#jayvik analysis

Even Viktor saw that. He literally tells Jayce to go - go and claim his life back, live out all the years that Viktor doesn't have.

But he doesn't. Because even if all that is waiting for him, the one thing that always mattered most was Viktor. Above all, above anything Jayce could ever conjure up in his head or his hands, Viktor took precedence. There was nothing - and is nothing - that would ever trump him.

Jayce's final act was one of love. He couldn't stop Viktor from dying, but he could give him comfort. He could reinforce, with his last, dying minutes, that Viktor *did* matter to someone.

here is the playlist and here is the first of 5 parts (each around 40-50 mins):

some quotes i ended up saving under the cut:

this moment…

where jayce is staring ahead after working on some weapons utilizing hextech for caitlyn & the gang, and then we get a jumpcut to who?

viktor. viktor, viktor, viktor.

could it be possible that while working on the hextech weapons, he could’ve not just been thinking about viktor being disappointed in him for continuing to weaponize hextech, but also thinking about how he needed to for viktor’s protection.

then, from that thought, he realized just how much he’s willing to do anything to have viktor stay with him even if it meant breaking viktor’s promises again and again. because viktor staying alive is his priority.

and remember this follows after the attack during the memorial service, and look at how angry jayce looks along with having some determination to his expression, too.

Thinking about "in all timelines, in all possibilities" where mage!Viktor was talking about how Jayce is the only person who can stop him from becoming a reckoning god and turning the world into a sheer wasteland of puppet purgatory.

But really? All timelines? Did he not count the happy AU that Ekko and Heimerdinger were sent to? No, Viktor didn't count that timeline. Because in that timeline, Hextech was never invented because Jayce (likely) succeeded in taking his own life when the explosion killed Vi. Viktor wouldn't have had the power to become the Machine Herald without the hexcore, but he damn well could have done some sketchy ass shit (especially with Singed) if he wanted to "help people". Not apocalyptic, but y'know, questionable shit. Honestly, who knows what could have happened.

But mage!Viktor doesn't count this universe, why? Because he never visited it. He never travelled to a universe where Jayce Talis was dead.

Coincidently this also brings up the notion of, why did he keep going back in time to give baby Jayce the rune in the first place? Or, better yet, not save him and his mother and let them perish in the snowstorm? No Jayce Talis = no Hextech = no Machine Herald. Viktor could have just not intervened and prevented the chain of events that would lead him to the "dreamless solitude".

But no. Every time Viktor saved Jayce and gave him a runestone. Every time he gave Jayce a chance to save him from what he would become. Because even though Viktor knew he would do terrible things he'd come to regret, he still couldn't let Jayce die or deny each of them experience of being partners.

I mean there’s the obvious example of the weird moves that Viktor pulls when grappling/choking Jayce and whatnot, but I was thinking. Choking/grappling is really common in arcane. Arcane has a ton of different fights, so, why is this one different? I’m not a fighting expert, this is just my observation.

The main 2 matchups I’m thinking about to compare are Jinx vs Ekko and Vi vs Sevika.

Jinx and Ekko are literally a canon couple, and yet their fight didn’t have much romantic tension at all. Instead they focus on the nostalgia aspect, paralleling the childish, rebellious aspect of fighting vs the brutal reality. It’s more about the dichotomy, so it makes sense why there wasn’t much romantic tension, despite Ekko literally straddling Jinx when he’s about to make the final hit.

With Vi vs Sevika, the tension is a lot more clear, with Sevika slowing down, making intentional moves as a power play (ex. Holding Vi’s chin, pinning her against the wall with her arm) but it doesn’t read as odd for a few reasons, I think. One, the age difference between Vi and Sevika. Sevika was shown before the explosion looking relatively similar to her act 2-3 appearance, so it’s inferred that she’s a lot older, and therefore, more experienced. 2 is the lack of history between them. Vi and Sevika had never formally interacted before their fight, only going off the face that she knew where Jinx was.

I feel like both of these factors make Sevika sort of playing with Vi more of a predator vs prey dynamic, or, David vs Goliath kind of. We know Sevika’s capability and status as Silco’s right hand woman at this point. We’ve seen Vi fight too, (even more) but it still feels like a power imbalance imo

This kind of power play is what the writers intended to do with the Viktor fight, I presume, but it ended coming across as really weird.

That's always the part that gets me about things like Jayce and Viktor- they aren't just *soulmates.* That implies a single connection tethered to one aspect of a person. Just their core. But these two somehow went out and made the very concept of time and space depend on their union.

I truly believe that they save each other in every timeline. And in the timelines they don't meet in, they aren't saved at all. The alternate timeline that Ekko and Heimerdinger enter is proof of this. Jayce ended up taking his own life, and Viktor was doomed to die off-screen somewhere, choking on his own air.

They cannot exist without each other. And (though implied), the show tells us that the universe can't, either. At least not a part of it. There's always going to be a pit somewhere in the timeline, a little ripple that can't be sewn back together. They ARE the stitches.

What's terrifying, though, is that I also believe the union makes them suffer. It can't be easy, meeting someone so specially designed for you that it breaks the very fabric of time. Can you even comprehend how earth-shattering that would be? It was never on screen, but there was definitely some instance of both Jayce and Viktor realizing just *how deep* the connection went.

It could've been a night out to celebrate a break-through, or maybe sitting by their lonesome in separate apartments. Either way, something had to have brought the realization up. Staring up at their ceilings and, with all the brunt something like that brings, coming to the conclusion of "I love him. I love him more than anything I could ever comprehend."

It would've happened early on, too. The first weeks or months of working together. I can almost feel the sensation it'd bring, realizing that your entire life led up to that *one* meeting. That *one* connection. That the person sitting across from me, arguing mathematical formulas, was the single greatest thing I'd ever have in my life.