About the flying pigeon in the trailer
When Victor skates out onto the ice and greets the audience there’s a split second of a common pigeon flying through the frame. The direction of its flight caught my attention: it comes from the same direction as Victor and flies high and above into the direction he’s facing (forward).
After some quick googling about bird symbolism and meaning the following appears to be the general consensus:
birds as a connection between heaven and earth/messengers between the divine and humans
being good or bad omens depending on bird species and way of encounter (I.e. flying vs. dead bird)
in general they have the meaning of freedom and ease due to their ability to fly (as well as being able to walk/run, swim and dive)
“They encourage us to aim high and realize our goals despite the challenges we might face as we chase those dreams.”
Source: https://www.richardalois.com/symbolism/bird-symbolism
In my opinion there’s a distinction to be made between the white dove and the common pigeon in terms of symbolism. I don’t think their symbolism differs all that much, just that a white dove has more weight in its meaning, so to say (I.e. all the added religious/spiritual meanings). The following I think can easily be applied to common pigeons (I barely found results discussing them, the focus was always on the white doves):
gentle, peaceful, and loving creatures. They can be domesticated as a pet and be quite devoted to their human
Resilient and adaptive (they are found almost everywhere in the world)
“Dove symbolism can also be heralding an end of a problematic cycle in your life, thereby announcing a time of new worlds opening up to you. In other words, there are possibilities of a new romance, new friendships, and new beginnings on the horizon for you.”
Source: https://www.richardalois.com/symbolism/bird-symbolism
“Doves are a good omen, meaning representing deep personal peace or the clearing of one’s troubled mind. They are found across many cultures and religions, most of which carry the same meaning.”
Source: https://chipperbirds.com/bird-symbol/
I especially liked the quotes I found and think they might be fitting in this case. I don’t want to interpret too much but a few things seem to be fair guesses:
Victor will have a successful showing at the Olympics (in ep. 10 where Victor narrates one of the medals his Chibi self is holding in the beginning is the Torino 2006 Olympic gold medal–however it appears that the 2006 Olympics in the YOI verse take place in Paris, still it’s a hint)
Edit 2: the rink we see in the teaser might not be the Olympic rink, but from a competition at the beginning of the season, possibly the Trophée Eric Bompard, aka the grad prix qualifier event in France. The rink boards during the Olympics don’t feature sponsors but just the chosen colour (-scheme) of the Olympic cycle and the Olympic rings, whereas all the other skating competitions always have sponsor ads on the rink boards, just like the rink in the teaser.
The combination of the flight direction of the dove, the concentrated, centered appearance of young Victor in the teaser and the first quote about Dove symbolism all tie nicely together
The dove isn’t exactly supposed to be in the rink at that moment which is why I looked into bird/dove/pigeon symbolism in the first place
Edit 1: apparently the pigeon lives in the rink/arena irl? Which means that again SayoKubo pay insane amounts of attention to detail.
Victor was still in the junior division when he was 16. The skating season starts in September with Senior competitions (juniors start a bit earlier) and goes until the end of March/beginning of April. For him to be at the Olympics when he’s 17 years old means it’s his first senior season during which he turned 17. (He basically pulled a Zagitova: join the senior division in the olympic year. I wouldn’t put it past Sayo/Kubo to use Alina as an inspiration here tbh.)
This ties well with the meaning of new beginning/the start of a new era that the quote mentions but can also be interpreted into the flight of the pigeon that the teaser shows.
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