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Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 2: Descending to the Garden

Written by Sabre (@paimoff on twitter) and Schwan (@abyssalschwan on twitter)

This theory assumes you’ve completed the Fontaine Archon Quests, as well the Narzissenkreuz questlines. If you haven’t, you will be a) very confused and b) very spoiled.

A Tale of Four Descenders

Four entered the pardes (orchard/garden)...one looked and died, one looked and went mad, one looked and cut down the saplings (apostatized), and one came in peace and left in peace [1].

This Jewish legend appears in multiple locations throughout the Talmud and its commentaries, and is associated with two pre-Kabbalah schools of Jewish mysticism known as Merkabah (chariot) and Hekhalot (palaces) mysticism. Both depicted visions of the throne of God (chariot) and the heavenly palaces, and provided instructions for how one might ascend to heaven to receive some kind of revelation or knowledge. The orchard/garden represents esoteric Torah (Jewish law) knowledge; this is why the euphemism for apostatizing is to “cut down the saplings.” (I know he says “blasphemy” (which is different), but this is reminiscent of what Dottore says at the end of Winter Night's Lazzo.)

The pardes legend first appears as a warning to scholars about the consequences of teaching about the “chariot” to disciples who are not ready. Though it's not mentioned in this specific text, this process of meditating to ascend to the palaces of God is referred to as “descending” in the writings of the Merkabah mystics [2]. In other words, this legend tells the story of four descenders.

In the conclusion of the Sumeru Archon Quests, Nahida tells the Traveler about the existence of the “Descenders." Based on the information she got from Dottore in exchange for her Gnosis, she shares that:

Descenders are “external beings, ones that don’t belong to this world”

There are at least four of them, and the Traveler is the fourth

According to the Fatui, the Traveler's twin is not a Descender

The Traveler is not recorded in Irminsul, but their twin is

Nahida speculates that the First Descender is the Heavenly Principles, but the identity of the second and third are unknown to her. At that point though, we still didn’t know what it was that Descenders do, or what the exact criteria for being one is, only that it couldn’t be as simple as just being from outside Teyvat.

The Fontaine World Quest series about the Narzissenkreuz Ordo fills in some pieces of the puzzle; specifically an additional criterion to be a Descender: they must be someone with a will “that can rival an entire world.”

In retrospect, Inversion of Genesis also hinted at the role of a Descender; The Traveler witnesses the results of someone attempting to change fate and/or the world and failing.

Nahida: Changing the world, changing the past, changing the fates of other people... These are not simple things to accomplish. Nahida: What you were looking for is complete annihilation... But this is just a fantasy. Even if The Balladeer is removed from existence, the world will not heed your will. (Inversion of Genesis)

For most people, actually “changing the world” is impossible. But for a Descender, it might be different.

Will

...Though the results are nothing impressive, this is because the object they chose was pure elemental force, which lacks any will whatsoever. Like the difference between the Director (Lyris) and a Hydro Slime, perhaps? ...Actually thought of a possible breakthrough during the process... Even though the calculated result is unchanged, but if the refinement method is reflected... If the power of... then maybe we can extract the "will" within. Using this method... resist the impact… (Excerpts from Rene's Investigation Notes)

...The true source of the mysterious power unique to this place that the locals call Khvarena is unknown. But based on its ability to eliminate or reverse the influence of the Abyss (in fact, it is a type of annihilation reaction), the two powers are of the same level, that is to say, they are of the same order in terms of rules... ...In other words, both possess the power to "re-write the rules"... ...Regrettably, be it Abyss or Khvarena, all current users are stuck in an "unconscious" stage of being influenced and overwritten by their power… (Bizarre Transcript)

The Gavireh Lajavard region of the Sumeru desert introduced us to the writings of Rene, a precocious researcher with world-saving ambitions and not nearly enough adult supervision, as well as his only slightly Abyss-corrupted bestie Jakob. Like the Khaenri'ahns before him, Rene was searching for a power that had a “will,” believing it necessary to save Fontaine from an unspecified disaster that we would later learn is The ProphecyTM. During their time in the desert (which was right after the cataclysm), Rene determined that both Abyssal and Khvarena power have a will, but pure elemental energy did not.

Some time after their trip to Sumeru, Rene and Jakob would found the Narzissenkreuz Ordo, with the goal of finding a way to save Fontainians from being dissolved in the primordial sea-laced floodwaters. They would do this by dissolving all humans in Fontaine with primordial seawater in a controlled manner, melding everyone together into one Oceanid-like being to survive the apocalypse (think Human Instrumentality Project from Evangelion). Rene had predicted the coming apocalypse with something he called his “world-formula,” and in addition to predicting the doom of Fontaine, it also informed him that “unlike the world depicted in these ancient texts, there will be no more new civilizations born.” The only way this could be changed would be by introducing a new “‘variable’ from outside the system” into the formula (Enigmatic Page 1). Rene’s goal was to become this variable, i.e., a Descender.

Four Worlds

The Tower of Ipsissimus comes from an old concept from the ancient Fontainian kingdom of Remuria, and was used to describe a powerful will that could rule, sustain, and destroy the world. This tower was designed by the Narzissenkreuz Ordo, and it represents the evolution of the human soul and the infinite mysteries of the world. The Narzissenkreuz Ordo believes that people continuously refine themselves through samsara cycles. These include Hyperborea, Natlantean, Remuria, and the first half of the fourth samsara (Khraun-Arya), which we are presently experiencing. Please take note that these are just names given to these eras by the Ordo based on ancient texts, and this evolution refers to spiritual evolution. There is no intent here to antagonize any research results obtained by the Akademiya. The human spirit undergoes the loss of paradise, the defeat of evil dragons, the original sin and baptism, and finally, freedom from the gods.

The term samsara is typically used to refer to the cyclic nature of reality, and can be used to describe concepts like reincarnation. It is not, however, referring to time loops. There is A Lot to unpack about this note, but for the purposes of this theory we will be focusing on the concept of these “four samsaras” and their relationship with the concept of a Descender, specifically that there seems to be the same number of samsaras as Descenders.

You may be wondering - this is Kabbalah world structure theory and we’ve yet to discuss Kabbalah. Well, it’s time now! But before we can get into specifics, we first need to review some terms discussed in Part 1 and then go through some basics of Lurianic Kabbalah. Ah, the irony of calling anything about Lurianic Kabbalah “basics.” Caveat that what follows will be a simplification of concepts that are very difficult to grasp (I definitely don’t know what’s going on).

Creation of the World, Kabbalah Edition Previously, we compared the “limitless light” emanated by God to create the world to the power of elemental energy, and compared the sefirot of the Tree of Life to the seven elements. The sefirot are components of this divine light (like light passing through a prism and refracting) and represent attributes of God that are used to create the world. The sefirot are traditionally depicted together in the form of a tree, which maps out their relationships with each other. For more details on the similarities between Kabbalah and Genshin worldbuilding, consult Part 1 (link) if you haven't read it yet.

Kabbalah focuses on describing the relationship between the infinite God and the finite universe and how it was created, with variations between different schools of thought. In this theory, we’ll be primarily focusing on the ideas of the Kabbalist Isaac Luria. The central idea of Luria’s philosophy was a concept he called Seder Hishtalshelut, or “Order of Evolution,” which refers to the cycles of “exile” and “redemption” (creation and destruction) the world is eternally experiencing. In the Lurianic system, time isn’t linear; the world was created in the past, but it’s also being created now.

The beginning of this Order of Evolution is referred to as the Tzimtzum, or Contraction. This refers to the contracting of the infinite God to make a space where reality could be created. Once this is created, a ray of divine light enters the void and begins to emanate reality. This is similar to the concept of the Pleroma in Gnosticism. The further the divine light gets from the source, the more it starts to break down into separate parts. More specifically, it breaks down into the Four Worlds, which represent stages of the evolution of reality, but also stages of the spiritual evolution of the human consciousness.

The Four Worlds are: 0. Adam Kadmon - Primordial (Original) Man 1. Atziluth - Emanation 2. Beriah - Creation 3. Yetzirah - Formation 4. Assiah - Action Material reality is distinct from these four worlds; the ‘real’ world emanates out of the fourth world, Assiah. Each of these four worlds have their own sefirot structure, which in themselves contain additional sefirot, on and on, like a fractal. Luria called these recursive structures “tree systems” [3]. In Genshin terms, this is like how we have Irminsul, the world tree, but also the other smaller Irminsul trees in domains.

(Fun Fact: this schematic is sometimes called Jacob's ladder) The system of the Four Worlds and their nuances are very interesting in themselves, but for the purpose of this theory, we’ll be focusing on the 0th world, Adam Kadmon, and the symbolism associated with this concept in both Kabbalah and general Jewish philosophy.

Primordial (Hu)Man

The concept of an ‘original man’ is discussed in Philo’s commentary of Genesis, where he describes this being as androgynous, connected to the concept of Logos, and the Idea/Form of humanity in contrast to the ‘earthly man.’ Philo’s definition of the Logos was something closer to the concept of a demiurge-a being responsible for creation of the world. Logos literally means ‘word’ or ‘reason’, and otherwise typically refers to divine reason, or the word of God. It’s important to note that here the use of the word ‘man’ refers to a human being, not specifically a male person. Though often described as a man, the Primordial Man of Kabbalah is considered androgynous (like the Primordial One of Genshin).

The Zohar (a foundational work of Kabbalah) describes the Primordial Man as the “image of everything that is above [in heaven] and below [upon earth]; therefore did the Holy Ancient [God] select it for His own form.” The Primordial Man is the personification of the 10 sefirot together and represents a microcosm of the universe (macrocosm) [4].

Narzissenkreuz: I... I sense "reason." Visitors, are you the successors to Narzissenkreuz, or are you a threat? Narzissenkreuz: Is "Reason" that which grants you such strength? Narzissenkreuz: No, I have noticed. Have you always been in that realm that I pursue? O, you who are equal to a world! (Waking From the Great Dream) Man, as he was before his fall [first sin], is conceived as a cosmic being which contains the whole world in itself (Trends in Jewish Mysticism, pg. 215)

Lurianic Kabbalah considers the Primordial Man to be the highest level manifestation of God that can be conceptualized by humans. The world of Adam Kadmon precedes the emanation of the lower Four Worlds, but each of these worlds have their own corresponding anthropomorphic figure as well [5]. In contrast to the worlds that follow Adam Kadmon, the sefirot of Adam Kadmon are not in a Tree of Life configuration, but rather in the configuration known as “upright,’ arranged in the shape of the human body.

The concept of a Primordial Man exists in other religions and mythologies as well. There’s the Gnostic Anthropos, Adam Kasia of Mandaeism, the ‘Universal Man’ (al-Insān al-Kāmil) of Sufism who functions as an Axis Mundi, the world-soul of Platonism, Gayomart of Zoroastrianism, and more. The symbolism of the human body as mediator between the divine and the material world is not unique to Kabbalah. Kabbalah’s version of the World Tree and Primordial Man both function similarly to the Axis Mundi; they are the same emanations of the divine, just arranged in different configurations.

Will and the Primordial Man In Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon represents the will of God, specifically the will to create. The blueprint for the creation of the world is contained within this being/world, all superimposed together into a “primordial thought.” Within Adam Kadmon, there is no distinction between the individual sefirot, or rather, between anything at all. Everything is contained with this world/thought, but there is no time, no space, and no limitations. WIthout limitations, individual beings and concepts cannot be created. Therefore, the unity of Adam Kadmon had to be broken; specifically into the 10 sefirot, which could then assemble themselves into new configurations and continue the process of creation [6].

Narzissenkreuz: The witness of all, the recorder of all, the designer of all. Narzissenkreuz: Only one who is worth a world can bear that title. (Waking From the Great Dream) If the righteous wish to do so, they can create a world. (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 65b)

Back in Part 1, we compared pure elemental energy to Kabbalah’s divine light of creation and the ten sefirot to the seven elements. If we apply this analogy to Adam Kadmon, doesn’t a being that could (theoretically) resonate with all elements and would eventually meet their end by being broken up into many pieces sound familiar?

At the end of Act V of the Fontaine Archon Quest, Skirk tells Neuvillette that the Gnoses are actually the “remains of the Third Descender.” Neuvillette, the Traveler, and Paimon speculate that this is possible because as a Descender, they would have also had the same unique compatibility with the elements as the Traveler. Neuvillette’s character stories refer to the remains of the Third Descender as the “seven remembrances,” which were used to create a new “order” for the world, with “all fragments of the primordial…driven to devour each other.”

Rene’s notes in the Tower of Ipsissimus directly tell us that there is a connection between the concept of the Primordial Man and Descenders:

"Lies beneath the great sea" is, itself, an interesting phrase. It comes from ancient Sumeru texts, and should be read as "Narayana*," which also means "primordial human." This, too, is my goal, for not all that comes from beyond may be as one that "descends." That title belongs only to wills that can rival an entire world. That is what I seek, the way to become just such a will, one that can protect the world, sustain the world, destroy the world, and create the world.

[*Narayana (Sanskrit: नारायण, romanized: Nārāyaṇa) is one of the forms and names of Vishnu, depicted as sleeping under the celestial waters, and is associated with creation. This reference aligns with Rene’s goal of using the power of the Primordial Sea to make himself a Descender. ]

In summary, we have four Descenders, we have four samsaras, and we have four symbolic worlds that are only able to exist due to the destruction of a 0th world known as the Primordial Man, who represents the totality of the divine Will to create the world and the Idea of humanity.

Keep all this information in mind, because before we can discuss the connections between samsaras, Descenders, and the Primordial Man, we must take a detour into alchemy and psychology.

Primordial God Impact

Genshin Impact has always been about the primordial - it’s literally in the name: 原神, or yuan shen, which means ‘original god.’ Many other in-game items share this descriptor, including primogems (原石), Primordial Seawater (原始胎海之水), and the Primordial One (原初的那一位). The same characters are also used in the note from the Tower of Ipsissimus when referring to the ‘primordial human’: 原初之人, which as it turns out, is exactly the same word used for the Primordial Human Project.

