Honest, Calm Discussion Regarding Viktor's Lore

Bertix··5 votes·956 views

I know that the entire lore update has us Viktor fans pretty rustled, but I want to make an actual query that is not quite related to the entire angry mob outside Riot's offices.

After reading Camille's lore and comic, it became apparent that MANY people have augments and enhancements, and these were just used by people as either prosthetics or weapons, and all of these people that were seen with augments, have NO relation to Viktor **(We don't talk about the Church of Evolved here) ** When this became clear I felt that Viktor had lost a key part of his character, I mean, being a biomechanical genuis with augments was always kinda his thing wasn't it?

But this didn't quite put me off until I read Orianna's new biography, where she and her father, completely, and with no hinderance, turns Orianna into a pure mechanical being. I would like to clarify that I'm not mad about Viktor being lazily portrayed as a villian in that loser's Jayce's lore, but it just feels like key aspects of Viktor's character (His augmentation and skill at techmaturgy) have been taken away from him.

I suppose we can only wait and see how Viktor's lore update goes.

18 Comments

Malicious Metal6 votes

What I don't get is why people are all up and arms about Orianna's lore.

She had always been THE artificially created Lady of Clockwork bent on replacing the real Orianna.

Also, she's an IMITATION of the human form, not improved, still just mimicking the flawed creature that is man.

Ebonmaw Dragon3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=zBxXHMqO,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-12-09T16:05:41.725+0000)

What I don't get is why people are all up and arms about Orianna's lore.

She had always been THE artificially created Lady of Clockwork bent on replacing the real Orianna.

Also, she's an IMITATION of the human form, not improved, still just mimicking the flawed creature that is man.

Uhhhh... did you read her new lore?

Malicious Metal3 votes

Yeah, her augments are top notch and she basically replaced her entire body with machine parts, making her effectively lose her humanity.

What bouts it?

Viktor's tech might just be better, we're yet to see concrete lore regarding the Machine Herald.

Ebonmaw Dragon6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=zBxXHMqO,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2016-12-09T16:11:05.592+0000)

Yeah, her augments are top notch and she basically replaced her entire body with machine parts, making her effectively lose her humanity.

What bouts it?

Viktor's tech might just be better, we're yet to see concrete lore regarding the Machine Herald.

Well, in the old lore Oriana was an actual Robot, now she is a human that remplaced her entire body with machine parts... Basically the thing that Viktor wanted to do in his first lore. So, i get why people is "annoyed" by that.

Malicious Metal1 votes

Hmm, sounds actually quite reasonable.

Still, I feel Riot can actually use this dynamic if they're smart.

Orianna is what Viktor strives to become but is she really what humanity should become? Doesn't she want to become human again? I feel this could be a decent plot hook but hey, I get that people are outraged by it, it detracts from Viktor's own character.

GreenLore1 votes

Well but they replaced EVERY part of her with machine parts,you could potentially put all the organic parts together to form a dead Orianna.

And this begs the queston: Is the Orianna that we have still the same one?Or was she merely replaced with a machine,the moment Revec exchanged her brain?

Basically it asks the question of the Ship of Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

midnight oil243 votes

Same. I LOVE Orianna's new lore. She's my favorite mid lane, and now that she feels like a metaphor for depression, something I go through, I love her even more.

Mogarl4 votes

Jayce's lore was more of a boiling over point for the Viktor fans I believe Important things about Viktor in his old lore

  1. He was radical in replacing his body.
  2. His augmentations were more refined and further developed than what other scholars had ever seen.
  3. He was part of the team that created Blitzcrank.
  4. He wasn't crazy and morally gray until after he was stabbed in the back.

  1. While it isn't common. Viktor is no longer going to be the person that comes to mind when you say "that person that replaced their body with hextech"
  2. This (might?) be salvageable depeding on when Jayce's story took place, but I see no reason to get my hopes up.
  3. Viktor either created Blitzcrank by himself or not at all. Given the little we've seen of Viktor so far we have no reason to believe that Viktor would see Blitz, as a person, as anything but a mistake. Which is lame. Again though this may be salvageable depending on when Jayce's lore took place. If Viktor goes from kicked out of Piltover to attending the Techmaturgical college in Zaun then he may change slightly. Jayce's perspective never really gave a chance to see any possible change as Jayce assumed he hadn't.
  4. Viktor started morally ambiguous. This means one of three things. One, Viktor grows into a better person and stops being morally gray, wrong. Viktor flat-lines and looses that spark of change that made him a cool character, wrong. Or Viktor descends into being totally deranged and evil, complete shit. No matter what Viktor has lost that spark that made him really cool. Riot retconed one of if not THE most important parts of Viktor, and nothing in Viktor's lore could really change that.

