During the tea party is episode nine while Jinx is having her breakdown Vi tries to pull her back by reminding her of all the people they have lost. This is a disconnect on Vi’s part because she used her memories of those who she has lost as motivators to keep going and keep trying to protect others. Whereas for Jinx all those people are ghosts that haunt her.
Vi says at the start of the tea party “ I spent so many nights in that shitty prison. On the freezing floor, hungry, bloody, counting the hours. The only thing… The only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you.” She used Powder as motivation to keep going while in prison just like she used Vander as a motivator to continue to try and do what’s right and help the people of Zaun despite there being no guarantee that she will get her sister back. She helps Caitlyn genuinely (it takes a while but she eventually gets there) because she notices that Caitlyn actually wants positive change and once again she is following in Vander’s footsteps. She is called Vander’s protégé and compared to her “old man”. Vander’s ghost helps and influences her long after he is gone.
Unlike Jinx when we see “ghosts” from Vi’s perspective they are either of the happy moments she shared with them or of them helping her get back up. Vander appears to Vi when she is knocked down while fighting Sevika and says “ I wish I could say it gets easier, kiddo. But I’d be lying. What I can say is… She still needs you. They all do. So what do you say?”. When she sees Powder in their old dilapidated home her visions are of Powder happy and of her innocence. Once again her sister is pushing her to keep going like she did in prison (this time it is getting her through getting stabbed).
For Jinx the ghosts haunt her and are constantly looming over and around her. Every time we see visions of those Jinx has lost from her own perspective they are either warped almost beyond recognition or they have a grey tinge and look dead rather than the ghosts that look just like they did when alive that Vi sees. These ghosts blame Jinx for what happened and her part (however big or small) in their deaths. They are constant reminders of her guilt which tower over her and consume her. Even when they aren’t towering over her they are always right there at her back, following her so she can never escape. The more she is reminded of them the larger, louder, and more distorted they become. Those ghosts overwhelm her until she finally snaps under their weight. Powder is gone and Jinx has fully taken her place.
Jinx needed someone in that moment to help fight them off and protect her from them instead of someone who welcomed them. But that’s not something Vi could have known. She hasn’t seen Powder in years and she didn’t see the evolution of Jinx. She doesn’t know the weight that those ghosts bury Jinx under each day because those same ghosts have been there to lift her up not knock her down. This is just another sad disconnect between the sisters and the two very different people they have become. Both Vi and Jinx can’t understand each other fully at this point and there’s no telling if they ever will be able to again.
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