The biggest question I have for YoI right now:
Why do we know so little of Viktor’s life in Russia?
We know he spent most, if not all, of his life in St. Petersburg, and never expected to leave the city (from ep 4′s beach scene). We know that before he moved to coach Yuri in Japan he lived in an expensive looking one-bedroom apartment with Makkachin. We know Yakov has been his coach for a long time, though he is not the only coach Viktor has ever had.
That Yakov is very close to Viktor, being the only one to call him by the nickname Vitya. In fact, Yakov is also the only one who comes to see Viktor off when he leaves Russia, well he is mostly trying to talk Viktor out of leaving but you get what I’m saying. Though we don’t know who Viktor told, or how close to leaving he informed them, no one except his coach comes to see Viktor off as he is leaving the damn country for the foreseeable future with no return date in sight.
Actually, now that I’m on the subject, Viktor doesn’t seem to have any close friends at all. He has rivals in the skating world that he is friendly with, and he has Yakov, but his life ever since he was a kid has probably been centered around skating, and if he was like any other athlete at the top of their sport it probably left little time for friends outside of that realm. And everyone around him in that realm reveres him too much to see themselves as equal to the god-like Viktor Nikiforov. Yuri is the best example of this, but Chris, who is only two years younger, also looks up to him and cares more about bringing Viktor back to skating so he can finally beat his rival/idol than he cares about Viktor on a human level. Even Georgi, another Russian skater under Yakov’s tutelage that is the same age as Viktor only sees Viktor as a bar to overcome and not a human being. For a reference to other skaters having friendships: Yuri has Phichit, Yuuko, and Nishigori. Yurio has Mila, and later on Yuuko. Guang-Hong and Leo have each other and Phichit. Mila and Georgi look like they’re close given how she openly she jokes about his programs, and in the earlier episodes they’re featured together around the rink in St. Petersburg. Michele and Sala look like they’re good friends with Emil. Seung-gil doesn’t appear to have any friends, but that seems to be self-inflicted. For the most part, excluding Chris and JJ, all the other skater are shown to have friends around their own age groups that they are close with to different degrees. JJ may be similar to Viktor, in that he is a step above the rest but his narcissism prevents it from effecting him, and Chris is also quite old for a competitor and his friends may no longer be competing or competing at the same level.
With that comparison in mind, I have to mention that Viktor’s apartment in St. Petersburg, or what we see of it, is noticeably devoid of sentimental items and though it looks lived in, it still has a distinctly empty feel.
Granted it’s only one limited angle, but we still get a number of other personal touches included by the animators. Even then, there is nothing more superficial than a plant on the far table, what looks like a pile of papers on the ottoman, a few books on the close table, and a coat hanging on the rack.
For the sake of fairness, his room at Yu-topia Katsuki is also sparsely decorated:
The wall behind Yuri and Viktor is a row of doors, and the only things in his room not furniture are a set of Matryoshka dolls, a picture of himself skating, a lovely piece of art on the wall, a snow-globe, a handful of books. Again, nothing overtly personal. It looks lived in, but again strikingly empty. No photos of friends, or family, or of Viktor on vacation. The only picture is literally a photo of Viktor working (as someone on a different post pointed out it’s the same as one of the posters hanging in Yuri’s room so take from that what you will). Whatever is in all these boxes from earlier in the same episode is open to interpretation (I personally believe it’s mostly clothes and books). Also, I’ll note here that it appears Viktor shipped everything he owned ahead of him when he left, indicating that he has no intentions of going back to Russia anytime soon.
For comparison, here is a picture of Yuri’s room, after he takes down all the Viktor memorabilia:
It’s dark, but Yuri’s room is full of personal touches. But must notably, there are trophies, and a picture of his family on the bookshelf in the back. In Viktor’s rooms we see, there are no picture frames of friends or family, nothing that indicates a deeper connection in Viktor’s life than Makkachin, or Yakov. No indication of what he does in his free time aside from possibly reading, or friends he spends his time with when he’s not training. And no indication of any family to miss him when he’s living in Japan.
Now, back to my original point: Viktor has been living in Japan for roughly 8 months by episode 8. That is a long time. And it looks like he just packed up Makkachin and left on a whim within a week or two, not knowing how long he’d be gone or even if he’d return. I pointed out it looked like Viktor brought everything he owned with him, so we can assume he isn’t planning on going back to Russia anytime soon. We don’t know how much time passed between Viktor seeing the video of Yuri skating and arriving in Hatsetsu. But it wasn’t long: the video is posted April 10, and I can’t seem to find any date stamp for the day Viktor arrives but it’s less than three weeks after that. I’d guess probably less than a week. For someone who says he never expected to leave the city he’s always lived in, Viktor doesn’t seem to have anything tying him to St Petersburg, or even Russia, more significant than his skating/training. And once he decides to quit there is nothing keeping him there anymore, and he can leave without having to alert too many parties, or worry about forwarding mail, or consoling his mother that he’ll visit on holidays. Typical shit you’d expect from someone moving halfway across the world. I get it, he’s rich. But still moving, especially moving internationally, takes planning. And Viktor just kind of packs up his whole life and leaves, no questions asked. Which is weird, to me, if he has family in Russia.
