to hold her back in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Appropriately, them reuniting later on consequently leads to Caitlyn reassessing her actions as commander, opening her up to the realization that Ambessa had been taking advantage of her grief in order to conquer Piltover.
- Ms. Fanservice: Post timeskip, Vi becomes one of the most attractive characters in the story, with very muscled toned arms and back, her torso is wrapped around with sarashi straps being her only upper clothing besides her leather jackets, which she always looks great wearing. Then we get her and Caitlyn having Their First Time in Season 2 Act 3, and it's a really great sight.
- Muscles Are Meaningful: Downplayed:
- While she's certainly an athletic, muscular teen, Vi really doesn't look like she can effectively wield a pair of cast-iron gauntlets — each about the size of her torso — and thrash a horde of thugs about twice her size with them, but boy does she.
- Vi puts on more muscle as an adult, though still isn't huge, and yet she continues to display nigh-impossible feats of strength, like laying into the walls of her prison cell hard enough to crack the stone with her bare hands.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- She's immediately remorseful when she realizes how much she's hurt Powder by hitting her and blaming her for their family's deaths, staring at her sister's blood on her hand in horror for a few seconds before running off to calm down and avoid hurting her more.
- When the Firelights attack during their reunion, Vi is openly horrified to see just how vicious her little sister has become while she mows them down, fully aware that Powder would never have become so bloodthirsty if she hadn't left her after the explosion.
- In Season 2 Act 2, when Vi wakes up hangover and sees Jinx in her apartment, the first thing she does is grab her throat and strangle her, expecting her sister to torment her once again. A scared Jinx tries to tell her Vander is still alive, which Vi believes is another one of her tricks and strangles her harder. But when Jinx starts to cry, proving that she's telling the truth, Vi lets her go and looks at her reflection in her broken mirror with a dejected expression, as if wondering what became of her.
- Has this reaction when she understands she hit Isha by accident and made her nose bleed during her scuffle with Jinx.
- My Greatest Failure: She deeply regrets her grief-induced outburst at Powder and leaving her after the explosion, and even though Marcus had her imprisoned for years and thus made it impossible for her to go back, Vi nonetheless feels that she completely abandoned Powder and is fully at fault for their separation. When Caitlyn gets her out of prison, she immediately goes back to Zaun to look for Powder, and emphatically tells her she won't leave her again when she finds her.
- Nasal Trauma: Implied. Her nose is more crooked in Act II than it was in Act I, which only means she got a broken nose during a brawl while she was in Stillwater.
- Nervous Tics: She tends to compulsively bounce her leg when she gets nervous.
- The Nicknamer: She's quick to bestow Affectionate Nicknames on people she's fond of: she refers to Caitlyn as "Cupcake", Powder as "Pow-Pow" and Ekko as "Little Man". She even jokingly calls Jayce "Pretty Boy" at one point.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: A tragic reoccurence for her. It's no wonder that towards the end of everything, she laments to Caitlyn that she "[chooses] wrong" every time.
- After violently lashing out at Powder and blaming her for the death of their family, Vi leaves to cool off and avoid hurting her further. However, Powder is deeply traumatized by both her own actions and Vi's outburst, and screams desperately for Vi to come back out of fear that her sister is completely abandoning her. Worse still is that Vi leaving results in Silco finding Powder himself and Marcus drugging and arresting Vi, confirming Powder's belief that Vi burned all bridges with her and destroying their relationship.
- During the confrontation with Jinx at the "dinner party", both Vi and Silco are shouting over each other trying to convince her to either go back to being Powder or remain Jinx. However, Vi's efforts to remind Jinx of her family as Powder backfire horribly, since it unintentionally triggers a complete mental breakdown over the trauma of seeing her biological parents dead, accidentally killing her foster father and brothers, and finally Vi herself leaving her. When Silco grabs her pistol to kill Vi, Jinx reflexively shoots him in a panic, but he assures her she's perfect the way she is before dying. This ultimately makes Jinx decide that Vi can't love who she currently is and she embraces her "Jinx" identity completely.
