Arcane: The Tragic Meaning Behind The Protagonists Tattoos (2024)

Since the Emmy award-winning show Arcane came out last year, it has been praised for its incredible attention to detail. In the polished streets of Piltover there can be found layers and layers of nuanced parallel character development and subtle commentaries of the city’s history. But even more detail can be found when examining the characters themselves, from scars to facial tics, and they way they dress or act.

One of the best examples of multilayered meaning can be found painted on the skin of the two main characters, Vi and Jinx. Their tattoos hold great meaning to their traumas, history, and relationship with one another. While they are a large part of their design, it still can be easy to overlook what these tattoos are trying to tell audiences.

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The tattoos appear on the characters in the time jump between the first and second act. During this time, Jinx descends further and further into post-traumatic madness under the ever watchful but surprisingly caring wings of master villain Silco. Meanwhile, Vi angrily stews in prison. These different circ*mstances lead to the first design choice for the tattoos. Vi’s is a prison tattoo and thus a far more simplistic black and white design. Jinx’s, on the other hand, is full of color, a vibrant blue signifying the freedom she experiences not locked away like her sister. While these are important factors for the design of the tattoos, this only scratches the surface. Their most important aspect is what they depict. Vi is covered with machine parts, cogs and gears that cover the back and arms, where Jinx is covered in bright blue clouds that match her hair.

On the surface, these tattoos don’t seem odd; both are distinctive parts of the character design. But when thinking about their personalities it doesn’t quite add up. Jinx’s clouds work, for a major reason discussed later. But it can be said that she lives with her head in the clouds, an ethereal and untethered mind that floats around with little to no regard to the life around (or below) her. Vi is no scientist, nor does she have any affinity with science or engineering (although she does deeply understand loneliness). She never crafts or creates anything, so the cogs and machinery that cover her body are less an outward representation of herself. Rather, they're more of a link to her lost sister.

While in prison, all that Vi thought about was getting back to Jinx/Powder. Obsessing for years on end, this became a large part of who she is. She had great admiration for her sister's prowess with machinery, but she also carries a lot of trauma about leaving her behind after the explosion. Her body becomes a constant reminder of what she did.

Jinx’s clouds, while much more fitting to her erratic character, have a deeper meaning too. While Vi’s tattoos represent her desire to get back to Jinx, Jinx’s tattoos do the same. Through the show there is one (possibly two) other iconic blue smoke/cloud significance: that of the flare Vi gave to Jinx. If she ever needed her sister, Jinx would light this device, and Vi would find her. It’s no coincidence that the smoke symbolizes Jinx’s desire for her sister to come save her, even if her actions often say otherwise. She is always craving her sister, so much so she covered her body with the very thing that would signal her return to her. When she finally sets off the flare in a later episode, the smoke that billows from it is exactly like the clouds on her skin.

There is one more moment from the show that features similar blue smoke. It's one that many might have missed, but speaks of a much darker reason for Jinx’s ink. The moment in question is where the majority of these two characters' trauma comes from: the infamous explosion caused by Jinx that killed all of their friends, and led to the death of their father figure Vander. The explosion features a lot of blue magic electricity set off from the hex crystal, but also caused a billowing of blue colored smoke, shimmering with Hex energy.

It’s a defining moment in their lives, marking her tattoos also as a result of severe PTSD. They're symbolic of how she will never be able to shake the memory, and it is as much part of her as the tattoos have become. What’s interesting to note here is that Vi’s tattoos also feature, very subtly, these same billowing smoke clouds cascading around the gears and machine parts on her back and arms. While another link between her desire to reunite with her sister, it can also be another example of the trauma they went through, the smoke clouds resulting from Jinx’s actions.

Both characters' tattoos are a gold mine of compelling meaning, each summing up large aspects of their characters. Jinx is a figure who drifts here and there, unanchored by reality and unable to properly interact with those around her, much like smoke between fingers. Yet she is also deeply scarred by her abandonment issues and trauma, from when she accidentally killed almost everyone she cared about. She even wields heavy, absurdist weaponry to help ground her. Vi’s ink shows how her longing for her sister has grown to an obsession that is permanently marked on her. She tries to fill the void left from abandoning Powder by tattooing a constant reminder of her into her skin, not only showing her desire to get back to her, but to make sure she never makes the same mistake again.

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