The Primordial Human Project has been mentioned exactly once, in a cutscene from the Shadows Amidst Snowstorms event in version 2.3. There, Albedo refered to his doppelganger who had been wreaking havoc on Dragonspine as the “failure of the Primordial Human Project.” Albedo implied that he is the “survivor” of an experiment associated with the Primordial Human Project and considers it to be related to his origins as a creation of Rhinedottir, aka the alchemist Gold.

We know very little about Rhinedottir and her motivations. She’s a practitioner of the Art of Khemia, a member of the Hexenzirkel, is labeled a sinner and blamed for the appearance of monsters during the Cataclysm, made a dragon named Durin and sent him to Teyvat during said Cataclysm, where he caused destruction everywhere he went while thinking he was playing, and might have also made Elynas, who had a similar fate. According to Skirk, she, like Skirk’s master, is “pursuing some form of perfection.”

The Great Work

Rhinedottir’s alchemical research was focused on the creation of new life and she was familiar with an alchemical text called the Opus Magnum, which she left behind for Albedo to study. The Opus Magnum is a reference to the real life Magnum Opus, or Great Work, which refers to the alchemical process of creating the philosopher’s stone from the prima materia (original matter). The process typically goes as follows: nigredo (blackness), albedo (whiteness), citrinitas (yellowing) and rubedo (redness). Later Western alchemy would merge the citrinitas and rubedo steps into just rubedo, or include additional steps, such as the peacock’s tail stage between nigredo and albedo. Notably, the order of the last two steps in this process is reversed in the version of the process Albedo learned from Rhinedottir: rubedo is third, with citrinitas last.

This reordering isn’t universal in Teyvat: Rene’s notes disparage this choice, saying that Khaenri’ah is distracted from the true goal of the process:

..."Red" is the foundational principle, the philosopher's stone*, while "yellow" represents gold and mortal temptation. Yellow is simply bait. Red is the final goal. However, Khaenri'ah would likely seek the truth for gold's sake before turning that truth into a bread production pipeline…

[*This is the first and so far, only, time the phrase “philosopher’s stone” has been directly mentioned in-game.]

Rene has a somewhat ironic take on the Khaenri’ahn alchemical philosophy, given that Albedo’s character stories specifically say “Khaenri'ah was an underground realm, with precious few natural fauna. As such, its alchemy focused more heavily on the creation of life.” Rene often has strong opinions - but why would he care about the order of the Magnum Opus?

The Chymical Wedding of Rene de Petrichor

A recurring motif of the Great Work is the ‘chemical wedding.’ This refers to a union of opposites; male and female, sun and moon, fire and water, sulfur (Red King) and mercury (White Queen), etc, and is often depicted as taking place in a fountain. Here, in this drawing from a copy of the Ripley Scroll, sulfur and mercury wed and form the androgynous (like the primordial man) ‘philosophical child,’ which is philosophical mercury.

Philosophical mercury is the underlying principle or “divine flow” that makes alchemy and transmutation possible. Therefore, the goal of the Great Work was to pin down this mercury into matter through the four (or more) stages of the Great Work and make the philosopher’s stone [7,8].

"The Stone that is Mercury, is cast upon the Earth, exalted on Mountains, resides in the Air, and is nourished in the Waters." (Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens. 1617.) The cubes represent prima materia. ;)

The chemical wedding is also used as a motif throughout the story of the Narzissenkreuz Ordo. The Book of Revealing includes a schematic of the “Seal of Chymical Marriage,” which consists of a “Tree of Emanation'' and the “Four Orthants,” and was used to seal the Primordial Sea. The Tree of Emanation component is, of course, a version of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life - for more ramblings, feel free to check out my twitter thread here.

The Narzissenkreuz Ordo is likely intended to be a reference to the real life Rosicrucian Order, and the name of the seal a reference to an important text for this order called the “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.” Other possible references to chemical weddings include Lyris being referred to as the ‘Red Empress,’ Rene using her power to dissolve himself and be reborn through the water, and Mary-Ann and Lyris fusing and eventually producing “pure water” aka Ann. Actually, when you dig into it, there are many suspicious interactions between sun and moon-coded gods in Genshin lore, as well as the doomed wedding of the Seelie and the traveler from afar. My Name For Now made a really interesting video about this, so if you would like more information and speculation, check it out here.

The Philosopher’s Stone and the Self

The philosopher’s stone is the Holy Grail of alchemy: an alchemical substance that can transmute base metals into silver or gold, make someone immortal, cure all illness, make a homunculus, and more. The stone represents perfection and spiritual refinement, either of nature through alchemy, or of the self (the alchemist) [8].

Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, considered the steps of the Magnum Opus to represent the process of the individuation of the self from the collective unconscious. The similarities between his interpretation of alchemical symbolism and the ideals of the Narzissenkreuz Ordo deserve their own separate analysis, but in brief: Jung defined the collective unconscious to be the shared unconscious mind between humans, full of basic instincts and archetypes, which are primordial symbols that exist in many mythologies throughout the world. Jung compared the collective unconscious to the alchemical symbolism of water, which he describes as “wisdom and knowledge, truth and spirit, and its source was in the inner man [9].” The process of individuation separates aspects of the personality from the unconscious (the water) and then eventually integrates all components together, to form the individual self, which can now bring “order” to the unconscious (at least on a personal level)[10]. In other words, the Jungian interpretation of the Magnum Opus is that the final product, the philosopher's stone, is the Self.

If we apply this symbolism to Rene’s journey, it appears he was attempting to refine himself into a philosopher’s stone, which would explain why he was so interested in the work of the Khaenri’ahn alchemists. As he stated multiple times, his goal was to become a “primordial human,” whose will “can rival an entire world.” Rene’s philosopher’s stone is a Descender.

The Primordial Human Project

After Rene’s failed attempt to dissolve himself in Primordial Water and be reborn using Lyris’s power, Jakob turned to his own research to try to save Rene and complete his rebirth. In his log of this time period, Jakob wrote:

...I've been interpreting the data in search of a solution and sharing the results with Rene. There has still been no response, but I can already envision his response with perfect clarity: criticizing the Universitas Magistrorum for putting the cart before the horse, neglecting the fundamental principles underlying everything, and diving straight into the details of how to put those techniques to use... How they inverted even the alchemical stages for other purposes… ...It seems that there was an alchemist from Khaenri'ah named "R" who joined a secret order. From what fragmentary records exist, it appears that they made significant headway.

There are two items of note here; the first is the mention of Universitas Magistrorum, which previously had only been mentioned in a namecard description. The card description reads "O Almighty Sovereign, the Universitas Magistrorum has provided the predictions you requested: The two stars have been captured by the world's gravity…” which may be referencing Khaenri’ah’s summoning of the twins (Inversion of Genesis). From the context of Jakob’s notes, we can infer that this organization was also utilizing some form of the Magnum Opus for an unknown purpose.

The second item of note is the mention of the alchemist “R,” who is almost definitely Rhinedottir, and the “significant headway” that she and this mysterious “secret order” made. It’s very likely that Jakob is interested in Rhinedottir’s work simply because he wants to make a new body for Rene; the log also mentions Remurian golems and experiments with prosthetic limbs. However, the mention of her and the Universitas Magistrorum in the same context, with Jakob’s commentary on the reversed order of the Magnum Opus, gave me the idea that sparked this whole theory (descent into madness): Is it possible that Rhinedottir’s Primordial Human Project was intended to make a Descender?

Sometimes, very important lore gets buried in character stories. For example, the first time the term “primordial (hu)man” shows up - which is in Albedo’s fifth character story.

This art of creation was known as "The Art of Khemia." Albedo had learned of this in his youth from reading his master's notes. The next stage after "soil" is "chalk," which was also something his master had mentioned. "Chalk is the spotless soil, and was used to make primordial man." Now, Albedo understands alchemy in far greater depth than he did in the beginning, and his knowledge on the subject is far more comprehensive. "From soil was birthed chalk." The profundity of this statement is well understood by Albedo now.

Albedo is also the “chalk”; Rhinedottir gave him the title of Kreideprinz, or Chalk Prince. She seems to have a habit of naming her creations after types of soil. Durin was ‘humus,’ the Riftwolves are ‘alfisol,’ and Albedo is ‘cretaceus’. According to her, earth is “the basis of all life” and the “accumulated memories of time and lives,” so it makes sense she’d use soil as the starting material for her alchemical creations.

Albedo seems to be aware of the Traveler’s unique status, although he never names them as a Descender. During his Story Quest, Albedo studies the Traveler to get insight on how to help an alien flower bloom.

Albedo: The only other life form that, like you, has come here from afar, is the seed that I mentioned. Under the effects of Teyvat's natural laws, it isn't even able to sprout, let alone bloom. Albedo: But after I observed you, I had another idea. Albedo: Imitating you helped to inspire my alchemy, and so... Albedo: Is not nurturing otherworldly life also nurturing the world itself?

Following the experiments he performs on them, he reveals to the player that he lied about some of their test results, and even compares himself to the Traveler.

Albedo: I made a point throughout of telling them how ordinary the results were... Albedo: But what was that sediment I saw forming at the bottom of the vial? It should not have been there... What could it mean? Albedo: Those born of earth are bound by its imperfections, but those born of chalk are free of impurities... You and I are alike, both composed of a substance that has yet to be fully defined...

This leaves us with questions. Assuming Albedo is similar to the ‘primordial human’, what is his role? Is he a Descender, or is he meant to work to become one eventually, like Rene tried to do?

Let’s return for a moment to the Primordial Man and Adam Kadmon. Earlier, we discussed the symbolism of Adam Kadmon; this being represents the divine will to create, also known as the “primordial thought,” as well as the Idea of humanity. Adam Kadmon is the potential for creation unified together, with no distinctions between any concepts. Hermeticism and alchemy have a similar concept, succinctly summed up in the phrase “the all is one,” which can be found written on one of the earlier alchemical drawings of an ouroboros by Cleopatra the Alchemist [11].

In Gnosticism and alchemy, this symbol refers to unity of all material and spiritual things, as well the eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation as things change form [12].

Rhinedottir shared this philosophy, as evidenced by the description for Cinnabar Spindle, Albedo’s sword.

Separate the dust in the flames with joy, and extract the exquisite from the crude. For all in the universe comes from a single source, and all things may be derived from a single thought.

The weapon description also contains instructions for Albedo that likely tie into his expected role as a success of the Primordial Human Project.

You must pursue that which your elder brother, the one-horned white horse, could not accomplish. Reach the far side of philosophy, and create a new destiny for myself and your brothers…

Albedo’s final assignment from Rhinedottir is to learn the “truth and the meaning of this world,” a phrase echoed by the Abyss Twin in We Will Be Reunited. Knowledge is literally power in Teyvat: both Nibelung the Dragon King and later, Deshret, utilized Forbidden Knowledge, also referred to as a “power of darkness from outside of this world”, believing it to be the only effective power to defeat the Heavenly Principles. In fact, it’s even possible that the Dragon King was one of the Descenders despite presumably being native to Teyvat. The process of acquiring the Forbidden Knowledge could have evolved him to true Descender status, although this power appears to be incompatible with Teyvat, especially in the wrong hands. The power of the Forbidden Knowledge is similar to the metaphorical garden of the pardes myth, where out of four “descenders,” only one was able to safely leave, with the esoteric knowledge gained. The philosopher's stone also represents knowledge-it is the lapis philosophorum; literally the 'stone of wisdom'. Knowledge is also how one ascends in Gnosticism, i.e, achieving gnosis.

Perhaps this is the true method to create a Descender and Albedo’s future role: once he reaches the far side of philosophy (learns the truth and meaning of the world) and ‘evolves’ and ‘refines’ himself from albedo through rubedo and citrinitas to the philosopher’s stone, he can change destiny.

This sounds familiar…

Fortuna and Evolution

Rene’s calculations of the world-formula predicted that following the fulfillment of Fontaine’s prophecy, there would be no new civilizations formed from the ruins, as there presumably had been in the past following similar disasters. Rene believed the only way around this was for him to become a Descender, and save Fontaine from the disaster, beginning a new age. It’s implied in the text of the Book of Revealing (the version in the WQ) that the fulfillment of the prophecy would spell disaster for all of Teyvat, not just Fontaine, but even if that were not the intent of Celestia, we can use this example as an analogy for the world-formula of Teyvat.

Rene directly compared the world-formula to the Remurian concept of Fortuna:

Kingdoms rise and fall, and when a civilization is annihilated, a new one will be born after from the ashes, which these books refer to as "Fortuna"... It's somewhat rudimentary, but theoretically at least, it bears striking resemblance to the computational scheme I have formulated and termed "world-formula"...

Let’s spin the wheel of Fortuna and return to the beginning, where we first discussed the four samsara cycles of spiritual evolution and the Four Worlds. Although the samsara cycles don’t refer directly to actual historical events, their names are based on ancient texts. It’s not a large leap in logic to suggest that each of the four samsaras refers to eras in Teyvat’s history- what others in the lore community have been referring to as ‘root-cycles.’ For example, the defeat of evil dragons associated with the Natlantean samsara could refer to the war between the Primordial One and the vishaps described in Before Sun and Moon, or the war between the Heavenly Principles and the Dragon King (which might be the same thing!). The events associated with each samsara must be what ends the samsara, since the fourth, Khraun-Arya, is the current, and represents freedom from the gods, which has not happened yet.

Given that the Descenders can (theoretically) change the result of the world-formula/Fortuna, it can’t be a coincidence that there are the same number of Descenders as there are known samsaras. In addition, if the four samsaras of Teyvat function like the Four Worlds of Kabbalah, that means that a samsara-ending event would be something that results in the evolution of the world. Apep says that during the war between the Dragon King and the Heavenly Principles, Teyvat was in danger of collapsing, and that the victor of the war would “inherit the right to shape the world”. This sounds a lot like Rene’s definition of a Descender: one that can protect the world, sustain the world, destroy the world, and create the world. The death and disassembly of the Third Descender led to a significant change in the “order” of Teyvat when the Gnoses were created to replace the “ruined” functions of the Heavenly Principles. Put another way, Descenders are able to evolve Teyvat into its next stage of evolution.