- As Caitlyn steadily becomes consumed by her hatred and vendetta against Jinx after she kills her mother and takes more and more drastic measures to catch or kill her, culminating in risking killing a child, an appropriately horrified Vi tries to put her on the right track and says that she's acting just like her sister. After just barely missing out on putting an end to Jinx's villainy due to Vi's actions and then being compared to her mother's killer, it is tragically but understandably the last straw for Caitlyn, who rifle-butts Vi and and then icily abandons her as she sobs her eyes out.
- Odd Friendship: Caitlyn is everything Vi is supposed to hate, and the two could not possibly be more different in terms of personality or circumstances, but they quickly develop a close bond with a possible romantic bend. Confirmed to be romantic in episode 3 of season 2.
- Official Couple: At the end of Season 2, she is together with Caitlyn and the final line of the series confirms that they're in it for the long haul.
- Oh, Crap!:
- In the first episode, after Jayce's apartment explodes and she realizes Enforcers saw her and the others.
- In the third episode, when she sees Silco approaching Powder with a knife. She unfortunately gets drugged and captured by Marcus before she can intervene, though Silco thankfully decides to spare Powder.
- Only Known by Their Nickname:
- Her full given name is Violet, but she's almost exclusively referred to as "Vi" by everyone who knows her. The only person who ever calls her "Violet" is Powder, and that's only in desperation after Vi hits and yells at her following the explosion in Episode 3. In Season 2 we have two instances of her full name being used, a flashback the reveals Vander was the one who suggested the name, and Caitlyn calling her Violet as the two sit alone together in the last scene of the show.
- In the Stillwater warden's files from the Council Archives, she's only referred to as "Prisoner #516" or "Pink".
- OOC Is Serious Business:
- Vi is always quick to reassure Powder whenever she makes a mistake, and never tolerates Mylo calling her a "jinx" (even if Powder herself doesn't always see or hear it). When Powder accidentally kills their adoptive family, Vi is so shattered by her grief that she slaps Powder hard enough to draw blood and says that "Mylo was right" about her.
- In the same episode, the usually tough cookie Vi looks terrified for her life after witnessing a Shimmer-powered Vander brutally kill Deckard.
- During the "dinner party" scene in episode 9, Jinx presents Vi with a covered serving plate while mentioning that she "paid (Caitlyn) a visit" and "made her a snack", heavily playing up the implication that she's about to reveal Caitlyn's severed head. Vi spends a good few seconds too scared to open her eyes, but it turns out to just be a cupcake on the platter, albeit one topped with a Hex gem. For a moment, she really thought her sister murdered Caitlyn in cold blood and is overcome by raw fear.
- Parental Abandonment: Her parents were killed by Enforcers during a revolution led by Vander when she and Powder were young. He took them in afterwards. Unfortunately, Vander dies after sacrificing his life to save her in Episode 3, making Vi an orphan once again. At least until he's revealed to be still alive in the form of Warwick in Season 2.
- Parting-Words Regret:
- She immediately regretted snapping at Powder that she was a jinx and blaming her for their family's deaths, but was drugged and arrested by Marcus before she could apologize and keep Powder out of Silco's clutches
- Powder calling herself "Jinx" when they finally reunite is another painful blow for Vi, and she berates herself for ever calling her that.
- Pink Means Feminine: An extreme aversion. She has pink hair, but is a Butch Lesbian, Action Girl, badass brawler, and Made of Iron. In Season 2, when she switches her Color Motif from red and pink to black, it's more typical of her personality type.
- Play-Along Prisoner: During Ekko's interrogation, as she reveals when she hugs him.Ekko: How long have you had those [handcuffs] off?
Vi: [smiles] How long have you been whining?
Ekko: tearfully returns the hug - Politically Incorrect Hero: Like most Zaunites, Vi has nothing but contempt for Piltovans — especially Enforcers — for how much they've done wrong by Zaun. When she first meets Caitlyn she's extremely hostile towards her, and unfairly blames all of Piltover's failings on her personally. Their time together sees Vi warm up to Caitlyn considerably, and makes her wonder if maybe Piltovans aren't just "the enemy".
- Post-Victory Collapse: After only just winning her second fight with Sevika, Vi sinks to her knees and roars through her tears.
- Power Fist: Her signature weapon is a pair of massive Hextech powered gauntlets, originally designed as mining tools.
