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etherisks · 2 months ago

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Dr. Ratio's bathtub scene. We all know and love it (some more than others) but I have not really seen anyone talk about the references made by it, so I'd like to throw my hat into the ring for a possible interpretation.

So, his first name Veritas—we all know that to be Latin for truth. Though, I'd like to shift focus a bit more towards the Roman Goddess of the same name (whose Greek counterpart was Aletheia). The aspect that I want to focus most on was how she was often depicted as nude - in reference to "nuda veritas" (naked truth). This was also reflected in her Greek equivalent, though Aletheia - despite also meaning truth - is more accurately understood to be translated as "unconcealedness" or "revealing", with the literal meaning of the word (ἀλήθεια) being "the state of not being hidden; the state of being evident." Meanwhile, for Veritas, she was also said to have been an elusive goddess hiding in the bottom of a holy well.

Starting in the mid-1890s, French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme Gérôme ("arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880") made at least four paintings personifying Truth as a nude woman, either thrown into, at the bottom of, or emerging from a well. This general imagery/story of her hiding in a sacred well arises from a translation of an aphorism of the philosopher Democritus, "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well". The original Greek version (ἐτεῇ δὲ οὐδὲν ἴδμεν: ἐν βυθῷ γὰρ ἡ ἀλήθεια) is seen to literally mean "in reality we know nothing; for the truth is in an abyss". The well in these paintings serves as a substitute for the abyss, and the nudity of the model in these paintings of course also arose from the expression la vérité nue ("the naked truth", in French). There are a lot of interesting things about these paintings (and definitely worth taking a look at - for example, see 'Truth Coming Out of Her Well' on Wikipedia to take a look at a few of those pieces) but all in all I think depicting Veritas as naked in a bathtub could very well be a nod to the naked truth.

Now, a second tidbit that could have also been given a nod to in this scene from the trailer is related to Archimedes — one of the famous Ancient Greek know-it-alls (mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, inventor; is there anything that scholar didn't do...). Anyway, here I'm specifically talking about the famous story where, while taking a bath, he discovered that the displacement of water could be used to accurately measure the volume of irregular objects. This story is also where "eureka" was said to be exclaimed for the first time, the word being attributed to Archimedes generally.

For the more detailed version, he reportedly proclaimed "Eureka! Eureka!" after he had stepped into a bath—and noticed that the water level rose— whereupon he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. Due to this, the previously intractable problem was solved, when he realized that the volume of irregular objects could be measured with precision in this way. He is said to have been so eager to share his discovery that he 'leapt out of his bathtub and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse'. Then, later on, Archimedes' insight led to the solution of an issue posed by Hiero of Syracuse, on how to assess the purity of an irregular golden votive crown; he had given his goldsmith the pure gold to be used, and correctly suspected he had been cheated by the goldsmith removing gold and adding the same weight of silver. The equipment for weighing objects with a fair amount of precision had already existed, and now with Archimedes being able to also measure volume, their ratio could give the object's density—which is an important indicator of purity (in this case due to how gold is nearly twice as dense as silver, ergo having a significantly greater weight for the same volume).

But I digress, the story of discovery being referenced in Veritas sitting in the bathtub was my main point—perhaps a stretch, but if so, then simply an interesting coincidence I stumbled upon. This entire post is already far longer than I expected, so apologies for the ramble-

All this to say, I may just be reading too much into it because I am basically insane and only ever think of him and the connections that every detail of him seems to be implied to have when I should really be doing other things. However, I'd say given the sheer amount of references that Hoyo has hidden in all other parts of his character, it's not as big of a stretch to say this scene may be holding at least one as well (or, I'm just crazy).

Anyway this has been sitting in my mind basically since the trailer came out (like the millions of other things in relation to him) and I haven't seen a lot of talk about this in particular (as opposed to, for example, the much more freely circulated knowledge of the statue references) so figured I'd share my thoughts as some sort of potential discussion point. Moreover, apologies if this is a bit chaotic and all over the place with no clear "point a to point b" thing 😭 Despite being obsessed with everything about this man since day one and crafting elaborate theories and links (I'm also insane about Ancient Greek/Roman philosophers and a lot about that whole time period, especially works of art, so he was perfectly up my alley. Hoyo got me SO good with him, it's unreal) I was never confident enough to actually post them (or in that sense fully write them down in a more essay-esque format as opposed to random bits of notes that had keywords to remind me of what I was thinking of).

Finally stopped beating around the bush and decided why not, so now we're here. ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠•̥⁠`⁠ʔ Got to actually making a dedicated account where I'll be able to more coherently articulate these things and hopefully provide a different way of thinking in relation to these details...it's always enjoyable to talk about his character and encourage other perspectives~ (and i finally realized I, in fact, do desperately need an outlet to yap about him because the chokehold he's had on me. I need to get it out somehow)

#veritas ratio #dr ratio #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr veritas #hsr ratio #hsr dr ratio #lumi - veritas thoughts (insanity)

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etherisks · 2 months ago

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Dr. Ratio would write anonymous academic papers under pseudonyms just to argue with himself in peer reviews, and I will die on this hill.

I could go into more depth, but this has been on my mind for a while now-

Like, he's explicitly mentioned to feel like he's wrong if everyone agrees with him. And he'd definitely want to take all possible angles into consideration, so spending time and effort into doing research etc. on the other side and writing a rebuttal would be a very him thing to do. The man does not want to be close minded or have "all the answers" in the eyes of everyone so that they'll follow him blindly – he wants to spark discussion and thoughts.

Even in part two of his character story, there's that one comment critiquing him:

There's only one 'agree', which I have no doubts was Veritas himself – it just makes sense. Especially given how everyone else 'disagreed', and the sheer number of those people as well (like c'mon, a whole thousand, 'blindly' accepting he's superior?). He doesn't want to be seen as above everyone else – actively tries to discourage that kind of thinking – and wants to breed discourse, cultivate hard work (which he values above everything), encourage scrutiny of everything that's held as an indisputable 'fact', for the sake of bettering intellectual exchanges.

#veritas ratio #dr ratio #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr veritas #hsr ratio #hsr dr ratio #insane about every detail about his character always #lumi - veritas thoughts (insanity)

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