Why Riot constantly struggles with Viktor

So, yeah, people aren't thrilled about Viktor's new lore gleamed from the Jayce bio, which is understandable. However, Viktor's problems echo a much deeper and more dire issue with league: The lack of villains.

League, as it stands, has around 133 champions. Of those, I'd argue at least 75-80% are heroic, relateable or redeemable in some way. Even champions who did heinous crimes like have a moral compass more aligning with neutral/grey morality than pure evil. Yes, the methods are despicable, but it's for "the greater good".

Now, moving to Viktor, Viktor is a champion who was a product of his environment. He had problems, he wasn't good...but he wasn't evil. He took the problems he saw and pushed to fix them. In my own headcanon, Viktor is a tragic figure who makes increasing amoral decisions, albeit he's not a man who will kidnap children and put them in brain jars like the fuckos from Metal Gear Rising: Revengence. I always saw Viktor as a man who saw the worst in humanity and strived to fix it, albeit with a method that's only two steps from evil.

As you can understand, it's hard to defend Viktor when his method involves a warehouse full of corpses and putting brains in jars.

I understand League needs more morally reprehensible villains. It needs people like Jhin or Aatrox with next-to-no redeeming qualities who are all vying to be the biggest bastard of the bastard bunch. But Viktor is not one of those guys. He's morally questionable, yes, but he's not outright evil. The way he was described in Jayce's story makes me think he's more along the lines of mecha-hitler than any sort of misunderstood and scarred person.

By the same token, I don't mind Jayce becoming more of an asshole. Sure, it echos Tony Stark hardcore but I'll take an asshole "Hero" over a Superman beacon of truth justice and the Piltover way. What I -do- mind is that Jayce is given redeeming qualities. He strives to be better. Viktor, conversely, gets nothing in Jayce's lore. Maybe this was deliberate but all it does is show us that Jayce is a man who will learn from his mistakes (LIKE A SCIENTIST) while Viktor is a man who will repeat errors and only listen to himself (LIKE A BASTARD)

#But this can be salvaged.

Unlike what many others are saying, I -do- know that RIot can work with what Viktor has now. However, there have to be some major strides taken to help Viktor in this category:

• Viktor needs to tell his side of the story. We need to understand his personal strife and what brought him to this point.
• We need less evil, more misunderstood. Viktor needs to be shown acting because of what has happened to him, not because he believes he's completely in the right.
• Viktor needs to learn from what happened. Hell, if his story ends with him completely ignoring Jayce because Viktor realized he screwed up, that'd be a wonderful twist. Now Jayce is hyper-paranoid while Viktor doesn't even concern himself with Jayce.
• Show Viktor's struggles with his own humanity and to show that there IS a person beneath all that machinery, however muted and torn.

Viktor isn't dead. Riot can fix this. But there is a LOT of work that must be done on Viktor's end to make him more sympathic instead of Viktor Von Doom 2.0