here comes a long post i’m fucking sorry lmao
a really interesting point was raised the other day about who the better person is (morally): jayce talis or jayce giopara? [insert obligatory admission about the fact that giopara has an annoying personality].
Like, talis is of course nice and kind and wonderful, perhaps a bit naive, but i don’t think we talk about how far he’s willing to go for what he believes. he weaponizes hextech because mel asks him to, and he doesn’t think further. he blatantly ignores viktor’s wishes about destroying the hexcore, even using it on his corpse to reanimate him. he ignores the council and does what he wants, enacting vigilante justice at the cost of innocent lives (including an actual child). he set up the fucking hexgates in such a way that they pollute the water supply of the undercity. and then, when he’s back from his sabbatical in hell, he goes to viktor. he looks him in the eyes, with the weapon he never wanted him to make, and he shoots him. what the actual fuck this guy is unhinged. he doesn’t THINK. he has no sense of consequences—of course if you keep unsecured, highly unstable and explosive materials in your residential apartment, things might blow up in your face (literally!). of course your patron won’t support you—she is beholden to social opinion. of course weapons can never be unmade and are always used. of course using the scary magical dodecahedron your partner begged you to destroy to bring said partner back from the dead will bring him back Different ™️. come on Jayce.
and then giopara. he has no true family, instead is left to the bloodthirsty clans who want him for what he can give them. he’s antisocial. he’s fucking annoying. he’s a diva 💜. he’s impossible to work with but impossible to get rid of because he’s just that smart. he hates politics and only gets into them to appease his investors so he can do what he actually wants. he doesn’t give a fuck about the common people who look up to him so much. he’s alone, alone, alone. and then he’s not. he meets this other brilliant mind, the only one who can keep up with him. i mean how insane would that be? he must have been at least a little obsessed with viktor because of that. then picture jayce, in all his egotistical glory, drunk on life and the belief that he and viktor are the brightest minds alive, when viktor shows him the diver suits. why does he resist? why does he care? no one in his life is telling him to care. he just does. he sees the devices for what they are, or at least what they could be twisted to be, and calls viktor out on it. he doesn’t speak up for viktor when the stanwick thing happens, it’s true, but doubtless he simply expected viktor to wow and amaze with a different project and be happy with the credit from that. and then viktor leaves. and jayce is a one man act again. like always. like forever and always. jayce acts wrongly, it’s true, when it comes to viktor and destroying his lab and accidentally killing those people, but he saw what he thought was evil and he went for it. no thought of what he could lose. no thought of who he could lose.
idk man there’s something about these two. by no means do i think talis is a bad person, in fact i think he’s a fundamentally good one. but he’s just so fucking naive, and towards the end he’s willing to do ANYTHING for what he believes, no matter the grisly consequences. he’s fucking scary. he’s unhinged. giopara on the other hand has a terrible personality, but is completely unwavering in his beliefs no matter the cost to himself or his relationships. viktor asked him to work together again, and he said “get a psyche eval” and slammed the door.
