A Common Viktor Mischaracterization That Always Bugs Me Is When People Try To Argue That Viktor Was This

a common viktor mischaracterization that always bugs me is when people try to argue that viktor was this huge zaun activist prior to season 2 because he very clearly wasn't. a lot of the piltover characters weren't and it's easy to understand that given their privileged backgrounds but viktor's relationship with zaun is really complicated and i don't see a lot of people talking about it. i find it incredibly unlikely that he wasn't aware of the choices being made with hextech, specifically the way the hexgates contributed to the growing class divide between piltover and zaun and the choice to reroute the hexgate tunnels towards zaun so that piltover buildings weren't damaged in case of emergency

i don't really think jayce would have made those decisions without him and i think it's more likely that viktor approved those plans and turned a blind eye to the harm it was doing as a concession to ensure that progress on hextech could continue. because otherwise he and jayce wouldn't be able to get the support and funding they needed to do what they really wanted with the hex crystals. and i think that was a huge part of why, once he merged with the hexcore and it became clear that jayce was okay with their technology being used for weapons, he went to zaun to help people. because that guilt had been building up for the past 7 or so years and he was finally seeing the consequences of refusing to acknowledge the societal impacts of his technology