#so back to regularly scheduled wisps and nb and venti once i'm back

[vv-ispy]

Ooo, ty for the detailed reply! (Asking instead of reblogging because of that first tag.)

To be fair wrt Zhongli, the AQ plot is him deeming his position of power outdated and letting an all-female trio fully take over the country from him (and in a way that had them as active participants instead of passive recipients even if Zhongli masterminded the whole thing). The cutscene introducing Ningguang also sort of frames her as a godlike figure, and I feel like the Jade Chamber pushes that further, resembling a mini manmade Celestia from a distance.

But even if so, the points about Zhongli being designed to be an ultimate patriarchal figure make complete sense. Especially when he's the mascot for the devs' home country: genshin edition.

Standard disclaimer I am not an expert on chinese culture or china and I'm drawing on my experiences with immigrant conservative chinese parents. Putting it under a read more bc politics and personal experiences in my silly escapism game

Actually in a sense, I really liked the liyue archon quest! I did really enjoy the idea of 'the leader is stepping down, it is time for the people to shine.' 'The world is modernizing, liyue needs to keep up' 'There's a lot of stories about the adepti but I want to tell stories about humans in the age of humans!' And from someone whose parents tried to uphold tradition on me, I loved that story! I still enjoy that view of it — China does need to modernize. There's such strict expectations of people playing their Role in society, the expectation to conform — and hence disabilities, mental illness, being queer, not starting a family, not being unquestioning loyal to your parents/family, not going into a STEM field well paying respectable job, is all looked down upon. If you have mental illness, get over it don't make it anyone else's problem. If you deviate in any way, don't talk about it. Chinese people care so much about saving face and putting on a good image. Chinese culture talks so much of respecting their elders, but elder scam is so common in China. A lot of the good parts of chinese tradition feels like empty words to me, and the bad parts… they're dumb. And being raised by conservative parents who were immigrants and didn't know what they were doing meant I experienced more of the bad parts/expectations/things they try to push on me, as opposed to the good parts and the culture you'd get in china Which is to say, a story about how we need to move on from all that and modernize? I love it! We do need to care for the common folk, acceptance and supports for those who are disabled and cannot work, acceptance for those who deviate from the norm. China needs to modernize in that sense, and need stories about regular people who don't fit the image of an Model Chinese Person. I really like that reading, I really like that narrative, heck initially I was surprised that was allowed in a chinese game if the government is represented by the adepti

But that's one reading. I feel like liyue can have a lot of readings depending on how you want to spin it, who represents what, etc since China does have a really long history. Obviously some readings have a lot more justification to it and I am by no means an expert or even very knowledgable in chinese history so. But at the least, I don't think my initial reading of the quest is how it was intended.

Happening upon this reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/q2na5e/an_oversimplified_explanation_for_the_liyue/), I think it's a pretty compelling argument for the intentions and historical influences — after all genshin puts a lot of historical influences in its game so why not for its home country of China? Saying that, I don't know enough about chinese history/mythology to give much of an opinion on it other than yeah I can see it, since Zhongli is a literal god who can bestow approval on Ningguang and the humans

But I also concur with the comment that another possible reading of the archon quest is the end of the imperialist Qing empire and creation of the PRC, if you instead want to view Zhongli and the adepti as representative of imperial rule, and the Qixing and representative of the communist party. And I think the reason I get these vibes is more the way the transition is talked about — that it's time for the gods to step down and the people to lead. CPP ideology includes a people centric approach ie. the communist party represents the will of the people, so time for the people to rule -> support for CPP rule? Or the constant 'we need liyue to modernize' to me is quite reminecent of China's current race to modernize technologically. The idea of a new era of liyue, the age of humans, also really reminds me of those children's songs with lyrics that tell of the rise of the communist party with lyrics such as '没有共产党，哪有新中国' (without the community party, how could there be the new china?) <- sung during the 2010 cctv new year gala. Actually every new year gala there's at least one or two 'look how great China is' songs(okay nationalism is very standard across every country) and one 'Yeah! Regular people working together for progress!' song. Liyue being the economic center of Teyvat….well China sure wants economic prosperity in real life too(<-again nationalism and desire for prosperity is not china specific but we're talking about china here), Chinese people sometimes call themselves 唐人 where 唐(tang) refers to the Tang dynastry during which China was very prosperious. And the conflict between liyue as it was ruled by gods vs the age of humans, reminds me a lot of China's current traditional vs western conflicts, eg. if you're queer a common conservative shutdown is 'that's a western idea'. Put together it makes me go 'yes I see liyue is a reflection of current china striving for prosperity and (technological) progress, but shouldn't we strive for social equality and acceptance instead?'

