#i haven't really read cyno's mats properly yet

[ac-liveblogs]

I at least think that in 3.2 we're gonna 'solve racism' in a really basic way by beating up the three sages who are, in HYV's fantasy land, the three dudes holding together the entirety of Sumeru's racism.

(In real life, discrimination is obviously more complicated than that. Hell, even in game it's clearly more complicated than that because the sages racism trickled down to the ordinary scholar. But this is the team that gave us Heizou with no complex thought so hopes are low.)

Course, this is gonna expose all the dumbassery HYV tried to pull with 'war and conflict is bad' when we inevitably go to war with the sages like the eremites planned to do, but it's okay when we do it because we're polite! and not brown religious extremists (nice look HYV. Real nice look.)

After that, all they'd have to do is show more brown people being npc and pc scholars (I personally think Dehya and Cyno would be good picks, considering how it'd pay off their stories) to imply that the physical and metaphorical wall had broken down.

Honestly I'm just surprised it's THIS bad, considering Cyno was actually really good imo. (IM DEFINITELY READING TOO FAR IN THOUGH LOL)

He's a cop who genuinely believed in what he was doing and can be considered as 'having made it' because he was a desert person in a 'high ranking position'. Then this cop 1. learns his duty isn't to do justice, but to enforce the sages hierarchy. 2. That they never trusted him and effectively put a nanny cam on him (which can be symbolically compared to a collar).

His position as a doer of violence also ultimately fits into the sage's hierarchy, where desert folk can't be scholars, and are only fit for brutish, violent jobs like mercenaries (and cops) so even his high ranking position is inherently lesser in their culture. Additionally, this position forces him to distance himself from his own community.

Then you add the theme of dehumanisation with how everyone talks about him like he's some dangerous animal (because he's scary and brown) along with how he resists this classification with his terrible jokes. Even his hat adds to this with how it 1. is initially a desert folk hat, thereby serving simultaneously as proof the sages thought of him as other AND as a connection with his people. and 2. marks him as a fake animal, someone made inhuman and violent by their job.

But then the rest of the quest is just. Like that. Which is why I'm pretty sure I'm just reading in too hard. Where's the guy who wrote Itto? I want him back.

Haha, yeah I wouldn't expect much more than that. I wonder if Cyno will ever formally go back to the Akademiya, or if he's just going to stand ominously in the corner tapping his foot whenever dubious shit starts happening. I hope at least the 3 Sages are removed and the leaks about the "corrupting influence (the Fatui) infected them" won't mean they get to stay in power.

But that said, the Akademiya doesn't have a godwaifu that would be negatively impacted by the sages getting torn apart since Nahida is their victim, not their boss, so I think we'll get to sidestep a lot of the issues we got in Inazuma. We can't think EI did a bad, but 3 random old dudes, literally who cares etc etc etc.

(We've already gotten "Rukkhadevata did nothing wrong!" with her dealings with the Scarlet King, after all).

Course, this is gonna expose all the dumbassery HYV tried to pull with 'war and conflict is bad' when we inevitably go to war with the sages like the eremites planned to do, but it's okay when we do it because we're polite! and not brown religious extremists (nice look HYV. Real nice look.)

I am probably not the person to be talking to about colourism and HYV's handling of it, but I do wonder how meaningfully different this is to the way Narukami vs Watatsumi was handled in Kokomi's quest. We definitely had some ~Stupid ~Extremists in Watatsumi that almost ruined everything (the original basis of the conflict being the Raiden/Orobashi divide), and the Right Answer was Kokomi sitting down with Sara to talk things out ~diplomatically. It's not a good look from HYV here, but it's definitely not new ground beyond more unfortunate aesthetics this time around.

Not that it was any good the first time, but at least they're consistent about it(?) God damn, I hate the "bad rebels did rebellion badly, we the civilised shall TALK THINGS OUT" trope. Though I do wonder how much baggage HYV as a CN company is saddled with, there.

I also wonder how much diplomacy there'll be this time... maybe we'll beat up Scaramouche and the Sages will be scared of us/acknowledge Nahida is cool actually and do whatever we want. And then everything will be fine once Nahida is in power?

I think Genshin is pretty much almost always going to go "the Archons did nothing wrong!!!!!!!" and god forbid how bad anyone else looks because of it. This paired with HYV's unfortunate though hopefully subconscious biases is coming off really badly in Sumeru. We can only pray they don't also apply this standard to the Tsaritsa, and... I guess that it is applied in Natlan? ugh...

I think re; Cyno... there's an interesting narrative around him atm but we'll have to see how that plays out in Act V when we finally meet the Sages. I do think that HYV won't acknowledge most of what they've laid down and depending on how delicate their writing is (lol Inazuma) and how much of it was actual intentional commentary vs "we just didn't think about it lol" it might be for the best that they don't. Guess we'll see.

Speaking of Cyno's headdress and wolf-like partial transformation, while I think that's just meant to invoke Anubis/"Judgment"/"Guardian of the Scales" imagery than it is meant to be dehumanising, I would maybe like some more information about it??? what's with that??? hello???? wolf man transformation? WHY??