WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Arcane Season 1, now streaming on Netflix.
Powder's descent to becoming the mentally unstable villain, Jinx, was one of Arcane's most heartbreaking subplots. Previously inseparable from Vi, her older sister, Jinx fell into the hands of Silco, the season's main antagonist, after her first major blunder. Ironically, Silco ended up being exactly who Jinx needed in her troubled years.
Powder grew up in the shadow of her more capable sister, and although Vi never gave her any grief for her shortcomings, almost everyone else around them did. Even the gadgets she seemed to have an affinity for never worked as planned. Vi did her best to instill her sister with confidence, reassuring her that she'd eventually catch up to the rest of their teammates and expressing genuine interest in Powder's inventions. It was perhaps because of Vi's previous unwavering confidence that her decision to bench Powder for the Vander retrieval mission stung so much.
Desperate to prove her worth, Powder ignored her sister's instructions to stay put and followed Vi, Mylo and Claggor instead. She fashioned the crystals she'd swiped from Jayce's study into a makeshift bomb that unfortunately was the first of her inventions that worked. The resulting explosion killed both Mylo and Claggor and indirectly caused Vander's death as well, but Powder had no way of realizing that.
When she approached Vi and the weight of what she'd caused finally dawned on her, Powder broke down. For once, Vi couldn't find it within herself to comfort her sister and the rejection affected Powder a lot more than she intended it to. Right after Vi turned her back on her sister, she was captured by an Enforcer leaving Powder at the mercy of whoever would first approach her. As it happened, it was Silco, and he told her the words she so desperately needed to hear: "It's okay."
This very attitude was exactly how Silco handled Powder as he raised her as his own. He understood the trauma that transformed her into Jinx and never once faulted her for lashing out when she was triggered, even when her episodes threatened to jeopardize his operations. Perhaps, Silco was able to empathize so well because he too knew the pain of being abandoned and betrayed by a sibling. In his own way, he had grown to care for Jinx.
Jinx was no doubt an asset to Silco but he didn't value her because of her usefulness. He may have initially approached Powder with the intention of killing her, but over the years he grew to truly love her as a daughter. He was patient and always afforded Jinx the opportunity to rectify her mistakes how she saw fit. Even when he was promised everything he'd dreamed of and worked towards in exchange for Jinx, Silco couldn't bring himself to turn her over.
Silco stayed true to Jinx to the end. Even after she gave him a fatal wound in a moment of overstimulation, he never thought to disparage her -- instead, in his last words, he called Jinx "perfect." Whether or not their relationship was a healthy one is a conversation for another day, but the fact remains that Silco unconditionally loved Jinx. Had Powder been shown this same level of love at her lowest moment, who knows? Jinx may have never been born.
To see Silco look after Jinx, Season 1 of Arcane is available now on Netflix.