#season two made me like Viktor a good deal better and respect him somewhat less

[iztarshi]

Viktor observations (S2, Act 2)

The first interesting thing about Viktor talking to Jayce through Salo is that Viktor’s body language is a lot more his in Salo’s body than in his own body right now. It might be partly a function of only Jayce being present, but the Herald doesn’t act the way Viktor did in front of crowds, either. In Salo’s body Viktor moves like he and Jayce are in the lab, restless, curious, pacing around his project and looking between it and Jayce. He talks like they’re in the lab too, excited to share his new research and ideas.

Aside from being in Salo’s body the thing that’s off here is that Viktor seems unaware of Jayce’s hostility towards him. The question is whether this is something the hexcore is doing to his perception or far more mundane denial. Potentially going to go with denial because that parallels how Jayce was acting when Viktor came out of the cocoon, saying things he’d clearly been planning to say and not paying attention to the lack of response.

Salo’s state is, as most things are at this point, ambiguous. His breath doesn’t steam in the air, implying he’s not breathing, which doesn’t necessarily mean he’s dead although it means he’s been changed beyond having his legs fixed. Personality-wise his speech and body language aren’t unlike him, although “Who else could mend such a broken creature” and “I owe Viktor everything” are weird sentiments from someone as entitled as Salo. It seems like at best light mind-control and at worst the hexcore puppeteering Salo’s corpse, but either way Viktor doesn’t seem aware of this. It also leaves me with a lot of questions about Viktor’s relationship to gratitude. The idea that people would be grateful enough to him to change their entire lives to live a way he approves of, to let him enter their bodies at will, that’s weird. But also, Viktor is someone who undoubtedly had expectations of gratitude placed on him for being allowed to remain in Piltover, and I don’t know that he was grateful, but this feels not unrelated to him having been taught some messed up ideas about it.

“I was clouded by emotions,” Viktor says to explain why he said he was done with hextech and with Jayce. Undoubtedly, yes, although he had very good reasons to be angry with Jayce, but Viktor always thinks he’s being rational in the present and he’s also acting on emotion right now.

Viktor’s so excited to share everything he’s been doing with Jayce and it’s interesting that, despite the mystical trappings we’ve seen, in this situation he talks about it all as science. New breakthroughs to share with Jayce, progress that’s “somewhat beyond where we left off”. They both conflate their friendship with their work, but Viktor does it especially. He left Jayce when he wanted to give up on hextech, now he’s convinced hextech can help people he immediately wants to share it all with Jayce.

Did Viktor just give control back to Salo so Salo could compliment him and then take over again?

It’s Jayce rejecting hextech that makes Viktor finally notice something is wrong and want to know what happened.

Huh. Jayce is not doing a terribly good job of explaining anything but he does try to talk to Viktor. Announcing that hextech is a curse and they have to end it with no explanation is not all that convincing - but, rather than ask Jayce why he thinks that, Viktor concludes that Jayce’s mind has been damaged by the Arcane and then immediately switches back to Salo who tries to leave. At least part of the lack of communication here is on Viktor for being so certain of his own rightness he takes Jayce’s disagreement as a sign of damage rather than trying to hear him out.

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I am… unsure whether episode 6 begins with a flash-forward or with Viktor having a vision of his own death. Or with Viktor having a vision of contextless elements of what will turn out to be his own death. It seems like it might be a vision since we are seeing from Viktor’s POV for the all the other scenes here, which would potentially give a different context to the gear if he’s carrying it around partly because he had a vision about it.

“That isn’t Jayce. There is another will at work within him.” This declaration is made with great confidence and we never receive any evidence that it is true. I think pretty much everything Viktor says from now on requires fact checking, but this one was especially confusing on a first time viewing, because Viktor’s hanging out in the Arcane, he seems to know what he’s talking about, so it’s easy to take him at his word. The simplest answer, however, turns out to be that this is Jayce and Viktor just can’t handle the idea of Jayce killing Salo. Then again, Jayce will spend a lot of act 3 insisting that Viktor isn’t Viktor and I’m not sure either of them actually believe it, so they’re just being weird about being at odds with each other in the exact same way.