Saying that, of course not all chinese people are a monolithic with the same thought, and there's many chinese who're critical of the goverment/culture of conformity/outdated traditions. Considering hoyo's japanese influences and general in depth research they do for their world and characters + suspiciously lesbian characters in their games + the voice actors themselves look at gender bent zhongli art (I'm not kidding, from chinese lumine VA's stream), I wouldn't be surprised if the inspiration is the chinese mythological references -> imperialist rule + they're writing stories of China needing to modernize from outdated traditions, but for government-support reasons they put an emphasis on The People and We Need to Modernize part of Zhongli's stepping down. I do realize that my negative reading of liyue's story hinges only on two points (even if those two points come up repeatidly) and the rest of it is very vibes/personal experience based

Again, Gaming's lanturn rite story is a very chinese family conflict, but a more traditional chinese story to teach Values definitely would have involved conceeding that his parents know best and put emphasize on how he's now going to be a good child through consistent consideration and respect to his parents. As a child I've learned quite a few chinese aesop children's stories about kids who are fair and take the smallest pear to let parents and elders have the big ones, or warming bamboo mat beds as appreciation for parents who work hard all day. So the fact he reaches a halfway agreement with his dad is…it's a sweet story that's sympathetic to both sides, and I can see hoyo taking a more modern approach to chinese society. On the other hand, Xianyun's 'the elders must look out for the youth' is a pretty traditional chinese sentiment — elders look out for the youth, and when the youth grow up they take care of the elders. Not to say it's necessarily a bad sentiment, ya know support each other and all. But still a more traditional one.

Anyway, in summary Liyue is a story of change. It can be read in many ways. Either a retelling of historical change, or a call for change. I still really like the hopeful 'We need to modernize' reading of it, just certain parts of it gives me a bad impression due to personal disillusionment with chinese culture. Besides, it's not as if american media is free from nationalism. But we're talking about genshin here

Hm. Moving on

Agreed on good representation doesn't have to be intentional, I may just be overly critical over intentions. And that Furina is written really well! I love her! She also doesn't get sexualized which is v cool too! And absolutely agreed on the sort of constraints that being gatcha puts on the characters — though I would like to toss in, again, how being a chinese game affects the characters. Many people rightfully point out the colourism issues which is a cultural issue as asians really value light skin and. can be quite racist. there is a racism problem in asia despite asians also being poc. With regards to LGBTQ rep, China does censor it (shoutout to tamen de gushi ending due to it) — which again isn't an excuse to call china homophobic there are many queer and trans chinese people (shoutout to trans activist Chao Xiaomi). Arlecchino who is given a whole backstory to explain 'she's called Father because of mother issues not trans reasons' like. Yeah that's what I'd expect from a cis-normative game from a society that adheres to gender roles. Sure. Of course. I wonder a bit if the recent trend towards more buff man have anything to do with china's recent thing against effeminent men, like. Diluc and Kaeya are built very different compared to Alhaitham or Wrio, but that could also be early game limitations (and I know people like to say Venti is dressed like a femboy but he's likely based off the Colongne Carnival prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Carnival). General boy-could-be-mistake-as-a-girl seems to be a consequence of the anime style, but also part of the appeal of anime style is pretty girls and boys. Anyway genshin girls I'm glad you're saved from having to find a man due to game target audience

And yeah I do enjoy how genshin does have female characters like Xinyan who are dark skined chinese + rebellious and it's not presented as a bad thing apart from offhanded mentions of getting into trouble with the law, and Yunjin's relationship with her plays around with the idea of elders being stuffy about traditions and expectations of her to be a refined young lady. It's interesting the sorts of different things they try with their characters, despite the gacha/don't-be-so-rebellious-it-catches-the government's-eye limitations. Genshin has some well developed female characters for sure. It's just also interesting to me how as a chinese game, their chinese characters really carry chinese values. Sometimes you get those weird people saying that genshin would have been better if it wasn't chinese but I think it's really interesting viewing genshin/liyue as an attempt at a story/character driven game filtered through chinese views filtered through chinese politics filtered though live service and gacha demands.

Uh, this probably sums up all the culture thoughts i currently have on it though. until the next lanturn rite and I start heaving deep sighs over people complaining about hoyo never missing a lanturn rite look lunar new year is as big as christmas and new years combined in china there is no way lanturn rite is ever getting skipped genshin is still a chinese game at its core even if it uses a japanese slant to advertise to a western audience