I am a Connecticut-based blogger, writer, occasional artist, and amateur cartographer in whom the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and Ursula K. LeGuin ignited a lifelong passion for the fantasy genre that is now the primary subject of my blog.
You can find more of my writing at https://www.illuminerdi.com!
A long time ago, in the summer of 2022, when the cast of playable characters from Genshin Impact‘s then yet-to-be-released region of Sumeru leaked, I took one look at the line-up and committed right then and there to pulling just one – Dehya, whose name, rarity, Elemental type, weapon type, skills, and abilities were all unknown to me at the time. She was just a “tall female” character with what looked like cat-ears protruding from her head (we now know that’s just how her hair bunches up in the back), but I knew from the moment I saw her that I would burn through all my hard-earned Primogems for her.
Dehya | attackofthefanboy.com
For me, it came down to the fact that Dehya was the first (and for a while the only) character from Sumeru that we knew for sure had brown skin…although brown, in this case, is arguably only relative to the other characters from the region, who have an even more blindingly pale complexion than those from Mondstadt (the region of Teyvat inspired by Renaissance-era Germany). I am sure this came as no surprise to many, but I had not long been playing Genshin Impact at the time of those leaks and when I had inquired as to why there were only two dark-skinned characters in the entire game, I had been assured by other players that “in Sumeru, there will be diversity!”, so I was deeply disappointed to realize that HoYoverse wasn’t even being subtle about their egregious colorism, the use of orientalist stereotypes in their designs, and the general appropriation of SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) cultures in their worldbuilding. To this day, they have not officially addressed any of these issues, and that is in no small part due to a fandom that aggressively suppressed the backlash with harassment and abuse.
As a result, I have only pulled for a single five-star character from Sumeru – Cyno, who I ought to clarify is probably only brown-skinned by Genshin Impact‘s very low standards. He’s lighter even than Dehya. In my pursuit of Cyno, I successfully obtained several copies of Candace, currently the darkest-skinned of the three non-white playable characters from Sumeru and – by a total coincidence, I’m sure – the only one that’s a common four-star unit obtainable for free through the permanent Standard Banner, immediately making her less desirable to the majority of Genshin‘s player-base due to her lower base stats. But even Candace is light in comparison to Xinyan, a four-star character from Liyue who released near the start of the game (who just so happens to be my Main DPS and the only character I’ve ascended to Level 90).
Well, now the first drip-marketing for Dehya is finally here, and – despite her already being light-skinned, as I mentioned earlier – HoYoverse felt the need to brighten her official artwork to the point where she essentially appears white, although we know for a fact that her in-game character model has a significantly darker skin-tone. I can’t say I’m surprised, because they’ve done this before with Genshin Impact and their other games, but I will never not be disappointed when they attempt to advertise their few brown-skinned characters as lighter-skinned than they are in the hopes that players will be more incentivized to pull for them.
Dehya | pockettactics.com
I will not be going over Dehya’s leaked kit and playstyle in detail at this time, as that information is currently subject-to-change anyway. If you’ve played the Sumeru Archon Quest, you already know she wears a Pyro Vision on her belt, and carries a claymore. That’s pretty much all I can say, but I can tell you that the leaks are out there if you want to get a clearer idea of the role Dehya plays for her party and start farming the Ascension Materials she’ll need (not all of which, I will warn you, are yet available to us). If you’ve seen the leaks, I urge you to at least be considerate in the comments below for those who haven’t and don’t wish to be spoiled.
As for Dehya’s role in the story of Genshin Impact, I don’t expect her to have that much lore significance, but that’s not an issue for me. I honestly appreciate that there are smaller-scale character stories woven throughout Genshin Impact that keep us firmly grounded in the human drama unfolding across Teyvat even as the conflict between the gods becomes cosmic in scope. I only hope that Dehya’s Story Quest brings back the fan-favorite NPC Dunyarzad Homayani, Dehya’s employer and closest confidante (and the other half of Dehyarzad, the most popular fan-pairing involving Dehya). Those two had terrific chemistry in all their scenes together, and I need more of their adventures now that Dunyarzad is presumably recovering from the effects of Eleazar and itching to explore the world.