Viktor’s appearance in the Arcane is much more like himself than the Herald is. His body is almost abstracted away (and I would be fascinated to know whether that’s the nature of the Arcane, since people are just spirits within it, or some effect Viktor’s having on his space within the Arcane since he’s not very comfortable with any version of his body) but his face is his own, including expressive golden eyes. He’s much less sad and withdrawn than the Herald and talks to Sky in a similar way to he would talk to Jayce in the past.

Although Viktor clearly does feel some attachment to his body, shown by wanting to meet Jayce in person, this almost feels like some kind of magic assisted dissociation. The core of Viktor is in this safe place with all sorts of things to explore and Sky as the perfect, non-judgemental partner. The Herald is acting as a public figure while constantly hurting himself to heal others, but part of Viktor can just escape from all that and watch it through a screen.

Viktor is so excited about the wildrune. I wonder whether he’d feel differently if he knew about Ekko’s tree? It’s a big contrast with Jayce taking one look at it and going, “what have we done?”

Huck does not react normally to having a weapon drawn on him. Also, Viktor’s commune really does not seem to have any way to defend itself except asking people nicely to leave their weapons outside.

Everyone in the cult does show emotional reactions but extremely muted ones and ones that are unrealistically productive, if that makes sense. It would be nice if people didn’t react badly to someone clearly having a bad time getting startled, even if they’re a large wolf-man, but… yeah, that’s not what happens. Viktor’s whole thing feels very naive, it’s the sort of community building done by someone who doesn’t see why you’d need conflict resolution because people could just be reasonable. The idea that humans are basically good so if you take them away from all the bad systems then they’ll do everything right.

Viktor’s commune is so pretty in a way that is clearly inspired by the wildrune or the Arcane in general and Huck describes it as “the Herald’s vision” so it does seem this is coming entirely from Viktor. It’s, um. Cute? That he wanted everyone to have pretty homes and everything. It’s not the same understanding we see in Ekko’s commune that people need a chance to play and to create art, everyone seems to be working at all times. But it’s at least an attempt in the direction of enrichment.

At first I thought Viktor’s blanket didn’t cover any less than his followers’ robes, but it’s just that his body doesn’t exactly look like a body so the fact that the blanket only covers half of him doesn’t show the same way it would over flesh. I’m not sure whether it’s a sign that Viktor doesn’t feel like this is his body enough to be modest about it or whether… he does still seem to have emotions, although muted as the Herald, but he seems to have lost any sense of embarrassment. I think that’s what’s hardest to imagine about season 1 Viktor starting a cult, he’s got too much of a sense of humour not to find that a bit silly and be embarrassed.

It’s fascinating that the hexcore seemingly can’t stop Viktor from burning himself out trying to save Vander. Sky tries to talk him out of doing it, and there’s certainly no advantage from the hexcore’s perspective, but Viktor can’t be swayed from doing what he believes is right. He’s still got agency here, it’s just that he’s been convinced to go along with the hexcore so far because it seemed like the right thing to do.

It is kind of adorable just how much Viktor admires Vander. I don’t think it’s really helping him get along with Vi and Jinx, since his admiration for Vander’s dream is so different to why they care about Vander and also because Viktor’s talking like he knows things about Vander that they don’t.

Jinx manages to annoy him! I think it’s good for him to interact with real people. Maybe it would be better if they liked him a bit better, but at least it’s something to react to. It’s easy to not have feelings when everyone around you is just doing whatever you want. (I don’t think Jinx and Viktor were ever likely to get along. The things they have in common - sharp-edged pride fighting a fragile desire to be useful - aren’t things they like about themselves and the ways they differ - Jinx’s vengefulness, Viktor’s pacifism - are only likely to make them despise each other.)

I think the gear isn’t the original from when Jayce and Viktor invented hextech because it’s not the same shape and it probably is just from the machine Jinx broke. But as for the reason Viktor’s carrying it around, that’s either because he had a vision of it, because it reminds him of the invention of hextech, or both. It’s also slimed with corruption which I think might be a sort of arcane lichen? It feels like a side-effect of Viktor feeding his commune on magically grown plants. Which seems to be a sort of theme with Viktor (and Jayce, but Viktor continues it with projects where Jayce isn’t there) that he uses magic he doesn’t really understand and ignores the side-effects.

