Viktor (also known as the Herald or the Machine Herald) was a main character of Arcane. Ingenious and courageous, he came from the Undercity to become an inventor and created Hextech alongside his partner, Jayce Talis. As his health worsens he struggles with a desperation to find cure by using Shimmer and studying the Hexcore, which eventually causes him to become the Machine Herald and lead a cult.
Biography
Season 1
Viktor comes from the Undercity of Zaun. Born with a malformed leg and needing a cane to walk, his mobility issues inhibited him from playing with other children. Despite his loneliness, he was incredibly intelligent. He fostered an engineering talent, even creating a working model steamboat that he completes and tests.
After placing the boat in a stream to test-run it, the current of the water pulls it downstream faster than Viktor can keep up with it. Demonstrating recklessness even as a child, Viktor chooses to follow the stream down into a dark cave, where he finds it in the hands of Singed, a scientist who is attempting to preserve the life of a mutated Waverider named Rio.
Praising Viktor for the quality of his invention, Singed allows Viktor to assist him in caring for Rio, feeding her what appears to be an early, raw variant of Shimmer.
After finding Rio contorted in pain and hooked up to a series of machines, Viktor is horrified. Singed claims, "The mutation must survive," but Viktor soon runs away.
How Heimerdinger discovers Viktor is unclear. Still, somewhere in his late teens, Heimerdinger encounters him and takes him under his wing, allowing him to study at the University of Piltover. Viktor goes on to become his assistant as Dean of the Academy.
While investigating on Heimerdinger's behalf, Viktor first meets Jayce Talis, a fellow scientist whose illegal research is interrupted and exposed by a robbery. Viktor risks stealing Jayce's notebook from Heimerdinger's office and seeks Jayce out to discuss its contents with him. After successfully talking a suicidal Jayce off the edge of his destroyed apartment, Viktor reassures Jayce that hope is not lost.
When you're going to change the world, don't ask for permission.—Viktor, to Jayce Talis, Some Mysteries Are Better Left Unsolved
Jayce and Viktor begin working in what is presumably Viktor's office, discovering that the gemstones Jayce acquired can only operate under a much higher frequency. Jayce expresses a desire to explain his discovery to the council, to which Viktor retaliates they have an absence of proof. After realizing his equipment will be destroyed the following day, Jayce is devastated—leading Viktor to suggest breaking into Heimerdinger's lab to retrieve it.
Once they arrive at the lab, Viktor and Jayce are caught by Mel Medarda, who, after being convinced by Jayce's speech, allows them one night to impress her by allowing them to stay, while she distracts an oncoming security guard.
Years later, Hextech blows up in popularity. Viktor had made a new creation called the Hexcore, which he venerably studies. One night as he studies the Hexcore, Viktor—already looking sickly—collapses at his desk. It is revealed that he is terminally ill, and his prognosis only spurs his drive to continue in his research, dedicating himself to discovering the workings of the arcane.
Heimerdinger visits him, and Viktor speaks about his worries that knowledge of his contributions would fade away soon after his death.
In a bid to prolong his longevity, he seeks out the doctor, who gives him a vial of a Shimmer variant, which he takes in conjunction with exposure to the Hexcore. His bad leg is healed, and he is able to walk for the first time.
Later on Viktor reaches out to the Hexcore, which begins glowing and flashing wildly. Sky walks in on Viktor, and in a desperate attempt to save Viktor's life, pulls him away from the Hexcore. However, she is vaporized and dies in the process.
He visits his childhood lookout spot to scatter Sky's ashes in the river. He hesitantly contemplates suicide, but Jayce appears behind him. They talk, and reminisce about the time they spent together at the Distinguished Innovators Competition. Viktor asks Jayce to destroy the Hexcore, to which he eventually agrees.
Viktor joins Jayce at the council where he announces Jayce's deal with Silco in making Zaun an independent nation, when Jinx's rocket hits the council building and leaves Viktor gravely injured.
Season 2
Jayce rushes Viktor to their lab in attempt to save his life. Jayce grabs the Hexcore, and fuses it with Viktor's body. This locks Viktor in a magical cocoon that transforms his entire body into an Arcane-altered form. When Viktor awakes, he breaks out of the cocoon and wakes up a sleeping Jayce. Jayce hugs Viktor and grabs him a blanket, when the two get into an argument about the Hexcore—now inside Viktor—and how Jayce had revived him.