The four-star character set to be released alongside Dehya in Version 3.5 is Mika, a cartographer from Mondstadt whom I’m sure I will obtain several times over despite the visceral loathing I have for his bland design and grating personality (if you don’t recall, we were introduced to Mika in Version 3.1 during a limited-time event, and he was so awe-struck in the protagonist’s presence that he basically hid behind Kaeya the entire time…mind you, this boy is a fully-fledged Knight of Favonius and a member of Grandmaster Varka’s expedition to Snezhnaya who apparently interacted with the high-ranking Fatui Harbinger Capitano). Again, his kit is out there if you want to take a look, but you’ll probably get him through the Standard Banner eventually, whether you want him or not.
Mika | gfinityesports.com
So how are we feeling about the drip-marketing for Dehya, and which of these two characters do you intend to add to your team in Version 3.5? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!
As we all sort of suspected going in, the hotly-anticipated announcement of Genshin Impact‘s annual Lantern Rite Festival, which has coincided with the Chinese New Year early each year since the game’s launch, was the highlight of the Version 3.4 Special Program. Despite having an overwhelmingly large number of new events to promote before the upcoming patch (some of which, in my premature opinion, deserved to be the centerpiece of their own separate patch), as well as limited-time banners for new and old characters, alternate skins for Lisa and Kamisato Ayaka, and even an expansion to the region of Sumeru, the HoYoverse developers returned time and time again to Lantern Rite throughout the livestream, hyping up what they promise will be an unforgettable experience for nostalgic veteran players who have experienced this magical event twice before and are yearning to return to Liyue, and for newer players who have heard the stories of Lantern Rite and desperately want to see it for themselves.
Lantern Rite | forbes.com
If I recall correctly, I started playing Genshin Impact near the tail-end of last year’s Lantern Rite Festival, and hadn’t even finished the Mondstadt Archon Quest and unlocked Liyue before the celebration had wrapped up (otherwise I might have gotten Beidou, once my most coveted character, for free, without having to spend Starglitter in the shop as I ultimately resorted to doing). So as you can imagine, this is an exciting time for me. And this time around, I plan to not only participate eagerly in all the minigames, but to choose wisely between the nine Liyue four-star characters who will all briefly be available for free as an event reward. Feel free to help me decide, in the comments below, whether to go for Xinyan’s C3 (yes, I use Xinyan as my main DPS, what about it?), Beidou’s C1, Yanfei’s C5, or my very first copy of Yao Yao, the new Dendro healer, since I’m saving for Dehya in Version 3.5 and won’t be wishing on any of the banners where Yaoyao will receive a drop-rate boost.
I’ve got to say, I’m cautious of selecting Yaoyao, because for the past few months I’ve gotten away with rotating between just two Dendro-reaction focused teams (a Hyperbloom team, consisting of Dendro Traveler, Collei, Barbara, and Kuki Shinobu, and a Burgeon team where Shinobu is swapped out for Yanfei), and I don’t know if I have a spot for Yaoyao. Barbara and Shinobu already do enough healing, separately but especially together, to prevent the occasional Dendro Core explosion from doing much harm to my other characters, and Yaoyao’s damage output is probably too minimal (at least without high investment and Deepwood Memories artifacts that I’d rather be putting on my Collei) to make her Dendro-spitting leporine sidekick a valuable asset to either of my two teams. That said, she does have the ability to sneak up on Crystalflies without them immediately ascending out of reach, which is a point in her favor.
Yaoyao will debut in the first half of Version 3.4, appearing on Alhaitham and Xiao’s limited-time banners, before being added to the permanent Standard Banner in Version 3.5. Keep that in mind before impulsively throwing your precious wishes at either character’s banner in an attempt to get her! Although participating in Lantern Rite will reward players with wishing currency (and, in an uncharacteristically generous move on HoYoverse’s part, ten Intertwined Fates ready to be spent on the banner of your choice will be provided to each and every player as a reward for logging in daily), it’s probably safer to wait unless you actually want Alhaitham or Xiao, because summoning a five-star character at the wrong moment can completely wreck your plans. I’ve already mentioned that I intend to skip Alhaitham’s banner, but let me go into a little more depth.