So what is my point, here?
Given how central the theme love of all kinds is in this show, it is weird that we know nothing about Viktor’s family, or his past. Of the three main characters we have, Yuri, Yurio, and Viktor, we have at least a basic understanding of Yuri and Yurio’s family, and how it has affected them emotionally/professionally.
In the latest episode, we learn that Yurio’s grandpa is from Moscow, and since his grandfather used to pick him up from practice that Yurio is probably originally from Moscow as well, and now lives/trains in St Petersburg (he now lives with his ballet instructor and coach full time, according to Ep 4 and the rink Yavkov’s skaters train in is in St. Petersburg). We can infer from this that his family supports him enough to either let their fifteen-old-son live on his own in St. Petersburg, or his parents uprooted their lives and moved to St Petersburg so he could train with Yakov. Also, given several things we can probably infer his family isn’t wealthy. His grandpa picks him up in a beaten up, old, soviet-era car. He looks like he’s part of the blue-collar, working middle class. I assume Yuri’s parents benefit from his success but his family doesn’t come from any kind of wealth so any support they gave him growing up was likely financially straining. We also know that his grandfather loves him, and is still in his life and even arranges to pick his grandson up from the airport despite the fact that Yurio is staying at the hotel with the other skaters, which we know because we see him there later that day and he leaves his luggage under Mila’s care before running off to do this:
Yurio’s family had an impact on his life, and it’s part of his story. His grandfather is the epitome of unconditional love, for him, and even though he has the apparent support of his family, his grandfather doesn’t come to watch Yurio skate in the competition. We’ll likely get more development on this, and Yurio will probably have a lot of growth in the next few episodes. But family love and the effect it has is clearly important to Yurio’s story, and character development
We have a deeper insight to Yuri’s family dynamic. They have clearly provided him with love and support over the years in their own way, though the quality of that love and support, and how much it helped or hurt Yuri, is up for debate. It clearly never got through to him though, and in his own words was more “abstract”, but still the love was there. It took Viktor coming to be his coach, and showing him a new type of love for Yuri to really grasp the concept of unconditional love despite having it surrounding him the whole time. Yuri’s journey has been a blend of learning how to love someone else in a way that is more than familial love, and learning to love himself. But after a lot of character development, and some time, he has realized that he loves Viktor, as a friend, a coach, probably as a lover as well, and that love is all around him in all kinds of forms. Familial love, in Yuri’s case, was something to be worked from. It was a bedrock that Viktor’s presence built off, and bolstered. It was key for Yuri’s character development, even though the primary focus has been on his relationship with Viktor.
The point is, for two of the main character’s their families are pivotal in their character development. We know they are supported, and loved. We know Yurio’s family either moved to St Petersburg for his career, or let their teenage son move alone. We know that Yuri’s family watches all his competitions:
Last Year’s Grand Prix Final:
This year’s Cup of China:
Yuri always has someone cheering him on. Whether it’s Minako in the stands in China, Yuuko and Nishegori at the Regional Qualifiers, or his family at home. Someone, somewhere, is watching Yuri and cheering him on.
But what about Viktor? The mystery of Viktor’s origins and the lack of any showing of familial love kind of stands out. Despite what we know of him, Viktor is still the biggest enigma in the show. We know almost nothing about his background, we know nothing about his family, or his past struggles. Did his family watch all his competitions? Did they support him? Did they offer him love, and make sacrifices for his success? Were they even involved in his life? Does anyone miss him since he left for Japan? Does his mother call him asking how his day went? Was there any talk of Viktor going home on his trip to Russia to see his family, like Yurio saw his grandfather? He’s been gone for nearly a year, it wouldn’t be that out of the question. But given what we know, and what we’ve been shown, I think not.
Viktor was clearly missing something when he chose to fly to Japan to coach Yuri on a whim. And yeah, he says he came to Japan because Yuri’s skating and music and all that poetry that inspired him. And yeah, that’s probably part of it. But I think it’s something more than that.
Because I don’t think Viktor has had any kind of deep, emotional connection in a long time. Because I’ve got three possibilities for Viktor’s life and family back in Russia:
1. They’re all dead, and Viktor had been alone with just his skating and Makkachin for company for a long time.
2. They are all estranged - either they did not support Viktor’s skating or the fact that he is gay/bi/whatever - and Viktor has been alone with just his skating and Makkachin for company for a long time.