There’s something so innocent about the version of Viktor in the Arcane, treading through Vander’s brain with the same wonder as a cathedral. If there’s anything that indicates he’s not yet destroying the people he heals, no matter how strangely some of them are acting, it would be this I think. That he finds people’s minds beautiful. And he genuinely does seem to do some good for Vander.

Jinx’s estimation of whether this could work is “maybe when Piltover slides into the Sump” which makes her smarter than Viktor. He doesn’t seem at all prepared to defend himself here.

Fascinating that Viktor rubbing his hands when they start sparking is maybe the most natural body language the Herald has had. I don’t know if it hurts, but there’s something about his body failing that makes him more grounded in it.

The revelation that Singed is doing this for someone he loves and isn’t quite what Viktor thought him, combined with the realisation that Vander and Viktor himself are still like Rio to Singed, just experimental subjects. This time I think Viktor’s lack of visible emotion is entirely intentional, his defences are going up against Singed. It’s certainly the first time we’ve seen him subtly fidget with something (the gear).

No one knows what evolution is although Singed describing it as “forever in flux” is better than the absolute bullshit Viktor is talking.

They do fight over Vander the same way as over Rio - what to Singed is an experimental subject is to Viktor someone he cares about and wants to help.

“If you perish, this community is soon to follow.” I wonder if Singed is right that Viktor realises that? When Singed says it it sounds like a threat. Ambessa will destroy the community as soon as Viktor is gone because he’s the only one Singed is interested in preserving. But in retrospect it’s not a threat, doesn’t need to be a threat, everyone will die as soon as Viktor does. And I suspect Viktor doesn’t know that because he’s willing to martyr himself here to save Vander, but I can’t see him being willing to take others down with him.

The church music combined with Jayce being led by a child is referencing “and a little child shall lead them” right? Viktor is about to remake the earth and bring about a new age.

The trust Viktor shows in Jayce is astounding. Jayce has been aggressive and unstable on his way through the commune but he still gets led straight to Viktor, and with a weapon in his hands too. Viktor isn’t even in his own body to receive him, meditating with his eyes closed as if Jayce couldn’t possibly be a threat to him.

I’m not sure why Viktor’s death affects Vander the way it does. I’ve heard it said Singed injects Vander with something earlier, but to me it looked like Caitlyn stopped him injecting Vander. It might be because Viktor hadn’t finished healing Vander? The ones fully assimilated just keel over, but because Vander’s not fully healed he’s also still alive but wounded.

“I understand now. The message hidden within the pattern. The reason for our failures in the commune. The doctor was right. It's inescapable. Humanity. Our very essence. Our emotions… Rage. Compassion. Hate. Two sides of the same coin. Inextricably bound. That which inspires us to our greatest good… is also the cause of our greatest evil.”

I feel like this revelation isn’t as deep as Viktor thinks it is, but he’s certainly not wrong. (Also I feel that maybe using weird magic you don’t understand on a bunch of people to create a hive mind is a bigger reason for the failure of the commune, but I digress.) It’s important to Arcane’s themes, anyway, since a lot of what works about the characters is that their virtues are the same as their flaws, just in different circumstances.

Even if not having had this revelation until two thirds of the way through the second season makes me think that Viktor is very naive, it does make sense for his character specifically if I look back through the lens of him not realising this. The assumption that good people will do good things for good reasons and bad people will do bad things for bad reasons goes some way to explaining the complete refusal to make weapons, which are designed to do harm, but lack of concern with possible side-effects from things intended to do good. Also his confusion at some of the things Jayce does, because Jayce is a good person in Viktor’s eyes, so it’s hard to understand when he does bad things.

Viktor also remains not very self-aware about this revelation, since he continues to not see how damaging his own compassion can be despite realising that people can be motivated to do harm as much by “good” emotions as “bad” ones.