First and foremost, I committed to pulling Dehya and Cyno from the moment it became depressingly evident that they would be Sumeru’s only two nonwhite five-star characters. I was just barely successful in my attempts to obtain Cyno, and I would ideally like to do even better on Dehya’s banner, picking up either her signature weapon or a second copy of her, just to prove how much she means to me. Secondly, Alhaitham’s playstyle is very similar to Keqing’s, right down to his Elemental Skill allowing him to teleport across the battlefield and deal Dendro DMG on impact, which would be great if I enjoyed playing Keqing, but she was my very first five-star and to this day I only ever bring her out when I’m having difficulty reaching the top of a tall building. I wouldn’t intentionally pull for a character just like her unless he could do more for me in a Hyperbloom or Burgeon team than Dendro Traveler can for free. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I dislike Alhaitham. Not only do I find him pretentious and catty, but I’m still annoyed that his character model has proper muscles while Itto has sticks for arms. It’s not fair, HoYoverse.
Alhaitham | yardbarker.com
My opinion of Alhaitham could change, if his first Story Quest answers any of my burning questions regarding the Sumeru Akademiya and its relationship with the Dendro Archon following the Sumeru Archon Quest that left off with Alhaitham serving as Acting Grand Sage of the Akademiya under the leadership of Lesser Lord Kusanali. I still don’t understand how or by whom the region is truly governed (and I can’t even begin to guess where the mysterious Temple of Silence fits into all of this), but that’s where Alhaitham’s Story Quest has the potential to be illuminating on multiple levels and why I’ll be extremely disappointed with HoYoverse if their writers drop the ball. At least I know that I can always count on the writers who brought us the poignant Golden Slumber World Quest, so I’m happy to hear that Golden Slumber is receiving an extension in Version 3.4, with fan-favorite NPCs Jeht and Benben returning as our guides into the new Hadramaveth Desert region.
There, Jeht hopes to find the legendary Eternal Oasis mentioned in the Flower of Paradise Lost Artifact set description; an evergreen garden of purple padisarahs built by King Deshret to house the body of the Goddess of Flowers after her death, now buried deep beneath swirling sands that form a vortex miles-high. In the wind-whittled ruins that cling to the canyon-walls in the Hadramaveth Desert, various Eremite tribes who claim descent from the Goddess of Flowers have scraped by for centuries, believing that each day they inch closer to the discovery of the Eternal Oasis where time stands still and death has no power. Whether Jeht will make it that far remains to be seen, but the trailer outright confirms that the Traveler will arrive at a place matching this description, with birds suspended in mid-air and fish frozen under glassy water like some kind of immersive Natural History Museum exhibit. Be sure to complete the Golden Slumber World Quest soon if you haven’t already, so you can be one of the first to piece together the untold story of the Goddess of Flowers.
Speaking of powerful yet mysterious women associated with purple flowers, Mondstadt’s very own Witch of the Purple Rose, Lisa Minci, is getting her deserved moment in the spotlight with a new alternate skin set to be released in Version 3.4 as a reward for participating in the Second Blooming combat event. The challenges seem pretty straightforward to me, but it’s not every day that Lisa returns to Sumeru since graduating at the top of her class and immediately thereafter retiring, yet here she is, dressed up for the special occasion in a personally-commissioned outfit evocative of those worn by students at the Sumeru Akademiya. I’ll be interested to learn if there’s a quest associated with this event, since there was a time when Genshin Impact theorists believed that Lisa might have gone off the radar in part because of what she learned at the Akademiya. Maybe now, with the corrupt sages banished to the forest, it’s time for her to make a comeback?
While Lisa’s alternate skin will be free, a new alternate skin for Kamisato Ayaka named Springbloom Missive will only be available through the shop, and players will need to be prepared to spend real money if they want to dress the Inazuman noblewoman in the pastel-colored finery of a lady from Fontaine (as seen in the illustrations of light novels popular with Inazuman readers). Ayaka, who already has the distinction of being Genshin Impact‘s most profitable character, with record-breaking sales on her rerun banner, is now the first limited five-star character to receive an alternate skin, even before characters with larger fanbases like the Archons. There’s no denying that HoYoverse recognizes her worth to the company. Ayaka will appear wearing this skin in the Warrior’s Soul event hosted by the Yashiro Commission, described as a series of challenges that will limit players to using their normal attacks, in which the act of parrying will significantly boost your damage output.
