Our rival, Victoria

[Maqqy]

Let's talk about Victoria for a minute. Victoria for me, has the least amount of impact and personality in Reborn. She is our rival and yet, I find her to be that annoying friend that only holds you down while you continue to thrive. Most of the time she only blocks you in your progress as if that's her only job. When Reborn was rebuilt I hoped that she would improve even a little bit and she kind of did, but it fell short. She just continues to be a poor ally who lacks growth comparing with Fern and Cain and it just pains me slightly that she will never reach that point. I'm hoping that in E18 she will prove herself and have her moment because in all honestly, her character is bland and without significance whatsoever.

[Guest Relinquished]

Agreed. But she has it hard, though. Cal's betrayal, Kiki dying, her failing to live up to her master's expectations... She is nothing short of "shattered", of sorts.

 

Cal is similar, in a number of ways. Ep18 should do the both of them, some good, they badly need it. Btw, they would make a perfect couple/group, much like Hardy and Aya!

[Wolfox]

I actually disagree, for the most part. While she does seem like a hurdle most of the time, the majority of the times she "get's in your way" she does so for quite a valid reason. In the Slums, she wants to make sure you can handle it and if not protect you. With Shelly, she wants to stop you for a bit so Shelly can really set her mind straight after what had happened. With Kiki, she just learned that the woman she respected and maybe loved as a mother was dying and most likely wanted Kiki to not strain herself too much, thus trying to stop you. While the actions she takes were not the best ones, they were the best she could think of in said situations. and considering she's 15/16 years-old, iirc, she would still be a bit rash in judgment with the situations. Development wise, however, I do quite agree that she got the short end of the stick. though that can kinda be blamed on her having to stay at Apothyll and being MIA for a pretty long portion of the game

[Azeria]

Pretty boring honestly. Find Fern and Cain to be miles better in terms of character writing and actually being a rival.

[Egzample]

In other words, she is completely obsolete to the story - sadly, cause she had a lot of potential at the beginning. Now throwing her into the middle of action would feel forced imo.

[FairFamily]

Victoria is character where I have a guess what they are/were going with but doesn't really fit in the/a story. Now to me Victoria feels like the normal/weak one with a kind heart which is forced to accept life as it goes: her crush betrayed her, her sensei is dead, didn't got a single badge, she never had any major acts of victory (unlike cain or fern for instance), she lost several times against the MC. Weakness is to me what defines Victoria. She even accepts it after Lin's trap which supposed to make her surpass Kiki (which kinda is). She is weak.

 

But here is the problem: Vicoria does nothing. Her constant failures combined with her acceptances of the situations as they go, makes her do nothing. Her only 'action' in the story is being a roadblock. In a story it seems weird because action makes the plot move forward. Mind you doing nothing can be an action since you can deny something from happening, like being a council that clings to the old ways. She is like a leave in the winds: scenery.

[Guest Relinquished]

By the way, unlike Fern, her new starter suits her a bit. Fragile/scaredy cat, instead of fat fighter!

[Commander]

(Sees post and adds "Victoria Character Analysis" to his list of topics to do)

[ZEL]

There are actually a few things I really like about Victoria.
One is that I see her defining character trait to be that she is protective.
She sees you, a then relatively new trainer, wanting to pass through a dangerous area, and worries about you. She sees you wanting to battle a little girl who just saw the dead body of her best and only friend's father splattered all over the ground next to her gym - and she wants to stop you, because she wants to protect a deeply shaken Shelly. She sees Kiki fall, knowing that she's nearing the end of her strength? She wants her mentor/parental figure to rest, to protect her.

Victoria always has other people's wellbeing in mind, and while it makes her a roadblock to us, it goes to show how much she cares - even if she is lacking the wisdom to understand that her actions are often not the best choice.

 

She also seems to struggle deeply with one of the very lessons that Kiki wants us to learn - "We mustn't let our inner turmoil complicate outside affairs."

I find it really interesting to see Victoria struggle with what her feelings tell her - wanting to unleash hell upon the people who are responsible for killing Kiki and hurting so many people - and sticking to Kiki' principles of learning how to stay calm, collected, and above your impulses.

She knows that Kiki would not want her to act in violent rage, yet she has a definite wish for revenge that she finds hard to suppress. She talks to us about it during E16, and there's the whole bit about the grunt getting knocked out by her after taunting her about Kiki.

