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Ilya is a type 3 (obsessed with winning to fill the void inside; maybe if he succeeds more than anyone else he'll finally be worthy of love).

Shane is a type 5 (obsessed with making himself hyper-competent in order to control/feel secure in a scary world).

In TLG, Ilya's need to win for his self esteem is corrupting him; causing him to neglect his job, develop clinical depression, turn on his partner/rival, and ultimately to subconsciously decimate his partner's life in a bid to steal success back from him.

Whereas it's Shane's need to be hypercompetent that is harming him, as he becomes so fixated on being perfect that he develops an eating disorder (orthorexia). His only other problem is angsting about how unworthy he is at a boyfriend (which isn't true, Racistashel Reid is just racist as hell). Really he ought to be angsting about how badly his boyfriend is mistreating him; that he is getting a bad grade in boyfriend because he can't stop his boyfriend mistreating him.

.

So Ilya's arc should've been about accepting that he is enough, as he is; that he is worthy of love without a big shiny medal or cup, and letting Shane be the successful one without resentment. To become the partner who actually helps in Shane's success, rather than prioritising his own (by, eg. joining Shane's team, perhaps in a subordinate position to him). So that some of the pressure of being Mr Perfect is taken off Shane's shoulders.

And Shane's arc should be about accepting that he cannot be perfect, that no one can. That he should prioritise having fun on the ice, not just succeeding (aka, chasing the objective measure of competence). That he should stop trying to rigidly control himself to an inhuman degree. And, actually, that delegating some of his duties as captain would be best for him, and ultimately for the team. (Ie. that Ilya should be there, as co-captain or alternate-captain, to share in his burden and allow him to loosen up).

Now you can see how RR has gone wrong:

Because she has blamed Ilya's problem on Shane, which isn't true (because Ilya's problem is not that he's losing since he moved for Shane: his problem is that he has a void inside and his self-esteem is tied to winning.)

She has punished Shane with Ilya's healthy-arc ending (losing and not caring), and given Shane no healthy arc (towards accepting imperfection and embracing the freedom of it) only a nihilistic 'giving up' in defeat. Partly because she just straight up would rather spend page-time on a dog than on Shane.

In fact, she has given Ilya the exact opposite of a healthy arc.

He starts as a man obsessed with the baubles he uses to fill his inner void, and that's how he ends.

For a while he loses his baubles.

But then he just... gets them back?

And no further self-exploration is done.