While you’re in Inazuma, stick around for the Almighty Arataki Extraordinary and Exciting Extreme Beetle Brawl, an event that allows players to finally share in the joy of pitting Onikabuto beetles against one another and strategically maneuvering them through a series of epic duels, something that Itto has been hyping up for ages. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see Itto returning in a new event so soon after his first canonical interaction with Gorou during the Akitsu Kimodameshi event (will he mention Gorou?), but I wish it wouldn’t be completely overshadowed by Lantern Rite. This event sounds like fun! I want it to be recurring, and I haven’t even played it yet.
Yaoyao | pcgamesn.com
Have I missed anything? Besides the announcement of Alhaitham’s new signature weapon and a new boss battle beneath the Hadramaveth Desert with a giant flying sandworm named Setekh Wenut that will almost certainly provide Alhaitham’s Ascension Materials, I mean (full offense to Alhaitham, but I already hate fighting the Ruin Serpent that I actually need to level up Kuki Shinobu, a character I use regularly; I’m not willingly fighting a flying variation on that same abominable idea, all for a character I never intend to pull). If I have, drop it in the comments down below, as well as any thoughts, theories, and opinions you wish to share!
No point in delaying the inevitable, so here’s the harsh truth: I did not particularly care for The Witcher: Blood Origin. The live-action limited-series, set a thousand years before the events of The Witcher in a world populated by Elves, was originally intended to have a full six episodes, each an hour long, in which to tell the story of how Elves, humans, and fearsome monsters from Slavic folklore first collided during the Conjunction of the Spheres and were stranded on The Continent – a tale that could easily have been as epic and stirring as the first trailer promised. Alas! We shall never know if, in its original form, Blood Origin earned those descriptors, because at some point late in production two entire episodes were scrapped at Netflix’s bequest and their contents were hastily scattered across the remaining four. The spilled blood and guts of this once grand series are on full display in the unappealing final product, which has been served up as an appetizer to The Witcher season three.
Éile | gamesradar.com
I have to imagine that Blood Origin‘s world, story, and characters were all fully fleshed-out in the episodes we lost forever, and that its commentary on “progressive reformers” who play at being revolutionaries while merely redecorating the inherently oppressive systems in which they remain caged was probably once effective, even timely. Perhaps the few, faint glimmers of originality still just barely visible in these four hectic episodes shone a little brighter before they were buried under layers of muck. Whatever the case, I can regretfully only pass judgement on what I actually watched: four hours of dull exposition, shallow political intrigue (my favorite fantasy trope, which I usually eat up), confessions of love and betrayals both rendered meaningless by the lack of any semblance of build-up, and a grand total of two or three minutes dedicated to the actual Conjunction of the Spheres, shoved in almost as an afterthought. Blood Origin is bad, but what’s worse, it’s incredibly boring.
And absolutely none of that is due to Henry Cavill suddenly leaving The Witcher, yet his name keeps popping up in eye-catching headlines for reviews of Blood Origin, and in a recent flurry of hyperbolic think-pieces predicting the quick death of the franchise. Without Cavill, critics write, The Witcher has nothing going for it. But what of the best-selling novels and critically-acclaimed video games, you ask? Tragically, they’re all meaningless now, without Cavill. And Blood Origin, a self-contained prequel which never starred Cavill in the first place but inconveniently comes hot on the heels of his departure, while his fans are still in mourning? Well, obviously it just shouldn’t exist. After all, what’s the point of anything Witcher-related if it doesn’t feature the second or third-best actor in the main series?
The visceral negative reaction from critics to the very concept of a Cavill-less Witcher prequel is…interesting, given that similar critiques were not leveled against Nightmare Of The Wolf, an animated Witcher prequel released last year that ended up with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes while Blood Origin was stamped with a humiliating 33% rating. I’m not denying that there’s a difference in quality between the two, but the fact that Nightmare Of The Wolf was led by a white man while Blood Origin has a diverse ensemble cast spearheaded by a Black woman cannot be entirely discounted. Professional critics know exactly what they’re doing by attributing Blood Origin‘s faults to the absence of a white male lead; they’re trying to get clicks from the recently riled-up group of embittered book and game purists who believe, without any proof for their claims, that Henry Cavill walked away from The Witcher in protest of changes to the lore – including increased representation.