3. They really just aren’t important, or are just a normal, loving, supportive family and bringing them up isn’t relative to the plot. Which, at least to me, seems unlikely given the themes of this show.
The whole point of this is that Viktor’s life was missing something. And I think that Viktor, too, was lacking love. He doesn’t seem to have any friends, or family. His closest confidant seems to be his 70 year old coach. He has no one his age that is close to him: not other Russian skaters, not other top skaters, no one outside the skating world. He was isolated. And that was probably fine, for a while. He seems like a work-aholic that loved his job, and for a long time wasn’t bothered by the fact he had no one to go home to, or no one to spend his down time with. But when skating stopped being fun, when he stopped being able to surprise people, and everyone around him (Yakov excluded) turned into either rivals, or idol-worshiping yes-men, it probably started feeling empty.
When he first arrives in Japan, in episode 2, he is very pushy about learning things about Yuri under the auspice of needing to know everything about Yuri to coach him. But the things he asks about are pretty personal, not things one would expect a coach to need to know. Things like: what is your favorite food, what kind of rink do you skate in, what is in this city, is there someone you like, do you have feelings for Minako, do you have a lover, do you have any ex-lovers? Some of which are appropriate for a new coach to ask his new student. But most of those questions are more like things that someone might ask if they haven’t ever had a close friend, and are trying to get close to someone. This is only enhanced by the fact that when Yuri refuses to answer any questions, Viktor switches gears and starts talking about his ex-lovers instead. Which doesn’t make sense if Viktor, like he said, is trying to learn everything about Yuri and just sees their relationship as coach-student. It makes more sense if you look at it as Viktor trying to get close to Yuri as something more: as a friend.
I think that finding someone to be close to is definitely part of Viktor’s motivations on leaving Russia and flying halfway around the world to coach a flubbed foreign skater. And Yuri was probably already on Viktor’s radar before he even saw the video of Yuri skating his program. He’d probably been on Viktor’s radar since December and the GP Final, four months prior (GPF in December, Yuri disappoints at Nationals in Jan/Feb and probably graduates from college somewhere in here, fails to qualify for 4 Continents in February, and fails to qualify for Worlds in March. Returns home in March, at the same time Viktor is winning Worlds. The video is posted, and Viktor arrives in Japan in April). Where Yuri was staring at Viktor, which is probably a common occurrence given how Viktor reacts by assuming Yuri just wants a commemorative photo like any other fan, and Yuri just walks away in shock as his heart shatters because his idol just assumes he wants a stupid commemorative photo when he really just wants Viktor to acknowledge him. Look at Viktor’s reaction to Yuri walking away without a word:
That is not a happy face. That is genuine emotion, and not something he puts on for the cameras, or his fans, or basically everyone else around him. But it’s not an angry face, either. Viktor just looks kind of, I don’t know, lost. Probably because he’s never had a reaction like that to an offer for a photo-op, because who is going to pass up a chance at a photo-op with THE Viktor Nikiforov?
By this point he’s so used to people fawning over him and kissing his ass he doesn’t know how to react when he’s met with disappointment. He’s confused, and baffled by Yuri’s reaction. And the first time I watched this scene, I thought Viktor just assumed Yuri was just a fan or something and that is why Yuri is upset. But it’s not like he wouldn’t know who Yuri is. He just competed against him, and all the skaters seem to know each other in the past few episodes. There is no reason to assume Viktor and Yuri have never interacted before, in fact Yuri even says they have spoken before though not often because Yuri puts Viktor up on a pedestal. It’s not like Viktor thought Yuri was some random member of the public here. He is just assuming that a fellow skater, one of the fellow top 6 in the world, only wanted a photo-op and nothing more. And that is why Yuri is upset. And when Yuri defied his expectations of a rabid fan jumping at the chance of even being photographed with him, and just seemed disappointed with the superficial offer, it threw him off. And Viktor probably remembered this moment when he was watching that video of Yuri, I doubt it was something he easily forgot. The animators showing us Viktor’s reaction was no accident, or a way to eat up scree-time. It’s meaningful. He’s thinking about Yuri, and what made Yuri react like that.
So four months later, what Viktor sees when he watches Yuri skate in that video, and when he remembers Yuri’s reaction in that moment, he sees someone he wants to connect with, and someone who he knows wanted to connect with him too. He sees someone that he wants to be close with, and get to know deeply for what I expect to be the first time in a long time, if not the first time ever. And what he found in Yuri probably exceeded all his expectations. In the words of Chris, he found someone to protect. He found someone, for the first time, who meets him where he is, someone who sees him as something more than a rival to be defeated, or an idol to be worshiped. Someone who jokes with him, and is intimate with him, and is a companion in every sense of the word. Someone who sees him as a human being, with flaws, and weaknesses, and accepts those flaws and weaknesses as part of him and loves him still.
And that is fucking beautiful.
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