I wanna talk about Viktor’s room at the Katsukis’ Onsen.
A room says a lot about you. I mean, just look at Yuuri’s room. We are made to understand right from the start who he is.
Yuuri’s room was designed to really hammer the point across that he’s the biggest Nikiforov fan out there. And let’s be honest, although we learn a lot about who Yuuri is, from his anxiety to his competitiveness, his developing relationship with Viktor is the heart of Yuri!!! On Ice.
Viktor has moved into his new room temporarily but he’s pretty damn extra and brought everything with him so there’s a lot in there to look at.
So essentially this is Viktor’s room. It’s pretty self-explanatory for the most part. We’ve got the lamps he clearly likes as we see them in his Russian apartment in ep 1. Matryoshka dolls, because he Russian duh, giant bed to share with Makka, books to read. Then there’s a large artsy painting of a woman and a, no doubt heavy af, stone sculpture. These two things show that Viktor’s got money, that he’s classy, and that he’s extra. All pretty straightforward.
So what really interests me about Viktor’s room is the photo frame. More specifically, the frame that holds a picture of himself.
Unlike painting and posters, photo frames are far more personal.
Yuuri has posters of his idol, okay yes there are a lot, but it’s still pretty regular behaviour. But something that I, and many others from what I’ve seen, found super endearing was that he had multiple framed photos of Viktor. That’s far more personal, and it really hinted at Yuuri’s stronger feelings.
So then we have Viktor’s room, and the only photo frame he brings with him holds a picture of himself.
At first, I thought damn isn’t that arrogant? So conceited, it’s actually a bit cringe even.
But then, this is Viktor. Yes he’s a legend, yes he knows it, but he’s never truly flaunted it. That doesn’t seem very in character to present him this way.
I wondered if maybe it was Yuuri who put it in there. After all, Yuuri clearly had the same poster–
– which we saw him take down from his room.
But then, that seems unlikely. That would defy the point of hiding the posters in the first place! Plus, look at Viktor moving in.
The room is completely bare, there wasn’t anything in there. Everything came from Viktor’s boxes. The frame had to have been his.
So, thinking of what I know of Viktor, one of the things that stands out the most about him was that skating was his everything. No life and love as he much later explained, but that was fair to assume even in ep 1, given that he was a legend. The sport clearly took up a lot of time!
If someone wanted to frame a picture, what would they pick? A picture of their family? A shot of them with their friends? A cute pic of them and their dog? It would be a picture close to them, something or someone that matters. And what does Viktor have?
A picture of himself skating.
Because his whole life has been his skating career, he pretty much knows nothing else. He even admitted that he rarely got to spend time with Makkachin before.
Looking at it that way, the picture is suddenly really sad.
When you move to another country, you’d want a reminder of the people you love, of home. Viktor brings a reminder of skating because it’s all he’s known, and it’s the thing he’s going to miss most.
Because, think about it. He skates and skates and skates, and now it stops. He knows that choosing to be a coach means putting skating aside. His skating is framed there on his table, because it’s like looking at a missed loved one for him.
But this is actually really beautiful. Because, throughout the entire series, we don’t really see a Viktor who mourns the fact that he’s not practicing a routine for himself. Yuuri doesn’t catch him skating by himself thoughtfully, missing having the ice all to himself. Not once do we see that on their journey! Viktor is completely engrossed in coaching Yuuri, and now he only skates to teach him. His devotion is so genuine. I knew that Viktor loved Yuuri to have put everything on hold like that for him, but I didn’t know it like this.
I really want to see Victor’s photo frame in season 2. My money’s on Yuuri being in that picture.
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