does viktor still play the violin :(
viktor hasn't played the violin since the 2019 apocalypse. and it’s not that he’s totally against ever picking one up again, it’s just a source of so much trauma that he’s still working through. as he said in season 4, he has a love-hate relationship with it. there was so much that he loved about it. there’s also so much he resented, even before he made it a weapon.
reginald letting viktor have the violin is such a defining moment in his life— it’s one of the few good memories that he has with his father, one of the few that doesn’t necessarily feel tainted by their surroundings or was later ruined by some other self discoveries. for all his life up until that moment, there really wasn’t anything for him to do. he watched his siblings from the sidelines and was constantly feeling less and less like he was actually even a part of the family, because he was always on the outside with nothing to do. it made him antsy, it made him even more eager to find his way into the team. that never really stopped even after he discovered the violin, but it at least kept him busy, which made things comfortable for reginald, i’m sure.
so finally, viktor has something to do. something that’s just his. something that makes him feel special, even if it doesn’t necessarily make him seem special to everyone else. all of his siblings have their own powers and skills— but viktor never had that. and then suddenly, here he is, learning a musical instrument and he is the one with his very own skill. and that makes him really proud. violin music is practically a constant soundtrack to his siblings’ days, viktor is always present even when he doesn’t necessarily feel it ( and even when his siblings don't necessarily notice, too. something i would imagine they actually start to miss once they’re apart. )
when viktor leaves home, the violin is all he’s really known. he doesn’t have much of an identity out of being the ordinary one of the family— and even that is hardly an identity, given that he’s the unknown + forgotten member of the family, not even a member of the team, so when he’s finally free to be on his own: who is he? he never really answers that question for himself pre-series. he has to build a life for himself now that he’s finally free, and yet, to him, his only real value is the violin.
and he’s the only one who played it at home, so he thinks that maybe, he could be the best at something. finally. it’s not that he necessarily has a dream of being some big symphony star, but— he thinks he could be even better in a professional setting and this is his chance to make a name for himself, for the first time in his life. and then he spends years never making first chair, even when he felt it in reach, and it was just another reminder that no matter how good he was at anything, he’d never be extraordinary. helen hadn’t been unseated in five years, and viktor admired her, basically putting himself in the same cycle he grew up in— the person with special talent that he looked up to didn’t believe he would ever be special enough.
so he tries to teach violin lessons because— again, what else does he have? and maybe he’s better at that than actually playing in the orchestra, something he has to come to accept as he watches kids who are already proving that they’re going to end up way better than viktor. viktor tries to work on his skills, tries to do what he can to be even better, but ultimately, he can never reach any real perfection.
he gets to a point when he realizes that playing violin is… all he really has. and he’s kind of lost himself in it, wondering if he ever truly liked it or if it was just all there was for him to do. even helen didn’t believe viktor had any real passion in it. and part of viktor is very aware of this, but he likes music, and he’s held onto it for so long, it’s hard to imagine himself without it.
there’s a lot i could say if i had the words right now to discuss how the violin was the perfect weapon for him to wield at the end of the world because of how his ‘love’ for it started, but— this is exactly why he hasn’t picked it up again. it’s not even necessarily that he’s scared of the power that was in his hands with it, it’s just that it’s attached to so much trauma now. and once his memories came back to him in the ‘60s, he had to face the fact that he really didn’t love playing the violin as much as he thought he did. or if anything, he liked it as a hobby— not necessarily as a performer, because viktor wasn’t meant for the spotlight, so he didn’t know what to do in it.
obviously in season 2, he doesn’t have his memories, so he doesn’t know he played the violin ( though the scene of sissy feeling his hands to try to figure it out, deeply important to me. + i do think if he were to pick one up, he’s surprise himself with the muscle memory. ) obviously, season 3 is only a few days, so it never made sense for him to play, or really even talk about it then. but with him going on his own way post season 3 + being without powers, he does have the chance to play again. but he doesn’t. he’s trying to move on with his life and also try to build a life for himself for the first time, and the idea of picking up a violin scares him, because it feels like going backwards. and he’s doing everything he can to not go backwards. he has to get to a place where he can accept that it can just be a casual hobby for him, and then he might try again— but until he’s comfortable enough with that thought, he avoids it.
there’s a stage in his bar that is crucial to all of this, at least to me. that’s an addition viktor added once he made the bar his own. music is important to him, and he wants to be around it, wants to invite local bands / artists in to play without the pressure that viktor’s been used to back when he was in the orchestra. he wants it to be fun and for people to discover new music and he wants to be around it himself. this is him slowing getting close to a day in which he picks up a violin again, but honestly, i like the idea of him trying to learn a new instrument strictly for fun. i think it would be good for him and it would be easier for him to accept a more casual approach to music and ultimately get him back to a place where he can love the violin again.
anyway. this is a long way to say no, he doesn’t <3 but that’s not to say he won’t ever again!
