#jayvik being canon was not on my bingo card

[crowleyfiles]

jayvik nation how are we doing?

[tvckerwash]

wrote an 1800 word essay to comment on a youtube video about viktor's arc in s2 as one does because I'm still reeling 2 months later over how dirty they did my favorite guy 😔

viktor's characterization in s2—ignoring the other problems such as poor pacing, the writers thinking profundity and surface level parallels = complexity, and wanting to turn every character into the opposite of what they were in season one for some reason without doing any of the actual work to get there—is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the core aspects of his character and the writers grossly misinterpreting why his utilitarian desire to help people ended up developing into transhumanism in his (pre arcane canonization) league lore—the lore of which viktor's characterization in arcane is built off of.

while not the main message, extremism is pretty much hard baked into viktor's character much like the themes of class disparity, capitalism, systematic corruption, scientific innovation, etc, are hard baked into piltover, zaun, and the stories of the champions from that region. his story is one of self-radicalization after being expelled from academia for his ideas being seen as reckless and unethical, but despite his descent (or ascent, depending on how you view it) into extremism his goal and desire to help people never changed, he simply doubled down on his previous beliefs after experiencing a traumatic mental breakdown. with that knowledge of his league lore I did fully expect to see him slide down the slippery slope in season two, but uh let's just say viktor becoming a multiversal time traveling god was not on my bingo card.

as you say in the video, all of viktor's scenes in season two were jarring and left me confused on how we got from point a to point z, as well as simply not being true in several situations. the most annoying part however is that the writers didn't technically pull any of the plot beats for his arc out of nowhere, but they did seem to purposefully ignore points foundational to viktor's character and seemingly went out of their way to portray the most questionable aspects of his lore in the worst light possible for the sole purpose of making him the big bad (and unnecessary shipping fan service? listen I love jayvik/vikjayce but the divorce with jayce is supposed to be their end, that's the tragedy of their relationship they did not need to make them cosmic soulmates or whatever).

for example, making viktor into some magic messianic figure who leads a cult is not entirely nonsensical on a surface level. viktor is classified as a “battle mage” in the game itself for gameplay purposes, but the writers failed to recognize that his “magic” was never due to him possessing any actual arcane powers, but because of his hextech cybernetics and the various hextech inventions he created. they also failed to understand that he is not a mage in the lore—he's just a guy who loves science and wants to help people with his inventions, specifically via automation, robotics, and mechanical/chemical augmentations.

and to be clear viktor being an artificial mage of sorts is actually a really cool idea! I could've totally gotten behind it had the writers gone about it in a different way that didn't mess up his character and demonize hextech for no real reason. a man made mage /is/ kind of scary to think about, particularly if the process could be replicated—but that doesn't make hextech, or viktor for that matter /bad/, it makes it different, and people fear what they don't understand and all that.

anyway, the cult leader part isn't nonsensical, as his rhetoric DID accidentally spawn a cult of sorts in his league lore—but viktor has nothing to do with them and actively dislikes them because their religious reverence of /their idea/ of him is antithetical to his very beliefs. to him, it's further proof that emotions suck and society would be better if people could overcome them, which I'll get into later. I mean, does this sound like a guy who would become a magic god that mind controls people?:

The herald of a new age of technology, Viktor has devoted his life to the advancement of humankind. An idealist who seeks to lift people to a new level of understanding, he believes that only by embracing a glorious evolution of technology can humanity’s full potential be realized. With a body augmented by steel and science, Viktor is zealous in his pursuit of this bright future.

speaking of mind control, that actually did not come out of nowhere either—but it's an aspect of viktor's lore that is often misinterpreted even though it really shouldn't be imo. I'm just going to copy paste the section from viktor’s lore where it came from alongside a section of jayce's lore that shows the same event through his perspective, as to truly grasp the truth of the situation viktor and jayce’s stories must be seen as two halves of a whole. upon reading the blurbs it should be obvious to see exactly where and how the writers failed to properly comprehend the situation and approach it with the necessary nuance, or more likely they simply didn't care to as getting viktor to their desired end point was more important than continuing the narrative season one built up.

