Vi and her mental resilience
I don't think the fandom gives Vi enough credit for how mentally resilient she is. I see a lot of people say they wish the show explored more of Vi's trauma (and I do wish the show had given her traumas more attention), but a lot of the time what people mean when they say this is that they wanted Vi to show more obvious signs of trauma, and I don't really think that would make sense for Vi's characterization, precisely because I think one of the main points of Vi's characterization is that she really is that mentally resilient.
The thing people forget is that not everyone reacts to trauma in the same way. Not everyone will break down, have hallucinations and PTSD episodes like Jinx. Some people will, in fact, cope better with their traumas than others, and I think Vi is one of these people.
As a child, we see that she is not affected by the death of her parents in the same way Powder is: Powder starts having hallucinations already in the bridge scene, and she develops severe abandonment issues. Vi, on the other hand, takes on the responsibility of being the protector (which obviously takes a toll on her, but I will talk about that later). She obviously grieves her parents, but she is able to deal with it: when Vander takes her to the bridge where her parents died, she is initially distraught, but is able to deal with it. She focuses on the good in her life and what she still has (her sister and adoptive family), instead of focusing on what she's lost. (By the way, I'm not saying any of this to discredit Jinx or say that she's weak. I'm just describing how Jinx and Vi reacted in different ways to their trauma).
In Stillwater, we see the exact same thing: she lost her entire family, she feels guilty about slapping and “abandoning” Powder, but she never lets it break her spirit. She focuses on her hope of seeing Powder again, she exercises her body, she beats up Silco's goons as a way to gain information on Powder (this is stated on Vi's council archives). Again, she focuses on hope, on what she still has, instead of sinking into despair.
During Jinx's tea party, we can see a glimpse of how she dealt with the deaths of Vander, Mylo and Claggor: she tells Jinx to remember them, without realizing that this is triggering for Jinx, because for Vi, their memory is actually what gives her strength. I'm aware that the situations are a bit different here, because Jinx was directly responsible for their deaths while Vi wasn't. But I would point out that Vi probably also feels guilty for their deaths: she is the one who took Mylo and Claggor there on the mission to rescue Vander, right after Vander gave her that speech about them being her responsibility. Vi clearly also feels guilty for what happened to them. But while Jinx let that guilt consume her, without being able to move on, Vi actually is able to move on, and sees their memory as something good, something that gives her strength. Once again, we see Vi's tendency to focus on the positive instead of the negative.
Then, when she accepts that her sister has changed and needs to be stopped, instead of breaking down, Vi still wants to take responsibility for it and help stop Jinx. She focuses on how she can fix the situation. And by the end of the show, after losing Jinx (though I do think Vi suspects Jinx survived), we see once again Vi's resilience: she is still grieving, yes, but she is able to sing, she is able to smile at Caitlyn, and she is still determined to “continue in the fight”. She is taking the steps to heal, even if she isn't totally there yet.
Of course, Vi is not made of steel. I'm not saying she is a pinnacle of mental health. She has moments in which she does break down and becomes self destructive, like her pit fighter era. But in this moment, she really had lost everything: her family, her sister, Caitlyn, even Ekko had disappeared. She had no hope. But even then, we see that she can still function: she is able to pay for an apartment, she is not really suicidal (in my opinion, I don't think she is), and she is able to go on despite her despair. Yes, she is being self destructive, but she still goes on. And as soon as she gets a little bit of hope again from Jinx coming to find her to save Vander, we see her leave that despair behind and once again cling to hope really fast.
Another mental issue that I do think Vi has is of course the fact that she was parentified, took on the role of the protector, and that she tends to see everything as her responsibility, and she has difficulty letting go of the people she loves. But even here, I think people don't give her the credit she deserves: Vi might find it difficult to let people go and let go of her guilt, but she actually does make the effort. She tries to reach out to Jinx in season 1, but when Jinx refuses her help and continues with actions Vi disagrees with, Vi does let go of her and accepts that Jinx needs to be stopped. She might still feel some guilt for how Jinx turned out (“I'm the one who created the monster"), but she does make a conscious effort to not blame herself for Jinx's actions (“I'm done blaming myself for your mistakes"). And in the end, yes, she tries to free Jinx, but only because she believes Jinx has changed for the better (and Vi was right about this, Jinx had indeed changed). If she didn't believe this, Vi would not have tried to free her (as we see in act 1, Vi is able to hold her sister accountable for her crimes if she believes that her sister is remorseless for her actions). And when Jinx locks her in a cell, Vi does not go running after her once she is freed by Caitlyn. She doesn't know Jinx is suicidal, but if she really was this person so unable to let go that the fandom claims she is, she would still have run after Jinx. And yet, she stays to fight, she doesn't go running after her sister. In the final scene, even with the suspicion that Jinx might be alive (and I'm certain Vi does suspect this), Vi doesn't go running after Jinx, she voices her commitment to stay with Caitlyn because this is what she wants.
So yeah, all of this was to say that I think Vi's mental resilience is underrated by the fandom. She suffered the loss of her entire family, was imprisoned and beaten up for 7 years, had to deal with her sister completely changing into a criminal who tries to kill her and kidnaps her, suffered heartbreak from her relationship with Caitlyn, and despite it all, she was still able to keep going, to cling to hope whenever she could, keep her good heart, keep her determination, and always focus on the positive parts of her life. She is able to let go, she is able to move on from her traumas, and we see this multiple times in the show.
(By the way, there's this great video analysis of Vi's resilience by a psychologist. It's in Portuguese, though, and I don't think the automatic captions are very good, but if you speak Portuguese, definitely check it out!)
