Victor in Natural Beauty: The Secret Sponsor Who Exploits Anna

Overview of Victor Carroll in Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang — The Secret Sponsor Who Exploits Anna — Victor Character Analysis — Victor Carroll is the wealthy owner of Organic Provisions, the parent company of the luxury wellness store Holistik, and the novel's primary antagonist. He first appears in the opening chapter as a tall man in a black suit who catches a falling vial, and the narrator immediately senses something familiar about him. Over the course of the novel, Victor's role expands from distant corporate figurehead to secret sponsor, manipulator, and ultimately the orchestrator of Anna's physical and psychological exploitation. His backstory follows a rags-to-riches trajectory: he grew up impoverished with an absent father and a constantly pregnant mother, clawed his way to Caltech where he revolutionized suturing technology, and made his fortune through tech startups, venture capital, and crypto investments, becoming a billionaire before age twenty-five. He later gave Saje the capital to start Organic Provisions when he was twenty-eight. His interest in beauty products began when his third wife received a botched Botox treatment and Saje repaired her face with the Chaoshan Mud Treatment. This origin story is important for understanding Victor's character: his obsession with beauty is rooted in a childhood marked by neglect and his belief that beauty can transform a person's life. The novel presents this as both genuine conviction and a dangerous rationalization for control. For a broader look at how Victor's philosophy drives the novel's central conflicts, see the main book page. ## Plot Role — Victor functions as the hidden architect of Anna's life. He secretly sponsored her conservatory education, arranged for Professor Zsaborsky to teach her, and attended her recitals—all without her knowledge. When she begins working at Holistik, he appears regularly for treatments, observing employees and making adjustments to their appearances through Saje's discreet suggestions. His semiannual review with Anna in Chapter Nineteen is the moment his role shifts from background presence to active manipulator, as he reveals his sponsorship and renames her Anna. From that point, Victor's control escalates. He oversees the Apothecare facility where Anna is exploited, and he personally proposes the Everlasting procedure—a hybridization treatment that would produce a shorter pregnancy with no physical changes to the woman. When Saje declares Anna a risk, Victor overrides her, calling Anna an asset because of her constitution and the investment in optimizing it. His final act in the novel is the attempted murder of Anna, which she survives by redirecting a giant mirror to focus sunlight on him, setting him on fire. Victor's role is thus twofold: he is both the benefactor who made Anna's musical career possible and the exploiter who treats her body as raw material for his experiments. This duality is central to the novel's critique of how wealth and patronage can mask exploitation. ## Motivations and Traits — Victor's stated motivation is the creation and preservation of beauty. He tells Anna about discovering the Elizabeth Street Garden as a child, watching a peony bud unfold, and deciding to emulate that transformation in his own life. He believes beauty penetrates deeply into the heart of what connects us as humans. This philosophy justifies his control over women's bodies, his exploitation of animals and nature, and his willingness to destroy anything that threatens his vision. His actions reveal a more complex set of motivations. The documentary released after the fire traces his obsession with dominance over women's bodies to his childhood: his mother was abused by his father and eventually fled, leaving Victor and his siblings with an alcoholic parent. The narrator notes that his childhood was the perfect catalyst for Everlasting. His first wife's death and his controversial decision to destroy a forest of ancient trees to preserve her in amber suggests a refusal to accept loss or impermanence. Victor's traits include extreme control, manipulation, and a disturbing ability to reframe exploitation as generosity. He tells Anna he created opportunities for her when he was actually subjecting her to experimental procedures. He presents the Everlasting partnership as a courtesy he doesn't extend to everyone, even as he covers her nose and mouth with a cloth when she hesitates to sign. His face—described as doughy, with grafted skin that sits unnaturally—symbolizes the artificiality of his entire project. When the fire consumes his grafts, the narrator sees his ordinary face beneath and thinks he looks more handsome than ever. The novel suggests that his pursuit of beauty has made him monstrous, and that his true face, however ordinary, is more honest. ## Chronological Arc — Victor's arc moves from distant benefactor to intimate threat. In the early chapters, he is a figure of wealth and mystery—the man with leopard slugs on his face, the subject of internet speculation about his possible descent from Norse deities. The narrator's online research in Chapter Seven reveals his public persona: philanthropist, art collector, founder of medical technology companies, and the subject of lawsuits from ex-wives who claim he pursued legal ownership of their bodies. The Chapter Nineteen teahouse meeting marks the pivot. Victor reveals his sponsorship, discusses his childhood, and delivers his philosophy of beauty. He tells Anna she need only exist to create beauty, a statement that sounds flattering but reveals his view of her as an object. From this point, his control becomes increasingly overt: the Apothecare assignments, the Everlasting proposal, and finally the violent confrontation in the Gunks. The novel's final chapter shows Victor's post-fire fate. He disappears, and the documentary about him reveals the full scope of his abuses. He continues to send Anna letters signed your biggest fan, urging her to consider various surgeries. The narrator reflects that with his money