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[New Jayce lore] So it is confirmed that Viktor is a bad guy now?

Arcyvilk·12/8/2016, 2:01:23 AM·7 votes·3,900 views

I've just read the Jayce's story. Or should I say, Jayce's and Viktor story because of how closely they are tied together now.

I really liked the first impression of Viktor. That he wanted to elliminate the faults lying deep inside in the very roots of humanity - like physical decay or illogical prejudices. His personal opinions were... Questionable to say at least... But it got confirmed that he has a noble goal in mind, as we Viktor fans always knew tries very hard to contain the fangirl mode from activation

Then it kinda goes downwards. I mean, while old Viktor never forced anyone to anything, or at least his lore didn't even suggest that, here he tries to create a suit removing free will from his wearer. Okaaay, maybe it was some kind of unfortunate wording leading to misunderstanding or something? Then he experiments on a pile of carcasses. Weeell, maybe those were terminally ill people that got saved by transfering their brains into machines; or if not, it's better to experiment on a corpse than on living human, eh...?

But at the end, he issues a kill command. He is upset and sad about it. But it's a clear kill command. You cannot justify it in any way: he is not in lethal danger (actually he is, but from how the story is told we can assume he doesn't quite know about it), he tries to deprive a living being of life for the sake of protecting the Evolution. At least that's what was said.

How do you guys think. Is Viktor canonically a straight up a bad guy now? Is there any possibility that it was a misunderstanding... again? Could Jayce hallucinate from the effect of powerful crystal? Or maybe the story is told from his perspective and his prickiness (that is canonical now as well what is damn amusing) didn't allow him to tell the whole truth? Or maybe he treated to kill the machinized soldiers and Viktor had to choose between the life ofone and the life of many?

Is he even redeemable anymore or am I just heavily deluding myself?

12 Comments

Ebonmaw Dragon12/8/2016, 3:42:37 AM6 votes

Riot is the real bad guy

SaltyToplaneGoat12/8/2016, 2:07:08 AM3 votes

Well this is Jayce's variant of the story, so I'd wait until we have Viktor's version.

However, Viktor's philosophy regarding free will is clearly a problem point here. The question is now if he views that as a necessary evil to bring mankind to mecha-utopia, or if he's just disregarding it completly, either out of arrogance ("these fools can't even use their free will properly, so it makes no difference anyways") or due to his philosophy disregading free will as inexistent as humans are just "biological computers", where changing the wiring is completly ok if it is for a good cause.

If it is the latter, you Viktor fans might have a problem here, as that is a quite legit school of philosophy, especially for someone who tends to follow a very mechanistic worldview... it does fit with his old character, but the implactions of it now reach a lot further than before...

Mogarl12/8/2016, 8:42:39 PM1 votes

For me the Machine Herald had always been willing to go to Villainous lengths to do what he believes is best for everyone. I have no problem with him being a villain, but I do have a problem with him wanting evil things for the sake of plot convenience.

The problem in depth

" 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."

So this is the root of the problem, but my problem isn't that Viktor wanted the workers to be able to follow instructions flawlessly. In a perfect world this means the workers go to work, put on the suits, follow the perfect instructions given to them, and then everyone goes home alive and unharmed.

The problems

These are implants you don't take them out, you're basically ending these peoples lives so that they don't get hurt on the job.
Viktor makes the assumption that the supervisors would never abuse their absolute control over an armored person with 10x the strength of a normal person. For someone that sees all the problems the workers could have Viktor is all to willing to ignore the flaws of the supervisors.
For someone who's super refined techmaturgy was a big part of their character Viktor is super reliant on chemicals to get anything done. This goes along with the whole event flying in the face of everything that made Viktor unique in his field.

The colour story presents a new problem. Viktor sends drugged goons after Jayce for revenge. They aren't even being properly controlled by just hextech. Viktor doesn't even have that capacity in his technology when Riot makes him into an evil villain to operate without the older technology when he is the creator of the damn Hexcore. What a joke.

ModAcademy Kayn12/8/2016, 10:01:58 PM1 votes

No, it's not. Stop assuming things.

GreenLore12/8/2016, 11:13:50 PM1 votes

Overall it seems that a lot of the fight happened due to poor communication. When Jayce came to Viktors lab he really had no idea what Viktor was doing there,he just saw some really freaking shit there and assumed the worst and Viktor likely figured that it would be useless to talk to jayce anyway.

Also this was before Viktor became a cyborg,so it is possible that he became more reasonable afterwards(which was one of the reasons why he became a cyborg in the first place)

Solidair312/8/2016, 6:15:02 PM1 votes

No, I don't think he's just a bad guy for the sake of being bad. He's been burned by Jayce several times. He's been cast away to Zaun. He wants progress, he wants evolution, but his idea of evolution is pretty assholey.

Viktor isn't just EVIL. But he is mad at Jayce and definitely trying to take revenge.

Nefas12/8/2016, 4:44:53 AM1 votes

I don't think Viktor is a "straight up bad guy" now.

I don't really understand some of your reasoning - "You can't justify [the kill command] in any way"..."he tries to deprive a living being of life for the sake of protecting the Evolution". Protecting the Evolution is the justification. Viktor believes that what he can achieve, in terms of helping humanity Evolve, is worth more than Jayce's life if Jayce will prevent the Glorious Evolution from happening, as he has done so before. Jayce who Viktor has given a multitude of opportunities to help him including even after Jayce got Viktor thrown out of the academy.

Viktor uses brutal methods in order to achieve something he thinks is vital for the continued existence of humanity. He truly doesn't believe softer methods will be enough and that the need is dire. Maybe Viktor is wrong and such methods aren't needed but "Straight up bad guy" lacks nuance I think. Runeterra is a pretty horrific and brutal place - the Harrowing and the Shadow Isles, places like Zaun and Bilgewater that are pretty much run by might is right with murders committed openly. Viktor believes what he believes for a reason.