Viktor goes to Zaun where he sees all of the suffering of its citizens. There, he sees a vision of Sky leading him throughout the streets. Some Shimmer addicts follow him. When Viktor arrives at his destination, the Shimmer addicts threaten him, however Viktor places his hand on Huck's forehead in a flash of purple light, and apparently cures him.
Viktor begins to heal any people with the help of Sky's vision, and steadily builds a commune full of the cured people.
Later, Viktor uses Salo's body, one of which he cured from a Shimmer addiction and paralyzation, to go to the Hexgates and take some of the modules in the heart of the structure.
Viktor meets with Vi, her sister and Vander to try and cure the latter. He uses his powers to explore Vander's mind with Sky, where he eventually uncovers the man's memories.
Singed shows up to the commune, where the two talk about Vander's state and body.
Later, Jayce kills Viktor with a blast from his transformed Mercury Hammer.
Stuck in another cocoon, Viktor relies on the blood Singed gives him to live. He talks with Ambessa Medarda, and agrees to transform any soldier she gives him in return for her help escorting him to the Hexgates. He uses one of his followers—who has now been transformed into mechanical dolls—to enter the council building, where he attempts to persuade Jayce into becoming partners once again. Jayce rejects him, and Viktor begins to fight him. Then, he allows Singed to transform him and his followers.
Viktor begins to transform into the Machine Herald. His body elongates and transforms unnaturally, he grows a "third arm" on his back with three claws, and his face splits in two with a mask growing in the middle. He transforms the rest of his followers, along with Vander, causing him to lose all the remains of his humanity and memories, completely turning into Warwick.
He travels and arrives with the Noxian army to Piltover, where he is transported in the cocoon. He leaves the cocoon sometime in the battle, and meets Jayce in the heart of the Hexgates. He uses a spell with his third arm to place all of the compartments of the heart back, and begins to fight Jayce as he travels to the top of the tower. Once there, he brings Jayce to the Hexspace along with everyone else in the battlefield. Viktor begins the process of his Glorious Evolution. Ekko comes up on his hoverboard, and uses a wild rune on Viktor.
Jayce, freed from the mind control, begins to tell Viktor about how all he wanted was his partner back. Viktor shrinks down in the Hexspace, and the two hug. Viktor sees the barren future Jayce had been sent to and what would come from his actions, along with seeing his alternate self give Jayce the rune that had started it all. Viktor tells Jayce to leave, but Jayce joins Viktor in destroying the rune.
The two are absorbed into the rune, and dissipate.
Fate
While Viktor is never properly shown onscreen to have been killed, given that his physical body was erased from existence alongside Jayce's, one can assume that he and and his lab partner met their ends at the hands of the acceleration rune. Some have theorized that Viktor - And Jayce by extension - are not dead, and are merely trapped inside the astral plains of the Hexcore, and while this isn't impossible, given that he, by technicality, no longer exists, it's highly unlikely that the two of them survived the finale.
Furthermore, Arcane's creator, Christian Linke, confirmed that Viktor was dead in the Act III Afterglow without going into any further detail.
Characteristics
Personality
As a child, Viktor was quieter than other children but creative in ways to create new technology. He choose to help Singed with Rio's health out of kindness, and when he sees what the scientist does to her to keep her alive, he angrily leaves and does not believe in his cruel methods.
As an adult Viktor is ambitious, innovative, and intelligent. Viktor was able to become the Head Professor's assistant at The University of Piltover due to his hard work, and is incredibly smart. He helps Jayce improve his theory of harnessing magic in under a few hours, as well as being able to talk the man out of suicide in just a few moments by relating to him in just the right why to get him back to his passions. Viktor is dedicated to helping the people of the Undercity, but when his body grows worse and he believes that he might be forgotten in the passage of time, he uses Shimmer to enhance his body's strength to test his connection with the Hexcore to try and enhance his lifespan. But once his assistant Sky Young dies he gains an immense sense of guilt since he is the reason she had died.
Once revived by the Hexcore and Jayce, he becomes a saint-like figure in the undercity with a constant calmness over his actions. Later on when he is killed by Jayce, he wants to unite everyone under a "glorious evolution."
When Jayce successfully talks him out of this idea, Viktor (in a change from his previous stance) selflessly wants to take the damage from the rune and save everyone.