And sure, Cavill’s name is easy clickbait, but it’s not like Blood Origin doesn’t have a stacked cast of its own. Academy-Award nominee Minnie Driver provides her enchanting voice to the role of The Narrator, a nameless yet powerful Elven sorceress who even appears briefly in both the first and last episodes alongside Joey Batey, returning as the immensely popular bard Jaskier in a small but crucial role that allows him to once again belt out a catchy, profanity-laced song over the closing credits. And among Blood Origin‘s main cast stands the legendary Michelle Yeoh, TIME Magazine‘s 2022 Icon of the Year who stands perfectly positioned to become a first-time Academy Award nominee and winner in the new year for her starring role in the wildly successful sci-fi dramedy Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Scian | sea.ign.com
Yeoh’s character in the Witcher universe, a darkly humorous Elven warrior named ScÃan, may not earn her any Emmy Awards buzz (you want to receive recognition as an actor and be in a big-budget escapist fantasy, your best bet is still Westeros), yet nor is she reduced to her skill with a sword. Make no mistake, her fast-paced action scenes are a highlight of each episode, but something that I think casting directors often fail to take into consideration is that Yeoh can be a true team-player until you throw her into a fight opposite a relatively inexperienced combatant: and this is something that comes across clearly in the brief glimpses we catch of ScÃan off the battlefield, at peace, bickering with her traveling companions or joining in their merrymaking. Heck, I’d even argue that Yeoh ought to be invited to jump onboard the main series (one of the perks of playing an immortal Elf is that you can just do that), if she’d be open to it after the poor reception to Blood Origin.
The rest of the cast is also quite good, but with over a dozen major characters squeezed uncomfortably into these four episodes it’s impossible for them all to make an equally strong impression. Sophia Brown does so, proving particularly convincing as a good-natured bard named Éile whose songs inspire uprisings wherever she goes (shoutout to lyricist and composer Bear McCreary, whose score for the series is beautiful, with heavy Celtic influences), and Mirren Mack brings a unique ethereal swagger to the role of Empress Merwyn, though to be fair she receives considerable support from her breathtaking wardrobe of haute couture gowns (including several pieces designed by Iris van Herpen) and quirky hairstyles, which change from scene to scene. But the breakout star is Francesca Mills as Meldof, a foul-mouthed queer Dwarf whose memorable introductory scene convinced me to binge-watch episodes two through four despite all my reservations about the series.
Unfortunately, you will have to sit and suffer through the entire first episode if you want to meet Meldof, and that is a labor-intensive task I can’t in good conscience recommend to anyone just looking for a fun escapist fantasy to throw on, unless you know going in that you’ll be bombarded with solid blocks of expository dialogue in practically every scene and shouldn’t expect to catch anyone’s names amidst all the very serious discussion of peace treaties and food shortages until somewhere around the forty-minute mark (and that is being extremely optimistic). Look, I’ve enjoyed badly-written fantasy stories in the past. I have even put some out into the world. And that’s why I sat through Blood Origin‘s first episode praying that something so riotously bad would happen that I could at least have fun with the series. I didn’t expect it to be a tough ask of a franchise notable for putting an amusingly gory twist on classic fairytales.
Even in terms of production design and creature design, two areas in which The Witcher has always stood out from the competition, Blood Origin plays it safe, opting for dull familiarity over bold swings of its own (say what you will about The Rings Of Power, it was unmistakably different from Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings in every possible way, and I appreciate that even more now). The Continent pre-Conjunction of the Spheres, though quite literally shiny and new on the surface, is actually depressingly similar to the Continent of Geralt’s time, as we soon discover. Elves are just humans with pointier ears: they even violently oppress all the same marginalized groups that will still be oppressed a thousand years later, including women, queer people, Dwarves, and just about anyone in a lower social class than their aggressively elitist aristocrats and monarchs, who are also imperialists to boot. Every unique aspect of Elven culture and cosmology that seems worth exploring is brushed aside. Elven magic is loosely-defined and, whenever wielded onscreen, shockingly generic; lightning, fireballs, and the like. Balor’s Beast, the first monster on the Continent, evaporates its victims bloodlessly as part of a general effort to tone down the series’ violence that only reduces the stakes lower than they already were.