- Precision F-Strike: The first season has three — surprising for a TV-14 animated series based off a T-Rated video game — all of which come from Vi:
- The first in Episode 6 while talking to Silco.Vi: I'm going to find her and erase whatever fucked-up delusions you put in her head. But first, I'm going to bring your bullshit empire down all around you.
- When Ekko accuses her of working for Silco, Vi has only "Fuck. You" to say.
- In response to being told that the Council will not act against Silco:
- When facing Ambessa in Season 2, Vi lets out yet another F-Word.
- And another when she finally has sex with Caitlyn after 2 seasons.Cait: "Uh listen, while you were gone, I saw someone..."Vi: Cait... ''I don't fucking care."
- The first in Episode 6 while talking to Silco.
- Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Implied. Aside from Caitlyn finding her punching her wall, Vi isn't shown exercising while in Stillwater Hold, but she's significantly more buff than she was when she went in. Of course, she has been picking fights from pretty much minute one...
- The Protagonist: The story of Arcane focuses about as much on Vi as it does on Jinx.
- Rage Against the Reflection: In Season 2's Act 2, Vi undergoes a Sanity Slippage upon all the losses she's been through and ends up punching her reflection in frustration.
- Recruited from the Gutter: Caitlyn recruits Vi out of Stillwater Prison as a potential lead on Silco's criminal organization.
- Red Hot Masculinity: A female version. She's a violent, brawling Tomboy whose appearance incorporates a lot of red.
- Red Is Heroic: After she’s freed from Stillwater, she starts wearing a red jacket she got from beating up a pair of thugs. She may not be perfect, but she's definitely heroic.
- Red Is Violent: A Fiery Redhead doting a red jacket, and her first instinct is always to punch something or someone. She was put in solitary confinement in Stillwater because she was so damn violent and hurt so many inmates, that even the staff became terrified of her.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- Played with in regards to her sister. Before the time skip, she was mostly the Red to Powder's Blue: Her color scheme is reddish, her personality is more aggressive, and she fights with her fists rather than gadgets, but as the older of the two she's also more mature and not quite as reckless.
- She’s also the red to Caitlyn’s blue, initially treating her with dismissal and and hostility while Caitlyn is polite and patient with her. On top of that, they both wear the right colors and even have the right-colored hair.
- Rugged Scar: She starts with one on the left side of her upper lip, and in adulthood gets another over her left eyebrow.
- Sanity Slippage: Undergoes through one in the Season 2 clip "Nothing To Lose", which takes place in Act 2. Vi has become a pitfighter, and slowly undergoes a mental breakdown as she traps herself in an endless loop of alcohol and violence.
- Sarashi: After becoming a pit fighter in Season 2, Vi fights wearing bandages around her torso to complete with her arm bandages.
- Screaming Warrior: Often seen screaming during fights, either to roar in triumph or yelling out in rage and pain. Especially once she becomes a pit-fighter.
- Self-Harm: After parting ways with Caitlyn by the end of Season 2 Act 1, Vi becomes incredibly self-destructive, becoming a pit fighter and drowning her sorrows on copious amounts of alcohol. As time goes on, however, Vi stops putting an effort and clearly just walks onto the ring wanting to get hit as hard as possible to cope with all the losses and failures on her life.
- Self-Serving Memory: Once they get to the Undercity by Le Parkour, Vi taunts a breathless Caitlyn by saying her sister could do stunts like that when she was seven. However, the first episode clearly shows a young Powder (who's around 11 years old at that moment) struggling with parkour and nearly falling to her death before Vi caught her. Then again, Vi could just be trying to put "the Piltie" down.
- Ship Tease: Her interactions with Caitlyn at the brothel are absolutely dripping with subtext: Calling her hot to her face, appreciatively checking her out, pinning her to the wall and asking her outright if she prefers men or women. She even looks genuinely pleased when she notices her smoothly chatting up a brothel "jane", as if glad for the confirmation that she has a chance with her. Jinx becomes very jealous of how close they are, and even calls Caitlyn Vi's "girlfriend" at one point. They share a very tender moment in Caitlyn's room in "Oil and Water", and the way Caitlyn pleads with Vi not to leave after she storms out of the council building, including referring to them as "us," implies that something may have happened between them off-screen. The two end up cementing their Official Couple status by sharing a kiss in Episode 3 of Season 2 - though Caitlyn's vendetta against Jinx drives a wedge between them, and their brief relationship comes crashing down when Caitlyn hits and abandons her at the entrance to Piltover after Vi ends up causing Jinx to elude her again. Over the rest of Season 2, they reunite and end the series as the main Official Couple.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Lampshaded when facing Silco in Episode 6, who's too busy with his evil monologuing:Vi: Yeah, well...[raises her fists] you talk too much!