The fate of the Third Descender and ruined functions of the Heavenly Principles suggest another, alarming component to the relationship between samsaras and Descenders. It could be that as part of the process, a Descender must replace or repair an aspect of the mechanisms that maintain Teyvat. Don’t worry about the Traveler though; the fourth descender of the pardes legend gets to leave the garden in peace.

On the other hand, the first Descender in the legend is the one who dies, and in Genshin it’s the third, so maybe the list isn’t exactly in order. Of course, this comparison to the legend is partly a joke, but it is very interesting that the metaphor for apostatizing is uprooting trees….

Khaenri’ah’s World-Formula

We know from Rene’s notes that Khaenri’ah had their own version of a world-formula, or at least, their records contained information Rene could use to reverse engineer their predictions. We don’t actually know what he found there, but based on the name he gave the fourth samsara and the whole “freedom from the gods” thing, it seems they were trying to evolve Teyvat into the next samsara and make this freedom a reality. We also know that the Khaenri’ahns were searching for a specific kind of power, a power they referred to as both a “perpetual” energy source and a “secret from beyond the skies” that could “throw off the shackles imposed by this world's laws.” This power from “beyond the skies” is thought to be some form of Abyssal power, and the Khaenri’ahns who used it seem aware of a will contained in that power, a “dogma from beyond the heavens.” In fact, it’s possible that this power is the same as the Forbidden Knowledge brought in by Nibelung, which also had an influence on Apep’s behavior when they were infected with it after eating Deshret.

It appears that Khaenri’ah was familiar with something similar to the concept of a Descender, which makes Chlothar’s words to the Traveler in Caribert all the more impactful.

Chlothar: I never imagined that you, of all people, would deny the Abyss... How ridiculous! Chlothar: We once believed that you would bring new strength and hope to Khaenri'ah. Chlothar: To us, you were the Abyss... A wondrous mystery far beyond our imagination and comprehension... Chlothar: ...And the one who controls the Abyss can control everything! Chlothar: We yearned for that future. We looked to you to take us there.

The Future

As mentioned previously, the Four Worlds of Kabbalah are all precursors to the actual material reality, which will be emanated (created) from the fourth world. Luria believed that our world was not yet completely realized and needed another spiritual push from humanity to be actualized. (The mechanics of this won’t be discussed here - so consider this a teaser for Part 3 of Kabbalah theory.) Therefore in Kabbalistic terms, this fifth samara, this fifth world, would be the final and true reality for Teyvat.

This would be why Khaenri’ah needed a Descender or even merely a power that could defy the Heavenly Principles. That was why they summoned the twins, and why projects like the Primordial Human Project existed. It’s ironic that in their desire to remake the world in the image of their dreams, where they were free from the gods and the Heavenly Principles, they chose in the end to bind themselves to a will from beyond the sky, which ended up in catastrophe.

As the letter in the Khaenri’ahn ruins of Gavireh Lajavard says: “The gods are untrustworthy and the demons, ineffable. If there is one thing that can pry open the corners of this hollow world, then it can only be human will.”

Congrats on making it to the end! As you can see, this was already reaching a ridiculous word count, so there were some things I had to leave out, or only briefly touch on. So here are some people and concepts I pretended didn't exist so this didn't get (more) convoluted, but you should read about them: Crowley and True Will, Nietzsche and the overman, Zoroastrianism as a whole, but particularly their version of the Primordial Man, William Blake's prophecies (his Auguries of Innocence is a big inspiration for the artifact lore), Schopenhauer and Will, Atman and Brahman, Plato's concept of the world-soul, SWORDS (in Genshin lore), the Holy Grail legend, and shoutout to Otto Apocalypse the real First Descender. I do want to point out that some of the (real) people on this list, like Crowley, either were terrible people who believed terrible things, or had their philosophy used for terrible things. This also applies to other inspirations for the Narzissenkreuz Ordo. Please keep that in mind when engaging with these people's work.

On a lighter note:

Sabre’s Fun Fact Science Corner aka Miscellaneous Stuff I Need to Put Somewhere

I didn't want to have to get into explaining the lore of another piece of media but yes, this theory was inspired by a binge watch of the last arc of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, transmutation circles and philosopher’s stone and all

On the topic of FMAB, the The Black Serpent Knights archive description states: “The long years and a curse seems to have robbed them of their reason and memory. Now, all that remains within that armor is the will to ‘fight for something, someone, and some matter.’” Funnily enough, the subtitle of the Knights is ‘Aldric’ - Alphonse Elric, anyone?

Caribert becomes the Loom of Fate to “weave his own destiny anew”, Albedo has the Cinnabar Spindle and instructions to create a new destiny - I’m sensing a theme here

Rene believed that getting a Vision was a bad thing in the process of actualizing your Will, and resulted in you selling your fate to the world. So he developed a ritual to remove a Vision from an allogene (this is only mentioned in passing by Caterpillar). So even though Albedo has a Vision, he’s not out of the running to become a Descender. But also Rene was wrong about stuff so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The anthropomorphic imagery in Lurianic Kabbalah can get pretty bizarre, but in a fun way if you're into Genshin lore. Adam Kadmon is described as emanating divine light out of his face, specifically his eyes, to create the next world. Genshin eyeball lore is my roman empire.

As a full elemental dragon, Apep had a “world” inside their body. Rhinedottir seems to like dragons a lot; I wonder if she considers them to be similar to the primordial human. Also, there's evidence that the Traveler's elemental abilities mimic those of the elemental dragons, rather than the archons.

References:

Toseftah Hagigah 2:2 Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 14b, Jerusalem Talmud Hagigah 9:1.

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 3/14 - Merkabah Shi'ur Komah & Sar Torah

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 10/14 - Christian and Lurianic Kabbalah

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/761-adam-kadmon#anchor10

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adam-kadmon

https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380321/jewish/Chaos-and-the-Primordial.htm

https://dpul.princeton.edu/alchemy/feature/the-chemical-wedding

https://www.scribd.com/doc/11441835/The-Four-Stages-of-Alchemical-Work

Jung, Collected Works vol. 14 (1970), Mysterium Coniunctionis (1956), ¶372 (p. 278) via Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_psychology#Individuation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopoeia

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ouroboros

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/april2009.html

https://alchemywebsite.com/rosary0.html

https://www.alchemywebsite.com/rscroll.html

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin impact lore #genshin meta #genshin impact meta #genshin theory #narzissenkreuz ordo #KABBALAH THEORY PT 2 IS HERE!!!!!!#THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!#i am so excited to read this weekend #reblog

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genshinnrambles · 5 months

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can you make a masterlist where you put the lore in chronological order? and another list for the characters and analysis 🤍🤍 (just suggestions)

Yeah for sure, I’d be happy to make the navigation process easier. I’ll revamp the pinned post with a master list this weekend. I’ll make a separate announcement once that’s done. Thank you!! <3

#ask tillandsia #anonymous

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genshinnrambles · 5 months

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think my new favorite theory is that the fatui harbingers all have some corrupted idea of love, which shows how the tsartisa's ideal has been damaged

childe loves combat and constantly seeks to grow stonger, no matter what

signora was in such grief from losing rostam that she tried to burn the world away

dottore only loves gaining knowledge, to the point that he'll do anything to aquire it, no matter who it hurts

scaramouche was essentially obsesed with obtaining a heart (gnosis)

arlecchino clearly loves those close to her, but is ruthless towards anyone she deems a "traitor"

pantalone is obsessed with wealth, and thinks it's like "the beating heart of the world" and wants to control it

idk what everyone else's would be, but it's just an interesting thought

#genshin lore #genshin theory #fatui harbingers #reblog #I like this a lot #makes me wonder about sandrone’s obsession #or like #pulcinella’s

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genshinnrambles · 5 months

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Reasons why you should read Durandal's Visual Novel for Hoyoverse Lore even if you don't play Honkai

Disclaimer: this is not an in-depth summary of the story.

Rather, this post will go through a single conversation to show people the depth of lore hidden in Durandel's VN… and maybe convince you to consider reading it if you want to expand ideas for Hoyo lore.

Since I'm not going to be covering the story here, there will be events and things referenced that I won't be giving anything but a brief explanation of, but even without knowing all the details... I think the lore will speak for itself

I guess the most important thing to know before reading is that two people (Valkyries) from the Honkai Impact 3rd world - Durandal (Bianka) and Rita - have used a device called a Genius to travel to a new world… universe… thing ... which we will simply refer to as a world for the context of this post...

Onward!

***

First, it mentions how there are different versions of people across different worlds. Not super mind blowing if you’re familiar with hoyo lore… but good to cover the basics of the hoyo multi-verse lore.

Bianka: Uh… can I ask a question now? Darwin: Go ahead. What’s the matter? Bianka: Just now… you said your last name was Darwin, right? It wouldn’t be the one from “Origin of the Species”… Darwin: Oh, you mean my dad? Indeed, before I left that world he was planning on writing such a book. Darwin: I’m happy to learn that his book changed people’s worldview for the following century. Bianka: Oh… you’re his “daughter”? Bianka: But in that case, wouldn’t the “Origin of the Species” you read be the work from a different world’s Professor Charles? Darwin: Nope. As far as I’m aware, from all known worlds, there is only one Darwin who published “Origin of the Species”, married and had children, who is my father.

***

Then we revisit an earlier event in the story where the High Priestess is converted into data in the Sea of Quanta (and its not a good experience for her I can tell you that...). This part of the story (the Zarathustra portion) is so incredibly lore heavy... and the fact Zarathustra connects to Genshin, Honkai, and Star Rail....

Anyways, what should be focused on here (aside from the Sea of Quanta data portion) is the acknowledgement of Different Universes

Bianka: Huh? Bianka: Then just like the “High Priestess” of the Yucatan, you spent so long in the form of data in the Sea of Quanta that it resulted in an apparent time leap? Darwin: …It’s essentially different. Bianka: But… in your case we can’t use “Different Universes have different starting points and different flows of time” as an excuse! Darwin: Because that’s not the case. And I’m not immortal like the “snake” you met.

***

But then things get REALLY SUPER INTERESTING because now we're talking about people who are copies of others.... (Theory of Forms intensifies), but also... it covers the results of death and how these copies are a result of the world's structure

(The term Star Whisperer is also an important concept but that is also out of scope for this junk post)

(Edit from original post: the Ether Anchor is kind of like the core/backbone of the world…)

Darwin: The reason why there is a time contradiction in what I said is-- Darwin: I’m a Star Whisperer born from the death of someone. A mere copy. Bianka: “Born from death”? “Copy”? What are you talking about? Darwin: The real “Anna Charles Darwin” died of illness at the age of 10. Darwin: The one standing in front of you is just an afterimage inherited from the Sea of Quanta. Bianka: ……？！ Darwin: Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m a ghost or a spirit. This is just the result of applying the Ether Anchor’s ability of “copying the world” on “people”.

***

Theeeeeennn we start talking energy shenanigans.... Selene designed to put Honkai Energy under control to use it for creating new Negentropy....

(I'm going to stop highlighting things at this point I trust if you've read this far that you want to find the goodies and I don't need to convince you further)

Darwin: Be it the achievements of civilization or intelligent life, they are ultimately an amount of “Negentropy”. You can use the “Ether Anchor” as a “medium” to “balance” the "Negentropy". Schrodinger: …And Negentropy and Imaginary Energy - That is, Honkai Energy - are associated with each other. Schrodinger: In theory, we could indeed do the opposite: Use Honkai Energy under control to create new Negentropy. Schrodinger: -That is the basic principle behind the “Selene”. Darwin: Haha, as expected of Dr. Schrodinger, who proposed the theory behind Negentropy - You already seem to understand what I’m talking about. Bianka: Well, what are you talking about? Schrodinger: ……

***

Our next topic is energy manipulation to copy things out of thing air.... (*looks at teapot and puts adepti energy into super sus category*)

Additionally, the Ether Anchor (the "backbone" of the world they're in) is "salvaging info from the sea of quanta"... hm...

Schrodinger: Valkyries, do you know the power of the “First Herrscher”? Bianka: You mean the “Sovereign” of Anti-Entropy? He can copy all kinds of mechanical devices, Sacred Relics and even Divine Keys out of thin air, right? Schrodinger: A good summary, but if we’re being technical… he doesn’t make those copies out of “thin air”. Schrodinger: On the contrary: By manipulating the Honkai Energy stored in his body he creates reason, making constructs out of something similar to “Negentropy”. Schrodinger: Generally speaking, Honkai Energy is almost impossible to control - but he is a herrscher, a superpower beyond human comprehension. Schrodinger: Miss Darwin… Your “Ether Anchor” has a similar power, but you can’t manipulate it as you wish, correct? Darwin: Hmm… To be more precise, the “Ether Anchor Point” can’t be controlled at all. Darwin: It, by itself, is “salvaging” information that can be restored from the Sea of Quanta - An ocean of data.

***

This next portion is covering why the two characters from the Honkai world are able to appear in this world as themselves instead of as copies

Darwin: Those two Valkyries there must have gone through the experience of being informatized and later rematerialized. Darwin: - That is a specially targeted “salvage”. Darwin: This type of “salvage” is always happening in the “present continuous”, therefore their souls and consciousness also remain the same - Even if they show up on the other side of the world, they are still themselves. Darwin: But the information of “Anna Charles Darwin” is already “past perfect”, the Ether Anchor just happened to read this vanishing data from the Sea of Quanta and restore it. Darwin: …That’s why I can be sure I’m just a copy of a historical figure. Darwin: Perhaps there is a more complex mechanism out there that can truly revive the dead - But this world’s “Anchor” can not.

Anyways... that's all for now!

Read the VN!! (it’s available in CN and EN… not sure about other languages)

There's collective consciousness, Alice, Zarathustra, snake-y things, people turning into dragons... and much more!