Empress Merwyn | netflixlife.com
I have few kind words left for the series myself, though as always, nothing but support and positivity for those who genuinely adored it – especially those who simply enjoyed the representation, including one of the franchise’s first significant deaf characters and its first queer couple. The online discourse around Blood Origin has left me in this weird place where I feel strangely inspired to defend the series despite everything about it that I did not like, and I suspect it’s because so many purists, Henry Cavill fans, and straight-up bigots have been seizing upon this opportunity to try and bring the whole franchise down. I for one do not want that to happen. I enjoy the main series immensely, and I’m sure I would have enjoyed Blood Origin too, if Netflix hadn’t intervened to ensure that there was nothing left for anyone to enjoy. Hopefully, there is a future for some of these characters in The Witcher moving forward (well, we already know of one or two who will return, but I’m really only referring to ScÃan, Éile, and Meldof), so we can leave this disappointing chapter in the past while preserving the few parts of it that actually worked.
SPOILERS FOR ALL GENSHIN IMPACT ARCHON QUESTS AHEAD!
Four Archon Quests deep into the overarching narrative of Genshin Impact, a couple of patterns have started to emerge. It’s pretty much a given at this point that in each new region we visit, our slowly meandering protagonist (who just wants to find her/his sibling and leave the world of Teyvat forever) will begrudgingly grow attached to a new group of characters all destined to be playable as we come together to try and prevent our common enemy, the Fatui Harbingers, from capturing the Gnosis of that region’s respective Archon. Each and every time, the situation escalates out of control and eventually requires us to put our life on the line for the people of Teyvat and their gods, and each and every time, the mission fails because at the last moment the Archons only ever halfheartedly try to stop the Fatui (to be fair, if we ever stopped to question why that is, we might realize that they’re not the bad guys in this story, but our self-righteous protagonist has a hard time comprehending that anyone they don’t get along with is a good person).
Lesser Lord Kusanali | oneesports.gg
But while we fail more often than not at whatever it was we originally set out to do, letting the Fatui slip through our fingers with another Gnosis in their possession, there is something we’ve learned from all our encounters with the Archons and interactions with their subjects in three of the four regions – namely, that gods are intrinsically unfit to govern humans, and it’s only by moving forward without them and their impossible ideals that Teyvat can adapt to overcome the challenges it now faces. I don’t believe it’s merely coincidence that the Traveler’s journey began in Mondstadt, the one and only region in Teyvat whose respective Archon willingly stepped down hundreds of years prior to the events of Genshin Impact to ensure he would never become a tyrant, or that in Liyue, we helped the Geo Archon fake his own death so he could do the same for his people.
In Inazuma, the transfer of power was not peaceful – but only because the immovable Electro Archon turned out to be a semi-sentient yet emotionless puppet whose programming physically prevented her from allowing any change to occur in Inazuma. Once we got through to the real Electro Archon, Ei, who had been cooped-up for centuries meditating on the meaning of “Eternity”, we very quickly convinced her to step in and put a stop to the strife she had inadvertently caused in a misguided attempt to keep her people safe from her own intense emotions. In her second Story Quest, Ei agreed to come out of isolation entirely and rule Inazuma alongside her puppet, imparting with her what she now believes wholeheartedly; that the nation and its people can change over time and still last forever. That being said, the two of them act as a line of defense against existential threats while Inazuma’s internal affairs are now managed primarily by regular humans and youkai belonging to the Tri-Commission.
But in Sumeru, Genshin Impact bucked the trend entirely. Here, our protagonist’s intention is not to help a god abdicate, but to install a god on the closest thing Sumeru has to a throne. This seems to go against everything else the game has to say about gods and their dealings with humans, and it’s bewildering to me that more people aren’t talking about what it means – not just for Sumeru, but for the regions of Teyvat we haven’t yet visited, like Fontaine, Natlan, and Snezhnaya. First thing’s first: let’s take a closer look at what really happened in the Sumeru Archon Quest.
Sumeru, prior to our arrival, was a nation in desperate search of a god. Their current Dendro Archon, Lesser Lord Kusanali, was a mere child in god-years who had barely grown in strength and wisdom over the last five centuries, concerning her citizens and particularly the sages of the Sumeru Akademiya, who fondly remembered a time when the original Dendro Archon, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, effortlessly kept her people safe from all manner of threats. In every corner of Sumeru, worshippers of an ancient deity named “King Deshret” had started popping up, prophesying his imminent return and eagerly looking forward to the overthrow of the weak Dendro Archon. But in the heart of the Akademiya itself, the sages were hard at work designing a god of their own – a being far stronger than the Lesser Lord Kusanali, powered by the Electro Gnosis stolen from Inazuma by the Fatui Harbinger Scaramouche, who volunteered his mechanical body to be this new god’s vessel.