Victoria wants to live up to what she thinks Kiki expected her to be, but she keeps running into situations in which she fails this. It gnaws on her because all she wants is to make Kiki proud, yet she feels that she isn't able to.

 

I think a lot of Victoria's behavior, and her flip-flopping back and forth between being confident and determined or not, comes from her trying to figure out what Kiki would want her to do/be. She has always looked up to Kiki as the person who knows what to do, and her approach to any situation seems to be "what would Kiki tell me" - so she beats herself down when she does things that she thinks her mentor wouldn't approve of, and feels lost when she can't figure out what to do.

She is dependent on her dead mentor figure. She finds it incredibly hard to be on her own, to make her own decisions, and to push through without knowing if she would have the approval of the person she looked to for directions for so many years.

 

Victoria's problem is that she is trying to copy Kiki, trying to be just like her, when Kiki really wanted her to use her lessons to grow into her own person who is strong by body and mind.

And I think this is the thing that Kiki wanted to break by sending Victoria away. I think she was aware that Victoria was lacking independence, and hoped that traveling Reborn to take on the league would help her mature into her own person. That she would learn to make and trust her own decisions. Wean her out of needing an authority figure to point the way. (Especially in the light of the fact that Kiki knew she was dying from her condition.)

 

I think the basic idea of her character arc is that she has to learn to be confidently independent and incorporate Kiki's lessons into her growth, but the abruptness with which she was thrown into a life in which there is no more Kiki at all to provide counsel and reassurance, is what makes things so hard for her.

She wasn't so much weaned out of dependence, as tossed right into the cold water.

[uberle]

I actually like Victoria even though she does relatively little.

But I feel that's kind of on purpose.

She doesn't really have much reason to fight Meteor.

But she has good reasoning to stay at Apophyll while we go out and fight Meteor

 

Compared to Cain and Fern, Victoria doesn't have as much a reason to fight Meteor.

The only thing would be that Solaris killed Kiki, but with Kiki gone Victoria decides to stay behind and trusts that the player will fight Meteor for her, which they do.

Cain gets involved through Heather, who he wants to protect, and then he continues to assist the player against Meteor as things go on.

And Fern....

Fern, being the self absorbed a-hole he is, believes that the PC will amount to nothing and Meteor will win, and so decides to join them.

 

Instead of charging ahead with everyone else Victoria wishes to stay behind and try to fix the damage wrought by Meteor.

She's not really a fighter, and ends up replacing Ame after the Hydreigon incident as the one who helps the player at the gyms.

But if she were to get a bigger role for E18, I wouldn't mind.

[BaratheonStag]

The virgin Victoria vs the CHAD Cain

[Maqqy]

Victoria only really had good intentions and the determination to get stronger is there... but it lacks action. I guess my problem with her is that she isn't really much of a rival. In some ways she reminds me of Hugh in Black and White 2, where she rather acts as a comrade to aide you in your road to success and help you in every step of the way. There's nothing wrong with that, but I feel like she isn't that relevant anymore considering her build up from the beginning was good. Her protectiveness is overshadowed by her role as a roadblock because of how less her impact is. I like Victoria and her character, but the role she plays in the game is what upsets me. She has so much potential to grow even more. There are two episodes left, so there is still room for her to shine.

[GenEric]

and then she is the champion of reborn

just like hau

what

[iDunno]

Honestly, I think the community is waaay too hard on her. She is supposed to be like Calem/Serena in XY, or Hau in Sun/Moon: she always tries her best, but no matter how hard she tries, she will never catch up to the PC, because PC (which, if you think about it, is actually kind of sad).

 

I actually really like her. Considering the sheer amount of weird and histrionic characters scattered throughout Reborn (including the two other rivals), I think it's refreshing to interact with someone who's more down-to-earth. Though I guess that's one of the reasons most people don't care for her.

 

I remember being genuinely sad when she revealed she wasn't going to be able to travel throughout Reborn anymore, and being happy when she returned in E16. And saying that she doesn't do anything in the story is a huge stretch, considering she's as responsible for the restoration of Reborn as Adrienn.  With that said, she really does need a bit more spotlight in the next episodes, which I hope we get.