viktor's pov:

But many wearers claimed they saw phantom corpse lights in the depths or suffered from chem-induced hallucinations. When divers experienced such symptoms, they panicked and often got themselves or their fellow divers killed. Viktor saw the problem was not technical, but with the wearer’s nerves unraveling in the inky depths. He devised a chem-shunt helm that allowed an operator on the surface to bypass the wearer’s fear response and, effectively, control the diver. A heated discussion between Viktor and Jayce on free will and mental enslavement turned bitter - almost violent - and the two vowed never to work together again.

jayce's pov:

However, the two reached an impasse when Viktor’s design for the next version of the suit included a chemtech implant that would increase the wearer’s strength output by tenfold, while also preventing them from getting tired, panicking, or disobeying instructions from their superiors. While Viktor considered this feature a brilliant means of reducing the frequency of construction accidents, Jayce found its indifference toward free will immoral. The two nearly came to blows over the design and ultimately, after Jayce warned the academy of Viktor’s invention, Viktor was stripped of his honors and ostracized from Piltover’s scientific community.

as you can see, both of their perspectives characterize viktor as he is portrayed in season one: as someone who is always pushing forward seeking the next big advancement to change people's lives for the better /now/, but in his quest to do so he can make oversights that have unintended consequences and ultimately cause harm to people he intended to help.

I've genuinely never thought about the scene with the hexclaw where it locks on to the gemstone jayce was tossing around outside of it being a silly little comedic moment, but you're right about it being a very good showcase of viktor's attitude towards progression. in hindsight having a magic laser controlled by magic bluetooth via two gemstones interacting with one another and not realizing that a third gemstone is equally as capable of controlling it as the second is an obvious and potentially deadly error, and viktor simply brushing it off with an “anyway” is mildly concerning, yet heimerdinger does not hold the error against either of them because he understands that wasn't supposed to happen.

the one scene I've personally always focused on that I believe was supposed to contribute to viktor's eventual slide into transhumanism and choosing to take on the identity of the machine herald in season two is when he's disarming jinx’s grenade, specifically how it shows he could potentially come to the flawed conclusion that his general attitude towards scientific progression being inherently problematic to a degree is not what led to sky's demise with the hexcore, but that the emotions spurring his actions were (and tbf he's not entirely wrong to come to that conclusion but he's not right either).

at the start of the scene his motions are careful and controlled, he's taking his time to remove the panels gently with precision, but after mel and jayce discuss weaponizing hextech his frustration bleeds into his actions, and he's unable to get ahold of the panel with the tweezers, and once he does he practically rips it off, triggering the detonation timer. viktor undoubtedly /knows/ he was handling it too aggressively, but instead of stopping he kept pushing forward anyway.

that was the case with the hexcore as well, to him he only ignored heimerdinger's warning because of his desperation to save himself so he could complete his work and leave behind a legacy. he only sought out singed and used shimmer because he could physically feel his body eroding by the second. he only attempted to use the hexcore to transmute his whole body while knowing without shimmer it likely wouldn't end well because he was (pun unintended) running off the high of success with his leg, things were /finally/ looking up again when they'd been dark for so long, and he was willing to take whatever risks there would be to keep it that way—but he wasn't the one who paid the price for his carelessness, sky was.

with that in mind, it's easy to see how viktor could recognize and acknowledge that he messed up with the hexcore and it needs to be destroyed, but that he could believe he messed up for the wrong reasons. in league lore there's a pretty big emphasis on how magic is dangerous because humans let their greed and other emotions influence their actions, making it so they're unable to let go of the power as well, which in turn would only further support viktor's own flawed conclusion—magic isn't dangerous, he and jayce have proved as much, but people and their emotions are, so obviously if he doesn't want to fall victim to his previous mistakes he should just get rid of his own emotions somehow (let's go lobotomy!! /j). maybe he could've gotten rid of the hexcore corrupted limbs too, because having limbs that he can lose his ability to use whenever like he did when he attempted to smash the hexcore after it killed sky is An Issue (let's go for inventing hextech augmentations and performing dangerous and invasive surgeries on oneself!! /j).