Appearance
Viktor is a man of average height with pale skin, moles, brown hair, and striking amber eyes. In Act I, he can be seen in the University of Piltover's uniform of a long-sleeved burgundy shirt with golden buttons, a white waistcoat with dark grey lining, and diamond-shaped white buttons. He also sports a white tie tied in an Atlantic knot (unlike Jayce's red tie-from this, we can presume that ties are indicative of status at the University, as Jayce is a student and Viktor is the Dean's assistant), as well as dark grey trousers and shoes. While he is shown to use a wooden cane, he is without it in certain scenes, suggesting he does not completely rely on it yet.
By Acts Two and Three of Season One, Viktor's physical stature strongly reflects his health. His hair is longer and less well-kept, he has more prominent and shadowy eyebrows, and his skin is so pale that it almost takes on a blue tinge in some lighting. Due to a significant loss of weight, his clothes appear more crumpled, swapping his burgundy shirt for a brown pinstripe one often rolled up to the elbows, an off-white and grey waistcoat with longer tails and an angular pattern across the front. He also now uses a crutch instead of a cane, impeding his gait and giving him a hunched posture.
In Season Two when Viktor emerges from the Hexcore cocoon, his body is transformed into a machine-like form. His eyes transform in between an array of colors as well. Just like his leg and hand from Season One, his skin is now a stringy purple metallic texture. Purple glows from underneath this skin, which fades into Viktor’s natural skin color at his cheeks. Gold metal is strewn throughout his skin, mostly on his torso, neck, joints, and arms. He wears the blanket Jayce gives him as a cloak, which becomes his main outfit in Act 1 along with his cane which has an Arcane-infected texture.
In Act Two, Viktor now has longer hair with blonde tipped strands by his ears. The cloak he wore in earlier episodes is now wrapped around his body and strapped together with white belts and golden adornments. His cane is now more similar to a staff, with the handle curving into a more circular shape with golden accents.
Transformed into the Machine Herald, Viktor’s face is split in two to make room for the geometrical ”mask” in the middle of his face. The eyes on the mask are glowing orange, and the tips of the mask are gold; along with multiple other gold accents across his body such as the ones on his wrists, shoulders, back, and feet. In this form he is much taller and lankier, with his torso being somewhat separated from his legs at the hips with large indents in between the two parts. Viktor has a third arm coming out from his back with a three fingered “claw” at the end. Each of the fingers is tipped in gold with the middle of the claw being a purple glowing circle. This claw is used for arcane magic. Viktor’s cane is now completely transformed into a staff, with the top of the staff being used to hold the wild rune. His cloak is also tied around his neck, with the cloth underside being red.
Abilities
Human
- High Intelligence: Since he was a child, Viktor was extremely intelligent with a knack for mathematics and engineering. Alongside Jayce, he invented hextech in all its forms, including devices like the Hexgates and the Hexcore.
Hexcore
- Technomagical Body: After his near-death experience when Jinx bombed the council, Viktor's body became fused with the Hexcore to preserve his life. Initially it encased him in a resin-like cocoon; when he was released the Core had merged with his flesh, giving it a purple and metallic appearance.
- Arcane Magic: Fused with the Hexcore, Viktor can access arcane magic despite not being born a mage.
- Healing: By touching someone, Viktor can heal any ailment by integrating metallic components into the person's body. He was able to cure Salo's injuries and even totally undo the effects of shimmer dependence in several people. Those affected become devoted to Viktor, adopting a placid demeanor matching Viktor's own. However this power is not limitless, as it took many days of work to make any progress on recovering Warwick's mind, with no advancement on his physical condition. Singed also stated that this power is finite and may become exhausted if overused. Those healed by this process become inexorably linked to Viktor; when he was almost killed by Jayce they became catatonic on the spot while Warwick entered are purely bestial state.
- Telepathy & Mind Reading: Viktor can establish a mental link with people he has healed or is in contact with; through this he can share his thoughts, perceive through others' senses and access people's memories. Viktor perceives these uses as his astral body being in a space-like void where he receives images and sounds while navigating symbolic environments. This space also contains Sky, since she was absorbed by the hexcore.
Herald
- Apex Form: As described by Singed, Viktor's body is the apex of Hextech while Warwick's body contains the apex form of shimmer. By fusing the two of them, Viktor's technomagical form became fully stabilized, granting him a fully mechanical body and unlimited use of his power. This process also suppressed, and nearly destroyed, Viktor's humanity and emotions. This change was even reflected in his astral body, whereas before it was simply an ethereal version of Viktor's human body, it had now turned into a colossal, glowing image of the god-like Machine Herald inter-webbed with all the people linked to him. After Viktor was struck by the Z-Drive's anomaly detonation, his astral form returned to its original form but his body quickly destabilized.