- Tells Ambessa to "shut the fuck up" when facing her in Season 2.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: For the second act of Season 2, following her fallout with Caitlyn, Vi gets a whole new look: she dyes her red hair black, covers her face and back tattoos with black paint and sports a chunky leather jacket with a two-headed dog logo. It interlaps with Madness Makeover, as Vi slowly loses herself to alcoholism and an endless loop of violence, which has disastrous consequences for her sanity and identity.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Implied to have this towards with Caitlyn. There is no mention of past flings or crushes, including during her teenage years. Vi has consistently expressed her physcial and emotional attraction to the noble Enforcer. In the month after their falling out, unlike Caitlyn, Vi doesn't rebound to get over her or even engage in mere Sex for Solace. Additionally, her hallucinations are of Caitlyn, showing that Vi still yearned for her despite also being angry at her as well. Storyboard writer Amanda Overton has stated that Vi is only attracted to Caitlyn.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A same-sex example with Caitlyn.
- In Act 1, they start off mostly at each other's throats — mostly on Vi's end, due to Caitlyn's nobility and job — but her opinion improves greatly as Caitlyn continues to treat her with patience and kindness. She's clearly moved through her surprise at Caitlyn's heartfelt speech to Ekko about wanting to heal Zaun, and she looks rather touched when Caitlyn sings her praises when they meet with the Council.
- In Act 2, Vi struggles dealing both with her guilt over Jinx's attack on Council, which led to Cassandra Kiramman's death and also seeing the kind and gentle woman she fell for becoming increasingly draconian and unfettered in her vengeful quest to kill Jinx. Vi is vocally left in tears after Caitlyn hits her with her rifle and leaving her in anger of the brawler stopping her from killing Jinx again; while Caitlyn is shown to be remorseful over her action, she still left Vi and the latter is left broken of the love of her life going down a dark path. When they reunite months later, Vi is rightfully angry at Caitlyn, thankfully the latter had reverted back to her nobler personality, even betraying Ambessa to rescue Vander; and even when in the same vicinity of Jinx, Caitlyn doesn't try to arrest or kill the other woman. Vi begins to trust Caitlyn again when the latter both admits to her mistake in trusting Ambessa and only arresting Jinx because the younger woman willingly turned herself in and waiting on what to do until Vi woke up. However, what truly had Vi reignite her romance with Caitlyn? The latter willingly and knowingly helping trick Vi into helping Jinx escape, showing her ultimate trust in the brawler and that she has let go of her unhealthy hatred for Jinx. It was this Act of True Love that had Vi passionately kiss Caitlyn (which was happily reciprocated), consummate their relationship, and become an Official Couple.
- Storyboard Body: Other than the obvious "VI" tattooed on her face, her back tattoos have a lot of meaning: there are pints of beer to represent Vander, her beloved father figure, two keys with the initials of her brothers (Mylo and Claggor), and the entire machinery design of her tattoo stands for her little sister Powder and her interests in gadgetry. Around the machinery, you can also see smokes of clouds, which like Jinx's tattoo, symbolizes Vi's desire to reunite and reconcile with her sister.
- Strong, but Unskilled: Vi is very brawn oriented, she is a strong fighter that can go blow for blow with some of the toughest people in the show, but she doesn't really have much in the way of technique, instead of dodging or blocking her she tends to just tank hits and hope her hits hurt more. While this has gotten her far in backstreet brawls and prison fights when it comes to opponents that have superior skills she can end up on her ass more often then not.Ekko: And you still block with your face.
- Skyward Scream: Lets out a gut-wrenching scream in Episode 3 after Vander dies.
