Honestly part of what makes yuri on ice such a masterpiece is the complete 180 Yuuri and Viktor’s power balance does over the course of the show, from the audience’s perspective. Because we’re seeing everything from Yuuri’s perspective, we start the show thinking Viktor is 100x the skater Yuuri ever was and that Viktor, as the coach and Completely Superior Skater, is the party holding most if not all of the power in the relationship. Since he’s presented as Yuuri sees him—the unbeatable legendary skater and suave, unattainable bachelor, in every way superior to Yuuri—that is how we the audience perceive him as well. It colors how we see all of their interactions, especially since Yuuri is so uncomfortable with this perceived power differential.
But as the show goes on that starts to change. We start to see Viktor as more vulnerable than he lets on, with the subtle moment on the beach, or Viktor applying Yuuri’s lip balm or kissing Yuuri’s skate. And then there are all of Yuuri’s attempts to prove with skating that he is deserving of Viktor’s time and effort, like transforming his Eros for onsen on ice, adding his jumps back at the regional block competition, landing the flip at cup of china, or skating his SP perfectly at rostelecom partially because he knew all of Russia wanted him to prove that Viktor was too good for him. And there’s the physical things too- blowing him a kiss from center ice, grabbing his tie, those moments that put Yuuri solidly in control. Viktor always goes along with these happily, and in episode 7 Yuuri’s actions make Viktor, previously tightly controlled in front of the media, lose his sense of propriety altogether and tackle-kiss Yuuri on national television. All these moments, culminating in Yuuri buying the rings in Barcelona, lead to their relationship becoming almost even in power in the eyes of Yuuri and therefore the audience.
And then the twist: turns out, for Viktor, the roles have been completely reversed the whole time.
In light of the end of episode 10 and our first real peek into Viktor’s point of view, nearly everything we know about the development of their relationship changes. From the beginning, Viktor felt like Yuuri was the one who had all of the power. Moments from the first few episodes that at first glance seemed to establish Viktor’s dominance (him greeting Yuuri in his own home with his dick out, him announcing he’s going to be Yuuri’s coach as if Yuuri has no say in the matter or else no reason to ever say no, his early pushy physical advances, him assigning Yuuri sexual love as a theme, something he is so clearly unfit for, him making Yuuri prove his worthiness in onsen on ice, etc) now read as Viktor doing his best to read and predict the man he’s so clearly pining for and taking risks as a result (Yuuri barging in on Viktor in the onsen when he clearly knew Viktor would have been naked and Viktor logically assuming, based off of this and the last time they met, that Yuuri is very comfortable with nudity and standing up to greet Yuuri with his dick out, Viktor announcing he heard Yuuri’s call to him and remembers and wants to follow through on Yuuri’s request to have Viktor as his coach, Viktor coming onto Yuuri because last they left off Yuuri was humping his leg and what else could Yuuri possibly want from Viktor Nikiforov besides sex and skating advice, Viktor assigning Yuuri eros because that is _clearly_ in his wheelhouse based off of Viktor’s one other time meeting him, Viktor creating onsen on ice as a creative, face-saving way to determine if Yuuri actually does want him as his coach, and on and on). It is Viktor who is constantly putting himself out there, Viktor who is constantly being rejected, Viktor who is so clearly head-over-heels in love with this boy who is giving him like fifty mixed signals per hour. From Viktor’s point of view, he starts out the series completely at Yuuri’s mercy, and that starts to change throughout the show until they end up in a loving relationship where they both know they are equals.
And that (is one of the many things that) makes Yuri on Ice’s storytelling so brilliant— that the show’s huge back-half twist seems, at first glance, to be no big deal, because yeah okay cool they met beforehand and Yuuri was absolutely wild, that’s funny, and Yuuri asked him to coach him, ok that makes more sense, cool. But the more you think about it, the more you realize that this isn’t just some amusing backstory. No, it’s much more than that— it completely revolutionizes the way both Yuuri and the audience perceive their relationship and their love story by flipping that initial power imbalance in its head, and therefore the show as a whole.
In the end, it’s a show about two people who think they’re unworthy of each other’s love and affection that do everything they can to try to prove themselves— only to realize that never needed to do that, because they each have been respected, cherished, and pined-after by the other since the very beginning. It’s two people learning how to love each other and how to be loved in turn. It’s two people creating a relationship beautifully _equal_ because it’s founded off of their mutual and infinite love for each other.
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