Scaramouche Boss | gamespace.com
Ultimately, the sages had to be stopped – if left to their own devices, they would have surrendered the care of Sumeru to a god beyond their ability to control, all while Lesser Lord Kusanali languished in a cell, incapable of protecting her people from the obvious machinations of the Fatui. A civil war between King Deshret’s worshippers and the Akademiya loyalists would have been inevitable, thousands would have died, and the nation would have tumbled into chaos, until the Akademiya itself was weakened to the point where they would have no choice but to bow to their new god’s every order. Sumeru would have become a vassal-state of Snezhnaya, and the Fatui would have gained the accumulated knowledge of the Akademiya without shedding a single drop of their own blood.
So we collaborated with Lesser Lord Kusanali to stage a coup in the Akademiya, round up the corrupt sages, and defeat Scaramouche. It was an excellent plan, and we would have pulled it off without a hitch if the Fatui Harbinger Dottore hadn’t been waiting on the sidelines the whole time, waiting for the last possible moment to swoop in and steal both the Electro Gnosis and the Dendro Gnosis, which Lesser Lord Kusanali traded for the immediate destruction of Dottore’s small army of clones and information regarding the “false sky” of Teyvat, respectively. Satisfied, the Fatui departed Sumeru, leaving Lesser Lord Kusanali to pick up the pieces and begin reassembling a deeply-divided Akademiya.
That’s where my problem arises, because that’s the situation in which we leave Sumeru, with Lesser Lord Kusanali governing the region from her position of power in the Akademiya – a prison no longer to this most indefatigable deity. It is nowhere stated, suggested, or even implied that this is to be a temporary situation, or that Lesser Lord Kusanali intends to step down at any point in the future. The Traveler believes (for reasons I think I understand, and will elaborate upon in a minute) that she will mature into a competent Dendro Archon despite her lack of experience in pretty much every scenario, and sure, she proves time and time again that she listens attentively to all her peoples’ prayers…but she’s also the first to admit that she still doesn’t fully understand human emotions, and she doesn’t know when or whether she ever will. I fail to see how even a benevolent god with good intentions can rule Sumeru the way its people deserve when the message that Genshin Impact has sent in every previous Archon Quest is that gods inevitably make mistakes and mortals always pay the consequences. It’s not like there weren’t plenty of other candidates for the job, including all the uncorrupt sages at the Akademiya (Tighnari’s master being one of the most notable).
Irminsul Tree | pcgamer.com
What’s worse, the people of Sumeru have very little say in the matter. Upon defeating Scaramouche and the corrupt Akademiya sages, the Traveler and Lesser Lord Kusanali took steps to ensure no such internal threat would ever arise again by venturing deep into the pulsating heart of the Irminsul Tree, which contains all of Teyvat’s accumulated data from its past, present, and future. There, we encountered the faint remnants of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, Sumeru’s first Dendro Archon, who had been waiting patiently for us to come along and help her erase herself from Irminsul completely. The Traveler, being an outsider to the world of Teyvat, is soon the only person who remembers Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, while the rest of Sumeru is deluded by Irminsul into thinking that Lesser Lord Kusanali was always the Dendro Archon, and that the sages were guilty of committing treason against their god.
In essence, the Traveler has eradicated every challenge to Lesser Lord Kusanali’s reign not because she’s the rightful leader of Sumeru (that claim could potentially be disputed by King Deshret, if ever he returned, but we trusted Lesser Lord Kusanali and the Akademiya sages without hesitation when they told us he was dead), nor because she proved she was the most qualified person for the role, nor even because the people of Sumeru told us they wanted her (but we “corrected” their memories, so that’s no longer an issue)…no, everything we did for her, we did because our protagonist decided for us that she was our best friend after first meeting her. And while the Traveler is certainly capable of making mistakes, this decision of theirs is not framed as one within the story, and the fandom certainly doesn’t seem to see it as one. People assume Lesser Lord Kusanali will be a good Dendro Archon because they like her character.