*swims away*

#hoyoverse #hoyoverse lore #hoyoverse theory #hoyoverse meta #honkai impact 3rd #hi3rd #honkai 3rd #durandal #reblog #everyone should read this theory and also tuna’s blog

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genshinnrambles · 5 months

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wanted to say thank you so much to people interacting with this blog, it’s really nice to get to know some of you through notes and anon asks. I read all of your tag comments and replies and love hearing your perspectives.

writing progress has been slow/non-existent as I try to squeeze 5 books in before the end of the year. I’m thinking 4.3 will be slower than these last three patches though so hopefully I can get some shorter planned pieces done then and start some new ideas.

hopefully y’all don’t mind some more freud in the future. there are some ideas in civilization and it’s discontents that I think would be pretty cool to apply to genshin, especially to fontaine. I’m also hoping to finally read some jung and aristotle soon.

#updates

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genshinnrambles · 5 months

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I have Thoughts about Sandrone

Ok wow 4.2 the patch that keeps on giving. I just finished all the Ordo quests and like it says on the title, I have Thoughts about Sandrone.

But before I begin my unhinged rant, disclaimers and spoiler warnings:

DISCLAIMER: This is just a personal theory based on the info that entered my eyeballs. I might have missed stuff or whatever, this is just spitballing some theory for fun and not serious claim that this is The Truth. Also I avoid any and all story leaks so please note that the speculation is based on official info available as of Genshin Impact version 4.2....speaking of which:

SPOILERS: for all the Archon Quests and Fontaine World Quests as of patch 4.2 and uh, Winter Nights Lazzo trailer I guess

I am losing my mind. As mentioned before this is not going to be coherent and a stream of consciousness unhinged rant. Let's begin~

So there I was, innocently playing along with the Ordo world quest, my brain pouring out of my ears from trying to process the amount of esoteric references being shoved into it all at once and fight Jakob at the same time.....when we get The Picture.

Jakob confirms that it's Alain, Mary Ann, himself and Rene in the picture. And something about this nagged me. I couldn't focus on it because we were still in the middle of the quest I had to set it aside.

It occurred to me later: I knew Mary Ann's face. I knew that face. AND I KNEW THAT FACE BECAUSE I'D SEEN IT AS THE FACE OF THE ONE WHO'S SUPPOSED TO BE SANDRONE IN THE WINTER NIGHTS LAZZO VIDEO A side by side (excuse the shitty quality) of Mary Ann Guillotin as a child, and "Sandrone"

Now, I am not the first person to notice this and I'm sure more people have pointed out the uncanny resemblance....and maybe even come to the conclusion that Mary Ann is Sandrone.

This is where I go down the unhinged route.

I don't think Mary Ann is Sandrone. I think that the "person" we think of as Sandrone is just a puppet. And the ruin guard like robot that holds her up? THAT IS SANDRONE.

I mean, just, look at the visual language here. Who's the puppet and who's the puppeteer??

Now I know Scaramouche and Tartaglia's voicelines refer to Sandrone as 'she' but I'd like to think that's purposeful subterfuge on Sandrone's part to get others to underestimate them.

I will elaborate on why I don't think Mary Ann is Sandrone and also who I think it actually is.

During the Wake of Narcissus quest, we do a full brainstorming session reasoning out what happened to Mary Ann and we come to this conclusion:

We conclude that her consciousness was probably merged with Lyris the oceanid director's and created the entities that is the Mary Ann who resides in Annapausis and Ann the tiny oceanid who accompanies us.

Assuming this is true (Rene/Master/Narzissenkreuz seems to vaguely confirm this), Mary Ann is accounted for. And so are Jakob and Rene because you know *gestures at giant purple baptist Jakob and the tulpa Rene we defeat at the end of the quest*

But you know who isn't accounted for? Someone who loved Mary Ann dearly? Who was extremely interested in research and had a big hand in research into machines and machine intelligence?

ALAIN GUILLOTIN

He's the only one among the Narzissenkreuz kiddos who isn't accounted for directly. Even the assistant guy Carter is implicitly accounted for (Caterpillar).

But there's no word of what happened to Alain except for the lore from the Marechaussee Hunter set's feather piece.

The lore from that piece mentions that as Alain grew older he retired from the Institute and never really appeared anymore in public, nor published the research he undertook. And the only thing they found of it was signs in his personal workshop that he had built something there.

Imagine being Alain, a brilliant and passionate young researcher working on researching ruin guards and primal mechanisms from deshret's civilization. Making incredible breakthroughs in the field of machines, mekas and machine intelligence.

Imagine losing two of your dearest friends to their own twisted research that also took the assistant who helped you all as a casualty.

Imagine having to stand against them in an all out battle and then losing your sister, who you loved very dearly in that battle.

I wonder if after he lost Mary Ann, the already existing passion and zeal for researching ruin guards and machine intelligence now also gained the goal of trying to somehow try bringing Mary Ann back.

But yeah , in conclusion, my theory is thus:

Sandrone is not Mary Ann. The "Mary Ann" we see in Winter Night's Lazzo is a puppet and the large meka holding her up is the actual Sandrone. And their identity is actually an Alain Guillotin twisted by grief who preserved his consciousness in that mech robot.

Thank you for coming to my unhinged rant ft. my last two braincells broken by the Fontaine World Quests. This is just personal speculation and if Sandrone does indeed turn out to be the little lady I don't mind , I just had fun going nuts with this line of thought where that isn't the case.

If you made it this far, what do you guys think? Does this make sense to you? Do you have your own theories? Don't be shy, share your thoughts 👀

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin meta #genshin theory #reblog #thinking about the kuisel’s clockwork workshop quest

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genshinnrambles · 6 months

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Lepus: Amber and the Rabbit

****Possible spoilers ahead!!!

It is finally time for me to talk about the famous Outrider & Gliding Champion of Mondstadt, Amber! I’ll be honest, I never really thought that I’d be doing a constellation analysis for her or even for other characters that I don’t really care much about but I decided that I will try to do constellation analyses for all of them EXCEPT for Aloy

To start off, Amber’s constellation is called Lepus, which means “hare”. Rabbits don’t generally use Lepus as part of their scientific name, but they are considered part of the Leporidae family, Leporidae meaning “those similar to Lepus” (thus meaning “those similar to the hare”). Although hares & rabbits look very similar, there are some differences between them: one of them is that hares are generally larger & faster than rabbits, they’re also not domesticated unlike rabbits

****There are times when the constellation’s names will be a bit from what we may expect (a good example that I’ve done already is Cyno’s constellation analysis; the animal we tend to associate w/ him is the jackal bc of Anubis but his constellation [even in CN translation] literally translates to “golden wolf” which is an actual animal but it is not the same as the jackal); I usually try to stay consistent to what the constellations translate in both EN & CN unless I can’t make a good case for it for some reason (the hare & rabbit are very similar so there is bound to be a lot of interchanging between the terms across different languages; in CN, it translates to “Little Rabbit Constellation” but it should be noted that the CN character used for “rabbit” doesn’t really make a distinction between rabbits & hares, it’s used to refer to all leporids, so the translation itself could very well be referring to a young hare as well)

TLDR: a note about technicalities on translations of constellations & translations being different from each other (I’m going to try my best to stick to “hare” as opposed to “rabbit” in this thread mostly bc their speed & wildness are more in line with Amber’s lore, just remember that hares≠rabbits ^_^)****

When we look at Amber, you can tell that her character design is meant to look like a hare, especially w/ her headband representing the ears & having the same design in her constellation; she’s also agile as it is part of her job as an Outrider, which is essentially a scout

To emphasize her agility, our first meeting with her was when she was running & jumped out from the forest we were walking in; in addition, she is the gliding champion of Mondstadt as well, which speaks to her skill in controlling her glider while maintaining speed in the air

Aside from the obvious connection to swiftness, hares are symbols for a number of concepts, some of which we might not necessarily think are related to them while others can be more easily connected

They are related to fertility/abundance, innocence, the moon (nocturnal creatures), good luck, spring, love (usually associated w/ romantic love, having connections to Venus/Aphrodite), resurrection & rebirth (in line w/ spring when flowers grow after winter), wisdom/knowledge, mischief (fun fact: hares could sometimes be the familiars of witches before black cats became more associated with witches)

Some of these concepts can be found sprinkled throughout Amber’s lore; the ones that I find prevalent are mischief, wisdom/knowledge, rebirth, and the moon

It turns out that Amber was quite the troublemaker when she was younger & it was usually her grandfather, the senior/leading Outrider, who had to clean up after her messes; looking at her now in the game, we see that she doesn’t seem like someone who would cause trouble for others

As someone who tries her best to help/guide others, she has her own sense of wisdom which wasn’t present in her childhood; she has been a mentor to Collei mostly

The Windblume’s Breath event with Collei can speak to this wisdom

There is a point where she, Eula, and Klee see Collei & Sucrose interacting w/ each other; Klee wants to join in but Amber stops her bc she understands that Collei still struggles interacting w/ others & what she needs at the moment is someone who can relate to her like Sucrose before she can go on to interacting with more extroverted people including Amber herself

Now w/ the concept of rebirth, this is shown more so figuratively when the Outriders group started to deteriorate due to her grandfather no longer being there; at some point, it was just her alone

We can see a bit of transformation happening for Amber, going from a mischievous child to a mature & helpful Outrider in her Character Story; it almost feels strange to think of her as a former troublemaker when she has helped a lot in Mondstadt

Now the moon is an interesting aspect to consider when we look at how it fits into the overall world building; aside from the fact that Amber calls Mondstadt (Moon City in German) her home, rabbits and hares are often times associated w/ the moon due to them being usually nocturnal but what stands out to me is that she is the first person with a Vision we meet & she hails from the first nation that we visit which has connections to the moon; I think that although she might not have strong ties to the moon itself, she does help to establish the importance of the moon in the world of Teyvat with her intro to Mondstadt

I know we like to joke at times that Mondstadt may be the favorite child of HYV but I think there’s something to be said about how Mondstadt helped to establish much of the lore for many of us especially with Istaroth & the Moon Sisters presented to us early on; there’s also the duo of time & wind being established as important concepts by Mondstadt as well

So if anything, Amber’s connection to the moon seems more as a driver of the game’s starting lore rather than as a symbol to her own lore

Maybe the answer of the truth points to Mondstadt after all 👀

****This was supposed to be out in March.....for Easter.....because you know......rabbits and hares.....RIP to this thread and a few others which have been sitting in my drafts for a long time T^T

#genshin lore #genshin impact lore #genshin amber #genshin meta #reblog

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genshinnrambles · 6 months

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The dream-tree and the role of allogenes

The dream is a tree and the stars are its fruits. And some fruits can produce a seed. And that seed can be used to perpetuate the dream.

Reading the analysis in the reblog, got me thinking about the analogy of the tree presented in it, but with something else it can be applied to.

I’ve written before about Makoto’s philosophy of eternity and what role visions might play into it, and I think the analogy of the tree can also give more insight into the Sacred Sakura tree.

Makoto thought dreams are what motivate humanity forward and, as long as these dreams are carried collectively by transient beings, they can become “eternity”. Think for example of how culture and customs are preserved by a community by teaching it to each other and passing it down generations.

Dreams constantly generate wishes (mistranslated in english version as “ambition”) and sometimes one of these wishes is “recognized by the gods” and granted a vision.

From ei’s second story quest:

Makoto saw a bigger picture than I did. In her view, a “dream” is more imaginary, more abstract than a [wish].

A [wish] is a yearning for something material, or a concrete outcome. It is finite in nature, and will be replaced by a new [wish] in due course.

Makoto was more concerned with the force that drives humans to constantly generate new [wishes] in the first place. It is something innate, rooted in instinct — in other words… it is something eternal. To put it simply, Makoto wasn’t concerned about outcomes.

I didn’t understand at the time. How can we say that we are maintaining eternity when things are constantly moving forward and evolving?

I suppose what it comes down to is the definition of “eternity” she set out with.

Yoimiya’s story quests go deeper into this concept: people use fireworks to commemorate or remember something that motivates them: an old couple remembered their marriage, a group remembered their childhood friendship, two gay lovers remembered their commitment to their goals and each other (not really but yes really).

Naganohara fireworks gives their customers a special recipe written in code that only the family can decipher, so no matter how much time has passed, they can recreate people’s fireworks and reignite that memory.

So a motivation (memory) can be carried by something transient (fireworks) as long as it’s shared (with the recipe).

Another example is Kazuha, who carried his friend’s wish to face the Musou no Hitotachi beyond his death, even reactivating his vision in the process. For more about what this shared wish is, here’s this analysis.

So dreams are what motivates humanity forward, these dreams generate wishes and wishes can be granted a vision.

A vision is then a physical manifestation of a wish, and a wish symbolizes a major dream.

In the analogy of the tree, the dream is the tree, wishes are the tree’s fruits, and a vision is a seed within one of these fruits.

We’d have to wonder then, what does it really mean to be “recognized by the gods” - for one of these fruits to produce a seed?

Ei might have the answer.

The planting of the Sakura tree in her second story quest is pretty much Makoto’s philosophy of eternity in motion:

A dream is a tree that produces fruits and these fruits produce seeds. Makoto gave Ei her seed, the ability to carry her dream forward. But Ei didn’t just plant someone else’s dream, that was her own dream too that she hadn’t fully realized - hence why it’s planted in the past and why it’s Ei who has to plant it, it was always meant to be like this.

The Sakura tree is Ei and Makoto’s shared dream that was able to become an eternal existence in Inazuma thanks to the planting of the seed.

So, if visions are the seed in the analogy, then the ability to produce these seeds might have to do with being able to plant a tree with it - to carry a dream.

I first thought of equating the dream-tree concept to the irminsul - it accumulates memories after all. In this sense, allogenes are the fruit of the tree who can produce a seed with a vision.

In the analogy, the fruit is a wish generated by the dream-tree. We’re told by Yoimiya in her second story quest that wishes are stars - meteor showers.

Allogenes are represented by constellations - so, they’re stars.