- Tattooed Crook: A heroic example. After being sent to prison, she gets an elaborate set of tattoos across the back of her torso, arms, and neck, as well as her iconic "VI" tattoo on her left cheek. According to her Council Archives entry, these tattoos are all self-inked.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Tomboy to Caitlyn's, and to a lesser extent her sister's, Girly Girl.
- Tomboyish Name: "Vi" sounds more masculine than "Violet," and she's usually addressed as the former.
- Too Hungry to Be Polite: Eating with her hands, loud slurping, talking with her mouth full — It's hard to find a table manner she doesn't violate while eating next to Caitlyn. She's got the excuse of being fresh out of prison, but the incredibly brief shot of her eating during the "Enemy" music video implies that this is just the norm down in Zaun.
- Tragic Keepsake: While looking for Jinx in Season 2, Vi finds her brother Claggor's old goggles in the old arcade. We can see her eyes flickering through her gas mask, and appropriately wears them in the next scene.
- Trauma Conga Line: For pretty much all of Episode 3. She watches Benzo get mauled to death and Vander get kidnapped, then when she and her brothers go to rescue him she walks right into Silco's trap and has to fight through several of his goons, and then her sister causes an explosion that gets Vander, Mylo, and Claggor all killed anyway. It ends with her being sedated and thrown in prison.
- Unambiguous in the Adaptation: Vi and Jinx in the games are hinted to have been very close in the past with a strong indication they are sisters but with no real confirmation. In Arcane, Vi and Jinx are biological sisters.
- Unkempt Beauty: Vi is younger than her game counterpart and with limited access to conventional grooming, but she's still very good-looking. Downplayed, since she's usually dirty and/or beaten up.
- Waif-Fu: Averted. The show puts a lot more emphasis on her muscles than League of Legends normally does, and she prefers to settle things with brutal fisticuffs and the odd knee to the face.
- What You Are in the Dark:
- In Episode 3, even if Vi hit Powder and left out of grief, she immediately runs to her when she sees Silco facing her little sister with a knife, but she gets taken by Marcus before she can reach her.
- In Season 2, despite everything that happened with Jinx, Vi doesn't hesitate a second to save her and Isha from a bloodthirsty Warwick.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Fitting for her boxer fighting style, Vi tends to approach problems by finding something or someone to hit and then hitting them hard. She's disappointed with the Piltover council's passivity even after she and Caitlyn spell the situation out for them, so she opts to go find Jayce — the only one who sounded interested in action at the meeting — and convinces him to join her in hitting Silco's Shimmer supply directly, arming herself with the Atlas Gauntlets to do so. Even when Jayce decides to stop, Vi sticks with her idea and barges into the Last Drop to handle Silco personally. Unfortunately, this mindset tends to cause more problems for her than it solves in the long run: even with the Gauntlets, Vi only wins after taking a hard beating from Sevika, allowing Jinx to easily knock her out. Hell, part of the the reason the sisters' relationship fell apart in the first place is because Vi lashed out at Powder after learning she set off the bomb that killed their surrogate family and walked away out of fear that she'd keep hitting her.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Somewhat zig-zagged. After Jayce accidentally kills a young boy in the Shimmer factory in Season 1, Vi grimly states that collateral damage was going to be the reality of their offensive in Zaun and wants to keep it going, but is nonetheless saddened by his death and tells Jayce that even more people like him would lose their lives if they didn't act. In Season 2 however, Vi makes it clear that she will NOT let a child be deliberately harmed in front of her, as she completely halts her attempt to finish Jinx off when Isha gets in her way, and then appropriately acts with horror when Caitlyn tries to take the shot at Jinx despite the child being in her firing line, trying to talk her down and grabbing her rifle.
- You Are Number Six: She is referred to as Prisoner #516 in prison. Interestingly, converting each individual number into Roman Numerals comes out to V-I-VI.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious:
- When Vi completely loses it in Episode 3 and hits her sister so hard it draws blood, Powder starts tearfully begging "Violet" to stop. It manage to snap her out of her rage and she becomes horrified at what she's done.
- The final scene of the series has Caitlyn call her Violet, showcasing their status as an Official Couple, and asking her if she's still in this fight.
- Youthful Freckles: Vi has a few across her nose and cheeks.
"I am the dirt under your nails, Cupcake. Nothing is going to clean me out."