I'm watching Arcane with my brother (his first time, my second) and something that I realized rewatching it is that, even though Silco is presented as a villain (kind of an anti-hero at moments) he's closer to being a hero than a villain.
First of all we have to remember that the bad conditions on the undercity are not caused by him, they're caused by Piltover's counselors neglecting the conditions that the people from the undercity were living on, and the few times that they even interact with it is by violence (like how Vi's parents were killed). The argument would be if he made it worse or not, but (before the time-skip) I doubt that he can be blamed by almost any of the problems of the undercity.
Yeah, he was using child labor, but those kids would not even been able to eat if it wasn't for that. Yeah, he is okay with killing and weaponizing children, but I really doubt that without it's criminal empire those same children would have lasted long (To give the example with Jinx, do we REALLY think Jinx would have survived after all the people she knew died and Vi was in prison?). Plus, without Silco's control over Piltover's enforcers do you REALLY think that the Firelights could have survived in the first place? The fact that (in a way) the undercity is managed by him gave them a space for them to not be deeply investigated when they steal something or are spotted with advanced technology.
You could argue (with a very valid reason) that the whole thing about distributing Shimmer is bad, but it was ultimately using a technology that he had all the means of production, and at the moment of it's discovery Hextech wasn't even a thing yet, it truly could have give them an upper hand against Piltover with time and the development of it.
Lastly, he does manage to get a peace deal, even though it is because out of "pity" from Jayce at the start, all of the councilors agree on the deal. I understand that Jayce has a golden heart, but as he says, "you don't matter to them", WHY would any of them accept on "lesser people" to become independent? Well, as Mel says, "you don't know war". If Hextech is as strong as it seems, having an organized society agaisnt you that can use the same weapons that you have is enough of a threat: Yeah, Vi and Jayce destroy his facilities like is cake, but they only had Shimmer, would it be so easy if they had Hextech? The sole reason that it can even be a threat is because of an already made organization on the underground, and Jinx reverse engineering Hextech (which was also heavily supported by Silco).
The whole reason that this came to my mind was because I just saw again in episode like 8 or 9 that Vi said to Jayce the obvious: "Bro your upset because you killed 1 kid, yet many kids constantly die down here and none of you seem concerned". The Zaunite revolution HAD to happen, and everything that helped with it was potentially helping kids from not dying on the streets, so yeah, I think that with this specific matter no price was too big, and Silco literally achieved it without it even having to be war in the first place, the only thing is that his heart betrayed him, but all of his actions besides not betraying Jinx are hard to be seen as nothing but morally good (I get why he didn't do it, of course, he's human, and Jinx is my second favorite character on this show after Ekko, but if we're being objective Jinx dying for countless kids being able to have a normal life is not even close).
I would like to know what are your thoughts on this, I really love the political complexity of this story and I know that its not "objectively true" I just really think the character has been kind of misunderstood. (English is my second language, I apologize for any orthographic mistakes)