Summary:

Tree: a “dream”

Fruit: a wish-star representing an allogene

Seed: a vision that can perpetuate the ”dream”

But what allogenes share is not the irminsul tree, it’s the ability to control an element.

Therefore, I wonder if elements are the dream that is shared.

I wrote long ago about Carl Jung’s collective unconscious theory in the context of genshin and I’m being pushed into looking into that again haha.

If the concept of dream in genshin motivates humanity forward, it’s like shared knowledge innate to every being - a memory hidden deep beneath the conscious mind that people only access when they dream. That is more or less what Jung called the “collective unconscious”.

The women who were desintegrated in Fontaine all became a single being in the form of a oceanid - oceanids are concentrations of pure hydro. So the primordial waters took the victims’ consciousness into a stream of collective unconscious.

I proposed before that elements are the shared dream-tree, that allogens (represented by a star) are the wish-fruit, and that visions are the seed that can perpetuate the dream-tree.

Primordial waters - hydro is like.. the collective unconscious of humanity (the dream-tree) claiming back its fruits, bringing each individual’s conscious back to this hidden sea of wild unconscious. I love that it’s represented by a wild ocean tide, pushing to come out with force.

Humans have forgotten something very important perhaps, buried deep in the unconscious, that now threatens to come out and consume Fontaine people’s individual consciousness. Like repressing a memory that then influences your behavior even though you’re not aware of it, except the repressed memory is now desintegrating the French for some reason.

Sort of, like, “if you won’t acknowledge me, then I’ll eat you up”. Like if they can’t become one in the conscious mind because people can’t remember this repressed memory, then the repressed memory decided they’d become one in the unconscious instead.

The original Chinese word for “allogene” (“genshin”) does mean something like “raw god” or “primordial god”, and Nabu Malikata implied that humans were the true rulers of teyvat.

So I wonder if that’s the hidden memory being repressed, the dream-tree that generates wish-fruits (humans represented by a star) who might have access to this memory by producing a seed (vision): that humans are meant to be gods.

I think the meteorites in an event were also called fruits? That is also in line with the analogy that stars are the wish-fruits of the dream-tree.

Also, Carl Jung thought a conscious individual could access the collective unconscious by drawing a mandala - the sky in most places in teyvat looks indeed like a mandala and we’re told humans are represented by constellations in it. If the primordial sea is the collective unconscious, then the sky mandala with the constellations representing people is the representation of that collective unconscious.

The sky mandala is a reflection of the primordial sea haha.

There’s also a collective conscious - that is, knowledge shared by a society. Maybe the irminsul is the collective conscious (it stores memories and can be manipulated) and the real dream-tree of collective unconscious is hidden somewhere beneath. Maybe khaenri’ah or the abyss.

Maybe the aranara know.. I first looked into Jung’s collective unconscious theory because of them.

They are collective knowledge (that can even turn themselves into trees that give seeds!) created by Rukkhadevata, who is connected to the irminsul tree (humanity’s collective consciousness), but humans forget them when they grow up and their home was destroyed, so they’ve moved into a “dream”.

These are creatures that basically exist in the collective unconscious of humanity, that people knew once but forgot, and can only be interacted with in a dream - just like Jung’s collective unconscious theory.

The collective unconscious is a kind of knowledge humans share by instinct almost, regardless of culture or time. For example, Jung wanted to understand why different myths used a tree to symbolize life, or the sun to symbolize power/authority. Different cultures around the world share the same symbols for their myths and beliefs, and this is what he identified as a form of knowledge rooted deep in the psyche of humanity.

Also uhhh I have not played any side quests, so all I know about Fontaine’s institute lore is what I’ve read other fans say. I know they found some kind of “will” in something that has abyss origins. Throwing a shot in the dark, I’m gonna say that’s the seed produced by a fruit from a dream-tree in the abyss. Perhaps that’s what the whale and other abyss creatures are - wish-fruits that are stars from that hypothetical tree. But I’m bullshitting though, I don’t know that lore.

Anyway. Yeah. The dream is a tree and the stars are its fruits. And some fruits can produce a seed. And that seed can be used to perpetuate the dream.

#genshin theory #genshin lore #irminsul #raiden ei #raiden makoto #carl jung #collective unconscious #reblog #HELLO????#THIS THEORY IS AWESOME???#i love the idea that there’s a hidden tree #like………the imaginary tree #also it makes me think of inversion of genesis when scara went through the first layer of Irminsul to that ‘primal’ Irminsul #and how he even passed through an ADDITIONAL layer of that #lore brain going brrrr right now

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genshinnrambles · 6 months

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[4.1] What is "It"?: Theories on Will, Wishes, and Fate

With the finale of Fontaine’s Archon Quest in just a few days, I know there’s a lot of questions I’m personally anticipating the answers to: what is the true origin of the prophecy? What is the Primordial Sea, really? What is the connection between it and the Abyssal whale? And just what exactly did Skirk mean when she said that Childe had awakened “it” and had traces of “it” on him?

Most community theories suggest that “it” just refers to the whale, but like, what is the whale? Why did Childe even see it in the Abyss all those years ago, and why has it reappeared now? Well, I have a few ideas I’d like to explore about that, albeit in a very roundabout way, and they start with a quest that I feel has been severely under-discussed and under-theorized since its release: Yoimiya’s second story quest.

It’s understandable that this quest didn’t get too much buzz between its very unfortunate timing in patch 3.7, when community burnout was exceptionally high, and Honkai Star Rail’s debut as the Shiny New Thing. But it’s also a shame, because this story quest is full of interesting lore, Freudian references, and a few intriguing world building mysteries beneath its very wholesome story and further exploration of Yoimiya’s character. That is to say, the content of Yoimiya’s second story quest really matters. It’s not just because it is the first non-Archon character’s second story quest to date — it’s because it is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle comprised of Nahida’s second story quest, Caribert, and Khvarena of Good and Evil that was preparing us for Fontaine’s plot.

This is an attempt to identify and analyze the connections between Yoimiya’s second story quest and those above, as well as to theorize about the greatest mystery in Yoimiya’s quest, the “Urstone,” and finally tie all of that into Fontaine’s Archon Quest thus far. As that is an ambitious project, this will be far from an exhaustive theory, but I hope to at least get closer to understanding the meaning behind Childe awakening ”it.”

SPOILERS: Fontaine AQ Acts I-IV, Yoimiya’s SQ Act II: Star-Pickers’ Passage, Aranyaka, Nahida’s SQ Act II: Homecoming, Khvarena of Good and Evil, Ei’s SQ Act II: Transient Dreams, Kazuha’s SQ: A Long and Friendless Road (very minor), and Caribert.

A “Story”

Yoimiya: But there’s a premise to every legend, and that’s belief!

Since it's been a while, let’s start with some recap of Yoimiya’s Act II: Star-Pickers’ Passage.

By chance, the Traveler comes across Yoimiya in Inazuma as she prepares to search for a great meteor shower like the one that her ancestor saw many years ago. It’s patch 3.7, so the Traveler’s got a lot of time to kill and offers to go with her from Ritou to Port Ormos. There, they come across Acara Crafts’ stall that sells Aranara carved figures, which Yoimiya buys out to bring back as souvenirs to Hanamizaka.

In Sumeru City, Yoimiya and the Traveler briefly split up to look for meteor shower leads, and the Traveler runs into Nahida at the Akademiya. Upon learning their journey’s purpose, Nahida explains that meteor showers are unpredictable occurrences related to “intricate fates” interfering with one another, and for this reason seeking one out reliably is impossible.

The Traveler and Paimon are reluctant to tell Yoimiya this out of fear of disappointing her and rendering her journey meaningless, so with Nahida’s help they decide to facilitate the meteor shower through a dream in order to fulfill her wish.

This is the first of many references to psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud’s theory of dream interpretation in this quest. Freud thought that the psychological purpose of dreams is to fulfill wishes, particularly wishes that we’ve forgotten through repression. He believed that these unfulfilled wishes are what produce the dream itself; the wish “wants” to be remembered, and the mental processes that repress it are weakest at night, so dreams are our mind’s attempt to translate the underlying “thought” that represents the wish into “images” while we sleep. Through dreams, unfulfilled wishes can be made conscious or remembered and fulfilled through a fantasy.

To lure Yoimiya into the dream and sell her their “story”, the Traveler and Paimon craft the perfect pretext so that she fully believes that they are preparing to see a meteor shower. Their pretext’s foundation, namely the idea that meteor showers are summoned by people’s wishes, subtly twists the truth in Nahida’s words so that something intangible and uncontrollable is framed as something with an amount of certainty. In other words, by controlling the pretext, the Traveler and Paimon are able to control “truth.”

Upon reuniting with Yoimiya, the Traveler finds her with a little girl in a wheelchair named Avin. Before parting ways, Yoimiya gives her a carved Aranara souvenir to thank her for guiding her through Sumeru City, and to cheer her up. Yoimiya then tells the Traveler that Avin has an unknown chronic illness that immobilizes her legs, and that she had approached Avin because she seemed to be alone and in a bad mood.

As they refocus on finding the meteor shower, the Traveler and Paimon begin to tell Yoimiya their lie and set the plan in motion. They play the role of magicians using careful misdirection to craft a wonderful illusion; beneath the ruse of finding the right “location” (or “space”) and forging a special device (which can be anything) to observe the meteor shower, they will take Yoimiya on a journey through Sumeru and make memories with her, adding meaning to what is ultimately a trick. With these seeds planted, they head off to Devantaka Mountain to “practice” wishing for the meteor shower.

At the top of the Ruin Golem there, Yoimiya shares more about her motivations for setting out on this journey. As someone who was entrusted with the wishes of everyone in Inazuma who heard of her dream, Yoimiya began to wonder why people derive this meaning from meteor showers in the first place:

Yoimiya: People use fireworks to remember their most precious memories, and these memories sparkle and shine each time the fireworks fly.

Yoimiya: In other words, fireworks symbolize the past. Yoimiya: And shooting stars make people think of wishes because wishes carry people's brilliant hopes and expectations for the future. Yoimiya: One represents the past, and the other the future. They both bloom in the sky, but have completely different meanings behind them.

Yoimiya’s belief that wishes are beautiful things that join the past and the future is what gives her journey meaning, and this is what keeps her moving forward despite the lack of certainty that she will ever find this beauty herself. This admiration for the hope in people’s hearts is what shapes her wish, too.

After returning to Sumeru City, they ask Ahangar for guidance on how to forge an observation device with the purest ore. After some initial skepticism, he chooses to entertain their “story” and tells them about his own profession’s local legend: somewhere, there exists an excellent forging material that few have ever found, and the few who already have it have never used:

Yoimiya: So you mean that [the forging material] symbolizes dreams? Ahangar: Dreams, inspiration, obsession, focus…. Call it what you want. But if you take it to symbolize “purity,” then I believe it is your goal as well. Ahangar: We call it Urstone, but in truth, neither I nor my colleagues have ever seen it.

As they are about to set off and find this Urstone, Avin’s parents show up looking for her after she didn’t return home that day. The Traveler and Yoimiya then find Avin collapsed on the outskirts of Sumeru City. After calming her down, Avin discloses that her illness has not just immobilized her – she has also forgotten her happy memories and how it felt to be passionate before she got sick. With no end in sight to her illness, Avin’s dreams of becoming an adventurer have ended and her world feels as if it is closing in on her – as she later reflects, her world had “shrunk down to a tiny space.” Avin’s illness is an objective truth with material consequences on her life, and this truth ended the fantasy of her innocence, along with her dream of becoming an adventurer one day. This loss of innocence, and therefore loss of childhood, triggered feelings of depression and hopelessness in her. However, the Aranara carving that Yoimiya gave Avin reminded her of her childhood friend, Arashani, who she desperately wanted to see again.

To help Arashani and Avin reunite, the Traveler calls on the Aranara for help with a whistle that Nahida gave them for the dream-meteor shower. When Arapurva arrives, Yoimiya asserts herself as someone who both values childhood innocence and sees children’s dreams as worthy of protection, which earns the Aranara’s trust:

Arapurva: It seems that Red Nara has not yet grown up. Paimon: Huh? What do you mean by that? Arapurva: Time is very important to Nara. Nara walk with time. They remember much, and they forget much. But Red Nara is different. You know how young Nara think. The warmth in your heart is very pure, and it is fierce like the sun.

Arapurva then takes them all to Mawtiyima to find Arashani, and here they enter a collective dream. Before leaving them, Arapurva urges Avin to remember, and that to do so she needs both memories and dreams. Arapurva also says something very interesting, also worth keeping in the back of your head: “Dreams are connected to your heart, not your body.”

Avin: Wow, that’s amazing, is this…the power of my heart? Video Still from Streetwise Rhapsody

The dream space allows Avin to unite thoughts with belief to create images. Remember, according to Freud, the psychological purpose of dreams is to make conscious an unfulfilled wish – so, in this liminal space between the conscious and unconscious, Avin can create the image of herself walking again just by thinking of it, because it is her wish, and thereby remember how she once felt before she got sick.

As they search for Avin’s memories of Arashani, Yoimiya and Avin chase a wayward “star” across Mawtiyima’s mushroom canopy until they reach an iridescent pale blue stone with a solid partial casing surrounding it. Inside, the stone glitters with the light of the universe.

Avin: I dunno how to explain this…I don’t know what it is, but it feels very familiar…Almost like it’s a part of me.

Yoimiya speculates that this stone is what Avin has been searching for all this time, and that it is her Urstone:

Yoimiya: It's a very rare ore that symbolizes a person's aspirations and dreams. Yoimiya: Since you can see it, that means you've found what you've lost. Avin: Is that how it works...? Avin: It's just like in fairy tales... I thought I'd stopped believing in those. Avin: But I'm glad that I found that belief again.

Avin then reaches into the Urstone and passes through it into a deeper layer of the dream, and there she reunites with Arashani, signaling that she has regained her memories. Having found him again, Avin’s hope is renewed and it changes her reality – indeed, it changes her fate. To be clear, Avin can’t dream or wish away her illness in real life, but her hope is what allows her to expand the “tiny space” her world had become in her depression.