One or two of these problems and Viktor could probably stand strong, but with all of them a lot of Viktor fans are having trouble finding somewhere to stand. Sure he's a villainous cyborg, but he's not OUR villainous cyborg.

Narrative may still make it work, and maybe Viktor will seem to be fine and be more or less just like we loved him. However even if they do, at this point it was cruel and stupid to release Jayce's and Viktor's lores separately. I think this is the first time in a while that Riot has seriously screwed up the release of their content.

The Anagram King3 votes

1, 2 are a huge part of what makes his cult-like following so believable. By implying that Vik augmented himself merely as a means to stay alive, he's no longer the obsessive, depressed, guy going through character development - he's just the villain who got hit with an explosion.

Viktor "LOOK AT MY FACE! SEE WHAT THEY DID TO MEEEEEeee!!"

4, though, is a kick in the gut. And you summarised it better than I would've. The change that defined him; the moment when obsession became motivation - now it's just background noise in an existing character arc.

They've kept the character picture, but systematically dismantled the depth associated with it. He may have only had 2 lore paragraphs, but they painted a portrait of a man-turned-cyborg with a degree of complexity unseen amidst the rest of the roster. The new direction of his character implies that they either didn't realise;

or don't care.

Mogarl1 votes

It's kind of like if there were a bunch of people that liked a piece of red glass and how the sun shined through it. Then someone comes along, and takes the glass shard and gives them a flashlight with a red lightbulb.

The people who just really liked the red light don't mind the change at all.

The people that liked changing the sun light to red are annoyed but technically the red light bulb is doing the same thing. Sort of.

The people that enjoyed the pattern in the red light on the wall lost everything.

Sorry, I like metaphors but I feared actually putting it in my post would make it unruly.

The Anagram King1 votes

It's not bad! I like that take. Very poetic.

It's not necessarily the end result; but how you get there. That's the beauty of storytelling. I genuinely feel that Viktor can be salvaged if we explain ourselves well enough. Riot has an ENTIRE roster to work with - it's COMPLETELY forgivable that they miss out on some certain subtleties.

I'm in the process of making a new thread addressing Moral Ambiguity, and invite you to check it out if you feel up to it.

I may also steal your analogy, if you don't mind. I'll naturally credit you =p

Mogarl1 votes

Use away. Kinda be pointless to write something and then tell the one person you know read it not to share it.

TyrekGoldenspear2 votes

All I want to say about Orianna's story is that they moved to Zaun, some time passed, then Ori got sick.

It is possible her father was inspired by Viktor's work.

Ralanr1 votes

Or Viktor was inspired by the work notes of Orianna's father.

TyrekGoldenspear3 votes

Or Corin was inspired by Viktor's idea, started replacing Orianna's organs with machinery, which inspired Viktor to take it a step further and replace most of his body, which inspired Corin to replace Orianna almost completely.

Then Orianna completed the job.

On another note, I personally believe that Corin didn't replace Orianna's heart not because he didn't know how, but because of sentiment. He was worried that his Orianna was slowly losing herself, so by leaving a piece of her, her heart, he could sleep with the knowledge that it is in fact his daughter.

Kinda hard to convince yourself of that fact if they are completely 100% replaced, but that's just me.

KuroCaliber2 votes

It's also possible that Viktor was inspired by Orianna. Orianna was created through necessity, she was ailing and needed the transformation to save her. viktor may see it as a way to evolve further, to use augmentation to escape sickness, death, and other problems linked to a biological body.

midnight oil241 votes

First off, remove the slash over the Jayce thing. I too think Jayce is a loser!.

I kind of feel that they can do more with Viktor than just augments. Remember that he's the one who created the battlecast skin line. That could play into his lore somehow.

Beyond Legends1 votes

He is still an bio augmented genius just that he wasn't the first to come up with the idea of an prostetic machine arm. I mean just because he wasn't founder of making robotic doesn't mean he isn't good at robotic. Even in the old lore the robotic research existed and I doubt they didn't thought of replacing an lost arm with a robotic one. Viktor was deem unique because he activetly preach the idea of replacing your flesh with steel. He wanted people to give up their meaty flesh sacks to become metal.

Also Corvin didn't willing make Orianna an robot, he made her into one because he didn't want to lose her. She became an robot in the end. How does this contradict Viktor? Viktor isn't the only person who skilled in robotic, hell old Crovin built an decently scientient robot all by himself. He didn't contradict Viktor then and he didn't contradict Viktor now.

Now also Viktor core themetic is the crazy cyborg scientiest that want to people to become like cyborgs. Viktor didn't lose anything, he still that obssessive hardline cyborg guy in his old lore. Just because people havd augment and other people have skill in robotic and techmatugry doesn't mean Viktor lost any of his core character trait.

More from Story, Art, & Sound

More by Bertix