And that’s fine, by the way. But it’s been bothering me for weeks now that the Sumeru Archon Quest seems to set a precedent for our protagonist going around forcibly suppressing the memories of the people without their knowledge (much less their consent), rather than actually addressing the root cause for their discontent and working to change the unsustainable status quo in each region, as we’ve done in the past. In particular, I’m thinking of the Eremites, King Deshret’s loyal worshippers, and how the persecution they endured for hundreds of years (all of it perpetuated by the Akademiya, mind you, and in the Dendro Archon’s name) is swept under the rug so that they will accept Lesser Lord Kusanali as their god without argument: actually helping them is far from a top priority for the Traveler, and that responsibility is shifted onto the character of Cyno by the end of the Archon Quest.
Aaru Village, home of the Eremites | pcgamesn.com
In the most recent Archon Quest: Interlude, Inversion Of Genesis, the Irminsul Tree is tampered with yet again, this time with the effect of erasing all memory of Scaramouche. Every mention of that name, even voiced lines of dialogue, have been removed from the game entirely. The lore surrounding Irminsul is all very interesting, don’t get me wrong, but the act of altering Irminsul is already a lazy plot-device that I want to see less of going forward (the easiest solution to this problem was already foreshadowed in the Winter Night’s Lazzo trailer).
But I’m getting way off-topic. Back to Lesser Lord Kusanali, I do have one theory (that, believe it or not, came to me in a dream) for why we helped her take control of Sumeru without any caveats – a theory which I believe could also provide clues about the three Archons we have yet to meet, and their eventual fates. Bear with me here. The seven Elements personified by Archons in Genshin Impact are Anemo (air), Geo (stone), Electro (electricity), Dendro (plant-matter), Hydro (water), Pyro (fire), and Cryo (ice). You need only skim through this list to recognize that the outlier is and has always been Dendro, Lesser Lord Kusanali’s Element. Where the other Elements are inanimate and incapable of changing without external pressure, Dendro is alive. Crucially for my theory, Dendro is capable of growing, of adapting to different conditions on its own, of evolving and changing.
See where I’m going with this? It makes a great deal of sense to me that the Traveler, as the only person in Teyvat capable of wielding all seven Elements, would know that growth and adaptation are fundamental aspects of the Dendro Element (not only in real-life, but in Genshin Impact‘s gameplay as well), and would therefore know that Lesser Lord Kusanali will adapt to become the Archon her people need because it is her Element’s natural inclination to do so. I can’t actually confirm this is the case, but looking back at the free-spirited Anemo Archon, the old and stolid Geo Archon, and the shockingly violent Electro Archon, it wouldn’t be the first time an Archon’s Element has dictated their actions and personality on some level. And I doubt it will be the last.
Very soon, our travels across Teyvat will take us to Fontaine, a land presided over by the Hydro Archon, Focalors. We know from Lesser Lord Kusanali’s description of her that, like any body of water, she can be unpredictable and temperamental at times; but it may be because she’s especially susceptible to the gravitational pull of a celestial body hovering directly above Fontaine (that would be Celestia, a floating city inhabited by the suspiciously silent gods who originally put Focalors and the other Archons in power). My theory is that the raging tides within Focalors will only be calmed when Celestia is finally unmoored, whether by us, by the Fatui, or by a maddened Focalors herself. Beyond that, we know nothing for certain, but the Pyro Archon erupting before having to be extinguished and the Cryo Archon’s cold, dead heart being thawed by some demonstration of love both sound like safe bets to me.
Raiden Ei, Lesser Lord Kusanali, Venti, and Zhongli | dotesports.com
This simple theory can ultimately only justify the Traveler’s choices in-game, and perhaps help us understand their reasoning for deciding which Archons have to go, and which can stay – it doesn’t make me feel any better about the fact that even a single Archon will remain in power at the end of the day, and it doesn’t necessarily allay my fears that HoYoverse will muddle the themes of Genshin Impact‘s story. But hopefully now that I’ve gotten this off my chest, I won’t have to stay up at night scouring the internet trying to find any discussion of this topic, only to have my most convoluted search-terms produce zero results, because now this post will be out there. If anyone has similar feelings on the Sumeru Archon Quest, I encourage you to elaborate on what I’ve written here and share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!