After this, the crew seemingly returns to reality, but finds that Arashani is still there along with Arapurva. Having settled her worries, Avin resolves to help Yoimiya and the Traveler achieve their wish to see the meteor shower, and offers them her Urstone…

Avin: Yoimiya, you need this Urstone because you want to see a meteor shower? Yoimiya: Yep. Oh! Once we find it, you should come with us! Avin: If that’s how things are…I’m happy to lend you my Urstone.

…And then, Avin pulls a light blue lens from her chest, right over her heart. With this lens crafted using the purest ore, they locate a meteor shower of stars flying up from the ground and ride them through the clouds. Finally, they wake up from the collective dream and part ways in Port Ormos.

The Purest Ore and the Will to Power

Now, there’s a lot to discuss about Yoimiya’s second story quest, and we will get to as much of it as possible, but the bulk of this theory will be focused on trying to understand the Urstone, so that is where we will begin.

Let’s start with what we know from the quest. We are told three things about the Urstone: it is “the purest ore,” it symbolizes dreams, and through the dream we are implicitly told that it represents the power of the heart.

This last area is where we’ll turn the majority of our attention, because from there we can reach a greater understanding of many worldbuilding concepts we’ve encountered in the story thus far. However, all of these definitions of the Urstone work hand-in-hand and do not contradict one another, so they are all helpful to keep in mind going forward.

But what do I mean by “power of the heart?” Well, first let’s harken back to the Aranara quest, Aranyaka, where we learned about the “Sourcesong” and the songs that split off from it through time. By learning all of the songs that represent these branches from the origin, the Aranara get closer to learning the Sourcesong:

Arasudraka: Songs are like rivers. They derive from the same origin, the "Sourcesong." She is the home to all songs and the source of all great rivers. Arasudraka: Then, it changes when it is sung for different memories and different stories, just like how a great river diverges into creeks. Arasudraka: Just like all the creeks eventually flow into the sea, all the songs eventually converge into one, into the Sourcesong. Arasudraka: So Aranara song gatherers have to find all the songs. That way, we can find the Sourcesong.

These songs serve as a metaphor for another theme of Aranyaka, which is the concept of “returning to Sarva,” or returning to Irminsul after death in the form of memories/energy in the Ley Lines. It could also be extended to what we currently understand about the Primordial Sea as the origin of all life, its “source,” and all the lifeforms that arise from it are like the creeks that diverge from the river before they eventually converge back into the sea:

Paimon: What? You mean you don't believe in the prophecy? Augereau: No, no, I believe in the prophecy, but I also believe in another story. Augereau: The story says that people once lived in the ocean. They were one with the ocean and couldn't live apart from it. Augereau: But as time wore on, people desired to live on land and developed blood vessels, encapsulating the sea within their bodies. Thus could people set foot on land. Augereau: So if you ask me, when the water rises and takes us all, it'll be like we're going home.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was also interested in the idea of things differentiating themselves from a primordial source of sorts, and he uses this language in one of his many attempts to define his most well-known philosophical doctrines, the Will to Power. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche marks the inner “world of desires and impulses” as the source of emotions (Nietzsche, 35). He likens it to a primitive world where desires exist in a state of unity that then branch off into distinct organic processes. Nietzsche argues that this differentiation arises due to “will,” and that will is the “causality of all things,” and that all will is Will to Power – in other words, the will to dominate and to multiply (Nietzsche 13 & 35).

“Will” is the force that differentiates the primordial soup of our base desires and impulses into distinct organic processes, and these processes then give rise to distinct life forms that separate themselves from the original state of unity. That is, without “will,” we would all still be floating in the unified state of the primordial soup - will is both the cause, and the reason for individuality:

Mary-Ann: Water can take any shape, and life can choose what form it must take. This, however, has nothing to do with its essence. That is a different matter.

If you’ve been following the Narzissenkreuz Institute world quest plot, this discussion of “will'' should be ringing some bells. In Khvarena of Good and Evil, we came across Rene’s Investigation Notes in the Girdle of Sands, which talked about the power of Khvarena and a blurred out word (likely “Abyss'' or “Void”) containing a will of their own that can recognize itself, unlike the power of the Elements:

...Though the results are nothing impressive, this is because the object [the Khaenri’ahns] chose was pure elemental force, which lacks any will whatsoever. Like the difference between the Director and a Hydro Slime, perhaps? […] Even though the calculated result is unchanged, but if the refinement method is reflected... If the power of... then maybe we can extract the "will" within. Using this method... resist the impact…

The investigation notes do two things here that we’re interested in: first, they establish the presence of “will” as the distinction between elemental energy, such as that found in Azosite, and the higher powers represented by Khvarena and “Void,” and second, they raise the possibility that “will” is something that can be removed from its vessel, so to speak, or perhaps manipulated. Just keep this in the back of your mind for now, too, we’ll come back to it much later.

If we apply this concept of will back to the Sourcesong story, then it is will that differentiates each song into its own unique form, but each song still contains the essence of the Sourcesong from which it arose. A similar story is told about the five branches of the Raiden Gokaden. In Kazuha’s Story Quest, Amenoma Tougo likens the Raiden Gokaden to schools of thought that originate from a single source, with each branch carrying its own philosophy. Kazuha’s family’s school, the Isshin Art, seeks “complete harmony between blade and mind” during the forging process, because they believed this was the only way for a blade to “capture and convey its maker's thoughts and feelings, and eventually become an extension of its wielder's will.”

This is a very important concept as we move forward. If we think of will as what differentiates each forging art of the Raiden Gokaden from each other and their source, and each branch is considered a unique school of thought and philosophy of blade forging, then thoughts are an essential component of will. If a blade that these philosophies produce is meant to capture the thoughts and feelings of its respective forging branch, such that they are an extension of will, then will can be further defined as the cause and reason that an abstract form (thoughts and feelings) is translated into a physical form (an object, such as a blade). It is both the how and the why.

Put another way, the blade is the bladesmith’s will embodied. It is the bladesmith’s thoughts and feelings, which we have just established are an essential component of will, given a physical form. The thoughts and feelings are will, the object is will, and the “force” that translates the abstract into the physical is will. So basically, it’s all will, but in different forms.

But so what? Well, let’s go back to the amazing feat that Avin accomplished towards the end of the story quest. She asks Yoimiya what she needs, then says she will lend her Urstone to Yoimiya to help her achieve her dreams, and what does she then do? She pulls a viewing lens from her chest, right over her heart.

That is what the Urstone is. The Urstone is the source of a person’s will, and the Urstone is associated with the power of the heart, which would also make “will” the power of the heart. Will is what underlies the power of creation and imagination, or as Ashikai puts it in her theory of Irminsul’s true purpose, the power by which “thoughts become things.”

The purest ore was needed to craft the observation device, and of course the purest ore would come from the purest will – a child’s will. What’s more, Yoimiya and the Traveler never even mentioned what kind of device they needed to forge with the Urstone. It was Avin’s will to help her friends that materialized their thoughts into an object. The implications of this are fascinating, though this theory isn’t going to go there. Instead, I’d recommend watching Ashikai’s video above if you’re interested in that train of thought.

The Seed of Ideas*

Paimon: The light turned into…a seed?

Having established this connection between thoughts/feelings, the power of the heart, and “will,” let’s see how else we can think about the Urstone. I noticed that “will” turns up in a couple of other recent to semi-recent contexts, and both of them involve the origin of some important trees in the open world.

To start, let’s revisit Ei’s second story quest. As a lightning fast refresher, Ei and the Traveler were investigating Rifthound activity near the roots of the Sacred Sakura tree, which we know protects Inazuma by purifying “filth” from the earth, or rather the memories of people who died on the land. This is meant to mirror Irminsul, since the Ley Lines also contain memories and are Irminsul’s root system. With the Sacred Sakura’s roots damaged, this “filth” leaks out, and the memories within are briefly re-projected onto the land.

As Ei confronts her past through these memories of Inazuma, she vocalizes her change of heart since the Vision Hunt Decree and her newfound will. The Shogun then challenges her to a duel in Raiden Makoto’s realm of consciousness, which Ei preserved before she passed away 500 years ago. When Ei successfully proves the strength of her will to the Shogun, she awakens another fragment of Makoto that she hid inside Musou Isshin. Interestingly, Makoto calls this a fragment of her will. Upon awakening her will, it becomes a seed that Ei plants in the realm of consciousness, which grows the Sacred Sakura tree in the real world. In other words, the Sacred Sakura tree is Makoto’s will given a physical form, another example of someone’s will embodied.

But this is not even the first time that will has been represented to players as a seed. In Dragonspine, the Frostbearing Tree goes through a physical transformation as the Traveler offers it more and more Crimson Agate, which is a crystal tainted with Durin’s abyssal blood. After offering enough Crimson Agate, we get the blueprint for the Frostbearer catalyst, which tells us an interesting story:

A long, long time later, yet still long ago — When the deathmatch between the dragons of darkness and wind was decided at last, When corrosive blood stained the ashen valley red, The tree, at last, remembered that it had not died with that entombed city, And it extended its greedy roots towards the warm ichor that irrigated the land. Because a certain someone poured out a crimson essence upon it, The tree that should have long died remembered its past, And bore a single fruit from the coalescence of all its might…

As creepy as the Frostbearer catalyst lore is, there’s another useful analogy to be made here so that we can better understand Avin and her Urstone.

Think of Avin as the Frostbearing Tree, a tree that “should have died” but remembered its past upon being offered Durin’s blood. This may seem like a strange comparison at first, but Durin’s blood is conceptually not so different from the memories flowing in the Ley Lines like water, or the filth flowing through the roots of the Sacred Sakura tree, just as Durin’s “heart” is likely a similar anchor for his consciousness as Elynas’s is, just as Makoto’s fragment of her will became the seed or “source” of the Sacred Sakura, or the “Urstone,” we theorize, is the source of an individual’s will.

Basically, Durin’s blood is a liquid form of his will that can change the “shape'' of the objects it comes into contact with, and upon being exposed to it the Frostbearing Tree remembers what its life was like before the Skyfrost Nail dropped on Sal Vindagnyr. This is very similar to how Avin remembered her happiness before her illness through the magic of the dream space and finding her Urstone. And upon remembering its past, the Frostbearing Tree bears the “fruit” that is the Frostbearer catalyst, the “coalescence of all its might,” but Avin bore the observation lens. Both are products of their source’s will, but have different emotions behind them due to their difference in purity.

But there’s one last thing I want to point out about the Frostbearer catalyst before moving on to the next point. A fruit is like a sugary case for a plant’s seeds, so what might this structure be in the center of the Frostbearer catalyst?

That’s right. A “seed,” which also resembles a gem or a stone. And not too unlike the general shape of the Urstone, I would add.

But you know what else the Frostbearer catalyst and the Urstone really remind me of? The Fire Seed from Nahida’s second story quest. Although the Fire Seed neither becomes a tree nor seems to come from one (though this is also debatable if you consider Rukkhadevata and Nahida to be like…smaller trees, originating from Irminsul), it’s still worth talking about if only for a potential analogy between it and the Urstone.

The Fire Seed has obvious visual similarities with the Frostbearer catalyst, with both “stones” or seeds in the center of them having the same overall shape - the Traveler and Nahida even call the Fire Seed a crystal before they learn what it is from the elemental life form in the Chasm.

Video still from Star Dragon X

The Urstone also generally looks similar to the Fire Seed in terms of the stone’s shape and the orientation of the casing-like objects around it, but there’s a more compelling analogy to be drawn between their composition. The Fire Seed is described as an extremely high concentration of elemental energy in a very fragile or unstable state, and we know from our understanding of Irminsul that elemental energy is another form that memories can take. While it’s not clear if passing through the Urstone is the same thing as entering the Urstone itself, Avin does access more of her repressed memories of Arashani after doing so, allowing her to “remember,” as Arapurva asked her to. So, both seem to contain memories.

You may also know that the prefix Ur- in Urstone means primordial or original, something from before the present. This leads me to wonder if that light of the universe glowing from within the Urstone is what Roozevelt calls “primal energy.” Hoyoverse does like to worldbuild through analogies and allegories, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the visual similarities between the Fire Seed and Urstone were meant to be a tip for a functional similarity as well.

Finally, there’s the relationship between the Fire Seed and Apep’s Heart of Oasis. The Fire Seed was made by Greater Lord Rukkhadevata with the help of Apep’s “children,” the elemental beings that split off from that “source.” It is meant to mimic the Heart of Oasis and the way that it functions, which tells me that all of this will/”heart”/source as a seed imagery is being repeated for a reason, because it’s meant to teach us more about how “will” works.

Remember how the Aranara believe they can find the Sourcesong by learning every song, and how this points to the idea that the essence of the source is retained in each of its “children,” despite the unique form that each song takes? Well, let’s think about that for a second. For example, think about how light shining through a prism will split off into unique colors - each color is distinct from the other, with a unique character and “form,” so to speak, but each color still originates from light. Red, green, and blue may all look different from each other, but each tells you about a characteristic of this thing called light.

I think the same is true about these “seeds.” These fragments of an original consciousness can take the form of seeds because that is one facet of the essence of the source. That’s why an Urstone can be so many things at once: a “heart” (though not corporeal), an “ore,” a source, a will, and a seed. That is because each fragment of the source’s will conveys a small “idea” taken from the original consciousness, and these ideas are like fruits born from a tree. If you were to “plant” these seeds in the ground, the ideas would spread across the land, thereby allowing one’s will not just to dominate, but also to multiply.

*The “Seed of Ideas” heading title is taken from an enemy in Honkai Impact 3rd introduced in Chapter 33. Lore-wise, they’re actually not a great example of the idea I’m trying to illustrate here lol. So don’t think too hard about the heading if you’re a Honkai 3rd player – I just thought it sounded cool. >_>

Wherefore Did the Spirit Tree Grow?