- Arcane Magic: In this form Viktor is an extremely powerful magic user, described as unlike anything the world has ever seen before - even during the Rune Wars.
- Evolution: Viktor's power to heal develops into the power to evolve people into "perfect" forms. Those affected turn into puppet-like machines of gold-white metal. These evolved humans are totally bereft of individual identity. However the link to Viktor means that when Viktor was destroyed they all simply dropped dead. Evolved Humans posses several abilities:
- Immortality: Evolved humans also don't age, get sick or require sustenance, making them deathless unless directly slain.
- Improved Endurance: Evolved Humans are very resilient to physical damage.
- Improved Speed: Evolved Humans can move extremely quickly, almost hovering over surfaces.
- Soul Grab: If an Evolved Human can grab a person's head, that person enters a trance-like catatonic state, leaving them unharmed but vulnerable. The purpose of this would have been to allow them to become linked with Viktor.
- Shared Mind: Evolved Humans share a single consciousness with Viktor. He himself can also take direct control of individual Evolved Humans.
- Hexgate Anomaly: Viktor was able to better understand the Wild Rune anomaly, managing to shrink and control it with a mere touch. With its power he would be able to link his mind to every human in Pilltover and later the world. This, however, only extends to that specific anomaly, as Viktor was unable to even conceive of the Z-Drive, merely declaring that that device "can't be".
- Evolution: Viktor's power to heal develops into the power to evolve people into "perfect" forms. Those affected turn into puppet-like machines of gold-white metal. These evolved humans are totally bereft of individual identity. However the link to Viktor means that when Viktor was destroyed they all simply dropped dead. Evolved Humans posses several abilities:
- Third Arm: Viktor grows a third, claw-like arm from his back. This limb can be used to channel magic or project a powerful energy beam that can easily cut through metal.
Gallery
See Viktor/Gallery
Relationships
Trivia
- Viktor and the Mysterious Mage are the same person, but from different timelines.
- According to Christian Linke, one of the co-creators of Arcane, he confirmed that both Jayce and Viktor have disintegrated.[2]
- In a Polygon interview with the executive producer of League of Legends, Paul Bellezza tossed around the idea of Viktor's ending in Arcane not being definitive when asked about League Viktor's death. He states, "so like the audience, we have to interpret what the show showed us of Jayce and Viktor's conclusion."[3]
- Amanda Overton, co-writer of Arcane, confirmed in an interview that they were writing Jayce and Viktor to have a "loving, brotherly relationship” but also said that she understands other fan interpretations.[4]
Appearances
| Season One appearances: 8/9 | ||
| "Welcome to the Playground": Absent |
"Some Mysteries Are Better Left Unsolved": Appears |
"The Base Violence Necessary for Change": Appears |
| "Happy Progress Day!": Appears |
"Everybody Wants to Be My Enemy": Appears |
"When These Walls Come Tumbling Down": Appears |
| "The Boy Savior": Appears |
"Oil and Water": Appears |
"The Monster You Created": Appears |
| Season Two appearances: 7/9 | ||
| "Heavy Is the Crown": Appears |
"Watch It All Burn": Appears |
"Finally Got the Name Right": Absent |
| "Paint The Town Blue": Absent |
"Blisters And Bedrock": Appears |
"The Message Hidden Within The Pattern": Appears |
| "Pretend Like It's the First Time": Appears |
"Killing Is a Cycle": Appears |
"The Dirt Under Your Nails": Appears |
References
v • e — Characters —
| |
| Main Characters | |
|---|---|
| Other characters | |
| Alternate Universe characters | |
- ↑ Timeline
- ↑ https://youtu.be/S0RJSOuBS6s?si=uSU96fiSxyebBXUK&t=95
- ↑ https://www.polygon.com/q-and-a/517436/riot-arcane-viktor-league-lol-rework-interview#:~:text=Is%20League%20Viktor%20technically%20dead%20in%20the%20current%20canon%3F%20We%20don%E2%80%99t%20know%20what%20definitively%20happened%20to%20Viktor%20in%20Arcane%3B%20so%20like%20the%20audience%2C%20we%20have%20to%20interpret%20what%20the%20show%20showed%20us%20of%20Jayce%20and%20Viktor%E2%80%99s%20conclusion.
- ↑ https://gizmodo.com/arcanes-amanda-overton-talks-love-conflict-and-all-things-caitvi-2000537334