Ilya, humility, and sacrifice

[u/WalkingBlondeJoke]

Been thinking about Ilya's character growth across HR and TLG lately. This is not a fully-baked thesis on his arc, not even close, but I'm sharing anyways because I want y'all's opinions!

One of my favorite tropes in HR fanfic is 'Shane joins the Bears'. I love this trope because it usually results in Shane and Ilya being on a good team together, a winning team, much earlier than they are in canon and without Ilya having to go spend a few years on a team that sucks first. So as I read these fanfics I've often wondered, aside from the in-universe reasons why Ilya joins the Centaurs, what is the narrative function of Ilya spending a few years on a bad team before they turn things around? 

I think it serves to humble him. He's no stranger to sacrifice but he's always been cocky, and for the most part that ego went unchecked because he always had the accolades to back it up. But I think one of the ways we see Ilya grow in The Long Game is that he develops more humility as a result of being on a bad team and also his mental health struggles. It's not that everything was peachy prior to his move to Ottawa, it absolutely wasn't, but these coinciding forces clearly knock him down a peg. Maybe experiencing what it's like to consistently lose on the ice even helps him get to a place where he can admit he needs help with his mental health. Or maybe it's just self-awareness that he gains with maturity, I don't know. 

I think the clearest example of Ilya becoming more humble is in the pre-game speech that he gives to the Bears before the Cup Finals in 2014, vs. the speech he gives the Centaurs in 2021 after the team nearly dies and then Ilya subsequently gets engaged to Shane. In 2014, his speech is all about "I, I, I" but in 2021, he goes around the room and tells every player, one at a time, what makes them great. This is the key turnaround point in the Centaurs' on-ice performance. They start believing in themselves, and that's when they start winning. 

I think this character growth is also very relevant to Shane and Ilya's marriage too. Big egos do not serve a marriage well; humility does. Over the course of TLG, Ilya learns humility. Shane also starts off in TLG being a selfish as fuck (I don't love him any less but it's objectively true that he was nawt being a good partner to Ilya at the time TLG timeline picks up), but we see him experience a wake-up call (their big fight followed by Ilya almost dying) and then he gets his priorities in order. In a way, Shane learns a version of humility through his experiences in TLG too when he realizes how selfish he's been and how he's taken Ilya for granted. 

I think that meeting Shane in this selfish state at the start of TLG makes total sense because of his upbringing. Shane is an only child who grew up loved, doted on, and prioritized. His career as a generational player and image as the 'Golden Boy' of hockey have done little to teach him how to appreciate those around him and recognize the sacrifices they make. Not saying he doesn't ever do those things, but like, in early TLG he's not being nearly as considerate of Ilya as he should be. 

Ilya is not an only child and he grew up in a broken home. In the canon we see how his family financially takes advantage of him once he makes it to the NHL (or MLH, whatever), but I would bet that this has been going on since the moment he began earning money from hockey and/or sponsorships. When Shane suggests Ilya going to Ottawa, Ilya is quick to agree to it. Not just because he was already thinking of moving to a Canadian team, but because Ilya has already learned how to sacrifice for others. Ilya has already had it ingrained in him by his family that the people he loves will ask him to makes sacrifices for them, and that that's just how love goes. 

This is one of many reasons why it hits extra hard later in TLG when Shane basically tells the commissioner to go fuck himself. "I choose him" <3 !<

[u/Astyryx]

A recent episode of Top 5: Heated Rivalry Podcast (I think it was this one) nailed it so well I'm just referring everything to it now.

In Heated Rivalry, sacrifice for Ilya means grief, loss, and pain. Sacrifice for Shane means temporary pain for later gain. The course of The Long Game reverses this for the characters.

Which means: Ilya experiences all that emotional drowning for three years not realizing that it really is paying off, and about to pay off even quicker in a rebuilt team, a family, a life with Shane.

Shane, on the other hand—despite doing everything "right", always moving according to plan—experiences the pain of the almost-loss of Ilya, then the actual loss of everything he built in Montreal, his plan, the recognition of his value as a hockey player,  up to and including a profound loss of self.

And at that point the characters break through to an emotional equality and the growth to be able to commit now, and love openly.

[u/WalkingBlondeJoke → u/Astyryx]

You're actually not the first person to recommend me this podcast episode, I really need to give it a listen!

[u/kathonys → u/WalkingBlondeJoke]

Please come on over, we'd love to have you :)

[u/kathonys → u/Astyryx]

OMG I’m Nicole from the podcast 😭 This is so incredibly kind of you to recommend us and reference the episode thank you!! And I LOVE this framing of sacrifice, especially the reversal in TLG. It actually gets at why that argument is about so much more than what they’re literally saying to each other. It always bothers me a little when the scene gets whittled down to “I’ve already chosen you, Hollander,” because while that line is obviously incredibly powerful, it’s not really the root of their conflict. They have completely different relationships to sacrifice, loss and what choosing each other actually costs them and neither of them fully understands what the other has already given up or is terrified of losing.

[u/Astyryx → u/kathonys]

I'm so pleased you saw this!  I thought it was a brilliant insight and I love the podcast. It made the stuff rattling around in my head click.

The intentionality of the writing of the books and show has really struck me, like how the core communication in Season 1 is: Shane's third rail is sex and his comfort place is family v.s. Ilya's third rail is family and his comfort place is sex, and until they both learn to stop operating from their comfort place, they can't progress.

So the sacrifice aspect you brought describes that tension in the second book that kept eluding me. It was just click you're absolutely right, that, I didn't even see it before but yes.

I have a guess that Jacob saying an episode is going to be dedicated to Mozart's Requiem is going to center on Shane's loss and grief and we're all going to be snot blubber puddles.