“But the reason it is effective is due to the nature of the origin, the primordial... based on the records, the constituent elements should be a "Circle of Four Orthants" and a "Tree of Emanation"... flows from the roots toward the center of the circle, and the circle encircles the abstract of... It's akin to pie crust and the filling of the pie, a metaphor sure to excite Jakob.” -Book of Revealing, Enigmatic Page VIII

And plant them we shall! That is just what Greater Lord Rukkhadevata and Raiden Ei did with Egeria and Raiden Makoto’s consciousness. Egeria’s consciousness sleeping in the Gaokerena has always reminded me of Avin’s Urstone, long before having the language of “will” to talk about it, but I could never quite explain why. I think the answer is a little more clear to me now, though there’s no concrete way to prove this theory at the moment. The Harvisptokhm, the Sacred Sakura, and I would also venture to guess the tree at Windrise are the result of planting either the source of consciousness or a fragment of consciousness, which anchors the consciousness to the mortal realm and allows it to exert its will on the land by purifying and containing its “filth.”

These trees all belong to the consciousness of gods and ascended allogenes, but Avin is as ordinary as they come, so how is it possible to suggest that her Urstone is anything like the Gaokerena or Makoto’s will? Maybe all that’s missing is “time”?

So…what is "it"?

“An external form is but a gift of time. Through ‘growth’ comes change, and even abandonment of previous forms. However, our true nature is not so easily affected.” –”Where Lies the Path Home,” Sapientia Oromasdis: Act II

Now with all of that set-up out of the way, let’s get to the heart of the matter here…ignore the pun.

The Archon Quest establishes early on that Childe’s Vision’s malfunctioning and his bad mood are connected to one another, and with Act III and IV we see that Childe is literally being summoned by the whale – it is calling out to him, drawing him into a rift where it swims in the Primordial Sea. His Vision’s malfunctioning is what I want to zero in on first to begin to answer the larger question of what the whale is and explain Childe’s movements so far.

Once again, Aranyaka becomes very relevant here. When the Traveler saves Rana at the end of the quest after resealing Marana’s Avatar, Rana resolves to go out on an adventure and receives a Vision of her own. Though we are not shown a visual of this, it is described on a black screen of white text:

Rana pulling the Vision from “a light with the warmth of a heartbeat” from her chest is imagery we’ve already seen before, when Avin pulled the lens from her chest in the collective dream. I mean, isn’t the parallel a little too on the nose here? Avin created a lens, something you use to see and perceive, and Rana was granted her…Vision? …Why are you booing?

Although Rana’s is the only Vision story so far that fits this imagery like a glove, I think Act III and Act IV offer some more support for where I’m going with this. Despite having Childe’s Vision in their possession since Act I, the Vision is shown twirling at the beginning of every dream sequence the Traveler experiences in the Fortress of Meropide, sequences that seem to be copies of Childe’s memories while he was a prisoner. The fact that the Vision doesn’t need to be on the physical person of its wielder in order to transmit these memories could be an indication of a deeper connection between the Vision and the wielder – that is, the Vision is similarly a physical extension of its wielder’s “Will,” created by their Urstone or “Heart,” and therefore is a part of them, like the fruit of a tree. And if that’s true, then Venti wasn’t kidding when he compared Visions to organs.

This also puts the Vision’s malfunctioning into a different perspective. To go back to Nietzsche’s statement about Will to Power, will can only operate on will, and will is the causality of all things – through this lens, it may be correct to say that the traces of “it” that Skirk could sense on Childe are traces of the Abyssal whale’s will, and that its will is interfering with Childe’s own will at this fateful moment.

If we buy the idea that will is at least part of what can change your fate, and that Childe has traces of the whale’s will left on him, then the secret of why “it” has reappeared now may have been foreshadowed by what Nahida said in Yoimiya’s second story quest: that “meteor showers'' appear as a result of many intricate fates interfering with one another.

Specifically, it’s an allegory for Childe and the whale. The dream Childe had when he fell into the Abyss and the meteor shower are analogous, to be sure, but let’s not forget about our good friend Mr. Freud here either, who’s analysis shows us that dreams are suppressed wishes translated into images. From that perspective, it would also be correct to say that the meteor shower is analogous to a wish. That is, Childe’s fate and the whale’s fate are interfering with one another because of their encounter in the Abyss when he was a young teenager, and perhaps the Abyss appeared that day because Childe’s fate and the whale’s fate were interfering with each other then too - and that this was Childe’s wish all along:

“Pursued by bears and wolf packs, he lost his footing and fell into a bottomless crack in the earth's surface. There, he witnessed the endless possibilities of another ancient world. There, he would meet a mysterious swordswoman... Or perhaps one should say that this dark realm had sensed the burning ambition in this boy's heart.” –Tartaglia, Character Story 4

As for the larger question of what the whale is, it’s likely not very different from Visions, or the blades of the Raiden Gokaden, or Avin and the lens. It is an extension of the Abyss’s will that branched off from its source a long time ago, a primordial being much lower on the Abyssal phylogenetic tree than the more humanoid Abyss Heralds or mages. That’s as far as I feel comfortable speculating about its origins for now, but I hope we get some clarity on its age and “distance” from its source very soon. Speaking of which…we haven’t talked about Caribert yet, have we?

There’s something eerily similar about the way that Avin described her world as a “tiny space” before changing her fate when we consider the additional context of Caribert. When he regained consciousness, he said it felt like he had just woken up from a “long dream,” and that in his dream he was hiding in a “little room,” and that he had no desire to leave it. I think this language is similar on purpose, and it tells us some more crucial information about Urstones, will, and their relationship to these curses placed on the Khaenri’ahns.

The “little room” and the “tiny space” are metaphors for a person’s perspective, which has been repeated over and over again in nearly every Fontaine world quest thus far to further our understanding of aesthetics. It’s clear from those quests that an individual’s perspective is limited, but it can be broadened by interacting with others + the passage of time, and that over long periods of time these perspectives allow for aesthetic values to change. Thus, the world is also changed. But the opposite of change is stagnation, and stagnation is precisely the result of losing the ability to connect with others - indeed, the will to leave the tiny room.

We’ve already established that when “will” exerts its influence on another will, it can change the “shape” of the will it is dominating - the Frostbearing Tree is a great example of this. The Hilichurls have also had their external forms altered, and they erode away until eventually dissolving into the mud in the Chasm. So maybe, just maybe, the “curse of the wilderness” is a result of their will being tampered with by the same “thing,” such that their inner world becomes so small that they cannot find their will anymore, and therefore they cannot change their fate.

Childe is briefly seen fighting the whale in his Foul Legacy form in the version 4.2 trailer

Now, I’m not suggesting that the traces of the whale’s will would ever result in Childe becoming a Hilichurl, or that the whale is responsible for the curse of the wilderness at all. What I am wondering is if this is why Skirk took Childe up as her disciple – to teach him a “form” of combat that would maintain his grip on his will, on some kind of “belief,” not allowing it to be dominated by the whale’s will, so that there is yet hope that Childe can change his fate.

And if that is true, then here is my last theory before I disappear: Yoimiya’s belief that a child’s wish is precious and worth protecting is likely an allegory for Skirk’s motivation to train Ajax, and the relationship between Yoimiya and Avin is also meant to foreshadow them – a master and her disciple, a traveler from afar and a child of this world, a child-at-heart and a child who is lost. This core belief is what makes Yoimiya’s heart pure, and by passing that belief on to Avin, she plants the seeds of new hope for her to defy fate, and one day she may do the same for someone else. This, in essence, is the meaning of will, and that is what I believe Skirk’s lessons were meant to teach Ajax. And that is a twist that I truly never saw coming.

TL;DR: The Urstone is the source of will that exists in each person, will is what translates thoughts into images and objects, smaller "wills" or "ideas" split off from the Urstone/heart/source/consciousness and allow for will to spread and exert its influence on other wills, and Skirk may have more in common with Yoimiya than you thought.

Thank you so much for reading, I really hope it made some sense. I would love to hear what you think of all the lore up to this point and what you make of it! :)

Sources

Yoimiya Story Quest Act 2 (Full Quest) Carassius Auratus Chpater: Act II | Genshin Impact - YouTube- grabbed the “is this…the power of my heart?” screenshot from here because I forgot to take it in my alt’s playthrough.

Nahida Story Quest 2 - Using the fire seed to save Grounded Geoshroom | Genshin Impact 3.6 - YouTube - Video still of Lumine holding the fire seed from this video.

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, which you can read for free here. Page numbers are given from my hard copy.

A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud, also can be read for free here.

For more analysis of the Will to Power doctrine, check out Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin theory #genshin meta #genshin impact lore #genshin impact theory #fontaine #tartaglia #childe genshin #skirk #yoimiya #theory

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genshinnrambles · 6 months

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updates 10/25/2023

currently (re)writing + editing urstone theory. unfortunately this has been much more difficult to articulate and organize than I thought, but I have most of the theory written out and will have it up...soon. I said last weekend on twitter, but that didn't happen. but soon. definitely before 4.2.

tumblr debuted a new feature where you can respond to comments as your sideblogs, so I hope to utilize this and interact with people who leave comments as replies now. C:

please take care of yourselves, and I hope you're excited for the genshin livestream this Friday!

#updates

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genshinnrambles · 6 months

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Hi!! It's the sumeru akademiya anon!! Thank you for answering the questions. And yeah that's true, considering how iirc there are researchers in the akademiya who have been submitting papers again and again and gets rejected. Then there's also those who take time to produce one. It really is a matter of if theyre willing to go through all that again and if they can. That clears up my idea on this thing, thank youuu!! You're a big help!

Hi sumeru akademiya anon (I hope you don't mind me tagging the asks with this)!!

No problem, thanks for asking them! I'm always happy to discuss stuff like that.

#ask tillandsia #sumeru akademiya anon

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genshinnrambles · 7 months

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Childe and Orphic Myths

Dissecting Childe's "death flags", attachments to death, and heavy speculation on what purpose he might have in Fontaine. We are doing heavy conjecture in this one, folks.

Spoilers for the Archon Quests, Fontaine World Quests (less than I thought), and Childe's Character Story Quests.

Once again, discussions are always invited.

(Will return to fix spelling and grammar later but all links should work.)

There is going to be a little bit of repetitiveness with other posts I have made about my favorite lad and Fontaine. If you've seen this all before, I'm sorry. (But also thank you for reading ♡.)

Greco-Roman Mythology: The Disclaimer

(Copied and pasted from my other post. Since I am discussing a very old and simplified form of a religious practice, I want to be clear that interpretations of it have changed over time. I am purposely choosing the least extrapolated form of it. This is a choice I am making for the sake of this argument, not a value judgement on other interpretations.)

Ancient Greek myths are way older than ancient Roman myths by like several hundred years. It boils down to this: there was a pantheon and hierarchy, not everyone worshiped every god or every god equally. Some gods or groups of gods were worshiped only in mystery cult settings. (Not like modern day cults, but like secret churches. This was a more common practice for the under classes -- women and slaves.)

A lot of things either were not written down or were lost to time or were purposely kept hidden. Plays and epics and poems were written about gods and heroes, which adds authorship and time frame bias. The people who were allowed to write things down were usually the educated upper class, so add that in as a bias.

What we know of these ancient myths is cobbled together by the pieces left behind. There is a lot of information missing. And what we do have is still subject to translation (another bias) and possible misunderstandings.

Then the Romans got their hands on them, and some rewriting happened. New interpretations were added, news names were slapped on, etc etc. We are neither attributing this as a good or a bad thing. It is simply a thing that happened.

And also according to Ancient Mycenaen records, Ancient Greek Myths are older than, and likely collected from, more varied places than what we would now recognize as Ancient Greece. Some myths probably coming from the East and some from North Africa. Stories be that way sometimes.

Orphism

Orphism gets its name from the Greek poet and man of myth Orpheus.

He is perhaps most infamously known in modern day as the man who traveled to the underworld to recover his late wife, Eurydice. He played a song so sweet and beautiful the King Hades and the Dread Persephone were moved to tears. He was allowed to retrieve his wife under one condition -- do not look back upon her face until you are both fully free from the land of the dead. He fails.

However, this is not his only story. Orpheus worshiped the god Apollo. Cultists believed that this granted him his musical prowess but also made him a prophet (not unlike a one of Apollo's oracles.) He is credited as the author of the Orphic Hymns and Orphic Fragments, poems that would have been recited during religious rituals. (He also went with Jason on the Argonaut but we don't care.)

From this, we get Orphism the religion. Let's start here, Orphism is controversial. In part because of its ties to mystery cults making some information a little wonky. Orpheus also has a different version of ancient Greek mythology called the Orphic Theogony. We're not worried about that.

(Mystery cults were not like what we consider modern day cults. They were more like secret clubs where members worshiped together. Often this was carried out by the lower classes and it provided a sense of protection and privacy and freedom not normally allotted to them. They were also really good at keeping secrets and not writing things down because stigma. This has haunted historians for centuries.)

A key feature of Orphism are its ties to the underworld or afterlife or place of the dead, whatever you want to call it. It is marked by two points: the katabasis (the descent) and the anabasis (the ascent). Very rarely does anyone choose to stay in the underworld. It might help to think of it more as a pilgrimage of death and rebirth. Actual dying is not a requirement. Symbolic dying is good enough.

(One of the more controversial parts of Orphism is whether Apollo or Dionysus is the primary focus god. Overly Sarcastic Productions does a really good video on Dionysus specifically. And, uh, how it ties into Christian history. Jesus technically counts as an Oprhic myth. We are not terribly concerned with that here, but it helps to understand Orphism and certain beliefs and controversies tied to it. There are also a lot of modern day interpretations of Orphism. We are not talking about that in this post. This is og Orphic myths time. As simple as it gets.)

Monoceros Caeli and Cetus

I wrote an entire post on this topic that is more detailed, but I will summarize quickly. Childe's constellation is commonly translated as Monoceros Caeli, the Celestial Narwhal. His constellation in game looks like a narwhal. He drops a narwhal made of water on your head.

It actually seems to have the body of a baleen whale with the head structure of a narwhal. A bit chimeric, if you would. Shout out to the person who made me notice, you know who you are.

