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| “ | I'd like to let you in on a very important secret I learned when I was about your age, boy. You see, power, real power doesn't come to those who were born strongest, or fastest, or smartest. No. It comes to those who will do anything to achieve it. It's time to let the monster out. | „ |
| ~ Silco's famous speech to Deckard. |
| “ | Renni: What's that? Silco: Oh, you don't recognize it? Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in? Air so thick it clogged your throat, stuck in your eyes. But I pulled you all up from the depths, offered you a taste of topside, and fresh air. I gave you life, purpose, but you've grown fat and complacent. Too much time in the sun. We came from a world where there was never enough to go around, Finn. That is why we fight. Do you remember? Finn: Sorry. Please. Please. Silco: Don't forget again. |
„ |
| ~ Silco reminds the chem-barons of their place. |
| “ | I never would have given you to them. Not for anything. Don't cry. You're perfect. | „ |
| ~ Silco's final words to Jinx, expressing his undying love for her as his daughter. |
Silco is the main antagonist of the first season of Arcane, which is set in the League of Legends universe.
He is a Zaunite gangster and revolutionary who seeks to liberate his people from Piltover's oppressive control and is willing to stop at almost nothing to achieve that goal. He is also the best friend-turned-archenemy of Vander and the adoptive father of Jinx.
He was voiced by Jason Spisak.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- He tests the effects of a newly created drug called Shimmer on one of his followers, a teenage thug named Deckard. This not only causes Deckard to violently mutate, but also makes him addicted to the drug.
- He has Deckard kill Grayson and Benzo, kidnap Vander, and then take him to his hideout.
- When Vander's adopted children-Vi, Mylo, and Claggor-come to rescue him, Silco attempts to have them killed. When Vander moves to defend them, Silco stabs him in the back with a knife. Although Vander momentarily recovers from the knife wound by injecting himself with Shimmer, it finally starts to take its toll after he gets Vi out of the building to safety and seemingly results in his demise.
- After Jinx kills six Enforcers in the process of stealing a Hextech gemstone from Jayce and Viktor's lab, Silco orders Marcus, the corrupt Sheriff of Piltover, to publicly blame the Firelights for the attack and focus his efforts on capturing the entire gang in order to prevent them from continuing to interfere with his drug smuggling operations.
- After finding out that Marcus lied to him about Vi's death, Silco comes to his house and subtly threatens to kill his daughter if he doesn't take responsibility for his mistakes.
- After his rise to power in the underground, Silco floods the streets of Zaun with Shimmer and gets many of his own people hooked on the drug in order fund his criminal ventures and build an army strong enough to keep the Topsiders out of the undercity. The subsequent addiction epidemic causes many Zaunites to become physically deformed junkies living in squalor and significantly increases the undercity's wealth gap.
- He bribes a drug addict named Huck for information on Vi's location with a dose of Shimmer and then uses several other addicts as attack dogs against Vi and Caitlyn, even taunting the two girls demeaningly before he sets them loose.
- In the finale episode of the first season, he tries to shoot Vi to protect Jinx, only for Jinx to accidentally gun him down while in a middle of a mental breakdown.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is a tragic man, as he grew up in extreme poverty and had to watch as the Topsiders oppressed and exploited his people for their own selfish gain over the course of his entire life. At one point during his youth, he teamed up with Vander, his best friend and adoptive brother, to start a revolution against Piltover, but they eventually became bitter enemies after a violent disagreement over all the Zaunites who were slaughtered in the failed uprising that they organized against the Topsiders, some of whom were their close friends. During this disagreement, Vander brutally beat Silco and attempted to drown him in one of Zaun's polluted rivers, severely scarring the left side of his face and infecting his left eye. This event is shown to have severely traumatized him, as he often talks about it with his henchmen and even used as a lesson towards Jinx to help her cope with being "abandoned" by her older sister.
- As Vi and Jinx later discover while exploring an abandoned mine, Vander tried to reach out to Silco after their disagreement and left a letter for him in their old hideout where he apologized for attacking him. Unfortunately, Silco never read that letter, meaning that he never got his chance to heal from his trauma and reconcile with Vander.
- Despite his extremist ideology, his ultimate goal is to free his people from Piltover because he doesn't want to see them continue to suffer from the poverty that has plagued Zaun for generations. He cares so much about achieving this goal that he is willing to negotiate with the Topsiders, halt his revolutionary plots, and even put an end to his drug smuggling operations in exchange for the independence of his people. The only reason why he ultimately refuses to accept their terms is because they also demand that he turn Jinx over to them so that they can execute her for the crimes she's committed against Piltover.
- Despite their bitter history, he still cares about Vander and admires him for the brutal and fearsome fighter that he used to be in their younger years. After he captures Vander, Silco admits that he still sees him as a worthy partner in the coming revolution against the Topsiders and offers him another chance to fight together against Piltover just like old times. Even years after Vander's death, Silco still held his old friend in high esteem, as shown when he paid his respects to a statue of Vander that was made in his honor.
- He genuinely cares about his adoptive daughter Jinx. When he meets her for the first time and learns that her older sister abandoned her, he sympathizes with her loss, embraces her, and decides to take her under his care. As the years pass by, Silco develops a strong father-daughter bond with Jinx, as demonstrated when he advises her to make good use of her natural talents in engineering and weapon design, and gives her time to cool off after she has a traumatic flashback during a battle with the Firelights. When he finds her critically wounded from her fight with Ekko on the bridge, he rushes over to her to make sure she's okay and then carries her over to Singed in a panic to save her life. When Jayce promises to give his people independence from Piltover in exchange for Jinx, Silco ultimately refuses to accept his terms and decides to go to war. After Jinx fatally shoots him by accident, Silco doesn't blame her for his impending death and comforts her in his final moments by assuring her that he never would've traded her to the Topsiders for anything and telling her that she's perfect the way she is.
- He has a sense of honor and values loyalty, due to his personal belief that his generation only survived to the present day because of the loyalty they had towards one another. As a result, he's extremely disdainful towards the chem-barons for forgetting their roots and what they fight for. He also views them as parasites who take the luxuries that they have for granted and leech off the legacies of their ancestors for their own benefit. When Finn and Renni later attempt to overthrow them, he voices all of these opinions to them and how he still believes in loyalty, which motivates Sevika to take his side and kill Finn by slitting his throat.
- He was good friends with Felicia, the mother of Vi and Jinx, and respected her decision to raise a family in the undercity after learning that she was pregnant with her first child. He also promised her with a toast that he would keep fighting for Zaun's freedom in order to give her children a better life in the underground and was distraught when she was later murdered during the failed uprising against Piltover. Even decades after Felicia's death and Vander's betrayal, Silco never forgot his promise to her and went out of his way to adopt Jinx as his daughter when she had nowhere else to go.
- His death is played for sympathy, as the music in the background is very somber when it becomes clear that he's dying and Jinx breaks down after realizing that she accidentally killed her father figure for a second time.
Trivia[]
- The character of Silco has received critical acclaim from both audiences and critics alike for his ruthless and complex nature.
External Links[]
- Silco on the Villains Wiki
- Silco on the League of Legends Wiki
- Silco on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