and technology, he could look like anyone, and she still doesn't know how she survived. For a deeper look at how the novel resolves Victor's storyline, see the ending explained. ## Relationships — Anna: Victor's relationship with Anna is the novel's central dynamic. He sponsors her education, watches her career, and then recruits her into his exploitation network. He sees her as an asset—someone whose constitution and training make her valuable for his experiments. His final offer of partnership is conditional on her compliance, and when she hesitates, he resorts to force. Saje: Victor and Saje are business partners with aligned interests but different assessments of Anna. Saje sees Anna as a risk because of what she knows; Victor sees her as an asset because of what she is. Their partnership is pragmatic rather than affectionate, with Saje deferring to Victor's final authority. Helen: Helen is Victor's niece, and her relationship with him is complicated. She tells Anna that Victor controlled her clothing as a child, having a designer make an entire fall line in her size. She describes his controlling nature and his cosmetic procedures. Helen's deteriorating health—chest pain, clumsiness, hair loss—suggests she too has been subjected to Victor's experiments, though the novel leaves this partly implicit. Henry: Henry is Victor's nephew and Helen's twin. He works for Victor and has changed since doing so, according to Helen. He drives the car that takes Anna to the Gunks for her final confrontation with Victor, and he is present at the excarnation site. Lilith: Lilith grew up in Victor's household, and her relationship with him is marked by resentment. She joined Holistik as a journalist seeking a story, but Victor owns many media outlets and has silenced people. Her investigation ultimately exposes Victor's crimes. ## Key Decisions and Consequences — Victor's decision to secretly sponsor Anna's education is the novel's inciting event. It gives her access to the Conservatory and Professor Zsaborsky, but it also creates a debt she can never repay—one Victor uses to justify his control over her body and career. His decision to develop Everlasting, the hybridization procedure, represents the culmination of his philosophy. He describes it as the crown jewel of his career and a love letter to his mother. The procedure's failure—Saje reports that results are not what they hoped—leads Victor to withdraw the papers and resort to violence. His decision to destroy a forest to preserve his first wife in amber foreshadows his refusal to accept natural processes. It also establishes a pattern of treating the natural world as a resource for his aesthetic projects. ## Themes and Symbolism — Victor embodies the novel's critique of the commodification of the body. He treats women's bodies as raw material for his beauty experiments, and his ex-wives' lawsuits about legal ownership of their bodies make this explicit. His obsession with beauty as a transcendent value masks the violence of his methods. He also represents the exploitation of nature and animals. The leopard slugs on his face, the genetically modified creatures at the Zoo, and the destruction of the forest for amber all demonstrate his willingness to consume the natural world for cosmetic purposes. Victor's surveillance of Anna—through the mandala device and the tracking of her movements—connects to the novel's exploration of surveillance and loss of autonomy. His control over her name, her appearance, and her career reflects the broader theme of cultural erasure and immigrant identity, as Anna's transformation erases her parents' features from her face. Finally, Victor's relationship to music—he sponsors Anna's education but ultimately values her appearance over her artistry—contrasts with the novel's theme of art, music, and memory as resistance. Anna's return to the piano in the hospital room, playing pieces her parents loved, is a direct counter to Victor's reduction of her to a beautiful object. ## Questions and Answers — 1. Why did Victor sponsor Anna's education? Victor sponsored Anna's conservatory education because Helen showed him her videos when Helen was young. He saw potential in her playing but believed something was consistently off about her sound, and he arranged for Professor Zsaborsky to refine it. His sponsorship was both a genuine investment in her talent and a way of creating a debt that would bind her to him. 2. What is the Everlasting procedure? Everlasting is a hybridization treatment developed by Victor's company that produces a shorter pregnancy with no physical changes to the woman. Children born through the procedure become fully human by age two and are given to parents. Victor describes it as the crown jewel of his career and a love letter to his mother. 3. How does Victor view Anna? Victor views Anna as an asset rather than a person. He tells her that Saje considers her a risk because of what she knows, but he considers her an asset because of her constitution and the investment in optimizing it. He believes she need only exist to create beauty, which reveals his view of her as an object of aesthetic value rather than an autonomous individual. 4. What happens to Victor at the end of the novel? Victor survives the fire but disappears. A documentary about him is released in seven parts, and he continues to send Anna letters signed your biggest fan, urging her to consider various surgeries. The narrator notes that with his money and technology, he could look like anyone or anything. 5. How does Victor's childhood shape his actions? Victor grew up impoverished with an absent father and a constantly pregnant mother who was abused and eventually fled. The documentary traces his obsession with dominance over women's bodies to this childhood, calling it the perfect catalyst for Everlasting. His discovery of the Elizabeth Street Garden and the peony's transformation gave him a belief in beauty as a redemptive force, but his methods reflect the trauma and control of his upbringing. For more discussion of Victor's role and other questions about the novel, see the questions and answers.