However, the Chinese name for his constellation is "鲸天座", an actual constellation known in the Western world by the name Cetus:

Talk about chimeric!

In ancient Greek mythology, Cetus is the term for any sea monster. They were created during the primordial era and are used as gate keepers or beasts of vengeance. Typical monster uses.

Ancient Chinese star map consisting of the four cardinal points and the twenty-eight mansions. The "Black Warrior" is the turtle/snake combo.

In ancient Chinese astronomy and astrology, Cetus is known only as the "sky whale". It has no legend onto itself, but it is noteworthy for its location in the twenty-eight mansions. It swims through the realm of autumn and white mourning and into the realm of winter and black death. Its stars help to create the guardian beast the White Tiger (guardian of soldiers and the fallen) and the Black Warrior (guardian of the land of the dead). It is associated with both the elements of metal and water.

Edit: I would be remiss to add this item description that everyone is mentioning. This is not my find, I'm just adding it in:

"The horn of a whale that you obtained from defeating Childe, who had unleashed the might of his Delusion. "It is said that the shape of one's constellation determines one's character. The image of a whale cruising across the celestial heights represents a solipsism that seeks to crush and devour all in its path. "Embracing this aspect of himself, Childe gleefully summoned one such beast before throwing himself into battle against you." --"Tusk of Monoceros Caeli"

More evidence for narwhal Cetus sky-whale.

Homer's Ajax and How Childe Rejects his Namesake

Ajax the Great is one of the heroes in Homer's Iliad. The Iliad is long and dense, so we are going to be brief.

(There are so many translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey was really interesting. Her translation of the Iliad comes out later this month. Looking forward to it. Meanwhile, have your pick of translation for the Iliad.)

(Also sometimes "Ajax" shows up as "Aiax". You'll need to know that for ctrl+f.)

Ajax the Great was a primarily defensive warrior -- meaning he provided cover for troops or protected the camps. Like a guardian. It's an important role. He was also a proud warrior that lost no fight... but one.

The king then ask’d (as yet the camp he view’d) “What chief is that, with giant strength endued, Whose brawny shoulders, and whose swelling chest, And lofty stature, far exceed the rest? “Ajax the great, (the beauteous queen replied,) Himself a host: the Grecian strength and pride. See! bold Idomeneus superior towers Amid yon circle of his Cretan powers, Great as a god! I saw him once before, With Menelaus on the Spartan shore. --Homer's "Iliad" (Helen of Troy talking about how massive and buff Ajax the Great is.)

At the end of the Trojan War, Paris (the guy who started it all) shoots and kills Achilles. It is Ajax and Odysseus who fight side-by-side to retrieve his body. After a brief ceremony, a competition is held to determine who will receive Achilles' magical armor.

This story is depicted in the Iliad, the little Iliad, the Metamorphosis, in the Sophocles' play Ajax, it shows up everywhere. The details change depending on how generous the author wants to be, but always it ends with Odysseus getting the armor, and Ajax... dying.

"The council of princes was swayed, and it shows what eloquence can do: the gifted speaker carried away the arms of the brave hero. But Ajax, who had so often stood alone against Hector, against sword and flame, against Jove himself, could not stand against mere passion, and indignation conquered the unconquerable hero. Drawing his sword he shouted: ‘This is mine, at least! Or does Ulysses demand it for himself? This I will use myself, on myself, and the iron so often drenched in Phrygian blood, will now be drenched in its master’s, so that none can defeat Ajax but himself.’ He spoke, and drove the lethal weapon to its full extent into his chest, that, till then, had never felt a wound. No hand was strong enough to draw out the implanted weapon: it was the blood itself expelled it, and the bloodstained ground bore a purple flower from the green turf, that had first sprung from the wound of the Spartan, Hyacinthus. In the centre of the petals letters are inscribed, shared by the hero and the boy, one reading of them being a name, ΑΙΑΣ, and the other one, ΑΙ ΑΙ, a cry of woe." --Ovid's "Metamorphosis"

So Childe's namesake is not a happy story. Like many ancient Greek hero myths, it ends in tragedy. Whose idea was it to name him that?

"Ice fishing has been one of Tartaglia's hobbies since childhood. "In those days, he was known neither by the names Tartaglia nor "Childe," as the Fatui call him, but as Ajax, named by his father after some hero's tale. He and his father would cut holes open upon frozen lakes before sitting beside them and tending to their fishing lines. "This was no easy task, and would sometimes take the entire morning. "But whether it was chiseling away at the thick ice or the long waits in between catches, he was always accompanied by his father's unending tales of adventure. "These were stories of his father's adventures from when he was young, and they became the future that Tartaglia secretly envisioned for himself. "So he would pay close attention, putting himself into the shoes of the protagonist of those tales, immersing himself fully in them even as they waited for a fish to bite. "Even after leaving home, Ajax, later to be known as "Childe" Tartaglia, would keep up that hobby of his. "No longer accompanied by the stories of bygone days, fishing instead became an opportunity to train — to hone his endurance, and reflect on combat techniques. "Such long periods of meditation to refine his skills swiftly relegated the question of a successful catch to irrelevance." --Childe's "Character Story 3"

So Childe's original name is given to him by his father. We also learn that his father was an adventurer and that Childe was inspired by him and his adventures growing up. His namesake seems almost like an invocation. Name the boy after a great hero, and hope he will become one in kind.

However, our Ajax is nothing like Homer's Ajax.

For starters, Childe is not a defensive warrior by any measures. In fact, he is explicitly assigned outside of Snezhnaya to avoid trouble.

"On the other hand, because they fret about the way his quarrelsome personality tends to invite unwanted trouble, the other Harbingers constantly try to get him sent on missions to places as far from Snezhnaya as possible, so that they can avoid the fallout." --Childe's "Character Story 2"

Notably, unlike the mythical Ajax, he loses in battle a lot. Also unlike the mythical Ajax, he takes most losses in stride.

"A warrior must always be ready to face any challenge with his blade. The outcome of the battle is irrelevant — what matters is that you learn from the experience." [EN] "As a warrior, [I] must constantly fasten [my] desire for a challenge to the tip of [my] blade. Regardless of the outcome, all [combat encounters] are valuable experiences that cannot be replaced." [CN] --Childe's "Voice Lines - About Tartaglia"

(Also, Ajax the Great was built like a brick house and it is mentioned so often in the Iliad. People mistake him for a giant, god, and titan. Our Ajax is a scrawny lanky tall skrunkle. I love him, but his muscles are more aerobic endurance than strength endurance. He's more like if you gave a wizard a sword than if you gave a knight magic.)

If anything, Childe has more in common with Ajax's character foil, friend, and rival: Odysseus. A complicated man. A warrior far from home. Someone who talks as often as he fights. Kind of a dick sometimes, but mostly alright, and we like him for it. A guy who enjoys sailing and fishing. A guy who just wants to go home and be with his family. A guy who travels to the underworld and back. But I digress.

Here they are being bros together. Odysseus was also a smaller guy than Ajax the Great. In case you think I forgot all of my comparison pins.

"Dearest Sister, are you all keeping well at home? Has the old man's headache gotten any better? "Please send my regards to our parents and our siblings. "I've sent some wind chill medication over from Liyue Harbor. It's very effective, and will probably keep him from nagging for a while. It should reach you after a few days." --Childe's "Tartaglia's Letters to Home"

There is sorrow here. Childe has two or three older siblings we know nothing about. He rarely speaks of his mother. The only real reference I have of her is the day he was found post-abyss. He is very "careful" with his younger siblings. And... his relationship with his father has shifted, hasn't it?

I don't think joking about "nagging" is that big of a deal, it's a family thing to do, but it is telling that he writes the letter to Tonia and not to his father. He sends the medicine to Tonia, and not to dad.

It's not extrapolating too much to assume his family fears him.

"In the eyes of his father, that third son that he had so worried about had changed for the worse, bringing much uncalled-for havoc to the seaside village of Morepesok. "Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Ajax had become a nexus of strife, for no matter where he went, fights and squabbles would follow — and he reveled in it. "Ultimately, after a huge brawl was pacified with some difficulty and with some near-fatal misses, his father had no choice but to hand his beloved son over for conscription into the Fatui. "He hoped that the strict military training of the Fatui could hone his son's temper, but wound up watching fully-armed troops getting the stuffing beaten out of them by a mere child. "This was a great disappointment to his father, but it also caught the attention of Pulcinella, the 5th Harbinger." --Childe's "Character Story 5"

As far as the father is concerned, his boy came back wrong.

...then he came back wrong again.

The little boy who grew up listening to his father's tales of adventure and heroism walked off into the woods one night, and something wearing his skin walked back out.

Childe isn't just a rejection of the mythic Ajax in every way that matters.

He is no longer his father's son.

In Conclusion?

Replace the word "underworld" with "abyss".

Ajax is a boy who walks off into the woods one day and falls down, down, down through a great crack in the earth and lands in the Abyss. After three months, he returns.

He completes the katabasis and the anabasis and for it, is given otherworldly knowledge -- abyssal magic.

That other characters also do this, that other characters even live or are born from the Abyss does not diminish the significance of this. Remember, katabasis is a pilgrimage. The act itself is special regardless of how often it is performed. It is a matter of personal spiritual importance.

Which is perhaps the point. People do not travel to the underworld for nothing. The reasons vary, but more often revolve around wisdom and belonging than they actually do around mortality. Though many have little choice in the matter, it's about what you return with, not about what you lost. But make no mistake, you will lose something.

Genshin Impact does not do one-to-one with any single mythology.

What I mean to say, is although I am comparing the ancient Greek underworld to the Genshin abyss, I do not believe them to be exactly the same. More that we are finding patterns. I don't think dead people's souls go to the abyss. ... Well. I think there are important links to the Primordial Sea Water in Fontaine, Celestia, and the abyss. Please see the Remuria post for more information. And possibly Elynas, but that's a different post.

That said, I think those links also connect to Childe. In his Fontaine introduction, he tells us more about Skirk and how he supposedly had awaken "it". He does not know what "it" is, but we are to speculate from his words, that "it" exists in the image of the "water whale" he drops on our heads. A creature of possible primordial importance. Something that left an imprint on him.

Which is his constellation. Which is also Cetus. Which is also the "sky whale" that swims through the realms of the dying and the dead.

Which is starting to look like a pattern.

I don't want to add too much conjecture to this.

"Why is he in Fontaine?" A lot of people are asking, and Childe is answering, "because I can feel that something is wrong."

"In my dream, I was in the deepest depths of the sea, and the boundless seabed was all around me. But in front of me appeared a whale that was so massive I felt like I couldn't breathe." --Childe "Fontaine Archon Quest: Act I"

The most famous (ancient Greek) Orphic myth isn't even Orpheus.

It's Persephone.

Kore is a girl who played in her mother's meadows one day and fell down, down, down through a great crack in the earth and landed in the Underworld. After six months, she returns.

She was no longer the happy girl her mother remembered. She no longer enjoyed the meadows and nymphs. She was different.

She was no longer her mother's daughter.

She completes the katabasis and the anabasis and for it, is given otherworldly powers -- Dread Persephone, ruler of the dead.

People do not travel to the underworld for nothing. Though she had little choice in the matter, it's about what you return with, not about what you lost. But make no mistake, you will lose something.

Where Kore was no longer, Dread Persephone thrived. Though, with the heavy price that she will always be tethered to the place that made her so.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Childe is currently locked in a prison controlled by a man whose constellation is Cerberus.

It's not a matter of one-to-one comparisons. It's about finding patterns.

Childe is a man who has undergone an Orphic pilgrimage. He is named for a man he does not resemble, though is strikingly similar to the man's antithesis.

Odysseus goes on his own Orphic journey. While in the land of the dead, he attempts to confront Ajax one last time.

“When I saw him I tried to pacify him and said, ‘Ajax, will you not forget and forgive even in death, but must the judgement about that hateful armour still rankle with you? It cost us Argives dear enough to lose such a tower of strength as you were to us. We mourned you as much as we mourned Achilles son of Peleus himself, nor can the blame be laid on anything but on the spite which Jove bore against the Danaans, for it was this that made him counsel your destruction—come hither, therefore, bring your proud spirit into subjection, and hear what I can tell you.' “He would not answer, but turned away to Erebus and to the other ghosts; nevertheless, I should have made him talk to me in spite of his being so angry, or I should have gone on talking to him, only that there were still others among the dead whom I desired to see. --Homer's "Odyssey"

Why is Childe in Fontaine?

Where Ajax is no longer, Harbinger Tartaglia thrives. Though, with the heavy price that he will always be tethered to the place that made him so.

Final Thoughts

No, I don't think Childe is literally Persephone, but I also didn't want to ignore how well that lined up. I also do not believe he is Odysseus. I only want to say that he is not "Ajax" in every way that matters. He is neither a Greek god nor a Greek hero.

I want to heavily emphasize that just like his constellation lore has three interconnecting points -- narwhal, Cetus, and 鲸天座 -- most Genshin lore is a collage of different inspirations. I only went with the Greco-Roman mythology for Fontaine because A. Childe is literally named for a Greek hero, and B. Fontaine is literally built on top of Fantasy Rome. So the allusions are not a mistake.

That said, I think the abyss is an entity onto itself and has way more going on than I want to get into in this analysis. I am using it as an analogue for the underworld in regards to katabasis pilgrimages, and I stick by that, but that does not make it similar to the underworld in any other way. It does not have to be literally the afterlife for it to be Orphic. Only symbolically.

I think there are other elements and inspirations from other mythologies of other cultures happening here. I just do not currently have a good feel for what those might be.

Meanwhile, I believe Childe is an Orphic character. And I believe the abyss presence in Fontaine is calling him home.

I don't think that means he's going to die. I think it might mean he goes back into the abyss for a while and surrenders another piece of himself. (Maybe what he gained the first time around?) One final pilgrimage.

I hope he brings the whale back this time.

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin impact lore #genshin meta #genshin impact meta #childe #tartaglia #monoceros caeli #fontaine spoilers #reblog #saving this to read later but it looks like a treasure trove of lore

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