Jayce was an incredible friend to Viktor. In one of their first interactions, Jayce says that it’s “our hextech dream”, not just his. He offered Viktor the spotlight for Progress Day. He didn’t know Viktor was sick, and second he found out, he came running. The only thing he really did wrong was make that comment about Zaunites. Which, though tactless, was also made in a moment of unbelievable stress - literal terrorists running around.

I love Viktor, but I think people forget that he put Jayce in a difficult situation. Viktor hiding in the shadows wasn’t just a reflection of his humility and kindness. By refusing the spotlight, he also refused the responsibility that comes with that spotlight. Because Jayce was the only face of Hextech, every single thing that goes wrong with Hextech will be viewed as his fault and his fault only. Every greedy businessman and corrupt businessmen will focus their manipulations on Jayce and Jayce only. Viktor was able to bury his head in research and science solely because Jayce was handling the politics for him.

Of course, I don’t blame Viktor for trying to avoid politics. He just wanted to focus on helping people, and he is way too insecure to want that kind of attention. Also, Jayce is naturally a bit egotistical, so I doubt he minded being in the spotlight at first. But either way, the unintended consequence is that, when bad things started happening, Viktor got to run experiments in the lab and take a day trip to see Singed, while Jayce was crushed by terrifying amounts of pressure. That’s why it annoys me when people complain about Jayce hogging the spotlight, or not consulting Viktor about Hextech decisions. Viktor refused all the spotlight and all the responsibility - that’s his decision. Jayce made plenty of mistakes in Arcane, but how he treated Viktor was not one of them.